The Capitol Hill Community Council offered a full plate of park, highway, and garbage discussions at Thursday night’s meeting. Speakers from WSDOT, Seattle Parks & Rec, and waste contractor CleanScapes were present to talk about the 520 transformation, Cap Hill park land acquisitions, and a new waste reduction competition.
Park land acquisition
Seattle Parks’ $24 million park acquisitions fund brought the idea of a new park to the meeting; and idea that is always welcomed in the Capitol Hill area . Adding to the new spaces Summit & John and 16th & Howell, Capitol Hill is near the top of a list of 20 neighborhoods qualifying for funds to acquire new park and green space property. A 5 step acquisition process begins with selecting a site, which was the main reason why Donald Harris from Seattle Parks was at yesterday’s meeting. Harris explained some of the criteria: Approximately 10k Sq. Ft., flat terrain, under utilized, good sun orientation, properties with no or minimal relocation costs, frontage on key pedestrian routes, and of course willing sellers. Harris also identified the area west of 15th and south of Aloha as a region in need of a park. From the audience, suggestions included:
- The People’s Parking lot on Summit & Pine
- Federal & Republican
- A boulevard space similar to the future Bell St. in Belltown
- Expanding existing spaces beyond aesthetics to functional space.
Harris estimated $1.3 million was available for the Capitol Hill acquisition, with possible additional funding from the County as well.
CHS previously covered the hunt for a new Capitol Hill park space here.
Future of 520
The 520 & HOV lane reconstruction project was a topic of much conversation despite being spread across a large portion of Seattle and the surrounding area. The current system, which includes the “east corridor”, the floating bridge, the portage bay section, and the “west approach”, is decades old and not suited to hold the volume of cars it currently serves. The current plan changes the current corridor between I-5 and Medina from a 4-lane to a 6-lane, including 3-person HOV lanes going both ways, widened shoulders, and a north side pedestrian/bike trail. However, WSDOT currently has 3 possible design options for the reconstruction that mainly differ in how the Montlake interchange is treated, as well as new options for the Montlake bridge and other street bridges. For the Hill, all options agree on improvement for the I-5 interchange area to the north, creating “lids” over 520 with street bridges surrounded by green space.
Some citizens at the meeting were concerned about cost, time, and maintaining a limited number of cars in the Arboretum. Dawn Lindsey of WSDOT did admit to a funding gap in the project, but confirmed that the east corridor portion would be going ahead as it is properly funded. Lindsey added that the WSDOT’s legislative work group for the project is still working to find additional funding sources such as federal grants, but did not give a definitive answer on the final cost of the project.
Garbage competition
The new waste contractor CleanScapes was also at the meeting, fielding questions and announcing a friendly neighborhood competition for waste reduction. CleanScapes is giving away $50k to the neighborhood with the largest precent decrease in total tons from fall 2009 to spring 2010. Unfortunately, the neighborhoods are designated by pick up date, so the Hill is clumped with Montlake, Westlake, and a few stragglers in the Central Area. The money awarded will be to support a “community improvement project” decided by the winning “neighborhood.
This large space is three or four blocks directly south of Cal Anderson and even less from the corner of Pine and Brwy. where the college manages a very large park — very open to the public and many hang out uses, trees and public art.
I think this idea is a wild card, limits based on cost of acquisition and site development, and already very proximate to other excellent and large parks/open space.
I found it very interesting that the Seattle Parks representative acknowledged that none of their selection criteria are hard and fast, and that he mentioned an enhanced street-scape project as a possible alternative. I would be happier with an innovative street-scaping project than another small park (given we have two of those currently in the works).
“Harris estimated $1.3 million was available for the Capitol Hill acquisition, with possible additional funding from the County as well.” Though this is a nice idea, why at this time are we spending this money and especially expecting the county to kick in funds when the county is closing so many parks due to budget cuts? Unless these monies were specifically earmarked for land acquistions, perhaps it would be money better spent to improve existing City parks
and leave the County’ monies to serve a better purpose outside of the
City?
Thanks for the invitation to present the “Neighborhood Reduction Rewards” competition last night. The competition was made possible through the City of Seattle’s leadership in providing contractor incentives to reduce the tons of garbage, recycling and food/yard waste hauled every day. We look forward to working with Capitol Hill and other neighborhoods competing to reduce waste in their communities and appreciate the City’s support and active participation in addressing the challenge of waste.
I like lids. How do we get more of them?
“People’s Parking Lot” site is ideal. and so needed in this main East/West
corridor street. Green Space is critical to the health of people in dense
urban neighborhoods. You know what will happen if this space falls into
the hands of a commercial developer: huge ugly condo with a bar/restaurant – that adds to the pollution, noise, and traffic in a neighborhood that desperately needs a break.
Please read this article: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aaVDXmgs
Yes their was $24 million designated to parks acquisition in the Parks Levy approved by Seattle voters in November 2008. About $100 million was designated for park improvements, developments, etc and then there is another $20 million in an opportunity fund for projects that communities propose in the coming year. I’m not sure about the county financing.
When will this park obsession ever fucking end?
We don’t need more GD parks, we need some fucking parking. What’s with these park fetishist lunatics?
If you want more parking you might start looking at some exurbs my friend. The price of land on Capitol Hill is way too valuable for the ridiculous waste of space that is a parking lot. Oh, and don’t count on free and/or cheap street parking to last too long either. With the city in a financial hole I doubt parking subsidies will last many more years. But you should be ok with that right? You seem to be a pretty free-market kind of guy.
“The price of land on Capitol Hill is way too valuable for the ridiculous waste of space that is a parking lot.”
If that were true there’d be condos on Tashkent Park by now. Parking produces revenue, parks produce ugly, pale white, middle-aged fatsos with their shirts off in April.
“Oh, and don’t count on free and/or cheap street parking to last too long either. With the city in a financial hole I doubt parking subsidies will last many more years. But you should be ok with that right? You seem to be a pretty free-market kind of guy.”
I fail to understand why a free-market kind of guy like myself would be very happy to see the city enact eminent domain to bulldoze private parking lots then – once the competition has been knifed and dumped in a ditch – install metered curbside parking. That’s not free market, that’s 1/2-Josef Stalin, 1/2 Al Capone.
Hooray, it’s my buddy Zan-O! I just was hopin’ and wishin’ that our single-issue freakout commenter would appear in this thread.
I aim to please, Veronica.