Tonight is both the NBHC monthly meeting, this one with a special focus on “transit oriented development”, as well as the BAN meeting (on new, tentative schedule), where the topic concerns grants: city grants for Beacon Bluff, Jose Rizal Park, and Lewis Park, and the county grant application deadline.
Full NBHC meeting agenda and location details were mentioned just a couple of posts ago.
The BAN meeting is also at 7pm tonight, but at the PacMed Quarters 1 building on the northwest corner of 14th Ave S and S Judkins.
Unfortunately, due to previous commitments we won’t be able to make either meeting — but please let us and your other neighbors that can’t make it to one meeting or the other know what happens in the comments!
Which meeting did you end up going to? I showed up to hear about the HB1490… I think I was a little put off by some of the ridiculousness of some of the arguments. I understand the needs for high density housing but tossing in Obama and “we’re saving the environment” statements seemed over the top. On the other side, the assertion of correlation equals causality for population-density & crime was fairly silly as well.
There was a good turnout for the NBHC meeting. I think the main message of the evening was, “Beacon Hill doesn’t need anyone to come in and tell us how to plan, thank you very much. We’ve been at it for quite some time now.”
I went to the meeting – embarassingly, this is the first one I’ve attended since my wife & I moved to the Hill a year and a half ago. Overall, I was very encouraged by the strong opinions that BH should be left free to plan its future without intervention by state mandates / regulations.
However, I was surprised by what, compared to other neighborhoods I’ve lived in, was a very low turnout. There were maybe 25 people at the meeting. And I’m wondering: if the people most passionate about this issue are also those most likely to attend the meeting, does this mean that there’s not very many people who are opposed to top-down planning for BH? I can’t even begin to guess at the answer to this question…
A turnout of 25 is pretty good for the NBHC. It all depends on the issue, or lack of issues. BAN has decided for some reason to schedule their meetings on the same night, which doesn’t help. BH has a high percentage of residents that don’t get involved. That puts a high level of responsibility on those who do get involved, many of whom get burned out. A while back it was common for most attendees to hit the Pub afterward. Of course that was before some of us had kids.
I’m glad to hear that the response was toward leaving the neighborhood out of the proposed upzoning plan. I like the idea of sticking with the original neighborhood plan with upzoning adjacent to Beacon Ave. Maybe expand the upzoning north/south, as necessary to meet demand. With the proposed 1/2-mile upzone, I could just see specific blocks on the east slope with killer views getting built up for high-dollar townhouses, resulting in a random pock-marking of multifamily construction within single family areas without the appropriate infrastructure. I’d like to hear a little more detail on what was discussed and the general outcome.
Thanks for the update. When is the next meeting and were there any “next steps” cooming out of this last meeting?
It seems to me that it is difficult to call anything a “neighborhood consensus” given the few people who do get involved. (I was very frustrated that I could not attend this one!) This is not to say that the people who don’t go to the meetings don’t care. I am sure they do. But there are many reasons people might not be able to or want to participate in the neighborhood council process.
The commentary we get here at the blog does not always parallel the general opinions expressed at the meeting, which is interesting.