Norman B. Rice to chair committee for planning the future of Yesler Terrace

Community conversations will lead to guiding principles
for redevelopment

SEATTLE—June 27, 2006—Former Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice has agreed to assist the Seattle Housing Authority by serving as chairman of a new citizen review committee being assembled this summer to provide advice on possible redevelopment of Yesler Terrace.

Rice will begin meeting in September with a committee of stakeholders and residents whose immediate task will be to consider the breadth of possibilities for the future of Yesler Terrace and develop consensus on a set of principles to guide redevelopment efforts. Committee members will be recruited by the Seattle Housing Authority in the next few months.

“We are very grateful that Norman Rice has accepted our invitation to chair this committee,” noted SHA’s Executive Director Tom Tierney. “With his experience in building consensus and his understanding of what makes a great neighborhood, I know that he will be an effective facilitator for the community conversations that we need to initiate.”

Rice noted that he is looking forward to the challenge of civic engagement on this issue. “Yesler Terrace holds both the legacy of serving low-income residents for nearly 70 years and the potential of serving them for another 70. Our challenge is to balance the significance of its distinguished history with the needs of future generations.”

In January, Rice was named to a three-year appointment at the UW’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs as a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner-in-Residence. Part of his charge at the Evans School is to create and lead a series of public seminars on Civic Engagement for the 21^st Century.  “The opportunity to be a part of conversations around the future of Yesler Terrace fits perfectly into this assignment,” said Rice. “Yesler Terrace provides an opportunity for civic conversations that are both worthwhile and necessary.”

Yesler Terrace currently provides 561 units of low-income housing on 30 acres just south of Harborview Hospital and east of downtown Seattle above the I-5 corridor. Built in 1939, it contains two-story buildings that house families and single adults. As these wood frame buildings age, the Seattle Housing Authority is questioning whether the community as it now exists is sustainable into the future.

In considering any redevelopment projects on the site, the Housing Authority’s goals are threefold:  to create social equity, to create economic opportunity for Yesler residents and others, and to pursue environmental stewardship. Additionally, any redevelopment would continue to house current Yesler Terrace residents, and the same number of low-income units or more (at least 561) would be replaced through redevelopment efforts.