Haller Lake Is Fighting For Its Low-Key Life -- Residents Oppose New Projects

Rick Barrett's car crept along the narrow dirt road between a tangle of alder, birch, cedar and pine trees. The ferns and salal underbrush was so thick that only the rear bumper and expired tag of a car parked there more than 30 years ago was visible.

Driving through the Haller Lake neighborhood where he grew up, Barrett passed older homes built to house returning World War II veterans. Paved streets were trails when Barrett was a teen.

Now 59, Barrett said the wooded bramble across the street from his home is one of few remaining undeveloped areas of Haller Lake. Even some of the ``new'' wave of construction in the 1940s has been pushed out by larger condominium and apartment complexes, he said.

Community leaders have circled the wagons, fending off several major new projects - and the traffic they will bring - because they fear more development will trample the single-family neighborhood.

Haller Lake, with its trout-stocked waters and sleepy neighborhoods, does not want to be defined by the sort of development the neighborhood group is opposing - a high-rise hospital expansion, a household hazardous-waste collection site, a new medical-waste incinerator and a day-care center that would replace three homes.

``The development is just absolutely explosive in the northwest corner of the city, and nobody is looking at cumulative effects,'' said Lin Senter, president of the Haller Lake Improvement Club. The club,

started in 1922, is one of the older and more active community clubs in the city.

Many of the community's residents are like Ken Sheide, who moved to Haller Lake 33 years ago and never left.

``You've got everything you need right here. You've got public transportation, you've got lighting. You've got sewers in, you've got sidewalks. You're close to shopping, you're close to libraries and stores. Really as I see it, it's a good neighborhood to live in,'' said Sheide, 77.

Unlike many of his neighbors, Sheide thinks it's a plus to have Northwest Hospital so close because the neighborhood is aging. More than 60 percent of the hospital's patients live north of the ship canal.

But many others consider the hospital an enemy. An employer of 1,800 and short-term treatment center with 281 hospital beds, Northwest Hospital is blamed for many of the traffic woes that afflict Haller Lake.

``Traffic is a big, big issue in this neighborhood,'' said Sue Linnabary, an 11-year-resident. ``On this side of the freeway, there's not a lot of streets. We're finding a problem with people not wanting to use the freeway or Aurora and going through the neighborhood.''

Others point to two-hour parking signs they've had to post to check overflow hospital parking that has spilled onto their streets. Residents parking in front of their own homes are just as vulnerable as hospital employees to getting a ticket.

North 115th Street, once a passive path between cemeteries edged by a somber stand of poplars, now is lined on both sides all day by cars from the hospital.

Northwest Hospital says it needs to expand to keep up with the growth in its service area.

``I think the majority of people in the North End support us,'' said spokeswoman Mary Ann Goeppele. ``We have had a little difficulty with some of our neighbors, that's really the minority.''

For more than 900 hours last year, Northwest told paramedics to take patients to another hospital because its intensive-care-unit beds were full, said spokeswoman Valorie Fanger. In January of last year, at least 31 emergency room patients were turned away. The Northwest Tumor Institute, housed at the hospital, in the last year sent more than 100 radiation-treatment patients elsewhere.

Residents counter that hospital beds are the smallest part of the $80 million to $90 million hospital expansion. Northwest has cut one story from one building and pared three stories from another. A three-story, 60,000-square-feet medical building was initially proposed to be four stories and 156,700 square feet. Two parking garages will handle 1,550 cars; 400 fewer than first proposed.

A 149,000-square-foot tower that would mirror one already on the campus, is among other projjects that have not been reduced in size. If the Seattle City Council approves the master plan this summer, construction on the first building would likely begin by early 1992.

Hospital spokeswoman Goeppele says community concerns were one of the main reasons behind cutting expansion plans. ``I think it's horrendous,'' said Senter. ``I don't consider 100,000 square feet scaled back.''

Sheide, who heads the hospital master-plan advisory committee, said in the case of a specialty center planned in the northeast corner, avoiding the rezoning requirement was as much of a concern as placating neighbors.

``The proposal they have now will not require a rezone,'' he said.

Linnabary predicts that just as the neighborhood united to fight a planned Metro bus barn, it will come together again to fight Northwest Hospital's plan to build a medical-waste incinerator.

The hospital says the incinerator should not be included in its overall master plan. Residents disagree and want to ensure they have a chance to register their opposition.

The Metro experience proved to residents how much clout they carry.

``It's really an example for any neighborhood if you're right - and we were - that wasn't the proper place for it - and you have enough people who are willing to work, you can head off things,'' she said.

The community group has splintered its attention to attempt to fend off two unpopular proposals.

A storage area for city maintenance equipment at 12500 Stone Ave. N. has been recommended as a household hazardous-waste collection site. North End residents are expected to make at least 300 trips a week, mostly on Saturdays, to drop off paint, solvent, spent motor oil and other household wastes.

Residents say traffic could be cut in half by moving the collection center near the garbage-transfer station in Wallingford. The city is expected to make a decision on Monday.

Another controversial proposal would level three houses at North 115th Street and Meridian Avenue North to build a pair of two-story buildings for a day-care center and school for 240 students.

Residents say the busy corner cannot handle more traffic, a position that the city appears to back. The property owner has been asked to give more specific information on parking, traffic, driveway access, drainage and street improvement by March 18.

But the issue expected to draw large numbers to a community meeting tonight is the plan to expand the hospital's incinerator to handle up to nine tons of medical waste daily.

Barrett is traveling the same trails where he learned to drive four decades ago, walking petitions from door-to-door opposing construction of a larger incinerator.

As of early this week, he had gathered 360 signatures on a petition calling for a public hearing soon on the medical-waste incinerator.

``I began to realize if I didn't try to do something to protect myself and family against the incinerator, no one else was going to do it,'' said Barrett, who cares for twins and his elderly mother.

``I decided to disrupt my life for a little while and devote it to that.''