Greenways / Green Streets Project
NE 66th Street Concept Plan
As a part of a CEP 460: Planning in Context course in the University of Washington Community, Environment, and Planning Program our team has been working on finding a vision of what a greenway/Green Street could look like in Roosevelt. We have been working with Jim O’Halloran, Ellen Stoecker, and John Adams from the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association.
The Roosevelt Neighborhood has many opportunities supporting the creation of a Greenway/Green Street including the recent Legislative Rezone, the incoming Light Rail Station, and the growing Neighborhood Greenways movement in the City of Seattle. According to the City of Seattle:
Green Streets are officially designated roads that improve pedestrian safety, “green” the road with landscaping, improve road infrastructure, and mitigate water runoff through stormwater management infrastructure
Greenways focus on connecting inter- and intra-neighborhood amenities for bicycle and pedestrian mobility.
In light of the incoming Light Rail station, we aim to combine elements of both Green Streets and greenways by incorporating aspects of stormwater management, bicycle mobility, pedestrian safety, place-making, and connectivity into the NE 66th St. Concept Plan. The following documents explain more:
The Concept Plan aims to incorporate the Neighborhood’s values outlined in the Neighborhood Plan, educational opportunities with Roosevelt High School, environmental sustainability and stormwater management, place-making opportunities, and connections to the new Light Rail Station.
If you are interested in getting involved with the Roosevelt Greenway/Green Street planning process you can learn more at the RNA Sustainability Committee meetings. Email rna@rooseveltseattle.org if you have questions.
Proposed Addendum to the 10/15/2000 Roosevelt Urban Village Design Guidelines
The objective of this proposal is to informally adopt the January, 2010 Seattle Citywide Design Guidelines (SCDG) as an addendum to the Roosevelt Urban Village Design Guidelines (RUVDG) of 10/15/2000. The SCDG are intended to be used in tandem with the existing neighborhood specific RUVDG.
The purpose in developing an Addendum to the RUVDG is to provide developers, design professionals, the Design Review Board, DPD staff and the general public with a progressive set of guidelines that reflect community values and promote contextual, functional, durable and sustainable development within the Roosevelt neighborhood. In keeping with the three principal objectives of the RUVDG, the Addendum is meant to:
- Encourage better design and site planning to enhance the character of the city and ensure that new development fits sensitively into the neighborhood;
- Provide flexibility in the application of the development standards; and
- Improve communication and participation among developers, neighbors and the City in the design and siting of new development.
The SCDG are proposed for informal adoption because they have not been formally adopted by the Seattle City Council.
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Roosevelt Designer Genes
by Paul Wiesner
A group of your neighbors with an apparent genetic predisposition to design things - architects, urban planners and community activists - is exploring an exciting opportunity to contribute to the future design of Roosevelt. New citywide Design Guidelines proposed by Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development have created this opportunity. Perhaps the single largest factor influencing Roosevelt’s future is the environment created by what is built here in the near future. For that reason, our Roosevelt Urban Village Design Guidelines are an integral and central tool for the community.
These newly proposed citywide guidelines seek to foster the cultivation of distinct neighborhoods - each with its own character, sustainability, quality-of-life, and natural environment. Unfortunately, it may not be until well after the first of next year that the proposal reaches the City Council for formal adoption.
Interim Strategy. In the meantime we are pursuing an interim informal strategy. The “designer gene” group is drafting an addendum to our ten-year-old urban village guidelines emphasizing the important changes occurring in our neighborhood since the year 2000. This draft will point to the proposed citywide guidelines and acknowledge the new realities of life in Roosevelt: the certainty of a light rail station by 2020, improving technologies for neighborhood sustainability, and the fast-evolving zoning and planning decisions. We will use this draft to collect input and, hopefully, endorsements from the broader community and stakeholders such as business groups, sustainability groups, RNA committees, etc. Based on feedback, the RNA Board may then adopt a final proposed addendum to our urban village design guidelines and send it to the City for use in future design review of development projects within Roosevelt.
Get Involved. I encourage community members to become involved in several ways. First, you can stay informed about the progress of this effort by watching the Land Use and Sustainability pages of the RNA website for the draft language introducing the addendum-expected in early July. Second, you can contribute your opinion about the proposed changes. Drafts will be available at the Bull Moose Festival and other community gatherings. Lastly, you can join the “genome group” by contacting us through the website and work on this project directly.
Key links are:
Seattle Citywide Design Guidelines Review Draft January 2010
Current Roosevelt Design Guidelines Urban Village effective October 15, 2000
Vegetables and More from Your Yard
by Joan Heald
Nothing beats ambling around your garden, picking and munching sugar snap peas, green beans and cherry tomatoes, warm from the sun. Some harvests never make it to the kitchen or even the back door. Although the warm growing season here is not as long as one might like, the winters are mild and many folks garden year-round, as the kale and garlic in our neighbors’ gardens attest. Earth, air, sun and water are what you need.
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