Debunked: Seattle Trying to Ban Land Ownership in Name of Equality

Mick West

Administrator
Staff member


In an article shared over 5,000 times in just two days, Robert Richardson of the preparedness/survival site Off Grid Survival claims that the city of Seattle, Washington, is attempting to outlaw land ownership for families.

[bunk]
The American Dream is literally turning into an American Nightmare, as tyrannical politicians seek to limit your rights to own land.

Seattle, Washington may be one of the first major cities in the United States to outlaw land ownership for families.
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Just like everything these days, so called “racial injustice” is being used to push the land ban. According to the idiotic Seattle housing committee, owning your own piece of land no somehow makes you a racist.
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It started years ago, when we started allowing these unconstitutional government zoning boards to bully us into letting them say what we can and can’t do on our own land.
[/bunk]Ironically, what is being suggested is almost the exact opposite of the way Richardson portrays it. There is nothing at all to prevent land ownership by individuals, or by families. And instead of zoning boards bullying people regarding what they can do with their land, it's actually a relaxation of zoning regulations. It gives you more freedom, not less. Instead of being restricted to a single house on your lot, you could now build two.

The problem with Seattle is that it's running out of room, and two thirds of the land is restricted to single home development. The draft proposal by an advisory group suggests a way around this is to relax the government regulation, to allow for more construction. Here's as strong as it gets:

MORE HOUSING: The inescapable reality is that everyone in the City of Seattle needs to make room both for newcomers, as well as those that have historically been excluded altogether from the housing market altogether, including individuals and families who are homeless. We've all got to slide over and make room at the tables of our many communities. That means more cottages and in-law apartments and flats and duplexes and triplexes and roommates and rooming houses in the two-thirds of Seattle currently zoned exclusively (and, historically, for purposes of exclusion) for single-family neighborhoods. In fact, we don't even think they should be called single-family neighborhoods anymore.
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Of course there are very understandable objections to this. People who currently live in Single Family zoned parts of the city will probably not like having tall apartment buildings spring up in the lot next door. But the issue here is not if this is a desirable thing or not, but that it's a very different thing to "trying to ban land ownership for families", which it very clearly is not.

It's just a (proposed, and unlikely to be fully realized) relaxation of of zoning regulations - the same zoning regulations that Richardson is opposed to. It does not limit land ownership, and actually gives land owners more freedom, not less. It's the exact opposite of what the article suggests.
 

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It's not my country and I can't tell the difference whichever party is in power. Whoever lost gets butthurt and blames all woes, even those caused by their previous president on the new guy. In fact supporters of both parties continually do that anyway, whatever happens. It;s like watching Ford vs GM but in a different arena. One side just can't bring themselves admit their side ever makes mistakes or the opponent ever does anything good.
 
Of course there are very understandable objections to this. People who currently live in Single Family zoned parts of the city will probably not like having tall apartment buildings spring up in the lot next door
it seems it's only 6% that would allow that anyway.

Third, HALA’s recommendations for bigger buildings in single-family areas are limited and fiddle around the edges, literally. HALA recommends an upzone to just 6 percent of the single-family zones. This 6 percent sits inside or adjacent to the city’s designated growth hubs, urban villages, or alongside arterial strips already lined with big buildings.

Fourth, HALA recommends more flexibility, but not bigger buildings, on the other 94 percent of the city’s single-family zones. These areas would stay under existing rules for building sizes: same height limits, same restrictions on total square footage, same setbacks. What would change is that city codes would allow more options in dividing up the allowable square footage. We recommend more in-law apartments, backyard cottages, cottage clusters, miniature duplexes and triplexes, courtyard housing, row houses, town houses, and stacked flats. We also recommended allowing separate ownership of these dwellings so that more people can afford to buy homes. http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/open-up-seattles-single-family-zoning-to-those-who-arent-rich/
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