The main question is, are those family wage jobs going to go to Seattle citizens, or, as is more likely, people in surrounding suburbs?

I ask because I care. The millionaires and billionaires don't.

Oh, enjoy the 30 minutes it will take you to crawl 30 feet. How's that traffic-slowing Deep Borrowed Tunnel working out for you?

Considering the units in those newly allowed floors will likely sell in excess of a thousand a square foot, this does not seem that onerous a burden for the extra height.

Workforce housing? You mean the workforce that works for Allen's companies, or the other high-wage companies in SLU?

Re the $-per-square-foot proposal, eons ago (when Steinbrueck was on the CC), LIHI said a reasonable proposal was $25 per sqft. The developer community said they'd leave Seattle and build elsewhere if it was any more than $16. (Of course they didn't; the very next day after the CC vote, ads appeared about major new projects everywhere in Seattle.) The eventual compromise was around $18. And NOW -- years later -- we're proposing only $21? You think that's going to help?

Why not eliminate the fee and just require the housing be built?

We must have more Seattle Apartments.

Everyone wants a Seattle Apartment.

If you had a Seattle Apartment, you would be better.

The more Seattle Apartments there are, the more Happiness there Is.

the Seattle City Council went ahead and voted unanimously to pass out

CHLOROFORM PARTY!!!!1!!

Ugh, this is ridiculous. Nobody seems to understand how housing works in a city like this. The Council didn't "stand up to Vulcan," they stood up to affordable housing. If you want to prevent rents for existing units from rising higher than current tenants can afford, you need to encourage developers to build more housing.

If Vulcan can't build more units, the people who would rent them don't vanish into thin air. They instead go rent somewhere else, and with fewer units being allowed to be built, it becomes more likely that they will rent a unit that someone else already had for a lower price.

I get that people want to be progressive and that they believe the way to express it in this case is to "fight the man" and "stand up to developers." But all they've done here is ensure that more people are going to be evicted and struggle to afford to live in this city.

You don't stop gentrification by limiting height. By limiting height, you give gentrification a big boost.

Fuck you guys. Bring on the SLU development. The higher the better. Don't like it? Don't rent space in the towers. Unless you can bring back J.P.patches and Fidelity Lane (my preference), then fuck you. Bring on progress.

What rate did the City pay when it built the new City Hall?

Remember when Paul Allen wanted to give the City 12 blocks in SLU for a park?

I seriously doubt all the money raised will delay or diminish the next housing levy. Providing new, market rate housing, to the poor is hella expensive. And by driving up costs makes all housing more expensive compounding the need for subsidized housing.

And perhaps, there might be more jobs and less traffic if we encouraged more business to locate in Seattle rather Bellevue. Freakanomically, these costs only make Kemper Freeman richer. Is that a need for Seattle?

I don't care about being "progressive". If the City Council actually told developers, "Look, for every 5 high-priced units you build, you'll build 1 low-income unit. Take it or leave it." Do you really think the developers would leave town? BS.

It is not "redlining" if you want to live in location X but others outbid you for that privilege.

@11: I have a better solution. Make one out of three rent controlled. I think that would get their attention. As the real Vulcans would say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one".

@13

I dunno about that. Isn't it the half-breed Vulcans who say that?

@14: Half-breed Vulcans, like half-blood wizards, are the best Vulcans.

I can see why Spock told the Vulcans in two timelines to go fuck themselves. Well, in a very Vulcan sorta way

@3 most of the work done in construction is done by subcontractors, which any person who builds things would know.