Portland, you make it look so easy

Portland’s historic Heathman Hotel already knew a thing or two about sustainability.

Riding up to our room last year in the elevator, the doorman noticed me admiring the Brazilian rosewood paneling. “We have to be careful with it,” he said. “It’s endangered so we can’t replace it.”

So how does the historic luxury hotel in downtown Portland keep its cache in the midst of a changing world? It goes green, of course. Green Building Elements has a story today on the undertaking.

USA Today also got smitten with the Rose City. A story in today’s paper marvels at how carefree and car-free you can be in our compact little cousin.

Portland rocks, and many of us here have long known it. But an even better descriptor found in the piece: “studiously hip.” So true.

As you may know, Seattle officials are trying to decide whether to extend the city’s incentive zoning program beyond downtown. The program gives developers more building capacity in exchange for earmarking affordable units.

In some cities like Boston, including affordable housing is required.

Expansion plans had a bit of a setback last week when city consultant Greg Easton of Property Counselors presented his analysis to city council’s Planning, Land Use and Urban Development Committee.

His numbers showed the program wouldn’t yield much in increased profits in Seattle neighborhoods.

The picture got even bleaker for mid-rise developments, where several scenarios showed razor-thin increases in profit margin for incentive zoning.

“Why would a developer take that?” asked council member Tim Burgess. “From a public policy perspective, it would seem like we should develop a program where most people would want to do it.”

Council members asked Easton to recrunch the numbers with some outlyers removed, and to include more comparative analysis.

You might have read that Seattle transit users save an average of $8,400 annually compared to drivers. That’s according to a recent study that assumed transit users have one less car.

$8,400 is quite a figure! Is it true? Who knows, but the approach looks reasonable.

Better than clipping coupons

It’s good to think about this. We talk endlessly about housing costs and taxes, but personal transportation costs were hardly mentioned until gas hit $3. Even now, people aren’t necessarily connecting the dots: Transportation is a variable expense, and ditching the car (or using it less) can save you a bundle.

We often hear that 30 percent of income should be used to calculate housing affordabilty. But that assumes big transportation expenses. I’d argue that a combined figure for housing and transportation is a better metric. Perhaps a number like 45 percent is reasonable for both.

We Downtown residents often hear that we’re paying too much for housing. So we explain that many of us are actually pretty thrifty, all things considered. In fact, we often save far more than $8,400, because we ride in the free zone, or walk, rather than buying bus passes. We can even rent out our parking spaces.

That said, you don’t need to be in the center of town to make transit convenient. Any bus that goes past work probably goes past residential areas. Even if those areas cost a few hundred bucks more, maybe it’s worth it.

Now we just need more transit!

Transfers of Development Rights are not new. In 1916, New York City planners zoned the city and included a provision letting owners sell their building rights to neighboring lots. In the 1960s, they changed the law so lots didn’t have to be next to each other to TDR-swap.

Thanks for the development rights

In downtown Seattle, the owners of older, landmarked buildings get money for selling their development rights, and downtown developers buy those rights to build bigger on other sites.

King County also has a TDR program that lets developers in areas targeted for growth buy development rights from rural landowners. Vulcan took advantage of that program in 2005, purchasing 19 private TDRs to build 40,000 more square feet at Westlake/Terry. The county’s TDR program sunsets this month.

Now, the Seattle City Council is considering expanding Seattle’s program to other areas of the city. Proponents like former council aide Roger Valdez say other neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and First Hill are also seeing rapid growth and the TDR program will help the city hold on to some of the older buildings that might otherwise get razed.

The Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee could discuss the idea at its meeting at 9:30 a.m. this Wednesday.

The committee will also talk about raising allowed building heights in Interbay and South Downtown, and about extending the developer incentive program, where developers get to build higher if they build or pay for affordable units.

There’s lots of good fodder for urban development nuts to digest in today’s news. A few selections, in case you missed them:

In a piece for Crosscut, former city council member, architect (and offspring of Pike Place Market advocate Victor

The Market's year?

Steinbrueck) Peter Steinbrueck sounds off on fixing townhouses. Steinbrueck’s take: disallow certain types of townhouses altogether and make the rest of the code more form and performance based, with more design flexibility. He also suggests the city’s design community create an attractive “townhouse model” developers can work from.

The Seattle P-I has a piece on a new campaign targeting grocery shoppers as a way to reduce miles driven in the city. Feet First is providing deeply discounted personal carts, for now only to people living within one-quarter mile of the Westwood QFC in hopes of getting shoppers out of their cars for grocery trips.

Speaking of markets, the Seattle City Council voted 8-0 to put a $73 million levy for Pike Place Market repairs and upgrades on the November ballot. Council is still in discussion on a $140 million levy for Seattle parks.

Three years ago, the Interbay Neighborhood Association asked the city to give their hood an upzone.

With businesses testing the water in the traditionally industrial area, and an uber close-in location right on a bus line, they argued it was an ideal place to target workforce housing. The area is zoned commercial, so they wanted tall buildings and a change in zoning to encourage residential-retail developments.

A new life for Dravus?

Since then, the city up-zoned its downtown area. It’s moving forward on plans for height increases for South Downtown. It gave Vulcan a targeted up-zone in South Lake Union.

Metro now plans to run a rapid ride route right through Interbay on its way between downtown and Ballard, starting in 2010. Denali Fitness opened a branch there, and a Whole Foods is under construction. The city is also considering an Interbay site among four other candidates for its new municipal jai, and the hood is a contender for LEED-ND.

This week, Interbay’s upzone finally came to the table, with a council committee hearing DPD’s recommendation on the matter. DPD officials are recommending extending heights in the hood to only 85 feet, not the 125 the INA originally proposed. But they say that upzone could still bring the 1,500 residentail units INA wanted.

Last year, the city passed guidelines for including affordable housing as part of every upzone. They are expected to formally legalize those plans with legislation coming out of the mayor’s office in the next few weeks.

With affordable housing needs at the tip of their tongues, council members said Wednesday that Interbay’s time has come.

Read the full story at djc.com

Crosscut’s Knute Berger wrote an interesting column today about the animosity between historic preservationists and green building proponents.

Too often, he says, green building techniques and density goals are used as justification for tearing down Seattle’s usable buildings and squandering their embodied energy and inherent greenness.

Meanwhile, historic preservationists get sidetracked by the historic and architectural significance of the buildings they are trying to protect. They don’t put that same effort into making a sustainability case for keeping those buildings.

Adaptive reuse in Portland's Pearl District

If Seattle really wants to be sustainable, Berger says, the two groups need to form an alliance. Both need to embrace the environmental value of the existing building and build from there.

I think things get complicated when density concerns are added into the mix.

But some cities, like Portland, have done a great job of encouraging adaptive reuse of historic building stock. These aren’t the landmarked buildings that allow only minimal changes, but the buildings that serve as mainstay to new floors of condos or offices above or around.

The federal government even offers a 10 percent tax credit for adaptive reuse of certain historic buildings. There are a few caveats, like making sure the addition can be removed and the historic building is left largely intact.

It could be painful for preservation purists to see some buildings getting such a drastic face-lift. It will likely be even harder for those greenies who like to start from scratch and leave their fingerprints.

The townhouse situation in this city has gotten so bad that a Seattle City Council committee is holding a special meeting Saturday on the matter.

The Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will hold a special meeting on townhouse design at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Capitol Hill Arts Center at 1621 12th Ave.

Scourge on society

The meeting will feature a presentation by Tom Eanes of the Seattle Planning Commission, and a forum discussion with various neighborhood groups and organizations.

The meeting is free and open to the public.

Saturday’s discussion of townhouse design follows council’s decision in April to make fewer multifamily projects subject to environmental review. It comes before its formal discussion of proposed multifamily code changes that seek in part to lay out better design standards for Seattle townhouses. Rooflines, fence heights and other design guidelines are included.

The committee has already discussed its concerns with garages that are too small for cars, driveways that can’t be easily accessed, and townhouses built on single family property lines that dwarf neighboring houses.

It seems like much of the city’s time is spent working on the future of South Lake Union.

No comment.

From trolleys and targeted up-zones to street redesigns and a new park (dedication shown at right) and trail, proposals for the hood once known as Cascade have kept city officials busy as bees in a hive for the past few years.

But what exactly should come next?

The Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will hold a special meeting at noon Thursday to discuss the long-term vision for South Lake Union.

While they’re at it, they’ll bring out the crystal ball on Uptown, too.

The meeting will be held in Council Chambers on the Second Floor of City Hall at 600 Fourth Ave.

Presenters include John Coney and Steven Paget- in charge of the “visioning” process, Craig Hanway of the Queen Anne Community Council, John Savo of the South Lake Union Friends and Neighbors Community Council, Sharon Lee of the Low Income Housing Institute and Michael McGinn, director of the Seattle Great City Initiative.

A neighborhood-wide up-zone for South Lake Union is in the works and could come before council later this year.

Seattle is already zoned to allow three times the density expected over the next 14 years, according to a report released last week by Livable Seattle.

The report culls numbers from the 2007 King County Buildable Lands Report. It makes the case that the city’s zoning capacity already outpaces projected growth three-fold, so more up-zoning is not needed.

Is Seattle overzoned?

“Seattle’s city government should not make radical changes in our established zoning and neighborhood plans with the idea that such changes are needed to accomodate future growth,” reads the report.

You probably haven’t heard of the group. David Miller, one of Livable Seattle’s members and president of the Maple Leaf Community Council, told me at a council meeting in March that the group had formed in response to concerns over all of the zoning changes council will review this year.

Miller said the group’s goal is to provide data to help people make informed decisions.

According to the report, “overzoning” has serious negative implications, including artificial increases in land and housing costs, and contributing to urban sprawl as families are priced out of the city.

Council will review an overhaul of the multifamily code later this year. Last month, it gave the nod to raising the threshold on how many units a development needs to trigger a review of its environmental impact. But council amended the proposal so the lighter restrictions would apply only to developments in urban centers and alongside the planned light rail.

Read another blogger’s take on the report here.