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Living, too, in downtown

downtown Seattle-city of Seattle imageMost planners of urban areas nationally have concluded that downtowns, as a precondition of thriving, must be places where substantial numbers of people reside, as well as work and shop and entertain. The pieces tend not to hold together well otherwise. And cities around the Northwest have recognized that in recent years and acted on it, from Portland to Boise to Spokane.

Peter SteinbrueckSeattle, though, may be leading the pack with its latest move, undertaken Monday afternoon. That is when its city council passed the “downtown livability plan” proposed, and worked on for more than a year, by Council Member Peter Steinbrueck, who has chaired the council’s committee on urban development. It coordinates with a building height and density proposal Greg Nickels had been developing; that effort is a response to state requirements aiming to limit most growth to urban areas and away from rural.

The changes are varied and complex, and the details have undergone alternation all through the process. Generally, the changes will allow skyscrapers in some parts (not all) of the downtown area to be almost a third higher than they are now. Fees and benefits are attached to the new development, encouraging residential addons, some at the higher levels of these buildings, some elsewhere. There are provisions for lower-income (that is, non-wealthy) residential development as well, and provisions too for amenities, from green spaces to awnings.

The talk about the council and mayor about the vote as a dramatic turning point for Seattle may be a big exaggerated, just because – odds are – the tweaking of the plan probably will continue. (It went on right through the Monday council meeting.) But it surely is important, and it could be a big boost to continuing the reinvigorating of downtown Seattle that has taken such strong hold in the last few years.

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