Month: April 2011

Since we’re on a roll, I’ll add my opinion to this discussion. I started thinking about this last month at the equitable growth dialog but haven’t until now been able to put it in a good context. This discussion has done that.

Simply put Martin and Sherwin are both correct, the problem is they are thinking about afforable housing (and in some ways affordable commercial/retail space) at two different physical and temporal scales. This lack of scale  definition in my opinion is the crux of the problem when talking about affordable housing. Martin and Sherwin each describe one of the two opposing forces that I see playing out with affordable housing, one short term and site specific, the other long term and region wide. Note, for this discussion I’m not talking about single family houses, I’m talking about apartments, condos and townhomes.

In the short term, new housing in the city is almost always more expensive than old housing, unless it is subsidized. This is because it is more expensive to build housing now than it was before, and developers will target the most lucrative market, and cheap housing usually isn’t it. New housing simply demands a premium. So yes new housing is more expensive than old housing.

However, in the long term housing prices are mostly determined by supply and demand. Once housing is built, regardless of the price to build it 15 or 20 years ago the market will determine it’s value. The larger the difference between supply and demand, the higher housing prices become. Additionally, over the long term, new housing become old housing, and old housing is cheaper. I would venture a guess that a large majority of the affordable housing in Seattle is just our older housing stock, not subsidized housing. Old housing in desirable neighborhoods may still be expensive, but building less housing 15 or 20, or even 100 years ago in those neighborhoods wouldn’t make them any cheaper now.

Thus to me I only see a two fold solution. First restricting large increases in housing where we want it (around Link, urban centers, etc) is guaranteed to increase prices in the long term, there is no other possible outcome. Period. Second affordable housing that is lost from a new project should be replaced, through programs like the housing levy and incentive zoning. This is the only solution I see that preserves affordable housing in the short term and builds up an affordable housing stock for the long term.

This morning, Martin opined about the council’s recent decision to restrict the upzone in Pioneer Square from 150 feet to 120 feet.  Ironically, his piece was penned at the same time this editorial was being drafted– both written simultaneously with conflicting viewpoints.  While I’ve generally agreed with the call for higher transit-oriented density reflected through this blog, I’m not convinced that the “highest and best use” argument in this context is helpful to the pro-transit cause.

Mathematically, the case for high-density TOD is simple– more people, more riders.  In a less-than-perfect world, however, we often have to deal with social and economic constraints, along with various other wonky forces that affect the choices people make in regards to their mode of travel or their place of residence.  More below the jump.

Continue reading “Is ‘Highest and Best Use’ Always Right?”

Cleverly slipping it in before I was fully caught up from vacation, the City Council voted unanimously yesterday to restrict heights in Pioneer Square to 120 feet, rather than 150. Councilmembers Burgess and Bagshaw initially voted for higher limits, but PubliCola speculates they switched out of some sense of Council solidarity.

Previously, Councilmember Nick Licata and waterfront activist Cary Moon wrote separate pieces in opposition to the loosest possible height limits in Pioneer Square. On the other side, rebuttals from near and far; in particular I’d recommend Roger Valdez’s well-informed arguments.

I’m glad the debate is about how much to increase, rather than whether to increase. Furthermore, the provisions in question are part of a much larger package of upzones (map here) that is, thankfully, uncontroversial. However, Pioneer Square sits on the largest transportation hub in the Northwest. As such, there’s a strong case that as many people and jobs should be sited there as the market can bear.

The centrality of density to a whole series of issues is well documented. More human activity in a given patch of urban space reduces sprawl, energy consumption per capita, car dependence, and housing prices. It puts more bicycles and pedestrians on the ground, increasing their safety, and reduces the economic distortions caused by regulation. Against all that we have an essentially subjective argument about towers “looming” over historic buildings, an aesthetic that works fine in other cities, and the usual Seattle emphasis on public process and broad consensus.

Maximizing density is either a priority or it isn’t. I’m disappointed that vague aesthetic considerations won out over absolutely critical imperatives.