i would think a comprehensive center to positively combat homelessness and bring in affordable housing would be a great bookend to any neighborhood, not just chinatown.

regardless, block u definitely meets chinatown's apparent criteria: it is not in anyone's backyard.

Is that Richard Harris with his hand up?

Yes, yes it is....

That's to bad.

"“We never talk about how the community feels,” said Steven Ying, of the _Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association._

wow, so mister Ying must have asked that the homeless community come in and help make the decision? the homeless and low income end of Chinatown is what, 50%? or was he using the term community in its narrow sense and saying "me".

I believe Mr. Ying was referring to the taxpaying residents of Old Town, and those peoples feeling do matter, just as much as anyone else.

Honestly, having Mr. Sten say that residents should forget that normal process hasn't been followed is an insult to residents of Old Town. He is trying to get them to forget that he's not following the correct procedure. That pisses people off.

His attitude of "forget how we got to this point we're here now" is the same attitude of the Bush administration with Iraq. The people who live in Old Town AND PAY TAXES deserve to be heard and be involved in the process. Sten ignored this and that is wrong.

I don't understand why so many social services should be huddled into one area. No one can deny that it's a blight to any neighborhood when even one shows up, and if you care for the homeless, hell they're everywhere, so why shouldn't their social services be too. I still can't say that I'd want it in my back yard, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it were thinned out across the town. Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal then to the "lucky chosen" community.

Matt Davis,

It's important to understand a few things. You keep reporting that there is "400M of urban renewal on the table" as Sten stated when he came to the Visions meeting.

This is completely false. The UR money is an indebtedness fund based on the district funds. The City is re-districting about 45 acres into the River District (vote expected in March) to continue to pay for UR projects that already exist.

400M is the approximate limit of the indebtedness for the new district. 270M is already spoken for (project already under way), with an additional 70-80M promised. That leaves, in actuality 60M or less for additional projects. And according to my sources, depending on how the city cooks the books, there may be zero.

It's totally disingenuous of Sten to promise money when there in fact is only enough money for an Access Center. There's no automatic windfall for the area.

Next up - siting. Sten and the city are doing a complete end-run around the city's official siting procedures. The neighborhood is working in good faith an a proposal that puts the new center on a block supported by the populace that this directly effects (other than the homeless people it serves). Block U is that recommendation. It is only 2 blocks away from the current TPI Access Center location, and 3 from Blanchet House (should they move as well).

Sten seems hell bent on ramming this project through before he leaves, and the consideration of the neighborhood is being trumped by Sten and the other parties involved in siting and getting an Access Center. Right now no one is arguing against building it. We're simply saying "If you build it here (Block U), we'll work with you".

We were not given such an opportunity with the choice of Block 25. The Neighborhood Association and the people of Chinatown, myself included, have spoken up loudly about that. It appears we now get to have input, but it remains to be seen how much weight we'll actually be given.

Alexander
Old Town Resident

alexander, what would you be writing if your condo was across from block u instead of block 25?

Ben,

I would be upset about it, of course. But I would also recognize that there are precious few options that are better. This is also a complex issue for reasons simply beyond a NIMBY argument.

1) The city intends to add some number of low-income housing units to the Access Center. They've yet to give an estimate (numbers ranging from 70 to 200 or 300+ have all been mentioned). The city, and Chinatown have a goal of achieving a 50/50 Median Family Income split for housing (MFI). The split is currently more like 68/32 MFI for the area. Any drastic increase in low-income housing (above and beyond replacement housing for TPI and Blanchet) is bad for the livability of the neighborhood.

2) Block 25 has a FAR of 9:1 and a 350 ft height limit. I and others believe the City will attempt to build as much low-income housing as possible on top of an Access Center. Sten has publicly stated as much. Block U has a FAR of 6:1 with a 75 ft height limit. The PDC estimate of added housing units is 120 units maximum. Block U will enforce more likely parity on 50/50 MFI.

3) Everyone at the meetings supports completely replacing Blanchet House and TPI on Glisan with completely brand-spankin new facilities. The argument is about where, and depending on where "how much". If it is to be Block 25, that will represent a centralization of 2 existing services onto a full block, and then the ADDITION of low-income housing on top of it. That's not a very desirable "bookend" to any neighborhood. Indeed it would be the most concentrated area of Social Services in the entire area. And that's saying something given how much is already in Old Town.

4) If Block 25 is not turned into an Access Center, the most likely use of it is something that will almost certainly block all my views and fill the whole site. I, as a resident, will have a lot less say in what it looks like if it is a private developer. It would probably be in my own interest if I cared about my view to push for a Center on Block 25 and then control the process through as much input as possible. But this isn't about the view, it's about increasing the livability of the neighborhood. PDC's North Old Town study and the Vision's committee plans are all focused on that, through commercial and economic development.

The uproar is that Block 25 is being forced on us as "the site" via a process of elimination only, and no one who lives or works here thinks it is the best spot.

Alexander
Old Town Resident

alexander, by forcing the access center on block u, you will be guaranteeing less of a balance in housing. here's why:

block u only has 75' of allowable height. hap and pdc will have no ability to add above 50% mfi to the mix with these limitations. let them develop on a site with higher limits like 25 and they'll definitely put in work force housing to please people just like you.

in the meantime, nobody else will build on 25. you show me someone who wants to build 130 parking spaces for free. northwest natural has free parking for 99 years on block 25 no matter who owns it. you can thank the chinese garden for that.

so what you'll have is your vacant parking lot with a dive bar while you push the poor and the homeless under the broadway bridge.

no retail.

no work force housing.

no synergy.

the access center will provide all of those if given a site that has enough capacity.

plus it'll build in nw natural's precious parking - underground.

enjoy your view, if the access center goes to block u, you'll have it for a very long time.

Ben,

While I appreciate your arguments I completely disagree.

First off is your assumption that an Access Center project will include work-force housing. To date, no one at HAP, TPI, PDC, or Blanchet has put forth a public proposal about what it will include. There's a single document circulated in October, that was not made available to the public until November, that covers some options. In it, no information is given about the housing intentions beyond "3+ floors of low income and work-force housing". Sten has publicly stated that he wants as much low-income housing on top of it as possible. I don't trust the process because they haven't followed one.

The largest single low-income and work-force housing project in Old Town is Pacific Tower. It was a private development, on a 1/4 block lot. That's what private sector work can do for you. I think it's great, and the quality of its offering is substantially higher than anything HAP, or TPI will put forth. I'll vote for private development on this one.

Your second assumption is that the parking situation will preclude any development, and you blame it on the Chinese Garden. The Chinese Garden is wonderful and if a parking lien is all that's left over from that land swap, the entire neighborhood is better off for it. The city has put forth several options for dealing with the parking in an official study. It's available at PDC I believe. They include, of course, anyone replacing it with equivalent parking on site. Or it could be transferred to the helipad garage on Naito & Davis, by adding 2 floors to the site. Or it could be moved to a garage on the other NW Natural lot. There are options. Additionally, at a market estimate of 40K per spot, it would be about 5M dollars to bury the spots for an Access Center on Block 25. That's my tax payer dollars at work for NW Natural. No thanks.

I can show you someone who wants to build on Block 25. Michael Menashe. He helped build Pacific Tower. He owns Block 26, and has publicly stated he's interested in doing something with that block, as well as 25. I've also heard from a number of other developers who are all interested. The consensus among all of them is that Old Town is on the verge of a lot of changes, and that putting an Access Center on 25 will send the wrong message. I agree.

Finally you're being a bit petty with your arguments about a forever-vacant lot and forcing the homeless under a bridge. I take issue with that because Block U is actually a pretty nice block. 20M should be able to produce an Access Center that TPI can be proud of wherever it is located. Your implication that Block U has some unforeseen inadequacy that will require homeless to forgo its services and "hang out under the broadway bridge" is the kind of attack that does nothing for their cause. If anything you're the one furthering a negative stereotype. Now, I agree that the Broadway Bridge is pretty neat from the underside, and is reminiscent of Boston's pre Big-Dig feeling, but it's no reason to avoid a new adequate Access Center.

You are also assuming Blanchet House has to move. It doesn't. The only group that is lumping this all in to one super-bloc is PDC as near as I can tell. Blanchet could be replaced where it is, and the TPI Access Center moved to Block U. That scenario would eliminate the Dirty Duck, which also seems to have drawn your ire.

Look, there is only one thing I am outright against here, and I think I speak for the majority of people who are taking a stand on this: a full-block development of Block 25 into the new TPI Access Center + Blanchet House + Unknown number of mostly low-income housing (likely controlled by TPI) is too much. The density of that social service is too much. The block can do better. The neighborhood can do better.

Yours,

Alexander
Old Town Resident

I understand that longtime business owners in Old Town may be concerned about their investments, but for those of you who more recently moved in, I'm a little baffled at your outrage. Did you think you were moving to the Pearl? How do you move to such a beautifully gritty neighborhood, one that has traditionally held many social services, and not embrace that as a characteristic of your neighborhood? This is part of urban living.

no no rww...they do embrace the social services. as long as the services move just far enough away that they don't have to see them. but remember, they fully support the social services and we are the ones that are furthering negative stereotypes.

i'm sorry, but blaming process for why the neighbors don't want block 25 selected is such a red herring. it wouldn't matter how the process goes, the neighbors don't want tpi any closer to them than they already are, and preferably farther away. notice that the "super-bloc" concept is fine as long as it's down the road a bit.

i'm not saying other neighborhoods wouldn't do the same thing. i'm just saying it's a shame chinatown isn't living up to it's reputation as the most diverse neighborhood in the city. i'd expect this from the pearl. not from chinatown.

and alexander, if you know all these developers, i'd urge you to tell them to put there money where their mouth is. i doubt pdc has been hogging this land just to force the access center on you poor souls. i'd bet they would be more than happy to sell it off.

Let's build the access center next to Ben's house!!! I heard that aces centers make great bookend's to neighborhoods...yeah right.

Let's build the access center next to Ben's house!!! I heard that access centers make great bookends to neighborhoods...yeah right.

it will be next to my house, asshat.

I like ben better than Alex.