(Alki Elementary project rendering showing ‘atrium’ that appellant called into question)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
“There’s been a lot of testimony, but a lot of it’s pretty repetitive.”
That’s how deputy hearing examiner Susan Drummond assessed the three-day hearing on the Alki Elementary rebuild zoning-exception appeal, as she explained to the lawyers for both sides post-testimony why she expected she would need only a few days to make a decision, once they filed their closing statements.
Indeed, the third and final day of testimony – one day longer than originally expected – went back over many of the points already made, such as transportation consultants’ disagreement over parking conditions in the school’s neighborhood and how they would be affected if and when the new school operated at its full capacity, with 500+ students, 40+ preschoolers, and up to 75 staff members, compared to the current 271 students and 30+ staffers.
What’s at issue is whether Seattle Public Schools will be granted one more zoning exception – in addition to those it’s already been granted – to allow fewer offstreet parking spaces than the 48 required by zoning. The district now proposes 15, after its original plan for 0 was challenged successfully by other appellants. Drummond also heard, and ruled in, that appeal, which had a one-day hearing last July to consider the challenges to seven zoning exceptions.
Our coverage of the first day (Tuesday, May 28) is here; the second day (Thursday, May 30) is here. Day 3 (Monday, June 3) began with the main appellant:
APPELLANT WITNESS – LEADER OF GROUP THAT APPEALED: Steve Cuddy, who filed the appeal in the name of Friends for a Safe Alki Community, was the day’s first witness in the examiner’s hearing room at the Seattle Municipal Tower, called by appeal lawyer Audrey Clungeon. He described himself as a retired labor lawyer who practiced in both Washingtons and has lived on 59th SW, across from Alki Playfield, north of the school site, for 30 years. Regarding the appellant group, he said 77 people were on the list: “We’re not NIMBYs, we’re YIMBYs, yes, we want the school in our neighborhood, we want a new Alki Elementary, we don’t want one that’s unsafe – we want a smaller school because we think that’s one that can work.”
He said he’s lived in the Alki area for 42 years in all and it’s “changed dramatically,” densifying from a neighborhood full of single-family homes with “tons of kids” and “no restaurant or bars,” meaning it wasn’t anywhere near the type of destination it is today. His children were in school 15 years ago and he said his block had 19 school-age kids at the time, just three now. He said he had been involved in safety projects on the street over the years, “astonished” to see that 59th was a high-speed cut-through for Alki-bound drivers coming downhill from Alki Elementary, despite the proximity of playground and playfield. With encouragement from then-City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen (a South Alki resident), he pursued traffic calming, but said SDOT was not supportive. Cuddy said he pushed the point: “How can you not want to protect these kids?” He launched a petition drive, talked to stakeholders including Seattle Fire, eventually got speed humps installed, then stop signs and the 10 mph alley speed limit. “My takeaway from all this is that SDOT doesn’t seem to take these problems seriously when presented to them.”
He brought up points made by others – observation of more driving to get to the school, the dangers posed by bicycle riding down the steep hills to the south, sidewalks in bad condition, the challenge of getting preschoolers to the school if their parents have to park blocks away: “Irresponsible, unrealistic, dangerous.” He feels less parking will worsen the traffic problems, and is concerned about children using street-side doors to get into cars parked on the southbound side of 59th. He reiterated concerns about that street becoming one lane when busy, and that resulting in “people backing up over crosswalk, parking on crosswalk, it’s crazy,” which is why principal Mason Skeffington has been out directing traffic. Cuddy said he knows about traffic hazards because his legal work had included representing 20,000 traffic controllers and 100 of them are killed every year. Regarding authorities in this case, “they’re going to pretend this isn’t a problem and that’s why it doesn’t need to be addressed.” What’s planned isn’t meeting best practices recommended by safety groups such as Feet First. And he thinks the parking studies “dramatically underestimated” the situation. He took issue with the district’s traffic/transportation studies, especially the study done after Alki Elementary was demolished. “Strikes me that the only way the school district can conceivably propose a larger school there is to pretend there’s no traffic problem … I think we’ve proved there IS a traffic problem.” As for the draft Transportation Management Plan, in Cuddy’s view it “takes what is essentially a bad situation and spreads it around the neighborhood.” More crossings would ensue at 60th/Stevens, which has no crossing guard or other monitor, and other streets to the west will get busier, as the grade would preclude overflow parking to the south.
To the point of more school-involved drivers parking to the west, the Alki Point Healthy Street project surfaced again. It’s just removed ~50 parking spaces, Cuddy noted, which means more people driving to the Alki area for recreation are going to seek parking in those same neighborhoods west of the school.
Also, he noted, there’s the loss of 27 spaces – after school hours – in the space between the school’s north side and the playfield, and what he said he counted as 29 spaces on the south side of the school. It’s a “flat lie” that the area is unofficial and held only 15 or 20 vehicles, he said. (Here’s the Google Street View of the lot in question:)
Also brought up again, the former Schmitz Park Elementary, where Alki is currently housed, and where Cuddy said his students attended (before SP’s program was moved to the rebuilt/expanded Genesee Hill Elementary). Its lot has 44 spaces, and school buses have an offstreet spot for dropping off kids. And then, the issue of how much Metro bus service there is, and isn’t, near Alki; Cuddy mentioned the long-suspended Route 37, which used to serve neighborhoods to the south, and the fact the ongoing Water Taxi shuttle runs with sall buses, plus Routes 56/57 only run during commute times, while Route 50 is hourly.
Were these concerns expressed by the public in the planning process? asked Clungeon. Yes, from the start, Cuddy replied, but architects ignored them, and there were fewer opportunities for public input because the planning was happening back during the heart of the pandemic. Most of the public comments that were submitted, he contended, were about parking and traffic safety, same concerns raised in the appeal, “but unfortunately they were completely ignored.” In short, he said, “I think they have a choice here – design a school that fits within the infrastructure realities of the neighborhood or build a giant school and change the neighborhood infrastructure, tell all the neighbors they van’t park, something like that. … I think the building’s beautiful, but it won’t fit.”
District lawyer Katie Kendall began her cross-examination of Cuddy by asking if he’d be OK, then, with a tall school to fit into the space. No, he said, the school just doesn’t need all that capacity. And he doesn’t think the site needs preschool: “I’m not against it, but I don’t think it can fit,” especially what he sees are the safety necessities for getting little kids safely to school. She pressed him on what features he thought should and should not be in the new school. He suggested the school’s “two-story atrium” was a waste of space. Asked about other witnesses’ assessment that parking would not be a problem, including a resident of 60th, he said he disagreed. He also said he didn’t think the Traffic Safety Committee was sufficiently up to speed on the site’s challenges before issuing a letter supporting the project. Asked if his concerns were more about capacity than the “size of the parking lot,” Cuddy retorted, “All of the above … it’s dangerous congestion, not just inconvenient congestion … hundreds more kids and parents.” But a decade ago, the school had 400 students, Kendall noted, so this wouldn’t be “hundreds” more. “I meant hundreds more than now,” Cuddy replied. In followup questioning by Clungeon, he said, “I’ve got nothing against large schools, but this site can’t handle it.”
DISTRICT WITNESS, TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT: After the lunch break, Kendall called the project’s other transportation consultant, Mike Swenson of The Transpo Group. He explained that his firm was asked to review Heffron’s parking studies – a “peer review study” – and to develop the draft Transportation Management Plan for the new school.
Regarding the parking studies, Swenson said Transpo reviewed the “latest parking analysis” focusing on validating supply and also updated the utilization study for a “limited portion” of the study area, focused on specific full blocks “so we could provide a more direct apples to apples study.” Was the 800-foot study area chosen by Heffron – challenged earlier by the appellant’s consultant – appropriate? Yes, responded Swenson, saying they even stretch the study area to 1,200 in many cases. Kendall walked through methodology with him, and he said they concluded that there were actually a few more spaces than Heffron had found. The occupancy counts were done months apart “but showed very similar counts,” and 72 percent occupancy of the selected blocks, which Swenson said “gives me confidence that the data that’s being used, the underpinning of the analysis” is a reasonable baseline. Regarding studying the area when the school was not there, he thought that gave a “better baseline on the potential impact.”
Next, Kendall went through some of the key points of the draft Transpotation Management Plan with him. That included how to encourage carpooling, walking, bike-riding; education and communication intended “to instill new behaviors”; and monitoring to make sure they know if things aren’t working – it’s an “iterative process.” Regarding the pickup/dropoff process, Swenson said northbound flow on 59th will be “key,” and that they’d use cones and signage to “reinforce behavior,” which he felt would help with the concern that drivers not associated with the school would happen into the area and not know what they’re supposed to be doing. “Hopefully the signs and cones will keep people out of this area who don’t need to be there.” Contrary to previous witnesses’ speculation, he thought parents would comply with the requests, “through communication and peer pressure.”
In cross-examination, Clungeon started with noting that Transpo hadn’t examined parking demand, just supply. Don’t you usually include demand in traffic-impact analyses? Usually, yes, replied Swenson. Questioned about the processes laid out in the draft Transportation Management Plan, he said they’re trying to “manage the flow.” He did not agree that on-site parking, or the lack of it, would have an effect on pickup/dropoff, because the latter primarily involves parents, and the former would mostly accommodate staffers. “You’re talking about two different population patterns with different … needs.” Clungeon persisted on the point that staffers who don’t get on-site parking “will park in the immediate area … (taking) up spots that could be utilized by parents.” How are they going to educate parents about the transportation-related recommendations? Swenson said “signage” and other methods that would be up to staffers/district employees to implement, every morning and every afternoon. Responding to a question, he agreed that the Alki site is “small,” though he might have worked on smaller ones.
DISTRICT WITNESS, CAPITAL PROJECTS PLANNER: Seattle Public Schools capital-projects planning manager Rebecca Asencio, testifying by Zoom, said she managed the team that finished planning the district’s BEX V levy, which funded the Alki rebuild. She said Alki’s enrollment not only was around 415 a decade ago, but it actually peaked at 620 “in late 1950s.” Some have suggested that the expansion to 500 capacity was done after the levy passed, but Kendall noted that this 2018 WSB article, from the planning period for the levy, did mention that capacity.
She was questioned how they plan for necessary capacity. SPS hopes “to meet the needs of the neighborhood for at least 50 years,” Asencio replied. What happens if enrollment goes beyond capacity? They try to repurpose space in the building, and after that, portables. Is there room for portables on this site (in the rebuild design)? No. Regarding building preschool space into the design, she explained that “in the long term we would like to have preschool in every school – that’s our preference when we rebuild schools.” And, the state requires districts to accommodate preschool age children with special needs, therefore the potential for “developmental preschools.” Kendall also continued hammering on the point of Alki’s 400-student past not being that different from its potential 500-student future.
In cross-examination, Clungeon asked Asencio if the district considers the surrounding context when deciding where to build larger elementary schools? Yes, they do, she replied. Does the district know how many kids might qualify for “developmental preschool”? No, replied Asencio.
The otherwise silent district lawyer at the table with Kendall, Isaac Patterson, questioned their next witness.
DISTRICT WITNESS, ALKI ELEMENTARY PTA PRESIDENT: Ashley Clingan said she has a third-grader and kindergartener at Alki Elementary, currently housed at the former Schmitz Park. They live at the “furthest south” part of the school’s attendance area, so they drive now, drove to the former school, and expect to drive to the future school. They would typically park a few blocks away and walk, she said, and “rarely” had trouble finding a space. She expected parents would follow the Transportation Management Plan – “we’ve been doing it (with one) at Schmitz Park.” Clingan said there are numerous ways to convey information to families, both electronically and “backpack mail” plus a bulletin board.
“If the school doubles the number of (current) students, would it be harder to find a parking space?” asked Clungeon in cross-examination. Clingan said she expected more would take buses. Even if parents complied with the Transportation Management Plan, isn’t there a possibility some others in the neighborhood wouldn’t know about it? Clingan: “There are possibilities for so many things.”
DISTRICT WITNESS, PROJECT MANAGERS’ BOSS: Vincent Gonzales, also testifying by Zoom, said he manages project managers including Brian Fabella, who is managing the Alki rebuild. Kendall asked about ground-floor priorities for the new building – with all the necessary features, is there any more room for parking spaces? Gonzales said no – “the design is about as efficient as it can be.” Could the atrium be scratched, as Cuddy suggested? Gonzales said it’s part of a “healthy learning environment … natural light and sightlines to the outdoors are very important … from the design standpoint, it’s being used as efficiently as possible.” Asked to further explain “efficiency,” he said that included, for example, the adjacency of spaces and spaces with multiple or complementary uses. “Would it be a good idea to move outdoor learning to an upper floor?” Gonzales: “I’d think there’d be a security concern” as well as difficulty with transitions trying to get (younger kids) up there.”
Clungeon had just one question for him – had the possibility of a smaller school at the site ever been discussed? Gonzales said he wasn’t in that type of discussion – it’s not his role.
He was the last district witness; Clungeon had one “rebuttal witness,” but first, Drummond turned to the city planner who had sat quietly at the table throughout all three days, Carly Guillory, who had been working on the project for the Department of Construction and Inspections. Did she have anything to say? She noted that the Transportation Management Plan is a condition of the “revised decision” – in which the city said it was OK with 15 parking spaces – adding that “the department reviewed all the materials from the applicant, carefully considered needs of the district with the needs of the community, and approved it.”
APPELLANT’S REBUTTAL WITNESS, TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT: In rebuttal, Clungeon called Gary Norris back to the table, asking for his responses after listening to testimony of district witnesses including their transportation consultants. First, he declared, “I don’t believe the applicant has given a reason to reject the appeal.” He considers their study of Alki parking supply “inadequate,” lots of focus on supply but not on demand. He walked through numbers and calculations that he said supported his contention. In particular, he believed the parking-utilization study had “significant errors” and he alleged that the district “fails to recognize current conditions” such as reduced bus usage and the dangers of the 59th/Stevens intersection, saying there’s “no basis for comparing the conditions at those sites with conditions here,” particularly considering none has a big draw like Alki Beach nearby. He insisted repeatedly that more than 200 vehicles will need a place to park, outstripping the street availability, and that a variety of aspects of the project run contrary to “best practices.”
Kendall challenged him on the need for 200+ spaces, suggesting parents can pick up or drop off without needing a space. And she suggested 59th/Stevens isn’t really as dangerous as he suggested, because city stats showed only one collision there in the span of four years, “and that involved a parked car.” But, asked Clungeon in a followup question, would that get worse if traffic increased? Yes, replied Norris.
With that, testimony was over.
WHAT’S NEXT: Closing statements – “briefings” – will be submitted to Drummond in writing. Clungeon said she was completely unavailable for much of the rest of this month, so Drummond agreed to a June 27 deadline (and a 20-page limit). Kendall had said the district is eager to see this decided because of a “time crunch” for construction – already running almost a year behind the original schedule – and Drummond said she’d expect to be able to “turn around (her decision) rather quickly” – Monday, July 1, she said. You can watch for the decision document to appear here, where you’ll also find other documents in the case, plus archived audio of all three days of testimony. Drummond’s decision can be challenged in King County Superior Court. (Read more about how the Hearing Examiner’s Office works here.)
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