Incentive Zoning Workshop

Organized by City Neighborhood Council

Tuesday, October 21, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

West Precinct Community Room - 810 Virginia Street, Seattle

Incentive zoning allows significant height and density increases in exchange for a public benefit, mostly "workforce" housing in the current proposal.

What will it mean to your neighborhood? 

What does it mean to the city?

Join the City Neighborhood Council for an evening dialogue on current proposals for enabling Incentive Zoning in residential and commercial areas outside of the downtown. The format will be short panel introduction of keytopics, followed by open discussion. The purpose of the meeting is to share a variety of perspectives on the concept of incentive zoning and the costs and benefits of applying it broadly across Seattle's neighborhoods. Does incentive zoning produce a significant public benefit or is it a financial windfall for developers?

Focused discussion on:

*        What Incentive Zoning could look like in your neighborhood - it would...

It's that time of year again, time for Chicks Play Hard.  I would appreciate if you would share on the Neighborhood blog that we're gearing up for the big day, Saturday, Oct. 25, from 11 AM to 4 PM at Miller Community Center.  We are looking for women volunteers, high school age young women who would like to volunteer (and earn community service credit) and participants - girls ages 9 to 13.

Register and learn more at:

http://www.chicksplayhard.org

As additional background, Chicks Play Hard is a volunteer-run, nonprofit organization that strives to build self-confidence in girls by providing them with a nurturing environment to try different activities and develop self expression. Girls ages 9 to 13 participate in workshops led by high school students who are, in turn, mentored by women experts. The event encourages the girls to try new and diverse things, learn from positive female role models and-most importantly- have fun.

New activities this year include rock climbing, fire fighter, skateboarding and yoga. ...

Two months ago, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) released draft recommendations for changes to the Residential Parking Zone (RPZ) program.  SDOT is seeking public comment until October 20, 2008, and will submit recommendations to the mayor and city council by the end of the year.  No changes were proposed for the North Capitol Hill area around Seattle Prep High School or the Pike/Pine area.  Here are the remarks regarding the RPZ in the Capitol Hill area around Group Health(mapped at left): "The northern portion would probably work well with two permits/HH but parking in the southern portion is extremely tight. If, in the future, the zone is split into two zones, the classifications could be different."  The way that I read this is that the northern portion of this zone would work well with 2 parking permits per household.  So if this zone is eventually split into two, the southern area may have to live with 1 vehicle or less.  Proposed changes that would impact all RPZ zones would be a 30% increase...

What are you doing reading yesterday's crime log on a sunny Saturday? Wait, what am I doing posting it?

Central District News East Precinct Scanner Report - Capitol Hill - 10/10/2008 - Full Report

Sent from my iPhone

Some dipshit thought it would be cool to tag over the garage door space mural on E. John Street heading up the Hill toward 15th. The response to the vandalism is this "NO" sign and lots of Sharpie-written notes expressing sadness for the space warrior princess's passing.

Thanks a million to neighbor ERIK98122 for this contribution to the CHS flickr pool. Like Erik, we wonder. Will she return?

I see cruiser bikes all over Capitol Hill.  The problem is that they're never actually moving.  Instead they are locked up (and usually rusting away) or clogging up apartment building bike rooms.  Unless your entire life is isolated to a few north-south streets, our hilly 'hood is less-than-ideal for cruising around in a steel tank with limited gearing.  So why are there so many cruisers clogging up prime bike parking real estate?  Do all of those California transplants drag their beach bikes with them when they move?  Or are cruisers one of those impulse buys that "seemed like a good idea at the time"? 

p.s. J, just a thought, but how about adding some questions to the census to empirically test this.  e.g., "What kind of bike do you own?" and "How often do you ride your bike?"

Yes, I'm about to review a fancy pants restaurant on a day when Wall Street is on its way to turning in yet another triple-digit loss. Here are a few of the things I saw, heard and tasted.

1. The space is wide open and has the requisite exposed brick wall and duct work. Orange and yellow curtains play Poppy's "not an Indian restaurant" game. Naan, thali, and curtains that look like saris? 
2. The reviewers that make IKEA comments are a little confused. Light oak is not trademarked by IKEA. It's not my favorite look either. Guessing the brains behind Poppy didn't want to go with something darker and more traditional.
3. The dinner rush was in full swing when we arrived around 8:30. By midway through our meal around 10, we were one of three goups.
4. Much appreciated, those sound dampers on the wall near the kitchen block.
5. The cocktail list is fun and pricey. Enjoyed the bourbon fizz while hanging out at the bar waiting for our dining companions.
6. Poppy's music soundtrack has been programmed by a hipster. Lee Hazelwood, 60s soul...

Here's yesterday's Capitol Hill run-down of East Precinct action. The 10:39a disturbance is the incident that closed Cal Anderson yesterday. The fraud item at 6:13p is notable -- there's a bit of that going around the city these days. Connected?

Central District News East Precinct Scanner Report - Capitol Hill - 10/9/2008 - Full Report

10:39AM - 1000 E. Denny Way - Disturbance - The county is trying to evict a man from his apartment, but he's refusing to come out.

1:38PM - 500 Broadway - Assault - Man assaulted by someone he let stay with him. Suspect is a black male, 43, going by the name of a very large US city

2:10PM - 300 Broadway E - Robbery - Man says he was robbed a knife point. Suspects last seen running northbound. Two hispanic males, late 20s, one in a brown leather jacket, green/brown striped shirt.

6:13PM - 2000 Federal Ave E - Fraud - Police are searching a home in this block as part of a fraud investigation. This is a fancy, executive-laden street, so it would...

On November 2nd, 12-5pm at the Richard Hugo House, Madison Market is throwing a party to celebrate 30 years.  More details here.

There has previously been a debate on CHS about the residents favorite grocery store.  Madison Market is mine.  I occasionally cheat and run over to Safeway or QFC, but 9 times out of 10, I shop at MadMar.  What's your favorite store on the hill?  One of the 3 QFC's?  Safeway?  Trader Joe's?  Madison Market?  The Farmer's Market?  Am I missing one?  Also, how many folks use a CSA?  I just picked up my first box from Full Circle Farm today, thanks to Seadevi's recommendation.

Sent from my iPhone

See, start messing with the news and it'll come get you. This just in from the CDN police scanner report:

10:39AM - 1000 E. Denny Way - Disturbance - The county is trying to evict a man from his apartment, but he's refusing to come out.
Update: 11:31 - Police are now responding to this after it escalated to a possible suicide situation. The man says he's armed with a shotgun.
Update x2: 11:36 - Traffic will be blocked on Denny
Update x3: 11:39 - Bike officers are also clearing Cal Anderson Park - evidently it could be in the firing zone. The suspect here is a white male, 39, 5'10", 150.

Even more sad with stories like this -- Illinois sheriff scolds banks for evictiction of 'innocent renters' -- looming in background. Don't know the circumstances here but hope things cool down.

CHS UPDATE: Stand-off ended and suspect in custody. I went over to check things out. SWAT team went in just as I arrived but cops had a pretty wide perimeter (good idea!) set up so couldn't get too close. Here's a pic of the...

I'm going to start featuring a summary of Capitol Hill items from the Central District News team's daily police scanner reports. They'll be a day late (and a dollar short) but you can keep track of what CDN is following as it happens by going to their site. We have a link to the CDN report at the top of every page -- just look for the cheekily-labeled Bad News Map link. Here on CHS, you'll get a next-day summary of Hill-located criminal activity and reports.

The problem with crime log reporting is it makes the world look like a war zone and it definitely features humans at their worst. After all, you don't hear a lot of nice things like "Man scratched puppy behind the ears" on the scanner. We have a jokey little solution to that with our CHS Good News Map but it doesn't really counterbalance the feeling that you need to be armed and locked inside to survive. Hopefully the next-day summary format will give us all time to digest what is happening and not freak out about it too badly. Of course, when big things come...

You know that gnawing sensation that there is something missing in your life? You need to create more art. Here's your chance. Artist Kuros Zahedi needs your help with one of his Urban Alchemy projects this Friday afternoon -- the work will be added to the Sound Transit-sponsored installations along Broadway.

Litter will be picked up from the streets of Seattle and then transformed into a piece of art. We are looking for people to join the clean up effort THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10th, from 4 - 6 PM (GOOD WEATHER PREDICTED!) The collected trash will then get sorted and utilized to create an artwork which will be displayed on Broadway, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood as part of their STart program.

Hey, you billionaires in the Fancy Pants part of the Hill -- Kuros especially wants you!

Part of the conceptual background for this art project is to have people from diverse walks of life working together to do something good. My aim is to be able to collect trash together and side-by-side with poor folks, senators and...

Good news on the Slog today -- a Hill superstar is staying in the 'hood and hooking up with Capitol Hill Housing. Even though they've expanded their focus off-Hill, you should care about Michael Seiwerath's move to CHHIP as the organization is deeply involved with community-focused development in our area. A CHHIP rep talked about the next big Capitol Hill project for the org at last month's Capitol Hill Community Council meeting. From the meeting minutes:

There is an ongoing initiative on 12th Ave from John St to Yesler Way, focusing on pedestrian use. Working with Seattle U and juvenile detention facilities to study area. Urging E. Precinct to allow parking lot at 12th and Pine to be developed into affordable housing.

The 12th and Pine lot component could be definitive for what comes next for the area around Velocity's new home in the old CHAC and Crave space. 12th Ave connects Pike/Pine to the busy area around Seattle University and is filling in with culture and development. Currently, the lot across the street...

This post is already too late. Back in the old days, I worked as part of the editorial team that ran the MSN.com homepage. I learned a lot about what and when people want to read about all sorts of stuff -- including holidays like Halloween. Turns out, people start heavy planning for their Halloween costumes in August. So, sorry if this ruins your plans...

But everybody on Capitol Hill is planning to be Sarah Palin.

You either need to find a new costume or decide that it will be warped and funny to have an army of Palins wandering from party to party on the Hill. We're probably going to join the herd as a Sarah and Todd pair (yeah, we do the couples thing for Halloween -- Kurt and Courtney, Jack and Meg, etc.). Here's your chance to coordinate with the rest of the Hill. What are you going as? Looking for ideas? How about our 2006 or 2007 edition CHS Halloween masks (inspired by C-3PO cereal, no less)?

Many questions in today's pile of Capitol Hill linkage.

• Pho on 15th? Where do we sign up? In meantime, there's Broadway.
• Don't like some of the dark streets around here? Here's how to get those streetlights fixed.
• Care about the city's noise ordinances? If you live anywhere near the Capitol Hill light rail construction, you will. There's a hearing to discuss proposed changes in the ordinances downtown today.
• Yes, Zaw delivers. Get it?
• Hungry? Blogger visits Broadway's Table 219, posts picture of most wonderful looking dessert ever.
• Can't decide? The upstanding young citizens at Central District News are conducting a kind of ongoing town forum to discuss issues from the upcoming election. First up, a discussion of the Seattle Parks levy.

My Hillcats 2008 t-shirts are scheduled to be delivered today! But -- dum da dum dum -- the package was shipped UPS which means there is about a 2% chance of me actually receiving it at my residence.  See, my experience with UPS is that they pretend apartment buildings don't even exist.  I have been home, with my name clearly labeled on the building's (functioning!) buzzer, and still received the infuriating little yellow post-in on the front door.  "Sorry, we missed you!"  No, you're not!  You didn't even try, freakin' UPS! 

We'll see what happens today.

And everyone's invited. We got all bitchy about Zaw Capitol Hill's first opening party being all promotion and no (cheesey) substance. Looks like they're up for doing it again. We just received this MEDIA ALERT:

The public is invited to celebrate the grand opening of zaw’s flagship store in the Capitol Hill neighborhood at 1424 E. Pine St. on Tuesday October 14th from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The event will feature a sampling of zaw's menu and numerous opportunities to win door prizes. Also, kids under the age of 10 will receive a free slice of Naked ‘zaw (cheese pizza) and a Jones Soda.

Thanks Zaw. We take it all back. Really.

This is one of my favorite places on the Hill.  According to the email newsletter I just received:

Come and celebrate with us on Friday October 31 and Saturday November 1st. Both of those nights, we will have Happy Hour ALL night long. That means $8 off each bottle and $2 off each glass pour. We can't think a better or simpler way to say "thanks" to all of you who have been guests at Poco the last two years.

I don't know about you, but I'll likely be there! Poco finds some fantastic wines and this neighborhood treasure should be supported.  Website here, located at 14th and Pine, between Online Coffee and Zaw.

I'll be the first to admit it -- this site zooms by a lot of stuff and only rarely follows up. So, in the spirit of tying up loose ends, here's a post in which we can take a moment to pause, look back and clean up the mess.

• We'll still take your home-baked presidential campaign banner ads to post here on the site.
• Ultimate Frisbee in general Capitol Hill vicinity: "pretty solid"
• Neighbors who post, we've changed the categories for posts. Don't really need the sub-neighborhood name categories thanks to our now robust database of neighborhood info available to the post location map system. Please make a note:
  About CHS -- stuff about capitolhillseattle.com
  Community -- stuff about groups, organizations, meetings and ultimate frisbee
  Crime -- stuff about crime
  Food & Drink -- restaurants, etc.
  News, etc. -- Everything else. Most stuff goes here.
• Don't forget you can also post from your mobile device via e-mail. Directions here.
• While you enjoy listening to the KEXP DJs cringe as they are forced to count down the listeners'...

UPDATE: As linder notes below, this is biz as usual for the project. I'm downgrading this story from the homepage as, well, there appears to be no story here. The answer to the question: it's already going to be townhomes. Cool townhomes. In the old church structure. Sorry for the mistake.

-----------------------------------

Looks like there is a change in plans for the First Church of Christ, Scientist project near 16th and Howell. We first wrote about the project way back in August, 2006 when there was a series of community meetings to discuss development. Today, we note this land use permit to subdivide the church's lot into spaces for 12 townhomes: Construct substnatial (sic) alterations to adapt church and change use to multifamily residence, consisting of 12 townhomes and one level of below grade parking, per plans

The condo project had been notable for its plan to preserve the structure and character of the 1906 building in an area that will abut the planned 16th and Howell park. We're still poking around...

Spotted on 15th, John Curley apparently doing smear story on Red Balloon. He asked me what big stories were in neighborhood right now hoping, I'm sure, to rip us off. Cutthroat out there. Every vapid media outlet for itself.





Sent from my iPhone