Southeast Neighborhoods Subarea Plan Report
It is no news, the economy is down. How can things like zoning and planning for the next twenty years help us get good jobs back? When a group of us started thinking what our neighborhood should look like in 20 years, we were not thinking we would be at 10% unemployment with housing prices dropping 25%. Developers could not build houses fast enough. Home loans were as easy to get as unsolicited credit cards in the mail. Housing prices went so high, real estate speculators were buying up anything they could. It was as if the profit motive and market forces were the only thing to consider in making decisions about where to build housing. In this type of market the value of a well built older house was not the structure but the land underneath it. Worse, commercial property that was once valued for the business opportunity was more valuable as high density residential housing. Retail business was being forced out by increasing rents, property taxes and unreal mortgage payments. Living wage jobs were also declining in Seattle and North King County. Professional services and high end technical jobs were locating in lower rent areas. Many of us spent up to two hours a day driving to and from work. We would also drive outside of Shoreline to find selection of goods at reasonable prices. The sales tax base was not enough, so property and utility taxes were increased. In the long term every residential housing unit built results in more money spent on services then it generates in taxes. But every new development built and sold resets the property tax limitation to the new high value. So the short term gain makes knocking down stable quality older neighborhoods very attractive for finding money to run the City. The Planning Department argues that market forces are the only way to shape future development. The retail market problem is solved by building more residential housing. The neighbors would like coffee shops and mom and pop grocery stores within walking distance of their 7,200 sq foot lots with 2 car parking, single family homes. We would like lots of trees, sidewalks and transit. We see the plight of poor people among us whose rent is more than 33% of their family income. Young families can not afford to buy homes here. The argument has been made that the only way to get affordable housing, more sidewalks, transit, parks and walkable access to retail is to build high density rental housing. This argument was accepted by the 7 of the Citizens Advisory Committee. Two of the majority are developers who do not live in the area. It was argued that if densities of R-150 housing units per acre are built, then the bottom floor will be used for retail space. This would result in up to 65 foot buildings, apartments as small as 450 sq feet, at densities 25 times higher than what most of us now live in. At Echo Lake on Aurora this type of structure was allowed to be built. Apparently the future occupants have not bought the concept; if we build it they will come. Those apartments and the retail space below them have very high vacancy rates and high rents to pay for the high costs of new buildings. . If the only tool in your tool box is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. Market forces, bottom line thinking is that that hammer and it has damaged our world, our country, whole companies, communities, homes, families, jobs and retirement savings. Some of us are tired of being hammered on. There is another way. Profit / money is not the only way to value things or decide what and where to build. The value of stable neighborhoods, a feeling of belonging here and trust that our neighbors will be there for us if we need them is not easy to measure. The value of being able to walk to work at a living wage job can be measured in the time and money saved, not to mention the decreased carbon dioxide. A minority of the committee proposed creating a new type of zone called an economic zone that would create favorable conditions for business with living wage jobs to locate in our neighborhood. Those business need reasonable rent costs, high volume traffic passing by and transit within walking distance. 15th Ave NE, 145th St and Bothell Lake City Way provide the transit and commuter / customer traffic required. The only thing stopping job creating business development is the cost to rent or buy commercial space. One way of driving down the cost of rent or development is to limit the use of the land for residential development to 12 units /acre and limiting the height to 35 feet. It turns out the Growth Management Act, the Puget Sound Regional Council and Shoreline's own Comprehensive Plan all require a balance of all aspects of development not just increasing housing density. So we are required to create jobs to a target of 1.6 jobs per housing unit. Shoreline has approximately 2,500 jobs and 22,000 housing units a ratio that is 0.11. Shoreline is required to plan for 5,000 new units of housing in the next 20 years and 5,000 new jobs as well. An Economic Zone would potentially provide over 200 living wage jobs and potential sales taxes from these businesses and could reduce the need for increasing property taxes. This Wednesday Feb 3 at 7:00 pm neighbors are meeting to discus these majority and minority Subarea report at the Public Health Lab 1601 NE 150th St Then on Thursday at 7:00 pm some of us will be going to the Planning Commission to support the minority report vision. We want only 150 new housing units in our neighborhood and the creation of an Economic Zone to bring in new business and family wage jobs. The majority report creates zoning for up to 900 new units in our area. At those densities no business could afford the rent and very few families could afford to buy or rent either. Subarea report Details at Details of the Subarea reports
Zoning map
Land Use map
Bill Bear member of the minority group of Southeast Neighborhood Subarea Citizens Advisory Committee