When city leaders wanted to tear down warehouses in South Lake Union for the Seattle Commons, people lost their motherfucking minds—partly because it would promote big, tall condos on the park’s edge. So they organized against, and ultimately killed, Paul Allen’s initiative to redevelop the area. A decade later, a people again lost their shit when Nickels, Vulcan, and Amazon wanted to construct slightly taller office buildings on the same stretch of land.
- SHA’s early proposal to replace low-income housing with uninhabitable foam blocks, ridding the city of its “poor problem.”
But when it comes to Yesler Terrace, a two-story housing project on First Hill that is slated for wholesale redevelopment, potentially with rerouted streets and 23-story skyscrapers housing thousands of new residents, Seattle is mostly silent.
“We haven’t gotten a lot of feedback at all,” says Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) spokeswoman Virgina Felton. “Almost nobody attended our public hearing. We had more staff members than the public present.”
This is striking because next Monday, December 13 is the last day people can log an opinion on the SHA’s options for redeveloping the 28-acre site—options that range from doing nothing to the 561 low-income units housed there to tearing everything down, rerouting streets, and building up to 5,000 units of mixed-income housing, along with space for new businesses, hotels, offices, and acres of open public land. In other words, practically building a new neighborhood in the belly of the city. The public’s not paying attention now (perhaps because poor people inhabit YT) but in the future this project will be unavoidable.
And despite the public’s silence, the move is controversial—YT’s current tenants will be displaced during any redevelopment and the SHA won’t announce until March just how many new low-income units it plans to generate.
Read about the four choices to redevelop YT after the jump.
- Seattle Housing Authority
- Sketches of YT mid- and high-rise apartments.
The SHA is considering four alternatives to the current low income 561-unit model (with a fifth, do-nothing option thrown in for good measure—here’s the full, 700-page .pdf). The first three choices would require amending the land-use code to allow the city to rezone the area for mixed-use development. All four choices include varying acres of public open space (like parks) and semi-private open space (space with designated uses, like building courtyards and a play area for daycare providers) to the area.
Here are the four new proposals, in brief:
• Option One (low density): 3,000 units built, along with 800,000 square feet of office/hotel space and 40,000 square feet of commercial space. This plan includes adding 6 acres of public open space and adding 3,900 parking spaces to be built under the buildings. (In a variation of this alternative, SHA would build 400,000 square feet of office space with 3,300 parking spaces, but no hotel space.)
• Option Two (medium density): 4,000 housing units built, along with 1 million square feet of office and hotel space, 60,000 square feet of commercial space, and 50,000 square feet of space for neighborhood services (including the Yesler Terrace community center). This plan includes creating 6.4 acres of public open space and 5,100 parking spaces. It also calls for redesigning the street grid to better connect with Capitol Hill, the Central District, and the International District, as well as eventually adding a streetcar to the neighborhood.
- Seattle’s new skyline with option 3 (new buildings bottom right—click to enlarge)
• Option Three (the highest density choice): 5,000 housing units built, with 1.2 million square feet of office/hotel space, 88,000 square feet of commercial space, 50,000 for neighborhood services, new street grids, fireworks, etc. It would also include 6.9 acres of open space and add 6,300 parking spaces to the area.
• Option Four: YT wouldn’t be rezoned for mixed-use development, so no new non-residential uses would be created which, frankly, is a wasted opportunity. Housing would still jump from 561 to 1,523 units, and while all 561 low-income units would “likely” be replaced, this scenario adds “no additional housing units for extremely, very low, or low-income households,” according to SHA’s study, which means there would be an odd mix of low-income and high-income development mashed together. The scenario includes 10,000 square feet of commercial space, and a total of 20,000 square feet of office and 50,000 of neighborhood services would remain. There would be 1,840 parking spaces within/under buildings and surface parking.
• Option Five, the “No Action” choice makes no changes to the current site. If you have further questions about this option, simply take a walk up to Yesler Terrace and behold the crumbling mess we’d be strapped with into the foreseeable future.
Within the next four months, the SHA will settle upon one of these choices (or some variation) as its 15-year-plan for the future. You should have an opinion on this matter and your opinion should be directed here, this week. It’s your last chance to do so. I don’t want to hear any bitching for the next 15 years if you fail to complete this very simple task.
Doesn’t matter. The budget will be slashed.
I vote for option three.
That model is hideous. No wonder people don’t understand what architects actually do.
Another vote for 3.
Or option 3a (submitted as a Slog comment ammendment with the proper authorities): remove all height and density restrictions as long as the neighborhood services and other #3 criteria are met. Seattle needs serious density to keep up with the region, let alone our state. I can’t think of a better location for this density than being adjacent to downtown.
I think people are quiet about it because anything is better than what is there now. People only seem to raise a stink if they actually like what is there now.
As it stands now, the place is a shithole and the new project will ultimately have more low income housing.
The key is ensuring that those who will be uprooted during the construction will be guaranteed housing as it becomes available. Fair is fair.
displaced = all relocation costs paid for, and 1st dibs on new units. assuming you still qualify for subsidized housing at that date.
option 3. it’s what Vancouver would do.
Considering that most of Seattle’s current Class A “skyscrapers” are 2/3rds empty…
Just sent them an email
This location is within walking distance to light rail, a brand new streetcar, literally dozens of Metro and Sound Transit bus lines, Amtrak, Sounder trains… and every redevelopment option includes more new spaces for cars than people? Especially with the deep bore tunnel spilling thousands of cars onto Seattle streets every day, you think 5,000 more cars near downtown is a good idea?
Sorry… I love density, but the only option that does less harm than good is option number 5 (do nothing). SHA – go back to the drawing board once you realize this is the least car-dependent plot of land in literally this quarter of the country.
try to get the City of Seattle to waive the parking requirements, @10.
At least @10 is being honest… the word that best describes whatever finally happens is “gentrification.”
What, no one remembers Holly ParK?
Density is good. People should live in the city, and leave wildlife and nature alone. Yesler is one of the most desirable locations to live in Seattle. It needs to be built out to maximum capacity.
Fox et al. jerk their knees whenever Seattle Housing Authority proposes anything, anything at all, and the Displacement Coalition routinely rails against prospective developments that will likely improve the lot of the low-income population it claims, improbably, to stand up for. Didn’t like the redevelopment of Holly Park into New Holly, the reinvigoration of the Othello/Rainier Vista neighborhood, the impressive and successful redevelopment of West Seattle’s High Point. Surely the Housing Authority’s proposals deserve study, discussion, possible amendment – and ought not to be dismissed out of hand. I have attended planning meetings, read the EIS, heard Fox’s rants, and talked with more thoughtful people with whom I discuss (and sometimes disagree about) the future of Yesler Terrace, people who do not demonize the very organization that is trying to improve the lives of people who do and who will live there.
I myself, a low-income renter, prefer Option 3, although I too think the number of parking spaces ought to be reduced by a considerable measure.
A point of clarification – the streetcar is coming no matter what – that’s a Sound Transit/SDOT project (with funding through Link Light Rail) – SHA may play a part in exchanging some land for a streetcar barn, but really Yesler Terrace just happened to be at the right spot to take advantage of the new streetcar line (which connects Capitol Hill to the International District.)
Please go visit the Highpoint development and contrast it with what was previously at the site. This is an award winning community with many different ethnic, economic and age levels living together and really creating a sense of community. Crime rates are lower, living standards are improved for all and it is an ecologically improved area. It is too easy to take the side of “displacing the poor” when you really haven’t researched how they are currently living, whether they would like better housing even if it means a temporary move, and what their needs are in the future. Again, I would ask you to go and look at the Highpoint area of Seattle, contrast it with the previous housing and talk to the low income persons who are living there now. I would be willing to wager that none of them would like to return to the tenement like crime ridden housing they were in previously.
I vote for option 3.
I’m glad they’re looking at the more-housing option. Great to put housing near transit.
Not worried about the overdose of parking. It’s just a maximum potential number for the EIS. These days even fairly expensive housing tends to have lower parking ratios to match how much will actually be used.
People are tired of the lack of affordable housing. More housing can improve affordability.