But I am Just Another Voice

I'd say "one of the blocks". Four blocks in that north-south strip and a bit on the hill by Swing were rezoned over many peoples' objections as part of the Council's "compromise" about rezoning the isthmus in 2002. (90 per cent of downtown is zoned to allow tall building right now.)

And I wouldn't say I exactly "want" it anywhere downtown. I think we need to have it there if we want to reduce driving, preserve local farmland, etc. — given a lot of other things that seem harder to change. Less population growth is what I want.

As for the subsidy, I think there are many other ways to use a big tax break like this which would spread the money around a lot more and produce much bigger reductions in energy use than this. It just seems somewhat more regressive and unfair when the recipients of these tax dollars are all supposed to be twice as rich as the people who are expected to buy the most expensive condos in the building you're talking about.

If Triway manages to get the rezone, we'll see what actually gets built in the end. Their "design concept" simply ignores the marketing analysis they submitted with the project, which concludes, "begin with a more affordable project"and "do not lead off with a waterfront project," etc. City staff also did their analysis on a scenario with about twice as many condos, averaging half the size of the ones in Triway's "design concept." (Their recommendations in the draft EIS are based on analyzing 478 housing units at full build-out in the whole rezone. Triway owns just under half the total land, so they analyzed 239 condos in the space where Triway says it would only build 141.)

I wouldn't actually call $600,000 (the difference between the top price you give for condos in this other project and $1 million) "only ... a few hundred thousand dollars." And the difference between the cheaper condos in this other project and $1 million is $710,000.

But as I said, I do think we could do a lot more for more people and for the planet by spreading that tax break around widely. $290,000 is still a lot of money.

Developers have to build and sell. That is what they do. You build big, you build expensive and you try to attract the big spenders and make piles of money. What we are being asked to do is to give up a public resource so that a developer can make money. Unhappy with the current restrictions the developer wants to make even more money by building bigger. And what is this I hear about 10 year tax abatements? This is good public policy? The Fat Cats will be spending all their money at the local shops and pouring money into the sales tax coffers is the plan? No thanks, I'd rather see the city get their money off the top because Fat Cats still have to eat and they still like buying stuff so I don't think we'd be in danger of losing their sales tax revenues, we'd just be ahead ten years worth of property taxes. Olympia is no two bit whore. Take away what belongs to everyone and make everyone pay, that's a laugh. And what is that land worth with the zoning change? Probably a lot more than before the zoning change. Who gets that money? The people of Olympia? I don't think so, think Fat Cat developer.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."
^@^

mathias

einmaleins

If TriWay gets their way their project will sell out, provided they actually build it. There is a maket for these sorts of projects and Olympia does not have much in the way of luxury condos. So TriWay will build an office building if they don't get their way, pretty spiteful if you ask me. Our choice is to let Fat Cats have their fancy views or have some low rise office building be a blight on the landscape. Thank you TriWay. Sure it is good having more people living downtown, no question about it. The problem with upscale developments is they tend to drive up the prices of everything in the area, apartment rents and business rents. In time downtown will be the domain of the wealthy and a pale imitation of what downtown is today. If this is the plan for downtown, and many people want it that way, I'm afraid there is not much we can do. These sorts of projects are very appealing to city councils. Anything that involves bringing in more of the "right" kinds of people and driving out the "wrong" kinds of people tend to be what city councils like. They will make an attempt at what appears to be taking into consideration all public comment, but in the end Olympia will lose. The Olympia I know and love is doomed. Bellevue of the South Sound, kind of has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? We need the State to intervene but I suspect the Olympia part of the State government is probably looking forward to this project moving ahead.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."
^@^

If you don't want big buildings in downtown then are you for huge developments of single family homes destroying wilderness area?

More people are comming to Olympia and the Puget Sound. The only question is are they all gonna live in single family homes or something more reasonable like condos or apartments?

The housing aint gonna be cheap either way, but at least with more density it will have less impact on the natural landscape.

I hope their opposition is sincere and they will do what they can to keep this abomination from happening. We all know how politics works and it is easy to appease voters by being against something a politician knows will pass anyway. I'd like to believe that Fraser and Hunt will step up for Olympia and not just oppose this strictly for the votes. There is politics and then there is the truth.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."
^@^

OK, well >oops< thought for a minute there...

Perhaps what would be refreshing is to have a monthly design day where staff and developers can come together with community and sorta have a show & tell...

...I'm just thinking that there seems to be alot of folks that have an eye for design and care about our "built environment", so the natural fix for me would be to tap this resource and relieve some of the social pressure surrounding the structural change of our urban landscape by encouraging input & interaction.

I guess I'm kinda excited to see what plans are in the works for various sites in Oly