It’s been almost a year since I joined the Wallingford Community Council with concerns over the future of our neighborhood and our city in the face of rampant development. After countless hours of following HALA and Seattle’s land use politics, I frequently find myself mumbling and grunting in frustration like Yosemite Sam. I picture wealthy developers like Vulcan sitting down and writing out policy after policy that will give them more power (and us less). In exchange, our elected officials at City Hall get all sorts of campaign contributions. Ahh, democracy.
This urban village “painting” is one more policy that just plain sucks. The City Council is rushing to get the Seattle 2035 Comprehensive plan passed before they begin budget talks. If you remember, the Comprehensive Plan is a road map for how our city grows over the next 20 years. A very important part of this is the Future Land Use Map. This puts on a map where certain types of development can occur. Areas are designated for single family homes, multifamily, commercial development, etc. These limits can be nice for neighborhood character and keeping like-sized buildings together, but bad for greedy developers’ bank accounts. Why just build a single family house in Wallingford, when they could build four townhomes on the same property and maximize their profits? Developers, in general, do not like zoning constraints.
Our current Future Land Use Map shows all of these land use designations for the whole city. The city now wants to change the map and “paint” the urban villages. According to a Central Staff Memo dated June 2, 2016:
The proposed Future Land Use Map includes another significant change. On the current map, the boundaries of urban centers and villages are shown as a heavy boundary, within which are shown mixes of land uses. The proposed Future Land Use Map shows each category of urban center and village as a shade of blue. For example, this is how Ballard, a Hub Urban Village, is shown on the current and proposed maps:
Showing the entire village as one color is intended to shift the focus of the map away from distinct categories of uses within these centers and villages to the intended scale of development.
Practically, this would mean that zoning changes within urban centers and villages would not require a Future Land Use Map change. Under current practice, if a change is proposed from one category of land use to another throughout a large area, then a Future Land Use Map change must precede or accompany that zoning change. Under this proposal, a change to a large area within an urban village from a multifamily or single family zone to a mixed-use commercial zone would not first require a Comprehensive Plan amendment.
Currently, major zoning changes can only be fully implemented one time per year when Council considers Comprehensive Plan amendments. If the “painting” amendment is adopted, major zoning changes could be made inside urban villages at any time. Does anyone like the idea of having to read every City Council agenda for the next 20 years to watch out for proposed zoning changes? This change would allow them to sneak in future zoning changes with even less public process than we have now. If developers want to build bigger, they can lobby City Council and the zoning can be changed completely under our noses.
What good is a Future Land Use Map if it doesn’t show future land uses? The Growth Management Act states:
Each comprehensive plan must contain a future land use map showing the proposed physical distribution and location of the various land uses during the planning period. This map should provide a graphic display of how and where development is expected to occur. (WAC 365-196-400)
Is a solid block color really showing “how and where development is supposed to occur”? Is this change in violation of the Growth Management Act? This little painting project does not have our best interests in mind and I don’t like it one bit.
The City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Zoning committee passed this “painting” amendment on September 20th. On October 10th, the Full Council is expected to vote on the Comprehensive Plan, which includes this amendment (along with many, many more things that you would probably not approve of). In general, this Comprehensive Plan gets rid of anything that gets in the way of a bulldozer.
Please take a moment to write the Full Council and oppose the “painting” of the urban villages on the Future Land Use Map. If you would like more information regarding this amendment or other concerns regarding the Comprehensive please see the links below. There’s been many of us in Wallingford fighting this fight, but we could use your help. A large public outcry is the only way to get City Hall’s attention. We need a movement to take back our city. The Mayor is trying to bulldoze Seattle. Let’s put up some roadblocks!
Take Action!
EDIT: The Full Council meeting on Monday has been CANCELLED so it looks like a vote on Seattle 2035 will be delayed. A little more time for you to write in your concerns, if you haven’t already.
- Please take a moment to email the City Council with your concerns before October 10th. An email to [email protected] will reach all of the members.
- (UPDATED-DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED) Attend the Full Council meeting on October 17th and make a public comment. The meeting will be at 2:00 pm at the City Council chambers, 2nd floor. Address is 600 4th Avenue.
- Join your neighbors and stay involved. The Wallingford Community Council has formed a committee called WallHALA to respond to the Mayor’s housing agenda. Our next meeting will be on October 18th at 7-9 pm. Meetings are held in the Wallingford Senior Center, located in the basement of the Good Shepherd Center. More information on WallHALA can be found here. To receive our Call to Action emails, click here and check the “Land Use” box.
For More Information:
- Central Staff Memo (6/2/16), see page 7 for “painting” on FLUM:
- Seattle 2035 Concerns from the Wallingford Community Council
- Eastlake Community Council suggested talking points on Seattle 2035 (shorter document)
- Eastlake Community Council blog post on Seattle 2035 (longer document)
- Wallingford Urban Village map
- Maps for all Seattle Urban Villages
You may want to fix that next meeting date and location info
Thank you, it’s been fixed.
It says “Our next meeting will be on September 28th at 7-9 pm” but your post is dated Oct 2.
Interesting. It shows up as corrected on my computer. Maybe the editor has to finalize it so everyone else sees the correction? Sorry. The next WallHALA meeting is Sept 28, 7-9 pm. I’ll message the editors to try and get it fixed.
Sigh. Not enough coffee today. Ok, now the date should be correct.
Susanna, what a well written, well researched article. Thank you so much. It is written so that I know what I can do, how I can say it, rather that feeling unsure of my words.
It take a lot of time and research to do this. You are such a valuable contributor to the current issues of Wallingford, and all of Seattle. Very, very grateful and appreciative.
Susanna, thank you VERY much for all the hard work you’ve put into these articles, as well as on the Wallingford Community Council. I’m very grateful for you and your colleagues on WallHALA for informing us on what’s going on.
I’ll get an email out to the City Council members this week; the WCC List of Concerns is a great resource, and provides a good template for expressing concerns. I’m also planning on attending the 10/10 City Council meeting. Thanks for the heads-up!
I see some trees and lawns and I wanted it painted blue
No colors anymore I want them to turn blue
I see people living in insufficient density
Give up your neighborhood, just leave it up to me
I see a line of cars and they’re all painted blue
Bikes are better anyway, Ed Murray says it’s true
I hear people having doubts about livability
But who cares, is what I say, city’s changing every day
I look inside myself and see my heart is blue
I see your neighborhood, must get it painted blue
Maybe then I’ll add 10 stories along Stone Avenue
Developers will be lining up when your urban village is blue
No more will single family hold developers back
You can foresee they’ll be the first to get the sack
If I look hard enough and really squint my eyes
Every urban village looks the same and character dies
I see a line of cars and they’re all painted blue
You’d better take the bus, if there’s any room for you
I hear people having doubts about livability
But who cares, is what I say, city’s changing every day
I want to see it painted, painted blue
blue and blank, blue as Ballard
I want to see single family blotted out from the map
I want to see it painted, painted, painted, painted, blue
One of the best bumper stickers I’ve ever seen said, “Save Whidbey Island. Spay and neuter developers.”
Donn,
Do you have a melody for this? Would make a good blues song.
I think the Rolling Stones supplied the melody.
Yes, I was thinking to the tune of “Paint it Black”, Rolling Stones, but indeed it does seem to have turned into a blues song. I got them low down, rolled around, Ballard bound Blues.
Thank you, Susanna. Email sent. City Council… Of the developers, for the developers, by the developers… *sighs*
When I saw the header to this thread, I thought the topic was going to be about graffiti “artists.”
I’m not sure which bunch is worse.
Susanna, I second Ffej’s post in thanking you and mentioning the WCC’s list of concerns for sending to council members asap. Will try to make the meeting on the 10th as well. Being a community organizer is a difficult and thankless job, I’m afraid. Few want to give up their time for the good of others. So the meeting is Monday, then?
It is wrong to think that the reason they are doing this is due to campaign contributions from developers. Developers would only see big profits if they already owned the land before the upzone. It is the current land owners in the neighborhood who will see the values skyrocket with this upzone. We have a problem in the City. It is growing at a fast pace and we need to solve this problem. Murray is putting forward the best solution that he know so we can grow in the City rather than suffer from suburban sprawl. It is ok to disagree with his proposed solution and propose alternatives, but to say the “evil” developers are behind this is inaccurate.
I must respectfully disagree, Brady. The developers buy property that has a single-family on it and then construct two-to-six (or even eight) units on that same lot. The single-family homeowner gets a good price for their property, but the developer makes twice that back on each of the units that they then build on that same lot, which gives the developers great incentive to severely reduce, if not eliminate, the current requirement for Citizen input on proposed zoning changes.
Single-family home dwellers purchase and rent property for the quality of life that they will have living on that property and in that vicinity. I have heard from more than one Wallingford homeowner that they do *not* want what has happened in Ballard (from Market St. to 65th St.) to happen in Wallingford…and if the proposed changes go through, that is exactly what will happen to the majority of the neighborhood. Unless I have seriously misunderstood the proposed changes, once those changes go through, the City will no longer be required to seek input from us Citizens before making zoning changes within Urban Villages, and upward of 30% of Wallingford’s current single-family area will be at risk. We, the Citizens, are NOT the ones who will profit nor benefit from that change.
I understand that changes will need to occur. However, the only reason for the City to not want to have to seek Citizen-input before making changes to zoning is so that they won’t have to worry about being told ‘no’. The building currently going in at 45th and Woodlawn is a perfect example in that the developers did not include *any* off-street parking in their original plans. It is only as a result of Community outrage that their plans were changed. Under the proposed regulation changes, we Citizens would not have even known about the developers’ plans until it would be too late to do anything about it. Make no mistake that we, the Citizens, are NOT the ones who will profit nor benefit from the loss of what little control we now have.
For example: Mr. Smith lives off Stone Way and right now he owns a house that may be upzoned from townohomes to 4-5-story mixed use. He is going to hold on to the house because it would only sell for $650,000 right now, but when the upzone comes he will sell it for $1.0M because developers are bidding against each other to redevelop the property. The only way the developer makes out like a bandit is if he already bought from Mr. Smith, but developers generally don’t have enough capital to land bank properties all over the place. The developers will bid against each other and Mr. Smith will benefit with a big sale price. If there is no upzone then the developer will bid on the limited options in the City or go to Shoreline, Bothell, or Marysville where they can make a project pencil. I am not seeing a get rich scheme for the developer in this upzone.
If they were just upzoning Mr Smith’s lot, then no, it wouldn’t be worth bankrolling candidates and funding organizations like “Seattle for Everyone”, but it’s all single family in the urban village. That’s what people like Dan Bertolet want, to keep the development gold rush going, because in that environment, homeowners who sell to developers are going to get a tear-down prices, not a princely sum and likely not even enough to buy a single family house elsewhere in the city.
The article didn’t say “evil” – you put it in quotes as if quoting someone, but it’s your word. Developers do their thing, following their natural imperative, like a wolf. Someone putting your kid sister in a cage with a wolf, that’s evil. Taking every defense against developers out of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan, is evil.
“because in that environment, homeowners who sell to developers are going to get a tear-down prices,”
No, that’s not remotely true.
Developers are still bidding against developers to “win” the lot. And lots of people with plenty of money (like us) don’t care if we live in a MFH zoned area (which we assumed it was when we bought).
The 4,500SF new SFH that was a $1.2M teardown on our street is being built with a 5′ setback next-door to a grandfathered triplex.
The upzones haven’t happened yet. Developers don’t bid. They come to your door and talk to you about what it’s going to be like while they’re building their tacky townhouses next door (and they don’t have to lie, they probably will be breaking your windows, scattering debris into your yard, etc., that was my experience anyway.) They’d like to make it easy on you, no listing costs or anything, just take it off your hands. I might be able to get ahold of the specific letter, from Ballard.
Sadly, in Seattle’s current market, $500K IS a tear-down price. No one said anything about dilapidated.
Yes, I agree $500k is a teardown price. I have seen $600k listed as a teardown nearby. (The particular listing I had mind just happens to be dilapidated.)
I wouldn’t say ‘evil’, but definitely immoral and unconscionable. Yet our City leaders are doing just that. How the hell do we get rid of them??? (And I mean as in getting them out of office, not with any harm!)
I understand this, Brady. However, once the developers get their hands on the property, it will most likely have 4-8 units that will sell for $750K/ea for a two-bedroom unit, as those in Fremont are (where Brad’s Swingside Cafe was located…and razed). Oh, did I mention very few interior walls and NO yard space at all? $750,000 for a two-bedroom unit. Now, tell me that the developers aren’t the ones who are actually benefiting most from these changes…while the rest of us lose all of the aesthetics of a family-neighborhood.
Susanna, as others have said, thank you SO MUCH for your efforts!!! I am extremely concerned with the current development trends in Seattle. I work as a full-time Nanny in Wallingford (and have done so with the same family for just over two years now, with at least one year to come) and I live in Greenwood. I have looked through the ‘Maps for all Seattle Urban Villages’ via the link above, and there is no map for the Greenwood-Phinney Ridge area. Can you please add that map in, or else direct me to where I can find it? Thank you kindly…and I’m sure that our paths will cross in the near-future!
I’m looking at the map in the 2035 Comprehensive Plan appendix – page 318, sorry, no link, but it’s pretty simple, just a strip from N 65th to N 92nd and a cross strip from 6th NW to Fremont N, half blocks on both sides of the road, and a couple full blocks, Fred Meyer across to the other side of Greenwood. So it’s the opposite of the way Wallingford was done – not one block of single family – and “painting” it blue won’t make as much of a difference.
Won’t make much of a difference…unless you live there. I am 1/2 block off of Greenwood Ave, and literally across an alley from the Urban Village zone. I live in a house. There is a corner house next-door west of me that is 1 property away from Urban Village, so should be safe from a 4-6 story apartment building. In theory. I say “should” and “in theory” because the owner of that house on the corner just sold it to developers, who intend to build a six-story apartment building on the lot…with no off-street parking provided. This is what the told the seller. That lot is outside of the zone where a building that size can legally be erected, but that’s not stopping the developers, and we all know that the developers will get their way unless there is one hell of a fight by a substantial number of Citizens…and even then we’ll be lucky to avert the developers’ plans. Under the proposed changes, no one would even be aware of what’s going on until they were already building and it would be too late.
What really governs who can build what is the actual zone (with the caveat that a property owner can get a parcel rezoned, so it isn’t as predictable as we might like.) The actual zones aren’t shown on the Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map, but it maps them in a more generalized way, so from looking at it we can tell the difference between single-family and multifamily, but every type of “neighborhood commercial” will look the same.
So what I’m saying is, they can upzone your urban village without changing the FLUM, because neighborhood commercial will still be neighborhood commercial, and multifamily will be multifamily – higher, but it’s all the same on the FLUM. There is apparently no single-family, which is the main upzone situation where they need to change the FLUM if it isn’t all blue. So, unless I’m confused about something, that urban village isn’t really affected by the blue/not-blue question.
That’s strange it wasn’t included. The link I provided is from this page: http://2035.seattle.gov/draft-urban-village-maps/ and then you click on the link that says: “All Draft Urban Village Land Use Maps.” I don’t know why Greenwood-Phinney wasn’t included. I did a search and found it in the Greenwood Phinney Design Guidelines (scroll to pg. 8/23): http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cs/groups/pan/@pan/documents/web_informational/p2098806.pdf
Thank you, Susanna!
Re Seattle housing supply: All I ever hear about is the shortage of adequate housing and the woes we suffer as a result of efforts to increase the supply. Why do we not hear anything about effort to reduce the demand for more housing?
Please also sign this petition, if you have not already. Thanks!
http://www.seattlefairgrowth.org/petition.html
People want to live and work in Seattle. The city is acting on behalf of the majority of Seattle voters who want more housing.
Frankly, if you think most people see the mayor as the bad guy, you are mistaken. Murray is quite popular.
On community councils on the other hand, opinion is divided. There are the people who don’t know what the community councils were, and the people who loathe them.
It’s not “democracy” to have the city run by a bunch of whiny retirees who don’t want younger working people to move into their neighborhood.
Ummmm… I’m a younger (31) working person who moved to Wallingford. Not a “whiny retiree.” Honestly, I didn’t even know (nor care) that community councils existed until I bought a house here. I’m sure many others are the same. It’s a whole different perspective after buying and you know you won’t be leaving your neighborhood once a year or two is up. I’m all about the community council now that I’m learning more about it and know I’ll be here for a while. A big thanks to blogs like Wallyhood and the Facebook Community pages for helping me learn more about them and giving me opportunities to be involved.
None of these so-called “whiny retirees” are opposed to younger people moving into their neighborhood. We’ve had quite a few younger couples buy existing homes in my neighborhood, and I think that’s great.
What they ARE opposed to is Murray deliberately locking them out of the process that will determine the future of the place they’ve put down roots, a future that envisions destroying the neighborhood they love.
This looks to be a tempest in a teapot. The map shows Ballard going from a 2/3 multi-family residential and 1/3 commercial/mixed-use to 100% multi-family/commercial/mixed-use (see for the source map[1] for a key). So what? For anyone who’s actually been to Ballard, that describes the urban village already.
The more important question is how the city is going to accommodate the influx of new residents, and our severe housing supply problems. Fighting housing supply is not going to make more housing, and that is the only way out of this problem.
[1] http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cs/groups/pan/@pan/documents/web_informational/dpdd016652.pdf
Yes, we know what Ballard is like. This primarily affects urban villages with significant amounts of Single Family Residential, and would be of particular concern to residents of those neighborhoods who don’t aspire to end up like Ballard.
The mayor is preventing Seattle from becoming Palo Alto or San Francisco. How do you propose making Wallingford affordable?
The mayor isn’t preventing anything. There isn’t going to be any affordability in Wallingford or anywhere else, until we take responsibility for managing growth at sustainable levels – or until we’ve trashed Seattle enough that the highly mobile tech industry starts finding more attractive places elsewhere.
It will help affordability. Alternative is worse. What do you mean by managing growth at sustainable level? You mean asking Amazon to leave maybe? Right now growth is not sustainable because we are not allowing enough build ups.
Yes, sustainable growth means designing tax codes, laws and regulations such that companies who want the privilege of doing business here take some responsibility for contributing to the infrastructure, environmental health and livability of the city.
If a business doesn’t want to contribute to the civil society in which it does business, it is free to take its greedy capitalist BS elsewhere.
A government’s purpose is to serve the citizens, not the corporations.
The lie that unlimited economic growth is the only way to run the world is just that – a lie perpetuated to create short-term gains by an uber-wealthy few, to the detriment of citizens, environment and the long-term survival of the planet.
My previous sentence becomes true by adding one letter:
Unlimited economic growth is the way to RUIN the world.
Why does Wallingford need to be made affordable?
After all, Aurora runs right along our western boundary, and there’s plenty of empty lots and run down properties to build on there.
Because Wallingford is at a prime location that’s close to the center of the city with easy access to highway and many other transportation options, including light rail in the near future. The poor actually needs those more than the richer.
You can’t get much easier access than Aurora
Thanks for your comment. I prefer the solutions proposed in this document:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1687633-community-housing-caucus-report.html
I think the Mayor’s plan gives too much away to developers.
You mean have the government build slums and keep the poor away from Wallingford?
Perhaps I’m mistaken Susanna, but I see points in there related to taxing millionaires, building larger houses, maintaining the same number of low-income units, and enacting various protections. Nothing in that document discusses increasing density or affordability for the general citizen.
I respect preventing massive changes to the neighborhood as a whole. Where I disagree with your post and document is the long-term affordability of the neighborhood. Completely blocking density changes can’t be a sustainable answer.
Many renters and future buyers feel both alienated and priced out of Wallingford. Is that the prerogative of the Wallingford Community Council?
I appreciate anyone’s right to have a different opinion, especially if they are polite and informed. As I view the data, with our current zoning we have enough capacity for three times the density we are expecting. According to the Seattle 2035 Development Capacity Report:
“Based on current zoning, DPD estimates that the city has development capacity to add about 224,000 housing units and 232,000 jobs, a sufficient amount to accommodate the 70,000 households and 115,000 jobs the Countywide Planning Policies assign to Seattle for the next 20 years.”
Here’s the link: http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cs/groups/pan/@pan/documents/web_informational/p2182731.pdf
If you would like a breakdown by neighborhood, see pages 12-13 on this link:
http://seattle.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?M=F&ID=a3a89c25-891c-468d-ae7e-bb9d39b18d83.docx
In addition, we have been building A LOT already and as those units begin to come online we will hopefully see an ease in our housing problems. Mayor Murray has, what he calls an ambitious goal, of adding 50,000 housing units in 10 years. According to Dupree + Scott there are already 36,000 in the pipeline that are expected to become available between now and 2020.
Here’s the link: http://seattle.curbed.com/2016/3/22/11284022/seattle-apartment-vacancies-just-hit-a-five-year-high
So as I read the data, and I do appreciate that others may have different interpretations, but as I read it we have plenty of room with our current zoning to accept increased density. I personally would like to keep our zoning to have like-sized buildings built near each other. If there are to be major zoning changes, then I think it should be part of a neighborhood plan where the residents of Seattle are truly given a chance to weigh in.
I prefer solutions as such as I mentioned above in the Community Housing Caucus report. That document was supported by Speaker of the House Frank Chopp (an affordable housing advocate for 30 years). I agree with his programs, which do not involve giving tax breaks or incentives to for-profit developers.
(Sorry this is such a long response!)
This was discussed before. Having the capacity does not equal the capacity would then be used. For example, for the estimate of ~1k unit increase in Wallingford, we actually need to allow those 1k units to be built. Where do you want those 1k to be added within Wallingford? Would you force low density houses within the currently high-density zoned area to be knocked down?
TJ, I’m not trying to change your opinion. You have every right to disagree with me. When you talk about 1,00 units that Wallingford is predicted to need, that is over a 20 year period (2015-2035). I do believe we have room with current zoning given that 1,000 units over the next 20 years is only 50 units per year. If one or two buildings per year go for sale in our multifamily / mixed use zones, we could easily reach that target. If you look along Stone Way, I bet we built more than 50 units in 2015 and are ahead of the goals.
As I mentioned before, according to the City’s own documents we have about double the development capacity in Wallingford for what we are expected to need. Also, it’s good to remember that development capacity is not a max capacity with current zoning, it is just what is expected given current trends. We actually have room for more if developers decided to build to the max allowable. So this is how I read the numbers. But with anything, you must interpret the data. Thank you for caring about this topic.
Preventing how, Dustin?
That’s a new one.
Seattle 2035 vote is pushed back until Oct. 17.
From Amy Gore (Rob Johnson’s office):
Also, I wanted to let you know that because there are some additional amendments to the community involvement section, the vote at Full Council will now be on October 17th.
Seattle 2035 vote is pushed back until Oct. 17 due to some additional amendments to the community involvement section.
Thanks for the update, Susanna.
To clarify: has the Oct. 10th full City Council meeting been postponed until Oct. 17th?
(If so, should the original article be updated to reflect this date change?)
Thank you!
Thanks for the suggestion. I just updated the post. The Full Council is still scheduled to meet on the 10th and that would be a good opportunity to comment if you would like to give them more time to consider what you are saying. It is generally expected for you to comment on something that is on that day’s agenda, but you can say anything. The vote on Seattle 2035 has now been moved to Oct. 17.
The agendas for those dates have not been released yet. To view City Council agendas go here: http://www.seattle.gov/council/committees
Thank you! I’ll continue to plan to comment at the meeting on the 10th.
Just in case you were planning on going to the meeting tomorrow on the 17th, it has been cancelled.
Let’s forget about profit for a minute. What’s good with building single family houses instead of town houses at this stage in Seattle? I actually think it’s too bad they can’t just bulldoze off many urban center parts of Seattle and rebuild them into something that’s more fitting for the need of the city.
And why do people always try to demonize developers? I have yet to see how those who are anti-developer are less selfish. I don’t see how those anti-developer arguments are really helping anybody other than those who like the status quo.
“I don’t see how those anti-developer arguments are really helping anybody other than those who like the status quo.”
Because most people bought homes here years or decades ago with plans to live in them long term, rather than rent or buy something they plan on living in for a couple of years until they can upgrade to someplace bigger and better when they make more money later in life. Why would you expect people to voluntarily lower their quality of life with upzoning, just to make it easier for people who haven’t even moved here or paid taxes here yet, when they spent a lot of money to buy the home they want to live in for years?
You want to “bulldoze off” off our neighborhood. And you wonder why people don’t obediently fall in line to upzone Wallingford into your happy little utopia.
Yeah, and why should the public subsidize somebody by using these strict zoning restrictions just because those people moved here first? Native Americans were here earlier, and obviously nobody cared. So you prefer to lower the quality of life for others to keep your quality of life. How is that less selfish than developers? I don’t mind people being selfish, just don’t pretend to be less selfish than others when you aren’t. All these discussions are really just people with different self-interests fighting each other, not some moral residents against evil developers.
“So you prefer to lower the quality of life for others to keep your quality of life.”
I’m not lowering anyone’s quality of life by supporting existing zoning, nor am I being subsidized for it. I PAID fair market value to buy my house and live in a neighborhood zoned the way it is. The price I paid reflects that, as does the property taxes I pay. You, on the other hand, don’t want people who haven’t even lived here and paid taxes here to have to pay for it. You want SF homeowners to give up something, while not asking anything of newcomers. But I’m the selfish one?
It’s like if the city says, “We know you paid for a BMW, but you’re being “selfish” because other people need cars too and they can’t afford a BMW. So we’re going to take your BMW and downgrade you to a Honda and give a newcomer a Honda as well.”
If people want to live in the city and close to transit, there are many areas that can be developed for that need. But you don’t have a constitutional right to live in a nice or expensive neighborhood and make others give up what they paid for just because you think it’s not fair.
“I’m not lowering anyone’s quality of life by supporting existing zoning”
Actually you’re lowering literally every American’s quality of life.
And when zoning laws get out of hand, economists say, the damage to the American economy and society can be profound. Studies have shown that laws aimed at things like “maintaining neighborhood character” or limiting how many unrelated people can live together in the same house contribute to racial segregation and deeper class disparities. They also exacerbate inequality by restricting the housing supply in places where demand is greatest.
The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year, according to estimates in a recent paper by the economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti. Regardless of the actual gains in dollars that could be achieved if zoning laws were significantly cut back, the research on land-use restrictions highlights some of the consequences of giving local communities too much control over who is allowed to live there.
“You don’t want rules made entirely for people that have something, at the expense of people who don’t,” said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-sentiment-reflected-in-zoning-laws-thwarts-equality.html
Gee, Bryan. I was just thinking it had been awhile since you graced this blog with one of your helpful lectures on how neighborhood advocates are closet racists because the object to a bunch of urbanists telling them how their neighborhood should be. Always gotta play the race hustler, don’t you?
And if you cared anything about the economic cost to society, then you would ask developers pay their fair share in impact fees.
Oh no, these guys live and die by the “supply” side of “supply and demand”, so any expense, constraint or inconvenience to developers is equally bad. If we can just increase the rate of supply enough, the free market fairies will solve all of society’s problems.
Housing supply in proportion to demand won’t solve all society’s problems but it will lower the rent – WSJ today:
Apartment rents declined in some of the country’s priciest cities during the third quarter, a dramatic reversal that could signal the end of a six-year boom for the U.S. rental market.
Rents in San Francisco declined 3%, while they fell about 1% in New York and edged lower in Houston and San Jose, Calif., the first drops in those markets since 2010, according to apartment tracker MPF Research. Across the U.S., rent growth was 4.1% on average….
The main cause of the rent slowdown is a flood of new supply, with more than 555,000 units under construction across the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, according to MPF. …
“We’ve actually had to drop the rent on some properties, which I don’t think I’ve ever done in my career,” he said.
Tenants are even gaining the upper hand on renewals. Landlords typically drive a harder bargain on such leases because they know residents would rather avoid the hassle of moving….With the lease set to expire at the end of August, Mr. Khandelwal and his roommates looked around and found that comparable places were cheaper than theirs. The landlord agreed to knock $50 a month off the rent, roughly a 2% discount.
“We were so happy about it we went out for a few drinks,” he said. “We were expecting a hike.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-cities-see-apartment-rents-fall-for-first-time-in-years-1475614808
You forgot to mention the part of the article where it says, “At the same time, job growth is losing steam in some major cities. San Francisco added 26,000 new jobs in August 2016, about half the 47,000 jobs it added in the year-earlier period, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Mr. Rosen.
Silicon Valley—the area south of San Francisco that is home large technology companies like Google parent Alphabet and Facebook Inc. — created 38,000 jobs in August, down from 54,000 jobs a year earlier.”
But by all means, since you care so much about the rising cost of rent and inequity, you could make life easier for a couple of people and rent out some of that room in your big single family home at a steeply discounted rate. You should have no problem with that, since you’re comfortable asking everyone else to make sacrifices to further your agenda.
“You forgot to mention the part of the article where it says, “At the same time, job growth is losing steam in some major cities.”
If you want to lobby the city council to encourage them to raise unemployment in order to lower housing costs, go to it by all means.
For the most part I assume “killing jobs” is not a position most people are interested in when “creating more homes” will do the trick.
It won’t do the trick, that’s what he’s pointing out from your article. SF has been painted as the poster child of housing shortages caused by land use regulation – until now suddenly it’s a champion for adding supply, because rents are slackening. If demand continued to grow as before, they’d still be damned for their land use regulation. Meet unsustainable growth. We can take responsibility for it, or be irresponsible.
There are three things that predict rent exceedingly well, for reasons that should be intuitive:
((Full Time Jobs x Average Earnings) + Other Income) / Number of Housing Units = Monthly Rent per Renter
You can raise unemployment, lower wages, or lower other income (investment, interest, social security, pt work etc) – or you can create more homes.
SF has never created enough homes to prevent the rent from getting too damn high, but a combination of what they have built and declines in any of the other things would moderate or reduce rent.
Here’s 10 years of that data for King, SF, and Harris (Houston) counties.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7f321e33f2de520696f8d994e08f821fee6c8d602dd974c4fd897f055184055.jpg
It’s actually way simpler than that. The quick rising price is proving that we have demand outpacing supply. So we should increase supply if the goal is to suppress the price. The interest of existing home owners is to NOT suppress the price.
Thanks for trying to keep costs rising! Tired of this nimby crap. Supply and demand get over it. You can’t have density without mass up zoning. This is a city and It is supposed to be dense. Move to the suburbs if you don’t want density.
I might have an idea for where you could move.
Cool bro
How did the WCC meeting go last night?
EDIT: The Full Council meeting on Monday has been CANCELLED so it looks like a vote on Seattle 2035 will be delayed. A little more time for you to write in your concerns, if you haven’t already.
Re-EDIT – The cancellation was canceled, the full council meeting is back on, and they’re supposed to vote to adopt the 2035 Comprehensive Plan today in session starting at 2 PM. If you care about legislation that would
– rezone all single-family in the Wallingford Urban Village
– allow triplexes in single-family zones everywhere
– call for wholesale enlargement of urban village boundaries
– repeal protections for large mature trees
… then it would be great if you could show up for this!