Given the hubbub over the draft report leaked earlier this week from Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee—on which, full disclosure, I sit—and the coming release on Monday of the official report, Sightline thought we’d share a perspective that hasn’t received much attention in the debate.
On Monday, Sara Maxana, a homeowner in Seattle’s fast-growing Ballard neighborhood, testified before Seattle City Council. She expressed her enthusiasm and strong support for exactly the kind of growth and density that some would have us believe are the bogeyman threat to “neighborhood character.” As The Urbanist blog rightly pointed out, “The only way that makes sense is through the vacuous suggestion that Seattle’s character is dependent on suburban homes rather than diverse people, uses, and business.” Hear, hear.
Ms. Maxana’s testimony, notably coming from a self-identified “dripping in privilege” homeowner, acknowledges the benefits she derives from living in a compact, growing neighborhood—from easily walkable parks, restaurants, and shops to the increased property value of her home and the potential of her children’s own future there:
I attribute much of what I love in my neighborhood to all of its recent growth. And what I love most about that growth is that every new unit I see constructed in Ballard makes more likely that my children will be able to afford to live in their community when they grow up.
Ms. Maxana’s message should make us all think a bit harder about the kind of communities we want to live in and what it will really take to cultivate them together.
Mark Hinshaw
Wow! She nailed it!!
Way too many people in Seattle think that the concept of neighborhood depends upon free-standing homes, occupied by a traditional “family” unit. This is not only arrogant and classist but absolutely incorrect from a sociological perspective. Neighborhoods can be perfectly livable and supportive of people of all ages with few ( or even no) detached houses.
Lynn
They sure can. Those however are not the neighborhoods that existing homeowners chose to buy houses in. Creating those neighborhoods in the urban villages and in areas like SODO is a fine plan. Forcing these changes on current single family neighborhoods is not unnecessary and unwanted.
Tyler
How is $2,400 a month for a one bedroom apartment (in Ballard) considered affordable and livable? Talk about “classist!”
Howard Pellett
Oh goody. We are destined to become another Baltimore. or New York or whatever high density wonder that developers can concoct. We simply need to continue growing and growing and growing right out of all of our troubles.
Shahn Towers
I am a Ballard resident and homeowner. This article and the Urbanist article are missing the real root of the complaints about the housing growth in Ballard/Seattle. The real problem is that our growth has only been in housing and not in the supporting services. The imbalance is extremely painful for the people who actually live in the neighborhood.
The roads in Ballard are terrifying. Both falling apart and so jammed with speeding cars and huge trucks (needed for all that new construction) that I’m afraid to let my kids walk anywhere, let alone bike by themselves. We need transportation planning and funding to move in concert with housing growth.
My daughter’s elementary school population has grown by 50% in the last 3 years. Portable classrooms are filling up the playground space. School district policy says they can keep adding portables until all the playground space is filled. And there is no way to add more bathrooms or make the lunch room larger. We need school planning (renovations and new construction) and funding to grow at the same pace as housing growth.
The parks are frequently filled with homeless people. Five years ago there were no homeless people in the parks. That’s not hyperbole. As housing has exploded in Ballard, homeless folks have relocated to Ballard in large numbers. We need homeless services to grow at the same pace as housing growth.
Every blade of exposed grass is covered with dog excrement. We need more off leash dog parks and more park rangers to enforce leash laws in our parks.
The local library is packed all the time. The same is true for the community center. Signing your kid up for the local swim team is a Mad Max experience (there’s only about 200 spots available so you have to make sure you sign up no later than 10 minutes after registration opens or your out of luck). We need more funding for libraries, community centers and pools.
I’m sure there is more for this list.
As for all those cool new shops, well most of them aren’t actually new retail, they’re just replacing existing shops and restaurants that can no longer afford the rent. Ballard Ave is becoming a boring monoculture of overpriced, pretentious retail for rich people.
Growing the population in Seattle is probably overall positive but right now we’re doing it wrong. Everything has to grow together for us to be a successful community. Right now we are failing because growth is only about increasing housing and all the other services ( the other stuff a city does) are standing still or falling behind. We have to start balancing our growth. We can either build up all the other services to match the housing growth or we can slow down housing until everything else catches up. This is the question the ‘urbanist’ community needs to address.
Michael
I am in Wallingford, and I’d mostly say the same. Now, I gather she has a single-family house; we don’t know if her house is in an SF zone, but I notice that she is not asking for upzoning SF areas to LR (nor upzoning anything, as far as I can tell) and it’s not clear what the LR changes she wants are.