By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Our first report on this past week’s HPAC meeting – held online Wednesday night – focused on the group’s discussion with a Metro rep about proposed bus-stop changes. But the coalition tackled other topics of note, and that’s what we’re writing about now.
ENCAMPMENTS: Questions about several encampments in southeast West Seattle had surfaced at previous meetings, so HPAC invited local-government reps to attend with updates. Tom Van Bronkhorst was there from the city’s Unified Care Team, and James Poling was there on behalf of WSDOT. The one of greatest concern was the growing encampment at 1st/Cloverdale, just west of Highway 509. Poling said that WSDOT “has started preliminary assessment at the site.” Van Bronkhorst said WSDOT doesn’t own the entirety of the property involved – there’s adjacent city land that’s “also encamped.” As a result of that, he said, the city will be “working in the weeks ahead to plan some kind of removal.” Before that, he expected crews would be removing litter at the site. (We followed up post-meeting with Lori Baxter, who handles homelessness-response inquiries for the mayor’s office, and she confirmed the site is getting “weekly trash mitigation … while WSDOT resolution planning continues.” She added, “The Unified Care Team last inspected this site on February 14, noting six RVs/vehicles and three tents/structures.”) At the HPAC meeting, Van Bronkhorst also addressed the encampment across Delridge Way from the Southwest Precinct, saying it’s likely to be resolved by summer, because a city reforestation project is planned to “activate” that area (the Delridge Native Forest Garden, which got a federal grant last year, and about which Baxter tells us, “UCT will consider the construction schedule while building out upcoming calendar dates”). Finally, regarding Barton between 15th and 17th, Van Bronkhorst said five RVs were there at last count, 600 pounds of trash was removed three weeks ago, and the outreach agency REACH has been “visiting every few weeks.”
‘THE HUM’: More than a decade ago, we reported on then-HPAC leadership leading community sleuthing of the droning noise that so many were hearing at night. It was traced to vacuum equipment offloading dry cargo from ships serving an industrial facility on the Duwamish River; better muffling was installed, and that seemed to handle the problem. In recent months, we hear every so often from someone thinking they’re hearing it again; invariably, when we get one of those reports, we check MarineTraffic.com, and it shows the same type of ship in port around the same spot. At Wednesday’s meeting, local resident Matthew said he’s resolved to get to the bottom of it, including finding out what the noise rules are. HPAC leadership agreed to collaborate with him. You can help too – if you hear it, log the time. Record it if you can.
DELRIDGE TRIANGLE: This triangle of land by the Route 60 northbound bus stop across from 2 Fingers Social was the subject of a community-led planning process in 2017-2019 aimed at turning it into more of a park. Eventually the effort stalled (the last mention in our archives was July 2019). Now, HPAC says, there’s word that Seattle Parks is acquiring the parcel from SDOT. We’re following up on that with both.
WHAT’S NEXT? HPAC meets on fourth Wednesdays most months, 7 pm. Watch the HPAC website for updates.
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