I learned a ton, we had great conversations about goals and philosophies of city development, and I think we built a great package of changes, but I’m glad to be done with the low-rise portion of the City’s Multi-Family Code. We won’t know for a few years if we succeeded on all counts, but I think we changed the game rules enough that we will see significantly better housing and a better variety of housing types produced. Better for the community around the buildings and better for those of us making lives inside the walls. We built a code leading people to produce what we want, we built in incentives for building to high “green” standards, we boosted landscape requirements, we built a path to producing more housing where we want it – in urban villages and centers, and adjacent to frequent transit.
Many, many thanks to all the people who helped from the neighborhoods, the professional organizations (like the Congress of Residential Architects, the American Institute of Architects, the Master Builders), the Seattle Planning Commission, Council’s Central Staff, the City’s Law department and the staff from the Department of Planning and Development.
Now all we need is some lending by the banks. Next up: illuminated company signs on low-rise buildings. Just kidding.