Myers Way Parcels: City ‘preliminary’ recommendations now out; June 30th community meeting set

(Click to see full-size PDF)

The city has just taken the next step in the plan to divest itself of most of the southeastern West Seattle land known as the Myers Way Parcels: It’s gone public with the official preliminary report and recommendations for what to do with the 30+-acre site – read them here.

The 33-page document contains basically the same recommendations as the draft unveiled at last month’s meeting of the Highland Park Action Committee (here’s what we published that night). It also contains the “draft public involvement plan” (Appendix C), including a community meeting set for 6:30 pm June 30th at the Joint Training Facility, just north of the “parcels.” Here’s the official notice.

Toplines from the preliminary report remain along the lines of, keep a north section to expand the JTF, sell the center west “developable” section for commercial purposes, and sell the south and east areas to a buyer that would be able to keep much of it in its natural state – such as an adventure park (here’s our May report on a prospective purchaser with that idea) – unless no such buyer emerges within two years, in which case Seattle Parks would get that part of the site. The report reiterates that the site has been evaluated for housing but determined to be largely unsuitable due to factors including toxic kiln dust and a lack of utilities.

From the report, a summary of comments received so far:

• A majority of the comments received expressed the desire to preserve all the property as parkland or open space.

• Two responses were from commercial developers. One is interested in developing a sustainable adventure park. One development team would like to construct a stateof-the-art facility distribution center at the Myers Way property.

• Six people wanted to be kept informed.

• One person wanted to have a dog off Leash Park established.

• One person who lived in Arrowhead Gardens wants the City to develop parking so city vehicles would no longer park at Arrowhead Gardens.

• Three people were concerned with the illegal dumping near and on the property and the homeless encampments.

As mentioned in our West Seattle Wednesday calendar preview, the Myers Way Parcels are on the agenda at the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting tonight (7 pm, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center), with a guest scheduled from the Seattle Green Spaces Coalition, which wants to see the site preserved as greenspace. Also – the city’s main infopage about the parcels now contains many more related documents.

The “next steps” for all this include the possibility of a City Council briefing on the public-involvement plan no sooner than two weeks from now (no date set yet so far as we can tell). When there are final recommendations, those would go to the council for a vote. The property’s fate is open for public comment until any such final decision.

Cass Turnbull June 16, 2016 (9:15 am)

The City’s plan brings heavy commercial developement like warehousing (the C2 zone is for 65 ft- mega structures-not residential shopping) and the diesel truck traffic right up next to adjacent residential sites like Arrowhead, Greenbridge and affordable single family housing. Air, noise, and stormwater pollution will accompany. It wouldn’t happen in Laurehurst.

The JLT expansion costs $7 million tax dollars and that doesn’t include the cost of the land. The City already spent $32 million (and filled in a wetland) to create the Firemans’ big boy toy playground, the Joint Training Facility. And we paid for them to get all new firehouses too. But they want more. Who wouldn’t?

The Parks’s budget for land acquisition for the entire City in under $7 million.

Now the City wants to bulldoze and concrete over some more wetland and steep slopes that somehow magically changed into buildable land over the past 5 years.

By dividing and selling off pieces of Myers the neighborhood continues to get the short end of environmental services stick. A ‘yes’ vote by council means a less healthy and less desirable place to live. A ‘no’ vote is all we need to do to keep our options open.

Myers should be landbanked, costing the City no money to buy it from itself and maintenance is as cheap as it gets. It would then be catagorized as ‘saved for future use’.

Concerned Citizen June 16, 2016 (12:52 pm)

If and when I need the Seattle Fire Department to respond to a personal emergency, I will be so grateful that they are so professional and well-trained. I don’t consider the JTF a ‘Firemans’ big boy toy playground’ but a necessary training facility to keep SFD well trained to drive and operate complicated equipment to respond to complex emergencies to support the public. Other city departments use the facility as well for training.

I am not at all against saving land for wetland/landbanks, but readers need to be knowledgeable about the land uses that the city is suggesting. Sarcasm is not fact.