Traffic calming, backyard cottages and the green bag campaign were the topics of discussion Wednesday July 15 at South Seattle Community College. Instead of the usual Southwest District Council Meeting, there were presentations by Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Department of Planning and Development as well as the Green Bag campaign.

Backyard Cottages

The backyard cottages seemed to stir both excitement and concern, primarily about what qualifies someone to have a backyard cottage and how they might add to density issues, such as parking.

A backyard cottage is a “small dwelling unit that is on the same lot as, but physically separate from, a single-family house,” according to the City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development Web site.

In order for a home to qualify for the building of a back yard cottage, the lot must be 4,000 square feet, with only 35 percent of the lot covered, explained presenter Andrea Petzel from the department of planning.

As far as parking concerns, Petzel pointed to a recent survey of 118 residents living near a home with a backyard cottage, which found that “84 percent noticed no impacts on parking or traffic directly related to the cottage.”

However, Petzel did admit: “On the whole, they’re more expensive to build than originally thought.”

The cottages have resided in Southeast Seattle for three years now, but Mayor Nickels has proposed they be permitted citywide.

“We are pretty pleased in how they have played out in Southeast,” said Petzel.

They did place a cap on the number of houses that will be built at 50 per year. The selection will be on a first come, first serve basis.

There will be a public hearing Sept. 15 where the community can share their thoughts on the legislation. After which, the city council will vote whether to approve the cottages citywide.

Traffic Calming

“Ninety percent of the phone calls Tina and I get everyday is: ‘People are driving too fast down my street,’” said Jane Rebelowski from Seattle Department of Transportation.

Her presentation was on a two-phase approach of encouraging more responsible driving in residential areas. The first phase is education and community involvement.

The idea is to train two volunteers for the neighborhood speed watch. These individuals will be given radar guns and will be responsible for license surveillance, as a means of data collection on speeding drivers.

If there is sufficient data to conclude certain drivers have been speeding, they will be sent reprimanding letters from the Department of Transportation.

If this does not work, phase two will be implemented. These are structural changes to slow traffic, such as traffic circles, speed bumps, chicanes and chocker’s.

Rebelowski also noted some simple ways to calm traffic.

“The more you can do to beautify the frontage as a neighborhood, is helpful," she said. "When people don’t see life on the street people tend to be more disrespectful."

In addition, trees that line the road “narrows the look of your street,” which encourages drivers to slow down, according to Rebelowski.

Green Bag Campaign

Jennifer Toll and Ursula Sandstorm from the Seattle Green Bag Campaign gave a brief presentation encouraging Seattle voters to vote “yes” on Referendum 1, which will place a “green fee” of 20 cents on disposable bags in grocery, drug and convenience stores.

Proclaiming that plastic bags a “toxic sponge” highly detrimental to the environment, they encourage shoppers to purchase reusable cloth or nylon bags.

“We manufacture all these thing that have very short life and then toss them away,” Toll said.

Some questioned why you can’t just recycle the bags, but Toll explained that the cost to recycle them is higher than to produce them.

She added that even when we think our bags have been recycled or disposed of it is consumed by animals or polluting the environment. In this sense, “the trash doesn’t really go away, it comes right back, right to your dinner plate” noted Toll.