A nagging sense that growth is cramping our style

Most of the time, the feeling is very subtle: a slight clenching of the jaw, an unintended furrowing of the brow as if caught in sunlight that is way too bright.

Seattle is gorgeous, glorious and discovered — and crowded, traffic-congested and discovered.

All of us in Seattle and other Puget Sound cities have had that reaction. This is such an extraordinary place to live we sometimes feel a little claustrophobic, even anxious, about all the new people coming here and setting up camp. What's the big deal?

The big deal is that growth and density — over the last seven years, King County added 124,000 new residents — are having impacts in ways large and small. You see it in the building cranes towering everywhere, streets blocked for construction of more buildings, roads backed up with traffic that wasn't anywhere near that bad even last year.

Two neighbors you have known for years decide to move away. You will miss these nice, quiet people living in a house that fits harmoniously with the land.

Within a week of their decision, neighbors are whispering about what, not whom, will replace their reasonably sized home. Will it be a dreaded McMansion, one of those monster homes that reaches high in the sky and stretches lot line to lot line?

What will become of the neighborhood?

As part of the neighborhood-planning effort, certain neighborhoods agreed to accept higher density in exchange for urban amenities, such as traffic circles, parks and libraries. Seattle is bracing for another 100,000 residents over the next 15 to 20 years.

In a good news/bad news conundrum, Seattle's real-estate market is still humming while sales in other parts of the country are slowing.

That means a host of developers and would-be homeowners are still willing to pay $800,000 or more for a teardown. There is a cost to a neighborhood if the teardown's replacement overwhelms all the other more modestly sized homes with noise, construction dust and view-blocking megahomes.

There it is again: that knotting, clenching, uncomfortable feeling. Will our city feel as livable after all the real-estate money sloshes around and maxes out so many comfortably sized lots in neighborhoods where scale and taste used to mean something?

Been to a city park lately? Been to Capitol Hill? Then you can guess where this train of thought is headed: There is no parking anywhere!!!

At the risk of scaring the City Council, most of whose members believe cars are wicked, it used to be so easy to get around Seattle. If you needed something at a hardware store, you hopped in the car and pulled almost in front of the store, got out and made your purchase. Not anymore.

Seattle recently was named the third-most-popular travel destination, after Orlando and Las Vegas. Yikes. Whether that is really true or not, the flood of visitors is good for certain businesses, not so great for residents who find every place more crowded.

The very things we fell in love with here — I am nonnative myself — seem more packed, more of a hassle every day.

Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin is trying to do something about the proliferation of megahomes.

Conlin's proposed changes to the housing code would shrink the residential height limit from roughly three stories to two, with some exceptions. Homes could occupy only up to 35 percent of a lot.

The legislation also would end the practice of replacing multiple neighboring houses with fewer buildings. Buyers could not continue to purchase two side-by-side single-family lots and replace them with one large megahome.

Seattle is not alone. Other popular upscale communities with beaucoup real-estate cash are trying to get a handle on McMansions.

Austin, Texas, Marin County, Atlanta and many other communities are trying to get a handle on homes that block sunlight and views and take some of the charm out of a neighborhood. The Bellevue City Council is working the same issue right now.

Even though Seattle has to accept some growth as part of state growth-management rules, the city should get a grip on that uncomfortable crowding that comes with increasing urbanization and density.

New laws will help. But some things can't be fixed. More people means traffic keeps getting worse all the time. Home prices are soaring into the stratosphere. Quality of life here remains quite good but you can feel some of our world-famous livability ebbing. Our angst is palpable.

Joni Balter's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is jbalter@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Editorial/Opinion at seattletimes.com