SquirePark.org

A public meeting will be held, Wednesday, October 10, 6:30 p.m., at the Seattle Vocational Institute (2120 South Jackson St), regarding a new mixed-use development at 23rd & Yesler. The proposal by, Catholic Community Services, for subsidized housing is for a four-story, 51 unit apartment building with 2,400 sq. ft. retail and 4,000 sq. ft. of office at grade. Parking for 74 vehicles will be located at and below grade.

For more information regarding this application or the Design Review process, contact land use planner Arthur Pederson at (206)733-9074. If you are unable to attend this meeting but would like to be informed of future meetings, please call Arthur Pederson to become a party of record.

—Department of Planning and Development

Seattle Parks and Recreation is hosting a community meeting to discuss upcoming improvements at Spring Street Park (16th and Spring). The meeting will be held Friday, October 19, 2007 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. at Langston Hughes (104 17th Avenue S).

Spring Street Park is a neighborhood park ideal for young children. Some of the improvements that will be addressed are expanding the current playground area, upgrading the playground with new equipment, tree maintenance, ivy removal, and new plantings.

For further information or questions please contact Gary Gibbons, Project Manager at 206-684- 0190 or gary.gibbons@seattle.gov.

The Yesler Terrace Citizens Review Committee (YTCRC) met in late September and adopted official guidelines for the renovation of Seattle Housing Authority’s (SHA) Yesler Terrace low income housing. The YTCRC has met monthly with SHA and the community since October 2006 to develop these guidelines as recommendations to SHA. The Guidelines are available for review at SquirePark@yahoogroups.com. Please contact SPCC YTCRC representative Donya Williamson with any questions Donya.Williamson@SquirePark.net.
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On August 18th, Lavizzo Park hosted its first annual Good Vibe Concert. The slate of performers, mostly comprising local high school students and recent graduates, treated the audience to conscious hip-hop, spoken word, and jazz fusion performances. Free ice cream and other refreshments, along with community safety information, were also offered to the concert-goers.

Blanche Lavizzo Park has a large grass field and an amphitheater for musical events such as The Good Vibe. This summer concert was a great way to bring the community back to Lavizzo Park, a small park that can be easily overlooked between the Odessa Brown Clinic and Seattle Vocational Institute.
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The first design review hearing for the 2203 E. Union St. project, known to many in Squire Park as the former Coleman building/site, took place on June 27. Jim Mueller, the developer of the project, presented his design to residents, local business owners, and the Design Review Board. The land use application asks for a six-story structure for a total of 91 residential units with 4,232 square feet of commercial space at ground level and parking for 95 vehicles to be provided below grade. The project also includes a contract rezone from Neighborhood Commercial 2 with a 40-foot height limit and pedestrian designation (NC2P-40) to Neighborhood Commercial 3 with a 65- foot height limit and pedestrian designation (NC3P-65). The comment period following this hearing officially ended on September 19.
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The Sabey Corporation and Swedish Hospital, the current owners of the former Providence Hospital campus, have asked the City to delay for seven years the requirement that they participate in a Major Institution Master Plan (MIMP) process. Under the terms of City law and the current Providence MIMP, adopted by the City Council in 1994, a new planning process is scheduled to start in 2009. Sabey and Swedish want to put that off until 2114. In the meantime, it appears, they intend to develop the campus much differently from the existing MIMP. The position of Sabey and Swedish is that they should be allowed to develop different buildings with different uses so long as they do not exceed the square feet allowed to Providence in the 1994 MIMP.

The Seattle Land Use Code allows major institutions (hospitals and universities) to build bigger and taller buildings with different setbacks and different uses than would be allowed to other property owners. In return, the Code requires institutions to participate in a planning process that includes significant neighborhood involvement.
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The Squire Park Community Council Reclaiming Streets for the People Committee needs you to get involved! It’s been a year since the SPCC adopted the Traffic Calming /Pedestrian Safety Improvement plan to create an enhanced street environment that is quieter, safer, greener, and in general friendlier for all travelers. The plan, developed through a grant-funded, grassroots neighborhood outreach and planning process, recommends 50 projects that invite pedestrians and bicyclists to be part of our streetscape environment and identifies creative (and many low cost) opportunities for community building activities to take place.

To date, nine of the 50 projects have been implemented or are in the process of being negotiated with stakeholders (such as Swedish Hospital). The most recent project funding, $15,000 in 2008 NSF/ CRF funds, is for the installation of prototypical chicanes to calm traffic on 20th Street between Union and Cherry.
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Creating a vibrant, healthy community begins with each of us. Here are some ways to begin activating your block and help build community for all, and create community streets for children and adults:

1. Get to know your neighbors and neighboring businesses. You’ll meet a lot of terrific people.

2. Participate in neighborhood/community meetings : The next Squire Park community meeting will be held on Saturday, October 13, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm at Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center,104 17th Ave S. . East Precinct Crime Prevention Coalition (EPCPC) meetings take place on the fourth Thursday of each month from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, typically held at the Seattle Vocational Institute, 2120 South Jackson, Room 401. For more information, go to http://www.sngi.org/epcpc/epcpc.html or call the Seattle Neighborhood Group at (206)323-9584.
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This month, Squire Park’s web site has additional articles and photos about our annual Squire Park Barbeque held this past July at Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center, the uncertain future of 12th Avenue’s housing and park development, comments of the SPCC Land Use Committee on the earlier draft proposal. the Reclaiming the Streets current and future projects, plus articles from past issue of our newsletters. Please, take time to find out more about our active community.

Thanks to the initiative, vision, and hard work of our Squire Park neighbors, Jess Cliffe and Anna Sweet, the Squire Park Community Website, www.squirepark.org, has been redesigned, reinvigorated, and re-launched. Take a look and see what all the buzz is about.

One new feature on the site is the event calendar, located on the home page, where users can keep up on what’s going on in and around the neighborhood. You’ll also find local links to other groups and resources, posting of board and community council quarterly meeting notes, as well as current project updates and neighborhood news.

SquirePark.org is an online tool by and for the community. Tell us what you’d like to see on squirepark.org. Please join us at the October quarterly meeting and share your ideas and vision with us.

—Susan Minogue

The Department of Planning and Development(DPD) has announced the long-awaited “next installment” in the proposed revisions of the multifamily Land Use Code. Many Squire Park residents have been following this since the City started this process about two years ago. In the meantime, many neighborhood developments have been built that, the argument goes, could have been better if the Land Use Code allowed or encouraged it. The Squire Park Community Council submitted comments on the first draft of the proposed revisions and will be looking at the next proposal.
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James W. Washington, Jr., an African-American painter and sculptor and longtime Central Area resident, created the fountain on the plaza in front of the Midtown Commons building on the southeast corner of 23rd and Union. I was there when it was dedicated in 1995, and Mr. Washington and his wife attended the ceremony. The exhibit had a picture of the fountain as it existed then, with its then-beautiful colors. Unfortunately, since its installation, the fountain has fallen into disrepair. An effort to restore the fountain and provide a plaque is now underway.
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As Seattle goes about its day, a shot rings out in the Central District or the south end of Seattle. Another brother is gunned down in the early years of his life. We, as his communal family, look around and ask why? There is no answer that can bear the weight of this loss of another black man. Black on black crime isn’t new and talking about strategies and ways to combat it isn’t new, either.

What is new here in Seattle is the approach of looking at all the broad aspects of reasons that may be leading and allowing us to continue to commit such acts toward each other.
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The proposed project for the Goodwill site at Rainier and Dearborn has completed the last of its required public reviews. Many people in the community still only see this project as a Target store coming to the neighborhood. In fact, with more than 700,000 square feet of commercial space and 21 acres of underground parking it is almost three-quarter’s the size of the Northgate Mall and is expected to generate more than 25,000 automobile trips per day. The Dearborn Street Coalition for Livable Neighborhoods (DSCLN) continues to pressure the developer to address issues of size, commercial character, and impacts to the neighborhood.
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