It may be several months before a decision is made about the construction of a controversial discount gas station in Crown Hill. Seattle's Department of Planning and Development (DPD) has requested that Safeway submit additional traffic analysis of its plan to build a high-volume, discount gas station on 15th Avenue NW and NW 83rd Street.

The city took issue with Safeway's estimates of potential trip generation and spill-over traffic onto nearby residential streets for the fueling facility.

"We're not even close to making a decision," Shelley Bolser, the DPD land use planner overseeing the review, said. "We're waiting for a lot of information" from Safeway.

The earliest a decision could be made is in one to two months, but could be longer, according to Bolser, if other questions arise during the review process.

As part of that process, DPD organized a public hearing to gather input from the affected community for use in its review of Safeway's Land Use application. The review process follows guidelines set forth in the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), and includes traffic and zoning considerations.

Around 140 residents of Crown Hill and nearby neighborhoods crowded into the Loyal Heights Community Center on Wednesday, July 26 to speak out against the project. Placards reading 'No Safe Way For A Gas Station' dotted the room. The slogan is also the name of the citizens group leading the opposition to project. A Safeway representative, Gary Slabaugh, was also on hand to observe.

Residents' concerns focused on increased traffic, pedestrian safety and the manner in which Safeway obtained the permit for the project. A number of residents felt that the community had been left out of the planning process and that the city had ignored public commitments it made to create a pedestrian-friendly urban village in the area.

Safeway first attempted to build a high volume gas station at that location in 2001, but withdrew its application after the city asked the company to conduct further traffic and parking studies. In 2005, the grocery store chain again applied for a permit to build the gas station. The Seattle City Council issued an emergency P2 Pedestrian designation to block that application, but the designation expired on April 1, 2006, one month before a permanent designation went into effect. In the interim Safeway re-submitted its application.

"It was clear there is a united front [opposing the gas station]," said Andrea Faste, a member of the Whittier Heights Community Council.

Increased traffic and pedestrian safety were residents' foremost concerns. Several residents brought their children to the meeting to underline their fear that the increased traffic would spill over onto residential streets. As it is now, they told the DPD employees, cars already use the side streets as shortcuts to avoid traffic on 15th Ave NW.

Whittier Elementary School and Whitman Middle School are both located nearby. Together they have almost 1500 students, according to the schools' websites. A daycare with several deaf parents and students operates on the corner of 14th Ave. NW and NW 83rd St.

Some of the speakers referred to Nick Messenger, the 12-year old boy who was critically injured by a car while crossing the intersection of 15th Ave. NW and NW 87th St. in February 2005.

"That wasn't a hypothetical accident," said Anna Carlson. "This happened in the exact same location we're talking about."

Speakers criticized the scope and accuracy of the traffic study submitted by Safeway as part of its application. The study looked at the blocks immediately adjacent to the site of existing grocery store and the proposed gas station. Residents from surrounding streets said they would be directly affected by spillover traffic.

The project is at odds with the Ballard/Crown Hill Neighborhood Plan, which calls for creating a more pedestrian-friendly environment in the area, said several residents.

"It's been publicly stated by our city government that it's their goal to make our city more pedestrian friendly," said George Erwin, a resident.

Neighborhood plans are considered "to the extent that there were code changes or changes to the application of [the city's] SEPA authority" in the plans, explained John Shaw, a transportation planner with DPD, at the meeting. "We are expressly prohibited from going back to those plans on a project by project basis."

The DPD representatives stressed that their decision would be based on the technical requirements laid out by SEPA.

"The application of SEPA is generally to identify and reduce the impact," said Shaw. "We do have the authority under SEPA to deny, but realistically our goal in this project is to identify the impacts that require sufficient mitigation so that those impacts are relatively small."

Safeway intends to move forward with the gas station, according to Cherie Myers, Direct of Public Affairs for Safeway's Seattle Division.

"We're very interested in putting a gas station there, and we're going to go through the process," said Myers.

Myers would comment on the public hearing only to say that it is "the beginning of the process."