imagine my surprise when i received an email from "Mayor Greg Nickels." and now imagine my disappointment when i opened the email only to find his monthly "Nickels' Newsletter," to which i subscribe.
although Mayor Nickels has not yet responded to our letter, it has generated some lively discussion. Mark W, a commenter over at urbnlivn, has provided some thoughtful and challenging questions to our claim.
after responding to a number of questions and comments about our complaint i have noticed some key misconceptions. the timing of our presale combined with two inter-related land use code issues created the failure we cite in the letter. as follows:
THE TIMING ISSUE: seattle's land use changes occurred during our 18-month time to close, which means we entered a purchase agreement under one set of rules and closed under another set.
CODE ISSUE 1: the land use changes increased density potential throughout downtown. generally this was done well, but a late-in-the-game change (CM Steinbrueck recommendations), excluded our zone from the residential tower spacing requirements.
CODE ISSUE 2: notification regulations do not consider the potential impact for either one of the two items above. the regulation does not take into account the extended time-to-close common in presales agreements and it did not take into account the impact of excluding our neighborhood from the tower spacing requirements.
exclusion of DOC2 from tower spacing regulations and the lack of notification, together, enabled DPD approval of a 500 foot building just 15 feet away from the cosmo’s entire west face. by the city’s definition, 15 feet separation is inadequate for residential high-rise buildings.
the city states that provisions in the land use code “are designed to provide adequate light, air, access, and open space.” as one measure of adequate light and space, the city provides regulations for residential tower spacing, which, as i have repeated many times elsewhere, are: 60ft separation required for buildings above 125 ft and 80ft separation for buildings above 300ft.
818 stewart st., a 210-foot office building, meets this requirement. 1918 8th ave, a 500-foot office building, does not.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
email from mayor nickels?!
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9 comments:
word on the street is that there is another building that's gonna be going up between the cosmo and 2200 where the social security office is currently. Another 40 story behemoth.
The south facing 2200 residents (arte building) are gonna be screwed and the E/NE side of cosmo will probably lose all of the lake union views.
you hear anything about this cosmo?
hi econ_e:
i don't know too much about that project. here's a blurb from
ben's blog.
i walked by today and the tower spacing requirements are pretty straight forward because there's a street between 2200 and the soc sec bldg.
the DPD website shows the applicant as Weber + Thompson PLLC, who have been involved with a number of recent projects (AVA, Cristalla, and some bits at 2200).
...also, there's no mention of who the developer is on the DPD web page (ref: Project # 3005173).
thanks for the links cosmo...I hadn't seen that one as I don't visit Ben's blog very often. There are so many buildings planned that I can't seem to keep track of them all.
You wrote "i have noticed some key misconceptions. the timing of our presale combined with two inter-related land use code issues created the failure we cite in the letter. as follows: ..."
I'm not sure if you were directing the "misconceptions" comment at me. Of course the changes were finalized after the presale. But that was simply the last step in a process that began years ago, long before the presale. The city's well-publicized efforts to change downtown zoning were underway at the time of the pre-sale, and since they were not completed before the pre-sale, it should not have come as any surprise whatsoever that the changes were made after the original presale date. And of course, the gov has the right to change zoning rules at any time, and without all the advance publicity that this change had. Mark W
Re "The south facing 2200 residents (arte building) are gonna be screwed and the E/NE side of cosmo will probably lose all of the lake union views."
When 2200 was built, the fitness center and a number of apartments in my building lost their Lake Union views. Heck, Mosler Lofts took away my glimpse of Puget Sound.
A recent Olive 8 ad mentioned "views" a number of times and even included a pic of its 8th Ave facing views. The new 38-story building going up directly across the street will certain change the Olive 8 views.
Downtown is in the midst of lots of changes. No one living downtown should be making any assumptions about the views they've got.
Mark W - you consistently miss the point. we've had extensive discussion of this issue both here and on the urbnlivn blog.
in the simplest of terms, there are a) contradictory land use regulations, b) a lack of transparency in deviations given to developers, and c) a lack of accountability for undue impact on consumers.
in all three cases, the consumer takes the hit.
now, based on your consistent defense of DPD and developers i would have to assume that you are somehow involved in this process. from your comments my guess is that you work for or are affiliated with the DPD. if true, it would seem to explain your defensive position.
I have no connection to the DPD, any developer, any realtor, etc. (I'm a reseach scientist in computational linguistics, btw.) I'm simply a downtown renter who loves downtown and has considered buying downtown, but have been generally not satisfied with the options. (I did like Cosmo until the zoning changes)
I also haven't missed your point. You pre-bought. Zoning changes after your pre-sale allowed new construction 18-feet across the alley from your pre-bought unit which drastically impacts what you will see out your window - and probably the value of your unit. You approached the planners about these changes, and they pretty much ignored you. In spite of those changes, you decided that it was still worth it to close your sale at Cosmo, and in fact that continuing with the sale was a better deal than walking away from your 5% deposit was. Am I missing anything so far?
In our other thread and other posts, you seem to think that the developer should notify you of zoning changes, and that consumers should have rights when there are zoning changes. You also point out that tower zoning rules differ in other parts of downtown.
Of course, you also suggested that you shouldn't have to keep up with the goings on at your development during the 18 months between pre-sale and closing, and you said you were "comfortable" with signing something that said that the developer didn't have to notify you of such things. And apparently the developers lived up to that agreement.
Zoning changes can suck for those who are adversely impacted by them. I went through something similar with my last residence (a house), so I am actually somewhat sympathetic to the broader issue.
I also don't understand how they chose the part of downtown that they did for the more dense zone, e.g., why not go all the way over to Denny instead of stopping a block from 2200 and Enso? It's a rather peculiar shape on the map that doesn't seem to have any real logic to it.
But I don't agree with your solution. Prospective buyers already have the tools that they need. Negotiate terms with the developer. Negotiate conditions for acceptance/closing like home purchases do in other parts of the country. Like I did when I bought my last residence, and like the buyers did to whom I sold it to. These terms can go beyond zoning change-related issues (which are probably irrelevant downtown at this point anyway since the changes have already taken place). After all, what is important to some buyers may not be important to other buyers. There are plenty of condos and apartments downtown and on Capitol Hill that have windows looking across an alley into other windows. And people do choose to buy/rent such places, so it's clearly not a dealbreaker for everyone. Leave it to the buyer and developer to negotiate their own dealbreakers.
If the developer doesn't agree, then don't buy from them. It's that simple. Period. There are plenty of other condos to choose from, so why would you even want to deal with a developer who won't agree with your terms.
I've got a libertarian streak in me, I guess, but I just don't think that the city needs to be a nanny for grownups buying housing. Its downtown zoning changes were well-underway and well-publicized when you chose to buy. Instead of waiting to buy after the changes were finalized, you gambled that the final changes wouldn't impact you. Unfortunately for you, you lost that bet. Buying sight unseen and 18 months out is a gamble. Just ask the dozens of downtown flippers with their units sitting on the market in spite of non-alley views.
The reason why I responded to your thread unlike most threads was because of the tone of your open letter. You didn't seem to be taking responsibility for the choices you made both when the zoning situation was uncertain, and then after the zoning was finalized.
I don't know why you chose to buy 18 months out when downtown zoning changes were in the works. You're now dealing with the consequences of the choices you made. I don't think that the city owes you anything.
As for tower spacing in other parts of the downtown, well, so what? It's not uncommon for cities to have different densities in different areas, and a street can separate two different zoning areas. The spacing isn't about what you can see outside your window - it's about street level ambience. There are lots of alley views downtown and on Capitol Hill, and there's nothing in the law that entitles tower dwellers to better views than non-tower dwellers. If you like the spacing requirements better in a different zoning district, the solution is simple. Move. (And, no, I don't like the lack of tower spacing requirements in our part of downtown, either. But they're highly unlikely to change.)
I certainly understand your points. But I disagree with your proposed solution as excessive and unnecessary government intrusion in a private real estate transaction.
Mark
mark w- apologies for the delayed response, been really busy.
thanks for providing some context for you comments, it's very helpful in understanding where you're coming from.
i also have a bit of a libertarian streak but obviously we disagree on where to draw the line.
first of all, as hard as i try, i cannot rationalize walking away from a $25,000 (nominal) deposit. it’s an unreasonable option, particularly given the way tower spacing regulations were changed ONLY for the DOC-2 zone, late in the game, and (probably) without public comment. i qualify that with ‘probably’ because there’s no public record that shows the dates of these changes, only that they were added to the mayors preferred density legislation.
you've asked a number of times what i think the buyers’ responsibility is in a case like this. i've answered your question each time. this time I’ll try from a libertarian perspective.
i agree that the government should not interfere with private transactions, but only to the extent that these transactions do not infringe upon the rights of others. and i think you would agree that the government does have a responsibility to regulate large scale infrastructural issues such as transportation, urban growth, land use, etc.
the questions are, what is a reasonable level of responsibility to impose in consumers/residents in protecting their own interests? What level of skill should home buyers have to understand urban planning regulations before purchasing a condo? And to what extent can we expect the government to regulate consistently, fairly, and transparently?
i don't have an exact answer, but i let me try by making a couple of statements.
a) the amount of time and effort it took me to finally learn about schnitzer's revised application and about the DOC-2 tower spacing changes is unreasonable.
b) the resources available to understand the new regulations are inadequate, particularly given the degree and pace of change.
c) what about the role of professionals then? most real estate professionals that i spoke with during that time did not know enough about the zoning changes to anticipate our problem. many still don’t. is it reasonable to expect buyers to hire a land-use attorney before making a purchase? given what we now know, it is certainly prudent to do so in this environment.
d) i have met a number of people who learned about the DOC-2 zoning changes from this blog, including a couple of real estate professionals.
e) there was and continues to be a lack of transparency in the relationship between the city gov and developers.
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