The Death of Single family zoning starts in HALA, Urban Villages + ADU’s near you!  And Exceptional Trees Will Not Survive. – story by Richard Ellison

“Exceptional trees are incompatible with Urban Villages and backyard cottages” says Seattle OPCD employee Brennon Staley (at the Oct 27, 2017 EIS Scoping meeting at the Hales Brewery). When I asked Brennon how, in the best possible circumstances, under ANY possible conditions could Exceptional trees be saved during development. He smiled and said that was not really possible.

So, with the City about to (1) eliminate Single Family Zoning in all Urban Village areas, and (2) allow extra ADU’s (mother-in-law units/ backyard cottages) in the remaining Single Family Zones, Seattle is going to accelerate the loss of Exceptional Trees and limit the available soil areas where new trees might ever grow to a large size and maturity.

Read the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to study the potential effects of removing barriers to creating accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in single-family zones. Visit the ADU EIS website to learn more and provide comments.

Staley, Brennon               206-684-4625         brennon.staley@seattle.gov

It was a large and vocal event for the City, taking comments on the 2 new proposals: An EIS for zoning changes, and public comments on new ADU’s.

Ruling calls bluff on Seattle’s misguided housing policy on backyard cottages

TreePAC has worked to inform the city that second houses on single family lots, called back yard cottages, would have a major impact on Seattle’s urban forest ( though more in scale with neighborhoods than apartment buildings also being suggested).
Why? Because two houses on a lot break up the contiguous green space that hosts trees into narrow slivers of land. The same lot coverage by one big house provides the room needed for big trees.

Multiplied by thousands of homes over 50 years, the cottages will likely have major environmental repercussions.

See what the Seattle Times Editorial Staff had to say about the legislation proposed to encourage more cottages in the article at http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/ruling-calls-bluff-on-seattles-misguided-housing-policy/ or by reading an excerpt below.

______________________________________

Published December 15, 2016 at SeattleTimes.com. Written by Seattle Times editorial board.

SEATTLE reached a turning point Tuesday when a hearing examiner excoriated City Hall’s plan to allow density to increase by as much as threefold in city neighborhoods.

For the first time in recent memory, the bluff was officially called on the city’s poor planning and misleading rhetoric as it enthusiastically boosts development.

Hearing Examiner Sue Tanner’s ruling suggests that residents were being bamboozled by the equivalent of post-factual, fake news.

Instead of creating more affordable housing as Mayor Ed Murray and the City Council proclaimed, the policy on backyard cottages would make housing less affordable.

Continue reading at at http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/ruling-calls-bluff-on-seattles-misguided-housing-policy/

As green as Seattle likes to portray itself to be, the city hasn’t put much emphasis on protecting its tree canopy. From a long time after non-native settlers arrived, the idea was to cut down the trees. As the city re-greened itself through the 20th century, some of the canopy came back, but the city government didn’t start paying much attention to tree policy until early this century.

Today, other cities are doing better by their trees. Atlanta, Austin, Portland, Vancouver, B.C. —why, even development-crazy Vancouver, Washington — have much stronger protections than Seattle. In all of those cities, a homeowner must obtain a permit to remove a tree above a certain size, and must replace the tree. Portland even has an “inch per inch” rule, requiring that the size of the tree replacement correspond with the size of the one lost, further protecting large trees. Not so in Seattle.

Read full article »

Tuesday, June 28, 2016. By Knute Berger.

I admit that my expectations might be way off. I grew up in Seattle in a part of town you might call The People’s Republic of Olmstedia.

The Olmsted Brothers firm shaped modern Seattle into the livable city we know, the city we fear losing bit by bit. Their innovative landscape designs and parks vision are part of our foundational infrastructure. But has it runs its course?

There are certainly indications that the city’s interest in maintaining that vision is at risk.
Continue reading →