Sitting down to supper, looking at it and at his new wife, folding his hands and beginning to say Grace - "Lord, I seem to have blessed a good deal of this material before..."

As far as I can see, this reprises what Olympia 2012 has been saying all along; it won't be any surprise to anybody that I'm not persuaded by it. But, in brief:

Density - Triway's project would put 141 households, somewhat less than 280 people, on two blocks; the company's land is half the original rezone request. Whether or not we manage to fit 500 people onto the isthmus or they have to live somewhere else is pretty much irrelevant to how much room there is for housing downtown. If Peter's right that the "total downtown area" is 630 acres, the full original rezone request involved seven-tenths of one percent of "downtown." (And if worst came to worst, we could expand the current arbitrary definition of "downtown" by adding four blocks on the edge...)

Transportation - The city's own traffic planning calculations say that putting 141 units of multi-family housing downtown instead of in the suburbs would result in a grand total of about 20 fewer trips an hour during peak afternoon traffic.

Edges - If Triway's complex provides an "edge" to the park, it's a edge across a street from the park. On that basis, Bayview, the Oyster House, whatever eventually got built on the parking lots between them, the Waterstreet cafe, etc... would be just as much an "edge" to an expanded park as Triway's complex would be for the current park. (In fact, what I'd like to see is the city buildings in the Traditions strip with their backs opened up into the fountain block, the Image Source building kept and converted into restaurant, etc...

Safety - The empty buildings sitting there have a lot less graffiti than buildings in the heart of downtown; they haven't even had any broken windows. If there is a "safety" issue in the park, I really don't see how having people in condos between three and seven stories up looking out into its dark and shadowy expanses would help, or that adding two thoroughly lit blocks between the busiest streets downtown would add to that problem.

Park Planning - There are lots of places the city can put another baseball field or a dog park; there isn't only one possible parcel for an acquisition like that. There's lots of time for developing other park land that the city already owns; it won't hurt the West Bay waterfront that the city's going to develop as park to sit as it is for a while. There's only one view like this one in the city, and giving it to Triway will mean there's no way to ever get it back.

(Of course, if it were legally possible for the voters to make a land use decision by initiative, the language of this one would have been quite different, and I don't think anyone can realistically say that the Council wouldn't have been presented with 4,000 valid signatures fixing the zoning on the isthmus at its current level, or something considerably more sweeping than that. I certainly have no doubt about what the results of a city-wide vote on that issue would look like.)

As far as the language of this initiative goes, they could look at the study's results and say, if they chose to - "It's clearly not feasible to build the park that the initiative envisions all at once, but given the people's manifest desire for such a park, we'll take what steps it is feasible to take at this point toward that long term goal." (Of course, the most obvious feasible steps are to not rezone the area, which doesn't involve any immediate expenses, or to postpone this decision for a year; I suppose the next most feasible step would be to try to raise the money to buy Triway's two parcels and hold them.)

The initiative also doesn't say that the Council would have to decide to build exactly the park the feasibility study envisions if it did decide to work toward a park. It's perfectly possible for them to complete the study, look at it, and say "Unfortunately, the study convinces us that it's not feasible to build a park exactly like the one the initiative asked to have analyzed. However, given the people's desire for a park, we'll do our best to create some version of what they want that is feasible, by modifying this proposal. (For example, they might keep the strip of buildings on the fountain block, and make it possible for people leasing them from the city to open their backs up onto the current fountain park and put cafe tables out there, which I'd like. They might buy Triway's parcels, but keep one of the buildings for a while and use it for the city or for a park restaurant. Etc...)."

Peter and the other five or six people on the Olympia 2012 Steering Committee don't think more park is desirable; they want five and seven stories of luxury condos there instead - and Peter's repeated their reasons for wanting that. They aren't shared by the 4,000 voters who signed the initiative. "Not desireable" or "not palatable" doesn't mean "not feasible."

As always,
Thad

I haven't taken the time to read this whole statement yet, but thanks for sharing your ideas, Peter. However I disagree with your basic assertion. A park is feasible, because a park is a necessity. The people of Olympia not only want, but need a real functional park, an open space - in the downtown corridor. The Isthmus is the perfect location for just such a space.

Of course, the most obvious feasible steps are to not rezone the area, which doesn't involve any immediate expenses, or to postpone this decision for a year; I suppose the next most feasible step would be to try to raise the money to buy Triway's two parcels and hold them.

Raise money?  You assume they are for sale.

Doug Mah, Jeff Kingsbury, Rhenda Strub, Craig Ottavelli and Joan Machlis apparently intend to simply ignore the initiative and go ahead and vote to rezone in December, before they've even looked at the results of the park study. The new zoning they're now contemplating would allow Triway to build 171,000 more square feet of high-rise housing with prime views on its property, in addition to 90% of the commercial space it can now, increasing the value of its land very significantly. It would be an "upzone" in the planning/zoning sense, changing the rules to allow "greater intensity of use."

We also think this rezone would violate the Shorelines Management Act, just like the Sato Corporation's attempt to put a seventy foot building on the Bayview property, which was thrown out by the Shorelines Hearings Board a while ago. (That building only covered 17% of the lot, left half the frontage of Bayview's property on 4th Ave open to north/south views, and significantly improved public access to the water by creating a 15,000 square foot public recreation area and boardwalk by the water instead of parking lot.) Nonetheless, the Board said:

"The aesthetic impact of the proposed six story building on the narrow isthmus between downtown and west Olympia simply cannot be avoided by changing the exterior appearance from glass to, say, olive drab. The shoreline view would still be impaired. See Finding of Fact XIII. A more appropriate structure would be lower in height, but that is not what is being proposed. We must therefore conclude that the proposed substantial development is inconsistent with the foregoing portion of RCW 90.58.020. The cumulative effect of allowing this and similar proposals on the isthmus would irreversibly damage the aesthetic views remaining. (3)"

"(3)There appears some need for the city to further refine its land use regulations on the isthmus to address height limitations from an aesthetic perspective."

The city's lawyer says he doesn't think this decision applies because it was about a particular project, not about changing the broader city rules that govern particular project decisions. I'm not a lawyer, but this project was well under the city's height rules at that time, and this passage certainly seems to me to say that the rules allowing that height were themselves in violation of the Shorelines Management Acts' standards, not just that the project didn't meet the rules...

Best,
Thad

First, condominiums are being built in downtown Olympia right now, on the corner of Capitol Way and Union Avenue.  This demonstrates that, while the rezone may provide an additional site for housing, the rezone is not necessary in order to get housing built in downtown.

Second, nobody is protesting those condominiums on Capitol and Union, much less collecting petitions against them.  This demonstrates that opponents of the rezone (with perhaps extremely rare exceptions) are concerned about the location, and are not opposed to housing elsewhere in downtown.

Those are facts, not opinions.

Now, will a supporter please provide an argument in favor of the rezone that acknowledges those facts?

In others words, given that housing can be built -- and is being built -- elsewhere in downtown, why is rezoning the isthmus so important that it is worth defying the wishes of the most widespread public opposition to a city proposal in memory?  (And I was in the middle of the conference center and submarine debates, so I don't say that lightly.)

If the isthmus doesn't get rezoned, Triway is going to have to recover its investment in the land. It can do this in a number of ways, but one thing is for certain: it will choose the option with the highest financial return. Put another way, there is virtually a zero percent chance that Triway will simply aimlessly and indefinitely sit on this land while shifting its "energy and resources" to other projects, as jlw's post above implies.

But let's look at it from jlw's perspective and asusme the office building alternative is an empty threat. What then? Triway would invariably decide to sell the land to another developer with a full tank of time, patience and capital. What would that developer then decide to do with it?

Remember, Tri Vo has already created value on the isthmus by puzzling previously fragmented parcels together into one large buildable "pad". So, while it might not be Triway Enterprises, someone is going to finish what has been started, and eventually, these isthmus properties will have a building on them (save an isthmus park miracle). It might be a mixed use structure that would add 24/7 human activity to the isthmus, or it might be something like the 60,000 sq ft office building with surface level parking like the one Triway already has the city's approval for that would effectively convert our city's most valueable piece of urban real estate into a suburban strip.

So, call it a threat if you like, but I prefer to make decisions that are based in reality.

But I am Just Another Voice

But I am Just Another Voice

Here are the three photos and captions posted at the Friends of the Waterfront website page entitled “Views from the Capitol Campus” -- from which JAV copied the two photos she posted:

The City's visualization of the space that the rezone would allow buildings to occupy - March 22 public workshop.

Our vision for this part of the city ten or twenty or thirty years from now - a little more like Paris, a little less like Bellevue.

Triway's visualization - without the rest of the rezone, and using a fish-eye lens to get a whole lot more lake on the left and a whole lot more park below you than you can actually see all at once, making the buildings feel practically beside the point.  [Not to mention the seasonal differences in foliage as previously referenced.]

But I am Just Another Voice

Here are the images used in the Olympia Isthmus Park News:

Do you want this?

Triway’s visualization of the space that the rezone would allow buildings to occupy.

Or do you want this?

Our vision for this part of the city ten or twenty or thirty years from now — a little more like Paris, a little less like Bellevue.

I was there a couple months ago and found the town much improved from what it was like 40 years ago, the last time I was there. Yet, much of it seemed wonderfully familiar and little changed. That's what Olympia should aim for and it won't do it buy becoming Kirkland. Read

Update: Fixed the link.