Friday LIKES & DISLIKES

 

1. I DISLIKE that the city is going to seize infamous slumlord property and build a park. Huh? Dislike? 

Yes. Here's why: The largely single-family, low-rise, and midrise zoned turf just east of I-5 in the Roosevelt neighborhood, already near Ravenna and Cowen parks, could use some affordable housing.

This is a great opportunity for the city to step up, spread the growth burden into the neighborhoods, and put its money where its mouth is on affordable housing while challenging the real cost driver—sacrosanct residential neighborhoods.

"Headline! City declares housing affordability resolved, refocuses on looming parks crisis."

"That [a new park] would fit in really well with our neighborhood right now," one happy neighbor told KING 5 yesterday.

Subsidized affordable housing? Maybe not so much of a fit with the neighborhood character.

Ryan Bayne, spokesman for the Coalition for Housing Solutions (a developer and business-backed group), quipped: "Headline! City declares housing affordability resolved, refocuses on looming parks crisis."

2. I DISLIKE that with the $1.5 billion McCleary obligation plus the $1.9 billion in increased general fund maintenance costs, plus an assortment of labor contract costs putting the $37 billion state budget about $4 billion in the red when you also count voter-mandated I-1351 smaller class sizes, the Republican-controlled senate passed spending bills totalling $432.4 million without explaining how they're going to pay for any of it. (There's $2.7 billion in new revenue coming in this biennium, but that goes poof measured against all the aforementioned line items.)

One bill does come with revenue. But, doh, that's a Democratic bill—state senator Jim Hargrove's (D-24, Hoquiam) domestic violence bill. (Hargrove's bill comes with a $15 surcharge on divorce paperwork filings.)

On average, the supposedly miserly GOP is earmarking $12.7 million per bill while the supposedly wild-eyed liberals are spending $2 million per bill.

There are 32 GOP bills—some very important ones, including state senator John Braun's (R-20, Thurston) legislation to reduce higher-education tuition—totalling $407,802 million of the $432.4 million on the table. The Democrats have passed 12 of the bills costing about $24.6 million of the total. So, on average, the supposedly cost-conscious GOP is earmarking $12.7 million per bill while the supposedly wild-eyed liberals are spending $2 million per bill.

Of course, the higher-education bill—at $225 million—skews the average (though, the other big spend is a Republican bill too, state senator Steve Litzow's $121 million early learning bill). And it was the Democrats who proposed an amendment to pay for Braun's higher-education bill. It lost in committee along party lines, with the GOP rejecting it.

The amendment, sponsored by Seattle state senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36, Ballard) would have raised $177 million by closing four tax loopholes, including a $51 million break for oil refineries. Kohl-Welles said after the higher-education committee vote: “It’s not enough to just say the legislature should reduce tuition—we should actually have to show how we’re going to pay for it. Truly prioritizing students means putting their education and their opportunities before unproductive tax loopholes. Helping students afford their college education should be more important that protecting a tax break for massively profitable oil companies.”

3. Two hundred twenty-six people LIKE (as of this morning) former Seattle Office of Film and Music director James Keblas's announcement on Facebook last night that he's geared up for a city council campaign.

Keblas writes:

Thank you all so much for your kind words and encouragement to run for City Council. The past two days have been extraordinary for Heather Violet Elsa, the boys, and me seeing so much enthusiasm for creativity to drive Seattle’s future. I am inspired and Seattle is a city inspired. I believe we can do this. It will take an all-in effort from everyone here to win this historic election and I am working on putting a pro-level team together to help us. If I can put these pieces in place, this campaign is happening. Stay tuned and thank you!

4. I LIKE that a subcommittee of the  mayor's special affordable housing committee voted yesterday to recommend that the city council overrule a recent city hearing examiner decision that upheld a West Seattle neighborhood group's complaint against allowing developers to scale back on parking. 

The West Seattle group, anxious about an apartment development on Southwest Avalon, objected to the city's no-parking minimum rule on the "frequent transit service" street—and the hearing examiner agreed, ordering a new way to assess frequent transit service exemptions by doing literal bus time counts as opposed to using overall averages.

Developers complained about the ruling last month and sent a letter to council outlining the problem:

Under the Hearing Examiner’s interpretation of the frequent transit requirement, one headway of 16 minutes during the requisite 12-hour period or one headway of 31 minutes during the requisite 18-hour period will disqualify that route from providing frequent transit service even if the average headway is less than 15 (or 30) minutes.

A minute here and there, in an 18-hour period, causes a project to fall outside the frequent transit requirement under the Hearing Examiner’s ruling. This is illogical and inconsistent with broader city policy to support less parking and more transit use, and will make many projects infeasible. In the end, this has the potential to reduce housing supply by hundreds of units and increase housing costs to provide unused parking.