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Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

theurbanist.org

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Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#111

Post by zamnos »

screye wrote: post #61
jandrese wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA and SF seem trapped by their design. Sure they need way higher density, but that would require transit that handles density better than cars on a road. But in order to build high capacity transit they want people to prove that it would be fully utilized and that won't be true if you're servicing areas that are currently all single family homes. So high density housing can't be build because there is no transit, an…

At approximately 5x5 miles, SF is one of the smallest American cities while having among the worst housing crunch in the world. SF doesn't need high speed metro. Cheap options like BRT, trams & separated bike/scooter lanes solve most of its variable demand. In SF, the transit vs housing conundrum is trivial. Build transit, and remove height restrictions in a 1000-ft radius in each stops location. LA is harder to reme…

I don't mean to nitpick, but why state it as 5x5, when it's far more popular for it to be denoted as 7x7, to the point that one of there local magazines is called 7x7.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7x7_(magazine)

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#112

Post by noirbot »

vel0city wrote: post #83
hackerlight wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of a "luxury apartment" is an oxymoron. It's a rhetorical tool used by NIMBYs. Those apartments that get labelled this way are barely sufficient to fit a family and cost less than the median house, yet the median house would never be labelled a "luxury house".

I dunno. I lived in a "luxury apartment" for a bit. It had fancier appliances than the cheaper units I lived at. Quartz countertops. All the doors were inside with air conditioned hallways. Climate controlled storage was available on-site. A clubhouse with multiple billiard tables. Fancy pool area with multiple full outdoor kitchen setups. A golf simulator room. A private dog park. Free coffee in the clubhouse/lobby.…

Exactly. The fact that NIMBYs like to use "luxury apartments" as a rhetorical flourish doesn't mean they don't actually exist and people don't actually want to live in them.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#113

Post by notch898a »

p0pcult wrote: post #104
lvl102 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools = public goods. That’s all goodwill built over decades in many communities. Why are we just giving that away for free to people with interests against the US? Nope.

Because with free education, you bend their interests toward that of the US. Whats your alternative? Force immigrant children into an undereducated class? Lets see how that works for you in 2 generations.

Shouldn't they have free housing too? Shelter is even more important than education.

I'd argue it'd be best for the billions of world children if the USA housed, fed, and educated them all. Every blessed one of them. The ones with parents rich enough to buy homes in foreign countries aren't probably the most needy amongst them of our help, either.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#114

Post by sokoloff »

zamnos wrote: post #106
MrFoof wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Cambridge, MA, a reasonable stance is kind of required if the city is going to materially grow further. Without it, Cambridge would stagnate if progress was halted by quagmires of bickering. The only real thing of note is larger apartment buildings are largely put in the SE and NW ends of the city. For those who've never been, Cambridge is one of the densest cities in the entire US -- ~122,400 people o…

A more ambitious culture that was any good at engineering megaprojects could just build skyscrapers on top of the Charles and instantly gain a bunch more land area. Might even be easier than building skyscrapers and then tunneling a freeway under them.

There’s plenty of land to be bought and redeveloped. We nowhere near the point where we have to ruin the enjoyment people get from the river and public parks on either side of it.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#115

Post by pwinnski »

Kharvok wrote: post #35

This is an important check to developer greed. You have to be able to maintain quality of life with new development.

Why do you have to be able to "maintain quality of life?" How do you define "quality of life?" For whom must this be maintained?

The quality of life for the people who currently have no place in the city to live is pretty bad, building 3000 more units will dramatically improve QoL for them, so a net gain regardless of the negative impact on the 269 existing tenants of Escala, right?

The federal government no longer allows "those solar panels are unsightly" to be considered for quality of life, so there's some progress. This shadow nonsense sounds like it's being rejected, too.

Bring on the developer greed, so long as they don't cut corners.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#116

Post by pwinnski »

steponlego wrote: post #13

Not everybody wants new tenements in their nice neighborhood.

And yet the Escala was built with 269 units anyway. Tear it down, I guess?

Or stop the YIMBY nonsense and let's build enough places to live for people who need to live somewhere.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#117

Post by vkou »

steponlego wrote: post #105
vkou wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better solution would be to see the NIMBYs get a bus ticket to Portland.

Everybody who lives here is a NIMBY. Can’t fight that. Why not make a walkable city for the homeless? A fresh one from scratch.

> Everybody who lives here is a NIMBY. Can’t fight that.

State-level laws will end your fight to stop development, as just happened in California, and is working its way through state legislatures in Washington.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#118

Post by vel0city »

notch898a wrote: post #101
zenburnmyface wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about low-income housing?

There are some unspoken things you may have to pick up on here. When people start "worrying about property values" that is standard code for something next to them being built/used for lower income people than them.

They were probably worried their 1980s houses next door would look bad in comparison to the much newer and modern houses going up the next neighborhood over.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#119

Post by gotoeleven »

firsttimebigboy wrote: post #90
panny wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low income housing is associated with more crime, but warehouses are not. The residents were probably satisfied with the result.

correlation != causation. Also, the residents were probably interested in increased property values, just like all home owners are.

[flagged]

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#120

Post by pwinnski »

steponlego wrote: post #110
p0pcult wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants wealthy assholes either, but unfortunately they tend to be able to pay more lawyer fees.

[flagged]

I'm not sure whether your replies here are more stupid, or more nasty. The two attributes are neck-in-neck thus far.

Not everyone is as selfish as you are. I'm a happy YIMBY, disappointed that the houses they're building on the corner are $900k+, hoping they build cheaper on the giant lot across the street from them.

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