CORA Northwest

City Council Townhouse Tour

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:16:00 +0000

Yesterday CORA joined the city council on a tour of some of Seattle's outstanding townhouse projects. Projects included the Secret Garden (by Marty Liebowitz & Joseph Hurley), 25th & Denny Rowhouses by David Foster, and Urban Trees by Bradley Khouri.

Councilmembers Sally Clark, Tim Burgess, Tom Rasmussen, and Jean Godden came on the tour, followed by the crew of the Seattle Channel. It was sizable commitment of time on behalf of the council & their staff & says a lot about how seriously they take the issue. Over the last few months we've been bombarding the council with drawings, diagrams, charts & the like. Hopefully the tour helped make the ideas we've been promoting a little more tangible.

CORA MFU report now available at Great City

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:52:00 +0000

A report version of the presentation is now available at the Great City Website. Thanks to Great City for all their support!
See http://www.greatcity.org/wp-content/uploads/bigPDF/CORA-MFHousingStudy-FinalReport%209-24-09.pdf

Other web links:
Great City Blog article about the effort: http://www.greatcity.org/2009/09/29/gaming-the-proposed-mulitifamily-land-use-code/
DJC article about the meeting: http://djc.com/news/re/12010527.html

Multi-family code update:

noreply@blogger.com (matt hutchins) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Follow the link to a synopsis that I put up on our blog regarding the multi-family code update:

Multi-family code

CORA Presents White Hat / Black Hat

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:10:00 +0000

Last night, CORA presented our study "White Hat / Black Hat" to the Council. The meeting can be seen on the Seattle Channel at http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=2280942. CORA's portion of the presentation begins at 31:30. A copy of the study and our recommendations to the council will be posted on the Great City Website in a couple of days.

CAST architecture, one of the participating firms, posted an excellent summary of the meeting on their blog. See http://www.castarchitecture.com/blog/?p=154

CORA MFU Council Study - Update

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:28:00 +0000

CORA NW has completed our work for the City Council's Multi-family study. We were asked to produce 3 good scheme and 3 bad schemes for some small infill sites. Thanks to the efforts of our members we produced 18. Our work will be presented in Council Chambers on Sept. 24th, 4pm. A special thanks to all team members:

Sam Castro

David Foster

Matt Hutchins

Brad Khouri

David Neiman

Brandon Nicholson

Jeff Reibman

CORA invited to MFU design study

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:21:00 +0000

The City Council has asked CORA to participate in an exercise to study and illustrate the potential impact of the proposed multi-family update. We will be asked to produce a variety of schemes that demonstrate the positive potential of the new code, and explore if the code can be gamed and exploited to produce undesirable outcomes.

The project got thrown together very quickly, sorry for the short notice. Please look over the attached brief & RSVP if you're interested in participating.

Some useful links:

CORA Brief (required reading)

DPD summary of the Multi-Family Update

Full text of the Multi-family Update (277 pages)

Edited text of the Multi-family update (93 pages)

White Hat / Black Hat Excercise

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:21:00 +0000

After a few weeks of council meetings and presentations the PLUNC committee has reached an impasse.  The legislation is complicated enough that the council doesn't feels comfortable buying off on the idea that it'll do more good than harm.  The proposed solution is to run a white hat / black hat exercise.  They'll have a consultant develop schemes that will show potential good outcomes and another that will try to exploit the code for all that its worth to identify worst case scenarios.  This exercise will help councilmembers get comfortable with the various gating mechanisms in the code & allow them to identify loopholes that need to be closed.

We've agreed to help them design the study so that they get the most out of the exercise.  For those of you that are worried/convinced that adopting the new code will lead to _________, fill in that blank and send it to me.  I'd like to construct a list of people's worst nightmares to give to the black hatters for inspiration.

Multi-Family Update Homestretch

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:16:00 +0000

The PLUNC Commitee held its first of two planned open houses yesterday to discuss the Multi-family update in the community-at-large. In marked contast to last years open house "Townhouses: Can the Patient be Saved?", this forum was sparsely attended - mostly by bloggers, architects, and students from the UW summer studio on townhouse design. CORA members Brandon Nicholson, David Neiman, David Foster and Brad Khouri shamelessly hogged the microphone during the public comment period, comprising four of the five speakers. Not a lively public form, but one that did at least afford the council members time for some Q&A with us.

In addition to attending the public meetings, we’ve been having private meetings with council members to discuss their concerns & questions. We’re developing a brief for their use & will submit it to council in a couple of weeks.

CORA at the PLUNC

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:22:00 +0000

We've had a very busy last couple of weeks here. Brad Khouri and I participated in a roundtable at the City Council to kick off their work on the Multi-Family Update. We had several neighborhood presentations to audiences big and small. We're also talking with the city about perhaps putting together a design competition or workshop to help flesh out some of the housing issues that are on the top of the agenda.

Video of our appearance at the PLUNC commitee is available online at

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=2280907

Our participation starts in at about 75:00.

Upcoming Presentations

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:35:00 +0000

March 11th, 7:30am

Shoreline Rotary Club

Shoreline Center

18560 1st. Ave. NE

Shoreline, WA 98155

March 24th, 7:00pm
Othello Neighborhood Association
Holly Park Community Church
4308 S Othello St.
Basement can be accessed from outdoor parking lot.

March 25th 6:00 - 8:30 PM

Central Area Community Councils

Wednesday, March 25
Hiawatha ArtSpace Lofts
855 Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA 98144

April 9th 12:00-1:30pm

Great City.org

GGLO

1301 First Ave #301

Seattle, WA 98101

April 13th, 7pm

Magnolia/ QA District Council

Magnolia Community Center

2550 34th Ave W

January MF Zoning Presentations

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:10:00 +0000

CORA will be giving several presentations this month on the Multi-Family Zoning Update. All presentations are open to the public:

Jan 7th, 7:00pm
North District Council
Lake City Library 1st floor meeting room
12501 28th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98125.

Jan 8th, 7:00pm
Wedgwood Community Council
Wedgwood Presbyterian Church
8008 - 35th Ave NE
Seattle, Washington 98115

Rescheduled Again

February 17th 7:00pm

Friends of Seattle

Bainbridge Graduate Institute

2030 9th Avenue, Suite 200

Seattle, WA 98121

Jan. 26th 7:00pm
Pinehurst Community Council
Amante Pizza
12319 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98125

November Townhouse Presentations

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:15:00 +0000

We've got two Multi-Family zoning presentations coming up this month:

November 6, 7:30pm
Haller Lake Community Club
12579 Densmore Ave. N.

November 20th, 12:30pm
League of Women Voters
Madison Park - Park Square Towers
1630 43rd Ave E

Both presentations are open to the general public.

A .pdf handout version of the presentation can be seen at: http://www.abricoleur.com-a.googlepages.com/CORANWTOWNHOMEDESIGNDPDMadisonValley.pdf

City Council responds to CORA megahouse critique

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:22:00 +0000

The PLUNC committee met on Wednesday to discuss the megahouse legislation. To see the discussion & the effect that CORA had on the conversation, you can watch the meeting at:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=2280829

The long and the short of it: They adopted modified language to exempt decks within 36" of grade from lot coverage, and changed the eave exemption from 18" to 36". Certainly not a total realization of what we were asking for, but we did move the ball down the field & it will give us some relief compared to what we have today.

The discussion of the megahouse legislation starts at about 138:00.

Also notable, while study of a future switch to an FAR based regulation was approved by full council a couple weeks ago, the Mayor has said he will not sign it & DPD has said it is not a staff priority for next year (they are not intending to make space on the staffing schedule for anyone to study it).

Townhouse Presentation Summary

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:28:00 +0000

This month Brad Khouri, John Deforest, Brandon Nicholson and David Neiman made presentations to the Central Area Land Stewardship, the Ballard District Council, the Greater Madison Valley Community Council, and a group of city employees from DPD & the Mayors office. A .pdf version of the presentation can be seen below.

http://groups.google.com/group/CORA-Northwest/attach/ec99e1056edfb729/CORA+NW+TOWNHOME+DESIGN+DPD+Madison+Valley+Sept+17.pdf?hl=en&part=4

CORA critiques the new "Mega-House" zoning proposal

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:45:00 +0000

CORA met earlier this week to discuss concerns about the new "mega-house" zoning proposal, about which we have serious reservations. Our critique was sent to the city council & can be read at:
http://groups.google.com/group/CORA-Northwest/attach/f0a494e366aceeca/CORA+Megahouse+zoning+critique.pdf?hl=en∂=2

KING5 Townhouse Story

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:33:00 +0000

Brad Khouri and I met with KING5 television this morning to interview for a story they are doing about the proposed townhouse zoning changes. The story is scheduled to air on tomorrow mornings news (5-7am on KING, 7-9am on KONG).

Update: Here's the link to the story http://www.king5.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=283640

CORA Townhouse Presentation 2.0

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:09:00 +0000

Mayor Nickels new version of the multi-family update caught our group quite by surprise. Up to this point, we had gradually come to the conclusion that the MFU, while well intended, was both insufficiently flexible while at the same time seeming open to potential abuse. When the Mayor modified the proposal and added the requirement of mandatory design review for all multi-family projects, our group a did a quick about face & decided to return to our original direction: Educating the public about the MFU and showing examples of better housing archetypes that would be enabled by a more flexible code.

Mandatory design review for all multi-family projects is a major step forward. It promises the flexibility to provide diverse, thoughtful design solutions while making it more difficult to produce the kind of indifferent housing that has become the norm under the current code. That said, the details of the code changes merit further public discussion and debate. Toward that end, we have put together a presentation about the new code and what it means for multi-family housing in Seattle, including

· What’s wrong with the current code?
· Summary of major proposed changes to the code & explanation of some of the new terms & processes.
· Examples of multi-family projects designed by CORA members that demonstrate new, better housing models that will be enabled by the new code.

We see this presentation as a starting point for discussion with others who are concerned about developing better housing options for Seattle. As architects, we feel we can be most helpful by illustrating the what the new (273 page) code means and providing concrete examples of the kind of housing it could enable if done right.

We have put out an open invitation to all community councils & neighborhood groups that we will be happy to come present & lead a discussion for anyone that wants us. Some presentations coming up:

Central Area Neighborhood Plan Stewardship - Sept 4, 6pm - Garfield Community Center.

Ballard District Council - Wednesday, September 10, 7pm - Ballard Library.

Greater Madison Valley Community Council - September 17, 7:30pm. Bush School

CORA NW Townhouse Design Charrette

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:15:00 +0000

16 architects (and one very accommodating infant) gave up a sunny Saturday morning today to gather together, share ideas and help craft a vision for the future of multi-family housing in Seattle. It was an engaging session that brought forward a number of new ideas, and as always seems to be the case when we meet, raised as many questions as it answered. We collected all of the sketches & we'll send a .pdf copy around to all CORA members & workshop participants. We'll sit down as a group in July to refine & elaborate on some of the ideas in order to better present them in a public forum. Thanks to the UW School of Architecture for providing the facilities and all who participated to make this event come together.

CORA Townhouse Design Charrette - June 28th, Gould Hall, 9:00am - 1:30pm

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:46:00 +0000

Last week the CORA Multi-Family Zoning group met to discuss the presentation that we prepared (thanks to Brandon Nicholson for his stellar presentation) for the PLUNC meeting. Our intent had been to simply present collected work that showed the upside potential of creating a more flexible zoning code - get people excited about the new housing types that it would enable.

As the conversation went on, it became apparent that the group had a lot of concerns about our general approach. While the new code might be more flexible, it isn’t actually flexible enough to allow any of our example projects to be built without design review. At the same time, we weren’t entirely convinced that the new code had been road tested to see what kind of new doors it was opening up for an unscrupulous or indifferent developer.

After much discussion we came to a decision: We are going to sponsor a design charrette to look at best solutions for multi-family housing in Seattle. We’ll start with the most typical Seattle lot sizes & configurations, throw away the code, & simply design the best housing solutions that we can for each lot type. At the end of the day we’ll have a pattern book of best solutions for dealing with housing, parking & open space issues from which we can say: “If our zoning code doesn’t allow this kind of development, then we know we have a problem”. Once we’ve illustrated the design side of the equation we think it’ll be a lot easier for us (and others) to evaluate & critique the specific language of the proposed new zoning code

The charrette will take place Saturday June 28, 9:00am -1:30pm in the Gould Hall Atrium. A design brief will be handed out at 9:00am, & we’ll break up into groups to study the various lot types outlined in the brief. We’ll break at noon for a quick lunch & then wrap up with presentations & critiques. We will document the work product of the charrette, share it on this blog, & present our findings to the city council PLUNC committee.

CORA NW Presents at Planning and Land Use Committee Meeting

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:49:00 +0000

Sally Clark invited CORA NW to participate in a forum discussion about townhome development and the proposed update to the multi-family zoning code. Using buildings designed by several of our members we showed examples of new housing archetypes that would be enabled by a more flexible zoning code. The presentation was well received and several neighborhood groups have asked us to reprise the presentation for our members.

Video of the meeting can be seen at:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=2280816

david@neimanarchitects.com (David Neiman) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:24:00 +0000

CORA Northwest is the local chapter of the Congress of Residential Architects. We're a loose organization of local architects, designers & builders (about 100 members) that meets to discuss issues of practice & design.

Last year, several of our members participated in meetings & focus groups to discuss the proposed updates to the city's multi-family zoning ordinance. After the first draft of the proposed changes were published we began meeting as a group to discuss how we could best contribute to the civic discussion.

As we continue our analysis, generate ideas & present our findings, this blog will provide a place for CORA members and the public at large to follow our progress & share ideas.