Despite uncertainties in the coming months — and maybe years — in the Capitol Hill rental market, developers and property owners are still looking to build in the neighborhood in 2021 as taller projects with more units spread from the neighborhood’s core. A new project ready to move forward on the quieter eastern side of the Hill at 19th and John is an eight-story example.
The longtime property owner and architects from the Neiman Taber firm are moving forward with plans for an eight-story, 50-unit development that will rise nestled around the 1910-built Littlefield Apartments building. The project entered the city’s administrative design review process just before Christmas.
The proposed eight-story annex is hoped to complement the Littlefield with a “3-story podium” that “mimics the 3-story mass of the historic brick podium” of the existing 30-unit apartment building. Continue reading →
An unprecedented budget in unprecedented times — Monday’s vote was conducted, like most proceedings during the COVID-19 crisis, virtually
Budget chair Mosqueda took issue with Sawant’s time with the mic and her characterization of how the city’s tax on big businesses came to be. “A really robust effort. I don’t want their effort to be erased by one person’s words and a revision of history,” Mosqueda said.
Challenged and inspired by months of Black Lives Matter protests — including a last minute Sunday night push, the Seattle City Council Monday approved an unprecedented new budget for a major American city including key revenue from a new tax on big businesses, tens of millions of dollars shifted to community and social services, an end to the city’s recent history of encampment sweeps, and a near 20% cut to the city’s police force spending including a last minute $2 million slice to further rein in the department’s growth — all while in the grip of a global pandemic.
“There are aspects of this Budget which are of critical importance, that a year ago we couldn’t have imagined as necessary as they are today,” citywide councilmember and the chair of the budget committee Teresa Mosqueda said in a statement. “I imagine we will have to continue to make tough choices next year, and ensure our Budget is fiscally responsible while providing funding that serves our most vulnerable residents.”
But it was also a day for the familiar. Kshama Sawant, council member for District 3 representing Capitol Hill and the Central District, voted against the massive $6.5 billion package as she has on every annual budget during her three terms of office.
“In the middle of a pandemic and a spike in COVID infections, in the context of the worst recession for working people since the Great Depression, Democratic Councilmembers will be carrying out brutal austerity,” Sawant said in a statement following the vote.
As usual, Sawant stood alone.
Approved 8-1, the 2021 budget will bring a cut of around a fifth of the city’s more than $400 million annual outlay in police spending along with important changes to reduce the size and power of the department by moving 911 and traffic enforcement operations outside of SPD and spending more money on social, community, and BIPOC services and programs. While a larger “No New Cops” bid was voted down in committee, Monday’s final budget package included another $2 million reduction to SPD designed to curtail the department’s hiring in the new year.
The compromises between the calls from months of Black Lives Matter protests and Mayor Jenny Durkan’s push to maintain SPD staffing levels have apparently resulted in a budget the administration can live with. Monday night, the mayor said she would sign the newly approved legislation. Continue reading →
Sawant had the backing of Black faith leaders in the call for new money for housing dedicated to addressing historical wrongs in the Central District (Image: Low Income Housing Institute)
On a big day for the Seattle City Council, Kshama Sawant is celebrating a small victory for housing in the Central District.
As part of a busy morning of sorting out how best to spend the some $200 million a year expected to be generated by the city’s newly approved tax on big businesses, the council’s budget committee approved Sawan’ts amendment calling for at least $18 million year in the new tax spending plan to fund the construction of new affordable housing in the Central District.
“Thanks to our powerful community movement, $18 million will be set aside annually beginning in 2022, to build affordable housing in the Central District for Black working-class and poor families,” Sawant said Thursday in a press release on the approval. “It represents a minimum floor of investment, not a ceiling, because other housing funds in the Amazon tax “spending plan” resolution, the Housing Levy, and other sources also can and should be accessed for affordable housing development in the neighborhood.”
Sawant’s win represents a compromise victory. The socialist city council member had originally called for a $50 million dedicated fund for the area with the backing of Seattle Black clergy and faith leaders (PDF):
We call for City Council to enact a progressive tax on big business to fund housing and services, including construction of at least 1,000 homes in the Central Area to bring back households that have been displaced over the years by racist gentrification.
The coalition said the dedicated funding “would begin to undo racist gentrification policies that private developers and the city have been responsible for creating and perpetuating over the years.”
The Central District funding is joined by amendments earmarking millions for new “tiny home” villages in the city and further relief for small businesses pummeled by the COVID-19 crisis.
The full JumpStart tax funding resolution including the dedicated Central District housing funding now goes to the full City Council for a final vote on Monday.
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Affordable housing developer Capitol Hill Housing has branched out far from its start on 15th Ave E. Its new name reflects its expanded focus — Community Roots Housing.
“Our name has changed, but our mission as an organization has not,” CEO Chris Persons said about the change. “We remain committed to building vibrant, engaged communities, and our new name reflects our record of doing that – throughout the Seattle area.”
The 12th Ave-based developer announced the new name this week as it continues its work on new projects across Capitol Hill and the city — as well as a new project that is building community, not mixed-use.
As the COVID-19 crisis compounds the stressors of food insecurity and unemployment across Washington, CRH is trying to offer its residents one less thing to worry about: meals for themselves and their families. Continue reading →
UPDATED 4/16/20 following our interview with council member Sawant
Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant says the COVID-19 crisis calls for a rent freeze and relief for vulnerable populations dealing with economic hardship as thousands of workers have been laid off.
Her office representing Capitol Hill, the Central District, and nearby neighborhoods is now planning a May 1st rent strike to put pressure on landlords and politicians to get a statewide suspension of rent, mortgage, and utility payments.
“[T]he political establishment will not act, given their ties to corporate landlords and big business,” she said on Facebook. “It will take a real fight, it will take a Rent Strike! And we will need to be organized, building by building, neighborhood by neighborhood, while of course maintaining social distancing.”
While nearly 9,000 have signed a petition urging Gov. Jay Inslee to immediately enact such a suspension as well as a freeze on rent increases for the rest of the year, Sawant says more needs to be done.
“It’s not that anybody is telling them not to pay rent, they simply don’t have money to pay rent,” Sawant says of the call for a strike.
The Socialist Alternative council member says she is launching this new effort because “individual renters and families, working families, simply saying ‘Well I can’t pay rent, so I’m not gonna pay rent’ doesn’t protect you from eviction. That doesn’t protect you from the corporate landlords and the big banks.”
“We need to understand that renter organizing is no different fundamentally from workplace organizing.” First, she says, renters must collectively organize.
With COVID-19 set to tear up the city’s budget, District 3 Seattle CityCouncil member Kshama Sawant has turned again to a familiar target: Amazon and the biggest two percent of businesses. But Monday, her council counterparts opted to send a proposal for a new tax on Seattle’s largest companies to provide emergency relief from the pandemic down a legislative pathway not controlled by the Socialist Alternative representative for Capitol Hill’s District 3.
More than 5,400 people signed a petition to the council spearheaded by Sawant to enact the new tax proposed last month with South Seattle rep Tammy Morales. Another over 1,100 people emailed council members calling on them to send the legislation to Sawant’s Sustainability and Renters’ Rights Committee.
Monday, the suite of three bills was sent unanimously to the Select Budget Committee, chaired by council member Teresa Mosqueda, who said she would work to get the legislation a robust discussion with urgency.
Sawant levied criticisms against council member Lisa Herbold and council president Lorena González for their votes to repeal her head tax on Amazon in 2018.
Monday, several council members, including Herbold, pushed back against Sawant for promoting the idea of a divided council during an emergency.
“I don’t think it’s helpful to really promote that divisive approach to how the council does its business,” Herbold said. “I think this council acts in a way that’s fair and respectful of one another.”
Council member Debora Juarez said “this type of politics in the midst of a lethal pandemic, to me, is unacceptable and a waste of time.” Continue reading →
District 3 representative Kshama Sawant says she wants to build on the victory of her push for a ban on residential evictions during the COVID-19 crisis to protect Seattle renters and tenants across the state from “shockingly unconscionable” rent increases.
In a letter this week to Gov. Jay Inslee, Sawant calls for “a statewide rent freeze through the end of the year.”
“As vulnerable renters in Seattle and Washington state struggle to cope with the COVID19 pandemic, many are starting to receive notices for rent increases from their corporate landlords,” Sawant writes. “Constituents have reported this both to my office and to the Tenants Union of Washington State. This is shockingly unconscionable.”
Sawant says rents should remain frozen longer “if the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis continues in 2021.”
You can help shape The Eldridge, an eight-story affordable housing project focused on LGBTQ+ elders on Broadway between Pike and Pine that will include at least 100 units at a mix of affordability levels rising above the preserved facade of an auto row-era Seattle landmark.
Affordable housing developer Capitol Hill Housing and Capitol Hill architectural firm Environmental Works are collecting community feedback as they prepare for the start of the city’s design review process set to begin later this year:
Capitol Hill Housing’s LGBTQ-Affirming Affordable Senior Housing Project at 1515-1519 Broadway has been awarded funding by the Seattle Office of Housing, King County, and the Washington State Housing Trust Fund. The project team is preparing to submit the initial design package to the city for the Early Design Guidance process and is currently seeking feedback from community members on the project. A public update meeting was held in August 2019 and the project team plans to hold an additional public meeting in mid-2020 to obtain feedback on the building design and programming. Community members are encouraged to submit comments about the project in the meantime by visiting the project webpage or contacting the project team at 1515Broadway@capitolhillhousing.org (note: any information collected may be made public).
Last August, CHS reported on early plans for the project being envisioned as one of Seattle’s first “community preference” developments — a new program that encourages developers receiving city money to offer a portion of their affordable units to communities with ties to the neighborhood, particularly those with a high risk of displacement.”
Kshama Sawant’s legislation to ban winter evictions in Seattle was approved by the City Council Monday but not before a few holes were poked in the socialist council member’s attempt to restrict landlords from evicting tenants during winter months.
The 7-0 vote adds a new restriction to Seattle’s Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, a roster of “16 just causes” Seattle landlords are allowed to use to end month-by-month rental agreements. Seattle will now restrict evictions during the period from December 1st to March 1st. The rules could be in place for a short period if Mayor Jenny Durkan backs off veto threats. Continue reading →
“Learn more about the Tax Amazon Movement,” front and center on Sawant’s City Council page
When it comes to taxing “big business,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant is hoping to preempt “preemption.”
The socialist representative for Central Seattle is holding a news conference Friday night in City Hall with “union members, renters rights activists, socialists, rank-and-file Democratic party members, and faith leaders” to “speak out against the threat of a statewide ban on big business taxes in Seattle, known as ‘preemption.'” Continue reading →
Despite uncertainties in the coming months — and maybe years — in the Capitol Hill rental market, developers and property owners are still looking to build in the neighborhood in 2021 as taller projects with more units spread from the neighborhood’s core. A new project ready to move forward on the quieter eastern side of the Hill at 19th and John is an eight-story example.
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