With Seattle housing conditions in full-on crisis mode, single-family neighborhoods have become a central flashpoint. How do we increase density? How do we respect neighborhood character? This debate is raging in Wallingford as we speak; the deluge of competing red pro-HALA, and orange anti-HALA yard signs make that abundantly clear. With the housing crisis at the forefront of both city and neighborhood politics, it is important to examine the terms we use to describe and debate. Specifically, I am interested in the use of the phrase “single-family housing” and how it has been used to structure the debate around housing in Wallingford.
“Single-family housing” is exactly that—stand-alone homes with one shared living unit. But what happens when the way we characterize a certain living condition comes to describe the character of an entire neighborhood? And how is that characterization wielded politically? As I heard from many attendees at last October’s Wallingford Community Council meeting, much opposition to HALA comes from the way it threatens the “single-family character” of this neighborhood. The newly incorporated neighborhood non-profit, Historic Wallingford, sports a logo featuring a craftsman bungalow, a tribute to the early-1990’s-style home that neighborhood preservationists uphold as the exemplar of Wallingford’s charm.
As a lifelong Wallingford resident who was raised in a single-family home, this way of describing the neighborhood certainly speaks to my experience. I wonder, however, about my neighbors who live in apartments or duplexes or triplexes. How might the consensus that Wallingford is a single-family neighborhood exclude them from current housing debates?
A headline from Sightline in 2016 read that “Seattle’s single-family neighborhoods already include thousands of duplexes.” The full article includes a link to a fascinating interactive map detailing different classes of multi-family neighborhoods in some of the neighborhoods most roiled by HALA. Sightline found that across the city in 2016 there were 4,600 multi-family units housed in single-family zones. Many of these structures, as the Seattle Times commented upon the map’s initial release, were built before neighborhoods were first zoned as single family by the city. I used Sightline’s map to hone in on those multi-family units located in Wallingford.
Bounded by Aurora to the west, I-5 to the east, 50th to the north, and the waterfront to the south, I counted a total of 864 properties of multi-family housing. Of these properties, 498 were duplexes, 198 were triplexes, and 168 quad or more. That means that we have 498 structures (which collectively house far, far more than 498 people) of multi-family housing in “single-family” Wallingford. While there are expected hotspots—closer to Aurora, the interstate, and the water—there are also tri- and quad-structures in the heart of “craftsman bungalow” country.
The presence of multi-family housing is not a surprise, although the scale may be surprising to some. I would guess that even the most strident opponents of neighborhood upzoning would agree that the existing diversity in neighborhood housing structures does not inherently “ruin” the neighborhood’s character; even with the presence of these apartments and duplexes, there is no doubt that much of Wallingford continues to feel very “single family.” Rather than discussing the virtues or drawbacks of this existing housing, however, I am interested in how we can better include the hundreds of residents who live in these buildings. Last year’s contentious race for a seat on the Wallingford Community Council, a race in which the losing candidate reported feeling a strong amount of anti-renter bias, is just one indication that it’s worth taking a second look at who is being included and excluded from neighborhood decision-making.
Jordan, a Wallingford resident who lives in a triplex, spoke to this sentiment. “I have not until recently felt that my voice matters in local housing debates, but I think that has been because I identify as a renter, more than because of the fact that I identify as someone who lives in a triplex (although, of course, those two things are linked).” Speaking of “single-family” homes is an effective way to talk about home ownership without actually naming it as such. Whether one feels excluded from conversations as an apartment dweller or a renter, framing Wallingford as a “single-family neighborhood” has a hand in both.
If we continue to uniformly describe Wallingford as “single-family” (with corresponding assumptions about home ownership), we are not describing Wallingford in a way that fits how many of our neighbors currently live. Will these neighbors feel welcome at local neighborhood debates? Will they feel included in discussions about HALA? In other words, while discussing the future of our neighborhood is of the utmost importance, how can we frame an inclusive discussion that does not erase the living realities of many Wallingford residents who have a stake in the proposed changes?
I’ll be interested to see what might emerge from this, but … the reason you hear “single family” a lot here is really pretty simple. The delineated area that is the particular focus for proposed MHA upzones is the Wallilngford Residential Urban Village, and it has a relatively high percentage of land zoned Single Family Residential. (Relative to other urban villages – Fremont, Green Lake, Phinney/Greenwood, Queen Anne.) Those SF zoned lots are the most affected area in Wallingford, all proposed to be upzoned at least two levels and sometimes more. So for many Wallingford residents it really is at a very practical level about single family, because that’s what we’re losing and we have a lot of it.
Not that it matters to anyone whether the “single family” we’re losing is immaculately composed of only single family residences. There are group rentals, an apartment building here an there, mother-in-laws, etc. If that’s a problem for anyone, I haven’t heard about it. It’s only one more reason why the city should treat this area with more respect, it does house a lot of people, often relatively economically.
Don — as a WCC board member, you don’t need “to see what might emerge out of this.”
You’re actually in a position to effect change. You could choose to make space for renters in the conversation and on the WCC board.
Also, can you see how your reply perpetuates the problem that Mira has raised?
The City does state in its Environmental Impact study that the largest impacts will be felt in neighborhoods that have a large amount of Single Family (SF) zoning. Wallingford has a particularly large amount of SF zoning in its urban village compared to other neighborhoods. You hear Single Family a lot because that is the name of the zone, but as you know, it does include older multifamily homes (often with similar set backs and bulk) and it allows for a backyard cottage or MIL.
Yes, single family zones do contain older multi-family housing, housing that would be illegal to create today. If you, and the WCC, are not focused on “saving” single-family detached houses, why is WCC suing to block a zoning change that will allow similar multi-family housing to be built in the future?
But that is kinda beyond the topic of the post, which is about broadening the conversation to include our neighbors who are not detached single-family house owners.
So Paul Chapman, who is a homeowner, told you he didn’t get elected because of “anti-renter bias”. Poo. People didn’t want him on the board. He didn’t get elected because he has a track record of being unable to get along with people who don’t share his views, he’s argumentative, he takes potshots at the WCC when ever it suits him (why did he want to be part of an organization he obviously despises?), he tried to pack the election with supporters who only joined the group to try to get him elected, he’s divisive, he’s dishonest (see above statement about “anti-renter bias”. He has done more than any single person I can think of to foster a negative environment for discussion. I voted against HIM, not against renters.
The link, however, clarifies that she’s really talking about year before last election. There was one person in attendance who went after him and did bring up his renter status. He then went on to promote himself as the poster child victim of an anti-renter community council, but the reality is that he couldn’t have gotten enough votes if he owned a dozen houses. He did get votes, though, and not just from a handful of developer boosters.
Well, Mira should clarify if she meant Paul’s effort to get on the board, or Doug Trumm’s (the year before Paul). She did, after all, say, “Last year’s contentious race.” And to my knowledge, Trumm didn’t even go to any WCC meetings until he decided he deserved to be on the board. Talk about entitlement…
No, he did go to at least one meeting, but sure, he wasn’t a regular attendee. And he identifies as a Fremont resident. Whatever. It wasn’t Wallingford hating renters.
And even after he was soundly defeated in each of the three open positions, Paul still didn’t get the memo. He tried to make a motion at the WCC meeting a couple of months ago to make WCC pull out of our alliance with two dozen other neighborhood groups in the lawsuit against the city. Sorry Paul, but that’s what we elect a board for. To make those decisions for us.
Phil — by your logic, as we elected a Mayor & City Council who are all pro-density, pro-MHA, and pro-HALA, you shouldn’t have any contrary views on these issues, right?
Ah, no. The pro-HALA YIMBY’s all got behind Cary Moon for mayor. How’d that work out? As for Teresa Mosqueda, people didn’t vote for her because of her pro-HALA views. They voted against Jon Grant’s outspoken Socialist views.
How do you explain Murakami, then?
Murakami was always an underdog, as hopeful as I was for her candidacy. No one expected her to win. She just didn’t have the funding or the organizational support needed to take on an entrenched incumbent.
And it’s even harder when Lorena Gonzalez not only violated the debate participation rules to get $hundreds of thousands in democracy vouchers, she actually bribed people by offering to buy them their beer at an event of hers if they signed their vouchers over to her. You could say, “big deal, it’s just a beer.” But I find it incredible that as an attorney, she violated at least the spirit of the law, if not broke it outright. Oh, and the SEEC, for it’s part did NOTHING to punish her. So much for instilling more confidence in our elections and giving the little guy a bit more of a level playing field.
Margie — I could not have complained about anti-renter bias in the 2017 WCC election because I’m not a renter. While the 2017 election was also contentious, the reference linked to in the article is to the 2016 election, in which an unopposed urbanist-friendly renter candidate, Doug Trumm, was blindsided with a floor nomination made by Donn Cave and a cabal of members that specifically conspired to exclude Doug. Doug *would* have won the election for the at-large seat had this nomination not been made.
I am not aware of any renters on the WCC board in the three years I’ve been involved. Have there ever been renters on the WCC board? At WCC meetings nearly all participants are homeowners. WCC members have told people that their views don’t count because they are renters. Phil’s comment confirms this bias: “How dare a Wallingford resident think he could get involved!” WCC just mailed out a membership campaign that has as its central tenet protecting the single-family homeowner.
I have at many WCC meetings urged the board and members present to expand the diversity in the room. I have suggested to Miranda (the board president) on multiple occasions that the WCC board should have a position that is reserved for a renter. (Note that such a position would exclude me.) The board has historically reached out to recruit potential candidates, and those candidates have been invariably homogoneous demographically and ideologically. The board could just as easily reach out to any number of candidates who have more diverse experiences and views.
Something like 50% of Wallingford residents are renters. 58% of Wallingford voted for Mosqueda, an unapologetic proponent of increased density and renters rights. 100% of Wallingford residents who voted in the 2015 District 4 election voted for a candidate who is pro-density and pro-HALA. The WCC is a minority in the neighborhood.
The WCC has become (maybe always was?) a homeowners association and not a community council.
I get, Margie, that you don’t like me; that’s of no consequence to me. I don’t suffer bullshit, and I’m not shy to say so. There are, however, many other people in the neighborhood who are renters, who are urbanists, who just have a different perspective than the group-think prevalent in the WCC today, and who can more easily suffer the bullshit.
The WCC could pick any of them and focus on making a stronger neighborhood community rather than fighting this incendiary, dishonest, and (frankly) losing battle to preserve the suburban single-family detached lifestyle.
No Paul, my comment was, “Trumm didn’t even go to any WCC meetings until he decided he deserved to be on the board.” Anyone can run for the position, including renters, but I don’t think it’s bias to suggest that maybe you should be involved for awhile and get to know people first?
And btw, I have no problem with your suggestion of reserving a position for a renter. Although for the sake of “equitability,” you’d need to do the same for a homeowner. And I wouldn’t be so sure your hypothetical renter board member would be on your side. I know many renters who don’t buy into your HALA Koolaid.
There was a renter on the board for part of the year I was on the board & there was a renter on the board for the year before I was on the board.
Doug Trumm was not defeated because he was a renter. He had only been to one WCC meeting prior to the election, but people were familiar with his writing in the Urbanist about Wallingford, and many people disagreed with his point of view.
He was defeated because a cabal of WCC insiders conspired to block his involvement, recruiting a dark horse candidate, and then nominating that dark horse candidate from the floor.
He was defeated by the clique.
All evidence of the need to address seriously the questions that Mira poses.
And there’s the “Paul spin” again. Susanna had it exactly right. I was grateful that there was an alternative to Doug, and not only an alternative, but an alternative with real world experience in construction. Your approach is polarizing, and if there is ever going to be a middle ground that respects peoples’ varying attitudes and values, you will have to back off. Don’t tolerate BS my eye – you don’t tolerate opposition.
Margie — with a 7-person board, you had 6 other alternatives to Doug, all of whom hold something close to your views. There’s no one on the WCC board that holds a renter perspective, despite 50% of the neighborhood being renters. No one who holds an urbanist perspective, despite Mosqueda and Johnson both winning in Wallingford. You’ve got your six reps. So who exactly isn’t respecting varying attitudes, values, and viewpoints?
You claim “spin”, but do you have contrary evidence?
Evidence that the WCC clique did not scramble to find someone to put up against him when they realized that he was running unopposed? That they did not nominate someone from the floor? That it wasn’t an intentional blind-side? If Glenn was super-interested in running, why did it take an Urbanist to get his hat in the ring?
No… The clique didn’t want an “outsider” with views that didn’t toe the party line. Plain and simple.
And that’s what I understand Mira to be saying: a group such as the WCC needs to intentionally make space for the broader community to participate in the discussion.
I’d like to suggest that a lot of the push back against proposed zoning changes is due to lot coverage and not renters vs home owners (25% of single family homes are rentals and plenty of our neighbors rent their homes). But many people are concerned about being boxed in by larger buildings and staring at a blank wall instead of their neighbor’s backyard. If the new buildings had the same lot coverage and size as the rest of the block, I imagine there would be a lot less push back.
Then why doesn’t the WCC propose a zoning change to 35% lot coverage and 30′ high (SF massing) but removing the requirement that it be a single family home? I’m all for it. If the WCC and Welcoming Wallingford jointly proposed this to the city as an alternatve to LR1 and LR2, who would there be to argue against it?
I think you have to take all the standards down a ways, before you can legitimately say “SF massing”. Actual SF is what’s here, not what could be here if every lot were developed today. The current standards leave a lot of leeway, and in the current economic climate the type of owner who will undertake a build or major remodel leads to an undesirably full exploitation of that leeway; so would triplex development etc. A fix to that, to make SF standards more stringently enforce “SF massing”, would help a lot of people see a middle road that allows more variation in “typology”, and it would help fend off the ravages of the monster house invasion I’m always hearing about.
@bryan_kirschner:disqus — and there’s your answer 🙂
So your plan in the middle of our housing crisis starts wtih effetcively a downzone, in which proportionally more extremely expensive urban land is attached by law to each home. No thanks.
You know where to start to do something about a housing crisis, as opposed to just taking advantage of it.
What I’m talking about does not “attach” more land to each home. The homes stay the same, the lots stay the same – and any new building on the lot is constrained to be similar.
The change you want, essentially triplex zoning, is an upzone whether the height and coverage standards change or not, and it will lead to material changes in actual height and actual coverage. If that’s what people want, fine, but don’t expect us to buy “SF massing”, it’s a radical change.
Redevelopment necessarily leads to “material changes in actual height and actual coverage” whether we rezone or not. Old houses are being redeveloped into new ones all around us. Most of them seem to use up most of their allowed height and lot coverage, and sell for well over $1 million. I don’t think it’s incorrect to call that “SF massing.” It’s not the massing we saw with single family homes a century ago, but it is what we’re seeing today.
If we allow that massing to be used by two or three or seven housing units instead of just one, that will be an unambiguous win for affordability. It’s much cheaper to buy a third of a $1.5 million building than it is to buy the whole thing.
So little homes can’t be expanded to be duplexed or trixpled, and rich people will gobble up all the large homes (including all the grandfathered duplexes and triplexes to convert to single family) because it’s the only way to get a large house…
We’ve now crossed into “how to aggressively make homes in Wallingford less afforable” territory.
If rich people are going to come after the grandfathered duplexes, I don’t think anything you’re going to do will stop that. All I’m saying is, if you want to sell people on a land use zoning that isn’t SF but is like it, in a way that people care about, then it has be tightened up from current SF standards. Or the survivors will be boxed in by larger buildings, etc., just as described in the post you responded to with that “SF massing” story. If you don’t care whether anyone is willing to consider your ideas, then fine – maybe you can get the city to do it, they don’t care either.
“if you want to sell people on a land use zoning that isn’t SF but is like it, in a way that people care about”
I’m going to bet on the (greatly increasing number of) people for who care about the fact that increasing the size of a little house to turn it into a duplex, or turning a small house on a large lot into a triplex, is the only way they can ever possibly afford to live in Wallingford as the folks who are going to shape the future (sadly, maybe with a delay, but inevitably).
‘the survivors’
what a funny way to describe NIMBYs in million dollar homes
Mike — careful, there. You call this crowd “wealthy” or “fortunate” and they’ll find themselves some pitchforks and Oliver Twist stories.
Don — honest question: is there *ANY* idea you’re willing to consider that would change the neighborhood? I mean any change except less development and downzones.
Given the opposition to the ADU/DADU changes, I am highly skeptical that the concerns are what you assert.
When I used to live in one of those rentals in Wallingford, it was made very clear to me that “preserving neighborhood character” was just a way of saying that the presence of people like me–younger, without a lot of money–should be kept to an absolute minimum.
“Whether one feels excluded from conversations as an apartment dweller or a renter, framing Wallingford as a “single-family neighborhood” has a hand in both…If we continue to uniformly describe Wallingford as “single-family” (with corresponding assumptions about home ownership), we are not describing Wallingford in a way that fits how many of our neighbors currently live.”
Amen.
And how many many people who might want to live here can actually afford to live, if we make it possible for them to have any shot at doing so at all.
To be historically accurate, we should perhaps call Wallingford a “Downzoned from Duplex Neighborhood.”
Thank you for posting.
HALA and MHA won’t do anything to help affordability here, and you know it. Just look at what happened in Portland when they tried the same thing:
https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2018/01/31/19643709/portlands-bet-on-forcing-developers-to-build-affordable-housing-is-getting-lackluster-results
I’m not a fan of MHA.
(re) legalizing multi family would help, exactly as it would here:
Why are these 11 buildings illegal in most of Portland? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa29b9bdb2f2db4687d22528bea972f54017bbb2d3df8e186729854e862b7f3f.jpg
https://bikeportland.org/2015/06/19/11-buildings-illegal-portland-144633
If you, and I know many other YIMBY’s (most notably, Roger Valdez) are opposed to MHA (and by extension, HALA), then what have we been arguing for and spending limited city resources for these last few years?
Pull the plug on HALA. We can start over by finding some common ground on things like backyard cottages. As I’ve said many times, I am open to that.
If we start over by ending exclusionary zoning everywhere, immediately, I’m in.
OK, so you’re not interested in a realistic dialogue or workable solution, not that I’m surprised. Nevermind then.
Bryan’s solution seems plenty workable to me. Simply delete the word “single-family’ from the zoning code while leaving the existing low-density building size limits in place, and I would be very satisfied with that solution. I would even prefer it to the MHA upzones that are currently being appealed.
But about that appeal…we’ve seen how long it takes to bring a proposal through the EIS process. The HALA report was published 30 months ago, but the rezone proposal is still likely more than a year away from passage because of groups that are willing to hire lawyers to delay any meaningful zoning change in endless appeals.
I’d love to find some consensus solution here, but throwing away the current proposal to talk some more and maybe come up with something better, which could maybe be voted on by the city council after another lengthy EIS process smells like yet another delaying tactic to me. To that I say no. Let’s pass the proposal that’s already a few years into the process and then improve upon it.
Yeah, “change absolutely nothing” but remove the single family constraint seems like an eminently workable and realistic place to start..
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b68d63335f224989ca014ffa90cb8cda47ae6fe8677527e03a70906b9d39f359.jpg
My suggestion is not meant as a delaying tactic. It’s genuine. I’m tired of debating a plan that I not only don’t like for my own a reasons, but one that won’t do what it’s promoters say it will do anyway. I’d rather see a bunch of backyard cottages that don’t destroy Wallingford instead of a bunch of Ballardesque Borg cubes with closet-sized microstudios and no setbacks that serve as temporary waystations for brogrammers.
I’ll like your suggestion, Phil. Well, not the start over part, but the giving the city a viable alternative that will achieve many/most of the same goals.
“Single family house” to Wallingford is kind of like what “black” was to Central. It’s a dominant characteristics of the neighborhood. Central surely lost the “black” characteristics easily due to the socio-economic weakness of that identity. Single-family-house on the other hand is a much stronger force that represents a much richer group with much more resources.
If as Paul Chapman maintains (above) that 50% of Wallingfordians are renters, why are we even creating this bogus home owner vs renter argument? It’s a red herring and a lot of clap trap. What we should be talking about are speculators buying up perfectly livable houses, many of them rentals already, to be torn down for their new millionaire owners or just let to sit there a year while the investor waits to collect tens of thousands more.
And I agree with Margie, (although she didn’t say this exactly) some of the urbanists like Paul seem to have all the time in the world to make invalid arguments with questionable sources, when someone like Margie who is a pipe engineer is lectured to by those who know nothing about combined sewer systems. Why don’t you listen sometime, instead of always trying to prove yourselves right when you know little about the subject or you are too narrow minded to try to learn something other than your own propaganda? Why don’t you study the subject — that’s right in a professional peer-reviewed book or article so you have the facts from the most reliable sources? Googling just doesn’t do it.
This renter-home owner argument is just lame. Let’s get to the real issues and listen.
the wallingford urban village is over 60% renters. over 66% of the dwelling units are rentals. the median age is 32.
that the anti-tenant/anti-housing wallingford community council doesn’t come *anywhere* close to reflecting the composition of the UV. that they’re actively suing the city to *stop* affordable housing. that it’s with a coalition of glorified HOAs all largely composed of homeowners in renter-dominated tracts…
if you think that isn’t getting down to the ‘real issues’… maybe ya’ll are the ones who aren’t listening.
http://gisrevprxy.seattle.gov/arcgis/rest/services/CENSUS_EXT/UCUV_DC_2010/MapServer/0/8/attachments/50
Mike,
So where are the renter activists? Why don’t more of them join the WCC or promote the actual interests of renters in some public forum of their own. Bitchin’ online about some alleged homeowner boogie persons doesn’t do it. And if you’re talking about a suit you need to mention its nature and provisions, it’s name. What are the objections? I bet there’s no specific provision against renters. How many WCC meetings have you gone to that you can without qualification call it “anti-tenant anti-housing”? Where’s your evidence.?
I believe its CM Gonzalez who’s active with renter relief. Write to her and find out what’s being done. Some council members actually listen and act to resolve issues.
We’re at groups like Welcoming Wallingford.
I looked into it. I’m interested in having a say in choosing the leaders of any group that claims to represent my interests.
However it turns out that you can’t vote unless you pay dues to the organization, dues which are used to print anti-upzone signs and hire anti-upzone lawyers. I can’t in good conscience give my money to such an organization.
Nobody special,
Well there you have it. Take Evan’s advice and join Welcoming Wallingford. But read Donn’s post below. He always seems to have the most informed and rational words of wisdom.
To pull some posts together:
“Why don’t more of them join the WCC?
I looked into it. I’m interested in having a say in choosing the leaders of any group that claims to represent my interests.
However it turns out that you can’t vote unless you pay dues to the organization, dues which are used to print anti-upzone signs and hire anti-upzone lawyers. I can’t in good conscience give my money to such an organization.”
“Sorry Paul, but that’s what we elect a board for. To make those decisions for us.”
“he tried to pack the election with supporters who only joined the group to try to get him elected,”
So:
1. To vote, people need to give the WCC money. (Unless you have a hardship.)
2. The WCC board will use that money by fiat to do things you might strenuously object to, with not vote or process or opportunity for a minority report or dissent.
3. Doing the logical thing of trying to assemble enough people to get a board seat, in order to participate as voting members without handing folks who’ll take your money and do things you disagree with in perpetuity, is criticized rather than acknowledged as an obvious consequence of this system to WCC has created.
“If people can’t be bothered to show up and get involved in their neighborhood after all the outreach we’ve done, whether because they don’t care don’t have the time or whatever, how is that our fault?”
See above, Also, too, sounds like WCC board members are fans of Kafka.
People with YIMBY views won’t join WCC for the same reasons that gun control supporters won’t join the NRA.
There isn’t, in the EIS appeal, or its potential consequences, anything anti-renter or pro-renter. Not surprising therefore that renters as a group haven’t fastened on to that issue here. (Capitol Hill Renters initiative comes out of a city agency, Capitol Hill Housing, so kind of the exception that proves the rule.)
There are a lot of people in our community who aren’t going to be showing up community council meetings, because they have more then enough to do already, and they shouldn’t need to. The community councils are not and do not intend to be representative government, they’re just organizations formed for the benefit of the neighborhood by people who have the time and want to put it to that use.
In a situation like the present, where the city has big plans for the neighborhoods, the community councils aren’t there to decide whether a majority of their population has been sold on the city’s propaganda yet. They’re there to provide the only real independent voice, that can speak up about what the city’s doing, with long collective experience in dealing with these matters. When the city is a responsible agency that can work out pretty well – I guess not everyone is completely satisfied with how the transfer station is working out, but even so it’s kind of a model project. When they aren’t – as has been the case so far on the waterway access down by the Harbor Patrol site, for example – it may look hopeless at times, but the struggle goes on anyway. MHA is a bigger deal and its boosters have worked much harder at public opinion, but it’s the same kind of business for community councils.
The qualifier of community councils as the only real independent voice is an odd one. I would say the city government is a more independent voice than the community council one, since community council represents the special interest of local residents. The city government at least represents the interest of the whole city, therefore has a wider and more impartial view than the community council.
If we there are scholars from other cities coming here to study urban planning, they might be even more independent. If you want independent voice, then you want to remove the community councils.
“The city government at least represents the interest of the whole city.”
That’s funny, right there. The city council has directly subverted the will of the voters on a variety of issues over the years.
Because they are doing their job. Democracy works because we elect people better than us to make decisions better than what we can make. That’s the point. If the city council only follow the will of the voters, then the decisions would not be good at all. It’d be just average, since voters are average by default.
“because we elect people better than us…”
Oh so now they’re better than us? So all these decades when our Dear Leaders were zoning most of the city for single family, they were just making better decisions than us. Got it.
You find people with better medical skills than you to treat your illness, and you find people with better mechanical skills to fix your car. You don’t elect people who know how to run a city better than you to run the city?
Yeah, they’re doing an awesome job with thousands of tents and derelict RVs, mountains of trash and needles and skyrocketing property crime. Bravo.
Values and abilities are best measured by margins. What you said is not related to that.
Oh, a Wallyhood favorite, quoting part of someone’s sentence to change the meaning.
How did I change the meaning? TJ believes that our elected officials are better than us. Those are his words, not mine. Although he doesn’t explain Trump….
Trump actually is easily explained by your misunderstanding of how democracy should work. Many bad politicians, especially the tea party types, have been falsely telling people that we should elect officials that would act out our wills. This is the opposite of what I said, and it’s what leads to Trump. When people believe they should choose somebody smarter than they are to run governments, they elect Obama. When people believe they should choose somebody that think and talk like them, you got Trump.
TJ, I 100% agree with you. To call WCC “representative” is to think a government that requires poll taxes is “representative”.
hayduke, what makes you think that the council has subverted anything? Is the problem that they’re sympathetic to renters, despite renters composing over 50% of Seattle’s population and 60% of Wallingford’s? That sounds like responsive politics to me.
Bullshit, Don.
“How many WCC meetings have you gone to that you can without qualification call it “anti-tenant anti-housing”? Where’s your evidence.?:
Hm the meeting I went to where big scary signs implying that multi-story multi-family buildings are contrary to livabilty where being handed out *at the entrance to the meeting room* just kinda struck me as conveying a not- so welcoming environment to people who might be renters in multi-story multi-family buildings.
(Also offensive as heck too).
The key image in those signs is the bulldozer, with the text (which is apparently invisible to urbanists). Consider how much time your group spends telling people that they should see the signs as hostile to renters, that being opposed to HALA equals being opposed to apartments. Do you ever point out that HALA/MHA will make it profitable to demolish the older two and three story apartments on 45th? Or that the number of reduced rent apartments won’t equal the number demolished? I think people in older apartments, duplexes, and rental houses should be just as skeptical of HALA/MHA as any homeowner. All that’s in in for renters in vulnerable areas is a notice to vacate.
good question! why isn’t the NIMBY AF leadership of the WCC doing more outreach? why is it largely older, white homeowners that aren’t in ANY way representative of wallingford?
maybe the preponderance of NIMBY AF homeowners who push housing policies that lead to higher housing prices, that push housing policies that take away options for renters and buyers, that push housing policies of trump-like exclusion through the preservation of zoning rooted in racism and classism are a massive turn off for renter activists.
or maybe, as at the 4 WCC events/meetings i’ve gone to, it’s mostly just the absurd number of anti-housing homeowners lying, yelling, whining and sh*tting all over tenants. super welcoming crowd of fauxgressives.
gee i can’t think why renters and younger people wouldn’t want to get involved with that.
Brian and Mike,
Both of you should read Donn’s informative and well reasoned post above: “The community councils are not and do not intend to be representative government, they’re just organizations formed for the benefit of the
neighborhood by people who have the time and want to put it to that use.”
You can’t get your voice heard until you get beyond your computer screen, unless you are part of a well-organized and active group. If the WCC wanted to be exclusive they would schedule their meetings in the afternoon at the Senior Center.
Thank you for proving my point. The WCC is not at all inclusive, and it doesn’t speak for the neighborhood. Which is why the city should ignore it.
No one “speaks for the neighborhood”, and the city does ignore everyone, so I guess that does work out. But WCC is inclusive. That is not the same thing as representative.
Again, Bullshit, Don. WCC claims to speak for Wallingford, but is really just a clique of homeowners. WCC is not inclusive; you yourself personally ensured that in 2016.
In fact, look at the recent membership-drive mailing, in which WCC promotes itself as a detached single-family house protectionist group.
Look at the recent legal action that you as a board member took on my behalf without any advise or consent of the membership.
There you are again – I suspected Doug T. wasn’t a sincere candidate, and he proved it by following up with a truly nasty piece of writing for the Urbanist. Didn’t surprise me one bit. So you think your group isn’t a “clique”? Maybe not, maybe “gang” is a better word. You could theoretically stick to the positive, but you and your acolytes spend an amazing amount of time trashing people you disagree with instead of trying to build connections.
Sticking to the positive, Margie? You mean like how Wallingford / WCC residents harassed a city worker to tears this week? You mean regularly yelling bile at Rob Johnson? You mean propagating demonstrable lies? You mean pulling stunts like this one?
http://komonews.com/news/local/wallingford-residents-push-back-against-seattles-plans-to-upzone-neighborhood
I’d love to stick to positives, but as long as the WCC keeps lying to people, I can’t.
“You mean regularly yelling bile at Rob Johnson? You mean propagating demonstrable lies? ”
Would that be the same Rob Johnson who has said he wants to “encourage more turnover” for developers by forcing us out of our homes with significantly jacked taxes? The one who was videotaped saying that, and yet you lie and claim he was taken out of context, when anyone who listens to the audio can see that’s exactly what Johnson meant?
They had a coffin and some guy with a big brass horn! For real! That’s amazing. They should go to burning man.
OK, look at the recent membership-drive mailing. It’s my understanding that it went to apartment addresses, and at a significant cost difference to do that. Renters are welcome to join, have joined, have been on the board, and if any local renters are reading this and wondering whether WCC ever takes on anything they care about – maybe you missed last year’s WCC tenant rights boot camp presentation, but it was a capacity crowd who brought some very serious issues. I think you can find most of the information online, and in a word I guess I’d say “check with DCI, Dept of Construction and Inspections”, they apparently provide support for tenant/landlord issues, but the presentation was very informative. That kind of direct renter focus is unusual, and for the most part like any community council it’s about neighborhood quality of life in general that owners and renters all partake of, but I’m sure any ideas about further WCC actions that could benefit renters would be welcome.
It might have gone to apartments (I certainly got mine), but it did jack-all to convince me that WCC would do anything but perpetuate exclusionary zoning and affordable housing only for existing property owners.
I do believe the best for the city is to have technocrats that ignore everyone making decisions purely based on merit and collective good. Collective good for the human kind ideally, but at least collective good for the region not just the interest of specific neighborhoods.
It should not be hard to see if that’s the case, the decisions would be against the interest of some existing Wallingford residents, because good city planning should make it obvious that Wallingford should build up.
Welcoming Wallingford isn’t inclusive either, and it doesn’t speak for the neighborhood. It does seem to promote a lot of venomous posts, yours are a good example, that come across as an attempt to beat people into the ground because they are opposed to HALA. Everybody’s welcome as long as they agree with your agenda. The city has plenty of resources for promoting HALA, in fact Welcoming Wallingford seems pretty redundant. Unless of course somebody felt like they wanted to feed stereotypes and hatred of people who don’t support HALA….
Of course advocacy groups are welcoming only people that agree with them, and promoting stereotype ideas is the common tactic also. I really wish the anti-HALA folks can stop pretending HALA is driven by evil developers.
Again and again, the fact is that people are mostly talking about preferences. Just look at those “livable” debates in the past, and you can see how people hold very different views on what’s livable. I really really hate people talking in terms as if we all want the same type of houses.
The main fight right now is between people who want to have slower changes, and people who want faster changes, not good vs. evil. We have to realize that no matter what the result is, we WILL harm some people. Also we should know that whatever we do the change is already here. On my street a high number of houses were sold for over a million in the past year, turning it from a middle class street to an upper middle class street. There are seemingly never ending renovations since those who paid over a million surely aren’t happy with the interior and exterior of what looks like 600k houses.
If we do nothing, people who used to fit into this neighborhood will be outcasts soon.
Renters probably have less time to devote to civic groups than the home owners who do get involved.
What sort of outreach would you have us do on top of what we’ve already done, Mike? For example, we have doorbell the neighborhood multiple times. That includes apartment buildings in rental units when we can get access into them.
If people can’t be bothered to show up and get involved in their neighborhood after all the outreach we’ve done, whether because they don’t care don’t have the time or whatever, how is that our fault? If people want to be involved and have a voice they need to make a freaking effort like the rest of us have been
Do you talk to like that on the doorsteps?
Oh that’s rich. All the spiteful things that Mike said in that comment and I’m the one being mean?
I don’t need to talk to people like that on their doorsteps, because people on their doorsteps generally are willing to listen and don’t call us a bunch of NIMBY racist Trump voters.
You angry, bro?
The WCC has absolutely nothing to offer renters, unless it’s a fantasy that someday we’ll be able to become homeowners, forget what it’s like to be a renter, and have our newly-found interests represented.
In the meantime, I’ll keep writing our elected representatives, and throwing democracy vouchers their way. At least we have quite a few sympathetic ears on the council. The mayor is kind of an unknown, but we’ll see.
If you’re a Wallingford renter who actually likes the neighborhood, as opposed to just as a stake in some ideological agenda, then WCC is working on your behalf.
I checked out WCC’s website and, aside from a Renter Resources link, I’m trying to figure out what exactly WCC will do with my $15/year to improve housing. The MHA link spreads misinformation about multi-family rezones will greatly increase housing supply (a sound solution to a housing supply crisis). The Backyard Cottages link spends quite a bit of time bemoaning the lack of housing for luxury appliances (cars), and the virtues of owner-occupied properties.
It looks to me like a desire for the status quo, which is great for the folks that already own property. I’ll take my $15 elsewhere, I think, and just email our councilmembers and mayor.
Well, that’s kind of what I’m saying. If you actually like the neighborhood, I suppose you will recognize some value in what you call the status quo. Though we should once again recognize that this “status quo” has included extensive development, so the term is a little misleading, but if you happen to live here but would prefer to see Wallingford really transformed, then indeed, WCC doesn’t have much for you. At least, to the extent that it’s about land use zoning.
I don’t know that we’ve had extensive development (it’s hard with our current zoning), but I certainly have welcomed the development we have gotten. I think WCC members, though, have resisted quite a few of these developments, often proudly. (I say “WCC members” because I’m not sure how many of these actions were official WCC actions)
That said, I really appreciate you, Susanna, and others for trying to engage people in a reasoned way. I certainly disagree with many of your positions and actions, but am glad to have you as neighbors.
These last two comments are an example of this whole debate about representation. Someone expresses an opinion. If the WCC, or Welcoming Wallingford, or City Council Members or whoever agrees with the opinion then they will appear to represent that person’s point of view.
If any of these organizations doesn’t agree with the person, instead of representing that person’s point of view they will do what they think is best. They will even tell the person it is best for them.
This is good. It is better for an organization to do what they think is right than to bend to every opinion they hear. Let’s forget the side argument about who represents who. Instead, get down to what is the right thing do for all.
Well, yes, but note that Seattle City Council and Wallingford Community Council are fundamentally different in this respect. City Council is seated by public election as a theoretically representative body of government in its jurisdiction. Community councils are formed by a group of local residents on behalf of neighborhood values, and in the end only represent people who share those values; hopefully that would indeed be a large percentage of the population, or the community council will tend to be pretty weak, but the exact number isn’t an issue.
Not sure why you are replying to me, since I don’t know what’s the relevance of these words to what I said.
All arguments are propaganda actually. People all have different visions on what the neighborhood should be like, and there are no way to satisfy all or even most. So people all try hard to cite reasons and studies that would support their own views and pretend they are the most right. You did that a couple of times in the past if I recall. I do that from time to time also.
The truth is that this is not an issue of right and wrong. This is just an issue of preferences and different tolerance level on different aspects of life therefore different preferred trade offs. And typically the ones who wins are the ones with better social standings. It’s never owners vs. renters, since renters typically have lower social standing in this society. Renters can only hope the interests of them can be lined up with either the owners or the developers.
I do see myself better studies on this topic than most people who just go for emotional and moral arguments. My preference of the neighborhood is to turn it into a better Ballard or a better Capitol Hill.
No, I wasn’t referring to you.
hear hear! I’d love a Better Capitol Hill or Better Ballard!
Be honest, we have all been on conversations like this in the playground or at the school gate:
Jill: Does Kate live in the neighborhood.
Jane: Yes, but she only rents.
Wallyhood, you are getting stale. The HALA posts get the same few characters engaging in the
same pig wrestling (myself included). You need to get a few new topics which will kick off vigorous new arguments. HCC and language pathways at Lincoln High School would make the xIMBYs look like rational people.
I think the characters and the arguments are gradually changing. First of all, it’s not one-sided anti-HALA as it used to be, and I think anti-HALA would keep losing the dominance. People who truly have strong preference of life in Wallingford in the past have to move out (cash out), because the current Wallingford is already not what it was. People who move in are often younger hipsters in the condos and apartments, or people who escaped from Bay Area to found the million dollar “cheap” houses here. The former would already be living in higher density buildings, and the latter have endured nightmares on housing price issues.
Even with the same characters, the content of the arguments has changed a lot. Just a few years ago you’d see a lot of anti-HALA voices insisting Wallingford housing is still affordable. That voice really only died down for less than a year.
The school topics are never that big here. One needs kids to be interested in that, and there are some other blogs more focused on that already.
Mira, Just on my block, the Sightline map you used in you count misses a garage converted to an apartment and two sublet basements. This is probably because they are not permitted but they are doing nobody any harm.
Seriously?
No. It’s the internet.
The author forgot to document the numbe rof single or doubly occuppied tents and old cars and trailers which have sprung up all over the area as well as the potential numbe rof what ever prospective number of small dwellings and tents which are coming any day nowto the area. How about an additional stastic of empty buildings which could be used for housing or knocked down– whack!!- and some kind of condo/apartment building/ small huts dwelling site be put in their places. Kitaro’s, Iron Bull, Zaw. Guild 45th… Then stats on building which is in progress– the Auto Supply store & the store on 42 & Stone Way N. Wallingford is preparing for many more cramped together residents in apartments.
Good point. I think WCC should invite incoming Nickelville residents and the neighborhood homeless to be on the board. It’s not just the owners and renters.
These increasing attacks on the Wallingford Community Council come in the wake of its participation in a challenge to the city concerning the city’s environmental review of the potential impact of its proposed upzoning of several neighborhoods. The same characters who have been relentlessly vilifying anyone who questions or disapproves of these upzones over the last several years are the same characters who are now accusing the WCC of various and sundry prejudices and mischief.
They ignore the hard work WCC has performed over the years to ensure holding developers to legal standards, advocating for shoreline access for all residents, providing forums for safety, quality of life, historic preservation, schools, traffic mitigtion, and other resident concerns, and encouraging local residents to participate in the decision-making process that impacts their lives and the lives of their children and neighbors.
The outsized, strident voices of these density advocates and representatives of big money and big construction and development interests are being granted a “false equivalency” here on the Wallyhood blog as they also attempt to penetrate other neighborhood forums and blogs to promote the interests of big money. Their arguments and positions are old, divisive, inflammatory, ugly and bullying. For them to claim they care about the poor renter or poor folks of any kind is pathetic in the extreme. Yet they persist as if they were paid handsomely by the comment.
Even if you disagree with the YIMBY views in the comments on this blog there is no reason to assume the people who post these comments are not motivated by a desire to do what is best for all.
They are old, divisive, inflammatory, ugly and bullying comments on all sides. I hope there are a few funny ones too.
The “hard work” you are talking about are well-studied tactics utilized by middle class and upper middle class everywhere in the US to block the poor out of their neighborhoods. The idea is centered around that “our community must have certain standards”, and make the standards high enough so the cost of living in the community would be high enough to block out all the undesirables. Living in Wallingford is already expensive no matter what, to require higher standard without increasing density would make it much worse. I am guessing many home owners in Wallingford today couldn’t afford to live here if they didn’t move in some time ago. It’s a shame for them to ignore that fact and just take the housing price gain as if it’s their birthright.
Yeah, you will get YOUR safety and quality of life, at the expense of the less fortunate. I am pretty sure you don’t have the moral high ground. Stop pretending it’s evil money on the other side.