A fairly worthless meeting

I almost wish I hadn't gone to the Seattle Neighborhood Summit last night. The Summit itself was a complete waste of my time - this is a feat, considering my tolerance for the community meetings I choose to attend. It was designed well - long on networking about pertinent issues, short on speakers blowing hot air. Unfortunately, the citizens then took it upon themselves to blow the said hot air.

I had high hopes for the Zoning, Land Use, Design and Planning breakout session. Then we talked about Incentive Zoning for the entire 45 minutes. From what I've gathered, IZ is pretty small affordable housing potatoes. Why did that have to be the thing that we talked to death? Why couldn't I have raised by hand faster and gotten Transit-Oriented Development on the board first!?

Which reminds me - WorldChanging would like me to write an article about T.O.D. solutions. I'm going to try, but the only T.O.D. I've heard about involves a whole lot of expensive new apartments and condos surrounding new transit hubs, which then fuels a wave of gentrification. Maybe we'll get lucky with the light rail stations that will open up in Rainier Valley next year. Here's hoping Sally Clark was serious about the Rainier Valley expedited neighborhood plan updates being meant to give the neighborhoods a headstart over developers.