Comments

1
The Seattle Slimes to publish McGinn sexual abuse allegations in 5... 4... 3... 2...
2
FWIW, having disagreements with all of those electeds doesn't exactly disqualify McGinn in my eyes. If you would notice, those were all *mainstream* to DLC-Republican-lite Dems who were not representing the interests of this city nor its constituents' values very well at all. If nothing else, he comes out looking pretty darn good compared with all of the dysfunction and turmoil (which comes with MUCH LOSING) within the Democratic Party. I think independence from the status quo in this case is a good thing.

As an active urbanist I will wait to see exactly what his platform entails with respect to land use, development and housing. The politics are extremely difficult to parse as I am reminded on almost a daily basis. "Neighborhood involvement" doesn't necessarily mean pandering to the "NO" people - but it will be something I watch very closely. Engagement is one thing, going backwards to a time that never was is quite another.

My advice to candidate McGinn would be to aggressively pursue ALL 65 of the HALA recommendations, not just cherry-pick the things with the least resistance. They were meant to be acted upon as a "package," but Mayor Murray lacks the courage to even legislate his own administration's proposed solutions. And now weakened, he probably doesn't have the political capital to do so if he wanted.

If the city got rid of all or most of the single-family zoning as well as all parking minimums for all development in the city, it would be two HUGE steps to make sure that Seattle steers away from the disastrous housing maelstrom that is now San Francisco. If that's the goal, there are lessons yet to be learned. I only hope all of his time hanging out with the Strong Towns crowd helped him see the way forward for the city.
3
It's fairly rich for Murray to slam anybody on their record regarding Obama's DOJ's attempts at police reform.

I voted for Not The Old White Guy last election, and, if it comes down to these two, I'll do it again.
4
The city council treated Mike McGinn like the Republicans in congress treated Barack Obama. They refused to work with him then blamed him for getting nothing done. Fortunately there are some new faces on the council now, some likely to be a bit more open-minded to McGinn 2.0.

Ed Murray's response is classic Murray. Attack with half-truths (McGinn never called Gregoire a liar) and whine about divisiveness while dividing. Ed Murray is running his last race. I wish he'd just resign.
5
OMG. Obviously he couldn't make a living anywhere else. There hasn't been a Republican Mayor here since 1944 and it's time to give one a try..if there is such a thing in Seattle. Both of these guys are annoying, whiny, passive aggressive, petulant, agenda driven baby boomers. I laughed once when I saw phony Mike McGinn have his security detail drop off him with his bike three blocks from a meeting so that he could look like he rode there. Someone with common sense who is not an idealogue, has a pleasing personality, even a sense of humor, please run.
8
@5: Yeah, McGinn had a "security detail". Nice try.
9
@6: You seem to be talking about teen boys a lot...

hmmmmm
10
@5:

POIDH.
11
Depends. Has he "slept" with teen boys?
12
Nothing wrong with teen boys. Western society is all pent up. To be expected from people that trace their ethics to the Puritans...
13
@5: then run, Republican. tell us why it's time to elect a fantasist.

it's Ideologue.
14
@5: There is not such a thing in Seattle.
15
@2 "If the city got rid of all or most of the single-family zoning as well as all parking minimums for all development in the city, it would be two HUGE steps to make sure that Seattle steers away from the disastrous housing maelstrom that is now San Francisco."

And how the heck is that? When I lived in SF there was no parking and it was MISERABLE. And SF has BART! How does taking away requirements to provide parking (underground usually) help anything? The city has dismal public transportation, so what do you propose people do with their cars? I think the no-parking-requirement is a disastrous giveaway to developers.
16
mandyv @15, The thing about San Francisco McGinn thinks we should avoid isn't the lack of convenient, free/subsidized car storage on demand for motorists, it's the extremely high cost of housing. The claim that parking minimums increase the cost of housing is not a controversial one among those who actually study such things; it's pretty clearly established at this point. Also, as a practical matter they effectively force those of us without cars to subsidize drivers, which is clearly grossly unfair.

Confirmation of this is easy to find if you just look; two good studies here:

http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/HighCost.pdf

http://www.vtpi.org/park-hou.pdf

See also:

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/05…
18
Christie "watch me tear down the viaduct by 2012" Gregoire isn't a liar!?
19
Not McGinn again! He's amazingly shameless about being self-serving and manipulative. Can't we do better than a choice between McGinn and Murray? That's like no choice.
20
McGinn again?

God help Seattle.
21
This guy is the biggest idiot Seattle ever elected, and that is saying something. McGinn had the police pick him up at his house, drive him and bicycle up to Capitol Hill, so he could ride his bike down to work. WooHoo! What fun that was. Back at town hall or the Seattle City Council, no one really knew if he was just a feckless idiot, a recovering alcoholic, or both. Thanks goes to The Stranger & Happy Readers for getting this Zombie elected. Hopeless gits u R ..... Now we have Sawant or Mikey and a race to the bottom
22
Seattle threatening San Francisco dominance in the Blade Runner sweepstakes. This is what you get when you hand your city over to 20-something urbanists MPAs.

If you're a developer, every direction you turn you see a friendly administration. Murray did his job taking out the neighborhood councils, now he can be safely dispensed with. The urbanists and radical journos with five whole years in Seattle can take it from here.
23
He had disagreements with the city council *at the time,* which was completely different people, many of which are gone now or on their way out.

The council today has Herbold and Sawant -- who are both arguably to the left of McGinn.

The "he doesn't get along with anyone" argument doesn't work anymore. Now he can refuse to "kiss the ring" and be effective.

Murray's days are numbered.
24
@15 Well, it’s pretty clearly established that everybody subsidizes everybody else, and like drivers subsidize our roads when it’s clear that everybody and I mean everybody benefits from good roads whether you drive a car or not. If you buy anything brought in by a truck, you benefit but in this regressive system, drivers pay because they're the easiest target if you don't want to think an issue through.

My point is, to continue to building gigantic, block-long monstrosities, you HAVE to provide parking or you’re stressing and ruining the neighborhood’s roads and quality of life and making people quite grumpy and inconvenienced, this is apart from affordability.

I’m not reading that study, are you serious? (but if you summarize it I’ll read that), but skimming it, the high cost of parking spaces is a problem? Boo hoo. Who sponsored it?

With the money hand over fist that developers are making, they can’t dig into their pockets to pay the costs to provide parking and they expect people to just deal with and live with triple the amount of cars in the neighborhood trying to park? That is ridiculous. It’s not fair for a city to squeeze out cars when there is no public transportation, and seattle and King Co’s transportation options are an unfunny joke. Look around the country to see how it’s done and when seattle starts doing that, then it can expect people not to have cars and require no parking. We’re not there. Lyft and Uber help but you still need someplace to park those cars.

@22 “20-something urbanists MPAs”! You are so right.
25
I think it's hilarious all the conservatives who hated Murray now have the choice of a bunch of candidates far to his left.
26
Well, it’s pretty clearly established that everybody subsidizes everybody else, and like drivers subsidize our roads when it’s clear that everybody and I mean everybody benefits from good roads whether you drive a car or not.

I don't object to subsidizing some public goods that I may not use. That's not the issue here. Parking minimums aren't public goods--they're shaping private goods. Creating a cityscape with ample, free parking for all who might wish to use it on demand has a lot of deleterious consequences for pedestrians, transit, and most of all the environment, so it's not really a public good at all in the substantive sense.

I’m not reading that study, are you serious? (but if you summarize it I’ll read that), but skimming it, the high cost of parking spaces is a problem? Boo hoo. Who sponsored it?


The high cost of *housing* is the problem, and requiring parking spaces makes housing more expensive. Your first comment seems to suggest that you think the lack of freely available parking on demand is a bigger problem in San Francisco than the cost of housing, so perhaps it's understandable you don't care about this, but McGinn (and a whole lot of Seattle residents, including the over 50% who rent) care a great deal about the cost of housing, and rightly so.

You seem to think moralizing about greedy developers and breezily dismissing implying fraudulent or biased research without examining it serves as a perfectly acceptable substitute for actually knowing what you're talking about. It would certainly be nice if developers would simply eat the cost of parking. But public policy should be about what people are likely to do, not what we think they should do. Actually studying the cost of similar developments shows that, quelle surprise, they will not eat the costs, which are quite substantial (Shoup gives lots of actual numbers based on actual research, but you don't care.). Speaking of whom, Shoup is just about the leading scholar on this topic, and he's an independent professor who has been funded by the tax and tuition-payers of California, as he spent his career (now retired) at UCLA, so your insinuation of agenda-driven research isn't going to fly here. And at any rate, the finding is so widespread across studies that impugning the motives of this or that study won't get you anywhere. His book The High Cost of Free Parking is careful, scrupulous public policy analysis that demonstrates very clearly how parking minimums distort and increase the cost of housing (while also attracting more cars and more traffic).

If you care about actually being right, there are ample resources shorter than the length of a full study. My third link is one. Kathleen Richards did an excellent job with this topic a couple of years ago here at The Stranger:

http://www.thestranger.com/news/feature/…

Lots of denialists in the comments there, too, but they're just flailing of changing the subject. At this point, denying the now-obvious truth that significant parking minimums increases the cost of housing is roughly on par with denying the reality of climate change. It can't be done by a remotely serious person who has any interest in the truth.
28
As a Seattleite currently living in the Bay Area, I can say that Seattle is already there. The decisions made in the last decade and a half have turned Seattle from someone's home into someone else's playground. I know that when I come back to WA, that Seattle will be beyond my reach. Not something I thought I'd say as a part of six figure household.
29
The first thing in his platform should be tending to that unkempt beard and getting a trim. He looks like shit.
30
Keep Seattle hippiefied!

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