The community is invited to join the Mount Baker Community Club (2811 Mount Rainier Dr. S.) from 7 to 9 pm this Thur., May 5, for a review and discussion of the City’s controversial plans to redevelop the Mt. Baker Station Area.
The North Rainier Neighborhood Plan Update – written by the City of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development and released in January 2010 – lays out a variety of goals, policies and strategies designed to support a transit-oriented development approach to redeveloping the north-end of the Rainier Valley. The plan updates are the result of a neighborhood plan update process that began in the fall of 2008.
Opponents of the plan say it doesn’t do enough to preserve the character and quality of life of the historic Mt. Baker community.
Also on the meeting agenda is a recap of the Urban Land Institute’s design competition for the Mt. Baker Station Area, a report on the work of Sustainable South Seattle towards options for improved access to light rail stations and updates on the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) site at 31st Avenue South and and South Day Street and 31st Avenue South and McClellan Gateway.
A diagram of the community from the North Rainier Neighborhood Plan Update from the City of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development.
Related:
- Great City to Host Community Forum on Growth, Development & Inequalities in Southeast Seattle (3/30/11)
Who to know, where to eat & what to do in one of America’s most diverse zip codes!
{ 54 comments }
Wow… I didn’t realize this was “controversial”
Neighbors or businesses -in the area that rely on traffic – are unaware that there is a city driven plan to change traffic and zoning.
“If you don’t have to get in your car to get groceries, go to work, or enjoy an afternoon in a park or neighborhood downtown, you can make the more sustainable choice, a local decision that can affect the global challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Are there big (well paying) employers lining up for this? since most of the businesses in that area probably do not pay enough for what they will be asking for rents in these new developments.
Please, please do this.
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of all the local small businesses:
Wendy’s
U-haul
lowes
Rite-Aid
QFC
Dominoes
O’Reilly’s
Pawn x-change
Starbucks?
My heart is broken…..
Look at city staff that promote town squares… read about what they destroyed in Burien:
http://plf.typepad.com/plf/2010/06/speculating-on-the-public-dime-burien-is-latest-eminent-domain-loser.html
PLEASE think about all the folks who work at those businesses. They’re real jobs, right now. Oh, and add Pepsi and Bartells to the list. Pepsi does pay a solid living wage.
And here’s what the Seattle Office of Economic Development had to say about adding more retail space to the valley:
“A likely over?supply of new retail space along the light rail corridor: The amount of new
commercial space that will be allowed in new freestanding and mixed?use development is
not likely to be economically supportable in the near future, particularly if most or all of the
new commercial space allowed is used for retail purposes. An over?supply of new retail
space increases the chances that sales could be deflected from the corridor’s existing
businesses.
? Lack of control over property ownership and commercial rents: A relatively small
percentage of Rainier Valley’s retail businesses own the spaces in which they operate.
Independently owned businesses that lack control over the space in which they operate are
at risk of displacement.”
http://www.seattle.gov/economicdevelopment/pdfs/retail%20development%20strategy%20for%20rainier%20valley%20-%20final%20report.pdf
Bartells and Pepsi aren’t directly affected by this. Bartells would, if anything, stand to gain from it.
Burien is not now, and has never been, a part of Seattle. And immenent domain plays no part in this plan.
Thanks for the non-sequiters, though!
I normally drive Rainier to Boren to get to the Central District—especially my daughter’s school at Summit and Union. This will definitely add to the commute and I don’t see how it’s going to benefit the greater area. I guess if I lived right there it would be nice, but are there enough residents to support all the businesses caught in this snare.
Does this also grab Borriccini’s and Mutual Fish—two places I shop at often? (I can’t really tell from the map) They were easy stops on my way to/from the school—won’t be if they’re cut off from thru traffic.
“Opponents of the plan say it doesn’t do enough to preserve the character and quality of life of the historic Mt. Baker community.”
Please, let’s preserve The Pawn Exchange and the “crack” Carwash.
Re: Rob – There also seems to be a lot of concern about the quality and character of being able to drive past the community as quickly as possible.
To follow up my snark with a real question – will there be City representation at this meeing to give feedback to or is it an MBCC internal presentation/discussion?
“Does this also grab Borriccini’s and Mutual Fish—two places I shop at often? (I can’t really tell from the map) They were easy stops on my way to/from the school—won’t be if they’re cut off from thru traffic.”
Nope. S Bayview Street (the northern boundary) is where Bartell’s/Lowes’ parking lot is. Rainier Rita pretty much had it down, except for a few places in the strip mall Dominos is in. IMO, it’s an ambitious plan, but I think it looks good. Almost anything would be an improvement.
Patrick’s first comment is my new favorite.
I do wonder about Borrachini’s and about whether this is going to significantly up-end prices in the area; will the new living spaces/developments serve enough people to justify the inconvenience to drivers? It seems like the City predicts/hopes this will be a new population density hub.
The question is what retailers will be able to afford space in the new development – not sure any of the small, locally owned places folks like will be able to survive.
Does anyone know if there is a “small business subsidy” or reduced rent for local businesses that has enabled some new places at Othello Station and places like St Dames in the development at Alaska and MLK make a go of it?
It’s really interesting how there have been relatively few vacancies in Columbia City compared to places that have a high concentration of new space. Is the rent that much lower there?
To build the Capitol Hill light rail station an entire square block was demolished. This was in a very-high density area. I lived a couple blocks away at the time. It was interesting to watch all the displaced small businesses shuffle around on Broadway. All of them found new locations (except Jack in the Box) and survived it.
All of the Mt. Baker businesses will do the same thing or choose to leave. The density will benefit Bartell, grocery stores, Mutual Fish and other retailers. Change is what happens in cities. All commercial lease holders understand this.
Marshall,
Thanks, great insight. Any particular examples you can share?
Did they get any money from the city/other sources to relocate? What types of businesses are they – restaurants, clothing, other types? Where did they move to? Was any of it the new space that was built or did they relocate to other existing, older buildings? Have their prices gone up since?
Thanks,
Tom T
Check p7 of the linked plan – the proposed upzone only goes from Bayview to Winthrop and a little triangle S of the MLK/Rainier intersection. Borrachini’s and Mutual Fish are out of area. Pepsi is out of the area. It’s essentially QFC/Wendys and Lowes plus the gas station / O’Reilly complexes. There really aren’t that many “small, local” businesses there (see Rita’s list above) – although if Thai Recipe closed I’d cry.
Not to mention, this is just the legal limit people can build to. It’s not a Soviet 5 Year Plan and is no guarantee anyone will be displaced. Right now most of those areas are zoned to a 65′ limit, but I see a lot of one storey strip mall construction.
I think there is some real quality in this plan, something to match and fit with the Olmsted legacy that runs through the area from Mt. Baker Blvd. and Cheasty.
This kind of change I welcome. And I live right up the hill and drive through the area all the time. My most practical reason for seeing an urban village grow there. I want to get off the Light Rail at night and feel safe. We can get there, and it won’t be all high rises.
When every existing building along the Rainier Avenue corridor is using its’ 65 foor height restrictions and is at capacity, then it is time to allow private developers the right to exceed 65 feet if they put in “affordable” housing, but not before. We have enough “affordable” housing in the Valley, and not enough jobs to get people into market rate housing.
I attended a frightening meeting last night. It was not widely publicized to all of SE Seattle that will be affected. They only mailed to people with 200 feet of the proposed change area. It is one of the best-kept secrets in Seattle. They planned on a small group who thinks like the Mayor and many work for the city. Fortunately a local group got the word out to at least the immediate area.
Clearly the City clearly does not want us to know what they are planning. They do not want to hear the people that live in SE Seattle. Its goal is to force us on to the failing train. Notice they are down to two-car trains. It costs $5 a mile per person for each rider, about $30 for each $1.50 ticket. That is about $75 to go to the airport. Their plan is to allow buildings up to 200’ feet tall in the north Rainier area. Pack in people so they will make the train work.
It has been proposed to make MLK and Rainier Ave one-way streets. For now they propose to make this change where these two streets they cross. Rainier will be north bound and you will have to bear right onto MLK. Rainier Ave will be one-way south and you will have to bear right onto MLK.
First the city only sent out announcements to the immediate area. We live further south and cross this area frequently. We did not get a notice of this proposed change. It will affect people all over the South End maybe as far south as Renton. Remember the freeway is a parking lot for most of the rush hour, that time from 6 AM to 9 PM. This is a main NS corridor.
There will be no intersection. After traveling North and South you will have to take cross streets to get back onto whichever street you were on. Soon the streets will become one-way for their entire length. They did not say this that will be for a future surprise.
We now have 4 lanes N and 4 lanes south with 2 turn lanes. This will be decreased to three lanes N and S. If you need to go to first hill you will come north on Rainier turn onto MLK then once past Lows turn left to get back on Rainier. You will do similar moves if you are going south on Rainier. You will no longer be able to go south on MLK; it will be one-way north. Nor will you be able to go south on Rainier Ave. it will be north only.
Does this sound confusing? Wait until they do it to us. We now have 80,000 autos, trucks etc. cross this intersection each day. How long do you think the traffic jams will be? All of this traffic will go through our neighborhoods trying to get out of the mess. MLK and Rainier Ave will become a parking lot for much of the day as people try to navigate through this mess.
The goal is to screw up the traffic so badly that people will take the train. This is a worthy goal if the train went where I was going, which it rarely does. Go to http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/Neighborhood_Planning/NeighborhoodPlanUpdates/NorthRainier/default.asp click on “Draft North Rainier Urban Design Framework” or “Printable version of North Rainier Neighborhood Plan Update. “
I realize that town hall is into green but in this case I think the green they got is hallucinogenic. Remember elections are coming. It is time for a big change downtown.
RVN – But this proposal isn’t tied to affordable housing. If anything upzoning those properties means developers are free to create market rate housing without having to beg the city for low-income incentive zoning and horse-trade with nonprofits to get a variance.
My understanding, from the meeting last night, is that private developers are allowed access to increased building heights, exceeding the existing 65 foot limit, if they provide some ratio of affordable housing within their buildings. The reason? To provide views to those that can afford the top floors – certainly not to those that qualify for affordable housing. Sounds to me like the City is providing an incentive to private developers to get them to come into the Valley, and this is how they are going to do it, so developers can get above market rate for the residential units that have views. So you are right – they don’t have to beg at all – it is built into the plan.
@ Rainier Valley Native
Isn’t it better to have some affordable housing mixed into a 7 or 8 story building than none in a six story building as is the case under current zoning?
I live just north of I-90 and I listen to people complain about gentrification and displacement all the time. A lot of these folks are the exact same people twenty years ago complaining about the CD being a dumping ground for affordable housing. Affordable housing NIMBYs should watch what they wish for or their children will not be able to raise families in the neighborhood they grew up in.
The leadership in both the current and former administrations, as well as the City Council, should be ashamed of what they’ve done and are doing to the Rainier Valley. From private to publich developers, from roads to rails, and from schools to stores SE Seattle continues to be taken advantage of by bureaucrats who work the agendas of short-sighted profit takers.
Thankfully this urban, transit-oriented density with incentives to private developers to provide affordable housing is not in my back yard – it’s about two miles away. In my back yard are Seattle Public Schools that are sub-par, at best. I’d like my City Council to direct my tax dollars at improving public schools so my NIMBY neighbors and I wouldn’t have to drive our children in our cars to out-of-area private schools. Yes, the proposed traffic re-routing in this plan will impact our commutes. @curlove: I would very much like my entire family and its’ upcoming generation to continue to reside in the Valley. Trust me, it will not be the price of housing that forces a move.
I heard on the news today that housing prices are going to drop or stay flat for the next 10 years. Even without that bit of information I agree with the Rainier Valley Native – it is the school system failures coupled with the concentrated poverty & increased crime that will help people make life decisions ro their families.
Also, this NIMBY phrase is getting old and frankly it raises my blood pressure everytime I hear it used in SE Seattle. Who can possibly claim that anyone or anything hasn’t welcome in SE Seattle? Nobody. We have it all and that’s why we’re recognized as the most diverse neighborhood in America. What I don’t want to see in the neighborhood I love so much is a replication of what happened in Chicago. Density is one thing but concentrated poverty is a whole different story. I guess it makes sense to those in Laurlehurst and Madison Park – a red-line can be drawn around our neighborhood and the police presence will be higher to the north side of the line. This will prevent any of us who are less desireable from leaving as we truly aren’t welcome to leave our backyards temporarily or permanently. I don’t know who posted it last week but I was fascinated by the statistics on Broadmore ( a subset of madison park). I thought I read there wasn’t a single african american family in the neighborhood. If that is true, I guess we really do know who really isn’t welcome in their backyards!!!
SSSL
I attended Thursday’s meeting and listened to the city planner “spin” development and send mixed and contradictory messages. The city would never take away Lowe’s – reportedly the most profitable chain in the nation. But at the same time, the city has prepared for Lowe’s demise with planned high-density developments. The planner couldn’t – or more pointedly, wouldn’t – identify a similarly situated development in the city that would resemble the city’s master plan for North Rainier. Not Pioneer Square or the International District, but not quite South Lake Union (which, he intimated, was a swell site that perhaps North Rainier would like to emulate). The city, he said, would never use eminent domain to chase away local businesses. But if one reads between the lines, one can ascertain that the city could code and regulate existing businesses to the extent that they will close and be replaced by a more acceptable operation. And my recollection was that low-income housing would represent a “small percentage” (maybe 5%) of units that would otherwise go at market rate.
What concerns me most is the warp speed with which the city is using to push this plan through. The mayor’s plan went to the council last month, and council committees will begin holding their meetings. The council at large could push this plan through by the end of the year. City employees – like this planner – say they will “listen” to our concerns. But some of us who attended Thursday’s meeting sense that the city (buoyed by developers who want to strike now) will lend an ear and then do as they please.
If the city of Seattle really wanted to help the South End, they would devote more resources/create incentives for education. The U of W operates a laundry facility near the Mt Baker Station. The city could create an incentive for the U of W to take more space to operate a lab facility or extension campus. The U of W could open up a lab school for students k-12 and the faculty and employees could live in the southend and send their kids there. This is the type of school that the Obama daughters went to in the Southside of Chicago. Who wants to live on Rainier Ave S when there is not a critical mass of good jobs, schools, coffee shops and restaurants?
One thing I noticed is they added a lot of color into the map to make it look a lot greener than it is today & the green that is noted isn’t useable space for the general public – specifically the high-density folks they want to continue to push into SE Seattle. For those of you who have been around a while, you’ll remember the bus turnaround behind Starbucks was proposed to be a park/greenspace splitting Rainier/MLK but now it is another block of pavement stacked with metro buses.
Also, why can’t we get park and rides.
Park and rides will never happen with this mayor’s administration. Remember “walk, bike and ride”? The salesman from the planning department – yes, he was that slick – said that the city wants to decrease and discourage people from driving. On one hand, he acknowledged that people in southeast Seattle will need cars to get around town. But on the other hand, the city will not require developers to provide ample parking spaces for the market-rate units that will populate the North Rainier plan. Nobody asked him how to reconcile the two points, but he likely would have evaded the issue if confronted.
With the one-way thoroughfares you will see six lanes going north and south (RAS and MLK) cut down to three going north on MLK. An estimated 38K cars travel on RAS each day. The planning guy claims – based on reports and simulated studies – that the commute time on RAS will decrease. I am skeptical since the plan relies on one-lane switchbacks on Bayview. Good luck.
The mayor wants this plan passed ASAP. He will lobby the council, which will offer little-to-no resistance because developers want to start building projects and making money. Bureaucrats and politicians may “listen”, but money talks.
Agree that there is no chance for Park and Rides until the current regime is voted out of office but we shouldn’t give up. I will never forget when I was told by an employee at a Light Rail Booth that “SE Seattle doesn’t need Park and Rides because poor people don’t have cars.” Wow! you coulda knocked me over with a feather.
I’ve decided it is time to flip the NIMBY phrase to be “HAHSIYBY” – which means, How About Having Something in Your Back Yard?…..
SSSL
SSSL
“SE Seattle doesn’t need Park and Rides because poor people don’t have cars.”
Are you serious? Good grief. That’s the best crack that I’ve heard attributed to a callous, thoughtless, and self-righteous Metro/Sound Transit employee. Even better than the response to somebody’s complaint that the elimination of bus stops along RAS and MLK meant longer walks to the next-available stop. “We all need more exercise,” the transit employee shot back. I suspect the disabled rider would disagree.
@Real Rainier Valley Girl
Are you serious?
(1) You’re opposed to the notion of an upzone and traffic calming at Mt Baker Town Center because it would inconvenience you as you drive your kids to private school as you drive thru my community? (I’m not even going to comment on your abandonment of your neighborhood school)
(2) You’re attacking a vision of a Hub Urban Village aspiring to the success of a South Lake Union because a big box like Lowes and its parking lot might be replaced by a mix of offices, retail and housing?
(3) You whine about the lack of green space in the plan and demand Park & Rides?(Actually there is plenty of parking behind the Mt . Baker Station right now!).
(4)You claim to defend the poor and disabled when you diss on affordable housing: “Thankfully this urban, transit-oriented density with incentives to private developers to provide affordable housing is not in my back yard…”
The COGNITIVE DISSONANCE is deafening.
(5) You depict the draft Mt Baker Town Center framework as a rush job being shoved down your throat. Let me remind you it represents 2 years worth of work and has also been work-shopped and presented multiple times and more than one Mt Baker resident is invested in it. It is a very good plan. As lazy as I am, I was there.
@ Rotten Egg – I believe the comment on Green Space was made by me and it is true. If the city wants to have concentrated/dense housing then we need more infrastructure, soccer fields, basketball courts, and general parks. While the Martin Luther King auditorium is nice, it isn’t well-used. Maybe once or twice a year at most that I’m aware of…….we need greenspace not asphalt.
Also, I agree with the Rainier Valley Native Girl on almost all of her points. My family, along with hundreds of others, moved out of the Rainier Valley under similar circumstances. The schools were declining and they were moving to a busing model that resulted in multiple unintended consequences.
On the low income housing, my thought still stands. The concentrated poverty approach will adversely impact the diversity in our neighborhoods. It’s kind of like putting a recovery center right next to an open air drug market; it is bad for everyone. We don’t want to be another Chicago.
My question to you is, why can’t other communities embrace the financially challenged? Is it that the cultural demographic isn’t acceptable to other neighborhoods? That is what was intimated in an earlier post when someone looked at the demographics around Madison Park/Broadmore.
Also, don’t you think there’s something odd about the niche not-for-profit businesses that are actually for-profit? I’m not a conspiracy theorist but I think if anyone peels back the layers of the onion it will end up a lot like the fiasco we just observed within the Seattle Public Schools: No accountability and a lot of suspicious backdoor dealing.
SSSL
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Editor/Publisher
Good point editor; apologize for changing someone’s moniker. My comments seem appropriate and respectful but I will continue to self-sensor.
SSSL
The city has been working on this plan, mostly behind closed doors, since 2006. The public has not been invited, but influential developers have been involved from the start.
The city fully intends to use eminent domain, if necessary, to accomplish their goals. City leaders are pushing “minimum density”, but only at Mt. Baker Station. Don’t be fooled, current city density is based on maximum density, or caps on heights. “Minimum” density means no cap on height, instead there is a threshold height and builders may go as high as they wish, so long as the city council (not the neighborhood) approve the height.
Regarding transit-oriented-development; it’s already failing. We have transit-oriented-development at Rainier Vista & New Holly. It’s more expensive than the existing older homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. The retail created at both TOD developments is a failure, according to SHA, because there is no parking. No business can survive on the foot traffic within a few blocks. All businesses require parking. It’s not simply naive, or an oversight that parking was not provided. The anti-car culture is deeply ignorant and defying proven business models. Failure of businesses will continue so long as no parking is provided.
On the subject of ‘green’, the greenest property is the one that’s already built. We should be doing everything we can to preserve existing housing and businesses and, instead, using in-fill growth strategies around station areas, growing organically in the Valley like every other city neighborhood. We don’t need yet another grand raze & redevelop scheme driven by special interest groups.
Do you wonder where all the momentum for growth is coming from? It’s coming from the lucrative incentive programs the city has created for the benefit of developers. The 10-year Tax Exempt Program means that every resident pays extra taxes so that each developer will pay none for ten years. But it gets better, the city also gave developers a pass on parking. NO parking is required in new construction. Developers have been pushing this as ‘green’ for years. It’s not green at all. In fact, where there is no parking, people drive MORE. They have no place to park their cars so they drive more. (Myth: no parking = no cars) The anti-car culture is being whipped to a frenzy by developers because each parking space costs $25,000 to $40,000 to build. If developers don’t build parking spaces, then they make more profit. See how that works? Developers don’t care about forcing cars onto our streets, lowering the quality of life. Having new housing with no parking spaces is ‘green’, according to developers. What utter nonsense!
The city’s plan for Mt. Baker is driven by two goals; extreme density to increase light rail ridership & elimination of parking in order to please developers. The plan will fail, on a larger-scale, just as it has already failed on a smaller-scale at Rainier Vista & New Holly. Nobody in city hall is trying to please the residents who will have to live in this engineered mess once it’s completed.
The same train stops at Mt Baker and Roosevelt Station, right? The difference is Roosevelt is middle-class and almost exclusively White.
Fact: Last August, the city council voted unanimously to uphold the Roosevelt Neighborhood Plan’s 4-story cap on height around the Roosevelt Station.
Fact: Current city plans call for overturning the existing zoning code at Mt. Baker and implementing “Minimum” density, which allows unlimited height. The city is proposing 125-foot heights, and higher is possible if developers agree to build additional subsidized units.
Fact: Large-scale developments usually begin with negotiations for an “anchor tenant” like Target or Fred Meyer, or Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, etc. Planning high-density housing is secondary to a successful retail plan. (If the retail succeeds, housing density will naturally follow.)
Fact: Anchor tenant’s have avoided SE Seattle since the 1970′s, when the city began ‘engineering’ the community, forcing a higher percentage of low-income residents to 98118. Current income demographics preclude new retail development, forcing residents to drive out of the neighborhood for many goods & services.
City leaders should demonstrate respect SE Seattle, and the residents and businesses that have made this their home. SE should be allowed to grow gradually, with community-based planning, with a focus on quality of life, just as every other Seattle neighborhood has been allowed to grow.
I attended the Mt. Baker neighborhood meeting with the urban planner. I was floored to hear him say the department saved money on postage by sending out their outreach announcement to the businesses and residents within the boundaries of the north Rainier development plan. The other 59,800 or more people that live and work in Rainier Valley were not notified of the plan, as if the development does not affect them. To start, this was untrue. As a property owner of commercial land within this boundary, no such announcement was received. They certainly didn’t go out of their way here to inform the populace. Instead, our tax dollars are being used in city planning meetings on a project that from what I hear, is not favored. To intentionally stop the flow of traffic on a major arterial created in 1890 that connects the valley north and south, to Renton and downtown Seattle (and now east to Bellevue, Issaquah, etc. via I90), is poor planning in my opinion. When downtown Seattle needed a convention center, did they place it in the middle of the I-5 freeway? No, they built it above the freeway with plenty of green space and PARKING, a noteworthy and effective use of land. Diverting the Rainier Ave. traffic through neighborhoods only fuels congestion and we remain title holder as the city with the worst traffic in the nation. The city’s Olmsted park land along the boulevard does work, and with this plan to divert traffic off of Rainier, only creates a freeway of cars on roads not designed for traffic. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
@ Fresh Egg – good thing I am not as thin-skinned as I thought I was. I would love to send my children to public schools, but I can’t seem to find one in SE that meets my standards. Have you? So glad to see some reasoned comments here, and would love our friendly neighborhood planner Lyle Bicknell to let us know when we can address council, a question he notably avoided during the 2 hours of the meeting that I attended.
I wonder how invested Lowe’s really is in their current location on RAS. Back when the Goodwill property was slated to be developed Lowe’s was to be on of the anchors along with Target. I figured they would be leaving the Sick’s Stadium site to go north rather than having two stores in close proximity. Is it a given that in the relative short term that property will become vacant – and available for development? is this what is driving this whole “transportation” plan?
@ Marshall,
It sure would be helpful if you could names and info on the relocated businesses you mentioned.
Thanks,
Tom T
I could be wrong but I don’t think Lowes is leaving anytime soon as they just remodeled their Garden Center.
Stakeholder, Rainier Valley Native, Bantry Bay and Real Rainier Valley Girl, I concur with your comments/observations. It really is too bad that we can’t find the time to get together and fight the battle for SE Seattle. If you’re like me, time is such a valuable commodity that we just can’t find the time to attend the city meetings that are during the day or pay for childcare to attend the evening meetings. Again, not that I’m a conspiracist, but I can’t help but wonder if the Rovian Tactician in City Hall doesn’t take that into consideration when they force these types of changes in our backyard as they realize other more affluent communities have the resources to say “Not in my backyard” and then hire attorneys, babysitters, or take time off from work to make their points.
SSSL
Thanks to Fresh Egg, I learned three fascinating pieces of information via the RVP. First, I suffer from “cognitive dissonance”. Maybe I can get a doctor’s note for this new diagnosis. Second, I am “anti-affordable housing” because I referenced Lyle Bicknell’s statement last week that affordable housing would comprise only 5% of a mixed-use structure – if a developer chooses to include affordable housing. Third and most intriguing, I discovered that I have progeny whom I chauffeur to private school along Rainier Avenue! I don’t have children, so this news took me by surprise. I look forward to meeting this mystery offspring in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps Fresh Egg can facilitate this introduction! Maybe this weekend at the Magic Dragon? Bent Burgers? Full Tilt?
“Third and most intriguing, I discovered that I have progeny whom I chauffeur to private school along Rainier Avenue! I don’t have children, so this news took me by surprise. ”
I thought only men could say “I don’t have any kids, at least none that I know about”
And I have not heard “cognitive dissonance” on here since Trellis a couple of years ago.
Where is “Trellis gone wild”?
I wonder if any of the planning team spoke with Darigold and Mondo’s Meats, two long-time employers in the Valley. While they are outside the planner-defined North Rainier outreach zone, their truck drivers will certainly be impacted by the Bowtie Traffic Concept. The longer it takes to deliver goods produced in the Valley to areas outside the Valley, the more expensive it becomes, and the more likely that these employers will locate elsewhere.
Thank you for your comments Stakeholder – it is revolting how the city would try to pull this stuff in our area…but not in Roosevelt area. Look at the councilmembers that are needing our votes to get reelected…and get new people if they will not listen to the community that was not informed and is being railroaded by the city planner and non profits.
@48 I don’t think Darigold is going to move anywhere because their drivers are going to take an extra minute on their route (and no one can say for sure how traffic times are going to be impacted).
If anything, Darigold will eventually relocate because they will eventually be able to sell their property for a mint since they have owned it since 1952.
Yesterday’s newspaper had an interesting article about developers with a quote from Silly Clark: “Clark said she doesn’t see a need to beef up the city’s enforcement. If caught submitting fraudulent data, she said, a developer would have to reimburse exempted taxes, pay a penalty and suffer a severely damaged reputation.” No need to beef up the enforcement? What special treatment does she receive for turning the other way?
Yea, that 100 million in tax breaks would come in handy right now.
And how do they “get caught” on the honor system?
Planning meeting on Monday June 6th at Mt Baker Community Club, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. The timing of Wednesday’s article was very fortunate. Focus of Monday’s meeting is on land use issues related to the area around the Mt Baker station.
Great observations Rainier Valley Native and make sure to let others know about the meeting. Are they holding the meetings in the summer so they think we will be on vacation and not care?
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