Based partly on report by Danny Westneat of Seattle Times
“Drop single-family zoning.” “Seattle’s zoning has roots in racial and class exclusion and remains among the largest obstacles to realizing the city’s goals for equity and affordability.”
” I’ve been writing Jolts for years, and my jaw is on the floor. Josh Feit”
This is a terrible idea that reads like something out of class warfare 101. Seattle’s neighborhoods did not grow the way they did because of racism and classism … unless you consider the huge expansion of working class homes in places like Ballard, West Seattle, Wallingford and East Capital Hill classist!
Did racism exist here? Sho Nuff You Betcha, but that fact ought not to be laid at threshold of the Irish, Jewish, Scandahoovian and Japanese immigrants who came to Seattle because it was a great place to live and raise kids.
BTW .. not everyone should be forced to live in high rise housing or even in multifamily block houses. Despite the housing bubble we currently have, single family housing close in is still much cheaper in Seattle than it is in Boston, SF, DC, etc. Attacking those who live in such housing is asinine class warfare.
There are better ways to increase density that can augment rather than destroy this wonderful Seattle amenity. For example, I would love to see traffic corridors like 19th and 15th rezoned for construction of multifamily housing aimed at seniors and children looking for a first home. At the other extreme there are huge opportunities to upgrade housing in areas of the city now badly served by transit and overly badly-off in reputation for crime. Buses and well designed development can target both problems.
This treatise from the housing panel reads like the sort of stuff our self described Trotskyite Kshama Sawant preaches … telling other folks how to live cuz, well cuz they need to be told. Kinda Sorta like building the Broadway Light Rail with no parking so folks my age will ride bikes.
The spelling is so bad I couldn’t read it.
apologies.