I'm not sure whether James from Seattlest actually has lived in Wedgwood, 'republican bumper stickers', a piece of the 'Eastside dropped in Seattle' - are you kidding me?!?
I have some doubts where you even lived here, quick, answer me this question James, what's a Wedgwood martini? As far as being described as 'single-family' households, yeah, we're that and commercial and multifamily.
Anyway, for those of you visting us from Seattlest let me get to the point. We aren't against development, we just want it to be smaller so it better fits into a neighborhood with single-family homes (it'a all about scale). If this building is going to go in at this size, we want our neighborhood to be zoned so that 4 story buildings aren't 12 feet away from 1 story buildings.
You can check out the Seattlest article for yourself. 
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Oh yeah, and we got mentioned by Seattlest.
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8 comments:
To James at Seattlest --
I agree that "single family" is not a defining neighborhood character - the original commenter lives in Cap Hill. The point is that we live in Wedgwood need to define the character. The hodge podge of decades old pre strip malls ain't much to call a defining character. As development comes we need a vision. A 44 foot high condo project that is 8 feet from a less than 1000 sf house is lame planning by any standards.
We spent just over 2 years in Wedgwood, renting a condo in a building just off Lake City Way from Feb. '05 to April '07. Had we lived closer to 35th, my memories would probably be fonder -- the Shanty Tavern and Em Ocha were more walking distance than Javasti.
And I distinctly remember walking to 35th one afternoon in summer '05 and counting 7 Bush bumper stickers in driveways. On 35th, of course, not so much.
I think Wedgwood is perfectly nice, but not much more than that. It's amazingly nondescript. I don't know that a slab of condos is the answer, but the meager attractions of 35th aren't much to hang an identity on, either. But isn't it a little sad that it takes a project like this to come along and galvanize the effort to define the neighborhood? You guys have been part of Seattle for 50+ years -- quit dilly-dallying and get interesting!
I'm a believer that the people who live in the neighborhood define it's character and not it's variety of trendy restaurants and bars. Wedgwood is slower-paced little 'hood with a great mix of older original residents who settled here after returning from WW2 and young families looking for relatively affordable houses and good schools. Most folks own their homes and this type of permanence makes the people put in an extra effort to know their neighbors (when we moved in we we're swarmed by casserole dishes and offers to help us unpack which we never have had happen to us in other parts of Seattle we've lived or in Austin).
I think the shops we have here are kind of a reflection of the community. We don't have any place that serves "Tapas" or Asian Fusion but we've got some cool little coffee shops, an awesome bakery, and a couple of comfortable neighborhood pubs. (that said it would be nice to have a sushi place and a non-dominoes pizza joint)
If an "exciting" place to live with "character" = yuppie-swarmed condo canyons Fremont and Wallingford (which we're once much cooler places) I'll take boring ol' Wedgwood anyday.
Blooper alert:
Apparently James arrived in Seattle yesterday (oh, OK - 2 years ago), since he doesn't remember the tremendous (3000+ demonstrators) effort to preserve our locally owned Red Apple store.
I'm not sure how one can get a feel for this community by renting a condo on it's NW edge. (No offense to folks in those blocks) That is kinda the most isolated chunk of the neighborhood because it lacks any central pedestrian destination like 35th Street, one of the schools, or churches.
Gotcha. I thought you were claiming all of Wedgwood was special. Apparently it's only special parts of the neighborhood, and only for homeowners. My bad.
I'm a little lost on what we are arguing about here : ) I think we all agree that the author of the PI piece should not have included that dumb quote about "single family" as a descriptor for Wedgwood.
P.S.
I think the NW part of the 'hood is quite lovely. From there it is a short walk to the newly renovated (by the neighborhood assoc.) Dahl Field or visit Seattle's first Pea Patch garden.
Things aren't as black and white as they seem. 1) The neighbors aren't against redevelopment. Seriously, we're not. 2) The proposed building could be made much better. It's not affordable and it doesn't need to take up the entire footprint of the site. 3) The problem is that the city has countless bad zoning issues that they're not dealing with through. This is the key issue, because it's happening all over the place.
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