The Cosmopolitan Community Committee
819 Virginia St, Seattle WA 98101
November 07, 2007
Dear Mayor Nickels-
We the community of Cosmopolitan Condominium owners and residents are writing to inform you of a problem with our community. All of us are supportive of Seattle urban growth, otherwise we would not have chosen to invest and live in the Denny Triangle neighborhood. However, we take issue with the lack of communication about an adjacent development project (1918 8th Ave) that affects us directly, and with the lack of formal environmental impact analysis on behalf of residents.
In August 2005, when most of us signed purchase agreements for yet-to-be-built condominiums at 819 Virginia St., development of the adjacent lot at 1918 8th Ave, was designed for a 13-story office building. At this time (reference timeline) the permit application for this project was approved by the city. In September, the following month, the permit was issued. Later, in April 2006, at the same time that the new density legislation was passed, a new/revised permit application was submitted for the same lot—this time for a 34-story office building. The nearly 200 families who were contractually obligated and financially invested in a residence at 819 Virginia St, were never informed of this new development. As a result, we never had the opportunity to participate in the public comment process.
The Seattle Department of Development and Planning (DPD) permit approval letter (December 2006) illustrates a second issue of great concern to us. The city planning document and associated guidelines reveal the great length at which the planning department evaluates environmental impact of new projects such as the one at 1918 8th Ave.
However, all consideration of environmental impact related to light, shade, aesthetics, privacy, etc. is from the standpoint of a person on the sidewalk. In spite of one commenter’s request (reference design approval document) no consideration whatever was made for people living a mere 16 feet away from the proposed tower. Indeed, detailed formal analysis was conducted to determine the impact of shade falling on Denny Park as a result of the new building. The issue of shade and light on the residents who will live next to the tower 24 hours a day, 7 days a week was dismissed outright.
Mayor Nickels, we respectfully request your involvement in addressing our concerns. Optimism about the future of downtown Seattle is high at the Cosmopolitan. Along with our enthusiasm we bring valuable skills, experience, and creative thinking to bear on this problem. We hereby request a face to face venue whereby we can contribute to the development of an equitable solution for all parties. We represent Seattle citizens who are making this new development possible. It is precisely our financial investments in new condominiums that ultimately enable urban growth as envisioned by you and your staff. We request that our interests, our quality of life, be taken into account.
The Cosmopolitan Community Committee,
Clifford Tatum (Chair)
Lou Cancelmi
Michael Harris
Andrea Levy
Jeff Levy
Susan Manfredi
Eric McLemore
Olga Ruzayeva
Ben Shanfelder
Jeremy de Souza
Zuotian Tatum
John Van Beek
UPDATE: adding people who support the cause!
(go here to add your name)
| Mike McLaughlin Petros P. Koumantaros Yannis P. Koumantaros Earl Sedlik Charyl Kay Sedlik Patti Dash Chris Miller Angelie C. Kim Roi Kim Steven Fujihara Mary Fujihara Sheryl Bims Roger D. Chalfont Stacy Chalfont Daniel McCarthy Ludmila Chistoserdova Kristin McDonell Brian McDonell Neil Yunil Kim Brandon J. Bemis Melissa M. Larson Eric C. Peterson Deena Loveland Daniel Wylie Diane Vincent Sharon Scully Blake Barfuss Robert Yurina Cherie Furback Frank Kim Beth Billington | Anne Kim Hartshorn Christine Courtie Matt Goyer, Urbnlivn Greg Faulkner Kat Faulkner Steven Sauer, OIXIO Greg Raece, Smarter Neighbors DJ Norman, Motore Coffee Mike Plummer, mikeplummer Econ_E, 2200 Life Anastassia Konnova Mike Schemm Peggy Adams Mark Swerland David Borning Kaywood Hopkins Todd McGee Hassan Sultan Anupa Iyer Phoebe Underwood Dennis Bracy Abhineet Chowdhary Michael Lamb Yaron Oren-Pines Erich Von Schiller Bob Oliver Brenda Oliver Fay Wang Carl Fulton Karen Blackburn Hai Nguyen |
10 comments:
16ft is nothing out of the norm
olive8 and the qwest building are 18ft apart
actually, none of the o8 units are completely in the shadow of the qwest building. unlike the cosmo situation, olive 8 carefully integrated the interface with the 'existing' quest building by splitting the impact of quest between two floor plates.
the o8 stack facing south has one wall open and one facing quest. the west facing stack has half of its window open and the other half facing quest.
great post Cosmo.
I think that you should also get the 2200 residents to rally behind you as the currently interesting southern facing city view will also be killed as this new behemoth (and testament to corporate greed IMHO) will block the views of many interesting buildings.
You have my support and my sympathy...but WRT the gooberment...I doubt that they'll do a thing for the residents of downtown other than maybe raise their taxes and then go about business as usual siding with "the big guys".
I had a couple of listings in the Cosmo (north-facing, thankfully) and I was shocked at how many agents would show west-facing units and talk about the great view. I think most of them are just ignorant about upcoming developments. Even though these views aren’t protected it seems this really should have been disclosed to perspective buyers as soon as the developer found out about it. It’s such a massive change and negative impact on the building.
Jim
seattle-realestate.com
did the whole "public proposed land use auction" process get bypassed in this matter? Given the number of units and families affected by this development... the translaction from "lack of property appeal" or "potential property appreciation" into hard cold cash is quite huge. Andybody who bought on the West side with a view (above the previosly approved 13 story building) would undoubtedly have an expectation of prime real estate appreciation of their property. But now due to the stealth change, that loss of "potential appreciation" is huge. most likely a couple hundred thousand dollars per unit. So multiply that * 200 and we're talking somewhere in the neighbordhood of $40 million dollars of loss to those West facing residents, not to mention the halo effect of that onto the rest of the residents. Given the amount of $ at stake here, a class action law suit would definitely be warranted. If ANY process was violated or circumvented then the corporate builder of course be responsilbe for damages. Probably won't stop the building from being erected, but at the very least could help mitigate some of the losses to those residents.
The April 06 change as stated in your letter ONLY affects residental building heights.
The lot adjacent to the Cosmopolitan has always been a 500ft zone for a commercial building. Even when Cosmo started their pre-sales.
I remember looking at units on the west side of the building during pre-sales, but ruling them out due to a possible 500ft building going up on that side.
It really, really stinks for people on that side, however had they done their research they would have been aware of the negatives, even on the first day of presales.
When buying a downtown condo you should always assume with worst as to what can go up next to you. This is just one of those worst case scenarios.
thanks everyone for the great comments!
a couple of responses:
- i think it is important to restate that this issue is not really about views per se. it's about the 16 foot tower spacing. as many have noted here and in the urbnlivn discussion, loss of view is (can be) part of living downtown. what's at issue here, is bigger than views. it's about light, shade, privacy, and public deliberation.
- the april 06 land use change is relevant in a couple ways. first, the change took place after we were financially committed and contractually obligated to close on the property. DPD will only notify "residents" within a 300 foot radius. at the time the new permit application was submitted, there was an approved and permit for the 13-story building. contrary to the comment by "anonymous" directly above, building heights did change in this legislation. our zone, DOC2, went from 240'/300' & 288'/390' to 500'.
- related to the above is the issue of tower spacing. the proposed zoning changes included tower spacing provisions in all the zones, including DOC2. buildings above 125ft in height were required to have 60ft separation and 80ft separation above 300ft. it's difficult to know exactly how these provisions were eliminated but late in the game a series of modifications were introduced to the new zoning legislation. these late changes are referred to as the "CM Steinbrueck recommendations," which exclude DOC2 from any spacing requirements for residential towers. where is the public voice in these changes?
- it is pretty clear that continental properties (the cosmo developer) knew about the bigger building plan well before the pre-sales. however it is still unclear why they don't have any obligation to disclose nearby development that would clearly have material impact. the cosmo POS was carefully worded to disavow any reliance on continental properties to disclose their knowledge about any land use impact. how is it that they do not have to submit a form 17 disclosure statement?
i should probably post something about these details, but for now here are a few of the documents i referred to:
+ old Title 23 land use development standards, which by the way is still listed as current
+ mayor's recommendation (which details the tower spacing)
+ a marked up Title 23 land use code that shows the new density revisions (the CM Steinbrueck recommendations are included in the final few pages of this document.
You guys ever think of filing a lawsuit against Continental Properties?
They must have know of the building change, did they notify any of you?
Also I hear rumor that their construction was sub par. Maybe you can get some of your money back from them?
anonymous- thanks for the comments. i'm not aware of, nor have i heard of, any problems with the construction.
It will be hard to tempt people to give up their cars to live in skyscrapers when brand new luxury condos are being zoned like Soviet tower blocks.
The city chose the interests of out of town developers over citizens who invested in the city with their own homes.
I hope another greedy corporation builds a 50 story office building directly next to Gallery, also a Schnitzer West development. Actually, I wouldn't put it past Schnitzer West to build it themselves.
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