West Seattle Link (WSLE) has an online open house now, and an in-person one October 25th.
Sounder South (S Line) has a survey on potentially shifting its focus to more off-peak service. This would cancel plans to make trains longer peak hours, and reduce peak frequency from 20 to 30 minutes. Respond by October 29th, or visit one of the popup tables.
The Seattle Transportation Plan draft is taking comments until October 23rd. The Seattle Comprehensive Plan (“One Seattle Plan”) is ongoing.
King County estimates it will need 309,000 new homes over the next 20 years ($), a third of those for people making 30% or less of median income. Seattle will need 112,000; Bellevue 35,000; Federal Way 11,000; Shoreline 13,000; Kenmore 23,000.
Several West Coast cities wring hands ($) over homelessness. They’re asking the Supreme Court to allow them to close encampments even when there’s not enough housing to move them into. “The cities appear to be acknowledging that the well-meaning effort to house all the homeless, for years now a widely espoused goal, isn’t actually possible.” That it would cost too much to provide housing for everyone. Missing from this is that if you sweep homeless off the streets, it doesn’t make them go away, it just move them to other streets. The only way to get them out of public spaces and church lots is to give them housing, put them in jail, shoot them all, or give them a basic income high enough to afford market-rate housing. Putting them in jail would require building 6,000 jail units, and maintenance costs of tens of thousands per person per year. Meanwhile countries poorer than the US, like Japan, manage to house practically everybody.
Seattle needs more public restrooms. ($)
Busier transit, better transit (RMTransit video)
Evaluating Portland’s multimodal transit network and bike infrastructure (CityNerd video) The bike infrastructure is stagnating.
Adding coffee grounds to concrete ($) strengthens it and lowers carbon emissions.
The high cost of owning a car. ($)
The final part of the East Lake Sammamish Trail in Issaquah opened October 7th. This provides a continuous series of trails from Golden Gardens in Seattle to the Issaquah Community Center, where several mountain trails start.
This is an open thread.
That “continuous series of trails” are all old Northern Pacific rail rights of way. It was the line from Seattle to North Bend via Woodinville. Not as direct as I-90.
NP, like all railroads in hilly country, loved lake frontage…..
Gotta love the King County projections on housing…. not sure where King County or the cities in it would come with 100,000 low income units @ 400,000 per unit (and that number is low) for a grand total of $40,000,000,000.
For those with an interest in drawing lines on a map:
TriMet is proposing a few changes to various routes. Some places lose service, while others gain service. Some routes gain frequency.
https://trimet.org/betterbus/servicechanges-fy25proposed.htm
I’m used to dotted meaning deleted, so it’s hard to read these maps and think it’s proposed service.
California passed a bill that would look into the study by the state fire marshall to allow reforming of state building codes to allow single stair apartment complexes to be a viable option for new builds.
https://cayimby.org/ab-835/
The best (and cheapest) apartment buildings are 3 story walk ups with a single stairwell. Elevators have always been for rich people.
Australia seems pretty committed to solving their housing crisis, much more that the USA or Europe. Shutting down immigration is the first move, and Australia is already doing that. The next step is building more housing…. and forgetting what hasn’t worked in the past.
Step #1 would be use new materials and new methods for building. Australia (and NZ) are a leaders in in metal building construction and types of bio-concrete (the article about coffee grounds posted awhile back was a good read). I’d guess the future of housing in AU is a lot of futuristic mobile homes.
Step #2 is build new cities from the ground up. It’s near impossible to retrofit Sydney or Seattle with enough new housing. The real solution is just build completely new towns on ground with fewer current residents. Washington State could build another city the size of Tacoma East of the Cascades easy enough. The total cost of housing in a new city would be 1/2 to 1/3 of cramming that housing into Seattle. The new city would also have single owner occupied houses paid for with mortgages…. not overpriced “pack and stack” housing built at government expense or owned by big business. Much of Germany is “new cities” build after WWII, connected by rail.
Washington needs a high speed rail line across the Cascades….. and huge regional airport…… high speed internet and power lines installed…. a huge sewage treatment plant…. and start platting land for housing. Seattle is just played out.
I don’t follow this diatribe at all.
1. While I like walk up apartments, the economics argument seems totally off. When height limits aren’t restricted, developers almost always build taller apartment buildings. Elevators in particular are not particularly pricey in a large apartment building even though they appear costly for a single homeowner.
2. If there is a demand for all this new construction, the construction workers must come from somewhere. If we are to grow another major city, the population has to come from somewhere. Americans no longer have big families — partly because our housing affordability makes big families financially difficult. So stopping immigration literally stops the need for expansion. Dreaming of new cities and population without more immigration is just fundamentally illogical to me.
3. It would be so much cheaper for society to repopulate St Louis and Detroit and frankly much of smaller town America (Peoria and Springfield and East St Louis in Illinois and smaller) than to build a new city from scratch. The infrastructure there (not only roads and sewers but schools and water and parks and even intercity rail) is basically in place and is going underutilized. That would be the more efficient way to house people. Big reasons why we don’t are that the Federal government generally avoids the issue and the development investment interests shun areas with high minority operations or small town living.
Dare I mention that Illinois has already worked to upgrade passenger train speeds in many segments between Chicago and St Louis to 90 mph already? Maybe we should look to helping Illinois to grow its population for the solution.
Right, bring sprawl to the wheat fields and sagebrush of Eastern Washington, because caravans of people wanting to live in 100+ degree heat and freezing wintertime cold are lined up at the state boundary.
Omaha and Fargo already offer Eastern Washington living for less than the price that Spokane does.
Al S.
Oh, I’d agree on more development in the Midwest… it’s way cheaper and it’s more politically possible. I’ve pointed out Muncie Indiana as a great place to live on several occasions. The Midwest is loaded with good university towns.
Back to Washington State… Seattle needs a new airport, or at least a new high speed rail link to Portland, but it’s not politically possible. Pierce County isn’t going to let farmland be paved over for jets. There’s silly talk in King County about somehow moving the military base in Pierce County somewhere else and using McCord as a civilian airport. All of these plans are just dumb… even if they do happen, it’s going to cost billions. So the choice comes down to more low income housing…. or a damn airport. Pick one. There’s no way to shoehorn that much more growth in the Puget Sound. The freeways are clogged. The sewer system can’t handle it. But most of all, there’s no way to fund it.
If Washington State did start a new planned city…. much of the funding could come from pent up housing demand of young people who can actually afford a mortgage payment. Think small lots, no lawns and 1200 sq ft modular homes built offsite. Yeah, basically a glorified trailer park. Because it’s a new city, energy and water use can cut be design. BTR bus service all around. Just outlawing lawns makes the place more environmentally friendly than Seattle. Twin water treatment plants, (grey and black) irrigation with grey water. Solar power start up costs baked into the design. and the best thing? At least half of the costs are paid by small private home loans.
Tom Terrific,
“Right, bring sprawl to the wheat fields and sagebrush of Eastern Washington, because caravans of people wanting to live in 100+ degree heat and freezing wintertime cold are lined up at the state boundary.”
Gosh, don’t be a hater. Plenty of people would love to move to a nice community in Eastern Washington. The problem with Liberals is they only want to live in a dozen or so places in the County and constantly bitch and complain about those places being too expensive. There’s absolutely not enough money to make Seattle housing affordable…. at some point, Washington State needs to try something else.
“The best (and cheapest) apartment buildings are 3 story walk ups with a single stairwell. Elevators have always been for rich people.”
Elevators are required by the ADA? I don’t know how California’s plan can be legal.
“Americans no longer have big families — partly because our housing affordability makes big families financially difficult. So stopping immigration literally stops the need for expansion.”
Stopping immigration would cause a population decrease, worsen the labor shortage, and have many other societal effects. Some of those effects would be good or bad, but it’s not a simple clean way to solve the houisng shortage.
“Washington State could build another city the size of Tacoma East of the Cascades easy enough.”
Hopefully it would be walkable.
“The new city would also have single owner occupied houses paid for with mortgages…. not overpriced “pack and stack” housing”
I guess not.
The issue then becomes the percent of multifamily vs single-family units.
“Much of Germany is “new cities” build after WWII, connected by rail.”
Ironic you’d use Germany as an example. It’s not single-family-heavy dystopian cities. It’s sensible medium density mixed development.
When I was in Düsseldorf and its suburb Ratingen, which were razed in WWII and rebuilt afterward, I didn’t see even one single-family house. There may be some in neighborhoods I didn’t visit, but I was struck that even when I kept my eyes peeled for a house, I didn’t see one.
“It would be so much cheaper for society to repopulate St Louis and Detroit and frankly much of smaller town America.”
Exactly, and existing towns in Washington state could grow too if the need arises. But it should be walkable growth around a walkable core.
“Big reasons why we don’t are that the Federal government generally avoids the issue and the development investment interests shun areas with high minority operations or small town living.”
The reason Rust Belt Cities aren’t growing is many complex factors. Weather, companies avoiding unions, etc.
“Seattle needs a new airport, or at least a new high speed rail link to Portland, but it’s not politically possible.”
We’ve just been discussing the latter. I think it doesn’t need high-speed rail, but medium-speed rail (110 mph). As for an airport, a flight diet might not be a bad thing.
“Think small lots, no lawns and 1200 sq ft modular homes built offsite. Yeah, basically a glorified trailer park.”
That size was actually the norm before the mid 1960s. House sizes inflated after that due to American consumerism, everybody wanting to live like aristocrats. Now that we can build houses offsite, we should do so.
Small houses are better than large houses. But the limitation of houses, trailers, and tiny houses, is they can only fit a certain number of people in an area. If you need a lot of units, these take up too much land.
I feel the same about tiny-house villages for the homeless. Yes, they’re a starting point. But to solve the problem you’d need 5,500 units, and more each year. That would take a significant amount of land. Where would we site a large neighborhood like that? A large tiny-house neighborhood has some of the same problems as a large single-family neighborhood.
“It’s near impossible to retrofit Sydney or Seattle with enough new housing.” Sydney, perhaps, but Seattle has huge gaps that are underdeveloped. As it is, Seattle is still a very low density city overall. If there is truly a will to take the housing crisis seriously, there is a will to do away with single family zoning and to push re-development of surface parking lots.
Tacomee: If eastern Washington wanted to have cities and the state wanted to better connect them to Seattle and Spokane, there is plenty of underutilized space in currently populated areas to do so. It’s not like Wenatchee, Yakima, and Tri-cities are very dense and crowded. At least, they could aim to be a Spokane (underrated city, IMO). And there are good geographical reasons (e.g., water, hydro power, topography, geomorphology) why those have developed as the population centers in eastern WA. Why would you try starting a new city from scratch where you are fighting the geography and there is no infrastructure to support an urban population? It’s not like in Sim City where you just put in a few roads and a power plant and people move in.
“Plenty of people would love to move to a nice community in Eastern Washington.”
What is the housing availability in Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Yakima, the Tri-Cities, Spokane, Moses Lake, Ritzville, etc? Is it as tight as Pugetopolis? Could “plenty of people” find vacant units there?
And why are Moses Lake and Ritzville so small anyway? Could they grow?
Years ago, Japan was facing the same basic problem. People wanted to move to Tokyo, at an unprecedented rate. The country responded by encouraging people to move to smaller cities, and stay in rural areas.
Just kidding. They simplified the zoning code, and made it much easier to build in Tokyo. Because of this, developers built a huge number of new units. As a result, prices remained fairly low, and are still fairly low, to this day. Tokyo is now the biggest city on earth, with an enormous amount of wealth, and yet people can still live comfortably there (e. g. a 3 bedroom, 2 bath townhouse for around 300K). Apartments (for smaller families, and single people) tend to be cheaper. Of course it depends on where you are, but places similar to say, Northgate (not really close to the center of things, but not that far out) are quite affordable, compared to cities (like Seattle) that are much, much smaller.
As to your other point:
While I like walk up apartments, the economics argument seems totally off. When height limits aren’t restricted, developers almost always build taller apartment buildings. Elevators in particular are not particularly pricey in a large apartment building even though they appear costly for a single homeowner.
Of course a six-story apartment building is going to be more economical. The problem is, most people don’t want to live next to buildings that tall. Even in Tokyo you don’t have that. Like in Seattle, you have that in some areas, but not in others. The big difference is that while they restrict the height of buildings, they don’t have the other restrictions. Lot sizes can be much smaller. They don’t restrict density. We literally do. In other words, after all the setbacks, lot restrictions, height limits, you still can’t add a four bedroom apartment in most of Seattle. That same building can house one family, but not four. Even if the house is old, you can’t convert it to an apartment. You can tear it down, and build another house, but you can’t convert it to an apartment. It simply isn’t allowed.
Anyway, back to the proposal. Of course these places allow (and require) elevators. It is that they would require one set of stairs, and not two. It is a fairly minor change, but it should reduce the cost of building smaller places. This is typical in Europe — new places require one set of stairs, but not two. The requirement for two stair cases is based on the fire code — going to one stair case is just an update (because buildings are much safer now).
Mike Orr,
Housing prices in Eastern Washington have grown by a higher percentage than houses over on “the Coast”. A house in Ritzville is still cheaper than Seattle, but there’s been a huge demand for properties East of the mountains. Much of it comes from people escaping Greater Seattle I suspect.
Washington and Oregon need realistic Statewide growth plans… people are leaving Portland and Seattle and moving to places like Bend and the Tri-cities. Without some sort of plan, the sprawl will (has?) just take over the entire State. Planning new cities is hard… it takes political capital…. and it’s the only way not to become California.
First off, the State needs to step in with guidelines about insurance. Any house in town with fire breaks and a wildfire control plan can be cheaply insured. Building a single house among the trees and brush on ten acres? Do that at your own risk, without insurance. Places like Republic are chock full of houses that are going to burn down in a wildfire, sooner or later. The government doesn’t need to bail those people out for their own bad choices.
Second, it doesn’t take much of an urban planner make your classic trailer park and 200 units of senior apartments into a 15 minute city, with transit, alternative energy and low water use baked in from the start. Any new city could have destiny numbers greater than Seattle easy enough. Seattle was built around street cars…. great idea, but now it’s nearly impossible to retrofit them back in. Quite electic buses with BRT routes in new construction? Pennies on the dollar of retrofitting light rail in urban cities.
Brandon,
I do respect and love Eastern Washington. I’d plat and build a new city close by existing cities. I’d use the labor force and small businesses in Eastern Washington to build it. I’d want it to be a plus for the people already there. Maybe between Sunnyside and Yakima? Plenty of room out there for a city…and an airport…. and an industrial park.
The best growth in America has always come though families and a 30 year mortgage. Currently Seattle is trapped because jobs like construction and driving a bus don’t pay enough for a mortgage in King Country. That’s not sustainable over time. If there was some new developing city and we offered jobs woking at the new parks or library, or driving the new electric buses… and we offered a home ownership program for qualified city employees…. we’d have 20 applications for every job. Meanwhile, Metro is just dying off without enough young drivers starting out, and lots of old drivers ready to retire.
Seattle is played out for the most part. If you’re in tech or have a lot of money, it’s a fun town. If you’re pregnant and married to bus driver…. it’s a hard place to live. To each their own I say. But when a place has become impossible for the salt of the earth to live there…. it’s played out.
Australia seems pretty committed to solving their housing crisis, much more that the USA or Europe.
I wouldn’t say that. Just look at the numbers:
https://www.sightline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/house_price_index_panel-france_focused-062721-300ppi-2-1536×1255.png
As you can see, things are more expensive than in Germany and Switzerland (which are both in Europe). Japan is also a lot cheaper.
Now, it is true that they have started taking the problem seriously, and allowed more growth. So in that sense, you are right, they are taking the problem more seriously. It isn’t about building new cities, but allowing cities to add more housing (https://www.sightline.org/2021/09/16/yes-other-countries-are-making-more-progress-on-housing-case-4-the-united-kingdom-and-new-zealand/). This is definitely a step in the right direction. Folks down under might finally adopt policies like those adopted decades ago in Germany and Japan, which would allow them to have far more affordable housing. Like the U. S., they have a really long ways to go (simply because they didn’t address the problem for so long).
Much of it comes from people escaping Greater Seattle I suspect.
Escaping? More like cashing out. Or moving because they simply can’t afford to live here (because they aren’t building enough places to live).
Washington and Oregon need realistic Statewide growth plans… people are leaving Portland and Seattle and moving to places like Bend and the Tri-cities.
And people in other parts of the country are moving to Seattle and Portland. It really isn’t that complicated. Look at housing prices. It is still way cheaper to live in other parts of the country than in Seattle. Seattle is just an extremely attractive place to live.
Are housing prices plummeting in Seattle? Are they what they were twenty years ago (adjusted for inflation)? No. Not even close. My house (in a fairly average, not-very-special part of Seattle) is worth way more than when my wife bought it. Rent is the same way — it has gone up way more than average. This, despite building quite a few apartments. This is the sign of a “hot market” — in other words, way more people want to live here than can afford to live here. The solution, of course, is to make it easier to build more places. Seattle has long had an anti-developer bias (which is great for landlords). If this changes, and they actually encourage people to build new places to live, you would see a lot more housing, and prices would eventually go down.
As it is, Seattle continues to grow — people are just paying way more than they should for housing.
@tacomee
Immigrants comprise a disproportionate percentage of the construction workers at a 29%, while only being 17% of the labor force generally. Given the role which labor shortages have had in increasing construction costs, it seems there is a policy set where the housing price increases associated with immigration could be largely offset. Given the current paradigm of fairly restrictive development in many of our urban areas, it is likely true that immigration increases housing costs, but if policies were shifted to increase the rate of housing production I would imagine immigrant labor would be key in facilitating increased construction.
Ross Bleakney,
The reason I’d say Australia is ahead on the housing problem isn’t the numbers… those are bad all over the industrial world. Australia seems to have a better chance fighting though the political bullshit.
Here in the USA, most of the Red states are much more pro growth than the Blue States. This, over time, will make America controlled completely by the GOP. I’ve brought up the idea of a whole new city in Washington State, but honestly, I can’t see that happening for political reasons. A new City in Texas? Easy enough. There are plans floating around for a new tech city out by Austin…. custom made for a company like Amazon to move into. McMansions for everyone!!!! Low taxes and plenty of roads and shopping!!! Love ’em or hate ’em…. Texas doesn’t mess around like Washington State does. Any new city in Washington was be jacked up by environmentalist protesters camping out. Texas would just send out the Texas Rangers with a huge water cannon and “protest” would be over in a hour or so….
Look at California…. that’s what happens with endless environmental lawsuits and protests.
Alex H.
I’m pro immigrant. There’s avenues for people to come to this county legally with a plan– let’s expand that. I’m anti-refugee. Political upheaval in Haiti isn’t going to be solved by a million refugees moving to the USA. Europe has the same problems. We can’t carry the weight of the world. Refugees are flooding an already broken housing market. Look at Chicago, New York, Texas.
I predict riots over this this Winter… people in Chicago and New York are going to get sick of the endless flood of humanity and start kicking ass and taken names….. and here’s the part you may not understand yet. The mob running the refugees outta their neighborhood….. will not be White. They will be Black and Browns Americans who are sick and tired of sharing what little they got with newcomers from Latin America. Look at Trump’s growing popularity with minority groups. It’s coming. America has a real long history of bad shit like this going down. It’s who we are I’m afraid.
Transit, housing, immigration. There’s what we “Feel” about them. (and I’m actually pretty Left) and then there’s what we can actually afford. Run everything you read on this blog though that….. how does this make me feel? Can we actually afford this? The real solution is somewhere in between.
tacomee
Most social issues in America are, in a broad sense, more a function of feelings than what is affordable. The nation is certainly rich enough to implement a social policies far in excess of what we currently offer, and in many cases (such as healthcare) doing so would actually save money in the aggregate. With regards to housing, studies have often show that providing homes for the unhoused is a fairly effective investment, with the cost to society of such programs being largely offset by decreases in other expenses.
No, it isn’t affordability that one needs to balance against their leftist idealism, it is political feasibility given the ideological leanings of the society at large. Our society often tends towards individualistic, laissez-faire forms of societal organization because that aligns with feelings, not because they are the most resource efficient or affordable.
The reason I’d say Australia is ahead on the housing problem isn’t the numbers… those are bad all over the industrial world.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I hate to be hard on you, but I literally linked to numbers showing the problem is NOT universal. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan all have affordable housing. Australia is not ahead of any of them — they are way behind. Way, way, behind. So is the United States. It has only been recently (as the article explains) that Australia (and New Zealand) has taken steps to deal with the problem.
Not by “building new cities” (they did that years ago — didn’t help). Not by reducing immigration (that was never the problem). They are simply bringing their policies more in line with countries that have had affordable housing for years (as the article I referenced explained). It really isn’t that complicated. There are different approaches (centralization, incentives, public funding, etc.) but it all boils down to the same thing: build more housing in the city. If we had the same regulations governing housing construction as Berlin, Kobe, Zurich or Vienna there would be way more housing in Seattle, and it would be a lot more affordable.
File under “Be careful what you wish for.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/us/texas-migrants-housing-colony-ridge.html
Texas is building a new city, largely by and for migrants. And the Texas governor and AG are absolutely losing their shit.
“The concept took off, not least among the large population of undocumented immigrants in Texas, who often do not have the legal paperwork needed for most bank loans.
The Colony Ridge community, whose first residents moved in a decade ago, is now home to 40,000 people or more, with plans to more than double in size.”
“We’re taking this very seriously,” Gov. Greg Abbott said on Fox News, adding that the state had deployed troopers to the area and subpoenaed bank records of the developers to find out “exactly what is going on.”
To be clear, I’m quite supportive of the new city. Good on immigrants to figure out a way around all the roadblocks we place in front of the “American Dream.”
I do find it funny that Tacomee suggested that the governor would send in the cops to break up any protest. But the exact opposite is happening. He’s sending in cops to shut down the developers. Because. Brown people.
Cam Soloman,
The first thing is, although Abbott might rail against Colony Ridge, I doubt he shuts it down. First of all, he can’t and second, he really wouldn’t want to. The developer had given Abbott about one and a half million dollars in campaign money since 2018. Abbott loves that family! It’s all a political game. Although he’ll gladly run over an environmental protester with a 4 wheeler… for the same reason, political theater. Although some good old boys might burn Colony Ridge to the ground as a warning….. But it would make me very sad. I’m not on the side of the White hucksters developers peddling land to immigrants, but those folks seem to be making a go of it. I’m always on the side of the underdog, the little guy. Long live Colony Ridge! And let’s be clear about what Colony Ridge is… owner occupied housing. Not the “pack and stack” TOD development so popular on this blog. This is actual families getting ahead in America.
Mayor Adams, (NYC) just did a tour of Latin America trying to get migrants not to come to New York. Also political theater. Adams wants to tell the Brown people to stay the fuck out of NY without any White voters hearing him.
I honestly can’t see another US election cycle without violence. Our so called leaders, starting with Biden on down, just won’t face reality and make any difficult choices. Like does anybody really believe Seattle is a “sanctuary city”? Look at all those tents… that doesn’t look like a sanctuary to me.
“Escaping? More like cashing out. Or moving because they simply can’t afford to live here (because they aren’t building enough places to live).”
Willamette Week did a survey, and by far the largest reason people have for leaving Portland was the cost of housing.
Which makes me wonder, who is it that’s buying all these places at inflated prices and letting them sit vacant? Or are they all turning into AirBnBs or something?
Glenn in Portland,
Years ago, there was talk of having a Major League Baseball team in Mexico City. The main reason it never happened is the Mexican team market would have been huge. There are more rich people in Mexico City than middle class people in Seattle. The NY Yankees and LA Dodges would have been distant “small market” teams. The Mexico City could buy the best players and win the World Series year after year.
Oregon is a small market team next to California. Even with all of its problems, Portland is bargain compared to the Bay Area. In greater Seattle, the construction industry quit building for locals awhile ago. There’s this never ending influx of Cali money builders largely cater to. This is part of the reason, maybe the biggest reason, affordable housing is so hard. California’s housing problems are our housing problems too.
If people wanted to move to Eastern Washington, Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Yakima, Wenatchee and especially Spokane would be booming. They certainly are growing, but no one sees 1,000 home developments anywhere over there.
It’s not just stupid, selfish “Liberals” who like to live along the ocean. There are plenty of wingnuts in Florida and Texas along the coast.
Liberals like living in progressive cities so REAL haters don’t gun them down for being gay or wearing a Biden tee shirt.
Tom Terrific,
Thanks for proving my point. Many Liberals can only live in about a dozen places in the USA and everywhere else is full of “gun toting wing nuts” we all need to fear. Texas and Florida are both much more ethnically and culturally diverse than Seattle. Heck, Seattle is nearly as White as Salt Lake City and Seattle’s sky high AMI pretty much assures it’s going to become richer (and Whiter) in the future.
Even though Washington State is the smallest State west of the Mississippi, it’s still a big place. There’s plenty of room for growth.
Tacomee, you seem to have forgotten which side of Iowa the Mississippi runs.
The continued diatribes against “Liberals” (an ill-defined term with more straw-stuffing than the ultimate “urbanist” scarecrow) appear to be the venting of a personal vendetta, rather than a coherent argument regarding political philosophy.
I didn’t read every comment in this thread but just wanted to note
> The real solution is just build completely new towns on ground with fewer current residents. Washington State could build another city the size of Tacoma East of the Cascades easy enough.
Technically one could build a city say just around i90 or say past renton. The urban growth boundary is still in effect around washington.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/10/03/regional-officials-hit-the-brakes-on-more-suburban-sprawl-near-i-90/
If the seattle metro area wants more housing there’s two choices either spread out into sprawl or legalize going up. From a strictly housing affordability standpoint loosening either can work — but not banning both growing upwards with zoning and outwards with the urban growth boundary.
> Technically one could build a city say just around i90 or say past renton. The urban growth boundary is still in effect around washington.
Sorry to clarify, I mean it is economically viable to build there, but currently it is legally restricted.
Also while definitely while the urban growth boundary is nice to protect the environment, I fully realize that “liberals” are unabashedly hypocritical banning outer surrounding cities from building more housing that would be affordable while simultaneously blocking enough upzoning measures in their own cities.
WL
While I’m all for building up, since that allows for less car dependent neighborhoods, that isn’t even really required when considering King County Urban Growth Boundary as a whole. Most of the single family suburbs in the region could double or triple their density while staying SFH by simply partitioning lots. For example, plenty of beautiful (and expensive) homes in Wallingford are on 3000-4000 sq ft lots, whereas the median single family home lot in Bellevue is 11,000 sq ft. Consider allowing row/townhouses and the possible housing capacity grows even further, without every having to build more than the currently zoned 2-3 stories.
King County UGA is really not particularly dense for an urban area. It has some 2.12 million people in 460 sq mi. Compare that to the city of Los Angeles, also not particularly dense by international standards with plenty of detached SFH (half the city is zoned SF or duplex), which has 3.99 million people in 469 sq mi.
> Most of the single family suburbs in the region could double or triple their density while staying SFH by simply partitioning lots. For example, plenty of beautiful (and expensive) homes in Wallingford are on 3000-4000 sq ft lots, whereas the median single family home lot in Bellevue is 11,000 sq ft. Consider allowing row/townhouses and the possible housing capacity grows even further, without every having to build more than the currently zoned 2-3 stories.
They all work, whether moderately upzoning all single family zoning to townhouses, or more aggressively upzoning apartment buildings in clusters, or expanding the urban growth boundary. The point is the root cause for the lack of housing is the restriction on legally buildable land.
Or more concretely, the “housing crisis” has always really been a zoning crisis.
“Years ago, Japan was facing the same basic problem. People wanted to move to Tokyo, at an unprecedented rate. The country responded by encouraging people to move to smaller cities, and stay in rural areas. Just kidding.”
https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/10/05/japanese-firms-are-leaving-tokyo-for-the-sticks :
“…Sato Motohiro of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. He believes that this is a hangover from Japan’s bygone boom period, where officials promoted an idea of “balanced development” in which the country’s thousands of municipalities were expected to grow at roughly the same pace.”
Aside from an irrelevant refutation of Ross’s sarcasm, I think Japan’s experience underscore the point that the central state is generally really bad at determining where growth “should” go, and instead all cities should having the zoning & infrastructure to support growth and the market will sort out which cities will grow and which will not. Federal Japan didn’t want Tokyo to become a mega-city, but it also allowed the growth and private developers followed the market signals.
Alex H and WL,
No, the answer needs to be a completely new city. There’s a link on the top of the page about how King Country thinks they’ll need 300,000 new units of housing in the next 20 years, with 100,000 of these being low income. There’s two questions here…. 1. Where’s the money for this? and 2. Where to put them? Get out the maps! come up with a plan. Otherwise it’s all just talk.
Sure, smaller lots mean more density. That’s why we need a new city with small lots. Townhouses are nice… new city. Walkable neighborhoods? Transit? solar power? All baked in from day #1.
It’s impossible to “fix” Seattle or Renton or any neighborhood that’s already built. Tearing down stuff costs big money and there’s no political will to do it. Changing the zoning means nothing really, because it can just get changed back in a couple years when the current residents are sick of endless construction and no parking. Highrise construction is just expensive.
Go big or go home…. there’s no nibbling around the edges on this
> It’s impossible to “fix” Seattle or Renton or any neighborhood that’s already built. Tearing down stuff costs big money and there’s no political will to do it. Changing the zoning means nothing really, because it can just get changed back in a couple years when the current residents are sick of endless construction and no parking. Highrise construction is just expensive.
Under your scenario, what makes you think that the new city would be any different? After the first set of residents move in and they start banning construction of housing as well.
Willamette Week did a survey, and by far the largest reason people have for leaving Portland was the cost of housing.
Which makes me wonder, who is it that’s buying all these places at inflated prices and letting them sit vacant? Or are they all turning into AirBnBs or something?
I would guess neither. It is quite possible that there are simply fewer people living in each home. This is an ongoing dynamic that occurs at the same time that they are adding more units. The same thing happens in Seattle. In the middle of the boom (when Seattle added 125,000 people in a decade) some neighborhoods shrank. Magnolia, for example. They added apartments, just not enough of them. The average house had significantly fewer people in it. This happened across the city, it is just that the addition of apartments were more than enough to compensate.
Portland does appear to be shrinking, but the amount by which it is shrinking is so tiny that it is hard to draw any conclusions. Growth is not always steady, and it is easy to see how it could lead to a temporary reduction in population. For example, let’s say a developer buys up all the houses on a block (one by one) until they can add a big new apartment. Before (and during) construction, the block is shrinking, as people move (and “cash out”). It isn’t until all the work is done, and people move in that the population actually rebounds (and increases). This, along with smaller households, may be entirely responsible for the tiny decrease in population.
My guess is by the end of the decade, Portland will be bigger than ever. Like a lot of West Coast cities, it isn’t likely to shrink, like it did in the 1970s. The overall growth since then is quite remarkable: In 1980 there were 366,000 people. Now there are 635,000.
tacomee
Housing in the Seattle region is not the substitutable good you seem to be suggesting it is. Median home prices in a place like Yakima are already less 50% the median price in Seattle, if homes there were a suitable substitute we would expect to see much greater price parity. While I’m not necessarily opposed to the founding of a new city, its effect on demand for housing in the Seattle region should be expected to be minor.
As to your questions, (2) is simple. As I stated previously, the King Count UGA is just not very dense, unzoning could easily add more then enough capacity. Tearing down single family homes and replacing them with smaller lots, row houses, town houses, or low-medium rise apartments is technically more difficult than the green field development you are proposing, it’s only more expensive on account of land costs.
(1) is a more complicated question. The market rate portion of that 300,000 will obviously pay for itself, but how to fund/incentivize 100,000 affordable units is a more complicated question involving numerous policy choices. However, we have many successful models of public and social housing globally from which to choose from in addressing the issue.
Correction of typo, should read:
Tearing down single family homes and replacing them with smaller lots, row houses, town houses, or low-medium rise apartments is technically NO more difficult than the green field development you are proposing, it’s only more expensive on account of land costs.
No, the answer needs to be a completely new city.
No, it doesn’t. You keep ignoring the fact that various cities across the world have done exactly what we are suggesting they do in Seattle: build their way out of the problem. We keep listing example after example of where it has worked, and yet you keep insisting it can’t.
Instead you come up with an idea without any evidence that it would actually work. Look, we know what works. It isn’t that complicated. Other countries have done it. They use different approaches, but it all boils down to the same basic thing: Encourage developers to build.
That’s it. The way they do it differs, but the result is the same. In every case you have the same thing: lots and lots of new places for people to live. I keep mentioning Tokyo, because it is so dramatic. The city has grown at a ridiculously high rate. It is basically adding a city the size of Atlanta every five years. Yet despite this obviously high demand, and the enormous size of the city, housing is affordable. How did they do it?
They encouraged developers to build.
Again, the Japanese model may not be appropriate for us. But the German model has been just as effective. They aren’t building new cities in Germany, they are simply adding more and more places for people to live in all the German cities.
WL,
I have plenty of construction experience…. just on the physical side, building makes a huge mess. There are endless trucks, heavy equipment, staging materials. mud, noise… for months on end. Nobody buys a million dollar house to live in construction zone for years. The idea Seattle is going to tear down every 5th house for a 4 plex is just nuts. We’d be looking at messing up neighborhoods for decades.
On the money side….. the cost of building on raw land is way, way cheaper. It’s the reason sprawl is such a big problem in America. Take the light rail Sound transit is putting in. If you planned a city outside of Sunnyside WA, built a downtown with a “cut and cover” rail line (2 stops) and ran track out into planned (but unbuilt) neighborhoods….. we’d be talking pennies on the dollar to what’s been built in Seattle. Not that light rail would really even be needed…. electric BTR lines are cheaper. I’d guess you could build 3 bedroom houses on small lots out there for under 400k in a better environmental way. That’s just not possible in Seattle.
One thing that isn’t talked about much on this blog is the true environmental impact of people’s everyday lives. Let’s look at the little house I used to own in East Tacoma… 3 bedrooms, one bath about 1300 sq ft of useable space. Over the years I lived there, between 2 and 4 people occupied the house, so I’m going to guess I personally took up around 450 sq ft of living space on average. We had between 0 and 2 cars over the years, so let’s say 1.5 cars on average. Bicycle, walking and transit were all part of household the whole time… mostly due to lower incomes…. it’s still a great little house with 4+ people living in it by the way.
Now let’s look at what “Seattle style” redevelopment would look like. A developer buys the house and tears it down. What an environmental disaster! plus the neighborhood lives with construction for a year. 4 units go in , maybe a 2 bedroom? but at least three studios or one bedrooms. Total square footage around 3200 square feet? As for the number of people living there, maybe 5? 6 if the couple in the 2 bedroom unit had a kid? There’s a least 4 cars however.
Just take a deep breath and do the math. This development is never going to pan out environmentally. It’s bringing more cars and only one or two more people to the block. What it does do is give higher income people the chance to live alone in their own apartment. It’s not family friendly, it’s doesn’t build generational wealth… it does bring in more money to nearby small businesses, but honestly there’s very little upside for the locals already there. And it’s an environmental negative overall.
Here’s a little more why humans are supposed to live in houses and not apartments,
I’ve grown much of the food my household eats in my backyard… or years. Can’t do that an apartment.
My backyard is a big social hub. I’ve had candidate meet and greet events there, many, many parties over the years, I’ve even had 2 weddings there. Can’t do that in an apartment.
I had to deal with living with people I didn’t exactly see eye to eye with. Sharing a house made me a better person… a whole person. I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink (and peed in the backyard sometimes) for years before going to work, because one bathroom is tricky and I’m a dude. It wasn’t easy, but it’s been a good life and I gained a pretty good chunk of money over the years. As a young man, I was poorer than most, but add in the wealth I gained owning a house for years…. I’m way ahead.
Seattle has one huge problem that nobody is talking about… this idea that everybody gets to live alone. Human history just isn’t like that… we are absolutely not meant to live alone. Tearing down a 4 bedroom house to build 4 one bedroom apartments has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
> Now let’s look at what “Seattle style” redevelopment would look like. A developer buys the house and tears it down. What an environmental disaster! plus the neighborhood lives with construction for a year. 4 units go in , maybe a 2 bedroom? but at least three studios or one bedrooms. Total square footage around 3200 square feet? As for the number of people living there, maybe 5? 6 if the couple in the 2 bedroom unit had a kid? There’s a least 4 cars however.
Uhh… so building a new city from scratch is the “environmentally friendly option”?
> Just take a deep breath and do the math. This development is never going to pan out environmentally. It’s bringing more cars and only one or two more people to the block. What it does do is give higher income people the chance to live alone in their own apartment. It’s not family friendly, it’s doesn’t build generational wealth… it does bring in more money to nearby small businesses, but honestly there’s very little upside for the locals already there. And it’s an environmental negative overall.
Ahh yes, the continue to build nothing in our current cities solution. We’ve seen how wonderful that has made the bay area or los angeles right?
> I have plenty of construction experience…. just on the physical side, building makes a huge mess. There are endless trucks, heavy equipment, staging materials. mud, noise… for months on end. Nobody buys a million dollar house to live in construction zone for years. The idea Seattle is going to tear down every 5th house for a 4 plex is just nuts. We’d be looking at messing up neighborhoods for decades.
It’s a city, it’s always changing. Whether i5 construction, streetcar, new apartments, 520, townhouses etc… And sure it sounds good on paper to freeze one’s neighborhood, but if every neighborhood freezes development then one is in trouble.
> Seattle has one huge problem that nobody is talking about… this idea that everybody gets to live alone. Human history just isn’t like that… we are absolutely not meant to live alone. Tearing down a 4 bedroom house to build 4 one bedroom apartments has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
I mean we can always zone it to be taller/larger instead. It is dumb to teardown a house and build it only slightly larger.
“ Tearing down a 4 bedroom house to build 4 one bedroom apartments has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
While I think it’s a valid point that the population wouldn’t change, that also means that there is no logic to expect a significant increase in neighborhood traffic. Stop with the increased traffic fears! The biggest contributor to increased congestion in Seattle is probably due to capacity reductions for PBLs than increases in population.
Rather than look at building an all new city — which requires lots more than houses from employment and shopping districts to parks and schools and sewer and water systems and a bigger transportation system expansion, I think there is value to see what makes a city resilient and flexible and build for it to last 200 years. When New York developers built brownstones they didn’t expect them to be subdivided in different ways every few decades but that flexibility keeps them at a high value and standing to this day. Contrast that with a 1200 sq foot post WWII bungalow on a cul-de-sac that gets quickly demolished..
I know a guy who develops homes for a major west coast home builder. He’s told me that the days of new edge developments with thousands of new homes on vacant land is over. Those companies pay attention to the profitability of the housing market and it’s not in new towns from scratch. Just look at how slow Ten Trails and Tehaleh are evolving. I see the big home builders developing more infill sites on the Eastside for example.
I also don’t think it’s fully understood how much housing was lost in WWII in Europe. Those new towns were replacing lots of lost housing stock.. It’s just not comparable. Maybe if a massive earthquake or fire happened it would be relevant but that’s not what we have.
Perhaps nobody wants to live near a construction site, but that’s happening already in Seattle. I’ve been a single-family homeowner in Seattle for 13 years. During that time I’ve lived through the house across the street being torn down and rebuilt into a much larger house, a DADU being built next door, and a second story added to another house across the street. Three separate lengthy periods of construction noise/annoyance, and we got a grand total of one net new home out of the deal. That’s not a great ratio.
We have so many houses that are dramatically undersized compared to the value of the land they sit on. Within the next generation many (most?) of them are going to experience major construction activity to fix this one way or another. Might as well increase the allowed density so that this expensive land can be used by more people when the inevitable construction does occur.
Al S.
So what’s the average household size in Seattle? (2.02 people?). What percentage of households in Seattle own a car? ( 81%?). Building one bedroom apartments in Puget Sound only increases the number of cars in that neighborhood. Living car free? Ah, not for 4 out of 5 people. Starting with me. Life without a car isn’t possible long term unless you’re some sort of single hermit long term. Real life would get in the way….
Let’s stick to the numbers here. At top of this thread, King County urban planners think the County needs, in the next 20 years, 300,000 housing units with a 100,000 of them being low income. That’s enough housing for over half a million people. What’s the cost of building 100,000 low income units @ $400,000 per unit? Just do some math here. Please, get out your phone and tell me the roundabout number here.
What we’re talking about here is cramming 2 Tacoma size cities into King County. How much empty land is there in King County? and if it’s not empty land, what would like to tear down? Let’s say we could somehow fit 6 housing units on one Seattle city residential lot. We’d have to tear down 25,000 houses to get a return of 150,000 new units. That’s not possible.
If you honestly look at the numbers and the political will, building a new city actually is the easiest way forward. Let’s tear down a 2 million house and build 6 apartments? No! Just no. A new city the only way forward on the environmental front, because Greater Seattle really isn’t all that great environmentally. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about transit, and bikes, less water and energy use, but Seattle is pretty much the same as every other city in America. Seattle is, environmentally, marginally better that Phoenix.
> What we’re talking about here is cramming 2 Tacoma size cities into King County. How much empty land is there in King County? and if it’s not empty land, what would like to tear down? Let’s say we could somehow fit 6 housing units on one Seattle city residential lot. We’d have to tear down 25,000 houses to get a return of 150,000 new units. That’s not possible.
It’s not possible because of what? Like how do you think other cities outside America build housing? They don’t conjure up more land from the ether. And you do realize we can also build apartments right?
> No! Just no. A new city the only way forward on the environmental front, because Greater Seattle really isn’t all that great environmentally.
If you want to claim it is politically easier for housing affordability then sure fine. I don’t understand why you are insistent on calling it “environmental” when it is clearly the opposite.
As an actual environmental professional, the idea that greenfield development is somehow less environmentally impactful than greyfield redevelopment is asinine.
The theory that greenfield construction in superior supposes that the replacement of existing structures is negated when new structures are built elsewhere. This is simply not true! Structures continue to deteriorate even when new stuff is built on the periphery; there always comes a point where maintenance is more expensive than replacement. Of course, not all new development is replacing a total tear-down, but it should be intuitive to understand that replacing one home with several homes on the same property is environmentally better than building several homes on property 30 miles outside the major employment center while the one home can only be replaced by a one slightly larger home.
Cities form around economic opportunity. Cities decline when economic opportunity lags; hence the rust belt. Are there employment opportunities in the conceptual city is eastern Washington? Is there water?
tacomee
The core issue is that the demand isn’t for a generic city somewhere in Washington, it’s for housing in the Seattle region. Your “solution” of a new city, while a fun idea, simply is not a solution to the problem.
If demand for housing in the region matches projections there are functionally only 3 solutions:
1) Densification
2) Eradicate the urban growth boundary.
3) Continue to allow prices to rise so that people are forced out and stop coming (decrease demand).
“What we’re talking about here is cramming 2 Tacoma size cities into King County. How much empty land is there in King County? and if it’s not empty land, what would like to tear down?”
It’s less than previous growth waves so we can manage. The cities will just do what they’ve been doing before: designating urban growth centers and expanding them. Maybe they’ll take our advice and allow middle housing in the in-between areas. Maybe ADU/4plex uptick will be robust.
I did my Snohomish trip on Saturday but I only got as far as Everett. I noticed that the Broadway neighborhood is still one-story. I took Swift back and noticed that the entire twenty miles between downtown Everett and Aurora Village is still all one-story with endless car dealerships, big-box stores with large surface parking lots, and strip malls. So that’s plenty of room for tons of housing right there. Lynnwood has zoned villages around its Link stations, but it still needs to do something to catalyze it.
I also saw parking lot somewhere along 99/Evergreen that was the size of four large parking lots — like all the former Northgate lots before Thornton Creek was built, or an entire stadium crowd. Since there are no major malls or stadiums there, what could possibly have needed that much parking? Was it ever fully used? The entire lot was fenced off as if preparing for construction. And sometimes developers pave vacant land temporarily, so it may not always have been that big.
King County has gotten further than that, but it still has a lot of room for housing along Aurora and Pacific Highway. And oh, it’s lower-cost land than in the center of villages.
“So what’s the average household size in Seattle?”
Household sizes have been going down throughout the US and industrialized world. It’s not just Seattle. Single-family houses are designed for a nuclear family or at most an extended family. They’re not well suited for a group of strangers, who want more privacy, don’t want some of the house’s design features, and don’t want to live in such isolated house-only neighborhoods with only single-family neighborhoods around them. Some single-family houses are fine. Chicago’s North Side still has some scattered around. The problem is that they’re proportionally too many, a huge amount of land for a relatively small number of people, and that number is fixed unless those areas densify to match a rising population.
“Seattle has one huge problem that nobody is talking about… this idea that everybody gets to live alone.”
I saw a quote a while ago that said sharing an apartment with roommates is a particularly Anglo-Saxon thing, and in France singles are more likely to live alone.
The extraordinary housing-price growth growing faster than income is not normal: it started only recently. In San Francisco it started in the 90s. In Seattle it started in 2003. Structural changes could have nipped it in the bud, by allowing more and a wider range of housing early on, but we didn’t. The issue of people not being able to afford to live alone is because we let the housing system get out of hand and turn into a crisis, not because too many people want to live alone.
I’ve lived both alone and with roommates. I prefer having somebody around, and it saves money, but not everybody can always find a good match, especially for a less-than-two-bedroom apartment. Especially those new to the city who know few people. We shouldn’t expect everybody to always be able to find a good roommate situation no matter what.
A developer buys the house and tears it down. What an environmental disaster! plus the neighborhood lives with construction for a year. 4 units go in , maybe a 2 bedroom? but at least three studios or one bedrooms. Total square footage around 3200 square feet? As for the number of people living there, maybe 5? 6 if the couple in the 2 bedroom unit had a kid? There’s a least 4 cars however.
I think you are confused about what is happening in Seattle. I realize people talk about “encasing Seattle in amber”, but that isn’t happening. Seattle is building like crazy.
Just look at this map: https://www.seattleinprogress.com/filters. The little circles are basically work being done in single-family-home areas. If you toggle that on and off, you can see it is the dominant form of development in the city. They are still building plenty of apartments (represented by teardrops) but mostly it is those circles.
The problem is, they aren’t adding density in those areas. Or if they are adding density, it is tiny. What has become common now is very expensive triplexes. They consist of one house, an ADU, and a DADU. Thus the type of development you find so objectionable is now the dominant type of development in the city. One very large house, a DADU and ADU. Probably more than six people, but not a lot more.
But consider what could go in if they changed the zoning. There would be a lot more density. It really gets down to the fact that it is much cheaper to add more places. Imagine you have a 25,000 square foot lot, and the city says you can only build a three story high building. Your choices are:
1) Really big houses on really big lots. You can get 3 houses, and they would go for a maybe a million and a half.
2) Five houses, on 5,000 square foot lots. Each house (being big) could get around a million.
3) Ten houses, on 2,500 foot lots. These are relatively small lots, but as stand alone houses, would be very attractive. 600 grand would be a bargain (for the consumer).
4) Twenty town houses. At 300 grand, they would sell almost immediately. Again, an unheard of bargain for the consumer.
5) Eighty unit apartment building. Charge 200 grand for each condo. Again, a very cheap price for new units.
I’m not saying that developers would charge 200 grand, I’m saying that if a developer makes a healthy profit (much higher than they are making now) building places at prices that low, then there will be a lot of them. So many that eventually prices approach that level. Eventually you reach a bottom, where the cost of development (labor, materials, etc.) becomes the dominant factor. At that point, building in Seattle is like building in Boise, or Austin, or a brand new, mythical city that doesn’t even exist yet.
This is all very basic economics. Even so, researchers have studied the issue. It is well-established now that the reason why some cites (e. g. San Fransisco) are so much more expensive than other cities (e. g. Boise) is zoning. It isn’t that Boise doesn’t have zoning, it is because their zoning doesn’t matter. Essentially the demand matches the zoning. But in San Fransisco (and now Seattle) the zoning is responsible for the high cost. I’ll leave you with a quote from one of those studies:
This paper argues that in much of America the price of housing is quite close to the marginal, physical costs of new construction. The price of housing is significantly higher than construction costs only in a limited number of areas … In those areas, we argue that high prices have little to do with conventional models with a free market for land. Instead, our evidence suggests that zoning and other land use controls play the dominant role in making housing expensive.
Tacomee.
You are confusing the definition of units with the definition of average persons per unit.The average may be 2.02 but I can assure you that that’s not the occupancy of just one bedrooms in Seattle. It is jnstead of all housing types. The 2.02 statistic is fundamentally irrelevant to the discussion because it varies widely by housing type!
It doesn’t help that the City and the media talk about the number of units rather than the number of bedrooms or square footage. We keep regulating our housing by counting units — which is very dualistic middle 20th century suburban thinking. Anyone who has lived in housing stock over 150 years old knows that the number of units in a residential structure changes in the long run. (Natives don’t fully appreciate this because our cities weren’t built over 150 years ago.) There are many middle housing types between single family homes and apartment or condo buildings. Your comment suggests to me that you don’t understand that not all units are average.
The extraordinary housing-price growth growing faster than income is not normal: it started only recently. In San Francisco it started in the 90s. In Seattle it started in 2003. Structural changes could have nipped it in the bud, by allowing more and a wider range of housing early on, but we didn’t. The issue of people not being able to afford to live alone is because we let the housing system get out of hand and turn into a crisis, not because too many people want to live alone.
Exactly. It is really about supply, demand and regulation. The regulations limit supply. If the regulations match demand, then they don’t really matter. If demand rises (and the regulations can’t keep up) then prices get really high. This is why I keep writing that our zoning is “outdated”. If demand was low, then the urban village concept would be OK. What little demand there is for new housing could fit into those little circles, in the same way that Saint Louis doesn’t really have a zoning problem. But demand skyrocketed for a couple reasons. First, there was the “move back to the city”. White people (especially young people) stopped being afraid of black people. They realized that cities don’t suck, and they wanted to live in them. But the big change was Amazon. There was a huge growth in jobs in Seattle. It wasn’t just Amazon, but it was mostly Amazon. Not only did it mean plenty of high paying jobs, but jobs that increased the flow of money into the region. This meant more opportunities for people who work in other fields. Within a fairly short period the number of people who wanted to live in Seattle skyrocketed. Builders couldn’t keep up because of the outdated regulations. That is why it is imperative that we change the zoning rules (and other regulations) that stifle development.
We will still need to spend money on public housing (we always have). Likewise, we will still need to spend money on the homeless (we always have). But the more market-rate housing is built, the cheaper it becomes, and the easier it is to address those problems.
3 thoughts
1. I’ll support tacomee on the need for new “cities,” but fudge and say that the need is for new neighborhoods, not ‘cities’ per se. Some of these are ‘outside’ the UGA – I think a development like Snoqualmie Ridge is vibrant & walkable, and with remote work & electric cars can have a light carbon footprint – but mostly these need to be within the UGA to be sustainable (financially & environmentally). The repurposing of industrial lands (Spring District, SLU, Tacoma Dome, SE Redmond, etc.) or retail super blocks (Northgate, Totem Lake, Factoria, etc.) can create what are essentially “new” neighborhoods with an abundance of housing that can be developed in sudden spurts, and the same can occur in primarily single family neighborhoods (the station walksheds of 135th, 148th, and 185th) if there is sufficient political will.
2. It’s possible for existing residential neighborhoods can be vibrant while going through a period of rapid redevelopment. Mike’s link below for Redmond downtown is a good example.
3. RE: Transit vs Affordability – my take is that if the goal is to maximize transit ridership, the ingredients are density and walkability. Layer in the lower carbon footprint of midrise wood stick construction, and the best approach is midrise development focused in the 10 minute walkshed of every Link station possible, which is more-or-less doubling down on the ‘islands of density’ approach. But if the goal is the maximize affordability, widespread low-rise development is the best option, with an abundance of ‘missing middle housing like in a Montreal or Chicago.
Yes, some lowrise density may not be transit accessible. That’s OK! The region has multiple goals, and while it should add lots of housing that is transit accessible, it should also add lots of infill housing broadly, and some of that housing might have mediocre bus service or be a long walk/bike ride away to good transit. Over time the region will provide good transit to more neighborhoods, and people who want/need good transit will sort themselves into transit rich neighborhoods, but to address the housing shortage the region should allow infill housing pretty much everywhere within the UGA.
Meant to nest in the mega-thread above … but maybe better it’s a new thread :)
Science would tell* us that if we liberalize the zoning, prices for development would be quite similar in the “new neighborhood” you’ve created, and any neighborhood in Seattle. What then, is the value of this new neighborhood? Why build in Fife if you can build in Magnolia? Because there is a Link station nearby (someday)? So what? Magnolia lies very close to downtown, and very close to other neighborhoods that would also be a lot more dense. In contrast, Fife at best would have a transit connection to other transit hubs, and that’s it. Oh, and the Fife Station would be rather close to the freeway, making it the type of station that gets relatively low transit ridership, even on the train**.
Sorry, no. There is no reason to sprawl outward. We simply need to grow from the middle. The only reason we haven’t is because of our outdated zoning regulations.
* https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/hier1948.pdf
** https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/economics-of-urban-light-rail-CH.pdf
You think if Fife and Magnolia had the same zoning, they would have the same prices?
The reason to add housing in Fife is because – and I know this is going to shock you – there are people who want to live in Fife. Maybe they have family in the area. Maybe they are associated with the Puyallup tribe. Maybe – and again, this may shock you – they like living in Fife. To think that the only reason people chose to live in suburbs is affordability is pure snobbery.
Should the region’s focus be on adding housing around job centers? Yes. Should the region’s focus be on adding housing in transit rich areas? Yes. But those are focuses, not absolutes. All cities in the region should aspire to grow into denser, more walkable, and more transit oriented neighborhoods.
You think if Fife and Magnolia had the same zoning, they would have the same prices?
I’m saying that if Seattle liberalizes the zoning enough, prices in Seattle become like they are in other cities (and what they were before Amazon dramatically increased demand by adding a lot of jobs). It isn’t just me saying it, it is the experts. Of course the key word here is “enough”. Is it enough to just allow three-story apartments everywhere in the city (along with “urban villages” allowing six-story apartments) or do we have to go further? Personally, I say we start with that, and see what happens.
The reason to add housing in Fife is because – and I know this is going to shock you – there are people who want to live in Fife.
And there are people who want to live in Magnolia. Are you saying the same number of people want to live in Fife as in Magnolia? Do you really think the biggest problem facing the region is that places like Fife aren’t cheap enough, or don’t sprawl enough?
Get real. This is America. We subsidize the suburbs, in a dozen different ways. We prevent people from moving into our most popular cities. Then we visit Europe, and are amazed at how compact their cities, towns and even their suburbs are. We notice that their transit is just a lot more effective than ours, for this very reason.
Fife does allow higher density growth. It is quite likely that if the various bigger cities allowed more growth, the zoning for places like Fife would be more than adequate. Again, read the study. Not every place has a zoning problem. In most parts of the country, development matches the cost of construction. It is only in a relatively handful of places (although those places have grown) where it doesn’t — and that is because those places have zoning that doesn’t match demand.
There seems to be this belief that cities can simply upzone and that will solve the issue. This to me is simplistic thinking.
Local governments have to think about whether they can support higher density first. We think it’s only about willing density but it’s lots more. There are transportation systems, water and sewer mains, fire truck and station capabilities to reach taller buildings, school and park capacities and functions, and similar local government functions that must be considered.
Zoning should be the last step, and future land use plans should be the first. Without following a logical sequence to increase density, the discussion becomes convoluted. Setting the targets by jurisdiction is probably the best beginning but then each jurisdiction has to do some soul searching to understand what that means.
Many growing suburban places still have large regional retail properties with unused parking lots that go underutilized. It’s basically cleared land with only pavement or cheap concrete blocks — and usually they do not border low density residential. A good case study are the taller buildings now built in the SouthCenter area.
Finally, I think it’s important to flag that the King County population growth has been significant in every decade (at least 8.9% but usually much more) since the Civil War and the invasion of white settlers began. This can lead to an expectation that this will continue indefinitely. However, most of the US doesn’t have sustained growth like this. It’s been an economic golden goose that local governments implicitly expect to continue. While there have been some economic crises in the past, King County has never suffered through the long-term stress of structural population declines of most other places in the US.
Ross – I think that was true 20 years ago when Glaeser wrote that paper, but it isn’t true anymore. Or not nearly to the extent. Low vacancy rates, and therefore high rents, have spread outward from superstar cities like an infection to suburbs and neighboring cities. Now far more than the big dozen are having pressure put on vacancies and rents, and aren’t keeping up.
So while I might balk at you focusing on Fife as a suburb (it’s 80% warehouses and heavy industrial feeding the port, is my guess, though there is a couple newer housing tracts and even some multi-family), we need to focus on all cities. It’s a regional problem, not a Seattle problem.
As evidence, just look at the rent increases over the last 5 years in Tacoma vs Seattle. Seattle has leveled off to some extent, if I recall correctly, by Tacoma’s rents have shot up. The fever has spread, and their in no way to contain it.
Our region’s apartment rents vary less than many other major metro areas, particularly in the Eastern US. The rental differences between Manhattan and outer areas of Northern New Jersey seem much wider than between Fife and Magnolia or Ballard. At the other end of the spectrum is the Bay Area, where San Francisco and Palo Alto rents have been pretty close for decades.
“There seems to be this belief that cities can simply upzone and that will solve the issue. “
So, I never dove deeply into the zoning minutia when I was hanging out at the Bothell City Council meetings 25 years ago, but when you use the term “upzone”, that doesn’t require a property owner to build to the maximum.
Zoning basically sets restrictions on usage, regardless of what would ‘organically’ happen if there were no zoning restrictions at all, correct?
It would seem that if there were no restrictions, then the builder would be the one to figure out if their investment was worth the cost of tying in to existing infrastructure. (i.e. If the development is too far from, or exceeds the capacity of the existing sewer, for instance) then a ‘greenfield’ development won’t get built out to a high density that some apparently fear.
> There seems to be this belief that cities can simply upzone and that will solve the issue. This to me is simplistic thinking.
> Local governments have to think about whether they can support higher density first. We think it’s only about willing density but it’s lots more. There are transportation systems, water and sewer mains, fire truck and station capabilities to reach taller buildings, school and park capacities and functions, and similar local government functions that must be considered.
Sigh I’m not sure why utilities capacities is always brought up. It really isn’t that big of a concern. As you densify you get more property tax and use those funds to upgrade the utilities overtime. Additionally for many of these items we are talking about like water/sewer it is cheaper per unit as you densify from single family homes. Hundreds of cities densify from single family homes to townhouses/apartments completely fine, there’s not something special about American cities that prevent us from upgrading our utilities.
If it really is a limiting factor the zoning board will just not issue the permit — but usually what is being discussed for approving/denying is parking concerns, shadows, increased traffic etc… not about utility capacity.
> Zoning should be the last step, and future land use plans should be the first.
The future land use plans are implemented with zoning changes? I’m confused on why you say it’s different steps. It’s like the draft transportation plan is then implemented with the actual transportation plan etc… But the future land use plan by itself doesn’t actually do anything.
> Our region’s apartment rents vary less than many other major metro areas, particularly in the Eastern US. The rental differences between Manhattan and outer areas of Northern New Jersey seem much wider than between Fife and Magnolia or Ballard. At the other end of the spectrum is the Bay Area, where San Francisco and Palo Alto rents have been pretty close for decades.
It’s typically housing price is inversely correlated to job distance not just distance to downtown. Palo Alto has plenty of jobs nearby in the South Bay. Not sure exactly what part of New Jersey you are talking about, but the problem is people have to either drive on the few bridges/tunnel or take the NJ transit and then transfer again to the subway to reach the jobs in Manhattan so that greatly diminishes the demand there relative to other options.
“I’m not sure why utilities capacities is always brought up. It really isn’t that big of a concern. As you densify you get more property tax and use those funds to upgrade the utilities overtime. ”
Treatment plants are not expanded I incrementally. Seattle has been assessing a sewer capacity charge for new buildings for a few decades. That charge decision was made many years ago and someone had to calculate the amount those charges get assessed.
“I’m confused on why you say it’s different steps.”
The confusion is pervasive and varies from one state to another and one decade to another. It’s a complex topic and has many twists and turns. The original creators saw them as different yet many today don’t understand the difference. The original intent used to be a second check on land use compatibility. A zoning change would be denied because it was inconsistent with the land use plan. Over time, site plan approvals have more replaced the original intent of zoning while zoning has increasingly replaced the intent of land use planning.
Do a web search and read several dissertations and you’ll see how bad the confusion is. Take this one where the author seems truly mystified by the difference. (Any idiot can get published these days.)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169204616300172
Fife is already planning an urban village around its Link station. It just needs to be implemented.
Bothell and King County surely know how much unused utility capacity there is. Bothell has been building seven-story apartments; there are dozens of them along the Bothell-Everett Highway that were probably all built since 1990. So it will just do more of the same. Or hopefully do some adjustments to make them more walkable and less like towers in the park, but that won’t change the utility needs much.
Likewise, Fife and Pierce County know how much utility capacity they have. The Fife urban village has been in the plans for a decade now, so they’ve had time to increase utility capacity if necessary.
Where utility infrastructure becomes an issue is extending it to a thousand single-family houses rather than a few condo buildings. Especially to an exurban neighborhood or an isolated house. Those are what require longer pipes and cables, and arrangements with more landowners in between. And all those miles of pipes and cables have to be maintained.
> Treatment plants are not expanded I incrementally. Seattle has been assessing a sewer capacity charge for new buildings for a few decades. That charge decision was made many years ago and someone had to calculate the amount those charges get assessed.
I mean if we’re talking about the overall sewer/water capacity rather than the pipes, it is even worse for single family homes. They on average use more per unit than townhouses/apartments. If one wanted to save water usage or reduce sewer capacity needed, to block apartments and then approving single family homes farther away that use more water and produce more sewage per unit makes zero sense. And yeah the sewage capacity charge has been implemented for new buildings someone calculated it and it is fine. Like there’s more electricity usage and eventually we build another power plant do we seriously debate that as a blocker.
People just bring up sewage and water capacity as an excuse to block new construction, not as an actual concern.
Like https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/climate/arizona-phoenix-permits-housing-water.html a cursory look online has phoenix per capita water usage of 120 gallons. Average consumption is 80 gallons, Seattle is around 40 gallons of water per capita.
We can debate numbers more but in general the idea that denying denser housing that uses less per unit/person to then build single family homes that use more per person is the completely self-defeating if you are worried about utility capacity.
On a tangential note of interest, City of Tacoma actually has an excess water problem right now. The paper mill is shutting down, and they consumed something like a 3rd of all the water in the city.
So if anyone is thirsty.
Just saw this piece in the local paper about Seattle traffic violations not being pursued and the budgetary impact on certain programs.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/100000-expired-traffic-tickets-take-bite-out-of-seattles-safety-budget/
They should take it right out of SPDs budget to make the safety fund whole. That would magically get them to find the time to review the tickets.
I did wonder about using unspent SPD money when there’s a cop shortage.
I’m not sure what you mean by “unspent SPD money”. For 2022, the city budgeted about $789M for Public Safety (SPD, SFD, Law Dept, Muni Court, Pensions, and some other depts. ) but the annual report for 2022 shows that they spent about $811M on a consolidated basis. The SPD alone was budgeted at $365M for 2022, a decrease of about $35M from the 2020 level.
Wasn’t there a dust up around an extra 100m budgeted to SPD last year, that they weren’t able to use?
“I’m not sure what you mean by “unspent SPD money”.”
I thought I read this morning that the money came out of unspent SPD funds, which made me worry it might not leave enough for recruitment. But I don’t see it in the article now, so maybe I misunderstood it.
Excuse me? These are automated speeding tickets generated by speed cameras in school zones that the police “don’t have time to verify”? And the citizens of Seattle aren’t outside the Chief of Police’s office with pitchforks, torches, a tub of hot tar and a rolling gallows?
Yeah, yeah, pretty much nobody gets up in arms about red light violations, because lots of them are “California stop” right turns and aren’t going to kill anyone except the driver if he — and it’s usually a “he” — gets T-boned from the left.
But speeders in school zones??? That’s one of only three issues that Libs and Trumpers agree on.
What are the other 2 issues?
Previously, some of us were wondering what will become of the office-heavy TOD projects adjacent to East Main station. One possibility that was discussed is that they’ll go ahead with the projects, but pivot from office to residential. And that’s exactly what just happened with another big Bellevue project, Cloudvue. The developers recently announced that the two of the three proposed office towers will switch to residential. The third tower will still be a mix of residential and hotel. They also said they are scrapping the performing arts center, and replacing it with a grocery store. Cloudvue will be located on the northern half of the block next to the Bellevue TC.
https://therealdeal.com/national/2023/10/07/seattle-area-megaproject-swaps-office-for-housing/
Interesting. Meanwhile, Meta (AKA Facebook) isn’t quite sure what to do with all of their property in the Spring District: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/bellevues-spring-district-grapples-with-metas-shifting-office-plans/
I do wonder when X and Meta are going to realize their new names are too generic and easily confused with other things, and go back to calling themselves Twitter and Facebook. Especially X.
Tomorrow at the general city council meeting (2pm) there’s a pretty important resolution being voted on to prioritize not changing the Major Truck Streets, which will effectively end the idea of bike lanes in sodo/ bus lanes on rainier/ probably any aurora avenue improvements/n 85th street/ Fauntleroy Way etc…. For transit and lanes on westlake it might still kind of happen as it seems ‘okay’ with freight and bus (FAB) lanes.
> The resolution, which was passed unanimously out of the Land Use Committee rather than the Transportation Committee, contains some language that is either very unclear or conflicts with existing city policy and the best design practices for safe streets and accessibility. The resolution requests that SDOT present to both the Freight Advisory Board and the City Council Transportation Committee before making safety improvements to streets designated as Major Truck Streets so that SDOT staff can “demonstrat[e] that adjacent land uses and through traffic will not be compromised.”
https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2023/10/06/seattle-council-do-not-pass-the-resolution-to-add-even-more-red-tape-to-safety-projects/
Specific resolution (it’s only 8 pages so not too long to read)
https://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12302883&GUID=0B024CFD-0B7D-4183-8807-58A8F731F41A
Per Ryan Packer at ~2pm, the vote is postponed once again: https://x.com/typewriteralley/status/1711848091232677997?s=20
Redmond gets praise for its urban retrofit.
https://www.seattletimes.com/life/outdoors/redmond-could-be-a-national-model-for-reinventing-suburban-downtowns/
Yes. I visited a month ago and was amazed how good it is. There must be 10,000 people living around the commons, and they are having a GREAT TIME! Everybody was smiling and laughing. It wasn’t drab and boring as Daniel claimed several times.
ST is building its usual looming SkyCastle at the edge of the zone, but it’s no higher than the surrounding buildings so it doesn’t seem completely out of scale.
Population growth in King Co. over the last few years has been pretty flat although population grew from 1.94 million to 2.25 million between the 2010 and 2020 census. OFM 2022 Growth Projections + Growth Targets (kingcounty.gov) After first population drop in decades, King County rebounded in 2022 | The Seattle Times Domestic population dropped 16,000 in 2022 while foreign population grew by 23,000 after a net decline of 20,000 in 2021. The Office of Financial Management has grudgingly scaled back its pre-pandemic population growth estimates (see OFM 2022 Growth Projections + Growth Targets kingcounty.gov for high, medium and low projections through 2050, and comparing 2017 and 2022 projections through 2050), although the Realtor groups and builders continue to use inflated estimates (and right now are contributing heavily to council races throughout the region).
The Growth Management Planning Council issued a recent estimate that King Co. alone has the zoning today for 800,000 new housing units. Regional planning bodies like the Puget Sound Regional Council estimate that around half of future regional population growth will live in the major cities although that was before work from home. Everett, Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue will see half the growth, while the other half will disperse throughout the region, including Kitsap Co. One problem with urban living is it tends to be more expensive per sf than non-urban areas, no matter how tall the building is, and Tacomee is correct that generally the taller the building the more expensive the housing per sf.
Tacomee is right and wrong on future cities. Future growth will occur in “new” cities, just not where he thinks, across the Cascades. Beginning in 1960 growth in King Co. did occur in “new” cities, from Factoria to Issaquah to North Bend to Snoqualmie to Sammamish to Coal Creek to Redmond to east Kirkland/Rose Hill, to Woodinville, to Bothell, and so on, to where today total population east of the lake is around the same as west of the lake. Most of these new cities were once unincorporated King Co. and quite rural. One could argue Totem Lake is a “new” city. “New” cities don’t sprout up far from the existing cities. They sprout up right next door, or what is sometimes called the exurbs. Someone posted about Tokyo, without noting Tokyo today is comprised of 62 municipalities Tokyo – Wikipedia and is over 5200 sq. miles when Seattle is 83.9 sq miles, or 137th in the U.S. (the largest city by size outside Alaska is Tribune KS at 774 sq miles). List of United States cities by area – Wikipedia Tokyo is a little smaller than the size of Snohomish, King and Pierce Co. combined, and is around the same size as LA County. Few cities have grown out like Tokyo and most of those 5200 sq miles were once a greenfield.
Growth usually grows out, not up, unless like Manhattan there are geographical borders. But more common is a city like Atlanta. Cities like Snoqualmie and North Bend are petitioning to expand their growth boundaries for more housing since there is a housing crisis and they have new housing growth targets. It makes little sense to develop greenfield land east of the Cascades for more housing when we have greenfield land right here.
My guess is if the estimated future population growth does materialize much of it will live in developments in east and southeast King Co., from Issaquah to Kent, with a lot of single-family home infill in the rest of the areas. Most of that land today is privately owned and zoned for housing, and is a greenfield with no structures on the land. Very inexpensive to develop. Once the county or cities rezone that property with smaller lot minimums look for the single-family home subdivisions to mushroom along this corridor east of highway 18. As someone else noted above, it is very hard to tell people where to live, and it is also hard to tell them how to live. The single-family home has been an American Dream since settlers headed out west, with a yard and garden, especially for those with families who find the city too dangerous or don’t like the schools.
Al S raises an interesting point. Family size in the U.S. is declining like in most first world countries, which accounts for the need for smaller housing units because so many now live alone in urban cities like Seattle. But depending on immigration, demographers are predicting depopulation, especially in first world countries, will be the real issue over the next 50-100 years, none more so than in Japan. Housing construction has kept pace with population growth in Seattle since 2010 although prices have risen as has income, and thousands of new units will come on market over the next two years, but right now permitting for any kind of housing is almost non-existent because of interest and mortgage rates. We should see a pretty significant die-off of Boomers or moving to assisted care in the next decade freeing up a lot of single-family homes. A lot of those in the actual development and building game in this area are not so sure more housing units are needed now, or will be in the future, and may wait to see that growth even if interest rates ease, which is unlikely until 2025 and even then will never drop to 0-1%. The number one way for a city or region to lower its housing costs is to have a declining population.
The last thing to consider is whether any future population growth will be high income or low income people. The Times had an article noting that Seattle is losing low income residents and gaining high income residents, which is pretty common as the cost of living for everything, not just housing, rises. Balk’s article suggests the 16,000 domestic residents who left in 2022 were lower income and the 23,000 foreign nationals who moved to the area were high income. This is why housing prices increased so dramatically since 2010. If more and more high income people move to Seattle or King Co. then expect housing prices to continue to increase as well no matter how many units are built.
Growth usually grows out, not up, unless like Manhattan there are geographical borders.
It isn’t the geographical borders — it is the zoning. The biggest problem in New York City is not really Manhattan — but the other boroughs. New York has surprisingly restrictive zoning in much of the city. This is why the rent is so damn high (https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO). Much of the growth occurred before zoning. Now they aren’t adding nearly enough units in the city. Meanwhile, suburban growth is heavily subsidized.
Same with Seattle. Look around and you can see it. Towers in Madison Park. Small apartments in 6th NW. They are obvious outliers — from a time before the city started getting more restrictive about where they allowed growth. People moved to the suburbs initially because they couldn’t afford to live in the city. Then many moved because of “white flight”. Now, many live in the suburbs because again, they can’t afford to live in the city. Why? Zoning.
It isn’t natural to grow really wide, but not up. Cities didn’t evolve that way. It is a fairly modern North American phenomenon, brought about by public policies in response to the automobile. They subsidized the suburbs, encouraging new housing development away from the city. Zoning and the automobile evolved together. New retail and office buildings required big parking lots. Limits in the city initially put in place for racist or anti-Semitic reasons were adjusted slightly to limit apartment buildings (and thus poor people). All of this artificially increased the cost of development in the city, encouraging suburban sprawl.
This is why North American cities sprawl so much compared to European ones. Consider Germany. We basically leveled their cities. Some cities escaped the bombing, but a lot of the growth has occurred in the post war period — the automobile era. They embraced the car as well, and rebuilt their economy in part because of the cars they built. They build high speed freeways that could match ours. But they didn’t encourage sprawl — they allowed their cities to grow up, instead of out. It isn’t that these cities don’t have suburbs, or cars, it is that the cities are way more compact. It is common in a mid-size city to have most of the city consist of either a “downtown”, or an urban environment (something similar to Capitol Hill). As you walk outward, you finally reach an area that resemble our suburbs — big lots with cars in the garage, nice lawns, that sort of thing. But very quickly you get into a rural area. As in farming equipment. They just don’t have the acres and acres of low-density suburban sprawl like we do, and it is because of the difference in public policy (especially zoning).
Ross B., as someone who has worked in residential real estate for 25 years I think some of your assumptions and statements are different than my experience.
1. When I began in the industry a grizzled old veteran told me that if I wanted to make a living on a contingency of sales never forget price depends on 1. location; 2. location; and 3. location. That is why prices in Magnolia are higher than in Fife despite much higher taxes in Magnolia. Of course, that famous quip neglects equally important factors like schools, style of house, neighborhood, and public safety, and applies to single family homes when everyone commuted to the urban city. Today with work from home that is changing some. For example, North Bend has been popular because of its large lots, mature trees, single family home neighborhoods, low crime, access to the mountains, with lower prices than Issaquah because it is more remote, at least from Seattle. Today with work from home or partial work from home prices in North Bend have increased because location is less important for those who don’t have to commute five days/week.
2. You state cities naturally grow up and not out if zoning is not a factor. I don’t think this is true. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have or need the Growth Mangement Act or growth boundaries. Growth grows out because it is cheaper to build there, cheaper to buy, and offers a single-family home with better schools at a lower price. In fact, the most liberal zoning is in the urban core so zoning certainly has not limited urban development from going up. Many don’t understand that the cost of construction per square foot for a 40-story downtown Bellevue Condo building has a higher cost per square foot to build than a 3-7 wood framed multi-family building, due to foundations, concrete, HVAC, fire suppression, parking, steel frame, utilities, cost of land, location, financing costs, and so on.
Yesterday I pointed out Tokyo is 5200 square MILES while Seattle is 84 sq miles. Berlin is 344 sq. miles. London is 644 sq. miles. Rio is an astounding 16,555 sq. miles. If this region had Tokyo’s population there wouldn’t be a lick of green space from Everett to Tacoma, just like Tokyo. It is the same in any very large city. Generally, the more populous a city the larger it is area wise, because cities naturally grow out, not up. In fact, the ability to “go up” is fairly recent and reflected in older European cities. I think that work from home will increase sprawl. At least that is what I am seeing. Folks don’t want to move to rural Montana if they work from home, but they do want as rural a neighborhood as possible while still in an area with good schools and access to more urban areas. Look for more and more construction in east King Co.
3. Some make a mistake when they use the term “city” as though a city is a monolith. For example, The Highlands, Magnolia, and Laurelhurst are more like Clyde Hill than Capitol Hill, and even lower Capitol Hill is mostly single-family homes (I grew up there). Maybe 5% of Seattle’s 84 sq. miles are even close to being “urban”. Real estate agents instead think in terms of neighborhoods, and each has its own characteristics and value no matter what city they are in. The exact same house and lot on one side of the border between Issaquah and Renton will have a significantly different value than the neighboring house in the other city just based on the name of the city in the address, which determines which schools your kids go to.
4. A mistake I think you make when comparing “city” dwellers to suburban dwellers is you fail to make the most important distinction in real estate: renters vs. owners. Over 50% of people living in Seattle rent, most because they can’t afford to own and often need to be near transit, so to claim they prefer to live in the “city” is not accurate, and many rent in areas of Seattle that are more suburban than urban. Many are also young and single before the desire to own a home hits. I would think that if offered the chance to own a single-family home in Sammamish or Laurelhurst — at least based on real estate values in Sammamish — most renters would jump at it, but at the same time they don’t want to rent in Sammamish if they have to rent and would have to own a car. Your assumption about renters in Seattle wanting to live in Seattle, at least the urban areas, would probably not pan out if each of those renters was given enough money to buy a single-family house. At least that is my experience based on 25 years. If there is one structural imbalance in this area it is the inability of so many to afford to get into home ownership when they want to own a home more than anything in the world. One of the things couples love to do is walk neighborhoods looking at houses they would love to be able to own.
5. When I started in the industry I wondered why every house in every subdivision built on spec. looked the same. It turns out everyone (every wife) wants the same thing. Ask me to sell a condo and I will tell you it will be a long hard slog. Agents dislike condos. One of the problems with buying a condo as a stepping stone to a single-family house is they appreciate much more slowly than a single-family house so you keep falling behind, and with HOA fees the costs are the same as a SFH without the tax advantages. Same with an unusual house. Ask me to sell a white Cape Cod style house or shingled house with white trim and kitchen/family great room on the eastside or in Laurelhurst and it will be sold before it hits the listing. The point you learn in the residential real estate industry, if you are doing it for a living, is what you like or want is irrelevant. 90% of our customers on the eastside are couples, the wife always makes the decision, and it turns out they all want the same thing. If you truly want to “urbanize” this area or change its land use patterns you will have to do more than change the zoning. You will have to change what American women want in a home. Each year the value of residential transactions in the U.S. is $2.8 trillion, and one demographic is driving that in my experience.
6. Although race was probably a factor in the flight to the suburbs in the 1970’s that is not true today. I would estimate 40% of our customers looking for a single-family house in Redmond are not white, and not many cities on the eastside except maybe west Sammamish are less than 25% minority, which is around the same in Seattle. What I have learned is a majority of couples make a single-family home their most important desire after kids, and they all want basically the same thing, which is why so many couples are willing to spend 40—50% of their income on a single-family home. On the eastside the difference in values comes down to location, city, schools, safety (Renton and areas south), style and age of house and neighborhood (couples with kids love cul-de-sacs), garden/yard, and green/outdoor spaces (people in this area are crazy about dogs although I don’t like dogs). Same as in Seattle. Almost never are transit or taxes an issue in listing or selling, and we rarely list those on the brochures or listing sites, although that is not to say transit is not important.
@ William
I’m not ross and also not going to address all of them but for point 2
> 2. You state cities naturally grow up and not out if zoning is not a factor. I don’t think this is true. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have or need the Growth Mangement Act or growth boundaries. Growth grows out because it is cheaper to build there, cheaper to buy, and offers a single-family home with better schools at a lower price.
It was the other way around at least in America. First zoning (mainly single family) came onto the scene which then forced American housing to be built further and further out since one couldn’t build apartments and then that’s when Urban Growth boundaries were setup in America. I doubt we’d even need urban growth boundaries if there wasn’t such wide swaths of single family housing zoned
Growing out tends to be really expensive due to the amount of infrastructure required. It looks cheap because so many of the expenses of extending infrastructure is borne by everyone already connected to that infrastructure.
Essentially, that transportation infrastructure is Freeways.
I wouldn’t have a problem with sprawl, based on personal choices of the majority, if drivers would just stop whining about traffic.
And I resent the legislature applying extra gas tax to fund these mega road widening projects,
Without Letting the Public VOTE
on whether they want to pay more to ‘fix’ their problem.
@William — Yes, Magnolia is more popular than Fife. I even said as much. That isn’t the point. To quote the intro to that study again:
Does America face an affordable housing crisis and, if so, why? This paper argues that in much of America the price of housing is quite close to the marginal, physical costs of new construction. The price of housing is significantly higher than construction costs only in a limited number of areas, such as California and some eastern cities. In those areas, we argue that high prices have little to do with conventional models with a free market for land. Instead, our evidence suggests that zoning and other land use controls play the dominant role in making housing expensive.
It is worth noting that the study came out a while ago, and Seattle would be on that list now. It has also been worth noting that no study has refuted its conclusion.
This doesn’t mean that an acre of land in Fife is worth as much as an acre of land in Magnolia. It means that if it wasn’t for zoning, you would have a lot more apartments in Magnolia (and the rest of the city) until the price of an apartment in Magnolia was similar to the price of an apartment in Fife — in other words, it would match construction costs. This is the crucial element — absent zoning, it comes down to construction costs. The cost of labor, lumber, concrete. At some point — no matter where you are — it becomes too costly to build. In Seattle we are nowhere near that point. Instead, just as predicted by that study, the main limitation is zoning.
As far as Tokyo goes, yes, the Tokyo Metropolitan Area takes up a lot of land. So does the Seattle Metropolitan Area. Here are the numbers (according to Wikipedia):
Seattle Metro: 15,000 square km — 4 million people
Tokyo Metro: 13,452 square km — 40 million people
Of course raw numbers can be deceiving. Cities include parks, and land that may have hardly anyone living in it. It is much more meaningful to look at the number of people that live in various density levels. I’ve yet to find a nice table with the information, but this map has it: http://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#7/33.454/138.801. As you can see, almost everyone in Tokyo lives in a fairly dense area. In contrast, almost everyone in greater Seattle does not.
The greater Seattle area and greater Tokyo have seen some land converted to housing. It is hard to find a concrete, apples-to-apples comparison, but I would be willing to bet that Greater Seattle has had more sprawl, despite Tokyo adding way more people. It is just a lot more common in Japan to see urban infill. This video explains why: http://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#7/33.454/138.801.
I don’t want to focus too much on Tokyo, because Tokyo is a mega-city, and we aren’t. Lots of things are different. I only bring up Tokyo to show how important zoning policies are. It is easy to look at New York City, for example, and just assume because it is popular, it will be expensive. Bigger the city, the more costly it is to live there. Yet Tokyo is huge and popular, but there are neighborhoods that are quite close to the center that are affordable. You can’t say that in New York City, nor in Seattle (which is really quite shocking when you think about it). The reason is fairly obvious: They simply allowed more development in Tokyo. The things they build (e. g. small lot houses) would be illegal in New York City, let alone Seattle.
You state cities naturally grow up and not out if zoning is not a factor. I don’t think this is true. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have or need the Growth Management Act or growth boundaries.
They do both. But my point is that absent the regulations and the subsidies for suburban development, cities grow more up, than out. The growth management act is just a reactionary measure that refuses to deal with the root of the problem.
Consider Frankfurt Germany. The Allies basically leveled the city in the war. Almost all of it growth and development has occurred since then. Another city that has grown during that same period is Phoenix, Arizona. Now just compare the two (I won’t link to the various Google maps — I figure you know how to do that). The difference is really shocking. There is no confusing the two. Phoenix is sprawling, with tiny pockets of density here and there. Frankfurt is quite compact. You can leave the city and find large greenbelts or farmland within five miles. The main part of the city is almost all large apartment buildings and dense housing. Frankfurt grew up — Phoenix grew out. Why? Phoenix had overly restrictive zoning and subsidies that encouraged suburban development. Frankfurt had the opposite.
Maybe 5% of Seattle’s 84 sq. miles are even close to being “urban”
YES! That is my point. Various neighborhoods are prevented from being urban, because of the zoning. The result is very high housing prices.
Your assumption about renters in Seattle wanting to live in Seattle, at least the urban areas, would probably not pan out if each of those renters was given enough money to buy a single-family house.
Who cares? No one would buy a cheap smartphone if they were rich — so therefore we should ban cheap smartphones? That is absurd. When I write that “Seattle is popular”, I mean that lots of people want to live here, despite the high rental prices. More would live here if the prices were lower.
But guess what? That is irrelevant. It really doesn’t matter. If no one wants to live in Seattle, than liberalizing the zoning won’t matter. Developers won’t build. If they do want to live in Seattle, then developers will build more places to live. Either way, the cost of renting an apartment or owning a condo will drop.
Ask me to sell a condo and I will tell you it will be a long hard slog.
Again, who cares? Seriously, I don’t see why that is relevant at all. You find it more difficult to sell condos than houses. Fine. I’m sure there are realtors who feel the opposite. Whatever. Are you trying to claim that people aren’t buying or selling condos anymore? That is absurd. Again, if that was the case, then allowing developers to build more would be meaningless.
Maybe you should tag along in one of the meetings while they try and upzone an area like Laurelhurst. You can stand up and say:
“Hey everyone. There is nothing to worry about. No one wants to live in a condo anyway. Think about it — everyone in this room would rather live in a house. They won’t build condos, because they know no one would ever buy one.”
Yeah, good luck with that speech. Give the anti-density folks some credit. They don’t want to liberalize the zoning for one simple reason: they know that lots of people (who can’t afford to own or rent a house) want to live in condos and apartments there. They know that developers aren’t stupid — they won’t build a place to live unless there is a market for it. In Seattle, there more certainly is.
“ This is why North American cities sprawl so much compared to European ones. ”
I don’t think you can avoid the origins of settlement pattern differences between the US and Europe. In Europe, farmers lived in villages for centuries while the US promoted housing farmers in homes dispersed wherever their land was. It’s really notable in places in the eastern US where rural densities are much higher than European agricultural areas. If one rides a train in Europe, it’s amazing how few farmhouses can be seen between destinations. (The long history of land ownership in Europe has been a messy and violent class struggle with royalty of course.)
So many Europeans see a village settlement concept as more typical and familiar while many US residents find it to be a cultural shift and are more likely to fight or dislike it. And many US residents find spaced single family houses as typical and familiar while many Europeans find it to be more unfamiliar to them.
AJ’s right, Ross.
Interesting tweet from a real estate economist based out of Texas:
https://x.com/jayparsons/status/1712110658601255211?s=46&t=h7y3roaLfNk0p4uDdIUWOQ
Tweet reviews stats comparing commercial real estate rents in cities with high-supply markets (>5% unit growth per year) vs no-supply (<1% unit growth per year) markets. The stats indicate that new residential construction has the greatest impact on “real rents” (net decrease) year-over-year in “Class B” housing, as opposed to the intuitive assumption that new construction only competes with itself, aka “Class A” housing.
Basically, rent data is now showing that when new housing is built, a significant portion of renters move out of Class B housing into Class A. This demonstrably increases the availability (and subsequently, affordability) of Class B housing.
The body of evidence grows that new market-rate housing, although typically aimed at 100+% AMI households, immediately increases the amount of units affordable to <100% AMI households.
Yeah I thought that was very interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.
On the topic of South Sounder…having the train run for more hours each day may be better for riders, but it is almost certainly not better for BNSF. From BNSF’s perspective, the impact of a given number of passenger trains on freight operations is minimized if all of the passenger trains run back-to-back-to-back over a very short period of time, that is, frequent rush hour service, but no other service.
And, since BNSF owns the tracks, BNSF calls the shots. What Sound Transit wants doesn’t really matter here.
I agree, the only way for midday service would need to add more tracks.
> Sound Transit considered adding later evening trips and more mid-day trips outside the 3.5-hour two commute periods. These concepts would conflict with heavier BNSF freight train operations when their tracks are most congested. BNSF has indicated to Sound Transit that it would not support evening service without substantial additional investment. As a result, Sound Transit would need to make even more track and signal improvements on BNSF’s corridor than is needed to increase capacity during Sounder’s morning and afternoon peak periods. The cost of the capacity improvements for these trips may exceed rider benefit. (from https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/sounder-south-strategic-plan-final.pdf)
Sound Transit investigated adding more tracks but didn’t think it was worth it, now with the pandemic and the lack of need for peak capacity is looking at it again. Though the largest question is of course how much will it cost and if BNSF would actually be willing to accommodate it.
I also agree. Adding Sounder trips to get peak service from 20 minute to 15 minute frequency is a good unto itself, even if it isn’t needed for capacity. The further Sounder gets away from peak time periods – and as Link extends into SKC & Pierce – the better off ST & riders are with frequent off-peak service provided by STX + Link.
The thing is: adding capacity is going to happen anyway, if the Cascades service goals are to be met.
So the state and ST need to work together on this.
Adding frequency is a nice touch, but it also would mean more crews, as the one direction only service pattern means each trip needs one crew. Adding distance or span with the existing crews would be more cost effective, operationally.
It’s not a one direction service pattern. All of the ST3 proposals I’ve seen are evaluating adding round trips, and it’s just a question of which time slots.
I hold a level of indifference to BSNF possibly getting shorter hours. The fact that they have held us back from making service better just induces more apathy than empathy for BSNF. Alongside been frustrating to work with on upgrading tracks to make it better for both. If they want to kick and scream about delayed freight, then maybe they shouldn’t have built a freight system built upon miles long trains and nonplussed attitude to electrification.
ST wouldn’t offer it if BNSF hadn’t agreed to it, or at least agreed on initial negotiating terms.
Be glad BNSF isn’t categorically opposed to passenger service like some railroads are. BNSF just wants a high price, then it won’t stand in the way.
Yes, I think that is the fundamental problem. Running the trains is expensive. This is true even if you own the lines. But in this case, the costs keep going up. In other words, going from 10 trains a day to 15 trains a day costs a lot more than going from 5 to 10. That’s because BNSF has to work around the trains, and they are going to charge an increasing amount for each trip.
Meanwhile, Sounder ridership is way down. This is true across the country — commuter trips are way down, and Sounder is, fundamentally, commuter rail. It is easy to say that there is a more an “all-day” pattern. The ridership curve has flattened. This is definitely true. But ridership demand in the middle of the day has not increased — not for this corridor. If anything, it has decreased, as folks who might take the train in the morning and then the bus back in the middle of the day just don’t ride. If you look at the 578 — which supplements Sounder by providing many of the same connections in the middle of the day — ridership is also down.
This creates all sorts of problems for Sound Transit. Because of the huge dropoff in ridership, you have less money to work with. You can’t just run the train more often. You won’t get that many riders, while the costs would increase substantially. At best you just muddle along, and continue to run the trains as often as necessary to provide a decent level of service.
As long as freight competes with passenger service, this remains a big problem.
Sounder is only getting about 30 percent of its prior daily ridership. Meanwhile ST is approving another $62.5M Sounder Parking garage expansion as a design-build contract (as opposed to just design because it’s so “urgent”)!
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Motion%20M2023-89.pdf
Gotta keep those promises!
Sound Transit has updated the options for dealing with potential crowding on Link. While the Urbanist has a nice rundown, the document is fairly short and easy to read in my opinion. It comes down to four possible actions:
1) Make more of the existing trains available. Go from around 75% to 85%.
2) Run express buses.
3) Turn back some of the trains at Northgate.
4) Purchase more trains. They would also need to find places to put them.
They recommend against the third option, and I agree. Just from a logistical standpoint it is trickier. As for the other options, if they can get a good deal on more trains (which they will eventually need to buy anyway) then this might be the time to do it. It gets tricky, because they don’t want to spend capital right now (since that delays other projects) but it might be the time to do it. There is the possibility of overreacting to the problem (hiring a bunch of people and then laying them off) which needs to be factored in as well.
Some combination of the other three seem likely.
3) Turn back some of the trains at Northgate… They recommend against the third option, and I agree. Just from a logistical standpoint it is trickier.
I kind of understand for now as Northgate honestly isn’t even that far from downtown. But in general, Sound Transit does need to learn how to do turnbacks. Eventually with Lynnwood and Federal Way and further extensions it can’t always be running trains that far. I’d be a shame if we end up like BART or WMATA where they can’t provide the core with enough frequency because of a refusal to implement turnbacks.
I agree. In the long run, they are going to have to have turnbacks. I will say though, that part of the problem is that the turnbacks aren’t in ideal places. If you look at ridership and distance, there are a couple logical turnback locations:
U-District — This really constitutes the core of our system (U-District to Downtown). It is a fairly short distance, and yet has a ton of riders.
145th — This is not that far from Northgate, and still at the edge of the city. Density drops dramatically after that. So does the value of feeder buses.
But that’s not where the turnbacks are. Northgate is it, until Lynnwood. In the middle of the day it seems like overkill to run trains to Lynnwood every five minutes (while you are running trains in Rainier Valley every ten) but they may be just the world we live in.
As the trains go further north, the turnback locations become obvious. Lynnwood to the north, Federal Way (or SeaTac) to the south. But then again, the line should never extend beyond Lynnwood or Federal Way, so who knows what they will end up doing. Cost effectiveness was never a goal with ST.
“U-District — This really constitutes the core of our system (U-District to Downtown). It is a fairly short distance, and yet has a ton of riders.”
As a frequent Capitol Hill to Roosevelt rider, and somewhat less to U-District and Northgate, I see something different.
1. Capitol Hill is getting a lot of on/offs all day, going both south and north. It has the crowds we might have predicted at U-District.
2. U-District has ridership but not as much as I’d expected. I’d expected a large crowd at “university peak” (later/earlier than office peak), and smaller crowds all day. Instead I see a respectable but not major crowd peak hours, and a handful or two on/offs off-peak.
3. Roosevelt has steady but not large on/offs all day. Like we expected but maybe more or less than some expected.
4. Northgate is reported as the highest-use station now. My friend in north Lynnwood says she always sees large crowds, and a couple times she’s taken a local bus southbound to avoid dealing with ballgame crowds. But I usually see the opposite: it’s not very busy, more like SeaTac or Rainier Valley. I don’t know why we’re seeing opposite things.
But last Sunday when I did my Everett trip and came back via Swift+346, the southbound train was almost packed just leaving Northgate. There was little room for more riders north of downtown. I had a seat in back with a heavy backpack and two bags of groceries, and I was afraid I might not be able to get out at Capitol Hill through the wall of standees, especially with my arthritis meaning I’d need significant room to stand up and put my backpack on and carry the bags and down the steps without falling. I hoped there wouldn’t be that many getting on. At Roosevelt and U-District few people got on/off. At UW some more did, mostly on. At Capitol Hill it was still OK; there was only my seatmate and one other person to get past before the steps, and a few other people were getting off in the lower area so there was room to me to go through. But that was the first time I’d had had concerns about being able to get off due to crowding. I was wondering if I’d have to ride to Stadium and turn around, but then there might be another crowd there and I’d have the same problem northbound. If it had been a bit fuller, or if more people had gotten on at Roosevelt and U-District, I might have had to.
Ross, Northgate is a lot better place for a turnback than is 145th. There will never be much traffic originating or destined for 145th other than transfers to and from the Bothell STRide line and however Metro links Shoreline College to the station. Northgate has and will continue to grow lots of “walk to” ridership, plus some bus transfers.
It’s absolutely certain that bus transfers will drop significantly once Lynnwood Link opens, but there will still be some transfer activity. But the real lifeline for Northgste T/C will be people who walk to and from the train, which is the whole point of urban transit.
“Urban transit” is the point of an overlay line with turnbacks. Even if ST3 were repealed, and Link never goes beyond Lynnwood, turnback operations at Northgate will guarantee that North Seattle riders have trains with available seats.
Ross, Northgate is a lot better place for a turnback than is 145th. There will never be much traffic originating or destined for 145th other than transfers to and from the Bothell STRide line and however Metro links Shoreline College to the station.
That is a big “other”. I would bet that most of the ridership of Northgate (right now) is bus transfers, and it has the most ridership of any station. The same thing will happen with 145th (and 130th). So what? Either way it means riders.
I want to be clear: I’m not saying that 130th or 145th will have higher ridership than Northgate. I’m saying that because they are clustered fairly close together, you get the bulk of the ridership by ending at 145th. Put it another way: In terms of ridership per hour of service (which is akin to ridership per mile) there will be a significant drop-off at the U-District and 145th. A lot of this is simply because of how close the stations are. These gaps are all roughly the same distance: 65th to Northgate, Northgate to 145th, 145th to 185th. The difference is that there will be two stations between Northgate and 145th, while every other gap has one.
Both Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace will be largely dependent on feeder buses (like the other stations). Again, nothing wrong with that. But 145th is unusual in that it feeds the edge of Seattle (which has a lot of density) as well as areas that are closer (as the crow flies) to other stations. The 522 runs through Kenmore at roughly 180th, and yet almost all riders are better off just going southwest to 148th. As you go farther north, you also run into another problem, which is that it is just too far to get to Seattle. People are less likely to take transit via Link (or take transit at all).
@Mike — Same idea as the one I just mentioned. It isn’t that the U-District Station is so fantastic, it is the combination of stations (U-District/UW/Capitol Hill/Downtown) that is. In terms of ridership per mile, it is very large. Ridership per mile translates to ridership per hour of service, which translates into the cost of serving those riders. So even if a station has lots of riders, if that station is very distant, it is expensive to serve it. U-District is the opposite (lots of riders, cheap to serve once you’ve served the UW Station).
There is another factor. The farther the trip, the less that frequency matters. It always matters, just not as much as a nearby trip. In our system, the farther out you go, the more likely you are to be taking a long trip (we aren’t L. A.). There just aren’t that many people going from say, Lynnwood to 145th. From Lynnwood their trip is bound to be long (likely UW, downtown, or somewhere in between). For these longer trips, frequency is less important.
Of course a lot of this is speculation. We won’t know for several years what the ridership at each station is. At that point, you could measure the distances (or the time it takes to serve each station) and come up with logical turn-backs. But that will largely be a moot point. Even if I’m right and 145th makes sense as a turn-back, it won’t happen. There is no easy way for the trains to turn around (and spending a bunch of capital on that now wouldn’t be worth it). It makes way more sense to just turnaround at Northgate or not at all (keep running the trains to Lynnwood).
Considerably more than half that volume of transfers at Northgate are from buses serving areas at or north of 185th. Those folks would be on the non-turnback trains already when they get to 145th. Therefore the only trips that can be “assigned” to extended turnback trains would be those transferring at 130th or 145th.
Now I agree with you that 130th will very likely exceed expectations, especially if Metro does the smart thing and links Shoreline College to 130th and Lake City instead of 145th. So I’d support ending the turnbacks there, except that ST built the station with side platforms, obviating the possibility.
Northgate is also going to exceed expectations because Simon will see that it can make a ton of money there by going big. The area around U-District Station should convince anyone with an open mind.
“Simon will see that it can make a ton of money there by going big.”
No, because Simon is throwing away the zoning capacity it has. The mall lot is the only part of Northgate upzoned to 200′, but the mall replacement is only going to be around 40′, and we’ll be lucky if the peripheral buildings reach 70′. The surrounding lots can’t build highrises so they’re out. So we finally have Vancouver-like zoning at one station but the owner won’t use it. Simon could change its plans anytime, but after just having made a plan, I doubt it will change it.
That’s what I’m saying. They will see that enormous profit available to them and revamp “the Plan”. No, I have no inside information or relationships with the company. It’s just that capitalists hate leaving unclaimed money lying around.
Even if it’s not their “style”, they can hire the right people to help them scoop up that money.
“They will see that enormous profit available to them and revamp “the Plan”.”
The profit has been available ever since talks on implementing Northgate Link started in the 2000s. Simon knew the city was anticipating an upzone of some sort, especially since Northgate is one of three Seattle “urban growth centers” in the county’s growth-management plan. Simon could have argued for a larger or different-shaped upzone if it had wanted to. It could have designed the Kraken facility with an option of a few floors of housing on top.
Simon Properties is primarily a developer that invests in “shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/lifestyle centers”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Property_Group The Wall St. Journal had an article yesterday noting how bond ratings for malls in the U.S. are rebounding rapidly, as are mall values (depending on the mall). Malls are back.
However, Simon recently announced it would begin to focus more on residential development and hotels, although interest rates are depressing large scale residential development. https://wrenews.com/simon-property-group-puts-new-focus-on-residential-and-hotel-development/
This is not TOD. Simon like U Village succeeds because it begins with the retail development/redevelopment, and then lets the housing follow when the land/housing has increased in value. It and U Village succeed because they have the rare ability to create successful retail, and that means attracting the high-income shopper into a safe place. Over 2000 multi-family units have been built near U Village, but they are very expensive, with monthly rentals ranging from $2000 to $7000, because people like to live near vibrant retail, whether Bellevue Mall, Totem Lake, or U Village. Rentals in downtown Kirkland are even more expensive.
When Simon was holding public meetings over the redevelopment of Northgate Mall its representative, when asked about transit, said transit is how shoplifters get to his malls. Like most other successful malls Northgate will have massive amounts of parking for shoppers. Whether free or some kind of credit for buying something in the mall is unknown. If Simon can leverage a successful mall into high end housing, I am sure it will do so although I am not sure about that area near I-5. It never has been a draw for housing, and anything west is cut off by I-5 and not very interested in upzoning. Link is fine for affordable TOD, but doesn’t really draw the kind of high-end housing/hotels Simon is interested in.
Northgate mall has the bones to be very successful. It will have a Link station and loads of parking with very large park and rides along Lynnwood Link, although I agree with some on this blog that when Lynnwood Link opens more Link riders that today transfer at Northgate will simply ride through Northgate station northbound toward the park and rides along Lynnwood Link. Simon understands shoppers today want an outdoor mall that provides a “lifestyle experience”, although like every other vibrant retail area in the region it will cater to the high-end shopper. The surrounding area is not very walkable, or really developable, but these kinds of malls don’t rely on walk up traffic.
Northgate should draw students from the UW and shoppers/diners as far away as Capitol Hill especially if the restaurants and dining are good and the mall is safe, and will definitely be better than Alderwood Mall which is quite run down and surrounded by cheap housing because the developers began with the housing rather than the retail. Simon won’t make that mistake, and has no intent of surrounding its mall with “affordable” housing. Northgate’s popularity will come at the expense of University Ave., downtown Seattle, Alderwood, Shoreline in the future, and Lynnwood. Retail tends to be a zero-sum game, limited by the overall population of an area. I think areas like Shoreline that have opted for TOD first hoping the retail will follow will be disappointed, especially with Northgate Mall so close by.
I would love to see Simon Properties buy Redmond Mall, but I am sure there are reasons mall developers like Simon have avoided that property. I think Redmond, like Shoreline, that is beginning with the housing hoping the retail follows will be disappointed too. Simon would argue redeveloping Redmond Mall should precede new housing.
I generally think that simply making 2 Line 3 cars only looks like the best way to go until ST can get more rail vehicles.
I will note that ST misses a key point of turn backs: equity. As Lynnwood Link riders fill up trains, I’m wondering if Capitol Hill riders or Roosevelt riders can get into a train. It’s not exactly fair if Lynnwood riders always get a seat but Capitol Hill riders never do.
And many transit riders around the world understand what it means to “wait for the next train” if one is too crowded. Sporting events goers here today even know this. It may be inconvenient but it’s not terrible if someone has to wait 5 more minutes on a platform.
Another crowding reduction technique is to ban bicycles from trains during peak times. I can only imagine the howling but it is done in other systems.
I would think that some compatible cars from other systems could be found and purchased at a much cheaper price — then renovated. Or maybe more cars could be added to the purchase order being used now.
If ST wasn’t run by inexperienced types, this problem would have been addressed with a contingent clause for more vehicles in the purchase contract. I get really tired of ST never admitting they make mistakes. Agencies learn when mistakes are made!
“Another crowding reduction technique is to ban bicycles from trains during peak times. I can only imagine the howling but it is done in other systems.”
You don’t need a ban. It just happens. I haven been confronted with a full train while with bike in SODO. It’s not like I crashed in, leading with my handlebars. I locked it and waited for the next train.
Which was, of course, empty.
Wow, ridership drops off like a cliff at the south end of downtown. All the scenarios show it’s well within everyone having a seat. It’s amazing that ridership is that much higher in the northern half, but we’re also lucky that that’s where they decided twenty years ago that Line 2 will overlap.
I question that low southern ridership though. When I’ve ridden it in the PM peak, there’s often only space for a dozen standees before it would become overcrowded, so that’s not much of a buffer. I can’t see how busloads of people from Federal Way and Tacoma could fit on it without increasing capacity.
I question that modeling too. On the existing line there are a fair number of riders from the three U area stations at least as far as Beacon Hill.
I think their modeling is still assuming a preponderance of destinations downtown, rather than scattered over a wide swath of the region.
> Wow, ridership drops off like a cliff at the south end of downtown. All the scenarios show it’s well within everyone having a seat. It’s amazing that ridership is that much higher in the northern half, but we’re also lucky that that’s where they decided twenty years ago that Line 2 will overlap.
Just clarifying the pdf ross referenced only shows northbound passengers not soundbound?
> I can’t see how busloads of people from Federal Way and Tacoma could fit on it without increasing capacity.
It does start to crowd as well in 2026 when it opens. It’s on page 17 of this pdf (october 12 released today, well also the september one also talked about)
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Presentation%20-%20ST2%20Light%20Rail%20Service%20and%20Passenger%20Experience%2010-12-23.pdf#page=10
Just clarifying the pdf ross referenced only shows northbound passengers not soundbound?
Correct. The diagram is a bit confusing, because the train is going right to left. There is a little description at the bottom, with the words “Train Direction” pointing left. Likewise, it clearly says “Northbound”, as well “Average PM Peak Hour”. So this is a train running from Federal Way to Lynnwood in a typical evening (no major sporting event). This explains why the numbers are so low to the south (not a lot of people heading into town in the evening).
For whatever reason, they don’t have a diagram for crowding heading south. My guess is they are just focused on the immediate problem, which is the north end. Lack of trains for Federal Way is a longer term problem.
WL’s link has southbound. It only gets up to the third level, “Challenges getting on and off”.
I don’t see why 1 would be a problem. These are new cars, and shouldn’t need major parts replacements for some years. Having 25% of the fleet held as spares seems excessive.
Spares includes trains taken out for regular maintenance (weekly & monthly-ish maintenance work that generally take a car out of service for the day) and ‘hot spares,’ i.e a full train set or two that ST holds in reserve in case there is an unplanned downtime or unexpected crowding in the line. The S1 fleet may have some vehicles that need longer maintenance events (i.e. out of service for a few days)
Oh, there’s certainly a need for some spares.
However, there isn’t even enough shop space to work on 25% of the fleet at one time.
I think the 25% spares concept was arrived at in the 1970s and early 1980s, when several transit agencies still had large fleets of 1930s era cars that had been ill -maintained for several decades. When ST’s S700s are nearing 40, they’ll probably need more work too.
I’m guessing it is largely just a staffing problem. If you want more trains operating, they you need more mechanics, making sure they are fixed sooner. Just like if you want more express buses, you need to pay more drivers. Turning back the trains would probably also require more staff (who know how to handle the logistics). Even buying extra trains means finding a place to put them, and shuffling them around. At this point, these are all just rough sketches, but each avenue (except maybe the turnback approach) should be looked at in more depth to see what it would cost (at each level). My guess is we will end up with a combination.
For example, let’s say that going from 75% to 80% operational only requires adding a few extra mechanics. Going from 80% to 85% requires twice that. So you only go to 80%. At the same time, you focus your bus service on the places that will pick up the most riders. That doesn’t mean you keep all the express buses; just the ones that carry a lot of riders (especially the ones that don’t typically stop at a station).
It’s also interesting the overcrowding extends to 145th. We’d predicted it would be crowded between Westlake and Capitol Hill or U-District, and then people could get a seat, certainly by Northgate. I supposed 145th is only one more stop, and a lot of people may be transferring to Stride/522. But if the 522 continues going to Roosevelt as ST last proposed, then those people wouldn’t be between Roosevelt and 145th. So who are the people who are crowding that segment between Roosevelt and 145th? Where are they going from and to? It’s not like 145th will generate a crowd of riders not going to Stride, just a few people at a time.
They imply that some of the forecasted crowding will be relieved by continuing ST-X (and maybe also CT 4xx?) service to downtown. Could they have been planning on truncating those and maybe also CT 8xx service at 145th rather than Northgate? I also wonder what the implications of Stride service along 145th would be, given that also would feed into the 145th station. Delaying that would make Metro’s restructures in NE Seattle even more difficult.
But if the 522 continues going to Roosevelt as ST last proposed, then those people wouldn’t be between Roosevelt and 145th. So who are the people who are crowding that segment between Roosevelt and 145th?
I’m guessing the numbers assume the 522 is going to 145th. In general the numbers are fairly rough. I’m sure they have modeling showing what happens when you tweak things (i. e. send the 522 to Roosevelt, send the 522 to downtown, etc.).
By the way, the expected crowding may be why ST is planning on delaying the restructure of the 522 until after East Link. They want operational flexibility. For example, assume they run the numbers, and find that the least expensive way to reduce crowding is for the current 522 to just continue to downtown during peak. The bus could do that at 145th, but it would get fewer riders. So they keep the 522 on the current path, but have a version that keeps going (I would name it something different, e. g. 523).
That alone would probably not be sufficient, but it might be one of the buses they change.
“I’m guessing the numbers assume the 522 is going to 145th.”
But ST has already said the 522 won’t go to 145th because of crowding. It said that a couple months ago. Maybe it wasn’t in time to update this presentation, or maybe the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
Maybe it wasn’t in time to update this presentation
That would be my guess. They probably put in estimates from before. They aren’t focused on the bus restructure plans, since those are a moving target. ST may have settled on things, but Metro hasn’t.
To a large extent, it doesn’t really matter. For a northbound train, I doubt you will have more getting on that off anywhere north of U-District (if that). If anything, it could make things worse. The only way buses will help with the crowding is if some of them go to downtown (Strategy 2). In that case, we have to look at all the buses, especially the ones from CT.
One interesting aspect of this is that ST suggests that any express buses will fly under the STX banner. They already agreed to pay CT money for express buses if there is too much crowding. Now it appears that they will simply run their own buses. For example, this might mean that ST runs a 516 from Edmonds to Seattle, to replace the 416 from CT. That way, CT can just go ahead with their restructure, while ST runs expresses on top. That may be a tricky thing to pull off — we’ll see.
“Now it appears that they will simply run their own buses.”
All Snohomish ST Express buses are contracted out to CT, who subcontracts them to First Transit along with all its own service. So the only difference is whether the number will start with 4 or 5 and whether the buses have more of a blue bottom or not. And the fare. For residents who have long been used to express buses going to the same starting with 4 or 5 arbitrarily, I doubt they’d notice much.
In the event any of you will be in the Portland area on October 15th, TriMet will be having an open house featuring the new “type 6” light rail car. It will be located at the third track at the Park Avenue MAX station just south of Milwaukie.
As best as I can tell, TriMet simply tacked 30 cars onto the SoundTransit order as the electronic signs and interior layout seem very similar (TriMet frequently orders equipment this way to save money – the Type 4 and 5 were added to Dallas and Minneapolis orders or some such, which is why they have such different profiles with TriMet paint).
In any event, Seattle Transit Blog regulars will see familiar features, such as signs that change location information as the train moves (stuff Europe has had for some years now, and ST has had for a few years as well).
https://trimet.org/max6/
“They have slightly less capacity due to having operator cabs at both ends, which means the “parlor” style seating is gone, resulting in a loss of several seats.”
I wonder why.
That was rhetorical of course. It’s ST that should order trains like Portland’s, with seating at the interior ends, or better yet open gangways. Does Portland have open gangways? I don’t remember from my last time there in the 2010s. What I do remember is an end with 12 seats arranged in a U shape, and room for 4-6 more to stand in the space. And windows so you could see the sky.
No gangways at all between cars here.
These are to replace the 100 series cars, which have cabs at both ends. They’re approaching 40 years old (delivered 1984-1985) and are the last high-floor fixed route anything with a high floor.
I’m guessing TriMet doesn’t mind replacing the dual cab Type 1 with something that also has cabs at both ends.
When is the One Seattle draft supposed to come out? I’d heard it was in September, but no word so far
No idea it looks like they just forgot or don’t want to release it? Maybe they are waiting till after elections?
I guess I’ll send an email and see what’s going on
Finally! I’ve always hated the fact that the Sounder only runs during peak, we should’ve had it run every day from the beginning.
Finally? What did I miss?
Sounder is looking into adding trips in mid day https://soundersouth.participate.online/ rather than spending the money on longer trains
Ok. Yeah. Timm has been looking at that and had some discussions with BNSF. Fingers crossed,
But doubtful. I thought something concrete had happened.
Amtrak Cascades is investigating running more trains between Portland and Seattle https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/10/16/concepts-for-amtrak-cascades-service-growth-have-arrived/
More importantly is looking into infrastructure improvements with notably controlled sidings (3.3miles) at Georgetown, controlled sidings at Puyallup (1.7 miles) and extending triple track (4.2 miles) between Puyallup-Tacoma. These improvements could also I’d assume help out Sounder.
One of my biggest gripes about Cascades service to Portland is that it doesn’t run early enough in the morning or late enough in the evening to be good for day trips. This means to ride the train and have time to do much while you’re in Portland, you have to get a hotel room.
But hotel rooms are expensive, and if driving allows you make the entire trip in one day and the train doesn’t, that’s a huge ($200+) incentive to drive.
Looks like this is finally going to be fixed.
“Candidate Bus Ride Along Interviews”
“Move Redmond did a Candidate Bus Ride Along with Redmond Mayoral and City Council positions who are up on the ballot. We met with candidates at the Redmond Technology station where we then got on the Rapid B line and rode to the Bellevue Transit Center.”
The candidates discuss various transit and housing issues, like if they are for the East Link Starter Line, all while riding on the B Line.
https://youtu.be/Qss8aS-XbjE?si=PpDUy_HtXAfXyeth
“Despite high rents, Seattle among least cost-burdened big cities”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/despite-high-rents-seattle-among-least-cost-burdened-big-cities/
This is an interesting article in the Seattle Times today.
“According to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey released last month, 44% of renter households in Seattle spend 30% or more of their income on rent and utilities. In raw numbers, that’s about 90,700 out of the 206,400 total renter households.
“As big a number as that sounds, it’s surprisingly low compared with other big cities. Among the 50 U.S. cities with the largest number of renter households, Seattle had the third-lowest percentage of cost-burdened renters in 2022.
“Another even more expensive city — San Francisco — was at the bottom, with just about 36% of renter households spending 30% or more of income on rent and utilities. Jersey City, where relatively lower rents have attracted a lot of folks who work in New York City, was second from the bottom, at around 40%.
“At the other end of the spectrum, 60% of renter households in Miami paid at least 30% of income on rent and utilities. Orlando, another Florida city, ranked second, followed by Los Angeles.
“Of the 50 cities, there were 27 where the majority of renter households were cost-burdened in 2022.”
What this tells me is Seattle and San Francisco have very high incomes. Balk writes:
“The reason a smaller share of Seattle renters are cost-burdened compared with most other big cities is simple: As high as rents are here, incomes tend to be even higher.
“But incomes for people who rent in Seattle were even more disproportionately high. In 2022, Seattle renter households had a median income of $79,300, about 61% higher than the U.S. median for renters, which was $49,200, according to census data. Seattle ranked third highest behind San Francisco and San Jose for renter income.”
What we are seeing in Seattle and on the eastside are two things:
1. The flushing out of lower and moderate income residents. If Seattle and San Francisco are two of the lowest cost burdened cities for renters that tells you the folks who were cost burdened left, because their incomes did not double or average rents decline.
2. In my business, we are seeing less and less housing being built for anyone who is not high income.
So although on its face this data may appear hopeful it really isn’t, although a lot of people in my business think it is good news because everyone makes more money the more expensive real estate or rents are.
I’m not sure using average apartment rent/average renters income is that useful of a metric to come to conclusions. Aka it’d be like analyzing population demographics of countries by only looking at average age and not the population pyramid to actually see the distribution.
The other problem is that renter percentage is not an independent variable across these cities. Checking https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/seattlecitywashington,US/SBO050217 owner occupied is 45% in seattle while 65% the rest of the us. For example if one has high housing prices and there are more renters in the city because of that, it would skew the ratio to be lower than expected since more rich people are renters. Or it could even be the opposite scenario where a city has built more apartments than other cities and the ratio would also be lowered.
We’d want to compare cost-burdened people not just renters as a percentage of a city’s population against other cities to be useful. And honestly even metro area is more useful since city boundaries vary greatly in size.
> The flushing out of lower and moderate income residents. If Seattle and San Francisco are two of the lowest cost burdened cities for renters that tells you the folks who were cost burdened left
Not saying that didn’t happen, but from this simple metric of average rent/average income from renters one can’t easily infer that.
I’ve long noticed that Seattle hasn’t been hit so hard in rents as San Francisco or San Jose. The luck of being a less popular city and with a smaller tech sector. I watch the rising rents with trepidation and hope they never reach San Francisco levels ($2500-$3500 typically). Since 2020 in Seattle the increases have mostly flattened in the neighborboods that most increased in the 2010s, and other neighborhoods and suburbs are increasing faster to catch up.
But part of the problem is that lower-income people have been pushed out of Seattle, so that artificially makes it look like Seattle doesn’t have an affordability problem, when really it’s an apples to oranges comparison (past residents vs current residents). To fully count housing opportunity you need to look across municipal boundaries, and whether people dispersed to the suburbs have less walkability/transit access than they had in Seattle, and whether that level of walkability/transit access is acceptable or something that needs to be fixed.
To clarify WL, when I said “we” I meant in my business, not in the data. Although most of my work is in sales I see the internal data on rents and new construction, and it is mostly geared toward high income renters, including renovating existing buildings. I can’t say how valid Balk’s data is. I think he is relying on the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.
I suppose home ownership levels could be a factor. Seattle is around 50/50 owner vs. renter. On the eastside it is around 66/34 and rents are even higher as in average income, and new construction geared toward an even higher income renter.
I think the point Balk was making, although I could be wrong, is it seems counter-intuitive to have two of the highest income cities like Seattle and San Francisco have two of the lowest cost burdened ratios for renters. I know if I was lower income Seattle, San Francisco (or Kirkland) would not be my first choices to move to.
Gotcha I think the data is correct just completely the wrong metric to use for what they are trying to infer.
https://nlihc.org/gap
Like this metric they use percentage of rental units available at each Ami level of 50/80/100 for a metro is a lot more useful for comparing cities affordability.
And for example both Miami metro area and Seattle are at ~22% available units for extremely low income while in that news article metric of average rent/average income shows the cities on the opposite side. While other metro areas in say Ohio have it much higher of available units
Kirkland is purchasing the Houghton P&R, and wants to build a new aquatics and rec center on the site.
https://www.kirklandpoolsnparks.org/aboutprop1
Seattle Transportation plan has updated with list of priority projects they have identified. And notably is asking the public for what to prioritize first, it sounds like they can only afford around ~5 projects per subarea. (Might make a good new open thread :D )
Was wondering what y’all thoughts are on it.
> After a multi-year community visioning and planning process, we have identified a list of candidate transportation projects and potential program activities for the public to review and provide feedback. These proposed projects and programs support the STP’s 20-year vision for Seattle’s transportation network (Share your feedback by November 20, 2023)
https://seattletransportationplan.infocommunity.org/ (Scroll down to see the map of projects)
Skimming through the projects for interesting ones.
* Project 22 “Denny Way” interesting they are discussing more “bus and freight” lanes this time. Maybe that’s more politically feasible? Perhaps Late 8 might get their wish after all.
* Project 2, it seems like they are implying dedicated bike lanes on phinney and greenwood further north? Though not sure if I’m interpreting it correctly.
* Project 43 “Eastlake to Rainier Beach” talks about a new rapidride merging route 60 and 36 and maybe parts of 49?.
* Project 76 Elliot Bay Trail and project 24, they propose building a new north/south trail on the ‘east’ side of the interbay rail yard (right west of the armory). Using google maps seems it’d make going from Downtown Seattle to Ballard biking time decrease from 35 minutes (if one avoided 15th ave and used 20th ave W) down to 27 minutes.
* Project 57 discusses redirecting the RapidRide H Line to Admiral and Alki neighborhoods after West Seattle Link opens.