1. Upzoning property adjacent to transit stations to promote walkability and maximize housing, AKA Transit Oriented Development (TOD), has become a basic tenet of sustainable city planning.
However, per Josh’s New Year’s prediction, state Rep. Julia Reed (D-36, Seattle) proposed a TOD bill this week that allows cities to go small, with zoning requirements well below the standard for adding the number of units our housing-shy region needs. Reed’s bill sets the minimum allowable “Floor Area Ratio”—an equation that determines the amount of housing it’s possible to build on a lot—at 3.5 within a half-mile of a stop on a light rail and 2.5 within a quarter-mile of bus rapid transit lines.
An easy way to visualize this: Under a 3.5 FAR, you could have a 3.5 story building that completely covers one lot, or a seven-story building that covers half the lot. Since cities have all kinds of requirements for setbacks, landscaping, and maximum lot coverage, it typically takes a FAR of 4 or more to make a modest six-story apartment building feasible. Seattle, for example, uses a FAR of 4.5 to allow six-story apartments, and Redmond is already building six-story buildings adjacent to the coming light rail.
Last year’s more aggressive TOD proposal, which won support from a broad coalition, including the Housing Development Consortium, Futurewise, the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO, and Transportation Choices Coalition, went with a FAR of 4 in the station area and 6 around the station “hub,” a designation Reed’s bill doesn’t mention.
In other words, Reed’s bill is not an upzone for a city and region that’s currently in the process of building and planning the largest light rail expansion in the country. And it will allow cities that implement mass transit (like bus rapid transit) in the future to limit housing to densities far below what the Seattle region is already building.
By the way, Josh also predicted that this bill would come with “steep affordability requirements that will chill development.” Et voilà: Reed’s bill would require every new building in a station area to include 10 percent of units affordable to people making 60 percent or less of the area median income, a requirement that goes well beyond Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability law. It would also allow up to a 5 FAR for a building that’s 100 percent affordable.
2. We reported earlier this week on the emerging shape of the new Seattle City Council, whose new president, Sara Nelson (citywide Position 9), wrote an op/ed in the Seattle Times this week laying out her priorities, including a vow to “break our reliance on new revenue (taxes) to pay our bills.” But council members also serve on a number of important regional committees, helping shape policy on homelessness, transportation, mental health care, and more. Here’s a summary of those regional assignments.
City Councilmember Dan Strauss (D6) will take over the seat formerly held by ex-city councilmember Debora Juarez on the Sound Transit Board, King County Executive Dow Constantine announced Friday afternoon. Juarez, who was council president, held the position for the past four years. Strauss was the vice-chair of the council’s transportation committee, but never led it. The council’s new transportation chair is Rob Saka (D1).
On the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) governing board, Nelson and new councilmember Cathy Moore (D5) will replace Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis. Nelson hasn’t weighed in that much on homelessness directly from the council dais (and wasn’t a member of the homelessness committee, which—along with the renters’ rights committee—no longer exists), but the brewery she owns, Fremont Brewing, uses illegally placed concrete “eco-blocks” to prevent homeless people from parking around its location off Leary Way. The company also worked actively to remove people living in tents on a piece of city-owned land immediately adjacent to its production facility.
Nelson championed legislation empowering City Attorney Ann Davison to prosecute people who use drugs in public spaces, who are mostly unhoused. (People who possess or use illegal drugs in their houses are not subject to the law).
Nelson has also expressed skepticism (verging on outright opposition) to harm-reduction approaches to drug use and homelessness, such as Let Everyone Advance With Dignity (LEAD), which diverts people from arrest and prosecution and does not make sobriety a condition for shelter. On that note: Kettle, who vowed to hire more police and end the culture of “permissiveness” toward drug use and crime in Seattle, will replace Lisa Herbold on the LEAD policy coordinating group, which oversees the program.
Joy Hollingsworth (D3), Kettle, and Nelson will take over on the King County Board of Health for Lisa Herbold, Tammy Morales, and Teresa Mosqueda. Mayor Bruce Harrell will serve as an alternate “representing the city council” on the health board—an unusual, and possibly unprecedented, comingling of the legislative and executive branches on a regional committee with influence over major decisions about public health.
The board of health makes policy recommendations relating to mental health and addiction, as well as communicative diseases like COVID.
Teresa Mosqueda, who attended some meetings from home, chided Nelson last year when she made a point of noting that she was present at one particular meeting “in person”; in her op/ed, Nelson said “coming in to work in person” will help spark a “major reset in tone and direction at City Hall.”
—Erica C. Barnett, Josh Feit
“Last year’s more aggressive TOD proposal, which won support from a broad coalition, including….” a bunch of orgs that don’t get a vote in the Legislature.
And what happened to “last year’s more aggressive TOD proposal?”
It died – in part because ‘urban planners’ were so busy building ‘a broad coalition’ that they ignored how the Legislature works.
Welcome to the Real World.
These clowns never learn. The hicks in the sticks will get all this density as they have the light rail stations and rapid transit stops. Seattle where people are going for work, events, etc. will not. Exact opposite of what should and needs to be done. But the hayseed town will band together and kill this Frankenstein bill too. Dopes in Oly
Yep Tacomee, ain’t technology grand? The robber barons of 100+ years ago would be green with envy about how much wealth and power a tiny group acquired and many of them live here.
Housing gets really affordable the further away from their lairs you go.
Hopefully the new Council is watching what a fiasco this TOD boondoggle has become and they correct it for the long delayed comp plan update. To ignore where people want to be in favor of where planners decide to place them is serfdom or worse. Sadly most drones will report like the zombies in the Apple 1984 ad to their squeeze cage home in a hive near nothing. That ain’t living.
Wow, just wow. This again without the frequent bus service? Taking that out last year erased 80% of the locations for increased zoning of which almost all were in Seattle. But oops, I forgot some NIMBY on Mercer Island didn’t want the renter rabble anywhere near her (but liked the bus service and demands it continues).
What a joke.
Brent Silver
Seattle Urbanism Alliance
More stupid planning by stupid people. Per the Urbanist: “land around a light rail station that starts running in 2044 would be targeted for investments now, but an area with frequent local bus service right now would not.” A special kind of stupid makes that happen.
You have gotta be kidding: you claim “our housing-shy region” when Seattle leads the nation in the number of construction cranes — which are all building high rise HOUSING. There are tens of thousands of units of housing currently under construction IN Seattle right now!
I realize that you tree-phobic AHs want to clearcut every lot in order to maximize the ugly, to worsen Climate Change, and to continue exacerbating the negative health effects of pollution — all of which trees mitigate. What a group of hypocrites.
Double Like! And Amen!
Great policy – the light rail is the new connector this we should be concentrating on areas around rail stations!
Policy sounds just fine provided the rest of Seattle doesn’t end up ruined and a sad sack like Ballard is. What a dump.
What is the point if you do not include frequent bus stops? Those are in the city near services where people want to live and work. But sure, warehouse people like chattel out near light rail stations and rapid transit routes.
News Flash: People want to not only toil in the city but live there too. Horrible policy.
We watched in horror last year as the frequent bus service portion was squeezed down from 1/2 mile to 1/4 then 1/8 then entirely removed. At the same time they were increasing the # of bus trips needed to be deemed frequent up to levels that ended with over 80% of the locations in Seattle but some NIMBY from Mercer Island killed the whole deal. Expect more of the same. Talking about the problem is all they do.
Brent Silver
Seattle Urbanism Alliance
This is 21st century redlining done with a smile. You see, frequent bus lines dare to run through these whites only NIMBY zones (Madison Park, Magnolia, Queen Anne, Ravena, etc.) but these cattle cars do not. That is is not by accident.
Redlining is alive & well in 2024 and being brought to you by Democrats in Olympia.
Redlining made illegal in the 60’s was only brought up by Urbanists to play the race card in pushing for upzones.
Redlining prevented certain people (non White people generally) from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. So is any of this new housing your want built for sale? If it is, are any Condos for sale listed for under $600K? Or are all of this new housing rentals? What’s the lowest rent? $2,000 a month?
You’re right. Redlining is alive and well in the Emerald City. Except instead of excluding Black people, it’s anybody making under $100,000 a year. Unless you’re knocking down 6 figures a year, does it really matter what housing gets built? Because that new housing isn’t for you, it’s for people with money.
Owning your own house is building generational wealth…. renting is for economic losers. This is legacy of Redlining. Letting developers tear own owner occupied housing for crappy $2,000 a month rentals is the problem, not the solution.
Horsepucky – bus routes come and go, but upzoned housing without adequate transportation infrastructure is forever. Remember when they upzoned big chunks of West Seattle for a Monorail that never came? I do.
New Urbanists can pound sand.