Email your council members about proposed Roosevelt / Ravenna development

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 15^th Ave NE and NE 65^th 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>