Author Archives: Hannah Saunders

‘Proof and power’ — Africatown Plaza affordable development now open in the Central District

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(Image: CHS)

(Image: CH)S

Africatown Plaza, a new $66.5 million 126-unit affordable apartment building on the 23rd and Union Midtown block, opened to residents this month after two years of construction that included an unprecedented number of Black families who worked on the project, its developers say.

Community Roots Housing and the Africatown Community Land Trust say Africatown Plaza is a standing symbol of what can be achieved through advocacy, unity and perseverance.

“When I thought about what this day and what this project represents, what really came to me was proof and power,” K. Wyking Garrett, president and CEO of ACLT, said at the building’s opening ceremony earlier this month. “We see the proof of the true power that exists within us, and among us to imagine, design and build solutions for the problems that we face.” Continue reading →

As rising rents erode queer communities across Capitol Hill and the Central District, leaders pin hope on state rent stabilization legislation

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Rep. Nicole Macri at the September affordable housing forum (Image: CHS)

Nobody in Washington rents like the queer communities living across Capitol Hill and the Central District rent. Political and community leaders say there could be new opportunities in Olympia to address the climbing rents in the city’s core causing continued displacement among the city’s LGBTQIA+ population.

Advocates and legislators met in September with the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance to discuss rent stabilization and support, where House Bill 2114— which passed in the House and died in the Senate this past year — took up much of the conversation and was the’ go-to answer when responding to community questions about how they will improve the lives of renters.

A National Low Income Housing Coalition report this summer found that workers in the Seattle and Bellevue areas would need to earn $50.87 per hour to afford a two-bedroom unit.

A recent University of Washington graduate spoke about their experiences with renting in Seattle.

“The lack of stable rents really makes me feel as if Seattle doesn’t want to support young people, especially those who are all about improving their communities and not just making a big salary,” the renter said.

“It’s likely I won’t be able to stay in Capitol Hill at a certain point due to a future rent increase.”

The challenges for renters in Seattle hit the city’s LGBTQIA+ communities especially hard. Continue reading →

First Fridays and Second Thursdays — New Central District Art Walk joins Capitol Hill Art Walk for monthly explorations of neighborhood creation and community

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(Image: Central District Art Walk)

The Capitol Hill Art Walk has been on the move for more than 15 years (Image: CHS)

With First Fridays and Second Thursdays, Central District and Capitol Hill lovers of painting, photography, sculpture, and community now have two nights a month to mark on the calendar.

The Central District Art Walk is now making First Fridays a time for seeing new things and meeting new creators across the neighborhood.

“There’s a lot of really beautiful art and culture and history. I see [the art walk] as a way… of reminding people of the history and the culture of the Central District, and celebrating those. There’s a lot of art and music and beautiful stuff that came out of the Central District that can sometimes get lost when something like gentrification is happening,” Stephanie Morales of Made Space says about the new monthly event. The second ever walk is today.

Meanwhile, the long running Capitol Hill Art Walk walks on every second Thursday.

“We’re currently working alongside the Capitol Hill Arts District to help push public outreach marketing and venue growth, since it’s such a fantastic and vital community-building event,” coordinator Laurie Kearney tells CHS. “Currently, there’s an average of 20 venues that take place on a regular basis, which fluctuates throughout the seasons.” Continue reading →

Access Walk returns to Volunteer Park to help state’s safe abortion access organizations

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(Image: Access Walk)

With health and reproductive rights increasingly being determined at the state level, Access Walk is taking steps to support choice by strengthening Seattle’s ability to help people from across the nation. Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park will host the 2024 Access Walk this Saturday with funds and donations raised at the event going towards services people need most when seeking care far from their homes, like lodging, food and, gasoline.

Access Walk co-founder Jeff Pyatt tell CHS the fall of Roe v. Wade inspired a family discussion at the dinner table. After pondering what they could do to assist birthing people, they came up with an idea for the walk. The first was held in Volunteer Park in 2023.

“This is a basic healthcare right—abortion is. Having it be banned or hard to receive in so many states, and having abortion services in Washington that are available, but for access, hard to get here, I feel like we have a moral imperative to make sure that anyone who needs to get here for an abortion can, and if we can help them with lodging and fuel and transportation and meals, then we’re doing good work,” Pyatt said. Continue reading →

A new flashpoint in Seattle’s concerns over crime and public safety, calls for resilience and change as hundreds march to remember dog walker slain in Madison Valley carjacking — UPDATE

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The carjacking murder of Ruth Dalton has become a flashpoint in Seattle’s concerns over crime and public safety. A memorial walk for the slain neighborhood dog walker Wednesday night included messages of resilience, anger, love, and politics as loved ones were joined by neighbors, city officials, and political candidates in the vigil and walk from where Dalton was dragged and killed in a Madison Valley carjacking attempt in August.

People streamed along E Madison Wednesday during the evening memorial walk for Dalton, an 80-year-old dog walker who was murdered in an August carjacking with her dog, Prince.

Leading the march were four people who helped Dalton during the aftermath of the brutal attack, holding a banner with a picture of Dalton and her pup, a cross and words that read: “We care—Be like Ruth. Change is coming.”

CHS reported here on the efforts to organize the march by the Friends of Madison Park community group and Dalton’s family.

The group trickled into Madison Park and posted up near the playground for the vigil. Melanie Roberts, Dalton’s granddaughter, said she’s been getting her strength from god, her grandmother and “little grumpy Prince dog,” who was Ruth’s defender, and spoke to each of the heroes holding the banner. Continue reading →

Seattle prepares for new design review landscape

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E Union’s Heartwood was developed without the city’s full design review process thanks to exceptions already in place for affordable housing

 

 

Seattle’s next steps in streamlining its design review process will come amid an effort to “revitalize Seattle’s core” by encouraging more housing across downtown and on First Hill.

A Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection design review report that was delayed for months and eventually released this summer will be heard at the city council’s Land Use Committee this week. Part of the proposed legislation would allow for exemptions on certain types of new construction proposals from the design review process in order to accelerate development. Some worry these recommendations will harm residents by further eroding the city’s design review process. Others say reform can’t come fast enough for a city stuck in an affordability criss.

“Of course, we would have preferred issuing the report sooner, but a long session in Olympia ended in April 2023 and changed the design review landscape with the passage of HB 1293,” Bryan Stevens, SDCI spokesperson, told CHS. “This state legislative change and competing land use priorities in front of us and City Council…contributed to a delay in issuing the final SLI [Statement of Legislative Intent] response, which included the consultant’s stakeholder report and associated cover memo by SDCI and OPCD [Office of Planning & Community Development].”

Stevens said there was broad support among SLI stakeholders, including an 18-member group, for decreasing design review timelines, like rewriting the guidelines to improve clarity for applicants, the community and staff. Stevens said when considering refinements to the design review program, permit efficiency must balance out with housing production and design quality.

“We’re also continuing to respond to the call for supporting the safety and vibrancy of our downtown neighborhoods with a Mayor’s proposal under consideration by City Council to temporarily exempt certain new construction proposals from design review to streamline permitting as a part of the Mayor’s Downtown Activation Plan [DAP],” Stevens said.

If approved by the Council, Mayor Harrell’s proposal [Council Bill 120824] would apply to new housing units, hotels and research and development laboratories in Downtown, Uptown, SLU, parts of SODO, and First Hill for a three-year period. Continue reading →

Revival: Effort to restart Capitol Hill Community Council ready to take big step in September

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A 2013 Capitol Hill Community Council meeting (Image: CHS)

In a starting point to revive the Capitol Hill Community Council, resident Chris Paulus met with neighborhood councils across Seattle and contacted over 50 organizations, with the goal of understanding a community council’s work and importance. Since these year-long research efforts began, Paulus is building an effort for Capitol Hill residents to engage in restart efforts and overcome challenges that evaporated the council in 2021.

A revival of the Capitol Hill Community Council will meet for the first time in September.

“Community in and of itself is important,” Paulus told CHS. “This is signifying the importance of connection and community with each other. Sometimes these different types of neighbors getting together get focused around a single problem that needs to be addressed. This can be a good thing, but this causes long-term problems in what that issue is until resolved.”

Paulus said religious groups are more likely to be engaged in civic activities, so he reached out to every spiritual group he could find on Capitol Hill, amounting to over 25.

One thing that struck him during his research phase was that CHCC lobbied for the Rt 8 bus line to be created in the 90s.

“That caused a switch in my mind, removing the slow building of the community council to the ‘we need to build this as quickly as possible’ because myself and all of my neighbors are worse off everyday this sense of community doesn’t exist,” Paulus said. Continue reading →

Tougo Coffee owner closes shop after 17 years to reunite with son abroad

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(Image: Tougo Coffee)

Tougo Coffee, a second home for many and a hotspot for community gatherings on Yesler Terrace, closed shop this summer after 17 years serving Seattle. Owner Berhanu “Brian” Wells plans to move to Japan next year to reunite with his son, Tougo.

“Tougo Coffee has been a fabric that has been woven together by the locals to Seattle, and global community,” Wells told CHS. “We are grateful to have served Seattle families and friends for 17 years. It’s been our absolute pleasure and honor that you allowed us to be your bodega.”

Wells recently launched a GoFundMe, and donations will help pay for legal, governmental and intermediaries hired to assist with the visa process, like the translation of documents and any challenges related to obtaining a visa.

“The ultimate goal here is for me to reunite with my son, Tougo, and I really need your help,” Wells said in the GoFundMe. Continue reading →

As leaders make new $2.6M push for gun violence programs, ‘intervention’ specialists Community Passageways working for long-term safety at Garfield High School and beyond

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The Community Passageways Service Center debuted last summer at 23rd and Jackson (Image: Community Passageways)

As county leaders launch a 100-day, possibly $2.6 million push including thousands of dollars to help fund community intervention programs following a wave of deadly shootings that have claimed young lives including Garfield High School’s Amarr Murphy-Paine, one community organization has been at the center of calls from Garfield families to do more — quickly — to help make the 23rd Ave high school safer.

The work at Community Passageways to help prevent issues that lead to gun violence from growing can sometimes be painfully simple.

“We’re putting a plan together where we can provide safe passage for kids to go to lunch and back from lunch,” Mark Rivers, deputy director of community safety at Community Passageways, says.

Straightforward but vital work like that has students and parents asking for more resources and more support for Community Passageways and others from small, local organizations based in the community who can truly connect to students and the surrounding streets every day.

The organization, which offers both one-on-one support and community support for teens and young adults, is already planning to increase the number of violence interrupters going into Garfield High. Rivers said efforts to increase safety consist of deploying community safety ambassadors to escort youth.

The organization is also there when painful acts of violence occur. “We have our critical incident responders—which with incidents of violence such as gun violence— when somebody’s shot we pull up to the scene and support the family if need be and mediate, de-escalate if possible, based on our relationships in the community,” Rivers said.

But the hope is to stop the trouble before it grows. Continue reading →

What do Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Shaun Scott, and Bob Ferguson have in common? Endorsements from the 43rd District Democrats

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A few of them Dems (Image: 43rd District Democrats)

The path to November’s ballot including a decision on Biden vs. Trump and a vote on the city’s $1.55 billion and counting transportation levy runs through this summer’s primary election.

This week, that path ran through the 43rd District Democrats as the political group dedicated to promoting the Democratic party and working to increase participation through education held its endorsement meeting and gave the nod to a handful of candidates including a choice in the key citywide race for Position 8 on the Seattle City Council.

While the candidates anointed by the group Tuesday night will need to win much wider support in their citywide, countywide, and statewide races, the 43rd Dems organization representing Seattle neighborhoods including Capitol Hill, Madison Park, Eastlake, Belltown, and voters in the downtown core hasn’t been the worst measuring stick for the political mood of the wider city and densely populated region.

Here is a look at the candidates who won the 43rd Dems’ backing headed into the August Primary.

Alexis Mercedes Rinck

Seattle City Council Position 8
Alexis Mercedes Rinck is a Queer Latina who hopes to fully fund city services and get corporations to pay their fair share in taxes. She said she came before the 43rd Dems “as a living testament” to investments in early childhood support and education, and that she understands the importance of investing in youth and city services as someone whose family used these services.

Tanya Woo, appointed to fill the position on an interim basis earlier this year, cited her involvement with the Chinatown International District’s community. She highlighted how she’s built affordable housing through the Louisa Hotel, and that the hotel charges a percentage of residents’ income so that they can afford to pay rent.

“I’m working on legislation on how we can do that for the entire city,” Woo said. Continue reading →