Lost Lake on 10th Ave
Capitol Hill’s proliferation of street dining tents and sidewalk patios will be allowed to stay into 2022 — and, possibly, beyond. The city is looking for feedback on how to shape its Safe Start permits program for the future.
Have you enjoyed a meal, drink, or treat on an outdoor patio at your favorite restaurant or café this past year?
Chances are, if the outdoor seating was on the sidewalk or street, the coffee shop, brewery, restaurant, or ice cream shop may have been one of the 200+ businesses participating in our safe start program this last year.Take our Outdoor Cafes, Displays, and Vending in Public Space Survey to share your thoughts on how we can improve these permit programs for the future.
Whether you’re a business owner who applied for a permit, employee who served customers outside, patron who frequented your local cafes, or anyone else who has thoughts on how we can improve these permits, we want to hear from you! (end call out box)
CHS reported here on the success of the program and the proliferation of patio spaces across Capitol Hill. There are also challenges including keeping areas accessible for everyone and street safety.
“Outdoor dining has been loved by so many small businesses and residents, and its exactly the vision we want for our city post-pandemic: vibrant neighborhoods where anyone can live, walk, work, and play,” the city’s announcement of the survey reads.
The program has also expanded to include a multitude of uses from outdoor cafes, retail merchandise displays, food trucks, and vending carts, to fitness gyms and studios, and retail and craft vending.
The Seattle City Council has passed legislation to extend the Safe Start permits through May 2022.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍
I love the outdoor seating/displays, I think that they liven up our streets!
It would be great if we can leverage things like the coordinated work we’ve seen done by businesses along Ballard Ave across the city for standards around coordinated thoughtful investments businesses can make to build out in the parking space and reuse it for things like weekend events/shopping outside of dining hours.
It would also be a great time to revisit previous investments in planning work around street closures on Pike between 12th and Broadway. There are lots of great options used around the world to create pedestrian and business friendly spaces that still allow for necessary commercial traffic like deliveries. And this year has definitely shown us how much we need more pedestrian options year round.