The Seattle Planning Commission is happy to announce four new members appointed by the Mayor and City Council earlier this year. These new commissioners bring a wide variety of experience and talent to the 16-member volunteer advisory body.

The planning commission strives to balance representation from the greater community with a mission to professionally advise the Mayor, City Council and City departments on broad planning goals, policies and plans for the physical development of the City. The commission’s goal is to assist our elected officials and City staff in making decisions that will enhance the quality of life for those who live, work and play in Seattle.

Our work is framed by Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan and by a commitment to engage citizens in the work of planning for the city’s future.

The four new members were interviewed about their goals for the commission and their vision of the future of Seattle.

Catherine Benotto, Principal, Weber Thompson
Catherine is passionate about creating sustainable communities, combining expertise in urban design, architecture and landscape architecture; she formerly served as chair for the West Seattle Design Review Board.

1. What attracted you to serve on the Seattle Planning Commission, and what are your goals while here?
I completed a four year term on the Seattle Design Review Board and had been looking for another opportunity to serve this City. There is a great deal of similarity between the issues the commission has been working on and the work I have undertaken throughout my career. Creating compact, livable, walkable and sustainable communities is my passion as well as my profession. I felt that I could contribute that passion and knowledge to the City and, in turn, learn a great deal from the highly skilled people on the commission and at the City.

2. What do you believe are the most important planning decisions facing Seattle?
I recently found an old “Seattle” magazine from the early 1960s with a long article on transit service (or lack of) in Seattle. It lamented that if only something was done 20-30 years ago, the city would be in much better shape! We need to have the courage to think long term and set in motions bold strategies for land use changes that will be supportive of transit so that when people look back 30 or more years from now, they will say we got it right—we created a highly liveable, diversified city that is easily connected by transit, bikes and our own two feet.

3. What are your thoughts about how the planning commission can best help the city be a vibrant and exceptional place to live, work and play?
I think that our most valuable role will be to help connect the dots—that is to help find the synergies and connections between various policies and initiatives. As with design, it is not merely completing items on a checklist that creates a vibrant or exceptional city, it takes some creative thinking and looking at the issues in their totality. I think the commission has a unique role in those overall concepts—we can see the forest, not just the trees.

4. If you were to give friends a tour of Seattle in 2020, what would you want to be able to show them?
A totally car-free zone downtown and a beautiful waterfront park where a particular highway used to be.

David Cutler, Associate, GGLO
David has experience with residential, institutional, and mixed-use architecture efforts; he specializes in urban design projects that include rapid transit components, public-private partnerships, form-based codes and alternative funding sources such as HOPE VI. (Capitol Hill)

1. What attracted you to serve on the Seattle Planning Commission, and what are your goals while here?
Cities are one of the most complex of human undertakings. And city planning is often perceived as an opaque bureaucratic process. The lengthy time frames required to define, finance and implement planning projects further inhibit a clear understanding of the process as continuous and meaningful. It can be years from the first public meetings to the time when even incremental physical progress is visible “on the ground.” During my time on the planning commission, I hope to not only help make planning more approachable to our communities, but I also hope to help connect planning efforts with tangible results—through consistent listening, honest communication, and a commitment to action. Our city’s public realm—our streets, our parks, our public places, and our transit and utility infrastructures—is one of our most vital urban resources. It is where the complexities of land use patterns, statistics, design, and policy play out in physical form. As a native Seattleite, I hope that together we can craft these spaces to reflect our various neighborhood idiosyncrasies as well as our collective urban aspirations.

2. What do you believe are the most important planning decisions facing Seattle?
Seattle is emerging as a global city. Our port is more connected to, and more affected by, world markets; our population is growing more diverse; our transportation infrastructure is more vital; our local resources are more coveted; and our buildings and places are more intertwined. We are growing up. And with this, comes responsibility. I believe that our most important challenge will be to shepherd our urban environment through this important transition while enhancing what makes Seattle unique—our neighborhoods, our geography, our innovative economy, our commitment to environmental stewardship. This will not be easy. With each passing day, we are all more inextricably linked. Local planning decisions will have greater citywide impact. Citywide decisions will increasingly affect regional growth patterns. And our regional performance will determine our access to global opportunities. The vibrancy of our downtown waterfront, the functionality of our industrial lands, the economic accessibility of our neighborhoods, the character of our streets, parks, and public places—these will all be important to the future performance of our city, and key decision points for our communities and policymakers.

3. What are your thoughts about how the planning commission can best help the city be a vibrant and exceptional place to live, work and play?
The Comprehensive Plan is the foundation for our city’s overall growth strategy. Keeping this document alive and in tune with our neighborhoods and communities is one of the commission’s most important roles and a key to advising policymakers about the impacts of local decisions on citywide performance. A vibrant city starts with vibrant neighborhoods.

4. If you were to give friends a tour of Seattle in 2020, what would you want to be able to show them?
A thriving series of diverse and inclusive urban transit villages. An interconnected, citywide open space network. A world-class downtown waterfront.

Christopher Persons, Director, Capitol Hill Housing
Christopher has experience in affordable housing, community development and organizing, and homeless services. He is the current chair of the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Housing Development Consortium. (Rainier Beach)

1. What attracted you to serve on the Seattle Planning Commission, and what are your goals while here?
The mission and work of the commission is consistent with my professional work, my passion for community development, and my personal commitment to community involvement.

2. What do you believe are the most important planning decisions facing Seattle?
The creation of plentiful and efficient public transportation. The opening up of the Seattle shoreline (not just Elliot Bay). The development of vital urban villages. The creation and preservation of affordable housing. And the preservation of neighborhood character.

3. What are your thoughts about how the planning commission can best help the city be a vibrant and exceptional place to live, work and play?
Staying relevant and focused.

4. If you were to give friends a tour of Seattle in 2020, what would you want to be able to show them?
A vibrant and family-oriented Rainier Beach, where you can walk on the boardwalk on Lake Washington, and grab dinner at the little Italian restaurant on the water. Stroll along Taylor Creek and a short hike through Dead Horse Canyon. A visit to the nationally-acclaimed New School and Rainier Beach High School where my kids will be.

Matt Roewe, Design Director, Via Architecture
Matt has experience in transit rich mixed-use developments and station area urban design and planning. He has been involved with many civic and community organizations including the Seattle Great City Initiative and the Seattle Streetcar Alliance. He is also the former chair of the Queen Anne/South Lake Union Design Review Board. (Queen Anne)

1. What attracted you to serve on the Seattle Planning Commission, and what are your goals while here?
I enjoy civic participation involving urban design and planning. I hope to help guide and shape our future to be more livable and sustainable, both ecologically and economically.

2. What do you believe are the most important planning decisions facing Seattle?
Integrating neighborhood plans with station area/transit area planning. Also, the continuing evolution of flexible, community-based incentive zoning in these transit-rich neighborhoods as a means to weaving collaborative outcomes for these fine grained areas.

3. What are your thoughts about how the planning commission can best help the city be a vibrant and exceptional place to live, work and play?
Helping our city leadership and communities better understand how to harness growth toward better urban livability. The commission can also help shed light on how private development can be empowered to better enhance the public realm while meeting our Comprehensive Plan goals.

4. If you were to give friends a tour of Seattle in 2020, what would you want to be able to show them?
In 2020, I’d love to see our world-class waterfront come to fruition. I want all our neighborhoods to become more diverse, vibrant and walkable. I envision a regional multi-modal transit network that conveniently takes us to most of the places we need to go. I also hope we continue to make policies and decisions that foster a robust, steady economy that continues to attract and nurture innovation.

Tony To Reflects on the Seattle Planning Commission It has been an honor to serve two full terms on the planning commission. Over that time, I had the opportunity to learn from those who were there when I started and then to watch new members grow as each took their turn. I am particularly glad and proud that a number of the “Get Engaged” members are serving regular terms and assuming leadership roles. Real and constructive civic engagement should always be inclusive and provide space for new voices and new leadership. All through the process, the Mayor, Council, and staff were always there to support our efforts. Whether it was the Northgate overlay, Center City and South Lake Union, the core industrial zones, detached accessory dwelling units, zoning tools to offset the impacts of the high cost market, the neighborhood business districts, or the many other issues and projects still in progress, we acted in the role of preservationists or change agents, depending on the circumstances, but always maintaining our independent voice for the citizens of Seattle as stewards of the Comprehensive Plan. In the past six years, we have experienced an unprecedented boom of the housing market and now a near precipitous downturn of our entire economy. A lesson and perhaps the challenge in all this turmoil may be to understand the need to be adaptive in our thinking and policy-making. Beware of those offering the same chorus whether as solution or as protest regardless of circumstance or context.