On Wednesday, July 23, after The Stranger went to press, a
city council committee met to discuss a proposal that would let
developers build taller throughout the city in exchange for
funding affordable housing and other public benefits.
The council probably won’t decide how to divvy up those benefits
until this fall, but interest groups—from historic preservation
activists to arts advocates to rural conservationists—are
already lining up for a slice of the pie.
One smart idea that shouldn’t get shoved to the back of the line is
transferable development rights (TDR), a wonky term for programs that
allow landowners in rural King County to sell off the right to
develop and subdivide their property to developers in cities like
Seattle, enabling those developers to build taller buildings than
allowed under existing rules. Once the right to develop a piece of land
is sold, that land can never be subdivided and turned into suburban
sprawl, which is in the process of engulfing rural King County.
Expect neighborhood groups to scream that preserving land in rural
King County does nothing to compensate for added density in Seattle
neighborhoods; already, community councils are gearing up to oppose
height increases around the city.
“If you live in Greenwood and you get stuck with density, it’s going
to be hard for Seattle politicians to say, ‘We made you take this
density, but we saved this farmland out in Enumclaw,'” says
Roger Valdez, a land-use consultant who supports TDR.
It may be a tough sell, but it’s an important one. Keeping
rural parts of King County from devolving into hintersprawl actually
helps all Seattle neighborhoods, by reducing congestion,
preserving rivers that provide Seattle’s water, and reducing carbon
emissions throughout the region.
And King County’s rural land is disappearing fast. With farmland and
forests being converted to five-lots-per-acre suburbs at a rate of
between 4 and 5 percent a year, King County’s rural lands could be
gone within the next 20 years.
Tim Hatley, a lobbyist for the Cascade Land Conservancy, calls TDR
the ideal sprawl-prevention tool because “It’s a market-based
solution,” not a taking.
So far, Seattle has participated in just one TDR program, which
enabled three developers, including Vulcan, to build above the height
limit in Denny Triangle. But that program expired last week, and
Mayor Greg Nickels has opposed replicating it elsewhere, preferring to
invest in things like parks and historic preservation.
Those are worthy causes, of course—who would argue against
preserving buildings threatened by development?—but the city has
to prioritize. Once rural lands are gone, they’re gone forever. That
will impact all of Seattle unless the council steps up to prevent it
from happening. 