What an asshat.

Why does Sally Clarke get such easy opposition? She leads a charmed life. First she gets appointed to the city council and then she runs unopposed for three elections. Ridiculous.

@2: There are cars to get people from point A to point B. Mass transit doesn't go everywhere.

IMO you can't attack micro housing development without addressing the issues that drive people to think they are a good option for themselves.
He does have a point that this city has historically done nothing to manage its growth. Part of the problem is that growth management needs to be a regional issue.

Much of the growth management in this area has come from asshats like Bradburd who want to manage growth by saying "no" to everything. "We want everything to be just like 1979", is what they're saying, even though they don't actually remember 1979.

Opposition to "microhousing" is predicated on the belief that they will not build one, but will instead blanket the city with the things. That's patently ridiculous. It's a bit like the partisans of "old Ballard" who are apparently wholly ignorant of what actually has gone on in Ballard; for instance, the many blocks of dingbat apartments that were built there on the sites of single-family houses back in the 60s and 70s.

Seattle's growth management has in fact been quite extreme, with not only height limits downtown but many, many square miles of zoning protecting single-family houses.

@3 Rain falls out of the sky. We can drink it. (It took me a while to figure out your non sequitur)

If this guy is all for relaxing single family zoning so that larger apartments can be built to lower housing costs, I'm all for it. Micro apartments are merely a symptom of single family zoning intransigence.

Can we start a write-in campaign for Licata? Suppose not, he doesn't want it. Would McGinn consider the council? He wouldn't have to do anything to get elected, just print up a bunch of posters that say "Bertha: I told you so. Vote McGinn." Perhaps we'll get lucky and someone new and qualified and progressive will decide to run.

@6, which single-family neighborhoods should be rezoned for larger apartments?

@8, which single-family neighborhoods do you think don't already have apartments in them?

The answer to your question is "all of them, in part, at the edges and the centers".

Good to know where I can get a new bike seat if I happen to need one.

That's a winning platform: "Won't somebody please think of the bike seats?"

Opposition to micro housing is just plain weird, or classist, or both I guess. Is it the name that gives them a bad rap, since it recalls a Tokyo style sleeping tube hotel?

The reality is that they aren't that different from any other type of apartment, and are totally livable (have these anti guys even been in one?). Not everyone needs a mammoth space to fill with crap…and, if you want to live solo, in the city, and only have a normal job, then these give you the opportunity.

Great example of yellow journalism. If you go to each of the links cited for the proposition that Bill Bradburd "opposed" or "was barred" you will find that his position is not close to your characterizations.

Bradburd actually thinks about the consequences of policy decisions and advocates for reasonable solutions. So, on the Goodwill site project (of the headline photo), he explicitly said "Everybody wants to see this property developed. We just are saying that we do not want the big-box mall." I.e., not non-transit oriented, acres of parking near the city center, etc.

Bradburd is a true urbanist.

Heidi, I know you're new here and you need time to develop relationships and sources... but you need to be careful about just linking to archives of The Stranger on folks.

For starters, I'm not sure Bill gets brushed as NOT being a leftie, just because he's not a radical pro-density, pro-micros guy. He's clearly a recognized neighborhoods leader (for whatever that means to various people) as a leader in the Seattle Neighborhoods Coalition.

And am I correct that standing with him in the picture is Hyeok Kim, currently a Deputy Mayor? And I'm guessing not whispering into Mayor Murray's ear to be anti-aPodments or anti-density?

Fnarf @5, I do remember 1979, and you're wrong. Those of us like Bradburd and myself—who have lived in large city centers our entire adult lives—do not expect things to stay the same. We sure would like some say on how things are changing though. Like how about figuring out how to make sure functional transit happens before letting Ballard build out.

@15, you let Ballard build out in the 60s and 70s without a peep.

God only knows what a disaster this city would be if all development had stopped in 1979 like you wish it had. What you really want is for people to stop wanting to move here. That's fantasy.

The only housing problem this city has is that developers won't build more multi-unit housing in poor neighborhoods until the last brick facade on capitol hill has been hollowed out and filled in with douchbag container units all the way up to the zoning ceiling.

Take a trip on the light rail from Mt Baker to Rainier beach, and just try to count the empty lots you pass. There's plenty of space to build full-size housing in this city, close to real transit, but until developers see a large, safe profit in it, they're going to keep trying to sell us high-priced microhousing in already-wealthy neighborhoods instead.

"Microhousing" is a means of keeping developer profit margins high. It's not about affordable housing at all; just look at where developers want to construct them, and how much they want to charge per square foot.

@16. Not accurate. I arrived from NYC (Uptown West Side) in the fall of '72. The Boeing recession was well underway; I bought a house in Fremont's L zone that a developer gave up on. When the next boom started up in the 80s, with a crappy land use code (I'll be happy to give a neighborhood tour of good, bad, and ugly buildings by decade), both Ballard and Fremont rose up in anger at the crap that was being built and forced the city (DCLU, DPD's predecessor) to the table.

In that mid to late 80s process, we 'neighborhood activists' negotiated both specific rezones and generic fixes. The latter included what became neighborhood planning in the 90s, and design review. In a few years the power that we had shifted to the DON gradually bled away back to the developer captured DPD, a similarly captured Seattle Planning Commission, and a mostly similarly captured City Council.

It was frustration with this political history over the past 15 years that led me (and Bill Bradburd) to initiate the finally successful council districts campaign in 2012. We stood on many shoulders in that effort, we indeed are the two who set off the latest effort, and I feel damn proud of it.

So please don't tell me I "let Ballard build out in the 60s and 70s;" I have rarely seen a more absurd claim about my role in Seattle land use history.

Your statement shows not only misplaced anger at us 'activists' for a history that never happened, but ignorance of that history. I'll be happy to sit down with you at the pub or cafe of your choice to chew it over in detail.

The City's elections website also lists Terry Hofman as running against Clark. Anyone followed up to see if he's decided if he's running or not?

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…

If I believe all the complaints from cyclist about how drivers treat them, a dead bicyclist platform will be a clear path to a majority of the vote.

The Sarah Palin of Seattle Land Use activists.

He is the Sarah Palin of Land Use Activists. Hilarious!

I am glad Bill Bradburd has entered this race. He has integrity & smarts and he'll fight for his values. I remember Ballard and Fremont in 1979 when I arrived here (OMG does this date me? oh, well, I'm resigned to being 103 years old), but they were pleasant neighborhoods, low-key and low-rise. I fell in love with Seattle that year and gave up my Berkeley rent-controlled apartment to Go North Woman Go North. I see a lot of hope in the current (possible) District candidates--first Bill, for at large; now Lisa Herbold, maybe, for District 1. It ain't over till it's over, Roger Valdez and Downtown.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/livin…