El Centro seeking community feedback
El Centro de la Raza is hosting a community meeting on Saturday, February 19, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. to discuss ideas and planning for the development of the El Centro south lot. All are welcome, and food will be provided. Please RSVP to Miguel Maestas at 206-957-4650 or at associate@elcentrodelaraza.org.
The meeting will be held at the Cocina located on the first floor of the north end of the El Centro de la Raza building, 2524 16th Avenue South.
El Centro is also working with a group of business students from the University of Washington to develop recommendations for the future mixed-use, transit-oriented development on the south lot. The students have created an online survey, to gather Beacon Hill residents’ opinions about the small businesses they would like to see in the development. Here’s a link to the survey.
What will this bleak lot become? Photo by Joel Lee in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool.
The University of Washington students should make a print version of their survey available to the public. Perhaps have a table set up at El Centro or Red Apple. Otherwise, they will primarily be gathering data from the neighborhood gentrifiers. Believe it or not there are a lot of Beacon Hill neighbors that don’t read this blog.
Hi Ryan:
If you’re concerned about genrtification, I encourage you to get involved in the many neighborhood organizations around Beacon Hill which work with the city in different ways to manage development. These include El Centro, the N Beacon Hill Community Council, the Beacon Hill Merchant’s Association, and Rockit Space.
I received the survey via El Centro’s listserv, which you can sign up for by visiting http://www.elcentrodelaraza.com/forms/mailing_list_form.htm.
I agree with Ryan. I also haven’t seen if they have provided the survey in different languages as the population contains primarily Spanish and Asian language speaking residents.
Too bad this merting occurs during the orchard pruning workshop at Jose Rizal, because a handful of our active residents will not be able to attend.
I hope they get the survey out to as many people they can and not just to their email listserv and the blog.
El Centro distributed paper surveys at the Town Hall with McGinn on Tuesday. I’ll send an email to ask if they’ve distributed the survey to their clients and/or patrons of businesses within El Centro and report back to the blog.
Without the Community Service Center at the library, we’re lacking a central distribution point for things like this.
El Centro is the only private property owner (I believe in the city, not only in the neighborhood) asking for input about development.