Author Archives: Ari Cetron

About Ari Cetron

Ari is a Seattle-based writer and editor. Find out more about him at www.aricetron.com

Board candidates to represent Capitol Hill and Central District public schools take on issues of equity, Critical Race Theory

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With the rest of the city closely watching key races for the mayor’s office and the two citywide seats on the city council, who gets elected to the Board of Directors for Seattle Public Schools doesn’t get as much attention. The Seattle School Board also runs its elections in an unusual way. The city is carved up into seven districts — Capitol Hill is in District 5. During the primary election, people vote only for a candidate in their district. When the general election comes in November, the races are thrown open citywide, with everyone in the city voting for a candidate in every race.

For now, we’ll focus on the more immediate decision. The summer is the time for primary elections, and board member Zachary DeWolf opted not to run again after serving one term, so the seat is open.

That leaves three candidates vying for an open District 5 seat. Voters will get to choose one, and the top two finishers will face each other in November to determine the winner. The race is nonpartisan.

And, like in many places around the country, Critical Race Theory is making an appearance. The theory is a roughly 40-year-old concept which until a few months ago was largely relegated to discussions within academia and the legal profession until it became a flashpoint for conservatives around the country, who are really, really against it.

We’re not going to get into it in detail here. If you want to understand the debate, you can Google it. We’ll let you know which candidates have taken a public stance on it. Seattle Schools doesn’t have policies which formally use the term, but the district does have policies which seem informed by some of the ideas it espouses.

Here’s a look at the District 5 candidates. Continue reading →

A short walk from Capitol Hill Station, 11th Ave E project would trade nine units for 60

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More than 60 new households could be coming to 11th Ave E in the next few years on Capitol Hill. C&A Development is proposing to replace a three-story, nine-unit building with an eight-story, 70-unit building as the neighborhood two blocks north of Cal Anderson Park and a block from Capitol Hill Station continues to increase in density. Wednesday night, the project will begin the city’s design review process.

228 11th Ave E

Design Review Early Design Guidance for an 8-story, 73- unit apartment building. No parking proposed. View Design Proposal  (56 MB)    

Review Meeting
July 14, 2021 5:00 PM

Meeting: https://bit.ly/Mtg3037728

Listen Line: 206-207-1700 Passcode: 187 844 2252
Comment Sign Up: https://bit.ly/Comment3037728
Review Phase
EDG–Early Design Guidance

Project Number

Planner
Theresa Neylon — Email comments: [email protected]

The site is 228 11th Ave E, between East John and East Thomas streets. The area is generally home to two-and three-story buildings, with a few single-family houses peppered in. But with an 80-foot height limit allowed under current zoning, projects like this one are likely to reshape the area over time. The project site is just a few blocks away from another big project, the coming redevelopment of the Safeway on 15th and John.

The existing building dates to 1963. It and its small parking lot will both be removed. Continue reading →

At least one more year of music and dancing at Capitol Hill’s Kerry Hall

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Inside Kerry Hall (Image: Cornish College of the Arts)

(Image: Cornish College of the Arts)

There will be dancing and music in Kerry Hall this fall, but what happens in 2022 is still an open question. The Spanish-revival building located on E Roy just off northern Broadway is operated by Cornish College of the Arts and houses the school’s dance and music programs.

Worries have grown that the school plans to close the building after the 2021-22 school year, but no formal decisions have been made, said Raymond Tymas-Jones, president of Cornish.

Most of the rest of the school’s programs are based in South Lake Union, and they also have a presence at the Seattle Center. The school’s Board of Trustees has a long stated goal of unifying the school into a single campus, which would mean the South Lake Union location. When it does happen, it would mark the end of a more than 100-year relationship between Cornish and Capitol Hill.

While the long term decision means the closure is likely to happen eventually, actions have been a long time in coming. Continue reading →

WANTED: Habitat for Humanity’s search begins for owners for new affordable-for-Seattle condos on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Habitat Seattle-King County)

New homes set to rise on 11th Ave E (Image: Habitat Seattle-King County)

By fall of 2022, there will be new Capitol Hill homeowners on 11th Ave E between Harrison and Republican. Thanks to Habitat for Humanity and its new efforts to create affordable housing on Capitol Hill and in the city’s core, these new condo owners will be more like the younger, less affluent renters living nearby.

While Habitat for Humanity has built projects in urban areas in other parts of the country, this is a first for the local branch.

“This is sort of our entrance,” said Patrick Sullivan, director of real estate and development for Habitat of Seattle-King County.

In recent years as housing affordability in the region has gotten more and more challenging, the group has tried looking at what can be done in the city.

“We’re just trying to respond to the need,” Sullivan said.

The first project to open will be at 410 11th Ave. E., between Harrison and Republican. The 1904-building that started as a single family home and has served as a 6-unit apartment building that stands on the property is making way for a 13-unit condo complex with six one-bedroom units, five 2-bedroom units and 2 three-bedroom units.

The condo complex, Sullivan said, is a way of maximizing the number of units they can get on the site. Habitat could have tried to put up two or three townhouses, but going condo will allow them to more than quadruple the total number of units. Continue reading →

Progress in Olympia? Police reform, ‘cap and invest,’ voting rights, and a Juneteenth holiday

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What has changed after a year of protest, and pandemic isn’t always clear. Seattle’s steps toward increased spending on social and community programs and efforts to reduce its policing budget are moving are moving forward — but more slowly than many who marched have called for. But there is change. This year was possibly one of the most consequential in Olympia in recent history. Progressive politics dominated the Legislature, and a host of wish list policies, some which had been stalled for years, have been placed on the governor’s desk. “We experienced first-hand the real cries of frustration of a lot of people about the police and how they have interacted with our communities,” Democratic Sen. Jamie Pedersen, the chair of his chamber’s Law and Justice Committee,said during a town hall on the 2021 session with his fellow electeds representing Capitol Hill and the state’s 43rd District.

Here is a look at what legislators pushed forward for Washington in 2021. Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to take action on many of the bills Monday afternoon (PDF).

“The Communist Party Newspaper, New World, published articles attacking racial restrictive covenants in 1948” — Racial Restrictive Covenants: Enforcing Neighborhood Segregation in Seattle

EQUITY
In something that might matter to hill homeowners, the state has planned a review of property titles with an eye toward removing unlawful racial property restrictions. (HB 1335) The practice of adding title restrictions that forbade selling properties to people of color (commonly known as redlining) was rampant in Seattle, and on Capitol Hill in particular, forcing most of Seattle’s black population into the Central District, while Asians were routed to what is now called the International District. Though such covenants are no longer legal and cannot be enforced, some may still exist on title documents. The bill directs the University of Washington and Eastern Washington University to comb through property records looking for such restrictions, and then inform the property owners of such restrictions. It also provides methods for removing the language from property titles. The bill won’t do anything to stop rampant gentrification, but removing racist language from the public record isn’t a bad thing.

Juneteenth will officially be recognized as a state holiday. (HB 1016) The holiday, to be observed on June 19, marks the end of slavery in the United States. Continue reading →

Some in Seattle want to recall Seattle School Board members — Let’s talk about how to elect them

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Seattle Public School kids are headed back to the classroom — and that’s something to celebrate (Image: Seattle Public Schools)

Capitol Hill’s school board seat will have a vacancy this year, and the incumbent has some thoughts for anyone interested in running. Board member Zachary DeWolf will not be running for re-election to the seat representing District 5, which covers the bulk of Capitol Hill, the Central District, downtown and the area near the stadiums.

It’s a tumultuous time for Seattle and the city’s relationship with its public schools is part of the choppy waters. Some are hoping to recall Seattle’s each and every school board member. Let’s talk about how to elect them.

The school board has a hybrid district/at-large system for elections. Only residents of a given district may vote in the August primary, but in the November General Election, the vote is citywide. And yes, the City Council districts and the School Board districts are different. Capitol Hill is in District 3 in the City Council, but 5 in the School Board.

The Board itself is in a time of transition, but then that’s pretty typical. It’s rare for a board member, formally called a director, to serve two terms; of the seven board members, only one, Leslie Harris, is in her second term. Two of the board’s seven seats are filled by people appointed to fill out the terms of directors who resigned. Of the remaining four, three were elected in 2019.

Capitol Hill’s DeWolf was elected in 2017 with 64% of the vote. He ran for City Council in 2019 and finished fourth in the primary with 12.6%.

DeWolf cautions anyone considering running that the school board is not an easy job. Board duties would typically take up 20-25 hours per week, and board members receive an annual stipend of less than $5,000.

“This is public service,” DeWolf said. “It is not meant to be our paid job. However, it is a $1 billion organization. There’s issues that come up a lot.”

So far one person, Michelle Sarju, a longtime Central District resident, Seattle school parent, and manager at King County Public Health, has formally announced her intention to run for DeWolf’s seat, and she has earned his endorsement. Continue reading →

Redrawing District 3: Process begins to shift Seattle’s political boundaries

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Seattle’s redistricting process is getting started, and the city is looking for volunteers to help guide re-drawing the lines for city council seats for the first time since they were adopted. The city’s system for doing it is hoped to remove the partisan rancor that can often come along with redistricting.

Last year — in addition to being the worst year ever — was also the U.S. Census year, a constitutionally-mandated count of everyone living in the country and where they live down to the counts that make up Seattle’s city council district borders. The census date is based on where people were living on April 1, 2020. So, people who moved over the summer seeking cheaper rent for their remote working will be counted as living where they were. But the new count will still show the major shifts of the decade.

The count is used for a number of federal programs which dole out money based on population. But it’s also how seats in the U.S congress are divided up. Some states lose seats, others gain, and the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives remain locked at 435 members.

Those same counts trickle down to the state and Seattle level.

District 3 and beyond
While this higher-level government is sorting itself out, Seattle is also re-drawing the boundaries for City Council seats for the first time in more than 100 years. Seattle used to have council members elected by wards, but in 1910 it moved to nine at-large (meaning citywide) seats.

In 2015, the city moved to its current council model – two council members elected at-large, while the other seven were elected by district. Once the 2020 census numbers are in, it will be time to re-draw the lines for the districts. Continue reading →

Surrounded by taller buildings with room for more people on all sides, two 1906-built houses set to finally make way for development on Bellevue Ave E

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A rendering shows how the building will fit in on Bellevue Ave E

Already surrounded by buildings ranging from three to eleven stories, the last remaining single family-style homes on a stretch of Capitol Hill’s Bellevue Ave E just off E Olive Way will meet with demolition crews if a project coming before the East Design Review Board is approved. But questions remain about whether or not a small stand of trees will meet the same fate.

The project involves properties and two 1906-built homes that have been lined up for redevelopment for most of the past of decade as new buildings sprung up in the nearby area and filled the neighborhood in.

The around 170-unit project comes amid ongoing demand for new housing in the city despite the COVID-19 crisis and economic fallout.

The plan is for two adjacent parcels at 123 and 127 Bellevue Ave E, roughly where E John hits Bellevue and stops – about a block north of Denny. Each of the two sites is currently occupied by a building constructed in 1906.

One is still a single-family home. The other started that way and has been renovated and expanded to become a 13-unit apartment building with a small parking lot. The proposed building is surrounded on all sides by apartment buildings, ranging from three to 11 stories. Continue reading →

Hoped to help address displacement in the Central District, Mount Zion’s affordable senior housing project taking shape on 19th Ave

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(Image: Rolluda Architects)

Mount Zion’s affordable senior housing development hoped to help address displacement and gentrification could begin construction as soon as this summer.

The property is on 19th Ave just north of Madison and is being developed by Mount Zion Housing Development, the housing arm of the nearby Mount Zion Baptist Church. The property is currently occupied by the Price Arms apartments on a lot shaped roughly like a triangle with one end cut off. The existing building, a two-story, four-unit apartment building that county tax records indicate was built in 1901, would be demolished. Mount Zion housing has owned the property for decades.

The project will add to a small wave of new housing for seniors in the area and could be part of a series of new buildings related to Mount Zion as one of Seattle’s leading Black churches moves forward on long-held plans to develop its property holdings. Continue reading →

It will be affordable and environmentally innovative but here’s why a neighbor is fighting plans for the cross-laminated timber Heartwood Apartments

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An early concept for the planned mass timber project (Image: Atelier Jones)

The fate of a proposed affordable housing development on Capitol Hill that will also help trailblaze the construction of “mass timber” buildings in Seattle should be known in the next few days after an appeal from a neighbor put would looks like a temporary kink in the plans.

Community Roots Housing – formerly known as Capitol Hill Housing – has planned to build an 8-story apartment building on what is now a parking lot on the corner of 14th Ave E and E Union, diagonally across from Skillet Diner. The new Heartwood Apartments would include some ground floor retail, and 126 units. Rents in the new building would be designed to be affordable to people with an income level between 60% and 100% of the area median. The building would include no parking.

The city had approved the construction of the building, but that decision was appealed by Naomi Ruden, a resident of the adjacent Helen V apartments.

Developments in the area — and the city — have faced these kinds of appeals with regularity even as City Hall has looked to rein in the use of tools like landmarking or the State Environmental Policy Act to slow or stop approved projects.

The Heartwood case came before the Hearing Examiner January 26th. Hearing Examiners fill a quasi-judicial role and are meant to provide an impartial decision reviewing city decisions.

In the appeal filed December 1st, Ruden noted that the existing parking lot is used by resident of the Helen V. Ruden is one of several residents of the Helen V who require handicapped parking access provided in the lot, she said. She was concerned that that access would be lost, and there are no plans to replace the spots for those in need. Continue reading →