Neighborhood planning workshop recap from the City Neighborhood Council.

The next meeting of the City Neighborhood Council takes place on May 19th (6:30 to 9:00 p.m., West Precinct Conference Room, 810 Virginia Street)

In the meantime, here’s a nice recap of their April 19th neighborhood planning workshop.

Neighborhood planning.  

In May, the City Council will be reacting to the (still very vague) proposal from the Mayor, DON, and the Department of Planning and Development to update the 38 neighborhood plans.  It appears that the Mayor, DON, and DPD do not want to allow those neighborhoods that want to, to repeat the model of the 1990s under which they hired planning consultants for their neighborhood plan under City guidelines and oversight.  Unless the City Council insists, that grassroots model will be dropped in favor of having City staff and City-hired consultants prepare the neighborhood plans.  Also, the Mayor is proposing that the plans to be updated will be only in one or two sectors per year (there are six sectors) rather than based on which plans most need updating.   

CNC’s April 19 neighborhood planning workshop was lively and successful, attended  by more than 110 (including three City Councilmembers).   Seattle P-I reporter Deborah Harrell’s article about it is http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/359823_hoodplans20.html.   Crosscut.com reporter Peggy Sturdivant’s coverage of neighborhood planning (and her May 11 article about the City Neighborhood Council) is http://www.crosscut.com/authors/peggy-sturdivant   Also, Seattle Channel 21 is airing videos of CNC’s April 19 conference on neighborhood planning; to find these on the schedule, go toseattlechannel.org, and search for “neighborhood planning.  For viewing on the web, here are the links:   Panel on “Why do Neighborhood Planning–GMA Compliance and More?”  http://seattlechannel.org/schedule/programDetails.asp?title=5010827 ; How Should Planning Be Done and by Whom? http://seattlechannel.org/schedule/programDetails.asp?title=5010829  ; and What does Success Look Like? http://seattlechannel.org/schedule/programDetails.asp?title=5010828