Just because-- Where in the Northwest, are developers making Billions with new development? There is a lot going on in King County, but the majority of big money is in the redevelopment of the Seattle area. I would guess that a lot of this is going to improve the environment by concentrating growth and increased building requirements. There are a few warehouses in the valley that I question, but I do not have a perfect answer to that as there is so little room left. Part of the problem is that development is being pushed into smaller areas, resulting in less desirable land being developed, when in the past developers would have skipped over this land for better and easier development. I talked to planners about this years ago, but they pushed for less sprawl and more intense development. The fact that this pushed growth into areas that were less than ideal was ignored. I think a more balanced approach would have worked, but the environmental and liberal thinking was to push all growth into smaller areas, while the developer side was often pushing for unbridled growth.
Several years ago we did a small develpoment in a rural setting. A logger was selling off a bunch of large parcels. We bought one of about eight 30 to 40 acre sites that had been clear cut. We then split it into 8 one acre sites with shared driveways on to the county road. The remaining 20+ acres were replanted and left in current open space. A salmon stream and associated wetland ran along one side, so we pushed all development over to the other side of the parcel. Of the remaining parcels, most were bought by individuals who then cleared as much of the lots as possible and stuck on mini-mansions. The treed lots are now big open pastures with livestock, barns and such. The same stream runs through them with bare minimum setbacks.
Shortly after we finished the county put new restrictions on cluster housing. Seems people don't like the small lots. So now, it is easier to split it into single lots, fence it and turn it into pasture, and put one house on the lot rather than eight.
The conclusion is that 30 acres with one house and 20 cows is better than 20 acres of forest and 8 one acre lots with smaller driveways and limited livestock. Who cares if you develop the land 8 times faster and leave no open space. It just feels better!!!!
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