Our appeal of the Department of Planning and Development’s (DPD) determination of non-significance (DNS) on legislation affecting low-rise zones was unsuccessful (you can read the whole decision here: W-14-001 DECISION_00001). The Hearing Examiner ruled on the narrow issue of whether DPD had made a mistake by not considering the impact of the proposal’s reduction of housing capacity through reducing density in low-rise zones. She determined that they did not.

The examiner agreed that the proposal does reduce the number of potential housing units, because the number of units in legislation from 2010 would “push the total capacity beyond” what DPD expected. Essentially, the current proposal is aimed at allowing fewer units of housing, and accomplishes this by tweaking FAR calculations, meaning buildings will be the same height and size, but have fewer units. However, the Examiner found that DPD didn’t make any procedural errors. The DNS was reasonable considering the available tools DPD was using to determine potential impacts.

While this is a setback to our efforts to stop the legislation, it doesn’t mean that the changes will go into effect. The proposal will have to go through hearings at the City Council and be signed by the mayor. We’ll continue to make the case that this is no time to be reducing density, a sure way to reduce housing supply and increase housing prices. Already microhousing has been a casualty of the Council’s tendency to bargain away housing capacity to quell the complaints of angry neighbors. We can’t afford to lose more housing supply.

What  did accomplish with the appeal?

• We delayed the passage of legislation for a year–when Councilmember Clark first proposed the legislation, she wanted it passed quickly, in the first quarter of 2014. It’s unlikely that this legislation will take effect–if it passes–until well into 2015. That means many projects will vest under the better code before this legislation could be enacted.
• We revealed how DPD planners think–During the appeal the City’s defense was largely based on the idea that the City giveth density, and the City taketh density away. Planners at DPD looked at the innovative ways builders and designers were getting more people into the low-rise zones and decided that it didn’t fit their predicted outcome. Their lawyer, Bill Mills, stated that if the City accidentally creates too many housing units, then they can undo that decision.
• We bought more time to make our case–We were spread pretty thin with micorhousing and linkage fees. Holding up the legislation meant not having to wage another battle on another front at the same time we were contending with other legislative issues. Now we can put more energy and time into making our case against what amounts to a downzone.
• Tried something new–it’s usually the neighborhood groups that appeal our projects, not developers appealing a non-project SEPA decision. These appeals almost always fail because the standard is very high. Also, most of this work has become almost boiler plate; so many years and so many decisions have made the work of SEPA time consuming and routine. But this is new ground, and using the appeal process to slow down bad legislation may be an important technique to get projects vested since the City Council seems impervious lately to the facts.

We’re not giving up, and the appeal, while unsuccessful, shows we can and will make our case whenever and wherever we can that Seattle needs more housing choice, not less.