The Belltown Livability Coalition (BLC) is working to ensure the new construction at 2616 Western conforms to current neighborhood building & zoning codes.
UPDATE
The city’s Hearing Examiner agreed with the BLC position that the 198 foot building is not allowed due to the small size of the lot, and is therefore subject to the zone’s current height limit of 145 feet.
The developer has appealed this ruling to the superior court. We are raising additional legal funds to defend the Hearing Examiner’s decision against this appeal.
BACKGROUND
Belltown and Seattle City zoning laws were updated in 2017 as part of the HALA>> zoning change. The HALA program and the MFA resulted in a 20-30 foot height increase with the intent of adding additional housing in Belltown and downtown Seattle. For our zoning area this change resulted in a new maximum height limit of 145 feet from the original limit of 125 feet. The change to city code was conducted with community input and respected the overall design of the city’s scale.
The increase proposed by the developer of 2616 Western leverages an international conservation program –the Living Building Pilot Program (LBPP) to unilaterally change zoning heights based on the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) criteria irrespective of Belltown/Seattle current zoning laws and without community input.
The LBP program was not approved by Seattle citizens, although it is being allowed to change our cityscape. Builder’s documentation of meeting LBPP criteria is not open to public review. When we asked for documentation of the criteria for 2616 Western, both the city and the ILFI LBP told us to ask the builder. If successful, the LBPP will increase the current zoned height limit by 25ft.
Belltown is a very dense neighborhood, second-densest in the city; this is by design, and the zoning regulations were put in place to ensure livability by mainlining access to light, air, etc.
This attempt to circumvent a key element of these regulations, if successful, would set an unfortunate precedent for the enforceability of our zoning rules and future livability of the neighborhood. There are currently 28 other lots in Belltown that could be impacted (map below).
Further, the approval of a project that exceeds the zoning limits in one area of the city questions the enforcement of code limits in any other area of the city.
Please contribute to the legal fund, working to ensure the new construction at 2616 Western conforms to current, community-approved build code
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