Brief followup to yesterday

[solarbird]

There's been a couple of days of selloff in the stock markets, which is fine. But also, the bond markets have sold off, which is atypical; typically down markets in stocks have up markets in bonds, because investors move to the lower returns but perceived safety of government-backed instruments. However, in this case, they're moving to cash, or, at least, out of US investment markets. The dollar is also down materially over the last few days, which implies that simultaneously, someone is moving out of dollars. Are they they same people? There's no way of knowing. Fortunately two days is not a trend, but Mr. Gaeta's clock is still running.

Comments

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

This is kind of off-topic, though tangentially related in that it touches on our economic situation--the latest issue of the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter had a story about how downtown Kenmore's downtown plan is being scaled down, with less residential, shorter buildings, and more surface parking. The reason, according to the developers? The market is iffy in the wake of the mortgage crisis.

I'm quite disappointed, particularly since the city is offering such huge tax breaks for what is now a much less desirable development. I'm hoping that public pressure can somehow rescue something closer to the previous plan.

[solarbird]

I'm very disappointed and have said so. I think it's a very short-sighted decision. It is a rational decision in that the new plan is significantly cheaper in the short run, and commercial lending has started to implode the same ways as residential, and retail projections forward aren't "iffy" - they're "disastrous."

That all said, I think this is entirely the wrong direction to go, for reasons I outlined to city council member Laurie Sperry here.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I added my own comments at that blog, hoping that someone sees them. I do mention one thing you're probably not aware of. As a member of the Democratic Party, I've had a lot of opportunities to listen to my state representatives in the First Legislative District. I know you're in a different district, but you'll appreciate this. Both of my representatives--Mark Ericks and Al O'Brien, completely get that the future is not in car-oriented development. I've been stunned, actually, about how much they get it. If anything their predictions are a bit too dire--O'Brien mentioned $8-10/gallon gas in a couple of years. As an almost direct quote last night, he said "the days of living in Duvall and working in downtown Seattle are over...People will have to work and shop where they live." He's a retired cop who has focused on sex offender legislation and other helpful but niche "for the kids" kind of stuff in the past, but he almost apologetically said that he was moving on next session to focus his efforts on transportation. Specifically, he wants streetcars to extend from Seattle to Bothell. He and Ericks are also really knowledgeable about the energy situation--apparently Ericks helped swing a deal to attract solar-cell-quality silicon production to Eastern Washington, and the state is poised to produce 50% of the world's supply within a couple of years. And while they kind of chuckled at the idea of the Northwest becoming a leader in actually using solar technology, they did acknowledge that we could do a lot more and that places with similar amount of sun such as Germany are good models for how much more we could do. They're both properly skeptical of ethanol and alternative fuels that allow people to keep motoring around forever as if nothing has changed.

I've also been impressed with most of what I've seen from the Bothell City Council. They're not as forward-thinking as my legislators but from watching them in televised council sessions (yes, I'm that much of a wonk) I trust the judgment of 6 or 7 of the 9. It kind of worries me a little, because if the nuts-and-bolts types on suburban city councils (not exactly known as cutting-edge) accept that we have to change how we live, that's a strong indication that the problems we face really are as real and big as they seem. Kenmore's decision seems even more perplexing in that context.

[solarbird]

It's not as bad as all that. The 2nd-4th housing phases are a problem, but they're not being eliminated, as I understand it. (But I haven't yet read the Kenmore Reporter article yet, been busy with other things.) The lower-rise nature of the new buildings is a fail, but the (only) good thing about parking lots is that it's really easy to build better buildings in their place later, and the most important thing here is that even in its current form, it takes an area that is literally around 75% parking lot right now and makes it much less so, and meanwhile, makes 181st pedestrian- accessible, and bike-friendly. Separate plans are moving ahead to fix 68th (Aidine) Avenue, and Bothell Way is already in progress, as you know.

The problem is that the developers - and more importantly, the lenders - are looking an absolute outright crash in commercial lending akin to the crash in housing, and I think they're not making enough of a distinction between core projects (like this one) and outlying projects (doomed). Lenders in particular are so very, very, very fucked that it's hard to describe it without taking an hour or so - almost all of the actual losses continue to remain unrealised, thanks to a mass movement to fictional valuations of bankrupt financial instruments, a move outright encouraged by the Fed.

So I genuinely appreciate the position the developer is in; the goal is in large part to cut costs, at this point. It's foolish in the medium to long term, but I can see what they're thinking. And if the Council decided they were facing "moving head with a lesser project" vs. "project collapse," then, well.

This doesn't mean the pressure shouldn't be cranked up. It absolutely should. There is a point where doing nothing is better than doing something, and the next revision down would probably hit that point, so no future shifts can be allowed without having to flip around to outright opposition.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

It's not clear in my message, but I do understand the developer's dilemma. As I said in my post on the Kenmore blog, if it's "do this or nothing" then they should go ahead, though still try to improve it if possible.

I mostly hate the surface parking, and can forgive the rest of the downscaling. That parking will worsen traffic for the whole area and unless they plan for conversion of that parking it's going to be difficult and expensive to change things later. Your U Village parallel is spot on.

[solarbird]

I like your rep's streetcar plan. I'd be strongly for it - hell, I've been daydreaming about how to get something locally here, at least for, say, running between downtown Bothell through to Kenmore through to Lake Forest Park Town Centre. That section is pretty flat, so it'd be easier than trying to get down to Lake City, and the Northshore political structures are already in place to do it.

Extension down to downtown would be +100, of course.

[solarbird]

For my own and possibly your benefit, here's a link to the EIA's downward revision of oil production moving forward.