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| Accepting the 2012 Smart Communities Award are City Manager Julie Underwood, Mayor Keith McGlashan and Councilmember Chris Roberts |
On June 8, Governor Chris Gregoire announced the winners of her 2012 Smart Communities Awards. The City of Shoreline received a judges’ merit award for its Town Center Subarea Plan.
The Smart Communities award recognizes outstanding efforts of local communities and their partners throughout the state to create quality communities through achieving the goals of the Growth Management Act and other community development objectives.
“We need vibrant, quality communities to keep and attract people and businesses to Washington state,” Gregoire said. “I commend the work of those local governments and their partners recognized with this award. Their efforts are vital to our continued economic recovery, and help make Washington a great state in which to live and do business.”
The plan and its corresponding development regulations are aimed at creating a sense of place for the entire Shoreline community. It furthers the City’s goals for economic vitality, environmental sustainability and housing choices.
“On behalf of the Council, it’s an honor to be recognized as a community that is engaging in smart growth,” stated Mayor Keith McGlashan. “It is also a testament to the hard work put in by the Planning Commission, City staff and the many community members that contributed to the development of the Town Center Subarea Plan.”
Shoreline City Council adopted the Town Center Subarea Plan in July 2011. It identifies the lands along Aurora Avenue N between N 170th and N 188th Streets between Linden and Stone Avenues as the core of an emerging Town Center with the goal of creating an attractive, compact, walkable and mixed-use center. With good transit services along Aurora, the Town Center capitalizes on its central location in Shoreline and its “close-in” regional location as a focal point for much of the City’s future commercial and residential growth.
Town Center is envisioned to be a neighborhood for the whole City. For more information on the plan and code visit the City website.
Too bad that Julie Underwood pushed out Joe Tovar who made the Town Center Sub-Area happen. I see she is perfectly willing to claim all the credit, however.
ReplyDeleteMr. Tovar was a visionary and the most ethical employee Shoreline ever had. Probably not a big surprise he didn't fit in with the underwood regime.
ReplyDeleteYes, Joe Tovar deserves the credit. No doubt about it!
ReplyDeleteCheck out the eerie idylic video the Planning Department crafted, showing children and pets playing carefree with steps of an oddly vehicle-sparse Aurora Avenue. Boulevard my eye!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFCD6iJHqGw&feature=player_embedded