County councilmember Larry Phillips (Photo: Jeff Romeo special to CHS)

With an agreement in place between the city and Sound Transit to move forward with the project and a change about to take place in the mayor's office, the political maneuvering and public process to define the route for the new streetcar line that will run from Union Station through First Hill to Capitol Hill is taking shape.

Central District News reports that King County councilmember Larry Phillips, whose district includes Capitol Hill & First Hill, is one of the first politicos to take a stance on the route.

According to CDN, Phillips sent a letter to mayor Greg Nickels and city councilmembers back in October advocating for the 12th Ave option -- specifically for a loop route that would run on 12th Avenue in one direction and Broadway in the other -- to be included in the city's study of viable routes:

The proposed 12th Avenue and Broadway loop is a promising concept for serving a greater number of residents, creating a north-south public transit option on currently unserved 12th Avenue, and catalyzing economic development on vacant and underutilized properties in the area. Further, as you know, King County government owns and operates the Youth Services Center - King County's Juvenile Court and Detention facility - a significant regional facility located along the 12th Avenue corridor. Currently the site is highly automobile-oriented, featuring a large parking lot which the community is interested in seeing re-devleoped into a denser, more pedestrian and transit oriented facility.

The recommendation should have impact. Phillips is also a member of the Sound Transit board of directors and chair of the Central Link Oversight Committee. While the city will be in charge of planning and building the line, Sound Transit is paying the construction bill.

First Hill advocates have already voiced their opposition to a 12th Ave loop alignment saying it would decrease the utility of the line for First Hill residents and workers. Some in First Hill say a Boren alignment would best serve their community. Here's a look at some other possible alignments for the new line.

A final decision on the streetcar route will be made by the city council in early 2010 with a goal for the line to be operational by 2013.

First we had the Neighborhood Plan Status Update Meetings: most neighborhoods got one, Capitol Hill was so special it got to have two.  Now it's time for Neighborhood Plan Status Checks, which will be summaries of what the community told the Planning Commission and the Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee to change in our Neighborhood Plans during the aforementioned Update meetings. In short, it's time to find out if the city was paying any attention to what we were saying.

The Capitol Hill/ Central District/ Eastlake/ First Hill/ Pike-Pine/Belltown/ Queen Anne-Uptown Neighborhood Plan Status Check will be on November 10th from 6-8pm at Seattle Central Community College, Rm. BE 1110/1111. If you'd like to attend a Status Check meeting for another neighborhood, see below.

During June and July, many neighbors joined in meetings and many other hundreds participated in on line questionnaires to review the Draft Neighborhood Status Reports and comment on changes— good, bad, and unexpected —that have occurred since...

Download PDF

While we're talking about ways to fix Capitol Hill, there's a process going on to add a few ways to fix the city. Wednesday night, Seattle's Department of Planning will host a meeting to hear public feedback on proposed amendments to the city's Comprehensive Plan.

The city calls the Comprehensive Plan a "20-year policy plan designed to articulate a vision of how Seattle will grow in ways that sustain its citizens' values." It's a framework document designed to give the public process something to work off of when making decisions. It also includes an awesome "Future Land Use Map" or FLUM. Some amendments address citywide issues while others pertain to specific neighborhoods like this example proposing adjustments to the zoning in the Roosevelt area of the city.

Here are some of the amendments to be discussed Wednesday night starting at 5:30 PM at City Hall. Some are kind of cool, some are important but boring zoning positioning and some are plain wacky. A representative selection:

• Light Pollution: Establish a working group to recommend strategies to reduce light pollution
  It is the policy of the City of Seattle to reduce light pollution (glare, light trespass, sky glow, clutter) through public information programs, by reducing excessive nighttime lighting at city facilities and by city departments, and by adopting design guidelines and voluntary programs. For this purpose, the City will establish a citizens’ working group, comprised of citizens reflecting the spectrum of differing opinions, to make recommendations, in consultation with the City Light Department, to city officials on methods of moving toward furthering this policy; and, the City will consider its recommendations in its 2010 review of comprehensive plan amendments.

• South Downtown FLUM Amendment: Amend the FLUM (Future Land Use Map) to redesignate areas east of Interstate 5 between S Main St and S Dearborn St; and west of I-5 between S Dearborn and the urban center’s southern boundary from Commercial/Mixed Use to Downtown Mixed Residential and Downtown Mixed Commercial.

• Precautionary Principle for Environmental Awareness: Adopt a policy to incorporate the precautionary principle to assess current and potential alternatives to city action.
  Every citizen of Seattle has an equal right to a healthy and safe environment. This requires that our air, water, earth and food be of a sufficiently high standard that individuals and communities can live healthy, fulfilling, and dignified lives. The duty to enhance, protect and preserve Seattle’s environment rests on the shoulders of government, residents, citizen groups and businesses alike.

• Open and Participatory Government: Create a new element of the Comprehensive Plan entitled "Open and Participatory Government."

• Amend Use of Building 9 at Sandpoint: Amend Sand Point amendments to allow housing and limited commercial use in Building 9 at the former Sand Point Naval Station.

• Cultural Overlay District Advisory Committee: Add new goals to encourage cultural districts, and to allow regulations and incentives to be adopted for them.
• You can review all 21 amendments here.

That Cultural Overlay amendment builds on the establishment of a cultural district on Capitol Hill and could set the stage for creating incentives for developers and businesses that support arts and culture on the Hill and in areas across the city. More about the status of CODAC in this recent CHS article: Arts meeting at Century Ballroom: City needs a 'cultural manager'

Next in the process for the proposed amendments is a recommendation from the City Council's Planning, Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee on which amendments should move forward, followed by a vote of the full Council in August. Those policy amendments then go to the mayor who has until November to whittle the roster down to a final list which is then passed back to Council for a spring vote. We didn't say fixing the city was a fast process.

When I hustled down to the South Lake Union Armory Monday evening, I wasn't expecting much from the Neighborhood Plan Status Update Open House. After ten years of the City largely ignoring the neighborhood plans and with a mayor that sides with developers over residents ten times out of ten, it's hard to have high hopes about the Neighborhood Plan Update process.

See 9 strategies to drive what comes next on Capitol Hill for details on the status reports and to download PDFs

Things didn't start out terribly well. The PowerPoint presentation the DPD put together as an introduction felt condescending ("...so we're asking you, the experts") in its tone and content. I suppose the City couldn't get out of doing an extensive re-introduction of the history and process of the Neighborhood Plans. But they could have done it in such a manner that acknowledged that all the people in the room that night had the experience of savvy neighborhood activists. If someone knew enough about the plans to show up to that meeting, they really are experts.

Once we split up into neighborhood groups (Cap Hill, Pike/Pine - why separate?, First Hill, Eastlake - why are they grouped with us? where's the Central District?, and Queen Anne), the tone and the content of the meeting improved significantly. At the Cap Hill table there was representation from the Capitol Hill Community Council, Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce, Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan Stewardship Council, and the Polish Home Association, along with a few residents who were just interested in the process. The Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee (NPAC) members assigned to our table did a fine job of guiding discussing and eliciting opinions, and I think they got a pretty good picture of what has changed in the neighborhood since the plans were made and what needs to be accomplished in the Status Report Updates. Topics of discussion:  

+ Key Strategies of the old Neighborhood Plan 
   - Completed:
      ~ lidding of Lincoln Reservoir (aka the creation of Cal Anderson Park)
      ~ creation of a light rail station on Broadway (in process) 
      ~ creation of a cultural/business hub at North Broadway (sort of happened by itself)
   - Not Completed:
      ~ efforts to further define Cap Hill's 3 commercial corridors (Olive Way, 15th, Broadway, hey what about 12th?)
      ~ put something in place that would help preserve neighborhood character (PPUNC is trying at Pike/Pine)
      ~ increase neighborhood housing diversity and affordability (CHHIP is doing what it can, it needs more help) 
      ~ leverage investments in Seattle Central Community College (???)
      ~ assure adequate parking for visitors on Broadway

+ The City is too focused on automobiles - the Neighborhood Plan should pay more attention to pedestrian and bike traffic as well as public transit. Parking can't be ignored, but the fact that you can only fit so many cars on the Hill has to be acknowledged.  

+ The best thing the City can do is ensure that the goals of the present Neighborhood Plan are actualized. Very few of the concerns and hopes of the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan were ever addressed by the city.  

+ East Capitol Hill (Broadway to 23rd) has very different needs than West Capitol Hill (Broadway to I5), and strategies that work well for one side of the Hill may be useless to the other.  

+ Capitol Hill residents love their green space, and according to the City's own documents, they need more of it.

So what happens next? There are more meetings to come (time and place TBA) and a lot of organizing to do if our neighborhood voice is to be heard. The Chamber of Commerce and the Capitol Hill Stewardship Council are committed to being involved in the Update process. From what I hear of the Cap Hill Community Council candidates, CHCC will be on that bandwagon as well once their elections are over. Stay tuned to CHS for more updates on the Updates.

Download PDF

The advisory committee and the Seattle Planning Commission (those evil plan hatchers) are holding a 'workshop' Monday night to start a process of outreach and feedback to help shape updates of Capitol Hill's neighborhood plans around nine strategies:

1. Create a culture and business 'hub' on the north end of Broadway
2. Leverage student housing to create a more vibrant environment on Broadway near Seattle Central
3. Establish three main business corridors: Broadway, Olive Way and 15th Ave
4. Increase housing options while maintaining affordability and character
5. Assure affordable parking on Broadway
6. Preserve affordable and market-rate housing in Pike/Pine
7. Create Pike/Pine design guidelines to preserve character
8. Develop west area of Pike/Pine to strengthen connection to downtown
9. Encourage development of mixed-used buildings and pedestrian friendly environments in Pike/Pine east of Broadway

More details on these strategies below.

Capitol Hill's neighborhood friends in Monday's status check meeting are Queen Anne, Belltown, Eastlake, and First Hill. Pike/Pine also gets its own plan, by the way.

Neighborhood Status Report Updates, Monday June 22nd
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/Neighborhood_Planning/StatusReports/
For Queen Anne, Belltown, Eastlake, Capitol Hill, First Hill, Pike/Pine
6-8 p.m.
South Lake Union Armory 860 Terry Ave N.

Please join members of the Seattle Planning Commission and the Neighborhood Planning Advisory Committee in the first of a series of two important community meetings.

These two citizen groups want to hear your thoughts. Come and tell us how your neighborhood has changed since your neighborhood plan was adopted. Your comments and input at this meeting will help the City of Seattle complete a status report that will look at how well your neighborhood plan is achieving its goals and strategies.

This first series of meetings will provide an opportunity to learn about your neighborhood plan, the projects that have been implemented, and growth and changes that have occurred since the plan was written in the late 90's. We will explore issues such as growth, transportation, housing, economic development, basic utilities, neighborhood character, open space and parks, public services, public safety, and other issues.

The second meeting series, tentatively scheduled for October, will be an opportunity to review the status report.

You can review Capitol Hill's existing neighborhood plan -- a decade old now -- to see what these efforts are all about. The old plan's key elements:

• Fund & Construct Cal Anderson Park
• Complete a Broadway Economic Redevelopment & Rezone Analysis
• Upgrade Streetscapes to Create Safe, Attractive Pedestrian Connections
• Pedestrian Lighting and 15th Ave Improvements
• Improve & Manage Parking
• Provide Support & Options for Homeless and Street Youth

Many of the things you experience on today's Capitol Hill developed within this framework. And, of course, a lot was developed outside of the framework, also.

For a look at what comes next, here are the draft status reports for Capitol Hill and Pike/Pine:

• Capitol Hill neighborhood plan status report
• Pike/Pine neighborhood plan status report

From the Capitol Hill report, here is what are currently considered the draft 'Vision' and 'Key Strategies' for the neighborhood's future development:

Capitol Hill Key Strategies

A. North Anchor District Plan – builds on the historic context and cultural assets of the north end of Broadway to create a culturalbusiness hub.

B. South Anchor District Plan – leverages the investments in Seattle Central Community College, the lidding of Lincoln Reservoir, and the Link station to create more vibrant commercial and residential development in the Broadway area from E John St. to Pine Street.

C. Commercial Corridor Plans – defines actions to support each of Capitol Hill’s three Commercial Corridors —Broadway, 15th Avenue E and E Olive Way.

D. Residential District Plans – works to increase housing diversity and affordability, and maintain the neighborhood’s character.

E. Parking Management Plan – seeks to assure adequate, competitively priced parking for shoppers and visitors in order to keep the special small businesses that make the Broadway and the North Anchor District unique.

If you are wondering what kinds of input a citizen might provide at Monday night's meeting, voicing your opinion on the need -- or lack of need -- for an emphasis on parking is the kind of stuff it's time to start talking about.

Here are Pike/Pine's Key Strategies:

Pike/Pine Key Strategies

A. Preserve and Encourage Affordable and Market-Rate Housing–in order to strengthen the neighborhood’s existing mixed-use character and identity.

B. Sustain the Character of the Pike/Pine Neighborhood–by development of Design Guidelines to preserve ‘character’ buildings and implementation of urban design improvements that enhance the pedestrian environment.

C. Strengthen the West End Entry–as entry points into a diverse neighborhood with unique opportunities for shopping, recreation and entertainment by enhancing connections between Pike/Pine and Downtown.

D. Strengthen the Neighborhood Core East of Broadway–by consolidating the area bounded by Broadway, 12th Avenue East, East Pine Street and Madison as a cohesive core of mixed-use buildings and pedestrian friendly streets.

D. sounds good to CHS. Las Ramblas of Capitol Hill, anyone?

Both status reports also have some nice graphic presentations of 2000 census data and more current estimates for demographics, housing and economic trends on the Hill and maps to outline the exact geographic reaches for each plan.

Capitol Hill stats. Example of some of the datasets available in the reports.

Meanwhile, the planners are also making available rosters of work items that have been implemented -- or need to be implemented -- in each plan area. We've reposted them as Google Spreadsheets to make them easier for everybody to examine.

• Capitol Hill implementation matrix
• Pike/Pine implementation matrix

Our favorite item in the matrices is this, the highest priority in the Capitol Hill list:

People Center:  Develop a permanent facility to serve as a community gathering place for residents and human development organizations to meet, connect, and support the neighborliness of the community. Secure convenient, transit-accessible physical space (5,000-20,000 sq. ft) in the North Anchor and/or South Anchor Districts. Locate meeting space and offices for the Human Development Council and its staff at the People Center. Serve diverse needs and interest groups including gays, lesbians, handicapped people, seniors, widows, and widowers. Include:

-Referral Center:  Work with the Neighborhood Service Center, the existing neighborhood referral agencies and the Crisis Line to improve information and referral services in the neighborhood. Create and maintain an inventory of human development services and activities. Provide information about transportation, health and social services, entertainment and community and interest group activities. Maintain a listing of local meeting rooms available for no or low cost for use by groups providing community services and activities.

-Volunteer Coordination:  Develop and coordinate a network of volunteers to serve as street ambassadors, listening posts, or referral resources to facilitate outreach and engagement for those in need.

-Facilities:  Provide support for community connectedness activities with facilities for meetings, informal socializing, programmed activities, support groups, drop-in assistance and Internet access.

-Location:  Consider locating the People Center at such locations as the Pilgrim Church or at the Oddfellows Hall. Consider developing the People Center as part of a broader community center or co-locating with the Neighborhood Service Center.

Awesome! Somebody heard the CHS call and responded to our well-reasoned argument for the development of a community space in the heart of Capitol Hill! The process really works! Oops. One problem. That priority item was written in 1999. Oh well. Something else to talk about Monday night.

This is what a City Council meeting in the Century Ballroom looks like

Tuesday's night's meeting to discuss recommendations to preserve and create space for artists drew a crowd of about 100 to an unusual Capitol Hill setting for a City Council committee meeting. The Century Ballroom served as host for the event which was as much a social gathering as it was formal Council business. The purpose of the night was to publicly present the six recommendations we wrote about earlier for creating and maintaining affordable space for artists in Seattle.

Councilmember Jean Godden attended the Cultural Overlay District Advisory Committee session and said that even though there aren't funds available to put the recommendations into action, the plan is a good start. "We have to make sure we have the money," Godden said. "But there is resolution to go ahead and at least get started. The first thing to do is find a point person to make these things happen."

The "point person" Godden referred to relates to CODAC's second recommendation:...

Despite one of the nicest pre-summer evenings of the year last night’s meeting of the design review board actually drew 15 people beyond those who had to be there. The meeting, to discuss the proposed development for 1222 East Madison Street, was potentially the last chance to consider the development before it received the board’s recommendation and takes the next step toward permitting. CHS discussed the 1222 project previously here.

The project is slated for the lot where the Precision Tune now sits. It’s located immediately east of the Trace Lofts and just south of the Elysian Brewery. On the north side, it abuts a parking lot that could itself be developed in the future. As Josh noted the other day, the plan calls for a six-story, mixed-use structure with street-level retail and underground parking. The breakdown goes like this: 104 units, 51 parking spaces and 6,000 square-feet of commercial space. The units are mostly studio apartments, with a few larger units having “open bedrooms,” meaning a room that can be separated with a sliding door.

Baylis architect Kevin Cleary described an updated building that incorporated suggestions from last year’s design review board meeting. He pointed to the updated building’s smaller retail spaces, a relocation of the automobile entrance along 13th Avenue, a recessed entry at the corner of 13th and Madison and adding rhythm and articulation to the building as elements reflected in the new design.

In the end, a divided board did not grant its recommendation despite saying much in praise of the project. But concerns over the 13th/Madison corner compelled the board to request the developers address that aspect of the design and present an update at a future public hearing. Specifically, the board didn’t like the concave entry and asked the developer to look at more asymmetrical and different shapes.

Other issues the developers need to address include the auto entrance on 13th Avenue as well as how that entrance interacts with services such as garbage pick-up. And the board requested the developers reexamine the materials used and shape of the concrete awning above the main entrance (see to architect’s graphic and note the awning above “1222”).

Developer Kevin Wallace of Wallace Properties said he was hoping to receive the board’s recommendation last night. While not pleased with the decision, he asked that the board move as quickly as possible to schedule the additional hearing. The board made no specific promises but said it would expedite the process; the next hearing could take place in roughly two weeks. Meeting notices will be sent out once a date is established.

A few thoughts in closing. Wallace said that the project’s goal is to create “workforce” housing. When asked just what that meant, he said it meant housing that would be affordable to those making the county’s median income or less. For a single earner, the median income in King County is just less than $54,000 a year. While reminding that the building has yet to be built, Wallace said that rents in the neighborhood of $1,200/month were likely.

Also, the hearing lacked anything approaching drama, which is one way of saying that there were no diatribes of disgust at the proposal, no forceful opposition, no irate or hostile tirades. The few comments offered were largely positive. I’ve also been to design hearings where the board recommended projects despite voicing greater objections and more lengthy concerns.

One last thing that comes to mind is that this is a project where the developer seems intent on actually going forward as quickly as possible. This is notable given the current state of the economy and how that effects, say, the stalled project at 500 block of East Pine Street. Wallace expressed concern on several occasions about the difficulties obtaining financing and his eagerness to try to break ground soon. When I asked what soon meant, he said, “We hope to be in the ground in November. But financing is tricky these days.”

Sorry I'm a little late on this one, I was exploring the urban wonder that is Portland and I've got to say, they have done some pretty fabulous stuff (see Pearl District and MAX). Anyway, here in our little neck of the woods, Wallace Properties has a new building planned for 1222 E. Madison St, just East of Trace Lofts.

View Larger Map

The design is for a 6-story, 104-unit complex with about 6,000sq ft of retail and 51 parking spaces within the structure. The architects are Bellevue-based Baylis Architects. I can't say it's a standout project but it seems nice. Earlier I was worried that keeping the parking within the structure would inevitably make it ugly, but they massed the garage in the back of the building so it's hidden from the street. Also, the limited parking will hopefully keep these units affordable (they claim in the proposal that this will be workforce housing). Due to earlier feedback they also shrunk the retail spaces, allowing for between four and six different spots. Check out the full proposal...

Last night’s meeting of the Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhood’s Committee served as a reminder of the challenges of trying to preserve Pike-Pine.

The council is working on a plan to help preserve the neighborhood’s historic character in light of recent development projects that have torn down older, smaller buildings and replaced them with structures that are aesthetically and functionally at odds with the neighborhood’s look and feel. The proposal aims to provide various incentives to developers that would encourage them to preserve the neighborhood’s older and character-forming buildings rather than tear them down and put large, generic structures in their place.

An often-cited example of what doesn’t work: The 500 block of East Pine Street, where several character-defining businesses like Kincora’s, Man Ray and the Bus Stop were lost when their buildings were torn down to make way for a monolithic development that virtually everyone...

Speaking of the City Council, tonight at 5:30 PM, the Council is holding its special session on the Pike/Pine Conservation Overlay District. There will be opportunity for public comment and discussion of the legislation that is being prepared for vote by the Council sometime in early summer.

• You can review the Department of Planning and Development's documentation of the plan here
• Here is the legislation the Council will eventually be voting on
• Here is the page for live video coverage of all City Council sessions
• We handed the mic to critic Dennis Saxman earlier this week for his thoughts on the plan that you'll likely hear again at tonight's session
• You can also dig through all of CHS's coverage on the plan and process here

CHS will be covering the meeting so more coverage to come.

Last week we wrote about City Council Bill 116508's upcoming public hearing. The city's Department of Planning and Development is positioning the legislation as the first phase of a zoning overhaul designed to preserve the 'character' of the Pike/Pine neighborhood. A spokesperson for Tom Rasmussen, the council member driving much of the city's work around the plan, described this Wednesday's 5:30 PM meeting as one of the necessary last steps in the Council's process before bringing the new rules up for a vote.

So Wednesday's session will be one of the last opportunities citizens have to provide public testimony on the preservation plan. Expectations for any new issues to emerge are low -- the DPD has been meeting with groups in the neighborhood for more than a year. But we were interested to find out what one of the neighborhood's most active activists thinks about the city's plan and what he plans to say Wednesday night. Below is Dennis Saxman's response to the plan. You might know Saxman best for his involvement with the Pine parking lot situation. We don't endorse, support, embrace or extend his position but it is interesting to see what the neighborhood's fiercest advocate against development has to say about the Council's plan.

By Dennis Saxman

Out of a list of over 20 stakeholders proposed to be consulted, only a small percentage had a seat at the table or were consulted at all. The individuals who were most thoroughly canvassed for their opinion were developers with a financial stake in this legislation and condo owners - no renters, no artists, no low-income people, no disabled.

The number of the buildings listed in the ordinance is considerably smaller than the total number of character buildings in the area. A neighborhood with a unified style cannot be preserved if only some of the buildings that reflect that style are included. As an example, look at the buildings going up between 11th and 12th on Pike. If the erection of such buildings, which are incompatible with the existing buildings, continues, the Pike/Pine will lose its identity as a neighborhood. Also, the ordinance provides for the erection of buildings that do not reflect the historic vernacular. If you were to look at other cities - Snohomish is a good example in Washington State - you would see that much greater architectural compatibility is required than is required by this ordinance.

No one at all seems to consider that one factor that makes the Pike/Pine is the extent of the sky and other parts of the neighborhood and City we can see. That will change if all the buildings go to 65-75 feet. This ordinance simply reflects the preferences of a small group of area stakeholders who favor modern design and the attitude of an administration that is not as committed as many other cities around the country to true neighborhood conservation.

I hope the Council will delay a vote on this until they have had the time to more thoroughly investigate what other cities have done. The consultant on the project was originally supposed to do a survey of other cities' laws, but somehow that fell by the wayside. I have been working with a professor at UW whose classes are and will be studying the Pike/Pine, and I also think the Council would find the results of that study useful before proceeding with this important legislation.

Observations, anecdotes and takeaways from last night's Capitol Hill Housing annual meeting and forum -- The Future of 12th Ave:

• Who was there: Besides Cap Hill's usual suspects, there was a mix of developers, architects, city employees, plus a few business owners and residents. Around 150 packed into the Northwest Film Forum's main theater for the meeting. I also counted at least three media types, myself included. The Stranger and the Daily Journal of Commerce also sent reps.
• The panel:
  Michael Killoren, Director; Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs
  Liz Dunn, Pike/Pine Property Owner and Developer, Director; The National Trust for Historic Preservation Green Lab
  Elizabeth Linke, Property Owner; Northwest Film Forum and 1621 12th Ave. Buildings
  Kate Stineback, Housing & Community Developer; 12th Avenue Initiative, Capitol Hill Housing
  Michael Kerns, Associate Vice President for Facilities; Seattle University
  Tenaya Wright, President; Squire Park Community Council
• My quick, totally shallow assessment of each contribution: Killoren: Out of touch, Dunn: Wanted to say more, Linke: Wanted to say less, Stineback: Knew her stuff, Kerns: Poker player, Wright: Had more to say but knows panels aren't the best communication format for deeper discussion.
• First question to the panel came from a CHS discussion of what we'd like to know about the future of 12th (made me very proud!): Is there another area in the city like 12th we can look at for comparison and ideas of what to and not to do? The panelists and the crowd started buzzing but nobody had an immediate answer. "Telling," said moderator C.R. Douglas. The panel finally offered up Columbia City citing the area's historical preservation work.
• Recurring question not really answered: How do you achieve development that preserves local businesses and reflects the neighborhood?
• Anti-Ballard line of the night: Panelist Elizabeth Linke, Ballard resident and owner of 12th Ave's CHAC building that will soon house Velocity dance studio, described new Ballard developments as slums and says what has happened there drives her to preserve Hill arts.
• Issue for the future: How to improve pedestrian experience at 12th and Madison.
• The East Precinct parking lot development that Capitol Hill Housing is pushing forward sounds like it will hinge on the cost of building parking spaces. A 'structured parking stall' -- a parking space within a structure like an underground garage -- costs around $35,000, Kate Stineback said. Here's a doc I smuggled out (in my sneakers arpparently -- sorry for the wrinkles!):
  
  

  View Large
• More Linke: When asked how landowners can help preserve arts on the Hill as she has, Linke said, "I don't have an answer. It's very difficult to make ends meet when you are trying to help organizations and make a profit."
• TDR count: Transfer of development rights programs come up pretty frequently in discussions around development these days. The panel contained itself to pretty much only one discussion of TDRs on the night. Nice work.

• What I mean by out of touch: City's director of Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs Michael Killoren said he thinks a transfer of development rights program will be part of the solutions the City Council puts in place when it votes on Pike/Pine zoning overlay legislation later this spring. City staff have already said it won't be.
• Liz Dunn said she won't rent to national chains. Her tenants must be local and independent. Better longterm value, she says.
• Stuff to follow up on: Dunn was asked about the former 1200 Bistro location and said she'd heard "somebody in the neighborhood" had wanted to buy it and restore it to its "1930s glory" and get the city to give the building landmark status.
• Storage is the key to your future: Seattle University's Michael Kerns said what happens to the location currently occupied by the storage business at 12th and Madison is the most important development issue in Seattle University's future. "We have to get that one right," he said, but would only offer a prediction of something happening on the SU land where the business is located "within the next 5 to 6 years." Kerns said the development will likely be a mixed-use project. "Let's just say that storage will not be the ultimate use for that site."

The next step in the process to overhaul the zoning rules for development in Capitol Hill's Pike/Pine neighborhood will be taken Tuesday afternoon with a City Council "brown bag" discussion featuring councilmembers Tom Rasmussen, Sally Clark and Tim Burgess and stakeholders from the neighborhood. You can read the details of the city's Pike/Pine Conservation Overlay District here. As we reported earlier this month, a group of community stakeholders has been unsatisfied with the plan and asked for the opportunity to discuss improvements. That discussion starts Tuesday.

You can watch the proceedings on the City Council's video page or swing downtown and attend the session in person. Don't forget to bring your "brown bag" lunch.

The "brown bag" agenda:

1. Chair’s Report
(5 minutes)
2. Introduction to the Pike/Pine Conservation Overlay District
Workplan
Presenters: Dennis Meier, Department of Planning & Development;
Rebecca Herzfeld, Council Central Staff
(5 minutes)
3. Discussion of ideas, opportunities, and...

The city's Department of Planning and Development says the city is ready to meet with stakeholders to revise the Pike/Pine update. Rebecca Hertzfeld, supervising analyst for City Council central staff, said there will be a special meeting of the land use committee within the next three weeks to discuss solutions. She said a panel of stakeholders will be invited to speak including property owners, developers, community members and small business owners.

"The goal is to hear from various stakeholders on the proposal and whether they think it could be better or would like changes," Hertzfeld said. "I expect questions about the balance of wanting to encourage preservation of older buildings and creating [an overlay] developers can work with."

Last week, CHS was first to report Betsy Hunter, director of real estate development for Capitol Hill Housing, and the Pike/Pine Urban Neighborhood Council took a stand against the city's plans for zoning changes in the neighborhood, calling for a moratorium on any demolition in Pike/Pine until a solution is reached. The group said new rules being considered didn't go far enough to "preserve the character" of the area while giving developers the environment they need to develop Pike/Pine in a responsible, high quality way.

Hunter also appeared in front of the City Council's Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods committee on Wednesday, March 25, to speak about the weaknesses in the current plan to update the Pike/Pine overlay. You can watch that session here.

Talking earlier this week with CHS, Hunter said she hoped her appearance in front of the committee would help bring city planners back to the table to help develop a new set of updates. "We worry that it really hasn't met the goal of preserving the neighborhood's character," Hunter said about the updated overlay plan as currently written. "So it makes sense to get people around the table and talking about how to make this better."

One thing that will not be solved in this process -- transfer of development rights, the seeming holy grail of effective preservation-friendly development. That weighty topic, Hertzfeld said, can't be tackled until a second phase of legislation. "One reason to do the current piece of legislation first is that it clarifies the zoning so you could use transfer of development rights in the future," Hertzfeld said.

But given that the current phase of reworking the overlay has taken over a year, the prospects for putting a complicated TDR solution in place any time soon aren't good.

Hertzfeld offered an optimistic 9-month estimate. "The current overlay is 10 years old and there have been many changes that need to be accounted for. In a way, this kind of clears the decks and makes everything ready to do a transfer of development rights program."

There is enough development on Capitol Hill and the period between design review and project completion can be so long that it is easy to lose track of what these gigantic cranes are up to.

You've probably noticed that the project across from Brix is starting to take shape now that construction has risen above the massive pit. Here's a reminder of what's coming in the massive lot -- 60+ feet of mixed-use retail, apartments and ground-level townhome units -- after another year of construction:

Mixed-use at 523 Broadway Ave E

You can check out more of the design details here (pdf).

I had a quick chat with Exxel Pacific project manager David Huber about status of the project. He says the construction should be complete by September 2010 with the larger north section likely to be ready earlier that summer. Amazing how long it still takes to complete projects of this scale. 2010 is far enough off that we'll have to do another update or three to remind what's coming.

For another write-up on the project, check out...

There was finally a city design review meeting -- here's our write-up on the project by JoshMahar -- that got positive feedback and I missed it. Lesley Bain, principal architect at Weinstein AU, was there last night, however. Her unilateral viewpoint: Mood was good and comments were generally positive. "I think people were genuinely excited about it," Bain told me in a phone chat this afternoon. She's got skin in the game, of course, so feel free to counter in the comments.

But it's hard to argue when the project plans call for this to be preserved...

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while this rises nearby:

The mews

So, apparently, the review session for the 6-story, 60-unit apartment building and retail space was mostly a praise-fest. One key feature which inspired more commentary on the Slog than it did in the meeting was the presence of an alley running between 12th and 11th Aves called a "mews."

Bain says the Slog commenters concerns about safety and crime were misinformed. Bain said the mews will be lined...

We recently shared the latest proposals for zoning changes and rules to help preserve the character of Pike/Pine. The city's team of planners and politicos behind the plans met with neighborhood stakeholders last week to discuss the latest changes as they prepare to take the legislation to a spring city council vote. Here are the changes they highlighted for stakeholders. Ya'all are stakholders, right? Here are the highlights for you, too.

1. Replace the limit on lot size with a limit on the size of the upper floors in a structure
   This element is shaking out as one of the two key components of the plan. In an effort to avoid the cobbling together of contiguous lots to build massive structures, the plan will attempt to limit the bulk of tall structures by requiring 40-foot breaks. The basic explanation works out this way -- if a developer plans a structure 35 feet high or under, they can build on any size lot they can pull together. Any structures with with portions above 35 feet are limited to maximum square footage...

She disappeared into the night before I could get a name but this woman drew applause at Wednesday night's design review meeting for the project that will raze 1650 Olive Way E, the current home of B&O Espresso.

"Don't mess with the B&O!" she yelled for her contribution to the public comment portion of the night's meeting. "Why not just leave it alone?"

The bad news for this woman and others who voiced their support for B&O during the night is it's not just the B&O making way -- the entire block including the apartment building behind it will all be demolished to make room for a 75-unit apartment complex, a restaurant/cafe space and about 70 underground parking stalls. Tonight's meeting was to determine the requirements for the design of the building that will replace it.

UPDATE 2: The design plan was sitting out there under our noses all along. Finally tracked it down on the DPD site. Here's the PDF and a few select images. Option 3, on the left is the design the developers are positioning as 'preferred.' Option 2, middle, was positioned as the back-up while Option 4, right, was, as I note elsewhere in the report, shown only to let us know how bad it *could* be.

UPDATE 1: Vlad's request in comments reminds me of something I meant to note -- NK hasn't made the designs available online so I'll need to get something from them tomorrow. Design review post without design is lacking, no?

Slog's report from today on issues around the project has this image of the preferred option. There are two other similar designs under consideration -- one is much more modern, the other is a huge stucco monstrosity surely included to make you appreciate the other two.

This should be interesting. Dennis Saxman, the man who almost brought you this -- Another parking lot coming to Pine? -- has been chosen by the East Precinct Neighborhood Planning Advisory Committee to represent Capitol Hill and the rest of the East Precinct in the city's neighborhood plan update process. Got the news in a mail from Andrew "The mayor of Miller Park" Taylor announcing the selection. Don't know what the city was expecting from a seemingly rushed process and not really clear what the new planning effort will result in, but, if nothing else, we know Saxman won't be a pro-development push-over. You can read more about the city's new neighborhood plan effort in this coverage from Crosscut.