2013 Farmers Market extending hours

Our friends over at Families for Lake City have an update about the 2013 Lake City Farmers Market.

The community website reports that the Lake City Farmers Market, one of the favorite annual traditions in our neighborhood, will return to 2013 with longer hours.

The market is planning to be open every Thursday from 2:30 to 7:30, from June 20th to September 26th.

The market previously opened at 3:30. The addition of the extra hour also comes with a slightly shorter overall season.

You can learn more about our neighborhood farmers market on their website here.

You can get regular updates from Families for Lake City by liking them on their Facebook page here.

LCW, as seen from the International Space Station

The Seattle metro area as seen from space. (Click for larger)

You have likely seen this image in recent weeks. It was sent from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in a tweet from hundreds of miles above as the space station passed over Seattle. The image made the rounds on social media and local blogs when first published. The astronaut has become quite the Ansel Adams in the sky with his stunning photography of land and city scapes.

Well, if you look closely at the image of Seattle you can distinctly see our neighborhood, defined by Lake City Way, on the outer limits of Seattle. Click the image above for a larger view that clearly shows Lake City Way and our business core at the top right edge of the image.

Lake City Way is highlighted in red in the cropped version of the image at right. Lake Washington can be seen to the right of the red line showing LCW. Green Lake can be seen near the bottom left end of the red line.

As we all know, Seattle is a great place to live. But who knew our amazing city and even our corner on the outer limits looked so good from space.

PHOTO: Unique character seen on LCW

It is the unique, and even sometimes the odd, that makes a place interesting and defined.

Lake City has a few quirky and unique elements that help to define the neighborhood (although we could use many more).

The old bank facade, aka the "Arc de Lake City," at the Mini Park at 125th and LCW is one that comes to mind.  Also the giraffe near the intersection of 30th Avenue NE and LCW is an element that breaks up a drive along the arterial roadway.

The steel sculpture in front of the Verizon Wireless retail store and the boulders with fins in the median of LCW are works of art that help to give our neighborhood some character.

The almost iconic neon sign on Lake City Powersports and Dick's Drive-In's neon give a bit of color to our neighborhood during these dark and dreary days.

Well it seems we have another quirky thing to add to the visual elements that make LCW a bit different that the endless stretches of commercial-lined highways we all travel everyday.

This guy (below) has been making appearances on the road near the intersection of LCW and NE 123rd Street.

Kaffeeklatsch celebrates second anniversary, helps change neighborhood

Some of the staff at Kaffeeklatsch celebrate the bakery/coffee shop's second anniversary with a party

On January 15th, Kaffeeklatsch celebrated their second anniversary as a fixture in our community. In the two years since the little neighborhood business has been serving steaming lattes and baking their tasty bread, they have helped to significantly change our community.

A message written during an anniversary party for Kaffeeklatsch.

Now we realize that is a pretty big statement to make about one small business in a neighborhood with an active business core. But Kaffeeklatsch has really become the "third place" that so many neighborhood businesses strive to become.

The community planning principle of the "third place" says that people have their home —their "first place"— their place of work —the "second place"— and the "third place" —a social gathering place separate from those other two environments.

Kaffeeklatsch has become for many in our community a third place, a hub where neighbors gather, interact, exchange ideas and talk about their community.

Discussions and ideas about the future and the direction of Lake City are exchanged much more easily with the help of the neighborhood gathering spot. For example, before the business opened, people with spare time would have to reserve a room at a public community space and schedule a meeting to plan and discuss our community. These meeting had a much more formal feel and had to be often planned far in advance.

Now customers are regularly heard discussing the neighborhood. Meetings, debates, ideas and discussion are now more spontaneous and inclusive. Groups can gather and talk there without having to find and reserve a more formal space (although it is polite to let them know if a big group is coming.)

Lake City Greenways is unveiled at Kaffeeklatsch.

In fact many of our neighborhood's most significant ideas and plans in the past two years have been born and sculpted at the coffee shop and bakery.

There are many things happening in Lake City, much behind the scenes, that will likely lead to a much more livable, walkable, safe neighborhood in the future. There are many active people in our community we will have to thank for their hard work in years to come. But for now, we thank the small business that gives them a place to gather and create their ideas of a better community.

Fiber Optic Network

Back on December 13th of last year, the Mayor's office announced a public / private partnership with Gigabit Squared and the UW to connect businesses and residences to the city's fiber optic network It is called the Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program.

The connection speeds are expected to be up to 1,000 times faster than currently available high speed internet. The map below shows the 12 neighborhoods that will have the fiber connections pulled directly to buildings. Current plans for Lake City are to have wireless towers at 145th / LCW and 125th/ LCW to provide wireless connections to the fiber.

This project is still at the front end and we may still have an opportunity to be selected as a neighborhood. Members of Lake City Neighborhood Alliance have requested information on how Lake City can be included. Stay tuned for more information.

Sidewalk Funding for 127th

A frame from the slideshow presentation

Representatives from Douglas Park Cooperative were at the North District Council meeting last week Wednesday to make a presentation of our request for sidewalks on NE 127th street between 25th and 27th. All NDC member organizations voted and our project was one of the three selected. If everything goes well, SDOT will start designs in November of this year.

More information about the Bridging the Gap Neighborhood Street Fund can be found here.  Below is a timeline from their site:

NSF Project Selection Timeline:

2013

January – Each of Seattle’s 13 neighborhood District Councils will select three projects for further evaluation (up to 39 projects in all).

February - May – SDOT conducts a high level scope & cost estimate of the projects selected by the neighborhood District Councils.

June – Each neighborhood District Council prioritizes its own list of projects.

July – Bridging the Gap Oversight Committee evaluates all proposed projects for funding.

August – Oversight committee makes funding recommendations to the Mayor & City Council.

September – 2014 Budget adopted.

October/November – SDOT begins planning and design work.

This sidewalk is in addition to the sidewalk going in on 130th between 25th and 28th. That sidewalk is being funded by the State of Washington's Safe Routes to School Program, and is currently in design. It will be constructed this year.

Valor Apartments Meeting

Tomorrow ( Wednesday, January 9th ) from 6pm to 9pm at the Lake City Community Center, DPD will be holding an open house meeting  for public comment / review of the Valor Apartments permit application. Below is an open letter that was sent to Council Member Richard Conlin ( the chair of the Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee. ) The Mayor's office and all Council Members were copied. 


Council Member Conlin-

I apologize for the late notice on this meeting. I also apologize for the length of this email, but there is an important point to be made regarding inaccuracies from the Office of Housing that may affect HUD funding as well as SEPA review. 

( This email will be posted also as an open letter on the DPC website. )

On Wednesday, January 9th at the Lake City Community Center from 6 to 9 pm  DPD will be hosting a meeting to get public input on the Valor Apartment project. The permit has not yet been issued and the meeting was scheduled in response to a petition signed by over 100 residents in Lake City. 

I am attaching a photograph of the notice board that went up last year. Most people took this at face value, only to learn much later in the review process what was really intended. 

The community has very serious concerns about the siting of this project:

1. The language on the Notice board is deceptive.

The Notice board at the site reads “To construct a 4 story residential structure with 21 units above a 1,500 sf community center at ground level. Existing structures to be demolished.”

The 21 “residential” units are intended to house individuals / veterans with a dual diagnosis of mental illness and drug addiction. They will require staff supervision.

The “community center” on the first floor is intended to be a Psychiatric Clinic for residents and a Homeless Drop In Center - a continuation of the Mennonite's God's lil Acre which appears to be an unregistered non profit operating as a pseudo clinic on a harm reduction model with no governmental oversight. 

2. The proposed project may not comply with City Council’s ELI threshold

The limit for Extremely Low Income housing is 20% of all the housing in the area ( the Census Block Group ).

The adjacent block group  is currently at 30% ELI housing ( per OH data ). 33rd from 125th to 130th is at 43.5% ELI,  and the north half of the HUV is at 21% ELI . ( see maps )

This project continues a trend toward poor siting decisions for ELI housing that is increasing the concentration of poverty in our Hub Urban Village - against the Department of Housing and Urban Development's  guiding principle of reducing poverty by by creating mixed income neighborhoods. 

3. There is a 75 unit building for homeless individuals and veterans on the same block.

Some of the residents at McDermott place have addiction issues. Residency there does not require they be clean and sober. 

4. There is a children’s playground, immigrant family housing,  and a new park space directly across the street.

For your reference, I am also attaching two maps. The first is a map that shows Census Block Group 1.3 in the project area at 30% ELI. This map is from the Office of Housing. This number has been revised increasingly upward since I first started investigating it on June 20th of 2012. It started at 9.9% and I am concerned that land use and HUD funding decisions are being made with incorrect data. I want to make sure that yourself and your fellow council members have the most recently corrected map and data and are aware of these changes in relationship to the HUD funding earmarked for this project. 

Open publication - Free publishing - More eli

Open publication - Free publishing - More eli

The last attachment is a map I composed of the Hub Urban Village. The numbers are from the King County Tax Assessor site as well as data from OH. Please note that if you isolate the north half of the Lake City Hub Urban Village, we are at 21% ELI. Although the consolidated plan's siting policy uses Census Block Groups as the bounds for determining the 20% threshold, we believe that the HUV bounds are more pertinent. Also note that the ELI concentration jumps to 43.5% when looking at just 33rd Ave from 125th to 130th - the street the project is proposed for.   

Open publication - Free publishing - More housing

If you made it this far, then thank you for your time. I appreciate it and hope to see you tomorrow. 

KOMO News: Rotating winter shelter for homeless coming to Lake City, Shoreline

On Sunday KOMO News published a story about a temporary, rotating winter homeless shelter run by Union Gospel Mission coming to churches in Lake City and Shoreline.

And according to the KOMO story the coming shelter is a surprise to some in the Lake City community —even after previous shelter plans that surprised the community prompted vows of more transparency with future shelter plans. People contacted for the story learned of the plan from the KOMO reporter.

The plan, according to the KOMO report, is part of a request by the Lake City Task Force on Homelessness to bring the rotating shelter to three area churches, beginning on Monday, January 7th.

The schedule for the shelter is below:

• Jan 7 – Jan 27, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 14514 20th Avenue Northeast, Shoreline
• Jan 28 – Feb 17, Seattle Mennonite Church, 3120 NE 125th St., Seattle
• Feb 17 – Mar 15, Lake City Baptist Church, 2441 Northeast 125th Street, Seattle

From the KOMO story:

According to [Paul] LaRose [of Union Gospel Mission], shelter organizers took concerns made by neighbors and business owners last year and came up with a different way to run the temporary shelter this time around.
"We are only offering an overnight shelter, from 7:00p.m. to 7:00a.m., primarily for people of Lake City. Last year that's what we tried to do but people were being referred by hospitals, like Harborview, and clinics when they were released. Someone would send them to Lake City, or the eastside Bellevue shelter, this year we don't expect it to be like that," said LaRose.
Mike Duke, owner of the Grocery Outlet in Lake City, says he understands people need help, and initially he allowed those staying at the shelter last year to use his store’s restroom. But he says his business ended up losing so much inventory they were forced to put locks on the bathroom doors. 
"We had a terrible problem with panhandlers in the parking lot being really aggressive. Shoplifting was our biggest problem. We lost $28,000 in inventory during the quarter the shelter was open which was way over our normal amount and as soon as it shut down our loses went back to normal levels," said Duke.

You can read the entire KOMO report here.

Sidewalk Funding

The Neighborhood Street Fund applications for 2013 are in and were just made public today. Douglas Park Cooperative has an application in requesting a segment of sidewalk from 25th to 26th on 127th. There are 5 other applications in for the North District for a total of six.

North District Council will meet next Wednesday, January 9th from 7pm to 9pm at the Lake City Library meeting room. The six applicants will present to the North District Council members and a vote will be had to determine which three will be recommended for funding. Douglas Park is a NDC member and will be voting as well as presenting.

Open publication - Free publishing - More btg

Below is a map from a few years ago showing all the block faces in Seattle that are lacking sidewalks. That red bowl of spaghetti on top is us. 85th is that clearly defined line, which coincidentally is the same line dividing the older Seattle from the 1950's land grab and empty promises.

Open publication - Free publishing - More funding

Meeting tomorrow regarding new Olympic Hills school

For those who have not been following the Building Excellence IV plans, the proposal for Olympic Hills Elementary is for the current building to be demolished and replaced with a new building. There are significant changes proposed for other schools in the area as well. This will be a very large capital investment in our area and there will be opportunities ( like tomorrow night ) for us to provide Seattle Public Schools with the community feedback necessary for a successful redevelopment. 

( more info on BEX IV at Families for Lake City. )

Below is a repost from the Pinehurst Blog. 

SPS Capacity Management Meeting for NE Seattle
Northeast Community Meeting

Monday, December 17th 6:30-8pm
Olympic Hills Elementary School
13018 – 20th Avenue NE, Seattle WA 98125

Seattle Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Pegi McEvoy and School Board Director Sharon Peaslee will be attending an informal meeting to provide information and answer questions for the Northeast Region of school communities about capacity management, and the BEX IV plans for new schools in the region. School and neighborhood community members are invited.

Background Information:  SPS is currently working on short-term capacity management, and the New Assignment Plan Transition Plan for the 2013-14  school year.  The Transition Plan is scheduled to be finalized in late January, in time for 2013-14 open enrollment.  SPS will not begin interim planning until the Spring of 2013, with completion in time for open enrollment for the 2014-15 school year.  Interim capacity management is needed to bridge capacity shortages from the 2014-15 school year until BEXIV projects come online, and will involve interim housing for some school communities.

Planned Northeast-area projects, to funded by the upcoming BEXIV levy (if it passes), and the proposed timeline:

·        2016: New NE elementary school (650 seats) built adjacent to the existing Thornton Creek Elementary school (or equivalent capacity added at another location).

·        2017 (or 2016): New 680-720-seat K-8 building at Pinehurst site (tear-down/rebuild), to house the Environmental Sciences K-8 program currently housed in the Jane Addams building.  No plan has been announced for the current Pinehurst (AS-1) program.  The K-8 program is to remain in the building until their new building is ready, unless an alternative interim housing plan is announced.

·        2017: Jane Addams building repurposed as a comprehensive middle school (960-seats).  Interim housing of students within the Jane Addams Middle School feeder pattern could begin anytime between 2013 and 2017.  The location and implementation plan for the interim Jane Addams Middle School has not yet been announced.

·        2017: New building opens for Olympic Hills Elementary (500-650 –seat capacity).  The interim housing site for Olympic Hills has not been announced.