Month: February 2015

Updated: August 20, 2024

The traffic implications of this proposed multi-family development are many.  It doesn’t take a traffic engineer to know that Hampton Road suffers from over-use and congestion.  But just because Hampton has a low level of service due to it’s over-use doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned about adding to or making the traffic worse.

Hampton Road is not the only road that will be impacted negatively by this project. North Boulevard Terrace, a dead-end street that runs parallel and to the west of Hampton will be connected to Plymouth Rd to the north as part of this project. In the 2017 Bond process, our current Council Member Chad West was the Chair of the Citizen Bond Task Force and was responsible for getting this connector road on the needs list. To make the $2.2M connector road possible, some privately owned land had to be seized through eminent domain.

Imagine how you would feel if your quiet cul-de-sac became a major cut-through for literally thousands of cars trying to avoid traffic on N Hampton Rd. — and all this to help a developer/city official make the money of a life time. And to add insult to unjury, private property was seized to do so. It is entirely disingenuous, when the developer says he did not want the bridge. In fact, in 2015 he said the only reason he had to put his ingress/egress onto Hampton Rd was because a bridge to Plymouth was cost-prohibitive and would make his project unprofitable. And other propaganda, that the City HAD to build the bridge to provide access for emergency vehicles is a false narrative. A turn-about at the end of the street would have been another viable and cheaper option.

The developer has expressed his belief that Hampton is “broken” and it’s traffic problem is a larger issue that needs to be addressed at the city wide regional level.  Despite his acknowledgement of the issues related to traffic on Hampton Road, he makes no apologies or excuses for adding more vehicles to the already congested Hampton Road by seeking to develop a high density multi-family development.  The developer’s “its-broken-so-who-cares” mentality is fundamentally wrong and irresponsible.

The image above graphically illustrates traffic counts along Hampton Road from I-30 to Davis.  The segment of Hampton directly in front of the proposed multi-family development has approximately 39,000 vehicles per day.  Its important to recognize that Hampton Rd can not be widened any more.  There is no higher capacity thoroughfare designation to which  Hampton can be promoted — it wall always be a six-lane divided thoroughfare. Since Hampton Road can not be widened, the 39,000 daily commuters, the nearby home owners and the community in general have a vested interest in maintaining the highest level of service on Hampton for as long as feasibly possible.  Thus, this proposed high density multi-family development is counter to and undermines the general public interest.

The picture below supports the position that Hampton Road presents real risk to health and safety. These risks DO NOT need to be increased by unnecessarily contributing to increased traffic in an already over-utilized thoroughfare.

The developer has been promoting Architect Ross Chapin’s book, Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World.  Ross Chapin together with developer, Jim Soules are considered the “grandfathers” of  so-called “pocket” or “cottage” neighborhoods.  Their work in this style of architecture and development began back in the mid-90’s and many of their projects are truly world class.  It’s ironic that Christian Chernock suggests that we read this book, but then chooses to not abide by the architectural and planning guidelines set forth within and incorporated into many municipal zoning regulations. 

We actually contacted Ross Chapin and asked him to review the proposed site plan.  He didn’t have too many complimentary things to say about this proposed development.

Here are some of Ross Chapin’s comments during his review of the proposed development:

• This is not a pocket neighborhood in its overall design
• The marketing material is false and misleading
•  Where are the picnic areas? BBQ? Sun shelters?
• There are issues with scale, massing, density and lack of detail
• Not following the cottage code – only paying lip service to the concept
• This is a automobile dominated configuration
• There should not be access via Hampton, especially since other access is available – this risks peoples lives
• There is a plop, plop, plop mentality in this plan that will create a fishbowl effect that creates tension in the community and a resentment to the increased density
• Needs to be better, safer, pedestrian friendly and visually toned down
• The major focal point of this site plan is the waste management area
• The developer needs to look at the design patterns in the book – the patterns that make for good neighbors

 

More on Pocket Neighborhoods

The driving factor behind the birth of this architectual movement was ultimately a housing shortage — more specifically an affordable housing shortage.  This style of development allows for greater density construction over what traditional single-family zoning would allow. The typical ratio for the smaller cottages is 2:1 and 1.5:1 for the larger designs.  For example, a typical 7,500 square feet single-family parcel could accommodate two 800 square feet cottages.  The advantage, obviously, is a reduction in land costs for the developer. Those dollars could in turn be diverted into a more thoughtful structural design with a higher quality finish.  And ultimately this creates a market product of affordable transitional housing that exists somewhere on the spectrum between cheap row houses on one end and high-end condominiums on the other end (neither of which have high desirability).

In the twenty years that has passed since the inception of this genre of housing, many municipalities have started to experiment with this type of zoning mechanism and many lessons have been learned along the way.  One thing that has become crystal clear is that without proper zoning regulations, this design genre is not sustainable.  To get nearby home owners to accept with open arms this higher density construction standard into their single-family neighborhoods, the development standards of these pocket neighborhoods must be meticulously outlined in stringent zoning code.  If not, any speculative high density  multi-family development could claim that it was a “cottage” or “pocket” neighborhood and try to cash-in on the cheap dirt of a single-family district.  And that is exactly what the developer of the proposed Kessler Commons is attempting.  Several cities that have allowed this type of development through specific zoning ordinances have found that developers, like Christian Chernock, all too frequently exploit and abuse the regulations by squeezing dwelling units into every square inch of land to maximize profits.  Consequently, some of those cities have repealed the ordinances because of the abuse by developers and the detrimental impact on established single-family districts.

Below you will find links to some of the actual zoning regulations from various municipalities that Chapin and Soules have listed in their book as successful examples of cottage neighborhoods.  There are key design aspects that define this genre and Kessler Commons falls way short of the design standards.  

Please feel free to read some of the Cottage Neighborhood zoning regulations below from some of the cities that are home to Chapin’s most successful Cottage Neighborhood developments.  In doing so, you will see just how disingenuous it is that the developer is claiming his proposed high density, multi-family development is a “cottage” or “pocket” neighborhood.

Shoreline Washington

Seattle

King County Housing Alliance

Redmond

City of Mukilteo

Port Townsend

King County

Marysville

Federal Way

Lets look at the actual cottage neighborhoods that Ross Chapin and Jim Soules have designed and built.  Purportedly, Kessler Commons was modeled after these award-winning neighborhoods but the images below tell another story entirely.  The high density, multi-family development that Christian Chernock is proposing is vastly different from any of the Chapin-designed neighborhoods.  He is proposing 42 units on 3.6 acres! And, not one of the Chapin designed cottage neighborhoods include Town Homes.

DEVELOPMENT	CITY	STATE	UNITS	AVG SQ FT	TOTAL ACREAGE	FEATURES
Backyard Neighborhood	Whidbey Island	WA	3 + 3	1200 + 465	0.5	3 homes + 3 backyard cottages
Conover Commons	Redmond	WA	25	1800	9.5	2 miles from MicroSoft HQ
Danielson Grove	Seattle	WA	16	1000	1.8	700 - 1500 sq ft
Ericksen Cottages	Bainbridge Island	WA	11	1500	1.1	walking distance to Ferry
Greenwood Avenue Cottages	Shoreline	WA	8	900	0.8	across from community college
Ravenna Cottages	Seattle	WA	6 + 3	850	.25	6 homes + 3 carriage houses
Third Street Cottages	Langley	WA	8	1000	.66	on Whidbey Island

The developer of this proposed high density, multi-family subdivision (its clearly not a cottage neighborhood) has suggested that the parcels involved are “blighted” and that the neighborhood will benefit greatly from this development.

So lets look at some of the numbers with respect to property values on North Boulevard Terrace.

 

These figures above related to the property values on North Boulevard Terrace clearly illustrate that Chernock’s properties are the lowest valued properties.  Moreover, Chernock’s properties have had the sharpest 5 year decline in values versus the other North Boulevard Terrace properties.  So it appears that the “neighborhood blight” to which the developer refers is largely due to the neglect of his own property. Coincidence? Or is it an attempt to keep property values artificially low for the purposes of acquisition?

And what about the property values on N Hampton Road? Lets take a look.

 

The figures above related to property values on Hampton Rd clearly illustrate solid gains in value over the past 5 years. Additionally, the average home values are comparable to or greater than other areas within West Kessler.  Contrary to arguments made by the developer, this segment of Hampton Road does NOT need to be “rescued”.

Please note the picture below of a homeless camp that was discovered on, yes you guessed it, Chernock’s property!

Updated: August 20, 2024

The Developer has 2 zoning cases for the 10 single-family parcels in what is a transparent attempt to limit the notification zone and the trigger for a traffic study.

Z234-244: Plan is to have six single-family parcels on the west side of North Boulevard Terrace be rezoned to MF-2 so he can build a 100-unit apartment complex. Since this is not a request for a Planned Development District (PD), the notification zone is only 200 feet.

Z234-249: Plan is to have four single-family parcels on Hampton rezoned to a Planned Development District (PD) consisting of four 8-Plex apartment buildings and 13 homes that may, or may not be detached. Because this is a PD, the notification zone is 500 feet.

Bottom Line: Existing zoning on these single-family parcels allows for about 3-4 units per acre. He is asking for more than 10x the existing zoning for an average of 32 units per acre.