Agreed. In hindsight I hated seeing my projects being tied down too. We, the owner of the development company and/or I, went door to door talking with neighbors about our projects and listening to their concerns. I would suggest more direct one-on-one contact with people. It makes them feel a little more important, gives them a chance to understand better what the project is about, gives them time to ask their questions and keeps them from being influenced by mob mentality.

I’m excited to see the future of Columbia City and it’s neighborhood plan. We have a lot of good people doing good development down there. I just don’t want Seattle to be anchored by Ballard North and Ballard South.

P.s. I’m saying “hi wes” to all the bikers I see without a helmet. Maybe we’ll meet sometime!

I agree about “Neighborhood Activist,” they usually have an agenda nor have they usually lived long in a neighborhood. But in my reference I’m not talking about neighborhood activist. I’m talking about the people who live in the neighborhood. I’m sorry that isn’t clear to you.

I’m not deferring to “experts,” but neighborhood activists themselves are not always right. As for sociological change-too bad. Neighborhoods do change. They are not frozen in time.

Sure, I would like to see Columbia City stay the same. I would like for all the people who can afford to live there be able to stay there. I would like to know my neighbors are watching out for me just as I watch out for them. I’d like to share dinner in the front yard with them and say hi to everyone I know. I like the diversity make up that is unlike anywhere else in this city. So, excuse me for being concerned, when a developer says they are forgoing the opportunity to provide low cost housing for the one part of our city’s population that needs it. My concern has brought to my attention that some people don’t care about what has made a place strong and would rather exploit rather than extend a helping hand.

I hate to say the cliche, but I have to ask to agree to disagree on the point of the knowledge people have of their own neighborhood. By denying that knowledge you play into the hands of shortsighted developers and foolish city planners. Day to day people are living and understanding their neighborhoods. They are the organism that makes it work and sustainable. They are the ones who ultimately care for and use their neighborhoods every day. I’m sorry that you all can’t see that people love their neighborhoods and yes they might just want them to stay the way they are. What you are missing from not talking with them is understanding what their real fears of the future are. It may not be that there’s a big building across the street but that the people across the street (in the new big building) won’t care for the street life. They won’t say hi or support the existing businesses that the “locals” helped to keep going through the tough times.

If I have to put is simply, people fear lack of respect when they’ve put their life into something and someone comes along to change it. Of course they will resist. The mistake most make is thinking People fear change. Change is inevitable. We all know that. People fear loss; loss of what they have poured their life into, what they’ve made out of years of hard work. Don’t assume resistance to growth is out of fear of change. That is being short sighted. That is seeing the symptom and thinking it is the illness.

Brian,
so it sounds like what people in Fort Wayne were resistant to was not the physical change to their neighborhood but the sociological change. That’s a huge difference. Maybe the developer of that park saw through their resistance to the acutal park and knew that for the neighborhood it would build bridges? You live through this change is that what you think they saw?

I’m getting the impression from some of these posts there is a lack of faith in what people actually know and a total reliance on so called experts. In my experience of working with neighborhood groups most people get lost in the jargon that we all comfortably use. They become confused with acronyms and tend to feel talked down to because they “don’t get it”. I’ve heard people say it’s like hearing another language and there is no translation. I’ve seen groups completely bail out on a project that would have been a benefit for them because of the style and wording of a presentation. The presenter even said he did not care how he was saying something but that it would be understood because it was said. There is also little time spent actually addressing the real concerns and resistance. Because time is short and issues are large real concerns get reduced down to simplified ideas.

I apologize for jumping from one topic to the next. There’s so much ground to cover. The topic has gotten a long way from Roger’s article. Sorry Roger I did not mean to pull it this far away.

What does this statement even mean? There is no such thing as “the neighborhood” with specific “wants and desires.” A “neighborhood” is a mix of people with varied interests, connections, histories, and personalities. Many have little interest in the arcana of zoning regulations, little understanding of development economics or population realities. Many don’t even fully understand what said neighborhoods “need.” Heck, there was a neighborhood in my home town that was adamantly opposed to a new park that provided what turned out to be heavily used basketball courts. Why? Because said courts might attract “them” from across the river. (Fort Wayne was a VERY segregated town). So…should we always listen to the NIMBYs’ definition of what the “neighbrohood wants and desires”?

Some individuals, especially in “progressive” cities like Seattle or the Bay Area (where I live) are especially prone to a particular disease of self righteoussness. “What I want and desire is not only correct, it is morally correct and anyone opposing me is the enemy and immoral.” It becomes WAR. People like this are great at appointing themselves leaders of “the neighborhood.” Their view of morality transcends realities of economics, population growth, the need for change, the need for a return on investment. Generally, they themselves risk nothing, lose nothing, if they serve as obstructionists just for the sake of stopping all change. Note that I am not saying developers are always correct or that neighborhood movements cannot be spontaenously generated and reflect real issues and concerns.

“You cannot mandate that a developer think about the neighborhood.

You can only hope they do. Nothing more.

Delaying a project approval to force an unwilling developer to think about the neighborhood raises the project cost, increases housing prices, creates bad will, and makes people resent the gummint even more than they do now.”

Amen, that is what I’ve been trying to get at. The developer is not responsible to individuals in a neighborhood. Developer’s can be pointed in the correct direction, but the main thing they are going to think about is their money, or bank’s rather. Even the good ones like Liz Dunn (I think that is her name) on Cap Hill. If your neighborhood doesn’t like the product they are producing, again, either your neighborhood failed in the original planning process or the Planning Department is failing your neighborhood. You shouldn’t expect the developer to concern themselves with such.

I am concerned, however, that underneath all of what Spencer has said, is a desire to keep CC exactly the way it is, or was. Such is not possible (again the growth comment), especially with a light rail stop landing in late 2009. Zoning and development should already reflect this very near future of the neighborhood. Forgive me if I am wrong Spencer, but out of all your posts, I can only gather that the reason this project is an issue is because it will be 65 feet high (only 20 feet higher than surrounding buildings…which doesn’t sound like too much to me) and feature 400 units.