Yesler Terrace is a big chunk of underused urban land. It is directly adjacent to the thriving core of Seattle, consistently one of the top U.S. real estate markets.
It is one of those rare opportunities to counteract the forces of sprawl gobbling up the countryside as our region attracts people while failing to provide adequate supply of housing within existing neighborhoods.
But because it is such a hot property, redeveloping this neighborhood can be done without any drain on public money. That's right, we can build more homes for people of low income, at modern building standards, for free. By selling off some of the land to private-sector developers, the public-sector Seattle Housing Authority will earn enough to pay for better than a 100 percent replacement of housing units. And they will be considerably upgraded, new construction housing units compared to the existing 1940s era buildings so valiantly maintained despite heavy usage.
This is good news not only to the increased numbers of low income people who can get a better place to live in public housing, but to our region as a whole since we want to increase supply and upgrade urban areas to attract people where the jobs are, not just to those easier-to-build new housing subdivisions an hour's commute away.
There's a new wrinkle in the Lesser Seattle tapestry of obstructionism, though, and it is just too good to leave alone:
Another issue is the massive gentrification that comes with a redevelopment like this. The new Yesler Terrace development will, according to the plan, have more subsidized units than it does today. However, if property values increase dramatically due to all the new high-rise projects, the number of affordable (but not SHA or subsidized) housing options in the nearby area could dry up.
--Central District News: Council Committee passes Yesler Terrace redevelopment plans
As with any change, there will always be naysayers. But this is just laughable: a few hundred units of run down public housing spread out to cover a large area in the center of one of the nation's most successful economies should be preserved because the blight they spread throughout neighboring communities keeps housing prices down.
Is it just me, or are people sentimentalizing Seattle as it was in the decades following the 1970s Boeing Bust?
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