Danny Only multifamily housing, in Seattle at least. These five volunteers have no say over a single family house that looks like a giant duck or a poop emoji, as long as it otherwise meets code.Design review is only there to harass and ultimately thwart apartment construction. The odd obsessions and arbitrary aesthetic preferences of the boards are why these new building have at least three different types of siding, no exceptions, and why they all have vertical channels cut into them to "modulate" the "boxy" and "monolithic" shape. Apparently the box is a shape invented by the Devil himself and must be shunned, always? Entire categories of architectural style are out of the question, because one guy can veto it.That's where you get your bland uniformity. The other big problem, which I'm sure the NYT heard about and chose to ignore, was that the eight boards are capacious and unpredictable. In one area design review might rubber stamp a development and let it carry on. Pick a different location and that board will quibble over exactly which shade of unfinished wood they demand, and the project could be delayed 6, 9, 18 months, more even. A crapshoot. Only $10 million+ projects are allowed; modest sized projects are illegal, and the investment could be delayed a random timespan, on a whim.No wonder Seattle has a housing crisis. The same NIMBY homeowners behind these policies are outraged at RVs and tents everywhere, yet the reason is right there in the mirror.

Danny Only multifamily housing, in Seattle at least. These five volunteers have no say over a single family house that looks like a giant duck or a poop emoji, as long as it otherwise meets code.Design review is only there to harass and ultimately thwart apartment construction. The odd obsessions and arbitrary aesthetic preferences of the boards are why these new building have at least three different types of siding, no exceptions, and why they all have vertical channels cut into them to "modulate" the "boxy" and "monolithic" shape. Apparently the box is a shape invented by the Devil himself and must be shunned, always? Entire categories of architectural style are out of the question, because one guy can veto it.That's where you get your bland uniformity. The other big problem, which I'm sure the NYT heard about and chose to ignore, was that the eight boards are capacious and unpredictable. In one area design review might rubber stamp a development and let it carry on. Pick a different location and that board will quibble over exactly which shade of unfinished wood they demand, and the project could be delayed 6, 9, 18 months, more even. A crapshoot. Only $10 million+ projects are allowed; modest sized projects are illegal, and the investment could be delayed a random timespan, on a whim.No wonder Seattle has a housing crisis. The same NIMBY homeowners behind these policies are outraged at RVs and tents everywhere, yet the reason is right there in the mirror.

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