Seattle: bricks over housing
An infuriating story
The story of 118 West Mercer in Seattle. Via the pseudonymous Twitter account Qagggy.
Mixed use building planned for Tup Tim Thai site. Early Design Guidance on April 19th.
This is the second recommendation meeting of Seattle's West Design Review Board to consider whether or not to approve the project at 118 W. Mercer. Here's a link to the packet.
The new building adds 113 units, 25 of which are MFTE [affordable]. In addition, it will pay $2.6 million into the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) fund.
This project hasn't drawn much attention because there has been zero community opposition. Zero. But the West Design Review Board has been filling that void.
So, why is this project stalled in Design Review? Ok, you have to promise not to laugh. The reason is BRICKS.
The building has bricks on the sides that face the street but the West Design Review Board is insisting that they also put bricks on the sides not facing the street, at an additional cost of $250,000.
Whether the Brick That No One Will See gets added or not, costs due to the delay are estimated at an additional $500,000.
IT'S OFFICIAL: Due to utterly pointless delays caused by Seattle's fucked up Design Review program, the project at 118 W. Mercer is on hold indefinitely.
The Brick Delay™️ was enough for the developer to lose their construction loan interest rate letter. Rates increased and now the project doesn't pencil.
Joseph Heath, A Defense of Administrative Discretion:
Administrative rules seldom have independent deontic significance; they are instead aimed at achieving some objective. This is usually articulated in terms of the rules having a “point.” And yet there will often be ways of applying the rules that defeats their point (e.g. by being overly literal, or insensitive to circumstances, or by ignoring the interaction with other rules). In some cases, applying the rules too literally can actually work to defeat the point. This sort of formalism – an insistence on following the rules even when doing so does not serve their objective – is the quality of bureaucracy that is most often described as “Kafkaesque.”
If the goal is “produce housing that looks nice,” it's important to make sure that the result isn't an empty lot.
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A similar story from Seattle’s Design Review Board, although fortunately this project is actually being built: a new Safeway in the Queen Anne neighbourhood, with housing on top. Design review meeting, February 2021. “The ‘brick and mural issue’ is delaying a new store and 323 units of housing for an estimated 450 people in the middle of a housing crisis. 65 units will be affordable and the project will pay $6 million into the MHA fund.”
Love to see Heath quoted in discussion of housing policy!