Remember Hollywood Video, with their one, sad little TV playing technicolor movies mostly in black-and-white? Seemingly ignored by their corporate overlords, Hollywood Video occupied the huge retail space above Dania, across the courtyard from Starbucks in Roosevelt Square.
Now, this movie return box is all that remains of our last, lonely Roosevelt video store. (Awww! Buck up, kids! Scarecrow is still around! And they’ve always been better anyway. Maybe we can convince them to take over this empty retail space?)
Photo Credit: Benjamin Lukoff (@lukobe)
Got a photo to share? Send it to us (roosiehood@gmail.com) or add it to Benjamin’s Roosevelt and Ravenna Flickr Pool.
Krittika's 65th NE @ NE 9th
When I noticed that “Charm” on NE 65th had become “Krittika’s Noodles” the other day, I figured it was a recent change.
Granted, nobody has ever called me observant, but as @sccottt pointed out, I’m a little behind. According to Yelp, it switched over to the new name in March.
And since I didn’t know whether or not this place was related to the ever-so-delicious Krittika on Latona (in the Green Lake neighborhood), I dragged Mr. Roosiehood and the kids along so I didn’t have to make dinner invited the family to help me find out more details.
One quick glance at the menu had me convinced they were not related: the yellow curry claimed to have “chicken drumsticks” — that doesn’t sound at all like the mouth-watering yellow curry at the Krittika on Latona. But the signature Fiestaware plates told me otherwise.
Only one way to settle this. It’s chow time.
Appetizers: We inhaled the Sampler Appetizer Platter ($7.95), which included a few spring rolls, some deep-fried tofu, and pot-stickers. Nom, nom, nom. Note to self: Next time order two.
Entrees: We played it safe, ordering things that we LOVE at the “other” Krittika. Mr. Roosiehood and I tried the Ginger Chicken, while the kids each got Chicken Pad Thai
Chicken Pad Thai (2 stars!)
The reviews on the Chicken Pad Thai were mixed: 17-year old LOVED the dish, while the 12-year old noticed a fishy flavor and wouldn’t eat more than a bite.
Winner? 17-year old: “Leftovers for me tomorrow!”
The Ginger Chicken was good, but again, the flavor was a bit off. I suspect the same fish sauce used in the Pad Thai.
Atmosphere: nothing extraordinary. Clean and well-lit inside, lovely garden setting outside. We didn’t check out the lounge upstairs, but will make it back there another time, sans-kids.
On our way out, we asked the waitress if this was related in any way to the “other” Krittika. She confirmed that it was the same owner.
Same owner clearly does not equal same food. Krittika on Latona is still my favorite, but this place fits the bill for good Thai food within Roosevelt’s central business area. Walking distance, outside seating, and decent Thai iced tea. Score!
Krittika’s Noodles and Thurst Lounge
815 NE 65th Street
Hours: Mon-Sun 11 am – 9:30 pm
Krittika’s Noodles and Thai Cuisine
6411 Latona Ave NE
Hours: Mon-Fri 11am-9:30pm, Sat, Sun 5pm-9:30pm
It was fantastic to see KING5′s coverage last night about the RDG’s plan to ruin Roosevelt (my opinion!) and we THANK them for covering our ‘hood. However, it may not be entirely clear to them where they were standing, since they reported that they were in Ravenna.
Which begs the question: “Well, where does one end and the other begin?”
We’re here to clear that up.
Roosevelt is bordered on the south by Ravenna Blvd., to the east by I-5, and to the west by 15th Ave. NE. Our north border goes all the way up to 85th, where Maple Leaf starts. In fact, between NE 75th and NE 85th, the east border extends to 20th NE.
Ravenna is a bit more complicated, but suffice to say that we do share a common border: 15th NE. This may be where KING5 was confused, and rightly so! Several of the Sisley properties near Roosevelt High School were proposed to be annexed into Roosevelt per the RDG’s plan, but they are currently part of Ravenna.
Ravenna Blog and Roosiehood have joined forces to try to unravel the mysteries of the rezoning and development issues. Check our recent articles to learn more, and feel free to post questions in the comments below or hit us up on Twitter (@roosiehood, @ravennablog). We’ll be happy to find you answers if we don’t have them!
More:
- Council Committee Votes to Remove RDG Comp Plan Amendment (July 28th, 2010)
- Urgent: Action needed to stop development in Roosevelt (July 27, 2010)
- Roosevelt-Ravenna Zoning Issues — an Interview with Glenn Roberts (July 20, 2010)
Oh, KING5, why didn’t you do your homework? Roosevelt High School and the Sisley/ RDG properties you were filming were most certainly in ROOSEVELT, not Ravenna. Even Ravenna Blog agrees with us on this one. Jim O’Halloran, the guy you interviewed, is on the board of the ROOSEVELT Neighborhood Association.
Here’s a shot of the sunset from our Roosevelt neighborhood this evening. The beautiful, bright orange color was caused by smoke from some wildfires up in British Columbia.
The Ravenna Blog just posted an email response from the President of the Seattle City Council, Richard Conlin regarding the proposed amendment to the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. Read it! It gives us the warm fuzzies.
If you haven’t yet emailed your council members about the Roosevelt Development Group’s proposed amendment, or don’t even know what’s being planned, please check our earlier post about the issue.
Email addresses and other contact info for council members can be found here: http://www.cityofseattle.net/council/
Keep up the good work, Roosevelt citizens!
Great news! Your letters and phone calls helped! The City Council’s Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) today voted unanimously to remove the Roosevelt Development Group’s (RDG) Comp Plan amendment from further consideration on this year’s Comp Plan amendment policy docket. (Pending full council vote next week.)
Watch the webcast of this morning’s 2010/2011 Committee on the Built Environment meeting on the Seattle Channel website. (They are organized by date. Just look for the 7/28/2010 meeting.)
Please take a moment to email the COBE committee members and THANK them for their vote. If you haven’t emailed to express your concern, you STILL HAVE TIME. We’ve even created a handy letter you can cut and paste.
A letter from Jim O’Halloran of the RNA to the Roosevelt community is posted below. (Reposted from the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association Blog.)
Neighbors,
Only minutes ago, City Council’s Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) voted unanimously to *remove* the RDG Comp Plan amendment from further consideration on this year’s Comp Plan amendment policy docket. This is exactly what we asked them to do, and I’m thrilled to be able to share this news with you now.COBE’s vote this morning, from three councilmembers (Clark, Burgess and Bagshaw) is *not final* until the full Council takes a vote, probably on Monday, August 2nd. I am confident, however, that full Council will support this position.
Please understand what we have accomplished. Two weeks ago, the RDG Comp Plan amendment seemed headed for easy passage. DPD recommended it. The Seattle Planning Commission recommended it. Even City Council’s own Central Staff recommended that this amendment be included on the policy docket. It was only the outpouring of passionate yet well-reasoned, and exquisitely well-timed e-mail from the Community which moved this mountain. There’s a big lesson here for all of us; please share it with your children!
Thank you to everyone who wrote to our City Councilmembers. Your e-mails were stirring but for the most part struck the just the right tone of reason. This is what distinguishes us as a neighborhood; not just ranting but taking responsibility for our future, and offering constructive input to our elected officials. I hope you can see how effective we can be, when we organize around some commonly agreed principles.
Special thanks to those of you who were able to make the extra effort to attend this morning’s COBE meeting: John Adams (and his capable summer intern architect), Diane Haddock, Melissa Westbrook, Renee Davis, Judith Leconte, Bill Dunning and others I may have missed. Your presence was influential. I would have been there but I’m stuck in Oregon on business.
If you’d like to watch the COBE meeting on the Internet, it should be posted by early this afternoon online at http://www.seattlechannel.org/ Look for the “July 28 meeting of the Committee on the Built Environment”.
I have one other thought for you at this time. If your e-mail fingers are not totally worn out from writing to Council, consider just one more quick message, a *thank you* to COBE members, for their recognition of Community input, and for their vote to strike Comp Plan amendment #8. Please note that Sally Clark took a genuine leadership position on this issue, working behind the scenes with DPD, and that she chose to override the recommendation of all advisors sitting at the table, with her own Amendment to the Resolution setting the Comp Plan policy docket. Sally Bagshaw was effusive in her compliments for the Roosevelt neighborhood at the COBE meeting this morning; she’s also listening to us. And Tim Burgess was part of the unanimous “yes” vote which carried the day for the Community.
This battle’s not won ‘till the full Council votes on Monday, but I’ve gone out on a limb with my own notes of thanks, to provide quick, positive reinforcement for our friends on City Council.
Thank you, neighbors, for your interest and support on this Comp Plan issue. We’ve really made a difference!
Jim O’Halloran
Chair, Land Use Committee
Roosevelt Neighborhood Association
We’ve joined together with Ravenna Blog to make it SUPER easy for you to let the council know how you feel about the proposed amendment to the 2010-2011 Seattle Comprehensive Plan. The meeting is tomorrow morning at 9am, so HURRY — get your email in TONIGHT!
The letter and council members to send to are below. Just copy and paste into an email, make any edits you’d like to make, and you’re done. EASY.
(For more information, see our earlier post with the letter from Jim O’Halloran of the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: In your e-mail subject line, do NOT use the term “rezone”, because this may cause your e-mail to be screened out of Councilmember’s mail. The RDG contract rezone process is now considered “quasi-judicial”, which means that Councilmembers cannot have any direct communication with affected parties. The Comp Plan amendment process, on the other hand, is openly conducted.
Your help is not only appreciated, but it is CRITICAL to the future development of our neighborhood. THANK YOU!
Send your email to:
Sally Clark, sally.clark@seattle.gov
Sally Bagshaw, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov
Tim Burgess, tim.burgess@seattle.gov
Tom Rasmussen, tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov
Subject Line: Reject amendment #8 from the 2010-2011 Seattle Comp Plan
Dear Councilmember <name>
As a resident of the Roosevelt/Ravenna neighborhood, I am writing to urge you and all other City Council members to reject amendment #8 from the 2010-2011 Comprehensive plan policy docket.
The Roosevelt Development Group (RDG) has submitted an application to City Council, to amend the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. The RDG proposal, among other things, would annex several properties in Ravenna near 15th Ave NE and NE 65th St to become part of the Roosevelt Urban Village. Moreover, the RDG Comp Plan amendment does not meet all of the necessary criteria, and would change some of the key provisions in the recently updated Roosevelt Neighborhood Plan, especially as it relates to the preservation of single family housing.
1. The RDG Comp Plan amendment does not meet Council’s requirement that the applicant has conducted “outreach” with the affected community. A key criterion for docketing this item is to engage the neighborhood in the review process before final Council consideration of this amendment. Neighbors were only aware of the existence and content of the RDG’s 2009 and 2010 Comp Plan amendment applications after they were filed with the City. No Comp Plan outreach has occurred. The applicant listed a series of community meetings as evidence of outreach, but in none of these meetings, or at any other time, did specific discussion of the Comp Plan amendments take place between the applicant and the community. As a resident of Roosevelt/Ravenna, I am offended that this has been misrepresented by the applicant.
2. An existing neighborhood planning process has already taken place and rezoning recommendations were presented by the community in July 2006. The Community’s land use recommendations cover the entire station area, unlike RDG’s Comp Plan, which would address only a corner of the community. To accept a developer’s proposal—even just for study—ahead of and around a longstanding community request, sends a very discouraging message to neighborhoods across the City about the value of our volunteer efforts in neighborhood planning.
3. The applicant does not have the neighborhood in its best interests. The Roosevelt Development Group (RDG) and Hugh Sisley (the property owner) have allowed their properties to become run-down to the point where they are an eyesore, a danger to the community, and hurt property values in the surrounding area. They have had little regard for the Roosevelt and Ravenna communities in the past, and cannot possibly have the well being of the neighborhood in mind for the future. This type of behavior should not be rewarded.
I support the position outlined by the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association (RNA) and strongly oppose further consideration of Comp Plan amendment #8.
Thank you,
<your name and email address here>
UPDATE, 7/27 – 5:00pm: Please make sure your voice is heard. Cut and paste our email to the council!
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160-foot tall buildings in Roosevelt? I think not.
The Roosevelt Neighborhood Association just posted this update about the proposed development on the Sisley properties at 65th and 15th in Roosevelt. Please read and take action!
Quick Action Needed to Resist Bad Planning
There are two separate events unfolding right now with respect to the Sisley properties near Roosevelt High School. One is the “contract rezone”, which was the topic of the EIS Scoping Meeting last week at Calvary. Comments on that issue are due by Aug. 4, as outlined in another recent e-mail. The other activity is much less visible, but technically important to the developer’s plan, and on a very fast track at City Council (this Wednesday).
The Roosevelt Development Group (RDG) has submitted an application to City Council, to *amend* the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. The RDG proposal, among other things, would annex several properties in Ravenna near 15th Ave NE and NE 65th St to become part of the Roosevelt Urban Village. Moreover, the RDG Comp Plan amendment would change some of the key provisions in the recently updated Roosevelt Neighborhood Plan, especially as it relates to the preservation of single family housing. You can find the entire text of RDG’s proposal in the list (#8) of proposed Comp Plan amendments at this site: http://www.seattle.gov/council/comp_plan/201011amendments.htm
The Roosevelt Neighborhood Association (RNA) has taken a strong position in opposition to the RDG Comp Plan amendment as outlined in the letter and attachment which can be found here (the attachment referred to in the letter can be found here). There’s a lot of detail to the argument, and you needn’t study it carefully, but understand the RNA’s two major points:
(1) The RDG Comp Plan amendment does not meet Council’s requirement that the applicant has conducted “outreach” with the affected community. In fact, RDG has misrepresented meetings with the Community as genuine engagement on their Comp Plan Amendment. This is not true, as the e-mail attachment forcefully makes clear.
(2) The RDG Comp Plan amendment is positioned as a responsible and productive initiative to study increased density near the future transit station. The RNA disagrees, and presses DPD and City Council to first study the neighborhood’s rezoning recommendations (“The Warren Report”) issued in 2006. The Community’s land use recommendations cover the entire station area, unlike RDG’s Comp Plan, which would address only a corner of the community. “Comprehensive Planning” should cover the whole station area.
The RDG Comp Plan amendment will be considered on Wednesday morning, July 28 at the City Council Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) meeting at 9:00 AM at City Hall. John Adams, RNA Vice President and Diane Haddock, Ravenna neighborhood land use representative are each planning to sign up for public comment at the beginning of the meeting. Other community members are encouraged to attend, to speak your own piece or to simply stand in support of your neighborhood representative. The COBE meeting will be broadcast live on Seattle Channel 21, and posted on the City’s website within a few hours.
I realize that attending the meeting will not be practical for most folks, but I would like to ask you to send an e-mail to City Councilmembers before they meet on Wednesday morning. Your message can be as simple as “I support the position outlined by the RNA, and I oppose further consideration of Comp Plan amendment #8” or you may say anything you like, of course. While careful, original comments have a lot of impact, the most important thing is just to send something; the number of e-mails counts a lot.
Who are you writing to? Mainly, the members of the “COBE” committee which will meet on Wednesday morning:
Sally Clark, sally.clark@seattle.gov
Sally Bagshaw, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov
Tim Burgess, tim.burgess@seattle.gov and
Tom Rasmussen, tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov
I recommend also writing to Councilmembers Jean Godden and Bruce Harrell, who each seem to have taken a special interest in Roosevelt land use issues. Of course it can’t hurt to contact each of the nine City Councilmembers (individually is best, but it’s OK to “cc” councilmembers). Whatever you can manage.
IMPORTANT NOTE: In your e-mail “subject line”, do NOT use the term “rezone”, because this may cause your e-mail to be screened out of Councilmember’s mail. The RDG contract rezone process is now considered “quasi-judicial”, which means that Councilmembers cannot have any direct communication with affected parties. The Comp Plan amendment process, on the other hand, is openly conducted.
Frankly, we’ve got an uphill battle on this issue. But Council needs to know how much opposition there is and I think they can be swayed. So please send an e-mail if you can, by Tuesday night if possible. Thank you for your support. Sorry for the long e-mail, and the short time frame in which to act. Things are happening pretty quickly right now.
Jim O’Halloran
Chair, Land Use Committee
Roosevelt Neighborhood Association
What would you like your neighborhood to look like?
Probably NOT like this:
Photo courtesy of Glenn Roberts: www.glennaroberts.com/ravenna-park-north
Would you rather see 160-foot-tall buildings? Or perhaps a big box store? Or BOTH?
Ravenna Blog and The Roosevelt Neighborhood Blog (Roosie Hood) have teamed up to try and shed some light on these concerns by interviewing Glenn Roberts, author and administrator of the blog Roosevelt-Ravenna Zoning Issues.
Glenn does not claim to be an expert on all things Sisely property-related, but he’s been following the saga of neighborhood vs. property owner/developer vs. city ever since he moved into the neighborhood (and started talking to neighbors about it in 2005, when then property manager Keith Gilbert was arrested on felony weapons charges). Glenn’s been in the real estate business for 25 years, spending the last 22 with the same brokerage here in Seattle. He and his Realtor wife have been residents of the Ravenna Park area for almost two decades, and his son attended Roosevelt High School.
Ravenna Blog/Roosie Hood: To start off in a place we can all relate to, what the %&$#! are all those boarded up buildings along NE 65th Street and 15th Avenue NE? Do you have an elevator speech answer to that question?
Glenn Roberts: About two years ago, Hugh Sisley offered to lease his properties for a term of 99 years. Another stipulation that the leasee has disclosed is that Sisley can disapprove of the development if the design isn’t to his specifications. What his specifications are has not been disclosed.
You don’t get an elevator speech here.
The buildings are boarded up because the leasee paid off the tenants to leave and then secured the property with the fence. They say they can’t tear them down because if the terms of the lease aren’t met, they will give up their option and return the properties to the landowner as they were when they got them.
I don’t believe them. It costs real money to properly tear down a building and if they were to pay for it, Sisley would surely (IMO) let them. But they both may want them to stay up so that public opinion from Seattle at large will say, “Anything will be better than those buildings.”
The landowner has a bad rep, and he will still be the landowner if any buildings are completed. Our main focus is A) To see that Sisley or anyone else does not own huge multi-unit buildings at this location and B) To allow the neighborhood to develop as needed according to the zoning currently in place.
RB/RH: So, Hugh Sisley owns most of the properties in question, and the Roosevelt Development Group (RDG) is the lease holder. Current tenants at the time got paid to leave, and the buildings are boarded up (“secured”). I’m also seeing this spelled out in a Seattle P-I article from 2007 entitied, “Run-down Roosevelt buildings are goners.”
One would assume the next phase would be planning. What does the current zoning for the area look like, and what would the developers like to see there instead?
GR: Most sensible city zoning including the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association (RNA) plan call for the tallest buildings to be in the commercial core and taper down to the single family neighborhoods. The Roosevelt core is between Roosevelt Way NE and 12th Ave NE. It’s a small urban village. What RDG is proposing is Urban Sprawl in the village. This kind of development would wipe out the concept of village here.
As for the tapering effect, putting 160 foot buildings up against 27 1/2 foot zoning of single family is ridiculous, ludicrous and inane. Yet that’s what the RDG plan calls for on the Sisely lots. The current zoning has 40 foot limits.
They also want to up the zoning from Commercial 2 to Commercial 3. That would allow for a Costco, Walmart or other monstrosity here in the neighborhood.
RB/RH: And to go back to that first question, it feels as though there are two sides to that %&$#! coin: Why have those properties been boarded-up eye sores for so long, and what does the owner plan to do with them?
Map of the Sisley/RDG properties (from 2009; shown to highlight properties being discussed) Courtesy www.glennaroberts.com/ravenna-park-north
GR: They have been boarded up because of several issues that have to do with city regulations.
1. For a long time now there has been a regulation that you cannot tear down a home on a property unless you have permits in place to build a new on. This was the city’s way of preserving taxes. They reasoned that it was cheaper to remodel an existing house than build a new one, but I think the assessed value of the deteriorated house was always more than that of vacant land. This law changed last year, but the tearing down or not is up to the owner, not the city or the neighborhood.
2. When you have existing low income housing (which Sisley can certainly say his were) and you accommodate the renters losing their homes for rebuilding by giving them money to relocate (RDG did that) you get credit to build more units or to build higher buildings, as long as you replace the buildings within a certain amount of time. So, they want to keep them up until they have permits or they could lose those credits.
RB/RH: Have any of the local neighborhood associations weighed in on the issue? Roosevelt Neighborhood Association? Roosevelt Neighbors’ Alliance? Ravenna-Bryant Community Association?
GR: The RNA has spent years developing a growth plan and it has been accepted by the city and should be sufficient for the next 40 years, light rail or no light rail. It is a good plan. The Ravenna-Bryant Community Association leadership has expressed support for the RNA Plan and opposition to the RDG Comp plan change. I belong to a small group of Ravenna neighbors who oppose the RDG plan and publicize everything we can.
RB/RH: You’ve been following the Sisley/Roosevelt Development Group saga for a while now, most notably at your blog, Roosevelt-Ravenna Zoning Issues. Can you provide us with a general timeline of Sisley’s/RDG’s purchases?
GR: About 30 or more years ago, Hugh Sisley was the janitor at Roosevelt High School. He managed to buy some properties back when Boeing went bust in the early 70s, I imagine. Possibly he learned then that a run down property diminishes the value of the property next door. Eventually his empire grew. RDG has purchased four properties that Sisely did not already own in the zone, in the last two years.
RB/RH: Sisley himself was a member of the neighborhood (perhaps in vocation only), purchased the properties over time, and then left them to rot, essentially, bringing down the value of the entire area? Has the neighborhood or the City of Seattle tried to do anything about this?
GR: The recent City ordinance concerning registration of landlords and inspection of rentals is in part a means to enforce clean up of properties like Sisley’s. You also might notice that three or four of Sisley’s properties were torn down last year. I wish I knew the mechanism that forced that so I could try to make it happen on the others. Neighbors should write to the city council and to the mayor and insist that those unused, never to be used again buildings be removed. There are a haven for vermin, a fire hazard, a location inviting graffiti, and an eyesore. They have no place in the community.
RB/RH: At this time, what would you advise a concerned citizen to do?
GR: Oppose everything Sisley and RDG want to do until they meet the design of the RNA plan. Citizens should go to meetings and let their voice be heard. They should write to the city council and express themselves. They should be involved.
RB/RH: You yourself are a real estate agent and live in the Ravenna neighborhood. What do you say to those who may cry NIMBY over your stand (or others’) on the rezoning issue?
GR: If you own, anywhere, NIMBYism is an important part of making neighborhoods better all across the country. If you are a short term renter, you probably don’t have stake in how towns and cities grow and thrive, or how they fall into ruin.
For my part, I’ll continue to be proactive in the future of my neighborhood and be proud of doing so.
Glenn Roberts is a Seattle residential Realtor residing in the Ravenna neighborhood. He writes and administrates a number of blogs, including Ravenna Park – North and Roosevelt-Ravenna Zoning Issues. You can read much more about the Sisley properties, zoning, Environmental Impact Studies and much much more at both of those sites.
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This is your neighborhood. Want to get involved?
- Attend the EIS meeting on 7/21 at Calvary Temple (6801 Roosevelt)
- Contact your city officials and let them know you want them to DO SOMETHING about the boarded up houses.
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