Housing & Human Services Committee 9/22/2025

The September 22nd, 2025 Special Housing and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.36 AM.

Oops, actually, no, that was your part.

Yeah, I know.

I didn't want to interrupt you.

But thank you.

I was thinking, okay, this is great.

Good morning, everybody.

The September 22nd, 2025 Special Housing and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.37.

I'm Deborah Juarez, Chair, and will the clerk please call the roll?

Chair Juarez?

Here.

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Sacco?

Here.

Vice Chair Salmon?

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

Thank you.

As the new chair to this committee, and as you know, I've been gone for 18 months, and I want to thank Councilmember Solomon for doing all of this hard work and continuing to be a wonderful vice chair and to continuing to get the MFTE across the finish line.

I am passing the gavel to my vice chair, Councilmember Solomon, to facilitate this meeting.

Thank you, Councilmember Solomon.

Thank you, Council Chair Juarez.

I'm Mark Solomon, Vice Chair of the Housing and Human Services Committee, and I will be leading today's meeting as we welcome back Council Member Juarez to the Council and give her and her staff time to come up to speed.

We appreciate you being back.

So if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

Thank you very much for coming to this Monday morning meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee.

Always want to thank our central staff, our clerks, and for those of you in the public who take the time out of your day to come here.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up for today?

We have three in-person speakers and five remote speakers.

Okay.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the instructions for the public comment period?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

In-person speakers will be called first, after which we'll move to remote speakers until the public comment period is ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not in their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open, and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list, Hallie Willis.

Okay.

Hallie, just give me a quick second.

Hey, Hallie.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Hallie Willis.

I'm the policy manager at the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, and I'm a renter in District 5. I'm here to urge you to reject the proposed P7 MFTE, renew P6 for a year, and give yourselves the time to review the program to provide the level of affordable homes that we actually need.

The Coalition on Homelessness is making this recommendation alongside the renters commission, 28 community-based organizations, and over 200 Seattle residents and workers who signed the letter that I sent you this morning.

This proposal is a bad deal for MFTE renters, and it provides too little public benefit to be worth the $20 million price tag.

And you have amendments on the table that would make this even worse.

If you proceed with a vote today, I urge you to reject any amendments, including 1, 5, and 9, which would make MFT apartments even less affordable and available to the renters who actually need them.

There are some amendments that would add benefit for tenants and make for better governance.

Please adopt amendments two, eight, and 13 from council members Rink and Saka to add a sunset date and increase affordability for tenants in smaller MFTE apartments.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Laurie McEwen.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Lori McKeown.

It's great to see you all again.

I'm here today to urge your support for MFTEP7.

This program is vital because it not only creates workforce housing, but it keeps overall housing production moving at a time when the pipeline is the lowest it's been in years.

Without action now, two years from today, we'll be facing an even greater housing shortage with higher prices and fewer options for working families.

MFTE fills a critical gap, supporting households at 60 to 80 percent of area median income.

People with very few alternatives.

Without these homes, many would be forced into units meant for lower income renters, displacing those with even greater need.

That's why the amendments before you today matter.

I urge your support of Amendment 1, to encourage a variety of unit types with varying rent levels.

Amendment 5, to allow recently completed projects to transition from P6 to P7.

And Amendment 9, to better align rent levels for extension so we can retain crucial units instead of losing them.

I also encourage you to reject Amendment 2, which would limit the production of compact one-bedroom units.

Amendment 15, which would reduce the feasibility of building two-bedroom units.

And Amendment 8, which would risk encouraging projects to exit the program at extension.

Each of these would undercut the housing production we so urgently need.

MFTE is one of the only immediately impactful tools that we have to make projects feasible right now.

If we don't act, we risk losing these homes and the people they serve to other cities or even states.

Please pass MFTE P7 with the strongest framework possible.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Raymond Connell.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Raymond Connell.

I'm from Holland Partner Group.

We're a developer of multifamily housing throughout the city of Seattle and the Puget Sound region.

I don't have my readers on, but I can tell you, We've built over 3,000 units in the city of Seattle, 500 of those units being MFTE qualified.

That equates to about 750,000 jobs in the construction trade.

Program 7 is no panacea for the housing crisis, but it's a key for unlocking housing and getting production of housing started again.

As you can tell from looking around the city, there's no more cranes in the sky.

There's about three of them left.

We need housing.

We need it bad.

And this is one of the ways to get it done.

Thank you.

That's the last in-person speaker.

We'll now move to remote speakers.

First up, we have Irene Wall.

Good morning, council members.

This is Irene Wall in District 6. The amendments proposed today, accepting those from Councilmember Saka, only make a bad piece of legislation much worse and more unfair to both renters and taxpayers.

Table this legislation until you update the related RTA map so the public can know where it will apply and calculate the related tax loss now that you have laid the groundwork to upzone so much of the city, making it potentially eligible for this ripoff.

Ask yourself why there is no income or other eligibility requirement for the developers and building owners who benefit from this tax gift, but tenants do prove their eligibility as they should.

You take them at their word that they must have this 12 or 24 year generous tax exemption or their projects won't pencil.

Yet 80% of the units created are market rate in the highest cost form of housing, new construction.

And, as has been demonstrated, the so-called affordable units are only marginally less costly to rent.

Developers want this tax break so they can shield themselves from costly, voted, approved levies.

They contribute nothing to the nearly $1 billion low-income housing levy, the $1.55 billion transportation levy, and the upcoming $1.3 billion education levy.

Is that fair?

No, it's not.

Remember the lesson of the famous folk tale, and don't throw Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch.

If you want to merely subsidize high-cost new construction, go back to the eight-year program.

A 12-year extension on an existing building produces no additional housing, so why is a tax break warranted?

If you want to subsidize rent for a tiny fraction of renters in the city, come up with a better approach than this unfair tax.

which makes others unwitting donors to wealthy building owners.

Next up we have Kate Rubin.

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm a renter in District 2, the co-executive director of the Seattle and the interim co-chair of the Seattle Renters Commission.

The Commission issued a letter urging you to reject the P7 update and extend P6 for another year to allow for real renter stakeholder engagement.

We emphasized the need for sunset dates and future updates, and we raised deep concerns about the MFTE program overall, concerns that P7 would only make worse.

85% of MFTE renters are cross-burdened, and one in four is severely cross-burdened.

Seattle's new apartments are the smallest in the nation.

Instead of addressing the problems, P7 actually raises the cap on allowable rent increases, increases the maximum AMI and maximum rent, and encourages creation of very tiny units instead of the two- and three-bedroom units that working families need.

The Commission has not met since the amendments were drafted, but Councilmember Salko's Amendments 8, 12, and 13, and Councilmember Rink's Amendments 2 and 15 take steps in the right direction by addressing some of those concerns.

Speaking in my professional role as B Seattle, not as the Renters Commission, I want to raise deep concerns about amendments 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, and 11. Collectively, they make bad legislation worse.

Amendment 5 in particular, allowing projects that have already received a final certificate in 2025 and already opted into P6 to convert to P7, is a giveaway to developers and a takeaway from renters.

These projects are already built or nearly built.

They don't need incentives, yet this amendment would raise both maximum rents and maximum AMI, placing even more burden on renters.

I urge you to reject P-7 and its harmful amendments, renew P-6 for one more year, and work with renter stakeholders to truly rethink MFPE for greater affordability.

Thank you all.

Next, we have Lenny Orlove.

Good morning, council members and Seattle residents in attendance.

I'm a lifelong renter, a former refugee, and a husband of an immigrant who is also a lifelong renter.

Our two American-born children, of course, have been along with us on this rental housing journey.

We've rented in Siberia, New York City, and in Seattle, Council District 6. As a family of four, with myself as a single income earner, we qualify for MFTE.

And we've lived in an MFTE apartment for the past two years.

Full disclosure, my income does come from the City of Seattle, where I help administer this very program.

So you could say I know MFTE inside out.

The exemption in our building expires this December, and they're not renewing.

So our rent is going to be market rate starting January.

As we look for another MFT unit, I'm very concerned that MFT renters like myself that do not work for the Office of Housing have not had the chance to review the proposed changes to this program.

For instance, our current two-bedroom apartment is almost 1,000 square feet.

Recent trends that I'm aware of as a City of Seattle employee show that newer MFT buildings no longer offer two bedrooms of that size, and some are actually closer to 500 square feet.

I urge the Council to delay adopting P7 and engage in meaningful outreach with Seattle renters, especially those with families, to hear how the program can be improved to better meet our needs.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Rosalie Merckx.

Good morning, Chair, members of the committee.

My name is Rosalie Merckx.

I'm here to comment in support of the extension of the MFTE program and specifically for Councilmember Solomons Amendment 11 that will allow for projects expiring in 2025 to renew under the new program.

We would ask the committee to extend MFTE with Amendment 11. I manage Youngstown Flat in the kid-friendly neighborhood Delridge in West Seattle.

Youngstown Flat enrolled in the MFTE program, but the current program is expiring at the end of 2025. We need Amendment 11 to continue the program.

Notably, Youngstown Flat has 10 two-bedroom, large two-bedroom MFTE units and 29 one-bedroom MFTE units.

There are no MFTE studios in Youngstown Flat.

Our residents love living in Youngstown Flat, especially in a larger two-bedroom unit.

This fosters opportunity for families to live in our community.

The MFTE program is one of the most successful programs to encourage and affordable housing in Seattle.

Renewing the MFTE program will ensure that units that are already in the MFTE program, especially the larger family site units, can continue in the program.

However, for the MFTE renewal to work for older properties, like Youngstown Flat, we need to be able to afford maintenance of the building.

That's why we encourage the committee not to adopt amendment aid, which discourages projects, for re-enrolling for the second 12 years in MFTE.

Especially if there are larger capital expenditures that are necessary, like new roofs, energy upgrades, or other major maintenance and improvements.

In order for the MFTE program to work, it needs a true balance between the incentives for property owners and affordable housing benefits for renters.

We believe that the Mayor and Office of Housing's original proposal for renewal of one bedroom's better stripes and balance will incentivize the renewals of MFTE units.

That is our last speaker in attendance.

As that was our last registered speaker, the public comment period is now closed.

Clerk, will you please read items one through six into the agenda?

Option items one through six, appointments 03239 through 03243, reappointments to Seattle Housing Authority Board of Paula L. Houston for a term to March 20th, 2028, Robert D. Crutchfield and Paul Purcell for a term to December 1st, 2026, Christian Ryan for a term to March 19th, 2027. Rita Howard for a term to March 20th, 2027. And Twyla Minor for a term to September 30th, 2026. All right.

Thank you very much.

And if we could have our representatives on Seattle Housing Authority please join us at the table.

Once you are ready and settled, please introduce yourselves and begin.

Is it on?

Good morning.

Good to see you all, each of you.

That's great.

Councilman Juarez, welcome back.

We're really looking forward to working with you.

I look forward to working with you again, too.

Thank you.

Again, good morning.

My name is Rod Brandon.

I am the executive director of Seattle Housing Authority.

We're really excited to, I'll let the others introduce themselves in a second, to share with you some of our board members.

Hopefully reappoint a number of them and then appoint a new one.

So we're really excited to share that with you.

So I'll let you do the introductions first.

Good morning, members of the council.

My name is Lisa Walters.

I'm the director of government relations for the Seattle Housing Authority.

Good morning.

I'm Kristen Ryan.

I am the new one for the appointment.

Welcome, Kristen.

So we have a number of folks who are up for reappointment.

I'm not going to go in detail on each one of them, but I do want to share with you just that we have just an amazing Board of Commissioners for Seattle Housing Authorities.

For those who don't know much about us, Seattle Housing Authorities, we serve over 38,000 individuals in the City of Seattle.

We're in every single neighborhood or we're next door to every single neighborhood in Seattle.

We own and manage just under 10,000 units.

We serve probably just around 13,000 vouchers that go into the private marketplace throughout the City of Seattle.

We only operate in the City of Seattle.

Our partners King County, Dusset County, and other partners in the surrounding area.

One in ten individuals who attend Seattle Public School are in our housing.

So we have a huge youth movement in our housing and we do much, much more than just serve the household for housing.

Clearly housing is really important.

We know that.

We take that very serious.

But also the supporting services that we provide to those individual families and members in the household is also equally important.

So today I wanna just share with you a couple, a little bit of information on our commissioners.

We have seven board commissioners for Seattle Housing Authority, and we have two that are resident commissioners.

I've been there for 15 years and all 15 years we have had two resident commissioners.

So they live in our housing and they provide a unique insight.

And I'll let you know each one of those as we go through the names.

One of those is Commissioner Rita Howard.

She's a senior and she's up north in the northeast area.

And the other is Twyla Minor, who's here at Yesler Terrace, who's also a senior but does not focus on the senior population.

She's focused on just residents at large.

Dr. Houston is the first on the list you guys saw.

She is an outstanding individual.

She's been in the Seattle area a long time serving the senior community, serving the Carolyn Downs when she was here.

She's an activist in the community.

She's currently at the University of Washington and just brings a unique perspective for us to take advantage of on our board.

We also have two more individuals, actually, from the University of Washington.

Dr. Crutchfield, he's a sociologist.

Jesse was the Dean of the Sociology Department there.

Again, just great insight, good information on behavioral health, good information on how we interact with our residents here at Seattle Housing Authority.

After that is Commissioner Sally Clark, former city council member.

She is the chair, current chair of the Seattle Housing Authority and again just brings a lot of depth, a lot of insight and perspective for us as we lead and develop policy.

The other individual I'm missing is Paul Purcell.

Paul Purcell has probably been with us the longest.

He has formerly worked at Catholic Community Services.

He was formerly a developer and he has just strong financial and just good development insight as we do our acquisition and our renovations at our property here at Seattle Housing Authority.

Today I want to introduce to you Kristin Ryan.

She also brings a lot of unique skills to us.

She has had extensive experience in the private sector.

She's had a lot of experience in the public sector.

She's worked with supported nonprofits and served on some of their boards.

She's been in acquisition.

She's been in development.

She's been in creative financing as we Continue to figure out ways in this current environment, how do we provide even more affordable housing in this particular region?

I won't go into details about her.

I'll let her do some talking about herself and share why she is also interested in the Seattle Housing Authority.

Thank you, Ed.

So when I first moved here 14 years ago, actually, my first work that I did was in response to the Yesler Terrace Redevelopment RFP that the Housing Authority had put out.

And so from my very first time here, I have been deeply engaged in the vision of what the Housing Authority has put forward and really have been impressed by the mission and the dedication of the organization to think about creative ways to continue to serve A range of folks needing affordability in the city.

I have since had the pleasure of, as Rod mentioned, working with a number of different nonprofit affordable housing providers here in the city, in addition to creating and building two privately financed workforce housing projects, one which we have just created that Council Member Juarez is familiar with up as part of an intergenerational community.

That is adjacent to a senior campus and is providing 89 units of workforce housing along with a hundred unit early learning center in the base.

And so really understanding that mix of the needs of that the housing authority that Rod just spoke about of this is housing plus and how to serve the everyday needs of the people in the community with a wraparound source of services and more importantly, just support so that people can feel at home in their communities.

Great.

I bragged about how strong of a board we have.

I feel really lucky as an ED to have such variety, insight, local knowledge as we guide the tough policies ahead of us in the Seattle Housing Authority.

That doesn't mean that I get off easy when we have our board meetings.

So they ask fairly good penetrating questions for the organization, both for our staff and residents.

So we're excited.

We hope you can join our team.

I think you'll like it a lot.

So with that, we're open to any questions that you may have.

Great.

Thank you very much, Director Brandon.

Any questions from my fellow committee members?

Yes, Chair Ores.

Thank you.

First of all, again, welcome, and thank you, Director Brandon.

It's good to see you again.

And Kristen, just quickly, I want to thank you all because we work really closely, not only on the Nook, which was wonderful, with Deal and Rewa to have the intergenerational Again, this makes me excited because this is something we talked about eight, nine years ago, and now it's happening.

So in Indian Country, extended families all live together.

So that was a concept that we had to get, took us 20, 30 years to get across the finish line, that multifamily is often intergenerational, and there's a reason why you live with your elders and your grandmas and your aunties, and we should have housing that reflects that.

And also working with Rewa, because we have our second pre-K.

We have the one at the Tony Lee House with the housing, which came out amazing.

I don't know if you were involved in that one.

And then the Nook, which was an idea that we started talking with Manaz about and Susan Lee.

And it came about working with North Haven, because we did a lot of work with the elders there.

So another one of those feel-good moments.

I know we don't have a lot of them.

I like to talk about and uplift.

How we work as a city when things actually get done, when we just quit talking about it and just do the work.

And, of course, the big one, of course, you know this, Mr. Brandon, and we talked about it when Mr. Lofton was the ED, is Northgate Commons under Mayor Durkan when we bought those eight acres and when we were doing light rail and transit-oriented development and housing and childcare.

And that just became like the Petri dish.

I don't say Petri dish.

It became the garden.

of how we wanted to see that kind of density and growth in walkable neighborhoods, and so I want to thank you so much for taking our original ideas about what those units would look like, allowing those low-income people, I think it was like 300 people, and they all get to move back in?

Yeah, there was 217 units before, but as always, they all get first priority in coming back in, too, if they want to relocate back there, absolutely.

So the 217 and we worked hard to make sure that they would have writer first to come back.

I see the fences are up and it's boarded up and they're going to start taking it demoing.

But I'll just be honest with you.

I never thought that I would see the idea that that would happen.

And I remember Mayor Durkin came to me and we talked about it.

We talked with Mr. Lofton and then you.

And so I want to thank you.

I know you take a lot of flex, Sale Housing Authority.

I know we all do in these jobs sometimes when people don't see the hard work you do behind the scenes, the charrettes that you had, the community groups, the community sessions, the community outreach.

I understand now at Northgate Commons that there'll be four stacks instead of three.

It'll be mixed income, two and three bedrooms, and how many new units?

I can't remember.

Yeah, that's okay.

First of all, thank you.

Thank you for that acknowledgement.

As you know, development takes a while.

So the previous leaders and you all had the foresight for what vision could happen there at that amazing site where we have transportation.

Where we have a college across.

Where we have thriving business.

Where we have a very high-opportunity school district system.

All of those things are just great ingredients for successful families.

We're in the early stages, so we have acquired it.

You know that.

And we're now doing a designing for those sites.

You mentioned four or three.

It's not firm, but we're hoping to get six buildings there.

And it will be a mixed income community as well.

We know that formula works well.

It's did really well for us here at Yesler.

And we're looking at continue to propel from lessons learned there and just do even a better job up north on that amazing site.

A lot more to come there.

There's a lot of opportunity for community engagement.

There's various interests and needs.

You share some of those in the past and those things are still on the table as we continue to talk about what best is there for serving those individual families and the community.

So we're really excited about it.

I think the thing that makes me the happiest in the north end, above the Ship Canal, is that we now have the John Lewis Bridge, we have the James Baldwin Elementary, we have the Bob Eaglestaff Elementary, and we're starting to, and I'm hoping the rest of the city recognizes this, that this kind of growth has to be spread across the city, and it has to resemble and reflect all of our history.

And we never had that before.

We had to, you know, I had some interesting discussions with some folks that felt that, you know, Representative John Lewis should be honored in our city.

And some folks felt like, well, he has no connection.

And I said, well, neither does George Washington or Jefferson.

They weren't here either.

But we have stuff named after them.

So I guess my point is you've been a great friend.

You've been a great supporter.

The Seattle Housing Authority has.

And I know Dr. Crutchfield from way back in the day, like way back in the day.

So I just want to thank you for that.

And I'm hoping that it all started with us fighting for light rail at Northgate and light rail at 130th, because we knew that once you had that kind of rich transit spine, that everything would grow around it.

And it has.

I'm hoping we can replicate that in Lake City and maybe Aurora and south of the Ship Canal and other neighborhoods.

So thank you so much for your hard work.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other comments from members of the committee?

All right.

Oh, Councilmember Sacco.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.

And I want to thank Director Brandon and Ms. Wolters for being here today and all the hard work you do at SHA in your partnership so far with me and my office on a number of things.

I also want to thank Ms. Ryan for your willingness to serve in this manner.

Really important, impactful work.

So really, really appreciate your willingness to serve.

Speaking, I want to double click for just a moment on this construct of community outreach and engagement.

Very, very important, especially in the line of work that we all do here.

As we know, well, certainly as you two know, there is a group called Open Space Association within High Point.

And really cool organization.

My office has been close in touch with them.

And I met with them actually just a few weeks ago.

And there's a few subservient organizations as part of Open Space Association in High Point.

There's a SHA High Point.

There is the High Point Home Owners Association, a number of organizations that have a sort of vested interest in the work in that particular neighborhood and community of which you all play a very central role.

And one of the things that they sort of wanted to see a little more of on a going forward basis is a little more direct line and coordination between, you know, that organization and the leadership within SSA as opposed to, you know, constant front line.

And so my ask for you all is to do what you can to better support that work and understanding you all can't scale across the many complex properties and neighborhoods across SHA, but do what we can to make sure that we engage more directly with some of these at the leadership level with some of these associations, namely the ones in my district.

So appreciate your partnership there.

And so question for you, Ms. Ryan, is if appointed to this position, how would you ensure in your oversight board role that the association is continuing to engage directly with impacted communities on any number of projects or fronts?

Yeah, I think that there is...

Always that question of where the focus of the leadership is looking at, and there are two times that things come to bear and perkle up to leadership often.

One is in crisis, and less frequently in Moments of celebration and hopefully there's an opportunity.

What it sounds like you're describing is some very good work done by this group.

And so how do you ensure that there is equal opportunity in those discussions of what things that are working well and opportunities for sort of, I think of it as continual improvement.

We're never done in our work.

We're never done in our work in development.

The built environment is a constantly changing Scenario of an opportunity to provide homes and places for people to live and those only work to the degree, you know, I think of the built environment as a shell and it's really the success of the people within it that are able to bring the community to that shell.

And so I think my quest would be to continue to encourage and share and ask the questions of, are we getting a chance to hear what the barriers or the challenges are for the individuals in The individual communities and or those broader networks or associations to achieve what they can because it doesn't just take, the leadership of this organization can't do it alone.

It really is the success of all the parties that are living in the housing authorities programs and working with them, working in partnership.

And so to continue to ask those questions.

Thank you.

Really appreciate your thoughtful response.

Thank you.

Councillor Moussaka, if you don't mind, I'd like to respond to another portion of what you meant.

So first, thank you.

Thank you for your leadership and involvement in our communities.

So your presence has been felt in a number of areas.

So just appreciate you showing up.

And getting to see the complexity of some of the issues that face as both young kids and mixed in communities come together and live it.

And it's one thing just to come and be excited to be there, but 10 years later, You know, 20 years later, it's a little bit different.

And we have to continue to partner with those individuals and show up in an authentic way to support those families who are there and to support the community at large.

So just thinking that Councilmember Solomon also knows, has just deep, Deep experience with SHA and in the public safety area and both also in the celebration area, but it is complex and it is challenging at times.

And as we do things to do program improvement and admit when we fall short and figure out things that we can do with the community, We look forward to that.

But there's also some things that we will take in consideration as we build new environments.

There are some things that we can do to make, whether it's safety or playing at home or in the surrounding area, much more enjoyable and livable.

So we'll factor those things in.

We've had a lot of experience from our Hope Six days to our Yesler days to now.

I'm looking forward to just continue to propel that into Northgate and just take those lessons learned as we develop that community.

So thank you for recognizing that and thank you for showing up when we need you out there in those communities.

Appreciate it.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much for being here.

And I just want to recognize that it wasn't so long ago that SHA was pretty much the only housing really actor that we really talked about a lot.

I mean, you were the main game in town back in the when I started working for the city in 2002 or so.

So you've been around for obviously an extremely long time and you've been a major, you've been a central part of our housing strategy.

So thank you.

I just wanted to recognize that.

And I do have a question and also thank you so much for continuing to serve.

Uh, it's clear from the, your comments that, um, you, uh, that we're lucky to have you providing your expert expertise.

So thank you.

My question is how can you give me a really rough breakdown of how many of your properties are, uh, are acquired, if any already, you know, already built and then they are refurbished and what are, how many are completely new?

How many do you build and how many do you refurbish, I guess is my question.

Yeah, that's a tough question.

And the reason why it's tough is that we have...

I'm going to do a little reaching here.

We have 56 high-rise buildings that we own.

That's high-rise buildings in the City of Seattle.

We have 23 senior housing, which we call our mid-rise buildings, that we own thanks to you all at the 1987 senior housing levy that continue to fund that and launch us for us.

We have seven, I think it's seven now, we call them family garden communities, the High Points, the Rainier Vistas, the New Hollies, the Lake Cities and so forth.

Yes, sir.

We are constantly looking to acquire when it makes sense.

Businesses for us because we also want to make sure that we're trying to serve the existing folks we have well and that continues to evolve and change over the recent years.

So we're we're looking for new so we can serve more.

We're also looking to redo our existing.

So we just finished redoing Jefferson Terrace, our largest high rise, 300 units.

And so we're putting new money into old.

We're looking for new acquisitions to do that.

But we're really now trying to strike that balance on what's the appropriate amount of growth that we can sustain because we want those properties to look good and serve well in the future.

Funding is, I won't say uncertain, but it is a little bit uncertain, more uncertain now than it ever has been in my 15 years at SHA.

So we just have to be thoughtful about that.

Our last acquisition, if I recall, was diverse properties in the central area.

So that building was going to be lost to affordable housing.

And so we were fortunate to have the right timing and the right resources at that time to acquire that and keep it, keep it affordable.

And so, so it's really hard to give you a number.

It's just, it's a, it's a formula and it's timing and it's capacity.

So, So it's all of that.

But thank you.

Thank you for that very thorough answer.

That helps.

Thank you.

I'm just going to end on a real quick note again.

I want to, when you talked about, you've probably been watching this, the comp plan unfold and the density and what that means and the increased zoning capacity and all these other issues that have come up.

I just want to share that.

From kind of a historical perspective, I was here when Councilmember Johnson chaired land use and we did all the up zones in 2019. Do you remember that?

And that was it was tough, but it was worth it in those late night meetings and community centers.

And just so people can see what happens at the other end where I talk about, you know, if there is tension in leadership, if there is tension in builders and developers.

That if there is tension, you can get to compromise.

And one of the things we did in 2019, and we did a lot, but one of the things, because you're all sitting here, is we upzoned where North Haven was.

And that was a fight.

And I wanted folks to understand, if you look at 19, then you fast forward to 2025, It was a good thing.

We listened to the people there that did not want that, but we listened to the people that did, and I want to thank the leaders and the leadership, and you folks who joined with us to upzone that whole block, and so that's now why we have North Haven in the nook.

We have like 200 units coming in, I think, or maybe more than that, on the QFC lot.

There's been at least seven more high-rises, mixed affordable and market rate All around light rail in Northgate.

But I guess my point is, I don't think people thought in 19, at least I was worried, that I'd get to 2025, and I still can't believe I came back.

But anyway, I'm here.

But I'm actually seeing the fruition of the hard work, and Seattle's notorious for having 1,000 committees about everything.

I'm more of a list, can we just get it done and not be a banner-making politician?

I just want to get it done.

So I want to thank you folks for that work back in 19. The fruits of your labor have come to blossom, and I just want to thank you for that.

Thank you.

We like flying under the radar.

Thank you, Chair.

All right.

Thank you very much, Council Member Juarez.

You know, a couple of closing remarks before we move to the vote.

One is, Director Brandon, you are right.

I have spent a lot of time Deep time at SHA Properties.

I've probably spent more time at Barton Place, Vista, High Point, Calmore, and all the others.

I probably spent more time there than I have at home, so y'all worked me.

I just want to acknowledge that.

Ms. Ryan, thank you for your willingness to step forward and serve.

Again, you're giving up your own time to do this work, and it's very much appreciated.

So thank you for that.

Thank you for your willingness.

There is a question that did come up.

It's probably a conversation for a later time, which is, as Council President asked about, do you build new?

Do you refurbish?

You know, when we look at some of our affordable housing providers that are selling off assets to balance their books, you know, I'm thinking about the possibility of SHA picking up those assets so that those, you know, those affordable housing units can remain affordable housing.

But I think that's a discussion for a different committee and a longer day because, but I just wanted to throw that out there that I'd love to have that conversation with you to see what we can get going.

I appreciate that.

I knew that's where I was coming from.

But yes, absolutely.

We'll be glad to engage you all with that.

All right.

Great.

Wonderful.

So with that, I move the committee recommend the confirmation of appointments 3239 through 3243. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

The motion has been seconded.

Are there any other further comments from the committee?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Chair Juarez.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Solomon.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the full city council for final consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here, everyone.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Good to see you again.

Thank you.

All right.

Great.

All right.

We will now move on to our seventh item of business.

Will the clerk please call, read the item into the agenda.

Agenda item seven, Council Bill 121055, an ordinance relating to the multifamily housing property tax exemption program, renewing and modifying the program, including to make changes in conformity with state law.

Okay.

I see our representatives from Central Stafford joining us to answer any questions that we may have.

So once ready, please introduce yourselves.

Hello, good morning.

I'm Jennifer LeBrec, City Council Central Staff, and you may have noticed that this is not Tracy Ratcliffe.

She's out sick today, and so I'll let Brian introduce himself, but he's here just to be my right-hand man, run technical details, and just be a second person at the table.

And good morning, Brian Goodnett, Council Central Staff, and as Jen said, doing my best Tracy Ransliff impersonation.

Okay.

All right, great.

The committee will be voting on Council Bill 121055 and the proposed amendments on the agenda.

Before we begin, I'll place the bill before us.

I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121055. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Okay.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

We will now consider amendments 1 through 15. Okay.

I will recognize the sponsor of each amendment so they can move it and after a second, council central staff will provide an overview of the amendment.

Sponsors will be provided the opportunity to speak first and last before a vote.

Okay.

With that, I move and also note that we do have some amendments that do conflict with each other.

For example, Amendments 1 and Amendments 2 conflict with each other.

If Amendment 1 passes, then Amendment 2 is void.

If Amendment 2, 1 fails, Amendment 2 can be considered.

Same with Amendments 8 and Amendments 9. Have I got that correct?

Okay, cool.

All right, with that, I move to amend council.

Council Member Salmon, sorry to interrupt.

Can I just talk about timing for a quick moment too with the update?

Yes, please.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Before we get into amendments, I just wanted to provide an update on when this legislation will go to full council if it's passed out of committee today.

I think our prior materials had said it would go to full council on October 7th.

But I've become aware that at this point, there is very unlikely to be a full council meeting on October 7th because a public hearing for budget is scheduled during that time.

So at this point, we are looking at this, if it passes out of committee today, going to full council on October 14th.

And I did just want to sort of lay some groundwork or expectations for what that means.

Tomorrow, a budget will be transmitted and both yourselves and your staff and also central staff will really be pivoting to focusing exclusively on budget until it passes in late November.

So what that means is that we will not have, central staff will not have capacity to work on amendments after today because we will be focused only on budget.

That doesn't mean that council's opportunities to further work on MFT are over.

This is always something that council, for example, could choose to pick up in December or the new year if they wanted to make further changes.

But I just did want to set expectations that because we need to be focused on budget starting tomorrow afternoon that we no longer have capacity to work on amendments.

Thank you.

Uh, thank you for providing us with that information that, you know, very important for us to understand capacity of central staff as we move into budget and we have all these other things that we also, uh, have on our wish list.

So, uh, with that, I'd also like to recognize for the record that, uh, Council Member Rivera has joined us here on the dais.

With that, um, So the overall bill has been moved and seconded.

I now move to amend Council Bill 121055, consistent with the language provided in Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Second.

This motion has been moved and seconded.

As mentioned, because amendments one and two conflict, we will consider them concurrently.

After central staff presents on the two amendments, we will then vote on amendment one first.

If amendment one passes, we will not hold a vote on amendment two.

Please provide an overview of these amendments.

Great.

Thank you.

We will start with Amendment 1. Amendment 1 increases income and rent limits for alternative one-bedroom units in new projects.

As you recall, Program 7 has created for the first time A definition for an alternative and standard one-bedroom, an alternative essentially being mostly fully enclosed but no window to the outside, and a standard one-bedroom including that window to the outside.

Currently in Program 7, alternative one-bedrooms would be regulated at 65% AMI, and this amendment changes that to 70% AMI, so increases it.

The maximum rent for an alternative one bedroom that's at 65% AMI is $1,915, and at 70% AMI, it increases to $2,062.

There is unfortunately not a good source of data for market rate rents for alternative one bedrooms, so it's not possible to compare MFTE rents against market rate rents for this type of unit.

Do you want me to describe Amendment 2 next?

Yes, please.

So I'm gonna move on to amendment two, which again is mutually exclusive.

This amendment would establish a separate designation and income limits for units that are at or below 400 square feet and have at least one standard or alternative bedroom.

So another way to think about this is that it essentially creates a lower income and rent threshold for small one bedroom units that are under 400 square feet.

The max rent under this proposed amendment would be 60% AMI, which is $1,767.

The premise here is that market rate rents would be less for smaller units and therefore could be regulated or restricted under MFDE at a lower level.

And I will stop there.

Okay, great.

Any questions from members of the committee?

Council President Nelson.

Again, the MFTE program is the only program that we have that really incentivizes the construction of workforce housing between 60 to 80, 60 to 90. That tranche is extremely important for so many of our workers.

And if you accept the value of the program, then one would agree that what we have to do is incentivize more And so that is why I strongly favor, um, amendment one and, uh, and I thank you for bringing it forward.

Council member Solomon.

Um, I feel like the, Amendment 1 represents is just the alternative bedroom kind of category reflects real building layouts we're seeing in recent developments across Seattle, and this amendment correctly assesses that they are closer in value to standard one-bedroom units than studios.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted an opportunity to speak to my amendment, which is Amendment 2. I'm bringing forward this amendment today from direct conversations with the renter community that without this change, there's a path for one bedroom units that have exceedingly small bedrooms and are more comparable to a studio unit than an actual one bedroom.

I think we can all agree that the value of the MFT program is being incentivizing development, especially at this time when we're in a housing shortage.

But this amendment offers an opportunity for us to I think more appropriately take into account the realities of small alternative one bedrooms.

I know speaking from my own experience, in one of these alternative one bedrooms of this square footage, it resembles that much more of a studio.

And so rather than outright eliminating these types of units, we want the AMI percentages to match that of studios.

And that is the reason I'm bringing forward Amendment 2 today.

So I will not be supporting Amendment 1 and will be supporting Amendment 2. Thank you.

All right, understood.

Okay, any other comments from the committee?

All right, hearing in.

Reason we're looking at bringing amendment one is to help create more standard 5% AMI decrease for alternative one bedroom units.

And this will actually help ensure visibility for new projects by ensuring compatible AMI.

So with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 1 to Council Bill 121055. Chair Barras?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

No.

Council Member Saka?

No.

Vice Chair Solomon?

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

All right.

The motion carries that Amendment 1 is adopted.

And as we mentioned, because Amendment 1 and Amendment 2 conflict, Amendment 2 does not go forward and we're moving on to Amendment 3.

On to Amendment 15, just to make it more interesting.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

New math.

All right.

So yes, can you- Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121055 as presented on Amendment 15.

Okay, it has been moved to Council Bill 1055 with Amendment 15. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it has been moved and seconded.

So do you want to speak to it before you address it?

Certainly happy to.

Colleagues, this amendment updates the percentage of two-bedroom units needed to achieve the lower threshold of MFTE units while also creating a new path to the same incentive but with three-bedroom units.

So under P6, a developer that provides at least 8% of two-bedroom units can lessen their obligation to provide set-aside MFT set-aside units from 25 percent of total units to 20 percent of total units.

Under this amendment, it creates an alternative path for a three-bedroom units to achieve that same incentive and updates the two-bedroom requirement to better match what we're actually seeing in the market right now.

All of this taken up together will update the program to promote the creation of two-bedroom and three-bedroom or more units in MFT buildings, which today make up a very small percentage of total units.

So why incentivize two-bedroom and three-bedroom units?

We need more family-sized housing options within the city.

We need to be building towards a city that allows for more working families to remain here.

And I want to quickly highlight Seattle Public Schools enrollment study, which analyzed how housing development between 2014 and 2021, I believe.

Yes, 2021. Actually translated into how many SPS students were then enrolled in Seattle Public Schools.

This study actually found that for every two-bedroom plus unit developed this corresponds to a 0.17 Seattle Public Schools student.

Compare this to one bedroom or studio unit actually only contributed to 0.03 of an SPS student.

And even more profoundly, a two-bedroom plus unit and up that is income restricted Translates to a 0.81 SPS student compared to a single-family home, which contributes to 0.3 of an SPS student.

Okay, that was a lot of numbers, but the main point is we know we're in the midst of a housing shortage.

Our population is growing.

We're not building at a rate that we need to be, which, of course, front of mind for me when we're thinking about the potential for rents to go up as we don't meet the housing need.

However, if we're building only or the majority of which one bedroom and studio units, that's not translating necessarily to affordable options for families.

And we are continuing to see working families need to move out of the city to find affordable housing options to them.

So those are the reasons that I'm bringing forward Amendment 15 today to incentivize more two bedroom and three bedroom unit development within the program.

And I ask for your support, colleagues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Before we get to Council or Committee Chair Juarez, Senator Steph, did you want to address this?

Yeah, I will also provide a brief description, probably very similar to what Council Member Rink just stated.

In the current MFTE program, it says that where projects For projects where 8% or more of the units are two plus bedrooms, those projects are subject to a lower MFT set-aside percentage as compared to projects that do not meet that threshold.

So those projects where 8% of the units are more, Our two plus bedrooms only have to have 20% of their units be MFTE as compared to 25. This amendment would make two changes.

It would increase the required percentage of two plus bedrooms from 8% to 12% to qualify for that lower MFTE set aside percentage.

And it would also add another option to qualify for that lower set aside percentage in which 3% of units in a project must be three or more bedrooms.

And I think I'll stop there in case there are any questions.

All right.

Chair Juarez.

Thank you.

I want to thank Council Member Rink for bringing this forward.

I know it's new.

I appreciate it.

And I also really appreciate that you put on the record, because there was a time 10 years ago people were talking about two and three bedroom units, and now we are, which is great for families.

But I'm really glad that Council Member Rink put on the record for discussion about the information on the enrollment of children with Seattle Public Schools.

Because that is such a wonderful indicator for us on density, walkability, schools, community centers, and housing.

And so for those reasons, I think it's a good amendment.

I think it's solid policy.

And for those reasons, I will be supporting this amendment.

Great.

Thank you.

Any further comments from the committee?

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 15?

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Nay.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Vice Chair Solomon.

Aye.

Chair, there are four in favor and one opposed.

All right.

Amendment 15 is adopted.

Okay.

Council President Nelson.

Excuse me.

I move to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 3. Seconded.

Okay.

The motion has been moved and seconded.

Senator Steph, do you want to address the amendment?

I will quickly.

This amendment would add or amend administrative rules regarding income verification and the selection of MFD units to meet comparability and distribution requirements.

It would require that the Office of Housing, OH, to publish a Director's Rule regarding the process for selecting MFD units that meets comparability and distribution requirements under the proposed Program 7. OH would be required to publish that Director's Rule by March 31st, 2026. It would also require OH to update its existing compliance manual for MFTE property owners to allow a streamlined income verification approach that also includes a process for tenant self-certification.

Those updates to the compliance manual would need to be completed by December 31st, 2025.

Council President, would you like to address the amendment?

Thank you very much.

This amendment codifies something that the Executive and the Office of Housing have already committed to doing, but they're far too important to wait so it establishes deadlines to make these changes.

The first requirement is that OH must clarify and simplify the process by which developers prove that the MFT units are comparable to the market rate units in the same building.

And I'll say that this requirement of developers is important because the MFTE unit shouldn't be all squished together on the bottom floor or facing an alley or something like that.

However, the current process for proving this comparability is extremely onerous and was highlighted in the UW report on MFTE as a major hurdle for program adoption.

OH requires copious amounts of paperwork and planning documents in advance of construction, but then will often require even more detailed documents and also extremely detailed inspections of nearly finished units to prove that they are comparable.

And so we don't need to go through this process.

And it certainly just doesn't have to be so complicated.

So the second requirement is that OH should publish a new income verification system by the end of this year.

And in this, I also have to say that this is also, I mean, these are some of the, all the documents that, you know, the visual aid of all the documents that have to be filled out.

And so that is, this is, Just trying to help the program be implemented and adopted.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any further comments from the committee?

All right.

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of amendment three to council bill 121055. Chair rise.

Aye.

Council president Nelson.

Aye.

Council member Inc.

Yes.

Council Member Sacco?

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right, motion carries and Amendment 3 is adopted.

I now move to amend Council Bill 121055, consistent with the language provided in Amendment 4. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

The motion has been moved to second it.

Central staff, please.

Thank you.

This amendment would eliminate the requirement that projects seeking to use the MFTE program for redevelopment replace units serving low-income households in an existing building that would be demolished and on which a new building utilizing the MFTE program would be built.

I think the easiest way to explain this is through an example.

Let's say there is currently a 50-unit building that's occupied and SDCI determines through the Tenant Relocation and Assistance Ordinance that five out of those 50 units are occupied by households at or below 50% AMI.

Under the current code, developers would need to provide five replacement units plus their MFTE units if they wanted to demolish this building and build a new project on the property using MFTE.

This amendment eliminates the requirement for those replacement units.

So if the developer wanted to use MFTE, their only obligation would be the sort of regular MFTE obligation.

Great.

And as the sponsor of this bill, I'm looking at this as a way to incentivize using MFTE for existing affordable housing and redevelopment.

And the TRA or the temporary, the assistance, relocation assistance fund, the folks who would be, who would have to relocate, they're still going to receive those funds.

Oh, and I will confirm that is correct.

Yes.

Cool.

Are there any questions or comments from others on the committee?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 4 to Council Bill 121055. Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Sacco?

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

The motion carries.

Yes.

And the amendment passes to Council Bill 121055. Will Clark please read item five or- Wait.

Wrong.

That's me.

I'm sorry.

I move to amend Council Bill 121055 with the language consistent in Amendment 5.

Second.

All right.

It has been moved and seconded.

Senator Steph, take it away.

This amendment would allow projects that have submitted an application under Program 6 and also completed in 2025 to convert to Program 7. The legislation as transmitted allows projects that have submitted applications but have not yet completed to convert their application from Program 6 to Program 7. It is assumed most developers will want to do this because income and rent limits in Program 7 are higher.

However, as the transmitted legislation currently only allows projects that have not yet been completed to do that conversion from Program 6 to Program 7. This amendment would allow projects that completed in 2026 under program six to then convert to program seven.

And there are currently seven projects that meet that particular criteria applied under program six completed in 2025. Okay, good.

And as sponsor, what I look at here is, you know, Ensuring the feasibility of existing projects that use MFTE and any residents that have signed a lease under program six will have the program six AMI levels.

So I think that's something also that's important to recognize.

Council President Nelson.

I just want to make a process comment because I support this amendment.

And if the committee will recall, the current MF2, Program 6 was supposed to expire at the end of last year.

And then we extended it for a quarter through, I think it was March of this year.

And then there was a, we amended that deadline again, or the, you know, we extended it again so that we could have This amount of time from, you know, six more months, the executive originally wanted to extend the program six until into next year while we worked out the details.

My whole point is that, and this is, I should have said this when we were discussing Amendment 15, there are lots of developments if, just to explain my vote a little bit, there are lots of developments in the pipeline that are counting on MFTE, this new program, and the, for me, I want to explain my vote, It seems like the arbitrary change from 8% to 12%, changing the requirements of that expectation when there are things in the pipeline does put some of that planning at risk.

And getting back to this amendment, this amendment is important because people have been waiting for there to be finally.

A renewed MFTE program.

And so I just sort of wanted to ground us in the fact that we've been waiting for a long time and we want to make sure that those projects actually get built that have been in the planning phase for a really long time.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

I just have one quick question.

I really want to double tap one point that you raised about existing tenants and just noting this point that under this amendment, this would grandfather in existing tenants at the same income level as Program 6. And I think that's important to emphasize for the purposes of clarity and just to double check.

Under any circumstance where perhaps A tenant might experience a change in their rental amount despite having existing lease agreement.

That would be a violation of the program, correct?

That's correct.

So existing tenants, if there's one of these seven buildings, if there's a tenant in the unit, let's say it's a one bedroom, that's a good example because program six, one bedrooms are at 70%, program seven, they'd be at 75. That tenant's grandfathered in at their 70% rent.

The rent will go up over time just as the AMI levels change, but it will continue to remain essentially a unit that's regulated at 70% AMI as long as that tenant stays in the unit.

When they leave and it turns over, then that unit goes to P7.

Understood.

Thank you.

I think that's really important clarification.

And do we have an estimate at this time across these seven programs, approximately how many tenants be impacted?

No.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other comments or questions from the committee?

All right.

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 5. Chair Barras?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rank?

Yes.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon?

Aye.

Two other five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

The motion carries and Amendment 5 is adopted.

I now move to amend Council Bill 121055, consistent with the language provided in Amendment 6. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it is moved and seconded.

Senator Staff, please provide an overview of the amendment.

This amendment is purely technical.

It would make corrections to the numbering for comparability factors and change the term market rate units to unrestricted units, thereby making terminology for what the non-MFT units are called consistent throughout the legislation.

Yeah, it does what she said.

Any questions or comments from the committee?

All right, hearing none, will the clerk please call a roll on the passage of Amendment 6. Chair Juarez.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Sacco.

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

The motion carries on Amendment 6 is adopted.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you, Chair.

Well, do you want to have it explained?

Oh.

Yes.

I move Amendment 7, please.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It has been moved and seconded for the passage of Amendment 7 to Council Bill 121055. Would such staff please proceed?

Thank you.

This amendment, despite the amount of red ink, is also purely technical.

It would make edits for purposes of clarity and it includes clarifying that rents published by the Office of Housing, MFTE rents published by the Office of Housing, must be tied to median income as published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That has always been the case, but the technical edits do just really make that more explicit.

Council President, anything you want to add to It's simply that, again, this is a purely technical change to clarify the language in the bill.

It would spell out that the two mechanisms for determining how much rent in MFTE units is able to increase in any given year in more detail, but it does not change the mechanisms themselves.

The system as drafted would remain with the lower of adjustments from HUD AMI levels or the newly passed state rent cap of up to 7% plus inflation.

Not to exceed 10%.

So it's basically codifying, informing.

All right.

Any other comments or questions from the committee?

All right, hearing none.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 7?

Chair Rars?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rank?

Yes.

Council Member Sacco?

Aye.

Vice Chair Solomon?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero.

Opposed?

Very well, the motion carries and Amendment 7 is adopted.

Council Member Sacco?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Point of clarification, aren't my proposed Amendment 8 and your proposed Amendment 9 conflicting?

Should we talk about them, or should I move mine first?

Move your first, and then we'll consider them together.

Very well.

I move to amend the current bill before us as presented in Amendment 8.

Is there a second?

Is there a second?

Okay.

Wow.

There is no second.

Therefore, the motion dies.

Okay.

So we'll now move on to consider the amendment nine.

I move the committee recommend, I move to amend Council Bill 121055, consistent with the language and amendment nine.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It has been moved and seconded.

Central staff, please.

This amendment would increase income limits in extending properties for just one unit type, which is studios over 320 square feet.

It would increase income limits from 55% to 60% AMI.

This would mean that studios over 320 square feet in both new and extending properties would be regulated at the same level.

All other units and extending properties would be regulated at a lower AMI than the same unit in a new property.

And you can see in the effect statement of Amendment 9 that I've, in the proposed amendments extension rate column, I've bolded the one thing that is changing in the strict.

All right.

As the sponsor of this amendment, this helps ensure projects will continue using MFTE and agree to extend their provision of affordable housing units through the MFTE program.

State stakeholder feedback has been very clear on this amendment that is necessary to preserve several projects.

Are there any questions or comments from the members of the committee?

Councilmember Sacco.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I just want to express my surprise, really shock, to my colleagues.

If you don't support my amendment, that's fine.

But I think principles of fairness and comedy demand that it at least be heard for discussion.

You don't like it, I get it.

Give me the common courtesy that I've extended to each and every one of you all.

over multiple debates and discussions since I've been at this dais.

No further comments, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Council Member Sacca.

Any other comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 9?

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Oh, I'm sorry.

It's the right one.

My bad.

Okay.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Ink?

No.

Council Member Saka?

Abstain.

Vice Chair Salmon.

Aye.

Chair, there are three votes in favor, one opposed and one abstention.

All right.

The motion carries and Amendment 9 is adopted.

Okay.

I move to amend Council Bill 121055, consistent with the language provided in Amendment 10. Second.

Okay.

It has been moved and seconded.

Senator Staff, please provide an overview of the amendment.

Thank you.

This amendment would allow owners of MFTE projects seeking a 12-year extension of the MFTE tax exemption to elect to retain the existing MFTE designated units and unit classifications.

For example, Program 7 has created a new alternative one-bedroom definition.

Property owners would not have to go through the property and redesignate units as alternative or one-bedroom units.

Or in older projects, there was not historically as much focus on comparability and distribution.

So MFT units may be smaller or disproportionately on the bottom floors.

Property owners would not be required to bring the unit mix up to current Program 7 standards.

All right, as a sponsor of this amendment, this ensures that MFTE projects not suddenly have units redefined.

This amendment helps ensure the continued use of MFTE.

And with that, I will turn it over to or ask any of the members of the committee if they have any comment.

Council President Nelson.

So I'll just note that Program 6 isn't working optimally as we showed the number of units or the participation rate, so we're trying to, again, incentivize participation.

If those developments are forced to choose between the P6 extension and leaving the program, they'll almost all choose to leave, and that hurts renters in those units and anyone else who could have afforded Who could have afforded MFTE units in those buildings in the future?

So by allowing them to continue the current AMI rates, we help make the program work for more people.

Great.

Any other comments from the committee?

Okay.

All right.

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of amendment 10.

Chair Juarez.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

The motion is adopted.

Excuse me.

The motion carries and amendment 10 is adopted.

I now move to amend Council Bill 121055, consistent with the language in Amendment 11. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It has been moved and seconded.

Central staff, please.

Thank you.

This amendment would give projects that are expiring in 2025 additional time to decide if they want to apply for a 12-year extension.

It would also allow properties that had already applied for an extension under Program 6 terms to apply under Program 7 instead.

Under both the Program 6 and the proposed Program 7, all tenants and MFT units must submit income documentation annually.

However, properties expiring in 2025 were approved under older versions of the program in which income qualification happened only at the time of initial application.

As such, it is a time intensive process for both property owners and OH to income qualified tenants and for OH to review the property owner's application to confirm compliance with the new requirements.

For projects that submitted an extension application for the first time on November 1st, It is unlikely that all of sort of the paperwork would be completed in time.

So the proposed amendment does allow six extra months for properties that have sort of a second go at deciding whether or not they want to extend to get into compliance with program terms.

It would provide us additional six months to achieve compliance.

I do want to note that this is a version two of the amendment because version one had a mistake in it.

It said that property owners had until June 30th, 2027 to be in compliance, but it should have said until June 30th, 2026. And that mistake has been corrected in this updated version.

Great.

Thank you.

Any further comments, questions?

As the amendment sponsor, I see this as giving additional time for projects to apply for the, to use the MFTE programs.

And again, we're talking about increasing Seattle's housing stock.

Any other comments from the committee?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 11?

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rank?

Yes.

Council Member Rosaka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

The motion passes and Amendment 11 is adopted.

Okay.

Council Member Rosaka, you are recognized.

I move to amend the current bill before us as presented in Amendment 12.

Second.

The motion has been moved and seconded.

Central staff, please.

Thank you.

This amendment would add several pieces of information that would be included in the annual MFTE report that the Office of Housing submits to City Council.

The information would enhance the City Council's understanding of the tenants served by the program and the public benefits associated with the MFTE program.

The proposed legislation establishing Program 7 does include already annual reporting requirements, so this amendment would just add several more to that existing reporting requirement.

Council Member Saka, as the amendment sponsor, you are recognized.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Fairly straightforward.

More transparency, more data, more information makes for a better decision and better policy.

Fairly straightforward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments from the members of the committee?

Council Member Ring.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Saka, for bringing this forward.

I will be supporting this amendment.

I want to point to particularly my appreciation for adding the area under outlined, Area 7, around income and demographic information for tenants in the MFTU program, including cost burden.

I think that's important that we're getting that information.

So thank you for bringing forward this amendment, and I will be happily supporting it today.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments before we proceed with the vote?

Oh, yes.

Council Member Rivera, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chair, for letting me participate in this committee.

I know I don't sit on the committee, but obviously care very much about these issues.

And I really just want to thank Council Member Saka publicly for adding this, what I see as an accountability piece.

And good governance whereby we can get more information as we're administering and implementing these programs at the city that we have information to make them the best program on behalf of our constituents and our constituents who are supported by these programs whereby we can make better decisions.

So thank you.

Any further comment from the committee?

All right, hearing now will the clerk please call roll on the passage of Amendment 12.

Chair Juarez.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay, the motion carries and Amendment 12 is adopted.

All right, Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 12055 as presented in Amendment 13.

Second.

Okay.

It has been moved and seconded.

Central staff, please proceed.

This amendment would establish a sunset date of September 1st, 2029 for the MFDE program.

This would require that council take action to reauthorize the MFDE program on or before the sunset date, or the program would cease to continue for new projects, existing projects would continue with their exemption.

Currently, the legislation does not have a sunset date.

Before we get to Chair Juarez, Council Member Saka as the sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized to speak to it.

Thank you.

Again, this amendment would restore the sunset date to four years and, you know, consistent with prior iterations of the program, all of which have had sunset dates.

I think we need to do a better job of balancing You know, certainty and predictability with being good stewards of our funds and making sure that we have appropriate forcing functions to facilitate better decision making.

And this does exactly that.

And this is supported by many renters, rent burden communities, and I just think it makes a ton of sense.

And it's principally a matter of good governance.

I also want to thank my co-sponsor with this, who I will turn to as sponsor.

Mr. Vice Chair or co-sponsor, we would love them to chime in as well.

Council Member Rank.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Colleagues, the elimination of the sunset and the underlying legislation, I think, sends some mixed signals about the way in which we update MFTE.

We need to continue to uphold the standard of updating MFTE on a regular basis to adjust to changes in development patterns, the market as a whole, which we know has certainly been in a place over the past year or so, but also to update in order to really reflect our need in different housing types for And I believe this strikes the right balance, and I'm happy to co-sponsor this alongside Councilmember Saka, and we ask for your support.

Thank you.

All right, great.

Chair Juarez.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Council Member Saka and Ring, thank you for bringing this forward.

I know that we discussed September 10th in committee, the sunset clause and why it was taken out, why perhaps the executive took it out and why we want it back in.

And I had some questions and we did establish that with or without a sunset clause, the City Council can make changes because they always have.

So this doesn't preclude them.

However, I did a little bit more research because I wanted to make sure I understood.

So going back to the original intent of the MFTE, which was passed in state law in 1995 and adopted by the city in 1998, consistent with, and you can tell I'm telling my age here, with the Growth Management Act of 1990. I'm guessing and, well, I'm not guessing, it's there, and I want to thank Council Member Sokka and Rink for doing this.

My understanding is that you want to do more than just have reporting requirements and making sure that the legislative branch has an opportunity with a strong, solid timeframe to look at the program, that you are intentional in reinstating a sunset date to ensure a rigorous review of the program to make sure that the MFT is not neglected on the city side, because we've certainly seen it neglected on the state side, that this is an intentional and deliberate in ensuring not only compliance and flexibility to change in market changes, but also to its success.

And that's probably the first time that we've...

Well, I'm still kind of confused why the executive would take it out, but that's probably neither here nor there.

But I think it's good policy.

I think it's a good idea, consistent with the Growth Management Act, consistent with the original intent and spirit of the law of 1995, and certainly consistent with the spirit and law when the city adopted it in 1998. And so for those reasons, I will be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Chair Juarez.

Any other comments from the members of the committee?

All right.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment 13?

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Sacco?

Aye.

Vice Chair Salmon?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero in post.

Okay.

The motion carries and Amendment 13 is adopted.

All right.

Okay.

And we've already covered amendment 15. All right.

Okay.

Are there any further comments before we vote on the bill as amended?

Council member, Council Chair, or excuse me, Chair Juarez, is that an old hand or new hand?

Oh, that's an old hand.

I apologize.

Take that down.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Yes, Council President Nelson.

Could you please remind us when the full council vote is going to be on this?

Senator Staff, remind us again when we can do the full council vote on this.

Oh, you said that you didn't.

Oh, okay.

I remember what you were saying in the beginning.

We don't really know, correct?

I think that it is at this point safe to assume it will be October 14th.

If you look at the budget calendar, it currently says that the October 7th full council meeting is tentative, but we also know that there is a public hearing scheduled during the same time.

So it seems that the most likely outcome will be that actually there's tomorrow's full council meeting and that the next one, The next available one will be October 14th.

I understand.

I had in the back of my mind, maybe I'm remembering a different bill, but I thought that there was a suspension of the rules, so this could be considered tomorrow, but anyway.

Actually, I was thinking just that.

Okay.

Okay, coming off the fly here.

We could suspend the rules to pass it today and have it be considered a full council tomorrow.

Okay, cool.

So first let's...

I do have one.

Anyway, I was just, that was a question and I couldn't remember what you were referring to.

So I'll let you decide when it's up for full council vote.

And what I would like to say is that, again, we're talking about three policy goals getting met here, more housing, Workforce housing and mixed income buildings all together in one program.

And that is why I support so strongly the multifamily tax exemption program.

And I urge my colleagues support.

So thank you very much for going through all these amendments.

And I look forward to when we actually voted out of full council.

So that clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 121055 as amended.

Chair Rice.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Grink.

Yes.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Vice Chair Solomon.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 121055 as an amendment will be sent to the full city council for final passage.

Now we're going to do something.

Yeah, it'll be sent.

I just...

My chief of staff says, no, no.

Tomorrow's agenda is quite packed.

So thank you for thinking of that, but that will not.

In that case, I will not suspend the rules to vote on sending it to tomorrow's council meeting.

This will be sent to the full meeting of the full council at the earliest opportunity available.

Which may be the 7th, maybe, or the 14th.

So, all right.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Are there any other comments or any further business to come before this committee before we adjourn?

One quick comment.

Chair Juarez.

Council member or Chair Solomon, are we, is this our last meeting with you?

I believe it is, yes.

Well, I want to take this time to thank you for your leadership and being so kind, and your office has been so great in getting us up to speed, getting us the amendments, getting us the analysis, and central staff.

Thank you again so much.

And again, Councilmember Salomon, I really do thank you for taking over and sharing this so I could get up to speed.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It's been an honor.

Thank you.

With that, hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 11.14 a.m.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to our folks in the audience and thank you to those watching from home.

Have a good morning, everyone.