Text and phone messages obtained through a public records request suggest that Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon actively involved himself in city contract negotiations to ensure that The More We Love, a group that conducts private encampment sweeps, received a contract to resolve encampments for the city. The group, run by Kirkland real-estate broker Kristine Moreland, became a subcontractor to the local business advocacy group Discover Burien after Moreland was apparently unable to secure the level of insurance the city requires for contractors.
Bailon has repeatedly distanced himself from the city’s actions on behalf of The More We Love, going so far as to note, in a memo to the Burien City Council in November, that the “City is not involved in the process to recruit or select a subcontractor.”
Even as he was claiming to be disconnected from the selection process, Bailon was in almost daily conversation with Moreland about the contract, exchanging at least 32 text messages with Moreland and talking to her on the phone at least eight times—for a total of nearly an hour—during the three-week period of October immediately before he signed the contract. At the end of the month, when it looked like the contract would collapse because Moreland’s group couldn’t get insurance, Bailon and city staff scrambled to switch the contract over to Discover Burien, with The More We Love as a subcontractor, sending a flurry of messages between the early morning and evening of November 1 to ensure that a new contract was drafted, executed, and signed that day.
“I am stuck on this to move forward with the contract. I just want to help the humans and move on,” The More We Love’s Kristine Moreland wrote. “I was unaware that Debra was taking 4K from her side. She didn’t disclose that to me when we said we were ready to sign. I am happy to meet her in the middle or see if you guys can bridge her need to get paid.”
The text messages between Moreland and Bailon consist mostly of back-and-forth discussion about the details of her contract, including when Moreland’s group will get paid. In one mid-October exchange, Moreland asked if she could invoice for future work immediately and get paid in 30 days, which she said would help her “float the insurance cost.”
After “checking with Finance,” Bailon responded: “We could accept an invoice right away, but couldn’t actually commence the process for payment. That is the initial response from Finance. We’re checking for more detail.” One minute later, Bailon added, “The bigger problem is that we have a process that pays for work performed instead of in-advance. Depending on the contract, [i]nvoices typically include a report of the work performed during the pay period.” This policy—perform the work, then get paid—is standard for human-services contracts in the city of Seattle, and ensures that contractors don’t take money and then fail to perform the work they were hired to do.
After Discover Burien told Moreland they would serve as lead contractor for The More We Love’s encampment work, there was apparently another wrinkle: Debra George, Discover Burien’s director, wanted $4,000 to administer the contract, and Moreland objected.
“I am stuck on this to move forward with the contract. I just want to help the humans and move on,” Moreland wrote. “I was unaware that Debra was taking 4K from her side. She didn’t disclose that to me when we said we were ready to sign. I am happy to meet her in the middle or see if you guys can bridge her need to get paid. Can we work together and move on so we can get to work. I appreciate you.” Later, Bailon told Moreland he had “‘I increased the amount to $48 k, per our discussion” (in fact, the contract was for $49,000); the city manager can sign a contract of up to $49,000 without a public process.
In November, the King County District Court issued a judgment against Moreland in favor of Bank of America, which sued her for allegedly failing to pay $33,000 in credit-card debt.
As we’ve reported, Moreland was sanctioned in 2020 for violating consumer mortgage lending laws, and was allowed to keep her license in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in fines that she has since failed to pay. Additionally, she has faced criminal and civil charges related to an alleged DUI and unpaid bills; in November, the King County District Court issued a judgment against Moreland in favor of Bank of America, which sued her for allegedly failing to pay $33,000 in credit-card debt.. She also distributed private personal and medical information about various homeless people in Burien to city council members, the Burien police chief, and the owner of a real-estate company.
The flurry of activity (and sole-source contract) on Moreland’s behalf is in marked contrast to Bailon’s response to another potential contractor that wanted to work with the city to shelter Burien’s homeless population, the Low Income Housing Institute. LIHI submitted a proposal for a tiny-house village that Bailon dismissed as unrealistic, telling Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon that LIHI was “skating on thin ice” with the city because they emailed an “unsolicited” proposal to city officials. “I am unsure as to why LIHI has commenced a full-court press on this issue of a village (tiny home, pallet) in Burien, but their efforts have included attending nearly all Council meetings over the past two months,” he commented in an email to a city of Seattle staffer.
Burien banned sleeping in public during nighttime and early-morning hours; the ban went into effect November 1.
A new report from the City Auditor’s office on the decline in registered rental properties in Seattle concludes that while the city’s rental market is shifting away from smaller properties, like single-family houses, toward bigger apartment buildings, the change is part of a nationwide trend, and does not relate directly to the tenant protections landlords frequently cite as a reason they have sold or are planning to sell their smaller rental properties.
Overall, the audit found, the number of individual properties registered under the city’s Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance declined from its 2019 peak of 33,619 to 26,519 in 2022 (a 21 percent drop), but the number of registered housing units has increased over that same period, from 151,181 to 161,384 (a 3 percent growth rate.) Between 2016 and 2022, the number of properties has declined by 6 percent while the number of units has increased by 13 percent.
In short, there are more (though not enough) units available for renters, but fewer of those (about 34 percent, according to the audit) are in smaller buildings, as large apartment buildings replace older buildings that landlords are tearing down, selling, or moving into themselves. Units in newer, larger buildings tend to cost more than those in older buildings, which could conflict with the city’s affordable housing goals, according to the audit.
Between 2016 and 2022, the city issued 768 demolition permits for RRIO-registered properties, the vast majority (92 percent) of them smaller buildings, primarily single-family houses, making way for denser development. Seattle is currently operating at a significant housing deficit, so increasing the overall supply of housing may do more to lower housing costs than preserving older buildings, like single-family houses.
The audit makes it clear that landlord-friendly policies would not reverse the trend away from smaller, older rental buildings, particularly single-family rental homes, which is happening across the country, regardless of local tenant protections.
Outgoing city councilmembers Kshama Sawant and Alex Pedersen requested the audit to help understand why fewer landlords were registering their properties under RRIO, a 2014 law aimed at ensuring landlords were complying with Seattle housing laws. Pedersen, along with Councilmember Sara Nelson, frequently lamented that tenant protections—including notification requirements for rent increases and a newer law requiring landlords to rent to the first qualified applicant—were forcing “mom and pop” landlords to take their properties off the market.
The audit makes it clear that landlord-friendly policies would not reverse the trend away from smaller, older rental buildings, particularly single-family rental homes, which is happening across the country, regardless of local tenant protections or housing costs. According to the audit, the changes in Seattle are “in line with a national shift towards larger multi-family rental buildings and the conversion of single-family rentals to owner occupancy.”
Additionally, a recent study, which we covered earlier this month, found that “both the areas surrounding Seattle, which were not subject to the new tenant protection ordinances, and Seattle experienced similar trends in the percentage of ‘small’ rental properties sold both before and after the introductions of these ordinances,” the audit says.
That same report also noted that nationwide studies on tenant protections show that “landlords’ reactions to tenant protections were not consistent or predictable. Instead, they were influenced by ‘broader’ factors within the market and policy environment.” Landlords frequently claim they are going to sell their properties and get out of the Seattle market because of excessive tenant protections, in other words, but generally don’t follow through on these threats.
This isn’t to say that some small landlords aren’t selling their properties; they are (often to new landlords who continue to operate the buildings as rental housing.) But the primary reason small landlords sell appears to be profit, not oppressive tenant protections. In Seattle, landlords sold off around 6,000 one-to-five-unit properties between 2016 and 2022; of those, the vast majority (69 percent) were single-family houses, whose prices spiked 20 percent between 2019 and 2021, the year with the largest number of rental housing sales.
This is squarely in line with national trends. Citing data from the American Housing Survey, the report notes that 16 percent of single-family rental houses, equivalent to two million units, “became owner-occupied properties” between 2017 and 2019, meaning their owners either moved into these units or sold them to people who used them as primary residences. “Nationally, a surge in homeownership demand, coupled with the limited availability of homes for sale, has resulted in a significant increase in the conversion of existing single-family rentals into owner-occupied properties,” the audit notes.
In a survey crafted in collaboration with two landlord groups, the Rental Housing Association of Washington and Seattle Grassroots Landlords, the auditor’s office found that a majority of landlords who sold their units or failed to register them with the city for some other reason claimed the city’s tenant protections and other regulations were too confusing or onerous
That doesn’t mean landlords have stopped citing tenant protections as a reason they’re getting out of the market; it just means that it’s important to look at landlords’ actions rather than simply taking them at their word.
In a survey crafted in collaboration with two advocacy groups representing small and midsize landlords, the Rental Housing Association of Washington and Seattle Grassroots Landlords, the auditor’s office found that a majority of landlords who sold their units or failed to register them with the city for some other reason claimed the city’s tenant protections and other regulations were too confusing or onerous, with 74 percent claiming the city’s rental regulations are “hard to implement or follow.” (Of those surveyed, a plurality—44 percent—were still renting out their units, while 41 percent no longer were.) Just 22 percent said it “made financial sense” for them to sell–a claim that flies in the face of national trends and local real estate sales patterns.
The survey skewed heavily toward landlords who own smaller buildings, with just 16 percent saying they owned buildings with 21 units or more, and three in ten saying they rented a single unit. These smaller buildings accounted for a hugely disproportionate number of tenant complaints about issues like illegal eviction notices, excessive rent hikes, and unsafe housing conditions; 59 percent of all tenant complaints came from people living in single-unit buildings (houses), while just 0.4 percent came from people living in buildings with 100 units or more.
Among the regulations these landlords said they “found most difficult to understand or follow” were the six-year-old “first-in-time” law, which requires landlords to rent to the first qualified person who applies for a unit, and the 43-year-old “just cause eviction” law, which lays out the legal justifications for a landlord to evict a renter. (The survey required all landlords to select three of nine possible options, including seven tenant protections, regardless of whether they said they found rental rules, in general, hard to follow, which could produce results more in line with the political goals of landlord groups than, for example, an open-ended question.)
Landlords also said the city doesn’t provide enough resources to help them comply with various laws, with 26 percent saying the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections doesn’t provide clear information about how to comply with regulations.
The duplex (and former Airbnb) at the heart of the dispute, located next to an industrial building just off Rainier Ave. S. Image via Google Maps, July 2021
By Katie Wilson
The Seattle Times recently published an opinion piece by Jason Roth, whose story of a “nightmare tenant” has been making the rounds of talk radio and TV news, reaching national and even international audiences. It’s a harrowing tale.
The Times’ author bio calls Roth “a working mechanic and pilot school student who owns a home in South Seattle and currently lives in his van.” How did this hard-working homeowner become homeless? Roth had the misfortune of renting his home to a deadbeat tenant. Not only did the tenant fail to pay rent, he had the audacity to illegally list space on Airbnb! Roth finally resorted to eviction, but he found the court process convoluted and biased in the tenant’s favor. His legal fees piled up and he had to give up the apartment he was renting and sleep in his van. He was so desperate he even started asking for help through a GoFundMe page.
Renter advocates often point to the homelessness crisis as a reason to strengthen tenant protections. Roth’s story suggests a different picture, one of progressive overreach: The scales have tilted so far toward renters’ rights, now it’s the landlords who can’t keep a roof overhead! This is the kind of story that could cause lawmakers to think twice before approving funds for tenant legal counsel or passing laws to prevent unjust evictions.
I wouldn’t expect Jason Rantz and Brandi Kruse—two local conservative talking heads who helped amplify Roth’s version of events—to let the truth spoil a politically useful story. But The Seattle Times really should have done some fact-checking. A little digging reveals a different picture.
While news stories mention Roth making mortgage payments on the Beacon Hill rental house, there’s no evidence of a mortgage or deed of trust in the land records. Instead, it appears to be owned outright by an LLC of which Roth’s father, Cary Roth, is the only listed governor and executor. The same LLC (under a previous name) owned a West Seattle beachfront home worth over $2 million, which was transferred to Roth’s parents in 2022.
In an interview, Roth seemed surprised that he was not listed as the “sole member” of the LLC. “I do make payments on the house but it’s a private loan,” Roth said, then declined to elaborate. “I don’t want to discuss my personal finances.”
Near the end of Hunter’s first yearlong lease, he and Roth discussed a new arrangement, in which Hunter would rent the whole property for $4,300 a month and run the Airbnb himself. In March 2023, they signed a new lease (which is included in court records) that explicitly allowed this: “Tenant shall be permitted to engage a commercial short- and/or mid-term rental website listing service (e.g., “VRBO,” “Airbnb, Inc.,”) and any other brokerage or marketplace for short- or mid-term rentals, whether online or not) to sublet the Basement Residence.”
There’s also an industrial property directly adjacent to the rental house, worth $1.3 million, named “Jarbo Collection” in the King County property records. Jarbo is a chain of boutiques co-owned by Roth’s mother and sister; Roth’s LinkedIn page, which he said is outdated, lists him as production manager at the company. He said he now works as an apprentice to an aircraft mechanic.
So, although the Times piece has Roth “working and saving money to purchase a house from the time [he] was in high school,” this isn’t exactly a rags-to-homeownership tale. But whoever legally owns the property, Jason Roth was apparently given free rein with it. How did he get saddled with a “nightmare tenant”?
News coverage, including the Times piece, implies that Kareem Hunter moved into Roth’s house in early 2023 and never paid a lick of rent beyond a $1,000 deposit, and maybe never even intended to pay. In reality, Hunter had been living there, and paying rent, for a full year before his dispute with Roth began.
The property in question is a duplex, and Hunter first rented the upper unit in March 2022 through a company called Loftium, which furnished the lower unit as an Airbnb; he received modest rental discounts for functioning as on-site host and cleaning the unit between guests. Hunter said the experience was awful. It wasn’t an auspicious location, in a commercial area off Rainier Ave and near a homeless encampment; Loftium kept the unit full by dropping the price.
“There were some issues with safety. I had my daughter staying with me at the time,” said Hunter. “We had no control over it. People would get mad and come upstairs. I had a guy come up with a gun one time. I couldn’t get anyone on the phone with Loftium. It was random people in other countries.”
In May 2022, Hunter applied for a short-term rental license from the City of Seattle to operate the unit himself, after “the property was left in extremely miserable condition” by a guest. He said Roth encouraged him to do this because they were having so many problems with Loftium; plus, if they cut out the company, Roth would make more money. Hunter said Roth told him to leave Roth’s name off the application. Loftium had “put the license under Jason’s name, which would potentially have tax repercussions” since the license-holder should be the one receiving the income and paying taxes on it. “That was one of the problems Jason had with Loftium,” Hunter said.
Roth disputes this account. “I never encouraged him to do anything,” he said. Roth maintains that he never had problems with Loftium and has never been directly involved with the short-term rental; he simply rented the whole property to Loftium and the company was responsible for taking care of all licensing and insurance requirements.
In fact, it’s likely that this whole arrangement was illegal. According to Seattle’s short-term rental rules, “renters may not obtain STR operator licenses except if they live in the Downtown Urban Core and their units have been operating as short-term rentals since before Sept. 30, 2017.” As the owner, Roth could not legally foist his licensing and insurance responsibilities onto a tenant, whether a corporation or an individual.
In any case, Hunter never ended up operating the Airbnb himself that year. Instead, he said that Loftium would promise to make changes to address the problems Hunter was having as on-site host, then fail to deliver—a situation he said persisted throughout 2022.
Loftium was also going through larger convulsions. Both Hunter and Roth said they thought the company went out of business; it was actually acquired in February 2023 by another Seattle-based startup, Flyhomes. Flyhomes intended to adopt a “host-to-own” program Loftium had recently started, and appears to have ditched the renter-managed Airbnb model altogether.
Near the end of Hunter’s first yearlong lease, he and Roth discussed a new arrangement, in which Hunter would rent the whole property for $4,300 a month and run the Airbnb himself. In March 2023, they signed a new lease (which is included in court records) that explicitly allowed this: “Tenant shall be permitted to engage a commercial short- and/or mid-term rental website listing service (e.g., “VRBO,” “Airbnb, Inc.,”) and any other brokerage or marketplace for short- or mid-term rentals, whether online or not) to sublet the Basement Residence.”
The Seattle Times and other news and opinion outlets ignored all that background when they decried what Roth called, in his Seattle Times op/ed, “the tenant’s illegal vacation rental operation.”
The story is more complicated in other ways, as well. Hunter was unable to pay his March rent on time. Around the same time, Roth refused to give Loftium its deposit back. (Hunter said Roth falsely claimed the unit needed repairs, which was fine with him since he hated Loftium too; Roth said the company’s moving van caused structural damage.) But Loftium then took the deposit amount, approximately a month’s rent, out of Hunter’s bank account, so Roth agreed to waive that first month’s rent. This waiver, and its relation to a previous deposit, is reflected in a payment plan they ultimately signed, which is part of the court record.
According to Hunter, he then approached Roth with a proposal. He was trying to get a tech startup off the ground and needed money for marketing and advertising. He said Roth agreed to defer three months’ rent payments for that purpose, with a repayment plan that included a two percent equity stake in Hunter’s company. Roth denies that he agreed to this: “I couldn’t afford to do that,” he said. (They were at least serious enough about the equity stake that they went back and forth editing a Common Stock Purchase Agreement, according to documents that Hunter shared with me.)
Headlines about a nightmare tenant and a homeless landlord get more attention than stories about a somewhat rudderless guy from a privileged background making a hash of managing his father’s property. Hunter said The Seattle Times didn’t even contact him before running Roth’s self-serving version of the story.
Hunter said he moved forward with his business plan on the assumption that they had an understanding. But in mid-April, Roth surprised him with a dramatically different proposal. It allowed only a single month of deferred rent, to be paid back in installments starting in May on top of the monthly $4,300, but it still assigned to Roth a two percent equity stake in Hunter’s company, along with several additional forms of security that would severely penalize Hunter for any late payments. Hunter objected to the lopsided terms, but finally consented to the altered plan on the condition that the equity stake be removed. (Hunter sent me this payment plan document and email correspondence that backs up this account.) But, he said, the damage to their relationship was done and Roth was angry.
Hunter said he didn’t make the May payment on time, in part because March and April are slow months for Airbnb. Nine days after the due date, Roth started eviction proceedings. He also took steps to shut down the short-term rental.
According to Hunter, he didn’t want an eviction on his record, so he asked Roth if he could leave and pay Roth what he already owed, plus whatever Roth wanted for breaking the lease—one or two months’ rent, he assumed. But Roth demanded full payment for the remaining nine months of the lease. Roth denies that he ever demanded full payment, or that Hunter made this offer.
The eviction process has unfolded from there. Roth’s lawyers and Hunter went back and forth about settlement terms over the summer, but couldn’t agree; Roth finally filed in court in August, and an initial hearing took place in October, at which point Hunter was assigned an attorney. The court date is currently set for March 2024, and the parties are still discussing resolution.
In his piece in The Seattle Times, Roth made second-hand claims about the eviction process and the challenges it creates for landlords: “I’m told that King County Superior Court commissioners regularly have changed the formats for which eviction notices and payment plans are served. Hearing commissioners are now throwing out cases that, although appropriately filed before the changes took effect, do not meet the subsequent new rulings. The goal posts keep moving, and filing a proper case can be impossible even for the most seasoned attorney.”
“That’s just not what’s happening,” countered Edmund Witter, director of the King County Bar Association’s Housing Justice Project, which is representing Hunter. “Landlords are losing because they’re not following the law.”
How about Roth’s new identity as a homeless landlord? In a conversation with Brandi Kruse, he admitted that he’s not exactly destitute. “I mean, could I go find another apartment, like a dirt cheap bedroom somewhere? Probably,” he said. But he doesn’t want to “go into debt, or start struggling in other ways,” so he will “sacrifice his comfort right now to get this done.”
Life in what appears to be a custom GMC camper van is, I’m guessing, still much more comfortable than what the 13,000 to 41,000 King County residents living in vehicles, tents, shelters, and doorways experience on a daily basis.
But the landlord sleeping in a van and barely scraping by is an arresting image, and Roth isn’t shy about playing up his purported poverty. Business Insider reported that Roth “said all he could do now was ‘struggle and wait’ and eat the ‘value meats that are in the on-sale section at Kroger.’” And KIRO7 filmed him standing in front of the house he said he owns: “I do come here often just to look at my house, and miss it …and wish I could be in it.” The press has lapped up Roth’s sensational story as eagerly as he tells it.
Hunter has had less luck. Of the news stories, he said: “They’re infuriating but they’re comical if you have the facts… I tried to give the facts to KIRO, I tried to give the facts to Daily Mail, I tried to give the facts to Business Insider. I would send them actual proof of everything, and none of that mattered. They just wanted that [online] engagement.”
Headlines about a nightmare tenant and a homeless landlord get more attention than stories about a somewhat rudderless guy from a privileged background making a hash of managing his father’s property. Hunter said The Seattle Times didn’t even contact him before running Roth’s self-serving version of the story.
The media circus had real repercussions. TV reporters have hounded Hunter at court hearings. His name and location were broadcast, and he said he received hundreds of death threats, threats of bodily harm, and threats of vandalism and arson. “The place was vandalized on one occasion, and the place was burglarized on another occasion,” he said. “Not to mention the severe hit that my tech company has taken because of the negative press.”
No one comes out of this story looking blameless or deserving a gold star for good judgment. But even without the pieces for which we have only Hunter’s word, the documented reality is a far cry from the media’s tableau of tenant as leech and landlord as hapless victim. Our widely-read daily newspaper should not be amplifying such distortions of the truth.
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.
Mayor Bruce Harrell hosted an unusual—possibly unprecedented—press conference at City Hall on Friday morning to “welcome” five new City Councilmembers to the city, including four whose campaigns he supported and a fifth, Bob Kettle, whose views largely align with Harrell’s but whom the mayor did not endorse. (Andrew Lewis, the incumbent, ultimately supported legislation backed by Harrell to criminalize drug use in Seattle, but Lewis’ early opposition became a key issue in the campaign.)
He was “very proud,” Harrell said, to “see how [the five] led with integrity, commitment, passion” during the campaign.
“Too often, I think, people want to put politicians in a binary box of progressive or moderate, when in reality, this group is less concerned about the hardline ideologies and more committed to just simply getting stuff done,” Harrell said. “And that’s why I think this is so exciting.”
Harrell, a longtime former council member himself, has spoken often of his “collaborative” approach to dealing with the city council; at a going-away event for three of the departing councilmembers last week, he ticked off a list of council bills he had signed and noted that even socialist Kshama Sawant voted to support all but 22 of the bills he sent down over the last two years. (Harrell, who showed up at the end of the event, shushed outgoing councilmember Lisa Herbold as she chatted away in the back of the room during his speech).
As much as the mayor and council may collaborate on legislation, though, they are two independent branches of government that are supposed to exist in natural tension—which makes the new councilmembers’ decision to line up behind the mayor in his office and thank him for his campaign support, as several did on Friday, all the weirder. For the mayor to hold a photo op with the council majority he just helped sweep into office communicates, in the starkest visual terms, that he sees them as allies, not (potential) adversaries. By participating in the photo op, the new council members sent a message, intentionally or not, that they agree with this interpretation.
The new council is meeting now to discuss who will be in charge of which committee, in preparation for official assignments by incoming council president Sara Nelson first thing next year. (Although the council is subject to the state Open Public Meetings Act, which prohibits a majority of an elected body from meeting to discuss business in private, future council members are not.)
Although no one would talk openly about the new assignments, PubliCola has heard that incumbent Dan Strauss will be budget chair; incumbent Tammy Morales will head up the land use committee; Kettle will be in charge of public safety; and Rob Saka will chair the transportation committee. If those assignments are correct, that leaves Nelson, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, and Cathy Moore to carve up the remaining committee assignments, which currently include utilities, homelessness, renters’ rights, economic development, and governance and Native communities. The council president usually takes on one of the lower-profile committees—like outgoing council president Debora Juarez’ governance, Native communities, and tribal governments committee.
As always, committees’ subject areas will change (and have changed dramatically in the past), depending on council members’ interests. Currently, for example, Morales chairs the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights & Culture committee, while departing Councilmember Kshama Sawant chairs the Sustainability and Renters’ Rights committee. Neither is likely to continue in its current form under the incoming council.
Donate to The C Is for Crank's Laptop Retirement Fund
My computer is the single most important piece of equipment I own, and for much of the last five years, I’ve relied on my trusty 2015 MacBook Pro to write and edit posts, tweet up a storm from public meetings, file public records requests, edit transcripts and photos, and generally keep The C Is for Crank in operation. Now it’s time to retire my old machine and trade it in for a newer model.
I’d really appreciate any help my readers are willing to provide to help me defray the cost of this critical piece of office equipment. A new, faster machine (not to mention one without—ahem—an ever-so-slightly cracked screen) will make it easier to bring The C Is for Crank to you every day. My back will also be grateful as I rush from candidate debate to city council meeting to coffee shop back to City Hall. I accept contributions via Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7), Paypal, and by check at the address on my Support page. Thank you so much for your support!
By Erica C. Barnett
“How did you folks pull this off?” I asked the woman working the cash register.
