Seattle's (Draft) Comprehensive Plan Kinda Sucks

[@YetAnotherUrbanist]

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

[@roycereidnm]

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

[@matthewcarver2013]

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]

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

[@bobnas]

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

[@matthewcarver2013]

​@@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]

​@@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]

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

[@SteveBluescemi]

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]

​@@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]

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

[@KingLarbear]

this post is on point

[@GirtonOramsay]

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

[@TheFuster]

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]

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

[@onesob13]

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

[@MrBirdnose]

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]

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

[@Tony-so1zl]

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

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@MrBirdnose One of the things I've noticed is that they want everybody to take buses or bike, especially bike, but the effort seems to start and end at chasing people out of their cars. There's still a bunch of bus routes that were never created which makes going east-west in the city often times take far longer than it should. I think to some extent that is changing now that there's the light rail running roughly up the middle so there's more buses feeding the stations, but the transit agencies have been slow to acknowledge that there have been a smaller and smaller portion of the residents working downtown.

[@blubaughmr]

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]

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

[@walawala-fo7ds]

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]

​@@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]

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

[@ek19929]

​@@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]

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!

[@electriclilies2642]

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

[@YetAnotherUrbanist]

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

[@conorreynolds9739]

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]

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]

⁠@@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.

[@TheLiamster]

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

[@Bleach1443]

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!

[@snowboarder981]

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]

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

[@kevley26]

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]

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.

[@QuesoCookies]

That's just bohemian living, something a lot of younger residents would be amenable to if those options were available, but less and less of these sorts of housing solutions exist, as they're being torn down to build more "luxury apartments" these low-income youngsters can't afford. Even the aPodments are over $1000/month, now, for not even 100/sq ft of living area. It's insane.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@QuesoCookies That's nuts. I remember catching a bus near one of the first ones they built in the city years ago and at that time it was roughly $500 a month.

[@maycatyuiop]

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

[@harlander-harpy]

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]

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

[@mwgillenwater]

Thanks!

[@Bismvth]

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.

[@Aidan_Au]

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

[@kylea.1223]

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

[@vladislavdracula1763]

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.

[@gabrieldomocos7570]

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]

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.

[@joenuts5167]

No

[@LimitedWard]

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

[@LoveToday8]

They probably didn't advertise it very well

[@walawala-fo7ds]

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

[@djsiii4737]

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.

[@F4URGranted]

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]

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).

[@Pystro]

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...

[@sunandsage]

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

[@walawala-fo7ds]

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]

⁠@@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]

@@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.

[@jenbanim]

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!

[@remimk]

what do you think of vancouver bc?

[@user-bc7cb8uu7e]

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]

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

[@user-bc7cb8uu7e]

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

[@foodbag312]

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.

[@ttopero]

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.

[@SteveBluescemi]

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]

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

[@QuesoCookies]

South Lake Union, in particular, is a *nightmare* to exist in. I avoid it at all costs. There are no public transit options that get there in any sort of timely manner; the roadways are a terrifyingly hodgepodge and confusing mix of 3-point intersections, non-exclusive bus lanes, and nonsensical one-way streets; and the sheer amount of crisscrossing roads in the area make it a hellscape to walk in. It's easily the ugliest, messiest, most hostile-to-life area in the whole city. Something really needs to be done about it, as there is so much economic and residential activity in the area that it could be an incredibly productive and pleasant area to live in with the right transit design.

[@MatthewStidham]

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]

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

[@jaykay1899]

This seems like a very black and white negative mindset

[@MatthewStidham]

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

[@GirtonOramsay]

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

[@EfrainHudnell]

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

[@zengseng1234]

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

[@matthewcarver2013]

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]

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]

​​​​@@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]

​​@@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]

​@@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?

[@LIL-MAN_theOG]

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]

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.

[@divisibull6348]

@YetAnotherUrbanist I wish I had seen this video earlier. I live in Seattle and didn’t hear about this, wish I could have made public comment. Would love to hear updates if you have anything else on this story

[@zachariahhowell4342]

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

[@eugenetswong]

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

[@turtalia4537]

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.

[@this_epic_name]

This whole video indicates an utter failure of GMA has occurred.

[@jackh3242]

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.

[@whattheheckisthisthing]

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

[@jumbolarge108]

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

[@KRYMauL]

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]

This isn't good tho it sucks ass

[@TheMarshallCraft]

This is not good. It’s ridiculously bad.

[@Lex_2003]

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]

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]

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]

Oversuppy is not good for Capitalism. So forget about it

[@zeroshepard9513]

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.

[@nick13sPage]

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]

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

[@sunandsage]

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

[@SteveBluescemi]

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]

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]

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]

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

[@geraldford6641]

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]

bro wut

[@esgee3829]

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