Seattle Within Reach: Reshaping Community Development Abroad & At Home

you Hi, well, good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Tammy Morales, Seattle City Council member, and I'm really excited today to have the second in a series of panels we're calling Seattle Within Reach.

At our first panel a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the conversation, the community conversation we would like to start about how we build a Seattle where everybody has access to goods and services, to their essential needs, including housing that workers can afford, access to childcare, groceries, banking, and to have everything within reach.

So we are starting the conversation again today, and I'm very excited to have some guests with us today.

We want to have a conversation about how our neighborhoods, As we start to talk about land use and the comprehensive plan in Seattle, the way that the city might be changing, we want to hear from folks in other parts of the city and other parts of the world about the work that they're doing to make their communities better.

And so we've invited some guests here today that I'm excited to have.

We will be talking with, visiting from Nantes, which is our sister city in France.

Deputy Mayor Pierre-Manuel Maré, Deputy Mayor Mao Bertu.

We also have with us, visiting from Chicago on Zoom, Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez Rosa.

And we have from our own neighborhood, Beacon Hill, here in Seattle, from El Centro de la Raza, Miguel Maestas.

Thank you all for joining us today.

I do want to let folks know that we have an interpreter here.

So we will be having the conversation in English.

But our guests from France may prefer to answer in French.

And so we do have Louise Morehead here, who will be serving as an interpreter.

So when you hear French, that's who will be speaking.

Thank you very much for being here.

Certainly.

Thank you very much.

OK.

Let's get started.

So you're all here because you're very involved in moving your communities towards more complete neighborhoods toward walkable cities and we're having really similar discussions here in Seattle.

about how we prioritize livability, how we create neighborhoods where essential services are more accessible to folks, because we know that everybody should be benefiting from investments that our local government is making, that our city is making.

And here in Seattle, especially, we want to make sure that low-income neighbors people of color don't get pushed out of the city, which is something that really has been happening here in Seattle at an accelerated pace.

So we're thinking a lot about what's missing in our neighborhoods and how we really promote access to our neighborhoods.

So Deputy Mayor Berthoud, I'd like to start with you.

We are starting to talk about the notion of a 15-minute city in Seattle, but it's pretty high level.

And I know in Nantes, you're moving that direction.

And there are several components of what it means in Nantes to have a 15-minute city, including elements that will shorten the distance for people between work and home, increasing access to services and green space.

You have the Etoile Vert, the paths leading out of the center city where you're preserving green space.

And something that you call mixité or social inclusion.

So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what a 15-minute city means in Nantes and what some of the key elements are for you as you move in that direction.

I think we're going to be able to answer two of us with Deputy One of the objectives is to have all services available where one lives, no matter where one lives in the city of Nantes.

So we are creating what we might call small downtowns all around the city.

The principle might be slightly technological.

We estimate that to have a reasonable level of services, approximately 12 services available, that should include

Food, food shopping, grocery store, bakery, et cetera.

Health services, doctors, dentists.

Culture, leisure, and parks.

And everything that is transportation, meaning have buses, have trams, et cetera.

And within the city of Nantes, currently, approximately 95% of the population do have this level of service.

And then we come to the global policy.

And we are taking a transversal optic to this.

With exchanges with Tammy and with Bruce Harrell, in what concerns the fabric of the city?

And so we are big on those small city centers or small downtowns, if you wish, with bicycle lanes,

pedestrian lanes and everything that allows people to circulate easily within those areas.

So the reflection that I would have to make after having these exchanges here with you,

is that for the last four days we don't seem to have a community approach, a small city approach.

So perhaps this view of the 15-minute city, we could re-look at it

in order to exchange with you, work with you, to bring about a similar project.

We're going to talk about the non-sexist city.

Sorry?

We're going to talk about the non-sexist city.

The non-sexist city.

Anti-sexist.

Anti-sexist.

Anti-sexist.

Merci.

Thank you for the introduction.

Yes, and then we're going to talk about

anti-sexist city.

Yes, and a good example of that, we have decided to put distributors for periodic protection around the city, available around the city.

And we installed them in several places in the city with the idea that they would be accessible, you could find one, within 15 minutes.

if you needed one.

So the notion of the 15-minute city is present in all of the projects that we are leading.

It's perhaps a transversal objective that accompanies every project that we are leading.

And I would like to add a point.

And so the 15 minute city or the quarter hour city is above everything a question of organization of the city.

Because in the years 1950s, 60s, 70s, the city was imagined and conceived around the car.

And so the neighborhoods were specialized.

We had the supermarket neighborhood, the business neighborhood, the neighborhood where we sleep, where we live, and the city specialized more and more.

And in that case, the city was specializing its different neighborhoods or different areas around, for instance, the major food stores or large surface food or appliance stores, the business district and other districts, other specialized districts.

So the fact that the city is growing and growing and growing, and within the city, where automobile traffic is concerned, there are many, many, many traffic jams, it led us to rethink the organization that we were giving to the city,

to imagine this in a completely different way.

So the city within a quarter of an hour is the result of this reflection on the spaces and utilization of spaces within the city.

So thank you for that.

I do want to talk just a little bit more about this idea of how you moved from auto reliance, that framework of relying on the car, to this idea of small downtowns.

I know, for example, the city converted the Allée Commandante Charcot Is that, am I saying that right?

That used to be a major roadway along the river in the city and it's now a tramway and even green space.

There's a pedestrian and bike lane next to it.

So is that an example of how you're changing and how did that particular change happen, shutting down the road and replacing it with a tram?

So here's a good example.

I have another example that I'm thinking of.

So the city within the 1990s, there was a variable auto route that went all the way to the Chateau of the Duc de Bretagne.

which is the center of the city of Nantes.

And then very progressively, because we know that people let go of their habits very slowly with some reticence, So, in the more recent years, that autoroute, that major highway has transformed into an access road and through there is a lane on either side for the cars.

There are bicycle lanes, there are pedestrian lanes.

But if you want to go to Nantes or the center of Nantes in the morning or the evening, don't even bother trying to take that route.

And when I say that, it's because we have proposed an alternative route.

So people can go by bike, either with their own bicycle or on renting a bicycle.

Or on bus way.

Or they can take the bus.

Yeah.

When we visited in December, there were bicycle rental options, electric bikes that people could rent, similar to what we have here.

But we saw many, many more people riding bikes there.

It was very exciting.

Currently, we have 50 kilometers of bicycle lanes within the city, and we are planning on doubling that.

We currently have 3% of our traffic on bicycle, but our objective is 12%.

And we are nevertheless way behind the cities in Northern Europe.

We still have a lot of progress to make in that domain.

We're behind cities in Northern Europe too.

I want to move to the alderman, Alderman Damiros Rosa.

Chicago is historically a very dense city, but also a city that is living with the legacies of redlining.

We experience that here in Seattle as well.

I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how Chicago is reexamining more equitable communities, more blended neighborhoods.

And maybe you could even just start with a short explanation of what redlining is for folks who may not know.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this panel, council member.

It's so great to hear from the deputy mayors in France.

So many of the issues that they are experiencing in their communities are very similar to issues that we're experiencing in Chicago and across the United States.

Unfortunately, in the U.S., we have the ugly history of redlining, where through governmental policy, through racist market forces, what we saw was segregation.

imposed from the top down where black communities, communities of color had a very difficult time getting access to capital and to loans to be able to get the American dream and own their own home.

how communities of color were cut off from investment from banks.

And we're still living through that legacy today in the city of Chicago.

Chicago is one of the most segregated American cities.

You can walk down a block and you can see a community go from 90% black to 90% Latino to 90% white in a series of, you know, as you walk down, you know, a street over a series of several miles.

So as a city, you know, there have been a number of us that have been working to address that history of redlining.

First and foremost, we want to make sure that investment is distributed equitably throughout the city of Chicago.

And so community groups have been fighting for many years.

One of the ways that that has been accomplished as of recent is a program called Invest Southwest.

So really making sure that the public dollars that the city has for investment They're being targeted towards communities that have historically been redlined and that have historically received that disinvestment and experienced that disinvestment.

So the Invest Southwest program has been able to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in public financing and in public funding to small businesses, to developers on the south and west sides of the city of Chicago.

What we've also done is every city gets a limited number of dollars from the federal government to invest in public housing.

And historically, a lot of cities have said, well, in the poorest communities, we're going to put this public housing, because we don't want this public housing to be in the richer areas of the city, in the more white areas of the city, affluent areas of the city.

So we've really sought to reverse that trend.

And in communities that are facing displacement, in some of the most affluent communities of the city, we are now seeking to use those public dollars to build affordable housing.

So in my community, what we've done is we took a parking lot right next to a train stop and we turned that into 100 units of affordable housing for people that are at or below 60 percent of the area median income.

But we didn't just make it housing, we made it mixed-use commercial because we said this is right adjacent to a commercial corridor, this is right next to a train stop, so the first floor should be commercial.

And we're actually working now with a very successful businessman who helps bring together smaller businesses.

They can't afford their own storefront to help incubate them and to help give them a place to sell their goods, their art that they produce.

us we're really excited that the first floor of that all affordable development will be a commercial space that will include this essentially indoor market space where smaller merchants from the community will be able to sell their goods and hopefully that will give them a foothold to eventually expand into their own storefront.

So I guess to quickly summarize, Chicago has an ugly history of segregation like so many other cities, but thanks to many generations of Chicagoans who have fought to undo that trend, we're beginning to see government policies that are targeting public investment where it needs to go, right?

So making sure that we're getting dollars into disinvested communities on the south and west side of the city of Chicago, and then making sure that we're actually building affordable housing and public and social housing in affluent communities and making sure that we're adding density in those communities where historically there may have been more of a push for single family homes.

That's very exciting.

This Invest Southwest sounds similar to a program we have in Seattle called the Equitable Development Initiative, where we really are trying to focus our public dollars into neighborhoods that have historically been under-invested in.

Thank you for sharing that.

Miguel, it sounds very similar to the Plaza Roberto Maestas that El Centro did five years ago.

Is it?

Broke ground, well, actually opened six years ago, six years ago.

So, and El Centro has been a strong, strong community organization for decades.

Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to build that project and the different components that you included in it?

It does sound similar to what the alderman is talking about.

Sure.

Well, first, Council Member Morales, thank you so much for inviting us to sit on the panel and share a bit about our work at El Centro de la Raza, which we translate as the Center for People of All Races.

And from the perspective of a community-based organization, an organization grounded in the Latino community, when The light rail, when the light rail was being planned, initially it wasn't going to come to Beacon Hill.

And when news finally came that it was actually going to stop at Beacon Hill, we began to see an opportunity at El Centro de la Raza to do some type of development.

The wonderful opportunity was that El Centro de la Raza owns the building and the land around it, which is adjacent to the Beacon Hill light rail station and where that is located now.

So the staging area, actually, for the construction of the light rail was on the property that is now Plaza Roberto Maestas, the mixed-use development that was created.

And that gave us the opportunity And so actually we were able to lease that space as the construction area.

And our leadership was very frugal, put that money away because we knew that money would serve as pre-development funds to be able to do a type of development.

And so we began to, we knew that, you know, and this is, probably close to 20 years ago.

And even at that time we knew and we saw the need for affordable housing in our communities.

And as an organization, we knew that affordable housing was really the cornerstone and important element of that development.

And we began to participate in the neighborhood planning sessions.

not only to talk about the need for affordable housing, but also to participate in those discussions, to hear what others in the neighborhood were saying, and to also make sure that people who weren't traditionally involved, you know, lower income people, immigrant and refugee families would be involved in that community planning process.

So we were able to not only share what we felt was important, but also hear what the neighborhood felt was important in that development as well.

And people were talking about things like a neighborhood center, something that had community and cultural space.

opportunities for commercial space and for small business space.

So we also heard from people who were participating what they needed.

In addition to affordable housing, people were talking about childcare and how it would be wonderful to have access to high quality childcare next as part of affordable housing.

So, as we began to plan, we said, we have an opportunity to create much more than just affordable housing and also address the stigma that oftentimes comes with affordable housing and people's perceptions of what that means for a neighborhood.

And so we began to, that process that had 30 community meetings and were very open and created a participation for lots of people to hear what was being planned with the development, to give their input about the development.

And so, So the opportunity to create a development with the cornerstone of 112 units of affordable housing, also 30 to 60% of area median income, and create a open plaza space, in some ways, very traditional plaza that you may see in different Latino communities, a cultural event space, seven classrooms of child development, a child development center that serves 128 children.

And retail space that really was designed to attract family-owned businesses, to help support small businesses, and the opportunity to be right across the light rail.

So it really was a community-inspired transit-oriented, mixed-use transit-oriented development that incorporated all of these elements.

And an important thing, or an important point that I would say is that, obviously, stakeholders who were going to be able to live and have affordable housing in Seattle next to light rail.

Obviously it was a huge benefit for many families.

We designed it so that over 50% of the units were two and three bedrooms so that families with children could live in the development.

And also, But developed it in a way that everyone in the neighborhood saw it as an asset, as a benefit, regardless, so that people in the neighborhood.

whether you lived a block away, a half a mile away, or came in through the light rail, had access to high quality child care.

It also had, it was affordable child care for low income families, had gathering space and cultural space, a lot of things that the neighborhood had been planning before.

So we actually did an economic analysis of the economic impact of the 112 families.

And although it's 30 to 60% median income, most of the families are working families.

And we did an analysis that they were going to bring $3 million of purchasing power to the neighborhood and shared that.

with merchants and shared that in meetings and said, this is creating a market and a marketplace of people that are going to help improve the economics and the economic development of the neighborhood as well.

So I think everyone, you know, we, we really were able to create a development and share that this was a really a benefit for the entire neighborhood and community, going back to when people were talking about what they envisioned for Beacon Hill.

Well, and you didn't, In addition to all of the services and certainly access to childcare is a huge problem across the city right now, and I know you're planning even more, which is terrific, but you also created a beautiful space.

It's gorgeous on the outside.

There's lots of art all around the buildings, and it just really does.

lend, as you say, dignity to the community, and really is a great example of how we provide access to all of the essential services within a neighborhood.

And that's exactly what we're talking about, right?

How do we do more of that across the city and in lots of different areas so that people can get access to the things that they need without having to get into a car?

Um, so, so I'm really excited about this idea of 15 minute city, small downtowns.

Um, uh, but we have heard some critique that this could potentially lead to gentrification could lead to displacement of folks.

As you say, we really want to make sure that our, particularly communities of color and low income folks get to stay and benefit from the investments that we're making rather than getting pushed out.

So Alderman, I was wanting to hear from you about what Chicago is doing to mitigate, as you're moving towards density, how you're mitigating against displacement.

And I wonder if you might talk a little bit about, you have an affordable requirements ordinance that requires inclusion of affordable homes in developments.

Can you talk a little bit about how that works in Chicago?

Yeah.

So I think development without displacement is such an important goal that we're pursuing in Chicago and in the 35th Ward in the communities that I represent.

I represent an area called Logan Square.

which is about halfway between downtown Chicago and O'Hare Airport, if you're all familiar with our city.

It has a lot of beautiful stately homes, but it also has a lot of what's called middle housing, sometimes called missing middle.

Two to four flat apartment buildings, a lot of them owner occupied.

This is oftentimes the most affordable housing that is found throughout the city of Chicago.

There are landlords who live on the first floor and then they have a unit below them, a unit above them, maybe two units above them.

And so many of our working class and middle class families, this is where they live in our neighborhoods.

And what we saw is as the community began to attract more affluent homebuyers, A lot of these beautiful brick buildings that were 100-plus years old suddenly either got torn down or they were deconverted into a single-family home.

And so you had a 100-year-old building that previously housed four families that now only housed one family.

And that had a negative impact on our commercial corridor as longtime businesses began to close because the clientele was just not there anymore.

It also had a negative impact on our schools, which began to see a shrinking school enrollment.

And particularly, we saw this trend happening around what's called the 606 Bloomingdale Trail.

The Bloomingdale Trail was previously the Bloomingdale train line.

It's a commercial industrial train line that served factories in the community.

And basically, factories were built right on the train line.

It was an elevated train line.

It was actually one of the first train lines elevated using concrete.

And obviously, the factories would abut this train line.

And then the train would go down.

It would pull up to the factory.

They would load the goods, get it out to market, and get it out west to Seattle.

Well, as those factories closed down and as the USD industrialized, what happened is a lot of those factories became lofts, became housing, which is great.

adaptive reuse.

We love to be able to add density within the existing envelope of buildings.

It's oftentimes the most green option for a community.

But what also began to happen is that a lot of these two to four unit apartment buildings started being purchased and started being deconverted to single family homes.

And we lost thousands of units near this trail.

So, well, let me back up.

The community fought to take that abandoned train line and turned it into an elevated hiking trail.

And that was the community that fought for that and we won.

And after this beautiful amenity had been built, suddenly we began to see a decrease in the housing around that area, which meant that fewer and fewer families would be able to benefit from this trail that had been built.

And it also meant that You know, we saw all the other negative impacts that happened as we lost density around this beautiful new trail.

So one of the things that we fought for was one, a demolition impact fee.

We said, look, if you're demolishing, you know, multifamily housing, then that has an impact on the community, has an impact on the climate, it has an impact on housing affordability.

So you have to charge, you have to pay a fee if you're demolishing buildings.

But the other thing we did is we implemented a minimum density.

So basically we disallow new single family homes within this protected area near this trail.

So you can't build single family homes near this trail anymore.

And so collectively, I don't know what just happened with my, okay, sorry.

So collectively what these policies have done is they have now begun to protect that middle housing.

The two to four flat units that house our families that provide the most affordability, the most affordable option in our community, They are now protected from demolition, and they are now protected from deconversion, from becoming single-family homes.

So we're helping to protect that kind of missing middle housing that already exists in so many of Chicago's neighborhoods.

The other thing that we've been doing is trying to add density where and when we can, and really making sure that as much of that density that's being added, so if we have an empty lot, let's add more housing there, but let's really make sure that it's affordable to our families.

And so that's where our inclusionary zoning policy comes in.

Citywide, the city had a policy since around 2000 that if you were going to build a new building and it was over 10 units and it included a zoning change, so you need to go to city council to ask for permission to build that building, so you were receiving the benefit of a zoning change, that you then had to include 10% of the units in that building as affordable.

Now the problem with that was that in some communities 10% was just not enough.

The other issue with that as well was that developers were allowed to pay an in-lieu fee.

So rather than include the affordability on site, they would pay a fee so that they didn't have to include affordable units in the building.

And then that fee would be used to build housing in other places.

And so given, again, the legacy of redlining and segregation in the city, we saw that in very affluent areas, developers were choosing to pay the fee, not include the affordability in the new building that they had just built, and that money to build housing in communities that were already seeing disinvestment.

So in other words, they would just continue to put poor working class people in the same neighborhoods and not create that economic diversity that we know builds really strong communities.

So our community fought.

to amend the city's inclusionary zoning policy.

And in our neighborhood, which is seeing so much displacement and seeing such a decrease in working families living in the community, we now require 20%.

So that's what we fought for, right?

So if you're going to build a 10 unit or more building, if you're going to ask for a zoning change or any other city benefit, moving forward, the minimum amount of affordability that needs to be included is 20%.

And also we got rid of the ability to pay the in lieu fee.

So the housing must be built where you are building the units.

So that's really gonna help ensure that we continue to have diversity, both economic and racial within the community that I represent.

And it's also gonna help ensure that as we build these new buildings and as we add density where we can in the community, that it's going to not just be housing for affluent folks, folks that could pay a lot of money in rent, but it's also going to continue to provide affordable options for families, many of them which are currently facing displacement from the neighborhood.

So thank you.

That's so many things I want to ask you about, including Alderman approval of buildings.

But I do want to move to Deputy Mayor Maré.

Actually, I want to ask you about social housing in Nantes.

But first, one more question for you, Alderman.

Can you talk just for a moment about what affordability means in Chicago?

What is the area median income?

How much are rents in Chicago?

Yeah.

So they're not as crazy as the East Coast or the West Coast.

We're still comparatively more affordable.

But nonetheless we also have a lower median income.

So our families are making less.

So what might sound affordable to a family in Seattle is not affordable to a family in Chicago.

But a studio apartment, non-subsidized on the market, right now could go for as much as $1,600 to $2,000 in my neighborhood.

And that is out of reach.

That's a studio apartment.

That's not even one bedroom.

And I know you all are probably thinking, oh, that's nothing.

But it's a lot for our families.

In the subsidized units, so either the units that are being built or the restricted units, so the units that are being built either under our inclusionary zoning policy, the 20% that needs to be included in that private development, or the 100% affordable building that we built next to the train stop, a studio apartment goes for about $900.

So that's half of what the market uh, is asking for, uh, currently.

Um, and so it's, uh, normally what we ask for is at 60% or below the area medium income.

Uh, and currently for a single person, that would be about, uh, 30 to $35,000 currently.

Um, and then obviously it goes up for family.

So for a family of four, I think it'd be about $90,000, uh, right now.

So, you know, let's say it's, uh, you know, two parents and two children, If each of the parents are making $40,000 a year, they would be able to afford and they would qualify for one of these units that is being built, either through government subsidy.

So for example, the all affordable building we built right next to the train stop, that was built using government funding, or through the units that are being built as a result of our inclusionary zoning policy, the 20% that are set aside as affordable when a private development is being built.

And just for comparison, in Seattle, area median income is about $100,000 now.

Although most people, well, in my district, which includes, for example, the Chinatown International District, many people are at about $20,000 a year.

And I believe a one bedroom in Seattle is going for about $2,100 right now, which is crazy.

Okay, so Deputy Mayor Matmay, you have, I believe, a similar requirement in Nantes that I think it's 25% of all units that are constructed are affordable.

Can you just talk a little bit?

So here in Seattle, we are starting to talk about social housing, starting to talk about needing as many tools as possible to address our our housing shortage, which is really a crisis.

And we have similar programs like inclusionary zoning and requirements for some development, but we need as many tools as we can think of to try to address this.

So we're talking about social housing so that everybody can have some sort of affordability.

And I would love to hear from you about how it works in Nantes, what does it mean to really have this as an option or a requirement in your case?

In France, since the years 1950-1960, there has always been a desire to propose social housing.

And today, I believe the law requires approximately 25% of social housing within the construction within cities.

And we in Nantes, we're a little higher than 25%, but I don't have the exact numbers.

So what is important for us is to continue to propose social housing for people without employment, people who have low revenues.

Yes, in order to preserve this diversity within our cities,

At the same time, managing against this rise in prices that continues today, we have our own gentrification.

For instance, in the neighborhood where I live, it's the Chantenay neighborhood.

which is a workers' neighborhood with small family houses.

This quarter, this neighborhood is transforming currently.

Today, the price per square foot, square meter, or square foot if you wish, has exploded.

We're having a densification of the city also in such neighborhoods.

For example, people will build another floor or two more floors.

To come back to social housing, today we have an interesting proposal on social housing in the city.

But not enough to answer all of the requests and all of the need.

There is a long waiting list.

And so there's another element.

The construction of the social housing seems to be occurring in specific neighborhoods.

So today, we're working towards the idea of making it a fact that social housing is not all together.

It's disseminated throughout the city and it will create mixed neighborhoods.

J'ai un exemple de projet très récent qui est l'ancienne prison de Nantes.

I have an example of something very recent.

It's a former prison in Nantes.

Un très vieux bâtiment dans un des quartiers les plus riches de la ville.

It's a very old building in one of the richest neighborhoods of the city.

Quand le porteur de projet a justement travaillé sur le projet,

So when the persons proposing this project were working on it, we requested that there be 25%, which is the law of social housing.

So today, this housing has been created.

It's the new neighborhood, new quartier vie, with a true mixed diverse neighborhood within the center of town.

And on the other hand we have Bellevue, a very large neighborhood in Nantes.

We have a big operation of urban renewal in that neighborhood.

And in fact, in order to do it, we have torn down some very big housing units, very, very big apartment buildings in order to open up that neighborhood and include more diversity in that neighborhood.

In fact, that 25% is the law, and it's from city to city.

But similar to Chicago, some of the cities would rather, or some of the areas, would rather pay the fine or the fee in order not to include this diversity.

So as our assistant mayor has said, we would rather go further and construct within our optic of social housing.

A, we also have housing, which we would call affordable housing, which would allow those who can afford it to become owners of their apartments, their homes.

And so tell me the difference between social housing and affordable housing, because you don't consider them the same thing.

Is that right?

It's the income.

And so the 25% that is required, what is an example of the income that would be in that?

I may not have the exact numbers but it does allow people who have very low

earnings to access decent living quarters and to remain there.

And that's one of the key components, right?

That this is high quality housing.

It's not built differently than even some of the nicer apartments that you're offering dignity and high quality housing and access for everybody.

Okay.

So Miguel, I know you, maybe you can talk a little bit about your next project is going to be in Columbia City.

I think you're offering 87 units of affordable housing.

Can you talk to us about what that means in the project that you're doing?

Sure.

wonderful step forward for El Centro de la Raza and the opportunity to create our second major mixed-use affordable housing development in Seattle.

So as you said it is going to be located in Columbia City.

87 units of affordable housing and it will also serve people between 30 and 60 percent of area median income.

And we have the same goal of making sure that more than half of the units are two and three bedroom apartments so that families with children can be served.

we're, you know, this is happening six years after Plaza Roberto Maestas.

And so, you know, one of the obviously major steps to a next development, particularly for El Centro and the fact that we're relatively small as far as affordable housing development compared to like larger affordable housing developers, was it was, being able to find and acquire the land to be able to do the second development.

So this development is in partnership with the Church of Hope and Consejo Counseling and Referral who have been on that property for many years and they've had the goal of developing affordable housing.

So we went in in partnership and and we're happy to say that they will continue to have a new site.

Consejo will have new offices and the Church of Hope will have a new space there on the site.

And we will also have enough room to do a four classroom early childhood development program.

on that site as well.

And it'll serve 64 children.

And so it'll be another expansion of our affordable, not only our affordable housing, but also the early childhood programs alongside.

Because, you know, we've seen the success and we really see that at Plaza Roberto Maestas, we've created what we feel is an excellent model for development of really, as I said, community-inspired mixed-use development.

And you mentioned the art component that exists at El Centro.

You know, when we had community meetings and we heard from people and we talked about our hope to put art in the building at Plaza Roberto Maestas that was so well received by the community because, as you said, it does create a welcoming and dignified place.

And in the tradition of our origins at El Centro de la Raza and our commitment to doing our work in a way that builds multiracial unity, the art is reflective of many cultures, not just Latino culture, so that it's a welcoming place to everyone in our community.

we are going to have a wonderful art component as well in the development in Columbia City, we're happy to say.

So that will be carried on as well, but we're very happy to, that we'll be breaking ground in January and then completing construction in probably the summer of 2024 and be open up the services, the housing and the services that

And how, talk to us a little bit about how you are able to offer this.

as affordable housing.

I know the financing of housing in this country is very complicated, but can you explain a little bit about it?

So, you know, it is really putting together the financing to do the construction.

And similar to what we heard, what's happening in our sister city, that it's, you know, our goal is to build the highest quality housing possible.

So this is the, The base of funding is through the low income housing tax credit program which is a federal program to support the development of affordable housing and an investment.

An investor receives tax credits over 15 years for investment in the construction of the project.

Also, support from the city office of housing is a huge part of it.

You know, those funds and those investments that the city is making to create more affordable housing in our city.

doing our own fundraising as well to make sure that we can have the things like the art and the high quality child development program.

Also looking at state funds and city funds for that, as well as doing what we're calling a quiet capital campaign, but also raising the funds to make sure that not only those things are part of the development, but that, you know, the, that the units themselves have like the highest quality amenities that we can afford.

So it really is working for many years.

There's so much work leading up to be able to like break ground and start construction as far as finding partners and, and, and structuring the, the, the purchase of the land and financing the construction.

So yeah, an incredible amount of work and all of that as part of building capacity as a smaller organization grounded in community of color, building that capacity to do affordable housing is so important.

And the fact that we now are able to that we're close to breaking ground on our second major development is a wonderful thing for El Centro and for the Columbia City neighborhood.

This will be the largest affordable housing development that is targeting families in Columbia City.

That's great.

Well, and you make a really good point that we also have a lot of work to do to build capacity of these smaller organizations, particularly organizations that are grounded in communities of color so that they can drive their own change and make the kind of development projects that they want to see.

Absolutely.

We get lots of sister organizations, community-based organizations, churches from different communities, mostly communities of color and community-based organizations that come that have land that want to be part of the solution of developing affordable housing and addressing the affordable housing crisis and ask like, you know, and we're always talking and sharing and sharing lessons learned and the policies and the infrastructure and the capacity that we had to build, we share that because we know how hard it was.

And we also understand how important it is, like you said, to build capacity with smaller organizations so that they can be part of addressing the crisis in our community for affordable housing.

Well, and we know because Seattle is experiencing growing income inequality, it's especially important, right?

Because we do have low-income families, communities of color that are being pushed out.

And I think it is a reflection of, in some ways, well, it is a reflection of the way we have planned, we have changed as a city and the kinds of development that we have allowed to happen in particular ways.

We're starting to acknowledge that and starting to operate in a different way.

And I think part of, an important change is having conversation directly with community, bringing more people into conversations about how we design our cities and how we design our neighborhoods.

Deputy Mayor Berthoud, you lead the City of Nantes effort to create a non-sexist city.

And I will say in Seattle, we've done some work around, for example, gender pay equity.

uh, in the city.

And I will say in Seattle, women still make 76% of what men make in the city.

So clearly we have work to do.

Um, but we haven't really talked in Seattle about what a non-sexist city looks like in terms of planning and design, um, or even, you know, in terms of implementation of some city programs.

So can you talk a little bit about what, what does a non-sexist city mean and how do you, how do you work in that direction?

So we are hoping that Nantes, within 10 years, will become a non-sexist city.

And that means that we need to act on every area of interest, for instance,

revenue, education, use of spaces.

And so we're going to take into consideration how each action that the city may take will affect the communities in each of these ways.

How we can put this equality into effect and how at the same time we can avoid to perpetuate victimization.

So I'm not sure how this will pertain to what occurs in the United States, but in our school playgrounds,

we observe a real segregation between where the girls play and where the boys play, what objects they use and what they play, what they climb on, for instance.

And so that might be because we have large playgrounds that have soccer fields on them.

They're very, they occupy a lot of space.

And it happens that girls might just not be interested in that.

So one of our first objectives would be to recreate or reconceive school playgrounds or playgrounds for children, because that's the first place that

Boys and girls get together with each other or not.

So what we want to do is make sure that we have something for the future that promotes mixing up the boys and the girls and creating diversity on the playground in some sort.

And so I have two other examples, very quite different.

We have also programs for employment where women can negotiate their salaries.

The reason for this is to give women the power over their employment and over their jobs, and so they can negotiate the return for their work.

And another example is the

violence that women are subjected to, many sorts of violence.

The city has opened a center to accompany women who have been victims of violence.

We have accompaniment for social violence, judicial help for women who have been victims of domestic violence.

So these are three very different examples, but I think it illustrates

what we are thinking about and what we need to think about when we want to put our plan into action.

We need to act on all of these areas and not just one or two.

So when I was there last year we met with somebody I believe from your parks department who was talking about the the improvements they were going to make, restoration of some park space along the river, lighting that they were adding and other things.

And I was interested to know that as part of, I believe what he said is that as part of any kind of public space design now, somebody from your department is there.

Can you talk a little bit about how the departments work together when you're considering public space?

So one of these objectives in order to manage to achieve our non-sexist city is that all the people working together, all our colleagues,

be made aware, be sensibilized, sensitized to what is necessary in order to act and to work in that vein of non-sexist relationships within the city.

And so, for example, in the development of public space, there is indeed someone from the equality services who is present to have this view on the way the city is built.

So, for instance, in all public spaces, we want to have somebody present in what we might call the equality services in order to maintain this outlook.

Because we know that having light can be reassuring.

Having spaces where you can really see what's going on is reassuring.

It can be the opposite, for example, with a lot of trees, groves, a lot of nature.

So for instance, to have decent lighting, good lighting of public areas, that is something that can provide safety and security.

To have welcoming spaces, for instance, with shrubbery trees, that's another thing that welcomes people to feel safe.

But on the other hand, when we have a lot of what nature brings to us, shrubbery, trees, etc., that keeps us from being aware often of what's going on around us.

And we do desire to have a lot of greenery in our city.

So the idea is that the persons who need to work within the framework of security and safety and women in the public spaces will need to find a balance between this welcoming greenery that we all desire

and the fact that women need to be aware of their surroundings and what is going on.

That is a balance that those persons working in that area will have to find.

Can you talk a little bit about how you engage with community members?

How do you hear from women about what they would like to see or from all community members about how they can move towards this?

Well, we have council panels who work on every aspect of housing, and we have one that works on the concept of women in the spaces and equality.

So the notion behind that is that every resident can be part of those council panels.

They are really open to everyone.

There are also associations who act in that area.

We consult them, we have exchanges with them on a certain number of subjects.

So on the question of open spaces, there are also panels who are working on that and who include the question of inclusions of groups such as the LGBT group.

On the question of public spaces and safety, that is a very important subject.

Of course, yeah.

Well, thank you.

There's a lot to learn about how we, we talk a lot here about communities of color, about our LGBTQ community, people, immigrants and refugees, but we haven't really focused on creating a non-sexist city.

So I really appreciate you sharing that with us and just how you engage community there, because I think that is such an important part of the discussion, especially as we're talking about folks who aren't usually included, whose voices have been left out.

and that's why we are where we are.

My colleague Mao has exposed that very, very well.

But I would like to add that we on the municipal council, we men who are on the council, we are also very involved in that.

We need to gain that awareness so that we can act in that vein so we are aware of what we do and we can contribute as well.

Of course.

Men certainly have their role to play in making sure that we're reaching a non-sexist city.

Alderman, as we're talking about engaging with community and asking folks who aren't typically at the decision-making table to have a seat with us, I think about the participatory planning program that you have in Chicago.

I wonder if you could share with us a little bit about how that works and some of the changes that you think it's led to.

Yeah, participatory planning is so near and dear to my heart.

You know, if you look at the root of the word policy, right, when we talk about land use policy or urban policy, if you look at the root of the word policy, it comes from polis, right, which is the Greek word for city-state.

And what is a city without people?

So, you know, I think how can we make good urban policy without including the people that are going to be impacted by that policy, that are the ones that are walking that are ones that are seeing the deficiency in the built environment, or the needs of the built environment, or what works well for them in their community.

So I became alderman in 2015. And in Chicago, we have a very strong system of member deference, what sometimes is called aldermanic prerogative.

And so there could be no zoning, those through the Chicago City Council, without the local representative, the local member representing that district, having the final say on whether or not that should advance.

So for example, if someone wants to build something new and they need a zoning change in order to build that in my community, it goes to the Chicago City Council's Committee on Land Use and Zoning Policy, and the chair of the Land Use and Zoning Policy will ask me if I support the item.

If I don't support, well not, if I do support the item, it will advance.

And what that system has resulted in over many years is corruption, sometimes unlawful corruption that leads to members going to jail, other times lawful corruption where a developer gives thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and in return the member is signing off on every single zoning change that the developer wants to see.

And left out of that process is the community and what's in the best interest of the community.

And so when I took office, it was on a commitment to implement a participatory planning process and making sure that when zoning changes occurred, when zoning and land use decisions were being made at City Hall that were going to impact the neighborhoods in our community, that those decisions were made in an inclusionary, transparent, and democratic process.

And those are the three values that have guided our process that we've implemented in the 35th board.

The other consideration that we needed to take into, that we needed to take in, that we were thinking about when making this process is the fact that elections for Chicago City Council and for mayor only occur every four years.

And in my community, less than one in five residents will participate in that election.

So what that means is that a huge swath of the community will not be included.

And many times they won't be included because they're not citizens.

Perhaps there's language barriers.

Perhaps there's age barriers.

So we wanted to make sure that we created a process that invited everyone, working poor families, immigrant families, young people, to be involved in the land use and zoning policy that was going to impact their communities.

And so we created a process where community groups can meet directly with developers can provide input.

But ultimately the most important part of this process is a community assembly.

When there's a large development that's moving forward, so for example, the 100-unit all-affordable housing development right next to the train line that was going to replace a parking lot, when that was going to move forward, before I gave the go-ahead in city council, I said we're going to have a community meeting.

And 600 people attended that meeting, and the vast majority of them, over 350 of them, said yes, absolutely.

We want this development to move forward.

We want to move full speed ahead to make sure that this all affordable housing development is built.

The way that we got to that point in time, right, where we had all these people show up to a meeting and all of them say, we want this housing development to move forward, was one, building trust, right?

We needed over a series of meetings to really teach people that this was a serious process, that this was not a dog and pony show, that this was not a meeting where you had to come and yell and engage in theatrics in order to just have a chance of being heard.

We wanted to make it clear that these were real deliberative meetings.

These were meetings where we were going to have serious discussions about what's in the best interest of a community.

What is good land use and zoning policy?

What have we learned over the last several decades of what worked in terms of city building and what hasn't worked?

What we also did was we made sure to include childcare.

we made sure to include simultaneous translation.

So in my community, over 20% of residents are Spanish speakers.

And so at every single one of our community meetings, we make sure to have translation to English and Spanish.

And as a matter of fact, we've actually had meetings, because my community has some parts that are more Spanish speaking than others.

We've had meetings where the entire meeting is held in Spanish, and the only translation that's happening is for the developer, for the zoning applicant, into English, because they were the only English speaker there.

So by really making sure that we're creating that inclusive space where people feel welcome, also by making it accessible, right?

We wanted to take concepts from urban planning and make them accessible to people, right?

To talk about why do we want to maintain our street wall and our commercial corridors, right?

Why do we not want setbacks on our commercial corridors?

Why do we not want first floor residential in our commercial corridors, right?

Why do we want to maintain the integrity of the commercial corridor?

Talking about concepts of why do we want to add density, right?

Why do we want transit-oriented development right next to the train stop?

taking these concepts and making it accessible to people.

And so in reality, our participatory planning process has also become popular education, right?

We don't need, you know, rich developers or, you know, PhDs in zoning and planning.

We welcome them.

We want them to be part of the process.

But we know that by making these concepts and these themes accessible to the community, that we can empower people to then make the zoning decisions that are the best interests of their community.

So, you know, really making it inclusive, making sure that you're inviting everyone into the process.

We go and knock doors and we let people know, hey, you know, in a month, we're going to have a meeting to discuss that empty lot next to, you know, your home or two, three blocks away from your home.

You should really come to that meeting to find out about what's being proposed there and whether or not it's in the best interest of your community.

So we knock doors, we get the word out in English and Spanish.

We make sure that the meetings are being held in English and Spanish.

We make sure that the things that we're talking about to people that aren't spending many hours every week studying these things.

And then we also made sure that it was a real robust process where people knew that the final outcome was really gonna be impacted by their participation in this process.

And then we just were consistent.

So now people in our community have gotten really used to this participatory planning process.

Any decision that I make downtown that's gonna impact the development of their community, Any decision the Department of Planning is going to make that's going to impact development in our community.

Everyone knows that there's going to be this really robust community process.

Everyone knows that we're going to have real serious discussions about what's in the best interest of our community, and that we're going to bring people together to then collectively decide how we should move forward in the best interest of our neighborhood.

And like I said, what that's led to, it's led to a ban on new single-family homes in certain parts of the community where we were seeing middle housing disappearing.

It's led to new transit-oriented developments right next to train stops and along our big commercial corridors where we can add affordability.

It's led to an increase, right?

So now, you know, it's not 10% that needs to be affordable in these private developments.

It's 20% that needs to be affordable.

and you can't, you know, pay the fee to get out of that affordability requirement.

It's also led to things like an increase in family size units.

So for a while, we saw that a lot of the units that were being added as a result of our inclusionary zoning policy were all studio or one bedroom units.

And I heard, you know, our compañero, our brother from El Centro talk about, you know, the need for family size units.

That's the same exact need that we had in our community.

And it was only through this participatory process that the families in our community were able to come forward and were able to be empowered to demand that when there was units being added that were affordable, that they had two and three bedrooms, because that's what our families needed in our neighborhood.

So, yeah, I'm a big believer.

I don't know if you can tell.

I'm such a big believer in participatory planning.

I really think that when we come together as a community, and when we talk about what is good land use and zoning policy, and when we are respectful to one another, when we bring people in that normally aren't involved in the process, I really do believe that we can come to good land use and zoning decisions collectively as a neighborhood.

And I think we've seen that time and time again in our neighborhood, where creating these spaces wasn't a space for NIMBYs to be heard, the folks that want to say no to affordability, It actually became a space where working people could be heard and could say yes to affordability, could say yes to density.

That's so inspiring.

Thank you so much.

I think, you know, we are, we have a process for engaging community.

We're about to launch into our community, our comprehensive planning process over the next two years.

But that is exactly the kind of community engagement that I'm hoping we start to move toward because you're right, it needs to be transparent and inclusive.

And we need to set it up in such a way that Neighbors can actually participate.

There needs to be translation.

There needs to be child care.

I would say in the south end, there has to be food if you want people to come.

So thank you for that.

We will probably be reaching out to you more than once over the next couple of years to keep having that conversation and getting some ideas.

We just have a few minutes left.

But Miguel, I did want to ask you to share.

El Centro de la Raza has been so instrumental in engaging community, bringing neighbors who haven't participated to the table.

and holding local government accountable for making sure that we're including those voices.

I don't know how many people really know the story of how El Centro got started, so can you just share with us in just a few minutes a little bit about how El Centro de la Raza started, how it came to be that you actually owned the land that you were able to then develop?

Sure.

Well, Actually, this year, El Centro de la Raza is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

So the organization has been around for half a century.

Um, and El Centro, um, you know, was, was, um, founded in 1972. And I think it's important to, to look back and understand what was happening in Seattle at that time.

Um, you know, a few years earlier, Dr. King had been assassinated.

Um, uh, Cesar Chavez was organizing, uh, farm workers and mechanization of the labor was happening here in Washington and Eastern Washington where farm worker families were having to come to Western Washington to find the means to work and support their families.

And so the Latino community was very present, but unlike other communities that didn't have a geographic center, there wasn't a barrio or a neighborhood per se, and there was no organizations or community places or spaces where people could come together and really have a sense of community.

So there was a group that was active in organizing and had an English as a second language program in South Seattle College.

That funding was cut and they decided to continue to try and build on that sense of community that they had began to feel and start.

So where El Centro is now, the old Beacon Hill School, was an abandoned school building.

It had been left there because a new school was built down the road.

And they asked if they could use one of the classrooms to continue and basically were told to go away.

But Roberto Maestas, who was the lead organizer and then the executive director of El Centro de la Raza for 37 years, he led that.

was a lead organizer of a peaceful occupation of that building for three months.

And I talked about our commitment, El Centro's half a century commitment to building multiracial unity.

And that really comes from that occupation because it wasn't just Latinos.

They had developed relationships and supported the struggles with the Indian tribes in the area for fishing rights and with black construction workers and students who were struggling for access at the time.

and the Asian community and Pacific Islander community who were trying to stop gentrification and really losing our international district Chinatown neighborhood.

And so those communities had built through the model of the four amigos, Roberto and Bob Santos and Larry Gossett and Bernie Weiber gave us an example of like really coming together and working and supporting one another and building that unity.

So we honor that throughout our history.

So thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about our history now during our 50th anniversary.

Well, very exciting.

And I know there's a lot of great work coming out of the organization now and really a lot of contribution back to our community with the work that you're doing.

So thank you.

We are out of time, so I want to thank everybody.

Thank you, Alderman Ramirez Rosa, for joining us from Chicago.

Maybe next time you can come out to Seattle and we can do it again.

Miguel, thank you so much for being here, and I really want to thank our guests from France, Deputy Mayor Marais, Deputy Mayor Berthoud, thank you for joining us.

And Louise, thank you for translating for us today.

That's all we have for today.

We will have another, continue the series, and so keep an eye on my council website.

We will post notice there of when the next series will be, next panel will be.

And you can also watch this show again if you want to follow up with anything.

We will also include a link to that on my council website as well.

Thanks for joining us today, everybody, and have a great day.

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