By Peggy Sturdivant

I wasn’t going to write a column this week. Then on Thursday, January 21, Ballard News-Tribune reporter Shane Harms asked if I could cover a one-hour meeting that started in two hours. He had to work his other job as bartender. He owes me.

To sum up seven pages of notes in three words: people are angry. It had been dark for hours with over two inches of rain but the Odd Fellows’ Ballard-Alki Lodge #170 was packed at 7 p.m. Seattle District 6 City Council member Mike O’Brien had accepted an invitation from Stop Ballard Pods Apts. to discuss micro-housing, congregate housing, Single Efficiency Dwelling Units (SEDUs), parking exceptions and impact fees.

At Ballard District Council I wondered where are all the upset residents I see online? I have my answer. They had been at a Magnolia meeting on public safety a week earlier, Wallingford Community Council meeting the night before and they were at the lodge on Thursday night.

So this is yet a report on a meeting I didn’t plan to attend in a column I didn’t plan to write (at least this week).

The pace of development in Seattle is hitting certain areas particularly hard and fast. Almost every street in the city is experiencing change and a lot of residents don’t like the sense of three freight trains coming at them at once. They cite density without concurrent transit, permits issued for townhouses up to the lot lines and high occupancy units that don’t have to provide off-street parking.

Some people are enraged because they are feeling the effects in their daily life, not able to find parking within blocks of their home or able to keep up with property taxes. Whether they will become activists in the long term remains to be seen, but if the last few meetings are an indication Seattle’s neighborhood residents are reaching a boiling point, and they are starting to organize.

Unlike recent meetings that have provided forums for residents to vent on property crimes, slow police response, increase of unsanctioned homeless encampments and people living in RVs the dominant themes were parking, unimplemented impact fees for developers and what can we do to stop unmanaged growth.

Although organizers had circulated a sign-up sheet for attendees to ask Mike O’Brien ‘a question’ most made statements, ending with a variation of what can we do? How can we get a moratorium on building? How can we get council to reinstate a parking minimum for developers? How do we get council to change the code? What about the number of residences that are just for AirBnB or Vacation Rental by Owner? How can multiple units that will have 48-96 occupants but no parking get approved in a neighborhood that doesn’t have any public parking?

What resources are coming to Phinney or Ballard to help us? Over and over, what can we do…to get transit, to afford a home, to add parking on our property?

The voices from Magnolia, West Seattle, Phinney, Ballard, the new arrivals and lifetime Seattleites, were sometimes polite, more often strident. “If you’re in the middle class you’re getting squeezed out,” a Magnolia resident said. “The people who pay for all the levies are the ones who are going to leave.”

O’Brien tried to address each speaker, admitting when he did not agree with them and posing his own question. “Our economy is fundamentally broken. What do I do about that as Council member? That’s a question I ask myself every day.”

Each time O’Brien said what council couldn’t do, often because of state law, or probably wouldn’t support, there were groans. He allowed when pushed, “We could make a legislative change on parking,” but he was honest that he didn’t think there would be sufficient council support on changing that or other codes. “Thousands more will move here. I’m not interested in building a wall around our city. We have choices to make.”

A few speakers who have been part of the city planning process, past or present, spoke to the audience at large. “Take a very good look at the HALA recommendations before the “Grand Bargain” gets approved.” Another woman mentioned the Seattle2035 Comprehensive Plan. “The last plan had metrics for targeted growth in urban villages by 2024. In Ballard the growth since the last plan has exceeded the target by over 300%. The 2035 plan doesn’t even include metrics.”

O’Brien responded that council has asked the Seattle2035 group to reinstate metrics but reminded the crowd still hanging in towards a second hour, “those aren’t caps, they’re targets.”

Most residents expressed desire for what they once had, street parking and a bungalow across the street instead of six townhouses, clarity on the definition of affordable. Perhaps the take away for the evening, besides a sign-up list circulating for attendees to stay involved, is where to go from the realization that there isn’t an upper limit on growth, or what form it takes. Seattle wasn’t prepared for the growth that is happening and is potentially less prepared for its exponential increase. Not a lot of questions got answered at the forum about how to manage change in ways that citizens will feel is positive rather than negative, but more citizens are learning the questions to ask.

The meeting broke up and a swarm surrounded O’Brien. The woman sitting next to me said, “A lot of angry women at this meeting. I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a meeting where so many women spoke.” When the women get angry…maybe we are on the brink of positive change after all.

Upcoming meetings include “Encouraging Backyard Cottages,” 2.3.16 at 6 p.m. Wallingford Community Senior Center