From a pool of almost 60 applicants, the Mayor and City Council chose nine new members to serve on the Design Review Boards through April 2011. In addition, nine members were reappointed.

The City’s seven neighborhood-based Design Review Boards are staffed by 35 volunteers who are either professionals in the design, development and business fields or are members of the community who have knowledge of urban design and development. Collectively, board members donate more than 2,500 hours of service annually to the City; in 2008, the board completed 205 project reviews.

City Council established Seattle’s Design Review program and boards in 1994 in order to provide flexibility to the Land Use Code, increase citizen involvement in the design process, and improve the quality of urban design throughout the city. Since the program’s inception, over 1,500 projects have been reviewed by the Design Review Boards. During this time, project appeals have dropped from 25 percent to less than two percent.

To learn more about the new board members, read the full article in dpdINFO.