On Monday night, the Committee on the Built Environment hosted a public meeting at the Roosevelt High School auditorium. All 9 City Councilmembers were at the meeting to hear from the packed auditorium and the 80 who signed up to comment. The WCC does not currently have an official position on this issue (we’re still discussing it). So, this post is is intended to be an unbiased summary of what occurred for your edification.
After some introductory remarks and a brief summary of how the legislative rezone for Roosevelt began, Councilmember Sally Clark allowed a few minutes to the Department of Planning and Development to describe the proposed rezone and then Jim O’Halloran who chairs the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association’s (RNA’s) Land Use Committee to describe a revised rezone plan. NOTE: links to the video of the meeting is below for those that have +3 hours to spare!
DPD’s Proposed Rezone:
In April 2011, DPD issued a draft legislative rezone plan that largely resembled what the Roosevelt community prepared to meet the City’s density requirements for residential urban villages. In response to this April rezone, the mayor and others (e.g., Councilmember Burgess [Vice Chair of the Committee on the Built Environment] and local land use bloggers) requested that density is increased for Roosevelt given the future light rail station that will be centrally located in that neighborhood. Therefore, in June 2011, DPD issued a revised legislative rezone which was presented at this meeting. This revised plan does provide further density through two significant changes: 1) An increase from 65 to 85 foot height limit on the station overlay, which is essentially focused around the location of the current QFC grocery and 2) An increase from 40 to 65 feet on the ‘high school properties,’ which is essentially the properties immediately south of the Roosevelt High School where a planned development has been proposed. Click HERE to visit DPD’s Roosevelt Rezone Overview website.
RNA’s Sustainable Livable Roosevelt Plan:
On Monday, the day of the public hearing, the RNA issued their Sustainable, Livable Roosevelt Plan, which Councilmember Clark pointed out during the hearing has an acronym of SLuRP. This plan is a response from the Roosevelt community to satisfy the request for increased density from its earlier plan and also includes height increases to 85 and 65 feet. In the SLuRP, the 85 foot height limit would be shifted to the southeast relative to DPD’s proposed plan so it was located in ‘downtown Roosevelt.’ The 65 foot height (midrise) zone would be shifted to the northeast along Interstate 5 and south of Calvary Christian Assembly. The ‘high school properties’ would remain 40 feet. The SLuRP also proposes an east-west greenway bike corridor along North 66th Street. According to the numbers presented by Mr. O’Halloran, the SLuRP would provide even more density than DPD’s plan.
Below are some links to other sources who covered the public hearing.
- Publicola’s summary of the meeting (as well as other non-related local political stories). Note, they inaccurately identify Jim O’Halloran (chair of the RNA land use committee) as RNA President, Peter James.
- Roger Valdez with the Seattle Land Use blog, which has been the most vocal critic of the neighborhood’s earlier plan and their opposition to last minute revisions. (Post 1 and Post 2)
- Jim O’Halloran’s summary on the Roosevelt Neighborhood Seattle blog.
- An excellent “lesson’s learned” post by the Seattle Transit Blog which appears to capture the dilemna of this issue in an unbiased manner.
As promised, here are links to the video of the +3 hour meeting. Most of the content shared above occurred within the first 30 minutes. The later part of the meeting is set aside for public comment.
Roosevelt Rezone Public Hearing. Part 1 of 3 (Introductions, Stand Up Comedy by Sally Clark, DPD and RNA Presentations, and Public Comment). Special thanks to Councilmember Sally Clark for giving Wedgwood a shout out at minute 8:18 on our ongoing discussions to develop a neighborhood plan!
Roosevelt Rezone Public Hearing. Part 2 of 3 (Public Comment)
Roosevelt Rezone Public Hearing. Part 3 of 3 (Public Comment)