The transit-oriented development bill I’ve been writing about incessantly—legislation that would upzone the areas around light rail stations, mandate new affordable housing, and require cities to develop plans to reduce their auto dependency—is sitting in the fiscal committees of the state house and senate, awaiting possible amendment and assignment to the rules committees. The senate ways and means committee will take up the bill at 1:30 today.
The big question, according to the Transportation Choices Coalition’s Bill LaBorde, is whether the senate version will be watered down to match the house bill, which no longer includes specific density goals around transit stops or affordable-housing mandates. (Whereas the original bill mandated densities of 50 units per developable acre, the current house version only includes “compact development that provides compact, walkable communities with densities that support transit service and have convenient access to transit systems with frequent peak travel period service” among a number of possible strategies to create transit-oriented developments.) The senate version still contains specific density and affordable-housing requirements. “We’ve heard different things about whether we’re going to need to strip out the (specific requirements) like we did in the house,” LaBorde says. The bill is opposed by an odd coalition of affordable-housing purists (John Fox and his Seattle Displacement Coalition), who say it will displace low-income people, neighborhood activists who don’t want more poor apartment dwellers moving into their single-family neighborhoods, and groups like the Association of Washington Cities, who think the bill includes too much affordable housing.
Meanwhile, the debate over the bill continues to rage outside Olympia. Kent Kammerer, a longtime neighborhood activist, wrote a piece on Crosscut recently, arguing that laws regulating land use amount to an attempt to “mandate the style of life for residents,” and that density proponents want to turn all of Seattle into Belltown, where “the woman brave enough to go for a walk in the evening carries a Glock in her purse.” Dan Bertolet at hugeasscity offered a “humble rebuttal” :
Apparently, if you’re going to walk in Belltown at night, you’d better carry a Glock. And it smells like urine. I know the parts he’s talking about. We all do. They comprise about 4 blocks (of the roughly 24 blocks), and I agree that they’re not the best. There are a limited number of reasons you’d spend time on these blocks, and most of them are illegal (or, at the very least, immoral). Kammerer seems to be implying that these blocks were much better before development occurred in Belltown. Remember how great it was down there in the 70s and 80s? Ahhh, the halcyon days of Belltown before it was ruined by density! And all that nightlife, those restaurants, the Olympic Sculpture Park, the ability to walk to work — those have really blighted the area. The core point is this, though: the issues in Belltown are deeply rooted in many communities. Drug use, mental health services, homeless housing — these have not been adequately dealt with here, nor have they in many rural communities. Admittedly, Belltown is probably not the best model for dense development, but Harlem circa 1975 it is not.
big cities smell like an unflushed toilet. get over it.
ECB-
That wasn’t written by dan, it was written by Joshua
While I wouldn’t personally argue that density has created the problems cited in Belltown, but all of those new “eyes on the street”, “vibrancy”, and other such planner-speak buzzwords spouted by density advocates haven’t done much to solve them, either.
Heard you on KUOW today ECB. Funny how you lamented the gentrification of Capitol Hill (Bus Stop!) but rejoiced in the gentrification of South Seattle (cool restaurants!). Can’t have it both ways…
Last time I checked DCLU still had rules on the books – this only impacts places outside our county.
I miss the jitneys in downtown Vancouver BC.
I’ll agree to “density” if and when we ship the drunk & drug dazed homeless out first, to make room for it. Hell, getting rid of the “free ride zone” would be a start.
The fact that all those groups oppose the bill tells me its probably a good one.
4: it’s hard to see how a) a vacant lot = gentrification and b) how cool indie businesses = crackheads and shootings.
To expand upon the “Belltown is probably not the best model for dense development” comment….
This is largely because most Belltown development has been geared towards those who still want to own cars, and because misguided laws REQUIRING internal parking structures have built an entire high-rise neighborhood where everyone drives directly into their “safe, secure” building. There is no mandatory interaction with the outside world, only elective interaction (thus the massive increase in apparent pedestrian activity come Friday night).
“High-density” housing that still encourages driving is arguably as bad as sprawl: the streets around these buildings become congested and greenhouse gases spew out of the idling cars. And if these buildings have street-level retail at all, it is usually willfully awkward, with interior-foyer entrances that remove any and all interaction with street-life outside — a block-long Belltown highrise often has a “pedestrian dead-zone” in front of it, as barren as an Interbay warehouse block.
Until Seattle learns to integrate high-density development with functional multi-use pedestrian space — something that Vancouver has accomplished, despite ugly architecture and moderate adherence to garages — you won’t see any so-called “vibrancy” improvements.
(Ultimate policy counter-example: whereas Seattle requires new development to provide parking in sufficient quantity to match the population growth, Boston PROHIBITS this in any area well-served by transit.)