Seattle demolitions bring displacement, not enough density— Ethan Phelps-Goodman on Crosscut about redevelopment and what kind of redevelopment:
These decisions point to the most fundamental challenges facing Seattle’s future: how do we add enough new homes to address our housing shortage, while preserving existing communities, especially in low-income areas most vulnerable to displacement?
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One way to analyze this tradeoff is through a simple metric: the number of new homes built for every existing home that is demolished. This metric is useful because it gets beyond the debate over the “right” amount of new construction, and gets closer to a cost/benefit analysis that everyone should agree on: whatever our overall rate of construction, we should prefer to build in a way that minimizes demolition and displacement.
There are good utilitarian arguments used in this article, and in general I am inclined to agree with concentrating high-rise development in the urban core of the City- economies of scale and all that bring unique capacities to transit, to services, to markets in general. Inclusionary zoning, the MFTE, and new affordable housing policies hit on these types of developments; not in the redevelopment of single-family homes into larger homes that produce no new housing units.
Other questions to consider:
- ownership - can mid-rise and high-rise buildings deliver on homeownership? Does a glut of apartments solve the affordability problem; can private developers live up to the promise of good quality housing units (at least, good enough where they don’t get sued by homeowners?) Can co-ops and land trusts develop in this development strategy, or does this strategy involve REITs, foreign investment, and big banks?
- geographic preferences - do people moving to Seattle want to move into the urban core, or do they prefer to live near amenities such as schools, environmental features, and culture? Are these at odds with each other?
- housing stock - does the development of mid and high-rise building match the market demand? Can this type of development on its own deliver enough variety of housing to fit different households and different incomes?