Peter, your interest in protecting wilderness and rural farm lands is admirable.

However, this project represents an ongoing injustice of special influence for special interests over public policy.

This project represents relegating a space that a great many residents of Olympia and Washington State hold hear. It represents taking an amenity from the public.

Our society is tremendously harmful toward the natural world. Many (but clearly not all) people who are wealthy participate in behavior and business activities that are harmful and destructive. To me, it is a very serious and egregious violation of the public interest to reward people for those destructive and harmful behaviors.

For example: How will we know that there will not be people who reap financial profit from war contractors living in that building?

This project is so divisive because it brings up just these issues.

Maybe we can find a way to have luxury housing downtown that we can all agree on...

I am interested in discussing and addressing my above concerns (about detrimental economic activity) and perhaps finding an effective resolution of these very legitimate concerns. But how can that happen while the City Council, as well as virtually every governing body in this society, do the business of special interests?

Just for the record, Larida Passage will do essentially nothing toward either 1) protecting our forests and farms from urban sprawl or 2) reducing our reliance on the auto. Sorry to have to go over this yet again, but:

On 1: Most buyers of these houses will not be people who would otherwise be living in Olympia's suburbs. There are very few buyers in the county with enough money to afford a million dollar residence; according to a recent letter to the paper from a local real estate agent, the Thurston County MLS shows only 19 sales of single family homes from $800,000 to $1.2 million in the last year. If successful, the project would primarily bring an additional 141 households who were shopping for a luxury waterfront condo to the area, not shift population from the suburbs to downtown.

On 2: Using the city’s standard transportation estimates, they figure that during the peak afternoon traffic period people in multi-family housing downtown will drive home or away 25% less than people in similar housing farther out. (The standard PM Peak Trip rate for multi-family housing outside downtown is 0.55; the rate for downtown multifamily housing is 0.41.) The difference is .14 trips PM Peak Trips per housing unit; 141 units times .14 is 19.7 trips. So, in return for having Triway’s buildings downtown, we could expect a grand total of something like 20 fewer trips per hour in the whole city during peak evening traffic. That includes people walking, biking, or riding transit instead of driving, and it includes people going out to buy something for dinner and coming back in fifteen minutes (which counts as two “trips” in these statistics.)

I wish Peter and Oly 2012 would address these objections to their claims, instead of just repeating them over and over; if they did, maybe I'd have to change my mind about them, but just going over and over this same ground isn't getting us anywhere.

Best,
Thad

I'd prefer to have the city simply put an income ceiling on this tax exemption, for a variety of reasons.

1. Although it's a lot of money for many people, I find it hard to believe that someone with the financial resources to buy a $1 million dollar condominium and to pay appropriately sized condominium ownership fees every year will find whether or not they are going to save $9,000 a year in property taxes a very significant factor in their purchasing decision. I agree with what I think Councilmember Strub said about this in the Land Use committee's discussion of the exemption issue; I think that if really expensive waterfront condos are going to sell in Olympia at all, they will sell with paying regular property taxes as part of the deal, and that there's no need for the city, the county, Medic One, the library and so on to sacrifice a lot of revenue to help boost such projects over some imaginary cost barrier. (It's $11 million over eight years for Larida Passage alone, for example.)

2. Contrary to the letter Triway submitted in the Council packet that Emmett posted on this issue, there's no reason that imposing an income limit on the exemption would require an audit of potential purchasers, and there's no need to just remove the exemption from the isthmus rather than putting a ceiling on the tax break across the board... The State's enabling legislation explicitly sets out other obvious ways of imposing such a limit, like limits on rents or sale prices:

From RCW 84.14.030

An owner of property making application under this chapter must meet the following requirements:

....

(2) The multiple-unit housing must meet guidelines as adopted by the governing authority that may include height, density, public benefit features, number and size of proposed development, parking, income limits for occupancy, limits on rents or sale prices, and other adopted requirements indicated necessary by the city. The required amenities should be relative to the size of the project and tax benefit to be obtained;

And from RCW 84.14.40:

(6) The governing authority may adopt and implement, either as conditions to eight-year exemptions or as conditions to an extended exemption period under *RCW 84.14.020(2), or both, more stringent income eligibility, rent, or sale price limits, including limits that apply to a higher percentage of units, than the minimum conditions for an extended exemption period under *RCW 84.14.020(2).

Best,
Thad

That's a great idea. I have called for a moratorium on development of housing in outlying areas, but impact fees, coupled with very stringent environmental protection regulation (e.g. specifically in terms of location, and manner of development, etc.).

This speaks to the idea of a City/County cooperative partnership relationship.

Thad, have you considered running for City Council? You have so much knowledge, wisdom and great ideas. I would like to nominate you and ask you to consider running.

We will be discussing this issue at our next meeting. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I agree that it is a "smart growth" issue, but I, personally, know little about it at this stage. We will not, however, be endorsing any candidates for county commissioner, regardless of their position on this issue. My elementary understanding is that all three of the key candidates (Bog, Jor, Val) support these fees.