As reported on this site over the weekend (article here), the City has released the draft zoning map for the Wallingford urban village. Many Wallingford residents knew the zoning changes were coming and over the last six months there has been a good deal of discussion, debate, and push back on the City from pockets within the Wallingford community. The major focus of that Wallingford community response so far (some of which has happened on this site) has been to argue against upzoning and the concessions given to developers and for protecting the single-family residences and the character of the community. These arguments, for the most part, have created factions of pro-density and anti-density residents, pitted homeowners against renters, and painted those of us who own single family homes as elitist NIMBYs who are anti-affordability. While it is true that many of us might prefer that our lots were not rezoned for multi-family, I, for one, am not against increased density in Wallingford. I am pro-affordability. What I am against is the lack of a plan to bolster Wallingford’s infrastructure to support density. Instead of asking ourselves, how can we fight increased density, we should be asking how can we fight the lack of planning and attention to the unique circumstances of our community and the lack of interest from City Council in providing residents in Wallingford – current and future – communal resources in a growing city.
My attempts to make this argument – that Wallingford is in need of more communal resources and infrastructure to support growth – to City Council members has fallen on deaf ears. Not just deaf ears, but uninterested, disbelieving ears. Here’s why – the focus of the City’s 2035 comprehensive plan is equity – as it should be. The City is using a study – Seattle 2035 Growth and Equity – to determine what growth should look like in different neighborhoods. While I don’t claim to understand the calculus that has gone into developing this approach, I do know that the resulting analysis suggests Wallingford is one of the most well-resourced neighborhoods in the city. We are ranked as both “high access to opportunity” and “low risk of displacement.” I believe the bulk of that assessment comes from our high property values, high performing schools, and access to jobs; all of these are true, and Wallingford is, in some ways, a well-resourced and fortunate neighborhood. However, the other elements in the city’s analysis include access to transit, a library, a community center, and parks and playfields. On those elements, Wallingford falls short.
The ”high access to opportunity” categorization means the city thinks that all Wallingford needs to be an exemplary urban village is to become more affordable and accessible to a broader range of residents. Therefore, the plan for Wallingford as an urban village fails to come with any concurrent planning for how new and existing residents will be served by the already over-crowded schools, parks, libraries, and roads in our urban village. While the title of HALA includes both Affordability and Livability, in Wallingford, at least, livability is a non-issue for the City Council. Here are the reasons we should be concerned about that for ourselves as residents and for the new residents who will live in the urban village:
- We are the ONLY neighborhood in Seattle without sufficient access to a community center. According to the Seattle Parks and Recreation 2016 Community Center Plan, “A community center should be located within one mile of every Seattle household; and/or one full-service center to serve a residential population of 15,000-20,000 people. Each Urban Center of the City is to be served by a community center” (SPR Plan, 2016, p. 44). The plan goes on to say that “In 2016, the most significant gap is in the Wallingford neighborhood” (p. 44). So, while we are home to a middle school of 1100 and about to have a high school of approximately 1600 – both of which are smack dab in the middle of the urban village– we have very limited opportunities for recreation for our residents and those almost 3000 students. The tiny Boys and Girls Club on 45th can serve approximately 200 kids (elementary through high school) in its after school program and are just about at capacity. Community Centers around the city are strategically placed to serve neighborhoods and support the health and well-being of all its citizens including seniors, the disabled, and families with young children. Our neighborhood needs and deserves the same consideration.
- Lincoln high school, which is slated to open in 2019 was planned as if it will not be in the midst of an urban village. At a recent meeting to review the Environmental Impact Study and associated mitigation, the planners and school board member present expressed surprise that the area around the school would be heavily upzoned. This is what happens without concurrent planning. Seattle Schools has designed a high school to fit in with the population, traffic, parking, environmental, and recreational needs of the current neighborhood and yet, by the time Lincoln is completed, 100s more people will already live in the area immediately surrounding the school. The impact to both students and neighbors will be much more significant than anyone has suggested; this merits attention prior to more growth.
- More on Lincoln: part of the planning for Lincoln included the assessment that all of the high school’s athletic teams could readily use Lower Woodland fields. While, theoretically, that is a reasonable idea, the fact is that Lower Woodland has the second highest use rate in the city – currently! The average annual use-hours on a Seattle turf field is 1900; Lower Woodland is at 2400 annual use-hours. Only Jefferson Park is more used. Can the city and parks department explain how the most-used fields in the city, on which some soccer teams currently get 1/6 of a field for practice, will support hundreds more high school users along with 100s more recreational users as people populate the urban village? It is a completely unfeasible proposition that will, again, impact the health and recreational opportunities available to all the residents of the village.
- We have the second smallest library in the City. At 2,000 square feet, the Wallingford library is 1/5th the size of the libraries in other neighborhoods our size (average neighborhood library size across the city is 10,000 square feet). Located directly adjacent to the coming high school, the library could offer more excellent opportunities for after school programming and tutoring, as libraries do in other areas. However, the size and hours restrictions means that Wallingford residents cannot use this communal resource in this way. In many neighborhoods, the library also serves as a hub for community meetings, provides internet access to those who do not have it, and offers robust educational programming and support for families and residents. Wallingford – without a suitable library or community center – does not have such a hub.
- We are one of the only urban villages without a walkable neighborhood school (The UDistrict, with even more substantial proposed upzones, is another). The neighborhood school for the Wallingford urban village is BF Day, which is across Aurora Ave. Since there are no parking requirements for new housing developments in the upzone area, and one goal of City Council is to reduce the number of residents with cars, we should expect that families and children can safely walk to school (and other services). Children in Wallingford cannot safely walk to BF Day especially given new early start times and the danger of walking over and around the highway on dark and rainy mornings.
- Transit: the laughable notion that Wallingford is effectively served by transit merits an article all to itself. Suffice it to say that, yes, Wallingford is optimally positioned between Seattle’s two main North-South highways; however, the three one-lane roads that run East-West through Wallingford (50th, 45th, and 40th) do not allow buses to run separately from traffic; there is no dedicated bus or bike lane on any of these roads, and no plan for Wallingford to have light rail within the timeline of the 2035 plan. That means that as more and more people move to the area (and high school students drive and bus to the area), the bikes, buses, and the cars (it’s true – some people moving here will indeed bring cars), are stuck on the same unsafe, congested roads that they are now. SDOT, in a recent traffic study of the Route 44 bus which runs on 45th street, is seeking alternatives to address what it calls “the lack of competitiveness of transit in serving east-west cross town trips.” Even they have failed to come up with solutions that wouldn’t adversely impact the business in 45th corridor, an essential element of the urban village. You only need to spend a few minutes stuck at one of the horribly dangerous cross roads in our community (45th & Wallingford with QFC pedestrians and parking; the 40th, University bridge, Burke Gilman trail, I-5 entrance intersection; the 50th, Stone Way, Greenlake Way nightmare recently deemed the most unsafe intersection in the city by the Urbanist) or drive along Wallingford Ave. when Hamilton middle school gets out to recognize that the infrastructure does not exist to get more people in and out of the urban village safely and effectively.
This is not an exhaustive list of the concurrent issues that viable urban planning requires. It is a list of some items that Wallingford residents – homeowners or not – should be concerned about as our neighborhood is subjected to major restructuring and growth without a holistic plan and without community input. This list also points out where the city’s own planning documents contradict its categorization of Wallingford as having “high access” to the resources essential for healthy and safe urban living. Seattle – on the whole – has been extraordinarily dedicated to providing high quality community resources to residents. Its outstanding community centers, libraries, and parks are part of what makes this city a great place to live. While Wallingford residents contribute their fair share to these systems, we currently do not have the same kind of access as other residents. Even if City Council thinks that our (on average) affluence means that the people currently living in Wallingford do not need or merit improved concurrency planning and communal resources to have a vibrant urban village, perhaps they will take up these important issues of health, recreation, education, and safety – of livability! – on behalf of the 1000s of people who have moved into Wallingford in the past 5 years and the 1000s more who are coming – as students and residents – to our urban village. If a livable urban village is important to you, please contact our City Council representatives Rob Johnson ([email protected]) and Mike O’Brien ([email protected]) and let them know that more planning needs to be done before the city adopts the rezoning plan for Wallingford.
I think these are all excellent points. Even if the current proposed plan doesn’t go into effect, there will be development. And if not now, then in ten or twenty years. If we can build those public spaces and services now we will be a better community when change happens.
“Livability?” “Infrastructure? Hah! It’s overrated, who needs it! What we need is housing, housing, and more housing everywhere, and to hell with quaint concerns about infrastructure.
Density activists would fill in Lake Union to make room for more housing if they though they could get away with it. Don’t believe me? Pasted below is another article from The Urbanist that the 11/1 Stranger Slog discussed whose author lectures us that what we really should do is DESTROY I-5 through downtown so we can build housing there. (Whether or not it’s affordable, he neglects to say).
Just when you thought these people couldn’t get anymore nutty.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/10/31/remove-i-5/
Great summary! I too am not necessarily opposed to increased density. I believe that the infrastructure should be planned and present before upzoning occurs and you have a succinct, well stated summary of what our neighborhood lacks. Also, I would like some protection for trees and other environmental concerns (e.g. sewage in Lake Union) addressed as well. I think density can benefit our neighborhood, if done well. It does require some planning.
Some of your points definitely resonated with me (especially with two young children):
A community center would be a lovely (and necessary) addition to the neighborhood. The Green Lake community center is wonderful but not efficient to get there by bus or car (not enough parking). I’ve walked there but it’s quite a haul with two kiddos.
Our library is so tiny I can barely navigate a stroller in there. I drool with jealousy with the size and programming available at the Ballard Branch. The University Branch is close-ish to us but you have to navigate some busy roads, cross I-5 and pass by tent communities to get there.
East-West traffic and resulting congestion spills onto our neighborhood streets and makes the streets less safe for the people that live there. I wanted to see ST3 include a connection between Ballard and UW to help reduce car traffic through our neighborhood and was disappointed to see that it wasn’t included. There is really no good way to get back and forth between the U District and Wallingford, which is sad because it’s so close. The car and bus take too long, especially during rush hour. It’s not a pleasant walk on foot (think exhaust, narrow sidewalks, long waits at cross walks, crossing the highway). The “bike lane” is a joke. The sharrows are barely visible and I feel like I’m the frog in Frogger trying to make it safely along 45th. Yes, I have tried everything.
Don’t even get me started on the lack of a neighborhood school although our property taxes seem to be skyrocketing with each vote.
Can you tell I agree with you 🙂
Julie has beautifully addressed the issues which Wallingford is facing. Thank you, Julie, for the time it took over the years to continue to plug away at this. Several years ago, I attended endless meetings about how to use Lincoln School and the extra space in the 45th street building. At the time, FPA was in Fremont. But they wanted the space in Wallingford. With ALL THAT ROOM in Lincoln, NONE of it being occupied at the time, we worked long and hard to get a community center there. But we were working with the school district.
We lost on all fronts. Tiny library, FPA won, school district won, and Wallingford lost. In conclusion, both ideas are marvelous.
I am struck by the number of people in the community who have spent so much time and knowledge researching these issue. One glaring problem is that most groups and individuals were not aware of the work of the others. This became even more apparent when I attended the WWCC meeting last Wednesday. We need to be united, and we are not.
Writing to Rob Johnson, Mike O’Brien the city council members and the Mayor
is a good idea. As opposed to not doing it….But I suspect we are flies on the wall to be brushed aside. The have their agenda, and Rob Johnson , along with the mayor, has a very tight relationship with the developers.
The opportunity is gone for either a community center or a larger library. In 2019, Lincoln will be a real high school with 1600 plus kids. I doubt if there is any space that will not be used, but I have seen combination schools and community centers, but this won’t happen. It is too complex, requires additional security and janitorial help, and people with keys to open and secure the building.
Silence is acceptance, so it is good for us to try to get together. I have been thinking that the school district must pause to be sure there is adequate sewer capacity, not to mention that Lincoln had a patchy earthquake prep to eek out getting by with opening Lincoln for occupancy.
Regarding changing the zoning, sewer capacity is being stretched now, with all the condos and apartments that are being built. I think this is one area where we might be able to have a reason to take a pause in all this rapid development.
I have some wonderful post cards to send to the city that I got at the community council meeting. I don’t have very many, but will distribute them till the are gone on Densmore and Wallingford in the 4300 block.
I’d like to acknowledge Susanna Lin, who has been doggedly researching these issues, and there are several other folks whose names I don’t know. They deserve credit,I am sorry I cannot name them. The WWCC has done a great job advocating for us. But they need all of us to help them, with time and finances.
There will be signs that read “no up zones” available in the near future. i encourage everyone to get one. They incur expenses, and the council has minimal funds, so donations are appreciated. I think if we make enough fuss, the council will slow down the approval of the Mayor/developer driven grand plan.
Thank you for all the new information! Definitely things we need to take up with the city. I’m okay with some increased density but not okay if that is composed of block-size 5-6 story apartment buildings. Some 4-story apartment buildings, I’m okay with, but I’d prefer to see some of the more interesting kinds multi-family projects that the city presented at their open house by the architect from Tangle Town. However, I think his presentation was a ruse and not what the city has in store for us. I’m saddened to think the Wallingford Village (with what now sounds like are fuzzy borders) will become one big blob of massive luxury apartment buildings, and thanks to the in-lieu-of fee, none too affordable.
A lot of great great points in here Julie! I would add one more from my WIFE.. SPIDERS. with all the new tall buildings going up and small homes going down we are seeing more dark vertical surfaces for web building and there are just spiders everywhere. it is to the point where we cannot check in our fruit trees without walking through multiple spider webs and its a public nuisance. i would like the city counsel to answer some very basic questions about how density and sustainable spider growth because as I see it wallingford is bieng overrun by huntsmen. besides this omission its a very very good post.
Thanks for posting some insights for planing that may not be obvious to people who don’t live in Wallingford (or even those who do but are in different circumstances – e.g., without kids in the public schools).
I absolutely agree with every point you’ve made. Thanks for writing up a well-researched, persuasive argument for these improvements.
The school problem is mostly caused by special programs. The two local elementary schools are both option schools, and the local middle school is flooded by HCC program. There is no lack of capacity. The problem is too small a percentage being assigned locally.
The library problem is actually the easiest to solve: put a newer and bigger one into one of the new development projects.
East-west traffic issue is the most complicated. If the improve isn’t done right, Wallingford would just become a more convenient passthrough area for Ballard people with even more traffic jams.
Already is that…a passthrough to get to Ballard and Fremont, and to UW.
Yes! It should be noted that many of these items were included in the Wallingford Neighborhood Plan, adopted by City Council in the late 1990s, and promised by the City to help mitigate the increased density Wallingford saw (and growth targets exceeded) over the next 20 years. Wallingford met and exceeded all growth targets, but the City reneged on their part of their bargain with residents to provide more open space, a community center, help with parking and traffic, etc.
Among the other items the City told us during the previous planning, was that Wallingford has plenty of available capacity to accommodate all expected growth under existing zoning, so there is no need for upzoning ANYTHING in the Wallingford Urban Village. This phrase appears multiple places in the Final Neighborhood Plan that was adopted by City Council.
What was true then is still true today – even after all the growth Wallingford has witnessed over the last twenty years, we STILL have sufficient capacity with EXISTING zoning to meet all projected growth 3 times over. If developed to the maximum allowed under existing zoning, growth can be met 3 to 5 times over.
…yet we are still waiting for the mitigation promised in the 1990s for the growth the Wallingford has already accommodated during the last 20 year planning window. And the City wonders why residents are skeptical about current “bargains”? Those not skeptical probably did not live here to witness the last planning effort.
There continues to be no reason related to projected growth for the proposed upzones. That argument is a canard. The upzones are proposed as part of a deal that the Mayor made with developers behind closed doors with no neighborhood inclusion or input.
If there is enough capacity, why are we seeing this crazy growth in housing prices and rental prices? And it’s not just in Wallingford. Even Tukwila and Tacoma are seeing crazy price hikes.
There isn’t just capacity, there’s production – we’re adding units at an unprecedented rate, you can see cranes all over and it has been going on for several years. At some point, we’ll start to understand, that this is not by itself a solution. The University District upzone illustrates that we don’t understand that yet at all.
It’s not that complicated: the growth was under-estimated. Just look at how the school district has been forced to update plans constantly, yet still got surprised by the student influx. And that school district growth is impacting the surrounding district also. The number of student in the Seattle School District is already at the planned level for 2019, and the plan was just made at the end of 2015! The issue is unexpected fast growth, and the planned capacity is not sufficient to deal with it.
Though I’m starting to have some questions about the district’s in-house demographics analyses…how could they have been surprised by Green Lake Elementary suddenly needing to add 100+ students over the summer?? Here in the land of big data?