What’s the question?
Monday, December 15th, 2008
Last week the Seattle Great City Initiative leader Michael McGinn hosted an end-of-the-year happy hour to toast the season and thank volunteers and supporters for their work. McGinn and Great City regular Brice Maryman were leading proponents for the successful parks levy that passed in November.
Great City has focused on trying to bring together neighborhood advocates, developers and environmentalists to be more supportive of growth.
There are some tremendous individuals with decades of experience in wide array of fields that are part of Great City. It was good to catch up with a few of those folks and talk about the last political year and the one coming up.
We started talking about the possibly three Seattle City Council seats that may be open next year and we hit on a lot of different topics. What three questions would we ask the burgeoning field of candidates? There were three that I distilled from our conversation that focused on transportation, density and affordability.
- Studies show that 1 new mile of highway construction creates between 1,400 and 2,300 tons of CO2. And a recent Sightline study indicated that “adding one mile of new highway lane will increase CO2 emissions by more than 100,000 tons over 50 years.” What will you do as a member of the Seattle City Council to reduce vehicle miles traveled and limit new highway construction in the city, especially on the waterfront?
- More than 60 percent of Seattle’s land is designated single family. The Puget Sound Regional Council projects that 1.7 million new people will be coming to our region in the next 20 years. As a member of the Council, what would you do to support accommodating Seattle’s share of that growth? Would you support the expansion of Detached Accessory Dwelling Units (DADUs) city wide? How would you create density in single family neighborhoods?
- With the economy in a severe downturn, concepts of affordability are changing and some would argue a major shift that may be systemic or even paradigmatic. What do you think the downturn means for housing affordability in Seattle and specifically what would you do to set definitions and goals for affordability? Please tie your answer back to the recent debate over incentive zoning.
So what would your questions be? What are the answers we should expect and demand?
