Renton Highlands Revitalization: Take Two

I want to see the Highlands revitalized as much or more than just about anyone else. I’ve lived (with my family of seven) within two blocks of the 1940s duplex area for 20 years. For fifteen years I have been an owner of a remodeled duplex in this neighborhood, and I’ve never lost faith that the area was poised for an economic renaissance (For 15 years I’ve been sure that the area will turn the corner the next year).

When prosperity did not come, I began tossing in my two cents over the years, letting the City Economic Development department know that the area could probably sustain a slightly higher housing density (such as small lot single family, or possibly townhouses) if that is what it would take to finally bring some new construction. For this reason, I was delighted this year when the mayor announced that staff was going to focus attention on finally revitalizing the highland residential areas.

Somewhere along the way, however, we drove off-course, hit some bumps, lost our cargo, and had a wreck. And like a highway accident, there was a lot of blame afterward. But it’s now time to get our bearings and get going in a safe and appropriate direction.

Since the property is privately held, the city can not treat the land as a blank slate. Any illusion of that has been eliminated by the clear resistance the neighborhood had shown to the mechanisms of blighting, community renewal act imposition, and eminent domain. Efforts to use these tools now or in the forseeable future will certainly meet with strong opposition from at least some of the residents and property owners. HCA (hca-renton.org) is organizing more activities to shut down this option, and to me it is as sensible as deliberately running a car into a brick wall for us to continue trying this approach.

Instead, we need to get the residents and land owners back on our side, and work this issue as a team. I don’t think it will be that difficult. HCA’s website has a proposal that seems very sensible to me. I expect that if we adopted it today, we would see both new construction and improved maintenance in the Highlands. In general the HCA proposal calls for flexible zoning, allowing single-family and duplexes as conforming uses, aesthetic standards for higher-density housing, low interest loans to seniors who need to maintain the appearance of their property, tighter maintenance standards in the neighborhood, aggressive enforcement by the city code compliance officers, public infrastructure maintenance where needed, neighbors joining together to enact neighborhood covenants, increased coordination with the police and/or neighborhood watch, and no declaration of blight or eminent domain takings. None of this seems counter-productive to me, and several leaders of HCA have already said that they can live with our proposed zoning if we continue to allow low density as well.

I would add to the HCA proposal some tools that we could supply as a city, at no cost to the property owners. For instance, we could consider creating stock-plans for townhouse development; “follow this free building plan, and you are allowed four new townhouses where you currently have an old duplex” for instance. we could also waive mitigation and impact fees in the redevelopment district.

We have talked about creating a citizen committee to oversee this plan. I think this is a good step, if we can readily reach agreement on who the comittee members are. If we have too much trouble reaching agreement on this point, we may have to keep the planning in the hands of the council. I would feel best having members of this committee primarily be property owners and residents in the neighborhood, supplemented by a representative of Renton Housing Authority, the planning commission, a city council member, and a city staff member.

The only thing we will need to let go of is the view that we are going to build high-density apartments at this site, on land that we have accumulated by eminent domain takings. Since I never wanted such a thing to happen, this one is pretty easy for me to let go of.

The final concern is what happens if some lone holdout refuses to fix or sell their old duplex, and it runs the neighborhood down. I believe the answer to this is that if it in really bad shape, we can solve it under current nuisance abatement ordinances with far less legal expense and political issues than we will incur trying to blight a neighborhood in the face of so much opposition. The public speakers at our hearings have made the case that many of the owners are not trying to harm neighboring property values; they would like to do more, but because of age or limited financial means they can not. In these cases, the option of extending property repair and clean-up assistance, rather than an eviction notice, seems more humane.

I hope you, citizens of Renton, can agree with me. I will be encouraging the rest of the council to move in this direction. With it’s outstanding vistas, excellent access, proximity to shopping and the lake, and fantastic residents, we can make the Renton Highlands a beautiful place to live.

Me on an afternoon walk with my family through the North Harrington neighborhood.