So the Seattle City Council can now give themselves all a pat on the back for "doing the right thing" in assuming that up to 20,000 "family wage" jobs could be created in Interbay over the next 25 years.
The trouble is, these new workers undoubtedly will clog 15th Avenue (or hopefully some will hop the monorail) to go home, since the city council has denied the Port of Seattle's request to explore multifamily housing as part of the massive North Bay project.
Crying over the loss of "family wage jobs" if any "dreaded" multifamily housing is considered, the Industrial Businesses (BINMIC) overlook the fact that affordable workforce housing is popping up all over Seattle, and it would have made perfect sense to be located in this area.
Do they think that "family wage housing" will be found in adjacent Queen Anne or Magnolia, where current housing prices soar well over $500,000? Has anyone considered that 15th Avenue is already clogged during rush hour? What about the fact that Pier 91 has been vacant for five years? Do they really expect industrial jobs to expand considerably, or that they will leave the Kent Valley to return closer the "working waterfront" (where they don't really need to be)?
The reality is that this will be yet another former industrial area that will simply lay waiting in the hopes for that "golden child": biotech and high-tech office space. Isn't South Lake Union already planning millions of square feet for this, and allowing mixed uses?
Eventually, projects like Amgen (which privatize precious waterfront open space into gated office parks) will expand northward, and high paying office jobs no doubt will flourish at Interbay. However, the thought of adding almost 20,000 new workers, with little or no permissible worker housing nearby, seems like a giant leap back in land-use planning, and of course screams "business as usual" with Seattle politics.
Interestingly, even the Port of Seattle wanted to at least consider housing alternatives for that same reason. San Francisco's Mission Bay and Hunters Point Shipyard are similar projects (located in industrial waterfronts and adjacent to planned rail) and they feature high-intensity industrial, commercial and appropriate residential uses.
Even Tacoma is well ahead in terms of developing mixed-use waterfronts, while at the same time improving the productivity of its port. It can happen, and it is happening in other cities, yet Seattle still turns away from other cities to try and learn from their successes. Why?
Remember when all of the small businesses cried that the Seattle Commons would only benefit developers? Well, fast forward to today, where the property owners, not the former industrial businesses, benefited from Vulcan's tremendous land purchases. And what is being built there now? High-tech, biotech, condominiums, retail and apartments - and most of the businesses who thought they had been saved are either gone or are on short-term leases.
So we don't think that could ever happen to Interbay? Well, with the announcement last week that Whole Foods and an upscale fitness center will be anchoring the first new development in Interbay, people should wake up and accept that demand for mixed-uses, including housing, is already increasing in that area no matter what, and housing should be a considered and allowed use.
I live in Magnolia, and I can't believe the city would push for so many new jobs without any provision for workforce housing (rental or condo). Even with a potential monorail and streetcar extension, do we really think that 50 percent of these new workers will be taking transit (that's 10,000 people)? Even if a healthy 20 percent of those employees take transit, that could mean 15,000 to 17,000 new cars added to 15th during rush hour.
Well, at least we know that property values for single family homes in adjacent Queen Anne and Magnolia will probably skyrocket as a result. Thanks, City Council - I'm sure we'll miss our industrial neighbors when all the new biotech firms come in, and I'm sure we'll reap the real estate benefits when these new workers have no new places to call home.
Scott Surdyke lives in Magnolia.[[In-content Ad]]
