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.
