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Thank you, everybody.

The March 19, 2026 meeting of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan will come to order.

It's 2.07 p.m.

I'm Eddie Lynn, chair of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster?

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth?

I am here.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wise?

Here.

Councilmember Kettle?

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you all very much for coming to this Thursday afternoon meeting to discuss phase two of Seattle's comprehensive plan process.

As always, thank you to our city clerks, council, central staff, and OPCD for helping us prepare for this meeting.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on the agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently, we have seven in-person speakers signed up and 12 remote speakers.

Okay, so each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

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

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

I'm going to take the short person one.

Hi, I'm Sandy Shetler with Tree Action Seattle, talking about the comp plan.

As currently proposed, all urban centers and nearly all neighborhood centers are limited to zoning that allows 85 to 100% of each lot to be covered with pavement and buildings.

The only trees which will be allowed in these centers are street trees, but SDOT already told us in 2025 analysis that the city does not own enough land to make a meaningful difference in tree canopy, even if we depave and plant trees on every inch.

We need to choose purpose over pavement.

Our dense forest for dense housing proposal uses the amenity area, which right now is paved, and turns it into dense forest, bringing shade, cooling, and health benefits to people where they live.

If we don't add trees to our centers, Seattle will pile more harm on overburdened communities.

Without trees, the current plan locks in the largest urban heat island in the Pacific Northwest, stretching from the Central District all the way to Rainier Beach.

Big shade trees can't grow on rooftops or in planter boxes.

Our amendment ensures that a small percentage of each lot has trees and that people in multifamily housing aren't condemned to roast in urban heat islands.

Please follow the lead of cities like Atlanta and Portland and grow housing and trees together.

Thanks.

Next up, we have Colleen McAleer.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, city council members, and welcome back to the comp plan.

It's a long journey.

As we get into the final zoning phases, we're talking about heights and different parts of neighborhoods and part of these urban centers.

So our neighborhood, my name is Colleen McAleer.

I represent Lowerhurst Community Council.

And we've been at this since the inception.

We only have one request.

and that's for a five block swap of zoning from neighborhood residential along Northeast 45th Street.

There's a spur that comes off Sandpoint Way into a residential neighborhood.

It's used as a turnaround for the buses and a restroom break for the bus drivers.

The rest of the street are single family homes.

There's 15 of them along that side and many of them are historic.

We only had bus service there five years ago because it's just not heavily used.

And so we ask that we consider that as well as the fact that that particular up zone for a low rise apartment buildings would be on a very steep slope.

It goes from eight to 12% on one of the suicide hills in Northeast Seattle.

It's very steep.

So it's not appropriate to put LR3 in that location.

So that particular hill, also the best part of it is actually being able to use those units that would be relocated into the commercial areas to breathe some life back into it.

We've got two centers right in Laurelhurst and they're pretty dead.

So having housing integrated into that with even higher zones, we are all for that.

We have 1,270 units coming on board in Laurelhurst in the next three years of housing.

We believe in more housing, and we need it in our city.

So thank you for your work, and I know you can balance growth with a little bit of neighborhood character.

Thank you very much.

Next up, we have Ruth Deit.

My name is Ruth Tide.

I'm a landscape architect and planner.

Over 30 years, Vancouver added more density than any city in North America.

Though housing grew three times more than its population, Vancouver is the third most unaffordable city in the world.

Reasons might be explained by new research from the London School of Economics and others finding land regulation doesn't materially affect housing prices.

High incomes and land speculation are the main drivers.

We know Seattle has a high concentration of high income earners, and now deregulation is attracting land speculators.

Investor purchases jumped 37% in 2025, and Seattle is the top choice among foreign investors.

According to the Institute of Policy Studies, Seattle's housing prices are supercharged by global capital seeking real estate for wealth storage, crowding out home buyers, exactly what happened in Vancouver.

Up-zoning increases land values, transferring enormous wealth to property owners, costs developers pass on to home buyers.

There is little undisputed proof that the extent of deregulation the city is undertaking will materially improve housing costs.

There may be better solutions, such as land value capture, where the city secures a portion of the wealth it creates through upzoning to invest in low-income and social housing.

We may need to look harder at real causes and solutions to affordability.

In the meantime, new evidence suggests we can scale back upzoning and restore important development standards without making housing more unaffordable.

Next, we have Greg Murphy.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Members of the council, thanks for all your work on the comp plan.

Congrats on passing it last year.

I'm here to talk about the Holden neighborhood in the comp plan.

It's West Seattle.

If you took the bridge, went south on 35th Avenue.

about two miles, you'd be in the Holden area.

It's where Gatewood and High Point come together.

It's currently a mix of neighborhood commercial along 35th, the arterial, which is great.

It's mixed housing types, small businesses.

All of that continues in the comp plan.

But what's happening in the comp plan is the areas off of 35th which are currently zoned neighborhood residential are proposed to go to low rise, 50 foot tall structures.

And this is a neighborhood of 50 to 100 year old single story, one and a half story homes.

And I'm concerned, like many of my neighbors, about the 50 foot tall buildings coming in, especially with just five foot lot setbacks next to us.

We think the character of the neighborhood is valuable.

It's also one of the few places that I think is still attracting new home buyers when you punch your budget into Redfin or Zillow.

It's one of the few places that comes up as more affordable in the city.

And losing some of those single-family homes is going to be really detrimental.

I applaud the mix of housing types that's coming in under the comp plan, but I think it's important to think about some of those existing smaller homes.

And once lost, they're not coming back.

Additionally, I'm not sure the streets and utility structure are appropriate for the low-rise that's proposed.

We're pretty narrow streets, and we rely on the parallel parking spaces for passing zones.

I think our sewers in that area are like eight-inch sanitary sewers, and I'm not sure they're sized to accommodate the increase of housing that's coming in there.

So as you're now in what I call the ground-truthing stage of the plan, beginning to implement I'd like you to take a look at the areas off of 35th and preserve the existing neighborhood residential.

So thank you for the opportunity, appreciate it.

Next up we have Tina Buehler.

Let's see if this will work.

Hi, can you hear me?

Great.

First of all, thanks for the opportunity to be here, and I'm really happy to be sharing my thoughts with you.

I am a resident of downtown Seattle, but more than that, I live in downtown Seattle.

The Downtown Sub Area Plan proposes significant residential growth in Seattle's Regional Growth Center.

That growth must align with the comprehensive plan's commitments to complete neighborhoods, safety, climate resilience, and human scale design.

Right now, the plan increases capacity without clearly tying it to enforceable livability standards, and that's a misalignment.

Density alone does not create a neighborhood.

We need measurable standards for light, tower spacing, family-sized housing, and access to usable open space.

Increased density also brings real land use impact on infrastructure, public space, and daily livability.

These pressures must be anticipated and planned for in advance, not addressed after the fact.

Pedestrian priority must be enforceable and climate and design standards must scale with growth.

As downtown continues to grow as a 24-7 residential neighborhood, community participation should be continuous and embedded, including a standardized communication tool at the MUP project level so residents have clear visibility into development impacts.

And I would ask one key question.

If Pike Place Market is moved out of the downtown zone, who benefits?

Who loses in terms of economic vitality, cultural identity, experience of residents?

This is a generational plan.

Growth must come with accountability, livability, and proactive planning.

Did it.

Next up, we have David Gloger.

Good afternoon.

My name is Dave Gloger, a resident of District 5. In the presentation today, you'll be shown drawings of what the new neighborhood and urban centers will look like in phase two of the comp plan.

These are quite beautiful, and what city wouldn't want these?

But unfortunately, they do not show you the many single-family houses that currently sit at these locations.

These homeowners will now have to look forward to five-story apartment buildings and commercial sites as their neighbors.

I have a friend that lives over a half mile from the soon-to-open light rail station at Northeast 130th Street, and her property is subject to this upzoning.

Her property is subject to the upzoning.

She has lived in her house for over 40 years, a quiet residential neighborhood, but now she and her neighbors are at a loss what to do.

I would guess that no council members or persons from OPCD making presentations today will have such an impact on their living conditions.

I ask that you truly understand the impact of your decisions on longtime Seattle residents.

They pay taxes and deserve better than this.

There seems to be this belief that density by itself will solve our housing and affordability problems.

But as was pointed out earlier, Vancouver tried to do that.

They quadrupled their density, or tripled their density, and their housing prices went up by four times.

So let's not make that same mistake.

So I ask you to really understand as we increase our density and solve our affordability problem that we do it wisely, thank you.

Thanks, everybody.

Jasmine Smith.

Hi.

Thank you so much, council members, OPCD, the mayor's office, for welcoming us back to the comp plan and bringing us back to the table to the second phase of many.

We're really excited to see how we can make an inclusive city for all.

in all of our neighborhood centers, all of the expanded urban centers, the transit corridors.

And with all of the incredible work that we were able to do in neighborhood residential, this is a huge opportunity to look at how we're building up that little wedding cake and creating courtyards for kids and for families to play in, putting eyes on the streets, having trees in the backyards, making room for everyone, but also looking at how we're building sustainably, how we're expanding for mass transit along our corridors, and there's just so much opportunity as we look at how we're connecting our communities across this city.

We're excited to look at a vision for Seattle that fights sprawl and fights for us all.

Thank you so much, and looking forward to this process.

Next up, we have Jesse Simpson.

Hey, good afternoon, council members.

I'm Jesse Simpson with the Housing Development Consortium, co-chair of the Complete Communities Coalition.

Great to be with you as you begin phase two of the comp plan.

This is the moment where you're starting to turn the lofty vision of the One Seattle plan into a lived reality of more homes in all neighborhoods.

centers and corridors.

So that key next step to allow more homes in all of our low-rise zones and in all of the neighborhood centers and transit corridors.

And adding more homes is key to addressing our deep housing shortage and critical to the associated affordability challenges.

I urge you as you're considering potential amendments to the centers and corridors legislation to go bolder.

I urge you to create a courtyard block bonus in low-rise zones, allowing for additional height and floor area for buildings that swap the useless side yards for real courtyards where trees have space to grow and families can thrive.

It's a smart way to add more density in our low-rise zones and ensure that they're getting more livable as we're adding density and adding more homes.

Second, I urge you to create some hype bonuses for passive house and mass timber construction.

These are innovative green building techniques.

Passive house construction dramatically reduces energy use and also creates much better interior living conditions for residents with passive cooling.

And mass timber stores carbon in the structure itself.

I urge you to try to support these with additional height incentives.

And finally, I ask you to expand the transit corridors themselves to allow for more multifamily homes in the side streets near frequent transit.

We need to be adding more homes near transit, but that doesn't mean every new home has to be on a loud, noisy arterial.

Very sure to go as far as possible under the EIS to add more homes throughout this whole process.

Look forward to partnering.

Thanks.

That's the last in-person speaker.

We will now move on to our remote speakers.

The first person is June Bluespruce.

June, please press star six.

There you go.

Okay, now you can hear me.

Okay, good.

Hello, I'm June Boosboos.

I live in District 2. You've heard the phrase, set in concrete, which means permanent or unchangeable.

Unless you act, Phase 2 of the Comprehensive Plan will doom large areas of Seattle, particularly southeast Seattle where I live, to be literally set in concrete with no room for large trees ever.

Sandy already spoke about the huge heat island that currently exists along the Rainier Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr.

Way South corridors.

You can change this dismal future by mandating that current amenity areas include ample space for trees to be preserved and planted.

Trees are essential public health and environmental infrastructure, like sewers or street drains.

You wouldn't allow building without those.

To prevent urban sprawl, make sure Seattle continues to be a healthy, environmentally sound, and beautiful place to live.

Otherwise, those who can afford to will move out to the suburbs, worsening sprawl, which is what you want to prevent, and those who can't will have dramatically worse health outcomes.

To prevent displacement, stop the huge increases in property taxes and community destruction that come with greater density in historically black neighborhoods and other BIPOC communities.

Ensure that affordable housing allows room for families with children.

A neighbor family of six has been unable to find affordable housing in Seattle and is moving to Kent.

You have the power to make Seattle a welcoming and healthy place for everyone.

Please use it for the benefit of all.

Thank you.

Next up we have Megan Cruz.

Good afternoon.

I'm Megan Cruz, a downtown resident.

Even though we're in phase two of the comp plan, the downtown neighborhood still doesn't have a complete up-soaping map.

Today, we're asking you for one before our density planning goes further.

The other question is, what are the requirements and targets for affordability here?

Downtown has had MHA for eight years now, and 97% of the projects pay a fee instead of including affordable units.

The city estimates over a quarter of the homes here sit empty or are lived in only occasionally.

It seems that we're building housing as an investment, not for filling critical needs.

And the question is, how will this be any different with the new up-zoning?

What we're doing hasn't been working or working well enough.

Before we lock in new zoning changes, we should understand what's gone wrong and how we might fix it.

It's not enough to say we encourage or support vibrant neighborhoods with affordability at all levels.

We need to act on it.

If not, we'll be completely blocking the chance that this will happen at all for future generations.

Thanks for considering this.

Next up, we have Stephanie Ingram.

Hi, my name is Stephanie Ingram with Five Dot Architects.

I'm calling today to encourage city council to include changes to institutions in low-rise zones in phase two of the comprehensive plan.

Our firm is working with several small community groups and nonprofits in the south end that are hoping to do capital projects to improve their existing facilities or build new facilities on land that they own.

As it stands, three land use issues are creating significant barriers to these groups.

The first is the dispersion requirement that states that institutions cannot build or expand if they are within 600 feet of another institution.

A brief review of the Brighton neighborhood as an example indicates that none of the existing small institutions, childcare centers, centers, senior centers, community and cultural centers, none of them are currently eligible to even expand their facilities due to proximity to each other.

The other two issues relate to structure depth and setbacks.

These standards have been updated for residential projects in the first phase of the comp plan, but not for institutions.

This limits the ability of these organizations to maximize use of their land and limits the ground floor area that is most suited for this type of use.

Simply matching the land use requirements that are in place for residential uses in these areas would remove significant barriers to development for small community-based institutions.

Communities, particularly those in the south end, rely on their small institutions for services, walkability, and affordability.

As we encourage density and affordability, we should also be supporting our community institutions.

They are a core piece of what makes our neighborhoods vibrant and exciting.

We are asking that the council takes institutions into consideration when developing phase two of the comp plan as a crucial part of helping our city grow.

Thank you so much.

Next up, we have McKenzie Messaline.

Good afternoon, council members.

Thank you for your time and opportunity to speak today.

I'm Mackenzie Musline, resident of West Seattle.

I'm here to urge you to reconsider the proposed rezoning specifically along the Spontleroy Transit Corridor adjacent to Lincoln Park in West Seattle for two reasons.

One, preserving public access to this community resource, and two, protecting safety for the community in this area.

Lincoln Park is one of West Seattle's most important public spaces.

It's where families gather, kids play, and the community connects at ballgames, cross-country meets, birthday parties, etc.

It provides access to playgrounds, trails, and the wading pool and even Coleman Pool.

It's an essential and free resource for supporting both physical and mental health for the community.

But access to the park is already strained due to the logistics of the ferry terminal at the south end of the park.

The ferry line essentially eliminates parking along the west side of the Fauntleroy Corridor today, and ferry traffic is routinely backed up here causing congestion and logistical challenges even today.

The proposed rezoning would effectively remove remaining parking on the other side of Fauntleroy due to the increased residential parking resulting from the proposed five-story building allowed along this corridor.

Even today, it can be difficult for families to access the park during busy times when the dedicated parking lots are full, and this proposal would significantly increase that challenge.

Safety is also a very serious concern.

The one-directional ferry traffic pattern creates frequent and dangerous conditions for drivers and cyclists, as well as pedestrians who have to cross the street to get to Lincoln Park, often with small children.

Accident rates along this transit corridor are already higher compared to other parts of Fauntleroy, and increasing housing and parking density will only compound the problem, and I worry that serious accident is in our future in this area.

This is not just about rezoning, it's about maintaining equitable access to public spaces and the safety of our community.

Due to the unique geographical and logistical challenges along this part of the transit corridor, I urge you to reconsider this specific part of the proposed rezoning to ensure access to Lincoln Park and safety to this area are not compromised by this plan.

Thank you.

Next up we have Julia Bebout.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello?

Yes?

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Oh, great.

Okay.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today and for your attention.

My name is Julia Beabout, and I am a third pipeline resident in the downtown core.

And just echoing everybody's comments so far that We're excited about the increased residential density that we're preparing for in the downtown sub area plan and community engagement, clear livability standards and enforceable coordination amongst the numerous city, county and regional agencies are really needed to make the plan successful.

Towards that end, I ask you to consider planning for a third avenue public development authority or other similar unifying coordination entities so that this critically important street can play its part in achieving the equitable, livable, and resilient future the One Seattle Plan envisions.

As we know, Third Avenue is already home to hundreds of residents and preparing to receive thousands more, but its fragmented jurisdictional and enforcement landscape severely hampers the livability of this neighborhood.

not to mention its usefulness to the thousands of workers, transit riders, and tourists that pass through it daily.

The public safety and health consequences of this fragmentation are on full display.

At the same time, Third Avenue is uniquely positioned as a transition corridor, but it also, when combined with its plentiful convertible and historic building stock, is well-positioned to accommodate more not less affordable housing than other areas of downtown.

However, these solutions are challenging and require greater engagement than the typical zoning and standard governmental regime can provide.

So we ask you to consider incorporating this concept of a third avenue public development authority or other similarly community engaged coordination entity into the downtown sub area plan.

Thank you, Julia.

Next up, we have Sarah Scott.

Hello, hello.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, great.

Yes, I just am calling in to comment on the low-rise LR3 area.

Thank you for looking at this plan again and looking at it so in-depthly.

this is the area small section of it on Northeast 45th between 40th Avenue North and 45th Avenue Northeast if we could please please consider keeping that in the same plan zoning that it currently is I'm not alone in this request there's a petition of 1,500 people or more and that's 15 hundred people, which I was surprised at myself, which is great, agreeing and asking for this.

Some of the concerns are that the environment, as people talked about earlier, with the trees, it's a critical area.

There are no services or space for services in that area.

It's really not compatible with the single-family historic homes that are just along that area.

There's no light rail or the bus.

It's outside of any regional, urban or neighborhood center.

I'm sorry if you hear some desperation in my voice.

It's just that I've lived there for 65 years and I love it so much and I love Seattle so much.

I have seen what some of the changes that are made in Seattle, how they have not been successful.

Yes, many have been successful.

I really am so appreciative for you looking at this tool.

Thank you so much.

Next up, we have Ann Payson.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I'm Anne Tyson.

I'm a longtime resident of District 4 in Northeast Seattle.

Thanks for all your work on the comp plan, which already includes a really large increase in density in our neighborhood with more than 1,000 units that are underway being built as we speak and thousands more potential units that are already zoned for.

My neighbors and I really have one request.

There's a short segment proposed for upzoning to five-story buildings or LR3 on about four blocks of Northeast 45th Street between 40th Avenue Northeast and 45th Avenue Northeast.

It's really not suitable for such large structures and instead we'd like to request that that keep its current zoning designation of neighborhood residential.

The main reasons for this are that this Quite small spur has environmentally critical areas, including steep slopes that are on the maps, as well as peat settlement areas.

And there are even like bald eagles that have habitat in the area, so it would be very disruptive to the environment.

There's no services or amenities, not one business, no grocery store, anything that people can access there.

And the tall buildings there would be very jarring and really incompatible with the scale and the character of the existing neighborhood of just one- and two-story homes.

There's no rail or fixed transit, just a bus turnaround and a rest stop for drivers with really low ridership.

And it's also not in any regional, urban, or neighborhood center.

So as other speakers have noted, There are about 1,500 people who have signed a petition just requesting a small change.

And the good news is that to make this change easier, any lost additional units from it could be more appropriately located in a very nearby area along commercial areas.

Thank you, Anne.

Next up, we have Jim Gint.

Jim, please press star six.

Jim, welcome back to you.

We'll move on to our next speaker, David Haynes.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

It's obvious the comp plan has been tainted with self-dealing conflicts of interest from small-time landlords selling out the renters and the workers.

We need an investigation of the landlords on the city council.

Did any of you city council landlord conflicts of interest even acknowledge that you have a conflict?

We need to go higher.

I'm sick and tired of listening to these Seattle sellouts who have their home and they want to deny everybody else a home by putting restrictions and tainting the integrity of the comprehensive plan.

We need to take away some of these alleys that run behind all of these homes that are going to have these ADUs leaning right up against the trash truck.

It's like you all need to realize that within the environmental concerns, we need to get rid of the asphalt road in certain neighborhoods and rebuild it green with new homes on those roads without any asphalt being acknowledged.

Yet you all want to act like you can weaponize the tree ordinance to deny future generations a better choice in home.

And it's kind of offensive every time I hear somebody talk about stacked flats.

It's like, oh, you know some people in Europe and you went to Europe and you copycatted the monarch's offering to the peasants living on a box next to the road?

It's offensive.

It's like, you took a look at Ballard, a perfect example of what's wrong with America.

You've got all this want to be a bigger city, but yet you've got a concrete, dusty, cement factory and big, gigantic gas tanks.

And then, right across the road is all of the restaurants on Ballard Ave.

You've got some twisted residential commercial zoned mixes that don't consider the residents.

It's like if you got like some three-story and then you got like a four-story or even five-story, it's too low because all the delivery trucks are going to be making all kinds of noise for the residents, driving them nuts, reminding people that Seattle is the inner city shitty on the side of...

Thank you, David.

Next up, we have Susan Fedor.

Susan, please press star six.

Okay, I think we'll try.

There we go, Susan.

Thank you.

Hello.

Oh, sorry about that.

I first want to acknowledge that our tribal communities were invited to review the comp plan and the Snoqualmie tribe in particular spent a lot of time to review and offer recommendations, but I'm not seeing any acknowledgement of that in today's report on slides eight through 10 regarding engagement.

To invite tribal input only to ignore it is not only deeply disrespectful, but our indigenous communities offering recommendations, those that have stewarded these lands since time immemorial, they possess a much deeper understanding of the interrelationships within our very highly unique ecosystem.

And regarding the ongoing issue of affordability, I'm just echoing what others have already said.

There are now several studies emerging that demonstrate clearly More housing does not create more affordable housing.

The issue of affordable housing will persist until the true underlying cause is acknowledged and addressed.

Michael Storper, UCLA professor who has studied urban housing markets for years, argues that deregulation and upzoning could actually make gentrification and displacement worse.

Noting deregulation is not going to lead to affordable housing as long as the market is driven by for-profit developers.

The deregulationist view of our housing crisis harkens back to mid-20th century America when the wealth disparity wasn't nearly as severe as it is today.

Meanwhile, members of our communities continue to take the brunt of the continued rise in property taxes driven by developers inflating the land cost.

There are rate payer hikes for lagging infrastructure and stormwater and sewage.

There are stresses on the electrical grid.

I'd like to note on slide seven, the claim is made that increased density will curb sprawl, but that's contrary to slide two, which states clearly many cities across the region are taking big steps to add housing.

The mass sprawl combined with lack of environmental oversight and consideration is causing severe impacts to our region.

One example is the increase in nitrogen levels flowing through combined sewage overflows, which is depleting oxygen in Puget Sound.

Within the comp plan proposals, Are there any plans for coordination across agencies to ensure adequate infrastructure to mitigate increase in sewage and electricity demand?

Is there any accounting for climate impacts which have now been presenting in continued sequence of extreme weather impacts such as flood?

Thank you very much, Susan.

Jim Gant, we are going to try you one additional time.

Please press star six.

Jim, if you're there, please press star six.

Okay.

Councilmember, there are no further comments at this time.

Okay, thank you so much.

And thank you to everybody who provided public comment, including our remote speakers.

And if you didn't get a chance to finish your comments, please go ahead and send us an email.

This is obviously, we have a lot of opinions across our community.

This has been an ongoing dialogue for years.

And it means a lot for folks to show up, take time out of their busy days to come down here to participate remotely.

And I just really appreciate the ongoing engagement and the respectful dialogue.

So now we will proceed to our items of business.

Well, the clerk, please read Agenda Item 1.

Agenda Item 1, Conference of Plan Phase 2 Introduction.

And thank you.

Our representatives from the Office of Planning and Community Development have joined us.

Once ready, can you please introduce yourselves?

Brennan Staley.

Michael Hubner, Long Range Planning Manager in OPCV.

Okay, and colleagues, we're hoping to allow OPCD to do their presentation.

If there's clarifying questions, please go ahead and raise your hand, but if there are substantive questions, hoping to save those for the end.

And with that, if you could please proceed.

Good afternoon, members of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan.

It's good to be back before the committee.

Those of you who were here last year will recall a years-long process to work on the Comprehensive Plan proper, as well as the initial zoning legislation to implement the plan.

I want to thank those of you who were a part of that process for your deep engagement, your perseverance with the process itself, and the efforts and the work that you made to improve upon the plan.

and that first phase of the zoning legislation.

We're happy to be back here with you for essentially is some unfinished work from what we did on the comprehensive plan last year, which is a second phase of zoning legislation, which we'll be talking about in some detail today.

Next slide, please.

So at a very high level, just to ground everyone in the comprehensive plan as the foundation for the zoning legislation before you, the comp plan was adopted in December.

So it's very fresh off the presses.

It became effective in January, along with the initial zoning legislation updating our neighborhood residential zones.

The Comprehensive Plan is a 20-year plan for growth and a vision for the future of Seattle.

It's a requirement of the State Growth Management Act.

Like all updates, we focus on major challenges before the city, and the persistent crisis in housing supply and affordability was top of the pile for us as we took on this update.

It wasn't the only issue we dealt with, but it was certainly the most prominent one that we discussed with you last year.

And Seattle's not alone in confronting that challenge with the round of comprehensive plan updates that were happening across the region.

Many other cities were also taking bold steps to increase the amount and the types of housing that were available in their jurisdictions.

So the main way that the comprehensive plan impacts the supply of housing in the city is through the growth strategy.

It's a central component of any comprehensive plan.

The growth strategy in this major update was the most significant change to the plan on our vision for growth and development that we've seen in about 30 years.

Its main components are place types.

Each has a unique role in accommodating housing and job growth in the city.

There are seven regional centers.

We added Ballard as a newly designated regional center.

Those are our densest neighborhoods across the city.

The urban centers, there are 26 of them, where some of those were expanded in their boundaries.

We have a new urban centre in the city.

Those also have an important role as dense urban neighbourhoods around regional transit.

There is a new place type called neighborhood centers, of which there are 30 designated across the city.

These are much smaller but important nodes of new capacity for apartment and condominium scale development.

We will be drilling down on that with this legislation, which implements the neighborhood center place type, but that was new in the comprehensive plan.

And then there were the changes to our urban neighborhoods to allow our broader range of attached and detached dwellings of various building types in all of our neighborhood residential zones.

Historically, those were called single-family zones.

So the place types describe the type of development, its density of other policies that guide what we do with zoning legislation.

The growth strategy is implemented through follow-up legislation.

You can't go out and build what the plan envisions until the zoning gets adopted.

So the legislation for you is very important to implement this vision in the plan.

In fact, it is a requirement of the State Growth Management Act as well.

We have to have zoning legislation that is consistent with the plan, and we're halfway there with our neighborhood residential legislation from last year.

This is the next piece that brings our zoning code into consistency with a comprehensive plan.

With that, I also want to note that we did do environmental review under the State Environmental Policy Act.

on the full package, the ComPlan, the neighborhood residential zoning, and the zoning that realizes the growth that's envisioned in our neighborhood centers along our transit corridors in those expanded urban centers, as you will hear about.

The good thing is that that environmental review means we've covered SEPA with this legislation.

The proposal in this legislation is substantially similar to the preferred alternative, which was studied in the final EIS.

What that also means is that any changes to increase substantially the area or the intensity of housing and growth in those areas would very likely require additional environmental review.

Obviously, there's room within that to make some amendments to the legislation, but this is very close to what we studied in the EIS.

It's an important note as you start considering the legislation going forward.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Brendan Staley.

Brendan's role on our team is to lead on all of the zoning changes that implement the Comprehensive Plan.

He's the expert on the topic.

He'll be talking about How we got here, the work we did to develop the proposal, and talk about its different components, and we're here to answer any questions you have about it.

Great.

So as Michael pointed out, to implement the comprehensive plan, you have to change the zoning, the rules on the ground.

And the first step in that was what we did last year, the update to our neighborhood residential zones.

That is really going to help to create more opportunities for primarily family-sized home ownership projects, detached homes, townhouses, duplexes.

and the centers and quarters legislation that we're here to talk about really is a compliment to that by adding capacity to get more apartments and condos.

So both kind of more rental opportunities and smaller scale home ownership opportunities and particularly near transit, retail services and public amenities.

And so together those two things can really help us to better address our housing needs overall and to prove both housing choice and affordability in neighborhoods across the city.

The reason we're doing this fundamentally is that we are in the middle of a persistent and long-term housing crisis.

Over the last 10 years, the cost of a detached home has more than doubled.

Rents from 2011 to 2021 increased by 75%.

And the outcome of that is that now more than 20% of renters pay more than half of their income to rent, and more people are just making it harder to make ends meet.

This slide is also important because it also helps, I think, understand the wide diversity of opinions we're getting as part of this.

I think that a lot of people who have owned homes for a longer time have seen a lot of wealth generation from that.

A lot of younger people are worried that if they'll be able to continue to pay rent or buy a home at all.

And so those really result in pretty different opinions.

And I think that's important to recognize that the really wide variety of things that we're hearing from the public.

Increasing the supply and diversity of homes is kind of fundamentally necessary to address a wide variety of the biggest challenges that are addressing both the city and the region.

It can help to reduce the competition for housing, which is driving our housing prices.

Housing cost has also been identified as one of the key drivers of our homelessness crisis as well.

It can also create more inclusive neighborhoods by allowing for more choice that people can find the housing that they need as their needs changed over the course of their life.

Transportation is the biggest climate change driver we have in the city.

And so this can help to allow people to live closer to jobs and transit where they can reduce regional sprawl, but also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

And obviously businesses also pay a large cost due to the cost of housing.

And so we can help businesses attract and retain employees.

So this process has been a long time in the making.

We started it in 2022. There have been four phases of engagement.

The first was really about listening and learning by doing presentations to the community, surveys, and a lot of outreach by community liaisons and community-based organizations.

The next phase was about shaping the plan and include a robust conversation about different growth strategies and zoning alternatives.

Review and refine started out when we introduced the draft comprehensive plan that included draft growth strategy and some kind of basic ideas about what zoning would look like.

And then phase four was actually about zoning specifically, where we actually had detailed zoning maps and draft legislation with the public.

That zoning engagement, just some highlights.

There were seven open houses with over 2,000 participants.

We had three online info sessions, eight virtual office hour sessions.

The website had a lot of tools, including a map where people could leave block by block comments.

We did a lot of advertising through paid local media and targeted social media, as well as flyers and outreach to community groups.

And we received over 9,000 comments during that period.

We obviously heard a really wide variety of thoughts on both the scope of the issue, potential solutions, but overall there was generally broad agreement on the need for more housing.

Within that, obviously a lot of different opinions.

Comments that were primarily expressing concern about the proposal tended to focus on the scale of new buildings, in particular the potential for five-story development next to existing homes.

Localized factors such as topography, historic districts, and the adequacy of transit and services.

Questions about the adequacy of infrastructure, especially stormwater and streets and transportation.

and then the impact on trees with redevelopment.

Support for the proposal tended to focus on the scale, the overall need for housing and the affordability crisis.

Also though, a desire to really address the exclusivity of many areas and have a wider variety of housing choices so that lower income people can live in a lot of our more exclusive neighborhoods.

And then a desire to increase housing choice, but especially stacked flats on quieter streets.

So this proposal would do two things.

One, it would implement a rezones in those areas that were our new growth areas identified by the comprehensive plan.

So those are the 30 new neighborhood centers, the six new or expanded urban centers, and then locations along frequent transit corridors.

It would also though modify our development standards in low rise and mid rise zones.

These are our primarily residential zones with height limits of three to eight stories.

And the purpose of those would be to encourage more apartments and condos in those areas.

So on the screen, you can see a map of the geographic extent of the rezoned area.

For the centers, obviously, the boundaries of those centers were already adopted as part of the comprehensive plan.

So now we're really talking about the zoning within those centers.

The plan, though, is not as specific about the scope of the zoning changes on corridors.

So this proposal, though, specifically would primarily change zoning on parcels that are immediately adjacent to frequent transit routes.

So generally, for blocks that are perpendicular to the street, it'd be like one block deep or one lot deep.

For lots that are parallel, it'd be maybe two lots.

really focusing on those areas right immediately adjacent to the frequent transit routes.

Within these areas, the zoning proposal is mostly five- and six-story zones.

The reason for this is that, really, five stories and six stories is where apartments and condos start to become feasible.

We have today zones that allow for apartments of a four-story nature.

In those zones, over the last five years, we've only seen two projects with 32 total units in them.

They're getting almost exclusively townhouse-style development in those areas.

that five- and six-story zoning is kind of where apartments and condos become feasible.

It's also consistent with the comprehensive plan, which kind of gives guidance about the types of zones that are most appropriate in centers and corridors.

There is, however, some four-story zoning that's proposed kind of at the edges of centers and where slope would actually increase kind of the visual impact of that height.

Also, all the rezoned properties would be subject to mandatory housing affordability, which again requires projects to either provide affordable units onsite or pay into a fund to do them offsite.

projects that are going to be zoned to low-rise zones would have the basic MHA requirement we call an M suffix.

Projects that are zoned to other zones, though, may have higher requirements, what we call an M1 or M2 suffix, based on the degree of change in those areas.

So larger up zones have higher requirements.

We do have an online map that shows the proposal in detail.

It allows you to click on individual sites and get information about what the zoning means, a summary of the development standards and actually pictures that show recent development in that zone.

But overall, the zoning that is in this legislation varies from what was released to the public in October of 2024 in four key ways, which I'll talk about more on the next slides.

But they are, again, being updated to reflect the new center boundaries that were adopted by council.

They incorporate local knowledge about specific circumstances in different locations.

They implement reductions on select frequent transit routes.

And they also address split zone lots.

So obviously the adopted comprehensive plan has the boundaries for centers.

And so this zoning simply reflects those changes that have already been made by council.

They include smaller expansions in urban centers that don't have light rail or bus rapid transit.

There were council amendments in 10 urban and neighborhood centers on specific conditions.

And then of course the shifting of Finney Ridge to East Ballard.

We also received a lot of input on local circumstances that should be considered.

Examples of that include topography, environmentally critical areas like steep slopes, creeks, and wetlands, undeveloped rights of way that may affect how you can access a site, and then isolated or irregular lot shapes.

These are all things that were generally considered in the October, 2024 proposal.

But again, we received 9,000 comments.

We reviewed each of them individually and did more work.

And a lot of those really brought up conditions that we decided would be appropriate to change the zoning for.

The picture on the right is an example of one where there's actually a number of things happening altogether.

This is an area that has a portion of the site is within the kind of buffer of Thornton Creek.

but also there are undeveloped right-of-ways that make some of these areas kind of separate from each other, irregular lock conditions.

All these things would make them very difficult to develop and would result in kind of non-ideal development conditions.

There were a number of frequent transit routes where we also reduced the extent of the frequent transit route.

And those were because of four different conditions.

Steep streets.

An example of this is Madrona Drive next to Madrona.

A very steep road that makes it difficult to use the transit and to walk to services nearby.

There were two areas where the transit service actually changed from when we started this work.

Those are in Southeast Magnolia and along 10th Avenue East and North Capitol Hill.

So those areas no longer meet the definition of frequent transit, and so we removed them from the proposal.

And then there are two historic boulevards where we also made changes.

One is 10th Avenue West, which has a portion of the Queen Anne Boulevard, and then also Mount Baker Boulevard in the other side of the city.

This picture is of Queen Anne Boulevard.

You can see the green is the historic Boulzard designation.

And so we removed those areas that abutted it and then took one block to LR2 as a transition block.

Lastly, split zone lots basically mean lots where there are multiple zoning designations on one lot.

These can make it more difficult to develop these sites, especially when the zoning is definitely different, like neighborhood commercial and neighborhood residential in the same one.

Generally, these changes involved us increasing the lower density zone to make it consistent.

However, on larger sites, there were times where we had a more nuanced proposal for many reasons.

The picture on the right is an example in Beacon Hill.

Those two lots that are shown in yellow outline are zoned a combination of neighborhood commercial and neighborhood residential.

This proposal would make them a consistent neighborhood commercial, so it'd be more easy to develop them.

So as I mentioned, there also are changes to the development standards in addition to the rezones.

First, the changes to low-rise development standards.

Low-rise zones are multifamily zones with height limits of three to five stories.

and this legislation would do a number of things.

One, it would implement a stacked flat bonus in low rise one and low rise two zones.

These are our three and four story zones, similar to what was recently adopted for a neighborhood residential zone.

So today, a stacked flat in a neighborhood residential zone could actually be larger than a stacked flat in either those low-rise one or low-rise two zones.

So our proposal is simply to take the basic proposal in neighborhood residential and apply it also to low-rise one and two zones.

So they'd be at least consistent in what you could do for stacked flats.

The second would increase the height for low-rise three zones outside of centers to five stories.

So today, the low-rise three zone is very different if you're inside a center or if you're outside.

If you're inside a center, it allows for five stories of height.

If you're outside of centers, it only allows for four stories and actually is very similar to a low-rise two zone.

And so this would make them consistent.

It would also increase the FAR across all low-rise three zones to 2.5.

Low-rise three has the lowest FAR per story allowed of any zone in the city.

And so this would make it more consistent with other zones.

Low-rise three essentially would allow what's allowed in a neighborhood residential zone, but you could do one more story of the same size.

So just to kind of talk through what that means in terms of the spectrums of zones we have, this slide shows what's allowed today in terms of housing types and how that would change.

So today, in a neighborhood residential zone, you could do three-story townhouse-style development or a four-story stacked flat.

In a low-rise one zone, you could do three-story townhouse, but you could not do a four-story.

So it actually kind of goes down.

It really would be a down zone, in a sense, to go from neighborhood residential to low-rise one today.

Low-rise two zones allow for townhouse-style development and three-story stacked flats, similar to neighborhood residential, although with slightly less FAR.

Low-rise three zones outside of centers actually are very similar to low-rise two zones.

They allow that townhouses and the four-story apartments.

Then LR3 inside of centers allows for five-story zoning, although many buildings only go to four stories because of low FAR.

So this proposal would allow low-rise one zones to have four-story apartments, similar to neighborhood residential and LR2.

And it will allow for five-story apartments in LR3, even if they're outside of centers.

Next would be the changes to our mid-rise zone.

So mid-rise zones today are just one zone.

They allow for seven-story development.

We're proposing to create a new six-story residential zone.

We're calling mid-rise one.

The existing zone would be called mid-rise two.

But we also want to update the massing standards, which apply both to that mid-rise two zone, but also the new mid-rise one zone.

And the reason for this is that mid-rise zones today have the most complicated massing standards of any zone outside of downtown.

and they have the kind of standard front, rear, side setbacks, but they also have upper level front setbacks.

They have upper level side setbacks, which are unique in the city.

They also have maximum width and maximum depth requirements.

And the complex nature of all those things together has resulted in that essentially every single project in mid-rise zones has to come in and get design review departures before they can design their project.

and those have been given away consistently.

I think we looked at five projects and every single one got at least design standard departures for at least two of those.

Additionally, the upper level setbacks are especially problematic because for stacked flats, people try to kind of stack the buildings so all the stairs and the pipes, et cetera, are all in a row.

And so by those upper level setbacks make it very difficult to design those buildings and much more expensive.

So we would propose here to keep the front setbacks as they exist, to reduce the rear setbacks that are more similar to other multifamily zones to 10 feet without an alley and 0 feet with an alley.

The side set would be reduced to 5 feet, which again is similar to other multifamily zones.

And then we remove the upper level setbacks and the maximum width and depth.

Important to understand that this wouldn't change the overall square footage of the buildings because it would still be limited by FAR, but it will allow for more flexibility in building shapes and design.

Last, there are some minor changes to screening requirements to clarify them and to make our FAR measurement techniques the same.

It would not change the FAR in any of our multifamily zones, but it would make the approach in neighborhood commercial zones the same as we currently use in multifamily zones.

Lastly, I just want to end on a note about displacement.

When the council was adopting the comprehensive plan, there was a companion resolution to that that asked us to come back and talk about how this rezone proposal would impact displacement.

We have a memo that we sent to council a couple weeks ago that lays that out in more detail.

But at a high level, This legislation would help to reduce displacement by increasing the supply and diversity of housing in neighborhoods across the city, by expanding the capacity in areas with lower risk of displacement, and the substantial majority of this rezone would occur in areas of low risk of displacement, would also generate more affordable homes through mandatory housing affordability and the multifamily tax exemption.

It is important to note that while it is overall benefit, it will also result in more demolition of homes.

Those homes are primarily homes that are detached homes, which are affordable only to higher income households.

But some of them do include renters as well.

But one of the key thing here is that the new affordable homes that are would be generated through this development are actually substantially greater than the number of existing rentals that would undergo redevelopment.

So on balance, we would be creating a lot more affordable homes even than the number of homes that includes rentals that are being demolished.

So that's our presentation, and I'm happy to take comments or questions.

Thank you so much.

And just thank you again for the years of work that went into all of this and that is ongoing.

Again, thank you to the members of the public, to my colleagues, to Council President Hollingsworth for shepherding the first phase.

I'm gonna do my best to fill those big shoes.

Colleagues, I'm confident there must be some questions or comments.

Who would like to kick us off?

Council President Hollingsworth.

And for the record, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I only wear size 10 in men's shoes, so they're not too big.

I cannot fill those shoes.

Okay, I understand.

Just saying.

Sorry.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, that was really funny.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you all for being here.

Could you all explain for the viewing public that the comments engagement for phase two has already passed.

So like that would have, that was due in 2024 in December.

Yes, that's right.

The executive has stopped accepting comments.

We did that during the four phases that we were talking about, especially the zoning one.

So yes, we're no longer taking any comments.

I will befriend the amendment to that description as well, which is that was the formal comment period during our formal engagement process where we stood up events and had the website up.

We did continue during the nearly a year that you were considering the comp plan legislation and the phase one of the zoning.

We did continue to have conversations with neighborhood stakeholders, either community council type organizations, neighborhood walks, and a lot of council members helped to connect us with those communities.

And that was something that was also part of taking in perspective on the final legislation.

Understood, thank you for that.

And then also, I know that the council, we passed a resolution just adding a bunch of different things, I called it the junk drawer, where it was like a bunch of everything went into there.

Could you talk about, and I know that it's only March, but could you talk about where you are in that process, identifying and next steps for that resolution?

Yes, and thank you for the work in generating.

It was a really comprehensive list of issues that responded to your conversations last fall.

What we can say today in that we are in the process of refining our work program and working with the new mayoral administration to chart a path forward, including one of the primary things we'll be focusing on is the companion resolution to the comprehensive plan legislation.

that you're referring to.

We're actively working with the mayor's office right now to develop a package of potential changes either to the comp plan itself or to zoning to implement the plan.

You probably have heard it from other forums, a discussion of a phase three or phase four.

We are rethinking some of the packaging of that, and likely we'll be doing something more integrated around items in the resolution, other concepts that are coming either from new state law, such as the transit-oriented development bill that was passed a couple of sessions ago, House Bill 1491, up zones to existing urban and regional centers, which was a priority of the last mayor and is also flowing from some of our work on subarea plans for our regional centers and other potential changes that reflect broadly the vision for housing abundance and diversity and affordability across the city.

So we're going through a process of assembling what that package might look like Those are the types of things that would require additional environmental review, likely in a supplemental EIS.

And a consolidated approach with community engagement is certainly something we will be looking to put together for that.

We'll be prepared a little bit further down the road to share more details on that with council.

We're just not there yet.

Oh, understood, thank you.

And Chair, if I may ask another one.

And I really, I will say I really appreciate slide 22. Like, just having the side-by-side visuals for people is super helpful.

Oftentimes, we're looking at an overview and looking down on things, and people just don't understand.

You know, you need visuals to help folks.

And so, the more visuals, and I've talked to y'all about it, y'all know me, the more visuals that you all can have that will help people just kinda understand what's being proposed, what can potentially come and what you all have proposed, what the council's amendments and everything can potentially look like to give people a visualization.

Because when you were talking on slide, I believe it was 21, about the FARs and the low rises, like beforehand, I would have no clue what you were talking about, but now just being in the process I do, but I can only imagine the general public not kind of knowing and having the visuals helps people understand the technical terms compared to what is visually happening.

And I think that is just more palatable for people to understand, to be engaged in this process.

So just more of that would be super helpful.

So thank you.

Thank you, chair.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

And I want to thank Council President for teeing up the question because regarding the graphic, I think my team was engaged with you, Mr. Hubner.

And by the way, thank you, Mr. Hubner-Staley, for joining us today because it's helpful, particularly when we're engaging with community, which, as Mr. Hubner knows, because he's been to a number of them, it's on a regular basis.

Tied to that, though, which would also be very helpful to council members and the public, because I do get asked this question a lot, and in fact, Mr. Hubner was there one time when I did get it, regarding setbacks.

and there's these differences in different circumstances and having a version like slide 23 to Council President's point about slide 22 with that graphic, I really like slide 23 and to be honest with you, I'd love to have it for the different areas just to understand, like neighborhood residential and then the low-rise, mid-rise pieces, just so we can see the contrast.

And that's really helpful for, again, not just council members, but for the public and our staffs, because there's so many pieces.

And I can't remember how many amendments that we had related to setbacks during phase one.

And it's hard to keep everything straight, particularly with the different types of areas.

So my ask is, I love slide 23. If you can have a version of it for the other types would be great.

I really also appreciate slide 18. since I am my district and the city overall, it's not flat.

And so I know when Olympia passes their laws, they don't really think about things like this, or maybe they do, but they don't write it down.

But the topography pieces are hard.

We always joke, and this came up recently talking to community that, you know, if you get off the rapid ride at 15th and Dravis and you're heading east, that's not a half mile walk, that's a climb.

And there's gonna be challenges and that's gonna have impact.

you know, understanding these pieces in slide 18 is also very helpful to have at the ready.

One of the questions that came along these lines was, that I've recently received, was like size of the street and its impact in terms of the zoning decisions, because I asked, like going back to 15th and Dravus, 15th is very wide, and obviously it's a mass transit route, with the Dravis Neighborhood Center, we're going up and we'll do on the Queen Anne side as well.

If 15th was only half the size, that's a different dynamic.

So how does that play into the decisions related to zoning and so forth in terms of like what the street can handle?

Because again, 15th is a great example.

It can take a lot.

I think about going into Council Member Strauss's district and when it hit Market Street, It's very wide.

And so going vertical there makes a lot of sense.

And so I was just curious about that factor.

Yeah.

So I would say that street width is definitely one of the many things that were taken into account.

There was no clear formula.

There certainly were places with really, really small rights-of-way, like less than 20 feet, that were just simply disqualified because the entire right-of-way was so small.

and there were also some areas where the roads were unimproved and things, and that was also kind of a disqualification.

But overall, it was kind of one of many factors that were included.

Obviously, the corridor's proposal are all streets that are substantial two-lane traffic and are all kind of very appropriate thus for development.

Once you get into neighborhood centers, obviously, it varies a lot.

But it was kind of one of the many things that was taken into consideration.

Okay.

Thank you.

We may have follow-ups on that.

One of the things I like, you know, in terms of corridors particularly, and I have my phrase for this that our OPCD director didn't like, but on the corridors, having not just these pieces, but NC, neighborhood commercial.

It's not mentioned, neighborhood commercial's not mentioned in this briefing, but for corridors, is that an option that we could look to use to maybe create a, I don't know, a neighborhood village type of option?

Yeah.

So may I just first say that the proposal itself does not create significant amounts of new neighborhood commercial.

As we were looking at, we certainly heard a lot from the public an interest in more shops and services.

But we also heard a lot about the amount of vacancies that already exist in spaces.

we we did not as part of this um you know have a substantial expansion of neighbor commercial largely because we just don't have maybe the data to suggest whether what the right balance is we've certainly heard a lot from the public about an interest in that so with that said that's our the proposal that's now in front of you but yes that could be an option that the council could consider to create more neighborhood commercial in in areas we didn't study a huge expansion of that as you know part of super work but certainly adding small amounts of areas is the kind of change that could be considered by council.

Yes, small amounts, nothing.

Brendan, could you speak to changes either made last year or with this legislation related to commercial uses allowed in low-rise, and then also many changes to heights in neighborhood commercial?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So neighborhood commercials are kind of our workhorse commercial space driver because it allows for a lot more ground floor.

It goes right to the street.

But it is important to note that under changes that in recent years, and now with the neighborhood residential update, we do now allow commercial in all of our multifamily zones, and neighborhood residential, low-rise, multifamily, and high-rise.

It is limited in terms of size, so you're certainly not going to get grocery stores in those kinds of places, but that is there.

And then we obviously did, in existing neighborhood commercial zones, we did often look at increasing the height to allow for more housing on top of those spaces as they redevelop.

Okay, great, thank you.

Every question that Mr. Hubner asks is a great question, so that's a standard.

My last question, Chair, or as it relates to displacement, I think this is a super important slide, slide 25, and we really need to be careful in this.

And in a lot of ways, adu-dadus are a great way to allow, particularly multi-generations, to remain in place, not get displaced.

And so this is an area that we really need to be careful about and really try to promote in some ways.

I'm not sure exactly how, but we should be looking to promote those kinds of options and ways to go about it.

And by the way, I see MHA and MFTE.

Obviously, MFTE just got updated, and there's lots of talk about MHA as well.

And so some of these things may have a factor over the next 10 years.

Of course, this MHA, this ComPlan process, I think, might get us to that next 10-year spot, given the varying phases and the stretched out as they are.

Sorry for that editorial comment.

But I think this, again, displacement on slide 25. Council Member Juarez is not here, but I do want to thank you for your...

Oh, she's online.

She's got us all trained to look for slide numbers.

And so I want to thank Councilmember Juarez for training her colleagues on that point.

But again, this slide's very important, and I think we should, as a body, should be looking to be very careful with it.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And agree.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez, for training us.

Councilmember Rake.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you both for the presentation today.

I'm going to dive right into just three questions for today.

Very excited to be engaging on the next phase of the comp plan.

I'm sure it'll be just as thrilling as the last phase was.

Taking us to slide 14, because I'm also trained by Councilmember Juarez on slide numbers.

I just wanted to dive into this point quickly as a point of curiosity.

Are there any remaining LR or MR zones in the city that don't have MHA requirements?

If so, is there a reason not to apply to them?

Yeah.

The only zones that don't have those MHA are historic districts and areas in the shoreline.

And so those were areas in which we purposely chose not to apply them back when MHA was implemented.

We don't have any proposals to modify them now either, though.

Interesting.

Taking us now to slide 20, can you speak to why split zoned lots were broadly removed from the proposed zoning changes and what the plan is to remedy these in the future?

Sorry, so the change that was made was primarily to address split-zone lots, so to propose new zoning changes in areas that were split-zoned.

It is important to note, though, that split-zone lots occur throughout the city.

There are lots and lots of examples.

We only chose to...

to address those ones that were kind of in the scope of this, i.e. in or directly adjacent to neighborhood centers or on transit corridors.

So there are a lot of split zone slots that would not be addressed by this, but we do have an interest in potentially doing that as follow-up legislation.

The changes from October 24 were primarily to address more split zone lots.

I am aware, however, there were a couple of places where the proposal shrank, and so we didn't address the split zone lots in those areas.

But primarily, we increased the number of split zones that are addressed.

Understood.

Thank you for clarifying that.

And my last question is also on slide 22, because I agree with Council President Hollingsworth.

It's really helpful to see these changes across the board and the differences.

But when I look at this, I see not a lot of difference between NR, LR1 and LR2 now, especially with what's been transmitted.

So they look nearly identical.

Is there cause to maybe consolidate LR zones, since there's so little difference between them?

Or is there something I'm missing here?

So first of all, to Council Member Kettle, we will put together a slide that has all the zones together in one place.

We have it today for low-rise zones, and we have it for mid-rise, but not all together.

So that would be helpful.

There are small but meaningful differences between some of those zones.

obviously, the biggest ones really are between neighborhood residential and low-rise.

Neighbor residential have larger setbacks.

They have a density limit, whereas low-rise does not have a density limit.

It has smaller setbacks.

The differences between LR1 and LR2 are pretty minor.

There are some FAR differences for townhouses.

whether it would make sense to combine there or not is a kind of a policy call that we don't have a position on that right now.

And yeah, it could be a valid question to discuss.

Thank you for that.

Those are my questions for today.

Thank you so much, and thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you, presenters.

Really excited to get to kick off my first experience with CompPlan.

I wanted to just do a quick follow-up, actually, on one of my colleagues' questions regarding split zones, on Councilmember Rink's question.

In those instances where you did the cleanup in areas that were split zoned, did we sort of default to a higher capacity zone or a lower capacity zone in those instances?

And then can you just talk about how OPCD is tracking the way those changes impact our overall development capacity as was previously studied.

Yeah.

So yeah, in the vast majority of cases, when there's two zones, we took the lower density zone and increased it so that they were both the higher density zone.

But there were some places in which we didn't increase it all the way up.

For example, really large sites or sites where there were some condition that suggested that maybe one site shouldn't go all the way up.

So some place where we left it split, but we reduced the degree of split.

And there were a really small number of sites, for example, that actually the substantial majority of the parcel was the lower density zone, and the sliver was the higher density zone, where we actually did bring the higher density zone down.

But those were a very small number of cases.

So I would say overall, when you look at the changes we talked about, most of the changes reduced the capacity of it, but in terms of split zoning was the one that really did increase the capacity.

And we are trying to work on some stats to help with that.

We don't have any today.

Yeah, but overall, it helped to increase capacity, whereas the other changes reduced it.

And I just add, yes, we are working on the capacity analysis piece.

I will spare the council committee the dirty details, but it is actually quite complicated given all of the range of the types of changes that were made between the draft and the final to get to a set of numbers were quite close.

I will say that the numbers bear out our general understanding of the net impact of the changes.

If you compare what did the draft centres and corridors do versus what does this final version transmitted to council do to add capacity, the change is quite small, roughly between 5% and 10% decrease in overall capacity.

And much of the capacity that was, I'll put air quotes around it, taken away, whereas Brendan was showing you many sites that were actually very difficult to develop anyway.

So even that is a bit of an overstatement of the likely future potential of those sites.

So there's a meaningful but quite small change.

We can get those numbers to council quite soon.

Thank you so much, and I appreciate you all doing the dirty details and giving us the update.

Looking forward to that.

And then I just wanted to actually call back to a conversation, another one with Councilman Bright.

I appreciate Councilman Burkettle's questions around neighborhood commercial or corner stores.

Am I correct in my understanding that there are still some locations in LR1 where you're not able to develop corner stores?

As part of the neighborhood residential update, the standards that were put in place for neighborhood residential were also put in place for low-rise zones across the board.

So they're essentially the same in terms of the extent to which commercial is allowed.

Okay, got it.

So they're mirroring each other in what we are permitted to do with neighborhood commercial between those zones.

maybe worth noting, there is also an RC overlay, which actually goes kind of beyond that.

That's in a pretty limited amount of space.

But yes, if you're not in those suffixes, the RIC gives you more.

And if you're not, it's the same between neighbor residential and low-rise zones.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Any other colleagues with questions or comments?

Okay.

Thank you.

I have a few questions, comments myself.

Just want to go back to slide eight if...

just the public engagement timeline.

And just wanna, again, just thank you for the years of hard work for, again, to the colleagues, the public, for engaging in this really extensive process.

And we did, it got delayed longer than we had hoped, But I think it also just speaks to the level of work that was involved.

I haven't been part of prior major updates, but I think it's safe to say that this major update was a significant body of work that really touched all parts of the city, especially when we had things like House Bill 1110 that we have not you know, had to deal with in prior major updates.

And so I just mentioned that in the sense of, you know, it's a lot of work.

And I also just want to recognize that many members of the public still feel like they would have liked to see more engagement.

And I think there can be multiple truths.

I also just want to sort of call up some statistics that As we look at the history of our city, looking back at prior demographic data, we looked at, and these might not be exact numbers, but as I think about the demographics of our city, in 1960, we were around 560,000.

And then, you know, I think we all know the billboard where it's, you know, turn out the lights for the last person, turn out the lights.

And there was actually a dip in population.

And then in 2000, we were back to around 560,000.

So from 1960 to 2000, we had about the same population.

And then from 2000, we went from around 560 to now we are over 800,000.

And so I just think, again, to recognize that fact of the intense growth and the real impacts that go along with that, whether it's impacts around housing costs, homelessness, impacts in neighborhoods, and why there is, I think we've struggled in many ways to deal with to accommodate all that growth.

And I think we've done an incredible job.

And again, I just want to thank you all for all the hard work that you have done to help us as we look forward to hopefully trying to catch up in terms of getting housing produced Another thing I just want to highlight is just because we increase the zoning doesn't mean that housing gets built overnight.

We have seen huge, we've made incredible progress here in major up zones and major capacity.

And at the same time, we see housing permits are actually way down.

And there's a number of factors that are, some are inside our control and some are outside of our control.

Things like interest rates, things like the employment.

which we have some role in, but it is not entirely within our control.

Things like tariffs and labor costs.

And so I just want to also acknowledge that just because an area is up zoned does not mean that there's going to be immediate redevelopment overnight.

One other slide I'd like to take a look at is the LR zone.

I think it was slide 22. And we've spoken about it, but just want to highlight again.

One other thing.

So just, we've heard from developers, folks who have concerns about MHA in the LR zones, and I just want to kind of highlight, you know, this slide sort of calls into attention that concern, especially when it comes to LR1 and LR2, because when we did basically do an up zone of the neighborhood residential, as required by House Bill 1110, we did not adopt MHA in the neighborhood residential.

We do have MHA currently in the LR zones, including LR1 and LR2, but as this slide points out, at least currently, LR1 potentially has less, you can build less in LR1 than neighborhood residential.

With the proposed, there will be similarity, but not a huge amount of difference between LR1, LR2, and neighborhood residential, but we do have the the MHA difference.

And so it just calls into attention that, obviously, I do think that that will be a body of work that we need to look into.

Finally, just on the point of engagement, could you just speak a little bit about your willingness to, if council members want you to show up at neighborhood meetings to address questions or concerns in the coming month or two, just could you speak to that?

Yes, I certainly can.

And yes, indeed, we are available to support you.

I mean, I was stating the obvious that legislation has been transmitted to council and formally the engagement with your constituents across the city and in each of your districts individually is where the action is right now and where you're going to want to have meaningful and informative conversations with folks out in the community.

We are available, however, as we did last year in 2025 after transmitting the ComPlan and Phase 1 legislation, we are available and acknowledging very much that this is complex legislation.

There are a lot of details here, and we are a resource for you to help answer constituent questions, to make, to present the legislation, to paint a picture for folks as to what it is and what it means.

and to just be out there talking to people.

So please reach out to our office.

Sarah Graves, our communications manager, is taking in requests.

We've already started scheduling.

Those couple of you that have started reaching out to us, we're more than happy to do so.

Another thing that we...

Please let us know what, if there are ideas for materials that could be helpful.

One of the ideas that we heard early here was to update the, notwithstanding the fact that we have the online interactive map, that that's not always a tool that works for everybody, may not work in a public meeting, we've made available a PDF zoom-in maps for different neighborhood centers or areas of more intensive change under this, zoning legislation.

Hopefully that will be helpful.

It was helpful to us in fall of 2024. If you have other ideas of like the table figure that Councilmember Kettle was describing, that would also be something we could put on a poster and make available to you.

So let us know what would be helpful within our capacity.

We certainly can do meaningful things.

Thank you very much for that.

And on that point, I think we can huddle about this offline, but I would love to see some graphics with things like, we heard some public comments about like how to increase density that would also allow things like courtyards and allow trees.

And I would love to see some graphics that would somehow give us an idea of what that would look like, whether it's in, existing zoning or whether we might have some council amendments that might help elucidate that.

We also, as we look at graphics, we do need to take into account accessibility concerns.

And so just for my colleagues, just want to point that out that we need to make sure that all these graphics that we include need to be accessible.

And so that makes it sometimes difficult to do.

That is all I have for today.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

Yes, please.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to echo what you just said about the graphics related to, you know, we're talking about upzoning here, and we're not really having the conversation about how urban forestry fits into this.

I know there's an urban forestry component to the comp plan, and it just feels a little bit disjointed to have these conversations.

It's siloed.

and I think it would really help members of the public, as Chair said, who came to chambers today, but folks, our constituents that we hear from, what are the plans for urban forests and green spaces within all this upzoning that we're doing?

And then also information about decisions You know, there is no information in the materials about how you made decisions to do five stories next to single story, single family homes along those transit corridors.

So that is to say along the corridors, you can build up to five stories, but behind it is going to be a single family.

There's no transition.

So that has an impact.

I think we heard from public commenters about that as well.

So how do you know, how are you making these decisions and how Do we help ensure appropriate transition would be helpful.

And if you're already, if that's part of this, I haven't seen it.

So those are the kinds of things.

And I didn't ask more questions, Chair, because I'm gonna ask for a briefing, a formal briefing about all this, because I have all these questions.

But did want to echo what you said about the urban forestry pieces, because that is really critical throughout the city.

particularly as a kid who grew up in an urban environment in a five-story walk-up, no elevator building, and needing to have access to green spaces.

That's important, and playgrounds and things of that nature.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Any other?

Okay.

Thank you again to our presenters, to members of the public, to my colleagues.

Our next select committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 6th, 2026 at 9.30 a.m., at which time we also plan to hold a public hearing on the legislation.

The meeting will mirror past public hearings for this committee while we accept remote comments starting at 9.30 a.m.

and then in the afternoon, We plan to accept in-person comments.

At present, the agenda with meeting details has not been published, but we plan to issue shortly.

So thank you all again.

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

Is there any further business to come before we adjourn?

Hearing no further business, we are adjourned at 3.45 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.