Is it public outreach if no one knows about it?
In 2018 Seattle instituted Early Community Outreach to ensure developers sought early feedback from neighbors as a way to reduce the number of Design Review meetings. But Belltown project #3028017-EG took streamlining too far by completing an elaborate online outreach program without adequate notice.
The high profile tower planned for 5th and Virginia is surrounded by thousands of residents, workers and businesses. So it came as a surprise when the project recently announced its June 15th EDG2 meeting showing it had just completed three weeks of Early Community Outreach and hadn’t received a single public comment.
A closer look shows that while the applicant hosted an online website, survey, ads and a telephone hotline there was little way the public would know it.
Someone skipped the requirement to post physical notices at the project site and in the neighborhood! And, instead of mailing notices to all residents within 500’, the only written notices sent were a single postcard with no addressee, mailed to each of the 56 buildings within 500’. This is not acceptable, as per the documented rules established by SDCI.
The outreach was done by a third party and it could be a big mistake. If so, there’s still time to rewind and put the “community” back in “Community engagement”.
Neighbors have written to Nathan Torgelson, Director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI), asking him to delay the June 15th meeting until real public outreach is completed.
SDCI established the rules of early community engagement and has a responsibility to the public to hold applicants accountable when they circumvent the process.
The Early Community Outreach website states, “the intent of this outreach is to be inclusive of interested parties to allow for a diversity of neighborhood perspectives to be heard.”
A three week dialogue required by Community Outreach is not equivalent to twenty minutes allotted for public comment at an EDG meeting.
