Councilmember Licata Sponsers Forum on Mercer Mess
CONTACT: Newell Aldrich, Licata Office, (206) 386-9011
Subject: Mercer Project Forum October 6 @ City Hall, 6:30 p.m.
Please forward this notice freely, particularly to members of your
Neighborhood, District, and Community Councils.
Councilmember Nick Licata will sponsor a forum on the Mercer Street
project on Monday, October 6, 6:30-8:30 p.m., in Seattle City Hall at
600 Fourth Avenue, in the Bertha Knight Landes Room on the first floor.
The question to be discussed will be: *Should the City spend $43
million on citywide transportation improvements or on a two-way Mercer
Street Boulevard?*
The Mercer Corridor Project, that will build a two-way boulevard on
Mercer Street and narrow Valley Street to one-lane in each direction in
the South Lake Union neighborhood, is budgeted to cost $193 million. The
City Council has authorized $43 million in bonds for the project to
begin construction work.
Councilmember Licata will propose that the $43 million currently
allocated to the Mercer Project be redirected to building new sidewalks
in Seattle, funding the recommendations of the Bicycle Master Plan,
Pedestrian Master Plan, and providing a long-term capital program for
meeting our freight mobility needs.
The Seattle Department of Transportation has been invited to reply to
the proposal and explain why the Mercer Corridor Project is needed and
the $43 million should be spent on creating a two-way boulevard on
Mercer Street. Residential communities, business and employee groups,
and transit advocate groups who will be affected have also been invited
to participate.
Audience members will be polled on what is the best approach for
achieving more transportation choices, lowering carbon emissions,
encouraging greater transit ridership, and promoting economic
development.
What: A Forum about the Mercer Street Project
Who: Councilmember Nick Licata, representatives invited from the
Seattle Department of Transportation, transit and bicycle advocates,
South Lake Union residents, business owners, and employee groups.
Where: Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue, Bertha Knight Landes Room,
First Floor
When: Monday, October 6, Doors open at 6 with refreshments, program
from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
This forum is free and open to the public. No RSVP needed.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Federation meets Thursday, September 25, 2008
SEATTLE COMMUNITY COUNCIL FEDERATION
http://seattlefederation.blogspot.com/
Regular Meeting
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency), Pacific Marine Center on Lake Union
1801 Fairview Avenue East
Thursday, September 25, 2008
AGENDA
Quarterly Round Robin on Neighborhood Projects and Issues
The September Federation meeting is your opportunity to brief our citywide membership on projects and issues that your community council or organization is working on. Is there pending legislation you are following? Has your community council developed city budget priorities? Do you have issues with the work of any of the city’s departments or public officials? Do you have projects underway that other communities can learn from? The Round Robin is a great networking opportunity and a chance to generate support from the Federation and its member organizations for the important work you are doing.
If you have informational materials you would like distributed at the meeting, please email electronic copies or links to Jeannie Hale at jeannieh@serv.net.
7:00 Call to Order and Introductions
Administration
1. Changes to the agenda
2. Treasurer’s report
3. President’s report
7:15 Round Robin
1. Pike Place Market levy
2. Parks levy—Should the Federation take a position?
3. The City’s non-fix for megahouses
4. Jail siting—Update
5. Lake Union Opportunity Alliance (LUOA)—a new voice for South Lake Union
6. Updating neighborhood plans
7. RPZ proposed policy changes
8. Magnuson Park continuing issues
9. University Village proposed expansion
10. Study showing elevated risk of cancer from airborne pollutants in south Seattle, most particularly Georgetown and South Park
11. Neighborhood blogs—a report from the recent Seattle Public Library/City Club event
12. Children’s Hospital proposed expansion—Is there a compromise?
13. Noise ordinance update
14. Other Issues/Projects
9:00 Adjourn
NOAA is a federal facility on high security alert, so attendees must enter by the security gate and may need to present photo ID. If you haven't attended a recent Federation meeting, please send your name, contact information, and address to rickbarrett@gmail.com to be added to the entry list. No e-mail? Call 206-365-1267. The building is ADA compliant, with ample parking in front.
Monday, September 1, 2008
A Non-Fix for Megahouses
Rare Two-Subject Hearing —Monday, September 22, 2008
Notice appeared ONLY & ONCE in a Land Use Bulletin now archived
Why so under the Radar?
At 5:30 PM on September 22nd, the Council is holding a two part hearing, the first on land use code amendments called "Sustainable Single Family," the second part on the 2008 Comprehensive Plan amendments. The Plan is to adopt both prior to the coming break for budget review.
Ever since 1990, the permitted height in Single Family height has exceeded that permitted in the three lowest Multifamily zones but all correction attempts fell on deaf ears until Concilmember Conlin's positive response to a draft prepared by Sunset Hill Community Association to make the Single Family height consistent with that of the three lowest Multi-family zones. http://www.seattle.gov/
Alas, the Executive gutted Councilmember Conlin's proposal to a token fix comparable to it's current proposed Townhouse Fix (a.k.a. Multifamily Update); then, inexplicably, after proposing to raise the height of three lowest Multifamily zones to match the existing Single Family height, decided to leave the matter as is.
At http://www.seattle.gov/DPD/
Not-quite. A fast moving Single Family Mega Non-fix has pushed aside the Townhouse Non-fix and advanced under the radar, most likely even the radar of the Council. Other than Central Staffer Michael Jenkins referral to a single now archived LU Bulletin, the only other evidence that the matter is on the docket is two PLUNC meeting videos, the last being the last subject on Aug 13 at http://www.seattlechannel.org/
Is Councilmember Conlin aware of the SNAFU? Hard to tell. When informed just before he left town for several weeks, he assigned the matter to staff, who referred the matter to PLUNC Chair Councilmember Clark. There it sits. Where you ask? At http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/
MEGAHOUSES & TOWNHOUSES BOTH NEED AN EMERGENCY FIX
THE MEGAHOUSE FIX IS SIMPLE AS PIE.
—For consistency through time, CB 116275 can adopt the height in the lowest MF zones that encourages pitched roofs—a welcome limiting factor in the out-of-control townhouse sitings.
—For contextual change, CB 116275 can improve upon the current height averaging that, little used now, would be necessary to be fair to neighbors of existing megahouses and older mansions. In fact, the averaging, after improving, needs adopting in the three 25' height zones of MF, on the same basis--fairness and contextual form-based design standards.
—The old, averaged-grade way of measuring heights on sloped lots preserved views, but it's not necessary to return to that if the limited downhill increase of CB 116275 were offset with a similar limited uphill reduction.
—Meaningful limits, not token ones, are needed on impervious lot coverage.
If you email this writer at nnarch2@gmail.com, I will send you draft alternative text. I will also send you the alert in printable Word doc format. (Together with this HTML it is probably too big for some of your systems.)
MEGAHOUSE DEFINITION
These brand new houses in the first row ARE NOT megahouses, their third stories are in an attic, or they have none. The remodeling and new house in the second row ARE megahouses, their third stories are not in an attic. There are other indications that Single Family zoning protections, hard won in the 1980s, are in the Executive's sights. Under guise of a Townhouse Fix, the general provisions for rezone criteria are scheduled to be gutted as well. One change encourages upzones within walking distance of any neighborhood service, such as a park. Lack of definition is intentional and throughout the rewrite of criteria for each residential zone. This spring the Planning Commission as a part of an Affordable Housing Initiative offered this 2008 Comprehensive Plan amendment: • Reexamine LU591 to determine whether the criteria for rezoning single family-zoned land should be adjusted. 1 LU59 states, "Permit upzones of land designated single-family and meeting single-family rezone criteria, only when all of the following conditions are met: The land is within an urban center or urban village boundary; The rezone is provided for in an adopted neighborhood plan; The rezone is to a low-scale single-family, multifamily or mixed-use zone, compatible with single-family areas; The rezone procedures are followed." This month the Executive decided to delay removing comprehensive plan policy LU59 until a following year. http://www.seattle.gov/ Planning Commission June 26th minutes at http://www.seattle.gov/
Seattle's Housing "Problem" and the Actions and Inactions that Perpetuate It
We all want affordable housing. Efforts to achieve it make matters worse. Non-experts and old experts recognize that second order change takes counterintuitive reevaluation of what we are doing to perpetuate what is happening. Most of the cascade below stems from a single erroneous assumption that the solution is to encourage redevelopment far in excess of existing conditions. Holding fast to the erroneous assumption is far from benign.
1. Megahouses are overly doable in Seattle (too much height—out of character blockage of light and outlook; too much impervious surface—dwindling natural infiltration, flash flooding, and dying marine life).
2. Megahouse-site shoppers outbid those interested in current use , this inflates Single Family land values.
3. This places houses protected by single family zoning outside the reach of even present owners.
4. This encourages the Executive to endorse insane packings of townhouses in all Multi-family zones.
5. This inflates Multifamily land values.
6. This makes an endangered species of any modest housing that is unprotected by single family zoning
7. This inspires the Seattle Planning Commission to suggest downzoning industrial lands and doing away with the protection of single family zoning, both in the name of affordability.
8. Yet:
—The Seattle Planning Department reports that, between 4/2000 and 4/2008, approximately one net new housing unit was built for each net new person. (Data obtained from PLUNC member.)
—The County reports, see http://www.
—The State Office of Financial Management at http://www.ofm.wa.gov/pop/
9. Neatly sidestepping all evidence that raising land prices squirts growth outward and that just producing the cement it would take for wholesale redevelopment is as large as the carbon footprint of cars, the Executive aims to redevelop anything that stands still.
No Councilmember or Mayor ran (or thinks of running) on a platform of ripping down and throwing in the trash as much as we can as fast as we can, building unlivable stuff, then having to rip out and trash that. What is much more fruitful would be a platform of aiming for long term appeal and then getting to serious work making sure that all the green-washed excuses for business-as-usual do not do away with the "long term" itself.
Anna Nissen 8/31/08
Nissen/Nissen Architect
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