Danny Westneat, the Seattle Times columnist, pens a piece on the current boom that, if we change the name of the city, would sound very familiar.
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To get a sense of what an epic growth binge Seattle is on, consider this: In the past few weeks, developers proposed three 40-story apartment towers. Just within a block of my desk. … All told, this complex will have 1,945 apartment units — making it, I believe, the largest residential development ever in the city …
Seattle is a city on steroids. Crane City, you could call it.
It isn’t just South Lake Union, though that’s Ground Zero. Ballard has added nearly 2,000 condo and apartment units since 2008, with 1,000 more in the pipeline. This means it has eclipsed its growth targets as set by city planners by threefold. For the year 2024!
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I’m no Lesser Seattle type. Growth means jobs, and density means a vital city. But wasn’t it supposed to be managed growth, or smart growth? Plopping down the biggest development in city history on two blocks with little provision for infrastructure seems helter-skelter. Not smart.
In South Lake Union there are no major plans for parks or schools or mass transit to serve any of these thousands of residents or workers. One example: Five parks or spots of green dot the neighborhood. And the 40-story tower developments will pave over two of them (Denny Playfield, owned by Vulcan, and the old Seattle Times pocket park, which is now owned by Onni, the developer of the 1,945-unit mini-city).
The city has made developers pay for some affordable housing. But that’s being swamped by the scale of the boom. The real-estate website Trulia.com recently reported rents in South Lake Union now top $2,250 per bedroom — more than the Mission District in San Francisco. …
One new group is saying no. It’s called Coalition for an Affordable, Livable Seattle, made up of 14 neighborhood groups that want to tap on the brakes. It’s calling for, among other things, impact fees on developments to help pay for transit, parks, schools and other systems strained by growth. …
We’ve had these debates before, and growth always wins. But I sense an agitation is rising, right along with these shiny new skyscraper villages.
We’re lucky to be in Seattle, it’s saying. But is anyone in charge?
