Don’t forget that Seattle City Councilmember Sally J. Clark is holding an information-gathering workshop on creating better townhouses and apartments on Saturday morning at Taproot Theatre. The city is changing the code to make such multi-family housing better fit into neighborhoods.

The meeting is from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. on Saturday at Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St. Council staff will highlight some of the hot-button issues, such as parking requirements, building heights, density limits, code simplification, and design review requirements. Then the public will have plenty of time to put in their two cents’ worth. Coffee and doughnuts will be provided.

The Green Bean Coffeehouse, which has been sharing space with Greenwood Sip & Ship for the last few months since its former building was burned down by an arsonist, will soon move into the old McDonald’s building.

The building, on Greenwood Avenue and about North 86th Street, has been empty for several years and many people have complained about it being an eyesore, with frequent graffiti markings. The lot will someday be developed by Greenwood Shopping Center Inc., the same folks who built the new Piper Village mixed-use development and who own the land under Fred Meyer. In the meantime, the property developers had hoped someone would lease the building for a few years.

You can read all about it in Sanctuary Church’s newsletter. The church owns the Green Bean.

More than 50 residents of Greenwood and Phinney Ridge packed a meeting room at Loyal Heights Community Center Thursday night for an environmental review of the proposed Fred Meyer project on 85th Street.

This meeting focused on soil and groundwater issues only, not design. (The city’s Design Review Board approved the project’s preliminary designs in September.) The project includes not only a Fred Meyer store but up to 250 residential units and about 20,000 square feet of other retail, and will be called Pipers Village West.

The meeting began at 7 p.m. and was scheduled to end at 8:30 p.m., but lasted until after 9:30 p.m. The first 45 minutes was given to the project team to explain their hydrology studies of the site. The remaining time was given to neighbors to voice their concerns, which many did – vigorously.

The main issue revolves around the fact that approximately half of the project will be built on the Greenwood Bog. The peat bog covers a large area of downtown Greenwood. Issues arise when water is removed from the bog – called “dewatering” – causing houses and streets to sink.

GGLO Architect Ted Panton started off by explaining the concept of “infiltration” – which is when water moves from the surface into the ground in a variety of ways, whether through pervious paving or gutters or landscaping. Moving the water back into the bog is a good thing, because you want to keep it hydrated. It’s when you remove water from that compressible soil that it causes sinking.

City Planner Scott Kemp, in the background on the left, and GGLO Architect Ted Panton, in the background on the right, go over hydrology issues.

“This is one of the largest peat bog occurrences in the Seattle area, and that is really the critical issue for this project,” said Michael A.P. Kenrick, a hydro-geologist with GeoEngineers Inc., who was hired by Fred Meyer. “We want to try and preserve the existing nature of the peat. Everybody recognizes the significance of that soil. It’s very compressible. The whole emphasis here is to protect the peat and keep it from losing moisture.”

Kenrick said they have drilled 30 “bore holes” in various sites around the project and installed monitoring wells to get soil samples. He said that was a very high number of bore holes for a project such as this. They look at whether the soil is silt, sand, clay or peat, and how wet it is. The project needs to stay well above the water table, which is the area of saturation.

The bog area contains three different layers of soil. The top thin layer is peat. In some areas the peat is about three-and-a-half to four feet; the thickest location is about eight-and-a-half feet. The middle layer is silt. The bottom layer is glacial till, also called hard pan. The Peat Settlement Prone Areas Ordinance prevents them from constructing anything below ground water elevation.

Hal P. Grubb, director of engineering services for Barghausen Consulting Engineers Inc., hired by Fred Meyer, said the existing Fred Meyer site is almost entirely covered with impervious surface. Storm water is now collected in downspouts and catch basins in the parking lot, and routed straight into the city storm drain system on 87th Street and 1st Avenue. Then it travels to the north and out to Puget Sound, with no control or treatment measures, which is common for older projects.

However, the new project would collect it and meter it out either into the ground or into the city storm water system. The idea is to put as much of the collected water into the peat as the peat will accept – thereby keeping it hydrated – and put any overflow into an underground retention vault. Water in the vault would be metered out into the city system. The vault would be large enough to handle so-called “100-year event” flooding before it overflowed.

Many neighbors brought up sinking issues they believe were caused when the Safeway was built on 87th and Greenwood a few years ago. Some neighbors said they had to pay to jack up part of their houses and that their basements routinely flood.

Kate Martin, a long-time vocal critic to the project, has long complained that putting most of the proposed one-story Fred Meyer underground would cause irreparable harm to the bog and surrounding areas. She called it a “submarine superstore.”

Kate Martin argues that the project will harm surrounding properties.

“We knew that dewatering in and around this area damages public infrastructure and private property, because when peat is robbed of its water source because of dewatering, peat dries, compresses and sinks and anything resting on it goes down with it when it sinks,” Martin said. “Greenwood has been sinking and continues to sink.”

She said there has been a lack of data and science surrounding the project, and that too many assumptions are made. She – and many others in the audience – wondered why the city had not yet ordered an Environmental Impact Statement. Currently, the project only needs a Determination of Non-Significance (DNS).

City Planner Scott Kemp said the city had not yet made the decision on whether an EIS is needed, and that the first step is to approve or deny the DNS. One woman in the audience asked for a show of hands as to who wanted to see an EIS. Nearly every hand went up.

“It’s a very fragile site,” the woman said. “There are impacts, impacts and impacts. I know you can look at all the numbers in lots of different ways. So who’s going to be helping me when I have to move out of the city when my house sinks and I can’t afford to lift it up? It’s a serious possibility for some of us.”

Many others in the audience wanted to know how they could get relief if their houses do sink during or after construction of the project.

“My house is already sinking. I’ve been there five years and I’ve had to raise my house an inch and a half on one corner,” one man said. “What are the assurances that homeowners around the area won’t be affected?”

“If you do the things right on the project itself, there shouldn’t be any impacts on surrounding sites,” Kenrick answered.

A woman who lives directly across the street from the site on 87th Street said the city pipes in the street in front of her house have burst four times in the last few years. Kemp seemed surprised by that. “As you’re building, are our water pipes going to burst again?” she asked.

Matt Heilgeist, who lives across from the project, says he assumes there will be some movement of his home during the project. He asked if the city could establish baselines and elevations for neighboring houses before the project starts, then compare them afterwards. Kemp said the city could look into that.

“My approach is to be as careful as we can. We really don’t feel like we have experts who are trying to fool us,” Kemp said of Fred Meyer’s development team. “They are spending millions and millions of dollars…and do seem to want to do what’s right.”

Note: The meeting was long and many, many people spoke passionately, and there’s no way I can cover everything that was said. So if you think I’ve missed anything important, please put your two cents’ worth in below in comments.

One more thing: If you received a notice in the mail about the meeting from the Department of Planning & Development, then you’re already on the official mailing list for this project. If you didn’t and you want to be on the list, email Scott Kemp with your snail mail address.

Don’t forget that tonight is the environmental review meeting for the proposed Fred Meyer redevelopment project on 85th Street. The meeting is from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Loyal Heights Community Center, 2101 NW 77th St.

We’ll be there and will have a full report after the meeting.

The Seattle City Council wants to create new rules for multi-family housing options. That includes townhouses, rowhouses and apartments.

Councilmember Sally J. Clark is holding a special meeting on March 20 at Greenwood’s Taproot Theatre.

It’s time to change the way we design and shape new lowrise buildings in Seattle. City Council will change the code to make quality, sustainable, well-designed multifamily housing that synchs with the neighborhoods where they are built – and we need your help! This is a prime opportunity for Councilmembers to hear your feedback.

The meeting is from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. on Saturday, March 20 at Taproot, 204 N. 85th St. Council staff will highlight some of the hot-button issues, such as parking requirements, building heights, density limits, code simplification, and design review requirements. Clark promises plenty of time set aside for hearing from constituents. Coffee and doughnuts will be provided.

For more information, contact Clark’s office at 206-684-8802 or sally.clark@seattle.gov.

The next step in the Greenwood Fred Meyer redevelopment proposal is an environmental review meeting next Thursday, March 11. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at the Loyal Heights Community Center, 2101 NW 77th St.

As we’ve reported previously, the development on 85th Street will demolish the existing Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market, and build a 170,000-square-foot single-story Fred Meyer, with about 250 residential units on top, and about 26,000 square feet of retail for other tenants. A three-story parking garage, and a few small parking lots, would provide parking for nearly 700 cars.

The preliminary designs passed through the Design Review Board last September. Next week’s meeting will focus on environmental issues, since much of the land is on top of Greenwood’s infamous peat bog.

Written and/or oral comments may be submitted at the meeting. This meeting is to receive public comment and provide information relating to soils and hydrology issues and to receive comment on other environmental issues.

(This drawing by GGLO Architects shows the public plaza area from 1st Avenue Northwest, looking to the northwest.)

Update Tuesday: Here’s a link to a summary of the rezone proposal, with drawings of the affected areas. And there are a number of great clarifying comments below from those involved with the proposal, as well as neighbors.

Earlier: The Greenwood Community Council is meeting Tuesday night to discuss a possible rezone of areas adjacent to the proposed Fred Meyer redevelopment on 85th Street. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at the Greenwood Library, 8016 Greenwood Ave. N.

The council is proposing the city “upzone” the areas adjacent to single family residences west of Third Avenue Northwest and north of North 87th Street to L3, which would allow three-story multi-family buildings.

The zoning is intended to be a kind of buffer between the large Fred Meyer/residential development and the rest of the neighborhood, but some neighbors are complaining in online discussion groups that it would put a tall multi-family building right up against a single-family home.

The public is invited to the meeting to learn more.

Fred Meyer’s plans to demolish the existing store on NW 85th Street and replace it with a mixed-use development are moving forward. The company has submitted its Land Use Application to the city’s Department of Planning and Development.

Land Use Application to allow a 4-story structure containing 170,000 sq. ft. of multi-purpose convenience store (Fred Meyer), 26,300 sq. ft. of ground level retail with 250 residential units above and a three level parking garage structure in an environmentally critical area. Parking for 682 vehicles to be provided. Project includes 85,000 cu. yds. of grading. Existing structures to be demolished.

The next step is a SEPA (State Environmental Policy Act) Environmental Determination. The public can comment on the application through Jan. 20.

This comment period may be the only opportunity to comment on the environmental impacts of this proposal.

PhinneyWood has covered this project extensively in the last year. The city’s Design Review Board approved the overall design in September.

They’ve been working on it since last week, now the new Piper Village sign in front of Blockbuster and Bartell Drugs is finished. Here’s what it looked like Thursday afternoon just as work crews were finishing up.

Here are a few tidbits we’ve collected from around the neighborhood this last week:

Wayward Coffeehouse at 8570 Greenwood Ave. N. now offers gluten-free pastries, for those with allergies. “We will now have two gluten-free cookies from the WOW! Bakery: Chocolate Chip and Ginger Molasses. And as a reminder, all of our tasty vegetarian/vegan soups are gluten free and are available any time!”

Sandra Coan Photography is opening a new studio on the ground level of the housing/retail building at 310 NW 85th St. Sandra specializes in babies, children, families and weddings.

The demolition and new construction of Fire Station 21 is on track to happen early next year, as we’ve previously reported. The city just applied for permits to construct two modular structures and one equipment tent to serve as a temporary fire station five blocks south of the current station, on the corner of Greenwood and N. 68th St.

The old signs for Bartell, Blockbuster and Top Ten Toys on 85th Street came down last week and were replaced with new signs, as part of the larger Piper Village development.

Here are the old signs coming down (thanks, John, for the photo).

And here’s what it looks like today, with a large area at the top that looks like it’ll be reserved for the main Piper Village sign, and three blank signs for future businesses.

Northwest Hub, an online news source for land use, environmental and real estate news, published an in-depth article today examining Fred Meyer’s proposed redevelopment of its 85th and Greenwood store.

Northwest Hub commends neighbors and the Fred Meyer development team for vastly improving the design from an unsightly big-box scheme, but faults the city’s land use codes for keeping the project from being as great as it could be.

Design review is intended to be a key tool in implementing the “Urban Villages Strategy” of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan, locating the majority of growth in compact, mixed-use, walkable urban hubs that serve as the focal point of community life. The redevelopment of the Fred Meyer site in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood is a crucial step in seeing that vision for the Greenwood-Phinney Ridge Urban Village come to fruition. But the project’s early design guidance—the first official step in the city’s design review process—failed to correct for an incoherent, prescriptive code and appeared to work at odds with realizing the urban village vision.