There are real strengths and weaknesses in our city zoning laws that affect the situation. Laws call for higher density and up zoning around light rail without any debates about state legislation. But, the zoning designations are not effective for different contexts and are not always clear. Thus, the horror people have about what they end up with. There are gulfs and jumps between zoning levels that are a problem for a number of reasons.

The other gap is that between planning and the time that someone comes to do development. Not a good idea to just up zone. There needs to be creative ways to plan to allow simple up zones when someone comes with a real building to develop, else the impacts of up zoning are destabilizing.

Finally, people who do care and think about this stuff need to get involved in neighborhood planning. Really engage. I know you are interested in transit, but I see the interest in how land use works with that. It’s more than zoning. It’s how neighbors together evolve neighborhoods that are all sidedly economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. It takes a complete turn around of our modern, rootless, nuclear individual ways of being. And, it can be the most frustrating and rewarding way that we create roots and our sense of our place on this earth.

Have a BLAST riding the light rail tomorrow!! I’m just not a hub-bub type person, so I will experience the reality of this sea change with a quiet ride later this month. I’ll share what that feels like OK?

I don’t think failing to be activist enough for an upzone qualifies you as a NIMBY. I think you have to actually work against it.

To be fair, if you wanted, and I think since families are so small now, to actually turn your single family house into a duplex, not upsetting the applecart by building a structure larger than a large house with a shared yard for two families, it would not be legal in the city of Seattle given that there is no zoning for that. There is such a designation, but it has been up zoned under the covers to be much more building than single family areas will accept. Not talking about ADUs and DADUs, nice as they are. I’m talking about the true duplex, triplex forms of a single structure per 5000 sf lot that abound in Seattle, now termed non-conforming and not replaceable without a lot of grief.

I live in a multifamily zone outside the Urban Village BTW.

My neighborhood is primarily apartments and townhomes and I love it. I wish there were more.

Ironically, a huge number of the people who vent and posture on all sides of this argument live in single family houses, sometimes a single person in the house, in single family zoned areas. A huge problem in my view is that we have no reasonable low end to the multifamily zoning code, so you just will not see people willing to jump that gulf and up zone one step from a single family structure to a duplex or triplex.

On the other hand, we need to understand that if we decide that an area should be a focus for massive development, basically it’s pretty much a tear down proposition where it is drastically up zoned, property becomes more valuable than the buildings, folks are pretty much encouraged to leave either due to rising property taxes or lousy speculators who buy what are now tear downs and rent to lousy tenants. Eventually, the area sort of stabilizes. Would have been better just to buy it all up and tear everything down. Sure people resist that experience based on seeing it happen before. That is what a lot of the fighting is about.

We need to figure out how to grow up from where we really are at. I would think an overall plan for an area that calls for a net end result of average building scale without changing zoning at the planning stage, but rather lets developers up zone specific lots in a first come first served manner, would result in infill of higher buildings, while leaving many existing buildings. Sounds like a mature city, that grows up from what is, and understands that zoning and planning do not happen at the same time as development, not like a place where we act like we are starting from scratch.

I’d like to see some sort of special “no-parking” lowrise housing that would have low parking maximums and would not be eligible for RPZ street parking. I suggested this to the Roosevelt Neighborhood Group land use people and they sounded interested. This would obviously have to be in walkable neighborhoods with good transit access (and ideally zipcars), so it might work for any of the urban villages.

Something like the Bel-Red corridor is a rare opportunity where you get a chance to put the transit in while the land is still cheap and have density built around it. However there is a major activity center on either end to justify building the line in the first place.

We really need something beyond the 4 residential land-use choices currently being built in Seattle: single family, “4-pack” of ugly 3 story townhouses, half-block 5 over 1 “bread-loaf” with ground floor retail, or high-rise luxury apt/condos.

On the other hand the zoning laws need to be written with an eye to what actually pencils out for developers. For example all of the NC-40 zones where the height limits really need to be bumped up to allow 4 stories without having to squeeze everything in. Sure the developers could build 3 stories but that doesn’t really pencil out for them.

And yeah, I live two blocks from the grocery store, a couple from the drugstore, restaurants, library, etc. So that eliminates a lot of trips. I’m in the lowest mileage category for my insurance company. But I don’t live in the same neighborhood as a lot of my extended family and the neighborhood to neighborhood connections on metro aren’t great. If I didn’t have the garage than the inconvenience of owning a car might be higher than the inconvenience of transferring once or twice to go to my Aunt’s house for dinner. But if Metro service cuts mean you transfer twice or more and wait 20-30 minutes at each transfer for the bus, and have to leave early because the buses don’t run as late, that’s a lot harder to deal with.

I do think density of parks has to increase – but I also think sidewalk widening and some side street closures can do this quite well.

Today that alley or laneway is the street. That is just about all one sees, a garage followed by another garage, broken only by a narrow passage of an entry into the house located behind the garage. There is no porch, because there is no space left for it.

In fact the ONLY transportation mode that becomes more expensive to accommodate as density increases is the single occupancy vehicle. At a certain point it is simply not possible to attempt to provide road and parking spaces for roughly 1.2 vehicles per person.

It would seem Mr. Tooley would somehow want to take us back to the time in Seattle where one could drive a single occupancy vehicle everywhere, never encounter a traffic jam and find free parking directly in front of your destination.

Out of curiousity, are you close enough to walk or bike to things? Because that’s uh kinda the point of density.

I’d trade my apt for a classic manor house with lots of servants and groundskeepers. I don’t even need the noble title. :)