Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee Public Hearing 1252018

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us.

Today is December 5th, 2018. It is 930 a.m., and this is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Seattle City Council's Planning and Land Use and Zoning Committee.

I'm Rob Johnson, chair of the committee.

I'm soon to be joined by my colleagues, Councilmembers O'Brien and Herbold.

But we've got a lot on the agenda today, so we wanted to start promptly.

There are seven items on the agenda today.

We're going to start with three reappointments to the Planning Commission.

We'll follow with a briefing public hearing and possible vote on an amendment to the comprehensive plan.

A briefing public hearing and possible vote on amendments and changes to our transportation level of service standards that are required inside new developments.

And finally, a discussion and votes on the University of Washington's major institution master plan.

As a reminder, we've got about two dozen or so folks that are here in the audience today, and about that many that have signed up to give public comment.

That final agenda item related to the master plan is a quasi-judicial matter, which means that it is prohibited to give public comment on that topic.

So if you're here to talk about issues that are germane to the council's committee, that's great.

but you can't talk about the University of Washington Master Plan process and I'll have to cut off your testimony if you do.

We are going to start this morning with public comment.

It's a little complicated this morning because we've got two public hearings, but the general public comment, we've got eight folks who've signed up to give public testimony.

You'll each have two minutes.

Several of you have also signed up to give public comments during the additional public hearings.

We'll get to those when the public hearing for that relevant topic arrives later on in the agenda.

The first person who signed up to give comment is Alex Zimmerman followed by Knut Ringen and then Ed Marquand.

Mr. Zimmerman and Mr. Ringen, if you wouldn't mind coming to the microphones and we'll get started.

Please.

Hi, I want to speak about agenda number one, about reappointment of three commissioners.

I go to commissioner meeting in Seattle government for last 10 year probably 100 times.

And I speak on base.

Nobody give me question, nobody asking why it's going on, you know what it mean.

And I try apply for 10 year like a dozen time myself and nobody accept me.

I'm totally confused.

I'm a top educator.

I have six elections, including a U.S. senator.

I've been in politics for all my life.

I cannot be qualified for one commission for 10 years.

So I try to find an answer.

What has happened?

And I think I find this answer.

It's exactly what has happened.

We have a government, anti-Semitism, and racism.

It's nothing surprising to me.

So I have nine trespasses.

Last trespass expired.

in this Monday for one month, what has come from consul, nine trespasses for 930 day.

Nobody in the United States of America have this.

It's a show.

So we have a government anti-Semitism in Russia, what is absolutely equal, what is I see before from Soviet Union communists and from German Nazi.

I cannot understand how educate, top educate men have experience with politica when two class action, one class actions is unique, first in this American history, cannot qualify for one commissioner.

I'm totally confused.

So right now I speak to everybody who listen to me, something wrong with this government.

Something wrong with this government who acting like a pure Nazi, communist, crooks, and fascist.

I cannot understand how professional men like me cannot be qualification for one committee for 10 years.

So right now I speak to everybody.

Stand up America.

Sieg Heil, my Dory consul.

Thank you very much.

Knut Ringen, you're going to be followed by Ed Marquand, and Ed, if you wouldn't mind coming to the next microphone.

Thank you, Councilman Johnson.

This is the third day that we are here, be the last for a while, so I appreciate your patience.

I have two handouts for you.

My name is Knut Ringen.

I'm from the Fisher Studio building, a historic landmark on 3rd Avenue.

And we have two very serious concerns about a specific development that has been proposed along 2nd Avenue.

And our concerns are twofold.

The first is about the upzoning of 2nd Avenue that took place 10 years ago and the consequences of that that is happening right now.

And the second is about how the design review process is broken and is not working the way that it should.

The wall that's being proposed with 500-foot-tall towers will divide the city in two zones, the West Zone and the East Zone.

This will take away the light of the so-called Pike Pine Light Corridor, and it will make it very difficult to maintain the character of the city.

In terms of the design process, if you look at the second side of this sheet I have, we have made several objections to this project.

Nevertheless, it was passed unanimously by the review board, even though it did not at all follow the design guidelines that they're supposed to follow.

Now, if we cannot have our say or be heard in the design process, we're going to have to come back here time and again, or we're going to have to litigate these issues, and we shouldn't have to do that.

Specifically, we need you to address four questions or five questions that I've outlined on that sheet and that I don't have time to deal with right now.

We're fighting for a system where one party, the developer, does not take all at the expense of everybody else.

We want fairness in this system and we need an organized system.

Thank you.

Ed, you're going to be followed by Julia Bebu.

Sorry if I mispronounce your last name.

Please, Ed.

Thank you so much, and thanks for hearing me.

I'm here to also represent the Fisher Studio building, and I would like to reinforce what Knut has said.

Nobody in our building is against the building that's going in front of our building.

We'd rather not have it, but we're well aware that that property will be developed.

But during the design review, the developer asked for everything in the world, and because of an error of that hearing with three volunteers, ten minutes of time given to express all of the complaints with that building, it was passed unanimously.

It will affect hundreds and hundreds of people in the surrounding area, and that project is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Surely the neighbors of that building should have more of a voice of what that building, what that neighbor becomes.

We're concerned about the traffic, we're concerned about the light, we're concerned about the fact that on our block there are four important historic buildings that have been completely ignored in this design process.

The process itself is flawed.

Having three architects, who are potentially professionally conflicted in the process, is not the best way to design for these huge, massive buildings in downtown Seattle.

I'm all for density.

I'm all for growth.

I've lived downtown in Seattle for 40 years.

I was part of becoming I wanted to live in the city.

I certainly understand that.

But for these buildings to be going up, essentially to be filled with people who are trying to get U.S. visas is not the sort of development Seattle needs.

We do not need to become another Vancouver.

And that's what I'm here to argue for.

Thanks so much.

Julia, you're going to be followed by Megan Cruz.

Yes, my name is Julia Biabout.

I'm also a resident of the Fisher Studio building.

I'm also a LEED accredited professional and a registered professional engineer with over 20 years experience in the building design and construction industry, 10 years of which have been devoted specifically to sustainable design.

And I also am in favor of development on this site.

We all recognize the housing crisis that is occurring in Seattle and are particularly in favor of its use for residential development.

But we do have serious concerns about the property as it is currently proposed.

It violates core sustainability principles, in particular to be in dialogue and in integration with its past, present, and future environment.

Some of these violations are, Knut and Ed have already addressed, particularly the historical past.

We are, the building has six, excuse me, the block has six historic properties on it, many of which were original foundational buildings to Seattle's downtown.

One of which is on the National Historic Register, ours which is a city landmark building.

These are buildings that actually predated mixed use before mixed use was a thing.

Our building in particular was a sort of early Carnegie Hall of Seattle and is foundational to the current modern day arts movement in Seattle.

So they're not just architecturally important, they are historically and culturally important buildings.

The design as currently proposed would dwarf these and place our buildings in permanent shadow.

and jeopardizing their future.

In terms of the present integration, as they've talked about, there's really been no meaningful way for us to engage in our neighborhood's future.

And then in terms of the future integration, there are serious concerns about the traffic and delivery that it would pose.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

Megan, you're going to be followed by Steve Rubstello.

Thank you.

I'm Megan Cruz, also of the Fisher Studio Building.

And I echo my neighbor's concerns, and I would like to talk about the process here.

An error was made.

The Design Review Board declined to mitigate the effects of height, massing, bulk, and scale, saying it wasn't in their jurisdiction, nor was it in their power to mitigate the 15-foot alley, 16-foot alley that separates the two very different zones.

That's not true.

These are in the guidelines.

What I think would help in this matter, these buildings are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

I think the design review board is very afraid to make a move that could be litigated or they could come back and be questioned.

I think we do need somebody that's not volunteer working in the system.

we do need to have these taped just the way this meeting is taped so that it's on the record and if an error was made there would be a an impeachable source to go back to that.

The second thing is that we support fully the hearing examiners request that historic landmarks are protected and that we in the area of upzoning.

So we hope that you take that seriously and work that into the legislation.

Thanks.

Thank you, Megan.

Steve.

Steve, you're our final speaker this morning on this part of public comment.

Well, as Ronald Reagan would say, here we go again.

We're going to have to, this is a national day of mourning and I expect that's a very good day for a land use meeting in Seattle.

I mourn the loss of citizen participation when the whole idea of the larger zones, the urban villages came about and the larger buildings.

Design review was a key part of it and it was just not the color of the building.

It was to look at parking, look at how it met with the neighborhood.

Was it on a border?

And we were going to have scale.

We saw all these wonderful charts about how when you put a bigger zone or a smaller zone, how the bigger zone, it was going to come down and it was going to be transition.

Well, we don't get much transition in the city of Seattle and we don't get a heck of a lot of public participation.

And, you know, some would say you kind of welched on the deal.

And I think as a member of the public who's been around for a while, I really feel that the city does not care about its citizens presently.

You care about your stakeholders.

You are loyal to Donald Trump or any other large developer, and you are more than willing to accommodate big time construction.

At the same time, citizens, remember we have an emergency in this city about housing.

You don't want to count the housing that is destroyed, and you charge so little to developers compared to anywhere else in the country that most people have found, so that what we're going to have, maybe in five, ten years, we'll have some replacement housing, but what happens during that 5, 10 years and probably the 20 years before that new housing becomes much more affordable.

In the meantime, it's not good.

Thank you, Steve.

That concludes public comment.

For the folks that have been here for the last three days testifying on a particular development downtown, I think it's fair to say that each member of this committee has heard you now three days in a row.

both at the Monday MHA discussions, again yesterday at the Sustainability and Transportation Committee, and then again here this morning.

Because of the volume of work that has gone on over the last couple days, my office has not had a chance to follow up with the Department of Construction and Inspections to get a better understanding.

But we certainly have your information, and once we have a better understanding about the process that this project has gone through, we'll follow up.

So with that, we'll move on to Agenda Items 1 through 3. While Noah reads those into the record, I would ask our presenters to come forward.

Agenda items one through three, appointments 01194 through 01196. Reappointment of David A. Goldberg as a member of Seattle Planning Commission for a term to April 15, 2021. Reappointment of Richard E. Moeller as a member of Seattle Planning Commission for a term to April 15, 2021. And reappointment of Julio A. Sanchez as a member of Seattle Planning Commission for a term to April 15, 2021.

Thank you.

Let's do some brief introductions.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Vanessa Murdock, Executive Director of the Seattle Planning Commission.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Julio Sanchez, and I represent the Planning Commission here as one of the members to be reappointed.

So Vanessa, we've got three reappointments this morning of folks that have been serving on the commission for some period of time.

Why don't you walk us through those reappointments, and then we'll get to a couple of questions for you, Mr. Sanchez.

Certainly.

Thank you.

So the two reappointments that I'd like to speak to are, first, David Goldberg.

David Goldberg was first appointed to the commission in 2017. He is currently an ombudsman for WSDOT, representing the 520 Project.

He has played a key role in Smart Growth.

He is a former journalist and he is currently co-chair of our Land Use and Transportation Committee.

Rick Moeller was appointed in 2018, earlier this year.

Rick is an architect and professor of architecture at the University of Washington.

He lives in the Tangletown neighborhood of Seattle, and I should mention that David Goldberg lives in Wallingford.

And I'm happy to answer, try to answer questions on their behalf.

And Mr. Sanchez, you've been serving for quite a little while now, three years?

Two years?

Three years?

Three years.

Why don't you talk a little bit about the work that you've done on the commission so far and what you plan to do with the remainder of the time that you've got with the reappointment?

Thank you.

I'd like to highlight the teamwork that happens in the commission because When you are part of the planning commission, you're actually part of a group of people that works as a team, works together.

And some of the things that I believe need to be highlighted from the teamwork that we do is the stewardship of the comprehensive plan, the neighborhood for all report.

Here is a copy in case anybody wants to.

take it, the support for the MHA measures, and of course, the removal of barriers for the construction of accessible dwelling units, aka backyard cottages.

So that is some of the work that we have done as a team.

Personally, as I continue to work with the commission, I also like to continue representing the community where I live, the Central District, and the community where I have lived for the almost last 10, 15 years.

So that's my personal goal.

You know, we're, I think, very happy to have so many great leaders on the Commission that have been working on really difficult problems for a long time.

You know, you go back to Commission reports from 10 or 15 years ago that started highlighting some of the challenges that we're now seeing in today around industrial lands pressures and about half of our agenda relates to reports that the commission's authored in the 90s and the 2000s.

So I'm really grateful to the work that the commission does and grateful to you for your interest in continuing to serve.

I'd ask if my colleagues have any questions or thoughts that they might like to add.

I'll just second what Councilmember Johnson said.

Mr. Sanchez, I thank you for your ongoing commitment to this.

I know, well, I pretend to know how time-consuming it is to serve on the Planning Commission.

I can only imagine how much that is, and I really appreciate your willingness to be part of that.

I'm really grateful, frankly, that you came today.

It's a reappointment, and folks don't have to come, and not to criticize the other two for not being here, but it's great that you showed up here, and I appreciate the other work you do in community and the perspective you bring to this work.

You know, the Planning Commission really challenges us through conversations and through very thoughtful reports on how to think about where the city's going, and that work is invaluable.

It's not without controversy, and I really appreciate folks, you know, the group that sits around those tables and thinks about just picking what you want to work on next, how you're going to approach it, what lens you're going to look through it.

And I've always been impressed with the thoughtfulness and the kind of foresight.

And frankly, the racial justice and social justice lens through which you think of land use and help me and others think of these sometimes kind of wonky technical issues that have a real impact on how we live in a city and who gets to live in the city and what that looks like.

So thanks so much for all that you do, and I'm really grateful that you're willing to serve another term.

So thanks.

Ditto all of that.

I appreciate your willingness to serve and the approach you bring to this work.

I do want to just make note of a couple things about the composition right now.

I see that as it relates to the geographic composition of the Planning Commission, we don't have any representation from Districts 2, 4, and 7. A lot of representation in District 6, we've got 8 folks from there, only 2 from District 3, so thanks for sticking with it, and 1 from District 1 and 1 from District 5. So I think in Districts 5, 1, 2, 4, and 7 there's some work to be done.

And similarly, I think on the diversity work as well, I think there's some efforts to be made there and maybe can accomplish both in one effort, you know, sort of benefit both the diversity side and the geographic side with upcoming appointments.

So I appreciate you taking a look at that.

Certainly.

And it is our desire and our effort to have both a geographic diversity, a gender diversity, a perspective diversity.

And we'd love to work with your office and other offices in the council to increase our geographic diversity.

We did have two people on, three people from West Seattle who weren't not able to fill their terms.

So we, in the opening positions that we will have next year, we will certainly be reaching out to your office and others to help.

I would appreciate helping you do that outreach.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

If I could add to personal notes of recognition, I want to recognize that the reason why I was able to join the commission is because I was given the opportunity to go through a leadership program, development leadership program that was and still functioning under Puget Sound SAGE.

This is the third year that the leadership program is continuing and being exposed to that growth opportunity is what brought me to the opportunity of being in the commission.

So I want to please ask that in any way you can support similar leadership programs, please continue to do so.

And I also want to recognize the staff that helps the commission because we wouldn't be able to do the work that we do if it wasn't because of the staff.

So I just wanted to add those two notes.

Thank you.

Excellent comments.

It's an outstanding program, the Puget Sound Sage Rose and other similar programs.

But thanks for highlighting that.

It's a great point.

So seeing no further discussion on this, I'd move to confirm appointments 1194 to 1196. Second.

Any further discussion?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

Those appointments are confirmed.

Mr. Sanchez, thank you again for being here.

We will have the appointments in front of the full council on Monday the 10th.

You're welcome to join us, but certainly not required to be there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Appreciate you being here.

Let's move on to agenda item number four.

And while Noah reads the short title of that into the record, I'd ask those presenters to please come forward.

Agenda Item 4, Council Bill 119424, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, amending the Seattle Comprehensive Plan to incorporate changes proposed as part of the 2017-2018 Comprehensive Plan annual amendment process.

Welcome wish Whitson of our own council central staff to walk us through this set of amendments related to the comprehensive plan and Vanessa Murdoch from the Planning Commission sticking around to provide feedback, right?

So this is the final step in the 2017 2018 comp plan amendment process in April 2017 there was a call for potential amendments to the comp plan council members received a number of Proposed amendments in August of 2017, you set a docket of amendments to be considered.

Those were grouped in four different categories.

Mandatory housing affordability related amendments that you will take up next year along with the other MHA related legislation.

Impact fee related amendments that are currently on hold pending resolution of environmental.

review appeals, industrial area amendments, which are still pending, and then another set of amendments that include one of the two amendments that finally made it into this ordinance.

In October 2017, the executive issued a determination of non-significance on these amendments.

So in front of you is a piece of legislation that would adopt two of the changes that came out of this process.

The first amends the goal that guides city regulations related to off-street parking in order to clarify that supporting affordable housing is one of the things that go into play in Council's consideration of affordable housing requirements.

And the second Amendment would remove two blocks from the Ballard Interbay North End Manufacturing Industrial Center to allow SPU to consider expanding onto those blocks as they prepare a future major institution master plan.

And this is the Seattle Pacific University SPU as opposed to our own Seattle Public Utilities SPU.

We'll take up their master plan later.

Well, I leave that to Councilmember Herbold's capable hands.

Please continue.

So that's all I have.

And the commission has sent us a letter regarding this set of discussions, so Vanessa, jump in.

Thank you.

So the Planning Commission recommended approval of the text change to the Land Use Goal 6 regarding reducing the cost of housing and increasing affordable housing by regulating off-street parking.

We recommended not to approve the change to the future land use map adjusting the BNMIC boundary.

We recognize that as an institution, Seattle Public Seattle Pacific University is different than another proponent might be, a private developer.

However, the commission has remained steadfast in our recommendations to protect industrial lands and absent stronger policy or policy direction regarding how we maintain and preserve our industrial lands.

We recommended not approving this adjustment to the BINMIC and really look forward to engaging in a conversation about our industrial lands and land use policies to protect them.

You know, I share that interest, Vanessa, in terms of a desire to have a more comprehensive review of the industrial lands policies.

We have been waiting on that set of recommendations and reports to come out of the Mayor's Office for the last couple of years now.

And absent, I think, that more comprehensive review, considering that this amendment has been in discussion since mid-2016, or if not mid-2017, I can't remember which one.

2017. 2017. I think we, it's incumbent upon us at some point to take some sort of action on some of these individual pieces.

And in this one in particular because it's a, Domino that needs to fall before Seattle Pacific University takes up their major institution master plan.

There's a lot of confusion and lack of clarity.

I know that we are going to open up the public hearing in just a little bit and hear from members of the public, but want to surface that I've received letters from several folks in support of this amendment, both representing the North Seattle industrial area as well as nearby property owners.

So we'll see about the controversy associated with it when we open up for the four folks who signed up to give comment during the public hearing in just a few minutes.

It seems to me like this is a relatively small change that's relatively non-controversial that I'd love for us to consider so that we can allow for the lengthy major institution master process to then take over for SPU.

So, but this is the chance for folks to ask questions and we certainly will have that chance again after the public hearing, but I wanted to see Council Member Herbold, looks like you want to jump in.

I do.

We've received as Chair Johnson has indicated a number of emails from folks who are typically industrial land stakeholders in favor of this amendment and most of those emails have spoken to the fact that they don't believe that this change is precedent-setting.

I would love to hear from both of you on that.

Yeah, so there are two major institutions that abut industrial areas, University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University.

SPU is the only one that abuts a manufacturing industrial center.

So in terms of expanding an existing major institution boundary into a MICC, this is the only one that I know of.

And so from the Planning Commission's perspective, as I mentioned earlier, we recognize that this is a different situation than the usual.

We do have concerns about future land use map adjustments that we see on an annual basis.

We do have concerns about precedent setting.

We review the comp plan amendments every year, and every year we receive a number of requests to take land out of our manufacturing industrial centers.

So we are remaining consistent with our past opinions and

I'll chime in, too.

I really respect not just the broad work that the Planning Commission does, but I appreciate your analysis on this one, too.

And I actually agree with everything you say.

I'm inclined to disagree with the decision in the end.

Largely because this process seems to be going on indefinitely with no end in sight.

And I believe we share the frustration that we do need to resolve some policy around what we're doing in our industrial land.

You know, numerous times in the past I've agreed with the Planning Commission on holding off, and at some point it feels like, I'm not sure what the metaphor would be, but it's an exercise in futility because It's not clear, it seemed like years ago we were months from getting it and now it seems like we're further away from getting it now.

And so I think that's a separate question on how we address that.

I think the planning commission is totally appropriate to be pushing to resolve that issue because it does impact, frankly, hundreds of other decisions we're trying to make around the city with our industrial lands and adjacent lands.

without a clear policy or an updated policy, it's really hard to do.

Because, as my colleagues have mentioned, We've heard, I think, unanimous support from folks involved in this to move forward.

Sensitive to the precedent, I am inclined to, although I'm curious to hear what we hear in the public hearing, inclined to support the amendment.

Council Member Wolk.

Yeah, just an addition to follow up.

I think, although it is true that the review of industrial lands policy has gone on for a long time and there doesn't seem to be and end in sight, I want to make clear that the decision that I'm likely to make on this is not about that.

It is about the unique nature of this because, and I just want to make that clear because I think lots of other proposals could come forward and point to that being the reason why we should act on it.

So if I vote in favor of it, it is because I think this is a unique request.

Well, without further ado then, let's open up the public hearing on this Council Bill, which is Council Bill 119-424.

We've got four individuals who've signed up to give testimony this morning.

When I call your name, please come to one of the two microphones.

Alex Zimmerman is first and Dan Martin is second.

Hi.

Yeah.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

Yeah.

What is I see for last 30 year, what is I live in Seattle, situation very unique.

What has happened for last five year make me absolutely sick.

It's not sickness, it's a stupidity, what is I never see before from one civilized business and I'm businessman for all my life and business consultant.

What is you did for last five year, situation very unique.

You bring a problem, is right now you want fixes this problem, zoning.

Everything what is you doing, I'm totally disagree because it's idiotic from beginning.

Why you for five years never stop in Amazon?

Never.

I'm only one man who come to this place 1,000 times, more than 2,000 times, and talk about zone need be stopped, fix it, all problem.

But you're very interesting.

I call you a Nazi garbage rats who drink from fat cat toilets.

That's exactly who you are.

In all council who care, no one have experience with business.

Your mentality, totally government mentality, and government mentality is against people.

You, number one people enemy.

Right now, you're talking about zoning, zoning, zoning, but situation never will be go better.

It will be worse, not matter what is you're doing right now, because from beginning, you don't stop in Amazon.

Stop Amazon now.

Nine council for many year, for last five year, no one talk stop Amazon, no one.

Stop in Amazon, every 10% of Amazonian move down from downtown, we fix it all problem.

You never doing this.

Guys, you are number one people enemy.

In my proposition, very simple, I'm against this stupidity, and I think before we not cleanse this dirty chamber from this mentally sick Nazi Gestapo principle, you know what is mean, what is control the city, nothing will be changed.

It's my professional opinion.

They hire my dirty Fuhrer.

Dan Martin, you're going to be followed by Steve Gillespie, and then Steve Rubsello.

My name is Dan Martin.

I serve as president of Seattle Pacific University, and I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you today.

Certainly would move for an affirmative response, and the proposal that is before you.

This is really the result of years of conversation from the university's perspective with city officials, with elected officials, with members of the industrial community, and with members of our local community there in Queen Anne.

And this is really the next step in a conversation.

This is a part of the conversation that we'll certainly want to look at the future use of these particular parcels as we consider how we might leverage these particular parcels to accomplish what the broader community would like to see in terms of the future of our community and Seattle Pacific University, certainly to serve our mission, but then to serve the broader community so that all members of our community might flourish.

When we were founded in 1891, Seattle was a relatively small city of 40,000 people.

And we've been in partnership with the city ever since.

As the city has grown and progressed, has become a world-class city, really a world-shaping and a world-defining city.

The university has also grown in reputation and influence.

And we want to continue our partnership with the city as we think about the future, as we think about being a future-facing university so that we might remain and continue to be a vital contributing member of this community and its future.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Steve Gillespie and then Steve Rubstello.

Good morning and thank you for taking up this amendment proposal and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I echo what President Martin said.

We really appreciate the work that has gone into this proposal and it became a formal proposal in mid-2017, but we've been working on it with the City for quite a few months, maybe up to a year before that.

So I really appreciate you bringing it forward today.

It's been a lot of work on your staff members, Council Central staff, the Planning Commission, the executive side, CIO, TCD, et cetera.

I want to address quickly what this amendment will do and what it will not do to get at some of the Planning Commission concerns.

This amendment adjusts the eastern boundary of the BNMIC, but it does not change the industrial designation or zoning of the property.

That remains in place, and it does not establish a major institution overlay.

As was mentioned by the committee, that can only happen after a major institution master planning process, which as you well know is a years long Discussion with the community with the institution with the city and with stakeholders There will be dozens of public meetings Associated with that request this is not the end approval of this amendment is not the end of the conversation It is the beginning of the conversation about how best to use this land to facilitate quality jobs to facilitate the continued thriving of a 125 year old institution in the city so I urge you to vote in support of this amendment recommend that the full council vote for it and thank you again very much for your time.

Steve.

Industrial zoning is less and less and less in the city and this may be a starter but Why start until you're sure that you really want to go that way?

This is whiz-bang zoning with up zone only that we've seen in the city for quite a while.

I've never seen someone come here with a proposal for a down zone and this committee take them anything close to seriously.

The zoning in this city appears to only be the starting point.

in one's dreams and desires.

It should be capable of working both ways and especially when you have something as rare as industrial zoning.

And it's vulnerable because its return is not extremely high compared to some of the other zonings.

If you put that at risk, you start looking at other opportunities, the valuations go up, and guess what?

The industrial zoning tends to disappear for any of the other permitted uses.

And we have seen very liberal approach to the city to allowing ideas of greatness which may not be supported by the rest of the community.

I hope that we will look very carefully at preserving our industrial land, what little is left, because Seattle should not have to have a bigger carbon input to the system by having everything transported from a long ways away.

and no industrial jobs in the city.

So let's save what we've got.

It's not much.

That concludes the individuals who signed up to speak on the public hearing, so I will close the public hearing on Council Bill 119-424.

Colleagues, no surprises out of those four folks giving testimony, but I wonder, Mr. Woodson, one of the things that we will have to do if we would like to vote on this today is to suspend the rules.

We need to do that because of the the comprehensive plan requirements about once a year updating.

Can you just remind us a little bit about that process?

Right.

So, under the Washington State Growth Management Act, the council may amend the comprehensive plan only once a year.

This is the last PLEZ meeting of the year and...

Potentially.

This is likely the last PLEZ meeting of the year.

And so if you do not act on this bill at this meeting and don't hold a second meeting this month, then these amendments would need to be held until you take up comprehensive plan amendments next year.

So my recommendation, colleagues, given the public testimony that we heard during the public hearing and what we have received in advance of today's meetings is to suspend the rules and take action on this today, which is not something we usually do on the same day as a public hearing, but is something we do when there is some time constraints and not significant overwhelming opposition.

So I'd like to start the process of consideration by moving to suspend the rules to vote on Council Bill 119-424 on the same day as a public hearing.

further discussion on that.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

So none are opposed.

So let's talk a little bit about it.

Any concerns or questions that came up after the public hearing that folks want to surface?

No, I appreciate the comments from folks.

I think that I'm still supportive of the amendments as they are.

I want to just highlight that there was another amendment that had been proposed, which was to bring in a transportation project list into the comprehensive plan, which is a required step towards doing transportation impact fees.

But that amendment had been, is the determination of non-significance for SEPA analysis has been challenged by some lawyers.

It's not ripe for discussion now, so that will have to wait until 2019. So that work continues, but I think these two amendments make a lot of sense, and I appreciate your work on this Council Member Johnson.

I appreciate the Planning Commission and yours Lish, and I also appreciate public comment.

Yeah, just to add to that, I wanted to ask Lish if we were going to consider that other comp plan amendment next year, the addition of the transportation project list necessary to consider a future transportation impact fee program.

When would that comp plan process begin?

When would we be likely to vote on it next year?

Just trying to get a sense of when we would hope for that appeal to be resolved.

So I think the, we'll know more after December 16th when there's a meeting with the hearing examiner about that appeal and the process and the timeline.

But the intent is to act on comprehensive plan amendments at the same time that you are acting on mandatory housing affordability code changes because many of those changes rely on changing urban village boundaries.

And so the comprehensive plan should be consistent with any changes to urban village boundaries that you make.

All right, so that's springtime.

And normally for comp plan amendments, we have to do a resolution in advance naming them.

Is that correct?

Yeah, so we still have the resolution that was adopted in the summer of 2017.

Okay, so we're working off of that one.

Yeah.

Alright, just wanted to make sure that we, if we did need to pass another resolution, you know, whether or not we could, we needed to, or we were able to include ideas that are being appealed.

But if we are, the 2016 resolution is still valid for 2019 deliberation?

Yes you'll have the opportunity this coming spring and summer to pass the next resolution that lays out a new set of work on the comp plan.

Oh so we will have to pass another resolution?

No after the impact fees and mandatory housing affordability and industrial lands changes were all called out in the 2017 amendment.

resolution, so we're still working on completing that work.

All right.

And we traditionally have had that process.

We took 2018 off under the hope that we were going to be considering MHA, but because that didn't come to fruition, we hope that we'll take up that work again post the MHA vote.

But the things that you outlined, Council Member Herbold, just to reiterate, are included within the existing work plan, so there shouldn't be a problem for us to consider.

Okay, so without further ado then, I would like to move to adopt Council Bill 119424. Second.

Any further discussion?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nope.

That Council Bill is adopted out of committee and will be back in front of us at the full Council on Monday the 10th.

We'll take a brief reprieve from you, Mr. Whitson, but have you back here in just a minute to talk about the major institution master plan.

Thank you for all your good work on this.

I really appreciate it.

Agenda item number five.

Mr. Ahn, will you read that one to the record while I ask presenters to please come forward?

Agenda item five, council bill 119398, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning amending the title of chapter 23.52, subchapter one of the Seattle Municipal Code.

and amending sections 23.52.004 and 23.52.008 of the SMC and repealing section 23.52.002 of the SMC to implement the comprehensive plan adopted level of service standard.

Thank you very much.

Let's do some brief introductions.

Good morning.

I'm Eric McConaghy on the Council Central staff.

Gordon Clowers, SDCI.

And I'm Emily Ehlers with SDAT.

Michael Hubner with the Office of Planning and Community Development.

So while we figure out the technology necessary to put the presentation up on the big screen, I just want to take a minute to remind folks about this particular amendment.

Way back when, when we adopted the comprehensive plan in 2016, one of the things that we did was we set aside parts of the city where we wanted to see a particular level of transit ridership and service, and asked the Department of Construction and Inspections and Planning Department and Department of Transportation to come back to us with how we could implement those objectives, particularly within new residential developments.

We have seen as a city a lot of success through the statewide commuter production program at getting people out of their cars and onto other modes of transportation than single occupancy vehicles in their workplace, but we've struggled to replicate that in the residential environment.

So this new set of tools that we're going to walk through today will allow for us to require developers in certain sections of the city to offer a wider set of options to their residents as part of meeting their service standards that we expect as we contemplate growing, particularly around our transit centers throughout the city.

So with that sort of forte, forefront, intro, something.

I'm a little rusty today.

I'll turn it over to you, Michael, to kick off the presentation.

So long as it's not foreshadowing, I think we're okay.

Good morning.

Thanks for for having us here this morning.

I'm with the Office of Planning and Community Development, so the amendments that are before you today are a flow out of, especially the level of service standard and concurrency requirements flow out of the city's comprehensive plan, so I'm going to take the lead on presenting those requirements, but I'm here with construction inspections and Department of Transportation because the implementation and enforcement of those standards will flow through those departments.

We're going to be talking about two sub chapters of Seattle Municipal Code 23.52.

Subchapter one deals with the transportation level service project review system.

That's the main topic we want to cover.

There is a subchapter two in the ordinance that is a, think of this as a technical update to clarifying which projects would be subject to transportation impact studies relative to CBER thresholds.

These are not directly related.

While they are in the same ordinance, I'm going to have the DCI staff speak to the second one especially.

Also important to note that the LOS standards and the concurrency requirements that we'll be talking about are just one tool in our toolbox to address transportation impacts of new development in the city.

We have SIPA review, transportation impact studies themselves, and potentially in the future tools such as impact fees that the council may be considering.

These are all separate and complementary tools.

So starting with the comprehensive plan, as noted, this reflects a policy shift in the comprehensive plan that addresses a variety of policy aims through our level of service standards.

Level of service standards are merely a technical measure of our system performance, that's kind of a wonky way of talking about how well are we providing for mobility within the city for people and for goods.

This is required aspect of the Comprehensive Plan under the Growth Management Act.

And prior to 2016, when we updated the Comprehensive Plan, we had defined LOS level of service using what are called screen lines, essentially looking at the volume of traffic relative to the capacity of our arterials at various measurement points throughout the city.

This was a highly automobile-centric measure and it implied potential fixes to exceeding the capacity of our roadways that addressed only or primarily automobiles.

But the 2016 update to the plan was an opportunity to update our approach to level of service to address a variety at policies in the comprehensive plan.

One was the emphasis on moving people and not just vehicles.

Another is our emphasis on working toward our climate change goals of becoming carbon neutral as a city by 2050. And with the transportation sector being such an important and large piece of our greenhouse gas emissions, moving people away from a reliance on drive alone trips, single occupancy vehicles was one.

way that the city can have a major impact on our greenhouse gas emissions and setting the LOS standards in a way that shapes development and provides a measure of how we are doing as a city that tells us how well we are shifting those trips to those other modes was seen to be a better way of approaching LOS.

The screen line approach in practice provided us a measure to compare new development when it was proposed.

We had transportation traffic impact studies that showed how many trips were generated by And we were able to compare that to what we knew about the arterial capacity at those screen lines.

In practice, this was largely a paper exercise.

We rarely, if ever, exceeded those capacity numbers that were in the screen line ratios that were established in the comp plan.

And it didn't provide for any meaningful change to either development or actions the city was taking to shape travel and provide options for people within the city.

So in the 2016 update, after a long process of interdepartmental work and work with a consultant to build upon the modeling that was done for the environmental impact statement in the plan, we arrived at an approach that was based on mode share.

In other words, the share of trips that are made during p.m.

peak hour time from 3 to 6 p.m.

by drive-alone trips, by single occupancy vehicles, as a measure that tells us the most in a simple and direct way about how our transportation system is functioning.

We do have an idea of how many single occupancy vehicle trips our system can accommodate, and by looking at the mode share, And combining that with what we know about growth that's expected in the city out to 2035, we set targets for each of eight sectors in the city.

And this slide shows you the targets for each of those eight geographic sectors for the share of trips that will be made by drive alone during the PM peak period in 2035. This represents a 2 to 5% decrease in each of those geographic sectors.

And as we implement development standards, which I'll talk about shortly, that help shape growth and development to reinforce progress toward these goals, we'll be able to monitor progress citywide and within each of these sectors using travel survey data that's available from the Puget Sound Regional Council.

So this slide illustrates some of the thinking behind Essentially that aimed to emphasize moving people rather than vehicles and making the most efficient use of our limited right of way.

You'll see here some of the assumptions that went into setting the new LOS standard relating to the growth expected by 2035. And how in modeling how our arterials are impacted by that growth and the trips that come from new housing and from new businesses, that if those trips are made by people driving alone, it occupies a great deal of our limited capacity in our right-of-way, a right-of-way that that in a built-out city cannot easily, feasibly, from a financial, environmental, or community impact standpoint be expanded.

We are, quite frankly, limited in our ability to add new vehicle lanes.

So making efficient use of those is a priority of the plan.

And you can see in this example illustrated here, traveling by bus takes up much less of the right-of-way per person moving through our existing transportation system.

So how this works under the new LOS standard is projects come are proposed both residential and non residential throughout the city.

We first, and part of this is covered, I should say, what you see on this slide here is covered in the ordinance.

We also have a joint director's rule, which I'll talk about shortly, which describes the tools available to developers.

But first off is to identify which projects are subject to review at what level.

And the ordinance stipulates that projects above a certain size are subject to the LOS project review roughly The size parameters here translate into at least 30 trips generated during that peak hour period on a given weekday.

So that would be residential projects in excess of 30 dwelling units, non-residential at 4,000 square feet of a floor area or greater, or industrial projects at 30,000 square feet of floor area or greater.

Those are the size thresholds that would then be subject to additional review.

On top of that, Based on our modeling and analysis for the comp plan, we know that projects that are located in certain locations in the city that have very rich transit options and choices for traveling other than single occupancy vehicle and are also close to a variety of goods and services and jobs.

And what we identified as those areas that have the highest ability to attract non-SOV trips are our urban centers.

shown in blue on this map are hub urban villages, shown in green, and a half-mile walk distance to light rail stations.

And what you see are the existing and then soon to come on service light rail stations within the city.

Obviously, that system will expand in the future.

Projects located in those areas substantially will contribute to us achieving those SOV share goals in the future.

And so those projects would be, then have satisfied the development standard by locating within any of those three geographies.

Please, Council Member Herbold.

So are you saying that projects within those areas won't receive a review, an LOS review, because they're already deemed to meet the standards?

Essentially, the LOS review will start with a locational determination.

So when a master use permit comes in the door, it would include, the first cut would be where is this project located and does it fall within any of these three areas.

And that is a performance standard in and of itself.

It's a locational performance standard.

For projects that are located outside of those three areas within the city, there's a menu of options that essentially are choices that the developer has that would add features to the development itself, or have the developer pay for or contribute to public improvements or other services to the tenants of those buildings that would make it easier and cheaper for their tenants to use a variety of travel options other than SOV.

So those, that menu is in a preliminary draft joint director's rule that's coming out of DCI and SDOT.

They work closely with us to draft that rule.

After you would adopt an ordinance, the formal draft would be released and based on, certainly based on your feedback and what we hear, Up till then, there'll be a comment period, and then that will be finalized, and that director's rule will guide implementation.

What the preliminary draft says right now is that it provides a menu of five options.

One is to construct new sidewalks in the project area.

A second option would be to construct new curb ramps in the project area.

So both of those are features of our pedestrian network.

A third would be to reduce the number of parking spaces in the project.

Now that wouldn't change the parking requirements that are currently in effect, but rather provide an incentive for less parking than might otherwise have been provided within the current requirements in the city.

Providing a mix of uses in the project.

A mix of uses would bring residences and the kinds of services and goods that residents might make trips by auto to reach into walking distance and essentially reduce the number of SO trips generated by the project.

And finally, have the developer contribute to subsidizing bus passes through the Metro Orca Passport Program.

This would make it easier for tenants to access transit, use transit for making more trips.

Essentially, this is a suite of transportation demand management tools, similar to what you would see for an employer-based program to reduce commute trips, but would apply to both residential and other types, smaller non-residential projects throughout the city.

This is a suite of tools that we can certainly and would be monitoring their use of over time and could adjust.

Based on how those tools are being used, what we know about the data that show how our mode share is shifting over time.

And finally, if none of these tools work for a given developer, there's a choice that a project developer could propose an additional tool as long as they demonstrate that that tool through their own traffic impact studies show would reduce SOV trips by at least 4%.

So a modest decrease in the number of trips that would be generated through drive alone in the project.

So Michael, this might be a question for you, but it might also be a question for Gordon.

I mean fundamentally what we're trying to achieve here is a new set of requirements for developers in a large majority of the city that would require them to really think through how their residents or the tenants of their buildings will get to or from that place in the evening peak period.

How many of these requirements that you have on this list are in place today?

And what's the difference between the tools that we require of developers today and what would happen if we were to adopt the bill before recognizing there's also a director's rule and implementation that will come along with it?

I've done a lot of talking.

I'm going to ask Gordon Clary from DCI to speak to that and how this functions right now in terms of our requirements.

Well, I would say that these tools are not available today and in the sense of an upfront action that can be worked into the project plan itself.

So, if a developer were to come in today and not meet the goals and standards that we have included in the comp plan for You know, the number of folks that are coming to and from their developments by single occupancy vehicle, there's really no way for us to address that issue today.

But this menu that we've got in front of us would allow for the Department of Construction and Inspections to effectively require changes to the development before it gets built that would bring it into line with what our expectations are for a city around the mode share for that particular building.

That's largely true if I would have to say if there is a particular Shortfall or significant problem with a sidewalk in front of a or near near a project that we could require incremental improvement of that kind or Street or traffic signal adjustment, but that's a little bit different category Please

So in the menu of transportation management tools, there are a number of different items.

Most of them require an additional investment from the developer.

One of them does not.

One of them would result in a savings to the developer.

And I'm concerned about how that particular menu might incentivize the option of that results in a savings in development cost to the developer.

And it's the question about the reducing the number of parking spaces in the project.

So if our goal is to get more investments that incentivize fewer single occupancy vehicle trips, why would we include in this menu of options an item that doesn't add to our transportation infrastructure in a way that incentivizes other modes of transportation.

It just seems like developers will gravitate to the option that will reduce their development costs and we won't get the investments that we need for our system.

Well, there could be different motivations from different applicants to provide a little bit more parking or not provide as much parking, and I think it's a real possibility that they will choose other non-parking improvements.

That said, however, there is a direct sort of relationship between how much parking is available and what the likely resident who will be there, what their profile will be in terms of car ownership.

Most likely, lesser parked projects would tend to have more households with people that don't own cars.

And that in itself will start to shift the trip generation.

And we've had this conversation before and I think there is definitely anecdotal information and some limited statistical information that supports what you're saying.

But I don't think, I think the verdict's still out whether or not, you know, what percentage of people who live in buildings without parking are parking on the street.

and taking up street space and whether or not it's actually encouraging people to not own cars and to take transit.

I have concerns about this mix of tools.

I also have concerns about the fact that We have set standards for when we reduce parking within frequent transit areas, and this seems like this would allow for reduced parking beyond our current standards outside of frequent transit areas as well.

And I think that might be a pretty big policy issue, if I'm understanding it correctly.

Explain how this, how does this relate to our existing standards?

Does this change those, or is it just within the flexibility they already have?

It's within the flexibility we already have.

It does not change the existing standards.

Within the existing standards, there are a range of choices that developers have in terms of how many spaces they would provide within a project.

So what this does, it indeed provides, in a sense, I'd say a modest incentive within that range to be closer to the minimum, and that varies depending on the location and what standard applies throughout the city.

I would say in response to the question that developers are going to be Even absent this new requirement, they're going to be setting parking as they see makes sense for their project within the envelopes sent by our standards.

I would say that this incentive would most likely be used by a developer where they saw that there was a a potential oversupply of parking within the project and the project could very well still work within and still meet this requirement.

I also think that a large number of projects even outside of the exempt areas, the hub urban villages, the urban centers, the transit station areas, would already be meeting this requirement because they would have the flexibility within existing standards to provide parking, less parking within our standards.

But this does not change the standards.

One thing that we can and will do is collect data on how this is being implemented over time.

And then also, because we know what the standards are and that there is It's evident that many projects are using the new standards to provide less parking within projects that we have a very active and robust set of curbside management tools to address any spillover or neighborhood impacts that may be resulting already within our parking standards.

This would not change that equation really.

We still have that set of tools.

But we can collect data on how many projects are using this.

and what difference it really makes on the parking side.

I think it's a relevant question.

A couple of people were pulling their microphones closer.

The first one I saw was Gordon.

Is there anything that you'd like to add to that?

No.

Okay.

Eric?

Just very briefly, by clarification, just reiterating what Michael said, this menu of options here are in the joint director's rule, which is still to be rolled out.

So the implementation of the changes in the rules in the law and the bill would rely on this being established.

So if that's helpful in terms of your discussion and decision-making about this bill and how it moves forward, I just bring that up.

further thoughts?

So the Director's Rule is not coming back to Council, correct?

The Director's Rule is handled administratively, there's a public process.

Council certainly, either by conveying what constituents are communicating to the offices or Council members' own opinions can certainly participate in that, but it's by definition handled administratively.

And the legislation before us says that the Joint Director's Rule will provide a menu of options, so that is that is at least these items in the toolbox will be included in the director's rule.

So I just want to go back to my earlier question, just for clarification sake.

So the ability to reduce parking spaces in a project, that that will be able to happen where?

I just want to make sure that we're not making a major policy change within a director's role.

And this is a complicated topic because you have intersecting requirements and ordinances that deal with this.

Right now, projects have latitude to provide a range of parking within the project.

And this ordinance- In some places.

In some places.

Not everywhere.

Right, no, no, no.

That's my question.

There's a range everywhere.

There's a range of requirements throughout the city right now.

This menu, the concurrency LOS ordinance and the menu that guides the implementation of it does not change those requirements.

Right now, developers have that latitude to provide parking at various levels, and this does not change what they can do.

I can add a little bit too.

In the areas where there is a minimum parking requirement for residential uses, which is generally one space per dwelling unit, that requirement is still there and the choice by the developers to voluntarily hold themselves to that one space per dwelling unit minimum, which becomes essentially the maximum that they provide for that project.

In cases where there is no parking requirement at all, the choice is to provide no more than 0.6 spaces per dwelling unit.

Yeah, so my question is- That's what the data shows us in recent projects, is that what you're saying?

Those are the voluntary choices that we have drafted in the menu here.

Got it.

And largely speaking, the 0.6 spaces per unit will cover an actual parking demand for in-city multifamily projects.

So in areas where there is a minimum parking required.

minimum parking required, number of spaces required.

This tool would allow what?

To fulfill that upfront option, the developer would choose to provide no more than one space per dwelling unit.

So this would not affect those areas at all?

I thought I heard you say they could voluntarily choose to do something else in those areas.

I think that it doesn't change the floor of what's required, so there's still a minimum parking requirement.

You have to do at least that much where there is a minimum requirement.

We're just incentivizing developers to provide closer to the minimum than they may otherwise have.

Chosen to do so a project where there's a one per unit requirement a developer may voluntarily choose to do two units per requirement and We would say to be in compliance with this you could choose to do a menu of things including Reduce your parking to one per unit instead of the two per unit provide them still meeting the legal minimum We're not changing that but saying why don't you voluntarily come closer to that?

That's correct

And I believe a lot of the rationale for that is based on our goals and objectives about mode share in the neighborhoods and in particular how folks are getting around and how that impacts.

you know, writ large, our city's goals around climate.

Now, Council Member Herbold, you and I disagree on what the literature might say about if you build it and they will come related to parking development.

But generally, I think the example that you are concerned about has been well highlighted by folks here.

And so to your specific example, Council Member O'Brien, that would be the place where I think we would see people getting asked by the Department of Construction Inspections to reduce the number of parking spaces in the project.

what is very unlikely is to see somebody who's already building at a .6 developing a level of standard that is a one space per unit and then coming into SDCI and saying, oh, the best way I can do this is to go from one to a .6.

I don't see folks gaming the system in that way, but we are going to be tracking the data and we're going to be analyzing the director's rule to see whether or not that is what's coming through.

And I think that this menu of options that I'm most excited about allows for us to really prioritize a set of infrastructure investments in curb ramps and sidewalks that we don't currently have the resources for now.

And secondly, things like subsidized bus passes, which are not a tool that is available to us to require developers to subsidized bus passes for their development.

So the residents in their units would get a menu of options that don't exist today, which I think is really important.

Thank you for the joint effort on your patience for helping me understand.

No, no, complicated set of issues with a lot of intersection overlapping.

I know we have other important things to get to today, but can I don't have clarity on what triggers this review.

So you talked about size, so projects above a certain size, 30 units or whatever it is.

And obviously, if they're within the geographies lined out early in the review, they would say, you're already qualified, so we're done.

But is there, what are the other characteristics that would cause folks to go to this menu?

Is every project oversized?

Look at this, or do you look at a project and say, oh, it looks like your project's going to generate more trips than we'd like to see?

No, it would be categorical with respect to the size and location of the project.

The important element of flexibility here certainly is the option for the developer to propose an alternative tool.

That is, if there are projects that have unique characteristics that may need to be accounted for, they're certainly, through the development review process as they come in with them up, can certainly address some of those unique characteristics.

But that would be part of that review.

It would really be impinging on the developer to demonstrate how they are,

their project is consistent with what is expected under the director's- So a project that's large enough to go through review that then is outside of the urban village, hub urban village, or urban center, hub urban village, or light rail zones.

If that project is in an area that has no parking minimums and they're providing .6 or fewer, they would then automatically qualify.

And if it was a project that had parking minimums and they were not providing more than one parking spot, they would also qualify.

And so the only folks that would go to the other bullet points would be someone who's providing more than those parking outside those zones larger, and then we'd say either reduce your parking closer to the minimums or try one of these other tools.

That's correct.

There may be other elements of proposed projects to satisfy the requirements as well, such as the mix of uses.

Okay.

Got it.

Right.

So it's a demonstrating what is the, as proposed, what does the project entail?

Does it satisfy any of the tools on the menu?

And if not, then choose one of those, yeah.

This is helpful to understand how it impacts.

Going back to the bigger policy, I wanted to say that I really support this.

I believe that when we have a level of service around vehicle throughput at intersections, as we tend to do in our society more broadly, I believe that continues to encourage folks to say, as we grow, we need to widen roads and make bigger intersections and more turn lanes and all those things.

As you all mentioned, you know, at our city, we're just not capable of doing anymore.

But it also, you know, in other jurisdictions, it encourages folks.

The answer to the solution to the problem we see is bigger roads, which starts to reinforce a system which ends up where, as I just was alerted to, carbon emissions in the United States hit a record level in 2018. And we have to be doing some different things if we want to address that.

And so I don't think this is going to radically change it, but I do think the focus on what we care about in these projects is how many single occupancy tips are your projects going to generate?

And we want to do everything we can to minimize that.

And the proposals, you know, the alternatives here to encourage folks to subsidize transit.

Obviously, we have a lot of work to do to continue to provide a robust enough transit service that we can meet demand.

And we're struggling with that at the moment.

But we can talk about transportation impact fees at another date on that and how that might help.

But I think the gist of this makes a lot of sense.

And we've got one more slide to get through before we open up the public hearing.

I'll tell you a very quick one.

So shifting gears entirely to Part 2 of the Subchapter 2 of 2352, I'll turn to Gordon to explain to you what this does.

Okay.

So this does have a relationship to the SEPA infill thresholds that we have applied for urban centers.

made those a fairly high level threshold.

This requirement has been in the code for a while, but it allows for and requires a transportation impact study for developments that are below that high threshold, but above where the older low threshold was.

So in essence, we're saying that we want to keep looking at transportation impacts.

projects of those sizes and have the ability to mitigate impacts as they arise.

And the corrections here are mainly just to update the headings and make sure that the wording of this threshold table is correct.

So in other legislation, we've created in certain areas where projects come in if they're below a certain threshold, they're exempt from going through SEPA.

If I understand this correctly, we're just making clear, but we can still require you to go through some transportation analysis independent of the more robust SEPA analysis?

Yes, and this applies specifically to urban centers at this point.

And then in other areas, the other typical SEPA thresholds are still in place.

Stealing my talking points, Council Member O'Brien.

Good job of teeing that one up.

Okay, any further thoughts from folks here on the staff side of the table?

Council Members, anything you want to ask before we open up the public hearing on this one?

Okay, so without further ado, I'd like to open the public hearing on Council Bill 119. 398 related to the comprehensive plan adopted level of service standard.

We've got four individuals who've signed up to give public testimony at this public hearing.

We're going to start with Alex Zimmerman and then Megan Cruz.

Mr. Zimmerman.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm against this plan, and I'll explain to you why, like a business consultant and professional businessman.

I have two points that I want to deliver to you.

How we can make life better for the 700,000 idiots who live in this city.

This is exactly what's happened.

Number one, this whole plan that is right now under transportation is very simple.

It's controlled by Sound Transit.

Even I call this a Nazi social democratic mafia.

The council in this room, all under this plan.

Under this, Sound Transit, Nazi social democratic mafia.

So, point number one, We need to clean this dirty chamber from this consul who make life miserable and go worse and worse for every day and never will be better.

It's very important.

It's number one.

Number two, my recommendation.

So right now, I don't blame you, this consul, for 100%, but I speak to you, Seattle Emerald degenerate, super smart freaking idiot.

professional, educate city, don't understand what has happened here.

Why?

Why people who come here talking about Tylenol?

Yeah, it's a typical recommendation when body is so sick, you need a huge operation.

Look at this, it's a rabbit, a sheep come and they talk, yes, we need Tylenol for fix this problem, and another Tylenol for fix this problem.

Body dying, Seattle dying.

I have experience with Soviet Union transportation, communist transportation.

Guys, you make unique situation.

You make from American chocolate Russian shit.

It's unique situation.

I don't have analogy like this in America.

So right now I speak to you, stand up America, clean this dirty chamber from this Nazi pig and cretina.

Ms. Cruz, you're going to be followed by Judy Gibbs and then Steve Rubstello.

Okay, I think it's a good idea to expand the ways we look at transportation level of service, but this legislation needs more work.

It has big emissions and it doesn't do anything for the downtown core, which is where we're facing a real crisis.

I would recommend that we take this legislation and send it back for further study of its assumptions, the area of coverage, and how it measures traffic, not just by SOVs, but other factors.

Seattle is approaching the period of maximum constraint, and this won't measure that critical volume versus capacity that tells you where the choke points are going to be.

It also exempts downtown towers essentially from having to comply with any mitigation just because they're within so many blocks of a light rail.

There's also the problem that it won't gauge what's happening with new developments in its own neighborhood.

The new measurement is just over a wide swath of downtown Lake Union.

and West Capitol Hill, and the measurement will come every two years in a household survey put out by the Puget Sound Regional Council.

That's really not going to give us the data we need to do this right.

If we're going to do density, we have to be responsible about it.

One example, and I've got this, I hope you see this illustration, is an area that we're going to have problems with and that this LOS won't address.

On Virginia Street between 1st Avenue and 5th Avenue, on either side of the block, there will be 12 new towers going up in the next few years if they're all approved.

It will add 6,500 new residents.

2,500 new parking stalls, and thousands of more people living and working and servicing these buildings.

If we don't have some measure of what this is going to do to the street, we can't ask these developers for mitigation.

They're already exempt.

Thank you, Ms.

Cruz.

Judy Gibbs, followed by Steve Rubsello.

When I came here today, I knew we were going to be talking about parking and removing parking, and I didn't understand it was just asking the developers to put in less parking.

I'm going to have to sort of change my comments on the fly, but I am going to, I do want to comment on this.

First of all, if people can being required to reduce the amount of parking, all that means is that a lot of people are going to be parking out on the street and homes that have depended on street parking because they don't have anything else, you know, homeowners are going to be fighting for it.

I think my real point in this and the reason I came down today is that people seem to think that we can force transit use by reducing parking availability And I challenge people to get from Magnolia to the U District after 5.50 p.m.

weekdays or any time on a weekend or holiday because of lack of a transit system.

We need an adequate transit system is what I'm saying.

Right now, if I want to go to the U District, After 5.50 in the evening or any time on the weekend, I have to go downtown, take a bus and change, and go back.

It takes two hours to get to the U District, two hours each way.

If we had a transit system like Vancouver BC, which has sky trains and the bus lines crisscrossing, it would be wonderful.

I would love to take transit any place I go, I can't.

I take the bus when I go downtown, but I won't take it any place else, but I would.

what you're doing is putting the cart before the horse.

You have to improve transit availability and then cut the parking.

Mr. Upsell.

I concur, but I also think that I can go back by initial remark.

Here we go again.

I hear all these promises about who would game the system.

Developers never gamed the system in Seattle.

You know, we, it's so simple.

They love complex because it's always reinterpreted.

And I think that a nice chart should go with this, telling what the limits are.

Because right now, you're passing something which will be kind of not very specific.

And when it gets specific, it may not look a whole lot like what you have just passed.

That's been the history in Seattle about zoning.

A good build-out, a maximums, a minimums chart to show what limits the director can work in, because right now we don't have those.

We also have problems of the size of the stalls that are parking that's available.

More and more people are buying larger vehicles.

Stalls don't seem to be reflecting that.

I've seen many stalls that the largest vehicles won't go in, and those that will How do you open the doors to get in and out of the vehicle?

So that's why some people park on the street.

Another reason why people park on the street is, let's face it, if you can do it without paying and you pay one way or another in buildings, especially of any size for parking, it doesn't require the city to require that because of the lack of parking.

And another thing that has bothered me is you are choking the arteries of the city.

I have seen arterioles getting smaller and smaller.

Thank you, Mr. Rupstel.

That concludes the folks who've signed up to testify in the public hearing.

So I'm going to close the public hearing on Council Bill 119398. Colleagues.

Sure.

I'm sorry, we're in the middle of the...

Thank you, thank you.

Miss...

I'm sorry, Miss Dinch.

Okay.

So, per the conversation that we had with Lishwitson earlier today, this is one of those issues that does require action relatively quickly.

And so, I want to offer the opportunity here for folks to disagree, but I think that this one has been two years in the making, so would ask, that we consider suspending the rules today to allow for us to vote on this on the same day as a public hearing.

What is the, is this another thing that has to be passed by the end of the year?

That's my understanding, but I defer to central staff to discuss this further.

Well, the sooner this passes, the sooner the process of developing the joint rule can happen, and then the sooner it can be implemented by the city.

So- My question is no, it doesn't have to pass by the end of the year.

No, this doesn't get bundled in under the same sorts of rules with passing a comp plan once a year and that sort of thing.

I think if there is any sense of it being timely, it's that it does implement the comprehensive plan which is a requirement of the Growth Management Act that will the policies that we have in the comp plan are reflected in our code.

This is the executive's proposal to make that happen and it's been a sort of two years in the making so that's that's just by way of context and timing.

I apologize colleagues I thought that this was related to the earlier comp plan issue and required us to take action before the end of the year otherwise we'd have to delay.

So my thinking I didn't hear any public comment that will change my mind but I will defer to our rules and if any of my colleagues would prefer not to suspend the rules and give it another committee meeting, I would certainly support that.

As a person who has responsibility for chairing a committee where things come up sometimes that there's some urgency around, I'm kind of a stickler myself for when I suspend the rules and when I don't.

And I suspend the rules when there's like an actual time emergency.

And so just for my own consistency's sake, I wouldn't support suspending the rules in this instance.

I'd stand with Council Member Abbold on that.

Okay.

So in that case then we will, I won't make a formal motion since it looks like it would lose anyway.

And what we will say is we'll, we've closed the public hearing on this topic and we will anticipate taking this back up again either at our meeting in December, December the 19th or after the first of the year.

Just one small bit of business that I'd like to sort of insert here.

Thank you for letting me jump in.

There are some just technical, essentially typographic, changes that need to be made to the map that is in the code that could be taken the next time this comes before the committee.

But just in terms of letting the public know, they're listed, they're shown in the memorandum.

There's no concern on the part of the central staff to make these corrections, but I thought I would just bring it up now as part of the public record.

And then when the committee takes this up again, central staff would recommend moving to make that amendment.

Understood.

Questions about that, colleagues?

Okay, thank you all.

We'll look forward to discussing this again at a future date.

So let's move on to agenda items number six and seven.

Noah, will you again please read the abbreviated titles of those two agenda items into the record?

Agenda items six and seven, clerk file 314346, application of the University of Washington to prepare a new major institution master plan for the University of Washington Seattle campus at 4015th Avenue Northeast.

and Council Bill 119426, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, granting conditional approval of the University of Washington 2018 Campus Master Plan, Seattle Campus Master Plan, and amending Chapter 23.32 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you very much.

With us again, Lish Whitson of our council central staff.

Lish, we've been talking about the UW major institution master plan for several months now.

And during the budget process, the master plan resolution that we adopted was out for discussion and a back and forth.

But before we get to that, the sort of resolution that might have come from the back and forth communication between the various parties, Can you remind us a little bit about what the master plan is and how we've gotten to where we are today?

Sure, so you have two pieces of legislation in front of you a council bill that would conditionally approve the University of Washington's 2018 Seattle campus master plan and a clerk file granting approval as conditioned and the clerk file It's a document that surf is a repository of all of the background information on the master plan Adoption of this legislation would be the final step in the council's review of the master plan.

The master plan increases building heights and adopts development standards for development on the current University of Washington campus, including areas in the historic campus of the University of Washington to the east, south, and west of that historic central campus.

The master plan would allow the university to accommodate an additional 6 million net new square feet on campus over approximately 10 years.

And that would allow growth of the campus population by 35,000 students over that time.

The council passed resolution 31859 in September.

That was the council's preliminary decision to approve the master plan with a number of conditions.

That resolution was circulated to the University of Washington Board of Regents, the City University Community Advisory Committee, and other parties of record who had an opportunity to respond to the council's preliminary decision.

The council received 20 responses, and I'll go over those in just a minute.

Then there was an opportunity to reply to the responses, and the council received five letters in reply at that stage.

My memo for today's meeting has three attachments.

The first attachment shows changes between Resolution 31839 and Council Bill 119426. These changes incorporate technical amendments and some specific changes recommended by the University of Washington that seem non-substantive or useful to incorporate and better clarify the council's intent.

For example, the council's findings now start with a short description of the University of Washington and its importance to the city and the region.

Conclusions have been simplified to clarify that the council's authority to condition the plan rests on its general land-use police power authority, SEPA authority, and specific authority in the city-university agreement.

Attachment 2 summarizes the responses the council received.

Issues raised by the Board of Regents and other petitioners include affordable housing requirements.

The resolution would have required 150 units of housing be built affordable to university staff earning up to 60% of area median income.

And 300 units affordable to staff earning up to 80% of area median income.

The University of Washington in their response has agreed to voluntarily provide that housing.

other responses that you receive and so that's from commitment from the University of Washington.

Other respondents have asked for more housing to be built, housing units of various sizes to be included in those affordable housing projects, that the housing either be near the University of Washington or in other locations in the city of Seattle accessible by transit, and that the housing be not owned by or developed by a non-profit or a public agency, including the University of Washington, but not limited to the university, in order to ensure long-term affordability of the units.

Related to the single occupancy vehicle rate, which is sort of tied to the last discussion slightly.

In the University of Washington's plan, they included a goal of 15% of trips to the university by the end of the plan period to be taken by or made through by people using single occupancy vehicles.

The council's resolution set a goal of 12% by the end of the planned period by 2028. In their responses, the University of Washington and the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections stated that they continue to believe that 15% is more appropriate and that they can achieve that goal.

Other petitioners recommended or supported the 12% goal and recommended that the university be required to achieve that goal even sooner by 2024. Related to parking, the plan included a cap of 12,300 spaces on campus exempting student housing parking.

The council set a cap or proposed a cap of 9,000 spaces, including parking accessory to student housing.

The university's response recommended keeping the cap at 12,300, but including the student housing parking within that 12,300 space cap.

Other petitioners supported the 9,000 space cap and recommended including the 750 spaces that are accessory to the former Safeco building, or I think it's the University of Washington Tower now.

Those spaces are outside of the bounds of the major institution overlay and so aren't part of the University of Washington master plan.

There was also discussion of residential parking zone costs and requests that the university required to pay those.

Let me go to page 177 to remind you about the Building heights that were under discussion as part of the council's deliberation.

So the legislation in front of you will make significant changes to heights around the campus.

Many areas, including the area southwest of the main campus, are proposed to go to heights up to 240 feet.

The committee discussed two sites that, in particular, that had been raised by the City University Community Advisory Committee and the University District Community Council as locations where heights proposed by the university may not be appropriate.

And that's site W22, here at the north end of the university bridge, and site W37 on the west side of the university bridge.

The committee voted to consider reducing heights on site W22 to maintain the current height limit of 105 feet.

The university, in their response, asked for an increase to 240 feet and pointed to development standards included in the plan that will reduce setbacks and help shape the building.

And in their response and reply, CUCAC and the University District Community Council asked for height limits to be the current height limit, current lower height limits on sites W-37 and W-22.

So supporting the council's preliminary recommendation for W-22 and continuing their call for lower heights on W-37.

Related to transit investments, the council's preliminary decision included a requirement that the University of Washington pay for capital expenses to improve rapid ride routes serving the campus.

The University of Washington and the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections have come to an agreement on a schedule of payments and a cap of $12.7 million that would be used to implement those changes.

and that's reflected in their letters.

Bicycle facilities, the preliminary decision called for separate pathways for bicyclists and pedestrians along the Berkeley Trail to be implemented by 2024. The University of Washington asked that it be clear that they are being asked to separate users by 2024, but not necessarily create separate pathways beyond the current Burke-Gilman Trail bed that's in existence today by that date.

Petitioners asked that the Burke-Gilman Trail be widened and separated by 2021 or 2024, depending on who was writing the letter.

And the other petitioners asked that a bicycle parking plan be prepared as part of, or following on the approval of the campus master plan.

Related to childcare, the council acknowledge the university's plans to increase child care spaces on campus.

Petitioners asked that the university be required to provide child care alongside provision of affordable housing.

They also asked for a study and program for a joint employer-employee voucher program, which is something that the council has previously asked the executive to work with the university and its unions to develop.

The city-university agreement requires a annual report on implementation of the master plan, and a number of letters ask the council to report on issues raised by community and endorsed by the council as part of that annual reporting process.

And then there were a few other issues, ideas that were

Outside of the council's purview regarding the master plan not related to those issues So thus concludes the overview of the back and forth between the various appellants and proponents of the master plan process Before we get to discussion about amendments leash, which is I think where you're headed next.

I want to pause here and and say, it's my intent for us to, after we have some Q&A back and forth about what folks might wanna talk about related to the back and forth that happened between the appellants and the proponents.

It's my intent that we will then consider a set of amendments and hope, I hope, pass the ordinance out today so that we can stay on schedule to allow for review of the full council by Monday the 10th and then allow for approval, the approval process that needs to go through the official Board of Regents process as well.

But this ideally, you know, has been six or seven meetings so far on this topic and not a whole lot of significant changes in feedback that have come from the draft proposal that we adopted in September through resolution.

to today with the potential ordinance in front of us.

But I want to stop here and allow for space for people to ask questions about the letter writing that has happened back and forth between the appellants and the university.

Any questions or thoughts?

Please, Council Member Herbold.

I just want to say I believe there is an exception to your statement that there haven't been that many changes in what we see in a council bill compared to the resolution that the council moved out a few months ago.

There is the change of though the committee voted to on site 22 to maintain the 105,000 square feet.

height, this resolution puts it to the height recommended by the University of Washington, 240, is that right?

No, that's an amendment that I'm planning to bring forward.

Oh, it's an amendment, it's not contained in the bill itself?

The bill itself has the height at the proposal that came out of committee.

I did not understand that.

Much to my personal chagrin, but I'll be bringing that forward again for discussion as part of the amendment process later on.

using this as an opportunity to discuss it if it was already contained.

I hear that it's not, so I'll talk about it later.

Okay, that sounds good.

I mean, I got that right, didn't I, Lish?

Right, right.

The zoning changes incorporated in the ordinance reflect the changes made by the committee in September.

I understand that.

Okay, thanks.

So any further questions about sort of the back and forth between the various parties between September and today?

I'm not seeing any.

So, Lish, as we contemplate amendments, talk to me first about the technical amendments that are included as part of attachment one.

Do we need to make any motions to adopt those technical amendments, which you sort of gave a walkthrough of earlier?

No, those are incorporated in the base bill.

They're provided there for transparency.

So, I've had a chance to read through attachment one, and there's nothing in here that I would consider to be anything other than just what Lish said, which is technical.

So, if folks wanted to pull any of those things out, happy to entertain that, but I don't think that there's anything in here in the technical attachments associated with attachment one that is anything other than small changes to elements of the findings effects, for example, that allow for a consistency between the various parties of record.

So while folks review that, Lish, why don't we move on to the second part, which is the discussion about the individual amendments themselves.

And we've got almost 10 or so to review.

Do you want to start with, I think we're calling it Amendment A?

Yeah.

So this is a pretty simple amendment.

It adds a recital asking the University of Washington to include in its annual reports information.

about topics of interest to the city and the community.

And just as a note, other amendments further on would amend this recital to include additional items in the list.

But it's asking for updates related to, sorry.

Issues such as actions to increase access to preschool and child care, implement a priority higher program, support local economic development, and integrate minority and woman-owned businesses into the campus, and to update the city-university agreement.

So colleagues, a lot of the reason why we want to adopt the reporting requirement first here is because there are other things that we'll be asking for potentially as we get further along in the amendment discussion that also would require some sort of reporting.

So we want to start with this reporting amendment and then other amendments may be reflected in an updated reporting section of the bill when it's finally adopted.

Any discussion or questions about that?

Okay, so I'd move to adopt Amendment A as described in Attachment 3. Further discussion?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

That amendment is adopted.

Mr. Woodson, how about Amendment B1?

So Amendment B1 is related to the commitment towards providing affordable housing.

It incorporates the University of Washington's language regarding their voluntary commitment to provide at least 450 units of affordable housing.

that is affordable to various income levels.

And it would allow that housing to be built both within the campus, in the broader campus neighborhood, and then also in other locations accessible by transit to the campus.

And it asks for reporting related to that housing.

And this is sponsored by Council Members Johnson and Herbold.

Thoughts or questions, colleagues?

I would love to be a sponsor too, but I can show my support by voting in favor of it.

Just to make sure I remember the facts correctly here, Lish.

The ultimate number of 450 was derived from some evidence in the record about the number of jobs that would be low enough wage to qualify for these levels of housing.

And my recollection was there were about 900 jobs.

And the assumption was that they would be two household jobs so that we gave her, you know, in a theory of creating The units for all these, that would be 450 units of White House 2. Not that those people will necessarily be in these, but that was the concept.

It's great to see that there's a voluntary commitment, and I appreciate my colleague's amendment to kind of codify that commitment as a voluntary commitment that we'll get the units of housing, which is what I care about.

Okay, so please, Council Member.

I appreciate that there's reporting associated with this, but is there any, would there be a requirement to make a change given that it's a voluntary commitment if the situation changed somewhere down the road and the UW decided that they could not fulfill that voluntary commitment?

Or would that just be something that would come up in the reporting?

So that's a good question.

Any change to the council's conditions under the city-university agreement is considered a major change to the plan, which is generally considered a major change to the plan, which would need to come back to council.

This will be recorded as a commitment on the University of Washington that they need to fulfill.

Thank you.

Further discussion, folks?

Okay, so I'd move adoption of Amendment B-1.

Second.

Thank you.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed, so Amendment B1 is adopted.

Amendment B2, Mr. Woodson.

This amendment is also related to those affordable housing units.

It provides a little bit more flavor or guidance about the council's request related to that housing.

It asks for University of Washington to work with its employees in designing housing, using sort of best practices to Talk to the people who are the potential occupants of the housing before you start designing what that looks like.

Consider a range of housing types and planning for the housing, not just small studio units, and working with nonprofit developers or other public agencies to keep rents affordable in perpetuity.

Council Member Ryan, do you want to speak to this amendment?

I'll just say that the tools we have at our disposal are, in some respects, kind of suboptimal.

But because it's a quasi-judicial process, we can't have the types of dialogue with various parties to kind of negotiate what this looks like and where our authority starts and ends is debatable, too.

And so certainly this is intent, and as you mentioned, kind of best practices.

And my hope is that University of Washington will follow that and do something kind of consistent with this.

Thoughts or questions?

Okay, so I'd move adoption of Amendment B-2.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

B-2 is adopted.

B-3, Mr. Woodson.

And this is from Council Member Herbold.

It asks for the university to explore incorporating childcare in their affordable housing development, particularly related to family size units.

Council Member Herbold.

Nothing to add.

I think that this kind of continues with that transparency about asking folks to really take a real responsibility in making sure that we have affordable child care throughout the city.

So this is one that I'm happy to support as well.

So I'd ask for adoption of Amendment B3.

I have further discussion on that one.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

Amendment B3 is adopted.

Amendment C, Mr. Woodson.

So Amendment C would incorporate the university and SDCI's proposed timeline and schedule for payments to implement rapid ride improvements, and it also provides an opportunity for negotiation with the SDCI director if the university doesn't build the amount of square footage that's incorporated in this condition.

So, if they're moving more slowly, they can negotiate with the SDCI director to sort of slow the payments.

It seems like one of those things where we give a little bit of extra time and the parties came together and came up with a good solution.

So, it's an amendment that I'm happy to support.

That's exciting.

Okay, so all those in favor, oh, I would say I'd move adoption of Amendment C, please.

Second.

Any further discussion about that?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed, Amendment C is adopted.

Amendment D, Mr. Woodson.

All right, so Amendment D is related to Site W-22.

It would adopt a height limit of 240 feet.

for site W22, which is, again, here at the north end of the University Bridge, generally bounded by Eastlake Avenue Northeast, the one block of Eastlake Avenue Northeast, 11th Avenue Northeast, and Campus Parkway.

And yeah.

And enter Rob Johnson to make the pitch again to my colleagues about considering a different approach than the one that we considered the last time around.

I won't reiterate all the talking points that I did when we discussed this in September, but generally it's my belief that this amendment resulting in a 24-story opportunity as opposed to the current proposal, which is only a 10-story building, is very consistent with the city's growth and equity goals, particularly around our light rail stations.

We have, over the last couple years, adopted zoning heights in this neighborhood that are very compatible with 240 feet.

This site would be about two blocks from the future light rail station, which, again, is a neighborhood where we are trying to not only encourage more development but also make sure that that development is consistent with the billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidy that is associated with the opening of those new light rail stations.

And so I wanted to give this one another run and see if a couple of months of time to think about this might change people's minds.

But we'll stop there and ask for further discussions or thoughts or questions about this before we decide whether or not we want to move this one forward.

Councilmember Brian, please um this remind me you said this just a moment ago, but the in the comment period between September and now you said we received comments from kukak and Someone else on this were there any other that was recommending that I?

We maintained the lower height consistent with what we did in January.

Were there other comments we received on this one?

Was that?

University District Community Council.

Okay.

And so they provided similar comments.

That was all we heard.

Right.

Right.

And do you have the University District Community Council's comments in the introduction to this amendment?

Would it also be fair to say we got comments from the University of Washington asking us to go back to the 240 level?

Okay.

So I'll speak to where I am on this, if that's okay.

My, back in September, Some of the graphics and how this played out and what the design guidelines, what setbacks were required was something that I had an open question about.

And so I went along with the lower height because I had some concerns of kind of bulk and scale of it.

Now that I have a better understanding of what's allowed and required there, I'm actually inclined to support the higher heights.

My understanding is that the zoning there now would require a maximum podium height of about 45 feet, and the podium could generally probably cover the entire lot, as shown there.

And then floor plate size on the tower above 45 feet at around 12,000 square feet.

Is that about right?

12,000 and change?

Yeah, I think it was 14,000.

Potentially on this site, it's about 21,000 square foot.

and that's due to upper level setback requirements and tower setback requirements.

Got it.

So for me, that gives a sense, you know, it's still a large structure, no doubt, but it gives some flexibility that there's gonna be more air and light on that as we go higher.

And so I'm inclined to actually allow the height to go to 240 and support your amendment, Council Member Johnson.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Just a clarifying question and then some comments.

So this has been a major point of contention around whether or not the comparison to residential towers that are sort of the slender towers is an appropriate comparison given that these aren't residential towers and aren't subject to that same bulk and scale requirements for that level of height.

is what Council Member O'Brien saying, is that mean that that's a appropriate comparison?

These likely non-residential structures to the slender residential structures because of the setback requirements?

Right, on a smaller site like this, it's more likely to look like the residential towers that are permitted just north of the site, then if there were a larger site, comparing W21 and W22 up there, you can see the difference in masking in bulk between, that's primarily due to the site size and if they choose to build a tower there are upper level or tower setback requirements.

So it's more about the size of the lot, not about, I mean, right, I mean, I do see there is, it's more about the size of the lot, not that they're not allowed to develop on as much of the lot.

Right, right.

Okay.

So I just want to go back to the importance of this particular location in a very, very long history of planning in collaboration with the University of Washington in the neighborhood.

And this long history of planning and the focus on this particular site It is important to the community because the site is seen as a gateway to the university.

In the urban center plan of 1998, this particular location was identified as a gateway.

And then subsequently in 2003, the campus master plan, you know, again, this is a document that is developed jointly, acknowledged this where the site was then called 30W and promised that the University of Washington would develop the site as a gateway to the neighborhood and the university.

Gateway locations shall include visual enhancements, such as improved landscaping, signage, artwork, or other features that signify entries into communities.

And so I really see the height of this property, and I think it's I think it's visually demonstrated that it really has the potential to conflict with those long-held goals for this site.

I did a calculation on the number of square feet that this master plan is adding, and it's six million total.

The difference between the two potential heights for this particular property, the difference between 175,000 square feet and about 87,000 square feet, it's a 1.5%.

share of that 6 million total square footage.

So it's a really small change.

And it's still, I think, giving the vast majority of the square footage that the university has said that they need for their future.

And I think taking back this very small number of square footage, again, 1.5% of the six million total, is really in keeping with what I think the nature of this process is really about, and it's about collaboration and shared goals.

So I hope I can get your support, but I think I know where the votes are falling.

I appreciate that, Council Member Herbold, and I think, you know, just to, given the lateness of the hour, not to belabor this discussion too much longer, but as somebody who represents the area and as somebody who's seen a lot of development pressures happen in a lot of parts of the city where there's a lot of reluctance to see new development, particularly new commercial development, be located, I want to avoid the opportunity to have this fight continue to play out in a lot of other parts of the city where there is a lot of pressure for commercial development to be expanded.

whether that's in our industrial lands areas or whether it's in other parts of the city that would be preferred to stay in a residential look and feel.

And so for me, I think that the concentration, rightly so, of commercial development nearby, major piece of infrastructure in a place where we already have a lot of tall buildings makes a lot of sense.

And though you're right, it's a one and a half percentage change.

Fundamentally, I think it is the right thing for us as a city given our climate goals, given our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, given our affordability goals, given our objectives of making sure that people get other places without needing to have a car to maximize those investments.

That doesn't happen in a lot of places in the city, and I think this is one of those places where we should really consider a change.

So I'd like to suggest that we adopt amendment D, which would change the zoning on site W22 to 240 feet.

I'll second, and can I ask one more question?

Please.

Mitch, I'm just looking at the text of, well, the background section that's backgrounded in gray on page 73, and at the bottom it talks about, it says, applying the development standards, the record indicates Site W22 would have a maximum theoretical tower floor plate size of approximately 12,100 feet.

But I just want to confirm that that's accurate.

That's more accurate.

That's the one I should use.

Great.

OK.

And so that's a little less than 60% of the site from my understanding.

And so it doesn't change necessarily any substance, but I just wanted to correct that for the public.

And it also goes on to say that adjacent to the U District, sorry, which is comparable to the maximum floor plate for the residential towers in the adjacent U District, which are allowed between 10,700 and 11,500.

So it's slightly bigger and we can debate whether it's comparable or not, but I'll be supporting it.

Yeah.

Further discussion about this folks?

Try to get the facts straight.

So that's important.

Okay.

All those in favor of amendment D, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

The amendment is adopted.

We'll move on to amendment E, Mr. Woodson.

Amendment E is from Councilmember O'Brien, and it asks the University of Washington to prepare a bicycle parking plan.

I would move it.

Okay.

Any discussion on that, Councilmember Humboldt?

I'll second the motion to adopt Amendment E and ask all those in favor to please vote aye.

Aye.

Not opposed.

Amendment E is adopted.

Amendment F, Mr. Whitson.

Amendment F is from Councilmember Herbold, and it asks the university to work with its employees on a child care voucher plan.

Anything to add, Councilmember Herbold?

I think for stating for the record a little bit about the background on this and the discussion that we've had about doing a study and sort of where that's at between the legislative department, the executive, and the University of Washington.

When the council considered resumes to the university district outside of the campus, it adopted a resolution asking for a number of follow-up items, one of which was working with the University of Washington, its employees, and other employers in the area on a childcare voucher plan.

My understanding is that that has either failed to get off the ground or stalled.

And there was a study component required, correct?

Right, right.

And this would sort of build on that request from the council to the executive.

Yeah, I mean, I just think this is one of those examples where things that we put in council resolutions because they're really important, sometimes those things fall by the wayside when time passes.

So I'm hoping that the inclusion here gets us back on track with doing the work that we committed to do, what, 2017?

And I concur with this amendment, Council Member Herbold.

I think it's also fair to say that the organizations that were advocating for this have also had some changes in their prioritization.

And so I think that the work that we had intended to do was asked for by particular members of the community who, when we went back out to them and asked for an extension or a delay or some collaboration, had said back to us, you know, we don't think that that is as necessary today as we thought it was in 2017 when it got started.

Now, to me, I still think that this, as the person on this council who most regularly pays for child care, I still think that affordability and child care is critical.

And the concept for us of a voucher program I think is one that's ripe for discussion, not just within the construct of this master plan process, but also around the city at large.

As my colleague, Council Member Muscata, likes to remind us, we are one of, if not the most expensive places for child care in the United States.

So I think that the work needs to get done.

The speed with which the work is not getting done is, I think, a frustration.

But this is a good reminder for us to continue to redouble our efforts to ask for some kind of additional analysis and work to be done both within the city family and in collaboration with those outside the city family.

So I move adoption of Amendment F. Second.

Any further discussion about this one, folks?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed, and amendment F is adopted.

So we've got an amended bill in front of us.

Any further discussions about that amended bill, colleagues?

If not, I'd move that we adopt Council Bill 119426 as amended.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

The amended bill is adopted and that will be in front of full council on Monday.

We have an associated clerk file with this bill that does all the things that clerk files do.

So any discussion about that that you'd like to offer, Mr. Whitson?

It's basically all of the background material on the master plan.

Any questions about that, colleagues?

So seeing none, I'd move to grant, as conditioned, clerk file 314346. Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

The clerk file is adopted, and that will also be in front of full council on Monday, December 10th.

This has been a long process, Mr. Whitson, and we'd be remiss if we didn't spend a lot of time and energy today thanking you for the Herculean effort that you have undertaken, although these many months of public discussion, but certainly many months before the issue came to committee.

of really, really great work to get us to this point.

So I'm very grateful to you.

These quasi-judicial processes are complex and necessitate a lot of weird non-dialogue between people.

And you've done an excellent job of helping to make sure that those firewalls existed and facilitating this process.

And I just can't say thank you enough for your great work.

Before we adjourn, other thoughts or questions, colleagues?

First of all, second, the thanks to you, Lish.

There's been a number of steps along the process where we came up with collectively what I would characterize as creative ideas and trying to stick to an aggressive timeline.

I'm really pleased that you and Law and other folks that you manage at Corral were able to get responses back, specifically when we were on recess over the last couple weeks in August.

While I was enjoying the waters of the Gulf Islands, you were here toiling away with others so that we had some stuff done.

So thank you for doing that.

I have a question about the quasi-judicial nature.

Is this planning to go to full council on Monday?

It is.

Okay.

And then when does the quasi-judicial, are there appeals things, or how long do we have to wait before we can actually have conversations with people about this, or people in the audience who are looking at us right now can actually come and say thank you or you jerk or whatever without violating anything?

If you get thank yous, please let me know.

I seem to be getting a lot of those you jerks nowadays.

It remains quasi-judicial until all judicial appeals have been resolved.

At a minimum, that wouldn't kick in until after the Board of Regents decides whether or not they're going to Incorporate all of the changes that you have Adopted into their final master plan and adopt a final master plan But I think there would be a period after that time wherein there would still be opportunity for other parties to appeal.

Okay, so We should all act and folks in the audience to we ask you to act and this will remain quasi judicial folks are obviously welcome to celebrate or mourn however they want to, but we're going to have to not be part of that for a little while longer.

It sounds like weeks at least and maybe a few months.

And I'll ask the law department to circle back around with central staff as well as our offices to give us a clear sense about what that timeline looks like.

But I know at minimum we have the action on Monday at full council and then some period of time before the Board of Regents takes action So you can count on, at the very least, probably through the end of the year, this continuing to be a quasi-judicial process.

The question will be, how much longer is that appeal window available to appellants?

And we'll try to get an answer from the law department as soon as we can.

Thank you.

Okay, any further thoughts or questions?

Mr. Woodson, you want to take a victory lap here?

Please, Council Member Herbold.

I just want to echo the thanks, but a thanks not just for helping us maintain the firewalls, but really, I think it's so important that you have gone above and beyond to let us know what is in the record so that, I mean, there's just so much information.

And it's, I think, it would be really easy for us to sort of take, you know, a cursory view of what the options are, but I think you've done a really great job of helping us dig in deep and know what we can know about of the things that are on the record.

So, thank you.

Thanks.

So, we will have these two items, the council bill and the clerk file in front of full council on Monday the 10th.

We may be back here on the 19th of December to contemplate the conversation that we had on the transportation level of service standards.

It'll depend on vacation schedules and whether or not those staffers can be back at the table with us to answer additional technical questions that come up.

We'll keep members of the public in the loop about whether or not we need to have that meeting as soon as we know the answers to those questions.

But if there's nothing further for today, we will be adjourned and we'll see you again soon.

Thanks all.