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Tag: single-family zoning
Affordability, Density, Development, housing, Media, The C Is for Crank, zoning	 April 30, 2021
Company Owned by Seattle Times' Slow-Growth Columnist Razed House for Apartments in South Seattle
Image via Rail House Apartments.
Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat has long been a hero to the NIMBY crowd. His columns about density and gentrification have created heroes and villains in Seattle's growth wars: Little old ladies versus greedy developers; "unfettered growth" versus homeowners calling for a little restraint; "some of the biggest zoning changes in our lifetimes" versus bungalows.
In 2015, a Westneat column warned darkly about secret plans to "do away with single-family zoning — which for a hundred-plus years has been the defining feature of Seattle's strong neighborhood feel." The column galvanized a rebellion among the city's slow-growthers that gutted then-mayor Ed Murray's Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, reducing new density to a tiny slice of land on the edges of existing urban villages and ensuring that Seattle's single-family areas will remain unaffordable enclaves for the foreseeable future.
According to King County records, the Westneats bought the property in 2005 for $267,750 and tore down the house that was there around 2016; the current value of the property, according to the county tax assessor, is just under $3 million.
So I was surprised to learn recently that while Westneat preaches the gospel of slow growth and "concurrency"—a buzz word for anti-density groups that argue the city shouldn't accommodate new people until it has built sidewalks, roads, and other infrastructure "concurrent" with population growth—he and his wife own a development company that bulldozed a bungalow in Seattle's historically Black south end and replaced it with a 13-unit apartment complex. Westneat's wife developed the property.
Rents at the Rail House apartments, located about a block from the Columbia City light rail station, start at around $1,400 for a studio and go up from there; prospective renters must have three references from previous landlords and a minimum credit score of 650 (until recently 660). Activists for racial equality have called credit requirements a form of modern-day redlining that has no relationship to tenant quality. Westneat said the credit and reference requirements were a response to a city law requiring landlords to accept the first applicant who qualifies; that law was designed to prevent discrimination by landlords.
Contacted about this seeming contradiction between the views he expresses in his columns and his family's business, Westneat responded that he's never had a problem with transit-oriented development; his issue is with places "where growth is overwhelming the infrastructure."
"I think all transit corridors and the light rail corridors in particular are no-brainers for higher-density development, Westneat told me in an email. "I do have issues with the way Seattle has gentrified so quickly (but who doesn't?)." Rail House, he continued, "is a classic transit-oriented development, 13 units with no parking. It works because it is right next to Columbia City light rail station, but it might not be appropriate in parts of the city that lack robust transit."
What's insidious about Westneat's columns isn't that they make a moderate case—it costs homeowners nothing to say that density is acceptable where they don't live—but that they are an argument against the kind of density Seattle actually needs.
You won't get any argument from me that transit-oriented development is a no-brainer. But even the most dyed-in-the-wool slow-growther would probably agree with this view today, now that battles over transit and development near transit stops have been mostly settled. (Of course, both Westneat and I have been around long enough to recall when transit itself was considered not just a gentrifying factor but one that would promote out-of-control growth in historically single-family areas like Columbia City!)
As an example of his support for appropriate density, Westneat said that he was all for Mike O'Brien's 2016 legislation that would have "upzoned most of the city to three units." (In reality, the city projected that the plan would result in fewer than 4,000 new units across the entire city over 20 years).
"I don't have a longstanding editorial opposition to density or upzoning," Westneat told me.
I'd say that's debatable—the cumulative effect of column after column condemning specific examples of density is an editorial opposition to density, even if those columns are tempered by general statements supporting the idea of density where "appropriate." By opposing specific examples of density again and again, Westneat's columns have poured gasoline on the movement against density of all kinds, including modest density (such as row houses and triplexes) in single-family areas.
Continue reading "Company Owned by Seattle Times' Slow-Growth Columnist Razed House for Apartments in South Seattle" →
Filed under: concurrency, Danny Westneat, HALA, Seattle Times, single-family zoning, upzones
Affordability, Density, housing, land use, legislature, zoning	 April 28, 2021 April 28, 2021
House Democrats Gut Pro-Renter Backyard Cottage Bill
by Leo Brine
As the legislative session in Olympia ended this week, Democratic lawmakers celebrated the list of historic, progressive bills they passed, such as a capital gains tax, a new clean fuels standard, and police reform.
But as usual, legislators' attempt to increase access to affordable housing by changing outdated zoning rules ended in disappointment.
Earlier this year, Sen. Marko Liias proposed legislation (SB 5235) to loosen restrictions on accessory dwelling units—secondary units, such as backyard cottages, that are "accessory" to single-family homes— in cities and counties that are required to plan under the state Growth Management Act. The bill would have banned local governments from imposing owner occupancy requirements for ADUs, except in limited circumstances.
Many cities and counties require property owners to live on site order to rent an accessory unit, effectively prohibiting situations in which renters occupy both the primary house and its secondary apartment. Allowing property owners to live elsewhere would have expanded opportunities for renters to live in cities, including in single-family areas that are often prohibitively expensive.
The original bill passed the senate easily 43-6. However, by the time the bill made it out back to the state senate from the house, it included new changes that effectively gutted the legislation. The bill that eventually passed includes a loophole allowing cities to opt out of the new restrictions and impose owner occupancy requirements on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, simply by going through a brief public feedback process. The changes prompted Liias to remark sarcastically, "Sometimes when we pass a bill out of the Senate and send it over to the House, they really transform it into something even better and stronger than it was before. … This is not one of those cases."
In fact, one of the original supporters of the bill, the progressive Sightline think tank, sent a letter to Governor Jay Inslee this week asking him to veto several sections the House added to Liias' bill, writing that the original bill "would have lifted local prohibitions on renters residing in properties with accessory dwelling units. These rules not only discriminate against renters, but are a major impediment to the addition of ADUs. The final version as amended by the House would solve neither problem, and all told, would likely amount to a step backward on ADU policy for the state."
"The final version as amended by the House would …would likely amount to a step backward on ADU policy for the state."
The changes to the bill began in the House Local Government Committee, whose chair, Rep. Gerry Pollet (D-46, North Seattle) told PubliCola the original bill was "a technical nightmare," and "needed dramatic revision." Calling the bill his committee passed a work-in-progress, Pollet said he expected other legislators to make further amendments before passing the bill.
Pollet's amendments, however, did not seem technical. Nor was the House able to restore the bill to anything resembling its former self before sending it back to the senate for final passage. In his committee, Pollet scaled back Liias' pro-renter mandate by allowing cities and counties to keep owner occupancy rules as long as they allowed property owners to apply for exemptions, leaving it up to cities to decide whether claims for exemptions were legitimate.
Pollet's version would have also given cities two years after their next required GMA comprehensive plan update to implement the regulations. Washington cities and counties must update their comprehensive plans every eight years; under the current schedule, some jurisdictions would not have to update their owner occupancy rules until 2027.
Reflecting on the committee's amendments, Sen. Liias said: "Cities don't like being told what to do. A lot of cities are deeply suspicious of renters—they treat renters with disdain. I think ultimately the language in the house committee amendment reflected that anti-renter sentiment from cities."
Continue reading "House Democrats Gut Pro-Renter Backyard Cottage Bill" →
Filed under: accessory dwelling units, Gerry Pollet, Marko Liias, single-family zoning
Affordability, City Council, Density, Development, housing, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, neighborhoods	 July 2, 2019 July 28, 2019
Morning Crank: "I Have Not Seen Any Speculative ADU Bubble"
1. The city council finally adopted legislation to loosen regulations on backyard and basement apartment construction Monday, 13 years after the city allowed homeowners to build backyard cottages in Southeast Seattle on a "pilot" basis in 2006. The city's analysis found that the new rules, which would allow homeowners to build up to two accessory units (such as a basement apartment and a backyard cottage) on their property, will add up to 440 new units a year across Seattle, or about one unit for every 80 acres of single-family land.
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The city expanded its initial backyard cottage pilot to include the rest of Seattle in 2009, but it never took off in a major way, thanks in large part to restrictions on lot and unit size, owner-occupancy requirement, and parking mandates that made accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, difficult and expensive to build. Efforts to make it easier to build second and third units ran against the usual objections from single-family homeowner activists, who claimed that changing the law would turn Seattle's exclusive neighborhoods into triplex canyons, and from left-leaning development opponents, who claimed that loosening the rules would lead to a frenzy of speculative development, with builders snatching up affordable single-family rental houses and destroying them to make way for new houses with two additional units, which they would rent out at higher prices or turn into Airbnbs.
Litigation by a group of homeowner activists dragged the process out for years, but the city prevailed in May, enabling the legislation to finally move forward. Although council members generally supported the proposal, some of them wanted to add new restrictions, such as owner occupancy and ownership requirements and even a ban on leasing the units as short-term rentals, which would have subjected backyard cottages and basement apartments to more stringent anti-Airbnb rules than any other kind of housing in the city.
Ultimately, the only one of those amendments that saw the light of day on Monday was Lisa Herbold's proposal to require homeowners to own a property for one year before building a second accessory unit—a provision Herbold said was necessary "to address the speculative market that will flip these units"—with even socialist council member Kshama Sawant saying that she saw no reason for the restriction. While she is concerned about "corporate developers" building luxury apartment towers, Sawant said, "I have not seen any speculative ADU bubble anywhere."
The legislation, which Sightline called "the best rules in America for backyard cottages," passed 8-0, with council member Bruce Harrell absent.
2. Often, when the council passes a piece of legislation they have been working on for some time, Mayor Jenny Durkan sends out a press release praising the council for passing "the Mayor's legislation." That didn't happen with the ADU bill that passed yesterday—not because Durkan didn't have her own version of the proposal, but because she never sent her own version of the ADU legislation to the council. Instead, after a team of staffers spent months working on draft legislation and crafting an outreach plan for an alternative proposal, the mayor apparently decided to support O'Brien's legislation after all.
It's hard to quantify how much staff time the mayor's office and city departments dedicated to drafting legislation that never saw the light of day, but the sheer volume of communications in the first three months of 2019 suggests it was a substantial body of work. (I filed my request at the end of March and received redacted records in mid-June, which is why I don't have any documents dated later than March 31).
At the moment, it's also hard to know what problems Durkan had with O'Brien's proposal, since most of the documents her office provided about her strategy and legislation look like this:
I would show more, but it just goes on like this.However, series of text messages between two mayoral staffers that were provided without redactions shows that one of the changes Durkan was considering was an even longer ownership requirement than what Herbold proposed—two years, rather than one, before a homeowner could build a second accessory unit.
I've asked the mayor's office for unredacted versions of the documents I received in and will post more details about her proposal when I receive them. In the meantime, here's one more page from those redacted documents—this one a list of ideas the mayor's office had to "further allay concerns" about "speculative development."
Filed under: ADUs, backyard cottages, city council, DADUs, density, development, kshama sawant, Lisa Herbold, Mayor Durkan, mike o'brien, single-family zoning
Affordability, City Council, Density, Development, housing, Morning Crank, neighborhoods, race, Renters, Urbanism, zoning	 December 4, 2018 December 19, 2018
Morning Crank: Eliminating "Single-Family" Zoning Altogether
1. It's been three years (and three mayors) since the city first adopted a plan to implement the affordable housing plan known as Mandatory Housing Affordability, which requires developers to fund affordable housing in exchange for greater density in some parts of the city. Although some aspects of the plan are now in place, the most controversial element—expanding the city's urban villages and centers to incorporate 6 percent of the city's vast swaths of single-family land—was locked up in appeals until late last month, when city hearing examiner Ryan Vancil ruled that the city had adequately addressed almost all of the potential environmental impacts of the proposal.
The fundamental debate about whether to upzone any of the city's single-family neighborhoods, however, continues. On Monday, at a council committee meeting about next steps, city council members Lisa Herbold and Rob Johnson (with assists from Sally Bagshaw and Teresa Mosqueda) played out a miniature version of that debate, with Herbold taking up the banner for activists who claim that allowing more types of housing will lead to massive displacement of low-income people living in single-family houses. "My concern is that we are grossly underestimating the number of affordable units that are being lost to development" by using eligibility for tenant relocation assistance as a proxy for displacement, Herbold said. (Tenant relocation assistance is available to people who make less than 50 percent of the Seattle median income. A subsequent analysis, based on American Community Survey data, included people making up to 80 percent of median income, although as Herbold pointed out, this still may not capture people who share houses with roommates, and thus have a collective household income well above 80 percent of median). Johnson countered that while the council has dithered on passing the MHA legislation, hundreds of new apartments have been built with no affordable housing requirement at all. "Would it be fair to say that the 'no-action alternative' results in a whole lot of displacement?" he asked Nick Welch, a senior planner with the Office of Housing and Community Development. "Yes," Welch replied.
Herbold also suggested that the council should adopt separate resolutions dealing with each of the city's seven "unique" districts that would include "individual urban village commitments" in those districts. Johnson said that was certainly something the council could discuss in the future, but noted that the city has already spent years learning about the issues various neighborhood groups have with the upzone proposal. "I think we have a pretty good sense of what community issues and concerns are out there," Johnson said. "We want to outline a process that would allow us to address some of those issues." Herbold also said she was considering amendments that would require developers to replace every unit for which a tenant received relocation assistance on a one-for-one basis, and suggested requiring developers building in areas with high displacement risk to build affordable units on site, rather than paying into the city's affordable housing fund.
Under the city's current timeline, the council would vote to approve the legislation, with amendments in late March of next year.
2. As the council debated the merits of modest density increases, the city's Planning Commission suggested a far more significant rewrite of the city's housing laws—one that would include doing away with city's "single-family" zoning designation entirely. In the report, "Neighborhoods for All: Expanding Housing Opportunity in Seattle's Single-Family Zones," the advisory commission recommends reducing displacement and increasing economic and racial diversity in Seattle's increasingly white single-family areas with "a return to the mix of housing and development patterns found in many of Seattle's older and most walkable neighborhoods." In other words: Backyard cottages and basement apartments aren't enough; the city needs to allow small-scale apartment buildings, duplexes and triplexes, and other types of housing in those areas as well. Crucially, the report notes that these changes wouldn't represent a radical shift or a departure from single-family zones' vaunted "neighborhood character"; in fact, both minimum lot-size requirements and "Seattle's current single-family zoning code came into being in the 1950's."
At a time when arguments about development often center on the need to protect the "historic character" of Seattle's neighborhoods, minimum lot sizes and laws restricting housing to one house per lot, this bears repeating. "Small lot houses, duplexes, triplexes, and small apartments built prior to 1957 remain in single-family zones, but building them is illegal today." Rules restricting development in single-family areas effectively concentrate all growth into narrow bands of land along busy arterials known as urban centers and urban villages; since 2006, according to the report, "over 80% of Seattle's growth has occurred in urban villages and centers that make up less than a quarter of Seattle's land. Urban villages have seen significant change and new construction, while most areas of the city have seen little physical change. Overall, multifamily housing is only allowed in 12 percent of the city's residential land—a constriction of opportunity that perpetuates the historical impacts of redlining, racial covenants, and other discriminatory housing policies by "excluding all but those who have the economic resources to buy homes," the report says. And Seattle's restrictive policies don't even work to preserve "neighborhood character," the report points out. Instead, they encourage homeowners and builders to tear down existing houses and build McMansions in their place. "Even under current zoning, the physical character of neighborhoods is changing as existing houses are replaced with larger, more expensive ones, as allowed by today's land use code," the report notes. "The average size of newly constructed detached houses in 2016 was 3,487 square feet, more than 1,000 square feet larger than the average for the first two-thirds of the last century."
The planning commission offers a number of suggested policy changes, including:
• Expanding urban village boundaries to include all areas within a 15-minute walk of frequent transit lines. Currently, the report points out, many urban villages are extremely narrow—the Greenwood/Phinney urban village, pictured below, is an extreme but not unique example—dramatically limiting housing choices for people who can't afford to buy single-family homes. At the same time, the report recommends getting rid of frequent transit service as a requirement to expand urban villages, pointing out that this becomes a chicken-and-egg problem, where lack of transit justifies keeping density low, and low density justifies a lack of investment in transit.
• Renaming "single-family" zoning as "neighborhood residential," with various levels of density (from backyard cottages to small apartment buildings) to reflect lot size and neighborhood amenities. Areas near parks and schools, which the report identifies as amenities that tend to be most accessible to people in single-family areas, would get more density so that more people would have access to those resources.
• Eliminating or reducing parking requirements—not just in urban villages, but everywhere. Single-family-housing activists have long argued that if the city allows more housing without requiring new parking, they will have no place to park their cars. Though the planning commission report doesn't explicitly mention a recent study that found that Seattle already has more than five parking spaces per household, they do point out that prioritizing cars over people conflicts with the city's stated climate goals. "Requiring parking on site takes away space that could be used for additional housing or open space," the report says. Under their proposal, "While driveways and garages could still be allowed, people would not be required to provide space for cars over housing or space for trees–especially if they choose not to own a car."
3. The J Is for Judge himself stepped up to the mic at city hall yesterday to explain why he wants to see more of every kind of housing in every neighborhood. At yesterday's MHA briefing, after the authors of this piece (one of whom lives in Bellevue) claimed that the council was withholding information about displacement from the public, Josh Feit got up to speak. Here, in slightly abridged form, is what he had to say.
My name is Josh Feit, and I am not originally from Seattle.
I did not grow up here.
I'm am not a 7th-generation Seattleite.
I was not born and raised in Ballard.
I did not go to Roosevelt High School.
I am not a lifelong member of my community.
To those of us who choose to move here, Seattle stands out as an exciting 21st Century landmark that's taking up a brave experiment in progressive city building.
I'm excited to live here.
I have a public sector job.
I am a renter.
Please stop letting some residents of Seattle's Single Family zones play Seattle First politics by mythologizing neighborhood "character" and stigmatizing renters.
That kind of dog whistling has no place in Seattle.
Please stop letting quarter-century-old neighborhood plans that were developed without a Race and Social Justice analysis be the blueprint for Seattle's future. (Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for challenging the anti-growth narrative by taking a closer look at that vaunted 1994 plan.)
As you know, the Mandatory Housing Affordability legislation and upzones in front of you today did go through a displacement analysis by income and race.
Thank you for passing the six MHA Urban Center and Urban Village rezones last year.
But to make MHA work, to address the housing affordability crisis, all of Seattle needs to be neighborly.
Please pass this small but significant first step in taking down the walls that keep too many of Seattle's residential neighborhoods–off limits for too many residents.
I am not proud that I'm from here. I'm proud that I moved here. I hope I can continue to feel that way.
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Filed under: city council, displacement, housing, J Is for Judge, Lisa Herbold, mandatory housing affordability, Renters, Rob Johnson, single-family zoning, zoning
Density, Development, housing, J Is for Judge, State of Washington, Transit	 October 18, 2018 October 18, 2018
The J is for Judge: It Takes One to Know One
Critics of Seattle's out-of-whack zoning scheme—two-thirds of the city is zoned exclusively for single-family housing—have been arguing for decades now that Seattle needs to grow up (or build up, actually) and function like an actual city, not a suburb.
This isn't an argument about aesthetics. It's an argument for housing affordability and environmental sustainability, both urgent issues given the homelessness crisis and the latest climate change data from the U.N., respectively.
The blunt argument from pro-city urbanists is this: The Magnolia First ideology that single-family zoning stalwarts adhere to (or Laurelhurst First ideology or Wallingford First ideology or Phinney Ridge First ideology) selfishly defends an unsustainable lifestyle of privilege and exclusion (including the delusion that people have a constitutional right to free parking in front of their houses).
In short: The NIMBYs' aesthetic position—that we must preserve the "character" of exclusionary neighborhoods—is undermining Seattle's livability and affordability for the rest of us.
If you think the urbanist critique of single-family zoning lacks credibility because hipster urbanists supposedly don't have kids or haven't lived here long enough or are too young or don't own houses (most people in Seattle are renters, by the way), let me introduce you to the latest critic of Seattle's refusal to grow up and act like a city: An actual suburbanite, who lives in an actual suburb, state Sen. Guy Palumbo (D-1, Maltby).
Palumbo is proposing a bill that would make Seattle do something it refuses to do on its own: Upzone its suburban-style landscape to take on more density.
The 45-year-old state senator argues that Seattle's failure to play its designated urban role in our region is undermining the state's anti-sprawl Growth Management Act. Palumbo's point: Seattle's refusal to accept more growth is causing sprawl, the very opposite of what smart cities are supposedly about. (Maltby is northeast of Kirkland and Woodinville, and due east of Lynnwood.)
Sen. Palumbo's state legislative district (which largely overlaps with Snohomish County Council Districts 4 and 5 on the charts below) has, in fact, seen growth on par with Seattle's, at least as a percentage of population—around 14 percent, including 17.4 percent growth in portions of the district. It'd be one thing if that spike in growth simply represented small-town numbers growing to slightly bigger small-town numbers. But we're talking an extra 40,000 people added to a population of 285,000. It's as if everyone on Mercer Island picked up and moved to Palumbo's district. And then a couple of years later, half of Mercer Island picked up and did it again.
Seattle itself has grown 17.2 percent over the same time (2010 to 2017). But Palumbo isn't arguing Seattle hasn't grown significantly; he's pointing out that it should be growing a lot more than the suburbs if the region is going to grow sustainably.
"They are taking growth," he says of Seattle. "The problem is the growth they aren't taking is moving at too high a level to places that aren't equipped to deal with it and service it. Snohomish is taking the growth that should be in Seattle," he reasons. "If Seattle only built the types of housing people wanted and needed," he adds, it would also increase housing supply, slowing the increase in housing prices that are nudging people out to the remote suburbs. Sprawl.
Palumbo condemns Seattle's rigid zoning because, he says, it's forcing families who would actually prefer to live in the city to move into his suburban southwest Snohomish County district instead. "Seattle is zoned low-density, single-family," he says. As a result, "people can't even afford one of the few and overpriced houses there, and they have to move. And they move out to the suburbs. "
Why, there oughta be a law!
Lucky thing Palumbo is a state senator.
According to Palumbo, his draft bill (which the Urbanist first reported earlier this month), would require increased density within a mile of frequent transit service—areas near light rail stations or near bus stops where buses arrive at least every 15 minutes. Although the details of the bill could change, Palumbo envisions a mandatory density that slopes down as development fans out: 150 dwelling units per acre within a quarter-mile of frequent transit; 45 units per acre within half a mile of transit; and 14 units per acre within a 1 mile radius. (Asked whether cities could build more densely than the minimums required by his bill, Palumbo said he hadn't thought of that.)
Palumbo tells me his legislation isn't a one-size-fits-all bill, and those particular numbers are only intended for Seattle. Different numbers would apply to transit-friendly neighborhoods in smaller cities and towns where transit is less frequent and where target densities are lower. (He also acknowledged that his "units per acre" metric was a bit backwards—that is, you can't logically prescribe units-per acre rules on an individual development without a universal picture of all the proposed developments in the upzoned area.)
He said his metric was simply meant to describe the ultimate density he envisions, and that Seattle could apply units per lot and floor area ratio metrics to achieve the 14 units per acre within his 1-mile radius performance standard, for example.
Seattle is already (sorta) moving in this direction, though as cautiously as a cat burglar tip-toeing up the stairs.
This year, the council is taking up a plan that's been in play since 2015 to upzone a tiny percentage of the city's vast single-family neighborhoods. Focusing on the edges of single family zones that are near designated residential urban villages, the city proposal, known as Mandatory Housing Affordability (it simultaneously makes developers fund affordable housing), would upzone six percent of single family zoned land into slightly denser residential small lot zones, low-rise zones, and Neighborhood Commercial zones. The changes would help create what pro-housing urbanists call the "Missing Middle."
The density increase Palumbo's proposing within a half and quarter mile of frequent transit service—45 and 150 units per acre, respectively—would already be allowed (though not required) under both current Seattle zoning and under MHA changes to Lowrise zones and Neighborhood Commercial zones.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of the MHA rezone area in strict single-family zones (so about four percent of that current zoning)—the Residential Small Lot upzone—would permit density of about 20 units per acre, according to some back-of-the-envelope math city staffers did after they read about Sen. Palumbo's proposal for comparison's sake.
Again, while not required (as it is in Palumbo's formula), that would actually be slightly more permissive than the density Palumbo is proposing a mile away from transit stops (his 14 units per acre). But that's only in the sliver of single family areas rezoned under MHA; under Palumbo's mandate, the larger swath of single family areas left untouched by MHA would face a significant upzone.
In other words, when it comes to the majority of Seattle's single family zones, Mr. Palumbo of Maltby is far more woke about requiring dense, sustainable land use than Seattle and its leaders—even though today's leading climate scientists are demanding dramatic action to address pending environmental calamity.
Seattle leaders do not have a good track record when it comes to standing up to the Magnolia First faction and making this change. Back in 2009, former Mayor Greg Nickels initially backed a Futurewise/Transportation Choices Coalition state bill that would have promoted more density around transit hubs. But when traditional neighborhood activists said the proposal would turn Seattle into Mumbai, intimidating Nickels' wary deputy mayor Tim Ceis, Nickels stepped away from the bill as his reelection loomed. (The legislation failed.)
And, of course, former Mayor Ed Murray folded on his original proposal to upzone all single family zones in 2015, watering his proposal down to the current six percent plan when the NIMBYs at the Seattle Times protested on behalf of their home-owning readers.
I contacted the Seattle City Council and Mayor Jenny Durkan's office to see if they supported Palumbo's urgent push for more density. A spokeswoman for the mayor's office said she hadn't seen the bill, which is still in early draft form.
Meanwhile, Seattle City Council Member Rob Johnson, who's leading the city's limited MHA upzone effort, responded. Johnson, who was the director of TCC back in 2009 when the pro-transit group went to the mat for the state upzone legislation, cautioned: "Been there done that." He did note, though, that Palumbo was starting "an interesting conversation."
Ultimately, Johnson argued that Palumbo's statewide approach isn't likely to succeed, pointing out that some suburban cities, such as Sammamish, Issaquah, and Federal Way, have gone so far as to impose moratoria on new development. (After a year, the Sammamish City Council effectively lifted the moratorium as did the Issaquah City Council. )
However, Johnson has a point. Several Puget Sound cities have enacted development bans, making it clear that A) they're queasy about more density and B) they're not going to take kindly to some dude from the state legislature telling them how to manage growth.
Seattle is behaving like a suburb when the state is relying on it to be a city.
Johnson says the local approach he's now heading up as a Seattle City Council member is more likely to work, although—recalling how Nickels backed away from the Futurewise/TCC bill—he acknowledged there's dedicated resistance to new development in Seattle as well. For example, he lamented the fact that single-family home owners are currently funding a legal effort to tie up the MHA upzone in a battle in front of the City Hearing Examiner.
Resistance to development in Seattle has already undermined the rezones Johnson passed in 2016 and 2017 as part of MHA Part 1, when the city upzoned five (already) densely populated commercial/residential Urban Centers, including downtown, plus one Residential Urban Village at 23rd & Union-Jackson.
To wit: After unanimously passing the downtown upzone, the city council halted one of the first proposed developments proposed under the new zoning (even drafting talking points for the opposition) when a developer wanted to tear down the talismanic Showbox music venue to build more housing.
Johnson does have a point about state legislation: The merits of Palumbo's bill are likely to be overshadowed by a meta question of governance that could stall the state senate legislation: Should the state have the right to micromanage local land use issues?
But Palumbo has a point too. When local policies spill over legislators' borders to threaten a green and progressive state law like the Growth Management Act, which was intended to combat regional problems like sprawl, then yes, the state has a role to play.
It takes one to know one. Suburbanite Palumbo is telling it like it is: Seattle is behaving like a suburb when the state is relying on it to be a city.
Filed under: density, Guy Palumbo, J Is for Judge, single-family zoning, transit, zoning
Affordability, City Council, Historic Preservation, housing, Mayor Durkan, zoning	 August 14, 2018 August 15, 2018
The J Is for Judge: Save the Past, Jeopardize the Future
It turns out it wasn't a NIMBY uprising in Seattle's single-family neighborhoods that successfully blitzed new housing development in Seattle. Embraced by our supposedly progressive council and Mayor Jenny Durkan, a reactionary stand in the heart of downtown Seattle to save a two-story music venue, the Showbox, has set the precedent for successful self-centered obstructionism.
In 2017, the city council passed a series of six neighborhood upzones: five in densely populated commercial/residential Urban Centers including downtown, South Lake Union, Chinatown International District, Uptown, and the University District, and one in a Residential Urban Village, 23rd & Union-Jackson, a less dense but still bustling multifamily combo residential/commercial zone. The unanimous council votes to upzone these multifamily, transit-rich neighborhoods were mostly embraced by neighborhood groups—most notably on 23rd, where community relations with the city had initially been tense.
The upzones, under a policy known as MHA (Mandatory Housing Affordability), tied new development to building affordable housing, trading increased density for affordable housing requirements; MHA has a goal of creating 6,000 affordable units in 10 years. Any developer that builds in these upzoned neighborhoods has to either make a commensurate payment into a city affordable housing fund or build a corresponding amount of affordable housing on site.
What I didn't expect was that a pro-housing, pro-density urban center like downtown, where the upzone is already on the books, would turn out to be the Seattle NIMBYs' Battle of Yorktown.
Following up this year, the city turned to a comprehensive upzone in Seattle's remaining Urban Centers and Urban Villages, multifamily areas of varying density ranging from the rest of the city's more dense Urban Centers like Northgate and Capitol Hill to Residential Urban Villages such as Rainier Beach and Crown Hill. This larger rezone, which ultimately includes 27 neighborhoods, also encompasses additional multi-family and commercial zones on the outskirts of the city's single-family zones. The 27 upzones would slightly expand ten of the Urban Center and Urban Village zones. The result: About six percent of the adjacent SFZs, where only detached single-family housing is currently allowed, would be rezoned into slightly denser Residential Small Lot zones, Lowrise zones, and Neighborhood Commercial zones, adding what pro-housing urbanists call "Missing Middle" housing—small-scale developments that fit in seamlessly with single-family housing.
Like the original six hub urban center upzones, the broader upzones all came with MHA requirements to build or fund affordable housing.
Given that SFZs take up a lopsided 65 percent of the city's developable land, rezoning a slender six percent of the SFZs for multifamily housing seems more than reasonable, especially at a time when Seattle isn't building enough housing to keep up with our dramatic population growth.
However, the upzones have stalled: A coalition of appellants representing single family zones are currently fighting the upzone in front of the city hearing examiner. And it drags on and on.
Despite the welcoming "In this House" signs that are ubiquitous throughout Seattle's SFZs, the foot-stomping intransigence from exclusive single-family neighborhoods against adding housing to their suburban-style enclaves is hardly surprising. Seattle's liberal hypocrisy rolls that way.
What I didn't expect was that a pro-housing, pro-density urban center like downtown— where the upzone is already on the books—would turn out to be the Seattle NIMBYs' Battle of Yorktown. The fight to "Save the Showbox" has stalled one of the first building proposals to come under the new progressive MHA policy—Vancouver developer Onni's proposal to replace the Showbox with a 440-foot, 442-unit apartment tower with ground-level retail that would have raised $5 million in one fell swoop for affordable housing.
In yet another city hall 180, the council voted yesterday to turn last year's unanimous yea vote to upzone downtown, into a unanimous nay vote for Rock and Roll NIMBYism. The city council voted this week to renege on downtown MHA by making the two-story Showbox off-limits.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this either. With its 2018 Pearl Jam mania, Seattle idles in nostalgia.
I understand that unchecked hyper development comes with serious problems like gentrification. But the way to fight gentrification isn't through symbolic battles on behalf of specific, popular businesses. The way to fight gentrification is by having integrated development and land-use policies that keep affordable housing in the mix in the first place. With the MHA upzones, the city had that very policy in place.
Now, by caving to the first reactionary uprising against the exact policy outcomes MHA was enacted to produce—more housing and more affordable housing—the council has shown that crowd politics informed by nostalgia and resistance-to-change have trumped (ahem) a well-calibrated policy.
I feel like Johnny Rotten walking around London in 1975 in his "I Hate Pink Floyd" T-shirt when I say this: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the Showbox.
Someone who supports saving the Showbox asked me if I would ever take the side of historic preservation over development. Of course. I visited the reclaimed Lorraine Motel in Memphis earlier this year. American History. Amazing. But arts venues with cool marquees are hardly a rare breed; the Moore, the Paramount, the Egyptian, and the Neptune all come to mind. And there's plenty of great places to see music in Seattle. I've been to a ton of great shows already this year—DoNormaal and Nightspace (Kremwerk), Umami Goddess (Vermillion), Serpent With Feet (Barboza), Wayne Horvitz (the Royal Room), Lorde (Key Arena), Liz Phair and Lisa Prank (the Crocodile), Stas Thee Boss (Chop Suey), Mortuary Drape (The Highline), Mourn and Chastity (Barboza), Orpheus and Eurydice (Seattle Opera Studios).
But when it comes to stopping legal development that includes $5 million for affordable housing because you want to save a club whose historic value is as omnipresent as 90s nostalgia? You lost me at NIMBY.
Filed under: density, downzones, historical preservation, housing, land use, Showbox, single-family zoning, upzones
Affordability, Density, Development, Diversity, Environment, Equity, gentrification, housing, income inequality, land use, Poverty, Renters, zoning	 May 21, 2018 May 21, 2018
The City Studied the Impact of Easing Rules on Garage Apartments. What They Uncovered Was an Indictment of Single-Family Zoning.
In 2016, a group of homeowners, led by one especially ardent anti-density activist named Marty Kaplan, sued the city to stall proposed rules that would make it somewhat easier for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units—basement apartments and backyard cottages—on their property. (The rules, which would apply in single-family areas outside urban villages, would have eliminated parking requirements for accessory units; allowed homeowners to have both a basement unit and a backyard cottage, as long as they kept development under preexisting size limits; and eliminated owner-occupancy requirements, among other tweaks.) A city hearing examiner, Sue Tanner, found in favor of Kaplan and the Queen Anne Community Council later that same year, delaying the rule changes and forcing the city to do a full environmental impact statement to determine whether allowing several hundred more basement and backyard apartments across the city would have a detrimental environmental impact. (Environmental impact statements do not, as yet, consider the beneficial environmental impacts of making it possible for people to live near where they work or go to school, instead of driving in to the city every day on exhaust-choked freeways).
Nearly two years later, that document is finally here, and its 364 pages are a strong rebuke to anyone who has ever argued that single-family zoning is a natural feature of the landscape in Seattle, and that legalizing apartments in single-family areas will lead to displacement, environmental degradation, and drive up housing costs for low-income renters. The document places Seattle's current zoning debates squarely in the context of history—not just redlining, which has been documented elsewhere, but post-redlining decisions that made apartments illegal on two-thirds of the city's land and shut non-white, non-wealthy residents out of those areas almost as effectively as formal redlining did in the middle of the 20th century.
The DEIS begins by outlining the city's zoning history, which began in the 1920s, when the city created two zoning designations: First Residence District (the equivalent of today's single-family zoning) and Second Residence District (the equivalent of Seattle's current multifamily zones). Over time, and through a series of zoning ordinance overhauls, the areas where apartments were legal in Seattle shrunk and shrunk again, until the city arrived at the zoning it has today. Single-family zoning, in other words, is hardly a sacred designation that has existed since time immemorial, as many neighborhood activists argue today, but a special protection for certain areas of the city that has grown dramatically over time, as these side-by-side maps of Ballard attest:
Today, when you see apartment buildings in areas designated single-family, know that those are relics of a time when apartments were legal in that area.
The DEIS goes on to trace population changes in Seattle over time. Somewhat surprisingly, given the dramatic population growth in Seattle between the 1960s and the 2010s, some parts of town actually lost population between 1970 and 2010, the period when zoning rule changes slowly made it impossible to build duplexes, triplexes, and apartments; the vast majority (81 percent) were in single-family-only neighborhoods. The areas with the most notable population loss were in North Seattle and certain parts of West Seattle.
Between 1990 and 2010 alone, while Seattle's population grew 18 percent, the population in single-family-zoned areas outside urban villages, which "compris[e] 60 percent of Seattle's total land area," grew just three percent. (Those areas, again, are the parts of town where the proposed zoning changes would make it somewhat easier for homeowners to add an additional unit or two to their property.) Single-family areas, in other words, have not only failed to absorb an equitable proportion of the city's growth, but they have managed this feat through the adoption of ever more restrictive zoning laws in Seattle's relatively recent history.
Excluding new residents from single-family areas has had class and racial implications. According to the DEIS, people of color have become disproportionately more likely to live in areas zoned for multifamily use—that is, areas outside the single-family zones that Kaplan and the Queen Anne Community Council are suing to "protect"—with a few exceptions, including Southeast Seattle and the Central District. "Non-Hispanic White people are, by contrast, disproportionately likely to live in areas where single-family housing predominates." Meanwhile, people of color are dramatically more likely to be renters rather than homeowners and more likely to spend more than 30 percent (or even 50 percent) of their income on housing than the non-Hispanic white folks who dominate single-family areas. Less than a third of all households of color, and fewer than 30 percent of Black and Hispanic/Latinx households, live in detached single-family houses, while more white people live in houses than any other housing type. According to the city's analysis, "[T]hese citywide statistics illustrate that housing type varies along racial lines and are suggestive of patterns in single- family zones, where detached one-unit structures are the only housing type allowed."
The DEIS also demolishes the notion—common among both wealthy homeowners like Kaplan and anti-displacement activists on the left—that allowing more housing in single-family areas will result in greater displacement of low-income people from those areas. (This theory was recently articulated by former Seattle City Council candidate Jon Grant, who claimed that "one of the largest portions of our affordable housing stock is single-family homes.") According to the city's analysis, although 54 percent of homes citywide are renter-occupied, just 27 percent of homes in the "study area" (single-family areas outside urban villages) are. Since the study area includes many apartments built before apartments were made illegal in those areas, it's safe to assume that those rental units are mostly those apartments, not single-family houses.
Looking at the data another way, it's clear that the people who do live in detached single-family houses are mostly well above Seattle's area median income, which was around $75,000 in 2015 (and is closer to $80,000 now). The disparity is perhaps best illustrated with a couple of charts:
The report also spells it out: Most poor people don't live in detached single-family houses, rental or otherwise, because they simply can't afford them. "Only 14 percent of households in detached one-unit structures are below 200 percent of the poverty level, a common threshold to be eligible for certain assistance programs, while for most other housing types about one-third of households are below 200 percent of the poverty level," the report concludes. Given that 81 percent of single-family homes are occupied by homeowners, not renters, that means that just 2.66 percent of all single-family houses are occupied by people making twice the poverty level or less. That doesn't mean those renters can actually afford the houses they are renting; in fact, the city's analysis found that a renter would have to make 123 percent of the Seattle area median income to afford an average single-family rental house, and that even the very rare low-rent houses are unaffordable to people making twice the federal poverty rate, or about $33,000 for family of two.
Put still another way: "For households with incomes of 80 percent of AMI, even two- or three-bedroom single-family homes with rents at the 25th percentile, a common marker of rent for the least expensive homes on the market, are out of reach." In Seattle, in other words, essentially no single-family rental homes are affordable to very low-income renters.
The DEIS also, of course, looked into the specific environmental claims that are being made by the homeowners who want to ensure that backyard cottages remain effectively illegal in their neighborhoods. They found, not surprisingly, that neither of the two alternatives the city considered, which the city estimates would produce between 1,210 and 1,440 more attached and detached accessory dwelling units, combined, across the city in the next 10 years—would have a significant impact on tree canopy, overall density, parking availability, or neighborhood aesthetics. (Alternative 3, which includes more size restrictions on detached units and would require homeowners building a second accessory unit to contribute to the city's Mandatory Housing Affordability program, would have slightly lower impacts in some areas, but the impact of 121 to 144 new units spread across the city would be generally negligible.) The report did note, however, that "removing the off-street parking requirement could reduce the amount of vegetation and tree removal otherwise needed to accommodate a parking space when creating an ADU."
The city has been debating whether to allow more homeowners to build extra units for decades, and this specific proposal has been on the table since 2014, when the council adopted a resolution calling for a plan to "promot[e] workforce housing" by exploring ways to make building backyard cottages easier. This latest round will inevitably result in another challenge and more delays, illustrating just how hard it is to make even incremental zoning changes in Seattle. As long as homeowners believe sharing their prosperous neighborhoods with even a few newcomers will impact their property values, which continue to skyrocket year over year, even the most modest request that they participate in solving our affordability crisis will continue to be met with a barrage of legal challenges. By the time this legislation actually starts producing new housing for non-wealthy Seattle residents, it seems more likely than not that the median home in Seattle will have risen from its current high, around $820,000, to well over than a million dollars.
Filed under: DADUs, environmental impact statement, mandatory housing affordability, Marty Kaplan, Renters, single-family zoning, zoning
City Council, Development, housing, land use, Morning Crank, Transit, Transportation	 March 8, 2018 March 7, 2018
Morning Crank: Adapting Parking Policies for the Next 50 Years
Dark gray: No parking minimum. Light gray: No parking minimum within 1/4 mile of frequent transit service. Orange: Multifamily and commercial areas with reduced parking requirements. Green dots: Bus stops along frequent transit corridors.
1. The city council continues to debate legislation that makes modest changes to the current rules regulating parking in new buildings, with West Seattle city council member Lisa Herbold continuing to lead the charge against changes to the code that might impact drivers in her district by increasing the walk between their cars and their homes. The updates would, among other changes, change the definition of "frequent transit service"—a direct response to a group of Phinney Ridge homeowners challenging a development on Greenwood Avenue that is directly on a major bus route. The homeowners claim that because the route's actual schedule varies at rush hour due to traffic, the area doesn't actually have frequent transit service.
Additionally, the legislation would:
• Allow "flexible-use parking," which would allow shared parking between buildings (for example, if one apartment building had empty spaces during the day, a retail building without parking next door might rent some of those spaces for their customers.)
• In developments where parking is required, allow that parking to be up to a quarter-mile away from the building (up from 800 feet), in keeping with the definition of accessible transit as all areas within a quarter-mile of a bus stop served by frequent transit.
• Require landlords to charge for parking separately from rent, to "unbundle" the cost of parking from the cost of a unit.
• Reduce parking requirements for some large institutions and affordable-housing providers.
• Require more bike parking in new developments.
Herbold, who previously argued that the city's studies showing a low level of car ownership among renters in dense areas don't account for areas like her district, where most people drive, made the case Tuesday that the city should open up developments where parking is not required to challenges under the State Environmental Policy Act, which are generally intended to mitigate the environmental impact of proposals, not their impact on convenient car use. If SEPA analysis determined that there wasn't "enough" parking in an area, the city could take a number of actions, including—Herbold suggested—denying residential parking zone permits, which are currently available to all residents of the city, to the tenants in that building. (Herbold pointed out that her proposal would also apply to people buying new condos, but the fact is that the overwhelming majority of new units in Seattle are apartments, not condos).
Herbold also argued that the proposal to allow parking a quarter-mile away from new buildings that are required to have parking could discriminate against elderly people, for whom, she said, "I've seen estimates that an acceptable walking distance" is between 300 and 600 feet. "We talk about Seattle wanting to be an age-friendly city, and I'm just concerned that the proposed change to a quarter mile does not serve the needs of that aging population." A few minutes later, though, she undermined her case by saying that if the quarter-mile rule for car parking passed, she would propose that developers be allowed to move their mandatory bike parking up to a quarter-mile away; after all, she argued, if a quarter-mile is the rule for cars, shouldn't it be the rule for cyclists, too? Council member Mike O'Brien pointed out that cars and bikes have very different impacts and serve different purposes; instead of "trying to pretend that cars and bikes are identical and have the same impacts," he said, the city should adopt bike parking requirements that actually work for bike riders—and encourage cycling, which is already official city policy.
2. If Herbold's RPZ idea sounds familiar, that's because it has been proposed loudly and often by homeowner activists , who see it as a kind of "gotcha" that will demonstrate that people who move into buildings without parking actually own cars and plan to park them on the street. Taking away their ability to park on the street serves as both a punishment meted exclusively against renters in new buildings (on behalf of homeowners and incumbent renters who own cars) and a targeted I-told-you-so.
RPZ restrictions were one of many proposals to stick it to developers and renters during a rowdy meeting of the Phinney Ridge Community Council Monday night. Staffers from the Seattle Department of Transportation, the Department of Construction and Inspections, and council member Rob Johnson's office came to present the legislation and ask questions, but the "Q&A" devolved into a shouting match before it even began.
SDCI's Gordon Clowers, Johnson staffer Spencer Williams, and SDOT staffer Mary Catherine Snyder only made it through a few minutes of their presentation before members of the crowd—mostly white, mostly gray-haired—began pelting them with rhetorical questions. "Have you considered shift workers who might work at night" in your parking vacancy studies, one woman wanted to know. (Yes). "If you say, 'You can't lock your door'"—a reference to shared parking, which would allow shared use of parking garages—"and there's a whole lot of break-ins, who fixes it?" (That's a question for the landlord.) "If most neighborhoods are facing growth and most people are looking for on-street parking, there's eventually going to be such a rat race of parking demand, looking for that last free spot, that it's not going to be viable." (Not a question).
I sat and listened as a woman behind me stage-whispered, "SO WRONG. SO WRONG. SO WRONG" while Williams explained that people living in subsidized housing are less likely to own cars, and I watched as people shouted him down when he tried to explain the rationale behind allowing buses that sometimes arrive every 16 minutes to count as "frequent transit service" for the purposes of parking policy. I heard a dozen people start yelling in unison when Williams was insufficiently surprised that 1,700 apartment units are in the pipeline along the 5 bus route from Shoreline to Fremont ("That's been part of our growth strategy since the 1990s"), and I listened as grown adults screamed "Bullshit!" when Clowers said the city wasn't trying to force people out of their cars and when a different person told Clowers he was full of, again, "bullshit," because "you can interrupt us but we can't interrupt you."
Listening to the Phinney Ridge homeowners in the room, you would think that Seattle is a city where it's impossible for anyone to get around without a car, where no one takes the bus because they're all too full anyway, where the local transit agency fabricates bus schedules from whole cloth, and where parking policy is made without consideration for "working-class" residents with work trucks and delivery vehicles. If I hadn't known that I was sitting in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city, in a roomful of homeowners motivated not by altruism but by the desire to park their cars near their houses, I would think Seattle was in the middle of a class war between elitist city policymakers and paycheck-to-paycheck laborers getting screwed over by policies designed to crush working-class renters.
But that isn't what's happening here. Instead, the city is starting to make progress toward adapting its parking policies for the next 50 years, when driving alone in privately owned cars will become the exception, not the rule. It's hard to see the future when the present is all that's in front of you—if you and all the people you know own cars, it's easy to imagine that everyone else does, too, and will for the foreseeable future. Policy makers, and elected officials, are supposed to look beyond the next few years and think about how people who haven't even arrived in the city yet will want to live 20 years from now, especially when crafting land-use policies that will have implications for decades. It's a shame when otherwise progressive elected officials can't see beyond the immediate self-serving demands (for ample, free, convenient parking; for laws preserving single-family neighborhoods) of their current constituents.
3. In an example of the kind of inconveniences transit riders are frequently subjected to, King County Metro will relocate its Route 4—a lifeline route that serves downtown, Harborview and Swedish Hospital, Garfield High School, and the Central District down to Judkins Park—for a year, moving the line four blocks to Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. S. in the Central District. That's inconvenient enough, but Metro is adding an extra wrinkle: Bus riders will also be forced to transfer to a different bus at 21st and Jefferson, making an already slow route that is frequently delayed even slower. Metro says they had to add the transfer because there aren't enough diesel hybrid buses to run along the route, which is on wires until it gets to 23rd and Jefferson, on weekdays. In response to my tweet about this yesterday, Metro said that "to minimize the inconvenience, hybrids will serve the entire route on weekends, when hybrids are more available than during the w[ee]k." I have asked why hybrids couldn't be made "more available" for this route, given that riders will already face a year-long route change; they said they'd get back to me later today.
Last year, the agency dead-ended the route at 21st Ave. and Jefferson Street, forcing people headed south to transfer to the Route 48 bus two blocks away.
Filed under: Lisa Herbold, mike o'brien, parking requirements, single-family zoning, transportation
Affordability, housing, land use, Media	 December 13, 2017 December 12, 2017
Fake News, Anecdata, and Things that Feel True
I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon at the Hilton Airport Conference Center (steps from the light rail station!), attending the Washington State Wire's first-ever Re–Wire conference, where I was on a panel with WSW founder Jim Boldt, TVW president Renee Radcliffe Sinclair, and Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen. The topic: Polarization, fake news, and the future of media. The topic was way too big for four people to handle in 45 minutes, obviously, so I spent my 10 minutes or so (gently) pushing back against the notion that newspapers are going to save us (they aren't) and the idea that local news consumers can't tell the difference between "real" news and "fake" news. Boldt, in particular, seemed sold on this notion, claiming that nearly 9 in 10 news stories we read are generated by artificial intelligence. I find that number highly implausible, simply because local coverage is obviously generated by human beings; you can follow their bylines and see them in the flesh if you go to a community meeting or hang out at city hall. It could be that what he meant is that nearly 9 out of 10 things that are posted online, or 9 out of 10 things that are posted on Facebook are AI-generated, but that's a different problem than "why there isn't much reliable local news."
At the local level, I argued, the problem isn't so much that there's "fake news" (Nextdoor and your neighborhood Facebook group excepted), but that the interpretations of the news that does get reported are increasingly polarized. (Maybe this happens more in Seattle, where an army of newly minted socialists swarms my Twitter feed every time I sound too skeptical about a policy they support, than it does in, say, Tacoma or Kent). A neutral headline like "Rents increase for fourth quarter" will be spun as "excessive regulations force landlords to avoid poverty by increasing rents" by those on one end of the spectrum and as "greedy landlords bleed tenants dry" by those on the other. The problem arises, I said, when media who are deeply invested in one perspective being true dispense with fact-checking and rely on anecdata and alternative facts (or seem to eschew fact-checking altogether) to support their preordained conclusions.* For example, former mayoral candidate Cary Moon insisted, in the Stranger, that "hot money" flowing "out of China" was one of the main reasons housing prices have been going up in Seattle, and the paper, whose endorsement undoubtedly helped push Moon through the primary, did not dispute those claims.
Ultimately, Moon was never able to present evidence supporting her assertion that "hot money" was to blame for high housing prices, and brushed off evidence that refuted it with statements like, "We need to look at the data" and "Something's going on." But her supporters had already taken her initial sweeping claim—that foreign capital is a major reason housing prices are high in Seattle—and run with it. Foreign buyers snatching up property and leaving it vacant, creating an artificial market shortage? Feels true. And it's certainly easier to blame "wealthy foreign investors" than have a complex and heated debate about Seattle's restrictive zoning codes.
Recently, I've encountered the same resistance to numbers and reliance on anecdata in the debate over Airbnb regulations. (This week, the council passed new rules restricting most short-term rental operators, except those already operating in the downtown core, to two units total.) Opponents of services like Airbnb argue that they obviously increase housing prices by taking units off the market. And it feels true, especially when you happen to live near an Airbnb that used to be a long-term rental. (As, it so happens, I do.) But when you confront them with facts, they often respond with anecdotes or observations, which are data points but are not the same thing as data.
Fact: There are, according to the website Inside Airbnb, a total of 426 units that meet the definition typically used by advocates who argue that short-term rentals are removing apartments from the long-term rental market. These units are whole units (that is, not rooms in someone's house) that are frequently booked (too often to allow a long-term renter to live there), highly available (meaning they are listed as available to rent most or all of the time) and owned by people with more than one listing (meaning that they aren't someone's primary residence.) Even assuming that every single one of those Airbnb hosts would switch to being a full-time landlord (unlikely, given that, according to occupancy numbers, most hosts rent their units out only part-time), 426 units simply isn't enough to influence rents one way or another in a city with hundreds of thousands of apartments and thousands more people moving here every month.
And yet anecdotes seem to win the day. "I know two people who have Airbnbs that they could be renting out as full-time units." "We live in an era of landlords sitting on vacant properties." "I watched two neighboring buildings get converted to full-time Airbnbs [in San Francisco] It's a thing." I mean—no one said it wasn't "a thing." There's an important argument we should be having right now about revisiting ex-mayor Ed Murray's decision to preserve restrictive single-family zoning across the city, but that's such a difficult, fraught conversation. Easier to blame foreigners and rich people making a killing off their Airbnb empires. It feels true.
This is not to condemn people for basing their policy views on anecdotes from people they know, or their gut feelings. Everybody does that sometimes, especially when they lack full information. Instead, it's a lament that there aren't enough local media sources with the time or inclination to challenge assumptions that feel true—rent control will lower rents citywide because my rent won't go up anymore; offering homeless people a bed in a crowded shelter will work because a shelter is obviously better than a tent—by presenting facts that are true.
* I should say here that I have my own biases—I'm pro-housing, favor moving people over moving cars, and oppose punitive approaches to crimes of poverty and addiction—but I've changed my mind on issues plenty of times when the facts have pointed in a different direction than I thought they did. But this is usually in favor of a more nuanced position (it turns out some kinds of involuntary treatment do work) rather than a polar opposite extreme view (addicted people should be dragged off the streets and thrown into hospitals against their will.)
Filed under: affordability, airbnb, fake news, Media, rent, single-family zoning, zoning
Affordability, City Council, Density, Development, gentrification, housing, neighborhoods	 November 10, 2017 November 10, 2017
As City Moves Forward With Modest Upzones, Single-Family Housing Advocates Lawyer Up
Mayor Tim Burgess released the final environmental impact statement for what will likely be the most controversial set of upzones required to implement HALA yesterday. The proposal, known as the Mandatory Housing Affordability plan, will increase allowable building heights in urban villages, multifamily zones, and commercial areas across the city, including modest upzones to just six percent of the city's single-family land. The remaining 94 percent, which represents more than 60 percent of the city's residentially zoned land, will still be preserved exclusively for detached single-family houses). In exchange for increased building heights, developers will have to make between 5 and 11 percent of their units affordable to people of modest means, or pay the equivalent (between $5 and $32.75 per square foot) into a fund that will finance housing construction elsewhere. City staffers say they expect about half of developers will decide to build on site and half will pay into the fund; however, this estimate is based not on empirical data (there isn't any) but on the fact that the city tried to make the cost of building and the cost of paying the fee roughly equivalent. [*See wonky footnote for more on how this 50-50 split came to pass.]
To single-family preservationists, the new rules represent an unprecedented incursion on their right to own property without having to live in close proximity to (and share scarce on-street parking space with) renters who may be younger and lower-income.
The MHA proposal splits the baby between two earlier alternatives—one that would spread new density evenly between all parts of the city and one that would limit housing production in areas the city considers at "high risk of displacement" with "low access to economic opportunity," like Rainier Beach and South Park. To housing advocates, this is maddening—by artificially restricting housing development in the places where demand and the risk of economic displacement is highest, the rules practically ensure that more low-income people will be forced out of those areas. To single-family preservationists, the new rules represent an unprecedented incursion on their right to own property without having to live in close proximity to (and share scarce on-street parking space with) renters who may be younger and lower-income.
The city has built some cushion into its timeline for the inevitable lawsuits. Residents and groups that oppose the upzones have until the Monday after Thanksgiving to appeal the FEIS, and neighborhood groups are already lawyering up; last month, the West Seattle Junction Neighborhood Organization (JuNO), the Seattle Displacement Coalition, and Seattle Fair Growth distributed a call for neighborhood groups to sign on to their planned lawsuit against the proposal, and neighborhood groups in Wallingford and Miller/Madison Park have also expressed strong opposition to the proposal. Any appeal would go to the city's hearing examiner (who has already ruled in favor of single-family preservationists in another case involving backyard cottages); that process generally takes about six months, although a successful appeal could require the city to make changes to the plan and prepare a supplemental EIS, which would take longer. After the city council actually passes the legislation, opponents will have another opportunity to challenge the law, by taking the city to King County Superior Court.
City staffers and officials stuck by their timeline yesterday. Council member Rob Johnson, chair of the council's land use committee, said the council "can do all the work that is necessary to get the bill ready for a vote while litigation is occurring—we just can't take action. If we're still under litigation this time next year, we just won't be able to vote."
The plan also includes new tree planting requirements, mandatory setbacks for buildings over a certain size, rules designed to discourage development near freeways, and new standards designed to encourage food-production businesses near the Rainier Beach light rail station, where development has been slow to follow light rail.
Read the EIS for yourself here, or check out the interactive map to see what the city has planned for your neighborhood.
* Wonky footnote, as promised: This is a change, though a subtle one, from the preliminary discussions that led to HALA; originally, during discussions of the voluntary "incentive zoning" proposal in South Lake Union, council members proposed making the so-called "fee in lieu" more costly than actual construction, to encourage developers to build on site. By abandoning this plan to make the fee roughly equivalent to the cost of building, the city has eliminated the incentive for developers to build, which could push affordable housing away from the most desirable parts of the city. The MHA plan has provisions to mitigate this effect—by "distribut[ing] affordable housing units generated by in lieu MHA payments, and which will be developed by or for the City's Office of Housing (OH), in locations proportionate to the area's share of anticipated citywide residential growth"—but acknowledges that the city rejected the notion of encouraging affordable housing development generated by the fees in any particular area as "extremely speculative," given that the city can't predict where land will actually become available. The bottom line is that under the proposal, developers can pay fees to build housing in other neighborhoods, and the city has no real ability to require affordable housing in high-end neighborhoods like Wallingford or South Lake Union. A higher fee-in-lieu might have accomplished this.
Here's how the city expects the distribution of housing generated by the fees to shake out:
Filed under: affordability, affordable housing, density, development, HALA, mandatory housing affordability, single-family zoning


text:
Rob Fix picked as Port of Bellingham's new executive director
by Evan Marczynski • November 9, 2012 4:33 pm
Seven months after the resignation of its former executive director, the Port of Bellingham has a new boss.
Rob Fix, the port's chief financial officer and deputy director, will assume the executive role immediately, according to a port announcement.
Fix was selected by a unanimous vote of the three-member port commission after a closed executive session on Friday, Nov. 9.
He had been serving as interim executive since April, when former director Charlie Sheldon stepped down.
The pick was a surprise, since Fix was not one of the three finalists for the job that were revealed last month. Port officials had also earlier indicated that Fix, who has worked at the port since 2008, would not be considered for the executive position.
In a statement, Port Commission President Scott Walker said Fix's efforts as interim executive, which included negotiating a major waterfront land-ownership swap with the city of Bellingham, led the commission to believe he would be the best person to fill the role.
The commission also approved a compensation package for Fix that includes a $140,000 annual salary, $600 per month car allowance, 10 percent per year deferred compensation, as well as a four-month separation agreement.
Fix takes on a role as overseer to about 100 port employees and major regional economic and transportation services such as the Bellingham International Airport, the Bellingham Cruise Terminal, the Fairhaven Station train and bus depot, the Squalicum and Blaine marinas and the Bellingham Shipping Terminal.
Contact Evan Marczynski at evan@bbjtoday.com or call 360-647-8805.
Tags: government, new hires, Port of Bellingham

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text:
Handnesøya Chapel () is a chapel of the Church of Norway in Nesna Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is located in the village of Saura on the southeastern shore of the island of Handnesøya. It is an annex chapel in the Nesna parish which is part of the Nord-Helgeland prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Sør-Hålogaland. The white, wooden chapel was built in a long church style in 1921. The chapel seats about 70 people.

History
The local villagers erected the Handnesøya Chapel on a voluntary basis, and it was to serve as a church building for the island of Handnesøya. From the beginning, the chapel was organized as a privately-owned prayer house. During the 1960s, a cooperative was formed by the villagers who became the formal owner of the church building. In June 1969, after an extensive restoration and extension, the prayer house was consecrated as an annex chapel by the Bishop of Sør-Hålogaland.

See also
List of churches in Sør-Hålogaland

References

Nesna
Churches in Nordland
Wooden churches in Norway
20th-century Church of Norway church buildings
Churches completed in 1921
1921 establishments in Norway
Long churches in Norway

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text:
2019 Indie book award winners
April 9, 2019 All posts, Award
I'm catching up on my emails. I figure this post is better late than never. — Editor.
Post by Brendan Fredericks and Leading Edge Books.
Celebrating the best Australian writing
Australian Independent Booksellers are thrilled to announce Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (HarperCollins Australia) as their favourite Australian book from last year and the winner of The Indie Book Awards 2019 Book of the Year. The bookseller judges' commented that: "Dalton's characters and writing style are what make this book the standout. The language and phrasing used truly evoke a sense of place and time, and the numerous anecdotes and smaller details connect you to a cast of unique characters that are difficult to forget.".
HarperCollins Publishers Australia recently celebrated a major milestone for Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe; it has now sold over 100,000 copies across all formats in Australia alone since its publication in July 2018.
Dalton's debut novel has been embraced by readers around Australia and is now attracting critical acclaim – winning The Indie Book Awards 2019 Book of the Year and the 2019 MUD Literary Prize. Boy Swallows Universe has also become an international publishing phenomenon – due to be published in across all of the major publishing territories, and in more than 28 languages, with more deals to be announced in the near future, including for screen and theatre rights.
Catherine Milne, Head of Fiction at HarperCollins says, 'It is just a joy to watch so many people – in Australia and around the world – fall in love with such a special novel. Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe is a glorious, big-hearted, irresistible Australian classic, which is going to be loved by readers for years to come.'
The Awards recognise and celebrate the indie booksellers as the number one supporters of Australian authors. What makes our Indies uniquely placed to judge and recommend the best Aussie books of the past year to their customers and readers, is their incredible passion and knowledge, their contribution to the cultural diversity of the Australian reading public by recommending books beyond the big brands, and their love of quality writing.
The individual category winners in Fiction, Debut Fiction, Non-Fiction, Illustrated Non-Fiction, Children's and Young Adult were also announced. From these five category winners, the independent booksellers selected the best of the best – The 2019 Indie Book of the Year.
Without further ado, here are the Category Winners of the 2019 Indie Book Awards:
OVERALL WINNER: BOOK OF THE YEAR
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (HarperCollins Australia)
FICTION WINNER:
Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak (Picador Australia)
NON-FICTION WINNER:
The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper (Penguin Random House Australia)
DEBUT FICTION WINNER:
ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION WINNER:
Marcia Langton: Welcome to Country by Marcia Langton (Hardie Grant Travel)
CHILDREN'S WINNER:
Lenny's Book of Everything by Karen Foxlee (Allen & Unwin)
YOUNG ADULT WINNER:
A Song Only I Can Hear by Barry Jonsberg (Allen & Unwin)
The Indies are considered the forerunners of all major Australian book awards. Since the Awards inception in 2008, the Indies have a well-deserved reputation for picking the best of the best in Australian writing. Past Book of the Year winners have gone on to be bestsellers and win other major literary awards. Previous winners include: Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend, The Dry by Jane Harper; The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood; The Bush by Don Watson; The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan; The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman; All That I Am by Anna Funder; The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do; Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey; and Breath by Tim Winton
Upon announcement, Trent Dalton said:
'I am so unbelievably happy and so truly honoured that Boy Swallows Universe has won the Indie Book of the Year. This book comes from a very personal place for me, from the depths of my soul, and the wonderful indie booksellers put that story in the hands of Australian readers – this book would be nothing without those amazing booksellers. Thank you so much from the bottom of my full and humble heart.'
HarperCollins Australia's CEO, James Kellow, said:
"We are thrilled with the recognition this award bestows. Boy Swallows Universe is a uniquely generous and full-hearted novel – much like the author himself – and we're delighted it is finding a place in so many readers' hearts. Our grateful thanks to all the independent booksellers who have shared our belief and supported the book with such enthusiasm. Hopefully this is just the beginning."
HarperCollins Australia's Head of Fiction, Catherine Milne, said:
"Over the last eight months or so, I've been privileged to talk to many people about this novel, and have read many, many letters, texts, tweets and emails to Trent from readers about Boy Swallows Universe. It is an extraordinary thing, this novel, this gritty, gorgeous, heartbreaking, rollicking, endearing and powerful novel – it has touched so many people across the country, so much so that many of them have felt compelled to reach out and tell him what this novel means to them. And isn't that the power of a great story? It transports us, brings us together, speaks to us, and gives us the joy of a shared experience. Trent is a master storyteller, and his story is now our story. And that's a beautiful, humbling thing to be part of."
Statements from the 2019 Indie Book Awards category winners:
"It's independent booksellers who are fighting the good fight – keeping books and stories, and writers and readers connected in the world, so any moment like this is an absolute privilege, especially in the company of these other writers."
– Markus Zusak, author of Bridge of Clay (Picador Australia)
"Welcome to Country has reached into the hearts of thousands of Australians in a way that I did not expect. I thank everyone who contributed and especially the people at Hardie Grant whose vision and dedication gave me the best opportunity of my life to write about matters of great importance and to reach a large audience, all of whom feel the way I do about our country. We love it. The book helps others to experience it and understand that feeling of being enriched by it and bound to it."
– Marcia Langton, author of Marcia Langton: Welcome to Country (Hardie Grant Travel)
"I'm over-the-moon excited that Lenny's Book of Everything has been chosen as children's book of the year at the Indie Book Awards. It was already such an honour to be shortlisted alongside Shaun Tan, Jessica Townsend, Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys. It means the world to have my novel recognised in such a way and I'm so grateful for all the support independent booksellers have given to Lenny and Davey's story."
– Karen Foxlee, author of Lenny's Book of Everything (Allen & Unwin)
"I don't know whether to be more thrilled at winning the 2019 Indies Award for YA fiction – or delighted with the amazing quality of Australian fiction for young adults shown by the brilliant long and short lists."
– Barry Jonsberg, author of A Song Only I Can Hear (Allen & Unwin)
The Indie Book Awards would like to gratefully acknowledge the 2019 Awards Sponsors: Peribo, Pan Macmillan Australia, Affirm Press, Allen & Unwin, Thames & Hudson Australia, Hardie Grant Egmont, Text Publishing and Awards partner: Books+Publishing.
Proudly supported by Leading Edge Books.
Filed in: All posts, Award
Cicada by Shaun Tan
#CripAuspol launch


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