Saturday, September 21, 2013
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Garfield Community Center
2323 East Cherry St.
Join DPD on September 21 for our last community meeting featuring an open house and community action team workshop. At the open house, the community will have an opportunity to review and comment on the draft 23rd Avenue Action Plan to ensure it reflects the shared community vision developed over the past year. There will also be a Community Resource Fair at the open house, where the community will be able to connect with organizations already doing great work in the neighborhood. At the action team workshop, people in the community who are interested in working in action teams will learn about City departments, programs, and funds that can serve as resources for action teams. Actions teams will then get to work discussing how to join forces with community partners and City staff to start implementing specific projects.
The 23rd Avenue Action Plan which focuses on the community cores of the Central Area at 23rd Ave. and Union, Cherry and Jackson is approaching the last phase of the planning process. We are very pleased that the community has been heavily involved and passionate throughout the process. Since early 2013, over 600 community stakeholders have been engaged and provided DPD’s project team with valuable input, and helped form shared vision, goals, strategies and actions for the project. In June and July, two community open houses were held and participants confirmed the five goals (a destination with unique identity, connected people and community, great business community, livable street for all, and a place that supports healthy and stable community), and prioritized strategies and actions to implement a shared vision. Over 44 community participants have signed up for action teams arranged by the five goals and are ready to turn passion into action.
We have a strong community Advisory Core Team (ACT) that consists of 15 community leaders representing diverse interests: community-based organizations, activists, business and property owners, and a housing developer. From the beginning of the project they have held the Central Area vision together, ensuring that we heard the community correctly and are effectively balancing broad community interests. The ACT is ready and eager to start working with action teams to implement priority projects.
We are also grateful that a number of community-based organizations have partnered with the project team throughout the process and offered their support and assistance. For example, the Leschi Community Council appreciated our outreach effort and wants to showcase their community work to demonstrate a successful capacity building and city-community partnership. Catholic Community Services, The Central , Centerstone, and Pratt Fine Arts Center are excited to be strong partners of the project, provide meeting spaces for the action team meetings, and expand their programs and services for the emerging needs of the community.
For more information about the 23rd Avenue Action Plan, visit our website
www.seattle.gov/dpd/cityplanning/completeprojectslist/unionjackson/whatwhy/