Thank you for bringing facts to this issue. The Seattle Times editorial was a whitewash of the truth regarding the Seattle Housing Authority and Yesler Terrace. It would be a sad day for Seattle if Yesler Terrace was transformed from 'peoples' housing to upscale leasing. The Housing Authority should be focused on providing low income housing and maintaining the housing they own. Instead they are pushing development schemes which - when you look at the fine print - are not solely directed towards affordable housing. Lots of big sweet words but no serious action for dealing with the continued loss of affordable units. Why is land dedicated to affordable housing being sold off to the highest bidder? Is the City saying that poor people can only live on the outskirts of the city, that once land becomes valuable a community can be leveled off and sold off? It is a real shame that Yesler Terrace was not declared a historic landmark - another sad commentary on the elitist landmarks process. The project qualifies for its exceptional design - both architectural and social - and for the role it has played in Seattle's history.

Yesler Terrace is a rich community of extremely low income individuals (elderly, disabled, and families with children) living in public housing built over 70 years ago. Our families live with mold in their units, sewer back-ups , cracked sidewalks and inadequate open space. They deserve better.

Redevelopment of Yesler is a huge and exciting undertaking that will create a new neighborhood where currently exists an enclave of poverty. All income levels will reside at the new Yesler as in other vibrant Seattle neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill, Ballard, and West Seattle.

The City of Seattle would not be in support of Yesler Terrace redevelopment if it were not in synch with so many City policy goals: creating housing close to jobs, increasing low income housing stock (contrary to Mr. Van Dyk’s odd assertion, we are replacing all 561 units AND adding 290 units for families that earn up to 60% of the area median income), increasing workforce housing in the City (our plan calls for up to 950 units at this level) and implementing sustainable infrastructure systems (there’s great potential for district energy at Yesler Terrace).

But bringing these policy goals to fruition requires partnership. SHA brings the value of our land to the table. The federal government will provide some support although that funding is dwindling. We have asked the City for $30M to support housing and infrastructure replacement and private developers will take advantage of existing City tax exemption programs to deliver housing at Yesler. We cannot pull off something of this magnitude alone.

Seattle Housing is committed to minimizing the disruption that redevelopment will cause our residents, and we understand that change can cause anxiety. We are absolutely committed to supporting each and every one of our families at Yesler through the redevelopment process, and to welcoming them back to their new homes at Yesler should they choose to return. After all, it’s all about improving the quality of life for our residents, now and into the future. And we are eager to get going.

Anne Fiske Zuniga
Project Manager, Yesler Terrace Redevelopment
Seattle Housing Authority

Please define what you mean by " great potential for 'district energy.'"

My math gets me to 561 units at very low income (existing units) and 290 units at 60% of median income or 851 units total at two levels of % of median income. Please define what you mean by "our plan calls for up to 950 units at this level"

I would also like to know what you mean by "supporting each and every one of our families" and how long they will wait where prior to being able to return and at what cost.

I assume the City Council asked these questions and the answers are at your finger tips.

Ms. Zuniga, I do hope someone slipped you a little something extra for your shilling. I'd hate to think that you simply gave away your integrity.

I thought from the headline that this article about a "Seattle treasure" must be from The Onion. I have seen the interiors of a number of the apartments in Yesler Terrace and been friendly with some of the residents...I agree wtih Anne Zungia that the people of Yesler Terrace...and the city of Seattle...deserve much better.

Ms. Zuniga of course makes the Housing Authority argument. The fact remains that the historic Yesler Terrace will no longer exist in its nationally and locally significant form. It will disappear. The choice was not between letting the project become further rundown or turning it over to developers, with substantial taxpayer exposure. There was always the option of renovating and modernizing the Terrace in its current form.

I expect the Council to approve the project, although I believe we will later regret that action. I hope, however, that the public financing burden will be reduced and that the assurances re low-income replacement housing are nailed down---without the usual later explanations that it just did not work out.

Public housing is not a right! the people who live in Yesler Terrace do not deserve any more than what they can afford to pay just like the rest of us,I never hear a word about low and moderate imcome people who struggle to make end meet with an ever increasing tax burden. The SHA curently has 10,000 units housing 26,000 people plus rental assistance to addictional 4,000 enough already

Some questions here which go beyond housing. They relate to where
public and private responsibility begin and end.

I can understand the objection to the concept of public housing.
I grew up in extremely modest circumstances and in a time and place without public housing and/or a whole range of income-support programs which exist today. Our family scraped to make ends meet. Others scraped but could not make ends meet.

Seattle is an example of a place, in particular, where a high percentage of local citizens cannot afford market-rate housing.
They comprise a far larger number than those currently served by the Housing Authority. A large number of people also need Food Stamps.
Disadvantaged kids benefit from Head Start, Title I, and other education programs. Publicly-funded job training helps others later on. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security provide support to the poor and elderly---the latter two programs, of course, without regard
to recipients' income or net worth.

We can argue that one or another publicly funded or subsidized housing, food, education, health, retirement or other program should be discontinued or cut back. Some are periodically subject to abuse. All should be subject to periodic review. We should similarly review the enormouse tax subsidies and loopholes---in Washington, now totaling three times the size of our biennial state budget---which give favored companies and sectors a competitive advantage over othere. Some of the beneficiaries are highly profitable and have no reason to be publicly subsidized. We also should take note of favored treatment given to certain classes of public employees which contribute to unacceptable public deficits. Then there are the billions spent on questionable overseas military interventions.

We need to continually review where and how we allocate public resources. I, for one, do not object to my own tax dollars being spent to subsidize decent housing for those who can't otherwise afford it. I want to be sure, though, the agency administering the help is being run efficiently and sensibly.

What was historic was actually torn down, that area was part of Japantown prior to WW2. And this area is part of an egalitarian Seattle when spectacular views were commonly held by all citizens. Now views are being blocked everywhere. Yesler Terrace has spectacular views. Creating a mixed income neighborhood that takes advantage of the views, especially given the proximity to Downtown and Capitol Hill make this prime real estate. I say sell the whole thing to developers and use the money to provide even more low-income housing and related programs. If not that then quit nay saying and let SHA do their visionary thing. If you have seen the redeveloped Highpoint in West Seattle you know what an extremely successful project can look like. The days of creating instant ghettos is over; mixed income housing is the solution for a better quality of life for all.

Great job Ted. You hit the nail on the head.

In response to SHA's Ann Fiske Zuninga, she makes the claim that existing housing at Yesler Terrace was beyond repair. Their own technical documents say otherwise and that they could be fixed up and modernized for millions less than their tear down and mixed income redevelopment plan. She's citing problems in some of the units that have accumulated due to SHA neglect since they announced plans over five years ago to tear them down. (the existing units sit on solid concrete foundations and have been modernized many times over the years)

Perhaps Ms. Zuninga can explain how SHA can claim to be replacing all 561 very low income units serving those below 30% of median when they are only required to cover 30% of the cost of each unit and when the remainder will come out of our back pocket including precious housing levy dollars and state trust funds that otherwise need to go to expand our stock. It's robbing Peter to Pay Paul.

The 260 additional she refers to are not low income. Rents on those start at 924 for a studio, up to 1188 for a 2 bdrm. The average wageearner in county earns at 45% of median, assuming they work full time when many don't, and can afford studios at 650, 2bdrms up to 850. The 950 other units she sites will serve those at 80%. They start at 1137 for studios up to 1462 for 2bdrm units. It's a joke to call these affordable and actually would rent above current average rents in most neighborhoods.

In all of King County there are only 300 unsubsidized market rentals priced at levels affordable to those at 30% or less of median, according to a King County study. But there are over 75,000 households, county-wide, whose incomes are less than that. This is a sign a structural market failure - chronic lack of housing, lack of jobs, and lack of decent living wage jos.

It is the job of SHA to serve this most needy group. No one else does yet they continue to shift millions of their dollars and resources towards the business of doing market rate development. They hold a surplus of reserves in the state's investment pool of over 40 million, and while increasing their stock of market rate units by 1000 on 10 years they've reduced their public housing by that same number.

Only 420 of the 561 serving those at 30% or below (who they're chartered to serve) are being replaced on the existing site where 4000 higher end and market rate housing will go. If their project included only 20% serving those at 30% of less, that'd be 800. Is that too much to expect with our tax dollars. They'd still achieve their mixed income higher density goals and we'd get more not less of the housing it is their job to provide. They could easily afford to do that and pay for it all themselves, including from revenues generated by the office and high end housing provided on site. But our Council bowed to a food chain a development interests, not just SHA, who will reap more profit from a project serving principally higher end uses. Our Council is guilty of allowing and even abetting this and SHA's move into market rate development. It's disgusting especially when you think of the historic role of Yesler Terrace that for decades served to lift people in our city out of poverty and that otherwise could continue to do if we had responsible people running the show in this city.

- John Fox Seattle Displacement Coalition

John, you mean a city official is lying? Really? Here in "progressive" Seattle? Can't happen!

I almost agree with chapala21 but we have a visible and notable precedent here that suggests a different strategy.. The University Tract was granted by the Legislature in (I'm guessing) about 1875. For a few years the University operated on that tract. As we all know the University outgrew the site but did not sell it. The wisdom of leasing that property for the present development is clear. It has been beneficial for downtown, the University and for Seattle. As chapala points out things have changed; there is little compulsion to have low income housing on land that is so extremely valuable. I don't think anyone argued in 1900 that we were obligated to have classrooms on the University Tract.

Best City Hall Money Can Buy, chapter 4,982

The Great Inversion (Alan Ehrenhalt, 2012) or market structural failure, as far as SHA is concerned, it amounts to the same thing—all the more reason to focus on its mission.
"Mr Ehrenhalt makes a solid case that gentrification is too small a word for it"—city cores reclaimed by the affluent, and the poor pushed to the margins. (WSJ 8/25/12)

As kieth notes, the University set the correct example a century or more ago by not setting aside its mission as it realized the worth of its downtown property. It's surprisingly easy to lose track. For example, parents lost a revered program housed in University Heights School a few decades ago when they fought to keep the historic building open. A minority realized after the fact, that it was the program they should have focused on as opposed to the building.

You have got to be kidding…. I cannot believe you wrote either of the quotes below. Maybe a little perspective is in order.

“Yesler Terrace was and is an historic project in which many of our city's leading and less well known citizens have grown up. To my mind, it is comparable to the Seattle Public Market in its significance to our community.”

“To paraphrase Winston Churchill's World War II description of the Germans: Our City Council can be estimable in the individual but deplorable in the collective.”

Unfortunately, the City Council does not oversee SHA; no one does. They answer only to HUD. The only power the Council has is to approve SHA commission candidates (which they always do) and to rule on zoning/etc. requests made by SHA (just as they rule on such requests made by other organizations). So no, NotFan or others, "City officials" have nothing to do with this, in the sense of administrative officials. SHA is the liar, not the City.

The Council can literallydo what it wants, as long as it's working within legal parameters. What it does is always indicative of what opinions the majority has. I'm afraid that in this case, there are probably two out of nine Councilmembers who don't think much of SHA's maneuverings. The others are pro-developer or just don't care. The several Councilmembers who just don't care are probably going to run for Mayor and they will not rock the boat.

sarah90s comment re the Council is not off the mark. Her assessment of the 9 Council members' outlooks rings true.

I've watched the Council since my return to Seattle more than 11 years ago. There is a strange mentality there: That comity and "getting along" must be preserved even when a substantial minority of members have legitimate objections or questions regarding a proposal. In application, this is lazy minded and decisions often get made contrary to the overall public interest.

A working majority consistently find it easier to go along with proposals benefiting developers or big campaign donors than to question or oppose them. A local application of the old Golden Rule of politics: That is, those with the gold rule.

How much would we expect to see generated in property taxes from the new homes built by private developers? Are there any property taxes generated from that property now? The city could make millions more in taxes from this, and that would be more money we have to provide social services to the poor and to devote to our schools and libraries.

Let's be pragmatic about this. We need the money, and the poor don't have to be housed in a place that could generate immense amounts of tax dollars that could be used to help them.