Morning Fizz





1. Watch for Mayor Ed Murray to send legislation to the city council that expands car sharing. (Car sharing is different than the ride-sharing model offered by companies such as Uber where entrepreneurial drivers hawk themselves as chauffeurs on a network. In the car-sharing model, customers plug into a network of cars and drive themselves.)

Currently, there is one car-sharing service in Seattle, Daimler AG's Car2Go, which, per a city limit, has a 500-car network service. Murray's proposal will expand car sharing in two ways.

First, he wants to open up Seattle to more car-sharing companies such as BMW's DriveNow. Fizz hears the legislation will allow three additional companies into the market.

And second, he wants to empower the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) director to make the call (rather than the council) on the cap per company. The city caps the number of cars a company adds to the market because car-sharing companies, by paying the city, allow their members to park in street parking slots all over town—taking up valuable parking spots. SDOT will be tasked with monitoring the data on parking availability to figure out how high or low the cap on each car-sharing company should be.

SDOT will be tasked with monitoring the data on parking availability to figure out how high or low the cap on each car-sharing company should be.

2. Another piece of legislation that's in the pipeline? A new affordable housing fund based on the idea of a "Linkage Fee."

Rick Jacobus, the consultant who initially presented the new policy idea to the city council's land use committee in late July, has also presented data showing that one of the city's current affordable housing programs—the "Incentive Zoning" program—was falling short on both of its goals. The incentive zoning program makes developers pay extra if they want to build beyond height limits in specific development zones such as South Lake Union. (The money went into an affordable housing fund.) It was supposed to be a win/win for the city: more housing and more money for affordable housing. However, Jacobus showed that developers weren't using the program and so housing and affordable housing cash was being left on the table. (Jacobus reported that 62 percent of eligible developments since 2001 did not use the building incentive, creating just 616 units of affordable housing over the past 13 years and leaving about $50 million MIA in affordable housing and daycare funding.)

The linkage fee would be a mandatory fee for all development in urban growth districts all over the city, not just in specific zones where developers were given an opportunity to build higher.

"Universalizing" the affordable housing fee in all development zones (not single-family housing zones, though) will bring in more money for affordable housing while simultaneously incentivize more building because, conceivably, the fee should be lower with more developers participating.

Seattle City Council member Mike O'Brien, chair of the land use committee, will hold a meeting on the new Linkage Fee proposal this Tuesday.

3. Finally, in addition to sharing and linking: This Friday, come check out PubliCola's own micropark and do some swapping.

Josh will be hosting one of the 50 parklets that are popping up around the city on this Friday's PARK(ing) Day, an annual pedestrian blow-out when parking spots around town are converted into mini-parks with different ped-friendly themes.

Josh's SwaPark, on University St. between Western and Alaskan Way, will work like this: Bring an item—a book, a blouse, a chair, a lamp—and get something in return. There will be a table for fancier items, one for low-budget items, plus a bookshelf, and a basket of knick-knacks. And Seattle Met’s own style editor Laura Cassidy is letting us use her rolling rack for the clothes swap portion of the pop-up park. (He's also going to make you fill out an index card where you have to write down a little story or anecdote about the item you're trading in.)

Already in the pile of cool stuff that you can grab at the SwaPark: Some black Beatles' Boots and some great paperbacks. And also some dynamic hippie pants; can't wait to read the index card on those.



