Welcome to Livable Seattle at Google sitesWinter 2011 Livable Seattle was created in 2007 to inform a dialogue on keeping Seattle livable. Our focus: the region's ecology, urban design and housing costs. What got our attention: 1) Unwritten code interpretations (continuing to this day)—transforming Seattle's quite livable "lowrise" multifamily neighborhoods into fire hazards—row upon row of double-loaded townhouse barracks with short-term appeal. (At left, see Updated Chockablock Report, Two Fires, Two Messages, etc.) 2) Shock therapy—brazen use of the mess to justify design freedom, with so called fixes appearing in 2006 at the zenith of the ownership boom, then tweaked and hand-wrung for show until adoption in 2010. All involved spurning the verdict on the previous trial-by-fire substitution of "indirect" controls for traditional limits on bulk, placement and density: adoption 1982, disastrous results warranted "interim controls" by1987, and resolute return of traditional controls by the close of 1989. What holds our attention: 1) The housing-type-in-demand "unexpectedly" switched back to apartments post ownership bust, a housing type assumed during the deliberation to be all but a relic. And, in addition, the tax break honeypot has become not so much the lowrise multifamily zones as the mid-rise/high-rise/mixed use zones: :http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015190746_taxbreaks31m.html 2) This time around the trial-by-fire verdict on indirect controls is likely to be much slower in coming for an additonal reason: "allowed development is far ahead of the market" as the County Executive phrased it on 4/13/2011. Town Square: Leaders in Livability - Dow Constantine This is a Website—not a Blog. New information as events suggest, will appear in the Navigation column on the left. Newest at the top. The original SLM website, identified as such, can be found among the additional resources on the Downloadable Files page. |  |