Fall

08
14

Spring

Taking an Analytical Look at the

U Districts Need for Open
Space
Corrin M. Adams

Parks squares and public buildings are a part of the street fabric; use them to
intensify and knit together the fabrics complexity and multiple uses. They
should not be used to island off different uses from each other, or to island off
sub district neighborhoods. (Jacobs 129)

CEP 303 Social Structure and Processes

Background

Figure 1.0

Research shows that the most highly valued open spaces are those, which
enhance the positive qualities of urban life, contain a variety of opportunities
in their physical attributes, and contain sociability and cultural diversity. The
University District is a prime example of an urban village that successfully
attains most of these characteristics. But in order to honor the University
Districts vision of creating a vibrant and innovative district of
entrepreneurs, major employers, talented workers and a diverse group of
residents, (District Strategic Plan Summary) there needs to be some
investment from the community in order to make this happen. Jane Jacobs
talks about Parks squares and public buildings are a part of the street
fabric; use them to intensify and knit together the fabrics complexity and

multiple uses. They should not be used to island off different uses from each
other, or to island off sub district neighborhoods. (Jacobs 129) Throughout
my research I came across another reason as to why open spaces are
important in urban villages. Statistics show that the price of amenities can
be used to judge the efficiency of an urban spatial land use pattern,
therefore the more amenities/open space, the higher the land value will be.
(This just so happens to be one of the leading points of contention between
the long-term homeowners and the short-term renters/college community)
Unfortunately classifying desirable amenities is not a straightforward
answer because these types of things are difficult to characterize (Smith
107). Other results have confirmed that the experience of nature/open
space in urban environment enhances and improves the physical character
of an area, reinforces local identity, raises property values, aids urban
regeneration, and provides cultural ad social recreation.
Data Analysis
Throughout this quarter, one theme that has resonated with me was the
difference between the homeowners and the renters who resided in the
University District. These two different groups of people had many
differences including, their time spent living in one specific area, their total
residence in the University District. The maintenance of each property,
depending on renter vs. owner, and the general amenities that each group of
people clustered around for example, younger college students typically
resided closer to campus while homeowners tended to live further away from
campus. One of the reasons that this theme sticks out to me is because

there is this natural tendency for these two groups of people to segregate for
various reason: late night parties, value of house, maturity level, and specific
amenities available. But unfortunately, when you have one group of people
who takes pride in maintaining their property while another group of property
who does night, there is going to be a fluctuation in the home values and
quality of housing throughout one district. These types of issues can develop
into greater challengers that may affect the development in the future.

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.1 can give you a visual representation of where the renters tend to
live versus the homeowners.

One way that planners can help alleviate this separation between these two
different groups of people is to incorporate more open spaces throughout the
University District area. I believe that open spaces are wide-open areas that
can be fluid to the extent that the city can flow into the park and the park
can flow into the city (Cranz 1987). Dave LeClergue, Sr. Planning, City of
Seattle Dept. of Planning and Development, was one of our discussion
panelist who represented the University District Partnership on May 30,
2014. He mentioned that this idea of open, or green space, is slowly
transitioning from the more traditional concepts of community centers and
recreational facilities, to a more contemporary idea that integrates the
importance of sustainable development in planning for green spaces. My
research uncovered that as planning continues to grow and expand, the
cultural and spatial implications of new lifestyles, values, and attitudes to
nature and sustainability are becoming more and more integrated into the
future planning in the University District (Burgess 455). By going through
the City of Seattles Open Space policies and previous analysis of open space
in the University District, I discovered that currently the University District is
falling behind in its planning design in order to have open space readily
available to all community members regardless of their economic standing
(Comprehensive Plan Figure 27-3).

This human need for open space in their

community lead me to identify potential parcels of land in the University

District that fulfilled several qualifications established by the City of Seattle
Department of Development and Planning in conjunction with the U District

Partnership. The Comprehensive Plan for Open Space and Recreation Facility
Goals for U District describe the existing open space and recreation
opportunity in the U District area and evaluates how each of the option
would affect open space the recreational opportunities (Comprehensive Plan
DPD). The goals that The Seattle Comprehensive Plan established for open
spaces fell into two general categories. These categories are:
1. Total supply of open space.
2. Goals for specific facilities within urban centers.
I would like to continue to look into the creation of an open space that would
be very instrumental in creating a closer sense of community between the
University of Washington residence and the more permanent U District
homeowners. The success of a place is often hard to predict because it is
based off of peoples desire to go to this open space, but you can also look at
this matter in a very logical way by looking at viable locations through the
use of data (Chiesura
144). Whyte expressed
that a successful open
space must be very
convenient for people to
go to in order to attract
others (Whyte 190).
Therefore used GIS in
order to identify a

proposed parcel. The qualifications that I choose for the space were:
accessibility to public transportation, distance from other open spaces, size,
and the zoning codes. Finally, I went out to each proposed parcel in order to
observe what kind of human engagement was already occurring in order to
try and assess how successful the proposed open space would be. From both
this quantitative and qualitative perspective, I will hopefully be able to
identify a parcel that can be converted into an open space for both the
transitional and permanent residence of U District.

Figure 1.2

While I was using ArcGIS in order to identify potential parcels, the initial
perimeter that I used to narrow down my options was if the parcel was
already vacant or not. This is an important factor because when thinking of
cost assessment, it will be less expensive to develop a vacant parcel as
opposed to a developed parcel, regardless of the current conditions. My next
qualification was the area of the vacant parcel. I decided upon an area range
of 5,000-10,000 sq. ft. This space range is an adequate size allow for a
medium to large park-let be developed. As previously stated, the University
District currently has a deficit of 2.9 acres for their total Village Open
Space. This area is determined by estimating one acre per 1,000 households
and one acre per 10,000 jobs. This deficit will only continue to expand
unless an effective and efficient system is established in order to ensure that
open space is provided to community members all across the University
District as it continues to grow and expand. The next factor that was
included in my data analysis was the classification of the vacant parcel. The
classifications of these parcels are found in the zoning codes that are
currently in place for the City of Seattle. Though the University District
Planning Department will be meeting in the upcoming months in order to
discuss various different proposed zoning codes, none of these have taken
affect and therefore I utilized the available data that I have. After applying
the size limitation, vacancy status, and commercial zoning code, there were
only three available parcels that met all the requirements. From these three,
I choose 2 of them to focus on and conduct my field observations on. The

parcel I did not conduct field research on was 43rd and Brooklyn Ave, which is
being developed by Sound Transit in conjunction with the Link Light Rail
Station.

Figure 1.3

Context
When looking at an appropriate parcel for a pocket park within the
University District there are many factors that must come into play. As this
area continues to grow, planners must be taking action today in order to
meet the needs of tomorrow. The University District is predicted to increase
by 3,900 housing units and add approximately 4,800 jobs to this area. In lieu
of these factors it is imperative that the growing residential population have
parks and open space readily accessible to all residence. The
implementation of more open space will also help diminish the barriers

between two very diverse communities of people who both call the U District
home.
After I narrowed down my potential parcels down to two options, I wanted to
incorporate Lynchs theories of observation in order try and predict the
amount of opportunities for change encounters in each space. My first
destination was just south of 43rd and Roosevelt Way. This was a lovely bit of
land, which already had promise. There was not much landscaping on it
therefore the overhead for developing would be kept low. Another thing that
was lucrative about this proposed space was that it was near the future Link
Light Rail Station; therefore it would experience a high level of traffic. One of
the negative aspects about this parcel is that it is located in the near vicinity
of the University of Washington campus. Since ideally the purpose of the
open space would be to help foster a greater bond between the homeowners
and the renter, this may not be a good space since it is located so close to
school. During my observation period, it was not rainy out and the
temperature was comfortable. During my time there (30 minutes) I observed
32 people walk by. 21 of these people were women, 11 were male, and 20
seemed of Asian descent, while 12 were some other race. Finally, out of the
total amount of people who walked by: 28 people were on their phones
(either listening to music, talking on the phone, or texting) and 30 of them
appeared to be young adults/students why only 2 of them speared to be
adult/professor/professionals. Once again this gave me reason to believe
that though this is a nice vacant parcel, it may not be the best choice when

trying to increase the interaction between the homeowners and the renting
population of the University District.
The next parcel that I
choose too look at
was by 55th St and
University Way. This
parcel was farther
away from campus
and definitely
showed less signs of the college life. Ironically, community member must
have always had the same realization as I did because there was what had
appeared to be a community garden already on the parcel. I took a moment
to look around at this example of a possible open space for this area and I
was curious to observe how many people passed by this area and how many
people entered the parcel. During my 30 min observation period (on the
same day)
After my observations, I discovered that this was Shiga Gardens, which is a
0.11 acre P-Patch established in 2010 (hence the reason for why it may have
shown up as vacant
in my data sets from
WAGDA). This
parcel is privately
owned, but it is
leased to the P-Patch program through the Seattle Department of

Neighborhoods until 2018. During my time there (30 minutes), I observed 28

people walk by. 16 of these people were women, 12 were male, and 14
seemed of Asian descent, while 14 were some other race. Finally, out of the
total amount of people who walked by: 12 people were on their phones
(either listening to music, talking on the phone, or texting) and 16 of the
people were leisurely walking, walking a dog, using a baby stroller, or
jogging. From the total 28 people, 10 of them appeared to be young
adults/students while 18 of them speared to be adult/professor/professionals.
Considering that this area has already been actively transitioned into an
open space and
the amount of
adults vs
students who
passed by thisPatch gave me reason to believe that this was a more lucrative option for the
location of and Open Space.
Conclusion
Throughout my research, I drew upon scholarly articles, analytical data sets,
and observations, from these different ways of understanding planning in
context, I believe that I have learned first and foremost that there are a
range of components that go into each planning decision made as well as the
actual outcome for each situation. But, when we as planners, take the time
to analyze this different perspective in order to make our best educated

predictions, then we will hopefully be left with successful developments. I

believed that even though two of my three vacant parcels that I had
identified through my GIS analysis, this shows that the U District is aware of
the need for Open Space in this area and hopefully that last vacant parcel
will be developed into an open space that can continue to bring the
community members together thus creating a successful urban village.
Sources
- Burgess, Jacquelin, Carolyn M. Harrison, and Melanie Limb. "People, parks
and the urban green: a study of popular meanings and values for open
spaces in the city." Urban studies 25.6 (1988): 455-473.
- Chiesura, Anna. "The role of urban parks for the sustainable
city." Landscape and urban planning 68.1 (2004): 129-138.
- http://www.seattle.gov/parks/publications/developmentplan.htm
- http://udistrictpartnership.org
- Jabareen, Yosef Rafeq. "Sustainable urban forms their typologies, models,
and concepts." Journal of Planning Education and Research 26.1 (2006): 3852.
- Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The uses of city neighborhoods, chapter 6 in The
Death and Life of Great American Cities (Vintage Books, New York). Pp 112139.
- Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The city image and its elements, chapter 3 in The
Image of the City (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA). Pp 46-90. Also, Appendix B,
The Use of the Method.
- Smith, V. Kerry, Christine Poulos, and Hyun Kim. "Treating open space as an
urban amenity." Resource and energy economics 24.1 (2002): 107-129.
- Takano, Takehito, Keiko Nakamura, and Masafumi Watanabe. "Urban
residential environments and senior citizens longevity in megacity areas: the

importance of walkable green spaces." Journal of epidemiology and

community health 56.12 (2002): 913-918.
- Thompson, Catharine Ward. "Urban open space in the 21st
century."Landscape and urban planning 60.2 (2002): 59-72.
- Whyte, William H. 1989. The social life of the street, chapter 5 in City,
(Doubleday). Pp 188-203.
- Figure1.0 Stiles, Marc. Tug of war over density, open space in U District.
Puget Sound Business Journal. April 15, 2014.
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2014/04/tug-of-war-over-densityopen-space-in-u-district.html