Before the end of the year, the Seattle City Council will need to approve a new Comprehensive Plan for the City. Voted on every 10 years, the comp plan defines where growth will occur in Seattle. The plan serves to guide the city for the next 20 years and even beyond.
Last March, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced his comp plan proposal, calling it “The One Seattle Plan.” Denouncement of that plan came quickly from those who said it didn’t begin to provide sufficient density. Criticism also came from Rep. Jessica Bateman (D-Olympia) prime sponsor of HB1110, the bill passed by the Legislature that calls for much greater development to meet the state’s affordable housing crisis. By contrast, neighborhood advocates were taking an opposite view, saying the increased density would turn the city’s districts into apartment ghettos.
Since his earlier announcement, Harrell’s One Seattle Plan has been considerably redrawn. His most recent version, announced Oct. 16, more than doubles increased capacity to 330,000 units of new housing. The update is a far bolder approach to providing “middle housing.” When announcing his revision, Harrell was accompanied by advocates from the city’s housing development consortium, commercial real estate interests, the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and Futurewise, a nonprofit that champions land use issues.
Harrell sold his updated plan as fully implementing HB-1110. In addition to greater upzoning, more duplexes, triplexes, and quadruplexes, the mayor is also advocating corner stores throughout the city, planting larger trees, waived parking requirements, added accessory dwellings, and an incentive for stacked flats.
There’s no question Harrell’s revised comp plan will bring much change to Seattle. But there is one glaring stumbling block. We may think of Seattle as a city, but in reality Chief Seattle’s namesake isn’t so much a city as a collection of distinct neighborhoods.
Ask a Seattleite where they live and rather than citing Seattle they might say “Greenwood,” “Madrona,” “Fauntleroy,” or one of several dozen other neighborhoods. Some of those neighborhoods once were incorporated cities that were annexed by Seattle in the early years of the 20th Century.
Rationale for joining Seattle often was the need for services like municipal water or weekly garbage collection. A number of these districts became part of the city May 3, 1891, when Seattle more than doubled in size acquiring neighborhoods North of the downtown hub. Included were Magnolia, Wallingford, Green Lake, and Brooklyn (later University District).
The city of South Seattle was annexed in 1905, while in 1907, incorporated towns of Ravenna, Ballard, and Columbia were added, with Georgetown acquired in 1910. Lake City, a region known for its blue-collar population, didn’t become part of the city until 1954. Residents there voted for annexation because of promised sidewalks, and that promise still hasn’t been fully honored.
Seattle today has something like 78 neighborhoods (one source lists 127), depending on who’s counting. Most have their own distinctive identity and intriguing history. For example Ballard was first settled by Nordic immigrants working in fishing and logging. The newcomers brought their native customs to the area.
Other neighborhoods also rely on back stories and identities. Early Asian arrivals – Chinese, Japanese, Filipino – tended to cluster in the Chinatown International District and in nearby neighborhoods like Beacon Hill. There they had access to familiar food and to others who spoke their languages.
Many of region’s Italian immigrants first came here to work in coal mines near Black Diamond. Other Italian newcomers toiled on small family farms in Rainier Valley. They created the large area known as “Little Italy” or sometimes “Garlic Gulch.” Families grouped around landmarks like Mount Virgin and St. Peter’s Catholic churches in South Seattle.
African American pioneers came early to the area, living first in the Madison Valley. More arrived in the 40s and 50s drawn by wartime employment. The newcomers settled in the Central District, occupying the area that once had been home to a substantial Jewish population. Those early Jewish settlers moved on to Seward Park. In later years, the Central District became a haven for members of the LGBTQ+ community. In the competition for housing, many African Americans moved southward into the Rainier Valley, leaving behind churches like Mount Zion Baptist and the First African Methodist Episcopal.
Among forces that negatively shaped some Seattle neighborhoods were the racial covenants that became common in the 1920s. Written into deeds, the housing covenants forbade selling or renting to people of color and those of certain ethnic backgrounds and origins. This egregious tactic of “redlining” continued to affect north-of-canal communities negatively long after Congress passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawing such practices.
Forgotten during formation of the city’s neighborhoods was that it had long been home to Chief Seattle’s people. Heirs of the indigenous tribes that lived here for untold generations, the Suquamish and Duwamish, have not disappeared. They remain with us, a sometimes-unseen community in our midst.
Seattle’s patchwork of distinctive districts grew strong throughout the 20th century, reinforced by the rise of politically active community councils. These councils worked to influence public policy and helped keep districts distinct in years prior to the city’s division into seven large councilmanic voting districts in 2014. However, the city’s 78 or more residential districts still retain strong identities and are certain to become a factor in response to the Seattle City Council passing an updated comprehensive plan.
To approve the required comp plan update by the end of this year, the council, most of whom were endorsed by the mayor, will undoubtedly consider adopting Harrell’s proposal with little or no revision. But councilmembers also have a duty to protect the distinct but fragile neighborhoods they represent.
Seattle would lose something if neighborhoods are treated indiscriminately. Phinney Ridge is not just another Mount Baker; nor is Maple Leaf the same as Hillman City. The city neighborhoods all have their charms, their unique character. Seattle is a smorgasbord of varied delights, deserving to be preserved.
Another interesting article, Jean. Consider the website Walkable.com as a resource the city has not considered in its zeal to create multi-family housing in Seattle neighborhoods. Understand that residents ‘have no right to on street parking’, but neighborhood groups/councils care about density largely in the context of on-street parking. If the city used walkable.com as a guide, addresses that score less than 70% walkable would be excluded from the ‘paint all neighborhoods with the same brush’ approach. Just a thought, but since Seattle is so ‘tech-savvy’ why not use the technology to our advantage?
Seattle’s population has grown from 572,587 in 2005 to 797,700 in 2024 according to the Washington state Office of Financial Management. That increase in population over a 20-year period means that a significant percentage of Seattle residents do not have meaningful ties to the history of local neighborhoods.
While those of us who are long time residents can be nostalgic of the Scandinavian Bakery in Ballard or Borracchini’s in south Seattle we should have no obligation to try to hang onto to something that was essentially lost a long time ago.
It is time for a new generation to decide how they want to create their city. Nostalgia to me is only another form of NIMBYism that serves to keep us from building the homes that we need to keep our schools operating and essentially workers living within the city. We need more 3BR/2BA options, which the mayor’s plan doesn’t provide. The Comp Plan will give us a lot of urban canyons with studio, 1BR and 2BR apartments, but that won’t keep families in the city. It won’t build homes for retirees to downsize. The only way to do that is to change the neighborhood character–higher buildings, town homes, row house, stacked flats. Every neighborhood around a school should be rezoned to build these types of affordable family-sized homes. The Comp Plan still doesn’t go far enough.
The Mayors Plan is simply that – a concept of permissible options that developers may or may not take up depending if they deem them profitable enough. A comp plan does not actually finance or build family housing, nor does it create affordability. 3 bdrm apartments in my neighborhood are rare and charge nearly $5k/mo for rent — about the same you’d find renting a SFH. I do not fault Ms Godden for mourning the loss of Seattle’s old neighborhoods, which weren’t just beloved businesses, but intact communities — working class and ethnic micro-cultures, artists and seniors that have since been displaced and replaced by earners with the means to afford these new units. If we hand over our communities to developers to mold and shape a city we do not recognize, what do we get in return?
“Handing over our communities to developers” as you put it in practical terms means creating homes for those who might otherwise be priced out of living in Seattle. Where the Comp Plan fails is attempting to wall off significant portions of our city that is detached single family homes. If we are really concerned about faceless corporate developers molding our city, we would provide more opportunities for our local architects to craft designs and solutions that fit within our neighborhoods. We would promote the small construction companies that take risks in building townhomes, row houses and stacked flats as in-fill in these neighborhoods. This type of construction supports highly skilled tradesmen that in turn add diversity to our communities. A vibrant and healthy neighborhood needs essentially more neighbors, and there are a lot of people in Seattle who use nostalgia as a means to keep what they have. The Comp Plan still doesn’t go far enough.
And the building of new homes in the past two decades has actually resulted in pricing out people who could not afford to live in Seattle in favor of folks who can pay higher rent. As with any new policy, ask “who benefits from this, and who is impacted?” I don’t see consolidating ownership to fewer corporate housing owners as as friendly to the working class. I see it as a threat.
It is interesting for YIMBYs to call housing developers “suppliers” when it comes to building new homes and establishing developer friendly policy, but “landlords” and all the baggage that comes with when establishing tenant protection policies. The developers and landlords are one and the same, and the city has yet to study the impacts of many many new regulations impacting the rental market. We need more understanding how such rental regulations impact affordable housing supply.
I see “stacked flats” thrown around like some silver bullet housing design— they will only be successful if there is a market for them. Unfortunately state law is very unfriendly to condos, so these won’t be built to sell; current pricing for three bedroom apartments is so outrageous that families are more likely to spring for purchasing one of those tall/skinny stand alone homes where they can build equity and have some privacy and perhaps a small yard.
Housing is a tough nut to crack, for sure. Doubling our housing capacity in the next comp plan is very ambitious and to say that it’s “not enough” is a bit disingenuous when the challenges are not related to zoning, they are related to cost and market demand. I’d personally like to see more legal vehicles for multiple owners to purchase housing (avoid the dysfunctional condo model), and for developers to stretch their design skills to build some model communities and that might whet appetites for more and better development. So far, it’s been a bunch of lame, overpriced 1-2 bdrm canyons that’s got writers like Godden longing for bygone housing eras.
I think I missed something, having not gone through the plan myself like I used to. The article takes what seems to be a somewhat critical view of Harrell’s plan, but I don’t see in here, what should be changed.
HB 1110 doesn’t give the city much latitude. Zoning will have to be relaxed, reducing density and increasing auto oriented development — yes, because housing will be spread across a larger area of the city. Units have been built yearly for the last decade at what I propose is the maximum rate. That rate isn’t going to go up – that’s what maximum means – no matter what the zoning. Neither will prices go down.
I also missed what about the upzones has prevented townhomes etc.
And somewhat curious what “planting larger trees” looks like. SDOT street trees will be planted from bigger nursery stock? They’ll plant more trees that grow big instead of dinky oversize bushes like hawthorns?
Dropping on site parking requirements is very short sighted. This will be the last decade you can buy a gas powered car in Washington, and it won’t be long before people will start to wonder where they can plug their cars in. It sure won’t be on the street in front of someone else’s house, and I don’t think they’re going to like dealing with public chargers even if they can find one open. On site parking means on site charging, and it’s going to be important.
What will keep families in the city? Retaining the existing “single family” housing stock! A modest house with a small backyard and some privacy is what most families want. Instead the Mayor’s plan will ensure that thousands of these homes, built with old growth timber that have been upgraded, and withstood the test of time, will be destroyed and replaced with 13-foot wide, 4 story townhomes filled steep stairs, no yards, no trees, no privacy. This is not an improvement and will not even fill the need for “affordable housing.” The Dept. of Commerce projects that Seattle will need 62,750 new units of housing for households in the 0-50% AMI income brackets. Very low and low income. Townhomes and Rowhouses around schools will not help. The same projection calls for 13,408 units for the “missing middle” at 50-100% AMI. Seattle provided data to the Puget Sound Regional Council showing a development capacity at current zoning of 172,440 units. So why do we need such a massive upzoning citywide? Developers will never overbuild so prices come down but that’s the goofy theory behind the “One Seattle Plan.”
I’ll never understand the infatuation with former Rep. Bateman. HB1110 does seem to be functioning as she and her co-sponsor Rep. Barkis intended. In the hearing process, they said the law would give cities safe harbor from SEPA challenges and the Growth Management Hearings Board. They wanted a supply-side law that partners with the private sector. Rep. Barkis in particular frequently mentioned support from builders.
This is classic neoliberalism. One more example of using trickle-down policy to create some public benefit eventually. Here, developers get rich building in-fill, while the public will pay for the back-fill.
To the point of Jean’s article, however, Sen. Jasmine Trudeau held up a flyer purporting to show the in-fill would blend in with existing housing and not be obvious. . .
Many of us want future generations to be able to enjoy as much as possible the things we’ve loved about living here. Why would people go out of their way to try and shame us for this as was done in the hearings? (Sen. Noel Frame: “This is a power dynamic. This is about your privilege vs. the right of someone to have a roof over their head.”)
There is a very vocal contingent that seems to prefer name-calling to consensus, and they have added ageism to their talking points. Doesn’t sound very democratic, does it?
We older people are toughened by age and mindful of the past. We remember what life was like before Reaganomics took hold, while people born after about 1975 don’t know anything else and many don’t seem to understand the harm in it. Lucky for them, we aren’t going to be quiet, and we aren’t going away any time soon.
Well said. Unfortunately, our only defense against this kind of thing is if state interference in municipal planning were found to be unconstitutional. Legislators are too removed from their constituencies, and too exposed to lobbyists and special interests, for good government in this area.
I don’t know about the currently proposed plan, but the current plan describes what used to be single family in terms of mass and scale. The mass and scale – how big the buildings appear – that’s typical of these neighborhoods, is obviously quite different from what is being built in them.
To conform to the rhetoric, standards have to be tightened up to make today’s maximum floor space architecture fit, at least in terms of mass and scale, with the built environment from yesteryear where people seem to have attached a little more value to having a yard.
You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the craftsmen homes in Phinney Ridge or Mount Baker if I posted them without street signs. That’s because they came out of cookie cutter catalogs and were stamped all over the country. What makes Seattle’s neighborhoods unique are the people and commercial districts. If we don’t build enough homes, those people are forced to go somewhere else. If we don’t allow growth everywhere, then those commercial strips are targeted as the only places allowing growth.
The bottom line is, density has kept Seattle diverse. Since they were formed, black population outside the urban villages has declined by 9,000 while it grew within urban villages by 8,000. Without density we do not recover this population. Over 2/3rds of the BIPOC population growth resides in urban villages as well.
We need the density to preserve affordability and to keep Seattle diverse. We already saw what happens when you don’t upzone–just look at the areas outside urban villages.
There is nothing wrong with the plan and it hardly is much of a change at all. We can currently put 3 units on any lot, this plan ups that to 4 and 6 near frequent transit. Sixplexes are great and should be expanded to be legal everywhere. That “capacity” would grow to 1 million. While that sounds scary, it’s hardly what will happen. We need the space to grow housing when the need is there, without it we just make housing more expensive. Sure, that craftsmen bungalow in the Central District raised a few generations of black families, but while it was worth $275,000 in 2000, it just sold for $1.3 million dollars. Who do you think moved in? That neighborhood would be changing even if the zoning didn’t.
The Seattle streets we like and which some see as shrines to all that is decent in human civilization were built by money-grubbing capitalist developers. Just something to remember.
It doesn’t mean that nice neighborhoods are built by capitalism but only that throwing out rhetoric like “classic neo-liberalism” is irrelevant (beyond being inaccurate.)
It actually does matter who owns the capital/housing. A top down development approach will leave us with a few owners with vast control over the rental market. Supporting a market where many can own throughout the city may take more time and support, but will keep more money in the local economy and provide more options for renters.
They could start by returning the Department of Neighborhood’s role to engaging those many and different neighborhoods, rather than having it be a mouthpiece for the mayor that it is now. That special neighborhood character should be nurtured.
I watched Fremont become homogenized by replacing old housing stock with three-story townhouses. It could have had more housing increased by adding cottages or other forms of housing in backyards, which would have maintained the streetscape.
Keeping public spaces and developments outside of downtown at human scale is important. Instead, we are gaining sheer six+ story structures that create canyons of sound and block light. The three-story walkup townhouses built quickly in downtown Fremont in the “urban village” already have paint peeling and have started to look run down. That’s what we get for not investing more in protecting neighborhood character.
In an editorial on Dec. 5, the Seattle Times warned that Harrell’s proposed “One Seattle Plan” would lead to a less-green Seattle. By maximizing lot coverage to 50 percent (from the previous 35 percent) and changing required setbacks from 20 to10 feet in the font and from 25 to10 feet in back, there wouldn’t be enough room to sustain larger trees. The City Council will be looking into those details until June of next year and, as the Times warned: “Concrete is forever.”
This is false choice. Barcelona has 30% tree canopy and a population density of 41,000 per square mile whereas Seattle has 8000 per square mile. It is not an either/or situation. It is an issue of political intent by our mayor and council to retain our car centric zoning and to not place an emphasis on tree canopy in the public rights of way.
We have parking strips with overhead wires that preclude grand trees. In my neighborhood of Ravenna, my house has two power lines along the alley and two power lines along the main street. When I walk across the bridge to the north of Ravenna Park there are grand trees where there are no power lines. Our Olmstead designed avenues do not have power lines, for example Ravenna Boulevard and NE 17th Avenue at the entrance of University of Washington.
We could dedicate streets to 2-way traffic when we could redesign streets for one-way traffic and take back space for trees. We could pedestrianize thoroughfares, like University Way.
The issue of tree canopy in my view is merely a transparent smokescreen of good ole basic NIMBYism, where the 80% of Seattle’s single family homes want to keep things the way they are.
I wonder if the solution to preserving neighborhood distinctiveness is to devolve more authority to neighborhoods, as practiced in Portland. I mean design review, zoning authority, sidewalk authority, and protection of neighborhood treasures. One problem with local option is that soreheads tend to gravitate to these authorities and never depart. A time limit for tenure might be a solution to entrenched soreheads.
I like the idea of assigning density to each neighborhood and then they just figure it out. The city needn’t care *how* they get there, so long as the neighborhood identifies zoning upgrades/choices that achieve the goals.
That’s a great idea, except City Hall won’t allow it. Maybe you remember about 10 years ago the Roosevelt community drafted a detailed plan that met all the criteria, including density. https://rooseveltseattle.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Ex-A-Roosevelt-Neighborhood-Design-Guidelines-2015.pdf. One landowner insisted on more height than the plan allowed. (The community wanted Roosevelt High School to be the salient structure of the neighborhood.) And so the plan was overturned.
DB,
Do you want to create a new formal level of government?
“Neighborhoods”.
I don’t see how you can implement your idea unless you create new ELECTED officials.
And do you want the neighborhood level of government to control City-wide assets such as Seattle Center, Green Lake etc etc etc ? Really?
Could work, but I can’t think of any existing use of that kind of density target at any level.
The PSRC periodically comes out with some staggering figure for people migrating to this part of the country. If there’s a growth surge already under way, inevitably exceeding housing which at best lags by a couple years, that just adds force to the “build we must” drum beat. The city may run a fairly sophisticated analysis of available capacity, but if that looks adequate – it will simply be ignored.
No civic institution actually builds housing in significant quantity, be it city hall or a neighborhood council. They only fiddle with zoning, which is really not the problem but it’s the only thing we can adjust and generations of neoliberalism have imprinted us with “deregulate we must.” And no one is going to be willing to say X density is enough.
We actually tried all this – neighborhood plans, models of civic engagement with city planners, massive documents. Wallingford went on to meet and exceed its growth targets. Didn’t matter. Ed Murray had other plans, we were NIMBYs.
Maybe we should just all brand ourselves ‘NIMBY’ and save anyone else the trouble.
King County now has housing availability dashboard that tracks housing according to affordability. https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiOWZhZWE3ZDMtODFmYy00YTkyLWI1NzYtYWI5NTExOWI2NmE5IiwidCI6ImJhZTUwNTlhLTc2ZjAtNDlkNy05OTk2LTcyZGZlOTVkNjljNyJ9
The statistics there are consistent with the WA Commerce 5/20/24 complaint that the Seattle Comp Plan version reviewed did not address barriers to housing for deeply affordable housing, emergency housing and permanent supportive housing.
Our city has been so focused on the ‘supply side’ we are continuing the harmful status quo for the most vulnerable residents.
You’er so right, Jean. What really frosts me is the proposal to essentially do away with design review boards. Here on historic First Hill, with its many 100-year-old brick apartment buildings, my friends and I were able to successfully argue to the local DRB that brick needs to be a theme for some of the otherwise-cookie cutter boxes going up. Honestly, we helped prevent some architectural disasters, so that if you approach First Hill from the Northeast, it actually feels like First Hill, despite some of the modern additions.
Using design review to suggest modest design changes? Great. Weaponizing design review- i.e. using it to delay or block the building of buildings, is not great. Case in point: the Queen Anne Safeway. It took nearly a quarter of a century to building an apartment building- an apartment building!- above a grocery store. We went to the moon in less time. If design review is going to continue to exist in its same form and with its same power to influence, it should be used for its original purpose.
Thanks, William. Yes, the changes we suggested on First Hill to the DRB were non-obstructory, merely meant to reflect the neighborhood’s historic context. And the quality of the new buildings is much better. You can see how the architects nodded to the historical context in new apartment buildings like the Gridline—next to the brick Knights of Columbus Building; 1320 University; the just-opened Victor (next to the brick First Baptist Church); and the wonderful high rise, Coppins Well, whose very name reflects the historic context.
Depending that architects respect historic context has nothing to do with obstruction. It only has to do with mediocre architects. Remember, architects follow the bell curve of competence: Half of them are beloiw average.
Design Review Boards have too much power in this city. Buildings get old and expensive, and probably most of the time they should be torn down and replaced with something that better suits the current needs of the city. Many if not most would not pass current seismic requirements and/or energy requirements. By trying too hard to hang onto the past, we hinder the current generation of architects and builders from creating something new. DRB are just NIMBYs by another name.
We could maybe short-circuit some of the contests if we brought back neighborhood design guidelines. Did those go the way of the community councils? Anyway, builders and communities could have a start at getting along better.
While it’s true we need more housing, a needle point focus on scrapping rules for developers to build it is going to create new problems just as complex as the current ones. We can plan carefully and build constructively, or we can keep doing what we’re doing and wind up paying with penalty early tomorrow.
You recommend tearing down buildings most of the time. In what universe is this the sustainable path? Why not consider retrofitting, or is this just another NIMBY concern?
Sign me – Another Noisy NIMBY
I count four comments here from you. In three you accuse people who disagree with real estate developer industry deregulation of being NIMBYs, and in the remaining one we’re doing it to “keep what we have.”
I’ve already done as Ruth maybe jokingly suggested above, and branded myself a NIMBY. Yes indeed, I want to keep what we have. Or, to be honest, what you have, because as it became too depressingly apparent that the city I thought was my home was inevitably being replaced with another expensive West Coast megalopolis … I left.
NIMBY, where is thy sting? So many people I know and respect are, and I’m proud to be one too, if I may be found deserving to bear this label.
And I suppose you can imagine, Jeffry Berner, there are plenty of moral failings we impute to your crowd, so you may call me a NIMBY any time you like.