By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle City Councilmember Eddie Lin will introduce legislation later this week to repeal a law that would have allowed apartments in the Stadium District just south of downtown, undoing a longstanding priority of housing developers and handing a significant win to the Port of Seattle and unions representing port workers.
The legislation, sponsored by former councilmember Sara Nelson, would have allowed more than 900 new housing units in the area (half of them affordable “workforce” units), which is largely occupied by warehouses, vacant lots, and businesses like the Showbox and a Showgirls strip club. It’s also home to the current (and future second) SoDo light rail station, which gets minimal use because the area has few businesses and very little housing.
Opponents of the bill argued it would irreparably harm the city’s industrial businesses, and said the city should not build housing near busy, polluted freight corridors; proponents countered that the stadium district hasn’t been in industrial use for many years, and said the city needs more housing everywhere, including near the stadiums.
The Port sued the city, and late last year, the state’s Growth Management Hearings Board invalidated the ordinance as written on both substantive and procedural grounds. Among other “procedural” findings, the board ruled that the city had done a sloppy job of reviewing the proposal, failing to conduct a separate environmental analysis and bypassing public feedback requirements to push the zoning change through last year. The city appealed on the substantive issues but not the procedural ones.
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Lin told PubliCola the ruling effectively gives the city no choice other than repealing the ordinance; to do otherwise, he said, could put the city at risk of being found out of compliance with the Growth Management Act, threatening transportation and housing funds as well as the city’s Comprehensive Plan. “In my opinion, we have a Growth Management Hearings Board order and there were procedural and substantive issues that they invalidated our ordinance on,” Lin said.
The city, Lin conceded, could try to fix the issues the hearings board identified by a May deadline for compliance. Lin suggested the current council has little interest in taking on that battle, which was contentious enough the first time. The council could also include language in the city’s ongoing comprehensive plan update that leaves the door open to more housing in areas with “urban industrial” zoning, a kind of mixed-use zoning that underlies the stadium overlay.
Lin, who chairs the council’s land use committee, said he’s “open to having that discussion later, although I’m not sure how much anybody else wants to have that discussion,” adding, “It’s not my first priority to put housing [in the stadium district.] I think we should be focused on centers and corridors.” The council will start working to upzone those two types of areas—”neighborhood centers” where lower-density apartments will be allowed within 800 feet of existing commercial nodes or frequent transit stops, and “corridors” where apartments can be built directly on arterial roads—this year.
Those of us old enough remember one of the selling points of the new baseball stadium back in 1995 was the potential to reimagine this neighborhood with housing, transit, and such. Why it’s taken 30 years to even attempt zoning changes around the stadiums is baffling. But sure, let’s reject dense urban housing to make sure the low rise light industrial and parking lots stay in place in the middle of a housing crisis. Dumb.
Lin noted we should place housing near centers and corridors. The area has two existing Link stations; it should have a frequent bus service corridor on 1st avenue south. ST3 may be changed or delayed.
It was a dumb idea that had dirty money and favors all over it
Right on. It was Sara Nelson’s Hail Mary Pass to win favor with Building Trades Unions, housing developers, and others in a desperate attempt to hold her seat. Thus, the rushed process that violated policies and procedures.
It could be much easier to build there on flat open lots a block from transit and downtown jobs. Worth allowing some housing there.
Great. More housing cuts for the poor, because of Sara Nelson, one of whose few good acts this was. See also my response to “Homelessness Authority Rescinds Tiny House Village Grant, Gives Money to Salvation Army Instead”, at
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I regularly go through that area. I don’t see any incentives of having housing there. Rezone it for housing and you basically drive out business and employers out of that area. Let’s keep it as such.
I don’t know why urbanists are petitioning for areas like White Center and Boulevard Park to be incorporated into Seattle. That would increase our footprint and provide us more stable land to look at for additional housing.
If the cost of providing all city services to a potentially incorporated area exceeds the anticipated tax revenues… draw your own conclusions.