Gage Academy and Bright Water School are creating new futures off Capitol Hill as St. Mark’s moves closer to creating new, affordable “multigenerational housing” on its 10th Ave campus.
The long-planned development effort is starting to speed up. The Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral announced it has received a $100,000 grant from Trinity Church Wall Street, an organization that helps churches and faith organizations fund feasibility and predevelopment costs. The boost will start new wheels turning on a mission at St. Mark’s to put its northern Capitol Hill land to use helping to address the housing and affordability crisis in the city.
St. Mark’s says the grant will span a six-month period through April 2024 and support the completion of key assessments of the St. Nicholas portion of its campus including financial feasibility, geotechnical surveys, environmental and historic building rehabilitation studies.
CHS reported here in 2020 on the future of the campus’s St. Nicholas building that had been home to Gage Academy and the Bright Water School. The private Waldorf school Bright Water already made its move off the Hill. Now arts academy Gage has its future lined out with an agreement to move into a South Lake Amazon office building where the 35-year-old school will become the ground-floor presence below floors of Amazon workers above next year.
UPDATE: CHS failed to include Amistad School in our initial report. The “two-way (Spanish/English) immersion school serving toddlers, Pre-K through 8th grade” has made the campus its home and remains active on 10th Ave E. We’ll follow up to learn more about the school’s long-term plans.
Growth and development — and how we talk about it — have become heated issues in the race for the District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council.
Candidate Joy Hollingsworth says the dialogue in Seattle and, in particular, from her challenger, is tone deaf on issues of displacement, equity, and racism.
Her challenger Alex Hudson calling the city’s current housing policies “modern day redlining” at last week’s candidates forum on development and zoning is a prime example, Hollingsworth says.
Hudson is white. Hollingsworth is black. Hudson has presented a crisp, urbanist approach to growth in the city with full support for universal upzoning and housing. Hollingsworth’s approach has been less definite while still supporting blanket, citywide upzoning but with more “maybe” answers as she has spoken about fighting for policies that include exceptions to help slow displacement or combat the effects of gentrification.
“I was really disappointed with the invoking of redlining, a Jim Crow-era law that kept my grandmother from buying a home where she wanted, in an attempt to analogize our current zoning regulations,” Hollingsworth told CHS this week in response to Hudson’s words at last Wednesday’sComplete Communities Coalition forum. “Racist policies decided where minorities could live in Seattle in the 50s, and now these same communities are ignored as their neighborhoods are gentrified today… just sad.”
Hudson, meanwhile, sticks to the comparison and said she does, indeed, see the city’s current debates over housing policies and development as akin to the fight for civil rights. Hudson said Hollingsworth has also made similar comparisons about the impacts of zoning in Seattle while on the campaign trail.
But Hollingsworth said anyone trying to make the kind of connection Hudson is invoking is diminishing the systemic racism her community and others faced while also muddying the water around legitimate concerns of gentrification and displacement in neighborhoods like the Central District.
“Redlining was a covenant that targeted Jews, Blacks, Asians and people of color that they were not allowed to purchase a home in certain neighborhoods, It was racist policies that were systemic,” Hollingsworth said. “It’s not the same and I was very disappointed in hearing that comparison and super uncomfortable as well.” Continue reading →
A Sawant poster from 2019 made her intentions pretty clear
It is time for the last big push of Kshama Sawant’s decade on the Seattle City Council.
Friday, Sawant will introduce her long-promised Seattle rent control legislation at the morning meeting of her renters’ rights committee.
The proposal would bind rent increases for most housing in the city to inflation.
The District 3 representative for Capitol Hill and the Central District is calling for support for the proposal in the face of what the Socialist Alternative leader says will be opposition from her Democratic council counterparts.
“The eight Democrats on the City Council need to know that if they choose to vote against rent control or undermine it from behind the scenes that there will be hell to pay,” a message sent to supporters Wednesday afternoon reads. Continue reading →
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office says a new Seattle housing levy will create 3,100 new affordable homes, “stabilize supportive housing workforce,” and fund “other tools to prevent homelessness and ensure housing stability for more than 9,000 low-income households.”
The mayor signed legislation Tuesday that will put the $970 million Housing Levy renewal on the November ballot.
CHS reported in March on the shaping of the proposal to renew the seven-year property tax, last approved by voters in 2016.
Part of the new proposal includes funding to boost wages for workers who provide services to low income residents, a first, the Harrell administration says, in the 40 years of levy history.
The levy vote will appear on ballots later this year in the November 7th election that will also determine the make-up of the next city council.
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE! Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
A view from the 8th floor of the under construction Heartwood development, an affordable mass-timber apartment building from Community Roots Housing at 14th and Union (Image: atelierjones)
The mass timber Heartwood’s central stairs (Image: atelierjones)
Housing, and how to make more of it across the state, has been the driving theme in Olympia’s 2023 session. While some proposals fell flat, others including what amounts to an end to single-family zoning, pushed through and look likely to become law. There were, of course, dozens of other laws passed this session, and a budget is still pending.
The Legislature is set to adjourn April 23. In a budget year, like this one, whether or not a given bill is dead is tougher to pin down. There are a number of cutoff dates built into the system, and in theory, a bill needs to meet those dates, which typically involve being passed by either the senate or house. If it doesn’t meet the date, it won’t become law. However, if a bill has budget implications, then it can be revived even if it missed the dates. And since virtually everything has some budget implication, virtually everything can be brought back.
With that in mind, these are where many efforts stand as of the writing of this story, but, some things that seem dead make yet be revived, we won’t know for sure until adjournment. For details about any of the bills in the story, go here, and enter the bill number.
Keep in mind the session is not over. If you see something up in the air that you find compelling, now is the time to contact your legislators, state Reps. Nicole Macri and Frank Chopp, and state Sen. Jamie Pedersen.
(Image: seattle.gov)
HOUSING Washington needs about 1 million new homes by 2044, according to the state Dept. of Commerce. To open up options for more housing, the Legislature has decided to, essentially, end single-family zoning as we know it across much of the state with HB 1110. Cities with populations more than 25,000 will need to allow for at least duplexes on every lot. Cities with populations of greater than 75,000 will need to allow at least four houses on every lot. Some of the space is to be set aside for affordable housing. There are some exceptions and fine print surrounding environmentally critical areas and other specially designated areas. Cities will also be required to allow at least six of nine so-called middle housing types. These are all varieties of more density than single-family, without going full blown apartment building. The state defines them as: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, fiveplexes, sixplexes, townhouses, stacked flats, courtyard apartments, and cottage housing. All this adds up to lots of potential infill development in the coming years.
This does not mean, however, the bulldozers are going to start rumbling toward the big old houses in North Capitol Hill, let alone the rest of the city. Just because a type of building is allowed does not mean it is required. Homeowners can continue to live in their existing houses. They can tear down an existing house and replace it with another single family house if they so desire. This simply mean they would have the option of tearing down the single-family house, and replacing it with more units. In land use circles, the general expectation is that over time, most properties are eventually are built out to the highest density levels permitted and practical, though it can take a generation of more before it actually happens. Continue reading →
A renewal of Seattle’s affordable housing levy will take shape in a $970 million proposal set to hit the city’s ballot this fall.
Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the proposed levy Thursday and said it would support the development “of over 3,000 units of new affordable housing throughout the city” as well as making “first-of-its-kind investments” to “stabilize wages for workers who provide critical services to the lowest-income residents with the greatest supportive service needs.”
“The Housing Levy is a proven solution for delivering thousands of affordable housing options,” Harrell said in the announcement. “Rooted in our One Seattle values that everyone should have a safe place to call home, this plan invests to meet the scale of the housing crisis, doing more than ever to prevent homelessness.” Continue reading →
Capitol Hill’s affordable 12th Ave Arts was developed by Community Roots Housing, also a Public Development Authority (Image: City of Seattle)
The search has begun for candidates to be part of the first board to lead Seattle’s new Seattle Social Housing Public Development Authority.
The Seattle Renters’ Commission announced this week the call for community members to serve on the board will be open through March: Continue reading →
Backers of I-135 to create a public Social Housing Developer at Seattle City Hall celebrated victory Wednesday as the latest tally of votes from February’s special election showed the initiative firmly passing with the city’s voters
With just under 25% counted of an expected 33% turnout, I-135’s 54% approval is now solid enough to celebrate. Continue reading →
It is too late for the Madkin — but buildings like it could make for ideal acquisitions once the new entity is formed
It appears Seattle is on its way to creating a public social housing developer with hopes of helping the city combat its ongoing housing and affordability crisis after Tuesday’s first tally showed I-135 with a healthy “yes” vote lead.
With an Election Night count hitting 21% in what election officials have predicted will be around a 33% turnout in the February special election, 53% of Seattle voters were approving the initiative to create a new public developer “to build, acquire, own, and manage social housing” in Seattle.
If approved, Seattle City Hall will fund the shaping of a new Seattle Social Housing Developer to acquire and take over management of existing properties for affordable housing while also setting the groundwork for philanthropy and grants to create new renter-governed housing in the city.
I-135 backers including the House Our Neighbors coalition led by Real Change claim the initiative would create a city-run, government-empowered, renter-powered entity to help keep buildings affordable and, eventually, build more new affordable housing. Continue reading →
With ballots for the February special election set to hit mailboxes starting this week, backers of an initiative to create a Social Housing Developer at Seattle City Hall are gonna put on a show.
The 43rd District Democrats and the Tech 4 Housing advocacy group have organized a Social Housing Saves Our Stages event Sunday night at Neumos on Capitol Hill.
Performers including Hollis, Tomo Nakaya, and Black Stax will join emcee Larry Mizell, Jr. in a night of music hoped to help inspire more people to get involved in the winter vote. Tickets are $20 at the door.
CHS reported here on I-135 to create a new public developer “to build, acquire, own, and manage social housing” in Seattle. If approved in the February vote, City Hall would fund the shaping of a new Seattle Social Housing Developer to first acquire and take over management of existing properties for affordable housing while also setting the groundwork for philanthropy and grants to create new renter-governed housing in Seattle. Continue reading →
