Phase II Planning Elements (Outlined by Special Interest)
Human Services | Housing | Transportation | Economic Dev. | Urban Design | Open Space & Leisure | Children & Families
The work plan is designed to accomplish the following general themes:
Organization
Provide unified management and vision for the community. The Planning Committee and Issue Subcommittees must organize and manage the work plan. They must ensure tasks are completed, facilitate coordination, decide between competing priorities, and attend to fiscal responsibilities of managing contracts and budgets with the City of Seattle. Most importantly, the Planning Committee's decisions should reflect the community's objectives.
Outreach
Ensure representation of a broad cross section of community, organizations, institutions and interest groups in the planning process. Because of Capitol Hill's diversity, it is especially important that all segments of the population are represented throughout Phase II. Community and interest groups such as churches, arts groups, and ethnic and social organizations are a cohesive force in the community. Incorporating their interest and activities into the plan will bring their support to the plan. Since the Capitol Hill Urban Center Village is part of the First Hill/Capitol Hill Urban Center, Capitol Hill will also need to coordinate with the First Hill and Pike/Pine Urban Villages during the Phase II process.
Analysis
Examine implications of growth projections relative to the community's desire to preserve its existing density and character. Seattle's Comprehensive Plan projects extensive growth within the community. At the same time, community participants expressed the desire to protect and maintain Capitol Hill's existing assets including a wide range of residential types, buildings with historic character, and neighborhood-oriented business districts. The planning analysis must identify the existing character and propose ways for growth to occur while minimizing impacts to, or building on this character.
Recommend and evaluate alternative measures to facilitate growth that responds to the community's objectives. Where analysis indicates that facilities and systems cannot support development, the plan should consider a range of options for improvements. For example, the circulation systems may be strained by growth. The future RTA light rail system connections to the downtown and the U-District will dramatically increase accessibility for portions of the community, but other systems including bicycle, pedestrian and auto will also need improvements. The neighborhood plan should explore the impacts of each alternative on the public systems and neighborhood viability. The community members an equally important resource. The plan should propose and evaluate ways to support and enhance their quality of life.
Implementation
Foster a more cohesive community. Strong communities depend on a sustained, long term commitment on the part of local citizens and an equitable balance between differing interests. Phase II planning work must provide an overall plan to enhance the long-term stability of the community, develop solutions that balance interests, and address needs - such as providing affordable housing and housing for people with special needs.
Provide a plan for City adoption. The final product of Phase II should be a plan, adopted by City Council, that guides and assists people with making decisions and taking actions in ways that reflect the community's values. The momentum built by the planning process should be captured with action-oriented strategies. The plan may include specific projects, recommendations for changes to policies or regulations, and tactics for continued community organization. Since all possible action can't be foreseen or analyzed, the plan should also provide an overall vision that allows flexibility.
The Phase II work should generally use the following methodology:
Analyze existing conditions. The input received during Phase I identified desirable characteristics of Capitol Hill (such as buildings with historic character), elements of concern (such as parking) and ideas about what should be done. The first step of achieving the community's objectives should be an analysis of existing conditions. This analysis should be directed by the Phase I input. For example, since the community appears to favor older commercial and residential buildings, the analysis should identify where these buildings are and what aspects of the buildings are considered desirable.
Compare City Comprehensive Plan goals to neighborhood objectives. The city has established housing and employment growth targets for Capitol Hill. It will be necessary to quantify these targets in ways that are understandable to the community.
Develop and evaluate alternatives. Alternative ways of achieving the community's objectives should be explored. If the community wishes to provide good access to businesses and the existing conditions analysis identifies a severe parking shortage of 6,000 spaces, we could either (1) build a twelve story parking garage on top of the Broadway Market; (2) build a whole bunch of smaller garages; or (3) ride bikes or walk. These alternatives should then be compared to determine the community's preferred approach.
Formulate a concept plan.The evaluation of alternative will yield a preferred set of alternatives or recommendations. The concept plan will indicate how the recommendations work together as part of a unified strategy to address a set of objectives (such as housing), and how the recommendations for one set of objectives work with those for another.
Prioritize recommendation and develop an implementation plan. Based on the preferred alternative, recommendations should be made for implementation. Recommendations could include capital improvement projects, revisions to city policy, or formation of a task force to continue work on the issue. Undoubtedly, numerous recommendations will arise from the planning work. These will need to be compared and prioritized. Once prioritized, the actions can be ordered into an implementation plan to help guide actions by City Council, neighborhood groups and other individuals and organizations.