(This is an opinion piece by a neighborhood member. 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.)
It is time for Mayor Durkan and City Council to restore communication between our 27 neighborhoods and our city government by providing funding to our neighborhood councils for outreach and operations. Contrary to statements by naïve critics, neighborhood councils have been all-volunteer and self-funded since they began 60 years ago. Folks showed up because they loved their neighborhood.
One could argue that the current disconnect began in 2002 when newly elected Mayor Greg Nickels unceremoniously fired world-recognized Department of Neighborhoods Director Jim Diers, following the successful 1990s neighborhood planning process.
Disenfranchisement of neighborhoods continued in 2016 when ex-Mayor Murray defunded our 13 District Councils and ceased recognizing our 27 neighborhood councils. The councils represented the primary feedback mechanism from ordinary citizens to City Council. It is no coincidence that Murray cut funding after receiving pushback on the backroom deal of HALA and the flawed Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) legislation.
Murray substituted dubious, truth-challenged, social media as equivalent to live meetings through their effective views from themarketingheaven.com, even though doing so discriminated against less tech-savvy and older residents. The illogical pretext was that renters somehow find it more difficult to attend evening meetings than everyone else. It is noteworthy that renters have had no problem attending evening meetings for MHA.
Councilmembers and the Mayor used corporate real estate developers like Vulcan and its lobbying arm, Seattle for Everyone with its 25 neighborhood subgroups, to pay political consultants and troll social media to obfuscate what MHA proposed. Apparently MHA could not stand on its merits, learn about marketing at Social Boosting.
The well-finance campaign by the City and Vulcan manipulated data and used focus groups to identify buzz-words and marketing tactics to convince some residents that existing homeowners were somehow responsible for all their housing woes, and that the well-financed, corporate real estate investment firms, the same folks responsible for cratering the economy ten years ago, were now looking out for their best interests.
Councilmembers continue to falsely state that MHA will address red-lining and covenants adopted by some neighborhoods 90 years ago. The truth is that NONE of the neighborhoods targeted with upzones under MHA resorted to such discriminatory practices. However, neighborhoods that DID discriminate, are let off the hook under MHA and many still make use of restrictive covenants. This map by King County and the City places a green dot on parcels that resorted to covenants or redlining.
The urban villages subject to MHA upzones have absorbed 70-percent of Seattle’s growth over the last 20 years. Seattle is currently the third densest city west of the Mississippi. The model used by city staff underestimated existing zoning capacity in Seattle by 30-percent. Without any change to zoning, Seattle could accommodate nearly 360,000 new units. There was no need to upzone single-family (SF).
Last year, City Council waived the parking requirement in the urban villages, asking for nothing in return from developers, donating the $1.8 million in savings on a 30-unit apartment building to developers as increased profit. Other cities, such as Portland, asked developers to share the savings of a waiver to create more affordable housing. MHA, by comparison, will generate only $330,000 for a 30-unit building – a giveaway to developers.
These giveaways to developers and the apparent need to misinform the public should alone make MHA legislation suspect. Rather than closing its eyes and slashing design review under MHA, City government should strive to ascertain how development interests will abuse legislation and protect its citizens from profiteers.
Contrary to the constant repetition by the City and its trolls, MHA is NOT about creating “a few duplexes or triplexes in single-family zones”. Some areas are being upzoned three levels. Wallingford is particularly hard hit because we have 700 SF homes in our urban village and nearly all are being upzoned to LR1 or LR2. MHA allows towering, 18-unit SEDU (small efficiency dwelling unit) projects with zero parking to replace one modest single-family home, even though there is already plenty of capacity without resorting to impacting owners of SF homes.
MHA will do little to create affordable ownership opportunity, our much-needed starter homes, and will, instead, use profit-motive to incentivize their destruction. It is entirely possible to create infill density that is sensitive to the surrounding environment without the adverse impacts of MHA, but Council and the Mayor did not listen to alternatives.
A lovely four-square Craftsman home could easily be repurposed as a modest and affordable 3-flat rental or condo rather than incur the toxic waste, excess energy to create new materials and their transport, and labor costs of building new. Instead of encouraging more ownership opportunity, City government uses MHA to create more, tiny, market-rate rentals.
A one-person 240-sq-ft SEDU rents for about $50/sq ft/yr/person, or $25/sq ft/yr/person if a couple gets cozy. Compare this to an older fixer home that rents for $20/sq/ft/yr total; or $5/sq ft/yr/pp if housing a family of four. The City distorts the MHA discussion by focusing on “units created” rather than “people housed”. Seattle has the smallest average apartment size in the nation. MHA will drive that smaller as developers strive for ever greater profit.
Councilmember Johnson blames citizen appeals for delaying MHA. However, had our officials elected to adopt a partnership with neighborhoods rather an adversarial approach, housing legislation would have been finished long ago and with much less angst and far fewer adverse impacts. The 1990s planning process was very successful, despite the propaganda from Vulcan.
Mayor Durkan ran for office on a pledge to include neighborhoods in the planning process for MHA. Current councilmembers and their corporate allies misinformed the public about MHA via social media. The process that the City used was a cynical shadow of sound governance. Yes, it succeeded in passing MHA against the wishes of constituents, but at what social cost?
We need to restore the chain of communication between the real public and city government. We cannot allow the process used to manipulate the public on MHA to be repeated. Ask your councilmember to reinstate funding to the District Council system and expand the funding to assist our 27 community councils in performing outreach. If your councilmember refuses to hear you or refuses to respond to your concerns, vote them out by voting for someone that chooses to be responsive to their constituents.
The assertion that none of the neighborhoods targeted with upzones under MHA resorted to redlining in the past is untrue and frankly offensive in its obfuscation. The map you posted does NOT indicate neighborhoods that practiced redlining, it only shows the areas where racial covenants were codified into property deeds (or at least the ones we know about).
Redlining took many forms, and social enforcement of segregation was widespread in neighborhoods north of the ship canal, including Wallingford. The success of social enforcement is reflected in the fact that Wallingford was just as segregated as neighborhoods with codified racial covenants. In 1960, only 27 African Americans lived in Wallingford or Fremont, along with 21,823 Whites and 335 persons identified in the census as “other races.”
I suggest you clarify your post.
I coincidentally was looking at the original map a day or two ago, trying to find the answer to the same question. What you see in Wallingford is a large dark blue area, which is “still desirable”, and some fringe around the lake that’s less so, heading out into Fremont. This is what’s presented on the UW History dept site as “C20 ‘redlined’ map of Seattle”, and the implication seems to be that these areas are defined by racial demographics so lenders could steer clear of bad neighborhoods. But it’s likely there were other considerations as well, and a look at the map strongly suggests that’s the case in Wallingford – those areas along the lake weren’t significant enclaves of any kind of people, they were just too close to the shipyards etc., and to the coal gasification site.
What degree of social enforcement of segregation there may have been, I don’t know, and as far as I know no one really knows that at any kind of factual level. That at any rate is not what “redlining” means.
I know what redlining means and I know how to read this map. To use it as proof that Wallingford and other neighborhoods north of the ship canal did not practice widespread racial discrimination in housing is absolute garbage.
Some residents and neighborhoods resorted to covenants. The Feds reviewed neighborhoods in the 1930s to assess investment risk to try to get banks lending again and the result was that it was generally easier to get a loan in some areas of the City. Check out the Richmond study.
The City and corporate supporters of MHA conflate the two, most would say intentionally for political advantage. It is quite cynical. The map was produced by King County and the City, so they obviously should know what they state is simply not true. None of the areas where residents or neighborhoods adopted discriminatory housing practices are targeted under MHA.
Rather strong language, Doug. Are you aware of the RSJ review of MHA that is highly critical of its abject failure to address the issue of tenure (home ownership), as well as numerous disparate impacts? Or that the City’s MHA up zoning will result in continued racist outcomes?
Sources: RSJ documents— https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0vb40p9bpcg4svh/AADqMLYOQpgfE6QFK0BkPfS0a?dl=0
Analysis of racist impacts from the City’s own data—https://outsidecityhall.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/mha-upzones-6200-of-the-10400-parcels-likely-to-be-redeveloped-are-located-in-central-district-and-southeast-seattle/
Hi Doug, I believe that you are mistaken. Redlining was produced by a Federal review of potential risk to lenders following the Great Depression to try to get banks lending again. It had nothing to do with the wishes of the residents of a neighborhood. Some neighborhoods did institute covenants that were often racial or economic or even “quality of construction”, but that is different from redlining, though the two are often conflated. The redlining notes by the Feds sometimes noted the existence of covenants.
The map posted in the article was created by King County and the City of Seattle, including the green areas (follow the link) identifying the neighborhoods that resorted to covenants, which were not always racial in nature, but could often discriminate in a backhanded manner based on financial ability due to construction standards or fees for HOAs. None of the neighborhoods targeted by MHA resorted to discriminatory covenants on property, with the exception of Capital Hill.
Banks that followed the Federal redlining recommendations sometimes adopted more stringent requirements for economically riskier areas of the city, which made it more difficult for some to obtain a mortgage at a reasonable rate. If you read the Federal comments in the original redlining maps, there is actually little talk of race, other than sometimes noting the existence of covenants, which were racial, economic, or “quality of construction”. Redlining was a lending risk assessment made by the Feds. The Richmond study is quite informative.
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/47.5942/-122.3187&opacity=0.8&city=seattle-wa
So you’re standing by your statement that there was no housing discrimination based upon race anywhere in Seattle except on those place marked green on the map? That is incredibly naive.
To be fair, that wasn’t what he said. Your initial challenge, “resorted to redlining”, we could possibly get to the bottom of that, given some pointers to follow up the “they’d lose their license” claims and so forth. “There was no housing discrimination in Seattle” would be a foolish claim, and he didn’t make it. Nor was that what the city was saying. They said redlining, and covenants etc., trying to discredit the neighborhoods that were fighting MHA as products of that particular form of systematic racial discrimination. There was certainly racism in Seattle, but MHA didn’t target the neighborhoods where that particularly occurred (and it isn’t going to do a thing to redress such discrimination.)
You said it yourself: more and smaller, which will drive the market rate down (as proven by recent rental rate plateau as more units have come online). And I would welcome a three-flat craftsman revolution. That plus an ADU across the board and I think we would make a pretty big dent. Nothing right now prevents that other than updated ADU legislation and our remaining SF-5000 single family zoning…something that was initially proposed to be updated but was abandoned because of WCC (and others) ‘neighborhood voice’.
As a working mom, I don’t have time to attend WCC meetings (they are during bedtime) and haven’t found a way for my voice to be heard there. However, I have found city staff and electeds responsive to comments about MHA, and their public meetings accessible (with childcare!). I felt like it was much easier to engage in the City’s process than WCCs, which seemed to have made up its mind years ago and presents itself as a solid front rather than representative of a neighborhood with a diversity of views (which seem to support getting new neighbors).
I do think your point about ownership opportunity is important. I wish there was more widespread RSL – Residential Small Lot – zoning in the adopted MHA proposal to address that along with better funding of land trusts. That said, not everybody should or needs to own a home. There are many examples of lovely European cities with strong social fabric which have histories of long-term rental tenure rather than ownership…and there are many people who don’t want to make that sort of investment but should still be welcome here.
As a working mom, myself, I am sympathetic. The WCC has a lot of volunteers who resemble this working parent description. We will all back you up in that it can be tough (regardless of if you work/ have children or not) to figure out time to be involved.
To help in your search for how to “have your voice heard there,” we have a contact page on our website, and here is the email: [email protected] . Members of the WCC try to connect people to issues/ projects they are interested in, as well as to others in the community and city government who may know something / be involved.
From your post, I think there is a misunderstanding of what the WCC is. The WCC is a community organization made up of neighbors, yours and mine. We volunteer our time to the community to be better informed, to discuss topics, to share information (Tenants right’s boot camp, Seattle police & race, Sharps pick-up & disposal, Navigation Team, tiny house village, HALA, public meetings, etc..) and to try to create win-wins (like public access on the roof at the new-ish Tableau building, turning a parking lot into a park at the Transfer Station, pushing for higher in-lieu fees in MHA – failed, but for three years, we tried, and so on). Not everyone involved agrees, and that’s ok. We welcome discussion and debate.
And now onto my WCC Pitch:
Here is a link to what the WCC does: https://www.wallingfordcc.org/about-the-wcc/what-we-do/
I encourage people to get involved, especially around topics that are of interest. If you live in Fremont, I encourage you to reach out to the FNC (Fremont Neighborhood Council). There is a wide range of issues and topics that the good people of Wallingford and/or Fremont bring up, and it’s cool to learn about them, as well as (for me) somewhat overwhelming. Also, there are a lot of people who know something or are looking for others to work with them on specific issues and topics – reaching out to the WCC or the FNC are good ways to get connected.
While our monthly meetings are in the evening, we do have events / meetings all year round that are at other times and days. Just because one cannot make a monthly meeting, doesn’t mean one cannot participate in the WCC. Your Wallingford neighbors can attest to this. The first step is reaching out and making contact. Signing up for the WCC emails is another good way to get information, as is joining as a member.
Our next WCC event is in a few weeks, we are still working out the date, but it will be on a Saturday morning, meeting up at the bottom of Stone Way for the Waterways Walk – annual walk in which WCC volunteers teach about the public access points to Lake Union. Children are welcome. More info to come. It’s a good way to get to know more about Wallingford and meet some of your neighbors.
Miranda Berner
President, Wallingford Community Council
I’m a working parent and I wish the city would fund the community councils the way they used to. I don’t think the WCC meetings could be much more accessible (especially for a volunteer organization). If they held meetings during the day they would exclude most workers. If they held meetings during the weekend they would exclude those struggling to juggle all the many competing priorities and obligations we have to cram into 48 hours of freedom.
I’ve brought my children to WCC meetings a few times as well as city meetings hosted in the evenings. I haven’t been comfortable using the childcare the city provides (nothing against the people running it, my kids just aren’t comfortable being cared for by people they don’t know in large group settings, so they stay with me). It wasn’t my preferred choice, but I’m happy to let them stay up a little late occasionally to see me publicly engaged. My kids are young but they’ve enjoyed it and have asked really great questions afterwards. So the sacrifice of schlepping them along vs. staying home has always been worth it. Children belong in public spaces hearing about issues that will one-day affect their future. I hope you will feel comfortable bringing them to WCC meeting.
To be strictly accurate, the city never funded community councils. What Murray axed was funding for an organizational umbrella network called “District Councils”, wherein WCC was a member of the “Lake Union District” – along with many other organizations. Community councils, clubs, etc. It was an unwieldy and little known organization, but there was a central office with a telephone and a couple of staff (maybe total of one full time position? maybe less?), and those two did a lot of great work analyzing city policies as they came up.
I believe the District Councils came out of the Jim Diers years at the Department of Neighborhoods, certainly the high point of that department, but for me they weren’t the most successful of his ideas. Murray was able to get a lot of press defunding them, with development booster organizations using terms like “NIMBY power structure”, but in reality it was pretty inconsequential. The power they held was over some neighborhood street fund grants and the like, and they were far too cumbersome to be a political force of any kind.
Do we want a city owned by landlords or citizens? Why are we turning our housing over to mega developers? At a minimum we need to have the new MHA housing be owned not rented by the folks who live in them.
I have a broad definition of citizens — but they definitely are not companies or corporations. My point is that we are already a 50/50 city and I think that many people would rather own than rent. — Could we force a percentage of the new housing be owner occupied? Not sure. I just think that people like control of their lives and housing. Besides, owners can’t complain about their rent.
Good question! Why are we turning over the city over to developers? I live a block off the wonderland of condos to the street where there used to be beautiful homes with trees an dlawns whihc michael Nelson Realty let go to disrepair and then barely boarded up abandoned homes . my guess would be he bought as people were goign to move and djust let them go.. tho it is a guess. Now — all concrete 700,000$ cement condos. woo hoo ( c re c)
The community movement in Seattle works very hard at hearings testimony, EIS appeals and in some cases law suits, but it plays a very fragmented role in the mayor and council election process. Some people who of this movement do participate as individuals in these important elections. Some with money and others with doorbelling and other volunteer activities. Many these activists are also members of the District Democratic Party organization and have a background in citizen electoral politics. Until the communities are able to exert a political force in the election of our city council and mayor we are going continue to be ignored in the policy out comes of these bodies. This as not always been the case. Forty years ago a group of activists started an organization called Chose an Effective City Council (CHECK). Organization had tentacles into the Municipal League and the District Democratic party organizations. (https://crosscut.com/2007/04/how-slate-took-over-seattle-city-council). This could be done again. Today there would be many campaign and election laws that would have to be me but there plenty of professionals available to help with that.
The other significant thing lacking is a community based vision/platform for the city we are very good at saying what we do not want but we have no comprehensive of wha we want our city to be like if we had our way for the next ten, twenty or thirty years If you looking for a place start visioning a better future for our city with examples look the recent National Geographic article “Cities” for ideas and existing examples.
Terrible take. Wallingford was absolutely redlined. You see that map someone MSPainted on? The blue & green areas would result in a realtor losing their license if they sold to a black/asian family.
After that was finally abolished, we did our best to lock down the neighborhoods, financially, by preventing any new development, culminating in the 1990 comprehensive plan you’re so chuffed about.
From the point that we theoretically allowed equal opportunity to housing, we systematically made it nearly impossible for anyone new to the neighborhood to actually get it.
As the city has grown, the neighborhood councils, with the exception of the Capitol Hill one, I think, have dropped the ball on providing local input on how to grow the city, instead opting to fight any such growth tooth & nail, suggesting only ADU/DADUs, which, while useful for people who want them, are absolutely inadequate to solving the problem the city faces. The councils can still have a place in providing locally-focused recommendations, but they are not representative of the population they try to speak for, and should have no formal part of the decision-making process. The city has (admittedly imperfectly) implemented its own survey and outreach methods that try to reach a broader cross-section than the WCC board does.
King County and the City of Seattle painted the green areas based on a review of property records. Redlining originated as a banking thing about mortgage risk, not a realtor or resident thing. The financially risky areas were actually the red areas.
Here is the description for B-3 from the Feds: “This area is known as the “Wallingford”, “Meridian”, “Lower Greenlake”, and “University” district. The residents are practically 100% American of moderate means, with annual income of $1500 to $3000. The homes are both modern and semi-modern in type, with a sprinkling of some old-style residences.”
As with any attempt at representative form of government, decisions are made by those that show up. It is a fallacy that there was any litmus test to participation. It is just as difficult for homeowners to make the time to attend meetings as it is for renters. The neighborhood councils can easily be more representative, but they cannot make people attend, especially if there are no funds for outreach. I suggest that the simple fix was for the City to provide modest funds to the council to pay for improved for outreach, rather than for the City to defund them and try to suppress input.
I am not sure what you mean about being “chuffed”, but the 1990s planning process was actually quite successful. The urban villages – residential, hub, and centers – accommodated 70 percent of the growth in the City with little adverse impact. This began to be dismantled with election of Nickels. You have been misled if you believe that neighborhood councils fought growth tooth and nail. The objection to MHA is that it ignores mitigation of the adverse impacts for the growth that it proposes, which MHA attempts to do in the most profitable manner for developers as possible.
The covenants came later. The map you have posted represents Federal determination of “risk”, which is a very-thinly-veiled reference to race and class. Green is luxury, all-white, blue is still white, but less luxe, yellow is mixed-race or poor whites/white immigrants, and red is black areas.
The government wanted to preserve the “niceness” (whiteness & affluence) of these areas, and regulated who could live the accordingly. Read the description of the yellow part of Capitol Hill, if you doubt whether they thought a mixed-race neighborhood was a problem or not.
Realtors, bankers, landlords, and everyone else involved in who lived where were charged with not “ruining” the wholesome white areas, thus preserving everyone’s property values (keeping them at low “risk”). If they didn’t play ball, they could lose their licenses, or face other sanction.
The map shows the redlined areas over laid with the areas of Seattle that resorted to covenants, racial or otherwise. Despite what the City and Vulcan spread as “fact”, the residents they attacked as discriminating, did not, and none of the areas that did are targeted by MHA. Read the Richmond study about redlining to learn where it originated and why.
It also appears that you miss the intent of the article, which is where do we go from here to get away from the profound corporate influence that was used to pass MHA? City Council partnered with, and continues to partner with, powerful corporate interests in the City and continues to employ social media to spread fake information about what their policies mean and will likely accomplish. The intelligence was cooked to arrive at a pre-desired outcome.
“The urban villages – residential, hub, and centers – accommodated 70 percent of the growth in the City with little adverse impact.”
Adverse impact on whom?
Within Seattle, White householders are slightly more likely to own their home than rent. However, householders of color, particularly Black householders and Hispanic householders, are less likely to own their home…. [W]ith some exceptions, persons of color disproportionately live in areas of the city with zoning for multifamily housing or “commercial” zoning (which allows a combination of multifamily housing and commercial uses). In Seattle, this housing is primarily located along, or otherwise in proximity to, major roadways.
Within a 200-meter radius of T-1 and T-2 roadways, roadways that carry an average annual gross tonnage of more than 4 million, the noise and air pollution impacts are most acute. Despite representing only 21% of Seattle land area and 19% of the total population, 40% of the miles of T-1 and T-2 roadways are in the areas with the highest population of our most affected classes. This means that people in protected classes are more likely to be living with exposure to acute noise and air pollution coming from high truck traffic roadways…
(2017 City of Seattle and Seattle Housing Authority Joint Assessment of Fair Housing)
Your facts are accurate. It’s also accurate that the same neighborhoods, like Rainier Valley neighborhoods, Beacon Hill, and South Park, are targeted by MHA for more of the same disparate impacts, on top of gentrification and displacement.
Thanks Greg Flood, great piece.
I must be extremely dense. But I’ve never understood how redlining sixty plus years ago or more has to do with land development today. Are we talking reparations or what?
The zoning patterns chosen in the 1990s planning process are having racially disparate impacts on housing patterns and health impacts right now, this minute:
Within Seattle, White householders are slightly more likely to own their home than rent. However, householders of color, particularly Black householders and Hispanic householders, are less likely to own their home…. [W]ith some exceptions, persons of color disproportionately live in areas of the city with zoning for multifamily housing or “commercial” zoning (which allows a combination of multifamily housing and commercial uses). In Seattle, this housing is primarily located along, or otherwise in proximity to, major roadways.
Within a 200-meter radius of T-1 and T-2 roadways, roadways that carry an average annual gross tonnage of more than 4 million, the noise and air pollution impacts are most acute. Despite representing only 21% of Seattle land area and 19% of the total population, 40% of the miles of T-1 and T-2 roadways are in the areas with the highest population of our most affected classes. This means that people in protected classes are more likely to be living with exposure to acute noise and air pollution coming from high truck traffic roadways…
(2017 City of Seattle and Seattle Housing Authority Joint Assessment of Fair Housing)
Did you know … King County black homeownership peaked at 49% of black households, in 1970? Largely because of Boeing, where they could get good jobs. US black ownership was a little behind at 42%, but it’s still 42% – while King County is down to 28%. That obviously isn’t because of any redlining or anything, it’s the economy.
MHA upzones aren’t going to get those black people jobs in the new high tech aristocracy, so they can buy million dollar townhomes that will replace our houses. The upzones have nothing to do with historical race relations, that was just a cynical guilt-tripping maneuver.
I’m intimately familiar with those numbers, because juust maybe making ‘plexes on small lots illegal in more and more of Seattle might have had something to do with limiting ownership opportunities for prospective property owners with less income and wealth to buy….or homeowners stressed by taxes to subdivide or downsize without leaving entirely:
https://crosscut.com/2019/01/where-are-black-people-central-district-residents-get-creative-fight-displacement
https://crosscut.com/2018/04/epic-battle-against-gentrification
You’re wrong Bryan; produce a shred of data to support your market urbanist claim that increasing market rate housing density has anything to do with ownership opportunities for low income and POC households. In the CD, SF lots rezoned to LR something (or higher) are not going to stay in black ownership by adding a DADU. Total nonsense.
As the HUD report states (cited above by you!), as the RSJ review of MHA states, as the FHA case law states, the problem is lack of support for continued or renewed home ownership. Others have noted above the former high black home ownership percentage in Seattle (and also documented in Quintard Taylor’s book, “The Forging of a Black Community”). More building capacity by itself makes the situation worse if it’s not accompanied by measures to address home ownership. MHA is a total fail in that regard.
“You’re wrong Bryan; produce a shred of data to support your market urbanist claim that increasing market rate housing density has anything to do with ownership opportunities for low income and POC households”
Mortgage affordability for % of African-American households in Seattle is broken down here:
https://medium.com/@contact_28544/stand-up-for-triplexes-ca114aeb1b04
Also, too, subdividing lots is in practice what these folks are righteously trying to do:
https://crosscut.com/2019/01/where-are-black-people-central-district-residents-get-creative-fight-displacement
Please Bryan, I’m not going to read a long piece by you as justification for your position. Got something credible by someone else? Black ownership in Seattle has been on a downward trajectory that mirrors gentrification and displacement of the CD.
“Produce a shred of data”
“Here’s lots of data I spend a lot of time collecting”
“I won’t read it”
I responded in good faith. I don’t know what to make of your answer: I didn’t make up the data, you can verify every single piece of it yourself using the Internet.
I’ve read your material before Bryan. Asking me to read a lengthy and repetitive recitation of your position is not helpful. I do not regard you as an expert on fair housing law.
I suspect that a lower homeownership rate has little do to with racist attitudes and more to do with the fact that persons of color are more likely to earn lower income, making it less likely that they can afford a home. The way to solve this is to create more affordable ownership opportunity rather than doing what MHA proposes, i.e. incentivizing developers to build even more single-person, market-rate rental units that tend to suppress economic advancement by keeping folks stuck on the endless hamster wheel of paying ever-increasing rent to a corporate landlord back east. In this regard, MHA discriminates against ownership, which discriminates against those with less advantage and prevents economic advancement through home ownership, which is the number one way to improve generational financial condition according to the Seattle Times.
It seems insane to think that encouraging corporate developers to buy up the smaller, older, most affordable ownership opportunity will affect those already living in a home that they own. Current owner-occupied homes are unlikely to sell, as they will pass their home on to the next generation. Many rental homes are already owned by corporate and speculative real estate firms (one third of the sales during the downturn were reportedly to corporate RE firms). The ones that will be booted out under MHA will likely be current renters of homes, which are often the most affordable form of housing… and basically the primary form of family housing in the City. Expecting corporate real estate to behave in an altruistic manner is nuts. They care only about bottom line and MHA enhances that.
“I suspect that a lower homeownership rate has little do to with racist attitudes and more to do with the fact that persons of color are more likely to earn lower income, making it less likely that they can afford a home. ”
That’s what exclusionary zoning was created to exploit, and that’s exactly what it continues to have a disparate impact on who can live where, right here, right now.
Key point: attitudes don’t matter. The policy does the harm, whether it’s intentional or not.
“The zoning patterns chosen in the 1990s planning process are having racially disparate impacts on housing patterns and health impacts right now, this minute”
This is false. Post a single study that supports the claim of disparate impacts based on 1990s zoning patterns in Seattle.
Already done, but here it is again:
Within Seattle, White householders are slightly more likely to own their home than rent. However, householders of color, particularly Black householders and Hispanic householders, are less likely to own their home…. [W]ith some exceptions, persons of color disproportionately live in areas of the city with zoning for multifamily housing or “commercial” zoning (which allows a combination of multifamily housing and commercial uses). In Seattle, this housing is primarily located along, or otherwise in proximity to, major roadways.
Within a 200-meter radius of T-1 and T-2 roadways, roadways that carry an average annual gross tonnage of more than 4 million, the noise and air pollution impacts are most acute. Despite representing only 21% of Seattle land area and 19% of the total population, 40% of the miles of T-1 and T-2 roadways are in the areas with the highest population of our most affected classes. This means that people in protected classes are more likely to be living with exposure to acute noise and air pollution coming from high truck traffic roadways…
(2017 City of Seattle and Seattle Housing Authority Joint Assessment of Fair Housing)
Your argument says nothing about the 1990s zoning; it concerns where poor and POC have been “afforded” to live and the related impacts. That environmental injustice is not a function of the zoning decisions made in the 1990s.
You love to hate “exclusionary zoning” but no one in the housing justice community has jumped aboard your meme in Seattle.
Let’s test that and do a search “exclusionary zoning Seattle”: Here are the hits I get from the top—
• Your page
• Ashley Archibald’s piece in Real Change
• An eventbrite site for a past event in Portland, with Sara Maxana as a speaker
• A Dan Bertolet piece at Sightline
• David Moser at Seattle for Growth
• Zoe Ludwig at BuiltGreen (part of the Master Builders of King and Sno)
• A piece at the Brookings institute (author=white)
• Another Sightline piece, from 2014, and by golly, we finally find one authored by a POC. It speaks about inclusionary zoning, the real kind that MHA is not.
• Your site again
• The Strangers’ Lester Black (who is not) on Planning Commission’s conclusion that SF zoning is racist
• Short Builder piece (industry site) quoting from Times quoting CM Gonzalez: “Councilmember M. Lorena González said the upzones will “begin the process of dismantling exclusionary zoning laws historically rooted in the intention to exclude people who look like me” from certain blocks.”
• Wikipedia page, “Seattle” not mentioned
• The Urbanist piece from last year: “Homeowners who believe exclusionary zoning is sacrosanct went ballistic.”
• The Urbanist features Mayor Durkan et al smiling over the passage of MHA.
• A piece in the Georgetown Public Policy Review by another white guy
• A piece in CityLab by a proud market urbanist (Nolan Gray)
• Seattle Times piece on MHA passage
• A piece at the “Up for Growth National Coalition” site
• Finally! In a piece on a progressive foundation page (The Century Fund in NYC and DC), a white male author includes a cursory discussion of HALA from exactly a year ago. I recommend it to you (and all reading this far—come to your own conclusion how well he describes Seattle’s “problem” with “exclusionary zoning.” https://tcf.org/content/report/updating-fair-housing-act-make-housing-affordable/
After that I see Reddit, more Medium, stuff not even close to Seattle, etc.
So there you have it: where’s the beef Bryan? Where’s Seattle’s civil rights community jumping up and down for joy at MHA slaying “exclusionary zoning”?
It’s all a little too abstract for them, that’s all. They need smart people like Bryan, Dan Bertolet, to look after their interests – at least, when there’s a profits to be made on $1M townhomes in the new not-one-bit-exclusionary areas.
Google “Exclusionary Zoning NAACP”
(btw I know exactly why there hasn’t been a fair housing lawsuit against Seattle, because I asked people with standing, but the answer was provided in confidence; however if you’d like an opinion from POC fair housing lawyers on Seattle’s zoning I can arrange that if you’d like to guarantee I wouldn’t be wasting their time)
OK, I did. I see nothing about Seattle in the first few dozen hits except your page (3rd hit). There might be something that refers to Seattle buried in there, but it’s not obvious.
I know what exclusionary zoning is. You claim it’s present here. I don’t believe it is to any significant degree, and to the extent it is present, MHA and other measures pushed through by the City do not address it at all. Follow the money, Bryan.
I believe the problem in Seattle is gentrification and unmitigated displacement leading to re-segregation. You do realize that’s also a potential violation of the Fair Housing Act don’t you?
OK, Bryan, looks like you edited to add an offer: I accept. You set up the meeting or provide the contact info.
I can do this, however I am not prepared to waste their time (or my credibility and relationships) when you state things like “I don’t believe [exclusionary zoning[ is here to any significant degree.”
Single family and large lot zoning is it, definitionally. Will hearing it stated first hand change your mind?
“Zoning to exclude minorities, whether racial or economic, can be done in various ways. The most common are ordinances designed to “maintain the character of a neighborhood.” Typical devices used are minimum lot-size requirements,O minimum building-size requirements,11 frontage requirements, 2 exclusion of mobile homes,”3 bedroom restrictions,14 land improvement requirements such as sewage plants,15 minimum floor space requirements,r living density requirements,”T prohibition of multiple-family dwellings,” and various provisions in building codes.’9 Utilizing these tools, intransigent administrators have created an unresponsive body of remedial zoning law and have erected an impenetrable exclusionary wall based upon race and economic class.” (https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1817&context=law_urbanlaw)
Whose time are you afraid of wasting? I am an experienced lawyer and political actor. I do not engage in such discussions with my mind closed or set on any specific point “by definition.” Your quote is a general definition (and the URL is deformed and doesn’t work).
The agenda is to discuss fair housing law as applied in Seattle and whether disparate impacts can arguably be adduced from the available evidence. If your contact(s) cannot engage on that premise then it’s a waste of my time.
If you need references as to my credibility, I’m not sure what I can possibly tell you that you don’t already know. We’re only1 degree apart on Linkedin.
And just to be clear: ALL property relations in this country are imbued with racism. The question is how is that racism manifest in current zoning and how do current policy decisions improve or worsen the outcomes of a long history of racism in land use decisions.
To a put a point on it: Here we are two white guys arguing over the racist impacts of zoning; we need to check our privilege.
The neighborhood councils represented the special interest of specific segments of older whiter home owners only. Good thing their influences are removed.
If anything, we should remove the city’s authority to plan and put it in the hands of the state or federal government, so we can have an even more holistic view.
The more local the power is, the more likely it’d be kidnapped by a few hyper active local zealots.
Top-down versus bottom-up. Guess I prefer the latter. Not a fan of corporate interests running my life and deciding what is best (for them).
The US is more bottom-up than other advanced countries, and that has lead to the US being run by the corporate interest way more than others, because it’s much easier for special interests to influence at the lower level.
The more you remove local control, the more anti-democratic our governance will be. There are good reasons for national imposition of civil rights constraints, but to remove all city authority to plan and put that authority at the national level is a recipe for a hard right to fascist government. Especially when you start with the grotesque inequity present in our political and economic systems.
Do you seriously want Trump and Republicans controlling what local governments can do? Think about who you’re in bed with politically when you suggest complete pre-emption of local planning in the name of social justice. Anyone with a shred of liberal in their blood is chilled at the thought.
Calling opponents of MHA “a few hyper active local zealots” is outrageous. Please go to this folder and read at least the spread sheet index: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0vb40p9bpcg4svh/AADqMLYOQpgfE6QFK0BkPfS0a?dl=0
Local control is less democratic, because resources are often concentrated locally. “Local control” is effectively richer neighborhoods denying the right of those in poorer and less resourceful neighborhoods, therefore less democratic. That’s why Republicans are sooooo into local control.
Let’s look at how local control has worked for many systems: richer city with police forces with all kind of luxurious equipment and acts as glorified guards, and school district with all kind of fancy new things, while poorer city struggle.
Local control is what leads to the US having such a serious wealth segregation problem. I am not sure you think that an idea liberals typically should champion.
It’s not totally an either:or situation. And it’s not just Rs v Ds. The latter are just as bad on some issue when they’re neoliberals. Every party is into “local control” and every other kind of control.
In some cases yes, it’s richer (white) neighborhoods led by Rs denying rights to those in poorer and POC neighborhoods, led by Ds. That scenario is playing out right now in Fresno.
The political and economic fault lines in Seattle are not at all the same. Nor in New York or other large D controlled cities. In NYC, the fight is against the state over rent control, a fight we should be having here. Gentrification and displacement in Seattle is not happening because of Republicans; last time I looked all the elected officials around here (except Kshama) are Ds.
Right now and for most of its history Seattle has largely been governed by a neoliberal growth machine, regardless of party label. The basic rule to avoid falling into category traps—follow the money.
Donn: “The upzones have nothing to do with historical race relations, that was just a cynical guilt-tripping maneuver.”
Thank you Donn for reassuring me that I wasn’t losing my mind and making an obvious historical error. When I first moved to Wallingford in 1976, a black family behind my house, was one of the longest residents on the block — since 1969. This area was a working/middle class neighborhood, one where I would not have been approved for a bank mortgage, since at that time a woman’s income was counted for only half of its actual value. Fortunately, I was able to buy it on a real estate contract.
I can speak only as a white person, but in my 50 years as a renter in the U District, Queen Anne, and Capitol Hill, then homeowner in Wallingford, I have never heard any concern expressed about minorities moving to the neighborhood. It was only with the advent of the MHA program that I for the first time heard about alleged animosity between home owners and renters. In my experience Seattle has long been a tolerant, if expensive, city.
Obviously in 50 years a lot has changed, particularly in the wasting away of the middle class and the coming of the technocracy. That’s why I was flummoxed by this redlining argument. It made no sense to me. After all, it’s the lenders who make the rules and decisions, not the neighbors. Banks would have shut me out for being a woman 43 years ago.
No, Seattle has not been a tolerant city: 🙁
Seattle votes down open housing on March 10, 1964.
On March 10, 1964, Seattle voters reject an “Open Housing” referendum to end racial discrimination in home sales and rentals by nearly two to one.
https://www.historylink.org/File/3154
But you failed to mention, Bryan that one was passed four years later. It doesn’t surprise me that it would fail in 1964, when the idea of human rights was so new in general popular discourse. Even Kennedy had been afraid to push civil rights legislation. It was a career killing position.
It was passed by City Council emergency action, not a general vote.
“It was a career killing position.”
Individual votes are confidential. No one would ever know each individual’s vote.
But let’s put a ballot measure to end exclusionary zoning up now, and let Seattle clear its conscience (or not).
It’s important to clarify that there is a big difference between cowtowing to a particular paid homeowners interest group like the WCC and listening to the “real public” (let’s charitably take that to mean anyone who lives in Seattle). I’ve attended a few WCC meetings, although all the condescension toward and screaming at city officials and staffers (like literal screaming at people who were taking their evenings to be present and hear concerns) and the committee members who calmly explained to me that the real problem was jobs, and if we just got rid of them, I’d go away and then there’d be no more housing problem put me off from attending any more. I didn’t attend the most recent annual meeting where the board was elected, but the last one I did a year or two had about 100 (the votes mostly came out 80/20), mostly retirement age, attendees. There was a request from a renter who was there to support an opposition candidate for anyone who was not a homeowner to raise their hand, and at best three or four people did. There are roughly 15,000 residents of Wallingford. The WCC is one small volunteer group amongst many that our neighbors participate in, some of which have different views on housing. The most recent polling I saw on the issue of “should zoning allow more dense housing in Seattle single family neighborhoods” came out 50% in favor, 30% against, 20% don’t know. That’s a pretty overwhelming result for what the “real public” wants. In unanimously passing MHA, the city council was simply following the wishes of their constituents, which is what they’re supposed to be doing.
Go back to the 90’s neighborhood plan for Wallingford (https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/Planning/Plan/Wallingford-plan.pdf) and you’ll see the same thing, although the activists who stuck it out the longest through the whole process chose to ignore it. “Community members recommended zoning changes to accommodate a greater variety of housing types in the community, and to support home ownership at lower levels of income,” (Page 28). The plan goes on to state that this idea received majority support from neighborhood attendees, and then goes to some length and little reason justifying why the writers of the plan chose to ignore this.
I get the sense that some folks have a bit of a sense of entitlement to their opinions being the only ones that matter, democracy be damned.
Wow. I can only guess that you did not live here during the last planning process. I do not know what you base these assertions on.
The WCC is not paid, they receive nothing from the City. There is no litmus test. Folks attend because they are interested in volunteering to make improvements in their neighborhood on a far greater variety of projects than housing. I am not aware who are renters and who are owners. I have never been to a meeting where people screamed or treated people with disrespect, but I suppose some might attend to air their misguided gripes. You speak as if you have not participated in a cash-strapped, all-volunteer organization.
Your polling question quote about allowing “more dense housing in Seattle single family neighborhoods” is another case of misinformation and misdirection. Most folks should answer “that depends”. While the corporate influenced proponents of MHA describe it as adding a “few duplexes and triplexes” (based on focus groups) what the City means and what MHA does is incentivize LR1, LR2 and LR3, which are far more severe and have far more potential adverse impacts. MHA also cripples the design review process, which formerly helped mitigate impacts.
Despite what you assert, Ben, I suspect that far more folks are supportive of increased density. You choose to believe your own propaganda to demonize your neighbors for some reason. The problem is that corporate government has discovered the power of social media to deceive and promote their agenda, while making it appear that they are doing something completely different. This is not good. We need to figure out how to get back to truth in governance.
When I said paid, I was referring to the fact that to become a member of the WCC, you must pay $20 unless you claim an economic accommodation. The WCC funds various activities (like lawsuits antagonistic yard signs) to which many can not justify providing that kind of funding.
Claiming you haven’t seen anyone from the WCC screaming at city employees must mean you’ve not attended many land use related meetings at Good Shepherd in the last several years, or that you have very selective memory.
I’m not trying to claim members of the WCC are acting with ill intent, but claiming they represent anything but an extremely narrow set of interests is wrong headed, and then to further claim that those interests are the “true” voice that’s being ignored when election results show time and again that’s not the case is petty and silly.
I also find it offensive that my opinions and observation are apparently “demonizing” “propaganda” while yours are apparently valid and non-objectionable.
Agreed. The original post claims that “social media falsehoods passed MHA” but offers no proof of that assertion.
That was about the redlining claims. He didn’t even get to the most important falsehood – that MHA upzones would make housing more affordable. That was and I suppose still is a very common belief, and more from social media than directly stated by Johnson or Murray, though they did their best to imply it – Johnson with his daughters’ prospects of living in Seattle, for example.
Oh, come on, Doug! Seattle for Everyone and their associates were everywhere trolling on social media. Despite what they claim,
All homeowners are NOT against increased density, are NOT exclusionist, are NOT anti-renter, are NOT racist, or even necessarily white.
MHA is NOT about a few duplexes and triplexes (it proposes much larger projects).
Waiving parking for projects in the urban urban villages without asking for anything in return from developers will NOT make housing more affordable (it just increases profit). The City could have asked for inclusionary affordable units in exchange, like Portland did. This giveaway alone was worth millions to developers, far more than anything that MHA will generate.
Incentivizing construction of rental units will NOT make ownership more affordable, or even make rent more affordable. Developers will give away free months of rent before ever reducing rent.
Teardowns are NOT environmentally friendly. Demolition wastes energy, contributes to toxic waste, crowds the landfills, and is more expensive than repurposing use.
Homeowners do NOT control the market or even who can afford to purchase a home. The market determines price and MHA will exacerbate conditions by reducing the supply of ownership opportunity.
Homeowners are NOT all wealthy, white folks. Many are house-poor, struggling to keep up with ever rising taxes and paying expensive mortgages like everyone else.
Ben, It seems a bit odd that you fail to mention the Vulcan-funded Seattle for Everyone lobbying group with its 25 local neighborhood spinoffs. Vulcan spent millions producing those ubiquitous red HALA, t-shirts, paying folks to testify at hearings, and lobbying City Council members, who always seemed to be surrounded by the Vulcan HALA-Yes signs at every press conference.
Yet you claim that local council groups operating on a budget of a couple thousand dollars are the manipulative and powerful action committees. Money talks in today’s politics and when corporate groups band together to fund legislation, especially using half-truths and sophisticated marketing techniques, one should be very suspect about the motive.
It is easy to side with the powers-that-be. Much more difficult a struggle to stand up for one’s rights against a bottomless pit of money from special interests and against your own tax dollars. The City spent millions. Vulcan and its associates spent millions. The well-connected communities were not targeted by HALA. Who do you think will really benefit from MHA?
I’m a bit confused about what you’re complaining about – that a group existed to advocate for MHA, run under the auspices of FutureWise, the GMA advocacy group whose board members included the same lawyer that the SCALE appeal arguing against it used? Yep, money talks. Both ways.
As someone who actually paid for and distributed a good chunk of the HALAYes yard signs, you are complaining about, and who knows exactly who else paid for them because we took a collection, I can inform you that they weren’t paid for by Vulcan, but by your neighbors, so stop asserting things you have no basis for knowing.
Tell you what, Ben, why don’t open Seattle for Everyone’s books so we can see how much your contribution compares to those of Vulcan and/or other corporate contributors? And I noticed something interesting: the first capture of Seattle for Everyone in 2016 talks about “a broad coalition of affordable housing developers and advocates, for-profit developers and businesses, labor and social justice advocates, environmentalists and urbanists” but the list of supporters is pretty heavy on the “developers” side of things. Yes, SAGE is there, but guess what: somewhere along the way they dropped off. Maybe when they realized that their “social justice” goals are will not be met by MHA.
As for Futurewise’s lawyer board member: I know him well, and I spoke with him about Futurewise, an organization he helped found. (He was a lead drafter of the initiative that led to the GMA.) Bottom line is Futurewise became a staff driven entity; the board had little role in setting policy. Henry McGee has also been on that board for years; he’s the author of a seminal paper on the gentrification of the CD, and he too thinks MHA is a corrupt “follow the money” scheme as well.
I still don’t get what you’re complaining about. I could care less what you think about Seattle for Everyone, nor am I defending them. I think Bricklin is an absolute money grabber who’s completely abandoned his principles by cashing in on his knowledge and role in the GMA to defend “historic” parking garages and that sort of thing in order to preserve the views of expensive condo owners and generally abandoning the anti-sprawl principles of the GMA by using it as a tool to block development within existing urban boundaries. His role in FutureWise lead to many organizations distancing themselves in Seattle for Everyone. That said, I don’t expect you defend him, and I don’t see how its relevant to the merit of policy issues that there are well funded groups taking positions on them that may not be based on the general welfare.
I simply pointed out that the yard signs you see were purchased by your neighbors, not Seattle for Everyone.
You’re not “defending” SFE but you’re paying for and displaying their signs. OK then.
“generally abandoning the anti-sprawl principles of the GMA” — I’ve had this argument with a number of densifiers who claim we must densify the core to stop sprawl. My read of the scientific literature is that this claim is simply wrong. One of the most succinct summaries of why this is so is this paper. Regardless, even assuming growth needs to be accommodated until we stop feeding the growth machine, increased density should not be done without preventing or mitigating environmental, class, and racial impacts. The promoters of MHA largely ignored these goals.
Your accusation that Dave has “completely abandoned his principles” is amusing. Unlike various elected officials who don’t seem to have had many principles to begin with.
And well done cherry picking my comment.
I paid for a set of yard signs promoting MHA and the HALA principles, which I am proud to support. I’m not a designer, so thanks to the S4E staffer who designed one.
As for the rest of your assertions, have fun playing opposite day – clearly we disagree with what causes negative racial, class and environmental impacts, as I see snob zoning as a primary driver of all of them and the final MHA plan as specifically addressing them. Regardless of the overall plan, given the demographics of Wallingford, and its centrality to jobs, even a blanket rezone to LR+ zoning (not that this would be a good idea, I’m just taking the extreme as an illustrative example) would have massive positives along each of those dimensions (shorter commute distances, more affordable housing options, not just the MHA units, than our existing $1 million teardowns which are being replaced with $2 million luxury homes, more and more accessible opportunities for ownership in terms of townhomes and condos vs the existing million dollars for a small run down single family home and $2 million for one that isn’t run down or is slightly larger, rentals that are more accessible to a wide range of demographics) with limited negatives in the form of people who prefer that the whole neighborhood remain low density and that all new people moving in be rich people only.
Regardless, I’m sure you’ll come up with another set of process objections, ad hominem attacks on public servants who don’t agree with you, or some other whine about how you don’t get your way all the time when a majority of citizens don’t agree with you, but I’m done.
My main objections to your positions are not “process”—they are substantive based on the best available data, including analyses by those who understand institutional racism. I think your fealty to market urbanism leads you to exclude consideration of what’s actually happening. Your lack of concern about assessment and mitigation for significant local impacts (hello? displacement!) in the name of “massive positives” that are largely conjectural, is a perfect example of what critical thinking is not.
Example: “rentals that are more accessible to a wide range of demographics” —seriously? There is not likely to be much if any “inclusionary” housing, so where are these rentals? ADU/DADUs? SEDUs?
As for “ad hominem,” you accusing me of “whining” is rather like the pot and kettle. I’m glad you’re done.
It is interesting that supporters of MHA focus on a debate about one hundred year old banking practices over which no one living had a say in, and ignores the rest. The campaign in support of MHA was very well-funded by corporate development interests such as Vulcan in its cynically-named Seattle for Everyone campaign and by the City using our tax dollars.
Millions of dollars were spent by the City alone. How do we fix this problem? How do we come back together as a community to heal the divisive tactics adopted by our own representatives? How do we fact-check our government when they appear to be in bed with well-connected corporate interests?
It is easy to side with the powers-that-be, but is that wise? Consider the ulterior motives. Follow the money and the power. It ain’t with the common resident. Be careful of believing all those attractive buzzwords solicited via supposed focus groups. Many are simply not completely true.
I focused on your redlining statement because (except for Murray’s executive order) it’s the only thing you actually offered a citation for in your post. I have no way of knowing if your other claims (density numbers, parking numbers, trolling accusations, Vulcan funding, etc) are accurate because you offered no citations to your data sources.
Some of the numbers you use are disingenuous on their face, like comparing SEDU rents to single-family housing rents as if those accomodations were apples-to-apples.
I’m frankly disappointed that this post was allowed to run without an insistence that you provide data for some of your sources.
Doug, Can you please explain what the redlining practices of financial institutions and the compliance of real estate brokers 50 to 70 years ago have to do with MHA policies and practices today? I’m not getting the connection.
No, and I never claimed I could. But I do know that housing discrimination based upon race was more widespread than the map posted here shows.
Doug, I believe that you place an unfair burden by wanting citations included for every statement in an opinion piece. This is not a dissertation or a textbook. Doing so would be cumbersome and lengthy. Newspapers seldom cite all their sources in an article, but that does not mean the sources do not exist.
I have read quite a bit on the subjects in the piece, however, and I stand by the summary presented. I feel confident that I can dig back through my archives to cite the source material. This piece is no different than multiple other pieces published elsewhere, including many of your own. If you have information to indicate where I am mistaken, please let me know, but a blanket “I don’t believe you” is difficult to debate.
Regarding your primary opinion, redlining was a Federal program to try to kickstart banks into lending again after the Depression. The comments by the Feds cited in the Richmond study for Seattle seldom mention race, if ever. Redlining basically made it difficult for folks wishing to buy a home in a declining area to obtain a mortgage, so only banks or other outside money owned property rather than the residents, who were basically forced to rent.
MHA will likely make it more difficult to own a home in the urban villages. Prices for property will be pushed beyond the reach of potential owners of average income due to the deep pockets of the corporate real estate developers, the speculators, by Wall Street money, by illegal money, and by the REITs. Average folks will find ownership too expensive and will basically be forced to rent.
MHA does nothing to incentivize ownership opportunity, and actually does the opposite – MHA incentivizes the creation of even more rental units, owned by outside corporate RE investment firms, often tiny and often NOT family-size.
The only areas where discriminatory covenants (not always ethnic) were instituted by residents, were the “green blotch” areas indicated on the map produced by King County. Some of those areas STILL contain covenants. None of those areas are targeted by MHA, other than Capitol Hill. This is NOT what the City and Vulcan have been telling people.
Actually people still all have a say in this, just that some groups used to have bigger voices and now unhappy they are just one of the many.
It’s really odd; the most pissed off people I work with about the adverse impacts of MHA et al are not those with the biggest voices. They are middle and lower income people (and POC) in South Park, Beacon Hill, and yes, Wallingford and Fremont. In all of these places, the long time residents have little voice in the decisions about who will be displaced. If you don’t think W’ford and Fremont are being cleansed of mid to low income people, you’re not paying attention to the City’s own data. That’s why we’re “unhappy.”
To me the irony is that so many young folks actually think the MHA zoning changes are going to produce “affordable housing” for them over time. Sure, and I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn…
And it’s exactly because of the cleansing that we need to rapidly increase density. The zoning up is too slow and too little but at least in the right direction. To create affordable housing, we need to turn most of these close to downtown neighborhoods to look like the Ballard core. Studies have found that if San Francisco is built like that, which means it’d look mostly like Paris, San Francisco would have affordable housing.
The cause of the cleansing is due to supply being so limited and these neighborhoods being so desirable, so of course the upper middle class will squeeze out the poorer ones. If would have been even worse if we kept the neighborhood councils. If we’ve kept them, sooner or later those councils would be mostly populated by the richer people who are in the neighborhood, and they’ll favor even more extreme policies that would further blocking out the poor. This is how San Franciso got more and more people advocating policies against the poor, because the limited housing supply means more and more of the residents are the rich ones.
Therefore it’s wrong to have too much local voices! We need to look at things from a higher level that benefits everybody.
You are clearly a dedicated market urbanist. By definition this meme is based on “classical liberal economics,” which means neoliberalism as currently defined. I.e., “Free market” capitalism: “Neoliberalism is the intensification of the influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode of production, into an ethic, a set of political imperatives, and a cultural logic.”
The cleansing of lower income households from Seattle neighborhoods is not due to a lack of housing supply. It’s due to the intentional movement of capital into the urban core. You are blind to the fact that the new people in our communities are richer and whiter than those who are being displaced. More and more of the residents of booming core cities are “the rich ones” as intended by those making the land use policy decisions. Notwithstanding the professions by City planners and council members that up zoning is intended to benefit POC and “equity”, it’s a lie. Follow the money.
Yes, we need to look at things from a higher level. Have you read Logan and Molotch’s Urban Fortunes? Or this essay by Wm. Domhoff. Even the former promoter of market urbanism’s “creative class,” Richard Florida, came to recognize that market urbanism is a bunch of capitalist BS that leads to more inequity, not less.
Tokyo kept adding people without displacing the poor. Housing price in Tokyo has been going down despite population increase and more wealth concentration, because they have so many housing starts. That’s no lie, and Tokyo did that by having no local say in zoning.
Japan is not the U.S. Tokyo is a huge sprawl. Saying that Tokyo is the result of “no local zoning” and can be applied to Seattle is absurd. Come on, respond to the relevant content.
It took him longer than usual to bring up Tokyo. He must not be feeling well.
I haven’t brought up Native Americans yet! I am saving that for when people start to insist that the way of life that has been here has to be respected.
Just to add some clarity: TJ is a developer and his home is not impacted by the passed upzone.
Figures. And he (I assume you know) doesn’t listen well or respond to specifics hardly ever.
“we need to rapidly increase density” — wow: that’s working so well for us, let’s do it even more!
I am not a developer and has no association with developers. I just love density. The reason I am not living in U-District ( I used to live in University Plaza, one of the tallest building there) or Ballard or Capital Hill is because my job is in Wallingford. When I tried to buy a house, I basically only looked at a range that’s 20 blocks wide, because I want to live close to work. My kids walk to all the schools they attend, starting from elementary to college.
I am so glad density is finally and gradually coming to the neighborhood. You should read the books you recommend and see how great that will be! You can see how much more vibrant the denser neighborhoods in Seattle are, and Ballard actually have much more affordable housing than in Wallingford because of density.
I have no idea who you are, and it’s basically irrelevant except insofar as it might help to explain why you don’t understand limits to growth and that density by itself doesn’t solve problems.
I surely understand the limit of growth, since I’ve lived in cities way more dense than Seattle and know this is very very very very very far from the limit. I am not gonna claim that this place is full like some others would ( Yes! I am intentionally comparing many of the anti-density guys to Trump!). Also because of the various places I’ve stayed, I know for sure density itself solves a lot of problems and brings a lot of benefits. We don’t have to look far: look at how more lively places like Ballard or even Stone Way are, comparing to not that long ago. Ballard now is a much more vibrant place with a better mix of different income. It used to be a poorer place, now it actually attracts richer people while still giving place for people who are not that rich.
Oh, so the purpose and goal of density is “vibrancy.” You ignore the negatives entirely; saying that gentrifying (“vibrant”) neighborhoods “still give places for people who are not that rich” ignores displacement. Didn’t you see the two pages from MHA EIS Appendix M below? [errata, “Change in Housing Units” in red box in top graph should be “Change in Households < 50% AMI"]
And I certainly did read Zuk and Chapple (a few times, carefully). You mentioned but skimmed right over "things don't work at block level." It's actually more like "neighborhood level" or bigger (the study refers to "block group level" which is a Census grouping of a number of blocks). Since you seemed to miss some of the key points, here's a couple of the section headers:
"The Effectiveness of Market-Rate Production in
Mitigating Displacement Diminishes over Time"
"Housing Production May Not Reduce
Displacement Pressure in a Neighborhood"
And here's the final sentence: "However, to help stabilize existing communities
we need to look beyond housing development alone to strategies that protect tenants and help them stay in their homes."
Their paper dealt with a large urban area, not just one city. Regardless, displacement is happening—and will be made worse—across broad parts of Seattle. You have blinders on.
As for limits of growth, I don't think you have a clue (which is true of many if not most people). You think the salmon and orca are disappearing because we are so "very very very very very far from the limit"?—lol.
Here's a little weekend reading for you on how to think about limits in the local to regional to global context:
• The Macroecology of Sustainability
• The Metabolism of a Human-Dominated Planet
• Extra-metabolic energy use and the rise in human hyper-density
[ooops, I meant to include this one, not the one just above (which I’ll leave):]
• The Central Role of Energy in the Urban Transition: Global Challenges for Sustainability
Do you know again the articles you linked are against your position? You know unless you are supporting a revert back to hunter-gatherer society, within the context of modern cities it’s better to be denser, as shown in what you linked? You know it’s the same case for CO2 use and density? Unless you are talking about forcing people out of the Seattle area and make it rural, higher density actually means lower emission? You know if we shrunk Seattle into one tenth and have everybody living on top of each other, most of us will be able to walk to work?
So you are advocating for higher density? Or are you planning to move to Carnation?
Re your first question: What do you think “my position” is, and what specific points in those papers “are against” my position?
Re your second question part 1: Where do I say anything about “reverting to a hunter-gatherer society”?
Re your second question part 2: Where in any of the papers I linked does it say that “it’s better to be denser”? I want to see a specific quote.
Re your third question: Where in any of those papers does it say that density is better for CO2? And answer at the scale of urban areas, not by block or neighborhood.
Re you fourth question (similar to third): Where in any of those papers does it say that higher density means lower emission for the urban area (again, not in a localized portion)?
Re your fifth question: King County has a population somewhere between Manhattan (1.7 million) and Brooklyn (2.7 million); if you put all of King County into an area half the size of Seattle, how do you think it’s energy and material consumption would be different?
You clearly have little desire to learn new things about the world and what is happening on it. Why do you think global warming is happening? Do you understand the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming? Do you believe that our civilization can function without fossil fuels? Same question rephrased: Do you understand the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and our economy? Do you believe the supply of fossil fuels is infinite? If not, how much do you think is left? What happens to the economy if/when the available supply of fossil fuels per capita significantly drops?
Have you ever heard of Dunning-Kruger? You need to start here. I don’t believe your critical thinking (and reading) skills are up to the task of responding very well to most of my questions.
Oh, I forgot to respond to your final questions: No and no.
Also, I note that you didn’t respond to any of my critique of your interpretation of Zuk and Chapple.
Why lie?
Here, I’ll help you out with a little data from the MHA EIS: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f722ac66ca8d7aebf2d4f677487edfe0555c9c3e09cee77a9ee504e1bbe987e.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/613254f5520402e836c9e4ca425999aa2344c50d5a512b1875439710c9a30861.png
A very easy way to have zero displacement from the neighborhood: tore it down and rebuild it with five times the density, and then assign new units to all the original residents. That way you don’t have anybody being forced out. With that, we can build the new infrastructures needed at the same time and add more parks.
Good luck with that. CM Herbold has explored the idea; it has merit but also some difficulties. I believe she posted about it.
If it was so important to the market urbanist “Seattle for Everyone” crowd to mitigate for the obvious and inevitable displacement impacts (although largely denied and ignored by the Council and the Hearing Examiner), why weren’t they advocating for any mitigation before MHA was passed? Will you support another mitigation measure, CM Herbold’s displacement proposal?
And here’s a list of the existing older (i.e., more affordable) MF housing in Fremont’s UV that are now at even higher risk of replacement with new housing. Affordable? Not likely, unless you mean a 250 sq.ft. closet (SEDU) for $1,500. And this is only about half of the units at risk; none of Fremont in LR and N/C zones above 40th is https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4837d87d4c51ffd7959ef89eec1cb2f41a1ccd40c0e0992ae9e56b551f3c9f9a.png on this list.
The displacement impact is inevitable because of the very slow growth in supply. In the US, the worst case is San Francisco, and they got on this track by strong limitation on building up to strongly suppress supply. That’s really the problem of the whole state of California, where it’s even hard to build up in cheaper and not dense areas due to the regulations suppressing supply. The result is the net migration out of people middle class and below, while gaining more wealthy residents. Texas may have a lot of other problems, but with its very lax regulation the middle to lower middle class has been moving there and finding reasonable housing options.
Typically for cities, the best units that can guard against cleansing are the old apartments. They have high density and are never desirable for the rich. The fact they are so dense means it’s hard to take one down with so many people living in it. Single family houses on the other hand are easily converted and rebuilt if needed, therefore new/old/rundown units are all still game for the rich to buy and displace the original owners. Even shiny new apartments are good to guard against displacement, because they’ll be old in 20 years and ready for the poorer people to move in. So if you are against displacement, advocate for more apartments!
“The displacement impact is inevitable because of the very slow growth in supply.”
It’s like arguing with a brick wall. Everything does not revolve around supply and demand. Do you look at any of the numerous links I put up? Please at least go read Richard Florida’s latest book (or a good review) and get back to me.
You present the same tired market urbanist arguments. Even the promoters of trickle down, called “filtering” in real estate lingo, know that new housing doesn’t become as affordable as the replaced housing in 20 years. And filtering doesn’t work at all where the growth is as fast as we’re experiencing; the buildings don’t last long enough. It’s stupid environmental policy on top of everything else.
Have you even read Zuk and Chapple?
in which way aren’t these links about supply and demand?!? Did you read your own links? And did you not think about the Tokyo case I mentioned? The one city that tackled this the best? And isn’t the book you want me to read asking for substantially increase in density, which is what I advocate? Are you trying to quote sources that undermine your arguments? And the Zuk and Chapple link you provided made exactly the same statement I made: market rate production induces long term lower price in median housing, and things don’t work at block level but at regional level.
All the things you try to link are supporting my arguments. If you can’t see that, then it’s you that’s the brick wall, and you are projecting yourself on me.
You bet, tj, that explains it all. Have a nice weekend.