Grab Your Pitchforks

A bill that would raise housing density around transit stations, create new affordable housing, and promote more walking and bicycling in those neighborhoods, has (as Erica noted) hit a snag in state legislature. But it’s not dead. In fact, what happens at a public forum tonight could give the bill a new lease.

Some quick background: An earlier version of the bill would have required that cities allow up to 50 residential units per buildable acre (not counting streets and sidewalks) within a half-mile of transit stations. South Seattle residents balked and housing activist John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coalition circulated petitions to area Democrats asking that the density “mandates” be dropped. (In fact, the legislation would have only increased the height allowed in those areas—and many areas already allow greater densities than those in the bill.)

On Monday, the legislature dropped the density requirement in 14 of the region’s 42 station areas—most of them in south Seattle. Near those stations, the bill would now require cities to create a “similar level of walking, biking, and transit ridership, and a similar number of affordable housing units” as would be required around the other 28 stations. Essentially, the change allows some areas to have lower density levels—but they have to make up the difference by bringing more riders to the station, by providing amenities like bike racks.

Although a state house committee rejected the proposal this morning because representative David Upthegrove (D-33) said it would override local control, the bill has a chance, according to its primary sponsor, West Seattle Democrat Sharon Nelson (D-34). Meanwhile, the senate version of the bill has a hearing tomorrow.

Nelson says she thinks the bill is “a good compromise,” adding that she’s “waiting for feedback after [Council Member Sally] Clark‘s meeting” tonight to hear community feedback on the proposal. But will all of the compromises—losing the specific density requirement in some places, possibly allowing parking—leave the bill with much muscle? “I think this is a strong enough decree we will see the density increase without changing neighborhoods to the extent that it makes people uncomfortable.” Nelson says cities would still be required to build “similar to the density of 50 units per acre.”

Fox and others argue that increasing density without dramatically increasing the affordable-housing requirements in the bill make neighborhoods unaffordable.”The added density would do great harm to the community,” he said on his cell phone while driving to Olympia to meet with Speaker of the House Frank Chopp (D-43). This assumes that housing will remain cheap if we do nothing, which seems unlikely. If a law were passed that required what Fox wants—40 percent of the units affordable to people making half the median income—developers would never build. If legislators made Fox’s vision law, existing rental housing values would still go up, and poor people would still be driven out, after light rail opens; increasing the density—and including affordable housing, which this bill requires in quantities that exceed any existing city law—is the only hope these neighborhoods have for keeping their working-class residents.

Clark, who chairs the council’s land-use committee, could stick her fingers in her ears, ignore the NIMBY whining, and support more development. However, she’s staying neutral because she relates to neighborhood concerns about the new law being handed down from the state level, not generated with grassroots input. (It should be noted that the bill was drafted by two shoestring-budgeted environmental groups—FutureWise and the Transportation Choices Coalition. But that isn’t the “grassroots” activists like Fox are talking about.)

“l really like providing the affordable housing and density around light-rail stations. It is really the right thing to do,” Clark says. But opening this meeting tonight allows neighbors to scream and let the pro-density folks to fire back. Whoever makes the most cogent argument will win. Up until now, the people who understand Seattle is a growing city, where more density and transit are needed, have been mostly absent from the debate. Tonight is their opportunity to show that it’s not just retirees and neighborhood-council activists—people who drive cars and want Seattle to be like it was in 1974 now and forever—who care about this bill. As Nelson’s comments make clear, the legislature is listening to what Seattle says. “There needs to be density around these stations and it needs to be done really well,” says Clark.

Clark’s public forum on the legislation is tonight from 6:00 to 7:30 pm at the Langston Hughes Cultural Center Auditorium (104 17th Ave. S). Here’s a .pdf of the flier.