Comments

1
Underground parking garage is a good thing. Or should all those new condo dwellers make it even harder for everyone else on Capitol Hill to park?
2
On pg 30, where your figure comes from, I see brown people, yellow people, and even a pregnant person.

http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/AppDocs/Group…

I think what we're witnessing is that commuting has become so awful and difficult (and the longevity of jobs inconsistent with moving for a job) that people pay a premium for portability to live in the neighborhood of their choosing.
3
/It will have an underground parking garage, which is complete insanity/

I understand that you might think that parking is unnecessary or "insane" in this busy world that we live in on the hill, but believe me, it is neither. Even as a non-car-owning resident, you still have the occasional get-together wherein you might need to allow for a small number of cars to park. But a lot of people still in fact own cars, and they need a place to put it when they're out there riding their bike and utilizing public transportation.

As a developer, the old mandate for parking in new residential structures was a drag. Now everyone is putting in more parking than is mandated, because they want to have it as an amenity. Keep on hating if you want.
4
most people in cities with great transit


when they can afford it


also have a car.





they love it. it is freedom. they give rides to all the people without cars to go to the beach, the mountains, etc.





they drive up to costco on upper aurora.


they're not limited to the bus or train.





they will often use both.





dear Charles, you have been to London. Try to go to Paris, Rome, NY. They are CHOCK FULL OF CARS all over. people love both great transit, and having a car. even when gas prices are WAY higher than in the usa, they love cars, to deny the utility convenience, fun and independence of a car is just insane. look at me. trips to whidbey, to kitsap, to yakima, to hiking, skiiing heck sometims in summer I drive to that park on the columbia river for a swim, what views! love those E washington desert hikes. love the trip to bellingham, or olympia, victoria, san juan island, vancouver and portland! it's awesome to have a car in the city - you can get out of it!
5
@3 The "it would be cool if I didn't have to be a complete and total shut in" issue is something that so many people completely ignore. I had friends on Capital Hill (who have since moved because of this, btw) and it was a serious problem. As one of their guests, I've never had a problem paying for the space I used to park, but there's no way I'm going to take a bus because there is no fucking bus to take.

I already live 10 minutes from work, so I'm not going to move down to Seattle and quadruple my commute. That makes no fucking sense. Yet if there's no mass transit access to the city on a regular basis, and you make it impossible to park (and again, I'm totally in favor of paying my way, including congestion charges!), then what the fuck do you want me to do, stop spending money in your theaters and restaurants?
6
Sometimes people work at places with no access to public transportation. They have to have a car to get to work.
7
@5 has a good point. We need to charge more in tolls for suburban drivers who refuse to take the bus or light rail into Seattle.

I figure $10 each way would do it.
8
Explain to us again why an underground parking garage is "complete insanity."



What's completely insane is buildings with no parking whatsoever, surface-level parking lots that waste valuable space, and/or expecting people to park in the street where they impede the free flow of buses, cars and bicyclists who are trying to use those streets for their intended purpose.



Also insane: living in denial of the simple fact that some people need cars and another significant fraction of the population simply prefer the mobility that they afford, and that no amount of don't-build-it-and-they-won't-come wishful thinking is going to change that.
9
@7 Did you miss the part where I said there isn't a fucking bus to take?
10
the economic forces at work in this growing city are much deeper and more powerful than its form of democracy.





On the controversy, this is the absolute triumph of democracy (practiced at the hyper-local level) over capitalism. Enough vocal citizens don't want lots of residents living near them and have championed severe regulatory constraints on housing supply.





Once you've put hard limits on housing supply, politics and economics merely decide who gets in to the inadequate number of homes. In capitalism, given decent living conditions in the city, it's the rich; in a rent control regime, it's the well-connected. In a system where the government owned all the housing, it'd be politically favored groups. But any and all of these systems are inherently less fair than building homes in Seattle for all who want them.
11
@5 maybe park somewhere that's easy to park and on the bus line... or if you can put a bike in the car then it's easy to bike over.
12
There is no right to live in the city, nothing wrong with living in the suburbs.
13
But the well paying jobs are still out in the burbs. Not all of them of course, but a large number of them. What does your book say about that, Charles? That's an even bigger anomoly, I would think, than suburbs. After all, the wealthy used to always leave the city for the summer.
14
Here's a level-headed take on the history of ugly buildings that were basically required to be ugly because of the parking space mandate. Interesting read whichever side you're on in this debate about new construction parking: http://daily.sightline.org/2013/06/18/ug…
15
Mandated parking requirements in new construction is bad public policy because that parking will necessarily increase the cost per unit of housing. But I can't think of anything wrong with parking as an amenity.

I sure as heck don't believe markets are a benevolent force. But they seem perfectly suited to determining the supply and pricing of off street parking.

Obviously, and as said, our institutions need to provide public transportation.
16
@10, thank you. Not convenient to every narrative, but true.
17
@11:

This is pretty much the story in my neighborhood, and I suspect many non-RPZ neighborhoods east of 12th and between the bridges: residents leave in the morning and their streets are then reoccupied by commuters who hop on buses (2, 8, 12, 48 etc., etc.) to get to their jobs in other parts of the city.
18
@17 So on the weekend those residents can have any guests over because all the parking is gone.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is WHY THE FUCK DID YOU ALL STAY HOME WHEN TRANSIT CAME UP FOR A VOTE?@!

I'm trying to give your businesses and arts departments money and every step of the way it's a giant pain in the ass. Then you're also punishing those who aren't rich enough to live in the city, but are needed to keep everything great about it functioning.
19
@18, Did they stay home, or was it a case of getting outvoted by the the edges of King County and beyond it.



@13, I suspect there are some good paying jobs within the city, but more cut throat competition to get them, which leaves the suburbs as the only other option--particularly for tech.
20
@19 Though I ran into a lot of folks that simply forgot, that could be a fair point. If someone has the data handy I'd be interested in looking.
21
Maybe the best thing about living in Seattle is being able to get outdoors on weekends and camp/hike/climb/ski/fish/backpack. And unfortunately you need a car to be able to live that lifestyle with any kind of frequency.

Parking isn't the problem, lazy people using cars to drive everywhere when they could walk/bike/bus are the problem. Cars have a place in this world
22
@17: My experience is that Seattle is full of neighborhoods where people use their "garage" as a spare bedroom/study/family room or to store junk, and then park their multiple cars in the street, then complain that new construction doesn't have enough onsite parking for all the future residents.
23
Yes, I'm sure our suburbs are EXACTLY like Ferguson.... wtf??
24
I think what's hilarious is that once again Charles can't be bothered to defend his claims or respond in any meaningful way to what has been a claim discussion made in good faith.
25
I want to live there underground parking and all.
26
Yep #24... I do try to read The Stranger, but if they're going to post crap like this and not even bother to respond to criticism...





Well, there's a reason I stopped reading the Seattle Times. I suppose it could be applied here, too.
27
@22,

In many Seattle neighborhoods, single family homes with garages are not the norm. This is especially true of Capitol Hill.

Also, many older homes in Seattle have such tiny garages, you can barely fit even a small car in them. I drive a very small car, and parking it in my garage is a very tight fit.
28
So is underground parking killing off part of the Capitol Hill economy? The part where people break into your car and resell what they steal?
29
"Also insane: living in denial of the simple fact that some people need cars and another significant fraction of the population simply prefer the mobility that they afford, and that no amount of don't-build-it-and-they-won't-come wishful thinking is going to change that."



Yup. I am so sick of the Stranger's anti-car crusade. Yes, it's great to take transit - if transit were fucking available in this city. Beyond that, not everyone can or wants to commute via transit. I am one of them. And until transit becomes convenient and widely available, I'm sure as hell not going to apologize for that.
30
+1 to what @27 said, a majority of the old school built in the 40's-50's homes that surround Seattle have garages that are incapable of storing even a prius, I think the intent of these was more for a place to keep your gardening/home improvement tools. I don't know why we continue to fall for Charles' Trolling, I love the guy, hes an A+ dreamer and never ceases to amaze me how he come across like the college freshman protesting "The Man" with an IPhone in one hand and a Starbucks in the other.
31
shocking, this comment thread sounds like it's run by spoiled brats. not unlike the city.
32
Another economic Catch-22. Those who can afford to live in the most expensive neighborhoods are going to be people who can also afford cars and prioritize convenience (in a time=money sense, flexibility (getting to see the area's outlying sights), and would want to have some assurance of the safety of said cars. Often times

I have lived on Capitol Hill, and even WITH a parking space for myself, I have had MANY instances where people I've invited over have driven over from outlying neighborhoods, spent 30 minutes burning gas circling around looking for parking, then gone back home. It's hard to argue that time isn't money for everyone involved. I have lived downtown with and without parking - I now have an underground parking space, and even though I don't drive very often (choosing greener options whenever possible), I would still say that if you factor in an hourly wage, I probably save over $150/month in time I'd otherwise spend looking for and paying street parking.

But again, a natural outgrowth of the kind economic polarization you're talking about is that those who can afford to live at Sunset Electric or the new SLU condos are people whose hourly rate probably gives them a different calculation when assessing the "value" of multi-transfer bussing to see a coworker in the suburbs.
33
Where is this awesome-sounding and affordable $1000-a-month pad on Capitol Hill? Do they have any vacancies right now?
34
@31 most of these comments seem pretty logical and civil to me
35
@10
Enough vocal citizens don't want lots of residents living near them and have championed severe regulatory constraints on housing supply.


HAHAHAHA... yeah, poor developers. They never get their way because those darn pesky communities and democracy. Right?

Gosh darn it - in fact when one walks around the hill one can nary see a crane or any new apartment construction at all...

...oh, wait. Except none of that is true and you are full of shit. Every where you look there are literally dozens of new developments at any given time on The Hill.

The problem is two fold.

One is all the housing stock is owned by a hand full of investment oriented property management groups and banks. They are colluding to drive up rents because they have a virtual monopoly.

The second is new housing stock is slated to be rented for the higher-end market because developers are greedy piles of shit who want to make as much money as they can with the least amount of effort.

Just blindly flooding the market with new housing inventory has never —never — lowered rents. Anywhere. Go ahead. Find an example of a growing major city where rents trend down.

Go on. We'll wait. You won't because you can't.

There are two ways to lower rents:

One is economic contraction. Which is bad.

Two is government interference in the market place. Which can and has worked when done with some semblance of foresight and intelligence as in Vienna and Amsterdam, for example.

But by all means lets cripple what's left of democracy and let the wealthiest members of society - the billionaire developers and banks - get even more power over us. I'm sure you tell us all about how we need to de-regulate. That's been working soooo well so far.

36
@35

You're proving Martin's point. Developers are only able to build in certain areas, like certain parts of capital hill. There is a specific legal reason you see so many cranes in one part of town, and absolutely none <10 blocks away.
37
'ELLO GUVNAH, GOT A FLAT TO LET EH?
38
@35 In a housing shortage in a normal market, all housing is "slanted" towards the higher end markets because even if you make the most basic of apartments, they'll still be bought up by those who both have the most money and need the housing the most. In those situations they'll still pay less than if they were buying a luxury place, and use that saved money to upgrade. Unless your idea is to build less housing, then you're going to have to explain how less housing is going to house more people.

If you're so certain that flooding a market doesn't decrease rents, then it's on you to prove that assertion - if nothing else I suspect that in the cities you're thinking off there simply wasn't enough expansion or that there was no protection against people buying up tons of places for frivolous reasons rather than occupying them.

I don't see what the harm is in telling a bunch of fucking NIMBYs to STFU about their precious neighborhood character in an effort to grow in a smart way. Why don't you at the very least detail what Vienna and Amsterdam did that you seem to like so much?
39
Also, if everyone is so worried about character and boring architecture, for fuck's sake this is a solved issue. Plenty of major metropolises (I believe Shanghai is the big one here, but please correct me if I'm mistaken) already require that new skyscrapers need to be architecturally unique.

Also, look at fucking Leavenworth of all places. If they can require that their city's character be held to, then so can Seattle. It's not that fucking hard if you actually think about it.
40
@21: That's why god invented Zipcar and Car2Go.
41
@36 That wasn't his point.

His "point" was that there is too much pesky democracy and the developers don't hold enough sway. Which is bullshit.

So. His solution is what? Less regulation. Less democracy?

And, BTW, learn to spell Capitol Hill if you're going to pretend to know anything about it. There are developments everywhere. I've lived up here for over 23 years. I own property up here. And there is plenty of room for new developments. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

You want affordable rents? Then prevent the same four of five property management groups and investment banks from having a monopoly on all the apartments. Just giving developers everything they want won't do shit and it never has anywhere.

42
If you're so certain that flooding a market doesn't decrease rents, then it's on you to prove that assertion


This is some upside down logic right here. The problem isn't housing stock. It's monopolies.

Look around you. Everywhere. It's already proven. We are building. Every city in the US is building. And rents still increase. In every major market that is growing or has geographic constrictions like we do. Rents go up.

What more evidence do you need? I ask you again name ANYWHERE in the US, that has a growing economy, where rents go down when you add stock. It should be fucking easy if it was true.

You're the ones saying all we need to do is build more and more inventory. YOU need to prove deregulation and more blind inventory will help.

But nowhere - NOWHERE - has building more inventory in a growing economy reduced rents. Nowhere. Not with out government interference in the market.

And what these guys are arguing is for deregulation and defang what little bite democracy has left - our local governments - and hand all the power over to already corrupt developers and banks. you do that and you never get that power back, ever.

I'm not arguing for no building. I'm say there is plenty of building going on right now to keep up with demand. We don't need to de-regulate. We need MORE regulations.

What we have is just renting at higher and higher rates because there are colluding monopolies who own the properties.

And nothing is going to change that barring an economic crash or local governments inferring in the market in some meaningful way (like Amsterdam or Vienna)
43
Has increased density in San Francisco or New York resulted in more affordable units? No? Then it probably won't here either. Developers have no incentive to create affordable housing, they only do so if forced through regulation. And then the best we can expect is a poor door. Their goal is to increase # of units and keep the price as high as possible.
44
@27: I live in Greenwood, and it's loaded with houses that have garages and driveways that aren't being used. Sure, some of the garages are too small for the Forester, but even if they could fit the Forester in their onsite parking, there's always at least one more car that gets parked on the public street, per house. And don't get mr started about all the "project" vehicles and pickups/vans that get used once a month and that sit on the street leaking oil and transmission fluid for the rest of the time.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander: if a neighborhood is going to insist that new construction include onsite parking for the tenants, the existing residents should also be required to provide and *use* their onsite parking, or just get "NIMBY: I'VE GOT MINE, FUCK THE NEWCOMERS" bumper stickers already.
45
The real insanity in this article is asserting that underground parking is insane.



This is the last piece by this dolt I'll ever read.
46
@42

"I'm say there is plenty of building going on right now to keep up with demand."



WRONG



You think there's a ton of supply because you see cranes everywhere, but the amount of new supply means nothing if you aren't also looking at how many people are moving here.



The fact is that the housing unit growth we've had doesn't even come close to meeting the demand, and until it does, prices will continue to go up.



This is not rocket science, people.
47
@46 the prices are never going down. By design, real estate developers will ensure that there's always slightly too little supply so the prices remain high.
49
Charles, why no word from the stranger about the affect forgien "investment" is having on housing in Seattle? Jen alluded to it when she said that cash home purchases are rapidly increasing but made it seem thIs was tech workers fault. Sure many tech workers can pay 2k a month in rent, but how many fresh out of school teck workers have 500k in cash? Most have student debit not stock piles of cash. The worlds rich are moving here and driving house prices up like crazy yet the stranger is silent about it.
51
Dig those parking garages. The spaces can be rented out. Businesses love to have some spaces for patrons if residents don't want or need. Eventually, when not needed to store cars, those spaces can be turned into more living spaces or storage or amenity rooms -- kind of like some suburban garages are.
53
@42 Ok, we seem to be talking past each other then. I'm not trying to argue for deregulation, only for more building.

What regulations are you calling for specifically then?
54
Here's a great link to how Germany keeps rents low. Maybe America can learn something.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingle…
55
@35,

There are lots of cranes but it's piddling compared to regional population growth.

I'm saying zoning restrictions on density should be largely eliminated. You seem to think developers are doing whatever they want right now, so there wouldn't be any harm, no?
56
Wow this is craziness. Comparing Kent to Ferguson is icing in the cake.



There are plenty of wealthy suburbs too. Average rent in Bellevue is higher than Seattle. I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford to rent a house in the Hamptons. There are cheap cities too. Like Tacoma or St Louis. Seems to me the driving force on price is that property owners will charge as much as they can possibly get. Capitalism!!!
58
@52 "Rents go up less in cities that build more." Maybe. There are likely lots of other factors. Regardless, rents still go up AND the cities are infinitely less livable as a result of shit developments.

Take Texas. Texas is a shit hole with unimaginable sprawl and some of the ugliest cities on the planet. If it wasn't for the grotesque amount of money in the oil and gas industry nobody would live there. It's awful. Even Austin - the best they've got - is just awful.
60
Seems to me the driving force on price is that property owners will charge as much as they can possibly get.

Of course! And "how much they can possibly get is determined to a significant degree by how much people are willing to pay. And when there are more people looking for apartments than there are apartments available. They'd be willing to pay less, and property owners would take less, if that ratio was more in their favor. (Attempts to maintain cartel pricing by landlords usually fall apart pretty quickly).

Capitalism!!!

No. Capitalism is a system where demand is allowed to meet supply. The artificial restrictions on supply, driven by outdated, classist zoning rules preferred by existing homeowners who benefit from them financially, prevent "capitalism" from working as it normally would. I mean, really, if the government placed limits on the number of, say, computers that could be sold, such that the going price for a PC was 5K, it would be silly to simply shrug our shoulder and chalk it up to "capitalism". But we do that with housing all the time.
61
Even if this article is historically accurate, it does not validate the current trend in the Seattle metropolitan housing market.

- YES, we need more housing. We expect thousands of new residents each year. But developing in an unregulated manner so that only the top 45% of these new residents (aka those working for Amazon and other tech companies) can afford to live in the city does not leave living space for the others that follow. This includes service industry and office admin professionals that follow the influx of business. Their salaries may not afford them a car, and if they are being paid hourly making several bus connections might by completely unreasonable. The suburbs are not a viable option for them



- YES, we need more parking. I would love to close some streets off to cars and do a massive expansion of the light rail and metro buses, but it is not currently in the budget- and underground parking is probably less likely to interfere with current neighborhood traffic flow. However, I believe providing moderately affordable housing is more important .

Why cant we allow for moderation and regulation in development? Why can't we come to an agreement that we want a more transport-friendly city with fewer single-family homes so that there are finally enough places to lives, and still dictate that neighborhoods need to contain:

a) Grocery Stores

b) a percentage of housing dedicated to middle and lower income residents, so we do not COMPLETELY DESTROY THE PREVIOUS CULTURE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND KICK OUT ALL PRIOR TENANTS

c) a dedicated number of public transport options

d) Zoning codes that prevent developers from building four ikea-fresh row houses facing a different direction than all other homes on the street so the millionaires don't have to look at the other homes.



I could go on about why adding to the Suburban sprawl is hard on scarce resources, the environment, and social services provided by the government but I think everyone would fall asleep.

BUT - if there is any argument for the culture and morale of a city, this article written about New York may make you think again about the changes happening in ours.



http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/chris…



There's a quote in here that I think is extremely applicable to what is happening in Seattle right now, especially in regards to the land-use wars.:



"The city controller’s office said just that, if in milder language, in 2013: 'Growing income disparities,' it warned, 'can intensify patterns of class and racial segregation, and can undermine the social cohesion that makes urban neighborhoods interesting and comfortable places to live and work.”'
62
@40 if you wanted to take a weekend camping trip that would cost hundreds of dollars using zipcar or car2go. If you wanted to get out of the city a couple weekends a month it would end up costing more than your car payment
63

Wages are stagnant for people who are static, repeating yesterday's routines, methods and roles, in the same localities – hoping their relative value increases at a rate constant with global economic advancement. Mudede – as an African – economically benefitted by a system (market-based capitalism) that is now benefitting people around the world. Instead of having to uproot your family and move to America, technology (computers, planes, etc.) is allowing people to compete with us from afar. If you want more wages – do different, learn more, work more efficiently, create more and faster, take risks.

Just stop doing the same things, that don't provide the same relative economic value tomorrow that they did yesterday.
64
@62: Obviously, you go to Avis or National or whatnot getting out of town. You could do that several times a month before you approach the cost of car ownership.

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