26 responses so far ↓

• 1 dawn // Feb 22, 2010 at 1:58 pm

  what is L3?

• 2 outside the box // Feb 22, 2010 at 2:15 pm

  If you want to see a neighborhood that did this, go drive around Fremont/Wallingford area between Stone Way and Aurora, south of 45th down to 34th. It really drops the value of single family residences when a much taller building looms over it. Just my opinion, of course.

• 3 james // Feb 22, 2010 at 4:28 pm

  not satisfied with putting U Village right in our hood, the council & city are now looking to expand upon it.

  where’s all the traffic going to go? more people, more shops, same congested roads. sounds like good planning.

• 4 Elly // Feb 22, 2010 at 5:22 pm

  I strongly dislike this idea.

• 5 dawn // Feb 22, 2010 at 5:46 pm

  Any idea on how far north they are trying to rezone? “North of 87th” can mean as far at the Shoreline border… I’d like to know b/c currently I can’t attend the meeting tomorrow, but I’d like to let my neighbors know if this is going to effect my block.

• 6 Whopper // Feb 22, 2010 at 7:17 pm

  I hear people in Seattle get nose bleeds above the 3rd floor…….

• 7 PJM // Feb 22, 2010 at 7:36 pm

  L3 means upto 3 story apartments! Funny how our neighborhood is a “buffer”. Buffer between what and what? I suppose between the area with sidewalks and the view homes of Broadview. Yes, more people walking the streets…where are the sidewalks!?

• 8 Mr. B in Ballard // Feb 22, 2010 at 7:56 pm

  I currently chair the advocacy group that put together the larger rezone proposal. We are a volunteer organization of design and development professionals, who work to try to bring our unique skills to bear on large projects for the good of the larger neighborhood.

  Note that the proposed rezoning of the single family (SF) areas being discussed here is limited ONLY to the first few houses along 87th and 3rd immediately adjacent to the proposed Fred Meyer development. The primary reason for that single family upzone there is to prevent a situation where one side of the street is developed or “developable” (south of 87th), but the other side of the street remains too low density for improvement, and thus preventing any development in the new Greenwood town center from being successful. Imagine a street which on one side has a new mixed use building, and on the other side has a small rental house with no sidewalk. That abrupt disconnect could permanently hinder the success of either side, and this type of zone stepping is common on the edges of higher density areas throughout the city.

  That small zone is all part of a larger rezone proposal that our group put together after a series of workshops held with neighbors and stakeholders. The main goal of the larger rezone is to change the zoning on the Fred Meyer site from C-1 (parking lots and gas stations) to NC (neighborhood commercial) which we feel is more in keeping with the rest of downtown greenwood, and which bring many more pedestrian and neighborhood friendly requirements for development.

  I’ve uploaded to Phinneywood a 1 page PDF summary of the entire rezone proposal currently put forward by our group for those of you who can’t attend tomorrow night. Hopefully when viewed in context this small impact will yield a better overall result.

  Thanks!

  Evan Bourquard
  Chair GG.DDAG

• 9 ilheartgreenwood // Feb 22, 2010 at 8:46 pm

  Thank you, Evan! I live across the street and I don’t have a problem with this. Progress is good, people!

• 10 Austin King // Feb 22, 2010 at 8:50 pm

  I’ve been out talking to neighbors tonight and everyone I asked
  1) Didn’t know there was a proposed rezone
  2) Were against a rezoning

  I live on 87th and am against a L3 rezone at this time.

  Please email or call the city council, which will meet Wed morning to discuss amending the plans.

  Sally Clark sally.clark@seattle.gov 684-8802
  Tim Burgess tim.burgess@seattle.gov 684-8806
  Sally Bagshaw sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov 684-8801

• 11 Mr. B in Ballard // Feb 22, 2010 at 9:07 pm

  I would encourage folks whose primary opposition is to the single family portion of the larger rezone proposal to make it clear that that is the portion of the larger rezone proposal which they object to.

  The council discussion on Wednesday is only related to the comp plan change required for the SF upzone. The larger rezone proposal (on the rest of the site) hasn’t even been studied yet by DPD or council.

• 12 Austin King // Feb 22, 2010 at 9:12 pm

  Mr. B (Evan) makes an excellent point, sorry I wasn’t very exact.

  I am for rezoning Fred Meyer from C to NC. This was well thought out and went through a design review and community input.

  I am against the Single Family to Multi Family rezoning of 87th st.

• 13 Rob Fellows // Feb 22, 2010 at 9:21 pm

  One inaccuracy - the Community Council has not proposed the rezone. There has been no action by the community council on this as far as I can tell. Trevor Stanley, the current president, clarified to me that the community council supports rezoning the shopping center site (since there has been no opposition and it’s consistent with previous neighborhood planning processes), but they are neutral on the proposal to rezone the areas across the street from the shopping center. That makes sense to me - I attended the meeting where this topic was discussed, and aside from the proponents who made the presentation, there was little support expressed from other attendees.

  The immediate proposal in front of the City Council is whether to change the future zoning map in the comprehensive plan so that the single-family houses on the north side of 87th and the west side of 3rd would no longer be designated as single-family. That would allow a specific re-zoning proposal to go forward. The advisory group would also rezone the Greenwood Shopping Center, and increase height limits on the south side of 85th St from four stories to six.

  My issue is that the council will vote on this next month, while few of the affected are even aware of the proposal and the proponents have done little to build and demonstrate support for the proposal. Whether it’s a good idea or not, decisions like this should not be made without at least notifying those affected, and the city council should set an expectation that public support for rezoning be demonstrated.

• 14 Brian // Feb 22, 2010 at 9:27 pm

  I live on 86th and would be impacted by this rezoning. In talking to our neighbors, we experienced the same thing as Austin - nobody knew about the rezone, and we are all against it.

  It’s frustrating to be a direct stakeholder in this decision and not have been notified to let us know how we could get involved in the process.

  While I am in favor of the Fred Meyer rezoning, I am strongly oppsed to the single family to multi family rezoning amendment.

• 15 The Greenhood // Feb 22, 2010 at 10:54 pm

  Good points, Rob. As a resident on NW 86th St, I have concerns and should be notified of the proposed rezoning. Why is it that I did not know of this other than word of mouth from my neighbors? As residents we should be made a partner of such proposals. How can single family residents even begin to consider such changes when we are not made fully aware of the details? I feel like and afterthought in this decision and I am one that would be greatly affected.

• 16 Monty Piethong // Feb 23, 2010 at 9:50 am

  In my opinion, Seattle has a glut of apartments and condos that are vacant. Does Greenwood need to add to the inventory? I hope the community makes good choices. I wish FM well.

• 17 outside the box // Feb 23, 2010 at 10:16 am

  Mr B in Ballard (a stakeholder or not?) states in post #8: “The primary reason for that single family upzone there is to prevent a situation where one side of the street is developed or “developable” (south of 87th), but the other side of the street remains too low density for improvement, and thus preventing any development in the new Greenwood town center from being successful.”
  Really? If this rezone doesn’t go through it would prevent any development from being successful? I guess by this reasoning the town center developers are VERY interested in pursuing this rezone…or they have no chance of success? On one hand Mr B and the developers will downplay the significance of rezone, on the other it is necessary to their success!! WOW! A developer and/or their mouthpiece talking out of both sides of their mouths..never heard THAT before, have we??

• 18 Chris // Feb 23, 2010 at 10:20 am

  I guess I don’t understand the upzone from 40′ to 65′ on 85th st. They say “These perimeter
  zones will allow for a more gradual
  transition from the NC-65 zoning to
  adjacent residential zones.” The development core is 65′ so wouldn’t the existing 40′ limit already achieve a gradual transition? A 65′ building next to a single story house doesn’t seem gradual to me.

• 19 GCP // Feb 23, 2010 at 12:28 pm

  as someone who lives in the area mentioned by outside the box (Comment 2) I would have to say that I think our neighborhood is just lovely and the houses I see for sale are pretty damn expensive, so I doubt it’s really hurting their property values.

• 20 Trevor Stanley // Feb 23, 2010 at 3:18 pm

  Thanks to all who have contributed to this discussion. It’s encouraging to see well thought, articulate comments here and in the emails I’ve received from those who support and oppose this portion of the rezone. I hope those of you who are interested and are able will attend the meeting tonight. If not able to attend and you would like to comment please send your concerns or comments to me at: info@greenwoodcommunitycouncil.org.

  Thanks to PhinneyWood for posting our website. I’d like to reiterate that more information including supporting documents and links can be found at http://greenwoodcommunitycouncil.org/projects/greenwood-town-center-rezone-proposal/
  or
  you can go to http://www.greenwoodcommunitycouncil.org and click on the “Projects” tab and select “Town Center Development”. I believe it works will all current web browsers. If you do not have a current browser version you may have difficulty viewing the site. You may have to be patient, the server is currently very slow.

  Trevor Stanley
  Greenwood Community Council President

• 21 outside the box // Feb 23, 2010 at 3:22 pm

  I am a real estate agent, and I showed some clients the home for sale on 4314 Midvale a couple weeks ago. My clients chose to NOT pursue its purchase for the sole reason that their are a number of 3 story apartment buildings around it/very close nearby. They were asking 550k, and now its down to 525k. If THAT HOUSE were in another neighborhood it would be worth more….thats all I’m saying. I think it is WONDERFUL that you love your neighborhood, but you have to admit (maybe you don’t!) having a mix of 3 story apartment buildings in amongst single family homes gives the area less of a “neighborhood” feel. Maybe I’m off base, but thats how MY clients felt.

• 22 Elly // Feb 23, 2010 at 3:45 pm

  Does the proposed re-zone of the Fred Meyer area impact their proposal? I seem to recall that the NC designation allows only significantly smaller sqft buildings than FM wants in their current proposal.

  Is that part really just a sneaky way of trying to not have a big store, no matter how well planned out and integrated? If so, I don’t approve of that.

  Also, this “buffer” thing seems to be doing the exact opposite of what they are proposing. Moving the abrupt change to be mid-block seems far worse to me.

  Very specifically, I think it odd that the proposed zoning leaves a little pocket of 40′ around the Gorditos area.

• 23 Norm // Feb 23, 2010 at 8:34 pm

  “The primary reason for that single family upzone there is to prevent a situation where one side of the street is developed or “developable” (south of 87th), but the other side of the street remains too low density for improvement,”

  I guess it all depends on how you define “improvement”. At least with the current zoning 87th Street will act as a buffer between the new multi-story buildings and single family homes across the street. But then I guess if you get your way, once the new condos are in you can turn around and say: “No one wants a single family home next to a 3 story building. We need to rezone the adjacent properties as L3″ and so on.

  If you truly cared about “the good of the larger neighborhood” you’d be working for things like sidewalks North of 85th and redeveloping areas that don’t work like Aurora rather than attempting to dismantle the single family neighborhoods that make Seattle such a great place to live.

• 24 May // Feb 25, 2010 at 7:39 am

  I think the most important hasn’t been asked or answered… How will the proposed rezone affect our home values?

• 25 Mr. B in Ballard // Mar 1, 2010 at 11:37 pm

  Update:

  As a result of the clear input we received from the recent Greenwood Community Council meeting, our group has decided to remove both the perimeter up-zone of the single family (SF) parcels and the up-zone of the neighborhood commercial (NC) parcels south of 85th street from our current rezone proposal. We will actively lobby City Council and the City to remove these supporting “layers” from their own versions as well. The main goal of the larger rezone has always been to change the zoning on the Fred Meyer site from commercial (C1) (parking lots and gas stations) to neighborhood commercial (NC), which we feel is more in keeping with the character and future of downtown Greenwood. We plan to continue to urge City Council and the Mayor to provide the necessary funding to study and develop a final legislative rezone based on our proposal.

  We hope to present the revised proposal at a future Greenwood Community Council meeting, and we are working with Trevor to stay connected. In the meantime, if you would like to receive regular updates on the activity of our all volunteer team, or if you are a design professional that would like to contribute, please email us at GG.DDAG@gmail.com .

  Thank you again for your passion and continued engagement.

  Evan Bourquard
  Chair GG.DDAG

• 26 R // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:16 pm

  Dear “Outside The Box”,
  “Neighborhoods” have many shapes and forms, especially if one thinks “outside the box” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box).
  I imagine that the house at 4314-Midvale-Ave-N, would sell much better if the run-down buildings across the street from it to the west were instead in as good of condition as the neighbor (1201 N 44th Street) to the north.
  Only time will tell.
  As of April 2010,
  (http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4314-Midvale-Ave-N-Seattle-WA-98103/49060254_zpid/)
  indicated that the asking price was $510k.
  4314-Midvale-Ave-N sold previously as follows:
  05-2005 — $430k.
  08-2003 — $360k.
  12-2001 — $210k.

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