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.

(King County Assessor’s Office photo)

A century-plus-old house at 6721 California SW is proposed for replacement with seven rowhouse townhouses, according to a proposal that just showed up in city files. The early-stage site plan in city files shows the units fronting onto SW Willow on the south side of the site, with five offstreet parking spaces alongside the units on the north side. This represents continued densification to match what the area is already zoned for; this site is zoned Lowrise 2, as is the rest of the block, part of which has already been redeveloped, as has the entire block to the south.

A July 6th meeting is now scheduled for the Southwest Design Review Board, with these two projects:

3078 SW AVALON WAY, REVIVED: Back in 2014, neighbors won a fight over city planners’ contention that a ~100-apartment building proposed for this site was environmentally non-significant in some areas of consideration. But as noted in our report at the time, that didn’t mean the development was dead; the ruling ultimately said the project had to go back to the SW Design Review Board. And that’s what it’s doing at 6:30 pm Thursday, July 6th, front end of a doubleheader at the Senior Center/Sisson Building (4217 SW Oregon). The project, in the works since 2012, is still described on the city website as 7 stories, ~100 apartments, and ~60 parking spaces; the newest proposed design should be available when the July 6th meeting gets closer.

9049 20TH SW, EXPANDED: The headquarters of STS Construction Services (WSB sponsor) would get two added floors with 22 apartments and 5 microstudios in the project to be reviewed at 8 pm. The newest site plan also says the building footprint would be expanded for added office space at ground level. Any required parking would be provided in the garage of STS-owned Bluestone Apartments next door at 9051 20th SW.

SPEAKING OF DESIGN REVIEW: As reported here last week, some big changes are proposed for the process, and comments are being taken now.

The first Southwest Design Review Board hearing has been set for the newest project proposed at 4722 Fauntleroy Way SW, where a single-story CVS drugstore was planned for three years until it was unceremoniously scrapped last year. And we know more about the project now, too.

July 20th is the date that just appeared on the schedule for the two-building project we first told you about last December. At the time, details were few. Now, the meeting docket on the city website includes this:

Design Review Early Design Guidance application proposing … a 7-story building containing 233 residential units, 17 live-work units, and 10,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. Parking to be provided for 250 vehicles within the structure. Existing structure to be demolished. (And) a four-story building containing one live-work unit and 49 residential units.

Though the meeting listing doesn’t mention offstreet parking for the smaller building, a document mentions “30 parking stalls” under three residential floors.

This is all set for what’s becoming West Seattle’s most-redeveloped block – across from The Whittaker (WSB sponsor), and north of 4754 Fauntleroy Way SW, which just finished going through Design Review. With the 4722 Fauntleroy hearing almost two months away, no design renderings are in city files yet, but we’re contacting developers Legacy Partners – who you might know for Youngstown Flats (WSB sponsor) in North Delridge – to find out if they have anything to share. (Documents show LP is now working with Encore Architects on this project.)

The July 20th meeting is set to start at 6:30 pm at the SWDRB’s usual meeting spot, the Senior Center/Sisson Building (4217 SW Oregon).