Seattle Press on Line - North and South Wallingford Rally Around Planning Issues

North and South Wallingford Rally Around Planning Issues

By Julie Reinhardt

New condominiums go up beside the Wallingford Steps site. Julie Reinhardt photo.

Jun 06, 2002 -- Anyone who has played the video game Sim City has an inkling of what the Wallingford community has taken on in updating its 1998 Neighborhood Plan. The May 18 South Wallingford Community planning forum covered everything a neighborhood has to deal with: open space, transportation, development, zoning, and shoreline and environmental issues. The jam-packed four-hour meeting covered the culmination of committee work since they really got going in January. That's not to discount the groundwork laid since last October and before, but the neighborhood of Wallingford had to first get over the North-South civil war and come together as a community. The members may begrudge that a little, but tensions were kept relatively in check at the meeting, focusing on the projects at hand. They have a common enemy: time. Whatever North-South head-butting went on before, there just isn't time to squabble. The Wallingford Community Council in toto has until September to present a final amended neighborhood plan to be considered for the city's budget. This means all the committees are on for the race to cover the issues. Below are just a few of the interesting items.

Open Space, Community Space

Lakeview corridors will always be in the forefront of South Wallingford desires, but as Nancy Rottle, chair of the Open Space committee presented, true open space and community space is "greatly underserved in South Wallingford...Seattle's city plan states that all neighborhoods should have parks within a mile from all residents without crossing a major arterial. That does not occur in this neighborhood."

The lack of a community center, pool, and other amenities can be solved, and one of the target spots is Metro's Upland Tank Farm on 34th & Densmore overlooking the lake.

Unfortunately, it is probably easier to pass through the nine levels of Dante's Hades than to get this piece of land from Metro. Not only does it have no plan right now to surplus the area (though relocation is being considered), but the county is governed by a four-step process when getting rid of surplus land.

"Once Metro declares a property for surplus," said Henry Markus, a King County project supervisor, "the county then determines if another department needs the site. If not, it then has to be considered for affordable housing. After weeding out those three options, it is available to anyone interested at fair market value."

If the current industrial zoning were changed to neighborhood commercial to allow for a community center, the fair market value on a waterfront view property like this one might be quite a pretty penny. As city councilman Nick Licata explained at the meeting, "The county will sell to the highest bidder. What will drive the sale is not our concerns, but rather that they are strapped for cash."

So where does that leave a community with too little open space and not enough places to serve its needs? City sponsorship could give weight to the community. "They'd have to make a persuasive argument to the city council and mayor," said Markus. "The county has the discretion to sell to another party without going to bid... If the community had the money and made a persuasive argument to the city council, it might hold. But there is no way to predict how it might turn out." For now, the Wallingford zoning committee seems to recommend keeping the zoning as is. "The County looks forward to what the community comes up with in all these issues," Markus said. "We're surrounded!"

The Open Space committee meets Thursdays at Wallingford Bible Fellowship. For more information contact Nancy Rottle at (206) 632-8090 or e-mail Genevieve Vayda at gv@southwallingford.org.

The Shoreline

The shoreline sensitivity crosses several issues: a needed environmental cleanup and habitat encroachment, changing economic needs, and the zoning that wraps around these two. Having the committee stocked with developers did not sit well with Genevieve Vayda, an active community member and founder of the South Wallingford Stewards. "I'd just like to point out that Scott Clark is a hired architect on the committee and that a number of his staff also sit on the shoreline committee."

The very language of the survey is slanted toward development-friendly changes on the waterfront, stating that many of the property owners would "like to develop their properties for better uses," (italics added) and while it stated that developers should be "encouraged" to be environmentally friendly, there was no mention how this would happen or who would enforce this encouragement.

The committee's argument? The fishing industry is in decline and Wallingford maritime zoning needs to be restructured to allow non-maritime commercial industries. "There are economic peaks and valleys. Be very wary of acting rashly in a valley," warned one resident. Another asked, "What's driving this? What kind of money is changing hands and do developers stand to make money with this rezoning?"

Preserving Wallingford's maritime character was definitely important to the group on hand. How that will play out in survey analysis and as the plan develops will depend on community involvement.

The Shoreline committee meets at Emerald Landing every Monday at 6pm. For information e-mail Wallingford@clarkdg.com.

To Re-zone or Not to Re-zone

Re-zoning is not necessarily a bad idea. Keeping zoning on the shoreline as-is neither denotes inaction. The land use committee recommended the community "aggressively enforce current lease requirements and restrictions....aggressively enforce environmental, health, and safety regulations for shoreline uses," because of current encroachments to public lands by current waterfront tenants. In a recent shoreline walk the committee found just about everyone violated at least one land use code.

The key difference in many of the zoning issues is the design review process. Commercial One and Two classifications require no review and are primarily "auto-oriented". Change to NC, or neighborhood commercial, would require design review and community input. Design review "gives the community leverage," explained Bob Foedisch, Land Use committee chair. "And zoning cuts across all issues," he said.

Areas such as Northlake Way, Stone Way and the shoreline could be watchdogged by the neighborhood to prevent what happened in Fremont, where massive buildings now block neighborhood views of the water.

A re-zone of the shoreline, which has a current height limit of 45 feet, could be used to reduce the building height to 30-35 feet and allow for other commercial but non-marine uses such as a hotel, restaurants, and offices. "I personally don't think a hotel is a conflict (with the zoning). It's commercial," stated committee member Karen Buschow, referring to the current proposal for a three-story hotel near Gasworks Park.

Traffic, Sewage, and Prettier Things Like Parks

Traffic may soon take the place of coffee as the cliche embodying Seattle. Wallingford is no different, and in particular, South Wallingford carries most of the traffic concerns as Seattleites use it as an alternate east-west corridor. Water run-off, sewage overflows into Lake Union, and adding pocket parks to the neighborhood are just some of the issues to be hammered out this summer. To get involved, visit the web site at www.wallingford.org.

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Suella Fogg Postles	Dec 28, 2003	Nottingham ,England	History Museum curator
My family lived at 1815 North 54th St. from the 1940s to 1994 when my father Bob Fogg died. I have many family photographs and some memories of the area that I would be happy to share with a local history groups should anyone be interested. Everything needs sorting and digitizing but I could begin to work on this sizeable collection if anyone is interested.