Those of you that actually live in Seattle proper may be interested to read Councilmember Sally Clark’s guest editorial in today’s Seattle Times: Town homes: We can do better
While some new town homes blend into the neighborhood or, even better, stand out as well-designed additions, others are reviled by the neighbors for mediocrity, canyon-creating fences, asphalt wastelands and impossible-to-navigate garage entries. The fault lies not just with imagination, but also with Seattle’s development rules. We can do better.
…
When I talk to the developers who build town homes, they, like the unhappy neighborhoods, also have common themes: They do what the land-use code makes them do; they don’t have buckets of money to try different designs; and when they find a design that meets the requirements spelled out in Seattle land-use code, they use it — over and over again.Clearly, Seattle needs to use its land-use code to encourage great town-house design.
She is inviting interested residents to join her in a “community event” to help the city get input from “developers, neighborhoods activists, architects and planners” about how to improve on the currently atrocious aesthetics of the townhomes that are popping up all over Seattle like a bad case of acne.
It’s good to know that people in local government are interested in doing better, because I don’t think anyone wants townhome development to keep proceeding the way it has the last few years.
(Sally Clark, Seattle Times, 06.04.2008)
vboring » Jun 4, 2008 at 10:22 am
it seems likely that this problem will self-resolve as it become less profitable to build and sell rubbish. the idea being that speculative fervor helped sell anything, even crap. with the speculators gone, people will only buy places they actually want to live in.
a change of regs to rationalize the parking requirements would be nice, though. it’d be tough to get a mini into a lot of these garages.
TJ_98370 » Jun 4, 2008 at 11:03 am
Totally off topic –
Ed McMahon May Lose Beverly Hills Home
Ed McMahon, the longtime sidekick to television star Johnny Carson, faces the possible loss of his Beverly Hills home to a foreclosure action initiated by a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp……
Denny Retrograde » Jun 4, 2008 at 11:09 am
Does anybody else notice our electeds are making hay about things like this only now that developers are poorer? When builders were flush with campaign contributions they got free rein, no?
rose-colored-coolaid » Jun 4, 2008 at 11:19 am
So uh, that might reduce the hideousness of Seattle townhomes, but what about every place else? It seems like the densest developments are the worst, and that a small majority of all developments are made ugly and cheap.
So…uh, can we get this solution to the rest of the cities?
Agree with sniglet about parking. Since when was it reasonable to provide exactly one parking space for each home? Even in the 1940s when families tended to have one car (and one working spouse), it was reasonable to expect company occasionally. Some people are hardly worth visiting anymore since you’ll have to park 2 miles away and take the bus just to get parking.
AndySeattle » Jun 4, 2008 at 11:20 am
Fundamentally I like the idea of a townhome… But the execution of most has really turned me away.
Why can’t there be some nice rowhouses or brownstones that actually build or augment a community here in Seattle?
Olaf » Jun 4, 2008 at 11:41 am
Amen. When I’m showing Seattle to out of town visitors, those places are just embarrassing. The quality is obviously cheap cheap cheap, and the architecture is … doesn’t even qualify as architecture.
Urban density is great. But let’s have a brain about it. Look at Vancouver, look at Berlin — look at the First World, people. Seattle can do better.
Sorin » Jun 4, 2008 at 11:49 am
I agree completely that the majority of townhouses are utter crap. Not only are they built cheaply, they look identical to each other, you can’t hope to maneuver a car bigger than a Smart into the garage, and they have 6 foot high fences up against the sidewalk, just to add insult to injury. Builders threw them up as quickly as possible, and made great money doing so. Unfortunately, the turn in the market probably doesn’t mean they’re going to start building better quality places. Some of what I’ve seen in the past few months has been even crappier.
I would love to see well considered row houses and brownstones. Even more modern designs like PB Elemental builds (some of it anyway) are additive to the neighborhoods rather than the cookie cutters that are destructive to the community and neighborhood character.
Silver9 » Jun 4, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Good grief, why pick on townhomes? Most of Seattle-proper’s housing looks like crap.
Cheap foundations, cheap construction, wood homes that dont age well in this moss-infested climate. Tiny tiny bonzai lots, little or no accomodation for parking or visitors, tight narrow streets that barely fit a single car with cars parked on both sides. Streets that are also dangerous because of the lack of visibility and abundance of speeding drivers.
Instead of multi-unit row houses with large back yards like SF, you have tiny houses with barely useable space in between them which is often blocked by overgrown trees anyway and tiny backyards. I wont even get started on those alleyways.
A dense city with good transportation infrastructure to everywhere, strict zoning and large parks outside the boundary would be great. But it is not Seattle. And given our culture of civic incompetence, it never will be. Sadly.
David McManus » Jun 4, 2008 at 12:22 pm
“Good grief, why pick on townhomes? Most of Seattle-proper’s housing looks like crap.”
Amen. Dumps all around.
deejayoh » Jun 4, 2008 at 12:53 pm
egad – what part of SF did you live in? I lived there 8 years and never saw those big back yards… except the areas shared by 3 families in stacked flats and typically home to a block full of feral cats. Typical SFH lot in seattle is 4000 sqft. I’d guess thats the typical lot size for a double flat in SF.
I honestly don’t get these “seattle sucks” bitterness posts. So you don’t like it? don’t live there. easy enough.
singliac » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:11 pm
SF does have big backyards. Haven’t you ever seen the show Full House? Haha.
vboring » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:15 pm
yeah, aside from Ballard, which is a dumb riddled with vagrants, i like most of the inner neighborhoods.
smaller wooden houses on straight streets that are congested with enough parked cars to push traffic elsewhere seem nice enough to me. and they always have sidewalks. you are forced to look at your neighbors and therefore to get to know them. some amount of community is nearly unavoidable.
unlike the ‘burbs, where a lack of sidewalks, nothing to walk to anyway, and circuitous neighborhood layout help people talk to each other less.
i wonder what the social impact of townhouse farms are.
rose-colored-coolaid » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:20 pm
That’s a common sentiment, but I don’t think it’s the right one. There are problems almost everywhere. The “if you don’t like it, then leave” solution is neither a real solution, nor is it practical advice.
What I find works better is if everybody keeps their eyes out for better solutions. When we find one, then share it until enough people come around to the idea that it actually gets implemented. Saying “Seattle sucks” doesn’t get you anywhere. But saying “Seattle sucks because it doesn’t have ____” and then filling in the blank does have some value.
E.g. Seattle sucks because dense housing is designed to be neither particularly dense, now does it provide much “green” space. A better solution would be denser condos/townhouses with regulations encouraging/enforcing appropriate green space and parking. Given the choice of ten 2000 sq ft townhouses on 3000 sq ft lots, or ten in the form of brick row houses with a 10,000 sq ft shared yard, I’d pick the later.
vboring » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:21 pm
sorry, Ballard is a dump. not a dumb.
xaos » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:23 pm
These have spread like a blight across Seattle. The all look pretty much EXACTLY the same. I often wonder if the developers are passing around the same plans.
But of course, the houses in Seattle are really no better. One of the worst architecturally inspired places I have lived.
singliac » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I agree with VBoring @ 1. I don’t think more regulation is the answer.
NotaBull » Jun 4, 2008 at 1:26 pm
“I honestly don’t get these “seattle sucks” bitterness posts. So you don’t like it? don’t live there. easy enough.”
All the new houses are crap – they’re all McMansions.
All the new ugly townhouses are crap – they’re built cheaply.
All the old houses are crap – they were built too close together and are rotting away.
All the houses with space around them in the burbs are crap – there’s nothing to walk to.
All condos are crap – they’re built badly and all you ever hear is your neighbors humping.
Ballard is crap.
Belltown is crap.
Seattle is crap.
Everywhere *but* Seattle is crap.
Fair summary?
explorer » Jun 4, 2008 at 2:08 pm
As long as they don’t replace them with courtyard-style, there are other options. Like row houses, or even brownstone-style like Chicago.
I watched many townhouses go up around Ballard in the last 2-3 years, and very few of them will be habitable in 5 years. No real code inspections, unskilled and semi-skilled labor, uncovered and exposed to the rain, no attempt to dry them out before finishing them, particle board walls….the definition of shoddy. I bet they have Granite and Stainless Steel inside, though!
The opportunity has pretty much passed to improve things, at least in the North End. The damage has been done. Perhaps if they did not “round up” the number of units permitted on a lot, they might have turned out better. The justification of them being relatively “affordable” is the ONLY thing really going for them. That will also disappear when they become “unaffordable” to maintain, some go into underwater mortgages, and they start getting condemmed and/or torn down in 3 –5 years.
Meanwhile those developers got their nut, and they ain’t sharing. I would not be surprised if these townhomes tanked harder than condos eventually.
BTW, RCC, the parking restrictions in the code were mandated by Hizzoner Nipples. This is deliberate social engineering, and they are upfront about that. Also, building to the curb was actually ENCOURAGED by the same brillant mayoral office staff and DPD. Except this is cart before horse. None of those overpaid brainiacs considered that you need much better mass transit BEFORE you intentionally restrict parking by design.
softwarengineer » Jun 4, 2008 at 2:17 pm
EXPLORER: ITS EASY, JUST WAIT FOR THE HORRIFYING PRICE COLLAPSE
Then we won’t need jobs or cars, we can all become vagrants and simply break in and take ‘em over, before they’re bull-dozed down to create empty parklands again.
uptown » Jun 4, 2008 at 3:31 pm
…very few of them will be habitable in 5 years.”
At least they will be cheap and easy to tear down.
“egad – what part of SF did you live in? I lived there 8 years and never saw those big back yards…”
Many of the single family homes on the west side of SF had narrow but deep lots, giving you a nice secluded garden in the back. Since the houses were built side to side, it not’s obvious from the street. You do end up with the garage at street level though. Here is an example of a wider lot with a 2 car garage, you’re more likely to see lots only wide enough for 1 car.
Civil Servant » Jun 4, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I remember reading somewhere that underground parking for townhouse complexes would generally increase the per-unit price by $25K. In municipalities where such complexes have been built, though, buyers are not willing to pay the premium, so developers eventually have to lower their prices to remain competitive with those that have street-level parking — hence lose money. Especially here, where so many of the townhouses that I’d call abominations have prices similar to or even higher than SFH options in the same neighborhood, it seems like buyers — unlike me, and you, Sally Clark, and non-townhouse-dwellers in the same neighborhood — don’t really object to the current architectural program. On the one hand, the libertarian in me is leery of cramming something unwanted down these people’s gullets. On the other hand, "golly" our townhouses are ugly.
In any case, I will be going to the Saturday event, am happy to volunteer for Seattle Bubble reportorial duty.
george » Jun 4, 2008 at 7:51 pm
It’s not a choice between more regulation and less regulation. It’s a choice between good regulation and idiotic regulation.
For anyone who thinks government regulation is always the issue no matter what the topic is, there are lots of places where you can move your business and build as many ugly, overpriced townhouses as you want. Like Iraq. I hear it’s got more sun than Seattle too!
mike2 » Jun 4, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Seattle needs thousands of poorly built cookie cutter townhomes in bad areas or on busy roads to ensure an adequate supply of low income housing 10 years from now.
Pondscum » Jun 5, 2008 at 11:56 am
I took my dog for a walk around the neighborhood this morning. Greenwood has been complete destroyed by block after block of crappy townhomes. I rent a SFH there that was built in 1920.
So while Mink and I strolled I was trying hard to imagine what Fremont Ave between 90th and 95th will look like in 2096. I have a hard time believing that any of that "chocolate"e will be there then.
Follow-Up: Ugly Townhome Forum | Seattle Bubble — News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area. » Jun 9, 2008 at 9:49 am
[...] is just a quick follow-up to Wednesday’s Ugly Townhomes post. I wasn’t able to go to the Seattle City Councilmember Sally Clark’s townhome forum on [...]