Month: August 2018

Update: Erica Barnett at The C is for Crank has a rundown of what Councilmember Sawant’s proposed ordinance would do (putting severe restrictions on a lot more property than the Showbox) and rapid timeline for approval.

The movement to save the Showbox has grown quickly, and attracted some wanting an opportunity to proverbially punch a developer in the face, or to stop more housing from being built, for which the Showbox has provided a convenient excuse.

There is no actual item related to the Showbox on today’s 2:00 City Council Agenda yet. There are, however, ordinances proposed by Councilmember Mike O’Brien on the introductions calendar to get all for-profit employers with over 20 employees in the City to offer pre-tax commuter benefits beyond car-cost reimbursements, and to provide guiding principles on reorganizing the Move Seattle bond Levy package.

Much of today’s affordable housing was once someone’s “luxury housing”. Some of the largest shelters downtown, such as the Morrison Hotel and the Bus(c)h Motel were once state-of-the-art luxury housing. The apartment complex where I live looks very much like it was once a hotel. A lot of the “naturally affordable housing” targeted for purchase by the City is older single-family homes. In short, there is a lot of truth to the adage that today’s luxury housing is tomorrow’s affordable housing.

The Showbox is a victim, not of crass developer capitalism, but of our failure to recognize the housing supply problem before it became a crisis. Josh Feit has a lot more to say on the topic, over at The C Is For Crank. I would just add that having a performance space of similar quality to the Showbox can happen on-site, most likely on the top floor. Lift the height limit in exchange for building such a performance space, and more income-limited units. Then, everyone should be happy except the historic preservationists, housing opponents, and height opponents.

On Thursday, August 2, the Sound Transit Board’s Executive Committee approved a plan to power Link almost entirely from renewable energy resources, as part of a program ST developed with regional governments and Puget Sound Energy (PSE.)

By July 2019, Sound Transit will lower its emissions by 71 percent, with renewable energy generated by a new wind farm, which will come online that month. In 2021, PSE will finish construction on a new solar array in central Washington which will allow Link to operate on 100 percent renewable energy. Systemwide, 96 percent of Sound Transit’s energy will be generated by renewables.

The contract also locks in Sound Transit’s PSE electricity rates at agreed levels for the next ten years, which could save the agency some operations cost. Sound Transit staff said that they intend to negotiate similar green energy deals with relevant utilities as the Link system expands. 

The 4 percent of the energy that is not renewable will be purchased on the open energy market. Utilities use fossil fuel capacity when renewable generation is not possible or is suboptimal, or when demand exceeds renewable capacity. Solar plants can’t generate at night, for example, and wind plants can’t generate if air is stagnant.

The program is part of PSE’s Green Direct initiative, which the utility developed at the behest of regional governments and major corporate partners. According to King County Executive and ST board member Dow Constantine, the ST move is part of a larger regional push to cut carbon emissions.

“King County’s signing on to [Green Direct] reduced and is reducing our climate impact, our carbon emissions, by 20 percent,” Constantine said. “These are not really incremental steps—these are big steps forward.”

“In committing to creating electric, high capacity rail, our conversion to an all electric bus system, and our insistence that our vendor provide us with the kind of power we want, we are changing the [energy] market.”

This post has been updated to reflect the fact that Link itself will be powered entirely by renewables, while Sound Transit’s overall energy supply will be 96 percent renewable.

On Thursday, August 3, Sound Transit staff briefed the ST board’s Executive Committee on the agency’s goals for two TOD projects near the Capitol Hill Link station.

Both projects will feature ground floor retail and affordable housing, and will build to the maximum density that their zoning allows. The First Hill site, near the intersection of Broadway and Madison, is zoned to allow for up to 13 stories in construction. The second site, which ST will procure through a land swap with Seattle Central College, will allow for seven stories.

First Hill site

According to Sarah Lovell, ST’s TOD Planning Manager, the First Hill site will have:

• A minimum of 12 stories
• At least 250 housing units
• Affordable housing standards
  • At least 80 percent of units occupied by residents at or below 80 percent AMI
  • The buildingwide average income at or below 60 percent AMI
  • At least 80 units at or below 30 percent AMI
• At least 8 percent of units will have 2+ bedrooms, for families
• 4000 square feet of active storefront
• Meets Washington State Evergreen Standard
• Minimal auto-oriented design features

Sound Transit is in the late stages of negotiations with Bellweather Housing and Plymouth Housing Group. Staff hope to present the board with final contracts in August or September. ST does not plan to spend any funds on the project.

Pike/Pine site

Lovell also briefed the Executive Committee on a more complicated project to be built on Broadway between Pike and Pine. The site is in a historic auto repair shop (the Eldrige Tire Building) between Neighbours and a mixed use building with Rite Aid on the ground floor.

According to Lovell, this project will have:

• At least 7 floors, though with MHA it could have 8
• Target 78 housing units
• 100 percent of residents earning 60 percent AMI or below
• 23 percent of units 2+ bedrooms, for families
• At least 4,500 square feet of commercial space
• Meets the Evergreen Standard
• Restoration and inclusion of the Eldrige Tire facade

Lovell said that the income requirements will be locked in for 40 to 50 years, as part of a covenant typical to most private affordable housing developments. ST plans to work with Capitol Hill Housing to develop the project.

Sound Transit doesn’t yet own the plot. It will acquire the land through a swap with Seattle Central College, which currently owns the building. SCC will gain access to a lot on the west side of Broadway, next to the SCC portal to the Capitol Hill Link station.

According to Lovell, SCC intends to develop that project into its own mixed commercial and affordable housing TOD project. So, in a sense, Sound Transit will incubate two affordable housing developments when it makes the land swap later this year.

Sound Transit has clearly learned from the long-delayed projects above the Capitol Hill Link station. The agency’s thoughtful approach to these three projects, and its close collaboration with community partners, bodes well for its ambitious TOD program.

On Monday, the Seattle City Council voted in favor of two major expansions of public bike infrastructure, though one is a nonbinding resolution, and does not carry the force of law.

The meaningful vote authorizes the expansion of dockless bike share to a potential 20,000 vehicles, provided SDOT develops a bikeshare parking enforcement regime and improves the pedestrian experience of people with disabilities.

The other vote, a unanimously approved nonbinding resolution, is a rebuke towards SDOT for not building downtown’s bike network fast enough for the council’s liking. (We’ll have more information on that issue later.)

The council moved to allow SDOT to expand dockless bike share to at least 20,000 bikes, spread among up to 4 companies. Companies could pay up to $250,000 in fees to the city (one current provider, Ofo recently announced that it would be exiting the Seattle market due to the new fee structure).  

Some critics of bikeshare have argued, with scant evidence, that poorly parked bikes aren’t just a nuisance or eyesore, but rather that they’re bad for business or other civic virtues.

More importantly, several blind and vision-impaired Seattle residents pointed out that unpredictably parked bikes are dangerous for them—and encouraged the construction of the basic bike network to keep bikers off sidewalks.

“Blind, disabled, and all other pedestrians are being severely impacted by the bicycles that are littered on the sidewalks that we try to walk on,” says Marci Carpenter, president of the Washington chapter of the National Federation of the Blind.

“There needs to be direct parking enforcement and management of the right of way. I support the basic bike network because the more cyclists feel comfortable riding in bike lanes on the streets, the less likely they are to run into us on the sidewalks.

In response to the comments and lobbying of Carpenter and other people with disabilities, Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Mike O’Brien added unanimously approved amendments to the bike share ordinance. Herbold’s amendment will allow bikeshare contractors to add 1,000 additional bikes to their fleet if they make major investments in vehicles that can serve people with disabilities, and O’Brien’s mandates parking enforcement.

We’ll report on the bike parking enforcement program when more information becomes available.