A version of this post appears as an article in the Master Builder Magazine, a regular publication of the Master Builders Association. It continues along the theme started with this mornings post by Nick Etheredge.

Here’s a sampling of the dialogue going on in Seattle about new housing and growth in the city.

“Such statements [from the Design Review Board] are banal, amateurish, agenda driven and ignorant.”

“We have had a history of people in the development sector who look for ways to misuse or stretch well-intended regulations for their own financial gain. And what that does is paint everyone else doing development as conniving, rude and rapacious.”

“Seattle Speaks Up is nothing more than a small group of bullies and cowards who hide behind anonymity and abuse the “Seattle Process” to protect their own narrow self-interests.”

“These are monstrosities, they ruin neighborhoods, [and] they literally destroy the value of the houses next door,”

“If, on the other hand, your complaint is that the new home will lower the value of your existing home, then you don’t have a case because that position is highly speculative. Speculation is for stock traders and entrepreneurs, not city/government policy.”

The conversation about growth and new housing has taken a brutal rhetorical turn. Lots of negative and angry words are hurled about on the Internet everyday. And builders tell me that, sometimes, they worry about their physical safety, worried that neighbors angry about the project might assault them.

Can’t we just stick to the facts? About six years ago the Puget Sound Partnership, a group dedicated to cleaning up the Puget Sound, issued recommendations that cities in the region should favor dense, compact development. Scientific data pointed, they said, to density as one of the best solutions to preventing further pollution in the Sound. Dense development means less surface water runoff that winds up in the region’s lakes, streams, and rivers that connect with the sound.

Here’s what I said then about the report’s implications for growth in Seattle.

This call for density comes at a time when our region is considering how to accommodate the 1.7 million people the Puget Sound Regional Council projects will be arriving in coming decades. The Sightline Institute’s 2007 Cascadia Scorecard puts our region 57 years away from achieving the important goal of 62 percent of the region’s people living in compact, transit-friendly neighborhoods.

Have we taken this scientific data to heart? Have policy makers in Seattle embraced the idea that if we are to grow sustainably and protect the sound, then we need more housing in smaller spaces?

Here’s a question a Seattle councilmember had about sinks in microhousing units:

It is our understanding that the private bathrooms attached to sleeping rooms in microhousing projects are often comprised of just a toilet and a shower. Has DPD considered requiring these bathrooms to include a sink as well, which would increase the number of sinks in each sleeping room to two? Please provide a summary of the Department’s rationale for either pursuing or not pursuing such a requirement.

That’s right, the Councilmember was worried about how many sinks are in microhousing units. He was responding to this concern at a public meeting by an opponent of microhouisng:

“Now when a person comes out of the bathroom and tries to wash their hands in their one sink, what happens if there is a head of lettuce in there?”

The reason the discourse has become so barbarous and pointed is that elected officials aren’t acting on the data, they are acting on the fears of current residents of our city. How does one respond to a red herring other than to dispute the facts? And when that doesn’t work, and the Council starts to mandate extra sinks, what then?

We’ve offered a document that we hope will start to shift the discussion towards solutions. Ideas for the Change: Seattle’s Housing Future, is a start at pulling together ideas that are tried and true, expanding programs that are already working, and proposing new ideas that should be tried.

Smart Growth Seattle doesn’t expect the fight to go away, and we intend to match the other side’s rhetoric with facts and with humor as needed. We’ll criticize officials and hold them accountable when they pander to NIMBYs and we’ll call out ideas that are antithetical to the principles of smart growth. But we also are ready with ideas when they’re ready to listen.