In late January, six activists claiming to represent South Seattle neighborhoods filed legal challenges that will delay planning for more housing and stores around light-rail stations. Due to the appeals and an annual cycle for new rules relating to neighborhood planning, “we can’t move forward on these issues until next year,” says David Goldberg, a senior planner with the city’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD). If the neighbors hadn’t filed their deliberately timed appeals, the city could have begun studying the impacts of taller buildings within blocks of the light-rail stations—where density is needed most—in March.
But more than an abstract delay (while construction around the city waits during an economic lull), the appeals affect pressing needs for some people suffering the most in the recession.
On north Beacon Hill, El Centro de la Raza is struggling to provide a raft of social services, including language lessons, housing assistance, and classes on navigating foreclosure. In 2009, it provided services for 25,497 individuals and 12,282 families—a 31 percent jump from the previous year. Currently operating out of an old school, the organization also owns a vacant parcel of land adjacent to the new Beacon Hill light-rail station, where the nonprofit wants to build low-income-housing units and street-level retail next to a vast public plaza. But before it can cement its plans, the city must study the impacts of changing current building codes from single-family homes to mixed-use buildings, with a jump in height limits from 40 feet to 65 feet. Estela Ortega, executive director of El Centro, says it would be impractical to build at the current 40-foot height when the neighborhood and need for the group’s services are growing so rapidly.
One woman is standing in the way of this study for better development around light rail on Beacon Hill: resident Frederica Merrell.
On January 29, Merrell filed paperwork with the city hearing examiner that claimed the DPD failed to adequately study the environmental impacts of increasing density when drafting an update to the North Beacon Hill Neighborhood Plan. Her appeal claims that residents will be severely impacted by “building height changes… loss of breathable space… aesthetic impacts”—among 39 other complaints. The Seattle City Council cannot review the updated neighborhood plan until the appeal is resolved. In effect, Merrell—who lives four blocks from the station, which opened in 2009—is postponing the inevitable city improvements that come with building a major mass-transit network.
“How is it that one individual can stop the process when hundreds of people participated?” asks Ortega. “[Merrell] filed this appeal as an individual but claims to be a spokesperson for everybody. She didn’t speak on our behalf.”
Merrell’s appeal is not unique. Two groups of residents from other neighborhoods with new light-rail stations, Pat Murakami and Barbara Marino from Mount Baker, along with Ronald Momoda, Patricia Paschal, and Jenna Walden from Othello—also claiming to represent “neighbors, businesses, students and school families, customers, visitors, commuters, recreation users”—filed nearly identical appeals on January 29 in an orchestrated strategy. Walden, the only petitioner willing to comment, says the Othello appeal is a protest against the marginalization of local neighborhood groups.
However, Bill LaBorde, policy director of Transportation Choices Coalition, condemns the tactics as simply obstruction. “They’re not about how to develop better neighborhoods; [the petitioners are] saying we don’t want to develop, we don’t want change.”
For their part, the petitioners insist that the city failed to adequately consider the environmental impacts of development in their neighborhoods, per the State Environmental Policy Act.
But that is not true.
Environmental-impact studies accompany every step in the planning process, explains Goldberg. “There are likely two more layers of environmental review in store for these neighborhoods, each with increasing specificity.” But the petitioners claim the first study wasn’t thorough enough. “They have a long list of things that weren’t enough,” says Goldberg. “In an appeal, one tactic is to throw as many darts as you can and see what sticks.”
Moreover, public-outreach liaisons held 80 workshops for the neighborhood plan updates, attracting roughly 1,650 people, according to DPD spokesman Bryan Stevens. The department gave public notice and held eight separate meetings for each plan update. DPD representatives also attended 30 community meetings to discuss the updates. El Centro had roughly 300 individuals commenting on its expansion at these meetings.
Still, petitioners complain that they weren’t involved enough in the planning process. Seattle City Council member Sally Clark, who attended many of the neighborhood meetings and chairs the council’s Committee on the Built Environment, disagrees, saying the city reached out to residents in a variety of languages, so that more people were included in this planning process than a similar process a decade ago. “Part of the test is not whether everybody is happy at the end of the process, but whether as many people as possible participated,” Clark says.
Per state law, the city council can only amend neighborhood plans once a year, in March, and the DPD can’t study the impacts of these neighborhood plans—zoning, building height changes, etc.—until this happens. Clark and others say discussions on the neighborhood’s future can continue; they just can’t study it—a necessary step. The city hearing examiner is scheduled to hear the three appeals in April, pushing back the study until next spring. The hearing examiner can send the DPD back to do more thorough studies in these neighborhoods or dismiss the appeals.
“Currently, every [station] in southeast Seattle is pretty heavily underutilized in terms of development,” says LaBorde, who adds that the areas around the Beacon Hill, Othello, and Mount Baker stations are perfect to become urban villages. LaBorde’s opinion is shared by scores of planners who say developing around light rail increases transit ridership, decreases dependence on cars, cuts carbon emissions, and in general builds healthy, independent communities that represent responsible city planning at its best.
According to Sound Transit, ridership doubled on Tacoma Link’s first week of service when compared to the previous bus route. And the National Personal Transportation Study found that 70 percent of Americans will walk 500 feet to transit stops for daily trips. More housing in proximity to light-rail stations increases the number of people who ride transit and decreases the number of car drivers.
But Merrell, who refused many opportunities to comment directly, defends her tactics. In a post for Beacon Hill Blog, she writes, “An appeal is kind of like a poker game. One important strategy for winning the game is not showing your hand. So I’m not going to answer a lot of specific questions right now… I want to win my hearing determination!”
But Merrell and her cohorts appear to be more concerned with winning than pursuing the best interests of their neighborhoods and the city. El Centro, at least, has filed a motion to dismiss Merrell’s appeal on grounds that the conflicts listed in the appeal aren’t within the examiner’s jurisdiction. If the motion is granted, it won’t regain a lost year, but it will provide El Centro the satisfaction of fighting back against an appeal that would stifle the development of a diverse and growing neighborhood. 
@56
Under current zoning, the area around the Beacon Hill station can only be built to 40ft. Around all the stations, land value is going to stay stagnant until final zoning is decided. No one is going to sell or develop land that is under-zoned, especially during a recession.
To me, progress is only possible when there’s potential for things to happen. Leaving the current zoning in place stops (or at least severely limits) progress.
These appeals are supposed to be about the lack of adequate environmental review around these three sites. Clearly, they carry more meaning to those who wrote and those who support them.
I don’t support them. The people who filed those appeals don’t speak for me as a Beacon Hill resident–or for many of my neighbors. Cienna’s piece presented some facts, and comments are being made regarding those facts.
Your interpretation of the facts does not represent my view–so please stop saying you speak for the neighborhood. You don’t. You speak for yourself.
After the zoning is finalized (at whatever heights), residents and businesses in the neighborhoods will have more opportunities to review the design, environmental impact, and overall desirability of each individual project.
Nothing can happen until the zoning issues are resolved. No progress can be made because these appeals were filed.
Everyone who lives in the affected neighborhoods needs to figure out where and when their local neighborhood council meets. Get out there to a meeting and share your voice. City Council members might read blogs, but they listen to the neighborhood councils.
N. Beacon Hill Council
http://north-beacon-hill.blogspot.com/
Meets the first Thursday of every month, Beacon Hill library, 7pm. That’s next Thursday, 3/4.
And NIMBYism of the filthy stinking rich and obnoxious once again rears its ugly head.
On maybe a brighter side in the future: here’s hoping the “Not in OUR backyard!” snobs get stuck on their private “$2,000-a-plate-luncheon” islands–with no way off.
Welcome to the Eastside Zoo!!
@57 zoning in Othello and Mt. Baker is 65′ and is proposed by DPD to be raised to 85′.
This article is about 3 station areas, yet most of the comments are regarding the injustice inflicted upon El Centro de la Raza. Reading Briktru’s comment (56), I’m pretty sure its referencing Othello, which is WAY different than BH.
As for El Centro, they have been paid well by Sound Transit for the duration of the construction for use of the south part of their property, where the basketball courts used to be. They have known a light rail station would be built across the street (Cienna, its a street, not a huge plaza) for a long, long time. If they had ideas about expanding and capitalizing on their location, which will require a rezone, they could have gotten to work on a contract rezone proposal, as many developers do. This would likely include some kind of rendering of what the project would look like and what functions it would serve. El Centro has talked about what they’d like to do, and I believe support on BH is strong for those stated functions, but there have been no visuals to go with it. El Centro is trying to get the rezone without the time and money commitment that most developers looking to change a land use have to make.
Using the public Neighborhood Plan process to obtain land use change leaves you open to the public process, and appeals to the Hearing Examiner are part of that.
Appeals to the Hearing Examiner can also be an effective tool to bring conclusion to negotiation, just ask Children’s Hospital.
Finally, the appeal to the Hearing Examiner is about Neighborhood Planning and holding the city accountable to the citizens to provide the infrastructure that makes a city a livable, vibrant and sustainable place.
Contract rezones suck. Developers may use them, but ultimately a neighborhood’s zoning should be devised through an open public process, so the ground rules are the same for everyone. Whether or not you as a property owner choose to redevelop to maximum height, it shouldn’t be that one corner of an intersection is 85′ and the others are 40′.
Seems the article missed the point of the appeal, and doesn’t understand the point of the neighborhood meetings. It was then that the city should have proposed the density changes. they knew they were building a station. Instead, they slipped in the new stuff AFTER the planning process was over. Basically a big F U to everyone who participated. This was a hit piece on behalf of developers. The El Centro stuff is a red herring.
Soggydan is right, throughout the Neighborhood Plan Update process(started about a year ago), DPD was repeatedly asked for upzone proposals so that the neighborhood could have this discussion. Instead, they published the proposals (including one with 85′ towers in BH Town Center) around September or October, then held the public open house outside of the neighborhood, without a validation process in place, and expected to get an OK. Or maybe the strategy was to run out the clock and push through some pre-determined upzones.
Let me get this straight, everyone is complaining about these individuals using a legal and legitimate process to voice their concerns? How dare they! As someone who lives near the Mt Baker station I have seen the utter lack of respect for anyone voicing concerns over the redevelopment of light rail stations, from both private citizens and city reps. It wasn’t long ago that we had to fight with the city to remove their ability to use eminent domain as one of their “tools” for redevelopment. That’s right, our city leaders were going to force people to sell their land if the city wanted it. Now that seems more like a fascist/totalitarian tactic than the liberal mind set that most of these people claim to harbor.
Another big issue with the redevelopment is parking. Just because something is built next to a light rail station doesn’t mean people will just sell their cars. Now it might mean they will use them less, but they won’t completely eliminate them. Not requiring parking would lead to a similar parking scenario that is a reality in Capitol Hill, which sucks everyday all day.
I read the Othello Station appeal. It is ludicrous – the environmental impacts of changing a few parcels from 65′ to 85′ will be hard even to measure.
Of course the big difference between most residents and this faction, is that we see well-designed transit oriented development as having very positive impacts, both human and environmental. To us, it’s a win-win situation: we get a great town center and stronger and safer neighborhood, while helping to slow suburb an sprawl, climate change, and oil-dependency.
Working family housing? Walkable retail and services catering to the community? Are you kidding?
What North Beacon Hill needs are more of those Dwell style $500K each four pack townhouses that never sell, with developers waiting out the real estate market crash!
I too am a resident of Beacon Hill and live just a couple of blocks from the BH Light Rail Station. This Frederica Merrell person most assuredly does not speak for me and left me fuming when I read the article this morning. I have lived on Beacon Hill for about 11 years now and have impatiently waited for development to come. To see an obstructionist move like this makes me livid. Aaaaaargh!
Can someone clairfy something for me — So from my understanding the rezoning for BH has been studied and discussed and numerous community meetings, but that neighborhood plan had height limits of 40 feet. Now that the height limits have been raised to 65 feet, this group of neighbors is saying that we need to throw they neighborhood plan out and start over with the studies. Do I have this right?
I haven’t kept in touch w/Freddie Merrell over the last few years, but I’ve known her for a long time. I have NO IDEA what she’s really up to here (and I’m not sure I agree with her), but neither do any of you.
She is not a NIMBY’er. She has supported El Centro de la Raza for years. She wrote a freakin’ book about Beacon Hill’s history (check Amazon). She’s a very nice, if opinionated, woman who has contributed more to that community and this city than the vast majority of the name-callers on this comment board combined.
My point, people, is that you don’t know anything about her, so stop acting like you do. Stick to the facts. Don’t make assumptions. All of your characterizations of her are way off base from the reality of the person.
@ 65: You are absolutely right…people should be able to voice their concerns about redevelopment. That’s exactly what’s been happening. The problem is that this appeal isn’t be used as a way to excersize one or a neighborhoods right…its being used as a way to delay and stall a process. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean its fair or correct. Merrell has used this process to delay…not enhance or better such process.
It would be nice if folks like these would stop hidding behind process and express why they are really anti-development.
SABOTAGE
The city has been sabotaging all of us. The Light Rail, our neighborhood business all of us that believed in the hope VI mixed income.
The EXTREME idea of NO parking close to the stations. NOT even payed!!
Yes we need development big time.
I recommend the city get professional assistance on the types of Transit-oriented development that will truly decongestant I-5 and bring mixed income families to the neighborhood.
When GreenwoodSam says about Freddie M. “I have NO IDEA what she’s really up to here (and I’m not sure I agree with her), but neither do any of you.” he’s pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Many Beacon Hill residents on this thread, and I add myself to them (15 yrs. on BH, 12 yrs. homeowner, 1 blk from El Centro), have stated that she does not represent them. I agree. Whether or not she has stated that she represents Beacon Hill she is, primarily, representing herself. This, if you’ve ever had the dis/pleasure of working with her, should come as no surprise all her ‘community’ rhetoric notwithstanding.
I appreciate paulgeorge’s and soggydan’s comments for having added valuable information to this discussion. We need more information, more facts (and less uninformed knee jerk grandstanding) on this thread (and in general). Frederica, with her handful of cards, is not helping the matter. She probably has her own reasons for fostering confusion.
As does the DPD. As does El Centro.
It seems confusion reigns. It would be really great to see some clarity on this issue so that the community can actually be involved, rather than just guessing at what the cards are by those holding them.
Don’t just TALK about community, BE community.
Well, letting people have a voice (democracy)really sucks when it doesn’t go your way. Buck up motherfuckers! Grow a thicker skin and deal with it. There will always be someone who doesn’t agree with your ‘progress’-get used to it. And you should cast away your delusion that only YOU hold a monopoly on truth.
d.p. @46 – my townhouse is a 5-star green super modern, nothing else like it, and built by a fantastic, reputable builder with great warranties.
Markus @51 – I put 30% down, don’t own a credit card, I have impecable credit, and I was fully aware of the station and other construction in the area. As far as my supposed financial irresponsibility, I left my job to finish my masters, but was then told I would have to pay international student rates, so now I am out of work, can’t get unemployment and I’m spending everyday looking for a job. My boyfriend also lost his job and had to move out to take a job in another city.
The appeal is about the neighborhood plan, not just El Centro’s development. Anyone who believes it’s simply about stopping El Centro has been reading the rather poor reporting in the Stranger. El Centro will still get NC65. It might take another year, but perhaps in that time they could share with neighbors what exactly they’re proposing to build, and clarify what the community benefits would actually be (for example, how public and open would any open space actually be?) Perhaps in that extra time, there can be some reconciliation to repair the damage from flamethrowing journalists like Ciena and a few other misinformed types on the Beacon Hill Blog. Perhaps El Centro can use that time to refine and improve their plans. Probably the extra time will make a better project–and probably won’t delay them that much anyway. But of course, for all you build-it-at-all-cost types, it’s all Merrell’s fault. She’s why there’s no hipster bars and coffee shops up here, why rents go up, why the entire Sound Transit block remains undeveloped. It’s so much easier to have a scapegoat!
This Beacon Hill resident hopes that El Centro uses the extra time for better outreach, better design, and a better project overall.
However, Bill LaBorde, policy director of Transportation Choices Coalition, condemns the tactics as simply obstruction. “They’re not about how to develop better neighborhoods; [the petitioners are] saying we don’t want to develop, we don’t want change.”
Priceless in light of the 520 debate. Go (to hell) TCC!
El Centro doesn’t have the funds and will have trouble raising the funds to do any outreach or develop any plans until the zoning is finalized.
The appeals–all three of them–are written specifically as concerns re: lack of environmental review. Of course, there will be multiple environmental reviews for each individual proposed project at each site…but that doesn’t seem to be the point.
The appellants and supporters use the supposed environmental concern as a springboard to bemoan every other possible consequence of development. There was no way to slow or delay things by participating in further discussion about the neighborhood plan, so they appealed the DNS.
@37 what @46 said. You are so fucking stupid it almost saddens me. You own a property at an urban hub whose value will skyrocket over the next twenty years as density and urbanization continue. And you are blaming the construction for the decrease in value, when every else can plainly see you bought a townhouse at the top of the bubble and now are suffering for your stupidity.
By the way, I bought a house after the bubble burst, right next to the Columbia city station.
Have fun renting loser.
@66 Dick – “we get a great town center”
where exactly is this great town center documented? where is the capital investment plan for it? who is building it and when? how open space and other public amenities is there (as great TOD is supposed to have)? can you show the specifics behind your rhetoric?
kool-aid drinkers and dispensers all…
I’m really tired of self described environmentalists who are opposed to environmental review. If we want people to live in the city its environment needs to be protected too. Thanks to everyone who filed the appeals.
I would like to see mixed use development around all the stations. The idea that “Seattle” would transform from a hub and spoke city into a Puget Sound “Linear City” where people can live and work at any point on a track or highway.
Some articles about Linear Cities:
http://yrihf.com/viewtopic.php?t=3975&si…
Where I live, at the Mt. Baker station, the desolate area around the station belongs to the UW. That property is never spoken of. What the developers want is our homes, because they can get the land cheaply. We saw what happened to our neighbors when Sound Transit came through. Saving the earth through Density is just another real estate scam, and your awkward article reads like just another bourgeois bohemian shill.
Rather than acting on their own, why didn’t these individuals go to their neighborhood councils, raise their concerns, and then proceed if there was consensus from the community? I’m sure these individuals proably moved forward becuause they thought what they were doing was in the best interest of the neighborhood. But that seems pretty presumptious. It seems there were better channels they could have taken.
The comments about NIMBYism are at least partly uninformed. I can speak for Jenna and her organization in the Othello neighborhood directly. If someone who bothers to organize, advertise, show up to, and run community meetings can’t say she “represents the community,” then I don’t know who can. Maybe the people here who find time to comment on the internets, but skip the walk to the local library to actually participate in the community group meetings.
Fact is, neighborhood groups in SE Seattle are suffering. People don’t show up to meetings, they’re undermined by competing organizations, and the city shows little interest in formally recognizing any particular one/group of them. The few that are recognized have executive committees made up of people who don’t even live in the neighborhood, but instead run non-profits in the area, or simply own property (but live elsewhere).
That is painting THEM with a broad, possibly unfair brush, but turnabout is fair play.
Look, development is a good thing, and El Centro is a good organization. But SE Seattle’s been the city’s dumping ground for large public housing projects and social service organizations forever. Where’s the 80-plus unit public housing development in Ravenna? Wedgwood? Crown Hill? Admiral? Magnolia?
Look at the stats. When the rest of this city starts pulling its weight when it comes to large social services developments, low-income housing and the like, then maybe it makes sense to concentrate even more of these services in SE Seattle.
Otherwise, we’re just turning the clock back to the failed policy of concentrating low-income residents into isolated ghettos, away from where the rich folk have to look at them.
NIMBY Nazis run it!
The idea that someone who goes to meetings somehow “represents the community” is insane. No one represents neighborhoods in Seattle because we have an at-large council. Instead, some people appoint themselves as representatives by going to meetings, but they have zero accountability to anyone. It’s highly undemocratic.
In Denver, Colorado, El Cento De La Raza was viewed by the established power structure as a “militant radical disorganization attempting to destroy our precious American values”(City’s words) whereas my ‘honky’ experiences with them only were mutually co-operative and highly productive to me and my Chicano neighbors. The things the power structure did to these people were unforgivable but they struggled on with success and a lot of help from the ‘counter-culture’ of the time. So I was shocked and amazed and happy to see El Centro get their building in Seattle when they pulled it off and I thought much more highly of the municipality of Seattle for the way they behaved and let it proceed, even helping it along, and I have faith in El Cento’s motives here. As far as their low income housing and other planned buildings go, it would be ideal if solar siting and PASSIVE solar heating was built into the new structures to make them truly useful and appropriate. (Passive works when your power is out too) Active may be needed in some situations they will encounter, but any way you can avoid a “consumer” building and create a self-sufficent one is a step in the right direction. And it helps the low income people the most. All these developer$ continue to miss out on this. Hope this is considered in El Centro’s plans along with living roofs, photo-voltaics, water heating, etc. Can u do this El Centro? (I’m no fan of over-density–I can live fine in forest, but both need to be done right.) Non-Irish Honkey
anchor
You can’t get a damned sand castle built in this city without going through hell with someone.
Heaven forbid we do a thoughtful legal project!Everyones rights should be squashed in the name progress.
Heaven forbid we do a thoughtful LEGAL construction project. Personal rights be dammed! Any foolish feel good project must be railroaded through by the Jackboots. We haven’t had enough personal rights taken by the city and county yet, lets get this done. All must exist for the good of the stoner dreams of a few.
Just another example of NIMBYs pursuing what is worst for the neighbourhood and best for THEMSELVES. Don’t put dense housing near mass transit stations–it might actually serve the community and make your neighbourhood more vibrant and viable. And then you wouldn’t feel as isolated from the rest of the world. That would be horrible.
What a pissy article! It completely misses the point.
I am a hill resident of over 20 years and a property owner in the central strip and I even spent a bundle improving that crappy property (yeah, i know – BFD).
If seattle is about anything, it is about “process”. We may not like it sometimes, but it is there for a reason. “Process” in neighborhood planning means taking the time necessary to ensure that differing interests are heard and addressed (or at least answered) before making decisions that will dramatically alter the neighborhood and cityscape.
The appeal was a legitimate response to a process that was artifically accelerated because it is in one of the city’s holy “station areas” and the city wanted to run a hurry-up-quick re-zoning approval process.
Yup, it will slow the pace of significant new development on the hill by a whole year, but in the world of major developments that isn’t squat – and in case anyone haven’t heard, there is still a recession going on, the banks aren’t giving loans for property development, much less businesses that want to invest in themselves, and there is nobody chomping at the bit to build anything on Beacon Hill (much less Columbia City, Cap Hill…etc.
…a whole lot of huffing about nothing!
@94, A year’s worth of meetings on top of ten years of building a light rail system hardly seems “artificially accelerated.” In the real world, that’s slow as molasses.
For anyone who owns property on the hill, and considers the future value and disposition of that property to be part of their retirement future, and is over the age of, say, 40, a year of nothing happening because of a frivolous appeal is a year of worry and anxiety.
Belltown and Lake Union don’t even have any plans for a rapid transit line, but their hight limits are like 30-40 stories. …and these folks in south end can’t even get it up to 6 stories?… and they have the transit infrastructure in place already. What?! lmao! only in Seattle.
Most people who live Belltown, L Queen Anne, and Lake Union, have to drive to sustain their lives since transit in those neighborhoods doesn’t go anywhere meaningful or safe, and is extremely slow. But the hight limit there goes higher and higher, way above 30 floors in some spots, while the roads there are getting narrower and more congested(i.e. Mercer st is going to shrink to 3 lanes for example). Many people wish they had a light rail there.
It looks like the light rail stations in rainier valley were actually designed for low density… None of them have any grade separated pedestrian connections… In Mt Baker, people have to cross like 5-6 lanes of Rainier Ave to get to the transit center, what a joke! All stations on MLK require passengers to cross traffic lanes in order to get to/from the train as well.
This city has a very awkward zoning and transportation planning that do not go together. Buildings are taller where regional transit doesn’t exist, and smaller where it does. Bicycles are allowed to be in the same lane with buses and street-cars, which dramatically slows the transit down and is totally masochistic if you are bicyclist. The streets are getting narrower where regional transit is not even planned. Ughh… The list goes on and on…
@ 79 Rotten666 – living in your grandma’s basement and being an adult who reverts back to a baby-like state where you have to pay people from the stranger ads to come change your diapers must make you really angry, but there’s no need to take it out on everyone around you. Damn!