So, what’s the stop good for? A year or so ago I started thinking about whether we could induce more job density near the station while still tilting the area game toward industrial and manufacturing-friendly companies. The report from Community Attributes gives us a great snapshot of who works in the area, where the employees come from, and what kind of demand we see in the space market that could be met in the area. Not surprisingly, there’s no easy, quick answer to attracting businesses with more employees who might actually uses light rail to commute. Check out the recommendations, though. Maybe a “mixed use overlay” allowing additional office space (though not residential) near the station would be OK. I also like the “compatability matrix” employed by some of the other cities reviewed.

After today’s presentation we’ll spread the report around to advocates in the SODO area and some real estate and employment experts to determine which ideas to pursue. Your feedback is welcome.

But that’s not my point. My point is you can learn what several of Seattle’s major Universities and college campuses are doing to reduce waste, operate more efficiently, and cut green house gas emissions by attending or checking out the broadcast of Thursday’s noon Council meeting (in City Council Chambers, City Hall) on sustainability on Seattle’s college campuses. We’ll talk with reps from the University of Washington Seattle campus, Seattle University and the Seattle community colleges about their goals for carbon neutrality, recycling, composting and even the production of locally grown food.

The discussion is part of Council’s overall work on climate action. The City is in the midst of devising a new Climate Action Plan and we’ve committed to “carbon neutrality” for Seattle. In discussing with partners how to get to carbon neutrality we decided we’d like to hear from and showcase the work of some of the city’s biggest (in terms of property and operations) institutions. It’s one thing to offer courses on sustainability, it’s another to practice it with tens of thousands of students, thousands of faculty and staff, dozens of kitchens, hundreds of buildings, multiple vehicle fleets, huge public events, and so on.

More Thursday. Do it for the squirrel.

It seems timely and appropriate to look at how I think about land use as a vehicle for helping to speed economic recovery. This is a subject that’s on everyone’s mind, and has been since the recession started. The City’s annual budget process has become a grim struggle to shore up crucial services, like police, shelter and the most basic elements of our city’s infrastructure.

Economic recovery and growth in the world of land use tends to mean development. Development brings jobs (construction jobs and the jobs that come with new building tenants) and places to live for the 120,000 new residents Seattle will gain over the next 20 years. It’s been at times uncomfortable and at other times gratifying to lead efforts that promote or pave the way for new development. I’m a big fan of the Seattle I found when I moved here in 1984, as well as the Seattle I know now, and have to temper that with my obligation to set the table for the Seattle I hope to love tomorrow.

The best examples of land use in service of economic recovery that I’ve worked on include:

• Extending the master use permit period to get building’s back on track and builders back to work as soon as financing becomes available.
• Working with neighborhoods in Southeast Seattle on neighborhood plan updates to take advantage of smart development opportunities presented by light rail stations.
• Working through 2 phases of the Pike/Pine Conservation District overlay to encourage developers to preserve the character of the neighborhood using design guidelines and transfers of development rights (TDR)s.
• Approving zoning code amendments to help move forward good projects like UW Phase III in South Lake Union and new development on the old North Lot of the Kingdome.

Master Use Permit Extensions

The Master User Permit Legislation was designed to help offset the fact that financing for construction projects dried up (to put it mildly) with the recession. This meant that people trying to build larger projects requiring complicated financing got stuck with the clock ticking on their permits. When permits expire, people get sent back to square one in terms of permits. For any size project, this can be extremely expensive and cause even greater delay in getting a project out of the ground.

The legislation we adopted extends the life of building permits obtained before the end of 2012, so workers can begin building soon after financing becomes available.

South and Southeast Seattle Neighborhood Planning

Three neighborhoods where the land use code is going to work in service of economic recovery during my term are Beacon Hill, McClellan, and Othello. With help from the Department of Planning and

The grand opening for the Whistle Stop Coop bike shop & cafe at Othello Station. Congratulations, Dick and Mona. Thanks for your persistent positive vision.

Development, the city provided these three neighborhoods with “quick start” assistance in updating their neighborhood plans–pulling together snapshots of each neighborhood compared to 10 years ago, including demographic shifts, zoning, housing units and affordability, transportation upgrades in the last decade, new parks, and a neighborhood plan implementation report.

This information is helping shape new zoning around the light rail station to invite more residential units and more retail and office space for the neighborhoods.  These neighborhoods are leading the city in a progressive approach to incorporating density – along with all the other things that neighborhoods need in order to have great places and great communities, such as parks, greenery, and sensitive, intelligent transitions between greater density and single-family homes. The zoning proposals for these neighborhoods will come to the Council before the end of this year and be taken up by Council early next year.

The Pike/Pine Conservation overlay district

The Pike/Pine neighborhood on Capitol Hill is covered with buildings filled with the history of Seattle’s original auto-row. (Coincidentally, I’ve worked previous jobs in three parts of the neighborhood.) Lately, it’s an area that has attracted the attention of developers. No one has wanted to see the area’s character and charm lost in the process of becoming a popular “it” place.

Working closely with Councilmember Tom Rasmussen on legislation he spearheaded, we encouraged the preservation of “character” buildings, that is, buildings that have the historic facades and stories that define the neighborhood’s unique feeling.

The first phase of the legislation provided incentives to retain and incorporate buildings older than 75 years into new development. The legislation promoted new development that is compatible in scale with the existing buildings, encouraged small and diverse business, and retained the facades of buildings that define the neighborhood.

As I write this, we are reaching the end of phase three for the Pike/Pine Conservation overlay district. This legislation, which I hope to see passed before the end of the year, will create a transfer of development rights (TDR) exchange program that will make it easier for developers to preserve existing structures in exchange for the right to build larger buildings elsewhere within the district. We already established design guidelines in phase 2, intended to preserve the character of the neighborhood.

All of this work is intended to bring in new apartments, jobs, street-level retail, and vitality in a way that matches the “feel” of Pike/Pine.

UW Phase II and North Lot

As chair of the land use committee you get pitched on the special needs of various projects. This is a perversely good problem to have. In some cities in the United States new development knocking on

Sally and Jan Drago at the North Lot Groundbreaking

the door is merely a dream. Most projects go through what’s called a rezone. Some developers come forward from time to time with what they describe as short-comings in the existing zoning rules, shortcomings that hinder their ability to develop to the needs of potential tenants. I have supported text amendments in my time as a committee chair when the amendment truly fixes a code blindspot (though the yield in jobs and better design clearly benefiting the community are great, too). UW Phase III and the North Lot in Pioneer Square both met the criteria for me. Both will be built with dramatically better designs, open space, and street-level feel than would have been possible under the then-existing zoning code. Both will yield new jobs and, in the case of the North Lot, new residents to call Pioneer Square home.

Next time, I’ll be writing about land use and housing. Please check back: I’ll see you here.

Now I’m going to contradict what I just said. Portland plans better than we do. They have the money to plan (thanks to tax increment financing) and they pretty much walk the talk (plan the talk?) when it comes to planning and achieving urban living goals. Last Friday I trekked by train with 55 friends – planners, architects, an elected or two, small business advocates, and real, live neighborhood residents of Yesler Terrace (complete with interpreters – thanks, Seattle Housing Authority) and South Lake Union — on a one-day field trip to Portland to learn how the Rose City plans for the Pearl District and the South Waterfront sections of the city. The goal wasn’t to say one of these neighborhoods got it all right or all wrong. Rather, the goal was to give Seattleites connected to the big plans cooking for Yesler and SLU the chance to walk around a couple of areas in Portland where plans have yielded different sizes and shapes of buildings, new and varied open spaces, mixed results when it comes to affordability and unit size, and a glowingly successful use of fixed rail transit to spur investment. We provided the itinerary, everyone paid their own way and for their own lunch – and still 55 people came along! 

Staff from the Portland Development Commission were gracious with their time and knowledge. They’ve been sketching plans, projects and plan updates for the central city for 30 years. In the Pearl you get to see a more “mature” result of planning as opposed to the South Waterfront which is in an awkward adolescent phase. In the Pearl, you see varied building heights (but nothing over 20 stories), well-used parks, good distinction between street types leading to what look to be successful (and expensive) street level housing, and transit that looks like it belongs. The Portland Development Commission enters into development agreements to dictate building heights and overall scale. Portland’s smaller block lengths (200 feet) help keep buildings relatively more “people-scaled” than Seattle’s longer blocks. In the South Waterfront area you have a handful of projects completed or underway, many in taller tower form, but with views of Mount Hood and the Willamette protected again by development agreements dictating tower width and height. Also, in Oregon you can do scissor stairs allowing a smaller floor plate and skinnier tower. In a couple of the completed tower projects, the tower rises from a podium of maybe three stories containing ground-floor townhouses facing pedestrian-priority streets. Interestingly, the planners noted that the towers may have been a product of the last housing boom and not replicable in the near future. I’m curious what the next wave of development in the South Waterfront will look like.  Closer to the scale of the Pearl? 

They’re the first to admit that they haven’t done everything right. They struggle like we do with gaining affordable, family-size housing units in the Pearl and South Waterfront.  Like Seattle, they struggle with the lack of affordability for retail spaces in these neighborhoods. 

One big take-away for me was the Portland planners’ emphasis on “the first 30 feet.” We talk in Seattle about wanting alive, dynamic people-centric streets, but I’m not sure we’ve captured that as well in our philosophy as the Portland planners we met Friday. The first 30 feet of the building (roughly the first three stories) dictate how you and I feel walking by. It’s where many of the Portland planners focus their review of new projects and, if the Pearl and South Waterfront are any indication, the focus on the first 30 feet yields great results. 

If nothing else, field trip participants got to see and feel the scale of each neighborhood, hear how Portland zones and regulates each area, how development agreements secure benefit to the neighborhoods, and saw Mount Hood on a beautiful, cloudless day. I hope the experience proves helpful as we take up the same questions at Yesler Terrace and in South Lake Union next year.

The SPARC space was highlighted in the recent New York Times “T” design magazine. The store looks like a cross between the Apple Store, a Danish pharmacy and a modern Japanese tea store — all light woods, glass and clean lighting. It’s a smartly thought out entry into a market that will likely expand as people become more knowledgeable about the rules for dispensing medical marijuana.  It’s the polar opposite of what some people think might happen with wider acceptance of medical marijuana use – dark spaces, blocked-out windows, furtive patrons.

I bring this up not just because the San Francisco shop design caught my eye, but because this becomes a city regulation issue. Seattle will likely see an increase in dispensaries as the law becomes clearer and operating a dispensary becomes less risky. Perhaps no one will be surprised that one dispensary already operates in Fremont (go figure). What about business and occupation taxes?  Should we regulate them the same as pharmacies? What about land use rules? Clear rules and operating in the light of day seems better than murky rules and operating out-of-sight.

The party held last Thursday night to coincide with First Thursday was musical, jovial and well-fed with a table down the center of the alley, light warming the space as darkness fell, and live music. Design ideas ranged from simply using pervious paving in alleys up to building platforms and sky bridges to create shops and work spaces.  It’s hard for me to envision doing the latter, but I do like the idea of infiltrating alleys with shops, light and people. All sorts of practical questions about garbage and delivery services arise, but practicalities aren’t what alley parties are for.

Check out the winners (beware: these are jumbo-sized files for download): http://www.alleyart.org/Green_Alley_Competition.html