But a plan to do just that at 21 intersections across Pioneer Square is not going over well with some of the neighborhood’s most high-profile voices. The Pioneer Square Preservation Board is threatening to block the project or force a costly design overhaul.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has been rolling out on-street corrals around the city, utilizing space near intersections where drivers are prohibited from parking under state law. In practice, motorists often park within the 30-foot clear zone and risk parking tickets. SDOT’s micromobility and Vision Zero safety teams are collaborating to implement the quick-build projects as a proven safety countermeasure intended to reduce both the number of crashes that happen on city streets and their severity.

In Pioneer Square, street changes need buy-in from the neighborhood’s historic preservation board, which dates to the 1970s and gives local residents and business owners significant leverage to alter projects within the neighborhood or even hit the brakes.

Despite the fact that city code codifies that one purpose of Pioneer Square’s historic district is “to avoid a proliferation of vehicular parking and vehicular-oriented uses,” projects that reallocate street space away from cars in the neighborhood often meet opposition. One clear undercurrent of this discussion is the “removal” of parking spaces — spaces where it’s mostly not legal to park but where it still happens, thanks to lax enforcement.

Data collected from Seattle’s scootershare companies in 2025 showed around 750 trips per day ending in the Pioneer Square area, or around 275,000 trips across the entire year. Scooter usage in the city continues to increase, with a 96% jump in ridership between 2023 and 2025, according to SDOT. The proliferation of scooters and bikes on sidewalk edges have raised accessibility concerns, and the SDOT sees the on-street corrals as one element scooting riders toward better behavior.

But an initial briefing this week on the proposal brought out a litany of concerns and criticisms of the design of corrals that the department intends to roll out ahead of Seattle’s first World Cup match in June, primarily along the busy First Avenue S and Occidental Avenue S corridors.

The neighborhood’s primary business advocacy group, the Alliance for Pioneer Square, came out strongly against the corrals as currently proposed, pressing for more unique designs that reflect Pioneer Square’s character. The neighborhood already has its own specially-designed bike racks, intended to blend in better with the 1890s architecture common in the area. But the group also questioned the need for additional bike parking in the neighborhood, asserting that existing racks are underutilized.

“We have consistently communicated to SDOT that the proposed signs and designs and locations, particularly those that focus on daylighting, are not appropriate interventions for Pioneer Square,” said Anahí Bendeck, the Alliance’s Design and Planning Manager. “The proposal relies heavily on utilizing the same treatments, materials, and design that is being deployed citywide, without sufficient modification to reflect the neighborhood’s historic context or the actual lived conditions. And we just believe that this one-size-fits-all approach is fundamentally misaligned with the character and the knowledge of the neighborhood.”

Comments in opposition were also read into the record from Pioneer Square business owners, including the co-owner of Magic Mouse Toys, and the co-owner of Friend Museum. Neither business returned a request for comment from The Urbanist on their specific concerns. SDOT plans three corrals at First and Yesler near Magic Mouse, with another planned across the street from Friend Museum at First and King.

Comments were not universally against the proposal, however. In addition to supportive comments by a representative from Lime, Cascade Bicycle Club testified in favor.

“We believe these corrals are a practical, safety focused use of curb space. The majority of proposed sites utilize existing furniture zones or daylight intersections. Daylighting improves visibility at corners, reduces turning conflicts, conflicts, and helps prevent crashes,” Cascade’s Rachel Schaeffer said.

Schaeffer referenced a fatal crash just this week in Capitol Hill, where a turning driver struck and killed a 27-year-old woman at Bellevue Avenue and E Pine Street. “These are small design changes that can have lifesaving impacts.”

While the board wasn’t asked to make a decision Wednesday, numerous board members signaled that they wanted to see the proposal revamped to respond to community concerns.

“We’ve received more comments on this project than I’ve ever seen come in. And there’s deep concerns in the community, and a lot of it was feeling like, there needs to be more robust outreach to stakeholders and communication,” board chair Maureen Elenga said. “Out in front of Pioneer Park […] having that cluster [of corrals] up from there, I think really changes the character. Concern with the materiality of it, these plastic Omega posts are not really compatible with the neighborhood. And I’m wondering, what is the need for bike racks in this situation? We have parking for 200 and some bikes already. So if this is for the rideshare, nobody locks those up and they’re freestanding.”

“I’m fully persuaded by the public comments from the Pioneer Square businesses and from the National Park Service through the Klondike Historic National Park that the proposal is contrary to the nature of the historic district,” board member Catherine Walker said via written comments read by the city employee administering the meeting.

This isn’t the first time that an SDOT project has faced a tough crowd at the Pioneer Square preservation board. A plan to reconfigure S Main Street to upgrade a heavily used bus stop was delayed and nearly fell by the wayside after concerns were raised by nearby business owners and fretted over at the preservation board. Purported impacts to drivers from a proposed bike connection between Occidental Avenue and Western Avenue is a one reason that project hasn’t yet been completed.

Elsewhere in downtown, SDOT is currently navigating the Pike Place Historical Commission’s approval to add vehicle barricades at that popular tourist destination ahead of FIFA. Many of the same aesthetic concerns raised in Pioneer Square are being echoed several blocks north when it comes to changes to the streetscape, which is very different than it was during the time periods that both historic districts were created to highlight. When aesthetic gripes are front-and-center, it’s often hard to suss out whether they stem from a genuine concern over “character” or a simple desire to maintain the status quo.

The proposal will likely see one more briefing before the board is asked to vote. Comments can be submitted to the Pioneer Square Preservation Board on its website.

The post SDOT Bike Corral Plan Draws Fire in Pioneer Square first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Seattle City Council meeting this Tuesday also became an unexpected flashpoint in the battle between housing advocates and historic preservationists. The historic preservationists won this round. In a 7-2 vote, councilmembers rejected a proposal from Councilmember Tammy Morales to lift historic landmark development controls on a one-story Walgreens drive thru on the edge of South Lake Union, instead opting to preserve the building. Morales’ bill would have cleared a path to building a 16-story residential tower on the site with fewer hurdles. (Author’s note: I penned an op-ed and submitted public testimony in favor of redeveloping the entire site rather than treating as sacrosanct a non-descript old drive-thru bank turned Walgreens.)

More on that after digging into the Challenge Seattle report.

Challenge Seattle signals support for aggressive zoning reform

Zoning reform has already earned strong backing from urbanists, housing advocates, and organized labor. In addition to translating several broad policy suggestions to a more granular level, the Challenge Seattle report signals that business leaders support this zoning push, as well.

“The solution to the housing affordability crisis starts with zoning,” Challenge Seattle writes in first takeaway of the executive summary. “Zoning reform is the critical enabler for removing regulatory barriers standing in the way of the private market producing more housing units. In the context of Washington, we would need to change zoning laws to allow for more density and re-zone more land for multi-family residential uses.”

A statewide zoning policy could have huge implications for housing supply, the reports notes, pointing to California’s recent reforms to allow housing on commercial corridors.

“On Zoning: >90% of Mercer Island and >70% of Seattle and Bellevue are zoned as single-family,” the executive summary continues. “Up-zoning these areas will unlock a significant amount of housing supply. To the south, California recently passed Senate Bill 6 authorizing residential housing projects in commercial corridors otherwise zoned for large retail and office buildings; by some estimates, this new law could produce up to 2.4 million new units.”

The report also recommends waiving parking requirements (which add considerably to housing costs) and accelerating and streamlining local permitting processes for housing development. One bill at the state legislature (HB 1026) seeks to tackle the design review reform question, but getting the specifics right will be crucial in order to actually shorten timelines and reduce permitting uncertainty.

An earlier report from Challenge Seattle had been a bit more pessimistic about the prospects of zoning reform and building enough in-fill housing in existing cities, instead arguing for brand new “hub cities” built from scratch along a new high speed rail line in the I-5 corridor. The new report may have heard the criticism and seems more focused on working within existing built urban environments.

Deeper into the appendices, the new report walks through those hypothetical developer scenarios (or pro formas, in development industry lingo) that seek to show the cost of various regulatory policies, such as parking requirements and impact fees, which is recommends decreasing or waiving. As a more centrist take on policy, the report is skeptical of rent control or stabilization policies, trying to dispatch it with traditional classical economics arguments (some of which subsequent research has cast doubt on).

On the other hand, the report underscores the negative impact the housing crisis has on communities of color, who are much less likely to own their homes and miss the benefit of rapidly appreciating prices.

All in all, the added voice in the chorus calling for statewide zoning reform is a welcome development to the Homes for WA coalition.

Seattle Council chooses preservation over transit-oriented development

Councilmember Tammy Morales’ proposal to fully removing historic landmark status of Walgreens on Denny Way was blocked by an amendment from Councilmember Lisa Herbold that does allow a nearly 12,000-square-foot parking lot on the site to be redeveloped. A further amendment from Councilmember Andrew Lewis also removed development controls on the drive thru driveway and the signage on the site, hypothetically adding space for another 30 homes or so. Thus, a smaller redevelopment project will still be possible on the site, but the building itself will continue to face development controls via its continued landmark status.

Morales expressed her disappointment in the vote, in which only Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda joined her in opposing Herbold’s substitute amendment.

“We are in a housing crisis,” Morales said in a tweet. “While I’ve passed every piece of landmark legislation that’s come before my committee, it’s not good policy to sacrifice the potential for hundreds of homes in the densest neighborhood in Washington State to protect a Walgreens.”

The site is adjacent to the RapidRide E Line, the region’s busiest bus, and will be a few blocks of a light rail station once Ballard Link is built.

While arguing against Herbold’s amendment, Mosqueda noted that Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) contributions — which amount to about $3.5 million in a full buildout of zoned capacity — would also be jeopardized or reduced by imposing the controls, cut nearly in half if a project were to materialize at all.

Councilmembers had a difference of opinions about how big of a drag the landmark development controls would be on the building. Herbold, echoing historic preservationists who called in to testify at the meeting, argued that imposing landmark controls on the building but developing the parking lot would actually result in more housing via a transfer of development rights arrangement. Herbold’s math appeared to switch from full-sized units — including some multi-bedroom apartments — to micro-apartments of about 300 square feet in size to make the unit numbers work.

Actual developers and development professionals were skeptical that such a scenario would actually play out in practice. In fact, land use attorney Jessica Clawson said that a tower would not be buildable with the landmark controls in place because the tower would be too skinny to efficiently use the space and thus wouldn’t “pencil out” as profitable.

Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Sara Nelson seemed to be swayed by Herbold’s arguments, and also stressed the need to balance housing needs with proper process and historic preservation needs. Lewis and Strauss said they wouldn’t have supported Herbold’s amendment without Lewis’ additional amendment layered on top of it, which passed unanimously.

Councilmember Kshama Sawant, though a staunch socialist, supported the vote to preserve the historic drive-thru bank built in 1950. She laid out her own unique case for doing so, arguing that market-rate development isn’t part of the solution and doesn’t matter to Seattle’s housing affordability crisis and that the council should bow to the landmarks board and focus on building social housing.

Original sponsor Morales has also been outspoken in favor of social housing, and pushed unsuccessfully for an amendment funding a new social housing team at the Office of Housing in the last budget cycle. She had a different take on historic preservation, however. Social housing built on the site would be equally constrained by landmark controls, and the larger battle about how wide of a net to cast when preserving old buildings could impact many potential social housing sites down the road.

The post Housing Notes: Council Preserves Drive Thru, Challenge Seattle Report Backs Zoning Overhaul first appeared on The Urbanist.

Unfortunately, it’s not clear which Cascadian city we’re talking about. That “Chinatown Ruined” commentary has been made in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC. All three have large traditional Chinatowns that have been the focus of increased crime and the speculation that goes along with it. Too-liberal policies and decriminalization of misbehavior have drawn the ire of opinion writers looking for targets to blame. Trite assumptions morph into racist stereotypes and hate crimes.

In some ways, the Chinatowns have outgrown the cities. With 465,000 King County residents claiming heritage from many different parts of Asia, neither the space or the blanket term “Chinatown” can cover them all. Neighborhoods and very good restaurants headed north along SR99 or out towards Redmond are testament to new generations decamping to the suburbs. The same can be said for Richmond outside of Vancouver and the Jade District in Southeast Portland. Frankly, the more we say about the dim sum in Richmond, the less we can eat. That’s just tragic.

But the close-in, traditional Chinatowns are the consistent focus of media coverage about crime, homelessness, and drug use. Given the very general nature of the complaints and the very different specifics of crime rates and drug policy in each city, perhaps it is time to consider how the traditional Chinatowns are experiencing similar trends for other reasons. Not based on ethnicity, but on the very similar structural issues that formed them and kept them as enclaves. 

These are the continent’s oldest Chinatowns located in very young Pacific Northwest cities. They are facing problems because they do not succumb to the same fast, disposable expansion the metro areas have become accustomed. If the cities stop throwing the same nonsensical ideas around, Cascadia’s Chinatowns offer the cities lessons in neighborhood preservation and the failure of trying to bulldoze one’s way into the future.

Enclave Encircled

Structurally, Cascadian Chinatowns are remarkably similar. Due to their age, they are appendages of the oldest part of each city. At the same time, each is curtailed by highway and transit infrastructure. 

Chinatown in Portland is unfortunately the least cohesive of the three and the only one between the downtown and the city’s waterway, sandwiched north of downtown and east of the Pearl District against the rail and surface highways that run along the Willamette River. Combined with the historic Old Town neighborhood, there are 3,600 residents. The city’s One Point of Contact campsite report showed almost 50 campsites in the neighborhood, where the city has engaged in sweeps.

In Seattle, the Chinatown-International District is up the hill from Elliott Bay and the historic Pioneer Square, separated by rail and the wide 4th Avenue corridor. It is the consolidation of Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon, which are roughly separated by I-5 and Jackson Streets. The community of 4,600 is 43% Asian, 20% Black, and 27% White. The city’s absolutely garbage homelessness dashboard consolidates all the Downtown Neighborhoods together, showing 168 campsites were closed across downtown through September 2022. Clusters are apparent in the CID. 

In Vancouver, rail runs along the south side of Burrard Inlet, with the historic Gastown adjacent, then Chinatown to the south. The neighborhood extends around Andy Livingstone Park to the Georgia and Dunsmir Viaducts marking the southern neighborhood boundary. There are between 1,500 and 24,000 residents of Chinatown, depending who is counting. Five of the city’s 18 shelters are located within two blocks of the neighborhood.

Highways present significant barriers to each of the enclaves. Portland’s Chinatown receives ramps and traffic from the Steel Bridge, Burnside Bridge, and Broadway Bridge, as well as being bounded by the broad Naito Parkway and Burnside Street. Vancouver’s Chinatown is bordered to the south by the Dunsmir Viaduct and Georgia Viaduct, just as they lift off from surface highways to wrap around Rodgers Arena and into downtown. Seattle, of course, went above and beyond by driving Interstate 5 through the heart of the district.

With cars comes parking. An entire block of 4th Avenue between Couch Street and Davis Street in Portland is a surface parking lot. If you can’t get into the surface parking in Seattle’s King Street lot, Uwajimaya around the corner validates for its 100 spaces. Vancouver’s city-owned Chinatown Plaza hosts some ground floor retail under four stories and 930 parking spaces.

The oddity is that, for each of these neighborhoods, transit is not lacking. Due to their proximity to downtown, each city’s Chinatown is a hub of buses and fixed transit. The stops are just designed to move a lot of people through. Portland’s Max light rail has four stops in the district, three as the Yellow and Green lines serve the train station; one on the Blue and Red lines before those tracks head out of town. Vancouver’s Chinatown is served by a Rapidbus stop just before the downtown loop, and one Sky Train stop that it shares with the Stadiums. Seattle’s CID Link stop is a current point of contention as plans to expand it for new lines will either tear up 4th Avenue for a decade or bury a station in the center of the Earth. Alternatives on 5th Avenue have been pulled out for being too disruptive to Chinatown businesses.

All three enclaves are designated Historic Districts and zoned for mixed downtown commercial uses. In Vancouver, that includes specific bylaws designating historic zoning that allow for ground floor retail and mixed residential uses in 5- and 6-story buildings. For Portland, the district is on the National Register of Historic Places and covers an area that is zoned Central Commercial like much of the downtown to the south. Seattle’s CID is also on the National Register and zoned IDM, a downtown mixed use designation, but is capped between 75 and 85 foot heights in the neighborhood. 

But it’s those zoning maps that really drive home a point. These neighborhoods are the fringe of downtown just before a massive industrial district. Portland’s industry is on the other side of the Willamette. Seattle’s is on the other side of the stadiums. Vancouver has the Strathconia community between. But the Chinatowns are pinched between some of the priciest of downtown real estate and commercial towers, and the edge of highways, rail, and warehouses. 

There is a good case to be made that, if the Chinatowns in Cascadia were not protected and cohesive ethnic enclaves, they would be swallowed up by one or the other of these two sides. There’s another argument that suggests it’s already happening with gentrification. The roles of workers in these neighborhoods defined a good amount of their built form. The Chinatowns have a history of worker housing and single room occupancy (SRO) buildings due to itinerate workers and single males immigrating ahead of larger families. Such buildings are targets for conversion to luxury apartments.

Enclave Ethnic

And that’s where it stops being possible to separate the Chinatown enclaves from the fact they formed around an ethnicity. Even that is trite, as most of these places were an amalgam of cultures from Southeast Asia and China, but consolidated through other-ness, and left to fight other non-White groups for space at the edge of town. The SROs formed because Chinese immigrant men had no where else to stay as they were building the continent’s infrastructure.

In all three cities, Chinese enclaves date concurrently to the municipality itself. Many immigrants from China found themselves in Cascadia during gold rushes of the 1850’s and stayed through the end of the century railroad boom. Portland claims the nation’s second oldest Chinatown (after San Francisco), founded in the early 1850’s when the city itself was founded in 1851. In 1880, Vancouver boasted 99% of Canada’s total Chinese population of 4,400 people. The city itself was incorporated in 1886. Seattle’s first Chinatown was near the waterfront Yesler Mill, from which Chinese immigrants were driven out of the town of Seattle in 1886, three years before incorporation as a city.

From there, the history of anti-Asian sentiments and fortification of an enclave run very parallel between the cities. Seattle’s Chinese residents faced racism progressively expelling them from the city’s expanding boundaries. Canada passed a $50 per person head tax to prohibit immigration in 1885, increasing it to $500 by the turn of the century. Portland received many Chinese workers who were driven out of other towns in Oregon, but blamed them for everything from job loss to prostitution. Each city saw riots as white laborers threatened and assaulted Chinese immigrants under the guise of reclaiming work.

Both countries incarcerated and forcibly relocated West Coast Japanese-descended families during World War II. Both countries identified poorer neighborhoods for demolition and highway construction in the 1960’s, in an effort to move cars in and out of downtown.

These communities have existed for the entire lifespan of the cities they are a part apart. The cities’ histories are irrevocably linked to their treatment of the Chinese and Asian immigrants. Unlike East Coast cities that had three or five generations of immigrant assimilation and governance before the 1850’s, Chinatowns have always been in Cascadian cities. It is a unique relationship to any on the continent. Even San Francisco existed as a city for a century before the first groups of Chinese immigrants settled in town.

Enclave Immovable 

In cities that have spent their entire century-and-a-half existence as fast growing, boundary shoving growth machines, the line between Cascadia’s downtowns and Chinatowns has been slow to move. The cities are used to pushing unwanted uses to the fringe. That’s what put these enclaves where they are in the first place.

The boundary around the ever-present Chinatowns is itself difficult for the cities to understand. Pushing development up to the edge of Chinatown imposes a lot on the enclave, while pulling back fails to maximize development downtown. In the end, the cities’ reticence allows the line to become its own fringe and fills with uses unwanted by elites, like homeless shelters and transit hubs. Which brings us back to the threats on the Chinatowns.

In reality, the Chinatowns’ consistency is a contrast to the boom and bust of the central business districts. When the corporate towers are flying high, the enclaves look like bargains for gentrification. When downtown’s business is slow, Chinatown looks healthy and vibrant and ready for assimilation. When offices are empty due to Covid, the residential neighborhood attracts attention from people who have nowhere else to go.

These neighborhoods are great places because they are historic, and residential, and actively changing. Take any of those out of the equation, and you end up with shiny vapid tower, desolate office park, or boring suburb. Increase the rate of actively changing, and that would allow for the wholesale demolition and construction that occurs in much of the city.

Chinatowns in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver have a lot to teach us. Not because of some ridiculous (and kinda racist) trope about ancient Eastern wisdom. The lesson is how hard Cascadia’s cities are struggling to not bulldoze a problem out of existence. Our very young cities have not yet figured out how to rely on ourselves to address current urban problems. We have taken rules like historic districts from much older East Coast cities and dropped them onto places expecting some city magic to happen. It hasn’t. It won’t. City magic is the hard work of countless people, building and caring for places we grow to love. Like the region’s Chinatowns, in spite of it all. 

The post Cascadia’s Chinatown Problem first appeared on The Urbanist.

The global food system faces an immense set of pressures disrupting it at every level. War in Ukraine has devastated one of the world’s largest agricultural producers. Flooding in Pakistan inundated a third of the country and wiped out farms. Other natural disasters have disrupted domestic and foreign agriculture, and there’s a mountain of evidence indicating that such disturbances will become only more common. But farms face an even bigger threat than natural disasters: the creep of sprawling urban development.

More than anything else, the future of our cities will determine the fate of our farmland. That might seem surprising. After all, most Seattleites only see farms when heading out for a hike, hitting up the pumpkin patch, taking a trip to the Tulip Festival, or driving across the state. With farming far removed from daily urban life, it’s hard to imagine that what happens inside our neighborhoods could ripple out into rural areas. But that’s exactly what researchers at the American Farmland Trust found.

The direction development takes will have a direct impact on the amount of farmland swallowed up by cities. Without purposeful planning, development sprawls out, fragments farms, and impinges on agriculture. This isn’t speculation. The American Farmland Trust team used satellite imagery to measure the amount of cropland sacrificed to urban expansion over a 15-year period. They found that between 2001 and 2016, on average, 2,000 acres of farmland were lost or compromised every day. That’s an area four times the size of Discovery Park gobbled up by urban growth every twenty-four hours, and a total amount of agricultural land twice the size of New Jersey lost to development over the full fifteen years assessed.

If these trends continue, the United States could lose almost 18.5 million acres of farmland by 2040. Although there’s a confluence of forces compromising cropland – including climate change and energy projects – the biggest factor is how cities and surrounding sprawl grow and spread.

“We absolutely need to be smarter about how we build our cities and towns because we are steadily undermining the quality of our environment and our ability to grow food,” says Dr. Mitch Hunter, Senior Research Fellow with the American Farmland Trust and lead author of the trust’s report, Farms Under Threat 2040: Choosing an Abundant Future.

While much of this feels far away from us here in Seattle, the opposite couldn’t be more true. Although Washington didn’t rank in the top ten states with the highest anticipated farmland loss, we’re still at risk of losing over 200,000 acres of viable farmland over the next two decades – an area of land four times the size of Seattle. The counties with the largest projected losses? Spokane, Snohomish, Pierce, and King. 

Some of this loss may be mitigated by last year’s passage of Senate Bill 5042, which closed a loophole in Washington State’s Growth Management Act (GMA) that had made it easier for development to occur in rural areas where it should have been restricted. Even with the growth loophole closed, however, fast-paced regional growth continues to place these vulnerable lands at risk. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Dr. Hunter and his colleagues outlined three broad paths that American cities could follow into the future. Beyond business as usual, they described a “Runaway Sprawl” scenario and a “Better Built Cities” scenario. The main difference between the two: the density of development.

You can imagine a metropolis “like an accordion from a center city out into the suburbs,” Hunter says. “You can let the accordion spread, and you get more of everything with very high sprawl, or you can push it in, and this would mean infill, building up a few more stories in the city, and building denser suburbs – with six or eight houses on an acre instead of just one or two.”

The second scenario, Better Built Cities, is what Hunter and his team urge developers and planners to pursue. It’s the best thing that can be done to save American farmland in a systemic way. City planners “hold the future of farmland in their hands,” Hunter says.

This is particularly true for King County with Seattle and surrounding cities set to continue our decades long swell. The biggest stressor on agricultural land in our region is “continued urbanization” says Mary Embleton, Senior Program Manager for King County Conservation District’s Regional Food System Program. Embleton also sits on a statewide policy forum that’s actively seeking ways to stem the rising tide of farmland loss in Washington. A lot of what they’re considering comes in different forms of fighting sprawl and incentivizing urban infill – the development of un- and underdeveloped lots within city limits.

Dense development is critical because the goal of the conservation district – which Embleton stated as “protect the best, conserve the rest” – can only be accomplished by limiting construction on cropland. “You cannot create agricultural soils,” Embleton says. “You can improve them. But once you construct on them, they’re gone.” That means the best thing we can do for our food system is to prevent as much development on agricultural lands as possible from the outset.

Of course, even if we do that, residential and commercial construction aren’t the only threats farmlands face. Both the Farms Under Threat report and Embleton herself acknowledge the dangers posed by the climate crisis and, ironically, our responses to it. According to the report, at least 450,000 acres of farmland will be no more arable than Atlantis as sea levels rise and coasts flood. At the same time, as seawater seeps into soil, untold quantities of once-farmable fields will lie fallow as high salt levels make them nonviable.

Moreover, drought, erratic weather, shifting seasons, and extreme storms are putting unprecedented pressures on agriculture at home and abroad. In Washington, “we’re not seeing the snowpack that we used to,” says Embleton. This makes water access an even greater challenge than it has already proved for many farmers, especially later in the season as snowmelt runs out. The myriad consequences of climate change show how important it is to rapidly address this crisis. But our solutions can have unintended impacts on agriculture.

The essence of climate action rests in reducing emission as quickly as possible, which means deploying renewable energies like solar and wind. However, Hunter and his colleagues found that an aggressive expansion of solar energy could lead to anywhere from five million to seven million acres of the lands which feed us being converted to solar farms. Luckily, a dual-use strategy known as “agrivoltaics,” which pairs solar energy with appropriate forms of agriculture grown in the space around and underneath solar panels, could decrease this pressure and, in some cases, even increase solar panel performance and crop yields.

Unfortunately, agrivoltaics isn’t yet widely implemented. But, Hunter says, “we’re seeing research, entrepreneurship, and policy innovation coming together right now” to accelerate the adoption of this symbiotic approach to collocating two essential systems: energy and agriculture. Nonetheless, agrivoltaics doesn’t solve the central pressure facing the food system – urban development and sprawl. Only comprehensive planning for smart growth can do that.

Lucky for us in Seattle, the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) is in the midst of a comprehensive plan update. This update has the potential to consider all the ways Seattle can grow in the best possible way for the people within the city and the environment surrounding it. 

“We’re drilling down a lot deeper on growth, density, and sprawl,” says Michael Hubner, who is the program manager for the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, so our city can develop in a smart, sound, and sustainable way. They’re even thinking actively about what’s causing many people to consider leaving the city following the rise of remote work.

With housing costs rapidly rising in Seattle and other cities, the majority of people can’t even contemplate homeownership. So, those who have the flexibility and freedom to do so are leaving cities behind for suburban and exurban areas – where housing costs are lower but environmental impacts are higher – in hopes of owning a home. This trend drives a lot of sprawl.

But there’s an effective way for planners to combat this. Make cities “better places to live,” Hunter says. That’s exactly what Seattle’s city planners are considering. As Jason Kelly, OPCD’s Director of Communications, put it, “the cultural life of the urban environment continues to draw people back to cities” with the opportunities they offer for food, dance, art, and theater.

This is something Hubner feels Seattle has been very successful at nurturing, but he still hopes to see the city do more. In the coming update, they plan to look at “how to bring that more to a neighborhood scale,” Hubner says, so everyone can have easy access to the cultural life that makes city living worth it. Toward that end, they’ll be “looking at more corner stores in neighborhoods and enhancing business districts to support daily needs.” Of course, that doesn’t address the central issue of affordability. Though, that’s definitely top of mind.

“We’re putting a push on how the comprehensive plan can help us grow the unit production overall across the city with a diverse range of housing types,” says Rico Quirindongo, OPCD’s Acting Director. That will mean addressing the missing middle housing – medium-sized units suitable for small families – and meeting the needs of people that are moving from renting to owning for the first time.

All of these different considerations are shaping the way Seattle can develop in a dense, smart way to limit sprawl and relieve pressure on surrounding agricultural lands while making the city a better place to live. Of course, as part of this planning process, Seattle has to “consider the role we can play as the central urban hub in the region,” Hubner says.

In Seattle, we’re at the center of the accordion that Hunter described, which means we can get as dense as possible, but we still need to get the other folds around us to contract as well. Toward that end, the Puget Sound Regional Council exists to help all the cities and towns in the area convene and coordinate on comprehensive planning, setting growth targets and seeking to align them with transportation plans and perhaps climate goals.

Still, the best place any of us can have an impact is right where we are. If you want to encourage the kinds of dense, smart, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods that minimize sprawl and maximize the wellbeing of urban living, you can still get your voice heard. While the initial public comment period for the One Seattle Plan closed back in June, Quirindongo says, “we’re still at the very beginning of this process,” and they’ll be hosting more opportunities for public input to further inform the plan. From November through January, OPCD will be hosting a series of five open houses for just that purpose. The dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

If you want to do what you can to help protect our vital yet fragile food system while promoting healthy neighborhoods, you can attend one of those upcoming open houses and urge our city planners to pursue the smart, sensible development strategies that limit sprawl and uplift vibrant urban environments. The better we plan today, the brighter tomorrow will be.

The post Can the Seattle Comprehensive Plan Slow Urban Sprawl and Prevent Farmland Loss? first appeared on The Urbanist.

This trend is not isolated to those two restaurants since the Chinatown-International District (CID) has seen a fair amount of flux in its business composition. This change has been either a replacement in kind like with lailai, or an intra-Asian shift like with China Gate’s dim sum to Bambu’s Vietnamese desserts. This shift is interesting to observe in such a long established Asian American community, signaling a demographic shift in the community at large. 

Chinatowns like Seattle’s have historically been home to peoples originating from Southeast China, as they were the first major Asian population to migrate the continental US. Their cuisines form the backbone of our Chinatown’s old commercial core with dim sum, congee, wonton noodles, Chinese barbeque, and egg tarts. You’ll hear their regional dialects as you wander the streets and enter older shops. Walking north and east, you’ll find yourself in Japantown and Little Saigon, respectively. They make up the rest of the CID with their respective businesses and cuisines, though there’s plenty of intermixing of shops and residents. In the past decade, new cuisines and treats that also fall under the broad brush of Asian have entered the CID. This has shaken up both the race and class composition of the neighborhood. 

Trends seen through the city and region like Boba proliferation and upscaled and modern Asian restaurants have also made their way into the CID. As I remarked in a piece focused on the U District, a very similar change is happening in the University District. Though, this similarity ends with the scale of the transformation. The U District is building faster and is more inundated with boba. 

Census Data

Census data reflects this shift with the evolution of the CID’s demographics. The neighborhood is predominantly represented by King County census tracts 90, 91, and 92, which also include parts of Pioneer Square, Yesler Terrace, and Central District. A cursory look at the number shows that the number of Asian residents has grown in the CID between 2010 and 2020. However, a closer look at age, income, and race reveals major changes. 

Tract 91, which best represents Chinatown, didn’t see much change in median age, but a major shift in age group segmentation occurred with 25-34 year-olds that increased from under 7% of the population in 2010 to over 21% of the population in 2020. The change has led to this age group becoming the most populous in the CID, a title formerly held by 75-84 year-olds. The other two tracts saw average age drop by around 10 years over the 10-year period. Tract 91 didn’t see this dramatic drop due to the senior housing in the area that stabilized the senior population. A major decrease in the number of children living in the tract also made the jump in young professionals have no effect on the average age of the tract. 

A major jump in income has also occurred over the 10-year period in Chinatown. Before around 30% inflation, the three census tracts all recorded near or more than doubling of median income between 2010 and 2020. These increases came despite the elderly and retired population that makes up around a quarter of the CID’s residents. Focusing in on Tract 91 again, the most change happened at the top end of the earners with those earning more than $100,000 increasing from 6.5% to 16.7% of the population. In particular, those earning more than $200,000 increased from .9% to 5.4% of the population. 

On race, census data from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year gives us a peek into intra-Asian dynamics in the CID. Primarily pushed by Chinese residents, the CID has seen an increase in East Asians that includes Korean and Japanese residents. Filipinos and “Other Asians” also saw small increases, while South and Southeast Asians saw significant decreases in their population. 

This data isn’t perfect, of course. It’s a sampling, so there’s going to be a margin for error. We also have a general sense that the census undercounts minorities and the poor, though the census argues that it was not statistically significant this past count. Nevertheless, we can confidently say that the CID has become younger, more affluent, and more East Asian, as a percentage. On sheer numbers, it appears that the only significant population decline occurred for South and Southeast Asians, and children and teenagers.

Back to the street view

Reflecting on these numbers, the transformation and movement of Vietnamese noodle shops make sense. As noted in my CID development article, the site of Viet-Wah, a major Vietnamese grocery has plans to redevelop. An article by the International Examiner noted the owner of Viet-Wah’s intention to not return to a new building, and close with the sale to the developer. The article also confirmed the move of Vietnamese America out of the CID and down south into MLK and Rainier Avenue. The loss of a major grocery store will be tough on an already exiting community.

Perhaps as significant of a decline has occurred for Hong Kong/Cantonese banquet hall-style restaurants. You know, the ones that serve honey walnut shrimp, sometimes have dim sum during lunch, and have large combination meals meant to feed you and three generations of your extended family. Think China Harbor or T & T Seafood Restaurant. This might be related to the decline of the number of families in the CID, indicated by very few children, and/or a diversification of the kind of regional Chinese folk represented in the CID. 

In their place and that of other lost businesses, we see boba, hotpot, Korean fried chicken, sushi, Korean corn dogs, and other business types that a new, young, East Asian, and class ascendant population gravitate toward. The boba boom is being fueled by local small businesses and international chains. Notably, the Korean restaurant to Korean population ratio seems way disproportionate to other ethnicities. Koreans make up a very small number of the CID’s population. My guess is that it is caused by the uptick in Korean cultural cachet. This niche fulfillment also attracts that population of young East Asians as well, creating a demand for housing that is being reflected with the over 4,500 units constructed in the past 3 years or in the permitting process. 

Community action

The CID has a history of advocacy and action. All of this development and flux clearly continues to stress the community. Of alarming concern lately has been the alignment of the West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions, for which two options could cut into Chinatown with a 5th Avenue station. Compared to 4th Avenue options, the 5th Avenue options have substantially more impact on Chinatown with the possible demolition of most businesses on 5th between S Jackson Street and S King Street. Community and business groups in Chinatown have made clear that their preferred alternative runs along 4th Avenue. 

Some community groups and members have also aimed to combat gentrification with the opposition to market rate housing development. A near four-year saga has been playing out for the Jasmine project at 614 Maynard Avenue S, a proposed high-rise development at the closed Bush Garden Restaurant. At a March meeting, community members expressed a mix of support and opposition against the project. Tensions on gentrification, housing supply shortage, design, preservation, and safety all wrestled within the changing character of the CID. 

In this article, I’m primarily concerned with the change of businesses in the CID and how that signals change in and impacts the many “Asian” communities in the CID. There is a vicious cycle of declining community that doubles as a consumer base leading to business closures that only further accelerates a community’s exodus with the loss of business spaces they gravitate toward and can afford. 

There is, however, an example of a dislocated CID business managing to stay in the neighborhood. Phnom Penh Noodle House has been serving Cambodian dishes in the CID since 1979. After a family tragedy, the restaurant closed in 2018. With private donations and aid from the city, the noodle house was able to reopen in the new Thai Binh affordable housing’s ground floor retail space. 

This approach by the city and community to save an established business was reactive. I’d hope to see a proactive process of making space for businesses that support the many communities of the CID. These businesses are arguably community spaces, so why not incentivize or require developers to build them into new construction with affordable retail/community space like we do with other kinds of amenities like childcare and affordable housing?

Some legal tinkering might have to be done to accomplish such a land use requirement. We have International District specific zoning requirements already. I don’t see why the city and community couldn’t explore an effort to create affordable spaces for critical community commercial amenities. Over 1,200 affordable units have been built or planned in the last three years in the CID and even more will be built in with Mandatory Housing Affordability, Jumpstart, and State dollars flooding in. This boon of affordability will only be stunted if residents keep losing places that they’re comfortable with and can afford shopping at. 

Reflection

Writing this piece, it is hard not to escape the irony that I ended up describing myself when I named the demographic of Asian Americans most entering the CID. I’m East Asian, 25-34 years old, and am likely considered class ascendant. All the new businesses serve me well, I just don’t live in the CID. I’ve been a lifelong North Seattleite, who has probably spent most of his time in the CID waiting for his parents to finish grocery shopping at HaoHao, Viet-Wah, or another and now closed grocery store in Little Saigon. All the bygone and surviving businesses serve me as well with an additional twist of nostalgia. This standpoint shapes what change I see in the neighborhood and certainly grants me the privilege of sharing and being heard. As an Asian American, there are standpoints that I may inadvertently represent due to the squishiness of the term. I try to not speak for the displaced Southeast Asian, the elder, or those possibly invisible to my probing, and I do my best to not go on some savior mission. 

I started to outline this piece after I encountered some of the activism I saw around CID when I was researching development. I was surprised to see boba used in messaging for saving the CID’s identity, when I saw the treat as a part of the gentrification washing over Seattle. There are better symbols for those at risk. I’ve seen congee being used. Egg tarts, pho, and banh mi would likely be more resonant than boba for those being displaced. This inspired me to dig a little deeper into what happened between my first memories of the CID and today.

There’s still so much I don’t know. Exact data of what region of China current residents originate from isn’t readily available to me, and learning where new Chinese Americans in the CID originate from could illuminate class changes in that particular community. The same could be said on migration data, what wave of migration you came from tells a lot about a person’s history, class, and age. Illuminating migration data also helps reveal intersectionality in the Asian American community. For example, my parents immigrated in the 1980s and 1990s as working class economic migrants. Pairing that with established family in the city, allowed them to quickly make new lives for themselves in Seattle and experience the rising tide of a booming city. 

I can’t provide a complete story on the change that’s happening in the CID. What I can do is explore as far back of my memories of the CID go — the past 15 to 20 years — from my position in Asian America and as an urbanist. There is plenty more that has and will be told, as the neighborhood continues to transform with each generation that moves in to call the CID home.

The post Kuo/郭: Watching Chinatown’s Gentrifying/Generational Change first appeared on The Urbanist.

It would be easy to paint the developer as a villain here, but the Labor Temple Association is optimistic about the deal. Heartland has even agreed to help locate a new site for the unions that call the temple home.

The Third Labor Temple

“The plan is to relocate and create the third Labor Temple… the next awesome Labor Temple, someplace close to the light rail,” UNITE HERE Local 8 President Erik Van Rossum said in a 2018 interview with the Daily Journal of Commerce. “We’re excited. It’s a great opportunity.”

Earlier this month, Van Rossum confirmed the Labor Temple Association had zeroed in on a site in South Seattle for the new labor temple, but wouldn’t disclose the exact site until the deal closes. Selling its valuable Belltown real estate will give the association a boost, but not enough to fully cover the move.

“It is a little difficult for the labor temple right now because the building we are selling and the building we are buying is going to leave us with a multi-million dollar hole,” Van Rossum said. “But in the long run it’s going to the right decision, and we’re going to look at that beautiful building for many years to come. So, all worth it.”

Van Rossum came across as a full-bore historic preservationist, supporting other recent campaigns like Save the Showbox and the fight to block a 14-story boutique hotel opposite Pike Place Market and recounting earlier battles with hotel developer Richard Hedreen, a frequent foe for UNITE HERE Local 8, which represents hotel workers.

Earlier this month, I had offered an alternate take on the labor temple. Building preservation where the use isn’t preserved felt a little empty to me. Under union management, the Seattle Labor Temple has been one of the premier affordable meeting spaces in the core of Seattle. I’ve gathered there many times for events or meetings with the Move All Seattle Sustainably (MASS) coalition or the Transit Riders Union. Public meetings are unlikely to continue there once it’s a swanky members-only social club and coworking space.

Joe Mizrahi, secretary-treasurer with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) 21, the largest private-sector union in the state, offered that preservation costs likely hurt the resale cost too. That said, preserving the use in addition to the building exterior would be difficult without a dedicated funding stream and the museum route is complicated by fact that the Museum of History and Industry (MOHIA) already exists in a similar vein, Mizrahi noted.

“I’m not a tenant so I wouldn’t presume to speak for them but my guess is that it was mostly a pain in the butt that impacted the sale price negatively,” Mizrahi tweeted. “History is great but I’m sure most unions would rather have the [money] to spend on organizing workers.”

The first Seattle Labor Temple, built in 1905, stood at the site of One Union Center, a 36-story office tower at Sixth and University, before the labor council moved into the Belltown site. The Labor Temple Association is looking south to site the new temple farther south since their working class membership increasingly lives in South King County, Van Rossum said. Among the temple tenants is MLK County Labor Council, which represents more than 150 unions and 100,000 workers.

The designs for the Labor Temple redevelopment must make it through the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board since the building was designated a landmark in 2010. That approval hit a snag as the Landmarks board objected to the brick choice and lobby alterations, friend of the publication Mark Ostrow reported. The south side of the building, which is three stories will be shared working space, Van Rossum said. The north meeting hall side of the temple was sold and is being developed separately from the rehabilitated co-working space. Van Rossum said the plan for a 16-story may have fallen through.

“My understanding is that there would not be a tower on the north of the building, which I think they could do,” Van Rossum said. “We were hoping it would remain intact and that’s what I hear is going to happen.”

The Labor Temple Association put the building up for landmarks consideration as it was contemplating the future of the building and weighing options. The aging building needs repairs and earthquake retrofits. Unions have bought shares in the Seattle Labor Temple Association and their shares correspond to voting rights, Van Rossum explained. The boilermakers union have the most shares, and UNITE HERE Local 8, MLK Labor, and UFCW 21 also hold significant shares, among others. Some have offices in the temple, and some don’t — including the boilermakers.

Rather than take on the costly renovations themselves, the unions have leveraged the value of the Belltown site to find a new site less mildewed and prone to collapse in an earthquake with better access for both transit users and motorists.

“Seattle is such a difficult bottleneck for workers to get to,” Van Rossum told the Daily Journal of Commerce in 2018. “With the viaduct coming down, getting to the Labor Temple will be even more difficult.”

Light rail is a 20-minute walk from the labor temple, and that will improve only marginally when Uptown Station opens along with Ballard Link. (This of course is a reminder that Belltown could really use a high capacity transit stop.)

Changing dynamics for MLK Labor

Unions continue to be a political force in the region, though labor is embattled nationally with high-powered conservative groups setting sights on organizing rights for decades. Locally, the past decade had started as one of a cozying relationship between big labor and big business. When Ed Murray ran for Mayor in 2013, he did so with the backing of MLK Labor, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). SPOG invested heavily on behalf of Murray, which opponent Mike McGinn attributed to Murray pledging to oust pro-reform Police Chief Jim Pugel.

Disagreements over taxes and housing investments eventually frayed that relationship with unions mostly backing the ill-fated 2018 head tax and overwhelmingly backing a larger successful JumpStart Seattle plan, the Chamber opposes both. So despite uniting to back Murray and Jenny Durkan, MLK Labor and the Chamber mostly found themselves on opposite sides in the 2019 election, and the Chamber didn’t do too well without labor help or a progressive facade to hide behind.

Differing views of police threatened to fracture the labor council last summer. By a fairly close vote, MLK Labor voted to expel SPOG from its ranks following Seattle Police Department’s violent crackdown on protesters demanding accountability for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people killed by police.

SPOG had been a relatively recent addition to MLK Labor, but its membership had helped pressure the Seattle City Council into accepting a labor contract that stripped out accountability measures put into place by the Obama Administration initiated Consent Decree process aimed at curbing police killings and brutality. Only Councilmember Kshama Sawant voted against the police contract in 2018.

With a new labor temple planned in South Seattle, organized labor seems to be planting a flag in the sand that they’re on the side of the communities of color and ready to fight. It’s a welcome signal.

Future of historic preservation?

As for Seattle’s historic preservation system, it does seem there’s plenty of room for improvement. A building can see a seemingly unlimited number of historic designation attempts, whether by the owner, a historic society, or a concerned citizen. The threat of red tape can tilt the scales away from redevelopment, which is great if we’re saving Pioneer Square from being turned into parking lots — a massive benefit won by earlier preservationists. The red tape and disincentive for exciting new architecture is less exciting if a publicly accessible building is privatized and all the public gets is a historic facade — and less housing.

Correction: The latest renderings were incorrectly attributed to VIA Architecture. In fact, the architect is Kenneth Wilson and the developer is FAUL for the Labor Temple preservation.

The post Unions Head South but Negotiate Plan to Preserve the Labor Temple Building first appeared on The Urbanist.

Before we dig into our conversation with Candib, let’s start with an honest understanding of the history of farming in America.

Stolen Labor, Stolen Land 

In the American South, enslaved Africans and their descendants toiled under brutal conditions to enrich White enslavers. Formerly enslaved people were promised “40 acres and mule” by General William Sherman, only to see President Andrew Johnson renege in 1865. By 1870, only around 30,000 African Americans in the South owned land, compared with four million who did not.

Today, Black farmers account for just 1.4% of producers across the United States. Across the West, the mythology of Manifest Destiny and the Homestead Act of 1862 promised households 160 acres of land in exchange for working the land for at least five years, land that was forcibly taken by the United States government from indigenous nations. During World War II, Japanese American farmers were forced to sell their farms far below market rates before being forced into internment camps. Today, despite the fact that 83% of all farmworkers are Hispanic, producers who identified as Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin account for just 3.3% of US producers.

These are just a few examples of vast racial disparities in who has access to farm ownership and production and it’s critical we understand this history when we talk about how to protect Washington farmland and invest in the next generation of farmers. 

Protecting Our Most Valuable Farmland

The Farms Under Threat: State of the States report from the American Farmland Trust (AFT) provides an interactive map, along with policy analysis, about the declining state of farmland in the United States. Across the United States, between 2001 and 2016, 11 million acres of farmland and ranchland were converted to urban and highly developed land use (4.1 million acres) or low-density residential land use (nearly 7 million acres). That’s equal to 2,000 acres a day paved over, built up, and converted to uses that threaten the future of agriculture.

Fortunately, Washington ranks in the top twelve in policy response to changes in agricultural lands and ranks second only to Oregon when it comes to land use planning, thanks to the Growth Management Act. Washington has lost 98,000 acres of agricultural land between 2001 and 2016, compared to over 500,000 of acreage lost in states like North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee.

A quick note about how to prioritize farmland for protection: all farmland is important to state and local economies and to the food system. That said, resources for protecting farmland are limited. The American Farmland Trust advocates that states prioritize protecting “Nationally Significant” land, or land which is most critical for long-term food security and environmental quality. The conversion of “nationally significant” land puts the pressure on more marginal lands to produce food, which can in turn mean higher inputs and lower production, as well as increased soil erosion and water quality degradation.

There is a real economic and environmental cost to converting our most productive, versatile, and resilient (PVR) land. But it’s also important to recognize that there are other reasons that farmland might be protected other than its ability to grow food. A community might prioritize protecting a parcel of more “marginal” farmland because it has important wildlife or cultural benefits. 

Investing in the Next Generation of Washington Farmers

The Farms Under Threat report dives into many different pressures facing farmers but in this column we’re going to focus specifically on the question of transferring land to new farmers. In Washington, farmers over the age of 65 outnumber farmers under 35 by a factor of 5:1. Fortunately, the American Farmland Trust and Futurewise have a few policy ideas to work from.

Farm linking or land linking programs connect land seekers to available land. “Land linking is time-intensive and staff intensive,” Candib said. “You have to meet land seekers where they’re at and meet landowners where they’re at.” In Washington, some local community groups have stepped up. In Thurston County, the South Sound FarmLink initiative connects “farmers and landowners to local resources, technical and financial assistance, and most importantly each other.” PCC Farmland Trust’s Farm to Farmer program does the same in Pierce, King and Skagit counties. Unfortunately though, Washington lacks a statewide land linking program.

Another popular tool is the use of conservation easements, in which a nonprofit or public agency purchase the development rights for a farm and add a permanent restriction on development and subdivision of the property. Landowners are paid a portion of the property value and retain other property rights. Easements have an advantage in that older farmers who are relying the sale of farmland for their retirement can make the needed profit on their land without selling to a property developer. On the downside, easements work only at the scale of individual properties and in very high land value regions, putting an easement on the property will still not reduce the price to be affordable to new farmers. 

A Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program takes individual conservation easements to the next level, by linking conservation with urban development. A TDR program basically creates a marketplace for development rights that transfers development capacity from rural areas to urban neighborhoods. Rural landowners sell the right to develop their land, in exchange for compensation and a conservation easement. Then urban developers can purchase those rights to increase the number of units or square footage on urban projects. While TDR programs are harder to implement at the outset, as they require buy-in from a broader range of stakeholders, there’s an advantage in taking a regional approach to growth.

As Alex Brennan, Futurewise Executive Director put it: “It’s easy to identify where we don’t want to see growth happen. It’s harder to identify where do we want to see growth.” TDR programs are an opportunity to build coalition across geographies. By growing and investing in our cities, we can protect our farmland, forest land and natural habitat.

Protecting Washington farmland for the long haul will likely require a whole suite of policy response, from continuing to flex our GMA authority to protect farmland in comprehensive plan updates, scaling up conservation easements and community land trusts and expanding TDR programs to more counties across Washington. To dig in more with Candib about development, agriculture, and the next generation of farmers, check out the full conversation.

King County Wineries, Breweries and Distilleries Ordinance Appeal Victory

Speaking of farmland protection, Futurewise recently secured a victory with the Growth Management Hearings Board regarding the King County wineries, breweries and distilleries ordinance (covered in our May 2019 Wonkabout column). 

When the ordinance was first being considered, Futurewise raised concerns about the impact of expanded tasting rooms on farms in the Sammammish Valley, including “potential negative direct and indirect impacts on working farms including increased purchases of land by speculators at prices farmers cannot afford, the conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses and stormwater runoff impacts on fields and farms.”

On March 26, 2020, the Growth Management Hearings Board (Board) granted Futurewise’s and the Friends of the Sammamish Valley’s dispositive motion, agreeing that the King County Wineries, Breweries, and Distilleries Ordinance violated the Washington State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). 

The board granted the motion because King County did not review the environmental impacts of the ordinance early enough in the process. This is important because local governments and state agencies benefit from considering the potential adverse impacts of their decisions early to tailor their decisions to lessen adverse environmental impacts such as water pollution. The board also concluded that the environmental document the County prepared, called a SEPA Checklist, did not disclose the potential adverse impacts of the ordinance including adverse impacts on ground water quality, working farms, and increased demand for water in near streams that already have flows too low to sustain the salmon runs on which fishers and the Southern Resident Orcas depend. The board directed the County to take another look at the impacts of the ordinance by November 6, 2020.   

The board also concluded that the potential adverse impacts of the Wineries, Breweries, and Distilleries Ordinance, such as its potential impacts on rural character, water quality, working farms, and water availability substantially interfered with the goals of the Growth Management Act. Therefore, the Board concluded that new permit applications cannot be approved using the ordinance. This will prevent adverse impacts on rural areas and agricultural lands while the County conducts a new review of the environmental impacts.

Correction: An earlier version incorrectly identified President Andrew Johnson as Andrew Jackson. Wrong Andrew.

The post Wonkabout Washington: Farms Under Threat first appeared on The Urbanist.

Appearances are important in Los Angeles and the same principle applies to the city’s architecture: as expats and newcomers to the city—unaware of the highway robbery occurring—pay exorbitant amounts of rent to get a taste of L.A. living, real estate tycoons Rick Caruso and Geoff Palmer’s net worth have skyrocketed into the billions. Their Fauxtalian superstructures’ hollow Romanesque columns and feigned stucco have been changing Los Angeles’ architectural landscape—and not for the better.

Nationwide, the revitalization of downtowns have come from honest attempts at boosting local economies, safety, and overall aesthetic appeal and beauty, but it has come at a cost that I, and many others, should not have to pay. They negatively impact their surrounding environments and its conditions, along with irking residents and city officials as they expand. 

Los Angeles’ architectural landscape is similar to its inhabitants demographics: it’s a glorious melting pot of distinctive styles originating from different backgrounds and eras. Rather than being anchored by one particular style, each idiosyncrasy builds upon one another, connecting hundreds of miles of land and millions of people, fostering the ubiquitous image of Los Angeles. Falling in line with the phenomena of urban renewal and gentrification, the influx of upscale developments has displaced generations of Los Angelenos, leaving the city’s tremendous housing crisis unresolved.

These phenomena have not only changed the physical landscape, but has also diminished the city’s historical and cultural value. Efforts to save older structures may seem like a futile stand against time, but for those in support of historical preservation argue it to be a legitimate pathway to maintain and foster a broad spectrum of heritages and identities while retaining authenticity and distinction from the rest of the world. In addition, the hodge podge of incoming architecture further segregates and makes clearer the differentiation between class lines. 

The prospect of high profit margins and quick returns on investments dominate the real estate development game, making no consideration to surrounding environments or economies. Geoff Palmer famously struck it rich with this stratagem, beginning with the 632-unit Medici Apartments that opened in 2001 amid the beginning of the Downtown revitalization project.

In what is today known as Palmer’s “Renaissance Collection,” the series of fortresses situated alongside the freeways running through Downtown Los Angeles have created over 5,000 new apartments which aren’t just ugly. They’re vacuums designed to suck the life out of a neighborhood that has worked so hard to become lively in the past decade. The unrelenting blocks were designed as mixed-use buildings. Their ground levels, which have been parceled into retail spaces, have largely been unoccupied, making for a tragically inefficient use of space in city centers. The fake-Italian look alienates itself from Los Angeles’ cityscape and its people.

If that weren’t enough, the structures’ boastful amenities, such as gyms, libraries, and green spaces, further block out local residents as they are intended for the sole use of residents only, who couldn’t be less interested as they don’t actually seem to like living there. Rick Caruso’s Americana at Brand is similar to Geoff Palmer’s mixed-use apartments, focusing on providing luxury shopping and dining experiences alongside high-class living. As Sam Lubell of The Architect’s Newspaper aptly put it, “[It’s] a simulacrum of urbanism planned to maximize consumer spending and minimize civic disruption…and it’s an all-too-clean, inorganic piece of city plopped into a city that already exists.”

The brainchild of Rick Caruso, The Americana was built in-part as an effort to revitalize Glendale’s sleepy downtown. Caruso, already famed for the ever-succeeding Grove near La Brea and Melrose, has always had the vision of building a great street. Unfortunately, rather than standing as the artful marvels they were intended to be, they are noticeably overdone developments with manufactured motifs.

While praised for its positive economic impact on the city of Glendale, the completion of the development forced the closure of historically significant businesses, including Backroom Entertainment, a recording studio that has hosted the likes of Alicia Keys and Boyz II Men. As speculative as it may be, without the Americana, Glendale could have been something different, something better than what it is, rather than a residence of some status or copycat of surrounding neighborhoods. 

Geoff Palmer and Rick Caruso are archetypal examples of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer as both had a vantage point at life: being apart of families with established wealth. But developers are not solely to blame for the broader issue: Los Angeles’ housing crisis. 

In spite of the city’s housing proposals, legislative actions are increasingly prohibitive and costly in capital and time. In turn, developers present “cookie-cutter designs that don’t relate to their surroundings, simply because they’ve been approved before” and relay additional costs to consumers. Los Angeles’ current housing practices unadmittedly ostracize long-time residents and work against the city’s overall agenda.

Pledges such as Eric Garcetti’s promise to build 100,000 new housing units by 2021 are covertly impossible to fulfill due to the city’s avoidance to sincerely address and intervene in “NIMBYism,” an ever-popular movement that has successfully restricted numerous projects throughout both the city and county. Residents’ attachment to dated housing regulations, most notably single-family districting, curtail the development of mixed-use or multi-family accommodations (both of which are more common in other large metropolitan areas) and discourage growth and fundamental change in their respective neighborhoods.

Whatever the final path looks like, it’s clear that Los Angeles needs to get its act together in order to achieve a solution to both its homeless and affordable housing crises. Known encouragements to create low-and-middle-income housing exist: through subsidies, the sale of vacant or underused property, the removal of restrictive measures such as single-family occupancy and requirements for parking spaces alongside new developments, as well as enforcing more unit availability in new-builds at low-cost or below-market rates. My argument as a preservationist: being mindful of heritage and culture in these processes wouldn’t hurt, too. 

The post Los Angeles’ Fauxtalian Renaissance: Obliterating Culture and Facilitating Gentrification first appeared on The Urbanist.

RapidRide H Line beautification of Delridge Way SW

The Delridge Neighborhood Development Association provided the grant funding to the city with a desire for median plantings and curb bulbs to be designed and constructed at key locations along Delridge Way SW. The association is targeting retail districts in Andover, Youngstown, Brandon, and Orchard as a means to enhance community identity. These districts fall along a two-mile corridor of Delridge Way SW, approximately from SW Andover St to SW Orchard St.

The medians will largely occupy space currently used for center lane turn pockets. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) would install a variety of plantings within the median to provide groundcover and trees. Installation of the landscaping features will offer a variety of benefits besides character identity of the community.

Planting medians of the kind envisioned generally reduce stormwater and localized heat island effects while cleaning water and air. They also help reduce speeds and collisions, which ultimately improve the comfort of the pedestrian and the public realm–a win-win for residents, bus riders, and local businesses.

SDOT is also asked to install several curb improvements for pedestrians and bus riders. These will largely be focused near key intersection locations, which should also reduce speed and collisions.

The conceptual median and curb bulb locations are proposed as follows:

Construction of the RapidRide H Line is expected to begin next year and service launch following in late 2021.

Ainsworth & Dunn Warehouse recently landmarked

Last week, the city council formally completed the landmarking process for the Ainsworth & Dunn Warehouse (2815 Elliott Avenue). The building is known for previously housing the Old Spaghetti Factory. Architecturally, the building is constructed of red brick in a traditional Seattle warehousing style with high roofs.

The Ainsworth and Dunn Warehouse was originally constructed in 1902 and designed by Stephen Alston Jennings, a Chicago-born architect who moved to Seattle. Preservation controls will extend to the building exterior and west side of the site in addition to the interior heavy timber structural system. The latter control is fairly unique for landmarks, but is relevant given their importance to the structure.

The site is being redeveloped, which involves preservation of the building. The developer is constructing a new six-story structure east of the landmark building containing 62 dwelling units and nearly 7,000 square feet of commercial space. The project also involves reuse of the landmark building by constructing a third-story addition and converting the space from restaurant to office (approximately 32,400 square feet). The redevelopment will reduce the number of parking spaces on the site to a mere 60, all of which will be located below ground.

The post City Council Accepts Funds for RapidRide H Line Beautification of Delridge, Landmarks the Old Spaghetti Factory Building first appeared on The Urbanist.

Fort Lawton

The redevelopment area of Fort Lawton has been rezoned from single-family residential to Lowrise 2, which will the denser affordable multifamily project to proceed ahead. This culminated a 13-year process with many delays and appeals along the way. The city council adopted the recommended redevelopment plan proposed by the Seattle Office of Housing. According to the draft redevelopment plan, the housing mixture, tenure of households served, funding, and sponsors will include:

• 85 dwelling unit units for seniors. The units will be designed for supportive housing and set aside for households making at or below 30% of the area median income. Catholic Community Services of Western Washington and United Indians of All Tribes Foundation will sponsor these units. The total cost is estimated to be approximately $28.3 million with $9.1 million in funding coming from Seattle.
• Approximately 100 dwelling units will serve low-income families and individuals. The apartments will include some two- and three-bedroom units and serve households making up to 60% of the area median income. Catholic Community Services of Western Washington will sponsor these units. The total cost is estimated to be approximately $40.2 million with $7.7 million in funding coming from Seattle.
• Up to 52 “self-help” ownership homes. These dwellings will serve households making up to 80% of the area median income. Habitat for Humanity will sponsor these units. The total cost is estimated to be approximately $18.4 million with $4.7 million in funding coming from Seattle.

The proposed redevelopment, however, still suffers from lack of direct access to 30th Ave W. Residents will unnecessarily have to walk or bike long distances to access the local street network and other amenities.

Additionally, the city council adopted an agreement with Seattle Public Schools, which would allow redevelopment of multi-use athletic fields on the property.

Preservation of the Showbox

Preservation of the Showbox on First Avenue has been hotly contested. The owner of the building, Roger Forbes, had proposed a 44-story residential tower, pitting his redevelopment project against the famed music venue. City leaders sought to stall redevelopment and buy the music venue time by expending the Pike Place Market Historic District boundaries to the site and apply the preservation rules to the property on an interim basis until the city could complete work to create permanent regulations.

In the meantime, Forbes has signaled he will not extend the lease–potentially putting the future of the site as a music venue in jeopardy whether or not a redevelopment happens–and a preservation group has tried to buy the property. The property owner has also sought to overturn the interim regulations and seek damages from the city. On Monday, the city council extended the interim regulations through January 23, 2020.

Seattle Pacific University Amendments

To facilitate expansion of Seattle Pacific University north of Nickerson Street, the city council approved a new Major Institution Overlay and changes to land use regulations to allow the university to operate in industrial zones. The changes will affect about two blocks of parcels between Nickerson Street and the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Other Land Use and Housing Legislation Approved

In 2018, the city council enacted a ban on bidding platforms like Rentberry and Bidwell to protect renters from rent inflation by bidding and unfair housing practices to favor applicants on the basis of ability to bid higher. The ban ended at the end of April, which led the city council to adopt a new version of the ban. The new version is essentially the same and extends the ban another year to give the Seattle Office of Housing time to evaluate the impacts of such bidding platforms and provide recommendations on how to regulate them.

In Capitol Hill and Ballard, revised design guidelines have been adopted. The updates were the outcome of extensive consultation with the neighborhoods to determine design priorities and provide better direction about how new development should fit in with the existing neighborhood contexts. Both neighborhoods have seen zoning changes in recent years and an extensive urban design framework was carried out in Ballard. Capitol Hill last version of neighborhood design guidelines were adopted in 2005 while Ballard’s were adopted in 2001. Naturally, the context for both has changed substantially during that time, leading to a need to take another look at the design guidelines.

Recent Council Actions

Last week, the city council approved three new landmarks. The first of these was the Seattle Tower, which is located on the corner of Third Avenue and University Street. The building was built in 1922 and the designation process began in 1977. Preservation controls apply to the building exterior and lobby.

Parrington Hall on the University of Washington Campus was also landmarked. The building was constructed in 1902 and is notable for its red brick and rounded wings and triangular center. Preservation controls apply to building exterior, several of portions of the building interior, and the immediate perimeter of the building.

Additionally, the Mount Baker Community Clubhouse has been landmarked. The building is of barrelled unique craftsman style and was constructed in 1914. Preservation controls apply to the building exterior and general site.

Finally, the city council upheld and approved a contract rezone in Phinney Ridge. The site is located on 12,188 square foot property at the corner of Greenwood Avenue N and N 70th St. The developer, 70th & Greenwood Ave, LLC, sought a rezone from Neighborhood Commercial 2 with a 40-foot height limit (NC2-40) to Neighborhood Commercial 2 with a 55-foot height limit and M Mandatory Housing Affordability suffix (NC2-55 (M)) in order to facilitate development of five-story mixed-use building. The developer plans to construct approximately 35 apartment units and include 5,550 square feet of ground floor retail.

However, local residents had tied the rezone and development up in an extensive appeal process. The King County Superior Court generally dismissed the case with the exception that the city council must address one rezone criterion: how the proposed development would make a gradual transition to the adjoining single-family residential area. As conditioned, landscape buffering will help ease the transition from mixed-use to single-family.

The post City Council Approves Affordable Housing at Fort Lawton and Extends Showbox Moratorium first appeared on The Urbanist.