Upper Fremont is a neighborhood west of Aurora Ave N. and north of N. 39th St. It is a lovely area that is home to B.F. Day Elementary school, small shops, and many residents, in a variety of residential structure types, that together make up of the character of our great neighborhood.

Upper Fremont is directly north of the Fremont Urban Village. When the Urban Village boundaries were drawn, the city mistakenly allowed the Urban Village to abut next to the lower density neighborhood. directly to the north This in combination with LR2/LR3 zoning all the way to the Urban Village edge, with no proper zoning transition, created the conditions for developers to propose development designs that abuse the lower zone neighborhood.

Two cases in point are LR2 and LR3 projects being proposed at 3959 Fremont Ave N. and 519 N. Bowdoin Place respectively.

These development projects are proposed in an area of the Upper Fremont neighborhood, directly west of Fremont Ave N. and north of N. 39th St., characterized by a unique topography of steep slopes on three sides with no through streets to the east, south, or west. This area of homes is essentially a two block long dead-end peninsula, on a ridge, that has one single lane residential street, Evanston Ave. N, and one narrow alley as the only means of vehicular access from the north.

Both of these projects sites are located adjacent to major arterials on one side, but instead of creating appropriate designs or investing a bit more money to properly orient these projects towards these urban village arterials, the developers have decided to save a little money and create nihilistic designs that rely on the dead-end alley and one-way street of the adjacent low density neighborhood to shoulder the burden of traffic to and from these high density apartment sites.

If these projects and others to come are not required to route vehicular traffic via Fremont Ave N or 39th St N, then hundreds of cars will soon be coming and going down a dead-end traffic peninsula that is already overcrowded – destroying the livability of this neighborhood for everyone.

We are not going to let this happen without a fight, but we need your support. Legal bills are expensive and the developers we’re dealing with seem like they would rather spend money on lawyers than on well designed developments that increase the richness of the neighborhoods we love.

Please consider getting involved and also donating. We are *not* a NIMBY organization. We believe in progress and want to welcome greater density to our city and to our neighborhood. But we cannot sacrifice livability on the altar of developer profits.

Learn more about these projects:

3959 Fremont Ave N Project – Offender #1

Fremont View Apartments Project – Offender #2

Safety and Livability Impacts of Proposed Projects:

• Vehicular traffic danger in alley.
• Vehicular traffic danger to elementary school children walking to and from school.
• Lack of access for emergency medical and fire.
• Lack of access to Fremont Ave for disabled residents unable to walk stairs.
• Parking in single family neighborhood already at capacity.
• Displaces residences sized for families with elementary age school children across the street from an elementary school.