That’s video of last Wednesday’s City Council Transportation and Utilities Committee meeting, one of the last committee meetings before councilmembers’s decision to change their schedule because of the coronavirus outbreak – for at least the rest of this month, they’ll hold their weekly full-council meetings by phone, and they’re canceling committee meetings. One major West Seattle item was part of the T&UC’s meeting last week – action to finalize the alley vacation originally (and contentiously) approved in 2014 for The Whittaker (the two-building complex at 4755 Fauntleroy Way SW). We mentioned last month that the finalization was going to the City Council, after developers LMC paid $2.3 million for the city right-of-way property that now goes through and alongside their site. Committee members were briefed by Beverly Barnett, the longtime SDOT lead on alley and street vacations, and Brad Reisinger from LMC, who went through this slide deck recapping the project and the “public benefit” features they included as part of the deal:
But councilmembers had questions, primarlly District 1’s Lisa Herbold and (corrected) District 2’s Tammy Morales, and they decided to postpone a vote until there were answers. On Wednesday, that meant a delay until the committee’s March 18th meeting, but since all committee meetings were shelved two days later, now there’s no new date. One question Herbold wanted answered was raised during public comment earlier in the meeting by West Seattle community advocate Deb Barker – she noted that left turns onto Fauntleroy from The Whittaker’s center drive were supposed to be prohibited, but there’s no signage or striping indicating that.
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