Seattle Displacement Coalition 4554 12th NE * Seattle * Washington * 98105 * fax: 206-642-1656 * ph: 206-632-0668 * jvf4119@zipcon.net
Downtown Development – Who Wins? Who Loses?
Why Seattle Should Not Become Another Manhattan
Challenging the myth that adding density in downtown and South Lake Union will prevent sprawl and guarantee affordability for our communities
An Analysis of the Problem and a Look at Alternative Growth Scenarios for Seattle and the region that will help ensure a fairer distribution and wealth and resources in our communities
Executive Summary:
This piece was written in 1999 but much of it is still very relevant for today - especially given the fact that the City is moving aggressively forward with a plan to re-write its comprehensive plan for all of Seattle neighborhoods and including the downtown. Mayor Nickels also is a staunch advocate of the downtown office boom and favors adding substantial office densities in the downtown core as well as in South Lake Union, the U-District, and Northgate. To accommodate additional employment densities the Mayor also has delegated to his planning staff the task of adding more residential capacity in virtually all of Seattle's non-single-family areas especially in areas the ring the downtown core. Northgate, South Lake Union, and the U-District also receive special attention.
The following piece is a critical look at the costs and impacts associated with our love affair with downtown development and more generally, it is a critical look at traditional economic assumptions that often provide the rationale for many of the city's land use, housing, and growth policies, i.e, that simply by adding more density in Seattle that will somehow reduce the cost of housing and prevent urban sprawl. Quite the contrary, this City's commitment to accelerated levels of growth and density have contributed directly to higher housing costs and urban sprawl with all its attendant impacts on our city and region. The Mayor's attempt to add even more density in Seattle will only accentuate these trends.
Contents:
1. The Problem of Runaway Downtown Growth and its cost to Seattle and the region:
2. The Costs Outweigh Tax Revenues Generated by the Office Boom:
3. How Much Office Growth Have We Seen?
4. More about the impact on housing - challenging the "density equals affordability" myth
- Other Related Factors Contributing to Increased Housing Demand:
- The Impact of the Downtown Boom on Demolitions and Increased Rents:
5. Limit Downtown Growth and Promote a “Poly-Centered” Regional Alternative
6. The Downtown Boom Presents a “Hobsen’s Choice”:
7. Increased Transportation Demand Accompanying the Office Boom - Why we always will be three
steps behind in our efforts to meet increased traffic demands created by the boom:
8. Seattle’s Job Needs Have Not Been Addressed by the Office Boom:
Solutions – A Limited Growth Model for Seattle and a “Poly-Centered” Approach for the Region:
1. The Problem of Runaway Downtown Growth and its cost to Seattle and the region:
The roots of Seattle's housing shortage and its traffic congestion can indeed be traced directly to runaway downtown development, and the conscious decisions of locally elected officials to promote the boom at the expense of low cost housing and our neighborhoods. Over the last 20 years our city officials have played a large role by allocating millions of our tax dollars to accommodate the boom – Annually, 25-30 percent of the City's budget is poured into downtown for police, sewer, fire, water, energy, streets, etc. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of big ticket capital projects have been added over this period and more are planned, including the Westlake Mall, Bus Tunnel, adding a new energy substation to serve downtown, Convention Center, Harborfront Improvements, Nordstrom’s-Pacific Place Parking Garage, Pioneer Square Improvements, a symphony hall and art museum, a planned civic center, the purchase of Key Tower, and new downtown public library. This does not count the costs of building two new stadiums downtown as well. Funding for these major projects required the city to tap its emergency fund, G-O Bonds, and non-voter approved councilmanic bond sources. The downtown boom and these enormous expenditures have been enthusiastically supported by most public officials while simultaneously ignoring the extensive impacts of this growth on our community. These impacts have included:
1. Substantial hikes in our electricity rates – the cost of adding electrical generating capacity and a new downtown substation has been substantial and translated directly into higher utility rates.
2. The deferral of necessary street repair and utility maintenance and upkeep in our neighborhoods – there is a 80 million dollar 20 year backlog of necessary improvements needed in our communities. There is no backlog for these services in the downtown.
3. To fund many of these major projects – it has added debt that must be paid off each year drawn from the City budget. This amounts to ten’s of millions of dollars that otherwise could have been used to address our housing, homeless, and neighborhood needs.
4. The boom has created enormous traffic, transportation, and parking problems that translate into an erosion in the quality of life here and required the City and region to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to mitigate. Impacts include traffic spillover into neighborhoods, increased noise and air pollution, added taxpayer expenses to pay for more freeway lanes, bus routes downtown etc., and deferred service to the rest of the region (so the downtown can be served).
5. The office boom has led directly to a net loss of several thousand units of very low income housing and required the City to spend hundreds of millions of limited dollars to replace those units. After spending these enormous sums to acquire and rehabilitate low cost units in downtown, we still have experienced a net loss of about 4000 units since 1980 from 10,000 to about 6000. In addition, indirectly, by bringing thousands of new residents to the region it has had the direct effect of substantially increasing the demand for housing (in a city with a very limited capacity to expand the supply) resulting in dramatically increasing rents for all households city-wide. The shortage of affordable units and the direct loss of very low income units due to demolition, abandonment, and conversion has been a significant cause of increased homelessness in our community over the last two decades. In 1980, there were about 200-300 shelter beds, most located downtown. There were at most on any given day about 500-1000 homeless according to the providers and the word “homelessness” had not yet even been used to describe those without housing. Today, there are over 5500 homeless people in our community on any given day. Over 50 shelters provide about 2500 beds to house the homeless leaving many on the streets each night.
6. The loss of housing and the displacement of low income residents has created enormous social service needs – a portion of the cost of meeting these needs can be attributed to the office boom – causing the loss of downtown SRO housing, driving out small businesses which served a low income and disabled downtown population requiring the city and county to spend millions more for services and housing lost due to the office boom. We warehouse people in shelters, and spend millions on drop-in and day services and community centers, (not to mention the cost of adding jail space needed to house those homeless arrested for violations of the Sidran laws) and we have developed a elaborate homeless bureaucracy to serve the needs of the homeless when 20 years ago, a low income, elderly, and disabled population at least had access to their own downtown community that included affordable SRO hotels, neighborhood bars and other gathering places, and there even was ready access to day labor jobs on the waterfront etc. This low income community was part of the downtown fabric and not viewed as dangerous others to be swept away – either out of town or into institutions, shelters, or jail.return to top
2. The Costs Outweigh Tax Revenues Generated by the Office Boom :
In the draft EIS for the proposed downtown plan completed in 1985, the City commissioned what has been the only cost/benefit analysis of the office boom. In that study, done by Gruen and Gruen, a prestigious national accounting firm - it showed that the cost of providing infrastructure and support services for the anticipated new office space would exceed any tax revenues generated by as much as 25 percent. This assessment did not include the cost of building later the downtown tunnel, nor did it include the costs of one-time major downtown capital improvements such as a symphony hall, art museum, and subsidies to the Convention Center and Pacific Place Parking Garage. This assessment also did not include the cost of providing services and housing for all those displaced by the office boom. These costs of course have meant that tax revenues needed in our neighborhoods have been sacrificed to pay for downtown. It has created a backlog, for example, of needed neighborhood street repairs that at today’s rate of spending for our neighborhoods it will take 50 years to complete. The deferred street repair needs amounts to over over a half-billion dollars according to a recent opionion piece from the Seattle Times by Transportation Expert and former House Representative Dick Nelson. return to top
3. How Much Office Growth Have We Seen?
These kinds of costs have been hidden under the mantra "what's good for downtown is good for the rest of us" Since 1979, we have seen an additional 15 million square feet of office space added to downtown (from a base in '79 of about 9.2 million square feet). That's roughly the equivalent of 12 Columbia Towers added to Seattle's skyline since 1979). That growth also has translated roughly into a net increase of 50-60 thousand additional downtown employees moving into and out of downtown each day (from a base of about 90,000 in 1979) That's like adding each day in downtown - a population roughly equal to the size of Bellingham. From this influx of dramatic proportions, it is obvious what an enormous impact it has had on traffic and housing. Note that the office boom hit its peak here in Seattle in mid-80’s following changes in tax laws that allowed office developers and investors large write-offs thanks particularly to the ’81 Reagan Tax Reforms. Also, low vacancy rates allowed dramatic increases in per square foot rents on Class A office space. However, since the late 80’s due to the closing the loopholes which eliminated some of the tax advantages, and due to just plain overbuilding of office space in Seattle causing vacancy rates to remain relatively high, the amount of new office development in the 90’s appreciably dropped. Only about a third of the 20-year amount has been added since 1990. Note, however, that in the last two-three years, vacancy rates have fallen again and with office rental rates at low levels – the downtown establishment is anticipating another burst of new office construction. Throughout the 90’s, while office growth in downtown did abate, there was a substantial residential construction boom, particularly in the Denny Regrade. Also, we saw considerable retail and hotel expansion during this period. In addition, the City spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars adding new infrastructure and in subsidizing the retail, tourist, and entertainment industry – parking garages for Pacific Place and the Convention Center, Westlake Mall, Harborfront Improvements, and Stadiums.return to top
4. More about the impact on housing - challenging the "density equals affordability" myth
Basic calculations will tell you the degree to which this growth has placed enormous pressures on our existing housing stock and our existing transportation systems. Statistics indicate that over half of all new downtown jobs go to households coming here from outside the area - that's a considerable influx of new households which substantially drives up the demand for housing. Assuming that a portion of these new households will live in the suburbs (and clog our streets commuting each day to downtown), still that means it would be safe and an extremely conservative estimate to say that about 20-30 percent of those 50,000-60,000 new jobs over the last 20 years (15,000-20,000 of the new jobs) were filled by people who moved here from outside the area - new people who now live in the City. This contributed substantially to an increased demand for housing over this period in Seattle.
Note that according to city data, we added in 20 years since 1980 about 20,000 housing units city-wide to the supply - due to new construction - even though Seattle is a rather built-up city with little available vacant buildable land (and most of what is available is greenspace or locked up in single-family lower density zones). This additional supply certainly added to our capacity to accommodate these new downtown employees coming in from outside the area but it certainly was not adequate when one considers other factors over this period that also contributed to an increase in housing demand in Seattle.return to top
- Other Related Factors Contributing to Increased Housing Demand:
Demographic changes and the move to smaller households – caused in part by an increase in young professional households coming to Seattle to work downtown - caused a shrinking in the average size of a households in Seattle. This trend translated directly into a substantial increase in demand for housing units. Over the last 20 years, our population has not increased substantially hovering around 500,000 people, but over this same period, the number of total households went up in Seattle by about 15,000-20,000. Also, because of increased housing costs and declining or stagnant real wages for a great many longtime residents (and younger residents) - fewer Seattle households could afford to buy homes. Consequently, since 1980, the percentage of Seattle households who are tenants has jumped from 40-52 percent of the city total – an increase of some 20,000 tenant households over this period. Downtown expansion bringing new office workers to live in Seattle has driven up housing demand substantially, changing demographics leading to an increased number of smaller households seeking housing in Seattle, and increased housing costs (with stagnant or declining wages) that increased the percent of Seattle households seeking rental housing. All of this contributed to a substantial increase in the demand for rental units in Seattle over and above our capacity to add new units. The Downtown office explosion was a major contributor to this trend.return to top
Note also that historically in Seattle, there has been a "jobs-housing imbalance" which has been exacerbated by the downtown office boom. For every two jobs in Seattle there is only about one housing unit. Twice as many jobs to housing units within the City limits also contributes to the housing crunch. As traffic problems accelerate, more of those commuting from the suburbs to downtown jobs will seek housing in the inner-city - this too drives up the demand for inner-city housing. The corollary here is that when housing costs go up in Seattle, more in-city workers live outside the city, clogging our streets and driving up transportation costs.
One might conclude that this only means we have to dramatically increase densities and rates of new construction in Seattle. However, the degree to which we achieve this objective will actually translate into more low income residential displacement. In a built-up city, the consequence of accelerated redevelopment -absent demolition controls or other mitigating measures - can only spell the removal of even more existing very low income units. In addition, as new expensive and high priced rental and condominium housing is built - it actually has the effect of stimulating price increases on older rental housing in the area (a phenomena called "price leadership”) - setting off a round of speculatively sale and subsequent rent hikes on surrounding property. In high demand cities with limited capacities for new construction - this kind of gentrification is the inevitable by-product of increased growth. City measures to increase the development of high end and market rate rental housing will only encourage these trends. The redevelopment of the Denny Regrade and recent spate of high-end residential development in that area addresses some important planning, environmental, and transportation objectives, but that development also has forced the demolition and conversion of older lower priced apartments and raised rents on many other existing rental buildings in the area. More homelessness and a greater need for subsidized housing has been the inevitable result. return to top
- The Impact of the Downtown Boom on Demolitions and Increased Rents:
The downtown explosion and increased density of both housing and office development led to direct and indirect losses of low cost units -at a rate over a 20-year period of about 500 demolitions per year, city-wide. Speculation, the buying and selling of existing low cost housing units and conversion of these units to higher rents or condominiums, contributed to the loss of another 1500 very low income units per year (these 1500 units remained in the rental housing stock but rents rose above very low income levels). These factors were off-shoots to a large degree of Seattle's downtown office boom. In downtown alone, from 1980 until today, we have seen a drop in very low income units from 10,000 to about 6,000 units – a net loss of over 4000. (This loss occurred in spite of the fact that the city spent over 50 million dollars during this period to subsidize purchase, renovation, and new construction of several hundred units in downtown.) Thousands of additional low cost units have been removed in our neighborhoods to make way for higher density expensive residential and commercial development. The office boom has played a large role in contributing to these trends. The net effect has been reduced vacancy rates, higher housing costs, displacement, and more homelessness. return to top
5. Limit Downtown Growth and Promote a “Poly-Centered” Regional Alternative:
The only real solution to the housing crunch is to limit job expansion in the downtown core – coupled with regional planning aimed at moving some of those new office jobs elsewhere - but within other existing underutilized commercial centers around the region. An increasing proportion of the region’s job growth is occurring out there anyway. This would mean promoting a “poly-centered” approach to growth that avoids the Manhattanization of Seattle on the one hand and suburban sprawl on the other. This also moves the office jobs closer to where many of these people are going to live anyway – which parenthetically is the most cost effective way to cut down on transportation costs.
The most expensive factor contributing to added transportation costs is the increasing distance commuters must travel between home and work. You glut the downtown with office jobs and in a built-up city (i.e., a city with little vacant buildable land) where there are both natural and imposed constraints on our ability to dramatically expand the supply of housing, an increasing portion of those downtown office workers will continue to seek housing further and further from their place of work. As we move to rectify this by adding housing density in Seattle, it just accelerates the removal of existing affordable units. And, by forcing more density in our neighborhoods, it also raises great fear that it will erode the physical character of our communities – which is characterized by very low densities of single family homes (almost 70 percent of the City’s land area is zoned single family), lots of open space, water, parks, less traffic, etc. Many neighborhood activists will argue that this essential character has been a primary source of this city’s revitalization and relatively good health in the first place. If you overly impact these Seattle neighborhoods with too much redevelopment with all its attendant impacts – more cars, traffic, loss of open space etc – you may actually drive more people out to the suburbs to live, placing even greater demands on our transportation systems and encouraging sprawl. This is the Charlie Chong thesis – “to prevent sprawl, you add densities in Seattle – the added densities brings big-city problems which then drives more people out of the City to live in the suburbs which creates sprawl.”
Preserving the single family character of our communities does not necessarily imply that we are preferencing homeowners over tenants. Note that about 20-25 percent of city renters live in single family homes. Also note that most of the single-family homes in single family zones now are too valuable to be retained as rental housing but there is a large (but dwindling number) of single-family homes located in areas zoned for higher density. This large rental housing – which includes both single family and larger multi-bedroom townhomes etc. - are an important source of rental housing for families with kids. Ironically, a growing majority of families with kids live in poverty or have incomes too low to afford “single-family” home purchase. They’ve come to depend upon these single family rentals and townhomes located on the periphery of single family zoned areas. Access to single-family rentals means access to a traditional family lifestyle otherwise not available because of the high cost of home purchase in Seattle. Ironically, it is the presence of single family rentals and lower density larger townhomes that helps keep families in our neighborhoods and actually helps us support neighborhood schools. (Note that we have been losing a lot of these larger family rental units – demolished to make way for higher density commercial development – including smaller unit expensive apartment and condominium construction). Again, it is ironic that in areas where there are single family rentals – these areas often are in areas zoned for higher density – along or near arterials. When redevelopment strikes these areas, it means removal of these existing uses and displacement. This is not to say that building at higher densities to accommodate expensive apartments and townhouses is bad but if we simply just upzone and add more density without regard to these issues, it will just lead to more displacement and higher prices. We must move carefully to undertake in-fill development and other “modest” measures within existing zoning and when and where it does not adversely affect either the physical or social character of our communities.
Adding density does not mean that we should fundamentally alter our existing zoning or sacrifice environmental and citizen review (in order to “streamline” or “fast track” development). Quite the contrary, we need more control over new development not less. Note that we do have under existing zoning, excess capacity. The current zoning theoretically can handle another 60,000 households – well above what is needed to accommodate growth through the year 2020. This is true even under a high growth scenario for the City. The claim that we need to make changes in zoning to accommodate expected growth – more market rate housing – is specious in this light. And, by moving to a “limited growth” alternative for downtown and the rest of the City, by planning for reduced levels of downtown office growth and by encouraging better use of vacant land – it further obviates the need for upzones. It also allows us to put in place tough measures to prevent low cost housing demolition steering growth away from already developed land where much low cost housing now exists. We have a lot of affordable lower density townhouses and older apartments located in areas zoned for much higher density that must be protected. Any changes which threaten the essential single-family and lower density character of Seattle may indeed encourage more in-city workers to live in the suburbs – if the price of that added density is an erosion in that intangible quality of life that’s valued by those who live in-city
On a policy level, there certainly are good planning reasons why we should add density close-in to help mitigate sprawl (especially given current levels of downtown growth), and to encourage use of mass transit, protect rural area, and even for aesthetic reasons) – but it is a deception to portray these strategies as “affordable housing” strategies. Before we encourage additional density in our neighborhoods, we must first put in place, zoning and land use tools and other city-wide measures that prevent the loss of existing low cost housing to demolition, abandonment, and increased rents. (Note also that here we are talking about market rate housing development and how much as a city we have a responsibility to absorb. The other issue - locating subsidized housing in neighborhoods – how to do it and the responsibility of all communities to assume more of it, given the enormous need - and coming up with ways to ensure all areas of the City assume their fair share – these are quite different issues. How we do this and how we integrate that subsidized housing into neighborhoods – again, these are different questions with different solutions) return to top
6. The Downtown Boom Presents a “Hobsen’s Choice”:
But given accelerated rates of downtown development, there is a mounting dilemma, a Hobsen’s Choice we must face – as long as we continue to add infrastructure, including transportation systems which primarily serve to promote runaway growth in the downtown – adding office development generates more market rate residential construction in the inner-city. As we move to accommodate it – to the point of encouraging it with upzoning - more of that growth will increasingly require removal of existing lower density affordable rental housing causing higher levels of displacement. Ironically, no matter what measures we implement to promote in-city living, housing costs will rise in Seattle. Trends also show that a large percentage – maybe as many as one-half- of those new jobs still will go to people who choose to live in the suburbs (no matter what we do to encourage in-city living – it’s a given – as Charlie Chong as correctly pointed out - and that will clog our transportation system necessitating ever-more expensive improvements to a system serving principally downtown Seattle. As we build these expensive transportation improvements (such as light rail) to make the commute easier – it will encourage still more of those downtown job holders to live in the suburbs begetting still more sprawl. And of course, the rest of the regions commuters – about 80 percent of the total – traveling to other activity centers will continue to be underserved and lacking buses and other modes, they continue to drive their cars. Only by limiting downtown growth and promoting a poly-centered approach to growth (making better use of the regions other existing urban centers) can we get out of this Hobsen’s dilemma. This does not mean sprawl but rather adding transportation and providing infrastructure/zoning to ensure that more of the office growth is located in other underutilized existing activity centers already out there and dispersed within the existing urban boundaries of the region. Until we do this and control downtown growth, we face increased pressure on the social and physical character of our communities and as a given percent of downtown office workers seeking housing in the suburbs – it also increases pressures toward sprawl. Those of us who are concerned in the short run about preventing housing displacement, must emphasize limiting downtown growth and put in place, right now, and before we encourage more market rate housing development, measures to prevent displacement when growth does occur, such as demolition controls, right of first refusal, rent control, other measures to ensure that new growth does not cause displacement.
The need to implement an array of low income housing preservation strategies is especially important as long as downtown growth goes unrestrained and pressures build to accommodate higher densities in our city. I also believe that this analysis argues for alliances with neighborhood groups seeking to control excessive growth in their communities. These groups are natural and essential allies in the fight to curtail runway growth in downtown. These groups also are supportive of demolition controls and other mechanisms to protect existing low cost housing in their communities because these proposals also help guarantee preservation of their existing physical character. These are groups that must be part of a coalition to secure controls on housing demolition or controls on downtown development. To align with groups, like the Master Builders and Real Estate Industry, in order to force more housing density in our city – is not a solution to our housing crisis. It only helps perpetuate the status quo characterized by increasing gentrification and displacement in the inner city and continued conditions of sprawl in the suburbs. return to top
Also, following up and doing a few more calculations - you could estimate the increased demand for freeway lanes and buses that accompany an influx of 60,000 new downtown office jobs over the last 20 years. Assuming a given mode-split that 48 percent of peak hour commuters take the bus and assuming 1.25 commuters to a car - well that gives you another 20,000 peak hour commuters rushing into and out of downtown every day. If an additional freeway lane can handle about 1200 cars per hour assuming a three hour rush hour (that’s 3600 cars), it means we need at least an additional five freeway lanes to accommodate the additional 20,000 peak hour demand (again these calculations optimistically assume over half of all commuters take the bus). Even if there is an extraordinary shift from cars to buses, we add light rail, get more commuters into carpools and make our existing freeway lanes more efficient with ramp metering, staggered work hours etc - it still is obvious why we will continue to have glutted freeways and why continued accelerated growth in downtown will only guarantee a worsening situation. And, of course, the costs of attempting to keep up is staggering – both in terms of dollars, environmental costs, and the erosion of our quality of life. return to top
8. Seattle’s Job Needs Have Not Been Addressed by the Office Boom:
The job needs of the city also have not been addressed by the office boom. Working people with blue collar skills and minorities are not the beneficiaries of these jobs (a 1982 survey showed that only about 5 percent of the downtown jobs were going to minorities) At best, young people and longtime residents (with blue collar skills) get the lower paying usually non-union jobs in the retail sector and lower level office positions - entry level with few opportunities for advancement. Most of the good jobs are going to people coming here from outside the area. So it has not lifted wages for average workers. Longtime residents with blue collar skills or minorities - who are underrepresented among the managerial class - have not been the recipients of these new jobs. Consequently real wages for the average worker have remained low while housing costs have skyrocketed. It is the coincidence of these forces -higher housing costs coupled with an increasing inability on the part of longtime inner city residents to afford those costs - that have contributed to these trends - Again the downtown explosion and conscious decisions by local officials to promote the boom are at the root of these problems. return to top
Solutions – A Limited Growth Model for Seattle and a “Poly-Centered” Approach for the Region:
Although, in theory, we could add some additional density within our neighborhoods to bring more office workers nearer to their downtown place of work (and to some degree we certainly should try and do this with mechanisms like mother-in-laws, townhouses, employer-assisted housing etc), but the dilemma cannot be addressed simply by accommodating more density. For example, we could double the amount of new construction and we still wouldn’t have the capacity needed to substantially reduce the cost of housing. At best we might slow the rate of rent increase. Given the factors I have mentioned above - given job expansion in downtown, the jobs/housing imbalance, demographics, and other trends identified above – the demand would still outstrip supply. Physically, doubling construction rates would not be possible anyway – for example, we don’t even have enough construction workers to do that. Also, note we already are at decade-high levels of new construction as it is and housing costs continue to rise. The reality also is that absent demolition controls and any real degree of neighborhood oversight, the only sure thing more housing density will accomplish is acceleration in the loss of existing low income units while adversely affecting the physical character of our neighborhoods.
On the traffic side of the equation - we will never be able to keep up with the office boom. The public quite rightly has said ‘No’ to more freeway lanes – so the added cars accompanying the office boom will simply glut our existing road system. And all the little or even big schemes we implement to ensure efficient use of existing lanes and to improve bus service and add rail service will only scratch the surface. More people will get out of their cars and take buses and light rail for sure (but even under the best scenario with a fundamental change in the “mode-split” - we cannot keep up). Maintaining this kind of system - a monocentric form of urban growth with so much of the job expansion concentrated in Seattle's downtown, it can only lead to ever increasing traffic problems for the Seattle and the region.
Most of our transit and transportation dollars continue to pour into a downtown system - with rail and roads leading downtown. Even though about 70-80 percent of the region's commuters travel to and from other activity centers – we continue to pour most of the regions transit and road dollars (probably about 80 percent of the dollars) into that portion of the system that serves the 20-30 percent who travel downtown. This condition can only continue to worsen long as our elected officials continue to actively promote the downtown office boom, pour millions into systems serving downtown at the expense of regional transit resources and at the expense of affordable housing in our city.
The alternative is a “limited or managed growth” approach aimed at limiting the amount of downtown office development downtown and setting reasonable limits on growth in our neighborhoods - while promoting, regionally, a poly-centered approach to growth – an approach aimed at making better use of under-utilized commercial activity centers in the rest of the region. Merely accommodating more density in Seattle – by adding office density downtown and more expensive housing in our neighborhoods (while building expensive infrastructure to support this growth model) will have the dual affect of eroding the physical and social character of inner-city communities while contributing to sprawl in the rest of the region. For example, building expensive transportation systems needed to move people into and out of the downtown ironically has the opposite effect of encouraging people to live farther and farther from their downtown jobs. It works against the goal of encouraging people to live closer to their jobs which is the one sure way of reducing transportation costs. Conversely, most of our transit dollars are going into a system that serves a minority of the region’s commuters. In fact, over the last 20 years, more of the region’s job growth has occurred in the suburbs anyway. return to top
Most of our elected officials, by and large, have busied themselves promoting the downtown boom – often supporting big ticket downtown projects, ignoring the housing consequences of these trends, and in general continuing to support major allocations of city resources into the downtown at the expense of our neighborhoods and what we need to spend on low income housing and social services.
It is important to note that these trends described above are not the product of the inexorable motions of the market. On the contrary, they are also a product of conscious decisions made every day by our elected officials to promote the office boom at the expense of growth alternatives for Seattle and the region. And elected officials have failed to even mitigate the effects, let alone promote alternative growth scenarios to combat these forces. At the behest of the downtown corporate liberal establishment, City officials continue to allocate millions and implement land use policies that encourages still more downtown expansion with all its attendant impacts on Seattle and the region. There is nothing environmentally sound, affordable, or cost effective about a growth alternative that concentrates so much of the region's office and commercial expansion in and around downtown Seattle.
May 12, 2005 Bulletin
Mayor Holds Glitzy Press
Conference on top floor of federal building - releases his new plan to max
out downtown
- PR event cannot disguise the fact that his plan is little more than a
blueprint for more housing demolition,
abandonment, increased rents, and more homelessness in our City!
- Mayor times his PR event to push Councilmember Steinbrueck and other
councilmembers into acting
precipitously and before his plan has even been vetted by the Law Department and
before there is adequate
opportunity for council review or public comment
- Mayor's plan wipes out last vestiges of Citizens CAP initiative and crams
still more highrises and more density
into downtown with all its attendant impacts on our neighborhoods
On Tuesday, the Mayor called the media together on one of the top floors of the
downtown Federal building. Where the press could get a good view of the downtown
grid spread out before them, the Mayor extolled the virtues of his new downtown
land use plan. That plan is designed to cram still more highrise office
development into downtown - as much as 38 million additional square feet of
office space - the equivalent of about over 20 Columbia Towers. Under his plan,
we'd not only get taller highrises, his aim is to add as much as 20 percent
additional density into downtown over and above capacities already allowed in
the current downtown plan. The Mayor's plan also does away with the few
remaining elements left over from the 1989 Citizen's CAP initiative that placed
at least some constraints on the downtown office boom.
What was also interesting about the Mayor's press conference was its timing.
Councilmember Steinbrueck as head of the Land Use Committee was scheduled to
begin a meticulous review of the Mayor's plan but he'd already made it known he
wanted a more thoughtful and extended opportunity for review and community input
at the Council level. Further, the Law Department must always review complex new
zoning changes and it would be unprecedented for the council to take up a matter
like this before the legal folks signed off on it. Clearly, the Mayor's grand PR
event was designed to short-circuit community input, the Law Departments review
of the plan, and Council review. Lacking an opponent in his race for re-elecation
and lacking backbone in most councilmembers, he feels pretty confident he can
just shortcircuit things and blow this through the Council.
Twenty years ago, the downtown was zoned for an additional highrise development.
Even with a citizen's CAP initiative approved by voters a few years after that
downtown plan was adopted that placed some limits on dowtown growth, since then
we have seen over 20 million square feet of downtown office development added to
our skyline. And in the intervening years, literally thousands of low income
housing units have been destroyed in our City to make way for fancy condos and
expensive apartments. We were told that that was OK because a lot of new
residential units would be built especially in downtown and Belltown and
eventually some of that new housing would bring prices down - that housing would
"trickle down." to the poor. Instead, rents have risen precipitously over
this period and went up even faster during periods when new residential
construction was booming. We now have some of the highest housing costs in the
country and homelessness has risen to scandalous proportions.
And our streets and freeways are in constant gridlock. We were told back then
that by squeezing more office space in downtown Seattle it would help prevent
sprawl. Today, about half of all downtown office workers live in places like
Bellevue, Redmond, Bothell, Issaquah. Then Mayor Royer said that his plan would
encourage more of those workers to live downtown and in Belltown. He called it
"the 24 hour downtown" but in the main his ideas didn't work. It took ten years
for Belltown's residential growth to even get started. And in the end, only
about 10-15% of the new office workers chose to live downtown. And sprawl was
the inevitable result. Under Mayor Nickels new downtown plan, it assumes that
about 20 percent of all the new office workers in downtown will seeking housing
in and around downtown. These are highly optimistic and downright unrealistic
numbers but but even if all these workers do choose to live in or near downtown,
it means the rest - tens of thousands of new office employees still will live in
the suburbs and live farther and farther out in the suburbs further clogging our
roads and bridges (and about half of them like to drive). Most of the rest will
crowd into Seattle's single-family neighborhoods
or rent one of those new apartments (built on a site formerly occupied by low
income housing) driving up housing prices to even more stratospheric levels.
This is the Mayor's brave new world for Seattle.
If Mayor Nickels gets the go ahead to move forward with the increased densities
and taller buildings called for in his plan, many more poor folks, seniors,
people of color, and working people will be pushed out of our city to make way
for more highrises, expensive condominiums and parking lots - pushed out to the
burbs where they must commute longer and longer distances - drive, take the bus,
sound transit or whatever to work back to Seattle. More often they have no
choice but to take a car creating a new kind of sprawl.
These lower income folks will join at least half of all Seattle's new downtown
office workers and South Lake Union workers - the recipients of the newer jobs
in Seattle who choose and will continue to choose to live in the burbs (and who
will live further and further out in the burbs which only generates even more
sprawl, noise and air polution). Gas prices could double and the calculus still
wouldn't change appreciably. Mind you, we are not saying no to new office jobs
or growth for the region. But it would be far better to locate more of the new
office jobs the Mayor wants to cram in our downtown closer to where so many of
these new employees choose to live - not scattered around and at expense of
farmland and rural areas but in and around those other existing underutilized
commercial nodes around the region.- a poly-centered approach to growth... Bus
or Van Pool or smaller scale approaches moving into and out of newly created
smaller transit centers in these activity centers is much less expensive and can
be justified economically.... and would for the first time effectively serve
these other commercial areas of the region. Right now we cannot afford to create
any transit systems at all for these areas cause all our transportation dollars
are going first to roads and then to big ticket sound transit and monorails
serving downtown Seattle. The presence of these small-scale systems into and out
of these other activity centers also would encourage residential growth along
these routes as opposed to willynilly sprawl and quickly make these new transit
routes cost effective. Right now lacking such service to and from these growth
activity centers, these commuters have no choice but to drive so they live
anywhere and everywhere (usually farther out where land is cheaper) clogging
roads on the Eastside.
This is the best way to prevent sprawl and take the pressure off Seattle's inner
city communities. Saying no to the Mayor's downtown plan is also the best way to
help us preserve what's left of Seattle's eroding character and its liveability.
Seattle's rich social and economic diversity and its history - what's left of it
- are on the chopping block with the Mayor's new downtown plan. The only way
were going to stop this beheading is when more people speak up. Call or write
the Council to let them know what you think of the Mayor's downtown plans. There
also will be opportunities coming up for public comment and testimony when the
Council does start its review process for the Mayor's plans. We'll keep you
posted.
Council e-mails and phone #'s:
jan.drago@seattle.gov 684-8801
jim.compton@seattle.gov 684-8802
richard.conlin@seattle.gov
684-8805
david.della@seattle.gov 684-8806
nick.licata@seattle.gov 684-8803
jean.godden@seattle.gov 684-8807
tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov
684-8808
richard.mciver@seattle.gov
684-8800
peter.steinbrueck@seattle.gov
684-8804