Years ago, the original Star Wars movie was renamed “A New Hope” when George Lucas decided to place it in the middle of a 9-episode saga. I wanted to share a small sign of new hope for Lakewood and development that balances community, small business and housing.
The saga began last spring when the city proposed a tax break for people who tear down small business and Garry oaks and replace them with housing even as 800 people and their vehicles could be moving onto the site of the Barnes & Noble lot. Some of us were concerned with both what the city was considering and the lack of public notice.
As an aside: It seems odd for the city to pick off small business like the Death Star targeted planets. Online retail has done plenty to destroy small business; the City of Lakewood doesn’t need to give people a tax break for doing so.
The only explanation I can come up with is that when they were children, some people in and around City Hall were scared by Small Business and Garry oaks. Maybe the children were playing in a park, and Small Business and Garry oaks snuck up to them and shouted “Boo” or something. I don’t know. But we are dealing with something deep-seated.
However, your Lakewood City Council recently put the brakes on one idea. I propose that we should encourage that action and thank them.
This matter came up in late October during a hearing about the council’s work plan for 2025. They were going to consider a number of matters related to housing and development, which is great. Let’s get ideas out on the table and share them with the public.
One idea though was very much not Lakewood. It was a proposal to give a tax break to developers who take a commercial building and convert the interior into housing.
As you can imagine, this was something the Legislature came up with to benefit the voters that matter to them, people in Seattle, Tacoma or Bellevue. There are a ton of office complexes that are empty for reasons you all know; the idea is to fill those office and retail spaces with housing in Seattle.
It’s a little trickier to figure how this would apply to Lakewood. There’s an office building / small business incubator across the street from City Hall that might benefit, and of course you could pack an empty storefront in the Lakewood Mall with condos. But that would be weird. I can’t imagine anyone would hollow out the Clover Park Shops and sell condos inside for $399,000, or whatever the current market price for condos might be.
Either way, the Lakewood City Council said no. They said no to something that would benefit developers and change our commercial spaces, so let’s give them full credit for that. These quotes are lightly edited for clarity:
Councilman Paul Bocchi: “The Legislature was reacting to empty office buildings in downtown Seattle …There’s a recognition that because the floor plans are designed for offices and not for residences, they have to provide some incentives for conversion. We have empty storefronts and empty properties but I I’m not sure that we need to talk about tax deferrals. I mean, we’re already thinking about offering them the property tax deferral, let alone this sales and use tax deferral. I mean we walk away with nothing … I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves with this proposal.”
Councilman Trestin Lauricella: “I like the idea of more housing, right, that’s something we need – but I also think that if we were trying to put an apartment in between the Subway and Lakewood Music or a residential space there there are consequences to the neighboring businesses and how they could operate…”
Councilman Mike Brandstetter: “The conversion of commercial buildings sounds like trying to apply a Seattle solution to Lakewood. In Tacoma, there are large big commercial buildings that ended up empty in the downtown and other areas and they have people who are working to convert them (to housing). For all the rhetoric that we have about we need to get going and we need to have housing … we don’t achieve that by throwing as many things against the wall and seeing what sticks.”
Councilman Ryan Pearson also suggested the plan not go forward, and the matter has been dropped for 2025, ‘by consensus’ as Mayor Jason Whalen summarized.
This decision gives me a new hope. Maybe Lakewood is not just about tearing up small business and lining our busiest streets with box housing. Maybe city leaders will recognize a middle path that serves all land uses and respects our heritage. Maybe.
Postscript: I’m sure you can tell that I simplified the proposal for the sake of this column. You can watch the actual council meeting here for much more information:
You can read a staff report about the tax break starting at page 45 here: https://cityoflakewood.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024-10-28-Council-Agenda.pdf Don’t be scared by the length of the document, what you want is on page 45.
You get bonus points if you start reading at page 32, which is where they detail the plan for next year’s proposals. There’s discussions of matters such as middle housing and co-housing. If you don’t know what those are, it’s all the more reason to read starting at page 32!
I am glad the Garry oak closest to the road was cut down. The branches hanging over the road were dangerous. Just waiting for them to fall on someone.
You don’t need to take an entire Garry Oak down to remove the danger though. The trees need to be maintained properly, but there is a lack of education around it. Removing some branches would have done the trick from a safety standpoint.
This removal was done to make room for 45 apartments, and likely upwards of 90 cars, not because it posed a threat. Is the tree more dangerous than 90 more cars accessing 111th and Gravelly Lake drive, debatable? But we as citizens can do better to preserve the trees we have left by removing ivy that is choking them out. Garry Oak, Fir, whatever – the ivy will kill trees faster than our city staff and city council want to cut them down, but maybe not. Anyhow, I’m a converted Tree Hugger these days because dear old Lakewood is only getting warmer, especially in our lowest income areas.
I also think the city could take a note about increased traffic in that area and dead end Meadow at 111th for the safety of the neighborhood and the many drivers going 45 mph down that road to avoid Gravelly Lake Drive.