Sugar the dog lives at Escala. Escala, for those unfamiliar with Seattle land-use politics or sadomasochistic novels, is the building, within the Belltown neighborhood, from Fifty Shades of Grey. The people living there take themselves very seriously. During design review for a nearby development project, they hired a former city councilmember to represent them and brought in expert testimony from doctors. I tweeted about these meetings–where they organized to block modify several buildings from going in across their alley–using the hashtag #50shadesofstupid.
Seattle has a housing crisis. Earth has a climate crisis — for fuck’s sake. Design review shouldn’t be hacked by rich people who monopolize the process with high-paid expert consultants trying to fit complaints that should go to Seattle’s DOT instead into conversations on bulk/light/scale boundaries. It didn’t help that the design review board, emitting mild-mannered, Pacific Northwest “nice”, was completely intimidated.
Back to Sugar the Dog.
Sugar’s family testified that if the building went in, Sugar would lose his patch of sun and ‘be very depressed.’ Clearly, Sugar’s feelings should be prioritized in a city expecting 100,000 more people in the next 20 years.
Laura Loe is #YIOBY, a Yes In Our Backyard advocate, Seattle renter, and believes that building more housing for people means more people have housing. She was recently referred to by a neighborhood activist as Seattle's "Worst Urbanist Propagandist".