Stories
We asked community members their thoughts about a potential historic district in Wallingford:
One person said:
We live in Wallingford and part of what attracted us to this neighborhood was the fact that areas of it are already mixed housing. We loved how varied the neighborhood was and that it included all walks of life. We've enjoyed hearing about the history of the neighborhood from our neighbors, but people are the ones who pass down the stories not houses. We have also seen many of our friends and coworkers struggle to buy homes or find affordable rent within Seattle, forcing them to move away simply to afford to live. We have also seen huge single-family houses built in the neighborhood taking up multiple lots while the house is rarely occupied. If this area is declared historic it might preserve some buildings but it is people that make history. A neighborhood consists of people and community, not houses. Please preserve Wallingford by keeping it open to all!
Another current resident said:
I’ve been a Wallingford resident (as a renter) for the past 5 years, and despite making what is considered a “good” salary, I grow increasingly worried about being able to remain in the neighborhood I love. The Wallingford historic district would make middle housing like my midcentury fiveplex even more scarce, and only serves to exclude new and more diverse neighbors from an otherwise wonderful place to live. We need more & denser housing, not protection for the kit homes of yore.
Families have had to get creative to find ways to share our city:
Our family was struggling to find housing in Seattle. I work at a non-profit and my spouse is a writer. There were few condos within our price range in the whole city. We knew we wanted a child and really struggled to find affordable housing for our small family. We almost left the City of Seattle, despite having strong community ties and meaningful work here because of housing. We were so lucky when our friends offered to build a DADU on their lot! It was a great process. DADU/ ADU’s are a great tool, but we need more housing types in all neighborhoods in the city. Wallingford is a great neighborhood to raise a child. There are great schools, wonderful parks and nearby local stores to shop at and places to eat. A historic designation will limit the opportunity to build housing that works for families.
Another resident who has benefited from more housing choices:
I live in Wallingford, in an ADU around the corner from a property on 45th St. that will be developed. The ADU allows me to live affordably and carless in a prime location of Seattle, and I believe that others should have the same opportunity. A tremendous amount of development is happening in other parts of Seattle to help increase housing supply and affordability, and Wallingford can also help support this city-wide and regional effort too. We all need to pitch in.
And many spoke about historical context that matters to them:
Preserving single family homes in a "Historic District" is a perpetuation of systemic racism. The character of these "historic" homes is no different than the bungalows in other Seattle neighborhoods or other cities in the country where developers purchased home "kits" from Sears Roebuck and other catalogue companies in the early 1900s. Those homes were the "cookie cutter" gentrification/displacement vehicles of those times. AND those homes in neighborhoods like Wallingford were vehicles for generational wealth building that were not available to Black or Asian families for the during the 30s-80s - the period of time in the US when individual and generational wealth increased significantly. While it is important to preserve our history through significant civic or cultural institutions, we should be cautious of preserving the systemically racist history of our single family homes.
and..
I'm a Wallingford resident who has witnessed many of my friends move away from the neighborhood over the past few years because they can no longer afford it. To me, exclusionary housing undermines the things that make a city fundamentally great: Living around tons of other completely different people, their food, their art, their perspectives, and their stories, and creating a collaborative living situation that is healthy, accessible, and sustainable. Why would we create a "historic district" in a place whose history consists predominantly of being an all-white suburb of a much smaller city? Watching my friends gradually get forced away to far, car-dependent suburbs has just been my own personal exposure to the gradual sterilization of Wallingford.
We also heard from two different people priced out of the area:
When I was looking to move from Renton into Seattle, Wallingford was one of the first places I realized I could NOT afford to live. And now it makes sense why.
and…
Wallingford has been the area many of my post-graduate friends have moved to, to continue to be working professionals in Seattle and use our degree here, while maintaining a professional relationship with the University of Washington and the UW Med hospital system. Unfortunately, between student loans, difficulty with finding jobs that support a living wage, we are essentially getting priced out of the city where we earned our degrees, and out of the communities we want to work in. In a time where just two years ago people cheered and banged pans for healthcare workers, this has directly impacted my and my peers abilities to continue to work in the city to take care of our community.
Many people want a safe community, with good mobility …
I just moved to Seattle and Wallingford last year from Brooklyn and it’s shocking how inaccessible the neighborhood is. Density creates more homes and a better community, but also creates a more vibrant, safer neighborhood.
We heard about friends and family priced out of the community …
My family is fortunate and privileged to have a single family home in Seattle. But in the 10 years prior to that I was able to rent apartments in central areas of San Francisco and Cambridge, MA when I wasn't making a lot of money or was in graduate school. The rents were fairly reasonable and I was able to live steps from bus routes and easy access to subways, and could walk or bike to grocery stores, restaurants, etc. I want others who have not built up wealth to be able to afford this kind of lifestyle in central Seattle just like I was able to. Many people who support our families and who we even consider as part of our community (teachers, daycare staff, grocery store workers, nurses) can't afford to actually live where they work, which in turn has downstream negative impacts for those of us who live in Seattle (traffic and environmental impacts, turnover in these roles, mental health).
Another person wrote:
I've lived in Wallingford for around a third of my life. I was here as a middle schooler, an undergrad, and now grad student. I would walk to the school bus stop next to Irwin's and then the exotic bakery(now the Poke place) for some reason, as a kid. I took the 44 as an undergrad. I can probably family living and owning in the area since the 80s or 90s. When my family started immigrating to the states, one of the first places they landed was Wallingford. It was affordable then, and they were able to purchase property in the area. They remember the food giant and other fixtures of the neighborhood back then. Apparently, there was a buffet somewhere on 45th, around bagley. I'd count them and myself as long time residents.
Today, I still have family dotted around the neighborhood. I've got some little cousins at St. Benedicts. My parents own a townhouse they rent here, we could never afford to reasonably rent it today. We're of a working class background, my mother worked at the Wallingford Post Office for around two decades before transferring. As small landlords and as the primary manager of the property myself, I've seen rents skyrocket. When we first started renting it, rates have gone up nearly 100% probably. We were lucky to buy decades ago, just like many of my fellow longtime residents. The neighborhood will and has gentrified as older residents age out and properties sell. Many of my neighborhoods work in and around the tech sector. A Wallingford Historic District will shoot up rents and further gentrify the neighborhood via shortage and high cost. I love this neighborhood, but without the privilege due to a first mover's advantage I never would have the chance to live here. I want my friends and family, present and future, to be able to reside in Wallingford but with the major housing supply and threat of an artificial supply constraint I fear that my ability to share the neighborhood will be greatly limited. I've had friends live here, and I've seen rent increases squeeze their budgets. Sure I might benefit from a historic district, but I prioritize the closeness of my friends and family more.
Plus, I'm young and I'd like to keep living here too. I treasure to great access to transit and park, the Hokkaido cream soft serve, the Japanese and Thai food, the original Dicks burgers of course, and the cat café apparently too.
Renters care deeply about the community, too, and want to be able to remain:
I've lived in Wallingford for 5 years as an apartment renter. I'm at the stage in my life where I'm ready to buy, but I'm not interested in taking on the upkeep responsibility of a single-family home (or the >$1million price tag in a cutthroat, all-cash market). I've decided to buy a condo, and I would love to stay in Wallingford, but there are hardly any condo buildings in the neighborhood, and even fewer that aren't on noisy arterial roadways. Don't people like me deserve to live in quiet, safe, leafy neighborhoods too? Doesn't everybody deserve that, regardless of how much money they make or the size of their household?
We also heard stories from neighbors in nearby communities:
For the last decade, I've lived a block from Roosevelt High School and two blocks from what is now the Roosevelt light rail station. In 2018, a group of neighbors called Friends of Ravenna-Cowen got my neighborhood placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
I was told by Friends of Ravenna-Cowen that 51% of homeowners would have to approve the historic district designation. I thought (naively) that I would have the opportunity to cast a vote. Yet no vote was taken, and no vote was required. The National Park Service assumes 100% approval unless homeowners submit a notarized letter of dissent (the notarization requirement was dropped in 2021). Renters have no voice at all.
Friends of Ravenna-Cowen assembled an impressive catalogue of the neighborhood's homes. Most of the homes, like mine, were built a century ago. Unfortunately, the 90 pages of documentation ignore the housing policies that shaped the neighborhood, including redlining that prevented people of color from buying a home here from the 1930s to the late 1960s.
Nearby Roosevelt High School remains as racially segregated today as it was 50 years ago. Roosevelt High School: Beyond Black and White. a new documentary from Roosevelt Alumni for Racial Equity (RARE), explains how neighborhood segregation created by redlining is a root cause of educational inequities that persist today. Redlining and single-family zoning have contributed to a generational wealth gap for families of color that has kept my neighborhood's excellent schools, parks and transit out of reach for too many.
We are active participants in creating this history of exclusion. Even before the signs went up, Friends of Ravenna-Cowen got to work on their next goal: preventing more modest-scale, affordable housing choices in the area. They cited the "character" of the neighborhood to get several blocks of the historic district - located within 1/2 mile of the light rail station - cut out from important land use changes in Seattle's last comprehensive plan process. As a result, the neighborhood remains gated to new residents who can't afford a $1 to $2 million-dollar home price.
In my own public comment to the Seattle City Council at the time, I said: "When I consider what kind of neighborhood character I ultimately want, I want Roosevelt and the Ravenna-Cowen District to be a neighborhood that houses more people who can live close to light rail and great schools and parks. I want the character of my neighborhood to be one that is doing its part to reduce the extreme lack of housing affordability in our city and address the historic inequities caused by single family zoning and redlining."
What gives me hope right now is seeing Wallingford neighbors come together to envision a different history for their neighborhood. They understand that the proposed historic districts in Wallingford will only perpetuate North Seattle's history of housing exclusion. They support changes in their neighborhood that address housing affordability. They want housing and land use policies that welcome new neighbors.
I regret that I didn't stand up in 2018 to oppose the formation of an exclusionary historic district in my neighborhood. Today, I urge my neighbors across I-5 to learn from my mistake and stand up to demand a Wallingford for all.
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