Category — Dept of Neighborhoods

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.

Saturday morning at City Hall the city neighborhood council sponsored a neighborhood planning workshop. Personally, it reminded me quite a bit of one I attended last year where the city says it is gathering comments, neighbors give examples of where the city needs help, and everyone leaves having enjoyed some snacks and coffee.

This particular planning forum was a follow-up to one in March held at the UW.

Some interesting highlights for me were:

• When asked what a neighborhood without a plan should do, city reps said, get busy now, tap into some Neighborhood Matching Funds, get active, etc…
  OK…great, but they didn’t have any specific answers about what doing this research will guarantee for your neighborhood or even if they would listen to this work any neighborhood completes.
• The audience was predominantly older and white. I’ve heard the city talk about the importance of increasing the diversity of those who are involved with this process - but as far as how they’re going to do it? No real plan yet.
• The concern with institutional players like the Seattle School District, Seattle Housing Authority, Parks Department, Hospitals, the Zoo and Universities who do their own planning outside of neighborhood planning. The concern here is that their planning isn’t aligned with neighborhood planning so the result is that these groups frequently are at odds with one another. Some comments were brought up mentioning that one problem is that when neighborhoods do make connections with these institutions, sometimes these people at the institutions leave and nobody is there to pick up the relationship.
• The Central District and Hillman City both had issues with their plans. The Central District’s issue is that many of the economic investment parts of their plan have been pulled out and reassigned to other neighborhoods (like Capitol Hill). And Hillman City feels that although it is included in the Columbia City neighborhood plan, that they’re getting the short end of the stick - where streetscaping improvements have happened in Columbia City but not Hillman.
• And finally, I liked David Miller’s comments on how the city loves to solicit comments from neighborhoods rather than driving neighborhood participation. And I liked these comments because I kind of felt like today’s meetings (and the other two before them) were mostly about comment gathering.

Photos from the Neighborhood Planning Forum

Just an FYI for those of you following the DON’s current neighborhood planning process. One UW class is helping them conduct smaller focus groups to help gather neighborhood planning info. Of course, the one rub is that the students aren’t giving invitees much of a heads up on this process - the following invitation to attend an April 17th meeting last night was sent out around 5pm on the 14th.  

We’ve been asked by the Department of Neighborhoods and Department of Planning and Development to conduct several focus groups in your area. The purpose of the focus groups is to find out how neighborhood residents feel about the last neighborhood planning process, and identify issues that the City will need to consider during the neighborhood plan update process. I am writing to invite you to participate in a focus group. We are holding two focus groups at the University Heights Community Center (5031 University Way NE) on this Thursday, April 17, one from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, the second from 7:30 to 9:00.

Would you be interested in participating? If so, please let me know which time would work best for you.

Finally, if you know anyone in addition to yourself who would be interested in participating in one of these focus groups, don’t hesitate to get them in touch with me or to give me their contact info.

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/

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)

Here are some challenges and questions that attendees to the Saturday forum are being asked to think about.

Civic Engagement for the 21st Century Project

Neighborhood Planning Forum

As part of today’s discussion, we are interested in learning more about what you—the community—think are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing neighborhood planning in Seattle, and how you think those challenges should be addressed.

[Read more →]

I’m going to ‘whine and dine’ it up!

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10:00 am - Keynote speaker with three respondents

Keynote: Professor Carmmen Sirianni from Brandeis University
Respondents: City of Seattle Councilmen McIver, Karma Ruder of the Center for Ethical Leadership, and Tom Hauger of the City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development

[Read more →]

This is a copy of one of the four files I received in preparation of Saturday’s Neighborhood Planning Forum meeting at the UW. This one summarizes the topics to be discussed.

NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING FORUM: TOPIC BACKGROUNDER

There are inherent challenges to neighborhood planning, but the approaches to overcoming these challenges can be transformed into opportunities. During today’s deliberation we want to explore these challenges and opportunities, and discover which ones might apply to neighborhood planning in Seattle.

Challenge 1: The City/Neighborhood Partnership

Throughout the neighborhood planning process, the largest challenge facing a city is how power and decision-making authority are distributed, and the working partnership between city government and citizens.

In a city-directed process, the city government can provide technical expertise to evaluate the feasibility of recommendations, relay recommendations to district-wide and regional authorities that require their collaboration, and will commit to implementing the results. However, city-directed planning is often more limited to the measures government is responsible for, and some evidence shows that top-down planning processes do not always build on the work and momentum from previously planning initiatives.

A neighborhood-directed process is likely to produce more varied results, and to include recommendations that would be implemented not just by government but also by residents, businesses, non-profits or others. There is also some evidence that shows neighborhood-directed processes result in more buy-in and ownership of results, which can leverage valuable resources for plan implementation. However, neighborhood-directed planning processes do not always include necessary city staff, which can produce plans with recommendations that are too vague for effective implementation.
[Read more →]

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!

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

The Bridging the Gap road tour is over, and all the frisbees and blinking reflectors have been given away. However, there’s still time to vote on your favorite projects. (The Dept of Neighborhoods will be collecting votes through Sept 27th)

Of course, the sad reality is that the cost of the proposed projects ($239 million) is a tad bit more than the $4.5 million in funding that is available for these projects. Taking a look at the city’s list of projects, here’s my breakdown of the different projects (I may be off on my numbers in each sector by a tad, but hey, it was just me and my calculator putting these numbers together.)

* 65 proposed projects in the North Sector (looks like a minimum of $132 million in proposed projects)
* 26 proposed projects in the Central Sector (looks like a minium of $25 million in proposed projects)
* 59 proposed projects in the South Sector (looks like a minimum of $82 million in proposed projects)

It’s interesting to see that the Central Sector’s requests were quite a bit smaller than the North and South’s requests. Is this difference due to the fact that the Central Sector wasn’t aware of this project or could it be that the city has been making more of its infrastructure investments in the Central Sector?

Tomorrow night, City Councilmember Sally Clark’s Economic Development and Neighborhoods Committee will be meeting at 6:00 pm at Hing Hay Park on Maynard and King. (Bush Hotel at 409 Maynard is rain location).

Starting next week, the Seattle Department of Transportation will be letting neighborhoods meet to sell the benefits of their proposed projects to the Bridging the Gap committee. It should be pretty interesting to see how these folks go to battle for their neighborhood’s projects, and whether there will be any consolation prizes for the losers.

In addition to blogging about land use, I’m also the chair of Wedgwood’s land use committee. On Sept 13th at 7pm we’ll be embarking down a path towards building a neighborhood plan for our NE Seattle neighborhood. Since I’ll be learning about Seattle’s land use and neighborhood planning as I go through this plan, I thought it would be interesting to chronicle those efforts here. For those who don’t know where Wedgwood is, we’re about a mile north of University Village.