Chamber co-presents CityClub event on Seattle’s changing neighborhoods, March 7
Support for urban density and affordable housing is one of the Chamber’s four policy priorities for 2007-08, and the Chamber is pleased to co-present this CityClub discussion on Friday, March 7:
Urban Development: Do we recognize the changing face of our neighborhoods?
Unprecedented development is reshaping Seattle’s neighborhoods unlike any other time in the city’s recent history. From Ballard to Capitol Hill and South Lake Union, neighborhoods are adapting to a new, denser urban reality. What do these developments say about the future of Seattle and how we define vibrant, livable urban neighborhoods?Panelists to date:
· Jim Diers, Author, Neighbor Power
· Ada Healey, Vice President of Real Estate, Vulcan Inc.
· Leonard Garfield, Executive Director, Museum of History and Industry
· Diane Sugimura, Director, Department of Planning & Development, City of Seattle
· Moderator: Jim Vesely, Editorial Page Editor, The Seattle Times
What does Vesely know about Seattle neighborhoods? What can a Mercer Islander really add to a discussion of Seattle neighborhoods? The panel looks like it was taken right out of some big wig’s Blackberry.
If you’re going to this event, let me know and report back. I’d love to witness the huffery and puffery for myself, but the 40 bucks is a bit steep.
OK, let me don my devil’s advocate hat here for a bit…
Living on an island, even with a bunch of rich people, one must be drawn into contemplating the issues of maintaining a community in limited space.
One thing they sure don’t do on Poverty Rock is level everything every few years and start over.
Gee, what a surprise… They didn’t invite John Fox to be on the panel.
John Fox has done more to damage affordable and workforce housing than any other activist in this city. His main problem: Fox doesn’t accept the fact that change is going to happen, whether he likes it or not. Preserving run-down, dilapidated buildings and crime-ridden neighborhoods “as-is” might be a cheap and lazy way to “save affordable housing,” but it sure isn’t a good way to give disadvantaged neighbors (or their kids) a decent life.
“One thing they sure don’t do on Poverty Rock is level everything every few years and start over. ”
Well, there sure are lots of tear-downs on Mercer Island…so it’s done incrementally, Artfart.
Affordable Housing???
In Seattle???
Has anyone actually read this Seattle Times Article re: the University of Washington Study which shows $200,000/home is the result of Local & State Regulation and delays in building permits??
Please read it
http://archives.seattletimes.n.....economists
If you read this and cannot connect this Bureaucratic Tub of Goo as a major cause of the housing crisis….
you must be one of them Oba-Morons!!
Jim Vesely’s house on MI:
Zestimate: $1,064,000
30-day change: $87,000
Value Range: $968,240 – $1,351,280 Last updated:
Public Facts:
Single family
3 beds
3.0 bath
2,390 sqft
Lot 8,135 sqft
Built in 2002
Sold 05/29/2003: $710,000
’90 COUNT MYSTIFIES MERCER ISLANDERS
By Steven Goldsmith P-I Reporter
Monday, June 24, 1991
Somewhere within this prosperous city lurks the phantom mobile home.
The 1990 census counted precisely one “mobile home or trailer” on Mercer Island.
That’s a far cry from, say, Auburn, which reported 2,041, but Mercer Island officials were a bit ruffled to hear about even one.
“I don’t think those are allowed,” said Sue Israel, a nine-year employee at the building and planning department. “In fact, I know that is not allowed.”
Bill Price, senior building inspector, said he’d be darned if he could think of where a mobile home might be found in this island city of 20,816.
“I know just about every spot,” he said. “I know the red caboose house, and the last two log cabins from the old days, … but a mobile home, I just can’t place it.”
Price said he thought the last of the city’s mobile homes were removed about the time Interstate 90 freeway construction started.
Veteran City Councilman Fred Jarrett also was puzzled. “Jeez, I’m a bit flabbergasted. I’ve doorbelled the whole island in two campaigns, and I don’t remember seeing one.”
It wasn’t just city officials who were mystified.
“That’s news to me,” said Ralph Coffey, manager of the John L. Scott Real Estate branch. “I don’t think there’s a mobile home on Mercer Island. If there is, it’s hidden away somewhere.”
The Census Bureau was not much help. It is supposed to report trends, not reveal things about individual households.
Mercer Island’s lone mobile home was somewhere in Census Tract 243, the island’s northwest chunk, encompassing a diverse area called East Seattle. Funky cottages on tiny lots share the neighborhood with substantial estates. Homes in the tract had a median value of $273,400, but nearly a third were rented.
A look through the neighborhood turned up a children’s plywood treehouse but nothing that looked like a mobile home or trailer with people living inside.
So, Mercer Island’s mystery remained.
Although some citizens might be alarmed about sharing their island with a mobile home, they could take comfort in this: A decade ago, there were six.
Good point, Mr. Cynical. We should replicate the Albania model: scrap the safety regs, zoning rules, fire code, etc. Then we can all be happy living in our houses which cost $200k less….thus causing more people to move here…thus causing the housing market to climb another $50k per year…..
Will, I know you want to be consistent, so if you believe a Mercer Island resident isn’t qualified to talk about Seattle neighborhoods, that must mean that a Seward Park resident isn’t qualified to talk about the 8th district, right?
And you can save your “Those are two totally separate things!” response. I know that’s what you were going to say, so you don’t need to say it. I made my point.
Will — Jim Vesely is the MODERATOR. He is not a panelist. Maybe it is good to have a less interested outsider from Mercer Island to MODERATE four folks from Seattle? Maybe Vesely is blueblood, but not quite blueblood SEATTLE.
Troll @ 8
But his daughter goes to school in the 8th CD now. And he even has a few loyal HA readers in the 8th CD.
Anytime the Chamber of Commerce types start talking about “affordable housing” it means they want to throw up more apartment houses and condos in single-family neighborhoods.
How To Lop $200,000 Off The Price Of A Seattle Home
Simple, just let people do this http://tinyurl.com/2r54d8 and I guarantee every house on the block will be worth $200,000 less.
Mr. Cynical @ 4
I would like your take on Professor Eicher’s comment from the 02/14/2008 Seattle Times article that you linked:
“As an example of how this plays out, Eicher explains that “the statewide growth-management plan gave King County few options but to require that landowners in rural areas that haven’t already cleared their land to keep 50 to 65 percent of their property in its ‘natural state.’ This forced greater density in Seattle.”
Ignore, for a moment, the other principles involved in the Critical Areas Ordinance requiring 65% of rural land be left covered with weeds and other aspects of its “natural state”. I am sure you (and affected property owners) could go on and on about how unfair this “land grab” seems to them.
How, exactly, does such a regulation force “greater density” on other areas? The rural areas that are zoned for five acre lots would still be zoned that way, regardless of whether the landowner can clear timber and weeds from 100% of the five acre lot, 50% of the five acre lot, or only 35% of the five acre lot. You can certainly build one house using far less than a 1.75 acre actual footprint for cleared land.
Since the CAO does not prohibit the actual building of the one house per five acre rural lot, how can this possibly require density to increase elsewhere?
Roger Rabbit @ 12
What are houses worth on the blocks where Mark the Redneck and Mr. Cynical live?
@14: they only live on-line to point out the futility of the republican point of view
4 OK…it seems that discounting the vehement denials from the real estate industry that housing prices are actually starting to fall along with those in the rest of the country, a lot of homes in Seattle appreciated by $200K or more over a five-year period. Should we assure that peoples’ home equity continues to rise by adding more regulations? Or are we to assume that the housing boom had nothing to do with the removal of restraints on banks writing mortgages for people who had no way to pay for them, and then packaging up the contracts and fraudulently selling the aggregates as legitimate commercial paper?
5 Hmmm…It would appear that Jim Vesely’s house lost more value in the last month than I got paid in the last year. I feel rather sorry for him if he was foolish enough to leverage that so he could make believe he can live as lavishly as his boss.
14 Probably less for their being there.
6 Not sure it applies in Mercer Island, but there are plenty of places around here where “trailer” can mean a pretty fancy looking manufactured home. There’s a big neighborhood where my wife’s aunt and uncle live up by Harbour Pointe in Mukilteo that’s all prefab ramblers that don’t look it. Sure enough, though, if you poke your head into the crawl spaces underneath, you’ll find the wheels and axles upon which the sections were hauled in.
Gee, ever notice that housing in “Middle America” costs so much less than they do here? It must be that we have too many infernal regulations here! Do away with them, and we can have affordable housing just like those pictured here:
http://www.missouritrailertrash.com/page1.htm
Or, if that’s not your cup of tea, you can go ahead and pay half a million plus for your nice house. Of course, your neighbor will be free to put one of those lovely homes right next to yours! After all, he has his “property rights” too, and nobody is going to tell him what he can and cannot do on his own property!
19: My guess was that somebody counted the RV in the driveway in Mercer Island as a “home”. Maybe somebody’s relatives were visiting at the time, and they told the census taker that the RV was their home, so he/she counted them too?
Richard–
I think he is referring to the fact that GMA with companion anti-development Legislation like CAO forces all growth into the Urban Growth Area….in part by limiting the ability to furth subdivide land outside the UGA. Limiting the supply of Building Sites forces up the demand & price on existing sites in the UGA. Supply & Demand.
What did you think of his article?
PS–I have a number of rental homes & lots all in UGA’s. I could see back in 1990 that the GMA would lead to this and it was risky to think you could ever get zoning/density changes outside a UGA. You could see where this was leading…
Frankly, if they keep going with more regs, it will make my buildable lots in UGA’s more valuable.
I was just laughing at Leftists who created all these rules somehow thinking they could now solve the problem THEY created. Undesired consequence of excessive regulations===rising cost of housing.
Duh!
Uhhh…yeah. Supply and demand.
Might have something to do with:
Quality of life
Availability of jobs paying a decent wage with benefits
Quality of life
Availability of jobs, period
Quality of life
Decent schools (Ours have their problems, but they’re worse elsewhere)
Quality of life
Having to put up with only a few redneck knuckle draggers like Mr. C, Mark and Puddy for neighbors, instead of being surrounded by them
Quality of life
Trees and mountains and unpolluted bodies of water to look at
Quality of life
Something fun to do after dark (in spite of the mayor’s efforts to change that)
Quality of life
Churches whose congregations can praise the Lord without passing the ammunition
Quality of life
In fact, if it’s so horrible, Mr. Cynical….why do you live here?
Mr. Cynical and others, yes we can do away with lots of zoning and other regulations, perhaps like Houston. And that in fact might result in lower prices on homes in our area (but not $200K; c’mon…) because, since we live in a capitalist economy, prices are ultimately determined by supply and demand. Prices are low in Houston because of low demand — who in their right mind would want to live there?
Is Seattle Turning Into LA Grown UP?
Will, I hope you can go! How in hell did they pick a panel utterly lacking in folks who actually live in these places. This is like asking GW Bush, Dick Chaney, Laura Bush, and their Corgi to discuss the war in Iraq.
“We” are building a new city, with well over a 100,000 people, but the planning
is being left largely to the developers. If there is a vision, no one I can find
can describe it. What scares me is that the planning for Seattle seems a lot like
the “planning” that gave us Los Angeles Bellevue. That sort
of thing is bad enough when you are bulding endless suburbs, it is horrible when done
in the compact space of a city.
For bad examples, I suggest you look at the “projects” .. the dense housing built in
the fifties for poor folks. Now we are tearing it all down. Similar bad planning can
be seen in the former Soviet space. Again it is now being torn down.
OK, this was all social planning .. is capitalism better? I do not think so. Many
of the suburbs of that era are now pretty dismal and some of the expensive housing I have seen
on Manhattan and even Vancouver looks an awful lot like tenements to be.
This contrasts with wonderful older developments like Boston’s Back Bay or council housing
in Sweden and Germany. In all of these high density is carefuly combined with appropriate retail.
recreation areas, transportation, and .. often some sort of local magnets.
For example, the South End of Boston was once a slum but is now well in its way back. The
buildings are of high quality but even better are the boulevards that go through the area, miniparks,
churches, retail areas, and the adjacent medical center with its jobs.
A former student of mine lived in council housing in Sweden. Though intended for moderate income,
the area was carefully fitted out with parks, schools, bike trails, shared recreation facilities, etc.
Is this gonna happen here? I am skeptical.
Lets take SLU as an example. This area has been touted as being anchored by biotech. I know, however,
that the UW is not represented on any planning council for SLU.
The only park planned for the area is the tiny triangle of Denny Park and the expanded shore wall called a park
along Lake Union.
I have met with one of the VULCAN planners(and with Healey). AFIK, the plans for street side development are amazingly anemic.
There is an idea that Westlake will become a shopping street BUT, no plans to force a widening of the street or an increase set back
despite the effective decrease in street width by the SLUT. Despite the claim to want biotech, there is no plan for an information’backbone.
bookstores, affordable housing for felllows, or other amentities that fascilitate biotech.
Same thing applies up here on Cap Hill. Zoning has been changed for Broadway to allow an increase in six story housing along
Broadway. There are, however, no provisions for increased parking (other than one space per housing unit) despite the planned opening
of light rail. A city planner told me that folks will walk to the LR station. That does make sense if you think this is a high rise area, but the
bulk of cap hill is still single family and there does not appear to be any plan to increase metro so that folks can get to these stations on their way
to Seatac, the UW or downtown.
Along with all this intent to build UP, there seems to be no talk of street level amenities like miniparks, destination buildings, etc. Frankly (and You and I often
disagree on this sort of issue) the result
The result, it seems to me, is likely to be a great increase in demand for parking on Bway that will choke the development of this area as
a retail magnet for Cap. Hill.
My impression is that the intent is to support the developers, with little interest in the surrounding neighborhood..
Richard@14
Mark owns a tree limb, from which he hangs upside down, like a bat. Hence the red neck.
@23 says: “Trees and mountains and unpolluted bodies of water to look at”
I dont exactly think you can say they are unpolluted. The Duwamish is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the country. Puget Sound as a whole isn’t much better.
But I agree with the rest of your statement.
It is not so much that Vesely is from Mercer Island, although that is a probem, it is the hostility towards Seattle and its citizens that he so often voices on the Times editorial page. If he were smart he would be dangerous, but fortunately he is neither.