Taking on the Townhouse Scourge

Seems like the bigger issue with flexible codes is corruption. And I don't mean just bribes, but rather city employees letting friends, friendly people and good looking people get away with more, while mean people or anyone a city employee dislikes (for what ever reason, but race and income seem to be big ones) would not get as much flexibility. Or maybe a city employee would favor one design over another in their neighborhood or near their mother's or friend's house.

Property owners should have the right to build structures that might be ugly to someone else, unless the city want to compensate the owner for taking away some of his property rights by reducing the property tax burden.

Your first point's a good one. Your second one is a little ridiculous. Replace that argument with “Property owners should have the right to build coal smelting factories”, or “high-rise offices”, or “a 40 foot pit filled with water and sharks” and you'll realize that cities tell residents what and how to build all the time.

Unfortunately people believe you can zone beautiful projects into the land use code which you cannot. I ask anyone to look around them to see if the town homes are the culprit. Look at all of the crap that Seattle has put up since the 1950's. We need a re-educating of the developers as opposed to relying on the city to solve these problems.

Garbage.
Yes, there is lots of evidence of rampant corruption from top to bottom in DPD.
Talk about a red herring. Please go away.

Kent is superior to Seattle.

Let me tell you why.

Why would anyone live there in those townhomes with no breathing space?

When they can live where I live in Kent…at Somerset Apartments.

They look like townhouses, but they are surrounded by greenspace, trees.

There are fully enclosed courtyards for picnics and for kids to play.

There are swimming pools.

This is the closest thing to “co-housing” style building that I have ever seen.

http://g.mnp0.com/dimg/735717/300×225

Can I hop on public transit and be in downtown Seattle in 20 minutes or less from these Kent apartments? How many grocery stores, coffee shops, convenience stores, etc. can I walk to in 10 minutes or less? How about parks?

This is an interesting issue, Dan… the increase in unsightly and not-so-urban townhomes.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that with more funky and creative designs will come increased costs, if not for additional materials then for the consistent need for new designs, since developers can't build the places from a static, pragmatism-over-style template if we're going to insist on creative design with townhomes. Any changes in design requirements, for better or worse, will probably lead to an increase in developer costs and, in turn, an increase in the asking price of these units. I'm not sure on average how affordable they are as it stands (I live in a Queen Anne apt so obviously the bloated prices I see on my streets are a bad sample), but the affordability factor would likely go down.

As for how to cut down on drab and generic townhomes with pragmatic but crowded “to the fence” designs popping up like blisters on a herpes victim, I'm not sure there's a simple answer that would lead to a shift in how this sort of housing is planned and developed. Hopefully the City and community can work towards a solution, but if history is any indication it's highly doubtful we'll see progress in the short term.

“basically an obstructionist move. Though I hesitate to use the blanket label density NIMBY, in this case I believe it pretty much captures the primary motivations of many in this crowd, on which I have written at length previously.”

Dan, you really don't have a clue.

if Pubicola is a news 'rag', then a little research would go a long way to informing the story.

'Seattle’s lowrise zones cover nine percent of Seattle’s land'

Was that a typo?

Other cities do just fine. I say we copy SF's building codes *.* and be done with it.

Not to mention the much easier access to meth, and the fact that you don't even have to try to keep up your looks once you move to a place like Kent.

Actually, it's seven (7) percent. But who's counting.

For those who are interested in a detailed explanation of why Seattle townhouses suck so bad, and why the zoning code bears a lot of responsibility for that, you may wish to read this:

http://seattleurbanism.blogspot.com/2009/10/tow…

People reference San Francisco regularly as a beacon of urban living and I think we should get a couple of underfocused items out of the way:

- San Francisco is surrounded by massive sprawl, dozens of miles in every direction, so much so that two of their suburbs (San Jose and Oakland) are now considered major U.S. cities.

- Their transit systems were laid into place as far back as a century ago. The reason they work so well is because their foundation was laid back when the city was much smaller and more primitive. Laying such a network today in a similarly aged city is far more challenging at best and possibly not feasible given current resources and economics.

- San Francisco on average is impossibly expensive to live in, rivaled in the U.S. only by Los Angeles and New York City. By copying their urban development pattrens you run the significant risk of pricing most of us out of the city and replacing that populace with the obscenely rich, the only people who can comfortably afford to live there (and no, living in 110 sq foor studio with your family is not comfortable living). In fact, many Seattle residents are former San Francisco residents who were either priced out or came here seeking a more affordable lifestyle.

So pardon the rest of us if we don't see San Francisco as the beacon of urban living that you do.

I completely agree, and I come here priced out of the SF market (I like Seattle much better than SF, but didn't know that then). SF should be much more dense than it is.

That said, San Francisco's density is perfect for smaller Seattle. Mostly I want to see their beatiful row houses here instead of our townhouses.

Although I wonder if you're right and we should be aiming at something like NYC's brownstones. (obviously both of these examples would be built with today's boring siding materials, not stone and fancy woodwork) I'm fine with copying NYC's housing code.

And I had a new 2 story townhouse just east of downtown San Jose. Density of 51 units on a total of 3 acres; new streets and open space included in acreage. We also had garages and visitor parking. Easy walk to shopping, buses (end of the block) and schools.

Totally, Matt, and BTW I didn't intend to direct that point just at you… but to generally make it as SF gets brought up a lot. That said, SF definitely has a lot of design features that we can draw from.

Sounder takes 25 minutes.

I can walk to an entire open mall in 10 minutes or less.

I can also bike ride to the Soos Creek Trail.

Or Lake Meridian park.

Maybe, but all the Internet psycho stalkers who haunt me on the web and Usenet seem to be in Seattle. So, advantage Kent.

Ooohhhh, a 10 minute walk to an *entire* open mall. THAT is exciting.

That's 7% in multi-family. 70% in single family.

Great blog, [GW]. I highly recommend everyone read it, or at least skim down to the graphics that show why townhouses look the way they look. I'm looking forward to your part 3.

Is Seattle's problem as easily fixed as “get rid of setbacks”? Seems like that alone should relieve the tight building restrictions we see now.

The question was: time to coffee shops, grocery stores etc. These are all in the mall. I mean, everyone is dunce in this blog?

I see your point on my second point, and what I was thinking about more was the aesthetics factors mentioned in the article: “blank walls, tall fences assaulting the sidewalk, entryways that aren’t visible from the street, dark, useless auto-courts with claustrophobic overhangs, tiny open spaces affectionately known as cattle pens, and generally awful architecture.”

Thousands of these cheapshit townhouses and condos spouted up like weeds in the past few years, but back yard cottages (many of which aren't even visible from nearby streets) are deemed such a threat to the integrity of neighborhoods that the Seattle City Council has decided that only 50 of them can be permitted per year. Such cottages have quietly existed for decades in the residential neighborhoods in the Bay Area, providing affordable housing for students and other modest income people. I'd rather see cottages proliferate than the sweeping upzones that have paved the way for butt-ugly projects like the one illustrated above.

I just can't get enough of the “I moved from (fill in the blank) and I just love Seattle, but we should really be more like where I came from.

Example: I completely agree, and I come here priced out of the SF market (I like Seattle much better than SF, but didn't know that then). SF should be much more dense than it is.

That said, San Francisco's density is perfect for smaller Seattle. Mostly I want to see their beatiful row houses here instead of our townhouses..

I happen to hate the townhouses that came, I'm sure coincidentally, with the growth from all those cities we should be more like.

How about we just let people build what they want to build where they want to build it? I'd like to build an apartment/condo on two lots currently zoned for townhouses/sf. I'd include parking with plug in chargers. I'd combine small apartments with bigger condos.

The design review boards and all the controls haven't resulted in making anybody happy, it seems. Zoning would only be by large categories; office, commercial, and housing.

The great places pined after were not created by committee.

This is why general codes are good, it makes sure that certain levels are meet but allows for the market and residents personal tastes to dictate what gets built. Cause despite the fact that @gordian's obvious highly-refined tastes makes him want to vomit at the site of an 'open mall,' for some people, that is what they want or can afford.

“How about we just let people build what they want to build where they want to build it?” I totally agree (except I'd like to keep things like fire and energy codes). Don't forget to remove the height, setback, and parking restrictions.

Regarding the indirect cut on me, what I love about Seattle certainly doesn't include the 4-pack townhouses.

Sure, reasonable fire (I know developer that was required to put a super fireproof window next to a pea patch just in case someday the city would sell it for another development) some energy (limited windows lead to all windows on the view side away from the street) and basic ceiling heights all should be retained. Zoning has nothing directly to do with building codes.

The cut wasn't indirect. You said that you liked Seattle much better than SF and then went on to say we should have SF density and architecture. It just irritates me to no end to be told how great Seattle is but that it needs to be more like the place one came from.

I hate the 4-packs as well. I would ban mustard, salmon, etc. siding -:) I like to see Anhalt style apartments

Well, passive agressive then. And you can like a place and still want it to be better. I'm sure [John Bailo] likes Kent but still wouldn't mind if it had bigger malls and more freeways.

Ok, I deserve some of that. But I'd argue that what people “want” and what they can “afford” or often two separate things. Yes, housing is more affordable in Kent, and one of the reasons is that when you move there, you get… a 10 minute walk to an open mall. Those aren't built because an overwhelming amount of residents signed a petition asking for open malls (“we demand open malls!”) – they were built because they were cheap and residents didn't have any other options. Big difference.

You realize there are many variables at play when it comes to preferring one thing over an other. It is perfectly sensible to prefer X over Y, but still think Y does 1, 2, and 3 better than X, yes?

Oops, didn't mean to hit the “like” button. @bill b, can you please explain to Dan and the rest of us why we shouldn't be attributing obstructionism to NIMBYism? We hear a lot of “green talk” from the obstructionists, but it's hard not to sniff a basic fear of change and growth in there at the base of it all.

Are you saying that my points are garbage and a red herring?? If so, it seems like you rebuttal to them is pretty convincing.

That's because no one in Kent has internet access, John.

Don't forget to pick up some lard. It's tripe night, darling.

@gordian, your point is valid. I would state it as there is a difference between public demand (signing petitions) and market demand (no other options due to cost).

Funny!

Where's the passive? -;)

Look I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just expressing something that bugs me. There was a talk show guy that moved here and said how great it is, but what's the story with saving all the salmon. Just chop the trees down and build. I'm not saying this is similar to you.

BTW I like to see a museum of natural history here like the one in SF.

Those aren't just aesthetic factors. They have to do with safety of both the residences, and the neighborhood. If there is no building frontage with windows and entries addressing the street, it inhibits walkability. The more people walking, and the more potential for people looking out over the street,the better the street is for everyone.

Morning:
“BTW I like to see a museum of natural history here like the one in SF.”
So would I, but like in D.C. The Burke just doesn't cut it, but I'm glad we have at least that.

But about this post:
My brother bought a tiny condo in Belltown, with a great view. His future wife bought one of these horrible monsters in the CD, with a large garage, larger first story, second story, possibly a third story. Many bathrooms, huge livingroom, a yard you couldn't fit a two-person tent on, surounded by tall fence.

Brother never hosted Thanksgiving Dinner at his place.

I bought a 1920's house on 2 1/2 lots. Can't possibly fit both yardwork and drinking, so the lawn looks like crap. Weeds & blackberries.
We dreamed of chickens and tomatoes.

I think my brother picked his wife well.
Her house is ugly (she's beautiful), but who else is paying the mortgage? And it's beautiful inside, no wasteful yard, no McMansion destroying of farmland, close to work. Should be a density-lover's dream.

Aesthetics? Visit SF, live here.
Aesthetics and green-ness are two different things.

Yuck. Makes me wish there was a 'dislike' button.

But John, Kent sucks, that's why there are more people in Seattle than in Kent.

What? You never told me you disliked my tripe! Why do I have to find it out here at the Kent Library?

Yes, let's blame the non natives for the Seattle land use code. They came here in secret 65 years ago and wrote it while we weren't looking!

The 4-pack is much more recent development.

Let's see what your Seattle Geniuses are up to….ah-ha…Stun guns used in 3 robberies:

“Officer Renee Witt says a woman attacked May 17 in the Fremont neighborhood says she was zapped on the neck with the stun gun as she unloaded groceries. Two days later, a victim in the Crown Hill neighborhood says her attacker showed a stun gun but didn't zap her. She fell and hit her head.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews…

The four packs bug me for a variety of reasons, but these two are at the top of the list:

1.) Fire Safety – especially the rear units. What happens when one of the units catches fire? How do they get the equipment in there? How do they rebuild? What if the building that burns is the one with all the electric meters attached to it?

2.) Ridiculous driveways/garages: Most of these garages are impossible to park cars in. Will they become poorly converted rooms, like you see on so many older houses?

I see them as the slums of the future. What happens when somebody decides to move fourteen immigrants in one of them, all with their own cars? What recourse do the other four packers (or the neighborhood, for that matter) have?

I'd much rather see good old-fashioned apartments or condos go in. Maybe the four packs will work on corners, where there's more street frontage, but not on regular lots.

The people that pack 14 people into one place don't all have their own cars… one Aerostar or F-250 XL is more their style.

These condos are quite nice. Don't know if Kent is superior overall though.

Yeah, and there are no criminals in kent either, I suppose?

I wonder how this discussion about Town-homes turned into some massive tirade on Seattle vs. Kent.

They don't have to e funky, just acceptable. Getting rid of that massive car infrastructure would be a start. (When it's that dense, just use a car share)

The 4-pack is a creation of the 1986-88 zoning code. That was when Seattle decided that multi-family development should look like single-family development,

“How about we just let people build what they want to build where they want to build it?” Ever been to Houston? Drive around for awhile, and then you'll have the answer to your question.

I actually spent some time, during the Housing Bubble, helping a builder try to match up available pieces of property with good townhouse designs. I have also lived in East Coast rowhouses.
-
Given lot prices, builders have no choice but to maximize square footage, unless they can find buyers who want to pay $200-$300/sf for a yard.
-
That being said, there is no excuse for bad floorplans, which are common. These boxes are often ugly on the outside. They should at least be livable on the inside.
-
A great deal of the architecture from the last decade, but certainly not all of it, is pretty unfortunate. Ugly siding, barn-like single-family homes that have too much space inside and too little space outside, etc.
-
It was fueled by high land prices and a culture of consumerism. The former is unavoidable. Hopefully the latter won't be quite so feverish in the coming years. We don't all need 3,000 sf and granite countertops.

Read the petition; many of the concerns raised in the appeal relate to failure by the City to actually present some facts to support the conclusions. The City's handling of environmental review (SEPA) and growth management (GMA) is disjointed and designed to dis-empower neighborhoods. The City's behavior in this regard has been getting worse for years, from the day Nickels fired Jim Diehrs.

NIMBY is not a dirty word. The entire world is our back yard. As numerous posters note, people will fight hardest when the “back yard” at issue is literally their back (and front) yard. For me, the backyard is the planet and our entire approach to sustainability.

In that regard, I believe I have impeccable environmental advocate credentials. We need to get over this “NIMBY v. 'smart growth'” dichotomy. If we as a species don't get a handle on growth generally, we're all toast. The current paradigm assumes never ending growth. That's global capitalism (see Wallerstein’s World Systems Analysis etc.). The metaphor is terminal cancer.

We do need to “accommodate” growth, but we also need to start defining what sustainability really means. It means that there are limits to growth. Back at the local level, it means we need to start working toward lower per capita consumption of all kinds (petroleum and energy especially), which means more transit, fewer cars, and more livable neighborhoods. Open space, trees, etc. In fact, the proposed zoning changes are a negative on many of these points.

I find it very aggravating when I see highly skilled architects argue for higher density but fail to acknowledge that they are in large part acting as agents for developers. Tearing down existing sound, affordable housing to slightly increase density does NOT create more affordable housing, improve the open space situation, or build mass transit infrastructure. It does put money in the pockets of the developers and banks (and architects). Remember the time-honored political aphorism—follow the money.

The reason San Francisco and New York are so expensive is that demand far outstrips supply. If San Jose and Oakland were built like that — including row houses, walkability and good transit — the units would be much more affordable. There are only so many rich people willing to pay $1 million for a condo.

Hey, what's all the fuss over the townshacks? They're basically firetraps filled with highly flammable plastic furniture, rugs and drapes, and none of them are sprinklered (not required). When one goes it takes others with it, so it shouldn't be long before we've seen the last of them. Then we can start over with something better.

You apparently haven't spent much time on Beacon Hill or in the Valley: It's quite vogue to put a dozen people in a house, pave over the front yard, and fill the space with Navigators and Lexus'

Matt,
These traditional “rowhouse” townhouses are much more popular. Unfortunately the developer needs to get 4 units on a standard 50×100 lot so it becomes a 4pack (2 front 2rear).
I have an alternate design idea- Matt how do I post an attachment like you did?

And exactly how many times a day can you catch Sounder?

We can catch Link in my neighborhood from 5 a.m. to about 12:30 a.m. We can go downtown on the spur of the moment. Even if Sounder can get you downtown in 25 minutes, your times when you can do so are extremely limited. I don't see this as comparable at all.

Why not make them 2-packs per lot and have standard rowhouses? In San Francisco (and many other places) these usually turn into 2 or 3 “flats”, allowing much greater density.

Regarding attachments, I just linked to pictures and Publicola did the rest! It's a nice feature.

By limiting density in Seattle you are destroying the environment. Check out this map. It represents growth in our regions since 2000. Seattle has barely increased, but sprawl has happened almost everywhere throughout the region. This is the direct effect of NIMBYs not wanting growth in Seattle.

“Tearing down existing sound, affordable housing to slightly increase density does NOT create more affordable housing” Sure it does. For every home you build the price goes down (simple supply and demand). It may not go down for that unit, but there's an older unit down the street that just went down in value slightly. Of course tearing down existing housing for much higher density is even better.

You're ignoring what I wrote: First, you don't address my core point on sustainability: “There are limits to growth.” Do you disagree?

I do acknowledge the need to accommodate growth in the core cities. But every capacity analysis I've seen shows we don't need to increase zoning density at all to accommodate significant growth in the City. For years if not decades. It's how we regulate growth both in and out of the cities that matters and affects the quality of life. I agree with your comments at the link that we need stop sprawl as much as possible, but that's not the point of the appeal or my comment.

“For every home you build the price goes down (simple supply and demand).” What are you talking about? Show me a housing market that behaves like that. If there is an existing large old house broken into three units (fairly common in L-2, e.g.) it is most likely largely paid for (no construction debt), and if you tear it down to replace with four new units, please tell us how “simple supply and demand” drives the price down for either these new units or in the market in general? The new units will have a large new debt load and will NEVER have the lower relative rents/cost of the existing housing. Also, the new housing increases the pressure for redevelopment, or at least rent increases, on the surrounding lots with similar older housing. And then there's the ecological cost of ripping down and disposing of sound housing and replacing it with new concrete, wood, etc. Can you find any analysis of these economic and environmental realities in the City's proposal?

Are you suggesting that allowing Seattle to grow into a mini-Manhatten is going to prevent sprawl? Take a look at the sprawl around every large urban area in the U.S. and you'll see that this “solution” simply does not work; increasing density in the core cities does not in and of itself prevent sprawl. Which leads back to my first and most fundamental point—there are limits to growth and until we acknowledge and act on them, our quality of life (and the ecosystem generally) will continue to deteriorate.

Matt, you gotta get over this false economics. we add about 1% to our housing stock per year – dispersed through the city (mostly in urban villages). that has NO affect on price.

maybe if all of that were added into only a couple of areas you would have a supply affect – but then developers wouldn't build there because of all that product. no one wants to sit on product and let it sit idle or sell it for less than market value.

a new constriction home costs more than your tear down. plus it has all sorts of environmental costs.

what needs to be encouraged is denser developments in the 'burbs (what new urbanism was all about) and encourage more economic development and job growth in those communities so that there are more opportunities for work other than a long commute into downtown Seattle.

“But every capacity analysis I've seen shows we don't need to increase zoning density at all to accommodate significant growth in the City.” Oh, sorry. I guess we don't have a problem then. Let's just close our eyes and pretend that map I linked to doesn't exist. (/sarcasm) Yes, if we could tear down our city to the basements and rebuild with every structure exactly to the zoned limits, we'd have a lot more capacity. But the fact is we're growing far slower than the suburbs and exurbs. The best way to catch up is to upzone.

“Are you suggesting that allowing Seattle to grow into a mini-Manhatten is going to prevent sprawl?” Certainly, if we were to go that far.

“increasing density in the core cities does not in and of itself prevent sprawl.” Sure it does. Take a look at the modern world – most people either live in the city or the suburbs (or the far suburbs, if you want break them into their own group). Knowing there are a fixed number of people, every single person you add to the city is a person that won't be in the suburbs. Those are our two choices: density or sprawl. There is no third choice.

“Take a look at the sprawl around every large urban area in the U.S.” But you have to look at the what-if scenario in each case. What if San Francisco had allowed more density – wouldn't there be less sprawl?

“if you tear it down to replace with four new units, please tell us how 'simple supply and demand' drives the price down for either these new units or in the market in general” Sure. Let's take an extreme. Imagine we take the 200k or so single family homes, demo them, and build 4 rowhouses each. That's now 800k homes (wow!). These each cost, say, $100k to build and $75k for the land ($300k for the home we replaced). Can you honestly say each of these homes will sell for $300k, or even more? No. Supply has increased without increasing demand. That means prices fall. Notice although I mentioned the cost to build these homes, that dollar value isn't important at all unless the market falls close to $175k per house. Of course by that point, buying houses would be cheaper and that $175 per house would fall.

Finally, your main point “There are limits to growth. Do you disagree?” I kind of do. Of course I don't want a city that's made up of one block of mile-high towers and nothing else. But then that is far from likely here. I do want as much growth as Seattle will give me, because each person we move in from the suburbs means less sprawl.

“we add about 1% to our housing stock per year… that has NO affect on price.” That's absolutely false. Demand is growing much faster than supply. Check out that map in my link a few comments ago. A large growth in suburban/exurban homes means that people overall have come to our area. Higher prices in the city than the suburbs means people would rather live in the city, if we let them.

“maybe if all of that were added into only a couple of areas you would have a supply affect” Every single extra home you add has a supply effect, whether or not you see it.

“what needs to be encouraged is denser developments in the 'burbs” Absolutely not. Yes, this beats true sprawl. But if you add jobs in easy-to-drive-to areas, you'll necessarily add sprawl. The one force working toward keeping exurban sprawl from happening is travel time. Build workplaces out in the suburbs and you expand housing out to the exurbs.

[reply to following reply--Disqus won't let me post directly in reply]

“Imagine we take the 200k or so single family homes, demo them, and build 4 rowhouses each. That's now 800k homes (wow!). These each cost, say, $100k to build and $75k for the land ($300k for the home we replaced).”

Your numbers are baloney (not sarcasm). Find me some townhouses for $200,000 in Seattle. Back to the example: The existing property is worth c. $500,000 if it’s in good shape and has three rentals. Let’s say it’s trashed and you can get it for $250,000. Replace that 2,000 foot structure with four 1,200 foot units. That’s $720 – 960,000 (c. $150 – 200/sq. ft for anything other than cracker box). Total = at least $1 million, but more likely 1.5 or so. And still ignoring the dollar and environmental cost of tearing down the existing housing.

“Can you honestly say each of these homes will sell for $300k, or even more? No.”

Yes. Go check out the MLS; you can’t find hardly any townhouses for less than $400,000. Even in today’s down market. Oh wait, I found a cracker box looking place at NW 75th and 25th NW (1,000 sq. ft.) for $309,000.

“Supply has increased without increasing demand. That means prices fall. Notice although I mentioned the cost to build these homes, that dollar value isn't important at all unless the market falls close to $175k per house.”

You’re focused on a different “value.” You’re talking about cost to build; I’m talking about market value and capitalization. Of course the “value” of the property is important. If the current owner doesn’t have a large loan to pay off, the renters get the benefit of more affordable housing. I’ve seen this dynamic all over town, all the time, for decades. My impression is that housing market is far more closely tied to overall economy, and not whether new unit construction is up or down. You’ve got the cause/effect backwards.

“Of course by that point, buying houses would be cheaper and that $175 per house would fall.”

When did you ever see house values fall around here as a result of more construction?

“Finally, your main point “There are limits to growth. Do you disagree?” I kind of do.”

Well, then we need to agree to disagree, because it you don’t believe there are limits to growth, IMO you’re oblivious to reality.

“…each person we move in from the suburbs means less sprawl.”

Huh? Not unless you’re going to tear down the housing behind them. For example:

“What if San Francisco had allowed more density – wouldn't there be less sprawl?”

Marginally. Bay Area has 6 – 7 million people (depending on how far out you draw the line). SF has .85 or so. Double that and you’ll have the densest city in North America (more than NYC), but you’ll still have over 5 million in San Jose, Oakland, and all the other blobs east of the Bay and Hills.

I agree with this!