White Center Now: The blog about White Center

You have to hand it to Bush & Company, they were spot on when they proclaimed that the free market would most assuredly take care of such problems as affordable housing.  Who could have known, a mere three years ago, with housing prices skyrocketing and rents pricing out most renters, that a social revolution was brewing.  Social reformers and liberals cried out for government aid to build low income housing.  Who knew that the mind behind Bush had a smashing plan for bringing down the cost of housing across the board and across the nation?  Genius, pure genius!   Drive the economy into the ditch and pretty soon you are picking up quarter-million dollar homes for $100K in Florida and California.  Here in Seattle, rents have dropped dramatically and landlords are offering incentives to get their units occupied.  Problem is no one has the money to snatch the cheap real estate.  Ah, the magic of the free market at work.

What, you may well ask, does this have to do with the Greenbridge development?   Greenbridge is more than a housing project, it is a master plan for the community.  Greenbridge, and High Point, were developed with certain assumptions in mind.

The project, launched in 2001 with a grant from the federal Hope VI program — the same program that has contributed to the redevelopment of High Point and Holly Park — is supposed to include 1,025 living units. That’s a lot more housing than Park Lake held, but a lot less of it will be subsidized for the poor. The mix is supposed to include 300 rent-subsidized units, 353 workforce rental units, and 372 homes for sale at market rates. This represents a net loss of 269 rent-subsidized units. Instead of maintaining a large pocket of low-income housing in White Center, the county decided to disperse.

As well, the project was developed before the economy hit the squids and before the current real estate meltdown.  Hence, the criticism that some of the economic assumptions underlying the project were wrong.

The King County Housing Authority built the first part of Greenbridge at the height of the real estate boom, when prices for everything were sky-high. The sale of lots for market-rate housing was supposed to reimburse the county some of the cost. By the time the housing authority offered its first relatively small group of market-rate lots for sale, the market had plunged. Only one developer bid on the land, at a price way lower than expected. Having bought high, the county felt it couldn’t afford to sell low. It retracted its request for proposals. For now, the single-family portion of Greenbridge is on hold until the market picks up.

As well, some readers of this blog have expressed concern that the early learning center is a lot of wasted money, destined more for monuments than for education.   Needless to say, Greenbridge and its constituent parts have no shortage of critics.  This is so, despite the very involved political process used to  formulate its goals.  Unlike private developments, the development Greenbridge required input from a great many constituent groups.  As well, the philosophy behind Greenbridge incorporates the revolution in urban planning that did away with such government-manufactured ghettos such as Chicago’s infamous Cabrini Green towers.  When all is said and done, Greenbridge is supposed to be a place that is safe, pleasant and attractive.  And it will be organically connected to the larger White Center Community.

More to come, but feel free to jump in with your observations and comments.    (As always, be civil, or your comment will be deleted.)  In the interim, here are some pictures taken on November 23^rd, showing the current progress.

Usually the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meets toward the end of the month, but not this time – we’ve just received a reminder that the next meeting, last one of the year, will be on December 11th, different location too — SW Boys and Girls Club, 9800 8th SW (map), 6-8 pm.

Reminder that Thursday night’s when Detective Joe Gagliardi is giving another one of his popular and thorough gang-awareness presentations – and you can get the full benefit by driving a few miles south — read on for details provided by the city of Burien: Read the rest of this entry »

The third in a series of four town hall meetings held by King County Sheriff She Rahr and Prosecutor Dan Satterberg is Wednesday in White Center.

Rahr has said proposed county budget cuts will put the public at risk, and is holding the meetings to hear from the public. For more on the previous meetings, click here.

The meeting is scheduled from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the log cabin at Steve Cox Memorial Park, at 1321 S.W. 102nd St. in White Center.

Whenever the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition has its monthly meetings, the WC nightclub Evolucion somehow always comes up for discussion. Tonight, a representative came to face the critics – read on for our full report, with video: Read the rest of this entry »

Just a reminder – 6 pm tonight, the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting is the place to bring up your crime/safety concerns, with law enforcers and community organizers right there to answer your questions and offer suggestions. St. James Place, 9421 18th SW (map), dinner provided!

This house is located at the intersection of Delridge and 16th Avenue SW.  The house burnt down in December of 2007.   Sometime thereafter, some vagrants started using the basement as their home and so the owner boarded up the windows.  Word is that the house was to be torn down and a mixed use residential-commercial project was to take its place.   Nothing good has happened since.

As you can see from the attached pictures the place is a complete nuisance.  No steps have been taken to mitigate the damage caused by the fire and the subsequent abandonment.  The grass and weeds are overgrown.  The charred appliances and furniture are still lying outside where they were dumped by the fire department.  And the place is conspicuous to just about everyone visiting the White Center commercial area.  Clearly, the owner does not care what kind of a nuisance this creates for the community.  Anybody got some ideas on how to get this negligent owner to clean up his mess?

Word is that the King County financial crisis is worse than has been represented by Ron Sims. Cuts to the King County Sheriff’s Office will be much more severe than represented. One of the casualties may be Deputy Jeff Hancock, who took over after the death of Steve Cox. The White Center Sheriff’s store-front and Deputy Hancock’s beat may well be on the chopping block. Expect to hear conflicting accounts from the Sims Office and the Sheriff’s Department.

Just in from King County Sheriff Sue Rahr (left) – plans for a series of town-hall-style meetings to talk about how the county budget crisis will affect public safety. She and other county leaders including Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, King County Superior Court Presiding Judge Bruce Hilyer, and King County District Court Chief Presiding Judge Barbara Linde will be in White Center for one of these meetings at 7 pm October 29, Steve Cox Memorial Park. The announcement says, “Because of an estimated $90 million county budget shortfall, the King County Executive has directed the criminal justice system to take an “across-the-board” budget cut of 11.4% for 2009. These cuts threaten the quality of justice in King County and put the public’s health and safety at risk. Your criminal justice elected officials are hosting a series of town meetings to discuss the issue. It’s critical that your voice is heard.” (Before White Center Now launched in August, we covered an early-warning briefing by Sheriff Rahr in SeaTac on June 21st; see that report, which includes video, here.)

Several stories to report from tonight’s meeting of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council at NH Fire District HQ: We’ll start with a summary of the Alcohol Impact Area discussion (previewed here); council member Heidi Johnson has been researching this for about a year, it was noted tonight. The heart of the presentation/discussion was an informational briefing, with Karen McCall from the state Liquor Control Board explaining what an AIA is, how it works, and how to request one. Bottom line: If an area has problems caused by public drinking/drunkenness – from litter to people passed out in doorways and on bus benches – this is one way to go after the problem. It restricts businesspeople in the area from selling certain types of alcoholic beverages, sometimes specifying certain times of day for the restrictions. “There has to be a link from the products to the problem,” McCall stressed. And it requires a lot of documentation — once you’ve proposed an AIA, six months of work to see if you can get local businesses to comply voluntarily with whatever you want them to do (restrict certain products, certain hours, or both) — and you have to document the problem, with photos, notes, etc. After six months, if you “don’t get compliance” as McCall put it, you take it to your local jursidiction – a city council or county council, for example, and say you want to take it to the Liquor Control Board. That process may take another three to six months, but, she said, “The board hasn’t turned one down yet.” Make sure you really want it, though, because “once it’s in, it’s in” for at least two years. McCall also noted one more tool that communities have – when businesses’ liquor licenses come up for renewal, they can request restrictions on sale of certain products (fortified wine, for example) – though again, documentation of neighborhood problems is required. (Note: Liquor-license applications can be tracked online here.) One person who could certainly play a role in that was at tonight’s meeting: White Center-based King County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Hancock. In his year and a half in the area, he said, while he’s seen “a lot of violent crime,” he emphatically declared: “The behavior that stands out, and makes a negative impression, is public drunkenness — from Roxbury to 107th, between 14th and 18th, four or five businesses have single-sale alcohol to individuals, and there are 20 to 30 regulars, any day of the week, you can drive down 15th and 16th, see the cans everywhere, people passed out at bus stops … I personally responded to robberies, assaults between people who are intoxicated. It’s very bad for the image of White Center. What people say – they don’t really see the narcotics deals, or the violent crime you hear about on the news, but they see every day the people stumbling down the street, aggressive panhandlers … Alcohol is not the most serious crime in the area, but the most detrimental to the growth of the area.” He added that he feels if Seattle chooses the nearby Myers Way jail site, and releases people there, they would immediately head toward White Center to “get a beer,” if nothing is changed. McCall said some business owners traditionally protest the potential designation, but revenue reports show they usually increase their business in the year after restrictions are put into place. What’s next? More research, and a decision whether this is to be formally pursued; as mentioned in our preview coverage, area activists also would like to look at whether the Seattle side of the White Center area could be included – apparently that would involve separate requests from the separate jurisdictions. James Bush from the office of County Councilmember Dow Constantine also promised they would stay involved.

Reminder – the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meets tonight at 7 pm at North Highline Fire District headquarters, and the idea of a possible Alcohol Impact Area in White Center is on the agenda. (We wrote about this last month.) Read the full agenda for tonight’s meeting here; other topics include graffiti, King County Sheriff’s Office storefronts, and the upcoming Steve Cox Memorial fundraiser (here’s our most recent update).

Click pic to play video

Just back from 8th SW north of SW 108th (map), where a car rolled into the front yard of a home whose residents just recently moved in (and narrowly avoided smashing into the house itself). The driver was taken away by ambulance, but witnesses told White Center Now that he walked out of the wrecked car – and reportedly told investigators he had slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a dog in the road. In the video clip above, you see debris in the street – some sports equipment spilled out of the car – just north of the crash scene. The neighbors who talked with us say drivers speed, and crash, regularly on this street – it’s a long straightaway north from 108th, and on 108th itself, with downhill stretches where they say it’s easy to get up to 50 mph very quickly. They would like to see a stoplight or some other kind of traffic-calming measure on 8th SW. The scene is barely a block north of the 8th SW site of King County Public Health and White Center Food Bank, by the way. The residents whose house was hit weren’t commenting while we were there, but investigators made quick work of the scene – a tow truck was arriving as we were leaving, barely half an hour after we heard about the crash on the scanner. We also caught a little slice-of-life of what it’s like to clean up after a crash: first, a short video clip of an officer kicking debris out of the street; second, a photo of the tire the crashed car lost:

Click pic to play video

No major headlines from tonight’s White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting, but we’ve got a few toplines for you anyway: Read the rest of this entry »

6 pm tonight, it’s the monthly meeting of the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition – it’s a one-stop shop to get the latest on what’s happening with crime, safety, and related concerns around the area, plus a good chance to ask any questions you might have about something in your neighborhood, since local law enforcers and community advocates are on hand too. It’s at St. James Place, 9421 18th SW (map).

Lots going on this week and three to remind you about for starters: The North Highline Fire District commissioners’ regular bimonthly meeting is 8 am tomorrow at district HQ; then at 8 Wednesday morning, it’s the special meeting with Seattle reps re: annexation issues, as announced at the last NHFD commissioners’ meeting. Thursday night, the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting starts at 6 at St. James Place – tons of important info at these meetings every month, and free dinner too. See you there!

We posted a reminder a few days back, and now the big day’s here. Still looking for info? Here’s the Highline Public Schools website; here’s the one for Seattle Public Schools. And it’s time for drivers to keep an eye out for school zones and buses, too. (Any back-to-school pix? E-mail us!)

Last night, our first report brought you the biggest news from the monthly White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting, held at St. James Place (photo above) — King County Parks’ new graffiti-fighting proposal (read about it here). But that was only part of what was discussed at an information-packed meeting. A special presentation on best practices for calling 911 will be featured in our third report later today, but right now – here’s the newest information on crime/safety concerns in the area: Read the rest of this entry »

Though yesterday’s move by the City of Burien (first reported here at White Center Now last night) takes its North Highline Annexation proposal off the table, Burien city manager Mike Martin confirms to WCN that the Sept. 2 Boundary Review Board hearing is still on – as is Burien’s annexation-info open house in Boulevard Park tonight (6:30 pm, BP Presbyterian, more info here). We asked Martin what happens next regarding a timetable; his reply: “As for negotiations, Seattle has steadfastly refused to talk, respond to e-mails or anything else, so the ball is in their court. We’ll send them a formal letter asking them to meet, but so far not successful.” (Here’s what Seattle Council President Richard Conlin told us earlier.) P.S. Another meeting of interest to White Center neighbors tonight — NOT annexation-related – the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety monthly meeting, with the agenda including a presentation on 911-call “best practices,” 6 pm tonight @ St. James Place, 9421 18th SW (map).