Alley Setbacks or Alley Rage?

When you sit through multiple Design Guidance and Recommendation Meetings and listen to all of the tactics used by Developers, their Architects, the Design Review Board, and even City Staffers to avoid discussing the need for alley setbacks in order to have truly functional high-rise residential buildings in downtown Seattle today, it really makes you wonder what they are thinking...or not thinking. And just when you think you've heard it all, one of them says this can all be solved with simple "alley management". As the truck driver above says, "You cannot be serious".

This is today. Now add 1031 new residential units, 400 parking spaces, daily delivery and services for two hotels and restaurants, plus move-ins, move-outs, maintenance, and servicing...and someone actually expects us to believe this can all be solved with "alley management".

1.  Is there a successful precedent for "alley management" they can point to as an example?

2.  Who will coordinate the managing?

3.  Who will actually do the managing?

4.  Who will enforce the rules set up for this managing?

5.  Who will pay for the managing?

6.   And who will be responsible for the endless traffic queues in the streets as a result of this unworkable "alley management"?

Again, this is today. Now add 1031 new residential units, 400 parking spaces, daily delivery and services for two hotels and restaurants, plus move-ins, move-outs, maintenance, and servicing...and someone actually expects us to believe this can all be solved with "alley management".

Remember the term "Alley Rage". That's sure to become a new buzz word in Seattle if the city allows multiple 500' residential towers on a single half block with all daily servicing, residential parking, trash pickup, etc. through a single alley that is already blocked a significant percentage of the time.

And it could all be solved by requiring reasonable alley setbacks. Add your voice to the chorus demanding a serious solution to this serious problem.