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If All Else Fails, We’ll Get to Eat Some Fat Cat Scones!
Several weeks ago, we had a workshop with the neighborhood residents in the Washington Area. The neighborhood doesn’t currently have an association, so we weren’t sure what the turnout would be. But we ordered a bunch of local Fat Cat Scones, brought in coffee from Café Refugio (West Sac will have to wait for our Gallery to open for a local independent coffee shop), got some fresh fruit from the farmers market and thought “this could be worse.”

We also invited representatives from the City and other developers in the neighborhood to show up. Our hope was that we could begin to understand collectively what this neighborhood needed to rise to its potential. So, we came with listening ears and open minds and lots of questions.

20+ people showed up, including several city staff and two other developers, which apparently, for this neighborhood was unprecedented. One of the developers told us they did a workshop and only 2 people showed up. I think (and hope) we’ll see even greater involvement in the future, as the community begins to understand the transformation forthcoming (perhaps most visually represented by the 18-story CalSTERS building two blocks away from four of our projects). This workshop was simply a starting point. And actually, while we can’t create one ourselves; one of the goals for our workshop was to serve as a catalyst for a neighborhood association, which we believe to be an important component of healthy communities. When neighborhoods have no voice, its usually because too few people who live there really care about it.

The Community Garden Gets Mowed Down
The event started with a bang. After introductions and an overview of the workshop, one of the residents stood up, announced they did not intend to stay for the whole meeting but wanted to articulate immediately their opposition to the community garden concept. Wow! That came out of nowhere— we really didn’t expect that the community garden would be the first issue contended with– but we’ve had enough experience with workshops to expect the unexpected. The resident owns property next to the garden and was concerned about parking, dumping and damage to his fence, water system funding, location of the garden in the neighborhood, illegal activity and transient use. Most of these issues we were aware of, thanks to Vanessa’s attendance at a community garden conference, but we noted them. The resident left after voicing his concern and more dialog continued: several others spoke in support of the garden as a community enhancement. Others had suggestions for alternative uses for the site. We actually have already made changes to our plans for that lot based on feedback from the workshop (which still includes a garden but adds two, flanking single-family homes) and we have a solid list of issues to tackle.

In general residents seemed to like the neighborhood as it currently stands (primarily residential) yet were excited about changes and new opportunities to bring life to the neighborhood.

Fun with Ranking Images
The group seemed to like this exercise. We wanted to get a sense of residents’ preferences for development types, design, height, land use, size, scale, etc, so we grabbed a mix of 35 images— local and outside the area– for them to rank, hoping some themes would emerge. John Leonard’s Rivers Side project got the highest marks. Most other images that scored near the top were town-home and mid-rise projects that had natural materials and colors on the exterior but modern designs. Perhaps even more telling, however, were the images that got the lowest scores: the CalPERS building in Sacramento, faux historic townhomes with garages along the street, senior apartments on F Street in West Sacramento, and single-family suburban-style homes along G Street in West Sacramento, the Ziggurat and its parking garage. Most images that scored low were suburban, highrise, extremely modern.

We’ve Got Questions: You’ve Got Answers
We also asked residents to answer some questions about the neighborhood. Here’s a few samples of what we got.

What Do you Like About the Neighborhood Now?

• Grid street system
• Historic buildings, Quaint character, well defined borders
• Friendly neighbors
• Quiet
• Not much traffic
• Close to River/Riverwalk, downtown, nature
• Trees
• Nice places to walk
• Historic society
• Cultural and economic diversity

What would you change about the neighborhood?

• Infill vacant lots
• More pedestrian/bicycle friendly
• More local services
• More community policing, bike patrol
• Drug problems
• No more high density or low income housing – spread it out
• Shopping mall, more professional business
• Weed abatement improved
• Light the Ziggurat
• Quiet train horn

What services would you like to see?

• Cafés
• Restaurants
• Book store
• High quality food market
• Community center
• Park – with Basketball Ct.
• Riverwalk Patrol
• Streetlamps
• Public Transit
• Community Garden

Naming the Neighborhood
Nobody really knows how long a name will last and whether or not a community will adopt it; but we’ll need something to use in order to articulate a vision for the neighborhood. We listed three suggestions— Washington Square, Washington Blocks and Washington Village. Other names were also suggested: Washington Area, Broderick, Washington Historic District, Washington Junction, Washington Heights, Washington District. No one name got strong support, which means we’ll probably pick one and go with it.

Any other suggestions? —we’re listening.

Jason