Friday brings a day of public comment and debate over a roster of 100 proposed amendments as Seattle finalizes a new growth plan hoped to more equitably distribute housing development across the city.
CHS reported here on the proposed plan and Seattle City Council amendments.
Friday’s council proceedings led by District 3 representative and comprehensive plan committee chair Joy Hollingsworth will include two sessions of public comment broken into remote and in-person periods: Continue reading
You can view the “live” proposed zoning map here
Seattle is ready to finalize a new 20-year growth plan including new “Neighborhood Centers” and “Middle Housing” laws expanding zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.
The process has played out as Seattle’s twin crises of housing affordability and homelessness have continued to grow. In the meantime, core areas of the city have continued to rise as some of the wealthiest areas in the county, state, and nation.
For all the debate, not much will change. Nearly 70% of new construction expected under the plan would be constrained to “Regional Centers,” the plan’s designation for the city’s most densely populated, high transit areas — Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, University District, Northgate, Ballard, and First Hill and Capitol Hill —- or less dense but still highly developed areas like 23rd Ave from Union to Jackson.
A public hearing Friday will include 100 proposed amendments to finalize the plan — and a day of some of the last opportunities for public comment after years of debate.
The amendments on the table Friday for Seattle City Council’s comprehensive plan committee chaired by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth range from large to small, including proposals that would bolster protections for “bees and trees” across the whole of the plan down to a set of amendments that would make final adjustments on select neighborhood boundaries in the plan. Continue reading
The roar of I-5 was a little more subdued this weekend with northbound lanes through the city shut for Washington State Department of Transportation maintenance.
The community group advocating for permanently quieting the freeway — and adding a cap covered with parkland, housing, and development — gathered nearby to illustrate the opportunity.
The Lid I-5 group is also asking the public to support needed work in the original I-5 lid between First Hill, Capitol Hill, and downtown — Freeway Park.
Saturday, the group gathered off Boren in Pillars Park above I-5 to mark the weekend’s northbound closure and spread the word about progress being made in plans likely to stretch out for decades to cover the freeway through Seattle. Continue reading
Preliminary renderings of the planned overhaul — the developers warn the ideas are “placeholders” and the design could change
The Fredonia building (Image: Meriwether Partners)
By Matt Dowell
Do you long for the Capitol Hill of old? When Amazon was for books and knights and dragons ruled?
Sorry, but the old Canterbury is about to be split — in twain.
Meriwether Partners, owners of the 118-year-old, three-story, 12-unit Fredonia building on 15th and Mercer, plan a renovation of the ground floor’s old Canterbury space. They’ll divide its 5,000 square feet in two distinct commercial units.
“The old Canterbury/Meliora space is quite large for an in-city restaurant these days,” said Joel Aslanian from Meriwether.
Meliora, which replaced The Canterbury in 2023, was unable to fill seats and closed within a year. Searching for a replacement, Meriwether found a couple potential tenants but nothing panned out.
Meriwether hopes the overhaul of the legendary pub will match both the current economic realities of the neighborhood and the latest in commercial tenants’ desires. Continue reading
A rendering of the planned project including the new street-level restaurant space and a new “brownstone” addition behind the old home (Image: Board and Vellum)
From the CHS Facebook Group
They are not tearing down the 1905-era house in the middle of a slowly growing wave of multifamily development up and down 12th Ave.
They are raising it up.
Passersby of the corner of 12th and Howell have noticed an unusual project for the area underway this summer as contractors have placed massive wood and steel supports below the jacked-up, 120-year-old, two-story, 2,200-square-foot home.
The plan is to keep it up there and build a new commercial space below the home.
The house is also being readjusted on the lot to make room for a new “brownstone”-style multi-story addition that will connect the corner to the block’s ongoing wave of redevelopment. Continue reading
A rendering of the planned affordable Alnus building as viewed from 11th Ave E (Image: Hybrid Architecture)
A long-running effort to replace a set of old single family-style homes and duplexes north of Cal Anderson and across the street from the mixed-use development above Capitol Hill Station with a new eight-story apartment building is moving forward this summer.
There is still a long path ahead including the public process around a proposed rezone to allow the project to rise to 85 feet even as the city is going through the final months of settling out a compromised overhaul of its zoning hoped to more equitably distribute growth across Seattle as part of its new 20-year plan.
Developers behind the Alnus project in the 100 block of 10th Ave E have filed paperwork for land use and construction permits for the planned affordable, eight-story, multi-family building with 221 residential units above an underground 30-stall parking garage.
Affordable housing developer Great Expectations says the 10th Ave E project’s design will require a contract rezone with the city. Continue reading
Seattle’s Social Housing Developer has held up Maryland’s The Laureate, a 268-unit mixed-income, mixed use, new construction project from Montgomery County’s Housing Opportunities Commission, as a model development.
Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing a $2 million loan from the city to help the Seattle Social Housing Developer start on its mission to provide a wider variety of public affordable housing in the city.
“Increasing housing supply and diversity have been top priorities for my administration, creating more safe, affordable places for people to call home,” Harrell said in a statement. “While there were different strategies for how to fund the social housing developer, we share a vision for this model to be successful and add more housing options across our city. This loan will provide critical support during this interim period for planning and capacity-building so that the developer is set up for success and can achieve its goal of operating publicly owned, mixed-income housing.”
The Harrell administration says the loan would allow the developer “to sustain core operations and potentially pursue near term property acquisition opportunities” until revenue from a voter-approved tax on city employers is available. Continue reading
The Seattle City Council’s Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan helmed by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth will meet again Friday morning as it works this summer to finalize the update of the city’s 20-year growth plan including new “Middle Housing” laws that will expand zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.
Friday’s session will include a discussion of issues that have emerged on growth strategy, land use elements, and the state’s new Middle Housing requirements as the committee works through compromises shaped after massive pushback from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city.
Planners have revised and shrunken the borders of 9 out of 30 proposed , more densely-zoned Neighborhood Centers in the proposal. Continue reading
The Seattle City Council’s comprehensive code update committee led by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth can get back to the core of Seattle’s growth debate starting Thursday morning as it digs in on setting the boundaries for Neighborhood Centers, new zoning areas of the city meant to more consistently and equitably distribute growth into more areas of the city.
Thursday morning’s meeting of the committee will mark the first session since the council passed an interim bill designed to meet the state’s minimum requirements under its new “Middle Housing” laws setting the framework for expanded zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city as Seattle finalizes its next 20-year growth plan.
On the table will be compromises shaped after massive pushback from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. According to a presentation for Thursday’s session, city planners have revised and shrunken the borders of 9 out of 30 proposed Neighborhood Centers. Continue reading
(Image: Chophouse Row)
Dunn (Image: Downtown Seattle Association)
By Matt Dowell
It’s ten years for Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row on 11th Ave, but Liz Dunn of Dunn & Hobbes is quick to say that she and her team have been on the block longer than that.
“We’ve actually been here for 25 years,” she reminded us. “So it’s the ten year anniversary of just this last building that we added — but this whole complex I’ve owned for 25 years.”
Dunn purchased a cluster of buildings inside the 11th/Pike/12th horseshoe in 1999, then the beautiful brick building on the northwest corner of the block in 2014. They were redeveloped one by one over the years before the current form’s culmination debuted in 2015.
That’s when the Chophouse building on 11th Ave was added on top of an existing auto row-era structure. Office space was built inside that is now dedicated to coworking, the alleyway and courtyard inside the horseshoe opened, and multiple food and drink and retail spaces joined in. Chophouse Row was born. It followed Melrose Market’s footsteps — another successful Dunn & Hobbes redevelopment project that brought many small businesses into a single, shared, and life-filled space.
Dunn says that the cliche is true. In these developments, “the total is greater than the sum of the parts.” Continue reading
