The city’s Department of Planning and Development is holding a public meeting on June 29 to discuss the proposed rezoning of the Greenwood Town Center site in the heart of Greenwood. The Town Center includes Fred Meyer, Greenwood Market, Bartell Drugs, Top Ten Toys, Blockbuster, and the new Sedges retail/residential building.
The proposal also includes upzoning some surrounding areas, including about 100 feet deep on the south side of NW 85th Street, west side of NW 3rd Avenue and north side of NW 87th Street.
Trevor Stanley, president of the Greenwood Community Council, says the rezoning proposal came about through community meetings over the last several years. When Fred Meyer proposed to knock down its current store and replace it with a larger, mixed-use project, the GCC and another group, the Greater Greenwood Design & Development Advisory Group (GG.DDAG) found that current zoning in that area was inconsistent and could lead to the wrong kind of projects.
Fred Meyer’s current zoning is C-1 (commercial zoning that encourages large parking lots). The proposal is to change it to NC3-65 (Neighborhood Commercial with a 65-foot height limit), which would encourage taller buildings and a larger footprint, instead of a sea of asphalt parking.
(Fred Meyer’s plan is to demolish its existing store and replace it with a much larger store, along with about 250 apartments and other retail space, plus a large parking garage. The city approved Fred Meyer’s basic design last September.)
Under the proposal, the area just west of 3rd Ave. NW and north of NW 87th Street would be changed to L-3 (Lowrise), which would allow town homes with a height limit of 35 feet. Stanley says this is the same height limit as a single-family home, but the allowable lot coverage would be greater, although buildings could not come right up to the property line.
“It could be good because it could stimulate development along that area, which has had a lot of problems attracting anybody to come in there,” Stanley said. “To date, that area has sat in a sort of derelict state. We want nice stuff there, but it has to be profitable or it won’t be developable.”
The rezone proposal also would change the zoning on the south side of NW 85th Street to NC2P-65, which allows buildings 65 feet tall, but limits the footprints of those buildings.
Stanley says he understands the concerns of homeowners south of NW 85th St. who worry about a tall development being built right next door. But he says since the single family homes there are built partially up the hill, the 65 feet height limit is not as daunting as initially thought.
“Yes, that’s a big building, that’s absolutely right, but there’s another 15 feet of grade up to the top of that hill, plus there’s an alley in between. So you can’t say it’s 65 feet above your house. But, it would be tall,” he said. “It’s just trying to encourage the right thing. And the right thing is…subjective. It needs to be dealt with, it’s just a matter of how we deal with it.”
The now vacant lot of the corner of NW 85th Street and 1st Ave. NW that used to be a Pizza Hut years ago, would be included in the NC2P-65 zoning. We reported last summer that a new restaurant would be going in there, but that apparently fell through. Last week, a trailer with the sign “Hot Bean Espresso” was parked there. (PhinneyWood has been unable to find any business license or building permits with that name. If you have any information, please share it below in comments.)
Several months ago, the Greenwood Community Council applied to the Seattle Parks Department’s Opportunity Fund to purchase the site for a park, using money from the 2008 Parks Levy. Stanley said acquiring that site would cost about $1.5 million. While the property owner told Stanley he might be interested in selling that site, he hoped to sell it along with the two adjacent lots (currently an empty lot and an old house) as one big package.
Stanley says an urban park next to the Greenwood Town Center would be a perfect fit. “It’s going to increase the quality of life in general for the Town Center to have a nice little green space,” he said. “It kind of activates that space. And it’s horribly ugly the way it is right now. We want to be proactive to help encourage the right stuff, or else we’re going to get the Hot Bean Espresso stand.”
The DPD zoning meeting is from 6-8 p.m., Tuesday, June 29, in the Fellowship Hall of the Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, at 7500 Greenwood Ave. N.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Eric Burgess // Jun 8, 2010 at 11:02 am
Cannot not wait for this. So exciting to see Greenwood move forward in commercial development like this.
2 RR // Jun 8, 2010 at 5:07 pm
A park would be perfect there! That darn Pizza Hut site hasn’t had a viable business for a decade.
3 Kate Martin // Jun 9, 2010 at 7:07 am
Good news!
4 Tiktok // Jun 9, 2010 at 7:28 am
A park right next to 85th? That’s a lot of traffic and noise for a not too-deep park lot. Plus the pedestrian crosswalk light at 1st and 85th only cycles through every half-hour or so.
5 Boeing Babe // Jun 9, 2010 at 9:57 am
for the life of me I don’t understand why you include maps when the information contained thereon is so tiny as to be unreadable. I cannot even tell where North is on this map. Its very frustrating.
6 RidgeDweller // Jun 9, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Why would the new park go in a spot so close to other HUGE parks: Greenwood and Sandel parks. There are some parkless parts of the Greenwood/Phinney ‘hood, and a new park should be placed in an area that is not already served by large parks.
7 Janet Rayor // Jun 9, 2010 at 3:06 pm
North of 87th st. rezone across from Piper’s Village is NOT cool. Piper’s Village can’t even rent their apartments or businesses. There was a perfectly lovely design for a two story town homes on the South side that fit in with residential zoning. Me and my neighbors will not be able to afford this gentrification in our property taxes. Owned properties do better for neighborhood than apartments with transient dwellers.
Just note that many of these positive comments come from people who ARE NOT NEIGHBORS but developers and landscape architects who want our land and jobs.
8 Whopper // Jun 9, 2010 at 3:55 pm
“Me and my neighbors will not be able to afford this gentrification in our property taxes”
Well, vote for lower taxes next time.
9 Brian // Jun 9, 2010 at 4:45 pm
The most interesting part of this article concerns the upzoning proposal - this exact same proposal was floated in February by the GCC/GGDDAG, without talking to the directly impacted neighbors or stakeholders, and once discovered (at the last minute) was roundly shot down by citizens and the City Council subcommittee. I attended the GCC meeting where there was a unanimous vote (40 to zero) to not support the upzone part of the proposal. After that vote, the position of the GCC was to not support the upzone.
So here we are just three months later, the GCC pushing for the same upzone as if the topic had never been discussed. How is this an example of the GCC listening to the neighborhood? Apparently the voices of the citizens they purport to represent do not matter? Is there some sort of hidden agenda here?
10 Jennska // Jun 10, 2010 at 7:11 am
@Boeing Babe: by default maps show with North as the top. While it isn’t super easy to read, I can pretty easily make out Greenwood running along the right side of the map, and deduce/make out that 87th and 85th are the roads along the top and bottom (respectively) of the pink area. As the article is almost completely about the Fred Meyer site, it isn’t much to work out that the left side of the pink area is the Fred Meyer block.
My concern here is that 85th would feel very canyon like with 65ft structures on its south side. Sure the residential homes going south are on the slope, but pedestrians on 85th certainly aren’t.
I need to read through the entire proposal for the Fred Meyer site itself. The beginning part certainly seems like they are working to take the community needs for walkability and smallish store fronts (such as on greenwood between 85th and 87th)
11 gdog // Jun 10, 2010 at 10:00 am
Really? A park on 85th St? That sounds like a terrible idea. Kids and a really, really busy street…sounds like a recipe for disaster.
12 R // Jun 10, 2010 at 10:23 am
The February 2010 vote described above by Brian as “40 to zero” was to POSTPONE a decision on the matter of zoning changes on the streets opposite the Greenwood Shopping Center (currently Fred Meyer / Greenwood Market) complex.
In response to this,
a group was formed to facilitate the discussion of this matter.
This group includes Andrea Petzel (DPD Senior Urban Planner, 206-615-1256) and at least 6 neighbor / stakeholder representatives.
A result of the efforts of this group is the open house discussion meeting on
(Tuesday) June 29, 2010, 6:00-8:00 pm.
6:00-6:30 Meet and Greet
6:30-6:45 Overview Presentation
6:45-8:00 Open House/Public Comment
@ Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall (7500 Greenwood Avenue).
(http://buildingconnections.seattle.gov/2010/06/02/public-meeting-for-a-rezone-in-greenwood-town-center/)
Host: Andrea Petzel, DPD Senior Urban Planner, 206-615-1256.
In other words,
while there certainly were those who wanted postponement to mean permanent postponement,
the directive of the February vote was to improve communication and this meeting is a result of Greenwood volunteers and the DPD implementing that commitment to improve communication.
13 Patty Moriarty // Jun 10, 2010 at 11:17 am
It is the highest and best use of this area to re-zone this area to higher density mixed use including townhouses, condos, affordable apartments as well as smaller retail to balance the large retail stores. The area has the transportation infrastructure to support much more density and its location is ripe for this development. A walkable neighborhood including smaller pocket parks are essential for the health and welfare of the public.
This is a great opportunity for the community to work with the city to create a livable neighborhood.
14 Gary // Jun 10, 2010 at 11:51 am
Just hope they don’t duplicate parking at QFC on 24th in Ballard: ramp into lower level so narrow cards are leaving paint on the walls, and spaces striped too narrow. I won’t return.
15 Tom // Jun 10, 2010 at 1:29 pm
How many posters actually live within the rezone?
The rationales for the rezone, density and providing a buffer, don’t hold up under scrutiny. There is plenty of space to increase density in areas ALREADY zoned for it. 3rd ave and 87th (east of 3rd) are extra wide streets and no buffer is needed. The tax assessor has already indicated that property taxes in the proposes rezone would go up dramatically and happen immediately.
The poster who says vote for lower taxes, does not have a clue as to how tax assessment works or the ability of voters to affect a specific geographic area like the rezone.
16 Ralph // Jun 10, 2010 at 3:30 pm
All you posters need to get educated before you speak. Not all of you but some cannot even use words properly and we are suppose to value your undereducated opinion. . This is how you wind up with a president like George Bush. Lady who complained about the map size, get a life or figure out how to make your own blog. I’m guessing you spend a lot of your time complaining and being an otherwise contemptible shrew. For all opposed to the project griping on this blog will do nothing if you dislike it that much do something being a Keyboard commando isn’t going to stop the bull dozers.
17 Todd Hivnor // Jun 11, 2010 at 10:45 am
I went to the February 2010 meeting. My sense was that this took a lot of people by surprise. A lot of people did not have good information about what was going on. There was a serious lack of understanding of the property tax implications, as well as what the zoning change meant in real terms.
So the outcome: let’s have more community involvement, was totally appropriate.
My current concern remains around community involvement. Is this blog post the extent of it? I signed up for Trevor’s mailing list, but didn’t get notice of this meeting. I haven’t seen anything around town. I doubt that homeowners in the affected areas have been made aware of this. Are the “6 neighbor / stakeholder representatives” in the new group a representative sample? Or were they cherry-picked?
People who live in the neighborhood are not zoning experts, and they don’t know what the property tax implications are. That stuff should be made more clear. If there is more information which could be made available prior to the meeting that would be helpful.
The proposal at http://greenwoodcommunitycouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Proposal-for-Legislative-Rezone-lowerres.pdf has some good information. But the cross section views on page 6 are really lacking in detail. In watercolor, everything looks nice.
I would personally like to see “street sections” like the ones on pages 32-38 of the Fred Meyer proposal (http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/AppDocs/GroupMeetings/DRProposal3010265AgendaID2789.pdf)
Finally, can someone clarify when will this proposal be brought before the city council again?
18 west of 3rd // Jun 22, 2010 at 11:17 am
I think this and the public meeting are a great forum for neighbors to ask questions. Bring on a healthy debate. BUT…as neighbors/citizens we cannot know all of the implications. We need the City to provide expertise- factual and unbiased on topics such as the property tax implications. At one community meeting residents were told that property taxes would not immediately go up for SF homeowners in the rezone, others are reporting third-hand expertise to the contrary.
I belive that urban density and pedestrian oriented development are the right moves for Greenwood. However, I don’t believe that ALL aspects of this proposal make sense to get there. The areas N of 87th St and W of 3rd Ave deserve separate scrutiny and consideration. Why rezone mid-block and call this a buffer instead of using the existing street buffer?
Trevor’s statement “To date, that area has sat in a sort of derelict state,” is completely offensive if it applies to the 3rd Ave and 87th St areas in the proposed rezone. These properties are NOT the same as an abandoned lot (formerly Pizza Hut)…but are Greenwood families living in their homes and participating in their community.
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