Ever read the neighborhood association articles in the Kirkland Courier and thumb through the pages looking for information on the Norkirk neighborhood?
My husband and I have, so we attended a Norkirk Neighborhood meeting and I volunteered to put Norkirk in print. The meeting was held on June 2 at Heritage Hall. Pete Bartnick chaired the meeting.
The first agenda item was the approval of next year's board. The new slate of officers are Eric Eng, chair; Mary Redmayne, vice chair; Mike Nykreim, secretary; Becky Klinicke, treasurer; and Peter Bartnick, Judi Radloff and Jeff Blumer as members at large.
The second item was the picnic. The annual Norkirk picnic will be held in Crestwoods Park on August 27. The picnic will have its usual clown for the kids, lots of food, a photo booth and face painting ... but, alas, no fiddle player.
Traffic circles
Traffic circles are another issue. Some of the traffic circles are being maintained by volunteers and some need to be adopted. Norkirk has 11 circles and traffic bump-outs. The neighborhood association will match 50 percent of the funds spent for supplies to maintain the circles. This would be a great project for a group of neighbors, and a great opportunity to set a date and actually talk with your neighbors and maybe have a BBQ (not in the circle, however).
Pete Bartnick reflected his own experience with traffic circles.
"At first I was very skeptical they would help slow down traffic and driving the obstacle course to get around them was annoying. Driving up Third Street one day, I took a good look at the traffic circle at Third Street and Ninth Avenue. It was green, lush and very attractive. It gave a positive feel to the neighborhood. The gardener in me took over and I had to adopt my own circle. The care and feeding of a traffic circle requires good soil, planting, watering and, of course, weeding. I figure I invest about eight hours a year, or 15 visits of about 1/2 hour each."
Volunteers are also needed for a landscape project due to commence in the fall around 19th Avenue. Elisa Bakker (past Norkirk Neighborhood Association chair) is working on neighborhood landscaping improvements. If you would like a traffic circle to call your own or would like to volunteer for the landscape project, contact Elisa at Elisa@norkirk.org or Dave Gourlie, Kirkland Planning Department, at 587-3867.
Zoning change
Next was Joan Leiberman-Brill, a senior planner for the city. Joan put up three or four easels with overhead pictures of the neighborhood and went through the proposed changes outlined in the Norkirk Neighborhood Plan.
Did you know the city is studying a plan that would change the lot sizes in our neighborhood? People have petitioned the city for these changes and the city is studying blocks of property near the initial request parcels (818 6th Avenue and 128 12th Avenue areas).
Currently, most of the lot sizes are RS 7.2 and RS 5.0 (translated: changing lot sizes from 7,200 square feet to 5,000 square feet). This would change the size of the building allowed on a piece of property from 50 percent to 60 percent on proposed RS 5.0 lots.
Joan also talked about changes in the business district along Market Street and the narrowing of Central Way. After the initial sewer improvements and installation of fiber optics, Central Way will get a little facelift, changing the flow of traffic in the downtown core.
Joan made it a point to say that none of these changes are definite yet, things are still in the planning stage and more meetings will be held to hear from the neighborhood.
My cell phone rang (I forgot to turn it off - at least it wasn't at the movie theater). It was 10 p.m. and my youngest teenage daughter was wondering where we were. It was time for us to get home.
We live in Norkirk and take pride in our neighborhood. Little did we know about all of the changes proposed for the future. Normally, we wouldn't know about them until we saw them take shape.
If you would like more information about any of these topics, visit www.norkirk.org, or if you're interested in learning more about the Norkirk Neighborhood Plan, contact Kirkland's Planning Department.[[In-content Ad]]
