REZONING: ‘Focus group’ looks at draft maps, with dots but without a deep dive

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Less than a week after the city went public with proposed rezoning maps for the city’s “urban villages,” the feedback process remains diffuse.

Last night, for a firsthand look at how part of it is working, we went to one of the “focus groups” that have been meeting monthly on related matters involved with the initiative known as HALA, the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda. (We wrote about the recruitment process last winter.) This group has been focused on areas including the West Seattle Junction. More on that shortly, including an alternative way to comment if you are having trouble with the site the city set up at hala.consider.it.

And today, the city announced that Mayor Murray will preside over a live Q/A about HALA via the mayoral Facebook page tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 10:45 am. Since it’s not a two-way video connection, you are asked to post questions now, either via this “event” page or via your Twitter account, with the hashtag #AffordableSeattle.

Now, to the background.

The reason for the rezoning maps: A component of HALA called Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA – here’s a one-sheet explaining it). In exchange for getting more developable space – with an average upzone of one story beyond what’s allowed now – developers/builders will either have to include a certain percentage of “affordable” housing – affordable to people making 60 percent of the city’s mean income – or pay the city a certain fee to go into a homebuilding fund.

The focus groups, including the one we sat in on last night, are not organized geographically; instead, they are organized by the size/type of urban village. So the group that met last night includes people from the larger “hub urban villages” – Ballard, Capitol Hill / Pike-Pine, First Hill, Lake City, Northgate, University District, and West Seattle Junction.

This was the group’s first meeting since the release of the draft rezoning maps last week (WSB coverage here). To recap, here are the four for West Seattle’s four urban villages (with a link below each one that you can use to just download the map instead of viewing through the Scribd embedded versions):

(Direct link to West Seattle Junction map)

(Direct link to Morgan Junction map)

(Direct link to Admiral map)

(Direct link to Westwood-Highland Park map)

Here’s who’s in the focus groups; you can see on this page how they were assembled.

Last night’s meeting was in a relatively small room at City Hall. A consultant filled in as facilitator, saying the meeting’s purpose was “to review and discuss proposed zoning maps for the Urban Villages.” The focus group is a “working meeting,” she said, promising time for comment toward the meeting’s end. The maps for the urban villages with which this group had been dealing were taped up on the walls around the room. Focus-group members sat in chairs set up in front-facing audience configuration, while “observers” – attendees who weren’t part of the group – sat in chairs against the walls.

Even before Q/A was solicited, one focus group member from First Hill pointed out that none of the maps had an overlay of where Sound Transit lines and stations will go, even though those are known.

Senior urban planner Nicolas Welch of OPCD gave the overview. He noted that focus groups have been greatly interested in “displacement risk” and then went on to make note of the mayor’s announcement of changes in the MHA implementation. He explained the differences between M, M1, and M2 notations – certain levels of affordable-housing components. Some parts of the city were moved to “higher MHA” areas, Welch added. MHA is just one way of addressing displacement risk, he said, and the environmental-impact statement process will address it too. There’s also the Housing Preservation program, with the city attempting to get state permission for an exemption program, and an equitable-development initiative “with some community-initiated programs throughout the city.”

And when light rail came up again, Welch pointed out that the Sound Transit 3 measure on the November 8 ballot includes $20 million for affordable housing.

The maps were not explained/reviewed for the group. Instead, the facilitator asked those present to walk around the room and put sticky dots on whichever sections they thought should get some discussion.

After 15 minutes of doing that, the maps with the most dots were discussed. Though we were there primarily to see what, if anything, would be said about the West Seattle Junction map, we took notes about points of interest from the others.

First Hill/Capitol Hill was addressed first. One commenter for that area, who said he lives there, said that while housing will get more dense, there’s no provision for amenities such as parks. “I’m thinking that’s something we ought to be looking at in this process.” That would apply to all the maps, the facilitator agreed. (A later mention brought Welch to say that OPCD and Parks are working on some long-range planning.)

There was a more detailed discussion of what really constitutes affordable housing – 30 percent average mean income, should comprise more of that, it was suggested, than the 60 percent average mean income that MHA is focused on.

And tearing down existing affordable housing (such as Yesler Terrace) was a concern brought up by one focus-group member.

It was reiterated that multifamily-zoned property everywhere will be upzoned – even outside urban-village boundaries – and that single-family-zoned property outside urban villages will not.

The second-most commented map was Northgate and vicinity. The neighborhood near North Seattle College does not want to change, one focus-group member said.

As a sidebar to that discussion, Welch mentioned they had discussed changing boundaries for nine urban villages/centers in recent years, mostly around transit, and that included the West Seattle Junction. They’re using a 10-minute “walkshed” as a barometer, he said, though one member said that the “60,000 people who are coming here are coming from California with their cars – they’re not walking.” Another member disagreed with that, saying that people would eventually not be driving as much.

On to Lake City. A resident voiced worries about a big redevelopment project near her neighborhood, saying it takes her ~15 minutes just to get out of her driveway now, and what’s going to happen when all these additional people show up?

None of the maps got detailed discussion – just a look at where the dots were (and there weren’t many of them, since the attendance was relatively light), and on to the next one.

For Ballard, there was a comment about non-connection of corridors. And then, “future light rail” came up – with a station expected at 15th and Market (assuming ST3 passes).

Finally at 7:30 pm, an hour and a half into the meeting, it was on to West Seattle Junction discussion – first, an area of the map where “nothing” was happening was pointed out. It’s a “small bit of single-family land outside of the urban village boundary,” Welch explained, for the half-dozenth time he had had to do so in the discussion.

Is the city not rezoning single-family zones because of the political pushback? one man asked, rhetorically.

A dot near California/Hudson was explained by its placer as “a lot of single-family homes now, streets are narrow, lined with cars all the time … will duplexes, triplexes have to provide any on-site parking?” Welch said it’s not required in urban villges but some developers choose to – for small projects that are available for sale, it’s even more common, so he expects one per unit for rowhouses/townhouses “though it will not be required.”

Transition areas were flagged by one member.

And another member said it’s still important to have parking, though someday cars will be obsolete – “anybody who drives to work and has the option to take transit is crazy.” Another member said, “we have to get over this car thing – Seattle is too damn small” (for them) – then somebody else jumped in. It was a friendly disagreement.

Another person brought up somebody who can’t back out of a driveway because there is a no-parking development nearby and people don’t observe the five-foot rule for closeness to parking to driveway. Her suggestion – when new development is proposed, the city needs to notify neighbors in a wider area than currently required.

Another person said bicycle infrastructure is vital.

And another said that while this focus group seems fairly accepting of proposed rezoning, he has heard that other groups are not, and he’s worried that means even more changes and rezoning will be moved to the areas this group is covering.

Welch said,”this is definitely a citywide program, and this will remain the frame for it.” He also pitched the hala.consider.it site for feedback.

One man said it’s vital to hear from people experiencing displacement.

OBSERVER COMMENTS

Again – “observer” was the term used for non-group members who sat it on the meeting and had a chance to speak up toward the end. Everyone who spoke was from West Seattle.

One longtime resident said she has raised her family here; she has a daughter attending the UW who can’t live in WS because of the commute, “so we are paying rent for her to go to school.” She lives next to rental property and is sure the rezoning will lead to redevelopment. She takes transit to work and has hoped to live out her days in her neighborhood. She feels helpless about the rezoning. “I support affordable housing but we have to look at it holistically and accommodate all different types of development.” She says just getting around West Seattle has become difficult. “Once the zoning goes into effect, you’re going to have developers go in and it will be a free-for-all.” She mentioned the Junction development on the southwest corner of 42nd and Oregon, with more than 40 units and only about a dozen parking spaces planned.

The next person to speak said he didn’t realize he was in an urban village until learning about the proposed rezoning this week. “I’ve made a lot of investments in my home and I feel like I’m going to lose out.”

A third speaker said the same thing, that this was all news to him until last week (when we published a story saying the maps were available for reviewing), and he suggested the city make more of an effort to get the news out to neighborhood outlets like ours. He said he was a recent homebuyer.

And a fourth person who lives on 40th between Hudson and Dawson spoke of concerns about being usurped into the Junction urban village.

The city reps made note of the concerns and moved onto what’s next – community meetings that allegedly will offer more of a chance to review the maps; the focus group, meantime, might have an online meeting in “webinar” format next time, since its scheduled meeting date is just two nights before Thanksgiving.

First, though, one more focus group will have its first meeting since release of the maps – the one for “medium” urban villages, including Admiral. That’s at 6 pm Thursday (October 28th), also at City Hall, but this time in Room L280 (the “Boards and Commissions Room” on a lower level).

We stayed to ask Welch how people could comment besides using the hala.consider.it site. He offered this e-mail address: halainfo@seattle.gov – and said that the wider community meetings aren’t likely to be scheduled any sooner than December/January.

But in the meantime – if you are at all interested in land use, take some time to take a close look at the maps, and use some of the resources on this page if you’re not sure how to read them. One of last night’s observers e-mailed us today to say, “Generally, I am disappointed in the amount of representation that West Seattle Junction is getting. Last night the Focus Group Members from the the Capitol Hill / Pike-Pine, and First Hill Urban Villages dominated the discussion on zoning, while the West Seattle reps had little to say. My worry is that the city will take comments relating to other Urban Villages and apply them to West Seattle Junction.” So take a look, and let the city know what you think, since these are “draft” maps, with the proposed “final” versions due out early next year, and a City Council-involved process to follow.

8 Replies to "REZONING: 'Focus group' looks at draft maps, with dots but without a deep dive"

  • zephyr October 26, 2016 (7:44 pm)

    Thanks so much for this excellent and thorough coverage of the meeting, Tracy.  I also appreciate the folks from West Seattle who showed up as observers and made comments.   And yes, it has become somewhat of a challenge just to get around in West Seattle–let alone travel to the other parts of the city for work, shopping, etc.  I dread the coming congestion. 

  • Evil Twin October 26, 2016 (9:13 pm)

    Yes thank you! I too dread the traffic. It’s too bad we don’t have a robust transit system. We need one soooooo bad! But if housing supply isn’t increased won’t gentrification increase? Maybe it will anyway. Those with money will just push everyone else out; a la San Francisco. Supply and demand. Then more people move to the suburbs where they can afford a new house in a giant development that just clear cut 1000’s of trees and sit and idle in traffic 2 hrs a day commuting and polluting the air. I think we’re decades behind the 8 ball with housing and transit. Now we need to figure out how to fix it and that is not easy. Maybe it can’t be fixed without a time machine but I hope we can do it!

  • canton October 27, 2016 (6:11 am)

    So how is it “mandatory” housing affordability if a developer can opt out of the “mandatory” part with a nominal fee?

  • Deb October 27, 2016 (7:44 am)

    Thank you WSB for this detailed report. Notice of this meeting for a key West Seattle Urban Village  was horribly lacking. I’m further disappointed that the City did not reach out to the West Seattle Junction Neighborhood Organization (West Seattle JUNO) about this – or any other – HALA focus group meetings. JUNO is a strong advocate for its community. They have been working hard to  respond to on-going development and they deserve better.

    That said, I urge Junction HALA Focus Group members (and anyone who cares about the West Seattle Junction Urban Village) to connect with JUNO as soon as possible. Their e-mail is wsjuno@yahoo.com and they are on Facebook too.

    In Community –

    Deb Barker, Morgan Community Association (MoCA)

  • matt hutchins October 27, 2016 (8:50 am)

    As one of the Focus Group members for Admiral, I’d like to point out that observer comments are usually 5-10 minutes at the end–there isn’t extended public testimony like at a Council meeting.  We’re all volunteers and are committing time over the course of a year to attend these meetings, so the lack of an extended comment period is just out of respect for our time. 

    Since these Focus Group meetings generally address 10 urban villages of similar density at once,   I recommend following the process and commenting at the hala.consider.it  site linked above to get into the specific details of your urban village.

    For better or worse, the City has a very defined process by which they are studying, introducing, and getting comments on the rezoning maps and it is very different from past planning efforts where neighborhood associations would get a  preferential platform for feedback.   I urge you all to get involved personally and not wait for your neighborhood’s association to be notified or act on your behalf. 

  • John October 27, 2016 (9:12 am)

    Thank you WSB for sitting through all of this, reporting and bringing this to readers.

     I appreciate that WSB has quietly become a prime source of outreach to our community outside of established bureaucracies. 

    That said I came away from the piece wondering about the ‘map issue’.

    I don’t understand the apparent editorializing seen here, “The city reps made note of the concerns and moved onto what’s next – community meetings that allegedly will offer more of a chance to review the maps;”

    Particularly the choice of “allegedly” in this context? 


    • WSB October 27, 2016 (9:28 am)

      Because based on what I saw the other night, I can’t guarantee they will. I really expected these meetings would include more of a discussion of the details or at least an overview of reading the maps – last week’s MoCA meeting offered more of that, before the maps were even out, than the actual focus-group meeting did! – that’s even what was promised in the opening statement. I actually had more of an opinionated lead in mind for this story (related to the process overall, not just the meeting) but our four-hour outage derailed it and I just crashed this out. I’m hoping to get to the meeting tonight. Maybe it’ll be different.

  • DFW October 28, 2016 (5:51 am)

    As someone whose single-family house is right in this rezoning area, this raises concerns, obviously. I am also concerned about the mess of traffic already along Alaska between 35th and California. Certain times of day cars are backed up for blocks because there is only one lane now (due to the bus-only lanes and turn-only lanes — though plenty of fed up people travel in the bus lanes for two blocks or risk missing their turns). 

    When I worked downtown over the summer, I took a bus that left from California and Fauntleroy. Another issue I realized then was the lack of crosswalks despite half a dozen new apartment complexes nearby. Will share this with neighbors and hopefully we can help make some sense of it all.

Sorry, comment time is over.