NOISE ORDINANCE PUBLIC HEARING REPORT
There was much support for residential portion, and little opposition to the industrial part. Bob Dupret, Susan, and an unnamed new resident testified - the unnamed new resident showed up with VIDEO of partyers taunting police! Phil Brennerman says to emphasise OWNER responsibility (e.g. the Michigan State University/East Lansing law) to force landowner responsibility. Currently the ordinance would fine the tenant; it's suggested that there's a need to fine the tenant first, then owner if problems continue. The "apartment association" (which - AASK?) wants it to have occupant fines only.
Suggestion from the floor that there be protection for tenants who phone in noise complaints against buildings which are owned by the same landlord as own their housing to avoid retaliatory issues. It's also very important to make recurring noise issues a "just cause" eviction - if it's not, then owners can't kick out bad renters but can get fined for their misbehaviour. Pullman has a similar setup.
Susan Baker from Roosevelt to talk about their issues, report on progress there. She reports that Mark Sidran says most of Seattle code is based upon people wanting to conform to law, starting to figure out really how to handle the situation where people will do anything to avoid it. City is finally responding, will check ALL Roosevelt problem properties. Changes to code enforcement being made so that garbage codes (for example) will be like a traffic ticket - you get a ticket, then you can contest it. Plus there will be additional measures for repeat offenders. Idea is to get departments talking to each other too. Changes to code out Mon. Public hearing May 17th. Details will be at http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/commnty/roosnp/index.html when it goes online. Their problem landlord slaps everyone in sight - including the fire department - with nuscience suits but is losing. Also reportedly intimidates tenants who are endangered by lack of fire code enforcement.
"Housing that already exists is the most affordable."
Q from audience: Who gets ticketed for code violations? A: the owner.
Q from audience: How do you condemn(!) houses. A: Must get inside to see that the house is in a condition necessitating it be condemned for safety reasons. This requires co-operation of the tenants, or some other legal means of entry.
Meetings:
15 May 11am - A big celebration in Cowan Park. The Mayor, et al,
will be there.
17 May 5pm - Council chambers - Hearings on code enforcement change proposals.
Tim arrives (7:26), apologises for lateness, was detained by a family emergency. Introduces the next speaker, Michelle Crooks.
Michelle Crooks is a Seattle Community Service Officer. CSOs handle PD stuff that isn't dangerous. She's here to explain NATS, the Neighbourhood Action Team Seattle. NATS co-ordinates across city agencies for multi-jurisdictional issues. It's currently looking for a new central co-ordinator. The oldest NATS project is the Rooming & Boarding House project. NATS's very first project was a crime centre hotel on Aurora; focusing attention from multiple agencies lead to its sale to a new owner who takes care of the business properly.
The Cowan and Ravenna Park Project is the biggest NATS effort. Goal was to pull together interested stakeholders; polling across them resulted in three major common issues. 1) Illegal behavlour, 2) Public health (e.g., finding condoms and needles in the park), and 3) environmental problems in the park (such as erosion). Currently they're addressing housing for the kicked-out homeless campers, dealing w/social service providers.
NATS takes its cues from individual neighbourhoods. The community MUST lead. What are our priorities?
Meetings:
22 April (Thursday) - Housing Committee Meeting,
6pm, University Service Centre.
22 April (Thursday) - Rooming and Boarding House Project
meeting, 5:30pm, Ravenna/Eckstein Community Centre.
Audience crankiness about possibility of loss of focus on crackdown on illegal behaviour.
Audience crankiness about the idea that we "must solve the problem of homelessness to stop illegal behaviour." Ms. Crooks says that isn't the case. Strongly requests that people report EVERYTHING illegal and dangerous. Unfortunately, procedures aren't there for doing this effectively right now - they're floating ideas on how to fix this, one being to have kiosks w/maps along the trails, so that location identification can be improved. It took the city weeks to find an illegal encampment, just because they couldn't get a good location from any of the reports.
Audience: Eloy says be nicer to Michelle, she's conscientious & not the problem.
Q about programme to house street kids - this was supposed to be a year to focus on kids, but we haven't heard anything. Concerns raised about renewed camping in Cowan or Ravenna this summer. The "Hope Act" was to get 150 juvie shelter beds, its status is unknown. NATS is Talking to churches. The 18-22 age range is a bureaucratic problem as they aren't really adults developmentally but generally can't be housed w/those under 18.
Ms. Crook wants to talk about the letters Willy distributed. She identified 15 separate issues from those letters; she likes our unprovoked-by-city-or-specific-organisation activism. (Fits well with NATS model.) Wants to work with a "working group" from us about bad housing. Can bring in data from Rooming & Boarding House committee. One tidbit: the RCW gives a tax break for dilapidated housing! Might look to change that.
Eloy is prompted to report on his trip to Tacoma. Very excited by communities making changes happen there. Communities are active and co-operating with police, apartment associations, city agencies, even the state legislature. Their organised nature works extremely well against slumlords. Seattle is limited by legal roadblocks, a "judicial climate" which is different. Seattle & Tacoma inspectors will be working & training together to transfer knowledge to try to help Seattle speed up actions against unsafe and illegal housing.
Committee reports
Eloy's trip report was half of his; he'll do the second half later.
Kent Willis on reporting problems. Came with a handout with specific steps to take w.r.t. reporting problems. If your actions are not DOCUMENTED, they DO NOT COUNT. He also brought a form to use for record keeping of what you report. We'll get some of this on the web page as soon as we can.
Eloy reports from the Neighbourhood Beautification Committee. Eloy brought back a booklet from Tacoma on how their organisations get things done. Utilities are fine on working with us w.r.t. things like alley degeneration, etc, but they simply aren't staffed to handle any situation - only one person for Seattle AND a couple of other cities. One issue raised was whether UPCC has insurance; some people sue everyone in sight in retaliation for being called on code and safety violations.
Neighbourhood identification signs are $1200, as mentioned before on the list.
Would lights be good, better than traffic circles? 21st, 20th, 54th, and 55th seriously need traffic calming, and circles are not a good fit on these streets.
Q from audience: Who do we call for cars on lawn? DCLU. Bug Eloy for the phone number. Who for cars on the SIDEWALK, and other parts of public property? Seattle Engineering has its OWN enforcement agent who is MUCH faster. But the car MUST be on PUBLIC property.
Upcoming events of interest:
APRIL 24 - Cowan Park treeplanting and cleaning. Call
Susie at 527-9915; she's organising. You get a T-shirt
if you sign up in advance.
MAY 8 - University District neighbourhood cleanup.
Brian from Land Use Committee. Brian considers DCLU is "the enemy" and gives a lot of reasons why. (Obstructionism and inaction in the past.) Says we MUST address identity problem, must differentiate ourselves from rest of neighbourhood, to get anywhere. Lots of talk about ordinances; Brian really wants to get references and pointers to land use laws on-line.
CUCAC is useful; it made a real difference. Some signs that the UPCC is starting to get noticed; the UPCC was mentioned in the Times as one of the major groups unhappy about UW's plans for its new field house.
Peter Steinbrueck is pushing BAD changes to the ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit, a.k.a. mother-in-law apartment) code. No hearing date set yet. It's the opinion of pretty much everybody present that these changes MUST be stopped. Richard ? (head of DCLU) sent a letter saying that Councilman Peter Steinbrueck wants to lose the owner-occupancy requirement, and had requested a recommendation on that idea; DCLU sent an "analysis" which was content-free on the subject. We NEED an organisational stance on the subject. John Fox is the suspected instigator, and is "desperately trying anything" to get more affordable housing. But the changes as proposed would turn all neighbourhoods into duplex zones (or more), essentially. AT VERY LEAST get city to properly analyse properly.
FOR COMMENTS: contact Diane Althaus, 233-3894, or diane.althaus@ci.seattle.wa.us
Steinbrueck views people against his proposed changes as anti-renter and elitist. Must let him know we aren't anti-renter. Steinbrueck's email is: peter.steinbrueck@ci.seattle.wa.us
Commentary from audience that owner-occupancy cuts city costs due to reduced problems.
Suggestion that we need a list of committees, and comprehensive coverage of important other organisations affecting our area.
Jim Crider has announcements:
Tuesday 27 April, The Hub: UW wants involvement on their new campus plan. They're particularly concerned with transportation and neighbourhood impact.
Cowan Park group is working on a patrol programme, will be talking with the Pioneer Square group about how they set up theirs. Mrs. Phillips will be looking for volunteers, particularly this summer.
Tim Rood on the mechanics of the next meeting:
Planning for the annual meeting is important, as we must elect officers and will need to debate dues and such. A subgroup will meet, presumably the board, to work out details. And as a reminder, Commander Cindy will talk at the next meeting.