Cascadia Report

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  • Vancouver’s model for downtown living

    Vancouver’s downtown elementary school is so popular after two years that it’s running out of space.

    The crunch suggests the city is doing something that Seattle should emulate, according to this article examining the merits of living downtown for families. It includes the obvious point that Seattle can’t open schools downtown until there’s enough demand. Far more important is streamlining regulations to encourage more units of all kinds, which would eventually lead to more stores and other amenities. Middle-class residents and families will follow.

  • Why Washington property measure isn’t ‘only fair’

    Campaign signs are popping up across Washington saying “I-933, It’s Only Fair.” But that’s not the impression a spokesman for the measure left at a recent Seattle forum.

    Initiative backer Steve Hammond, a former King County Council member, confirmed the issue is about fighting government. Speaking at an election forum last week in the Eastlake neighborhood, he said the measure would prevent the sort of oppression he felt a few years ago when the county passed restrictions on rural development.

    washington sprawlApparently rural landowners need a blunt instrument like a statewide initiative because they don’t have the numbers to change the state’s leadership.

    “Why not just vote for new representation? Because you need representation that represents you,” he said, noting that during the council’s vote he was the only of 13 council members who was personally affected by the land-use rules. “If they vote (on issues) outside urban growth boundaries, they need to live outside urban areas.”

    According to the voter’s guide, Initiative 933 would require government to compensate property owners when “regulation damages the use or value of private property.” Hammond agreed that the government wouldn’t have the funds to compensate landowners. Instead it “would be forced to act differently,” he said. Such a rule would turn back the clock on community planning, essentially giving rural property owners the right to dictate development of the state’s open land.

    Indeed Hammond explained that small landowners currently bear most of the cost of the state’s land-use rules. He told Eastlake residents who worry about gutted development laws that their urban neighborhood would be mostly unaffected. In other words, voters should let rural property owners do whatever they want with the land, regardless of the consequences.

    It’s true that policy needs to be fair, consistent and not hurt the little guy. That’s a good reason to reopen debate in the legislature about land-use laws — but not to support I-933.

  • Picks from Sunday’s papers

    1. A Seattle Times poll found that 51 percent of Seattleites want to rebuild the waterfront viaduct freeway. One-quarter each wanted a tunnel, a surface-street option or hadn’t decided. Unfortunately the poll simply confirms the obvious because cost was apparently the main factor presented to the 400 people who were questioned. An efficient surface-street and transit package would win support if people were told of the construction hassles and massive size of a proposed new aerial viaduct.

    2. The strength of British Columbia’s economic boom may depend on what the Canadian central bank does with interest rates. The Bank of Canada is expected to leave rates unchanged at 4.25 percent on Tuesday but could indicate plans to cut them in the future. Central Canada’s economy is on the ropes, thanks partly to the slumping auto industry. Could a sign of lower rates to help the rest of the country overheat B.C. and Alberta?

    3. Polls suggest that Republicans may take the governorship in Oregon, a trend bolstered by a pair of profiles in The Oregonian. Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who won in 2002 by 3 percentage points, comes off as a technocrat who doesn’t have much to show for his four years in office. Republican Ron Saxton, a Portland school board leader, says a governor needs to take on teachers’ unions in order to improve education. Saxton has raised more money to fund his TV ad campaign and could benefit from voter frustration.

    4. Seattle-area rental costs are soaring — a subject Cascadia Report has experienced first-hand. Some neighborhoods have a vacancy rate of less than 1 percent, according to a real estate survey. Rents rose 7 percent in the last year and are expected to climb another 4 percent this year. Blame job growth, a slowing market for new homes and condo conversions for the trend.

  • Vancouver rail project hits snag

    An expansion of Vancouver’s rail system hit a snag this week with a report that the transit system doesn’t have enough money. The dilemma is reminiscent of the situation in Seattle — yet another example of Cascadia similarities.

    It looks like TransLink may have to shelve two new train lines and other projects. It needs another C$400 million just to finish the proposed Evergreen line from Burnaby to Coquitlam. Some residents in the area that would be served by the new line are using the stumble as a chance to challenge the choice of street-level light rail instead of a Sky Train.

    The TransLink board is reportedly considering additional taxes and asking the national government for help. Seattle’s Sound Transit, which cut back its rail projects as costs soared, plans to ask voters for more money in 2007.

  • Maybe Seattle’s policy isn’t so liberal after all

    Seattle’s political leaders rage against President Bush and the support liberal events. But their way of governing, which effectively delivers spoils to their buddies and corporations, isn’t liberalism.

    So says Ted Van Dyk in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He decries the big-government land grabs by local transit agencies, massive subsidies to companies like Boeing and perennial blackmail in order to raise taxes.

    “No city, even our Emerald City, can govern itself this way without in time becoming New Orleans or Jersey City,” he writes. “Grandiose public works projects go hand in hand with payoffs and public corruption.”

    He’s mostly right. The area needs activists who are willing to question the status quo way of doing business. For example, someone needs to hold the Port of Seattle accountable for financial misses, mismanagement and waning competitiveness.

    But Van Dyk misses a key point. Cascadia and the Seattle area need to invest in better infrastructure in order to cope with growth, and that means steppingon some toes. The region also needs a tax structure that encourages companies to expand here and makes it easier for start-ups to fluourish. The key is picking competent representatives who will do this in the most efficient way.

  • Vancouver gets major building boost

    Canada’s prime minister committed C$321 million to a series of transportation projects in the Vancouver area, aiming to make British Columbia the crossroads of choice for trade between Asia and North America.

    The investment underscores the importance of smarter development in the Puget Sound region. Current projects, such as a regional mobility plan and Seattle’s freight mobility program, may not be enough to benefit from surging growth in and through Cascadia.

    The Canadian funding is part of C$591 million already pledged for the Asia-Pacific Gateway project, which aims to complement projects at the Vancouver port and to prepare for the 2010 Olympics. Among the first steps are a highway link to the Deltaport container facility, a new South Fraser perimeter highway and a series of road and rail overpasses.

    Other investment will go to improving border shipments and to developing the port in Prince Rupert. It’s unclear how much of the money — if any — would go to improving passenger rail service between Vancouver and the international border, which is currently the main choke point for improved service to Seattle.

  • Media leave potential threat to region underexamined

    Cascadia’s major newspapers have given lots of space to the latest saber-rattling by North Korea. But they’re leaving arguably the biggest threat to this region mostly unanalyzed.

    On Tuesday morning the papers could have marshalled “day two” stories about what North Korea’s nuclear test means for this region, which is the closest part of the continent to the crisis. Instead, The Seattle Times, The Oregonian and the Vancouver Sun all pasted newswire stories and maps on their front pages. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer made due with just a thumbnail photo and tiny headline. An editorial in the P-I downplayed the threat and another in the Oregonian urged everyone to remember the oppressed North Korean people.

    A story by Hal Bernton in the Seattle Times was the only one to include wisdom of local experts and to connect the Korea crisis to Cascadia, noting the extensive military ties and large Korean population here.

    Sure, it’s not clear if North Korea has the desire or capability to attack North America. But considering the overwhelming attention regional media gave to vague threats from the Middle East and the omnipresent threat of terrorism, it’s time they devoted similar efforts to the serious danger from across the ocean.

  • Waterfront business worries and a sensible fix

    Businesses along Seattle’s waterfront say they would be devastated by construction of a tunnel to replace the dangerous viaduct. Luckily there’s growing support for a less-disruptive option than a costly tunnel.

    Businesses of the Seattle Historic Waterfront Association say the loss of parking, removal of sidewalks and visual clutter during construction of a cut-and-cover tunnel would cut their sales by 85 to 90 percent. They want to up to one-third of the total cost of the project devoted to mitigation.

    Their protest lends support to another option that would replace the viaduct sooner with extensive improvements to roads and transit. Here’s an excellent summary of the opportunity Seattle has to get this project right.

  • In memoriam of Helen Chenoweth

    A memorial service was held this week for Helen Chenoweth, one of the demagogue-politicians who helped turn inland Cascadia into fertile ground for radical Republicans.

    After years of feeding her neighbors’ fears of government and outsiders, she was swept into Congress during the 1994 Republican tidal wave. She was famous for arguing that salmon couldn’t be endangered when you could buy it canned at Albertson’s. She saw the United Nations a threat to the American way of life and accused the Interior Department of harassing ranchers with “black helicopters.”

    She left Congress after three terms and died last week in a car crash in Nevada, reportedly with an infant on her lap and without wearing a seatbelt. Now her over-the-top positions are fading amid eulogies that admiringly note she always “said what was on her mind.” No matter the revisionist history when it comes to her views — her lasting legacy is Republican dominance in a state that was once solidly Democratic.

  • Ex-governors try to stop land-use initiative

    Washington Governor Chris Gregoire and six of her Democratic and Republican predecessors came out against I-933, the so-called property rights initiative on next month’s ballot.

    Their logic wasn’t new: the measure, which requires government to compensate landowners for restricting development, would cost too much and tie up land-use planning in the courts.

    Yet bipartisan opposition may not halt the measure. Four living and former Oregon governors opposed a similar measure in that state in 2004 but it passed with 61 percent of the vote. In 2002, a Washington roads and transit package, referendum 51, was soundly rejected despite bipartisan support from politicians, labor and business.

    Proponents of I-933, of course, couched the latest measure as a way for citizens to restrain an unruly government. “It’s political, and government officials are opposed to an initiative that will hold government officials and politicians accountable,” Dan Wood, a spokesman for the initiative and the Washington Farm Bureau, which backs the measure, is quoted as saying.