Crosscut lead me to this Vancouver Sun article about Public-Private-Partnerships paying for transit.
Here’s the idea from the Sun piece:
It works something like this.
A public-transit rail route, whether SkyTrain or light rail, is put on the drawing board by government and key stations are selected. These areas of the city become designated high-density urban-residential development hubs, with highrise towers.
That rezoning generates a major spike in real-estate profits — through more condos and commercial spaces to sell — that could be retained by local government or TransLink, to pay for the new services. Or, more likely, under this provincial government, that valuable new urban density can be sold off to the private sector. For that, they would absorb some or all of the cost of building and running the new transit lines.
Could that work here? I see a few problems:
- We currently want to run transit through the most-developed areas. Places like downtown Bellevue, Northgate, and the University District are already pretty dense. The lines through the South and the North to a small extent could work this way, but I don’t think that Eastlink could have this effect.
- Our Municipalities have not shown a lot of eagerness to capture the gains from upzoning. I know Seattle has a charge for exceeding zoning limits, but the chrage is fairly small, and is no where near enough to build a light rail line from. Bellevue doesn’t capture the money at all.
- The places it would work best may not want to absorb the density. Places like Federal Way, Kent or Mountlake Terrace may not want high-rises in their cities.
What do you think?
Update
According to Frank at Orphan Road, this scheme is illegal. If it’s illegal, we might as well go ahead with the even shadier plan of buying the land with eminent domain, building light rail then selling it after the prices go up. That way you capture all of the gains.
Yes we do, yes we do!!!
http://federalwaygraffiti.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-awesome-is-this.html
Shouldn’t it be the “hong kong” model from the article?
James has a point, Federal Way does seem to be embracing some density. Also, it is worth mentioning that Lynnwood has recently rezoned part of their “downtown” to have higher buildings.
Personally, I think that some ‘burbs would go for it and some would not. It all depends on how you sell it.
This last development cycle we have seen mixed use come into vogue, and “Town(e) Centers” have sprouted in most suburbs. People seem to want them so that they can feel like they have a little town center that is not just a strip of a state highway. (See Mill Creek Town Center, they even named a road “Main Street” to put in the middle of their new development.)
To me, “Town(e) Centers” are a good start, and if people continue to like them they may be more open to larger buildings in their neighborhoods. On the other hand, I have spoken to Bellevuites who do not like the new density – they find it suffocating. I actually asked ask them if they would prefer a store with a huge parking lot in front, and they say that they would prefer it to a building that comes all the way to the street.
Another thing I find interesting is that some of the local inspiration for mixed-use town centers is not mixed-use at all: The University Village. This greatly influenced the Mill Creek Town Center plan, and I have seen it mentioned in other plans as well. Basically, what we need to do is relate higher density development with things that people already know, and developers are doing just that. Malls create an excellent opportunity for more density.
For example:
-Developer: “Would you like/mind larger buildings around the mall with some residential or even office?”
-Suburbanite: Hmmmmm…..
-Developer: “It would be kind of like a big town center, but with a mall.”
-Suburbanite: Great!
As of now, I think that we are making steps to higher density in ‘Burb Nodes. Once one node exists, if people like it and it becomes financially feasible to build more, then we have a cracked the door open to the Vancouver transit model. Mixed-use developments and town(e) centers are just a small step in the right direction.
Ryan has a good argument for it.
I think burbs would go for it when you think explain it in terms of economy.
As a Bellevuer (or whatever), I know that the city planners have been working toward the current downtown density for a long, long time. About 15 years if I recall correctly. And while they haven’t exactly been trying to capture additional revenues from high-density development for transit, they did have the foresight to realize that unprotected undeveloped land in the city limits was going to be (and now basically is) a thing of the past so the only option was more density or lose future tax base to Redmond, Issaquah and Sammamish. So, I don’t think that this would require some quantum leap in thinking for Bellevue city planners, even if they aren’t currently doing it, as it does coincide with their long-term plans for the city.