DEVELOPMENT: See the early-design proposal for upzoned Morgan Junction site

One year after we first reported on a redevelopment plan for a HALA-upzoned Morgan Junction site, the early-design proposal has appeared on the city’s Design Review site. You can see the packet here. The site’s official address is 6314 41st SW, but it also spans 6308 41st and 4023 SW Grahamp. The project will go through Administrative Design Review, which means no public meeting, though comments will be taken via email. The proposal is now described as “three apartment buildings (3, 4, and 5 stories) with 6 Efficiency Dwelling Units and 30 apartment units (36 units total). Parking for 15 vehicles proposed.” The design packet shows a mix of studios, 1 bedrooms, and 2 bedrooms. The developer/designer is still Texas-based StoryBuilt, though property records still don’t show a change in ownership. The parcels in this project were originally put on the market in 2017, as part of a package that floated the idea of a larger project, but instead the area’s seen smaller proposals such as this one and townhouse clusters. Design comments for this project? greg.johnson@seattle.gov is who to email.

Of Course December 29, 2020 (10:34 pm)

36 units with parking for 15 vehicles lol. Everyone will just ride their bicycles to work all year no problemo

Morganjunction December 30, 2020 (6:39 am)

There is plenty of street parking in the surrounding area. Relax.
- Rick December 30, 2020 (11:24 am)
  
  Yeah, but they will start charging for on street parking. Ya know, because your property taxes don’t quite cover it.
- zark00` December 30, 2020 (11:56 am)
  
  Not even close to enough street parking. This will be a nightmare for people who live nearby on 41st and 42nd – get ready to have your street full, like completely full, of parked cars nearly 100% of the time.
  - Morganjunction December 30, 2020 (2:16 pm)
    
    See my post below. Just because single family homeowners are irresponsible and have more cars than they can park on their property doesn’t give them first rights to street parking.

Why December 30, 2020 (3:31 am)

They won’t fill the units for over a year or two. Relax on parking. These buildings sit empty forever.

Peter December 30, 2020 (1:00 pm)

Please name the buildings in West Seattle that are sitting empty. I’m sure you wouldn’t lie about that.

Sillygoose December 30, 2020 (8:36 am)

No provided parking for all units is insane and “Morgan Junction” you comment is such an asinine comment, the streets are already so packed full of cars it’s hard to drive down them not to mention cars parked on the streets invite crime into the neighborhood! By October Morgan Junction had already tallied 89 cars stolen and hundreds broken into, why is this acceptable?

Morganjunction December 30, 2020 (11:26 am)

The streets may already be packed full of cars because many of the households in this immediate area have 3+ cars; perhaps they should park them off street in their driveways or behind their house with alley access? I never said anything about the number of stolen cars being acceptable. As for me personally, I take responsibility and park my vehicles off street in my driveway as use anti-theft devices. Everyone has equal access to the public right of way, not just nimby homeowners.
- zark00` December 30, 2020 (12:20 pm)
  
  How’s the view from up there on your high horse? Air must be thin.
- Sillygoose December 30, 2020 (2:24 pm)
  
  All of the households on my block park in our garages, the problem is the condo/apartment dwellers who (despite the cities belief that anyone who rents doesn’t own a car) all park in front of our homes. We have confronted them about this and ask where they live. They either live in the Calmor Tower or along Fauntleroy. Due to no parking being provided for their own dwellings they clog up our streets with their cars!!! We have now had to resort to zone parking just to have a place for elderly visitors to park etc. So yes the cheap out of state developers who don’t give a rats ass about the quality of life or appearance of our community streets are to blame and that does fall under the design of these structures.
  - Morganjunction December 30, 2020 (5:24 pm)
    
    Confronting people because they park in the PUBLIC right of way in front of your house? If they aren’t blocking your driveway, you have a lot of nerve. Bitch all you want, they are well within their right to park there. Don’t confront the wrong person, you may regret that.
    - Sillygoose December 31, 2020 (2:56 pm)
      
      When they leave their car in front of our house for weeks without it moving yes I confront them right before I call parking enforcement. If parking were provided at their own residence this wouldn’t be an issue these are people who live 6 blocks away.
  - Brian December 30, 2020 (8:58 pm)
    
    Wow, did you just admit to haranguing a fellow resident for using a public right of way? Reprioritize yourself.
  - Jort December 30, 2020 (10:26 pm)
    
    Harassing fellow citizens because you think you get to tell people what they can do on public streets? You are so fun, so cool.
    - spooled December 31, 2020 (12:40 am)
      
      Wow Jort. You thrive on telling others how or what they should be doing in the context of automobiles on this forum. Surprised when others share their opinion?

John W December 30, 2020 (8:41 am)

WSB could start referring to Development Notices as “Groundhog Day” for the street parking entitlements advocates.
We get the same posts every time.
Even after the thorough take downs of the same day – see “Development: 3201 SW Avalon.”
WSB could just eliminate any inclusion of what is actually Design Review and give just the facts – how many units, and how much parking, since that appears to be all that people are interested in commenting on, even though it is not in the purview of Design Review.
If these commenters were parking their own vehicles off-street or were not contributing to the problem (carless people are not worried about competition to their coveted entitlements like free street parking) they would not be complaining.
For Design Review: this proposal looks far less interesting in a design sense than the 3201 Avalon.

John W December 30, 2020 (10:48 am)

Sillygoose must live in a different “Morgan Junction” than the one where I always park right in front of my apartment on California Ave. where parking is nearly always available (and I have off-street parking).
As to car theft, we see many reports of car theft from people whose cars were not parked on the street, but on their own property.
Monetizing all street parking would also likely reduce crime and theft of cars stored on the street illegally for long periods of time as they are now.
And as noted below, Sillygoose’s comment has nothing to do with Design Review.

skeeter December 30, 2020 (10:49 am)

If you want developers to include off-street parking to new
housing, you need to convince Seattle to charge money for on street
parking. This is very simple economics
playing out. A developer cannot and will
not build crazy expensive parking when the city is giving away parking for
free.

Anne December 30, 2020 (11:02 am)

It’s worth noting that the rendering fails to provide any reality-based detail about surrounding single-family homes or the street, which has two parking lanes and a single travel lane. Go to street view and take a 360 degree look at the intersection of Graham and 41st. This is indeed what HALA was designed to do, but it will significantly change this street and neighborhood. https://goo.gl/maps/zVQBUEy3YnKHgSC39

Rick December 30, 2020 (12:08 pm)

Pay taxes for on street parking. Then pay for them again. Easy

JohnW December 31, 2020 (12:53 pm)

Rick,Why should people without cars or those who use their own property for vehicle storage be taxed for others’ free street parking?

Auntie December 30, 2020 (12:09 pm)

It would also help the parking situation if people who have garages would use them to park in, instead of using them as a storage area for junk they probably don’t need. I so often drive around West Seattle and see garage doors open, garages piled high with who-knows-what, and their car(s) parked on the street.Aside from that, all new apartment designs should include adequate parking (one spot for half the tenants – not enough!). It’s just not realistic to think people will sell their car and bus, bike or walk just because their building doesn’t have a parking spot.

natinstl December 31, 2020 (5:10 pm)

We have an 102 year old home, while it may look like we have a garage it wouldn’t fit any car other than a Mini at best. Same for a lot of the older homes. It’s a shop for my husband instead.
- John W December 31, 2020 (8:04 pm)
  
  Interesting to note that a 1908 Ford Model T is 66″ wide while a new Prius is 69″ and a Mini Cooper is 68″.
  This puts to sleep the claims of new cars all being unable to fit in century old garages.
  I posit that garage wall storage and increasing girth of well fed Americans as well as the accumulation of stuff with no place to store is also responsible for people not using their garages.
  Here in Seattle, the problems are greatly exacerbated by the assumed entitlement of free parking on the street directly in front of ones’ home, which is the real issue.

Peter December 30, 2020 (1:04 pm)

I’m sure everyone complaining about apartments not having parking always park their cars in their garages and never on the street. I’m sure none of them are hypocrites applying an elitist double standard based on the type of housing someone lives in.

AMD December 30, 2020 (1:07 pm)

The more cars people have, the more clogged the streets get. When streets get too congested, you get people clamoring for more road capacity. With no space to build new roads or widen the existing ones, the obvious way to increase the capacity of the roads is to simply get rid of street parking altogether and turn that wasteful car storage into travel lanes, so that people can get to their traffic jam on the bridge faster. This will then have the ended benefit of ending the “apartment-dwellers don’t deserve parking on MY street” debate once and for all, as no one will be able to park on the street. Sure, there will be some folks who have filled their attached garages with junk, or finished it to be a nice in-home fitness studio assuming it would be fine and the taxpayers would just provide them with free car storage on city streets forever who will be a little unhappy about this, but hopefully there will still be room in the driveway to cushion the blow of their poor planning.

Natinstl December 30, 2020 (7:18 pm)

I’m curious what the WS current rental market is and what it will be in the future with issues surrounding the bridge? We own our home , have invested a lot in getting it how we want it and have lived here 13 years so we plan to stay until we retire, but if I was a renter and my lease was up I’d be gone. Even when the bridge is repaired just knowing the issues with it would deter me from renting in WS.

John W December 31, 2020 (8:29 pm)

If you are a single occupancy car commuter to downtown Seattle working standard workday hours, the West Seattle Bridge issues might deter you from renting or buying in West Seattle.
Of note, rental prices have dropped most (20+%) in the formally desirable and costly downtown area. This is primarily due to COVID shutdown and shift of working from home.
The chief reasons for living large downtown were proximity to work (AMAZON!) and the convenience of restaurants, bars and entertainment venues. Now that these are not available, downtown has become a ghost town at night as people exit.
West Seattleites are now realizing that Downtown is not as desirable and services are abundant and readily available on our peninsula.
In investing a lot into you home to get it the way you wanted it, you made the decision not to update your garage according to your post above.

natinstl January 1, 2021 (6:19 pm)

If you’d like to give us the money to build a new garage and to relocate power lines we’d gladly take a new one. I was simply stating a fact about old homes and why people may not use their garage for parking. We live on a street with plenty of parking and don’t care that we have to park a car in the street nor do we care that others do.

Sorry, comment time is over.