New Community Engagement Practices for Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan Update

“Capitol Hill EcoDistrict, along with five other groups, will assist with outreach and connecting with residents as the city looks to review its comprehensive plan,” according to an article by Ari Cetron for the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

The city is launching the public engagement process for the One Seattle Plan, a major update to the city’s comprehensive plan, scheduled to take place over the next two years. The planning process is expected to address several critical issues: the cost of housing, questions of whether to intensify density around the city’s urban villages, the realities of climate change, and the need to respond to the discriminatory and inequitable practices of planning in the past.

“That is where the EcoDistrict comes in. Last month, the Office of Planning and Community Development announced it had partnered with six organizations across Seattle to help with early outreach for the One Seattle Plan. Each group will be paid $30,000 for their efforts,” according to Cetron.

Covid-19 is making it hard to definitively plan new methodologies, according to the article. Large, in-person meetings, for example, might or might not be a possibility in the fall.

“For now, the city has a 15-question survey posted on its website as it seeks to identify issues that are of concern to Seattle residents,” explains Centron.

The city is expected to begin working on the scope of the environmental impact statement this summer before releasing a draft plan and statement in the summer of 2023.

The city last updated its comprehensive plan in 2016, when it adopted the Seattle 2035 plan. Leading up to the process for the One Seattle Plan, Rick Mohler, co-chair of the Seattle Planning Commission, described the One Seattle plan the “major plan update in the city’s history.”

Ryan DiRaimo, boardmember of the Aurora Licton Urban Village neighborhood group, recently wrote an op-ed for The Urbanist calling on the city to do far more to add housing to the city than in previous updates of the comprehensive plan.