This Saturday is the city’s next West Seattle “open house” about HALA – the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, which has drawn the most attention in the past six months for its proposed MHA (Mandatory Housing Affordability) component. MHA seeks to upzone commercial and multifamily property around the city, and single-family property in urban villages, to give developers added capacity in exchange for either locking in a percentage of units as “affordable,” or contributing a set sum to a city fund that will be used to build “affordable” projects somewhere else. If you haven’t already checked to see what’s proposed for your neighborhood, here’s the citywide interactive map. Plus, we’ve learned that a new tool will be offered at Saturday’s open house:
(Photo courtesy Department of Neighborhoods)
You could say it’s HALA gone “holo.” Morgan Junction community advocate and citizen land-use watchdog Cindi Barker found out about it by going to a version of the open house held in the Northgate area last weekend. She discovered that the city is now offering “before”-to-“after” views of the proposed changes, including what she describes as “a station where you could put on a 3D lens/helmet and you ‘walked’ down the block and watched the older existing buildings go away and buildings built to the new zoning come in.” The technology the city is using is Microsoft HoloLens.
Saturday’s open house is 10 am-noon (May 6th) at Westside School (10404 34th SW; WSB sponsor) in Arbor Heights. Besides the opportunity to learn about and comment on the HALA proposals – including West Seattle’s four urban villages and South Park – the city says it’s expecting booths/tables for other initiatives/agencies: Age Friendly Seattle, Design Review (changes), Natural Drainage, Play Streets, Open Space Plan, Democracy Vouchers, Neighborhood Streets and Greenways Projects (SDOT), and Metro Transit.
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