Announcements and Notes from September HPAC meeting

Our Parks:

West Crest / West Seattle Reservoir Park will begin construction in late winter, scheduled to be finished by summer of 2014. There are still some decisions being made about re-using and moving the existing play equipment, and we will be informed when those decisions have been made.

We received a NPSF grant to address pedestrian safety along Cloverdale via a crushed rock stair and trail from 6th to the dog park parking lot at 5th. SDOT’s “Safe Routes to Schools” are considering the spot for a possible sidewalk from 7th to 5th. (The improvements at West Crest will include a sidewalk connection from 7th to 8th)

We also received an Opportunity Fund grant from Seattle Parks to address missing connections into Highland Park Playground/Spray Park east to Cloverdale/10th and north to Thistle. The schedule is still being determined for that project.

Green Seattle Day, a day to celebrate and restore Seattle’s urban forest, is on November 2nd, and West Crest Park is one of the sites for tree planting! October 5th is the day to help clean up the urban forest to get ready for the big day, from 9am – 1pm. More information is available on their website.

Highland Park Improvement Club:  The Club was recently awarded a King County grant (thanks to the efforts of Sustainable Seattle), to help de-pave part of the parking lot, install another raingarden, more planting, and a courtyard. If you are interested in participating, join us for a Greening Committee meeting on  October 2 at 7pm to discuss next steps.

Rainwise: if you have questions about RainWise and how to get a rebate for a rain garden and/or cistern for your property, attend a RainWise Workshop in South Park coming up on Thursday, October 17th, from 6:30-8pm at the South Park Community Center. More info available here.

Roadside Raingardens: Green Stormwater Infrastructure is coming to Highland Park! Areas for roadside gardens (not on your property like RainWise ones, but within the Right of Way along the street) are being studied in Highland Park. King County presented a plan with potential locations that will be online soon, so we’ll update our website when that happens.

Surplus City Light Properties: Info added  in this post.

September 25th HPAC meeting

The agenda is getting packed for our SEPTEMBER HPAC MEETING on the 25th at 7pm. We will have several guests: 
  • David Barber from Seattle City Light speaking about their two surplus properties in our neighborhood and seeking our input. More info on this website, addresses in question are 8820 9th ave SW (near 9th and Henderson)  and 1605 SW Holden (across from 7-11). With our input, we could help create some really positive transformations for Highland Park.
  • John Phillips and Kristine Cramer from the King County Wastewater Treatment Division are coming to discuss roadside rain gardens in the street right of way in Highland Park. 
  • Jo Sullivan from King County will be there again to give us an update on the success of Rainwise so far in Highland Park and answer any questions folks have about raingardens and qualifying for rebates. 
  • Seattle Parks department will be there to give us an update on Westcrest park improvements and to answer questions.
  • Kim Frappier from Forterra (Formerly Cascade Land Conservancy) will be sharing that Westcrest is participating in Green Seattle Day on November 2nd, come hear about that and ongoing forest restoration work in Highland Park.
  • Hannah Kett from Sustainable Seattle has some announcements about exciting changes coming to HPIC! 

Seattle Night Out is Tuesday, August 6th

The City of Seattle will be celebrating the 29th Annual Night Out Against Crime on August 6th this year. Last year, 1,366 events were registered to participate- registration is open now on this website. Register now to have your street closed for a block party! The event is a unique opportunity to bring your neighbors together, welcome new neighbors, talk about crime prevention and Block Watch efforts, and mainly just have a great time with food, music, games – whatever you want. 

Free Trees for your Yard!

We  hear a lot about people wanting more trees in Highland Park- now’s your opportunity to get some for free! The Trees for Neighborhoods program helps Seattle residents plant trees around their homes. Participants in the program receive up to 4 free trees , watering bags, and training on proper planting and care. The application for Trees for Neighborhoods program will open on July 31st, see their website for more information. It’s as easy as that! 

June HPAC cancelled for Greenway Meeting July 9th

Our regularly scheduled HPAC meeting will not be happening in June, because SDOT will be hosting a Neighborhood Greenway Meeting instead that we encourage everyone to come to. If you are at all interested in having a Greenway come through Highland Park, and would like a say in which street the route is on- now’s your chance,  please join us.

It will be on TUESDAY, JULY 9th, from 6-7:30 pm at Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden. (please note, this is not our normal HPAC meeting day or time, so mark your calendars!)

What’s a Greenway? Neighborhood Greenways are residential streets where signs and pavement markings are used to guide people along the route; and speed and volume management measures discourage cars from avoiding main streets by cutting through on neighborhood streets. These amenities can be especially beneficial for families, children and seniors who might find these routes more comfortable than busier nearby streets. Find out more about them here.

SDOT’s preliminary evaluation for Holden/HP Way

Preliminary evaluations for 2013 Neighborhood Street Fund applications are complete! Check out Highland Park/Holden intersection here. Next step is ranking by District Council, and then on to the Mayor for approval for those projects chosen to move forward to design in 2014, and construction 2015. Text of SDOT’s review of this project is here: 

The proposed NSF project would install a roundabout at this location. New curb, gutter and sidewalk would be installed and the intersection would be repaved to construct the intersection improvements. New roadway lighting would be installed around the perimeter of the roundabout and existing utility poles may need to be relocated to facilitate this installation. Landscaping or grass could be provided in areas in the newly created green spaces. A complete new drainage system is anticipated to fit the new grading and curb location. It is anticipated that the amount of new and replaced roadway pavement would require this project to provide stormwater detention and water quality facilities. Additionally, the project would be required to implement Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) to the maximum extent feasible. GSI features could consist of new tree installations or potentially some small swales depending on the final grading.

HPAC’s response to Council’s Letter to McGinn about Nickelsville

Here is our response to the City Council’s note to Mayor McGinn, here’s what’s going on, and here’s what we have to say about it:

We appreciate the council finally recognizing that the illegal encampment known as Nickelsville is not a good model for how our City should be treating our homeless. While we wish we had seen this letter and strong leadership over two years ago, we applaud that someone in our City government is finally seeing that this encampment has an unsustainable vision. We encourage the Mayor to respond quickly, preferable with a sooner move out date in an effort to honor  the community’s request. We would also like to see the Human Services department pay regular visits to our greenbelt throughout the summer to offer the same outreach, services, and provisions to the people living there.

Grants coming to life!

Check out the slideshow on West Seattle Herald and the blurb in West Seattle Blog for info about the new raingarden at HPIC- we’re in the middle of applying for more grants with Sustainable Seattle’s help, so stay tuned for some awesome changes coming to 12th and Holden!

We also have some great news about the Opportunity Fund. We applied for funds to create better access into the new spraypark at Highland Park Playground, and are on the list of finalists that are being passed on to the Mayor for final sign off! So, we’re looking forward to a Cloverdale/10th connection (which is also a pedestrian connection to Westcrest), and a path north to Thistle. Now not only will we have an awesome spraypark, we’ll actually be able to get there safely! It’ll take a while for it to happen, but it’s coming.

Questions for our Mayoral Candidates

We know how Mayor McGinn has dealt with Nickelsville and HPAC- we posed the question via email to the Mayoral candidates to see what they would have done, or will do differently. We understand that politicians don’t answer hypothetical questions, oh well- we asked them anyway. Here’s what we asked each of the candidates:

IF you were Mayor at the time Nickelsville landed at the gateway to our neighborhood over two years ago, what would you have done? Would you, as McGinn did, have ignored the situation festering for the homeless, and the community’s request for leadership? Would you have given the encampment a notice to vacate the site in an effort to find a legal and fair solution for all?
And now, over two years later, if you were Mayor, would you give a move out date to the encampment as the community is requesting, before its third summer camping illegally? Or would you be willing to give the encampment more time at its current location?
…. This is very important for our community to know, but also for every other neighborhood in Seattle to understand what kind of precedent you, as a potential Mayor, would be willing to set for illegal encampments, treatment of the homeless, and treatment of neighborhoods…. we understand that encampment legislation is on the table right now, but that is not what we are asking about, we are just asking how you would have acted given the same situation, and how you would act now.
We just asked yesterday, so it may take a while to get responses… and we are thankful to all the candidates for  their time answering these for our neighborhood. We have heard back from one so far, and will continue to post responses here  (if we get any more!):
Kate Martin: pointed us to a post on her website, saying she will expand on that post overtime, but wanted get the basics of her perspective established.
MEANWHILE, Nickelsville is all over the news, related to either the encampment legislation in City Council, or allegations against Share / Wheel, which is loosely related to Nickelsville… so the political pressure is definitely increasing to deal with the situation at hand differently. Check out these articles if you get a chance, we’ll continue to add more as they come up:

We met with the Mayor…

Last Friday, we met at the Mayor’s office for a little over an hour with Mayor McGinn, Jerry DeGriek, and Deputy Mayor Smith. We took a team of 5 people. We had one neighbor speak to the Mayor about his experience living right on the greenbelt, we had one woman not involved with HPAC directly speak to the Mayor about her experience volunteering at Nickelsville over the last two years and what she’s witnessed as to the quality of the camp over time, and we had one neighbor speak to the Mayor about why moving the encampment before the summer starts would be beneficial to the Mayor and Council, to the neighborhood, to Food Lifeline, and to the homeless camping at Nickelsville. He listened attentively and understands that the situation is not sustainable and is deteriorating.

Two things that we did learn from our meeting that were new: the council can pass the transfer of the property for Food Lifeline WITHOUT passing the encampment legislation. We thought those two things were tied together- so that is essentially a third option on the table. The council could just approve the sale, and NV will have to run its course until Food Lifeline’s deadline, which is probably the fall before they begin their permitting process. We were very vocal about why before summer would be better. The second thing we learned is that it doesn’t sound like anyone is advocating or speaking up at all for his “second option” – making NV permanent where it is, not even Nickelsville. It seems that he put that on the table as an option for them, but no one is advocating for it among the public or within the City Council.