For the last several days, lots of people on the pro-development side of this discussion have been critical of my illustrations because they show the actual houses on either side of the sites we modeled instead of what could be built on those lots under the current development code. They want us to show a fantasy scenario instead of reality, which is sort of puzzling, right?
As if we're not already working overtime doing the City's work for them, now they and their supporters want to give us extra homework.
However illogical or inappropriate, here's an example that sits 3 lots down from our Lynnwood St. RM1 model site. It's a recent A/B condo project that used the full extent of the code to create roughly $1.5m in value on the lot. If you look at the aerial and Street View images you can see that this project is an outlier on the street, which is populated primarily with older, smaller 1-story homes.
Perhaps the most important element of this comparison isn't stated in the document. Many people are confusing our criticism of the code as an aesthetic or architectural concern. To be clear, we're not worried that the buildings will be ugly; our main concern is about affordability (it's what this code re-write is supposed to be for, isn't it?). With roughly $3m in development value on the site vs. about $1.5m under the current limits, the land value jumps from roughly $500k today to $1m as soon as the code is adopted. As soon as the first tear-down on that block sells, the other lots on the block are going to see their property taxes go way up.
Gina and I are watching the City Council work session on the code as I write this post, and it's fascinating to see how delicately Steve Adler dances around the reality of this issue. He really, really doesn't want you to know that your property taxes and rents are fixin' to jump, folks.
As if we're not already working overtime doing the City's work for them, now they and their supporters want to give us extra homework.
However illogical or inappropriate, here's an example that sits 3 lots down from our Lynnwood St. RM1 model site. It's a recent A/B condo project that used the full extent of the code to create roughly $1.5m in value on the lot. If you look at the aerial and Street View images you can see that this project is an outlier on the street, which is populated primarily with older, smaller 1-story homes.
Perhaps the most important element of this comparison isn't stated in the document. Many people are confusing our criticism of the code as an aesthetic or architectural concern. To be clear, we're not worried that the buildings will be ugly; our main concern is about affordability (it's what this code re-write is supposed to be for, isn't it?). With roughly $3m in development value on the site vs. about $1.5m under the current limits, the land value jumps from roughly $500k today to $1m as soon as the code is adopted. As soon as the first tear-down on that block sells, the other lots on the block are going to see their property taxes go way up.
Gina and I are watching the City Council work session on the code as I write this post, and it's fascinating to see how delicately Steve Adler dances around the reality of this issue. He really, really doesn't want you to know that your property taxes and rents are fixin' to jump, folks.
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| Elevation view of Proposed Code vs. Current Code. Spoiler: it's bigger. |
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