Expanding the mayor’s One Seattle Plan with eight brand new neighborhood centers would ensure broader benefit.
As the Seattle City Council works to finalize Neighborhood Residential zoning changes in areas formerly zoned exclusively for single family homes, housing advocates are starting to look ahead to the next fight: Neighborhood Centers. Across the city, Mayor Bruce Harrell has proposed adding 29 neighborhood centers, which would create small patches of midrise apartment zoning around existing commercial nodes.
For the idea to be successful, we should ask how we can grow our existing nodes into vibrant neighborhoods, with everything we need. That means not shrinking the 29 neighborhood centers in the plan and adding eight more centers to the map to spread the benefits to even more corners of the city.
Turn out for a public hearing at Seattle City Hall on Monday, June 23 to raise your voice for housing abundance. Read on for more details and potential points to raise.
How we got here
The One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, originally transmitted to Council in January from the Mayor’s office, included the neighborhood center concept, but the City had to split the plan into phases as state deadlines approached. The 29 neighborhood centers are based around schools, existing neighborhood businesses, parks, transit, and other neighborhood anchors.
Consideration of the Comprehensive Plan was then delayed due to appeals to the City’s hearing examiner, so the Council redirected their efforts to passing interim legislation that addresses the looming state mandate in House Bill 1110. That missing middle housing legislation applies to land zoned single family — roughly 75% of Seattle’s residential land — requiring that cities allow fourplexes citywide and sixplexes near major transit stops. But sixplex zoning won’t solve all of Seattle’s housing ills.
By adding neighborhood centers to the map, we can support the kind of livable walkable communities city-wide at a smaller scale than our urban centers (formerly known as urban villages). Doing so works to undo the compounding historical impacts of redlining and housing discrimination and reduce displacement pressures in South Seattle.
With the additional time given by delays from the appeals, the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) took another crack at the neighborhood center boundaries in an effort to incorporate more of the feedback the City received. OPCD has said its intention was to apply objective criteria to determine its boundary adjustments. But, the impact was that 15 neighborhood centers were changed, 14 were shrunk down, and a significant amount of housing capacity in these neighborhood centers was lost.
The good news is that we can keep asking for more. In fact, now we have an imperative to do so!
New neighborhood centers
The Complete Communities Coalition has identified eight new neighborhood centers that we’d love to see added to the Comprehensive Plan’s Future Land Use Map: Alki, Dawson, Roanoke, Gas Works, South Wedgewood, Broadview, Loyal Heights, and Nickerson – South Canal. These are based around areas where we already have nodes of vibrant communities that could use additional support and opportunity.
All eight of these neighborhood centers were studied in an early iteration of the One Seattle Plan, before the Harrell Administration whittled down the list. Their inclusion in the earlier environmental study clears the way for Council to add them back in without delaying the process.
Alki
Alki, well-connected by bus, bike, and boat, boasts a beautiful neighborhood with a beach, park, and small businesses, but it has no grocery store given the limited number of residents to support it. A modest change in zoning from what already exists would allow more people to live around Bar-S Playground, an Olmsted Park. Olmsted Parks were born out of “streetcar destination” parks to drive would-be residents to neighborhoods, and I can’t think of a better way to bring back the Olmsted Brothers vision than by designating it a neighborhood center.
Dawson
Just south of Lakewood Park, and a short walk from Lake Washington Boulevard lies a small business district around Dawson Street and Wilson Ave S. Columbia City and Seward Park are nearby, making this neighborhood close to many of the places people want to be, and it is served by a relatively frequent bus (Route 50) and a protected bike route.
Roanoke Park
Sandwiched between Roanoke, Volunteer, and Interlaken Parks, and Streissguth Gardens is a vibrant strip of bustling businesses and busy buses running between the University District and Capitol Hill. Several schools are nearby including Stevens Elementary and TOPS K-8, which at the beginning of this school year faced the threat of closure due to declining enrollment and a Seattle Public Schools budget crisis. While they were saved from the chopping block for now, we need to welcome more neighbors, families, and future students so we can save our schools.
Gasworks Park
Speaking of Seattle’s premier parks, Gasworks tops the list as one of the gems we have an opportunity to invest in by expanding housing options within a short walk, bike or roll of the park. This area is close to Burke-Gilman trail, several local breweries, and Hamilton International Middle School. It’s a short bike or bus ride from the University of Washington, making the area popular with students. More mixed-use zoning would allow for new amenities, restaurants, cafes, and added housing.
South Wedgwood
At the junction of Route 62 and 65 is the perfect area to boost out a walkable neighborhood where we already have high opportunity and low displacement risk, just by expanding housing capacity a bit further off transit arterials. The area is an educational center with Bryant Elementary, Eckstein Middle, and the Northeast Branch Library. Ravenna Park, as one of Seattle’s oldest Olmsted Parks, would get to have more neighbors to enjoy, play and appreciate it.
Broadview
Just south of Broadview-Thomson K-8 – another school slated for closure – and a short bus ride from the future Pinehurst light rail station is a wonderful area to build out more community near the Broadview Library between Greenwood and the Interurban Trail. Route 5 also provides solid north-south bus service along N Greenwood Street. Connecting communities around the investments in our future is key to bringing everyone along.
Loyal Heights
Just a few years back I used to work at Loyal Heights Elementary and so many people knew that it was a truly spectacular community and school. Everyone wanted the opportunity to stay in the neighborhood, and the lively gatherings on the patios after school or outside the bakery showed that there’s definitely demand for more homes and gathering spaces around the school, up the hill from Golden Gardens, and with parks and a community center. Nearby North Beach Elementary was among the schools the district has threatened to close and supporting families being able to stay in the community is a great way to ensure schools stay open.
Nickerson – South Canal
Near Seattle Pacific University and the South Ship Canal Trail is a vibrant community (and my old neighborhood) where we can build out and support the need for more housing in an area crisscrossed by numerous bus routes — the 31, 32, 40, and 62. With so many destinations in walking and biking distance from this wonderful neighborhood, there’s a bright future ahead to provide a complete community south of Fremont.
This Monday June 23rd is the next hearing to have your voice heard on the Comprehensive Plan. If you want to live in one of these neighborhoods, if you want to make sure schools can stay open, if you want to have more neighbors on your block — this is your chance.
- Remote public comment will start at 9:30am. The sign-up form opens one hour before the meeting.
- In-person comment will start at 3pm, with signup opening a half hour before each session. The in-person signup will remain open until 6:30pm, but sign up early if you don’t want to be there all night.
You can also email council@seattle.gov if you can’t make it.
Jazmine Smith is Director of Local Advocacy at Futurewise and Co-Chair of the Complete Communities Coalition
Jazmine Smith
Jazmine Smith is Director of Local Advocacy at Futurewise. She is also vice chair of the The Urbanist Elections Committee and a political hack/policy wonk who won’t shut up about niche local and statewide politics, bikes, bus lanes, and building more housing. She has been serving on the Queen Anne Community Council as a board member and formerly Transportation Co-Chair, and serves on the Uptown Land Use Review Committee. She’s an ardent renter in Lower Queen Anne and e-bikes around town when she doesn’t just take the bus/train.
She is currently serving as a Board Member of the Queen Anne Community Council, as Co-Chair of the Transportation Committee and on the Land Use Review Committee. With a background in Human Services, Jazmine advocates on the historical local impacts of redlining and racial covenants, housing issues, transportation issues, and more.