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.

As the financial credit crisis puts the crunch on local redevelopment projects, an additional unpleasant consequence is the increasing number of vacant lots and vacant buildings, especially in Downtown Seattle and nearby neighborhoods.

Who knows how long these sites will remain vacant? In the interim, we’re stuck with illegal parking lots at best and eyesores at worst.

East Pine Street at Belmont

On a quick drive through Downtown the other day I spotted three illegal parking lots on stalled redevelopment sites. While some folks may enjoy the suddenly greater availability of low-cost surface parking, these impromptu parking lots fly in the face of the City’s vision for Downtown and often create a false “value added” that can perpetuate the parking use for years.

First, in many parts of Downtown, as well as other pedestrian-designated commercial zones, surface parking is NOT an allowed use by City code. Occasionally, temporary surface parking is permissible, but only with special approvals.

Second, even where allowed, surface parking obviously cannot simply be set up as dirt or gravel lots. They need to be paved, with adequate storm water drainage, as well as include landscaped buffers adjacent to the sidewalk, plus interior landscaping. If you’ve seen some of these impromptu lots around town you’ll notice that the cars abut or even hang over onto the sidewalk, with no buffer but for weeds and occasionally black tarp staked up a few inches, ostensibly to contain runoff.

Lastly, surface parking lots are a valuable commodity in certain parts of town. Look at the parking lot at the southeast corner of Second and Pine! It’s been there for generations – a missing tooth in the otherwise improving stretch between the retail core and Pike Place Market.

Suffice it to say, in some cases what may seem like a casual, impromptu use can last for years. And, if the parking lot is either not allowable in that location and/or lacks the appropriate buffering, drainage, landscaping, etc., it’s a real detriment to the streetscape and neighborhood.

Second Avenue in Belltown

And what about those other “eyesores?” Other locations where projects have been stalled simply sit fallow – vacant lots, vacant buildings, or even semi-demolished buildings. Overnight, of course, these become targets for graffiti, litter, vandalism and crime, or simply become weed-choked, litter-strewn lots. Think of the former Safeway site at 40^th and Stone Way N, or the collection of buildings along Westlake Avenue that Carr America hopes to redevelop. The list goes on.

This issue may be a bit more complicated, but the question is: should the City consider a minimum-maintenance ordinance for such properties?

Perhaps it’s time once again, as the economy has hampered yet another of Seattle’s famous boom cycles, to adopt legislation that requires property owners to maintain these sites at some minimal level of civility.

You may remember the condition of the Downtown block where Benaroya Hall sits. Previously that had been the site of a prior boom cycle’s bust – the “Marathon Towers” project. While not pretty, at least during the interim it was minimally landscaped with grass and trees and maintained relatively litter free. Maybe that’s all it takes. I’m not sure I have the complete solution, but I’d welcome thoughts in this topic and perhaps even public support for some relevant legislation.

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.

How hard is it for a Seattle couple to find a one-bedroom apartment for $1,446?

A Seattle City Council committee gave the nod this week to a bill that provides a tax break to developers for buildings with 20 percent of units targeting people making 80 or 90 percent of the median income.

We actually love our two hour commute

It’s an extension of a subsidy Seattle’s had since 2004 that’s aimed at keeping some rents lower. The earlier subsidy targeted tenants making 60 to 70 percent of median income.

Critics say the extension is one step away from a payoff for housing the city’s middle class.

Have we reached the point where such housing needs taxpayer support to exist?

Some say it’s not needed, like the residents and community organizers who testified at Wednesday’s council meeting and council member Nick Licata. They say the city already has plenty of housing available in exactly this price range and the subsidy is just a developer giveaway for rents the market already provides.

But other council members and officials at the planning and housing departments say they are concerned about carving out a piece of the pie for middle class renters in the future. With development moving fast and furious across the city, they fear housing for people at the middle of the income chart won’t be there without a subsidy.

Read the full story at Djc.com. The full council votes June 30.

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’s not every day you see The New York Times delve into gentrification in Portland.

Today’s NYT story focuses on the conversation that black and white Portlanders are having as more and more young whites move into North and Northeast Portland, strongholds of Portland African Americans since the Columbia River flooded in the late 1940s and took Vanport with it.

The story points out that, for many African American residents of Portland’s northern hoods, the influx of new neighbors isn’t the problem. It’s the onslaught of city dollars–aimed at improving streetscapes and transit service– that concern them. Those improvements aren’t meant for them, they say. Rather, they see investments raising land values and forcing them out, the story says.

You can’t miss all the improvements made in Bridgeport’s northern reaches in the past few years. I’ve marveled at them myself. I was an undergrad at Lewis and Clark College in the late 1990s, lived for a few years in Northeast Portland after school, and regularly go back to visit friends, most of whom are white and living in North or Northeast neighborhoods.

The changes can be seen as improving the quality of life for everyone. Like the yellow max line that now provides safer and more consistent connections for the northern reaches, and the new sidewalks and streetlights that have been incubating small local businesses along North Portland’s streets.

It’s hard to see the changes as only benefitting some of the people who live there. But those streets stood dark and the sidewalks cracked for decades and only now see to be undergoing a rapid spruce up.

Read other local bloggers thoughts here, here and here.

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.

The Seattle Times had an interesting story today about artsy Seattleites being priced out of the city core and into edge neighborhoods like South Park.

It describes a progression taken from Belltown and Capitol Hill, once the meccas of alternative culture, to Georgetown and then to South Park.

Would Gertrude still live here?

They can’t go any further, so the fear and reality is they’ll move to the effortlessly affordable and funky Portland.

Portland, of course, has its own saga: The once edgy, industrial Pearl District is now home to hordes of Seattle refugees and its former residents are already getting priced out of the Alberta Arts District in Northeast Portland. Of course, “priced out” in Portland is when you can no longer buy for $300,000. Seattleites have it a little steeper.

Getting priced out is a tragedy that is almost taken for granted here, and one that sometimes distresses and other times annoys me. I’m concerned about the edgy people moving to the edges or away because I am concerned about losing Seattle’s essential weirdness. That’s a cultural concern and an economic concern. I think both are very valid and I wish more people did.

But I also see some exciting changes in the city. There’s gentrification but then there’s neighborhood building. There are invested homeowners, diverse neighborhoods and thriving small businesses selling quirky, local stuff in the corners of our city. Many people actually choose to live in the “edge neighborhoods” and don’t ever wish they could live in Belltown instead.

The Times article paints a picture of being priced out as a painful progression. But at the story’s end, it’s revealed that its protagonist is not only able to afford to live in South Park, he owns his home, AND the home next door, which he rents out to make money.

It’s a thought-provoking piece that gives nuance to the “priced-out” tale.