
Seattle looks to rein in state policy used to push back on big projects - aaronbrethorst
http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2019/10/its-rooted-in-the-1970s-era-conception-of-environmentalism-seattle-looks-to-rein-in-state-policy-used-to-push-back-on-big-projects-and-developments/
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dev_dull
If Seattle is not careful they’re going to end up on the same situation as the
Bay Area: extremely expensive building projects due to red tape that take
forever to complete and only house the rich.

Yeah you can build here, but have you completed all your environment impact
studies? And posted notice of tree removal with requisite public comment
period? And have you set aside 30% of the units for low income and raised the
price on the rest of the the units to make up for it? And are you ready to
comply with rent control laws? And are you supplying 2 parking spaces per
tenant as required by law? And is your business chartered in CA with requisite
taxes and fees? Did your bidding process include businesses owned by
historically underrepresented groups? Have you kissed the ring of your local
union leaders? Did you make sure your exterior design complies with
neighborhood matching decor laws? Oh my god you're not going to cut down that
50-year-old redwood are you??

Wait why aren’t we building more apartments again?

~~~
jld
While Seattle still has a ton of work to do, is much more progressive on these
issues than they Bay Area, and it’s getting better, not worse.

~~~
trianglem
I would not call getting rid of these regulations as progressive. They exist
to protect the environment and enrich the lives of the residents. We just need
better, cheaper solutions to construction even if it's something as far
fetched as robot labor.

~~~
nardi
> enrich the lives of the residents

Mostly, it’s retaining residents’ property values. By not building any new
housing.

~~~
closetohome
That's literally Elizabeth Campbell's entire motivation. She doesn't want to
have to look at the poors in her neighborhood.

------
jld
See also: Burke Gilman Missing Link, an extension to fill a 1.4 mile gap in
Seattle's most popular bike trail, halted very much the same way by a concrete
company who has used environmental laws to argue that its business would be
impacted because its drivers can't be trusted to drive trucks near people
biking.

~~~
fooblitzky
The one that gets me is Warren Aakervik - he retired long ago, but still comes
into the office of Ballard Oil for the sole purpose of delaying the Missing
Link. It's a poor legacy to work so hard for, in a city packed with inspiring
examples (e.g. Myrtle Edwards).

[https://www.kuow.org/stories/bike-trail-critics-see-
opportun...](https://www.kuow.org/stories/bike-trail-critics-see-opportunity-
in-delay)

~~~
mehhh
He would be far from the first Ballardite to work hard to fight progress. IIRC
there is a whole exhibit at the Ballard Locks on people who moved to Ballard
and Fremont to "escape the city", under the premise that 45th would never be
electrified in their lifetimes.

For most of this group, they were in for a rude awakening when City Light
built out Fremont and Ballard.

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fooblitzky
"[Ryan Vancil] argued that the SEPA delays on Mandatory Housing Affordability,
the Burke Gilman Trail, and Fort Lawton were due more to his office’s
unusually high caseload."

\- Yes, that explains the 20 year delay on the BGT Missing Link. Just high
caseload folks. Not continuous lawsuits invoking SEPA from a handful of
selfish business owners.

~~~
mehhh
Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel has done everything they can to block the missing
link from being built.

I just want a usable bike trail to Golden Gardens, rather than the fragmented
mess that is bike lanes in Ballard currently :c

~~~
loeg
Lanes are actually under construction now from around the locks (where the
west half of the burke terminated for 20 years) to 24th ave. (To be clear, I
am in full agreement with you.)

~~~
mehhh
SDOT is trying to build it, did the recent injunction a few weeks ago get
cleared?

~~~
loeg
Ah, you're right, I forgot about that. Meanwhile, the road is half torn up
:-/.

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StudentStuff
The city and state have permitted environmental protection laws to be used and
abused by those with the funds to hire a lawyer, to the point that one angry
person has successfully stopped redevelopment of the military base at Fort
Lawton:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/cbmeye/fort_lawt...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/cbmeye/fort_lawton_redevelopment_plans_draw_legal/)

When I was a kid, half my class was kids from Fort Lawton. They were kind,
compassionate, and fun to hang out with after school, despite the limited
means of most of the households that were in Fort Lawton.

Many of the people that live (under the radar) in the park surrounding Fort
Lawton would lead much better lives if we redeveloped this into affordable
apartments. The area already has reliable bus service (with dedicated lanes to
downtown) and dedicated bike trails and lanes, its one of the few candidates
for adding significant housing at a low cost inside Seattle.

Edit: A word

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erickhill
>Redeveloping Magnolia’s Fort Lawton was first floated in 2005 and the
possibility remained a tension point in the community for over a decade as the
Seattle City Council voted unanimously to move forward on a major affordable
housing project at the old Army Reserve Center site earlier this year.

I live two blocks from this area. The concern many in the neighborhood have
goes something like this. The city is viewed to be deep in the pockets of
developers, who cash in on valuable public lands but put no effort towards
supporting new or improved infrastructure.

So, a new housing project will be built into Magnolia. There are currently
only 3 bridges that connect Magnolia to the city. One of those bridges - The
Magnolia Bridge - is falling apart and the city says they don't have the funds
to repair it. This would lead many to assume it will be demolished at some
stage in the near future (hopefully they aren't waiting for tragedy to strike
first). Even without the new housing project, squeezing the population from 3
bridges down to two would be a nightmare. Add hundreds of families into an
already crowded peninsula and the lack of that 3rd bridge is hard to fathom.

Not to mention Magnolia was bypassed for easy access to the future light rail,
too (which we also pay for).

So yes, build more housing even if that means Discovery Park, one of the crown
jewels of Seattle, will get filled with more humanity. But at least invest in
the infrastructure and schools in a more balanced way to support all of those
new folks and the ones who live here.

You can probably imagine why tempers are rising.

~~~
techsupporter
I don't mean to come across as argumentative, but as someone who's lived in
not-Magnolia-Seattle for a long time, a lot of the points made by that
neighborhood come across as intentionally contradictory. Magnolia residents
have, for as long as I can remember, pushed for density to be _somewhere else_
on the basis that "Magnolia's infrastructure just can't handle it" or some
other variation on the theme of "density is great just not here why don't you
try building in Ballard instead."

To wit, the Magnolia Community Council, as early as the mid-2000s, was pushing
against a western light rail extension (as in, west of 15th) because it would
bring more people to the neighborhood. They've also argued against trying to
make a Sounder stop in Ballard, just across the Locks, because people could
walk there from upper Magnolia (or Metro might make good on its "threat," in
some people's words, to run a commute route on Commodore Way) and, thus,
increase the number of people living in Magnolia.

The arguments have always been that more people can't possibly fit there so,
well, how about Ballard?

~~~
coryrc
Yes, why wouldn't residents of Magnolia want the same violent, unpoliced drug
addicts now inhabiting the streets of Ballard and West Seattle in their
neighborhood too? In other countries with dense development, those are often
nice places, but in Seattle we don't lock up repeated criminals.

[https://www.myballard.com/2018/11/03/man-stabbed-after-
chasi...](https://www.myballard.com/2018/11/03/man-stabbed-after-chasing-tire-
slashers-in-ballard/)

[https://q13fox.com/2017/10/13/west-seattle-mom-walking-
infan...](https://q13fox.com/2017/10/13/west-seattle-mom-walking-infant-in-
stroller-randomly-attacked-and-stabbed-repeatedly-by-homeless-woman/)

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/from-
home...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/from-homelessness-
to-jail-and-back-king-county-tries-to-halt-cycle/)

------
greenonions
Seems like a positive move to limit the tools of NIMBYs to stymie well-
intended development.

------
rdiddly
I always puzzle over headlines like this. So they're reining in the quashing,
OK I think that adds up to being pro-development.

It's worse when the appellate court reverses the lower court's denial of the
motion to suppress the debunking of the rebuttal.

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ak217
As a California resident, this is all very familiar, except our equivalent
NIMBY-enabling law is called CEQA.

Can someone knowledgeable about CEQA/SEPA compare and contrast the two?

------
lazyasciiart
> Campbell is opposed to the reform that would restrict her ability to utilize
> SEPA appeals in the future.

I suspect a lot of supporters of this change would be willing to drop it in
exchange for somehow banning her personally from having anything to do with
any future appeals.

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sverige
Seattle practically invented NIMBY lawsuits, and their backwards laws have
always enabled it. A lawyer friend of mine was making money on one side or the
other of these lawsuits in Seattle back in the late 80s when we were both
still young. He's rich from them now.

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danschumann
I'd like to see zones where citizens can opt out of regulations in order to
receive cheaper products. Think "opportunity zones" for deregulation.

~~~
lonelappde
Those zones are called cities, which pass laws for themselves. A state has a
wide range of cities.

~~~
danschumann
Cities can't opt out of state and federal regulation. Well, I guess they can (
marijuana )... but it's kind of a gray area.

For instance... a city can't say murder is legal on a certain day (like a
purge city). That would be heinous.

They can't say that the FDA need not inspect things in a certain city, so long
as they are bought and consumed within said city(this is my main point).

Like raw milk

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KoftaBob
The magnitude of negative impact that NIMBYs have on our economy is mind
blowing. So much income is sucked up by insane housing costs, income that
could otherwise be utilized on things that aren't rent seeking landlords
hoarding money.

------
ganitarashid
This is a huge step back for the environment. People who are not familiar with
construction and development don’t know just how much waste and garbage and
pollution is generated by real estate development.

~~~
joemcb
So true! If you don't build denser housing in urban areas, the people just
disappear and cause zero environmental impact living further out in suburban
sprawl where they drive everywhere.

~~~
ganitarashid
There will always be more people. There is only one environment.

~~~
lazyasciiart
I think you completely missed the point of that comment.

~~~
ganitarashid
Not really. Housing should be more expensive than is is now, both in cities as
well as in suburbs. We don’t want growth, we want less growth. High prices
will slow growth which is a good thing for the environment.

~~~
lazyasciiart
> There will always be more people

What are you picturing, government enforced house sharing?

~~~
ganitarashid
I don’t think anything would have to be enforced. Look at San Francisco or
NYC. Most people wouldn’t want to have a family of 3 kids there because it’s
too expensive.

~~~
lazyasciiart
No - they live in the _suburbs_ of _new developments_ and drive in to work
there. Massively, unarguably a worse impact on the environment than building
some condos downtown. It's like you think people will say oh well, can't
afford San Francisco, I'll move to Detroit!

~~~
ganitarashid
That’s true, good point. Then the prices of suburbs and new developments
should be raised so high that they’re not worth building or moving to.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Byyyyy.......government enforcement or something?

------
autokad
i disagree with the general sentiment: "build more dense housing". Yeah, what
we need is more condos with 1k HOA fees for housing affordability...

We need more single family housing. There is plenty of space, just that all
the commercial buildings are so squat. Furthermore, the lack of subways means
half the city is paved roads

~~~
nostrebored
I've downvoted this because it contains no sort of reasoning. It's essentially
"I feel".

Obviously a restricted supply of housing with reasonable commute times via
public transit affects the middle class in Seattle. There's a supply/demand
problem created by people fighting for zoning regulations in areas like Queen
Anne that are actively hostile to anyone who doesn't live there already.

Wanting to live in single family housing near the city and enforcing it
legally is exactly why public transit projects like subways become impossible.
You need to have critical pockets of density before it becomes a sensible
investment.

~~~
btmiller
I'm a SFH owner in Capitol Hill, and I have 3-4 bus routes options that get me
to downtown in ~30 minutes. Subways are cool(!), but not _always_ necessary.

I think there's a balance to be had with high density versus SFH
neighborhoods. One example I think is worth considering, do we want to be
knocking down turn-of-the-century craftsman and tudor homes? They can bring a
ton of character to a neighborhood. In cases where that happens, the 3-story
cookie cutter townhomnes or cheap construction material apartments take their
place and look outdated in less than a decade.

~~~
rootsudo
As someone that lives in Cap Hill:

Yes. Houses aren't works of art. They are meant to house people.

The city isn't the same a decade ago, or a century ago or when Capital Hill
was called Renton Hill.

It is depressing that only new construction/condo to purchase in Capital hill
costs 450k+ (e.g. 750 on the hill as an example.) because SFH are 750k+. _IF_
they go for sale, and then there's a race of people who actively overpay for a
property.

Also, I can walk to downtown in <30 mins, taking a bus is a pain, and the Link
station is kinda convenient but not so convient (e.g. nothing near Volunteer
Park because everything there is $1,000,000+)

Just because it's old doesn't mean it's good and whomever owns the property
should feel fit to change it from SFH to MFH and the city should encourage MFH
developments otherwise you have small houses on oversized lots and a poor use
of space.

Give people that want to sell and people that want to buy the ability to
rezone and allow construction - and density will solve itself.

Otherwise you're going to have people in decades old apartment buildings fight
to fill it in, while the owner has no real incentive to upkeep property
because they believe it's valuable and know it's a rotating door.

~~~
btmiller
Density _is_ solving itself. If you live on the hill then you must have
noticed the incredible explosion of massive apartment buildings and condos
going up across the city. Note how it's concentrated in centers of commerce,
and that's _totally great_. It reduces your (burdensome? I guess?) 30 minute
walk, makes housing cheaper, and doesn't impede on those with the means to
afford a century old work of art; they absolutely can be and to deny so is
delusional, go walk east of Volunteer Park and see for yourself.

A diverse spectrum of zoning is important, but we also have a diverse free
market that doesn't all want high-rise condos and apartments absolutely
everywhere. Some people want a beautiful neighborhood, lots of space, privacy,
proximity to the city, and have the means to get that, so that's what they
will pursue. You should be okay with that because it's part of the same system
that allows high-rise condos along the city's arteries.

My only point of contention against the apartments/condos themselves is the
incredibly cheap materials and trendy designs that will look terrible in a
decade's time. Look back on other periods of housing like the 70's Brady
Bunch-style ranch houses to see how other trendy houses have aged.

> Capital Hill

With an "o", not an "a".

~~~
darksaints
> A diverse spectrum of zoning is important, but we also have a diverse free
> market that doesn't all want high-rise condos and apartments absolutely
> everywhere.

If you're using zoning to accomplish that, you don't have a free market.

~~~
btmiller
Having limited SFH zones does not prohibit a person from pursuing any number
of housing option that works best for them.

~~~
nostrebored
Zoning explicitly allows you to have undervalued property. A sfh in the center
of an economically bustling city is substantially more valuable than you
suggest. You should expect to pay the price of housing multiple people,
because that's the potential value of the property.

