All posts by Roger Valdez

Thus Vice nurs’d Ingenuity,
Which join’d with Time and Industry,
Had carry’d Life’s Conveniencies,
It’s real Pleasures, Comforts, Ease,
To such a Height, the very Poor
Liv’d better than the Rich before,
And nothing could be added more.

–From Mandeville’s ‘Fable of the Bees’

A frequently cited rationale for proposed zoning changes in Seattle’s South Lake Union is economic; the rezones will allow for an economic boom that will create much needed jobs for the city and region. We can argue about the numbers, but what about the idea that new land use policy will spark improvements in our economy?

A recent article in City Journal, a quarterly online journal of a libertarian bent, published an interesting and compelling article on the Road to Recovery by John Taylor, which was adapted from his Friedrich Hayek Lecture given as part of Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Prize. It got me thinking about whether Seattle overregulates the use of land and how that could be limiting the economic upsides of growth that could lead to recovery, especially job creation.

Hayek is not so popular around here because he is the economist who is the opposite of John Maynard Keynes, a favorite of liberals and progressives. Simply put, Hayek is remembered for limited, if any, government intervention to affect the economy, and Keynes was the classic interventionist, arguing for government’s role in increasing demand for goods and services, especially during downturns (for more and Hayek and Keynes you’d better watch this then this.)

I have been criticized for what one commenter called “Hayekian reveries” about deregulating land use around transit stations. However, I think Hayekian lenses are what we should wear when we consider how and when government regulates what gets built in Seattle, especially around transit.

Hayek draws a distinction in Constitution of Liberty, between the law and legislation. Hayek argued that spontaneous order—a state of order that is the product of the free market, not planning—in an economy is possible only when there are predictable laws, general in nature, that establish the few things people cannot do, rather than commands about what they must do.

When Hayek talks about the law he is referring in large part to English Common Law that undergirds our entire legal system in the United States, and provides the basis for adjudicating disputes and carrying out justice. The Common Law paves the road to the future with precedents from the past; it is essentially a system of rules based on trial and error.

Continue reading “South Lake Union: More Spontaneity Can Mean More Jobs”

I’ve already written here at Seattle Transit Blog and at Seattle’s Land Use Code about the proposed extension and modification of Seattle’s Living Building Program.

To me it’s a simple question: should we support the continuation of a program that incentivizes the development of buildings that are much more sustainable and better designed than required by the regular code. I think it’s an easy “yes!” And I am not alone in my support.

A local film maker, Eric Becker, has completed a short film about the second project proposed under the City’s program. Here it is:

It’s a very powerful film, and not just because I’m in it. Are we finally ready to stop talking and start doing on developing better buildings? This project, Stone34, is a great start.

Councilmembers need to hear what you think.

The Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee will meet to vote on the proposed changes, on Wednesday, July 25th at 9:30am in Council Chambers. Land Use Committee members are Richard Conlin, Chair (206-684-8805); Tim Burgess, Vice Chair (206-684-8806); Mike O’Brien(206-684-8800), Sally Clark (206-684-8802). Speakers are advised to arrive early to get signed up.

How much people spend for housing—rent or mortgage payments—drives much of the discussion about density in Seattle. Housing price is quantifiable, while affordability is a qualitative relationship to price. Measuring whether the price is too big can be a challenge. And how small is too small for a house? San Francisco and New York are exploring opening up their land use code to allow for tiny apartments of 150 square feet.

Interestingly, Seattle already allows for micro or efficiency apartments. The problem of course in all three cities is housing supply. What accounts for big housing prices? The facts point to an increase in demand for apartments in big, dense cities, with supply lagging behind that demand. San Francisco’s vacancy rate is essentially zero, while Seattle’s is at about 4.8 percent.  And in spite of price controls, San Francisco’s housing prices are still insurmountable for many people who want to live in the city. Here’s a quote from the sponsor of the proposal, Scott Wiener:

“We have a housing shortage in San Francisco,” Wiener said. “It’s a densely populated city where a lot of people want to come, and we have to add to our housing supply in a smart way.”

Continue reading “Tiny Houses or Big Supply”

Here’s an extended quote from “Anon,” posted here on Seattle Transit Blog on my Fourth of July post:

Ballard was being inundated with a bunch of boring, boxy condos, that really took away from the uniqueness of Ballard. While we don’t hate progress, we also wonder why progress can’t at least look good. It seems like the city just rubber stamps the ugliest designs, the developer comes in, builds and runs and “we the people” are left with the ugly monstrosities

It’s a comment I have read again, and again in my posts about density. Another version of it goes, “I’m not against density I just hate bad design.” But there’s a solution for Anon and others who want great design and density.

Tonight the Seattle City Council is considering an extension and modification of it’s Living Building Pilot Program, a program designed to incentivize better buildings by granting some departures from Seattle’s land use code. All the projects have to go through the design review process (hardly a rubber stamp) and the program limits participants to 12 over the life of the program. The program is set to expire this year and make changes to allow more flexibility for developers.

More below the jump.

Continue reading “Council Hearing Tonight: Living Buildings and Livable Neighborhoods”

A typical trope often heard between the explosions of fireworks on July 4^th is about the Declaration of Independence and its  hallowing of the rights of the individual over and against excessive government.

In a 2008 article about the death of Edith Macefield, the woman who resisted developer’s attempts to buy her home leaving it surrounded by a Trader Joes and a gym, Knute Berger pays homage to Macefield as a martyr for individualism saying:

People like Edith Macefield who want to live quiet lives and be left alone are now the equivalent of squatters — they occupy space that has a destiny, a “highest and best use” that doesn’t include people who want to live their lives in peace.

Berger elevates Macefield to mythical status, along with the idea that the individual, not the community, is the unit of measurement we should use to judge progress.  Berger suggests that the choice is being more sustainable by building dense and livable city on the one hand, or our individual rights—our freedom—on the other. Berger says,

Steamrollering over [Macefield] is justified by the notion that we’re fulfilling our civic mission to create a denser, more urban city so that we won’t pave all of nature. The Edith Macefield’s are seen as standing in the way of progress.

The lone individual hunkers down in their castle while the communitarian menace surrounds them with condominiums, transit and Trader Joe’s.  Most Seattlites probably wouldn’t identify with libertarians or people who live on acres of land and drive Hummers or own lots of guns.

But for some, individuality still means the right to a single family home, a car and place to park it. It is easy to mythologize these versions of our rights in the gauzy veil of the “good old days,” and dream of a time when there weren’t so many damn people around here. Individual rights can become code in land use debates for favoring convenience over the larger good, the maintenance of the status quo over change.

Seattle still finds itself in the middle of an age old American struggle between our “civic duty” and our desire, as Berger so aptly puts it, to be left the hell alone.

Today we celebrate one of the greatest documents of individualism of all time, the Declaration of Independence. Some would interpret the Declaration as the ultimate “leave me alone” document of the last 300 years, written by colonists wanting to be free of their Big Brother, the British Empire.

As Americans, and Seattlites it can be tempting to see Macefield’s stand as somehow heroic or a kind of martyrdom to individuality in the face of change. But the first words of our written Constitution,  imperfect as it may be, are plural: “We the people.”

Digging bunkers in Ballard won’t help us address the pressing environmental and economic problems we face.  We have to tap into that other strain of American idealism represented by figures like John Adams, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster who are often marginalized by our worship of Thomas Jefferson. Clay developed the American System, a comprehensive, government driven expansion of infrastructure that built a transportation system for the United States in its early years.

Individual expression is important, but so is our civic duty to others and we should articulate this aspect of American tradition more clearly in our language when we talk to people about growth and sustainability.  American tradition includes the common cause, and supporting each other in times of change and challenge. Building better cities in our region, funding transit, and planning for sustainable growth will mean thinking big and beyond the principled stand of lone individuals protecting their rights.

This post is adapted from a post than originally ran a few years ago on Great City’s blog.

I have been working with a team that just submitted an application for funding from the Housing Trust Fund this week, and two things came up. First, our market study confirmed pretty much what real estate people have been saying a lot lately, apartment vacancies are down and prices are going up. That’s a trend that will continue for the next few years.

Second, monthly prices for rental housing—rent as it is more commonly called—are based the costs of construction and debt, and what the market will bear. The determination of how much a particular unit will rent for is made at the pro forma stage not after construction. Often in the public discourse about housing price and affordability the discussion proceeds as if developers build their projects then see what they can “get” for the units. Generally speaking, that isn’t how it works.

Why do these things matter when we talk about affordability of housing near transit or anywhere? Because the way we think about housing price should affect the interventions we make to affect it. That is, if we think housing prices are too high then how we change those prices requires understanding about where prices come from.

The first point is that housing price is affected by supply and demand. There is a stubborn resistance in some quarters to this basic economic principle rooted in culture and politics. Housing, some people argue, is different than anything else. Loosening regulation to allow more housing construction might lead to more developer profit, lower quality housing, and a windfall for the industry at the expense of renters.

But this perception—that allowing more housing construction will hurt renters—just isn’t true. Here’s a paragraph from the latest story highlighting real estate market studies that confirm the important relationship between supply and demand:

The Seattle and Bellevue downtown markets experienced sharper vacancy declines and stronger rent increases than the average. Seattle’s vacancy rate fell 0.74 percentage points to 4.8 percent this quarter, and Bellevue’s rate fell 0.35 percentage points to 4.09 percent, according to Apartment Insights. Both areas saw rent increases above $100 a month.

There you have it, when vacancy rates drop rents go up, a point repeated in market study after market study. It isn’t a radical concept, and it should lead to an easing of regulation to allow for more apartments to be built in Seattle, not less.
Continue reading “Housing Affordability: Where Do Rents Come From?”

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed on by CR Douglas for his regular segment on politics on Fox Q13. Douglas delved into the recently released Puget Sound Sage report on the impact of light rail on the Rainier Valley. Here is the whole segment which runs about 4 minutes.

My take on the report is a bit more critical than some. I think it is important to remember that communities in the Rainier Valley wanted light rail for many of the same reasons the report now points to as bad things, including increased property values, more people visiting and moving into the Valley, and an overall boost to economic activity. In a very real sense light rail is working just the way everyone hoped it would.

Whatever you think of the report, it has raised some issues that consistently get raised when expansion of light rail is considered like increases in housing costs. But too often what gets missed is the decreased costs in everything else created by the many benefits created by light rail, including decreased dependance on owning a car. There have been efforts to capture these savings that I have written about before, the residual income approach to defining affordability and the Center for Neighborhood Technologies metric of affordability which includes transportation costs.

Lately in Seattle there has been a lot of debate about how powerful neighborhoods really are when it comes to land use decisions in the city. No matter what position one takes on that issue state law and legal precedent are clear that local government–city and county councils–decides what happens with land use, not neighborhoods. But Kenneth Stahl advances an interesting legal argument in an article called, “Neighborhood Empowerment and the Future of the City,” suggesting that cities can and should delegate more authority to what he calls “neighborhood zoning districts.”

Stahl points out that cities have become less competitive with suburbs because land use patterns in cities are far more complex than in suburban cities. More people, more uses, more interest groups means more a more complicated and drawn out process. “Cities can level the playing field with suburbs,” Stahl argues, “by devolving municipal power to smaller, more homogenous subgroups within the city, such as neighborhoods.” Stahl makes a legal case that there is no reason why courts shouldn’t allow local governments to devolve zoning authority to neighborhoods.

According to Stahl the legal and economic principles behind the devolution of taxing authority to local and business improvement districts (LIDs and BIDs) are the same for devolving more power to neighborhoods over land use. The same legal theory used for allowing the West Seattle Junction Association to charge local business owners for signage and parking improvements should also allow the Junction to make land use decisions.

I don’t agree with Stahl on his premise about cities and suburbs. What has bedeviled growth in Seattle isn’t the homogeneity of land use patterns in the suburbs, but the lack of political will to overcome resistance to change by vested interests in the city. It’s probably surprising, however, that I am persuaded that giving more authority to neighborhoods might actually help this problem. Here’s some of my reasoning. Continue reading “More Zoning Authority for Neighborhoods?”

Last week Councilmember Mike O’Brien fell into the Sustainability Gap, that wide chasm between what politicians say and what they actually do. O’Brien voted against a carefully considered and vetted proposal (read more about it here), more than a year in the making, to allow some commercial uses in multifamily zones.

Here’s what O’Brien says about his vision for Seattle:

My vision of Seattle is one of made up of the incredible and growing diversity of our communities, where amid this diversity, all communities are safe, healthy and thriving. I see a Seattle that is a model of economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and political transparency.

But O’Brien, along with Sally Clark, Richard Conlin, and Jean Godden, opposed a proposal that would have helped move Seattle’s land use code toward a more innovative way of doing things, allowing diverse uses to be closer together in denser, more populated neighborhoods. The proposal that O’Brien helped to kill (which he earlier supported) was to allow, essentially, corner store like uses in neighborhoods that are already zoned multifamily. This is the kind of mix that makes transit, biking, and walking work because as uses are closer together the car becomes less necessary. It also promotes economic vitality by allowing new businesses to form.

Why did O’Brien do it?

People who live in vibrant, walkable urban centers like Capitol Hill are the people we need on board to guide the future development of the city. We clearly don’t have them on board today.

Based on the comments of a few dozen people in Capitol Hill who claim they have all the walkability they need, thank you very much, O’Brien chose to oppose the same thing for other neighborhoods.

The gap between what O’Brien says on his campaign website and how he votes is clear. Rather than support an expansion of the kind of diverse and thriving use of land on Capitol Hill, he chose to listen to a small group of neighbors getting help from insiders working for the City Council and live on Capitol Hill who opposed the idea (two members of City Council Central staff opposed the measure, and one, Rebecca Herzfeld helped opponents craft letters to Council).

That’s not sustainable, and it’s not transparent. It’s hard enough to convince Councilmembers to make a bold move on land use, but when one of the members of Council who is supposed to be a reliable ally can be persuaded to oppose something he once supported by a small group of neighbors, we’re in trouble.

Closing the Sustainability Gap means holding our elected friends accountable when they make bad decisions. It’s not a pleasant comfortable thing to do, but it’s necessary. If you think O’Brien made the wrong choice by changing his mind on the proposal call him or e-mail him. He needs to know you’re paying attention.

You can e-mail Mike at mike.obrien@seattle.gov

The author was a member of the panel, called the Regulatory Reform Roundtable, that recommended these changes to the code.

The headline in the Capitol Hill Seattle blog pretty much says it all:

Facing ‘unprecedented wave’ of development, letter gives design board license to kill (bad projects)

Well I’m afraid to deliver the bad news, but no it doesn’t. Design review was never intended to kill projects whether they were deemed “bad” by the public or even by the design review committee. The purpose of design review is to provide “a forum for citizens, developers and the City to review and guide the design of qualifying commercial and multifamily development projects (emphasis mine).”

It is simply appaling that two sitting Councilmembers would write a letter fanning community hostility toward development and that they would imply that design review is a forum to stop projects. In fact, every design review committee I’ve attended the chair of the committee has to go to great lengths to remind neighbors who oppose a project that design review isn’t a way to change underlying zoning, stop a project, or even repurpose or redirect a project.

The purpose of design review was supposed to be to allow new development minor departures in exchange for modifying design in accordance with generally accepted design guidelines. Some neighborhoods have developed their own guidelines with more refinements. But as many have pointed out before, design review is a feeble measure for neighborhoods who want to “kill” new development. I think that’s a good thing and that’s what the law says.

I’ve suggested other ideas about how design review could be modified along with introduction of zero based zoning, but the truth is the design review is not a way to kill projects and  shouldn’t become a vehicle for that, ever. At best, design reivew is a give and take process to help move beyond neighborhood objections and get projects built.

Tom Rassmussen and Sally Clark should be embarrassed and ought to make an effort to counter the impression the Capitol Hill blog has created. All their letter and the post does is promote a common misconception about design reivew and add more frustration and costs to people who are trying to follow the law and get their projects built. And furthermore, it stokes an already frantic obession among some that we’re facing some kind of swarm of bad development. We need more housing options in Seattle and Councilmembers who will encourage and support growth, not make it harder for our city to accomodate more people by vilifying developers.