A spokesperson for Safeway characterized a proposed discount gas station in Crown Hill as uncontroversial. But that was not the sentiment last Wednesday night, when the Ballard District Council voted unanimously to send a letter addressing concerns about the proposal to the City of Seattle.

The motion was voted on during the organization's monthly meeting on June 14, after opponents of the discount gas station - which could potentially serve as many as a dozen vehicles at a time - lobbied that the new station would have negative parking and traffic consequences at its proposed location next to the Safeway on 15th Avenue NW 85th Street.

The council, whose members hail from community, business and industry positions in Ballard, is a quasi-governmental body representing community interests roughly north of the ship canal and west of Aurora Avenue North. The letter, endorsed by the 14 voting members, urges that the city's Department of Planning and Development (DPD) convene a public hearing on the matter. The gesture is symbolic since the department already has more than enough signatures (over 150 at the time of this writing) to trigger a public hearing.

But the vote is a clear indication that the construction of such a gas station has less than universal appeal. Cheri Meyers, Safeway's Seattle Division director of government and public affairs, suggested prior to the meeting that discount gas stations - about half of Safeway's 200 grocery stores have such stations in the division, were rarely if ever unwelcome.

"We have... when putting in a store or gas station, never had any customer be upset. And neighbors are customers."

Meyers said the division wants to provide what ever services, including gas, its customers want, but that the company engages in outreach with communities before making decisions as significant as building gas stations. Meyers was unable to say whether such outreach had been done specifically within the Crown Hill area.

Andrea Faste, a representative of the Whittier Heights Community Council who presented the Ballard District Council with the motion to adopt the letter, said the potential traffic and parking problems caused by a discount station would oppose the spirit of the Ballard Crown Hill Neighborhood Plan, an urban planning document delineating commercial high streets as pedestrien-oriented retail districts.

"We see a car magnet coming into the neighborhood," Faste said of Safeway's proposal.

Several other district council members and neighbors in attendance vocalized similar sentiments to David Bennett, an account executive in attendance from Feally Public Relations, representing Safeway. Bennett presented a handout about the proposed gas station and said that reviewing it would "hopefully mitigate the uncertainty everyone has."

But instead of mitigating uncertainty, Bennett's presentation seemed to magnify it. An architectural rendering presented under the Safeway logo emphasized the placement and species of various shrubs and trees planned in the proposal, and left ambiguous fundamental details like placement of parking stalls and dimensions of entryways.

Bennett stressed that he wasn't a spokesperson for Safeway and his purpose was to answer "general questions about the plan." But he was unable to answer basic geographic questions about he project, responding at one point about traffic on 15th Avenue Northwest by saying "I ... don't get over there that much."

That comment triggered a number of acrimonious replies from audience members about Safeway's commitment to community, before Ballard District Council President Mary Hurley cut off the discussion and put the motion to a vote.

Safeway proposed a gas station for the same area in 2001, before dropping the proposal after city planners asked the company to provide further studies of traffic impacts.

In 2005, Safeway again made the proposal, but Seattle City Council Member Richard Conlin sponsored an ordinance giving the area an emergency P2 pedestrian designation. The designation specifically prohibits the construction of gas stations.

After the ordinance passed, Safeway petitioned the state's Growth Management Hearings Board to overturn the interim zoning. The board dismissed Safeway's challenge in October of last year, and the company appealed that decision to the King County Superior Court before that case was dismissed in April, approximately the same time that the emergency pedestrian designation expired in the area, allowing Safeway to file a Master Use Permit for the project.

On May 30, the council voted to create a permanent pedestrian district in Crown Hill, on 15th Avenue NW extending from NW 83rd Street to NW 87th street, which will prevent the construction of other gas stations and a possible expansion of Safeway's station, should it be built.

The City's Department of Planning and Development will ultimately decide whether to approve Safeway's permit, and that decision will be made some time after the pubic hearing later this summer.

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