Seattle Neighborhood Planning Forum Recap

This Saturday I joined about 100 other local neighborhood representatives at a Neighborhood Planning Forum hosted by the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs.

The day was really more of an academic-focused opportunity to learn about what worked and what didn’t during the neighborhood planning process of the 90’s, how neighborhood plans have held up since then, and what direction we should take next with neighborhood plans.

The morning started out with an intro from ex-Mayor Norm Rice (you know, I was a bit sentimental when he spoke - maybe he’ll run against Nickels next year), who was then followed-up by a welcome from Councilmember Sally Clark, and then the morning wrapped up with a group of panelists.

The most interesting parts of the panel’s discussion were when Richard McIver said that the original neighborhood planning process didn’t include diverse communities within the process, and when the DPD’s Tom Hauger said that implementing these 38 neighborhood plans was impossible due to the amount of work required to properly process them. The other two panelists, Karma Ruder and Carmmen Sirianni, both took exception to these statements and agreed that the earlier process wasn’t perfect - but provided some compelling points to show how they tried to bring diverse communities into the planning process and how the DPD should have been better prepared to handle its implementation.

After these presentations it was off to the break-out sessions. Within my session I got to hear from other neighborhood activists about how some neighborhood plans were well-written and have managed to hold their own over time (like Columbia City’s plan), while others were pretty much out-of-date the moment they were submitted (Georgetown).

Some recommendations from my session was that the city needs to provide resources to help neighborhoods manage these plans over time, completed neighborhood plans need to help drive city policies, and that the city needs to clearly define it’s major priorities (affordability, sustainability, etc…) and recognize that instead of a ‘one solution fits all’ approach that these priorities should be customized to best fit into each neighborhood’s personality.

I had to take off before the final expert panel, but I felt good that there was a lot of important information shared that day. As I left the forum two things stuck in my head, 1) it is important for neighborhoods to have Department of Neighborhood neighborhood coordinators to help them work effectively with the city and 2) I didn’t talk to anyone who has a good opinion of the job Mayor Nickels is doing for neighborhoods.

As far as next steps go, we’ll see.  The City Council has made neighborhood planning a priority this year, and hopefully this forum is just one step in putting together a solution that empowers neighborhoods, makes it easier for the city to implement good development policies, and reduces the sense of frustration that is growing between the city and neighborhoods. 

Ex-Mayor Norm Rice speaking (oh Mayor Rice, can’t you be our mayor again?)

Councilmember Sally Clark

Panelists (Carmmen Sirianni, Karma Ruder, Richard McIver, and Tom Hauger)