Seattle's (Draft) Comprehensive Plan Kinda Sucks

Рет қаралды 11,433

4 ай бұрын

Seattle is gearing up to build 100,000 homes...in 20 years...when the population growth is expected to be 240,000...yeah, not good.
One Seattle Plan Engagement Hub:
engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/
www.seattle.gov/documents/Dep...
www.seattle.gov/documents/Dep...
www.seattle.gov/documents/Dep...
Sources:
SeattleTimes | Seattle grew by more than 100,000 people in past 10 years, King County population booms, diversifies, new census data shows
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...
Crosscut | How Seattle is Planning for a quarter million more residents crosscut.com/news/2022/07/how...
SeattleTimes | Seattle is once again the fastest-growing big city, census data shows
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...
Governor Jay Inslee Letter
governor.wa.gov/sites/default...
New York Times | Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House with a Yard on Every Lot
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...
Urban Institute | Making Room for Housing near
Transit: Zoning’s Promise and Barriers
www.urban.org/sites/default/f...
The Urbanist | Report Highlights Puget Sound’s Housing Deficit and Zoning Reform Potential
www.theurbanist.org/2023/01/0...
Capitol Hill Seattle Blog | Seattle’s new plan for growth will still lean heavily on Capitol Hill and the Central District’s dense cores
www.capitolhillseattle.com/20...
SeattleTimes | Thousands of new homes needed across King County
www.seattletimes.com/business...
SeattleTimes | WA lawmaker questions validity of Seattle's housing plan
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...
Department of Commerce | Middle Housing in Washington
www.commerce.wa.gov/serving-c...
The Urbanist | Seattle Releases Comprehensive Plan with Growth Target Lower Than Bellevue
www.theurbanist.org/2024/03/0...
The Urbanist | Bellevue Unveils Bold Growth Strategy for 152,000 Additional Homes
www.theurbanist.org/2024/02/0...
Other Reading:
www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/0...
www.theurbanist.org/2024/02/1...

Пікірлер: 120

@YetAnotherUrbanist 4 ай бұрын

You can leave comments and view meeting dates/locations here: engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan

@roycereidnm 4 ай бұрын

To the landed Seattle homeowners, there is no housing crisis as long as values stay high.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

Nobody ever points out that rent prices have nothing to do with supply and demand, it's a red herring excuse used to endlessly raise prices. We've had surplus housing supply in the past and prices still went up like always. We can regulate rent prices by square footage and solve the problem.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

Regulate rent prices by square footage and the problem is solved.

@bobnas 4 ай бұрын

@matthewcarver2013 in a supply vs demand dynamic I don’t think it’s possible to regulate demand. We can only regulate supply.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

@@bobnas Supply and demand has nothing to do with rent prices, in the periods when supply was much higher than demand the prices still went up just like they always do. Prices should've stayed the same or went down in those instances according to that idea but they didn't.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

@@bobnas Supply and demand is just a red herring used by the rich and corporations as an excuse to endlessly raise prices and people accept it and buy into the propaganda.

@Jodamo 4 ай бұрын

Van life is trendy. Everyone can live in their cars. Just don’t park near my house. - existing homeowners plan

@SteveBluescemi 4 ай бұрын

To be clear, there must be a huge abundance of parking near my house, but I still don't want you to park there.

@traviskitteh 4 ай бұрын

@@SteveBluescemi "And just for the record, my property value is much more important than you having a place to sleep. Please park your homeless ass elsewhere."

@SteveBluescemi 4 ай бұрын

@@traviskitteh "think of the children (but not the homeless children)!"

@KingLarbear 4 ай бұрын

this post is on point

@GirtonOramsay 4 ай бұрын

"You can go take a ferry if you want affordable housing"

@TheFuster 4 ай бұрын

I think the most succinct way to put it is: the proposals with the most growth got the most positive feedback, but they went with something that has less growth than their second worst polled alternative. And thanks to Nixonites like Nelson, Woo, and Saka, this will pass no questions asked!

@slimekittenv 4 ай бұрын

Guess im stuck in tacoma with my partner commuting to seattle via bus for the foreseeable future

@onesob13 4 ай бұрын

Tacoma's great! (when you don't have to commute outside the city)

@MrBirdnose 3 ай бұрын

I used to live in Auburn. I pretty quickly realized that Seattle urbanism means "punish commuters, but never provide any way for them to afford to avoid commuting."

@matte.covers5371 3 ай бұрын

looks like there’s a train in auburn tho right ? 😮

@Tony-so1zl 2 ай бұрын

Honestly Tacoma isn’t bad coming from a Seattleite. Too much going on here

@blubaughmr 4 ай бұрын

The single family home owners have all the clout. In the University District, we've got 25 story towers popping up, because we don't have clout, and the single family home owners consider townhomes in their neighborhood a threat to all they hold dear. Highrise housing costs more than $400/SF to build, so it will always be high end housing.

@KRYMauL 4 ай бұрын

It reduces their million-dollar home prices. Even the Realtors are getting tired of this trend.

@walawala-fo7ds 4 ай бұрын

Housing of any type cannot be build cheaply here due to land values and construct costs. If urbanists just listened for once instead of constantly yapping, they would have realized middle housing, tod, high density towers all will fail in creating affordable housing. It is just induced demand for more people to migrate over to a region already at the breaking point. All, absolutely all will end up being high end because developers cannot afford not to. But even if they could, they won't because they work for profit, not society benefits. And by forcing below rate units, all they do is push the rates up for the rest. Solution is simple. Less people. Not more..

@ek19929 3 ай бұрын

@@walawala-fo7ds so many words to be so wrong. Building more housing is the only proven way of reducing housing costs. Today's luxury housing becomes tomorrow's affordable housing. You can't stop people from moving to a desirable city.

@walawala-fo7ds 3 ай бұрын

@@ek19929 Yeah not in Seattle. 100 year old homes are not affordable lol. What planet are you from

@ek19929 3 ай бұрын

@@walawala-fo7ds they're not affordable because we restricted building new housing. So those SFH are the only options available. If we had allowed the city to develop as it naturally would, then we'd build denser housing on those valuable plots of lands, leasing to more supply and reduced costs. Housing isn't magically a different type of market than others, it follows supply and demand.

@PeteLorimer 4 ай бұрын

Another great video. Thanks. Note: I’ve noticed this is the second time you’ve mispronounced Judkins Park. As I know you’re still relatively new here I thought I’d point out that it’s pronounced Jud -kins (rhymes with mud-pins) for future videos. Keep up the great videos!

@TheLiamster 4 ай бұрын

I wish the reforms from the Urban Institute would be implemented not just in Seattle but in every major metropolitan area in the country. It would be a game changer for cities like San Francisco and LA

@electriclilies2642 4 ай бұрын

Is there a place where we can comment on the plan?

@YetAnotherUrbanist 4 ай бұрын

You can leave comments here: engage.oneseattleplan.com/en/projects/draftplan

@Bleach1443 4 ай бұрын

Will you be going to the open houses and leaving feedback? (I don’t ask that in a negative tone I ask it in a We need your voice tone! You speak so well on this topic and make such strong arguments for why this thing is pathetic!

@kevley26 4 ай бұрын

Yupp I've been seeing a lot of tweets from push the needle taking about Washington in general falling short in urban planning reform.

@mentonerodominicano 3 ай бұрын

A friend of mine used to live in Cap Hill on this big house that he shared with like 7-8 other people. Some of the rooms were just tiny and every floor shared a bathroom. It's sad that is what these younger generations can afford to do to live in these growing cities.

@conorreynolds9739 4 ай бұрын

Does the plan estimate growth in housing demand/# of households? Because if current trends continue, even static population would lead to increased demand for housing units as household sizes shrink.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

Household sizes are only smaller because people can't afford to have children because of the economic policies of our country. Regulate rent and food prices, get a universal healthcare/jobs program, $40,000 per year minimum wage with 32 hour workweek, good public transit, etc. and we'd be a doing very well.

@HarrisonEngel-wr5uy 4 ай бұрын

⁠@@matthewcarver2013Most of your elevator pitch is great, but regulating food prices is not. A lot of people have died throughout history from food price regulation. You can look up the dynamics of why it happens, it’s a really important topic of study in economics and there’s lots of good writing on it. But any government trying to regulate food prices is really really playing with fire they don’t understand, and it’s terrifying even for a relatively pro regulation person like me.

@harlander-harpy 4 ай бұрын

The best way to put the new plan is it does a bunch of cool things but it is not enough. This was 100% expected because it is never enough because of how american politics works. Luckily, we can keep fighting, this isnt the end of history. I have been incredibly frustrated with the pathetic reaction of the Seattle Urbanist community. Instead of getting angry, these people have been melodramatically proclaiming Seattle's doom and giving up.

@rwgrab 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, I think that's a good point. There is actually a lot of positive movement in this new plan (yes, beyond just the "Corner Store" concept). I think it's important to put things into perspective - there are many different viewpoints from Seattle residents that all need to be factored in. A radical redesign of the city isn't going to happen overnight, but we can still keep moving in the right direction. Seattle's not done-for; it's making a transition for the better bit by bit

@snowboarder981 4 ай бұрын

Thank you for making this video. Although it is Seattle specific and maybe not super relevant to everyone, its relevant to me. I just went and left like 50 comments on the document. I saw that there was quite a lot of other like minded urbanists in the doc comments. Hopefully we will be able to make a change!

@eugenetswong 4 ай бұрын

Our city is going through an update to our plan. I'll be "yelling" 😛 about 4-over-1 housing.

@maycatyuiop 4 ай бұрын

Can I get a copy of the script. I would like to go over this with my councel member

@Bismvth 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for spreading the word on zoning reform!! It's super important that we let our elected officials know that anything less is simply not good enough.

@vladislavdracula1763 4 ай бұрын

Vision 2050 kind of forces the regional center/urban center structure onto cities, but they still should have been much more ambitious with their implementation.

@kylea.1223 3 ай бұрын

The fact that Bellevue have a more ambitious plan than Seattle is shocking. Bellevue's trying to grow to just under 500k by 2044

@mwgillenwater 3 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@Aidan_Au 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for this comprehensive analysis video. It sounds like NYC has the same problem with Seattle too, as crazy as it sounds.....

@LimitedWard 4 ай бұрын

Not sure what's sadder: the plan itself or the lack of people RSVP'd to attend the open houses.

@LoveToday8 4 ай бұрын

They probably didn't advertise it very well

@walawala-fo7ds 4 ай бұрын

They are too busy watching biking videos from Amsterdam to get involved 😂

@gabrieldomocos7570 4 ай бұрын

Zoning looks like it matters a lot, amd it does, but the fundamental factor generating car centred urban design is the affordability of owning and operating cars. This is the differemce between NA and Europe/Asia. Gas and insurance are cheap and laws protect the driver from consequences of car related catastrophe.

@usernameryan5982 Ай бұрын

No it’s not, gas is getting very expensive in California and it’s still a suburban hell hole. It’s about what’s legal to build and what’s not. You can’t say the reason something isn’t walkable because of any other reason when they’re illegal to build in the first place.

@F4URGranted 4 ай бұрын

Builders remedy can have some sad effects. I live in San Jose, and developers are using it as a chance to lower the amount of housing in their proposals and lower the amount of stories, due to wanting to bring down expenses. It is overall a good thing because it's very scary to those ritzy suburbs out there who don't want change

@sccengr 3 ай бұрын

Great synopsis of the plan, and it's faults. In my 20 years here, I'm amazed how the city government with changes in mayor and council members, has consistently dumped all new growth to limited space along busy arterials (almost to the point of ghettos, but Luxury).

@foodbag312 3 ай бұрын

I really don't understand the mindset of not wanting to build more housing. I am a homeowner in Seattle and if I want my home price to go up in a sustainable way in a city people actually want to and can move to, they must build. Also hoping that more development near me also means greater demand for businesses in our neighborhood center since we are already fairly underserved in that regard. I'm curious how many new housing units are going to be created from the NR3 rezoning across the city. Hard to go anywhere in the city without seeing them being built these days.

@zengseng1234 4 ай бұрын

Great video. I thought this was the channel with the Canadians, so the voice threw me off at first.

@sunandsage 4 ай бұрын

There needs to be a nationwide ban on the restriction to single family detached homes.

@walawala-fo7ds 4 ай бұрын

Under what statue? The federal government can only control lending of federaly backed loans. Any blanket federal ban on what can be built will not survive a constitutional challenge from the states. Not to mention political end to any one that voted for it.

@lofisynthetic 3 ай бұрын

⁠@@walawala-fo7dsmay not be possible either way, but OP didn’t suggest a blanket ban on what can be built, the suggestion was a ban on the restrictions on what can be built. In other words, a blanket lifting of the ban on increasing housing density.

@walawala-fo7ds 3 ай бұрын

@@lofisynthetic last year's bill already made duplexes and triplexes legal basically in all the Seattle and neighboring cities. There are no bans anymore. However just like when California did this years ago, it doesn't create housing in any meaningful quantity and whatever is created is not affordable. Construction is super expensive, investors soak up whatever is not rent only, and tech salaries as well as tech jobs continue to grow even with the tech recession. The puget sound will never be affordable due to population inflow and tech salaries. So these planners panic because the ban lift isn't creating housing and now are pushing for higher density which we're not even using the allowed density. We will never build our way out to affordability. Developers don't profit from affordability. All these so called reforms do is induce demand for more luxury unaffordable dwellings. It's just like trying to add one more lane of highway. You're just going to get people who would not live here, to come here. Textbook Induced demand. Do you want affordable housing? Don't move to Seattle. Don't come to San Francisco. Don't attempt to live next to Facebook in California. There is plenty of cheap housing where you're not competing with millionaires for a home. Remote work should cancel the need for people crowding Seattle, but we'll see.

@SteveBluescemi 4 ай бұрын

This video is about Seattle but you might as well replace "Seattle" with "Vancouver" and it's still completely true. At the current rate, the suburb of Surrey is going to have a bigger population than Vancouver itself by the end of the decade.

@eugenetswong 4 ай бұрын

Are you from Surrey? I think that they are putting serious effort into improving. We are undergoing an upgrade to our plan.

@Pystro 3 ай бұрын

Maybe the suburbs around Seattle could use someone who really knows how to tell others to start pulling their weight. Maybe this one guy I know who recently bragged that he told the European NATO members to start "paying up". I wonder what happened to his plan to make Mexico pay for his wall, though...

@remimk 3 ай бұрын

what do you think of vancouver bc?

@ttopero 4 ай бұрын

Sounds like you’re in favor of allowing the “yellow zone” properties to be built with a unit density that a buyer could get an FHA mortgage (1-4 units). It’ll probably need to be paired with parking reform for many lots, both of which would make Seattle (& any city) leaders in this race.

@erikawwad7653 4 ай бұрын

im doing my part in increasing apartment prices by moving to town in august!

@walawala-fo7ds 4 ай бұрын

Induced demand.

@djsiii4737 4 ай бұрын

Does this plan focus only on housing? If not, it's not fair to say the plan was delayed for this reason about housing targets. Must such comprehensive plan talks about a lot more than just housing numbers and types. These types of plans are way more complex than that.

@user-bc7cb8uu7e 4 ай бұрын

Shouldn't be surprising given the way people in Seattle have been voting recently. Choosing Harrell as mayor and the recent city council elections really show how much people in Seattle don't want things to get any better.

@jasonohara5968 3 ай бұрын

Yall always blame voting lol. That's always ur go to

@user-bc7cb8uu7e 3 ай бұрын

@@jasonohara5968 If choosing the wrong decision makers isn't the cause of bad decisions, what is?

@eugenetswong 4 ай бұрын

Hello from Greater Vancouver BC. This info is so disheartening.

@jenbanim 3 ай бұрын

People should get involved with Seattle YIMBY or The Urbanist! These groups are organizing to try and get the city to adopt a better comprehensive plan, there's still time!

@DJ_BROBOT 3 ай бұрын

you need to show more recent pics of Bellevue. It has gotten way more dense and taller since that building boom kicked off there before the pandemic. That B-roll is something from 2010. And with since Amazon is moving a ton of its workforce there along with the new rail lines opening there...Bellevue is going to become a monster in size and population soon. Doesnt matter what Seattle does...and the folks from elsewhere need to get a better and more recent picture of whats going on the area and what threats to Seattle exist if they dont get their acts together, Especially when Costco, Microsoft, T-mobile's headquarters are all near Bellevue ( along with Amazon's massive build over there).

@YetAnotherUrbanist 3 ай бұрын

That's just what B Roll was available on Storyblocks. I'll be sure to get plenty more footage when Link Light Rail opens in April.

@user-uy7vh8sm6s 3 ай бұрын

honestly breaks my heart to see a city with so much potential squander it...

@turtalia4537 4 ай бұрын

Very good video, however i have some constructive criticism. I know you put a link in the comment section and description for where people can put a comment but you did not say that in the video. A vast majority of people do you look under the video and click off. Please sat something or put a qr code in the video. You'll get a lot more action that way.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

Regulate food and rent prices, implement a universal healthcare/jobs program, $40,000 per year minimum wage with 32 hour workweek, good public transit, etc. and we'd be doing very well in this country.

@SteveBluescemi 4 ай бұрын

Regulate rent prices by square footage so that every unit is affordable and the outcome is that no one will build any rentals. The prohibitively high prices that currently push people out of the city will be replaced with equally prohibitively long wait times for available apartments. The underlying cause remains unsolved: a severe shortage of housing.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

@@SteveBluescemi No, rent prices have nothing to do with supply and demand, it's a red herring excuse used to endlessly raise prices. In the past we had periods with surplus housing supply and rent prices went up as fast as they did when we had "shortages". It's just greed, also the government can build the housing more efficiently and charge it's own low rent to increase revenues which would allow them to collect less taxes from working class people.

@matthewcarver2013 4 ай бұрын

@@SteveBluescemi Rent prices have nothing to do with supply and demand, we had times with housing supply surpluses and prices went up at the same rates as when we had "shortages". Also governments can build housing better anyway, we don't need profit driven developers.

@traviskitteh 4 ай бұрын

@@SteveBluescemi Then, maybe, follow with massive tax incentives for other types of properties, like offices or warehouses, with an increasing tax discount for every so-many-thousand homes or apartments built. Or, just have the government commission and operate the buildings?

@zachariahhowell4342 3 ай бұрын

Unfortunately cops & homeless are the hot ticket item in local politics, not zoning. And after the COVID crime backlash, we elected a bunch of conservative officials

@jackh3242 4 ай бұрын

I've heard you say "legislator" instead of "legislature" a few times now, and I just want to gently point out that a legislature is the entire body (like house and senate) pronounced differently than legislator, which is a single person within that body.

@jumbolarge108 4 ай бұрын

While I wish it was more ambitious, do not let perfect be the enemy of the good.

@KRYMauL 4 ай бұрын

Enabling missing middle housing and expanding the neighborhood villages would not be perfect, it's the bare minimum to increase housing supply in a growing region.

@cheef825 4 ай бұрын

This isn't good tho it sucks ass

@TheMarshallCraft 4 ай бұрын

This is not good. It’s ridiculously bad.

@Lex_2003 4 ай бұрын

if i was a seattle planner id argue to build more housing than we even think wed need, maybe 1 million new homes to 1. lower prices, 2. be able to absorb new people, 3. encourage people to move downtown and 4. grow more than projected also could you do a video on memphis' comprehensive plan?

@MatthewStidham 4 ай бұрын

Seattle will never lower housing prices. EVER. The mindset of the region is that they need to have maximum benefit pensions, so their only real asset is going to be their homes. Source: I grew up there.

@Jack-fw4mw 4 ай бұрын

The planners probably do argue that, but they are employees, not politicians. They create the plans based on what the head of the department (who is guided by the elected politicians) tells them is allowed and not allowed. The best they can do is put snide remarks in the plan like (this allows for X units, which is much below the expected employment growth). The trick is to make the snide remarks informative enough to pass through the bureaucracy.

@walawala-fo7ds 4 ай бұрын

Oversuppy is not good for Capitalism. So forget about it

@MatthewStidham 4 ай бұрын

Just another car addicted Anglo city. Nothing special here. It's why I left Washington State for New York City. What is going to happen is Seattle will never be able to have 1 million people in its city proper because it is one of the least dense cities in the world. This will force people to live far from Seattle, expanding suburban sprawl in Snohomish, Kitsap, and Pierce counties. Since the Sound Transit district doesn't even encompass all of any counties it is in, and will NEVER be expanded to the state capitol of Olympia, this will force people to drive. Which means more parking spaces, lower density, and the vicious cycle continues. Source: I lived there for almost 30 years until I gave up.

@harlander-harpy 4 ай бұрын

New york city, famously not in an even larger housing crisis with much higher rents and lower minimum wage

@jaykay1899 4 ай бұрын

This seems like a very black and white negative mindset

@MatthewStidham 4 ай бұрын

@@harlander-harpyAt least I am not forced to purchase a car here. It makes up the difference, at least in my situation.

@GirtonOramsay 4 ай бұрын

Living in Spokane sounds a lot better than Seattle now. It's like half the rent of Seattle with walkable neighborhoods too. I used to live in Pullman for reference, but could never justify making a move to Seattle either

@zeroshepard9513 3 ай бұрын

As long as they engineer buildings that look good. All there is to see here is buildings. This city is bland and cultureless. The culture here is eurocentric minus the history. Is it the water that draws people? I can find plenty of water to look at that doesn't have a bunch of buildings and a whole lot of nothing to do.

@whattheheckisthisthing 4 ай бұрын

There are tons of homes. They are just owned by investors and Airbnbers instead of people that live in them

@nick13sPage 4 ай бұрын

13 minutes of background footage and the sun didn't appear once. Prices are not the only thing that is going to keep people from moving there clearly.

@MrMRMONKEY232 4 ай бұрын

Literally clear blue skies in a some shots. Do you want B roll of the camera staring at the sun

@sunandsage 4 ай бұрын

That could be difficult because this is an area where it is cloudy much of the time - especially this time of year.

@SteveBluescemi 4 ай бұрын

But people are moving there. It's the third fastest growing metro area. The amount of sun Seattle gets is already factored into its desirability and isn't going to change. But prices will continue to go up as long as supply doesn't meet demand.

@walawala-fo7ds 4 ай бұрын

If only that were true. Vancouver and Seattle are bursting. They have mild wet winters and extremely sunny and pleasant summers in the mid 70s Fahrenheit with close access to amazing nature, oceans, snow capped peaks beaches, whales and beautiful vistas. Almost too much sun which is causing wild fires. They rank among the highest desireable areas in the world... And prices show that.

@MrBirdnose 3 ай бұрын

The biggest problem is everyone seems to want to live in Seattle, so there's literally no amount of housing you could build that would catch up. More housing will just induce more demand.

@thecyberseer 4 ай бұрын

I suggest using AI reading the script, because you sound soooooo douchy

@geraldford6641 4 ай бұрын

I guess you must sound like a sophisticated ladies' man then? There's a reason this guy has a following and you don't, and it's not because of his voice. You're the real douche.

@Shronk26 3 ай бұрын

bro wut

@esgee3829 3 ай бұрын

like a chad or a brad? maybe a bit nasal, but that would be nerdy not douchy, no?