Messy Business
On Monday, August 13, the council adopted new rules giving the city
the ability to shut down nightclubs for overcrowding, requiring all
clubs to come up with a written security plan, proposing a new
nightlife enforcement team, and directing the mayor to propose
additional regulations (which, by the way, is how we got into this
nightlife morass in the first place). Put off for at least a few
weeks: the controversial nightlife license and the new noise
ordinance, which must go, bizarrely, through state environmental
review. (Any land-use ordinance that differs from the state Department
of Ecology’s equivalent law must go through environmental review. The
noise ordinance does indeed “differ”—because the Department of
Ecology doesn’t regulate noise.) That could add months to the
process.
* * *
As part of the downtown upzone it adopted in 2006, the council
agreed to spend $200,000 to determine which downtown buildings qualify
for landmark status. With that work complete, the council is looking to
adopt new rules governing how and when a landmark ruling by the city
hearing examiner can be appealed. Currently, if property owners
disagree with a ruling, they can appeal it to the hearing examiner; if
they’re still unhappy, they can take their case to the council.
That’s where things get confusing. Under a proposal made by Urban
Development and Planning Committee chair Peter Steinbrueck last week,
the council could only overturn a ruling by the hearing examiner if
there is “substantial evidence” that the examiner’s findings were in
error. Steinbrueck says his proposal replaces an “arbitrary”
standard with a “real basis for review”; business interests,
however, argue that it takes away the council’s latitude to overturn a
hearing examiner ruling that could harm development. “This would
make historic preservation trump all other policy considerations,”
says Ryan Bayne, spokesman for the Downtown Seattle Association.
Steinbrueck counters: “The downtown developers got 30 to 40 percent
more development capacity [in the form of height increases]. They knew
that one of the trade-offs was recognition of our valued historic sites
downtown.”
* * *
Five years ago, City Investors LLC—the real-estate arm of Paul
Allen’s Vulcan Inc.—scooped up 4.5 acres of city-owned land
around Mercer Street in South Lake Union. The city sold the property
for $20 million, vowing that most of the proceeds would go toward
fixing the “Mercer mess.”
On Tuesday, August 14, the council’s transportation committee took
up legislation to condemn and purchase 63 properties in South Lake
Union in anticipation of a massive construction project that will turn
Mercer Street into a two-way boulevard with paths for pedestrians and
cyclists. Among those properties: 30 owned by City Investors,
including 13 of the parcels the city sold Vulcan in 2002. The
bumbling buyback will likely come at a higher cost to taxpayers.
Moreover, many at city hall see the condemnation proposal as premature;
the Mercer fix depends on $130 million from the regional roads and
transit package on the ballot this November, leading some council
staffers to grumble about the council’s eagerness to line up properties
for condemnation before the money for the Mercer fix is even approved.
