If I'm correct, it appears that all but three of the properties (listed in the table early on) are in Belltown.
Anyone else notice that? Damn, that's embarassing.
Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
141–150 of 165 posts
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#142Does any city have a well functioning design review process or are they all captured by incumbents to slow down development?
That's a contradiction in terms, AFAICT. I was excited to find this in the post: > Meanwhile, a bill moving forward in the legislature introduced by Representative Amy Walen (D-48, Bellevue) would ban design review for housing projects statewide. I have this bookmarked to contact my reps and senator to join as co-sponsors.[1] [1]: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1026&Year=2023...
Seems like using the power of the State to overrule local city preferences is pretty universal, regardless of where someone falls on the left/right scale.
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Between Republicans wanting to use the state to overpower cities, and Democrats now wanting the same, maybe we ought to just eliminate cities altogether and centralize all the authority.
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, it's all the same https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/realestate/housing-develo...
Eh, https://news.theregistryps.com/in-114mm-transaction-holland-... is fairly garish, and somehow passed design review
I mean, I actually think that's pretty cool. I would pass that any day if I were on the review board, especially if that green space in front of it were part of the project plan.
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#145Earlier 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…
Yes and no. That's certainly a factor, but outside of work, people also tend to stay pretty close to their neighborhoods (I've been able to walk to my grocery store in the last 3 neighborhoods I've lived in). There's also been substantial work to build new mass transit, but housing hasn't increased substantially around the transit stops. Edit: I'm referring to LA. My impression is SF is small enough that this isn't a…
SF is small, hilly, and consists of many square miles of single family homes; with cars being the predominant way around town.
Less than 2000 feet from the geographical center of town, I live in a fully detached single family home with a huge backyard. My Walkscore of 35 equates to the nearest full line supermarket being a solid mile away, mostly flat, the nearest corner store is 0.8 miles away with 364 feet of elevation changes, too.
:30 minutes between runs of the bus means that all of my neighbors and I tend to drive everywhere. Trust me, this is not ideal.
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#146Earlier 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.
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Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
No I won’t. Lawsuits like this are the proof. I don’t want bus lines, walkable cities, or section 8 in my nice quiet community and neither does anybody else who lives here. Democracy has spoken.
The lawsuits exist because democracy spoke and the NIMBYs didn't like what it had to say. The builders are operating under the laws of the community. The NIMBYs are abusing the legal system in an attempt to subvert the will of the people.
Sorry, the nature of local, county, state, and federal jurisdictions won't tolerate some inevitable voter takeover even if most people in a state seem to vote for some socialist WEF policy or another. It's one of the differences between federalization and what other countries have. You can fool the voters but they're getting sharper and they're becoming conspiracy theorists too now, for good reason.
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is no different than people in HOAs who try to block solar on the rooftops of their neighbors, or those blocking utility scale solar in their community on land they don’t own, out of aesthetics or their feelings. You can’t negotiate with them, you can only persevere (and hopefully you’re resourced to do so).
Washington addressed this by passing a law that solar panels cannot be prevented by a HOA.
They can put restrictions on the install:
https://artisanelectricinc.com/solar_and_homeowners_associat...
Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing
#149I am just curious why we are allowing foreigners to buy homes in the US when we have a housing crisis. Here in New England, Chinese/Russians came in and started buying homes in the past two decades. Not only that, we end up educating their children for free in our public schools. Why? They don’t even let our companies operate in their country. Edit: they should not be able to invest in real estate in the US if US cit…
Because we're better than them. We're a free market and that is that. We don't judge people by where they come from.