Letters to the editor

Downtown skyscrapers

Where will housing be built for people with low incomes?

Editor, The Times:

You reported ("High-rise boom coming to Seattle?" Local News, April 4) that with the City Council's newly approved zoning law, developers will contribute "to a fund for low- and moderate-income housing downtown."

There's a map showing planned downtown skyscrapers. Where are the buildings for people on fixed incomes of about $1,000 a month? The map doesn't show them.

Can the mayor, the City Council or developers say exactly where the downtown buildings for low-income residents are planned? Those buildings don't appear on the map, though they are mentioned in a magical fund to which developers will contribute. What year does that fund translate into low-income housing downtown? "600 units over 20 years" is a joke.

You report that the new zoning law "repeals height limits voters set on downtown buildings in the 1989 CAP Initiative, when residents feared runaway growth." When did citizens vote they no longer "feared runaway growth"? More downtown skyscrapers won't curb sprawl. When developers saturate downtown, they'll build elsewhere.

This zoning change looks like an exclusive business deal between the mayor, the City Council and developers — not Seattle voters.

— Bob Miller, Seattle

Mike McGavick

Suspect allegiances

As an independent voter, I read with interest the article on Mike McGavick's Alaska fundraiser ["Oil money in Alaska lines up for McGavick," Times, page one, April 5].

Even though I am not enthusiastic about Maria Cantwell, I think it is better to have a locally minded Democratic senator than a senator who is beholden to Alaskan interests.

If "Klondike Mike" is already cozying up to Ted Stevens, where will his allegiances lay after the election?

Can you say supertankers in Puget Sound?

— Michael Timmons, Seattle

Port of Seattle

Upgrading terminals a prudent business risk

I want to respond to some of the comments made in your article about the Port of Seattle's proposal to convert Terminal 30 into a containership terminal and move cruise operations at T-30 to Terminal 91 ["Port project costs questioned," Business, March 29].

There is no misleading accounting in this project. It was argued that we are unfairly counting lease revenues from Terminal 18, where the lease of the same prospective tenant would be extended. Even if you ignore those revenues and take the most pessimistic assumptions, the project has a slightly negative net present value of $6 million.

If you include the increased rent from T-18, then the return on the T-30/91 project becomes a positive $50 million-$70 million in net present value. When you also consider that Port activities support over 200,000 jobs, the investment in upgrading our terminals in my judgment is a prudent business risk.

Given the uncertainty regarding future market conditions and given past periods of decline in container-ship traffic, I believe that it is wise to lock in the additional rent on T-18. The argument that there is a taxpayer subsidy to the cruise and container businesses just doesn't have any real basis.

As a newly elected Port commissioner, I am committed to minimizing the tax levy and providing real benefit to county taxpayers through Port operations. The T-30/91 project covers all costs over the term of the lease, and will likely provide significant income to the Port. I believe that the substantial value of the project, combined with the wider economic benefits to the region in maintaining a diverse maritime industrial sector, weigh in favor of going forward.

— John Creighton, commissioner, Port of Seattle

Georgetown

Destroyed by the buzz

Your flattering portrait of Georgetown ["More come to appreciate old neighborhood's charms," Times, Real Estate, April 2] may be a misleading presentation of what it is actually like to live in the quaintly industrial backdrop to the popular watering holes the bridge and tunnel set may have been charmed by.

Indeed, it is ironic timing that Georgetown was selected to be neighborhood of the week now, as the city is considering both a red-light district and a waste-transfer station for the area. Not that we have a shortage of urban blight already, with conspicuous drug activity and public inebriation glutting our alleys and lawns with paraphernalia and debris.

Write-ups such as the one you published will also serve to destroy the very things that make Georgetown a haven for artists, and do give it a certain artsy feel. What happened to Greenwich Village, the Mission district of San Francisco, Belltown and Ballard of Seattle, will most likely happen to Georgetown eventually as well.

A real-estate buzz typically follows a cultural buzz of a neighborhood, it's part of the gentrification process, and when the condos are built adjacent to the cool bars, and the noise complaints start getting filed by the residents of those condos, and the artists can no longer afford to live there, what's left?

— Max Wehnert, Seattle

Sonics secrets

No sympathy, no subsidy

I wish all these rich guys would have a different attitude toward the taxpayer ["The secretive world of Sonics owners," Times, page one, April 5]. They were "stunned" at the negative reaction to their request for $200 million to subsidize the Sonics so that the wealthy could have new perks at KeyArena.

These corporate giants have no business asking taxpayers to support the few wealthy and elite by paying for a new arena. I have no sympathy for the owners at all. Besides — the Sonics aren't worth it anyway.

Get a clue, folks. Corporate welfare is a dumb idea!

— Marian Ely, Renton

Help's on the way

It's no secret, I have a huge truck. Let me know when the Sonics plan to leave and I will help them move.

— Lynn Durfy, Seattle