Futurewise awards City Livable Communities Award for 185th Street Station Subarea Plan
Sunday, March 27, 2016
From the City of Shoreline
On March 16, Futurewise awarded the City a Livable Communities Award for its 185th Street Station Subarea Plan. The award recognizes the City’s efforts to encourage smart growth in the community through adoption of policies and regulations that exemplify smart land use principles, which help to create healthy communities.
“As the region continues to grow, so will Shoreline,” stated Shoreline Mayor Chris Roberts. “The work we did on the 185th Street Station Subarea helps ensure that growth is concentrated around transit investments instead of allowing it to spread throughout the city. This will help create a more walkable community, with greater housing options, and will better support neighborhood businesses.”
The City has resumed the planning process for the 145th Street Station Subarea Plan, which will be a similar process to the 185th planning process. More information and find out about upcoming meetings here.
As a smart growth advocate, Futurewise works to protect forests, farms, and shorelines by limiting development on critical rural and resource lands and habitat. Futurewise’s Livable Communities program advocates and promotes vibrant, compact, livable development in our urban communities by supporting housing options, transportation choices, and smart development patterns.
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1 comments:
Oh really, Futurewise? Isn't this award really just for you and your network of developers who fund your organization?
First, you assembled, led, and steered the 185th Citizen's Committee. You chased out anyone critical of mass-density from the get-go, and as the process continued. Better yet, you got a couple of your community volunteers to do it for you, and rather *aggressively* at that. You hosted their website. You led the doorbelling campaign that didn't even reach a fraction of the people impacted by the upzoning, and who only knows what people were told as they went door to door.
It was said in one draft of plancom meeting minutes that "Futurewise is now supporting the citizens committee in appropriate ways." So, in what way were you inappropriately supporting them before?
Is there some reason that Futurewise didn't get as involved with the 145th committee? No website for them? No doorbelling campaign? What gives? Was it because you figured out that lobbying for mega-density adjacent to wetlands was going to negate your "friend of the environment" reputation? Well, don't worry, that reputation is already ruined and it didn't even take a conspiracy theory to accomplish it. Just a little common sense and a thick skin to deflect the NIMBY name calling.
Encouraging development with a large footprint in areas with a mature tree canopy, neighborhood wildlife, and known drainage issues is not SMARTGROWTH! Who do you think you're kidding? In what way could that possibly be considered "smart land use principles, which help to create healthy communities".
And don't kid yourself that this is "creating more housing choices" in any way. There are plenty of vacant apartments and condos in Shoreline as it stands. What you have set the stage for, is the removal of housing choices in our area. Developers aren't going to tear down expensive homes for redevelopment. They're going to tear down the small, affordable single family homes in the area. Which means, less housing stock for starter homes and house rentals that families can afford. But, sorry folks, the takeaway here is that if you're lower to middle class, you don't deserve to live in modest house with a yard. Just go squeeze you and your family into a cramped apartment or condo.
And if you believe the City's, Futurewise's, and all the other lobbyist's tripe about "what millennials want" and all the articles and studies they cited, here's a couple items for you to consider.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ford-says-millennials-are-buying-bigger-suvs/ar-BBqxMdX?srcref=rss
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/guess-whos-moving-to-the-suburbs-now/ar-AAgzrCe?srcref=rss
The simplistic, one-dimensional idea that upzoning is going to fix all of problems that every City in our region is facing is baloney! The neighborhoods are changing and will change with or without upzoning. Businesses will begin to establish themselves and flourish with or without this insane level of upzoning, as long as the City Council begins to make smart policy decisions (like no TIF) in regard to encouraging the types of businesses that the public keeps telling them they'd like to see.
Would a block or so of restaurants and Cafe's around the future stations be nice? Of course it would. And that could be accomplished without upzoning large, gaping areas... some of which aren't even within the 0.5 mile walk-shed! Change happens everyday, as does progress. This "vibrant", "livable" propaganda is BS and most everyone has figured that out by now.
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