For the past few months, Volunteer Park Cafe (VPC), a corner cafe located on 17th Avenue and E Galer Street, has been developing their vacant, weedy backyard space into a small patio with raised garden beds. Eventually, owners Ericka Burke and Heather Earnhardt planned on adding a chicken coop and a few tables for customers.
“It’s basically a garden with seating for overflow,” says Earnhardt. “We wanted a few more tables for customers to sit while they wait for their coffee.”
But their plans have been put on hold after Paul Jones, their closest neighbor, complained to owners about their project. “He seemed to think we’re expanding our business, but we’re not,” Earnhardt says. “Frankly, our kitchen can’t support any more customers.”
Jones then filed a complaint with the Department of Planning Development stating VPC doesn’t have the permits it needs to operate as a restaurant—it’s only permitted to be a grocery store (which is what operated there originally, in 1905). VPC owners allege that Jones hasn’t been happy with them since they moved in three years ago, and now he’s trying to get them shut down.
“He’s about the only person in the neighborhood who’s never been in the cafe—except to complain,” says Earnhardt. “He’s complained from the get-go about parking, about our compost being eaten by squirrels… he’s even complained about our garden hose not being hung up properly.” Jones couldn’t be reached for comment.
Now what began as a fight over patio seating has turned into a battle for the entire cafe: If the DPD doesn’t grant VPC a restaurant permit, the cafe will close.
“We were floored,” says Earnhardt. “The people who originally changed the store from a grocery to a cafe in 1995 just never got the permit, and it never came up when we took over the space—our lease says we signed on for a cafe.”
“It’s a unique situation but not unheard of,” says DPD spokesman Bryan Stevens. Stevens explains that VPC is the only business operating in an area zoned for residential use. The cafe is housed in a building that was a grocery store a century ago, and the neighborhood essentially grew up around it. When the area was eventually zoned for residential use, the building was grandfathered in. “Technically, a store wouldn’t be allowed there now,” Stevens says.
So what happens next? The DPD’s process for resolving these situations is a little weird: “We’ll be evaluating the space as if it were still a grocery store,” says Stevens. “We’ll look to see if what they propose doing with the space—running a restaurant/cafe—is any more detrimental than what’s there now—a grocery store.” Stevens adds that there will be a public commenting period to this months-long process, and that comments “help inform our decision.”
The DPD has already received letters protesting the restaurant permit; now Burke and Earnhardt are begging for love letters from patrons and “people who think we rock.” If you’re such a person, you can email Burke here.
@50: Obviously the café’s current owners dropped the due-diligence ball.
But it’s not as easy as “checking zoning.” The five or six types of commercial zoning are distinguished by arbitrary criteria of scale, location, and extent, and not precisely by usage. A grocer would not necessarily have a zoning requirement different than a restaurant. Those distinctions have everything to do with permitting, not zoning. (In D.P.D.’s descriptions of commercial zoning, “coffee shop” and “restaurant” are used somewhat ambiguously, ignoring the complexity-of-food-preparation gray area between the two. I presume this is in deference to the precedence that permitting takes.)
In this case, the building is improperly zoned. Period. The structure pre-dates the zoning code and is inappropriate for residential use. And yet no official zoning exemption was made when zoning was enacted (as it probably should have been); the grandfathering was somehow otherwise addressed. My understanding is that no zoning enactment/change can force the destruction of an existing structure or closure of an existing business except by a parallel eminent domain action.
So the current zoning baldly conflicts with both the current structure and the current usage, all with varying degrees of longevity (respectively: decades; an entire century; 15 years). Not easily resolvable.
I don’t know if there is an equivalent doctrine to adverse possession for business operations, but there should be. The Volunteer Park Café can easily demonstrate 15 years of a net-positive impact on their community to tilt the competing zoning/usage concerns in their favor.
@41, “(The garden should be fine; who in a “residential neighborhood” can justify complaining about a garden?)”
This is not a private-use garden for a next-door resident. It’s an outdoor seating area for a restaurant. Apparently this particular neighbor felt justified in complaining. That the garden “should” be fine implies that you implicitly trust the business owners to operate it in a manner which does not infringe on their neighbor.
“But if those were the neighbor’s true worries, he likely could have resolved them by having a reasonable discussion with the owners.”
The neighbor obviously felt that the worry was not resolved, hence took the next step of complaining to the city. According to the DPD web site, this is the first formal complaint made against the cafe. It seems that the neighbor let things go FOR YEARS until the cafe owners took the additional step of expanding their outdoor seating area.
“But the neighbor, in good Seattle fashion, is actually just using those canards as a passive-aggressive pretext to shut the café down.” See points 1 and 2.
“He — like you — believes that the present-day residential zoning supersedes all, and that the café therefore has no right to exist.” First, see point 2. Second, I have never said that the cafe does not have a right to exist. But there is a fact that they are operating a restaurant in an area that is not currently zoned for that use, and they have now been faced with a city-administered review of this situation.
Lastly, I am not #39, but calling someone a dumbass is a really classy way to spiff up your argument. My point in #38 was not about “gradation” or zoning laws, but was in response to the statement that “People who buy houses don’t want to deal with commerce nearby.” And yes, it is rather awesome that I can live in a SF zone and walk to local businesses. It’s one of the reasons I live in Seattle. It’s pretty fucking great, actually.
@52: Sorry if I confused @39 for you. @39 thought I was “smoking crack” for not agreeing with his/her simplistic understanding of zoning, which he/she thought would be more persuasively communicated by screaming it repeatedly in capital letters. I’m pretty sure I was justified in calling him/her a dumbass.
When I used the term “garden,” I was specifically referring to areas being aesthetically enhanced with flowerbeds or used to grow vegetables, and perhaps also intended as an overflow waiting area in nice weather. I’m pretty sure I was clear in distinguishing this from outdoor dining space — a potentially trickier issue.
The problem with zoning that falls precipitously from dense to single-family in just a block is that, while you may be lucky enough to live two blocks away, the vast majority will not be. It’s just simple math: low-density housing will never house enough people within walking distance of a commercial area to fully sustain that commercial area. Why is 15th always at saturation-parking levels? It’s certainly not from all the people who live 2 blocks away!
This is why our city sustains relatively few of these commercial strips over such a vast area, and why the ones in otherwise single-family areas are so small. It’s also why we’re unable to sustain a transit system that is simultaneously frequent, high-capacity, and widespread… or, for that matter, to get the majority out of their cars.
The Volunteer Park Café is a rare exception. It’s so far out of the way, and so difficult to get to from other parts of the city, that it actually primarily serves its own neighborhood! It can be sustained by those within walking distance because it is just one business (whereas a strip of 30 businesses would need far more total customers to remain buoyant). I don’t get the sense that many people drive there — I know the frequency of my visits drops to zero when I have no other reason to be in the area.
“It’s just simple math: low-density housing will never house enough people within walking distance of a commercial area to fully sustain that commercial area.”
I dunno… the 1/2 mile commercial strip in my neighborhood is chock-full of successful businesses that have been there for years. And as human beings are wont to do, most of us are not satisfied to stay within our own walkable neighborhoods. People want to venture out to other areas. Maybe they use transit, or drive, or bike there, but there are commercial areas like Madison Valley or Madison Park or parts of West Seattle, or Ballard that are surrounded by low-density housing, and yet they somehow survive and even thrive. But perhaps your argument is that people should only walk to local amenities?
“It’s also why we’re unable to sustain a transit system that is simultaneously frequent, high-capacity, and widespread… or, for that matter, to get the majority out of their cars.”
Having been to some rather dense cities that have a greater incorporation of residential and commercial buildings, there is more to the equation that just density. I’ve never seen so much traffic as I have in Buenos Aires, and yet this is an extremely dense urban area with commercial and residential very integrated (it ranks as one of the loudest cities in the world due to auto traffic). Same with Tokyo, which also has one of the largest transit systems in the world. There are cars everywhere. Paris? I wanted to kill myself when stuck in traffic there. Creating an urban landscape that allows people to walk to amenities in their vicinity is only part of the solution to getting people out of their cars. And Moscow? There is very little SF housing in the city, and yet you’re lucky if you can make it halfway across town in a car in under three hours. Moscow also has one of the most expansive and highly used metro systems in the world – but the traffic there is completely INSANE.
Talbot… Not sure you’ll ever see this so many days later, but I thought your @54 deserved a response.
I presume that the strip you’re talking about is 15th, and that you live somewhere around 17th. Your neighborhood is about as lovely as an in-city suburbanized neighborhood could possibly be — so don’t think I’m arguing for its wholesale replacement — but if you think your nearby detached-house area is single-handedly propping up the 15th stretch, you’re kidding yourself.
As you say, human beings are wont to explore other parts of their city, and don’t just stick to their own neighborhood. Seattleites do this too, but they do it far less than in other cities. Perhaps its the geographic obstacles, the lack of urban continuity (to encourage distance-walking), the potential for traffic, the frustration of parking, or the pervasive horribleness of the public transit, but Seattleites “keep it in the neighborhood” more than most urban dwellers. I know plenty of Capitol Hill dwellers who barely leave the Hill except for work or for special occasions.
Anecdotally, I’d estimate that 1/4 of the 15th Ave strip’s business comes from outside the Hill. Another 1/4 seem to come by foot, bike, or bus, mostly from the dozen denser blocks to the west of the strip, whose inhabitants are more accustomed to walking moderate distances to their destination.
The rest of 15th’s business arrives from the vast expanses of single-family Capital Hill that stretch well beyond its walkshed — Interlaken, Montlake, the north end of 10th, and the areas on the fringes of the Arboretum, the Madison Valley, and the C.D. These people are driving (thus the traffic and the dearth of parking), and they vastly outnumber those like you who are close enough and willing to walk. Without them, the immediate drop in density from 15th to your home would be fatal to 15th.
Your other examples are even starker. The Madison Valley commercial zone is very successful, and virtually no one walks to it! Its extremely low-density area of primary patronage stretches at least a mile in every direction.
Ballard, meanwhile, is able to be more than “a strip,” supporting a half-dozen crisscrossing streets of unbroken activity (almost like a real city neighborhood). This is precisely because it is mixed-used, contains varying densities that stretch in all directions from its core, and does not segregate its commercial center from a vast residential expanse in as absolute terms as your two other examples. But you know what? In spite of all that, a pretty high percentage of the patrons that keep downtown Ballard afloat still drive in from four square miles of 1950s single-family Ballard that have no services of their own!
I don’t know exactly how to address your second point without writing volumes. You are correct that all of the super-dense “world cities” you cite reach a critical mass such that traffic will always persist, no matter how small a percentage of “total trips” it represents. There are simply very few streets, so if even a minority use vehicles for the transport of goods, to reach areas not well-served by transit, or out of vanity, traffic will ensue. Although I think you’d be surprised how many of the road-clogging vehicles originated outside of the areas of density — all of those cities are sprawled, suburbanized, and (in the case of Paris and Moscow) ex-urban tower-blocked in a way that puts vehicles on the road. (Conversely, if you know your way around and drive outside of rush hour, when few are coming and going from the suburbs, you can zip around those cities surprisingly easily in a car! Ditto for New York and Boston.)
But anywhere within the actual urban area of any of your examples, you wouldn’t need to be fighting traffic. Thanks to density, almost any neighborhood would contain basic services, usually within a few blocks, and a transport network sufficient to get you anywhere else you might need/desire to go would be supportable!
This article and many articles like it seem to skip over or even ignore facts that happen in this conflict. First off, this isn’t one angry neighbor being a grouch and attacking the cafe because he didn’t like the idea of back door seating. the plan told to neighbors including the ones living next to VPC was that they were planing to use the area for not only seating but also a barbecue, which would be in use many of the open hours, and unlike what we’d normally think of at the word barbecue, this would be a much larger scale. Most neighbors were actually against this use of the back yard, now to remind everyone this doesn’t mean everyone living around the cafe was against it being open, in fact even the neighbors living next to VPC are happy with the cafe in general, and don’t wish to see it close its doors. Another part of this argument that’s over looked is that this Paul Jones after consulting with the other neighbors confronted the cafe multiple times about the use of the back yard, and if a middle ground could be found. the cafe ignored him and continued to even after he informed them about the zoning issues let alone the fact that no seating is allowed less then 50 feet away from residential housing, this means that it was not out of the blue for VPC when they were informed of their zoning violations, as they were forewarned multiple times this would happen if the continued to ignore the neighbors living close to the cafe. Even this article is unable to give a complete or correct view of the situation, this can be proven by a few different parts in this article. “Jones couldn’t be reached for comment.” there was never an actual attempt to reach Paul Jones, or at least one that would inform him of this article so he could contact to writer to give a comment. “”He seemed to think we’re expanding our business, but we’re not,” Earnhardt says. “Frankly, our kitchen can’t support any more customers.”” as I said before their plan was to expand their business, the fact that this wasn’t mentioned points to the idea that this article only had the side of Earnhardt, and that she in fact is using mudslinging to rally others to VPC’s defense. the fact that very few of you care to even consider this is causing great distress to the neighbors you insult.
To my friends next door:
I read all the comments. Some pro some con….
I think you guys should keep your heads up, stand firm in your beliefs.
They are the ones in the wrong, if they had a legal business license it wouldn’t even be an issue.
The old lady that owns the building mislead them, its not your fault.
When ever I have built anything I get a permit, they should have too, before they started working in the back garden, and they should have walked the neighborhood and talked to everyone to see if it was acceptable to make an addition to the business.
When I have visited you lately I have a hard time getting in your driveway its blocked by people illegally parking, I wouldn’t like this at my house!
Its been noisy when I visit and I would not have this at my house. I know you lived there before any restaurant was there!!! From what I’ve read they aren’t coming up with a solution just a lot of bashing, it shows the true personality….dog eat dog, not just a simple quiet eatery as they are trying to portray themselves.
You custom built the house in a quiet little part of Capitol Hill to raise your kids in a residential neighborhood close to the public elementary school and the local church you go to.
I know how sensitive you are, but don’t let it get to you, its not your lively hood its theirs.
Be strong, stand firm and everything will work out to be the way it should be.
No matter what….. they need to get licensed its up to the city, if you don’t want a restaurant next door let them know about it, its freedom of speech, most of the people that wrote in wouldn’t like it next door to them either, its easy to say they would until some one started building a restaurant next door to them. YOU are the only family next door no one else can know the true impact it has on your household!
If anyone wants to be next to a restaurant and city life I have a condo for rent in Belltown, Macrina bakery is just as good as VPC!!!!!
a friend in the north end…K
To my friends next door:
I read all the comments. Some pro some con….
I think you guys should keep your heads up, stand firm in your beliefs.
They are the ones in the wrong, if they had a legal business license it wouldn’t even be an issue.
The old lady that owns the building mislead them, its not your fault.
When ever I have built anything I get a permit, they should have too, before they started working in the back garden, and they should have walked the neighborhood and talked to everyone to see if it was acceptable to make an addition to the business.
When I have visited you lately I have a hard time getting in your driveway its blocked by people illegally parking, I wouldn’t like this at my house!
Its been noisy when I visit and I would not have this at my house. I know you lived there before any restaurant was there!!! From what I’ve read they aren’t coming up with a solution just a lot of bashing, it shows the true personality….dog eat dog, not just a simple quiet eatery as they are trying to portray themselves.
You custom built the house in a quiet little part of Capitol Hill to raise your kids in a residential neighborhood close to the public elementary school and the local church you go to.
I know how sensitive you are, but don’t let it get to you, its not your lively hood its theirs.
Be strong, stand firm and everything will work out to be the way it should be.
No matter what….. they need to get licensed its up to the city, if you don’t want a restaurant next door let them know about it, its freedom of speech, most of the people that wrote in wouldn’t like it next door to them either, its easy to say they would until some one started building a restaurant next door to them. YOU are the only family next door no one else can know the true impact it has on your household!
If anyone wants to be next to a restaurant and city life I have a condo for rent in Belltown, Macrina bakery is just as good as VPC!!!!!
The SLOG article presented only one side — the restaurant’s side. Perhaps it was meant to be an opinion piece and not an objective news piece. From the crowds that gather to eat at the restaurant, it is obvious that many people enjoy the food. However, few are imagining what it would be like to live right next to a lively eating establishment, which generates noise from early morning to late evening, has lots of delivery-truck traffic and adds many more parked cars to an already tight parking situation, and attracts many rats and crows that gather to eat the leavings around the trash bins and dumpsters in the alley. When the planned chicken coop comes, the rats will move in, in hordes (trust me, I grew up on a farm), and the urban raccoons, opossum, and and coyotes will likely line up, as well, to partake of the garbage, eggs, and even the chickens, too. Chicken coops also are fragrant. As much as the diners love the place, they probably haven’t “walked in the homeowners’ shoes” and thought about how it would feel to be living right next to all these problems and to see one’s property value go down, down, down. It’s a tough situation. I hope those who hold legal power over the solution consider all sides equally and try to seek the most-just solution. One last note, I am amazed at how uncivil people are, when they “chime in.” People behave so amazingly rudely when they don’t have to interact face-to-face and realize they are making comments to real flesh-and-blood people. Public discourse sadly usually becomes uncouth virtual-world verbal brawl, which serves no purpose but to fan the flames of already uncivil behavior. The concept of civil debate barely exists anymore.
I have been a resident and employee in this immediate neighborhood for over twenty years. I know the people who live next door to the cafe and would just like to say that although the cafe is one of the most successful businesses that has been in the building and they do offer good food and a meeting place for the community, they should be held to the same standards for the DPD as any other business. It is poor planning to not fully research what you are zoned for when starting any business, at any location. I worked very closely with the DPD for many years as a state licensor and facilitated “plan reviews” for the State for other businesses. This is unfortunate and obviously is bringing out strong emotions on both sides of the issue but to continously call the Jones family degrading names is inappropriate and cruel. They have a right to ask that the zoning laws be followed without being subjected to negative assumptions and hatred from their neighbors and the patrons of the restaurant. This is NOT a good reflection on the business owners that after being asked on many occasions in a polite and reasonable fashion to not have patrons’ dogs poop in their yard and be tied to their trees, to not have their flowers crushed repeatedly by their hose, to not have rats running over their fence from the overflowing and inadequate dumpsters, to not have their driveway blocked repeatedly, or to not be able to enjoy a quiet night out in their backyard garden which has been tended and cared for by them because the restaurant is now planning to run a very large Bar-B-Cue till 9 p.m. each night with clean up after and all the noise and parking that this will add too. Why would you all be so quick to judge our neighbors who have contributed to this community for over 20 years! They are members of the local church and have volunteered in the elementary school for years! They are modest and kind people who have worked their whole lives to build a home and raise their three beautiful children in this community and they have never done a thing to any of you but contribute to this neighborhood! When I was told I would die of cancer this neighbor that you are all so quick to attack spent months training to walk in my honor for 60 miles to help raise awareness for Breast Cancer because that is the kind of person that she is! I love this neighborhood and this family and you should all be ashamed by your privelged attitudes to judge others, you have no right and should let the DPD the business owners and the Jones family sort this out in a civil and respectful manner. Your anger should be directed elsewhere!
Although we have enjoyed the food at the Volunteer Park Cafe, it has outgrown the current location. With the increasing success of the restaurant, there has been an increase in trucks and traffic down the narrow streets of this neighborhood. With the increase in traffic, there has been the accompanying accidents. In addition to the truck-crunching-parked-car accidents, we have also had two neighborhood children hit by cars over the past few years. My concern is the increasing traffic will increase the number of vehicle accidents as well as increase the risk of accidents involving people of all ages. The restaurant would be better-situated in an area that has more parking, and more street capacity for handling the increased traffic.
I think they should just settle it all by giving him unlimited free food!
A LOT OF MISINFORMATION.
Many of the posts above refer to the cafe’s 7- or 12- or 15-years in business as a reason that VPC should be allowed to stay a cafe. Not true.
VPC opened 3 years ago. WHERE DID THESE POSTER GET THE IDEA VPC HAD BEEN OPERATING FOR 12 OR 15 YEARS? That is just wrong.
Many previous tenants operated cafes, but the space had no kitchen. The lack of a kitchen significantly limited the amount of impact to the neighborhood.
Three years ago, VPC added a kitchen before they opened for business. They did so without a permit from the city. The illegal kitchen allowed VPC to offer what previous cafes could not: full restaurant service.
VPC also pulled out the cold case that gave previous tenant the right to say they were operating a grocery.
THUS:
-VPC illegally changed the use of their business space without applying for permitting or zoning to do so.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE that the owners opened their cafe “in good faith” and risk being “punished for the sins of their predecessors.” That statement is eyes wide shut, and if you still believe it, you are not open to reason.
-Because of their illegal kitchen, VPC has more than doubled their business in the time they have been open.
VPC’s success does not negate their neighbors right to legitimate concerns. It’s our street, too. If anything, we have more legal standing. I don’t know a single neighbor who breaks the laws simply by opening their doors every morning.