The folks at the West Seattle Blog were kind enough to help me recruit “fresh blood” into The High Point K9 Club interested in helping build an off-leash area in High Point, a Built Green Certified Community in West Seattle.
This great call to action stirred great supporting comments on Facebook and Twitter, and even two comments as a follow-up to the actual post on WSB. But invariably there is always someone who chooses to make negative remarks unrelated to the original post (“Comment by A Highpoint Owner — April 7, 09 2:20 pm”). High Point seems to be the ugly step-child everyone loves to pick on.
Personally I think a lot of people are jealous. They wish they could live here. Many of them actually could (referring to SHA housing – many of the homes are available for rent at market rates – the rental office is located at 35th Ave SW and SW Holly, call 206-932-2736). All of the homes in High Point are new, beautiful, green and of smart design. There are pocket parks on almost every block, huge trees and plants everywhere, a super waterfall and pond with a 1/4 mile trail around it, a 4+ acre “Commons Park” with a new p-patch, cool “viewing mound” with a spiraling trail up it, and an outdoor ampitheater with art designed by people living in the community.
I could go on all day about the great things in this neighborhood. I was so impressed with it I moved here myself, with my husband, in July of 2007. For the 4 months we had to wait for our home that was under construction to be completed I would come to High Point to walk my dog. It was that much safer than my former neighborhood of Puget Ridge, where there are no sidewalks, people let their dogs run off leash and harass people, and sparsely spaced street lights.
So in response to this anonymous High Point homeowner who hates where s/he lives, I say this:
As for High Point property values, the “social experiment”, foreclosures and ALL of that OTHER STUFF people worry about – I am a home owner in Phase 1 AND I am a real estate agent. I did not take my purchase in this community lightly. I bought with the intent to hold for ten years. Real estate is not a short term investment (altho for some people they thought it could be and now they are stuck.)
Currently FOR SALE are 5 homes and 5 condominiums. 2 of the 5 homes for sale NEVER sold and are still owned by the builder, only 3 are resales. Obviously over-priced and they got caught in the downturn like everyone else.
SOLD since June 1, 2008 – when many of us consider the real estate crash really set in – are 10 homes, 0 condos. Only ONE home was a short sale (pre-foreclosure), NONE of the homes currently offered for sale are foreclosures. And whoever bought the short sale townhome got a 1 year old $425k townhome for $360k. Frankly I was jealous because that is a great price.
NOTE: In real estate short sales/auctioned/REO properties are not considered when trying to determine market value of a home being willingly sold by an owner. Also: you aren’t entitled to making a profit off your home. It’s called market forces and the world revolves around them.
I hate hijacking a post like that (I don’t think WSB will let my rant through anyway, so I am using my own pulpit) – but for those of us who love living in High Point and believe it is a rich and fulfilling community worthy of our efforts and volunteer time I am speaking out because I am sick of hearing people who dis the ‘hood. The crime rates are statistically lower here than anywhere in West Seattle (High Point is a dense neighborhood). I’ve lived in West Seattle for almost 13 years and watched the Phase 1 High Point redevelopment process from beginning to end and I am PROUD to call it home.
Maybe residents who complain about it should do something about it. There are a ton of options, let’s start with three:
1) Volunteer on one of the many associations
2) Join a dog walk/litter pickup group of neighbors (Saturday, 4/11 10 AM, meet at the Redwood High Point kiosk)
3) Volunteer to tutor some kids and help them with their homework.
I do ALL OF THESE THINGS, plus other activities outside of the neighborhood that interest me. You have to be invested in your community to value it. Until you do, you won’t. I challenge you to do something to improve this neighborhood – it just might improve your attitude right along with it.
Just for the record, because we take this sort of thing very seriously, we wouldn’t “not let the rant through.” Our comment threads are full of spirited disagreement as well as support, encouragement, questions, what have you.
The rules we do have – and we are proud to have SOME rules, unlike many news sites which allow their comment zones to deteriorate into uselessness and worse — involve not insulting people who are participating in the same thread – and to break that, you would have to directly call the person you are addressing, oh, say, a “jerk” or something — and not using profanity.
Also, we tend to have a short fuse for posts that contribute nothing to the dialogue (none of that “FIRST”! junk that many sites don’t wade through).
That said, in case the original post’er ever checks back, I certainly invite you to at least go back and post a comment with a link to this. We have pretty high Google indexing so the post may come up for people searching on “High Point” and it’s always good to have such things on the record.
Thank you for your comments Tracy. I tried to post a 2 part response early on that explained 1) ideas for financincg the park and its continued maintenance and 2) debunking the real estate values and other myths people have about High Point. After clicking “Post” twice and the page reloading without my comments I assumed it was being screened out probably for length because it was pretty long. I guess it could have been some sort of other error but I have never had that problem before.
The issues surrounding building an off-leash area in the community are myriad and even right now it remains to be seen if I can make it happen. I guess I have to still lobby for this to be an open and accessible park. Having the support of the folks who read about it on WSB and joined the meetup group will make or break this effort. I aprpeciate everyone help!
More information soon!
Okay, now one of these condos is a short sale. Price dropped from $322,950 to $279,000, NWMLS #28195527. This is probably close to the original sales price when the building opened in 2007. COme and get it!!