This letter is in response to the news of how the Master Builders Association, et al, are protesting new laws that affect how housing developments are built (“Builders to appeal land-use limits,” June 29).
We now see tiny-lot/fenced-water-tank subdivisions all over. Recent changes were made to the planned residential development code to require that housing projects are more carefully done. Developers are screaming bloody murder at limits to the “Great Land Giveaway of 1995,” where suddenly they could build 12 houses per acre, way out on a farm in Maltby. They claim that the housing market will collapse if they can’t build more of those expensive houses.
What I haven’t seen yet is any appreciation of the windfall they have cashed in on during the past six years! We sit in traffic caused by those projects, our taxes have gone up to support those projects, and our utility rates have jumped up to support service extensions in semi-rural areas. Snohomish County residents spent, and continue to spend, a lot of hard-earned money for auto-dependent, leapfrog growth that has destroyed neighborhoods and truly, defiled the land.
For this the Master Builders Association says, “We deserve more.”
Yet the new PRD code allows sseven homes per acre, where the regular code allows four. Not good enough? How about the fact that the new code has no minimum lot size? Properties with awkward shapes and land features, that are unbuildable under the regular code, can be now built on with use of the PRD code. Still, they continue to complain.
The Master Builders could regulate themselves, and insist on professional credentials and quality projects. There are many good builders out there that deserve credit, not blame.
But the association seems to find that it’s much better to advocate building chaos, and to whine and protest about those elected officials that have a vision for this county.
Thank heavens for them.
Brier
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