If we want to reduce the number of cars in the city, what will that mean for 520? Not rebuilding? Keeping at 4 lanes? Or building six lanes of pavement with four wide shoulders that will be converted to GP lanes sometime?

Nothing on the pit bulls?

Only if you believe that the costs of building and maintaining something eventually get rolled into the cost of selling/renting it. Just about everyone believes this, except "affordable housing" advocates.

better built condos are better for the city. besides that, we all need to get along in tight spaces.

Is that plausible? Or is it more plausible that the up front cost of such wonderful amenities prices the units out of the reach of buyers?

Just asking.

How is does the council race cost hundreds of thousand of dollars and yet we get a steady stream of retards voted in.

How is does the council race cost hundreds of thousand of dollars and yet we get a steady stream of retards voted in.

developers build to the requirements they are given. they will do extra if it means they can gain extra. using double-paned windows is not required by law, and it does not have the sale value of, say, a work-out room. so the developer will not do it.

it's that simple. they are not evil, they are using cost benefit analysis. the "pay for itself" is passed to the buyer as a benefit, not the construction company. it's harder to sell a more expensive unit even if it is a smarter buy.

that, after all, is one of the main reasons why so many people rent even though it is more cost-effective to own. the upfront fees are discouraging. you know this stuff, elenchos...

Singling out one source of noise seems disingenuous to me, and unfair to the clubs. That being said, noise ordinances have every right to limit unnecessary noise during the nighttime hours.

I only scanned it, but the code sounds horribly subjective and discriminatory, why does it matter who is making the noise? what's the db levels of "plainly audible" to a "normal" person?
it's called living in a city, but the venues need to get active and acquainted with the developers as soon as they see the name on the land use posting. I did that once upon a time, and they eventually gave us $50k for sound abatement improvements.

Let me add delivery trucks to the list as noise pollutants.

This noise ordinance just re-affirms my belief that certain members of the city council are trying to move all the nightlife out of Ballard, Belltown, Fremont and Capitol Hill (the major areas of town where yuppie condo's are being established).

Probably force them all to move down to the Sodo.

I see alot of live music and I really hope I am wrong about this.

Just my theory though.

@15 -- yeah, but if you require Y, then the market has to adjust. until then, no Y.

but are you really in favor of this ordinance? Y?

This is gonna be fun!

This is another piece of piss poor legislation coming from Clark who refuses to engage the whole community and experts when it comes to these and other issues. It's sad, I had high hopes for Clark, who seems to be a very well intentioned, smart person, but unfortunately horrid law maker.

Do keep in mind Fnarf and others who like this ordinance, that this is, and is so intentionally, an attempt to close music venues. And it will do so successfully. The Croc is just the start of what we'll see closing in Seattle. But at least our council will have less work to do and will be able to make their 9pm bed times.

I guess the clubs can just transition to more boutique wine stores.

to answer your question, when we had a substantial addition done to our house we priced single, double, and thicker double paned windows and found a huge range in prices and durability/efficiencies. We opted for the much higher priced, thicker, argon-filled speciality-glass versions (since paid off in spades). The price differential was on the order of five-to-one (5:1) - that's enough of a difference at the contractor level to see why there's all these cheap windows going in everywhere.

The energy efficiency and sound-proofing are awesome, though.