Queen Anne at the Crossroads
At the Queen Anne Community Council (QACC) meeting to discuss why they’d appealed the Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a mom told the story of how her autistic son had bloomed since moving to Queen Anne, but that her rental was getting torn down to make way for a big apartment building, and that she couldn’t find a new place in the neighborhood she so clearly loves.
Right now, old houses are being torn down and made into 1 of 2 things-bigger multifamily if the zoning allows (as was her case), or bigger single houses-the McMansions we love to hate. There’s nothing in between for people who don’t want or can’t afford either of those options.
It seems like more small infill housing options like garden suites and backyard cottages amongst the single family houses would be absolutely perfect for families like hers. And the ADU code would allow more of them by reducing barriers and restrictions that have kept many people from building them.
It’s easy to blame developers for the changes we see. There is a desperate demand for housing. It’s also easy to point to multifamily zones that ‘development capacity’ (but have to tear down smaller existing buildings to get it) as reasons to oppose zoning reform in single family zones.
But the reality is that Queen Anne Community Council’s appeal is stopping a sensible code that would build exactly the kind of small scale housing that people really want and would choose if it were available. An EIS doesn’t measure the human impact, but it’s clear that while we argue about adequacy of street parking projections, Queen Anne is going to lose great neighbors like that mom and her kid.
If we don’t prioritize people in our code, we’re not going to the build the places they want to live. The ADU code gives you options, builds places people love, and we need more of those right now.
