Snohomish County Council candidate Mike Cooper is continuing his path of cognitive dissonance when discussing affordable housing issues on the campaign trail. At a recent forum he said:

"People need transit-oriented, smart growth, where they have the opportunity to climb on light rail and work in a community where housing growth is taking place."

Ironically, there was an article in the same day's Everett Herald talking about just such development occurring right next to the Ash Way Park & Ride on the edge of the Council District whose seat Cooper is seeking. The diagram accompanying the article shows denser, multi-family housing is being increasingly added to the neighborhood around the transit hub. Just the kind of development Cooper would seem to like.

This blogger, who lives in the neighborhood in question, recently received notice of public hearing about additional development, beyond the scope of the Herald's coverage, on the property just north of the Park & Ride between Ash Way and I-5:

Urban Center Demonstration Project consisting of mixed-use, transit and pedestrian-oriented village of 400 multi-family homes and retail space. The intent of the proposal is to locate dense multi-family housing adjacent to the Park-n-Ride facility, while creating a 'sense of palce' [sic] which connects to the natural environment of the site.

Of note, all this housing going into the area is generally speaking more affordable than typical single family homes in south Snohomish County. Affordable housing that is notably being built without the tax increase Cooper says he favors to achieve the same ends. The flip side of Cooper's increasingly odd position on the issue is that he has described the construction of similar density as "substandard" and "not livable" and supports a moratorium on further such building.

No doubt the residents of such housing that already exists in this part of the county will appreciate Cooper's characterization of their homes as he seeks to raise their taxes to build more appropriate affordable housing . Apparently he won't support the moratorium once his tax-increase funded affordable housing is ready to go...at least one would think not. All this when current market conditions already seem eager to supply the very pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented community he seems to otherwise favor. That's quite a platform, if one can untangle it.