
How Seattle Killed Micro-Housing - wallflower
http://www.sightline.org/2016/09/06/how-seattle-killed-micro-housing/
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dzdt
I am coming to understand that the purpose of almost all zoning regulations is
to exclude "undesirable" people from the area. Poor people are considered
undesirable. So zoning codes are tweaked until the effect is that high incomes
are required.

You have to have a certain cynicism to understand that there is a huge
disconnect between what regulations discuss (health and safety; parking
requirements; setbacks; etc.) and what is the impact of the rules. The reason
rules are made is they have a desired effect. The effects are often not
obvious from the language of the rule, but if the effects turn out contrary to
the interest of the rule-makers things will be tweaked.

So the language and purported purpose of rules is obfuscation. The rule-makers
are paying attention to the effect of the rules. That is their real purpose.

The form of the rules is optimised to make them appear beneficial to all,
while the function is optimised to benefit the rule-makers.

~~~
beguliedfoil
Oh hi. I'm one of the NIMBYs in Seattle that likes height restrictions and
hates micro housing. Across the street there's a halfway house and two blocks
down there's an empty lot that is now being used as a sanctioned tenting site
for homeless. I have no problem with either being in my neighborhood. I hope
they stay. I hope they expand.

>You have to have a certain cynicism

You certainly have to be cynical to believe that somehow Seattle is not
operating in its own self interest. As faults are found, we try to correct
them. Some are very difficult to correct (hello I5, hello American street
widths, hello North Seattle sprawl, hello West Seattle suburban wasteland,
hello unlivable industrial area) and some are geographic constrains (hello
hills and water).

Making tiny shitty apartments does not correct any of these deep problems.

>The form of the rules is optimised to make them appear beneficial to all,

The form of the rules isn't 'optimised' at all. It's an organic living
document called "the law." You apparently think the world would be a better
place if developers could make whatever size dwelling they want. I think that
happened in the 19th century and the result was skid row. I am not interested
in trying the experiment again. I am interested in more housing for my
community, but honestly that means rezoning SFHs, not getting rid of height
restrictions and parking requirements when they're justifiable.

And yes, my opinion is entirely qualitative. I like 3-4 story buildings
because I like them. They have been a staple of the environment that dragged
me out of adolescence and into responsible, productive adulthood. They are the
good geometry.

~~~
zacharycohn
Hi NIMBY. I'm a former Seattlite millennial who's lived through the 2008
financial crash, the repercussions of a 50% divorce rate, and grew up on the
internet.

Growing up in the world I have, I've come to realize physical things weigh me
down and participating in consumerism makes me unhappy. Working for 50 years
so i can save up enough money to retire at 65 doesn't make sense to me. Why
suffer for 50 years so you can live free for a few at the end, when you're
old, maybe sick.

I found minimalism, FIRE, and the idea that you ruthlessly reduce expenses for
things you don't need.

It turns out... I don't need a one bedroom apartment. I certainly don't need a
house. I've lived out of a school-sized backpack for months at a time. Last
time i moved, I packed everything I own in 3 hours, moved in one trip in a
van, and unpacked in about 2 hours.

I appreciate that you like 3-4 story buildings and your two bedroom
apartments. I appreciate you like your parking.

But I don't have enough stuff to fill an apartment. I don't have a car. I
don't WANT either of those things. It's okay if you do, but why force me to
have them?

> "Making tiny shitty apartments does not correct any of these deep problems."

It's true tiny apartments won't fix being surrounded by lakes, but if 1800
more people can afford to live where, and how, they want... Isn't that a
start?

~~~
dnissley
Just curious, what is FIRE?

~~~
stevenmays
Financially Independent, Retired Early

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srj
I lived in Capitol Hill from around 2008-2014 and from what I recall the
resistance to Apodments wasn't due to disdain for the working poor. It was
that these companies skirted laws by taking advantage of a dwelling being
defined by having a kitchen.

The parking was the biggest sticking point. It was already tough to find
parking in the area: I would often drive 45+ min circling a several block
radius looking for a spot and I had a friend who would just park way outside
the area and take a bus to his car. A traditional apartment building with more
than some number of units needed to provide parking for residents, but the
Apodments skirted that having many separate residents share the same kitchen.

IIRC the taxing for utilities including the sewer system also was determined
based on the number of dwellings (kitchens).

The laws and decisions cited in this article all reflect that the buildings
would have many residents but for legal purposes were low density housing.

~~~
akgerber
The broader context is that much of Seattle is tightly zoned to disallow
anything other than single-family homes, which prevents in practice prevents
the city from adding modestly-sized cheap units:
[http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/27/the-65-percent](http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/27/the-65-percent)

The micro-housing was a workaround of these laws, which in practice
disadvantage the working poor.

~~~
TimJRobinson
How does micro housing disadvantage the working poor? Supply and demand would
suggest more units = cheaper cost per unit.

~~~
ghaff
I think the assumption is that "working poor" living alone tends to suggest
couples or even families that this type of housing doesn't accommodate in a
reasonable by US standards manner. It's oriented toward second housing unit
for out of towners or twenty-somethings who just want a place to sleep.

~~~
OrwellianChild
I think that this misses the larger picture. Say I'm a single 20-something who
doesn't need a larger place. If there is micro-housing available, I take that,
leaving the rest of housing stock untouched. If there _isn 't_ micro-housing
available, I have to pay more and take up a unit of housing that could go to
the couples/families that need more space/amenities. Net impact of micro-
housing is positive from both a cost and inventory perspective.

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tzs
I've come to the conclusion reading the comments here on this and on other
stories concerning housing in cities with a large number of tech workers that
a lot of people in tech do not realize that many people picked the cities they
live in and their neighborhoods within those cities because they specifically
wanted to live in that city and in that neighborhood.

It seems that a large fraction (most?) of the tech people picked their cities
largely because that is where their job is.

People who oppose major changes to the character of their neighborhoods and
cities aren't all just worried about the resale value of their house. They
often are more motivated by a desire to preserve those features of the area
that attracted them in the first place.

Also, I think a lot of tech people forget that there are other sectors that
also provide a lot of jobs and bring a lot of money to the local economy. For
instance, tourism and hospitality provide a very large number of jobs in San
Francisco, and bring in a lot of outside money.

Change the look and feel of San Francisco too much and you could reduce the
appeal to tourists. You risk changing it from people thinking of it as going
to San Francisco and while there visiting attraction X, Y, and Z to people
thinking of it as going to see X, Y, and Z which happen to be in San
Francisco. A city will do a lot better with tourism when the city itself is
thought of as a major attraction.

~~~
tptacek
Meh. Chicago beats San Francisco tourism numbers both in number of visitors
and in overall tourism revenue, and while I will forever love Chicago foremost
among all US cities, one place where I think we can clearly concede an
advantage to SF over Chicago is tourism --- the SF sights, the ocean, the
woods to the north, the nearby mountains, Silicon Valley, the Chinese culture,
the history of the region. Chicago is practically the apotheosis of "going to
see X, Y, and Z which happen to be in Chicago", and it does fine.

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PieterH
Can someone explain the reasons why there is such resistance to micro
apartments from city councils? Fear of increased population density?
Neighbours complaining?

~~~
sgk284
As a Capitol Hill resident, the resistance isn't that crazy. Over half of
Seattle residents rent (it's 16% higher than the national average), and the
city is on track to have 60% of all housing be high density housing. This is
almost double the national average, iirc.

From a city planning perspective if the majority of your new housing being
built is being targeted to mid-20 year olds who just got imported by Amazon
right out of college and only need space for a bed, then when those mid-20
year olds become mid-30 year olds and want a family there will be no housing
to raise a family in.

Cities need families or the only way they grow is by relying on their major
industries to import new residents, which is exactly what is happening with
Amazon right now (Amazon has enough office space to employ about 11% of the
city, and currently employs ~8-9% of Seattle). This is _really_ dangerous for
the long term health of any city.

Seattle is simply making sure that it's being developed in a way that will
continue to support its residents as they grow. I live in Capitol Hill, love
it, but it's pretty much turning into a big ass college dorm. While anecdotal,
everyone I know that is starting a family is headed to Kirkland, Bellevue,
Redmond, etc...

~~~
stretchwithme
Can these just be designed so you can later combine small units into a larger
one later on if needed?

More likely result, if there ends up being a dearth of young single people, is
people who commute in from the burbs will buy these units to use during the
week and airbnb them on weekends.

And I question that only young people will want these units. I'm in my 50s and
would love to have a tiny affordable place in the city, even if I only used it
on weekends and airbnb'd it the rest of the time.

Do I want to buy an expensive 2 bedroom with garage in the city? Not really.

~~~
beachstartup
> _And I question that only young people will want these units. I 'm in my 50s
> and would love to have a tiny affordable place in the city, even if I only
> used it on weekends and airbnb'd it the rest of the time._

lol so you want a second home in a desirable location, but not too big or
expensive, or require too much maintenance, that you use only when it's
convenient for you, and that someone else pays for? this is a fantastic idea.
i'll take 2.

this is why the housing system is so screwed up in cities. everyone is
scheming of ways to make money on their home, or have someone else pay for it,
before they've bought it, lived in it, before it even exists!

~~~
stretchwithme
Yeah it has nothing to do with supply, demand, subsidies for mortgages or of
the other interventions into the marketplace.

Its people seeking their self interest, as all people tend to do, that are to
blame.

If only they would all just stop doing it it so I could pursue my own self
interest unimpeded.

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extortionist
The article has something of an issue in that its ever-escalating apartment
prices are never bound to any material costs--i.e., it doesn't directly
acknowledge that some significant amount of that $900 initial and $1400
ultimate cost exist only because they're what the market will bear. More, it
seems assume the premise that the only solution to increasing costs is to
decrease size.

But do micro-apartments not just exacerbate the actual problem--that decent,
reasonably sized homes for people in good locations are too rare or too
expensive?

I can understand how these micro-homes might appeal to people in certain
circumstances (I spent a while myself splitting a tiny studio in Seattle with
a few other people--and that same apartment costs ~3x now what it did when I
lived there 5 years ago), but I can't see how the problems these are trying to
solve wouldn't be much better solved by building new desirable areas,
increasing the supply of good housing, and driving the costs of all housing
down.

~~~
icebraining
_But do micro-apartments not just exacerbate the actual problem--that decent,
reasonably sized homes for people in good locations are too rare or too
expensive?_

If there are both families and individuals bidding for those reasonably sized
homes, giving the latter a cheaper alternative should reduce for the larger
houses, no?

~~~
extortionist
It's not at all clear that only individuals would go for the cheaper
alternative.

We also already have cheaper alternatives in e.g. studio apartments, and we
currently have families living in those.

I don't see how building downwards will solve these problems in a decent way
going forward--it seems that it could only continually reduce peoples' living
conditions.

~~~
zacharycohn
There is a high end product. I don't need a high end product, but that's all
there is. So I have to go for it.

Suddenly, there's a cheaper, lower end product that meets my needs. I go for
that, someone who needs or wants the higher end product can go for that.

~~~
1_2__3
The point is that for many decades the low end product was something like a
one bedroom with a kitchen. Now that's being seen as a luxury that we need to
build under.

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red_admiral
I read this article and didn't like it, but couldn't quite put my finger on
what (apart from obvious things like the preachy style).

After a cup of tea, here's my conclusion: this is the housing equivalent of
saying we must lower the minimum wage, otherwise employers will create fewer
jobs.

It might be correct in a very narrow sense. It still doesn't feel right to me.

~~~
Decade
Yes, it is true that higher wages lead to fewer jobs, all else being equal,
especially in the presence of free trade. The difference here is that
corporations are not people. I don't care if they starve, as long as the
people have somewhere to live.

Indeed, wages that go up increase fulfillment, all else being equal, but
housing costs that go up increase civil unrest. It is not good for housing
prices to increase unnecessarily.

Perhaps your discomfort is cognitive dissonance? If so, bravo. There are a lot
about economics that defy common notions of decency, and you have to push
through it to make decisions that bring actual long-term benefits. Human
cognition is defective that way, but our remarkable intellect allows us to
understand the bigger picture.

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imh
I thought the reason people hated micro-apartments was because they're used by
extra rich people as second houses during the work week. I've only ever heard
of them before for living in another city from where you work. Builders keep
building those at the expense of normal housing, and young people are stuck
with fewer traditional apartments (and therefore higher priced), or one of the
crappy tiny places that most of us don't really want, despite how the article
paints millenials. I would have loved for the article to research why people
oppose them in the first place, other than vague and scary NIMBYism.

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Tempest1981
One thing that can provoke NIMBYs -- understandably -- is zoning changes. If
Mr NIMBY buys a home in a neighborhood that is zoned for, say, 20 units per
acre, he expects that to remain.

Often a builder requests special permission to exceed the zoning law, and
build, say, 80 units per acre -- then solicits public outcry when denied.
Zoning law gives owners a legal expectation.

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Annatar
I love the apartment shots, they could make it into the centerfold of the
"Dwell"[1] magazine no problem. They look like any contemporary European
apartment, in such a stark contrast to the stifled, fake Baroque Midwest or
East Coast style.

You look at these shots, and you know instantaneously they're from the 21st
century, spaces one would actually like to live in. It also looks like living
in Seattle is really nice, something I've always suspected.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwell_%28magazine%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwell_%28magazine%29)

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ianai
This is clearly a reaction to a desire to have lower rent. If you reject one
option to address a problem then the onus should be on you to come up with an
alternative.

~~~
sokoloff
I'd like a cheaper 2016 911 Turbo or iPhone7. Merely by proposing to PCNA or
Apple a way they could do that does not obligate them to find an alternative
way to make their product cheaper if they reject my idea.

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hclivess
Kill a local representative today. Make the world a better place.

