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May

28

Saturday Beacon Station Area Planning Meeting

Filed Under Uncategorized 

The Beacon Hill station area planning meeting is to be held this Saturday at El Centro de La Raza on North Beacon Hill,  9AM-2PM. http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/Neighborhood_Planning/Overview/ If you live in the neighborhood, I strongly encourage you to come and participate in making the community a better place to live, and helping our civilization last a few generations longer (honestly, I don’t know when our robot overlords will take over, but if we trash the planet before then, it might be the cockroaches instead, and nobody wants that).

As you may know, the Link light rail is scheduled to open in a few months, hearkening in a new era of transportation ease and efficiency in Seattle.  This is more exciting than the Allentown SLUT, which moves at the pace of a crippled donkey and goes almost nowhere at all.  Link will actually will go to the airport, downtown, and even to some neighborhoods.  With a fixed rail system like this, we expect some changes. Land values and uses change from low height and density, auto-dependent suburban models to a more vibrant, walkable, dynamic mix of uses.  I like to think of this as “a good thing, ” but only because don’t like having to drive everywhere, and I fear being ruled by cockroaches.

Going to these planning meetings is important because generally the people from the neighborhoods who show up are the ones who oppose change in all its forms, are really concered about having on-street parking for their SUV (or Prius), and are opposed to the idea of having more people move into their neighborhoods (even if they do want their children to live nearby).  Simultaneously, they want lots of cute little shops, cafes, fish markets, etc., and they want to “save the environment,” and want affordable housing. You might think that this is a horrible contradiction to hold these two sets of thoughts in ones mind at once, but such is the nature of the contempory American homeowner.  We need you, and people like you, to participate in the process, and help spread reasonable, logical ideas.

Like, for example: you can’t have cute little shops without people to shop in them.  More neighbors means better transit service.  Exclusionary zoning (i.e. SF5000) keeps housing from being affordable.  If you have great parks, plazas and streets, you don’t really need a huge house and yard. If we want to preserve the environment, prevent global climate destabilization, we can’t keep building car-dependent, low-density developments because well over half our carbon emissions come from automobile transportation.

Yes, these things seems logical and reasonable to you, but that’s why you need to be there on Saturday. This is a democracy and decisions are made by the irrational squeaky wheels and single-minded busybodies and narrow issue lobbyists who show up to participate.

I’ve walked around Beacon Hill, spoken with many residents, and property and business owners as well as with City Council members and planning staff, and I think the appropriate and most feasible plan for the Station Area is to expand the planning area to 1/2 mile along Beacon Ave north and south from the station.  Heights of 55-65 feet is reasonable from both an urban design and a development economic standpoint. However, there should be some design guidance to prevent a row of really ugly boxes from being built.  Neighborhood Commercial NC3-65 or NC2-65 is probably the right zoning designation to keep the funky commercial character along Beacon Ave.  I would also suggest that 1/4 east and west from the station, the height limit is raised to 65 feet as well, and multifamily housing is permitted so that more people can support the cute little shops along Beacon Ave and more people can benefit from the multi-billion dollar investment we have made in the rail system.

I’m sure this is not the only way to make our city even more fair, and create vital, energetic neighborhoods.  If you’ve got other thoughts, I’d like to hear them.  And so would all the rest of the neighbors and planning staff–even more reason to show up on Saturday.  Besides, they serve coffee and pastries in the morning and really tasty food for lunch (from these cute little restaurants that are totally struggling right now for lack of customers)

So please forward this to everyone you know who lives near the new light rail stations and supports progressive change, and I hope to see you there on Saturday.

If you can’t be there in person, please fill out the survey online.  These comments and suggestions will be used by the City to incorporate into their decision process.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=uxNMJI_2faljdKSs45K1UsfQ_3d_3d

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