Seattle City Council Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee 31021

meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 931 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Vice Chair McKenna?

Present.

Eric Strauss?

Present.

I'm present.

Thank you.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of the City of Seattle, we began our land use meetings with land acknowledgement.

And so just wanted to start with acknowledging we are on the traditional and ancestral lands of the first people of this region, past and present.

They are represented in a number of tribes and as urban natives, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the people of this land.

We start with this acknowledgement to recognize the fact that we are guests on this land, and we need to steward our land as such as guests.

We are here temporarily and for a short period of time.

And I think it's just important to start our meetings with that recognition.

So on the Land Use Agenda today, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee Agenda today, we have three items on the agenda, a discussion and vote on Council Bill 120001, bringing business home, a small business flexibility bill, a presentation from OPCB on their annual report, and a presentation from SDCI on their work plan for 2021. SDCI did have a presentation scheduled regarding permit timing.

Unfortunately, that presentation has not been approved by the seventh floor.

So it will come to our next meeting when it has been reviewed.

And I'll have some questions at the end of committee for SDCI about permitting.

We had a great discussion just last week.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is on Wednesday, March 24, starting at 9 30 a.m.

Before we begin, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will open the remote public comment period for items on today's agenda.

Before we begin, I ask everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time.

While it remains our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that this system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct necessary business.

I will moderate the public comment in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 10 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you've not yet registered to speak and would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call the speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, and the automatic prompt if you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue.

It is their turn to speak.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item in which you are addressing.

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

Once speaker hears the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your comments.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted after 10 seconds to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask you please disconnect from the line.

And if you'd like to continue following the meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Pulling it up, I see that we have Megan Cruz, Steve Zemke, Richard Ellison, Janet Wei, Kaitlyn Bram, and Doug Brambich.

I see you're not present.

So starting with Megan Cruz, good morning, Megan.

Hey, good morning.

As you said, I'm Megan Cruz, a downtown resident in District 7. I'm commenting today on SDCI and the committee's work program for changes to land use, SEPA, and design review.

On behalf of downtown neighbors, we ask that this work be please done with early public engagement.

With this in mind, I'd like to commend SDCI for a great job bringing design review online this year and keeping the public engaged.

Public forums, in person or electronic, need to be the standard for design review, especially for market rate development, which has not slowed down during the pandemic.

However, two other initiatives that do include the public have fallen by the wayside.

I hope the committee will have a chance to ask Director Torgelson about them today.

The first is establishing a committee of public experts to inform SDCI on environmental review and environmental justice.

This directive was part of 2019's CB119-600, that called for this committee to be established and inform changes to SEPA and design review.

The second is the director's rule to provide minimum standards for tower waste storage and vehicle loading.

This rule was vetted by public and developer focus groups in 2019. Then SDCI announced it would be in place at the beginning of 2020. Instead, it's disappeared without explanation.

Please find out what's happened.

Initiatives like the ones just mentioned are needed more than ever.

as major projects are being passed without fully considering impacts on neighbors and the environment.

To grow downtown equitably and with resiliency, we need input from all urban core stakeholders.

Thanks for your consideration.

Thank you, Megan.

Up next is Steve Zemke, followed by Richard Ellison, and then Janet Way.

Steve, good morning.

Good morning, council members.

This is Steve Zemke.

I'm chair of TREPAC.

So it's disappointing to not see updating Seattle's Tree Protection Ordinance as a priority of the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections in 2021 in their presentation, which was put on the website.

It is not surprising, however, considering SDCI's history on tree protection.

Rumor has it, in fact, that there will not be a tree ordinance update this year.

It's time to end this repeated delay by SDCI in presenting the Seattle City Council with an updated draft tree and urban forest protection ordinance.

The city council over the last 12 years has repeatedly asked SDCI for an updated workable and effective ordinance draft to consider.

And it is obvious SDCI is not responding as requested.

The council's most recent resolution 31902 gave specific issues for SDCI to include as did previous resolutions.

Please remove tree and urban forest protection from SDCI.

As a city auditor proposed in 2009, transfer tree and urban forestry oversight and authority to the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Consider making it a department.

SDCI has a conflict of interest in tree oversight.

Their priority mission has been to help builders develop, not protect trees.

Years of inaction on increasing oversight and forest protection of trees in our urban forest by SDCI demands that a separate entity like OSC take over the city's responsibility to protect and enhance our urban forest.

12 years of ineffective response is long enough.

Treats need an advocate, an independent voice within city government to represent them.

SDCI is not that advocate or independent voice based on their previous experience.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

And I can tell you, I've heard rumors in the opposite direction.

Let's make sure to circle up at another time regarding the tree ordinance.

Up next is Richard Ellison, followed by Janet Way, and then Caitlin Brand.

I do have Doug Bambrick and Andrew Kitty listed, but not present.

So Doug and Andrew, if you are out there, call into the number associated.

Richard, welcome.

Take it away.

Good morning.

Thank you.

You hear me OK?

Absolutely.

Excellent.

Hello, my name is Richard Ellison.

I am a retired community college adjunct professor of biology and environmental science, and also a board member of TREPAC, a political action committee for trees.

The 2021 SBCI priority plan does not uphold Seattle's comprehensive plan's core value of environmental stewardship.

Quote, the plan's four core values, community, environmental stewardship, economic opportunity and security, and social equity are key components of sustainability.

unquote.

Nothing in the SDCI 2021 action plan includes mention of environmental protection, environmental justice, planning for climate change, nor for the living environment that includes trees, wildlife, clean air, and other critical environmental infrastructure.

SDCI, once again, ignores updating the tree protection ordinance and director's rule.

It's not on the 2021 agenda.

It's always going to be delayed in the SDCI plan.

The Seattle City Council keeps waiting on SDCI, on the mayor's office, for how long?

It's been 20 years since it was last updated.

It's been 12 years since the department's been directed by the council for an update.

And since 1997, since I was on the council's own urban forest task force, it's time for the city council to take action by itself and update the tree ordinance.

The Seattle City Council's own urban forestry commission has a working draft and is happy to assist the council to make it a reality.

It needs no further delays.

We can't wait for DCI.

We can't wait for the new mayor to settle in or for the new elections for the new council members if we have any change.

Please act now with the powers you already have and stop the stonewalling by SDCI on updating the Seattle Street Protection Ordinance and direct this rule.

Thank you.

Thank you, Richard.

And up next is Janet, followed by Caitlin, Doug, and Andrew.

We still see you're not present.

Janet, there you are.

Good morning.

Hi, my name is Janet Way.

I'm a board member of TREPAC, and I'm also a founding member of Thornton Creek Alliance.

And this morning, I am asking your committee and council to please instruct direct staff from DCI to include the tree protection ordinance that council has already asked be included in the agenda of the department.

The tree canopy in Seattle is suffering and it is impacting water quality and wildlife habitat in the Thornton Creek watershed where I live.

Seattle is desperately in need of tree protection.

The council has already advocated for protections against climate change, and the most effective thing you can do on climate change at this time is to protect existing trees.

As the city moves ahead with approvals of development, the staff should require, protection of as many trees as possible whenever developments are approved.

So at this time, we would like to urge you and your committee to ask the speaker from DCI about including tree protection in their agenda moving forward.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Janet.

Up next, we have Kaitlyn Graham and then Doug Bramberg.

I see you are now present.

Andrew Kitty, I see that you are still not present.

Welcome, Kaitlyn.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Kaitlyn Bram and I'm the founder of Yonder Cider.

I just wanted to take a minute today to share why I so adamantly support Council Bill 12001, the Bringing Businesses Home Bill, not just for Yonder, but for aspiring small businesses owners throughout the city.

To be simple, starting Yonder Bar, our small retail space in my garage, has fostered and funded the growth of Yonder Cider.

COVID dashed our dreams of launching with a tasting room, a vital part of any new beverage brand.

And then three months into that launch, a dream that's more than two years in the making, the second wave of shutdowns hit, halting sales in restaurants and bars.

During those early months, Yonder Bar provided us with a vital direct-to-consumer sales lifeline and helped us survive as a brand new cidery.

In that safe, rent-free space, we were able to test the waters, gain support, and become a part of our community, while saving money and eventually signing a long-term lease in Ballard we were confident we could fulfill.

As of now, Yonder Bar also continues to fund the build-out of that space, which isn't scheduled to open for months.

By launching our business in my garage, we were able to overcome one of the biggest obstacles facing small business, commercial rent, and to make our big dreams possible.

While I'm very excited for Yonder Bar to reopen and hopefully stay open, I'm even more excited for what is to come.

In the past week alone, we've received dozens of calls, emails, and messages from people who, like me, have dreams of opening their own business, only be faced with hurdle after hurdle.

I hope that in the coming months, after the bill hopefully passes and people secure their necessary licensing, I'm able to, myself, walk to a business that's getting their start in their garage and pursuing their dream.

Starting a new business and a new small business is a scary and exciting thing.

And yet I'm so thankful to this committee for considering a bill that could make it just a little bit more achievable for folks.

Thank you for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Caitlin.

Up next, we have Doug Bambrick.

And then Andrew Kidding, you are signed up but not present.

So if you are there, call in now.

I do see that we are over time.

So if there's no objection, the public comment period will be extended for an additional 10 minutes.

Hearing no objection, the public comment is extended until 9.55.

Doug, welcome, good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you for taking my comment, Council Member President Strauss, or Subcommittee President Strauss.

My comments are related to the Home Business Occupation Ordinance.

I've done a little bit of research on, and then secondly, it was nice to hear from Yonder.

I heard that was the driving force behind this.

I was a past president of the Green Lake Neighborhood Community Council back in the 90s, long time ago.

And since then, haven't done much, but this caught my eye.

I did a little bit of research on the signage issue, parking issue, a number of employees issues.

It seems this was the current legislation is a compromise between neighborhood interests, local business district interests, which I have an interest in, as well as home business interests.

There's an obvious advantage for starting up a home business on a residential street.

The rent is significantly cheaper, and there's no permitting required.

And there's also free parking for customers.

The Yonder was probably a very good, well-loved business.

However, that's not the case with all.

And Just in all deference to our commercial districts, we love our little shops, and especially in this time, we need to support local businesses and local business districts.

The current legislation was crafted with compromise between the different stakeholder groups, one of which was to not have large signs advertising in neighborhoods we somewhat despise.

You don't want to have Amazon or ammunition sales signs posted on telephone poles or someone's garage.

The current legislation allows a one foot wide sign with five inch letters.

This proposal would be an eight foot wide sign with seven and a half inch tall letters.

Secondly, the current legislation very carefully crafted language about parking impacts.

It said that there shall not be significant traffic.

That was all the time for public comment this morning.

I'm happy to follow up with you or send in written comments.

I will be attending the Greenlight Community Council meeting this evening, so we can follow up there.

Andrew Kitty, you are listed, but you're not present.

Confirming we don't have any more speakers.

Affirmative, there are no more public comment registrants.

Thank you, son.

And to also speak to Doug's point about wealth of business districts.

I heard from Finney Neighborhood Association yesterday and they are also supporting this bill from what I could tell.

Well, colleagues, seeing as we have no additional speakers remotely present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Our first item of business today is a discussion briefing on Council Bill 120001, the Bringing Business Home Bill.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Item 1, Council Bill 120001, an ordinance relating to land use regulation of home occupations, adopting interim regulations to allow home occupation businesses to operate with fewer limitations during the COVID-19 civil emergency.

Thank you.

I'm very glad to bring this legislation forward with Council President Gonzales and Council Member Mosqueda.

Council President Gonzales has joined us as a guest in the committee because we need to make sure that our land use code is able to respond to the crisis facing small businesses as a result of COVID-19.

This legislation recognizes that our code has not kept up with business owners' creativity and drive.

As we've learned this past year, our streets and neighborhoods can create communities in ways we might not have imagined before the pandemic, and healthy streets in particular have allowed us to walk, ride, and roll in a safe and healthy way.

We've seen examples of that in my own neighborhood of small home occupancy businesses that I'm not going to tattle on today who are operating outside of the letter of the code, and this would help them make sure that they have a level playing field and able to stay open.

And we also saw this as Yonder Cider was able to reopen because inspectors are only able to enforce and operate within the code that we have written.

And this legislation is more than just about Yonder.

Colleagues, I hope that we're able to pass this today.

And we have Ketel Freeman with us.

I also will be bringing an amendment forward that was circulated last night.

Ketel, welcome, and if you'd like to give us a brief overview and a refresher.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central staff.

As Councilmember Strauss mentioned, this is the second briefing and discussion on Council Bill 120001, which would amend the land use code to temporarily modify regulations for home occupations.

Materials that you have attached to the agenda include a presentation from the last meeting, a memo from me that highlights current regulations and also provides a brief survey of how other jurisdictions regulate home occupations.

As Council Member Strauss mentioned, there is an amendment that was circulated by his office yesterday.

So I'll provide a brief refresher on what Council Bill 120001 would do, and then unless there are any questions about that, we can move on to Council Member Strauss' proposed amendment.

So, what would CB120001 do?

On an interim basis, up to one year, it would remove the limitations on regulations that limit the number of customer visits to a home occupation, the number of employees a home occupation can have, limitations on increased traffic and parking demand due to a home occupation, including use of a code-required parking space on private property for a home-based business.

And it would also change limitations on the non-commercial appearance of home occupations, including dispensation for larger signs while the ordinance is in effect.

The council members have any questions about what Council Bill 120001 would do?

Colleagues, any questions?

I do know, and for the viewing public, if you go to our legistar on today's committee agenda, you can see the presentation that Guido provided, and you can go back and watch, I believe it was the February 24th committee meeting, checking, yep, February 24th, to watch the tape from there.

We had robust discussion and great questions.

Colleagues, any questions at this time?

Seeing no questions, I do want to again raise the fact that any business that is operating under home occupancy rules is regulated by any governmental entity that touches that business.

So if they have a commercial kitchen, Department of Health, if they're serving beer, the Liquor Control Board, regulated by the state and by the city business, they have to register with the city, with FAS.

So understanding that all of that said, this doesn't change any code, or any zoning, this simply changes code, interim basis for one year with a work plan to understand what would be considered for a permanent change.

I do have a question.

Please, Council Member Juarez.

Sorry, I'm sorry, I was trying to catch up.

First of all, thank you, Mr. Chair, for the information.

And thank you, Keto, for we didn't have your memo back on February 24th.

So thank you for the memo that we now have in front of us.

I don't know if we want to address this now or we want to talk about as we get into after your amendments, and then we speak to the bill as a whole.

The question that I had is, which we did not talk about in February 24th, when we wanted to clarify what interim meant.

some of the interim stuff that we've done with the SDCI and it's always meant to year.

So what's new now in this memo, which I will have concerns because I'm trying to decide how I'm going to vote on this, is I'm not comfortable with, but I want to hear what other people have to say when we get closer to it, exploring the permanency of this.

My understanding is that it's for one year.

I'm concerned about the permanency in light of what we already put on SDCI.

And I have some concerns because we already have a law that allows home businesses.

I'm curious and I'm excited to see if this does pass what one year does.

I don't know if you should slap the pandemic in front of it, in front of everything now.

Every piece of legislation is, you know, because of the pandemic, we want this.

I don't know if this fits in that box yet, but I'm open to hearing what other people have to say.

So is that something we should address now about the permanency and the byproducts or unintended consequences to existing local businesses?

Or do you want to wait until we get further down the road when we start talking about the closer to our comments on the bill as amended?

Good questions.

Let's move this amendment and just speak to the whole bill entirely.

Because those are important questions.

And your amendment is more of a technical one.

Is that?

That's right.

A technical amendment, as well as I was hoping, maybe it wouldn't work, but you said last time you couldn't support the bill as written.

So I wanted to make at least one change.

I'm going to change the bill to the fry bread bill if things go right.

But we'll see.

I'll rename it that.

absolutely so let me thank you chairman thank you councilman morris um so amendment one we have one amendment to consider which my office circulated last night this amendment would change the language around parking to clarify its intent we had one sentence doing a lot of work in And the language proposed here is more clear and leaves less room for differences of interpretation, as well as it would make clear that this legislation allows a home based business to operate in a homes required parking stall or garage.

That's, I think, we go back to the fact that So many entrepreneurs use their garage to turn their dreams into reality.

And this amendment makes clear that once this legislation expires or the business is no longer using that space, the home is still required to meet the minimum parking standards.

So we're ensuring that you're not able to continue using your parking garage past the life of this bill.

Councilmember Strauss, I'm not sure if the amendment is on the agenda, so I can share my screen for those folks in public so they can see it.

Let's see here.

Well...

All right, this is the amendment proposed by Council Member Strauss.

As you said, it would clarify that a home occupation may occupy a required parking space without limitations on structural changes that may be made to that parking space for the purposes of the home occupation while the ordinance is in effect.

And then it also has some language in here that clarifies what happens when the ordinance is no longer in effect.

And this would clarify that after the ordinance is no longer in effect, unless it's extended by some future action by the council, any changes, the property essentially has to be returned to its previous condition.

So if somebody has modified their garage, for example, in a way that would make that garage non-conforming for the purposes of the land use code, they have to remove that modification when the ordinance is no longer in effect.

If a property was previously non-conforming with respect to some element of the land use code, it can be returned to that previous non-conforming condition.

So that's the second clarification that Council Member Scott So this would apply to other changes that might be made for the purposes of establishing a home occupation or expanding a home occupation under this bill.

For instance, a sign.

If somebody puts a larger sign up under the authority of this bill, they would have to remove that larger sign once the bill is no longer in effect.

Thank you, Kiel.

I see Councilmember Peterson.

Questions?

All colleagues, any questions?

This is the time.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

This is a question about the amendment.

Keitel, in the first part of the amendment, as I understand it, this is a temporary measure, but the word temporarily is removed.

So can you help me?

Yeah, so that's for the purposes.

Sure, thanks.

Thank you for that question, Council Member Peterson.

That's to clarify sort of what the standard is here.

for a home occupation that might be established or expanded under this ordinance.

That's to clarify that if somebody is occupying a portion of their garage for the purposes of the home occupation, They don't have to remove any changes that they made to their garage while the ordinance is in effect.

So on a daily basis, they don't have to make changes.

They don't have to sort of return their garage to its conforming condition.

They can keep it up for the entire duration of the ordinance.

Does that make sense?

Yes, thank you.

And then furthermore, Council Member Peterson, the temporary was to also demonstrate at the end of this bill, at the end of the life of this bill, that it would have to be removed.

And that also wasn't as clear.

And so this amendment clarifies both points.

Colleagues, other questions?

Seeing none.

I will move that the committee adopt Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120001. Second.

It has been moved and seconded to amend the legislation as shown in Amendment 1. If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

And this is now the time, Council Member Juarez, to return to some of these longer, and we have Council President Gonzalez, who's also a co-sponsor, so I'll give her a moment to speak in just a second.

I do want to, unless Council Member Juarez, you'd like Council President to go first?

Feeling my coffee cup.

Yeah.

Um, well, first of all, thank you for the good meeting we had last time.

So we had some more additional homework to do.

And thank you, Kayla.

Like I said, so I did bring up the issue about the permanency and what my concerns would be.

And I have the same concerns with as some of the changes that we've learned of.

Um, I have concerns about the parking impacts.

I don't, I know that.

Um, and I also still have concerns about having, um, we already have a law that allows people to have these home businesses and I understand the expansion and why, why you want to do that and, and, and, you know, um, uh, making it easier to have these kinds of businesses, but what I'm hearing from and what I have concerns about And I don't know if STCI is the place and we need more information, but the competition with existing already struggling small businesses, small businesses that often already comply with the four areas where we would be relaxing, they still have to comply with parking, with ADA, with number of employees, with signage.

And I think I brought this analogy because I just wanted to bring it to its logical conclusion.

You know, if you're selling something, in your garage driveway and four blocks away, I don't want to be competing with, you know, Coffee Clutch.

I have in these density places with neighborhoods, I know that your neighborhood has more sidewalks than D5, that's for sure.

So parking's not a real big issue on kind of where we're at here up in D5 with no sidewalks, but the small business pieces, because we have so many small business along Lake City, Aurora, 125th, Northgate.

And so that is the concern I was hearing.

And I don't know if CDC, SDCI is equipped to do the type of analysis to say where we're going to be and what the impacts are to existing businesses.

And also our encouragement to start using, calling restaurants directly and picking up and not using third party carriers so that all the money goes to that existing small business restaurant, not 15% to, you know, the delivery service.

And, um, Again, I'm going to let you speak to and let SCI speak to some of the concerns about what they're already doing and how this makes it any different.

if this adds on to that, if they can do that.

I don't have a problem with the idea.

I understand we're in COVID and we want to encourage this and we want small businesses and a lot of small businesses started out of their garage, but people can still start businesses out of their garage.

I'm more concerned about what we're, the four years where we're relaxing and its impact to already existing small businesses and the unfair competition it may or may not create.

So that's where all my concerns were.

And I think some of them we addressed at the last hearing.

And so that's why I was glad to get Ketel's memo this time.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

And I took some notes on what you were saying.

I was meeting with the Finney Neighborhood Association yesterday, which is, they're kind of like the Chamber of Commerce for Finney Greenwood.

They do social services.

I mean, they're just an amazing organization.

And they were really supportive of making sure that Yonder was able to stay open.

And Yonder's only about a block or two off of their official business district.

So right in their own backyard, They've got the support of their local business district.

And then I wanted to talk about the permanency and the reason that we have a work plan for for the pathway to permanency within the bill is because so many times of late we've heard critics of of our work here at City Council saying you didn't give us enough time to engage or you didn't you know, we didn't know how to engage.

And so rather than have a scattershot approach to understanding what is working well, what didn't work, did we miss something important or did we include something that shouldn't have been, that's why it was important for us to create that work plan from go so that everyone knew where and how they can participate.

Regarding parking, yeah, go for it.

No, I'm finished.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Go ahead.

So, you know, again, regarding parking, as you said, many different areas of our city have different parking impacts.

And so, you know, as well as it's it's always it's never exactly clear what.

different variable in the area is increasing the parking, increasing demand on parking because we've got people who live in homes using it.

Again, in Yonder's case, they're just a block or two off of the business district.

And so is parking increasing because people are shopping at Yonder or is it because they're shopping in the business district?

That's why it's important for me to just create clarity on something that can be subjective.

Hal Hallstein, OSBT & COB, he or her): that's what i've counselor was did you want to share the thoughts well, the other thing is, I want to I really like this idea, because I think what what we're creating here by using garages and driveways.

Hal Hallstein, OSBT & COB, he or her): I don't think you've ever used the word when you talk about pathways to permanency.

is you're creating like mini incubators for micro businesses.

And that's a good thing.

I don't, that's not, you know, that's a great thing.

I don't think you need a recession fuel pandemic to do this.

We could do it anyway.

And we should do it and we should encourage it.

Again, my main focus is what its impact is to third party, or my impact is to small businesses that are already struggling and creating an unfair advantage because they are struggling from the pandemic.

And so my idea when we have legislation that's based because of we're in the middle of a recession and pandemic is because it's a, they're directly impacted by that, whether it's the moratorium on renting, housing, all the things that we've done.

So we could have done this in a non-pandemic era.

We've created spaces for incubation for businesses.

So it is innovative in that sense that yes, you wanna give people that opportunity, And like with Yonder Cider, I think they now have a permanent space.

So if this is a pathway to permanency where they move from garage to a storefront and to a small business, it's great.

It makes sense.

That makes sense to me.

So thank you.

That's exactly right, Council Member Juarez.

And what I didn't realize is that these code restrictions were actually creating an unlevel playing field for some of these home occupancy businesses in my neighborhood that have been operating for years.

And it wasn't until Yonder had received this complaint that it opened my eyes to seeing how so many different businesses are operating outside of that letter of the code.

And that's why it's important to, you know, for the ones that were existing before the pandemic to create that level playing field.

And I don't want to tattle on them today.

And to be fair, when we do live in D5 and a lot of businesses, I know of half a dozen businesses that operate out of their homes that I don't want to tattle on that make pies and deliver them.

and do other things and deliver them to certain restaurants.

And, you know, it just, I get it.

So you want to legitimize that.

You want to have these kinds of small business incubation, a pathway to permanency to that storefront someday.

And so I want that year.

I want to see what that happens.

But again, you see what my concern is when I have constituents who are struggling as small businesses because of this pandemic field recession.

So I'll leave it at that and let other people speak.

Thank you.

All right, thanks, Councilmember Juarez.

And if you've got more questions later, I always love them.

They're always so spot on.

I see Council President, who's joining us as a guest, as a co-sponsor, and then also Councilmember Mosqueda, who co-sponsored.

If you'd like to speak after that, Council President, welcome.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Thank you so much, Chair Strauss.

I'm intrigued by this conversation around unfair competition.

So my My line of questions are going to focus around that concept.

And perhaps the memo is missing a sort of a comparison chart that might have been helpful to the ability to understand the argument around unfair competition between existing brick and mortar small businesses and home-based businesses, which again, are already legal.

They already exist in the same ecosystem as brick and mortar small businesses in our commercial districts.

So I suppose what my question is about is when we look at what this bill does, we know that Council Bill 12001 relaxes the limitations on First thing, the number of employees that can be in the home-based business.

Ketel or anybody, Director Torgelson, Director Assefa, can you let us know whether existing brick and mortar small businesses and commercial districts have a restriction as to the number of employees?

I can answer that.

To my knowledge, there's no restriction on the number of employees that can be in a commercially leased space.

There may be some restriction that is imposed by the landlord or something like that, but there is not, and there may also be a code.

There are some code limitations on the occupancy of a space depending on how large it is, but there's not an employee specific limitation.

And then Council President, I'll add on to that is that all of these businesses still have to abide by public health guidelines.

And so if the space is not large enough for that number of employees, that's a consideration that they, just highlighting that the land use code is the bottom layer of all of these staffed regulations, regulatory bodies and licenses.

Correct.

So there, there are occupancy limits largely fueled by other public health considerations.

But what I'm, what I'm focusing in on is the, the, I'm trying to compare and contrast where the unfair competition may exist or may not exist.

And so I am not aware, of brick-and-mortar small businesses who have a commercial lease having the number of employees limited by virtue of having that commercial lease relationship and being in a brick-and-mortar building, unlike home-based businesses, which do have that restriction of the number of employees they are legally permitted to have in a home-based business.

So that was my first question.

My second question is, Similarly, as it relates to brick-and-mortar small businesses and commercial districts that have a commercial lease, are they restricted in terms of the type of customer visits that they're allowed to receive as compared to home-based businesses, which are currently restricted in terms of the type of customer visits?

Not to my knowledge.

Walk-up businesses in a neighborhood commercial district can be visited by any number of customers while they're open.

There is a limitation currently in the code.

This is what Council President Gonzalez is highlighting that currently in the code, if you want to visit a home-based business, you cannot walk up to that home-based business.

You have to have an appointment and gain access that way.

That is a distinction, of course, between a home occupation and a commercial business.

And again, the last two.

Go ahead, Nathan directed to listen.

Did you want to add something?

No, I'm agreeing with what Cato said.

He's correct.

And then and then the last two things that this bill does is increased traffic and parking demand loosens up those restrictions and the non commercial appearance of home occupations, which I don't think fairly applies to commercial businesses.

But as it relates to increased traffic and parking demand, are there any sort of regulations or restrictions that currently apply to brick and mortar small businesses and commercial districts that have a commercial lease that requires some compliance or evaluation of how their specific business increases traffic and parking demand in their geographic area?

I think the answer to that is not really there.

I mean, depending on a use that may be going into a space, it may require review pursuant to the State Environmental Policy Act, which has sort of a traffic analysis component to it.

But that would have to be a pretty big change.

Sort of a limitation that exists in the code at kind of a higher level is a limitation on types of uses.

So, you know, depending on the scale of a neighborhood business district, there may or may not be uses that are big traffic generators.

That's at sort of a higher level.

It is not necessarily related to the traffic impacts associated with a particular use.

It may be other, maybe sort of incorporate other aspects of a use as well.

Like, for instance, a Starbucks with a drive through that's a use that's only permitted in certain zones on drive through businesses.

So.

There are ways in which traffic is limited by the zoning code, but for most business owners who are signing a lease on a small commercial space like on Finney Ridge or something like that, those types of regulations are not going to apply to them.

Great.

And again, I think as it relates to the unfair competition concerns, You know, I think I think if there are additional questions around doing sort of a back to the basics, you know, policy policy comparison between the regulatory framework of what applies to home occupations and what applies to small.

business districts might have been a little more helpful in terms of evaluating whether or not there is true unfair competition that would be created by this council bill.

I'll say that just based on this line of questioning and your answers to me, that it seems that the unfair competition currently exists and that it exists and that that bias exists against home-based businesses and not brick and mortar small businesses that engage in commercial leasing of space that are regulated by the Land Use Code.

And so for me, this bill is an opportunity to address unfair competition that currently exists against home-based businesses that are much more stringently regulated.

And that's true whether we're in a pandemic or not.

That regulation exists whether we're in a pandemic or not.

And so the question is, is knowing that commercial lease spaces are becoming increasingly unaffordable, knowing that commercial lease spaces are increasing in terms of number of vacancies and future availability of those spaces.

I think this is a unique moment in our efforts to revitalize neighborhoods and to invest in our local economy, to begin the process now of creating a pathway from garages to brick and mortar commercial lease spaces that might not otherwise be available.

That pathway might not otherwise be available for many of these small home-based businesses that we are hoping this bill will help.

And the last thing I want to address is that the issue of permanency in interim nature of this legislation.

When maybe we can talk a little bit more in granular detail about what we mean when we say that we're exploring a potential to make this these less restrictive regulations permanent.

And so I think we could all benefit from just hearing a little bit more about what that process, what legally we would be required in order to do before this council could even begin a conversation around creating permanency as opposed to the legislation just applying during the pandemic.

Sure.

Yeah.

Thank you for that question.

Council President Gonzalez.

So, um, the, uh, the, the term of this ordinance is one year and there's, there is a aspect of that, which is, um, kind of based on the mechanics of, um, the authority under state law that the bill would be enacted under.

So the bill is being enacted under, um, authority provided by RCW 3678 390, which allows local jurisdictions to set up interim development controls.

So things that don't last forever.

Um, And those interim development controls come with two time periods.

One is a year, and the other is six months.

If a jurisdiction wants interim controls to last up to a year, there must be a work program.

So there must be a pathway towards considering more permanent regulation.

So that is one of the reasons why there is a work program contained in this bill, so that the council will have the benefit of SDCI's work about a year from now, and also so that the changes will last a year.

A lot of the questions that you're raising are excellent questions and ones that could be answered about a year from now with some work probably by the Office of Economic Development and SDCI.

There are a few kind of logical ways this could all play out.

After a year, the SDCI could recommend that we make no changes.

The city actually has relatively permissive home occupation regulations compared to most other jurisdictions.

So we could decide, the city could decide, SDCI could decide and propose to the council that nothing change.

In which case, after a year, the ordinance expires and all of the changes in the ordinance go away.

It could be the case that SDCI recommends that there be a change to how we regulate home occupations to address some of the competition concerns.

So as it is now, we don't require a land use permit for home occupations.

Other jurisdictions do.

They set a land use permit requirement based on some sort of threshold about the size of a business and what kind of impacts that business may have.

So it may be the case that STCI recommends to the council that we begin to require permits for certain types of home occupations that are above a certain size threshold or perhaps close to neighborhood business districts.

We have some experience with this in a kind of in a strict use context.

A few years ago the city modified regulations for for food trucks.

And one of the requirements that is built into those regulations is that those food trucks can't be parked on the same block face as an existing restaurant.

So some kind of requirement like that could be built into some proposal in the future from STCI.

So those are some, you know, with the benefit of future analysis, there'll be some policy choices here for the council to make about whether and how to modify our home occupations on a permanent basis to address sort of balance the competing concerns with incubation of small businesses and a level playing field with those businesses that are occupying spaces in our neighborhood commercial districts.

So in, you know, one of the things that, um, I'll be honest, I get frustrated about is the city's tendency to engage in short-term pilot projects and pilot projects that are designed to be two months or three months or four months.

And frankly, I think it takes much longer period of testing an innovative new model in order to truly change or understand human adaptation and behavior to those modifications.

This is something that when I went to Copenhagen a few years ago, it feels like ages ago at this point, one of the things that they talked about in terms of how we transform the public realm for safe, healthy public use is that pilot projects can't just be two or three months, that the best practice, the best standard is to strive to have a pilot project that would last up to a year to truly allow people who are used to using a particular space in a particular way since the beginning of time an opportunity to have a more meaningful engagement with how the use of a space has changed and modified.

And that kind of, you know, effort really yields to better policy because it's much more thoughtful, much more engaging, and much more accurately reflective of the sentiment of people who ordinarily use that space.

So for me, I see this interim use as an opportunity for us to collect, actively, proactively collect that data.

that could then be utilized in addition to the work plan information to really get a good understanding of where the playing field may not be currently level and how this legislation can be shaped in the future to promote a pathway for micro enterprises into commercial space without creating unnecessary competition.

So I'm excited about this legislation for a lot of reasons, but I appreciate the opportunity to engage in that line of questioning as an alternate guest of this committee.

So thank you, Chair Strauss.

I'm gonna sit here quietly now until right before you call this for a vote.

Thank you, Council President and great to have you listed as a co-sponsor in all of your work and I know Vy Nguyen and your office has been helping out as well so much appreciation to you and your point is well taken that policy really does require four years of implementation to come into full effect.

And I know you went to Copenhagen in the 20-teens.

It feels about, the 20-teens seem like a decade ago already, but here we are, 2021. Vice Chair Mosqueda, also a co-sponsor on the bill.

And then Council Member Peterson, is your hand raised from earlier or is that new?

That's new, thanks.

Great, so we'll hear from Vice Chair Mosqueda, Council Member Peterson.

Take it away, Vice Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate being here.

Thank you very much for allowing me to be a co-sponsor with you and the Council President.

I'm very excited for this legislation in front of us today.

I appreciate the amendment that you've included here.

I just do have a few summary thoughts about why I think it's important for us to move forward on this legislation and some comments as well regarding the issues around parking, and I would say also the ongoing conversation around whether or not this is going to be any form of unfair advantage for other entrepreneurs across our city.

So first, let me say thank you so much.

During this pandemic especially, I think it's important for us to recognize that COVID has absolutely turned our economy upside down.

Our daily life patterns, our routines, nothing is like it was before.

And the current rules for small businesses, make it absolutely difficult for folks to respond quickly and to try to create economic stability for their community, for their family, if they're not able to potentially open a small business, if they have the ability to do that in their home.

I think that this is a really important tool for us to be able to advance during this pandemic and then to absolutely look at its potential benefits for a longer term nature to make sure that our city can respond more quickly as local entrepreneurs want to open businesses across the city.

And no, this isn't business as usual, because frankly, business as usual in the city has made it very hard sometimes for small businesses to open.

So I'm excited about the opportunity that's been provided by this.

And I think this is a citywide benefit as we think about the number of people who could potentially benefit from this type of ordinance.

We also know that especially immigrants and people of color are also less willing to sort of push the envelope and keep asking for change and I really applaud Yonderbar for putting this issue on our radar and as the sponsors have noted repeatedly, this is about the entire city and actually looking at about the entire benefit across the fabric of our communities to try to make it easier for small businesses to open and stay open.

Coronavirus has laid bare our inequities in many ways by creating barriers to being able to access true economic stability.

And I think by suspending some of these rules we're recognizing that our local community our entrepreneurs these shops are doing everything they can to make it through these very challenging times.

I'm excited to be a sponsor of this interim policy and I do hope that we continue to look for ways to make this part of our longer-term solution to make our communities more resilient, to make them more walkable, to make them more sustainable.

And as we think about opening up more small business shops across the city, I also know that it has to be coupled with more housing, more housing opportunities.

We want this to be a walkable, livable, economically viable city for everyone who lives here.

And a lot of that means making sure that there are front stores like the ones that we're talking about today, more access to child cares, more street cafes and multifamily structures across the city.

I do want to address some of the questions that came up with sort of my own perspective about why I'm supporting this legislation.

I would say that the existing code doesn't actually work for encouraging entrepreneurs.

So for example, Council Member Juarez, I know before I wasn't in the committee, but talked about a fry bread shop.

I've been talking about Tasty Tacos, which is my grandparents' restaurant that they own.

If we wanted to create a Tasty Tacos or a fry bread shop in our front yards through our garages, it would make absolutely no sense to do it by appointment only.

It would make no sense to have no sign out there.

It would not even be feasible to do this with just two people that don't work in, that are not part of our families.

And those are just not requirements that work for encouraging entrepreneurs.

It's also, you know, I think important for us to look for ways to address that fourth pillar, which is how do we make sure that there is not traffic congestion?

That's something I actually support.

And by some of the amendments that we're making today, we're encouraging foot traffic.

We're encouraging visibility from the street.

I do want to talk about the concerns that have come up about the parking requirements.

And I'm going to refer to page 27 from this report, which some of you have probably already read.

It's called A Better City from 2016, Future of Parking in Boston.

It looks at parking and entrepreneur opportunities across the city, and they did a cross-city comparison.

I'm going to cite New York.

I'm going to cite Portland and a few other cities.

where they looked at curb space, because obviously people think, hey, the curb space right in front of your business is the most viable thing to protect, but it's actually sort of counterintuitive to promoting what small businesses want, and that's additional traffic in their stores, foot traffic, and additional revenue.

The curbside space is actually the most valuable space given its proximity to the business, but not for the reasons that you might think.

It's not just about having that spot and getting out of your car and jumping into the shop as soon as possible.

It actually, the report showed that the curb, when it is occupied by parked cars, actually conflicts.

with pedestrians who want to be able to walk around and see what's in the neighborhood.

It conflicts with bicycle and bicycle parking and the visibility of the small business from the street.

So in Portland, Oregon, when they reallocated or removed on-site street parking from right in front of the shops, They saw that the commercial areas, those small commercial shops, actually had greater room for bike corrals and greater visibility from the street.

And a preliminary survey of adjacent businesses around the area also showed that there was a 52% increase in the business's viability from the street, and a 67% increase for foot traffic and bike traffic, all of which contributes to increased business activity and revenue.

That's from the report.

And then furthermore, when looking at Brooklyn, New York, and they looked at the number of unused, underutilized parking spots in Brooklyn, and they converted those areas to things like public event areas, and removed the parking requirements, There was an increase in visibility to the small businesses and saw a 172% increase in retail sales at locally created businesses.

This is about supporting those small businesses, especially as we think about what's happening right now.

I've talked about this before.

I am not driving across the city like we used to, but I am walking way more in my neighborhood than I used to.

I'm walking to those local small businesses.

And as we think about folks coming out of their home and engaging more in their communities, I want more people to walk around their neighborhoods, but I also want them to walk around other economic hubs across the city.

I think that this is actually a way for us to continue to increase visibility from the street and improve walkability and bikeability and also to improve the economic viability of those small businesses.

We are doing some the things that the study talks about, right?

We started some of these things before COVID.

We had been working on creating more parking vacations in some of these spots that were usually used just for one car parking, and we've converted many of those spaces across the city pre-COVID into parking for bikes, for example.

But now look what we've done during COVID.

We've turned a number of these parking spots into actual outside eateries, which is good during the COVID time, but as the report noted, which was pre-COVID, it's actually good for the businesses to be able to have that outside dining area to begin with.

I think that this piece of legislation will be very similar, and we will continue to see that by making more small businesses be able to open in small And in neighborhoods that don't actually have access to these types of small entrepreneurial opportunities right now, we're going to continue to see greater foot traffic.

Those small businesses are going to see more people walking around the neighborhood.

And the businesses that already exist will potentially see more patrons, more foot traffic, more people engaging, coming in to browse the stores.

and more purchases ultimately.

I think it's a really great way for us to make sure that we're engaging across the city, creating more economic local hubs throughout our neighborhoods.

And I think it's an economic stimulant for Seattle that I do hope the data will show that this will be a way for us in the long term to encourage more entrepreneurs across our city.

And finally, from the equity perspective, every single report talks about the fact that the COVID induced recession has disproportionately affected women and people of color in terms of lost jobs, lost hours, and lost livelihood.

And if we want to think about how we create a more equitable recovery in the long run, we have to be thinking about ways that we allow for people to use their entrepreneurial spirit, those tools at their disposal, and to be able to allow them to open up new shops.

This is an economic stimulant specifically for our communities across the city, I believe, who have been disproportionately impacted by the impacts of COVID.

And I think that it will have a positive impact for those who have been hardest hit by COVID.

And again, to the question around competition.

will actually help those small businesses who have been able to sustain or are barely hanging on during this crisis as they begin to open their doors as well.

It will be a stimulant to those existing businesses as we see greater foot traffic and economic activities.

Because as we create more economic stability, especially for those who've been hardest hit by COVID, those individuals, once they are also successful, have cash in hand.

And when people have cash in hand, they spend it in their local communities.

So they spend it in existing businesses.

This is absolutely a stimulant.

This has a multiplier effect for our economic viability across the city.

And I could not end my comments without talking about the beginnings of Tasty Tacos.

In Des Moines, Iowa, my grandparents started Tasty Tacos in 1961. This was the year after my dad graduated high school.

He's the oldest of six kids.

And my grandparents did everything they could to help make sure that there was a roof over their head of the kiddos and that people had food on the table.

And after working very different types of jobs over the years, my grandparents started Tasty Tacos.

in the small garage in front of the house they were renting.

And my grandpa always talks about how it was started out of a hole in the wall, because it was literally the hole in front of their wall where the garage was.

And his motto is, nada es imposible.

So if you've ever seen me wear a Tasty Taco shirt, or if you look it up online from Des Moines, Iowa, that's their motto on everything.

Nothing is impossible, because it truly started out of the front of their home.

And now here we are, decades later, and it's voted the best taco place in Des Moines, Iowa every single year.

And it is, they now have six restaurants and they got out of generational poverty.

This is what it means to create more opportunities during this crisis.

And hopefully this will be a longer term piece of policy that we can continue to see advance.

I'm happy to support it.

And thank you for your leadership on this Council Member Strauss and Council President.

Thank you, Vice Chair Mosqueda.

Points well taken, especially talking about the vacant storefronts that we have in our city and how one of the reasons I'm downtown right now and one of the reasons why I'm having trouble finding lunch, I wish Tasty Tacos was here, is because people are not working in their offices.

They're spending time in their residential neighborhoods.

And it's important that we provide opportunities to make our residential neighborhoods more vibrant as we weren't expecting to spend so much time there.

And then your point about jobs, it is these small businesses are creating jobs and that kind of speaks to why it's important to remove that limitation on how many people can be working in the space.

Again, it has to abide by public health guidelines.

We don't need to be that barrier.

I will flag whether it's fried bread, tasty tacos or coffee roasting.

There is still in this bill a provision that if a complaint was received because of smell, noise or glare.

that a complaint could still be filed.

So understanding that that is still part of the bill, what we do know is that when people are good neighbors with each other, that those complaints don't get filed.

That's why we have so many businesses across the city right now operating out of the compliance with the code because their neighbors haven't complained.

So this just creates that level playing field.

Council Member Peterson, I see you are up next.

Please take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

And thanks to my colleagues.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying.

I do have concerns about this bill, which I'll talk about now.

And despite my concerns about this bill, I would like to thank the original author, Chair Strauss, for providing enough time to consider this legislation when some bills are often quickly rushed through the city council.

Although this bill was discussed quickly after it was introduced, Chair Strauss provided ample time and grace in his committee on February 24th to air the concerns and provide staff time to analyze it since then.

So ultimately though, the subsequent memo from our central staff analyst, conversations with the department that will implement this legislation, and most importantly, my outreach to small businesses did not alleviate the concerns I raised during the previous committee meeting on February 24th.

In fact, many business districts had not heard of this legislation and offered additional concerns.

I have consistently and strongly supported small business.

Last year, I worked hard to renew the neighborhood business improvement area for the University District, a very diverse business district in the heart of District 4. Over 65% of those businesses are owned by women and people of color.

For small businesses throughout Seattle, I supported several financial and regulatory relief and recovery programs throughout the COVID pandemic.

In addition, my recent op-ed for an inclusive economic recovery points to many ways that government can and should work with local employers to get people back to work and achieve an inclusive economic recovery.

I also bring to the table significant private sector experience.

And after studying this issue, Council Bill 120001 is, in my opinion, not the most appropriate intervention at this time.

In fact, it is because, in large part, because of my support of existing small businesses in our neighborhood business districts that I have remaining concerns with the bill.

On my city council blog, I'll post all of my concerns in more detail so I can fully explain my vote to my constituents.

But for committee now, I'll just summarize a few key points.

First, it's important to note, as we discussed already, home-based small businesses are already allowed under the code.

This bill would remove some of the requirements.

Second, this bill is framed as needed to address stresses on small businesses due to the COVID pandemic.

However, the bill is not written time-limited to the pandemic.

It instead sets up a starting point for potential permanent change in the land use code for the entire city.

Third, the proposed changes will make it possible for retail, food, and drink establishments to proliferate everywhere in the city with, in my opinion, too little consideration of the impacts on existing small businesses struggling to reopen and rehire within our many neighborhood business districts.

These small business owners are not only paying their rent on their triple net lease, the long-term lease that they're in the middle of right now, but also paying rent on their personal residence or a mortgage on their personal residence, both.

And there's, I believe, too little consideration on the impacts on the residential areas due to increased deliveries and customer traffic that would be expected.

I'm concerned that the legislation will distract a key city department from other important work.

Our city, our Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, SDCI, is already behind on improving permits and delivering an overdue ordinance to protect our trees.

We heard a couple of speakers address this issue.

They're concerned about the tree ordinance taking too long.

I believe this would be saddling the city government staff to develop, monitor, and monitor this new program, and ultimately enforce complaints about the new program, which could delay their other priorities within the department.

And from the dozens of emails we've received, it appears that there are one or two small businesses behind that push for the legislation.

But this would impact the entire city of Seattle.

I think the needs of a single small business having trouble with the city's complex and often confusing zoning and land use codes are legitimate and should be addressed.

I don't think this warrants land use changes impacting all of Seattle.

completely support.

The Office of Economic Development has a program on their website, Startup Resources for Small Businesses.

Incubation of small businesses is an effort that I hope Office of Economic Development would get more involved in, and there's been lots of success incubating small businesses by clustering them together, just like neighborhood businesses just cluster together to attract customers, foot traffic, so that they can mutually benefit from the additional foot traffic.

Same with incubating small businesses together in a single space so they share rent, get technical assistance together, learn from each other as they grow and expand.

Also, some small businesses could become vendors at farmers markets.

We have a year-round farmers market in the University District.

So there are lots of opportunities to incubate small businesses, and I'd rather see, again, one-off exceptions made rather than blanket citywide changes.

Thank you.

Well noted, Council Member Peterson.

I will just again highlight the fact that the neighboring business district, Finney Neighborhood Association, indicated their support of this bill and support, and they're just a block or two away, as well as KCPQ's Brandy Cruz, who's usually very critical of city council and had good words to say about you this morning, Council Member Peterson, also stated her support for this bill.

I wanna highlight the fact that the timeline needs to be set in stone so that it is clear for all people engaging in this process to know exactly when this is going to end because the pandemic, it's not clear when the pandemic will end when the civil state of emergency will end.

So we just want to be very clear with all stakeholders in the public.

As far as distractions from SDCI and their work, inspectors who do inspection on compliance, they aren't part of the permitting pipeline.

We'll be getting a little bit to that later today in this committee.

We were supposed to have a robust briefing, but apparently the presentation is stuck in the pipeline upstairs.

So we'll get to that in a little bit.

And you speak about the exceptions to the land use code.

I want to make sure that it's very clear that we attempted to look for the ability to create exceptions.

land use code can't have exceptions unless you change the code.

And that is why this is an interim bill, because it makes a temporary it's exactly what kind of what you were saying is we need to make a temporary change to the land use code because the inspectors are they can't be subjective.

It has to either be yes or no, one or zero.

And in this case, we need to give them that that flexibility for It kind of just like what you said, one-off exception.

Because again, when we looked at this bill, the majority of the code requirements for home occupancy bill, home occupancy businesses do remain.

And we just changed a few of them.

I see your hand up.

Do you wanna, do you have something else to say?

Nope.

Okay, thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Looking around the Zoom room, do we, Council Member Juarez, please.

So are we going to go to a vote now?

Can I say something before we go?

Okay, great.

Then we're going to go to vote.

I think what we heard today, everyone agrees with.

No one's against this.

No one's, I mean, the four areas where you want to relax certain performance standards, I mean, they're all, reasonable people can disagree.

And, you know, I don't think I'm trying to compare brick and mortar to a garage because they're different for various reasons.

More towards a more holistic response is that we have this opening of this aperture, if you will, this time right now, as you're bringing this forward, to look at economic development through a social justice lens.

And if we are talking about a pathway to permanency and an incubation program, which in another life, I did many of these, and I like what Council Member Peterson said, if you're going to do a pathway to permanency, at some point, you're going to want to have these, if these small, if these businesses at home on a path to permanency want to find themselves as a storefront store, they are going to need the support from groups like the Small Business Association.

They're going to need the business and financial literacy that is required and needed for all that stuff.

Because, I mean, the dream is you start a business like Council Member Mosqueda was saying, in your garage, and someday you have a storefront, and someday you have franchises, and you build generational wealth that you can, you know, pass on to your children, your grandchildren, and you can pay for your mortgage, you put your kids through college.

And if this is a starting point for that, that makes sense.

I get that.

And I'm glad that we're talking and doing this.

And so I'm not so concerned about whether or not there are more employees in the building.

I just want to be able to respond to some of the small businesses that this is a good thing.

Because you may find yourself not with more competitors, but with a more vibrant business district that is more expansive and representative of our great city.

So with that, thank you very much.

I will be voting to support this.

So thank you.

My goodness, that is a supreme.

Well, you have to rename it.

You have to rename it.

Okay.

I'll bring that amendment on Monday.

And Ketel's memo to me.

Thank you.

A wise person once said to me, you have to be ready if you don't have the questions or the answers to all of Councilmember Juarez's questions, you shouldn't be coming to committee.

And so thank you.

Okay, great.

And by the way, who's Brandi Cruz?

She is a reporter on Q13 Fox.

Oh, okay.

Wonderful.

Colleagues, any other comments, questions, concerns?

Councilmember Lewis, any?

Well, I would just say, Mr. Chair, I will be voting for this in spite of the fact that Randy Cruz is supporting it.

I appreciate it.

Just a joke.

Just kidding.

But I will be voting for this.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, for your leadership.

And I don't have any questions.

Thank you kindly.

And I just again want to thank Brandi Cruz, Casey PQ, and then Converge Media, Omari Salisbury and Trey Holiday for highlighting the impact of this.

Thank you to everyone who showed up for public comment or wrote to the council to express your support or disdain for the bill.

I want to thank Ketel Freeman, central staff, Noah on the win.

for your assistance in writing this legislation and co-sponsors Council President Gonzales and Council Member Mosqueda.

Colleagues, if this passes right now, the legislation will be before us on Monday, March 15th.

So I'm moving- I think we need to get back to what happened to Harry and Megan.

That's what I'm upset about.

So I'm just gonna throw that out there, see what Brandy thinks about that.

And who's the queen?

We'll get to that later.

So I moved that the committee recommends passage of council bill one two triple zero one as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

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

If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Peterson?

No.

Council member Lewis?

Yes.

Council member Juarez?

Aye.

Vice chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Four in favor, one opposed.

Thank you, Mr. Ahn.

Any final comments?

Otherwise, I know I had promised Council Member Juarez that we would be wrapped up with committee by 11.30.

She's excused at 11.30.

Clearly, I'm not gonna make that mark.

Sorry, Council Member Juarez.

So, up next, our next item of business.

No, procedurally, Chair Strauss, it's coming out of a committee on a divided report.

I believe it has to wait until the following Monday.

for a full council vote.

We can check with our parliamentarian here on that.

Unless the council president agrees to suspend the rules.

So I'm happy to have a conversation about next steps.

Great.

Well, we will either see it on March 15th or on the 22nd due to the unfortunate divided vote.

Thank you, Kito, for flagging that.

Our next item of business today, and thank you, Council President, for joining.

Feel free to stay on or log off at your convenience.

Our next item of business today is the annual report from the Office of Planning and Community Development.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read this item into the record?

And item two, Office of Planning and Community Development annual report.

Thank you.

We are joined by Director Sam Assefa from OPCD, a national leader in community and planning development.

I also saw Deputy Rico, and you'll have to, I'm gonna let you tell me how to say your last name.

Yeah.

great.

I once we meet and have a face or a virtual, I will then be introducing you.

I don't want to.

Yes, thank you kindly.

Director Assefa, I believe yesterday marked five years exactly since you were nominated to this position.

As we get started, I want to thank you for your enormous contribution to our city.

You have your fingerprints on the built environment throughout the city, whether it's the equitable EDI or how we have changed zoning in meaningful ways, your leadership is incredible.

And I really sincerely hope you do not go far with that.

And I for the viewing public, I was joking earlier.

I might be serious.

I may just never adjourn this committee.

So director can't ever leave.

We'll see.

So everyone get their water.

Director Estefan, please take it away.

This is your presentation, and I'll ask questions as we go.

Great.

Well, thank you for those kind words, Council Member Strauss, and thank you for having me here this morning and having OPCD for our annual reports.

I'd also like to thank the committee As you just mentioned, it was a very hard decision, actually, for me, as you know, stepping down at the end of this month.

It has been a great, great honor to work individually with a lot of you here, especially Council Member Strauss, you as the Lawn Use and Neighborhoods Committee Chair.

And it's been an amazing honor to work for the city of Seattle for the last five years.

We have, as you mentioned, Rico Quirindongo, who joined us as a deputy director a couple of months ago.

OPCD will be in good hands.

Mayor Durkan has appointed him as interim director when I stepped down at the end of this month.

So Rico has extensive experience with Seattle, in community work, urban design, a lot of civic design work, and most of you have engaged with him.

So I'll just have him introduce himself briefly while I'll get the presentation, Rico.

Thank you, Sam.

And thank you for your leadership these last five years.

I have, having moved from the private sector to the public sector now, I mean, I've been a architect for the last 26 years practicing born and raised Seattleite.

I was voted a citizen architect by the American Institute of Architects in 2011 and 2020. hugely committed to the important heavy lifting that gets done by City Council and by all of our civic leadership.

And I'm really excited to be a part of the City of Seattle staff and community.

I'm also super proud of the presentation that we're giving today on the great work of our office.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Sam.

Great, thanks Rico, council members.

So today we'll give you sort of an overview of both the accomplishments in 2020, one of the hardest difficult times for all of us in the cities and the country's history, not the world.

And I'll talk briefly about some of the accomplishments there and then jump onto 2021 work program.

So first I'll start with Office of Planning and Community Development's key mission.

We lead collaborative planning, advance equitable development and create great places.

We also set goals from a leading with equity perspective, primarily to eliminate racial disparities and achieve racial equity in all of the work that we do through our work and engagements as planners, but also community developers.

That vision cannot be more true and important as it is in this time that we're in after 2020. So I'll talk briefly about that.

OPCD 2021 budget has 42 full-time employees.

Two are on loan to other departments.

This is the organization structure.

We have primarily four key divisions plus two commissions.

Just quickly going from left to right, the team that leads the equitable development initiative program, about eight staff, community planning, that is specific neighborhood plans, team that work on the various neighborhood plans in the city, Long-range planning, which primarily focuses on the comprehensive plan and long-term city land use policies, as well as manages the geographic information system, demographic data, equitable monitoring.

Land use policy, this is the team that focuses on very specific zoning policies and land use policies and working with the urban design team.

to develop urban design guidelines, for example, for the various community plants that OPCD produces with other departments.

And then we have the two commissions, the Design Commission and the Planning Commission.

As I go through the presentation and accomplishments, I'll divide it by each of those divisions.

So starting with 2020 accomplishments, as you know, OPCD is not a primary frontline emergency response department.

As a result, most of our work at the beginning of the pandemic and the crisis in 2020 has been supporting the city's efforts in mitigation and response to the crisis.

So a lot of our staff, we lent to multiple departments, Office of Economic and Emergency Response, as well as work with Office of Economic Development on small business support, mitigation work, but also using our GIS and data to help support the emergency response as well as small business assistance.

However, we also have core work items that we continue to work, so I'll just highlight some of them.

I'll start with the long-range planning team.

So one of the reports they produce annually is the equitable development monitoring program around population data and information.

We update the demographic website regularly.

There's a lot of work on that in 2020. A new analysis on housing needs analysis focused on the house bill 1923 that passed in 2019. This house bill focuses, as you know, opportunities to maximize density in urban areas.

So on that basis, as we're developing the next update for the comprehensive plan, the base work around housing needs analysis is a core function of that work.

So staff have been working on developing that analysis and they continue to work on that.

And then there was a significant amount of work, the early work on the comprehensive plan update.

As you know, the update is every five to seven years.

We are, and this year we'll launch the next update, which is due mid 2024. So in 2020, we focused a lot on the base work, especially on racial equity analysis and council's request as well around determining how best our non-use policies over the last 20, 30 years have responded to racial equity.

So that analysis is underway and it will be the basis for policy conversation around the comp plan updates and we'll be reporting to you soon this quarter on that analysis and study.

And then there's buildable lands analysis.

This is part of a requirement by the growth management for every update We look at the citywide capacity for growth and its capacity for our land, existing zoning.

And that data is also used to inform growth management and comprehensive plan policy objectives and projections as we move forward.

And then there's significant amount of coordination with our regional agencies, King County and Puget Sound and the state.

around the states, how the comp plan has to be consistent with the vision 2050. This is the state's vision or the state's version of the comprehensive plan for 2020. So a lot of that work has been going on in 2020 and some of it will continue this year.

On community planning, some of the key highlights of the team, significant work, obviously coordinating with state agencies around sound transit, around the light rail extension in the 14 station areas, a lot of agency workshops and community workshops, developing design guidelines for all of the 14 station areas, and then some specific work around Jackson Hub, for example, some of the major station areas, working with the community groups from the CID, Chinatown International District, A lot of work on 130 years station area planning and we'll soon be publishing the draft plan and community engagements that took place all throughout 2020 starting in 2019. And we are also teeing up this year a new community planning priority in Westwood Island Park.

Most of the latter half of last year, we coordinated with Seattle Public Utilities, Department of Neighborhoods, Department of Transportation, and with the county around policy issues, infrastructure issues that are either in the planning stages or that are being envisioned either by the county and some within the local area by the city as well as a basis for data to inform community planning work, which will be a priority for Western Highland Park this year.

Our land use policy team, some key accomplishments.

Thank you council for your work on adopting the new accessible dwelling units legislation last year that staff in very close coordination with Department of Construction Inspections developed 10 pre-approved plans and designs to make it easier for homeowners and people who don't engage in development and architecture and lay audience, so that it's easier for them to actually add accessory dwelling units by providing free design, pre-approved designs which would also expedite the process, but staff also work on developing a very accessible, usable website.

I encourage everyone to go in there and see the step-by-step process, how you could actually want to build accessory dwelling units, how you could do it.

It's in multiple languages, and it makes it very easy to really understand the process and the steps.

A number of other rezoning Rainier Beach rezones for affordable housing.

This is in South Rainier Beach Avenue, some vacant parcels and underutilized parcels for the purpose of encouraging and creating space for affordable housing primarily.

So that zone, again, thank you for council moving forward with that legislation.

A number of work on housing choices reports and analysis Our team coordinates with Office of Housing and then internally, not only the land use policy, but the long range planning group and community planning to really understand the housing choices that we need to think about as we move forward with short term and long term policies.

And then a significant amount of work, as you know, the Maritime Industrial Strategy, the OPCD, Office of Economic Development and Department of Neighborhoods working with the Mayor's Office, we hope and a major sort of milestone this quarter in that work, that most of the work that's been going on in 2020. We have a small team that really focuses on urban design work and supporting both city, OPCB divisions, but also other departments on urban design work.

One completed product was the LID I-5 feasibility study.

As you recall, that was funded through the convention center development, and that work and report has been completed in 2020. Staff has been helping the SR 520 by Mount Lake, urban design for the LID that is going on there.

ST3 hub urban design strategy.

Those are the hubs that I mentioned, one of them Jackson Hub, West Lake, and Bell Ridge.

And then various urban design support for a number of community plans and initiatives within the office.

The equitable development team has been very busy, and especially in 2020, there are a lot of focus on what it means to pivot around the COVID impacts.

So in addition to the funding really focusing for the 2020 on sort of direct COVID response support for community organizations, we also doubled down on our engagement throughout the organizations as part of the EDI.

We have now 60 or more community organizations, nonprofit organizations, all people of color that live within the city of Seattle.

And we have an ongoing relationship and engagement with them.

Most of them have been awarded in grantees.

Some who did not qualify, but we still stay in touch with them as part of the whole process of really building relationships and capacity building.

The EDI team organized a very useful and robust engagement and convening for half a day last year and bringing significant amount of government, philanthropic organizations and funders, and then the key community organizations that we work with to really begin relationship and connections and collaborations.

This is going to be critical.

As you know, the EDI fund alone is a drop in the bucket.

not going to address the significant challenges, especially people of color experience.

So this idea from the EDI group has been that we need to be the conveners to connect the funders with the organizations so that you build relationships because private public initiatives are critical to address that issue.

Some EDI funding, Rainier Beach Coordination Center and the Black Tan, that is two organizations that are part of the EDI orgs that have now successfully acquired their own properties.

This is an important component of community wealth building that we will ramp up as well this year and moving into the next couple of years.

The Seattle design commission, oops, the Seattle Design Commission, just description, it primarily advises council and the mayor on primary capital projects, public projects, police stations, or publicly funded projects, or any long-term or permanent vacation or use of public right of way, so that their role is to review and advise, and they've been very busy in 2020. They were the first commission actually right after COVID in March, a jump on getting to online meeting format or the pilot for IT as well to have a successful meeting that we're having now.

Approval of urban design manual applied for the SR 520 investments.

There's a policy work that the commission developed on public facilities for naming with Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities that we use as the Sound Transit vacant properties for public spaces and reimagining right away due to COVID some of the conversations that you're having earlier in terms of how our public spaces could actually serve as great outdoor spaces to address the challenges from COVID.

The planning commission, on the other hand, is an independent body that is housed in OPCD, but it, again, advises Seattle Council and the mayor on broad, long-range planning goals and policies, including sort of how the land use and development takes place for the longer term.

In 2020, they've been engaged in growth strategy paper, writing policy and research paper, racial equity and resilience recovery paper.

We use it as to inform our own recovery discussions and ideas.

Then application of racial equity principles from Center for Urban and Racial Equity.

This is an organization that works with governments and communities around the key principles around racial equity.

And the planning commission has been engaged in that.

So now I'll jump into sort of 2021 key priorities.

This was, you know, being discussed earlier, the impact of the pandemic on BIPOC communities is clear, the disproportionate impact and what we do internally as a team and with our change team, with our leading with equity team, is every year we sort of project, you know, what are we waiting for?

And this is kind of an outline of key principles that we need to double down on on our 2021 priorities.

So, lead with equity, prioritize by-product needs, build long-term relationships similar to the 60 organizations that I mentioned earlier, keep building on that, And data informed understanding of the COVID crisis on people and demographics, and how that helps inform not only our work, but citywide and city organizations and other agencies.

And systems transformation, the Equitable Development Program has been one of the early sort of pilots for getting community members that are most impacted by institutional racism or equity issues to be at the table in the decision-making process.

So we're growing that and one of them is, you know, getting a permanent advisory board and how do we think about structural changes internally on ourselves and how we engage with others.

And then finally advancing just in New Zealand City through any of our major initiatives for 2021. So with that, The long-range planning team, there's a lot of work that they're doing.

The key 2021 priorities include what I mentioned, comprehensive climate updates.

Sometime this quarter, next quarter, actually next quarter, we plan to launch the major update process, but early, the first two quarters, we'll be focusing on a lot of the data analysis that needs to be done.

I mentioned housing needs supply.

and analysis and strategies that will continue this quarter.

Of course, annual comp plan amendments would be ongoing work.

And then demographics in GIS, there are a number of updates that the team creates every year, either the equitable monitoring reports or other demographics data.

And then significant coordination with city organizations state public schools and state legislations.

All of these also help feed into policy objectives and issues that we look at in the Congress of Plan.

Our community planning work, major focus this year will be 130th and 145th station area.

As I mentioned earlier, we'll be publishing the draft plan and engagements that took place over the last 18 months.

hopefully in the next couple of weeks, working with the Department of Neighborhoods and other departments on China Town International District, racial equity support, community planning in Aurora, Licton Springs, some transit work that will continue, early station planning for Jackson Hub, Westlake Hub, and Delwidge.

We're hoping, you know, post-summer, maybe we Wishful thinking that we could have in-person engagement, that regardless with online engagement, we will continue to engage with communities in those areas.

And staff worked with, my staff worked with the Department of Transportation to actually secure $1.75 million from the FTA, Federal Transportation Agency.

authority, a grant that will support some of our work this year, very much focused on equitable transit-oriented development.

This is, you know, in our own station area, so we can maximize density.

How do we think equity and bring equity as part of that?

So that fund will support our work in coordination on a lot of related issues this year and next.

And then significant work on public spaces.

As you know, during the pandemic discussions this morning, public spaces are going to be even more important.

We're coordinating with Department of Transportation, Parks, and really understanding our citywide public space needs as well as downtown.

Our land use policy team, major work has been the industrial maritime strategy, which we hope to complete a major part of it this year.

And then there'll be work related to that outcome this year, depending on the advisory groups and stakeholders' recommendation.

Housing policy, equitable zoning strategies, this is above and beyond the equitable transit-oriented development issues, but we are thinking of looking at, you know, what kind of zoning barriers do especially BIPOC communities experience, and how do we mitigate that through thinking some of our recommendations as we move forward.

A number of code amendments, environmental review supports, moving forward with the accessory dwelling unit implementation, coordinating with SPCI, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

We have a small team of urban designers who support a number of initiatives, but also departments of the city.

And some of the key ones are the I-5 Lead Disability Study, our lead urban designer, Lyle McNell actually led that process over the last year.

We're working with Office of Housing on Mount Baker Station area, if you recall, the University of Washington's laundry site.

And we're coordinating on that to get an RFP out with Office of Housing leading that work.

And then a lot of interagency supports, downtown transit, King County master plan, and the DTA, Downtown Transit Association.

So our urban design team coordinates at the regional level.

Quickly, key highlights for the equitable development initiatives, continuing with 60 projects that are, in one form or another, funded either through capacity building and or capital projects.

So staff engages with that.

We worked, the EDI team, as well as Department of Neighborhoods and Facilities Department, FAS, worked on transferring of two city-owned properties.

And the mayor directed us a year ago, a couple of years ago, to come up with a comprehensive policy for transfer of city-owned properties.

So Bird Bar Place and Central Area Senior Center in the Central District.

was transferred as part of that process and we'll be continuing more of that this year.

And then the strategic investment fund, this is the $30 billion from the Mercer Mega Block that we'll be focusing on quickly this year to really understand how that could be spent and come to you with a spend fund soon.

Duwamish Valley is an ongoing coordination and work with multiple departments in OPCD and also Sustainability and Environment, primary leads that we coordinate with public utilities, City Light, NASDAQ, and King County on that work and that will be continuing.

I mentioned Equitable Transit-Oriented Development Strategy, and then our The EDI team works with our long-range and demographics data team to keep updating equity indicators reports and a participatory research program that would become a report as part of our monitoring how equitable our policies outcomes are just as a measure.

So I know there's a lot there.

Those are kind of the highlights and I will leave time for questions.

Thank you, Director Rousseff.

And I've got a couple questions on your side.

So if you want to keep them up, that would be great.

And colleagues, I do know that we've got 10 minutes left with Councilmember Juarez.

So maybe I'll, do you have questions, Councilmember Juarez?

Nope.

Great.

So again, I just want to highlight, Director Rousseff, that this is one year of you and your team's work.

Five years of your work has reshaped our city in incredibly positive and important ways.

So just again, highlighting this was one year's worth of work.

You're doing just amazing things for our city.

On slide six, titled Land Use Policy, I don't expect you to have these numbers on hand, but does OPCD have a way of knowing what portion of ADUs are being developed using one of these pre-approved plans or taking advantage of the ADU universe that you mentioned?

So we're working with SBCI on that.

I don't have the latest numbers.

My team is coordinating with SBCI.

I don't know if Nathan is on the call.

I'm not sure.

We have the numbers.

We can get to you if we have any.

It is still early because the legislation went out recently, but we monitor, SBCI monitors, you know, applications that are coming in that we can get to.

We have the latest data on that.

I'm not sure if Nathan is on the call.

Just following up later is just totally fine.

I just want to highlight that this is a way that we can expedite people being able to get through the permit pipeline and lower the costs of ADUs.

On the slide titled Urban Design, I guess it's not so much a question as more of a comment talking about LID I-5 and uplifting all of the great work that you did with that feasibility study.

It is clear that it is feasible to LID I-5 where we in the the report that you provided was really helpful.

Understanding that we could do public space, we could do private real estate, we could do a mixture of both.

And it really frames the conversation for us to be able to move into the future.

We know cities all across the nation are using either lids for just public space or like in DC where they've actually built buildings on top of the freeway.

And we have experience here in Seattle with your work on the Montlake which is currently under construction for the viewing public.

Go take a look to see how we build these lids.

Hopefully it's coming to an I-5 near you.

So yeah, no question, just thank you.

On slide 13, community planning.

Can you provide me, you may have mentioned this, but more clearly, what is the status of Imagine Greater Downtown Initiative?

Given the focus on downtown's recovery this year, do you expect more work in the initiative in 2021?

So there's a lot of, so that work has given a great roadmap for short-term, mid-term, long-term actions.

And this is the right time to actually use that.

And the team that is really focusing on downtown recovery, for example, especially around ideas around public spaces that are identified in that document would be a roadmap.

I sit on the Downtown Transportation Alliance that includes SDOT, Downtown Seattle Association and other transportation agencies And that group has also, is using that document to really tee up coordination around transportation and public space related ideas that have been developed in that Imagine Greater Downtown.

So that would be, yes, that work would help inform a lot of our focus on, especially on recovery in the immediate sense.

Wonderful.

Sam, thank you.

Yeah, please.

I apologize for interrupting.

I was just going to add to that.

You know, we've had a couple of great conversations in the DTA recently about Imagine Greater Downtown and about how we move toward recovery this year.

I'm very much looking forward to working with the interagency partnership regarding how we communicate how City of Seattle and downtown are still open for business and kind of what that communications plan evolves into.

And I think that the, you know, the points that we've talked about in Imagine Greater Downtown regarding you know, multimodal hubs and like all of the great characters of all of our different neighborhoods will certainly inform our work as we move into the year, move deeper into the year here.

Wonderful, thank you.

And then lastly, slide 14, you shared quite a bit about work in 2021 towards equitable zoning strategies.

Are there any finer points that you want to put on this?

So the equitable zoning strategies, we're just initiating that concept and idea.

There are two parts to it.

One I mentioned, as we look at the station area planning in the 14 station areas, the typical transit oriented development in planning focuses on maximizing density where stations are because it's major investment to take advantage of that.

We want to put another lens on that and ask the question, who is going to benefit from that density and are there opportunities there for land ownership or other engagement or small businesses within the BIPOC community, for example.

And then the other is we have over the years and especially recently have heard from primarily BIPOC developers or organizations that want to do development, that there are certain barriers in our zoning that is embedded there.

So staff is collecting data and information around that.

And then we will be helping sort of think about what barriers do we need to remove and address from what we're calling equitable zoning.

As you know very well, we've learned the spotlight in 2020 has been the impact of 1920s and 30s and 14 zoning in my own profession has done to impact BIPOC communities.

This is an opportunity, I think Council Member Juarez said that earlier, you know, this is a transformation time.

And this is the time to really think about how we reverse those kinds of issues.

And my team is working with that.

By the way, thank you for your comment.

I have to say that I have some of the best team.

I let Nathan know that we compete.

And that's why the work, all that work that we've seen ideas will develop.

I just sit around and make sure that they're supported.

So most of the credit really goes to them.

The mark of a true leader, being able to give your team the support they need, make sure things are getting done, and recognizing the team.

Thank you, Director Asefa.

Colleagues, and just since we're on the slide, calling out the maritime and industrial strategies, I always put maritime first because the, well, ship canal and the Ballard waterways.

We don't need to get into it.

Just good work there as well.

Excited to see some of that come forward.

Colleagues, any other questions for Director Assefa and Deputy Director Curandingo?

Did I get it?

Close.

Dongo.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And it is great to see you, Director Assefa.

Congratulations as well.

Rico, thank you for your presentation.

I look forward to working with you and Sam, thank you for all of your work over the years.

I do have a few follow-up questions.

I wanted to ask about if there's any updates on the faith-based organizational housing land use changes that we have been working on with you all.

Um, waiting to see how we can help support more construction of affordable housing on property owned by faith community organizations.

Sure, so that is moving forward.

We March 8th, we publish.

the environmental, the determination of non-significance.

This is the environmental analysis, whether the zoning changes that are proposed, they range from one to three story capacity for religious owned properties based on the state legislation from last year, with 2019. So March 29th, the public review comments will be completed.

and if there's no challenge we expect soon after that to submit legislation for a council.

Excellent.

Okay a follow-up question if I might Mr. Chair.

Please take it away.

So I appreciate that.

I look forward to working with you on that and I know that you know, many iterations of policy changes have had to come together at the state and local level to help make sure that we could advance the opportunity for faith-based community organizations to be able to advance a more affordable housing option.

So look forward to that conversation.

The other thing I'm looking forward to, it probably is no surprise, is the racial equity toolkit analysis that we put into statute in, I believe it was 2018. The importance of that racial equity toolkit analysis was to look at the urban village strategies and to better understand whether there was an impact, especially for communities of color and in terms of displacement and exclusion, excluding communities from being able to live across our cities.

We had expected there to be a presentation next month, and then I think it was pushed to May.

Can you give us a better sense?

I mean, obviously everything's been pushed a little bit because of COVID, but this is something that's so important and so many community members have been waiting for this.

very similar to what other cities had done as they began to think of more inclusive zoning strategies like the city of Minneapolis.

Can you give us a better sense of when the racial equity toolkit analysis on our urban village strategy will be presented?

And apologies, Mr. Chair, if you already know the answer to that.

Sure, so the staff has been working with the consultant policy link that was hired last year to develop The analysis, as well as recommendation that they were paused for a bit last year because of the pandemic.

Because part of their work has to do with community engagement.

But they have now initiated that again towards the end of last year, and they are preparing draft reports.

And we will come and report to you in May.

I believe last December, I forgot, we came and reported to the timeline.

Yes, it is pushed by a month or two, but obviously we're ready to come to you in May to communicate the findings on that.

And as I mentioned earlier, it will be foundational in terms of informing and public conversation as well throughout the year around what issues need to be teed up in the comprehensive plan update for the next update.

But that work, we'll share with you sometime in May.

I don't think it's scheduled now.

Okay, thank you so much for everybody who's so excited about that.

May, I'm so, I'm so thankful for that work that you're doing.

And then so that sort of is the last question that I have.

The community engagement strategies that your office leads on, they have been re-initiated or kicked back up again.

And that's also true of the comprehensive plan process.

We're still expecting all of those conversations to happen to begin in July.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you very much, Deputy Director Kirinbongo and also Director Acefa.

It's been wonderful to work with you and great to see you today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

She's better at a lot of things than I am.

Pronunciation is absolutely one of them.

So thank you, and my apologies, Deputy Director, again.

Colleagues, any final questions?

Seeing none, again, Director Assefa, heartbroken receiving the news.

I do want to thank you again for joining us today and everything you've done over the past five years.

You're a nationally recognized planner and you've worked all over the country in Boulder, San Francisco, Chicago.

I feel so lucky that you chose Seattle.

And we are so lucky to have a nationally recognized planner here because our built environment creates the reality in which we live in in so many ways.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

And with that, thank you.

And we will move on to item three.

Our final agenda item today is a briefing from Department of, and I will also mention for the record, Council Member Juarez is excused for the remainder of the meeting.

Our final agenda item today is a briefing from the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections on their 2021 priorities.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the item into the record?

And item three, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections Annual Report

Thank you.

We are joined by Director Nathan Torgelson from STCI.

Director Torgelson, welcome back to the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

Always a pleasure to have you.

And the floor is yours.

Take it away.

Thank you, council members.

It's my pleasure to be here this morning, and I'm going to share my screen.

Can you all see that?

Yes, we can.

It's not in full view.

Yep, I will get there.

Awesome.

Let's see.

Thanks for your patience.

Absolutely.

Slideshow.

Yeah, I'm looking for that.

I've got this bar on the top that I got to get rid of.

It's hiding.

Go to the right next to animation.

Keep going, keep going.

To your right.

Slide show.

Bear with me here.

I've got a bar that's over the top of the PowerPoint, so I can't see it.

No problem.

I'll direct your mouse.

If you move just slightly to your right.

Up, up.

Right.

up just a little bit further.

Right there and then to your right.

Sorry about this.

No problem.

I've got a bar at the top that says mute, stop video, participants, and I'm trying to get that off so I can see the bar.

Mr. Chair, I can actually see the screen pretty well.

You can see it just fine?

Great.

Yeah, I mean, I can see the side panels, but I think it's still visible.

Wonderful.

Should I just start?

Sorry about that.

Yeah, Vice Chair Mosqueda, another asset to the committee in another way, again, twice in two minutes.

Director Torkelson, please feel free to take it away.

My apologies.

Just a reminder of SCCI's purpose and values.

Our purpose is helping people build a safe, livable, and inclusive Seattle.

And our values, equity, respect, quality, integrity, and service.

And I just want to highlight our core value of equity.

We lead with race, and now more than ever, We are really focusing on looking at permitting through a race and social justice lens.

We recognize that all of our applicants don't have the resources to hire consultants and land use attorneys and we have a complicated and robust permitting process.

So.

We have spent extra time this year helping some of our applicants.

We had an immigrant and refugee community center and also a BIPOC organization that was establishing a community center, and we spent time with them ensuring that they would have a successful permitting process.

I'm going to focus on our priorities for 2021. And we'll also touch upon some of the things that happened in our department in 2020. So we have spent and will continue to spend a lot of time implementing tenant service grants to tenant service organizations.

And we have been working on an outreach plan to prepare tenants for the expiration of the eviction moratorium.

We have been carrying forward best practices adopted during COVID and seeing how we can continue some of those practices when we return to in-person services.

We're always working on streamlining our permit processes.

We have been working on creating a cross-departmental permit system governance model.

and also continuing to work with OIR and other partners to modify the state SEPA rules that apply to homeless facilities.

So, before I get into some of the priorities, I just want to talk about how our department has shifted resources to address coveted.

The majority of our staff are now working virtually and as you recall, in mid 2018. We transitioned our permitting process to the Excella system.

That rollout was a little rocky, but certainly now that has been an incredible tool during COVID.

Applicants are able to submit their applications virtually.

We are able to review them virtually and issue those permits virtually.

I do want to recognize that we still have staff that are coming into the office every day.

For example, our land use information Bolton that comes out twice a week has to be done in the office.

And we have a number of inspectors who are out in the field every day, our construction inspectors.

We have been able to resume periodic inspections for boilers and elevators within occupied buildings.

And our code compliance staff are out investigating code compliance complaints.

We have not been going into homes as part of code compliance unless it's an emergency situation.

So some of those code compliance issues have been on hold.

Some of our inspections have been paused, for example, nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

But we look forward to resuming those post pandemic.

We provide comprehensive assistance to tenants and landlords during this very difficult time period.

And we've worked with the mayor's office, the Office of Emergency Management and SDOT to prioritize COVID response efforts.

And this has involved hospital worker parking and permitting for COVID related facilities, whether it was medical clinics, testing facilities or research facilities.

And it hasn't been perfect, first to acknowledge that, but we have been able to maintain a fairly high level of customer service through our online question and answer, paid coaching appointments, and the electronic plan review and permit issuance.

So let's talk about tenant outreach and engagement.

We have been developing a proactive outreach plan to prepare tenants for a future expiration of the eviction moratorium.

That may or may not expire at the end of March.

And we continue to focus tenant service grants on assisting tenants facing eviction.

We have just awarded $1.3 million in tenant services grants with an emphasis on COVID response and recovery.

And we'll have another round of funding in the next couple months.

And just want to thank the council for the additional resources that they provided for that as part of the budget process.

We have hired additional staff for our property owner and technical assistance group.

We just hired a new staff person in that group who is on board, and we're in the middle of interviewing for a technical position in our complaint center.

That interviewing is actually happening this week.

And Director Torgelson, was that POTUS staff member, was that from the council-funded position?

Correct.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Our Renting in Seattle website is up and running, and I encourage council members to take a look at that if you haven't already.

And we have a variety of infographics out that also provide additional helpful information.

We have done a ton of training and technical assistance events to grantees and community partners and landlords.

Those events have been happening virtually.

And again, this has been a great collaboration with the Seattle Office of Civil Rights, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and the Department of Neighborhoods.

So another priority is to maintain innovative practices and to carry forward some of the best practices that we've adopted during COVID and to develop a process to resume all of our standard services, including in-home inspections when we get out of COVID.

So, we want to continue building on the success of virtual public meetings, including design review meetings and I want to thank the council for their swift legislation to allow us to get back to design review meetings.

One of the things that we are looking at right now is that when we do go back to the office and are able to have in-person meetings, how should we handle design review?

Should we go back to all in-person meetings?

Do we continue with virtual only meetings?

Or do we have some kind of hybrid process?

A lot of the designated locations for our design review meetings do not have technology built in.

And that's a very expensive proposition.

Another option would be to have all of our design review meetings in one location where technology can be built in easily.

But we know that also presents challenges because there are multiple design review board meetings going on in different locations in the same evening.

So something that we're taking a very close look at.

In January and February of this year, we had two virtual STCI home fairs and that drew over 500 people.

We were delighted with the response and participation of the public.

We had organized presentations on such topics as earthquake preparedness, landslide preparedness, and how to permit an accessory dwelling unit or a detached accessory dwelling unit.

And we also had open Q&A on a variety of topics.

And in the past, those home fairs have been in person at a South Seattle location and a North Seattle location.

By having the home fairs virtually, we actually attracted a lot more people, about double the number of people.

So again, something for us to think about in the future is perhaps we do one in-person home fair and one virtual home fair.

We keep using and improving our virtual inspection and plan review tools.

Virtual inspections is something that we stepped up this year, given COVID.

It works especially well for some types of inspections, especially electrical inspections.

And for other inspections, it's not gonna work as well.

For example, conveyance and elevators.

So something that we continue to look at.

Another thing that we've done this year is we've started discussions with the Seattle Public Library about the possibility of having staff maybe one day or two days a week at a north and south Seattle location to help the public.

And so that the public doesn't necessarily have to come downtown and pay for parking, et cetera.

As we look to the future, one of the things that we're looking at is having a virtual applicant service center, again, rather than having people have to come downtown who really want that face-to-face communication.

And we have also been working on a variety of tools that will improve the permitting process.

We are piloting a tool called Bluebeam, which allows applicants and staff in real time together to make corrections to plans.

That's a fantastic tool that should reduce the number of correction cycles.

And we're also working on something called Chatbot, Like when you get online and talk to someone like for Alaska Airlines, for example, and having that available to members of the public who want to talk with us.

Let's talk about permitting changes and ways that we're looking at streamlining the permitting process and making reductions in permitting times.

Before COVID happened, the mayor had put together two citywide task force advisory boards, one on affordable and middle income housing and one on small business.

I want to mention that in August of 2020, the mayor announced a funding round for permanent supportive housing, sort of highlighting six projects and gave me very aggressive timelines on permitting and to get those supporting housing projects online quickly.

I have been facilitating a monthly meeting with all the players with those permitting processes and multiple city departments and also King County.

And I feel like that's been a pretty successful process.

We meet once a month and we problem solve on the spot various issues, whether it's with our permitting process or Seattle Public Utilities or plumbing permits.

So that's been great.

Also, I wanted to recognize council member Lewis's legislation to help with permanent supportive housing.

This will exempt the design review process for those affordable housing projects that have wraparound supportive services on site.

So that's important.

Also, another technology adoption that we've made is that the Seattle building code now allows cross-laminated timber buildings up to 18 stories high.

This is more efficient and less expensive construction method than your steel form of construction.

So we're starting to see some of the first applications come in for cross-laminated timber.

We've been partnering with the Office of Economic Development to prepare for more changes to small business spaces.

We're going to be meeting with Councilmember Lewis later this week to talk about how we can improve the tenant improvement process.

We've been working with the Office of Economic Development on small businesses who are interested in moving into spaces and really working with them before they sign that lease.

Sometimes there are challenges where small businesses will sign lease and then they'll discover, oh, in order to make this space available for my business, I'm going to have to make a much bigger investment than I anticipated.

So we're really trying to avoid that.

We have a small business liaison in our department who works with small businesses, and also want to mention that we have an arts liaison that works with our arts and cultural institutions in Seattle, recognizing that lease rates continue to increase in our city, and we want to keep those businesses, those institutions in our city.

Finally, on that last slide to director, I talked about this a lot and that was the accessory detached accessory dwelling unit project.

We have 10 pre approved plans and our goal is that.

Those projects can get through our system in two to six weeks.

We will follow up with you to see how many applications we have in the system right now, but we're really excited about that process and creating additional detached accessory dwelling units in our city.

Cross departmental permitting our goal is to create a cross departmental permit system governance model with Seattle it to improve the customer experience.

The idea is that an applicant.

Could do all their transactions in 1 place.

have a single sign-on to the city of Seattle, would give them a to-do list, a shopping cart to pay any outstanding fees, they would get renewal reminders if they have annual permits that they need to get, and would be a common scheduling platform.

We're also working on improvements to Accela to allow a much easier experience for members of the public to submit public comments.

Many of you are familiar with our Shaping Seattle website, where you go onto the website, you see a map and many dots.

You can click on that dot, see the status of the permit.

You can see the design review packet if there's a design review project component at that site.

We will soon be piloting a similar map for code complaints so people can look up the status of code complaints in their neighborhood and where that is within the SDCI process.

As far as the permit system integration that I mentioned earlier, we're excited that The SDOT and Department of Neighborhoods migration to Accela is in process, so that includes street use permits, and Department of Neighborhoods includes their landmarks review.

Modification of state SEPA rules.

We had a goal this year to continue working with OIR and other partners to modify the state SEPA rules that apply to homeless facilities.

We were Working with State Senator Nguyen that would allow these facilities to bypass the SEPA process so that we could get shelter and safe places for people to go permitted much faster.

Like many good bills, this legislation failed to advance the session, unfortunately.

We will continue to work with OIR to make the goals of this legislation a reality and help the people who are most vulnerable in our community have a safe place to go.

So more work for us to do in this area.

One of the things that is not a new priority for our department but continues to be a priority and I know is very important to council members is trees.

We have been working very closely with council member Strauss on tree legislation.

We are just about to award a contract with a consultant to help us do public outreach.

We've heard a lot about trees from home developers and townhouse developers.

We've heard a lot about trees from strong tree advocates.

But we want to make sure that we get broad community input from various constituency groups and especially from BIPOC communities.

So that work will be underway soon.

We have become much more efficient on following up with tree violations.

Council Member Peterson recently sent you an email about a pretty egregious tree cutting that happened in your district.

And SDCI will be going, tripling the fine on that tree violation and going for $100,000 fine.

We continue to work on trees and look forward to working with the Council on new legislation.

And another area where we're really working on climate change is in the newly adopted technical codes.

And again, just want to highlight the new energy code.

And thank you, Council, for your support on that.

That will go a long ways in fighting climate change as we look at new construction and new buildings and their energy code provisions.

Finally, we continue to do a lot of work with OPCD and SDOT and all city departments on Sound Transit, looking at some potential code amendments and also on the permitting process for Sound Transit 3 when they eventually come in for their permits.

That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you, Director Torgelson.

I know that we were scheduled to have a full presentation about permitting and how to improve permitting time.

I will have some questions for you after my colleagues about that.

Do you want to open it up, colleagues, questions at this time?

I see Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmember Peterson, take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you, Director Torgelson, for your presentation.

And I appreciate you mentioning the tree ordinance, since some folks in the audience and I did not see it in the PowerPoint presentation as a priority.

So because we have that outstanding resolution and there was lots of interest about trees during the budget, the fall budget process, just look forward to seeing the actual legislation.

Thank you.

And I know that SDCI and OSC staff will be coming to Council Member Strauss's next Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, I believe with the first quarterly update on trees.

Great, thank you.

Colleagues, other questions?

I was going to ask, Director Torrelson, are there any updates on the work around alleys, loading berths, and solid waste?

Yeah, so we have, are in the process, I think we have, we've actually hired a consultant, Farron Peers, who is looking at that, the existing regulations, and is doing outreach to various organizations.

As you know, it's a complex topic.

And so that work is underway.

Great, thank you.

And, you know, just kind of piggybacking on Councilmember Peterson's comments about trees.

You know, I am excited that I heard from both you and Deputy Mayors, the Deputy Mayor, that we would be engaging in this work this year.

I know that you've already sent your director's rule for approval, so you've done your yeoman's work there.

And I just want to highlight the fact that it is important for us to create flexibility for people building buildings to be able to meet their floor area ratio, height, bulk, scale, and protect the canopies and engage our city in being able to grow more canopies.

So I look forward to those.

those suggestions, and if you do have any thoughts about what we need to do regarding flexibility for building buildings to be able to protect trees, I'm very interested.

I do have a number of questions about permitting, and is this the best time?

Happy to entertain them, if committee members have time.

Yeah, and I know we're running short on time, so I'll try and be quick.

I know that we had a presentation that we'll be seeing next month, because it wasn't quite ready.

I'm just going to, since I don't have whiteboards with me, I've got some post-it notes.

Can you hear me all right still?

Are you able to hear me from over here?

Yep.

Oh, great.

So one thing that was really important for me here was that as a seller.

So a seller.

Also, it's just so great that we were able to put this program in place before COVID because as I have learned, before a seller, all of the permits were done on paper.

So you had people submitting for a permit would have to come with multiple copies of a permit or of their building plan to get them to get their permits.

So And Director Torgelson, correct me if I'm wrong, if I go any which way.

So you submit the permit, you wait in the queue, and once you come to the front of the queue, you have to go to all of these different nodes along the way.

And these are all positions that folks in SDCI, is that viewable from the, yeah, ish?

You can pull it closer.

So something that's really important to understand is that there are so many different people that have to approve the permit in SDCI.

And then furthermore, you've got folks that are outside of SDCI that also have to approve.

And then it all comes back again.

Oh, well, color code's not working.

And if at that point, The permit has to be re-reviewed by the individual.

They do not have to go to the back of the queue.

They get to come to the front of the queue.

So this ability to have corrections is, so I guess just in the permitting section, you know, we're trying to move people as quickly as possible.

Once they're building permit is, is provided, it goes out.

Now, something that was really interesting that your team shared with me, director Torkelson is that in each of these different buckets, some, some of these teams have, have four people.

Some of them have 30, and these are really highly trained people in our, in our city.

If, for instance, one person left a four-person team, that would leave just a huge gap.

But if one person left a 30-person team, it wouldn't impact it as much.

One thing that was really helpful to hear from you, Director Torngalsen, and your team was that we have tried to use consultants to be able to make approvals of these different nodes.

But that sometimes doesn't work because there's so much expertise that's required.

So this is something where I'm interested in exploring if there's an ability to create, you know, substitutes or float team to be able to make sure that this process is moving forward quickly.

As well as I want to just note that here, you've got areas that are outside of SDCI.

And so if those departments aren't able to hire the correct people in the correct time, it creates backlogs.

And one thing that was important for me to hear is that you could fill the team back up here, but then you would lose somebody here, fill the team here, but lose somebody here.

So I just highlight this is I want to be as supportive as possible of you and your team to make sure that you have the staffing available because, again, with all of those different nodes, we're looking for different types of expertise.

Hiring outside the department doesn't always make sense.

So I'm just highlighting my support for you there.

Something else that's important for us to note is that you mentioned that there's small and medium and then there's complex different types of building permits that we have going on.

One thing that you noted I'm going to do a little graph here that I was happy to hear about which is number of days and then I do years for 2009, 2020, and then for review.

One thing that I heard from you during our presentation at our meeting is that over time, and especially right as we were going into Acela, that transition created a little bit of a There were some bumps in the road.

And what I heard from you is that you've addressed a lot of those bumps.

And so we are now coming back down off that bell curve.

So that bow wake of making the transition to Acela is hopefully behind us.

The issues and the variables that need to be addressed are definitely measured there.

So I'm just, I'm excited for that.

And to call out the fact that if we had been in COVID without Acela, we would have been in a really bad place.

So wanna just call out the fact that we are on the right curve.

We're on the right size.

It seems like we have a pretty good understanding of how we can improve your programs.

And I'll move this back now.

I just wanna call out and give you a fair, They're warning that, you know, what I'm most interested in is how can we improve.

Oh, sorry.

One really clear thing that I heard from you and your team is that there's not a defined goal of how long a permit should take for a review.

And so for different people, there's different expectations.

And so what I want to be here supportive of you and your team, make sure that you have the resources that you need to be successful.

And so I'll be asking for what improvements can we make in the next month.

What improvements can we make in the next quarter?

And what improvements can we make this year?

Because we want to make sure that everyone is paddling in the same direction with the same goal in mind, and that you have all of the resources that you need to be successful.

So I'll save for the official presentation next time.

Since I didn't get interrupted, it sounds like I did well in class and excited to learn more.

Just a couple of quick points, council member.

One of the tools that we do have is the ability to use contingent budget authority, where we can hire staff on a temporary basis without having to go check council to get approval for that.

That's been a very effective means to get staff hired quickly.

Those staff are not permanent, so It can be a little harder to recruit staff for those positions, but people in those temporary positions are very well positioned to take permanent positions when staff do retire or move on to other jobs.

They are very competitive.

So that's been a great tool.

It's very difficult to predict what's going to happen with the economy.

The last thing we want to do is hire staff and then have to lay them off later.

We do have goals for permit turnaround for building permits for the initial round, and that is the most intense round because that's the first time we're looking at permits.

For simple permits, those are things like additions and retaining walls.

We have a four-week turnaround time goal for 90% of those permits and for more complex building permits.

So that's going to be a mixed-use project, a high-rise structural alterations.

We have a 12-week goal.

And for a master use permit, we do have a goal of 120 days from permit submittal to the STCI decision.

We've had a really hard time making that goal.

We are successful for some short plats.

You know, the code does keep getting more and more complicated.

Mandatory housing affordability is a very important check that involves some additional time.

we continue to try to address those MUP turnaround times.

Thank you, and thank you for those clarifications.

Still, I clearly have more to learn and excited for the next lesson and class time.

Colleagues, any other questions on Director Torgalson's report to us?

I do just want to also thank all of your inspectors who are going out into the field.

I know that there are sites where they don't enter because people aren't following COVID health guidelines.

And I just want to not only are the inspectors keeping our economy moving by ensuring these building permits are out there and everyone's in compliance, they're also putting themselves on the front lines of the pandemic.

So just thank you to all of the inspectors.

Thank you for recognizing them.

Not seeing any questions from colleagues.

I want to thank you, Director Torgelson, for joining us.

I look forward to continuing to work with you and seeing you at our next committee meeting where my awkward drawings are presented in a much more beautiful way that I know you and your team can present.

So thank you there.

Thank you for your support.

And thank you, committee members.

And so moving on to the next item, which is good of the order.

I do want to recognize the fact that the clerk, Mr. On read the votes for bringing business home.

It was a four to one, and I am noting that the motion carries on a divided vote and shall be before the committee, before full council on either the 15th or the 22nd, depending on if we are able to suspend the rules or not.

I do want to note that the inspectors from SDCI feel that they have code clarity at this time and are able to implement, be able to find people in compliance with the bill as written.

So thank you for all of that.

Colleagues, any other items for the good of the order?

Seeing none, this concludes the Wednesday, March 10th, 2020 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee at 12.12 p.m.

As a reminder, our next committee meeting is on March 24th, starting at 9.30 a.m.

Thank you for attending, and we are adjourned.