by Bernard Regier
Ever since the Seattle Commons concept was introduced several years ago, Mayor Norm Rice and the park planning committee have been holding the idea of the Commons in front of park-starved downtown residents like so many school-yard drug pushers. Perhaps as early as the September primary, these residents, along with the rest of Seattle, will have to decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in tax dollars and public amenities to get their fix. The history of the campaign for the Commons park reads like a cheap novel. In 1990, Seattle Times columnist John Hinterberger voiced the need for more public green space in the downtown area. Preaching to the converted, he suggested that the city buy 40 square blocks of land in South Lake Union and convert it to a wide-open tree-lined promenade. Before you could say "greased palms," architects, planners, lawyers, developers, and transportation and housing experts organized a special committee to create Draft I of the Seattle Commons Proposal. The plan incorporated the conversion of the current warehouse and light-industrial district into a large park, surrounded by a "revitalized" residential district.
Yet, in accordance to the Mayor's urban renewal strategies and in the interest of prominent developers on the Commons Board of Directors, the plan was written and rewritten to include the redevelopment of the entire South Lake Union area. By 1994, the planning area had ballooned from 192 acres to 562 acres. Not surprisingly, the cost had also grown exponentially-from $250 million to $380 million.
Skepticism about the Commons is growing as well, not only with taxpayers burdened with this price tag but also with affordable housing advocates, who are justly concerned about the destruction of Seattle's last low-income neighborhood adjacent to downtown. Other citizens who would be adversely affected by the Commons plan include local artists and musicians, who stand to lose many venues located in the district, and other organizations who would likely be squeezed off the ballot by the Commons bond this fall.
The Committee has been scrambling to move the final vote up to the September primary. "Our supporters don't see any reason to wait," says Dan Dreis, planning director for the Commons. "The sooner we get on the ballot, the happier we'll be." More than likely, it is the fear of the premature collapse of the huge Commons PR machine which is the real source of their impatience.
The Incredible Shrinking Park
The Commons "Comprehensive Plan" was first offered by the planning committee in 1992. It outlined a "mixed-used community centered around an 85-acre park." In 1993, the second draft proposed a slightly reduced 74-acre park. The draft plans and various alternative plans that have followed detail an even greater reduction in public greenspace. The withering away of the park has been quite steady. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of November, 1994 had it at 67 acres (Alternative 3 of the DEIS showed a park as small as 38 acres). In the Mayor's Public Review Draft of December 1994 it was 61 acres.
Some would argue that any park that comes along with the Commons plan, no matter how minuscule, is an improvement over the existing land-use pattern in South Lake Union-that it's better than no park at all. And it is true that the current amount of existing greenspace in the area is eight acres per resident, far below the per-capita average amount in other cities. Yet, because of the influx of new residents, the Commons Plan will not actually improve this situation at all; the Mayor's Public Review Draft admits that "...even if the Commons Park is constructed and if the planning estimates are achieved in the next 20 years, the ratio of open space in the greater downtown will decrease slightly from 1.9 to 1.8 acres per 1,000 residents."
Although the final Commons plan will probably yield far less in public greenspace than was earlier proposed, the public funding for the new neighborhood will likely skyrocket. This tab will be paid for with a combination of city, county, state, and federal funds. To the list, Rice has hastened to add private donations as a "major component of the financing of this plan." However, not much has been disclosed about the actual amount of donations being received. According to an article in the Seattle Times from last September, only $3.3 million in donations has been collected by the Park Committee-far below the actual price tag. Even if you add to this the $20 million loan from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (which has to be paid back), you are still well below the most conservative cost estimates for the plan as a whole.
Another way the Mayor suggests to finance this plan is through Local Improvement Districts: The idea that property owners would agree to tax themselves to help share the costs of public improvements. As ineffective and unenforceable as this may seem already, the Mayor's plan adds a qualifier: "However, because an important goal of this Plan is to promote redevelopment in the South Lake Union planning area, the City must be careful not to create disincentives to that redevelopment by making development costs too high."
Perhaps this moneyed-interest butt-kissing is due to the fact that the city and the Committee, while denying that the plan is basically the public creation of a neighborhood for the wealthy, base their entire funding strategy on public "investment." "I think it won't be an upper-income neighborhood," Dreis responds. "I think it will be a nice neighborhood with a wide variety of uses and a diversity of folks who live and work here." Yet, in a stroke of genius, the planners have assumed that, through the inevitable increase in property taxes, the more glamorous and desirable they can make this area for developers, the more likely they are to get matching funds from the rest of us.
Affordable Housing by the Wayside
Subject to change according to inflation, the draft plans base individual income levels on the average 1990 King County household. The 10 percent of housing which was to be allocated in the original plan for the 50 percent or less of the median income bracket would be for individuals making up to $18,090 per year. According to this data, these individuals are able to pay $440 per month in rent or house payments. For many, this figure is questionable enough, yet when one refers to the actual cost estimates listed in the most recent draft-the Mayor's Subarea Plan-this bracket is not acknowledged whatsoever. Instead the plan only promises to preserve 600 units (as well as create 1,700 new units) for households earning up to 80 percent of median income, in effect, individuals able to pay $709 per month for housing. This new "low- income" figure excludes most of the residents of the Cascade and Denny Regrade neighborhoods. For what it's worth, the plan requires that at least another 10 percent of new units be affordable to incomes below 150 percent of the median-or salaries up to $55,000 per year. As for the 70 to 80 percent left over, the plan states that "the rest of the housing would be affordable to people of various middle- and upper-income levels."
Although many of the current residents of the planning area will be forced to vacate, neither the Mayor's Plan, the DEIS, the Draft II proposal, nor any other Commons draft proposal allocates any money to these individuals and families for relocation expenses. Conversely, businesses that are affected in the same way are eligible for financial assistance. As the plan states, "The City is committed to assisting displaced businesses to receive the maximum amount of financial assistance allowed by law." This includes not only moving expenses, but up to $10,000 per business in re- establishment expenses.
The Committee Versus The Arts
Of the 52 members of the Committee responsible for ensuring the momentum of the idea, some are very powerful politically, including such figures as former Governor Dan Evans. Others may directly benefit from the Commons construction, such as Seattle's largest developer, Martin Selig, who already owns sites that are perched along the perimeter of the proposed area. These people stand to make a tidy profit on the Commons investment.
On the other end of the spectrum are those citizens who find themselves increasingly disenfranchised by this proposal. Second only to the low-income area residents, the arts community stands to lose many resources to the Commons plan. Along with a handful of art galleries and studios, the Committee plans to demolish at least four major Seattle music venues. According to the Draft II area map, The Off Ramp, RCKCNDY, Rebar, and the Lake Union Pub are all scheduled for redevelopment. Because of this plan and the subsequent rezoning laws, the Seattle music industry could suffer a very serious blow.
The apparent controversy surrounding this proposal is slowly becoming more public. But this is in no way attributable to the coverage provided by the "establishment" local media. On the contrary, almost everything reported on the Commons has been overwhelmingly supportive. Perhaps the reason for this media wash is the location of the major outlets. KTZZ-TV, KOMO-TV and radio, KMPS radio, and KISW radio are all located within the Commons boundaries. Most of these are projected to be spared the wrecking ball, and will find their property values quadrupled in this new neighborhood. Others will at least be eligible for relocation subsidies. The other outlets-KING-TV, KIRO- TV, and KTCS-TV- are located one to three blocks from the lucrative Commons area.
But the most ingratiating of all the media has to be the Seattle Times. In one survey, of the 70 articles written that directly concern the proposal as of December 1994, 61 were blatantly pro-Commons. Obviously, with prominent Times writers like John Hinterberger on the Board of Directors and a lucrative land swap with the Committee already sealed (their new printing plant will border on the park) it is in the Times' best interest to continue providing glowing public relations for the Commons.
On April 30th, the Planning Department, the Mayor, and the Commons Committee will publicly release the final plan, to be voted on next fall. Facing the incredible task of refuting the primrose path presented by its supporters, it will take the continuing efforts of non-beneficiaries like Seattle's local community and neighborhood groups and affordable housing advocates to bring a genuine discussion of the true impacts of this plan.
No one can deny the need for more open space in the downtown area, but is this need being used as a front for legitimizing back scratching policies between developers, land- owners, and city officials? As Mayor Norm Rice said about the project's organizers, "(f)rom the initial vision ... they've lifted their goals to include a vibrant, diverse and cohesive neighborhood." But have they "lifted their goals" to incorporate the attitude of Seattleites who do not find it necessary to sacrifice the last of the low- to middle-income districts in downtown, and add an enormous tax burden? Rice has also said that he believes, "It is no longer a question of if we will create the Seattle Commons, it is now a question of when and how we will create the Seattle Commons."
Interestingly enough, nearly six months before the proposal will be on the ballot, the Committee has already purchased a handful of buildings in this area-the destruction of which are forthcoming. These irresponsible methods on the part of city officials ignore and bypass the approval of the very citizens who will ultimately fund this project. In light of this, Seattle residents should demand to know whether this proposal is for the "common" good, or if they are funding not just a park, but a Park Ave.
Bernard Regier is co-host of Deface the Nation, a television show of political commentary and satire that airs weekly on community access cable. He is also completing a documentary on the Seattle Commons.
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Contents on this page were published in the April/May, 1995 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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Copyright © 1995 WFP Collective, Inc.