multifamily zoning changes and apodments?
Sep. 7th, 2011 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI believe Seattle's DPD redid some of the multifamily rules quite recently (June?). I'm trying to find out whether any of the changes have any impact on Calhoun Properties not-technically-congregate housing? That is, Calhoun Properties does "Apodments". These are townhomes according to the code, with up to 8 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and locks on the doors and shared kitchen facilities (laundry, etc.) and very limited parking. In general, "affordable housing" and "workforce housing" gets built only because zoning compensates developers for including it (make it 20% or 25% affordable and we'll let you override some of the regulatory process, say, or we'll let you build it taller or more dense or whatever). Calhoun Properties is weird because they would appear to be building highly affordable buildings under existing code (they are having to go through design review; details of the Avenida process are available online) without having to be compensated for doing so beyond the ordinary market mechanism.
Naturally, some abutters weren't happy about this (worried about competition for on-street parking, impact on home values, having people next door who, gasp, don't make a lot of money) and were trying to apply some pressure to get changes but I don't think they were successful. For whatever reason, there has been very limited coverage of this that I can find in the press.
If anyone else knows whether changes made to multifamily zoning by Seattle's DPD this summer impacts what Calhoun Properties does, I would _love_ to hear about it.
I'm trying to figure out whether I think "congregate workforce housing" will ever produce interesting results through google. Maybe I'll just check in with that search every few months and see what happens. Unfortunately, this is one of those things that can happen everywhere in mass quantities and _still_ not get covered by anyone, so not being able to find anything is not evidence that it isn't happening.
Naturally, some abutters weren't happy about this (worried about competition for on-street parking, impact on home values, having people next door who, gasp, don't make a lot of money) and were trying to apply some pressure to get changes but I don't think they were successful. For whatever reason, there has been very limited coverage of this that I can find in the press.
If anyone else knows whether changes made to multifamily zoning by Seattle's DPD this summer impacts what Calhoun Properties does, I would _love_ to hear about it.
I'm trying to figure out whether I think "congregate workforce housing" will ever produce interesting results through google. Maybe I'll just check in with that search every few months and see what happens. Unfortunately, this is one of those things that can happen everywhere in mass quantities and _still_ not get covered by anyone, so not being able to find anything is not evidence that it isn't happening.