[Editor's Note: This was originally posted yesterday, but the heavy comments thread has bumped it up. It's also related to the post directly below about state AG Rob McKenna's "eminent domain" bills. ]

Members of a Southeast Seattle crime prevention group will work to defeat any proposal to increase density around light-rail stations during the upcoming legislative session, the leader of the organization says.

Mariana Quarnstrom, head of the Southeast Seattle Crime Prevention Council, predicts infrastructure problems, increased crime, parking hassles, and disaffected youth if the state allows greater residential densities around light-rail stations. She and a bus full of density opponents will be heading down to Olympia next week to appear at a press conference where state attorney general Rob McKenna will unveil the results of a study of the state's community renewal law, which allows cities to condemn property as "blighted."

The community renewal law is unrelated to last year's proposed transit-oriented communities law, which would have allowed denser development aroud light-rail stops. However, opponents of both that law and the transit-oriented communities bill say they share common traits: Disrespect for home- and business-owners' property rights and a lack of concern for the impact of dense development on lower-income, traditionally low-density neighborhoods.

Quarnstrom calls the bill an example of "eminent domain abuse.

"Nobody is looking at the effects on the city and the fact that we’re basically doing away with what has very traditionally been a single-family neighborhood," Quarnstrom says.

However, Transportation Choices Coalition lobbyist Bill LaBorde says the bill has nothing to do with eminent domain. "There’s this idea that built into the bill is some implicit authority to condemn dilapidated property for economic development and that’s just flat-out not allowed by our state constitution," LaBorde says. "It certainly never was intended to be part of the bill or anything that we would want in the bill."

Quarnstrom also says the bill would do away with parking at new developments, forcing cars into the neighborhoods. "There will be no parking. Americans, at this stage of the game, are not going to give up their cars, so they need somewhere to put them."

However, the bill, as originally introduced by state Rep. Sharon Nelson (D-34) last year, would actually have given developers the option of including less parking in places where they're currently required to build a minimum number of spaces; environmental groups generally support waiving parking minimums in dense areas because it makes housing more affordable (parking spaces cost around $25,000 each to build) and encourages transit use.

Finally, Quarnstrom predicts that new residents would push the infrastructure in Southeast Seattle past its capacity. "All of a sudden, there’s not going to be enough water pressure, there’s not going to be any sewer capabilities. And we’re not doing anything about public safety. We're not doing anything about programs for youth." I have a call in to bill supporters to find out if they've studied the impact of new density on infrastructure and public safety. In response, LaBorde notes that most of the sewer infrastructure in Southeast Seattle was replaced a few years ago, and says crime at dense new developments, such as NewHolly and Rainier Vista, is lower than in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Not everyone in the Southeast Seattle group agrees with Quarnstrom, of course. Yusuf Cabdi, head of the Seattle Housing Authority board of commissioners, said at last night's meeting that residents of single-family neighborhoods in Southeast Seattle "need to be really careful" when talking about new residents, particularly low-income renters, "being part of the problem. They're part of the solution."

As we reported last month, supporters of the density bill are unlikely to push hard for it this session, which will be focused on filling the state's $2.6 billion budget hole.