As part of our endorsement process at The Urbanist, we ask candidates to complete a standard questionnaire to better understand and evaluate their positions on housing, land use, transportation, and other important issues. We then share this information with our readers to help inform their own voting decisions.
This year we are considering 19 candidates running for Seattle City Council positions 8 and 9, Seattle Mayor, and Port of Seattle Commission positions 1 and 4. We are publishing the questionnaires in full this week and next week, concluding with our official primary election endorsements in mid-July.
The following questionnaire was submitted by Mac McGregor, running for Seattle City Council Position 8.
Editor’s note: We at The Urbanist wanted to let you know about a chance to support two housing advocates we’ve partnered with many times while pushing for good housing policy. Organizing folks to engage in the public process and push for affordable housing is tough and often thankless work, but it’s essential to our success. We want to thank Alex and Laura for their organizing work and encourage people to support them and attend their house party.
Two local housing activists, Alex Broner and Laura Loe (Bernstein), are hosting a house party to celebrate their work from 5.30pm to 8pm on Friday (June 23rd) at Loe’s home in the U District.
Throughout the last three years, Broner has been working to identify and promote innovative, publicly funded housing choices. In January 2016, Loe quit grad school to organize full-time, to educate people about the connections between land use, zoning and how to make our city more welcoming, and to tweet as @yimbysea.
Attendees will hear from local developer and activist, David Neiman, who will present a fascinating history of Seattle’s land use code, and from Councilmember Kshama Sawant about why we need publicly financed housing now. Additional speakers will include Myra Lara, local queer, Latinx artist, and Kate Brunette, Housing Now volunteer and current campaign manager for Jon Grant for City Council.
As part of our endorsement process at The Urbanist, we ask candidates to complete a standard questionnaire to better understand and evaluate their positions on housing, land use, transportation, and other important issues. We then share this information with our readers to help inform their own voting decisions.
This year we are considering 19 candidates running for Seattle City Council positions 8 and 9, Seattle Mayor, and Port of Seattle Commission positions 1 and 4. We are publishing the questionnaires in full this week and next week, concluding with our official primary election endorsements in mid-July.
The following questionnaire was submitted by Jon Grant, running for Seattle City Council Position 8.
The Urbanist is a proud cosponsor of a candidate forum tonight called Growing Seattle. The forum’s theme is transportation and housing policy and will include the major contenders in two races: Seattle Mayor and City Council Position 8, an open at-large seat. Both of these races are wide open and each offer a huge opportunity to install an urbanist who’s a stalwart multimodal advocate at the top of City government.
Tickets to attend the event at Impact Hub are sold out, but it will be streamed live online and the lead sponsor, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways is facilitating watch parties across the city (see below). Moreover, Twitter users can use the hashtag #GrowingSeattle to follow online and share reactions including from yours truly @UrbanistOrg.
The mayor forum goes first from 5.30pm to 6.45pm, and Position 8 goes second from 7pm to 8.15pm. Local journalist Erica C. Barnett, who publishes The C Is For Crank, will be moderating the event. Here are the confirmed participants in the forum:
The Seattle City Council got its first glimpse this week at proposed rezones for three urban village nodes on 23rd Avenue in the Central District. On Tuesday, the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee met to learn about the proposal from City staff and community members. While all three rezones are technically tied together, they are legislatively bifurcated into separate bills. The set of proposals are the result of the 23rd Avenue Action Plan which seeks to implement specific strategies to create walkable, mixed-use nodes that reflect the rich community character of the Central District, provide a variety of housing options, and support existing and new local businesses.
The three nodes that are part of the 23rd Avenue Action Plan. (City of Seattle)
Each of the rezones would help implement the Mandatory Housing Affordability program by requiring most new development to contribute to the creation and preservation of affordable housing. The scope of the rezones is focused on urban village nodes located at Union Street, Cherry Street, and Jackson Street on 23rd Avenue, meaning that land use changes would only apply to a handful of blocks surrounding each key intersection. The three nodes are further broken down in to eight separate rezone subareas that are designed to achieve different objectives.
In March, the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) published an urban design framework summarizing the overall vision and implementation strategies to improve urban design within each of the three nodes. Many of the implementation strategies are contained in the the rezone proposals as new development regulations (e.g., mid-block through connections, upper-floor stepbacks, and deeper ground floor setbacks).
Context and Displacement
The Central District is recognized as a historically African-American neighborhood that has long been underserved and lacked a proportionate share of major investments. Part of that was the result of redlining through discriminatory lending and insurance practices that started in the 1930s, walling off whole neighborhoods in Seattle to African-Americans. The Central District was one place in the city that African-Americans could more easily locate in spite of these practices. From this context, the African-American community became deeply rooted in the neighborhood through institutions, businesses, and organizations. In recent decades though, the community has seen major cultural shifts as African-American residents have went from a majority to a minority in the neighborhood.
As part of our endorsement process at The Urbanist, we ask candidates to complete a standard questionnaire to better understand and evaluate their positions on housing, land use, transportation, and other important issues. We then share this information with our readers to help inform their own voting decisions.
This year we are considering 19 candidates running for Seattle City Council positions 8 and 9, Seattle Mayor, and Port of Seattle Commission positions 1 and 4. We are publishing the questionnaires in full this week and next week, concluding with our official primary election endorsements in mid-July.
The following questionnaire was submitted by Hisam Goueli, running for Seattle City Council Position 8.
As part of our endorsement process at The Urbanist, we ask candidates to complete a standard questionnaire to better understand and evaluate their positions on housing, land use, transportation, and other important issues. We then share this information with our readers to help inform their own voting decisions.
This year we are considering 19 candidates running for Seattle City Council positions 8 and 9, Seattle Mayor, and Port of Seattle Commission positions 1 and 4. We are publishing the questionnaires in full this week and next week, concluding with our official primary election endorsements in mid-July.
The following questionnaire was submitted by Peter Steinbrueck, running for Port of Seattle Commissioner Position 4.
After more than a decade of delays, a plan to build more than 200 affordable housing units on a 28-acre site at Fort Lawton Army Reserve Center in Magnolia may finally be picking up momentum. The Seattle Office of Housing hosted a meeting Monday to gather input, and there’s another one at 6.30pm this evening at the Magnolia Community Center.
Some neighbors opposed the plan, favoring additional park space or a school instead. Others recognized the urgency of producing affordable housing, particularly on land the City has access to for free under a federal program that seeks to put surplus land to good use. In fact, the urgency results not just from the crisis in housing affordability, but also because the City threatens to lose control of the site if it doesn’t act soon.
History of Re-purposing Fort Lawton
Set up as an army installation in the 1890s, Fort Lawton also had the purpose of protecting against the internal threat the government believed the Northwest’s labor movement posed, according to author Jack Hamann. In 1964, 85% of Fort Lawton was declared surplus and sold to the City at half market value to create Discovery Park. In 1970, after the United Indians of All Tribes (UIAT) presented a claim to all lands that might be declared surplus, the City negotiated an agreement to lease 17 acres to UIAT for what would become Daybreak Star Cultural Center.
The site plan from 2008 included re-purposing existing buildings and preserving trees and green space. (City of Seattle)
In 2005, the federal government deactivated the last remnants of Fort Lawton, which was serving as a regional Army Reserve command center. “The Army named the City of Seattle the Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA), responsible for preparing and implementing a redevelopment plan,” the City website states. We’re still waiting on the plan 12 years later, and our inaction could cost us: if the City’s doesn’t act before its recently signed five year lease is up, the federal government can sell the property to a for-profit development. Writing in The Seattle Times, Vernal Coleman explained the storied history of the affordable housing effort at the site:
