Government-designed "Urban villages" in eastern King County haven't delivered on their promises to "get people out of their cars":
The developments were pushed during the 1980s and '90s as a return to pedestrian centers of days past. Parks, narrow streets and convenient transit stations were designed to get residents out of their cars. Jobs and retail were supposed to encourage people to work and shop where they live. Essentially, urban villages would deliver what isolated subdivisions hadn't -- a sense of community.Oh, well.In the years since, environmentalists have complained that these often-massive projects have eaten up forests and animal habitat to make way for houses and roads. Longtime residents feel the squeeze as thousands of new commuters jam highways and once-quiet back roads.
It's just Ron Sims creating wealth more efficiently again.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 14, 2007 04:16 PM | Email ThisThe first is that when the GMA concept was enacted they universally changed the zoning in the county. Prior to GMA the rural areas of King County were zoned G. This zoning allowed basically one home per acre. This zoning was on virtually every parcel of land except for forestry and agricultural parcels in King County. When GMA was enacted in King County, certain properties were designated for the urban villages and the other properties with the G zone were downzed to either 5, 20 or 80 acre minimum lot size. The properties receivng the urban village designation that was high density suburban so these owners saw there 1 per acre G zoning go through the roof. However if you take a look at the parcels that received that designtation it was not ma and pop it was basically everyone with a good lobbyist. In particular Weyerhuaser did very well. Both Redmond Ridge and Snoqualmie Ridge, residual timber parcels out in the middle of no where, received the urban village designation. Ma and pop got shafted and saw their zoning go from one to the acre to as little as one per 80 acre parcel.
The second issue is that when you designate an urban village out in the middle of now where to get services and roads sufficient to handle high density suburban zoning the sunk cost into the properties becomes almost unbearable to repay to the property owner. The result was that the development of the infrastructure was very expensive and the finished lot and home prices were very expensive. A 5000 sq. ft. lot can go in excess of $250,000. The developer can get the price since most of the lot creation on the Eastside is in the urban villages.
In general once inside these communities they are very nice and the residents enjoy them but creating high density suburban communities not adjacent to present suburban centers has created more traffic and more rural dergadation rather than honoring the natural process of allowing the market to make the deicsions where it wants to live.
The first is that when the GMA concept was enacted they universally changed the zoning in the county. Prior to GMA the rural areas of King County were zoned G. This zoning allowed basically one home per acre. This zoning was on virtually every parcel of land except for forestry and agricultural parcels in King County. When GMA was enacted in King County, certain properties were designated for the urban villages and the other properties with the G zone were downzed to either 5, 20 or 80 acre minimum lot size. The properties receivng the urban village designation that was high density suburban so these owners saw there 1 per acre G zoning go through the roof. However if you take a look at the parcels that received that designtation it was not ma and pop it was basically everyone with a good lobbyist. In particular Weyerhuaser did very well. Both Redmond Ridge and Snoqualmie Ridge, residual timber parcels out in the middle of no where, received the urban village designation. Ma and pop got shafted and saw their zoning go from one to the acre to as little as one per 80 acre parcel.
The second issue is that when you designate an urban village out in the middle of now where to get services and roads sufficient to handle high density suburban zoning the sunk cost into the properties becomes almost unbearable to repay to the property owner. The result was that the development of the infrastructure was very expensive and the finished lot and home prices were very expensive. A 5000 sq. ft. lot can go in excess of $250,000. The developer can get the price since most of the lot creation on the Eastside is in the urban villages.
In general once inside these communities they are very nice and the residents enjoy them but creating high density suburban communities not adjacent to present suburban centers has created more traffic and more rural dergadation rather than honoring the natural process of allowing the market to make the deicsions where it wants to live.
The houses and "retail" here in the Highlands are also separated by a decent walk that includes a hill with a 9% gradient. Not bad for riding my bike up, but too much for many people to walk.
Posted by: danno on August 14, 2007 07:14 PMAnd there's no easy way to get to the Issaquah Highlands P&R except to drive there - if it ever gets to capacity, there'll be no parking. It's already almost full on weekdays, with just 3 or 4 bus routes feeding it.
Posted by: steve miller on August 14, 2007 07:21 PMThis site is invaluable if you want to go toe to toe with Urban Planners. Randal O'Toole is an economist and has been director of the Oregon-based Thoreau Institute since 1975. He has also been an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute since 1995. Randall O'Toole's book The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths (Thoreau Institute, 1996) is invaluable when it comes time to demolish the "canned arguments" they will trot out when they come to your neighborhood.
I suggest everyone have a copy on hand. He stopped them cold in Oregon when they tried to destroy his home town.
Posted by: JDH on August 14, 2007 09:18 PMHate to tell you this but Microsoft pretty much paid for road upgrades, a metro transit station, even a new freeway offramp for the city of Redmond. Why? Because it enabled their workers to arrive at campus easier and more cost efficiently.
I really doubt Mayor Ives was talking about the Mom & Pop grocery store down the way when she said that businesses should pay their own way.
It was their trillions and ability to throw money at everything that allowed the redmond folks to think all the rest of the businesses had that type of cash, which we don't.
Redmond government is one example of government run wild.
And while we are on Redmond, Redmond was one of the first cities to do lots of trees in their business district. Well, businesses want visibility and fought the trees. 20 some years later, I tooled through Redmond on bike and vehicle. These trees are now grown up and unless I lived in the city, I wouldn't know what business was what with all the trees that are now overgrown.
Posted by: swatter on August 15, 2007 01:06 PMIt is, however, an old story in land.
Caveat emptor.
Posted by: John Bailo on August 15, 2007 02:15 PMA large employer is not going to locate in a particular area just because there's a bunch of tract housing there. They have no idea whether the people who live there match the skill sets that they need. However, if the business is there first, chances are they can attract people they need to live there.
Posted by: Palouse on August 15, 2007 02:36 PM