Seattle's Amazon Tax Was Going to Raise $20 Million For Affordable Housing. Now the City is Getting Sued for $40 Million for Stopping a Housing Project. - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Seattle's Amazon Tax Was Going to Raise $20 Million For Affordable Housing. Now the City is Getting Sued for $40 Million for Stopping a Housing Project. - Hit & Run : Reason.com
"...Earlier this summer the Seattle City Council passed a since repealed $20 million tax on jobs (also known as an Amazon Tax), with plans to spend that money on affordable housing and homelessness services in the increasingly expensive, housing-starved city.
If a new lawsuit filed against the city is successful, Seattle will have to pay out twice that amount for actively stopping the construction of a housing project.
...Currently occupying Forbes' property is famed Seattle music venue the Showbox, which would have to be demolished to make room for the proposed apartment building. 
When word got out about the threat to the Showbox, a vocal crowd of supporters and local musicians demanded the city save the venue by any means necessary.
Their cause was quickly picked up by Seattle City Council, which slapped together emergency legislation to include the Showbox, and just the Showbox, in the nearby Pike Place Market Historical District, effectively scuttling any plans to build housing on the property.
...The city council's actions in this case are gallingly reckless.
...It also undermines the confidence of developers, who must now worry that their next project with the city may be scuttled after enough community protest or outrage.
That's a risk that Seattle, with its consistently rising housing costs and rising homelessness, can ill afford to take."
Fascinating visit to the deranged minds of liberal electeds.
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