Houses Multi-Fam

You may not like apartments in your neighborhood, but try them and you may realize they are good!

Last night a Seattle Design Review board, which is a meaningless cumbersome process which gives architects the chance to filibuster other architect’s work, kicked off in the NIMBYest of neighborhoods in Seattle. Magnolia is zoned 90% for single family homes and the average home costs north of $1.2 million dollars. Only 22,000 people live in this large swath of an island just 2 miles from downtown Seattle, so you can imagine what it must have been like to propose a 133 home mixed use apartment building there.

This is the building they are fighting. It’s currently a parking lot. Now it will be the most sustainable building this neighborhood has ever seen, recycling all it’s water and producing it’s own electricity.

My friend Ted Giesel lives in Queen Anne and has famously read his poetry at previous design review meetings, where the board argued about red brick colors and helped delay an apartment building for 3 presidential terms. But last night he hopped over the canal and commented on the Magnolia project, touting a famous lesson where he used to oppose something, then tried it and realized he actually liked it. From Not In My Back Yard to Yes In My Back Yard, if you will. This was his comment:

Do you like green eggs and ham?

I do, I tried them Sam I am, turns out I like green eggs and ham.

Do you like houses multi fam?

I do not like them Sam I am

I do not like houses multi fam

Do you like the bulk and scale?

I do not like the bulk and scale

NIMBYs want this project to fail.

Do you like the type of brick

Can we make this review go quick?

I do not like this type of brick!

I want to delay this project, not go quick!

I do not like the bulk and scale

NIMBYs want this project to fail!

But this needs to pass design review

So please save us the NIMBY spew

You may not like them, so you say

But try them try them and you may

Try them and you may I say

Say, I like houses multi fam!

I do! I like them Sam I am!

And I will like them on West Barrett

And I will like them on 32nd!

And I will like them near my house

And I will like them with my spouse

I will like them here and there

I will like them EVERYWHERE!

I love to share my neighborhood

I want to use my voice for good

I do so like houses multi fam!

Thank you thank you Sam I am!

As you can see, the lesson here is, whether its Green Eggs and Ham, or an apartment building, we can all learn that our earliest opinions of something — though strong — can be wrong, and it’s okay to admit we are wrong and use our voices for good. Let’s hope when this deeply sustainable apartment building is done, and they meet their new neighbors, enough of the angry mob opposing this project will realize they also were wrong too.

Thankfully, the project passed and can move on to construction.

We all make mistakes.