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One Citizen Saves a City's View
By Jeff Boone
Irene Wall, citizen activist, in her office--the dining room table. |
The board reversed approval of a shoreline substantial development permit granted by the Department of Design, Land Use and Construction (DCLU) to the Port of Seattle and Wright Hotels. Both the Port and Wright Hotels had argued that because the hotel straddled the shoreline zone, the eastern half of the hotel was not subject to policies and regulations of the state's Shoreline Management Act, as articulated in Seattle's Shoreline Management Program. This argument created the view-blocker: an 85-foot hotel. While the Port and Wright Hotels had managed to persuade DCLU that this interpretation of Seattle's land-use code and shoreline management program was correct, the two did not persuade the members of the Shorelines Hearing Board. The board ruled that the approved hotel is a unified structure, the hotel adversely affects the shoreline by blocking visual shoreline access, and that the entire hotel is "within" the shoreline, thus the requirement for a shoreline permit and consistency with shoreline policies and regulations extends to the entire hotel building. Pending appeal, Wright Hotels' course of action is clear: knock about four stories off the top.
It would not have come this far but for Irene Wall. In August 1997, Wall began attending meetings of the design review board, which was then focused on the hotel, the last in a series of buildings that comprised the Port's redevelopment of the central waterfront. A portion of the panoramic view from the Viaduct and Steinbrueck Park had already been corrupted by the construction of the two World Trade Center buildings and the Waterfront Landings condominiums.
As Wall attended design review meetings, she pondered the question:
"Why was I so bent out of shape by the prospect of looking at blank walls?"
A friend gave her a book to read. It was Alan Durning's This Place on Earth. In this book Wall found her reason.
"My place on earth."
"If I can't see Elliott Bay," Wall remarked, "I've lost my place on earth. If the blank walls of a hotel replace that view, I've lost my connection with my own place on earth.
"I have a deep sentimental attachment to this view. When I was a child, my grandmother lived in Tacoma, and we would visit her. In those days, people who lived in north Seattle drove home by way of the Viaduct. When we reached the Viaduct, I knew I was home--the water, the wharfs, that's home.
"When I first filed the appeal, I was ignorant of the process, but I felt my complaint was legitimate. I was right, and I knew it. I had moral support. Everyone agreed with me in principle. But how do you take on well-established, well-financed, politically connected people?
"When I saw what I was up against, I lost heart. I thought I'd be outlawyered. I had no luck finding a lawyer, and I thought I would have to represent myself. But I continued to turn over rocks until I found Peter Buck of Buck & Gordon, and I got some good advice from Keith Moxon and Peter Buck. They did not represent me, but they helped me on a pro bono basis.
"Land use code and the language of development gets a little arcane," said Wall. "It takes awhile to understand the lingo of regulations. You can expect a steep learning curve. You must be prepared to learn the mechanisms and language of land use planning--who interprets the code and who makes decisions and how much power DCLU has.
"And you have to have passion, or you'll burn out."
And you use your own money, Wall found. She spent thousands of dollars appealing the permit--money well spent.
"Nothing felt quite so good as hearing that decision on the conference call. The decision was the last line the clerk read. The word we were all waiting for was in that last sentence: affirmed or reversed?
"When I heard affirmed, I was so happy!"
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