News of Madison Valley
Seattle 2035: Help Shape Our Communities for the Next 20 Years!
People often ask how is it that a certain kind of building can be built, how are parks and open spaces planned, or why did that neighborhood get street enhancements? Much of how we see Seattle shape itself since 1994 is due to Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan: Toward a Sustainable Seattle which has guided growth in Seattle with the goal of fostering a healthy and vibrant city. This was followed up by citywide Neighborhood Planning process, which is supposed to guide and set priorities for Department of Neighborhoods grants to focus on creating “complete” neighborhoods as we grow and change. From guiding investment by the city to something as prosaic as comments requested on a project land use application, the plan sets the social and natural environmental components that are prioritized and considered.
By Washington State law, we must update our plan every 20 years to account for what we have learned and provide the schema for the buildings, processes and priorities to shape growth and investment in the development of Seattle for the next 20 years. Your voice and involvement is critical because this is our plan. It is only through citizen involvement in the planning, and citizen oversight over the next 20 years, that we realize a plan that creates a great city for all of us to live, work, learn and recreate in.
The City of Seattle will hold five community meetings to gather public comments on Seattle 2035, the Draft City of Seattle Comprehensive Plan. The updated Comprehensive Plan will guide city policy and investments for the next 20 years. The meetings will include open house displays and a presentation to provide a broad overview of the Draft Plan, and will highlight major changes.
The first of these open houses is in our neighborhood on:
Monday, October 19
6 – 8pm
Miller Community Center Multipurpose Room
330 19th Ave E.
The Seattle 2035 process of the last year has included a number of community meetings, public hearings, events, and opportunities for online feedback and has culminated in this draft plan. If you participated in any of those events, or are newly interested, consider attending one of the open houses or joining the online conversation at Seattle 2035. The comment period ends November 20.
The public outreach process for the comprehensive plan, as well as other City plans and projects, Doesn't work to inform and direct policy. Instead it feels like the exhaustive process is used to diffuse concerns by never allowing actual discussion with actual decision makers or others. The staff collects comments and makes a report to their bosses that goes something like, "some people liked the idea, and other people didn't" Then the City votes to do whatever it wanted in the first place. That creates an electorate that is at once both apathetic and angry. The gutting of the Comprehensive Plan is matched in it's disservice to the public only buy it's Orwellian double-speak. In one part it will say that we will protect the environment and especially riparian zones and sensitive areas. Then it says 'reasonable development' in those same areas will be allowed. We all know how reasonable those buildings look. i see tax payer dollars being used to fix many mudslides in the future. you know. I bet this comment doesn't make it to anyone.How would one know? They disappear into the black hole of public comments.