Category Archives: hala

Wallingford targeted for more housing growth than most other urban villages under HALA

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As I reported in November, the City has released the “Preferred Alternative” maps for proposed zoning changes under HALA (if you don’t know what HALA is, you can find out more here). What I did not have in my hands when writing about the Preferred Alternative maps the first time, was the figures for just how much new development Wallingford could expect under these proposed zoning changes.

As you can see in the document linked below, Wallingford is targeted for a whopping 95% increase in housing growth under the latest proposed changes! This is a big jump from the 39% …

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The life and death of our Neighborhood Plan

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I’d like to tell you a story about the life and death of our Neighborhood Plan. The story starts back in the 1990’s. It was a time when Seattle was still a small big city before Amazon took over a whole neighborhood, when we were the center of a musical grunge scene and flannel was everywhere (well, maybe that last part hasn’t changed).

If you are old enough, you may remember this version of Seattle. But while the cool kids were listening to grunge there were some other groups, of likely the more bookish variety, that were involved in …

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Rob Johnson Q&A for April: Limiting Home Demolitions, why HALA Targets Wallingford, and More

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Rob Johnson represents Wallingford on city council and is ushering HALA through the council as land use chair. This is a follow up to our January interview with him. Topics include Limiting Demolitions, Wallingford Neighborhood Planning, HALA Leaving Car Centric Communities Untouched, Transportation, Developer Impact Fees, The HALA Split on City Council, ADU / DADU Triplexes, and Meeting Rob in Wallingford.

Q1- Limiting Home Demolitions: The main concern with HALA is that upzones will drive redevelopment that happens too quickly, destroying livability while the transformation happens and forcing residents to either sell out to developers or live in a construction …

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Rob Johnson Q&A on the HALA “Grand Bargain” Upzone of Wallingford

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[Editor’s Note: Thanks Eric, for this exclusive interview. For our readers, this post is longer than our usual format, but packed with a lot of good information.]

Rob Johnson represents Wallingford on Seattle City Council and also leads land use issues for them, so nobody is more important in shaping how HALA ends up for Wallingford. The following Q&A is lightly edited for clarity. We very much appreciate Rob taking the time to address these questions with us, and look forward to your thoughts in the comments section.

Q- The Grand Bargain: A key complaint that we hear about HALA …

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Draft Zoning Maps Released for Wallingford

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The city has released Wallingford’s draft MHA zoning map. Click here to download the PDF.

Under this draft proposal, there would be no single family zoning left inside the urban village boundaries. The website includes instructions on how to interpret the map, which I recommend you read. In general, when you look at each zone on the map, our current zone is on the left and the new proposed zone is on the right.

The most dramatic changes, where the city wants to change some of the Single Family (SF) zones to Low Rise 3 (LR3), are mostly found west …

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Another Look at the Proposed 2016 Housing Levy

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On May 2, 2016, I posted an article on the proposed 2016 housing levy expressing my concerns about the rationale used to determine the amount of the levy, which was double the expiring levy passed in 2009. The mayor’s proposal calls for $201 million vs. $104 million, which was the cost of the expiring 2009 levy. The proposed levy will only deliver 2,150 new units and 350 retrofitted units, which is less than the number of units delivered under the old levy (see table below). After discussions with Councilperson O’Brien and administrative aide of Councilperson Burgess, I still didn’t get …

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Seattle 2035 Changes to the Comprehensive Plan

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The election results from Tuesday mean HALA and Seattle 2035 now have a clear path to become law over the next couple years, including the upzoning of the Wallingford Urban Village. At Wednesday’s WCC meeting architect and longtime WCC land use guru Greg Hill went through the  159 pages of Seattle 2035 and pulled out this sampling of developer goodies packed inside:

Land Use Guideline from
Current Comprehensive Plan Mayor’s Recommended Change Change LU1 LU1.1 Use the goals and policies included in this Plan to identify on the Future Land Use Map the general locations where broad categories of land…

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