CORA Northwest

Multi-Family Update Passes 9-0

2010-12-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

Today the Seattle City Council passed the Multi-Family Update into law by a unanimous vote, 9-0.

CORA played a large role in shaping this legislation. As a group we gave thousands of hours of volunteer time towards all manner of charrettes, presentations, meetings, and brainstorming sessions. Along the way we produced enough briefs, illustrations, and reports to fill a sizable chunk of my hard drive. As the nominal organizer of this initiative I want to express my sincere thanks to CORA members who made contributions to this effort:

Brad Khouri
Brandon Nicholson
David Foster
Greg Wharton
Jeff Reibman
Sam Castro
Matt Hutchins
Marty Liebowitz
George Ostrow
Joseph Hurley
Ann Schuessler
Andrew Russin
Grace Kim
Mike Mariano
Jim Burton
John Deforest
Shanna Kovalchick
Robert Drucker
Geoff Belau
Erik Barr
Scott Becker
Ditos Daranciang
Micheal Lentz
Carrie Anderson

A short history of CORA's Multi-family zoning initiative

2010-12-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

CORA began participating the the development of the the Multi Family Update back in March 2007, when we invited DPD to one of our monthly seminars to present what was then the rough draft (the first of many) of the MFU. We had a lively discussion, sent DPD some notes outlining our various criticisms, and I suppose that could have been that.

In the summer of 2007, CORA members were invited to participate in a series of professional focus groups that were used to get input & feedback from design professionals. In retrospect, I wonder if it was the act of being invited by the city that got us to thinking of ourselves as being "involved" in this enterprise.

In early 2008, the process started to heat up. The draft of the legislation at that time combined a simplified, more flexible code, with a series of new design standards, intended to raise the bar on some of the worst outcomes that we were seeing at the time. This new approach was known as "Flexibility Within Limits." Feedback from community groups was lukewarm at best. They were suspicious, both of the efficacy of the language, and of the intent. They were convinced that it must be, all things considered, a giveaway to development interests.

Rumors were flying that neighborhood opposition was fairly stiff & that the multi-family update might be dead-on-arrival. CORA met in March 2008 to discuss stepping up our involvement. Consensus was reached that although the legislation was not perfect, it was a major step forward. We decided to become advocates for the proposal. We put together a presentation for the council & community groups to explain why the code needed to be changed, and how a new code would help facilitate better outcomes.

June 2008, CORA made its first public presentation at a city council meeting titled "Townhouses: Can the Patient be Saved". It was a lively & well attended public meeting that sent a clear message: Citizens were fed up with the explosion of low-quality development that had transformed their neighborhoods. Design professionals and developers alike delivered the message that the prime culprit in producing the poor outcomes was the code itself.

At the same time, as CORA became more familiar with the legislation, concerns were growing within our group that the current "flexibility within limits" approach to the code was both insufficiently flexible and relatively easy to abuse. We decided to start from scratch and make a proposal of our own. We held a design charrette at the UW School of Architecture to brainstorm "best outcomes" for small multi-family projects that we would then use to "reverse-engineer" a multi-family zoning code for Seattle.

Two weeks after the charrette, Mayor Nickels announced that a new feature would be added to the MFU - mandatory design review for all townhouses. Our group did a quick about-face, scuttled the the "start-from-scratch" plan and returned to our original direction: Educating the public about the MFU and showing them examples of better outcomes that would be enabled by a more flexible code. Over the next year we presented to more than two dozen community and professional organizations.

In January 2009, Mayor Nickels delivered his draft legislation to the City Council. At the time, the hope was that it would become law by the summer. In April 2009 CORA was asked to present at a round-table of stakeholders to present our critique of the legislation. In July, the council held a pair of public hearings out in the neighborhoods. Opposition to the legislation was negligible. By all appearances the legislation was on-track.

Later that month, we sat down for a scheduled meeting with Councilmember Sally Clark. Our agenda was laid out to go over a series of final tweaks to the legislation. CM Clark let us know that the agenda was moot. Her committee was in revolt. Weeks of hearings had left her fellow committee members thoroughly confused about what the legislation would do. They could not buy off on the premise that it would do no more harm than good. We proposed that they do a Black Hat / White Hat exercise: Do a series of designs, some of which exploit the flexibility of the new code to produce good design, some of which exploit the flexibility of the code for maximum economic gain. this would allow council members to see the various gating mechanisms in the code at work and allow the to identify any loopholes that needed to be closed. In the end the council invited three teams to participate: One from CORA, one from the Master Builders of King County, and one from a loose coalition of neighborhood groups.

In Sept 2009, CORA presented Black Hat/White Hat to the city council. It was an eye-opener for one and all. It showed many proposals with great potential, but also exposed a number of loopholes and mis-incentives that needed to some re-thinking. The code would need more than just some minor tweaking. It would need to have a major overhaul. The timetable for passage would have to wait until next year.

In February 2010, work began again in earnest. A series of significant revisions was presented that addressed our earlier criticisms and was in many ways more ambitious than the previous draft. It was a much more earnest attempt to allow a broad range of housing types, increase design quality, & create structures within the code that incentivized behavior that align with the foals of the legislation.

In April 2010, draft legislation was published reflecting this new direction. In May 2010 a SEPA DNS decision was announced. It was promptly appealed by the Seattle Community Council Federation. The managed to extend the appeal process through October 2010, but in the end, the appeal was denied and the legislation moved forward.

November 30, 2010, COBE passed the legislation 3-0 out of committee and scheduled a full council vote.

December 13, 2010 The full council passed the MFU by a vote of 9-0.

COBE votes MFU out of committee. Full Council to Vote Dec. 13th

2010-12-01T20:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) finalized and passed the MFU legislation by a vote of 3-0. The full council vote is scheduled for December 13th.

Text of the full legislation can be read at: http://www.seattle.gov/council/clark/attachments/2010_mfclegislation11.pdf

MFU Final Public Hearing

2010-11-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

The multi-family update had its final public hearing last night. Thirty or so diehards braved the snowstorm to hear public comment about the portion of the proposal that requires streamlined design review (SDR)for all townhouse projects.

The Seattle Builders Council & Master Builders of King County have come out as supporters of the legislation but voiced strong opposition to portion that requires SDR. The essence of their argument is that financing new development is difficult in this economy & the new SDR process could add enough time, cost and uncertainty to the process that it would shut down townhouse development in Seattle.

Some points that we emphasized in our public comments:

This process began several years ago because citizens were unhappy with the low quality cookie cutter housing that was inundating their neighborhoods. Developers and architects showed how the existing code was a straight jacket that in many ways mandated these poor outcomes.

Citizens wanted early notice and the opportunity to have a public discussion about changes to their neighborhoods. Developers wanted freedom & flexibility to create a variety of types of housing that can respond to a diverse marketplace.

SDR is a reasonable compromise between these two competing interests. Developers get a much more flexible code, but they don’t get carte-blanche. It comes with a requirement to show the neighborhood what you’re doing & respond to public comment. Neighborhood groups get their chance for notice & input, but it’s a very streamlined process, with no public hearings, and decisions that are not appealable.

Concerns that an understaffed DPD might cause unreasonable delays could be addressed by creating a requirement that if DPD does not meet their review timetable, then the project is automatically approved.

SEPA Appeal Denied

2010-10-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

The Multi-Family Update just jumped a big hurdle this week when the Hearing Examiner denied the Seattle Community Council Federation's appeal of the SEPA DNS decision. From this point forward the schedule is as follows:

Introduce revised legislation based on public comment and Committee direction: Mid-October

Publish notice of legislation and second Council public hearing: Mid-October

Public hearing on LR legislation at special COBE meeting: November 30, 9:30 a.m.

COBE vote on LR legislation: December 8

Council vote on LR legislation: December 13

Density Limits Explained

2010-03-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

We have created an illustrated brief that explains how density limits and parking requirements pump up the cost of housing, along with some helpful illustrations and the sales data that is the basis for our housing cost figures

http://www.neimanarchitects.com/DensityLimits.pdf

Density Limits, Parking, and Affordability

2010-03-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

A Seattle Times Op-ed on Density Limits, Parking Requirements, and how those aspects of our code inflate the cost of housing.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2011382641_guest19neiman.html

Rowhouses, Apartments & Townhomes - A Special Community Meeting

2010-03-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

Rowhouses, Apartments & Townhomes - A Special Community Meeting – Saturday 3/20, 10 am - Taproot Theatre in Greenwood (204 N 85th St)

An important meeting in the Multi-Family Update process is going to take place next Saturday. There are a number of important issues that are up for discussion.

There are a number of features in the current version of the multi-family update that will improve our multi-family housing. They will produce housing with better street frontage, more useful open space, improved public process, and of overall higher design quality. What we have is a great start & we support it wholeheartedly. But today's version of the legislation doesn't go far enough.

The biggest "missing piece" is that our current code is structured in a manner that has a decidedly adverse impact on housing affordability. There are a couple of simple changes that are up for discussion that would significantly improve affordability if they are implemented. But they are also considered "third-rail" issues, & I am concerned that the council will not take them on unless they hear strong support for them in the community (not just the architects and urban planners).

Density Limits:
Currently, Seattle has strict density limits in place in all of the L-zones. These limits essentially dictate the minimum size of housing unit in a given zone. As a result the average Townhouse in Central Seattle is about 1500sf in size and sells for around $450,000. They were created in an era when a single family home was affordable for people with median income & the most pressing concern of the body politic was fighting density. Twenty years later density is no longer a dirty word, but we live in a city where ownership housing is increasingly out of reach for Seattle's workforce.

We have asked the council to consider eliminating density limits in all L-zones. The result of this will not be little cracker-box units sprouting up all over Seattle. There are still a number of factors - parking requirements, design review thresholds, platting requirements for fee-simple ownership, condominium liability - that have a tendency to push L-zone development towards fewer numbers of larger units. The most likely outcome is that unit size and prices would be reduced around 25-35% from what we see today. Its a minor uptick in density but a huge change in affordability.

Parking Requirements:
Parking requirements also act as a form of density limit. Current code requires one off-street parking space for each unit. While this might be a sensible requirement for some neighborhoods and some kinds of development, for many of our denser urban neighborhoods, this prevents us from doing the kinds of development that best serve our housing needs. The council is currently studying the idea of reducing or eliminating parking requirements in Urban Centers and Urban Villages - our densest and best transit served neighborhoods (see map) Doing so won't unleash a flood of reduced parking development. Developers will continue to build as much parking as they think they need to serve their building and for a bank to finance it.

What reduced the parking requirements will allow is for small innovations to take place: An old home might be split into three flats without turning the yard into a parking lot, or a conventional townhouse project might include a unit or two with small apartments instead of three story townhomes. There is lots of friction is the system that will tend to hold us to our old way of doing things, but easing up on these requirements will allow innovation to begin & allow new development that produces smaller, more affordable, and less auto-centric housing.

Conclusion:
Our current code hails from 1989. It was written from the point-of-view that no good could come of density and development. It was an attempt to pull up the gangplank & prevent growth pressure from changing the character of our neighborhoods. Ironically, the code did nothing to stop growth, but it did help to make manifest the dystopian vision of what growth would bring. It consigned Seattle to third-rate housing solutions and flooded our neighborhoods with a drove of poorly designed, unaffordable, ill-conceived housing stock.

A generation later we have very different concerns. As a city we have finally invested in mass-transit infrastructure, and committed ourselves to the goal of making density work. We live in one of the most desirable cities in the world, one that will continue to be a magnet for in-migration for the foreseeable future We want to preserve the character of our single family neighborhoods, but not at the expense of the other half of our city's residents. We want to build quality, affordable, green multi-family neighborhoods as well. Please help us make this happen.

City Council Townhouse Tour

2009-10-14T14:16:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

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:

2009-09-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

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

2008-12-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-02T20:15:00.000-08:00

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

2008-09-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-08T20:09:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-21T17:24:00.000-07:00

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.