Our "Penny-wise and Pound-foolish" City Council Wisens Up

End of May, we posted about how the city sold the Alaska Building to a developer, with the understanding that it would be turned into affordable "workforce" housing. The city took a loss of somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million because of that stipulation, Mayor Nickels was able to gesture grandly at his affordable housing gesture, and then Kauri Investments Ltd. and Ariel Development got to thinking and they were all, "Hey, you know what would be better than affordable housing is a 250-unit Marriott hotel! People who work stay in hotels a lot, so it's not even a big difference when you look at it."

Since the deal was one of those infamous (Seattle-still-acts-like-a) small-town "understandings," there was absolutely nothing to prevent them changing their minds. Then because no one associated with the deal wanted to admit that maybe multi-million-dollar deals shouldn't be, you know, based on non-binding understandings, we were treated to a festival of back-pedaling about why it would have been impossible if not downright stupid to contractually oblige the developer to build what it was the city wanted. That's nonsense, of course, but we couldn't find anyone on record saying that.

So we emailed Councilmember Nick Licata's office with a question (actually, we emailed Peter Steinbrueck, too, but he hasn't gotten back to us yet):

Our concern -- given that no one has admitted a mistake was made -- is that this not repeat itself, since the city has only so much property that it might dedicate to affordable housing. If you don't mind going on record, what is your perspective on the situation, and what assurance can you offer that the Council won't find itself in a similar situation in the future?

Happily, Newell Aldrich, from Licata's staff, replied in a completely sane, responsible manner:

Councilmember Licata believes the Council should have made housing a condition of the sale of the Alaska Building. The Council did not because they were assured the site would be developed as housing, and would receive more money for the building without including a formal requirement. In hindsight, it was penny-wise and pound-foolish. In the future, if the Council wants a property the City is selling to have a specific use, it should be required in the sale, in the same way that Property Use and Development Agreements in contract rezones list specific conditions.

Which is the lesson we were hoping that everyone had learned from this instance. And by everyone, we'd like to include the Mayor's Office. (Ceis, feel free to chime in in the comments, especially if the Mayor has another way to make up for those lost "workforce" housing units in mind. A promise is a promise, you know.)