SEQUIM — One cautioned against “the tenement look,” while another detailed the dangers of “squashing down the city.”
After the Sequim Planning Commission put a discussion of building-height limits on its agenda earlier this week, chairman Larry Freedman said the commissioners intended to talk only among themselves.
But then members of the public appeared, and Freedman urged them forward.
First came Robert Macomber, who last spring gathered some 700 signatures on a petition to blanket Sequim with a 35-foot building-height limit.
That would prevent tenement-like high-rises from polluting the skyline, Macomber has said.
Tuesday night, he addressed proposed city code changes that are designed to promote affordable housing.
The changes will be discussed Monday during the City Council’s 6 p.m. meeting in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
The possible changes include incentives for developers who build housing that people earning low to moderate incomes can afford to buy.
The changes do not, however, include alteration of Sequim’s height limits.
The city permits buildings of up to 50 feet in some areas, and the affordable housing incentives would continue that allowance.
Already Sequim has approved construction of the Olympic Meadows senior care complex, part of which will be about 50 feet tall when it’s built next year near Fifth Avenue and McCurdy Road.
Macomber said he understands the need for affordable homes, and he knows multistory buildings could be part of the low-cost housing picture.
“But there must be a better way,” he said, adding that using less costly construction materials — vinyl instead of ceramic tile, laminate rather than stone counter tops — could keep new homes in a reasonable price range.
“I also believe that lower building heights . . . keep the city of Sequim more attractive,” Macomber said.
Jacques Dulin, a Sequim attorney, couldn’t disagree more.
The city desperately needs inexpensive housing if it is to keep younger people here, he said.
“I’m a senior citizen,” who will at some point need care. When that time comes, Dulin said, he’ll want “someone to change my diaper” — but if housing prices continue their climb, people in service jobs won’t able to live in Sequim.
Keeping buildings low, Dulin added, could endanger farmland.
If development cannot go up, it will sprawl outward, into the valley.
Dulin, a Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce board member, said downtown could stand to add some taller buildings, perhaps with ground-floor retail topped by offices and apartments.
