(Note: the following was submitted but not selected for the 2012 Living Future Conference’s 15 Minutes of Brilliance.)
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Last year in Seattle, the Bullitt Foundation’s proposed Living Building was subjected to a costly legal challenge based on Washington’s State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). Opponents argued that an environmental impact statement (EIS) should be required because the building would block views. Given that it’s on track to being one of the greenest commercial buildings ever constructed in the United States, and is also located in a dense walkable, transit-rich neighborhood, the fact that environmental regulations could be exploited to oppose the project suggests something is amiss, to put it mildly.
Following on the heels of the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Washington’s SEPA was created during an era in which the planning culture was dominated by concerns over ecological degradation and responded with strict limits on growth – planning’s so-called first wave. In the mid-1970s planning entered its second wave focused on comprehensive planning and infrastructure, followed by a third wave defined by “smart growth” that began around the turn of the century and is still the prevailing approach today.
And now a fourth wave of planning is emerging, with a perspective that will hopefully put an end to perverse contradictions such as what happened with the Bullitt Foundation Living Building. The formative influences on planning’s fourth wave are the “new normal” economy, climate change, energy, food systems, and regional sustainable development.
< The LEED Platinum Center for Urban Waters on the Foss Waterway in Tacoma; photo by Dan Bertolet - click to enlarge >
So then, how do we make this transition to the fourth wave and a new regulatory milieu that accurately reflects the profound, inherent environmental benefits of compact, mixed-use urban infill? As one example of a modest first step, Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood is in the midst of a lengthy upzone process that required a voluminous EIS. To counter the typical “growth is bad” perspective of the EIS, I (while with my former employer, GGLO) worked with a group of local property owners to create an Environmental Benefits Statement that articulates the wide range of benefits that high-intensity redevelopment would bring.
As a second example, my firm is currently engaged in a Subarea planning process in Tacoma that will implement a brand new flavor of Upfront SEPA that was designed to encourage infill around transit. The EIS will pre-approve a set amount of development across the Subarea, and once adopted, it cannot be appealed.
But ultimately, what our environmental policy needs is a makeover. Massive change is upon us, and we can’t afford to let crusty regulations needlessly impede progress on what is already a mind-numbingly overwhelming challenge. NEPA and SEPA were created in the hey-day of muscle cars, and it’s time to sort out the pieces that belong in the policy junk yard. At the same time, new policy must be added to ensure that we properly account for expanding knowledge and game-changing trends such as global warming. All that’s stopping us from surfing the fourth wave and creating a revamped set of regulations that make sense for the 21st Century, is us.
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Dan Bertolet is an urban planner with VIA Architecture and the creator of the Citytank.
Note: This post is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from the Seattle Planning Commission.
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Not surprisingly, housing is the largest cost for households in the Seattle area, yet transportation also accounts for a substantial chunk of our spending. On average, about 33 percent of what we spend each year goes to housing, while another 15 percent goes to transportation. That’s close to half the amount we pay to keep a roof over our heads.
As the Planning Commission details in its recently released Housing Seattle report, the share of households with unaffordable housing costs has increased substantially since the 2000 Census. In order to reverse this trend, Seattle must advance “affordable living” on a broader level. Improving access to affordable transportation and developing a citywide Transit Communities policy are important steps toward making living in Seattle affordable to a greater number of people.
The American Public Transit Association calculates that a two-car household in Seattle can save an average of $12,000 per year if they give up one of their cars and one driver commutes via transit. That’s real money that could go toward housing costs instead.
Maps created by the Center for Neighborhood Technology show that households in locations with higher housing densities and levels of transit service tend to have lower transportation costs. Our report found that households with low incomes are under the greatest strain from both housing and transportation costs. In order to address both issues, one of the Planning Commission’s key recommendations is to build most new subsidized housing within transit communities. In a transit community, residents can easily walk, bike, or take transit to get to work, school, and more, and they don’t have to transfer twice and miss dinner with their kids to do it!
Neither APTA’s nor CNT’s methodology is perfect. Still, a combination of data and personal narratives like those featured in Housing Seattle make a compelling case: transportation policies and choices have a big impact on determining who can afford to live and work in Seattle. Let’s pursue a citywide Transit Communities policy, increase access to transit and invest in our transit communities, and help keep Seattle open to all.
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Diana Canzoneri is the staff Demographer for the Seattle Planning Commission and was the primary researcher and analyst for the Commission Housing Seattle report. She analyzes census and market data and provides demographic analysis related to comprehensive planning, community development and long-range planning for the Commission as well as City officials and departments.
< Tacoma Narrows from the Amtrak train; photo by Dan Bertolet >
The 2012 Living Future Conference was held in the bike mecca of Portland, so how could I not bring along the Cannondale beater, which Amtrak stashed onto the baggage car for an extra five dollars. The train from Seattle to Portland is a magical ride, slicing through hidden back alleys, skirting the spectacular edge of Commencement Bay, and finally crossing the Columbia before rolling into cozy Northwest Portland. Luggage on my back, I pedaled out into the drizzly shiny night, careful to keep my tires out of the street car slots, while the quick, mellow ride to my hotel near Powell’s Books reminded me once again how amazingly comfortable and convenient downtown Portland is without a car.
Not your father’s green architecture conference, Living Future prides itself on drawing people outside of their boxes and making them uncomfortable—in a good way. Case in point, in his plenary talk, Living Future Institute CEO Jason McLennan described how twice in past years the conference organically adopted a four letter word as the conference theme, and proceeded to provoke audience members to shout them out—picture a huge conference ballroom packed with 800 people erupting with shouts of “shit!” and then “fuck!”
Not to be outdone, McLennan proposed a new four letter theme word for this year’s conference: love.
The essence of Living Future is regenerative design, the idea that design should develop the potential of whole systems and empower them to regenerate and evolve indefinitely. A lofty and challenging aspiration, no doubt, one that calls for nurturing intricate webs of relationships, recognizing the interdependence of all life, and eliminating our tendency to see ourselves as something separate from nature. And love is an apt choice of words to capture the core sentiment of that philosophy. It’s analogous to what wise parents know about their children: You can’t make them do what you want them to do, but you can give them everything they need to grow and realize their full, natural potential.
< Stark and 11th in downtown Portland; photo by Dan Bertolet >
Places can be thought of in the same way. In Portland the exceptional energy and care that has been put into improving the public realm and promoting walking, biking and transit should help unleash the City’s potential to become a regenerative place with the capacity to evolve in powerful, unforeseen ways. It will probably be a decade or more before we know the extent to which Portland’s investments help create a more resilient, culturally and economically thriving city. But when I’m in Portland these days I love what I see so far.
< Street food on SW 5th Ave in downtown Portland; photo by Dan Bertolet >
Reductionist analysis has enabled spectacular human progress over the past few centuries, but has also put us on a collision course with the carrying capacity of our planet. Restoring balance calls for shifting our emphasis to relationships, patterns, and systems, a shift that would be all the more likely if we reframed our outlook through the lens of love. Not that this would be an easy task for a society with the habit of ignoring whatever doesn’t show up in the economists’ balance sheets.
Indeed, the most elevating things in life—social bonds, fulfillment, memories, dreams, dignity, devotion—cannot be accounted for in the analytical bottom line. And we’ve been so obsessed with the quantifiable for so long it’s almost impossible for most of us to imagine how these intangibles could play an influential role in the major decisions that shape our world. But we ought to start imagining it if we hope to steer our course away from the brink and toward a regenerative future.
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Dan Bertolet is an urban planner at VIA Architecture and the creator of Citytank.
< Looking west from the corner of Lenora Street and Westlake Ave in downtown Seattle. The car lot on the right is the site of a future office tower for Amazon.com; photo by Dan Bertolet - click to enlarge >
Today is Earth Day, but I still think we need a City Day too, because in this era of global urbanization, what happens in cities will largely determine the fate of the Earth. And how we build our cities will dictate what happens in them.
In this spirit of progressive city building, you are invited to the second City Builder Happy Hour, Tuesday May 1, 5pm to 7pm at the Pike Brewing Company, 1415 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle (Facebook invite).
Do you have an idea for how we can build a better city? Do you want to be given the spotlight to mouth off about it during the next City Builder happy hour? If yes, please submit your idea on the back of a cocktail napkin. You can email a picture of the napkin to tanked@citytank.org, or mail it to City Builder Happy Hour, c/o Sierra Hansen, 1809 Seventh Ave, Suite 1111 Seattle, WA 98101.
At the first City Builder happy hour, Matt Roewe pitched his idea for a gondola connecting Capitol Hill to Seattle Center. Matt’s blog post on the same topic set a new record for page views on Citytank, and the story was picked up by a wide range of media including local TV news. Can you top that?
< Skanska's proposed Living Building in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood; image courtesy LMN Architects - click to enlarge >
Juxtaposing urban development and mindfulness in the same sentence appears akin to throwing a reunion party for the north and south poles: a futile attempt of gathering opposites. However, the practice of mindfulness is limitless, accepting and able to party with anyone.
I am a real estate developer educated in urban planning and embedded with a civic decoder, loving to hack the physical and social patterns present around me. This is the awareness innate to passionate place makers, where I seek to belong.
I began studying awareness after several experiences pushed me to feel, and use my right brain. This level of awareness is intuitive, creative, natural and effortless. It’s void of thinking or creating logic, and it is immediately present. Neuroscientists view thinking as mental activity focused on past events or future projections (left brain). Sit still and observe over 5 minutes where your mind goes, and 99.9% of it has nothing to do with you just sitting there, feeling the moment (being in the right brain).
Clinical psychology defines mindfulness as a self-regulation of attention maintained on the immediate experience (i.e. not past or future). This attention increases recognition of the present moment and involves adopting an orientation characterized by curiosity, openness and acceptance. This is a mental state or knowing that is beyond what can be thought. Fun, eh?
A mindful awareness is the very real and present space where urban development, or place making, has authentic voice and power for me. The most valued community development is present and connected to human feeling and experience. Highly valued urban spaces are rarely a construct of past experiences or future projections (e.g. the urban simulacra of Las Vegas); rather real urban spaces are organic forms created by people working together to push aside fears, embrace uncertainty and rest in the knowing of not knowing.
Louis Sullivan’s famous aesthetic credo of form and function affirms that it is not just our heads that go to create functional urban places. He states…
“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head, Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression, That form ever follows function.”
Therefore, when cities (form) result from unawareness or as places shaped by what we fear, our landscapes are molded into places that only breed more fear.
Seth Godin calls this fearful paradigm the “No Coalition,” where the No Coalition only requires just one objection, one defensible reason to avoid change. And the No Coalition has many allies — anyone who fears the future or stands to benefit from the status quo (e.g. a view from a living room, availability of parking, time it takes to drive to work, etc.). Further, “No” is easy to say, because people don’t actually need a reason to say no. No instantly grabs power and slows things down because with yes comes responsibility.
Godin says, “No comes from fear and greed and, most of all, a shortage of openness and attention. You don’t have to pay attention or do the math or role play the outcomes in order to join the coalition that would rather things stay as they are (because they’ve chosen not to do the hard work of imagining how they might be).”
Like Godin, I live in a world of yes, where possibility and innovation and the willingness to care seek to triumph over the coalition that would rather it all just quieted down and went back to normal.
How do we stop this vicious cycle of fear leading to bad form leading to more fear? Having a new civic awareness that is not based on what we fear but having responsibility for change.
To be an effective and mindful developer, my challenge is to realize that communities and stakeholders probably know something I don’t, or more likely do not see what I see. My job is to figure out what are their fears, biases and perspectives, then help them understand what I know. Ultimately we are at our best when we mutually cultivate a collective awareness together to bring about urban places that foster the health of our communities for generations to come.
Join me.
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Lisa Picard has over 18 years of experience in the conceptualization, design, finance and management of large real estate projects, in various types of mixed‐use developments valued at over $1.2 billion. Holding a master’s degree in urban planning and another in real estate finance, both from MIT, Lisa seeks to push urban development to an increased value that exceeds what is possible by pursuing the needs of a single stakeholder. Currently, Lisa is leading Skanska’s west coast development strategy with two projects currently underway in Seattle; the first project (rendered above) is participating in the City’s Living Building Pilot Program and is confronting some resistance by nearby neighbors.
What would happen if someone wanted to build a Space Needle in Seattle today?
One word: fahgettaboudit.
Today, a proposal with the audacity of the Space Needle would incite an citywide naysayer orgy. It will compete with views of the mountains! It’s a waste of money! It’s out of character with the neighborhood! Where’s the affordable housing? Not unless they also pay for a 3000 stall parking garage! It’s just plain silly and we need to get serious!
Our collective character has changed over the past half century. And my take on it is that the critical element is confidence. In the early 1960s, we had gobs of it. But since then, a series of setbacks from Vietnam to the recent banking implosions have steadily drained it. And that unconfident state of mind, perhaps more than any other factor, is the biggest threat to the success of our efforts to tackle the challenges of the future and create a world in which humanity’s journey continues to expand and thrive.
< In the late 19th Century many Parisians vehemently opposed the Eiffel Tower; image from the movie "Hugo" via bplusmovieblog.com >
Curing a lack of confidence is a quandary, because the kind of dramatic successes that inspire confidence require bold action and risk taking, precisely the type of behavior that a lack of confidence inhibits. But the first step is to at least recognize this dynamic.
As an example, consider the recently proposed idea to run a gondola from Capitol Hill to Seattle Center. While there were some who loved the idea (e.g. me), most of the responses I heard or read were not too far off from some of the objections I facetiously suggested above. It seems the serious people—the grown ups—were all too eager to dismiss the idea of a gondola as naive and out of the question.
The reality is that gondolas can be efficient and cost-effective urban transportation, and a gondola is a smart, outside-the-box solution for the unique set of obstacles associated with east-west travel in central Seattle. Gondolas have been successfully implemented in cities worldwide, one of the most impressive examples being in Medellin, Columbia, where a network of nine cable cars that primarily serves the poor was completed in 2010. But when minds are stonewalled by a lack of confidence, such positives tend to be overlooked, and instead people focus on all the reasons why it could never work.
But more importantly from the standpoint of confidence, besides being a practical transportation solution, a gondola from Capitol Hill to Seattle Center would be an outrageously cool thing. People would ride it just for the awesome views. It would become a Seattle icon that no other major U.S. city could match. It would be, dare I say, fun. And all that positive mojo would breed confidence.
The proposed gondola would require a high-rise tower at the Capitol Hill light rail station, an idea that likewise faces resistance at least in part, I believe, due to a lack of confidence and a corresponding aversion to bold thinking. On the practical side, the added value of a high-rise project could help fund the long list of public amenities that the neighborhood wants. On the inspirational side, an iconic tower on Capitol Hill could become a placemaking symbol for the next “Next 50,” those who see a bright future in urban density and transit, and who also wish to celebrate the most socially progressive city neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest.
Seattle is among the most wealthy, highly educated, and politically liberal cities in the United States. How is it that in Columbia—a country with a per capita income about one fifth of ours—they manage to build a system of nine gondolas, while we balk at the idea of even seriously considering one?
And why isn’t Seattle jumping at the chance to expand LINK light right into a city-wide subway system, as proposed by the activists of the new Seattle Subway initiative? Starting in 1991, the City of Athens, Greece, began constructing a subway that opened in 2000 and now serves 33 stations on 29 miles of track. Per capita income in Greece is roughly half that in the U.S. Not to mention the torrent of rail transit being built in China (more than 3000 miles worth in 2010 alone).
For sure, Seattle’s got a lot of great things going on, as I gushingly described recently. But that’s exactly what offers Seattle the opportunity to take it up a notch and really start pushing the envelope, not only to take on the toughest challenges like public transportation, but also to create an inspirational example of city building done with intention, passion, and soul.
The brains are here. The money is here.
Hey Seattle, got confidence?
When NRDC, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and the US Green Building Council created the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system, their aim was to rethink how development could address climate change, sprawl, and threats to human health. The overarching LEED platform had mainstreamed green building, and LEED-ND was an effort to expand its scope beyond the building shell for a more comprehensive standard of neighborhood sustainability.
Shaping the direction of future development is crucial to promoting livable communities in an expanding world. But what if, instead of looking ahead to future development, we used the LEED-ND criteria to evaluate the sustainability of the existing built environment?
I developed a GIS methodology for applying the LEED-ND criteria to an entire city and scored Seattle as a case study. It’s purely theoretical, since certification is an option only for sites that have new construction. But there are important lessons in what we’ve already built. If an entire city or region is evaluated on the LEED-ND scorecard, we can better understand what places—that we already intimately know—best match the type of development that the USGBC wants to encourage (assuming that LEED-ND is a good proxy for a sustainable neighborhood).
From a GIS perspective, the specificity of the LEED-ND credits made things interesting. Some credits were simply not feasible to evaluate, either because the data were not available (like building façade details or energy and water use) or the credit can’t apply to an existing site (habitat restoration, for example). Sometimes I adapted the nuances of the credit to the data available. In short, my method used GIS data to evaluate whether any given point in the city meets or fails the specific requirements of each credit and then summed these data layers to determine the final score. I divided the city into a grid of one-acre sites—a fine enough resolution to produce a meaningful surface raster, but large enough that it resembles the scale of real-world projects. (For those interested, there’s more about my methodology here.)
Enough about the nitty gritty. Let’s get to the results. (Download a full summary poster pdf here, or view the poster image here.)
< LEED-ND credit estimate for Seattle - click to enlarge >
The suite of credits I evaluated account for about half of the total points available and emphasize walkability, transit access, parks and open space, income diversity, and residential density. Neighborhood qualities like mixed uses, a variety of housing typologies, and frequent bus service factor heavily in the final map. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that some of the areas scoring highest in my analysis were neighborhoods like University District, Ballard, Pike/Pine on Capitol Hill, Mount Baker, and the Downtown Central Business District. These are places where a mix of housing, businesses, shops, and public spaces encourages you to go by foot or bus instead of car—a pattern of development that can reduce per capita carbon emissions and sprawl while increasing physical activity and health.
< LEED-ND walkability rating for Seattle - click to enlarge >
Most of us are probably familiar with this narrative, as urban sustainability has become pretty mainstream in the past few years (thanks in part to LEED-ND). But using tools like GIS to visualize where that kind of development already exists, and what places might be well suited for a rating system like LEED-ND, has a lot of untapped potential. A developer interested in building a LEED-ND project could select a site that already fulfills many of the program’s spatial requirements. A planner can look at high-scoring neighborhoods and ask: Do we like these places? Is it fitting that this is what the USGBC is rewarding, or should we be encouraging something else? Most of all, this cursory survey of Seattle shows how valuable GIS can be in each step of the LEED-ND process. The more we can grease the wheels of this kind of development, the more we can produce neighborhoods that are equitable, encourage physical activity, and address the challenges of climate change and resource scarcity.
< LEED-ND transit access rating for Seattle - click to enlarge >
For more maps and information, check out gradingthegreencity.com.
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Nick Welch is pursuing a Master’s in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University in Medford, MA. His focus is on sustainability planning, neighborhood development, and geospatial analysis. Examples of his work can be found at nicolaswelch.com.
Density and affordability: To become a truly sustainable city Seattle needs more of both, but is that best of both worlds possible?
One camp argues that if you want to make housing more affordable, the best thing you can do is build as much housing as possible so that prices will fall due to supply and demand. All other things being equal, this is no doubt true. However in practice, new high-density housing tends to be relatively expensive, and in some cases may cause the displacement of existing low-income housing. And thus the opposing camp argues that dense redevelopment is an affordability killer. But they ought not to blame density itself.
Inexpensive density has existed in cities throughout history, and is arguably the most prevalent form of housing on the planet today. Of course some of that is unacceptably subpar—a.k.a. slums—but the point is nothing about density precludes affordability. And in fact, dense housing is inherently cheaper because it requires less construction, less infrastructure, less operational energy, and less land per occupant.
Nevertheless, in growing, economically vibrant cities like Seattle, new market-rate housing—dense or not!—is typically not affordable to a large portion of average households. This has two root causes: high demand, and high cost of production. Again, density is not the culprit.
Demand is why the most successful cities have always been the most expensive cities. People recognize a city’s value, and they are willing to pay a premium to be there. There’s nothing to be done about it, aside from intentionally destroying a city’s economy and livability. Densification is the result of demand and rising real estate prices, not the cause.
Regarding housing production costs, over the past several decades the cost of labor and materials to produce housing has risen faster than the average incomes of most of the U.S. population. That combined with the high price of land in desirable cities adds up to a cost that can put new housing out of reach for perhaps the lower third or more of households.
< Subsidized affordable density soon to come online amidst not so affordable higher density: The Dekko Place at Gethsemane Lutheran, located in the Denny Triangle in downtown Seattle >
What to do?
Clearly, affordable housing is a vexing problem, but halting redevelopment—i.e. limiting density—is not the solution. While that approach could potentially save a relatively small amount of existing low-income housing in isolated cases, it would also lead to unmet consumer demand that would drive up prices and exacerbate the affordability problem across the spectrum.
Furthermore, density is the key to the efficient operation of frequent transit service, which can enable lower-income households to significantly reduce their living expenses by not owning a car. And it is also important to recognize that today’s new multifamily housing will age—much of it not well—and is destined to become the affordable housing of future generations.
Nor should we expect private developers or landowners to take full responsibility for a burden that should be borne by society as a whole. For relatively high-value projects (which are almost always high density, by the way), it is reasonable to encumber development with requirements to provide affordable housing in exchange for allowing increased development capacity. But for more modest projects, that approach can have the unintended consequence of reducing the potential amount of housing produced, which is a self-defeating outcome. Regulations should be ground-truthed in the reality that dense redevelopment is good thing in itself—the building is the benefit.
In the end, the only viable solution is market intervention, that is, government subsidy. Most industrialized nations provide valuable subsidies on the consumer side through a range of major programs (health care, education, etc.) that redistribute wealth, and this would be the single most effective strategy for addressing the affordable-housing crisis in the U.S. Alas, ours is a culture in which socialism is a dirty word.
So for now that leaves the supply side of subsidy, which is currently delivered through a variety of programs at the local, state, and national levels. These programs are vital to non-profit affordable-housing developers, and in particular for projects that address the very low-income range, which is by far the biggest challenge. Private developer incentives can also be an important part of the mix for the “workforce housing” sector.
As the reality on the ground makes clear, however, these programs are not enough. We need to beef up Seattle’s housing levy and the State’s Housing Trust Fund, for example. We also need to pursue innovative new strategies like the land acquisition fund currently being developed by the City of Seattle to secure land for affordable housing in strategic locations with good transit access. Or how about a federal program that picks up where HOPE VI left off but focuses on equitable redevelopment in high-capacity transit station areas?
And one more thing: If we want more affordable housing in Seattle, we need to learn to love us some density.
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“Rain come down, forgive this dirty town”
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Dan Bertolet is an urban planner with VIA Architecture and creator of Citytank.
< A construction crane rises in Seattle's Roosevelt neighborhood; photo by Dan Bertolet >
Seattle is beginning to emerge from the longest, deepest recession in the last 60 years. We can see signs of this across the city. Projects that were stalled during the recession, leaving empty holes and vacant lots, are again under way. Hard hats are starting to go back to work. As a result, Seattle’s growth is outpacing the rest of the region. Businesses, builders, and working families want to live and innovate here.
But there’s a long way to go before we’ve built a broadly shared prosperity. More than 30% of construction and building-trades workers are still out of a job. Some of them have been out of work for three or four years. We need to look at ways to accelerate our economic recovery and help build a more sustainable city.
Unfortunately, the pace of recovery is being slowed by outdated and obsolete regulations. These rules are making it difficult for people to build sustainable projects and are keeping workers from bringing home a paycheck.
We have an opportunity to change that. Last year I worked with a panel of developers, neighborhood activists, design professionals, and environmentalists to propose a reform package to reduce regulatory burdens that hinder job creation. Mayor Mike McGinn and Councilmember Richard Conlin convened the panel as part of a broad City effort to spark innovation and entrepreneurial investment, and make it easier for businesses to be sustainable in Seattle.
That package of reforms is now before the Seattle City Council, which will hold hearings today and tomorrow to discuss the proposal (Council Committee votes on April 11). These reforms can help get people back to work, expediting up to 40 new construction projects, with 100 to 250 units each, by up to 9 months. The Seattle Building Trades Council estimates that as many as 2,400 direct, family-wage jobs in skilled construction trades could be created through this effort.
Seattle has an opportunity to clear out regulations that are no longer working and help create good jobs in the process. With a global economy that is still unsettled, it’s an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
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David Freiboth is Executive Secretary Treasurer of the ML King County Labor Council.
A rural/urban divide separates affordable housing in America. The Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency provides the largest source of funding for subsidized housing in the United States and appropriately gets a lot of attention. If you live in rural subsidized housing, however, there’s about a 50% chance your home was paid for by an obscure program called Section 515 run by the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development division.
The Rural/Urban Divide
More than 400,000 Section 515 rental units populate the United States with 8,762 in Washington that receive some funding through the program. The Seattle Housing Authority, for comparison, records 16,984 households served. In a few rural counties of Washington State more than 80% of subsidized units were built under this program. Urban counties, where other sources of funding are common, are less reliant on Section 515 funding. There, percentage of subsidized units dips into the teens and below.
< Section 515 Units as a Percentage of All Subsidized Units; Connecting the Dots, p. 19 >
Cities get subsidized housing from multiple layers of government and a number of mostly large non-profit developers. The result is a concentration of the development and policy talent required to navigate the array of bureaucracies needed to bring affordable housing projects to fruition. The economics of housing management favor portfolios of larger projects nearby to each other, encouraging further concentration of not just staff but properties, too.
In rural areas, subsidized housing owners tend to be small “mom & pop” operations. With smaller portfolios come smaller management costs, but there’s another reason Section 515 owners tend to be small: USDA Rural Development rules limit the ability of owners to move funds around within a portfolio. The larger owners can’t leverage their size the way a car insurance company leverages its size to cover individual claims with a pool of subscribers.
The Aging Stock of Rural Subsidized Housing
Rural subsidized housing isn’t just more uniform in funding and ownership, it’s more uniform in age, too. Construction of Section 515 units peaked in the late 1970s and declined to nearly nothing by the mid-90s. The 515 program, designed for the construction of affordable rural units and their maintenance in early years, has been unable to keep up with the greater demands of aging properties.
< Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Program; Connecting the Dots, p. 8 >
Now many of these properties face expensive repairs (or “capital needs” in the parlance) common to 20-40 year old buildings, like roof replacements. But property owners have found that the approximately $500 annual per unit subsidy granted under Section 515 can’t pay for the work required to keep these properties safe and livable. With their smaller size, the “mom & pop” 515 owners lack the resources of larger, urban operations to advocate for reform or seek alternative government funds.
Acknowledgement of the Problem
In 2005 the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the non-partisan accounting and research arm of Congress, issued a report on the potential future of Section 515 housing. According to the GAO,
“Unless Congress authorizes and funds a permanent preservation program, hundreds of multifamily rural rental properties that are currently structurally sound but repairable could reach the point where they would no longer be cost effective to maintain and then become permanently lost from the portfolio.”
A demonstration program initiated in 2007 responded to some of the GAO’s concerns but the rate of revitalizing is severely insufficient to tackle the ageing Section 515 portfolio. More diligence is needed from Congress.
A Solution
A short-term fix would allow the pooling of property accounts—particularly the $500 annual per unit subsidy—a reform to the rules set by USDA Rural Development. This would provide some economies of scale to experienced urban non-profits to counteract the cost of rural management. It would not, though, clear the backlog of properties under strain of disrepair. The funds allocated for capital needs are simply too small for buildings this old no matter how you slice and dice them.
In the long-term, larger non-profits holding more Section 515 properties means more effective advocacy for preserving these properties. Change could come in the form of new funding and reformed rules for USDA Rural Development or it could bring about an expansion of HUD into rural parts of our country – a significant step to end the urban/rural divide in subsidized housing.
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Michael Goldman is graduating this spring with a Masters of Urban Planning and a real estate specialization from UW. He contributed to Mercy Housing Northwest’s rural housing preservation plan last summer and is pretty excited to witness the new Yesler Terrace develop in the coming years.
One clue that something’s up in Seattle is the construction cranes, whose legions have reinvaded the City during the past year or so. But the cranes only hint at the myriad transformational projects in the works that, all told, present an extraordinary opportunity to transform Seattle into a resilient city equipped to thrive in a challenging future.
Check it out:
< Rendering of the west half of the North Lot Development - click to enlarge >
Though one analyst is already eyeing the end of the apartment boom, there still seems to be no end in sight to new multifamily projects (REIT feeding frenzy anyone?). Two stand out as transformational: the North Lot and Yesler Terrace.
The North Lot development on the surface parking lot adjacent to CenturyLink Field will bring 700 units of new housing to the Pioneer Square neighborhood, which has suffered from a severe lack of market-rate housing for decades. The second phase of the project will add 420,000 square feet of office. And all of those new homes and jobs will be within a stone’s throw of King Street station, the Pacific Northwest’s most important transit hub.
< Rendering of the potential full buildout of Yesler Terrace >
Yesler Terrace, located on 30 acres on the southeast edge of downtown, will eventually transform about 600 units of aging low-income housing to as many as 5,000 low-income and market-rate units, along with significant commercial and office space (depending on the future market). With excellent access to transit and jobs, Yesler Terrace has the potential to become one of North America’s finest examples of an equitable, sustainable urban neighborhood.
< Model of NBBJ's early design concept for Amazon's new property in the Denny Triangle >
Then there’s the latest Amazon deal, involving plans for a trio of one-million-square-foot office towers in the Denny Triangle. Based on a typical office cube size, that’s nearly 9,000 new jobs. Some of those jobs may be sucked away from existing office space elsewhere, but any way you look at it, it’s a massive investment in Seattle’s future as a regional employment center. And it’s also an investment in the right place—a walkable, transit-rich urban center, as opposed to the car-dependent burbs where Microsoft set up shop in their early years.
Furthermore, all those new jobs will draw more people to Seattle, and most of those people will want nearby places to live, fueling a virtuous cycle of densification. Seemingly prescient, right across from the future Amazon site on 6th Ave, construction is well underway on a 654-unit dual-tower apartment.
< Rendering of the proposed Insignia condo project in Belltown >
UPDATE: The SeattlePI is reporting a rumor that the Insignia 643-unit, 41-story, dual-tower condo project in Belltown (about two blocks south of the new Amazon property) will start construction as early as this May, making it the City’s first large-scale condo project to break ground since the housing bubble burst.
< Rendering of future University of Washington South Lake Union medical research campus - click to enlarge >
Meanwhile just next door to the Denny Triangle, the South Lake Union neighborhood continues its remarkable trend of successful urban redevelopment. An upzone is in the works to enable the increasing levels of density that the market now supports.
< Conversion of Mercer Street to a two-way boulevard - photo by Dan Bertolet; click to enlarge >
Near the southern end of South Lake Union, construction is currently underway to convert a section of Mercer Street into a two-way boulevard. The $190 million project will create a pedestrian and bike friendly “complete street” that will enhance urban livability and help reconnect the neighborhood to Lake Union.
Proposed future Mercer Street improvements to the west will integrate with a scheme to reconfigure the street grid around the north portal of the deep-bore tunnel. A section of the diagonal Broad Street will be removed, enabling a reconnection of the original east-west grid on Harrison and Thomas Streets that will help knit together South Lake Union and Seattle Center.
< Rendering by Seattle Center Urban Intervention finalist team Koning Eizenberg Architecture + ARUP >
Speaking of which, Seattle Center, now 50 years old, is in line for a serious makeover as envisioned in the recently completed $570 million, 20-year Master Plan. The new Chihuly Exhibit is currently under construction, and the Urban Intervention design competition is soliciting ideas for how to completely transform the 9-acre heart of the Center where Memorial Stadium now stands.
And speaking of sports arenas, Seattle has a deal for another one in the works, to be located just south of the two existing stadiums in South Downtown. According to the proposal, the project will be primarily funded through private investment—another example of the all-around bullish market for Seattle.
< Rendering of the James Corner Field Operations vision for Seattle's Central Waterfront >
A short walk from the stadium district brings you to the Central Waterfront, which will get a new lease on life after the Alaskan Way viaduct comes down in 2016 and is currently the focus of a high-profile design effort led by New York City’s James Corner Field Operations. In addition, WSDOT is planning a $210 million renovation of the Seattle Multimodal Terminal at Colman Dock, located near the south end of the waterfront. CORRECTION: the Coleman Dock image originally shown below is out of date and has been replaced with the current plan.
< Rendering of the Seattle Multimodal Terminal at Colman Dock Project; click to enlarge >
The transformational potential of the Central Waterfront cannot be overstated, though there will be challenges: funding, of course, but also, in my view, the prevalent aversion to allowing redevelopment that would help fill in and activate that very wide linear space.
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In the realm of transportation, two major freeway projects—the deep-bore tunnel and the SR-520 Bridge—will probably suck up upwards of $10 billion of public investment when all is said and done. Transformational, no doubt, though given likely future trends the wisdom of further transformation toward reliance on travel by car is questionable, to say the least. (That said, the new SR-520 bridge will improve transit service, and the newly enacted tolling is a major, paradigm-shifting, positive step for the region.)
As for transportation projects that can be expected to transform Seattle away from car dependence, Sound Transit light rail tops the list. Right now there are three tunnel-boring machines chugging away on the University Link extension that will connect Westlake, Capitol Hill and the University District. The sites around Capitol Hill Station that will become available for redevelopment after station construction is finished represent one of the City’s best opportunities for transit-oriented development.
North Link will bring three more light rail stations to Seattle by 2020. And the $18 billion expansion funded by ST2 will extend Seattle’s light rail connectivity to numerous satellite cities to the north, east and south.
Seattle has also just formally given the green light to a new $132 million streetcar line running from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill light rail station via Yesler Terrace and First Hill. On Broadway the reconstructed street will include a separated two-way cycle track. The streetcar vehicles will be built in Seattle and feature regenerative braking.
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Okay, so those are the big ones, but there are many more worthy of honorable mentions, a few a which are noted below:
< Construction of new student housing at the University of Washington >
- The University of Washington has been on a student housing binge, with plans to add 3,000 new student beds over several development phases valued at close to half a billion dollars.
- The City will soon be home to two new mid-rise office buildings that are targeting the Living Building Challenge: first, the Bullitt Center in the Central District, and second, the new Brooks Sports HQ in Fremont. Though these are isolated buildings, they are trailblazers that will help further establish Seattle as a center for green innovation.
- Construction continues on the Seattle Housing Authority’s Rainier Vista, bringing more new low-income and market-rate housing in close proximity to the Columbia City light rail station.
- King County Metro’s Rapid Ride bus rapid transit will begin serving West Seattle and Ballard in Fall 2012 and the north Aurora Ave corridor in 2013.
- And lastly, one with powerful, long-term transformational potential for Seattle and the greater region: The Puget Sound Regional Council’s Growing Transit Communities Partnership, the region’s first and only comprehensive program for planning around our regional high-capacity transit investments. As the region goes, so goes the city.
- (Etc, etc, let me know what I missed.)
In sum, all that action and investment is not too shabby for a single city in a country still suffering from economic doldrums. The fact is, Seattle’s prospects are great. As the above discussion makes clear, Seattle’s exceptional combination of intellectual, economic and natural capital is propelling the City into a dynamic future. And now’s the time to keep pushing, keep innovating, keep dreaming, so all that dynamism can be channeled to create a truly sustainable city for the 21st Century.
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Dan Bertolet is an urban planner with VIA Architecture and creator of Citytank.
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*PS: Do you have the moves like Jagger?
In case you missed it, a Seattle woman married a building last month. The union was between Ms. Babylonia Aivaz and a 107-year-old warehouse on Capitol Hill at the corner of 10th and Union. Her desire to save the building (it has since been demolished) and stop gentrification prompted the event. I sympathize with the sentiment. Preservation is extremely important, not only for the character of the neighborhood but also for the people living in it. But is saving every building, especially the abandoned, the best way to fight gentrification?
In order to combat gentrification, it helps to try and understand the source. We all know what it is, but where does it come from? Who is to blame for this process that is taking place in many cities across the country? The answer is elusive. I’m not sure anyone has a definitive remedy. There are many factors that come into play. Things like neighborhood location, amenities and character are all a part of the equation, but there is something more to it. There’s a coolness factor that takes hold. You know, first the artists move in and then… So if we can’t pinpoint the cause how can it be fought?
Cities and people have tried several ways to combat this force with varying degrees of success. Rent control has been used in many places, but the unintended consequences can have long-term dire effects. Building affordable housing is another approach, but does it make sense to use expensive new construction for this use? It’s unsupported without subsidies. The seminal urban planning author Jane Jacobs advocated for the preservation of old buildings because they are cheaper and can be supported with lower rents. Although, the old buildings were new buildings at one time, so how do you increase the supply of old buildings without building new ones?
If implemented correctly, maybe there is a market solution. Preservation is key. There is a neighborhood aesthetic and certain buildings that should never go away. But, when a neighborhood becomes desirable, without a rise in the number of units rents will escalate. It’s simple economics: supply and demand. To drive down the ascending cost of rent, density must be increased. Whether through new construction, renovation or adaptive reuse, more units must be built. After all, living in dense, compact communities is one of the best things we can do for our planet. They lower dependence on driving, increase access to public transportation and have more efficient buildings and use of infrastructure. This is what makes New York the nation’s low-carbon leader. So maybe, Ms. Aivaz should be advocating that new buildings have more density to reduce development pressure on the functioning, existing old buildings.
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Ian Fishburn, LEED AP, is currently working on a master’s degree at UW´s College of the Built Environment. He is passionate about real estate with a focus on creative, sustainable urban development, and has worked for the past decade in development, construction and design.
< Diagram of Roosevelt Neighborhood Association values - image courtesy of GGLO; click for pdf >
Last year, Jessie Clawson and I re-launched Leadership for Great Neighborhoods (LGN). At its heart, LGN is an advocacy organization committed to creating vibrant urban communities that provide the essential components of livability for the greatest number of people. With this in mind, we advocate for the creation of diverse, complete neighborhoods that maximize public infrastructure investments such as light rail, streetcars, and rapid ride transit.
In a City Tank post, we said, “The question is how will LGN do it? To paraphrase Mary Elizabeth Lease, we are going to write fewer white papers and raise more hell.” We succeeded in raising expectations around land use and even some heights. LGN had two significant achievements last year.
- We raised the profile and the outcome of the Roosevelt Rezone. It was our letter that helped spur the Mayor and Council to propose more appropriate zoning around the future light rail station in Roosevelt.
- The LGN Housing Committee joined forces with Doris Koo and other community leaders to form Seattle Living. Seattle Living is a group of civic advocates dedicated to ensuring that all of Seattle’s neighborhoods provide a diverse and accessible supply of housing. More about this coming soon.
In addition, we supported neighborhood zoning efforts in Northgate, South Downtown, South Lake Union, Uptown Triangle, and Yesler Terrace.
We made a significant impact in Seattle’s approach to planning and land use in our neighborhoods. YOUR help will allow us to do even more in 2012.
Mike Kent, the incoming chair for LGN, will let you know what LGN will be doing in 2012.
Please join us on Facebook.
The Brookings Institute projects that 25% of the existing building stock in the United States (82 billion square feet) will be demolished by 2030. A recent report on the environmental value of building re-use released by the Preservation Green Lab argues that the total burden placed on the environment through the demolition of an existing building is not generally justified by the environmental benefits realized through the construction and operation of a new, more efficient building.
The preservation of existing buildings has been a topic of debate for decades, ever since the demolition-happy days of the 70s when many of America’s architectural gems were leveled in the name of “progress.” But most of the 82 billion square feet slated for the demolition hammer is not in buildings with historical significance. When it comes down to making a decision between renovating an existing building and tearing it down and starting over, the decision is generally simple: is the potential productivity of an existing building high enough to justify the cost of renovating it?
And this decision is generally determined by zoning. If the scale of an existing building is well below what is allowed on a given piece of land, it’s very unlikely that anyone will come along and renovate that building. This is particularly true if market conditions support replacing it with one that more fully realizes the potential of the land. As the size of any existing building begins to approach the maximum potential of the land it is on, the likelihood of it being torn down and replaced drops rapidly.
Hopefully, the findings of the Preservation Green Lab report will result in some doomed buildings being saved from the demolition hammer. It’s useful to have a well-executed study like this making a solid case for renovating existing buildings. But more than likely, most buildings will be torn down because they are functionally obsolete. So, with regard to the 82 billion square feet of existing space that will be demolished by 2030, the question should be asked: how much of it is really worth hanging on to?
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Brian Neville will be completing a Master of Science in Real Estate degree at the University of Washington in June 2012 and currently works as a development consultant to Wood Partners, Pacific Northwest. Brian is a licensed architect and operated a design-build firm in Seattle between 1998 and 2010.
< Daybreak Cohousing in Portland - Common areas aren't used a couple times a year, they are focal points for community interaction - click to enlarge; photo by Grace Kim >
The idea of cooperative housing is not new. For many of us it conjures up utopian dreams of cultish flower children. But over the past 20 years a new form of communal housing, cohousing, has developed into an intriguing, and more down-to-earth, approach to collective living in the United States. Rather than far-flung communes in the woods, many cohousing communities are choosing urban locations to capitalize on the social benefits of denser neighborhoods. Here in Seattle, there are currently three communities, Duwamish and Puget Ridge in West Seattle, and Jackson Place in the Central Area. Capitol Hill Urban Housing, the most urban project of all, is currently in the works on 12thAve.
There hasn’t been much popular interest in cohousing to date; but a number of recent studies suggest that cohousing could be one of the most effective ways of addressing sustainability goals: socially, economically and environmentally. Perhaps it’s time we stop thinking about communal living at the fringe, and start considering it a fundamental part of creating better, more livable cities.
< Quayside Village Cohousing, British Columbia - Rather than dead space, walkways are considered communal and used to the fullest; photo by Grace Kim >
Cohousing in many ways is the goldilocks solution to modern housing. It provides just the right amount of communal interaction but with clear places for personal space. The key physical differences of cohousing are that it is designed through a participatory process and incorporates shared spaces. These come in diverse forms: from gardens, to kitchens, to guest rooms, or even wine cellars. Other than that, the only real distinction of cohousing is that residents are “consciously committed to living as a community”. While each person has their own home, residents come together for various kinds of activities, such as monthly shared dinners. They also use group decision-making to deal with maintenance issues and other community concerns.
This may not sound all that different from a condo building with an HOA and a shared gym, but the intentionality of cohousing makes a world of difference. A 2011 survey of cohousing residents by COHOUS found that a majority of cohousers frequently helped with childcare, provided support to sick or injured neighbors, and exchanged services and equipment. What’s more, a whopping 48% said they occasionally provided voluntary financial aid or assistance to a neighbor in need. Way beyond the intermittent cup of sugar, cohousing neighbors provide a web of support to each other that forms a robust social and financial safety net.
< Quayside Village, British Columbia - Nothing special on the outside; it's what's on the inside that counts. Photo by Grace Kim >
It should come as no surprise that this collective living pays environmental dividends as well. An EPA study of a Colorado cohousing community found that their utility bills were around 50% lower than surrounding homes. Other research suggests that water use and driving are significantly lower in cohousing communities as well. Although some of this comes from shared space and group activities, much of the efficiency and savings come from the ability of cohousing communities to leverage each other’s skills, knowledge, and resources to integrate and maintain green technologies in their homes. As of 2011, at least 39 of the country’s 120 cohousing communities had won one or more awards for excellence in sustainability.
Communal living has never been popular in a country founded on the values of individualism. But, humans are by nature social animals; a strong social fabric is how societies collectively overcome hard times, and thrive in good. If we fail to cultivate these bonds, our efforts toward sustainability, literally, our ability to endure, are necessarily doomed. Cohousing is a good opportunity to leverage the benefits of communal living to make our cities more resilient to climate challenges, while respecting our tradition of personal freedom.
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Josh Mahar currently helps with community engagement at Seattle’s P-Patch Program. He has worked on community development issues with a number of organizations including Forterra, Historic Seattle, and the Capitol Hill Community Council. He is pursuing his Master’s Degree in Public Administration at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs.
Note: Information for this post was provided by Grace Kim, principal at Schemata Workshop and past Board Chair of COHOUS. Contact Kim for local cohousing opportunities or to set up a cohousing informational session.
Dispatch from the SPC: Triumph in the Triangle – West Seattle Upzones without Uproar
Note: This post is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from the Seattle Planning Commission.
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At the end of 2011, tensions mounted and rhetoric exploded at City Hall over proposed zoning changes in the Roosevelt neighborhood near the future light rail station. Meanwhile, across the city another neighborhood was diligently working with city planners to change the zoning and pedestrian environment around two anticipated Rapid Ride bus stops in West Seattle. This progressive step happened without much fanfare but provides a successful collaborative model for realizing the “transit communities” vision in Seattle that should be replicated elsewhere in the city.
What are the elements that led to success?
What happened in the West Seattle Triangle resulted from a two-year effort among business and community members, the City of Seattle, and design consultants. The process began on common ground: several city-facilitated visioning sessions resulted in the establishment of broadly shared goals and objectives. The initial proposals also focused on the public realm with strategies to improve the street environment for pedestrians, not on building height or density. Only after the public realm framework and streetscape plan were established did the focus shift to zoning and building height, two of the most controversial topics in any neighborhood. The group explored ways to improve upon the existing auto-focused commercial zone and looked for solutions to realize the Triangle vision.
The end result?
An Urban Design Framework and complementary zoning changes were aimed at creating a pedestrian-focused, walkable transit community with more housing, shops, patrons, street activity and transit riders located near the future Rapid Ride stops. In order to support this vision, residential density was increased and building heights were raised to 85 feet in a few key areas. Other important components of the proposal included the reduced parking requirements and mandated places for open space.
< Aerial image of the West Seattle Triangle area; click to enlarge >
Vision Realized By Balancing Diverse Community Perspectives with Technical Expertise and Analysis.
This did not come without controversy and differing perspectives. The advisory group kept at it, with meetings, walking tours, pushing the City and designers to provide graphic representations to better understand the proposals. Once the framework was agreed upon, the real work began in determining how to achieve the framework goals. This is when discussions and disagreements happened, but resulted in a proposal for building heights and open space that acknowledged the diversity of opinions in the community balanced by the strong analysis and technical expertise of city planners about how to best achieve the vision and goals.
Neighborhood as Part of a Broader Regional Transit Vision
While the Triangle process was under way, at the Planning Commission we were developing the Seattle Transit Communities strategy, which identifies ways to optimize regional transit investments by better aligning land use strategies and prioritizing the other investments necessary to create truly livable and sustainable communities. In our report, the West Seattle Triangle rose to one of the top 14 priority transit communities, prompting concurrent recommendations to consider building heights of at least 85 feet close to transit stops and encouraging multifamily housing.
Moving Forward Together
A unanimous approval by City Council on December 19, 2011 set the wheels in motion for implementing the Urban Design Framework through rezones. With Rapid Ride beginning service in 2012, this area is likely to see many changes in the character of the neighborhood. For years the Triangle has been home to lumber yards, auto dealers and repair shops, retail, the YMCA, housing and even single family homes. One goal of the rezone and framework was to allow many of the existing uses to stay and prosper, while taking advantage of some of the vacant land coming available. Development in the area is inevitable. Design guidance and zoning tailored to neighborhood conditions will help provide the area with a complete, pedestrian-focused community.
One last move that sweetened the deal and helped kick-start the transformation: City Council included $250,000 in the 2012 City Budget to begin evaluating a potential new design for Fauntleroy Way SW as a major gateway into West Seattle creating the potential for a great urban boulevard – a public realm improvement shared by all – which would kick-start the process and catalyze the transformation.
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Catherine Benotto co-chairs the Seattle Planning Commissions Housing & Neighborhoods Committee. She also represented the Commission on the West Seattle Triangle Advisory Committee, and is a former chair of the West Seattle Design Review Board. She spends time writing and lecturing on how to attract families with children back into our cities by designing urban areas with children in mind. By day, Catherine leads Weber Thompson’s Community/Urban Design and Landscape Teams. |
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Jeanne Krikawa co-chairs the Seattle Planning Commissions Land Use and Transportation Committee. She is a longtime resident of West Seattle’s Admiral Neighborhood and also represents the Commission on the Yesler Terrace Citizen Advisory Committee and the Special Task Force for the Comprehensive Plan Major Update. She is a Partner at The Underhill Company and has experience in architecture, urban design, community planning, transportation and transit planning. |
Note: A shorter version of this post originally appeared in Seattle Magazine’s “Big Idea: Transportation Edition,” for which locals were asked: Given a blank check, what single thing would you do to improve transportation in the region?
I propose a solution to our transportation woes that is over a million years old: walking.
Evolution has endowed us with bodies that are supremely efficient walking machines. Yet over the past century we have increasingly abandoned that endowment in favor of cars, an obsession that has led to a proliferation of places in which walking is both impractical and unpleasant.
But can walking really make a difference in a modern transportation system?
In U.S. cities 25 percent of all trips are a mile or shorter. Meanwhile, the average Australian walks two miles more per day than does the average American. Prior to mass transit, 50,000 pedestrians an hour crossed London Bridge. Over the past few decades the fraction of children walking to school has plummeted, and as a result in some urban areas more than a quarter of morning traffic has been attributed to parents driving to school. Nearly every transit trip starts and ends with a walk.
So yes, walking matters. The question is, then, how do we motivate more of it?
Part of the answer is better urban design, but I believe the biggest impediment is psychological. We need to break our habit of not walking, and here’s how to do it: pay people to walk.
Something like five or ten dollars a mile sounds about right. And because the key factor in breaking a habit is often simply getting a taste of the alternative, costs could be kept down by offering the subsidy during limited times only. It wouldn’t be that hard to track walkers—most cell phones have GPS. Ideally, the program would be implemented at the national level (a federal income tax credit? National Walk Week?), because that would bring the added benefit of upping demand for walkable places nationwide.
Ludicrous liberal social engineering fantasy? Totally. But far less ludicrous than a “WALL-E” world in which no one walks.
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Dan Bertolet is the creator of Citytank.
The promise of an aerial gondola connecting the waterfront, Seattle Center, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill.
< click image to enlarge >
When we think of aerial gondolas and trams, ski resorts and carnival-like strings of pods hovering overhead at past world fairs usually come to mind. But what if a gondola took you to great urban destinations where people live, work, play and shop? What if these districts were served by other modes of transit? Could a gondola be a truly effective and self-sustaining transportation alternative that just happens to be energy-efficient and quiet?
The concept of an aerial gondola in Seattle was introduced by Matt Gangemi and featured here on Citytank last year, and like many I was initially skeptical. But the more I thought about it the more sense it made.
As a city we are making significant investments to generate new jobs and housing around the Capitol Hill light rail station, South Lake Union, the Seattle Center/Uptown area and the soon to be viaduct-free waterfront.
- South Lake Union is growing like crazy with Amazon and the biotech industry settled in and a 20-year growth target of 12,000 housing units and 22,000 jobs. And the City is considering increasing zoning to allow an additional 21,000 housing units and 32,000 jobs.
- Seattle Center has 12 million annual visitors and an exciting new master plan.
- The Gates Foundation and the street re-configuration around the new SR 99 tunnel will enliven the underutilized Uptown Triangle.
- A new waterfront will connect to SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park, bringing even more people to the north end of the waterfront.
These districts are some of the hippest and most diverse, vibrant and fast-changing destinations in the region. As someone who frequently travels between them, I know firsthand how unpleasant it is to bike, walk, ride or drive between these places. I-5 is a huge barrier with limited access at Denny Way. Elevation changes make it difficult for those with mobility challenges, and Metro’s bus #8 comes by at 30-minute intervals. These districts are liveable and walkable places that ought to be better connected to each other.
Urban aerial cable lifts are quite common all over the world, and you can read more about existing and planned systems at http://gondolaproject.com/. London is building one for the 2012 Summer Olympics, and Chicago is considering one at Millennium Park. Other examples regionally include the Oregon Health and Science University tram in Portland and the Whistler Peak2Peak gondola. Another is being planned in Vancouver, B.C., to reach the top of Simon Frazier University.
< click image to enlarge >
Rise above it all, for real this time!
My proposal shown above connects Seattle Center to the new Capitol Hill light rail station, which are separated by 7,200 feet or 1.4 miles as the crow flies. Please keep in mind that no technical engineering has been done on this—it’s just a preliminary concept for discussion purposes.
Gondolas are most effective if they follow a straight line. Changing direction requires complicated engineering, more maintenance and more cost. Luckily there is a naturally straight alignment from the intersection of John and Broadway to the foot of the Space Needle along the John Street right of way.
Instead of intermediate towers to support the gondola’s cable, some supports could be incorporated into a mid-station stop on the upper floors of a new development. Restaurants and public viewing decks would be up to 20 stories high with public elevators to reach street level. There would be multiple stops along the way, where riders could commute to work at Amazon, catch a streetcar at Westlake or go to REI and the Cascade neighborhood. A string of destinations would enable the gondola to become a transit system that attracts commuters and tourists. Integrating the gondola into private development could also help fund the system.
A separate aerial gondola could be built, potentially as a second phase, near the Science Center to travel along Eagle Street to the Olympic Sculpture Park and new waterfront. This is only one-third of a mile, but for many the hill climb is not easy, and walking along Broad is unlikely to get less noisy and busy. This connection would capitalize on our investment in a world-class waterfront and enable a loop with the waterfront and downtown.
< click image to enlarge >
A detachable car system, much like Whistler’s Peak2Peak gondola, carries approximately 25 people in each car and arrives about every 45 seconds. Portland’s fixed tram carries 78 people in each car and takes 3 minutes to travel 3,300 feet. With intermediate stops in buildings, two separate fixed trams may be the better solution. Each type of aerial tram has pros and cons, and they both should be studied as options here.
This concept shows the spans between supports at 2,500 feet, and the bottom sag of the cables’ centenary curves would generally remain between 85 feet and 100 feet above the street (except at the Seattle Center and sculpture park terminals, where the gondola would drop to grade).
I’m guessing that a 78-person tram could arrive every 10 minutes or a 25-person gondola could arrive every 3 minutes. So as many as 8,400 people in an 18-hour operational day. Of course, more work would need to be done to estimate demand, but one could reasonably assume 2,400 commuters and 1,600 tourists on a typical day. Weekends and bigger events would certainly increase ridership. According to SDOT, the South Lake Union Streetcar carries about 3,000 people each day (July 2011) in the north/south direction.
As illustrated in the map below, this proposal capitalizes on a multitude of mobility opportunities by connecting to north-south transit, bicycles and pedestrian routes. Beyond the existing streetcar, monorail, bike lanes and paths and multiple bus routes, Metro is adding high-capacity Rapid Ride bus routes on Aurora Avenue and 15th Avenue from Ballard with major stops in Uptown. The new light rail station at Capitol Hill will be connected to the First Hill Streetcar line and a new Broadway bicycle track. (Read more about South Lake Union’s recent mobility plan here.)
< click image to enlarge >
Of course, some may disagree.
There are a lot of reasons this idea may be difficult to pull off—though that is true for any investment in our transportation system. Privacy and view interruption would likely be key points of contention. However in South Lake Union, taller buildings are yet to be developed. Also cable lines would be above most existing buildings, they are light, and cars go by quickly. Air rights and easements may be difficult to obtain: the John Street grid on Capitol Hill is offset, so the first three blocks from the station area would be over private property. The good news is this area has been recently developed to 65 feet, which is below the gondola‘s path.
Technically there are a lot of issues to study. Getting up to the terminals in buildings will be inconvenient as it requires elevators (except at Seattle Center). Integration into buildings will require negotiation, collaboration and customization. This adds significantly to the development risk and costs, and could cause schedule delays.
Convincing elected officials this is the right priority and worth the investment will be a challenge, as will the impacts, mitigation and permitting. But it’s the same story for any major transportation project. And who will finance, own and operate it? Metro or the City of Seattle or a private party?
How much will it cost?
The costs are difficult to define at this point, but based on recent projects, the cost could easily be around $75 million. The cost to taxpayers will greatly depend on the participation of the private sector. Some recent projects and their costs are:
- Whistler’s Peak2Peak Gondola: $51 million (2008), 14,000 feet long, 10,000-foot span over land already owned by the resort, with only one stop at each end. Carries 4,100 passengers each hour
- OHSU Tram Portland: $57 million (2006), fixed two-car tram, 3,300 feet long, 1,500 passengers each day, 5,000 predicted in future
- London 2012 Olympics Gondola: $95 million (estimated), 3,280 feet long
- Koblenz Rheinseilbahn Gondola, Germany: $20 million (2011), 3,200 feet long
And where will we get the money?
I’m not an expert in estimating revenue but I’ll take a guess to stimulate conversation:
- Fare Revenue: One could assume tourists will pay $10.00 and Orca card holders would be given a 75 percent discount ($2.50). If just five percent of the 12 million annual visitors to Seattle Center ride the gondola (1,600 daily) combined with 2,400 Orca card holders, there would be 4,000 riders a day. This equates to $22,000 daily revenue or about $8 million annually. Operating expenses would need to be deducted.
- Local improvement districts assessment (LID) on property owners and retailers benefiting from the project
- Sponsorship/naming rights
- Advertising on the cars
- Metro funding: bus service could be eliminated or reduced
- Co-development with new towers, possibly as part of the incentive program to provide public benefits
- Tax levy on property or vehicle licenses, either as a specific benefit district or city-wide package
- Congestion pricing to help fund the gondola and other transit improvements
< click image to enlarge >
The Cherry on Top
One last exciting element here is the cherry on top of the hill. Imagine an iconic tower in the Capitol Hill light rail station area redevelopment. I’m showing a gondola terminal located about 160 feet up a 400-foot-tall tower that would include a public viewing terrace, restaurant and bar with views in every direction.
The lower portion of the tower could be used as a destination hotel with conference and meeting facilities in the base, possibly combined with a joint-use community center for the local community. Businesses, services and organizations could symbiotically collaborate to occupy the second and/or third floors while the ground floor would be dedicated to street activation in the form of retail and restaurants.
Yes, this is controversial and certainly not allowed by current zoning. However, a tower at this location could be rationalized by the gondola, which is an exceptional public asset (and vice versa). The tower is essential to allow the gondola system to be strung well over the existing buildings on the west slope of Capitol Hill. The tower would also contain the receiving terminal, which needs to be mounted approximately 160 feet or higher above the street. It’s also a means to an end as the added development could better provide the desired neighborhood amenities and public benefits package as identified in the neighborhood’s urban design framework plan (UDF).
The current UDF plan suggests up-zoning this site by one or two stories, which may add 20-25% more capacity to the site. That will bring some value to the project, but it won’t buy much in terms of the long list of public amenities desired by the community. I’m suggesting a doubling or tripling of development capacity that is concentrated in the tower where it can take advantage of the great views.
Assuming a tower is possible, I’d propose it be a stand-alone beacon celebrating the station and the unique attributes of the neighborhood. It could be the next generation’s Space Needle, designed by a rigorous international competition and with no other towers allowed in the district. As the only tower, more sun, light, air and views would be maintained on the station area site. It could be slender and graceful, and set back slightly from the street. I’m showing a form in these illustrations for scale and to show how a gondola would be incorporated. Clearly more design work is needed, and that could be an opportunity for community engagement.
As many have observed, more people living and working in the station area is a public benefit, even if some of them occupy high-end condominiums at the top of the tower. Their carbon footprint will be significantly less living here than if they lived on 10 acres in Woodinville and commuted into town each day. They would potentially help pay for some 250 units of affordable housing, a district energy system, the Nagle Place Market and a community center.
This station tower concept is certainly worthy of another blog posting and much further discussion before Sound Transit issues an RFQ/RFP for the properties or the city entitles taller height limits. More on that later!
Meanwhile, consider rising above it all –- for real this time. I hope this sparks a lot of dialog. Let me know your thoughts.
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Matt Roewe, AIA, works at VIA Architecture and has been actively engaged in civic dialog and planning in South Lake Union, Uptown/Queen Anne and Capitol Hill for the last 10 years. Please join Matt and others at the inaugural City Builder Happy Hour, tonight, Tues. Feb. 21, 5pm at the Pike Place Brewery in downtown Seattle.
To me, there is no greater calling than building cities. Cities foster proximity. Proximity promotes interaction. We know that the closer people are to each other, the healthier, more productive, more economically secure, innovative, creative and efficient they are because of the interaction.
Cities are more than a collection of buildings. People are the magic of cities, and City Builders create places for people.
Why are City Builders important? Quite simply, buildings are where people live, work and create.
City Builders make places where dreams come to life. Buildings and the public spaces around them are where inspiration, creativity and innovation happen.
In Portlandia, they sing that Portland is the place young people go to retire. I believe that Seattle is the place people come to change the world.
Seattle is a regional hub that attracts people from around the world, and Seattle has produced more than its share of global companies and NGOs. City Builders are an integral part of this dynamic.
City Builders seeks to raise awareness of what we do and our place in the community. You are a critical part of city building. Join us.
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Photo credit: Laurie Ascanio, GLY Construction
We’ve got some city building to do.
Because better cities are what people want, and what the planet needs.
Yes, Seattle is already a pretty good city, but it still has a lot of growing up to do. Forging a Seattle equipped to thrive in the 21st century is going to take some doing.
Step number one is embracing the fact that building a better city means development. And this is a reality with which Seattle struggles. Wariness over development and distrust of developers seems to be the default among many. Perhaps this slant is an understandable liberal reaction to a city founded on extractive industry and permeated with powerful corporate interests. Or perhaps it is simply the long-standing anti-city bias of American culture.
Whatever the cause, given the massive social, economic and environmental challenges that cities face, an anti-development attitude is self-defeating. The enormous task at hand is going to take collaborative, collective effort, and the development community—city builders—should be leading it.
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In this spirit, a handful of us city builder types thought it would be a good idea to fill a room with smart, passionate, like-minded folks, judiciously add alcoholic beverages, and stir.
Thus, the City Builder Happy Hour.
The City Builder Happy Hour is an informal gathering of people in the development arena including developers, architects, planners, designers, engineers, lawyers, community advocates, land use junkies, policy makers and the like. The City Builder Happy Hour is a chance for us to exchange ideas, network, seek work and gossip.
You are building Seattle. You are a City Builder.
Please join us at the inaugural City Builder Happy Hour on Tuesday, February 21, at 5:o0 PM at the Pike Brewing Company—1415 1st Avenue, downtown Seattle. No host bar.
Hosts: Jessie Clawson, Sierra Hansen, Mike Kent, Dan McGrady and Dan Bertolet
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Check out the City Builders—Seattle group on Facebook.
Photos by the author.
I need to let you know about some super-wonky process moving through at the King County Council. But first I am going to tell you why I love my neighborhood.
Every morning I walk to the same coffee shop, order a doppio and cinnamon roll scone, read my RSS news feeds, and then ride either my Metro Bus #66 or bicycle seven miles to my downtown office. With the winter snows and rains, I’ve definitely been riding the bus more than the bicycle.
This routine gives me a sense of satisfaction. The baristas know my name and they know what I’m going to order. I don’t have to overthink how I’m going to start my day — the decision was already made by habit. And most importantly, as a relative newcomer to my neighborhood, I have an instant sense of place and belonging as if I’ve always lived here.
Better health and and a social safety net are also big benefits. I can’t claim that my morning food choices are healthy, but the walk to my coffee shop and the following ride to work are definitely good for me. A recently published study in the European Heart Journal found that people who own a car and television are 27% more likely to suffer a heart attack. (I may not be out of the woods on this one: I own a car and watch plenty of Hulu & Netflix.)
Like a growing number of Americans in their 20s and 30s, I have put off marriage and children and I live 3 hours from my nuclear family. As a result, my local social safety net is small. To make up for this deficit, it’s important to regularly meet neighbors and make new friends.
This one of the great things about my coffee shop. When I forget my wallet, I can pay next time. When I need to make change for bus fare, it’s no big deal. If I go on vacation for a week, when I come back my baristas ask why I wasn’t around. In a world where social networks are increasingly digital, I’m comforted to know I also have a social safety network founded in place and neighborhood.
What’s more, this is the financially sustainable lifestyle. By not driving and instead depending on the bus, I save piles of cash. The American Public Transportation Association regularly publishes what the average Seattle household can save by switching from car-dependency to the bus; the latest was $11,749 per year.
I doubt I’m saying anything that’s revolutionary to any Citytank reader. We share similar experiences and passions as city dwellers and New Urbanists. But I keep thinking about the 700,000 new people coming to King County by 2040. That’s more than the entire current population of Seattle. Will they be able to walk to their neighborhood coffee shop?
Right now, we can help shape that future. King County is updating its comprehensive plan. Love them or hate them, comprehensive plans are the foundational documents for planning and building our communities and protecting farms and forests in Washington State. We will only be as good as our best comprehensive plan.
King County does not have jurisdiction over the density (yes, the famed “d-word”) in the incorporated areas. But the county can determine the location of urban area boundaries and the density of the urban area that remains unincorporated. Citytankers, you should pay attention now.
The county planning staff put out their draft recommendations back in October. Here’s a couple of thoughts.
First, the urban area must not expand. Low-density sprawl creates new unwalkable neighborhoods and diminishes our ability to add more housing and job opportunities within the current urban area. That’s why it’s so important to hold the line on our urban boundaries.
In order to create great, vibrant neighborhoods, more people need to live closer to their local coffee shops. Conversely, coffee shops need more people living nearby to stay in business. And this doesn’t just apply to coffee shops, it also applies to corner markets, restaurants and, really, any small business that can be decoupled from the petroleum economy.
The good news is that the staff recommendation keeps the urban growth area boundaries as is. Unfortunately, there’s a proposal floating to expand the Woodinville urban area into the Sammamish Valley farmlands and rural area. Given that the existing urban growth area has sufficient capacity for housing and employment for the next 20 or more years, this expansion proposal is simply unacceptable.
Second, the County needs to plan the unincorporated urban area for high performance:
- sufficient density to support transit,
- fine-grained street grids to promote walking,
- streets that are safe for pedestrians and cyclists of all abilities,
- minimal surface parking,
- public plazas to promote civic engagement,
- a balanced mix of businesses and housing,
- housing affordable to all ranges of incomes, and
- complementary phased public infrastructure investments.
These are minimal requirements for creating functioning urban places and should be applied to the several types of neighborhoods designated by the county, including: Unincorporated Activity Centers, Community Business Centers, Neighborhood Business Centers, Areas for Commercial Site Improvement and Public Service, and Fully Contained Communities. The current staff recommendation would simply continue the old requirements, which, frankly, are not good enough.
While the official public comment period closed in December, there’s still time. The King County Executive’s office is finalizing its recommendations that will go to the County Council on March 1.
Let’s make sure King County’s urban area is a great place for the next 700,000 people. Let’s make sure they can walk to their coffee shop, know their barista, and ride a bus or bike. With your help, we can make it happen.
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For the rest of Futurewise’s comments to the King County planning staff, visit http://futurewise.org/king/king-cpp_html. For questions about how to get more involved, contact Brock Howell, King County Program Director for Futurewise, at brock@futurewise.org.
Note: This post is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from the Seattle Planning Commission.
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A couple of years ago we were spending the holidays at the home of my brother Erik. My youngest son, Romeo, was and is a pear fiend, and was delighted to spy several perfect specimens arrayed on the counter in his uncle’s kitchen. Romeo ate his fill that first day. The next day, however, Romeo watched in horror as my brother collected the remaining fruit and removed it to the cutting board, knife in hand. The pears hadn’t really been purchased for the fruit bowl, you see; they were destined for use in a salad to accompany dinner. Little Romeo was dismayed. Unable to envision the collective bounty of the pear salad to come, all his four-year-old mind knew was that his uncle was swiping his fruit. “Please, Uncle Erik,” he crooned in true Dickensian fashion, “don’t take away my Christmas pear!” Romeo’s Christmas pear has become the stuff of legends in my family, but musing over the incident this Christmas got me thinking about something else a little Dickensian in nature: the d-word. Density.
You see, when SPC member and Public Health employee Kadie Bell Sata wrote a post here a few months back called Density is Good for Our Health!, the Planning Commission heard about it. Don’t use the word “density,” opined some knowledgeable people who actually agreed with Kadie’s point. It’s an unfriendly word. Why not call them “diverse communities” instead and avoid all the conflict? It was friendly, well-meaning advice and we understood the rationale behind it. Mention “density” and the conversation is over; let the ranting begin. It also acknowledges that not all dense communities are award-winners. And it is true that dense communities can be diverse—socioeconomically, racially, culturally—as well as architecturally, in terms of scope and scale.
Diversity is good, but in this context it’s still just a euphemism. We voluntarily and necessarily use the d-word when we want to describe more people living on less land (which may involve the m-word: multifamily). Instead of talking around the d-word, I’d like to put it out there, loud and proud. Instead of obfuscating our meaning, let’s be un-Seattle about this and talk it through. Let’s explore the term in all its permutations—good and bad. In plain terms, what does density mean, and maybe more importantly, what do we fear density brings?
I already brought up Dickens, so let’s start there. Think nineteenth-century London, full of belching smokestacks, yelling merchants, and crippled, begging children. Carts clog the streets while the draught horse droppings lend a sour odor to the already foul sewers lining the thoroughfares. Dark, shadowy corners hide would-be thieves and murderers. The city is dense, dirty, dangerous, and frightfully downtrodden. Hyperbolic? Of course. But in terms of fears, is this so far from the vision conjured by the d-word during land use hearings? Is it any wonder this bleak image can’t gain traction, especially when compared to a turn-of-the-century castle rimmed by bucolic, rolling fields, ahem, I mean single family?
It’s a new year, folks. Let’s close that book and modernize our vision of what density—and cities—can and should look like. If we do, we might get to envisioning the thoughtful, dense communities we’d like to see, including a little Italian place just around the corner, more families close to the school down the street and the park two blocks over, a shared garden, wide sidewalks and common spaces where you can eat your lunch on that special sunny afternoon. A place where houses with picket fences and an occasional cottage and Craftsman duplexes and sleek mixed-use projects with fro-yo shops on the first floor combine to support an eclectic tangle of people that keeps Seattle, Seattle, just all grown up. It’s time we stop stuffing fruit in our pockets. Maybe, just maybe we can learn to share our salad with everyone at the table, while still treasuring our lovely, traditional Christmas pears. If a four-year-old can do it…
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Leslie Miller is the Chair of the Seattle Planning Commission. She has experience in community organizing and outreach, specifically related to growth, equitable development, and transportation. Community work has included three terms as president of the Southeast District Council and current SEDC Outreach and Membership Chair, plus involvement with the Rainier Othello Safety Association, Othello Park Now!, Othello Station Community Advisory Team, South Precinct Advisory Council, and the Othello Park Alliance.
< BEST land-only surface temperature data (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes 1973 to 1980, 1980 to 1988, 1988 to 1995, 1995 to 2001, 1998 to 2005, 2002 to 2010 (blue), and 1973 to 2010 (red). Source: skepticalscience.com, see footnote below >
Despite the overwhelming and ever-strengthening scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), many otherwise rational people still refuse to believe it. And if one is not well versed in climate change science, some of their “skeptical” arguments might seem reasonable. As an example, below is just such a specious argument put forth by a “skeptic” with whom I have been engaged in an exhausting email spar:
- The theory of man made global warming is just that- a theory. Theories must be proven through experimentation and data.
- The data and experimentation that have been done fall into two areas: computer models, and temperature measurements that go back a relatively short time
- The computer models are necessarily much simpler that the actual climate, and are totally dependent on the assumptions that have been fed in to them by scientists who are trying to establish that AGW is real. There are very competent scientists who have done serious peer reviewed work that raise serious questions about the validity of the models and the assumptions that drive them.
- The temperature measurements go back a very short time, and are of questionable use in demonstrating trends that span millennia.
- Techniques that are used to try to show longer term temperature trends by ice coring or tree ring measuring have produced mixed results, and there are many responsible and intellectually honest scientists who have raised serious questions about the methodology used by the believers.
- The believers try to discredit all of the scientists who have presented opposing explanations by demonstrating that their results are different than the results achieved by the believers, therefore their results are invalid. This echo chamber of criticism always comes back to the same small groups of scientists who created the models and produced the temperature data. And this small group of scientists have been discredited by their own words in thousands of emails that demonstrate that their motivations are not to do good science. The skeptics’ arguments do not “fall apart when scrutinized,” they fall apart when they are compared to the work of the believers. And if your view is that the work of the believers is the benchmark of truth and excellent science, then it becomes automatic to disagree with opposing views, because they HAVE to be wrong.
- Therefore, there is sufficient doubt in my mind about the effects of man’s activities on the climate that I do not want to see the US economy destroyed, and all the rest of our jobs moved to China, in order to solve a problem the very likely is not a problem. And if you don’t believe that the proposed taxes and carbon trading and other actions will severely damage the ability of the US to produce goods and attract business, then you are getting economic advice that is as bad as your climate advice.
At first glance it’s pretty convincing, is it not? So allow me to spell out how it falls apart when scrutinized, just like the skeptics’ arguments always do.
“Skeptic” said:
The data and experimentation that have been done fall into two areas: computer models, and temperature measurements that go back a relatively short time.
But that is a false statement. Climate models and past temperature data are but two of multiple, mutually reinforcing lines of evidence for AGW. You could throw out all the climate modeling results and the case for AGW would still be rock solid. Here is a partial list of the directly observable evidence, compiled from the awesome debunking site Skeptical Science:
- Satellites measure less heat escaping out to space, at the particular wavelengths that CO2 absorbs heat, thus finding “direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect”. (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).
- If less heat is escaping to space, where is it going? Back to the Earth’s surface. Surface measurements confirm this, observing more downward infrared radiation (Philipona 2004, Wang 2009). A closer look at the downward radiation finds more heat returning at CO2 wavelengths, leading to the conclusion that “this experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.” (Evans 2006).
- If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).
- As greenhouse warming increases, winters are warming faster than summers. This has been observed (Braganza et al 2003, Braganza et al 2004)
- Another distinctive pattern of greenhouse warming is cooling in the upper atmosphere, otherwise known as the stratosphere. This is exactly what’s happening (Jones 2003).
- With the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) warming and the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere) cooling, another consequence is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, otherwise known as the tropopause, should rise as a consequence of greenhouse warming. This has been observed (Santer 2003).
- An even higher layer of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, is expected to cool and contract in response to greenhouse warming. This has been observed by satellites (Laštovi?ka 2006).
- The specific pattern of ocean warming, with heat penetrating from the surface, can only be explained by greenhouse warming (Barnett 2005).
And the (non-climate model-based) evidence just keeps piling up:
Our results show that it is extremely likely that at least 74% of the observed warming since 1950 was caused by radiative forcings, and less than 26% by unforced internal variability. Of the forced signal during that particular period, 102% (90–116%) is due to anthropogenic and 1% (−10 to 13%) due to natural forcing…
As is common with armchair skeptics, a superficial understanding of the subject at hand has led to a false premise for the entire argument presented above. Apparently it’s a combination of irrational distrust in experts and plain old arrogance that enables these people believe that after reading a few blogs they know better than the deep body of scientific knowledge on climate change that has been built up over decades by thousands of scientists all over the world.
This flavor arrogance permeates the skeptical crowd, as exhibited by UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller who was an outspoken global warming skeptic until he recently conducted a review of the data himself (funded by the denialist Koch brothers, no less). What Muller found was that, oops! the leading climate scientists were right all along. Apparently feeling no need for humility about his past mistakes, Muller lectures his Wall Street Journal readers that “you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.”
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Back to the argument. Given that the main premise is wrong, what about the specific claims? Fail.
“Skeptic” said:
This echo chamber of criticism always comes back to the same small groups of scientists who created the models…
Well, not so much, according to Wikipedia:
Thousands of climate researchers around the world use climate models to understand the climate system. There are thousands of papers published about model-based studies in peer-reviewed journals.
The code for the models and the sources of temperature data are openly published. Nevertheless, skeptics would have us believe that a small group of scientists rigging their modeling results and suppressing dissent has gone undetected in such a huge and open community of scientific researchers. But that’s what makes unfounded conspiracy theories tick—everyone is in on it!
Yes, the climate models are not perfect, but no one understands that better than the scientists involved, who painstakingly calculate the uncertainty and openly discuss it. The simple fact is, CO2 is the only forcing variable in the global climate models that can reproduce observed temperature trends. “Skeptics” love to bloviate about other possible explanations, but the scientists have already been there, done that. At this point, if this was any other field of science that wasn’t so politicized, the real question would be: Prove that CO2 is NOT causing global warming.
“Skeptic” said:
…this small group of scientists have been discredited by their own words in thousands of emails that demonstrate that their motivations are not to do good science.
This refers to the so-called “Climategate” emails, about which many skeptics never stop howling, even though the scientists who wrote those emails were exonerated by nine official investigations. As can be learned with a five minute google search, the email quotes were taken out of context and wildly misinterpreted. It is either ignorance or willful deceit that allows “skeptics” to continue citing the emails to try to discredit the science.
“Skeptic” said:
Therefore, there is sufficient doubt in my mind about the effects of man’s activities on the climate that I do not want to see the US economy destroyed, and all the rest of our jobs moved to China, in order to solve a problem the very likely is not a problem.
“US economy destroyed.” Scary words! But the reality is if we set our minds to it, we could convert our economy to low carbon energy sources and have economic prosperity at the same time. Furthermore, there is a strong case to be made that doing nothing will have a negative net economic impact, as the International Energy Agency’s recently stated:
Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.
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No doubt, the psychology that fuels global warming skepticism is rich. Throughout history, paradigm-shifting discoveries tend to be scorned at first. In the case of global warming, resistance is concentrated in the conservative end of the ideological spectrum, and part of that can be explained by the fact that addressing the problem will require action by governments (gasp!), though a few conservatives are starting to face reality.
Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change it’s way too late in the day, and there’s way too much at stake, to suffer fools gladly. These pseudo-skeptics are impeding progress on one of the most important global issues of our lifetimes, and jeopardizing the well being of literally billions of people in future generations because they can’t get past their own ideological and psychological hang ups and deal with reality. The appropriate response is to push back hard and not worry about being nice.
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Footnote: If you believe that the graphic at the top of this post is exaggerated, take a look at the C3 website, where you will find countless examples of cherry picking intended to mislead. For example, compare this anti-science to this science. And if you are wondering who produces C3, the web site doesn’t provide even a single name—always a sign of a credible source, right?
Note: This post originally appeared on Publicola as part of their Thanksgiving series.
< 19th and Madison in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood >
Ever since the crash of Dutch tulip mania in 1637 it has been widely recognized that economic bubbles tend to end badly. But over the past year in Seattle there’s been a bubble growing that I believe is a positive exception to that rule: the apartment boom. From the perspective of urban sustainability, that’s something to be thankful for.
New apartment projects have been sprouting so fast recently it’s hard to keep up. Nearly 7000 units are projected to come on line in 2013 in Seattle and Bellevue. In Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood alone construction is well under way on four large mid-rise apartments that will provide close to 600 new units, and a dozen or more projects are in various stages of the pipeline.
Factors driving the apartment boom include the lull in construction caused by the real estate bust, a relatively strong local job market, and demand from Gen Y kids and others who can’t afford to buy in today’s economy. Multifamily housing is pretty much the only real estate development market that has a pulse currently, which has led to somewhat of a feeding frenzy.
Why shouldn’t we worry about this particular bubble? True, an overproduction of apartments can be expected to dish out some economic pain to building owners, financiers, and developers who get the timing wrong. But that won’t change the fact that we’ll end up with lots of new high-density urban housing that will be on the ground for decades. And that’s some powerful good mojo for a sustainable city and region.
Dense urban infill housing reduces development pressure on farms and forests, leverages existing infrastructure investments, spurs economic development, improves public health, reduces stormwater runoff pollution, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions, and helps create the kind of livable, walkable communities that the market increasingly demands. Furthermore, any oversupply will put downward pressure on housing prices, helping to address affordability.
So no, I’m not wringing my hands over a potential apartment bubble. When I look up and see another construction crane on the skyline it gives me hope.
< Looking west from Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood >
Hello Citytank readers, and thank you for the chance to post this notice. It’s going to be my pleasure to do a reading from my new book…
Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities, Design Strategies for a Post-carbon World
November 28, 5:30 PM
Seattle Coffee Works, 107 Pike Street in downtown Seattle
I am gratified that the book has gotten very favorable reviews. Here are links to a couple of recent examples: this one from Landscape Architecture Magazine, and this one from Landscape Journal.
As some of you may know, I have been working on developing basic principles for sustainable community design for over 20 years now. This book is my attempt to boil down all that work into one easy to access but still useful volume. Over the years I became more and more convinced that having a workable and agreed-to set of sustainability principles was crucial. We have tried for many years to pare these principles down to their fundamental essence. It was quite a challenge to arrive at principles that are both very simple and, at the same time, supported by enough hard data to be credible. This is why I settled on the dual content strategy for the book, where each page has an easy to understand narrative, but also contains supporting data and a host of additional resources for those who appreciate more backup. Most of our reviewers have noted with approval this novel approach, and I hope attendees at the November 28 reading will also find this useful.
There will be books available for purchase at the event, and they are also available on line. For more info about the book please contact me at p.m.condon@gmail.com.
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Patrick M. Condon is the James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments at the University of British Columbia. Professor Condon’s Seattle reading is presented by VIA Architecture.
S400: The Forgotten Utility for Complete Streets, Safety, and Good Stormwater Design
Much discussion is found on the Interwebs these days about improving communities with “Complete Streets” — streets designed for multiple transportation options and not just for cars. Non-motorized safety is a major focus of such street design, usually achieved by slowing automobile traffic and providing pedestrian safety measures. Vegetation is often used to separate sidewalks from the roadway as well as to increase aesthetics, but all too often the vegetation planting area is treated as an afterthought, and the plant material suffers as a result. Trees are utilities, in that they are excellent coolers, safety barriers, and stormwater mitigators. Unfortunately, their needs are frequently forgotten at design time.
Is there a way to provide for the needs of this forgotten utility and increase the benefits trees provide? Absolutely, and it is relatively easy to do. Simply put, too often woody plants are given inadequate rooting volume and the plant languishes or dies. Most non-desert plants did not evolve surrounded by heat-absorbing and -reflecting concrete, so they must have enough water available to overcome this condition. This is only possible by having enough room for roots to explore for water and nutrients.
First, trees need a minimum volume of soil medium according to their general size (diagram via the Boston Society of Architects):
< Bassuk structural soil; image source: Cornell University >
Next, they need some decent soil to live in, not the compacted, leftover soil found at street construction sites. Fortunately, there are several design and material options beginning to be used, along with numerous structural soil mixtures for use around trees and pavement, such as Bassuk structural soil shown in the adjacent photo.
Large soil volumes – either exposed or under permeable hardscape – not only provide soil for trees but also filter stormwater runoff from the built environment and from trees that have intercepted and collected air pollutants on their surfaces. That’s right: good soil in built environments is important both for plants along our streets and for our stream health.
Notice how I haven’t said anything specific about Complete Street design. That’s because all the products and solutions out there work well with traditional street design as well as modern, innovative design. Nothing about the design itself has to change. Only the specification and construction processes change. And the added value from the benefits from increased tree survivorship ensures the project cost is returned. The project’s triple bottom line is increased simply by paying attention to basic tree needs!
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Dan Staley is an urban planner specializing in green infrastructure on Colorado’s Front Range.
< zHome zero-net energy project in Issaquah, WA >
Over the past few decades designers and policymakers have been working to increase the energy efficiency of buildings, and solid progress has been made. Still, today in the United States buildings account for 49 percent of energy use and 46 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Successfully tackling the dual challenges of rising energy costs and climate change is going to take massive reductions of building energy use.
A conceptual holy grail for energy-efficient building design is a building that generates as much energy as it consumes, a.k.a. a zero net energy building. And that’s the goal of a recently completed 10-unit townhome development in Issaquah, WA, known as zHome, touted as the “first multifamily, production, zero-energy, carbon-neutral community in the United States.”
Spearheaded by the City of Issaquah, the zHome project was awarded to David Vandervort Architects in Fall 2007, but subsequently the real estate bust forced the original builder to back out. Howland Homes took over in Summer 2008, and the project broke ground that September. Faced with financing challenges and delays, Howland then partnered with Ichijo, a large Japanese builder known for energy-efficient production homes, and the project finished in September 2011.
< zHome zero-net energy project in Issaquah, WA >
zHome was designed to achieve zero net energy use through efficiency measures that reduce consumption by about two-thirds, and photovoltaics (PV) that generate enough electricity to cover the remaining third—approximately 5,000 kWh per year. That requires a hefty amount of PV, and indeed, the south-facing panels that cover the roofs are a prominent feature. During the sunny summer months the PV produce more energy than the buildings need, and the excess is fed back to the grid. If the building operates as expected, that “banked” energy will offset the energy consumed during the dark winter months when PV output is low, the result being zero net energy use on an annual basis.
Energy-efficiency measures incorporated in zHome include ground source heat pumps that provide space heating and domestic hot water, heat recovery ventilation, a tightly sealed and highly insulated envelope (R38 wall, R63 roof, U-0.33 double pane windows), efficient appliances, LED lighting, switched outlets to reduce phantom loads, and a real-time energy monitoring system. (The project is also designed to reduce water consumption by 70 percent.)
So how much did all that extra stuff increase the cost? Asking prices for the units are relatively high for Issaquah: $385k for 799 s.f. 1-bedroom; $530k for 1350 s.f. 2 bedroom; and $625k for 1694 s.f. 3-bedroom. Apparently the free land and significant logistical support provided by the City weren’t enough to negate the cost premium. Eventually the upfront investment in efficiency would be offset by savings in the energy (and water) bills, but given current energy prices payback periods are relatively long. Of course, if all the externalized costs of our energy were included it would be a different story, but unfortunately a carbon tax is not happening any time soon.
< zHome zero-net energy project in Issaquah, WA >
It remains to be seen if zHome will achieve zero net energy performance in the real world, and success will likely depend to some extent on the energy use habits of the occupants—one thing designers don’t have much control over. In any case, whether or not a building can produce enough energy on site to hit net-zero isn’t necessarily the be all and end all for sustainable design. Arguably, what’s more important is the practice of “efficiency first”—that is, first figure out how to fully minimize the building’s energy use, and then worry about how to supply the remaining energy demand.
For example, the Bullitt Foundation’s Living Building is targeting zero net energy and incorporates cutting-edge energy-efficient design. But analysis suggests that it could have been even more efficient if it had been built to the European Passive House standard, in which case it would have required less PV, potentially reducing both cost and physical design constraints.
Furthermore, when you look beyond the single building and consider larger systems of buildings and energy production, in some cases powering a building from an offsite energy source may make more sense than struggling to max out on-site generation. And for buildings taller than about six or seven stories, there simply won’t be enough solar energy impinging on the site to meet demand, even for a hyper-efficient building.
In conclusion, while the concept of zero net energy buildings may have its limitations, projects like zHome and the Bullitt Foundation building remain hugely important for making progress on energy-efficient design. That’s because they challenge designers to (1) work within a highly constrained energy budget, and (2) explore the limits of on-site energy production. And then there’s also the potential for the big win as the designs move into the mainstream. Indeed, Ichijo has ambitions to ramp up the zHome concept to high-volume production. It won’t be a moment too soon.
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Dan Bertolet is an urban planner with VIA Architecture and the founder of Citytank. All photos by the author. All apologies for the the title reference.
Note: This post originally appeared on the Altantic.
Real neighborhood experiences can provide a meaningful gloss on current discussions about how to make cities better and increase shared places for all.
On Saturday night, in response to an email, I went to the movies by walking 100 feet from my home. Admission was free. And it was not in the comfort of an isolated home or downtown space, but among some 20 neighbors in an everyday place, hidden and in plain sight: Monica and Michael’s alley entry, against Anne and Jerry’s retaining wall.
Our last “alley movie night” of the summer was an important reminder that a city neighborhood can experience community without really trying—an “urbanism without effort” that needs no thought leadership nor sound bytes, and is as natural as European street life in places we sometimes wish we were.
We can try awfully hard—sometimes too hard, in my opinion—to extol the virtues of the city by proselytizing and debating ideas and opportunities. In particular, the potential for American urban alleys remains in the spotlight. This attention, often aspirational, is well deserved given the raw alley palette for remade narrow streets in the organic European tradition, pedestrian in scale, narrow, interesting and a natural focus for greening street life and new small businesses.
Recently, additional essays (e.g., Alyse Nelson writing in Sightline last week) have recalled alleys’ placemaking role within the urbanist toolbox. Specific, grant-funded work by Seattle’s Daniel Toole has emphasized the now iconic, reclaimed laneway precedent of Melbourne and beyond.
The challenges, of course, are how to pay for reclaiming and maintaining these alleys. And, as with many instances of infrastructure improvement, we must determine where and how the private sector can make a difference in implementing improvements and maintenance too costly for today’s municipal public transportation and utility agencies.
After all, it’s not just about clearing away the dumpsters. As I’ve related before in contributions to the urbanist dialogue (in myurbanist and on Seattle’s KUOW radio), public rights of way, stormwater system maintenance, pavement resurfacing and other forms of street improvement may be required in order to materially reinvent desired space.
Yet, in the meantime, there are ready and simple victories in residential alleys less known or described, where neighborhood is there for the taking.
Admittedly, not all of us have traditional alleys at our back doors (which we often treat as main entries), but those of us who do can readily avail ourselves of the once and future urbanism of alley reinvention. Those of us who don’t might find a driveway and garage to suffice for now.
Email, potluck food and drink, equipment setup, and a bedsheet-as-movie-screen yield public space for community, not because of doctrine or dogma, but because it is as natural as the place next door.
The best urbanism is that which is already there to be nurtured, a practice that I highly recommend.
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Charles R. “Chuck” Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D., is an environmental and land use attorney in Seattle and an Affiliate Associate Professor of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. He writes for several publications, including The Huffington Post and Crosscut, and blogs at myurbanist. All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail.
Note: This post is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from the Seattle Planning Commission.
Recently Commission Vice-Chair David Cutler wrote about the way the proximity of residents and workers factors into making neighborhood business districts more dynamic. He pointed out there are complex factors at play in neighborhood retail districts, not the least of which include demographics, disposable income levels, and other market determinants. In this week’s Dispatch, we continue to explore the key ingredients to creating thriving, pleasant neighborhood business districts.
Seattle residents have a strong identification with their local neighborhood business district—each unique, giving a distinct flavor and ambiance to the community. Indeed, it’s one of the things that makes Seattle special. When speaking of Columbia City, the West Seattle Junction, Pike/Pine, Greenwood, or any of the other 30-plus neighborhoods in the city, one immediately grasps a picture of the types and mix of businesses, the community treasures (be it a park or art work or farmers market), and the accessibility of each.
Do our business districts have special needs that can be addressed as Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan is updated? Indeed, Seattle expects to welcome at least 120,000 new residents and 115,000 new jobs by 2031, and the expected growth in population and jobs will provide growth opportunities for existing neighborhood business districts by infusing them with new customers and creating neighborhood-area jobs.
But, other than a critical mass of people living and working within close proximity to the district, what else do our neighborhood business districts need to be successful?
< Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood; photo by Oran Viriyincy >
Business Organization
Leading and implementing neighborhood revitalization requires organizational capacity. It includes recruitment of volunteers and the development of community leadership from among property and business owners and area residents. Creating community ownership of public spaces is essential to creating a cared-for neighborhood business district. Additionally, this type of attention requires a sustained and ongoing commitment in the form of local business, community, and civic organizations that attend to the ongoing stewardship of the district. Business organization can also play an essential role in helping to recruit and attract new businesses through marketing and other efforts.
Business and Retail Development
Neighborhood plans lay the groundwork for new investment in the community, but the City often waits for some action to come along which may not happen for years, leading to community frustration. It sometimes feels like the City doesn’t have a coherent way of dealing with investment to implement the plans that are developed with the neighborhoods. Coming up with strategies that align resources as public/private partnerships can direct new growth and development in ways that contribute to the vibrancy of the neighborhood. The city’s office of Economic Development offers technical assistance to business districts including information about resources and partnerships.
< Image from the Design Guidelines for the Othello neighborhood >
Unique Community Identity
A unique image helps local residents identify with their neighborhood and attracts outside visitors. Identifying what is unique about a community can create an identity around existing assets. Fremont does this with its funky art, Ballard has Scandinavian flags and shops, and the University District emphasizes its connection to the University of Washington. In Othello the city is working with ethnic business to develop a retail district with an international focus understanding that the communities’ plethora of culturally specific businesses is a unique and valuable asset. The focus of this effort involves supporting the established multicultural business district at Othello light rail station by providing technical support and innovative approaches to stabilizing commercial leases and growing local businesses.
Keystone Community Spaces and Events
Many communities hold farmers markets, summer music festivals, parades, or holiday fairs. Well-organized events can help create or reinforce a community’s “brand.” Open spaces such as plazas and parks in a business district not only provide necessary places of respite within high density, but also act as the community’s formal and informal gathering places for neighbors to meet, share ideas and gossip, hold special events and festivals, and celebrate occasions. These spaces need access to water and electricity so festival vendors can operate. They also need to be programmed and activated so they are welcoming and lively spaces and not places for illicit activities that detract from the district’s quality.
< Seattle's Chinatown-International District >
Safety
Our city benefits from reduced crime levels; our citizens are safe from most serious crimes. But that fact does not translate to a perception of safety in all neighborhoods. Traffic whizzing by, trees and shrubs overhanging sidewalks and blocking views, poor street lighting and sidewalk maintenance, vacant lots, unattractive and poorly maintained store fronts and more contribute to an environment in which pedestrians feel concerned for their safety, thereby reducing time spent in the district. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and other design and planning efforts can play an important role in making sure there are “eyes on the street” and creating a safe and comfortable environment for all. In some areas of town, persistent drug dealing and a lack of positive public activity can contribute to a perceived loss of personal safety and to the demise of signature businesses. Hot-spot policing and ongoing beat patrols have had very positive impact to combating street disorder including reducing drug dealing and property crime. It also creates a stronger perception of community safety by having a public safety presence.
Cleanliness
A clean business district creates an inviting shopping environment, influences perceptions of safety, and demonstrates an investment in the district’s surroundings. Not all solutions require legislation or government regulation. How often do you see a small business owner pushing a broom to sweep the sidewalk in front of her store? Do dog owners pick up their pets’ deposits after their stroll through the neighborhood? In Pasadena alleys, dumpsters are centralized behind screens in “garages” so that the alleys are clean and fragrance free, and create inviting pedestrian walkways enhanced with public art. In 2009, Seattle adopted its Clear Alley Project in downtown neighborhoods to reduce waste containers in the public right-of–way. The goals of the program are to create cleaner, safer business districts; reduce uncivil behaviors and illegal activities in alleys; increase the attractiveness of alleys for pedestrian use; and allow better alley access for business services such as deliveries. Other Business Improvement Areas work with private companies to handle ongoing and daily streetscape maintenance like street cleaning, pressure washing, and graffiti removal. In many districts, a Business Improvement Area, funded by local businesses, is responsible for this important function.
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| Kay Knapton has served on the Seattle Planning Commission for six years, bringing an economic development perspective to the deliberations, encouraging small business growth and neighborhood business district development. Kay was coordinator for Mayor Royer’s Small Business Task Force, a Seattle neighborhood business district specialist, director of the West Seattle Junction Association (Business Improvement Area). |  |
I was talking to a Seattle City Councilmember the other day about the politics of the South Lake Union rezone. Apparently, everyone on the Council has something they don’t particularly like about the new developments there, something that they wish was done differently, and this is making them cautious about moving forward.
I have to admit, I was aghast. This is one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in our city, nay, in our country for crying out loud! Other cities wonder how they could get some of our pixie dust and make a South Lake Union appear in a dilapidated industrial area at the fringe of their downtown. South Lake Union is full of the kind of goodies that city leaders covet like lots of mixed income housing, entrepreneurialism, job growth, economic diversity, and excellent places to eat and shop and walk around.
I was in the neighborhood for a meeting recently and took a couple of pictures of some things that I like on the big black 11-story building that has drawn its share of ire. How cool is that picture window (above) with the space needle in it? Very cool. Cooler, in fact, because you have to stand in just the right place to see it. I don’t need a view corridor to the space needle from everywhere, just in one perfect spot. And check out those excellent floating light fixtures in that coffee shop on the left.
And look at these nifty doodles in a window on a weird grade where you can’t really put a retail entrance. See the Oregon grapes in the foreground? Fun. Fun. I am delighted by this stuff compared to what used to be there.
Can I find some things I don’t like in South Lake Union? Sure.
Should they drive policy that effectively turns off the tap until 2013 on a thriving neighborhood that is bursting at the seams? Of course not.
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A-P Hurd is a developer at Touchstone and a Fellow of the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.
