Food stands in Portland; could we have this here? Photo by Joel Lee.by Joel Lee
I’ve always admired Portland’s funky attitude towards street food vendors. What was years ago a smattering of taco trucks and falafel vendors, has grown into entire streets filled with every imaginable variety of food being served from every imaginable type of food wagon. Working in downtown Portland means having your choice between dozens of street vendors during lunchtime.
Since returning from my recent trip to Portland I’ve been dreaming of seeing more of this in Seattle. Besides my own selfish desires for more food selection, it’s also a perfect building block for a strong local economy. It does not take nearly as much money to start up a food cart as it would to open a restaurant, and it does not involve nearly as much risk—these types of small businesses are the front lines in a recovering economy.
I would love it if the area around our light rail station would develop into an area where street vendors would become more welcome and small business entrepreneurs would be given the time, community support, and space to try new types of businesses. As an added bonus this would give us a multi-ethnic gathering place, build community, and enliven ‘downtown’ Beacon Hill.
During the last year, many of you have contributed amazing photos to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. The photos you see here today were chosen from the nearly 700 photos that were taken and posted in the photo pool during 2009. Some were chosen because of their photographic beauty; others, because they captured newsworthy moments on the Hill. Some of these we’ve published before, and some we haven’t.
We would like to thank all of our wonderful Beacon Hill photographers for posting photos to the pool and their generosity in allowing us to share them with you. We hope you enjoy this look back at 2009. Happy New Year! A foggy morning at Beacon Hill Playfield in January. Photo by Bridget Christian.Enjoying the horsie ride at the Red Apple. Photo by melissajonas.Keeping cool in a Beacon Hill condo pool, late July. Photo by Bridget Christian.A door opened in the July heat at Kusina Filipina. Photo by l0st2.Waiting to try the new light rail train on opening weekend at Beacon Hill Station. Photo by Jason.Continue reading A photographic look back at 2009 on Beacon Hill→
The status of Beacon Hill for the next few months is likely to be something like this -- rainy. Photo by Bridget Christian in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.by Frederica Merrell
Beacon Neighbors,
It occurred to me this week we should put together a status report on our neighborhood issues, projects and forums, for Mayor-Elect McGinn. Here is a draft. I came up with a bunch of categories that we could write short summaries on. Some stuff we could pull right off the Blog. Volunteers?
Take a topic and write a short summary as a comment to this blog post. As I see them posted, I will compile into one doc. I will post the results and we can hand it out to our Mayor-Elect at the upcoming forums and also distribute to new council members. If this format works, we could do an annual or biannual report.
Game?
DRAFT North Beacon Hill Status Report to Mayor-Elect McGinn November 09
North Beacon is an active and articulate residential community. North Beacon Hill pioneered urban village planning in 1990 (North Beacon Hill Action Plan), before the City initiated the 1998 planning cycle. We are currently working on recommendations for our third neighborhood plan and have numerous other planning documents completed.
Here are the highlights of our areas of focus, projects and forums:
Primary Issues of Concern and Focus 2009 (Summaries below)
Neighborhood planning and urban village investment
Equitable High Speed Internet Access for local businesses and residents
15th Ave. S Street Project
Public Safety
Stevens Street Utility Poles Remediation
Ongoing outreach to our diverse community
Improving local schools and youth programs
Projects (Summaries below)
Jefferson Park Reconstruction (Implementation by the City with stewardship of the community)
Lander Festival Street (Implementation by the City with stewardship of the community)
Beacon Rockit: Local folks initiating arts and gatherings in a storefront on Beacon Avenue
Beacon Farmers Market: Long desired use for the new festival street
Urban Agriculture Project: Designed for Jefferson Park by local permaculture students.
Even on a blustery dark night, supporters of Jefferson Park showed up at 6pm Tuesday at the Lawn Bowling Club to provide advice on the Jefferson Park reconstruction project. Parks Project Manager Andy Scheffer and two members of the Berger Partnership design team shared details on the status of the project, which is happily at 52% completion. There will be another public meeting on December 1st at Jefferson Park Community Center for people who want the update.
The purpose of a project advisory team (PAT) is to provide input and there were several good suggestions made last night, most of which build on previous discussions. One of the great things about the persistence of local advocates is that we have a great historical memory. We don’t forget the important details of what the community has been saying and recommending. We will meet again in January.
Here is a summary of the important points that we asked Andy to follow-up on:
Circulation, bicycle, parking, pedestrian analysis with SDOT
We have been saying for a long time that Parks needs to wrestle SDOT to the table to help design functional access to, and circulation for, this large new park that is safe, attractive, and brings people into the park on all sides, with special emphasis on the west and north sides and the following components:
Parking analysis of needs and opportunities for all users of the park area to create an efficient strategy for sharing parking and improving parking without building a lot of new lots in the park itself.
16th Avenue bicycle route and street improvements that could support west side access near the new Jefferson Playfield and improved angle parking. There is significant drainage and potential green street project from Asa Mercer right through the 16th right away on SPS property.
Pedestrian access along 15th Avenue, improved safety at Dakota Street entrance and study of the intersection of Columbian Way and Spokane. There is almost no way to safely get across 15th into the park. 15th is also like a freeway right here and SDOT needs to spend some serious time with our community looking at the future of 15th.
Spokane Street access at Lafayette. The pedestrian path on the north side of the park dead-ends at Lafayette. How many kids are going to run across Spokane here dodging traffic? SDOT can’t ignore this situation when the park opens. Spokane’s function as an informal connection from I-5 to I-90 may have to be addressed. (Sorry West Seattle commuters; might need to slow way down or find another way.)
15th Avenue (Terrace) Design and Urban Agriculture Project
Parks seems to have forgotten that there is a huge chunk of the park that has not been designed for improvements yet. Parks is now clearly responsible for supporting neighborhood planning in the park so they have to address their responsibility to finish design of 15th Avenue (or “terrace”) side of the park while we have the money and management in place. There is a fantastic movement to do urban agriculture, pea patch and education project along this sunny west side. The community could also take over the surplus Water Quality Building to support a working farm as a part of the project. Beacon Hill resident Glenn Herlihy and a team of permaculture students have a stupendous design for this area that needs to be presented to Parks Proview and the community ASAP.
The west side is very important to all the residents west of 15th, many of whom live in more modest housing. As one PAT member said, we don’t want any part of the park to be less inviting or inaccessible. Especially true where lower income families are concerned. Equity was the motivation for the reconstruction and it is a value that must be maintained as we move forward.
Water Quality Building (Beacon Arts Reservoir)
Years ago when SPU built a new water quality building the community met with Chuck Clarke, then head of SPU, to request that this beautiful old building at 15th and Spokane support community work in the park. An informal agreement was discussed of turning the building over to the community if they could come up money for a new roof. It would be administered by Southeast Seattle Arts Council and leased to a Beacon Hill organization to run. It could support arts projects, the urban agriculture project, parks volunteers, etc.
Andy will follow-up on these issues and seek permission from his project manager to take up the additional scope of work.
Hurrah for Andy!
Hurrah for persistent memory of local advocates!
Hurrah for Jefferson Park!
After my article was posted on the Beacon Hill Blog, I heard that a fellow Beacon Hill International School parent had seen translated materials about the Student Assignment Plan. I contacted her, and she said she had handed them out at one of the community information meetings, and they’d had interpreters, too. She referred me to Bernardo Ruiz, who is the Family and Community Engagement Manager. I wrote to him and heard back the next day, a thorough answer. To make a long story short, he said, “The following link will take you to the website where these translations have been posted and are available: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/newassign/resources.html.”
I looked, and backtracked to see how one would get there. I found that someone would first go to the New Student Assignment button, which is big and bright on the home page. That would take them to a page entirely in English. They would need to know somehow that “Learn More”, which is one of 15 generic-looking small buttons, would lead to the translations. Very most likely, one would come to the conclusion, as did I, that the info is not available. I suggested to Mr. Ruiz that they not hide the translations under pages of nothing but English and an undescriptive label, and then I asked him if he’d please tell the District office where to tell callers to find it.
He wrote back right away, saying that he’d talk to the English Language Learner Department about posting these materials more accessibly in their website. And he said, “Also, I will talk to our Customer Service Department to ensure that we provide accurate information to our families and stakeholders.”
Where was this guy when I was looking for him?
(Do you have an opinion about a Beacon Hill issue? We are always interested in opinion posts from the community. Send us your thoughts at blog@beaconhill.seattle.wa.us.)
BHIS students welcomed the community in many languages at last year's Opening Ceremony. Photo by Bridget Christian.My son is a first grader at Beacon Hill International School. Â It’s a dream come true for us, and we felt very lucky that though it was not our reference area school (we live 1.8 miles north of the school), after a month on the waiting list he got in. Â We were doubly happy that our son’s little brother will be able to join his big brother at BHIS in a few years.
Or so we thought. Â
Though I had heard rumblings about a change in the school assignment system, I had no information about it until I saw a posting on Madrona Moms last spring. Â The new Student Assignment Plan, evidently years in development, quietly eliminated the sibling priority for enrollment. Â The plan to make the schools neighborhood schools would break up thousands of SPS families into two different elementary schools, or would force families to pull their older child out of his or her school to be able to attend the neighborhood school with the incoming kindergartener.
We have been trying to get the word out at our school. Â It’s greatly complicated by the diversity of languages at students’ homes. Â Only about half of the students’ families speak English at home. Â My husband got letters to the school board translated into Mandarin and Spanish, and families from those cultures signed them. Â Our school’s principal pointed out that over the years many Beacon Hill Elementary School families from outside the reference area chose the school because of its strong support for English language learners. Â
In June, the School Board voted to approve the new Student Assignment Plan.  But, due entirely to the growing outcry by parents, they addressed the question of grandfathering in younger siblings of currently enrolled students by promising to consider a transition plan this fall, after the new boundaries are released and voted on. Continue reading Opinion: School assignment plan lost in translation→
Those were the questions the North Beacon Hill Planning Advisory committee tried to answer Thursday night. We looked at the drawings and carefully read the Draft Goals and Strategies. We talked about the street design. Here is what we concluded in the very short period of time we have before the meeting this weekend:
There are a lot of things missing that were discussed several times in our big meetings with DPD in May and March. The document is pretty scanty, considering how much has been talked about. We are worried that all the good ideas aren’t going to get captured, organized, and analyzed. Please go look for yourself and see if you think it is complete.
Public Safety:
In spite of the fact that public safety was mentioned numerous times in meetings, there is no public safety component. Specific strategies for improving safety that have been voiced are:
Extend the Alcohol Impact Area to Beacon Hill (bans sale of cheap high-alcohol content beverages), add Parks Rangers to Beacon Hill playground/park near Beacon Hill Elementary School and Jefferson Park (the Parks Superintendent supports this recommendation and has stated so in meetings), and support legislation from Councilmember Burgess to ban aggressive panhandling, specifically at: grocery stores, gas stations, and near schools, and at arterial intersections. Continue reading Planning Advisory Committee discusses draft neighborhood plan→
(Freddie is heading up an effort to wrangle the city’s planning department, to get it to more fully engage with the community and develop concrete neighborhood-enhancing proposals, with an ad-hoc group of neighbors as the North Beacon Hill Planning Advisory Committee. At tonight’s committee meeting, Lyle Bicknell with the Seattle DPD was invited to come and discuss the next steps in the neighborhood planning process. See the event calendar for upcoming meetings. — Ed.)
The City is speeding to a conclusion on our neighborhood plan update! Lyle Bicknell, our man at Department of Planning and Development (DPD), came and chatted with 17 residents who attended the North Beacon Hill Planning Advisory Committee meeting tonight. He shared sketchy preliminary plan recommendations and described next steps for the process. Here are my best notes on what I heard. Please pipe in with your own views if you attended. We met at El Centro thanks to Executive Director, Estella Ortega giving us a nice space in room 307.
Mike Podowski from DPD, who is an expert on zoning, generously gave us 30 minutes of his time to start. We received a “primer†on the neighborhood commercial zone rules and proposed multi-family zone rules. He provided handouts and I am putting the extras at the library. I won’t go into all the details but here are points of note:
Most of the existing zoning in our urban center is neighborhood commercial (NC-40) with a pedestrian orientation.
We also have some multi-family zoning intermittently along Beacon Avenue and on 14th (L2, L3)
Within the lightrail overlay near the station, there is no requirement for parking to be built for new multi-family housing or for commercial development.
We have a pedestrian overlay which also precludes the construction of parking or street entry between any new business development and the sidewalk.
Many of our existing businesses do not meet this code but are grandfathered in, so the pedestrian character will only develop as new buildings are constructed.
Mayor Nickels–give it up. Seattle City Council members. You too. As well as King County Council members, Governor Gregoire, State representatives and all candidates for the above offices.
I’m talking about your car. For a week. Just a week.
You see, my wife and I answered the call to help the region and the planet by giving up our car over four years ago. With climate change upon us, it was imperative that we transition out of our auto-centric society. Get on the bus. Get on our bikes. Get out and walk.
We were in a good position to give up our car. We don’t have kids. We live on Beacon Hill with frequent bus service (and now light rail). We have stores, restaurants, a library, and a park all within a ten minute walking distance of our house. We both do most of our work from home.
Easy.
OK. Walking up the hill from the grocery store with a 20lb Thanksgiving turkey in an excursion-size backpack wasn’t easy. Waiting outside in a 40 degree drizzle for a bus that never came wasn’t fun. And taking 4 buses and a ferry to get to Sequim wasn’t convenient.
It didn’t take long to understand that for someone who owns a private vehicle, our city and region’s public transportation, bike paths and pedestrian corridors are top notch. Because when it isn’t easy, fun or convenient… you take your car.
When I joined the ranks of the carless, I began an education in how auto-centric our green little region is, and how far we have to go to get to be a truly livable place … for everyone.
How many of my neighbors park their cars across the sidewalk. How cracked and poorly maintained those sidewalks are. How fast the cars fly by on our residential streets. How few cars yield to me in a cross walk. How few bike racks there are outside the businesses I frequent. How poorly signed (or not at all) the bike routes are throughout the city. How terrifying biking can be in downtown Seattle. How little park space we have downtown and how much space we devote to parking.
So many issues and problems invisible to me while driving in my own personal vehicle.
Now I’m asking you all to give up your car. Not for four years. Just seven days.
For seven days live the life that few have chosen and many have no choice but to live.
Believe me, no matter how long you have lived in or served this region, you’ll learn things that will surprise you.
I know I did. And I’ve lived here for 25 years.
The best decisions about transit and neighborhood planning will be made by government officials who have taken the time to live a life without a car as an option.
Now we come to some interesting questions. How do we approve or “validate†our North Beacon Hill neighborhood plan recommendations before they are submitted to the City Council in November/December? Of course no one has any idea what exactly will be proposed by Department of Planning and Land Use (DPD) in September. But whatever comes out of the amazing brainstorming that has been going on, be it rerouting car traffic off Beacon Avenue onto 15th to create a bus, bike, pedestrian campus, or increasing zoning heights to 65′, or creating public benefit “baskets” for the key development properties (El Centro, Red Apple, Sound Transit block), or starting a temporary community garden on the empty land around the station, the ideas are all big, bold and exciting.
As a community with a number of different interest groups. we have to vote, or something, to say neah or yeah. And, we have to hope that DPD can correctly interpret our input in the short time between September and November 20 when the proposal must be submitted to Council (unless they give us more time). Who should get to vote, approve or validate our plan? I assume it will be residents and business owners of North Beacon Hill. How will DPD figure out who is validating? Will it just be community or will they inadvertently or intentionally also include developers, or people who don’t live here? Another question that has arisen for me is: how do the small business owners on Beacon Avenue get a fair say? Continue reading Commentary: Stewardship, validation and small business owners→
