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Today, the 1440 square foot, 1.5 story, single-family home on that property, built in 1926, was demolished.  In its place, according to the city’s Department of Planning and Development permit, will eventually stand a new single-family residence and a pair of townhouses.  Those buildings are expected to stand three stories tall.  My newly-improved Rainier sightlines may end up appreciably less excellent than they once were.

Cutting down that tree was the first active step in what has become a common phenomenon.  While a great deal of attention has been focused on the discussions among Mayor Greg Nickels, City Council, and major developers on how to increase downtown density and the spate of new condominium projects in Ballard, other urban neighborhoods are seeing a quieter transformation.

Here in the upper reaches of Fremont, at least half a dozen such projects have already sprung up in the blocks immediately around me in the last year or so.  Where one family once lived, there will now be three or four families.  Where once stood bungalows with what passes for “antiquity” in Seattle—to one who grew up near a New Jersey stream called Hessian Run because that’s what happened there during the American Revolution, who once lived within sight of a Portsmouth NH home built in 1660, the idea that a pre-WWII home is considered “old” is laughable—will be brand-spanking-new abodes built with space-age plastics and high-tech construction materials.

Don’t take this essay as some sort of anti-progress screed.  I support the idea of urban density, in no small measure because urban == liberal.  In the specific case of the just-demolished house, the building was undistinguished and wasn’t in very good shape.  It was a bit of an eyesore in the neighborhood.  In addition, the city appears to be cognizant that more families means more vehicles ... each of the new units will have an integral garage, so the local streets may not be any more crowded with parked cars than they already are.  [One of my Seattle pet peeves is that cars are usually parked right up to the streetcorner, making it really difficult to determine whether there’s traffic on the cross street without sticking your nose out into the traffic.]

On the other hand, I suppose there’s just a touch of NIMBY (well, it’s actually NIMFW—front window—this time) here.  I don’t think the new homes will completely obscure my view of Mt. Rainier, but any decrease in that visual pleasure will irk me to some small degree.  No matter what eventually ends up in my sightlines, however, it won’t be nearly as bothersome as what undoubtedly happened to a lot of Belltown and Lake Union highrise dwellers when the next highrise rose between them and their (former) spectacular views.

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