CHS Community Design Preferences Page
What do these four Capitol Hill structures — including the venerable Deluxe Bar and Grille and a Liz Dunn condo project — have in common? They’re the current ‘most popular’ designs in the CHS Community Design Preferences Page, a new CHS feature designed in conjunction with the Capitol Hill Community Council as an exercise in identifying buildings we love and buildings we hate on the Hill. The goal is to have concrete — or brick or wood or, gasp, stucco — examples of real-world design feedback for area developers and city officials.
Everybody can add to the pool of images for people to vote on and, yes, everybody can vote on the structures they prefer and ding the structures they wish they never had to look at again. You’ll just need a CHS account to contribute. To add images, upload your images here and give them the tag chsdesign. We’ll revisit the pool from time to time and let you know if any notable designs have been added that might be worthy of your attention. Questions/suggestions? Let us know know in comments.
In the meantime, the city’s Department of Planning and Development is busy overhauling Seattle’s Design Guidelines. No word yet on if they’ll incorporate the CHS Community Design Preferences Page in their system but you can learn more about the new system on the DPD’s Citywide Design Guidelines Update Overview page. They’re taking public comment on the new guidelines by the end of the month. We’ll see if we can squeeze some information out of Josh Mahar and others to find out more about the new guidelines.
Here’s what DPD had to say about the process in an announcement from a few weeks back:
With the release of detailed Draft Guidelines, Seattle is taking the critical step of renewing its vision of the priorities and values that will inform our approach to design review. One of the key values we share is the importance of neighborhoods taking a lead in establishing their own guidelines, which 19 neighborhoods have already completed. At the same time, a citywide document enables neighborhoods throughout the city to share a common approach to key issues for design in our city and in our time: design excellence, the physical environment, sustainable development, and the diversity of people and cultures that exist here.
The design guidelines have been updated to reflect emerging issues in urban design and sustainability, and improve general usability for Design Review Boards, the public and City staff.
The guidelines are posted on DPD’s website at http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/CitywideDesignGuidelinesUpdate/Overview/
and comments may be made online. For more information, please contact Cheryl Sizov, Project Manager, at (206) 684-3771
