The Sequoia Norton Site, and Residents for Norton Playfield, are back
The Sequoia Norton Site, and Residents for Norton Playfield, are back
After tirelessly compromising their plans for a multifamily supportive housing complex in west Port Gardner, organized homeowners are still speaking against it.
Welcome back to Local Crank! Thank you all for taking the time to read the first issue last week and being interested in these hyperlocal issues. After an eventful couple of weeks for Everett’s City Council, this week has a light agenda. Elsewhere, the Hisorical Commission’s decision against Housing Hope’s Sequoia Norton Site sets it up for another perilous battle between housing advocates and opponents before the City Council.
Item #11325: Three Acre Park, Phase 1
In response to the city’s budget shortfall, the City Council will be considering a reallocation of budgeted funds for a public project launched in 2016 that would have created a three acre park along Eclipse Mill Road in the Riverfront Development Area. Last year, the city gave away the project to a property developer, Shelter Holdings, and relinquished control of the project's operations. Altogether, the city estimates their contributions to the project cost $525,000.
This park was one feature in Everett’s Riverfront Development project that is planned to include “1,250 multi-family units, a theater, small grocery, possible medical clinic, hotel and office building”. Among the public amenities advertised for the planned development included trails, wetland restoration, and the Three Acre Park.
Since 2016, the Bellevue-based company and its listed governors have spent $33,100 on local and statewide races, according to the Public Disclosure Commission. They donate to almost exclusively Democrats in partisan races with recipients like Bob Ferguson ($3,000) and Hilary Franz ($3,000). They also donated to Amazon-endorsed Seattle City Council candidate Egan Orion in his 2017 and 2019 bids to unseat democratic socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant. More locally, they’ve spent $5,800 in Snohomish County races including Terry Ryan, Greg Tisdel, and incumbent Executive Dave Somers. $4,300 in contributions have also been given to the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish County Affordable Housing Council, yet the planned development on the riverfront includes just 10% “affordable” units.
Public stewardship of our these lands is important for maintaining these spaces for the public good and in the public interest instead of to maintain profit. As the city searches for ways to claw back a $18 million budget shortfall, the Parks Department and related projects will continue to be casualties of cuts.
Housing Hope’s Woes Continue
Once again, another decision-making body in Everett has swatted down Housing Hope's plans for a supportive housing development for students of Everett Public Schools at the so-called Norton Playfield. This time the Historical Commission is recommending that the newly scaled-back plans be denied by the city due to more concerns about fitting in with the character of the predominately single-family home neighborhood nearby. The Planning Commission and then the City Council will weigh-in on the project in the coming weeks, but considering their track record reviewing this development, the outlook is bleak.
Early Background
This is the latest in a string of losses for Housing Hope's plans for a supportive housing development called the Sequoia Norton Site on land located at the 3600 block of Grand Avenue. The school board for Everett Public Schools unanimously approved in May 2019 leasing the land for a dollar per year for 75 years to Housing Hope. The development meant to house homeless students was soon met with an organized—and vocal—opposition.
Calling themselves the “Residents for Norton Playfield” (RNP), they placed signs around the area, in an attempt to astroturf a movement against the housing project. According to the group’s Facebook page, neighbors only found out when they were allegedly solicited for interviews by people with TV cameras who were invited there by Housing Hope.
In a press release they named three primary concerns:
Transparency: Housing Hope not previously disclosing this development's plan to the Port Gardner Neighborhood Association and other nearby residents is demonstration of a troubling lack of transparency. RNP describes this is an example of a “back door deal” that has damaged public trust.
Zoning: Because private developers are not allowed to build duplexes or triplexes in single-family zones (R-1 zones), RNP doesn't understand how multifamily supportive housing developments can be approved by the city without review by the Planning Commission and City Council.
Loopholes: Because of the perceived lack of transparency and questionable permission of the development by the city, RNP says this represents a loophole created by the city possibly with the intent to harm single-family neighborhoods. RNP says that the loophole is being exploited by Everett Public Schools and Housing Hope to “take aware a neighborhood park and destroy the character of a 100-plus year-old historic single-family neighborhood.
Meanwhile, a genuine grassroots movement of people stepped up and delivered emotional pleas, thoughtful moral appeals, and expert testimony to the City Council in its meeting about the project in June 2019. “There is a direct correlation between stable housing and educational attainment,” Housing Hope CEO Fred Safstrom said during public comments. However, bowing to pressure from RNP and their supporters, the City Council resolved to enact a moratorium of all supportive housing located in residential zones. This was, as CM Brenda Stonecipher put it, a “time out” on the zoning amendment process necessary to allow the supportive housing to be constructed at that location while the council further studied the situation. This decision set up a new series of public hearings about the moratorium and whether to make it permanent.
It’s at this point in July 2019 that concerns about “transparency” were quickly dropped. Instead, RNP and their supporters began to push any message that stuck: Everett has too many housing services and other cities should do more, there’s not enough planned parking, there would be too much traffic, the city needs to preserve open spaces, it could lead to greater environmental degradation, it would set a precedent that would destroy single-family neighborhoods, and it’s just not fair that EPS leased the land for $75 when they should have instead sold it at market rate. No matter the specific talking point, the reasons peddled by opponents in council meetings were riddled with thinly veiled (if at all) classist anecdotes.
Over the next six months in subsequent meetings (July 10, August 20, September 17, and October 15), the City Council and Planning Commission continued to hear one thoughtful presentation after another from residents and experts alike. They talked about how housing is a fundamental human right, how it’s indispensable for good student performance, and how urgently supportive housing is needed for Everett. Opponents, rallied by RNP, parroted the familiar lines about the loss of neighborhood character both by the architecture of the development itself and the perceived types of people who would be living there.
In the end, the anti-housing activists won. The Planning Commission in their October 15th meeting voted to recommend that the City Council ban supportive housing from single-family zones.
Moratorium becomes permanent
By December, the stage was set. After multiple rounds of public comments and impassioned arguments made before the Council and Planning Commission, it was now time to decide whether to lift the moratorium or make it permanent. Residents for Norton Playfield rallied their supporters to back the moratorium whereas others like the Snohomish County Democratic Socialists of America called on the public to speak against the ban.
At a meeting on December 4th, Councilmember Liz Vogeli moved to abolish the moratorium entirely and permit supportive housing in single-family zones without any new conditions—but it did not even receive a second. It was clear: a majority on the council was intent on banning supportive housing in single-family zones one way or another regardless of what anybody told them.
Of the fifty-two members of the public who came forward to speak, only eleven of them were supportive of the moratorium. An overwhelming majority of people, forty-one, supported abolishing the moratorium altogether. Councilmember Scott Murphy said that it was important for the City Council to “look out for the neighborhoods” and disagrees with assertions that such an attitude is akin to “not caring about homeless families” (actually, it is, Scott).
So, after months of hearing a clear majority of people and experts speaking against the moratorium, the City Council still opposed permitting the Sequoia Norton Site. The City Council instead approved a “compromise plan” to “construct an ordinance” that would allow supportive housing in single-family zones, but amend development standards so that they were “consistent with single-family housing”. A week later, they unanimously voted to extend the moratorium another three months.
By this point, officials with Housing Hope understood that their current plans for a multifamily complex were effectively dead. The City Council was clear that they were not going to permit such a development in a single-family zone, and the best case scenario was a rejection of the new ordinance at a meeting in January. That outcome seemed unlikely, so they decided it was better to get ahead of the decision and figure out what they would do next.
Going back to the drawing board, on January 22nd, Fred Safstrom said that Housing Hope would not reapply and that they were now fully committed to revising their original plan. To aid with these revisions and to resolve differences with homeowners, Safstrom announced the formation of the Neighborhood Advisory Design Committee. A couple of weeks following that announcement, RNP encouraged their supporters to apply to be on the committee to presumably bend the revisions to their preferences.
On January 29th, after hearing comments from eight people in opposition to the moratorium—and nobody in support of it—the City Council voted 4–1 to adopt the new ordinance anyway. It was finally official: multifamily supportive housing developments were banned from all single-family zones in Everett. The goals that Residents for Norton Playfield originally had set out six months prior had been achieved.
Round Two
The Neighborhood Advisory Design Committee got to work resolving concerns on February 25th. The notes describe a spirited discussion where three central issues emerged: parking, street traffic, and pedestrian access. In this first meeting proposals emerged like removing an urban farming patch to make space for more car parking and constructing parking underground. By May 27th, the new plan was coming together with two important modifications:
“Most changes” were made to accommodate more space for cars. On-site parking was almost doubled from 28 spots to 54. A driveway was enlarged to create more space for cars with parking for both the multifamily and single-family dwellings. Lastly, even more parking was added below townhouse-style buildings.
Buildings along Norton Avenue, facing the single-family neighborhood, would themselves now be single-family homes. I was unable to find an estimate of how many units this change sacrificed, but my guess would be at least a dozen. A survey on January 28th gathered preferences from local respondents on their preferred architecture styles.
Other actual constructive changes emerged from this too, including improvements to pedestrian paths, the addition of ramps, enlarging a park area, and improved sight lines for a children's playground. While there can be a genuine benefit to these types of public feedback processes, they can also be used as additional opportunities for hostile homeowners to sabotage and kneecap affordable housing projects.
Theoretically, these changes addressed most of the concerns brought forward by opponents of the Sequoia Norton Site: parking was added, there was more attention paid to managing traffic, pedestrian accessibility had been improved, and the street-facing buildings were single-family homes matching the character of the neighborhood. But, it was still not good enough.
As was mentioned several times before the Planning Commission and City Council, housing opponents pointed out that the Sequoia Norton Site was located within the boundaries of a historic overlay. Therefore, they argued, there should be input from the Everett Historical Commission on whether the proposed construction adhered to the standards demanded of buildings in that overlay. On August 25th, 2020, the Historical Commission got their chance—and so did RNP.
Even though both Housing Hope and the city caved to Residents for Norton Playfield’s demands for a community-based design review and planning process that included scaling down the project, RNP was still opposed.
“Much of the support for this project is coming from outside this city,” RNP spokesperson Ken Ries inaccurately said, “as much as Housing Hope is trying to paint the picture that neighbors and residents support this project, that is not the case”. One housing opponent, Carol, said Housing Hope was trying to “pull the wool over everyone’s eyes”. Another said they lived across the street from the site in a “working class neighborhood” (it’s not) and said that the housing will negatively impact their quality of life because they “can’t afford to relocate”—implying that living across from supportive housing is bad enough to prompt moving away. One opponent said that the proposed housing for homeless students disgusted them and another straight up said that a grass field was more useful purpose for that space than housing.
The mask has slipped, but the Historical Commission didn’t care. They recommended (6–2) that Housing Hope’s plans be rejected by the City Council anyway.
These people were never going to be behind supportive housing in their neighborhood, period. Their concern trolling in 2019 about neighborhood character and transparency were just excuses to ban poors from their neighborhood. The City Council took their bait and I fear they’ll do it again.
The entire experience last year showed to me that it seems like there is no amount of convincing that can be made to our city’s leadership that will compel them to be pro-housing. Does not matter how many people speak up, how impassioned the pleas can be, how many experts detail the critical need for new supportive housing at every opportunity.
The City Council, acting in the interests of a select few homeowners, will seemingly never approve. The only way to get them to change their attitude will be to elect housing advocates in next year’s elections. Among the people who vocally supported the Sequoia Norton Site in City Council meetings last year, Tim Ellis, is considering a run for City Council.
The Planning Commission will hear more about Housing Hope’s updated plans and comments from the Historical Commission on September 15th. Like before, I imagine the public comments will be filled with more pearl-clutching homeowners repeating the same falsehoods and the same talking points.
Thank you for reading!
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