Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 9, September 2003

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Neighbors view zoo plans

By JAMES BUSH

Concern over traffic and parking proved no competition when matched against a beautiful summer evening, as proven by the sparse attendance at the Aug. 7 hearing on the Woodland Park Zoo environmental impact statement (EIS).

About 15 city employees and a small number of zoo neighbors chatted as they examined large drawings of proposals from the zoo's 2002 Long Range Physical Development Plan. Some testimony was taken in a separate room, although many interested parties elected to skip the hearing and submit written comments later.

The 2002 plan would modify the zoo's 1976 plan, with an emphasis on creating new social gathering facilities and new revenue streams, building office facilities to house the entire zoo staff, and adding a new parking facility allowing the zoo to handle all its parking on-site all but a few days of the year.

Among the projects envisioned are the Discovery Village education and conservation facility (near the existing west entrance), a multi-story parking garage (on the existing south parking lot), an Events Center ( one story plus basement, 9,000 square feet), a two-story office building (on the site of the current north entrance, which would be eliminated), and a historic carousel.

Such carousels were once a common feature of big-city zoos: in fact, the hand-carved antique wooden carousel horses were created in 1918 for the Cincinnati Zoo, says Linda Allen. She and husband, Tom, are donating the carousel to the zoo. It's estimated that the carousel will raise $100,000 annually for education and animal care. What's more, says Allen, putting the kids on the carousel creates "a chance for moms to sit down and rest."

Zoo officials argue that the addition of an events center doesn't represent a significant change in the facility's current focus. "The events center is intended to serve the type of events the zoo has now," Melinda Williams, a public affairs consultant for the zoo, stated at a July 28 presentation to the Fremont Neighborhood Council.

Some neighbors aren't so sure. Although the zoo defines 80 percent of the events it now serves as "community events," Ref Lindmark of the Green Lake Community Council says he sees "corporations and groups" as the likely renters of the large events facility that is proposed. "I find that use to be incompatible [with the zoo]," he says.

Although the 2001 transfer of the zoo to the private Woodland Park Zoological Society (and the capping of city funding for zoo operations) creates the need for additional fundraising, there's no reason all these events need to occur on site, says Corey Satten, who lives directly north of the zoo. He's not simply talking about theoretical future problems: the summer zoo concerts take up all the street parking for blocks and organizers only recently scaled back on the number of such events.

After a successful neighborhood appeal convinced the city's Hearing Examiner to throw out an earlier version of the zoo EIS last fall, zoo management stepped up and formed a liaison committee with representatives from each of the surrounding neighborhoods (Lindmark and Satten are both members). And there is some agreement with the zoo's aims.

For instance, Aaron Caplan, a Fremont neighborhood rep who lives just south of the zoo, says he generally supports the proposal to build a large parking garage in the south lot. "I have real mixed feelings about it," he says. "But, on the whole, I think it will be better for there to be more on-site parking."

Lindmark says he's softened his earlier opposition to the carousel, mainly because of the precedent set by the toy train the zoo used to operate in the 1960s and '70s (and the fond memories people have of it).

But there is general agreement that the new office structure is too large and that it's location at the head of the zoo's North Meadow is problematic. While zoo officials complain about the inferior office spaces now scattered around the park, some neighbors think keeping the offices out of sight enhances the zoo experience for visitors.

And there are criticisms about the EIS itself. Irene Wall, who led the challenge of last year's EIS, notes that drafters still haven't done a good job considering alternate locations for the various strutures (the exact issue which tripped the zoo up last time). Satten questions the quality of noise impact studies in the document.

"Most of the neighbors like the zoo," he says. "We just feel we're unduly burdened by fundraising impacts."