University Community Urban Center
Sounding Board

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Meeting Notes

University Heights Center for the Community
Thursday, February 15th, 2001, 5:30-7:15 p.m.

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Attendees:Jeannie Hale (Laurelhurst), Chris Leman (Eastlake), Hans Aschenbach (RNA), Jon Layzer (City SPO), Julian Saucedo (Compton, City Council), Nancy Bocek (RNA), Greg Hill (Wallingford), Karen Ko (City UNSC), Jack Whisner, Larry Sinnott (RBCA), Jorgen Bader (RBCA), Joe Waldmann (P&J), Katy Carter (Wills, City Council), John Deeter.

Announcements

Richard Conlin (City Council) will host a meeting at U. Heights on March 27th, at 7 p.m. Details later.

There will be an open house and presentation regarding Revised Station Area Overlay and Rezones on Tuesday, March 6th, 5:30 to 8 p.m., in U. Heights room 209. For details see <http://www.cityofseattle.net/planning/homesap.htm>.

Car Smart Community Challenge Grants are available to pay for expenses of projects organized by individuals or groups that reduce car trips by encouraging alternative modes of travel. For details see <http://www.cityofseattle.net/carsmart/grants.htm>.

Flex-Car (shared car ownership) is coming soon to the U. District.

University District Parking Study

Hans Aschenbach raised questions about the relationship between the currently ongoing U. District Parking Study and the University Area Transportation Study now getting underway. He felt that there was a push to reduce parking requirements in the name of "affordable housing." Shared parking programs have been abused, effectively allowing unintended uses, such as commuter parking. Spillover parking from commercial districts and "hide-n-ride" bus commuters affect adjacent residential areas. Funding is needed for residential parking zones (RPZs) and for better enforcement of parking codes. It is unacceptable that citizen complaints are necessary to get code enforcement. Carrots to encourage non-auto ownership (better transit, especially Link subway) are good, but sticks are also needed to enforce parking regulations.

Jack Whisner commented that people should pay for on-street (curb) parking, and these funds could be used to support non-auto (or enforcement) programs.

University Area Transportation Study

Jon Layzer (City SPO) took over the chair for the UATS portion of the meeting. The major topic for tonight's meeting was an overview of public involvement activities. He listed five categories:

Public involvement meetings:

Jon selected the Sounding Board as the host of primary public involvement meetings, since no organized community group was able to commit a one-hour block of time on a regular basis. He wanted to have working sessions that were long enough to permit a detailed discussion of the scheduled topics. Jeannie Hale suggested that the NEDC (or a subcommittee of the NEDC) was a more appropriate host since University area transportation problems affected a much larger area. Jon Layzer felt that a formal group was unnecessary for his purposes. John Deeter commented that other loosely organized "working groups" (such as the Station Area Advisiory Committee) have worked fine.

Jon will also meet on a frequent basis with other selected groups for whom the Sounding Board does not provide sufficient opportunity to meet public involvement goals. He is still scheduling first-time meetings with community groups that might be interested in this level of involvement.

Hans Aschenbach is leading an effort to set up a bicycle group (Greater University District Bicycle Working Group) to collate previous studies and ideas for bicycle improvements in the U. District and surrounding areas (such as better bicycle links across I-5). Jon Layzer is having his consultants sift through all previous transportation studies, and they should be able to extract information useful for the bicycle group.

Open Houses:

It was remarked that open houses should be used to obtain real public input, and that previous open houses have not had the appearance of doing this. Recording has not always been complete, and comments have not been preserved and catalogued. Public discussions are necessary in to enable the public to share ideas. Summaries of comments should be made available. Jon promised that the open houses would involve public comment and welcomed input about possible formats. He also promised that open house discussions would be made public (e.g., posted on the web site).

Project Website:

There was discussion that public agency websites are often difficult to navigate, and that the URL for specific information should be identified (rather than the general instruction, "it's somewhere on the City site").

Other information:

Jon ended his presentation with a few additional hand-outs: "Rules of the Road" (how to participate effectively in small groups); a "typical agenda" for future UATS sessions of the Sounding Board; and a "Review of Existing Transportation Studies" listing previous studies relevant to the UATS.

Future meetings of the Sounding Board

There was consensus that about one hour of upcoming meetings of the Sounding Board would be reserved for the UATS. It was agreed to start with the UATS, and take up any other topics afterwards. Tentative topics for upcoming meetings:

John Deeter will continue to maintain the web site and listserv.

Next meeting

Thursday, March 15th, 5:30 p.m.
University Heights Center for the Community, room 110

Notes by J. Deeter.