Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin talks about being socially and environmentally responsible, and responsive to neighborhoods. Yet, when he gets around to voting, he always seems to wind up in the same place: doing whatever large developers want. Conlin’s way will be on display Jan. 17, when the full council votes on the Roosevelt neighborhood upzones.
In a Land Use Committee meeting last month, City Councilmembers Sally Clark, Tim Burgess, Sally Bagshaw, Mike O’Brien and Tom Rasmussen chose to ignore the Roosevelt neighborhood’s recommendation to limit densities and heights to 40 feet on three blocks immediately south of Roosevelt High School.
Conlin has indicated he will join the majority when the full council votes, making it a virtual certainty that even-greater densities and 65-foot heights will be imposed on these blocks.
Honoring agreements
Under existing zoning, the entire Roosevelt neighborhood is currently zoned for six times the capacity needed to accommodate its 20-year 2024 residential-growth targets, and it has reached 64 percent of that target in just seven years.
Despite concerns over a lack of adequate public infrastructure to support rapid growth and fears it would overwhelm the character and affordability of their neighborhood, residents agreed to accept still more density in the form of several upzones around their planned light-rail stop.
Neighbors asked for one thing in return: reasonable limits on height, scale and design of the blocks immediately south of Roosevelt High School, in order to protect the “heart and soul” of the community.
As one resident stated in her testimony to council members, “This really isn’t a debate over density or shouldn’t be since the neighborhood clearly has demonstrated its willingness to accept a lot more of it.”
Instead, this is about honoring agreements between residents and city planners forged over years of neighborhood planning involving hundreds of hours of volunteer time.
And it’s about ensuring a scale of development adjacent to the school that would not block views or tower over or overwhelm the school at the heart of that community.
‘Unnecessary’ polarization
But Conlin’s recent mailer explaining his support for higher densities on the high school blocks ignores all that.
First, he trivializes the role of neighbors in the planning process, saying they only “help shape decisions.” On the contrary, neighborhood planning is a long-recognized key element of the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
In every discretionary and “quasi-judicial” land-use decision, our hearing examiner and City Council are required to give substantial, legal weight to the community position before granting upzones or other discretionary land-use decisions.
Imperiously, Conlin claims the council’s only mistake was not making it clear at the outset of community discussions in 2005 that greater heights and densities would be imposed on those blocks.
Conlin also states that, “overheated rhetoric polarized the issue unnecessarily.”
If anyone did any polarizing, it was Mayor Mike McGinn, with his decision last May to override his own planners and the community and favor the greater heights for the high school blocks sought by a few pro-density zealots and development interests. Conlin’s and the other five councilmembers’ upcoming vote fuels the fire.
False reasoning
Under our legal system, Conlin claims the city lacked the tools to effectively address “blight created by the [reputed slumlord Hugh] Sisley properties” and now must essentially bow to his plans for redevelopment of those three blocks south of the high school. Wrong again.
Takings law allows our council to set design, setback and other siting criteria as easily at densities of 40 or 65 feet or whatever, so long as owners are allowed a “reasonable” — not “maximum” — return.
It was nice that our housing, building and maintenance codes were strengthened recently to address nuisance properties, but the city has always retained authority to order the repair or removal of structures violating health and safety standards.
The city also can seek a court-appointed receiver to manage and clean up blighted properties, charging costs to owners. And state law gives cities clear authority to seek condemnation and take ownership of such properties — power, unfortunately, that the city’s only willing to use on behalf of corporate developers against small businesses, like those displaced in South Lake Union for a streetcar barn and widening Mercer corridor.
Finally, Conlin says Roosevelt got 95 percent of what it wanted, even with the higher densities south of the school, so it’s really an affirmation of neighborhood planning. No, it’s a naked political bow to development interests, camouflaged in pseudo-“green,” pro-density, planning rhetoric.
Time for a change
Incumbent City Councilmembers are routinely reelected in this town and increasingly take on an air of “I don’t care. I don’t have to.”
Their campaigns are heavily financed from developer and out-of-town contributions, so is it any surprise that the neighborhoods are increasingly marginalized as signaled by this vote?
It should send a clear message to all of us: not to give up, but to fight all the harder and to look to other strategies besides these co-optive and no-longer-legitimate forms of structured neighborhood planning.
Legal challenges and appeals have proven effective when neighborhoods can afford them, or, perhaps, it’s time for another attempt at securing election of our councilmembers by district.
Taking a lesson from the Occupy movement, maybe it’s time to Occupy City Hall.
JOHN V. FOX and CAROLEE COLTER are coordinators for the Seattle Displacement Coalition (www.zipcon.net), a low-income housing organization.
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