Puget Sound

Winter 2006 Brown Bag Recaps

by Brown Bag Coordinator Steve Ladd except as noted

Winter 2006 Brown Bag Recaps in .doc format.

Seattle’s High Point Development: Talk and Tour
1/25/06

Tom Phillips of the Seattle Housing Authority is the fourth recipient of the Brown Bag bright Idea Award for creating this popular event. High Point’s size and abundance of progressive features are amazing. A WWII housing project undergoing reinvention, High Point is now a showcase of new ideas like low-impact development, new urbanism, resident engagement, and mixture of market and subsidized units. The very splash blocks (those things under downspouts) are works of sculpture. The buildings are the latest word in energy efficiency, and the Housing Authority / City cooperation is heartening. Thanks also to Peg Staeheli of SVR for exposing the project’s labyrinthine drainage features.

What legitimizes planning as a profession?
2/1/06

Ron Turner asked what makes planning a profession as distinguished from an occupation. The discussion that followed expanded upon the notion of a contract with the community. But who is our client? How do we reconcile the “public interest” with our client’s interests? Do we inform or reform? Attendees responded pragmatically, defining the planner as staff to the decision-makers (public or private), responsible for presenting facts and professional opinions within an inclusive process. David Anderson of CTED suggested that the planner’s identity lies in technical work that results in policies adopted by the community. Martha Pansa of Enumclaw said that her idea of “professional” causes her to offer alternatives to her clients that they would ordinarily not think of, alternatives that expand the sense of public interest. William Osbourne of Kent noted that many planner activists exist in his community and it’s hard to say which are “planners.” Case studies were presented that emphasized the difficulty of working responsibly within political and social systems based on personal and group interests. Mr. Turner closed by stating that the ambiguity and uncertainty of the planner’s role in our extraordinarily complex world helps make it a fascinating and stimulating profession.

Land assembly in support of economic development
2/8/06

Using the downtown rebirths of Kent (thanks to Nathan Torgelson) and Burien (thanks to Dick Loman) as case studies, Jay Reich of Preston Gates Ellis explored the intricacy of land assembly.

Kent paid $16 per square foot for the Borden Chemical Plant and later resold it to developers for $5-8 per square foot. This tested the limits of the state constitution’s prohibition against the lending of public credit, and the limits of political capital as the mayor was criticized year after year. But Kent had no choice if Downtown was to move forward. The transactions stood.

In Burien too, the City’s activism raised questions on the government’s appropriate role in the economy. The first six acres were tough to acquire, but, with diligent door-knocking, succeeding parcels fell like dominos. Luckily, the only unwilling sellers were those whose parcels were needed for a street, allowing the use of eminent domain. (The state constitution allows eminent domain for “public use and public necessity,” not for private economic development. The state’s Community Renewal Law allows a more lax standard for fighting blight, but “blight” still generally implies public health hazards, not just more jobs.) Also, it was politically difficult to enforce the departure of two successful but uncooperative local businesses.

Lessons? 1) Communication is a constant theme to successful land assembly. Any interests left uninformed are likely to fight it. 2) A city’s land purchases must be at fair market value. However, that can be construed to exceed appraised value if the seller and buyer stand at “arms length.” No sweet-heart terms for the seller, no sweetheart financing for the ultimate developer. 3) Private corporations buying land rely on speed, secrecy, and high return. They make and lose money. Governments are open, political, and risk-averse. 4) Land assembly does not necessarily lead to quick private investment. Still, sometimes cities have no choice but to take risks.

See Land Assembly and Disposal by Cities for Jay’s excellent paper.

How to get plans adopted despite intense conflict
2/15/06

Sandy Fischer told about managing Bainbridge Island’s superabundance of citizen participation in the Winslow Tomorrow plan. 130 volunteered to be on the committee! The City hired 12 facilitators, also numerous speakers and consultants. Regular presentations were made to the City Council, who blessed progress to date. To avoid positioning, the managers forced the participants to focus on problems first, solutions second. They had a generous outreach budget (about $100k), a generous schedule, and an open mind. It worked!

Marcia Wagoner of PRR used projects in Bellingham and Redmond as examples. No matter how pessimistic her participants, she makes them commit to the process and schedule. Then she works them, with little spoon-feeding. Tours, events, and media coverage enliven the process. She builds common ground one piece at a time, ever ready for new approaches, like break-out groups or “voting” by having them place stickers on their preferred options.

Facilitator Jim Reid offered these points:

• Make sure your participants are weighing in with the people they represent.
• Facilitate diversity for different styles of learning, communicating, and decision-making.
• Facilitate compromise. Build compromise into every “option.”
• Talk to committee members between meetings. Discuss interests and compromises behind the scenes.
• Give power away in order to get it back.

The Future in 3D: Innovative Tools for Visualizing Land Use and Urban Design
2/23/06

This exposition of computer-based tools was a repeat of the hugely popular session at the recent APA conference. Michael Stephan of CH2M Hill, Darby Watson of LMN Architects, and Kim Selby of NBBJ demonstrated GIS-based applications that incorporate photography, digitized design work, animation, and much more. These tools can help your community visualize what “it” will look like, from the site scale to the community scale.

Affordable housing
3/1/06

The Mercer Island City Council Chambers were the site of a recent half-day discussion on housing affordability. This discussion occurred on March 1st and was the last of the “Brown Bag Lunch” series for spring 2006.

The program was divided into four one hour segments beginning with a presentation by Arthur Sullivan from ARCH (A Regional Coalition for Housing). This segment concentrated on tips for handling community discussions about affordable housing issues and projects. Arthur has developed a point of view after many years of discussions with communities about these issues that there is no such thing as NIMBY per se. Arthur’s perspective is that the process of integrating affordable housing into communities primarily depends upon getting to know and then appropriately and adequately responding to the resident’s fundamental values such as safety, schools and traffic. These will often be reflected as concerns about affordable housing but really they are an indication about what needs to be addressed to properly incorporate affordable housing into the community.

Following this discussion, the next portion of the program centered on the planning and regulatory environment and what planners can do to increase housing choice and affordability. Rob Odle, the Acting Planning Director for the City of Redmond, talked about a variety of measures that have been recently implemented there such as cottage housing demonstration projects, fee waivers and the City’s inclusionary affordable housing requirements in the Downtown and several neighborhoods.

Rick Hooper, from the City of Seattle Office of Housing, spoke next on the successes of the Seattle’s Multi-Family Tax Exemption Program. Rick also addressed the current evaluation of the housing market and regulations in downtown Seattle and efforts to support affordable housing development through changes to the zoning code.

Allan Johnson, of the King County Housing and Community Development Program highlighted a range of housing opportunities created through King County’s surplus property program such as the Greenbrier Heights project in Woodinville and the Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts in Pioneer Square. Allan indicated a real strength of this tool was the ability to tailor an RFP that matched the local neighborhood’s affordable housing needs and desires.

A conclusion of this discussion was that when incentives, such as density bonus, fee waivers and surplus property initiatives can be combined within one project it often has better results than when just one incentive is used independently. Greenbrier Heights, in Woodinville, was highlighted as an example of this convergence of a variety of incentives to create an outstanding final result.

The Housing Partnership’s Mike Luis provided a thought provoking discussion about what role planning has in limiting housing choice and consequently compromising housing affordability. Mike talked about the Atlanta area and its relatively affordable housing in addition to minimal growth restrictions and postulated that the two were related. This prompted a lively discussion amongst attendees.

Linda Hall from the St. Andrew’s Housing Group talked about the development process from the perspective of a non-profit developer. In particular she highlighted the complications presented by time and difficulty it takes to obtain the multiple subsidies needed to support a non-profit housing project and how each one of these funding sources has its own unique set of deadlines for development and occupancy. As a result, non-profit projects often have to proceed through the permitting process in a very different manner than private sector projects.

Finally, a panel composed of Steve Walker from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, Marquis Frank of the King County Housing Finance Program and Carla Okigwe, the Executive Director of the Housing Development Consortium, spoke about the various different funding sources that support affordable housing projects and what cities and staff can do to help support potential projects in their community through the process of securing these various funds.

Approximately 25 people attended the session. Given the lively discussion and positive feedback from attendees, there will likely be follow up discussions at a future event.