The Miller Park Community Center played host to the “second chance” neighborhood planning gathering Thursday night for the Pike/Pine, Central Area, and Capitol Hill Neighborhoods. A very small turnout in June prompted the city to give Pike/Pine and Capitol Hill citizens another chance to participate in process. Not many took the city up on the offer. About 40 people attended Thursday night’s session, with about 15 coming from Capitol Hill and Pike/Pine to discuss and gain community feedback on the 10-year-old neighborhood plans. More than 300 Capitol Hill area residents took the online survey.

The meeting was an effort to confirm the community’s involvement but David Goldberg from DPD explained that this is only a step to a plan update, as only a few neighborhood plans will qualify under the undetermined criteria for updating.

Each neighborhood group was tasked with answering four questions, moderated by a volunteer from the community with knowledge of their respective plans:

1. Most of the neighborhood plans were adopted about 10 years ago and are in their midlife. How has your neighborhood changed in the last decade since the plan was adopted, (or since you’ve been there)?
2. What changes or aspects of your neighborhood are you most pleased about? Most dissatisfied about?
3. How well are your neighborhood plan vision and key strategies being achieved? Are they still the priority?
4. The city is completing neighborhood plan status reports focusing on demographics, development patters, housing affordability, public amenities, and transportation networks. What should there be more focus on (or less) as the neighborhood status reports are completed in the coming months? Are there any important gaps in the draft status report?

Those of you who took the city’s online neighborhood survey might recognize those they’re the same questions the city asked on the Internet.

Here were the concerns, questions and ideas raised in Thursday night’s Capitol Hill session:

How has your neighborhood changed in the last decade?

• Visual/development changes.
• Character suffering east of Broadway from townhouse development.
• Affordability of housing.

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• Better design of the townhouses.
• Number 8 bus.

What changes or aspects of your neighborhood are you most pleased about? Most dissatisfied about?

• Families don’t necessarily want to live in multifamily housing.
• “Clothing that is practical to wear for normal people.” Disappearance of stores for real life living: Hardware, baked goods etc.
• “15th is the street that time forgot”: Nothing for families. No quick togo resturants…3 new ice cream shops…none on 15th?

How well are your neighborhood plan vision and key strategies being achieved?

• Broadway revitalization: maintain it’s identity while still increasing desirability.
• Balancing staying in Capitol Hill against increasing pricing of housing with more demand.
• Make it so you truly don’t need a car.

What should there be more focus on (or less) as the neighborhood status reports are completed in the coming months? Are there any important gaps in the draft status report?

• Breaking the plan down into smaller areas. “15th is where I live, Broadway isn’t part my neighborhood”
• What is City Council doing to facilitate the implementation of the plan?
• Ongoing relationship, not just every 10 years.
• More influence from local councils to elected officials.

• Lack of civic involvement. Need more interest from citizens.

We’ll cut through the bureaucracy here on CHS and get right to the point. Let us know what you think. In the meantime, take a look at details of Capitol Hill’s neighborhood plan status update for a look at where this city planning process is heading.

UPDATE:
Activist and Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee Representative Dennis Saxman provided CHS with his notes from the meeting. The PDF file is attached to this post.