Dennis Saxman's small apartment is filled with papers, document and files, the tools, he says, of an adopted trade. As a self-described land-use activist, Saxman is a person you would see at many of the city's Design Review Board meetings. Or you might cross paths with him at City Hall as he puts in another Freedom of Information Act request for city documents. Direct, mostly soft spoken, he's the one asking many of the questions developers would rather not be asked.
He's not afraid to ruffle feathers, and he has. But as the city in general and certainly Capitol Hill in particular faces nearly countless development projects, Saxman's goal is no less than changing the way the city considers growth and development. It's become a crusade as well as a fulltime vocation.
"I have the skills for it, and I have the time. This stuff is important and the city isn't doing its job," he said.
THE ROAD WEST
His path to a becoming a development activist has many turns. Saxman, 58, was born in Bradford, Penn, a town roughly 80 miles south of Buffalo. Bradford was known as an oil boomtown in the late 19th century; it's known now, if at all, as the home of Zippo lighters. Following high school, Saxman attended Penn State University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with honors in 1971 with a degree in French and a minor in education. He set out for a presumed career as a teacher. It was not to be.
"I quickly learned that it wasn't the job for me," he said. "There also wasn't much of a market for foreign language teachers in Pennsylvania."
He moved on to odd jobs, including carpentry, in central Pennsylvania, moved to Pittsburgh in 1975 and lived in a Quaker commune for several years. He ended up taking a job with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, a job that lasted until 1982.
Importantly, Saxman came out as a gay man in the mid-70s. Having marched in Vietnam protests in the '60s, becoming a gay activist came easily to him.
"I came out, very out, and worked on a measure banning discrimination toward gays that [then governor] Milton Shapp signed. It was the first of its kind in the country."
But living in Philadelphia in the early '80s was becoming uncomfortable. In the era of the Abscam investigation and the big city politics of the late mayor Frank Rizzo the city, Saxman said, simply felt unsafe. A move out west felt like a dramatic and necessary break.
He was accepted into Berkeley Business School, hated it and dropped out. He returned briefly to Philadelphia, but soon found he wanted to remain out west. Needing work, he took a position as a paralegal. During an employment dispute, he found himself doing a great deal of research at the Hastings law library at San Francisco. Something clicked,
"I discovered I liked it. I liked learning the laws that could help people maintain their rights," Saxman said. The next step became obvious: Berkeley Law School. He added that it was the best education he ever had.
He graduated in 1990 and became a member of the California bar. Legal work occupied the next six years. In 1996, during what Saxman describes as a low point in his life, he relocated to Seattle for another new start. He didn't necessarily like it at first.
"It felt like a come down. I'd been an attorney in California, and here I had to work again as a paralegal. I felt the bar here was more closed than in the Bay Area and that I had limited opportunities. I didn't fit into corporate culture, and I didn't want to," he said.
Thus another switch: Saxman became a Microsoft Certified Systems engineer. He did contract worked for the next five years for clients such as Boeing and REI. He also kept his hand in legal work, and returned to working as a paralegal in 2001.
But the change that led him to his current role as a land use activist came, indirectly at least, as a result of dour news. In 2002, Saxman was diagnosed with AIDS. While his health remains good, he's been living on disability ever since. Despite being under considerable financial pressure, Saxman has been able to keep living in the same Bellevue Avenue studio apartment he has called home since moving to Seattle.
Being on disability meant that Saxman had a lot of time on his hands. He spent several years on the King County AIDS Planning Council, a tumultuous tenure that led to his dismissal late last year. His departure, he said, was due to the issues he raised about how the council did its work.
"I was just speaking my mind, but they didn't want to hear it. And I made them remove me rather than stepping down, as they would have preferred," he said.
NEW FOCUS
Despite his current passion, Saxman said he'd never been terribly interested in land-use issues in the past. But when the design review for the huge project going in on the 500 block of East Pine Street came up about a year ago his interest was piqued. He attended a Pike, Olive Way, Harvard Avenue Triangle (POWHAT) meeting on the topic, was appalled by both the scale and design of the project and felt himself compelled to get involved. Researching that development led to researching design guidelines, neighborhood plans, transit overlay districts and many other city documents and the laws that pertain to them.
"I started wondering what design review is for, what the neighborhood plans are for. I looked into it and it looks like the plans are mostly ignored and are largely not followed," he said. "So they're basically a sham."
Saxman felt that pursuing this path was well suited to him.
Among his biggest concerns is that so many new developments do not reflect the neighborhood's context. Not just regarding size and scale, but also in terms of design. And he thinks the city should hold a tighter line, especially given such city-sanctioned documents as neighborhood plans and neighborhood design guidelines.
"It's not just private property. Developers own parcels of land, but they take advantage of city infrastructure like roads and utilities. I think the city needs greater impact fees - developers get a lot at no cost to them," he said. "The process has been taken over by insensitive, arrogant and overbearing developers who run over neighborhoods and city officials."
ORGANIZING
To counter that perception, Saxman is working to form a city-wide coalition to bring a stronger voice of ballast to development issues and officialdom. People tend to be focused on a project in their neighborhood he said; he hopes to turn specific concerns into a well-focused land-use organization. A large group would be more difficult to ignore.
Saxman admits to feeling at times like he's a lone voice howling at the moon. Thus far he said there's been a lot of interest but no takers. Time is a problem - Saxman has the time to devote to the cause, but many others simply don't. He thinks the group will coalesce in the coming months and snowball quickly once it does. Goals include creating a climate for more balanced development in the city that benefits a wider variety of economic groups.
"No joiners so far, but I haven't had that first meeting yet," he said. "I think after the election this can go forward quickly. People are interested in coming together on these issues. We can impact them. I'm optimistic the zeitgeist is ready for the neighborhoods to come together and have a greater say."
In the meantime, he's working on a walking tour of Capitol Hill with photos of inappropriate developments as defined by the neighborhood plans, design guidelines and architectural experts. He's also working on developing a demographic profile of Capitol Hill. And he's working on reassessing the Hill's neighborhood plan in terms of what the city has accomplished from it.
"The city clearly embellishes the extent it has achieved the plans' goals," he said. "I'm dogging the city, as are others, on more public involvement on these neighborhood plan updates."
He thinks his legal background makes him especially well suited for the kind of research these tasks require. He admits that some people don't like him or at least frown when he walks into the room. But, he added, many officials are getting used to him now. And in his current role, Saxman feels he in many ways is connecting with his east coast roots.
"My family came to Pennsylvania in 1764. I had a strong sense of being rooted to the area, its history, its traditions," he said. "There's a history of dissent and plain speaking, a suspicion of and a resistance to authority. I definitely inherited some of those traits. And I promise to keep making good trouble for as long as I'm around."
