Seattle’s proposed ‘pedestrian zones’ affront not only to cars, but also affordable housing
Mar 4, 2015, 1:23 PM | Updated: Oct 14, 2024, 9:36 am
An effort to try and make neighborhoods around Seattle more pedestrian friendly might actually make it more costly for neighbors, says 770 KTTH host David Boze. (AP Photo/file)
(AP Photo/file)
Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The David Boze Show on AM 770 KTTH.
The Seattle City Council is looking at adding more “pedestrian zones,” according to a report from KING 5.
They want these pedestrian zones at the expense of vehicles. They’re going to say we’re not banning cars there, we’re just making it more pedestrian friendly. But it seems like what happens is these road sharing plans begin, then it’s like a boa constrictor – ‘I’m not swallowing you, I’m just hugging you’ – and then it just keeps squeezing and squeezing and squeezing until the cars are forced out.
Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien tells KING 5 pedestrian zones call for types of developments that create a walkable village-type atmosphere.
“For new development, what you would see are the types of use requirements that encourage pedestrian activities. So the ground level commercial space would be largely retail,” O’Brien said.
But recently, I was speaking with a developer of these types of mixed-use spaces. They didn’t want to go on the radio to talk about it because let’s face it, talking about the foolish actions of government makes it more difficult for you to work with said government.
But they were telling me about these requirements, that, say, in a condo or apartment building project there must be retail space at the bottom, and what they were saying is there just isn’t the demand for retail space. The retail space is very hard to fill. So essentially they lose a lot of money by putting the retail space in on the bottom floor.
They put it in the ground-floor retail space because they have to. But I was told they basically throw the extra cost, the amount of money they’re going to lose, into the cost of the condos.
So while there’s all this talk of the prices of condos and apartments being so expensive, this is yet another way of making those spaces more expensive, by mandating the bottom floor has to be retail space even if there’s not a market for it.
But they seem confident that with Seattle pedestrian zones, they would just get the right businesses in there.
“Coffee shops, bakeries,” O’Brien said, “those types of things that activate the space as opposed to commercial office space.”
So forget about those commercial offices, if you’ve got those coffee shops and bakeries, just imagine the possibilities.
Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The David Boze Show on AM 770 KTTH.
