(pause)

I see ...

Can you tell I'm disappointed? I'm disappointed.

This is not affordable housing, at $550-750,000 per unit. All are well above the 2007 neighborhood median home sales price at $430,000.

What isn't clear from the pictures is these units are 30-37 feet tall and about 10 feet off the sidewalk. Their height and scale dwarfs everything in the neighborhood.

A structurally sound 20,000 sf building, that could house 10-12 units itself if intelligently remodeled, will be demolished to make way for this development. That makes it hard to label what replaces this building "sustainable" or even environmentally sound.

These negatives are why the neighborhood has been so active to try to find a better development plan than this one. The community does not seek to stop development, only make it a better fit for this unique site.

If you transplant these individual unit designs to a real L2 transitional zone where much of the townhome dreck (I love the "Borg" reference!) has been going in, I think the neighborhood would not be upset. On *this* property -- given its unique wooded area, orphan L2 status surrounded by single-family, proximity to the coming reservoir park to the east -- they don't work. This doesn't mean 39 units can't work on this site, just not the 39 units as currently conceived and sited.

NW Modern, my ass.

New Urbanism, Seattle style - "It became necessary to destroy the environment in order to save it."

p.s. "Palate" is the roof of the mouth.

Look, you may think $500,000 is affordable - but it isn't.

(notice no mention of more reasonable alternatives by me, since you all love single-family housing for the rich and ultra-rich and their artist hangers-on ...)

This is new construction in a beautiful north Seattle neighborhood with tons of green space... What do you expect?

This is not the stuff affordable housing is made of.

Ah, the rallying cry of the NIMBY.

@14) Thank you, my copying-editing angel. Was typing quickly and tapped out the wrong "palette."

I live in Maple Leaf. I reserve judgment on this particular project as I haven't seen the plans.

But I see our neighborhood every day and the scarcity of street trees makes me wonder whether the drama over the "urban forest" is just a convenient make-weight.

If we really cared about trees we, as individuals, would plant them.

1. What's wrong with wanting what goes into our neighborhood not to suck? Is there ANY comment a neighborhood could make about a development (other than, "Please sir, may I have another.") that WOULDN'T cause you to make a NIBMY crack?

2. The community has been approached by three different developers, all with plans that are better than the one currently proposed. One reuses the building for housing units. All three don't build inside the grove.

I can't speak for when other communities use that phrase, but in this case Maple Leaf actually means it.

This is not the forum to get into the details of optimum depth for retail space but assuming that the lot is 100 feet deep (minimum) then you'd have retail spaces which are 100 feet deep. Not a good idea.

That's designing yourself into a spot where you MUST have national or large regional tenants -- like a Bartells or Wallgreens -- rather than the idiosyncratic "mom-and-pops" which make a neighborhood streetfront really interesting. A reasonable space for a small store is 1000 SF, (though it could even be smaller.) That would mean (in your model) a retail space of 100' depth by 10' wide -- that's far too narrow. More traditional and practical is 50' deep and 20' wide. The back part of a retail space is not valuable except for a larger retailer.

Please reconsider.

One question... this is always a thorn in my side.

Why can't we mandate that all these new developments mimick how Vancouver does their architecture? Why all the cookie cutter approach to a square building with no character?

2 things I'd like to see from EVERY development going forward...

1. Green Grass greenspace should be mandated with 25 foot setbacks from the curb for all buildings. I don't care how you integrate that greenspace into the design, but I am SICK and TIRED of seeing nothing but square brick buildings built right up against the street or "sidewalk" with no setback to a building.

2. Balconies or porches. Every unit of housing, should be required to have a LARGE balcony (or alternatively a porch) that is attached to the property. If I am going to drop $400,000 + on a new condo, I sure as hell better be able to feel like it is a genuine home that I can entertain in. I have yet to see ANY new projects that have adequate balcony space for a table and 4 chairs with a grill. To me this equates to a 10' x 20' sized space off of the side of the building. Better yet, I want a space this size to have the ability for me to place a hottub on my balcony if I deem it so.

I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I constantly have the feeling of being cheated with these eye sore designs that are presented and rubber stamped at these types of "proposal" meetings. There is no way an average citizen who would like to see their city evolve in a way such as Vancouver could ever effectively attend all the different meetings and make a substantive long term difference.

Vancouver planning and development has a HUGE start in the right direction. Seattle quite frankly... is a joke.

I'm all for adding dense housing on sites that make sense. For example, that piece of shit condemned building on the northeast corner of 75th & Roosevelt. Anything could go in there and I'd think it was an improvement. (And this site is closer to my home than the Waldo site.)

BUT I still think it is strange that if people love trees so much they don't ALSO plant their own. I have and it's remarkable how quickly they grow and have impact.

And I do not like it when people try to seize the high moral ground of speaking for "the community" when they simply speak for a group of individuals even if a large group. We have had no referendum on this project so it's not appropriate to claim to speak for "the community."

And yes, I understand that it takes time for trees to grow.

I hope you will admit that it appears quite odd for people to protect trees on someone else's property when they have not -- en masse -- planted trees themselves.