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This. While I'm sure that city government could have done more to upzone faster, I'm not sure it would matter. The bottleneck isn't restrictions on builders, i

by dlp211 8y ago

This. While I'm sure that city government could have done more to upzone faster, I'm not sure it would matter. The bottleneck isn't restrictions on builders, it's our construction capacity is completely tapped.

scottlegrand2 8y ago
The only thing I see wrong with all the new housing in Seattle is that it all looks depressingly alike, especially around the new Facebook building. It's like someone fed a bunch of pictures of apartment complexes into a generative adversarial network and built whatever it output. But kudos to them building in the first place rather than doing the San Francisco shuffle.
- zwkrt 8y ago
  I understand the concern, but if you think about it a lot of the old brick apartment buildings that came before also looked very similar. There are tons of older brick apartment buildings with stairs up to a covered entrance, the only real differentiation between them is whether they have bay windows or a flat exterior. I completely agree that the new, large, flat, monolithic buildings are not very visually pleasing, but I wonder if two generations from now people will look back at them longingly. Maybe they won't last that long.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  It's always been the case that the majority of new construction hews to whatever style is currently in. It's more expensive to vary everything up and commission unique design languages for each building, and constructing housing affordably is more important than providing eyecandy for passers-by. I live in East Village and it's basic five floor brick walk-ups everywhere.
ragona 8y ago
I'm pretty disappointed with all of the brand new 3-6 story buildings on Capitol Hill. I get that we have a bunch of rich people whose views might have been impacted if the number of stories wasn't capped so low, but the hill is now damned near part of downtown, and we should have built much taller buildings to reflect that.
- jeffbax 8y ago
  Actually, taller is not necessarily more efficient… Consistent 6 stories may even be optimal: https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1097802322627813376 https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1097802322627813376
  - manfredo 8y ago
    That's a very bad comparison. The taller buildings are "less efficient" because they're way narrower than the short buildings. If you look at the picture only about 20% of the land is occupied in the tall buildings while 80% of the land is used in the 6 story buildings. If you raised the number of floors on the building on the left while maintaining the same footprint it'd fit a lot more units. You either build wide or you build tall. If you can only have a 200x200 feet footprint, then building a 30 story building on that footprint is 5x more efficient than building a 6 story building on that footprint.

by dlp211 8y ago

scottlegrand2 8y ago

The only thing I see wrong with all the new housing in Seattle is that it all looks depressingly alike, especially around the new Facebook building. It's like someone fed a bunch of pictures of apartment complexes into a generative adversarial network and built whatever it output. But kudos to them building in the first place rather than doing the San Francisco shuffle.

zwkrt 8y ago
I understand the concern, but if you think about it a lot of the old brick apartment buildings that came before also looked very similar. There are tons of older brick apartment buildings with stairs up to a covered entrance, the only real differentiation between them is whether they have bay windows or a flat exterior. I completely agree that the new, large, flat, monolithic buildings are not very visually pleasing, but I wonder if two generations from now people will look back at them longingly. Maybe they won't last that long.
CydeWeys 8y ago
It's always been the case that the majority of new construction hews to whatever style is currently in. It's more expensive to vary everything up and commission unique design languages for each building, and constructing housing affordably is more important than providing eyecandy for passers-by. I live in East Village and it's basic five floor brick walk-ups everywhere.

ragona 8y ago

I'm pretty disappointed with all of the brand new 3-6 story buildings on Capitol Hill. I get that we have a bunch of rich people whose views might have been impacted if the number of stories wasn't capped so low, but the hill is now damned near part of downtown, and we should have built much taller buildings to reflect that.

jeffbax 8y ago
Actually, taller is not necessarily more efficient… Consistent 6 stories may even be optimal: https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1097802322627813376 https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1097802322627813376
- manfredo 8y ago
  That's a very bad comparison. The taller buildings are "less efficient" because they're way narrower than the short buildings. If you look at the picture only about 20% of the land is occupied in the tall buildings while 80% of the land is used in the 6 story buildings. If you raised the number of floors on the building on the left while maintaining the same footprint it'd fit a lot more units. You either build wide or you build tall. If you can only have a 200x200 feet footprint, then building a 30 story building on that footprint is 5x more efficient than building a 6 story building on that footprint.