Friday Evening Fizz: Sharks, Records Requests, Housing, and Protests

Can you clarify who wrote the South Seattle appeals?

Who wrote the appeals and who submitted them are two different answers.

Those NIMBYs represent less than 1% of the folks in SE. They are just the squeaky wheel that need to be ignored. Minority and immigrant communities demanded more density and affordability in SE. They depend heavily on public transit and walking. The single family zoned NIMBYs are just trying to keep anything from changing. Hopefully the city council sends them a message they cannot disregard the opinion of the majority of their neighbors

Good lord, SJP. I just want to know the source. Perhaps my question wasn't precise enough, but I'm sure that ECB gets the point.

Not two identical appeals, but 3 — there was also one from North Rainier (Mount Baker). The Beacon Hill Blog covered this earlier, and they have links to the appeals themselves as well as discussing some of what the appellants may have in common.

Erica referred to “Merrell's appeal” without ever saying who that is: Frederica Merrell, who submitted the Beacon Hill appeal. Pat Murakami and Barbara Marino signed the North Rainier one, and Jenna Walden, Ron Momoda, and Patricia Paschal submitted the Othello one.

The appeals are identical and were all submitted on the same day.

The only real difference between Chris Bushnell/Haugen and Tim “The Shark” Ceis is that while Bushnell likes to exaggerate his academic qualifications Ceis revels in having none. Other than that they both plague local government.

Thanks for the clarification, litlnemo. Those names were lost in the editing process.

Ha. That's Erica's polite way of saying her evil editor took out the names.
Blame me litlnemo.

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Thank you,

The Stranger

It's great to report the Rainier Valley appeals, but next time, context would be welcome. All properties with 1/4 mile of Lake City center were upzoned several years ago and the last couple of single family houses are about to disappear. This is inevitable if we are to encourage transit oriented development and reap the benefits of transit. No one in Lake City has protested that I know of, including the persons who sold their homes based on their development values.

Consider the sources of these appeals; some of these people have been active obstructionists to the creation of affordable housing and appropriate density in South Seattle for years, their voices are disproportionately loud and they are not representative of the entire community by any means. Everyone has the right to participate in this process – including to appeal – but we shouldn't concede the conversation to these few self-appointed activists.

El Centro has filed a motion to intervene to dismiss the appeal and others may and should follow suit – about time we turned the tables and marginalized the vociferous few.

Merrell's appeal was not heard last Wednesday. It was a prehearing conference. The appeal will not be heard until April. Same for the Othello appeal, which has not had its hearing date set yet. A key issue is whether the City complied with SEPA requirements. The City's planned upzones, supposedly based on community input, were actually being discussed long before the community was even consulted. People always label and criticize activists as unrepresentative NIMBYs: those people need to apply the same standards to developers when it comes to the few allegedly representing the desires of the many. In Seattle, critics of neighborhood activists seem to be OK with the 1% being developers or nonprofits dependent on City and Federal funding for survival. Labels do not an argument make.

So true. This single-family NIMBYISM in Seattle is getting tiresome. New development needs to be in cities, near transit, near employment. It needs to be affordable and conserve scarce land — that is, it needs to be dense. The benefits of this kind of development include preserving open space and wetlands in undeveloped areas; saving on the incredible expense of extending sewers and roads; providing customers for urban amenties such as theaters and restaurants; providing affordable housing within a reasonable commuting distance of employment, providing riders for transit in which the community has already invested; etc etc etc. etc

I hope you have the title “Evil Editor” on your business cards.

The only problem that the Othello Station Community Advisory Team has with the Othello neighborhood update is that we'd like to see more density on certain plots along MLK within a quarter mile of the Othello station. We recognize that well-designed density will lead to a much stronger community, with enough people to support a wider range of services, also increased safety more people out and about.

Already there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of people taking transit here. The other day I counted 40 people getting off just one train at 3 pm, even a dozen at 10 pm. I'm estimating that this is 4 to 6 times the number taking buses before the light rail opened, almost all of them walking. And it's far safer to cross MLK. This is really working!

All labels and name calling aside, the facts are that the communities involved shared input regarding the proposed upzones via an extensive, inclusive process. A small group of individuals didn't like the outcome. These individuals got together and drafted identical appeals to throw a wrench in the process of moving forward in any way on development around the stations. Three communities are on hold because a handful of people found a loophole to make another (hopefully last) stand against density.

The updates and the plans are vague because each individual development will need to be reviewed. Each project will have to have an environmental review and a design review. Until the zoning issues are resolved, no other aspect of these projects can move forward. No one can begin to discuss types of housing, numbers of residents, etc until we have an idea of how the zoning will look.

This is a pretty big deal. Three planning zones around 3 light-rail stations covering roughly half of SE Seattle. It's a full-bore challenge to one of the most significant infrastructure/planning investments in the region. One document filed simultaneously by three different groups of neighbors, does anybody know what they want?

Indeed. I don't know for sure what they want. I have some ideas, though.

I think this is the real story. Who actually wrote the appeals? What are the goals? It is a very big deal and could set a disturbing precedent for development around Rainier Beach and Columbia City–as well as other areas when light rail expands.

I did not write the appeals, but I did help edit them. I disagree with melissajonas that later environmental review and design review will solve all problems caused by increased density in the zoning designations. And I disagree even more strongly that the public process was “extensive and inclusive.” The point of the appeals is that impacts of the proposed zoning changes were not adequately addressed, and that the City did not follow its own rules for changing elements of its comprehensive plan. These are not “neighborhood plan” updates, they are upzoning plans. The City should be more honest about what it is doing, whose pockets get lined, and whose oxen get gored.

And to everyone who likes to throw bricks at NIMBYs: Consider what “sustainable” means and when the limits to growth are exceeded. Or don't you believe there are any limits to growth? That's generally called cancer, and is often terminal (results in death), and at the least there must be a correction in the population to much lower levels. On a planetary scale, most scientists believe humans are already well past the limit of “sustainability.” Global warming is simply one symptom of a non-sustainable human presence.

The public process lasted over a year and included meetings in an accessible central location (ACRS) with translators to help people understand what was going on. How was it flawed?

The proposed updates aren't suggesting specific changes to the comprehensive plan. They are drafts for review, waiting yet more community input and input from the City Council.

There need to be limits to growth. Growth needs to be planned, and contained. Creating dense residential areas in urban centers around mass transit (aka transit oriented communities) is intended to limit sprawl and minimize human impact on the environment.

We are losing farmland, wetlands and other fragile habitats, and open space in rural areas because some people who've chosen to live in a city don't want density. How is sprawl more sustainable than controlled urban growth?