And it’s critical that the square is adjacent to buildings, not roads where cars or buses go. This is where American cities get squares wrong every time.

Stadium urbanism is going mainstream

This process is a complete waste of everyone’s time

Not only do the architects bend over backwards appeasing these absurd boards to get approval, they do so in order to avoid another meeting which these small businesses are forced to eat into their fee costing upwards of $200,000 and 2 months of schedule delay.

I cannot believe this program is still in operation @cmeddielin.bsky.social. It’s about time we end it. You have a chance to be a housing hero

This program is so useless. And, worse than that, it’s illegal in the state of Washington l

I think I'll take a peek at this meeting. As always, I will not be liveposting.

It’s incredible that planners want to shove all the housing in the place every real estate agent says you don’t want to live

The NIMBYs in Paris (led by an architect, big shocker 🙄) protested one of the most iconic constructions in the world claiming it was “out of scale and ugly”. They are always wrong

This is incredible

As soon as anything is built everyone forgets about it and accepts that it’s there.

Another phony environmental group that wants to tell you we need to shove density on 7 lane roads because that’s “smart” (aka it’s smart to keep change away from them)

Now when it takes 900 days to get a construction permit

Environmental review is flat out bullshit and I’m tired of the “reform” talk

They are also upzoning around this huge highway interchange under the guise it is now “transit oriented development”

“Some concerns”. Every time. I’m concerned you’re concerned.

This is true. We can have dark sky cities if we changed our beliefs on what amount of light we need in cities

When you ban housing, ban hotels and ban airbnbs all you’re doing is encouraging rich people moving in and renting the limited stock you have

SEPA needs to go away It doesn’t protect the environment

I’m sure other systems have outages but redundancy reduces the impact

Felons should get the right to vote.

We shouldn’t go back to the way things were but I’m afraid we will

I always kind of worried this last 3 weeks was a big showing for World Cup and kept dreading what would happen when it was over. The day after the US lost to Belgium we completely dismantled the watch zones, switched back to shorter trains to Bellevue and now service is suspended in Seattle

World Cup is over. Back to reality folks. What a great 3 weeks it was though

One keen observation for me is how there is little to no drop in daily ridership on weekends, bucking the trend that transit is primarily for commuting

Tired: junk fees Wired: junk policies If we want to make housing cheaper and more competitive for renters, we need to abolish design review, remove design guidelines and building setback aesthetic requirements, and speed up permits to 120 days

Pet rent is one of those annoyances for which the *only* solution is to increase housing supply until landlords feel forced to drop it to attract tenants. Banning pet rents in tight markets just mean fewer landlords will have any incentive to accept pets at all

Remember when our tax payers funded a trip for lawmakers to Helsinki to learn about vision zero? I wonder what they brought back with them?

“Farmers who end up with too much pot often end up selling cannabis wholesale, at a discounted rate.” What if we did that with housing? What if we permitted it faster, didn’t have MHA taxing it, didn’t have design review, and added ‘too much housing’? The price would go down.

I guess we are back to 2-car trains stuffed to the gills on the 2-Line. I already miss the World Cup (they were sending 3 and 4 car trains)

Objective design standards such as this one might make buildings more expensive and more difficult to build, but you cannot deny that they also make cities uglier and worse to live in.

Design guidelines should be illegal under the 1st Amendment

Planners and very bad architects come up with the worst rules that result in ugly buildings

Were these design standards written by a drop of water trying to get inside?

This project of 250 homes is well designed, voluntarily saving a tree for more units, and because it’s removing this useless dead end “alley” it’s subjected to the dumbest nitpicky comments in design review. Their meeting is July 15 at 5pm

Yes, people at HDC, I’m sure they mean well, but they are not in charge, and are not housing economists. So why do our elected leaders listen to them?

Perfect time for SDOT to remove vehicle lanes on Aurora and make it a walkable, protected bike lane, tree lined corridor that people want to be on. Hopefully the Aurora “Advisory Committee” agrees

If the goal is to help renters, then this legislation needs to end design review, speed up permitting, ban SEPA appeals, cut MHA and remove aesthetic mandates so more homes are built quickly. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

I got excited that this might mean more activation downtown, more pedestrian zones, better transit service; all things we have done for the World Cup, but it turns out none of those are listed in this article. What a bummer. By Friday it’ll be the same ol Seattle :/

I’m renaming SEPA the SEattle Process Annihilator - the place where good ideas go to die.

I've been walknig around Pioneer Square, looking at the food trucks and streets where people can walk without fear, and saying "we can do this ALL the time" throughout the World Cup. Pedestrianization works best when you just do it, rather than Seattle Processing the concept until it's a no.

Seriously: everybody loved the walkable downtown vibe of Seattle during the World Cup. *Everyone.* They wrote articles about it in newspapers around the world! We cemented our reputation as a global city! And now ... we just have to let all the cars back in? Why?

We could have this all the time, routinely, but in the end we always prioritize cars.

Had been hoping it was to suspend the city’s tax on housing, speeding upper permitting, eliminating design review, or extending pedestrianization pilots indefinitely. Oh well

A bike lane and hundreds of affordable homes in Magnolia have both been delayed since 2008 thanks in significant part to SEPA. Getting people out of cars and building new affordable housing in the City are both good for the environment!

It was inspiring and validating to see what our city can be if we just go for it

Would never pass SEPA

SEPA is a complete farce, but the people who built it and use it know that

When will this city learn that we don’t need to build housing to fund affordable housing, we need to build housing to meet demand so housing stays affordable.

I remember this hysteria in Seattle too