Seattle Press on Line - City Drops Ball; County Encourages Sprawl

There From Here

City Drops Ball; County Encourages Sprawl

By Tara Peattie

Jan 03, 2002 -- King County has signed an agreement to buy nearly a third of Simon Properties' Northgate South Lot, a 12-acre eyesore used around Christmas-time for overflow mall parking, and occasionally for recreational vehicle sales and such. The space will be used to double the number of park & ride spaces to 1000 for the Northgate bus station. The county issued a nice, carefully myopic statement mentioning how great this will be for the Northgate neighborhood, because commuters won't have to park illegally in nearby office building lots. But this is not really the county's (and taxpayers') issue to address, it's an enforcement problem for the office owners.

Pity those who want or need to drive partway to work and wish to catch the bus at the city's northend, but adding new parking to Northgate is like giving salt water to the thirsty, with 72 acres of impervious surface taken up just for the mall and mall parking. Besides, there's still the inconvenient issue of Thornton Creek. For all the county's vague politically correct talk about "transit-oriented development" for the site, the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund and other Northgate neighbors still set sites on daylighting the creek that runs under the mall's south lot.

Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, Citizens for a Liveable Northgate, The Sierra Club, and others were nearing an understanding with Security Properties, a potential buyer that was negotiating with the environmental and neighborhood groups and the city to develop housing with city financing to surface the creek. The major issue still to be determined was how the city would finance its portion. Tax increment financing was the method under discussion, a method that needs sign-off from King County. While County Councilwoman Cynthia Sullivan, who represents Seattle's north end, was confident that this would work, King County Executive Ron Sims said the financing was a no-start. It would have been around that time (early September) that King County Department of Transportation started the permitting process to buy the portion of the South Lot. Coincidence? Jan Brucker of Citizens for a Liveable Northgate thinks not. This permitting process would have involved county and city officials, and no one privy to the process chose to inform Northgate neighbors and interested groups that the county was working on its own deal.

"The county consistently led us to believe that they were only interested in leasing parking from Security Properties, once a full, site-development plan was in place," said Brucker.

When the City of Seattle cannot look after its own interests, why expect more from the county? And who can blame the city for looking the other way? After all, we're in a recession! This deal erases a portion of the Northgate Problem. The "Problem" is that adding affordable housing at Northgate is part of the Neighborhood Comprehensive Plan, and saving salmon is part of city ordinance. Not to mention that Northgate is slated for a community center and a library. Before elections, city officials showed up for all the community meetings and said so. But it's all expensive! Better to look the other way for a few months. Now, just in time for a low-profile Friday-before-Christmas news release -- Whoops! The county just bought our project out from under us.

The bad news is, once you put in additional parking spaces, they don't go away. They may move, but they won't disappear.

The good news is that nothing has changed that much. One third of the lot will remain a parking lot, as it has been for 40 years, except now it will be used. Security Properties may still buy the remaining portion for home construction, the creek, and whatever else it may negotiate with the city. Jeanne Muir, spokeswoman for Security Properties, said that "At worst the deal with the county is neutral, if not good. The county and Security Properties have been in contact since March, when Security bought the option; we are both interested in partnering...possibly with the county paying for underground parking if Security Properties built housing." So if Security secures a deal, the park & ride could move and the additional space could be put to better use.

The environmental groups still have the same powerful tool at hand as before; they can sue for salmon or find other ways to apply pressure to deal with long-neglected runoff and drainage problems, and secure an Environmental Impact Statement.

Asked if the City dropped the ball on pitching in funds for full-site development, Janet Way, of Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund states, "The city never picked up the ball. They did not exactly leap into this game. In a sense, now may be a better time. Some members of [Mayor-elect] Nickels' transition team have supported daylighting the creek in the past. With a smaller property, theoretically the developer will have to spend less and the city would pay less to daylight this segment. Also, the city owns a 40-foot easement at the creek, and could take action to acquire the creek corridor."

For now, instead of the promise of 500 new housing units at Northgate to keep folks near jobs, we've got the dubious promise of 500 new park & ride spots so folks can drive part way to work and get "free" parking (not free for the taxpayer). Hopefully it's not too late to salvage some of the plan for housing and green space for which so many various parties have worked.

Tara Peattie can be reached at peattie@drizzle.com.

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