Folks, how do you feel about SEDUs? Anyone, anyone, anyone? Yes, you there in the back, you have a question? Ah yes, what’s a SEDU? Excellent question.
A SEDU is a Small Efficiency Dwelling Unit (distant cousin of the DADU, or Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit). These are very small apartments, little more than an efficiency kitchen, a bathroom and room enough for a bed and perhaps a desk. Thanks to companies like Footprint, owner of the micro-apartment building at Meridian and 46th, these having been popping up around town and offering inexpensive places to live for those willing to make do with little space.
For neighbors, the issue is density: An area that once may have held one or two houses can suddenly hold literally dozens of low-rent apartments. That has it’s plusses and minuses for the neighborhood.
Got an opinion on those plusses and minuses? Feel free to let us know in the comments section, but here’s an opportunity one better: The Seattle City Council “is considering Council Bill (CB) 118201, which would amend land use regulations in the Seattle Municipal Code that pertain to small efficiency dwelling units and congregate residences,” and “written comments on CB 118201 may be submitted at any time up until the final Council vote on the legislation. However, the Council prefers to receive written comments by 12:00 p.m. on October 6, 2014, to allow for review by Councilmembers prior to a Council vote. The Full Council will discuss and vote on CB 118201 no earlier than October 6, 2014.”
That means they’d like to hear from you.
Here’s a quick summary of what the bill does:
- Creates a definition for small efficiency dwelling units (SEDU).
- Clarifies the definition of dwelling unit.
- Establishes required components of SEDUs, including a 150 square foot minimum sleeping room area, a 220 square foot minimum total floor area, a food preparation area (sink, refrigerator, countertop, cooking appliance) and a bathroom (sink, toilet, shower or bathtub).
- Limits the issuance of Restricted Parking Zone permits to no more than one per SEDU or congregate residence sleeping room.
- Requires Streamlined Design Review to be applied, in all zones, to congregate residences and residential uses that are more than 50 percent comprised of SEDUs if they contain between 5,000 and 11,999 square feet of gross floor area.
- Limits the construction of congregate residences that do not meet certain ownership or operational requirements to higher density zones that are located within Urban Centers and Urban Villages
- Increases the minimum required area of communal space in a congregate residence from 10 percent of the total floor area of all sleeping rooms to 15 percent of the total floor area of all sleeping rooms.
- Creates a new vehicle parking requirement of one parking space for every two SEDUs for areas of the City where vehicle parking is required for multifamily residential uses.
- Increases bicycle parking requirements for SEDUs and congregate residences to 0.75 bicycle spaces per SEDU or congregate residence sleeping room.
- Requires the bicycle parking required for SEDUs and congregate residences to be covered for weather protection.
- Allows required, covered bicycle parking for SEDUs or congregate residence sleeping rooms to be exempt from Floor Area Ratio limits if the required parking is located inside the building that contains the SEDUs or congregate residence sleeping rooms.
- Calls on the Department of Planning and Development to complete an analysis of the City’s vehicle and bicycle parking requirements and present its recommendations for regulatory changes to the City Council by no later than March 31, 2015.
Since the devil is in the details with this type of legislation, I reached out to some local experts for commentary. David Neiman, who serves on the Northeast Design Review board, had this to say:
The legislation will eliminate micro housing in LR zones & replace it with small studios. The new studios will probably be about 50% larger than a typical micro, with a corresponding drop in density. So, if you live next to a small unit development, under the new rules you will probably get 30 new neighbors instead of 45 new neighbors.
If you are a person looking for new,clean, cheap, private housing in a central location, it means you’ll have less options to choose from. The units will be bigger, but they will also be more expensive. How much more? It won’t be 50% more. but it won’t be nothing. Even a small bump in your rent is significant if it represents money that you don’t have.
There are a couple good things that came out of the legislation. They brought micro-housing into the design review process and created a design review threshold that is based on square footage, not unit count. This will help with the public engagement side of the development process and will make the choice of what to build a slightly more rational decision instead of one based on minimizing public process. The requirement for common space in congregate residences is a good idea, and the allowance for bike parking to be exempted from FAR was a thoughtful last minute addition. Mike O’Brien deserves some credit for this.
We have had the zoning in place for decades that created Urban Villages and Urban Centers as the places where we would absorb growth. These are the specified parts of the city that are supposed to change and transform so that other parts of the city can remain largely untouched. When the city removed parking requirements in the Urban Villages, they made it possible for people to build housing in the quantity and form that the housing market demands, and that has been a lot of change and transformation. If you are someone who already lived in these neighborhoods and liked the status quo, you’re probably not very happy now. I don’t think you’re going to a whole lot happier under the new micro housing rules.
Cities are open systems. They are the place where we absorb growth and change. Cities are the center of culture, art, ambition, jobs, ideas. When you want to DO something, the city is where you come. Nobody gets to pull up the drawbridge. That’s against the rules. We got to come in, and so does the next person. We should be wary of policies that try to exclude new residents for the comfort of people that are already here.
David has some additional commentary on his blog and on the Urbanist, as well. Joseph Hurley, a Wallingford architect who has served two terms on the Northeast Design Review Board, including one as Chair, adds:
There are good things: it would no longer be possible to build a 30+ (congregate) dwelling unit building without undergoing design review. The existing threshold is eight units (which explains the Footprint project across the street from Cutz on Meridian: there are a whole lot of sleeping rooms in there, but only eight kitchens).
Bad: the mechanism that the council is using to control the size of these projects is a minimum square foot size for units, 220 ft.², 180 ft.², 150 ft.² depending on zoning, project type and whether you are in an urban village or not. This is a really messy way to get the intended result, and is almost certain to yield unintended consequences.
Broadly, I think this legislation has too much NIMBY-generated fear in it, and not enough real vision for the future of the city and its neighborhoods. My big issue is that it is negative: here is what we don’t want, rather than positive: this is what we do want. But its really hard to write code like that.
Jim Ellis said it best: “There are two things Seattleites hate: sprawl and density.” That always got a laugh. Well, it’s time for us, as a city, to decide whether we are going to fish or cut bait. That doesn’t mean that we should let real estate developers run rampant in our neighborhoods, but it does mean that we have to have the big conversation: about housing and density and sustainability and what we see when we dream about the future of this city.
So what do you have to add to the big conversation? Written comments may be emailed to Committee Chair Mike O’Brien at [email protected] or via snail mail to:
Seattle City Council
Committee on the Built Environment
P.O. Box 34025
Seattle, WA 98124-4025
The bill is more or less online here, but it’s far from legible. You can also get a copy from the Clerk’s Office at 600 4th Avenue, Floor 3, in downtown Seattle from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Questions regarding CB 118201 or requests for electronic copies of the legislation may be directed to Sara Belz of the Legislative Department (684-5382 / [email protected]) or Geoffrey Wentlandt of the Department of Planning and Development (684-5382 / [email protected].
Good idea to get input from experts; too bad they couldn’t find some way to focus on specifics and went straight to simplistic developer advocacy. The article sets the tone: “for neighbors, the issue is density”. For sure, if you want to give up on it, let’s say the issue density, but we all lose that way. The neighborhoods lose because city government doesn’t represent us when it comes down to the clinch, the city loses because the developers want only money. Seattlites hate loss of amenities that isn’t mitigated by other amenities. If that’s what we expect with “density”, then who wouldn’t hate it; if not, then let’s start talking about what we can get and what we can keep, specifically, and not try to paint density as a take-it-or-leave-it deal.
When we’re talking about building residential structures with no parking, we often hear about young people who don’t have cars. That’s a good thing, everyone seems to agree. The legislation limits RPZ permits to one per unit, which seems to me clearly has the potential to exceed the nearby street capacity by an order of magnitude. How about none per unit?
And butt ugly architecture seems to be all the rage these days. Can’t legislate for taste and eye-appeal, though, I guess.
SEDU or not, ugly buildings like that one Meridian should just be forbidden. Wasn’t there any design review for this building? Yikes. If there was at least some set back requirement for these buildings (didn’t there used to be a single family home with lots of space around before?) plus some green space on the sides, the ugliness would not be as overbearing.
Sorry for the rant, but I am just absolutely saddened that our charming old-craftsman neighborhood is being turned into a neighborhood of white-gray-yellow-orange-red checkered houses and/or box houses. Why not implement some design requirements as done in other places (e.g. Cape Cod I think)?
Finally, an opportunity for the community to give feedback before the SEDU/DADUs go up, rather than after they go up. Nice journalism, Wallyhood!
I want to know how the wear and tear on our infrastructure is going to be handled.
Tax the residents of these dwellings? They already live in the square footage equivalent of prison cells. Will SFD (single family dwelling) properties be taxed to pay for sewage, water, road maintenance, utilities and other services?
How our city government let us down by ever letting these developments escape the normal development review cycle is a travesty. It seems they listen mainly to those who give the most to their campaigns–developers.
This unholy alliance between developers and Johnny-come-lately 20-somethings who move to Seattle due to the overabundance of good PR Seattle gets in the press and set about thinking they know what’s best for our city, has also got to be brought to an end. When their war cry is density-density-density at all costs across the entire city I say to them move back to the sh*-hole towns and cities you came here from. “Fix” them, uglify your own hometowns not ours.
Many of the comments on this blog are based on the belief that increasing the population density in Wallingford is at bad thing and must be opposed. I would like to suggest that increased density is actually a good thing.
I love the Seattle area. I love that I can live in a thriving city with both good employment opportunities and varied culture. I especially love that I can live in a city like this and still have such easy access the outdoors. I can bike to the Snoqualmie River Valley to see the CSA which grows my vegetables. I can drive 45 min up I-90 and have a peaceful walk in the woods. Many more people are going to move to the Seattle area for the same reasons as I love it here. We have a choice, we can let these people into the city or we can push them into further out suburbs where they will destroy the outdoors that defines Western Washington.
Of course you could say, “Yes, let more people into Seattle, just not in Wallingford.” This is wrong, not just because it is not fair but also because increased density will be good for Wallingford. People, young and old, are deciding that living in walkable neighborhoods is a desirable life style. Just look at how realtors love to quote walkability scores. A key to having a walkable neighborhood is having a critical mass of people to support a commercial main street. 45th struggles to support the kinds of business we want. “More bakeries and less drugstores”, people say. Well these places need foot traffic, and therefore more people living close by.
I want to live in a neighborhood where my barista and my librarian are my neighbors. Not people who had to ride a bus for 30 or 60 min to get to work. I want my child to go to school with the children of bakers and candlestick makers and not just doctors and lawyers. This can only happen if we have a variety of different types of dwellings for different income levels.
I read people say, “Increased density will mean no more single family houses and no more trees”. This nonsense. I want Wallingford to stay predominantly a single family area and with managed growth it can handle. 45th and Storeway are both ideal locations for apartment and condo developments. So too is the former industrial area along Lake Union. This leaves almost all of Wallingford to remain houses, with trees.
Advocate for managed growth, more amenities to support more people, the protection the single house, craftsmans, better transit. Ever argue for more parking spaces if you love them. But please don’t oppose increased density out of a fear of change.
You really believe they care about what you want to say? The only thing that they may change would be the font style and letter height on the no parking signs.
+1 Ben.
i’m sure that a hundred years ago there were surely folks railing against the Craftsman style houses, perhaps as ticky-tack boxes on the hillside. Those were built at the time because that’s what made the most sense (i.e., profit).
Turns out that a mix of ages, styles, and sizes is probably the best thing for a neighborhood. There will always be cycles.
Beware the trumpeters of the “new Seattle urban lifestyle”: a whole bunch of people “living” in teeny tiny boxes, “working” in teeny tiny boxes with no time to smell the roses anyway. Bakers and candlestickmakers, pahlease. This is all about the money, who has it and who doesn’t.
Single family homes, old school small complexes, low income housing, mom and pop businesses, all are being torn down for huge hardly “affordable” mega complexes that stretch from curb to curb. These mini micro pods are a particular travesty: an even tinier little bitty box near a very very busy road for less rent than a teeny tiny box near a very busy road. Neither the developers nor the investors give a hoot about our neighborhood, or any neighborhood for that matter, or the country, the forests, the trees, the fish, the birds or the bees. Building these maximum density negative amenity housing pods is not stopping the slaughter of the wilderness, not by a longshot.
Poor people, older people, low and moderate income families, and disabled people are being driven out of Seattle by these “changes”. Trees and gardens and remnant wildlife and many levels of diversity are disappearing with them. These developments are flattening our lives, not enhancing them. Increased density is just another name for an ever growing pigpile. Earth lesson #1: we live on a finite world with finite resources. Where and when do we draw the line?
Some of us remember what it was like before. Some of us know what we are losing.
That’s the magic of it, though – the developers and investors don’t give a hoot, to be sure, but “the market” just takes care of everything! Who would fear change, when the market’s got our backs?
I wonder how many people posting here are home owners and not renters.
No one should feel bullied or silenced by the faux advocacy of the developers and investors for the “poor renter”. Our families, our lives, our neighborhoods, and by extension, our schools and libraries and parks and open spaces are important to each one of us, whether we rent or own or live in an assisted living facility or group home.
I agree with Ben. I think the construction of more multi-family housing in Wallingford is going to result in a better Wallingford.
I really find the “I’ve got mine, you get the fuck out” attitude displayed in the comments of this blog to be quite repugnant.
Note that the construction of more multi-family housing in Wallingford is under way. Nothing needs to be done to bring that about, it’s here. Growth targets have been met and exceeded, thousands of units are going up around the area and no plan has been put forward to put an end to it there. The question is about minimum standards.
I am not aware that anyone here who’s critical of development or other “vibrant” amenities has directed anyone to get out of Wallingford, rather it has been the other way around. It’s like there might be a tacit sentiment that the single family neighborhood is a blot on the urban landscape, an encampment of selfish little people holding on to their little plots that they don’t really deserve and choking the burgeoning greatness of our fastest growing city. That’s BS.
I’m generally in favor of increased density, and living directly across from the Footprint building, I’ve observed no major issues. Parking’s a bit tighter, and will get worse when they all stop squatting in the old Tully’s lot. But, encouragingly, I see more people at the 16 stop each morning, and the new bike-corral almost always has bikes parked in it.
Plus, having a miniature bike-shop right across from me also rocks, for when I encounter an issue I can’t easily fix at home.
I do think that there should’ve been a proper design-review, as the building itself is not particularly appealing, visually. Also, the increase in theoretically-car-free-people should’ve come with some pedestrian-improvements, such as a crosswalk to get to the bus-stop on the other side of Meridian.
I do think there’s been a bit of an up-tick in the 45th St scene since that was built, which might just be coincidental, but it was nice to see that my bartender at Miyabi lives there. It would be sad thing if nobody that works in our neighborhood could afford to live here.
Another +1 for Ben.
Cities need places to house those with low income jobs. Seattle can decide to house them in Wallingford with tiny apartments, or bus them in from Kent. In cities with neither cheap housing nor good public transportation, slums will be created.
+ 1 for #15. Density does not have to be ugly, and every new building should include some green space (helps with rain run-off and cooling too).