Crossing Kirkland - September 9, 2017
​Great turnout for our first year. Thanks to everyone who came, all of our volunteers, and our sponsors. Hope you all had as much fun as we did! And if you'd like to be a part of next year's event let us know.

Important Upcoming Meetings and Events

• Dec 15th - Joint study session for the Houghton Community Council and the Planning Commission.  They will be discussing which options to bring forward to the public hearing in January concerning the Houghton Everest Neighborhood Center.  There will be an Open House from 6:00 to 7:00 that evening to allow citizens to come early and ask questions.
• Sunday, 12/18 is the 5K walk/run starts at 9:30, 12K run starts at 9:35
• Next CHNA meeting January 4th
• February Officer Elections (please let us know if you are interested)

Minutes from December Meeting
John Marasco from Security Properties and PCC talked with us about potential future plans for PCC store. The current PCC store is not ideal for them. The PCC Fremont and Columbia City stores are closer to what they are hoping to have here in Kirkland. Current Kirkland store is about 12K sq ft and they would like to go to 25K sq ft with community space and cooking demo area. John wanted to hear what the neighborhood would like to see built in the area between Teriyaki Madness to Shamiana.

Comments made regarding the PCC property:

• Free parking, underground parking, some curbside parking for quick access
• Concerns around traffic – provide better access in/out of area as well as within the area
• If housing is added, want to be residents of neighborhood, not resident housing for local companies
• Wide sidewalks, set backs, bulk of building off the street
• Keep the charm of our neighborhood – make it look like Kirkland
• Make employee parking planned into the development
• Underground power
• Not 5 stories

Some of John’s comments about the area:

• Site can handle more retail than just PCC
• Currently 30’ – area would go from 2 to 3-5 stories.
• PCC is owner of land
• Most likely be mix use – commercial space @ ground level, housing above
• Discussion at HENC workshop did not give a conclusive answer to how to handle these areas.
• Neighborhood should look at using incentives as a tradeoff to height increases. As an example, “only develop 70% above X stories with setbacks”.

The timeline for the HENC project:

• 12/15/16 Joint Planning Commission & Houghton Community Council Study Session (Open House from 6:00 to 7:00)
• 01/17/17 City Council Study Session Update
• 01/26/17 Joint Hearing Planning Commission & Houghton Community Council
• After the January 26th meeting, they will determine if we need to continue the hearing and/or need an additional meeting in February to complete the recommendation to the City Council.

Comments and emails to:
Houghton Community Council HoughtonCouncil@kirklandwa.gov
Planning Commission PlanningCommissioners@kirklandwa.gov
And the senior Planner for the project, Angela Ruggeri aruggeri@kirklandwa.gov

NORTHWEST UNIVERSITY MASTER PLAN
Sidebar has all the specific sections of the proposed Plan. Of special interest is the Project Narrative and the Traffic Impact Analysis pdfs.

Major highlights:

• Over the next 6-years or by 2022, an increase of approximately 370 students is projected for the Kirkland campus resulting in a total campus population of 1,600 students. In 20-years (2037), the campus student population is anticipated to increase by approximately 770 students for a total of approximately 2,000 students.
• 6 court tennis facility that will be a 50’ high building along 53rd Street, first item to be constructed
• 300 bed dorm addition
• Athletic Field Improvements including new AstroTurf and lighting(80’ tall, on until 9:30 at night) with New Field House and bleachers at the athletic fields. These fields will also be “rented out” to other sports teams. Traffic to enter/exit along 53rd Street.
• Additional new trips(cars traffic) per day from new students, tennis center and sports fields is 2,130 by 2022 and 3,820 by 2037, along 53rd Street and 108th Avenue. See Traffic Impact Analysis, page 29, Table 16

All comments to go to Senior planner, Tony Leavitt tleavitt@kirklandwa.gov

The 12K of Christmas map is below:

Sound Transit released its ST3 Draft Plan at its March 24 Board Meeting. While the overall plan includes plans for transit in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties, there were some projects which will impact the Kirkland area:

• Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on I-405 from Lynwood to Burien
• An inline bus station at NE 85th and I-405
• Business Access Transit (BAT) lanes extending toward Downtown Kirkland from the station on 85th 
• New parking facilities at Kingsgate
• An environmental study to examine HCT options from Bothell to Bellevue via Kirkland

The ST3 Draft Plan does not include funding for construction of High Capacity Transit (HCT) on the Cross Kirkland Corridor. 

There is an open comment period from now until June when the elements for the November ballot measure will be finalized. You can send your comments to the Sound Transit Board via the Sound Transit ST3 website or by sending email to the Sound Transit Board or by calling 206-903-7000. 

The Kirkland City Council will receive an update and discuss the draft plan at its regular meeting on Tuesday April 5.

Draft plan documents from the March 24 meeting follow:

Google hopes you can join them at an exciting event! They'd love to have folks from the neighborhood join us as we officially open the new building.

Space is limited, so please ask those who wish to attend to RSVP here.
​

Happy New Year to all!
 
We will not be having a meeting tonight, Jan 6th.
Our next meeting will be on Wed, Feb 3rd, 7pm at Fire Station 22.
We will be having elections during this meeting.
 
Elections
We are really interested in getting new neighbors to run CHNA. We are looking for candidates for all positions: Chair, Secretary and Treasure.  Those who have been in these positions in the past are happy to support you. If you are interested, please send back an email response and/or come to the February meeting. 2016 is a great year to get involved!
 
Transit on CKC
1) Kirkland officials host Jan. 11 community update on Sound Transit 3 candidate projects - the City of Kirkland is hosting a second community update on high capacity transit candidate projects that are being considered by Sound Transit as part of the ST3 ballot measure. The City’s public event will be held on Monday, January 11, 2016 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Lake Washington Institute of Technology, 11605 132nd Avenue NE, Room W404. Sound Transit officials will present basic information regarding three candidate projects (PDF) that propose high capacity transit to serve Kirkland:

• Candidate Project E-02/Bus Rapid Transit on I-405 in the Express Toll Lane from Lynnwood to Renton
• Candidate Project E-03/Light Rail Transit along the Eastside Rail Corridor from Kirkland/Totem Lake to Issaquah via Bellevue; and
• Candidate Project E-06/Bus Rapid Transit on the Eastside Rail Corridor from Kirkland to Bellevue.

2) Save Our Trail Urges all to Sign Petition - Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on the Cross Kirkland Corridor (CKC) would destroy the ambiance and peace of this parkland treasure for walkers and bicyclists, and would significantly increase safety risks for them and school kids. These issues have been widely discussed in local media.

What has NOT BEEN DISCUSSED is much more important to the average Kirkland resident who does not personally use or live on the Corridor: namely, the COST vs. the BENEFIT of Sound Transit’s proposed ST3 Option E-06 (BRT on the CKC), compared to Option E-02 (BRT on I-405), which SaveOurTrail.org emphatically endorses. Here’s why:
 
Based on Sound Transit’s own statistics and projections for the two projects, as shown graphically in the attachment:

• BRT on 405 will cost 40% less to build per rider than BRT on the Trail 
• BRT on 405 will cost 38% less to operate per rider than BRT on the Trail
• BRT on 405 will move riders 22% faster than BRT on the Trail
• BRT on 405 will support 27% more riders than BRT on the Trail

On January 19th, the City Council will make a final decision on which of these alternatives to recommend to Sound Transit as part of its ST3 package on next November's ballot. Right now they are firmly leaning toward BRT on the Trail! Please contact them before January 11th and urge them to recommend BRT on 405, instead. Also, please sign the Save Our Trail Petition on change.org.  
 
NW University Master Plan
John Kappler has been working with the Mayor, the City Manager as well as Dr Castleberry, President of NW University on the update the University’s  Master Plan and “uses for the campus”. The recommendation is to have conversations go through the city manager’s office (a single point of contact) so everything can be easily disseminated through a city list serve email. This way everyone could see the whole process. Next CHNA meeting we hope to provide an update on the process as well as see if Dr. Castleberry can come to one of our meetings.
 
CERT
Margaret Bull has had a few conversations with NW University about using their campus as a meeting point for CERTs in Houghton during a disaster. It is more centrally located than Metropolitan Market for liaising. They have agreed to let us do this using either the cafeteria or the gym. Margaret is looking for other to join her to  look at these locations to see where we might meet and set up communications.
 
Patti Jean Hooper has been working with NW University to set up a Stone Soup arrangement there. NW University already has a generator on their campus that is owned by the city.  This is an exciting development in providing help to our neighborhood during a disaster. We will be called upon to help with the Stone Soup project. That is another good reason to change our meeting location to the college.
 
405 Toll Lanes
For those interested, there is a petition to stop tolling on 405 - Please pass legislation to stop tolling on I-405 between Bellevue and Lynnwood, restore the lanes to 2-person carpool lanes during the day and open to all at night and remove the double-lines for open access. To sign the petition, go to http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/stop405tolls
 
Please join us at the February meeting. We hope you consider running for a position on CHNA. We need your time and energy to address the topics above as well as Houghton Everest Neighborhood Center and the Neighborhood Safety Program.
 
Central Houghton Neighborhood Association (CHNA)
Find us on the web at http://www.houghtonlives.com 
And on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/centralhoughton 
 

​KIRKLAND, Wash. – The City of Kirkland is hosting a second community update on high capacity transit candidate projects that are being considered by Sound Transit as part of the ST3 ballot measure. The City’s public event will be held on Monday, January 11, 2016 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Lake Washington Institute of Technology, 11605 132nd Avenue NE, Room W404. Sound Transit officials will present basic information regarding three candidate projects that propose high capacity transit to serve Kirkland:

• Candidate Project E-02/Bus Rapid Transit on I-405 in the Express Toll Lane from Lynnwood to Renton
• Candidate Project E-03/Light Rail Transit along the Eastside Rail Corridor from Kirkland/Totem Lake to Issaquah via Bellevue; and
• Candidate Project E-06/Bus Rapid Transit on the Eastside Rail Corridor from Kirkland to Bellevue. 

City officials will share its analysis of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal on the Cross Kirkland Corridor (Candidate Project E-06.) The informational presentation will be given at 6:30 to 7:30 and repeated from 7:45 to 8:45 p.m. City and Sound Transit staff will be available to answer questions in Room W401 throughout the event. 

The City is analyzing how high capacity transit could be designed to address concerns expressed by the Kirkland community such as access to the CKC, safety, noise, protecting sensitive areas and ensuring safety on the CKC.  The City also analyzed how BRT on I-405 could be designed to address basic access issues. General findings will be presented during the two informational presentations.  Sound Transit’s analysis of all of the candidate ST3 projects can be found at www.soundtransit3.org and select “Shaping ST3.” 

On December 4, 2015, Sound Transit released its analysis and project templates for each ST3 Candidate Project and is seeking technical input from the City of Kirkland regarding the three candidate projects located in Kirkland by January 21, 2016. The Kirkland City Council will be discussing its response letter to Sound Transit at its January 5 and January 19 Regular Meetings. 

For background on the City’s outreach efforts, go to www.kirklandwa.gov/ST3. For specific questions, please email ST3questions@kirklandwa.gov or contact the Public Works Department at 425-587-3800. 

Through March 2016, Sound Transit will continue to develop its Draft System Plan and will initiate a public involvement process in April 2016. The Sound Transit Board of Directors will approve the Final System Plan in June 2016 that will be presented to regional voters in the November 2016 General Election.(12.29.15)

Last weekend, fourteen hearty souls built new steps connecting the end of 55th street to the Cross Kirkland Corridor. The project was a collaboration between the local neighborhood and the City of Kirkland. The neighbors contributed the labor and purchased the building materials while the city, thanks to the effort of Kari Page, CKC Coordinator, did the preliminary excavation work, provided a site supervisor, and will install a metal handrail. The CKC has quickly become an important part of the neighborhood as a gathering place for exercise and friendship. It is wonderful to have safe steps to access the trail.

Kudos to our neighbors at 55th!

This is the report from the Save Our Trail Meeting as authored by Rob Butcher:

Thank you to the 50+ people who attended our Nov. 30 meeting at the Houghton Fire Station. We had a presentation and Q&A session with Deb Eddy, Eastside Rail Corridor Program Manager for the King County Council. We discussed next steps and how individuals, like you, can get involved and make a difference. Thank you to Deb Eddy for speaking to us as it is always good to hear from our government to better understand the impacts and implications governmental policies will have on us.


Several proposed themes were presented at this meeting and we have settled on one. We are keeping things simple and concise: Save Our Trail. This message is easy to remember and speaks to the widest audience. You may personally have additional arguments to make and we encourage you to do so.


1.  Next Meeting - Our next Save Our Trail meeting will take place December 14 at 6:00 pm at the Nytec Building (located on the trail at 416 Sixth Street South).

2.  Your Expertise is Needed - Is there any credible study (or could someone do one quickly) showing that E02's planned park-and-ride, side transit routes, and bike/walking connections to Kirkland's downtown, Park Place, Totem Lake and other employment and shopping centers would be better than Corridor BRT would provide? We hope so, especially considering the difficulty of creating park-and-ride facilities near the Corridor, vs. creating them near I-405. Please let us know if you or someone you know may be able to help.

3.  Community Meetings to Attend - Speak out during Items from the Audience at various public meetings held during the month of December. Here are a few suggestions:

• Attend your December neighborhood meeting
• Attend City Council special meeting December 8
  City Council Study Session & Special Meeting, Chamber
  Study Session, 6:00 p.m.
  Healthy Kirkland Initiative Update
  Special Meeting, 7:30 p.m.
  Rest of Agenda...
• Attend Houghton Community Council special meeting December 14 at 7:00 pm

4.  Get the word out - Communicate with your friends and neighbors and encourage them to learn more about this subject, speak at public meetings, write letters to the Sound Transit Board and the Kirkland City Council as well as letters to the editor. Get more details at http://saveourtrail.org/get-involved

5.  Help Wanted - We need YOU to step up and use your skills to organize, lead and coordinate efforts such as this. Contact us!

6. Print at Home Flyer - Save Our Trail flyers to print at home click here, http://saveourtrail.org/print-at-home-flyer.
Finally, some folks have requested yard signs and banner artwork. This project has been pushed out until our next meeting on Dec. 14 as we need to ensure that the messaging we have on our Save Our Trail banners is finalized before printing. We will have an update on Dec. 14.
​
Thank you for being involved in our city. 

Best,
Rob and Save Our Trail Team
www.saveourtrail.org

The presentation for the 11/4/2015 meeting can be found on the Central Houghton Website by clicking here.
Neighborhood Updates

• Coyote in the neighborhood. There have been reports of a coyote that has been aggressive towards dogs. In one report, coyote jumped over a fence of a house in Sandhurst and the other instance the coyote was seen on the Cross Kirkland Corridor (CKC). Please be aware if you have small dogs or cats.
• The new bridge between CKC and Met Market is expected to be opened the end of November. Still to come will be a street light, cross walk signal and flags.

 
Neighborhood Safety Program (NSP) Kari Page
This program was piloted in 2014. This is the first full year. We had 3 projects that were approved.
1)      Stairs off CKC and down to 68th st (near Lakeview).  This project is out to bid and hoping to start building in Q1.
2)    60th st access to CKC on the east side. Better lighting has been ordered, hoping to use solar. The fence will be removed, vegetation will be cleaned up and broken pavement taken out.
3)      Near ICS, 68th and 112th, new street light has been installed to help illuminate those waiting at bus stop. Still need to fix gravel in that area.

There is an interactive map allows anyone to submit a neighborhood improvement. Enter your project idea in the “Suggest a Project” interactive map at any time during the year. (Click the “I want to…” orange button and then select “Submit a Project Idea” in the drop-down dialog box. The interactive map will step you through pinpointing your project location, selecting a project type and describing your idea.) Kari came to the meeting to understand  which project our neighborhood wants to nominate for the NSP. Project ideas are due 12/1/2015. Lisa and Erica will work with Kari to finalize the neighborhood nominees. Most likely it will be project numbers 288/88 which are to improve the safety at the crosswalk between NE 68th St and NE 62nd St.
 
6th Street Corridor Study – Lisa McConnell
There is a study to be done next year on the 6th street corridor. The results of this study need to tie into the traffic and egress plans for the Houghton Everest Neighborhood Center (HENC). The study is still being scoped. More updates as this study gets defined.
 
HENC
Lisa and Brian met with planning staff and discussed the plan for next year. The city would like us to present the feedback we have gathered to the Houghton Community Council (HCC). The expectation is their will be a minimum of 3 meetings with the first meeting to just listen. The city thinks it would be good to have a moderator for these meetings. The goal is to have the update done within 2016. Looking for input on how to reach more of the neighborhood and people using the current center.
 
CKC
King county owns sections of the trail north and south of the Kirkland section. King County is going through the process to figure out what to do with the trail, very similar to the Kirkland process. King County had 3 meetings and want to make their sections into a trail. They are in the process of getting approval to remove the rail. The rail removal will be done in phases and will start with the section south of CKC (Bellevue). 2016 they will go through their design process and most likely pulling tracks in 2017.
 
Eastside Rail Corridor Regional Advisory Council (ERC RAC)
The Eastside Rail Corridor (ERC) is owned and managed by King County, the cities of Kirkland and Redmond, Sound Transit, and Puget Sound Energy. These owners work together through the Regional Advisory Council (RAC) to maintain a collaborative, regional planning process for the ERC.  The owners’ goal is to achieve connectivity and multiple uses, maximizing public benefit and enjoyment throughout the corridor both directly and indirectly. Recently, Kirkland sent a draft letter of support to ERC RAC to “In conclusion, transit travel between Totem Lake Urban Center and the Wilburton Station area in Bellevue, parallel to the multi-use trail, would connect all the neighborhoods and employment centers in between Kirkland’s proposals are consistent with the RAC vision and guiding principles”  In short, Kirkland is moving forward with transit on the CKC and wants support.
 
Sound Transit ST3
Sound Transit plans to put ST3 on the ballot in November 2016. The actual projects on this ballot are not decided yet. There is a list of projects being considered for the ballot here. The projects which are most pertinent to Kirkland are:

• E-02 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on I-405
  - Region wide Project 
  - Improved connections at Totem Lake
  - This is buses that act like light rail, are separated from traffic
• E-03 Light Rail Totem Lake to Issaquah via Bellevue
• E-06  Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on the CKC from Totem Lake to Bellevue
  - This was added after public comment.
  – See powerpoint for more details on the stops of each proposal. Note that light rail needs at least 2 miles between stops in order to make it effective.
  - The idea is that EITHER E-03 or E-06 will be implemented, not both
  - Snohomish, King and Pierce Counties will be voting on this proposal, NOT just our neighborhood.
  – The recent Kirkland City Council meeting goes into more detail on E-06.
  – Nov 19th is an Open House to discuss further (see details at top of email)
  – Please speak up and send comments back to Kirkland City Council and to Sound Transit. At the Sound Transit site you can sign up for news updates on ST3, complete an online survey or add comments.  

 
Central Houghton Neighborhood Association (CHNA)
Find us on the web at http://www.houghtonlives.com 
And on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/centralhoughton 
​

City seeks input from residents and businesses to help shape Sound Transit 3 service in Kirkland

On Thursday, November 19, 2015, the City is hosting an Open House and Community Update at the Kirkland Performance Center (350 Kirkland Avenue) from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. Staff will be available to answer questions about high capacity transit from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.  A formal presentation by City officials on high capacity transit in Kirkland will begin at 7:30 p.m., followed by a question and answer session. 

Putting Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on the Cross Kirkland Corridor will have a big impact on many here in Central Houghton - including the Google Campus, Houghton Everest Neighborhood Center (HENC), traffic on 108th, Lakeview Elementary school routes, home owners adjacent to the corridor, etc. . I'm not sure many people know about it. Please take a second to look at the materials on the city's website (see the link below) and tell your neighbors about it. It will give you a good idea of the City's work with Sound Transit and where we stand in the ST3 process.

​More information can be found on the city's website here.