Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
The buildings may be moved if the Fifth Avenue location is chosen. (Photo by Assunta Ng)
Betty Liu
When Betty Liu was a girl, she climbed a crabapple tree in a clearing in Chinatown and plucked all the fruit. Her father, who ran the laundromat, forced her to climb back up the tree and reconnect the fruit with wires.
“Everything belongs to someone,” he said.
But the question of who owns what in Seattle’s Chinatown International District (CID) today and who should determine its future is no longer clear.
Sound Transit (ST), which had $3 billion in revenue and funding last year, has set its sights on CID. The behemoth plans to acquire parts of CID in a plan to expand its transportation hub, closing parts of the area for as long as a decade.
Now a community leader, Liu believes this will be the end of her childhood home.
“It’s really about the money, power and arrogance that deep pockets and authority can bring.”
Liu and others hope that all of Seattle will come forward and save abandoned neighborhoods, just as the city once saved the Pike Place public market, which they say is another unique and defining feature of the city.
But they say ST is not fair.
In a series of emails seen by Northwest Asia Weekly, Liu said she was intimidated when she tried to join a community advisory group set up by ST.
Additionally, before the pandemic, ST sent agents to contact businesses only along 5th Avenue in the area, according to community leaders they spoke with, but the agency now insists 4th Avenues and 5th Avenues are still options for demolition and construction .
In the end, ST has withdrawn a construction proposal that would not directly affect the CID without explaining why, community leaders said.
background
Government leaders say the need for light rail is urgent and urgent. Governor Jay Inslee and others have pushed with Canada a massive cross-border initiative called the Cascadia Innovation Corridor to address population growth along the Vancouver, British Columbia-Portland corridor. Huge expected growth rate. By 2050, the population is expected to increase by as much as 4 million. Inslee and his Canadian counterparts want to connect not only the expanded transportation system, but also universities, hospitals and other institutions.
At the ST meeting on February 15, community members urged the agency to choose the least-impact option for developing its new transportation hub. Even though this option is called “Fourth Avenue ‘Shallow’ Option 1A”, it would mean a complete closure of Fourth Avenue from Main Street to Jackson for four years, an estimated 9 to 11 years of construction, including the loss of 210 in an already high Parking in crowded areas.
exclude?
When Liu heard last year that ST was forming a community advisory group to voice its opinion on the project, she acted in good faith. According to emails she sent to other community leaders, Liu first notified them of the community advisory group and then signed up herself.
ST said it never received her application, but only three months after Lau sent multiple emails to Leda Chahim, the government and community relations manager in the central corridor, their board of directors and their civil rights office , but got no response.
“It’s a symbol of the way they treat the voiceless,” Liu said.
In the end, Chahim said she “thought” she had responded to Liu’s attempts to join the committee and why Liu had not received a response.
As of press time, Sound Transit has not responded to any of Chahim’s emails to Lau in response to her concerns.
Brian Week
Liu and other leaders dismissed ST’s claim that her application was never received. According to Brien Chow, chairman of the Chong Wa Charity Outreach Committee, Liu filled out applications for two other community leaders before filling out his own application.
Additionally, because she is proficient with such forms, Lau takes on the role of filling out application forms for others and herself. As a lifelong educator, she has received over $1 million in education grants from the federal government.
“Everyone who completed the CID application was accepted,” ST’s public information officer Rachelle Cunningham said in response to questions.
“What do they have to fear of me?” Liu asked.
delete option?
According to a July 16, 2018 ST PowerPoint, it is considering expanding its nearby transit hub by redeveloping the Fourth Avenue Viaduct. A PowerPoint obtained by Northwest Asia Weekly shows a slide with colored bubbles labelled “Opportunity to work with Fourth Avenue. Viaduct Reconstruction” of the proposed construction.
Community leaders would prefer this, Chow said, because it means CID’s businesses don’t have to close, the area’s streets won’t be closed for years, the lives and health of thousands of seniors and children’s schooling and youth programs won’t affected.
It also means the streets don’t have to be torn up twice at the cost of more taxpayer dollars and double the social loss year, he said.
But that option has been removed from promotional materials shown to the community in 2022, according to Chow. Currently, community leaders and residents are being asked to choose between options involving Fifth Avenue or Fourth Avenue, he said.
Cunningham said options involving rebuilding the viaduct have not been abandoned. However, it’s unclear if this is the same option shown in 2018 that could save CID from major disruption.
While both options would wreak huge havoc on CID, community leaders would prefer Fourth Avenue if given the choice.
Proxy send?
Sound Transit claims both options are under consideration, with final results not due until June.
But Liu and another Chinese-speaking community leader visited businesses along Fifth Avenue in 2019 and were told they had been approached by ST agents looking to buy them out — which she and others argue Such a choice would sound the death knell on 5th Avenue. call.
ST denies this.
“Sound Transit has not sent an agent to propose the acquisition of the business or begin negotiations to purchase a property at the CID or any other location along the project corridor. Sound Transit is still in the planning stages of the project and cannot make an offer to purchase a property until authorized by the Sound Transit Council. Board authority is typically not granted after a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is issued and the board has selected a project to build. Based on the current project timeline, such a board authority is not expected to be granted until 2024,” Cunningham said in a statement. wrote in an email to Northwest Asia Weekly.
“The problem is that those immigrant business owners think ST is basically the same as the government and they think they have no choice but to accept what they say,” Liu said.
According to Liu, the people who come into contact with these businesses do not speak Chinese, which complicates cross-cultural understanding.
“A lot of people think they can move out for eight years and then maybe come back and it’s all the same,” she said. “But they don’t know, the building will be different, the rent will be higher, how can they survive for eight years elsewhere?”
Cunningham said it would be illegal for anyone approaching businesses to try to acquire them.
However, Lau said she raised the question at a community advisory group meeting — about why the merchants were contacted — and got mixed answers.
All meetings were videotaped for public viewing but have not been released, Liu said.
beg for mercy
At this point, community leaders came together and simply implored Sound Transit to choose the least harmful option for their community.
If Fifth Avenue is chosen, as it appears to be already within the agency’s line of sight, the effects will limit the lives and livelihoods of entire communities within a decade, ending the ties that bind the community together, they said.
The list of community agencies that will be harmed, they say, includes not only environmental damage and pollution, but also shutting down access and nearly the entire network that keeps CID alive.
These include:
Indian Health Authority and its clients, all residents, businesses and visitors; Chinese Information Service Centre (CISC) and its children’s programmes; Dennis Louie Early Learning Centre; Nursery in Hirayama; Legacy Elementary School; Summit Sierra Public Schools; Puget Sound Community Schools; Help Link Tutoring and Vietnamese classes; Wing Luke Museum and its youth programs; more than a dozen low-income buildings with Legacy House; Xinghai Park; Tang Ni Chin Park; Kobe Terrace Park; Nikkei Manor; Chong Wa Chinese Women’s Training Team; and Chinatown Dragons.
Community leaders pointed out that Chinese residents of Seattle were evicted from their homes in 1886 by the Chinese Exclusion Act. As a result, the entire group banded together to issue a plea to try to stop them fearing the inevitable end of the entire CID – Chinatown, and ultimately, Japantown and Little Saigon.
“Given our history, we’re calling for the light rail to be placed at No. 4 instead of No. 5, which can reduce or reduce the impact on people’s health and business livelihoods in the Chinatown community,” said Winston Lee, president of United Chinese Americans, Washington branch.
For others, ST’s invasion marked another disaster in a series of erosions in the region’s integrity.
Jesse Tam, former president and current board member of the Greater Seattle Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said: “Unfortunately, over the years, [the CID] Many other public development projects are downsizing. The upcoming light rail station will once again wreak havoc on our community…if the development on the 5th continues, it will be devastating, affecting many businesses and will hurt many of the elderly residents who call Chinatown home. Fourth Avenue is a better option for everyone. “
Ali Lee, a parent who participated in the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Training Team, said she was concerned about the impact on the environment.
“Seniors, children and businesses hit hard by COVID will feel a double impact,” she said of placing the station on Fifth Avenue.
Mahlon can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
