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Eric
Eric

199 Articles

Hello! I am past president of the Wallingford Community Council and spent 13 years at Microsoft as a developer and manager, concurrent with Ballmer's reign. I helped renovate Meridian Playground and have guided several transportation and parks projects in the neighborhood. If you have a project in mind, the WCC is a great resource for figuring out how to make it happen!

Rob Johnson Q&A for April: Limiting Home Demolitions, why HALA Targets Wallingford, and More

Eric April 18, 2017 48 Comments

Rob Johnson represents Wallingford on city council and is ushering HALA through the council as land use chair. This is a follow up to our January interview with him. Topics include Limiting Demolitions, Wallingford Neighborhood Planning, HALA Leaving Car Centric Communities Untouched, Transportation, Developer Impact Fees, The HALA Split on City Council, ADU / DADU Triplexes, and Meeting Rob in Wallingford.

Q1- Limiting Home Demolitions: The main concern with HALA is that upzones will drive redevelopment that happens too quickly, destroying livability while the transformation happens and forcing residents to either sell out to developers or live in a construction …

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Rob Johnson Q&A on the HALA “Grand Bargain” Upzone of Wallingford

Eric January 26, 2017 69 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Thanks Eric, for this exclusive interview. For our readers, this post is longer than our usual format, but packed with a lot of good information.]

Rob Johnson represents Wallingford on Seattle City Council and also leads land use issues for them, so nobody is more important in shaping how HALA ends up for Wallingford. The following Q&A is lightly edited for clarity. We very much appreciate Rob taking the time to address these questions with us, and look forward to your thoughts in the comments section.

Q- The Grand Bargain: A key complaint that we hear about HALA …

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HALA Should Develop Golf Courses and Cemeteries to Create New Walkable Neighborhoods

Eric June 17, 2016 33 Comments

The effect of the upzone to urban villages that HALA proposes is clear as we have already seen it happen in Ballard. Older homes and apartments will be shredded and displace thousands, driving out current residents and turning neighborhoods into unlivable construction zones as the transformation takes place. Further, all the new people that move in will swamp our already overloaded transportation systems and schools, driving up property taxes as we try to catch up and further damaging housing affordability and livability in our city. Do we really need to destroy Wallingford in order to save it, as Rick argued?…

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Swan Song

Eric January 18, 2016 29 Comments

I started writing for Wallyhood this past spring when Jordan took off because I valued a Wallingford community site and wanted to explore writing as a creative outlet. I was also hoping to form constructive relationships with the city in getting good things to happen for Wallingford.

Constructive relationships with the city proved impossible, largely because the city no longer has anyone assigned to support neighborhoods. It’s all downtown meetings based on city functions without visits to neighborhoods when making plans. To be successful with advocacy, you must be like the Seattle Bike Blog or the Seattle Transit Blog and …

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Amphibious Assault Vehicles Return To Wallingford, Take 2

Eric January 15, 2016 8 Comments

Ducks are returning to our streets as of today. Ducks were approved for road use during World War 2, so due to inertia they remain street legal today. The fact that their new mission is to amuse tourists and that they’re going to crush Wallingfordians instead of Nazis and their allies is irrelevant.

The specifics of the accident on Aurora are being addressed, just like specifics from several previous fatal accidents have been addressed. These are the latest changes:

The vehicles will take the Fremont Bridge and Ballard Bridge instead of the Aurora bridge There will be two vehicle operators…

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An Apology

Eric January 15, 2016 80 Comments

I’d like to apologize for language I used in an article I posted here this morning. It was offensive and hurtful to the community.

The article used a pejorative term for Japanese people when spoofing how people spoke during World War 2. I had never heard the term used outside of World War 2 documentaries and should have done a better job researching it. While I knew the term had a racial component (see internment camps), I believed that the term was primarily used as shorthand for the Japanese empire in World War 2 and that its use was anachronistic …

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Now Is When to Ask the City to Fund Your Crazy Ideas

Eric January 13, 2016 12 Comments

People think telling politicians their ideas is how to make things happen, but that’s just a test of how well a politician can fake empathy. If you really want your idea to happen, you need to go through a city funding process.

The Neighborhood Park and Street Fund submission deadline is 2/8. The fund provides for small-scale improvements to streets and parks, up to $90,000. Last year we held a vote on Wallyhood and the winning project got funded. Projects are chosen by the Lake Union District Council, then implemented by parks or SDOT.

If nobody submits ideas for Wallingford, …

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