City Hall
McGinn, Conlin Propose Lifting Development Regulations
At a press conference at the Finishing Trades of Western Washington office in West Seattle this morning, Mayor Mike McGinn and city council president Richard Conlin announced a regulation-lifting proposal aimed at spurring residential development and creating construction jobs.
Although the legislation itself won't be available until next Monday, McGinn and Conlin laid out the broad parameters of the proposal. It would:
• Reduce or eliminate minimum parking requirements for some residential developments. With more people choosing to live without cars, McGinn said, "we're asking people to [pay for] something they may not even want."
• Allow larger home businesses than the city currently permits. "I believe that someone can start a business in their garage that can turn into something big," McGinn said. "Encouraging economic opportunity makes sense instead of making them get an office."
• Allowing ground-floor apartments in areas where ground-floor retail would ordinarily be required. "Why are we asking people to build something that isn't needed?" McGinn said. "Instead, you can make it all housing [and you] won't be wasting moony on space that isn't needed."
McGinn said the proposal could create as many as 2,400 "family-wage jobs" in construction. Conlin said the council plans to consider the legislation "as rapidly as possible," adding, however, that "I suspect some of these components are going to be easy to implement others are going to took some time and hard work."
Although the legislation itself won't be available until next Monday, McGinn and Conlin laid out the broad parameters of the proposal. It would:
• Reduce or eliminate minimum parking requirements for some residential developments. With more people choosing to live without cars, McGinn said, "we're asking people to [pay for] something they may not even want."
• Allow larger home businesses than the city currently permits. "I believe that someone can start a business in their garage that can turn into something big," McGinn said. "Encouraging economic opportunity makes sense instead of making them get an office."
• Allowing ground-floor apartments in areas where ground-floor retail would ordinarily be required. "Why are we asking people to build something that isn't needed?" McGinn said. "Instead, you can make it all housing [and you] won't be wasting moony on space that isn't needed."
McGinn said the proposal could create as many as 2,400 "family-wage jobs" in construction. Conlin said the council plans to consider the legislation "as rapidly as possible," adding, however, that "I suspect some of these components are going to be easy to implement others are going to took some time and hard work."
