(Comments written on draft rezoning map at last week’s Junction ‘Community Design Workshop’)

One week after the standing-room-only meeting in The Junction, there’s a new development today in the proposed citywide rezoning that’s a big component of the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA): The timeline for the Mandatory Housing Affordability rezoning has just expanded by two months, so you have more time to get up to speed and get your comments in. The Junction Neighborhood Organization got first word from City Councilmember Lisa Herbold that the Office of Planning and Community Development …

… is amending the schedule for release of the draft EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] and now it is anticipated to come out in May. This will give the community an additional two months to provide feedback. The Department of Neighborhoods plans to door knock all of the single-family homes that are part of the potential upzones. DON and OPCD will conduct another series of conversations in May and June.

The new May timeline for the draft EIS – which will open another comment period – is five months later than the end-of-2016 projection in the “scoping” for that document (see it here) was done. The draft and final EIS will have to be done before a final rezoning proposal can go to the City Council for a vote.

Meantime, the Admiral Residential Urban Village version of last week’s Junction meeting is still to come – 9:30 am Saturday, February 11th, at West Seattle High School. No date/time announced yet for the Morgan Junction version. You can still comment online, via hala.consider.it and/or e-mailing halainfo@seattle.gov.

Whatever area you live in, if you still don’t know whether you are directly affected by the HALA proposal, find your neighborhood on this interactive map. While most of the proposed rezoning is for those within “urban village” boundaries (West Seattle has four – The Junction, Morgan Junction, Admiral, and Westwood-Highland Park), there are some proposals for expanding those boundaries, and all commercial/multifamily property is proposed for rezoning, even outside urban villages.