Spring 2008 Issue
Seattle Report
Rustoleum?
Posted: September 15, 2008
Seattle Tightens Up Industrial Zones On December 17, 2007, the Seattle City Council took a decisive step to maintain the city’s bustling but besieged industrial base – something many observers believed might never happen.
By a 6 to 3 vote, the council reduced the amount of nonindustrial office and retail development that can take place on roughly 5,000 acres of land in south and north Seattle currently zoned for industrial use. Previous zoning regulations allowed up to 100,000 square feet of nonindustrial development per lot, encouraging investors and speculators to buy up the land for its nonindustrial development potential and encouraging land owners to run off industrial tenants.
The new regulations lower the limit to 10,000 SF of non industrial growth in the city’s IG-1 zone and 25,000 SF for property zoned IG-2.
The issue was brought to a head by a phenomenon seldom seen in local civic circles: a citizen advisory report that produced results other than an accumulation of dust.
The report to the Mayor and the City Council came from the City of Seattle Planning Commission, an independent advisory body created in 1946.
The Planning Commission initiated a study of industrial lands two years ago, prompted by concern for the rising number of industrial rezone proposals that were regularly being made to City Hall. The commission felt the city lacked an adequate knowledge base to assess the individual proposals and their cumulative impact on city policies, which strongly support industrial job retention.
The commission determined that Seattle’s industrial base is healthy, but threatened by the zoning regulations that were supposed to implement and support its industrial land policies, not weaken them. Examining policies in other cities, the commission found that places such as Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, limit nonindustrial growth to 5,000 or 10,000 SF per lot. By contrast, Seattle allowed up to ten times more nonindustrial expansion.
The commission found that the zoning encouraged speculation by investors who were buying up industrial land for its nonindustrial development potential while discouraging landowners from renewing leases with industrial tenants.
The commission recommended a much lower lid on nonindustrial growth. Mayor Greg Nickels responded with a proposal to change the zoning as part of a new industrial support initiative. The Council adopted a compromise bill that still allows up to 25,000 SF of nonindustrial use in IG-2 zones. That’s far more than other cities, but far less than what Seattle zoning previously allowed.
The legislation was adopted following a short, but intense, political battle as developers and some landowners deployed a team of top-tier lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations agents to defeat the legislation. Their argument? Industry in Seattle is dead.
Legislation supporters included not-dead industrial businesses and industrial property owners – along with environmental organizations, organized labor, and a federation of Seattle community councils. Their argument? Industry remains the economic bedrock of the city. Industrial firms generated $31 billion in sales in 2006, according to a survey of city B&O tax records. That was far more than the $17 billion generated by the retail sector, or the $20 billion billed by service providers and neither the retail nor the service sectors would have recorded those sales and service levels without the wealth created by industrial businesses and workers.
Council members voting for the legislation were Peter Steinbrueck, David Della, Nick Licata, Richard McIver, Jean Godden, and Sally Clark. Opposed were Richard Conlin, Jan Drago, and Tom Rasmussen.
The victory was tempered by the fact that of the supporters, Steinbrueck and Della left when their council terms expired at the end of 2007. They were replaced by two new council members, Tim Burgess and Bruce Harrell.
The adopted legislation included a companion measure that opens the door to review industrial zoning in boundary areas by the end of 2008.
Opponents almost immediately made clear they will use that opening to attempt to overthrow the whole package, reminding everyone that redevelopment pressure in Seattle is much like rust: it never sleeps.
Nevertheless, thanks to the Planning Commission, in 2007 the city found its own version of land use rustoleum* by identifying the enormous loopholes that had existed in the old industrial zoning.
*Editor’s note: Rust-Oleum is the brand name for a line of protective paint invented by Robert Fergusson, a Scotland born New Orleans fishing boat captain, who discovered that raw fish oil inhibited rust. Fergusson spent years developing a fish-oil based paint that stopped rust and didn’t stink like fish. Thus was born the Rust-Oleum brand and with it, the Rust-Oleum Corporation, which is now part of the international conglomerate, RIN International, based in Hartwell, Illinois. We are not making this up.
