Possible development on Beacon Avenue, depicted in the Neighborhood Plan Update. Are you tired of looking at gravel lots surrounded by wire fencing next to the Beacon Hill Light Rail station? Â Do you dream of potential businesses that would be perfect for our community? Â The comments on Joel’s post “Beacon Hill’s Post Alley” indicate community support for development around the light rail station. Â For any development to occur, the North Beacon Hill Neighborhood Plan Update must be approved.
That plan is being challenged. Â A community member has filed a petition with the City of Seattle Hearing Examiner (see the earlier news post in the BHB) calling the update process into question and requesting that the DNS (Determination of Nonsignificance) be vacated. Concerns listed in the petition include construction noise, increased traffic, lack of specific guarantees regarding service improvements, and overall disregard for community opinion and the existing neighborhood plan.
Simply put, it’s a request for DPD to be required to throw away over a year’s worth of community input and other work on this project—essentially starting the entire process over.
“Increased density is a worthy goal… We need housing, employment, and services for our future neighbors.”
Neighborhood, City and transit groups have worked hard to update the North Beacon Hill Neighborhood Plan in a way that respects the core values of our community and includes the reality of introducing mass transit into the neighborhood. Â Two critical considerations for an urban neighborhood served by mass transit include increased residential density accompanied by increased employment, service, and other business development.
Increased density is a worthy goal for our neighborhood: people should live and work near transit. We need housing, employment, and services for our future neighbors. Â This doesn’t have to/shouldn’t mean increased vehicle traffic—the entire point is that new residents will be using light rail.
If the North Beacon Hill Urban Village is ever to develop, we must move forward as a community. Â Change can be challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to improve.
Get involved.  Learn more about this issue and take action to make Beacon Hill the place you want it to be.  Please attend the North Beacon Hill Council meeting on Thursday, February 4 at 7:00 pm.  Meetings are held at the Beacon Hill Public Library. The full agenda is here and also here.
Perhaps the biggest change proposed in this draft is increasing the height limit of buildings surrounding the light rail station. There’s also a proposal to update El Centro de la Raza’s zoning. It’s currently single family residential—no, I’m not joking. In case you’re unfamiliar with El Centro, there are dozens of programs operating out of that building, serving thousands of people of all ages and from all backgrounds. Childcare, senior meals, homeless services, a food bank, immigrant advocacy, and more. There are also businesses operating within El Centro: CommuniChi acupuncture, Excelsior Travel Agency, and others. For a complete list and to learn how to volunteer or make a donation to El Centro, visit their website. El Centro hopes to develop affordable housing and expand their program facilities. This is an incredible opportunity for our entire neighborhood.
One potential future for North Beacon Hill (looking north on Beacon Avenue, near McClellan). Many people have concerns and fears about changes to our neighborhood, especially around the idea of increasing density. What’s important to you? What makes Beacon Hill a place you want to live? What would you change? I’m concerned about preserving the character of our neighborhood and encouraging good design. I want to keep what we have (Red Apple, Baja Bistro, La Cabaña, etc.) and add businesses that serve our community (a bookstore, a consignment store). I want to preserve the charm of our single family blocks and add dense, affordable housing near the station. I want our sidewalks and crosswalks accessible to the seniors who’ve lived here for decades and to those of us pushing strollers through the neighborhood.
My priorities around neighborhood planning were honed when we were looking for a house in 2003. I attended Seattle Midwifery School at El Centro (they’ve now moved) and loved Beacon Hill.  It only took one walking tour to convince my partner that this was a great place to live. Our goal is to live in this house for 20-30 years. We planned where we were going to buy a house based on what was important to us:
walkability/run-ability (safety, accessibility, comfort, quality of sidewalks and trails)
transit access and easy access by car to other places
diversity
established community
parks and green spaces
We’re expecting another human member of the family in May. I’m excited to see baby/kid-friendly businesses opening in our neighborhood. We always assumed we’d send our kid to the neighborhood school, and were content with Beacon Elementary and Kimball as choices. The Seattle School District is shifting to location-based school assignment, which will (hopefully) mean that our south-end schools start achieving parity with the rest of the city.
Change can be challenging. For some perspective on all the changes in Beacon Hill over the last 100 years or so, check out Seattle’s Beacon Hill by Frederica Merrell and Mira Latoszek. (Merrell is an occasional contributor to the BHB. — ed.) The book is chock-full of photos from the Jackson Regrade—when neighborhood planning meant washing huge portions of the city down into the Sound! Now is our chance to shape our community for decades to come. Get informed; get involved. Attend meetings (the North Beacon Hill Council meets on the first Thursday of every month at the library) and talk to your neighbors.
(Editor’s note: If you’d like your own copy of Seattle’s Beacon Hill, you can order one from Amazon through the link on the lower right of this page.) An artist's depiction of a future event at the Lander Festival Street, from the North Beacon Hill neighborhood plan update.
One potential future for North Beacon Hill (looking north on Beacon Avenue, near McClellan. El Centro is in the upper right of this image).Recently there were two open houses to display the most recent planning goals and strategies for the North Beacon Hill, North Rainier, and Othello neighborhood plan updates. Over 160 people attended these open houses to view and comment on some of the potential strategies for our Southeast Seattle neighborhoods. If you could not attend, the city still needs to hear from you! You can view the materials that were presented at the open house here, then submit your comments online here. The deadline for this comment period is October 30, 2009.
Our neighbors in the Central District share our pain when it comes to airplane noise. One CD resident, Patty Fong, has started an Under the Flight Path! group on Facebook to “advocate for environmental justice in Seattle’s affected neighborhoods (Central District, Beacon Hill, Capitol Hill, White Center, Burien and others under the flight path disproportionately) and for speedy advancements in reduction of airplane noise.” — Central District News
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The Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool is hosting a Fall Rummage Sale on Saturday, October 24 from 12 noon – 4:00 pm at Beacon Hill Lutheran Church, 1720 South Forest Street (between 17th and 18th). Along with the sale there will be a Fall Festival for all ages. The 1700 block of South Forest will be closed for the party, which will include games, crafts, a bake sale, Dante’s Inferno Dogs, and, at 1:00 pm, live music by Brian Vogan.
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Youth in Focus, a non-profit organization that empowers urban teens through photography, is holding their annual Bowl-A-Thon fundraiser on Saturday, October 24, from 12 noon – 5:00 pm at the AMF Imperial Lanes, 2101 22nd Avenue South. The goal of the bowl-a-thon is to raise $15,000 to help Youth in Focus provide free photography classes and mentoring to underserved teens in the Seattle community. Teams of five bowlers will bowl in two shifts, noon – 2:00 pm, or 2:30 – 4:30 pm. This year’s theme is “Come as your own Superhero!”, so dress accordingly! All are invited. To sign up or get more information, please email Jessica at jessicag@youthinfocus.org.
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El Quetzal on Beacon Avenue has applied for a beer/wine liquor license.
Illustrations of potential North Beacon rezoning are surrounded by Beaconians' comments on sticky notes at Sunday's DPD open house. Photo by Wendi.The first DPD Neighborhood Plan Update Open House was on Sunday afternoon at the Asian Counseling and Referral Service building on MLK Way South. Neighbors had the chance to see the current draft proposals and comment on them. There is one more open house, this Wednesday evening from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, at the same site. If you’re interested in the future of North Beacon Hill (or North Rainier, or Othello, both of which will also have draft proposals featured at the open house), this is an important chance to give your opinion on the various proposals.
(Our unscientific, quick impression from looking at the posted comments at the open house on Sunday: North Rainier residents seem to strongly favor redevelopment and density around the pedestrian wasteland that is Mount Baker Station. Othello residents are unhappy about planned new density in their neighborhood. Beacon Hill residents seemed to be somewhere in the middle — wanting improvements but skittish about some of the possible changes, particularly the “tower” zoning option.)
A rendering of the view down Beacon Avenue with 125-foot zoning. From the DPD website.From 1 to 5pm on Sunday, September 27th and also 6 to 8pm on Wednesday, September 30th the City of Seattle is hosting Neighborhood Plan Update Community Open Houses.
These community open houses are another opportunity to take an active role in addressing the local issues and concerns that affect you, your family, and your neighbors. All stakeholders are invited to participate — residents, renters, business owners, property owners, various community organizations and institutions. Please join us for this important community event!
Unlike previous planning updates, these open houses will not be held at El Centro. Instead, they will be at the Asian Counseling and Referral Service, 3639 Martin Luther King Jr Way S.
Amharic, Cantonese, Khmer, Mandarin, Oromiffa, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese interpreters will be available to assist attendees.
The open houses are on Sunday, September 27 from 1:00 pm to 5:00pm, and Wednesday, September 30, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Both are at the Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) at 3639 Martin Luther King Jr Way South.
Interpreters will be on hand, interpreting Chinese, Khmer, Spanish, and Tigrinya from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm on Sunday; Amharic, Oromiffa, Somali, Tagalog, and Vietnamese from 3:00 to 5:00 on Sunday; and all nine languages at the Wednesday open house. The open house location, ACRS, is an accessible facility. If you need special accommodations, please contact Kerry Wade at 206-733-9088.
 Thanks to Steve Louie for forwarding the info to us!
(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.
The meeting is public and open to all. Â Lyle Bicknell has been leading the Neighborhood Plan Update process for North Beacon Hill, Othello, and the Mount Baker Station area in Rainier Valley. Â He will present zoning change options, as well as preview other components that DPD expects to include in the update.
Frederica Merrell of the North Beacon Hill Planning Advisory Committee, a group formed to address issues connected with the city’s intended revamp of the North Beacon Hill neighborhood plan, sends this status report regarding the committee:
Last call for innovative proposals for our neighborhood plan update! The City is still proceeding at a rapid pace to complete our update this fall. Our last community meeting with the City is coming up in September (date unannounced yet). If people want to get a general or specific recommendation on any topic in the plan, it needs to get to the City pronto.
A small group of folks from the diligent North Beacon Hill Planning Advisory committee met with Councilmembers Sally Clark and Tim Burgess and Lyle Bicknell (our man in the planning department) to talk about the process and next steps. There was a lot of baffling lack of clarity about dates and next steps. No notes from the last big meeting held in May have been provided to the community. It seems clear that DPD is making it up as they go along and is probably having a really hard time keeping up with their own timeline. Continue reading DPD rep to preview neighborhood plan update proposals at August 20 meeting→
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→
