When I hustled down to the South Lake Union Armory Monday evening, I wasn’t expecting much from the Neighborhood Plan Status Update Open House. After ten years of the City largely ignoring the neighborhood plans and with a mayor that sides with developers over residents ten times out of ten, it’s hard to have high hopes about the Neighborhood Plan Update process.
See 9 strategies to drive what comes next on Capitol Hill for details on the status reports and to download PDFs
Things didn’t start out terribly well. The PowerPoint presentation the DPD put together as an introduction felt condescending (“…so we’re asking you, the experts“) in its tone and content. I suppose the City couldn’t get out of doing an extensive re-introduction of the history and process of the Neighborhood Plans. But they could have done it in such a manner that acknowledged that all the people in the room that night had the experience of savvy neighborhood activists. If someone knew enough about the plans to show up to that meeting, they really are experts.
Once we split up into neighborhood groups (Cap Hill, Pike/Pine – why separate?, First Hill, Eastlake – why are they grouped with us? where’s the Central District?, and Queen Anne), the tone and the content of the meeting improved significantly. At the Cap Hill table there was representation from the Capitol Hill Community Council, Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce, Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan Stewardship Council, and the Polish Home Association, along with a few residents who were just interested in the process. The Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee (NPAC) members assigned to our table did a fine job of guiding discussing and eliciting opinions, and I think they got a pretty good picture of what has changed in the neighborhood since the plans were made and what needs to be accomplished in the Status Report Updates. Topics of discussion:
+ Key Strategies of the old Neighborhood Plan
– Completed:
~ lidding of Lincoln Reservoir (aka the creation of Cal Anderson Park)
~ creation of a light rail station on Broadway (in process)
~ creation of a cultural/business hub at North Broadway (sort of happened by itself)
– Not Completed:
~ efforts to further define Cap Hill’s 3 commercial corridors (Olive Way, 15th, Broadway, hey what about 12th?)
~ put something in place that would help preserve neighborhood character (PPUNC is trying at Pike/Pine)
~ increase neighborhood housing diversity and affordability (CHHIP is doing what it can, it needs more help)
~ leverage investments in Seattle Central Community College (???)
~ assure adequate parking for visitors on Broadway
+ The City is too focused on automobiles – the Neighborhood Plan should pay more attention to pedestrian and bike traffic as well as public transit. Parking can’t be ignored, but the fact that you can only fit so many cars on the Hill has to be acknowledged.
+ The best thing the City can do is ensure that the goals of the present Neighborhood Plan are actualized. Very few of the concerns and hopes of the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan were ever addressed by the city.
+ East Capitol Hill (Broadway to 23rd) has very different needs than West Capitol Hill (Broadway to I5), and strategies that work well for one side of the Hill may be useless to the other.
+ Capitol Hill residents love their green space, and according to the City’s own documents, they need more of it.
So what happens next? There are more meetings to come (time and place TBA) and a lot of organizing to do if our neighborhood voice is to be heard. The Chamber of Commerce and the Capitol Hill Stewardship Council are committed to being involved in the Update process. From what I hear of the Cap Hill Community Council candidates, CHCC will be on that bandwagon as well once their elections are over. Stay tuned to CHS for more updates on the Updates.
Separate meeting:
July 27th
For Central Area (Madison-Miller, 23rd & Union – Jackson and 12th Avenue), Columbia City – Hillman City – Genesee, Rainier Beach
6-8 p.m
Rainier Community Center Gym 4600 38th Ave. S
I should have clarified – why isn’t the Central District at the same meeting with Pike/Pine and Capitol Hill? But thank you for providing the meeting info for the CD, Andrew :)
What about the big student housing/apartments/commercial building thats going up on Broadway across from the Performance Hall. Wasn’t that a good leverage of SCCC funding partnered with private investment?
As for Housing Diversity/Affordability. There is another Housing Levy up this election season and I highly recommend everyone vote for it. Its been through the previous ones that CHH and the rest of the Housing Consortium have been able to leverage what they have for affordable housing units in the city.
NPAC distributed a survey at that meeting. Does anyone know if that’s available on the Web?
I don’t think they’re likely to receive a useful amount of public input on the topics covered at the meeting unless we spread the word and get lots of people to submit the survey. The Capitol Hill breakout group included about six residents, none of whom (if I remember correctly) has lived in the neighborhood more than eight years (I moved here in 2001). None of the people who helped craft the plan in the late 1990’s was in attendance. NPAC didn’t make any special effort to contact them. I heard that the city didn’t budget for outreach and left it up to NPAC volunteers, who scrambled to do what they could at the last minute.
bingo phil! this was a meeting hosted by npac (neighborhood plan advisory committee) and the planning commission, and there was little if any funding for true outreach. the meetings were just set about two weeks ago and sadly, cap hill had the least amount of notice. if you have been following the NPAC for the last six months, this is pretty much in line with what is going on in the south end…very little time and money for a truly inclusive process. very very frustrating.
on a brighter note, i think that there is a lot of momentum on the hill right now to address a lot of neighborhood plan oriented issues (TOD, sound transit station planning, parks, etc. etc.) so we may want to consider running our own meetings!!!
and in regards to the Central District question, it was raised many times at NPAC that Cap Hill should be with the CD, especially in regards to Pike/Pine and 12th Ave being so connected (and in different nhood plans) but it came down to unfortunate sorting of the neighborhoods. also an area that i think we could create a natural connection should we want to do our own “plan update” planning…
Kate I’m so with your ideas! The Capitol Hill Community Council elections are tomorrow so as soon as we get those over I know that everyone would be more than enthusiastic to get some type of meetings going on this. So everyone come out tomorrow!
I agree that the outreach is lacking… looking around the room, the attendance for the neighborhoods was pretty slim. I may be wrong, but the Pike/Pine table was empty…? And why separate neighborhoods so intimately connected. Why even separate neighborhoods that should become intimately connected?!?
As for contacting the residents who were part of the original planning process, yes, it would have been nice to have them there for some context. But I don’t think you should so quickly discount the attendance of other “newer” residents–even if they are new, they cared enough to find out and show up. Personally, I am glad for the absence of the folks responsible for making parking and automobile accommodations so central to the last neighborhood plan…
re: separation of neighborhoods
pike/pine and capitol hill actually have different neighborhood plans. they are overlapping and very much a part of the same larger capitol hill community, but are nonetheless distinctly different plans. so, the break-out tables were based on these planning areas (now imagine this scenario all over the city!)
however, this does not need to preclude our communities from working together, and perhaps organizing our own planning leading up to the City “update” of neighborhood plans (3 a year for the next several years and Cap Hill or Pike Pine could be next in 2010)
re: working together
Especially in light of the transit developments that will create more connections and overlaps between neighborhoods. I am excited at the prospect of the 12th Ave streetcar alignment (actually more so if its a loop) and think this could become one of the major areas of focus in the new neighborhood plan. Of course, it would bridge three, four neighborhoods? Is there some mechanism for “regional” neighborhood planning and community involvement? Coordination of neighborhood plans?
It sounds like the neighborhood groups (Chamber, Stewardship Council, Community Council, CHHIP, etc., etc.) need to sit down and figure out how to do extensive/inclusive outreach, what the collective priorities are, how to connect with our neighboring ‘hoods, and so on. When and where?
The NPAC “Status Check: How is your neighborhood doing?” survey is indeed available on the Web.