Trevor,

I don't disagree with the idea that we should "encourage the most equitable rather than the most profitable forms of economic growth." But last I checked the rules of basic math are still in full effect: division by zero still doesn't work.

We can't share the wealth if there is no wealth to share. I don't think that all density in all circumstances increases affordability. All housing is affordable to someone and if it isn't the price goes down.

I really think you're arguments against TOD and density would bare up a lot better if they had a better foundation. Simply demanding proof that density has decreased rents or arguing that density is the same thing as gentrification doesn't help the basically good idea that one outcome of new development should be accessibility to broad segments of the economy.

Usually your arguments seem, instead, to be based on the idea that the only way to make a profit is to displace people. How about the idea that we do things like increase the minimum wage and reduce health and child care costs rather than strangle housing supply with more limitations and requirements. It doesn't always follow that increasing supply isn't beneficial to the end user anymore than demand side solutions will bankrupt employers.

We ought to consider what outcome we want and combine both supply and demand side solutions to housing affordability. More density in Roosevelt is good for a lot of reasons including affordability.

Trevor,

Your characterization of the situation is not accurate. The neighborhood and everyone agrees the properties are not serving anyone right now. Many of them are boarded up awaiting an out come of this discussion. There's not much debate over whether those properties can and should be improved.

Your idealism is troubling. It leads you to automatically assume things like "sweetheart deals" are in the mix. That isn't helpful. We're talking here about a neighborhood that is planning for it's future as significant infrastructure is being built. The idea that its bad that someone is going to benefit from up zones is naive at best and demagoguery at worst. Of course an up zone adds value to property. Should that value be subsumed by the state and for what?

Lastly, density is better. That's just a fact that really isn't up for debate. It's better for water (see the Partnership for Puget Sound's report), it's better for green house gas emissions (less emissions per capita), more efficient (less energy use), better for transit (Newman and Kenworthy found density aggregates demand, support for, and use of transit), safer (more people means more folks looking out for each other), and yes, it's more affordable (see the Center for Neighborhood Technology).

The days are gone when we should be debating density. The verdict is in.

I love taxes and I love government. I think more good government makes us free. But we'll having nothing to tax and nothing to redistribute if we squash private efforts develop what I've just shown is a GOOD thing in and of itself.

Up front let's get a couple of things clear on the Roosevelt discussion. None of us who have asked for intervention by the Mayor's office and City Council on proposals for zoning and land use in Roosevelt have suggested abrogating the Roosevelt Neighborhood Plan nor even the neighborhood's most recent proposals. Rather, we've asked for another look a specific set of properties held by an errant land lord.

Nobody wants to do away with Roosevelt's plan, either of them.

Second, there have been a lot of, frankly, stupid things said in comments and elsewhere about who should be able to speak to this issue. Light rail infrastructure--and all transit--makes us Roosevelt neighbors whether we live in West Seattle or Rainier Valley. And, I would add, it makes people in Roosevelt West Seattle and Rainier Valley Neighbors. I'd like to see the ridiculous arguing about who can weigh on this issue stop: this is a regional discussion in which we all can should be involved.

Third, there is not (and nobody that I know is suggesting) a massive uptick in density from what has been broadly proposed in the RNA plan. We're talking about something between 40 feet--which ensures that the Sisley properties stay bombed out blight--and the 120 feet proposed in the contract rezone. Neither the Barriers Report nor the Futurewise TOD Blueprint prescribes any set density or development pattern. There isn't indicated, and nobody is proposing, a massive up zone for greater Roosevelt. We're talking about a very specific set of lots.

My point is simply that more conversation about those properties on the "Sisley Panhandle" should happen with everyone involved with an outcome of more development capacity there. The current plan seems like it would ensure one thing: that those properties would remain a blight for the neighborhood. I think everyone's interest (yes, including the property owner and developer's) is served by considering something less than the contract rezone and more than leaving it the way it is.

That's the discussion. Not a huge ideological debate about density in general or even TOD. Simply put, this is about a key set of lots in a neighborhood that will, in the not too distant future, be more closely linked to the wider region with millions of dollars is public investment. Now's the time to talk. And that's what we're doing.

Trevor,

Perhaps you and I ought to have a Think Tank top of the comments set of posts about this issue. One need look no further than our own Erica C. Barnett and her rundown of the Center for Neighborhood Technology to shed light on the topic. http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/the_true_cost...

I'd direct you to my own article on the Residual Income Model for calculating affordable housing:
http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/20...

Without indulging in a screed (thank you Blue Light for keeping me in line!) I'd say our first problem with "affordability" is defining it. Second, we seem to think the basic rules of supply and demand don't apply to housing.

What many advocates of this thing called affordable housing fail to see is that the more demands and costs they place on the production of housing in the name of affordability, the more they contribute to lack of supply. We aren't building lots of new single family housing in Seattle. So the only option is more multifamily and clustered housing.

But because of the fear of gentrification (most often given voice by middle class single family home owners) we slow down production of the very kinds of housing that would increase supply, and lower price. This is part of the problem on Beacon Hill. There is very little housing being built there.

I love Beacon Hill. There was a time when I thought I'd never live anywhere else.

It's a peculiar place, however. There was a dedicated group of neighborhood advocates who begged, pleaded, and agitated Sound Transit to build a light rail station under Beacon Hill. "Too deep," said Sound Transit. "Too expensive, too." Eventually a shell was promised with a station off in the future. They fought on. All of a sudden, it seemed, we had a station. But the group fought on, and one of the successful arguments was that Beacon was a uniquely diverse neighborhood both ethnically and economically.

What followed was bizarre. A different group of neighbors appeared, ready to fight the station. "You're destroying the character of our neighborhood," they said, "Save Perry Ko's South China Restaurant." Suddenly the quaint Chinese restaurant that had served many generations of local residents became an icon of ethnic diversity and local business. It isn't that those things weren't true, but like Mr. Thompson's characterization, South China wasn't a "national chain."

Unfortunately the belated love for South China coincided with difficult decisions about developing the HIl in a way that reflected the investment in light rail. Sadly, the group of neighbors who felt that the diversity of the Hill was somehow incompatible with Transit Oriented Development. Never mind the fact that more housing at the station area would increase the kind of housing that would make things more affordable for younger Hispanic, Asian, or African families that can't afford a single family home on Beacon Hill. Oddly too, many of the opponents of more density and mixed use development on the Hill are white, single family home owners.

The most telling culture clash from years ago was over the golf course. Some saw the golf course as a bourgeois imposition or impact on the neighborhood. But remember, it is a fantastic public course. On any given day golfers of many ethnic backgrounds--often fewer white folks--play golf and use the driving range. But somehow, some in the neighborhood couldn't disentangle their view of golf with the reality of daily life on Beacon Hill's awesome community resource. The golf course, far from being a burden to locals, is a huge benefit.

In the end, the day will come when Beacon Hill grows. I have every confidence that not only will the Hill's diversity be preserved, but it will be enhanced. Family owned business and families of all kinds will benefit from more housing on the Hill. The station is a huge boon for the Hill. It's time to take advantage of it.

Trevor,

Fortunately I'm not in a position to have to "win over" opponents of light rail. I strongly suspect that that opposition is rooted in something deeper than ridership or financial performance. And there are many assumptions to untangle in your response (like that TOD would be a gentrification machine) that are probably beyond the scope of this little box.

Let's pretend that every criticism leveled at light rail is true. There are some simple facts that are also true about local government: it isn't helping. Local concerns about alignment, station sighting, zoning, and, yes, gentrification are making light rail's job harder not easier.

If we want to start all over I guess someone could propose that. But as long as we've got an agency that is tasked with creating a comprehensive system that is going to cost billions of dollars it seems to me that we ought to get out of their way. As a region we can't simultaneously decide we want regional transit including light rail and debate whether it makes sense. That won't produce a good outcome.

I think Link Light Rail works great. The trains run, they're clean, well lit, and they sometimes even go where I want to go.

But the train is leaving the station on Light Rail in our region. Simply building and running the choo choo is not enough. We need a hearty TOD program that can generate the density around light rail stations to off set flagging ridership. We're investing billions of dollars in infrastructure but allowing small time City Council politics to monkey wrench the land use.

The folks at Seattle Transit Blog were good enough to point out that we need a super agency to do TOD right so we can get the concentrations of demand for transit we need. Building a train to flat, empty, low-rise urban villages (Seattle), bickering about who's going to make money(Bellevue), fighting about whether light rail is a good idea(Vancouver), and generally failing to zone appropriately is what might kill light rail. The legislature needs to act as soon as possible to take land use decisions around transit stations away from local cities and towns and give that power to people who know what they're doing. City Council's in the region are just about to completely goof up a good thing.

If we want to prove people like John Niles right let's keep listening to local NIMBYs and allow City Councils to run the show. But the train truly is pulling out of the station here. It's time to get the land use right. The purpose of transit investments is to shorten the distance between people and where they want to go. Aggregating demand through good planning and land use is what will get this train back on track.

I agree. More important things to talk about. Let's get a vote (I say vote "no") and then move on.

Many of us think the tunnel proposal will fail once voters consider it. Keeping it off the ballot is a sure way to keep the fires burning. Glad to see people ready to move seattle forward....with a vote.

The referendum is really about whether Seattle wants to close what I call the Sustainability Gap (http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2010/02/25/falling-into-the-sustainability-gap), the distance between what we say and what we actually do about sustainability.

Building more highways at a time when we are supposed to be, by state law, working toward reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) is a bad idea.

Building more highways when the CIty Council has declared itself in favor of carbon neutrality is a bad idea.

Building more expensive highways that won't pay for themselves (tolling revenues are questionable) when budgets are being cut for basic services is a bad idea.

Building the tunnel won't create long lasting jobs, at best it is economic meringue; we'd be better off filling bottles with twenty dollar bills, bury them under the waterfront, and sell the rights to dig them up (thanks Keynes!)

The referendum is about whether we are going to talk like green urban progressive democrats and act like suburban republicans or whether we are going to put our policies where are rhetoric is on sustainability.

The world won't end if we build the tunnel. But if we build it, Seattle will have a tougher time trying to claim the mantle of being a sustainable city no matter how many pygmy goats, and chickens we put in our yards.

The time is now to say no to talking big about sustainability but acting like it's 1981 instead of 2011.

Finally, we have a long way to go to make our land use and transportation policies true up to our sustainable aspirations. Spending billions on a tunnel doesn't help us get there. We've wasted enough time and money on this project. Let's move forward toward discussing the things that really matter.

Let's do the right thing and vote no.

Councilmember Bagshaw,

Thanks for your comments and addressing what you characterize as my concern that Council might "over-legislate" on this issue.

My concern is broader than that. I've watched the Council in action long enough to know two troubling trends in Council Culture. First, the Council seems to lead--taking positions and holding them in spite of angry people who happen to show up in chambers--when Council feels a common enemy. Taking the tunnel as the most obvious example, Council has pushed ahead, like Aguirre searching for Eldorado, in spite of rafts of evidence that show this project is a bad idea. I admire the persistence and the determination even while I detest the tunnel project itself.

Second, the Council tends to look out for it's own. Councilmembers tend not to challenge committee chairs for example. And, in the case of the Pioneer Square rezones, Councilmembers who disagreed with the direction of the majority voted with that majority in order not to appear to be un-collegial.

One final point. Councilmembers too often give lots of credence to opponents of an effort simply because they take the trouble to show up at a Council meeting or write an e-mail to Council. This can work to my advantage or to the advantage of a small cache of neighbors opposing rezones with regional implications. As a rule, it's a bad idea.

So my concerns extend beyond and go more deeply than "over-legislation" on this issue, but rather, on a culture that persists at Council in which individual members give in to momentum on issues for no other reason than not wanting to cause a fuss. A culture that tends to favor tentative, small, and hesitant steps when big, bold leaps are needed. And a culture that locks down when there appears to be opposition or deep concern from serious people about big issues.

Councilmember Bagshaw, I guess a consolation for me would be to see you and your colleagues come together on street food --a noble and good thing for sure-- with the same determination and force that you have come together on the tunnel. Make street food work at all costs!

But what I'd really rather see is the Council come together on a broad range of issues affecting sustainability, land use chief among them, and lead this city forward so that we can accommodate growth in our city in a way that welcomes and sustains it, nurtures it, and makes our city livable, walkable, and transit focused. That means up zoning in such a way that will outrage some small number of single family neighbors and advocates of industrial land protection. And yes, some preservationists.

In the meantime, just keep street food simple, affordable for entrepreneurs, putting health and safety first. Then let the market work its magic. Leadership isn't easy. Many of us disagree with each other on the tunnel. But we agree on so much more. And many are ready to follow and support your efforts on getting food in parks. But there is a lot more we can work on together.