(WSB photo from last month)
We’ve reported repeatedly in the past few weeks (most recently, on Thursday) that the “RV safe lot” announced for Highland Park has been on indefinite hold. And now, Councilmember Lisa Herbold says the mayor’s office has confirmed to her that it’s officially not happening – because it would cost too much, for the 10 or fewer RVs it would serve.
As a result, Herbold’s office says, the two interim “safe zones” set up in SODO and Interbay will be “extended for an additional 60 days,” and the 39 RV residents that were waiting there will get help with making their vehicles operational so they can comply with 72-hour parking laws, or they will get help finding “secure housing.”
That doesn’t address what happens to the half-dozen or so RVs that we’ve reported are described by SPD as “staged” along Myers Way, awaiting the now-a-no-go Highland Park lot, so we’ll check on that next week.
It’s been two months since the mayor’s original announcement that the lot would be set up at West Marginal Way/Highland Park Way within a month, along with the one that did open in Ballard. Since then, we’ve made almost-daily checks of the site – a paved lot adjacent to the longtime site of an unauthorized encampment that was closed two and a half years ago – and the only sign of preparations has been a canvas-covered fence around the lot.
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