The undersigned 454 includes over 340 Seattle residents that do not support proposed changes to the Design Review Program that we find contrary to the stated goal of “improving community dialog” and “making the program more transparent and accessible to the public”.

In the September 19th PLUZ committee, City Councilmember' O'Brien stated they favored the CB 119057 if  townhouse remain included in the Design Review process. Councilmember Gonzalez concurred with O'Brien. Given over 95 percent of Seattle's townhouse projects are less than 7,800 square feet, the approved thresholds contradict the intent to keep townhouses and rowhouses within the purview of Seattle Design review.  The SDCI has not be asked to affirm that the Councilmembers conditions of approval are achieved in the terms of the council bill. Moreover, the unrestricted use of lot short plat subdivisions will provide a loophole so that almost no multi-family development will be required to go through the CB 119057 Design Review Process.

This public engagement petition requests this Bill to be voted down on September 25 or October 2, 2017 for the reasons stated in the petition (below).

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The changes would not focus Design Review on development projects most likely to influence the character of residential neighborhoods, and there is weak if any evidence presented that these changes would reduce the costs of building housing.

Therefore, this petition calls for the proposed changes to be tabled until the following revisions are comprehensively incorporated into the design review process:

1.   Public notification and a subsequent comment period must be required, standardized and enforceable. Developers should not determine for themselves what constitutes neighborhood outreach.
2.    We reject the proposal to exclude from review projects under 10,000 square feet, which would effectively discontinue review for most low-rise multifamily [L1 zone] projects; and we reject the proposal to discontinue design review of three or more townhouses on a parcel and row house development projects.
3.     Lot Boundary Adjustments must become Type II Decisions, that is, subject to Hearing Examiner appeal. The public must be allowed comment on these decisions as they have the potential to affect issues such as emergency vehicle access, neighbor privacy, amenity requirements and exceptional tree removal.
4.     Parent lot zoning shall be applied to development sites that result from Lot Boundary Adjustments and Short Plat Subdivisions.

Amendments to City Council Bill CB 119057 regarding the building Design Review Program must include:

1.     Standardized and enforceable public notification and comment periods to be required.
2.     Review to be required for all projects with three or more town houses and all row houses.
3.     A revision making Lot Boundary Adjustments (re-drawing lot lines) a decision must be subject to public appeal, and original parent lot zoning to be applied to subsequent lot divisions.