Hearing examiner’s ruling calls for more environmental study of a proposal to allow more and larger backyard cottages and mother-in-law apartments. Seattle must halt a proposal to allow more and larger backyard cottages — in order to conduct a more thorough review of potential environmental consequences, including the possibility that it could lead to gentrification. That’s what the city’s hearing examiner said Tuesday in a written ruling that orders the Seattle Office of Planning and Development to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement on Councilmember Mike O’Brien’s proposed ordinance. Hearing Examiner Sue Tanner’s ruling sides with the Queen Anne Community Council, which has sought to block the legislation until more study is done. The Queen Anne council in June appealed the city’s State Environmental Policy Act determination that the ordinance would have no significant impact on the environment. “The record demonstrates that the challenged DNS (determination of non-significance) was not based on information sufficient to evaluate the proposal’s impacts,” Tanner’s ruling says.

Jason Kelly, spokesman for the city’s Office of Planning and Community Development, said the agency is considering the decision and its implications. discount potty chairO’Brien is weighing his options, he said.rocking chair plans free The Queen Anne council’s Martin Kaplan called Tuesday “a great day for the citizens of Seattle and every one of our neighborhoods.”table and chair rental north wales “Now the city will do what it should have done before and investigate every environmental impact associated with what would be the largest land-use change in Seattle’s history,” Kaplan said.ab lounge chair for sale Backyard cottages, also called detached accessory dwelling units, are stand-alone structures. bloom high chair price uk

Mother-in-law apartments, known to city planners as accessory dwelling units, are apartments built inside a house.wooden rocking chairs made in usa Such units have been allowed in single-family zones throughout the city since 2010. Proponents say the small homes can be a good option for people who can’t afford to buy or rent an entire house. The legislation would allow accessory units to be built on smaller lots, remove an existing requirement that each accessory unit have its own off-street parking space, allow a cottage and mother-in-law apartment to be built on the same lot, increase the maximum height of cottages and allow owners to live off-property after six months. The city’s initial environmental review and determination of non-significance were largely based on an estimate of how many units would be built under the new approach: The construction of accessory units on 5 percent of 75,000 eligible lots over 20 years would yield 188 per year.

That would be more than five times the rate of 34 per year since 2010 but would yield less than 4,000 total. Tanner’s ruling relies heavily on what she heard from William Reid, an urban economist from Oregon who testified in the appeal’s hearing on behalf of the Queen Anne council. Reid said the city’s estimate made sense with regard to accessory units that would be built by property owners for their own uses, such as renting to a family member. But he said the planners failed to acknowledge that the ordinance would encourage investors to convert single-family lots into rental-income properties. He said allowing more and larger cottages and mother-in-law apartments to be built and eliminating Seattle’s existing requirement that owners live on-property would enable owners to rent out three units and would greatly boost the value of their lots. Reid and others who testified on behalf of the Queen Anne council said the legislation would result in developers buying modest houses, tearing them down and replacing them with three-dwelling complexes.

They predicted the redevelopment would displace minorities. Sou Souvanny, a land-use consultant, said the ordinance would “accelerate gentrification, driving up home values and reducing the number of entry-level single-family residences.” The hearing examiner was persuaded. “The evidence here shows that the indirect impacts of the legislation would adversely affect housing and cause displacement of populations,” Tanner’s ruling says. The ruling also says the city’s conclusions that the legislation would have minimal impacts on parking and utilities weren’t supported. “The parking analysis was not even reviewed” by a key transportation planner, the ruling says. Jesse Piedfort, chair of the Sierra Club’s Seattle group, said the ruling is a disappointment. He said his organization supports adding housing density “because it lets people drive less” and thereby combats pollution. Piedfort said he hopes the Queen Anne council will support O’Brien’s ordinance once a more extensive environmental study is done.

“Delay tactics like this hurt,” he said. “The more people get priced out of the city, the more time they spend commuting in cars.”During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the bold turnings, attenuated proportions, and dynamic surfaces of the Early Baroque, or William and Mary, style were subdued in favor of gracefully curved outlines, classical proportions, and restrained surface ornamentation. This new style, variously called late Baroque, early Georgian, or Queen Anne, was a blend of several influences, including Baroque, classical, and Asian. Boston was the leading colonial city in the early eighteenth century and the first to implement aspects of the new style. “Crooked” or S-curved chair backs, which conformed to the shape of the sitter’s spine, first appeared there in the 1720s. This feature was borrowed from Asian designs and reflected a growing concern for comfort in the period. By the 1730s Boston makers had developed a standard chair form with a vase-shaped splat and S-curved cabriole legs (46.192.2).

With their rounded outlines, chairs of this type represented a dramatic departure from the stiff, straight chair backs of the preceding eras. Boston makers produced thousands of Queen Anne-style chairs for export and sold them to other colonies as part of the inter-coastal trade. In Philadelphia, craftsmen responded to competition from Boston imports by developing distinctive seating forms with more elaborately curved lines (62.171.21). Revealing the Late Baroque emphasis on negative space, the solid splat and the flanking stiles were carefully designed so as to produce a gracefully curved void between them. Case furniture in the Late Baroque style became more architectural, with proportions and ornament derived from Renaissance precedents. New translations of Andrea Palladio‘s i (1570) provided craftsmen with formulas for determining proper proportions while offering a range of classically inspired ornament. By the 1730s Boston makers were incorporating cabriole legs and broken-scroll pediments into high chests of drawers (10.125.62).

This standard Boston form was adapted and refined elsewhere in the colonies. In Newport, Rhode Island, cabinetmakers integrated distinctive scrolls and scalloped shells into the skirts of high chests and dressing tables. Whereas Boston cabriole legs were somewhat stiff and vertical, Newport makers favored more curvilinear legs that terminated in pointed slipper feet (1994.449). One notable exception to the subdued ornamentation of Queen Anne-style furniture is japanning, a technique developed in the West to imitate Asian lacquerwork. In Boston and New York, late Baroque forms were painted with fantastical scenes of the Far East known as “chinoiserie” (10.125.58). Although this form of decoration originated during the William and Mary period, it remained popular through the 1750s. Intercoastal trade brought fine Virginia and Pennsylvania black walnut within reach of craftsmen throughout New England and the Middle Atlantic, and it was the most popular wood in the Queen Anne period (1730–60).

Walnut was often stained to resemble imported Caribbean mahogany, which became the wood of choice during the subsequent Chippendale, or Rococo, era (1755–90). The publication of Thomas Chippendale’s i (1754) reflected the growing influence of the French Rococo style, which found expression in America in overlays of playful, naturalistic carving (2007.302a-c). Chippendale did not invent the richly carved style that now bears his name; rather, he codified the reigning fashion in England for creative blends of Gothic, Asian, and French Rococo designs. Chairs in the Chippendale style became more rectilinear, with square seat frames, straight stiles, and outward-flaring “ears” at the top corners. Claw-and-ball feet with sharply articulated talons replaced the smooth contours of pad and slipper feet. Back splats, formerly solid and unornamented, came to be pierced and intricately carved with foliage and interlaced patterns (57.158.1). In case furniture the Chippendale style was an extension of the Queen Anne: in Philadelphia, for example, traditional Baroque forms such as the high chest of drawers were updated with carved Rococo ornament (18.110.6).

In New England, where the influence of immigrant craftsmen was minimal, cabinetmakers relied primarily on shaped facades rather than on ornamental carving to impart visual interest (10.125.81a; 2001.644). Leisure activities became more commonplace in the late colonial period, a result of greater prosperity and the widespread pursuit of refinement. To satisfy demand, cabinetmakers produced specialized furniture forms such as tables for playing cards and taking tea. These pieces increasingly took on bold three-dimensional shapes and often rested on leaf-carved cabriole legs ending in claw feet (25.115.31; 67.114.1). By the 1750s, Philadelphia had surpassed Boston as the largest colonial city. Immigrant artisans trained in the latest European fashions created lavish interiors and furnishings for the Georgian-style homes of Philadelphia’s mercantile elite (Powel Room, 18.87.1–.4). New York also benefited from a surge in immigration in the years preceding the Revolution. Artisans there catered to the Loyalist sympathies of their patrons by closely following English forms, such as the five-legged card table, and the chest-on-chest (47.35; 64.249.3).