For anyone who did not see KIRO's feature on Seattle's condo density, below is a YouTube video of the story. In my opinion KIRO did a nice job, particularly given the limited time available. However, the real estate agent's advice misses the point that land use changes were made several months AFTER signing of the purchase agreement.
KIRO posted elements of the story on their web page, such as the transcript, links to land use info resources, the video, and a list of six other downtown projects that will be impacted by the elimination of tower spacing:
-- Cristala
-- Escala
-- Tower 801
-- 1521 2nd Avenue
-- 5th and Madison
-- Olive 8
Several months ago we sent a letter to Mayor Nickels and asked him to address (or at least acknowledge) this problem. No response!
Over 50 downtown residents have signed our letter. I'm guessing it will take a lot more to get the Mayor's attention. If you think downtown residents should have a voice in this process--or at least that we should be notified when land use changes are made unilaterally--you can support the cause by signing our letter.
As for us, it's not about views. We'd simply like that yellow space back.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Cosmo on KIRO 7 News
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20 comments:
The KIRO story unfortunately left out a lot of details. For instance, there are people who actually will buy units with building views that don't have spacing.
Check out 818 Stewart, for example. Once they put the lid on the 13th floor, compare it to Cosmo. At this rate, looks like the top of 13th will line up with Cosmo's 25th floor.
Before the height change was approved, a 13-story office building was in the plans for the lot immediately across the alley from Cosmo. Since modern office floors have much higher spacing than typical condo and parking garage floors do, the Cosmo folks facing Stewart will have a pretty good picture of what was originally planned for across the alley.
And yet, even with those plans established, a number of people chose to lock-in most of Cosmo’s alley facing units, including the ones that would be just 18-feet away from the office. By their pre-purchase, they demonstrated that they didn't have a problem with tower spacing then. And then they chose to close the sale.
Of course, some folks on the upper floors did end up losing their views when the higher building was approved. I do think that was unfortunate. But that is a risk pre-sale buyers take when buying units facing undeveloped property - especially when the city was in the middle of a well-publicized revamping of downtown zoning with the goal to increase density.
And the fact is, many of these people chose to go ahead with the purchase of their units even after they joined the lower floors with their pre-sale 18-foot alley views.
The choices made at the time of the pre-sale and then at closing say a lot.
Your yellow block not-to-scale drawing comment is misleading, because you never had the yellow block to lose. The original office building planned at the time of the pre-sale was going to be right across alley. That's why I assume your unit is above the 24th floor, about where the originally planned office building would have topped out. Because if you're on a floor lower than that, then I would be curious as to why you bought a unit that at the time of the presale was going to be looking 18 feet across an alley at a 13-story office building.
As for the letter to the mayor... While I do think politicians should reply to letters from their constituents, I seriously doubt you would have liked his response. After all, the city's records show the history of the original plans and subsequent plan changes, that these were communicated in accordance with established procedures, that signage was properly posted on the property in question (something that I can certainly vouch for), he would likely assure you that all the plans approved on that block meet the zoning requirements for that section of downtown, and that the city cannot take the protection of private views into account when making their decision.
I'm not sure what else you'd think he'd say.
I must admit that I'm a bit puzzled by what you're trying to accomplish with your media campaign, since it doesn't change the fact that there was a big office building planned for across the alley at the time of the pre-sale and a bigger one under construction now.
For your neighbors who may be trying to sell their units, you're making sure that the unfortunate plight of the building gets all sorts of widespread publicity on the web and in other media. You've turned "Cosmo'd" into a verb. And courtesy your blog, you have alerted prospective buyers that your neighborhood is the "butthole" of Denny Triangle and that neighborhood highlights include the homeless gathering point across the street and the stripper joint going in a block away (nothing wrong with either, of course, but some prospective buyers might not agree).
The title suggests that your intent was a building blog, but there's almost no insight into what life is like at the Cosmo, and it's been a long time since you've said anything nice about the place or the residential community there. Your neighbors almost never add comments, either.
Seems like you missed an opportunity with this forum.
mark w- i'm not sure what part of "elimination of tower spacing" you don't get. in all of the intricate critiques that you levy on your fellow citizens, you consistently ignore the heart of this injustice, the elimination of tower spacing by city official behind closed doors, and in doing so you implicitly defend the city's actions.
frankly, i'm suspicious of your motives. who are you and why do you so ardently support the shitty behavior of developers and the city government?!
your behavior is much like that of a sockpuppet, someone who uses an online identity for purposes of deception within an Internet community.
you criticize people, regular people like you and i, for trying to hold the city accountable for their actions, for their method of governance, the thing we pay them to do.
you criticize us for trying to collectively voice our complaints in hope that the city will correct their failing, not just for us but for all urban dwellers.
i think you are wrong and i have expressed why you are wrong in significant detail--many times in this blog and at urbnlivn.
When you vent in your various posts, you keep leaving out the fact that there was an office tower in plan that was going to block several floors of views just across the alley at the time of the pre-sale, probably up to the 24th floor.
That information didn't prompt you to lead the charge against tower spacing rules. Instead, you picked up a Cosmo unit at the pre-sale. You only began ranting about tower spacing when the planned tall building across the alley became even taller.
We probably agree that we don't like some of the changes when the city made its zoning changes, but I don't think the city did anything wrong that they need to be held accountable for. That they were in the midst of making zoning changes at the time of the pre-sale was well-publicized, they took in lots of public input, after which they made some final adjustments to the changes, and enacted them. That's what city governments do. There are a lot of things that governments do that I don't necessarily agree with, but that doesn't mean they need to be "held accountable". As I told you before I simply don't agree with you.
(Although as I said before, I do thing the mayor owed you a response.)
So, what floor do you live on? And if you don't like adjacent towers, why did you buy a unit that was going to be facing one?
Knowing that there was going to be an office building across the alley that would likely rise to the 24th floor, you chose to reserve an alley facing unit.
Knowing that the city was in the midst of changing downtown zoning requirements, you chose to reserve a unit facing undeveloped property.
Knowing that the city permitted the height change next door, you chose to go forward with your purchase anyway.
Those were your choices. The city did not force you to make any of them.
You haven't provided any proof that the city acted illegally, that it failed to follow established communication procedures, or that any zoning decisions it made regarding Cosmo, the originally planned office building across the alley, or the revised plan for across the alley. We may not agree with the city's decision, but that's not the same as saying the city did something wrong for which they need to be held accountable.
As a taxpayer, I'm not too keen on your efforts to blame the city for the consequences of the choices that YOU willingly made. Your open letter to the mayor went so far as to ask for an "equitable solution". The city did not do you any harm, and thus doesn't owe you an equitable solution for the choices you made.
Finally, I'm not criticizing some "people" or some "us". My responses are directed at you and the arguments that you make. The point of a blog, after all, is to engage in such discussion. Are commenters on the blog only supposed to agree with you?
In your various communications, you routinely leave out relevant information about what was originally planned for the property across the alley. Why? Because it undermines your tower spacing argument.
When you complain about the city's lack of communication, well, I saw the signs posted on the property, the information was on the web, and you offer no evidence that the city failed to follow its communication requirements.
When you complain about the limits of the developer's communication, you leave out the fact that you signed an agreement excusing the developer from such communication, and that you were comfortable doing so.
And on other subjects, you passed along AVA gossip that you had to be corrected on. You passed along inaccurate info about the planned changes to 818 that you had to be corrected on.
Your yellow box picture is just another misrepresentation of the facts surrounding Cosmo and the cross-alley plans. Given what was originally planned across the Cosmo alley, perhaps the Cosmo developer should have set their residences back from the alley like they did with the deck on the 818 side. (Metropolitan Tower's 8th floor deck does this on both the alley-facing and Hotel Max sides.)
Mark W- Your understanding is factually incorrect on several small but vital details. By saying it this way, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are misinformed rather than deceptive.
My "venting" is accompanied by evidence (or at least cited sources). Your arguments are mostly hearsay intertwined with bits of relevant information. And by the way, with regard to the cosmo/1918 issue, it's not just me. nearly 70 people have signed the letter to the mayor.
If you move past the simple statement that the land use legislation changes were "well publicized," you might see what i've been telling you all along: elimination of tower spacing changes in denny triangle were not included in what was "well publicized." In fact, it was not publicized at all.
Downtown livability standards developed by the city required tower spacing for all residential towers above a certain height. this was well publicized, critiqued, debated, and commented upon. After years of vetting, tweaking and publishing the new Land Use codes, and just weeks before submitting to the mayor for approval, the city council voted to eliminate a livability standard from denny triangle.
they publicized this: "In Belltown, towers over 160 feet in height are required to be spaced at least 80 feet apart above a height of 125 feet, which recognizes the residential character of this area. The spacing requirement is 60 feet in the Denny Triangle Urban Center."
then they eliminated the 60 feet separation requirement in denny triangle. the yellow part in the sketch you reference is what the spacing requirement would have been. and YES! I hold the city government accountable for their actions.
the differences in how spacing was applied in the 818 case and in the 1918 case is curious indeed.
in the posts about the 2 story addition to 818 and about the deja vu location, i quoted other sources--both of whom got it wrong. the blog is severing its purpose when people validate and/or correct information. i acknowledged the 818 correction.
no one "corrected" me on the AVA roomer. rather, an anonymous commentor challenged the roomer but without anything to substantiate his challenge. in a case like that, i leave it to the reader to decide what's valid, a roomer i heard (and clearly stated as a roomer) or an anonymous comment.
So, who are you Mark W? You are certainly welcome to remain anonymous and I will continue to allow you to comment on this blog, provided you continue to be civil.
However, given your strong opinion on a matter that affects a lot of people, your argument would hold better if 1) you supported your claims with evidence and 2) your claims addressed evidence i have provided.
I overlooked your suggestion that I "ardently support the shitty behavior of developers".
I don't support such behavior. But I'm puzzled by your statement, since there hasn't been much discussion about the developers - your criticism seems to be mostly directed towards the city.
There's been no suggestion that the developers across the alley did anything wrong. It's their right to develop the property, they don't make the zoning decisions, they have appeared to be abiding by the review process and zoning for the location, and according to the Seattle PI they even made some changes to their revised design to accommodate Cosmo a bit.
As for Cosmo's developers, it seems your primary complaint has been their refusal to communicate with the potential buyers when the folks across the alley decided to change their plans.
Do I think they should have communicated with their prospective buyers? Of course.
But when you say that you agreed to sign something that limited what they were required to communicate, well, you released them from having to do so.
I don't know why they would put forward such an agreement. But I also don't understand why you would sign such a thing. I wouldn't have. But they obviously took those agreements pretty seriously.
Criticizing your choice to sign that agreement isn't defending the developer. It's criticizing a choice made. Pure and simple.
But I do think they should have communicated with prospective buyers about the changes across the alley whether they were required to or not.
Did the developer promise you a view? Spacing? Anything else? Did they fail to deliver? If you've pointed out some shitty developer behavior, I haven't noticed, and I don't recall launching into some defense of shitty developer behavior.
You didn't have tower spacing at the time of the pre-sale, so you didn't lose it. You had an office tower in plan at the time of the pre-sale.
As for me, as I've said before, I'm a renter at Met Tower who considered Cosmo, but not for pre-sale. At the time I had concerns about the office tower planned. After the city finalized downtown zoning changes, and the sign went up for the change that would block the rest of Cosmo, I scratched Cosmo from my list. I have no connection to any developer, condo association, realtor, marketing group, city agency, etc. You can believe or not, I don't much care.
Mark W-
I'm very happy about the cosmo community, and I specifically do not discuss the internal aspects of cosmo life.
The Urban rest stop is one of the coolest things about our neighborhood, and I have indicated this in my posts. I'm indifferent about the Deja vu but I am critical about how zoning changes are made.
My blog comments are not meant to be negative, they're meant to be critical. I'm critical of how land use decisions are made, particularly those that affect our quality of life.
The effort I put into this blog is a reflection of how much I care about the neighborhood and about the cosmo's place in it.
You mentioned before that you decided not to purchase in the cosmo because of surrounding development. I made the opposite decision with similar information. I do NOT regret my decision. But! there's a big difference between not regretting a purchase decision and wanting to doing something about a perceived injustice.
One purpose of this blog is to inform people about what is planned for the area--to add transparency where there isn't much--so people who live here are better informed and so people who want to live here can make a more informed purchase decision.
It might surprise you that several cosmo units on the west side were re-sold (flipped) without disclosing the planed 36 story building nor that there would only be 18 feet of spacing. I would imagine your response being critical of the buyer for lack of due diligence. I found it to be appalling, dishonest, and probably illegal behavior on the part of the real estate agent.
I did not answer all of your questions in this discussion. Most if not all of the ones not answered have been answered elsewhere:
- zone w/out tower spacing
- condo pre-sales dilemma
- tower spacing time-line
- our letter to Mayor Nickels
- register your support!
Since when is a 13 floor office tower only 125 feet tall?
The new building is 34 stories, shouldn't it be 330 feet then? Not 500 feet?
Simply put, your picture is misleading.
The height of the building at the 13 floors would have been appx. 200 feet, NOT the 125 feet as shown in your picture. Thus rising to about the 21st or 22nd floor of Cosmo.
Me (or rather You)- thanks for your observations. Actually, the sketch does not have anything to do with the 13-story building. It is a visual representation of the tower spacing regulations as they were before being eliminated.
The regulation stated that towers built next to a residential building (in the denny triangle) must have spacing of 60 feet on the portion of the building ABOVE 125 feet. the yellow block starts at approximately 125 ft, which is about the 16th or 17th floor of the cosmopolitan.
This sort of regulation often results in articulated structures. In the case of 1918, the yellow block would have been 60 feet of air space, starting at 125 feet and extending upward.
When you say that you have responded to my questions, well, I’m not sure where you have, since you generally ignore the facts and questions I bring up surrounding the 13-story office building. Instead, you tend to be more dismissive, suggesting ties to or defenses of developers and things like that when I merely disagree with you, and that I lack cites, have facts wrong and resort to hearsay, but without pointing out specific examples. But that said…
The 13-story office building that was originally planned for across the alley is a key basis for my disagreements with you. I didn’t cite anything because I figured you were already aware of it. After all, you included a picture of related signage in your open letter, and the PI article quoted one of your former neighbors who said that he looked into the plans for across the alley, found the city had approved the building, and thus chose a condo on the 21st floor.
The proposed building was based on application number #2401880, and there is plenty of info on its history still on the DPD website. Early design guidance meetings dated back to 5/18/2004. Master Use Permit decision was made on 8/25/2005, based on the plans on file as of 8/3/2005, with appeals due by 9/8/2005. This was for a building that was to fill much of the space on the property across the alley from Cosmo, backing up to the alley, where there would be a 2-foot cantilever above 16-feet. Plans called for ground level retail, office floors above that, parking for 235 cars below ground, and a screen wall to hide the rooftop mechanical systems.
How tall? The documentation I’ve seen say less than 300 feet, which was the maximum permitted at that location at that time for an office tower (a limit also reported in the Seattle PI article). “less than 300 feet” of course isn’t very specific.
So what does 13 floors + rooftop screening really mean? I’ve previously explained how I came up with the 20-24 Cosmo floor equivalent. In our few blocks area, we’ve got 2 newer residential towers (Cosmo, Metro) and newer and now-in progress office construction. E.g., the 20-story courthouse at 380 feet is taller than 32-story Metro. Check out 818, under construction, and the completed office building next to the Julia across the street. Even look at how the now-34 story 1918-8ths towers over 33-story Cosmo in the picture of the two that you used. (Keeping in mind, too, that parking floors tend to be shorter, and whereas the original plan for 1918 had below grade parking, Cosmo and Metro both have several floors of above grade parking, contributing to their height disadvantage when compared to comparable floors of modern office buildings.)
So while suggesting that 13 floors office plus rooftop screening is equivalent to approx. 20-24 Cosmo floors is indeed just an estimate, it’s a pretty reasonable estimate based on the surrounding buildings, and it is certainly under 300 feet.
That was what was in the works across the alley at the time of the Cosmo pre-sale, part of an effort dating back to before May 2004, something I was aware of both as someone with interest in the Cosmo and as someone who simply saw the signage as I walked by the property on a regular basis, and something that one of your former neighbors reported in the PI story, so it’s not like it was a secret. And it was not set back from the alley; rather it was to have a 2-foot cantilever sticking out on the alley side above 16 feet.
As for the downtown/Denny T proposals and Belltown tower spacing info that you often cite, I don’t disagree with you at all that it was a proposal for Denny T or that it was arguably a better proposal for our neighborhood than what the city ended up actually enacting. I’ve said before that I don’t think what they enacted matched their Vancouver-inspired rhetoric. But rhetoric is just that. The various opinions and options expressed during the zoning revision process ultimately don’t matter – only what the city actually enacted for our neighborhood does.
I do recognize that once a government body has taken in lots of input from their committees and the public, it often will come up with a final wording that doesn’t mesh with the next to last version or any other earlier version. Zoning can promote different goals for different neighborhoods, even adjacent neighborhoods like Denny T and Belltown. My view is we elect them to take all that input into consideration, but also factor in the big picture goals, which is what I think they did with their final decision.
All in all, I don’t have a big problem with the city having a “really high density” area, and everyone now knows the rules going forward, so I see no reason to change it now. Perhaps if I was about to get a 500-foot building right outside my window as a result, and were an owner rather than a renter, I might have your “we need to hold them accountable” attitude, but to me it’s just one of a series of decisions they make (or fail to make) that I take into consideration when judging our city government at election time. (Don’t get me wrong – I dislike Nickels enough that the only way I’d vote for his reelection is if Steinbruek were his only serious opposition, but I’d prefer that Nickels join Steinbrueck in leaving government.)
Where I take issue with your arguments, however, is that you repeatedly frame this as the current 34-floor tower plan vs. the spacing proposal that ultimately was not enacted for our neighborhood rather than vs. the reality of what was in plan at the time of the pre-sale. After all, even had they given our neighborhood the same tower spacing rules that they gave Belltown, they grandfathered in the 13-story office building because that plan had already been approved by then.
Furthermore, the DPD-related information for the 34-story tower – app #3004017, fyi – explicitly states that it replaced the MUP for #2041880, not some building that was actually going to be 60-feet away from Cosmo.
Your yellowed picture thus would have been accurate had instead you shaded in yellow everything above the 1918’s 13th floor (plus some allowance for the screened rooftop stuff), because that would compare what you are ending up with vs. what was in plan at the time of the pre-sale. We can’t lose what was merely talked about, no matter how much they talked about it or how much we may have agreed with the rhetoric. The reality is, if you didn’t get the 34-floor office tower, you would have ended up with the 13-floor office tower right across the alley because it had already been approved. (Note that the city ordinance – #122054 – includes DPD-approved but not yet constructed towers in its definition of “existing structures” in its discussion of the new tower spacing requirements, i.e., it was grandfathered in, which is very typical of zoning changes.)
So discussions about the zoning change impact on Cosmo really are about the change from the 13-story building to the 34-story building, both of which were planned to be immediately across the alley from Cosmo. All the talk about what Belltown got in the zoning discussion doesn’t change that, and thus misrepresents the circumstances that the folks at Cosmo actually experienced. Buyers on the lower floors did not lose views and spacing, because the 13-story office building plans ensured that they never had them to lose.
And that’s why my questions focus on the real impact of the downtown zoning changes on Cosmo.
With the 13-story building + the screened rooftop in plan, people who picked alley facing units at the time of the pre-sale chose units that would be facing an office building immediately across the alley – Certainly on Cosmo floors 10-13, very probably on floors 14-20 based on surrounding office building floor heights, and quite possibly on floors 21-24. Frankly, I think that your neighbor in the PI story who bought on the 21st floor after verifying the plans for the 13-story office building would have gotten an unpleasant surprise during office construction based on surrounding office building heights – but I do wonder how much people considered the differences in office vs. residential and parking garage construction/floor heights when they originally heard that the office tower in plan there was going to be only 13 stories.
The downtown zoning changes in the works at that time were not likely to make things better or more spaced for Cosmo, given the routine habit of grandfathering existing buildings and already approved plans when making zoning changes. At best, you would have ended up with the 13-story, at worse… well, we saw what at worse could be.
So with all that background…
Given that the 13-story + screened rooftop would have in all likelihood come to about floors 20-24 on Cosmo, I am curious what floor you ended up on, or at least whether you’re above #20-24 or not. That’s a fair question because if you’re below where the 13-story office building would have topped out, then you would have been looking across an alley at an office building 18-feet away based on plans at the time of the pre-sale. If that is the case, then the zoning changes didn’t actually impact your views et al., and to say otherwise would then misrepresent what impact the zoning change had on you.
Did you investigate the 13-story office plans before choosing your unit at the pre-sale? If so, why you pre-buy into a planned building without significant space between it and the planned building right across the alley? Didn’t tower spacing matter to you? You agreed to buy into a building without spacing with the neighbor long before the zoning change took place.
And if you didn’t investigate it, why not? If views were important to you, I’d figure that would be a top priority before making your pre-sale choice.
It’s been clear where you stand with respect to the proposed zoning, how you feel about what Belltown ended up with, and what you think about the city officials who made these decisions. But it’s not clear where you stand w.r.t. what was actually in plan across the alley when you decided to lock in your unit. And I’m not sure why you routinely leave out the impact of the 13-story office building.
The only Cosmo pre-sale buyers who lost their views and gained an 18-foot view of an office tower as a result were those buyers whose units are above where the originally planned 13-story office tower would have topped out. And no amount of talk about Belltown’s tower spacing rules changes that.
Finally, for what it’s worth, I have been curious about how the Cosmo developer marketing acknowledged the 13-story office tower next door to their then-prospective pre-sale buyers. The ads and banners I saw usually depicted a drawing of Cosmo all by itself – nothing at all around it – which frankly did bug me at the time, given that I knew that the office tower was in the works right next door.
Re Cosmo Seattle's response to the "me said" comment...
Although I note it deep in what I just posted, I'll break it out here, too. The proposed tower spacing that they ultimately did not give our neighborhood grandfathered in existing structures, and according to the ordinance, existing structures included those already approved but not yet constructed. So the 13-story building would not have had the setback at 125 feet.
It is routine for zoning changes to include grandfather clauses for existing and approved plans.
Re
It might surprise you that several cosmo units on the west side were re-sold (flipped) without disclosing the planed 36 story building nor that there would only be 18 feet of spacing. I would imagine your response being critical of the buyer for lack of due diligence. I found it to be appalling, dishonest, and probably illegal behavior on the part of the real estate agent.
My reply - No need to imagine my response. Just ask me for it.
Actually I find it appalling and dishonest on the part of the realtor, too. Can't comment on the illegalness of it since I don't know Wash real estate law.
But the buyers should still do their due diligence, since it's a lot easier to walk away before the sale than it is to take the loss or file a suit afterwards. Buying Seattle real estate is usually the biggest investment most folks make. Buyer beware is always good advise because the buyer has the most to lose. If the buyer isn't experienced in this, they ought to make sure they've got a good buyer's agent looking out for them.
Mark W-
I acknowledged the 13-story building in the letter to the mayor, for example.
Your point is that the 13-story building would have been higher than the 125 ft articulation point indicated by the yellow block in the sketch. True. But, when 3004017 replaced 2041880, the grandfathering did not follow. 3004017 was a new application, specifically submitted under the new legislation.
Yes, and it was submitted in response to the changes actually enacted: "In 2004, the site received a Master Use Permit for the construction of a 13 story building containing 230,000 square feet of administration office and 8,950 square feet feet of ground floor retail space. That Master Use Permit (2401880) was reviewed by the Department and approved on August 25, 2005. Due to changes in the downtown Code outlined above, the project was redesigned to reflect changes in height and other provisions of the code." DPD analysis for App #2004017.
Emphasis on "...redesigned to reflect changes in height and other provisions of the code." Not some (desirable) proposal that was never enacted.
Other than your picture, I can't find anything to suggest that the developer ever considered replacing the 13-story with anything resembling your yellowed picture. Chopping off that much square-foot space per floor above 125 feet would have made for a very skinny office building, narrower and yet more than 100 feet taller than Met Tower Apts. It also would have substantially increased the construction costs per square foot for those floors without increasing their leasing value per square foot.
Perhaps they might have considered such a building anyway. I don't know. But I haven't found any evidence at all that they did. (I'd certain welcome it if you could cite something specific to the contrary.)
With the original zoning, and because of the grandfather clause with the new zoning enacted or the new zoning you wish had been enacted, they could have built the 13-story.
If the new zoning had required a new 60-foot setback, they would not have submitted 3004017, but they still could have built the 13-story as originally planned and approved because of the grandfathering. There is actual original code and later enacted code. There are actual plan approvals. They actually define what was in plan at the pre-sale, and what was in plan at closing.
While the 13-story is mentioned in the mayor letter, it's often not mentioned elsewhere, and the implications are not discussed, creating the impression that most folks lost their views.
Given modern office construction, the 13-story would have climbed to about Cosmo 20-24, probably closer to 24 with the screened roof-top.
Given that, at the pre-sale a number of alley-facing Cosmo buyers bought units that were to be directly across the alley from an office building.
The enacted zoning change and redesigned 1918 results in a situation that for these lower floor buyers is the same as when they made their pre-sale choice.
Even had the spacing rule been enacted, they still may not have had a change because the grandfather clause didn't impact the developer's right to build the 13-story.
Thus, only those people who reserved above where the 13-story would have topped out were clearly impacted by the zoning change and what it led to.
But half to as many as 2/3s (a number of the penthouses apparently haven't been sold yet) of the alley facing buyers are getting views pretty much about what they were in plan to get at the time of the pre-sale.
And with so many people choosing to buy units with planned views of an office building right across the alley at the time of the presale, well, that side of the story should be told too.
But it does make me wonder from what floors the KIRO reporter shot his video from and whether those floors were above or below the 13-story top-out line.)
Mark W- you bring up some crucial points.
you're right, it would appear that schnitzer neither designed nor considered a proposal that incorporated the then outlined tower spacing regs.
check out the timing of this and let me know what you think:
march 22, 2006 city council votes to eliminate tower spacing from new legislation.
april 12, 2006 mayor signs legislation
april 16, 2006 schnitzer submits application for 36 story building (3004017).
records show that the "well publicized" proposed legislation included tower spacing for downtown residential towers, including in denny triangle. this was referred to as the "the mayor's preferred option." it was this set of zoning changes and revised land use codes that was communicated to the public and was commented on by the public.
news of the land use changes was publicized for years. public commenting on the mayor's proposal went on for many months. days before final approval, city council eliminated tower spacing requirements from denny triangle.
two weeks later the mayor signed off on the entire legislative package, which was his preferred option plus the late changes.
4 days later, schnitzer submitted plans for the 36-story building without tower spacing.
DPD planners have indicated to me that by the time an application for a large project is submitted, the project is already significantly designed and planned.
so, a key question is: how long does it take to develop such an application? i dont' know the answer, but it is easy to imagine that a serious proposal of this size and scope could easily take years to develop.
the earliest public record of the eliminated tower spacing is march 22, 2006. when would schnitzer need to know about it in order to prepare and submit an application 4 days after it was signed into law? think about it.
I agree that Schnitzer moved awfully quickly - in fact a lot of Land Use signs popped up around the neighborhood pretty quickly once the new zoning legislation passed. Our zoning district also has an odd-shaped boundary that seems to steer clear of 2200, Enso and Martin, all Vulcan properties. IMO we've got a decidedly pro-developer mayor. But developers also really pushed against the spacing rules, and at one point they were dropped from the proposal throughout most of the downtown. The final result was passed 8-0, so it's not like it was the mayor's doing alone.
In any event, it's really neither here nor there because no one guaranteed that tower spacing would be enacted in our neighborhood, and even if it had they still had the option to build the 13-story, given the grandfathering.
And of course to tie this back to Cosmo, at the time of the pre-sale, the 13-story was in plan, downtown zoning changes were being debated, and the 34-story option, if it existed that early, hadn't been announced.
This was the situation at the time of the pre-sale when Cosmo buyers signed their papers. They signed them when most everyone below the 25th floor facing the alley were in plan to be getting a view across the alley of the 13-story.
(btw I've used office-residential floor spacing ratios of 1.6-1.8:1 getting the 1.6 from the courthouse 20 stories versus Met's 32 stories. But from better viewpoints from Denny to Pine it's clear that the courthouse is actually quite a bit taller than Met, about a 1.8-1.9:1 ratio. That and the progress of 818 Stewart further reinforce the 25th floor estimate as the start of the view floors.
Since folks who bought below the 25th floor at the time of the pre-sale, which reportedly includes you, bought units destined to have alley views of an office building, these folks didn't lose anything with the zoning changes that were actually enacted.
Well, it is a different building they're getting in their view than the 13-story, but I doubt the buyers were wedded to the look of the 13-story. But they've got the same lack of privacy, spacing and views as they signed up for at the pre-sale.
Of course, buyers up on 23 and 24, while still looking at office workers across a narrow alley, probably did lose some sun, especially in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky.
I didn't account for the screen that the DPD required the 13-story to have to hide the rooftop engineering systems. Perhaps that was the view that the 25th floor owners were looking forward to. But it does make me wonder - do those rooftop systems make much noise? I wouldn't want to find out the answer to that the hard way.
So the upper floor folks lost their views as a result of the zoning change followed by the plan to replace the 13-story with the 34-story.
As a buyer below the 25th floor, it seems to me that if you wanted a view, or at least some decent spacing and privacy, you should have pre-bought a unit that wasn't pretty likely to be in the path of the planned 13-story, especially since you've reported being aware of the 13-story at the time of the pre-sale.
Blaming it on the 34-story has become an easy target, but what would you have blamed it on when the girders or concrete columns of the 13-story showed up outside your window?
If you're going to ask strangers to put their names to your "Open Letter to the Mayor", you ought to explain the impact of the original plans, not merely mention the 13-story. After all, if these buyers weren't concerned about "living a mere 16 feet away from the proposed tower" when they snapped up nearly all the available units in Cosmo, it seems strange to expect the DPD to tell these buyers that something's now wrong. Lots of folks around Seattle have alley views (and some odd courtyard designs in Belltown have streetside units staring into one another).
The zoning change and how fast Schnitzer was prepared to respond to it don't change the fact that you and other buyers below 25th chose views of an office building across the alley at the pre-sale.
mark w- i wish we (or i) would have known you back in the day. given your proximity at the met, you had good insight into how the neighborhood unfolded during that crucial period.
we (you and i) have come a long way since your fist challenges to our open letter to the mayor. i have said it before in other posts and will say it again here, i appreciate your comments and the debate you bring to this blog. it's a complicated issue and arguing the details (which by the way, very few people are interested in doing) has been very helpful in strengthening my ability to articulate the issue.
that said, we still have two fundamental disagreements, albeit much smaller ones than before.
we disagree on roughly 5 floors, the space between the 16th or 17th floor and somewhere between the 20th or 25th floor, depending on how high the 13-story office building would have been.
we also disagree on the role of the city government; their responsibility to legislate on behalf of citizens and to notify downtown home owners of the impact due to land use changes. this disagreement can be stated from the other perspective too--we disagree on what can reasonably be expected of a buyers' in terms of due diligence.
in my opinion, the two disagreements are related. given the current state of seattle’s land use legislation, the only way for anyone to make an informed condo purchase decision in downtown seattle to hire a land use attorney. the amount of necessary legal expertise and understanding of land use laws, both current and potential changes, is beyond what can be reasonably expected of buyers and/or real estate agents.
the cosmo is only the first of this sort of conflict. it will be interesting to see how it plays out with escala in particular. one difference is that the issue is now well publicized, enabling buyers to attend and have a voice in the process.
i like to think that this blog and our open letter to the mayor, at the very least, has helped to inform the downtown condo community of this particular problem.
Office floor spacing ratios are about 1.8 to 1 in surrounding recent construction, but the 13-story was just going to be 1.3 to 1? The 20-story federal courthouse, at 380 feet tall, is a taller than 33-story Cosmo, approx. 80’ taller than 32-story Met Tower, but a 13-story office building would come up only half way – including the rooftop screening? The new lid on the 9th floor of 818 Stewart next door is already up to Cosmo’s 16-17, but the 13-story across the alley wasn’t going to be any taller than that?
Good grief.
The crux of my disagreement with you isn’t over tower spacing or how high a floor is. I suspect that we have similar views about what we would have liked zoning to be in our neighborhood. I certainly wish that Cosmo’s surroundings were a lot more in line with the Vancouver vision than they turned out to be.
Your open letter to the mayor seriously rubbed me the wrong way, because you downplayed the plans in place at the time of the pre-sale so that it could appear that it was the city’s fault for losing spacing and views (a.k.a. lighting, privacy, etc.), and you capped it off by suggesting the city should work towards some equitable settlement. All for choices you made.
I was aware of the city’s communication, and the 13-story was enough to scare me away from Cosmo until I could see what it looked like built. When the 34-story came along, I crossed it off my list entirely. Those were my choices in response to the same info. And it was from that perspective that I read your Open Letter – and also your other letter to the mayor.
As your various threads and interviews have continued, you still make it seem as if your choices in response to the plans in place at the time of the pre-sale had nothing to do with the situation you’re in.
It really is all about the choices you made.
*** Spacing
You’ve made a big deal about tower spacing. It’s mentioned in your December 3, 2006 letter to Mayor Nickels, in your Open Letter to the Mayor, and in blog entries such as
Urbnlivn – November 12, 2007
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, loss of view is (can be) part of living downtown. what’s at issue, is bigger than views. it’s about light, shade, privacy, and public deliberation.
You have also often cited the spacing requirements that the city ultimately enacted in Belltown, but chose not to enact in our neighborhood.
But for some reason, what you routinely leave out is the fact that at the time you chose your unit at the Cosmo pre-sale, the 13-story office building in plan across the alley had the same lack of spacing that the 34-story building that replaced it has. Not only was it to be built right across the alley, the approved plan explicitly included a cantilever that extended 2-feet over the alley (above 16 feet).
You can talk about the lack of spacing between Cosmo and 1918 all you want, but when it came time for you to act, you chose to put your money down on a unit that actually faced the alley. And given the floor you bought on, and your chosen unit was one of many units that would probably be looking at that office building across the alley.
Your endless complaints about the lack of tower spacing between the buildings and the city’s decision process just seem silly given the fact that you actually chose a unit facing an alley immediately across which an office building was planned.
The zoning changes were irrelevant because not only did they ultimately not change the relevant tower spacing requirements in our area, and not only because they grandfathered in the 13-story office building even if they had, but because these changes were enacted several months after you endorsed the lack of tower spacing by choosing to buy the unit that you did.
You chose to live in a building without tower spacing. Yet when the zoning change process enacted the same spacing requirements for your block that were in effect when you chose your unit, you seem to think that they somehow did you wrong. That’s ridiculous.
And of course the best argument against the need for tower spacing is the fact that buyers like you demonstrated that you’re willing to buy units with just an alley between high-rise towers, let alone between the assorted low-rise and mid-rise buildings around the city.
*** Height
Unlike tower spacing, which remained the same with the new downtown zoning, higher office buildings were allowed. And the developer behind the 13-story building decided to replace it with a 34-story building, which was approved not long after the new zoning rules were in place.
I certainly think some Cosmo buyers had reason to be frustrated about the turn of events here. But given the floor spacing differences between residential/parking garage floors and office floors, I have no reason to believe that you should be among them, especially after I found out what floor you bought on. Comparisons between recent and current office construction near residential/garage towers like Cosmo and Metropolitan Tower suggest that you chose a unit that would have been facing one of the upper floors of the 13-story office building. And that estimate didn’t even take into account the screening off of the rooftop systems that the DPD required for that building.
But while you claim to have been aware of the 13-story office tower when your chose your unit, you ignored it when it comes to the views/privacy issue, just like you ignored it when it came to the tower spacing issue. Instead, once again you point to changes that occurred several months after the pre-sale rather than to what was in plan for your unit and the site across the alley when you chose your unit.
As for the folks on the upper floors who did lose their views, I certainly do think that was unfortunate. But that is a risk when buying a unit that faces undeveloped land. And it was even riskier in this situation as it was well-known that the city was in the middle of a review of its downtown zoning requirements. Although there is no such thing as a risk-free choice, given that the government can change zoning requirements anywhere with little notice, prospective Cosmo residents could have held off their purchases until after the city resolved its new zoning rules, especially for the alley facing units.
In any event, when discussing how views were lost due to the change in height, that needs to be qualified with the fact that plans in place at the time of the pre-sale had at least half the alley facing Cosmo units destined to look out at an office building, so obviously it wasn’t a show stopper for a lot of people.
And given that there is a market for units without views, when you realized that you chose a unit at pre-sale that would be lacking a view, instead of blaming it on a height change that occurred several months later, you perhaps could have decided to sell your unit, as some of your neighbors have done.
From a related thread on another blog:
When I bought the presale unit at Cosmo, we were told that the views to the West were not quaranteed and that potentially there will be twenty-something office to the West. Hence, I thought the presale price actually reflected that, it was at the time much cheaper in comparison to other new constructions.
After the presale, my agent and I monitor the site frequently and found that there will be a 34 stories planned for the west parking lot. Doing a search online and you can find the plans for the building in the king county website.
So after closing, I put the unit up for sale. The unit would have fetch 25k more if the view was protected. But even with that, people who bought units at Cosmo (08 floorplan) still made a good profit if they had sold. Now not everyone would made money because it depends on the floorplan that you got. Some floorplan looked good on paper but not in reality. Others like the 05/06 floorplans, there were 2/floor, so there were more inventory. The studio were 423sf with no parking, that's just very difficult for resale.
All in all, real estate is big investment and you should do due diligent and homework when you buy.
Posted by: nd | Mar 11, 2008 12:31:11 PM
So the 34-story wasn’t a showstopper if your goal was to get some value out of the unit. But I also like nd’s comments because the stress the importance of buyer due diligence in real estate investments, and continuing the diligence between the pre-sale and the actual closing.
I’ll also contrast nd’s attitude with what you said to me some months back:
Urbnlivn – November 18, 2007
looking beyond the cosmo, the 18-month-to-close duration requires that you “keep tabs” of any changes to land use around your new home. in my opinion, this is an unreasonable expectation.
When it’s your money on the line, who better to keep tabs on your investment. And when you choose something that is 18 months to closing, it’s probably all the more important that you do so, since there is a much greater window in which things can go wrong. nd made a profit; you will be sharing breakfast with office workers.
*** City Communication
In your Open Letter, you say that the pre-sale buyers “were never informed of this new development. As a result, we never had the opportunity to participate in the public comment process.” In your 12/3/2006 letter to the mayor, you wrote that “we have been prevented, through lack of information and invitation, from having our voices heard in the design process.”
What utter nonsense. The city has established processes for communicating these things, including signage and the website. It also mails information to owners within 300 feet. You weren’t an actual owner at the time, which you readily acknowledge, which of course means that the city has no record of you as an owner.
As a nearby renter, I’m not an owner either. But information was provided to the broader non-owner community – you even took a picture of the sign after the fact, you acknowledged seeing the information on the web while you were in Europe, and you even reported that you met with the planning folks. Cosmo pre-sale buyers were treated exactly the same way as nearby renters like me and as just about everyone else in the city were treated.
When the city establishes communication procedures, it’s up to citizens to pay attention to those procedures, whether you agree with the procedures or not. People who choose to ignore them are responsible for their own lack of information. You don’t need to be invited to participate in the public comment process; as a citizen, you have a standing invitation. You can even send letters or set up meetings with relevant personnel outside of any scheduled hearings if necessary.
The information was made available to everyone through regular channels, so it was through their choice or indifference that some Cosmo pre-sale buyers ignored that information or did not participate in the public comment process. You and the others weren’t “prevented” from participating, as you overdramatically phrase it. You and the others had the same opportunity that me and my renting neighbors had along with everyone else in Seattle.
(Of course, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to change how this type of information is communicated. As a citizen, that is your right. But that is a different matter, and it doesn’t change what happened in the past.)
*** Developer Communication
You have often pointed out that the developer of Cosmo refused to notify pre-buyers about the changes to the building across the alley (e.g., KIRO report). Although I do think that they should have done so – they’re sitting on a handful of unsold penthouse units now, after all – you routinely leave off the fact that you absolved them from that responsibility when you chose to agree to the terms of the POS when you signed it and put your 5% on the table.
Urbnlivn November 16, 2007
the cosmo developer (continental properties) very clearly absolved themselves from any responsibility to inform buyers of nearby development “even though seller may know of developments” (quote is from POS).
Urbnlivn November 21, 2007
i was comfortable with the POS at the time of signing.
Developers can propose any language they want in a POS. Buyers may object to any language in the POS, and they may propose their own. But developers can’t absolve themselves of anything that the buyer doesn’t agree with. And as a buyer, if you object to language in the contract, you have the ultimate weapon: You could have chosen to buy a condo somewhere else. Your choice to live in Cosmo and your choice to sign an agreement that absolved them from any responsibility to inform buyers of nearby developments were just that – your choice. A choice you admit you were comfortable with when you agreed to those terms.
And even if you weren’t altogether thrilled with that part of the POS, at least it explicitly warned you what the developer was not responsible for. Which of course meant that if you were at all concerned about nearby development, it was your responsibility to keep track of it. And that holds for any Cosmo buyer who signed a contract with those terms.
You signed a contract with the developer. If they proposed having that language in the contract, why wouldn’t you expect them to take that language seriously? Contracts mean what they say. When you sign one, you are committing to its terms.
*** Closing the Sale
The zoning change that permitted the 34-story took place after the pre-sale but before you closed. Given the floor that you bought on, the net effect was that you have the same lack of tower spacing as before, and instead of your likely looking out at one of the upper stories of the 13-story office building you’re destined to look out at one of the lower floors of a 34-story building.
Yet that was that event which made you keenly aware of the fact that you were destined to have a cross-alley view of an office building.
You still had the option to leave. Of course that option had the unfortunate consequence of forfeiting your 5% payment, which I certainly recognize would not have been an easy choice to make. But since you’re pretty much getting about the same view as you chose at the pre-sale (one office building really isn’t that much different to look at than any other one is), I could see your choosing to stick with the choice you made. But again, the fact is that this was still very much your choice whether to close on the unit with the 34-story office view.
You’ve never said anything that suggests that you were in this as a flipper. Had the market stayed solid, you’d likely to see a gain on your investment. After all, whether you agree with me about the 13-story office topping out at the 25th floor of Cosmo or not, even you will recognize that a number of your downstairs neighbors bought with an office view – as do a lot of folks in the low- and mid-rise complexes around town. Surprisingly, there actually is a market for units with limited views.
Or maybe “was a market”, at least until the housing market figures out what it’s going to do. But the current housing market problems have nothing specifically to do with Cosmo per se. I’m guessing that 2008 and part of 2009 will be pretty lousy, but things will recover nicely after that. It’s just a few years to put up with some unfortunate views – not unlike views I had with a couple past residences. And like some of your neighbors, you could always rent out your place if the lack of privacy really gets to you.
But long-term I expect you’ll come out alright with this purchase.
Well, not necessarily. Whereas Mosler Lofts recently closed their blog to keep discussions of sound-transmitting walls, leaky pipes and strangers getting into a supposedly secure garage to themselves, you’ve launched a one-man multimedia communications campaign to make sure everyone far and wide is aware of the unfortunate case of Cosmo and its location in the “butthole” of downtown Seattle. (btw, thanks to your efforts, if you google BUTTHOLE SEATTLE, guess how high Cosmo appears in the results?)
But, once again, how you respond to the consequences of the choices you yourself made is – here it is again! – your choice.
*** Final Thoughts
Time and time again, you’ve made choices. Your choice of units. Your choice to ignore the real impact of the original 13-story on your chosen unit. Your choices at the pre-sale. Choices on whether to monitor your unit during construction. Choices at closing. Choices on how you characterize what happened in your letters to the mayor, the press and blog audiences.
And yet you routinely attempt to pass responsibility for the consequences of your choices on to the developer, the zoning department, city hall.
That doesn’t change the fact that these were all your choices, and yours alone. And all the blaming you try to do isn’t going to change the consequences of the choices you made. My city doesn’t owe you an “equitable solution” just because you don’t like the consequences of the choices that you made.
Anyway, that’s it. I’m through here, since I’m not really interested in discussing clandestine plots between Mayor Nickels and the developers, explaining once again that I have no ties to any developers, or what ever other tangents you keep going off on.
mark w-
i don't/didn't have a problem with the 13-story building. its design permit was approved about the same time as the cosmo pre-sales.
you make a lot of claims about the circumstances under which i made a condo purchase decision. i have two short replies.
1) read the washington condominium act. we, this city, this state, and this country for that matter, have laws that regulate commerce for the protection of buyers and sellers, as well as for the perpetuation of the system.
2) it seems you have a problem with my purchase decision. i don't.
ok, i have a third response.
3) if this blog or our open letter to the mayor 'rub you the wrong way,' dont read them.
ps- thanks for the google tip. it's actually number 1!
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