Scary Scary Cottages


[ Pine Street cottages, at the corner of Pine and 22nd in the Central District. ]

Can there possibly be a building type more cuddly and unthreatening than a cottage? Aye, but the density NIMBY’s of single-family Seattle are sensitive bunch, and the thought of cottages in their neighborhoods sends them into convulsions of fear.

Galvanized by the 1991 award-winning renovation of the Pine Street Cottages (shown above), the City of Seattle crafted a cottage housing ordinance in the mid-1990s. But neighborhood groups vehemently opposed allowing any such scary scary cottages into their precious single-family zones, and as a result the ordinance was only adopted for multi-family zones.

And what makes that even more pitifully embarrassing is that just across the lake in wealthy suburban Kirkland, code (pdf) allows cottage developments in all single-family zones. Did you catch that Seattle? Prim and proper Kirkland is more progressive than you are when it comes to density in single-family zones. As are several other small cities in the region, including Redmond, Marysville, Langley, and Port Townsend. (Shoreline tried, but backlash ensued.)

[ Danielson Grove cottages in Kirkland ]

The implementation of the Kirkland cottage housing ordinance was greatly facilitated by a demonstration project known as Danielson Grove (photo above), designed by Russ Chapin Architects. This project was so well done that pretty much everybody who sees it loves it: The burden of the density advocates in action.

A decade or so ago the City of Seattle permitted two cottage housing demonstration projects in single-family zones, Ravenna Cottages and Jefferson Cottages. Other cottage projects have been built, but are located in multifamily zones — Boulders and Ashworth Cottages for example.

The photos below show a brand new cottage development that I stumbled across the other day: Mount Baker Cottages. I don’t know how this thing got permitted — it’s located in a single-family zone. There are six very tightly spaced cottages tucked into the back portion of a single-family lot.

So OK then, even though Seattle has several attractive and well-liked examples of cottage development, unfortunately it seems they are not enough like baby bunnies to ease the distress of a city gripped by the terror of the scary scary cottages.


[ Mount Baker Cottages ]