Activating residential neighborhoods one poppyseed bagel at a time.
By Josh Feit
The line stretched 25 people deep along the sidewalk on a recent Friday on Capitol Hill. I wasn’t waiting to get into a club. Nor was I anywhere near the thumping Pike-Pine corridor. I was a mile away in an NR3 zone, a city zoning designation that not only forbids apartment buildings (while requiring all the surrounding single-family homes to be built on roomy 5,000-square-foot lots), but also prohibits retail businesses.
Mt. Bagel, where I was eagerly queueing up to get a bag of six fresh poppyseed bagels, is on the corner of 26th Ave. E. and E. Valley St., tucked up against the Arboretum, far afield from any commercial action.
“How did you folks pull this off?” I asked the woman working the cash register.
“It used to be a neighborhood grocery store,” she said. “I guess they never changed the zoning, and we got grandfathered in.” Then, perhaps worrying that I didn’t approve of such mischief, she added, “The neighbors love it!” King County records show that the two-story, three-bedroom, 2,000 square foot building was built in 1910 and sold for $91,000 in 1985 to its current owners; Seattle’s Department of Construction & Inspections notes that “it was built originally as a mixed-use building” meaning apartments on the top floor and commercial on the bottom.
“Of course the neighbors love it,” I said. “And there should be more of it.” Far from creating an unwelcome disturbance on an otherwise serene street, lines around the block constitute a political win for any city.
If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that the traditional notion of concentric-circle cities where commercial action is relegated to downtown cores—and eased out of existence the further you move from the center—is an outdated and awkward contemporary city planning conceit. Twenty-first century approaches to zoning need to be altered to prioritize commerce in neighborhoods across the city. Similarly, as I’ve argued in this column many times: density should be shared across the city as well.
The fact that Mt. Bagel was a corner grocery in bygone days hints at an era before cities were reconfigured for the automobile; a time when outer-tier neighborhoods prioritized community needs as opposed to isolation.
Seattle needs to shift away from its carbon-heavy, suburbanized model and create networks of neighborhoods with dense housing that have immediate access to mass transit, parks, schools, and commercial spaces.
Seattle should take advantage of the public’s appetite for post-pandemic urban experimentation by redistributing density and commerce throughout the city’s neighborhoods, including in our neighborhood residential zones. Re-activating spaces in residential zones that are already zoned for business is a logical and easy first step. Seattle’s Department of Construction & Inspections doesn’t have a catalog of spaces—like Mt. Bagel—that would fit the bill. But it would be a promising pursuit for the city to locate these spaces and start a program to promote reactivation. For example, Spokane has identified 95 such spaces.
In fact, Spokane’s planning department has an official initiative to allow property owners to convert any former commercial space, including spaces located in residential-only zones, back into commercial use. The city, which is about a third the size of Seattle, established its “Activate Existing Neighborhood Commercial Structures” policy well before the pandemic, back in 2017.
“In the past, Spokane enjoyed numerous small retail and commercial stores peppered throughout the neighborhoods, selling the small sundries and supplies needed by nearby residents,” said Kevin Freibott, a senior city planner for the city of Spokane. Freibott noted that “the presence of corner shops and small neighborhood retail in traditionally residential-only areas, can help activate a neighborhood, provide for greater use of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and create a sense of place and community that can be missing in more homogenous neighborhoods.”
Of course, not all of Spokane’s 95 properties were ripe for redevelopment, Freibott said. Meanwhile, and unfortunately, the city has not reached out directly to any of the eligible property owners to see if they’re interested in converting their property to non-residential use. So far, the program has very few examples—just three—of commercial reactivation. However, cool examples of conversions on quiet residential intersections include one vacant residence that was converted into a coffee and fresh baked pastry shop called The Meeting House (it was a corner grocery in 1925), and a vacant house that was converted to a bakery and brewery called the Grain Shed (it was originally a small shop.)
As our affordable housing crisis (a cry for more housing) combines with the climate crisis (a cry for sustainable land use policies), Seattle needs to shift away from its carbon-heavy, suburbanized zoning model which severely segregates housing types and cordons off commercial use. Instead, we need to create intertwined networks of neighborhoods with dense housing that have immediate access to mass transit, parks, schools, and commercial spaces. Re-introducing commercial occupants into the swaths of Seattle’s developable land that’s currently off limits to neighborhood shops could be a popular first step toward meeting this urgent goal.
As the line of people stretching down 26th Ave. E. upset the placid morning with a giddy jolt of human activity, it became clear that Seattle is ready to embrace this change. Let the full-scale invasion of corner stores begin.
A satellite view shows a typical suburban-style north Seattle neighborhood, with one detached single-family home per lot.
By Andrew Grant Houston
It’s December 2023, and as a local architect and housing advocate, I—along with many other Seattleites—have now been waiting more than eight months since the city’s initial April release date for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the Housing Element of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan Update.
The DEIS currently identifies five possible paths for Seattle’s growth over the next 20 years and how that growth—or lack thereof—will impact our urban and natural environment.
Although the Comprehensive Plan is a complete vision that includes a number of elements (as defined by the state’s Growth Management Act), typically the most contentious and complex of these elements is the Housing Element, which sets the upper limit for how many housing units Seattle will plan for in the next 20 years. This element, and the public engagement that will come with it, is a once-in-a-decade opportunity for Seattle residents to voice our views about whether that the number of homes in Seattle is sufficient or insufficient for us as well as future Seattleites, and to weigh in on where new homes should be added.
The city of Seattle has delayed releasing the draft statement multiple times, which should tip you off as to just how critical the Housing Element update is. But if you aren’t the sort of person who spends their time either wishing Seattle looked more like Paris or hoping your neighborhood will be preserved in amber until the end of time, what are the questions you should be asking yourself as you attempt to engage with such an important topic? There are certainly a multitude, but here are my top 10.
Population Growth In May, the Seattle Times reported that, according to census data, Seattle is the fastest-growing large city in the United States. How does this news change the proposed number of housing units in the EIS draft, given that people are moving here faster than new homes are being produced?
Planned Growth vs. Actual Growth How does the housing allocation proposed in the previous Comprehensive Plan, compared to actual housing production since that time, influence the proposed number of units in the Draft EIS, given our current housing deficit?
Zoning Capacity vs. What is Actually Built
New buildings typically have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years, meaning that there are tracts of land that have been developed since the previous Comprehensive Plan that may see zoning changes but will not see any actual increases in housing over the next 20 years. Are these parcels included in calculations around achieving increased housing capacity as part of the Draft EIS, or are they excluded?
Mandatory Housing Affordability
How is the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program being factored into the number of proposed housing units, given that the Community Indicators Report (September 2020) released by the City’s Equitable Development Initiative identified a need for 68,000 “affordable” units at all income levels below 80 percent of Seattle’s area median income, as well as the latest numbers from the city on MHA showing that just 7 percent of all housing units created over the last year qualify as “affordable?”
Homelessness
King County’s Point in Time count showed an increase in unsheltered individuals in 2022 compared to 2020, from 11,751 to 13,368. How does this increase in unsheltered homelessness influence the types of housing allowed as part of the Comprehensive Plan, as well as the allowed uses across Seattle?
The Urban Village (UV) Strategy The Seattle Planning Commission’s 2020 paper “Evolving Seattle’s Growth Strategy” noted that the current Urban Village strategy perpetuated inequities that have existed in Seattle land use patterns since the creation of the city. A focus on equality would allow more homes in all neighborhoods, whereas a focus on equity would allow more homes in areas where historic redlining prohibited people of color from living and neighborhoods that have seen little to no change in zoning since the implementation of the Urban Village strategy in 1994. Does the draft EIS address this and if so, how?
The 15-Minute City How does the concept of creating a “15-Minute City” influence where the city will allow commercial or non-residential uses in each neighborhood? How does this inform the minimum number of homes we will allow on every lot in Seattle?
Climate Refugees
In 2023, we’ve seen a massive increase in heat waves across the US and in other countries. Given Seattle’s relatively mild climate, as well as the city’s status as a sanctuary city, how does the potential increase in climate refugees over the next 20 years the plan covers influence the number of proposed housing units across the city?
Trees What methodology is being used to ensure that the tree canopy across the city is preserved or increased while also taking into account reductions in the buildable area on individual lots that may be necessary to achieve this goal?
The Climate Future of South Park At the beginning of this year, South Park experienced a king tide, which flooded the neighborhood. Given that climate change will increase instances of this kind of phenomenon, including rising sea levels, does the Comprehensive Plan consider any forms of managed retreat and the impact climate change will have on proposed housing and development capacity in South Park and around the Duwamish floodplain?
The questions I’ve outlined above may appear intimidating, but I share them because, just as an informed voter is the best kind of voter, an informed citizen is the best kind of citizen. Seattle must change the way we do business in order to become the city we all wish it was for every resident—a place where everyone can work, live, and play safely and in community together.
But in order to get there we must first map the difficult road ahead. We must recognize that we are in a tumultuous time but that by working together we make overcoming the major issues our city faces that much easier for all of us. The Draft EIS must be the first plan for how we move forward, toward a Seattle for everyone. And if the city tries to turn away from this path, whether due to fear or a delusional sense of nostalgia, it’s up to us to collectively reject that false future.
When the draft plan is released, I encourage everyone in Seattle to take just five minutes to make one comment on the plan. That comment can simply say “we need to be more ambitious in how many homes we’re planning for” or “we need to be honest about how many people want to live here.” The amount of good each comment could do for our city would mean a lot less time having to write op-eds like this and a lot more time spent out enjoying all the best aspects of what it means to live here.
Andrew Grant Houston, also known as Ace the Architect, is the Founder and Head of Design of House Cosmopolitan, an architecture and urban design practice focused on celebrating culture and creating places where people belong. A former candidate for Mayor of Seattle in 2021, he also serves on the board of Futurewise.
In these historical images, included in an archaeological consultant’s report, the tree known as “Luma” is outlined in red.
By Erica C. Barnett
An independent report commissioned by a company that plans to build several townhouses in a historically single-family neighborhood in northeast Seattle suggests that a double-trunked Western red cedar tree in Northeast Seattle is around 85 years old, far shy of its widely reported age of “roughly 200 years old.” The tree, named “Luma” by activists, was designated a “culturally modified tree” after an in-person assessment by the Snoqualmie Tribe. According to one media report, “she,” meaning Luma, “was a sapling when white settlers arrived here.”
The newly released report, which is posted on the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections’ website, calls that history into question. The analysis, by an independent cultural preservation firm called Drayton Archaeology, uses historical photos and a review of the history of development in the area to determine approximately how long the tree has been around. According to the report, the tree does not appear in aerial photos taken in 1936, and was “relatively small”—just starting to peek over an adjacent roofline in photos—in 1953.
By 1965, the report says, the tree was still “not tall enough to be fully present in the photo and does not appear to be of advanced age.”
On December 18, after this story appeared, the head of the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Allyson Brooks, wrote a letter disputing the report, saying that Drayton’s “desktop analysis” mis-identified the tree’s location, using “blurry and pixilated images… which adds ambiguity to the analysis.” According to Brooks’ analysis of the same images, there appears to be a large tree where Luma now stands.
Brooks does not make any claims in her letter about the tree’s possible age. Western red cedar trees grow quickly, adding between two and three feet of height a year, and can grow up to 200 feet tall in forests. Luma is about 80 feet tall.
According to a letter the Snoqualmie Tribe sent to city officials in July, the cedar once served as a marker “that delineated an ancient indigenous trail system connecting Puget Sound to Lake Washington.” The letter adds that the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation independently reached the same conclusion.
However, the head of the DAHP, Allyson Brooks, said it’s up to tribes, not the state of Washington, to decide what constitutes a culturally modified tree. As an archaeological agency, she said, “We see artifacts. We know what an artifact is. But the question about culturally modified trees is one of culture for the tribes.” The Snoqualmie Tribe did not respond to an email seeking comment.
A comparison of old aerial photos showing three different trees in the location where Luma now stands, along with other historical images, suggests that the tree “was not extant in 1936 but may have been planted shortly after, as it had grown large enough by 2021 that its canopy encompassed the space formerly occupied by the three smaller trees.” The tree is now about 80 feet tall.
“Based on this information, it is my opinion that the subject red cedar tree was not extant in 1936,” the report continues. If the tree was planted that year, it would be 87 years old today.
According to the website Wedgwood History, the oldest houses still standing in Wedgwood were built around the turn of the 20th century, and the neighborhood had electricity by around 1923. By the mid-1930s, Wedgwood was a developed area, with paved roads and houses (as well as a county-endorsed racist covenant that banned all non-white people, except live-in servants, from living in the area). If the report’s estimate of Luma’s age is accurate, the property where it sits would have already been developed and occupied when the tree was a sapling.
Regardless of the age of the tree, the developers aren’t arguing to remove it; they’ve submitted new plans to the city that reduce the proposed housing on the lot from three townhouses to a new single-family house with a small backyard unit.
Seattle’s tree preservation ordinance includes protections for exceptional trees, a category that includes all very large trees, regardless of age. Luma’s unusually large diameter—52 inches, according to a separate arborist’s report—is based on a formula that combines its two separate trunks; other single-trunked exceptional Western red cedars in the immediate vicinity are between 30 and 42 inches in diameter. Exceptional trees can only removed with permission from the city under certain limited circumstances.
Asked about the consultant’s report, Brooks, from DAHP, said the agency “cannot comment on an unofficial report to our agency that was sent to us by a third party.”
A crane against Seattle’s downtown skyline. A new audit spotlights concerns from city employees about potential conflicts of interest and preferential treatment at the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections. Photo by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Erica C. Barnett
Earlier this year, the Seattle city auditor released a report that raised serious concerns about ethics and culture at the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, which issues building and construction permits, conducts most of the inspections associated with building and construction, and enforces the city’s landlord-tenant laws, including the rental housing inspection ordinance, among many other responsibilities.
The audit, conducted at the behest of City Council land use committee chair Dan Strauss, was supposed to focus on the byzantine permitting process itself—a frequent source of complaints from developers and homeowners trying to keep projects on schedule.
But as the auditors talked to SDCI employees, they kept hearing similar concerns about potential ethical issues within the department: Managers with second jobs advising developers on the permitting process in nearby cities. Supervisors who pushed employees to approve or expedite projects for big developers, particularly those represented by the Master Builders Association, while allowing smaller projects to languish. Employees with spouses, children, and other close relatives working in the department—including at least one whose family owns multiple rental properties across the city.
In all, about 30 percent of the people the auditor’s office interviewed raised concerns related to ethics or equity in permitting, prompting the auditors to expand the scope of their report.
“There are reasons why you prioritize one project over another, but there should be a good reason, it should be transparent, and everyone should be able to see it—and it’s more opaque [in SDCI] than then we have liked,” City Auditor David Jones told PubliCola. “All we can say to SDCI management is, ‘Some of your employees, a decent number of them, have these concerns—so we should do something about it.'”
The auditors didn’t find any wrongdoing or legal violations by SDCI staff, who are required by the city’s ethics code to avoid conflicts of interest and report potential conflicts to their supervisors. (Wayne Barnett, the head of the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission, said he was unaware of any cases in which an SDCI employee was accused of breaking the ethics law).
However, the audit did find a “lack of consistency” and transparency in how permits get processed and prioritized as well as a lack of internal ethics policies for issues specific to SDCI, which could lead to ethical issues going unaddressed.
“The major players have been in power for decades, and they can call the SDCI Director, Mayor, and Council members to get their projects expedited,” an interviewer summarized one staffer’s remarks. “Those favored by the existing power structure (older white men) can take advantage of workarounds for the permitting process, to the detriment of those with less experience (who may also be bipoc communities).”
“As part of our audit, we did not investigate these concerns to the extent necessary to substantiate them,” the report notes. “SDCI should consider… an internal ethics policy to address situations that are unique to SDCI’s work environment” along with ongoing ethics training.
Many SDCI employees told auditors they believed the Master Builders Association—a trade association for local developers—gets special treatment and access to the department, while less-established developers and builderd, including many small and BIPOC businesses, have little direct access to SDCI staff.
PubliCola obtained hundreds of pages of the auditors’ interview notes through a public disclosure request.
“The major players have been in power for decades, and they can call the SDCI Director, Mayor, and Council members to get their projects expedited,” an interviewer summarized one staffer’s remarks. “Those favored by the existing power structure (older white men) can take advantage of workarounds for the permitting process, to the detriment of those with less experience (who may also be bipoc communities).”
During a land use committee meeting last week, SDCI director Nathan Torgelson said the department meets with many groups, including the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber, the Downtown Seattle Association, and affordable housing developers. “We, for a long time, met with BIPOC developers who are going through the design review process on how we can better serve that constituency,” Torgelson said.
One developers’ attorney confirmed that big developers, who pay significantly more in permitting fees for their large, complicated projects, can “get things done faster if you actually talk to the right people” in the department. In an environment where permitting, design review, and other delays can slow housing projects by months or years, this kind of access prevents projects from being “glacial,” the attorney said.
However, this also means that a homeowner trying to add two units to their property may have little recourse when a code reviewer sends over correction after correction, adding time and expense to a routine project. “What they need to do is get rid of the codes that are unreadable and get rid of the procedures that are not written down anywhere,” the attorney continued. “As we get into the middle-housing stuff, there’s going to be a lot of small builders out there that are not going to have any idea” how to navigate the process.
SDCI employees brought up this disparity in their interviews with the audit team, noting that when established developers get to jump to the front of the line, that can have race and social justice implications. “Those favored by the existing power structure (older white men) can take advantage of workarounds for the permitting process, to the detriment of those with less experience (who may also be bipoc communities),” one employee told the auditors.
“If you are a large developer, you know the game, the rules, what managers and directors will bend to you to get your project through,” another said, according to the audit notes. “If a developer that knows the system well needs a 15-minute phone call, but a bipoc first time applicant needs a 4-hour meeting, why should the person needing extra help be charged more [for the extra time]?”
“The big developers know and feel comfortable contacting SDCI leadership and asking for their projects to be completed more quickly,” another staffer said. “SDCI leadership will often ask staff to prioritize certain projects over others based on these interactions. …SDCI staff know that those monthly meetings [with the Master Builders Association, or MBA] ‘do not end well for staff,’ because they are often asked to change something based on MBA requests.”
SDCI employees told PubliCola that managers frequently told them to expedite permits based on no specific criteria, bumping larger builders above dozens of other projects. When this happened recently, one employee they told their manager that “’in the interest of equity, we’re supposed to go through our queue [in order], and this person is 98 down in. Why are they getting fast tracked?’ These conversations get killed,” the employee said
Many SDCI employees have second jobs in development, housing, or consulting—a practice that’s allowed under the city’s ethics code, as long as a city worker’s outside employment doesn’t directly conflict with their government job. This includes running a firm that helps private developers sail through the permitting process in other cities—as long as the SDCI employee doesn’t do business in Seattle, the city has allowed this kind of outside employment.
The auditors didn’t attempt to substantiate the issues SDCI’s employees raised related to compliance with the city’s ethics standards, many of which would be hard to prove. “We really wanted to avoid being in a position where we were evaluating whether something was ethical or not, because we’re not experts in the code, and we don’t have authority to do so,” assistant city auditor Melissa Alderson, who co-authored the report,” told PubliCola.
But interviews with current and former department staff, along with the notes from auditors’ interviews with staff, show a widespread concern among staff that many of the department’s longstanding practices are out of touch with modern ethical standards.
For example, many SDCI employees have second jobs in development, housing, or consulting—a practice that’s allowed under the city’s ethics code, as long as a city worker’s outside employment doesn’t directly conflict with their government job. This includes running a firm that helps private developers sail through the permitting process in other cities—as long as the SDCI employee doesn’t do business in Seattle, the city has allowed this kind of outside employment.
“The city’s ethics code says secondary employment is allowed at the city, but [it also says] that when your ability to remain impartial comes into question, like when a reasonable person would question your ability to remain impartial, then that’s when you need to have a conversation with the ethics office, with your supervisor, and figure out what needs to occur, whether that’s disclosure or removing yourself from that situation,” Alderson said.
SDCI employees brought up several examples of managers, including division-level supervisors, who hold this kind of second job. Andy Lunde, the emergency response manager in SDCI’s engineering services division, owns a company called Lunde Code Consulting that teaches classes on the state building code in the Washington Association of Building Officials’ code accreditation program.
“To address potential conflicts of interest, I maintain strict separation between my professional activities and consulting services, and the roles held by my father and brother at SDCI,” Lunde said, a reference to the fact that his father, Al Lunde, and his brother, Larry Lunde, both work in SDCI’s building inspections division.
Al Lunde did not respond to questions, and SDCI’s communications manager, Bryan Stevens, sent a warning to staffers not to talk to reporters shortly after PubliCola started reporting this piece.
Lunde’s boss, engineering services director Andy Higgins, has his own firm—CA Higgins Companies, Inc.—that, according to Higgins’ LinkedIn, helps “local governments effectively enforce, and private entities creatively comply with, the construction codes adopted in Washington State and the surrounding Cascadia Region through Plan Review, Code Consulting, Management Consulting and other Professional Services.” Higgins is also the president of WABO.
Contacted by email, Higgins said his firm “has actually been dormant for many years,” adding that he used to conduct plan review for “a few” cities outside Seattle. “I have also provided technical support for design professionals unsure of how to address a specific building code issue. I have not obtained permits on behalf of anyone in those jurisdictions,” Higgins said.
Several SDCI employees mentioned other close familial relationships among SDCI employees, including at least two married couples who work in the department, which some employees argued could give them an advantage when seeking promotions or reassignments.
Al Lunde has another business that directly intersects with SDCI’s mission: He’s a landlord who owns several buildings across Seattle, including single-family houses, a six-unit apartment building, and an apartment complex in West Seattle that has been the subject of several complaints from tenants. (Members of the Lunde family own other rental properties in and around Seattle, including vacant and formerly vacant buildings that have also elicited complaints from neighbors over junk storage and alleged break-ins).
Dan Strauss, the council member who originally ordered the audit, said the ethical concerns that emerged in the report “were a surprise to me.” Given the lack of ethical requirements specific to SDCI, he said, “there may be employees engaged in behavior… that, to an everyday person, seems unethical, but is not [technically] unethical because there is not a policy in place.”
Over the years for instance, tenants at Lunde’s building in West Seattle have complained about black mold, broken sinks, holes in the ceiling, missing smoke detectors, and other issues, prompting the city to issue multiple citations. Although publicly available inspection records don’t provide details about how most issues at the West Seattle complex or a smaller building in Ballard were resolved, it’s worth noting that SDCI oversees landlord-tenant law, including citations and inspections in response to tenant complaints.
SDCI does not have its own code of ethics, and employees aren’t required to disclose “the appearance of conflict or impaired judgment for non-financial matters,” according to the audit report. Nor does the department have an anonymous channel for employees to register ethical concerns. Instead, the department follows the city’s general ethics code, which requires certain managers and supervisors to file annual financial disclosure statements. According to the auditor’s report, “over half of the managers and one director had not completed the form.”
Documents obtained through a records request show that 44 SDCI employees had filled out the form, a simple, four-item checklist that asks about financial interests inside the city, including real-estate ownership. A review of responses showed that all but 16 of those 44 answered “no” to all four questions indicating that most had done no business with the city in the last year and did not own any real estate inside the city, including a primary residence.
Strauss, the council member who originally ordered the audit, said the ethical concerns that emerged in the report “were a surprise to me.” Given the lack of ethical requirements specific to SDCI, he said, “there may be employees engaged in behavior that I, Dan Strauss, would not engage in because I try to stay 10 feet about the ethical line … behavior that, to an everyday person, seems unethical, but is not [technically] unethical because there is not a policy in place.”
The audit report includes 11 recommendations, including several that touch on the ethical concerns raised by employees and people outside the department. (While most of the recommendations are about making SDCI’s processes clearer, faster, and more transparent, several of the process-related recommendations overlapped with the issues employees brought up as potential ethical concerns.)
Those recommendations included adopting an SDCI-specific code of ethics; addressing racial disparities in permitting and barriers to access for small developers, including those who don’t speak English or require in-person services; providing more transparency into how the department prioritizes projects; and giving applicants more opportunities to talk directly with reviewers instead of interacting exclusively through the department’s official online system.
SDCI director Nathan Torgelson told PubliCola, “SDCI has already reviewed and revised several policies related to the Financial Interest Statement process and are working with the Office of Ethics & Elections on additional staff trainings,” which—according to the audit—have not taken place for several years.
“Also, in the next couple of months we will be moving forward on planned customer service enhancements and feedback tools.” At a recent meeting of the city council’s land use committee, Torgelson said. SDCI has also published its prioritization criteria on its website—something several employees recommended in their conversations with the audit team.
Strauss, who chairs the land use committee, said he was encouraged by the department’s response to the audit, but wanted to see progress on some of its promises. “If a nail salon can’t get a tenant improvement permit, that means we are creating a vacant storefront, that means we are putting someone’s personal capital on the line, that means that commerce is not occurring,” Strauss said. “So it is important for groups across the city to have that access and that there is not preferential treatment.”
Screengrab via Councilmember Alex Pedersen’s official Facebook page.
By Erica C. Barnett
City Councilmember Alex Pedersen, who’s leaving at the end of the year, may get one parting shot at developers after his proposal to advance “impact fees” on new housing (co-sponsored with another departing councilmember, Lisa Herbold) failed last week.
Just before budget deliberations began earlier this fall, Pedersen proposed legislation that would require a state archaeological agency to sign off on the removal of any tree larger than 12 inches in diameter—a class of trees that is already explicitly protected by the city’s new tree ordinance, which added new protections to about 48,000 trees, largely by making it more difficult to remove smaller trees. According to the legislation, the new regulations are necessary, in part, because the a new state law exempts “missing middle” housing, such as fourplexes, from state environmental review.
Pedersen’s proposal would require the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI), the agency responsible for review tree removal applications, to notify the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP) about every request to remove a “Tier 2” or “Tier 3” tree (those 12 inches in diameter or greater) and to “receive confirmation” from the department about “whether the tree is part of an archaeological site”—that is, whether it is a culturally modified tree. Put another way, the city would assume that every tree larger than a foot in diameter is culturally modified until proven otherwise.
“I’m not an attorney, I’m an archaeologist. But I don’t see how a local government can pass a law that binds a state agency.”—Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation director Allyson Brooks
Asked about the potential impact of the proposed new regulations, a spokesman for SDCI said that although the agency “is committed to identifying workable protections to preserve Culturally Modified Trees, we believe this proposal would cause significant delays in permits for new housing… create resourcing issues, and cause delays on permit approvals including Master Use Permits, construction permits, and simple over-the-counter permits.”
Generally speaking, “culturally modified trees” are trees that were altered by indigenous residents in the past to serve a cltural purpose, such as peeling bark for baskets and construction materials, marking important locations, or wayfinding. Earlier this year, a developer agreed to preserve large Western red cedar tree in the Wedgwood neighborhood that the Snoqualmie Tribe said had been culturally modified to “mark a trail system that predated the city, and settlers in the area,” according to KUOW. The developers’ own analysis concluded that the tree was around 85 years old, but supporters claimed it was 200 or older, which would make it an ancient outlier among other Western red cedar trees in Seattle.
The decision to save the tree, which Wedgwood residents named “Luma,” on cultural modification grounds paved the way for Pedersen’s legislation, which would make it more difficult and expensive to remove any medium-to-large tree in Seattle.
It’s unclear, however, if the city has the authority to require a state agency to do anything—especially a small agency like the DAHP, which has just six staff to review around 16,000 federal and state projects every year.
“I don’t know how we would do this and on what timeline,” DAHP director Allyson Brooks said. “We don’t even have any staff in Seattle. It’s not realistic.”
“I’m not an attorney, I’m an archaeologist,” Brooks added. “But I don’t see how a local government can pass a law that binds a state agency.”
Neither Pedersen nor SDCI responded to questions last week, and a spokesman for the City Attorney’s Office said he couldn’t comment on whether the city attorney had offered advice to Pedersen’s office on the legality of his proposal. The Snoqualmie Tribe also did not respond to questions last week.
In its stage-setting “whereas” section, the legislation argues that a state law allowing more density in previously exclusive single-family neighborhoods could threaten the existence of many “previously unidentified culturally modified trees” in Seattle, including trees “of particular importance to the Indigenous peoples who have resided in the Puget Sound area… since time immemorial.”
Similarly, despite Pedersen’s lofty language about cultural preservation, his efforts to “save the trees” have long been inextricable from his opposition to new apartments, and he and other density opponents have relied on many different arguments to push for legislation that makes housing harder to build.
Wedgwood, where the median home price is now well over $1 million, was founded as a whites-only outpost in the 1930s, when a builder dredged and cleared the area for development. Today, according to the to the University of Washington, the neighborhood is still “overwhelmingly White,” and its residents have vociferously opposed changes that would alter its suburban character. In 2018, the neighborhood opposed (and ultimately killed) a bike lane that would remove parking spaces along one side of 35th Ave. NE. Initially, the residents focused on the loss of parking, but eventually pivoted to claim that bike lanes were only for “the privileged.”
Similarly, despite Pedersen’s lofty language about cultural preservation, his efforts to “save the trees” have long been inextricable from his opposition to new apartments, and he and other density opponents have relied on many different arguments to push for legislation that makes housing harder to build.
Brooks, from the DAHP, says the need to identify and protect culturally modified trees and other Indigenous archaeological resources is great, but that if Seattle wants to make it a priority, they should hire a city archaeologist, rather than asking the state to come out every time a property owner wants to cut down a mature tree. Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities, whose work often involves digging, have their own archaeological experts, but they deal with utility projects, not tree removal on private property.
A public hearing to consider an amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan that would allow transportation impact fees on new development was bumped by more than two hours to make room for public comment on a resolution from outgoing councilmember Kshama Sawant demanding “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to U.S. funding for the Israeli military, the safe release of all hostages, the restoration of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.”
After hours of public comment from Sawant’s supporters that included chants of “from the river to the sea,” the resolution failed for lack of a second, prompting a chorus of denunciations from the crowd and a brief recess to clear council chambers.
By the time the council returned about 10 minutes later, it was past 4 pm and tensions were high. Lisa Herbold, who sponsored the comprehensive plan proposal along with Alex Pedersen, teed up a presentation on the amendment by accusing her council colleagues of misrepresenting her legislation and confusing the public by raising questions about the fees themselves.
“I’m really frustrated that … when I ask questions, I’m being treated as if it is unreasonable. These questions are coming from community.”—Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda
Transportation impact fees are based on the number of units in a building, based on the premise the denser the development, the more of a negative “impact” it has on the city’s infrastructure, like roads and bridges—a assumption that conflicts the urbanist view that density is greener and more efficient than sprawl. The legislation Herbold and Pedersen are sponsoring would allow the council to adopt impact fees in the future, “identify deficiencies in the transportation system associated with new development,” and adopt a list of projects that could be funded through such fees.
“I can’t tell you how many emails we’ve received commenting on whether or not people want a transportation impact fee or oppose a transportation impact fee,” Herbold said. “There is no transportation impact the proposal before the council today. People have pointed to the questions about the potential transportation impact fee program as a reason to not support this amendment. … These are not questions for today.”
Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Teresa Mosqueda disputed this characterization, noting that while amending the comprehensive plan to allow impact fees might technically be “procedural,” the only reason to pass such an amendment is to move impact fees forward—a longtime goal for both Herbold and Pedersen, who are leaving at the end of the year and won’t get another chance.
Ordinarily, amendments to the comprehensive plan—the document that guides all planning and land-use decisions in the city—go through the land use committee, which Strauss chairs, but the council voted last month to bypass the normal committee process and push the amendment through before the end of the year—all very much over Strauss’ objections. “This is a big piece of legislation,” he said last month, on par with the tree protection ordinance and changes to the city’s maritime industrial zoning. “I believe it is important that we have the time to understand the policy.
“It really upsets me to hear people say that this impacts the cost of affordable housing. We have not set a fee. … And I just really think that we’re doing a big disservice to the public by continuing to suggest that we’re making those decisions today.”—Councilmember Lisa Herbold
“I’m really frustrated that … when I ask questions, I’m being treated as if it is unreasonable,” said Mosqueda, who submitted 20 questions about the proposal back in September and said she is still waiting on responses to most of them. “These questions are coming from community. These questions are coming from people who are very interested in [ensuring] that there’s no impediment to building housing. These questions and concerns are essential for us to address and should have been addressed in a committee setting, not in the middle of budget” season, a time when the council ordinarily does not consider major legislation.
“It really upsets me to hear people say that this impacts the cost of affordable housing,” Herbold retorted. “We have not set a fee. … And I just really think that we’re doing a big disservice to the public by continuing to suggest that we’re making those decisions today.”
According to a presentation by council staff in September, the fees could add millions of dollars to the cost to build new housing and “generate between $200 million – $760 million over 10 years.” The housing developers and attorneys who stuck around to testify against the legislation (their comments limited to one minute each because it was so late in the day) said impact fees could make some of their recent projects prohibitively expensive.
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“I feel like I’m in an alternate reality when I hear a council member saying that this is not a policy change, when the comprehensive plan is actually the city’s main policy-setting document,” said McCullough Hill attorney Jessica Clawson. “Make no mistake—you’re setting policy, and again, I have never seen the council rush to make such an important policy decision—ever.”
The council will take up the proposal again next week, and is expected to vote on the amendment on November 21. It will then be up to the next city council—including a group of newcomers that does not include a single outspoken proponent for density or renters—to take action on impact fees, and to decide how much to penalize developers for building new apartments in a city with an acute housing shortage.
“How did you folks pull this off?” I asked the woman working the cash register.
