Time is Running Out to Tell the City of Shoreline to Scale Back their Massive Rezoning Plans for the Future 185th St Light Rail Station Area in the City of Shoreline, WA

Please Attend these Last Two Important Public Meetings

If you’ve been meaning to write to the City or attend a public meeting, now is the time. There are two public meetings left between now and February 23, 2015, which is the date that City Council will make their final decisions on land use regulation and zoning changes for the 185th St Area. The next meeting is February 9, 2015, 7pm at City Hall, which will be a Council Meeting to review the Planning Commission recommendations. After that, the February 23, 2015 meeting will be the last meeting to make your voice heard in person, but even if you aren’t comfortable speaking, your presence at this meeting is still very important. Please note the February 23rd meeting begins at an earlier time 6:30pm as issues for both the 185th St Station Area AND 145th St Station Area will be discussed.

Please Write to the City of Shoreline and Demand that these Plans be Scaled Back

If you’re unable to attend these meetings, please consider writing to your City Councilmembers, members of the City Planning Commission, or all of the above. You can send an email, mail in a letter, or drop off a letter in person at the City Hall. Every voice is important, whether you’ve lived in Shoreline your whole life or recently moved here.

Planning Commission: http://shorelinewa.gov/government/departments/planning-community-development/planning-commission

City Council: http://shorelinewa.gov/government/shoreline-city-council/contact-the-city-council

Deadlines to Act for Each Station Area

One of the many confusing things about this planning process is the differing schedules for the 185th Light Rail Station Area and the 145th Light Rail Station Area. The 185th Area Planning Process is on the schedule to be concluded first, in about a month, and the 145th Area Planning Process will conclude in June 2015. The walls are closing in on the 185th St Area deadline in one month, February 23rd, 2015.

Join the Shoreline Preservation Society Mailing List

Bookmark this website and join the mailing list. https://preserveshoreline.wordpress.com/ Also, mark your calendar for this upcoming Community Forum on 01/21/15, sponsored by the SPS: “We have many questions that must be answered. Why is Shoreline in a rush to do this to our neighborhoods? What will be the impacts to traffic throughout the City? What will be the impacts on our parks, wildlife habitat, trees, schools, utilities, and more? Who will pay for all these impacts? Hear from Utilities and Land Use Experts and The City on how this will affect our neighborhoods. Wednesday, January 21, 2015. Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Church, 14724 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA 98155.”

Peeling Away the Layers of a Rotten Onion

… pretty much sums up the fact-finding in reviewing the documentation and videos from the beginning of this Planning Process for the 185th St Station Area, especially this sham of a “Public Outreach Process”. The City, with much self-adulation, has described their public outreach process as “excellent”, “robust”, and “above and beyond”. So why is it that people who live within the boundaries of the 185th St Subarea, which extends WAY BEYOND a half-mile radius of the future station, still have no idea about the aggressive scale of these rezoning plans?

The mailed postcards, the articles in Currents Newsletter, the information on the City website prior to the first wave of public outrage in September has been VAGUE and MISLEADING. And what’s most misleading of all? The billboard on 185th and I-5, which states: “As light rail service begins, SOME land uses surrounding the station area COULD POSSIBLY transition to mixed use development and a greater variety of housing choices. This will likely occur incrementally over decades.”

“As light rail service begins” does not match up to Feb 2015…. about a 9 year discrepancy there.

Who Knew that Light Rail Stations and High-Density Urban Villages were a Package Deal?

Apparently, the powers that be would like you to know that you can’t have one without the other. Would you have voted for the ST2 plan back in 2008, knowing what you know now about the mandatory makeovers to massive Urban Villages from quiet, established, single-family residential neighborhoods? Another term for these high-density, tall as possible, combined commercial and residential use zones is called “Transit Oriented Development”. Which isn’t a bad concept in itself, but when one of the leading experts on the subject states, “You don’t want to go into established single-family, middle-income neighborhoods and attempt to spawn TOD,“ what does that say about the appropriateness of these large scale plans for these Shoreline neighborhoods?

The 145th/185th station areas of Shoreline are not abandoned industrial areas like Portland’s Pearl District, or stagnant, run-down commercial zones, or depressed, existing, high-density urban areas, or vast open spaces, which TOD is better geared toward. The City’s first TOD project at the South End of Echo Lake and Aurora didn’t take 80-100 years to appear. If you believe the City’s ill-conceived spiel about the 185th St Subarea Plan taking 80-100 years to be fully built out to what they envision, I have a bridge to sell you. Can you picture buildings of that height and bulk all around the future station site and lining 185th from 15th Ave NE all the way to Aurora?

And Speaking of that Bridge I’ve got to Sell You…

80-100 years to be fully built out? There are are far too many unknowns and variables to plan that far in advance and to take such drastic measures as to change the zoning this drastically is utterly foolish. Responsible and intelligent planning should include the next 25 years with stops along the way every 5 years to review what been done and adjust planning accordingly. Even the Growth Management Act requires that, “Local comprehensive plans are to be reviewed and updated every seven years.” The City’s proposed Phase 1 of the rezoning plan is a joke and looks to be about 80% of the size of the total subarea. What’s the point of having a Phase 1 if it’s practically the whole area anyways? Residents in North City have reported receiving multiple inquiries from developers interested in buying up their houses…. months before final zoning changes take place. There are cranes all over Downtown, Capitol Hill, U-District, Ballard, Wallingford, and Roosevelt. The Ballard Urban Village reached its targeted growth for 2024, 3 times bigger, 10 years early: http://livableballard.org/ All indications in other parts of our area point toward out of control growth and our City Planners have no plan in this larger scheme to control growth and ensure that growth is responsible and that growth occurs intelligently. Throwing the dice, crossing your fingers, and leaving it up to “market forces” is not responsible or prudent planning.

If you thought 7 Story buildings were alarming, how about 14 Story buildings?

Wow… we didn’t know we had it so good back when there was only the possibility of 7 Story Buildings! In peeling the back the layers of this rotten onion, it was discovered that redevelopment to the scale of MUR-140 – 14 Stories may be approved with a developer agreement through the City in the 185th Station Area. How misleading is it to publish a map, label the 7 Story ‘turquoise’ zone as such, when in actually there’s a possibility to build to a much higher density.

Possible 5 year timeline before single-family residences are converted to ‘legal non-conforming’ in the MUR-85 (Turquoise) Zone.

Real Environmental Impacts…

Redevelopment in the MUR-85 (Turquoise) Zone may be exempt from Tree Retention requirements! What’s not being taken into consideration here is the real environmental impacts. What’s the carbon cost of cutting down one of these tall evergreen trees? What about the displaced wildlife? There are known problems with drainage in these areas… what happens with the trees that help support the drainage system are gone? What happens to the noise levels in neighborhoods near the I-5 after trees that used to help muffle the sound are removed and replaced with tall buildings that will actually amplify noise? What happens to our air quality when the trees are slashed and uprooted? What’s the environmental impact of disposing of torn down houses? What the impact of new building materials, transport of, and construction? The list of approved trees in the City right-of-way was recently updated. Guess what’s no longer on the list? Evergreen and conifer trees. So basically, if you have a beautiful tall tree in front of your house and the City decides to build a sidewalk, that tree most likely will not be preserved. If the City needs to widen any road to accommodate this barrage of traffic that the station and high-density housing is going to bring, say goodbye to any tree that’s not on the approved right-of-way list and maybe some that are on the list. Tree City USA, indeed!

(Continue to Part 2)