Do you have any teachers in your neighborhood? Police officers? Other public employees?

We were intrigued by a report in the regional media this week, passed along to Chamber of Commerce members by Executive Director Kevin Dwyer. The story concerned an initiative for subsidized housing in another affluent island community to the east – Mercer.

As reported, the proposal involved transfer of a 72-acre park from King County to the city of Mercer Island. A 3-1/2-acre corner of the property may be devoted to subsidized housing for city and school district employees. The units, numbering perhaps 35 total, would be a hodgepodge of townhomes, cottages, single-family residences and duplexes.

Officials there expressed the same lament as sometimes heard in these parts: Teachers and other public employees are 8-to-5 visitors, unable to join the social fabric of the community by virtue of the high cost of residency. Of Mercer Island’s 180 city employees, it was reported, only 10 actually live there. The public housing idea was seen as a way to swing the balance back.

“Perhaps the city should try this,” Dwyer mused.

Actually, the idea did come up here nearly a decade ago, when the county housing authority touted just such a project off Kallgren Road. The plan would have seen a half-dozen or so small homes clustered around some green space, but ran to that old island bugaboo – neighborhood opposition.

Though a far cry from the Mercer Island subsidy plan, our own city’s latest foray into expanding the variety of available homes – cottage housing – is also drawing its share of flak.

As explained by Charles Wenzlau, architect of the cottage housing project going in on Ericksen Avenue, the idea is to keep homes small, but to put more of them on a lot, hopefully creating a more affordable product.

Opposition seems to revolve around the issue of density. Just this week, we received correspondences from several Winslow-area residents concerned that a vacant lot in their neighborhood might suddenly sprout four homes. (One of the letters appears elsewhere on this page.)

“How cottage housing is developed on the island could impact the character of the island as a whole,” one gentleman wrote, “not just our currently charming little neighborhood.”

Some clarification is in order: Planning commission chair Sean Parker points out that as proposed, the ordinance allows a 50 percent density bump, but requires a minimum of four units. On Alder Avenue, source of this week’s letters of alarm, zoning allows for 3.5 homes per acre. While a developer could put five cottages on an acre, the four-home minimum means that a full one-acre lot would be needed. No cottages could go on Alder’s existing one-third-acre lots.

While cottage housing could be as dense as 12 per acre, that could happen only in the island’s R-8 zones, most of which are already developed or slated for condos. A few areas where density would be lower are scattered about, generally close to Winslow.

Cottage housing is neither threat nor panacea – it is a small, incremental approach to creating housing choices for all of us, by creating a stock of smaller homes.

Let’s give it a fair hearing.