Is this the beginning of the end for the Department of Neighborhoods’ ownership of Seattle’s neighborhood plans?

This Monday the city council will hear proposals for updating and ’standardizing’ the city’s neighborhood plans. Within the proposal there are a number of goals the Mayor wants to achieve, including;

* Growth in some neighborhoods out of sync with growth targets
(higher or lower)
* Major new investments (light rail, large private investments)
* Some current plans not effective in guiding growth
* Importance of Sustainability and Climate Change Today
* Many new city-wide plans and policies adopted since original neighborhood
plans adopted

However, a couple of the many issues not mentioned here that are also driving this need to update these plans include;
* The plans themselves were built with close neighborhood involvement and so within these plans are specific things neighborhoods wanted that the city does not now want to support. This includes specific zoning, open-space, and traffic requirements set out by different neighborhoods.
* The city wants a streamlined neighborhood planning process performed by city employees to avoid what one internal Department of Planning and Development (DPD) memo (thanx to Dennis Saxman for finding this) stated as:

The August 15 DPD memo also
complains that “There was emphasis on creating neighborhood planning
committees with balanced stakeholder representation, rather than
attracting creative thinkers and problem solvers who may have had
useful knowledge or skills they could contribute.” Another DPD memo
ridicules the effort to be inclusive: “At the extreme, some planning
committees set rigid criteria of selecting, forexample,
two residential property owners, two business owners, two Antarctic
penguin lovers, etc.”

So, why do I think this could be the end of the beginning of the Department of Neighborhood’s (DON) role in putting together these neighborhood plans? Well, the first is money, within this proposed plan, the DPD will receive $457,365 worth of new resources and $314,312 worth of reallocated resources. On the other hand the Department of Neighborhoods would only receive $89,950 worth of new funding. In addition to this, it is also looking like there are big differences in philosophies about the process of building neighborhood plans between the two departments, and the Mayor strongly favors that of the DPD.

Personally, it is looking like the DON is being moved into more of a neighborhood services role (working with community councils, providing passport services, etc…) and will be responsible for smaller, less strategic planning roles. While on the other hand the DPD will be in position to not only approve and adjust individual projects within the city, but now will own the policy under which all projects are planned. For those who support neighborhood involvement as an important part of Seattle’s land use planning, this is not a good change.

And one interesting thing to watch on Monday is whether Councilmember Sally Clark (Chair of Economic Development and Neighborhoods) argues vigorously against this change because it would basically neuter the power of her committee.

You can check out the presentation the city council will receive on:
http://www.seattle.gov/council/attachments/2007bneighborhoodplan.pdf