Monday night should be a good time for thinking big about Capitol Hill’s next green space. Following a weekend dedication of the completed Summit Slope Park, the community group organized to help guide the city as it plans a new park at the intersection of Federal and Republican is meeting Monday night with the architects who will design the new space:
Tonight is the first of three community meetings with the architects responsible for drawing up the plans for the park. We will be discussing what features we want to see in the park. The meeting will be at Lowell School and start at 6:30.
Even if you haven’t been involved with planning to date and previous design discussions, Monday night’s meeting is a good time to get involved.
CHS is checking into who won the design job. If you know which firm is handling, let us know in comments.
The FedRep Park group maintains a community site on Yahoo and a Twitter account if you’d like to follow along. Levy money went toward acquiring the park and city grants are covering the design process. The steps toward construction and beyond will require additional funding that the group will be leading the charge on. One way to help is to vote in this contest for the project that will provide landscaping at the park. Proceeds from registrations for June 11th’s Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day will also go to help the group’s cause. You can sign up today at http://capitolhillgaragesale.com
Site Workshop is the design firm that is helping craft the community’s vision for [park] SPACE at Federal and Republican.
From all of us on the 1-3 years waiting list, patiently hoping to someday have a garden plot, please more p-patch areas! :-)
Went to meet – about thirty people, great turnout and many good ideas. Split into smaller groups, then presented all the ideas from each group.
Well done.
There’s a huge park 4 blocks north and another huge park 4 blocks south of here! Why does the public (everyone & no one) own this lot? So we can stuck in endless votes on how it will be used? This is a great place to live, and someone invest some money and build some more [town]houses on the lot. Instead – we find dead bodies and design contests.
Capitol Hill already has enough poorly-designed, cramped townhouses.
It’s not possible for a city to have too many parks.
Going with the 4 block rule stated earlier, a dog park would be fun.
Why can’t you let investors, or, god forbid, buyers decide with their wallets whether a townhouse is ugly or cramped?
A city can’t have too many parks? Sure it can – it’s called… um… whatever you call that which is outside of a city.
I second this. We can not have enough p-patch space. We need more. And I love the idea of having p-patches adjacent to park space. They complement each other.
With all due respect, no way. The entire city is already a canine toilet, and this space is too small for anything off-leash larger than a Paris Hilton handbag-sized N.A.R.D.
Seattle voters approved a Parks and Green Spaces Levy that is funding the creation of new neighborhood parks till 2014.
A livable city is an endurable city. A place where people are not required to leave to find enjoyment. If you enjoy being outside, but do not own your own property or car, this type of neighborhood park is a wonderful thing.
There are 2 large parks nearby, and when it’s a nice day these parks are packed. Take that as an indication of how much parks are used and appreciated by the community. In terms of creating new housing, yet another new project is beginning at Broadway and Thomas. It will open 230 new residential units and establish an even greater strain on the social/public park spaces that exist to serve this neighborhood.
With all due respect, a centralized space may help reduce the canine-toilet issue. Also, that park has been routinely used as a dog park anyways. Turns out dogs of any size like to play and run regardless of space.
Why is it so hard for people to pick up after their dogs?
Probably the same reason why people don’t pick up after themselves. At least poo goes away, I will take that over chip wrappers, cigarette butts, beer bottles etc.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpmag/5671178778/
Are you talking about this dogs?
Bocce! A single bocce court that follows one of the sidewalks. It’s super simple & quiet, all with a smallish footprint. Fun for players and engaging for spectators, the game/sport draws people of varying ages together… it facilitates interactions between otherwise strangers (without alcohol).
One of my favorite places in Vancouver, BC is just off Commercial Ave; there, two courts regularly host a gesturing army of Sicilians that yell “Rosa!” or “Verde!” or lob beautiful sounding insults towards their opponents.
…This is a great place to live, and someone invest some money and build some more [town]houses on the lot…
…Why can’t you let investors, or, god forbid, buyers decide with their wallets whether a townhouse is ugly or cramped?
I’ll assume you’re being sarcastic. For the rest of those readers out there agreeing:
Anyone knowing the history of these lots would know that Investors and The Market DID decide that this was not a good spot for townhomes: they tried to make it into townhomes and it failed. Their ‘wallets’ did not manage to keep more townhomes coming, regardless of how livable the area may be. On the other hand, city citizens, with their votes, used THEIR proverbial and literal wallets to decide to fund more park acquisition. i.e. the Market decided this should be a park.
Also, Seattle laws demand that ‘once a park always a park’: Parks dept is not allowed to sell park land to raise cash.
Since it’s open green space for humans that can make humans less likely to litter, I’m not quite as on-board with voting for an offleash canine area above voting for an unpaved place for humans.
IMO, and no respect implied, folks that need big open space for their dogs should plan accordingly (and rent or buy a house with a yard, for example) the same way all other pet owners have to choose -and pay for themselves- accomodations (e.g. aquariums, chicken coops, horse pastures, habitrails) that are sane for their pet choice. The occasional pet-accomodating park is nice (bridal trails comes to mind) but there’s certainly no need to have them everywhere/4 blocks away.
Please think about the purpose of parks, and PLEASE think about the awfully flawed p-patch system here before voting for another P-patch.
Yes, it’s frustrating that the waitlist can be 3 to 7 years long. Yes, digging in earth is good for people, good for the land if done well, and great for environmental awareness. The system even provides a few fresh veggies for food banks!
But a parks system should have balance: just because p-patches have some nice benefits doesn’t mean every park should be a p-patch and that all basketball courts (or open spaces, or skate parks, or conservatories, or…) should be demolished. i.e. you actually CAN have enough p-patches. There’s a “waitlist” for neighborhoods wanting skateparks and dog parks too, it’s just not as sanctioned and insane as the gordian knot that is our city p-patch dept.
Thoughts/arguments against a p-patch design here:
There’s already one fabulous p-patch LESS THAN TWO BLOCKS to the south. And we don’t build pools, dog parks or playgrounds 2 blocks apart from each other.
The immediate walkshed neighborhood is unique, development-wise – unlike much of west capitol hill, it’s filled with more single family homes and rowhomes (or rental houses)than apartments – and these homes already have active gardens and yards. This translates to the fact that many potential p-patch users would be driving/busing to come to the park, vying for parking and/or burning fossil fuel, and that the local walkshed would be ignored.
Also, the city system waitlist does not prefer locals first: it’s a waitlist, so if the next person up is from West Seattle, they’d get that plot, not you in your Broadway condo. (This is one of the reasons I feel the p-patch system is so flawed. the other major flaw is turnover time).
P-patches limit the use and multiuse available per square foot: lawn, trees, landscape can accomodate a variety of uses, all in one day. Plots clearly discourage multiuse.
Chip from Seattle Parks already established at the first meeting that they were interested in open green space to benefit the greatest number of people. He specifically noted that they’d use our large turnout to show the city council that $1.3million was an okay price to pay because of how many neighbors would benefit! – So, let’s say we might get 40 or so p-patch plots. Thanks to bad policy, once someone gets their plot, a p-patcher has no obligation to free it up: they can hang on to it for years. So those 40 spots could turn into, effectively over 4 years, 10 citizens per year that get to use the park space. At the high purchase price paid for this land, that’s $32,500 invested per citizen the first year, or $130,000 spent per person for those ‘effective’ 10 people after 4 years. That makes for a horrible public investment /ROI for a department with a mission to accomodate the greatest number of citizens possible.
I think we can make a wiser choice for this park.
It is my hope that, whatever use is decided upon, the designers of the space build in measures so that graffiti will not be possible…there is already way too much of this menace in my neighborhood, and the wall along the east side of this lot is covered with ugly scribbles.