The election results from Tuesday mean HALA and Seattle 2035 now have a clear path to become law over the next couple years, including the upzoning of the Wallingford Urban Village. At Wednesday’s WCC meeting architect and longtime WCC land use guru Greg Hill went through the 159 pages of Seattle 2035 and pulled out this sampling of developer goodies packed inside:
| Land Use Guideline from Current Comprehensive Plan |
Mayor’s Recommended Change | Change |
| LU1 | LU1.1 | |
| Use the goals and policies included in this Plan to identify on the Future Land Use Map the general locations where broad categories of land uses are preferred. Use rezone criteria which implement the goals and policies of this Plan to identify on the City’s Official Land Use Map where the specific zones are located. | Use the Future Land Use Map to identify where different types of development are planned to achieve a development pattern that supports the urban village strategy
|
Eliminates clear definition of SF for a fuzzy map with no distinct boundaries. |
| LU3 | LU1.2 & LU1.4 | |
| Establish rezone evaluation criteria and procedures to guide decisions about which zone will provide the best match for the characteristics of an area and will most clearly further City goals.
|
Use the Future Land Use Map, the land-use policies in this land use element, and criteria in the Land Use Code to determine the appropriate zoning designation for property in the city.
Promote this plan’s overall desired land-use pattern through appropriate zoning. |
Change neighborhood zoning to suit the Mayor’s (developers) plan for bigger buildings. |
| LU5 | Deleted | |
| 1. Consider, through neighborhood planning processes, recommendations for the revision of zoning to better reflect community preferences for the development of an area, provided that consistency between the zoning and this Plan is maintained. Consider relevant goals and policies in adopted neighborhood plans when evaluating a rezone proposal. | Eliminates neighborhood planning process | |
| LU11 | Deleted | |
| In order to maintain the character of Seattle’s neighborhoods and retain existing affordable housing, discourage the demolition of residences and displacement of residents, while supporting redevelopment that enhances its community and furthers the goals of this Plan. | If you are not discouraging the loss of affordable housing, you must be ok with destroying it. | |
| LU41 | Deleted | |
| Because of the many benefits that street trees provide to both property owners and the general public, encourage the preservation or planting of street trees as development occurs, except in locations where it is not possible to meet City standards intended to preserve public safety and utility networks. | Trees are no longer specifically identified as important. | |
| LU 59 | Deleted | |
Permit upzones of land designated single-family and meeting single-family rezone criteria, only when all of the following conditions are met:
|
Eliminates SF criteria, removing an obstacle to eliminating SF zoning and removing reference to neighborhood plans | |
| LU 60 | Deleted | |
Apply small lot single-family zones to single-family property meeting single-family rezone criteria only when all of the following conditions are met:
|
Removes SF criteria, removing an obstacle to eliminating SF zoning | |
| LUG2 | ||
| Foster neighborhoods in which current and future residents and business owners will want to live, shop, work, and locate their businesses. Provide for a range of housing types and commercial and industrial spaces in order to accommodate a broad range of families and individuals, income groups, and businesses. | Provide zoning and accompanying land use regulations that: Allow for a variety of housing types to accommodate housing choices for households of all types and income levels; Support a wide diversity of employment-generting activities providing jobs for a diverse residential population, as well as a variety of services for residents and businesses; Accommodate the full range of public sevices, institutions, and amenities needed to support a fully developed, diverse, and economically sustainable urban community | Eliminates the Neighborhood focus in favor of a variety pack of uses. |
| LUG6 | LUG6.1 (see also LU 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.6) | |
| Encourage the use of alternatives to single-occupant vehicles and the use of smaller, more energy efficient automobiles through the City’s regulation of parking, including the amount of parking required, design of parking, location of parking, and access to parking. | Establish parking requirements where appropriate at levels for both single-occupant vehicles and their alternatives to further this Plan’s goal to increase the use of public transit, carpools, walking, and bicycles as alternatives to the use of single-occupancy vehicles.
LU 6.3 Rely on Market forces to determine the amount of parking required. |
The “Parking Myth”: eliminating parking requirements will make cars evaporate [while increasing developer profits]. |
| LUG36 | LUG15 | |
| Protect the ecological functions and values of wetlands, and fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas; prevent erosion from development on steep slopes; and protect the public health, safety and welfare in landslide-prone, liquefaction-prone and flood-prone areas.
|
Protect the ecological functions and value of wetlands, and fish and wildlife conservation areas; prevent erosion caused by development on steep slopes; and protect public health, safety and welfare in areas prone to landslides, liquefaction or floods, while permitting development that is reasonable in light of these constraints. | Encourages development in critical areas |
You can comment on all this by going to the Seattle 2035 Web site or attending one of their upcoming open houses. I’m not going to bother though- the mayor took 8,500 comments on the Move Seattle Levy and made exactly zero changes as a result. I don’t see why this process would be any different, especially since all the text was negotiated as part of the so-called “Grand Bargain” between downtown developers and downtown housing advocates. The fact that people living on the land being rezoned are being completely shut out of the process is by design.
Thanks for the heads-up. I put a comment in support of the plan. That it makes it easier to increase density is a good thing for anyone who cares about affordable housing and improved transit.
To Skylar. I am wondering how your feel about changing single residential areas in Wallingford. Many of us live in houses build in the 1920’s. We have remodeled, planted trees, accommodated our homes to live here.
I don’t hink I want a high rise apartment or a drug store next door. This is a change from the comprehensive Neighborhood Plan, and definitely a nod to builders. Look around you. We have having increased housing and density all over N. 45th, including condos/apartments which do not have enough parking for the tenants. It is much cheaper for business to eliminate parking, or provide just a little bit. I am not as well informed as I intend to be after taking time to study what this is all about, but at this time, it seems to dismiss small house, and encourage multiple dwellings by tearing down the houses, and changing the zoning that is single residential.
Iowagirl,
I wonder if you would consider adding a garage in addition to the other improvements you’ve made to your property? Then you won’t be dependent on using public right-of-way to park your private vehicles.
Erin,
The city isn’t coming for your property. If you don’t want to sell, you don’t have to. When I look at all these single-family homes, though, I wonder how many more people could be accommodated close to major employment centers (UW, downtown, SLU, etc.), where transit actually can be fast and frequent. If your neighbors want to sell to a developer, why should you or the city stop them, though?
Many of our current transportation problems are caused a lack of housing supply, increasing costs beyond what many people can afford, and forcing those people to live further and further away from their jobs. They then jam up the arteries into the city because they don’t have other transportation options.
The city can force me out by increasing property taxes to something I can’t afford, which is Rob Johnson’s plan. The city can also claim eminent domain if they find my home ‘blight’ compared to brand new condoplexes next door. So yes, the city can force me out.
Also, it would make better sense to target Montlake which is close to both downtown, the UW, and a lightrail station, but that neighborhood isn’t being looked at at all because developers can’t make as much profit there – that’s where the campaign donors live. To agree with this plan is to agree that the millionaires of Seattle should be able to keep their homes at the cost of the middle class. It really is depressing to see so many OK with this.
Erin,
Let’s not descend to paranoid thinking. Has the city ever used eminent domain for housing? This plan isn’t the city building housing; it’s allowing developers to acquire permits for property they already own.
Forcing property owners out by increasing property taxes is little different than forcing renters out by rising rents. It’s actually a bit better for you because at least you get to sell your property and get some cash, while us renters have nothing when we leave. I don’t mean to diminish your loss, but property owners really have it pretty great right now.
I agree the city should upzone Montlake too. It should upzone Queen Anne, Magnolia, Blue Ride, West Seattle, Central Area, Rainier Valley, and all the other neighborhoods. That they’re not in the plan is something we should all push for in the future.
Skylar: “Forcing property owners out by increasing property taxes is little different than forcing renters out by rising rents.”
That’s an absurd comparison. There’s no citywide plan to significantly raise taxes on renters in proposed upzones as opposed to renters who don’t live in those areas. Rent increases are done across the board, all across the city, by landlords who are simply charging what they believe is fair market value. Meanwhile, thanks to the useful idiots who voted for Rob Johnson, those of us living in the proposed HALA areas get to see our taxes change from being based on the CURRENT assessed value to what the value of a BUILDING would be if assessed in a future upzone. You know, as Johnson eagerly tells us, “to encourage more turnover.”
Hayaduke, the city doesn’t increase taxes in higher zones based on a future possible building. They appraise it based on the value of the property (what you can sell it for).
Considering that we have some of the lowest property taxes of any major US city, I doubt that we will see people being forced out of their homes due to taxes. If for some reason they were, then they will be able to sell that home for a handsome amount, and buy a similar home in a single family zone for a lot less, pocketing the difference. That is not a bad thing.
The HALA recommendations would not allow high rises in SFZ. They specifically focus on allowing multi-family use of the same mass already allowed in SFZs. This–or actually aim even more permissive zoning regime–was how many areas now single-family only were built. If you walk around North Wallingford you will see charming old attached townhomes at 48th & Wallingford. Duplexes that you can only tell apart from a single family because they have 2 doors and 2 mailboxes. And small apartment buildings like the Mari-Don, all interspersed among single family detached homes.
Likewise if you walk up Meridian from 50th to 55th you’ll see most of the corners have duplex and small apartments on them.
Buying a moderate to largish modern single family home in our area is on its way to costing a million dollars.Three units in a building the same size for $400k each will gives people who aren’t rich a chance to own in our neighborhood.
One of the DPD staff at the Ballard open house had the same idea – it’s just about adding more flexibility to SF zone development. But the plan is to upzone existing SF. She flatly denied this, but it’s right there in the Mandatory Affordable Housing Policy Summary: “In addition, roughly 6% of Single Family zones – within or near urban villages and along transportation corridors – will be rezoned to Lowrise.” This isn’t just an idea they were kicking around at the time, they’re committed to this as part of their “grand bargain” extortion payoff to the developers. That’s on top of whatever erosion of the SF code to make it more “flexible.”
Do walk around Wallingford and see the kind of development that we used to get generations ago, because you aren’t going to see any more of that. Look at recently completed projects to see what you get in the current development climate. If you find a 3-unit lot with $400K units, let us know – the 5 units next to our house are $650-$700, despite cheap construction.
As you might expect I support a single-digit expansion of the urban villages too. The development by your house have to be LR1 – we “can’t find a stacked flat of 3 homes on a single family lot” because they’re banned. But a few blocks away and about a block from each other there was an SFH listed for almost $800k and a duplex listed for $800k, so there’s some clear evidence duplex conversions of older homes might hit that price point.
Skylar, please reconsider! There is already plenty of room for increased density closer to downtown where Amazon is doing most of the hiring. This plan is going to make transit worse by increasing density where there are very few employers. This plan isn’t about affordable housing. It is about developers seeking out the cheapest properties where they know they can make the most profit by redeveloping. Unfortunately, these cheap properties are our homes :-(. Notice how none of the rich neighborhoods like Queen Anne, Montlake, and Magnolia are being targeted. That is because the developers would have to pay more money to seize those properties. This plan isn’t fair at all and will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Skylar: “That it makes it easier to increase density is a good thing for anyone who cares about affordable housing and improved transit.”
Is it a good thing for anyone who cares about being able to park within a block of their house, knowing and being friends with their neighbors, and being taxed in the same way as everyone else?
I’m hoping I didn’t read that correctly. Deleting provisions for trees and environmental protection as long as development can proceed? Why can’t we have development AND trees? I guess we will be living in a concrete jungle like Houston soon.
Do you live around here? Look up! Those things in the sky are “cranes”, and the big hives of activity under them are construction projects, all residential. We’re frantically adding density, already, and apparently it was possible without officially removing neighborhood planning, trees, etc. from the comprehensive plan. Do we have only that one value – more density, and trust in the density fairy to make a more livable city – or should the comprehensive plan balance that with other values?
The truth is, all that activity is STILL not enough. Over the past two years, Seattle has added around 31,000 units. Over that same period, Seattle has added 36,000 to 40,000 new residents (i.e. in migration vs. those leaving). That is still 5K to 9K short. All the construction now is building out the limited areas available for increased density development – in order to simply address current demand, let alone further growth, requires opening up more areas to increased multifamily development. Besides, Seattle is currently zoned 2/3 SF. The HALA is only recommending a 6% expansion of Urban Villages. This city will still be SF-dominated, but it is time to recognize density needs to grow.
Andrew, you’re mixing up your units here (no pun intended). Unless the majority of these new residents are living by themselves, 31,000 new housing units should accommodate far more than 40,000 people. Seattle’s average household size is around 2.
I’ll also note that the 2/3 zoned SF figure is a bit deceptive. For example, the vast majority of the city’s parkland is on land zoned single-family, as are most of its schools.
It is deceptive, as there is a good chunk zoned industrial and commercial as well. Remove those non-housing zones, and you get a much greater percentage of single family zones.
This is scary on a lot of levels – not the least of which is parking. It is my hope that we can change the SDOT policy to NOT allow apartment dwellers to purchase Restricted Parking Zone permits, to require
developers to include parking in their buildings, and to identify more public parking spots. Call me crazy,
but you can’t blame a girl for trying!
Why should people in single-family homes be allowed to purchase RPZ permits, then? Their homes either have, or could have, off-street parking, too. If someone doesn’t want to clean out their garage to put their cars in it, why should the city subsidize their on-street parking any more than an apartment dweller’s?
There are plenty of lots with no driveway (and no alley access.) When a development on my street was required to install a garage, the curb cut eliminated a street parking spot, so net result approximately 0. The parking algebra here is 1 + N — if we assume only one car per unit, and one car space on the street per lot, then N represents the number of units that need to be accounted for. You can change the parameters, but if the result doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. (But of course, in the proposed new Comprehensive Plan, LUG6, that’s just the idea – might not even want it to work.)
But RPZs aren’t usually aimed at solving that problem, it seems to me they more often defend against nearby big destinations – often schools – that don’t provide sufficient parking on site.
But as parking gets worse, and RPZs spring up in response, smaller institutions like neighborhood businesses take the hit, too. (But per LUG6, that’s what they get for depending on driving customers.)
Mary, I completely agree with you, and I’d like to see our city ‘leaders” follow through on this. After all, they keep insisting that everyone will just bus and bike everywhere, rain and hills be damned. So why not go all the way? Developers hate paying to construct underground parking. They would much prefer to push it onto residential streets in front of existing homes as an externality. So let’s not give any newcomers who don’t have on site parking any SPZ’s. They can buy or rent in places where the developer has provided parking, or bus/bike everywhere. It’s a win-win for the environment, traffic congestion, and on-street parking availability for those of us who actually already live here.
Furthermore, we need to make developers disclose this condition up front to renters and purchasers that they won’t be able to park a car in the neighborhood.
And if that fails, we should go out of our way to be a pain in the a55 by parking on street even if we have a garage or driveway, and letting our friends and neighbors park in front of our driveways if they need a spot and that’s workable. Deny the newcomers any parking spaces as much as possible. Hopefully developers will start to get the message. But I won’t hold my breath…
Nobody likes change, especially me, but to all of US who say “Not in My Current Back Yard”, I’ll point out:
Where my house and yours now stand was once a dense forest of old growth trees
Where my house stands was once a farm
My house once had an unobstructed view of downtown Seattle
I’m sure over the course of history, nobody want those above change to come to what they had then, but they did.
We are in a FAST growing CITY where that growth is only increasing. If you don’t want all the Skagit, Carnation, Duvall, etc. farmland replaced by single family homes with sidewalks, then we MUST have density in the city, even though it SUCKS.
I’m fine with increased density, but I think it should be fair. Why are we jumping neighborhoods like Magnolia, Montlake, and Queen Anne? Because that’s where all the mayor’s campaign donors live! To give in to this initiative is to back corrupt politics. I can only hope the people of Seattle are bigger than this.
Erin, they are putting the upzones next to mass transit to move those added people around. If you put them farther out with no mass transit, you will create safety problems with more cars on neighborhood back roads trying to get around traffic snarls. Not to mention increase everyone’s carbon footprint and polution.
Perhaps apartment dwellers who receive a direct public subsidy or rent in a multi-family building where the developers received a public subsidy by way of increased FAR, increased height, reduction of taxes, reduction of permit processing time, etc. should be excluded from the RPZ program.
Raven,
Why should renters be excluded? They pay the same property and sales taxes that you do, which fund public roads.
The more obvious situation where a RPZ shouldn’t be available is multi residential where inadequate parking has been provided on site, supposedly due to lack of need for it.
But see LUG6 above – you can’t expect the city to design parking requirements for the benefit of car owners, if the goal is to “encourage” alternatives.
Have you ridden the #26, 28 or 40 bus to downtown lately? We now ride through a tall corridor of buildings before we get to Denny. The worst part is that where i used to feel shock and horror i am now getting used to this scene. I’ve forgotten what used to be there.
The mayor is certainly putting his mark (stink) on Seattle, helping change it from what was one of America’s best larger cities into just another typical ugly American city with very little greenery, all in the name of “progress”. It is shameful that such far reaching changes are not put to a direct vote of the people, but perhaps there will be initiatives put forth to amend the changes and strike down some of the developer giveaways. City government is handing the city over to developers without even a vote of the people.
Really? Do you think San Francisco is pretty? I certainly do, and we aren’t even close to SF-levels of density. We aren’t even close to Boston levels of density. We need to recognize we can’t be a CITY of exclusively single-family homes. It just doesn’t work.
Compare Boston to Seattle? Really? There’s only like a 200 year gap. But since you brought it up, next-door Cambridge DRASTICALLY changed in the 90’s after cutting rent control. It’s not the family oriented blue collar neighborhoods I knew as a kid. Bummer. Seattle is going through similar changes in the 20+ years I’ve lived here. Goodbye family friendly neighborhoods, hello sardine-packed condos which, by the way, are NOT any more affordable than the little single-family houses in Wallingford. Thank you very much for pushing me and my family out of your precious city.
Well, hold on a moment. When we bought our condo in 2002, we’d been looking for a house for two years already. Single-family homes in Wallingford were NOT affordable for us then, and they’d be even less so now.
I think we’d all agree that the cost of housing has skyrocketed, and there are indications–maybe even threats–that such a trend will continue. However, a friendly correction: multifamily dwellings do not equate to “sardine-packed,” and they may well be the only affordable option when the venerated single-family bungalows are priced through the roof.
This is exactly why flexibility in SFZs is essential. The most minimal bungalow (good condition but tiny lot, small SF) just sold near us for over $600k. That’s becoming the SF price of entry.
Close by there’s a young couple who bought a bungalow a year or two ago that has a grandfathered rental on the second floor – they live on the first and rent it out, subsidizing their mortgage.
There would be a huge market for renovating homes to have a rental unit for folks who can’t afford the full mortgage, giving them a shot at owning here they simply no longer otherwise have.
Density is not a goal! Affordability is a goal but is not often accomplished by housing density. The density in San Francisco and Boston has not resulted in affordability. Housing is more expensive than in Seattle for both areas (although we may be catching up).
We live in a Lowrise-1 zone. When development happens, one $700K house is often replaced by four $600K townhouses. Increased housing density? Yes. Affordable housing? No!
The zoning in the current Comprehensive Plan is more than adequate to add housing units for the expected population increase (120,000 according to the Seattle 2035 plan). There is no need to change zoning or up-zone in the Seattle 2035 & HALA plans. Single-family housing can be retained and makes for a much more livable city which is definitely a goal.
We have added 80k people to Seattle in the last 5 years, and based on skyrocketing housing prices and rents, there would be more people living in Seattle if there were more units. The 2035 goal is nothing more than a number so that they can add density to comfortably absorb those additional people. The idea that we are only going to add 120k people in the next 20 years is laughable when we added almost 20k people last year alone. We need every bit of upzoning in the 2035 and HALA.
Bottom line is that there is not enough developable land, which is why rents and house prices are skyrocketing.
We have a choice, bulldoze forests at the rate of 1 acre per home, or bulldoze a single family house with two 30 year old trees so we can build an additional 3 or 4 more homes. What makes Seattle great is that we are a short drive away from large forests and wilderness. Pushing growth out of Seattle will result in those forests being turned into subdivisions.
Ah – you are so right — much of what makes Seattle great is “short drive away.” What this means, of course, is that most of those people that move into more dense spaces will have cars so that they can go enjoy that world outside the concrete jungle that Seattle is increasingly becoming. We need to make Seattle itself great(er) by not adding increased open space/parks nearby to the increased housing. That was in fact the idea behind the so-called “urban villages” – that we don’t just add housing, but we also add everything else that makes those areas livable without the need for a car (or at least less need for a car). We need to find areas where we can add park land to balance against the increased housing that would be allowed by upzoning. How about a cap over I-5 between 45th and 50th as a start — which also will help with the other issue of big discussion on this blog (bike/pedestrian access to and from the U District and its Sound Transit station)?
I encourage everyone to submit their opinions on the Seattle 2035 plan to the Department of Planning & Development (DPD) before the comment period ends after November 20th. DPD suggests the http://seattle2035.consider.it website which is more of a discussion forum on specific plan sections. You can also comment by email, Facebook, Twitter, and by the website from the Get Involved page at http://2035.seattle.gov/get-involved.
Assuming that building a bunch of condos or whatever will automatically increase density seems tenuous given recent estimates puts a majority of Seattle residents as single or coupled without kids. In our single-family home (not a rental, one multi-generational family) we have 7 people living in it. Not dense enough?
It wasn’t long ago in US history (certainly not as long ago as most houses in Wallingford were built) that the term “family” routinely meant 4-6 people. Adding aged individuals in need of care could bring it even higher.
There are other ways to build density and maintain single family roots.
Why not build smartly and orderly along obvious corridors, not open up neighborhoods to chaotic/opportunistic upzoning by people who neither live or care about the neighborhood they are making money off of, then leaving? All in the name of theoretical increased density for profit.
I agree with “building smartly and orderly along obvious corridors”. And if we can do it from scratch, Wallingford instead of Ballard would have been a much better choice of place to build up. That’s really the issue: no matter how you look at it, Wallingford is at a prime location and a good candidate for up-zoning comparing to most other neighborhoods.
There are also a lot of 1-2 person households living in single family homes. The statistics show that on average, upzones will increase density.
It was recommended at the WCC meeting that if you comment, to also send e-mails / snail mail to our current City Council members and the Mayor. I went to Seattle.gov and here they are:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
seattle.gov/council/rasmussen/
[email protected]
Mailing Address:
Seattle City Council
PO Box 34025
Seattle, WA 98124-4025
Mayor Ed Murray (no e-mail, just a form):
http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/get-involved/contact-the-mayor
Mailing Address:
Mayor Ed Murray
City Hall
600 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
oops, I submitted too quickly, here is Rasmussen’s e-mail:
[email protected]
I live in the proposed Wallingford residential urban village, lot that is currently zone SF 5000. Can my lot be up zoned with proposal? I’m confused to all the rules. I would like to have a idea of impact on people who live in SF 5000 lots now? What can and can’t be built next to them or on them?
To start with, I believe Wallingford urban village boundaries are unchanged, so same actual as proposed.
The HALA plan as currently conceived is to upzone SF in urban villages to LR1. So, yes. But – details to be determined maybe a year down the road, with lots of “public involvement” etc. They may not need to upzone every block, to satisfy the “grand bargain” deal and get the linkage fees. But short of a ruckus like when Westneat busted HALA in the Times, that’s what they have in mind.
Meanwhile the 2035 Comprehensive Plan we’re talking about here kind of greases the skids for this by suggesting we forget about the current zoning in urban villages and imagine a more flexible future. I think if you go to one of the open houses, you will find that they’ll give you a story that’s somewhat at odds with the HALA plan, but the language itself doesn’t have that story in it, it’s just vague.
Hey – does anyone know if the Cascadia Chapter and Intl Living Future Institute have expressed an opinion on Seattle 2035?
I am 100% for massively increasing density in Seattle, from Wallingford to Queen Anne to Magnolia. Increased density is the only way to preserve the environment and combat sprawl, the only way to create viable transit and combat all-day rush hours, and the only way to accommodate the thousands of people who are flocking to Seattle every year.
If we don’t build up and dense we’ll turn into San Francisco where the existing landowners profit off scarcity of housing and bunkbeds go for a grand or two a month.
I am also for making developers contribute to solving the affordability. Developers should not be able to buy one of our $800,000 homes and replace it with $1mil in profit for themselves. We must hold the line and regulate development so that Seattle supports a broader socio-economic range.
And I am for making developers solve the crappiness problem in Seattle. Face it, most of the development around here looks like a generic pile of crap butting up against another generic pile of crap without much human scale design value. We should create a city with character rather than a geography of nowhere.
And while I’m at it: let’s dispell a few myths:
1. Zoning will force you out of your house. Wrong! Your single-family house is increasing in value regardless of zoning changes. Your property taxes will keep going up. San Franciso property values are skyrocketing precisely because there isn’t many new units being built while desire to live there is increasing. That’s basically what’s happening to Seattle. If affording the increased taxes is a problem (and I agree it is), let’s pass an income tax and deal with property tax affordability.
2. Street parking is for you. Nope, it is a public good. Bought a house with only 1 parking space? Don’t buy a second car! Bought a house without any? I hope you’re not complaining about other people taking “your” parking. The belly-aches over parking make me snarky. Complaining about parking is upperclass white privilege: I got mine and I don’t want anyone else to take it from me or get theirs. So instead, let’s just increase density, improve transit, and reduce our need for cars. The environment, the city, our health, and our safety would all improve.
3. No zoning changes are needed. Yeah… we’ve got room to build on the current zoning. But what this really means is “I’ve got my expensive nice single family home, but I want others to cram their 4-person family into a 2-bedroom apartment for $3000 a month”. We need more than studios and 1 bedrooms. We need housing that families can move into and not be sardines.
And again, we need to do this with tight government regulation that prevents out-of-town and foreign hedge funds from extracting maximum profit while externalizing all negative social, economic, and cultural costs to us.
Oh sure! Quality, character, affordability instead of maximum corporate profit – next you’ll be asking for municipal infrastructure that keeps up with the growth!
There was no Urban Village map for Wallingford at the Urban Village link at http://2035.seattle.gov/. Where did the one posted here come from and why isn’t there one at the Seattle 2035 website?
According to the Seattle Times editorial mentioned in this blog, planners say current zoning has plenty of capacity. Has anyone heard the city’s response to this?
I’m grew up in Cambridge and lived for 10 years on Berkeley. That level of density is very livable but I agree with other commenters here — density does not equate to affordable housing. A flat in Cambridge can go for $1 million.
Yes, but if you think a flat in Cambridge is expensive try buying a single family detached home on a 5,000 SF lot there.
Barring some economic disaster housing in Seattle will never be as affordable as Paducah Kansas but a denser Seattle will be a more affordable rather than less affordable one.
Go to “Draft Urban Village Maps” towards the bottom of the front page, and select that link. That page has an entry for Wallingford, the same one posted here.
The current capacity issue came up in at least one council hearing. The DPD presented their analysis and duly mentioned that there’s room with current zoning for the growth targets. Rasmussen took that and ran with it – made them repeat it, etc. O’Brien brushed it off, and the best I could make out he was correctly making the point that land zoned for multifamily residential won’t necessarily become available for that use within the necessary time frame.
But of course, that’s economics. With enough money, the land will become available. Of course the developers would rather not explore that direction, and that’s why we’re here: the conversion of SF into LR1 is a direct and explicit response to developer demand. It isn’t a planning initiative, it’s the developers who forced this, by threatening to sue the city over their plans for affordable housing linkage fees. Hence the “grand bargain”, though I think “bargain” is not really the right choice of words for extortion. (Also there are height increases, which get less attention but may be equally or more significant.)
Of course this is all about HALA, not the Comprehensive Plan — but if you’re going to the Comprehensive Plan open house Saturday, consider printing a copy of the “Mandatory Affordable Housing Policy Summary” at http://seattle.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?M=F&ID=18f250c5-737f-41e4-bd70-de6b4fb0e713.pdf
… because at the last one they were telling me there wasn’t any plan to upzone SF in urban villages and I had been misinformed! But it’s right there, third line in the table.
As for high but livable density – I don’t entirely doubt that, but would be more optimistic if it were happening at a more natural pace.