Nickels -V- Steinbrueck

only as seattle's comprehensive plan unfolds can we evaluate its merit. in today's seattle times, new details are provided about the inter-workings of big land-use agreements. apparently, mayor nickels wants to cut paul allen a deal so he can build a higher (than the current zone would allow) home base for amazon.com. meanwhile, steinbrueck, exiting city council member and chair of the urban planning committee, says: hey, wait just one darn minute (i'm paraphrasing here), paul allen needs to pay an extra $2.6 million on top of the current $5 million fee if he wants to deviate from our fancy new land use codes.

what's interesting here is the reversal of positions. it was steinbrueck who deleted tower spacing requirements for denny triangle as a "compromise" to developers. this time around i guess it's nickels' turn to compromise.

this makes me wonder how these issues are resolved in practice. are nickels and steinbrueck friends? enemies (in the political sense)? do they have a good working relationship? ultimately, there is economic benefit for this kind of compromise. more jobs, bigger tax base, fatter developer wallets, etc. but at whose expense? i sure hope the seattle residents who live in SLU have a say in this deviation from the land-use code.


regarding paul allen, i think it's clear he has provided tremendous benefit to seattle's downtown. ok, so the EMP will probably go down as one of gehry's ugliest designs. and SLU, or allentown, is a bit homogeneous, aesthetically. nevertheless, paul is largely responsible for seattle's first interesting public transportation system since the monorail. bob young, author of the times article, characterizes paul's influence as "warp speed" urban development. and in my book, paul allen single handedly revitalized chinatown with his developments there.

UPDATE: compromise reached! everybody wins; nickles, steinbrueck, vulcan, and amazon. anyone missing?
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