(Image: Weinstein A+U)
Not a landmark: The Conover House (Image: City of Seattle)
For a 131-year-old house on Capitol Hill, a week here, a week there makes little difference.
But the 1893-built Conover House gained a few more days Tuesday when a small slip-up among the fresh faces of the newly seated Seattle City Council pushed back a key vote on the 16th Ave property that is destined to become home to a mixed-use building with dozens of new apartments above a new restaurant in a project from Jewish Family Service and its headquarters just down the street.
During Tuesday’s public comment in front of the first full meeting of the council in 2024, a diali-in speaker was mistakenly allowed to briefly speak against the proposed contract rezone of the Conover House property that would allow a proposed development that will include demolition of the historic but not landmarked house to move forward.
“Sadly, I’m here to testify in vain, a bit, to save a part of Seattle that is pretty much condemned to be destroyed and forgotten,” the speaker began.
Their impassioned plea for the Conover House was cut-off but the procedural damage was done.
Because the council’s role in the decision is to approve or disapprove of the city Hearing Examiner’s decision to approve the rezone, that short testimony against the change was a procedural no-no. President Sara Nelson and the council were left with no choice but to delay the vote for a week “to clear the ex parte communications” in the “quasi judicial matter.”
The decision to wait a week on the vote is likely delaying the inevitable.
CHS reported here in the summer of 2019 as the landmarks board split a 3-3 vote, denying the house built by Charles Conover, a city editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, that proponents said had survived just down 16th Ave from the Central Co-Op as a “highly refined” example of the Colonial Revival style in Seattle.
The landmarks denial cleared the way for Jewish Family Service and the architects at Weinstein A+U to move forward with its plans for the property — a new seven-story, 88-unit apartment building with space for a ground-level restaurant, and underground parking for 105 cars.
JFS says the new development is intended to raise money to further the organization’s services, including its food bank as well as providing emergency services and assistance to refugees and the homeless.
“Any revenue generated from the project will be put towards our mission of serving the vulnerable people in our community,” CEO Will Berkovitz said at the time of the landmarks decision.
Adjacent to a lot it already owned, the house was purchased by the organization for $1,699,500 in 2016.
To achieve the planned design and its inclusion of mixed-use elements to create the restaurant and commercial spaces in the project, the developers have needed a surgical contract rezone with the city. It’s not legal for the council to rezone a specific parcel but the city’s laws and ordinances allow for the contract process that requires evidence and testimony through the city’s hearing examiner. Typically, the contract rezones come up on properties like Conover House where smaller scale apartments and single family style homes meet large-scale, multifamily buildings and commercial structures in areas like 16th Ave.
In November, the examiner approved a change that would rezone the Conover property from its designated lowrise requirements to “neighborhood commercial” that allows a 65-foot height limit and the restaurant use. As part of the decision, the developers said they would agree to a “Property Use and Development Agreement” that included agreeing on how the commercial/restaurant space would be used as a condition of rezone approval.
After Tuesday’s procedural misstep, the council will now take up its vote on the Conover House rezone next week — as long as there are no more ex parte communications.
$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 👍
