Piper Village rezoning hearing Feb. 3

by | Jan 16, 2009

Piper Village, the five-phase, urban village construction project happening on 87th Street between 1st Avenue and Palatine Avenue, has applied for rezoning of two small parcels of land east of Palatine to commercial.
 
A public hearing has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Feb. 3 at the City of Seattle Hearing Examiner’s Office, 700 5th Ave., Suite 4000, P.O. Box 94729, Seattle, WA 98124-4729. Written comments may be sent to the same address before the hearing date.
While the rezoning hearing notice shows a much larger shaded area for rezoning, it’s actually just the two most northern lots slated for a zoning change. The other two parcels are already zoned for the development.
The Director of the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) recommends conditional approval for the rezone. The conditions would be: creation of 11,282 square feet of conservation area, moving an English Yew tree, and the height of structures on the northernmost 50 feet of the area to be rezoned shall be limited to 40 feet.

The Director of DPD has determined that the proposal will not have a significant adverse environmental impact, and has issued a Declaration of Non-Significance (no Environmental Impact Statement required).

The land is in an environmentally critical area (salmon watershed and peat deposits), and a number of neighborhood activists are upset about several issues, including moving that mature English Yew tree, a grove of 36 aspens that will be cut down, and the developer not being required to fix damage from the street sinking at the corner of 87th & Palatine.
Kate Martin, president of the Greenwood Community Council and a landscape architect, has a lengthy explanation of the environmentally sensitive Greenwood Bog area on the Greenwood Blog.
Anyone wishing to formally appeal the DPD’s approval, must send a $50 filing fee to DPD before Jan. 22. Comments should be addressed to DPD regarding Project # 3007932.
Meanwhile, the developers have added some great landscaping around Blockbuster, Bartells, and Top Ten Toys.
 
 

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