Category — City Council

Wow, what a sad day for the city, we lost the Sonics and found out that Seattle can be out-hustled by a group that wants something really badly and isn’t afraid to fight for it.

I wonder if losing the Sonics will be to Mayor Nickels what the WTO was to Mayor Paul Schell - the straw that broke the mayor’s popularity. 

Of course, the $45 million cash settlement the city will receive makes my spidey-sense tingle - because the best thing to do would be to use it to pay off the remaining $37 million debt on Key Arena - but you know our mayor and city council, they like to ’invest’ in ‘interesting’ programs.

In fact, based on some prior decisions they’ve made - here are some things I wouldn’t be surprised we ended up with; Seattle could buy 57 high tech toilets (previously bought and maintained 5 high-tech toilets for $6 million)

Could build another 1.3 mile streetcar line. Maybe this time from Pioneer Square to the Sculpture park - oh wait, that would mean using existing tracks to service a streetcar line that successfully used to shuttle people around the waterfront. Never mind, stupid idea, that won’t happen. 
 

They could provide developers who build ‘affordable’ housing with 28 additional kinds of tax breaks like the one they gave this week. 

 Or maybe hold some more advisory elections, how about some more viaduct advisory votes?

Anyway, since I’m bummed at the Sonics’ passing - here’s something to brighten your mood - a clip from Game 7 of the ‘96 NBA Western Conference Finals when the Sonics stuck it to the Jazz (and in this game they especially stuck it to Malone and Stockton). 

Oh yeah, and here’s one more thing - at least we all don’t have to follow the team to Oklahoma - living there would be the biggest bummer of all.)

This article was written by Geof 

Parks and Green Spaces Levy: SAM hijack update
Here’s how bad an idea it is to give the Seattle Art Museum 11 million dollars out of the Parks and Green Spaces Levy, just submitted to City Council last week.

Even the PI Editorial Board, long a supporter of “big money” institutional public funding, opposes SAM funding in the levy, for good reasons.

Among the better quotes:
“The museum’s inclusion feels forced, lacking any true tie to the levy’s overarching themes of a green city, healthy communities and vibrant neighborhoods.”

Absolutely correct.

The PI also, rightly, cites a rapidly sinking local economy as a good reason to keep the levy as realistic and efficient as possible, thus helping November passage. It offers reasonable alternatives for SAM funding – there are several more that bear mentioning later.

Personally, I prefer the 11 million go to restoring those many projects cut citywide for SAM’s truly grotesque power play. SAM’s efforts demonstrate “old Seattle politics” at it’s worst: At a time when many on Council are allegedly embracing the new “Obama” era of transparency, accountability and hope.

Aren’t voters sick and tired of back room deals for special interests at great cost to the public? That’s exactly how the SAM funding apparently came about – from some very surprising sources, as I’m beginning to discover. Obama voters will rightly vote for Barrick, but likely will not vote – if informed – for very old ways of doing things.

The SAM deal sounds so very “Bush/Cheney” to many of us!

With Council telling everyone not to expect new funding in the upcoming city budget, shouldn’t this levy be as focused and efficient as possible, particularly if Council and greenies want it to pass?
So why should we tax ourselves for SAM, short change the rest of the city, while Council and Mayor cut services in the next budget?

“Do as say, not as we do?”

There are many, many more reasons to get this very bad idea out of the levy: Here are just a few.

11 million is by far and away the single biggest specific project funded in the levy - a levy advertised to fund parks, recreation and green spaces - for a building that just happens to be in Volunteer Park yet serves no park functions.

For a building housing the laudable but private non profit, fee to enter, Seattle Asian Art Museum, operated by SAM, but has nothing to do with Parks, Green Spaces, or Recreation.

The 11 million was intended to fund at least a dozen other relevant parks, recreation and green space projects in a dozen other neighborhoods city wide. Now those projects, benefiting 10’s of thousands of people won’t happen - because SAM’s Mayor, some Council and even “green” supporters allowed SAM to bully their way in.

Great way to build city wide support. Giving money from a levy originally advertised for parks citywide to a private, non profit, wealthy cultural organization, acting like a bully, for a non parks use building.

The PGSL made a big deal out of “equity” in distributing levy proceeds. How is 11 million for SAM demonstrating commitment to “equity”? The biggest losers in this levy are - you guessed it - low income communities.

Why has there not been, up to now, a public debate and discussion on why, how and what the best means are for funding the publicly owned SAAM building? Why are SAM and a few insiders not only determining the fate of our building, but how it will be funded? You remember getting any say on this?

There must be better, more appropriate ways to do this, and it should be done, the City should honor what ever legal, contractual commitments made to SAM (if they are indeed legal and contractual):
Why this way, why now?

Perhaps it’s time to revisit the issue of whether the Volunteer Park facility should be a museum at all; if there are better, more public uses for our public property; whether having a museum there represents the best economic, parks, recreation and/or cultural return for the public; or question as to how all this fits into both Volunteer Park’s and SAM’s long term plans.

Shouldn’t the new Museum Director, yet to be hired, weigh in on this? Why rush to judgement by committing 11 million now before we have a chance to publicly debate alternatives?

SAM has threatened to “walk away” from the Vol. Park building. Let them – allow them to take the massive PR hit, as clueless to that as to the equally big PR hit they are already taking for this – and it’s only going to get worse for them. Is this what the SAM Board really wants, or do they know the whole story? Perhaps someone should tell them how they’re being represented.

Too many questions unanswered in the rush to judgement. Too few reasonable solutions unconsidered. Doubts equal “no” votes in times of economic difficulty.

The SAM funding unnecessarily jeopardizes the needed continuation of the current parks levy - and for the worst of reasons. There is no defense of this funding that passes any smell test I’m aware of - and, frankly, would not want to experience.

I won’t even discuss for now – as I have before - the complex , political machinations that brought what was a simple, well meaning “parks and green spaces for all” levy, with little accompanying controversy - and a good chance of passing in a tough economy - to the edge of defeat.

And how the Green Legacy Coalition - who pushed levy as a means to circumvent the Mayor - were actually used by him to his advantage. They thought they were players - turns out they didn’t know they were played, and by some they thought were their allies!

Nor discuss in depth the levies second biggest funded project at nearly 5 million: Renovations for – you guessed it – still another non parks and recreation building: Langston Hughes. Seems the Committee had so little contact and outreach to the Central District communities that they put this n the list at the last moment for lack of community articulated alternatives: How patronizing to that underserved neighborhood, in dire need of real parks and recreation facilities.

The two biggest project line items in the levy at this moment fund renovations for two cultural buildings – simply because the City doesn’t know where else to get the SAM money nor is able to otherwise address the parks and green needs of the Central District.

This whole process, as the Editorial points out to a degree, shows a real failure of leadership across broad fronts.

The only think I disagree with the PI on is the quality of the process that created the levy: It’s becoming obvious that this was anything but an open, public process, and more like another insider, deal cutting debacle, in spite of the sincere efforts of a minority of Committee Members to prevent this from happening.

However, it’s not to late for some on Council to show some backbone, and kick this money out, and soon; restoring public trust and faith, thus proving, as some newer Council Members are claiming, that it’s no longer “business as usual” at City Hall.

We shall see: Say vs Do.

Never to late to exercise quality leadership.

Time to exercise yours: Email/Call Council and tell them to take the SAM and other non parks money out, thus assuring a fair, equitable true parks and green space levy that the voters will pass.

If Council can’t muster the relatively minor courage required to that, then tell them at least to keep it off the ballot until ‘09, giving more time to find answers to the questions - and more - previously mentioned.

Like to see Mayor Greg “Green” Nickels, up for re-election, be directly confronted with the option of publicly opposing a green parks levy with out SAM funding, instead of manipulating it behind the scenes as he is doing now.

Regards,

Geof

About 150-200 people attended Councilmember Sally Clark’s townhome forum ‘Townhomes – Can the Patient be Saved?’ Saturday morning at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. (Oh yeah, this forum will also be available on the Seattle Channel’s web site later next week).

Sally seemed very pleased at the turn-out and even joked that she received some suggestions before the meeting that people wished it had been called ‘Townhomes - Can the Patient be Killed?’

I have to say, Sally’s starting to grow on me a bit. I think she’s been doing a good job of keeping the public discussion about Seattle land use moving along this year (of course, Sally’s final grade will be based on what that looks like) and every once in awhile you can see some signs that she’s starting to come into her own as a leader.

Tom Eanes of the Seattle Planning Commission started off the presentations with a 20 minute Powerpoint presentation showing lots of examples of townhomes (ranging from those described as the ‘Fungus eating up our city’ to some nicer examples). For those that fell within the fungus camp, Tom pointed out how the design of these townhomes suffer greatly from the lack of any kind of design or SEPA reviews. Another concern he mentioned is that without any kind of townhome owner association to support the long term maintenance of these townhomes as a group, there is grave concern about the long term sustainability of these units.

The negative impact of six foot fences surrounding the front of many Seattle townhomes was also a top point in Tom’s presentation. He showed photos of all kinds of creatively bad enclosures (from simple wood fences to more elaborate shrubbery screens) that each had the impact of reducing the friendliness of the neighborhood and making the place less secure for those walking on the sidewalks and those living behind the fences (security drops when neighbors can’t see you).

He gave a very nice presentation about ‘cookie-cutter’ 4-pack townhomes and how they technically manage to fit within current zoning code.

The following aren’t Tom’s words, but my observation. While watching his presentation I couldn’t help but think of 4-pack townhomes as the genetically-modified chickens of the multi-family development world. Instead of being injected with growth hormones and unable to stand up, developers inject 4-pack townhomes with too many amenities - enclosed garages, private fenced yards, three bedrooms, living rooms, laundry rooms, and ‘common’ open areas. It’s so much in such a limited area of space that the townhomes become bloated and parts of them become unusable (try to park your car in one of these garages).

Tom next moved on to give a historical analogy about the state of Seattle’s townhomes vs. the state of New York tenement design in the 1800s. He showed the gradual progression of zoning code improvements to these NY buildings which eventually created better tenements, making them desirable places to live a century later.

Tom wrapped up by giving some good suggestions for better townhome design - entries visible from the street, private open space on the sides, minimum lot widths of 100ft and wider parking courts. All in all, a very nice presentation that the crowd really liked.

Next began the panel portion of the event where each of the following panelists presented for about 10-15 minutes.

(Panelists left to right) Mike Podowski, Land Use Planner, Seattle Department of Planning and Development;Greg Hill, Wallingford Community Council; Dan Duffus, Soliel LLC; Brittani Ard, Ard Consulting, Master Builders; Brandon Nicholson, Nicholson KovalChick Architects, Congress of Residential Architects)

First up was Mike Podowski from the DPD. I was hopeful about this presentation when Mike first admitted the zoning code for townhomes was not having the desired effect on townhome design that was hoped, but then was brought back down to reality when the DPD autopilot part of the presentation started.

Mike pulled out the DPD’s favorite public relations stat of all-time - that over 60% of Seattle’s land is zoned for single-family. I really think this is the all-purpose flour of arguments for the DPD (see page 10)-I’ve heard the DPD use it to justify, ‘Why are you knocking down a grove of trees in Maple Leaf?’ to ‘Why don’t you increase setbacks between multi-family and single family properties so that there’s a little more privacy?’

This time the stat was brought up in the context of why we need to encourage as dense as possible townhome development in what little amount of multi-family zoned land Seattle has. I personally think its an important question, but I didn’t see how it related to today’s topic of bad townhouse designs. Is single family zoned land really to blame for encouraging bad townhome designs - if that’s true what kind of blame should we assign to other non-multi-family zoned land such as parks or cemeteries?

Mike then went on to talk about what updates to the multi family zoning code might make townhome design better - these included raising the height limit of townhomes by 5′ to encourage better and different types of roofs, pooling open space, reducing townhome fencing heights, encouraging curb cuts, wider driveways, and larger parking spaces. It definitely looks like these will make some improvements, but the next speaker, Greg Hill of Wallingford, suggested the DPD isn’t going far enough.

Greg started off by poking a hole in the multi-family update’s plan to add an extra 5′ of height by suggesting that an enterprising architect will be able to find a way to add a fourth floor. He then took a little bit of a side trip and gave an interesting example of how a homeowner sitting at grade facing a pedestrian at grade is naturally inclined to build a wall between the two. (I’ll give an example of that in another post).

Greg presented a pretty interesting critique of townhome design, starting off by showing an example of how missing trees in front of a new townhome development was an example of how DPD on-site inspectors basically give developers ‘pocket variances’. He then touched on how cars don’t fit into townhome driveways, how profitable the business of ‘cookie-cutter’ townhome production is, how little actual architectural design goes into the cookie-cutter townhomes, and how the multi-family update’s ’shorter fences for taller buildings’ tradeoff is a bad idea.

Next up were developer Dan Duffus and zoning-consultant Brittani Ard (I group them together because they touched on the same points and didn’t have Powerpoint presentations). Dan talked about how he supported the multi-family zoning updates because they will ensure future townhome development is profitable and fix some of the major townhome design problems (ie fences). Dan talked about how setbacks eat up buildable lot space and suggested that with the market slowing this was a perfect time for the city fix zoning before the next round of development kicks in.

The main point I left with was how Dan mentioned how incredibly costly from a time and architectural cost time going through the Design Review process is (this was challenged later by two architects/developers who spoke up during Q&A). Dan said that adding regulations will help make townhome development less affordable.

I feel that if neighbors are going to successfully push for better townhome zoning regulations in this city, they’ve got to be able to respond to this particular argument. Will better townhome design make townhomes less affordable? If neighbors don’t have a good argument to counter this, then developers are going to keep pressuring the city to keep permitting bloated townhome development.

And finally, Brandon Nicholson gave what I thought was the most informative and balanced presentation of the day. He’s an architect who will now only take clients whose projects go through Design Review, and he showed both the ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’ views of what could happen after the multi-family zoning update is approved.

The ‘pessimistic’ side is that the ‘4-pack’ townhomes will still be built in Seattle - and this time they’ll be able to go higher - (Brandon showed a slide where instead of a ‘4-pack’ townhomes with pitched roofs, they have Mansard(?) roofs).

On the ‘optimistic’ side, Brandon showed a whole bunch of really interesting townhome designs that would really do great things for the city. There were some nice examples of development that you can see in places like Portland and Victoria, BC. (I would really like to grab a copy of his presentation to show some of the photos.)

Leaving this meeting, I feel that the city still has some work to go on tightening up all the new updates in the multi-family zoning code. The ‘4-pack’ townhome will still continue to be built (although with lower fences) and nobody on the panel even addressed the ongoing problems with townhome micropermitting. I hope more creative thought will go into refining the final multi-family update that is presented to the council, because after listening to the presentations in today’s forum I would recommend that the council rejects the update as it currently stands.

Thanks for the tip on this Renee and Matt.

Councilmember Sally Clark is starting to make some really good moves in Seattle, and next week will be hosting two events to discuss townhomes and why Seattle has such huge fluctuations in townhome quality.

And I almost fell out of my chair when I read this part of her announcement. Wow, an honest critique of the situation. This is something you definitely wouldn’t hear coming out of the ‘loyal to a fault’ DPD.

While some new town homes blend into the neighborhood or, even better, stand out as well-designed additions, others are reviled by the neighbors for mediocrity, canyon-creating fences, asphalt wastelands, and impossible to navigate garage entries. The fault lies not just with imagination, but also with Seattle’s development rules. The City can do better. These upcoming forums are the start of Councilmember Clark’s effort to improve town homes’ design.

You can read more here,

First Forum: Courtyard Housing in Portland, Oregon, Monday, June 2, 5 p.m., City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue in the Bertha Knight Landes Room on the First Floor.

Second Forum: Town Homes—Can the Patient be Saved?, Saturday, June 7, 10 a.m., Capitol Hill Arts Center, 1621 12th Ave

Seattle needs more of these

And fewer of these

Looks like Councilmember Conlin has been getting busy with some proposed changes to Seattle’s Single Family Zoning Code. (Thanks to Renee for the heads up on this one!)

• Delete a provision accommodating taller structures as a product of averaging the height of adjacent existing single-family structures.
• Reduce maximum lot coverage on lots less than 5,000 sq. ft. from 1,750 sq. ft. as is allowed currently to 1,000 sq. ft. plus 15% of lot area.
• Limit hardscape surface to 65% of lot area.
• Allow dormers constructed above the maximum permitted height, but below the peak of a pitched roof.
• Limit the additional height permitted for sloped lots to a maximum of five feet.
• Remove corner lot coverage allowance and reduce alley lot coverage allowance to 10%
• Waive parking requirements for single-family residential uses on parcels less than 3,000 square feet in size or 30 feet in width where access to parking is permitted through a required yard abutting a street
• Prevent garage walls from being any closer to the street lot line than 80% of the streetlevel façade that is not a garage.
• Limit the width of garage doors on a street-facing façade to 50% of the structure width or 10 feet, whichever is greater.
• Specify that minor additions such as eaves and unenclosed decks shall not prevent development of adjacent historic lots.
• Create a new lot coverage allowance for rear garages on lots with parking access through the front yard.

Grab a copy of the proposed single family updates here, amendments checklist, and the SEPA checklist.

(Will megahomes finally be able to drag their sorry butts back to the exurbs?)

Last week’s vote by the city council to lower the threshold of which projects in Seattle’s urban villages would require SEPA review generated some comments - and this statement from the Seattle Community Council Federation.

EARTH WEEK IRONY: CITY COUNCIL WEAKENS SEATTLE’S PREMIER ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

It is a sad Earth Day to have to announce that yesterday, the City Council unanimously weakened Seattle’s premier environmental law, the ordinance implementing the State Environmental Policy Act. As passed yesterday, Council Bill 116010 exempted from the ordinance all building projects of up to 12,000 square feet, and of up to 30 units (80 units downtown), in urban centers and station overlay districts–the very areas receiving the most growth, and thus most needing the protections of SEPA.

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The times I’ve published information from neighborhood groups about the multi-family zoning updates in progress, I generally tend to get one or two responses saying, “Whoa, this process has been 2-3 years in the planning, how can it be a surprise to you?” And my response back is, “Hey, cut me a break, I wasn’t paying attention to land use issues in Seattle 2-3 years ago, I was busy with other important stuff - do you think that 6 seasons of ‘The Sopranos’ were just going to watch themselves?”

But now that I do care (and that ‘The Sopranos’ has ended) I thought it would be fun to read through the entire MF Update…until I saw that it was 94 pages long. And if it took me 2-3 years to watch an entire TV series… 94 pages in one sitting is probably not a realistic goal.

So…I thought, what to do? Should I just skim through the document and focus on a few items, like a City Councilmember would do? But then I thought, ‘Hey, I bet some of you haven’t read through this document either, so why don’t we have some fun and read it together with you, chapter by chapter?’

Sounds fun, yes? So, if you’re game, your homework is thus, grab a copy of the MF Draft Proposal (you can grab it for FREE here) and read the ‘Introduction’ on pages 2 and 3 for tomorrow’s discussion.

And if you don’t want to read the update, that’s cool, I’ll just keep posting some more land-use photos for you (I’ve got some super-awesome Wallingford thermoplastic ladder crosswalk photos just waiting to see the light of day).

In the meantime, here is something fun I did with the update. I searched on a few key words to see how many times they were repeated within the MFZ document.

1) ‘Children‘ are mentioned 3 times in the 94 pages.
2) ‘Parks‘ are mentioned 4 times
3) ‘Condo‘ was mentioned 6 times
4) ‘Schools‘ are mentioned 10 times.
5) ‘Mayor Nickels‘ is mentioned twice, ‘Mayor’ is mentioned 11 times
6) ‘DPD‘ mentioned 15 times
7) ‘City Council‘ is mentioned 16 times (that’s 1.78 mentions per council member)
8 ) ‘Townhouses‘ are mentioned 47 times.
9) ‘Urban village‘ mentioned 55 times
10) ‘Affordable‘ mentioned 56 times
11) ‘Single Family‘ was mentioned 59 times
12) ‘Zoning‘ was mentioned 71 times, ‘Zoned’ mentioned 75 times
13) ‘Green‘ was mentioned 90 time
14) ‘Neighborhood‘ was mentioned 133 times
15) ‘Multifamily‘ mentioned 270 times

So…taking the top terms in their category (’Multifamily’ beats out ‘Single Family’), dividing by 2, carrying the 1…and we get this…

Multifamily Neighborhood Zoning for Green, Affordable Townhouses

It should be interesting to see whether at the end of this exercise, if this is what the document is about.

I know I posted about this earlier, but here it is again!

City Neighborhood Council
Neighborhood Planning Workshop Program
Saturday April 19th 2008 - 8:30 am – noon
Bertha Knight Landes Room, City Hall

Why have Neighborhood Plans?
How and by Whom should a Neighborhood Plan be crafted?
What Can a Successful Neighborhood Plan help citizens accomplish?

Homeowners, renters, business owners all have a stake in the upcoming decisions on how the city will “update” the
existing 38 neighborhood plans. Changes in neighborhood plans and policies are a precursor to land use and
zoning changes as well as a way to identify and prioritize needed infrastructure improvements to accommodate
growth.

The City Council is weighing a proposal from the Mayor to spread the updates over several years, group plans by
geographic sector, and rely heavily on city staff for professional guidance.
The City Neighborhood Council has raised questions about this approach particularly the way it differs from the
grassroots model used when the plans were prepared in the late 1990’s.

Come and join in the Conversation on Neighborhood Planning II and help the Council decide what to authorize
and how to allocate those resources. Hear from and talk to:
• Richard Conlin, City Council President
• Sally Clark, City Council Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Chair
• Stella Chao, Department of Neighborhoods Director
• Jim Diers, author and consultant on neighborhood development
• Tom Hauger, Senior Planner with DPD
• Fellow citizen panelists with diverse experience in the successes and shortcomings of neighborhood planning
and the current approach to dealing with the impacts of growth on neighborhoods citywide.

Sequential Plenary Sessions So You Don’t Miss Any of the Topics!
PANEL 1: Why do Neighborhood Planning – GMA Compliance and More?
PANEL 2: How Should Planning Be Done and by Whom? – What are the successful models to keep citizens
engaged and respected?
PANEL 3: What does Success Look Like? – Can planning improve our quality of life? Provide fair distribution
of growth and public investment?

Light refreshments – Program Begins Promptly at 8:30am – Don’t Be Late

The city council needs to approve the Mayor’s proposal to ‘update’ neighborhood plans, and Councilmember Sally Clark and the Dept of Neighborhoods have been holding meetings to collect neighborhood (and even developer) input.

On Saturday April 19th, from 8:30am-noon in City Hall’s Bertha Knight Landes Room there will be a discussion on Neighborhood Planning Part II, Path to Citizen Empowerment.

I believe that this is a continuation of this neighborhood planning meeting from March. The first planning meeting was very useful, and I like the fact that this meeting is going to address the following:

* How will future growth really affect your neighborhood and the city?
* Is your neighborhood plan working or just sitting on the shelf?
* Who ‘owns’ your plan?

More information, visit http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoodcouncil/

Who knows how many of these 21 (well, 20 if you take out the placeholder for the Planning Commission) amendments may be DOA already due to Planning Commission feedback, but heck, state law requires cities to solicit citizen-initiated amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan, so at the very least they’re going to get discussed.

Which ones do you think make sense? I’ve got my ideas (and the Seattle Community Council Federation has theirs), and if you want to get yours off to your city councilmember (even though I’m not sure if just one counts or you need to hit up all 9) make sure you do it by the end of March 31st.

And if you want to discuss this in person with the city council, they’ll be holding an open hearing tomorrow at 4:30pm in Council Chambers.

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Ballard’s pro-park group Groundswell NW will be hosting its annual meeting on Tuesday at 7pm, and will feature Mayor Greg Nickels as the featured guest speaker.

The choice is a little bit ironic since Mayor Nickels doesn’t appear eager to renew the expiring Pro Parks Levy, but instead wants to focus his political capital on fundraising this year for the never-ending money pit that is the Seattle Center and our civic treasure, the Pike Place Market.

The elected official who is getting aggressive about parks and would probably be more sympathetic to Groundswell NW’s efforts right now is Seattle Council President Richard Conlin.

The city council announced a meeting today to discuss proposed amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan. The council collected ideas for amendments last month and is now ready to discuss those that were submitted.

(One constructive complaint though - the city didn’t do a very good job of communicating this amendment submission process - and I can say that because I’m on the land use board for Wedgwood and didn’t hear about this from the city).

However, I’m happy because one issue we’ve been trying to figure out in NE Seattle is included as a potential amendment:

Amend neighborhood planning goal NG-3 to make it possible for neighborhood planning for all areas of the City, not just those that are expected to take significant amounts of growth.

Below is a copy of the announcement from the city:

The Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods Committee (PLUNC) will hold a public hearing to decide which proposed Comprehensive Plan amendments should be considered in the 2008 annual Comprehensive Plan amendment process. The public hearing will be on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 5:00 p.m. in the Council’s Chamber, 2nd floor, Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue. The entrances to City Hall are located on the west side of Fifth Avenue, and the east side of Fourth Avenue, between James and Cherry Streets. For those who wish to testify, a sign-up sheet will be available outside the Council Chamber one-half hour before the public hearing.

Throughout the rest of downtown, towers must be spaced at least 60 feet apart from one another. This distance was set as a standard for ensuring a livable downtown for those who work and reside there. However, for reasons that still don’t seem clear in 2006 one specific area of downtown (The Denny Triangle) was exempted by the council and mayor from this 60 foot requirement. If you want to read how the whole process unfolded, I definitely recommend checking out the Cosmo Seattle blog.

The result of this spacing exemption can be seen below, where the 1918 8th Ave building is sited just 18 feet from the neighboring Cosmo condos. And if you’re a Cosmo resident on the 8th Ave-facing side, your personal result is that you’ve just been exempted from the livability standards that are granted to other downtown and condo dwellers.

I’ve received this Sally Clark (Seattle Councilmember) email from a few folks, and  the forum sounds very interesting. It’s hard to tell if this is just a brainstorming session, but they’ve got some good partners helping to  facilitate this forum. Oh yeah, it’s by invite only, so if you want to go you’ll need to contact the Outreach Coordinator listed below.

Neighborhood Planning Forum

As many of you know, I’ve been working on the review of Seattle’s neighborhood plans for almost a year now. We’ve found that while some neighborhoods are on pace with their neighborhood plan goals, others are changing far more quickly or slowly than anticipated. As we prepare to make updates to the 38 neighborhood plans created nearly 10 years ago, we are faced with an extraordinary opportunity to ensure that the next ten years successfully meet community needs.

It is important that we enter into this process with a dedication to participation and faith in the process. For this reason I am partnering with former Mayor Norm Rice and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington to host a forum about the future of our neighborhood plans. Should we update them? How would we know whether a plan needs refreshing? If we do update the plans, what should be our goals for the process and the product?

The forum will happen Saturday, March 1, 2008 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the University of Washington campus. This event seeks to bring together a great diversity of voices and opinions for discussion of what makes great community planning. We’ve invited district council representatives, members of community councils and small chambers, and interested voices from groups that haven’t been connected to planning previously.

I want to make sure that we move forward smartly — learning from our past and adding in great ideas as yet untapped. If you are interested in participating in the forum, please email a note of interest to Outreach Coordinator Chris Godwin crgoodwin23@gmail.com. Chris will follow up with you soon after.

Please know that space is limited and not all who want to will be able to attend. If you can’t make it, have no fear. The Evans School team will compile a report from the event and that will be available in April on my website.

My priority is to ensure that any neighborhood plan updates are truly community driven that we carry through the commitment to grassroots, democratic planning that was integral to the success of planning 10 years ago. I’m looking forward to it!

Position number 1 (take):
Steinbrueck wants Vulcan to pay an additional $2.6 million towards affordable housing to build higher within South Lake Union.

Position number 2 (give):
Steinbrueck recommends that the city forfeit $20.5 million in real estate proceeds in order to permit Triad to develop a 40-story office/condo building and a 1/2 block park next door to city hall.

Position number 3 (give):
Steinbrueck waives setback requirements in the Denny Triangle area, giving to developers who are able to build higher than previous zoning allowed.

Position number 4 (take):
Steinbrueck waives setback requirements in the Denny Triangle area, takes value from new condo residents at the Cosmo building downtown.