The Port of Seattle is petitioning a decide to overturn Seattle’s lately handed rezone to permit housing on the perimeters of the town’s industrial district.
The port’s fundamental argument is the town’s laws nearly completely advantages one individual, Chris Hansen, who owns the parcels close to T-Cellular Park which can be most certainly to see new improvement following the invoice’s passage. The port argues the invoice ought to have gone by way of extra analysis and that housing is an incompatible use of commercial property, the petition says.
If profitable, the petition, filed in King County Superior Court docket, would invalidate the brand new legislation, handed final month.
The port’s petition is one other volley in what’s turn out to be some of the tense fights inside Metropolis Corridor in years. The legislation in query was launched late final 12 months, however the combat has its roots in many years of friction between the port and the town over methods to regulate industrial areas.
The legislation, which handed 6-3, rezoned the underused parcels simply south of the baseball stadium to permit for the development of as much as 990 flats. Council President Sara Nelson, the invoice’s sponsor and most zealous proponent, stated new improvement there wouldn’t solely signify a small dent within the metropolis’s bigger housing disaster but additionally be a catalyst for the long-sought “maker’s district” close to the stadiums, during which small-scale artisan producers may have area to arrange their companies.
The invoice bumped into intense opposition. Maritime and industrial pursuits within the space have lengthy opposed new housing in Sodo, arguing it will impede the circulate of products to the realm and create a suggestions loop of stress on future elected officers to suppress trade within the space. In 2023, the Port of Seattle threatened to explode a bigger settlement regulating maritime and industrial land use except housing was barred from these identical properties. Nelson’s proposal was considered as a betrayal of that settlement.
“In its haste to advance the proposal, the Council summarily disposed of longstanding protections the Metropolis has afforded to industrial makes use of, all as a way to open the door for a single housing mission,” the petition reads.
Regardless of some apocalyptic predictions about what the housing would imply for the port’s future, the invoice ended up passing, with members citing the town’s research that prompt the impression could be minimal. Port commissioners urged Mayor Bruce Harrell to veto the invoice, regardless of it passing with a veto-proof six votes. Harrell as an alternative returned the invoice unsigned — permitting it to enter legislation, however remaining impartial on its deserves.
Because the invoice progressed by way of the committee course of, the Port of Seattle and its umbrella Northwest Seaport Alliance issued obscure authorized threats, arguing the town should be doing extra environmental evaluation underneath the State Environmental Coverage Act.
Thursday’s petition makes good on a few of the threats. As a result of the invoice constitutes what it views as a rezone of a selected property, the port argues the town ought to have needed to undergo extra environmental evaluation and given events extra avenues to attraction.
The port additionally argues {that a} rezone of this kind is illegitimate when the property in query is for a considerably completely different use than the encircling space — on this case, housing being incongruent with trade.
The petition additionally repeatedly suggests the council’s consideration of the invoice was unlawful. Rezone conversations are sometimes thought of quasi-judicial and communication with events is severely restricted. Though the petition doesn’t say immediately that members of the council had communications with Hansen and his associates, it says in the event that they did, that would have been unlawful.
The Port of Seattle has struggled to get better shifting as many volumes as earlier than the pandemic. Cargo numbers improved final 12 months, however the port misplaced market share to different West Coast ports, in response to inner numbers offered by Commissioner Fred Felleman. It’s additionally working to seek out new makes use of for its underused Terminal 46.
A spokesperson for the town didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. A consultant for Vipond Group, which manages Hansen’s properties, stated he had not but reviewed the petition.
