Lease lid comes before budget committee today
May 29, 2003
After several public meetings and discussion by city politicians, a Seattle City Council committee will try to find common ground on whether to lift the UW's lease lid today.
The lid limits the University to leasing 550,000 square feet in the U-District. The UW is fast approaching that limit at about 500,000 square feet.
The Finance, Budget, Business and Labor Committee will discuss what needs to be done with the proposal at today's meeting, according to Charlie McAteer from Councilwoman Judy Nicastro's office.
A proposal from Councilwoman Jan Drago would lift the lease lid until 2010, while requiring the city as well as the University to find strategies to increase housing in the U-District. Drago chairs the committee.
According to Nicastro's office, the committee is looking for some middle ground on the issue. At earlier meetings, Nicastro said a partial lift of the lease lid might be an option, giving the UW about 100,000 more square feet to work with.
McAteer said it is unlikely any vote will be made today, and that committee members hope to come up with solid ideas to be voted on at the next committee meeting June 4.
The proposal to entirely lift the lease lid is part of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickel's plan to revitalize the U-District.
However, some U-District community members said allowing the UW to lease an unlimited amount of property would not revitalize the area but destroy the "after 5 p.m." life instead.
According to Matt Fox, a longtime U-District resident and an adamant opponent of lifting the lease lid, lifting the restriction will let the University put as many offices in the area as it wants, destroying the area's nightlife and sense of community.
Fox argued that the proposal to lift the lease lid did not fit into the U-District's comprehensive community plan. A divisive issue is the lack of new housing, which was proposed to be added under the plan.
Nicastro's office said if the proposal is passed June 4, it would be sent to the full council for a final vote June 9.
Comments
Post a comment
You are not currently logged in. You must log in using your Facebook account to post a comment. It's fast, easy, and we don't store any of your personal information, except your first and last name when you post a comment.
Why?
Our old comment system was abused to leave racist, sexist, fradulent, or simply useless comments. We're hoping this verification step will improve the quality of our comments.
I don't have a Facebook account. I'd like to verify my identity using my MySpace/Google/Yahoo!/OpenID/SSN/주민등록번호/MasterCard.
Let us know. We're open to suggestions. Over the next few weeks, we'll be testing other authentication methods.
The FBI/CIA/TSA/CoS/Emmert is out to get me! I need to stay anonymous!
We're working on a way to allow this. If you have any ideas, email us.
I think this website is ugly.
It's going to be a work in progress all summer, so it may look and act differently from week to week. If you want to influence this process, email us. We read every email, and respond to most of them.