Aug

9

Where is the TOD?

Filed Under Brownbag, Housing, Land Use, Transit, Zoning | Leave a Comment

Great City’s Leadership for Great Neighborhoods meets tomorrow at GGLO’s Space at the Steps to discuss the future of station area planning efforts. Our friend Roger Valdez opines on the state of local Transit Oriented Development, or the lack thereof, on the Seattle Transit Blog:

Amend Seattle’s land use code to get real Transit Oriented Development

by Roger Valdez

Roosevelt Night Life (Photo by author)

This summer has been good for land use and transit in Seattle largely because of the discussion—some would say argument—over appropriate density around the Roosevelt station area. Wednesday this week is a big day for Roosevelt, the Seattle City Council’s Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) is having a hearing on the subject and later that day Leadership for Great Neighborhoods is having a brown bag lunch discussion. The discussion in both places ought to include something about amending Seattle’s toothless station area overlay designation in its land use code.

Seattle hasn’t encouraged or even allowed true Transit Oriented Development. Any visitor to Beacon Hill will attest to the bizarre sight of a light rail station sticking out of the ground like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Other station areas have yet to deliver on the promise of dense, walkable, housing and retail built around light rail stops. Why does Seattle lag so far behind places like British Columbia and Vancouver where there is lots of new housing around light rail?

Part of the problem is our single-family focused culture and economy. It’s easy to forget that one big private property interest in Seattle is single-family homeowners who benefit from attenuating the supply of housing. That’s not a slur, but a simple economic point. If housing is in short supply, then those who already own it benefit by keeping that supply limited. Diminished supply and increasing demand means existing homeowners can watch their property values increase …More

Feb

4

Upcoming Brownbag: Uptown Loop Discussion

Filed Under Brownbag, Transportation, Uptown, walking | 1 Comment

Upcoming Brownbag: Uptown Loop Discussion

Where: GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A
Enter through door located about 1/4 of the way down the Harbor Steps (click for map)
Date: Thursday, February 11, 2010
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

More than a century ago, the Olmstead brothers developed the “Emerald Necklace” plan – a plan of set paths and vantage points that create a sense of continuity throughout Uptown Seattle. The hidden and overgrown lower Kinnear Park link is a missing gem in this plan. Imagine a looping urban trail that includes a breath of sea air in Myrtle Edwards Park, art in the Sculpture Park, breakfast spots in Belltown, the Seattle Center, coffee spots in Lower Queen Anne, and tennis or picnic in lower Kinnear Park. An entire day of activities, highlighting Seattle’s finest, all in one easy stroll.

The community organization FOLKpark (Friends of Lower Kinnear Park), with the help HBB Landscape Architects and VIA Architecture, is planning to complete this missing link in an urban loop that dissolves the boundaries between the Waterfront, Belltown, South Lake Union, and Queen Anne. Come discuss ideas about how this Uptown Loop strengthens pedestrian accessibility and secures the relationship between urban forests, walkable city streets, community amenities, residential living, and waterfront vistas.

ALAN HART, Principal, VIA Architecture

Alan’s architectural career has covered a broad spectrum of infrastructure, institutional, commercial and residential projects. His most extensive involvement has been in transit design, as chief architect for Vancouver’s Millennium Rapid Transit line and Seattle’s Monorail, Vancouver’s Streetcar, and as designer of transit stations in Seattle, Vancouver, and Malaysia. As principal of VIA, Alan provides overview for architectural projects and leads the process of design integration from concept to technical details. His skills include finding opportunity for design innovation in unlikely places and in facilitating solutions at all scales of design work. VIA‘s numerous award-winning projects reflect this standard of excellence.

DEAN KOONTZ, Principle, HBB Landscape Architecture

With ten years of experience in urban design, planning, and landscape architecture, Dean’s diverse expertise forms the foundation of an integrated approach to project design and management. With an interest in creating spaces designed for people, his urban design work has focused on waterfronts, parks, and civic open spaces including several downtown Seattle plaza remodels and the Mercer Corridor redesign. In addition, his planning experience in land use code development, design standards, and guidelines provide further diversity and a unique understanding of the regulatory environment within the built environment. Using a broad range of knowledge from sustainable design and site planning to construction detailing, Dean integrates the community-based design process into projects as diverse as marina redesigns, park trails, soil clean-up and remediation projects, and green-roof design for downtown condominiums.

DEBORAH FRAUSTO, Consultant, Chair of Friends of Lower Kinnear Park (FOLKpark)

Debi is a collaborator by nature. Throughout her 20+year career in commercial real estate she has been involved in retail, office and public development projects. Debi finds the most successful projects connect design, marketing and financial goals early in a project’s development and uses a charrette environment to help multi-disciplined teams hone in quickly on core issues. She believes in studying both the details and the whole simultaneously and testing feasibility in measured outcomes. Prior to starting her own consulting company, Debi developed real estate acquisition strategies for the Seattle Monorail Project, served as VP of Commercial for Quadrant Corp. and headed up the leasing effort during the redevelopment of Crossroads Shopping Center in Bellevue. All her skills are being out to use in her volunteer role for FOLKpark.

Fête du Flâneur

Save the Date! We’re having a party!

On Thursday, February 25, Great City presents the Fête du Flâneur, a Fantastic Urban-Themed Party. The Fête, a fundraiser for the organization, will feature a limited-admission private reception with Great City founder and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, City Councilmember Mike O’Brien and Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith. Following the early reception will be a celebration of enlightened, if fanciful, urban living featuring music, open bar, hors d’oeuvres, silent auction, an address by Mayor Mike McGinn, crowning of the Great City–Cascade Land Conservancy Mustache Challenge champion, Flâneur-inspired art, dancing and DIY costumes…

For more event details and to purchase tickets, click here!

Upcoming Brownbags

February 11th – FOLKpark / Uptown Loop
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

February 25th – Where’s the Family in Multi-family?
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

March 25th – The Eco-Laboratory: Weber Thompson’s Answer to Urban Agriculture and the 2030 Building Challenge
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

Feb

2

Fête Update & YIMBY T-shirts

Filed Under Brownbag, Events, Great City, Membership | Leave a Comment

Fête du Flâneur

This just in! Great City is pleased to announce we’ve secured the following silent auction items for our upcoming party, the Fête du Flâneur:

  • Breakfast and fresh, organic eggs with Councilmember Mike O’Brien
  • Rum and Cigars on the Porch with Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith
  • An annual passport to any of Cascade Bicycle Club’s events

We’ve got more silent auction items in the mix, which we’ll be updating as we get closer to the event. Oh, and it’s also going to be a great party!

On Thursday, February 25, Great City presents the Fête du Flâneur, a Fantastic Urban-Themed Party. The Fête, a fundraiser for the organization, will feature a limited-admission private reception with Great City founder and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, City Councilmember Mike O’Brien and Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith. Following the early reception will be a celebration of enlightened, if fanciful, urban living featuring music, open bar, hors d’oeuvres, silent auction, an address by Mayor Mike McGinn, crowning of the Great City–Cascade Land Conservancy Mustache Challenge champion, Flâneur-inspired art, dancing and DIY costumes…

For more event details and to purchase tickets, Click Here!

Brown is the New Black

The blogs are atwitter as fashionistas across the city are buzzing about the “must have item of 2010“ – The Official Great City YIMBY (Yes In My BackYard) t-shirt. With spring around the corner, isn’t it time to trade in that polar fleece pullover you’ve been lugging around? Our handsome, 100% organic cotton t-shirts are appropriate for the gym or the opera or anything in-between!

Here’s a picture of our Program Coordinator, Paul Chasan, sporting his new shirt:

How do you get one? The shirt is available to Great City members at the $100 level and makes the perfect Valentines Day gift for the urbanist you love.

To become a member and order your t-shirt, Click Here!

To become a member and order your t-shirt, Click Here!

Note to existing members:

We know that many of you have been patiently waiting for you shirts to arrive. We’ll be sending them out to you this week If you have any questions about sizes or want to chat logistics, please contact Paul Chasan, paul@greatcity.org.

Upcoming Brownbags

February 11th – FOLKpark / Uptown Loop
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

February 25th – Where’s the Family in Multi-family?
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

March 25th – The Eco-Laboratory: Weber Thompson’s Answer to Urban Agriculture and the 2030 Building Challenge
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

Join Great City

To become a member of Great City, see our website for member levels and methods of payment. We appreciate your support!

Dec

8

Great City Updates

Filed Under Brownbag, Great City | Leave a Comment

Good Afternoon Great City Friends,

Here are a few announcements on this frigid Tuesday.


Great City Executive Director Joshua Curtis and Cascade Land Conservancy President Face off in the Mustache Challenge. Details Below!

New Board Members and Board Chair Transition

Great City is pleased to announce the addition of six new board members: Rebecca Deehr, Marshall Foster Jessie Israel, Alison Van Gorp, Diana Vergis Vinh and Chuck Wolfe. Each brings a level of experience, passion, and perspective that fills out our already robust board. Learn more about them (and our current board members) here. We also bid a fond adieu to our board chair of the past 3 years, Darryl Smith. Darryl has been a tireless leader and voice of change within our organization – we’re extremely grateful for all that he has done for us. While he’ll remain on our board, we have a feeling we’ll be seeing less of Darryl, what with his new job and all. In other news, we are very excited that Brice Maryman has stepped up to take over the board chair role. Brice has been a leader within Great City since our founding, is recognized locally and nationally for his civic and professional work on Green Infrastructure (the Muni League recognized Brice this year with their Doug Mason Award for his efforts on Open Space 2100) and has been a leader in Great City since our founding. We look forward to Brice’s continuing vision and leadership in the years to come.

Annual Board Retreat

This past Saturday we held our annual board retreat at Mike and Julie O’Brien’s beautiful Fremont home (thanks, Mike and Julie!). We had a great day, and will be reporting back soon with our 2010 Work Plan and legislative priorities. In the meantime, you can see photos of our board hard at work here.

Brownbag Schedule

We have rescheduled this week’s to next Thursday, December 17th (description below). Due to holiday scheduling, we won’t be holding another brownbag until January, when we will continue our regularly scheduled brownbags on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month.

“Social Sustainability Conference” Overview Brownbag
Thursday, December 17th
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

Enter through door located about ¼ of the way down the Harbor Steps

Election results showed that Seattle voters care about diversity and social issues, in addition to the environment. Social sustainability is the next frontier of the green movement. Sustainability is everything, not just carbon and climate. Gender, education, race and housing are all areas that impact and are impacted by the environment of our planet and our how we treat our local and global community.

OUT for Sustainability hosted the 1st annual Social Sustainability Conference (Great City was a proud partner) to ask the question, “what is social sustainability?” Panelists from the government, local business and non-profits came together over 5 seminars to discuss how demographic characteristics like gender and age intersect with logistics of daily life, like education and housing.

Seminars included:

  • Gender + Healthcare: Focused on access to services for women and transgender people. Speaker: Carolyn Fuller ND
  • Age + Community: Focused on planning community for an aging urban community. Panelists: Don Moreland, Tom Rasmussen and Jeff Reibman
  • Class + Education: Focused on resource differences in different communities. Speaker: Ken Shulman
  • Orientation + Family: Focused on the non-political side of Domestic Partnership. Panelists: Thomas Pitchford, Cynthia Buhr and David Wing-Kovarik
  • Race/Ethnicity + Housing: Focused the debate between affordability and density. Panelists: Jacque Larrainzar, Heyok Kim and Darryl Smith

Great City is excited to host a brownbag with Gerod Rody, Executive Director of OUT for Sustainability, to discuss the common themes of the conference and to identify avenues that turn awareness into action.

Gerod Rody is the Executive Director of OUT for Sustainability, bringing the LGBTQ community together with social and environmental sustainability. He is also the Marketing and Communications Associate for the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, where he earned his MBA in Sustainable Business focused on Building and Community Economic Development. Gerod earned his BA in European Studies, emphasis on Sweden, at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Upcoming Brownbags

January 14th – Transfer of Development Rights (TDR), Seattle, and King County
GGLO Space at the Steps, 12:00-1:30 pm

January 28th – Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement South Portal and its Impacts on Pioneer Square

Location TBA, 12:00-1:30 pm

Great City Has a New Office Space

We are pleased to announce that Great City has moved into a new office in GGLO. We’re excited to be here, and would like to extend a huge “Thank You” to the staff at GGLO for making us feel at home. As an added bonus, we get to sit next to Alex Steffen and the fantastic worldchanging team.

We would also like to extend a shout out and thank you to The Fearey Group and SVR both of whom have loaned us temporary desk space over the past few months while we searched out our new digs.

Mustache Update

Great City’s Mustache Competition and Membership Drive is heating up! For those of you not in the know, Great City Executive Director Joshua Curtis has challenged Cascade Land Conservancy President Gene Duvernoy to a Mustache Competition as part of our 1st annual Membership Drive.

Joshua has made impressive ground in the past two weeks and the two faced off recently at CLC’s Holiday Open House. While civility was upheld at all times, the tension was thick as Gene sized up his competition. To see photos of the now legendary exchange, truck on over to our Facebook page. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to click that “Become a Fan” button at the top of the page.

Who will ultimately reign supreme? You decide! Great City Members will get to vote on which of the two sports the most macho mustachio. A basic membership starts at $25. A $100 + donation will land you a highly coveted “YIMBY” (Yes In My Back Yard) t-shirt or super-sustainable tote bag!

To become a member, click here.