Checking in on Seattle NIMBYs

An amusing story out of Seattle yesterday, courtesy of excellent local journalist Erica C. Barnett. By way of background, one thing that’s changed in the last 10 years or so in Seattle politics is that the city’s political class has had to make certain adjustments to the reality that a pro-housing agenda is actually pretty popular. Erik recently posted about D5 CM Cathy Moore’s recent NIMBY tantrum, which was in response to the Mayor’s incredibly milquetoast and obviously inadequate comprehensive plan draft including minor neighborhood center upzone in her district. The council majority that won election in 2023, including Moore, are pretty NIMBY, but most of them lied their asses off when running, pledging to support a much more aggressive set of upzonings in the comprehensive plan than the one they’re complaining is too ambitious now. NIMBYs like Moore understand they need a cover story for opposing increasing the housing supply, at least when voters are paying attention.

This creates a demand for such cover stories, to distract observers from the NIMBYs express goal of making the housing shortage as acute and painful as possible. One of the silliest, but often at least somewhat effective of these cover stories are those produced by the “tree canopy NIMBYs.” (For a taste of these deeply absurd characters I shall inflict upon those brave enough to click the link their “tree murder song.”) Now of course anyone who cared about tree canopies in a good-faith, serious way would recognize two things. First, that the best way to ensure a robust tree canopy in cities is for the city to plant a lot of trees on city land. Second, that infill housing near jobs, transit, and amenities is obviously good for the tree canopy, even if a tree or two are removed to make way for it, because every home in the urban core reduces demand for sprawl housing, which is obviously a much greater threat to tree canopies than apartments in the city.

These obvious truths do not appear to be recognized by Seattle’s Tree Action Network, a pre-eminent local tree canopy NIMBY organization. Lately they’ve been particularly focused on a tree slated for removal on 65th NE, on a lot that is a) surrounded by similar apartment buildings, b) less than a mile from light rail, and c) a pleasant ~30 minute walk or ~10 minute bike or bus ride from the second largest job center between San Francisco and Vancouver, Seattle’s University District. Nonetheless, the presence of a large Cedar tree slated for removal has inflamed this minority faction to such a degree that these boomers in desperate need of a less ridiculous hobby got themselves arrested in an act of civil disobedience in the service of halting this development. According to Seattle’s absurdly convoluted updated tree ordinance, it’s a “tier 2 tree” which means under most circumstances it is illegal to remove. However, an exemption to the prohibition on the removal of tier 2 trees (defined as 24-30 inches in diameter) if retaining the tree would reduce the amount of developable land to 85% or less of the total lot, provided they plant “replacement trees” that meet certain conditions. This lot was found to qualify for this exemption; therefore removal is legal.

In their advocacy for the retention of this tree, the Tree Action Seattle concocted an elaborate sentimental backstory about the tree and the previous homeowner:

Formerly one of several anonymous large trees on the block, the cedar now had a name—Grandma Brooks’ Cedar—and a backstory: According to Tree Action Seattle, the previous homeowner, Barbara Brooks, “lovingly cared for” and “cherished” the tree for for more than 70 years. “On hot summer days, she would carry a bucket of water to the tree to water it,” according to the website, and even swept the driveway of the neighboring apartment complex until she was almost 90.

When the apartment complex owner offered to buy her house, the site continues, Brooks refused, because he said his plans would require cutting down the tree. “Barbara passed away at 103, and requested her family only sell the property to a buyer that would preserve the tree.”

Barnett investigated this narrative by asking Brooks’ daughters about it.

“Mom hated that tree,” said Beverly Brooks, who grew up in the house and lived with her mother for the last seven years of her life. “My mother never took buckets of water to water the tree. She was 101, not 103, [when she died], and she never told any neighbor that she loved that tree. We all hated that tree.”

As for protesters’ claims that their family told Legacy they had to keep the tree in place, Beverly said, “We never said anything to anybody about that tree.”

“Our mother hated that tree,” Beverly’s sister Barbara confirmed. “It’s a huge tree, and it sheds all the time.” Her mother maintained the tree to the best of her ability, removing piles of needles from the roof, gutters, and sidewalk, but she certainly didn’t “cherish” or “lovingly care for” it, the sisters said.

“My mom would cut back the branches and clean it up just constantly,” Barbara said. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up. Mom always said, ‘If I could afford to get rid of this tree, I would.’”

“That tree was a burden to my mom for years and years,” Beverly said. Eventually, it became her burden as well. For 30 years, into her 70s, Beverly climbed up on the roof to remove needles from the house and gutters, then cleared the sidewalk. “I didn’t want anybody to fall and get hurt,” she said. In all that time, “Not one of the neighbors asked if they could help or nothing. They saw me up on the roof and every man turned the other way.”

“They call my mom ‘Grandma Brooks.’ I don’t like that,” Beverly added. “Her name was Mrs. Brooks. She wasn’t a grandma to any of them.”

I don’t know if the Tree Action Network is capable of feeling shame, but whatever such capabilities remain it’s apparently not enough to remove their fictional story about this tree from their advocacy page in light of it being exposed as false. It’s often the case that NIMBYs lean on sentimental narratives about neighborhoods that are largely false to justify excluding newcomers, but it’s rarely this literally true.

Since I’m here, a follow-up on the social housing vote I wrote about earlier. My anxieties about the city council’s cynical ploy to confuse voters turned out to have been entirely misplaced, as measure 1 “should we fund social housing” passed by 46 points, and the secondary “actually fund it with a new tax put forth by initiative organizers” 1A or “vaporware designed-to-fail funding scheme put forth by city council” 1B, 1A won by 26 points. The gap between Seattle voters, who’d like to see someone to try to do something about the housing crisis, and a majority of Seattle’s current elected officials, whose strong revealed preference is for no such attempt to take place on their watch, by them or anyone else, is as stark as it is bleak.

UPDATE: Despite the best efforts of the tree warriors, the tree has been removed. It was very nasty out earlier today, rain and strong winds, so the image of the hecklers watching from across the street really drives home one of the important lessons from this episode: these boomers badly need less ridiculous hobbies.

Anyway, RIP “Grandma’s Tree”, and may God have mercy on our souls.