Initial OK on capping I-5, nixing new Belltown parking and cutting car travel
A plan to construct lids over Interstate-5 to connect long lost friends First Hill and Downtown. Another that prohibits new surface parking in Belltown. And a third that sets goals for reducing vehicle miles traveled.
These three are among more than a dozen proposed comprehensive plan amendments that made it through an initial vetting at City Hall last week. The Seattle City Council’s Planning Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee picked amendments for further consideration based on their legality and fit with the comp plan.
The comp plan sets future planning and zoning policy for the city. Other plans making it into the second round set the groundwork for rezones in South Lake Union, Ballard and SoDo.
Not making the cut was a plan to prohibit bike trails within 100 feet of a short-line railroad (read Burke-Gilman in Ballard), and a plan to set goals for solar power use within the city.
A plan to name a tree czar and preserve more of the city’s tree canopy was modified to setting future canopy goals and setting goals for no net loss of trees.
The amendments still have several hurdles to clear. The Department of Planning and Development and the Seattle Planning Commission will review them and make recommendations, and then council and the mayor will need to approve them. Many proposals that make it into the comp plan still need additional city approval.
Read all of the proposed amendments here, read initial recommendations from the planning commission here and read DPD’s initial recommendations here. What do you think? Let committee chairwoman Sally Clark know.
