Stopping Sound Transit’s Inevitable Demand To Establish Transit-Oriented Development Everywhere in South Bellevue
By now the direction of Sound Transit’s route placement actions in South Bellevue should certainly have become clear to everyone.
Every decision taken by Sound Transit, supported by some Bellevue political leaders, has been in the direction of moving the “B” segment portion of Eastlink ever more deeply into South Bellevue’s original founding residential neighborhoods – Enatai, Bellefield Park, Bellecrest and Surrey Downs.
Sound Transit’s B2M route plan already called for moving the train line well into Surrey Downs, along the west side of 112th Avenue, more than a year ago, in July 2010. With their presentation to our City Council two weeks ago Sound Transit signaled still further action in this direction by moving the train line further westward into Bellefield Park, as well as still more deeply into Surrey Downs.
Still more moves in this direction can be expected in the coming months, impacting still more neighborhoods – next are Bellecrest and Enatai – with still more homes taken, and many other direct impacts.
Why is Sound Transit doing this?
The only clear reason left — establishing the necessary near term economic and infrastructure impacts essential to accomplishing Transit-Oriented Development as the future of life everywhere in South Bellevue.
The Rationale Behind Transit-Oriented Development
Bellevue citizens need to understand Sound Transit policy leaders’ dedication to accomplishing Transit-Oriented-Development (TOD) wherever and whenever possible. The remainder of this note provides basic background on, and the evidence of Sound Transit’s commitment to this political objective. These facts have become known to BBB’s leaders through the personal disclosures of advocates for densification, public policy initiatives in our own City, and from TOD advocates’ own publications.
Leader and Staff Advocacy Disclosures
Here are just two examples of such disclosures:
“Why would we build the train line on the BNSF corridor? We can’t do any transit oriented development over there.” – Sound Transit’s B-Segment Project Manager to a group of Surrey Downs neighborhood residents – Spring, 2007
“It’s Not Easy Being Green: Challenges Along the Road to Compact Communities” – Grant Degginger’s Speech at his Lane Powell law firm’s 10/17/06 Client Seminar Titled: “How to Build a Larger Business and a Compact Community”; and: “Local governments will be looking favorably on developers who can implement low-impact developments“ – Builder News Magazine: July 1, 2008.
These statements and presentations are just a very small part of the very extensive statements and presentations that have been made by many other densification advocates who are also key staff and/or supporters of Sound Transit’s Transit-Oriented Development efforts within our region, as well as from our own city leaders and staff.
State Public Policy Initiatives In Support of Transit-Oriented Development
Two years ago, at the direction of FutureWise (http://futurewise.org/), the Transportation Choices Coalition (http://transportationchoices.org/), and other Seattle area activist groups’ immense pressures, our State Legislature almost adopted a far-reaching new state-wide Transit-Oriented Development law. This legislation would have established a mandate requiring every local government in our state to make changes in their zoning codes to mandate dramatic residential densification around transportation modal interchange facilities such as the Eastlink South Bellevue Park and Ride Station, and the Eastlink Main Street Station.
The legislative proposal called for population densities up to 25,000 persons within a quarter-mile radius of such facilities. Staff from our own City of Bellevue Planning Department appeared in Olympia at the time to offer their support of this legislation. Only when Bellevue citizens raised the alarm did our City Council, and staff from our City Manager’s office intercede, along with the Washington Association of Cities, making known the dismay of local communities about the proposed densification legislation.
The proposal was also advocated by Governor Gregiore and strongly backed by many Seattle politicians at the time.
The legislative proposal failed by one vote in the State House of Representatives in late Spring 2009. It would have subsequently easily passed in the State Senate one of our state legislative district leaders (Judy Clibborn) stated at the time.
Publications of Densification Advocates
A few months after the their TOD legislative proposal failed, FutureWise and the Transportation Choices Coalition published a monograph lamenting the failure of the State Legislature to adopt their residential neighborhood unfriendly densification proposal. Their monograph — “Transit Oriented Communities: A Blueprint for Washington State” (http://futurewise.org/resources/publications/TOC%20Blueprint%20Final%2011-23-09%20for%20Website.pdf/view?searchterm=a%20blueprint%20for%20washington%20state) — set out the following goal: “we must integrate land use, transportation and housing policies and regulations to maximize the access and choices for people living, working, and visiting high capacity transit station areas” — p. 48.
A senior level City of Bellevue City Planner, Dan Stroh, served as a technical advisor to the authors of this publication at the direction then City of Bellevue Planning Director, Matt Terry, along with the endorsement of Bellevue’s Mayor at the time, Grant Degginger.
Another strong advocate entity – The Seattle Transit Blog (http://seattletransitblog.com) — has also published an extensive trove of articles calling for the necessity of tying high-density housing to large light rail stations (do a search on the site for: “transit oriented development”, to find the related articles).
And, the Seattle Land Use Code Blog site published a major piece (http://seattleslandusecode.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/climb-every-mountain-ingredients-we-need-for-tod-in-washington/) recently setting out a comprehensive legislative and economic plan for forcing cities, developers, and property owners to implement high density housing around transit stations.
All of these organizations and blog site operators work very closely with Sound Transit in advocating for, and sponsoring Transit-Oriented Development projects around Sound Transit’s new Central Link stations, as well as in building political pressure points to move Sound Transit’s Transit-Oriented Development initiatives forward everywhere.
Moving the Train Line Still Further Into Bellevue’s Neighborhoods
Sound Transit completed a preliminary engineering plan almost two years ago that calls for placing Eastlink completely on the west side of Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue, all the way from Main Street to I-90. Surveying to set out the westward edge of this completely west side running alignment was completed at that time. The stakes associated with this survey are still present up the hillsides to the west of 112th Avenue and along south Bellevue Way. Detailed engineering maps showing this west side route placement have been viewed by an Enatai neighborhood resident, with this information recently having been shared with BBB.
Bellevue City Manager, Steve Sarkozy, has also known of this completely west side running plan for more than 14 months based on information received from another South Bellevue neighbor. Meetings have also taken place in the office of our City Manager in recent months with developers and other organizations that would benefit from City backing of Transit-Oriented Development initiatives in south Bellevue.
Tactics to Lower Property Values
With this westerly alignment movement evidence beginning to leak out, the impossibility of containing excessive train noise exposure far into adjacent communities becoming well known to local residents, and the anticipated destruction of the views of their nearby Mercer Slough natural environment being evermore well understood, owners of homes near 112th Avenue and Bellevue Way have begun making decisions to sell their property. The combination of these events is already leading to overall lower market values for homes all along these two South Bellevue Streets according to homeowners in these areas.
The lowering of property values, as residents become increasingly alarmed both of the negative environmental and lifestyle impacts of Eastlink, and the stoking of fears of further property value losses, are realities that play directly into the hands of Transit-Oriented Development advocates and their associated developer community members. Evidence is already gathering that these TOD advocate’s objectives are already being accomplished in South Bellevue’s communities.
BBB researchers have recently estimated that property value losses in the four South Bellevue communities adjacent to 112th Avenue and Bellevue Way likely already total many tens of millions of dollars.
When Will the “Next Shoe Drop”
It is likely only a matter of months before our City of Bellevue can expect to hear formally of Sound Transit’s next decision — to move the rest of the rail line to west side of Bellevue Way, and along the west side of the remaining south end portion of 112th Avenue – thereby completing a total west side running Eastlink rail line all the way from I-90 to Main Street. We know their plans are already done.
Now we need to be asking — why is this reality not being called out by our City.