Seattle City Council Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) 1162019

Good morning, and welcome to the regularly scheduled 9.30 committee meeting for our select committee on citywide mandatory housing affordability.

It's a little after 9.30, 9.33 on Wednesday morning.

My name is Rob Johnson.

I'm chair of the committee.

I'm joined so far by Councilmember Sawant Bagshaw, Council President Harrell, and Councilmember Herbold.

On Monday, we as a committee did an overview of proposed amendments to the base legislation that have been surfaced by community members and by council members so far in districts 4, 6, and 7. Today, we're going to be focusing on districts 1, 2, 3, and 5. And we're going to go through them in sequential order.

I want to remind folks of a couple of things.

This is the 17th select committee on mandatory housing affordability.

In addition to the 17 select committee meetings, we had several public hearings and open houses last year.

And I think we've had about 40 or so council-led meetings and probably about 150 additional meetings that were not council-led since this process began in 2016. The plan is to continue to hold another three select committee meetings over the next couple of weeks, including an evening public hearing.

here at City Hall on Thursday, February 21st at 5.30.

And our next select committee meeting between now and the public hearing will be on Friday, February 8th at 9.30 to continue discussion of the legislation.

Why don't we start with reading this item into the record?

Noah, I'll turn it over to you.

Agenda item one, issue identification for citywide mandatory housing affordability, MHA, in districts one, two, three, and five.

And thank you for joining us, Council Member Juarez.

As a reminder, again, what we're walking through today is a list of amendments that have surfaced through the public engagement process that we've had so far.

It does not mean that necessarily individual members on the council will choose to bring those amendments forward, but it does recognize that that's a possibility.

And good morning and welcome Council Member O'Brien.

So to walk us through the various districts this morning, we've got four members of our council central staff.

Why don't we start with some brief introductions and then we'll kick it off with District 1. Mr. Freeman, will you mind starting the introductions?

Cato Freeman, Council of Central Staff.

Liz Schwitzen, Council of Central Staff.

Council of Central Staff.

Good morning, I'm Eric McConaughey, I'm the Council of Central Staff.

And who is going to start us off with District 1?

I will get you all started.

So as we mentioned previously, to allow for implementation of MHA, the executive has proposed increasing development capacity in two ways.

One is through a change to the zone designation on the official land use map or through changes to development standards for that increased capacity of that zone.

So an example is to increase height or floor area limits.

And so that's what we're looking at today.

So again, we want to emphasize that this is not an exhaustive list.

So everything we've been going through is not what is out there in the world.

And again, reiterate that does not suggest that there is a council member sponsoring any given amendment at this point.

So over the next couple of weeks, council central staff will be working with council members to identify the amendments that they would like to see move forward in the process.

And these amendments along with content for a companion resolution will be discussed at committee meetings in February.

So we will turn our attention to attachment one and for page one for district one.

And just as a reminder as we're walking through this, for each district, the first page includes a district-wide map that includes the map legend and shows a number dot with all the potential changes that we were aware of at the time of the creation of the map that will be discussed.

And then following the map, is a table that summarizes the information about each amendment.

So it locates and describes a potential amendment, identifies the current zone designation, MHA proposed zone designation, and alternative zone designation.

So that's the one proposed by community or others.

And it also identifies the range of zone studies for the site.

or area in the final environmental impact statement, the FEIS for MHA implementation and categorizes the potential for an amendment based on the FEIS analysis.

So if the notation is within the FEIS scope, that indicates that the potential amendment was contemplated in the EIS and could move forward as part of the MHA legislation.

If the notation is additional environmental review is needed, it indicates that the potential change was not contemplated in the MHA final EIS and could not be accomplished in the MHA legislation.

But it could be included in a companion resolution with a request to the executive to conduct a planning process, including additional environmental review to determine if those changes are appropriate.

In some cases, the specific change requested is not feasible due to the constraints of the EIS, but a higher alternative was studied in the FEIS than what was proposed by the executive.

So an alternative option is available, just not to the extent of what is being requested.

So we are gonna start here with District 1.

And...

Before we move on to that, I wonder, Council Member Herbold, any opening remarks you'd like to make about this?

I just want to thank central staff as well as community members for spending some time with us, quite a bit of time, going through the recommendations from community members a couple Fridays ago.

It was, I think, really helpful to get us focused on amendments that they would like to see to make sure that this MHA plan reflects some of their interests.

As Yolanda mentioned, a number of the items that we're going to discuss today are, most of them are limited to map change issues.

And we have been working on a pretty exhaustive list of other issues that community members would like to see addressed through our deliberations on MHA, some of which would be included in the accompanying resolution, some of them would be included potentially in some design guideline changes.

So I might have a couple things to add that didn't make it onto the memo, although I think you guys have been doing a pretty good job of tracking the things that didn't make it onto the memo, so you might actually get to them before I do, but thanks.

And an excellent reminder, Council Member Herbold, that the way I've been thinking about this is kind of within three separate buckets, right?

There's within the FEIS scope bucket, which are amendments that we could consider for adoption, which include not only district-focused amendments, but amendments that may apply across the city.

A second bucket, which is that bucket that Ms. Ho talked about with additional environmental review needed, where we could ask the executive and planning departments to do initial analysis.

And then the third bucket that we've had consistently throughout these zoning processes where there are companion resolution opportunities, things that we can't address through the land use code, be them concurrency issues or other city infrastructure priorities that we might want to see analyzed and identified.

So we continue to have that framework moving forward.

So thanks for that reminder.

I should have said that at the outset.

Sure.

One thing I didn't hear as a bucket that I recall that we were able to accomplish, because there are land use changes, but they're not specifically map changes, are some of the issues that have been identified.

Similar to our previous MHA rezones in different communities, issues related to setbacks, the size of retail spaces, some of those things.

And so I haven't heard that described as a bucket that we are looking to legislate in this process.

And we discussed those at our first meeting the first day back, which feels like so long ago, but was only 10 days ago.

Many of those issues are within the scope of the FEIS, so those cross-cutting issues that run across districts, whether they're design review issues or commercial space affordability issues, we talked about those first sort of 25 or so amendments, and there will be more to come, I'm sure.

But those are citywide.

I'm talking about district specific.

Sure.

Yes.

Those are also the kinds of issues that we would want to make sure that get forwarded to central staff for analysis about whether or not they're within the scope.

And I had assumed that you were talking about.

the kind of design issues that might come up within a zone designation and therefore a pliocity-wide.

But if you're talking about specific parcels, then certainly an issue that we'll want to make sure that goes through the central staff and the law department first.

Thank you.

But absolutely something for consideration.

Thank you for that pause, Ms. Ho, while we had our little back and forth.

Allow us to continue with District 1. Sure.

Yeah, so we have 11 potential amendments mapped, and I'll mention a couple that are also not mapped at this point.

So starting with 1-1, it's located at the intersection of Southwest Carroll Street and Beach Drive Southwest.

The request is to not implement MHA here, and so the current zoning is LR3RC and the MHA proposed zoning is LR3RCM and the proposed amendment is to not upzone it and this falls within the FEI scope as the no action alternative.

1-2 is in the West Seattle Junction and it's the, so 1-2 through 1-6 are all kind of grouped together because it's the same proposal but different areas.

So the current, so the request is to modify all proposed rezones from single family within the West Seattle Junction Urban Village to residential small lot.

So the current zoning is SF 5000 and MHA proposed zoning would be to LR1 M1 and the proposed amendment is to only go to RSL M. So one two is the first parcel of this that this applies to.

And one three is the same single family to RSL instead of LR 2 m1.

Oh Hold on for just one second.

That's horrible.

Just as it relates specifically to this proposal.

I want to speak to the community's interest in doing neighborhood planning together with consideration of an eventual Sound Transit 3 selected alignment there is Over the The several months that we've been discussing MHA years, I suppose, is more accurate.

I think the community has moved towards, within the urban village, embracing the idea of converting single family to RSL.

There is also interest in looking at potential higher and additional re-zones similar to what's proposed now, low-rise one through three.

But the concern is that those decisions need to be made together with planning for Sound Transit 3. And the Office of Planning and Community Development have identified this community as a priority community for neighborhood planning.

Commitments have been made to begin so in earnest in 2020. with some initial conversations beginning this year.

So I, you know, I want to thank the community for their commitment to taking another look at additional zoning capacity in these areas in the future.

Thank them for embracing the the change to RSL because of an understanding that that's what we need to do in order to implement the obligation of developers to pay towards affordable housing.

And I just want to note that the next item, number 17, was offered in the spirit of if you're going to propose a reduction in the preferred alternative zoning that you propose in an increase in another location.

And so this next item was offered in that spirit.

And thank you for joining us, Council Member Mosqueda.

Please continue, Yolanda.

Okay, so we'll move through 1.5 and 1.6, as those are all pretty the same, what Council Member Herbold just explained.

And those are all within the FEIS scope, because those were studied in the FEIS.

So item 1-7, which...

Hang on for just one second.

Council Member O'Brien, please.

Thank you.

I'm curious, Council Member Herbold, first of all, I appreciate the reality that the timing of A light rail investment in community planning process makes sense as far as when to make, to preserve the opportunity for future changes that way.

I am curious about the adjacency between RSL and NC75, like on 1-5 and 1-6, and that, you know, If the reality is this is all going to go through a planning process and we'll do something in the near future, that makes sense.

The transition from a 75-foot to RSL is a pretty significant one and, you know, one thing to do would be to have that stay as LR1 on the, I can't see the blocks, on the west side of 42nd, I think.

But I'm just curious if that's something that had been contemplated at all.

Yeah, I think there's a historical issue with the lack of a transition in that area.

And it's not clear to me what the appropriate way to address that, whether or not it's changing the zoning or through some design guidelines requiring some type of stepping.

But that is also something that has been discussed.

I would just offer maybe now is a good time to remind folks about the height differentials in the different low-rise zones.

If I remember correctly, for something like residential small lot, developers are only allowed to build up to 25 feet, maybe it's 30 feet within MHA.

Yeah, so under MHA, the current maximum height in residential small lot is 25 feet.

Under the MHA proposal, the height would go up to 30 feet.

In low-rise two zones, the height would go from 30 to 40 feet under MHA.

One thing, this is probably more detailed than is necessary for this discussion, but in thinking about the transitions here between California and areas to the east of it, there is a little bit of a grade change there, which would moderate somewhat the transitions.

And also, in neighborhood commercial zones, there is an upper-level setback that applies.

It's sort of at the rear lot line when there is an adjacency to single-family, which the RSL zone would be.

Can you do me a favor I'm sort of putting cheat notes on one chart that I have so residential small lot 25 Can you go through mid-rise high-rise and every commercial just and I understand there's some said yeah, so Today, we're actually well, we may touch on some high-rise zoned areas, but in terms of heights and The low-rise zones and single-family the current height is 30 feet the residential small lot It would be 30 feet under the current proposal you slow down a bit keel.

I Sure, yeah, of course and with me now and maybe for the in the interest of for the for the folks who may be following along The table that I am referring to is in the director's report on page 33 It's got a pretty concise breakdown of the differences between current and proposed zoning under MHA but in returning to residential small lot the proposed height under MHA would be 30 feet and And low-rise one zone, so that's the least intense multifamily zone, essentially a townhouse zone.

The current height is 30 feet, and it would remain 30 feet.

There is an FAR bonus to implement MHA there.

And low-rise two, the current height is 30 feet.

It would go to 40 feet.

This is also a townhouse zone to a certain extent, although you may see some small-scale apartments in this zone.

In the low-rise three zone, which is the most intense low-rise multifamily zone, the height would go to 50 feet inside urban villages.

And there's 50 feet.

Just one thing to keep in mind is that 50 feet is essentially the height to the plate.

It's not necessarily the height to the peak of a roof.

So a building might actually be somewhat larger if it has a pitched roof or a shed roof or something like that.

After low-rise comes the mid-rise zone.

And so these are all still in the family of, this is all in the family of multifamily zones.

The mid-rise zone is something that you'd be likely to encounter, say, in parts of Capitol Hill, for example.

So if you can imagine areas north of Pike Pine and west of Broadway, much of that area is zoned mid-rise.

Currently the height, the maximum height in mid-rise zones is 60 feet.

was supposed to go to about 80 feet under the MHA proposal.

And then finally, there are high-rise zones.

High-rise zones are almost exclusively located in First Hill.

The current height in high-rise zones is 300 feet, and under the MHA proposal, it would go to 440 feet.

Thank you.

Council Member Baxter.

Would you just remind us on what page you were finding that?

You said 35 in the director's report?

Yeah, so the director's report is fantastic, and the charts that describe the differences between zoning begin on about page 33.

33, okay, thank you.

Thank you for that overview, Quito, and thank you for the question, Council President Harrell.

I think it's important to talk through some of these issues.

Ms. Ho, thank you for the pause.

I think we were on 1-7, if I remember correctly?

Correct, yes.

So 1-7 is also still in the West Seattle Junction residential urban village, and it's in the Triangle area.

And as Councilmember Herbold mentioned, they are proposing that this actually be zoned up beyond what was proposed in the MHA proposed zoning.

So the current zoning is NC365.

MHA is proposing to zone that to NC375M.

And the proposed amendment is potentially to something like NC395M1.

That is outside of the EIS scope, so would require additional environmental review.

Moving on to 1.8 in the Morgan Junction Urban Village.

So the proposal here is to reduce the proposed designation in this location.

So the current zoning is single family 5,000.

MHA proposed zoning is LR3M2.

And the proposed amendment would be to only zone that to LR2.

M1.

Also in Morgan Junction, there is interest in potentially removing the, so just to the west along California Ave, southwest, it is proposed NC3P55M1 And there is some interest in potentially removing the P, the pedestrian designation to the zone, probably here and also to the north of Southwest Graham Street.

And also in that area that's zoned NC2P40M, that's north of Graham Street along California Ave.

Southwest.

There is some interest in design standards that might allow more light into that area.

That's something that a community has requested.

And if I remember correctly, the biggest difference between removing that P designation has to do with the kinds of requirements that we put on the ground floor.

So taking away the pedestrian designation allows for you to have effectively apartment units on the ground floor, whereas in the pedestrian designation, you'd be required to have small scale commercial space or some kind of commercial space.

That's correct.

And I think the community would be interested in exploring eventually going there, but there are a number of criteria.

It's not just the obligations of the developer to do particular things in an area that they are developing in, but it's also some of the criteria that are supposed to already be existing on the ground that aren't in order to basically make the area eligible for a P zone.

Could you just explain a little bit more in what details you're looking for?

I'm not looking for details.

The community is asking for additional commitments from the city so that they could be eligible to be a pedestrian zone.

At this point, there are a number of regulations in place for areas to be pedestrian zones that aren't being fulfilled.

So there's things like street furniture that don't exist in this area of the junction.

So there are a number of other things.

I think there's a list that's coming my way that I'd be happy to share with you.

And I will mention that that possibility is within the scope of the EIS of removing the P designation.

The non-P variants of those zones were studied for those areas.

Moving on to 1.9.

This one is in the South Park Urban Village.

And it's just, so the request is to, current zoning is LR3, MHA proposed zoning is LR3M, and the proposed amendment is for it to go to NC255M.

This was not considered in the EIS, so would require additional review and I will also mention relevant to the South Park Urban Village, there is some interest in considering historic resources and not implementing potentially MHA in certain areas.

It's still kind of up in the air where some of these might be and we need to kind of refine that request, but that is out there and we want to acknowledge that.

I have shared with the community members who I've been working with in South Park the fact that because of the work that OPCD has done around displacement risk and the fact that South Park is identified as a neighborhood with high displacement risk and low access to opportunity, that's the reason why the alternative that the executive has moved forward is the sort of the smallest bump necessary to put into place MHA, there remains to be concerns that even that small bump is going to have displacement impacts, so I continue to talk with individuals in South Park about their interests.

There are, I think, As Yolanda mentioned, interest in whether or not specific parcels have been identified as historic resources already, either through the city's landmark process or state or county landmarking processes.

So we may come forward with some recommendations related to those specific parcels.

I also wanted to mention that just sort of in general, even though we haven't touched upon it as it relates to Morgan and Juno, I'm sorry, Morgan and the Junction, there has been interest in the community groups in those areas of also taking a look at the historic designated properties and potentially doing parcel by parcel changes that we haven't yet identified yet through this process as a way to encourage preservation.

All right, so moving on to the 110 and 111, which are in the Westwood Highland Park Urban Village.

The proposal is to current zoning here is a single family, 5,000.

MHA proposed zoning is LR1 M1, and the proposed amendment would be to have this only to RSL M. And M111 is also the same request.

So current zoning SF 5000, MHA proposed zoning is LR1 M1, and proposed amendment is to RSL M.

So I believe that concludes all the proposed amendments for District 1. Anything you'd like to add, Councilmember Herbold, before we move on to the Council President's District?

Okay.

Council President, anything you'd like to kick us off with, or you want to just turn it over to Cedric?

Jump in.

I'll just comment as we go through the different amendments.

Please, Mr. Whitson.

All right, District 2 includes five urban villages.

Each of those urban villages includes a light rail station, and the executive's proposal would expand each of those urban villages to encompass a 10-minute walk shed from the light rail station.

There are 11 changes that I'll talk about this morning.

They're primarily proposed by the property owners or community-based organizations.

Moving to 2.1.

Last year a new Mount Baker Park Historic District was designated at a national level, a National Historic Register.

A historic district that overlaps with part of the area that's proposed for the North Rainier Urban Village Expansion Area, and groups like the Friends of Mount Baker Town Center have asked that it be removed from, the overlapping area be removed from the Urban Village Expansion.

Just one comment on 2-1.

I'm looking at this very favorably.

There was a lot of work done to add the Mount Baker Park Additions to the Historic District, both the State of Washington and the National Register historic places.

I think this amendment makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

But on all of these amendments, all a dozen of them, my mind isn't made up.

I'm still talking to community members, staffers of the whole bit.

On a few of these, I'll just opine a few of them.

I won't say nothing just because, again, these are complex issues that will affect these areas in this district for at least my short lifetime, but certainly my kids' lifetime.

So they're not to be taken lightly, and so there's still some work to be done.

But this is one I am looking at favorably.

Thanks.

So the North Beacon Hill Urban Village is a high-access-to-opportunity and high-risk-of-displacement community.

The MHA proposal expands the urban village and increases zoning within the walkshed of the Beacon Hill light rail station.

Areas within the five-minute walkshed and adjacent to Jefferson Park are proposed to get M1 and M2 MHA increases the Beacon Hill Council has requested that the urban village not be expanded and that no rezones be adopted in North Beacon Hill.

Yeah, let me Just say a few words about this because I know there's some members here that feel strongly about this many that do not this sort of really gets to the heart of what we're trying to do in the city and To a large extent in this particular area that I have so much history with To a large extent, I think we're all trying to get to the same place, and that is to fight displacement, to allow people who have historically been in these areas to continue living there in their lifetime, in their children's lifetime, to preserve affordability in this neighborhood, and even the cultural and ethnic sort of flavor of this area, if you will.

And so that's I think everyone's goal is trying to reach that as we see people getting priced out.

So I think everyone, including the city and where we're heading, even with our overall MHA strategy, are trying to get there.

Now, to do nothing.

So what happens, and I've walked through this several times with staffers on what occurs when we don't try to almost mandate affordability.

Well, we've seen what happens, that people continue to be priced out, that they continue to lose their homes and people that will target, specifically target areas.

And remember, we're still getting anywhere between 50 to 100 people moving to Seattle every day.

So people continue to target areas that are lesser priced.

In 1987, I did that.

The first house I bought in 1987 was right around this area.

And what will occur is they have the discretionary funds of course to do whatever they want to with the house and you'll see gradual but clear distinct strategic displacement.

So I say that to say that as I look at what we're trying to do I think this is the right thing to try to still try to create as much affordability.

And to some extent as market demands and simple economic theory warrants people allowing to live wherever they want to live, we have to do something.

So I know a do nothing strategy is near and dear to the hearts of many folks.

I think just if you look at the central district and other areas of the city, many areas of the city, the do nothing approach is precisely why we're in the situation we're in.

So again, I'll have more dialogue and more thinking, but, and maybe there's, I'm not even a middle ground, but maybe there's some adjustments could be made.

But I do support what we're trying to do with our MHA strategy.

And I know this simple amendment sort of gets to the heart of the issue that we're all going to struggle with in our final vote.

The Beacon Hill Merchants Association has asked the pedestrian designation be added along Beacon Avenue where commercial zoning is proposed to be expanded and heights are proposed to be increased along Beacon Avenue so converse to the Morgan Junction neighborhood on Beacon Hill there's a request to add a pedestrian designation to support a commercial character along Beacon Avenue.

2-4, an area just south of the Mount Baker light rail station is proposed for a rezone from low-rise 3 to Seattle mixed zone with a 95 foot height limit.

There are ongoing efforts to create a park in this area and the Friends of North Rainier neighborhood plan have asked for a lower height in relation to this park proposal.

And there are a range of options that could be studied in between the existing Lower Ice 3 and the proposed Seattle Mix 95.

Again on that one, I just want to chime in.

I'm again looking very favorably at this one.

I think a lot of community work and a lot of thoughtfulness went into trying to establish this park.

I think it's much needed and again, we're sort of, we're geared up.

to position the park in this area, and I think it continues to make sense.

That's where I am right now.

On South Charleston Street, still within the North Rainier Urban Village, the Parks Department has land-banked property to build a new park at this location, and community members have asked that no zoning changes be moved forward.

Moving to 2-6, this is a site just outside of the Columbia City urban village.

The property owner or church has asked that it be included in the urban village and that zoning higher than the existing single family be proposed.

Unfortunately, this was not studied in the EIS and so could not move forward at this time but could be added for a future study.

Similarly, 27 is a location in Georgetown in a single family area where a property owner has asked for an increase in zoning.

This is also outside of the FEIS study area.

2.8 is a request for interim.

They are looking at developing an affordable housing project at this site and have asked for a zoning designation higher than the proposed LR1.

The EIS studied up to LR3, so the LR2 that is requested would be within scope.

2-9 is a block face adjacent to Othello Park.

This is an area where LR2 was studied.

It's currently zoned single family and this could be amended under the EIS.

210 is a site that Bellwether Development is proposing to redevelop.

It's a split zone lot just north of the Rainier Beach Urban Village along Rainier Avenue.

The portion of the lot that is zoned single family was not studied and so reconciling the zoning across what's a very large lot is outside of scope but could be studied for future amendments.

And 211 is the Rainier Beach station area.

This proposal has been a long time coming.

It's a new Seattle mixed Rainier Beach zone.

Heights in the zone are proposed to 85 and 125 feet.

The zone would allow floor areas similar to those proposed in a neighborhood commercial 55 zone, which is why many of the changes from NC40 to a new Seattle mixed 125 foot zone are just shown as M level changes because the floor area ratio is lower than you would normally see in a 125 foot zone.

However, under the proposal, additional floor area could be gained by providing space for uses like light manufacturing spaces, college spaces, vocational schools, food processing, child care center, or affordable housing development.

And the idea is to support the community's vision for a food incubator center in this area.

Some concern has been voiced by the community and council members could consider height limits lower than the 125 foot zone for example Plotting an 85 foot height limit across the station area To two comments, excuse me, I'm gonna go back up to

to five on the lowering the heights on a future park at South Charleston Street.

Can you sort of walk me through the context again?

There's a large swath of land that is already park, and there's a corner of it that is not, correct?

So what's, so the, go ahead, I don't want to cut you off.

So the Parks Department owns five parcels.

Right under the 25 number on the map, there's one parcel that the Parks Department does not own.

Some community members would like that parcel also to be acquired to create sort of a square or rectangular park and have asked that the zoning not be changed before that can happen.

Okay, and without it, Well, I don't expect you to know this off the top of your head.

I'm trying to get a feel for the size of the park without that additional parcel.

Is that a great park, or was this additional parcel really make it an awesome park?

Are we going from good to great, or are we going to average to good?

So I'm trying to quantify whether this one makes sense or not, because I could see, you know, I like parks, and so, and I know communities like parks.

So I'm trying to see how, I'm trying to calibrate this against the need for some additional housing.

And it's sort of hard to do on these little maps, but.

His staff looked at that or I mean I'll work with parks and staff to sort of figure that one out But I guess I have to sort of eyeball it as well, but I and I know the area so yeah I think not having a large building on the south side of a park is generally nice for solar access reasons but I don't know what the status of negotiations with the property owner are.

So I'll talk to staff and parks about that one, where that makes sense.

And I wanted to, my last comment was on the last one on the Rainier Beach light rail station area.

Would I get a little, what I don't fully understand is that the reasons, the outcomes that we're trying to drive, which are jobs, manufacturing, college, perhaps a vocational arts school, childcare, food processing, these kinds of things, and affordable housing, of course, that additional height would be a good thing for these kinds of activities we're trying to drive into an area.

It's not just housing, it's housing coupled with economic development.

And some increased height would certainly, I think, help us along those lines.

But I am hearing from a few, community members that they still have concerns about that increased height.

So I don't understand that.

So I'm just asking if anyone's listening, if anyone's paying attention, other than a few personal friends that watch this station when I speak.

Let me know again the pushback because we have, many of us have been fighting for years trying to get these exact same things in the Rainier Beach area.

And we've been successful in a lot of ways.

And so I get it.

I mean, the fear that, you know, these big, huge buildings with all this commercial activity are, again, are pricing everyone out.

I get that.

But again, I'm not sure if these heights proposed warrant the kind of concern that I'm hearing.

And I'm not hearing a lot of concern, just some.

So if staff or anyone else are hearing more concerns, I sort of need to know that.

But I must admit that the higher heights, particularly going up to 100, 125, we're conducive toward trying to establish the kinds of institutions that we're trying to bring for the benefit of the community, so.

Lish, I wonder if you might answer that question in the context of the proposed heights in the Rainier Beach light rail urban village vis-a-vis the heights in other light rail urban villages throughout the city.

Sure.

We do have height limits that go up to 125 feet and higher at the Mount Baker station area, where similarly we're trying to encourage economic development next to a light rail station in an area that has sort of more auto-oriented character today.

Othello, where we have seen more development near the light rail station, the heights are lower, so they're around 85 feet.

One thing to consider when considering 125 feet versus 85 feet is construction type.

At 85 feet, you can often build a wood frame construction building, which is cheaper to construct than the steel frame construction that would need to be built at 125 feet.

And let me just understand the process.

Let's assume purely hypothetically, it's a pure hypothetical that we adopt a lower 85 foot for this station, hypothetical.

If in fact some development is desired to extend to the 125 that we didn't adopt now through this exercise, they just go through, they would just go through a contract rezone process and staff it.

But that's much more expensive for that person to do.

They have to do the full-blown process as opposed to just having it blessed under the MHA proposal.

So that's what would likely occur.

Correct.

We would want to, if you want to keep that option open, we would want to keep the SM-125 zoning on the books even though it's not being mapped.

Otherwise, if there's no SM-125 in the zoning to go to, then they can't apply to rezone to that height limit.

Okay.

I think I understood what you said, but that would assume that we legislate the SM-125 now.

And what I'm asking if, no.

So it's on the books, but they can't use it?

Until a rezone application was processed.

But we can't deny it at that point.

We can't say, ah, it's booked, but you can't use it.

We can't deny it at that point.

I think the distinction is between being on the books and being mapped.

And so I think Lish is describing a scenario in which the SMRB 125 zone is in the text of the land use code, but it doesn't necessarily appear on the official land use maps on the zoning map.

And possibly there are some rezone criteria in the beginning of the land use code that describe sort The criteria that the council would use in evaluating whether or not to go to 125 But there's but the zone itself and the development standards for the zone would would be in the in the land-use code I see So it's booked It's on the books but there's still some additional criteria that can be imposed once the Application to permit process is triggered.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Am I saying that correctly?

Thank you.

Council Member O'Brien.

Looking at some of this map, going from NZ3P40 to SM125, seems like it's more than an M bump, more like an M1 or M2.

Help me think through that.

And that's because of the floor ratio limits that are applied in this under the proposed SMRB zone.

They have used the floor ratio limits for a typical 55 foot commercial zone.

And then you can go above that if you provide one of the uses in the building that are listed in the code.

So that's the light manufacturing space or the food processing space or a college or a childcare facility.

And so because it's a pretty restrictive, restrictively low FAR limit, they set the MHA level based on that.

Thank you Mr. Chair and I just wanted to take a quick second to go back to the sort of macro concept that the council president started with as we looked through D2 and as I do think it continues to be a misnomer when we talk about high risk of displacement but high opportunity and yet the outcome is less development.

The report that you referenced earlier the director's report.

On page 17, and I've read this before, but I just think it's important for us to read it again as we talk about potential changes.

When they do the displacement analysis, they look at physical displacement, they look at economic displacement, and they look at cultural displacement.

And it says economic displacement occurs when residents can no longer afford rising rents or the cost of home ownership.

and likely property taxes.

It goes on to say that the MHA citywide proposal is intended to help address displacement by creating new income-restricted affordable homes and by increasing the number of housing choices to help meet rising demands.

Again, as we think about how we can create more affordable units here, the consequence of not upzoning or not creating more opportunities for folks to live, especially in these areas that have a high risk of displacement, we're doing a disservice to our community when we don't think about how we can create as many units as possible.

And not just studios, not just one bedrooms, but two and three bedrooms, which is something I'm hoping to work with the council on.

And not just homes, but as the council president talked about, economic opportunities that I'm hoping will include child care.

It says in our report here, for every low-income household physically displaced due to demolition, 13 new income-restricted affordable homes would be created with MHA implementation as proposed.

But if we were to do any of the reductions, potential reductions being proposed, It says, if MHA were not implemented in the study area, only six new income-restricted affordable homes would be created for each low-income household physically displaced due to demolition.

So we have an option of creating 13 new income-restricted homes or letting the market do what it will and potentially ending up with six.

I just think it's an important way to frame the choices that are in front of us.

I am definitely supportive of working with the council members as well as we think about setbacks, as we think about more green spaces, as we create more parks for folks, and create more affordable housing.

Our very own report says it, but I do think it's important to affer that reframe because I think sometimes the language that we use can potentially create a misunderstanding of what we're trying to accomplish here, which is clearly outlined on page 17.

An important point, Council Member Skidde, and I would just add to that as somebody who is trying to navigate through a whole lot of different amendment processes, one thing to also consider is that when we choose to not apply the mandatory housing affordability program in some areas of the city, that creates a development incentive.

that doesn't exist today.

So if we're rezoning most of the city, but some pockets of the city continue to have parts where MHA doesn't apply, that will be seen from my perspective as an opportunity for developers to redevelop those areas even faster than they would have otherwise because they're not required.

to therefore pay into the affordable housing program, and also therefore gonna have lower development costs.

So an important thing, I think, as we consider whether or not we're gonna exempt certain areas from the zoning changes, because if we do, that may create the inverse of what communities are asking for.

So we, I think we're wrapped up with district two, unless there's anything you'd like to add, Council President Harrell or Council?

Just a closing comment, I know Council Member Herbold's in queue.

It's your district.

Council Member Mosqueda, I agree with everything you said wholeheartedly.

And I think you have an appreciation for when communities and particularly communities of color in the last decade have seen their relatives and parents and everyone in their neighborhood sort of move out to Auburn or worse.

Is there anything worse than Auburn?

I don't know.

No, just kidding.

Further away.

Just kidding.

We see it as very real.

And so when there's a mistrust of both politicians and developers and apartment building builders, it's surreal.

And so it's sort of a tough pill to swallow when we're looking at maps and talking about Development and they're seeing the effects of development.

So I just say that I agree with everything you say but as we make these map decisions, I Feel the pain of folks that are seeing what's happening to the city.

So Thank you.

Um, and I just want to Again, reintroduce the concept that MHA is only effective as a displacement tool if we are requiring an equal or greater number of affordable units to be built as we are, as are being removed because of redevelopment.

And I've mentioned before that the, as it relates specifically to, The loss of affordable housing due to demolition, the physical loss of affordable housing, the approach that the city has used has grossly underestimated the number of units lost to affordable housing because it uses a proxy.

Units that had tenants occupying them who are eligible for the tenant relocation assistance ordinance There are many many more units of affordable housing that are removed that were not occupied by tenants eligible for the tenant relocation assistance ordinance further the displacement risk analysis that was done in the university district.

The analysis estimated that there was a potential loss of affordable housing ranging between 40 at the low end and 200 at the high end.

We've already seen applications come in for redevelopment of properties that in that analysis had been identified as unlikely to redevelop.

So my concern is we are grossly underestimating the displacement impacts, and I do agree with Chair Johnson, and that's why I've had a strong commitment that even in those neighborhoods where there is a high risk of displacement and a low access to to opportunity that we still put in place, MHA, because I don't want to create, to exacerbate the problem of development still happening in those areas and no money going to affordable housing.

But I think we have to be really, really careful and I think we need to, through this process moving forward, come up with a better way of predicting what the true impacts of development are on our low-income communities.

And in that note, again, I will cue up the fact that I do have a proposal, a draft proposal that I've shared with many of you in previous meetings to develop a SEPA a SEPA sort of housing mitigation approach so that in areas where we are taking a leap of faith and increasing the zoning, even though they are at areas that traditionally have been at high risk of displacement, that we have a way of replacing the lost affordable housing units.

And I look forward to continued discussions with you about those.

Mr. Whitson, anything you'd like to add about District 2 before we move to District 3?

No.

Council Member Sawant, anything you'd like to tee up in District 3?

Yes.

Thank you, Council Member Johnson.

And some of my comments are specific based on some new information that we have received on request from committee members.

But first, I wanted to start with some general comments, and they will be along the lines of what Council Member Herbold was just saying, but I also wanted to introduce specific input from community members, but on the same topic of what does MHA actually offer and what have been the displacement costs.

But first, I wanted to thank central staff for all the work they've been doing.

This is an enormous amount of work, and I really appreciate the attention to technical detail and I also wanted to thank community members both from District 3 but also citywide who've been contacting both my office and I'm sure other council members on these issues.

I really appreciate again from their standpoint also and attention to detail which is hard to do because you all have your jobs and your lives and your families and so on, so it's actually very specially appreciated.

I also wanted to specifically call out Puget Sound SAGE, who have messaged the entire council, but also the Madison Miller Park Community Group, who have some specific input on District 3. And obviously, given the time constraints in this meeting, I'm not going to read out all of their recommendations and all their concerns.

But I just want to say that I believe that, and I think these community members, the groups are also referencing similar points, which is that, The context and the framing for MHA should not be MHA, it should be the needs of affordable housing and the evaluation of MHA should be on the basis of what it's actually generating to us.

And I would also like us, even though the focus of this meeting is correctly on MHA, And I won't dwell on it, but I feel it would be remiss if I didn't mention, at least in passing, that MHA, even in the best possible scenario, which we don't have today, is not going to be a panacea for the deep affordability crisis we have in the city.

in favor of and have always been in favor of any affordability we can eke out to the MHA, but we have to keep in context that it's not the panacea.

We need other policies.

We need rent control.

We need a big expansion of publicly owned affordable housing in order to deal with the fact that the market doesn't actually address the problem and in fact it has made it worse.

But our community members including Puget Sound SAGE have also reminded us that there are other policies that the city council should be implementing which unfortunately haven't seen the light of day despite a lot of discussion in the past and I wanted to mention a couple of those.

First I wanted to start with some of the input that we've got from the Madison Miller Park Community Group who about exactly what Council Member Herbold was talking about, which is in order for the MHA to work in the best possible way, we need to insist on a no net loss policy for existing affordable housing.

And I just wanted to clarify, we're talking about both direct subsidized housing, but we're also talking about market available affordable units.

And we have to make sure we don't lose sight of that.

And that's something that they remind us of in this letter, they talk about how affordable housing has to include older apartment buildings and single-family houses subdivided into multiple rental units which supply housing affordable to low- and middle-income residents.

And these are not units that are subsidized officially by city subsidies or other subsidies, but these are units that are available affordably just because the economics of that works out.

There are small landlords and so on, so they tell us correctly that we should not lose sight of that.

And then quickly moving on to Puget Sound Sage's points, I think they, you know, first of all, I just want to acknowledge that they've talked, they've mentioned how they and their partners in South communities organizing for racial and regional equity, which is, in other words, South Core, have been fighting and pushing for a strong inclusionary zoning policy in the city since 2008. and why a strong inclusionary zoning policy is needed to share in the benefit of the increased land value that is created through public investment and increases in zoning capacity.

So, in other words, what they're saying is that we can't just talk about zoning capacity, we have to talk about affordability.

And just to quote them, they say, for the most part, the city of Seattle has already upzoned downtown, Southlake Union, and many urban villages without getting much in return, but a strong inclusionary zoning policy for the rest of the city could leverage the next wave of development to ensure our communities can prosper in place.

And so, I think that that should be kept in mind.

And, you know, there are other specific questions also.

I think Council Member Herbold mentioned earlier about also looking into parcel-by-parcel designations to accommodate as much of, you know, anti-displacement as possible.

And then if you don't mind Council Member Johnson, I just want to quickly switch to the new items that have been brought to my attention last evening from the Low-Income Housing Institute who have several properties that they would like upzoned.

I will rapidly read them off.

But obviously, I don't expect discussion on it because I've just forwarded this to central staff.

So, you know, we can talk about this later.

But just to mention that if these properties are already in the FEIS scope, then I would say we should make these amendments.

And if they're not, then I would really like to flag them for the next iteration of MHA changes.

So quickly, there are several sites in the central area in District 3. One of them is on 26th Avenue, which is Lehigh's Columbia Court.

Another is on Yesler Way, which is the Ardell Mitchell home.

There's another one on 14th Avenue, which is Norman Mitchell Manor.

There's one on 22nd Avenue, which is the current site of Lehigh, Nicholsville, Good Shepherd, Tiny House Village.

And then there's one on 22nd Avenue, which is Again, it's owned by the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, which is interested in combining with another adjacent property to develop 60 units of affordable housing.

And then there are two properties that they've highlighted which are not in District 3, but since they arrived in the same list, I'll just quickly go ahead and say this.

One of them is in District 2 in the Othello Station area.

And then the other one is in District 5 in the Bitter, it's the Lehigh's Bitter Lake site.

So I'm hoping to follow up on these later.

Great.

I believe Mr. McConaghy is going to be walking us through the District 3 amendments.

Why don't you take it away, Mr. McConaghy.

I'll do that.

And I will follow up with you, Council Member.

Thank you.

So District 3 is shown on this map.

It consists of multiple urban villages, and I'll just jump right in to 3-1 and 3-2.

In this case, the current zoning is NC-140.

The MHA proposal would be NC-155 with an M-bump.

The requested amendment is to not up-zone these areas.

Moving on to 3-3, please.

Thank you.

In 3-3, the current zoning is single-family 5,000.

MHA proposal is to LR1.

It's an M1 bump.

The requested amendment is to go to RSL.

3-4 located at the east side of 18th Avenue East north of East Thomas Street.

The current zoning is either a single-family or LR2.

The proposal is to LR1 or LR2 and the requested amendment is to go to RSL.

I should mention that so far 3-1 through 3-4 are within the FEIS scope.

Mr. Makani, so I have a question about this one.

There are, it sounds as though there are some sections that are currently zoned for something like low-rise 2, and the request here is to take all the existing zoning, whether it's single-family or something larger, and take it down to a residential small lot?

That's my understanding.

Okay.

3.5, we've stepped in this proposal, this is adjacent to the Capitol Hill urban village, we've stepped out of Madison Miller.

This proposal, the current zoning is single family 5,000.

The current, the MHA proposal is to keep it that way, there's no change proposed under the MHA bill.

The requested amendment is to a low rise or neighborhood commercial.

This was not in the FIS, excuse me, FEIS study area.

So additional environmental review would be needed for this one.

Is this the set of sites that is adjacent to the QFC on 15th Avenue?

Is that how?

It's sort of between 15th and 16th.

There's sort of a, you can see the purple lines show sort of a notch in the urban village boundary there that this would patch in.

You're correct, Council Member Johnson.

This is the site that is just east of the QFC there on 15th Avenue.

There's also, I think you're all probably pretty familiar with it, an older co-op building that is also in this block.

I recognize that this is one of those areas that is not within the study area, but I just want to use it as a way to highlight how even some of our historical decisions seem a little strange.

The block to the north and the block to the south are both zoned for something taller than the block in the middle.

And so those historical changes about those urban village boundaries seem a little antiquated in some places, and I think this seems like one of those ones where further environmental analysis to clean up what is the allowance for taller buildings to the south and to the north directly of these single-family houses makes some sense to me.

Although, again, not something we can do as part of this.

There's a big, you mentioned there's a big co-op condo building right there, a brick building.

Right.

I actually So neither here nor there, but that was my first, my husband's and I first place on Capitol Hill.

The only reason I mention is that while, I mean, just in reference to Council Member Johnson's points about sort of weird little pockets, I think we have to keep in mind that these are, again, I mean, they may not be affordable to a whole lot of people, but if you look at condo prices, they have been relatively much more affordable in that building than in other buildings.

So we have to be careful how we, talk about zoning in the sense, again, it comes back to the question of what affordable units there are compared to what will be created.

Yeah, and the reason I bring it up, Council Member Swan, is because of the makeup of that block, where effectively you've got a small condo building, but it's taller than what a single family house would be.

You've got the QFC on the backside of it, and then you really have a row of five, six, seven single family homes.

So we already have a lot of density in the neighborhood.

We have some incompatible uses, you know, historically designated incompatible uses, but incompatible with what you could do today.

And I think the idea for us of cleaning up some of those incompatible uses would allow for the creation of some of the things that you're talking about, like small scale condo buildings that really would be prohibited today in that single family zone.

Continue, sorry, Mr. McConaghy.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Muschietti.

Thank you very much.

You know, this actually got me thinking, and it's not specific to District 3, but given that many of our neighborhoods do have this sort of inconsistency that we would now call it, I would really appreciate if we could have provided for the council and for the public the charts that show the actual downsizing instead of upzoning the downzoning that has occurred over the last four or so decades because A lot of folks don't realize how many of these larger structures do exist throughout our community.

For example, I live in Queen Anne.

It is not in an area proposed for an up zone.

I live in an apartment building that, if it were to be demolished today, could not be reconstructed into an apartment building.

It would be a single-family zone area.

and I'm surrounded by apartment buildings that are four and five stories high.

It might be helpful for us to sort of juxtapose these potential pockets that we're looking at in terms of what current structures used to exist there or what were allowed to be constructed there three and four decades ago that might help us have a better sense of how these structures might fit in with the current demographics.

And if you would like help, I think Sightline has those maps available.

If that's okay to request.

Let's continue, Mr. McConaghy.

This is a map item of 3-6.

This is the west side of 19th Avenue East from East Thomas Street to Republican Street.

The current zoning is single-family 5,000.

The proposal in the bill is to LR3.

It's an M2 bump.

The proposed amendment would be to LR2, an M2 bump.

3-7, the south side of East John Street between 20th Avenue East and 21st Avenue East, also in the Madison-Miller Urban Village.

This current zoning is single-family 5,000.

The proposal is to LR1.

The proposed amendment would be to residential small lot.

3-8, east side of 21st Avenue East and to the west side of 22nd Avenue East between East John Street and East Thomas.

The current zoning is LR3.

The proposal is LR3 with an M bump.

And the proposed amendment would be to LR1.

3-9, west side of 24th Avenue between East Howell Street, 24th Avenue East, north of East Howell Street.

The current zoning is LR2.

The proposal is to LR3.

I should say the MHA proposed zoning, to make it really clear, it's LR3 and M1 bump, and the proposed amendment to the bill would be to LR2 and M bump.

And in that instance, Mr. McConaughey, it would really be about changes to the scope like Mr. Freeman talked about earlier.

You could build maybe five feet taller than you can today in an existing LR2 and maybe get a little of additional floor area ratio.

Is that correct?

I think that's correct.

Yeah, that's correct.

310 east side of 22nd Avenue East to the west side of 21st Avenue East North East Pine Street the current zoning is a residential small lot TC and the proposed excuse me the bill would have it go to LR 1 and the proposed amendment would be to RSL 311 This is addressed specifically I can group Pardon me.

Nope.

We'll do 311 on its own.

Excuse me This is 953 23rd Avenue East.

This would go from single the current zoning a single-family thousand five thousand MHA is RSL and the proposed amendment would be to LR 3 and

Is that within the scope of what was announced?

No, you beat me to it.

So for 3.11, additional environmental review would be needed, but a higher alternative was looked at within the FEIS scope.

So this proposed amendment here would go to LR3, studied in Alternative 2, and Alternative, excuse me, in Alternative 2 was studied LR1, And alternative three was RSL, the same as proposed.

So there is a move to greater sort of intensity in one of the alternatives, but not quite as far as is asked for in this moment.

This is 312. It's addressed as 935 through 937 23rd Avenue East.

Current zoning is single family 5,000.

The proposal is to RSL, and the proposed amendment is to LR3.

And the same sort of situation as the previous amendment was just discussed, that the LR3 adjustment, or sort of amendment, excuse me, would require additional environmental review.

but within alternative two, LR1 was analyzed.

And within these two amendments were adjacent to that 2013 union node that we implemented MHA on as part of last year's central area MHA amendments.

So I think it'd be helpful as we contemplate these couple of amendments to understand a little bit more about the zoning changes that were adopted within the gray shading here so that we're addressing some of the issues that Councilmember O'Brien talked about in terms of adjacency and what height disparities we might have between the proposal of, you know, for example, 311 across the street, you could build something likely much larger than what you could build in a low-rise one zone.

So how do we understand those transitions would be helpful.

I think maybe it's worth taking a moment.

I think I neglected to explain that some terminology, so this is review for most folks, but for folks who are tuning in, maybe this is helpful.

When I say alternative two and alternative three, I'm talking about alternatives that were considered in the final environmental impact statement.

And sometimes what we talk about, the alternative that's in the MHA bill is the preferred alternative.

Because we're talking about amendments and alternatives and modifications, I thought maybe just taking a moment would be helpful to review that.

So 313, this is at East Yesler Way.

Country Doctor is part of the proponent of this.

And the current zoning is NC 140. The proposal is to NC 155. The request is to go to NC 375. 314 these are areas east of Martin Luther King jr.

Way and South Jackson Street the current zoning a single-family 5,000 the proposal is to RSL and the proposed amendment is to Excuse me post moment is to lr1 Councilmember so on please thank you not to interrupt you I just wanted to mention the previous one 3-13

I don't know if council members noticed, but that is for a request from country doctor, which I think should be highlighted because they are a low-income medical care provider and they want to expand their services, so which is a really excellent thing.

And I don't believe that that one was within the scope of the EIS.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to back up.

I neglected to mention that that was not considered.

An additional review would be necessary.

Let's see, we are at three, I believe we're at 315 now.

1722 22nd Avenue South, the current zoning is LR2, MHA proposed zoning is LR3, it's an M1 bump.

The proposed amendment would be NC275, an M2 bump.

And 315, more review would be necessary.

A higher alternative was considered within the FEIS scope, that in alternative 2 was MR, M2 and alternative 3 was LR3.

So there might be some moves in the direction of more intensity, but maybe not as far as proposed in this amendment.

And the last one in District 3, 316, this is at the northwest corner of 20th Avenue South in South Holgate.

The current zoning is single family 5,000.

The proposal is for RSL, and the proposed amendment would be to LR2.

This is within the scope of the FEIS.

Further comments or questions, folks, about District 3?

Council Member Sawant, anything you'd like to add?

Okay, let's move on to District 5. Council Member Juarez, anything you'd like to lead off with?

Yes, absolutely.

So I hope everyone's awake so we can dive into D5.

That's a joke, everybody.

Okay, no one's awake.

Okay, D5.

We have 10 properties up there and we should note that our office has been in correspondence and met with just about every property person involved.

And I also want to thank Ketel for this phenomenal big chart with all my cheat notes and everything laid out with ownership source in our comments and our notes.

In addition, we have a collection of emails corresponding to each location from D51 to D510.

So we've been, and a lot of these emails go back to last March, April.

We've been paying attention obviously to these issues that have been coming up.

D5 is in particular why I want to say this and for the viewing audience is 85th to 145th.

And we do have a lot of density issues with two light rail stations coming in.

We do have the concerns with displacement.

We have many neighborhoods with high displacement and low opportunity.

We have major economic and growth coming in on Northgate and certainly on Aurora.

D5 has, as you know, three state highways that go through it.

Aurora, 522, which is Lake City Way, and 523, I believe, which is 145th.

So like many neighborhoods that we've been hearing these last few days, they're individual in their own ways of needs, transportation, housing, displacement, and all the infrastructure that goes along with that.

I was just talking to Councilmember Mosqueda offline, and I just want to make a brief observation before we dive in D5 here, is that Councilmember Mosqueda chaired our housing committee Monday morning, and that was over two hours, and brought folks up from Los Angeles.

And the main thing we heard was build, build housing, build housing, build housing, re-examine the single-family zone issue.

And then many of us have also read that report out of Minneapolis and looking at, you know, how you look at single-family zoning and righting historical wrongs and all the issues that go along with that.

And then that afternoon, for over two hours, Councilmember Johnson chaired the first MHA meeting.

And we heard people come in saying, do not build.

Don't touch our neighborhood.

We don't want you to do anything with it.

So it is a bit schizophrenic, but that's our job.

D5 is no different with these 10 properties and different interests.

I'm glad that we have the opportunity Councilmember or Chairman Johnson to actually flesh out all of these issues because I think and also keeping in mind the recent hearing examiners decision.

which was quite enlightening for those of you who had an opportunity to read it.

There were 88 findings of fact and 55 conclusions of law and three legal findings that has directed us how the city is going to grow.

Right now we're struggling with the waterfront and the lid and we've hopefully magically grown 20 acres on the waterfront with the viaduct coming down.

I know people aren't happy with that right now, but that's kind of where we're at.

And I think what we're struggling with and what we continue to work with as electeds, and you've heard it from every council member up here, is that we are a big city with big city problems.

And the shape of our city is an hourglass.

And we can only do so much.

But I think it's really important that we have that historical perspective of our neighborhoods and how they have to grow and how we have to look at density.

Of the 10 properties that we're looking at are potential amendments in D5, Not all of them want growth, but most of them do.

We looked at different areas where D5 has the highest number of shag housing, that is low income senior citizen housing.

So these are all the complexities, but I share this with you because I want to frame the narrative that when we go through these, those are the kind of things I know my colleagues are looking at, and what I'm looking at, and we're OK to agree to disagree.

But I'm hoping that as a city, we recognize that it's not 1970 or 1980 anymore.

It's 2018. Obviously, with MHA, we have the performance versus payment.

Some of us, including me, would rather have performance than a check.

And with that, I'm going to let you go ahead and dive in D5.

And I have some comments on some of the issues, but I understand that this is more of a flagging of the issues.

So if I need to comment, I will.

If not, then I won't.

Thank you.

All right.

So, as Councilmember Juarez mentioned, District 5 is, generally speaking, a high-displacement-risk, low-opportunity area for the purposes of our comprehensive plan mapping, and that informed the proposal from then-Mayor Burgess to, for the most part, within D5, have only M-level bumps.

So, that's some context for you here on the proposal.

District 5 has three urban villages, the Bitter Lake-Hollow Lake Urban Village, the Aurora-Licton Springs Urban Village, ALOVE, and also the Lake City Way Urban Village, and of course it has one urban center in the Northgate Urban Center.

So three, 10 potential amendments have been suggested for District 5. I'll walk through each of these here.

The first is in the Bitter Lake-Holler Lake Urban Village.

There's a proposal to not upzone a couple of large sites that are currently occupied with mobile home parks, including the Halcyon Mobile Home Park.

The current zoning is commercial 140, The proposed zoning would be commercial 155. Please, Council Member Swan.

Thank you, Council Member Johnson.

And thank you, Cato.

And as I was mentioning in the briefing this Monday, and to Council Member Juarez, that, you know, this is something that seems very important to do.

It's not in any way opposed to the overall goals of improving the zoning, upzoning the city, but these are very specific situations.

As Ketil mentioned, this whole site, 5-1 site, contains two mobile home parks, the Bella B mobile home park and the Halcyon, which is at the top of the 5-1, and then the Halcyon mobile home park.

And as council members have already been informed, the Halcyon houses seniors 555 years and older, and they face the real prospect, virtually immediate prospect of eviction if something is not done.

And this MHA amendment by itself will not accomplish that, but it is part of the process.

As you all know that this property is now controlled in trust by US Bank, which is in the process of selling it to developer called Blue Fern, which would end up evicting these residents.

And it's also a worse situation than usual evictions, which is bad enough, because the residents own their manufactured homes, and they're not actually mobile.

The homes are not actually mobile.

So they're going to actually, it's going to be a permanent loss.

And furthermore, as you know, it sort of seems ironic, but it's true that they would probably have to pay for the demolition.

So all said and done, it seems like we should be doing this amendment, and that is why my office brought this forward.

And I also wanted to share with members of the public that, in fact, yesterday, Nick Jones from my office joined some of the residents, a group of 10 residents at Halcyon yesterday as they went door knocking with their neighbors to help them understand the issue, make sure they understood what's up on them, and to make sure that we have maximum possible attendance.

for the discussion on this issue in my committee, which is happening this Friday at 1.30 p.m.

in city council chambers.

So I really invite council members to join us for that.

As you remember, undoubtedly, Council Member Sawant, a similar issue happened in my neck of the woods in 2016. And, you know, I think we were able to really work through a set of challenges around a development that was already permitted.

The concern that I have, I think, about this proposal is the unintended consequence, again, of leaving out parcels from the mandatory housing affordability program.

I think that that puts a greater emphasis on those areas for likely redevelopment because, again, a developer wouldn't be required to pay or perform under the city affordable housing program.

I get concerned about leaving out pockets of the city because I think that those pockets will then be even more further targeted.

So I'm concerned here about the unintended consequence about leaving this out, but I think worth more discussion either at committee table at future dates or offline if you'd like that to be.

I think it is definitely worth discussion.

We should discuss the question that you have raised.

However, I think the bottom line has to be for the City Council to make sure that these seniors have housing.

So if we don't have any other place for them to go to, then we have to make some arrangements.

And the concern you have highlighted, Council Member Johnson, precisely points to the limitations of only focusing on something like MHA as opposed to the City Council doing broader work, especially in actually raising progressive taxes so that we have funds for publicly owned affordable housing.

So the point you've made actually highlights the problems that we're facing.

And it's unfortunate that you all join in repealing the Amazon tax.

But if you don't want to do this, then we have to have some other option.

But it is not an option in my mind to allow the displacement, eviction, and very real prospect of homelessness for many of these senior residents.

I mean, some of these senior residents have, we have, you know, there are people who have messaged my office and are posting on social media they have personal contact with.

Amy Madden, who is a very well-known officer in the 43rd Legislative District of Democrats, just posted that one of the residents there She's known her as an English teacher for decades, and she lives there with her cat.

I mean, where is she going to go?

These people have invested their meager retirement into this home.

So I do think that we have a much higher moral and political obligation here than simply saying that, well, these are inconsistencies.

And yes, under this framework, if we don't push for social housing, yes, these properties will continue to get targeted.

Because they will be targeted in the future doesn't mean that we allow them to be targeted today.

That is not, that is like a vicious circle.

That's not a, that's a non-solution.

So we have to work towards real solutions.

And at the very least, this temporary, some things should be done to make sure that the eviction is not imminent while we're discussing other issues, other solutions.

Other comments folks want to make about this?

Okay.

Mr. Freeman, 5-2.

All right.

So moving across I-5 here to, or almost across I-5 to the, Northern edge of the North Lake, I mean, of the Northgate Urban Center, there is a request from a property owner who lies just, whose property lies just outside of the Northgate Urban Center, to go from single family 5,000 to low-rise 2 M1.

Unfortunately, this area is not part of the FEIS study area.

Continuing within the Northgate Urban Center, you're all probably familiar with the North Haven Senior Living site.

That site is split zoned.

They have a request to resolve that split zoning.

It's currently zoned Low-Rise 3 and Mid-Rise.

They have a desire to consolidate Mid-Rise zoning on that site.

If I could, Chairman.

Please.

Just briefly, this is the North Haven, and we've been working with North Haven, correct, North Haven, we've been working with them for a couple of years, William Dorn and Darlene Storty, the Executive Director, and we're encouraging just this one, for the viewing income, I'm sorry, viewing audience, They are asking for this change because they want to build low income housing, low income elder housing to affordable housing projects from 30 to 100% AMI.

This is why these committees and these groups are so important because if we were to allow and to agree to the concerns that North Haven has, then we could address some of the issues that Council Member Sawant brought up.

in regards to number one, where we have 76 mobile homes and 85 people living there, most of them being elderly, because this is the kind of open discussion we can have about how we remedy those situations.

So I'm hoping that, I'm not gonna make the pitch now, but North Haven and those folks have been really good about pushing forward and trying to build those two additional housing projects for low-income seniors.

So thank you.

And Mr. Freeman, was this one contemplated within the scope of the FEIS?

This one looks to be within the scope of the FEIS, so it's a possibility.

A possibility.

Moving on here to 5-4, this is an area just on the east side of the Northgate Urban Center.

It's currently zoned single family.

This would be an expansion area for the Northgate Urban Center.

The proposal is for this to go to low-rise 1, M1, and there's a recommendation.

from some neighbors to go to RSL instead.

The provenance of the proposal is a little bit unclear.

There may have been a mistake made by STCI or by OPCD in making this recommendation.

Either way, low-rise one and RSL are options for the council members to consider.

This particular block has a tributary to Thornton Creek running through the backyards of the houses there.

Welcome, Council Member Gonzales.

Nice to have you back.

Moving on to 5-5.

This is a site just south of Northeast North Gateway.

It's an existing apartment complex.

It's currently zoned Low-Rise 3. The proposal is to go to Low-Rise 3M.

That's the minimum M bump.

There's a recommendation to go to Mid-Rise M1.

That was not studied within any of the EIS alternatives, and so it's unfortunately not an option available to the council through this process.

Moving over to the Lake City residential urban village, there is a desire by some property owners within the urban village to go even higher towards kind of what you may imagine as being the heart of the Lake City urban village.

They'd like to see heights higher than the proposed NC3P95 zoning.

Unfortunately, that was the highest height that was analyzed in the EIS.

Moving further south here on Lake City, this is a parcel that is sort of between two within sort of surrounded on two sides by neighborhood commercial zoning.

It's an existing single family zone site.

There's a desire by that property owner for the site to be zoned neighborhood commercial.

Unfortunately, this was not studied and the EIS for MHA implementation.

This is a somewhat anomalous thing.

There is a site that's currently developed with a mixed-use building off of Lake City Way Northeast.

Somehow, when it was developed, a single-family portion of the site was developed with a multifamily building that may be an artifact of existing zoning regulations from back when the building was built.

I think it's actually fairly old.

But the property owner has a desire to resolve the split zoning on that site.

Moving over to the Aurora-Licton Urban Village.

Maybe I'll set some context here for AILUV just to remind council members that currently there is a development moratorium for certain uses in neighborhood commercial zoned areas along Aurora Avenue North.

The council renewed that permit moratorium.

The types of uses that the council sought to limit through that temporary moratorium were primarily light industrial and heavy commercial uses, particularly mini warehouses, which were proliferating in Alove.

The first amendment is 5-9, and that would be, it's a proposal to go from low-rise one to low-rise two for an area that's actually off of the Aurora Avenue north.

commercial spine Unfortunately this proposed this a low-rise to is not an alternative that was studied in the in the EIS So moving now to The commercial spine of a love There was a discomfort to know that there's a desire by the community to have more neighborhood serving retail uses along or Avenue for some portion of the neighborhood commercial zoned areas along Aurora Avenue North.

So this is a placeholder essentially for a potential future proposal to establish a neighborhood commercial P designation for some portion of the Alove Urban Village.

I believe that concludes our amendments.

Council Member O'Brien, please.

Just on this last one, Ketil, the P designation, I'm assuming it wouldn't be on every block face in that whole area, but would be targeted to certain block faces?

Yeah, there are choices here for the council members to make about where that P designation should be and among the many things that you all may want to consider in deciding whether or not to establish a P designation and where it should go is what the existing land uses are.

Okay.

Thanks.

And we've done that on similar corridors, but more like in zone areas, correct?

Kind of nodes along the Aurora corridor, correct?

Yeah, the code calls out specific streets along which the pedestrian designation requirements apply.

So there are nodes I think further south along Aurora Avenue near Green Lake that have a pedestrian designation.

Similarly, normally we would just require commercial uses along the major arterial.

Okay, so thus concludes the amendments for District 5. Council Member Juarez, anything you'd like to add to wrap up?

Go D5.

So any further questions from my colleagues before we move on to public comment for today?

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

At this point, we have about 25, rather, 30 people that have signed up to give public comment.

We're scheduled to be out of here at noon, so that Council Member Juarez has time to change over the room before our committee starts at 1.30, so everybody's gonna get two minutes today.

When I call your name, I ask you to please come up to one of the microphones here in the front of the auditorium and state your name for the record, and we'll start with Maria Bateola, followed by Mira Latsosik, and then Deb Barker.

Maria.

Good morning.

Good morning, honorable council members.

I always appreciate the big brains that each and every one of you have.

I am up today because I've been thinking a lot about how this particular set of council members have embraced not only affordable issue, but also truly embraced equity issues in terms of being able to disrupt the systematic racist legacy of redlining and how your interruption, these systemic interrupts that you're doing could contribute to wealth building.

So imperfect as it may be, we're moving forward MHA and our community, Beacon Hill, is continuing to engage as well as other communities.

But now I'd like to take a moment to kind of zoom out and take a look at the broader landscape of what equity policies are going to be needs to be in place.

And while we have you as a very collaborative set, and we're also facing elections and some of you have done honorable service will not be continuing, I would strongly recommend that we have companion resolutions or separate ordinances that would really address some of the other pieces to put in this broader framework.

First is mitigation for the city identified RSJMHA deficiencies and as you know that have been uncovered through the SEPA process.

That is still in place.

There's 11 departmental reports that need to be addressed in terms of racial equity deficiencies.

The second is Honorable Herbold spoke about this.

that we do need to have an amendment in the SEPA law because it does not cover race and social justice.

And this is a front and center policy by the city of Seattle.

And that tool needs to be amended so that it can allow for racial equity analysis of impact, resegregation, displacement, and allow for interventions.

Thank you, Maria.

The third one is entry-level home ownership and then community land trust for family housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't see Mara Lotsozek.

She had to go?

Okay.

May I read her statement?

She took time off from work and had to go back to work.

If you don't mind, we've got a lot of folks that have been waiting patiently, so why don't you just hand your statement to Noah and we'll answer it.

Her punchline is that we would like to work with Honorable Council Member to resolve the issues that MHA is not doing, that's why we ask for no up zone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Deb Barker.

Deb, you're gonna be followed by Dimas Nestorenko.

All right, good morning.

I'm the president of the Morgan Community Association.

And you saw our urban village map and our requested map change.

You also heard about our pedestrian zone issues.

We'll have some more comments about that.

And we'll have other commentary throughout this process.

It's been quite a few years that all of you have been involved in this.

So want to say good morning.

And I'm going to say that I'm speaking to the need to formally evaluate the urban villages for historical historical and cultural resources.

The hearing examiner put the city on notice that the FBI is did not contain accurate information on historic resources.

Now his mandated addendum to the EIS to address that very deficiency is right now being prepared by those same historic preservation consultants who kind of missed it on the first round.

I've got to say that kind of concerns me, and I hope it kind of concerns you.

I'm looking forward to seeing that report come out.

But until that happens, I need to say that there are 17 urban villages that have not been surveyed for historic resources, including Morgan Junction.

urban village and I urge you to fund historic resources survey in advance of assigning your MHA up so that you know what's going to be impacted.

I need you to think about the impacts or the ways that a 90-foot tall building sitting right next to a historic building could change the air quality or change the sunlight around that building.

Lastly, I need you to know about the South Park Community Goal of establishing a historic district of 100-year-old working-class family homes.

That MHA up zone would destroy their dream.

Please listen to South Park residents.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Deb.

Demis, you're going to be followed by Lisa Kuhn and then Ken Cederstrand.

Thank you, Chair and committee.

For the record, my name is Dimas Nestorenko.

I'm a homeowner in Capitol Hill.

Also speaking on behalf of SAU 775, we represent long-term care providers in Seattle, Washington.

We have about 3,000 members who live in the city of Seattle.

Here justifying in support of MHA.

The proposal in front of you is the result of years of hard work and compromise.

As a union representing Klovach working people, we urge you to reject the amendments in front of you and pass the resolution in its entirety.

Our members care for seniors and individuals with disabilities in their homes in this city and must be able to consistently reach their clients in order to provide care.

Many cannot afford to drive, and therefore must live reasonably near their clients and patients.

This all means if we want our city seniors and individuals with disabilities to remain in their homes, then we need workforce and low-income housing.

We cannot achieve this without increasing our housing stock and zoning the neighborhoods in our city.

We only have so much land if we want our city to remain a diverse city, then we must look beyond our reliance on single use properties.

So that low and middle income Seattleists may find housing options as well.

Our members are both homeowners and renters, but they are all being affected by the housing crisis.

As our population ages, we need more caretakers in this city, not less.

However, if workforce housing isn't addressed aggressively, seniors will be forced out of their homes, whether owners or not, because they are unable to find caregivers in the area.

The MHA is the result of business, labor, nonprofit, developers, and individual Seattleists, as well as many of you all compromising to create something that could make a meaningful impact on our housing crisis.

Please do not endanger this accord.

We all must acknowledge the problem and do our parts if we are going to ensure Seattle remains a high-quality place to live for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lisa, you're going to be followed by Ken Cederstrand and then Doug Holtam.

Okay, my name is Lisa Coon.

First, given the existing population of South Park, upzoning is unconscionable.

So, last week I talked to you about ethics, and I'm afraid that all of you are in so deep and bought into so many lies, I don't think you're going to be able to back out, even if you want to.

The thing is, you should have seen the up zones for what they are three years ago, the minute redlining was brought up.

You should have looked at the maps.

You should have seen that the greatest impact was happening to areas that people of color were redlined into.

You should have recognized that this takes away the opportunity to own a home, which is the greatest chance for wealth building for everyone, as stated by Ron Sims.

You should have seen that this will create more homelessness as people are pushed out of their apartments.

You had access to the numbers.

You should have known that it would require the displacement of over 30,000 households to get those 6,000 units.

And maybe you need to readdress the source of the problem and discourage the tech companies from trying to turn this city into their own private campuses.

St. Augustine said, in absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

I believe that for those of you who may still have a conscious or believe that you have one, after passing this as is, you will never have a clear conscious again for the rest of your lives.

So on a personal note, I want you to know my husband and I are We already know we're going to move.

We decided this a year and a half ago.

The reason I've been fighting this so hard is to stop you from creating more homeless people, and I thank those council members who recognize this.

Thank you.

Ken Cederstrand?

Ken, you're gonna be followed by Doug Holtham, and then Ann McCullough.

Yes, I'm Ken Cederstrand.

I've operated apartment buildings in Seattle for the last 40 years.

Mr. Cedars-Strain, can you speak a little closer to the microphone?

Pardon?

Can you speak a little closer to the microphone?

Sure.

Thank you.

Most of them have been in Capitol Hill, Central District, and Rainier Valley.

We have about 15, 20% of our tenants are Section 8, and a lot of them are, you know, modest income.

Our plans are supported by the Rainier Chamber.

The Seattle Girls' School is a property I'm addressing, and they are planning on moving to a new campus in about three years.

This is on Jackson and Martin Luther King Way.

And the property that I'm requesting, talking about is we have a large piece of property, part of it's zoned for 55 feet high.

The next one is planned to be zoned for residential small lots, which would allow only like seven houses.

A low rise one, would allow for about 34 units there.

So that is what we're requesting.

This is a great opportunity to make this work for larger development for housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Doug Holton.

Doug, you're going to be followed by Ann McCullough and then Patience Malaba.

Hi Councilmembers, my name is Doug Holtham and I work for the First Hill Improvement Association.

So First Hill is a unique neighborhood.

We have historic mansions next to regional hospitals.

We have low-income senior housing right next to multi-million dollar condos.

The First Town Improvement Association is in support of MHA zoning changes in our NC3200 and high-rise zones.

Although FEA supports the rezones for our neighborhood, we urge you to maintain the incentive zoning program.

The incentive zoning program helps to provide protection of historic buildings that provide naturally affordable housing, the development of open space, and the enhancement of green streets.

Please reincorporate incentive zoning to reflect our community priorities.

Thanks for your time and thanks for listening.

Thank you, Doug.

Anne?

Anne, you're going to be followed by Patience Malaba and then Nicole Grant.

Good morning.

My name is Anne McCullough.

I am the Executive Director of the First Hill Improvement Association.

The First Hill Improvement Association advocates on behalf of a vibrant public realm that emphasizes walkability, livability, connectivity, and good urban design.

We wish to ensure that future development projects reflect the priorities of the community.

The MHA legislation as it is currently drafted removes the incentive zoning program from the HR zone, eliminating the benefits that landmark TDP, open space, and green streets bring to our rapidly densifying First Hill neighborhood.

FEA strongly supports maintaining the existing incentive zoning program, and we ask that you amend the MHA legislation to restore these provisions.

As First Hill continues to rapidly grow in population and density, the Incentive Zoning Program provides protection to First Hill's historical assets, encourages the development of open space, and supports naturally occurring affordable housing.

During this window, while Council is considering amendments to the MHA legislation, we urge you to reincorporate the HR Zone Incentive Zoning Program.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anne.

Patience, and then Nicole Grant, and then Alex Brennan.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Patience Malava, and I am here on behalf of the Housing Development Consortium.

We are an association of the affordable housing community with a membership of 170 organizations working to ensure that all people live with dignity in safe, healthy, and affordable homes within communities of opportunity.

And I'm also here representing our coalition, Seattle for Everyone.

We unequivocally support the mandatory housing affordability program and would like to see this carefully calibrated tool, an innovative policy that you have all championed, be implemented effectively.

And thank you for raising some of our concerns that we have earlier in the discussions.

We do appreciate your leadership and we trust that you will only adopt the amendments that ensure people will leave near their jobs, they will leave near amenities, and they will leave near transit.

We do have concerns with some of the listed amendments, specifically I can go per district and say that in district one there's about seven listed potential amendments and of those seven, five are reducing the absence and they're within the FEIS scope and that's a concern.

There's also two, there's only two that are increasing up zones and only one of them is within the FEIS scope.

You go to District 2, you also have 11 distant amendments, five are up zones and five are reducing up zones and they are also within the FEIS scope and that's a concern.

Only three of the six that are increasing up zones actually within the FEIS scope.

And it's the same for District 3 and District 5 as well.

So we urge you to ensure that the final MHL legislation is about our community.

And our community desperately needs more homes right now.

Our city has so much to offer for all of us, and this is an opportunity for us to model being a really inclusive city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nicole, you're going to be followed by Alex Brendan and then Dwight McRae.

Thank you, Chair Johnson, council members, Nicole Grant from MLK Labor, and we are here to testify in support of MHA and in support of not lessening the up zones.

It looks like there's a lot of amendments with carve outs, and what we really need to see is the maximum amount of density in our city.

I think everybody knows that around 100,000 people are coming to King County every year, and 100 coming to just Seattle basically every day.

and we're really fighting for a good quality of life for working people in the city of Seattle.

I think for that to happen, we have to acknowledge that the city's gonna change, and that King County's gonna change, and that we're going to have more people living in apartments and condominiums, and that doesn't have to be a bad quality of life.

We're fighting for density and for up zones and for more housing.

But at the same time, we're fighting for open spaces, like a really good park on the waterfront.

We're fighting for a really good Seattle center campus with a world class key arena that's a cultural center of the Northwest.

I think that especially for workers in my generation and younger workers, There's no fantasy that they're going to be able to come to Seattle and have a big house and have a big yard.

But there is a real belief that they should be able to have a good apartment that they can afford in a city.

that has a great quality of life.

And so I just want to end by saying that in particular, there's some pilot projects for low-income housing that the city is looking at that use community workforce agreements.

And for us, that's the gold standard.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Alex, followed by Dwight McRae, and then Larry Brousy.

Sorry, Larry.

That's not your last name.

Hi, my name is Alex Brennan.

I'm a resident of the Miller Park Urban Village.

I'm here today to support the mandatory housing affordability program and to urge the council to reject the proposed down zone amendments in my neighborhood.

The mayor's final proposal to council already reduced proposed up zones in the more wealthy single family parts of our neighborhood relative to the draft alternatives.

And the amendments that are proposed would just further this unfortunate shift in the proposal.

I'm also here to speak to the possibility of a companion resolution.

I would like to see the city commit to conducting a displacement analysis for the LGBTQ community, particularly regarding cultural displacement.

Don't delay adoption of MHA in order to do this, but commit to doing it in the future.

I haven't had a chance to review all of the amendments, though the presentation today was very informative.

But I do generally want to say, as you are considering individual changes, I urge you to take bold action to address affordability in our city and to be responsive to the concerns of our most vulnerable communities, but not to let the wealthy and powerful water this down for their own convenience.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Dwight McRae, and I'm a member of Emerald City Seven-Day Adventist Church in Seattle.

Okay, speak up.

I'm a member of the Seven-Day Adventist Church in Seattle.

In 1966, our church members bought a parcel property located off of Martin Luther King with the intent of building a church on it.

The members later found another church, another site, which is where it's currently located off of 801 25th Avenue in the city.

What we looked at over the years are several different alternatives for the property, including a community center, a school, and a variety of other things.

But none of those proved out to be feasible for the church members at the time.

Part of the problem that we had with the property was that there were wetlands on the property.

And so since in 2014, we hired an environmental consultant to help us resolve those issues.

And fortunately, that's been now resolved and we went from being able to build two or three lots on a property to now six to eight lots.

The property is zoned single family residential.

which what we are asking the city to consider is up zoning it to either small lot residential or I guess it's residential small lots or low-rise one and unfortunately the property was not considered as part of the initial study because it falls in between the North Rainier Valley as well as the Columbia Center city area.

So I think that was the main reason why it wasn't considered for the upzoning.

It's just part of it.

And we understand that this is far too late at this point in time to try to get it incorporated, but we would like to let the city council know as well as the staff that we'd like to have that considered in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McRae.

Larry, you're going to be followed by Cindy Barker and then Alex Zimmerman.

Good morning.

I am Larry Braus from St. James Cathedral, and I am here to testify in favor of the resolution, with the exception that we feel very strongly that we need to keep the TDP elements of that.

We at St. James, like the other landmark churches on First Hill, are on the front lines in this city's response to the homelessness crisis in the city.

We are service providers on a variety of fronts.

And TDPs are a way of allowing us to continue that mission.

TDPs are a fair compensation to landmark organizations such as St. James.

We have given up our development potential.

We've given up untold millions of dollars.

But with the TDPs, we have the chance of unlocking some of that revenue to allow us to maintain these important community structures and not inconsequently continue our mission to the poor and disadvantaged in the city.

We feel that retention of this will allow us to continue to support affordable housing, continue to support our services to the poor and the neglected.

And we hope that this amendment is allowed to continue.

Thank you.

Thank you, Cindy.

I hadn't intended to speak, I signed up just in case, and that worked out today.

I'm going to address the pedestrian zone question for the Morgan Urban Village.

In 2014, the city went through a process where it identified most of the business districts in the Seattle's potential pedestrian zones.

So we had community meetings, we met with staff to talk about whether Morgan should become a P zone at the time.

We turned in a letter that said, at this time, we think not.

We gave them six major points.

And most of them were because of the way the program was being implemented.

There were questions about how OPCD and SDOT work together.

There were questions of whether or not they were actually going to require developers to put in the amenities that were desired in a pedestrian zone.

And so we sent that in and central staff removed us from the proposal.

So that was where we left off.

When MHA came out, it was never discussed the entire process.

We did not know that we were going to be proposed to be a pedestrian zone until the FEIS came out.

It was not talked about in the community meetings.

It was not talked about in the draft EIS.

And when we asked OPCD when we saw the FEIS come out, What happened, they went, well, we didn't think you'd care.

I mean, not quite like that.

But to them, it was an inconsequential thing.

And the staff at that, that we were speaking with, did not know the history of the 2014 letter.

So we said we would have been glad to engage in that discussion, but we had no opportunity to do that.

We do not know if our issues have been resolved.

And we just said we're just going to ask for it to be removed.

So there is a good solid foundation for that.

We are happy to come back.

We really would like to drive the discussion on this because, for example, most people think that getting a P zone will get you street furniture, benches, and things that make pedestrian corridors happy and vibrant and viable.

You do not get that unless a developer of a major project decides to commit funds to do that.

If they don't, and in a residential urban village like ours, we get small developments, they don't do it, and so it becomes on the burden on the community because you have to pay the annual permit and the annual insurance to cover a bench in your urban village.

Thank you.

And people are asking for it like Beacon Hill.

I need to warn them.

You know, you got to know what you're getting into here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Cindy.

I'm not seeing Alex Zimmerman, so we get a reprieve for this morning.

Michaela Daffern, you're next.

Michaela, you're going to be followed by Judy Gibbs and then Steve Robstello.

Hello, my name is Michaela, and I am here today testifying on behalf of Capitol Hill Housing and the Capitol Hill Eco-District.

As an affordable housing provider in Seattle, we view MHA as an essential tool for addressing the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis.

If adopted in the true spirit of the original plan, it will create thousands of new homes affordable to low-income families in Seattle who desperately need it.

We are grateful for the thought and consideration council and city staff have put into the final legislation and are here today to encourage you to honor the plan without amendments to the Madison Miller Urban Village.

These amendments run counter to the EPSOM proposals that we have supported to prioritize the maximum affordable homes for MHA in and around the Capitol Hill Eco-District.

In addition, I want to offer two suggestions for companion legislation.

Doing this well means doing this right, and I commend the council and planning staff for performing a displacement analysis and crafting a policy that accounts for these findings.

Unfortunately, LGBTQ people who remain uncounted and therefore frequently unaccounted for in our planning decisions were left out of the framework.

It's important that future analysis considers how this policy affects the displacement of the LGBTQ community from their historic neighborhoods.

Council should incorporate this goal into the policy evaluation framework once MHA is adopted.

Additionally, I hope that council will consider creating overlays for business districts subject to up zones in areas that do not have incentive zoning, a prevalence of landmark structures, or a designated historic district modeled after the effective pike pine conservation overlay.

With modification to account for a neighborhood's unique context, we think this tool could be effectively replicated in other neighborhood business districts as a means for accommodating growth while also incentivizing great development that reflects local priorities.

As a first step, you could direct OPCD to analyze the feasibility of replication and develop a toolkit for implementation.

Thank you.

Thank you, McKayla.

Judy Gibbs.

Judy, you're going to be followed by Steve Rubstello and then Charlie Lapham.

This testimony relates to a stack of petitions that I emailed every Councilmember yesterday.

Just to put this in perspective, the petition asks for an amendment.

And this pertains to a small neighborhood commercial area that would be upzoned from 40 feet to 55 feet.

It's not within an urban village or a growth center, but it is adjacent to the Heron Habitat, which is a designated wildlife refuge, and it would impact the habitat, and I believe it's within the habitat buffer zone.

Sally, this is for you, okay?

People in other districts are arguing that upzoning will impact their light and livability and some have said that the upzoning impacts their dreams of retiring in their own homes.

That's also true in our area, but more to the point is that the Herons would like to be able to retire to their city-designated wildlife refuge.

We ask the Council to amend the legislation as needed to give the Herons livability in their own refuge, which means keeping the zoning at 40 feet.

Instead of going to 55 feet, we need to keep the zoning at 40 feet.

As I say, I sent you folks all a All a copy yesterday.

And I'd also like to add this is District 7. I apologize for coming today, but Monday I had a medical issue I had to attend to.

So I'm here today to ask for this amendment for District 7 and the Heron Habitat.

Okay?

I'm hearing you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Judy.

Steve Rubstello is going to be followed by Charlie Lapham and then Hodan Hassan.

Well, here we go again.

We have some top-down zoning which promises to increase affordability.

You know, it's never worked before.

Let's look at the history of my lifetime of looking at the urban villages and the promises of more housing at lower costs.

It doesn't work, and the reason why is you don't count the private housing which is destroyed in the process.

Now, as we pointed out in the Central District, we've had quite a change in population because of unaffordability.

Well, this is happening in the whole city.

In the Central Area, it was quite apparent visually.

You didn't have to look at names, incomes, and so forth.

You just could see They're not there anymore, and there are people there who were not there anymore.

It's time to take a look at your mandatory affordable housing and make it mandatory affordable housing.

The rates are far too low.

If you're going to go this route, then you're going to actually charge enough to make it happen.

And if you really want a city that has diverse population of incomes, how about really incentivizing, if not requiring it, in the buildings?

Because it's so much more difficult when you build a building, Now first you have to get all the tenants out because developers don't like to have people in it while they're planning for some strange reason and they have enough money to be able to afford the loss of income.

They don't pay until they get the occupancy permit, I'm pretty sure.

Then you start the planning for the housing to replace somewhat a little bit of what was lost.

And all this takes a whole lot of time.

So maybe in 20 years or more, you'll have some affordable housing.

Thank you, Steve.

Charlie?

Hi, I'm Charlie LaFamme.

I'm here wearing a couple hats.

I live in D2.

I'm a renter.

I'm also here on behalf of the King County Labor Council and the 100,000 workers we represent.

So we've been going at this for years, and I want to thank you all for all the work you've done.

It's so exciting to see MHA nearing the finish line.

And I mean, over the last decade, living in Seattle has become more and more expensive.

It's become expensive for working people, and people who fight, you know, in unions, they fight like crazy to get a small wage increase, and then they see the rank going up 10% a year, and it's like a pay cut to them.

And it's been pricing too many of our residents out of the city.

One of the major reasons is because of these arbitrary limits on where you can build and how high you can build that have.

kept the supply low and the price high.

And so it's so exciting to see this nearing the finish line.

Let's pass a clean MHA without amendments to water it down, and let's make this a more affordable, better place to live.

Thank you.

Thank you, Charlie.

Hodad, you're going to be followed by Darlene Storti and Brittany Bollet.

I would say good morning, but I think it's about afternoon right about now.

I am here to testify on behalf of Dove.

I'm pretty sure you all probably know of her, but she's probably one of the most amazing person I've ever met in my life and has done more for any sort of justice, environmental, racial, everything than I have ever done as long as I've been alive.

And she, in the last 20 or so years, has been displaced five times.

the most recent being this past year, sorry, has been displaced five times, and then the last being this past year from Beacon Hill.

So she says, politicians and developers, please hear our neighborhood, listen to us, talk with us, and temper your plans with ours equally.

I was displaced, but no more displacement should take place on Beacon Hill from now on.

And I think I can say all of Seattle on her behalf.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Darlene, you're going to be followed by Brittany Bollet and then Ryan DeRama.

Good morning.

Thank you, council members, for your time and effort on a very controversial effort, many parts, but especially Deborah Juarez, our councilwoman from the Northgate area.

I am the executive director of North Haven Senior Living.

And North Haven has been supporting the Northgate area and the greater Seattle area with low income housing since 1972. We currently have over 200 residents low income that we support.

We support the MHA.

We also are excited about the increase of low income housing through the greater Seattle area.

Recently, we were awarded Office of Housing from the City of Seattle for low-income housing for our project, and we will be adding low-income housing and also workforce housing with the help of all of you.

We have partnered with Barrientos Ryan, which would be the workforce housing part of it, which is exciting for the Northgate area with all the low income housing that's needed in that area and the light rail coming into that area.

A rezone of our property of the North Haven property would increase the density and allow for projects to move ahead and provide affordable housing and services in the community.

We've also partnered with Providence PACE program so we will be offering health care services for low-income residents in one of our buildings.

We're also looking at low-income child care in one of our buildings so We thank you for your support of this important project, and Brian Lloyd from Beacon Communities will speak a few minutes later about the specifics of what this project entails, but we really appreciate your effort and time in supporting this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Brittany, you're going to be followed by Ryan Duramo and Daryl Grothaus.

Hi, good morning, Council.

I am here today on behalf of the Sierra Club Seattle Group to reemphasize our support for increased housing density and choice.

As Councilmember Harrell said, when people can't find a place to live in the city, they're pushed out, away from their family, their friends, their jobs, and development is pushed into critical wetlands outside of the urban areas and places not suitable for development.

Conversely, when people have more options to live in the city, it decreases driving, increases transit use and walking, maintains communities.

Dense housing is also more energy efficient.

Overall, it's the environmental choice, and we support MHA and any other policies and companion resolutions that increase our housing in the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ryan?

Hi.

I'm a resident of Alove, an urban village in District 5, and I applaud the vision to rezone Aurora and designate the pedestrian zoning.

Aurora houses little and job growth has decreased.

This is meant to be the central business district of a thriving, walkable community, and while we have added thousands of new residents in the neighborhood, nothing on Aurora has changed.

This is because there are two North Seattles, the haves and the have-nots, and District 5 and Alove are have-nots.

ALOVE has no amenities.

There is no library, no community center, no bank.

Much of it isn't walkable and the entire stretch is labeled as low access to opportunity.

Aurora needs a spark.

While the affordable housing program collects millions of dollars during development, the added fee may stall proposals.

Each project along this stretch carries a fee of over $300,000.

Council may waive or return 50% of the fee if a developer provides one of the missing assets to this community.

Doing so would point development where it should be, along the most ridden bus in the entire state of Washington.

Aurora needs a new identity.

Aurora's image is car-oriented, but Aurora has changed.

Its biggest asset to the city is not as a thoroughfare for cars, it's for bus ridership.

The district should engage this identity of sustainability.

The other half of MHA fees should be waived or returned if projects utilize cross-laminated timber construction, a carbon negative building practice, and provide solar power on the rooftops.

With Dunn Lumber and Alove, Job growth would be ripe for sustainable wood construction if it were incentivized.

Seattle City Light owns a property in A Love too.

Solar power installation and maintenance would be another job opportunity for A lovers in our neighborhood.

And lastly, this should be the last up zone for urban villages.

Urban villages have carried 75% of the housing growth for the last 25 years.

We are proud to supply it, but after this, it's time for the rest of Seattle's neighborhood to share in housing growth.

The next land use discussion should include the direction Minneapolis has taken, allowing triplexes or additional dwelling units in all our neighborhoods.

It's time for the other neighborhoods to provide housing growth next, not just our imaginary bound ones.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ryan.

Daryl, you're going to be followed by Knut Ringen and then Brian Lloyd.

My name is Daryl Grothaus and I am testifying for Trinity Parish, a city landmark building on First Hill.

Trinity urges the committee to adopt Amendment A8, Incentive Zoning in First Hill High-Rise Zone.

The Council staff states this amendment would give developers the option of achieving up to 40% of the extra floor area by providing any combination of public open space, Green Street improvement, or purchasing transfer of development potential from historic landmark sites.

The sale of development potential for landmark buildings is a potential source of revenue for owners of the landmark buildings for preservation.

This amendment would carry forward the current incentive zoning on First Hill, where at least 60 percent of the floor area would be subject to the affordable housing requirements And the developers would have the option, not the requirement, but the option to achieve the remaining 40% by purchasing development potential, providing open space or green streets.

As I've testified in prior meetings before this committee, Trinity's landmark church is nearly 120 years old.

It's very costly to maintain in its landmark condition and the sale of development potential is an important source of funds to preserve the building.

Unless there be any misunderstanding, Trinity supports the MHA program.

The paucity of affordable housing is the reality that we see every day in the people that come to our shelter for homeless women, thrift shop, and community suppers.

The issue is not affordable housing or landmark preservation.

It is both and.

Mr. Grodas, rarely have I seen somebody time their two minutes so eloquently.

Well done.

Tough act to follow, Mr. Ringen.

You are going to be followed by Brian Lloyd and then Charlie Bauman.

Thank you.

I'm Knut Ring, and I'm from the Fisher Studio building on 3rd Avenue.

And I want to make two points.

We're trying to fight a development that's very large, 500 feet, and 500 ultra-lux apartments or condos that would overwhelm the block that we live on and points out two really big problems that you need to resolve.

One is, this is a block that has dual zoning.

The west side allows for 500 feet, the east side for about 140 feet.

The guidelines say that there has to be reconciliation between those things, but they don't say how reconciliation is to be performed.

We can't challenge the development unless we have something to hang our hat on, because otherwise the developer will say we're simply being arbitrary in our argument that their development is not proportional to the rest of the block or whatever.

So we need something more specific.

The second point is that our building, and most of the building around this development, are historic landmarks.

And while the hearing officer has instructed you to develop better legislation on protecting and taking into account the needs of historic landmarks, all the guidelines say that there should be conformity between them, but they don't say how conformity is to be achieved.

I've contacted SDCI and SDCI referred me on to the Historic Preservation Board.

I went to the Historic Preservation Board and the Historic Preservation Board said we can do nothing unless SDCI invites us into the process.

So we're stuck in the middle of this.

And your own legislation says that We can challenge the design of this structure, but once it's approved in early design guidance, we can't challenge the overall square footage that has been approved.

So in effect, we have no way to challenge the bulk of this building that is like 10, 15 times higher than the rest of our buildings and overwhelms everything else around it.

So there are a couple of things here that we would really like your help with.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Brian, you're going to be followed by Charlie Bauman and then Kristen Ryan.

Good morning.

I'm Brian Lloyd.

I work with Beacon Development Group.

We're a nonprofit affordable housing development organization doing housing projects in Seattle and throughout Washington State.

In general, I'd like to urge you to proceed with the MHA program.

The delay that we've experienced has cost us hundreds of units of affordable units already.

And so we're eager, I speak on behalf of my colleagues, eager to see the program implemented so that we can produce more affordable housing that is so desperately needed.

Specifically, I want to speak to a project we're working on right now with Darlene and the North Haven Senior Living Group.

We've submitted a memo to Councilmember Juarez and Johnson.

I'd like to hand that to the staff person to resubmit, stating that with an amendment to the existing proposal we could do a better job of achieving affordable housing for seniors and a ground floor Pace Center in partnership with Providence that would provide health care, medical, counseling and other services to low-income seniors in partnership with Providence.

So we're very excited about the possibilities that this campus approach can achieve.

in terms of serving the neighborhood and the seniors in our community.

So the request is for NC 275, and we believe that was studied as an alternate.

So hopefully that's an easy fix to make.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Charlie Bowman.

Charlie, you're going to be followed by Kristen Ryan.

I yield to Kristen.

Thank you.

Kristen, you're the last speaker who signed up today.

Take us home.

Yes, hi.

As a follow-on to the conversation that we've just had around the North Haven parcel, I am here specifically to submit an extended amendment related to that 5-3 amendment that speaks to the workforce housing component that Darlene spoke about before in looking comprehensively at the site that North Haven owns as well as some adjacent sites that are interspersed with theirs.

There's a request to develop workforce housing privately financed 60 to 100 percent AMI housing on the east side of North Haven's existing building It is a zoning that was studied in the EIS alternative 2 already, so it has been looked at.

It's consistent with zoning surrounding that area, and that change would allow for the difference of nearly 100 additional affordable units to be developed on that parcel beyond what exists with the current zoning of LR3.

bring forth that specific proposal to council and continue to echo.

I think this is a fabulous example of an opportunity here between these amendments to create a true campus of mixed income, multi-generational housing for a wealth of opportunity for Seattle's residents in a highly amenitized transit accessible area that really would be a fabulous community and is exactly the kind of thing that MHA is intended to create and design.

Encourage council to consider and continue to consider the up zones across the city without the amendments for down zone.

Thank you Thank you.

Um, so that concludes the individuals who signed up to give public comment today I want to thank my colleagues for sticking around for this two and a half hour long discussion.

I think it's been very fruitful Our next opportunity to get together is going to be on Friday, February the 8th.

At that meeting, it's our intention that we'll be walking through amendments that you have sponsored and supported, whether those are citywide amendments or amendments within your district if you're a district council member.

We don't plan to vote on amendments that day, but our hope is that we've got a pretty well-defined universe of amendments for folks to discuss, which will include, as we discussed today, likely things within the development standards realm, individual map amendment changes, text amendments, the whole kit and caboodle.

Buckle in for likely a pretty long discussion that Friday morning.

I anticipate we'll do what we have done in the past, which is to start with amendments that would apply to all parts of the city, and then move through a discussion of amendments by district, concluding with yours, Council Member Bagshaw, District 7. We, unless there are further thoughts or questions, and I'm not seeing any, we'll stand adjourned for today, and we'll be back here on Friday, February the 8th.

Thanks.