Difficult to feel empathy for Fremont neighbors holding wake for affordable housing
Mar 2, 2015, 2:46 PM | Updated: Oct 14, 2024, 9:36 am
770 KTTH host David Boze says it's hard to feel empathy for Lenin-loving Fremont neighbors holding a wake for the loss of affordable housing. (City of Seattle)
(City of Seattle)
Taken from Monday’s edition of The David Boze Show on 770 KTTH.
Folks in Fremont held a wake on Saturday to mourn the loss of affordable housing in their community.
According to KING 5, former resident Renee McCoy told the gathering she was beyond angry. “It’s peoples’ communities being destroyed and their memories being ripped apart,” she said.
What’s ripping apart the community? There are a number of projects in the Fremont area that plan on building large condos and other apartment complexes in the place of older single-family dwellings.
KING 5 reports the Fremont Neighborhood Council is challenging at least one project by filing a State Environmental Policy Act appeal, “hoping to ‘force an honest evaluation of the impacts’ of the project.”‘
I find that statement to be somewhat comical because you’re not trying to force an honest evaluation of environmental impacts in a place that’s already loaded with houses and pavement and other things.
What you’re upset about is the neighborhood impacts. I understand that can be important. You can live in a single-family, quiet neighborhood and suddenly somebody wants to put a giant condo complex up. It can impact views. It can impact traffic. It can impact a lot of things. But to use environmental law to try and thwart a project in an urban environment like Seattle is a joke.
By the way, this was a wake for the loss of affordable housing in the neighborhood, but what do you think would be more affordable for people, a new single-family unit in Fremont or a large complex with multiple apartments or condos? Yes. The apartments and condos would be more affordable than one single-family home in that spot.
So they’re upset about the loss of affordable housing when the companies that are putting up the housing are trying to put up something more affordable. That’s not making a lot of sense.
There is also a part of me that just can’t feel too empathetic with Fremont. I feel like the little sub-sect of Seattle that takes pride in the statue of Lenin being amongst them, kind of deserves what they get.
Taken from Monday’s edition of The David Boze Show on 770 KTTH.
