if seattle's MHA sets a city-wide precedent, then are federally designated historic districts in wealthy, mostly white single family zoned areas (like wallingford and ravenna), the new racially restrictive covenants?

they're proposing almost all of the low-rise and single family zoned sections of the wallingford urban village should be a federally designated historic district

let's overlay these maps! yikes!

i've added a blue fill for the proposed historic districts on the zoning map.

the lightest blue? it's all single family zoning. a designation that should never have existed in the first place (and didn't prior to 1923)

dk blue is existing MFH

should come as no surprise that the same people that tried to get the council to completely adjust the boundary of the wallingford urban village (red line = proposed contraction) so single family zoned land wouldn't exist within it, are supportive of this

https://www.theurbanist.org/2018/08/15/urban-village-boundary-contractions-no-thanks/

these are the same people that opposed relaxing the ADU ordinance so more backyard cottages could be built in more of the city

https://www.wallingfordcc.org/2019/06/11/public-hearing-backyard-cottage-zoning-changes-tuesday-june-11/#more-2185

the same people who opposed relaxing parking requirements near transit, while feigning concern about the environment.

the same folks who opposed the nominal rezones for affordable housing, and spread incredible lies about the program, some using some heinously gross terms to describe renters living in more of the city.

https://www.wallingfordcc.org/2019/02/20/public-hearing-on-the-mha-grand-bargain-thursday-february-21/

and the demographics of wallingford? let's look at the northern section of their proposed area (tangletown)

91% white in the 2017 ACS (seattle average is 69%). percentage of renters? significantly below the seattle average, despite being near core and UW

let's look at some of these streets...

gosh, i can't imagine why seattle has a housing affordability crisis when this is only 5km to downtown...

contrast this with munich. 5km from the city center, there's no massive districts single family houses - these are small scale multifamily homes, large multifamily buildings, rowhouses interspersed w/ post-war housing blocks

you can build social housing on *ALL* of this

walllingford is also one of the neighborhoods that didn't need racially restrictive covenants.

'This reemphasizes the point that social enforcement of segregation was every bit as important as legally enforcing deed restrictions'

https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_report.htm

in the 80s, wallingford homeowners banded together to downzone it and prevent workers and students from living in more of the neighborhood.

'60 years ago, you could buy a home in Wallingford for $10,000. Today, homes sell for easily 100X that amount'

https://kuow.org/stories/wallingford-fought-developers-decades-it-was-hip/

i wrote about the history of wallingford's exclusionary processes over the last century have contributed greatly to our housing affordability crisis for @Sightline a few years ago. https://www.sightline.org/2018/05/24/the-narrowing-of-a-neighborhood-wallingford/

looks like some things never change.

there's a petition you can sign here: https://www.change.org/p/national-register-of-historic-places-stop-historic-preservation-in-wallingford

you can also write your councilpersons and ask them to ensure that future rezones don't allow historic districts to be the new RRCs

btw, wallingford home values? they've gone up in value over 13 times the rate of inflation.

i'm sure decades of working to prevent new housing, block affordable housing, decimating the ability to add lower cost missing middle infill in this neighborhood had zero to do with it.