The hot debate over mandating density at transit stations
Why have some affordable housing advocates lined up against a law mandating more affordable housing? Activists might end up creating a worse outcome later.
House Bill 1490, the Transit Oriented Development proposal under heated review in Olympia, has attracted a firestorm of controversy in Seattle neighborhoods along Sound Transit's light rail line. The bill would, among other things, mandate that cities zone and plan for density around transit stations.
The resulting furor has seen a strange assortment of characters with sharply divergent interests lining up against the measure: the Seattle Displacement Coalition, an advocacy group for low-income residents; neighborhood activists like Pat Murakami, the president of the Southeast Neighborhood District Council; and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. Paradoxically, if they are successful in defeating the bill they may wind up with a badly aimed bullet right through their own feet.
The debate around the bill has centered on its density provisions, but the bill also includes a wide array of changes to the state's Growth Management Act that would require local governments to include growth management and carbon reduction goals in their transportation planning as well as strong measures to ensure the continued existence of affordable housing around light rail stations.
Supporters of the bill describe it as an attempt to manage the expected growth and rise in property values around stations while maintaining as much workforce housing as possible. Rail lines have led to soaring housing prices in other cities, so supporters of the bill are hoping that it will prevent station areas from becoming the province of the affluent at the expense of low-income residents. Says Sara Nikolic, Urban Strategies Director at the environmental group and bill backer Futurewise, "This bill has so many provisions that will protect these neighborhoods."
The affordability aspect of the bill has led the vast majority of the state's nonprofit housing agencies and advocacy groups to line up behind it. Rachael Myers, the executive director of the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance (WLIHA), is supporting the bill as the best way to maintain a stock of affordable housing. HB 1490 has an inclusionary zoning mechanism that would require developers of housing in station areas to make 25% of their units affordable to people earning 80% of the county median income, with 10% of those affordable to those earning 60% of the median. In comparison, the City of Seattle’s current mechanism for encouraging market developers to build affordable housing is a considerably weaker incentive zoning tool that offers higher building heights in urban villages in return for either making up to 17% of units affordable to those earning 80% of median income or paying a commensurate amount of money to the city’s housing trust fund.
UPDATE: A City Hall source writes with this correction: "Actually, the City's mechanism requires developers to make 17.5% of the bonus square footage allowed under upzones to be affordable housing. This would result in significantly less than 17.5% of the housing in these projects to be affordable."
The bill in the House includes numerous other stipulations for maintaining affordability, many of which housing advocates have tried and failed to extract from the City of Seattle in the past. Among them are the requirement of a rigid 1:1 replacement ratio for affordable stock destroyed by development; a provision that gives public or non-profit low-income housing developers the right to make a first offer on surplus Sound Transit property near stations; and a measure to minimize the impacts of displacement on current residents by requiring landlords to give low-income renters a 90-day warning before eviction in addition to relocation assistance. A previous version included an allowance for waiving minimum parking requirements, which can drive up construction costs by as much as 30%, but that provision was removed to ensure it would make it out of committee.
Even so, critics such as the Seattle Displacement Coalition's John Fox say that the bill would drive up prices and rents in Southeast Seattle by encouraging increased density. Fox has been the loudest voice in opposition to the bill since writing an editorial that ran in three community newspapers in January in which he predicted that the bill's density mandates, since modified, would have disastrous effects on communities and low-income residents around light rail stations.
At a meeting of the Seattle City Council's Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee held at Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center on Wednesday night, Jan. 18, Fox tangled with bill advocates as he sharply attacked the possibility of rising densities in the Rainier Valley and on Beacon Hill, saying it would threaten single-family housing stock and make homes unaffordable for low-income residents. He also told me that he considered the bill's earlier provision for waiving parking requirements a "subsidy" to developers, even though WLIHA and other groups say that it could have significantly lowered housing prices. At the same time, Fox described the bill's protections for low- and moderate-income renters as inadequate, arguing that it needed to include provisions for creating units affordable to renters earning around 40% of area median income and that the language in the section requiring replacement of units needed to be improved to avoid the possibility of landlords gaming the system.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 6:50 a.m. inappropriate
The displacement coalition has a long track record of winning battles but losing wars. I think that the most obvious example of this is the fight over the Seattle Commons. For those who don't remember, the Seattle Commons was a plan to create a four or five (or more) square block public park in the South Lake Union neighborhood. I remember that Fox and the displacement coalition were vehemently opposed to the creation of the park, arguing that if we had a large public park that it would only spur high end condo and office park development, driving out small businesses and low income housing.
The Seattle Commons never came to pass. After fifteen or so years you can see the results. We have a neighborhood filled with high end condos and expensive office parks, and we don't have a large public park in the heart of the city.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 7:05 a.m. inappropriate
P.S. there were many good reasons to vote against the commons - I'm not saying it was a good idea. I was just pointing out that while the Displacement Coalition won the battle against the commons, that victory did not translate into affordable housing and small businesses.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 8:20 a.m. inappropriate
This attempt to increase density is trying to make up for very bad transportation decisions made in the last decade. I worked on the Regional Transit Project as the South Corridor Manager and saw the misguided rationale of the leaders (especially Seattles City Council)to have the light rail run through Rainier Valley, rather than the suggested corridor of E. Marginal Way, First Ave bridge and along 99 to the airport. Seattle leaders told us that the rail must serve the lower income residents of the Rainier Valley. And, that higher density would not be pursued as a way to keep the Valley affordable.
The reason E. marginal Way was preferred by the planners was based on the concept " you put the line where you want the future users to be rather than where the voters are." The E. marginal corridor would allowed stations to be located where new neighborhoods could be created and large affordable land could be easily acquired and assembled for higher density development which is what the development community preferred to help offset the extractions government would place on the developers.
Instead, the line was misplaced through a low density affordable housing corridor where high ridership could not be achieved from the 1/4 mile radius around the stations.
Thus we find ourselves at the turning point where the "leaders" need to bail out the light rail poor ridership expectations by increasing density. One bad decision after another.
In fact, Rainier Valley has the BEST close-in Bus transit service in the whole city. What it needs are the urban design features to make it less unsightly and streamline the bus corridor to get the buses to their destinations as efficiently as possible while still allowing vehicular traffic to co-exist. That wouldn't have taken Billions and would have lessened the likelihood of density increases.
What a mess. But, John Fox is correct and needs to be listened to. We must NOT sacrifice the affordability of the South Seattle neighborhoods for a humongously bad transportation decision. It is the last stronghold of affordable housing. To intesify the housing, is to facilitate gentrification. If the City passes legigislation to increase density in the Vally, my advise to the residents is to start looking for your new home outside the city.
Get real. CHANGE THE LEADERSHIP THIS FALL!
Art
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 8:48 a.m. inappropriate
So, John Fox thinks single family housing is key to affordable housing. Right. That idiotic notion lines up nicely with his opposition to public transit.
The only displacement going on here is the diplacement of non-brain matter inside Fox's head.
Ask any respectable affordable housing advocate in this state, and they will tell you John Fox has done more to damage the cause than to help it.
Josh Feit wrote an excellent column on this Sally Clark forum over at Publicola yesterday. He describes Fox as Seattle's Ralph Nader. Which could not be more accurate.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 9:44 a.m. inappropriate
Let’s get beyond the ad hominem attacks to more important matters. HB 1490 raises an important legislative process issue: what level of government can best determine specific local land use standards? The drafters of the Growth Management Act decided it was better to leave these determinations to local governments. They believed rightly that there was just too much variation across the state from county to county, city to city, and even within local jurisdictions. That one size cannot fit all and that the state should set general goals but not dictate specific density and other development standards. That “affordable” housing in all of its complexity can best be addressed at the local level.
Over the past 20 years, legislators have adhered to this principal. There are no absolute numerical standards in the GMA even though it has been amended numerous times. The 50 units/acre and half-mile radius mandates for TODs would be a first. And, if adopted, they would likely engender other proposals to “improve” the local environment. For example, some would like to see adequate park and open space in denser neighborhoods. National standards have been developed as guidelines for local governments. Should these be added to the GMA? This is the proverbial slippery slope problem that the legislature has wisely chosen to avoid.
What HB 1490 does well is add the goal of greenhouse gas emission reduction to the list of GMA goals to guide the development of local comprehensive plans and land use regulations. That should be enough.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 10:38 a.m. inappropriate
I just find it funny that the light rail zealots kept telling us that building light rail would naturally result in "transit-oriented development." But, now that Prop 1 has passed, and the first segment of ST light rail is about to open, we find out that development does not naturally occur around light rail stations, but has to be forced onto those areas by governments.
There is virtually zero development along the light rail line in Rainier Valley, other that a couple of public housing developments that have been there for decades, and which would have been rebuilt without the light rail.
There was little development along the light rail lines in Portland until Portland gave developers huge tax subsidies to put in developments along those lines.
The development that has taken place recently in the Seattle area is mostly along bus routes in downtown Seattle, Ballard, W. Seattle., Bell Town, etc.
It looks like light rail is merely a way to try to force density onto neighborhoods which don't want it. The "do-gooders" in this area are trying to force their idea of what is the "right way" to live onto everyone else.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 1:44 p.m. inappropriate
I think you have it backwards, Lincoln. Higher density development would occur naturally around these stations, but only if we ALLOWED it to. This bill FORCES nobody to do anything. Right now the land is FORCED to stay low density, keeping land values artificially low. Thus FORCING development into our rural areas and greenbelts.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 2:09 p.m. inappropriate
John Fox "considered the bill's earlier provision for waiving parking requirements a 'subsidy' to developers." John Fox needs an education about both parking, and economics.
First and foremost, it costs at LEAST $40,000 to build one underground parking space in Seattle. If, for example, a developer built 50 parking spaces, that would add a minimum of $2 million to the cost of developing a building. Additionally, it costs a few hundred dollars per parking space per year to maintain a parking facility.
That's the education on parking. Here's the education on economics: Costs get passed on to consumers. The developer isn't going to pay the extra $2 million plus annual maintenance costs for the parking; the developer is going to pass that cost on in the form of more expensive rents or sale prices. Thus waiving minimum parking requirements isn't a "subsidy" to developers; it's a smart way to keep housing affordable. If we want anyone but the most wealthy among us to be able to afford to live indoors, we need to revisit minimum parking requirements... especially around transit stations.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 2:16 p.m. inappropriate
Amysee,
You hit the nail on the head. I don't know what John Fox was smoking when he said that. I definitely don't agree with some density zealots who say there should be mandated limits on the number of parking spaces, but eliminating minimum parking requirements and letting the market do its thing in neighborhoods heavily served by transit makes alot of sense to me.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 4:10 p.m. inappropriate
Cale: virtually anywhere in the Seattle area where zoning allows high-rises, they are built. It has nothing to do with whether or not there is light rail in those areas. See Bell Town. See Bellevue. See downtown Seattle.
It is not light rail which spurs development. It is zoning, and tax subsidies. So if governments zone areas around light rail lines for high density, that is what will be built. But it is not because of the light rail -- it is because of the zoning. Look at all the new development in Ballard and W. Seattle. That has nothing whatsoever to do with light rail. The city has allowed higher density in parts of Ballard and W. Seattle, and that is what has happened. Without any light rail of any sort.
If the city allows high density development in Interbay, it will happen there also, without putting in any light rail.
So, as I said, the development along light rail lines has nothing to do with the light rail -- it is all about zoning and tax subsidies.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 4:43 p.m. inappropriate
Look at a zoning map before talking in generalities. The zoning around town is very often not being built to, even in the last ten years. Townhomes where apartment buildings can go, for example. Developers and the zoning do need to come together at the right time.
A good TOD definition that tells jurisdictions to do appropriate planning - Yes!
Good inclusionary housing provisions for places where the taxpayers have created an increase in land value - Yes!
Problem is, while these two ideas overlap in the reality of Sound Transit, they are different. Combining them is turning the whole cattywampus mess into a situtaion of the state creating local plans.
BTW - Last I saw developers, while mandated to build below median and I agree need to go deeper, also get a 25% bonus. Defacto up zoning. Really no one need to do much of anything to get the densities.
Maybe this should just be a Light Rail Station Housing Protection bill and leave the TOD stuff out, since that part is not being done well at all from a planning POV.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 5:22 p.m. inappropriate
Lincoln: Haven't you heard? With real estate, it's location, location, location.
Development doesn't happen in a void. If Enumclaw were zoned for 60-story high-rises, I'm not so sure developers would follow. If you want to lure more-intensive development, you have to consider whether the location has a critical mass of housing, businesses, employers, amenities and transportation connections.
Ballard and West Seattle do have that critical mass -- they're desirable places to live -- and they've attracted their fair share of dense development. But the monorail, had it been built, would have likely have accelerated the pace of construction.
Rainier Valley is less developed for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is that people aren't clamoring to live there. Light rail should make the area more attractive to prospective renters, business owners and home buyers, though, and development will follow regardless of whether the areas around the stations are upzoned.
That's great news for property owners near the stations -- they'll see their land values shoot up -- but unless more-intensive zoning is allowed, people who want to live near a great public amenity will be frozen out. And housing there will be less affordable.
Another thing: I'm not sure how you can discount the appeal of a light-rail line that shows up every 15 minutes or so to whisk you away to downtown or the airport. Buses also serve that function, of course, but a fixed rail provides a level of service assurance that a bus route doesn't.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 5:44 p.m. inappropriate
Hoda and Cale need to clean all the human trash out of the Rainier valley first, then they can try to push their socialism upon the rest of us.
fixed rail level of service assurance ?
Ask the poor fools who try and depend on MAX in east county ( Mult, OR ), each ice storm season ?
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 8:18 p.m. inappropriate
I think some of the more distrubing portions of the Bill are in New Section 14
(1) An Authoriy that owns surplus land within one-half mile of a major transit station MUST proved qualifying public or nonprofit entities an opportunity of FIRST offer to develop the land. For purposes of this section, a "qualifying public or nonprofit entity" is an entity that (a) is eligible for assistance from the housing trust fund established in chapter 43.185 RCW; (b) will seek assistance for development from the housing trust fund for development of the land; and (c) meets other financial and development requirments of the authority.
(2) Nothing in this section is inteneded to conflict with federal requirments or to require an authority to forego federal funding or incentives to develop property around transit stations.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 8:20 p.m. inappropriate
That is "disturbing" and "intended" sorry for the errors.
Posted Fri, Feb 20, 9:57 p.m. inappropriate
Inclusionary zoning pisses me off. It's essentially a big new fee that adds cost to every development. Some units get subsidized, and everything else is substantially more expensive.
Meanwhile, the added cost and regs are a disincentive to build anything. So you get less development than you would otherwise. This limits supply and therefore raises prices.
Time for some officials to take remedial economics, and stop governing by wishful thinking.
I love the idea of encouraging denser neighborhoods around rail as well as in other transit-friendly areas. But the law shouldn't be written by idiots.
Posted Sat, Feb 21, 2:21 p.m. inappropriate
States mandating city urban planning requirements? I guess the GMA love will be shared in the urban areas the same way it is in rural arena.
Posted Sat, Feb 21, 3:03 p.m. inappropriate
The difference is the GMA is generally smart policy, and this new plan is well-intentioned but has serious flaws.
Posted Sat, Feb 21, 6:56 p.m. inappropriate
"smart", "generally"
Don't bother going into the hairsplitting differences.
Posted Sat, Feb 21, 9:19 p.m. inappropriate
While the drafters of the GMA left these determinations to local governments (this would be about 18 years ago?), the decision to leave these matters to local control hasn't proved itself in RESULTS. I'm not going to defend every section of this bill (not on Local Gov and not in the business of crafting this sort of legislation now) but I will defend the need for state-level policy direction. See this month's Atlantic Monthly for an excellent article on urban landscape, after the crash.
To repeat something I've said, time and again: Local elected officials are charged with keeping things pretty status quo for the folks that elected them. That's okay and probably as it should be. Larger policy considerations ... like the connection between land use and transportation, how we get a range of housing types ... can be best tackled at a state level. Whether or not HB 1490 does that, I don't know. But I appreciate the intent.
Posted Sat, Feb 21, 10:23 p.m. inappropriate
Naive me, I was kind of hoping that in this day and age the legislature was at least thinking of moving beyond mere intent. Surely, you all don't just count on party line to guide you through the staggeringly long list of bills up for appreciation, sorry, consideration?
Posted Sun, Feb 22, 7:47 a.m. inappropriate
Wow Deb, speaking as someone who works with "local officials" it's really interesting to know that they should all just be "Keeping things pretty status quo for the folks that elected them".
I tell you what representative, think of the hundreds of millions of dollars that could be saved at the local level if they didn't have to deal with the ever-shifting sands that is State policy.
Maybe if you spent more time in session dealing with policy you might know the pitfalls of 1490 for local officials. Instead, you seem to be focused on banning toy lighters, getting people buried with their pets and trying to raise taxes and fees rather than cut anything. Perhaps it's time for some of those local officials who have been successful at providing their communities with more than just the "status quo" to move on to Olympia and get some things done.
Posted Sun, Feb 22, 1:13 p.m. inappropriate
?
Posted Sun, Feb 22, 2:11 p.m. inappropriate
An interesting thing to do is to look up rail transit system maps in other cities around the country. Get a bit of a reality check about what came online or is coming online and when. Get the names of some of the towns where the stations are.
Especially look at the new touted TODs, like some around Portland Or and in Northern Virginia.
Then go to the satellite views of these on google maps. And, look at how far sprawl goes in some and does not go in others.
My conclusion is that whether you do TOD, and even intense TOD, the only way to stop sprawl is to STOP it. Does not matter if you clear the land and build a shiny new high density development or not.
Pick some that look dense and some that don't look dense. Look at real estate listings in neighborhoods near stations and neighborhoods NOT near stations.
People who live in these places and who are involved locally in positive development of their towns are not following some bizarre state law the mandates density as the 'solution'. Portland did not even do that.
Saddest thing about this is that housing folks are trying to break down barriers just narrowly focused on these specific land areas instead of pushing for fair outcomes. Like if an area is NOT producing housing for all levels of incomes then that area needs to get it straight. Has nothing to do with a few rail stations.
Posted Mon, Feb 23, 2:47 p.m. inappropriate
Absolutely right about stopping sprawl. Sprawl is likely anywhere it's allowed and people want to live or locate a business, period. Even US metros that are declining in population have sprawl. The solution is serious growth management, i.e. not allowing sprawl.
Posted Mon, Feb 23, 2:49 p.m. inappropriate
Related to that, the serious growth management has to be over a broad area, not one county being tough and the next being wimpy, as we have around here. Sprawl just goes to the wimpy areas and you get more supercommuters.
Posted Mon, Feb 23, 6:54 p.m. inappropriate
Curious how Mayor Nickels and Councilmember Clark were first all for top down 'neighborhood planning' but are now using this mostly symbolic effort to portray themselves as neighborhood defenders after their original proposal ran into some heat. I guess that's politics.
Artie - It was Councilmember Martha Choe(Gary Locke's Economic Development Chief) who fought and correctly won the battle to place light rail in the Rainier Valley. What sense does it make to build light rail that doesn't serve our existing urban neighborhoods enroute to the suburbs? Your assertion to the contrary is about as stupid as putting housing in our industrial area...
SDStarr - we have a great park just north of Downtown - it's called Seattle Center. Ever heard of it? The neighborhood proposal for the area was a walking type greenway connecting the Seattle Center to South Lake Union - a much superior proposal.