Flurry of Seattle public safety meetings includes Councilmember Hollingsworth’s session this week on Capitol Hill

Harrell at last week’s mayoral public safety forum (Image: City of Seattle)

With reporting by Hannah Saunders

A flurry of community meetings are adding to efforts to address a spate of gun violence that left a student injured and a woman killed in separate Central District shootings last week.

Tuesday night, District 3 representative on the Seattle City Council Joy Hollingsworth will hold her first community safety meeting with constituents since the shootings in a session at Capitol Hill’s Seattle Central College.

Hollingsworth stepped forward to take the microphone at a public safety forum held by Mayor Bruce Harrell that had been organized before the shootings but ended up being dominated by the issues related to gun violence in the city.

“When we can’t keep our kids safe, it’s a failure on us as adults and I really take that very seriously being in this role,” Hollingsworth said at Harrell’s forum last week. “Any time a child is hurt—especially at school—I take that very personally.” Continue reading

Mayor to launch series of public safety forums to focus on Seattle’s ‘top issue’

The CARE car — Seattle leaders hope to grow the city’s still tiny Community Assisted Response and Engagement effort (Image: City of Seattle)

Seattle leaders including Mayor Bruce Harrell and the new members of the Seattle City Council have promised a new focus on public safety in the city. Thursday night, Harrell will begin an initiative to address crime and street disorder in Seattle with a series of forums including meetings in each of the Seattle Police Department’s five precincts where the mayor says he is inviting the public to hear “his vision for creating a safer Seattle.”

“Public safety is not just our first charter responsibility as a City, it is the top issue for our community today. I look forward to meeting with neighbors to hear their concerns and ideas, and to share the actions we are taking,” Harrell said in Tuesday’s announcement of the Thursday night forum.

It’s not clear why the Harrell administration provided only a few days notice on the forum. In-person attendance will require registration. The forum will also be streamed live by the city.

Harrell said this week’s session will be followed by additional forums held across the city, one in each of SPD’s five precincts including the East Precinct covering Capitol Hill and the Central District. Continue reading

City says work starting on latest 23rd Ave overhaul adding bus-friendly traffic signals, safer crossings, and a short stretch of ‘transit-only’ lanes

(Image: SDOT)

The city’s department of transportation is following up on the 23rd Ave corridor’s road diet with a scaled-back project to improve bus service through the busy route connecting the coming soon Judkins Park Station and the Central District to the University of Washington across the backside of Capitol HIll.

The Seattle Department of Transportation isn’t saying when work will wrap up as crews have begun digging in on the north end of the $2.6 million Route 48 – Transit-Plus Multimodal Corridor project that will add limited bus-only lanes to separate transit from traffic, improve crossings at intersections “to help people access transit safely,” and add new optimized and “smart” traffic signals “that prioritize transit with queue jumps that give buses a head start and “activate or extend green lights for buses” to the route.

“We are excited to announce that construction on the Route 48 Transit-Plus Multimodal Corridor project’s North Segment is kicking off,” the announcement from SDOT reads. “We’re making these improvements to reduce bus travel times, increase bus service reliability, and make street crossings safer for people getting to bus stops.”

UPDATE: SDOT tells CHS they hope to have the completed “the majority of the work” by the end of 2024.

The upgrades will be missing one key component. Continue reading

Regional Centers, Urban Centers, Neighborhood Centers, Industrial Centers, and Urban Neighborhoods — Outreach and feedback process begins on Seattle’s next 20-year growth plan

Officials are asking for people to weigh in and emphasizing five new “place types” in Seattle that they say will bring opportunities for new population growth in more neighborhoods as they roll out a proposed update to the city’s 20-year comprehensive plan.

CHS reported here on the Harrell administration proposal that will continue to lean hard on the densest cores of Capitol Hill and the Central District while making small steps forward in allowing multifamily-style housing across the city.

The Office of Planning & Community Development is launching an outreach and feedback process: Continue reading

Hollingsworth’s first co-sponsored legislation passes full council

(Image: SPU)

It wasn’t her legislation but District 3’s representative on the Seattle City Council marked a milestone earlier this week as the first bill from the committee she chairs was passed by the full body.

Joy Hollingsworth joined here eight council counterparts Tuesday in approving legislation that will allow the city to undertake “ecological thinning” and a limited timber sale in its highly protected Cedar River Watershed east of the city. Continue reading

Seattle’s new plan for growth will still lean heavily on Capitol Hill and the Central District’s dense cores

Under the new growth plan, affordable buildings like The Rise would remain constrained to areas like First Hill (Image: The Rise)

Capitol Hill’s apartment and job-rich streets will become richer and the redevelopment waves seem unlikely to slow under the draft comprehensive growth plan for the city.

The Harrell administration unveiled its proposal for Seattle’s next growth plan this week that sets the stage for 200,000 residents to join the city over the next 20 years and continues to lean heavily on Capitol Hill, the Central District, and the city’s most heavily developed neighborhoods, proposing small steps toward spreading apartments, townhouses, and duplexes into more areas while also trying to soften the blow to neighborhoods at the highest risk of displacement and gentrification.

“Having grown up in the historically redlined Central District, I’ve seen firsthand how our city and the neighborhoods that make it special have changed as we’ve experienced rapid growth and increased housing costs, with longstanding neighbors, families, and small businesses too often finding affordability out of reach,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in the announcement of the just released draft. “This experience has informed my belief that we need more housing, and we need to be intentional about how and where we grow, addressing the historic harms of exclusionary zoning and embedding concrete anti-displacement strategies every step of the way.”

But the draft plan is not a reinvention of the city as we know it today and would continue many of the development patterns that have shaped modern Seattle. Nearly 70% of new construction expected under the draft plan would be constrained to “Regional Centers,” the plan’s new designation for the city’s most densely populated, high transit areas — Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, University District, Northgate, Ballard, and, of course, First Hill and Capitol Hill — or less dense but still highly developed areas now called “Urban Centers” instead of “Urban Villages.” 23rd Ave from Union to Jackson is one nearby example. The “Madison–Miller” area north of E Madison is another.

Under the draft plan, the Capitol Hill-First Hill area of the city is projected to add 9,000 new housing units — second to only downtown — and 3,000 new jobs.

Zoning in many of these areas like Capitol Hill would remain capped at eight stories though there could be allowances for taller development near light rail stations.

The release of the draft plan and the environmental impact statement to follow marks the start of the end to a two-year process mandated by state law to update the city’s growth plan in compliance with new laws and regulations gating growth and climate change impacts. Continue reading

Why 23rd Ave is at center of new Seattle Transportation Plan

(Image: CHS)

The mayor’s proposal for the priorities that will define the size and scope of Seattle’s next more than $1 billion transportation levy is now in the hands of the Seattle City Council. The council must now finalize the plan in preparation for taking a new levy proposal to voters this fall.

The council’s transportation committee will hold its first meeting on the process Tuesday.

CHS reported here on the Harrell administration’s efforts to shape the transportation plan and a framework for safe and efficient protected areas for bikers along its arteries, a proliferation of transit-only lanes, and preparations for possible new light rail lines criss-crossing Capitol Hill and the Central District along 23rd Ave and Denny Way.

The final proposal from Mayor Bruce Harrell has crystalized on a roster of highest priority initiatives and projects while also downplaying massive investments like new light rail lines. The plan would emphasize equity and economic investments along with safety and motor vehicle traffic priorities while also continuing the long-running effort to lower speeds across the city — a mix that places 23rd Ave at the top of the heap for Capitol Hill and Central District area investments.

This combination of priorities would create a plan that emphasizes major investments in parts of the city that are heavily populated but have been left behind in current transportation priorities like the Rainier Valley where traffic deaths and safety issues remain disproportionately high despite transit and development investments. Continue reading

‘In Recess’ — Arrests after protest disrupts Seattle City Council

The Seattle City Council stopped its proceedings multiple times and six people were arrested Tuesday after public comment was limited during a demonstration at City Hall calling for support for a group of asylum seekers that has been bounced around the region as housing options have fallen through.

“Officers were called to Seattle City Council Chambers at about 2:55 p.m., as people filled the room and continued to interfere with the session,” SPD reported in a brief on the Tuesday arrests. “Those who were part of the disruption were told to leave the chambers, but they refused and were told they would be arrested if they continued.”

Police say the protesters were arrested for criminal trespass with one man also facing charges of obstruction.

With shouts growing as the time allotted for public comment ended, the protest and disruptions left the council and its six first-time members as well as council president Sara Nelson scattered with some calling for police to intervene. Continue reading

A debate over Seattle’s ‘Technology Assisted Crime Prevention Pilot’ plan at the District 3 public safety meeting

Report: ShotSpotter wastes officers time, provides little help in court, targets overpoliced communities — syracuse.com

Last week’s D3 meeting (Image: CHS)

Tuesday brings the final day of public comment on a roster of “Technology Assisted Crime Prevention Pilot Technologies” being pushed toward deployment in Seattle by Mayor Bruce Harrell and proponents of boosting the city’s struggling police department with better surveillance and intelligence systems.

The proposal would create a plan “a new public safety program that will combine a Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) System with an Acoustic Gunshot Location System (AGLS) integrated with Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) software together in one view,” the administration says. Last year, the Seattle City Council approved Harrell’s request for $1.5 million in the 2024 budget to test acoustic gunshot detection systems like ShotSpotter.

Supporters say the new surveillance system would help boost the department’s ability to quickly respond to gun violence and knock down the city’s record pace of homicides. But examples of real world deployments show the tech doesn’t necessarily work as advertised and can actually hinder police response.

With a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday night and online feedback also being gathered for the meeting, District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth heard more from constituents at the latest in her office’s monthly public safety meetings held last week.

In the meeting held at North Capitol Hill’s Seattle Prep, there was a stark divide on the hopes around ShotSpotter. Continue reading

Seattle Parks collecting feedback on 2024 Parks and Open Space Plan

The Bullitt property will one day be home to an official city park

The Seattle Parks department is collecting feedback on the next update to its strategies for determining where in the city to develop new park space and make improvements to existing facilities.

You have until March 9th to weigh in on the latest update to the Parks and Open Space Plan.

The parks department says the plan helps determine “where park development, improvements, and asset maintenance projects should occur; and where open space should be prioritized for acquisition.”

Every six years, Seattle Parks must update the plan to maintain the city’s eligibility for state grants. Continue reading