First Ave would also get a pedestrian overlay. Both changes discourage auto-oriented development and encourage pedestrian-oriented development. Keep in mind that Seattle’s neighborhood design review allows for adjustments to pedestrian circulation, density or height (such as lower perimeter building heights and taller buildings in the center) during those public design reviews.

Full recommendation text below and detailed PDF attached with community input summary which indicated a “strong lack of community support” for all of the options analyzed.Seattle DPD Recommendations For Greenwood Town Center Seattle

It’s important to note that the city’s planner — Andrea (author of text below) — is leaving the DPD on November 19th. Will she be able to see this part of the rezone process through before her departure?

There are currently no set dates for public comment, but comments are very much encouraged at this blog.
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Subject: DPD Recommendations for Greenwood Rezone

Hello all,
Thank you for your patience while we worked out the details of DPD’s recommendations for the Greenwood Town Center Rezone. Attached, please find the report. For now, DPD recommends moving ahead with a rezone for subarea 1, while leaving the discussion open for subareas 2 and 3. The recommendations for subarea 1 are slightly different than the original proposal; DPD recommends the entire block of the “Fred Meyer site” be rezoned to NC3-65, with a P-zone overlay along NW 85th Street.

The next step will be to prepare a full rezone analysis along with a SEPA checklist, and this will likely happen very quickly. For one, it’s long overdue. Two, I will be leaving DPD effective November 19th, and I want to see this project through as far as I can before I leave. However, I’m not leaving the City so you will be able to reach me and I can continue to answer questions. I’ve taken a job with the Office of Sustainability and Environment (OSE) and will start there on November 29th.

So – please distribute widely, and Tyson will put this up on the Greenwood Rezone project website here at DPD. There is plenty of process left, so rest assured there will be time for public comments, and there will be a public hearing. With the SEPA determination there is a comment and appeal period. If there are no appeals, the legislation will continue on to City Council, and there will likely be a briefing or two ahead of the actual hearing. Once the SEPA determination is published there will be a better sense of timing and actual dates.

Please contact me with any questions and again, thank you so much for your patience.

Andrea

Andrea Petzel, LEED AP, cSBA
Senior Urban Planner
City of Seattle – DPD
andrea.petzel@seattle.gov

Here is the feedback from concerned members of the community who are outraged at these changes. Neighbors spoke of common themes including parking pressures, vacant buildings, transients. Concerns were specific to both renters and owners being forced out with higher property valuations driven by the rezoning in a declining economy with minimal retail demand in the middle-class area. Check out our live videos at the bottom of this article.

Direct Community Feedback to City of Seattle via “Post It’s”:

I do not want the cavern effect of sixty-five foot buildings on either side of Northwest 85th. I do not support Subarea3 rezone proposal.

Don’t built more if you haven’t ever been able to rent all the apartments above Mudbay. Empty spaces make things worse.

The University District’s Safeco Building is an eyesore because it does not fit in with its surroundings.

Concerned about significant and abrupt transition and impact to single family homes on south side of proposal. I do not support the Subarea3 proposal.

A six story building will take away all the light for all the houses built behind it. It decreases their property value and would cause me to sell my house.

The 65 foot tall transition is too dramatic and would change the neighborhood. This does not fit into the area and will negatively impact Greenwood and the surrounding areas.

Advantages of development and “re-established connections” can occur within the existing 40 foot zone. I don’t support Subarea3 rezone proposal.

How does the 65 foot rezone promote pedestrial activity or safety. This can already happeh within the current forty-foot zone. Please maintain the current zone height.

There are plenty of empty spaces in this area as it stands. Tenants of the retail spaces are changing frequently because they can’t make a profit. Greenwood does not attract the people who can afford to rent space. The small nail salons will be bought out and not able to aford moving back into old “new” space.

Bullet #5 advantage: The existing slope to the south is not enough to mitigate effects of a six-story building for single story dwelling. This is a real, not “perceived” concern.

Changing the height and increasing density in this area would be workable…. but only if there are some restrictions on guidelines for the structures going in. Set back from the sidewalk with diversity of design and space so it doesn’t feel likel you are walking along a giant cinder block and you have good airflow and light through the area and taking into consideration the residential homes behind.

I like the idea of density with more shops and develping the street. But I’d like to see other options for this street like changing parking requirements.

Proposal will seriously increase parking space demand along NW 84th. Renters will not pay for a parking space. They will park in the surrounding area. NW 84th is already congested parking-wise.

High buildings at the storefront level are uninviting and intimidating.

The flair and character of Greenwood will be destroyed if we put six story buildings on the main strip.

There is already not enough parking on 84th street, a wall of multi-family-story buidlings will produce MORE traffic instead of reducing it.

Building six story buildings along 85th creates a cavern along 85th. This narrow strip would make it very difficult to build transitions from 85th or the backyards of the folks on 84th Street.

I am opposed to any height increase on the south side of 85th street. I live on 84th street and do not want to see tall narrow buildings out my front door.

Rezoning subarea 3 from 4 story to six story creates a wall between the single-family neighborhood and thye business district. Why is that a good idea?

It’s actually refreshing to look across the street from Fred Meyer or Bartells and see the rooftops of single family homes, try it sometime!

No to 65 foot. It is too contentious. Encourage development beyond this limited strip. If greenwood is the model for pedestrian oriented development then emulate it all along 85th.

Ridiculous – build as demand develops. This isn’t the Field of Dreams!!!

Oh Great, more traffic on 85th!!!

Dense high-rise housing is not an active community, it’s a rabbit warren. Mark park space, community space is needed and must balance the added housing.

Check out live video of Seattle DPD, public representatives, and numerous instant photos of the detailed explanations and community at the open house via our Twitter feed Greenwood rezone.

On June 29th, Seattle’s Planning Department will host a public meeting on the changes from 6:00-8:00. The meeting will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, located at 7500 Greenwood Avenue.

The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

6:00-6:30 Meet and Greet
6:30-6:45 Overview Presentation
6:45-8:00 Open House/Public Comment

The map shows the boundaries of the three subareas that form the rezone area.

For more information please contact:

Andrea Petzel
DPD Senior Urban Planner
(206) 615-1256
andrea.petzel@seattle.gov

Fred Meyer Greenwood Peat Bog

What will the new Fred Meyer development do to Greenwood’s peat bog? That’s what Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development has to decide before they either let the project stand or order an additional environmental review.

Over 50 concerned neighbors showed up to a public meeting at Loyal Height Community Center on Thursday night to discuss the environmental impacts of the project. The central issue was the potential loss of water in Greenwood’s peat bog.

If a new development pushes water out of the peat bog, it could compress, and cause neighboring buildings to settle and start sinking. That’s what happened with the Safeway at 87th street, and neither Greenwood residents nor Fred Meyer want to see it happen again.

The meeting was run by Design Review Board representative Scott Kemp, and Fred Meyer engineers were present to field questions about the environmental studies they’ve done so far.

The Fred Meyer project could be fast-tracked without an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) based on a preliminary finding that it would do no harm to the surrounding environment, including the peat bog. That’s called a “Determination of Nonsignificance,” in city-speak.

Fred Meyer Greenwood

Kate Martin, neighborhood activist and somewhat of an expert on the peat bog, says there’s nothing non-significant about the potential impact.

“Greenwood is sinking, and continues to sink,” she said.

She explained how burying the new building 16 feet underground would displace a large amount of water from the area, and called for the use of pilings to elevate the building until it hovers above the peat, instead of sinking into it. The 8-acre development would take up 1/6th of the entire bog, Martin said.

Martin’s accusations that the science behind the project is unsound seemed to strike a chord with neighbors. Almost everyone at the meeting wanted to see an Environment Impact Statement, which would provide some of the science and hard data Martin called for. Several neighbors asked, “What’s the downside to getting more information?”

The only downside is for Fred Meyer, who will have to put additional time and money into something they say they’ve already studied carefully. There have been dozens of borings into the ground on and around the site of the new development, to determine where the peat bog ends.

There was some concern about whether Fred Meyer’s studies took into account the surrounding homes, and not just the site itself. What neighbors don’t understand, according to the project architects, is that any neighboring parcel that the peat bog “buffer zone” touches becomes entirely part of the buffer area. Because of that, they argued, their plan is actually conservative and fair.

Also, revisions to the plan include some of the pilings that Martin and others suggested, in areas where the architects found them necessary. That’s a good start, but the crowd didn’t seem to think it was enough. During a show of hands, support for the environmental review was near-unanimous.

Kemp said the ultimate decision about whether to issue the determination of non-significance or order further study wasn’t made in front of the Design Review Board last night. The Board will take neighbors’ concerns to the director of the Department of Design and planning, who has the authority to order the EIS.

Throughout the community, whether neighbors arrived via foot, bus, or Seattle taxi – there is no question that the Fred Meyer expansion and its impact on the environment is a hot topic in Greenwood, Phinney, and North Seattle.

Fred Meyer Greenwood Expansion Plans

Make sure to attend this meeting if possible and we’ll be sharing our coverage with the neighborhood.

MEETING DETAILS:
Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Loyal Heights Community Center, Room 2, 2101 Northwest 77th Street.

Written and/or oral comments may be submitted at the meeting.

Greenwood Rezone

Some neighbors expressed concerns that an upzone could also mean increased property taxes for residents who chose not to sell their lots to developers. Barbara L. Shale, of the King County Tax Advisory Office, addresse the issue by explaining that a jump from single-family to L3 zoning — L3 is the low-rise zone most commonly occupied by clusters of townhomes — wouldn’t increase anyone’s taxes overnight. She said that the value of a house often goes down when the value of the land itself goes up, and that taxes would likely stay about the same until the next physical property inspection of the area, in 2015 or 2016.

Although most of the debate was about the “buffer” of single-family homes, neighbors were also concerned about upzoning the commercial lots at the core of the Fred Meyer development. Proposed changes would allow buildings that currently top out at 40 feet to be raised to 65 feet. Although this is obviously attractive to developers, Stanley made it clear that the Advisory Group behind the zoning proposal was thinking about the future growth of Greenwood, not about Fred Meyer.

Fred Meyer’s plans for a new shopping center don’t actually include or require any zoning changes.
“I’m going to sorely miss Greenwood Market,” Stanley said, “but that’s not something [the GCC] have any control over. That’s not something we’re trying to have control over.”

The neighbors at the meeting felt they hadn’t been given enough time or information to make a decision about the new changes, so they unanimously passed Resolution 2. That resolution opposes the changes “at this time,” and urges the City Council to “demonstrate community support for [future changes] and the notify those impacted by the change.”

PhinneyRidge thanks our sponsors who make our community reporting possible on an ongoing basis — Seattle Limousines and Airport Shuttles

All in all, the DRB meeting was less eventful than people following the situation might have expected. The group from Fred Meyer opened their presentation by trying to reassure the audience that they’re committed to the community, but the opposition they seemed to be expecting never turned up. Although there were a handful of constructive suggestions to improve the design — better bike access, more entrances to the store, space for a farmers’ market or other local event — nobody was up in arms about any particular element of the proposal.

As Fred Meyer’s Real Estate Director, Tom Gibbons, pointed out at the beginning of the meeting, the design has come a long way since the company proposed a generic big box store back in 1997. Fred Meyer is in no hurry to return to the previous two-story version of the new store. Pushing an “urban village” model appeals to the community, but it’s also motivated by profits. The project’s designers acknowledged that the foot traffic generated by an open, walkable space with retail storefronts and kiosks is going to make or break the store in Greenwood.

Now that the plans for the building include sinking it as far into the ground as Greenwood’s peat bog will allow. The bog is a still a concern for some residents. Former Greenwood Community Council president Kate Martin showed up with a map of the bog, and used it to illustrate the point that water is always going to travel in and out of the area, and Fred Meyer is building at its own risk. In response to other neighbors’ concerns about the bog and the depth of the building, the Board assured everyone that the peat had been thoroughly studied, and that the building wouldn’t be approved if it was too low to meet code.

Several people felt that new building needed more parking, especially with 200 apartment units and new retail that could attract a lot more cars to the area. The Board shut these comments down, though, because parking isn’t a design issue, except that the code requires a minimum number of spaces. The 680 proposed spaces for Fred Meyer meet code, but there’s nothing from adding more if it turns out to be necessary.

For a play-by-play of the meeting, check out phinneyridge.org’s liveblog from Monday night.

Update: A Seattle attorney criticizes - point by point – the city’s design review process and it’s result on the Fred Meyer Greenwood project, sub-optimization of result.

As the Design Review Board approved the Fred Meyer Greenwood Design with comments from the audience, our survey showed the public roughly 57% supporting the project to 43% opposed. Some great comments from the survey are listed below:

Survey Quotes:
Why do I support the project? Because it has financial backing and will happen. GG.DDAG dreams of mix use development on this site are nice but unsustainable.

Combining the store and grocery makes sense, since they’re both already Kroger and shopping all together is convenient, and the current set up is pretty ugly (but I hope the combo would retain the local feel of Greenwood Market as well as good organics and bulk sections). But the neighborhood does not need 300 new apartments. Traffic is bad enough already, and new condo projects all over town are sitting incomplete with no buyers. A quick Craigslist search comes up with 285 apt listings with keyword Greenwood.

We don’t need a superstore in a small retail area.

Megastores are an abomination.

Can’t wait for this project to happen! We need a decent, low-price grocery in this area and to in-fill around Greenwood to build a better neighborhood.

We are planning to provide live updates of the September 28th Fred Meyer design meeting from Ballard High School Library.

6:34: The board members introduce themselves and promise up to 3 hours to get through public comments. Reminder: Design issues only, no environmental issues. The board has no say over those.

6:35: Tom Gibbons, Fred Meyer’s Real Estate Director, is relating the history of the plan for Greenwood.

Gibbons talking about Fred Meyer’s community involvement and local employees. Promises 200 new jobs.

6:40: Architects are up now. Site won’t be rezoned. It’s staying C1-40, which has a 40ft height max. 200 apartments on the roof of the new Fred Meyer, 680 parking spaces. Pedestrian access over the roof. Now showing off pedestrian and vehicle access points.

6:48: The plan has been revised to set the garage back to preserve trees that were a concern at previous meeting. Garage is now 2 stories, with parking on roof. Residential that was on top of the garage has been moved

6:50: Vehicle access has been moved off of 87th. Truck access will be through widened alley on 1st Ave.

6:52: Three options. Fred Meyer wants Option A. Larger apartments, one-story retail facing 85th, ground-level residential parking with plaza access. Two-story garage with parking on lid. Kiosks and standalone retail near entrance.

6:55: Option B.

7:27: 3G reception is working in the room again. The architects are answering questions from the board about increasing the number of access points to the Fred Meyer store. It couldn’t be done because the site had to be lowered, and stairs or elevators would be required.

Board seems to want even more retail.

Question about the garden center: it’s on the ground level and isn’t an access point to the store.

Fred Meyer Greenwood Design

The major design element is that the Fred Meyer store will occupy a primarily underground space, with only four feet of the height of the store appearing above ground. The store will be approx 15 ft underground on the 85th St side, although the 5ft that is above ground will not actually “appear” because it will be wrapped with retail and housing. The full 20 ft of store height will be visible from 1st Ave, and from the proposed extension of Morrow Lane. What this means is that top or “lid” can be divided with housing units and retail facing 85th – so that pedestrians can walk throughout the housing grid. It does mean that the “lid” is at a height from the street ranging from 20 feet on 1st avenue to 6 feet on 3rd Avenue which requires a ramp, elevator, or stairs to reach that level of the development. There are a good variety of ways to walk through the housing development (approximately 200 rental housing apartments) and small retail spaces (25,000 square feet in total) that are above ground.

Vehicle Access Design Changes:
Vehicle access is proposed on 1st avenue at two ground level points, 3rd avenue for the lower level, and via 85th street through the rough center division of the housing area. This is intended to respond to community feedback that entry from 87th street would be destructive to the home environment for houses on 87th and nearby.

Pedestrian Access Design Changes:
Pedestrians may enter on all four sides of the development: on 87th, 1st Avenue, 3rd Avenue, and 85th. This is intended to respond to community feedback that the 160,000+ square foot Fred Meyer for Greenwood would block movement through the development lot. It remains that there is no access near the 85th Street bus stop. The main entrance to the Fred Meyer store will be via 1st Avenue through a pedestrian plaza. You can also enter the store via the parking lot in the rear, from a set of stairs.

Height and Scale:
The development will mix heights ranging from four stories at the 85th Street frontage to the lowest levels at the back of the development’s parking lot. The parking area which will be buffered by trees was focused towards the back of the development at 87th to protect the integrity of housing on that street. Housing was eliminated on top of the parking garage as part of the design changes from the previous community meeting.

Space Alignment with Neighborhood:
The housing units / apartments on the above-ground lid of the Fred Meyer Greenwood store are split into streets so that pedestrians and vehicles can pass through. There are a number of ways to move through the development via a grid, although it is not perfectly aligned to the existing street grid. Morrow Lane will also extend through the development to allow vehicles to pass fully through the alleyway (with parking spaces alongside) between 1st and 3rd Avenues.

Environmental Impacts / Peat Bog Risks
Community members have raised issues regarding the environmental impacts of the peat bog in the area. The developer noted that there are stricter environmental regulations in place today, versus the rules from when Safeway developed nearby. Many believe that the Safeway store had severe negative impacts on the peat bog in the area, by blocking water flow through the peat. This may have caused damage / settling to nearby housing due to changes in soil density. The developer noted their priority to understand the water flow through the building site today, and to ensure that the curent water table (which is 1-2 feet below the store’s planned level) needs to maintain water flow. The existing Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market are alredy built on top of peat, and how this development impacted the peat bog (upon its original construction) is unknown, prior to the current peat bog regulations being developed. The developer has set up numerous monitoring wells and soil logs on the site and is continuing to study the soil hydrology.

The current Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market stores are leased on an “air rights lease” from Greenwood Shopping Center, Inc. The lease for the Greenwood Market expires in 2011, and they have chosen not to renew at the current lease rates. The leases are written as 20 year leases with 5 year extension options.

This area of Greenwood has been designated as an Urban Village, with a goal of concentrating density in the area, convenient to major transit links. The planned site developer – Lorig – has developed over 2,500 apartments in the Seattle area, much of which is focused on student housing. This includes development of Thorton Place, Pike Place Market, and Ujimaya.

The Fred Meyer store is planned to be appproximately 160,000 square feet in a one story plan. Fred Meyer’s other stores (including Redmond) have demonstrated that a second story for the Fred Meyer stores both have much lower sales (by as much as half) and much higher maintenance costs to deliver goods to the 2nd story. The company has determined that a 2 story Fred Meyer at Greenwood is not an economic option to pursue.

Only four feet of the store will be above ground, with the remaining 16 feet below ground, depending on the side of the development that you are facing. The full 20 foot height of the building will be visible, above grade on 1st Avenue. The focus of the new plan is to allow multiple routes for vehicles to enter and multiple routes for pedestrians to pass through the housing grid. In addition – the design works to avoid impacts to the housing on 87th Street. Fred Meyer will also feature a seperate Garden Center with plants and gardening supplies near the small business retail area (above ground) which will have a “sunlight” roof to allow light to pass through to the plants.

Another big change was to eliminate the previously planned housing on top of the parking garage. Now the parking garage remains at the rear of the property – with two stories of parking and a top (3rd floor) for 3 total areas for stacked parking. Note that parking will be shared for the apartment tenants, and the store’s customers. There are 700 parking spaces planned — keeping in mind that we would estimate at least 200+ spaces to be filled by the apartment tenants. The intent here is some alternation of tenants heading to work versus Fred Meyer shoppers, and the store eventually closing. We could see some demand competing for these parking spaces and the average family tenant may have more than one car.

Lorig noted there is no rezoning required by their analysis for the current design of the Fred Meyer complex, named “Piper Village West” after the current Piper Village housing adjacent to the site. The current relatively narrow sidewalks on 85th would also be widened. Where the housing borders the street, a 15 foot setback will be planned that leverages a landscaped berm to buffer pedestrians and traffic from the apartments.

There is currently over 500,000 square feet of retail space in the Greenwood area, and a moderate degree of both vacancies, renovation, and out-of-date / uneconomic retail in the area by the developer’s analysis. The size of the Fred Meyer planned is very similar to the retailer’s presence in Ballard and other Seattle neighborhoods. The independent retail section is now continuous along the 85th street heavy traffic corridor for visibility of these businesses.The independent retailers would have 3 stories of housing atop their stores to make maximum denisty use of the land.

We wanted the community and surrounding Greenwood neighbors to be aware of the proposed changes and will continue to update the story with additional detail as it breaks.

Click Here to take survey

The Greater Greenwood Design Advisory Group has proposed in June 2009 that the proposed development be rezoned to Neighborhood Commericial. The detailed Fred Meyer Greenwood Design rezoning proposal can be found from the link which includes a number of drawings for the alternate vision of the site.