Neiman Taber Architects

Jerrid Anderson invited me into his studio a few weeks ago to talk about our work in housing development. We enjoyed a wide ranging discussion, nerding out on various aspects of design, regulation, land values, property management, and the state of the industry in general. Enjoy!

Seattle Multifamily Podcast | Why Land Values Have Been Cut in Half Explore the Future of Urban Housing: Exclusive Interview with Architect and Developer David NeimanJoin us for an in-depth conversation with David Neiman of N...

https://neimanarchitects.blogspot.com/2024/05/introducing-urban-rooming-house.html

Our latest idea on how to develop small affordable co-living in today's regulatory environment.

Introducing the Urban Rooming House Ten years ago, Neiman Taber embarked on a series of projects that pioneered a new approach to micro-housing. We combined the inherent afford...

This Comprehensive Plan cycle is going to be a big fight. Mayor Harrell has published a first draft, the reviews are in, and it seems the consensus among housing nerds is that they are deeply underwhelmed. If you’re not a ride-or-die YIMBY activist and you’re not sure what to think about all of this, Patrick Taylor from our office has an excellent piece in The Urbanist that explains where the draft plan has failed to meet the moment, and what a more considered comprehensive growth plan would look like.

Op-Ed: Six Ways to Improve Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan - The Urbanist Suggestions to improve the One Seattle plan include allow bigger buildings, embrace transit-oriented development, and jettison parking requirements. We can create a Seattle that pulls the working class in rather than pushing them out.

For years now I’ve been designing and developing and writing about micro-housing. It’s been a tough slog on the policy side of things, but I believe the momentum may finally be moving in the right direction. Neiman Taber is helping with proposed legislation that would change the Washington State Building Code to allow for smaller studio apartments statewide. To aid in this effort, we put together this article with the wizards at Sightline to help politicians and policy makers as they wrestle with the questions of “how small is too small”, where to look for guidance, and how to develop appropriate regulations for micro-housing. Read it here:

Micro-housing: It’s Not about the Size but How You Use It - Sightline Institute And the National Healthy Housing Standard agrees.

Time to Dump Design Review for Seattle Housing Projects? Frustration with the program’s effectiveness, cost, and dampening effect on housing development has led a broad coalition of housing advocates to call for the curtailment or outright elimination of…

The newly enacted House Bill 1293 mandates that design review processes be limited to a single public meeting, be based only on clear and objective standards, and that the review timeline must be concurrent or logically integrated with the overall building permit review. At first glance, this might appear to be a tweak of the program, trimming its scope and timeline. In practice, it is likely to require a total transformation, if not outright elimination of Seattle’s Design Review program. See here for a long-form discussion of the potential implications of this new law:

Time to Dump Design Review for Seattle Housing Projects? Frustration with the program’s effectiveness, cost, and dampening effect on housing development has led a broad coalition of housing advocates to call for the curtailment or outright elimination of…

Last week Erica Barnett wrote a thought provoking article in Publicola looking at Seattle’s proposed new tree legislation. Among its criticisms, the article noted that the additional staff needed to enforce the new rules would cost the city more money than the legislation is expected to raise to fund tree planting in underserved neighborhoods.

This got me thinking: If you look at how much cost this legislation adds to a building permit application and multiply that by the number of projects each year that will go through that process, the true problem is probably a lot worse. So I sat down to review the permit records and do the math.

The annual estimated cost came to $20 million spent by applicants on surveys, reports, design fees, and city reviews vs. 67 trees planted. This works out to a total of $300,000 per tree.
http://neimanarchitects.blogspot.com/2023/04/does-money-grows-on-trees.html

I have an editorial in the Urbanist this weekend. It outlines significant objections to the proposed tree legislation and frames it within the context of collapsing housing starts that the city's new housing dashboard allows us to see. The numbers are pretty shocking: Townhouses down 50%, losing 940 homes per year, and apartments down 2/3, down over 8000 homes per year.

Op-Ed: Proposed Tree Legislation Awaits Its Turn to Add to Seattle’s Housing Woes There’s a saying that the path of progress doesn’t follow a straight line. This has certainly been what I’ve experienced in my two decades of working on Seattle housing policy. When it comes …

Breaking news on the Microhousing front:

Seattle Policymakers Microhousing Tour Guest Post from Liz Pisciotta: Monday, I had the opportunity to join a tour of microhousing projects that Neiman Taber helped organize. Th...

Councilmember Andrew Lewis invited me in to his office a few weeks ago to talk about microhousing: Why we need it, why we killed it off, why we should bring it back, and what needs to change to make that happen. The fact that this episode got made and aired is a pretty good indicator that policymakers are finally coming around to doing something about Seattle's anti-microhousing policies.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-neiman-the-case-for-building-more-microhousing/id1650317040?i=1000596317318

For the second time in less than a week, Neiman Taber has been recognized with a design award. We are proud to announce that The Roost Lofts just received the Award of Merit at the 2022 AIA Seattle Honor Awards for Washington Architecture.

https://neimanarchitects.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-roost-lofts-receives-aia-northwest.html

Our Karsti Apartments Co-Living Project won an IIDA Award!

Karsti Co-Living Receives IIDA Award - Distinction Accolade for Relevancy We are proud to announce that Kärsti Apartments just received The International Interior Design Association Northern Pacific Chapter's 19th ...

One of our Freya residents is a accessibility advocate at Starbucks & was featured in a Vanity Fair piece that was filmed at Freya. Scroll down to the youtube video at the end of the article). Its a great slice-of-life story that also gives you get a peek at the spaces & apartments within Freya.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzrgGkgyxZQ&t=238s&ab_channel=VanityFair

Bridging The Gap Produced by Vanity Fair with Starbucks | Meaningful representation from the beginning of a design process is at the foundation of building an inclusive envir...

Joshua McNichols of KUOW did a story out today about Karsti, our newest co-living project in Ballard. I'm really pleased with the time and care that Joshua took to understand the project, the folks that we are serving, the benefits and challenges of community living, and the things we've done differently to try to make this kind of project really work for people.

Ballard beehive apartments offer refuge for a diverse workforce Tear-down homes are selling for more than a million dollars in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. And most one-bedroom apartments cost well over $2,000 a month. That makes it really hard for people with lower-paying jobs to afford places to live in town. And that makes the neighborhood less diverse. Ho...

We had a good night at Design Review last night, getting a clean approval of a project near Othello Station. It was our second project going before the SE board, and both times we felt like we got a really fair hearing for our project, strong support from the board and the community, and a clear mandate to move forward.

We all know the stories about how bad the Design Review process can suck. Its worth noting that it doesn't have to be that way. Boards can be professional, fair, and productive, helping good projects to move along. Kudos to the SE board for giving us a fair shake.

https://news.theregistryps.com/oz-navigator-neiman-taber-sail-through-edg-for-197-unit-residential-project-in-seattle/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oz_navigator_neiman_taber_sail_through_edg_for_197_unit_residential_project_in_seattle&utm_term=2021-09-23

OZ Navigator, Neiman Taber, Sail Through EDG for 197-Unit Residential Project in Seattle - The Registry OZ Navigator, Neiman Taber, Seattle, Othello, 4001 S. Willow St.

Tis is our latest co-living project. We recruited OpenDoor to open an office in Seattle to launch and manage Freya for us. This was the program they came up with out of the gate. Pretty cool stuff!

On Feb 1, 2021 we did something we've always wanted to do — we launched an artist in residence program at our newest coliving community in Seattle. 🎨🎉

We had 99 artists from across the nation apply and selected the 12 artists that showed the greatest dedication to their art practice and most passion for creating community, home, and belonging. These incredible artists and humans are the founding members at Freya Apartments.

Over the next 4-months, we'll be sharing their stories, their art, and their experiences in creating community, home, and belonging at our newest coliving community.

Brad Padden from Housing Diversity Corp talking about many of our projects: https://www.multihousingnews.com/post/seattles-micro-housing-movement-a-developers-take/

Seattle’s Micro-Housing Movement: A Developer’s Take Housing Diversity Corp.’s Brad Padden makes the case for small-footprint apartments to accommodate the pressing demand for more affordable housing options closer to the city center.

My new article on Post Alley explores the current debate about Seattle’s approach to homelessness and the role micro-housing should play in providing basic low-cost housing
https://www.postalley.org/2020/05/30/low-cost-housing-heres-the-way-to-do-it/

Low-Cost Housing: Here’s the way to do it Building microhousing for use as transitional housing, or renting it from private developers, is the most obvious way to move forward. But we don’t.

In this talk, given at the 2019 Green Building Slam, I tell the story of The Roost - an artist live-work microhousing community we recently designed and developed in Seattle's Rainier Valley. I make the case for why re-legalizing microhousing should be a priority on our legislative agenda. How many more years and blue ribbon commissions need to pass before we actually do something about it?

https://neimanarchitects.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-case-for-re-legalizing-microhousing.html

The Case for Re-legalizing Microhousing It's been over five years since the City of Seattle passed legislation that effectively ended Seattle's run as an international leader in...