Submit Comments Now On "One Home Per Lot" Proposed Ballot To Notify Neighbors Of Upcoming Land Use Decisions



House at 4812 NE 40th Street built on small side yard oringially part of home next 

One Home Per Lot, a city-wide grassroots group monitoring large homes built on side and backyards of existing homes, is urging citizens to submit comments to State Legistature regarding a new Bill, "House Bill 2311" proposed by Washington State Representatives Gerry Pollet and Gael Tarleton to ensure that land use decisions affecting neighborhoods are made with notice to neighbors. 

House Bill 2311 would require that cities with a population of 500,000 or more (that means Seattle, and Seattle only), must adopt regulations and procedures for providing notice. Specifically, the city must "provide notice of the application to all adjacent landowners and residents and an opportunity to submit comments" regarding "land use decisions related to the preliminary short plat approval of a short subdivision or the approval of a boundary line adjustment."

Here are some other points included in the new Bill:

• Declare that the Legislature finds that due process requires notice to be given to adjacent landowners and residents within 300 feet of specified land use decisions, and declares the Legislature’s intent that the Land Use Petition Act’s (LUPA) statute of limitations does not run until notice is provided in accordance with statute.
• Add to LUPA a new date of issuance – i.e., the date that notice of certain land use decisions is effective – that must be considered in determining when LUPA’s 21-day statute of limitations begins to run.
• Require cities with a population of 500,000 or more to provide notice to adjacent landowners and residents of the following: applications for approval and approval of boundary line adjustments, and applications for approval and approval of preliminary short plats of short subdivisions. Applies only to Seattle, where this is a serious problem.
• Defines the term “adjacent landowners and residents” to mean owners, residents, and persons who are both owners and residents of real property located within 300 feet of property subject to approval of a proposed preliminary short plat of a short subdivision or boundary line adjustment.

 

  

One Home Per Lot's recent email says:

If you feel neighbors should be notified, we need you to email or call both Representatives Pollet and Tarleton. Thank them for proposing the bill, and let them know you support it. No convincing needed. We just need to show them there is great support within the city for this bill. They measure support based on the number of calls/emails they receive.

Here is a sample email the group wrote that can be sent to government representatives:

At the reading of the bill yesterday, a representative from the construction industry argued that Seattle already provides its citizens with notice. (Of course, citizens would have to be monitoring the DPD's website every day to receive such notice.)

Worst of all, because no notice is given to neighbors, many miss out on their only opportunity to protest or stop the construction of a backyard / side yard house: a LUPA lawsuit. (Under state law, LUPA lawsuits must be filed within 21 days of a backyard / side yard house project being approved. But, how can citizens be expected to file a LUPA suit within that timeline when they're never notified?)

 

One Home Per Lot told us although there is no formal comment period, as there is for many of the issues the City reviews, there is generally no comment period for legislation pending before the state legislature.

"The state legislature has not asked for comments. However, lobbyists from the development and construction industries will be lobbying the legislators, so citizens need to do the same. Comments should be sent sooner rather than later to show the legislators who proposed the bill that citizens support their efforts," the group added.

Representative Gerry Pollet can be reached at (360) 786-7886 or by email at Gerry.Pollet@leg.wa.gov.  And

Representative Gael Tarleton's phone number is (360) 786-7860 and email is Gael.Tarleton@leg.wa.gov.

Several skinny houses on small lost have sprouted up in Laurelhurst over the last few years, all the work of developer, Dan Duffus, who is well-known around the city for building the houses which are modern in style, tower over the established homes beneath them and don't fit in with the character of the neighborhood..

One is located at 4812 NE 40th Street in Laurelhurst, which sits on a piece of property 30 feet wide, and was segmented out of a side yard which was a total of only 80 feet wide. The house covers all the land, except for 10 feet of the house's previous yard.

John Taylor, who lives directly behind the new home, commented in a recent Seattle Times article, that looming presence over his back yard is like “a guard tower.” He said the neighbors had no notice from the city or the developer that a new house was being crammed in between two existing houses, on what had been the old house’s yard.

Nick Jenkins, another Laurelhurst resident, who lives next door to a tall, skinny house, has posted his experience going through the construction process and now living with one of these houses right next door to him. His blog post titled "There goes the neighborhood and yours may be next" can be found here
 

For more information on One Home Per Lot and background on the issues go here.

City Council To Discuss Several "One Home Per Lot" Issues On Friday



House at 4812 NE 40th Street built on small side yard oringially part of home next door

One Home Per Lot, a grassroots multi-neighborhood Seattle wide movement monitoring the legislation and building of sideyard houses, sent a recent update on the issue of developers building homes on side yards, inlcuding information on a City Council meeting on Friday from 9:30-11am.

Laurelhurst residnts living around these tall, skinny houses, as well as other residents citywide, have joined One Home Per Lot, whose website explains the issue in detail, shows how to get involved and details Duffus' track record and lists the effects these projects have had on neighborhoods like Laurelhurst, Fremont, Wallingford and Montlake, to name only a few throughout Seattle.
Several skinny houses on small lost have sprouted up in Laurelhurst over the last few years, the work of developer, Dan Duffus, who is well-known around the city for building the houses which are modern in style, tower over the established homes beneath them and don't fit in with the character of the neighborhood..

One is located at 4812 NE 40th Street in Laurelhurst, which sits on a piece of property 30 feet wide, and was segmented out of a side yard which was a total of only 80 feet wide. The house covers all the land, except for 10 feet of the house's previous yard.

One Home Per Lot's recent email says:

Many One Home Per Lot supporters are wondering if the Seattle's Department of Planning and Development (DPD) tried to pull a fast one on us a few weeks ago.

The City Council's Planning, Land Use and Sustainability Committee's sent out email that DPD was planning to present some "omnibus amendments" to the committee on 9/25/13. 

Omnibus amendments are supposed to be insignificant changes to Seattle's building codes. The omnibus report introduction states: "The proposed amendments are called 'omnibus' amendments because DPD packages a collection of amendments that are small scale, with a limited scope of impact. Such amendments include correcting typographical errors and incorrect section references, as well as clarifying or correcting existing code language."

However, included among the amendments were a number of items of great benefit to the developers of backyard / side yard houses. These are not insignificant items at all but rather dramatic code changes that would make it easier for developers to squeeze more houses into backyards and side yards throughout the city (see the details below).

After a couple of our members contacted councilman Richard Conlin (the chair of the PLUS committee) about this, his assistant sent the following note:

"Just a procedural note: the omnibus has been removed from tomorrow's PLUS meeting agenda. The legislation will not be discussed until after budget, at the Special November 22 PLUS meeting (9:30 - 11:30)."

Then Councilman Conlin followed up with a note of his own:

"Thanks for the note. I agree that we need more time to understand these amendments and determine what their impact will be, so we have postponed beginning our review until late in November."

Having now had some time to reflect on this event, One Home Per Lot supporters are split into two camps about it:

1. Some of us feel this is just the nature of a government bureaucracy: Some well-meaning workers at the DPD probably just lumped some backyard / side yard code changes in with other code changes without thinking. But with multiple lawsuits now pending against the DPD regarding this issue, and a mountain of media coverage surrounding it, you would think that everyone in the DPD would know that this is a hot-button topic, and any new building codes related to backyard / side yard houses should be included in the regulations that the DPD is currently writing having to do with regulations that are part of the recent emergency moratorium. 

2. The majority of our supporters feel that DPD was using the omnibus amendments as a tool to quietly push through some building code changes that might otherwise get bogged down in the current backyard / side yard house legislation. Furthermore, these supporters are concerned that the DPD will use this omnibus tool again in the future to quietly push through other building code changes related to backyard / side yard houses. If that's the case, it doesn't much matter what changes get approved by the City Council in the high-profile public hearings scheduled for November/December, because DPD can always push through changes to them using these omnibus amendments.

If an eagle-eyed supporter of our cause hadn't picked his way through the many pages of dense, complex text in the omnibus report, these changes may have simply been rubber-stamped by the PLUS committee.

THE OMNIBUS AMENDMENTS AT THE HEART OF THIS MATTER

(Remember, omnibus amendments are supposed to be "correcting typographical errors and incorrect section references, as well as clarifying or correcting existing code language")

1. Most backyard houses are built on alleys (it's the only way they can get approved). The omnibus amendments proposed to 23.22.100.C, 23.24.040.A, 23.28.030.A would kill the requirement that these houses have actual frontage on the alley -- which would open up more backyard lots to development, make them less neighborhood-friendly, and make it harder to fight any fires in these homes.

2. Another omnibus amendment proposed to 23.53.005 would reduce the amount of street frontage that a backyard / side yard house would be required to have. This seems to be a direct contradiction to the street-frontage changes that the DPD is proposing as part of the small-lot legislation currently being drafted. In its most recent small-lot legislation recommendations, the DPD tightened up the street-frontage requirements because many developers of backyard / side yard houses were manipulating the rules in order to wedge their projects into lots that are obviously too small. Here, the DPD is proposing loosening the standards.

3. Most backyard / side yard houses already push the boundary limits to the extremes in order to wedge the largest house possible into a backyard or side yard. The omnibus amendments proposed to 23.44.014.C.2, 23.44.014.D, 23.44.014.D.6, and 23.44.014.F would now allow some structural features of these houses (eaves, chimneys, etc.) to extend even beyond those boundaries (into the surrounding yard space) so that, as the DPD document states, "to allow a structure in a side yard adjacent an alley."

 

4. Accessory dwelling units (otherwise known as mother-in-law-apartments) are also backyard / side yard houses. And the omnibus amendment proposed to Subsection 23.44.041.B.2, Table B for 23.44.041, and Exhibit A for 23.44.041 are proposing height-calculation changes that would allow ADUs to be built even taller in the future.

5. The omnibus amendment proposed to Table A for 23.76.004 would automatically classify any future development standards as Type I -- which means citizens have no way to protest them. Seems like a slippery slope.

If you can't attend Friday's meeting, but would like to weigh-in, contact thefollowing:

- The chair of the PLUS committee, Councilman Richard Conlin, 206-684-8805, richard.conlin@seattle.gov

- The director of the Department of Planning and Development, Diane Sugimura diane.sugimura@seattle.gov

Neighbor Reports Curious Power Failure Last Month

We received this email:

About 2 weeks ago, we had a failure in the main City Light cable which runs from the street to our house. We had about $2000 – $3000 in damage to our electric panel and various items in the house including the thermostat, the oven controls, the sprinkler system controls, several fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs, a sound system & a DVD/VCR machine and four surge suppressors. We were without power for several hours and have a huge overhead cable servicing our home until the permanent replacement can take place underground.

In speaking with a representative of City Light to find when they would be scheduling the permanent “fix”, we were told that there had been several similar failures in the neighborhood. Further, if another failure occurred in this line, we would be charged for complete replacement of the line including placing the power line in underground conduit (the current line is simply buried in the ground).

Has anyone else encountered this problem and has anyone else been charged for the undergrounding/conduit replacement?

Just a suggestion for everyone – be sure to use surge suppressors wherever you can or GFCI outlets – these prevented a lot of other damage including our computers and television.

Chain Link Fence Appears To Be Going Up At Talaris Campus And The Sudden End Of Decades Of Enjoyment For Neighbors

Chain link fence materials dropped off at Talaris yesterday

 



Kids playing soccer on large grass strip on 41st and new No Trespassing sign on tree 

It looks as if the representatives for Talaris are preparing to fence off the property, as chain link fencing supplies were delivered yesterday right where children have for decades played soccer on NE 41st Street. 

What seems most baffling to neighbors, from comments the Blog Staff has received, is that the owners gave no neighborly notice, only that of the Criminal No Trepassing signs suddenly put up yesterday.

And in addition, since the Battelle Memorial Institute came to Laurelhurst decades ago, owners have consistently been good neighbors welcoming residents to enjoy the beauty and majesty of the site, which suddenly and abruptly ended yesterday.

Here is what a neighbor told us yesterday afternoon about 2pm:

They appear to be ready to fence off the soccer field NE 41st Street strip, just south of the easternmost entrance to Talaris.  There are bags of concrete and stacks of poles and 4 foot chain-link fencing.  All marked off, no trespassing signs up, guy appears to be patrolling it and has taken photos of us and our dogs.

Here are comments received: 

Are they likely to throw up a fence overnight!  This is just awful. So so depressing.

Their timing is suspect.

Is it possible to tell Talaris that this is turning supporters of preservation against any cooperation with the owners? Two fellow walkers also said as much.

It's outrageous. We've had access to that property for decades. They are acting like bullies. Bad bad message to send.

We do not understand why the Talaris folks are banning the neighborhood from the property? Access to the property has been allowed to and agreed up with the succession of owners for many, many years.

Looks like they, the LLC that owns the property, are playing hard ball.

We hope that Talaris will abide by the law and provide a sidewalk along 41^st   as that was part of the owners last development plan agreed to with LCC and likely to be required by DPD with any permit they seek. With the new fence hopefully residents wil be safe and won't have to walk on the narrow roadway as that would have a major impact on their safety.

I would  like to understand what is happening now with the property and why the owners would decide to prevent us from using it.

 

Who is Talaris trying to punish punish with this move. Can you imagine the faces of the soccer team kids when they come for practice and are cut off from their field by a chain link fence? I have always loved hearing them practice in the fall and my heart is broken for them now.

I heard that the kids were asked to leave. Is that true? Was it Nathan?

 

I  live in Laurelhurst and have also enjoyed the Talaris property for many years. All of my kids had soccer practice on that field They have all played touch football and had other activities there as well. My dogs have enjoyed playing fetch on the property too. Our family treasures that property, and we are thankful for the many years we have been able to enjoy the property.

We understand that the property is actually public access by tradition, in that the owners have always let the neighbors use the property. When the current owners, the McCaws, bought the property years ago there were no concerns about public accessto the property. It wasn't until yesterday that the signs went up suddenly the public use was stopped.

 

 

Kids huddling with coach

Emergency Moratorium On Backyard/Side Yard Houses Extended For Six More Months

House at 4812 NE 40th Street built on small side yard oringially part of home next door


The Seattle City Council voted unanimously on Monday to extend the emergency temporary  moratorium on backyard / side yard houses for another six months, as Councilman Conlin said the City Council needed to give the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) more time to revise its recommendations.

Councilman Conlin said the Council will debate the issue again, as well as solicit pubic comment  in November, with the goal of having new, permanent building codes in place before the end of the year.

The moratorium prohibits the development of the smallest backyard / side yard lots, those 2,500 square feet and smaller.

One Home Per Lot  which consists of Laurelhurst residents living around theseshouse, as well as others citywide, is a a multi-neighborhood Seattle wide movement, which explains the issues in detail, shows how to get involved and details the developer, Dan Duffus,' track record and lists the effects these projects have had on neighborhoods like Laurelhurst, Fremont, Wallingford and Montlake.

One Home Per Lot says of the six month extension: "Larger undersized lots are still fair game for developers -- and they've taken full advantage of that fact over the last year, rushing ahead with new and bigger backyard / side yard houses all across the city."

In Laurelhurst last year, a new property was segmented out of a larger one to build a tall skinny new house built on a very small lot, originally at 4812 NE 40th Street, and now with a new address of 4810 NE 40th Street, just southeast of Laurelhurst Park.

Duffus purchased the 80-foot wide property which included the whole of Lot 27, 30 feet of Lot 28, and 10 feet of Lot 26 (on which the garage was built). Duffus contacted the City for a letter stating whether the 30 feet of property that was once part of Lot 27 qualifies for development as a separate legal building site according to the Land Use Code.

Nick Jenkins, a Laurelhurst resident, who lives next door to a tall, skinny house, in Laurelhurst wrote a blog post last year, on his experience with the new construction home right next door to him.

The  skinny houses, which typically start at $700,000, are wedged into undersized lots, standing 25 feet tall (30 feet if they have a pointed roof). "To the surrounding neighbors, 25- and 30-foot tall backyard / side yard houses "feel like guard towers, cruise ships or skyscrapers," One Home Per Lot says.

To correct this issue, the Department of Planning and Development has proposed a new, lower height standard. But it's only three feet shorter than the old height. "Talk about an insult to all the citizens who took the time to call, write letters and attend the public hearings and forums," says the group.

 

One Home Per Lot has created this document to make the related codes / DPD recommendations easier for homeowners and City Council members, to understand, and included photos to show council members the direct impact these homes have on the neighbors. 

Here is a document showing sales prices of 36 skinny homes in the City, including  median sales price for each neighborhood, photos of each home, as well as links to each source.

According to Windermere real estate agent Michael Ravenscroft, there are somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 backyard / side yard parcels still undeveloped in Seattle.  " That's hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential property tax revenue going missing -- revenue that could be used to fund schools, rebuild roads and much more," One Home Per Lot says.

They add:

The truth is the city, just like everyone else, has no idea where most of these historic parcels exist. So they can't be taxed. The vast majority aren't listed on any modern day plat maps. Even most of the homeowners who have these anomalies in their yards have no idea they exist.

The only people able to justify these things are a handful of savvy developers who dispatch subject experts into the city's archives to study old maps and paw through other historic documents.

By legitimizing these developers and their backyard / side yard lots, the city is doing itself (and its citizens) a great financial disservice.

Our group put forth a plan to the DPD showing how it could easily create a registry for these historic parcels. Anyone who owned one and really was counting on selling or developing it someday could register it. Then the parcels could be legitimately platted and taxed. We'd all know where they existed, which would remove much of the anxiety homeowners have about them. That idea, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears.

Here are a few of the numerous comments posted on the One Home Per Lot website:

SEATTLE WEEKLY, 7/24/12 - "Genevieve Giuliano, a professor of urban planning at USC, thinks Seattleites are being perfectly reasonable on restricting large homes on small lots. She says the kind of development Duffus does is not the way cities normally increase density, which happens at a more gradual pace. She adds that allowing the piecemeal creation of houses that are radically different from everything around them undermines the 'existing fabric' of a neighborhood.

SEATTLE WEEKLY, 7/24/12 - "Homeowners often don't know they have an extra little lot on their property, and many of the relevant records are tucked away in archives at Bellevue Community College. The records are so old that anyone who handles them is required to wear plastic gloves. Duffus says he doesn't do that himself, instead relying on a stable of real-estate agents who specialize in that sort of detective work, reaping the rewards when they sell the lots to developers."

SEATTLE WEEKLY, 7/24/12 - "Right now, the loophole does not trigger public comment; if a parcel qualifies, a builder permit is treated as a matter of right, explains Mills. The only hope for stopping a project is — as the Queen Anne couple is doing — to challenge a building permit in Superior Court. And that can only be done within a 21-day window, which is tricky since the lack of public notice means neighbors may not know what's in the works until too late."

Here are articles from the news about the 6 month extension of the moratorium:
Seattle Times
Seattle Weekly
KIRO TV

For more infomation about One Home Per Lot go here.  The city has created a new website to keep residents informed about the issue.

The Laurelhurst Blog has done numerous posts about this issue, including the impact to Laurelhurst residents. Here is one in-depth post from last August on the Laurelhurst Blog.

 

 

Comments Due Tomorrow To City DPD On Skinny Side Yard Houses In Response To Their Draft Proposal On New Regulations And One Home Per Lot's Analysis

House at 4812 NE 40th Street built on small side yard oringially part of home next door

 

 

 

 

before picture of same location 

Tomorrow is the deadline to submit comments or appeal on the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD)'s draft proposal on tall houses built on small side yards, which was released on June 27, as well as DPD's related environmental review (under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) and decision.

 Here are instructions for commenting and the appeal process. The draft ordinance, Director’s Report, and SEPA materials are on DPD's project documents page.

City Council's Planning Land Use and Sustainability Committee will first review the amendments, followed by the City Council, who will then hold a public hearing, most likely in August. The goal is for the permanent standards to be adopted by September 2013, as intended under interim Ordinance number 123978.
Information about the draft ordinance, Director’s Report, and SEPA materials are here.  For more information, contact Andy McKim at 206-684-8737 or andy.mckim@seattle.gov.

Several skinny houses on small lost have sprouted up in Laurelhurst over the last few years, the work of developer, Dan Duffus, who is well-known around the city for building the houses which are modern in style, tower over the established homes beneath them and don't fit in with the character of the neighborhood..

One  is located at 4812 NE 40th Street in Laurelhurst, which sits on a piece of property 30 feet wide, and was segmented out of a side yard which was a total of only 80 feet wide. The house covers all the land, except for 10 feet of the house's previous yard.

The Seattle Times reported that the 1924 house and side yard were sold to a developer for $815,000 in 2012, then it was resold without the side yard for $760,000. The new 3-story home next door is expected to list for $1.5 million dollars.

John Taylor, who lives directly behind the new home, commented in a recent  Seattle Times article, that  looming presence over his back yard is like “a guard tower.” He said the neighbors had no notice from the city or the developer that a new house was being crammed in between two existing houses, on what had been the old house’s yard.

“The city identified the side yard as a separate building site even though it had never been taxed as such and had never been bought and sold as such,” Taylor said. “What offends me is that it’s completely unexpected and random.” 

Nick Jenkins, another Laurelhurst resident, who lives next door to a tall, skinny house, has posted his experience going through the construction process and now living with one of these houses right next door to him. His blog post titled "There goes the neighborhood and yours may be next" can be found here

Laurelhurst residnts living around these tall, skinny houses, as well as other residents citywide, have joined a multi-neighborhood Seattle wide movement called One Home Per Lot in which the website explains the issue in detail, shows how to get involved and details Duffus' track record and lists the effects these projects have had on neighborhoods like Laurelhurst, Fremont, Wallingford and Montlake, to name only a few throughout Seattle.

DPD writes in their review, which lists new regulatations that  "new construction in neighborhoods will better meet the needs of current residents as well as new residents and owners who acquired a property before the adoption of the new requirements will maintain a reasonable opportunity to benefit from their investment."

And the end result will be that "our Land Use Code amendments will help promote new construction that fits in with the character of the surrounding neighborhoods."

One Home Per Lot says that "not surprisingly, DPD finds the changes will not have an adverse impact on the ecological environment. In general, the recommendations are a good step, but don't go far enough to satisfy us. Thankfully, the DPD has decided not to recommend the ridiculous "80 Rule" promoted by the developers' paid lobbyist."

Here is One Home Per Lot's recommendations after reviewing DPD's recent release of the draft proposal.

Here is the latest update and news regarding their battle against backyard/side yard houses:

NEW NEWS COVERAGE
KOMO TV is the first to report on a three-story, ridiculously skinny side yard house now under construction in the Roosevelt neighborhood.  The lot is only 1,750 square feet, and the foundation for the house measures just 30-feet by 18-feet. Yet, at three-stories, this toothpick of a house will loom over all the neighboring homes. The developer was able to get approval for the project just days before the emergency moratorium took effect last year. Now that construction
has begun and neighbors can see the impact, the community is rallying in opposition.

THREE LEGAL CHALLENGES NOW PENDING
Two neighborhoods and one independent homeowner have now taken different aspects of this issue to the courts. All three cases are now pending (two in county superior court, one in federal court), and any one of those could set a precedent in how backyard/side yard houses are constructed in the future.

DPD'S FINAL RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS TO BE PUBLIC IN WEEKS
As you know, the city of Seattle Department of Planning and Development floated some preliminary solutions to this issue (changes to current building codes) in March and asked for feedback from citizens.

We expect the city council's Planning, Land Use and Sustainability committee to officially start reviewing, debating and revising those recommendations at the end of July (we understand it takes about 30 days for other city departments to review the recommendations before the city council can start working on them).

The Seattle City Council has less than 10 weeks to debate the issue of small lot development internally, get public input and draft final legislation.

Public hearings (your chance to publicly sound off on the issue again) will most likely occur in August.

Note: If the city council is not able to do all of the above, and vote on a final bill before September 10 (the end of the temporary emergency moratorium), the moratorium will be extended.

NEW CITY WEBSITE
The city has created a new website to keep you better informed about this issue.


WHAT ONE HOME PER LOT IS DOING
The One Home Per Lot workgroup that's been lobbying the city and DPD from the beginning recently established an end-game strategy and will now begin implementing it. But to be successful, they'll need your continued support -- and your help gathering more supporters (see note below).

WE NEED MORE REGISTERED SUPPORTERS
Please encourage those people to sign up to receive our emails directly from One Home Per Lot here on our new supporter registration page.  Please take a minute to sign your name to the list -- and ask your friends and neighbors to sign it as well (anyone who thinks backyard/side yard houses need more controls placed on them).  We need to show the city council that there's widespread support for our efforts to reign in the spread of backyard / side yard houses.

Gathering more supporters, and officially documenting their numbers, is going to be very important moving forward. City council insiders have made it abundantly clear that we need our supporters to make themselves visible -- and make themselves heard -- if we're to be successful in overcoming the developers' professional lobbying efforts.

Here is a sample letter to City Council:

Dear friends,

The citizens' group responsible for Seattle's temporary moratorium on new backyard / side yard houses is gearing up for a final push to reign in the spread of these structures (full-size homes being built in the backyards and side yards of existing homes).

I'm a supporter of their efforts, and they've asked me to encourage any interested friends and neighbors to also become supporters.  Becoming a supporter of the One Home Per Lot group takes less than 30 seconds. There's no obligation on your part (no requests for membership, money, etc.), the updates they send are very helpful, and your personal information will not be shared, sold, spammed or otherwise abused. It's just a loose-knit group of citizens trying to make a difference on this issue.

FIRE HAZARDS
Allowing backyard / side yard houses to be built 27 feet tall (with a pointed roof, as currently proposed) only adds to the fire risk for all the surrounding structures.

The "engineered" construction materials used for these projects (to reduce costs and speed construction) are created with glues and chemicals, which makes them far more flammable than traditional wood. The taller they are, the hotter they burn (and the harder they are for firefighters to extinguish). Plus, remember, most backyard / side yard house are only required to have a five-foot setback from the property line -- which puts these fire hazards within easy striking distance to the surrounding homes.

It's a very dangerous combination. And fire departments across the country are sounding the alarm.

Will Seattle's city council listen?

Here's what the National Fire Protection Association has to say about the subject.
 

 

Vote To Close Loophole On Tall, Skinny House Construction Approved, Community Needed At Thursday Public Hearing

Tall, skinny house under construction in Laurelhurt

Sue, a Laurelhurst resident, living near a tall, skinny house under construction at 4812 NE 40th Street sent us this update:

Yesterday afternoon (Monday, September 10) the Seattle City Council unanimously approved the emergency ordinance to close a loophole in the City's Land Use Code that, in Land Use Chair Richard Conlin's words, "allowed developers to build large houses on very small lots by manipulating lot lines intended for tax purposes."  His full explanation of the ordinance and its importance is pasted below. 

Citizens from Laurelhurst, Wallingford, Fremont, Queen Anne, Montlake, and West Seattle turned out in force to speak in favor of the ordinance.  Laurelhurst was well represented at the microphone  by homeowners Sue Donaldson,  John Wilson and John Taylor.    

The next step is a meeting at 9:30 a.m. this Thursday, 9/13, to start the Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability (PLUS) committee's 6-12 month process to draft/approve permanent legislation. The community needs to make a strong showing at this meeting too, so please try to attend and share your suggestions about how to make any future backyard/side yard houses more accommodating to neighbors and neighborhoods. This is a public hearing (they want the public to speak, and the council members are prepared to listen). 

Also, on the Fox 13 newscast, the Laurelhurst structure (including before and after shots) was featured (and wrongly identified as being in Wallingford).  The news piece did not  mention that this house, like others around town, is a spec house.  KOMO 4 and the Seattle Times also covered the vote (the Times also had a good advance piece in Monday morning's paper).
 

Here are the details of Thursday's meeting from 9:30-10:30am at City Hall, 600 4th Avenue: 

Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee - SPECIAL MEETING
You must arrive at 9:00 to sign up to speak during the meeting (Conlin says it's important to not only show up, but also speak up). In order to keep the developers' supporters from dominating the sign-up sheet, plan to arrive and sign up at 8:45. You'll have a maximum of three minutes to speak. 

One Home Per Lot organizers point out that this is is a great chance to be heard: "You can still point out how wrong the backyard/side yard house in your neighborhood is, but you might add what you think could have been done to make it better (i.e. maximum of two stories, smaller footprint, require design review of the plans, require notification of the neighbors, etc.).  The work of the committee from this point forward is focused on solutions and you have a unique perspective to add input early in the process." 

Councilmember Richard Conlin, who chairs the Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee, explained its substance of the impact in the following email: 

The emergency ordinance is a rarely-used procedure in which the Council can act quickly to provide a short term fix (stopping problem activities) while it considers legislation for a long-term solution; in this case, land use standards that make sense on very small single family lots.  Emergency ordinances are defined under State law, and expire after one year. 

The emergency ordinance brings these lots into conformance with other lots under the City's land use regulations by preventing development on lots that are less than 50% of the square footage defined as a minimum size in the underlying zoning.  It also ends the use of historic property tax records as a basis for qualifying for minimum lot area exceptions, and allows development of lots with an area up to 75 percent of the general minimum lot area of the zone (i.e. lots up to 3,750 square feet in an SF 5000 zone), but only up to a limit of 22 feet in height (2 stories).  Owners of existing houses on small lots retain the right to renovate, replace, or expand their houses. 

Under the State code governing emergency legislation, the Council will hold a public hearing on Thursday, September 13, at 9:30 AM in the Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability (PLUS) committee to hear comments on this legislation and on the plans for next steps.  The Council legislation also creates a work plan for developing permanent legislation to address this issue.  Under the work plan, new legislation will be developed by the end of this year, go through environmental review, and come to the City Council in the spring of 2013. 

This legislation is not about density - the modest number of homes that can be built under this loophole are not a significant addition to the housing stock.  It is certainly not about affordable housing.  It is about replacing a random pattern with no rhyme or reason, dependent on a developer happening to find archaic lot lines that were not intended to define a buildable lot, with planning in a systematic and thoughtful way.   

The neighbors who brought this to the Council had already been impacted:  houses have been built or permits granted that affect their houses.  They should be applauded for their willingness to engage in community and civic action unselfishly, out of altruistic concern to prevent their fellow residents from having the same negative experience.  This is a great example of democratic engagement:  people mobilizing not out of a desire for profit, but in order to maintain healthy communities.  Thank you for your commitment and involvement. 

Councilmember Richard Conlin
Chair, Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee

Neighbors Urge Community To Call City Council Today To Stop Backyard And Side Yard Tall, Skinny Houses On Small Lots

Photo courtesy of OneHomePerLot

"It could happen to you with no warning" was one Laurelhurst resident's comment, among many comments we received,  after our post on Friday about developer Dan Duffus' current tall, skinny house under construction at 4812 NE 40th Street. 

The house, southeast of Laurelhurst Park, sits on a piece of property 30 feet wide, which was segmented out of a larger one, only 80 feet wide. Many of Duffus' houses sit only 3 feet from the next door neighbor's house.

Dan Duffus, a developer, is well-known around the city for building these tall skinny houses on very small lots, of which the houses are  modern in style, towering over the established homes beneath them and don't fit in with the character of the neighborhood.

City Council will vote today at 2pm whether to pass Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin's emergency legislation to stop the continuation of tall, skinny houses. The legislation would require lots to be at least 50% of the size of a legitimate building lot and would restrict the size of houses in lots smaller than 3750 square feet to that of an accessory dwelling unit. Here is an article in the Seattle Weekly about the legislation.
Neighbors are urging residents to call or email City Council right away to give input on this important issue, which could affect anyone in the neighborhood and city-wide.

Duffus, is not only the developer on these homes, but  also finances the builders he works with through is company Blueprint Capital, which last year financed 32 percent of the new homes in Seattle priced between $400,000 and $1 million. Duffus told a a neighbor that he has built about 100 homes on small lots in the city.

A number of Laurelhurst residents have joined a multi-neighborhood Seattle wide movement called One Home Per Lot in which the website explains the issue in detail, shows how to get involved and details Duffus' track record and lists the effects these projects have had on neighborhoods like Laurelhurst, Fremont, Wallingford and Montlake, to name only a few throughout Seattle. Here are photos of Duffus' homes throughout the city.

The website says "No more backyard and side yard houses. Building a new house in the backyard or side yard of an existing Seattle home doesn’t seem like it should be legal. And that’s the problem. It’s only possible if the developer finds a historic tax parcel, then pursues this little-known building code loophole".
Nick Jenkins,  a Laurelhurst resident, who lives next door to a tall, skinny house, in Laurelhurst sent us his blog post on his experience with the new construction home right next door to him.

His blog post titled "There goes the neighborhood and yours may be next" can be found here. We have posted his entire entry below.

Also Sue, who also lives next door to the skinny house under construction in the neighborhood told us about a recent Seattle Times article that she says is:

".. yet another  good explanation of the problem, despite failiing to challenge the developers' talking point about penalizing elderly people who were counting on the income from the extra lot.  Several problems with this argument (a) since it's linked to the land's 1957 status, the original owners would have to be very, very senior citizens, b) in many cases owners  are unaware that their lots can be legally built out in this way, so the developer reaps the profits, not the original seller.   

For a fuller explanation see the Blaine Street Preservation Association Facebook page.  While there, scroll down and see the property being exploited there.
 

COUNCIL MEMBERS CONTACT INFO:206-684-8806, tim.burgess@seattle.gov
206-684-8800, mike.obrien@seattle.gov
206-684-8802, sally.clark@seattle.gov
206-684-8803, nick.licata@seattle.gov
206-684-8807, jean.godden@seattle.gov
206-684-8805, richard.conlin@seattle.gov
206-684-8801, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov
206-684-8804, bruce.harrell@seattle.gov
206-684-8808, tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DAN DUFFUS AND THIS ISSUE:

• July 25 Seattle Weekly article
• OneHomePerLot website
• Laurelhurst Blog Post

Nick Jenkins, Laurelhurst resident, post from his Family Blog:

There Goes The Neighborhood — And Yours May Be Next

July 31, 2012 by greenlakenick

 

Last month, construction began across the street on a new dwelling directly across the street from Casa de Jenkins. And this isn’t going to be an ordinary dwelling — a word I chose instead of “house.” Seems a local developer named Dan Duffus of Soleil Development found a loophole in the Seattle Building Code that allows for second homes to be squeezed on to certain lots where formerly only one home existed. (More.) Duffus either subdivides the lots and builds on the new lot or, as is the case across the street, flips his newly-created sliver to another developer for building.

 

The projects are often financed by Blueprint Capital, another Duffus company. The result — well, they’re almost as hard to believe as they are to look at (see for yourself: 1I2). The dwelling across the street from me will be an ultra-modern one on a block full of traditional homes and, at three stories, will tower over the surrounding houses. Ironically, it’s being built by a Blueprint member company called “Classic City Homes.” No fewer than three neighbors will lose their sunlight to the new Laurelhurst tower, which doesn’t look like it’s going to be “classic” anything.

 

 

Seattle-area developers are using a little-known building code loophole to squeeze two oversized dwellings where one used to be

 

 

 

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. According to the pictures in the document numbered “1″ above, Duffus and other developers are building these ultra-modern “skinnies” in Seattle neighborhoods otherwise full of Craftsmans and Colonials: “skinnies” because these two-homes-on-one-lot homes are understandably quite narrow (the one across the street from our house is eighteen (18) feet wide) and usually a story or so higher than the surrounding neighbors. And there’s more on the way: according to this Seattle Weekly article, Duffus has no fewer than forty-three other projects in the works. And given the alacrity with which Duffus obtains building permits — the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) gave him the project across from us in one month (hmmm …) —

 

Seattle-ites can expect to see more of what one commenter called “3 story refrigerator boxes” in their neighborhoods sooner rather than later. Already plans have been approved for such projects in Queen Anne, Ravenna, Bryant, Laurelhurst, Seward Park and Wallingford to name a few. Worse are reports that a Bothell real estate research firm called New Home Trends is developing software that will enable developers to easily identify parcels eligible to be subdivided under the existing loophole. If that software hits the market, expect to see these eyesores popping up in side yards everywhere.

 

The good news is that someone’s doing something about it. Wallingford resident Peter Krause has organized a group of Seattle-ites who prefer not to see more dwellings wedged into back- and sideyards. Some of them now have or will have their sunlight blocked out by these skinnies. The grassroots group is well organized and has a friend in the City Council in Richard Conlin (e-mail: richard.conlin@seattle.gov), who is putting together “one lot, one home” legislation that would close the Duffus-exploited loophole.

 

 

formerly only one existed.

 

 

I couldn’t imagine anyone would oppose such a fix — wouldn’t you be outraged if Duffus or another developer wedged one of these buildings in your neighbor’s former backyard? — but the Krause group is expecting opposition. Apparently one councilperson is already defending the status quo because developers create construction jobs. But jobs should never be the only concern for policymakers. Legalized cocaine would result in jobs at cocaine processing plants, but no one would seriously argue that those jobs would justify legalized blow. I can see the status quo being defended, too, on the grounds that private property rights are, after all, rights, and even big bad developers like Duffus are entitled to them. That argument is fine as far as existing projects go, but if the City extinguishes the right to squeeze two dwellings on to a single lot then that right would no longer exist, making the property rights argument a nonstarter.

 

 The legislation will also no doubt draw criticism from the anti-suburban sprawl crowd on the grounds that it’s anti-density. No one’s more for density than me — but within reason. The “we want density” argument could be justified to eliminate all setback requirements or to justify allowing multi-family apartments in single-family zoned areas: certainly not even the most ardent density advocates would go for that. My fear, however, is that the vote on Conlin’s legislation to come will have more to do with the money than merits. If that’s how it plays out, the grassroots Krause group will be hard pressed to overcome Duffus’s connections and campaign contributions.

 

Seattle-ites can and should act before their neighborhoods are affected. As per the “Stop It” page on OneHomePerLot.com, concerned citizens can, inter alia, e-mail Conlin (e-mail: richard.conlin@seattle.gov) to voice support for his upcoming legislation. Or they can sign this online petition at Change.org. Or they can contact Duffus’s West Seattle/Queen Anne development company and simply ask him to spare their neighborhoods — at the very least by building homes that conform in character to the surrounding neighborhoods. (That’s my tactic, not OneLot’s.) If the guy isn’t completely evil to the core, he’ll consider such requests.

 

 

Across the street from casa de Jenkins they’re squeezing a three-story modern into what used to be a small sideyard. Total space between houses — three feet.

Unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about the project across the street. As per state law, once a building permit is issued the right to build vests — the City cannot take that right away. No public notice is required under this loophole, so no one can do anything about it. The dwelling is being constructed at break-neck speed, and I seriously doubt the builder will stop midstream to consider the neighbors’ feelings.

According to reports a Queen Anne couple asked Duffus to minimize the impact of one of his projects by building a two-story building instead of a three-story one. He agreed — for $100,000. (They declined.) After losing my kids’ college funds to a Louisiana parish as the result of some serious Olympia overreaching (more), I’m a tad short.
 
Here’s hoping the Seattle City Council acts before other Seattle-ites are forced to reach into their pockets to prevent neighborhood ruin. If the Council votes “one home one lot” legislation down — well, you’ll know who it’s working for. Unless your name is Dan Duffus, it’s not you.