It’s Northgate upzoning time. The draft environmental impact study is in, and there’s a brownbag to chat about it.
Of course if you’re going to hold a neighborhood brownbag on the future of Northgate, what better place to hold this meeting than 9 miles away in Downtown Seattle? And isn’t there this thing called the ‘Internet’ available where you could possibly even video stream the meeting online for those who don’t want to drive downtown? Alright, enough bitchin’ about that, however for those of you who can make it to Seattle Great City’s brownbag, here’s a copy of the Northgate Rezone brownbag flier. (The brownbag takes place this Thursday at noon).
(Just one quick note - the Seattle Great City says Northgate is ,’…also the site of a future light rail site’, but that is still a proposed idea - and needs to go before the voters for funding).
Anyway, it should be interesting to hear what the DPD has to say about the draft copy of the Environmental Impact Study - I started reading it and my eyes began glazing over. Maybe the DPD and the Seattle Great City Initiative have a ‘Northgate Environmental Impact Statement for Dummies’ they’ll share.
However, only having the DPD show up at a meeting like this makes my spidey-sense tingle. I’d almost always rather that representatives from other city departments (Neighborhoods, SDOT, Schools, Parks, Library) were also in attendance to talk about how they will update their Northgate planning in accordance with this rezoning plan. Otherwise you have to worry that their response will be, ‘Huh? We didn’t know we were doing a major rezone for Northgate, I wish we had known three years ago so we could have started planning.’
The 90-+page Draft Environmental Impact Statement for this work was issued on the 1st, and you can grab a copy of it here.
(Northgate of the future - wasn’t public housing where
this new building is?)
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There is a DEIS summary Powerpoint at: http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/static/northgate%20EIS%20update%2004.17%20final_LatestReleased_DPDP_021850.ppt#704
Also, Neighborhoods, SDOT, Parks, etc folks have been involved in the Northgate Stakeholders work (that this rezone proposal is a part of) for a number of years. [Seattle Public Schools are in a separate universe entirely...] You can read more at: http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/Northgate_Revitalization/NorthgateAreaRezoneProposalEIS/default.asp
Also, because the Pinehurst neighborhood (along with Haller Lake) will be the most impacted by this proposal, I am posting a fair amout on this at the Pinehurst Community blog: http://pinehurstcommunity.blogspot.com
The affordable housing incentive zoning legislation will be discussed more later this year.
Hey — quit yer griping — and more importantly, thanks for the publicizing the event. After all, there is a possibility that some people who live in Northgate work downtown (someone is taking those buses) and will appreciate the opportunity to avoid the normal evening meeting. As for other viewpoints, that is the very point of an informal brownbag, to get people talking and to get folks paying attention. By the way, I am also working to get an additional presenter on the proposed park by the Target. As for streaming internet — we haven’t figured out all that technology yet. We’re just a scrappy little non-profit trying to keep on top of change in this city and make it work for all of us.
If we are short of housing, why does every alternative proposed here decrease the number of possible housing units?
I submit we have enough “commercial” in Northgate to sustain an urban village and don’t need to make zoning alterations to encourage more. Especially with the rail potential stop, we should be focusing on more housing in the Northgate Core and not on adding yet another set of big box retailers, most of whom I bet will duplicate what we have at U-Village - a relatively short bus ride away.
There should be no upzone without first building the transportation improvement specified in the Northgate Plan. It’s called “concurrency” in the GMA because it is supposed to be “concurrent.”
Simultaneous; occurring at the same time or together.
http://www.newsweekshowcase.com/distance-learning/glossary.php
# coincident: occurring or operating at the same time; “a series of coincident events”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
# Happening at the same time as something else.
http://www.pbigordon.com/homefarm/glossary.php
I will also be presenting at the Great Cities Brownbag (from the Office of Policy and Management). Part of my job is to keep City Departments informed and involved in all-things Northgate. There is also a public hearing scheduled to take input on the proposed rezone on May 28 in the Multipurpose Room at Northgate Community Center, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. The Community Center is located at 10510 Fifth Ave. NE.
Regarding additional housing - the rezone proposals will increase the number of housing units possible so I think you’ve misread the draft EIS, with one caveat: It’s difficult to anticipate the mix of commercial to residential development that will ultimately get built so under the “broad rezone” proposal, the draft EIS looks at two different scenarios - one that assumes most of the new development would be residential and one that assumes most new development would be commercial. Neither of these is “expected” to happen but looking at it this way creates the “bookends” with the likely scenario somewhere in the middle. Only under the broad rezone/commercial scenario would there be less housing than in the “no action” alternative.
And finally, the City parpared a plan for completing transportation improvements (called the CTIP http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/nctip.htm) which is meant to be implemented as development moves forward.
Check out the city’s “Northgate Revitalization” webpage for more details on the rezone and other public and private investments in Northgate: http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/Northgate_Revitalization/Overview/
Griping’s how I roll, otherwise who listens?
Anyway, here’s what I would do in North Seattle. Head on over to North Seattle Community College and see if they can help you with some meeting space with the locals - also, Seattle Community Colleges TV (whose offices/studios are located at NSCC) is stocked with all kinds of free-to-low cost online and broadcast goodies - they might be very interested in covering Seattle Great City Initiative discussions - especially if the discussions would impact NSCC (which the Northgate rezone proposal would).
I teach a class at NSCC once a year and so I can point you in the right direction if you like.
If someone up at Northgate wanted to work on your suggestion for location and streaming, I would be happy to help line up the speakers and publicize it. I am too stretched right now to try and pull off another forum by myself. Anyone up for it?
And yes, I know a little bit of provocation helps with keeping it interesting– so I just went with the flow.
This actually would be a terrific role for a neighborhood sector manager to tackle - whoops, Mayor Nickels laid them all off.
http://www.seattle.gov/audit/docs/HighlightsNeighborhoodPlanImplementation.pdf
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