Development.
What does this word even mean? We see it thrown around a lot these days in a variety of different contexts and topics. Fetuses develop. Parents follow their child’s sequential achievements to check its “normal” development. Film develops. Constructing new buildings is also considered development.
Yet, the original definition of develop comes from the French “developper” circa the 12th century, meaning, “to free (a person from something), to unwrap (something), to unfurl, open out (something).” Yes, development has many definitions, but above all, it has the sense of something good that is becoming. When something is being developed, we are made to believe it becomes better, more valuable more usable.
But is this always the case?
Today, we see a certain type of development happening across Olympia in record time. Buildings and subdivisions are thrown up all over the place. We are a city experiencing population growth and in the midst of a housing crisis, and we are told time and again that development makes sense! It is the solution!
Well, it’s not.
I’m here to help dispel that and many other myths of urban development. What we are seeing is nothing more than gentrification and sprawl that will harm and not help those living in Olympia, both human and non-human residents alike. The only ones these projects serve are the developers themselves.
NIMBYS
First, let’s just get this clear right off the bat. You can call us NIMBY’s all you like, but I don’t want this to happen in anyone’s backyard. And here’s some fun information you may not know about the term NIMBY. The NIMBY pejorative is often used by developers and politicians to shame residents from pushing back against unethical and ecocidal development. Here’s a great 2021 article from the Guardian that explains this phenomenon in more depth called, Nimbys are not selfish. We’re just trying to stop the destruction of nature. The article states:
| The problem with the term nimby is not just that it’s lazy. It’s more serious than that. The misuse of the word allows developers’ myths to go unchallenged. They spin a narrative that the planning system – manipulated by obstructive nimbys – prevents much-needed homes for the less well-off from being built. …But the narrative is of course nonsense. The crisis in housing is not of capacity but of affordability… [1] |
Olympia’s development takes many forms, but one of the most common projects these days is housing. If the sorts of housing development projects we were seeing in Olympia were smaller and actually affordable housing, the conversation would be a different one. However, if you understand economics, you’ll know that simply creating new homes will not actually solve the housing crisis, which leads me to my next point.
Increased Housing Development Does NOT Solve the Housing Crisis
While the idea that increased supply will meet demand and increase affordability can be applied to a variety of different products in our economy, housing is not one of them. This is for a couple of reasons.
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Land is subject to what is called a “natural monopoly” because there is only a finite amount of land in any given area. More housing can be built but there is no way to increase the supply of land to meet demand. Without price controls, land will actually skyrocket in value as density increases.
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Housing is treated as an investment. Spectators and wealthy investors buy up housing and hold it until they can get a better price for it later. They treat homes like stocks. This means any lull in market rate will be met with investors simply squatting on their investments until the market rate increases again. And if market rates do actually drop, which only happens during a crisis, investors will attempt to seize all the available housing for the same reason that people buy stock when a highly profitable firm suffers a temporary drop in its price. They can then rent out their investment property as a landlord or sell it to make a lot of money.
There is no market solution to housing affordability. The creation of more homes (under the current systems and practices) will far more likely serve to drive up the cost of living in the area–it will not make homes more affordable in the majority of cases for working families. We need only look at other urban regions that grew quickly and increased housing extensively (like Portland and Seattle) to see that more homes in urban regions with growing populations increases the price of those homes and the cost of living, while also decreasing the quality of life for those living there (due to lack of green spaces, increased traffic, increased noise, environmental pollution, etc).
Olympia’s specific housing crisis is fueled by several factors, including:
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spectator investment (in March 2023, investors accounted for 27% of all single-family home purchases [in the US] [2])
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Airbnb’s (2.25 million homes in the US are Airbnbs–this doesn’t count Vrbo, Guesty, Vacasa, or any other AirBnB alternatives [3])
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general use of homes as not homes (Nearly 1/3 of the 62 homes in the South Capital neighborhood are owned or used by lobbyists, corporations, or unions–meaning they are not used as houses but as overnight accommodations or meeting spaces for businesses [4]).
So, instead of increased housing development, I see a plethora of easier solutions to the housing affordability problem. In Olympia’s downtown core, we could emulate and expand upon efforts like House Our Neighbors and Seattle Social Housing, two initiatives which are balancing climate-smart design with truly affordable, decommodified housing. Other ideas include: below-market rent control, eliminating the use of homes not as homes, creating a time limit (10 months?) on a home being allowed to be vacant before it is converted into affordable, below-market housing (for sale or for rent), a standard basic income, decreasing prices (rent or sale) on buildings that have been vacant for years and converting them into lower-profit commercial business & affordable below-market housing (this piece is actually in Olympia’s current Comprehensive Plan!), outlawing anyone from owning a home who does not live in the region (city, county, state, or even country–anything would be better than what we have now) where the home is, making landlordism a non-profit venture with a focus on housing people rather than prioritizing rent increases to match market rates…
A combination of these and similar ideas seems to me to be the best way to work towards a root cause of housing unaffordability, which is essentially that wage increases haven’t been anywhere close to matching housing price increases in many decades. And that wealthy people treat housing like stocks and buy it all up.
Development Will Increase Property Value
So this only matters if you own your home, which most of us do not. However, if you own your home and your property value goes up, so does your property tax. We’ve seen, time and again, instances in which increased property tax pushes working-class families, long-term residents, and Elders out of their homes. We’ve seen this happen before in urban growth areas, and we’ve already seen it happen here.
I know many of my neighbors would certainly prefer zero property value increase if it meant they didn’t have to deal with the addition of poorly built unaffordable housing. Take the Springwood development in northeast Olympia where I live: Across the beloved Rhodedendron garden known as Springwood Parcel, a historic farm and riparian alder forest are slated to be “developed”. The plan is to cram 39 cheaply made McMansions priced at ~$800k and three roads (which will result in at least 339 more daily car trips!) onto 7 acres that were once forest and farmland ruining salmon habitat with runoff and toxic pollution.
If property taxes have to increase for development’s sake, let’s have this sort of condemned land turned into a park or community farm—something to maintain the green spaces and forests we so desperately need as the climate crisis worsens and drastic weather events increase.
Increased Development Ignores Olympia’s Promise to Work towards Mitigating Climate Crisis
US population is projected to flatten out and then decline in the next couple of decades. Read here (Article: U.S. Population Projected to Begin Declining in Second Half of Century) for more information. This coincides with a massive increase in severe heatwaves and torrential precipitation as a result of climate breakdown. So, rather than new housing, the planning priorities should be in fortifying and expanding green spaces which are the only buffer to severe heatwaves and weather events.
Additionally, according to the Thurston Climate Action Plan, Olympia has made a 12-point commitment to mitigating climate crisis and related issues in Olympia. The sorts of development projects we have been seeing are in direct conflict with ten of those twelve points, as well as with the City’s own codes meant to minimize development.
In general, the citizens of Olympia are extremely dissatisfied with what appears to be an ongoing trend in Olympia—mindless, greed-fueled development with no regard for the residents of Olympia or for the future of climate crisis. I don’t want to appear heavy-handed, but I have no other words to describe what is happening. We see the City Planning Department consistently pushing these sorts of development projects that absolutely ignore the voice and desires of the people, from West Bay Yards to Martin Way East to the building of a Chick-Fil-A on the Westside.
This article is to help inform interested residents of Olympia, but it is also a call to action. We need to come together to demand the elected members of City Council to step up and make sure that community consent is at the core of the decision-making process rather than collaboration between unelected officials and those business interests that are just seeking to make money and destroying our neighborhoods as a result. To quote a neighbor who attended the Project Information Meeting for the Springwood development project, “I have never seen something so insane in my life.” I cannot emphasize enough how furious the community is.
Sources:
Clare, M.E.S, is an author, environmentalist, anarchist, bibliophile, tea-leaf reader, rock climber, and then some. She loves poking holes in dominant or obsolete narratives and strives to both listen to and help uplift the voices and stories that have been too often cast aside.
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