Seattle studied dozens of sites for housing growth. These 24 got picked

Changes may be coming to Wedgwood. That’s a lot of what hairstylist Kayla Gowell hears as she snips, sprays, primps and blow-dries.

Some of Gowell’s older clients are worried about longtime businesses closing, while some of her younger clients are excited for their Northeast Seattle neighborhood to become more dynamic, she said. Near her salon, a low-slung strip of stores is slated to be replaced by mid-rise apartments.

“I’m up on all the gossip,” Gowell said last week, laughing about the various opinions that swirl through her door on 35th Avenue Northeast. “Most people want more restaurants, more stores … more options.”

Those opinions could affect how Wedgwood and other Seattle areas grow, because the city is collecting input right now about a major update of its Comprehensive Plan — its road map for the next 20 years. Among other things in his draft plan, Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing 24 locations for new “neighborhood centers” with denser housing close to shops and services. That’s after considering more than twice as many possible locations.

By allowing apartments of three to six stories to be built within a couple blocks of key intersections, the new nodes would supplement Seattle’s longstanding “urban centers” and “urban villages” — the mini-downtowns in areas like Ballard and Columbia City where the city has directed growth on a larger scale since the 1990s.

The proposal is partly about zoning for more “15-minute” neighborhoods, where people can meet their basic needs by walking or biking no more than 15 minutes from home. It’s also about spreading housing to pricey areas where not much development has occurred in recent decades.

It could stir resistance in areas like Wedgwood that have at times opposed density. But Harrell’s proposal would target spots where some apartments or stores already exist, so the development wouldn’t be coming out of nowhere. In fact, a number of housing advocates are urging Harrell to be bolder.

The draft plan will undergo revisions after a 60-day public comment period wraps up next month and then be sent to the City Council for review.

“I just feel like this plan is an incremental approach,” Seattle Planning Commission co-chair McCaela Daffern said about Harrell’s proposal as the advisory group met last week. “Continuing to prevent low-income people from being able to live in all parts of the city is problematic.”

Different strategies

Seattle’s housing costs, which have soared over the past decade, are putting Harrell under pressure to alter the city’s approach to growth.

While the urban village strategy adopted under then-Mayor Norm Rice has helped the city absorb new jobs and residents in dense hubs, it hasn’t kept costs from climbing, nor stopped the displacement of lower-income residents, a 2021 report found. With Seattle needing a huge number of additional housing units by 2044, even Rice has questioned the current approach.

On the other hand, Harrell promised during his 2021 campaign to exercise caution in adding density, telling voters he would attempt to concentrate housing development near transit stops rather than allowing apartments everywhere. So, it’s not surprising that his proposal is a mixed bag.

Whereas Seattle’s status quo strategy could produce 80,000 new homes by 2044, a more aggressive approach — called Alternative 5 in an environmental study released last month — could produce 120,000, according to the city. Harrell’s plan would split the difference with at least 100,000, officials say.

Like Alternative 5, which City Council members endorsed last year, Harrell’s proposal would expand some urban villages and, as required by a 2023 state law, allow at least four homes on each residential lot.

But his plan would be more conservative in two major ways, officials say. Rather than boost apartments within a 5- or 10-minute walk of frequent transit routes and the entrances of large parks, it would do so only directly on arterial streets, like 35th Avenue Northeast, not within walking distance. And rather than create about 40 neighborhood centers, each with a radius of about 1,000 feet, it would create 24, extending about 800 feet. Those differences mostly explain why Harrell’s proposal would yield fewer homes, officials say.

Making choices

Before releasing Harrell’s draft plan in March, officials considered at least 56 intersections for neighborhood centers, according to a lists shared by the city. Including fewer than half that many could limit Seattle’s ability to provide enough housing options and accommodate growth equitably, some housing advocates say, based on the idea that denser housing can be more affordable and less exclusive.

For example, officials considered placing three neighborhood centers on 35th Avenue Northeast in Wedgwood — at Northeast 75th Street, Northeast 85th Street and Northeast 95th Street. Only the second intersection is included in Harrell’s proposal.

Officials never thought all the candidates would end up in Harrell’s plan, said Michael Hubner, long range planning manager at the city’s Office of Planning and Community Development.

“We always anticipated this kind of process of figuring out which ones to advance,” Hubner said last week.

To decide, officials looked for intersections with access to frequent transit, shops and services and with opportunities for new apartments, they said. They also looked for intersections in areas where development would be less likely to displace lower-income residents, they said. Most sites they considered were identified by the city back in 1994 as places to anchor services and housing.

The officials didn’t use a scoring system to assess each location against those criteria, so they can’t show clearly why 24 made the cut. Officials based their decisions on “professional judgment, informed by data,” said Brennon Staley, an OPCD strategic adviser.

For instance, they declined to include a neighborhood center in Seward Park, where Harrell lives, because the area’s transit access is “pretty poor, compared to a lot of places,” and because Southeast Seattle already has multiple urban villages, Staley said. They also declined to put a neighborhood center in North Magnolia because the area lacks frequent transit, whereas they put two on Northeast 145th Street in Lake City because a bus rapid transit line is supposed to be built along that corridor, he said.

Most of the intersections that officials chose for Harrell’s draft plan are located in relatively affluent neighborhoods. Most of the sites that officials declined to choose are also in such neighborhoods, and others were removed partly to guard against the risk of displacement, they said

Rather than include two spots near a future light rail station at Northeast 130th Street as neighborhood centers, they proposed a new urban center there.

Choices questioned

James Wu, a Lake City resident who does advocacy with Share the Cities Organizing Collective, said he thinks too many of the neighborhood centers in Harrell’s proposal are located at busy, polluted intersections.

The city should be using its Comprehensive Plan update to add density in quieter areas near sprawling green spaces like Seward, Carkeek and Lincoln parks, Wu said. Such parks are important resources “that should be shared widely with the residents of a city in a housing and climate crisis,” he said.

If such areas lack transit access today, bus routes can be added or enhanced to support their growth, housing advocates contend.

Seattle officials knew the mayor’s proposal would encounter critics, the city’s Hubner said, stressing the Harrell administration’s desire for feedback.

“We want to hear what people think,” he said.

Still, Hubner described the city’s proposal as significant. Most of the neighborhood centers in Harrell’s plan would upzone some blocks currently dominated by single-family houses, he said, adding: “There are 24 brand-new locations for concentrated housing growth … and that’s no small thing.”

Matt Hutchins, a pro-density architect, agrees the neighborhood centers could be a big deal, he said, arguing they would unlock the development potential of areas where growth should have occurred long ago.

They could be good places for Seattle to build more rent-restricted housing, said Hutchins, who hopes at least 24 remain in the city’s plan, if not more.

Wedgwood views

Wedgwood has seen less development than many other neighborhoods because certain owners have held onto key properties and because of pushback, said Valarie Bunn, who writes a blog about the area’s history.

Some locals protested apartments now owned by the Seattle Housing Authority when they were constructed in 1947, and some opposed apartments across from Gowell’s hair salon in 2016, Bunn noted. Basically none sprouted in between, she said. Residents like Brian Conlan are still wary.

“I don’t want to see this turn into a big canyon” of buildings, he said while walking along 35th Avenue Northeast last week.

Not everyone is against density, however. On the contrary, the Wedgwood Community Council led a visioning process about a decade ago that recommended zoning changes at intersections to spur redevelopment with local guidelines, said Per Johnson, who helps lead the community council.

At the time, participants talked about cultivating “pearls” of urban living at various Wedgwood intersections to support small businesses, Johnson recalled, saying Harrell’s neighborhood center concept sounds similar.

Some properties along 35th Avenue Northeast were upzoned by the city in 2019, so the area is going to evolve, whether a neighborhood center is designated at Northeast 85th Street or not, Johnson said. Case in point: The six-story mixed-use building that’s set to replace the old QFC and several longtime businesses, including the Wedgwood Broiler restaurant.

As they contemplate redevelopment, what bothers some residents most is the prospect of mainstays like the Broiler being lost, Bunn said. Others want to make sure building heights taper between zones, Johnson said.

“We have some growing pains ahead of us, for sure,” Johnson said. In the best-case scenario, Wedgwood will become a more walkable, complete neighborhood, “so we don’t have to hop in our car” as much, he said.

Staff reporter David Kroman contributed to this story.

Correction: The map featured in this story has been updated. A previous version listed a proposed neighborhood center at West Dravus Street and 24th Avenue West in Magnolia, based on a list provided by the city. Officials subsequently said that address was a mistake and identified the correct address as West Dravus Street and 17th Avenue West in Interbay.