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A REAL ANSWER TO HOUSING IN SEATTLE

Othello Square TAKES ON THE ISSUE

Seattle’s continuing condescension leads to a bizarre picture .. too few middle-class homes and black flight. In a city with the highest salaries in the nation and vast numbers of millionaires and billionaires, the claim is that the city has no developable land.
Our City Council bemoans that claim while we “enjoy” a nine hole downtown golf course, have miles of more or less abandoned car lots along Lake City Way, watch major civic facilities like the Langston Hughes Center die because of black flight, have streets filled with tents, public schools that increasingly represent 19th century poorhouses and vast areas of the city where “low density” should mean investment.
Now, as written by in the Seattle Time, one of those non-existant areas of the city is taking matters into its own hands. A big part of the answer,as Roberts writes, was light rail joining our southern reaches to downtown. “This week a groundbreaking ceremony for Othello Square in our South East will create a sprawling $235-million mixed-use housing development next to the light-rail station. Thanks to local activists, with a novel mix of partnerships, community involvement, and targeted philanthropy Othello Square feature a community clinic, a public charter school, affordable spaces for local businesses and nonprofits, and 436 units of co-op housing and apartments, for residents who earn too much for subsidized housing but can’t afford a market-rate home or apartment.”
The project is part of the NewHolly redevelopment, “a mid-1990s initiative by the Seattle Housing Authority to replace aging public housing projects with mixed-income housing. Though housing advocates feared the initiative would displace low-income residents, neighborhood organizations and business groups in Othello and elsewhere largely welcomed the shift to mixed-income housing projects, which they hoped would encourage more economic diversity.”
Speaking as a near 80 year old, fifty years ago my wife and I moved into Capital Hill BECAUSE it was close to the vibrancy of the Central Area. The Othello project will capitalize on that need by today’s young, affluent Seattlites too. The business community agrees. ” If Othello Square succeeds, its underlying model could be “replicated both locally and nationally” in other communities struggling with affordability and gentrification, says Jake McKinstry, a principal at Seattle-based Spectrum Development Solutions, which is building one of four buildings on the site with local real estate investment firm Laird Norton Properties.”

“Investors’ reluctance faded in the years leading up to the opening of the Othello light-rail station, in 2009. Lured by a new vision of Othello as a bedroom community for high-earning downtown workers, investors and developers flocked to the neighborhood to buy property around the station and along Martin Luther King Way South.”

Image result for Norm rice

In 1992, Mayor Norm Rice announced a strategy to create so-called “urban villages”: walkable, affordable sections of the city that contained residential, commercial, and recreational structures.

The obvious worry is that a building along the light rail corridor will drive up both land prices and construction costs. That obsession makes no sense in a city that needs more housing at all levels. Upscale apartments, aka gentrification, is the only way for investors to recover their costs but development by the city or non-profits does not need the burden of making a profit. Moreover, if done well such a mixed profit/nonprofit model which may include multi-family property will attract the kind of community that Seattle seems to be losing out on.

There is more to be done here. The Seattle Public Schools needs to market itself as more than schools for the poor. Citing schools like this new charter or other magnets in an area where housing is being developed in an attractive way will .. as they say ..”build it and they will come.” Open spaces and parks matter as well. Children need play areas, families need movie theaters. Finally, transit .. not just bike lanes for the ohso liberal condecenti of Seattle, meaning that people can either have no car or leave the car home and get to work downtown. Development needs to include public transit away from the light rail core and the city needs to incentivize the development of local shopping centers.

Some of us remember these ideas .. perhaps the City Council and Mayor should ask Norm Rice to explain how this is done?

Posted 03 Jun 2019 by theaveeditor in Misc.

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  1. Mark Adams #
    06.04.2019 01:30
    1

    This months National Geographic is on cities. Whole article about the newest city design. High urban density surrounded by green areas. Even farming in buildings and in the city.