Microhousing Group Responds to Questions Raised by City Council
A few weeks ago, Seattle City Councilmembers Tom Rasmussen, Sally Clark, and Nick Licata issued a memo to the Department of Planning and Development asking them to draft legislation and to find answers to a number of questions about microhousing. Here is that memo: Council Microhousing Memo Final052413 Smart Growth Seattle has convened a group [...]
More Evidence: Increased Housing Supply Leads to Lower Prices
The idea that increasing housing supply—building more housing units of all kinds—has a beneficial impact on housing price is still very controversial in Seattle. Intuitively, people know that when there is more of something for sale, the price of it naturally begins to fall. But there is stubborn view here that making more housing doesn’t [...]
Other People’s Housing: Seattle’s Debate Continues
Deciding where to live is a decision that each of us has had to make at one point in our lives. Should we live in a house or an apartment? What part of town should we live in? Do we want a yard or not? Our choices are often limited by our income and our [...]
“You May Not Like My House, But I love It!”
About 18 months ago, my family and I moved into a new modern home built in beautiful Madison Valley in Seattle. We love the location: its proximity to parks, restaurants, and other amenities, and the fact that it would cut our daily commute to work in half. We love the house built by GreenLeaf Construction. [...]
Discussion of Small Lot Legislation Heats Up
The good news is that people are paying attention to ideas for finalizing small-lot legislation in Seattle. Last week’s Seattle Channel panel gave us a chance to talk about our initiative and how it would create predictability while still creating more housing supply and choice for Seattle. Monday of this week led off with a [...]
City Builders Happy Hour is a Year Old!
It may seem a bit silly to make a fuss over an every-once-and-awhile happy hour. But the City Builder Happy Hour is something a little bit different. Part networking session and part idea incubator, the City Builder Happy has hosted several fun and engaging evenings of idea sharing and catching up on local land use [...]
A Building Boom: Small Homes Are Big in Vancouver B.C.
Canadian media has been abuzz in the last year over the proliferation of small houses in Vancouver, British Columbia’s single-family neighborhoods. But the story there has been about the innovation, sustainability, affordability, and predictability of the new homes, not about controversy about their impact on neighborhood character. In fact, in environment is so supportive that [...]
Is New Housing Conniving, Rude and Rapacious?
Yesterday in Crosscut Mark HInshaw posted what could only be called an emotional outburst about new development in Seattle. His point seemed to be that new development is hurting Seattle’s sense of community. New housing, especially in single-family neighborhoods is too big and ugly and we shouldn’t build any more of it unless it’s tiny [...]
Preventing Sprawl and Preserving Neighborhood Character
Along with highlighting Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin’s support of more housing in single-family neighborhoods, this week’s Seattle Times story on neighborhood density had some confusing language about growth and growth targets. I think it’s worth looking at the Growth Management Act (GMA), growth targets, the City’s Comprehensive Plan, and what growth in single-family neighborhoods [...]
Richard Conlin: “More opportunities for people who want to live in the city.”
There is a lot to think about and respond to in Lynn Thompson’s recent story about neighborhood density in the Seattle Times. The story seems to confound growth targets with growth in single-family neighborhoods (more on this later). Growth targets mostly apply to Urban Villages, those knots of more intense activity and use like the [...]
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