View Protection Activities
Inventory of Seattle's Public View Sites

In recent years protecting and preserving Seattle’s vistas and viewscapes has become an issue of concern, particularly during the intense development activity of the last decade. As Seattle strives to meet its responsibility to accommodate more of the region’s growth under the Washington State Growth Management Act, City planners have revisited policies that govern public view protection and assessed the extent to which the City's existing inventory of sites and views has kept pace with the changes undergone over the past three decades.

DPD undertook an important step in view assessment in 2001 by conducting a new inventory of public view sites. The results have been published as Seattle Views: An Inventory of 86 Public View Sites Protected Under SEPA (SMC 25.05.675).

This inventory includes a visual appraisal and description of amenities at sites identified in the Seattle Environmental Policies that govern the review and conditioning of physical development in the city (SMC 25.05.675P). The sites identified show the extent to which the City of Seattle has historically considered public views in the review and conditioning of development through the Master Use Permit and State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review processes.

Downloading the Inventory
A full-color electronic version of the inventory is available in Adobe PDF format below. Due to the inventory's size, the PDF document is divided alphabetically into sections according to view sites. Each section is less than 1MB in size.  

Last Updated: August 18, 2006