I live my life in Skyway - I have been residing in this beautiful community since 2010 raising two generations of children who observe Skyway as their home in every sense of the word.
Raising my children here I have engaged with many organizations and...↓
I've invested my time volunteering & working in Skyway for the last five years. As such, I have extensive partnerships and connections to hundreds of families in Skyway ensuring that in all ways that I show up centers their voice, dreams and desires while leveraging my professional acumen, positionality and own voice to acquire the community's objectives. I will remain diligent in these engagements until those prioritized dreams are realized.
As a trusted publicly accountable & verifiable representative & Skyway Advocate- I'm humbled to be part of the founding partners of the Skyway Coalition a collective that has stewarded historic & current community-led planning & advocacy towards ensuring that our Skyway community continues to thrive.
Skyway Coalition is a trusted and valued representative of the Skyway community and are regularly called on by King County Councilmember Zahilay, multiple King County departments, directors, and legislators including, Senator Salda�a and Representatives Santos and Harris-Talley to inform policies, funding and advocacy that serves and protects our unincorporated community currently threatened by displacement
I am specifically concerned with:
the 'lease-to-own' approach; King Co.'s 2021 Anti-displacement report recommends against 'rent/lease' and red flags it as a 'risky' impact on community; Skyway is actively facing high displacement already, this model will increase displacement of our residents
the use of wider King County's area median income (AMI) v. Skyway's AMI; the unincorporated, and longtime underinvested in community of Skyway's AMI is significantly lower than our surrounding more affluent cities and communities; by using King Co.'s macro lens of AMI, the proposed project gives the impression of affordability, but will displace our residents
the flier mailed to my home re: this clean-up and proposed development shared the development is planning for the minimum of 20% 'affordable rental units' as required by Dept of Ecology's to qualify for clean-up funding;
Skyway is widely known as the next Seattle area community to be gentrified pushing out generations of mostly diverse families most who have already been pushed out of the Central District, Beacon Hill, Columbia City and the Rainier Valley� proposing the minimum units of 'affordable' rental units using the high end of King Co.'s area median income is not a affordable housing development for our community already feeling the impacts of displacement and will directly contribute to increasing displacement our residents
planning for the minimum 20% 'affordable' rental units required by Dept of Ecology, allows for approx. 200 market rate units that will contribute to push out families unable to afford to buy in their home community Skyway
In addition, I am disappointed in the aggressive, condescending tone the developer showed to our community, in his brief 3-5 minute 'presentation' of the proposed development
It is unbelievable DOE moved along and concluded the meeting without acknowledge or condemning the developer's blatant and disrespectful response to a Skyway resident's questions on experience with contamination clean-up;
His response was snidely shared as "More than you!", at least 3 different ways, even following the resident's calm response sharing her dissatisfaction with his unnecessary attitude.
There were many questions left unanswered in the chat, mostly relating to the affordability metrics used and the contamination impacts;
While I understand and respect giving an option to not to include name or affiliation on public comment form, this also leaves plenty of room for anyone to encourage supporters from outside the community who claim connection to/ impact to the project. For example, it appears curious that the public meeting was over 50 guests who asked direct questions concerning contamination, impact of that contamination and concerns over affordability and displacement� and there are dozens of comments on the DOE site springing up in support with a short simple sentence or two.
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