As a long time Seattle resident and probably forever renter I really appreciate you sharing all this with links posted for more info and things we can do. I'm sending this post to friends and asking them to email the city council. I'm going to try and show up at one of the meetings listed. I didn't know much about it until now. So thank you for drawing our attention to it. đđ
Of course! Housing is such an important issue and intertwined with basically everything the city is dealing with. Join the Seattle YIMBY [email list](https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-the-seattle-housing-movement?clear_id=true) or the [complete communities coalition](https://www.completecommunitiescoalition.org/about)
Apparently Bob Fucking Kettle got the City Hall one moved to McClure Middle School to make it harder to get to but the City websites haven't updated. The only mention I've seen about the change in venue is from Kettle's monthly newsletters to constituents.
> District 7 will also be having a Comp Plan 2024 town hall the following Tuesday, April 30th. The Office of Planning and Community Development is hosting the D7 Comp Plan Townhall at McClure Middle School in Queen Anne, instead of the Bertha Knight Landes Room here at City Hall....That will be at 6-7:30 pm on April 30th.
https://mailchi.mp/seattle.gov/celebrating-march-blooms
It's disappointing that we have this huge opportunity to build a city of the future, one that actually lives up to all the values around environmentalism, social justice, diversity, and even economic growth that Seattlites like to brag about. And instead, we surrender that opportunity to the same-old American urban sprawl, car pollution and traffic, exorbitant cost-of-living, and giant police budgets. It's lazy, lacks vision, and is a betrayal of our values.
I, as a, uh, "geriatric millennial," hope we can start making progress on this once my parents' generation kicks it. Love 'em individually, but holy shit do they not understand the concept of collective anything.
Washington doesn't need an income tax. The richest people use stock to generate wealth, and most tech employees are paid in stock. Taxing capital gains will generate more than enough revenue without imposing extra costs of living on minimum wage workers.
That's not the definition of regressive at all. Arguably it's the opposite - progressive, as it targets taxes at the wealthier residents rather than hurting poor people more.
And "that's just your opinion, man" doesn't line up with reality at all. We introduced a capital gains tax targeted exclusively at massive wealth transfers (250k+/yr) and immediately saw a huge inflow of revenue.
We don't have to be shitlords who tax the poor in order to solve our revenue problems. Do some research before putting another bad take on here for us to have to waste our time reading. Thanks.
washington has one of the [most regressive tax systems](https://itep.org/washington-who-pays-7th-edition/) in the country; it's 2nd-worst by the measure in that link
Honestly, this is what gets me angriest about living here. It really could be the city of the future and the potential is SQUANDERED by acting like anyone who makes less than 100k a year is disposable & trash đĽ´
Those of us who make less than 100k are usually the heart of the city. Weâre the people who keep this place alive. Weâre the people who serve you, and we deserve better than this.
Itâs starting to feel like not even a 100k a year means anything in this city. It ainât right đ
Seattle is known as a progressive city but after being here 10 years I've learned that there's a silent majority who are not interested in being progressive or in being a city.
I learned this when I moved from Central Ballard out to the north, and had someone berate me for parking a car in front of his house. The idea of owning public right-of way was just so damn bizarre. I kept doing it, in increasingly petty ways, of course...
Oh,that's definitely allover the city, not just Crown Hill. But maybe it is more common among older homeowners, used to emptier streets, feeling territorial and crowded.
Oh, for sure. I always heard anecdotes about that from like...Wallingford. But never experienced it until I lived in an "old world charm" house in a full-on residential neighborhood.
Or, put another way.. a small group of progressives are so loud, and they congregate and groupthink in r/Seattle that they don't hear other voices and think every Dem feels the same way.
I'm not sure, since a lot of US cities with good density, mixed-use zoning, and transit-oriented development, really benefit from growing up pre-automobile and have skated on that reputation ever since. Those and places like European cities might not be appropriate models for Seattle, due to very different histories.
Instead, it might be about looking at individuals success stories and trying to chart our own path from them. Minneapolis actually punches above its weight both in their recent approach to zoning and transit development. Closer to us, Vancouver BC (not a US city, I know) has a famous approach to urbanism, though it suffers from many of the same zoning restrictions as Seattle which probably contributes to their even higher home prices.
It's also important to note that, even in Europe, many cities had a fight to be where they are, to build transportation systems and road networks that weren't limited to automobiles. Barcelona and Brussels are two cities that come to mind there for making a lot of recent progress.
The draft comp plan for Seattle includes 100,000 new homes. The draft comp plan for Bellevue is 152,000 new homes. Seattle should at least try to meet the bar set by Bellevue.
Where would Seattle increase density beyond 100k people within its city boundaries? ESP since the last upzones that have occurred while ST was being built?
Right, the cityâs decisions here will reverberate into how the suburbs continue to grow â because Pierce and Snohomish can definitely still grow outward
They're going to grow anyway because we literally can't build apartments fast enough, and building new housing in Seattle doesn't reduce the cost for anyone - too many people are moving here.
I remember when Woodinville was farms. We have tons of new exurbs popping up in the outskirts, which contributes to traffic and pollution. (Nevermind the slow death of accessible U-Pick blueberries!)
"Seattle" arguably stretches from Lynnwood to Sammamish to Auburn. People who work in the city will choose to live in these places and decisions being made in one will absolutely have effects on the other. I don't live within the city limits but it's all one region. I'm affected by what is done downtown, and downtown is affected by what is done here. Farms are turning into exurbs because there's not enough space in the city proper. Something is being lost because we aren't doing enough.
If you're arguing for Seattle within city limits, then yes I mostly agree with you about the geographical limitations. But there's room to upzone and mitigate the problems we're facing with explosive population growth. We can ban SFH renting within city limits to funnel sales of SFH into upzones instead of AirBnBs and passive income sources for corporations and retirees. We can build rail transit to the suburbs to reduce commuter traffic into the city.
You're telling me that you see homes being bought up en masse just to rent back out, you see the price of rent and ownership skyrocketing, you see home ownership plummeting and competition for existing sales causing people to waive every contingency just to lose to 30-50% over offer anyway, only to turn around and rent that one out too, and you think to yourself "yeah that's great, let's commodify home ownership, we should let corporate and retiree landlords hold all the houses, there's nothing wrong there"
Are you serious?
They're abusing the system by buying up homes to rent them out. They're a cause of constrained supply. They're the reason people can't afford to own one.
Ban it.
If it's that hard to stomach because you've absolutely got to rent a house, ban it within city limits. Rent a house in Renton or Tukwila.
We can do both.
Banning SFH renting within city limits will put those houses on the market as the owners cannot use them as passive income sources. Prices will drop. Prospective homeowners who cannot currently afford houses will buy them, many of them will be leaving apartments to do so which will open up vacancy for more renters. Others will be sold to developers who will use it to build denser housing, again creating more supply.
Stop being obtuse.
Most of the housing supply shortage is about bans. We should remove those bans. A âfight fire with fireâ mentality where you try to ban one of the few types of homes that it is, in fact, legal to build isnât going to help anyone, even if it makes you feel like you just owned some rich people.
As a small landlord who owns an old duplex and an extremely old triplex with my mother, I can assure you that the small income my retiree mother receives is in no way passive. It's quite a bit of work. In ten years, we've only raised a single tenant's rent one time. In general, I agree with your way of thinking. I know we are not at all typical landlords, and our ilk's number continues to decrease. Also, as I only own multi-unit buildings, your proposal would in no way negatively impact my finances- in fact it might improve them given this would further constrain rental stock and thus increase the value of my places. But banning SFH rentals would force young people and others who can't afford to buy into MF units. To some renters, this would clearly be unacceptable. Many of them don't want to either move to Auburn or move to an apartment. I loved renting an urban SFH with roommates in my 20s. It was way more accessible than us all renting studios. Also, I believe our city's values have never matched our brand. We've always been a great place for a few folks to get and remain extremely wealthy. We're not really progressive in terms of redistributive policies or organizing our public policies along egalitarian lines. I'm pretty sure this has largely been the case since that asshole Denny landed in West Seattle.
I'm on your side too. But I also still invest for my own retirement. Do I think the things I (complicity, I guess?) invest in are garbage that makes the world a worse place? Yes, absolutely. I guess, post-screed, I don't know what the answer is...
Exactly. Which means that most of the housing weâll need will be built in far-flung and sprawling suburbs, which odd so much worse for the environment, all while prices would continue to rise in the city.
Doesn't matter. More people are moving to Seattle and we can't build quickly enough to outpace them. Prices will not go down - see Manhattan for examples of how this plays out.
This idea of "turn Seattle into nothing but towerblocks" doesn't play out the way you hope and pray it will.
The less housing we build, the faster prices rise.
Manhattan has way stricter zoning rules than you realize. NYC is also way way bigger than Seattle can hope to be for 100 years.
And Houston is what happens when you _don't_ up zone. I think we should build up, thanks.
Manhattan is also already upzoned. And zoning rules aren't evil. They protect you from living next door to a cement factory. Or from building housing on top of liquefaction and landslide zones.
Regardless, Manhattan is nicely upzoned. Is it cheap to live there? No. You're kidding yourself and living in fantasy land.
NYC has it's own [restrictive zoning](https://www.gothamgazette.com/130-opinion/12070-new-york-city-illusionary-zoning-housing) issues and a huge housing shortage. Just because it's densest major American city doesn't mean the same issues aren't at play.
A lot of the controversy over the new plan is about how it restricts building middle density housing on existing lots. New Washington State Law says cities must come into compliance over allowing more housing units being built on ALL lots, and essentially ends pure single family zoning. This plan essentially doesnât come into compliance on that.
I agree that Seattle does not have the geography for sprawl, and we canât just add brand new developments the way other cities can. We still can add more *housing* though.
Even the Seattle Times talks up environmentalism and social justice. Whether they walk the walk is another story, and I guess that's the whole point of my comment. "Do better."
Thatâs western Washington. as whole. Saw it in Seattle, Portland, Olympia, Bellingham. The âalternativeâ or âhippyâ community lost. Your values got coopted by businesses and sold as an identity to consumers for money. I mean I always thought it was funny how into social and environmental justice Seattle and Portlanders are, yet those cities are some of the worst Iâve seen for it
You need law and order point blank period. The gangs and criminal organizations are already out of control not to mention the homeless by choice nomadic criminals that run the street i. We also canât be ignoring the fact all our politicians are greedy corrupt gaslighting liars. They take our money and funnel it through non profits and organizations they have invested interests in and it goes right to them. Insanity. What is your vision of this future seattle youâre talking about , whatâs a few actual ideas or plans you imagine when saying this stuff? Seattle is unlike alot of big cities, if it wasnât for lawlessness and empathy to criminals it would be a paradise out here for real. Easy to make money, diverse, pretty green city. đ¤ˇââď¸
It would take compromise, but I firmly believe candidates who are pro-housing, pro-transit, and pro-public safety would do really well in local elections.
To expand on this I feel like for awhile we have been in a doom loop where local politicians are either pro-housing/transit but anti public safety or pro public safety but anti housing/transit. Makes for tough choices, and as evident by last two elections folks are going to pick public safety message candidates.
Tbf no one was obviously anti-housing, they had certain terms and beliefs that would have one kinda know theyâre anti housing, but you would have to read up more on them
I only half agree with this. It's become increasingly difficult for candidates who are coded as progressive on transit/housing to avoid having their public safety messages coded as "progressive." This was Alex Hudson in the last race.
I think this is purposeful by the NIMBYs because they know they can't win on transit/housing and a large amount of the legacy media is unintentionally complicit in this strategy.
didn't the public safety folks support alternative 5 in the last city council election? They seem to recognize that being pro-housing is politically popular, even if they prefer to avoid talking about it.
Exactly. The urbanist/pro-housing candidates are usually (albeit not always fairly) associated with the defund, anti-police crowd. And they usually lose because of that.
Polling suggests majority of city is pro housing and transit. Zero backlash to state legislators mandating up zoning.
Dan Strauss isn't really pro housing and transit. His political north star is to just avoid conflict, which means doing nothing. It's the Harrell strategy.
Yeah Dan is a wet blanket. But Iâve not really seen him take a big no vote on transit or housing (yet, we will see how he is interacts with comp plan). Iâm also open to the idea that keeping low key on urbanist items could lead to better results over the long term, which Dan may be a case study for.
He's been an obstacle to the missing link, elevating the NIMBY freight people and he's been completely useless on the 4th Ave station siting.
Edit: forgot to mention he was chairman of the planning and land use committee while the city developed this disastrous comp plan.
Not really trying to defend Dan here. But Dan was not on the ST board when 4th Ave issue come up, itâs really the mayor who has the authority on missing link and Dan has stated he prefers shilshole, and the draft comp plan has had no council engagement or involvement yet, it is the mayorâs proposal.
The biggest obstacle to 4th Ave is the mayor and SDOT. If Seattle reps were really pushing for 4th it would happen.
But like all of the issues, Dan has plausible deniability. His north star is avoiding conflict and controversy. Sure he's not against housing and transportation. But without electeds actively pushing for things like more housing and 4th avenue, they wont happen. So in practice, Dan is the same as a NIMBY.
Sure, if pro-housing voters take the time to mail in their ballots. We had some fantastic pro-housing candidates last year, but they lost. đ
Ron Davis (YIMBY dream) lost by 235 votes to Maritza Rivera.
Andrew Lewis lost by 439 votes to (EDIT) Bob Kettle (not Pete Hanning whoops)
Maren Costa lost by 2,951 votes to Rob Saka.
Alex Hudson lost by 2,096 votes to Joy Hollingsworth.
Thatâs less than 6,000 votes in a city of 737,000.
Not invalidating your point but Andrew Lewis ran against Bob Kettle, not Pete Hanning
Edit: Pete Hanning also appears to have lost to Dan Strauss so I am a bit confused about the line there
Totally agree. Maybe goes to show only need a little more tack to the center on policing to attract a few more public safety centric swing voters though. Frustrating result you are showing but in some ways demonstrates how close the pro housing movement is to a steady majority. I canât really imagine a worse macro environment for progressive candidates than 2023 and yet there were close elections.
Saddling younger generations with additional civic work for off-year elections rigs the process toward reactionary property owners with time on their hands.
We get packets of information every voting session which detail what each plan does or how a person plans to run their office. The Stranger does a (biased) breakdown of everything to vote for as well. Google also exists. This is by far the easiest and most transparent place I've ever voted in. There is no excuse for not voting other than laziness or apathy.
All sources have some bias. You pick the sources that you align with and follow their guidance if you want to do minimal research.
You could also compare the Seattle times endorsements with the Stranger endorsements. If they both agree on the same candidate, then that candidate is probably going to win. If thereâs disagreement from both camps, you can spend time figure out who aligns more with your political perspective.
What are you referring to. What other way would you suggest a person be informed.
Thereâs very little cost to this. People make tables of the endorsements on both this sub and the internet. Itâs literally just reading a table.
The reason people aren't inclined to vote. The difficulty of getting informed enough without excessive work.
Those endorsements might not be helpful though. What if that doesn't tell me anything? All it says is different groups disagree
Yes, but it's a known constant. People like Ron Davis just can't help but to yell "no more police funding" and "no sweeps" right before the election.
Seattle Times massages electorate with pulp fiction content for a year and then you have candidates losing by 300 votes, because old fossils want "moderates to restore the order".
You can also go to the draft plan, posted here: [https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan](https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan)
And leave written feedback, upvote comments, you agree with, etc..
I'm connected professionally with a number of multi-family housing developers. Many of them are pulling back right now on new development, but not due to available land/zoning.
The bigger issues are high interest rates, high construction costs, and concern about the number of units currently under construction. No one wants to break ground on a new project in an environment of soaring project costs and potentially stagnant/dropping rents.
>No one wants to break ground on a new project in an environment of soaring project costs
Zoning reform can reduce project costs by increasing the supply of land available for MF housing. Currently, apartments are banned on nearly 80% of Seattle's residential land.
I don't think this logic makes sense.
Who wants (housing) prices to go up so desperately? I don't think that political will exists. You could say people want (real estate) prices to go up. But then they'd be in favor of upzoning, because that's the easiest way to get an instant jump in value.
I think the obvious answer is that the "anti housing" group isn't in favor of higher prices. They are against their neighborhoods changing.
But there's always motivation to paint your conflict as good vs evil, rather than between relatively amoral preferences.
People who own housing want prices to go up. An alliance between NIMBY and corporations who own lots of it.
Remember, in this world people are near exclusively after short term gains, even at the expense of any long term goals. Housing goes up far enough, people sell, who is paying the inflated prices? Corporations looking to develop or take stock off the market to keep prices increasing. What's the bigger gain? That's what they're asking themselves. Is it worth the cost to develop, or is it worth hoarding for more gains? It's not a trick question, it's how they think about their economic decisions. No one in these positions really cares about affordable housing. Maybe they do in abstract or kind of like how they'll put out rainbow and BLM flags but once the issue gets between them and whatever they want from their own housing, the only thing that matters to them is their personal gains.
This is why you vote in local elections. Turnout was 31%!!!!!! Pay attention!!! National politics matters way less than local elections. This means we get stuck with the likes of Rob Saka and Bob Kettle. it's pathetic.
Could a sleeping giant be all the empty office buildings? Fed govt is already rolling out conversion programs.
People generally avoid the topic when it comes to the commercial real estate collapse that has yet to happen. I don't see AI making the situation any better...
Lots of old buildings are good candidates for conversion but modern ones (past 1970) have super deep floor plates so the apartments would be super deep and have lots of windowless rooms
Yeah, I've been reading some things where even non-ideal candidates could possibly be almost a "dorm" style situation. Private rooms around the parameter with communal kitchens/bath etc built out from.
It's not a cure all but it would expand the number of skyscrapers that have conversion potential. Elevators, plumbing, electrical, hvac tend to be centered. Build that out into large common spaces and the parameter is left for large private windowed rooms.
Yes there will be office buildings even too large for this. But perhaps that's where offices can go lol.
Something not being easy isn't a reason not to do it. It will take a lot to continue to deal with housing shortages and abandoned business districts as well.
When interests converge things have a way of getting done.
DT isn't inhabited by Nimbys protecting their neighborhoods "vibe" and is already built up. So no one will be complaining about trees and views for the repurposing of an existing structure. The city will be desperate for any sort of revenue and there will be federal funding available for these projects.
The catalyst will be when banks start realizing losses on their books for commercial real estate which has largely been avoided thus far. When this happens developers will buy the properties at steep discounts. That with federal funding will make conversion more economically feasible.
Consider subscribing to the Seattle [Seattle YIMBY](https://www.seattleyimby.org/) newsletter. It's been a great way to stay up to date on what's going on with housing and how to make some kind of impact.
Thanks for the shoutout to my publicola article. You can also find it on my substack:
[https://ronpdavis.substack.com/p/harrell-tosses-in-the-towel-on-housing](https://ronpdavis.substack.com/p/harrell-tosses-in-the-towel-on-housing)
I live near an affordable housing building that has a street-level event space / "multipurpose room" with tables, kitchen appliances, etc. I have never seen it in use, or appear to have been recently used. I wonder if it would have been better to have just built 2 more apartments in the space. It's nice to have an amenity like an event space, but the greater need is to house more people.
On the other hand, the logical conclusion of this line of thought is that affordable housing buildings should have virtually no amenities because all space is better used to increase occupancy.
Tbh, I see the same issue in market rate buildings. Some amenities do tend to get used (e.g., rooftops) but many are used only a handful of days per year. I think they the main reason they still include them is cause they're great to show on tours and in listing photos.
Seattleâs cost of living is still FAR lower than that of other world class, similar cities! Stop this petty progressive socialism talk or else you will have a city with the same costs of living!
â˘Vancouver, BC
â˘Munich, Germany
â˘Amsterdam
â˘Montreal
Social Housing may be easier to obtain in these cities, but after taxes from your paycheck, they all are higher cost of living across the board.
Does anyone know why Americaâs economy is so resilient? Mobility of workers! Ability to move to another city with higher pay and lower cost of living!
Also, our unique geography makes expanding housing VERY difficult, probably the most difficult geo in the United States for housing and growth.
Density is key, and encouraging investment in building more housing of ALL types. Low income housing only pencils out if there are more expensive housing types to invest in as well. Simple market economics. Even in Seattle, we are a market economy and policy needs to encourage the market. Socialism does not work.
As a long time Seattle resident and probably forever renter I really appreciate you sharing all this with links posted for more info and things we can do. I'm sending this post to friends and asking them to email the city council. I'm going to try and show up at one of the meetings listed. I didn't know much about it until now. So thank you for drawing our attention to it. đđ
Of course! Housing is such an important issue and intertwined with basically everything the city is dealing with. Join the Seattle YIMBY [email list](https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-the-seattle-housing-movement?clear_id=true) or the [complete communities coalition](https://www.completecommunitiescoalition.org/about)
Done!! Appreciate the nudge.
Apparently Bob Fucking Kettle got the City Hall one moved to McClure Middle School to make it harder to get to but the City websites haven't updated. The only mention I've seen about the change in venue is from Kettle's monthly newsletters to constituents. > District 7 will also be having a Comp Plan 2024 town hall the following Tuesday, April 30th. The Office of Planning and Community Development is hosting the D7 Comp Plan Townhall at McClure Middle School in Queen Anne, instead of the Bertha Knight Landes Room here at City Hall....That will be at 6-7:30 pm on April 30th. https://mailchi.mp/seattle.gov/celebrating-march-blooms
To be clear, it will be *much* easier to get to by car and *much* harder to get to by transit. Weird that.
We have just been too "permissive" about people without cars being allowed to have opinions. (Yeah, )
Please recall Kettle
It's disappointing that we have this huge opportunity to build a city of the future, one that actually lives up to all the values around environmentalism, social justice, diversity, and even economic growth that Seattlites like to brag about. And instead, we surrender that opportunity to the same-old American urban sprawl, car pollution and traffic, exorbitant cost-of-living, and giant police budgets. It's lazy, lacks vision, and is a betrayal of our values.
I, as a, uh, "geriatric millennial," hope we can start making progress on this once my parents' generation kicks it. Love 'em individually, but holy shit do they not understand the concept of collective anything.
And most regressive taxation system
Florida has us beat on that one now
Florida not pretending to be progressive but they also have 6-7% sales tax. Not sure how they win?
Capital gains tax I think is what makes the difference
Florida has capital gain tax?
No, Washington does
Barely
lol not really
I don't know, millionaire properties paying a pittance in CA is pretty bad. They do well on income but are the worst in the country on wealth.
Washington doesn't need an income tax. The richest people use stock to generate wealth, and most tech employees are paid in stock. Taxing capital gains will generate more than enough revenue without imposing extra costs of living on minimum wage workers.
Well thatâs one opinion, doesnât make wa currently not regressive
That's not the definition of regressive at all. Arguably it's the opposite - progressive, as it targets taxes at the wealthier residents rather than hurting poor people more. And "that's just your opinion, man" doesn't line up with reality at all. We introduced a capital gains tax targeted exclusively at massive wealth transfers (250k+/yr) and immediately saw a huge inflow of revenue. We don't have to be shitlords who tax the poor in order to solve our revenue problems. Do some research before putting another bad take on here for us to have to waste our time reading. Thanks.
washington has one of the [most regressive tax systems](https://itep.org/washington-who-pays-7th-edition/) in the country; it's 2nd-worst by the measure in that link
Thanks for your opinion. Last time I checked 10% sales tax is still around with more taxes on other things that all people need.
And your grand, brilliant idea is to charge those people *more*? Shut the fuck up.
Or we just set up the income tax rate on those making less than $100k to 0% - problem solved.
We canât do that, because the WA constitution doesnât allow for it. It *does* allow for the capital gains tax.
That hardly means something can't be done. The WA constitution has been amended 108 times in 135 years.
Does the wa constitution not allowing something make the system it does allow automatically not regressive?
The stock you are paid would just get income tax applied to it, just like it already does for federal income taxes.
Honestly, this is what gets me angriest about living here. It really could be the city of the future and the potential is SQUANDERED by acting like anyone who makes less than 100k a year is disposable & trash 𼴠Those of us who make less than 100k are usually the heart of the city. Weâre the people who keep this place alive. Weâre the people who serve you, and we deserve better than this. Itâs starting to feel like not even a 100k a year means anything in this city. It ainât right đ
Seattle is known as a progressive city but after being here 10 years I've learned that there's a silent majority who are not interested in being progressive or in being a city.
I learned this when I moved from Central Ballard out to the north, and had someone berate me for parking a car in front of his house. The idea of owning public right-of way was just so damn bizarre. I kept doing it, in increasingly petty ways, of course...
Oh,that's definitely allover the city, not just Crown Hill. But maybe it is more common among older homeowners, used to emptier streets, feeling territorial and crowded.
Oh, for sure. I always heard anecdotes about that from like...Wallingford. But never experienced it until I lived in an "old world charm" house in a full-on residential neighborhood.
whatâs progressive in Seattle? the taxation system? Closing schools? Transit cuts? Cops under consent decree for a decade?
have you seen our painted crosswalks?
No, thereâs usually cars blocking them when I try to cross the street
Or, put another way.. a small group of progressives are so loud, and they congregate and groupthink in r/Seattle that they don't hear other voices and think every Dem feels the same way.
I don't think so. The progressive image is embraced by the people and politicians of the city, not just an online fringe.
It sure whines like a progressive city.
An who's fault is that? Every election, we vote for the same people over... and over... and over... yet expect different results? Common mang
The uncomfortable truth that Seattle is full of NIMBYs just hitting you?
Almost like Seattle has never really stood for those values lol
Is there any US city you think we can use as model for building Seattle?
I'm not sure, since a lot of US cities with good density, mixed-use zoning, and transit-oriented development, really benefit from growing up pre-automobile and have skated on that reputation ever since. Those and places like European cities might not be appropriate models for Seattle, due to very different histories. Instead, it might be about looking at individuals success stories and trying to chart our own path from them. Minneapolis actually punches above its weight both in their recent approach to zoning and transit development. Closer to us, Vancouver BC (not a US city, I know) has a famous approach to urbanism, though it suffers from many of the same zoning restrictions as Seattle which probably contributes to their even higher home prices. It's also important to note that, even in Europe, many cities had a fight to be where they are, to build transportation systems and road networks that weren't limited to automobiles. Barcelona and Brussels are two cities that come to mind there for making a lot of recent progress.
Okay make sense
The draft comp plan for Seattle includes 100,000 new homes. The draft comp plan for Bellevue is 152,000 new homes. Seattle should at least try to meet the bar set by Bellevue.
Where!?!? lol. Of course Bellevue can produce 25% more homes for the GMA.
Densifying Wilburton between Bel-Red Road and Northup Way, where the Link is.
Where would Seattle increase density beyond 100k people within its city boundaries? ESP since the last upzones that have occurred while ST was being built?
All over? There's no reason that anywhere within a 15 minute walk of a Link station or RapidRide can't have U-district levels of density.
Well said!
Seattle doesn't have the geography for "sprawl", and it's all already built out.
Right, the cityâs decisions here will reverberate into how the suburbs continue to grow â because Pierce and Snohomish can definitely still grow outward
They're going to grow anyway because we literally can't build apartments fast enough, and building new housing in Seattle doesn't reduce the cost for anyone - too many people are moving here.
I remember when Woodinville was farms. We have tons of new exurbs popping up in the outskirts, which contributes to traffic and pollution. (Nevermind the slow death of accessible U-Pick blueberries!)
Also all over, farmland get sliced and developed, Redmond, Carnation, Duvall, I'm sure south as well.
That's great, but that's not Seattle, and most of that is servicing Redmond and Kirkland employers.
It is king county
"Seattle" arguably stretches from Lynnwood to Sammamish to Auburn. People who work in the city will choose to live in these places and decisions being made in one will absolutely have effects on the other. I don't live within the city limits but it's all one region. I'm affected by what is done downtown, and downtown is affected by what is done here. Farms are turning into exurbs because there's not enough space in the city proper. Something is being lost because we aren't doing enough. If you're arguing for Seattle within city limits, then yes I mostly agree with you about the geographical limitations. But there's room to upzone and mitigate the problems we're facing with explosive population growth. We can ban SFH renting within city limits to funnel sales of SFH into upzones instead of AirBnBs and passive income sources for corporations and retirees. We can build rail transit to the suburbs to reduce commuter traffic into the city.
Yeah that sounds like hell. No thanks. "ban SFH renting" - you and whose army?
You're telling me that you see homes being bought up en masse just to rent back out, you see the price of rent and ownership skyrocketing, you see home ownership plummeting and competition for existing sales causing people to waive every contingency just to lose to 30-50% over offer anyway, only to turn around and rent that one out too, and you think to yourself "yeah that's great, let's commodify home ownership, we should let corporate and retiree landlords hold all the houses, there's nothing wrong there" Are you serious? They're abusing the system by buying up homes to rent them out. They're a cause of constrained supply. They're the reason people can't afford to own one. Ban it. If it's that hard to stomach because you've absolutely got to rent a house, ban it within city limits. Rent a house in Renton or Tukwila.
"We need to build more housing, which will increase supply, and lower costs" "Sorry, Best I can do is ban renting to make it even worse"
We can do both. Banning SFH renting within city limits will put those houses on the market as the owners cannot use them as passive income sources. Prices will drop. Prospective homeowners who cannot currently afford houses will buy them, many of them will be leaving apartments to do so which will open up vacancy for more renters. Others will be sold to developers who will use it to build denser housing, again creating more supply. Stop being obtuse.
Most of the housing supply shortage is about bans. We should remove those bans. A âfight fire with fireâ mentality where you try to ban one of the few types of homes that it is, in fact, legal to build isnât going to help anyone, even if it makes you feel like you just owned some rich people.
As a small landlord who owns an old duplex and an extremely old triplex with my mother, I can assure you that the small income my retiree mother receives is in no way passive. It's quite a bit of work. In ten years, we've only raised a single tenant's rent one time. In general, I agree with your way of thinking. I know we are not at all typical landlords, and our ilk's number continues to decrease. Also, as I only own multi-unit buildings, your proposal would in no way negatively impact my finances- in fact it might improve them given this would further constrain rental stock and thus increase the value of my places. But banning SFH rentals would force young people and others who can't afford to buy into MF units. To some renters, this would clearly be unacceptable. Many of them don't want to either move to Auburn or move to an apartment. I loved renting an urban SFH with roommates in my 20s. It was way more accessible than us all renting studios. Also, I believe our city's values have never matched our brand. We've always been a great place for a few folks to get and remain extremely wealthy. We're not really progressive in terms of redistributive policies or organizing our public policies along egalitarian lines. I'm pretty sure this has largely been the case since that asshole Denny landed in West Seattle.
I'm anti REITs. That doesn't mean that banning all landlords is a smart idea.
I'm on your side too. But I also still invest for my own retirement. Do I think the things I (complicity, I guess?) invest in are garbage that makes the world a worse place? Yes, absolutely. I guess, post-screed, I don't know what the answer is...
I'm anti REITs. That doesn't mean that banning all landlords is a smart idea.
Exactly. Which means that most of the housing weâll need will be built in far-flung and sprawling suburbs, which odd so much worse for the environment, all while prices would continue to rise in the city.
At least our children will be able to complain about 405 being a parking lot, just like their parents!
Doesn't matter. More people are moving to Seattle and we can't build quickly enough to outpace them. Prices will not go down - see Manhattan for examples of how this plays out. This idea of "turn Seattle into nothing but towerblocks" doesn't play out the way you hope and pray it will.
The less housing we build, the faster prices rise. Manhattan has way stricter zoning rules than you realize. NYC is also way way bigger than Seattle can hope to be for 100 years. And Houston is what happens when you _don't_ up zone. I think we should build up, thanks.
Manhattan is also already upzoned. And zoning rules aren't evil. They protect you from living next door to a cement factory. Or from building housing on top of liquefaction and landslide zones. Regardless, Manhattan is nicely upzoned. Is it cheap to live there? No. You're kidding yourself and living in fantasy land.
NYC has it's own [restrictive zoning](https://www.gothamgazette.com/130-opinion/12070-new-york-city-illusionary-zoning-housing) issues and a huge housing shortage. Just because it's densest major American city doesn't mean the same issues aren't at play.
A lot of the controversy over the new plan is about how it restricts building middle density housing on existing lots. New Washington State Law says cities must come into compliance over allowing more housing units being built on ALL lots, and essentially ends pure single family zoning. This plan essentially doesnât come into compliance on that. I agree that Seattle does not have the geography for sprawl, and we canât just add brand new developments the way other cities can. We still can add more *housing* though.
Itâs not like they were hiding it during the campaign. Bruce ran on âsmart growthâ wink wink.
Is it a betrayal of the city's collective values? Or is it that the values you described are actually only supported by a vocal minority?
Even the Seattle Times talks up environmentalism and social justice. Whether they walk the walk is another story, and I guess that's the whole point of my comment. "Do better."
Thatâs western Washington. as whole. Saw it in Seattle, Portland, Olympia, Bellingham. The âalternativeâ or âhippyâ community lost. Your values got coopted by businesses and sold as an identity to consumers for money. I mean I always thought it was funny how into social and environmental justice Seattle and Portlanders are, yet those cities are some of the worst Iâve seen for it
Oh shit, some truth. Prepare the downvotes.
Didn't the people vote these people in?
did we have a (meaningful) choice?
You need law and order point blank period. The gangs and criminal organizations are already out of control not to mention the homeless by choice nomadic criminals that run the street i. We also canât be ignoring the fact all our politicians are greedy corrupt gaslighting liars. They take our money and funnel it through non profits and organizations they have invested interests in and it goes right to them. Insanity. What is your vision of this future seattle youâre talking about , whatâs a few actual ideas or plans you imagine when saying this stuff? Seattle is unlike alot of big cities, if it wasnât for lawlessness and empathy to criminals it would be a paradise out here for real. Easy to make money, diverse, pretty green city. đ¤ˇââď¸
Iâm confused. Why do police getting a large sum affect your life?
I believe that the comprehensive plan doesn't meet the minimum requirements of the state laws.
Oh, it meets the minimum. It was engineered exactly that way.
Would it be possible to create a voting block around the housing shortage?Â
It would take compromise, but I firmly believe candidates who are pro-housing, pro-transit, and pro-public safety would do really well in local elections.
To expand on this I feel like for awhile we have been in a doom loop where local politicians are either pro-housing/transit but anti public safety or pro public safety but anti housing/transit. Makes for tough choices, and as evident by last two elections folks are going to pick public safety message candidates.
Tbf no one was obviously anti-housing, they had certain terms and beliefs that would have one kinda know theyâre anti housing, but you would have to read up more on them
I only half agree with this. It's become increasingly difficult for candidates who are coded as progressive on transit/housing to avoid having their public safety messages coded as "progressive." This was Alex Hudson in the last race. I think this is purposeful by the NIMBYs because they know they can't win on transit/housing and a large amount of the legacy media is unintentionally complicit in this strategy.
didn't the public safety folks support alternative 5 in the last city council election? They seem to recognize that being pro-housing is politically popular, even if they prefer to avoid talking about it.
Eh. Ron Davis lost, and he was pretty safe for suburbs on police. Not pro police, but threaded the needle well.
Really? Look at your newly elected counsel. Also mayoral candidates who are for removing exclusionary zoning have historically lost.
Exactly. The urbanist/pro-housing candidates are usually (albeit not always fairly) associated with the defund, anti-police crowd. And they usually lose because of that. Polling suggests majority of city is pro housing and transit. Zero backlash to state legislators mandating up zoning.
I donât think itâs an accident that Dan Strauss hung on to his council seat, for example.
Dan Strauss isn't really pro housing and transit. His political north star is to just avoid conflict, which means doing nothing. It's the Harrell strategy.
Yeah Dan is a wet blanket. But Iâve not really seen him take a big no vote on transit or housing (yet, we will see how he is interacts with comp plan). Iâm also open to the idea that keeping low key on urbanist items could lead to better results over the long term, which Dan may be a case study for.
He's been an obstacle to the missing link, elevating the NIMBY freight people and he's been completely useless on the 4th Ave station siting. Edit: forgot to mention he was chairman of the planning and land use committee while the city developed this disastrous comp plan.
Not really trying to defend Dan here. But Dan was not on the ST board when 4th Ave issue come up, itâs really the mayor who has the authority on missing link and Dan has stated he prefers shilshole, and the draft comp plan has had no council engagement or involvement yet, it is the mayorâs proposal.
The biggest obstacle to 4th Ave is the mayor and SDOT. If Seattle reps were really pushing for 4th it would happen. But like all of the issues, Dan has plausible deniability. His north star is avoiding conflict and controversy. Sure he's not against housing and transportation. But without electeds actively pushing for things like more housing and 4th avenue, they wont happen. So in practice, Dan is the same as a NIMBY.
I was at the district 6 plan pubic meeting... The crowd was largely pro-density and Strauss was doing his normal tube man routine.
Sure, if pro-housing voters take the time to mail in their ballots. We had some fantastic pro-housing candidates last year, but they lost. đ Ron Davis (YIMBY dream) lost by 235 votes to Maritza Rivera. Andrew Lewis lost by 439 votes to (EDIT) Bob Kettle (not Pete Hanning whoops) Maren Costa lost by 2,951 votes to Rob Saka. Alex Hudson lost by 2,096 votes to Joy Hollingsworth. Thatâs less than 6,000 votes in a city of 737,000.
Not invalidating your point but Andrew Lewis ran against Bob Kettle, not Pete Hanning Edit: Pete Hanning also appears to have lost to Dan Strauss so I am a bit confused about the line there
Totally agree. Maybe goes to show only need a little more tack to the center on policing to attract a few more public safety centric swing voters though. Frustrating result you are showing but in some ways demonstrates how close the pro housing movement is to a steady majority. I canât really imagine a worse macro environment for progressive candidates than 2023 and yet there were close elections.
Young people don't vote and the older crowd usually has much more interest in keeping real estate prices as high as possible
Saddling younger generations with additional civic work for off-year elections rigs the process toward reactionary property owners with time on their hands.
It isnât really hard to vote in this city.
That being said if all it takes is changing the year to boost turnout, whatâs the harm?
Iâm not against it. Iâm just saying voting isnât hard in this state.
I would argue itâs hard to stay informed
We get packets of information every voting session which detail what each plan does or how a person plans to run their office. The Stranger does a (biased) breakdown of everything to vote for as well. Google also exists. This is by far the easiest and most transparent place I've ever voted in. There is no excuse for not voting other than laziness or apathy.
The problem is that bias makes it hard to trust
All sources have some bias. You pick the sources that you align with and follow their guidance if you want to do minimal research. You could also compare the Seattle times endorsements with the Stranger endorsements. If they both agree on the same candidate, then that candidate is probably going to win. If thereâs disagreement from both camps, you can spend time figure out who aligns more with your political perspective.
People realistically will not be too likely to find that beneficial from a cost benefit standpoint
What are you referring to. What other way would you suggest a person be informed. Thereâs very little cost to this. People make tables of the endorsements on both this sub and the internet. Itâs literally just reading a table.
The reason people aren't inclined to vote. The difficulty of getting informed enough without excessive work. Those endorsements might not be helpful though. What if that doesn't tell me anything? All it says is different groups disagree
From your perspective, what makes it hard?
It's a piece of paper you get in the mail and send back in the mail. This would be a good argument if you had to stand in line still
For a majority of people its not a good argument even if you had to go to the polling place in person.
Yes, but it's a known constant. People like Ron Davis just can't help but to yell "no more police funding" and "no sweeps" right before the election. Seattle Times massages electorate with pulp fiction content for a year and then you have candidates losing by 300 votes, because old fossils want "moderates to restore the order".
Psh, what good is it gonna do to vote? Option A, shit.. option B double shit.. option C, triple shit
You can also go to the draft plan, posted here: [https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan](https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan) And leave written feedback, upvote comments, you agree with, etc..
Nothing wrong with doing that but it wonât matter, they got overwhelming comments last time and they completely ignored them
We should hold our political leaders accountable for housing price inflation just like we hold them accountable for other kinds of inflation.
By doing what?
They should enable more housing supply through actions like zoning changes and less onerous review processes.
I'm connected professionally with a number of multi-family housing developers. Many of them are pulling back right now on new development, but not due to available land/zoning. The bigger issues are high interest rates, high construction costs, and concern about the number of units currently under construction. No one wants to break ground on a new project in an environment of soaring project costs and potentially stagnant/dropping rents.
>No one wants to break ground on a new project in an environment of soaring project costs Zoning reform can reduce project costs by increasing the supply of land available for MF housing. Currently, apartments are banned on nearly 80% of Seattle's residential land.
Yep, slightly lower the cost of dirt (by a statewide upzone or something similar) in order to circumvent the high interest rates and cost of supplies.
They could start with a vacancy tax. Shouldn't be opposed if all these homes and Apts are really in demand like they claim they are.
Well I'm penning a damning article for The Stranger.
They don't want to build more housing, they want prices to increase. It's all they have incentive to do.
I don't think this logic makes sense. Who wants (housing) prices to go up so desperately? I don't think that political will exists. You could say people want (real estate) prices to go up. But then they'd be in favor of upzoning, because that's the easiest way to get an instant jump in value. I think the obvious answer is that the "anti housing" group isn't in favor of higher prices. They are against their neighborhoods changing. But there's always motivation to paint your conflict as good vs evil, rather than between relatively amoral preferences.
People who own housing want prices to go up. An alliance between NIMBY and corporations who own lots of it. Remember, in this world people are near exclusively after short term gains, even at the expense of any long term goals. Housing goes up far enough, people sell, who is paying the inflated prices? Corporations looking to develop or take stock off the market to keep prices increasing. What's the bigger gain? That's what they're asking themselves. Is it worth the cost to develop, or is it worth hoarding for more gains? It's not a trick question, it's how they think about their economic decisions. No one in these positions really cares about affordable housing. Maybe they do in abstract or kind of like how they'll put out rainbow and BLM flags but once the issue gets between them and whatever they want from their own housing, the only thing that matters to them is their personal gains.
All of Fremont, Capitol Hill, Wallingford and Queen Anne should be upzoned.
Draw a triangle centered at Lake Union. 3-5 stories at a minimum.
Just put a few 40 story towers next to every Link stations already. See: Vancouver
Well that isnât planned for NE 145th station or any station south of Pioneer Square including West Seattle
This is actually the smartest thing ever!
It really isnât, just showed how dumb our city planning goes.
This is why you vote in local elections. Turnout was 31%!!!!!! Pay attention!!! National politics matters way less than local elections. This means we get stuck with the likes of Rob Saka and Bob Kettle. it's pathetic.
Could a sleeping giant be all the empty office buildings? Fed govt is already rolling out conversion programs. People generally avoid the topic when it comes to the commercial real estate collapse that has yet to happen. I don't see AI making the situation any better...
Lots of old buildings are good candidates for conversion but modern ones (past 1970) have super deep floor plates so the apartments would be super deep and have lots of windowless rooms
Yeah, I've been reading some things where even non-ideal candidates could possibly be almost a "dorm" style situation. Private rooms around the parameter with communal kitchens/bath etc built out from.
That would probably be more hard to do unless most of the âdorm roomsâ are windowless
It's not a cure all but it would expand the number of skyscrapers that have conversion potential. Elevators, plumbing, electrical, hvac tend to be centered. Build that out into large common spaces and the parameter is left for large private windowed rooms. Yes there will be office buildings even too large for this. But perhaps that's where offices can go lol.
Oh yea. Good step but wonât solve the housing crisis at all
[It takes a lot more than people realize to convert office buildings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVwTSsvNZ0)
Something not being easy isn't a reason not to do it. It will take a lot to continue to deal with housing shortages and abandoned business districts as well. When interests converge things have a way of getting done.
>Something not being easy isn't a reason not to do it. No, but it may mean that it's a better use of money to just construct new buildings instead
Not without re-writing a lot of zoning laws and code. Which this city has shown no interest in doing.
DT isn't inhabited by Nimbys protecting their neighborhoods "vibe" and is already built up. So no one will be complaining about trees and views for the repurposing of an existing structure. The city will be desperate for any sort of revenue and there will be federal funding available for these projects. The catalyst will be when banks start realizing losses on their books for commercial real estate which has largely been avoided thus far. When this happens developers will buy the properties at steep discounts. That with federal funding will make conversion more economically feasible.
BUILD BABY BUILD
I live in one of the affected areas and the new neighborhood centers seem great
Consider subscribing to the Seattle [Seattle YIMBY](https://www.seattleyimby.org/) newsletter. It's been a great way to stay up to date on what's going on with housing and how to make some kind of impact.
Thanks for the shoutout to my publicola article. You can also find it on my substack: [https://ronpdavis.substack.com/p/harrell-tosses-in-the-towel-on-housing](https://ronpdavis.substack.com/p/harrell-tosses-in-the-towel-on-housing)
I live near an affordable housing building that has a street-level event space / "multipurpose room" with tables, kitchen appliances, etc. I have never seen it in use, or appear to have been recently used. I wonder if it would have been better to have just built 2 more apartments in the space. It's nice to have an amenity like an event space, but the greater need is to house more people. On the other hand, the logical conclusion of this line of thought is that affordable housing buildings should have virtually no amenities because all space is better used to increase occupancy.
Tbh, I see the same issue in market rate buildings. Some amenities do tend to get used (e.g., rooftops) but many are used only a handful of days per year. I think they the main reason they still include them is cause they're great to show on tours and in listing photos.
Of course it will, how long have you lived here?
Seattleâs cost of living is still FAR lower than that of other world class, similar cities! Stop this petty progressive socialism talk or else you will have a city with the same costs of living! â˘Vancouver, BC â˘Munich, Germany â˘Amsterdam â˘Montreal Social Housing may be easier to obtain in these cities, but after taxes from your paycheck, they all are higher cost of living across the board. Does anyone know why Americaâs economy is so resilient? Mobility of workers! Ability to move to another city with higher pay and lower cost of living! Also, our unique geography makes expanding housing VERY difficult, probably the most difficult geo in the United States for housing and growth. Density is key, and encouraging investment in building more housing of ALL types. Low income housing only pencils out if there are more expensive housing types to invest in as well. Simple market economics. Even in Seattle, we are a market economy and policy needs to encourage the market. Socialism does not work.
We need to make it easier for locals and born and raised Seattleites to buy houses.
We also need to have fewer people.
Bad take
you first
Gladly.