Think of a neighborhood near the downtown of a major U.S. city within walking distance to a subway, university, hospital, library and major park.
You’re probably imagining dense blocks of large apartment buildings. But in the case of Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood, that’s wrong.
Although Montlake is located in the heart of the city, with access to a lot of amenities, it’s one of Seattle’s least dense neighborhoods, characterized almost exclusively by upscale single-family homes and tidy yards.
That doesn’t make sense to urban planners, who say people and the environment benefit from abundant housing close to transit, schools, parks and jobs.
It’s why Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing changes as part of a new growth plan for Seattle. If approved by the City Council, Harrell’s plan would allow more development in 30 new “neighborhood centers,” including Montlake.
“Seattle needs more housing and more housing choices — it’s that simple,” the mayor said when he announced his “One Seattle” update last year.
Of course, zoning politics are never really that simple. Harrell’s plan for more apartments and townhomes has encountered pushback in neighborhoods like Montlake, Bryant, Maple Leaf, Madrona and Magnolia, because some residents would rather see their leafy blocks stay mostly the same.
“Help us preserve Montlake’s history, charm and community as we add urban density,” says one online petition, raising concerns about Harrell’s plan.
It’s a contentious debate. It’s also an opportunity for Seattleites to reflect.
How did a neighborhood like Montlake come to be, and at whose expense? The story stretches back 175 years, puts the new zoning proposal in perspective and raises questions about how the city should grow.
“I don’t know if the people who call Montlake home today are aware of how special and unique the neighborhood is,” said Warren King George, historian for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. “There’s a bigger picture here.”
Native land
Before white settlers arrived in Seattle in the mid-1800s, the place now called Montlake was the fulcrum of a watery world that sustained local Native communities, said King George, whose ancestors spent time in the area.
“This would have been a place where you would seasonally live, using the resources on a cycle,” he said on a walk through Montlake, mentioning salmonberries, blackberries, wapato, salmon and cutthroat trout.
A shallow stream ran west across Montlake’s hourglass-shaped isthmus, flowing from Lake Washington to Lake Union. Native people couldn’t navigate all the way through, so the Lushootseed name for the location was sxʷacəgʷił (sxwats-a-gweeth), which means “carry a canoe,” King George said.
“It was a portage place,” the historian said about the area now called Montlake and — in a nod to the past — Portage Bay. “You’d get out and push or carry your canoe along as you waded through the reeds and tule and cattail.”
Under the Montlake Bridge, as cars and trucks rumble past, it’s hard to conjure the sights and sounds of 1850. But there are clues on a map of Lushootseed names, King George said, pointing to a spot near Montlake called waq̓waq̓ab (wak-wak-ab), which refers to “the sound of croaking frogs.”
That world is almost completely gone, King George said, and Native perspectives are largely absent from today’s neighborhood land-use debates.
Huge changes
The settlers who founded Seattle almost immediately passed a law (Ordinance No. 5) against Native people living in their new city. They used treaties and force to claim ownership of the area.
Within years, the newcomers saw an opportunity to expedite their business and travel by excavating a channel through the Montlake isthmus.
Harvey Pike tried unsuccessfully in the 1860s, using a pickax, shovel and wheelbarrow. David Denny and others hired Chinese workers to dig a ditch in the 1880s so he could move logs from Lake Washington to his Lake Union sawmill. Seattle’s Pike Place Market and Denny Way still bear their family names.
When the city annexed Montlake in 1891, nearly the only Native people living in that area were Cheshiahud, a local leader also known as “Lake John,” and his wife, Tleebuleetsa. Cheshiahud, who carved cedar canoes and sometimes served as a guide for settlers, managed to stay on Portage Bay partly because he had become friends with Denny, King George said.
In 1910, the same year Chesiahud died after moving to the Port Madison Indian Reservation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used dynamite to excavate a larger canal, ultimately called the Montlake Cut.
That explosive project lowered the level of Lake Washington, drained the area’s wetlands and destroyed the lake’s outlet to the Black River, bleeding that waterway dry and degrading an entire ecosystem. It reshaped the landscape more than any zoning change under consideration today.
“The whole river system was compromised,” King George said.
Deliberate development
Few houses were built in Montlake until the early 1900s, when real estate developer John Boyer bought land and lobbied the city to create Interlaken Park. To attract affluent buyers, he placed restrictive covenants on its new Montlake properties, requiring new homes be sold for “substantially above average prices at the time,” according to a city historical report.
The property deeds prohibited businesses and apartments, in an “early means of enforcing single-family zoning,” according to the report.
Development crept north after a streetcar line began carrying passengers to the University of Washington. A small business district sprouted.
In the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, many Montlake homes were subject to racial restrictions. For example, covenants covering as many as 390 properties said they could never be leased, rented, loaned or occupied by “persons of other than the Caucasian race.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against such covenants in 1948 and Congress banned them in 1968. But single-family zoning continued to block apartments and businesses in Montlake outside the short strip on 24th Avenue East.
Many of the Montlake homes were built in a Tudor style, mimicking English architecture from the 1500s in an deliberate attempt to give the neighborhood a historical, European ambience, said Coll Thrush, a history professor at the University of British Columbia who researches the Pacific Northwest.
“Those were attempts by developers to settle the place and make it seem permanent, even though it really just happened,” Thrush said.
Ramps to nowhere
Since 1950, Montlake has experienced massive infrastructure changes, on the one hand, and virtually zero residential changes, on the other hand.
The state built Highway 520 across Lake Washington in the 1960s, carving a noisy swath of concrete through Montlake and further polluting the area’s natural resources. The neighborhood was a pleasant place to grow up, all the same, said longtimer Robin Bentley, who remembers riding her bike down quiet streets, browsing the local library and buying penny candy on the business strip.
A community club with “political clout” fought to protect the neighborhood’s “best qualities,” wrote Eugene Smith, author of a history book about Montlake.
Montlakers joined advocates from other neighborhoods to block the construction of an additional highway from Highway 520 through the Central District and Rainier Valley. Remnants of that project’s “ramps to nowhere” stand as a monument to “Not In My Backyard” activism done right.
Another strain of resistance, meanwhile, has underpinned the city’s status quo zoning strategy. For decades, Seattle has directed new apartments and businesses to “urban villages” in places like Ballard, Lake City and Columbia City, while keeping areas like Montlake off limits.
That strategy, combined with Montlake’s high prices and unique geography, explains why its housing stock has barely changed.
The area added a new library in 2006, light rail at Husky Stadium in 2016 and a park lid with bus stops last year, as part of an arduous Highway 520 expansion project that razed Montlake’s only grocery store. Its elementary school on 22nd Avenue East is also undergoing a giant expansion.
Today’s debate
Some residents are leery of Harrell’s plan to allow apartments and townhomes not only along Montlake’s business strip but also on surrounding blocks. The new neighborhood center buildings could reach up to five stories. They would need to replace existing stores and homes, because empty lots are scarce (an exception is the old grocery store site by Highway 520).
Whether the City Council passes Harrell’s plan or not, Seattle will soon allow at least four housing units per residential lot citywide, as required by a 2023 state law.
Critics say the denser development could exacerbate Montlake’s bottleneck traffic problems, mar its historic character and disrupt the tranquil Washington Park Arboretum, which borders the neighborhood.
“The streets cannot handle more cars,” one public commenter wrote to the city last year, adding, “This plan negatively affects wildlife habitat.”
Harrell’s plan has supporters, as well. Some of them argue the proposed zoning changes should affect more blocks across the city and in Montlake, especially closer to the UW hospital and light rail.
“The proximity to both UW, Capitol Hill and the Arboretum makes it a very obvious choice to allow and encourage more housing,” an upzones supporter wrote last year, commenting on a map of the mayor’s proposed changes.
Danny Greco, a real estate agent raising children in Montlake, doesn’t expect quick development, even if the council approves Harrell’s plan. Most lots in the neighborhood are small; would-be apartment builders may struggle to do much without buying contiguous properties, he said.
Other residents feel pulled in multiple directions.
Sabrina Best sees the wisdom behind Harrell’s proposal, because she moved to one of Montlake’s few apartment buildings a year ago. There weren’t many options when she was looking for a place. Yet the UW research scientist would hate to see “mellow” Montake become crowded like Ballard, she said.
The owner of a modest Montlake bungalow since the 1980s, Workinesh Tianen is also torn. Tianen worries about development encroaching on the verdant Arboretum. But the retiree also sees how the neighborhood’s home prices have soared, surpassing $1.5 million in recent years. Her adult son lives south of Seattle; people like him can’t afford Montlake, she said.
History lessons
Tianen’s favorite local business is a Montlake mainstay called Mr. Johnson’s Antiques. Packed with heirlooms, treasures and tchotchkes, it’s a space dedicated to the past and, simultaneously, a place of renewal, where curious shoppers breathe new life into old things by giving them new homes.
Johnson doesn’t like the idea of huge new buildings casting shadows over Montlake. At the same time, “Change is inevitable,” he said, hoping the city will find a solution that respects current and would-be residents.
“There are a lot of nice young people who come to our shop who would totally live here if they could swing it,” added younger store manager Colman Moore, who grew up in Montlake and would like to move back someday.
Across from Mr. Johnson’s, a poster taped to a light pole by residents who are concerned about Harrell’s plan says the upzones would be “the biggest change to Montlake in its 100+ history.” King George doesn’t quite agree with that, he said, considering the convulsive way the neighborhood came to be.
The Muckleshoot historian is wary of unchecked development, which can wreak environmental and cultural havoc. He’s also wary of narratives that treat 20th century neighborhoods like Montlake as original and sacred.
As Seattle grapples with climate impacts, income inequality and a housing shortage, King George hopes the city learns from past mistakes.
“There’s a balance there,” he said. “You’re going to have to find it.”
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