I read with interest last week's letters to the editor. Dick Nelson expressed his opinion on the present uproar in the Alki Beach neighborhood. Mr. Nelson's opinions do not reflect mine.

The Alki business district is loosely referred to as a "neighborhood business district." It occupies a thin strip of land on one side of Alki Avenue, running between 57th Avenue SW and 63rd Avenue SW. The area zoned for business use is comprised only of the lots immediately facing Alki Avenue. There is no sort of buffer, such as a street, or an alley, between the businesses on Alki and the residences next door to them. In addition, much of the business district consists of mixed-use buildings where you have businesses on the ground floor and residences on the upper floors. The result is a thin strip of businesses cheek by jowl with people's homes.

The business district presently supports one auto repair business, one dry cleaner, one casual clothing retailer, one property management firm, and 19 restaurants. If you include the Homestead Restaurant (which is located one-half block off Alki Ave.) there are 20 restaurants in the neighborhood.

We all understand why these restaurants are located here. The view is remarkable. And restaurant patrons are willing to pay a slightly higher charge for the privilege of eating their meal with the view and the access to a waterfront park just outside the door. Other businesses have trouble passing this slightly higher charge along to their customers for the privilege of having such a lovely view. Restaurants are at an advantage when it comes to being able to afford the higher rents desired by the landlords in the business district.

So for the past 20 years, there has been a slow and steady transition from a business district with neighborhood support services to a destination business district with 20 restaurants. The restaurants rely on the view and the sense of "happening" to attract ever-increasing crowds of people from out of the immediate area. Suddenly we do not have neighborhood-based businesses. Now we have a destination area where people come to eat, drink, and celebrate. The business district landlords may be very happy, but I understand why the residents are not completely satisfied with the way things are turning out.

All the present uproar is the result of having people living (sleeping) 20 feet from a destination party area. This was not what the city planners or the neighborhood envisioned years ago when the original zoning was created. The city zoned a neighborhood business district and then changed the surrounding residential zoning to a higher density in order to create an urban village.

The school district supports this urban village by having an elementary school located just off the beach area. Neighborhood children play in the adjacent park while the bars are in the middle of their happy hours. The problem is the neighborhood has been transformed into a high-density urban village while the neighborhood support services have failed.

So my view is the present uproar is one of the most positive things to happen in the Alki area in 20 years. It is appropriate to consider the result of the present zoning, and make adjustments to it. If you want a destination resort area on Alki, the zoning needs to be changed. You need to establish a larger business area, and you need to create a buffer between the businesses and the high-density residential area.

You need to make the business zone self-supporting, not relying on the neighborhood to subsidize the businesses by providing parking for the crowds the destination resort businesses draw in to them. If you want a neighborhood business area on Alki, the zoning needs to be changed to something that results in neighborhood service businesses locating and succeeding in the business zone. If you want placid residential housing on Alki, you need to change the zoning.

The urban planning done 20 years ago is inadequate to the present situation, and a new plan needs to be created. And business owners, pushing for licenses that only exacerbate the present problems without pushing for a new urban plan, need to have final decisions held in abeyance pending new zoning decisions. Temporary licenses may be one solution, as long as they expire annually and must be re-evaluated on a regular schedule. And businesses open late that complain about the need for installing acoustic tile, or that complain about needing special licenses to be open later than 10 p.m. in a residential neighborhood (the waterfront park closes at 10 p.m. and parking is restricted on the park side of the street after 10 p.m.) are not at present good neighbors. They need to be educated as to their neighbors' expectations of them.

At least a few of the present restaurant owners and their few supporters seem to think the current uproar is just a bad case of NIMBY by a few malcontents. They are wrong. There are structural problems with the current urban plan, with the zoning, and with the vision of the area by at least three competing groups of concerned citizens. The uproar, the confrontations, the anger, will only increase in the Alki neighborhood until the city readjusts the urban plan.

Peter Jones

Alki