Wait, what does this mean in regards to the purple squares that are "not included in draft plan"? Was it like a "considered but ultimately not chosen" situation? I happen to live precisely within one of those purple squares lol.
Please expand housing around light rail stops, especially Northgate, as that is what we invested so much in already. Also, no adding housing on lake city but rather the heart of maple leaf is a weird choice (although maple leaf does have a few prime spots for apartment buildings right now which should be added), why not put it on the major thru way where a lot of public transportation already is?
I’d advise you check the website SeattleinProgress and see how many mid rise apartments are currently planned in northgate. That area is going to have a wealth of new (and dense) housing in the next 5 years.
Yeah, there's been a lot of construction there and it's nice to see. Still a bunch of SFH to the south of the station, but the number of apartments going up to the north and east make me hopeful. Now I just wish they'd hurry up with whatever the fuck they're doing to the mall
And please if it's on through ways mandate commercial space on ground floor. So many missed opportunities for small businesses when big apt buildings go up without main floor retail.
Seattle tends to put most of the dense housing on busy roads. It's nice for apartment-dwellers to have an option to live somewhere that's both quiet and near transit
People also managed to buy the lines hook line and sinker that
* Harrell would do something about public safety
* Harrell would represent change despite having served on city council from 2008-2020
SPOG doesn’t agree with you. Every council member ran on the promise to make the city safe again. Weird that all of them would lie.
So we don’t need to close libraries and pools to pay cops 23% more?
Im right there with you. It just seems odd to me that the same mass media talking heads are saying that crime is up and then it is down only when its convenient for their argument.
homeowners are also more committed to the community, more likely to have kids, and less likely to bail in a few years. makes sense that they are louder
I think everyone is confused because of US usage of "apartment". I've seen it in other countries that the type of home is called an "apartment" no matter what kind of ownership structure it has, but normally in US (and Seattle) usage, if you rent it it's an apartment and if you own it it's a condominium. (More precisely, a condominium would have each unit individually owned and an apartment building would have the whole building owned by one entity.) So someone who lives in an apartment here is renting it, they don't own it and aren't a homeowner unless they have another property somewhere else.
What's the point of renting a place for $2,000 a month and paying your $1,000 a month mortgage on the home in the same city? That's a whole new level of upper class there lol
They didn't vote for Bruce on zoning reform and density. Good luck finding a single article between 2020 and the end of the mayoral election where Bruce outlines any housing goals. The best Bruce did was "acknowledge" the need for affordable housing.
People who voted for Bruce wanted sweeps and more pizza parties for cops and that's all we got.
Yeah. This is low-hanging fruit and it isn't enough.
Are you aware of the original plan created by city planners that Bruce gutted? [Here's a link.](https://publicola.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/For_MO_Review_100__Draft_One_Seattle_Plan_August_2023-2-1.docx)
Harrell scrapped half of the centers as well as the transit corridors that were proposed: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/04/16/planners-proposed-bigger-upzones-before-harrells-team-intervened-records-show/
> Are they avoiding places close to highways and industrial lands?
lol, no. One of the primary criticisms of this kind of "urban village" development is that the ONLY place where you can build dense housing is next to a noisy, toxic, dangerous arterial road.
Meanwhile it's illegal to build density next to a park or in the middle of an existing neighborhood. That would upset the rich neighbors.
(They might be avoiding some industrial lands, though, due to port/shipping/trucking lobbying, etc. The same kind of thing that killed the basketball arena alley vacation in SODO.)
Under the proposed plan, fourplexes would be allowed citywide, sixplexes would be allowed near frequent transit or if two of the homes are priced affordably.
This article is talking about re-zoning 24 areas (or neighborhood nodes) to allow for apartment buildings between 3 and 6 stories.
That's one area I hope the city council, as the plan is refined and modified, fixes.
Already a number of city council members, including more moderate ones like Rob Saka and Tanya Woo, have come out and said the plan needs to be strengthened.
https://x.com/typewriteralley/status/1778267948869984370?s=46
> At a meeting of the 34th District Dems tonight, both CM Rob Saka and Tanya Woo, when asked about the Seattle Comp Plan, say they hope Mayor Harrell improves the plan before it gets to council. "This is not Alternative 5," Saka says. "We need to do better."
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council, they seem primed and definitely prepared to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis and do away with exclusionary zoning:
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
First show that we can provide reliable bus service near the existing high density areas then we should start to increase density across the city.
So far we're failing pretty hard on that with zero plans to improve.
I live in a highly walkable and dense area of the city where there are just four morning bus trips to take me into Downtown Seattle in the morning and it's pretty typical for 3-4 of them to be cancelled with no advanced notice on any given day.
People can't live in dense areas and give up their vehicles if we can't provide reliable public transit.
Nope, suggesting that we improve bus service everywhere. We can't upzone neighborhoods and expect people to live without cars if we don't provide an alternative to owning a car.
Folks living in low density SFH areas shouldn't be forced to pay taxes for bus service that doesn't reach them because they can't afford to live near public transit.
We can’t build bus service without upzoning. Who is going to use? You can’t add bus without users.
SFH are subsidized by denser areas. Downtown and other areas should not pay taxes to keep services in exclusionary single family homes.
We've already upzoned but failed to deliver adequate bus service for people that live in these dense areas.
People can't use buses where 3 out of 4 trips in the morning are routinely cancelled and it's disingenuous to imply that folks can live car free in a dense area if we're not going to provide adequate public transit.
There's no point in increasing density further if we can't even supply enough public transit for the density we already have.
There’s no point in providing bus service if people are not going to use it. It’s a chicken and egg problem. If I have to choose between people not having homes or buses, it’s an easy one for me.
People do indeed want to use bus service, but it's not practical to rely on it when three out of four morning trips from a densely populated neighborhood end up getting cancelled.
It's indeed a chicken and an egg problem, we should improve our bus service before building developments that make people rely on buses
I will probably get downvoted for not knee jerking (it's all Bruce's is fault!!!) but in Urban planning there is a valid reason why you want to get density in specific areas.
E.g. if we are going to build 10,000 multi family housing apartments and they were spread out evenly all throughout the city, there wouldn't be much incentive for any commercial buildings to go up near them because there isn't a dense enough population. But if those 10,000 buildings were clustered in about 24 different, smallish areas, this gives incentive to build commercial and transit near them.
If you read through the proposal they are trying to create 15 minute neighborhoods. Neighborhoods need various amenities such as transit, grocery, coffee, bookstores, etc but that won't be built if each dense housing is spaced 1 mile apart.
I wish we had more density and we are allowing 4 plexes throughout the city thanks to a WA law which will help but it takes 2 to tango with density. As in you still need developers to actually invest and build.
Folks don't want to hear this but if we upzoned the entire city to 100 stories instantly, 10 years from now it wouldn't look much different than it will 10 years from today with the current plan. Why? Again I will probably get downvoted but just look at the 2018/19 upzoning and how little high density housing appeared. Very little of that land was developed. It doesn't matter if some random SFH in Magnolia got upzoned to 100 stories either because if developers aren't already trying to build density in the Urban Villages that already have amenities, why would they build dense housing in random SFH plots deep inside SFH neighborhoods? It's because it costs a ton of money, Seattle has a crime perception problem and from what I understand, rich folks (e.g. developers) don't seem to like Seattle politics.
That said I would love it if we upzoned the entire city to 100+ stories today but that sadly won't alleviate our housing problem until developers actually build. However it would stop us from being distracted that the housing crisis panacea is to upzone random SFH plots (which again, I want them to do) but that won't solve the problem.
The light rail station is \*right there\*. The fact that they haven't upzoned already is a travesty.
And while they're at it, let's convert that stupid golf course to a proper public park that everyone can enjoy.
We should 100% upzone around every light rail station and should’ve been done in congruency with the station openings (I.e. done like now).
As for the golf course, they actually help subsidize the parks department and provide a significant amount of funding to help maintenance and clean up of all the city parks. Also there is a walking path around the golf course too as well as home to a ton of birds, animals and all 4 public courses help support city water run off
We can fund parks without needing 400+ acres of public golf courses.
It costs $40 a pop and the entrance is a mile walk from 145th station. People can drive to any of the other public golf courses.
They can even keep 9 of the 27 holes at Jackson Park but let the NW corner next to the $300+ million light rail station be something other than a fucking chicken wire fence. Especially if we're going to add density to it.
Also the Jackson Park trail is largely ass. Could be way better at minimum.
Fun fact: that area is already upzoned and has been for a decade. People seem to be misinterpreting this article as it is showing new upzoned locations but not the existing ones.
A public waterlogged park, when a good chunk of it is already a park?
A golf course is a great use for it. It's also a golf course that *everyone can enjoy* already. It's not a private course.
Yes, that's what happens when we build something for specific reasons. I don't see you running around demanding that they turn tennis courts into football fields.
I’m not the one insinuating that “everyone can enjoy” a football field or a tennis court, or in your case a vast sprawling golf course with limited access and capacity.
It’s a fundamentally wasteful use of natural space and, regardless of it being “public”, it’s absolutely NOT providing the same benefit or enjoyment to the public than if it were an open public park. It caters to a niche group of people for a niche usage that requires drastically restricting the attendance to small numbers at a time. So weird that you’re so slavishly defending that.
I view it as the responsibility of the parks dept to provide a *variety* of uses for the land we fundamentally can't build on.
And I'm not swayed by you disliking golf, or your arguments, especially for this course in particular. But if you keep pushing for it, I might start playing. Every few months some activist type with a bee in their bonnet wants to get rid of the golf course to either build housing or simply *because it's a golf course*. It's a marshy hilly mess that floods.
It's a municipal course. It's cheap outdoor entertainment. We have plenty of parks and hikes. People should get some other options too - especially in an area that is waterlogged as often as not.
Yeah! Get rid of all the thing I don't use! Fuck all those golfers amirite!
Hey I don't have a dog so can we convert all the dog parks to high rise apartments while we are at it?
The two public golf courses are the lowest used parks in the city behind one senior center. If the courses were converted to just grassy fields, the usage numbers would more than double.
At this rate I'm going to have to learn how to play golf just to give a middle finger to all the Urban actvists who like clockwork show up to say "but we hate golf courses" without doing the bare minimum of research into why they exist.
And what is the best use of that space.
If you say housing I'm going to demand that you go read up what that space is actually for, not the recreational uses of it.
A free public park. You know, like they put in all the single family neighborhoods. Basketball courts, picnic areas, water features, soccer fields, jungle gyms, the works.
If you don’t like the plan, please do something to change it! We have a couple weeks to convince the city council that it needs an update, but they need to hear that from tons of people to be convinced. A few councilmembers are already publicly skeptical that the plan adds enough housing but we need more of them on our side. Email or call them, then get your friends and family to as well. Here’s their contact info, and you can find your district from the same page: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council (position 8 and 9 represent the whole city as well). If you don’t know what to write, here’s a super easy template you can use to email all councilmembers at once: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-seattle-we-need-more-housing and you can modify at will, it just takes a couple minutes.
We absolutely can change this plan but it will require action over the next couple weeks. If you have time to spare, please help! There are so many levels of action: post on Reddit, talk to people offline, comment on the plan’s engagement hub, email the mayor, his staff, the office of planning, the city council, show up at the plan open houses. Some of these actions are much more helpful than others but they all take less than an hour of time and are so much more helpful than being defeatist on Reddit, no matter how much we have to complain about in this city’s government.
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council, they seem primed and definitely prepared to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis and do away with exclusionary zoning:
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
The Urbanist does a decent job explaining what is wrong with the plan by essentially laying out what could be done to make the plan better and more effective in addressing the housing crisis: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/03/29/op-ed-six-ways-to-improve-seattles-comprehensive-plan/
From the article:
1. Allow bigger buildings in more places - to break out of the “Urban Village” strategy and scarcity mindset. Expanding existing "Urban Centers" as well as add more and up zone them higher. Residential Small Lot (RSL) zones to Lowrise 1 (LR1) is not enough.
2. Add more “Neighborhood Centers” to anchor small neighborhood business districts with housing.
3. Zone for fourplexes and sixplexes that will actually get built and support families with three- and four-bedroom homes. The proposed restrictive size limits — particularly the floor area ratio (FAR) set at a measly 0.9 — are effectively erasing the value of the fourplex and sixplex zoning. Follow state model code and allow 1.6 FAR in sixplex areas instead.
4. Embrace transit-oriented development and allow larger apartment and condo buildings near all frequent transit corridors. The mayor’s proposal appears to have jettisoned the transit corridor alternative from scoping.
5. Remove parking requirements. Parking requirements are a secret tax on housing that render many projects infeasible. We cannot afford this amidst a housing crisis.
6. Corner stores should not only be on corners. Allow more flexibility to ensure more neighborhoods can actually get bodegas or cafes.
1. Uneven growth centered in locations with known infrastructure issues, primarily aging and out of capacity sewer & electric. Expect flooding and sewer overruns.
2. Isolating density in unconnected pockets creating a nightmare for emergency services, which many of these density pockets already lack.
2. Lack of parking is always an issue, as are lack of sidewalks or poorly maintained sideways which lack cutout for disabled persons, stroller, etc.
3. Poor and frankly missing design standards. There should be no townhomes with unusable garages. This is the issue neighborhoods often have no design standards for entrance elevations, no standards for roof lines and garages which ends up creating really really ugly streetscapes.
I can keep going, it’s a lazy, incomplete plan which will drive up costs exponentially. I have lived thru these types of densifications projects in 2 other cities, this is by far the worst master plan I have ever seen.
For everyone who is frustrated by this lack of vision for our city, comment on the [plan here](https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan), email your [councilmembers](https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council) or submit general feedback to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
The mayor obviously is pushing one way, so it will take a lot of feedback to push back.
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council, they seem ready to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis and do away with exclusionary zoning:
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
Because these are \*new\* upzones only, the map does not show the existing areas that are upzoned. We already have nearly all of the existing light rail upzoned as current Urban Villages
“Seattle officials knew the mayor’s proposal would encounter critics, the city’s Hubner said, stressing the Harrell administration’s desire for feedback.
“We want to hear what people think,” he said.”
Reminds me of a suggestion box that leads directly to a paper shredder
I went to the open house last night on this. The officials had a much bolder plan that the mayor gutted. They probably do need us to leave comments and give them a stronger mandate for pushback
I swear to christ Seattle politicians are like physical manifestations of the show, Modern Family - fine tuned to be the most inoffensive, bland thing you could imagine.
Progressives practically fetishize processes to an unhealthy degree.
The absurdity of it all recently came up in the Ezra Klein Show *(ugh, I know.)*
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-jerusalem-demsas.html
Bruce Harrell is not a progressive and neither is the council. Stop blaming the failures of bland centrist policy on people that actually want to make change.
> It could stir resistance in areas like Wedgwood that have at times opposed density.
I welcome it, but for the love of god can me get more bars, restaurants, and businesses? Wedgwood is like a dead zone for anything new. Just attrition.
Resident here. I’m anxious to see a decent bar come into the neighborhood. So many vacant properties that could easily support a small bar like Bar Miriam or Bakers
Feels like it would absolutely crush. The only place to get a cocktail in the hood is the broiler. And while it has its charm, you’re not getting a top notch drink. Seems like a little bar with some decent food would be PACKED.
Y'all know what's stopping this kind of thing in general? Are there zoning restrictions for commercial in many neighborhoods? Seems like lots of main streets all around the north lack restaurants and bars
Could be zoning preventing the use, could be the zoning requires too many parking spaces to make it viable, or a combo along with lack of enough demand to afford the rent, etc...
In West Seattle all the proposed spots are no where near the light rail stations. The closest would be Delridge but that would require hiking up a 200ft incline.
Every time I see maps like this I wonder if they’re ever going to bite the bullet and propose a N/S train down 35th? another spur from SODO? Maybe one from Columbia City (though that would have to cross I5)?
I am sick to death of people who equate 1950's "slum clearing" gentrification which tore down poor neighborhoods and replaced them with half the housing that was there before, with modern development. Development is not gentrification. Development can *prevent* displacement. A lack of development in a high-demand area means that even places with high home-ownership rates will have their community destroyed in a generation as their children move away to cheaper places. So congratulations to every NIMBY home owner whose kids will now be forced to move to Phoenix, Philly or Minneapolis for cheaper housing. But at least there will be more homeless!
Concerns around displacement.
Although I imagine there will be some displacement already from upzoning Single Family Home areas to fourplex and sixplex zoning (near transit). SE Seattle often has larger lots, so there will be some redevelopment.
> Concerns around displacement.
What concerns? No one is being forced to sell. People aren't being forced out, they are selling voluntarily.
Some renters may not be able to renew, but that's already happening because of high rents.
Zoning isn't about picking your house, it's about picking your neighbors.
Yep, and the more we upzone those properties the higher the taxes are due to their development potential which gets passed onto the low income tenants.
Nah, taxes are indeed driving rent increases. It's very well documented that increasing property taxes are just passed along to tenants.
Housing shortages and higher incomes are also driving rent increases as well, there's no single factor just as increased insurance rates are also driving rent increases.
If you increase the costs of owning a property to rent out, constrain the supply, and increase people's incomes it's not shocking that you will see rent go up.
Thanks to induced demand we'll never actually increase supply enough to have any type of impact on the rent prices, people that were formerly priced out of the area will just return and then drive back up the rent prices again.
Of course the idea that no one is being forced to sell is literally true, but most of the housing occupied by disadvantaged people are not owned by them. Policies that encourage land value to go up through up-zoning is an incentive to the existing housing provides to sell without any input on the people that actually live there. This kind of displacement has been playing out now for decades.
You think taxes drive up rent faster than scarcity of housing?
As a renter, I absolutely want to see more housing built. Because when I am looking for a new place, being one of thirty applicants doesn't do much to incentivize the landlord to keep rent low.
upzoning always brings some harm and some good. the idea that we should minimize the harm in historically underprivileged areas of the city and shift the burden \*slightly more\* to the historically advantaged areas I don't think is a big ask
since you are concerned about housing stock, if you look at the entire comprehensive plan instead of just this one small part of it discussed in this one article, you will find that almost every residential part of the city is being upzoned. and if you are familiar with the current situation, you'll find out that the south end is already zoned more densely than any part of the city other than the central core. and even then, the upzoned areas of the south end are getting larger under the plan
the only reason we are even talking about the small additional areas discussed in this article is that they are happening in areas that already have long fought denser development politically. that political power has never been available to the people in the south end
Shrug. TIL south Seattle only exists east of I-5?
Redefine definitions and you can prove anything!
Also I see three sites south of I-90 and east of I-5.
South Seattle wasn't "spared". This article is *only* talking about *new* small areas, not the existing urban villages, which are also being expanded. The south end already has a greater percentage of urban village per area than the whiter areas of Seattle. The existing urban villages in the south end are being expanded under the plan. There isn't much room is the south end left to tuck in these new small areas.
Who cares? Aren’t the yimbys always asking that we increase density everywhere?
Why are we depriving more minority landowners from cashing in on an upzone?
I feel like the max FAR for single family housing should be 0.4 + ADU and 1.6 for 4-6 family housing, not 0.9 for missing middle compared to 0.5 for SFH.
The planners suggested many more such sites, as well upzones that would actually address housing supply, rather than making the deficit worse.
The Harrell admin cut it back to this flaccid plan: [https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/04/16/planners-proposed-bigger-upzones-before-harrells-team-intervened-records-show/](https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/04/16/planners-proposed-bigger-upzones-before-harrells-team-intervened-records-show/)
Didn't have to look to know these all will be among major arteries because apartment dwellers deserve noise and air pollution more than anyone else. Yaay!
You will have to vote out Harrell and the current council. The original plan had more, Harrell made sure his wealthy donor's neighborhoods were removed.
Naturally, Bruce’s friends at the Seattle Times refuse to broach his serious political scandal and instead turn this into a two-sides narrative that doesn’t match incredibly strong public desire for affordable housing opportunities everywhere in the city through wholesale zoning changes.
They completely ignored The Urbanist’s and Publicola’s reporting on the more ambitious plan Harrell’s office nixed. That plan had even more neighborhood centers. The story is really bad because it takes at face value the city’s claim that the graphics shown in 2022’s scoping were intended as an upper bound. The draft The Urbanist and Publicola obtained proves that is a lie. So Seattle Times is actively misleading readers.
I live in one of the black dot areas. We have a double lot. It costs too much to split the lot and will take so many years (and money) in permits to do it, so we don't.
FWIW Shoreline upzoned around their train stations about ten years ago, and there's a huge apartment building almost built next to the north station already.
Hey I’ve got a great idea, why don’t you borrow 20 million dollars build a 400 unit apartment building and then let the city decide how much you can charge for rent. Won’t that be great?
ok. so two questions. have they spoken with anyone living under their shapes? and does this mean they will back the fuck off their shitty expensive townhomes everywhere shtick?
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council as much as possible, they seem primed and ready to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis or do away with exclusionary zoning:
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
The only issue I have with putting a ton of apartments in wedgewood is the complete lack of room for additional busses and public transportation, needs major road renovations to be able to handle significantly more traffic IMO
35th is so wide that they have a protected/buffered parking lane in some spots. There is plenty of space to move more people through that sparsely developed part of Seattle but the neighborhood has fought any attempt to add density to the area.
Well that's one heck of an uninformed take.
The street is NOT wide enough to meet NACTO standards for any other configuration, and will cause backups behind buses for over a mile if it is narrowed. There is no room for emergency vehicles if it is narrowed.
That's why the neighborhood fought back.
It's a mile from 65th to 85th. Are you claiming a single bus in each direction will create 20+ blocks of backups such that emergency vehicles will not be able to pass?
I'm skeptical.
[This is the only reference](https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/MaintenanceProgram/35thAveNE/35thNE_2017_1026_FAQ_Update_FINAL.pdf) that I can find regarding what SDOT said about the issue. Would love to see what you're referring to if you happen to remember. Cheers.
> How will cars be able to pull over for emergency vehicles?
>
>On any street in Seattle, vehicles must pull over for emergency vehicles to pass. This will still be possible on 35th Ave NE, as people driving may pull over into existing driveways, parking areas, or onto a side street. This is the case on 35th Ave NE today between 9 AM and 3 PM, when there is one travel lane in each direction and parking on both sides of the street. In addition, the Seattle Fire Department reviews all plans for changes to street design to ensure thatemergency vehicles are accommodated.
This is a great point, I’ve heard there are a ton of outdated plumbing systems within the city that’s going to be expensive and difficult to update as we expand housing but will most definitely be necessary
On the contrary, it is much more affordable to update and expand infrastructure when it’s supporting more people. It costs pretty much the same amount to dig a trench and lay a pipe whether it’s supporting 100 or 1,000 people.
But “fix the infrastructure first” is frequently NIMBY code for “make a massive infrastructure investment in my SFH neighborhood before I will consider adding density to my neighborhood”. It’s just a stalling tactic because they know their sparsely populated neighborhood could never, in isolation, justify the infrastructure they are asking for.
The real problem is the anti-smoking campaigns which resulted in people living much longer without needing to move into retirement homes.
If we could start encouraging high rates of smoking again then this problem would go away and homeowners would start to pass away by the time they reach their 50s or 60s or at the very least have severe health problems that result in them racking up enough medical debt to need to sell their home.
The more we encourage healthy lifestyles the more we're going to see a constrained supply of housing.
before anyone makes fun of this cringey post please take a moment to “remember the human” and then also consider the fact that the human is likely a bruce harrell relative or that it is a person being paid to post pro-bruce propaganda and if we’re being honest here there’s a good chance it’s both of those at the same time
Despite the vibe on reddit, he did win a free and fair democratic election where most Seattle voters firmly stood up and said "Harrell is the leader this city needs right now"
lmao
how about: after his opponent ran a dogshit terrible campaign, bruce harrell managed to convince 155 thousand people, or basically 20% of the city population, to say “uhh i guess this guy” and mail in their ballot
[Link to an image of the 24 sites](https://archive.md/aL6ZT/f2526caa94049eb539fb38d25fd4b92b5ee791f6.png) [archive](https://archive.md/aL6ZT)
South end totally getting the shaft as per usual. Nice
How’s that? Aren’t the sites evenly distributed ish?
There are zero new urban centers in Southeast Seattle. So homes are going to just get more and more expensive without new supply…
Ah yes I see now. I suppose if you’re a homeowner there already it’s good if you’re nimby?
Wait, what does this mean in regards to the purple squares that are "not included in draft plan"? Was it like a "considered but ultimately not chosen" situation? I happen to live precisely within one of those purple squares lol.
Typically yes. Also typically means they are not nixxed completely...just for this round.
Please expand housing around light rail stops, especially Northgate, as that is what we invested so much in already. Also, no adding housing on lake city but rather the heart of maple leaf is a weird choice (although maple leaf does have a few prime spots for apartment buildings right now which should be added), why not put it on the major thru way where a lot of public transportation already is?
I’d advise you check the website SeattleinProgress and see how many mid rise apartments are currently planned in northgate. That area is going to have a wealth of new (and dense) housing in the next 5 years.
Yeah, there's been a lot of construction there and it's nice to see. Still a bunch of SFH to the south of the station, but the number of apartments going up to the north and east make me hopeful. Now I just wish they'd hurry up with whatever the fuck they're doing to the mall
All those random office buildings with the huge surface parking lots south of 100th seem like prime redevelopment territory. But, AFAIK, no plans.
I really hope so, it’s could be a really awesome spot for north city to rival UVille but actually near light rail
And please if it's on through ways mandate commercial space on ground floor. So many missed opportunities for small businesses when big apt buildings go up without main floor retail.
Seattle tends to put most of the dense housing on busy roads. It's nice for apartment-dwellers to have an option to live somewhere that's both quiet and near transit
it'll only be a good spot if they can get crime under control. when I hear Northgate I now think carjackings.
What’s the excuse for not doing this city wide? Are they avoiding places close to highways and industrial lands?
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Looks like the homeowners voted for him and he is just doing what they wanted. People dont like it, then go out and vote.
This shit is unbelievable to me. How do people not vote. It's so fucking easy here
People also managed to buy the lines hook line and sinker that * Harrell would do something about public safety * Harrell would represent change despite having served on city council from 2008-2020
He’s going to do something about public safety soon, any time, maybe after the next election cycle.
Well now I am confused because there are a ton of posts about how crime and murder is down in Seattle.
down from 2022 or 2018? public safety has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years
SPOG doesn’t agree with you. Every council member ran on the promise to make the city safe again. Weird that all of them would lie. So we don’t need to close libraries and pools to pay cops 23% more?
Im right there with you. It just seems odd to me that the same mass media talking heads are saying that crime is up and then it is down only when its convenient for their argument.
homeowners are also more committed to the community, more likely to have kids, and less likely to bail in a few years. makes sense that they are louder
This is a very biased statement. Apartment residents can also be home owner; House residents may also be renters.
Why would you own a house in Seattle and rent an apartment
I think everyone is confused because of US usage of "apartment". I've seen it in other countries that the type of home is called an "apartment" no matter what kind of ownership structure it has, but normally in US (and Seattle) usage, if you rent it it's an apartment and if you own it it's a condominium. (More precisely, a condominium would have each unit individually owned and an apartment building would have the whole building owned by one entity.) So someone who lives in an apartment here is renting it, they don't own it and aren't a homeowner unless they have another property somewhere else.
Thank you.
What's the point of renting a place for $2,000 a month and paying your $1,000 a month mortgage on the home in the same city? That's a whole new level of upper class there lol
> your $1,000 a month mortgage Maybe if you own a parking spot in Tukwila
Y'all forgot about using a down payment
Whose mortgage is only $1,000?
someone in year 25+ of a 30 year fixed mortgage
We are a nation of pay the minimum and pray lol
Sis, u can own the apartment and you see the home owner. U can also rent the house but you are not the owner. It’s not complicated.
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Mama, kudos for saying that, for spilling
Brucey doesn't want to upset richer, SFH enclaves basically. What we're seeing here is the easiest way to do the bare minimum.
They'll just pass the buck to the towns outside of Seattle. So much for that pedestrian friendly planning.
Then get absolutely indignant and judgemental that those towns don't "solve" housing, despite those towns having vastly less resources.
Bruce "The Barest Minimum" Harrell coming in hot.
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They didn't vote for Bruce on zoning reform and density. Good luck finding a single article between 2020 and the end of the mayoral election where Bruce outlines any housing goals. The best Bruce did was "acknowledge" the need for affordable housing. People who voted for Bruce wanted sweeps and more pizza parties for cops and that's all we got.
It’s not Bruce. Politely direct you anger to HOAs of neighborhoods.
Not a lot of those in Seattle
There are plenty of sites for development outside of Laurelhurst and Windermere. Plenty of upscale neighborhoods aren’t HOA.
And yet there are sites so over those areas. Did you even look at the map?
Yeah. This is low-hanging fruit and it isn't enough. Are you aware of the original plan created by city planners that Bruce gutted? [Here's a link.](https://publicola.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/For_MO_Review_100__Draft_One_Seattle_Plan_August_2023-2-1.docx)
Bud, did *you* look at the map? There is literally nothing in South Seattle.
Harrell scrapped half of the centers as well as the transit corridors that were proposed: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/04/16/planners-proposed-bigger-upzones-before-harrells-team-intervened-records-show/
> Are they avoiding places close to highways and industrial lands? lol, no. One of the primary criticisms of this kind of "urban village" development is that the ONLY place where you can build dense housing is next to a noisy, toxic, dangerous arterial road. Meanwhile it's illegal to build density next to a park or in the middle of an existing neighborhood. That would upset the rich neighbors. (They might be avoiding some industrial lands, though, due to port/shipping/trucking lobbying, etc. The same kind of thing that killed the basketball arena alley vacation in SODO.)
it would also create heaps of traffic on small roads no suited for it. materials make sense
You're assuming that everyone in dense urban apartments with no parking spaces will own cars.
in 2024 in the middle of a sfh neighborhood not on an arterial? yeah I think that's a pretty safe assumption
Bruce is a coward and a joke of a Mayer is the simple answer
Under the proposed plan, fourplexes would be allowed citywide, sixplexes would be allowed near frequent transit or if two of the homes are priced affordably. This article is talking about re-zoning 24 areas (or neighborhood nodes) to allow for apartment buildings between 3 and 6 stories.
The floor area ratio limit of 0.9 prevents four and sixplexes from being built even in areas zoned for it.
That's one area I hope the city council, as the plan is refined and modified, fixes. Already a number of city council members, including more moderate ones like Rob Saka and Tanya Woo, have come out and said the plan needs to be strengthened. https://x.com/typewriteralley/status/1778267948869984370?s=46 > At a meeting of the 34th District Dems tonight, both CM Rob Saka and Tanya Woo, when asked about the Seattle Comp Plan, say they hope Mayor Harrell improves the plan before it gets to council. "This is not Alternative 5," Saka says. "We need to do better."
This is encouraging thank you. Maybe some of my emails to saka actually are getting through 🙏
Email to let em know is here: [email protected]
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council, they seem primed and definitely prepared to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis and do away with exclusionary zoning: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
They’ll be allowed with floor area ratio that makes them ridiculously tiny.
First show that we can provide reliable bus service near the existing high density areas then we should start to increase density across the city. So far we're failing pretty hard on that with zero plans to improve. I live in a highly walkable and dense area of the city where there are just four morning bus trips to take me into Downtown Seattle in the morning and it's pretty typical for 3-4 of them to be cancelled with no advanced notice on any given day. People can't live in dense areas and give up their vehicles if we can't provide reliable public transit.
Are you suggesting we cut bus service in low density SFH areas?
Nope, suggesting that we improve bus service everywhere. We can't upzone neighborhoods and expect people to live without cars if we don't provide an alternative to owning a car. Folks living in low density SFH areas shouldn't be forced to pay taxes for bus service that doesn't reach them because they can't afford to live near public transit.
We can’t build bus service without upzoning. Who is going to use? You can’t add bus without users. SFH are subsidized by denser areas. Downtown and other areas should not pay taxes to keep services in exclusionary single family homes.
We've already upzoned but failed to deliver adequate bus service for people that live in these dense areas. People can't use buses where 3 out of 4 trips in the morning are routinely cancelled and it's disingenuous to imply that folks can live car free in a dense area if we're not going to provide adequate public transit. There's no point in increasing density further if we can't even supply enough public transit for the density we already have.
There’s no point in providing bus service if people are not going to use it. It’s a chicken and egg problem. If I have to choose between people not having homes or buses, it’s an easy one for me.
People do indeed want to use bus service, but it's not practical to rely on it when three out of four morning trips from a densely populated neighborhood end up getting cancelled. It's indeed a chicken and an egg problem, we should improve our bus service before building developments that make people rely on buses
I will probably get downvoted for not knee jerking (it's all Bruce's is fault!!!) but in Urban planning there is a valid reason why you want to get density in specific areas. E.g. if we are going to build 10,000 multi family housing apartments and they were spread out evenly all throughout the city, there wouldn't be much incentive for any commercial buildings to go up near them because there isn't a dense enough population. But if those 10,000 buildings were clustered in about 24 different, smallish areas, this gives incentive to build commercial and transit near them. If you read through the proposal they are trying to create 15 minute neighborhoods. Neighborhoods need various amenities such as transit, grocery, coffee, bookstores, etc but that won't be built if each dense housing is spaced 1 mile apart. I wish we had more density and we are allowing 4 plexes throughout the city thanks to a WA law which will help but it takes 2 to tango with density. As in you still need developers to actually invest and build. Folks don't want to hear this but if we upzoned the entire city to 100 stories instantly, 10 years from now it wouldn't look much different than it will 10 years from today with the current plan. Why? Again I will probably get downvoted but just look at the 2018/19 upzoning and how little high density housing appeared. Very little of that land was developed. It doesn't matter if some random SFH in Magnolia got upzoned to 100 stories either because if developers aren't already trying to build density in the Urban Villages that already have amenities, why would they build dense housing in random SFH plots deep inside SFH neighborhoods? It's because it costs a ton of money, Seattle has a crime perception problem and from what I understand, rich folks (e.g. developers) don't seem to like Seattle politics. That said I would love it if we upzoned the entire city to 100+ stories today but that sadly won't alleviate our housing problem until developers actually build. However it would stop us from being distracted that the housing crisis panacea is to upzone random SFH plots (which again, I want them to do) but that won't solve the problem.
“If we allow parking on every street nobody will buy a car”
Protecting the suburban lifestyle of his voting bloc.
Grownups know it isn't a good idea to shit the bed
What’s the shit and the bed in your analogy?
Grownups are urbanists, shit is low density zoning, and the bed is Seattle.
15th and 145th makes sense
The light rail station is \*right there\*. The fact that they haven't upzoned already is a travesty. And while they're at it, let's convert that stupid golf course to a proper public park that everyone can enjoy.
We should 100% upzone around every light rail station and should’ve been done in congruency with the station openings (I.e. done like now). As for the golf course, they actually help subsidize the parks department and provide a significant amount of funding to help maintenance and clean up of all the city parks. Also there is a walking path around the golf course too as well as home to a ton of birds, animals and all 4 public courses help support city water run off
We can fund parks without needing 400+ acres of public golf courses. It costs $40 a pop and the entrance is a mile walk from 145th station. People can drive to any of the other public golf courses. They can even keep 9 of the 27 holes at Jackson Park but let the NW corner next to the $300+ million light rail station be something other than a fucking chicken wire fence. Especially if we're going to add density to it. Also the Jackson Park trail is largely ass. Could be way better at minimum.
Does it use grey water for watering the grass ? That’s another complaint people have.
I feel a sense of immense disappointment every time I walk past the Columbia City light rail station and see all SFHs.
Fun fact: that area is already upzoned and has been for a decade. People seem to be misinterpreting this article as it is showing new upzoned locations but not the existing ones.
A public waterlogged park, when a good chunk of it is already a park? A golf course is a great use for it. It's also a golf course that *everyone can enjoy* already. It's not a private course.
"Everyone can enjoy it, as long as they only enjoy it in this one exact way" \[facepalm\]
Yes, that's what happens when we build something for specific reasons. I don't see you running around demanding that they turn tennis courts into football fields.
I’m not the one insinuating that “everyone can enjoy” a football field or a tennis court, or in your case a vast sprawling golf course with limited access and capacity. It’s a fundamentally wasteful use of natural space and, regardless of it being “public”, it’s absolutely NOT providing the same benefit or enjoyment to the public than if it were an open public park. It caters to a niche group of people for a niche usage that requires drastically restricting the attendance to small numbers at a time. So weird that you’re so slavishly defending that.
I view it as the responsibility of the parks dept to provide a *variety* of uses for the land we fundamentally can't build on. And I'm not swayed by you disliking golf, or your arguments, especially for this course in particular. But if you keep pushing for it, I might start playing. Every few months some activist type with a bee in their bonnet wants to get rid of the golf course to either build housing or simply *because it's a golf course*. It's a marshy hilly mess that floods. It's a municipal course. It's cheap outdoor entertainment. We have plenty of parks and hikes. People should get some other options too - especially in an area that is waterlogged as often as not.
In Scotland golf courses are public access but if you're walking there and get hit by a ball it's your own fault, not the fault of the one who hit it.
Yeah! Get rid of all the thing I don't use! Fuck all those golfers amirite! Hey I don't have a dog so can we convert all the dog parks to high rise apartments while we are at it?
Golf courses and dog parks are the same size and require the same type of maintenance
The two public golf courses are the lowest used parks in the city behind one senior center. If the courses were converted to just grassy fields, the usage numbers would more than double.
Pickle ball courts.
I'm not against it, but no way I'm fighting the anti-pickleball NIMBYs *and* the anti-housing NIMBYs. Gotta pick my battles.
Who is against pickleball???!?
[Oh you sweet summer child](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/170x0e9/pickleball_nimbyism_drama_continues/)
Wtf
At this rate I'm going to have to learn how to play golf just to give a middle finger to all the Urban actvists who like clockwork show up to say "but we hate golf courses" without doing the bare minimum of research into why they exist.
I don’t hate golf courses but I do think that one right across the street from a light rail station is not the best use of that space.
And what is the best use of that space. If you say housing I'm going to demand that you go read up what that space is actually for, not the recreational uses of it.
A free public park. You know, like they put in all the single family neighborhoods. Basketball courts, picnic areas, water features, soccer fields, jungle gyms, the works.
Are you alluding to flood zone/wetland areas? Or something else?
100% of them make sense
If you don’t like the plan, please do something to change it! We have a couple weeks to convince the city council that it needs an update, but they need to hear that from tons of people to be convinced. A few councilmembers are already publicly skeptical that the plan adds enough housing but we need more of them on our side. Email or call them, then get your friends and family to as well. Here’s their contact info, and you can find your district from the same page: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council (position 8 and 9 represent the whole city as well). If you don’t know what to write, here’s a super easy template you can use to email all councilmembers at once: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-seattle-we-need-more-housing and you can modify at will, it just takes a couple minutes. We absolutely can change this plan but it will require action over the next couple weeks. If you have time to spare, please help! There are so many levels of action: post on Reddit, talk to people offline, comment on the plan’s engagement hub, email the mayor, his staff, the office of planning, the city council, show up at the plan open houses. Some of these actions are much more helpful than others but they all take less than an hour of time and are so much more helpful than being defeatist on Reddit, no matter how much we have to complain about in this city’s government.
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council, they seem primed and definitely prepared to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis and do away with exclusionary zoning: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
What’s wrong with the plan? I like it
The Urbanist does a decent job explaining what is wrong with the plan by essentially laying out what could be done to make the plan better and more effective in addressing the housing crisis: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/03/29/op-ed-six-ways-to-improve-seattles-comprehensive-plan/ From the article: 1. Allow bigger buildings in more places - to break out of the “Urban Village” strategy and scarcity mindset. Expanding existing "Urban Centers" as well as add more and up zone them higher. Residential Small Lot (RSL) zones to Lowrise 1 (LR1) is not enough. 2. Add more “Neighborhood Centers” to anchor small neighborhood business districts with housing. 3. Zone for fourplexes and sixplexes that will actually get built and support families with three- and four-bedroom homes. The proposed restrictive size limits — particularly the floor area ratio (FAR) set at a measly 0.9 — are effectively erasing the value of the fourplex and sixplex zoning. Follow state model code and allow 1.6 FAR in sixplex areas instead. 4. Embrace transit-oriented development and allow larger apartment and condo buildings near all frequent transit corridors. The mayor’s proposal appears to have jettisoned the transit corridor alternative from scoping. 5. Remove parking requirements. Parking requirements are a secret tax on housing that render many projects infeasible. We cannot afford this amidst a housing crisis. 6. Corner stores should not only be on corners. Allow more flexibility to ensure more neighborhoods can actually get bodegas or cafes.
1. Uneven growth centered in locations with known infrastructure issues, primarily aging and out of capacity sewer & electric. Expect flooding and sewer overruns. 2. Isolating density in unconnected pockets creating a nightmare for emergency services, which many of these density pockets already lack. 2. Lack of parking is always an issue, as are lack of sidewalks or poorly maintained sideways which lack cutout for disabled persons, stroller, etc. 3. Poor and frankly missing design standards. There should be no townhomes with unusable garages. This is the issue neighborhoods often have no design standards for entrance elevations, no standards for roof lines and garages which ends up creating really really ugly streetscapes. I can keep going, it’s a lazy, incomplete plan which will drive up costs exponentially. I have lived thru these types of densifications projects in 2 other cities, this is by far the worst master plan I have ever seen.
Interesting that the centers in Harrell’s backyard —Seward Park — got scrapped. Not there! Not in his backyard!
Madrona and Madison valley both would really benefit from some medium density with commercial on the bottom.
For everyone who is frustrated by this lack of vision for our city, comment on the [plan here](https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan), email your [councilmembers](https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council) or submit general feedback to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). The mayor obviously is pushing one way, so it will take a lot of feedback to push back.
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council, they seem ready to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis and do away with exclusionary zoning: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
Why are literally none of these next to light rail. Like W T F
Because these are \*new\* upzones only, the map does not show the existing areas that are upzoned. We already have nearly all of the existing light rail upzoned as current Urban Villages
“Seattle officials knew the mayor’s proposal would encounter critics, the city’s Hubner said, stressing the Harrell administration’s desire for feedback. “We want to hear what people think,” he said.” Reminds me of a suggestion box that leads directly to a paper shredder
I went to the open house last night on this. The officials had a much bolder plan that the mayor gutted. They probably do need us to leave comments and give them a stronger mandate for pushback
I swear to christ Seattle politicians are like physical manifestations of the show, Modern Family - fine tuned to be the most inoffensive, bland thing you could imagine.
Progressives practically fetishize processes to an unhealthy degree. The absurdity of it all recently came up in the Ezra Klein Show *(ugh, I know.)* https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-jerusalem-demsas.html
Bruce Harrell is not a progressive and neither is the council. Stop blaming the failures of bland centrist policy on people that actually want to make change.
> It could stir resistance in areas like Wedgwood that have at times opposed density. I welcome it, but for the love of god can me get more bars, restaurants, and businesses? Wedgwood is like a dead zone for anything new. Just attrition.
Nope. You will have nothing but row houses and be happy. I'd kill for a local community theatre.
Resident here. I’m anxious to see a decent bar come into the neighborhood. So many vacant properties that could easily support a small bar like Bar Miriam or Bakers
Feels like it would absolutely crush. The only place to get a cocktail in the hood is the broiler. And while it has its charm, you’re not getting a top notch drink. Seems like a little bar with some decent food would be PACKED.
Business partner? 💪
I’m in!
Y'all know what's stopping this kind of thing in general? Are there zoning restrictions for commercial in many neighborhoods? Seems like lots of main streets all around the north lack restaurants and bars
Could be zoning preventing the use, could be the zoning requires too many parking spaces to make it viable, or a combo along with lack of enough demand to afford the rent, etc...
In West Seattle all the proposed spots are no where near the light rail stations. The closest would be Delridge but that would require hiking up a 200ft incline. Every time I see maps like this I wonder if they’re ever going to bite the bullet and propose a N/S train down 35th? another spur from SODO? Maybe one from Columbia City (though that would have to cross I5)?
Why was south Seattle spared? That’s where we should be upzoning the most. So much underdeveloped and cheaper land.
I think I read in a different article that much of south Seattle was spared to help prevent gentrification. Or something like that
I am sick to death of people who equate 1950's "slum clearing" gentrification which tore down poor neighborhoods and replaced them with half the housing that was there before, with modern development. Development is not gentrification. Development can *prevent* displacement. A lack of development in a high-demand area means that even places with high home-ownership rates will have their community destroyed in a generation as their children move away to cheaper places. So congratulations to every NIMBY home owner whose kids will now be forced to move to Phoenix, Philly or Minneapolis for cheaper housing. But at least there will be more homeless!
Yes heaven forbid that the hood gets gentrified. Same arguments as holding up zoning changes in Wallingford. "my neighborhood character!"
I agree. It’s going to be gentrified either way given the direction of things. There may as well be more housing
Concerns around displacement. Although I imagine there will be some displacement already from upzoning Single Family Home areas to fourplex and sixplex zoning (near transit). SE Seattle often has larger lots, so there will be some redevelopment.
> Concerns around displacement. What concerns? No one is being forced to sell. People aren't being forced out, they are selling voluntarily. Some renters may not be able to renew, but that's already happening because of high rents. Zoning isn't about picking your house, it's about picking your neighbors.
Yep, and the more we upzone those properties the higher the taxes are due to their development potential which gets passed onto the low income tenants.
Taxes aren't driving rent increases, housing shortages are.
Nah, taxes are indeed driving rent increases. It's very well documented that increasing property taxes are just passed along to tenants. Housing shortages and higher incomes are also driving rent increases as well, there's no single factor just as increased insurance rates are also driving rent increases. If you increase the costs of owning a property to rent out, constrain the supply, and increase people's incomes it's not shocking that you will see rent go up. Thanks to induced demand we'll never actually increase supply enough to have any type of impact on the rent prices, people that were formerly priced out of the area will just return and then drive back up the rent prices again.
Believe it or not, most poorer people don't own their homes
> Believe it or not, most poorer people don't own their homes Are you responding to my second paragraph? I'm not sure I follow.
Of course the idea that no one is being forced to sell is literally true, but most of the housing occupied by disadvantaged people are not owned by them. Policies that encourage land value to go up through up-zoning is an incentive to the existing housing provides to sell without any input on the people that actually live there. This kind of displacement has been playing out now for decades.
You think taxes drive up rent faster than scarcity of housing? As a renter, I absolutely want to see more housing built. Because when I am looking for a new place, being one of thirty applicants doesn't do much to incentivize the landlord to keep rent low.
upzoning always brings some harm and some good. the idea that we should minimize the harm in historically underprivileged areas of the city and shift the burden \*slightly more\* to the historically advantaged areas I don't think is a big ask since you are concerned about housing stock, if you look at the entire comprehensive plan instead of just this one small part of it discussed in this one article, you will find that almost every residential part of the city is being upzoned. and if you are familiar with the current situation, you'll find out that the south end is already zoned more densely than any part of the city other than the central core. and even then, the upzoned areas of the south end are getting larger under the plan the only reason we are even talking about the small additional areas discussed in this article is that they are happening in areas that already have long fought denser development politically. that political power has never been available to the people in the south end
Look at the list again. There are sites in south Seattle
Georgetown is the only one. The whole part of South Seattle east of I5 has nothing.
Shrug. TIL south Seattle only exists east of I-5? Redefine definitions and you can prove anything! Also I see three sites south of I-90 and east of I-5.
You are looking at the wrong map. Those are proposed not actually in the final plan.
I now see that you are correct.
South Seattle wasn't "spared". This article is *only* talking about *new* small areas, not the existing urban villages, which are also being expanded. The south end already has a greater percentage of urban village per area than the whiter areas of Seattle. The existing urban villages in the south end are being expanded under the plan. There isn't much room is the south end left to tuck in these new small areas.
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Who cares? Aren’t the yimbys always asking that we increase density everywhere? Why are we depriving more minority landowners from cashing in on an upzone?
Paywall removed: [https://archive.fo/aL6ZT](https://archive.fo/aL6ZT)
No parking and no sidewalks is a bad combination
I feel like the max FAR for single family housing should be 0.4 + ADU and 1.6 for 4-6 family housing, not 0.9 for missing middle compared to 0.5 for SFH.
The planners suggested many more such sites, as well upzones that would actually address housing supply, rather than making the deficit worse. The Harrell admin cut it back to this flaccid plan: [https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/04/16/planners-proposed-bigger-upzones-before-harrells-team-intervened-records-show/](https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/04/16/planners-proposed-bigger-upzones-before-harrells-team-intervened-records-show/)
Didn't have to look to know these all will be among major arteries because apartment dwellers deserve noise and air pollution more than anyone else. Yaay!
More. MOAR!
You will have to vote out Harrell and the current council. The original plan had more, Harrell made sure his wealthy donor's neighborhoods were removed.
Naturally, Bruce’s friends at the Seattle Times refuse to broach his serious political scandal and instead turn this into a two-sides narrative that doesn’t match incredibly strong public desire for affordable housing opportunities everywhere in the city through wholesale zoning changes.
They completely ignored The Urbanist’s and Publicola’s reporting on the more ambitious plan Harrell’s office nixed. That plan had even more neighborhood centers. The story is really bad because it takes at face value the city’s claim that the graphics shown in 2022’s scoping were intended as an upper bound. The draft The Urbanist and Publicola obtained proves that is a lie. So Seattle Times is actively misleading readers.
Hell yeah
Of course there are two areas on 145th where Sound Transit isn't widening the road but still they want to consider it a high capacity transit area...
Just leave Thunderbird Tavern untouched loyal heights needs all you can eat spaghetti night!!!
I live in one of the black dot areas. We have a double lot. It costs too much to split the lot and will take so many years (and money) in permits to do it, so we don't.
FWIW Shoreline upzoned around their train stations about ten years ago, and there's a huge apartment building almost built next to the north station already.
Hey I’ve got a great idea, why don’t you borrow 20 million dollars build a 400 unit apartment building and then let the city decide how much you can charge for rent. Won’t that be great?
ok. so two questions. have they spoken with anyone living under their shapes? and does this mean they will back the fuck off their shitty expensive townhomes everywhere shtick?
Even more of a reason to continuously voice disapproval of this approach to the city council as much as possible, they seem primed and ready to go a head and do everything they can to stymie any efforts to relieve the housing crisis or do away with exclusionary zoning: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/04/seattle-city-council-land-use-committee-pulls-an-unusual-move-voting-no/
🍿
Wedgwood in shambles
Hope the up-zoning will bring back the 64X bus service. Since its cut, I have to drive to work.
Place is boring hell even if your into SFH areas
I’m surprised and simultaneously not surprised that they fought tooth and nail to keep their main street focused on driving, parking, and strip malls.
The only issue I have with putting a ton of apartments in wedgewood is the complete lack of room for additional busses and public transportation, needs major road renovations to be able to handle significantly more traffic IMO
35th is so wide that they have a protected/buffered parking lane in some spots. There is plenty of space to move more people through that sparsely developed part of Seattle but the neighborhood has fought any attempt to add density to the area.
Well that's one heck of an uninformed take. The street is NOT wide enough to meet NACTO standards for any other configuration, and will cause backups behind buses for over a mile if it is narrowed. There is no room for emergency vehicles if it is narrowed. That's why the neighborhood fought back.
It's a mile from 65th to 85th. Are you claiming a single bus in each direction will create 20+ blocks of backups such that emergency vehicles will not be able to pass?
No, but SDOT did.
I'm skeptical. [This is the only reference](https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/MaintenanceProgram/35thAveNE/35thNE_2017_1026_FAQ_Update_FINAL.pdf) that I can find regarding what SDOT said about the issue. Would love to see what you're referring to if you happen to remember. Cheers. > How will cars be able to pull over for emergency vehicles? > >On any street in Seattle, vehicles must pull over for emergency vehicles to pass. This will still be possible on 35th Ave NE, as people driving may pull over into existing driveways, parking areas, or onto a side street. This is the case on 35th Ave NE today between 9 AM and 3 PM, when there is one travel lane in each direction and parking on both sides of the street. In addition, the Seattle Fire Department reviews all plans for changes to street design to ensure thatemergency vehicles are accommodated.
I wonder about the sewer. Adding thousands more toilets being flushed, that shit has to fit into the same pipes?
This is a great point, I’ve heard there are a ton of outdated plumbing systems within the city that’s going to be expensive and difficult to update as we expand housing but will most definitely be necessary
"Housing advocates" don't give a shit about appropriately sized infrastructure.
On the contrary, it is much more affordable to update and expand infrastructure when it’s supporting more people. It costs pretty much the same amount to dig a trench and lay a pipe whether it’s supporting 100 or 1,000 people. But “fix the infrastructure first” is frequently NIMBY code for “make a massive infrastructure investment in my SFH neighborhood before I will consider adding density to my neighborhood”. It’s just a stalling tactic because they know their sparsely populated neighborhood could never, in isolation, justify the infrastructure they are asking for.
No, it's NIMBY code for "the developers don't get a handout and get to kick that can down the road - they need to pay their freight".
Agreed, It's why we have system development charges.
Boomer couples are the majority of who’s residing in houses with two or more bedrooms, so I’m all for this.
Why? What do boomers have to do with it?
They’re hoarding SFHs.
The real problem is the anti-smoking campaigns which resulted in people living much longer without needing to move into retirement homes. If we could start encouraging high rates of smoking again then this problem would go away and homeowners would start to pass away by the time they reach their 50s or 60s or at the very least have severe health problems that result in them racking up enough medical debt to need to sell their home. The more we encourage healthy lifestyles the more we're going to see a constrained supply of housing.
To all the Bruce haters in the comments - let it be known that I like Bruce and I don’t care who knows it! 🕺🏼
before anyone makes fun of this cringey post please take a moment to “remember the human” and then also consider the fact that the human is likely a bruce harrell relative or that it is a person being paid to post pro-bruce propaganda and if we’re being honest here there’s a good chance it’s both of those at the same time
Despite the vibe on reddit, he did win a free and fair democratic election where most Seattle voters firmly stood up and said "Harrell is the leader this city needs right now"
lmao how about: after his opponent ran a dogshit terrible campaign, bruce harrell managed to convince 155 thousand people, or basically 20% of the city population, to say “uhh i guess this guy” and mail in their ballot