U District Rezone Maps Are Out. There Goes the Neighborhood

by Shirley Nixon

Attached is a map for the U District rezone showing areas to be upzoned under the new ordinance.  Dozens of MR and NC blocks zoom from a max of 65’ to 240’ or 320’.  All of the rezone is north and west of the UW Campus “Institutional Overlay Zone”. 

As if this increase in density (without concurrent infrastructure improvements) isn’t bad enough,  a  few weeks ago the UW released its draft Campus Master Plan that calls for adding – in the next ten years – 3 million net gsf of new space and 22 buildings on its West Campus alone; and 12 million net gsf campus-wide. 

The U District simply cannot accommodate all of this new growth and retain affordable existing housing and livable neighborhoods.  Special interests and the UW have been steadily working toward this skyscraper rezone of the U District and campus expansion for many years:  long before the HALA Grand Bargain idea ever came to be.  They now try to miscast opponents of this exponentially out-of-scale upzone as opponents of affordable housing.  Not true.  Not even close.

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