Neighborhood Planning

The Executive and City Council have agreed to allocate resources in the 2008 budget to develop an approach to look at the status of and update Neighborhood Plans that were prepared 8 to 10 years ago.

In late 2007 and into 2008, the Department of Neighborhoods (DON) and Department of Planning and Development (DPD) sought community feedback regarding approaches to updating plans. In April 2008, DON published a Community Feedback Report, summarizing input from over 50 diverse community groups of which, two major themes emerged:

1) Ensure broad and inclusive outreach and engagement activities, especially targeted for underserved communities, and

2) Provide opportunities for community input and ownership of the process through clear and effective communication.

In addition to City efforts to engage the community in designing next steps to updating the Neighborhood Plans, the City Neighborhood Council’s held a forum addressing the potential value of updating neighborhood plans, how to conduct plan updates and who should be involved, as well as the outcomes that should be expected from the updates. The UW’s Evans School of Public Affairs also held a workshop for community members and published a report on the need for updating Neighborhood Plans and about the planning process. A number of questions were raised about the need for such updates and the approach if updates were planned. Based on community comments from numerous events, questions about a sector approach, questions about the need for a citywide assessment before prioritizing sectors, and an immediate extraordinary opportunity to capture additional public benefit and development opportunities around light rail stations in Southeast Seattle, the concept agreed upon by the Executive and City Council follows below. DON will conduct outreach to engage broad and diverse community input to implement the agreed upon approach.

Click here for more information on implementation of exisitng Neighborhood Plans.