For once, I agree with the Seattle Times’s crusty conservative. In today’s column, Bruce Ramsey comes out in favor of density and against overregulation of developers by the city’s Department of Planning and Development. In one example Ramsey cites, a builder was stuck in legal limbo for 14 months while the city conducted a State Environmental Policy Act review on six townhouses he wanted to build in the Central District. (The city could waive SEPA requirements on such a small development, but chose not to.) The delay cost the builder thousands of dollars.

As Ramsey notes: “Most lower-cost housing is old private housing. The best way to open up old private housing is to build new private housing. The city should encourage that.”

Ramsey’s right: Building condos in dense, inner-city Seattle is much different than building single-family homes in sprawling, outer-ring eastern suburbs. The city should be encouraging infill—not driving developers to Issaquah.