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First Hill, meet downtown. Downtown, this is First Hill.

DPD is floating an idea to cap I-5 to turn it into a walkable space that reconnects First Hill and Capitol Hill with downtown.

Freeway Park

Interstate-5 has cut Fifth from Sixth Avenue for about four decades. And as anyone who’s gotten off the No. 11 or No. 10 bus right where the three neighborhoods meet can attest, the scale is almost Soviet. Freeway Park makes for a green connection near the convention center, but crossing elsewhere is cement city.

The idea is in early discussion and costs or specifics are nonexistent. It’s one of 21 possible comprehensive plan amendments that had an initial hearing Monday night at City Hall. The comp plan sets the framework for city zoning and planning policy and can be amended once a year.

Other amendments up for consideration:

Not everybody likes the Burke
• Stopping Burke-Gilman in Ballard: An amendment from the North Seattle Industrial Association would prevent construction of bike trails within 100 feet of an existing short line railroad franchise that is in or next to the Ballard Interbay manufacturing and industrial center. The amendment is referring to the Burke-Gilman bike trail, which runs through the area. Eugene Wasserman, who wrote the amendment, says it is unsafe to build bike paths close to truck and rail transport and hurts the maritime industry.

• Protecting tree canopy: A proposal written by Ilze Jones of Jones and Jones Architects and Landscape Architects would set goals and policies for increasing the city’s tree canopy. Kit O’Neill and Cheryl Trivison are co-sponsors of the proposal, which would make trees an element for consideration in land use planning and recommends the city set aside 48,000 acres for trees.

The urban canopy, aka trees
The proposal also suggests naming a tree czar.

• A dozen up-zones and rezones, including changing specific industrial zones in Ballard, South Lake Union, Harbour Avenue and Stadium East to mixed-use or commercial use.

City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee held its first hearing on comp plan amendments Monday night. Contact Committee Chair Sally Clark to let her know what you think.

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This entry was posted by Shawna Gamache on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Planning, Zoning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Laura

    Love the link to the proposals.

  • mhays

    Absolutely we should have better links over I-5. The key isn’t necessarily covering it, though that would be fantastic. The key is pedestrian connections. Starting from the north:

    One or two crossings are badly needed between the Lakeview overpass and Denny. I’d be happy with skybridges at Mercer and Thomas.

    The Denny overpass itself should have a sidewalk on the north side. It’s absurd that it doesn’t.

    Same with the Pine overpass. Again, absurd that it doesn’t already.

    Someday we’ll need to do something about the Convention Place Station air rights. Buildings would be great. But another idea is a park covering all or part of it. Looking at my aerial photo, the park could continue over the freeway , providing seven or eight acres (?) of badly-needed green space. Alternatively, rather than covering those whole blocks, the park could be a narrow swath following the north side of Pine, maybe 50′ wide.

    Freeway Park should be connected to its surroundings better. I’m rooting for that 8th & Seneca condo to get built and add a new entrance. The hillclimb should be rebuilt with some gracefulness and way less concrete.

    Spring & 6th doesn’t allow pedestrian crossings on one side due to the onramp. This is counter to everything we say about being pedestrian friendly.

    A skybridge at Marion would help also. It would cut a couple blocks off many people’s walks.

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