On Feb. 23, this newspaper published an error. Well, maybe it wasn't an error so much as an innocent omission.The Southeast Seattle Residents Guide 2005 left out my neighborhood: Othello.
Back in December, I wrote a column about the Othello Neighborhood Design Guidelines. I described how hard my neighborhood has struggled over the past several years to establish an identity. A decade ago this neighborhood comprised Brighton (a residential neighborhood east of MLK JR. Way South) and the former Holly Park (a World War II public housing project to the west), and together they were selected to for the site of a new community development. Since then, residents from both areas worked together on the plan and have since cooperated on projects such as banners, a kiosk, and neighborhood specific design guidelines.
Although our goal is to put our neighborhood on the map, we are also trying to integrate Hope VI projects (New Holly and Othello Station) with Brighton. We want to be viewed as a single community with a common business district.
Part of Othello's identity effort includes the "Name the Neighborhood" project. For this, we conducted surveys in front of stores, at neighborhood meetings, and at community events. Scores of names were suggested, but the most popular theme was Othello.
Fears have been expressed that Hope VI projects will "gentrify" Southeast Seattle. However, evidence in our neighborhood contradicts that assumption. For instance, on the Southeast street corner of MLK and Othello a nonprofit group, the Mount Baker Housing Association, is planning a mixed-use multi-family development of affordable housing. Only lower to medium income residents will qualify. Yet they will live in a lovely development virtually next door to the light rail station while at the same time overlooking Othello Park and Mount Rainier.
If you walk in New Holly, as I do several times per week, you rub shoulders with an array of people and cultures: women in colorful African dress, people speaking a variety of Asian languages, and Buddhist altars on porch railings. If the gentrification trend was winning, wouldn't we be experiencing a white-out? Best of all, Othello property owners impacted by light rail are not selling out to developers bent on making a buck at their expense. Instead, established commercial neighbors are rebuilding in the spirit of revitalization, not gentrification.
A compass to determine whether Othello is on the right course can be found in Daniel Brook 's March 2005 Harper's Magazine article entitled, "Unnecessary excellence, what public-housing design can learn from its past." Brook notes that, "The Urban Institute, through its extensive research on HOPE VI, has shown that mixed-income housing has led to safer neighborhoods, improved schools and services, and more job opportunities." Hope VI is an exponential improvement over the crime-ridden high rise public housing built in the 1950s and 1960s.
As an example mirrored by Hope VI developments, Brook describes Yorkship Village of Camden New Jersey built in 1918 as the United State's most successful public housing. Deemed "unnecessary excellence," its houses were later auctioned off by misguided administrations. Yorkship Village had been built much like Othello's HOPE VI projects; New Holly and Othello Station. Included were mixed income housing that blended with the styles and street patterns of its surrounding neighborhoods.
But Yorkship Village had something that many of today's HOPE VI projects lack. It had a business district which was a vital factor in unifying community life and increasing pedestrian activity. Brook sites this lack of commercial development as the principle weakness of many Hope VI projects.
When the Seattle Housing Authority began to build New Holly, they planned residential housing without much commercial development. However, by a stroke of luck, Othello already had a business district along MLK Jr. Way South. This became the center piece of our neighborhood plan that will serve as the ribbon tying the old, residential side together with the new HOPE VI projects.
Such a development move promises to make Othello one of the few neighborhoods in the nation whose business community, new public housing, and older residential areas are effectively integrated into one neighborhood. It will be a modern version of Yorkship Village, only much more beautiful because of its hillside overlooking the Cascade Mountains. Undoubtedly this exemplary neighborhood will make it into next year's Resident's Guide.[[In-content Ad]]
