Homecheesman parkCHEESMAN PARK MOUNTAIN VIEW AT RISK!

Comments

CHEESMAN PARK MOUNTAIN VIEW AT RISK! — 4 Comments

  1. Why is this being posted here? This is clearly a campaign of Neighbors for Greater Capitol Hill. City Park Friends and Neighbors is all about this, too, as it effects the City park view plane, but we shouldn’t immediately assume that Congress Park residents agree with the leadership of either organization. Many Congress Park residents, and members of CPN, including myself, would like to see the view plane ordinances relaxed in order to allow taller buildings, in order to allow our city to grow. They have prevented the growth of transit-oriented development around LRT stations in other parts of the city and threaten to nullify the incentive height overlay program that urbanist residents have fought for for many years. Additionally, most of the view plane ordinances were created to prevent intrusion into the portion of the view that is the relatively featureless and monotone foothills (the forested belt), way below the bottom of the “Rocky” / feature-rich portion of our mountain views. Adding an additional 4-8 stories in most cases in Golden Triangle would still keep the top of the towers in middle-ground view in front of the foothills, so the impact to visual resources is minimal. Furthermore, a “point tower” is what it’s name suggests: it comes to a point near the top, meaning that the area of the background views it would overlap is really skinny. If Congress Park Neighbors wants to make an issue about this, why don’t we set up a special meeting in which various viewpoints can be presented, before automatically assuming that members will line up to oppose the proposed changes?

    • I haven’t reviewed the plan yet, but I too am concerned about the Post on the CPN Facebook page, which lead me here.
      Clearly against the plan.

      Why is an RNO opposing a plan unless it’s Residents have indicated that they wanted to oppose it?
      Did you conduct a Survey?

      If so, I didn’t get an opportunity to participate.

      This is an example of why I believe we need to replace the Members of the Board.

  2. You people are beyond the pale. We live in a CITY for goodness sake. Cities are dense places. The alternative is continued sprawl, and the increased pollution and traffic associated. Continued densification of close-in neighborhoods – especially neighborhoods that are predominantly surface parking lots today – is critical if we are to house our growing population in an equitable fashion, and if we are to do anything about the existential threat that is climate change.

    But please, go on about how important views are.

    Say it with me “VIEWS ARE NOT PROTECTED”

  3. A picture is worth a thousand words. Looking at the photorealistic simulations on page 27 and 28 above, which models a couple of 300′ point towers as they would appear from the slab a couple steps down from the top height of Cheesman pavilion, it’s clear that the towers are not visible. The actual legislated viewpoint is on the York side of the DBG parking garage. It’s rare to make out mountain views anywhere between the legislated viewpoint and the Cheesman Pavilion. With that in mind, opposition to the change really can’t be based on impacts to views from Cheesman. Perhaps Neighbors for Greater Park is trying to get folks to oppose this on faulty grounds of preserving views because being opposed to it just because it is more urban development is less likely to build support.