Aug

9

Where is the TOD?

Filed Under Brownbag, Housing, Land Use, Transit, Zoning | Leave a Comment

Great City’s Leadership for Great Neighborhoods meets tomorrow at GGLO’s Space at the Steps to discuss the future of station area planning efforts. Our friend Roger Valdez opines on the state of local Transit Oriented Development, or the lack thereof, on the Seattle Transit Blog:

Amend Seattle’s land use code to get real Transit Oriented Development

by Roger Valdez

Roosevelt Night Life (Photo by author)

This summer has been good for land use and transit in Seattle largely because of the discussion—some would say argument—over appropriate density around the Roosevelt station area. Wednesday this week is a big day for Roosevelt, the Seattle City Council’s Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) is having a hearing on the subject and later that day Leadership for Great Neighborhoods is having a brown bag lunch discussion. The discussion in both places ought to include something about amending Seattle’s toothless station area overlay designation in its land use code.

Seattle hasn’t encouraged or even allowed true Transit Oriented Development. Any visitor to Beacon Hill will attest to the bizarre sight of a light rail station sticking out of the ground like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Other station areas have yet to deliver on the promise of dense, walkable, housing and retail built around light rail stops. Why does Seattle lag so far behind places like British Columbia and Vancouver where there is lots of new housing around light rail?

Part of the problem is our single-family focused culture and economy. It’s easy to forget that one big private property interest in Seattle is single-family homeowners who benefit from attenuating the supply of housing. That’s not a slur, but a simple economic point. If housing is in short supply, then those who already own it benefit by keeping that supply limited. Diminished supply and increasing demand means existing homeowners can watch their property values increase …More

Apr

5

Can Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Programs Work in Washington State? : Northwest Land Matters : Seattle Lawyers & Attorneys for Land Use, Real Estate, Environmental & Water Law : GordonDerr LLP

Filed Under Development, Zoning | Leave a Comment

From the law blog of GordonDerr:

The City of Issaquah recently announced a complex agreement involving a transfer of development rights (TDR) transaction that will preserve more than 140 acres of forested land in and around the City, including the entire Park Pointe area at the base of Tiger Mountain. Several years ago, a developer had proposed to build hundreds of homes at Park Pointe. The TDR agreement shifts new development away from Park Pointe and into the area around the Issaquah Highlands master-planned community.

This project, like many other TDR success stories in Washington State, was the result of fairly unique and fortuitous circumstances. Land conservation efforts always require vision and dedication, and in this case, local officials, planners, and other partners worked for years to preserve Park Pointe. However, as reported in the Issaquah Press, a key factor in the ultimate success of the project was the recession: between early 2009 and late 2010, the property’s value dropped from $18.9 million to around $6 million.

TDR is an intriguing concept that has been studied and debated at length. It has been used in a variety of one-off, opportunistic projects in Washington (ranging from historic preservation and affordable housing to conservation of working forests and farms). But it remains to be seen whether TDR can be used on a broader scale for more strategic and proactive conservation.

…more: via Can Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Programs Work in Washington State? : Northwest Land Matters : Seattle Lawyers & Attorneys for Land Use, Real Estate, Environmental & Water Law : GordonDerr LLP.

Mar

10

If the most fertile land in the country produces cars and chemicals, what do we eat?

Filed Under Cities, Food System, Land Use, Zoning | Leave a Comment

Out of India, where government investment can result in the conversion of agricultural land into office parks, comes a fundamental question relevant to the global smart-growth movement:

If the most fertile land in the country produces cars and chemicals, what do we eat?

via Don’t just develop land, develop future – India – DNA.

Nov

16

What’s wrong with this picture, part II

Filed Under Sustainability, Transportation, What's Wrong With This Picture?, Zoning | Leave a Comment

The Conservative Planner takes exception with the urban design of a Salt Lake City Airport play area’s simulated-town mat. Part II in an ongoing series where we pull from the latest commentary about our built environment, real, envisioned and imagined.

Here’s an excerpt:

B: Safe Routes to Schools: The lack of sidewalks, combined with the railroad crossing, create an unsafe situation for children whose parents would like to have them walk to school.

C: Abandoned Train Station: The town recently lost out on the eighth round of stimulus grants geared toward funding new High Speed Rail investments.

D. Random Park Bench: This is the tell-tale sign that a landscape architect was involved with this beautification project in the early 2000s to help bring life back to the west side of downtown. The project stalled when overruns by the Public Works Department left the project without its water feature.

Now, please excuse us while we go draft our open letter to the pile of felt-cutout townsfolk characters we’re calling the “local planning board.”

The Conservative Planner’s full critique here.

Part one here.

Nov

5

Fix public housing by reconnecting it to the street grid

Filed Under Zoning | Leave a Comment

Grist, the important online magazine about environmental issues with a global reach, is just one of many influential outfits we’re lucky to have right here in our backyard.  And in this post, they take a look at the biggest urban development on Seattle’s horizon; Yesler Terrace.  Spoiler alert: its all about connectivity.

The Road to Success is Paved

Rather than freaking out over poll returns Tuesday evening, I figured I’d go learn something (and then freak out later). So I joined a walking tour of Yesler Terrace, a Seattle public housing project that’s slated for an interesting redevelopment. It’s a useful counter-example to UniverCity, the pretty urbanism-in-suburbia neighborhood outside of Vancouver that’s pretty much unaffordable for anyone who can’t make $1,200 rent.

Yesler Ave

Photo: Seattle Housing Authority

Yesler Terrace, by contrast, has rents from around $300, sits in the heart of a city, and hopes to rehab an existing neighborhood — a far more common task than building whole developments from the ground up. It’s a neighborhood of 561 squat, aging duplex-style units built in 1939 as the city’s first public housing project. It’s positioned on a hillside with sweeping views just eight blocks from downtown, adjacent to the city’s First Hill medical hub, and a block or two from the Little Saigon commercial district.

It also feels like its own insular neighborhood, since few of its internal streets connect to the surrounding grid. It was intended to be a self-contained garden community — a model that was praised at the time. The two-story structures with small yards have provided a landscape more humane than, say, the failed high-rise projects of Chicago. (Electricity for the whole area inexplicably went out while I was there. Kids outside warned each other about walking alone in the dark, but didn’t sound truly scared.) …More

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