Happy New Year!
I wanted to let you know that on Friday WAG negotiated an agreement with the Murray Franklyn Group that will be constructing the project at 35th Ave and NE 87th St. Because of this, we have withdrawn our hearing which was set for Jan 2.
We want to give a big thanks to Shaun Watchie Perry (our lawyer, and Wedgwood neighbor, who carried us through the long home stretch - www.swp-law.com), Linda Pruitt, Wayne Wurzer of All that Dance, Jose Sama, Gina Iandola of HomeStreet Bank, Tim Anderson, Scott Osterhage, Our Lady of the Lake and Dennis Saxman (for providing us with great advice and support). Also, we'd like to say thanks to every Wedgwood neighbor who came out and supported this effort during the last year.
The opportunity to negotiate an agreement came up when Shaun Watchie Perry and I met with the hearing examiner and Murray Franklyn about a week and a half ago. Looking at our case, we felt that the best opportunity to make meaningful change would be in a negotiation setting. So...we focused our efforts on working on a compromise where we could add value to Wedgwood from a retail/traffic safety/design point of view.
We negotiated the following points:
* The developer will fund a crosswalk at the intersection of NE 87th and 35th or NE 86th and 35th. (this is pending SDOT approval)
* Building design and related sidewalks will be designed to minimize surface water run off
* No national chain which is in the same business as any locally owned non-national business located within 1/2 mile of the project will be permitted.
* Retail signage will not include any back lit plastic molded signs
* No check cashing, sun tanning or pawn shops will be allowed in the building
* Established plants/trees to be installed in the eastern green belt of the project
* Developer will conduct rodent extermination before demo
* Reimbursement to neighboring houses in the event of any damage caused by vibration from the construction
* No noisy construction activity before 10am on Saturdays
* Developer will need to comply with all monitoring recommendations made in the geotech report
* WAG and the developer will work together to bring a physical sense of Wedgwood community to the project, and vice-a-versa.
* WAG will be reimbursed for all of its legal and paperwork fees.
And in the final design, the NE setback was pushed back additional feet to accomodate a green belt, which led to the reduction of one entire unit and space on both the third and fourth floor.
Although we didn't get the building reduced as much as we hoped, I think we succeeded in improving the overall building design; at least guiding the types of retail businesses we want to see there; and bringing Wedgwood neighbors into the process of designing some of the features that will help tie the building back into the community.
Our next step is to work with the developer to make this a good building for our neighborhood, strengthen and add value to our community, and to use this relationship as an opportunity to create something that benefits both our current and future neighbors.
Thanks,
Greg
Monday, December 31, 2007
Update - agreement made between developer and Wedgwood Action Group - Jan 2 hearing cancelled
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9 comments:
This is good news. Hats off to the fine work of the WAG and committed Wedgwood residents everywhere.
Cheers,
Geoff Briggs
This seems like the best possible result given the current zoning/ city design process. Great work navigating the system and getting positive changes into the design. The neighborhood owes you a beer!
Wow - sounds like things worked out pretty well!
This sounds amazing. I'd love to understand how this process worked -- if the rest of Seattle could jump on this wagon, this could be a pretty outstanding way to get out from under the likes of Martin-Selig.
Just out of curiosity, why no sun tanning shops?
Okay, one more question, since I've now read a significant portion of this blog, and I don't think my specific wonders are answered anywhere.
How did you go about doing this? Did the action committee form as a result of this event, or was it around beforehand? What kind of city representation was necessary (were any formal titles needed)? How much were the legal expenses, and what was their primary purpose?
I would love to be able to bring this other communities -- this is absolutely the kind of action that will make our future livable.
When they exterminate the rodents, what's to keep dying critters from being caught and eaten by the neighborhood cats? Have they thought about that? If they're polluting my block with 1000% increased traffic congestion and a concurrent diminishment of quality of life, I certainly hope they plan to take responsibility for poisons they will be actively spreading around.
Might want to keep the cats indoors those days that the building is 'ratted out'.
Its to bad the world fell apart after all of this hard work. Now the project is suspended and we have to look at that horrible abandoned building. I do hope they decide to go ahead and build it once the economy turns around. My neighbor who is in her 70's had wanted to sell her house and move in to it...she really wants to stay in Wedgwood. She can no longer take care of the place she lives in now, a large colonial on 90th street,(so we have to do it for her). She felt as if her neighbors were trying to defeat the project, to get people like her out of the area. It really made me think, god, is that what we were doing?
hi bigcrew, it was never our intention to kill off this development - just to do our best to make sure that fit into Wedgwood and that infrastructural investments to support its impact were being made. I think the agreement we signed with the developer showed that good intent.
As far as delaying this project to a point where the economy made it unfeasible - 1) the permits to build were free and clear on Jan 2, 2008 and 2) if the city had a process for negotiating an agreement much earlier in the process - that could have sped things up too.
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