It seems ironic that in the midst of Seattle's booming urban growth the big complaints about it would be coming from Seattle's most urban of neighborhoods, Capitol Hill.
But angst is palpable, even in a neighborhood that has mostly embraced change. A recent Capitol Hill Housing Community Forum took "There Goes the Neighborhood" as its theme. The core of that neighborhood is the Broadway business district which is the center of the Hill economically, culturally and geographically. It is dense, filled with young people and small retailers, and features all the urban vibrancy planners and developers pine for.
There is a lot of new development in the corridor. Chris Persons of Capitol Hill Housing said there are 2,816 apartment units in the pipeline. There is the Sound Transit remake around Broadway's light rail station-to-be. There is work on the new streetcar line. Even positive changes can trigger uncertainty. The environment is challenging for retailers because of high rents and disruptive construction. Even some iconic standbys have fallen victim: The Bauhaus project looms, B&O Espresso has fled to Ballard, and the Egyptian Theater is closing. There are worries that cheap retail space is being replaced by pricey new space, endangering small, funky, local businesses.
There is concern about life on the streets too. Some business owners and landlords see their beloved Pike-Pine turning into another Belltown with young club-goers puking on the sidewalks and homeless people sleeping in doorways. A recent Kidder Mathew's report for the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce recommends a crackdown on public drunkenness, more cops and stricter handling of panhandlers in the supposed capital of Seattle tolerance.
There is angst too about "outsiders." Partly this stems from the Hill's residents feeling priced out. The median rent for a two-bedroom unit, according to Zillow, is $2,100 per month. And there is the apodment controversy, worries that somehow it will attract the "wrong" element. Many Hill residents are young with below-the-median household incomes. Apodments or no, one question raised at the forum was whether artists, one of the Hill's cultural backbones, are being pushed out. Keeping the "creative class" creating in a neighborhood where it has flourished for decades is a challange.
Recent news coverage of a hate crime incident on East Pike described the five men accused as "outsiders" who all had "out-of-state home addresses," as if to suggest such problems are due to transients or newcomers, not locals. That characterization raised some eye-brows.
Who on the Hill is not an outsider, at least originally? Is Capitol Hill being invaded by people who don't share the neighborhood's values? Outsiders are also blamed by some for the Belltown-ization of Pike-Pine. This is the alleged place of choice for new Amazon workers (dubbed Am-holes in South Lake Union) looking to party.
Another question raised at the forum was whether Capitol Hill is still the center of the city's LBGT community. Panelist Sally Clark said that it was "one" of the centers, a polite way of saying things have changed. Evidence of that shift was immediately forthcoming when an audience member asked, "What's LBGT?" Clark had to explain the acronym — on Capitol Hill!
