As city plans new Broadview raingardens, neighbors ready for fight | Development

The city is preparing for a new natural drainage project to curb stormwater runoff into Puget Sound – this one slated for eight blocks in Broadview – and a group of residents are hiring lawyers and gearing up for a fight, nervous the project could ruin their neighborhood.

If all goes to plan, the $6.5 million Venema Natural Drainage System on Northwest 122nd Street from Third Avenue to Greenwood will allow stormwater to filter into the ground, improve Piper’s Creek for salmon and trout and keep polluted stormwater out of the Sound, according to Seattle Public Utilities.

But, Broadview resident Brian Martin thinks the project will be a waste of money and a blight on his property and that the city has been less than forthcoming in its dealings with neighbors.

“We have become increasingly frustrated and suspicious of the city’s motives and objectives,” Martin said. “They have used every dirty trick in the book, Machiavellian-style. From  divide and conquer, breaking up large groups so they can isolate those who have questions and concerns about the project, to disseminating what amounts to misinformation.”

Tracy Tackett, green stormwater infrastructure program manager for SPU, said the Venema project was started a few years ago but was put on hold for budget reasons and so the city could incorporate lessons learned from the problematic Ballard Roadside Raingardens project, including more extensive geotechnical work.

Now, the Venema project is revving up again. It is 30 percent designed, and SPU should be reaching out to the community again in the near future, Tackett said.

SPU spokesperson Andy Ryan said the Venema Project is very similar to the SEA Streets project completed nearly a decade ago a few blocks away along Second Avenue Northwest between 117th Street and 120th Street.

“We basically already built this project, and it was very well received,” Ryan said.

SEA Streets was the city’s first attempt at natural drainage infrastructure and has proved successful, reducing the amount of stormwater leaving the street by 99 percent, and popular with neighbors, SPU’s Susan Stoltzfus said.

Mary Rosplock, who lives on SEA Street, said nearly everybody on the streets likes it a lot

SEA Street features a distinctive curved street with less street parking than a typical street and two large landscaped raingardens on either side.

Rosplock has lived on the street for two decades and said the SEA Streets project made it quieter and a much better place for children to play, ride bikes and skateboard.

Despite the city’s assertion that the Venema project is basically SEA Streets, Venema will not include SEA Streets’ distinctive curving design, and it is unclear at this point whether or not the new project will include any street parking or sidewalks.

“The sidewalk and ample parking were huge factors for me when I bought the house 20 years ago,” neighbor Mike Andrie said. “After Venema goes through, fewer people will consider my house, and no one will buy it unless I discount the price.”

Stoltzfus said the city cannot say anything concrete about Venema’s design, as it will only be completed after technical analysis, which is still underway.

But, Martin said early designs shown to the neighborhood depict 20-feet-wide raingardens – larger than those on SEA Streets – and no parking or sidewalks. He also said SEA Streets is not the success it is depicted as, with overgrown raingardens hiding the unmaintained houses behind them.

Andrie said SEA Streets is popular with pedestrians, but he has heard parking squabbles arise from the limited street parking.

The potential loss of parking is especially worrisome to Martin, who describes his house as an “entertainment home” with a pool and frequent guests, who could soon have nowhere to park. Not to mention the headaches the loss of parking would cause him during his everyday routine.

“Can you imagine having to pack your groceries into your house from a block away in the rain?” he said.

Though the project may not ultimately remove street parking, Tackett said even if the city did remove some parking spaces, demand for parking is low in the area, and the remaining spaces would be more than enough to satisfy demand.

Andrie disagrees.

“Just because the parking spaces pencil out in the total Venema project area doesn’t mean the situation is workable,” he said. “Parking a block or two up a hill from an address might be realistic in a business/entertainment district, but not for homeowners.”

Andrie said he is also worried about the aesthetics of the Venema Project, specifically a raindgarden – or drainage ditch, is his words – in front of his house leaving him with a narrow walkway to his front door.

“When I spoke with the project engineer in the spring, he said they still hadn’t determined how high the ditch’s berm must be in order to stop flooding into my yard,” Andrie said. “He speculated 12 to 18 inches, which will make my house look like it’s sitting in a hole. Goodbye, curb appeal.”

Other areas of concern for Andrie and Martin are the project causing flooding in neighborhood basements, children getting sick from pathogens or chemicals in the raingardens, and the raingardens becoming a breeding ground for insects and vermin. SPU refutes all those claims.

“We haven’t had any problems with this on any previous project in the city,” Stoltzfus said about residential flooding. “We design projects to avoid such problems, and we have received input from people who live on SEA Street that they no longer have wet basements after the project.”

Martin said even if the Venema project caused no problems for the neighborhood, it would still be a waste of public money, likely not working or making much of a difference.

“It is extremely doubtful that this project will have any measurable positive effect on helping to clean up the Sound or save any fish,” Martin said. “I think this project has more to do with expanding SPU’s size and influence, as well as the fact that it is ‘shovel ready’ and they’ve been granted ‘stimulus’ money for the project.”

Martin said the damage done to Puget Sound from runoff is grossly overstated, and the project is a band-aid that ignores the real problem: aging infrastructure and over development in North Seattle.

“Is it really worth $5 million to $6 million to catch a little oily water runoff from the roads in the neighborhood and, in so doing, damage the values and accessibility of the neighborhood’s residents,” Martin wrote in an email to the city.

Stolzfus said polluted stormwater runoff has been repeatedly identified as a major threat to Puget Sound, and groups like the EPA, the Washington State Department of Ecology, People for Puget Sound and Puget Soundkeeper’s Alliance are putting a bigger focus on stormwater runoff.

Tackett said residents are interested in natural drainage projects, which restore a large portion of a creek’s watershed to its natural state.

“We get a lot of requests and desire for this work,” She said. “Our intent is to do this to improve the neighborhood.”

Stoltzfus said the city is required by state and federal regulations to have a stormwater program that includes treatment, and green solutions are one of the most cost-effective ways to do that.

She said the Venema project will function as well as other projects in the area – SEA Streets and the Broadview Green Grid, which reduced runoff by nearly 50 percent.

For his part, Andrie said he doesn’t care whether the project works or not, it will still cost him parking, sidewalk, curb appeal and property value. And, for a handful of neighbors, that’s the bottom line.