Last week the tower spacing proposal from Councilmember Bagshaw seemed to be making a comeback after disappearing for awhile. The proposal was triggered by angry (and very wealthy) neighbors in the Escala building downtown who are worried about losing their views to new housing development. We’ve taken a strong stand that the benefits of more new housing more than outweighs some lost “light and air” for a few dozen millionaires. Here’s a post from Facebook about a series of presentations going on around town on the Grand Bargain:

Today I heard Brennon Staley (new DPD dept) give an overview of HALA and the new “Mandatory Housing Affordability Program”, which I believe is the official name of the Grand Bargain. At the end of the presentation he brought up the downtown tower spacing issue. Apparently DPD is actually considering some changes to the commercial area to put requirements on tower spacing and possibly limit the number of towers on a block.

No matter what you think about people’s right to privacy protection, light, air, and all that crap – how in the world does a strategy that LIMITS housing production (possibly by full towers in some cases) get lumped into HALA?

That prompted me to write an email to Staley:

Hello Brennon,

It’s come to our attention that you are working on a tower spacing proposal as part of the HALA proposal. I may attend tomorrow night’s open house to hear your presentation.

Is this true? If it is, what exactly is going forward, what is the timeline, and is there a SEPA process for it underway? Has Council Central staff been involved? What’s the Mayor’s plans for introducing this to the Council?

We’ve specifically asked that the Mayor not proceed on Councilmember Bagshaw’s request on behalf of residents of the Escala building to impose a new set of requirements on tower spacing. We’d renew that request and ask that no more work proceed on this request. Councilmember Bagshaw’s suggestion would

1. Put the Mayor’s Grand Bargain at risk by impacting proposed rezones that are part of that proposal;
2. Reduce housing supply and opportunity for new people who want to live downtown; and
3. Unfairly give advantages to wealthy homeowners in one building at the expense of many, many other future residents.

It shouldn’t surprise me at this point, but don’t we have enough on our plate with impact fees, mandatory inclusionary zoning, the Levy, and 60 plus other proposal in the HALA recommendations to be pursing a boutique planning project on behalf of Councilmember Bagshaw and a few of her wealthy constituents?

We’re in a housing crisis remember! And the proposal does nothing to address that issues and in fact makes it worse for no benefit to the Mayor, the HALA, or the wider city.

Roger–

That email went out to a variety of people, including signers of the Grand Bargain. One of the key parties of that agreement was land use attorney Jack McCullough.  He jumped in within minutes:

I completely agree. This proposal is contrary to HALA and the Grand Bargain and will place HALA in jeopardy.

So that evening I went to the next edition of the HALA presentation being done by the City, including Staley’s tower spacing talk.  This time, there was no mention of tower spacing and the slide in the Power Point (see the featured image above) given by Staley earlier was gone. I ran into Councilmember Bagshaw and asked her if we’d see a formal request to stop working on a tower spacing scheme.

She said that in light of conversations with McCullough that she was “talking with [the Mayor’s staff].” And she acknowledged that the proposal was off the table–for now. I said that made me happy–for now. This is the first example of Councilmember improvisation around zoning and land use at the request of neighbors that is putting the politically delicate Bargain to the test. While I’m not a fan of the Bargain, it’s an example of why I’m skeptical that it will hold together once neighbors and their Councilmembers (elected now by districts, remember?) start trying to change how the Bargain works. This is just the beginning of trying to change the rules.