A heavy slate of area development project continues Wednesday night as the East Design Review Board provides feedback and guidance — and, in one case, perhaps, a final blessing — on two Capitol Hill apartment projects.
That blessing, if it comes, will be well earned. We showed you earlier this month what the development that will ‘save’ 10th/Union’s Davis Hoffman building will look like. Wednesday night, the board will sit through its fourth and, perhaps, final session for the massive apartment project on the backside of Pike/Pine that is planned to incorporate elements of a handful of character structures currently standing on the site.
Project: 1414 10th Ave mapDesign Proposal available (7.9 MB)
Review Meeting: January 23, 8:00 PM Seattle University 901 12th Ave map Student Center Room # 210 Review Phase: Recommendation past reviews Project Number: 3013040 permit status | notice Planner: Lisa Rutzick
Following a year of community push-back on the project, the new plan to be discussed Wednesday has broader neighborhood support. Here’s the letter John Feit and the Pike Pine Urban Neighborhood Council has drafted expressing optimism if not enthusiasm for where the project has shaken out after the group worked to push the developer to preserve the site’s Davis Hoffman building. “The outcome of this rather protracted process is evidence that the design review process can lead to a substantially better project, and we thank the applicant for their new and responsive design, and the Design Review Board for bolstering the community’s concerns,” the letter concludes.
The early tilt in Wednesday night’s design review double header will be filled by a project planned for E John near 12th Ave dubbed East John Court. Oddly, the development just up the Hill on E John Ct is called John Court. Go figure.
The East John Court project is planned to stand where two single family-style homes once stood. Acquired by investor Paul Larkin for a combined total around $1.5 million, the parcels are being sized up for a four-story apartment building with 47 “small & efficient residential units” and no parking.
Project: 1113 E John St map
Review Meeting: January 23, 6:30 pm Seattle University 901 12th Ave map Student Center Room # 210 Review Phase: EDG–Early Design Guidance Project Number: 3014162 permit status | notice Planner: Tami Garrett
The Caron-designed project makes its first appearance in front of the review board this week. With nary a departure requested for the preferred design, here’s to expecting a quick and easy DRB session as Capitol Hill’s multifamily zones slowly — OK, not so slowly — reach for the sky.
These twin 1903 houses are goners
URM Workshop Reminder
Wednesday night also will bring a workshop to discuss the city’s coming-soon policy on unreinforced masonry buildings. We wrote about the coming changes and the shuttering of one local business in a building in need of a retrofit here — Callahan’s Auto shutters as Seattle earthquake readiness mandates loom for Capitol Hill buildings
Wednesday’s workshop starts at 6 PM at Melrose Studios, 1532 Minor Ave.
How can we possibly be adding 47 units with NO repeat NO parking. It’s impossible to find parking now. This is insanity.
But it isn’t insanity to not own a car in the city especially steps away from rapid transit .
GOD, people pull your heads out of your backsides! SOME people actually NEED cars. They present “mayor” and his war on cars is just BS. It’s pathetic when people like you buy into their rhetoric, Prost. You do NOT need a space for every unit in every building, but you need a place for people to put their needed cars when they’re NOT driving them. Sheesh!
if you *need* a car, just live in one of the thousands of other apartment buildings in this fine city that provide ample parking. In dense, highly-connected parts of the city, why make all residents of a building pay to subsidize the parking needs of a few? There are garages on the hill where you can rent a space as you would if it were in your building, it’s no big deal. If you can’t survive without a car, and can’t fathom not having your car underneath your apartment, you’re really going to hate the direction this neighborhood continues to go in.
*pulls head out of backside* If you NEED cars, then it should be your responsibility to find a place to store them. Nobody, and especially not the government, owes you free parking. *puts head back into backside*
I agree. It’s all well and good to encourage the use of transit, but some people need/want to have a car. And they should be able to park in their own building, not blocks away in a garage as some people like to advise. Free street parking may not be a “right,” but it is reality and it is where most people who live in no-parking buildings will park their cars, thereby making parking availability even less than it already is.
The unit:parking ratio of 1:1 in the past is no longer needed, but isn’t it a reasonable compromise to require a minimum of 1:0.5 in all new buildings? (including those damn apodments!).
If you have a car and need parking – then don’t rent in building that does not offer parking. It’s pretty simple. No one is forcing car-owinging residents of Capital Hill into these buildings We have plenty of options so people should pick what is best for them.
If these garage-free buildings go unrented due to their lack of onsite parking then let that be a lesson to the developers.
I didn’t own a car until I was 33. Life sans car in the city is certainly do-able. However, that’s a lot of residents to pack into a small area (there’s an apodment just up the street). I feel for anyone who has a guest from out of the neighborhood, especially one who is not able-bodied (temporarily or otherwise) try to find a place to park, or someone making a delivery…
It’s hard to tell from the photo; it looks like the two houses that are being torn down are the two that are currently a bed and breakfast inn?
People who need/want a car and want to park in their own building can rent an apartment in one of the hundreds of buildings on the hill that have attached parking. This location is ideal for a carfree person to rent in: directly adjacent to bus stops, close to Broadway and to 15th, and near the new light rail station. Also close to Zipcar locations and Car2Go vehicles.
Street parking isn’t a right. If having a close by parking spot is that important, rent one out. It’s not the city’s job to provide you a parking spot at all times.
If you need a car, don’t rent here. It really is that easy.
If I may respond to the attack: I wasstating what many in the comments have stated. If you had a car, and need parking, this building probably wouldn’t be on your radar screen to rent. But I’m sure that many on Capitol Hill would like new construction housing and choose to live carless, and a project like this, close to transit, shopping, and entertainment would fit the bill.
Some recent projects on Capitol Hill (the Joule and Lyric come to mind) have ample parking, and possibly excess parking for the needs of their tenants. These are the projects the car folks can choose. My partner and I are a two car household, but we plan to soon go down to a one car household. We’re able to do this because of the convenience of living in an urban neighborhood. With the advent of car sharing services now available in the city of Seattle, I can see how people can live without owning a car. And not all of the projects being built on Capitol Hill are sans resident parking.
Those are great houses — I hope they try to sell them to someone who would want to move them before tearing them down. Someone call Nickels Bros.
The East John Court project is planned to stand where two single family-style homes once stood. Acquired by investor Paul Larkin for a combined total around $1.5 million, the parcels are being sized up for a four-story apartment building with 47 “small & efficient residential units” and no parking.
….Hmmmm…. smells like apodments to me, and it looks high enough that it will block the sun from the homes and apartments across the street…… but what do I know, I’ve only been a zoning manager. I would love to see a nuisance lawsuit filed over this the day after it is formally approved pursuant to Rev. Code Wash. (ARCW) § 36.70C.040 http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=36.70C.040
Word.
The fact that East John Court project is only zoned LR3 despite the fact that it is a a block and a half away from a subway station is a travesty and a vast under utilization of this valuable land.
If people want/need parking, this isn’t the building for them. Free parking is not a right. Repeat. Free parking is not a right (X 10). Mandating minimum parking requirements raises the costs of a building for everyone, including people without cars (and there’s a growing number of people who don’t have cars).
Agreed. $1,900,000 ,000 in transportation infrastructure going through the neighborhood, and people get their knickers in a twist when density increases in a desirable neighborhood. Unbelievable.
It’s a shame that one of those houses is currently in foreclosure, I guess he had to bail himself out.
Easy for some people to keep their panties unbunched when they can still see daylight, isn’t it.
I figured as much, though I haven’t had time to delve into it. Foreclosure Fraud is crippling the country:
http://mortgagemovies.blogspot.com/2013/01/kingcast-and-whis
at the expense of the current residents of the neighborhood. You’re naïve if you think everyone renting at these developments will be carless.
Exactly. Those who favor no-parking development don’t seem to give a damn about the effect on parking availability in the neighborhood….this is a serious problem and will get worse.
Rent in the apodments is somewhat below market rate (if you really can tolerate living in a 200 sq ft space), so they will attract single people who can’t afford to live in places with parking (such as Joule and The Lyric). At least some of these people will have cars and they will be further impacting street parking. It is simplistic to advise that those who need parking just rent in a building that offers it.
at $5 +/- a square foot, rent in the adpodments is NOT below market rates. It’s well above it. The slime balls throwing these low-quality buildings up are more than happy to dangle a price tag of $800 a month in front of you, but for 150 square feet, that’s substantially higher than market rates of $2-3 a square foot.
It’s been my experience the vast majority of folks who are all gung-ho about the parking-free buildings are 20-something entitlement brats who A. don’t have a clue about life in the real world and B. haven’t got enough life experience to be smart enough to know when a business man is feeding them a line of crap. That makes them part of the problem, not offering a supposedly “progressive” solution.
This neighborhood is RPZ zone 4. So when you live here you ARE paying for parking on the street. It is not free. So when they continuously add new apartments without any addition parking, you are 1)costing all of us a loss in something we have paid money for 2) causing more accidents. One of the top causes of accidents to cars, people, bikes, etc in this part of Capitol Hill are people circling the block over and over looking for parking. Parking they have paid for! The longer people have to look for parking the longer they are distracted drivers. 3)The bus is a joke in Seattle. The budget was massively cut in September and there are more cuts coming. You can’t run a good system on nothing. 4)The two houses on this parcel sold for $400,000 each. How does that equal $1.5 million?
Well said, Cap Hill Lover, and thanks for pointing out that apodments actually cost more to rent, on a square foot basis. I think we will eventually rue the day when we allowed these atrocities to be built.
Even though the proposed East John Court building is not being called an apodment, it sure sounds like it is one, with tiny units and no parking. But at least the developer has to go through design review.
WTF! This city is nothing but overrun with greedy developers and everything gets torn down. Seattle you have no character left.