​Copy and paste the below into an email to council@seattle.gov, Joy.Hollingsworth@seattle.gov

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Subject Line: Expand and improve the new Madison Valley neighborhood center​

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I Support the Madison Valley Neighborhood Center. I’m excited about the City of Seattle's proposed neighborhood center in downtown Madison Valley that will create a more vibrant neighborhood, allow more people to live within walking distance of the Arboretum and 8, 11, 48, and RapidRide G bus lines, and increase the number of more affordable and accessible rental and condo units in the area. I'm calling on City Council to go further and expand the neighborhood center's boundary to allow for taller and denser housing and more space for small businesses and community organizations while at the same time improving accessibility, infrastructure, pedestrian safety, and our tree canopy, and preventing displacement of long-time residents.  If the City does not make these changes and individual homes continue being torn down outside of the neighborhood center and replaced by 3-4 homes rather than taller multi-unit buildings, my neighborhood will become dense enough to have parking problems and tree loss, but not dense enough to meet the demand for housing or to support a more robust public transit system and needed infrastructure improvements. ​​

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Requested Changes in Madison Valley

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Further Increase Density Near Transit. More specifically, please expand the boundary of the new Madison Valley neighborhood center to allow midrise housing of 6-8 stories within a 6-minute walk (or ¼ mile) of the RapidRide G's MLK stop, including mixed uses on the first floor to create a more vibrant business district. Please also allow lowrise residential housing of 4-5 stories within a 12-minute walk (or ½ mile) of this same stop. To ensure more people can live within walking distance of the RapidRide G, which is the City's most frequent and reliable bus line, please take the same approach to zoning within a 12-minute walk of the RapidRide G's 24th Ave and 22nd Ave stops. The City's proposal to allow lowrise residential housing of 5 stories along the MLK and 23rd Ave frequent transit corridors is a step in the right direction. Please go further and allow midrise housing of 6 stories along these arterials, including mixed uses on the first floor, and lowrise residential housing of 4-5 stories within a 6-minute walk (or 1/4 mile) of the 8 and 48 bus stops in Madison Valley.

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Improve Accessibility, Infrastructure, and Pedestrian Safety. Please allocate a portion of development fees to improve Madison Valley’s accessibility, infrastructure, and character in the area that is upzoned, including adding curb cuts, burying overhead wires, fixing sidewalks, and planting and maintaining more trees in parks and parking strips. Please also improve pedestrian safety along Madison, MLK, 23rd, and 32nd in the area that is upzoned, including increasing the number of painted crosswalks with light-up signs, reducing the speed limit, and adding other speed controls. Finally, please require all new midrise buildings to include continuous rain awnings to protect pedestrians from the rain. 

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Improve Public Transit. As the number of bus riders increases in the neighborhood due to increased density, please increase the frequency and reliability of the 8, 11, and 48 buses. In the near term, please implement the changes requested by Central Seattle Greenways in its Fix the L8! campaign to prolong the eastbound bus-only lanes throughout Denny Way in SLU from 1st Ave to Fairview to increase the 8's speed and reliability. Longer term, please extend the RapidRide G bus to downtown Madison Park to provide residents of downtown and D3 frequent and reliable car-free access to the Arboretum and Lake Washington. 

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Requested Changes Citywide

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I would like to see similar changes across the city in the updated One Seattle Plan, in line with the Complete Communities Coalition's December 2024 Coalition Letter on Draft One Seattle Plan. 

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Strengthen Tree Code and Reduce Lot Sprawl. To promote lot density and ensure adequate usable backyard green space for residents and space for trees, please make the changes recommended by Mike Eliason in Op-Ed: Harrell’s Growth Plan Shorts Housing and Tree Canopy and Tree Action Seattle in Five Ways the One Seattle Plan Could be Better for Nature and Trees, including eliminating parking minimums, allowing stacked flats on 5,000 square foot lots and raising the FAR bonus from 0.2 to 0.6 or more, increasing height limits on stacked flats from 3 to 4 stories to ensure we can build family-sized units without paving over the entire lot, eliminating side yard and front yard setbacks, requiring shared walls, requiring 20% unpaved greenspace in low-rise and neighborhood residential lots of 5 or more units, and requiring 40% unpaved greenspace in neighborhood residential lots of 4 or fewer units. Allowing stacked flats with elevators citywide will also enable residents to age in place. Please also create an impact fee to fund parks and tree plantings in frontline communities. ​​

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Prevent Displacement.  Please allow homeowners in the upzoned areas to defer the property tax increase connected to the change in zoning until they sell their home or pass it on to their descendants. This balances the need to avoid displacement while ensuring residents pay their fair share of taxes on the increase in their property values once they realize the benefit of that increase upon sale or transfer. Please also provide income-restricted property tax relief upon transfer to homeowners of color in historically-redlined neighborhoods who were themselves or whose parents or grandparents in Seattle were restricted to redlined neighborhoods due to their race. This will empower survivors of redlining to be able to choose to pass on their homes to their descendants while building wealth through the upzone.

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Thank you! Thank you for making Madison Valley a more vibrant and housing-rich neighborhood and for providing homeowners and renters alike with greater flexibility in their housing options while improving accessibility, infrastructure, pedestrian safety, and our tree canopy!