Grow Up!
We've been picking on Mayor Greg Nickels a lot lately, accusing him of overselling South Lake Union development with misleading numbers, busting him for offering a sweetheart Seattle City Light subsidy to a corporate customer, and harassing him for buying off new council members with fundraising parties. But, starting with a Department of Development and Planning (DPD) public hearing on Tuesday, February 24, we're back in Nickels' camp. The hearing will unveil plans that, at Nickels' behest, start rethinking building codes to increase density around town. "Philosophically, he's not opposed to [raising] building heights," says Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. "For example, the IDX Tower [the city's biggest high-rise built in the last 10 years] topped out at 450 feet, and the mayor doesn't think that's appropriate. It should have gone 20 stories more. It is time to reconsider height limits."
If anyone can push this city to grow up--a city that has a history of blocking development with height caps--it's Nickels. Despite conventional wisdom during the 2001 election casting Nickels as a nice "Seattle Way" kind of guy, we actually saw Nickels for what he was--a badass. "Sparring against the Republican majority at the county level will serve him well," we wrote on November 1, 2001. "Nickels is battle-ready" and "indomitable." "Nickels will bring the kind of horsepower to city hall that's been missing for years," we concluded.
Indeed. After two years of checking things off his list (the monorail, Northgate development, lifting the UW lease lid, and biotech investment) Nickels is now turning to the issue that wonks in The Stranger's news department care most about: upping density. Turning Seattle into a real city--with fat, vibrant neighborhoods, a rapid public transit like the monorail, and all-night pizza shops (a personal pet peeve)--literally tops The Stranger's wish list. So, we're psyched that we've now got a pro-density, fisticuffs mayor who's been willing to put his straightforward priorities above Seattle's tentative process. "We've looked at a small core of downtown," says DPD staffer John Rahaim. "[Nickels] is talking about much more."
Nickels added First Hill, Pioneer Square, Belltown, South Lake Union, and the International District to the list of neighborhoods that should be dotted with taller buildings and mixed-use developments, and subject to relaxed development requirements. Nickels laid down the law in his State of the City speech this month: "I am proposing a new policy for development in Seattle. Let's shift policy from capping residential growth... to unleashing it. Let's stimulate residential development not just downtown, but also in neighborhoods nearby. Let's double the population west of Boren Avenue."
In the next 20 years, Seattle is expected to grow by 100,000 people. Nickels wants to pack a third of those folks into a high-energy, pedestrian-centered swath of Seattle that sweeps from Pioneer Square to Lower Queen Anne to West Capitol Hill. Nickels says legislation is on its way. We can't wait to see it, Greg, and this time we'll be in your corner.
