Category: Transit

City Council, Elections, homelessness, King County, Mayor Harrell, Transit

Ceis Gets Another $30,000 from City, Poll Tests Anti-Andrew Lewis Messages, Burien Site May be Too Loud for Shelter

1. Tim Ceis, the consultant who received a no-bid, $280,000 city contract to work on issues related to Sound Transit’s Ballard-to-West Seattle light rail alignment earlier this year, received a $30,000 contract extension this month, bringing his total city contract to $310,000.

Ceis’ contract involves meeting with neighborhood advocacy groups and other stakeholders to build “community consensus” around the mayor’s priorities for the light rail extension, strategizing, and advancing Harrell’s views to the Sound Transit board.

PubliCola broke the story about Ceis’ initial contract in March.

At the time, Harrell was pushing a proposal to eliminate a station in the Chinatown International District (CID) neighborhood and replace it with a second Pioneer Square Station across from City Hall, roughly where the King County Administration Building currently stands. King County Executive Dow Constantine has proposed creating a towering new residential neighborhood and new civic center in the area. Sound Transit board adopted this proposal as its preferred alternative in March, but left one potential CID option on the table in response to protests from residents and businesses.

The plan to skip over the CID would add a new light rail station near Lumen Field and an existing Salvation Army shelter, amid a broad swath of land owned by developer Greg Smith. As far back as 2022, Smith’s company Urban Visions had mocked up a proposal to move the planned CID station south into SoDo, suggesting the area could turn into a new destination like Chelsea Market in New York or the food and event center in the revamped Seattle Center Armory.

Documents obtained through records requests show that Ceis, along with the city’s designated liaison to Sound Transit, has met with Smith “to discuss potential partnerships related to the proposed CID south station” on Smith’s property. He has also met with attorney Jack McCullough, who represents the developer that owns the development rights around the proposed second Pioneer Street station.

The newly amended contract says that “due to delayed Sound Transit board action,” Ceis’ work will continue through November. The board spent several weeks this summer debating whether to eliminate a promised station on Denny Way or build it on Westlake as planned; Harrell, who initially seemed to support eliminating the long-planned station on Denny, ultimately got behind a station north of the original proposed site on Westlake that will cause less disruption to Amazon and the South Lake Union developer Vulcan.

Public records show that Ceis communicates regularly with Vulcan, and facilitated a meeting between Harrell and Vulcan VP Ada Healey, who told Ceis that the original plan for a station on Westlake would “put [the city’s] economic engines at risk and “sacrific[e] our downtown neighborhoods.” A spokesman for the mayor’s office said the scope for Ceis’ $250-an-hour contract remains unchanged.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

2. There’s a new poll in the field testing positive and negative messages about District 7 City Councilmember Andrew Lewis, along with positive messages about his opponent Bob Kettle—a former Navy officer who received 31.5 percent of the vote to Lewis’ 43.5 percent.

The poll, which only tests positive messages about Kettle, appears to be from the Kettle campaign. For one thing, it mischaracterizes several of Lewis’ key positions in odd ways—saying, for example, that Lewis is “working…to bring rent control to Seattle” (in fact, he voted against a rent control “trigger” law earlier this month). For another, it describes Lewis’ views in a way that no human working on his campaign would be likely to phrase them—like a question that says Lewis “believes we can make progress… if we center the work and meet the moment with the urgency it requires,” or another that talks about “electrify[ing] houses.”

The real meat of the poll—the messages voters should prepare to hear from Kettle as he runs against Lewis from the right—is more or less what you’d expect from a guy with campaign signs all over the top of Magnolia and Queen Anne: Kettle will represent District 7 neighborhoods outside downtown Seattle, crack down on “open drug use and dealing from Downtown to our neighborhoods,” and “clean up our public spaces” by removing encampments now that “we’ve finally built-up enough shelter space to offer housing to everyone.”

Quick fact check on that last point: There are currently around 6,000 shelter and transitional housing beds in all of King County—a fraction of what’s needed to serve a homeless population that could be as high as 48,000. Even under the most conservative estimates, we have not “built up enough shelter space,” much less housing, “for everyone.”

3. A potential site for a Pallet shelter in Burien could be disqualified because of extreme noise levels from nearby SeaTac Airport. The property—an empty lot next to the Boulevard Park branch of the King County Library—sits inside a “35 decibel reduction zone,” in which all “living and working areas” must be soundproofed to reduce inside noise by 35 decibels.

Pallet shelters, which are thin-walled temporary structures ventilated to the outdoors, can’t be soundproofed—a fact the Port of Seattle brought up in rejecting a proposal from the city to site the shelter inside the Port’s Northeast Redevelopment Area (NERA). In both locations, the average noise level is between 60 and 70 decibels, a level SeaTac Airport’s director of environment and sustainability said was “not conducive to residential purposes, especially when it is highly unlikely that any temporary housing structures (let alone permanent structures) could be modified to attain the City of Burien’s stringent noise mitigation code.”

A spokesperson for the city of Burien did not immediately respond to questions about noise levels at the potential shelter location and how the site, which has been vacant for many years, first came to the attention of the city.

Elections, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Transit

Campaign Will Pay for Bagel Giveaway After All; Harrell Backs Light Rail Station that Will Inconvenience Amazon

1. After PubliCola reported on a mailer and billboards from Eltana Bagels that appeared to promote the District 1 City Council campaign of Eltana founder and president Stephen Brown, his treasurer contacted us to let us know that the campaign will reimburse Eltana approximately $33,000 for the promotion, along with a billboard in West Seattle and a June 2023 Youtube video that concludes, “Stephen Brown fixed the bagel problem in Seattle—who knows what’s next?”

The mailers, which went out shortly before ballots arrive for the August 1 primary, read, “Seattle Deserves Better… – Stephen Brown” and open to reveal the word “…Bagels!” along with an offer for free bagels valued at $25. About half the mailers went out to addresses in West Seattle, which does not have an Eltana location. (Brown says Eltana targeted people who live near grocery stores that sell the bagels).

Last week, Brown characterized the billboard and mailers—on which “Eltana” appears off to the side in much smaller font than Brown’s name—as a routine advertising expense. “The intention was to use a banal, stereotypical message as a parody—to use humor to sell bagels,” Brown told PubliCola. Similarly”This effort is not a campaign expense—it is not electoral in nature.”

Brown’s campaign decided to pay for the billboard and mailer after Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission director Wayne Barnett sent Brown a letter posing a series of questions about the promotion, including when the mailers went out and where they went, what vendors Eltana used for the ads, and how often Eltana has sent out similar mailers. Barnett also asked whether previous Eltana promotions have prominently featured Brown’s name, and requested examples of other advertising materials from Eltana over the last two years.

“As you know, all money spent to promote your candidacy must be timely reported, and is limited by your choice to participate in the Democracy Voucher Program,” Barnett wrote. “Therefore, we must resolve this issue before the Voucher Program can release any more funds to your campaign.”

The reimbursement has not showed up yet in campaign filings.

2. Transit advocates were dismayed when Mayor Bruce Harrell wrote a letter to his fellow Sound Transit board members in May suggesting the agency study alternatives that could move a future light rail station north or west of Sound Transit’s preferred alternative. The goal of considering both of these alternatives was to prevent a four-year closure of Westlake Ave. that would impact Amazon, Vulcan, and other large employers in the area. One of those alternatives, the “shifted west” option, would have eliminated the Denny station altogether.

Last week, at a meeting of the board’s system expansion committee, Harrell said he now plans to support the preferred alternative and focus on ways to mitigate the impacts of construction in the neighborhood. “I’m waiting for the ridership analysis [to see] how it affects all of this, but I [am]  leaning towards support for the DT-1 preferred alternative that will preserve the two stations in South Lake Union with a strong emphasis—again, I can’t repeat this enough—on mitigating construction impacts,” Harrell said.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

During public comment, a number of representatives from South Lake Union businesses testified that closing Westlake to cars for the four-year construction period would be like signing a death warrant for the (booming) neighborhood. Dan McGrady, a longtime lobbyist for the developer Vulcan who now lobbies on behalf of PEMCO Insurance, said light rail station construction on Westlake would cause “devastation” similar to the COVID pandemic, creating a “lasting scar on the community” that “I just don’t think the community can survive.”

Sound Transit is hosting two webinars about the South Lake Union station alternatives before the full board meets again on July 27, where they will have an opportunity to pick a different preferred alternative or keep the preferred alternative on Westlake just off Denny Way.

Density, Development, Environment, housing, legislature, Transit

New State Housing Laws Could Mean Big Changes for Seattle
Under the new law, the area within a quarter mile of frequent transit, like light rail, can have up to six units per residential lot. Photo by Brett V, via Wikimedia Commons

By Ryan Packer

House Bill 1110, which allows new multifamily housing near transit stops, will impact residential neighborhoods in cities of all sizes across Washington state.

But some of the biggest changes will be in Seattle. The legislation, which passed last week, ties density to public transit infrastructure, allowing significantly more density—up to six units per lot—in areas near frequent transit stops.

The bill requires larger cities, including Seattle, to allow four residential units on every lot, and to allow six units on lots within a quarter-mile walking distance of bus rapid transit, light rail, and streetcar stops.

That means that in significant segments of Queen Anne, Madrona, Wallingford, and Mount Baker, where property owners are currently limited to building two accessory dwelling units—like a basement apartment and a backyard cottage—courtyard apartments, six-unit apartment buildings, and townhouses will now be legal.

Seattle’s lobbyists quietly worked to support bills like HB 1110 throughout the session, while trying to make sure they wouldn’t interfere with the city’s own density laws, such as Mandatory Housing Affordability; MHA requires developers to provide affordable housing or contribute to an affordable housing fee when building in the cities’ designated “urban villages.”

“It’s still Seattle and there’s still a process that we still have to go through, but I do think by having these frameworks in place now, it’s going to be able to help accelerate some of the development that we need, and have needed for a long time.”—Sen. Joe Nguyen (D-34)

“I think it’s going to have a huge impact on Seattle,” Senator Joe Nguyen (D-34), whose district includes Pioneer Square, West Seattle, and Burien, said.

“Obviously, I don’t think it will be perfect, because it’s still Seattle and there’s still a process that we still have to go through, but I do think by having these frameworks in place now, it’s going to be able to help accelerate some of the development that we need, and have needed for a long time,” he said.

The legislature also made some significant changes to how the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) affects individual housing projects. Currently, as part of the official SEPA review process, anyone can appeal a proposed housing project over its potential impacts, such as loss of views, increased noise, or traffic. These delays can add months or years to project timelines, even if they’re ultimately dismissed. A group called Save Madison Valley, for example, appealed a proposed mixed housing and retail development featuring a PCC in both 2018 and 2020, delaying the project.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Senate Bill 5412, sponsored by Senator Jesse Salomon (D-32, Shoreline), will limit those appeals. Under the adopted bill, if a proposed housing project complies with a city’s existing comprehensive plan, it will be categorically exempt from SEPA review, eliminating the lengthy appeal process that’s now common for developments that are controversial for reasons that have nothing to do with local environmental law.

The final version of the bill includes a provision that allows projects in Seattle to take advantage of it before other cities in Washington.

“A lot of the costs that are associated with delay and with litigation get passed on in the high cost of housing,” Councilmember Andrew Lewis, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, said. “Ultimately as consumers we pay for all the lawyers that interject into these processes along the way.”

“We can legalize increased density, but it’s not going to come very quickly if you keep in place a lot of the tactics and methods that people use to slow it down or to whittle the ambition of the projects down,” he said.

“The debate [now] really is about how we can be thinking about new nodes of development, or new corridors where denser development will happen. How are we thinking about integrating things like corner stores, or other basic or essential services, into those neighborhoods?”—Futurewise Executive Director Alex Brennan

Lewis says intense environmental review of dense housing in the middle of cities is counterproductive and notes that dense housing provides an environmental benefit in its own right. “In the aggregate, it has a colossal environmental benefit. If we are unable to build a significant amount of new housing units in the City of Seattle, in an efficient amount of time, we’re just going to have compounding challenges relating to climate.”

A spokesman for the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections said it was too early to say how the new batch of housing legislation would impact SDCI’s work.

The collective impact of changes to statewide zoning will impact Seattle’s comprehensive plan update, due in 2024, as city planners grapple with how to accommodate at least 112,000 new units of housing—Seattle’s share of King County’s growth target—over the next two decades. The zoning provisions in HB 1110 automatically take effect six months after that update to the comprehensive plan.

Alex Brennan, the director of Futurewise, a statewide smart growth advocacy group, says allowing four housing units per lot increases Seattle’s options for future growth. “We don’t have to fight for that baseline anymore,” he said. “So, the debate really is about how we can be thinking about new nodes of development, or new corridors where denser development will happen. How are we thinking about integrating things like corner stores, or other basic or essential services, into those neighborhoods?”

Affordability, housing, legislature, Transit

House Democrats Cede Ground on Density, Scaling Back Transit-Oriented Development Bill

By Ryan Packer

In the final weeks of the legislative session, the future of one of the year’s most substantial housing bills is in doubt.

The legislation, SB 5466, would have allowed dense development near public transit, but Democrats in the state house significantly changed the scope of this transit-oriented development bill last week—a surprise move, given the resounding 40-8 State Senate vote in favor of the bill just a few weeks earlier.

The original bill, sponsored by Marko Liias (D-41, Edmonds), would have loosened density restrictions within a three-quarter-mile walking distance around light rail, Sounder, and bus rapid transit stops, and also around bus stops with service running at least every 20 minutes for most of the day. The bill would have also allowed residential and commercial five-story buildings within the entire three-quarter-mile area, while also allowing buildings eight to nine stories tall within a quarter mile. Developers would not have to build parking within any of those footprints.

“I think this is the smartest way for Washington to address our housing challenges,” Senator Mark Mullet (D-5, Issaquah) said before the senate passed a version of the bill, which scaled back the density allowance for local bus service to a half-mile walking distance. But several state representatives said the process essentially started over in their chamber.

“The scope of the bill was really large, and we also heard from a lot of our constituents, from a lot of our colleagues, that when we included not only light rail but bus rapid transit, and frequent bus stops, that the scope of redevelopment was a little unnerving for many.”—Rep. Strom Peterson (D-21, Edmonds)

Following complaints from local elected officials that the bill applied too broadly, the slimmed-down version moving through the house would only apply to an area within a half-mile of light rail and Sounder stations, and to a quarter-mile around bus rapid transit stops. Meanwhile, frequent local bus service would no longer trigger density bonuses. The bill still bans mandatory parking minimums in the areas where it would still apply, though cities will be able to petition the state for an exemption to require additional parking.

“The scope of the bill was really large, and we also heard from a lot of our constituents, from a lot of our colleagues, that when we included not only light rail but bus rapid transit, and frequent bus stops, that the scope of redevelopment was a little unnerving for many,” Rep. Strom Peterson (D-21, Edmonds), chair of the house housing committee, told PubliCola. “So we wanted to scale that back, to come up with something that might be more of an iterative process.”

Supporters of the original bill saw its broad scope as the best way to encourage both housing development and public transit investment.

“Based upon how you’re developing [housing] around frequent service, a lot of time those [bus stops] turn into BRT stations,” said Bryce Yadon, a lobbyist with Transportation Choices Coalition and Futurewise, which have been advocating for the senate version of the bill. “We want the best transit service across the region and the state … and to do that, you make fast, reliable, frequent service, and then you make sure that there is developable land around that service.”

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

The most significant change house Democrats made in the housing committee, though, was adding an extra requirement called “inclusionary zoning” for developers hoping to use the additional zoning capacity. Under his requirement, developers would have to set aside at least 20 percent of new units for households earning less than 60 percent of the area median income, which works out to $62,160 for a family of two in King County.

In addition, house Democrats reduced the maximum density, in most cases, to just three or four stories.

“We really wanted to put a bigger lens of affordability onto the bill,” Peterson said. “This was not only true for the Democrats on the housing committee, but also a lot of stakeholders that got involved: cities, the [Washington] Low Income Housing Alliance, and others.” But many housing developers, including those who build affordable units, argue that the new affordability provision is prohibitively high, and will have a chilling effect on the construction of new units.

“The bill that came over from the Senate was a very strong bipartisan bill. This legislation really rolls back generations of policy efforts to create inclusive communities. It will separate the haves from the have-nots.”—Rep. Peter Abbarno (R-20, Centralia)

Developers argue that requiring too many affordable units in otherwise market-rate buildings often means that a project that would make financial sense can no longer be built at all, leading to underdevelopment. “When we do things like say, ‘We’re only going to build new housing if it’s affordable’, we are making the problem worse because that housing has to be subsidized, and therefore cannot be built,” Ben Maritz, founder of Great Expectations, which specializes in constructing buildings with smaller-than-average units that can be rented for below market-rate rents, told PubliCola.

Maritz pointed to the Cornus House, a 199-unit building that Great Expectations is building near the Tacoma Dome Sounder station. If 20 percent of the units had to be affordable to people making 60 percent of the area median income, he said, the company would need to charge more than $2,300 for a 400-square-foot apartment, something that isn’t feasible in today’s market. On top of that, the new density provisions in SB 5466 wouldn’t allow 199 units on the lot, which would lead to even higher market-rate rents. “When we restrict housing, we make housing more expensive, which just makes the problem harder and harder. It’s an unworkable approach to solving our housing problem,” Maritz said.

The house Democrats’ rewrite has sapped Republican support, in a year when most housing bills are passing with bipartisan backing. “The bill that came over from the Senate was … a very strong bipartisan bill,” Rep. Peter Abbarno (R-20, Centralia) said just before every Republican on the house capital budget committee voted “no” on the bill. Abbarno argued that relying on public investment to build affordable units close to transit would create income-segregated areas. “This legislation really rolls back generations of policy efforts to create inclusive communities. It will separate the haves from the have-nots,” he said.

Seattle lawmakers, including Rep. Emily Alvarado (D-34) and Julia Reed (D-36) have taken center stage in the negotiations around SB 5466 in recent weeks. Alvarado previously served as the director of the Seattle Office of Housing as the city was implementing its Mandatory Housing Affordability program, which offers developers slightly more zoning capacity in exchange for building on-site affordable units or paying a fee to subsidize them elsewhere, and has been an outspoken advocate for the affordability mandates in the bill. 

“This is, in its essence, about creating more affordable homes for those with the lowest incomes alongside homes for people with higher incomes,” Alvarado said before voting “yes” in committee. “It is, in and of itself, about fostering inclusion, and opportunity, and diversity—particularly in the communities like [those] across my district where we invest in our transit.”

The session’s other main housing bill, HB 1110, sponsored by Rep. Jessica Bateman (D-22, Olympia), is also seeing some heavy tweaks as it moves toward a final vote. As originally introduced, it would have required cities to require at least four units on most residential lots in the state’s urban areas, regardless of the population of an individual city. Most recently, an amendment by Sen. Mullet scaled the bill back so that it only requires cities with fewer than 75,000 people to allow duplexes on most residential lots—ceding a lot of ground to complaints from local leaders in cities like Mercer Island who had pushed back on the bill, arguing that their low-density areas couldn’t support more development.

Housing advocates saw both bills as necessary to address the state’s shortage of housing. But with 1110 retaining support on both sides of the aisle, and Democrats deciding to go it alone on transit-oriented development, it looks increasingly likely that only one will make it through this year.

ryan@publicola.com

Mayor Harrell, Transit

City Paid Consultant Tim Ceis $280,000 to “Encourage Agreement” and Build “Community Consensus” for Harrell’s Light Rail Route
Four potential light rail routes through the CID; the Sound Transit board adopted the third route from left, which Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell sponsored, as its preferred alternative last week.

By Erica C. Barnett

The city of Seattle spent $280,000 over the past year paying longtime local consultant Tim Ceis—a former deputy mayor widely known as “the Shark” for his combative, “Machiavellian” style—to lobby Sound Transit on a West Seattle-to-Ballard light rail extension, PubliCola has learned. The no-bid, sole-source contract falls just under the maximum amount, $285,000, that city agencies can legally pay consultants before they have to solicit public bids.

According to Ceis’ contract, his work included building “community consensus” on behalf of the city’s preferred light rail alternative—a controversial last-minute option that eliminates long-planned stations serving the Chinatown-International District and First Hill in favor of a second station in Pioneer Square and a new station a few blocks from the existing Stadium Station. Mayoral spokesman Jamie Housen said the contract amounts to around 20 hours of work a week, although it’s unclear how many hours Ceis has actually worked on the mayor’s behalf.

Harrell sponsored the new alternative with the support of King County Executive Dow Constantine, at a meeting where the Sound Transit board adopted Harrell’s proposal as its preferred alternative last week.

According to a redacted copy of Ceis’ amended contract, his work for the city involved “developing and representing the Mayor’s position” on the light-rail route, “developing positive board-level relationships that support Seattle’s goals for [the West Seattle-Ballard Light Rail Extension] and enable effective decision-making at the ST Board” and “encourag[ing] agreement around recommendations and modifications considered by the ST Board.” Formally, the contract is between the Seattle Department of Transportation, which answers to the mayor, and Ceis’ firm, Ceis Bayne East.

Update March 29: At PubliCola’s request, the city’s website has been updated to include Ceis’ original contract, which was not publicly available until today. The contract includes heavy redactions, including a blacked-out page titled “Consultant costs and estimated hours,” as seen above. State public disclosure law requires disclosure of public documents except in specifically, clearly defined cases; I’ve asked which exemption they believe Ceis’ contract terms fall under.

Update April 3: After PubliCola asked for a legal justification for redacting Ceis’ costs and estimated hours, the Seattle Department of Transportation provided unredacted copies of the original contract and the amended version. Both show that Ceis claimed 20 hours of work per week at $250 an hour—a rate that’s significantly lower than what consultants at Ceis’ level (both as a partner in his own firm and with his decades of experience) generally charge. Ceis’ contract does not require a specific accounting of hours.

Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine have repeatedly suggested that “the CID community” was united in support of a light rail alternative that bypasses their neighborhood, but the illusion of that consensus was decisively broken when thousands of people signed a petition supporting a station in Chinatown, and dozens showed up to hold signs and testify against a route that skips their neighborhood, last week.

Under the contract, Ceis was responsible for getting “key constituencies” to support the mayor’s preferred route and station locations and helping them craft their “comments and positions” in favor of this route.

Supporters of the “north-south” alternative have argued that “the CID community” was united in support of a light rail alternative that bypasses their neighborhood, but the illusion of that consensus was decisively broken when thousands of people signed a petition supporting a station in Chinatown, and dozens showed up to hold signs and testify against a route that skips their neighborhood, last week.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Ceis and his firm are being paid significantly more per year than Anne Fennessy, a consultant hired by then-mayor Jenny Durkan to serve as the city’s dedicated representative to Sound Transit in 2018. Fennessy’s $180,000-a-year contract raised eyebrows both for its size and the fact that Fennessy was a personal friend of Durkan’s. Fennessy’s work consisted largely of representing the city in meetings with Sound Transit staff and coordinating technical input, according to her contract.

Ceis’ firm, which helped draft the Compassion Seattle initiative, received $25,000 for its work on Compassion Seattle, the failed initiative on homelessness that Harrell adopted as a pillar of his homelessness policy. Ceis maxed out to Harrell’s mayoral campaign in 2021 and worked behind the scenes on an independent expenditure committee supporting Harrell.

Ceis directed our questions about his contract to Harrell’s office. Housen said Ceis “filled a gap” when the city was transitioning between dedicated representatives to Sound Transit, “providing expertise, analysis, and historical context over the last year.”

Equity, King County, Mayor Harrell, Transit

Sound Transit Board Adopts Major Last-Minute Changes to 2016 Light Rail Plan, Skipping Chinatown and First Hill

By Erica C. Barnett

After five hours of public testimony and a lengthy, often contentious debate, the Sound Transit board voted Thursday to adopt as its “preferred option” for the light rail extension through downtown Seattle a last-minute, back-of-the-napkin alternative that eliminates two long-planned stations serving the Chinatown-International District (CID) and First Hill neighborhoods in favor of new stations at Pioneer Square and just north of the current Stadium Station. The plan represents a stark departure from the Sound Transit 3 package voters approved in 2016, which included both the CID and “Midtown” stations.

The board also voted to keep a Fourth Avenue “shallower” station option on the table for further study.

King County Executive Dow Constantine, who promoted the new “north-south” option in his recent State of the County speech, said keeping Fourth on the table would give people “false hope” about the possibility of a future station in Chinatown, while arguing, along with Harrell, that skipping the CID entirely was what “the community” wanted.

But the meeting, which I covered in real time on Twitter, starkly illustrated what should have been obvious to Sound Transit board members all along: Far from being a monolith united in opposition to a station in Chinatown, the CID community is starkly divided, with a large contingent favoring a station that actually serves the neighborhood, even if it means ten years or more of construction on Fourth Avenue.

Advocates for both alternatives sorted themselves, over the course of the meeting, into two sign-waving groups on either side of the meeting room—black T-shirts and white signs against the CID station on the left, and a larger group of red T-shirts and signs supporting the station on the right. Each group clapped and hollered when someone testified in favor of their position—a clear sign, if the board needed one, that the prevailing narrative about a single “community” opposed to the CID station had always been reductive and condescending.

This wasn’t what County Executive Dow Constantine and Mayor Bruce Harrell had in mind when they introduced the new  “north-south” alternative just two months ago. Both men have argued that skipping over the CID is the best way to avoid harming a vulnerable community. Constantine has also portrayed a second Pioneer Square station as an opportunity to develop a whole “new neighborhood” where the King County Administration Building and downtown jail currently stand, part of what he’s calling his “Civic Campus Initiative.”

“Quite candidly, [the new option] came organically from the community. There are no backroom deals being made. We’ve been trying to be transparent. We’re trying to work openly and thinking out loud as things evolve.” —Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell

Harrell, who attended the meeting virtually from out of town, has argued that moving the station out of Chinatown is the only option that prevents Sound Transit from repeating the region’s legacy of disinvestment, redlining, and harmful development in the neighborhood, which was divided by I-5 in the 1960s.

“A construction period for 10 to 12 years could cause irreparable harm,” Harrell said. “And this is a treasure; this is a gem.” Suggesting repeatedly that Fourth Avenue supporters were looking at the issue from a  “pure transit plane,” Harrell said equity was more important than what makes sense for transit riders who may just be passing through the neighborhood.

“Quite candidly, [the new option] came organically from the community,” Harrell said. As someone on the pro-CID station side of the room yelled, “Not true!” Harrell continued, “There are no backroom deals being made. We’ve been trying to be transparent. We’re trying to work openly and thinking out loud as things evolve.”

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Many community members who testified—including the leaders of the Seattle CID Preservation and Development Authority (SCIPDA) and Uwajimaya—argued that the majority of people in the CID actually support keeping the station in the neighborhood, as long as Sound Transit provides mitigation for construction impacts. “Simply put, this is the best choice for the future of our community,” said Jared Johnson, the co-executive director of SCIPDA. “To have a world-class transit hub at the doorstep of the CID means a future full of opportunity and connectivity for our residents and businesses.”

King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, who cast the lone “no” vote on the new north-south option, said, “Construction impacts are temporary. The benefits of transit in a community are permanent.”

Not only will eliminating the CID station kill all future hope of a single Seattle transit hub where people can transfer between Sounder, Amtrak, light rail, and buses, it will cut off access to the neighborhood from Southeast Seattle, another community that has been neglected and poorly served by major infrastructure projects, like Sound Transit’s current at-grade light rail line. Under the preferred alternative, future riders between the south end and the CID will have to transfer between two stations at SoDo or go to Pioneer Square, transfer, and head back in the direction they came from.

Additionally, riders from the CID who want to access the new lines will have to either walk north to a new station near City Hall, at Fifth and James, or travel north several blocks from a station at the current site of a Salvation Army shelter in a forbidding, industrial part of south downtown crisscrossed by multi-lane arterial roads and bordered on the south by the elevated I-90 on-ramps, as the Urbanist has documented.

“It’s powerful to look out over the hearing room and see seniors, people of color, calling on us to support the Fourth Avenue option. Construction impacts are temporary. The benefits of transit in a community are permanent.”—King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove

As public commenters with limited mobility noted Thursday, walking long distances, especially up steep hills like the one on James St., isn’t an option for everybody; in practice, the new “north” and “south” stations will be inaccessible to them and many other people, particularly elders, living in the area.

Although Constantine said continuing to study the Fourth Avenue option would create “false hope” for those who support it, both he and Harrell joined a strong board majority in voting for an amendment by King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci and Washington State Department of Transportation director Roger Millar to continue studying that alternative.

Balducci was less successful, however, with another amendment (also co-sponsored by Millar) that would re-connect the “spine” of the system—which will be split into segments when expansion lines to Ballard and West Seattle open —preserving the existing connection between South Seattle and the CID and keeping a one-seat ride from Lynnwood to Tacoma.

Constantine, in a back-and-forth with Sound Transit planning director Don Billen, argued that the board rejected a similar plan in 2015 for reasons that still apply today. “We have to stop going back and reconsidering everything we’ve ever decided,” he concluded.

Balducci, exasperated, responded that the only reason she proposed her alternative in the first place was because Constantine just put two brand-new, never-before-considered stations on the table. “The reason I bring this up now is not just because I want to re-litigate things we thought about eight years ago, but because there’s a significant new proposal on the table that changes the way the system works,” Balducci said.

The cost and feasibility of the new stations and the tunnel that would connect them is unknown, as is the cost of mitigation the agency may have to provide for eliminating the Midtown Station, which would have served First Hill. If the north-south option goes forward, it will be the second time Sound Transit has cut First Hill out of its plans; when the agency eliminated the original First Hill station in 2005, it ended up having to pay for a new First Hill streetcar.

Although Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez said eliminating a station in First Hill would not raise the same equity concerns as building a light rail station in the CID, the Transportation Choices Coalition has noted that thousands of the 15,500 riders who would commute to that station are hospital workers who commute from outside the city, including Pierce and South King County.

Several Sound Transit board members raised concerns not merely about the details of the new station proposal, but about the implications of moving forward so decisively on station options that have barely been studied, have no engineering behind them, and whose true costs are still unknown. Although current cost estimates put the Fourth Avenue “shallower” option as much as $800 million more expensive than the “baseline” alternative, that baseline—a hub at Fifth Avenue that would have provided the most direct access to existing transit lines—was rejected long ago because of equity concerns, and should probably be retired as a point of comparison. In addition, much of the additional cost would come from replacing a City of Seattle-owned viaduct near Union Station—a disruptive project that will need to be completed eventually, whether the light rail station happens or not.

A small contingent of advocates showed up yesterday to make the case for station options at the other end of the downtown segment in South Lake Union, where the board is considering two alternative sites along Denny Way—a preferred alternative at Westlake Avenue, and a second option at Terry Ave. N. Harrell proposed keeping the Terry option on the table because of construction impacts at Westlake.

Mayor Harrell, neighborhoods, Transit, Transportation

Light Rail Board Members Seek Middle Ground as Plan to Skip Chinatown, Midtown Stations Moves Forward
Dow Constantine and Bruce Harrell have proposed a “North-South” light rail plan that would eliminate planned Chinatown-International District and Midtown stations. A compromise proposal, sponsored by Claudia Balducci and Roger Millar, would restore the “spine” of the system and keep some connections to the CID.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Wednesday, in advance of a Sound Transit board meeting that could reshape a long-planned light rail expansion linking downtown Seattle to Ballard and West Seattle, King County Councilmember and Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci proposed an alternative route that preserves the existing “spine” of the system while eliminating a planned station in the Chinatown International District (CID). Voters approved the expansion, called “ST3,” in 2016.

The last-minute proposal is a direct response to, and amendment of, another last-minute proposal backed by King County Executive Dow Constantine and Mayor Bruce Harrell, who is sponsoring the motion. That “north-south” plan, which has no cost estimates, engineering, or design, would take a new light rail station on Fourth Avenue in Chinatown off the table, eliminate a planned “Midtown” station that would have served First Hill, and add a new “south of CID” station a few blocks north of the existing Stadium station south of downtown.

The big advantage to his plan, according to Constantine, is that in addition to eliminating the disruptive and harmful impacts of construction in Chinatown, it would set the stage for a whole new “neighborhood” centered around the site of the current King County Administration Building.

Compared to the “north-south” proposal, Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducc said, “this option would mean less out of direction travel and better connections for South and East riders [and] retain a one seat ride from South Seattle, South King and Pierce to the CID.”

Balducci’s proposal, co-sponsored by Washington State Department of Transportation director Roger Millar, would re-connect the “spine” of the system—which, under all previous plans, would be split into segments when expansion lines to Ballard and West Seattle open in the 2030s—keeping a one-seat ride from Lynnwood to Tacoma and, importantly, preserving the existing connection between South Seattle and the CID, which Constantine’s plan would eliminate. Essentially, it would create a true Ballard-to-West Seattle line (which no previous plans would do) while preserving connections to Chinatown from the east and south.

Compared to the “north-south” proposal, Balducci said, “this option would mean less out of direction travel and better connections for South and East riders [and] retain a one seat ride from South Seattle, South King and Pierce to the CID.”

Either of the two north-south options would eliminate the “Midtown” station, which would come the closest of any station to the dense First Hill neighborhood—echoing a similar decision in 2005, when the Sound Transit board voted to scrap a long-planned station in the neighborhood, a decision that eventually produced the First Hill streetcar.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

“If Midtown Station goes away, then they need to understand that what they’ve done is eliminate the highest ridership station in all of ST3 and that is going to require that they mitigate the hell out of it,” said Transportation Choices Coalition Alex Hudson, who noted that many of the people who work in First Hill hospitals live south of Seattle and could have used the new light rail line to commute to their jobs. “That’s 15,500 people who were counting on excellent [rail] service and have been paying for it and won’t get it—that’s not small change. That’s a real harm.”

Mitigating for the loss of the Midtown station, which could come in the form of expanded bus or other transit service in the area, will add costs to the project—eating into any savings from eliminating the station, Hudson said.

TCC wants the Sound Transit board to keep an existing option, the Fourth Avenue “shallower” option, on the table; as long as they’re considering an unstudied plan, she said, the board should keep a more thoroughly vetted option on the table. Balducci has introduced a second amendment that would keep that option on the table, and said that since the new Constantine-Harrell plan will require a supplemental environmental impact statement, “we should use that time to also study and improve the 4th option as much as possible. Then we’ll have the ability to make the most informed choice,” Balducci said.

“Before we walk away from the option to have a great transit hub on 4th that could both serve the CID and connect our light rail lines most effectively to each other, Sounder, Amtrak and other modes, I’m asking that the agency look harder at ways to address community concerns,” Balducci added.

It’s unclear whether Balducci and Millar’s proposals will gain traction, or if the Constantine-Harrell plan has so much momentum that it will steamroll efforts to keep other options on the table. The board meets tomorrow at 1:30 pm.

Equity, Guest Contributor, Transit

From the Other Side of I-5: Little Saigon Weighs In On Sound Transit’s Light Rail Expansion In the CID

Sound Transit's shallow Fourth Avenue Station option, one of several alternatives the agency is considering for light-rail expansionBy Friends of Little Sài Gòn

Sound Transit has the power to shape equitable development in neighborhoods south of Seattle’s downtown for generations. The political discourse over where to site a station essential for light rail expansion and potentially other non-car modes of transportation has become another existential battleground, falsely pitting our community’s fears of displacement, gentrification, and desire for transit equity in a city of hyper wealth inequality against the simultaneous and very urgent need for connected, reliable, efficient transportation options as a means to climate resilience. 

Based on the limited information we have about the newly proposed North and/or South of Chinatown/International District options introduced less than three months ago, we urge Sound Transit to select the 4th Avenue Station option with upfront mitigation commitments informed by small businesses, residents, and community members throughout the construction phase. In our review, the North/South options have similar risks of displacement and disruption as the 4th Ave. alternative, with few of the potential improvements, such as expanded accessibility, ease of use, and residential and commercial reinvestment.  

We believe the 4th Ave alternative(s) will deliver the greatest long-term benefit to our communities, including our families and neighbors who come from the south end or west side via transit. And it will shift our transit system toward more accessibility and one that takes our climate crisis seriously. 

To hold public officials accountable, we must commit to ongoing multi-year organizing, together, in order to advocate for legislation that will codify mitigation commitments to increase cultural place-keeping and affordable housing in the CID. This includes securing necessary budget allocations that resource efforts like the Little Saigon Landmark Project, which will include affordable housing, including family-sized units, and micro retail spaces. 

We believe the 4th Ave alternative(s) will deliver the greatest long-term benefit to our communities, including our families and neighbors who come from the south end or west side via transit. And it will shift our transit system toward more accessibility and one that takes our climate crisis seriously. 

The ongoing attention to racial justice in climate justice is coincidentally a reminder about the legacy of the decision to  build I-5 freeway. The consequences of this are still felt today, in a cordoned-off Little Saigon bisected from the rest of the CID.

Regardless of the alignment Sound Transit chooses, without proactive mitigation commitments for the CID, we foresee further destabilization and displacement, isolation, and loss of culture and identity that has already occurred in this historic neighborhood for multiple generations. We must organize together to ensure this does not happen. Before Little Saigon was home to the Vietnamese community, it was considered “Indian country” and it was also home to Black Seattleites. We reject the idea that we must choose between a connected neighborhood that will bring new developments at the risk of displacing those who currently call the CID home—or a splintered neighborhood resistant to change. It is not either-or. Nor are our communities a monolith. 

When Friends of Little Sài Gòn (FLS) was established in 2011, our mission was centered in preserving  and enhancing Little Saigon’s cultural, economic, and historic vitality. We envision Seattle’s Little Saigon as the hub of our Vietnamese American community, where families and businesses are thriving. Twelve years later, that mission has not changed. When the pandemic struck and Little Saigon was hit especially hard by public health measures and anti-Asian bias, many businesses shut their doors, not knowing if or when they would re-open. We worked with small businesses to connect them to resources or translate information essential to staying safe while staying open. 

Taking away an option that Sound Transit arrived at that is endorsed by thousands of community members and many anchoring nonprofit and business groups in the eleventh hour will erode trust and goodwill, and be a tremendous waste of taxpayer resources.

Friends of Little Sài Gòn is comprised of small business owners, artists and culture workers, educators, and advocates, most of us first-generation Americans with the shared commonality that we all love this neighborhood and what it means to us and our city. Many of us have worked here day-in and day-out, some of us for decades, and watched the neighborhood change—while others sought work in Seattle specifically because of its concentration of Asian Americans and their ethnic enclaves. 

And in service to this community, we remember the half-measures taken by the local government. The First Hill Streetcar—a project that was supposed to connect the CID to downtown and SLU—was scrapped after years of construction and disruption to the neighborhood, leaving a disconnected line with limited range. Just as connection and infrastructure have failed to materialize, so, too, have the benefits that it was supposed to bring. As our neighborhood is still recovering from three years of pandemic impacts, and decades of uncoordinated transportation planning without us, we are seeing higher residential rental and commercial vacancy rates when culturally relevant small businesses are essential in keeping our neighborhood vibrant, accessible, and safe.

We stand by the recent productive discourse between Sound Transit, elected officials, and the community members toward finding the most beneficial ways to implement a 4th Avenue option that will meaningfully connect the CID to other neighborhoods, to connect our elders, aunties, uncles, and cousins who live elsewhere but still consider the neighborhood ‘home’ and rely on transit to get here.

Taking away an option that Sound Transit arrived at that is endorsed by thousands of community members and many anchoring nonprofit and business groups in the eleventh hour will erode trust and goodwill, and be a tremendous waste of taxpayer resources. We urge Sound Transit, King County, and the City of Seattle to make the right decision in this once-in-a-century opportunity. 

Tam Dinh—Board President; Josh Brevoort; Hong Chhuor; Vy Nguyen; Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar; Huy Pham; Steve Scheele; Leeching Tran

Friends of Little Sài Gòn, Board of Directors 

Crime, Transit, Transportation

“Security Levels Are Going to Increase” on Sound Transit Trains, as Agency Struggles to Win Back Riders

By Erica C. Barnett

Hours after Sound Transit’s Technical Advisory Group read the light rail agency the riot act for, among other things, fostering a culture that “appears to discourage decision-making” (read Mike Lindblom’s comprehensive story on the TAG’s critique and recommendations), Sound Transit’s Rider Experience and Operations Committee got an update last week on the agency’s renewed efforts to crack down on people who violate transit rules, including riders who fail to pay their fares.

As longtime PubliCola readers know, Sound Transit has long struggled to balance its fare enforcement policy (which was recently amended to give riders additional warnings and more opportunities to resolve fare violations before receiving a $124 ticket) with its farebox recovery policy, which stipulates that fare revenues should pay for 40 percent of the cost to operate Link Light Rail. (Sound Transit’s other services, such as Sounder express rail and Sound Transit Express buses, have lower farebox recovery targets). The agency has only achieved that 40 percent goal—which is significantly higher than King County Metro’s 25 percent farebox recovery target—in one year, 2017; between 2019 and 2020, the rate plunged from 26 percent to 8 percent, and hit 16 percent—a post-lockdown high—last year.

Security officers “have already started conducting targeted enforcement activities of removing people from trains and stations throughout the system,” Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm said, adding that the agency has also begun moving ORCA fare card readers away from station platforms, “especially in our tunnels.”

According to a presentation by Sound Transit staff, the agency’s “fare ambassadors”—neon-vested Sound Transit staff who replaced uniformed fare enforcement officers in 2020—found that 15 percent of the riders they interacted with had not paid their fare. This number is far less than casual estimates by former agency CEO Peter Rogoff, who once lamented that he witnessed “almost no one” paying their fares after a Mariners game, but still twice as high as pre-pandemic nonpayment levels. Sound Transit’s Deputy Director of Passenger Success Sean Dennerlein said at Thursday’s meeting that the agency is still struggling to hire fare ambassadors—currently, there are 17, up from a low of four but still a third less than the number funded—and “we do lose them fairly quickly,” Dennerlein said.

New Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm said the agency has initiated a new crackdown on violations of the state law governing transit conduct, which prohibits a wide range of behaviors on transit and at transit stops, from smoking to playing music and “loud behavior.” In January, the board approved four new contracts for private security services totaling up to $250 million over six years; these new contracts, Timm said, would help address “the ongoing challenge of too few available officers on our system.”

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Starting this month, Timm continued, “security levels are going to increase.” Security officers “have already started conducting targeted enforcement activities of removing people from trains and stations throughout the system,” Timm said, adding that Sound Transit has also begun moving ORCA fare card readers away from station platforms, “especially in our tunnels,” so that fare ambassadors can check fares before people board trains and so security can “discourage or report unlawful conduct to discourage incidents on trains.”

The new emphasis on security guards represents an apparent reversal of efforts both pre- and mid-pandemic to address concerns about racially biased fare and rule enforcement by reducing the presence of security guards on trains.

Sound Transit’s current fare policy “triggers consideration of a fare increase” if farebox recovery falls below the minimum levels adopted by the board. Currently, Sound Transit’s zone-based adult fares are all over the map, ranging from $2.00 for the isolated Tacoma light rail “T” line to as much as $5.75 for Sounder commuter rail. If nothing changes, according to Thursday’s staff presentation, fares would range from $2.25 up to $4.25 once all the projects from the 2008 Sound Transit 2 ballot measure, which will extend light rail to Redmond and Federal Way, are open.

One option is a flat fare that would apply across the system; this option would eliminate the requirement to “tap off” after getting off a train and would make it feasible, according to Sound Transit staff, to cap fares after a rider has spent a certain amount—something many transit systems across the country, from Portland to New York City, already allow.

Density, housing, land use, legislature, Transit

Seeking Compromise, Lawmakers May Preserve Local Parking Mandates in This Year’s Pro-Housing Bills
Photo of empty parking garage
Mandatory parking often sits empty, especially in dense neighborhoods near transit stops. Photo credit: Enoch Leung from Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Ryan Packer

Democrats in Olympia are making good on their pledge to remove local regulatory barriers to housing by proposing bills that would require cities and towns to permit diverse types of new housing. Many of these bills are being passed over the objections of local elected officials, who are wary of changes in state law that take away their authority to maintain status-quo land use policies.

But while lawmakers seem willing to go against the recommendations of some cities when it comes to density limits, they seem more hesitant about getting rid of local parking requirements. Parking requirements add costs to new housing—garages aren’t cheap to build—and are often unnecessary as cities become denser and easier to navigate without a car. Cities across Washington currently require a certain number of parking spaces for each new housing unit they permit, though Seattle has removed that requirement for buildings close to transit lines.

Many of the bills proposed this session remove or reduce minimum parking requirements in order to reduce construction costs. But those provisions are now proving to be a sticking point for both parties.

Rep. Julia Reed (D-36, Seattle) is leading the charge to eliminate parking minimums, particularly in areas that are close to transit. “A lot of these parking minimum laws that are in place from cities and counties, they were created a while ago and they’re not really revisited that often,” Reed said. “It’s not tied to how people really move around that neighborhood, it’s tied to an assumption that parking is needed.” Reed cited the high cost of parking spaces in new buildings: $50,000 or more per spot.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Reed’s House Bill 1351 would prohibit cities from requiring parking in new buildings within a half-mile of frequent transit lines, and within a quarter-mile of half-hourly bus service. But by the time that bill passed the house local government committee this week, the restriction only applied to areas within a quarter-mile of any level of transit service. And even that major change wasn’t enough to get any Republicans in the committee to vote for it, in a year when Democrats are counting on some Republican votes to get their housing votes across the finish line.

The state senate is where that support might matter the most. When the bill’s senate counterpart received a hearing earlier this month, it was a Democrat, Sen Claudia Kauffman (D-47, Kent), who expressed concerns with how this would impact downtown Kent, where street parking is generally free. “If you start reducing [required parking] because of the transit center, it’s going to reduce people’s ability to have their car. … For me, this doesn’t work within the transit system that we have,” Kauffman said. “In my area this just wouldn’t work.”

Many of this year’s senate housing bills would also reduce or remove parking minimums. Senator Marko Liias’ (D-21, Edmonds) Senate Bill 5466 would require cities to allow substantially denser developments around transit stations, and would ban parking minimums within three-quarters of a mile of any major transit stop.

“It doesn’t make sense, when we’re saying [that] in a transit zone, the way we want people to move is by transit, to also require and guarantee that you can get to those destinations by car,” Liias said at the bill’s first public hearing. “Overlaying the two creates really incompatible and inefficient land uses. … When we require parking minimums, that’s when we get empty parking lots right next to light rail stations.”

Under the new version of the bills allowing more apartments near transit, a potential fourplex just outside a transit corridor would have to include  four parking spaces, which might push a homeowner or developer to consider a different type of building altogether—like a single-family home.

Housing advocates are in broad agreement that it’s essential to eliminate parking minimums as part of this year’s housing bills. “If the bill doesn’t do that, local parking mandates will force developers to build more parking than communities need, and that excess parking will undermine the state’s goals to create transit-oriented communities that give residents good alternatives to cars,” Dan Bertolet of the Sightline Institute, the Seattle-based think tank, testified at a committee hearing on SB 5466 this week. A 2021 paper by a researcher at Santa Clara University showed that when Seattle reduced required parking near transit in 2012, developers built 40 percent fewer parking spaces, translating to around 18,000 fewer stalls and over half a billion dollars in reduced housing costs.

Though it’s still early, efforts to weaken parking restrictions are already becoming a trend. This week, the house and senate housing committees approved both House Bill 1110 and its counterpart Senate Bill 5190, which require cities inside the Seattle and Spokane metro areas to allow fourplexes on all residential lots, and sixplexes close to transit. But both chambers did so only after approving a new version that allows cities to require at least one parking spot for each housing unit for areas away from transit, when the previous version only allowed them to require one spot per lot. That means a potential fourplex just outside a transit corridor would have to include four parking spaces, which might push a homeowner or developer to consider a different type of building altogether—like a single-family home.

Even as that bill passed its senate committee with his vote, one of its Republican sponsors, Sen. John Braun (R-20, Centralia), said he isn’t ready to vote “yes” when it gets to the Senate floor, suggesting there’s more bartering ahead on the Senate. A majority of Republicans in both chambers oppose the bills in the name of maintaining local control—as opposed to supporting them based on developers’ private property rights, a traditional conservative position.

With the proposals to eliminate parking minimums getting the most vocal pushback from local leaders, and many lawmakers apparently listening to those concerns, these urbanist provisions might be the first casualties as deadlines approach and leaders in both chambers look to create compromises to reach a deal.

ryan@publicola.com