After the full City Council approved the proposal for the Interbay rezone many residents and surrounding neighborhoods are happy about the outcome, but some are still worried about affects the new urban village may have on the already heavily trafficked Dravus Street.

Interbay will now be upgraded to a residential and commercial district.

"The area, due west of 15th Avenue East and adjacent to West Dravus Street, will be rezoned to allow for residential units up to 85 feet and businesses at street level," said a city press release.

Developers will also be required to provide a portion of rental housing to people earning 80 percent of the area median income or below or pay a fee to a fund to create affordable housing.

"Everyone is pretty happy but transportation issues continue to remain a mystery," said Jill Arnow, executive director of the Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce. "People were already a little touchy about re-striping 15th Avenue West and creating a bus lane during traffic hours which gave people one less lane. Everybody is aware and are thinking of transportation but we have a lot of things that are influencing that (Interbay) junction."

Sending a letter to the City Council a few weeks ago, the Magnolia Community Club also shared the same sentiments.

They wrote that if they can be assured that there would be transportation improvements then they would favor the proposal.

"Our concern is for traffic traveling on Dravus to 15th Avenue West, we're already having a hard time now but how will the new rezone affect the traffic and how will they resolve the current problem by adding more residents into that area?" said Nancy Rogers, president of the Magnolia Community Club.

In the process of approving the proposal two options were put on the table to pay for traffic mitigations depending on what developers will do with the property in Interbay. The two options were either using a Local Improvement District (LID) or using the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).

Originally Mayor Greg Nickels proposed to the City Council that the legislation on Dravus include a local improvement district said Nathan Torgelson, policy advisor from the mayor's office.

A local improvement district is where developers and/or property owners share in the cost of transportation infrastructure improvements or other types of public improvements.

"However, the Council felt it would be more appropriate to deal with traffic mitigation issues with the State Environmental Policy Act," said David Yeaworth, legislative assistant to Council member Sally Clark. "The Council created it's own legislation that did not include the local improvement district."

Through the act the state and local agencies would be required to consider the likely environmental consequences that a development may have in its surrounding neighborhood. It is then up to them to find funds to make traffic upgrades and improvements.

"It was the most fair thing to do for the city and the developer," said Yeaworth. "As for the whole development, individual buildings built will be permitted and there will be a SEPA for each project to determine what mitigation of traffic will be needed to create that building."

The way the state law is written, traffic mitigations along Dravus will be decided on a building-by-building basis.

Spearheading to get the Interbay community built, Bruce Wynn, the executive director of the Interbay Neighborhood Association, said the area has many things going for it. Availability of the RapidRide system and bus and bike lanes would help in decreasing the use of many cars for its future residents.

"We look to see what is happening at a given neighborhoods and it's likely too early to make any judgments on what would occur in the Interbay area in relation to traffic and construction activities," said Rick Sheridan of the Seattle Department of Transportation. "But as part of the permitting process we do require a traffic requirement plan."

Allison Espiritu may be reached at 783-1244 or allisone@robinsonnews.com.