(This is an opinion piece by a Wallyhood writer. Wallyhood welcomes everyone in our community to contribute their perspectives on the issues that impact our community. Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to add your voice.)
The City is just days away from passing sweeping zoning changes across Seattle. Led by City Councilmember Rob Johnson, Seattle City Council is pushing through zoning changes for 27 urban villages throughout Seattle, including Wallingford, with a final vote scheduled for March 18. The upzone legislation is unfortunately expected to pass.
These zoning changes are part of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA); recommendations made by a committee convened in 2015 by former Mayor Ed Murray and dominated by the largest and wealthiest developers in Seattle.
Are big developers taking us for a ride?
In exchange for the city allowing developers to build taller, denser buildings with higher profit margins, HALA would require them to include some affordable units in their projects or pay into an affordable housing fund.
It should be easy to determine if these wealthy developers pushing the upzones are driven by self-interest or to truly fix the affordable housing crisis. Simply look at how much affordable housing contributions they agreed to in the areas where their projects dominated, Downtown and South Lake Union.
The wealthiest developers shaped the HALA committee recommendations, but will contribute the smallest percentages towards affordable housing. And they refused to do more.
Vulcan Real Estate, a company valued at $1.5 billion, is at the forefront of powerful development firms supporting upzoning. But in 2017, when rezoning was quietly passed for Downtown and South Lake Union where Vulcan and a few other big developers rule the land, they were only required to set aside a meager 2 to 5% of their units as affordable or pay an equivalent in lieu fee. The City conveniently left out these embarrassingly low numbers in virtually every document, only stating that the Downtown/South Lake Union rezone was based on the “current incentive zoning rate.”
While the wealthy high rise developers are only required to set aside 2 to 5% of their units as affordable or pay the fee, when these new set of upzones pass in the neighborhoods, the smaller developers that are building neighborhood scale developments with less profit margins will be required to set aside a higher 5 to 9% of their units as affordable or pay the equivalent fee. These affordable housing requirements are especially disappointing when you realize that other cities with similar Incentive Zoning programs set aside 10-30% of their units as affordable.
When attempts were made to raise the Downtown/South Lake Union affordable housing requirement to a meagar 5%, these wealthy and powerful developer interest groups did not jump at the chance to contribute more to affordable housing. Instead they organized under the name Coalition for Housing Solutions and sent a letter protesting to City Council saying that changing the terms would violate the “Grand Bargain” agreement.
The Coalition’s lawyer also reminded the City Council who holds the purse strings: “The Coalition for Housing Solutions has maintained its commitments through the grand bargain… We have provided financial support measured in six figures to the Seattle Housing Levy campaign and to the operations of Seattle for Everyone… to support implementation of the HALA plan.”
Of course Seattle for Everyone, a pro-HALA group that claims to advocate for affordable housing, did not protest the low affordable housing requirements for Downtown and South Lake Union. Which is not surprising when you realize, as the letter makes clear, that Seattle for Everyone is funded at least in part by the Coalition for Housing Solutions, a group made up of the largest power players in the Seattle building industry. This move gave those building industry giants increased financial benefit from the Downtown/South Lake Union upzones, where their projects dominate, while pushing the real burden onto the neighborhoods and those smaller developers who build there.
Vulcan and others like them can afford to do better. But this is how the biggest development companies get rich. They pass the buck.
Big money is behind well-crafted HALA messaging.
Seattle’s most powerful developers, and the self-proclaimed ‘urbanists’ who believe in them, not only have the clout to win face time at City Hall, but they also have the money to fund what amounts to market research to further their agenda. Just one example is grants given by Open Philanthropy Project to pro-upzone groups Sightline for $750,000 and for $50,000 to Seattle for Everyone, grants specifically to “promote” HALA land use changes.
That’s almost a million dollars from a single donor to promote HALA upzones (with likely more funds behind the scenes from groups like the Coalition for Housing Solutions). How could regular people even compete?
Sightline in many ways acted like a marketing firm would, including focus group research to develop messaging that would be appealing to their target audience. For example, focus group participants favored the message that Seattle needs more homes, all shapes and sizes, for all our neighbors. Sightline goes on later to explain: People are more open to density when it’s framed as “options.” These talking points then get passed on to groups like Seattle For Everyone whose field directors recruit people to show up at City Council meetings arming them with a virtual script.
If increasing density were an effective strategy to combat displacement, wouldn’t areas at high risk of displacement and gentrification be asking for it? They are not. In the International District Humbows not Hotels is actively fighting larger developments that displace their communities. A Central District resident in this Reuter’s article spoke to the unfortunate trend of one black family home in her community being torn down and it being replaced by four to six townhomes, which were often bought by people who are affluent and white. Mobile home parks residents have reached out to City Council to protect their affordable living situation from being redeveloped into more dense and expensive housing.
Vulcan, and other big developers like them, wield great influence in this town. But look past the slick talking points and look into the numbers. The biggest developers are increasing their profits while pushing the real burden onto the residents of the neighborhoods and the smaller developers who build there, neither of which ever had a real say in this plan in the first place.
Outside of the downtown core, Vulcan et al. also got a break in the University District MHA upzones, where blocks upzoned to 320 feet were classified as only M1 category upzones, not M2. That saves money for the big developers in Vulcan’s league, at the expense of less money in MHA housing subsidies. Even O’Brien saw the problem with that, but most of the council lined up behind Johnson and the big money.
(MHA subsidy requirements depend on the extent of the upzone. Everything gets at least a one step boost – 10 feet extra height or some equivalent capacity increase, and “M” category requirements along with that. An upzone on top of that makes it “M1”, and a two-jump upzone should be “M2” … unless it’s a really big upzone that puts it in Vulcan’s league, then it stays at “M1.” There are some M2 blocks here, but Vulcan doesn’t have that much going on with LR2 apartment buildings. The smaller developers want to take Seattle to court over MHA, but so far I understand they’re having trouble finding a developer with an MHA project, who would have legal standing for a case, who’s willing to risk a fight with the city with a project going through the permit process.)
Well written. Accurate. Very discouraging. Sad. Susanna, great article. Lots of good information. We are so fortunate to have you in our community.
Just curious as I don’t believe I’ve ever read anything very specific about this “affordable housing fund” such as how much is in it, has any housing been built, have all the developers paid into it what they are supposed to (I’ve read accounts that indicate some developers have not), etc. …?
The Seattle Housing Levy yields $47 million a year. It is leveraged with other Federal tax credit, State and County funds, vouchers, community banks and private philanthropy to build thousands of units of low-income housing. See the Seattle Office of Housing Annual Report.
I’m specifically referring to the fund the developers have to pay into in order to avoid having to supply low income units in their developments. If you have the answer to the question I posed above about that, I’m super interested in hearing the answer. Thanks!
Sorry. Connecting the dots to my comment above, the developers pay into the Seattle Housing Fund, administered by the Office of Housing. OH combines Housing Levy and developer fees paid in lieu of building inclusionary units into their housing fund. Their awards cover 1/3 to 1/4 of the cost of construction of low-income units.
Thanks for the clarification. I’m wondering if anyone smarter than I am has discovered a link to a site that will pair the developer with their project that then shows how much they paid into the fund? I’m looking for specific accountability. Oh, and if they have actually paid into the fund what they owe. There was an ST story some time back indicating many of the fees due the fund had yet to be collected. Accidental oversight, I’m sure (ha!).
Are developers taking us for a ride? No
The City needs more housing so this is a solution. This isn’t a conspiracy cooked up by developers.
There isn’t as much profit for developers as you would think because 1) they usually need to acquire the underlying land during permitting and the price of that land would skyrocket if HALA was skewed to developers. The original landowner would benefit. and 2) If margins were so great for developers supply and demand would lead to an oversupply of homes and things would balance out.
You can’t add affordable housing requirements of developers without them. Think about a venn diagram. For HALA to work you need to add requirements of developers without pushing them away. If you require too much then developers will go to Bellevue, they aren’t trapped in Seattle, they will go wherever a project is financially feasible. So you need consultation from developers or pay a lot of money to consulting firms to find that overlap in the venn diagram where the developer will add affordable housing, but will also determine that the project is financially feasible.
“This isn’t a conspiracy cooked up by developers.” If conspiracy means something cooked up by a group of likeminded individuals out of sight of the public, HALA fits.
You’re correct about the regional aspect of the problem. The plutocracy prefers a hyper wealthy, high ROI, dense growth induced core, so that’s what we get. They care not a whit what happens in the foothills.
We’ve been talking about this for almost 4 years, now (while more & more people lose their homes due to high demand & low supply). This has had waaaay too much public process, already.
Most (not all) of the “public process” was the City telling and not listening. The HALA committee appointed by Ed Murray was stacked toward development interests and the results show it. If the City had engaged openly and honestly from the beginning we could have adopted a truly effective inclusionary zoning ordinance two years ago. Instead we’re getting an upside down result that not only pisses off lots of people who will see a degradation of their quality of life, but won’t produce anywhere close to the inclusion and equity the City promises. Displacement will continue because there are few provisions to stop or mitigate it, with nothing in CB 119444.
Process for process sake doesn’t make it good.
This isn’t a solution to “city needs more housing.” The city has been getting record amounts of housing, and I guarantee you there is no developer sitting around idle, waiting for a lot to build on. MHA will if anything result in a decrease in total numbers of units, as the requirements subtract from the profit motive. It will only spread it out more.
This building boom didn’t immediately lead to oversupply – because of the concurrent 4% annual growth rate. Now, after several years of it and some reduction in the growth rate, we’re seeing vacancies – and some renter enticements, but the rents will never really go down. They haven’t really gone down ever, in the last quarter century, even through bubble bursts like 2009. That’s one price we pay for these unsustainable growth surges: high cost of living, forever more. MHA gives us some subsidized housing, but not nearly enough to make housing affordable, just enough for a few lottery winners to have a nice place.
If you aren’t willing to go for more density in Seattle, then you are allowing suburban sprawl. The region is going to grow, it is our choice if we want to go vertical or horizontal. I vote for more vertical than suburban sprawl.
The MHA has been designed so the City will be happy (increased affordable housing) and developers will be happy (increased FAR). So profit should still be there as it has been. it is more dependent on typical development cycles rather than the MHA.
The rents did go down in 2010 so it is possible.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-rent-hikes-slow-amid-apartment-boom-but-average-two-bedroom-tops-2000/
There has been a ton of new apartments in the City, which has led to higher vacancy in the past 6 months and a risk of rents dropping so in 12-24 months maybe nobody will be building apartments with or without the MHA. In the end, if no demand for apartments then nobody will build any. Development has its cycles.
The purported causal relationship between increasing density reducing sprawl or other environmental objectives is a false meme. The fly in the ointment is the assumption that growth is inevitable. Notwithstanding all the angst about global warming and other severe environmental crises related to our political-economic addiction to growth, we persist in pretending that we can ignore/accept growth and deal with its impacts by increasing density in the core of growing urban agglomerations. The best available data and analyses says this strategy is not sustainable: No matter how much you try to stop sprawl and other environmental impacts (like increasing GHG emissions) by doing more of the same (growing) the further away from the goal you will find yourself. It is the Red Queen’s Race to nowhere.
Here’s why: no matter how hard you try to reduce impacts by growing the core, the overall urban area will not have a reduced impact. Notwithstanding the perceived reduction in per capita footprint by living more densely: 1) cities do not scale to lower impacts the bigger they get. IOW, larger cities are not more efficient than small ones. 2) Even if you do gain some efficiency (arguably there is some per capita improvement in the core), it is offset by the overall growth. If you double your population but don’t halve your per capita footprint you have gained nothing. Red Queen Race again.
This is nonsense. Climate change is a global problem. The total worldwide amount of greenhouse gases emitted is too high and needs to go down. Absent radical policies meant to reduce the global population, the only way to achieve reductions in global emissions is by reducing the per-capita amount. You seem to concede that people living closer together is likely to achieve just this, but it somehow doesn’t count because the total emissions within the city limits might still be going up? Zoom out to the state or national level and you might see a different story.
“Zoom out to the state or national level and you might see a different story.” Please do. My impression from looking at data for years is the opposite, that most places on the globe are continuing to grow their footprint. If you find contrary info, please share. Read the IPCC stuff etc; delinking the economy from energy is very difficult, and replacing fossil CO2 energy with something no or low GHG is extremely difficult.
As for the relationship between global and local: “as modernization has reached the furthest lands of the planet, ‘redundant population’ is produced everywhere and all localities have to bear the consequences of modernity’s global triumph. They are now confronted with the need to seek – in vain, it seems – local solutions to globally produced problems.” From a review of Zygmunt Bauman’s “Wasted Lives.”
I know very well that global emissions continue to increase, propelled in large part by developing countries where people are rising out of poverty and adopting a higher-carbon lifestyle. Even so, more developed economies such as the USA are still responsible for the bulk of the total emissions. If we’re going to reduce our global emissions we either need to reduce our per-capita emissions or we need to reduce our population.
You stated above that reducing per-capita emissions is insufficient. What population reduction measures do you propose then? Shall we start exterminating senior citizens at retirement age? Sterilize most young people to get the birth rate down? Ethnic cleansing? Something else?
Yes, U.S. (and developed West) is responsible for the major share of “total” emissions starting with the industrial revolution. And yes, “developing” countries have the fastest increase in rate of emissions. China is now the single largest emitter, higher than U.S. and EU combined (says wiki).
Your either/or is improperly limited; we can reduce both per capita and population. I believe one of the best possible scenarios to get to a lower footprint is this from PostCarbon Institute. The range of possible future goes to hell from there.
“What population reduction measures do you propose then? Shall we start exterminating senior citizens at retirement age? Sterilize most young people to get the birth rate down? Ethnic cleansing? Something else?
Your questions seem to be a common response by people when confronted with the reality that we are in population overshoot. Scenarios do exist to transition to sustainable levels of consumption (and thus population) without horrendous personal sacrifice and suffering and megadeath. Unfortunately, they require that we acknowledge the need to breed less, meaning empowering women more. I think it’s clear that sustainability also involves abandoning large parts of our capitalist politic-economy, which seems to be locked in to growth. Most places on the planet are not on a path toward these solutions. Let me know when you figure out some way to change that; I haven’t. Thus I blog, just trying to raise awareness.
Not speaking for Toby on this – I think his analysis rests on a different and possibly sounder base, but I have my own more simple minded view. Basically, “Rome was not built in a day.” It is almost certainly possible, in principle, to bring a million people together in an urban settlement with improved efficency. But that’s relevant only if that’s what we’re doing, and of course it isn’t. What we’re doing is a gold rush, and efficiency is just another thing that falls by the wayside, along with the historic architecture, the trees and green things, the parking, streets you could reliably get places on, housing you could afford, etc.
One reality of that unsustainable pace of growth is that Seattle casts a big sprawl shadow over the region. The real, believes-in-fairies urbanist sees all those million people actually living in the city, but in the gold rush city, they won’t. They can’t afford to, and/or they don’t want to. None of this is because of zoning. A rapid increase in density is inevitably expensive and unattractive in all the ways Seattle is experiencing right now.
Worried about carbon emissions? Push for thorium reactors.
So I see you do understand that zoning has not been the problem – a ton of new apartments, higher vacancy, possible slowdown of development. So upzones are not solving that problem, if it isn’t actually a problem, right? I think we’re near a logical breakthrough here.
As for the happy developers, see above – they’d like to take the city to court. Not Vulcan of course, but the developers who build most of the residential that ordinary people live in are not as thrilled. More subsidized housing is all we get out of this, and not much subsidized housing.
“The rents did go down in 2010 …” ha ha. That graph tells the story, all right. From 2008 to 2010, they went down what, $12? In the context of about tripling over 20 years.
The city really owes you true believers big time. All the young people who got behind this in hopes their friends could afford to live here, who believed Rob Johnson’s BS about hoping his daughters could make their homes here … Vulcan should be on the hook for a huge home for the feeble minded.
As for sprawl, Toby’s right. As long as economic growth in this region is focused on Seattle the way it has been, people who work here will find accommodations elsewhere, any old elsewhere. That’s how sprawl happens.
MHA is a direct result of uncontrolled and poorly managed growth. The high cost of housing and the horrific homelessness situation are both in large part a direct result of that growth. “Well-paying and meaningful jobs” will become a smaller percentage of the work force over time. “The forests in the foothills” will likewise diminish along with the disappearing salmon and orca until we grapple honestly with the issue of growth.
Excellent reporting: much of the support for HALA & MHA has been ginned up by the big Downtown developers, who paid $750,000 to their mouthpiece Sightline for messaging research (choice always works!) and hired Seattle for Everyone’s paid staff to organize supportive testimony, otherwise known as “astroturf.”
Susanna didn’t mention that the same corporations (Vulcan owned by now-deceased Paul Allen and Bezos’ Amazon) raised $325,000 almost overnight to oppose the Employee Head Tax that would have doubled the Seattle Housing Levy’s capital funds to build low-income housing. The Mayor folded like a lawn chair. Seattle still has no Plan B to pay for more housing to fight homelessness.
I have a feeling that many of the same folks who oppose HALA & MHA also opposed the Head Tax.
I’m a one person anecdote: You’re wrong. I supported the tax large employers effort from the very beginning when Transit Riders Union was organizing the effort. I do think the amount got compromised down too far, and more importantly, the measure should have gone straight to a per dollar payroll tax, not a stupid per capita tax (that discriminates against low wage employers).
And BTW I voted for the Commons. Twice.
In my observation, it was not. They were low-information New Urbanists who were easily led. Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability and Equity (SCALE), who filed the appeal, supports more funding for affordable housing. The Head Tax would have doubled the funds from the Housing Levy. It is tragic that Amazon opposed it and mounted an opposition campaign. The Mayor acted on their behalf to reverse the vote.
2nd person anecdote: you’re wrong. Also agree about the botched design – should have been payroll from day 1, which would have been a different deal for Bartell’s et al.
The people who were tearing their hair out and prophesying a Detroit-style doom for Seattle included the typical development boosters, who support both MHA and the unsustainable growth that makes housing unaffordable but real estate development lucrative.
I think you’re all ignoring the deep neo-libertarian streak that is running through Seattle right now. Led by the Seattle Times editorial board and echoed by activists like James Maiocco and Saul Spady, they believe that the “free market” should reign, and issues like affordable housing can only be solved by the private sector and charitable giving. This group of people oppose most government intervention and regulation, including things like HALA, MHA, and the Head Tax.
The Times has a mixed editorial board; at least two cannot stand how MHA is being done (undemocratically).
I am more concerned about the neoliberal regime that controls development and land use. They have far more power.
I’m no great fan of the editorial board. They’re able to see through the nonsense that fuels MHA and similar developer give-aways, but that doesn’t take any real genius. At the same time, as chamber of commerce type boosters, they’re part of the real problem.
“that doesn’t take any real genius.” lol — if that were really true, the Council wouldn’t have voted for it 9 to 0 yesterday.
the Times reports that 17,000 units are in process in downtown coming online in the next two years. If a 10% inclusionary requirement were in place t here, instead of the paltry Grand Bargain amount, we’d have 1,700 affordable units downtown available right away.
Yet the “urbanists” blame single family homeowners for the problem. I think not…
that’s not actually how inclusionary zoning works – and that’s the reason you only got 21% of the votes.
NIMBYs can’t win elections.
and yeah, single family homeowners who:
-downzoned half the city
-voted down fair housing
-voted down rent control
-worked with groups like WCC to kill low income missing middle housing in single family zones
-used ‘neighborhood planning’ to force new multifamily housing to cannibalize existing multifamily housing by gerrymandering boundaries
-sued to delay nominal affordable housing rezones
…are a massive part of the problem.
Your repeated ad hominem ‘arguments’ have nothing to do with the issues.
fake news from the anti-housing crowd. there’s a reason NIMBYs don’t win elections. there’s a reason SCALE’s attempt to kill an absurdly minimal rezone for affordable housing was rejected. there’s a reason seattle has a housing crisis.
and it’s because of folks like SCALE. and the WCC.
luckily, the city is now majority renter, and the tactics homeowners have used to exacerbate sprawl and the housing crisis for those of us that will never be able to afford to buy a house in the city – are no longer useful or legitimate. the tide is turning. a better world is possible.
Alexandria, VA has experienced a 28% increase in housing prices and rising rents since December when Amazon announced its move to that city. This trend will continue to grow as well as affordability. I guess this is because of the NIMBYs as well
Mike is an angry either:or, name calling debater. In my experience he’s hardly ever worth engaging unless you want to get angry too.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c16a465e30384d6304ea62dc30b298d56e92580df109743a03053d827b5476b7.jpg pending sales, not home prices.
oh, and much like seattle, affordable housing is illegal in most of alexandria: https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/gis/info/ZoningMap2018_Final.pdf
more fake news
“NIMBYs can’t win elections.”
Hey, btw, so sad about your pals Robby J and Mike O’Brien dropping out. That musta hurt, did you cry? Fear not, I’m sure your socialist whackjob friend Shaun Scott will take Johnson’s place, right comrade??
i am thrilled that rob isn’t going to be replaced w/ a climate change-denying NIMBY.
rob is going to be replaced by someone who understands the severity of the housing crisis, understands the need for affordable housing everywhere, understands the impacts of redlining and racist single family zoning are still omnipresent today, and understands the severity of the climate crisis.
D4 is majority renter, and shaun will make a phenomenal representative. happy to throw my support behind rational, progressive candidates like that.
Who is a climate-change denying NIMBY? How does promoting growth without acknowledging (let alone acting on) the laws of physics that tell us growth has limits accept climate change?
ah – true. pedersen is a millionaire NIMBY who supports exclusionary zoning and letting wealthy homeowners stop projects, while he opposed ST3, MHA, safe streets and bike lanes
that makes him more of a climate *arsonist*, than a climate change denier.
Aside from your ill-informed irrelevant attack, you haven’t answered my question: How is promoting growth consistent with the need to reduce our economic activity in order to avoid climate change disaster?
“Globally, economic and population growth continue to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The contribution of population growth between 2000 and 2010 remained roughly identical to the previous three decades, while the contribution of economic growth has risen sharply (high confidence). Between 2000 and 2010, both drivers outpaced emission reductions from improvements in energy intensity (Figure SPM.3). Increased use of coal relative to other energy sources has reversed the long-standing trend of gradual decarbonization of the world’s energy supply.”
IPCC Working Group III Summary for Policy Makers (“The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) assesses literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change.”)
You might also review Joseph Burger et al. 2017 “Extra-metabolic energy use and the rise in human hyper-density.”
(“Today, cities across the globe flux greater energy than net primary productivity on a per area basis. This is possible by importing enormous amounts of energy and materials required to sustain hyper-dense, modern humans. The metabolic rift with nature created by modern cities fueled largely by fossil energy poses formidable challenges for establishing a sustainable relationship on a rapidly urbanizing, yet finite planet.”)
Yes, how dare people stand up for their neighborhood against an overbearing government that lies to them.
The city said your fancy new protected bike lane on 35th Ave NE would be a simple “repaving project.” And then Rob Johnson feigned ignorance at the overwhelming opposition to it from the community. 68% opposed as well as virtually all the businesses there. It was great to see a community come together and defeat the bike lane zealots who enjoy far too much sway at city hall.
People are tiring of your agenda. Getting nervous yet?
Where does the 2% to 5% of affordable units number come from? The number I see from the City is 5% to 11%.
It’s hard to find for Downtown/SLU, but here it is. The “performance” amounts are the percentage of units they would need to include onsite if they built the units (otherwise they would pay into the fee).
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed1bd4c675b1f347ef243b5197a53ae2992b82a682fdd1a339634f58c1535835.png
Do you have a link to this chart? These numbers seems to differ dramatically from what I found on the City’s website.
shocked those fighting to preserve exclusionary zoning and stop a minimal affordable housing rezone would continue to spread fake news.
SCC has the recap, which shows the higher percentages https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/739377da268fb3e5b4ab7c50c68c8286c2c83be2d2c9f8a5e73224bd0ac6fd60.jpg
SCC recap here: https://sccinsight.com/2017/04/10/downtownslu-mha-upzone-passes-law/
The higher percentages in this chart fall under the Commercial category, but it is highly unlikely that a Commercial building would choose the “performance” option, i.e. build affordable housing on site in an office building. It gets a bit wonky because the Downtown/SLU rezone is set up a little differently than the other rezones, and if you want to get technical then you could refer to it as MHA-R for “Residential,” which is what Councilmember Herbold was trying to increase in her amendment that did not pass. Whatever the exact scenario, the vast majority of Downtown/SLU performance fall under the “Residential” category, which are required to set aside 2 to 5% of their units for the “performance” option (building the units on site). This is how it was explained to me by city staff and is my best understanding of how it works.
Thank you, Rick. I agree–many of us feel left out of this debate because the basic arguments are wrong, in my opinion. I want density, but I want it to be aesthetically appealing, to benefit/support local businesses, and to be designed around walkable communities. So many of the debates around HALA are people screaming yes or no (and both sides are guilty of unhelpful name-calling and stereo-typing the opposition) when what we need is a debate about how to make HALA better. I don’t want Wallingford to look like Ballard or the U District (with blocks of ugly 4 story buildings). But I haven’t found a way to engage in that debate. I completely agree with the list of information you’ve asked for to help us evaluate HALA.
Thank you again, Susanna, for another comprehensive and clarifying description of HALA’s machinations over the past three years. I just read a July 2018 Sightline report of such simple and transparent propaganda that it would embarrass every one of my freshmen students. Clearly, every self-described “institute” like Sightline conducts focus groups in such a way as to get the responses that the company employing them wants.
In this case, there is no research or stats of any kind; the group of 12 people was divided into 4 groups with no explanation of what exactly they were told or why exactly they were chosen. But somehow, they showed that Seattle “[r]esidents see the downsides of growth, but most see the booming economy as a good thing. They are realistic that Seattle’s growth cannot be stopped.” Obviously, no one in the group was in Seattle during the Boeing bust of 1971. But, surely, no one is bringing down Amazon.
The message that “resonated positively” was that “’Seattle needs more homes, all shapes and sizes, for all our neighbors’ ……Participants [unsurprisingly] repeated this language verbatim as a solution.” What this happy ‘solution’ has to do with the context in which it was presented, the downsides of density, beats me.
Following some of the responses of the group, the leader found that as long as “the conversation was framed with people, not buildings, there was more openness to a range of solutions. In fact, images and stories of real people made opposition to housing solutions seem harsh and out of touch.” Except, “when participants perceived living situations to be unsafe or undesirable [tents] . . . .they focused on the individual’s choices or problems rather than systemic solutions.” Like poverty and mental disabilities maybe?
Then the clincher – “One big obstacle is that people don’t understand how more housing of all kinds will reduce overall prices.” Yes, we’ve certainly seen a lot of price dropping in the last five years, haven’t we? “It could be more effective,” the writer goes on, ‘to show the converse, or what would happen if homes, including luxury units, (my emphasis) were not built.”
Yes, now that we have such a high vacancy rate of those luxury homes downtown, how are we ever going to know how many units would never be rented at all if they never had been built? The vacancy rates could be staggering and might even stop Seattle’s unstoppable growth.
But not to worry. With our “shared, big-hearted values,” although Sightline would probably disagree, I believe that the city and all Seattleites should have no problem with filling the hole downtown with a beautiful skyscraper open to all. “Seattle for All.” All people, of “all shapes and sizes,” of all ethnicities and income levels, excluding, of course, the homeless. They have such bad manners and are probably incapable of “resonating positively” anyway.
Zoning code is the conspiracy of existing home owners intentionally suppressing supply so housing price can be inflated to increase their wealth. If this is a true free market with less regulation, the housing price would have been way lower.
To be fair, I believe some advocates of exclusionary zoning aren’t in it for the windfall wealth but rather to preserve their preference for 1960s-ish suburban-ish environs. (Of course, some others, motivated by classism, show up at city council hearings and say that “apartments will ghettoize the neighborhood.”)
But in a free market prices would indeed by lower.
How would a “free market” make prices lower? More importantly, what is a “free market”? Seriously: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you mean if we simply removed zoning entirely? You’re not really Roger Valdez are you?
Prior to modern zoning, a market far more brutal than ours today c. 1910 came up with triple deckers. Because working class people have money, just not lots of it. So those with a bit more achieved ownership renting out the top two floors; those with less rented them, cheek by jowl with single family houses (except and until they were prohibited by zoning).
In Seattle 3 units per lot won’t reach working class folks, but who knows…two floors of micros plus one owner’s suite to subsidize mortgage with rent? Might work!
There is no lack of study on how zoning regulations increase the price. Obviously density-related zoning rules directly suppress supply, and simply the practice of zoning itself requires resource to maintain. It’s the worst when the regulation is determined at the very local level, where the interest is very concentrated in the local property owners instead of having a big picture view. Again and again, I kept mention Tokyo because the regulation there is determined at level higher than the city, therefore allowing more buildings to be torn down and rebuilt all the time with limited restrictions. That leads to housing price not seeing growth despite population growth. Texas has very relaxed regulation also, and that leads to a much lower housing price also.
I am not really advocating removing all regulations, but the situation here in Seattle is bad, just like California. What we observed in California is then a net gain of rich people because it’s a desirable place to live, but a net loss of all others because of the heavy-regulation resulting in lack of affordable housing.
Seattle is gradually becoming a upper-middle-class-and-above-only place also, and if we want any regulation, I think what would make sense would be things like taxing people by square feet land per occupant to force density up. That would be the kind of regulation I can support, as opposed to the low density rules that strongly favored the richer folks.
riiiight. how dare a neighborhood wish to keep its trees, yards, character…
You are just using the most common excuses for regulations to protect personal interest. The character of this neighborhood was fishing, totem poles, and long houses. Too bad there weren’t zoning codes earlier! If we still got long houses it’d be quite some character instead of the average houses that one couldn’t distinguish from many other places. If you want trees, the way to have more tree in the neighborhood while housing the same amount of people is to have people moving into apartments and leave more room for trees. We can turn half of Wallingford into a forest AND house more people if we leave one half and build up the other half. That way we wouldn’t need yards also, and we’d have a public forest all can share as a community.
“Mobile home parks residents have reached out to City Council to protect their affordable living situation from being redeveloped into more dense and expensive housing.”
Yes, prohibiting mobile homes is another widely recognized flavor of exclusionary zoning. Mobile homes should be legal on any residential lot.
Bbbbbut–mobile homes are low density compared to what you advocate for. Huh? In a “free market” there wouldn’t be any mobile home parks this side of Snoqualmie Pass. The spread between their value and existing capacity would set them all up for elimination.
Maybe – legalize mobile homes and if they don’t work economically it won’t happen. If they do, it will,
Actually in a freer market there would be a lot of mobile home parks in places around Seattle, because Seattle area would be built up more with higher density. People who are now commuting from places far away would move closer to the city, therefore leaving many suburbs that are further away with cheaper land. Seattle metro area is about 10 times the size of Milan metro, and about 25% more population. You don’t find Milan metro to be crowded or without place for mobile homes. And it’s not like they are that free market.
Sure, check out “Ready Player One” to see the future that you describe…
How about checking Tokyo and Paris? Why use wild imagination when there are real world cases? You can’t learn anything from the failure in San Francisco?
A couple of thoughts:
1. “While the wealthy high rise developers are only required to set aside 2 to 5% of their units as affordable or pay the fee, when these new set of upzones pass in the neighborhoods, the smaller developers that are building neighborhood scale developments with less profit margins will be required to set aside a higher 5 to 9% of their units as affordable or pay the equivalent fee. These affordable housing requirements are especially disappointing when you realize that other cities with similar Incentive Zoning programs set aside 10-30% of their units as affordable.”
California is about to pass a law (within a few months and everyone in the state and the developers are for it in a big way, so I think it will) for now called SB50. It requires all developers, big and small, over 10 units, to make either 11% or 20% of affordable housing. This law would REMOVE local zoning control from all jobs rich areas, all areas with commuter transit including light rail, trains, busses and ferries, etc. So.. No local zoning. Based upon the heights, I did an economic analysis, and developers can make their usual profits at 11% “low low affordable” or 20% “affordable” and at the land prices in CA (way higher than Seattle. This would be statewide.
2. Right now, many cities allow in lieu fees for affordable and this bill would continue to allow that. For example, Mountain View, CA — home of Google and $14m a half acre in most of the town, and $150m an acre on the other side where Google is, allows $35 a sf in lieu fee for affordable housing.
Guess what Seattle is? $22 a sf. No one builds at that price.. minimum cost to build is $350 a sf in CA.. and more in Seattle.
In lieu fees need to be banned, and developers at land costs in Seattle surely can make their usual astronomical profits while building 11% or 20% affordable housing as my economic analysis showed for CA. And that was for 45,55, 65 and 75 foot heights ..
3. Did I mention that SB50 will remove nearly all developer fees for schools, parks, infrastructure, etc? CA proposes to quietly make that up with $279 Billion in new taxes.. so the public will pick up the tab for the developers.. at 40.3 million people, that’s $7500 a person. I don’t recommend Seattle do this.
Yes, developers are taking the entire west coast for a ride.. it’s lucrative, they take the profits out of state, and they don’t want to pay their fair share.
In lieu fees should be the same up and down the coast, at least $350 a sf so cities can work with affordable housing non-profits to actually get housing built. But frankly in lieu fees shouldn’t be accepted at all. Developers can make money and still build, esp with these additional heights.
The public, in all three states on the west coast, needs to band together and stop this now.. because once upzoning in this form happens, we cannot go back. We won’t get back the fees and requirements to build affordable at reasonable percents and we won’t get our cities organized into walkable, reasonable places that support people, not the developers who left after each project was sold off 18m after completion and took the profits out of state.
Yes, the rates are incredibly low. Seattle is 5% to 10%. NYC is 25%. Portland is 10% to 30%.
In addition, Portland asked developers to share the savings realized by waiving parking for new projects to fund affordable housing, resulting in Portland not having to upzone anything. Johnson and Council asked for NOTHING from developers. No wonder developers love MHA!
For example consider a 30-unit apartment building with no parking. Using figures from the City for cost of parking, this saved the developer $1.8 million on the project. In comparison, MHA will generate about $330,000 for housing for the same project. Johnson is the developer’s best friend.
I do not understand how any citizen can be happy to have corporate interests bilk the City, for whatever good intent… even if it works, which it won’t. Corporate developer interests and REITs will be laughing all the way to the bank!
And what has local zoning done instead? Put the profit in the pocket of existing home owners. Up and down West Coast there are serious affordability problems because of that. That’s way more evil than profits for developers. At least developers are creating new buildings and generating new values. Existing home owners do nothing other than advocating for slow development that leads less new utility creation to increase the value of existing properties. It may not be all that great when developers profit too much, but it’s downright horrible when we move all the profit to existing home owners instead.
Local zoning is by far the biggest evil, and Tokyo is a shiny example of what can be achieve for affordability when there is no local zoning. Local zoning by default means the vision is mostly about local interest instead of what’s best for everybody.
“And what has local zoning done instead? Put the profit in the pocket of existing home owners.”
+1
“Please ignore my $1M+ in home equity behind the curtain.”
Both of you are blaming homeowners for the impacts of huge amounts of capital coming into West Coast cities and other tech centers. Have either of you read ‘Mr. Creative Class’ Richard Florida’s latest book? You should before you spew ridiculous claims about “serious affordability problems” being caused by selfish homeowners.
Huge amount of capital coming into West Coast cities isn’t something I blame on anything but the fact that it’s a desirable place to live. These days many jobs don’t need to be at any specific locations, especially many high paying tech jobs. That means people are going to move to nice places instead of being bounded by specific geological links. All the rich people around the world buying houses in Miami and Vancouver not because those places are friendly to developers. Texas rural area are more than friendly to developers and nobody develops there.
It’s a fact that rich people are now flocking into Seattle. Some of them just Chinese buying an investment property/summer house, some of them highly paid tech workers. Many top programming talents around the world love the idea of moving to a charming city like ours, and wouldn’t have moved if it’s in a less desirable location.
With the influx a fact that we can’t change other than somehow trying to make the city not desirable, the problem then becomes about how do we make room for the increase of wealth. The way to do that without squeezing out people would have been building up. That happened in many places, but haven’t been enough. It’s a fact that people are being squeezed out of the city. Actually people who are not rich in general have been squeezed out California due to lack of housing, and they are replaced by the influx of rich people.
Even in Wallingford, on my street, it’s obvious middle class is being squeezed out. Within the last year there are multiple million dollar purchases, with residents being replaced by somebody richer.
“All the rich people around the world buying houses in Miami and Vancouver not because those places are friendly to developers.” I think this is largely inaccurate. Capital makes decisions where it’s going to “invest” based on where it can make the highest returns for the lowest risk. These decisions have little to do with the quality of life or climate in specific locations.
Example: Chicago did not become a major economic hub because of its wonderful climate or mountain view across Lake Michigan. Example: Miami has a nice climate, but until some real estate promoters promoted, South Florida was a malarial swamp.
As for rural Texas, we’re not talking about rural anything. Modern urbanization everywhere is a capital driven process. Houston and Dallas are not shrinking.
Your last point, middle class being pushed out, is accurate and much more important. Have you read (or read reviews of) Richard Florida’s latest? https://jacobinmag.com/2017/08/new-urban-crisis-review-richard-florida
tj – much of what you relate is accurate, however your conclusions and anger are grossly off base. If MHA was so great, why was it necessary for the City to distort the data? The model they used to estimate existing capacity underestimated the available capacity by 30-percent because it assumed an average apartment size of 1000 sq ft, when in reality, Seattle has the smallest average apartment size in the nation at about 700 sq ft… and size is shrinking due to SEDUs of 240 sq ft. We have the capacity to build close to 500,000 new units in Seattle with only a one floor change in height to MF and no upzones to SF homeowners that struggled to own their home.
Yes, there are huge amounts of capital flooding the real estate market. You left out the REITs and corporate development trusts, Section 1031 exchanges, etc that drive the price of real estate into the stratosphere.
Your error is blaming the influx of capital on existing homeowners, many who are seniors on fixed income, as the supposed “power players” in Seattle real estate. Sure. I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Your have been “focus grouped” by Vulcan and a consortium of well-connected, heavily well-to-do corporate interests that have our city government by the gonads.
Why do you think that corporate developers, whose primary motive is to maximize profit, support MHA so strongly? It is easy to support the powers-that-be, but much more difficult to fight for the disenfranchised against corporate interests.
Capacity doesn’t mean it’d be utilized. So we either increase potential capacity a lot by zoning up, or we force higher utilization by mandating old buildings that are not up to par to be taken down and rebuilt. I am pretty sure you’d like the later less than the former.
I am not blaming anybody for the influx. I am blaming existing home owners to resist solutions to deal with the influx.
But tj, we have a real world capacity in Multi-family of 430,000 units according to the city. (they low-balled the number by overestimating the average size of Seattle apartments by 30-percent). If we add but one floor as the tradeoff for MHA, that number rises to over 500,000 units. If that is not enough extra capacity to accommodate growth, we are really cooked.
Understand that our multi-family zoning is actually no more dense than single-family as far as housing people. MF parcels in Seattle average but 5 units per parcel. If you consider that the average MF unit size is 700 sq ft (the smallest in the nation) whereas the typical SF home is 1500 sq ft, Those five MF units likely house 5-10 people, whereas that SF houses 4-8 people, or 6-10 people with an ADU, or 8-12 people with both ADU/DADU.
Understand that MHA is upzoning 7800 SF homes, which might net about 700 new units. Compared to the adverse impacts of mixing greatly different housing forms (my SF block will be upzoned to LR2), one has to ask why inflict the damage other than to be nasty to existing residents or not wanting to admit that a mistake has been made and the City has wasted millions of dollars on a neo-urbanist goose chase.
Sensitive infill such as duplex or 3-flat (my favorite infill as it is family-friendly and senior-friendly) can be done and no one would likely even know. That four-square on the corner could easily be repurposed as a 3-flat and very economically.
Reuse also saves exposure to toxic waste, landfill costs and impacts, environmental costs of creating new materials and transporting them. All together, it seems far more likely to create affordable new housing units than MHA ever will. They can even be done as condos (as they are in Chicago) to create affordable ownership opportunity, which MHA will be destroying big time.
It is my understanding that the capacity numbers calculated by the City model factors in hw recently the parcel was redeveloped, how thoroughly it was developed, and also assume that everything is not maxed out to capacity. It is supposed to be a real world estimate, not removing everything and rebuilding everything to the max.
I just do not get Johnson’s insistence on making density as painful as possible. He strikes me as having an axe to grind. I certainly feel that way for my neighborhood where he has called folks names, appears to target upzone people he does not like, and basically would never talk to anyone. I have lived here 37 years and he has to be the most self-centered and seemingly vindictive councilmember I can recall.
“to be nasty to existing residents or not wanting to admit that a mistake has been made and the City has wasted millions of dollars on a neo-urbanist goose chase” is very perceptive, but we’re not supposed to accuse our elected leaders of such perfidious animus driven behavior. I certainly felt that attitude today at City Council as they explained why they (all 9) voted yes. It was stomach churning to watch.
Yes, I could not bear to attend because I feel so very strongly that MHA is a very, very poorly written mess and that it will do great damage to Seattle social structure. Council simply cannot treat residents in a divisive zero sum game and expect things to just go back to normal. This is not just “adding a few duplexes and triplexes” as Johnson was apt to say.
I was also extremely upset that Johnson gave away the parking waiver for nothing, when he could have leveraged the savings to developers to create more affordable housing than MHA will ever come close to realizing… three to four times more revenue generated.
This is what Portland did and they did not have to take a dump on their citizens by upzoning SF. They just added a floor to MF and shared the savings from waiving parking and, Voila! They were done… no angst, no nasty name-calling, no vindictive councilmembers taking it out on his constituents if they dare to suggest that he might not be god 🙂
We need to get revenge of these YIMBYs and elect Alex Pedersen. They’d be horrified st the idea of a councilmember who actually listens to neighborhood concerns.
We don’t need revenge. We need good governance. I believe Alex would be better than most of the current council members in that regard. I do not believe he should be supported for revenge. Pursuing a campaign on that basis is likely to backfire.
“Neighborhood concerns” expressed by supporters of MHA are legitimate. Inclusionary housing is
not[ooops] a necessary element in dealing with our housing problems so long as the current political-economy persists. Just because the current regime in Seattle is doing it so poorly—with the deluded support by YIMBYs that it will also solve our climate crisis and serve us apple pie and unicorns—should not detract us from that fact.Why you think upzoning single family house would net very little, while adding a bit to multi-family zones would net a lot? And why do you think single family houses are housing that many people? A huge number of the single-family houses in Wallingford are occupied by empty-nesters with only one or two occupants. You just keep playing loose with the concept of capacity and real numbers to justify your argument. How many single family houses in Wallingford actually house 8-12? I do know there are a lot of small multi-family units that house 2-3 people despite small size. I used to live in 1000sq ft units with a family of 4 in U District.
Average MF unit is 700 sq ft in Seattle, the smallest in the nation. The 8-12 figure was based on having BOTH and ADU and a DADU, as O’Brien is pushing, which adds capacity without changing the zoning. Folks assume that MF housing is dense housing, but the average MF parcel in Seattle contains only between 4 and 5 units.
I do not know what your basis is for assuming that SF homes contain only 1 or 2 people, as SF is pretty much the only family-size housing in the City. Many empty nesters downsize or move to condos as they age. Who wants to have to maintain a home when you are 70 years old?
Maybe two important details need to be added to this conversation:TJ is a developer and his home will not be touched by the upzone.
Well isnt that fascinating. And just like Rob Johnson, who enjoys living in his single family home safely just outside the Roosevelt UV. Say it ain’t so, comrade!
I’m not blaming homeowners, I’m blaming zoning that bans less affordable forms of housing, constrains overall supply, and makes homes more expensive (e.g. through large minimum lot sizes). (If someone supports exclusionary zoning, by extension they share blame but it doesn’t matter whether they are a homeowner or not.)
My house is actually in a low-rise zone. Is it worth less because of that, do you think? If we were motivated by property value, wouldn’t we all prefer to have our lots upzoned? Or are you saying that proximity to multifamily dwellings is a toxic factor that makes a house less valuable?
What worth less comparing to what baseline? If you are still thinking at the level of comparing specific individual case to specific individual case, then we are not talking about the same thing. If we keep the current way of zoning, just with a bit of zoning up here and there, the overall trend of real estate would still be up long term, and the fact that Wallingford is already turning from middle class neighborhood to upper middle class will continue. If we zoning up much more than this trend, the housing price overall would then not increase as much and this neighborhood would be able to house middle class and lower middle class as it was in the past. We may just be able to house some poor families 10 years from now when some of the older apartments get even older.
It’s a fact that Wallingford is avery desirable neighborhood with bike/bus commute to Amazon/Facebook/Google/UW/Hutchingson easily doable and close to hip neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Belltown, Fremont, and Ballard. Even University District is getting hip and it will be hip with the station and all the big condos. The desirability of the neighborhood will not go away, so the demand will not go away. It’s easy to see how if we plan the supply game differently we can change the price.
I think motivations are diverse:
Toby has a set of theories
Some folks are financially self-interested
Some folks have a an aesthetic or self-interested preference (e.g., the street parking bogeyman or the view article in the Times today)
Some folks are classist / think “apartments ghettoize” a neighborhood (not attributing that to anyone on this thread – quoting some dude from the MHA hearing)
Really Bryan, that’s the best you can do, personally attack my arguments based on my purported financial self interest? Yes, you edited to depersonalize the statement, but that’s what you initially posted. If I was really interested in maximizing the exchange value of the house I share with three other adults (all also co-owners), I would be advocating for an up zone straight to LR1(M) or even better LR2(M2). Just imagine how much we could make with a hillside view condo building on a 5000 sq. ft. lot.
My “theories” are based on extensive review of the history of urban development over the past few decades, together with a lot of data and analyses of how well measures such as MHA work. We have argued about these issues at length on these blogs, and I have yet to see any data and analysis that supports your position that increasing density does more than nibble at the edge of the affordable housing deficit. And with no “mandatory inclusion.” You can’t fix a screwed up capitalist economy with neoliberal market rate land use decisions.
As for classism, you can always find people who say classist and even racist things. Fact is, SCALE and the other MHA appellants have been universally opposed to “ghettoizing.” You sneer at my “theories” but the fact is that gentrification causes racist results. MHA is likely to result in resegregation of Seattle. Seattle’s African American population has already dropped below 3%. Why do you think that is? The City’s AMI is in the stratosphere; lower income people are being driven out. These are facts, not theories. MHA is “more of the same.” It provides none of the solutions that HUD or Rothstein’s “Color of Law” suggest to counter the resegregative affect of gentrification driven by up zoning. If you have not yet read the MHA RSJ files, you might do so before accusing me of (or the people I work with ) of classist or racist thinking..
Toby, I think you misinterpreted my post (or I wasn’t clear) – you got your own standalone line. I meant to say that you have expressed a bunch of theories that seem to motivate you, separate and distinct from the next three lines.
Maybe so (misinterpreted). The first way you wrote it didn’t clearly separate me from the second — thanks for clarifying. Aside from that, what theories of mine are you referring to. I know I tend to go beyond near term and local/regional; are any of my theories you’re thinking about relevant to current housing and land use topics? I’d like the chance to decide whether I think they’re just theories… 🙂
🙂 Toby – A very extreme shorthand version, acknowledged entirely from my point of view –
Long run, overall unlimited growth is unsustainable – I tend to agree
Short run, for people now, we probably disagree most is that (in my words) you favor process and deliberative change, I favor hell for leather “enable more people to live near jobs ASAP”
“Segregation is bad” – I think we agree, but then probably disagree on “X” in the statement “…so therefore we should do [X]
Which ties back to theories and premises etc
The faster you move and the more you allow the oligarchs to make the key decisions (HALA committee; “grand bargain”), the more f–ked up your results are going to be.
Ignored in almost all of these discussions by you and other “hell for leather” advocates for growth is why we are booming so hard. You forget that the current boom was intentionally and willfully induced, and the Council happily went along with it. Notwithstanding O’Brien’s attempt at a linkage fee, which would at best have moderated the boom and gentrification a tiny bit. Total failure of imagination and good governance: Vulcan/Amazon want to up zone SLU to what capacity, how many jobs, requiring how much infrastrucuture? Questions that were never asked, let alone answered…
Where in that narrative of cause and effect are there “theories and premises” as opposed to facts?
As far as segregation, my position is based on City and Census data and the City’s own review of the MHA: More booming and an exceedingly poorly done inclusionary zoning ordinance will lead to continued displacement and resegregation. That’s a civil rights term of art, e.g. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/resegregation-america-ncna801446
Whatever. Toby has gone over the substance of what he has to say here, in plenty of detail for anyone to read. So have I, Marleys Ghost, etc. People can make up their own minds whether your attempts to dismiss what we have to say by reducing them to some kind of sound bite categorization add anything to the conversation.
“Seattle’s African American population has already dropped below 3%.” Error—It’s about 7%… Related: https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/seattles-vanishing-black-community/
Nicely done article on a very complex subject. Thank you.
It is true that Vulcan financed Seattle for Everyone and its 25 neighborhood offshoots and that the City paid Sightline to feed one-sided articles to the press in support of MHA. One need only ask yourself, Why, in order to be suspect about Johnson’s connections to the big boy developers.
Seattle is a corporatocracy, bought and paid, which is a shame because it was rare for a city this large to be neighborhood-centric. We all volunteered to participate at various times to create community. It took Johnson to destroy that and I certainly hope that the karma police catch up with him.
Do not buy into the hatred of some of the those posting below. The terms and approach used here and throughout by Johnson (never had a CM call me names in public before!) was all part of the marketing strategy developed through focus groups, financed by development interests and the City.
A million dollars goes a long way to skew public opinion. Don’t forget that this number does not include the six figures that Vulcan and its partners pumped into the cynically-named Seattle for Everyone and its 25 subgroups. Watch the BBC “Brexit” drama for some idea on methods used for MHA. It is sick.
The MHA is complex enough that most people don’t understand it. That has led to misinformation and rumors a la Brexit. It would be nice to have some authority able to comment within this thread.