Tim Burgess' City View

Sorting Through Roosevelt Station Area Rezone Conflicts

The City Council's committee handling the Roosevelt neighborhood rezone meets again tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. to consider and possibly vote on this package. The Council's decision will be important for the Roosevelt neighborhood but also carries implications for the entire city. It involves balancing different policy priorities, including respecting the needs and values of neighborhoods and managing the City’s strategy to concentrate density around transit centers in order to protect single family homes and reduce suburban sprawl. 

The Council’s decision is complicated by a few very important factors.

Keeping Downtown Neighborhoods Attractive and Strong

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a quiet little celebration that highlighted the new residents and new jobs that have sprung up and transformed the South Lake Union neighborhood. About a hundred neighborhood activists, representatives of the area's mega-developer Vulcan, business owners, urban planners, and others reflected on the ten-year conversion of a sleepy, somewhat run down area adjacent to downtown into a thriving, upbeat area with thousands of new residents and jobs.

Danny Westneat wrote about South Lake Union's success in last Sunday's Seattle Times, giving appropriate credit to former Mayor Greg Nickels for his vision and persistence in pushing forward the redevelopment of the area.  David Brewster posted an interesting historical perspective at Crosscut.com last Monday.  (Here's a link to the report that both Westneat and Brewster cite that summarizes what's happened in South Lake Union.)

Brewster, in his Crosscut piece, raises an interesting question about how the success of South Lake Union will impact the downtown core of Seattle.  Frankly, we would do well to accept Brewster's commentary as more of a challenge than a question. We dare not become complacent about our downtown, an area of multiple neighborhoods stretching from Lower Queen Anne to the International District and Pioneer Square and from South Lake Union to First Hill and the Central Waterfront.

An attractive and strong city center doesn't flourish on its own.  It takes determined work and a constant focus on things that matter, like the attractiveness of the pedestrian environment, crime and street disorder, quick and efficient transportation options, and strong businesses. (Continue after the jump for a list of key steps to maintaining an attractive and strong downtown . . .)

UK Study Mission: Renewable Energy, Density, Transportation, Economic Growth, Public Education and More

Those Brits!  Focused.  Stiff upper lip.  And, did I say "focused?" 

I recently returned to Seattle after a week-long trip to Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.  I was part of the annual international study mission put together by the Trade Development Alliance and the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.  (Don't fret, I paid my own way and didn't use a dime of City money. Highlights of my trip after the jump.)

Pioneer Square Density: Everyone's Right

Pioneer Square, Seattle's beloved historic neighborhood, yet again needs some tender loving care. And it's about to get it in the form of sweeping changes to land use codes that will allow for taller buildings, more green streetscapes, and upper floor setbacks. This afternoon, the City Council will vote on a massive set of legislative adjustments to zoning and land use rules designed to create higher residential density in South Downtown neighborhoods, from Pioneer Square to Chinatown, Little Saigon and Japantown. 

It is Pioneer Square that has dominated the discussion in recent weeks. Everyone has an opinion about what to do to protect and revitalize this historic district where Seattle got its start in the late 1800s.  

More density? Everyone agrees Pioneer Square needs more. Taller buildings? Everyone agrees higher buildings are just fine, to a point. More residents? Everyone agrees more is better, hopefully in the form of more market-rate housing. Street-level retail stores? More."Eyes on the street?" More. Clean and safe streets and sidewalks? Total agreement. So what's the problem?

Health, Crime and Growth in Southeast Seattle

Two events Saturday afternoon in southeast Seattle—one in the far south, the other up north at Franklin High School—highlighted the challenges and opportunities this culturally rich, growing and important area of our city faces.

We kicked off the afternoon with the grand opening of Neighborcare's sparkling, high quality medical and dental clinic in Rainier Beach.  Neighborcare is the city's largest provider of health services to our low-income and uninsured residents.  They also operate several of our school-based health clinics.

The new Rainier Beach clinic is the first of Neighborcare's facilities to combine dental and medical care at the same location. 

We moved to Franklin High School for a Great Cities event focused on the relationship between health, transportation, growth, and public safety. (Much more after the jump.)

More Transit Funding Needed Really Fast

I sat through two briefings this week that strongly reinforced the urgent need for more local transit funding in Seattle-King County. While I'm writing about our local challenges in transit service, I know leaders in Snohomish and Pierce counties face some of the same issues.

Here's the bottom line: Metro transit service is going to be massively cut back over the next several years due to lack of funding. The equivalent of all weekend service or all service on the east side of Lake Washington could vanish. (See chart below.) These terrible reductions in transit service will happen when we actually need just the opposite.

Hundred Year Choices: Central Waterfront Design

The City named the design firm for the central waterfront project yesterday.  The selection is excellent and is aptly summarized in this piece by Cary Moon over at Publicola.

Where's Euell Gibbons?

OK, Euell Gibbons is not exactly the metaphor or spokesperson I'm looking for, but he'll do just fine.  Those of my generation may remember watching those Euell Gibbons television commercials in the 1970s for Grape Nuts cereal.  Gibbons was a natural foods advocate and author, but his popular image centered on a "return to basics," hence his pitching of Grape Nuts.

I thought of Gibbons today when I read this excellent piece over at Crosscut about the importance of paying attention to our nation's crumbling infrastructure.  The author, Michael Godfried, argues that it is especially important during down economic times to focus on the basics, like fixing bridges, transportation systems, dams, public buildings, the core infrastructure of our nation.

Godfried's argument certainly applies right here in Seattle.  The City Council recently completed an assessment of major capital projects across the city, everything from the central waterfront seawall to police and fire facilities to sidewalks we've hoped to bring to the outer reaches of the city for decades.  The list was long and expensive, very expensive.  Prioritization of the list is our next step.  It will be a difficult process. 

Later this morning, several of my colleagues and I will join the Governor and Senator Patty Murray, among others, at the two-way Mercer Street groundbreaking ceremony.  This is an essential infrastructure project that is about so much more than transportation.  It will reconnect the South Lake Union and Uptown (lower Queen Anne) neighborhoods.  It creates three additional east-west crossings of Aurora (SR 99) at John, Thomas and Harrison Streets, meaning there will be five such crossings between Denny Way and Mercer.  It recreates an open vista leading to Lake Union Park. It vastly improves pedestrian and bicycle mobility.  And, with the eventual completion of the West Mercer phase of the project, it protects freight mobility and gives Magnolia, Interbay and Ballard residents easy access to the north portal of the new SR 99 tunnel.

Infrastructure projects will be part of our fall budget deliberations for 2011-2012.  In addition, I will be focused on these major areas in this priority order:

• Public Safety services, the city government's highest priority
• Safety-net Human Services, essential protections for those with the greatest survival needs
• Protecting transportation corridors, expanding alternatives
• Preserving jobs and creating opportunity, especially for locally-owned small businesses
• Public education, a vital and important area for the city to be further engaged
• Quality-of-life features, such as parks, athletic fields, arts, music and cultural enhancements

These are tough economic times and we face some very difficult decisions that will result in good people losing their jobs and services being cut back.  At the same time, as Godfried successfully argues, we must not lose sight of the long-term.  Investing in our core infrastructure is necessary and will pay huge dividends long into the future. 

Key Meeting Saturday on Multi-Family Code Revisions

The Council's Committee on the Built Environment will meet tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. at the Taproot Theatre on N. 85h Street just west of Greenwood Avenue North.  It's another in a series of discussions about how best to change the multi-family zoning code.  Here's some good perspective from a local architect David Neiman who has been deeply involved in this issue in today's Seattle Times.

Mayor McGinn's State of the City

The Mayor addressed the City Council this afternoon and offered his view of the state of the city.  Former Mayor Nickels used to pack the Council chambers with city employees, often leading to the opening of the rear doors for the standing-room-only crowd.  About a third of the seats were vacant for today's mayoral speech; I suspect the Mayor's staff will check the "fill the room" box next time around. 

The Mayor covered a host of issues, including his lists of our civic assets and challenges.