Seattle, like just about every city small and large in the U.S., has a built environment dictated by a land-use code. We use this code to determine what can be built where, how big or small the building can be, how dense it can be (housing units/X square feet, for example), how much parking is required, etc.

This act of land use dictation is called zoning. And lest you think that this is the way things have always been, think again. Zoning as a tool for cities to control their environments (and dictate to their citizens what they are allowed to do with their land) only got its start in the early 20th century, in the small Ohio town of Euclid. The year was 1926 and Euclid citizens were fed up with the smog and pollution that was being pumped out of the factories – factories that were located right in the city where people lived and worked. It certainly was not a setup conducive to one’s health and happiness – and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. It decreed that it was lawful for Euclid to ban the factories from co-existing with residents, and thus the precedent was set for the segregation of uses from each other, soon adopted by cities across the country.

I use this story to set the context for what I’d really like to talk about, which is zoning in Seattle, and whether or not our land-use policies are contributing in any way to the common good of Seattle’s citizens. After all, shouldn’t that be the goal of zoning? If the powers-that-be determined that we need zoning in order to create the best, most logical, most vibrant built environment possible, then the land-use code ought to do that, right? Take a minute to ponder what your version of a logical land-use map looks like. Where is the housing? What kinds of housing go where (choose from single-family, multifamily, attached, detached)? What about commerce? Offices? Ok, so hopefully now you have a general idea. Want to know what Seattle’s land-use map looks like? Here it is. All of those light yellow squares that dominate the map? That’s land for detached single-family housing only. Minimize lot size: 5,000 square feet. Up to 9,600 square feet. How much land do we devote to this low-density single-use option? About 65%. How does that percentage strike you?

I’ll tell you how it strikes me: it’s completely absurd. It’s way too much. The 5,000 – 9,600 square foot lot is the relic of a small-town, bygone era in this city. Seattle’s 1900 population: 80,000. 1950: 467,000. Today: 650,000. Did it make sense in 1900 to build large suburban-style homes on big lots in a city with lots of land and few people? Sure. But if it made sense 100 years ago, it just doesn’t make sense now.

Consider the housing affordability issue that Seattle is facing right now. We are in the midst of a massive housing crunch as builders race to meet the demand of all those folks wanting to live here. But they face a massive uphill battle because 65% of Seattle is all but off-limits. And when they try to get creative in a way that allows for new development in the single-family zones, the City strikes down their attempt. The obvious truth is that the building of anything other than traditional suburban-style large lot homes in single family zones will upset the politically powerful folks living in those homes today. So nothing gets built there. Ever. We have spilled plenty of ink on this blog about this problem; it is a fear-based reaction to change, coming from folks whose sensibilities will be disturbed by any shift from their current way of life to anything else. The Seattle City Council is sensitive to the desires of these mostly older, white-collar homeowners because they voice their displeasure with elected officials as we all do – with their votes. It’s practically become an oath new council members take upon entering office: “I promise to leave our sacred single family neighborhoods protected and unchanged.”

As such, the fraction of land devoted to multifamily, higher-density development takes the brunt of new housing. And it turns out there are some pretty nasty consequences to shoving all new development onto little slivers of land and freezing the rest in amber. First, it leads to monolithic megastructures. New apartment buildings, for example, often take up whole blocks, as with this Othello megabuilding. They have to, to be profitable for builders who can’t build anywhere else. This can be oppressive visually, creates a less interesting, less vibrant street-level pedestrian experience, and reduces the usefulness potential of retail, because the developer is less likely to split up the ground floor into small retail spaces where independent shops, cafes and restaurants might take up residence. Bigger retail space = increased probability it will be a chain store.

Second, limiting development to small slivers of land (think Pike/Pine in Capitol Hill or Stone Way in Fremont) reduces walkable urbanism in the surround area. Seattle’s pattern is to stuff all commerce onto one busy street, and return immediately to single-use residential zoning the minute you move one block over. This limits the potential for truly mixed-use, vibrant neighborhoods.

The third and quite possibly most damning consequence of such aggressive land-use segregation is that it destroys potential housing diversity. Seattle’s zoning policies have largely distilled our housing styles to two options: apartment buildings and detached single family. When you think Seattle-style home, do you picture a Craftsman offset from the sidewalk and popped up from the street? Me too. Yes, there are a handful of townhouses being built, and the occasional rowhouse or cottage, but these housing types are exceptions to the rule. Which brings us back to the original question: Is it right to be setting aside 65% of our land to a single housing style, especially one that discourages density, increases suburban sprawl, limits residential growth potential, and deters smart people from keeping their brains in Seattle? Because this is largely the cause of the monoculture of housing types. You can’t build a rowhouse in a single family zone but you can’t make that rowhouse financially feasible in a multifamily zone.

Of course Seattle’s single family neighborhoods will never completely disappear, nor should they. They do provide a unique housing option that is attractive to a lot of people. But for the sake of the folks who don’t want to live in a detached craftsman home with a big yard, or folks that can’t afford to, it is imperative that Seattle reduces that 65% to a more reasonable number, and re-zones the rest of the land as multifamily of one form or another (residential small-lot, LR2, LR3, etc.). The Council knows the vast benefits of housing diversity – how it stratifies housing costs and creates affordability for all income levels, encourages heterogeneous cultures, ethnicities and demographics, and provides a more interesting built environment. That’s why they changed the code four years ago to encourage such development. But four years on, the evidence is clear: meaningful amounts of different housing types (rowhouses, cottages, townhomes) aren’t being built because most of our land is off limits to them.

There is great potential in Seattle to diversify our housing stock. We recently tackled one such innovation, the perimeter block house, at SGS. But these new kinds of homes simply won’t be built in any meaningful quantity until we stop prioritizing a single (anachronistic) housing style over all others. So in the name of equality, sustainability, and diversity, let’s take another look at the zoning map and come up with changes that will lead to a more sensible and vibrant built environment.