There are a lot of things that have kept Louis Edelman in his Lower Queen Anne apartment for the past 10 years.
It has a view of the Space Needle. It’s less than a minute’s walk to where he tends bar just down the street. And at the time we met this past summer, the rent for this two-bedroom space was $1,400 a month – cheaper than studios in some other neighborhoods.
“I do live under the fear that at some point I’m going to get that notice on the door that’s going to raise it to a level I really can’t afford,” Edelman said during an interview with KPLU in July.
Three days after that interview aired on KPLU, a note showed up on his door. His rent would be going up in October by roughly $300 a month. And while the rent increase did not force him to move, it lent new urgency to his fears – that he and others like him, in the building he jokingly calls “The Bartender Projects,” will soon be priced out of the neighborhood.
The Lower Queen Anne neighborhood symbolizes Seattle’s rapid growth. New, modern apartment buildings are working their way up the hill from Belltown, toward a neighborhood full of older – and generally cheaper – places to live.
While Edelman’s now paying roughly $1,700 a month for his two-bedroom apartment, a new building down the street advertises one-bedroom places starting near $2,000.
The rising cost of living is an issue across the city, but especially here. It’s especially front-and-center for the two candidates who want to represent this area, in Seattle’s City Council District 7.
Louis Edelman just wants whoever gets into office to listen to the concerns of people like him.
“Give us security as far as protecting our homes and being able to maintain a lifestyle of more than poverty,” he said last summer.
'Silver Buckshot’
He has a point, says City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw. But giving that security to Edelman and others like him is complicated.
“There’s no silver bullet, but there is silver buckshot,” she said. “We’re going to have to focus on all kinds of little things we can do to make a difference.”
Bagshaw says that includes increasing the housing supply, tax exemptions to encourage developers to build, and zoning laws that require low-income apartments. She says the city was going for a multi-faceted approach with its Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, or HALA for short.
“There was a lot of give and take,” she said. “That’s why it’s called a ‘grand bargain’. Nobody came out of that thing saying, ‘It’s everything we want.’ But people saw that there are ways to move forward.”
Bagshaw is a former prosecutor who has been on Seattle’s City Council since 2010. She is running to represent District 7, which also includes Magnolia, Belltown, South Lake Union and Downtown – neighborhoods often with very different needs.
'Money Talks’
Her challenger, Deborah Zech Artis, faces an uphill climb to victory. Bagshaw pulled down 76 percent of the vote in the August primary.
But Zech Artis is optimistic. She says “when” she’s on council, not “if,” she’ll spend a lot of time listening to people outside downtown.
“Money talks,” Zech Artis said in an interview with KPLU. “ And there are a couple people in this city who have a lot of money, and it’s talking. And people in city council are listening.”
Zech Artis is a supply chain analyst for Boeing. She earlier served on the Queen Anne Recreational Advisory Council. She says she’s upset by what she sees as a heavy hand wielded by moneyed interests in the city, and wants to “take back Seattle from the developers.”
“We’ve got a lot of really super bright people in this city,” Zech Artis said. “There’s a lot of smart power here and we need to tap it. I talk to people all the time, and they’ve got awesome ideas, and really serious concerns, and they’re not being listened to because they’re not even being asked.”
Both candidates communicate with residents on a regular basis, and their websites each show them actively making the rounds to community gatherings.
Seattle’s move to district representation on the City Council has led to fears of ward politics – with members forced to compete for resources for their own districts. But whoever wins election in District 7 will find they have issues of rent and development in common with a lot of their council colleagues.
