The Seattle Fire Department and Fleets and Facilities have gone back to the original plan to replace the aging, cramped Fire Station # 20 with an expanded facility at the old one's current location in the 3200 block of 13th Avenue West.
The plan originally called for the demolition of three single-family homes on the block to do that, although the city will probably have to make do with just two because of cost considerations, said Seattle City Council member and Queen Anne resident Tim Burgess.
He chairs the Public Safety, Human Services & Education Committee, which was scheduled to discuss the issue at its April 7 meeting.
The original proposal was met by a firestorm of opposition from surrounding neighbors, and the Queen Anne Community Council opposed the proposal, as well.
Furthermore, in 2006, the city council rejected the idea, too, and called the following year for the hiring of a consultant to perform another site study for a station location.
The consultant, EnviroIssues, came up with a short list of four preferred locations either on 15th Avenue West or west of the arterial. The top-ranked choice was the overflow parking lot, maintenance shed and storage area at the north end of the Interbay Golf Course. That was also the number-one choice for Burgess, he said.
But the Fire Department and Fleets and Facilities put a stop to that line of thinking the day before a Feb. 5, 2008 public meeting EnviroIssues had scheduled to announce its recommendations. The two departments had come up with three new "threshold criteria." One was that existing response times from the neighborhood fire station be maintained or improved.
EnviroIssues insisted it used the criterion in its site selection, but the other two the city came up with were deal breakers. Any new station couldn't be located on or west of 15th Avenue West.
Burgess' committee stuck to its guns, reaffirming the golf course site as its top pick, according a central staff briefing memorandum prepared for the committee this spring.
The memo also notes the committee recommended the city perform more due diligence to determine if the golf course site really was a suitable location.
It wasn't, according to the memorandum. For one thing, the golf course sits on a former landfill and incineration site, which produces methane that has to be collected.
A 2000 map indicates that "the proposed fire station site is adjacent to or directly above the main gas extraction manifold line, multiple gas extraction wells, gas condesate traps and gas probes," the memo states. Accommodations would likely have to be made, but no one currently knows how much that could cost, the memo adds.
There are also parks department-related issues. A fire station could cut into the bottom line for the golf course, which is designated as a city park, and relocating the maintenance shed and storage area could be a problem and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do, according to the memo.
Initiative 42 requires that any lost park space be replaced elsewhere, the memo adds, while noting the city council could vote in an ordinance that would exempt the property from that requirement. "The rationale (behind the arguments) is persuasive," Burgess said.
Garriel Keeble, who owns one of the endangered homes on 13th Avenue West with her partner Chris Grekoff, disagrees. "I am really surprised and appalled they would go back to this after the evidence shows better locations," she said. "It's very shortsighted."
Valerie Paganelli - who fought the original proposal - is also steamed about the new direction the city is taking. She accused Burgess of succumbing to political pressure, especially at a time when city funding sources are drying up and Fire Levy funds are insufficient to complete scheduled project, she wrote in an April 7 e-mail urging people to show up at Burgess' committee meeting this week and object.
"This is not smart public service for our community. It is wrong for our neighborhood, wrong for the fire department, and wrong for the city," Paganelli added.
The Public Safety, Human Services & Education Committee is expected to make it recommendation in May, Burgess said.[[In-content Ad]]
