Reality denied. Church says no to hosting tent city this summer in View Ridge.

On March 10th the Sand Point Community United Methodist Church voted to decline hosting a tent city this July and August. The church didn't mention the specific reasons why in their press release, but KOMO TV coverage of an earlier tent city meeting strongly hints at why this failed - high tensions with View Ridge residents.

One quote from KOMO TV said,

"The fear is not for me, it's for my children and that is my responsibility," yelled another parent. "They're the most vulnerable members of this community and for you to stand up and tell me it's irrational is completely unacceptable!"

Personally, I think tent cities can be good opportunities for sheltered neighbors to tackle some of their fears about the homeless and perhaps even use it as an opportunity to educate their families about what being homeless is like. In a way, you could say that the View Ridge neighborhood lost the most by letting go of the opportunity to learn about a different reality.

Hopefully the View Ridge community will now focus their passion and efforts on helping the tent city find a new location this summer. I'll update you on that progress later.

Tent City at Sand Point United Methodist this summer?

The Sand Point United Methodist church is currently debating whether to host Tent City this summer. There was a community meeting about this last night (sorry about the lack of notice) and the church has put together a page on their web site with more info.

And here's something I just learned, not only was Wedgwood a host to Tent City back in 2003, but it seemed to have been a good experience for everyone. The PI wrote an article about it called 'Roving shelter wins over neighborhood'.

Hopefully the Wedgwood experience here can help provide some guidance to ensuring that this summer's tent city is as equally successful.

(PI photo - getting your braid on in Wedgwood)

Update - agreement made between developer and Wedgwood Action Group - Jan 2 hearing cancelled

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the Murray Franklyn Group that will be constructing the project at 35th Ave and NE 87th St. Because of this, we have withdrawn our hearing which was set for Jan 2.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

...and a hearing date has been set!

Wow, that was fast. We just filed the appeal and have just heard back on our hearing date - January 2, 2008.

Here's the snippet from the Hearing Examiner's Office.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 1/2/2008
Appeal of Wedgewood Action Group from a decision by the Director, DPD, regarding a master use permit to allow a 4 story building with 85 residential units, and 2 retail sales service spaces at 8606 35th Ave. NE. Hearing Examiner file MUP-07-034(W).
Start Time: 9:00 a.m., Room 4009, Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 Fifth Ave, Seattle

Appeal has been filed!

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Wedgwood Action Group has filed it's appeal against the DPD's recommendation with the City of Seattle Hearing Examiner. Once I figure how to convert my word docs to pdf files, I'll post a copy of it for you.

More info to follow, but all I want to say now is 'Game on'!


Photo below - that's K-Fed throwing a 'W' sign, which I can only imagine stands for 'Wedgwood!'.

Wedgwood condo building permit approved. Two weeks to appeal.

Just wanted to pass along that a land use decision was made today that conditionally granted approval for a building permit. There is a two-week window to file an appeal. :) This doesn't come as a surprise, and we were just waiting for the DPD to finally get an appeal out there.

You can read the surprisingly long 25-page decision here.

Here come the townhomes on 35th Ave NE. (At the intersection of NE 110th St, that is).

On Sept 13 the DPD gave approval to "...allow five townhouse units in one, 2-unit structure and one, 3-unit structure. Parking for seven vehicles will be located in attached garages. Existing multi-family structure to be removed under separate permit."

The property is located at the corner of 35th Ave NE and NE 110th Ave. Only 2 comments from residents were submitted. Wonder if the Meadowbrook Community Council even knew about this?

You can read the notice of decision here.


And the entire decision here.

Appeals will be taken until 9/27/2007.

Dan Savage reads Seattlest who in turn reads the Seattle PI.

I guess we've made the hipster trifecta, getting mentioned in The Stranger, Seattle Weekly and Seattlest!

Anyway, I actually think Dan Savage is pretty funny, and is definitely the best writer of the three, so I was kinda hoping for more of an effort on his post about Wedgwood.

Read The Stranger's post.

Welcome to the blog, here's an update on our condo issue.

For those of you who are new to our blog, here's a quick recap of what we're trying to mitigate.

Murray Franklyn and Snell Partners are proposing a 4 story mixed-use condo/retail building for the corner of 35 Ave NE and NE 86th St in the Wedgwood neighborhood of north Seattle.


* We're a group of neighbors in Wedgwood who feel that the proposed condo development is way out of scope for our area.
* We've been to three seperate early design review board meetings. This board is comprised of volunteers who make their recommendation to the Seattle Department of Planning and Development.
* The design review board's current recommendation is here. We are challenging it because we feel they could have done more to better support the city's own design guidelines.
* We spoke to the developer and they flat-out said no restaurants will go in here.
* The developer also told us they will not be lowering the building from 4 to 3 floors.
* 86 units are planned. Units range from 492 sq. ft to 1432 sq. ft.
* Pricing in the new units is expected to be $475 a square foot.
* Parking will be underground.
* Excluding sidewalks, there is no plan to create street level public open spaces on the property.

And believe it or not, we're not NIMBY. We support redevelopment of this site, we just want it to be smaller and to build in some setbacks for the neighbors.

Here's a drawing of the proposed building.

DPD update - a decision more than a month away on the condo development.

Just wanted to send out this update from Martha. After talking to Lucas (the DPD planner handling this proposed project), he mentioned that the DPD's decision would be more than a month away.

We'll post more updates as we get them.