The post Sunday Video: Top 10 Cities Devoting Prime Land To Golf Courses first appeared on The Urbanist.

“These wild animals may not be playing a round of golf, but they rely on the habitat in these parks to live in our city,” quipped writer Chris Nicholson in the blog post.

Some Seattleites didn’t buy it.

“Mown grass is a wildlife desert. Pesticides are bad for wildlife. The land could be used for affordable housing, community services, and the actually wild spaces that wildlife needs to thrive. Also, the water expended to maintain the grass is an insane waste of resources,” tweeted @hikemonster in a response that encapsulated much of the criticism directed toward the post on Twitter.

Golf courses have become a hot topic in growing Seattle where publicly owned land and affordable housing are both in short supply. Data from a 2017 study completed by EMC Research for the City of Seattle shows that golf courses are the least utilized facilities owned by Seattle Parks and that the number of people accessing them is on the decline. According to EMC’s data, only 12% of Seattle residents visited golf courses two or more times per year, and only 3% visited golf courses 10 or more times annually.

Thus, when Nicholson kicked off his blog post with the line, “When most people think of parks, they don’t initially think of golf courses,” he struck on a vein of truth — a substantial majority of Seattleites do not think of golf courses as parks because they simply do not visit or use them.

It is also important to note that those numbers do not take into consideration whether those visitors actually played golf during their visit since Seattle Parks occasionally opens golf courses for limited community access, such as for sledding on snow days. However, if rounds of golf played and green fees collected from golfers are any indication, the amount of golf played is decreasing in tandem with sinking visitor numbers. According to Mike Eliason’s 2019 article in The Urbanist, “Unlike Seattle, Golf is Really Dying,” rounds of golf played on the City’s municipal courses declined by 43% between 2000 and 2017 when adjusted for population growth. This is in keeping with national trends showing younger generations have been less drawn to the sport, which has a well-documented elitist, racist, and sexist history. (Gentleman Only, Ladies Forbidden)

Fewer green fees collected from golfers has resulted in a downward trajectory in revenue for Seattle’s golf courses. EMC found that from 2013-2017 golf courses were unable to meet their financial targets. Additionally, golf courses have not been able to raise the capital funding necessary to make investments in aging infrastructure, leaving a Golf Master Plan created by Seattle Parks in 2009 unfunded.

Do golf courses really contribute to biodiversity in Seattle?

In an effort to strengthen their case for preserving golf courses in an era of declining use, some golf course boosters are turning to biodiversity to bolster their argument.

Roughly 8% of land owned by Seattle Parks is occupied by golf courses, which is not an insubstantial amount of park acreage in the city. According to the Trust for Public Land’s 2021 ParkScore index, Seattle scored 55 out of 100 for total park acreage, identifying acreage as one of the city’s weak spots when analyzing park performance. For golf supporters, keeping these lands as golf courses instead of converting them to other uses such as housing is imperative because of the city’s need to maintain or increase green space.

However, unlike golf courses, most Seattle park land is much more accessible and widely utilized by the public. That’s where golf course supporters turn to wildlife as beneficiaries of golf course land, arguing that the green space occupied by golf courses functions as wildlife habitat or corridors. Yet, the amount of golf course land that can be actually used by wildlife is far less than its total of 528 acres.

Seattle Parks acknowledged in its own post that the bulk of the wildlife habitat within its golf courses is “contained in the edges and natural areas.” While the department did not cite exact acreage numbers, it did share that it is currently restoring 30 acres of golf course land with help from the Green Seattle Partnership, SPR’s urban forest restoration program. In total, Green Seattle Partnership has identified 85 acres within golf courses for restoration, representing only 16% of the total land area.

Pollution is also a major concern when it comes to golf courses. While Seattle Parks has made efforts to eliminate the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers used on its meadows in partnership with a certification program administered by the Audubon Society, grass fairways still demand of the application of these hazardous substances which harm wildlife and enter the city’s watershed. Additionally, the regular mowing and removal of weeds on grass fairways makes the land inhospitable as habitat for birds and other pollinators.

With this context, the argument for biodiversity on Seattle’s golf courses falls short, even when you consider the charismatic coyotes that venture out on the fairways from time to time. Those coyotes would probably be happier loping around the dense trails of Seward Park or another similarly verdant spot anyways.

Using golf course land for public benefit

A burgeoning movement calling for publicly owned golf course land to be put to greater use in cities is emerging nationwide as more cities put former golf course land to use as housing and park space. A 2018 report from the National Golf Foundation found that more than 200 golf courses closed in the U.S. in 2017 alone as golf facilities continue to exceed demand from golfers.

Some of Seattle’s neighboring cities and suburbs have already embraced the trend of converting golf courses to new uses. In Kent, a 492-unit urban and garden style apartment development with 12,000 square feet of retail is in development near its town center on land formerly occupied by a nine-hole golf course, while in Mountlake Terrace a nine-hole golf course was converted into a 55 acre passive park, expanding the footprint of Lake Ballinger Park and increasing the amount of land dedicated to wildlife habitat.

Beyond actions taken by other cities, however, recent developments have put new urgency on examining the future of publicly owned golf courses in Seattle. On August 6th, 2021, the Sound Transit Board voted to approve plans to keep the expansion of Link light rail mostly on schedule and actually accelerating 130th Street Station. This means that two light rail stations will be opening within walking distance of Jackson Park golf course: NE 145th Street Station in 2024 and 130th Street Station in 2025. The City has been engaging in planning efforts around these station areas, including a community survey soliciting feedback on proposals to change the surrounding zoning from single-family to commercial/mixed use and multi-family residential zoning that closed in late July of this year.

The millions of dollars in public funding that have gone into the development of these light rail stations has spurred housing advocates to call for a reevaluation of the 160 acre, 27-hole Jackson Park golf course in particular. In an op-ed for the The Urbanist, titled “Let’s Tee Off for Housing,” Ryan DiRaimo makes the case for converting the course into a new eco-district that could house 35,000 people on the 60 acres of fairways and preserve the remaining 100 forested acres as public open space, all of which would be within a short walk of rapid transit.

DiRaimo also supports removing the name of genocidal U.S. president Andrew Jackson from the park, suggesting renaming it after Jim Ellis, a Seattle planner who dedicated his professional life to the expansion of the mass transit in the region and set the groundwork for today’s Link light rail system.

Ensuring that affordable housing makes its way into the mix would be an important way for the City to further distance itself from a legacy of exclusion, and enable a diverse array of humans — and wildlife — to benefit from this publicly owned land.

Regardless of the particular solution, the status quo of an unpopular, money-sucking public golf course next to a soon-to-open light rail station is untenable. The first planning concern within a short walk of a transit station should be increasing the count of human residents rather than raccoons and coyotes.

The post Seattle Parks Vaunts Golf Courses as Urban Wildlife Habitat, But Some Cry Foul first appeared on The Urbanist.

On March 18th, the Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) released a 35-page draft plan for station area planning at 130th Street and 148th Street light rail stops. The draft plan didn’t settle many questions, such as how extensive the rezoning would ultimately be, how big future buildings could be, how to fund the mobility plan, and what the fate of the Jackson Park Golf Course would be. This minor milestone in the lengthy Seattle process means we’re likely three years out (maybe more) from passing station area plans and potentially rezoning these largely single-family areas. The one exception is the block across from 130th Street Station that the plan recommends for an earlier rezoning with an eye toward equitable transit oriented development and winning support for an early opening from the Sound Transit Board.

The City’s announcement stressed the 10-minute walkshed of the stations, but OPCD’s Patrice Carroll said the study area is wider than that, leaving more extensive changes on the table. A strict 10-minute walkshed could be pretty limiting, especially since the I-5 freeway trench cuts a gash right through the study area, spewing air and noise pollution in the vicinity. Reassurances aside, the current plan doesn’t seem to imagine significant zoning changes in the entire half-mile radiuses, let alone beyond it. Haller Lake and Olympic Hills could largely stay the same.

In his foreword to the draft plan, OPCD Director Sam Assefa made the case for designing complete neighborhoods, arguing the Covid pandemic had underscored the need.

“We have all been struggling during the devastating economic fallout from this disaster, and many of us have been directly impacted by illness or the loss of a loved one. The pain we are all feeling is very present and very real. In many ways, it makes a station area planning work like this seem less timely,” Assefa said. “And yet, something interesting is happening in our city. The number of commuters — by transit or by private vehicle — has fallen dramatically. Many of us are working or attending school from home. We are spending much more time in the neighborhood shopping and recreating. We begin to see more clearly the benefit of a complete neighborhood where we can meet our daily needs without the use of a car.”

“In that respect, this station area planning process could not be coming at a better time,” Assefa concluded. “This is our chance to imagine a transit-oriented community, better walking and biking connections.”

When will 130th Street Station open?

Sound Transit’s Lynnwood Link light rail extension is scheduled to open in 2024, which includes the 148th Street Station in South Shoreline just across the border from Seattle. The opening date for 130th Street Station isn’t certain yet, since it was an infill station added with the later Sound Transit 3 package — currently undergoing a budget realignment process. Transit advocates pushed Sound Transit to open 130th station, which was originally tabbed for a 2031 opening, concurrently with Lynnwood Link. Pinehurst-based organizer Renee Staton made the case in The Urbanist back in 2015, stressing it was an excellent location to make bus connections and expanded light rail’s accessibility for people walking and biking, too.

Six years later, Staton’s reaction was the City should advance some changes faster than it appears to be.

“Assuming that the Sound Transit Board continues to be committed to 130th Station, there is strong community support for rezoning and redevelopment in the 130th Station walkshed, not just in the small parcel that is being identified for rezoning now,” Staton said in a written statement.

Last year, Sound Transit did decide to alter Lynnwood Link designs so that the station could open with minimal disruption to the line, but stopped short of moving up the time table for opening 130th Street Station. Early indications are that Sound Transit’s metrics will work against infill stations and rank them as low priority (one reason is that Sound Transit’s equity analysis only studied a one-mile radius, leaving out more racially and economically diverse populations of Bitter Lake and Lake City). However, the decision will ultimately be decided by boardmembers, not staff metrics.

Councilmember Debora Juarez, who represents District 5 (the far north of Seattle) and served on the Sound Transit Board, has been a major advocate for building the 130th Street Station and opening it early. Juarez issued a supportive statement to accompany the draft plan release that also reiterated the case for an accelerated opening of 130th Street Station. “We cannot wait seven more years for accessible mobility options,” she noted.

“North Seattle is ready for growth and economic recovery,” Councilmember Juarez said. “This draft plan promises a one-stop shopping and living experience — where you can pick up your child from daycare after work, swing by the grocery store, and take a walk through your neighborhood park on your way home. It’s clear that folks want a more walkable, more connected eco-friendly way-of-life, and this draft plan is our blueprint for making it a reality.”

What buildings are allowed now and likely in rezoning?

While there aren’t any major business districts or urban villages in the immediate vicinity of either light rail station, there are a few clusters of multifamily zoning. The current zoning map shows some Midrise zoning east of 12th Avenue NE opposite the golf course and a small band of Neighborhood Commercial 55 with Lowrise zoning near Roosevelt Way and 10th Avenue NE. Some of the single-family homes near the golf course are luxurious and valued in excess of one million dollars, but other parts of the study area still hold onto their working class roots.

“I’ve been organizing in Pinehurst for over 20 years and this neighborhood has been a community of largely modest income people and many thriving immigrant communities,” Staton said. “I’ve watched many longtime friends and neighbors leave due to rent increases or no longer being able to afford upkeep on their homes.”

Staton argued that station area plan could unlock social housing investments that could stem displacement from the community.

“We need more subsidized affordable housing in the community as soon as possible,” she added. “I would personally love to see non-profit affordable housing providers engaging now with the community and targeting sites. 15th Ave NE just south of 145th seems a location that would make sense to redevelop now for this as there are large underdeveloped parcels.”

The draft plan highlights the concept of missing middle housing, which ranges from duplexes to small apartment buildings (no larger than 20 units in Opticos Design framework). OPCD still envisions some areas with greater density than that framework.

“There are some larger parcels where certainly we’d like to see redevelopment at higher densities, and again there are some areas that we’ve explored with the community already where we want to see retail at street level,” Carroll said. “We’re not going to see retail everywhere along those east-west corridors, but the places where it’s important, and people certainly zeroed in on 5th Avenue right across from the station.”

Alfred Twu’s Missing Large Housing concept may offer some opportunities for Seattle to increase retail and access to these stations and makes the case that retail density could be higher thanks to housing density.

The existing patches of Midrise zoning in the area have yet to be redeveloped, though they already host older lowrise apartment buildings hemmed in by the golf course to the west and busy 145th Street to the north. Carroll suggests housing demand in the area isn’t yet high enough to support midrise (or highrise) development. However, that could change in a hurry once light rail opens.

OPCD argues there’s still time and that they are not behind schedule for passing zoning changes, even though 148th Street Station will open in 2024 and 130th Street Station could open a year after if advocates succeed in securing an early opening. Seattle is well behind Shoreline, which upzoned the 185th Street Station area in 2015 and around 148th Street Station in 2016 and has seen a wave of apartment development, which Shaun Kuo covered yesterday.

“We usually see a market start to respond to a station about three years before it opens. So that’s why right now you’re seeing a lot of activity in Shoreline. A lot of townhomes getting built around both of their stations,” Carroll said. “The current plan is for 130th Street Station to open in 2031, so the market might start responding in 2028. We have plenty of time to get zoning in place by then.”

“If it opens in 2025 or 2026, I think we’re still on time to get some zoning in place before that early opening could occur,” she added.

The fate of Jackson Park Golf Course

OPCD largely punted on the issue of Jackson Park Golf Course. The perimeter trail around the course is highlighted as a tier one priority project in the mobility plan, but Carroll said the reuse of the course is up to Seattle Parks. The department does have a new strategic plan, she said, and is looking to rethink single use sites (e.g., a massive golf course). It seems like shrinking the size of the golf course to allow some cut through paths (since the fenced off course obstructs both stations’ walksheds), publicly accessible park space, and soccer fields that would be more widely used than a niche sport in golf. City data shows golf is waning in popularity, mostly played by wealthy men, and in need of infusion in public money to support its operations and capital upgrades. Still, OPCD is aware of no specific reuse plans for the golf course, Carroll said.

Architect and advocate Ryan DiRaimo has also proposed a more audacious plan to redevelop the golf course with apartment blocks, which would require a change in City law around reusing park space. Thornton Creek goes through the southwestern edge of the golf course and acts as a stormwater management facility operated by Seattle Utilities, Carroll said. The creek watershed is an environmentally critical area, but the rest of the course is not designated as such, Carroll said — not necessarily precluding structures from added.

Renaming Jackson Park Golf Course is also up to Seattle Parks, OPCD said, and didn’t seem to be on their radar. Jackson Park is named the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act and lead several genocidal campaigns against Indigenous tribes, including the Cherokee Trail of Tears. As such, racism isn’t just baked into the land use and zoning in North Seattle, it’s embedded in the name of the largest public property in the area.

How soon land use and zoning changes happen will likely hinge on whether 130th Street Station opens nearly concurrently with the rest of Lynnwood Link in 2025, in 2031, or later. The Urbanist has urged Sound Transit to move up the station opening date, and hopefully the Sound Transit Board can put together a budget to make that work.

OPCD is welcoming comments on the draft plan via an online survey or via email. Email a letter or comments to patrice.carroll@seattle.gov.

The post Draft Plan Inches Toward Modest Upzones around 130th and 148th Street Link Stations first appeared on The Urbanist.

Too good to be true?

Not according to the King County Department of Assessments, which has set the “true and fair value” for the 221 acres of the Broadmoor and Sandpoint Country clubs at less than a dollar per square foot, $8.5 million–a massive discount versus every other parcel in the city. Single family parcels in Seattle run $20 per square foot on the low side, climbing up to more than $150. Even the city-owned golf courses are valued at $12.50 per square foot! As a result of this low-ball valuation, the private courses pay less than 6% of the property tax they should.

Don’t just get mad at the breadth of the current tax giveaway. Take action.

Are we being sandbagged?

So let’s rewind. The Broadmoor and Sandpoint Country Clubs are two of the largest undeveloped parcels in the city. Others include cemeteries, the four city-owned golf courses, and large city parks, such as Discovery, Seward, Carkeek, and the Arboretum. Unlike all of these, the two private clubs exclude the public entirely. So, what’s the big deal? The owners of private clubs are free to not open their land to the public. Right? 

Yes. But here’s what isn’t permitted: sweetheart tax deals that violate the requirements of “true and fair value” (WAC 458-07-030) and “uniformity” (RCW 84.08.010). The Broadmoor and Sandpoint Country Clubs appear to be getting a massive pennies-on-the-dollar tax deal. Broadmoor is valued at 76 cents per square foot; Sandpoint at $1.03. If you live in Othello, on average land is valued at about $20; Magnolia, $60; Wallingford, $100; Thornton Creek, $30. 

The numbers are pretty shocking, but even these current low golf course valuations are a marked increase from just a few years ago. Between 2010 and 2012, unlike most of the city, the Broadmoor assessment plummeted 68% and Sandpoint 85%, recovering in 2018. Coincidentally, the employee responsible for assessing the Broadmoor and Sandpoint Country Clubs lived in Broadmoor. (She no longer works for the department.)

This is a big charge. What’s the evidence? 

The King County Department of Assessments is responsible for valuing all property in the county. Here’s what the Department of Assessments says about how it values golf courses in the 2019 Area 343 Report: “The Assessor’s office values most golf courses as if they are the highest and best use of the site. The golf course land is valued accordingly, using large acreage land sales to establish land value. Both the cost approach (replacement cost new less depreciation method or RCNLD) and the sales comparison approach were utilized in the valuation of the golf courses.”

So let’s look at the 35 properties the Assessor has used as comparable parcels (page 13 in the Area Report). The average sales price is 70 cents per square foot. The average value of the 10 largest (20-40 acre) properties is 88 cents per square foot. Most of these parcels are in very rural areas outside Issaquah, Duvall, Auburn, and Maple Valley, where surrounding parcels are large, and zoning restricts development–sometimes to as little as one home for every 5 to 10 acres. It’s debatable that large vacant lots in rural areas are useful for setting the value of a large vacant parcel within Seattle city limits. For example, property values in downtown Seattle are about 30% higher than in downtown Bellevue. So it stands to reason that a large undeveloped parcel in Seattle is worth more than one in rural King County. 

And indeed, the data backs this up. The most recent comparable sale used for golf courses is inside North Bend city limits, not far off I-90, and next to a park and river. It sold for $4.20 per square foot, for development as housing. More importantly, the Talaris Conference Center, a large parcel in Seattle’s Laurelhurst neighborhood that was recently acquired by housing developers just sold for $20.14 per square foot (the assessed value is $33.49.) 

Yet somehow, the King County Assessor asserts that an undeveloped parcel in North Bend, 32 miles from downtown Seattle, is worth 552% more than the Broadmoor Country Club, and that Sandpoint Country Club is worth just 5% of the nearby Talaris. 

The valuation differences are even more dramatic when we look at the single-family parcels near the two courses. These parcels around Broadmoor, which are also zoned SF 7200, are valued at $151.90 per square foot (almost 200 times more); the single family parcels around Sandpoint are valued at $100.52 per square foot (97 times more). Even Danny Westneat inThe Seattle Times tacitly agrees the private courses are woefully undervalued.

What would it mean if the two private courses were valued according to the sales of the North Bend and Talaris properties? A 400% to 2,600% increase in value. If Broadmoor were valued according to the sale of the recent large Talaris property, its assessment would increase from $4 million to more than $100 million!

Why does this matter?

The undervaluing of the private Seattle Golf Courses means you, as a renter or homeowner, pay more property tax. Washington State property tax for a given parcel is based on two things: the government budget for a tax district and the value of the given parcel as a percentage of the value of all property. Most simply, if the county budget is $500, and all property in the county is valued at $1,000, and my parcel is valued at $100, then my tax is $50 with a tax rate of 10%—the math is ($100/$1,000)*$500. But say the total property value in the county increases to $1,100 (because we correctly assess golf courses), then my tax drops: ($100/$1,100)*$500=$45. What will the private courses pay in property tax for the 2019 assessment year? A combined total of $78,505.44. For comparison just two single-family parcels in Broadmoor that total just 0.6% the size of the golf course pay more tax than the entire golf course! 

If the private courses had been valued like the North Bend or Talaris properties, or the average home parcels nearby, they would have paid dramatically more tax.

But is this a fair critique, to compare the assessment of a golf course (which is zoned as Single Family) with the nearby single family properties? The Assessor would say, no: 

“Golf courses, especially private ones, have very restrictive uses and convenants on what they can be used for and junkyards don’t. You could take the junkyard and turn it into a commercial building. You can’t do that with a privately held golf course.” (May 4, 2020)

“As I said, private golf courses = private golf courses. That meets the uniformity under state law. That’s what we must do. I suppose you could try to turn it into housing. But you’ll have to get ALL the owners of the golf course to agree.” (May 4, 2020)

Here’s the tax subsidy

Okay, fair enough. So let’s compare the Broadmoor and Sandpoint Country Clubs with four nearby courses, Seattle’s municipal courses. The municipal courses are assessed between 1,200% and 8,200% more!

And what would this mean for taxes? Were we to value the private courses as we do Jefferson Park, $15 per square foot, the courses would pay $1.2 million more in tax per year. Instead, the private courses pay 6% of the tax they should. This represents a massive subsidy for private and exclusive country clubs that other private clubs like the Seattle Yacht Club and Seattle Tennis Club don’t get. 

For further comparison, the King County Department of Assessments has also assigned a value to Seattle Parks and cemeteries. All of them, including the Arboretum and Magnuson Park which are adjacent to the two private golf courses, are valued significantly higher. The Assessor’s assertion that the Seattle private golf courses are valued according to the value of large undeveloped parcels fails the sniff test.

So what should we do?

The City of Seattle should buy Broadmoor and Sandpoint golf courses via eminent domain, using MHA funds to do so, and convert them into housing and parks. 

Seriously. As The Seattle Times points out, buying new parks is normally extraordinarily expensive. But here’s an opportunity for us to buy parkland for cheap. Per the Department of Assessment, the golf course land is worth less than $5 million each. If we tack on the club buildings, the value of both golf courses amounts to $20.5 million. In 2019, Seattle brought in $15 million in fees from developers to pay for affordable housing. So let’s use 2020’s MHA funds to eminent domain the courses for their assessed value. After we purchase the land at the King County Assessor’s “true and fair value,” we can transform half of the sites into mixed-income environmentally sustainable passivehaus housing, and turn the rest into parkland. The housing will bring in revenue that will eventually recoup the cost and generate additional revenue for more housing, as well as increase the tax base dramatically more than the current golf course. 

Ah, “But this is Seattle,” you protest. “The country clubs will fight the sale!”  

They may. But will their argument hold water? That there’s no public purpose? But we’re in a housing crisis, and we need more land for homes. And our per capita park acreage is dropping by the week as new neighbors move into the city. Both are valid reasons to eminent domain the courses. 

Or do you think that the clubs will argue that the “true and fair value” is too low?  

And that’s the point. 

If the exclusive country clubs want to argue that we should pay a higher price for their courses, let them. We can use the process to set the value to $15, $20, $50 per square foot, and the courses can finally start paying their fair share of taxes, ending this public giveaway to the super rich. 

I promised at the beginning I didn’t want you to just get angry, I wanted you to take action. What can you do? 

1. Sign this petition.
2. Contact your King County representatives and Assessor and ask for a public investigation into the true and fair valuation of the Seattle private courses.  
3. Contact your King County and Seattle representatives and ask that we eminent domain Broadmoor and Sandpoint Country Clubs for housing and public parks. 
4. Write a letter to the Seattle Times in support of buying the courses through eminent domain. Email letters@seattletimes.com and include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words. 
5. Share your support on Facebook and Twitter. 

How to find your King County and Seattle representatives: 

• King County Executive Dow Constantine: kcexec@kingcounty.gov; Twitter: @kcexec 
• Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan; jenny.durkan@seattle.gov; Twitter: @MayorJenny  
• Find your King County Council Member: https://www.kingcounty.gov/council/councilmembers/find_district.aspx 
• Contact Seattle City Council: http://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council 
• Find your Washington state representatives: https://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/ 

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that it was an employee of the Department of Assessments who lived in Broadmoor and was responsible for valuing golf courses. To be clear, the King County Assessor John Wilson has never lived in Broadmoor and addressed the conflict upon taking office.

The post It’s Time to End Public Subsidies for Private Golf Courses first appeared on The Urbanist.

By the year 2025, you will be able to take a 15-minute train ride from Downtown Seattle to a stop adjacent to 160 acres of publicly-owned land. There is no housing here, no shops, no roads, and the property is operating in the red. I’m talking about Jackson Park Municipal Golf Course. Golf participation isn’t just down in Seattle, it’s down nationwide. Whether it’s the time commitment, or the high cost it takes just to buy equipment, golf is bleeding participants and city money and Seattle has yet to come to grips with this reality.

The City of Seattle has begun to study what to do with excess publicly-owned property. Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda has brilliantly proposed leveraging surplus public properties for dense affordable housing. With the land already acquired, the city saves precious housing funds and gets to decide how it’s developed.

Seattle Must Leverage Its Assets

Golf participation on our municipal courses is in freefall, but Seattle’s population continues to rise. While we have a surplus in publicly-owned land, we have a shortage in housing. So, what if instead of hopping off the light rail and seeing a golf course, we enter a dense, vibrant walkable neighborhood free of car dependency?  

Imagine living in a community where instead of the 15-minute neighborhood, you were in the five-minute neighborhood. You hop off the train, pick up some groceries, run to the bank, wave to your neighbors, see children at play, and walk into your home without ever needing to turn the ignition key. This isn’t just an unachievable utopia, it’s how people live in Barcelona, in Paris, in Rome, in Tokyo, and in New York City. Increasingly it’s how people live in some of the most walkable parts of Seattle.

Jackson Park Golf Course consumes toxic pesticides and enough water to fill a small lake, but it has the bones of a good park once we cease the destructive practices needed to maintain a golf course. The trees rise as high as 100 feet and offer a wonderful habitat for nature and human comfort. But those trees only cover 39% of the land. By setting aside 60 acres of the course’s open land for housing, we can create home for 35,000 people, secure affordable housing, provide space for 750 businesses, and preserve more than 90% of the trees for large parks and pedestrian-oriented streets.

Courtyards, woonerfs, boulevards, and large open spaces, the trees would tie together an ecodistrict focused on sustainability. Walkable neighborhoods don’t require street parking and the ecodistrict would supply only a few underground spaces on the edges for residents who can’t make other modes work. Utility vehicles, deliveries, and other necessary auto access can occur through dedicated service streets. Some deliveries may be done by bicycle and retractable bollards would allow for emergency vehicles to enter necessary access points.

Jim Ellis Park Is Born

Developing the course to house a dense neighborhood would also free up land for large public parks. Right now, Seattle declares a golf course a “park,” but you can’t have a picnic on a fairway, or toss a frisbee to a dog, and you certainly can’t get your family on without paying more than $100 in fees. This sounds less like a public park and more like Disneyland. Sixty acres of development leaves 100 acres of open park space. This would benefit the community and the surrounding neighborhoods, businesses, and anyone who got off at the new light rail stop to take a stroll.

It’d also be great opportunity to rename the park. Rather than taking its name from Andrew Jackson–one of our most genocidal presidents–the largest open space could be named after the iconic local transportation advocate Jim Ellis who fought to upgrade Seattle’s infrastructure and convinced a slim majority of King County voters to support a rapid transit network in 1968–if only the threshold hadn’t been set at 60%. Without the groundwork Ellis helped lay, these light rail stops likely aren’t built and Sound Transit may have never existed.

In addition to Jim Ellis Park, smaller parks and open spaces can be enjoyed by the residents and surrounding community. As Seattle commits to make the popular Stay Healthy Streets permanent, the ecodistrict would feature dozens of car-free right-of-ways with large indigenous trees and plenty of space for markets to pop up and for restaurants to spill out.  

Let’s Build a Sustainable Community

People and vibrancy is what makes cities feel large. Barcelona and Manhattan don’t feel big because of the amount of land they consume, they feel big because there is a lot of dense activity. The one thing they have in common is people and places and how easily the two mix. A ten-minute walk has an enormously positive effect on someone’s mood. So why aren’t we designing our neighborhoods to feature people, safety, and vibrancy?

The most sustainable thing we can do is house people in dense walkable neighborhoods. What Seattle needs is more housing and affordable housing. Public land can leverage this necessary supply and build a mixed-income neighborhood with secured affordable housing. Doing so will fill the need for housing supply of all types and collect millions of dollars to build more transit-oriented affordable housing. In addition to housing supply, this ecodistrict would become an economic engine for the city, supplying thousands of jobs and creating a sustainable neighborhood and tax base.  

With 2.5 million square feet of roof space to feature solar panels, over half of the power supply would be generated on site with passive house principles lowering energy needs. Rain capturing would supply fresh water, and the gray water captured from showers and sinks would supply non-potable uses and keep on-site vegetation healthy. If we build with mass timber, the structures alone would sequester 630 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 1.5 trillion miles traveled by car.

The neighborhood would create housing in our city rather than pushing people into sprawl. For 35,000 to live in this neighborhood we only need 60 acres, and it would be designed around the freedom of transit and walkability. To house them in suburban sprawl, it would take 3,000 acres and they’d be limited to car dependency. Those 35,000 people are moving to the region either way, do we want them to live in Seattle or the suburban fringe encroaching on wilderness? 

Seattle has made planning mistakes in the past. But here is our chance to learn from those errors and work towards solving a housing and climate crisis. Developing public land near transit stops for dense, walkable and sustainable housing shouldn’t be a pipe dream, it should be par for the course. 

The post Let’s Tee Off for Housing first appeared on The Urbanist.

A number of candidates immediately jumped into the fray, including former councilmember Heidi Wills on her campaign facebook page. “The City is wasting time and money studying the best use of our city’s golf courses. These green jewels are our inheritance,” she opined.
 
Merely studying what the best use of rarely used 528 acres (11%) of Seattle’s city-owned open space — amidst an open space shortage, a housing crisis, and rapidly devolving climate situation— is a waste of time and money, Wills alleges. The city’s report is mostly full of fluff, seemingly tilted to elevate the importance and forthcoming increased usage of municipal golf into the future, in order to justify the large expenditures it will require in coming years. Unsurprisingly, the data indicates the opposite.

Golf’s Severe Lack of Diversity

The data shows a disturbing lack of diversity, heavily tilted toward men being the dominant user — no municipal course in 2016 saw more than 17% of users were female, and half saw as little as 10%. This isn’t really surprising, golf has long had a diversity problem, as well as a troubled history of misogyny. Also worth noting, according to the report, nearly 70% of players stated they don’t actually play most of their golf in Seattle. The report doesn’t have any data on racial diversity of users, but notes that until the 1960s, minority golfers faced significant discrimination.

According to United States Golf Association, “From 1934 to 1961, the Caucasian-only clause was a part of The PGA of America’s by-laws that prevented non-whites from membership, and from competing on the PGA Tour.” In 1999, the Newstateman, in an article titled ‘No Jews on their golf courses’, wrote, “For miles along the Florida coastline, from Miami to Palm Beach, there are tangible signs of Jewish philanthropy tucked alongside clubs that still have partial or complete bans on Jewish members.” Oddly, while there is a section on history, virtually none of this is mentioned.

Despite claims that high school golf teams are a top user, in 2017, only 1.3% of rounds by high school golfers were logged: 2,703 out of 206,010 rounds. In 2016, rounds played by those 18-25 years old, were less than 3% of total rounds.

Seattle’s Golf Courses are Bleeding Money and Customers

All of the golf programs are bleeding money. Green fees are falling like a rock (16% in just two years). Operational costs are increasing. And there is a long laundry list of outstanding maintenance and facility upgrades that will push the golf programs millions of dollars into the red in coming years.

Utility costs will not be declining, and the report states, “SPU fees have increased an average of 6% a year since 2010.” The report doesn’t state how many CCF of potable water are used by the courses, but gives a cost of $520,000 for Interbay Golf Center. Backing out the cost from Seattle Public Utility’s rates, that looks to be about 60 million gallons of water. This is on top of the 37.5 inches of rain Seattle gets in an average year. How much water is 60 million gallons? The Colman Pool in West Seattle (pictured above) is roughly 500,000 gallons. It would be like filling it up, and emptying it out, 120 times — most of that occurring in summer and the shoulder seasons. Sixty million gallons is the United Nations-recommended amount of water for 12,500 people for an entire year. Interbay is only a nine-hole course!

In 2000, Seattle had 564,109 residents, and 280,000 rounds of golf were played on municipal courses. In 2017, the number of rounds dropped to 206,010 while population skyrocketed to 725,000. The report claims that between 2015 and 2017, there was a 16% drop in rounds played — however, this doesn’t take into consideration our population boom. When adjusting for population, golf saw a 43% decline between 2000 and 2017. That is a tremendous drop in less than a generation, and it likely isn’t going to change.

Climate Change Implications

Climate change is already affecting golf in Seattle. Wildfire smoke the last two years had a significant effect on the number of rounds played. That isn’t likely to change as the region gets warmer, and trees continue to die. How many rounds do you think will be played in summer when the western slopes of the Cascades start burning? It isn’t even summer yet, and wildfires have already begun to affect air quality in the region. Then there is the heat — Seattle’s heat wave last July will also not likely be an anomaly, affecting the ability of people to play golf in the summer. Changing rain patterns that see larger and more violent downpours and flooding, will also have an effect on course conditions.

Oddly, despite all of this data, the report optimistically predicts this will be the year things turn around for golf. And then a dramatic leap, followed by continued increases in usage. Literally nothing in the report points to this happening. Seattle has gotten wealthier, younger, denser — and golf is not thriving. This graph, by the way, is reminiscent of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) traffic projections.

On the question of what the golf courses should become, should they change, I have mixed feelings. Unfortunately, all of our municipal golf courses will be relatively, if not directly, adjacent to future light rail stations. Jackson Park Golf Course will have two adjacent stations. Given our compounding housing and climate crises, we should be planning for something other than golf courses. We could add ecodistricts with tens of thousands of homes directly adjacent to transit, while preserving over half of this acreage as open space and parks, ones that wouldn’t require payment in order to access, or toxic chemicals and a ridiculous amount of water to maintain. As we densify, we also have an open space shortage (and massive disparity) that will only be possible to address by removing cars from public right of ways.

That being said, three spots seem worth highlighting in this report. Interbay Golf Center is the least worst, financially. Restaurant revenue is up. Driving ranges are popular, seeing a 40% increase in revenues in just a few years. What does this mean? People want to eat and drink in parks! But it also means driving ranges are great — unlike golf courses, ranges don’t take up much space, can be urbanized, aren’t an environmental nightmare, and they’re economically accessible to a greater swath of population from beginner to expert. I didn’t learn to play golf on a course, I spent months on a driving range and pitching green. We could re-purpose the golf courses, increase the number of driving ranges, and expand access to open space for much more of the city.

Golf. Is. Dying.

CityLab reported on this very issue last year. This is not unique to Seattle, nor the US, but a global phenomenon. Much like climate change, this change is abrupt and drastic. We should be reacting to that change, not sticking our heads in the sand to preserve a floundering and inequitable status quo. Determining whether or not municipal golf courses are the ‘best use’ of public land — especially as they continue to bleed financial and water resources—is absolutely something that should be studied. It would be financially imprudent, and environmentally irresponsible, not to.

This is a cross-post from Mike Eliason’s blog on Medium.

The post Unlike Seattle, Golf Really Is Dying first appeared on The Urbanist.

All of this land is very close to current frequent transit. It is near shopping, schools and other important amenities.

If you read my Twitter account, you’ll immediately recognize that I’m talking about our public golf courses. Before I tell you more about this land, let me tell you about a couple other issues of how we distribute resources in our city.

Last year, during our mayoral primary, one candidate, Nikkita Oliver, stood out for a reason that I think got a bit lost. One example happened when Oliver spoke with members of the bike community. The fellow that runs Seattle Bike Blog, Tom Fuculoro, posted about it. The main comment that got her in trouble:

But the real tough line that got me came when she called the Ballard Missing Link a “beautification project” that is “not an immediate need” during Candidate Survivor this week (17:25 in this video).

Oliver is quoted later:

Additionally, I have to stress that our city is currently in a state of emergency around homelessness. I believe it is the duty of our city leaders to prioritize addressing these exigent human service needs first. This may require us to put some projects, like construction of bike lanes on hold in order to ensure that we have the financial resources to address the state of emergency around homelessness in our city.

The point here: if this is truly an emergency, then even some important projects aren’t important enough. Oliver got better at talking about this, and she continued to make this point.

In the summer of 2016, when the north police precinct project came out with an absurd cost, it drew the attention of many. Some believe that we have too much policing and spend too much on the police, which made the north precinct project obviously wrong. But even many folks for whom a new north precinct is a reasonable project were concerned that we were spending an outrageously large sum that could be spent on other priorities, like housing. I personally found it easily arguable that the entire precinct project should be put on hold because the police can make do with the office space they have and people forced into homelessness cannot make do.

Last year, now disgraced Mayor Murray proposed a $275 million dollar property tax levy to help pay for transitional housing, rent support and services for those without homes and similar. It was one of the first times I was impressed with Murray. A tax wouldn’t be popular but it would be doing something that was slightly better than fiddling around the edges and lamenting our lack of revenue. Of course, the reaction immediately showed it wasn’t going to go anywhere and he soon gave up on it (and soon after became ineffective due to the accusations against him). But it seemed obvious that if you own property you’re clearly doing better than someone who does not have a home at all.

When the HALA committee released their recommendations, one of them was that all residential areas in Seattle be zoned for more density including allowing duplexes and triplexes in areas that currently only allow single-family homes. This was met with immediate outrage and while Murray and others tried to push forward with that recommendation, they quickly took it off the table to appease the largely wealthy and overwhelmingly white homeowners of the city. We’re left with relatively minor zoning changes to our single-family zones that are very close to existing dense urban areas. Even that proposal is being met with legal challenges which will serve to delay and limit the proposal which can only further reduce the amount of housing that we could be building.

A couple weeks ago, I went to a public hearing in the Magnolia neighborhood about a project to decide what to do with some free land in the remnants of Fort Lawton. The history of this area of Seattle is perhaps a familiar one to much of the county:

• Native peoples who live there were ousted by largely white settlers in the 1800s.
• During the late 1800s and the early 1900s, the land for this project and what is now Discovery Park was turned over to the federal government and used for a military base including artillery ranges and housing for soldiers.
• During World War II, it was used to house prisoners, among other things.
• After World War II, it gradually became less important to the national military as a base further south took over many of its responsibilities.
• In 1972, most of the land was ceded to the city of Seattle and turned into a park.
• A remnant of this land still owned by the federal government was offered to the city of Seattle in the early 2000s if it was used for affordable housing.
• Throughout the 2000s, residents repeatedly challenged building housing here. The surrounding neighborhood had in the last century become one of the wealthiest and whitest parts of Seattle, partly due to exclusionary zoning and racial covenants which were supported by local, state and federal governmental bodies.

The hearing I went to was much different than previous ones. Nearly everyone spoke in favor of housing, hopefully much more than what they are planning to build. It was inspiring and a welcome change from the last few years when I’ve felt housing issues were hopeless to address.

So what about those golf courses? I am not exactly advocating that we convert all the golf courses to housing, though if we did we could build 28,000 housing units and still reserve half as open space. Converting “parks” space to non-parks space is hard². What I am asking is for folks to think about what our land use priorities say about us. What does it say that 1% of the usable (non-road) land in Seattle is devoted to a hobby only a small number of residents use and which you have to pay to participate in? What does it say during a housing crisis that this land is not only off limits but barely spoken about?

A popular claim in Seattle is that budgets are moral documents. Budgets seem like a boring negotiation of paying for this and that, but we are deciding who and what we support or don’t support. How we use and distribute our land is also a moral issue, one with a long history of exclusion. Despite all our wonderful parks, how we use land in Seattle shows little concern for the least well off among us. We require most of the land in Seattle used for homes to be large lots (5,000 square feet or more) and to contain no more than one detached home intended for a single family. This puts the cost of a home beyond many.

Historically, we also excluded non-white people from many of these same areas and have done little to repair this intergenerational harm. We have built relatively little public or affordable housing or provided paths to ownership for the non-wealthy. Even today, proposals to build affordable housing will result in neighborhood associations that organize to pressure it to be built elsewhere or not at all. And of course, public housing is now very expensive to build, as much as $320,000 per unit. After years of a so-called housing emergency, we need tens of thousands of units to meet the current need for affordable housing. The land is one of the largest costs to building, but even a single family home in such bad shape that it will just be torn down can cost $500,000 now.

If anyone in elected office or in a city department were to seriously propose converting even a small number of acres from our public golf courses into dense affordable housing—because surely housing for people is more important than having four golf courses—much of the city would respond with outrage. Too many in our city think we can solve the housing and homelessness issues without our wealthiest residents relinquishing our³power, privileges or resources. We care more about the privileges of single-family homeowners to only live near other single family homeowners, or the privileges of people who want to play golf, than we do the rights of people without homes. It’s reflected in how we use land and it must change.

Notes:

• [1] The 200,000 visits is likely significantly far fewer than 50,000 unique users. I have a public records request out to find out exactly how many. You can read more about the parks budget here.
• [2] There was an initiative in 1997 that requires sale or conversion of parks land to other uses to be replaced acre for acre with other park land. Golf courses are parks lands even though a tiny fraction of the city uses them and you have to pay to use their facilities.
• [3] I count my family in this group. We own our home and recently built a fancy backyard cottage. That makes us wealthy.

Rachael Ludwick is a software developer whose been working in Seattle for eight years, living in North Beacon Hill with her partner, mother, and kiddo near the future Judkins Park light rail station (2023!). She’s currently the committeewoman to the King County Democrats from 37th Legislative District Democrats.

The Fight Continues: HOMES May Rear Its Head Tax Again Soon

The post What Is A Housing Emergency Really? first appeared on The Urbanist.