Eastlake Neighborhood Plan
The Eastlake Neighborhood Plan is pretty important stuff. Completed in 1998 by a coalition of Eastlake stakeholders led and administered by the Eastlake Community Council and with funds and a contract from the City government, it was adopted unanimously by the Mayor and City Council in 1999 with the compliment that none of the 36 other neighborhood plans did better outreach to their publics and stakeholders.
The Eastlake Neighborhood Plan has helped our neighborhood get parks, pathways, sidewalks, traffic signals (stop lights), street improvements, and noise walls, and access by Eastlake children to TOPS-Seward School, with a variety of further improvements to come. And it deals with Eastlake’s continuing issues: How to protect and improve bus service? Should Eastlake Avenue have a streetcar? Can we get traffic signals where it’s unsafe to cross? Should parking be restored to where it’s now prohibited? How can we strengthen the Eastlake business district? Should it be a commercial strip, or should new residential and commercial developments be in separate nodes? Where do we need more parks, benches, trails, kiosks/bulletin boards, or art works? Are there solutions to the missing links in the Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop Trail?
The City Council and Mayor’s December 1998 ordinance amending the Seattle Municipal Code in several ways to accord with the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan is available on the City web site by clicking here. The City Council and Mayor’s April 1999 resolution of passage of the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan is available on the City web site by clicking here. A link to the detailed Approval and Adoption Matrix that was attached to the resolution can be found at right or by clicking here. The City has collected most of these links for all the neighborhood plans including Eastlake’s onto one page (click here).
As befits a small neighborhood crossed hugely by a freeway, arterial streets, bus lines, and bicycle and pedestrian routes, transportation is a major topic in the 1998 Eastlake Neighborhood Plan. The transportation portions of the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan were shaped importantly by the Eastlake Transportation Plan and Related Design Issues (1994), which is available by clicking here. The 1994 Eastlake Transportation Plan was completed by a coalition of Eastlake stakeholders working in coordination with the Seattle Department of Transportation and other public agencies under a Seattle Neighborhood Matching Fund contract obtained and administered by the Eastlake Community Council. The 1994 plan focuses especially on Eastlake Avenue and on Fairview Avenue East.
Another subarea plan that is of relevance to Eastlake is the May 2009 Cheshisahud Lake Union Loop Master Plan (click here for the Plan). This plan was developed jointly by the Seattle Transportation Department and the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, for a walking and bicycle route around Lake Union, a major portion of which is on Eastlake’s shorelines, largely on Fairview Avenue E.
Following are links on ECC’s web site to individual sections of the 1998 Eastlake Neighborhood Plan. Alternatively, you can find the entire neighborhood plan (quite a large document, but unfortunately they left off the table of contents, list of figures and their page numbers, and list of appendices) on the City web site by clicking here. If you have any questions or would like to be involved in implementing and/or improving the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan, contact ECC at info@eastlakeseattle.org or (206) 322-5463.