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.

After three years of review, the city is still working on a proposal aimed at making townhouses less ugly. Mayor Greg Nickels announced Tuesday he wants the proposal to include a required design review for every new townhouse.

Are these our entries or our backdoors?

Many of the townhouses now standing did not go through design review. That’s because they either didn’t have enough units to trigger a review, or developers permitted different portions of the project separately, avoiding the review.

It’s unclear what exactly would change if city planners reviewed the aesthetics of townhouses. Nickels says it will let designers be more flexible and creative. DPD is still working out the details. Read more about the proposal here, and a critique by Livable Seattle here (townhouse pictures at left and bottom are from Livable Seattle’s own review of townhouse aesthetics, included in the report).

Keeping up with the Joneses

Meanwhile, council president Richard Conlin has a proposal of his own aimed at mitigating the ugliness of a different kind of new construction. His proposal targets “McMansions” and takes aim at specific issues: height, scale and garages.

New formulas and guidelines are set for calculating height and lot coverage allowances. That would stop the practice of averaging neighboring heights to build higher and of using a footprint allowance set for a bigger lot size.

Garages would be limited to a certain amount of the facade and builders would get a size bonus for getting parking and garages entirely out of sight. The proposal had its first vetting in a council committee today. No legislation has been introduced.

The multifamily code update is more complicated, with dozens of prescriptions aimed at improving the look of townhouses, like shorter fences, pedestrian entries and more windows in front. It also cuts out parking requirements for some townhouses in higher density zones, meaning those townhouses could be built without multiple garages and driveways,

Garages that cars can't get to or fit within

presumably allowing for more space for yards and gardens.

Interestingly, it also widens townhouse entry driveways and parking spaces, meaning the driveway footprint will be bigger. That’s because some townhouses were designed so badly that driveways are inaccessible.

The proposal does not cut townhouse height limits. In some zones, developers will be able to build higher if they earmark a certain number of units for people making median income. They will also have to use green building techniques.

Read the whole story at DJC.com.

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.