Last night’s public hearing on the One Seattle Plan

Yesterday I spent over 5 hours listening to the public comment session on the Mayor’s proposed Comprehensive Plan, aka the “One Seattle Plan”, which governs the first comprehensive rezoning since 2015. Over 200 people spoke, 85% in person and 15% calling in, before the chairwoman shut the meeting down at 10:30 pm, due to mounting inclement weather. If not for this, and the fact that for the last 30 minutes, each person was given one minute instead of 2, public comment could have gone all night. Many in the Council Chamber had already left before their number was called (the parking garage closed at 10, and no one wants to ride the bus here in the snow…) so I don’t know how many people were waiting to speak in person, but I was number 72 in the remote caller queue, with not much attrition ahead of me. Anyway the council made the right call ending the meeting, but there is still a ton to say about this plan, so I thought I’d share a bit of what I learned.

It’s easy to get triggered and show up at a meeting to shout about whatever side of the elephant you are touching, or to calmly recite urbanist catechisms as if the whole world gets why parking is evil, and much, much harder to read between the lines and truly understand what an urban plan like this means-let alone what sort of future it will bring about. I count myself among the 99% of Seattleites who are under-informed about this plan, even though we all have a stake, as do the 120,000 households projected to move here by 2035. Too bad there isn’t any required reading for public comment. Here’s a couple of shortcuts I wish had been available ahead of time:

1. If you are already up on land use issues and growth planning, here’s the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement). This is the most useful document to read and understand because it contextualizes the Mayor’s preferred alternative alongside all the alternatives the Planning department has created and vetted over the past several years, and analyzes the impact each alternative would have on housing and other growth factors. I am persuaded, along with the majority of those who spoke out about what is best for the whole city, that Alternative 5 is the best option, better than what the Mayor put forward. Here’s The Urbanist making this case. I’d be curious to hear from anyone who has a different take.
2. If you are new to this whole process and the politics of Seattle, I asked Google’s Notebook LLM to make us a podcast. I used 11 sources, including the Comprehensive Plan as adopted in 2022, several different drafts of the current plan, the EIS, and urbanist and conservative takes on the whole thing. The LLM did a superficial but not terrible job of summarizing the process. It did not touch or offer anything resembling a hot take, and got so so high on planner-speak while also complaining that these documents “can be very dry”.

The vast majority of those who turned out to oppose the Mayor’s plan on grounds that it goes too far came to object to either upzoning in their favorite neighborhood, or that it endangers trees, or both. The net of that, from my perspective:

• The vast majority of these commenters spoke early, which a few people late in the day pointed out as they objected to the public comment winding down. These were the people who could arrive at city hall in person before 5pm to get their names on the list. It’s probable that those still hanging on after 10pm were mostly there to express support for the plan, or for going further.
• I may be missing some of the specific context for specific upzone proposals in neighborhoods like Madrona and Maple Leaf, but the emotion over rezoning plans, as if it compels the city to come in with bull dozers tomorrow, never ceases to amaze. Sweet older ladies crying into the microphone that they worked hard for their single family homes and the council can’t take it away remind me of the Pixar movie Up, which is based on a real development story that took place in Seattle, but is not a real argument for how we zone. Zoning is a blunt instrument for governing what can happen, and whatever does happen will unfold over decades. Our civic discourse would be so much better if people understood that, and contextualized their objections with this in mind. Yes we should protect retirees from displacement, and emotional attachment to place is very compelling, but those without any property or place to live are objectively why we comprehensively plan.
• Similarly I do not dismiss those who argued against the Mayor’s proposal on grounds of climate change were compelling but also misleading. Urban heat islands, emissions, and environmental determinants of public health happen at scales larger than a single parcel or a single tree, thus evoking these things to restrict zoning undermines both sides of the argument. There is nothing wrong with arguing to protect a mature, beautiful tree, but to win the argument, do it based on the highly localized impacts of that particular tree or stand of trees; at the scales that matter there are larger issues at play.
• I really want to understand the concerns about the city’s management of the urban canopy, but don’t. What I found so far, stuff like this Seattle Times Editorial, is counterproductive. The Editorial Board’s focus on the One Plan’s proposal to allow houses to take up 50% instead of 35% of large residential lots, and to reduce setbacks in the front and back from 25 feet to 10 feet was echoed by many commenters. You can decide for yourself if you think these changes will mean that Seattle becomes “a colorless, charmless, heat island” like South Park; personally, I find this perspective obnoxious. Restrictive zoning is not the best way to preserve tree canopy across the city, and crapping on South Park, which was rezoned industrial in the 1960s over the protest of immigrant residents, is a low blow. I’d like to understand the concerns about the city’s failure to meet goals for urban canopy coverage better. Ditto for calls to have oversight for trees managed by a different agency. I suspect there are real concerns here, papered over with fear-bating and incitement.
• The fear that the rezoning will lead to a bunch of bland boxy construction with no character is one I share, based on the recently constructed townhouses and row houses all over my neighborhood, and I said so in my written comments to the council, but note that this is happening anyway! This city is home to many, many small and lovely apartment buildings built in other planning areas, and we could go back to and improve on those designs. The courtyard apartments from Singles are here, which I would characterize as just average and nothing special, even though Cameron Crowe made them iconic. But then check out the renderings of stacked flats, courtyard apartments and duplexes in this planning document for example. One architect named David blamed this on rigid design standards from the city, and suggested a point system to encourage buildings with more character. He was the only person who mentioned design standards in five hours. I’d like to hear that guy out.

Anyway I’m a newbie to Seattle land use politics, so take my perspective for what it’s worth. My main goal is to elevate the substance of the discourse, because the huge turnout last night, despite hazardous conditions and other impediments (like that indeed planning documents are very dry) shows me that lots of people really care.

It is now the City Council’s job to decide what happens with the plan, and judging from the fact that they put forward 1B as a serious funding proposal for the Social Housing Developer is discouraging. Others have covered that whole mess well, so I’ll just say if you haven’t voted on that already, there’s your place to start. Less than a week!