Four development-related notes:

FALCONRIDGE FARM PROPERTY: For those watching the fate of the Highland Park horse farm that’s for sale and could either be preserved or redeveloped into a housing subdivision (which is what the site is zoned for), we noticed over the weekend that an early-stage “preliminary site plan” has been filed with the city for the latter, showing 26 potential home sites. So we checked this morning with farm owner Dr. Jean Nokes, who states emphatically that she hasn’t signed a deal with anyone and is still talking with a multitude of potential buyers, including Pulte Homes, which is who filed the site plan (which is news to her, she told us), four other potential developers, and others who would preserve the farm.

3084 AVALON APARTMENTS: Another “preliminary site plan” in the city system proposes an apartment building at 3084 SW Avalon Way. Avalon of course is awash in apartments but this is notable because it’s just north/west of 3078 SW Avalon, where a long fight over a proposed 100+-unit building ended with the plan being traded for townhouses. This site has the same owner. Nothing publicly visible shows the proposed height or unit count, though it is mentioned that no parking is planned.

NEXT ROUND OF COMMENTS FOR DOWNSIZED 1250 ALKI: When we first reported on the plan for 1250 Alki SW in 2015, it was proposed for 125 apartments. Neighbors argued it was out of scale for the area. Now it’s a six-story, 40-unit project, with 74 offstreet parking spaces, and today’s Land Use Information Bulletin has the official notice of its “shoreline substantial development” permit. This opens a comment period until December 13th; here’s how to comment. The downsized project still is making its way through Design Review.

FAUNTLEROY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION TO DISCUSS REZONE: Two weeks ago, we reported on an early-stage proposal to rezone 9250 45th SW – a somewhat triangular site in Fauntleroy’s Endolyne business district – for a 5-story mixed-use redevelopment. The Fauntleroy Community Association board will talk about it at its Tuesday meeting (7 pm, Fauntleroy Schoolhouse, public welcome). P.S. As pointed out in comments previously, this site would be upzoned from 30′ to 40′ under the new HALA MHA proposal.

(UPDATED 10:13 AM with link to interactive map showing what’s proposed where)

FIRST REPORT, 12:41 AM: Today’s the day for the next milestone in the city plan to upzone for the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Mandatory Housing Affordability component. The final Environmental Impact Statement is being published today, and with it, the city’s “preferred alternative” for upzoning around the city, adding development capacity and requiring either affordable housing as part of a project, or a fee to go into a fund to build it elsewhere. Mayor Tim Burgess and City Councilmember Rob Johnson are scheduled to formally announce the proposed plan in a Capitol Hill park at noon.

Though the media advisory for that announcement didn’t mention the EIS – just the release of an “affordability and growth plan” – the Daily Journal of Commerce‘s city notices published at midnight include this one, “Notice of Availability of Final Environmental Impact Statement, Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA).” The final EIS document is not online yet – should be within a few hours – but once it is, we’ll see the city’s “preferred alternative.” (and we’ll have a separate update). The “preferred alternative” will be a precursor to legislation that the notice says will be sent by the mayor to the City Council by year’s end (either by Burgess, who’s in office until November 28th, or Jenny Durkan, who takes office after that). Then, the notice says, “The City Council expects to take public comment and deliberate on the proposal for several months, and is expected to act on the proposal in summer of 2018.”

P.S. The EIS itself does not have a comment period – it’s the result of previous rounds of comment (including the one for the draft version, released five months ago) – but today’s publication does open a period in which it can be appealed, with November 27th as the deadline.

8:54 AM: Now that the city’s notice is out on its own website, the link it points to says the Final EIS will be available at noon (concurrent with the aforementioned mayoral event), although there are different links atop the notice (for PDFs that don’t seem to be downloading, thus far).

10:13 AM: Kevin from SCC Insight (who provides tireless, thorough City Council coverage) points out in comments that the interactive map that goes with the Final EIS is already live – if you are interested in a specific address, you can use the map to zoom in on it.

Today’s Land Use Information Bulletin from the city has notices for two West Seattle projects:

DESIGN REVIEW FOR 5242 & 5248 CALIFORNIA: When we reported two weeks ago that a Southwest Design Review Board meeting was set next month for the newest proposal at 5242 California – currently home to a partly vacant strip mall – it was in city files as a 9-townhouse project. Turns out that’s only half the site. The other half, now with the address 5248 California, also is proposed for 9 townhouses, and an underground garage is planned with 18 spaces – in the “preferred” massing (size/shape) option shown above, taken from the early version of the meeting packet, by Hybrid Architecture. As “The People’s Court,” the project is set to go to the SWDRB at 6:30 pm Thursday, November 16th – the official notices for its two halves are here and here. (Both explain how to comment now, or you can wait until the meeting, which will be at the Senior Center/Sisson Building, 4217 SW Oregon.)

COMMENT TIME FOR APARTMENTS @ 6016 CALIFORNIA: Back in August, we mentioned an apartment-building proposal for 6016 California SW, which is already bookended by teardowns, and has one business left last time we checked, the legendary Rick’s (Psychic) Barber Shop. The project is now at a stage where you have two weeks to comment. It’s also increased the unit count to 36 “small efficiency dwelling units” (microapartments) and two live-work units. Here’s the official notice; here’s how to comment.

(King County Assessor’s Office photo)

Back in July, we told you about a proposal for the land holding that 109-year-old house at 7111 California – four townhouses, each with an accessory dwelling unit, for a total of eight units. Now that’s been revised to five townhouses – two facing California, one behind it, two behind that, with four offstreet parking spaces on the alley, according to the newest “site plan” on file with the city. The parcel is zoned Lowrise 2.

6:15 PM: Two issues related to the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) are being presented for your comments at an open-house-style meeting under way until 7:30 pm at High Point Community Center (6920 34th SW). We’ve already counted more than 60 people in the main room, checking out the easels set up for proposed changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan – here’s our preview on that issue – and for potential rule changes regarding Accessory Dwelling Units (“backyard cottages” being the best-known type) – here’s our preview on that. We checked and they’re still planning on a presentation at 6:30 on a screen at the front of the room, although otherwise this is NOT a sit-and-listen type meeting.

6:25 PM: On the “comprehensive plan amendment” side, the Q&A/comment stations deal with specific urban villages where, as noted in our preview, the city is seeking to eliminate neighborhood-plan-related language that seeks to “protect” or “preserve” single-family zoning, which HALA’s Mandatory Housing Affordability upzoning would be removing from urban villages. Three West Seattle urban villages are potentially affected here – Morgan Junction, West Seattle Junction, and Westwood-Highland Park.

You’ll have opportunities to comment online – we’ll add those when the meeting’s over – but while here, you are also offered the chance to write yours on paper; one attendee from Morgan Junction showed us his. He’s worried about ongoing displacement of low-income renters in the older housing stock that already is being torn down and replaced by new for-sale residences.

6:50 PM: The presentation is over – about 10 minutes on the comprehensive plan component, five on the accessory-dwelling-unit component. (We recorded it all on video and will add to this report when we have it uploaded and processed later at HQ. Full unedited video below:)

Both were basically primers; there was no Q&A, and the only bit of impromptu feedback came when, in the comp-plan section, city senior planner Geoff Wentlandt (opening by thanking people for turning out for “complex and wonky” topics) said amendments were needed because neighborhood plans shouldn’t be inconsistent with overarching city policy.

“Why not?” someone called out. No reply. Meantime, in one possible sign that the turnout exceeded expectations, the sparkling water bottles are all empty already. The sandwiches, however (chicken and tofu, described as “from a banh mi place on Delridge”), are still abundantly available.

7:08 PM: Still about 30 people talking in small groups, but the crowd definitely thinned after the presentation.

8:10 PM: Back at HQ. Had some signal trouble toward the end, so catching up on images now. First and most importantly, here’s how you can comment on both these issues, regardless of whether you were able to get to tonight’s meeting:

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENTS: Choose your urban village and comment via this site, by December 8th.

ADU/DADU ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT SCOPING: This phase of comments closes on November 1st; there’s an online comment form linked on the right side of this page (scroll down the left side for the full timeline).

While the next major step in citywide HALA (Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda) upzoning is not expected until the final Environmental Impact Statement comes out next month, you’re being asked at a West Seattle meeting this Tuesday night (October 17th) to weigh in on what ultimately is a proposal to override parts of three local neighborhood plans to pave the way for upzoning.

The city wants to put language in the Comprehensive Plan affecting parts of the West Seattle Junction, Morgan Junction, and Westwood-Highland Park Urban Villages, to remove language that calls for protection of current single-family zoning in those areas. The HALA upzoning proposals so far already had called for changing those areas in urban villages, but that raised a conflict with parts of the existing neighborhood plans which were included when the comprehensive plan was recently revised. So the proposed “comprehensive plan amendments” are an attempt to replace the existing language, and they are asking for opinions at Tuesday night’s meeting – 6-7:30 pm at High Point Community Center (6920 34th SW), “open house” format before and after what’s described as a short presentation at 6:30 pm.

The city’s materials for the meeting are now available online, and while they offer an option for writing your own language, they very specifically suggest not saying you want to preserve any particular kind of zoning, single-family or otherwise. From the last page of the document:

Policy Language to Avoid

Direct references to specific zones. New policies should avoid references to all specific zoning
designations in a neighborhood plan policy. General discussion of housing types, land uses, scale, and
character effectively communicate a neighborhood’s vision.

Protection. The Comprehensive Plan’s goals and policies focus on shaping and guiding change for the future. Policies that emphasize protecting or preserving existing conditions limit our ability to reach these goals.

Superiority of single-family housing or zoning. Policies that connote the superiority of single-family housing compared to other types of housing should be avoided. Terms calling for maintaining qualities such as “integrity” of single-family areas should be avoided.

Here’s what they do want you to focus on, if you want to suggest your own comprehensive-plan language:

Examples for Revised Policies

Focus: Character and scale. Modify the policy language to focus on maintaining compatibility with or complementing the character and scale of single-family housing areas, rather than calling for preservation of single-family zoning.

Focus: Location and development pattern. Modify the policy language to describe the preferred general pattern for land use or urban form. This can include identification of certain areas that are relatively more appropriate for certain kinds of development.

Focus: Housing choices. Modify the policy language to emphasize housing choices or opportunities, such as housing for families or ADA accessible units.

Since the meeting document includes pages for other neighborhoods outside West Seattle, with the current language and suggested replacements, we’ve broken out the local pages below, each one with three city-suggested options plus the possibility of crafting your own. First, for the West Seattle Junction:

Next, for Morgan Junction:

And for Westwood-Highland Park:

If you can’t get to Tuesday night’s meeting – which, as previously previewed, is also addressing “backyard cottages” (a citywide issue, not just urban villages) – here’s how you can still participate, with the city taking comments on this through December 8th – use seattle2035.consider.it.

P.S. Again, the urban-village-specific pages above are taken from the full city document prepared for upcoming meetings. You can see it, including an introductory page, in its entirety by going here.

The city is looking to change the rules regarding backyard cottages and in-law apartments, but is under orders to do an environmental review of the process first, as the result of a challenge by a community group in Queen Anne. The review process has just begun, according to a city announcement today requesting your comments – via e-mail as well as an upcoming West Seattle meeting. Here’s the announcement:

Today we announced the beginning of the environmental review process to study the potential effects of removing barriers to building accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in single-family zones. ADUs include backyard cottages, known as Detached Accessory Dwelling Units (DADUs), and in-law apartments, known as Attached Accessory Dwelling Units (AADUs).

The first phase of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process is to determine the scope of the study, and we want your input on what to consider and analyze as we explore allowing more ADUs in Seattle’s neighborhoods.

ADUs are small, secondary dwelling units inside, attached to, or in the rear yard of a single-family house. The City’s proposal involves allowing both an in-law apartment and a backyard cottage on the same lot, removing the existing off-street parking and owner-occupancy requirements, and changing some development standards that regulate the size and location of backyard cottages. Based on a decision from the City’s Hearing Examiner in December 2016, we’re preparing an EIS to review the potential environmental impacts of this proposal.

During the scoping phase, you can help us determine the alternatives we’ll study, potential environmental impacts to consider, and possible measures to avoid or reduce the effects of the proposal. Comments are due by 5:00 p.m. on November 1, 2017. You can give us your input in several ways:

online: seattle.gov/council/adu-eis
by email: ADUEIS@seattle.gov
by mail to Aly Pennucci, Council Central Staff, PO Box 34025, Seattle, WA 98124-4025

in person at our two public scoping meetings.

One of those meetings is in West Seattle: Tuesday, October 17, 6:00-7:30 pm. at High Point Community Center, 6920 34th Ave SW.

An important thing to note: The meeting is NOT going to be a deep dive into the proposal – as noted here, it’s been added to the agenda for what was already an “open house”-style meeting about an even-more-complicated issue, whether to change the city’s Comprehensive Plan to remove language that, for some neighborhoods, conflicts with proposed HALA upzoning. That part of the meeting affects three specific “urban village” areas of West Seattle – The Junction, Morgan Junction, and Westwood-Highland Park – but the dwelling-unit part of the meeting involves neighborhoods citywide. We first wrote about the city’s plan in July.

(WSB photos by Patrick Sand)

That’s the view from the roof of the north tower at The Whittaker (4755 Fauntleroy Way SW; WSB sponsor), where a grand-opening celebration this afternoon marked the completion of both towers. Here’s what’s on the roof:

Another view looks down to the common area:

This time of year, the fire pit will get some use:

Someone who’s no stranger to the outdoors, mountaineering legend Jim Whittaker – the complex’s namesake – was at the party:

Inside the building, here’s a look at the kitchen of a studio unit:

Sun streamed into this 1-bedroom:

The Whittaker has 2-bedroom units as well, and property managers say they’ve already leased 70 percent of the complex’s almost 400 units. As for the commercial space, no news yet about the area originally intended for Whole Foods. Except for MOD Pizza (next June), the ground-floor business tenants are expected to be open within the next month or so. One more thing: the mural on the west side that’s a digital recreation of the one that used to be on the Huling Brothers building that sat along Fauntleroy where The Whittaker’s south tower is now:

You might have noticed some other features along Fauntleroy – the building was set back to make room for a bicycle lane, and there’s art all around, including a water feature by Fauntleroy/Alaska, where the developer-funded crosswalk was recently completed. Today’s celebration is almost ten months after last year’s ribboncutting party marked the south tower’s opening.

(King County Assessor’s Office photo of 3078 Avalon, currently holding 1959-built triplex)

City records show another change in plans for 3078 SW Avalon Way [map], which has been through a lot of change – on paper, at least – in the last five years. We first reported in August 2012 that it had an early-stage development proposal for a “7-story building with 65 residential units and 77 underground parking spaces.” One month later, dozens of neighbors filled the room at its first Design Review meeting. When its second one was scheduled almost a year later, the plan had changed to what city files described as an “8-story, 108-apartment, 61-parking-space proposal.” After the Southwest Design Review Board gave its final approval in January 2014, neighbors appealed a subsequent city determination that the project would have no significant environmental impacts. The city Hearing Examiner’s ruling in December 2014 went their way. Then, this past July, after an architect change, the project returned to Design Review. The current board, entirely different from those who reviewed the project previously, felt they didn’t have enough information for a final decision and decided another meeting was in order.

And now – the apartment project’s been scrapped, with a new plan for the site, according to documents in online city files: 8 townhouses with four offstreet-parking spaces. A new preliminary site plan was filed less than a week ago. This would be the second apartments-to-townhouses plan change on the block – at one time 3062 SW Avalon Way also was proposed for a 100+-apartment building, but nine townhouses are now being built.

The Southwest Design Review Board calendar now has one project set for a fall meeting, just added – the second review for 2715 California SW [map], “a four-story, 48-unit apartment building with one live-work unit and retail to be located at street level” with 46 underground parking spaces. The project, called “Admiral Station,” passed the first phase of Design Review on its first try six months ago (WSB coverage here). Its second and potentially final review is penciled onto the SWDRB calendar for 6:30 pm Thursday, October 19th, at the Sisson Building/Senior Center (4217 SW Oregon).

P.S. If you’re interested in the proposed changes to the Design Review process, see our coverage of the citywide public hearing earlier this week by going here.

Development-related notes…
(WSB photo)

MICROHOUSING PROJECT SITE FOR SALE: There’s a new commercial-real-estate listing this week for 5952 California SW, which – as first reported here in May 2016 – is planned for a microhousing project. The listing itself is titled simply “SEDU Site”; as you might recall, SEDU is the city’s official name for microhousing, small efficiency dwelling units. The last official description on the city website says the project will have 29 microunits and 6 apartments, which is also what the listing’s online notes say: “Property in process of being permitted to build 35 units (Small Efficiency Dwelling Units) and also being approved to go up 5 stories …” County records show the site was sold last December for less than half its current $2 million listing price.

DEMOLITION PLANS: The following list shows West Seattle demolition permits/applications dated within the past two weeks, as found in the city’s online files:

(King County Assessor’s Office photo, 3276 California SW)

-3276 California SW, one-story commercial building to be replaced by live-work units
-3045 California SW, one-story commercial building to be replaced by building with ground-level commercial under 3 apartments
-9211 15th SW, house to be replaced by townhouses
-2950 Alki SW, house to be replaced by 3 townhouses
-4214-4218 30th SW, two houses to be replaced by 8 townhouses
-5033-5035 Delridge Way SW, houses to be replaced by townhouses
-5016 Fauntleroy Way SW, house to be replaced by two new houses
-8802 9th SW, house to be replaced by 8 townhouses
-7926 34th SW, house to be replaced by new house
-4725 SW Dawson, house to be replaced by new house
-6314 49th SW, house to be replaced by new house
-4415 48th SW, house to be replaced by new house

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Some neighborhoods have pushed back against the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda rezoning plans by pointing out that they conflict with longstanding community-crafted neighborhood plans.

Groups in Morgan Junction and the West Seattle Junction are pursuing amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan to try to ensure that HALA rezoning doesn’t overwrite parts of their neighborhood plan.

And this week, they learned that the city has launched a pre-emptive strike with its own amendment to do exactly that. Language in the Morgan, WS Junction, and Westwood-Highland Park plans, and six others citywide, would have specific zoning references struck by this part of what the city’s pursuing:

Make amendments to specific neighborhood plan policies.

Individual policies or goals in the Neighborhood Plan element of the Comprehensive Plan are proposed for amendment where they explicitly call for maintaining single-family zoning within an urban village or center. Certain policies that call for maintaining aspects of single-family areas (such as scale, character, or integrity) are proposed for amendment if they would clearly and directly conflict with the draft MHA implementation proposal. However, in cases where neighborhood plan policies call for maintaining aspects of a single-family areas (i.e. character) that are possible to achieve while implementing MHA, the neighborhood plan policy is not proposed for amendment.

Amendments would remove explicit references to preservation of zoning, in favor of statements to preserve physical scale or character where appropriate. For goal or policy statements that could be construed to directly conflict with MHA implementation short of direct references to zoning, policy language would be added to recognize the potential for addition of a variety of housing types, while preserving aspects of single family areas that are desired for preservation by the neighborhood plan policy. The following Neighborhood Plan policies would be amended.

• Fremont F-P13
• Morgan Junction MJ-P13, MJ-P14
• Northgate NG-P8
• Roosevelt R-LUG1
• Westwood/Highland Park W/HP-P3
• Aurora-Licton Springs AL-P2
• North Rainier NR-P9
• Wallingford W-P1
• West Seattle Junction WSJ-P13

You can read the entire city amendment document here. The next step in potential comprehensive-plan changes is a City Council committee hearing on July 24th – the proposed amendments, including those proposed by Morgan Junction and West Seattle Junction groups, are all linked here.

While those proposed changes are not part of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for HALA’s Mandatory Housing Affordability rezoning, the city’s counterproposal did come up at Tuesday night’s Junction Neighborhood Organization Land Use Committee (JLUC) workshop on DEIS commenting, which is open until August 7th. Here’s what happened during that workshop, including what committee leaders say they have found so far in their review of the document’s hundreds of pages: Read More

As reported here on Thursday, the city is giving you two extra weeks to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA)’s Mandatory Housing Affordability rezoning proposals. The deadline is now August 7th. And another community group has announced a meeting about it. From the Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council:

You’re invited to join WWRHAH on July 19th, from 6-7:30 pm at the Southwest Library, upstairs meeting room, 9010 35th Ave SW, to discuss in broad terms and as a community, the DEIS and how the neighborhood groups could respond as a coalition of voices in on behalf of the Westwood-Highland Park Residential Urban Village.

Westwood-Highland Park (map on page 2 of this document) is one of four urban villages in West Seattle. The HALA MHA rezoning proposals cover all multifamily and commercial property, whether in an urban village or not, and also single-family properties inside UV boundaries, which in some cases are proposed for expansion. The city has an online map you can use to see what the DEIS’s two rezoning options propose in your neighborhood (or any other part of the city that interests you).

(WSB video of the entire June 29th hearing, unedited)

Many people asked for a comment-period extension at last week’s public hearing on the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda‘s Mandatory Housing Affordability Draft Environmental Impact Statement (our complete video of the hearing – apparently a rare commodity since the Seattle Channel wasn’t there – is above). Now, the city just announced it’s granting that request, extending the comment period by two weeks:

Today the Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) extended the public comment period until August 7 on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that studies three alternatives for zoning changes needed to implement Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) in Seattle’s urban villages and other commercial and multifamily residential zones across the city.

“Due to a high volume of requests, both online and at a recent public hearing, we are extending the written comment period on this environmental study an additional 15 days,” said OPCD Director Sam Assefa. “While there is broad agreement on the need for more affordable housing across Seattle, these documents are lengthy and complex, and we want to honor these requests for more time for public review.”

The public can provide feedback on the environmental study using this online form or by e-mailing MHA.EIS@Seattle.gov.

The original deadline had been July 23rd.

Semi-quick reminder: While the public-comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda‘s proposed rezoning is only about halfway over, the biggest public event is just three days away: A public hearing and open house at City Hall downtown (600 4th Ave.). As announced when the DEIS went public earlier this month, the event starts at 5:30 pm Thursday (June 29th), with public comment to follow a short briefing at 6:30 pm. The full document is linked from this city webpage, which has information on other ways to comment until the July 23rd deadline. If you haven’t been following the process until now, the rezoning would affect commercial/multifamily property throughout the city, as well as single-family property in urban villages (West Seattle has four – Admiral, Morgan Junction, West Seattle Junction, and Westwood-Highland Park), some of which would see expanded boundaries. The DEIS looks at two options for rezoning – you can use this interactive map to see whether/how each would affect your neighborhood.