Category — Zoning

And it wasn’t for lack of putting together a good effort (Cedar Park was able to convince the hearing examiner that the developer should submit a drainage control plan) - it’s just that they, like many other land use appellants in Seattle can’t meet the threshold set up by Brown v. Tacoma which states that the Director of the DPD’s decision must be ‘clearly erroneous’.

‘Clearly erroneous’ is a huge hurdle for any appellant to clear because this standard brushes away all subjective feelings of what is ethically the right thing to do - and instead focuses on the cold, hard technicality of the law by asking, ‘Did the DPD pretty ignore or mess up it’s interpretation of existing code?’

And you don’t have to look hard to see this Brown v. Tacoma threshold applied elsewhere because it can be found in well, pretty much any decision that involves the DPD. A couple recent decisions featuring Brown v. Tacoma were included in the appeals made by Citizens Coalition For Trees and the Maple Leaf Community Council.

The problem with only having a legal spellcheck for controversial projects is that it means nobody is responsible for making the political ‘is this project the right thing to do?’ question. In the past a neighborhood could appeal a DPD decision to the city council, but that right was eliminated as a trade off for requiring certain new developments to go through the design review process.

And it’s too bad that this ability to appeal a DPD decision to the city council is gone because it could serve as the final gate in determining whether something is ‘ethically right or not’.

In Cedar Park’s case, an appeal to the Council would have given lots of public attention to a zoning loophole which is actually serving to undermine the environmental benefits it was designed to protect, and giving Maple Leaf the ability to appeal their Waldo Woods decision to the Council would have been a great way to see where exactly each Council member stands on the issue of protecting Seattle’s tree canopy.

But without the public attention an appeal to the Council might have afforded, these two decisions from the hearing examiner along with any political momentum to fix the Cedar Park loophole or tighten Seattle’s tree preservation laws now will be quietly filed away on the city’s web site - perhaps to be brought up by future generations of land use bloggers.

Density vs. sprawl, artificially constrain the housing supply, increasing housing in shoulder neighborhoods between downtown and the far suburbs, cottage housing, downsizing boomers like Lesley Williams of Williams Marketing…if these topics interest you - make sure to check out this KCTS 9 feature.

Lots of fireworks (literally, they’re on the home page) going on over at proprights.org as the State reverses King County’s land clearing law. I’m no lawyer, but reading through the decision it looks like the court laid on a pretty healthy smack-down on King County’s rural land clearing standards. The county set up these standards for environmental protection reasons, but these restrictions really rubbed land owners the wrong way - and they ‘lawyered up‘.

From what I can gather, it seems like the court said that King County mistakenly thought the Growth Management Act gave it the authority to set omnibus land clearing standards like these and that King County was also incorrect in thinking that the Growth Management Act gave it the power to override a state law which says you can’t ‘tax, fee, or charge’ tangible personal property

Anyway, does this mean that rural land owners can start paving over creeks on their property tomorrow? Or that any new development in rural King County can go ahead unchecked? No. But it looks like it does open the door to new rural development proposals that previously were barred by King County. I don’t know, but if you ask me it looks like this decision favors exurb development and will create more places to put your yellow Urban Land Institute Legos.

For those of you who like looking at recently repealed county code, here’s a snippet of King County’s clearing standards which are going off the books.

Clearing standards for individual lots in the rural zone.
A. Except as otherwise provided in this section, in the RA zone the following standards apply to clearing on individual lots:
1. For lots one and one-quarter acre or smaller:
a. clearing shall not exceed the greater of:
(1) the amount cleared before January 1, 2005, or cleared under a complete clearing permit application filed before October 25, 2004, in
(2) fifty percent of the lot area; or
(3) seven thousand square feet.
b. any clearing required for the construction of access, utilities and septic systems shall not be counted towards the amount of clearing allowed under this subsection;
2. For lots greater than one and one-quarter acres and up to fives acres in area, clearing shall not exceed the greater of:
a. the amount legally cleared before January 1, 2005, or cleared under a complete clearing permit application filed before October 25, 2004, in accordance with previous county regulations; or
b. fifty percent of lot area;
3. For lots greater than fives [sic] acres, clearing shall not exceed the greater of:
a. the amount legally cleared before January 1, 2005, or cleared under a complete clearing permit application filed before October 25, 2004, in accordance with previous county regulations;
b. two and one-half acres, or
c. thirty-five percent of lot area; and
4. For lots greater than one and one-quarter acre in either the Bear Creek basin, the Issaquah Creek basin and the May Creek basin, clearing shall not exceed the greater of:
a. the amount legally cleared before January 1, 2005, or cleared under a complete clearing permit application filed before October 25, 2004, in accordance with previous county regulations; or
b. thirty-five percent of lot area;
B. The standards in subsection A. of this section shall not apply if more restrictive standards apply through:
1. The Critical Areas Code, K.C.C. chapter 21A.24, and its adopted public rules;
2. Property-specific development standards or special district overlays under K.C.C. chapter 21A.38; or
3. Critical drainage area designations identified by adopted public rule.

This letter was written by Chris Leman

Citizen observers are welcome and needed on Monday, July 7, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. in King County Courthouse (516 Third Avenue) room E-733 as Superior Court Judge Julie Spector hears arguments by citizen activist Dennis Saxman and by lawyers for a developer and the City of Seattle in a case that Saxman has brought, arguing that Seattle’s design review and project approval process is not obeying the law.

Saxman alleges serious problems in Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development, the Hearing Examiner’s office, and the City Attorney’s office. He had appealed the DPD approval of a land use project on the 500 block of Pine Street between Belmont and Summit in Capitol Hill’s Pike-Pine neighborhood–ground zero for badly designed overdevelopment. When the Hearing Examiner sided with DPD, Saxman took the case to Superior Court.

It helps a citizen appellant for members of the public to be there in respectful attendance, and you are welcome to attend 9-10 a.m. Monday at the County Courthouse, room E-733. If you want further information, below is detail on the case, and how to donate if you are so inclined.

Why the case matters. Saxman has undertaken this effort because he believes that principles important to many Seattle neighborhoods are at stake, and that the project review system as it is currently practiced, is just plain unfair. Although no longer a practicing attorney, he benefits from his training and experience as an attorney in California, where he is still an inactive member of the Bar.

Many who closely follow the workings of Seattle’s design review process feel that the volunteer review boards, City staff, and Hearing Examiner do not always take the design guidelines seriously, thus favoring developers and undermining existing zoning. Bringing this dysfunctional system to the scrutiny of Superior Court poses the possibility of overturning it, or at least exposing such problems that the Mayor and City Council are forced into reforms.

Few have the energy and knowledge for an administrative appeal, and then the tenacity to take DPD and the Hearing Examiner to court. Dennis Saxman is that rare person who is seeing his case through, dramatizing the need for reform not only of DPD and the Office of the Hearing Examiner, but also of the City Attorney’s office, which seems to be over-zealous in defending the City’s position, acting in a number of instances to make citizen appeals particularly difficult.

Summary of the case. Saxman’s appeal to the Hearing Examiner argued that (1) the DPD Director was not justified in making a SEPA determination of nonsignificance; (2) in approving departures from the Land Use Code, the DPD Director had failed to show that development would better meet the intent of the neighborhood’s design guidelines; and (3) that the relevant design guidelines for the neighborhood had not been followed by the Design Review Board in making its decisions.

When the Hearing Examiner sided with DPD, Saxman filed a lengthy Land Use petition urging the Superior Court to find that the Hearing Examiner: (1) did not meaningfully consider and weigh all of the arguments and evidence; (2) did not weigh the credibility of DPD’s and the developer’s testimony and evidence; (3) treated Saxman and DPD differently when it came to the submission of evidence; (4) failed to adequately address appearance of fairness doctrine issues; (5) made errors of facts and law; (6) erred in finding the granting of departures was justified; and (7) erred in concluding that the project was consistent with the design guidelines.

Benefits of the case. Sixteen neighborhoods in Seattle have neighborhood-specific design guideline, and others are about to get them. Despite the guidelines, these neighborhoods continue to experience development that clashes with the neighborhood context—the very problem that neighborhood-specific design guidelines were supposed to solve. Saxman argues that, while neighborhood-specific design guidelines are meant to control design outcomes, the design review boards pay inadequate attention to the guidelines and DPD fails to ensure that they do, regarding the guidelines as not being binding.

Saxman’s case may establish a legal precedent that DPD and the Design Review Boards must follow the law and the design guidelines when evaluating projects; and more fully consider and heed public input. A clear victory would mean that the days of lax enforcement of neighborhood design guidelines by the DPD would be at an end and developers would be put on notice that they are required to abide by laws and guidelines proposed by the neighborhoods and enacted by City Council.

Here is Dennis Saxman’s summary of his goals: “In a nutshell, I think multiple design review, departure and SEPA analysis requirements are being ignored. If I prevail in this lawsuit, that should begin to change. I also think it would go a long ways towards beginning the repair of a review process that, as practiced, is highly biased against public appellants such as myself and that is not conducted according to the requirements of the law.”

Should Saxman lose his battle at the Superior Court level, the research he has done will still do a lot of good. He has found partiality and arbitrariness in the system–evidence that could help push the Mayor and City Council to reform the design review boards, DPD, the Hearing Examiner’s office, and the City Attorney’s office. If you have questions about the case or would like to receive documents about it, contact Dennis Saxman at (206) 328-5326 or peregrin@isomedia.com. As mentioned above, the hearing (case no. 08-2-05294-0 SEA) will be held 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday, July 7 in King County Courthouse room E-733, Superior Court Judge Julie Spector’s courtroom. Citizen observers are welcome and needed.

Dennis Saxman has undertaken this case despite chronic poor health and very low income. It is not overdramatic to say that in expending vast amounts of energy and time, he is risking his life for a citizen voice and good design in Seattle’s neighborhoods. He needs donations to help afford the filing fees, exhibits, and the official transcript that, as appellant, he is required to provide. Checks can be made out to Dennis Saxman and addressed to him at 1717 Bellevue Avenue #205, Seattle, WA 98122.

The above is an individual message from Chris Leman (206) 322-5463, and not offered on behalf of any organization.

That PT Cruiser parked at the top of this S. Seattle driveway could really do some damage lower down the hill (as indicated by the arrow) if it backed out too fast.

Anyway, too bad our local Master Builder’s Association doesn’t have a ‘Zoning Contortionist’ Awards program - I bet these townhomes could win an award. 

Thanks for the tip on this Renee and Matt.

Councilmember Sally Clark is starting to make some really good moves in Seattle, and next week will be hosting two events to discuss townhomes and why Seattle has such huge fluctuations in townhome quality.

And I almost fell out of my chair when I read this part of her announcement. Wow, an honest critique of the situation. This is something you definitely wouldn’t hear coming out of the ‘loyal to a fault’ DPD.

While some new town homes blend into the neighborhood or, even better, stand out as well-designed additions, others are reviled by the neighbors for mediocrity, canyon-creating fences, asphalt wastelands, and impossible to navigate garage entries. The fault lies not just with imagination, but also with Seattle’s development rules. The City can do better. These upcoming forums are the start of Councilmember Clark’s effort to improve town homes’ design.

You can read more here,

First Forum: Courtyard Housing in Portland, Oregon, Monday, June 2, 5 p.m., City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue in the Bertha Knight Landes Room on the First Floor.

Second Forum: Town Homes—Can the Patient be Saved?, Saturday, June 7, 10 a.m., Capitol Hill Arts Center, 1621 12th Ave

Seattle needs more of these

And fewer of these

If you answered, ‘not Seattle WA’ then you’re right. (And extra bonus points if you answered Victoria BC). Now, I’m not going to say all the buildings I saw in Victoria were beautiful -but for the most part whether they were old, new or middle-aged they looked like they each fit into the neighborhood.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to make it into any of the units but did walk around quite a bit and I was really impressed with what Victoria has done to create a really dense, walkable collection of neighborhoods. The setbacks, the creativity in the different types of buildings and the focus on landscaped open space are good lessons for us.

• Victoria mandates does a good job of managing the minimum size of multi-dwelling parking spaces so that they’re actually usable by the people who live there.
• Victoria also protects privacy by varying setbacks based on use. Windowless walls (or windows of non-habitable rooms) can be closer to neighbors than habitable rooms with windows.
• And Victoria avoids the wooden fence problems and exposed ugly parking spaces that Seattle townhomes suffer from. They require surface parking to be screened by a landscaped berm at least 1m (~3ft) in height.

The more I think about it, the problem Seattle is facing isn’t with whether something is zoned multi-family or single-family— it’s just that the zoning code which determines what can be built does a really poor job of taking the sustainablity and health of a neighborhood into consideration. 

It doesn’t make sense why we don’t open up single-family zoning in Seattle for creative duplexes/triplexes, but yet we make it super easy to build 35′ tall megamansions. And it is really strange that we give very little consideration to ensuring nice transitions between adjoining properties - why not require multifamily and megahouse developers to give the neighboring property a break by creating nice setbacks and privacy screens? 
Nice street level entry for this corner townhome in Victoria’s James Bay.  

Okay, not the most beautiful, but I bet the owners here can at least pull their cars into their garages. 

The setback creates nice open space for the residents and doesn’t jam them up against the sidewalk.

I liked this - three story homes against the street corner and then two-stories where the townhomes were neighboring single family homes. Also, the nice wide driveway opened up some pretty nice balconies for the homes on the right. 

A while ago I took a photo of a megahouse that was under construction and posted it to the blog. I also added my observations that the new house towered over the neighbor and that they had put in a large two-car garage.

Boy, was I suprised when I actually got a response from the owner. I thought their response was interesting because it explains the reasoning why one family decided to demolish an existing home and rebuild it with a newer (and much bigger) one. 

Just a couple of things to note - the house is really about 2 and 1/2 stories since the ’basement’ is mostly above ground, and to anonymize their comment I’ve replaced the neighborhood’s name with ‘XXX’.

Our family made a commitment to XXX by investing in the neighborhood which included remodeling an existing house and adding a 2nd story. The original house was 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, the roof leaked, there was extensive dry rot and when it rained water was getting into the house.

The house is now safer (lead and asbestos were removed) along with an underground oil tank. We have 2 children, one who attends XXX School and one who will start attending next fall.

Stay focused on the goal of neighborhood planning, support will wane if XXX is posting photos of a home when a family opted to stay in XXX and be part of the community which included remodeling their home.

If a XXX homeowner has a decision to make remodel (generally includes commitment to neighborhood and community) or move (may decide to rent house) - what would you choose?

Guest article from Matt the Engineer.
(expanding on some comments from this post)

I have a very typical house on Queen Anne. It was built in 1904, and there’s nothing terribly special about it. It’s cute, but it has its problems as any 100-year-old structure might. If it were located on a 7200sf lot in, say, Wedgewood it might be worth $100k less than it is. Yet it was only on the market for one day before recieving 2 offers. Why?

I agrue the main reason is not the houses or the hill, but the density.

My house is on a typical 3000 sf lot. This gives me room for a nice front yard with a lawn and garden, a large rear yart big enough for my two dogs, space for a garage (if I ever get around to re-building one), a garden space, and over 2000sf of living area. I’ve had 6 people living in it comfortably for a summer, and have had my 10-person family up for two holidays. I have 4 bedrooms, a comfortably sized kitchen, dining room, large living room, laundry room, and a family room. Why anyone could ever use a house bigger than this is beyond me, unless they had 10 children and a horse.

Of course, it’s close to the city and on a hill. There’s no view, but people like hills. I’ll call the hill the only non-density benefit. You could also argue that being close to the city is also a non-density benefit, though if all houses were less dense then there wouldn’t really be a city.

It’s walkable*. I don’t have to get in the car any time I want to go places. The walk to any services is tree-lined, and I have nice house fronts to admire as I walk and people to interact with. This is directly a result of density.

It’s affordable. Stop laughing. The likely reason that land was cut up into 3000 sf pieces back before the days of zoning laws is that it’s a reasonable size for a single family, and developers could sell the same amount of land to more people. Bringing a streetcar into the mix made this size house a good idea - you need density to support public transportation.
But it also made it affordable - working-class families could afford a house this close to the city, on a hill, as long as they don’t take up much space. The same is true today. If you think a typical house is expensive, compare it to one of the large houses on the hill.

This article could have easily been written about Fremont, Ballard, much of the U-District, Green Lake, or some of Capital Hill. Whether or not suburbanites admit it, density can be very desirable. I’m not sure what inspired our current zoning laws, but I think they’re flawed. Where we build single family houses, let’s go back to 3000sf (or less) lots with neighborhoods, not 7200sf car-centric sprawl.

* I’ll list what I can walk to in order of distance:

1 block
small grocery store
2 small restaurants
coffee shop
major bus line

5 blocks
library
sports fields
swimming pool
community center
dense retail area

10 blocks
2 large grocery stores

1 mile
7 large grocery stores
opera
ballet
symphony
sports arena
Seattle Center
waterfront
Lake Union
float planes
3 dense retail areas

2 miles
downtown

Last week the city announced 4 possible locations for a new city jail to house misdemeanor prisoners, and each location is controversial in its own way. So…making the rounds of the four - here’s a North Seattle Herald Outlook report on the concerns about the Aurora site option.

The Aurora option would replace the 58-year old Puetz Golf Range and Pro Shop and an adjoining Lincoln Towing yard with a low-rise jail. Personally, the Driving range seems like a nice business to have on Aurora, and it provides a nice addition to a neighborhood that needs the help.

(Seattle PI photo - Puetz Golf Range and Pro Shop)

Looks like Councilmember Conlin has been getting busy with some proposed changes to Seattle’s Single Family Zoning Code. (Thanks to Renee for the heads up on this one!)

• Delete a provision accommodating taller structures as a product of averaging the height of adjacent existing single-family structures.
• Reduce maximum lot coverage on lots less than 5,000 sq. ft. from 1,750 sq. ft. as is allowed currently to 1,000 sq. ft. plus 15% of lot area.
• Limit hardscape surface to 65% of lot area.
• Allow dormers constructed above the maximum permitted height, but below the peak of a pitched roof.
• Limit the additional height permitted for sloped lots to a maximum of five feet.
• Remove corner lot coverage allowance and reduce alley lot coverage allowance to 10%
• Waive parking requirements for single-family residential uses on parcels less than 3,000 square feet in size or 30 feet in width where access to parking is permitted through a required yard abutting a street
• Prevent garage walls from being any closer to the street lot line than 80% of the streetlevel façade that is not a garage.
• Limit the width of garage doors on a street-facing façade to 50% of the structure width or 10 feet, whichever is greater.
• Specify that minor additions such as eaves and unenclosed decks shall not prevent development of adjacent historic lots.
• Create a new lot coverage allowance for rear garages on lots with parking access through the front yard.

Grab a copy of the proposed single family updates here, amendments checklist, and the SEPA checklist.

(Will megahomes finally be able to drag their sorry butts back to the exurbs?)

”
(Photo from Wedgwood Community Council site)

Sure, it’s just a regular ol’ cell phone pole, but Peter Steinbrueck recently suggested to the Wedgwood neighborhood that they make lemonade out of lemons and turn it into a ‘community totem’ like they did for one NYC pole (see the photo at the bottom of this page).

Personally, I have a better idea - use it as a community Festivus pole, where every year neighbors could gather to ‘Air their grievences’ and perform ‘Feats of Strength’ underneath the warm aluminum glow of this 59.5 foot pole.

Of course some of you may be wondering, why install a 59′ 6″ pole, wouldn’t you just round up to 60′? Well, if rounding up to 60′ feet meant you had to go through SEPA, and if you were T-Mobile trying to get this done sooner rather than later, than I bet you’d want to trim off a little from the top. Here’s what Seattle City Light had to say,

Both the Seattle Municipal Code and SEPA establish parameters for public process for these types of facilities.

Antenna towers under 60′ in commercial zones are exempt from SEPA requirements, including any public process required for non-exempt facilities.

However, I don’t think anyone in the neighborhood can be too upset with this pole because nobody complained about it,

The subject pole is in a Neighborhood Commercial 2-30 (NC 2-30) zone, and the proposed height (59′6″) is under 60′, so DPD review is not required by code and the facility is exempt from SEPA review. T-Mobile provided SCL a copy of the notice of a neighborhood meeting held at Eckstein Middle School on 12/11/06 and reported that the notice was sent to property owners (151) within 500′ of the pole. T-Mobile also reported that only one person attended the meeting; she did not want to sign in but was in favor of the project because her T-Mobile service is so poor. SCL did not receive any written comments.

So…the lesson here for those who aren’t fans of Festivus poles (or metal community totems), don’t miss those public comment meetings.

(Wait ’til the folks back home see what I found in New York - a community totem for our NC2-30 zoned parcel!)

Of course if you’re going to hold a neighborhood brownbag on the future of Northgate, what better place to hold this meeting than 9 miles away in Downtown Seattle? And isn’t there this thing called the ‘Internet’ available where you could possibly even video stream the meeting online for those who don’t want to drive downtown? Alright, enough bitchin’ about that, however for those of you who can make it to Seattle Great City’s brownbag, here’s a copy of the Northgate Rezone brownbag flier. (The brownbag takes place this Thursday at noon).

(Just one quick note - the Seattle Great City says Northgate is ,’…also the site of a future light rail site’, but that is still a proposed idea - and needs to go before the voters for funding).

Anyway, it should be interesting to hear what the DPD has to say about the draft copy of the Environmental Impact Study - I started reading it and my eyes began glazing over. Maybe the DPD and the Seattle Great City Initiative have a ‘Northgate Environmental Impact Statement for Dummies’ they’ll share.

However, only having the DPD show up at a meeting like this makes my spidey-sense tingle. I’d almost always rather that representatives from other city departments (Neighborhoods, SDOT, Schools, Parks, Library) were also in attendance to talk about how they will update their Northgate planning in accordance with this rezoning plan. Otherwise you have to worry that their response will be, ‘Huh? We didn’t know we were doing a major rezone for Northgate, I wish we had known three years ago so we could have started planning.’

The 90-+page Draft Environmental Impact Statement for this work was issued on the 1st, and you can grab a copy of it here.

(Northgate of the future - wasn’t public housing where
this new building is?)

(thx for the tip Sharon)
Ugh…10 hours of debate and public comment in Denver…but hey, they were debating rezoning two neighborhoods to prohibit multifamily housing, and that’s always going to be a pretty contentious issue.

It makes you think, could there possibly be any big development issues in Seattle that are causing so much neighborhood angst that they could be dealt a similar heavy-handed response from Seattle voters? (I’ve got my bets on - megamansions, micropermitting, and setbacks.)
(Denver Post photo) 

The times I’ve published information from neighborhood groups about the multi-family zoning updates in progress, I generally tend to get one or two responses saying, “Whoa, this process has been 2-3 years in the planning, how can it be a surprise to you?” And my response back is, “Hey, cut me a break, I wasn’t paying attention to land use issues in Seattle 2-3 years ago, I was busy with other important stuff - do you think that 6 seasons of ‘The Sopranos’ were just going to watch themselves?”

But now that I do care (and that ‘The Sopranos’ has ended) I thought it would be fun to read through the entire MF Update…until I saw that it was 94 pages long. And if it took me 2-3 years to watch an entire TV series… 94 pages in one sitting is probably not a realistic goal.

So…I thought, what to do? Should I just skim through the document and focus on a few items, like a City Councilmember would do? But then I thought, ‘Hey, I bet some of you haven’t read through this document either, so why don’t we have some fun and read it together with you, chapter by chapter?’

Sounds fun, yes? So, if you’re game, your homework is thus, grab a copy of the MF Draft Proposal (you can grab it for FREE here) and read the ‘Introduction’ on pages 2 and 3 for tomorrow’s discussion.

And if you don’t want to read the update, that’s cool, I’ll just keep posting some more land-use photos for you (I’ve got some super-awesome Wallingford thermoplastic ladder crosswalk photos just waiting to see the light of day).

In the meantime, here is something fun I did with the update. I searched on a few key words to see how many times they were repeated within the MFZ document.

1) ‘Children‘ are mentioned 3 times in the 94 pages.
2) ‘Parks‘ are mentioned 4 times
3) ‘Condo‘ was mentioned 6 times
4) ‘Schools‘ are mentioned 10 times.
5) ‘Mayor Nickels‘ is mentioned twice, ‘Mayor’ is mentioned 11 times
6) ‘DPD‘ mentioned 15 times
7) ‘City Council‘ is mentioned 16 times (that’s 1.78 mentions per council member)
8 ) ‘Townhouses‘ are mentioned 47 times.
9) ‘Urban village‘ mentioned 55 times
10) ‘Affordable‘ mentioned 56 times
11) ‘Single Family‘ was mentioned 59 times
12) ‘Zoning‘ was mentioned 71 times, ‘Zoned’ mentioned 75 times
13) ‘Green‘ was mentioned 90 time
14) ‘Neighborhood‘ was mentioned 133 times
15) ‘Multifamily‘ mentioned 270 times

So…taking the top terms in their category (’Multifamily’ beats out ‘Single Family’), dividing by 2, carrying the 1…and we get this…

Multifamily Neighborhood Zoning for Green, Affordable Townhouses

It should be interesting to see whether at the end of this exercise, if this is what the document is about.