{"id":377,"date":"2025-05-19T20:33:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T20:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:10:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:10:45","slug":"wilburton-sidewalks-on-the-council-agenda-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/?p=377","title":{"rendered":"Wilburton Sidewalks on the Council agenda tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you can, please email City Council \u00a0council@bellevuewa.gov <\/a>about ensuring adequate Wilburton sidewalk widths. You can also speak at the meeting; the\u00a0signup link<\/a>\u00a0opens at noon tomorrow (Tuesday, May 20th).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0As can be seen in the Agenda memo for tomorrow’s meeting<\/a>, the\u00a0Eastside Housing Roundtable is recommending 6′ sidewalks in Wilburton (in the vicinity of 25-45 story buildings), and still recommends maintaining space for on street parking on\u00a0some of these corridors. Bellevue Chamber requests either 6′ sidewalks or the elimination of local streets entirely. I agree with the staff assessment that “This would diminish comfort, compromise safety and accessibility, and ultimately limit the area\u2019s potential to thrive economically.” They also hope to get a reduction of the shared use paths from 14′ to 10′ – this change could create safety risks due to conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists, etc.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is some background on the sidewalks question in a post here<\/a>, where I talk about our standards for pedestrian safety and level of traffic stress (PLTS) and Wilburton-specific transportation challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 The Chamber is also requesting that some of the open space requirement be able to be met with private open space. I’ve seen that there are many amazing events that are only possible to host if you control the space and can have ticketed events,\u00a0so it’s not unlikely that utility\u00a0to the\u00a0community would go up if some open space is private. Unfortunately, in general, the open space requirement for Wilburton was set quite low to start with, and things like sidewalks and access corridors get counted toward that. It is the hope that spaces adjacent to Eastrail may provide a sense of openness and public access.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To balance these two considerations, I suggest that we allow up to two or three buildings (first to apply) to receive the 5% private open space allowance in exchange for a commitment\u00a0to host at least three events open to the public per week, at least one of which\u00a0is free but may require RSVP.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In a privately maintained open space, you can organize the events that use the space fully, and don’t need to leave space for other users. You can have art installations. You can have greater control over the maintenance of the space, and may be able to use more interesting finishes, plantings, and fountains, etc. that would not necessarily be sturdy enough to withstand 24-7 public use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   Also to be discussed at this week’s meeting are requests related to Wilburton’s MFTE tax exemption stacking, off-site performance option for affordable housing, Master Development Plan phase requirements, and the point in the project application process when the fee-in-lieu value is locked in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you can, please email City Council \u00a0council@bellevuewa.gov about ensuring adequate Wilburton sidewalk widths. You can also speak at the meeting; the\u00a0signup link\u00a0opens at noon tomorrow (Tuesday, May 20th).\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0As can be seen in the Agenda memo for tomorrow’s meeting, the\u00a0Eastside Housing Roundtable is recommending 6′ sidewalks in Wilburton (in the vicinity of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newbellevue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}