Time to Vote on Seattle’s Future
When The Seattle Times published the sixty-four recommendations of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) and companion Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) policy in the summer of 2015, our current district council representatives were new. Almost four years later, with nowhere left to turn after the failure of their lawsuit and seizing on the fact that four of the seven district council-members are not seeking re-election, some are claiming the current council is a “lame duck” and shouldn’t be allowed to vote on the pending legislation.
We believe all councilmembers are incredibly qualified to vote on the urban village rezones and that Seattle’s residents should feel confident that this process has gone on long enough.
Seattle city council held 40 meetings, more than a 100 out of council meetings, 17 Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Housing Affordability meetings, nine monthly community focus group meetings, five public hearings and open houses, and endured a year-long appeal of the program.
Simply stated, the current council’s entire tenure in office has been overlapped by the discussion on urban village rezones, which requires developers to include or pay a fee for affordable housing in new developments. The current council has studied this issue in more depth than almost anyone running for their seats. Their direct knowledge will make the best decision for our city. They have been witness to the various individuals and groups concerned about the MHA plan.
SCALE is a small, loud group fighting common-sense changes to our urban villages. This latest excuse for predatory delay will be judged harshly by the next generation of Seattlites.
Merrick Garland never got a hearing in the U.S. Senate, despite his rightful nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court. SCALE’s tactics to stall, delay or push the vote to the next council make the neighborhood activists’ tactics mirror the pettiness of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Seattle’s predominantly older, white, homeowner base of “Not in My Back Yard” activism, with the strongest voices at the Wallingford Community Council, does not speak for our whole city, and it certainly doesn’t speak for District 5, who didn’t have a single neighborhood join the appeal. District 5 is majority renters and working-class people with deep diversity in economics, languages, ethnicities and housing choices. Little Brook, for example, is one of the densest neighborhoods in all of Seattle.
SCALE does not represent Seattle’s neighborhoods, nor do they understand that character is about people not buildings. It was discovered in the appeal that the vice president of SCALE resides in Bellevue. You must wonder, who does SCALE represent?
The Seattle City Council is facing an unprecedented vote to restore land-use allowances within our urban villages that rival the freedom of construction seen before 1930. Our neighborhood character predates the existence of single-family zoning. Our city’s historical buildings include “missing middle”: dense housing prototypes that many are mistakenly fighting to this day. Seattle’s craftsmen bungalows were built in dense, walkable environments snuggled cozily next to row houses, duplexes, triplexes and six-plexes.
Our city must welcome our cooks, our teachers, our baristas, our bus drivers, our small business owners, and our middle class, white collar workers. Everyone needs the opportunity to live here and to partake in the economic and cultural exchanges that are at the heart of a city’s existence.
The Urban Village strategy in the 1990s accomplished this. Every urban village added diversity as Seattle added housing. We know the model works.
