As chair of the Seattle City Council’s comprehensive update committee, District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth is leading the city’s push to get the new growth and zoning proposal over the finish line before summer.
She will now face possible delays from one of the neighborhoods she represents.
The Friends of Madison Park group has filed an appeal of the comprehensive growth plan update’s key Environmental Impact Study just days before a public comment deadline on the report.
“Members of Friends of Madison Park live in and own property in the Madison Park neighborhood that is being upzoned or that is adjacent to and/or near property that is being upzoned by the One Seattle Plan,” the appeal to the city’s Hearing Examiner reads. “Those members will suffer land use, traffic, stormwater,tree, view and other impacts if the legislation is adopted as is. Members of the group also use the beaches in our. neighborhood and swim in the lake at those locations that will be adversely impacted by the proposed upzone.”
The appeal is calling on the Examiner to decide a supplemental environmental impact study must be performed for the area that includes “a reasonable range of alternatives to mitigate those impacts in the Madison Park neighborhood.”
At the cost of time, legal representation, and a $85 filing fee, the appeal is not a surprise.
But Mayor Bruce Harrell has left little room to maneuver, needing an updated comp plan in place to meet requirements of the 2023-passed state law HB 1110 that requires the elimination of single-family zoning in cities across the state to address the ongoing housing crisis. If Seattle doesn’t have its plan update approved by June, the city will be subject to a state land use code — and likely more battles like the new fight with Madison Park.
The work to find a compromise with Madison Park and other areas of the city is underway. CHS reported here on neighborhood pushback on the growth plan over the creation of 30 new “neighborhood centers” across the city including D3’s Madison Park, Madison Valley, Montlake, and Madrona. The designation could “allow residential and mixed-use buildings up to 6 stories in the core and 4- and 5-story residential buildings toward the edges,” according to a plan draft — but Hollingsworth’s office has told CHS it sees room for compromise.
More public hearings on the plan update are planned in the coming months. One hearing is scheduled in April and another in May. Those line up with Hollingsworth’s Phase 1 and Phase 2 approach to forging a compromise on the plan.
In Phase 1, the goal is to finalize the legislation that will shape the structure of the comprehensive plan and Neighborhood Residential updates to implement HB 1110. That’s the part that will say “Neighborhood Centers” exist — or they don’t — and these are the parameters.
The compromises over drawing the actual lines will be pushed toward summer as the council considers Phase 2 including rezones for the new Neighborhood Centers, new and expanded Regional and Urban Centers, and “select arterial rezones along frequent transit routes.”
That approach could give the EIS appeal process time to play out — and be quieted. New state laws that restrict appeals under the State Environmental Policy Act could help.
The Friends of Madison Park group, meanwhile, is flexing the neighborhood muscle it has built since forming out of the pandemic two years ago.
“We think of ourselves as a start-up,” one organizer told CHS in 2023 as we talked with the group about its growth even as community councils representing more highly populated areas dominated by renters like Capitol Hill had fallen by the wayside. A revived Capitol Hill Community Council has since taken shape but has not taken a public position on the growth plan and the efforts from Hollingsworth’s office.
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NIMBYs gonna NIMBY. Hope they’re told to eat it.
Is there a way to sue these NIMBYs for stalling this process, driving up costs for everyone and ensuring we continue failing to meet our housing needs? Oh no, they’m suffer tree impacts :’(
unfortunately no.
oh, they think of my neighborhood as ‘drive-through’ – that makes me feel better.
Classic playbook. Fight transit, then fight upzoning on the grounds of lack of transit.
“Members of our group also use the beaches in our neighborhood and swim in the lake at those locations.” Do they think the beaches aren’t public parks and the lake belongs to them? Friends of Madison Park should be renamed Unsufferable Elitist Gatekeepers of Madison Park. These people are the worst.
Yes…they clearly do think that.
I hope people remember this. Tax the rich people.
“…and limited transit options available. All of these other neighborhoods are drive-through and not with limited access in-and-out of the community.”
Excuse me? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t this neighborhood fight successfully against the new Rapid Ride line going all the way to the lake? If they really don’t want more public transit, then they can’t turn around and claim that a lack of public transit is an obstacle to redevelopment.
Am I missing something here, or is this blatant hypocrisy?
yup…you are catching on!…lol…The unwashed need to stay of their beaches and other confiscated public lands via invisible gates to the community
Good point. Rapid ride stopping at MLK has always seemed weird. Don’t get me started on Rapid Ride G line.
The G line was originally going to stop at 23rd; they only extended the it to MLK after community surveys showed that there was more demand in Madison Valley than they had expected. (I lived there at the time, and I remember giving feedback in this process.) No such demand was found in Madison Park, and getting all the way out there would have doubled the length of the route, so it would have been a real waste of money.
If anyone wants to know what the white and wealth think?
There it is. It’s ALL about them to hoard the best land and let nobody ever in the gates. It’s NOT about together solving an issue. It’s cram more into the smallest spaces with traffic and crime. Vs. We want to play in the streets and the public places claimed as theirs alone. Not to be shared by the “Unwashed”.
“but Hollingsworth’s office has told CHS it sees room for compromise.”
Of course she is. She’s trying to get the bougie vote next election cuz the rest of us will be voting for anyone but her.
“Capitol Hill Community Council” is very business owner, special interests heavy. No need to take “stands”
We need to up-zone the entire city. Existing homeowners benefit from up zones because their property significantly increases in value. Those who don’t want to live in a dense city can sell their land for millions and move to numerous places beyond our city limits with vast open spaces.
When are we gonna extend the G Line to Madison Park?
when they stop blocking transit and housing?
Probably five or ten years after population density in Washington Park and Madison Park have increased enough to justify the high cost of a high-frequency express bus, which will happen 10-20 years after the whole area has been upzoned to midrise or better, and we can expect THAT to happen around the same time Beelzebub straps on a pair of ice skates.