Fourteen adjacent parking places have turned into a major problem for the Seattle School District, which has proposed selling the old Queen Anne High School gym to a private developer who could build up to an estimated 34 units of housing.
At issue is a 1987 Master Use Permit for the construction of the new John Hay Elementary School across the street. That permit allowed for adding less parking that was normally required for the school - as long as the 14 spots next to the gym were reserved for school staff and parents between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. on school days.
The school district wants a minor departure from that parking requirement as part of its sales plan, reasoning that nobody from the school has been parking in the gym lot for some time, according to Ron English, deputy general counsel and property manager for the district.
But an advisory committee voted on May 1 during the second of two public meetings to require a major departure for dropping the parking requirement.
Ruling on a major departure can take the city's Department of Planning and Development up to 90 days, and more public meetings will be required, said committee member Mary Hegdahl.
Also at issue is the gym itself. Under the original Hay permit, the old gym was to be reserved for use by the school's students until 5 p.m. on school days.
Yet, Hay has its own gym and apparently never used the old high school facility, which has been rented out most lately starting at 3 p.m. school days to a private basketball league.
Roughly half of the people who spoke at the first public meeting on April 24 were against the sale of the gym. The subject of the meeting was supposed to be about the sale, but those against the district proposal often linked it to a lack of parking in the neighborhood.
In fact, English pointed out in meeting notes, several speakers indicated that the Hay staff and parents didn't even know the gym parking was available for their use.
Others at the April 24 meeting thought a sale should go through because additional street parking isn't needed, because the district could use the money, and because the current tenant's activities are not well liked, English noted.
Indeed, one neighborhood resident who preferred to remain anonymous told the News that three or four months ago a boy jumped his fence, ran into his house and asked for help because other youths at the gym were chasing him with a gun. "I actually told him to get out of my house, which I felt bad about," the local resident added.
And while the May 1 meeting was supposed to be only about the zoning departure for parking, the question of selling the property in the first place came up again.
It's probably a mute point. "Based on last week's testimony," English said, "you should probably assume the school district will sell this property."
But that didn't stop one furious man who grew up in the neighborhood from storming out of the meeting after yelling, "We don't need any more people in this space."
The man also accused the school district of lying to the neighborhood, mentioning that the reason the district gave for building a new school was the old school is unsafe. Yet, the old school is still being used, he railed.
Also mentioned at the second meeting was a call from some neighborhood residents for saving the gym so that a new high school could be built there. The space is simply too small, English explained.
Some at the May 1 meeting also accused the district of not caring about the parking impacts a new development would bring to the neighborhood. "We do care about the parking. That's why we did the study," English said of parking study conducted by Heffron Transportation Inc.
The study - conducted within 400 feet of John Hay between 8 and 10 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. - indicated 61 percent of available parking was used in the mornings and that 55 percent was used in the afternoons on a typical school day, said Tod McBryan, a principal and vice president at Heffron.
However, the accuracy of the parking study was brought into question by those who noted that parking demand is heaviest just before school starts in the morning and when school lets out in the afternoon at times not examined by Heffron.
"Another parking study will be conducted by the district because of concerns about the time of day," Hegdahl said. "The majority of input is people don't want those [14] parking places removed," she added.
That does not pose an insurmountable problem, according to Steve Sheppard, a Department of Neighborhoods staffer who ran the two public meetings. "If the committee says the spaces shouldn't be given up, the district could still sell the property," he said.
All that's needed under that scenario is for a potential developer to replace the 14 lost parking places, said Sheppard, who added that might reduce the number of units and the amount of money the district would make from selling the property.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.
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