Nickels wants taller downtown

Mayor Greg Nickels unveiled a proposal yesterday that would allow taller buildings in downtown Seattle in hopes of creating more housing and jobs in the city's core and curbing suburban sprawl.

Nickels' proposal — based mainly on zoning changes — must be approved by the City Council. The mayor's announcement amounts to the opening argument in what is likely to be a lively, if not rancorous, debate.

Nickels would eliminate height restrictions that voters imposed in 1989's CAP Initiative. The initiative forced developers to go through a stringent design-review process and limited the height of downtown buildings to 450 feet, with added provisions that could let heights climb to 540 feet.

Nickels would let buildings climb to 700 feet in the downtown core and up to 600 feet in parts of the Denny Triangle north of downtown.

"The idea is simple. It takes advantage of huge public investment in transportation projects such as light rail and monorail. We're trying to put more housing where transportation dollars are going," said Nickels' spokesman Casey Corr.

The mayor's plan also would require developers to contribute money toward affordable housing in exchange for increased height and overall building size. Those contributions could total $35 million, Nickels' staff said.

The plan was praised by developers and environmentalists, who pointed to Vancouver, B.C., as a model for what Seattle's downtown might look like.

"By far the most important thing that Seattle can do for sustainability is grow dense, mixed-use neighborhoods, more on the Vancouver scale than anything we've envisioned so far," said Alan Durning, head of Northwest Environment Watch.

But affordable-housing activist John Fox argued that affluent people will fill up new high-rise condo and apartment buildings, displacing existing low-income housing on some blocks. "This plan is a blueprint for gentrification of our neighborhoods ... ," he said.

Fox said a net total of 1,500 low-income dwellings downtown were lost to demolition and conversion in the past 20 years. Even with the mayor's affordable-housing incentives, Fox said city documents show that Nickels' plan would produce just 400 apartments in the next 20 years for low-income people in "desperate need" — those who make less than half of Seattle's median income, which translates to roughly $20,000 a year.

Among key elements of the mayor's plan, the downtown office core would expand north into the Denny Triangle area, allowing heights to increase from 360 to 600 feet in parts of the area.

Areas closer to the waterfront, near Western Avenue, would see less dramatic increases, from 160 to 240 feet.

The plan would not alter zoning next to Pike Place Market. Nor would it affect Seattle's downtown retail core area, Pioneer Square or the Chinatown/International District.

Downtown developers welcomed the proposed changes. They are far from a give-away, said Richard Stevenson, president of Clise Properties.

It will cost millions of dollars to take advantage of the new height limits, including contributions to low-income-housing programs and parks. While they're all worthy programs, Stevenson said, those mitigation costs aren't applied to developments outside the downtown area, including the South Lake Union neighborhood.

"I still worry about not having a level playing field," he said. "If you want to build an office building in the suburbs or in Fremont, you don't have to pay anything."

One project that is waiting for the rules to change is developer Greg Smith's proposed residential tower at Second Avenue and Pike Street. Smith has become a leading proponent for following Vancouver's example of allowing taller, skinnier buildings to encourage more development downtown.

Smith plans to build between 200 and 300 residential units in the building near Pike Place Market. A taller, skinnier design would block less air and light on the street, and the smaller floors would allow the buildings to be more energy efficient, he said.

Seattle Times staff reporter J. Martin McOmber contributed to this story.

Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com