The May 28 Reporter editorial, “Modern Green,” reminded me of the old Pogo Possum remark, “I have met the enemy, and it is me.”
Probably the three largest problems preventing the changes that need to be made in how we use our land are the environmentalists, the developers, and the financiers, in no particular order.
The environmentalists are so focused on making the redeveloper of previously developed property (brownfield) pay for the cleanup of soil pollutants left by the previous user – “It’s not fair that society has to pay that bill” – that the liability, both known and unknown, raises the cost so high that the redeveloper goes somewhere else and develops new property (greenfield).
Society then pays the cost for that loss of open space, but nobody pays attention to that.
Part of that additional cost is the attendant sprawl that people complain about, but I see no interest in changing the equation to both cleanup a polluted site and reduce sprawl at minimal public cost.
Developers and financiers perpetuate the problems when they refuse to invest in or try something new because it is easier to just continue to build what they always did because “it may not sell,” (e.g. car companies?).
In a similar vein, but on the local level, I support the issue of Issaquah becoming an urban center.
As Mayor of Issaquah in the 1990s, I supported the concept when it was first adopted, but the council was not up to the task.
As it now exists, Issaquah is an urban center. One of the reasons for Sound Transit was to connect urban centers, and if Issaquah is truly interested in being served by light rail, the city needs to formally adopt the urban center criteria.
More local implications…
The City of Issaquah is now updating its Comprehensive Land Use Plan. It is unfortunate that our current plan proscribes the uses, the front, rear, and side setbacks, the amount of parking and landscaping needed, the building height, the FAR (Floor Area Ratio), and then asks the applicant to give us something new and exciting – something not like so many of the other run-of-the-mill projects we have around town. If you want to think ‘outside the box’, you must first climb outside the box.
I think the most important consideration for commercial projects is the streetscape – how it looks from the street.
Too many newer projects fail at this. Our King County Library parking structure is one example and the redevelopment of the Renton Boeing property – around Fry’s store – is another. The best example of what a streetscape should be is the new Village Theatre on Front Street.
If we had no height limits on buildings we would not be overrun with sky scrapers as the economics don’t support that construction here. What is wrong with a couple of buildings around 100 feet tall?
One of the more notable buildings on Gilman Boulevard is the clock tower; everything else just raises the ground level by two stories.
Ask a developer applicant to pick any three of requirements that he or she would like to not include in the proposal and then give the city some design ideas.
Oh, and by the way, mixed use where there is residential dwelling units above commercial/office space and around an included parking structure is not all bad.
The complaint is often about ‘bicycles in the hall.’ My daughter lives in a Seattle building like this and there are never any problems like that. I think it is a smoke screen to not address other possible issues.
Remember, one definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.
Rowan Hinds is a former Mayor of Issaquah. He is actively involved in the Issaquah and Eastside communities as a volunteer, when not traveling the world with his wife, Barb.
