Sally's Blog

Or maybe we're just the weary. I have to admit that yesterday's Veteran's Day holiday was much appreciated. Between the budget, the Dravus rezone and ongoing work on the Workforce Housing Incentive Program, I've savored unprogrammed time. Not only is my house vacuumed, but we also saw a movie in a real movie theater. "W" is worth the ticket price, by the way.

Now it's back to work on the budget and on the last major Planning, Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee work program item for 2008 - Workforce Housing Incentive Program. Budget will wrap up in the next week (more on that later). Next Wednesday, Nov. 19, we have a special PLUNC to work on this incentive zoning proposal and to work through an exaltation of appointments to boards and commissions. We then have two PLUNC meetings, Dec. 4 and Dec. 10, before buttoning things up for the end of the year.

As a reminder to anyone who hasn't been watching, we have incentive zoning Downtown and are considering applying similar rules to substantial upzones in other parts of the city. Under incentive zoning, you can build to a base height outright or you can elect to build to a higher limit if you set aside some housing units for people who earn a little less (click here for a more detailed explanation of the proposal). We've spent a year investigating the ins and outs of incentive zoning if expanded beyond downtown - the art and science of development, the need for housing affordable to "regular" people, the trick of building an expanded program that truly fits neighborhoods, and much more have been discussed and debated sine January. A few things are clear to me:

1. There will be area-wide, proactive upzones put forward by the Mayor's staff in the next few years—South Lake Union, South Downtown and Northgate are already on the horizon.

2. The demand for middle-income housing is outpacing its production.

3. Many neighborhood advocates are concerned about new development changing the character (and housing prices) of our neighborhoods.

4. Neighborhoods with housing that meets the needs of people from a range of incomes make for a healthier city.

5. We are surrounded by new housing that rents or has sold at prices far beyond what a person earning the area median income can afford.

6. When we, city government, change the zoning of an area it's almost always to increase development capacity, creating a potential windfall for the owner and developer.

That all leads me to believe that requiring a modest set-aside of more affordable apartments or condos when there is a substantial upzone makes sense. We are in a recession now, but Seattle will likely continue to be a hot place to live (assuming we can make our school system solvent and successful, but that's another subject). This is about the long-term affordability and livability of our city.

Next Wednesday we start working our way through a series of questions about how an expanded program would work. No rest.

Kudos to all the people, roughly 250, who showed up for last evening's public hearing on the proposed city budget for 2009-2010. Person after person, group after group demonstrated that Seattle is a place that cares about people who are "less fortunate." Speakers encouraged more shelter space, more dental services, more food, more housing, more recreation, more mentoring, more job training and more. A few people came with ideas about where to cut the budget. Unfortunately, they all came with the same difficult idea - cut the dollars for planning a possible new Seattle-based jail for misdemeanant offenders. I'll keep looking at that idea, but I'm not convinced we can totally do away with some kind of jail space for misdemeanants and King County says they're kicking us out of their jails in a few years.

Now all we have to do is add in great programs the Mayor left out when he delivered his version of the budget to Council in late September. Not too hard, right? Wrong. The Mayor's budget was built in the summer before the economy crashed. We'll learn next week what kind of impact the market meltdown will have on Seattle's tax revenues. It's likely bad, though. That means Council will have to cut heavily in order to get the budget back in balance and then cut more in order to make room for priorities the Mayor left out. The Mayor's draft budget if pretty tight, actually. However, I'd like to see more support for neighborhood plan updates, emergency food, and shelter.

Have you seen this site yet? Maybe you've seen a billboard or bus sign with the website and the slogan "These cuts can kill." The Washington State Nurses Association has come out with an aggressive campaign to remind people that the budget cuts at the local and state levels will kill more than just numbers on a sheet of paper. It's a great grassroots push to save services that benefit, sometimes invisibly, all of us. Immunizations, pre-natal care for high-risk moms, HIV testing and prevention, tuberculosis treatment, restaurant inspections, rat control, pandemic preparedness .... That's just the highlights.

We have a great public health system in Seattle and King County. The county's budget woes will push a knife deep into a system of services that keeps us all safe and healthy. It's unacceptable to cut away chunks of the system leaving uninsured people with even fewer health care options and the rest of us (the lucky insured people) at higher risk for disease.