News What He Said
posted by on April 17 at 11:19 AM
Condos are evil, screams the condophobe. Oh, blow it out your mossy butt says Will over at Horsesass:
Truth is, Skip’s no-growth heroes (Brian Derdowski being one of them) were never for zero-growth. They just believed growth should pay for itself. And, growth should be funneled away from undeveloped areas and into cities. You know, like Seattle. So Skip’s anti-growth beliefs are really just a part of the problem. After all, if a young couple can’t buy a townhome in Seattle, they’ll buy a house in Sammamish.We know that these green-backed policies are making the city more unaffordable. They are helping to drive the poor out of town. They are displacing long-standing communities. They are changing the scale of a once-egalitarian city that featured few poor people, few rich people, and a lot of folks in between. This old middle class Seattle is now seen as unsophisticated, not worthy of protection, backward even.The middle class folks who bought houses in the 50’s have sold them in their old age. Houses that went for 20 grand back in the old days are now 900k investments that have paid off. The middle class of Seattle’s yesteryear has cashed out.
Skip is against growth inside the city. He’s also against growth outside the city, as he’s favored growth management far and above the current law. Where does he want growth? Fucking North Dakota.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
So "Skip" is against all growth? If Seattle really wants to see what inflation looks like then they'll take his advice.
I still say we need to get serious and start building 100-story inexpensive residential rental apartment buildings.
That means not median pricing, but below median. Way below median.
Teachers are lucky if they make $40,000, but are priced out of homes in the city.
Gordon Gecko lives - greed is good, all growth is good, and those who oppose us must be EVIL REPUBLICANS!
Y'all might try actually studying the Growth Management Act - it has as its fundamental underpinning this little concept called Concurrency that the City has all but officially abandoned when it comes to accomodating new growth (for example - in order to accomodate all of the growth that occurred in West Seattle over the last 10 years, you NEEDED the Alaskan Way Viaduct to provide tranportation concurrency - and replacing it with nothing runs directly counter to the intent of the GMA).
Been to the suburbs lately? They're still growing faster than Seattle is - high-density condos (many of which are second homes for retirees, by the way) in Belltown and South Lake Union notwithstanding.
If you make it easier and more profitable to tear down the housing that exists (as the City has, and as the Stranger actively encourages everywhere but where its staffers go to drink), more expensive new construction will take its place. Try not to act surprised that the middle class are leaving the City because of this (not to mention the diaspora of people of color from the CD and SE Seattle - been down MLK lately?)
Condos themselves aren't evil. It's the civic management of their proliferation that can be evil.
Read it again, Dan. Goldy didn't write that.
Whoops. Thanks, Ivan. Change made.
And that Will is the other Will, not me.
Will (whichever): "I still say we need to get serious and start building 100-story inexpensive residential rental apartment buildings."
It is not possible to build inexpensive 100-story anythings, I don't think. New construction is enormously expensive, and exponentially so after 20 or so stories.
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