Vulcan spokeswoman Lori Mason Curran said at the time that leaning harder on their neighborhood than adjacent downtown was "disappointing" and "shortsighted."
Well, now Vulcan can stop whining: In the next couple of weeks, the council is set to vote on applying the same housing rules downtown, establishing parity for both neighborhoods.
A bill introduced by Council Member Mike O'Brien would extend South Lake Union's rules, which say residential developers can access extra height for their towers—in some places they could be up to 10 stories higher—if they include some modestly affordable units. (Modestly affordable means affordable to those making around $48,000 per year.) But there's a catch: If developers don't want to build that housing themselves, or if they are building commercial office towers, they can simply pay into a low-income housing fund. Currently, downtown developers must pay $15.15 per square foot of new floor space to access that bonus height, and developers have been routinely paying it instead of building cheaper units themselves. O'Brien's bill would raise the fee to $21.68 per square foot, the same as South Lake Union.
But the council is not stopping there.
