I’ve just discovered an event being held at City Hall tomorrow (Thursday) at Noon where the Seattle Planning Commission is presenting their “Transit Oriented Communities” report featuring recommendations for land use planning in several neighborhoods, including Roosevelt. Ed Hewson from RDG is on the agenda. Here is a link with more information:
I am disturbed that this event has been arranged without notification nor invitation to the Roosevelt community, in as much that weighty matters for our neighborhood will be discussed. I would attend this session if I could but will be out of town on business. I’d encourage anyone with sufficient interest and schedule flexibility to attend and perhaps offer the insight that the RNA has long ago mapped new land use patterns for the Roosevelt station area, that a legislative rezone is pending, and that we oppose RDG’s plans for tall buildings in front of Roosevelt High School. We can achieve sufficient residential growth by upzoning other parts of the neighborhood West of 12th Avenue NE.
Having failed to find any support in the neighborhood, RDG is working to make their case in the broader environmental community. But as they court opinion leaders, they dismiss the Neighborhood Plan. They’re trying to apply transit-oriented development (TOD) and transit-oriented community (TOC) principles as if they had a blank sheet of paper, and there was no existing community. It’s insulting and it’s outrageous but I don’t know that it will amount to much because the only opinions that matter are those of City Council members. Still, we need to resist RDG’s disingenuous representations wherever they pop up.
Jim O’Halloran
Chair, Land Use Committee
Roosevelt Neighborhood Association
jim@ohalloran.cc