Neighborhood Planning

Read more about the article Gas Works Park: Wallingford’s Landmark Faces Renewed Safety Debate

Gas Works Park: Wallingford’s Landmark Faces Renewed Safety Debate

Gas Works Park is the number one attraction in the Wallingford neighborhood, as well as one of the top tourist destinations in Seattle. The park is also popular among locals for walking, outdoor yoga, kids’ playgrounds, summer picnics, concerts, kite flying, and even sledding during the rare winter snow. The park also draws thousands of visitors for the 4th of July celebration and for watching the New Year’s fireworks going off from the Space Needle. The 19.1-acre park, located on the…

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Lincoln Playfields at Lower Woodland Park: An Update on Option A and Option C

It has been over a month since Wallyhood published a proposal by Friends of Lower Woodland Park, Lincoln Playfields Option C. Since that time, a very encouraging 265 neighbors have come forward to publicly reject Option A and endorse Option C. This is a phenomenal amount of feedback in the doldrums of a Seattle winter break, so thank you Wallingford! Friends of Lower Woodland Park are providing this update on what we have heard from Seattle Public Schools (SPS), details on…

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Read more about the article Getting ready for The Big One
Nisqually earthquake damage from KIRO7

Getting ready for The Big One

Seattle's Office of Emergency Management is presenting a series of webinars to detail how they will respond when a major earthquake comes our way. Note, we say WHEN, not IF. It's coming, we just don't know when. It's overdue, which makes us even more nervous. Recent research says that a rupture of the Seattle Fault, that runs east-west under Harbor Island and Beacon Hill, is likely to be more damaging to Seattle than the much discussed Cascadia Subduction Fault that runs…

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Read more about the article Wallingford’s New Community Fridge!
Wallingford's Community Fridge

Wallingford’s New Community Fridge!

Take what you need. Give what you can. During the pandemic, we have seen Free Little Libraries turned into food pantries and now our neighborhood joins others across Seattle in hosting a Seattle Community Fridge. Taking inspiration from cities like San Francisco and New York, Seattle Community Fridge places cheerfully painted refrigerators around the city. These refrigerators and their accompanying pantries offer free food for anyone facing food insecurity. The latest refrigerator popped up in Wallingford on Bagley Avenue, just off…

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Read more about the article Wallingford targeted for more housing growth than most other urban villages under HALA

Wallingford targeted for more housing growth than most other urban villages under HALA

As I reported in November, the City has released the "Preferred Alternative" maps for proposed zoning changes under HALA (if you don't know what HALA is, you can find out more here). What I did not have in my hands when writing about the Preferred Alternative maps the first time, was the figures for just how much new development Wallingford could expect under these proposed zoning changes. As you can see in the document linked below, Wallingford is targeted for a…

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Read more about the article The life and death of our Neighborhood Plan

The life and death of our Neighborhood Plan

  I’d like to tell you a story about the life and death of our Neighborhood Plan. The story starts back in the 1990’s. It was a time when Seattle was still a small big city before Amazon took over a whole neighborhood, when we were the center of a musical grunge scene and flannel was everywhere (well, maybe that last part hasn’t changed). If you are old enough, you may remember this version of Seattle. But while the cool kids…

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Read more about the article Rob Johnson Q&A on the HALA “Grand Bargain” Upzone of Wallingford
Rob Johnson

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

[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…

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