Video: Pointed questions for DPD @ Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting

With three representatives from the city Department of Planning and Development due at last night’s Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting, we thought video might be in order. The interactions, in fact, were tense at times.

Land use and planning was the night’s theme. Before we started rolling, attendees at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center heard from their crosstown counterpart Southwest District Council‘s co-chairs Sharonn Meeks and Vlad Oustimovitch, talking about the West Seattle Land Use Committee that SWDC is launching with hopes of peninsula-wide involvement. (Stay tuned for news of its first meeting and how to get involved.)

The DPD presenters began with the Seattle 2035 comprehensive-plan-update process we’ve mentioned a few times (including the sparse-in-many-ways “open house” here a week ago). DNDC members’ pointed questions for DPD rep Patrice Carroll included North Delridge‘s Michael Taylor-Judd wondering why the city is looking ahead 20 years when current problems (including exceeded growth targets and inadequate transportation to handle who’s here now and who’s on the way shortly) don’t seem to be getting addressed. WWRHAH‘s Amanda Kay Helmick noted that none of the DPD handouts even mentioned West Seattle.

Second DPD rep was Aly Pennucci, who’s been making neighborhood-meeting rounds for three months talking about the potential rezoning for “pedestrian retail areas.” In the case of Delridge, it was pointed out, that too seems to be looking past a problem – how can you dither about tweaking business districts when there isn’t much commercial space available?

Third up from DPD was David Goldberg, talking about a new project to create a “Healthy Living Framework” for Delridge. A somewhat jargonistic handout was provided, including this paragraph:

“The planning process and resulting action plan will serve to engage the full range of community stakeholders including historically underrepresented communities. The outreach and engagement will focus on the opportunity areas, but may expand to address priorities for historically underrepresented communities. The process will also convene an advisory committee envisioned to transform into or help establish and ongoing and representative implementation committee.”

Part of the preceding bullet points (we don’t have an electronic version of this two-sided handout yet but are looking for) included a mention of “future SDOT improvements along Delridge,” but the DPD rep didn’t have information about upcoming Delridge projects, at and around Andover, which was a point of concern for Pigeon Point‘s Pete Spalding.

ALSO AT THE MEETING: Our crew had to leave after the DPD presentations, so we apologize that we don’t have Cindi Barker‘s land-use-primer presentation on video (but there’s lots of context and info in this one we recorded last fall). In a non-DPD item, North Delridge’s Patrick Baer announced that the city had agreed to fix the asphalt-covered planting strip that resulted from the recent Delridge/Findlay project mentioned here, for which Baer was the original proposer. Here’s our photo from this morning:

We have since confirmed the de-asphalting plan with SDOT’s John Vander Sluis, who says, “Based on public feedback, SDOT will be removing the asphalt and working with the community on the installation of a landscaped planting strip. … The decision to remove the asphalt was made late last week, so I don’t have details on schedule at this point.”

DNDC meets third Wednesdays at Youngstown, 7 pm.

3 Replies to "Video: Pointed questions for DPD @ Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting"

  • dripping wet April 17, 2014 (2:31 pm)

    what was the rational for asphalting in the first place? how much $$$ to dig it up?

    i saw this yesterday and thought what stupid SDOT bureaucratic group think did *that*?

    whatever the excuse – standard stupid is what I see.

    I tried to work with SDOT on a spot drainage issue which *could* have included partnering with the County’s rainwise program, but they absolutely did not recognize hill/oil runoff programs which bypass drains on streets.

    SDOT = a group-think problem – not a problem solver. Over and over again.

    Hopeless to imagine SDOT will ever act proactively about drainage alternatives. Foolish.

  • Mike April 17, 2014 (9:58 pm)

    I’d like to thank SDOT for removing safe parking for people going to Pho Aroma. I truly enjoy squeezing my body against my vehicle to unbuckle my older daughter, then telling her to get out on the curb side since we are forced to park along Delridge with traffic zooming by. It’s truly a gift to fear parking to get a quality bowl of pho.

  • Mickymse April 27, 2014 (2:47 pm)

    They didn’t remove “safe” parking… They made things safer for neighbors actually walking there.

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