Comments

1
The whole needing more environment study's is utter bullshit and is the way all nimby ass holes in seattle prolong things. Wantt more homeless camps TOO BAD, THE ENVIROMENT. Want more density, TOO BAD, THE ENVIROMENT. Want dog parks/off leash areas , TOO BAD, THE ENVIROMENT. Anytime anyone hates something they pull out the "BUT THE ENVIROMENT" card. It's bullshit and we need to start calling it out as bullshit.

The rules on not needing parking is good.

But the concerns about not requiring the landlord to live on premise seem like they may be valid. What is the goal here? We're seeing more and more single family homes being bought up and turned into fancy town home. It's not common to see a house that 3-5 years ago would go for 200-300k be bought up for 600+k and turned into 4 townhouses that go for 700+k. And I know there's the whole "SHUT UP QUEEN ANNE" thing, but this happens a lot in Queen Anne.

Maybe there should be a cap on how much the cottages can be rented out for? I guess we can't do that cause we're ass backwards w.r.t. to rent. But still I don't think it's impossible for "cheaper" houses to turn into 4-5 expensive cottages.
3
Seattle is a city of neighborhoods. It's what makes Seattle charming and livable and the historic architecture and street-level homes and businesses give these neighborhoods character and appeal. I'm also in agreement that more density and less sprawl is what's needed, but we need to be careful how it's done. It's true that if the owner-occupied rule is not enforced, then basically you've changed the character of a single-family home to a new legal duplex. That may or not be bad, but it's important to be aware that this may happen.

Like "David in Shoreline" mentions, why not build out the existing urban villages first? Drive down Lake City Way and look at that sprawl. There are potentially 1000's of opportunities the entire length of that major arterial. Drive down Rainier Avenue and see empty lot after empty lot, interspersed with nasty little tear-down properties. That's right along the light rail. Build there first before messing too much with the single-family neighborhoods that keep our city strong. That's where the majority of property taxes come from and those taxes keep our city running, so it's in the city's best interest to have a mix of low-income housing along with richer folks who pay their property taxes.

4
"Like "David in Shoreline" mentions, why not build out the existing urban villages first?"

Because in Seattle, "Urban Village" translates to "force the poor to live in the most polluted and noisy areas, inevitably right up against arterials, away from the more affluent people.

Class privilege, you're soaking in it!
5
A backyard cottage is not an ADU; it's a DADU. An ADU is what's generally called a mother-in-law apartment, usually in a basement. ADUs help aging people stay in their homes because they can rent the ADU, almost always at a low- to moderate-rent. DADUs have to be constructed, and thus an owner has to have the funds to construct it, and after its constructed, it's NOT going to be rented to low-income people. Allowing those well-funded owners to do ADUs plus DADUs, and then only live in the owner unit for 6 months, would mean they'd be renting out two market-rate units and one lesser-rate units. That's probably not what the City intended and O'Brien was not right to push both ADUs and DADUs together. It's good the Hearing Examiner turned it down.
6
"why not build out the urban villages first"

Because single family zones are 18,000+ acres of city land

It's a bit cavalier given the housing crunch people are feeling to just rule out more affordable housing on vast swathes of the city because...I'm not sure..."reasons"
7
@5

DADUs are going to be rented to people who can't afford a single family house (by definition, since they would be capped at 1,000 SF total)

Many more people besides "low income people" are priced out of single family zones
9
Turning alleged concern about the environment into a campaign to prevent people from living close to the jobs, thus promoting ever more sprawl is really something. I suppose I stop being surprised by the utter shamelessness of it all, but it still takes me aback.
10
@7 but what prevents the dadu from turning into hipster yuppie hobit holes that go for 150% the market rate?
11
"Drive down Rainier Avenue and see empty lot after empty lot, interspersed with nasty little tear-down properti"

Let's be honest, most Stranger readers and writers don't want to live near black people. Not enough hipster breweries and cup cake shops.
12
I live on Queen Anne but and was against this ordinance. I also have an accessory unit which is rented out below market rate. I totally support means to encourage more affordable housing.

My overwhelming concern was the owner occupancy clause. Six months is nothing. It would be very easy for a developer to contract with an existing owner to build a DADU and wait 6 months before taking ownership of the property.
13
@7, low-income people are the ones that are most at risk of being priced out of ANY housing. DADUs that have been newly built by owners whose houses are pretty nifty are going to be rented for more than apartments or ADUs. They'll be pretty pricey.
14
"Drive down Rainier Avenue and see empty lot after empty lot, interspersed with nasty little tear-down properties. That's right along the light rail."

Oopsie-daisy. Someone has evidentially never been to Rainier Avenue. The light rail rubs suggestively up against it just south of S. McClellan Street, but that's it. Otherwise, light rail is all MLK, all the time (and there's been a lot of development along there)

And here's another newsflash - existing single family homes are not being replaced by "affordable housing" at least not on North Beacon Hill. Here, they're tearing down shabby old houses and replacing them with four and six plexes that are going for upwards of 600k per unit. The only place even remotely "affordable" housing is being built is the old housing projects like New Holly. Rainier Vista, and High Point.
15
The owner-occupancy clause is just straight-up anti-renter bigotry.
16
If Mike O'Brien really wants to "cure" this ordinance, he could limit it to either a backyard cottage or a mother-in-law apartment, but not both, and require homeowner occupancy. This would remove the developers' incentive for displacement and reserve the benefits to the homeowner trying to afford property taxes. It's not just renters who are being forced out! Mother-in-law apartments are much more likely to be "naturally affordable " because they cost far less to create, and keeping a trustworthy and compatible tenant takes precedence over getting top dollar for rent.
17
Fact:
One out of every seven houses in SF zones in Seattle is a rental!
Your worst nightmare is already happening:
Non-owners already live on your block!

18
It isn't that complicated. Unless this is overturned or somehow modified, rents will continue to rise.

It is pretty easy to see when you consider a few scenarios. First, imagine someone owns a two story building in an area that allows for six stories. She makes good money off of the land, but is considering kicking everyone out and building a bigger building. More units, more money. The problem is, she won't add that many units, because there are already a bunch there. She only adds four floors, not six. Plus you have the cost of construction, along with the delay. Building like that only makes sense if rents are very high. Either way it leads to high rents (either they are high enough to justify construction, or we won't see an increase in units to meet the increasing demand).

Now consider someone who rents out a house. She is thinking of adding a basement apartment to the house. This is very cheap to do (much cheaper than building a brand new apartment building). The existing house is still rented out while she waits for permits. Construction takes place while the house is rented (no one gets kicked out). The old house gets rented out for a bit less, but the new unit makes up for the cost.

Or the owner of the house decides to simply add a backyard cottage. This is relatively cheap and she retains the complete value of the existing house.

Building extra units like this makes sense even if rents are low because the overall cost is so low to add them.

The problem, of course, is that the law prevents those last two scenarios. We have some of the most restrictive ADU/DADU laws in the Northwest and it has prevented us from cheaply adding new apartments. Vancouver did things differently, and until recently it resulted in a lot of affordable rentals -- http://www.sightline.org/2013/03/07/in-l…. Unfortunately they basically ran out. But we are nowhere near that level, which means we could greatly increase affordable housing by simply changing the law. In thirty years we might have to do something different (as they will) but until then you would see much more affordable housing.
21
@19
You have certainly proven your main point very well!

@20 = hot air
22
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cs/groups/pan…

Anyone who thinks DADUs are going to save the day really needs to read the City's own report on the issue, link above. Specifically the section where they report WHY people build DADUS. I have read this cover to cover at least 3x and I still don't get a sense that hundreds of Seattle homeowners are just dying to invest at least $50,000 constructing a DADU so they can jump into the landlord game. The report itself notes that only a tiny fraction of DADU eligible properties HAVE them, yet seems to ignore that and rambles on and on about how awesome it would be IF only MORE eligible properties had them. While the city may relax some rules about constructing DADUS, the ever growing body of regulations regarding rentals mitigates this effort towards simplifying the experience.

24
@22, good point. The report actually notes that even if all code barriers were removed, it's likely that under 10% of eligible lots would develop DADUs.

In addition, if, as the article and comments suggest, many homeowners in the single family zoned areas are so opposed to changing DADU regulations, who the hell do people think will build these things? Is the theory that if the regulations are altered, thousands of homeowners will suddenly change their minds, and decide they want one in their own backyard?
26
I love how homeowners in Seattle think they pay MASSIVE property taxes. Your home values are overblown and bloated beyond belief and paying $3000 a year in taxes for a house worth half a million or more? Please. In upstate New York a house worth $200,000 pays property taxes between $8000 and $10000 depending on the size of the lot. Seattle pretends to be so progressive but no one wants to pay for anything. And you wonder why traffic is a nightmare from hell, rents are completely outrageous, and your schools suck. Yep, keep on perpetuating the myth that you are overtaxed and bitching about people moving there and no one being able to afford to live there and I'm sure things will get better someday. *rolls eyes*
27
@24 Exactly. NIMBYS are overreacting because I don't think homeowners are dying to invest and begin constructing hundreds of DADU units. The EIS folks are overreacting for the same reason. And those in the City who believe this is the way to add thousands of "affordable" units are dreaming. Illogical reactions all around.
28
No - do read the decision. It's really pretty readable. You will see there, how @20, @22 and @24 add up - their changes to the rules change the economic picture in a fundamental way that they knew would increase "production" more than they admitted. They officially predicted small incremental change, because 1) that would fit with convenient Non-Significance, and 2) they don't want to talk about the details of what they really expect, which is significantly greater participation by outside capital, developing for 3-unit rental properties. The Hearing Examiner saw fit to include an email quote showing how aware they were of actual potential. As you read the decision, think about what she chose to put in there, out of months of testimony, and the picture it paints of the planning department.
29
What this means is we need to remove ALL arterial blocks 6+2 MFH with zero exemptions

And impose a foreign buyers tax like Vancouver did
30
(Dang I h8 iPhone updates they mess up autocorrect)

Rezone not Remove
31
@26 whatever. could care less about new york. i pay more in property taxes now than i used to pay in rent
32
@31 and now you couldn't rent an apartment (one month's rent) for the amount you pay in taxes. it's called perspective. get some. Seattle property owners are living in a dream world.
33
The irony is that mansionization of SF hoods is completely unrestricted, while housing for average working people gets put through the wringer. The EIS Will cost hundreds of thousands of $$$ (and it could easily exceed a $ million) and many months (or more than a year) to complete. Ugh.
34
Eliminating these kinds of Zoning restrictions would do more to reduce the cost of living in Seattle than all of the City Council's proposals.

It should be left up to property owners
35
This is a one-sided discussion, to say the least. Murray and O'Brien set themselves up for this outcome by saying that the backyard cottage proposal would have no significant environmental impact. That was always absurd and the hearing examiner's decision was predictable. Remember when raw sewage flooded into the Sound last year because West Point's capacity was overwhelmed? You really think that tripling density in SF zones without also increasing water treatment infrastructure is not going to have environmental impact? If so, Donnie Trump has something he'd like to sell you. O'Brien's ADU/DADU proposal never had anything to do with providing an alternative source of affordable housing. This became clear when he proposed removing the current occupancy and parking requirements and the height limit for backyard cottages. This would open the door to sh*thead developers buying modest SF houses, knocking them down, replacing them with a skinny house, an attached unit, and a detached unit, and then using them all to evade tenant rights by listing them on AirBnB. This is the next frontier for developers making a killing off the Seattle housing market. Don't be distracted by the shiny object spinning in front of your eyes with this cottage debate. While Murray and O'Brien spout their affordability rhetoric, and the developer trolls toss their NIMBY stink bombs, the city continues to allow the investment clubs to use cash to scarf up modest houses and replace them with mini-mansions for the techholes and foreign buyers. Seattle desperately needs affordable housing, but O'Brien's cottages have nothing to do with that. If you doubt that newly constructed cottages will not be affordable, look at the rents that existing ADU's and DADU's command. Pay attention!
36
For those who may doubt, we're not making this up. Read the decision. On housing affordability, refer to Conclusions paragraph 7. See OPCD say that wasn't a goal anyway. Not a for real goal.

Actually, existing ADUs can be really affordable, when it's a homeowner who is willing to forego some rent income in order to retain a compatible, responsible tenant. Anecdotally that happens a lot. But the kind of development they really expected? See Conclusions 4 for their private (they thought) estimate, and Findings 27/28 for explanation of the development pattern heyst is talking about. That homeowner is not around in this scenario, because O'Brien neutered the owner occupancy requirement, it's a limited liability company with a 3 unit complex, because O'Brien added a second accessory unit that homeowners were not clamoring for. They're not going to do this through a lot of patching and refitting of old houses, it's new construction, cheap stuff but expensive to live in, and among the first places to go will be single family houses that are already rented, often to groups of students etc. at prices that they won't be able to find elsewhere.
37
Listen to Donnc. He knows what he's talking about. Do read the decision because it lays all this out in an unusually clear way. OPCD never meant for what they really think about ADUs/DADUs to become public knowledge.
38
Parking requirements. Ok, lets do away with them. But then lets see if we can write and enforce rules that say 'You rented a unit without parking. So quit trying to find a spot on the street to park your shitbox.'
39
Backyard cottages don't have to be Capital 'A' affordable to be good for the city and the environment. These recommendations may have come out under the auspices of H.A.L.A. but it is more a way of creating small scale flexible housing alternatives in the Single Family Zones without freaking out homeowners like Kaplan. Apparently, no small increment of change in SFZs will proceed without neighborhood Chicken Littles crying. Not everyone is going to want to live in the Urban villages, but you don't get housing price options without housing options!
40
We could have got some of the changes DPD had been working on, maybe even including no on-site parking, if O'Brien hadn't been dead set on bringing his developer masters the bacon, with the extra accessory unit and owner occupancy neutered. That's what brought Kaplan et al. into an expensive and time-consuming appeal, and it's why they won - they successfully argued it wasn't a small increment of change at all. O'Brien could have listened to us and made those small incremental changes, but developers don't care about that stuff, so no one in his world cares.
41
Maschu, cottages have provided flexible housing alternatives since the ordinance (which Kaplan helped to write) was passed in 2009. SF homeowners have not embraced cottages for the most part. If the council's goal was to increase the number of cottages built by home owners, they could have tweeked the existing ordinance by providing incentives like a reduction in property tax. What O'Brien proposed, however, was not small scale. He and his developer backers saw an opportunity to go for big bucks under the guise of building more affordable housing units. Why build just one cottage when they can tear down the original house and build three units on one lot? The elimination of the owner occupancy requirement is the tell here. They already knew that most owners who live on the property aren't interested in having someone live in their backyard. With the owner occupancy requirement in place, developers opt to build one big house rather than two moderate houses. The solution to this problem? Get rid of the owner occupancy requirement. And as long as you're doing this, let developers build three units instead of just two. Now we're talking business: buy a moderately sized house, tear it down, build a tall skinny house with an ADU, and build a tall skinny DADU for good measure. Call it affordable housing and everyone's happy, except for those racist NIMBYs. O'Brien could fix this situation by reinstating the owner occupancy bit and limiting accessory construction to ONE ADU or DADU, but not both. If his motivation really is to increase affordable alternatives, then this is an obvious fix. If he comes up with some sleezy end run around the examiner's finding that still eliminates occupancy and retains the house+ADU+DADU approach, then we will all know that he is just shilling for developers. I say all this as someone who lived in backyard cottages during my years in purgatory in Los Angeles in the 1980s.
42
Most of those awful 'developers' you are afraid of are actually the homeowners themselves. Where owner occupancy isn't required, the sky hasn't fallen. Portland doesn't require it, and more than 2/3rd are still owner occupied.

The call to remove the occupancy requirement comes from people wanting to build one, like me, not traditional developers. It is a way better investment if I knew that I could retire somewhere warm and rent both for a consistent income stream.
43
They might have even pulled that off, if they hadn't thrown in the extra accessory unit to sweeten the pot for developers. I'm glad they didn't, though, because there is some value in home ownership - both from the perspective of starter equity and for the surrounding neighborhood. You can leave and rent your single family house, you can stay and rent an accessory unit, but not both.
44
Donnc
Nice try but you really don't know what you are talking about.
46
Why can't you move to Seatac or Tukwila and take that train in or are there too many colored people and too few micro breweries for white hipster urbanists in those parts?

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