Queen Anne and Magnolia will see about $3.5 million for Discovery Park, Queen Anne Boulevard improvements, playground restoration at Lawton, Bhy Kracke and Bayview, development of at least two off-leash areas, acquisition of gaps of land along the Northeast Queen Anne Greenbelt and development of community garden space.
With last week's resounding passage of Proposition 2, a 60/40 margin, Seattle will be, for the next six years, the beneficiary of a multitude of park and play area creation and renovation. Its residents will also be its benefactors.
When Prop. 2 is enacted Jan. 1, 2009, Seattle Parks and Recreation will largely oversee where to put the $145 million it expects the proposition to generate over the next six years.
Roughly $24 million will be used to buy available land and reserve it for future park space. Another $33 million will be used to renovate or develop existing spaces. The remainder will be put toward trail expansion, renovating playfields and playgrounds, cultural facilities, adding park safety, restoring forests and streams, building community food gardens or P-Patches and creating more shoreline access.
There are also plans to buy park space all along the borders of Queen Anne and Magnolia at Ballard, Belltown, the Denny Triangle and Fremont. Buying that space may be the top priority at the parks department as land prices are currently low.
"You've got to buy land as fast as you can," said Don Harris, director of real estate with the parks department. To save resources and money, Harris didn't have anyone actively looking for locations until Prop. 2 passed. Once it's enacted, it's off to the races. "I've got an aggressive land group here and we'll start looking," Harris added.
Of all funds headed toward Queen Anne and Magnolia, Discovery Park will get the most, $1 million to restore the Capehart site, the former location of a 23-acre residential property amid the 534-acre park. The city bought the space from American Eagle Communities, LLC in 2004 for $9 million and American Eagle agreed to demolished the site, but left the concrete pads. The $1 million from Prop. 2 will now pay to get rid of the concrete and restore the area to its natural green setting.
"When [the city] bought Capehart there was no budgeting to do so in the restoration," said Monica Wooton, a longtime Magnolia resident, producer of two history books on her neighborhood and co-founder of the Magnolia Historical Society. "I was happy that when they did put the levy together that that land would be renovated. It needed to be done."
Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen, who sponsored the proposition and is the chair of the council's parks committee, was also happy to see the money allocated to the Capehart site. "It was just going to be blackberries, so we were able to get a million to take the site and return it to green space," he said. "That's exciting."
At the end of this year the $198.2 million Pro-Parks Levy that voters passed in 2000 expires. That levy placed a 26.2 cent tax per $1,000 on the assessed value of a home. The levy helped fund the acquisition of property that would be preserved for green space and the creation of dozens of parks throughout the city including Queen Anne's Counterbalance Park and Ursula Judkins Viewpoint in Magnolia.
The levy's expiration, along with a poll that showed a growing number of Seattle residents wanted additional green space procurement and renovation, drove Rasmussen to proceed with sponsoring a new levy. But he was concerned because the poll was taken last spring, before the economy unraveled.
"That's what drew it into uncertainty," Rasmussen said. "But what's amazing is that it got 60 percent of the votes, which is huge. To me, what it means is that people recognize the importance of parks even in a time when the economy is difficult."
What Seattle residents have agreed to in Prop. 2 is an increase in property taxes for six years. In 2009, the proposition will add 18.5 cents to every $1,000 of a home's assessed value, and is capped at $2.60.
But that doesn't take into account the Pike Place Market levy tax starting at 9 cents per $1,000 which also goes into effect in January. The combination will amount to a 1.3-cent tax increase as the Pro-Parks levy tax expires.
In the new levy, $10.4 million will go toward the restoration of 23 playground areas across Seattle, including Lawton, Bhy Kracke and Bayview playgrounds. The city will spend about $6 million to purchase land gaps at the Northeast Queen Anne Greenbelt along with six other natural areas. It will also spend $250,000 on improvements to roughly four blocks at Bigelow Avenue North.
"The whole area at Bigelow and elsewhere, there are no sidewalks and there are property encroachments," said Don Harper, a Queen Anne resident and Parks Committee chairperson of the Queen Anne Community Council (QACC).
He said the dream was to get $1.5 million to pay for more pathways, which is what he asked for. "But every little block is good," he added.
One thing he said people should be aware of is that as the city makes these updates, if they see any private development on city property, it will have to come down.
"A lot of people don't know that at Bigelow, 17 feet from the curb is parks property. Sometimes that's up to the people's front doorsteps," Harper said. Some people built on parks land not knowing it wasn't theirs, Harper said. Others knew but didn't care. "Once the city knows about it, then it's like, 'meet our city attorney'," Harper said.
Perhaps the most controversial, and least funded portion of the proposition in terms of Queen Anne and Magnolia, is the development of at least two off-leash areas. The city has dedicated $70,000 to each neighborhood and Magnolia planners have already chosen Magnolia Manor Park at West Grover Street and 28th Avenue West.
But there are at least three sites on Queen Anne's short list: Third Avenue West on the north side of Nickerson, up at the Northeast Queen Anne greenbelt at McClain Park and to the west at Kinnear Park. Harper and the QACC favor the Third Avenue choice because there are condos and a denser living environment, which means a greater need for that open space.
But the space happens to a nexus of ownership by the parks department, Seattle Department of Transportation, King County and the Army Corps of Engineers. Each one has to sign off on the deal.
"If we could make it work," Harper said, "it would probably be the least controversial."
Dog Off-Leash Advocates (DOLA) will have another meeting about location selection at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18 at the Queen Anne Community Center at 1901 First Ave. W. For more information e-mail: dolaqueenanne@yahoo.com.
The city has also earmarked $2 million to fund the acquisition and development of community gardens, with the first four locations likely to be Queen Anne, Ballard, Rainier Valley and West Seattle. Nothing's in stone yet, but Julie Whitehorn, co-chair of the Queen Anne Farmers Market Association and the Good Neighbor Garden Project is thrilled.
"I find it astonishing," Whitehorn said. "There are more than 1,000 people on the P-Patch waiting list and we think the parks levy is going to help that.
Our city population is ballooning and density is increasing and that means fewer yards and gardening space. For environmental, health and economic reasons, it's good."
The city is now authorized to collect $145 million over the next six years, though it anticipates needing supplemental funding from other sources, as was the case with the Pro Parks levy. Counterbalance Park at the northeast corner of Queen Anne Avenue North and West Mercer Street, was the beneficiary of more than $100,000 in private donations.
"We have to weight the priority and get buy-off by a citizen's committee," said Harris. "By the time we get to the bottom, we won't have any money left."[[In-content Ad]]
