The Wallingford Community Council (WCC) asked Wallyhood to share the following information to help raise awareness about an urgent zoning proposal.
Summary: A last-minute proposal, Amendment 34, has emerged as a late-breaking addition to the ongoing Comprehensive Plan process. This could drastically rezone 79 acres in lower Wallingford, an area known as Gasworks, transforming single-family zones into higher-density housing and taller buildings without the usual public review. The WCC is urging residents to take action immediately by contacting the City Council and preparing to testify at an upcoming public hearing. 
What is the Comprehensive Plan and why should you care? The Comprehensive Plan is Seattle’s 20-year roadmap for growth, deciding where new housing, businesses, and transportation investments will go. Decisions made now will shape Wallingford and the city for decades to come.
The WCC was astonished to discover Amendment 34, a proposal to rezone 79 acres in lower Wallingford to establish a new “Neighborhood Center.” This proposal was never presented during the WCC’s 2024-25 meetings regarding proposed rezones, and the news has sent shockwaves through the neighborhood.
⚠️ WCC is urging residents to oppose or request the withdrawal of Amendment 34, which proposes yet more significant rezoning of 79 acres in lower Wallingford in a Gasworks Neighborhood Center. This last-minute proposal, which was not previously discussed with the community, would create a new “Neighborhood Center” in the area known as Gasworks.
🗺️ The Proposal: Amendment 34 creates a Gasworks Neighborhood Center in South Wallingford
Amendment 34 is part of a larger package of 110 amendments to the One Seattle Plan, released by the City Council on August 4, 2025.
- What it does: It adds eight new “Neighborhood Center” locations, including a 79-acre area in lower Wallingford called Gasworks Neighborhood Center. The other locations are Alki, Broadview, Dawson, Loyal Heights, Nickerson-South Canal, Roanoke Park, and South Wedgewood.
- Targeted Area: The proposed rezone covers parcels below N 38th Street, extending south to N Northlake Place and encompassing several blocks east and west of Wallingford Avenue N. This area is specifically targeted for denser housing, with buildings potentially reaching 6-8 stories in the business core.
- Controversy: This specific Gasworks location was considered and then dropped from the city’s plan in October 2024. The WCC, as well as the D4 representative Councilmember Maritza Rivera, were unaware of its reintroduction until the amendment packet was made public.
📣 Call to Action for Residents
The WCC is concerned that the community has not had an equitable timeline for engagement for additional Neighborhood Centers submitted with Amendment 34, compared to 30 other Neighborhood Centers identified in October 2024 with the release of the Mayor’s Seattle One Plan. The request to remove Amendment 34 is justified, due to the lack of equitable transparent public process and to ensure residents are not blindsided by rezones—having denied Wallingford residents ten months of public engagement opportunities. Residents, particularly single-family homeowners, renters, and businesses in South Wallingford, will be significantly impacted.
What you can do:
- Request Withdrawal: Contact the City Council and request the withdrawal of Amendment 34. The WCC suggests doing this as soon as possible, but no later than September 4. Send an email to [email protected].
- Testify at Public Hearing: Plan to attend the upcoming public hearing on Friday, September 12.
- Remote session: 9:30 am
- In-person session: 3:00 pm at City Hall
- Vote “No”: If Amendment 34 is not withdrawn, the WCC urges residents to vote against it.
📅 Key Dates and Contact Information
This is your last chance to comment on CB 120985 (Comprehensive Plan) or CB 120993 (Middle Housing) before the legislation becomes permanent.
- Public Hearing on Friday, September 12
- Session 1: 9:30 am (remote)
- Session 2: 3:00 pm (live at City Hall)
- Topics: Public comment on the Comprehensive Plan (CB 120985), which includes boundary and amendment changes, and Middle Housing (CB 120993), which covers topics like trees, corner stores, parking, ADUs, stacked flats, and affordable housing policies.
- Final Voting Schedule for the Comprehensive Plan Select Committee (Full Council) on CB 120985 and CB 120993
- Wednesday, September 17: 2:00 pm, voting on amendments for both bills
- Thursday, September 18: 9:30 am, voting on amendments for both bills
- Friday, September 19: 2:00 pm, final voting and passage of both bills with amendments
- Contact Information:
- Email: [email protected]
- Councilmembers:
- Bruce Harrell: [email protected]
- Michael Hubner: [email protected]
- Maritza Rivera: [email protected]
- Dan Strauss: [email protected]
- Sara Nelson: [email protected]
- Rob Saka: [email protected]
- Joy Hollingsworth: [email protected]
- Alexis Rinck: [email protected]
- Debora Juarez: [email protected]
- Robert Kettle: [email protected]
- Mark Solomon: [email protected]
🔗 Resources
- City Council Comprehensive Plan Website
- Amendment Packet: Amendment 34 is detailed on page 58 (description) and page 65 (map).
- WCC Newsletters
💡 Notable Mention: Rob Saka’s Amendment 110
Councilmember Rob Saka has sponsored Amendment 110, which would require the city to send mailed notices of area-wide rezones to property owners, commercial lease holders, and building managers. This measure, if passed, would help prevent situations like the current one, where residents are caught unaware. (See page 432 of the Amendment Packet linked above.)
As another resource, neighbor Gema Ebanks has shared on Facebook a summary of the project, talking points, and actions, including suggestions for writing an effective email to the city council.
Examples of historic buildings in the proposed Gasworks Neighborhood Center are presented below.
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This is a great proposal to allow more people to live near bus lines and the Cheshiahud Loop, and to encourage more local shops and restaurants in the neighborhood.
Exactly which bus lines are you referring to? Northlake, the neighborhood in and around Gasworks, has a Transit Score of 56.
A transit score of 56 means "good transit" according to the folks who designed the metric. Notably, 45th and Wallingford also has a transit score of 56. The great thing about buses is that you can add more lines, increase frequency, and also realign routes based on how our city evolves and grows.
Chicken and egg problem. You know how Latona lost its bus lines? Lack of building up. Stone Way bus lines on the other hand cannot be taken away now, with much higher density than before.
The reasons given for opposing it are not genuine. Nobody who says this should be opposed because of the way people were notified would actually support it if the notification had been done differently. And those who claim it will remove historic buildings never object when the same buildings are torn down to build larger single-family houses.
The real reason for opposing this is to prevent more young people from moving into Wallingford.
That's a wierd assumption, "prevent more young people from moving into Wallingford". Are you anti-youth?
Agree. Wallingford has tons of students from UW renting, as well as tons of kids. This play will displace thousands of naturally affordable young renters.. statistically 25% will become homeless. The rest will commute from over an hour away to their nursing, barista, construction and other jobs. This is a terrible idea set out to enrich developers and screw everyone else including the new Luxury Renters who will pay about 3x what naturally affordable renters pay in our neighborhood.
Seems like you have no interest in climate change, trees, or carbon footprint. 88' high buildings (amendment 33 will take NCs to 88') will reduce South Wallingford from 24% trees to about 5% canopy, as NCs take out all green spaces in favor of 88' high buildings.
The Central District, Ballard on Market, East Lake and Westlake have already been trashed and now new luxury buildings (built within 10 years at market rate) sit with 25% vacancy. Where is our vacancy tax to force those units to be rented at a lower rate? Where are the trees? Oh.. they have a 7% canopy and 23F hotter than South Wallingford, where they have those 88' high buildings.
Buildings over 3 stories concentrate heat. Low rise, high density buildings are the best for housing lots of people while not adding to climate crisis and keeping the neighborhoods naturally cool, with the lowest ongoing carbon footprint for people living in the buildings year after year.
The idea that density harms the environment is disingenuous. The population in the area is growing, if we do not make the city more dense, the sprawl will take out more outlying land and farmland, and create more automobile traffic. Denser city neighborhoods provide more walkable shops and services, plus a more desirable area for public transit routing
Building higher can offer and opportunity for adding more shared green space while still allowing more people to live in the neighborhood; it would make more sense to concentrate on advocating for that than trying to stop any increased development in a fairly central neighborhood
Your vacancy statistic is misleading. It's during their initial "lease up phase" that newly built apartment buildings experience higher vacancy until new tenants become established tenants and match the rate of the overall neighborhood.
I would like to raze and reforest 80% of Wallingford by building high density neighborhoods in just 20% of the land to house people.
Why can't we have a Discovery Park in Wallingford? Just need to move all the people to live along a few major streets with high density housing.
Yeah…if you want tree canopy build taller. While it's true that Seattle's single-family lots have higher average tree canopy than the multi-family lots, both types of housing have a fraction of the canopy as our forested parks.
Take two blocks of single-family homes and replace them with one block of townhomes and a block of parks, or three blocks of single-family homes replaced by a block of condos and two blocks of park, and that's how you get real upward movement in that tree cover number.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab85669edf38d3ca648e5a7d045ccb0b078c06ec86f269ab64c36d6e293d2e43.png
Huh, that's actually kind of fascinating…so "land assembly" is a thing, where in order to build one of those 5 over 1 apartment buildings a developer has to buy 2 or 3 or 4 adjacent properties….
What if they could make it a 7 over 1 if they bought a 3rd or 4th or 5th property anywhere in the neighborhood, but pledged it to the city to be turned into a forested mini park?
The drawing on the left looks more like what happens with the current 4-6 unit and decreased set-back zoning that exists now in Wallingford.
Before: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/33b5988ffaf062b487704095aa4cf4476db5d82007d49b97573427440de99274.png
After: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4303c6f1587276078f24a58c0bb970271f29a962dcd478682b42d793a816b168.png
As far as trees go, we already have that in Wallingford. There are over 3,000 trees in Discovery Park . There are 2,833 Inventoried Street Trees in the lower half of Wallingford. 10,432 if you go up to 50th. Don't believe this includes trees in people's yards. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd84b0dc8738c779fca0e0642f4821d0e476e1095692e46590d4bcd351042293.png
I took it you've not been to Discovery park and doesn't realize the vast differences between that and Wallingford? And it shouldn't be hard for you to see how we can fit even more trees if we tear down the single-family houses? And really we should think even bigger. If we just build higher density in Wallingford, a place where people have short commutes to the jobs in Fremont, U-District, and Downtown, how much land and commute we can save for places further away? The suburban sprawl is pretty horrible in the greater Seattle region right now with built ups as far as Marysville. There are tons of apartments in Millcreek and that built up would have been better in Wallingford considering commuting distances for most people. The public transportation is so hard to design with people not living dense enough being a huge factor.
I mentioned trees specifically because I think folks can take things they see everyday, like trees in our neighborhood, for granted. It was surprising to me that there 10,000+ trees in Wallingford, and I walk through them everyday.
Your list of employment locations – downtown, Fremond, U-District – is pretty limited. Microsoft and Boeing are huge employers in Seattle and they are not located in those areas.
The building that Amendment 34 and 33 will allow in south Wallingford will make more room for high-income commuters and also folks who work downtown, in the U-District and at tech companies in Fremont, not the people who need it. It is density legislation being touted as affordable housing legislation. And it will absolutely displace the lower-income people living here now.
The issue is, with low density single-family housing, who do you think are the people buying into Wallingford right now? Yes, Fremont isn't exactly a big center of employment, but it houses highly paid Google and Salesforce people, whose salary makes sense for the high-priced Wallingford houses. When local schools got half of the class having spring break vacations in Hawaii, you know the neighborhood isn't for the poor. So other job centers don't matter. Only the high tech ones do for Wallingford.
The mid income people who still live in the neighborhood are the ones who've bought into the neighborhood long time ago. Most people on my street like that has mostly cashed out and moved elsewhere.
Really, to change the situation what you need is higher density so you have more than enough housing for all incomes.
Also not all trees are created equal. Walk around more, and you'll realize lots of the neighborhood trees are invasive/non-local ones, and they are in general less "natural". It's not like we don't have similar problems in parks, but much less. Obviously, you don't get to house animals the same way either.
Urbanists: Suggesting that we house people along a major street like Aurora is racist and classist!
Also urbanists: Let's displace all the people from their community and force them to live along a few major streets with high density housing!
I think you are mixing up different kind of things. Aurora isn't a "street". It's a wide road designed to move cars fast and not suitable for pedestrians and businesses.
Use Ballard for example. You want to house people along a major street like Market Street, where the car traffic is intentionally slowed and the road not too wide for pedestrians to comfortably cross to visit all the businesses. You don't want to house people along the major road that is 15th Ave NW. Aurora is the latter, and 45th is the former. University Way in U-District and Broadway on Capitol Hill are other great examples of major streets that you'd want people to live close to.
Thanks to Wallyhood for sharing this update. As a Wallingford neighbor, I was surprised to learn about Amendment 34 and the proposed “Gasworks” rezone—especially since it wasn’t part of the One Seattle Plan we’ve all been reviewing for the past year.
Whatever your views on growth and density, I think we can agree that big changes like this deserve real notice and fair public process. Dropping a new 79-acre rezone into South Wallingford at the last minute, without neighborhood engagement, doesn’t feel right.
If you live in the affected area, I encourage you to read through the city’s amendment packet, look at the Gasworks map, and make your voice heard before the Sept. 12 public hearing. Council needs to hear from us directly—whether you support or oppose it—so that decisions are made with the community’s input.
I think this is real notice and fair public process – WCC and others will make their voices heard, and then the Mayor will decide whether to listen or not. At this point everyone who follows housing is pretty familiar with what a neighborhood center is and can understand what more housing supply would mean for the Gas Works Park area. It certainly didn't take WCC long to put together an argument against the proposal.
It sounds like part of your definition of what constitutes "real" notice and "fair" public process involves a more gradual timeline. That may be your personal preference, but it's a mistake to assume it's what all other Wallingford residents are looking for from their local government. In a supply shortage, delay and adding additional process is not a neutral approach that benefits all parties – it favors preservationists, which is of course why it is a frequent tactic adopted by those who favor the status quo.
The only shortage we have is "affordable" as legally defined (either first time home buyers around $500k or rentals at about $3-4 a sf). Developers pay $9.80 a SF to get out of the affordable requirement. They only build luxury. Defined as Market rate, and built in the last 10y.
Developers don't build Affordable. That is the largest competition for their luxury sales and rentals. They don't want it and have pulled every lever in their favor to not do it.
The One Seattle Plan, including Amend 33 (88' for Neighborhood Centers) and Amend 34 (adding Neighborhood centers to 8 neighborhoods without adequate transit, has no requirement for Affordable. It's a developer give away that will concentrate heat in tall buildings, take away sunlight from those who put in solar, and raise property taxes driving out naturally affordable renters whose landlords will pass on all the taxes and levies, or just sell to a developer for Luxury.
This decade's new building is next decade's (10+ year old) affordable building.
This a simplification of the issue of affordable housing. If you define affordable housing as not costing more than 30% of monthly income – a pretty standard metric – of the 22 current multi-unit building vacancies in the proposed GNC, 6 would be defined as low-income, HHs making 80% of AMI, or very low income HHs, 50% of AMI. They range from 7 to 39 years old. They are all studios or 1 bedrooms. Units in buildings 20-58 years old all larger than studios in this area require middle income rents. Geography matters. New buildings in this area will not become the kind of affordable housing Seattle needs.
As a Wallingford resident I'm super happy for more people to have an opportunity to live here. If you choose to live in a city, expect it to evolve.
Thank you for your article!
Councilmember Rinck, who proposed this amendment, should be the one's doing adequate outreach to let everyone know this is back on the table, instead of sneaking it in last minute. I'm sure a lot of people and small businesses affected still don't know. She didn't even have a conversation with the D4 Councilmember.
Another frustrating thing about this proposal is the areas don't even fit the definition of where should be a neighborhood center. According to the amendment itself:
"Many of the proposed boundaries of these Neighborhood Centers include areas that are significantly more than 800 feet from the central intersection of the center or a bus rapid stop. Consequently, the boundaries that would be adopted through this amendment are generally not consistent with Comprehensive Plan policy GS 5.4 which states:
GS 5.4 Determine the boundaries of Neighborhood Centers based on local conditions, but generally include areas within a 3-minute walk (800 feet) of the central intersection or bus rapid transit stop."
This area in Wallingford is included as one of the areas that does not fit the definition of frequent transit. And instead of proposing to add more transit, she proposes to change the definition to allow density without the infrastructure to support it. So she want no cars (she also proposes ending all requirements for developers to build parking citywide in a different amendment) and she knows there are not enough buses, but she's trying to sneak this upzone through anyway.
Citywide Councilmember Rinck is up for reelection this year. She will not get my vote because of this.
I occasionally see this argument used both ways as a catch-22: we don't have enough transit to support the dense housing, but then we also don't have enough density to justify adding more transit. If you think it would be fine with more transit, which order do you think the changes should go in?
It's worth noting that the problem is exacerbated by long drawn out processes to approve the relevant bills.
With routes 31+32, this "Gasworks" neighborhood is served by frequent transit. Most people are willing to walk farther than just 800 feet to access transit.
Good point – I would tell anyone in a heartbeat that we live at transit Nirvana an easy short walk from the nexus of the 44 & 62. Out of curiosity, I Google Mapped it and it is about 1,800 feet.
Bryan, are you referring to the proposed GNC geography? 44 & 62 don't run through here.
No we live further north – I was just testing the "800 feet" idea. YMMV but in our experience walking twice that is both easy to do and feels like posh and privileged access to transit.
This neighborhood offers a short walk to Fremont, the University, and the light rail station for work or fun. It also has bike routes to South Lake Union, downtown, and the 520 bridge.
A "short walk" may depend on a lot of things – mobility, age, etc.
Opposing density is opposing "housing affordability." (I put that phrase in quotes because it's not mine and I don't like it – housing is always "affordable" if someone buys it.) Want your kids and grandkids to have a better shot at living near you? Increase density, build vertically, and for f#xks sake, kill any whiff of rent control. Allow the forces of economics to work without government guns pointed at developers and property owners and what is in demand and people will pay for will get built and offered for sale/rent. Stop with the pony-wishing and socialism and demonizing profit (don't you, after all, want to earn a profit on your labor? or do you just want to get paid whatever will be the absolute minimum to buy your daily ration and the minimum housing and just-working car and oldest smartphone available? no, you want to have money left over after paying your 'necessities' and that is just as much 'profit' as what a developer or property owner make after paying their costs.)
Stop trying to control what other people want to build, buy, and rent. No one guaranteed you or me that nothing would ever get built nearby other than single family homes.
Nope.. it's not opposing affordability. Upzoning drives up the price of land, which means ONLY luxury developers put in LUXURY housing. They buy their way out affordable requirements for $9.80 a square foot. They don't want affordable, because it's the number 1 competition for affordable housing.
South Wallingford has thousands of renters, tucked into each property. My block has 42 renters and 21 owners. They will be displaced. 25% statistically will become homeless. The other 75% will commute over an hour to their nursing, barista, and construction jobs or to attend UW. Those are the naturally affordable renters we have now. We will replace them with buyers of townhouses who pay $1.5-2.2 million, typically (what we are seeing now) is 1 person per townhouse. How is that solving the affordability crisis?
Also, the townhouses we got on Wallingford after HALA turned over about 2x, in 2-3 years, and then the banks redlined them because they know something is "wrong" and now investors own them, and AIRBNB them for $1100-1800 a night. How is that solving the affordability crisis?
We want truly affordable housing, with trees and low rise high density to help with climate change. 88' will concentrate heat and cause more climate change, and block solar installed now, that is helping with climate. This plan will not help with housing, affordability or trees, climate or get any more people housed. Keep land prices low and bring in stacked flats .. but we have to zone for that and this OSP with Amend 33+34 does the opposite.
Nope.. it's not opposing affordability. Upzoning drives up the price of land, which means ONLY luxury developers put in LUXURY housing. Developers buy their way out affordable requirements for $9.80 a square foot. They don't want affordable, because it's the number 1 competition for LUXURY housing.
South Wallingford has thousands of renters, tucked into each property. My block has 42 renters and 21 owners. They will be displaced. 25% statistically will become homeless. The other 75% will commute over an hour to their nursing, barista, and construction jobs or to attend UW. Those are the naturally affordable renters we have now. Amend 33+34 will replace them with buyers of townhouses who pay $1.5-2.2 million, typically (what we are seeing now) is 1 person per townhouse. How is that solving the affordability crisis?
Also, the townhouses we got on Wallingford after HALA turned over about 2x, in 2-3 years. Then the banks redlined them because they know something is "wrong" (with the building construction so they refused to loan on them) so now investors own them, and AIRBNB them for $1100-1800 a night. How is that solving the affordability crisis?
We want TRULY affordable housing, with trees and low rise high density to help with climate change. 88' will concentrate heat and cause more climate change, and block solar installed now, that is helping with climate. This plan will not help with housing more people, affordability or trees, climate or get any more people housed. Keep land prices low and bring in stacked flats and AFFORDABLE HOUSING .. but we have to zone for that and this OSP with Amend 33+34 does the opposite.
Cite sources for up-zoning resulting only in "LUXURY" housing, and please define "LUXURY" housing since all sources converge on it being a subjective term, as with this one https://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2015/08/what_does_luxury_mean_in_the_new_york_real_estate_market_anyway . The Wikipedia article on luxury apartments seems to hew to the more often accepted (still subjective, this isn't like the definition of a triangle) view that it is the top 10% of transactions in a housing market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_apartment?utm_source=chatgpt.com . From https://www.ewingandclark.com/seattle-real-estate-report-2023/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%202%2C282%20Seattle%20condos,for%20$2%20million%20or%20more it appears that the top 10% of transactions in Seattle is at least $2m then it seems you are assuming that every unit sold would be at least that amount. Even were that true, the quantity of people able to purchase $2m residences here is finite, so if those people buy vertically stacked units in Fremont or Wallingford then they aren't taking up today's 5,000 sq. ft. lots, allowing more supply for everyone else.
Anyone denying that building vertically doesn't mean more supply on the same amount of land is simply unable to do basic math and can't be taken seriously. Of course an alternate theory is that people that say they want more 'affordable' housing simply leave out the rest of the sentence which is "…so long as it doesn't impact me in any way I deem negative."
I think a lot of new housing is seen as "luxury" simply by virtue of it being new. In 10 years it will likely just be "normal" housing.
I also think that it's worth thinking about what happens in the absence of this housing, even if you want to call it luxury housing. Many people find ways to spend their housing budget, for instance by buying single family homes and remodeling them (which otherwise might have been cheap housing for someone else).
As for trees and solar panels, I think those are all great, and I don't see any reason we can't have those together with density. By all means let's find ways to have more neighborhood parks, etc.
Building new luxury housing contributes to keeping the pre-existing housing affordable by providing units for those who can afford them such that they aren't competing and bidding up the rents on the existing units.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8dbc0c04a0c715b74e9aa5a7ee59b33f6514a2a0b051da4ef845a2a9931798c7.png According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there are 101 affordable and available houses in Washington state for households at or over 100% of AMI. Reflecting very little competition.
Not sure how looking at the state level means much. There are currently cheap housing in greater Seattle area if you are willing to commute for an hour one way.
Fair enough, I found Seattle metro level data from the same org .
Number of affordable and available rental units per 100 HH:
– At or below extremely low income: 28
– At or below 50% AMI: 42
– At or below 80% AMI: 92
– At or below 100% AMI: 102
So, even worse for extremely low and very low income families, and an increase of 2% for very low and 1% for middle income. Still reflecting very little competition for middle-income housing. More luxury housing is unlikely to benefit very low and extremely low income households, who need it most, through filtering.
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro, and you know what that means, right? Yes, I know the grocery store clerks most likely live in Kent, which is the problem. In my office, the better paid managers and engineers live in Laurelhurst, Magnolia, Greenlake, and such. The office admin used to drive in from Tacoma and now moved closer to live in Kent. Her salary couldn't afford anything north of that.
That's a great point TJ, what responsibility do corporations and employers have for the environmental impact of commuting and housing affordability? Maybe your company should pay ALL their employees a wage that allows them to live closer to where your office is based? Is it only the city's responsibility to solve the affordability issue?
Is it the city's responsibility to ensure that neighborhoods never meaningfully change for the benefit of current homeowners?
If we keep suppressing the housing supply relative to demand and ask private companies to pay more than market labor rates, I suspect that it would simply drive up the competition for (and thus cost of) close-in housing even more. The solution to one market distortion (legal density limits) is not likely to be requiring another market distortion (require private companies to pay more than market rate).
More luxury apartments in Wallingford means the currently relatively luxurious apartments in Shoreline would become cheaper, and the relatively older apartments in the U District even cheaper.
There is no secret to creating affordable housing: you need to keep building more luxury apartments. Once they are older, they'll be priced down. Other than ones at great and unique locations that can justify constant remodeling to keep up the luxurious feel, older apartments ARE the affordable housing supply.
And really this is very observable by looking at the rental price in U District, where you can find studio rental price ranging from $2800 to below $800.
The fact that 2 of the 3 "historic buildings" are apartments over commercial that the single family zoning apologists at the Wallingford Community Council have opposed (or had a hand in banning by law) in most of Wallingford for many years is almost priceless.
The only thing chef's kiss better would be if the house was actually a triplex (I can't tell from the photo and I don't recognize it).
If none of Wallingford ever had exclusionary zoning, guess what: larger targeted upzones wouldn't be as necessary as they are.
Wages of sin and all.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/418c4815e8db5cb784410ced0d1a0faff75b5862629bee346446c738c715f06c.jpg
We have double the renters compared to owners, on every block in this proposed NEW Neighborhood Center. We don't oppose housing and 100% DO NOT WANT these naturally affordable appartment building scraped in exchange for Luxury. This housing is super important to South Wallingford. Low Rise High Denisty (3 story) stacked flats, like the right photo you post above is the right thing for climate change, to get people housed in reasonable purchase and rentals, and to keep the nurses, barista, construction works and UW students in our neighborhood.
Luxury only helps Trumpify our neighbhorhood, housing $700,000 a year engineers. Those folks don't need help with housing.. it's available to them already. Why kick out all the lower wage people in favor of luxury?
Let's be clear about what the "naturally affordable" homes you love so much actually are: old homes that haven't been terribly well-maintained and are the cheapest in the area as a result. Yes this can be a natural part of the lifecycle of a building, and also it isn't a long-term stable condition. At some point the building must be renovated if it is to be habitable for decades to come, or replaced entirely. Either way, once that happens it won't be "naturally affordable" anymore.
This happened to one of the houses across the street from me a few years ago. It had been a rental house for decades, and when I took a tour at the open house it was clear that no non-essential maintenance had been done for that time. It was in really rough shape. It eventually sold, the new owners put a bunch of work into renovating it, and I'm sure it's beautiful inside now. It's also occupied by a family much wealthier than the folks who used to live there. Maybe it'll be "naturally affordable" again in a few decades, but it sure isn't now.
Would the new owners still have chosen to renovate rather than replace the existing house if the zoning had allowed for a significantly larger building than what was already there? Perhaps, perhaps not. The nice thing about replacing an old home with several more is that it provides housing for more rich families than a renovation does, allowing the "naturally mid-priced" homes on your block to stay that way or maybe even become "naturally affordable" in time rather than being snapped up by the rich families who would have chosen a new home if more were allowed to be built.
It's disappointing that Wallyhood is simply republishing WCC's opinion which solely focuses on the downsides to the higher-density housing proposal, making this discussion one-sided and omitting key benefits (easing housing shortages, providing affordable options, supporting local businesses, strengthening public transit, etc.).
@Larry Bush, consider including multiple viewpoints in the future to provide readers a fuller understanding of trade-offs – this will help encourage informed decision-making and foster more constructive dialogue rather than polarization.
When you upzone this way (5 weeks, from beginning to end) you are making an endrun around democracy AND you are massively raising the price of land. All that is left is developers putting up more LUXURY. That doesn't help the housing crisis, which is ALL ABOUT AFFORDABLE, at all.
I think if you took a "democratic" vote at least of the people reading this and commenting — you might democratically approve the upzone. We in Wallingford are done with being the NIMBYs. We need MORE housing supply, full stop. Single family zoning has got to go.
Just to call out what it says on the wallyhood home page: "This community blog is all volunteer run, and we welcome articles from everyone in the Wallingford community. Something on your mind? Have a story to share? Please contact us at [email protected] today!" So yes, you too could write an article for us expressing your viewpoint.
It wouldn't require much extra work for the Wallyhood editors to offer some minimal context setting on the issue, and make it clear that WCC has a particular point of view, that there are other voices in our community that look at this issue area quite differently, and that the editors would welcome additional neighborhood perspectives on this hot button issue. Wallyhood has a bit of a reputation for skewing towards one side of this particular debate – if you are interested in countering that perception and becoming more inclusive you'll have to put some work in beyond referring people to the home page.
As a 20+ year Wallingford resident it really bums me out that our neighborhood blog just broadcast out a biased call-to-action to rally against building more housing without any consideration for the myriad benefits that this Neighborhood Center would bring.
We want affordable.. that is what we need help with. Climate crisis is coming, so building low rise high density is the answer. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-25/to-cut-carbon-think-low-rise-buildings-not-skyscrapers
Zoning for stacked flats, and requiring all scraped, naturally affordable come back at the same price is the answer, along with a registry of all NEW LUXURY and a vacancy tax. Vancouver and Ireland just implemented them. It's forcing luxury to be rented lower. And banning AIRBNB on ALL new Luxury units and anything affordable.
The new "affordable" building just above the CVS parking lot on 45th has the top 3 floors AIRBNB'd.. yet they get a massive tax break for being 100% affordable. But they are $10 a sf.. not affordable. Cheating.. all over the place.
We want regs that get us affordable housing, not more luxury sitting empty. And no more developers cheating.
I want a vibrant, diverse city that is accessible to a variety of ages, incomes, backgrounds, and family structures. Not just me (a single family home owner) and people like me! Assuming a continued strong local economy (or even a moderately cooling one), this can only be accomplished with more housing and housing types than we have. The only way to provide that is to reduce the zoning regulations that have been distorting the market for generations. Government-subsidized low income housing is a legitimate tool but it will never match the scale of the supply problem. Demonizing developers while forcing them to adopt unprofitable business models is unsustainable.
I don't think the role of government is to enshrine the privileges of existing single family homeowners in perpetuity. Change is difficult, and sometimes change that serves the greater community involves impacts to existing residents in negative ways (including me). But complaints about reduced parking, or generalized "city noise," or "character" betray an attitude that values entitlement and exclusion over the needs of the changing community and market. For example, why should non car-owners subsidize the ownership and operation of private vehicles (usually multiples her household) in a growing, thriving urban environment? Is it a natural right to expect legally-enforced suburban experiences within walking distance of city core amenities forever? We are living through the affordability crisis that results from that kind of thinking.
I also hear arguments that the environmental impact is too high. To that, I ask, would we be better off cutting down trees and building more houses in Snoqaulmie Ridge? Or the Issaquah Highlands? Maybe Squak mountain? Housing demand doesn't go away through wishful thinking. It's long been understood that the expense and environmental impacts of increasing density within already-developed areas (Wallingford/Gasworks most certainly qualifies) are lower overall than when resorting to sprawl. Arguments otherwise are misinformed at best, and disingenuous at worst. We have to start thinking regionally when solving sustainability and affordability problems or we'll be stuck in a never-ending loop of "do it somewhere else" and then complain about the resulting traffic.
Local service strain is also touted as reasons to avoid up-zoning. Critics complain that transit and commercial resources (groceries, etc) aren't perfectly calibrated for the coming growth. I would say that of course that's true – it takes time, and a back-and-forth process of demand and market pressure to adapt the infrastructure and commercial responses to growth. It always has. Demanding perfectly predicted and planned supporting services before any growth is allowed feels like a bad faith argument, especially when the same voices are likely to complain about taxes or construction impacts that those services would require to be put in place. Again, any kind of change involves pain – but the pain of unaffordable housing and homelessness trumps "it's taking a while for the bus routes to be adjusted and optimized" any day.
I realize that this issue is one of, if not THE most politically complex problems facing our city and greater region. We're a city known for espousing "progressive" values but also known for wrapping exclusionary and unsustainable policies in the language of community and advocacy. Defending the "character" of a neighborhood or that one tree on the corner of a centrally-located block can sound well-meaning but the outcomes of that narrative have not solved our worsening affordability and sustainability challenges.
Nicely put, Peter. You might consider turning this into a longer piece for Wallyhood. All of us as readers would benefit from new contributors.
Indeed, I'm sure I can speak for the other editors in saying that we would invite articles expressing alternative points of view. That invitation is always open, and it's on our homepage.
Thanks for the council emails LBUSH — I'll use them to write to the council in support of this upzone. I live in Wallingford and I'm done with being a NIMBY — we need MORE housing and single family zoning has to go.
Speaking as a resident and house owner within the proposed Gasworks Neighborhood Center boundaries, I wholeheartedly support amendment 34. This is a wonderful neighborhood and the proposal will enable more to live here and experience all that Gasworks neighborhood has to offer.
Seattle already is in a housing affordability crisis. If we keep restrictive single family zoning throughout the city, the crisis will only worsen. We've seen the result in cities like San Francisco. We can do better.
The current trend produced by the recent modest upzones to permit ADUs and townhouses is leading to redevelop single family house lots as 3-6 townhouse units per lot. The vertical layout of these units is not well suited to families with infants and young children or older individuals. I don't believe that will be an adequate solution to our housing needs over the long run. Stacked flat apartment buildings would better accommodate diverse households, particularly if we can incentive projects including larger (2+ bedroom) units.
As someone who lives just across the street from the boundary of the proposed Gasworks Neighborhood Center I want to share that the organizing and engagement on this topic has brought the people actually in the impacted area together in an amazing way.
Through this engagement we have met and connected with more neighbors, welcomed new young families into the neighborhood and heard concerns from long-time residents who've lived here their entire adult lives.
We're not accusing each other of not understanding math or economics. We're not assuming we know what each other's concerns or beliefs are or making accusations. We're doing research and gathering facts. If we don't know how someone feels about an issue, we ask. And when we disagree, we're doing it respectfully and supporting each other.
Regardless of what people online may assign or accuse, we have a fulsome understanding of the actual make-up of area, risks and opportunities and that's what we're sharing with the council. We're doing the work they didn't do when they pushed through these last minute amendments and I'm thankful to all of my neighbors for that.
I'm extremely proud that so many of our Wallingford neighbors are so well-versed in these issues and are supporters of Councilmember Rinck's amendment to make our city a better place for all. Wallingford YIMBYs can overtake the fear-mongering NIMBYs!
I've been arguing against NIMBY ideas on this site for a long time, and the composition of the neighborhood and people visiting here has changed a lot over time.
I think most of the NIMBYs really are just people who want things to freeze in time. The core idea really was less about "not in my backyard", but preserving the neighborhood they moved into originally. That would have been an attainable goal for slow growing sleepy places, but a losing battle really.
Amazon expansion was the trigger that destroyed the wish of the original NIMBYs. People who bought into this neighborhood decades ago are the most natural NIMBYs, and they all saw the value of their house increasing rapidly while cost of living in this neighborhood also increasing in the same way. The salary fit for buying into single family houses of Wallingford are not the school teacher/Boeing union worker types decades ago, but double income software engineer couple or tech company director types. I still remembered the horror story on this site about how a nurse couple being forced to move away from the East Wallingford place they lived for decades because the rent doubled on them.
The old NIMBYs started to cash out their houses and left the neighborhood. Many of them used to talk about how much they love the neighborhood and how it shouldn't change. They were genuine in that idea, but they probably also love the surprise reality of how they suddenly gain wealth from the changes and retire to cheaper places elsewhere.
Then there is the influx of YIMBY prototypes: apartment renters that NIMBYs hated so much. All the built up on Stone Way and other places around Wallingford is "paying off".
I think the YIMBY vs. NIMBY count was probably 1:3 back in the day on the site, and now maybe there are more YIMBYs than NIMBYs I feel.
BRING BACK THE 26!!!
The Gasworks Neighborhood Center was among those proposed in 2022.
Then the city published a new map which removed some neighborhood centers, including Gasworks.
In 2024, people submitted public comment to the city asking for Gasworks back specifically, and also for a return to the original number of centers proposed in 2022. (Comments at link; OPCD has published files with all the comments, these are the online ones: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nq95nmurUb4A_pVZWO_IMR_TuUoI_MDSH4B0cHeIqIY/edit?usp=sharing )
There is no rushed timeline, it's been 3 years in the making. And there's no lack of opportunity for input: to the contrary, restoring Gasworks is (finally!) responsive to public input from a year ago.
Hi Bryan, Can you please share the link/documents where you found the Gasworks Neighborhood Center identified in 2022 docs? Thanks!
The city has a page at https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/one-seattle-plan/engagement/past-engagement-efforts where they summarize some of the past rounds of public comment and engagement they've done in the past three years. You can scroll down to the section summarizing the November 2022-January 2023 community meetings, click through to the handouts, and you'll see this map of one of the alternatives being studied. It clearly shows a bubble centered at Gas Works for a potential "Neighborhood Anchor" as it was called at the time.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d15b105857d43e5f8472d9451b3376e0522b9d0402708267a0301db93a0873d0.png
Gas Works was part of the comprehensive plan discussions and studies since the earliest public engagement on the matter. At some point later on in the process the mayor decided to remove a few of these areas from the map before sending it to the city council for approval, and now some council members are saying "hey maybe we should talk about putting that back on the map after all." It's hardly a last-minute out-of-the-blue idea.