Seattle City Council Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee - Public Hearing - 9/5/18

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us.

Hello.

Good morning.

Welcome to the regularly scheduled September 5, 2018 meeting of the Seattle Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee.

My name is Rob Johnson.

I'm the chair of the committee.

It's 9.31.

Welcome this morning.

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

We have several items on today's agenda.

We're going to start with a public hearing briefing and possible vote on a six-month extension of a moratorium on certain land uses in the Aurora-Licton urban village, commonly known as ALOVE.

If you're here for that, we're going to have a separate public hearing just on that.

We'll also do a public hearing and discussion on the draft tree protection ordinance.

Again, we'll have a separate public hearing just on that topic.

We'll have a briefing on the South Lake Union design guidelines, a report on the vacant building monitoring program, and further discussions of the University of Washington major institution master planning process.

As a reminder, that process is a quasi-judicial process, so we cannot, and I will repeat this, we cannot take any public comments during any of the public comment time or any of the public hearings related to the University of Washington major institution master plan process.

A couple of just brief announcements before we kick off into public comment.

During the council recess over the last month or so, We've had a lot of ongoing discussions with many members of community about the tree protection ordinance, which is on today's agenda.

We have started this conversation probably in February or March and have released six or seven different drafts of proposals and continue to collaborate with community.

I think we heard pretty loud and clear from community members that they feel like we're moving in the right direction, but they like additional time for us to consider additional amendments.

Some of the things that we have changed from the original proposal, for example, is the definition of a significant tree.

going from 12 inches of diameter breast height down to 6 inches.

We've been responsive to requests from community members that we have licenses for folks who are working with trees and a requirement that you come to the city and get some sort of approval that you understand the city rules and regulations.

We're continuing to work with community members about the bill itself, but I've heard loud and clear from folks that they think that even the passage of a bill before the budget session feels like it's too fast.

So what we're going to do today is, as it relates to trees, and I'm saying this because we've got 40-some-odd people signed up to give public comment on trees today.

What we're going to do today is we're going to hear the next version of the draft of the bill.

We'll talk about some of the changes that have been made as well as some of the proposals that other colleagues of mine would like to see considered.

We'll come back and have further discussions about it at our committee meeting on September 19th.

But we're now planning on taking up the bill for a final action until after the budget process.

That should give us the months of October, November, and maybe even December if this needs to be happening after the first of the year.

So continue to work with community members about concerns that they might have before any final action gets taken.

So if you're here to talk about trees, and I know at least 40 of you are, I just want to be very clear with you.

No action is going to be taken today.

No action is going to be taken at the committee discussion in late September.

And we'll continue this discussion with community members with the hopes that we can do something at our committee meeting in December.

And if that's not possible, then we'll restart again after the first of the year.

So I just wanted to start with that little reminder.

We have, as I mentioned, three different types of public comment today.

We're going to start with the first round of public comment.

Then we'll open up to our first issue, which is the ALOVE issue.

We'll hear a briefing from our central staff.

We'll do the public hearing on that.

And then we'll do the tree protection ordinance in the same format.

Again, a briefing from our staff, and then open up for public comment.

All told, we've got about 60 people here to give public comment.

We're going to give everybody one minute today.

That gives us a full hour of public comment in a two-hour discussion.

So I hope that that's going to be acceptable for most of you.

That's going to be a lot of our time today is going to be listening to you members of the public.

So we're going to start with the just open public comments.

The first person who signed up is Megan Cruz, and then Kevin Orme, and then Steve Rubstello.

Megan, Kevin, Steve, please come to one of the microphones in the front.

Your one minute begins.

Okay, thank you.

I'm here today to talk about a broken design review system that lacks transparency and accountability.

Last night, a tower was approved for a residence downtown that will hold up to 1,000 people and drive 900 cars down a narrow alley.

It was approved with just one loading berth that was proven during design review not to be able to contain a small truck or the truck could not even access it.

My group submitted lots of research and testimony about the inadequacy, but we were told during the decision-making process that the design review board didn't have the expertise to evaluate this functional design and that it would be decided later behind closed doors in city departments.

When the city takes important decisions in-house and dismisses real economic, safety, and quality of life concerns by the public and its neighbors, we were told the best we can do is submit our concerns, wait for a decision, and if we don't like it, we can appeal.

Thank you, Megan.

I'm sorry, your time is up.

That happens in a legal form.

Kevin, you're followed by Steve Rubstello.

All right, so I can't stay here till 1130 because my time is valuable too, so I'm commenting a little bit early.

So first, insufficient notice on this whole public hearing process.

Paying for an ad in the DJC and then putting stuff on the city's website is completely ridiculous for letting people know.

These 40 people.

are actually paying attention, so that's why they're here.

But you can't send a little PR notice to the Seattle Times, the Weekly, the Stranger, the PI.

Let's try a little harder, thanks.

Secondly, I can't believe that in this new ordinance, the policy statements that are in the original, specifically A and E, are completely ignored.

You don't have anything positive about being compatible with the city's comprehensive plan or protecting exceptional trees.

And finally, the heritage tree program that was actually started by citizens and then followed up on and enacted by the city is completely tossed out the window by this tree ordinance.

No heritage trees.

People can't even protect the trees on their own property and file it with the city and protect their property.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

Steve, you're going to be followed by Mira Latsizik and then Marguerite Richard.

The whole policies that you're doing are changing Seattle and not for the better.

Planning is part of the name of this committee, but I don't see planning for diverse housing.

I see areas where you have a small fee paid and you have housing which is uniformly for those who have a lot of money.

I see whole areas of this city were being ghettoized.

You have your better ghettos and your not so better ghettos.

And the time frame that that happens is very, very interesting because I'm assuming they're not going to pay their small fee until after they get their occupancy permit, so it'll take several years to build the project.

Meantime, you've knocked down the lower-cost housing that was already there, and then you'll have the time to build the housing, and the housing won't be anywhere near where the actual new projects are.

So let's take another look at it, and let's take a look for a city that's inclusive.

Mira, you're going to be followed by Marguerite Rochard.

Hi, I want to make a comment about what's going on here today at this hearing.

You've got 40 people who have come to talk about trees.

These are 40 people who, for whatever reason, are able to be here during the day.

You're holding public hearings during the day on things that affect all of us.

I'm taking time off of work to be here to talk to you.

you are completely unfair to working people by doing it this way.

This is something that needs to be talked about with the community during times when community can be there.

And I'm here from Beacon Hill to speak for the people on Beacon Hill who are vulnerable, for the people in South Park and Georgetown who are vulnerable to climate change, to not having trees around to help affect the air that's being polluted.

And I want to speak for them to let you know that you need to take them into consideration.

And you need to go talk to those people in the community.

Thank you, Mary.

Ms. Rashard, you're going to be followed by Alex Zimmerman and then Marianne McCord.

Good day, everyone.

I'm still in mourning right now for Ms. Franklin.

And I'm sure Aretha Franklin would want me to continue on in the faith because she was a woman of faith.

And I'm just trying to figure out where I want to go with this because I brought things to you, Mr. Johnson, and we're living in a critical hour right now.

And like that woman said, I took time to come down here to speak about a problem.

But you say that we have to have our time chopped up.

So I think what we need to do is really consider why we're not really being faithfully listened to.

And I see you got your legs crossed, so you really don't care.

Because, you know, posture says a whole lot about people and what they're thinking right now.

And I know I only got one minute.

Thank you, Mr. Sharp.

Oh, one second.

Oh.

Well, I'll be back, because we're going to take care of this.

Mr. Zimmerman.

Mr. Zimmerman, your time has started.

This is exactly who you are.

Lowlife, criminal, tuxucker, and killer.

This is exactly who you are.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

Everybody know me.

You see these people very react.

I speak to you, freaking idiot.

Why one minute?

We live in city for 30 year.

We have right speak more than one minute.

So about zoning, we will change zoning now.

We need change this crook who sit in this chamber.

When we clean this chamber totally, maybe we will come back to America, to constitution and city rules, what is give a chance speak minimum two minute, this crooked Nazi pig, cut and cut and cut.

Oh, 40 people, 40 people from what?

From 700,000?

Sieg Heil, my Führer.

It's exactly idiot what is you deserve this, exactly.

Mr. Zimmerman, your time is up and I will remind you that I believe those comments to be very offensive and I would hope that you would continue to listen to others who ask you to not use such offensive remarks.

Mary Ann McCord, you're going to be followed by David Ward.

The number of vacant and abandoned derelict homes in my neighborhood in South Delridge is unbelievable.

On my daily Sorry, I'm really trying.

I'm not used to it.

The number of homes on my daily walk that I come across is over 40. And that is just my daily walk.

There's many, many more.

My neighborhood is plagued.

by criminal activities and public safety concerns that are a direct result of these properties.

Concerned neighbors are trying to connect with the appropriate city departments and it's daunting and a cumbersome task.

We need to have the current city protocols changed.

We need to go ahead and have a concerted effort because one house will not have just a problem with rats.

They have a problem with squatting.

They have criminal behavior.

So we really want to have a one-stop shop where we can go ahead, connect with the proper city member, and then they can go on from there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marianne.

And there will be, as you know, a lot of time to discuss that.

Later on this morning, I hope you can be patient and stick with us.

It'll, at this point, likely be closer to the noon hour until we get to that item on the agenda.

David Ward, you're our final speaker.

I'd intended to address the UW Master Plan.

You may not, Mr. Ward.

We are not allowed to take public comments on quasi-judicial matters, so I can't allow you to make any comments on the UW Master Plan.

I just said I would like them to be more accountable, but since that's not allowed, I'll address the hearing for trees.

I'll dovetail with what Ms. Latosek said, that this is a really critical issue that should have been addressed in the evening hours when people could attend, not during early morning hours when people were not able to attend.

Thank you, Mr. Ward.

You have to be pretty either old or, you know, able to take time off from work, and many people cannot do that.

Thank you, Mr. Ward.

That concludes the people who have signed up for the general public comments.

We'll get now to item number one, which is the moratorium on the Aurora-Licton Springs Urban Village.

Noah, will you please read that into the record?

Council Bill 119342, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, extending a moratorium established by Ordinance 125425 for six months on certain uses within the Aurora-Licton Urban Village, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date for this extension.

Thank you.

Good morning, Ketel Freeman from our Council Central staff.

We are going to talk about an extension of a current moratorium that exists on certain land uses in the Aurora-Licton Springs Urban Village.

Take it away.

Thanks.

I'll remind the committee a little bit about the legislative history here and then describe what Council Bill 119342 would do.

It's fairly brief and straightforward.

As the committee will recall, in October of 2017, the council passed an ordinance, Ordinance 125425, which established a temporary moratorium on accepting new applications for certain heavy commercial, auto-oriented, and warehouse uses in the Aurora-Licton Urban Village, and just for certain zones in that village, Commercial 1, Commercial 2, and Commercial 3 zones.

The moratorium was occasioned in part by a proliferation of those uses, particularly mini warehouse uses, to the extent that they were precluding development that was contemplated, that is contemplated, and the neighborhood plan goals and policies that are adopted into the comprehensive plan.

I think five out of seven mass use permit applications for a certain period of time, leading up to that council action on that ordinance were for uses that contained mini warehouses.

At the time, resolution establishing permanent regulations, the opportunity for that was thought to come through the MHA bill.

The adequacy of the FEIS for that citywide bill was subsequently appealed.

As a consequence, the council has not had an opportunity to put permanent regulations in place.

So what would Council Bill 119342 do?

It would extend the temporary moratorium for an additional six months.

And there would be options here for the council to consider to put permanent regulations in place.

One has to wait for the outcome of the MHA appeal, and if it's favorable for the city, take it up in that context, or to put permanent regulations in place through a separate legislative process.

And correct me if I'm wrong here, Mr. Freeman, but the current allowance for commercial uses is different from what would be proposed in the mandatory housing affordability implementation plan for the urban village, which would allow for more residential uses and disallow for some of those commercial uses, correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

The zones that are contemplated for citywide MHA implementation in ALOVE have a push in some respects for residential uses, and so it would be more likely to be the uses that would be consistent with the neighborhood plan goals and policies.

There are some options here that the council could undertake or could consider in amending the citywide proposal, and that could be extending pedestrian designations for some portion of the Ayla Village as well.

So for me, I think this is an issue that we had talked about a couple of, maybe this was a year or so ago when we first introduced the concept here.

because we did think that the implementation of the vision that ALOVE has would be coming to fruition through MHA, but because MHA citywide has been delayed, it seems appropriate to me for us to, again, consider this brief moratorium until we've got the chance to have that bill in front of us.

But colleagues, I'd love to hear your questions or thoughts before we open it up to the public hearing on this.

Anybody want to jump in?

Any other thoughts or questions?

Okay.

Mr. Freeman, anything else you'd like to add before we open it up for the public hearing?

No, I just maybe note a procedural thing here.

So this bill, the extension would be enacted on an emergency basis.

requires a three-quarters vote of the full city council when the time comes.

So we have 10 folks who've signed up to give public comments on this particular item.

We'll offer the same rules as before.

You'll have one minute.

I'll ask each of the speakers to come up to the front of the auditorium and grab one of those microphones.

And we'll start with Eugene Wasserman, followed by Ryan DiRiano.

Hi, I'm Eugene Wasserman.

I'm speaking for the Rural Emergency Association Richard Min, his family owns property in this area.

We're asking that you not pass this extension.

This is, some of what was said now I don't feel is true.

You can build as much residential in C1 as you can in NC.

There's no reason to change the zoning here.

In my experience of 35 years of doing this, this is the most illegitimate planning process the city's ever done.

No one talked to the property owners before this was done.

I don't think the microphone's on.

What?

The mic.

The mic's not on.

You're loud.

We can hear you, but...

Oh, okay.

Is the green light on?

Can I go to this one?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, I just saw you, you know, so I'd like to get a little more time back.

Yes.

Well, this is the most illegitimate planning process I've ever seen, and I'm very disappointed in the council and the Office of Planning and Community Development for going ahead with this.

We had just finished two years ago a very successful planning process in the urban village due north of this, the Howe Lake, Burr Lake, and I think you were the the land use chair at that time, where everybody agreed what should be in the plan.

There's now housing being developed there, retail, and the existing uses are also doing well.

This is an example of apparently how we change how we do land use planning.

It's dictated by a small group of people who go to a council member, and without consulting the property owners, we move ahead.

The council and OPCD have plenty of time to work with property owners on this and come to some solutions if changes need to be made, but they didn't.

So, if this is where the city is going and you are a very unpopular council and really small businesses really do hate you, it's time for you to rethink what you're doing here.

Ryan, you're going to be followed by Kevin Watley and then Mark Blumenthal.

Hi, I'm a resident of Alove and I support the extension of the temporary moratorium.

This legislation was passed unanimously last fall 7-0 when it was proposed.

The reason for it then is the same reason for it now.

The city cannot afford to lose more urban village land until the city votes on HALA MHA citywide.

We must extend for that reason.

As a matter of policy, these uses halted or incompatible with areas well served with transit.

The RapidRide E-Line does 17,500 daily boardings, the highest in Metro.

And correct me if I'm wrong, I think the only thing that beats that is the light rail.

In addition to this policy, the ordinance is supported by neighbors and businesses within ALOVE.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

Kevin.

Kevin, you're going to be followed by Mark Blumenthal and then Russ Saunders.

Thank you.

I actually have some signatures I would like to submit.

Thank you.

I spent yesterday advocating for businesses in our area.

I'm a member of ALOVE.

And one of the things that ALOVE strives to do is build community together.

And we're trying to build a pedestrian safe, visually vibrant, economically sound, welcoming urban village.

And that also includes businesses that maybe sometimes aren't represented.

So this list that I'm submitting today are businesses that say, yes, I stand with ALOVE.

Yes, I support the moratorium.

And there are 25 signatures from 18 different businesses in our urban village.

So when you vote and when you're thinking about how we're going to build an inclusive city together, I'd like you to think of not only the residents that have taken their time to write so thoughtfully to you, but also recognize that there's underserved businesses that are also standing with us that think that this is a better way to move the city forward.

So I'd like to thank you for your time and thank you for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you, Kevin.

Mark?

Mark, you're going to be followed by Russ Saunders.

If, Mark, if you could line up at the other microphone, that way we, you know, we've got 60 folks here.

So if we could move through public comment a little more quickly by having people line up at both microphones, that'd be great.

Mark Blumenthal.

Been on Aurora since 1981. Been involved with Aurora Avenue Merchants Association since then also.

And I do agree with Eugene Wasserman that I think that the way that this is being done is not politically correct.

And I'd like to voice a comment that I think that you need to talk to more than 15 subject businesses.

I think we have over 500 businesses on Aurora now.

And I'd like to, again, say that this is not fair to the landowners on Aurora or the business owners.

That's all.

Thank you, Mark.

Russ, you're going to be followed by Alex Zimmerman.

Yes, I represent my family's business, Handy Andy Rental.

We've been on Aurora since 1980. And the issue here is that we're losing our C1 and C2 commercial zoning.

If MHA goes through, we will have lost 25% of that zoning throughout the whole city.

And, you know, if my family were now vested in our new property, but if we hadn't purchased that property, we'd be struggling.

We are struggling because of an underfunded or understaffed building department and the opposed by a love group.

that's been opposing our move.

The other issue is we'd be in the same situation if we didn't have this property as Lincoln Towing is now.

Housing is moving into our heavy commercial areas.

Lincoln Towing's got nowhere to go and there's no land for them because there's going to be townhomes built there.

That's the same issue.

And this area has the capacity.

We should be looking at Stone Avenue, which is behind Oak Tree Cinemas, and putting a spur to the crosswalk.

Thank you, Russ.

Alex, you're going to be followed by Leah Anderson.

Behild my best people friend, a Nazi, anti-Semite, tax sucker, and killer.

My name Alex Zimmerman.

I'm against every changes.

I live in the city for 30 years and I don't want what Seattle will become Los Angeles and billionaire make a ton of money.

So I give you an example about what is you doing in Aurora because we have very simple situation right now.

25 percentage apartment empty in downtown.

Why you don't tax this speculator?

who charge $5,000 for apartment in 25% empty.

Start taxing these people for something so price will be go down and we will don't come back to Los Angeles.

What is you crook approve?

Because you're dirty, Nazi pig, and you suck blood and money from us.

Where is we'll be stopping?

The high best, what is this?

Oh, the best people friend.

You're going to be followed by Leigh Brugge.

Thank you for your time today.

I just wanted to support the extension of the interim controls and mention that there has been over 75 emails from residents, businesses, landowners in support of these interim controls.

This zoning should have been in place put in place 20 years ago when this was designated a residential urban village.

Aurora is continuing to lose viable services such as our gym.

Our one coffee store is now closing.

We can't afford to keep losing land to public storage units.

We now have three in a residential urban village, and this zoning would stop more public storage and more warehouses that don't provide any eyes on the street or security for pedestrians.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Leo.

Lee, you're going to be followed by Kim Demarest.

I have some additional comments that I just submitted in writing.

The decision is not about the current uses in the area.

The current uses can remain.

What the decision is, is about the future.

Most anything that's built now will be 10, 20, 30 years there.

Anything will affect things for 30 years.

We have to have vision and look at what we want the city to be in the future, not right now.

In addition, the, interim moratorium supports the comprehensive plan, which has been as a residential urban village for many years.

State law actually says that you should, in zoning, support the comprehensive plan.

Thanks.

Kim, you're going to be followed by Steve Roobstel.

Hi, thank you for your time today.

I wanted to offer my support for the extension of the moratorium.

I believe it is a crucial step in becoming a residential urban village.

With Aurora drastically cutting and bisecting the urban village, it creates a challenge to make a pedestrian-friendly environment.

So with this moratorium, I believe uses will respond to a more pedestrian-friendly streetscape and dovetail with more residential uses to make a great livable village.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kim.

Steve?

Planning is part of the name of this committee and I see very little of it.

There's a lot of uses around Aurora that I think are important.

Warehousing is important.

Should everything for Seattle have to come from Tukwila or farther.

There are things that should be done in the city and appropriate places.

The only way that you should think about expanding your moratorium is if you start taking a look at the uses that Aurora has, and they're kind of unique in the North End.

We're seeing far, far less of the commercial land for warehousing and heavy commercial.

Along the Ship Canal, we see far less.

We're taking it away along Aurora.

Will Seattle be dependent upon other areas for whole classes of things?

How far will you have to drive?

How much fuel will we have to use for a lot of services?

If Seattle doesn't start thinking about the long term and make every neighborhood exactly the same, then it's not going to get better.

That concludes the folks who signed up on the public hearing, so I'll now close the public hearing on Council Bill 119342. Colleagues, this is an issue where generally when we've got public hearings on a complicated land-use topic and they are sort of uniformly one way or another in public hearings.

We have traditionally suspended the rules and moved a bill out of committee on the same day that we had a public hearing.

In this instance, when we've got both folks for and against, I feel maybe it's better left for us to come back and have further discussions about this at our next committee meeting.

I generally feel like when we've got non-controversial issues, It's perfectly appropriate for us to suspend the council rules and move that bill out of committee, but in this instance, it seems like having this come back for further discussion at our September 19th meeting is appropriate.

I look to you for additional guidance and thoughts on that and wonder if there are any complications here for us to consider legally or otherwise.

Mr. Freeman.

No, I think if there is a date, if the council is going to extend the moratorium by which the moratorium should be extended, and that date is October 5th, because the council wouldn't want to sort of create a window if the council chose to extend the moratorium in which people could apply.

So that date drives some committee considerations, and if the committee is considering this on September 19th because of the emergency effectiveness provision, it would still be able to become effective by October 5th.

Please.

Yeah, I would welcome a little more time.

The ordinance before us today references the emergency ordinance passed last year, or last year, yeah.

Last year, yeah.

And mentions that the findings of fact are contained in that, so I'd like to review those again.

And also would just want to confirm that there aren't any impacts on current uses.

Any objections, Council Member Ryan?

No, I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this, Council Member Johnson, and support following our typical procedures and not voting on something today and rather bringing it back to the next committee.

I'll just state that I supported the original moratorium.

And I'm inclined to support the extension too, but as Councilmember Herbold said, I'd like to, I think it's prudent to take a few more weeks just to make sure I understand the implications of it.

I appreciate the public comment today on both sides, and I recognize that it's complex, but I think it's a balancing act we're trying to do, and I think a moratorium for six months, will we do the thoughtful planning process through MHA to consider what this looks like going forward?

Makes sense.

Yeah.

And I want to echo those comments.

You know, we've, my office has received, I think, almost 80 comments in favor of the six-month extension of the moratorium.

And many of those folks were here today and have been doing a lot of organizing in the neighborhood.

I, too, am inclined to support the moratorium, but we will see how the votes shake out when we're back here again in two weeks on the 19th.

I just want to acknowledge some of the business representatives who showed up and some of the comments we heard, too.

You know, we need a variety of services in our city, and those businesses do need to be located somewhere.

And so, I want to be clear that my decision to support a moratorium isn't to say that certain business users just shouldn't exist in the city.

That's to the balancing act that we want to craft.

And Council Member Herbold, I think you highlighted that, or maybe it was in public comment, I guess, that, you know, existing businesses, you know, won't be forced to leave, of course, they can continue to operate.

And so that addresses some of the issue.

But long term, we will continue to need a variety of businesses and places to operate.

And so just wanting to understand, what that balance is.

And I don't think that's gonna happen in the next two weeks, but I do think the work for MHA and that citywide rezone is an opportunity to consider what that looks like citywide.

Agreed.

Further thoughts on this?

Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Let's move on to agenda item number two, discussion and a public hearing on the latest draft of our tree protection ordinance.

Mr. Rahn, please read that into the record.

Draft tree protection ordinance.

Thank you very much.

So this is our third public meeting on this topic.

But as I mentioned at the outset, we have spent probably since February or so, a lot of time working on the bill, a lot of time thinking about proposed changes and a lot of work out in community to try to make improvements to the bill to really achieve I think a singular objective, and that's to make sure that the city continues to have a great tree canopy and that we continue to grow that tree canopy.

As a young environmentalist, the first ever volunteering that I did was for Earth Day 20 in the early 90s.

I'm a big believer that tree canopy contributes significantly not only to you know, helping offset the cost of climate change, certainly providing urban habitat for a lot of wildlife, and aesthetically is a lot of the reason why we've got our, you know, moniker of the Emerald City.

So I'm committed to making this bill better and will again reinforce for those who might just be tuning in.

Today we're going to continue our discussions about this.

And we're not going to take any action today.

We're not going to take any action on this bill at the meeting that we'll have on September 19th.

But we'll continue to work with folks during the budget process with the hope of having a bill adopted by the council sometime in December or early after the first of the year.

So with that preamble, why don't we do some brief introductions around the table.

We'll start with you, Mr. Podolsky.

Mike Podolsky, Department of Construction and Inspections.

Maggie Glowacki, Department of Construction and Inspections.

Diane Davis, Department of Construction and Inspections.

Hi, I'm Eric McConaghy on the Council of Central Staff.

And Eric, you've drafted a memo for us that kind of outlines some of the talking points for the tree protection bill today.

And then we've also got a little bit of a presentation that we can walk people through that sort of is intended to have people better understand what is the system for tree protection today and how would it change under the proposed provisions in the draft.

So why don't you start with any relevant issues from the memo that you'd like to highlight, and then we'll move into the presentation.

Oh, thank you very much.

So I think I'll just jump in to describe generally what the proposal would do.

It would define a significant tree, and there'll be some terms that will happen today.

I think that the folks in the audience perhaps are even more familiar with trees and the science of trees than I am, but for the sake of the record, as I hit sort of tactical terms, I'll take a moment to define them.

A significant tree would be a tree that we measured six inches in a diameter at standard height or diameter at breast height.

That's 54 inches off the ground.

There's some considerations when the grade changes in multiple stems of trees, but for our purposes, you can think of a tree that's six inches around at about breast height.

So a significant tree would be a tree that would have that size.

It would be six inches big.

The new thing in this bill would be that we would require a permit for the removal of any significant tree in town.

Right now, the city of Seattle doesn't have a specific permit for tree removal.

Those permits would come in two types, a major permit and a minor permit.

That would sort of break out by the amount of tree canopy that was affected by the removal of the tree, resulting conditions on the lot and things like that, and we'll get to that in a moment.

The proposal would also clarify the definition of hazard trees to make it easier to implement that.

It would allow for some flexibility in development standards to preserve trees at that significant tree size.

The proposal would also establish some requirements for the replacement of trees.

It would allow for payment in lieu of replacing trees under certain conditions and certain zones.

It would talk about retention requirements on the lot, and it would update some enforcement provisions for tree regulations.

So that's the general broad sort of scope of the bill.

The purpose of the bill that's before you would be to replace the existing tree code that's Chapter 2511. Practically speaking, it would repeal that code, but replace it with an entirely new chapter.

And that has to do with the fact that

No, it's okay.

That has to do with the fact that some of the approaches in this new code are different than what we have currently enough that just simply striking through the current code and trying to show the changes would be technically very cumbersome.

So in cases like this, it's not unusual for the approach to drafting legislation to repeal the existing code and to replace it.

Thank you.

I just have an overarching question before we get into the details.

The bottom of page one it says the proposed bill would update Seattle's tree regulation of tree removal whether associated with or independent from development.

I thought we had discussed in our last briefing that this was not about trees that are removed within a a development, that it's really about trees that a homeowner removes.

This sentence seems to indicate otherwise.

I'll answer it in two ways and try not to sound like I'm speaking differently.

So in one sense, what you just said is absolutely true, because the tree code is about trees per se.

The update to the code here would set up a permit.

It would say that if you remove, if any person would like to propose the removal of a tree that is significant, they would need to get a permit.

That sort of triggering incident, removing the tree, is independent of development.

And so that would apply across all occasions of tree removal, including those that would be part of development.

Does that, hopefully that's sufficient.

Yeah.

And we've got experts here who can talk you through and will talk you through a scenario about what happens today.

under the current tree standards as it relates to a development of a property.

But this, as Eric just put it so well, but to reinforce the point, this would be a tree protection ordinance for anybody who wants to cut down any tree, regardless of development or not.

You could, for example, have a tree in your backyard.

that provides a lot of shade and you could decide you want a vegetable garden that needs a lot of sun.

If that tree is over six inches and you want to cut it down, you would then have to come to the city to get a permit.

You are not required to do that right now.

Thank you.

So from here on, I'll sort of move into the slides and some of these things reiterate things that I've mentioned, but I'll just touch them briefly because they're sort of important stepping stones as we move along.

So the removal of one or more significant trees would require a permit.

That's new.

We talked about the definition of the significant tree being six inches at diameter.

Another really key thing to understand about this proposal is that, at its heart, it takes the tree canopy percentages that were established first about, well, in 2006, correct me if I'm wrong, and again in 2013 in the city's forest plan, and said that these are the percentages of tree canopy cover that we're looking for in different zones.

In the language of the plan, these zones are sort of grouped together.

And they're called management units.

And so they're laid out here in this table.

And the percentages that we're looking for in the plan that was last looked at in 2013 reflect the city's priority of getting to an overall 30% coverage.

So in order to get to 30% tree canopy, that is the stuff between the sky and the ground that is leafy, that is made up of trees and branches and that sort of the life of the tree, in order to get that citywide, these are the percentages that are set as goals in these different zones.

So I'll pause there for a moment.

Hopefully I didn't make that any more complicated than necessary.

I think it's pretty complicated to begin with, Eric, but I think what you're trying to say is the city is made up of all kinds of different land use zones.

That's right.

And we have an objective, regardless of the land use zones, of having a 30% of the tree, of the city be leafy green forested.

And in order to get to that set of objectives, we kind of have to have some different goals based on the typology of the land use.

And so a majority of the city is owned for single family.

Therefore, if we're going to get to 30% coverage, we need to have more than 30% of the lot areas of single family covered by trees in order to get to a citywide goal of 30% tree canopy coverage.

Right, that was fantastic.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, so I'm just restating to make sure that I got it right and thank you for clarifying that.

Yes, Councilman O'Brien.

I'd be interested in understanding, I don't know if you know this today, but in the future if not, as we make other zoning decisions and the mix of zones within the city shifts, I imagine, I don't know how close this percentage is to hitting exactly 30% if there's a buffer, but for instance, if some single family becomes multifamily, And then the requirement would drop from 33 to 20 because of that.

Does the overall balance mean we're no longer on target to hit that 30% goal?

And so I'd love to see, for instance, with the citywide MHA changes, you know, they're not, I mean, they're significant for individual lots.

But across the city, I don't think it's a massive shift.

But I am just curious how much room we have or if we'll need to be reconsidering this breakdown relatively soon if other shifts happen in the land use code.

I'm just pausing to see if other folks at the table want to address that.

I have a few thoughts about that.

Well there is analysis in the work that led to the OPCD's proposal for the MHA rezones and we would anticipate that that type of analysis would have to accompany future rezones so that that can be part of council's deliberations.

Anything you'd like to add?

Just that in 2016, there was an assessment of tree canopy using LIDAR, a complicated and very accurate way to take a look at trees as well as other features in town.

That information shows that for some of these management units, the percentages are actually a meeting or sort of higher than these.

I understand the urban forestry commission.

I don't want to speak for them, but I have talked with them that they're taking a look at these percentages that we see in this table.

They're working on an update to the plan.

They may bring to council some different ideas about these percentages would be as informed by that assessment.

In working on this bill and this proposal, we wanted to work with percentages that had been previously endorsed by council that are in our plan rather than suppose something for the future.

So as we move forward, we'll stay in communication with the Forestry Commission and their work on the next plan and see how that would inform the code.

Conceptually, it's important to note that the plan is significant, but it is aspirational.

It guides what the city would do in terms of implementation and budget questions and those sorts of things.

It is different than being in the code to regulate.

So that's conceptually an important step forward to think about.

Let's continue.

As I mentioned, there's minor and major permit.

Minor permit would cover a removal of hazardous trees.

It would cover circumstances where the resulting tree canopy would be greater than or equal to those required percentages that we were just talking about.

And it would also apply when the existing tree canopy is less than the required amount, but not during development.

So you could think of, Perhaps someone's got a house and a lot.

It's a single family house and the measurement of the tree canopy was something like 25%.

It's less than 33 to like to remove a tree.

That would be a minor permit when it's not associated with development.

We'll talk about then how that plays out in terms of mitigating that removal later too.

These, again, I want to stress throughout this presentation that this is as proposed now, you know, embedded in these are some calls that may be really policy decisions that Councilmembers would like to elevate and discuss as we move forward.

But this is how it stands now.

Please, Councilmember.

And I just want to reiterate my appreciation that I expressed in the last committee meeting for us working through these issues in committee.

before a bill is even introduced.

I've seen a lot of emails come in supposing that we were going to vote today.

The agenda clearly says it's a draft proposal.

It hasn't even been introduced, and I think this is actually a really good way to work through some of these policy issues, so thank you.

My heart just grew two sizes, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much.

Eric, can you talk a little bit about how we currently define hazardous trees and whether or not we're making any changes to that definition as part of the draft?

I'd love to take a shot at that, but also would be happy to defer to folks who know it better than I do here at the table.

Maggie?

So there's actually no proposed change in how we define it.

It's just more clear and the standards are laid out within the regulations.

And then the main change with hazardous tree is that mitigation would be required.

So replacement of a hazardous tree would be required in the proposed regulations where existing There's no replacement required if there's a hazardous tree.

And then the process is the same.

You would need an arborist to assess the tree.

There's ISA, so standards that lay out what the hazardous, what what needs to, you know, what are the, what's in the tree that makes it hazardous.

So the conditions of the tree that would make it hazardous, those are all the same.

An arborist would need to make that assessment and then bring that assessment to the city so that the tree would then be categorized as hazardous, no mitigation now, proposed mitigation in the proposed regulation.

An important point that I wanted to make sure that we highlighted.

Again today you can take down a hazardous tree and not have any mitigation required.

The draft in front of us would require you to have new trees that would be planted that aren't required today.

And you mentioned that there would have to be an arborist involved in certifying that there's been, that the tree is indeed hazardous.

I know there's been a lot of conversation about whether or not an arborist should be required and the costs associated with that or a tree professional.

And I thought at the last committee meeting we had landed on a tree professional.

And I don't know if tree professional is required for the hazardous definition.

but I believe the hazardous definition requires an arborist, whereas the other minor permits that don't result in you having to define your tree as hazardous could be handled by a true professional who has to have gone through a city process to ensure that they are aware of the tree code and signing a document that shows that.

Did I get that right, Eric?

Pretty close.

I mean, pretty close.

So the proposal has been in development, and so where we are right now with regard to awareness of the code, whether a person is working professionally or not, there's a provision in the proposed bill that says that before you do any work that would result in removal of a tree, that you take a moment to acknowledge that you know what the rules are.

So that would be whether or not you're doing it as part of your job, on a contract, or just doing it as a homeowner for trees in your own yard.

So that's one part of it.

And I think that sort of stands in for what we were talking about, sort of tree professional.

But throughout the code, there are mentions of having arborists make determination about hazardous trees and that sort of thing.

One of the clarifications that this bill is attempting to take on is a clarification between an emergent circumstance.

You can think of a terrible storm, what we have in the winter, something that just shatters the tree and the thing's about to come down and crush a bedroom or something.

We want to make sure that people can move quickly and smartly under those circumstances and have that be a separate sort of consideration from a tree that is hazardous but isn't impending to fall on someone right now.

There's some time to sort of make that determination and have that be provided for.

And the other permit is the major permit.

In general, this permit has to do with a condition where after the removal of one or more trees, the canopy cover would be less than required and associated with development activity.

There is a lot of room to make the proposal sort of clear in this regard because it, as we've mentioned before, it's a technical bill.

However, this is the gist of the major permit.

It's sort of intuitive in that sense.

mitigation for major permits would be on-site planting, replacing the trees in the same place where the trees were removed, off-site planting, not in the single-family zones, and the possibility of a payment fee in lieu.

that would be commensurate with that tree removal, again, not in single-family zones.

The parenthetical part there is important.

The proposal says not single-family because, as you highlighted when you were describing the percentages, that's where you have the most capacity for planting trees, and we're looking for having most trees planted on site.

Again, there's a policy decision that's embedded in this proposal that could be taken up, but that's how it stands right now.

So, again, in the draft proposal, to be clear, if you were to cut down a tree in your backyard because you wanted to build a vegetable garden, you could do that today.

You don't need to come to the city.

You can cut it down.

Under this new proposal, if you were to take an action like that and the tree was greater than six inches of diameter breast height and you were in a single family area, You would go through a permitting process and then we will require you to, through mitigation, plant new trees on your property on site.

And we wouldn't allow you to do the other two options, offsite planting or payment in.

Right.

Again, with the sort of decision point, the threshold being about that percentage.

So if the sunny spot that you'd like happens to be up front, for whatever reason, it's a great place for sun, but your backyard is completely in shade, you've got some great big old conifers there, and you've got 55% of your...

We're going to say that's a minor permit.

Thank you for complying.

Here we go.

And the mitigation wouldn't be required because that lot would still be sort of performing up to that standard.

Please, Council Member Ryan.

And in most situations, currently, you wouldn't be required to do it, but there are exceptional trees and other things that the current code would prohibit folks from doing.

So there are some regulations in place.

That's correct.

That's correct.

Yeah, the current code actually says that there's a limit of three trees of this size that we're talking about.

The current code doesn't define significant trees, but it talks about six-inch trees.

And right now it says, in the circumstance you're describing, that within a one-year period, you can take out no more than three trees that are that size.

different than exceptional trees, they're governed separately.

Continue.

So for minor permits, as I mentioned, no mitigation would be required except when the tree canopy is less than the requirement and not a part of development.

So we talked about a circumstance where someone would like to remove a tree, but the current canopy is not up to that percentage.

And the way it's drafted right now would be to say, hey, if you want to go for it and meet the requirement, we're not going to stop you.

That would be a tall order.

Probably most likely what would happen is that folks would take the second bullet, which is just to double what we removed.

This is sort of a kind of a two-for-one.

The city and its own work works with a two-for-one standard.

So for a way to propose this and sort of have discussions about the bill, this is what's in the proposal as it stands right now.

Okay.

There's sort of at least three ways to break down the costs of this sort of permit setup, this new setup.

There'd be the permit fee itself.

It'd be a minor permit fee and a major permit fee.

Those would be, like other fees, the city charges, and they would be commensurate with the work that would be necessary to evaluate the request.

There possibly could be an arborist fee, depending on the circumstances.

We talked about some circumstances where arborists would be involved and some circumstances perhaps not.

And then any of the required mitigation.

So tree planting on-site or off-site or the payment in lieu.

Do we have any kind of thoughts from the Department of Construction and Inspection about the number of hours that it might take for a land use planner to walk somebody through a minor permit process or a major permit process and think a little bit about, you know, what that might cost for somebody who's having to go through a permit in the future but doesn't have to go through a permit now?

Yeah, we're in the process right now of doing that analysis, so we can come up with some information for you, hopefully in time for the next committee meeting.

That would be great.

Again, part of my objective here is to try to get far enough along in the legislation so that we can maybe have some conversations during the budget process about whether or not we need to resource the Department of Construction and Inspections to either do additional staffing to handle a higher volume of permits, or to do additional enforcement based on the current code, which does allow you to cut down up to three trees a year, but without any real proactive, well, I know that there is some proactive enforcement, but maybe not as much as folks in community might like.

for us to get some of that information at the next committee meeting would be helpful, Mike, so that we could use that as part of our deliberations during the budget.

Understood, and we appreciate the goal of being able to work this out through the budget process.

Great.

Any of you tree experts here at the table have a sense about, you know, you want to go to an arborist to get a definition about whether or not your tree is really hazardous, what that would cost you in order to do so?

No?

Okay.

Not even hazarding a guess?

Mr. McGonaghy, in all of your research, have you seen any estimates that arborists might give you to come out and tell you whether or not your tree is hazardous?

I think there's a wide range, but maybe what I should do is take the note and come back with that range, see if we can actually talk with folks in the industry, the people that do this work before the 19th, and see if we can get an idea of what that looks like.

Yeah.

And then, obviously, for the third bullet, I think it'd be helpful for us to do the same.

So what would be the sort of required mitigation costs?

How much would it be?

So if you're taking out a, you know, one six-inch tree and you're required to do two for one, how much would it cost for you to go out to, you know, community gardening

Store and purchase a couple of trees in order to handle that mitigation, please councilmember I'd also be interested to know if only an arborist is qualified to make that call Please I Have a little experience here We had a tree in our yard that we were trying to save that was having some health issues And so I don't know if it was an arborist or what form of tree professional it was but I believe I It was a couple hundred bucks for someone to come out and take a look and assess and give us an evaluation of what we might try to do to save it.

And so I imagine it's in that range.

I think my goal here for folks is, as we continue to consider different policy choices here, to be also really upfront about the costs associated with it.

So that, you know, folks who may be able to do what you are trying to do, Council Member O'Brien, save a healthy tree, but find out that, or save a sick tree, find out that you can't actually do it.

Well, if we're going to require you to have a permit now, what does that mean and how much would it cost you?

And generally, you know, how much is that above and beyond what you might currently pay today?

Okay.

So if you'd like, we can cover some scenarios with these things we've touched on a little bit.

So I'll pause or move forward as fast as you like.

The first scenario is that a property owner is concerned about a tree that may be hazardous.

And so with an evaluation, as we discussed, turns in that and is looking for a minor permit to take care of that work.

So that's one scenario.

So what happens today, Maggie?

So similar, if the tree is an exceptional tree and it's a hazardous tree, then that is the same scenario.

A property owner needs to hire an arborist, the arborist makes the assessment, they bring the report into SDCI to our arborist, and then they can remove the tree.

So then if it, so say it were a hazardous tree at 6 inches or 10 inches or 12 inches and it wasn't an exceptional tree because there are exceptional trees that are, you know, 6 inches, 10 inches, 12 inches.

So then they could remove the tree with no report if it's not exceptional currently today.

And this is one of those instances where we have anecdotal conversations with folks where we believe people are not necessarily taking down trees that are sick, but they shop around until they get the right information from the arborist that they want, and then they define it as hazardous and then can take it out without any mitigation.

And post the potential bill's passage, what would be the process, Eric?

Well, the first important thing I think you tucked into what you said is that if a tree is six inches or bigger, you need a permit, period.

So in terms of sort of public awareness of how the rules work, it's a very straightforward idea that if it's six inches or bigger, you need a permit.

I think that helps kind of move forward along the question of if the tree is hazardous or not.

You know, so if someone's taking out a tree and it's six inches or bigger and someone sort of notices that and thinks, well, that's funny.

I didn't see the sort of notice tag on it.

It's supposed to go up and some other things.

We have some possibility of sort of intervening and having that moment be a place to sort of step in and say, hold up.

Maybe there's something else we can do here.

Absent a permit, absent some way to do that now, except as Maggie said very well, for our exceptional trees, we're sort of, We don't know what we don't know.

So what's different is sort of setting that threshold of six inches, which gives us a fighting chance to be aware of, you know, someone looking to take care of a tree that's hazardous.

And then subsequent to the passage of the draft bill, we would also require mitigation for the loss of that tree, which we don't currently require today.

And there's a lot there to explore, and I'm sure in future discussions to take a look at hazardous tree, emergency trees, what that means for mitigation.

We want to make sure that if something is, this is, I should say, I should just reveal sort of my assumption about working on this bill, but my assumption is that we want to have a circumstance where it's a clear, the rules are sort of relatively straightforward to enforce, and we also don't cause people to shy away from taking care of dangerous things.

Please.

Can you remind me what happens to, in the shift to relying on this significant tree definition, what happens to an exceptional tree?

Is there still a definition of exceptional tree in the code?

And are there still, I mean, there I suppose could be exceptional trees that might be hazardous, that might not meet the definition of a significant tree.

Is there an issue there?

So this proposal does not define exceptional trees and sort of protect them in the same way as the current code.

From the existing?

Yeah, it's not, exceptional tree is not a definition or sort of a working part of the bill that we're discussing that's proposed today.

And we've heard from folks that they would like to see how to blend that notion back in.

And we've heard that from both of you and Council Member O'Brien as well.

And so as we continue to work through the draft, I think we'll want to continue to get direction from both of you about how we would work a definition of exceptional into the bill in a way that is consistent with, I think, the approach that we're trying to take from a regulatory perspective.

I really appreciate that.

And I'm making a list of a number of things that I want to work on, but I'll reserve that until the end of the presentation as I'm building my list.

Thanks.

I'm sure that list may change as we get through the 40 folks that want to give public comment.

Please continue, Mr. McConaghy, for scenario two.

So this scenario is a single family property owner would like to remove one or more trees, significant trees, and it's not part of development, and the resulting canopy would be greater than that percentage for that management unit, 33%, it'd be a minor permit.

And I think I covered this a little bit in talking about my example of this honey spot in the front yard with lots of trees in the backyard.

And so again, the difference from today is really the permit process.

Do I have that right, Maggie?

don't have to do that permit process today, and therefore, this is the real change.

No permit today, permit in the future.

The third one, a developer would like to remove one or more significant trees.

The resulting tree canopy would be less than the requirement, and this would require a major permit with the things that go along with it, depending on the zone, on-site, or off-site, or payment in lieu to make up for that difference.

So in this scenario, we ask developer, any developer who's coming in to do any project, regardless of zone, to submit some sort of plan review that includes vegetative coverage, right, Maggie?

Okay.

Yeah, so currently, when a permit application comes in for a development project, the trees on site are supposed to be identified on the plan.

And we allow for a definition of some tree removal as part of that development standard, correct, today?

So during that process, that's when the existing tree regulations come into play.

So the land use zoner who's doing the permit review looks at the tree regulations and sees that the project is compliant with the existing tree regulations.

So they look for exceptional trees and then also for removal of 24-inch or greater trees as well.

And oftentimes we hear from folks in the development community that we quote-unquote have to take out this tree in order to make sure that the development can actually get constructed.

Am I correct?

So if a project cannot gain its full FAR, then trees can be removed.

But again, during the permit review process, the land use planner who's doing the zoning review looks at the project and tries to work with the project proponent to see if some shifts in the development design can happen in order to save any exceptional trees on site.

So that's today's process.

Eric, how would the process change as a result of the bill?

Well, one thing that would be significant is that the current process, because exceptional trees have special protections of the trigger or the moment that happens to allow for flexibility from design standards in terms of setbacks and height and things, are around exceptional trees in the code.

By defining significant trees at six inches and then in this proposal saying that in order to preserve those trees, which potentially could be smaller, I realize that there are many exceptional trees in town that are not as large, but in general, the idea is that for any significant tree, you could, a developer could look at changing the footprint of the building, moving it, thinking more creatively about height or maybe where a particular aspect of the footprint bumps out, that kind of thing.

So all that is to say that there is some flexibility in the code right now for design standards or on exceptional trees.

The flexibility would be extended to significant trees in this proposal.

And there would be this notion, excuse me, the proposal also has more specifics with the tree permit side of development to identify trees on site and species and those sorts of things.

We've heard from some folks.

to be even more specific in what would be turned in.

But again, one of the intents, one of the purposes of this was to get more data so the city can make smarter decisions in the future so that as that permit comes in about trees, we know more about what's happening with trees as part of development or elsewhere.

So another change is to be a little more specific about what we know about trees during development as well.

Well, and I would add that, you know, as we asked developers to submit those plans definition of a significant tree at six inches really helps the public better understand what the tree canopy on that current site coverages and allows for a lot more conversation during the development process than is maybe currently happening today.

I think about an example in my neck of the woods across the street from the University Heights Community Center where a developer wanted to come in and put in a small apartment building where one was allowed and the community came together and said, We would really like for you to save this exceptional tree this very large tree I don't think was actually defined as exceptional But it was a very large tree with a large canopy very mature and the developer said I could make that work if I could do a contract rezone to go up a story and We could achieve what you want us to achieve with saving this tree a very large mature tree, and we could also meet our objectives of more housing in the neighborhood.

And the community came together and said, yes, this is a set of objectives that we can all agree to.

So I think having more transparency in that process, defining those trees at six inches will allow for more of that collaboration to happen and will, I think, end up with not only better data, but ideally better outcomes too.

Councilmember, I think that's a great example of the type of flexibility we'd like to give.

I know it's pretty complicated to do, but to the extent that we can create places for those kind of discussions to happen and encourage those discussions to happen, I think that's a great outcome.

One of the things I'm going to be interested in, I think someone mentioned that one of the triggers for an exception is if a developer cannot achieve the full FAR without removal of the tree.

As we continue to give various FAR bonuses for a variety of things, my understanding, there's more and more places where, regardless of treaties, it comes very hard to get the full FAR because of all the design guidelines.

And I want to get a sense as we work forward to how how constrained are we in that FAR trigger that it's going to be a reality that that's a trigger that gets triggered quite frequently just because with or without a tree, it's hard to meet.

And maybe there's a different trigger we want to look at.

Great.

One more to go.

Oh, go ahead.

Yeah.

And this is a scenario where a person removes a tree without a permit.

It's illegal.

That's just to have a moment to sort of talk about that, and I'll step right into the next slide, which talks about what's in the proposal for that.

Please.

Yeah, before we move on to the enforcement and the penalties, in each of these scenarios, we talk about a removal of one or more significant trees.

So it seems like there's not a total number of trees that are permitted to be removed, whereas I believe in the current code, there is a limit.

That's correct.

And is there a limit in each of these kinds of scenarios, or is the limit specific to certain of the scenarios.

The limit in the proposal has to do with those tree canopy percentages, you know, sort of by zone.

That's what we would measure against.

That wouldn't be a limit because you can just replace the trees, right?

That's correct.

There isn't a tree, like if you think of sort of individual trees or tree trunks or sort of stem count.

In this proposal, there isn't a maximum sort of number of trees, say three or four or six or something like that.

The current code does have a restriction a number of zones that are three per year.

Other jurisdictions do the count that way, but this proposal doesn't have a number of tree count limit.

And so in each scenario one, two, and three, in the current code, those are each examples of scenarios that there's a limit of three per year.

So no, the limit is for three trees per year on single-family residential properties.

So during development, there isn't a limit.

Okay, thank you.

That's exactly what I wanted to know.

I'll just move forward into this slide.

If someone removes a tree and they don't have a permit, the civil penalty is $1,500 per inch, the diameter at standard height.

Through the city's experience in enforcing the code and working in these circumstances, it's not unusual for all evidence of that tree to be gone by the time that someone from the city can sort of get access and take a look at it.

You can imagine the circumstance where a tree is removed and the stump is ground out.

So in the case where there's information that the tree was there and there isn't something to measure that's on site, the presumption in this proposal is that that tree was 30 inches, which would mean a $45,000 civil penalty in that circumstance.

If it's shown that that action was willful or malicious, the penalty could be tripled as punitive damages.

That first bullet where it says tree remains on property,

It's awkward, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's probably, I probably could have said it.

What that means is like, there's a stump, there's something to measure.

The tree was removed, but you can actually, or maybe it was taken down or they're partway through it, but there's, yeah, there's something to measure.

You know, there's enough debris left over that's still on site for us to get an accurate measurement of what the diameter was.

Sure.

I mean, I guess I'd be curious if, I want to be careful we don't set up a system that says, hey, if you're going to legally remove trees, make sure you burn all the evidence before we get there.

So photos from, you know, neighborhood photos or Google Street Maps that can identify a tree, I hope that that would count as a way to at least approximate the size of a tree, even if they ground the stump and eliminated everything.

And the assumption of a 30-inch DSH of $45,000 is a pretty big tree and a pretty big assumption that if you, if we don't have any evidence about how big your tree was, that base $45,000 fine as part of the civil penalty is something we can continue to talk about whether or not that's the right threshold.

Along with this would be the requirement for restoration and replanting.

This would be for the site conditions itself, any environmental damage that happened as a result of removing the tree.

You can imagine other vegetation and things on site, the soil.

And then a tripled amount for the tree replacement.

If the tree was removed with a permit, if there was a pathway where that was legal, there would be a mitigation amount.

In the case where it's removed illegally, the city could go up to triple that amount for the mitigation.

And that brings us to the end of the slides that I prepared, but we're here at your disposal.

Any further questions?

I'm not seeing any.

Any further thoughts from our friends at SDCI?

No, thank you.

Okay.

So we'll then move on to the public hearing element here.

Again, we've got about 40 people that have signed up to give public comment.

I'm going to give you each one minute.

That'll take us to the usual conclusion of our committee discussion at 1130. But we do have three additional agenda items on the agenda.

Precursor to those who are sitting around and waiting.

Thank you for your patience It's gonna be a little while and to my colleagues.

It looks like we'll be running about an hour over today So I apologize for that We we are gonna again ask folks to come to one of the two microphones so that we can speed through this Please go ahead and exit friends from SDCI I will again remind folks to try to keep their comments focused just on the tree protection ordinance because this is the public hearing on that topic and and remind you that you should refrain from making any comments related to the University of Washington Major Institution Master Plan.

Steve Zemke, you're first, followed by Ken Workman and then Carolyn Rodenberg.

Steve.

Steve Zemke with the Coalition for Stronger Tree Ordinance.

While there are a number of good provisions in this bill, unfortunately it has evolved from a tree protection bill to a tree removal and mitigation.

We support the positions of the Urban Forestry Commission has taken on this to do more steady analysis.

We support the permits being based on diameter and species, not on canopy.

We support protection for exceptional trees.

We need a better public process.

The public has not seen six or seven drafts.

We've only seen two, one just before the hearing.

And a note for the record that there is a, we believe there is a need to do an EIS in this process, and a number of groups have already voted to require, to file an appeal.

We're willing to talk about that process, but we think there's too much that is not understood in terms of the impacts of the ordinance, and it keeps changing.

Thank you, Steve.

Ken, you're followed by Carolyn Rodenberg.

I am workman of the Duwamish tribe and great, great, great, great grandson of Chief Seattle.

Thank you, my friends, for your work being done here today, for the ancestors, these great trees of Seattle.

These trees are significant to the Duwamish people in that for thousands and thousands of years, we've been living and dying on this land.

And all that time, our DNA has been going down into the soil.

And these trees, these exceptional trees, are direct contact to those ancient bones.

These trees, every spring, suck up the DNA of the Duwamish people, and they provide the oxygen that we used to breathe with and live here in the city today.

They provide the foundations for our houses.

They provide everything for us.

And so I would say, Treat kindly these trees of Seattle.

These are the living descendants of the Duwamish people.

Thank you.

Carolyn, you're going to be followed by Elaine Ike and then John Barber.

I'm greatly, greatly moved to follow Ken this morning.

I had been going to talk about tree grows, but knowing now that this is gonna be postponed, what I want to say is, oh, and I'm a resident of Queen Anne Hill and chair of 150 Trees and Me.

I want to make sure that the current ordinance is budgeted adequately, as you said a little bit before in your remarks, Council Member Johnson.

because if it is budgeted adequately, then that budget can be used for the new tree ordinance when it does come out.

I think it is critical.

Secondly, exceptional trees and tree grows need protection now.

We can't wait until December or January and ask for a moratorium on cutting those trees until the new tree ordinance is in place.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Elaine, you're going to be followed by John Barber and then Michael Marsh.

My name is Elaine Ike.

I'm with Seattle Green Spaces Coalition.

I want to thank you for the work you're devoting to this topic.

It's a complex one.

This week in the Seattle Times, there was an article published about the 4.3 million acres of forest that have burned since 2011. That is in Washington State, British Columbia, and Oregon.

It seems to me that the exceptional trees that do the heavy lifting of cleaning the air have specifically environmental duties that need to be captured.

And so I'm recommending that there be an environmental impact statement for all of these decisions that are being made about the urban forest.

And I thank you again for setting the standard to 30 percent.

Thank you.

John, you're going to be followed by Michael Marsh.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm here today because of climate change and my conviction that we must do better at nurturing our environment.

I support the recommendations of TREPAC as led by Steve Zimke.

Here are seven recommendations that I hand to you to help your discussion of the proposed ordinance.

Thank you, John.

Michael?

This change in the ordinance clearly requires an environmental impact statement.

It affects the entire tree canopy of Seattle and it effectively repeals an ordinance and replaces it.

Second, cutting a tree and paying a sum for having one planted somewhere else does not do the job.

The tree has unique value where it is.

An exact parallel to cutting a tree and replacing it with two saplings would be replacing a retiring city councilor with two three-year-olds.

Mira Latsizek, you already spoke during public comments, so I'm going to say we'll move from Mira to Colleen McAleer.

So, if you want to just hand that to the staff, we're happy to take it there.

Asked for me to read it, would that be okay?

Okay, Maria, go ahead.

This is from Myra Latosik.

To exist as a nation and prosper as a state and to live as a people, we must have trees.

Theodore Roosevelt.

I'm opposed to the current incarnation of the tree ordinance and the way that it's being handled.

Trees are critical to all citizens of Seattle, especially the communities most vulnerable to climate change and polluted air and polluted environments.

Communities like Beacon Hill, South Park, and Georgetown communities of working people who can't take time off to come to a public hearing during working hours.

Even so, 40 people came today, so please listen.

Thank you.

Colleen, you're going to be followed by Woody Wheeler, I think.

I'd like to thank the City Council for taking the opportunity to hear everybody while this is in process.

And the point is that it is in process, and I think as several other people noted, probably needs an EIS to get the broad scope and to determine the real impacts of these changes of the canopy in our tree ordinance.

A couple of things are really good about the new ordinance and a few things are of concern.

Exceptional trees have no protection.

I have two exceptional trees on my property and the neighbors would have taken them down four times if it weren't for the city protection.

The eagle's nest at the top needs to be protected.

85 feet high, they're looking for food.

The birds have to be protected and they're nesting up there.

So skinny little trees do not substitute for these exceptional trees.

And also to remind Council that we signed on for the Urban Bird Treaty, and that was May 5th of last year, to protect and enhance the urban bird environment for migratory and native birds.

So that's critical in existing trees and ways to retain them.

Thanks so much.

Woody, you're going to be followed by Kristen Gearing.

Okay, I'm Woody Wheeler.

I'm a professional bird and natural history tour guide.

I've worked for the Forest Service, Nature Conservancy, Audubon, and Seattle Parks Foundation.

I commend the council on having this process and on being open to changes and delaying the time frame.

I'm opposed to weakening protections for exceptional trees, heritage trees, and tree groves, as proposed in the city's rewrite of the ordinance.

This comes at a time when we just experienced our second hottest summer in Seattle history.

And we just suffered last month through days of intense forest fire smoke that made going outside hazardous to our health.

Mother Earth is sending us smoke signals.

Is anyone listening?

Climate change is on our front doorstep.

A smart way to address it would be to leave our tall trees standing so they can continue to provide free ecological services.

I read now from the urban forest stewardship plan that Seattle has done.

Quote, preserve existing trees because it takes decades for most trees to reach their ultimate size.

Trees already growing in Seattle generally provide immediate and ongoing benefits that cannot be matched by small or young replacement trees.

Thank you, Woody.

I'm sorry, your time is up.

Kristen, you're going to be followed by Lisa Kuhn.

I live in Wedgwood and awake daily to the sound of chainsaws.

I'm here with a lot of wisdom, so I'm going to just quote Aldo Leopold, a great conservationist, asking the question, is it possible we could change our concept from viewing land as a commodity belonging to us has in rather than has Aldo Leopold, the great American conservationist said, when we see land has a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

Thank you.

Lisa, you're going to be followed by Frank Fay and then Eve Keller.

Are you ready?

Okay.

My name is Lisa Kuhn, and I'm here to ask why.

Why, when global warming is manifesting itself across the planet, would you deliberately turn Seattle into a heat island by encouraging the wanton destruction of trees?

Why would you even think to gut the existing tree ordinances and call it trees for everyone?

To paraphrase a friend, is there no limit to the damage you intend to inflict upon our city?

Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa.

Frank.

Frank, you're going to be followed by Eve Keller.

Good morning.

I, like many others, resent having to be here.

I resent having to be here to hear consideration of an unfinished ordinance That's basically the clear-cut Seattle being rushed for consideration.

And the committee has the further opportunity to actually insult its citizens today by forcing them to file an appeal for the determination of non-significance for an ordinance that no longer is being considered.

So I urge you to take action to undo that.

It is telling that this process is basically being done in the dark over a holiday weekend apparently to avoid citizen engagement.

It's been apparently done this way to avoid real tree protection that would apparently, that would hinder development.

City Council needs to get out of leading SEPA projects.

They need to do their job and instead instruct and let city staff do their job and present proposals and insist on substantial public notices.

Thank you, Frank.

City Council members need to represent citizens.

Eve, you're going to be followed by Mike Ruby.

I'm Eve Keller from the Mount Baker neighborhood.

I work with postpartum depressed mothers.

Often the pressure on a depressed mother may mean she only has the energy to make one phone call to ask for help.

It's an important phone call to get right.

The future mental health of that family may depend on it.

Our city and country is largely in shock dealing with the Trump administration.

The manner in which city council operates in giving short notice to its constituents to respond on important issues, I'm here in support of trees, is abusive.

I ask city council to be more thoughtful of complete processes, to slow down, to allow its citizens to participate openly and inclusively.

The future mental health of our city needs that care.

Thank you, Eve.

You're going to be followed by Jessica Dixon and then Maria Bateola.

Hi.

I've actually read this proposed ordinance and the Declaration of Non-Significance and I must say I find that it is frankly rather elegant and very complex.

Because it is complex, I think we do need this time to take time to look at how it compares to the existing street tree ordinance, because we really do need to have consistency across the entire enforcement of trees in the city.

We need to be able to compare it to the existing ordinance and work through this.

So I'm pleased that you're going to take more time.

I do have one major concern I want to voice, and that is the whole question of replacement and in lieu.

There has been a tendency on the part of SDOT in recommending the trees for the planting strips to recommend things that really are just overgrown shrubs, not really trees.

I think we need to be very straightforward in our replacement and in lieu to get something that is really useful as a replacement.

My name is Jessica Dixon.

I'm with the Finney Ridge Community Council.

I'm on the board.

Our neighborhood, like so many others in our city, is on the front lines of a war on trees, and the trees are losing.

The PRCC, our council, has followed this issue, had meaningful discussion with our members, and concluded that we need a stronger tree ordinance.

We need regulations that make it harder for people to trade trees for profit.

We need policies and regulations that help people retain the large trees that give our streets character, clean our air, mitigate stormwater flow, protect against the creation of urban heat islands, and provide habitat.

We urge the Council to take the time to incorporate the recommendations of the Urban Forestry Commission from their letter of August 31st, maintain and strengthen existing tree protections for our large trees, define exceptional trees to include all trees 24 dph and above, Use tree species and size of trees as the regulatory tool, not tree canopy.

While canopy cover could be useful when the management unit is larger, such as a neighborhood, it is not effective at the single lot scale for several reasons, including the fact that tree canopy crosses lot lines, and canopy data does not distinguish between cover provided by a tall hedge or a 70-foot cedar.

Jessica, it appears that you've written down your comments.

If you'd like to leave them for the record, I'm sorry, your time is up.

Okay, I just want to let you know that yesterday a bulldozer started tearing down four older homes on Finney Avenue North.

I'm sorry, Jessica, your time is up.

Okay.

Maria, you're going to be followed by Sharon Levine.

Good morning, council members.

We're in this together.

Please slow down.

What you're doing is called legacy climate change policy.

Please have the current tree ordinance audited to see what it has to offer, how it's working, and conduct an EIS for the proposed Trees for All ordinance to see if it's better or not.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sharon, you're going to be followed by Meg Chads.

Yes, I've submitted an exhibit and I'm submitting photos of a lushly landscaped property with an exceptional tree, a grove of mature trees, and an environmentally critical area.

Attached is a diagram of proposed buildings that will totally denude the property and replace over 85 percent of greenery with impervious surfaces.

Within four blocks of my home, about 175 large trees were destroyed in the past five years.

Hundreds more will be lost if pending construction permits are approved.

Projects like this are prevailing throughout Seattle, and the cumulative impacts of tree loss are significant and detrimental to our livability and environment.

Seattle's tree ordinance should emphasize saving big, old trees, full canopy trees, rather than allowing their removal with inadequate mitigation of installing small, pointed, four-foot trees with no canopy that often die from neglect.

Recent hearing examiner testimony revealed that for 17 years Seattle has failed to enforce SMC 25.11 for tree replacement and the character of so-called Emerald City has been negatively altered by this failure.

Thank you.

Meg, you're going to be followed by Stuart Wexner.

My name is Meg Chadzi, and I want to say that my statement is informed by the fact that I work mostly with climate scientists at the University of Washington, and my husband is the executive director of a non-profit called Earth Economics that seeks to put a dollar value on ecosystem services, because that seems to get the most attention.

I agree with everything that was just said, so I don't need to reiterate it.

What I don't understand is why, well, okay, a cynic would say that perhaps short-term profit is behind much of what we're seeing changing in the city of Seattle, which is my lifetime home.

But what I don't understand is why the city of Seattle seems to be willing to give the money to developers for their gain and then accept the burden of the externalized costs of the changes that these developers make.

The ecosystem services that trees provide have to be replaced, usually by the city, at great cost.

So counteracting climate change, heat islands, stormwater protection, et cetera, costs us money.

And who's benefiting from this?

Thank you.

Stuart.

Stuart, you're going to be followed by Lance Young.

Every time I go downtown, I see an irritating billboard put up by the Forested Natural Areas Devastation and Exploitation Industry, telling us they plant three new trees for every old one they cut.

To tell us you can do so-called mitigation by planting two new trees for every old one you cut would be like telling Bill Gates, we're taking away all of your old Microsoft stock, but replacing it with two promising new startup software companies.

It is impossible to cover an area with your plantings and then call it a natural area.

The definition of natural is that which came to be without the influence of post-agricultural human culture.

What you then create is a landscaped area, not a natural area.

So-called mitigation plantings only create more landscaped areas.

Also, it is nearly impossible to plant a tree.

You can only plant seedlings or saplings.

Why not do mitigation by not being allowed to drive a car for as long as it takes to avoid releasing as much carbon as is sequestrated by the tree?

And how long does it take to replace a 100 to 1,000-year-old tree?

100 to 1,000 years.

Your time is up, sir.

Lance, you're going to be followed by Don Cave.

Hi, my name is Lance Young.

I'm here representing the Interurban Trail Tree Preservation Society, and I'd like to support the most recent recommendations by the Urban Forestry Commission with one addition.

There doesn't appear to be any wording in the new code to support a distribution of trees to low-income neighborhoods, and I'd like to encourage that to be looked at.

And also, I'd like exceptional protections included for exceptional trees.

Exceptional trees provide a disproportionately large benefit to our neighborhoods and communities.

Larger than smaller trees, one exceptional tree provides the same benefits adds the same benefits each year, excuse me, that a mid-sized tree adds after 30 to 40 years of growth.

So they need to be protected.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lance.

And Lance, you are the halfway point.

So we're half the way there, folks.

Don, you're going to be followed by Judy McCauley, and then Suzanne Grant.

I looked at the ordinance, and from my point of view, it's a massive, ill-conceived, unnecessary government intrusion administered by a department that has a long record of making trees a last priority.

I'm going to leave a lot of the parts of that to other people because they've already addressed it.

But just to talk about whether it's necessary or not, the direction of this is obviously about homeowners and their vegetable gardens.

And that's not why we're losing our trees.

I have to tell you, it's because of development.

and a focus that's more effective on dealing with the problems around development, such as homeowners who clear their lot before selling for a developer.

Things like that are going to be much more effective.

Somehow, the city has to prioritize trees so that they win.

Judy?

Hi.

Judy McCauley.

I'm with Luma Tree Experts.

We're a local family-owned tree service in Seattle.

And we are against the new six-inch diameter designation, which you are suggesting.

We find that arbitrary and illogical.

The current system relies on the species and the size, which makes sense.

We also are very much for protecting the biggest, most beautiful trees in our city.

And I want to say some people might cynically think we are for, we would be as a company, we want to remove trees.

No, because that's a one-shot deal.

If we prune trees, we're back year after year.

It's good for us and for obviously the system.

The permitting process right now is extremely slow.

It takes seven to eight weeks to get a permit for a high tree risk assessment tree.

It's going to take even longer.

It currently costs $324 the city charges.

We charge an additional $150 to $250.

We think it's going to leave to homeowners removing the trees themselves.

We're going to have unlicensed tree workers or dudes with chainsaws and in their unmarked chip trucks and chippers taking down trees.

Thank you, Judy.

Suzanne, you're going to be followed by Susie Irwin.

Hello.

The bluest skies you've ever seen are no longer in Seattle.

With the new normal of fires and smoky skies, we need more trees, not less trees, to help us breathe.

We on Queen Anne Hill are pleading for the life of an exceptional tree that is 12 feet around at 4 feet high.

Project 3029801 at 2813 4th Avenue West.

Allison Whitworth, has a large photo.

The developer could save the exceptional tree with a slightly altered design, but he may choose to make more money by killing the tree.

Please protect exceptional trees.

Be the city council that listens to Seattle residents.

I was at the first Earth Day 1970. I've lived here since 1975. My granddad had a tent cabin on Alki before my dad was born here 100 years ago.

Limit removal of trees on developed property.

Put back the prohibition on cutting down trees greater than six inches.

Require a two-week posting for tree removal.

It should not be as easy to cut down a tree as it is to strike through a line in a document.

If you continue to place the interests of developers first, the Emerald City will no longer be known for the trees that line our neighborhoods, but for the emeralds that line the pockets of the developers.

It's going to be followed by Paul Talbert and then Neil Krumadad.

Hi, my name is Susie Irwin.

I live in Ballard.

I speak as a homeowner.

Next to me, I have three developments going up.

I sort of ditto the comments of the last two people that what I see as the problem is that there's no, what should I say, supervision around the removal of trees on development property.

So I've had a 70-foot dug fir one foot from my property, removed.

No permit, no nothing, they just mowed it down.

I had an acacia tree, had been there for 75 years, provided all the shade in my large lot, gone.

There was a tree service that came, which is not the same thing as an arborist.

They gave a bid and they cut the tree down and it was healthy, according to the chainsawers.

Chainsaws.

So I'm here to support you to use more environmental protection on our trees.

They give us oxygen.

They give homes to our creatures.

They give us a lot of safety.

And from the Kaiser Permanente, my friend Kim Holland, who is a doctor, said, there's research that shows that trees offer so much to the environment that we can't replace.

Thank you.

Paul?

Paul, are you still here?

OK.

Neil, are you here?

Neil, you're going to be followed back.

Neil Commodale.

Hi.

1993, there was a big storm on Inauguration Day.

We lost a lot of trees.

At the time, I worked for the Parks Department at Volunteer Park in Olmstead Park.

And we had to figure out what the trees were first.

It all proved to be kind of difficult.

And then try to replace them.

We found it was impossible to replace those big old trees.

we couldn't find replacements.

When we privatized the nurseries, city nurseries and so forth, I think we lost a lot of the diversity and what you get now is basically whatever they have at Home Depot.

So it's not the same thing.

We're going to lose when we allow these developers to mow down these big old trees.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Martin Westerman.

What sermon are you here?

Martin, you're going to be followed by Tom Kelly, and then Lori Jurek.

In the private sector, if a company's executive sat on $2 billion worth of assets and didn't account for them, the board of directors would fire them.

Yet here you are sitting on $2 billion worth of assets and not accounting for a penny of it.

The city's green infrastructure are trees, bushes, and grasses.

provide that value every year to the city of Seattle.

They produce oxygen, absorb carbon, filter water, and so on.

But what I see in the tree ordinance is no coordination between city departments.

I see aspirational interests.

I see costs that can't be borne by private citizens in most of the city.

You can't just intend to increase tree canopy, reduce carbon footprint, sign on to the mayor's climate protection initiative, or improve the tree ordinance.

It's kind of like those sad blue signs that are posted in front of bridges and ferry docks that say, waiting, question mark, please turn off your engine, idling pollutes.

We can't be intentional here.

We have to commit.

We have to take action.

I ask you to take action.

committed action to protect our trees.

I ask you to take committed action to value the ecosystem services that you voted unanimously three years ago to do.

That would be some members of Brunt.

I'm sorry, Martin.

Your time is up.

Tom Kelly.

Tom, you're going to be followed by Lori Jurek.

I'm representing Magnuson Environmental Stewardship Alliance today and myself.

I've submitted my comments in writing, but just to add to them, I'd like to point out that they were consistent with the Seattle Urban Forestry Commission recommendations.

One thing I've heard today a lot of talk about the tree canopy standards.

One thing to keep in mind as you're thinking about those is back when they did the comprehensive plan, the real aspirational goal, the real ideal target was 40 percent.

Now it's 30 percent.

So when you're going with this 30 percent goal for the city, it's really a low target already.

Also, I think when you're comparing the recommendations to the present form of the draft.

I think what you need to keep in mind is the amount of ecosystem services provided.

I think if you start counting stems and other things, you'll find that the recommendations of the Forestry Commission will be superior.

And so, thank you very much.

Thank you, Tom.

Lori?

Lori, you're going to be followed by Alex Zimmerman.

Good morning.

I'm Lori Yurok.

I'm representing the members locally of the Washington Native Plant Society.

I couldn't all be here today.

We think there are some good provisions in the tree ordinance draft, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

We would like to see reinstated protections for significant trees, heritage trees.

Especially, we'd like to see more protection for native trees, especially our one species of native oak.

We think the current draft makes it too easy for developers to remove trees, as you have been hearing today.

We'd like to see you abide by the recommendations of the Urban Forestry Commission.

They have done a very thorough analysis.

We feel we can endorse that.

Finally, we'd like you to extend the public comment period.

I think waiting until December is good, but it may not be enough.

This tree ordinance issue is very, very complex.

You really need to make an effort, again, as you have heard today, to get more public input.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alex, you're going to be followed by John Brosnan and then Kristen Bryant.

Hi, my lovely Dory viewers.

anti-Semite and Nazi pig.

A killer.

My name Alex Zimmerman.

I have very simple proposition.

We need cut all tree in state Washington.

Send this to Los Angeles in exchange for gas mask.

Because we have right now a problem with life expectancy.

You are freaking a killer, a criminal.

Life expectancy in Seattle right now, whoop, down.

People dying like me, senior citizen.

We don't have enough accident in system.

You understand who are you?

You're criminal.

You are supposed to be in jail.

So I speak right now to everybody who listen to me.

We need clean this Dory chamber from this killer, from this criminal, from this fascist, a Nazi psychopath.

It's exactly what has happened.

Stop killing us.

Stop killing us, a Nazi pig.

Stop killing us, a Nazi pig.

John Bresnan.

John, are you here?

John, come on down, and then you're going to be followed by Kristen Bryant and Mary Fleck.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I'm John Brosnan.

I'm the executive director at Seattle Audubon.

We're the oldest conservation organization in the state of Washington, and we represent about 4,000 local folks here in the city.

And I've heard from a lot of people about this issue, both on the content and also on how the process has been conducted.

So I'm really grateful to hear that we're going to have a lot more time to work with you.

And I hope that you think of Seattle Audubon as a partner in this process.

As part of our Neighborhood Flyaways conservation campaign, we worked with the city in 2016 on the Urban Bird Treaty City designation.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold for your co-sponsorship of that resolution, but that was passed unanimously by the City Council.

And we think we can make a lot with that as part of that network of other cities who have done a lot with it.

And we are here to cooperate because we are the Emerald City and we know that we can do a lot more because we have a lot of great examples around the country.

So again, we're here to help.

We've got a big community and we know that we can work cooperatively with you on this and come to a very consensus-based solution.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

Kristen.

Hello, I'm Kristen Bryant, and I want to comment that we need trees for health and for livability, and this draft ordinance just has too many loopholes.

My son just moved to Beacon Hill.

He goes to school, and he does food delivery by bicycle.

He may not realize the impact that the bad air has on his long-term health, but you know what it is doing to all Seattle's young people.

If Councilmember Johnson says this is moving in the right direction, this bill must have been horrible at first.

Adjusting building height square footage to allow a taller building in order to leave more earth for trees is good, but this bill needs a much more extensive rewrite.

For example, one thing that needs to be changed is the clause allowing replanting on another property.

The land area of Seattle is 84 square miles, and this clause allows a replacement tree to be planted anywhere, possibly miles from the tree that was removed, and does not specify how that replacement tree on the other property will be tracked.

Another thing that must be changed is the fee-in-lieu requirement.

The multifamily minimum coverage is 20%, and that's already too small.

Why do kids who live in single-family homes get 33% tree coverage, but large buildings with many families have only 20%?

Mary, you're going to be followed by David Ward and then Michael Oxman.

I'm Mary Fleck from Seattle Green Spaces Coalition.

We would like to see the science and the economics that you have been considering while you've been working on this bill because surely on such an important ordinance, you have been considering what the science says and what the economics says about whether this will work, whether this will reach our goal of 30%.

So we would like to see the science that's getting you there.

Are there reports from OSE that you've been evaluating?

Are there economic studies that show that this is actually going to have the desired effect?

We'd really like to see what the science is that's supporting this.

And consider this scenario.

Suppose MHA goes into effect and everybody decides to take all the trees off and maximize their footprints.

Will that get us to 30%?

We'd like to see that scenario considered.

Also, in aspiration, let's take the aspiration out and have a real goal.

David, and then Michael.

So I'm president of SCALE, Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability and Equity.

And we're a coalition of 29 neighborhood organizations.

And last night we voted to support the Forestry Commission recommendations, not the current proposal, and also to support the appeal of the DNS.

We would like you to put back the protections for exceptional trees.

and put back the prohibition of cutting trees greater than six inches on undeveloped lots.

We would like to limit the removal of trees to two per year, require all trees six inches DBH and larger to be replaced on site or for the maintenance fee to be paid to the city.

And we would like to base tree permits on diameter and tree species, not tree canopy measurements, which would require people to walk all over the place into other people's yards.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.

Michael, you're going to be followed by Amy Wolfe and then Steve Rubstel.

Hi, friends.

I'm Michael Oxman.

I'm an arborist.

I just am representing the Friends of Seattle's Urban Forest today.

And I think that Seattle needs a tree inventory.

that was written in our 2007 Urban Forest Management Plan.

In 2010, there was an audit that says that all of the tree activities by all of the different departments should be switched over to management by one department.

And if you did have a tree inventory, then you would be able to value your urban forest because when you measure and track each tree, you understand what its size is and therefore its value.

And then you could rent your financial investments out at a higher rate.

So I guess that should do it.

I think you guys are on the right track here.

Thanks for listening to us.

Thank you, Michael.

Amy?

My name is Amy Wolf.

I'm a citizen.

I'm a civilian.

To answer the woman's question there, yes, it needs to be an arborist determining whether a tree is hazardous, not some guy with a chainsaw, honestly.

If you own a $500,000 house, you can pay an arborist a couple hundred to make that determination.

You wouldn't go to your GP to find out if you need an orthopedic surgery.

I want to say that from sitting here, it sounds like As long as you're willing to pay for permit, you can cut down whatever you want.

That seems to be already true of developers.

I've seen it happen in Delridge.

They took down three huge cedars that we were advocating for.

They said they were going to leave a couple, and then they didn't.

And also, the thing I really want to say is, None of this means anything unless the ivy infestation in Seattle is addressed because more trees will die and have to be cut down because ivy is not being mitigated on private property.

It's barely being mitigated in the parks.

It's not being mitigated along roadsides.

And nobody's addressing that.

And thousands of trees are dying.

Thousands.

Thank you, Amy.

Steve.

Steve, you're going to be followed by Randy Banneker and then Kathleen Kirkhoff.

I think you need to talk about expanding or at least maintaining the carbonability of the tree and canopy in the city because saplings, bushes are not equal to trees.

And it's been pointed out that if you take down one very large tree, it takes more than a forest of small trees and a very long time to come back to anywhere near where you were.

Seattle has not been doing very well, Seattle is managing the destruction of the urban forest, not building it.

And it takes very little time to take care of it.

And I think Seattle has not shown a lot of interest in protecting trees.

Not far from me, a while back, there were two street trees that were taken down in a very, very short time.

There were no consequences to the developer.

It simply made it easier to get in and out.

Whoever they hired declared that the trees were sick, but I'll tell you there was no evidence of the trees left to tell.

Randy, you're going to be followed by Kathleen Kirkhoff.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, council members.

I'm Randy Banneker here on behalf of the Seattle King County Realtors.

Very much appreciate your work on tree protection.

I wanted to raise at least two questions for your consideration and thinking specifically about the impact of the regulations on the single family zone.

and then other conversations that you're having in this committee and other committees, thinking specifically about it.

We're at a time where we're asking our single family zone to do more and, for instance, accommodate detached accessory dwelling units.

And I'm just wondering if you're able to look at the impact of a 33% tree canopy on the ability, particularly in small 5,000 square foot lots, to put in a datu.

We see those as critical infrastructure in a city that is desperate for increased housing supply.

And the bigger picture here is Every person we can't accommodate in Seattle is going to pressure our suburban cities and in turn pressure the edge of the urban growth boundary, which risks a greater loss to forested rural canopy.

Thank you.

Kathleen, you're going to be followed by Richard Ellison.

Okay, I agree with everything that was said in the Forest Urban Forestry Commission's letter to you and urge you to pay attention to that.

It is very important to get this right.

This is going to affect the city.

way into the future.

It takes so long for these trees to grow to any significant height.

We don't have that time.

If you really believe that climate change is happening, we do not have the time to wait 50 years for a tree to become significant.

There's a social justice issue in this.

We are increasing the urban heat island.

This really affects people who cannot afford air conditioning.

It affects the elderly, young people who don't have developed systems, poor people.

climatecentral.org says that the 10 top cities where intense summer urban heat islands includes us.

Thank you, Kathleen.

Richard.

Followed by Dominic Barrera and Dominic, our last speaker today.

Hello, I'm Richard Ellison, and I'm a treeaholic.

Like many of us, I have friends who are afraid to admit that they are treeholics, that like to consume trees, and three trees more as well, just a happy hour special to them.

And the Master Imbibers Association Chamber of Consumption will all tell you that they would love to control their treeholism, and that they are doing all they can to stop consuming so many trees, but please don't try to codify the levels of consumption.

And if a homeowner or builder wants to throw a big tree consumption party, well, you only have to get a permit.

You can consume all the tree or hole you want.

No restrictions, just get a permit saying, we can't make a buck on this property unless you let us consume all the tree or hole because the trees are in the way of the party house.

The law does not actually force the developer to save trees, not even to save the biggest, healthiest, great-grandma heritage tree.

So even the weakest of restrictions to codify our tree-holic problem seems to threaten them.

We don't really want to admit our consumption problem can't be controlled with vodka variances and whining incentives.

We don't want to admit we have a tree consumption problem at all.

Thank you.

Good morning committee members, staff, thank you for your continued work on this topic.

I'm from Plant Amnesty.

We also support the recommendations of the Urban Forestry Commission and as you can see the public is losing faith in this in the council's commitment to protecting trees and that's because the flaws in this otherwise good legislation have not been addressed yet.

There is however one thing one commitment that the committee could make today that would bring everybody back to the table and I think get us all back on the right track, and that is to include the existing protections for exceptional trees in this new ordinance.

That's the number one most important thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes the public hearing on our draft Tree Protection Ordinance that hasn't been introduced yet.

We have a lot of time to continue to work on this and plan on doing it through December, although we did hear, Eric, several comments during public comment about an environmental impact statement.

If the council were to choose to go down that different direction, talk to us about how long that would take and when a bill might be ready post an EIS.

NEIS is an involved process that has notice provisions after the work has been prepared.

It usually involves public meetings.

Once all that work is done, draft EIS is published for comment.

There's important rules around how long that needs to be out for comment, and those comments are replied to in a final EIS.

We're talking, I mean, you get in trouble speculating, but we're talking, you know, year, 18 months.

We're talking about a much longer process.

So for us, I think the challenge as a committee is going to be how do we balance those sort of competing requests that we heard today, I think, during public comment, which was both the urgency to act to protect as many trees as we can, while also making sure that we take time to make sure we get the legislation right.

If we were to go down that EIS timeline, we could be looking at a 2020 or so or later action by the council, which is something to contemplate and may be in our best interest if that's where the committee decides they want to go.

Or further discussions could keep us on the timeline that we're on.

But I just want to make very clear for the public who are here and asking us to do a full EIS.

that that fully IS is in conflict with the idea that we would take action on something with some relative speed in order to protect those trees that are out there.

So there are choices there that are inherently would have to be made.

Any thoughts, Council Member Ryan?

You're pulling a microphone closer to you.

When it's appropriate, I'd like to just make some comments on things that I'd like to see going forward.

And I want to thank everyone for being here.

I know a lot of folks took time out of their day to come because they care significantly about trees.

We hear that and I know a lot of folks have been experts and advocates for forestry for decades in our community and I'm grateful for the work you've done to keep the city as green as it is today.

Some of the things that I'd like to see as we move forward over the next couple months, one you mentioned council members, maintaining both the Heritage Treaty Program and an Exceptional Treaty Program.

So that is not in the current draft and I think figuring out how to get that back in is going to be something that's important to me.

I want to, what I've heard, and I appreciate specifically the letter from the Urban Forestry Commission and their recommendations.

Frankly, everything in there I tend to agree with and want to figure out how we can incorporate that.

Some of the things I want to highlight is the idea of not using the canopy percentage on individual lots as a trigger.

for various permits because of the complications around canopy and that may not be appropriate at that level.

So I'm interested in exploring shifting, continuing to use canopy goals citywide and maybe even neighborhood wide to look at it, but on individual lots, perhaps going to individual tree count that may be a better way to do that.

I've also heard in the recommendations a preference, and in comments today, preference for replacement on site.

So as we work through the regulations, I do think that it's appropriate to have an alternative path where folks could pay the city to plant the appropriate number and type of trees elsewhere.

But we should set it up in a way that it heavily awaits folks who are able to plant on site to do that.

I've heard statements about and read about in the Forestry Commission's recognition that conifers and deciduous trees provide different value and specifically conifers because they're green year-round and the density of them.

They do a lot more for mitigating stormwater.

They provide a different type of habitat, which can be really important.

And essentially, I believe they have higher value.

And so, when we talk about replacement to figure out ways where we can prioritize or encourage conifers, to the extent that the science and data and the experts continue to think that that's appropriate.

Similarly, we've heard a preference for native trees over non-native trees.

Variety of reasons for that.

One would be the habitat benefit.

And obviously the native trees have been here for centuries.

And birds, for instance, who migrate through the area and have for centuries rely on certain types of trees.

And so there's some beautiful non-native trees that are used here.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as they're not invasive.

But I think a prioritization of native trees, I think, is something that we want to highlight.

So I want to explore that.

I've also heard that not all species are the same.

In our current exceptional tree ordinance or regulation, we list out by species the different sizes that would qualify as exceptional.

And I think I'd like to do some more thinking about instead of having a flat six-inch requirement, that may be appropriate, but looking at replacement by the type of tree and what size would need to be done.

On that, I also think it would be important not just to have a one-for-one or one-for-two or one-for-three replacement, but having some measure that would quantify that.

One suggestion was looking at the diameter of a tree that's being removed and somehow I have a formula or a schedule that would show what you would need to do to replace the kind of ecosystem value of that tree over a relatively short timeline.

So maybe that's something like if you remove a 10-inch tree, you would need to replace it with 10 inches of diameter that could be five 2-inch trees or two 5-inch trees.

I don't know.

Planting 5-inch trees is very reasonable.

Those are big trees.

But it may be more complex than that, maybe looking at the types too.

I'm on a balance not having a massively complex thing that no one can figure out, because I think simplicity is probably the right word.

But understandable is going to be really important.

And, but some way that we can at least take that into consideration.

Looking at the folks from OPCD, a couple things that I'm interested in, and we can talk more about this.

Do we have the in-house expertise to identify species?

I've heard, you know, I have little, you know, backpacking books that talk about little, you know, choose your own adventure for how you can identify trees.

I believe there's some apps out there that do that.

I don't know how accurate they are.

If folks were able to take a couple pictures of a tree and submit it to the city, is there someone in the city who would be able to look at that in a relatively reasonable period of time and say, yes, that's a, we know that's a western red cedar, that's a dug fir, that's a big leaf maple.

and help categorize that.

So as we go forward, I'd like to understand what expertise we have at the city, what it would take to have the expertise to positively identify trees.

And then as I understand, when people do site plans for certain types of redevelopment, they're required to provide the size, location, and I believe species of tree.

And I would love, I wanna make sure that we are capable cataloging in some form of database of the city those reports that are being given to the city so that over time we will start to build some sort of system where we can look at the number of trees that we've inventoried and over the longevity see, you know, maybe have a better record of what's happening and are they continuing to grow and provide benefit?

Are they being removed?

And some measurement of that would be important.

So those are a list of things that I've heard.

I think it largely repeats a lot of the things that were in the letter from the Urban Forestry Commission and want to work with folks in the community as we make some policy decisions to develop the next kind of draft of this legislation.

Sounds good.

You know, allow me to just sort of be a defender for a quick minute of the concept of in-lieu fees.

As Eric mentioned, the current draft doesn't allow for anybody in a single-family zone to do anything other than on-site mitigation.

But a non-single family of zones does allow for a fee in lieu.

And the benefit there, I believe, meets some of the objectives that I think we all share as a council and heard from committee, from the public, which is how do we make sure that we get more tree canopy in neighborhoods that don't have high tree canopy now?

And then how do we steward those trees that are part of the replacement?

So we know from the work that the relief program has done, for example, When a homeowner decides to self-mitigate and plant their own tree, there's a good likelihood that that tree survives, but the chance of the tree surviving is higher if it's planted on public land or with the support of some of our urban forestry stewardship programs.

A fee and loo program allows for us to meet that goal of a greater tree canopy in neighborhoods that don't have very high tree canopy now and gets closer to our race and social justice goals.

And using our continued pathways like relief allows for us to have some certainty.

the trees that are getting planted are gonna grow and fully mature.

So as we hear from the public about a concern about a fee in lieu, if we walk down a pathway that does not allow for that option, it does have impacts, and that's just something to consider.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just wanted to add a couple more issues that I've heard that I wanna talk more about.

I mentioned the reestablishing the cutting of a limit of three trees per year that's in the current code for some zones.

And related to that is the issue that's been raised around groves of trees, so eight or more trees, and the fact that removing a single tree within a grove or a couple trees within a grove affects actually the whole grove.

So that's another issue I'd like to And then finally, within the enforcement language, I think the enforcement provisions are really good.

I have some questions about maize and chow.

Sure.

Understood.

Thank you.

Okay, so we'll be, Eric, anything you'd like to respond to with that litany of things that we want to continue to work on?

No, thank you.

Okay.

We'll be back on the 19th to talk more.

Again, no action proposed on the 19th.

And without further ado, let's move on to agenda item number three.

Noah, will you please read that into the record?

Council Bill 119332, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, amending section 23.41.010 of the Seattle Municipal Code to approve the 2018 South Lake Union Neighborhood Design Guidelines.

I would say good morning, but we're pretty close to good afternoon.

So we appreciate your patience as well for agenda items four and five, your patience for hanging around.

Let's start with some brief introductions, Ms. Panucci.

Allie Panucci, Council Central staff.

Jim Holmes, Office of Planning and Community Development.

Gary Papers, OPCD.

Matthew Curry, here in my capacity as the Board Secretary for the SLU Community Council and Chair of our Policy and Planning Committee.

Thank you for joining us, Matthew, at the table.

I understand you were very involved in the development of these design guidelines.

Today, we're gonna hear a briefing on the proposed design guideline changes that have come out of several years of community planning in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

And at this point, I'm just filibustering until we can get the PowerPoint slide up and running and know we might need a little bit of, or Ali, we might need a little bit of technical assistance in order for them to Get that rolling Jim while that happens.

Why don't you give us the overview while Ally's dutifully pulling up the power?

Sure Excuse me.

Yeah, this so this sounds like you didn't Union design guidelines Are kind of the final piece of what's been a really long planning process in the neighborhood They build on the urban design framework and many of the concepts that the community worked through through that process.

We've also had the benefit of a few years of implementation of the 2013 rezone of the neighborhood to see where some of the development standards have been applied in ways that we intended and ways that we didn't intend and have been able to add some color and flavor to help achieve what their intent was.

So we are going to do quick overview of the design review process to provide context, then we'll talk a little bit about Southlake Union's specific recommendations, and then Matthew will talk a little bit about Southlake Union Community Council.

Let's make the first part quick and a little more focused on the second and the third, if that's okay.

Sure.

Okay, I'll breeze through it.

The design review program was established in 94, and since then over 1,500 projects have gone through design review, which occurs before the applicant can apply for construction.

Its overall purpose is to encourage better design that fits best into the neighborhoods.

It also provides some flexibility on certain development standards.

And most importantly, it improves communication between the community and applicants.

The public participates in the design review meetings.

The context for all design review, we have eight design review boards and districts.

They cover the entire city.

However, the neighborhood design guidelines cover only a portion of the city, and there are citywide design guidelines that cover all of the city if they don't have neighborhood specific ones.

The process is, it looks very complicated here, but this includes all of the steps.

The two that are most important are the step four and nine, where the boards meet with the applicants and the public Those are public meetings, and the project is reviewed at an early design guidance phase before things get really more particular.

Then the applicants go through a technical review, steps five through eight, with city staff.

And at step nine, there's another meeting when the design is much more detailed and has specific materials and colors and so forth.

All design guidelines follow a basic format.

This is based on the citywide design guidelines setting up the primary topics, and then each neighborhood-specific guideline takes those topics into more detail.

These are the overall 11, you might call them fundamental design guideline topics.

They're broken into three categories.

I'll just quickly go through those.

The context and site, we always start by understanding the projects in their specific context.

Also, the urban patterns that are in the vicinity and particular architectural character.

The second category is public life.

We want to prioritize the energy and the public activities around every project through walkability and especially street-level interaction and promoting active transport such as bikes and walking.

The design concept is the third category, and this is where the specific architectural themes and massing start to be developed.

Also, any key open spaces that are in the project, like either at the ground level, courtyards, or roof decks.

Great.

So these are an amendment to existing guidelines.

The existing guidelines were adopted in 2005 and the neighborhood has changed very significantly since then.

So one of the things we did is we brought in some of the discussions of the sub areas and the hearts and gateways from the urban design framework to really provide, in addition to guidance on specific development standards, it talks about, you know, the whole neighborhood is not going to develop the same and what is the defining character of each sub area.

For example, the East Lake Mercer you see up there in the northeast corner, that's an area dominated by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and other uses.

It's very campus-like development.

They've had a master plan in place for years.

They plan to continue that.

So while generally we say in these guidelines, avoid campus-like development, except for in the East Lake Mercer Corridor, because that's a very different place.

Fairview-Westlake, you'd expect a lot more pedestrian activation at the ground level, and the guidelines speak to that.

We can go to the next slide.

So I'll kind of go through some of the quick hits.

I said these are amendments.

We did keep important guidelines from the existing guidelines and have augmented.

In some cases, they don't make sense anymore.

But we have guidelines regarding energy use, you know, encourage, you know, how to work with sunlight and shadows, try to keep sunlight on your public spaces, how to work with topography, particularly on the east and west edges of the neighborhood.

There's sloping streets.

For example, a guy would talk about stepping down the hill as opposed to ending up with shallow floor-to-ceiling clearances on one end of a building and very giant ones on the other end.

Go to the next one.

In urban pattern and form, we talk about hearts, edges, and gateways, and we really encourage projects to open up and kind of view their role within these significant nodes throughout the neighborhood.

I think we're all kind of familiar with, you know, the significant ones like a Westlake and Denny, for example, very active, very lively, and you see a lot of development there, kind of orienting towards that node.

We talk about incorporating older structures.

That's been done.

There are good and bad examples in South Lake Union of how that's been done.

So we wanted to provide some guidance on how to really do that.

Keep the newer portions set back, generous setbacks from the old historical facades.

Maybe some contrasting colors, not to blend in too terribly much.

There's a little more detailed guidance in the guidelines.

But most of the changes to these documents really focus on the ground level, the public realm, the pedestrian experience.

So there is guidance on connectivity.

I think we talked about, I mentioned development standards that have been applied well and not so well that we've learned from.

One of those is mid-block connections.

So we've provided some guidance on mid-block connections.

You know, the idea is they should break up the large rectangular blocks, so they should be east-west.

Departures from that should be discouraged.

Generally, they should be open to the air.

Ideally, they're activated with uses.

Once again, it's a pedestrian realm.

There's a good example of a mid-block crossing we're talking about.

There's also guidance in there for the sidewalks and how you relate to the sidewalk and how you can relate your public spaces that you have to that sidewalk to really contribute to the neighborhood goal of developing a network of open space throughout the neighborhood.

So it's not just parks, but it's an easy neighborhood to walk through.

It's an enjoyable neighborhood to walk through.

So ground-related housing is such a great thing when we get it in the neighborhood and live in the street.

So we put in some guidelines on how to really make that work, and these are two great examples, I think, in the neighborhood.

So we do have a guideline talking about bus labor facilities, which may or may not be something in the future of South Lake Union.

We work with Metro on these facilities, but they do have a goal in the future as they find bus layover locations, which they increasingly will need, to actually do some co-development with different commercial residential structures above the bus layover facility.

So the guidelines speak to this, mainly just to acknowledge that while a parking lot full of buses isn't terribly exciting, improving transit through the neighborhood is a great goal.

So here are ways we can do that.

Design the whole building, look at the rooftop, look at the podium.

We really want every aspect of the project to be considered as parts of a whole.

And finally, we have introduced into the amended South Lake Union guidelines, tall building guidelines, which are to help address the increased height that some of the new zoning allows for.

These guidelines were developed after researching other cities, including recently adopted tall building guidelines in Toronto.

We also vetted them with a committee of the local Seattle AIA, as well as other design staff in-house.

These are just the top headers, but you can see some of them are specific to help guide buildings when they become much taller than the surrounding context, such as different scales, intermediate scales, to consciously have a transition to the sky, and to have an adjusted base scale, because once these buildings get significantly taller, a typical 12 or 15 foot ground floor is not a good architectural resolution.

So these are the tall building guidelines, and I believe that's the last slide.

Matthew, anything that you'd like to add from the neighborhood's perspective?

I just simply wanted to, again, thank OPCD staff, particularly Jim Holmes for all his work with us.

A lot of what this came out of was recognition by members of our community council who attend design review commission meetings.

that the particular needs of the SLU zoning may have been not fully understood by some of the design review board members.

And so it was with that observation back in the spring of 2017 that we engaged with OPCD and this led to Jim reaching out to us in September of 17. We outlined some scope and process for this process, and Jim returned to us in December of 17 with a draft.

We went through some more feedback, and a revised update was presented to us in May of 18, which received our board's unanimous support in May, later in May of this year.

I mean, I just want to say that, you know, in terms of urban design and urban development, I think Southlake Union is already at a pretty high bar.

When you're walking through the neighborhood, you know, those contacts I know are sometimes complicated, Council Member O'Brien, by what is a privately owned public space and what is not.

But generally, for those of us who are interested in the urban ecology and the urban ecosystem, South Lake Union is a really interesting place to experience that, whether that's the swales on Yale, whether it's the mid-block crossings, whether it's the opportunities for a quick pause in a bustling city to recognize the environment around you and be a little bit quieter.

There are those pockets in South Lake Union that exist today, thanks to the good work the community council and the earlier proposed design guidelines, and I look forward to seeing how these new design guidelines and updates continue to build on that urban form.

Please, Matthew.

If I may make just a couple additional points.

I do particularly want to note three things which were highlighted.

The redesignation of some of the neighborhood sub areas speaks to our very rapidly developing and changing environment, particularly calling attention to the Aurora-Dexter Corridor, which will be the site of our street grid reconnection.

That is an area ripe for a lot of opportunity.

Likewise, in that corridor, but also throughout the community, the gateways and hearts that have been identified in this revision more fully reflect what's happening on the ground.

And finally, an ongoing concern of our community council is the development of the pedestrian realm.

And we see that there are some distinguishing aspects in this code language that I believe truly set South Lake Union apart from some other areas in the city.

Great.

Well, no action plan on this today, colleagues.

But further questions or thoughts?

I know we've already had a long meeting already, so I won't belabor that.

Allie, anything you'd like to add?

I would just remind the committee that this will be back before you on September 19th for a public hearing and potential vote.

And if you have any additional questions or potential amendments, I stand at the ready to work with you before the 19th.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thanks all.

Thanks for your patience.

Noah, how about agenda item number four, please?

Report on the vacant building monitoring report or program.

Thank you.

And thanks to the folks from Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections for your patience.

Can we do some introductions?

Council Central staff.

Faith Lumsden, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Christina Gann, Department of Construction Inspections.

Alex Clardy, Council Member Lisa Herbold's office.

Thanks, everybody.

This is a great overview of the one and a half or so years that we've had since the vacant building monitoring program.

Was it just one year?

Well, it's one year to the day of our last set of changes to the ability of SDCI to demolish buildings.

But the vacant building program's been around for a long time.

many years, yes.

Of course, of course.

Thank you for that update.

And if you just want to switch chairs for this one, Council Member Herbold, I'm happy to do so.

I know you guys have a quick PowerPoint slide you want to walk us through, but any introductory remarks to kick us off, Mr. Freeman?

I'll just make a couple, remind the committee a little bit about the legislative history, just a minute of it, and then turn it over to SDCI to walk through the presentation.

As Councilmember Herbold mentioned, in September of last year, the Council passed Ordinance 125-399, which, among other things, modified standards for maintaining and securing vacant buildings and provided additional authority to the SDCI Director to demolish hazardous vacant buildings.

That ordinance was amended by Council to essentially set out a work program for SDCI for developing options for enhancing the existing vacant building monitoring program or creating a new vacant building monitoring program.

In the 2018 budget, as the committee will remember, the Council resourced that work program by on providing additional appropriation and position authority to STCI.

So today we'll hear from STCI about options and what.

lessons learned.

Great.

Thanks, Ketel.

I can move us directly past the introduction to SDCI, since I think you know us, and on to background, which I think Mr. Freeman covered well for us.

I would just say that We're seeing a pretty steady level of complaints in 2018. They were up again in 2017 from what we had seen.

I don't have exact numbers yet as we're still working with our new permit tracking system to get those reports.

Our inspectors are still pretty busy.

So although we're seeing good use of the new legislation, particularly with unfit buildings, gosh, it hasn't yet totally cleaned up the city's issues with vacant buildings.

Ketel mentioned the report.

Before you move on, just a quick question.

In this slide one, the first bullet says there's been a 55% increase in complaints since 2013. Your report says a 64% increase.

Complaint cases rose from 265 in 2013 to 434 in 2017. Right.

That may just be bad math on my part.

Okay, so I would say, as noted, we've made some really good progress with unfit buildings and being able to get them through a process that orders them to be demolished, and many of those have been demolished.

We also have had a couple good successes with property owners, one in West Seattle, who owned 12 properties, vacant properties, and those properties were all recently sold following a court action that we brought.

So those will be, we expect, demolished and redeveloped.

Mr. Rowe, how about that?

So that's good news on that front.

And I want to emphasize we have had excellent coordination with the police department and the fire department.

And I think better the visibility of our vacant building monitoring program.

is higher with those agencies and higher with the public, as I think you'll see as we move through some of our other slides.

The last thing that I wanted to mention before I have Christina talk about the report itself and some of the options that we're looking at is just that we do always try to look at questions of race and social justice whenever we think about changing a program and We don't have actual demographics for who owns vacant buildings, but you saw on the first slide, they are spread throughout the city.

They're in every neighborhood.

We know that some of the buildings that we have the worst problem with are owned by people who are economically or otherwise disadvantaged, we do try to work with them.

You know, we say we use what flexibility we have.

And sometimes that means we take a little more time and give them extended compliance dates if they're doing their work themselves.

Sometimes it means we just go in and do it because they really can't.

And so we can exercise some choice when we're working with people.

I would ask that you also consider the RSJI considerations.

as it relates to where these buildings are located and the impacts on low-income folks.

Again, District 1 has the highest number of vacant building complaints, and many of them are in the Delridge Corridor.

It's a low-income neighborhood.

And just to quote Ms. McCord, RSJI considers considerations should take into account the concerns of historically marginalized neighborhoods.

And the city should not be as aggressive in adhering to code and be more flexible for compliance.

I would argue that because District 1 is a disadvantaged neighborhood, it does not have the same resources as for example, District 7, has to keep these buildings out of our neighborhoods and that the impacts on people who live in those neighborhoods is much, much greater.

The impacts of, you know, low-income children who are going to school and having to walk past these buildings, it's a significant issue.

Yeah, no, we hear that and I think, well, I'll pass that on to my inspectors and my staff and we'll try to do our best on that front.

I'll ask Christine again to walk us through the report and then in the interest of time, we'll probably run through that pretty quickly.

quickly and open to some discussion and direction.

Yeah, we can stop and focus wherever you'd like.

So just a quick refresher, the ordinance requested us to prepare a report analyzing a couple of different topics and policy options within each.

And so one of those was enrollment in our current vacant building monitoring program, which is one of the tools that Faith's team uses to deal with vacant buildings in the city and enforce the city's housing and building maintenance code.

It also was asked, we were asked to look into our minimum maintenance standards for vacant buildings, so those physical condition of the structure type standards that property owners need to adhere to for a vacant building.

The penalty structure that property owners would face if they fail to comply with those maintenance standards.

Also, the fee structure for our monitoring program and the charges associated with that and whether there could be a tiered fee structure to kind of encourage compliance.

And then also looking into SCCI's authority to standardize our current building assessment and evaluation program we use as part of our unfit building procedure.

And then finally looking into our authority to continue to establish a sort of temporary caretaker program for those buildings that are still in really good shape and may be a good option for certain housing alternatives.

So that's kind of what we're going to be looking into and I'll just go right into the And to the meat of it, so for each of these, I'll do one slide of background and then one slide reviewing the policy options.

In terms of enrollment in the current vacant building monitoring program, we have 43 properties in the program as of March when the report was completed.

Those 43 properties get quarterly visits, so about 180 visits total last year.

We have the code authority to enroll buildings in that program when they violate one of the maintenance standards.

In practice, we typically would only enroll them if they leave that issue uncorrected.

So if they come up, you know, within a day or two can address the issue and it doesn't come back, then we would not enroll them.

Again, those properties are visited every three months, so on a quarterly basis, just to check in on them and see if that housing or maintenance violation has been addressed yet.

And they would only be unenrolled when the issue is corrected or when the property is no longer vacant again.

So that's kind of how the current program works.

It basically is structured to address buildings that have chronic issues, but that are relatively minor.

We do separately have a lot of buildings in the city that have very not minor issues that are highly problematic, where there are regular visits from SPD, SFD.

There are calls from the community about people entering the property, probably illegally.

And so for those properties, F.A.C.E. team and in coordination with S.F.D. and S.P.D. hone in pretty seriously and will visit the property regularly, daily, weekly or monthly until that immediate safe and health issues addressed.

But we wouldn't enroll those properties typically in that monitoring program, again, because there's focus, extreme focus for a couple of months while that issue is addressed, and then typically that would be handled and go away.

And if I remember correctly, Christina, one of the changes that we made to the legislation last year allowed for, in those instances of extreme hazard and pretty consistent violation of the, you know, entrance signs that are up on all those vacant buildings, it would allow for a slightly shorter time period before building could be torn down as opposed to the longer time period that we have.

Yeah, the end game for those types of buildings typically is demolition.

And so you all gave us better tools last fall to be able to make that happen.

Please.

A couple points as it relates to the fact that there are 43 properties enrolled in the vacant building monitoring program.

I just want to highlight and Alex has a sort of a district one centric presentation just because there are so many I would disagree with that.

Again, using District 7 as an example, District 1 has, I think, almost 65% greater number.

Interestingly enough, District 7 has the largest number of buildings in the vacant building monitoring program, and District 1 only has two buildings in the monitoring program.

And again, the reason why this is so important is because We need to get more buildings in the monitoring program so that we don't have to look at those buildings getting to the condition that they are actually an unfit building.

You mentioned that currently...

The buildings that are being visited by SPD and FIRE, you don't put them in the vacant building program.

In some questions that I had asked you, you say the monitoring program includes buildings with violations that are chronic but relatively minor or do not present an immediate threat to safety.

But then you go on to say that the building inspector resources are focused on issues related to a safety hazard to the neighborhood.

I think there's an issue there, and the other thing that really concerns me is that SPD and FIRE are going out and visiting these buildings, and that's a service that's being provided free of charge, whereas a vacant building monitoring program, you could charge a fee, and that makes sure that the compliance work that either the department or SPD and SFD would be doing would be compensated.

The response to some of the questions you asked, I asked, you referred to SPD dispatching our officers.

And I don't know if that's in response to complaints or if that's part of this sort of, you're referencing SPD and SFD doing some regular checks.

To me, that reads as if they're actually response to people calling.

and asking for them to come out.

So that's, I think that's another thing that I'd like to get a better handle on because, you know, there's, SPD dispatched officers to 44 of the addresses in District 1, a total of 284 times.

Again, this is work that is not being compensated from the property owner to the city.

And for me, I think a vacant building monitoring program needs to be about disincentivizing neglect of these properties.

Thanks.

Responses?

SDCI folks?

In regards to the SPD data, I believe it contains kind of all dispatches, only a portion of which would be kind of scheduled follow-ups.

I think a lot of them were kind of more urgent responses.

That's just the kind of unit of reporting that they gave us, yeah.

Please.

It does, I appreciate the explanation and it makes sense on one hand, but it does seem odd that there's a kind of defined program for the ones that need the light touch and then the ones that need the heavier touch are outside the program.

I get why it's like it doesn't make sense to have a three month follow up when we're doing it more frequently, but I'm wondering if there's two tiers within the program or some way.

I mean, I really appreciate the idea that the, we should be recovering our costs from the worst actors, or the largest problems, if possible.

And so however we construct that, and if there's tweaks we need to do to make on our end, it would be great to see that.

That's a really lovely segue, if you're okay with moving on.

So our current program, again, is is based on violations to the vacant building maintenance standards that, in practice, remain uncorrected.

We could adjust those thresholds.

We also, as Council Member O'Brien just mentioned, we sort of have an informal practice of prioritizing enforcement on the problem buildings.

We could decide as one of the kind of policy options to formalize that informal practice, and it would take what is kind of a hybrid two-tiered program and make it a codified two-tiered program.

But essentially, the first couple options here, A through D, are all different things we could do to move the benchmark from where it is now, but still all focused on problems, on complaints, right?

We know about a vacant building when someone calls and tells us, and then we address that we devote city resources to that building from that point on.

options E, F, and G are different alternatives where we could, you know, explore ways to try to know about those buildings sooner.

People don't always offer up information to the city, you know, without some sort of regulatory tool, but there are a couple of different ways we could explore doing that.

Essentially, what you described, Council Member Ryan, would be if we kind of adopted policy option D and, you know, made those priority buildings at higher tier of the monitoring program as well.

All right, so again, the city has maintenance standards in the Housing and Building Maintenance Code that are basic standards related to the physical condition of a site and a property that every vacant building has to meet.

Part of them are things like weatherproofing.

There's also overgrown vegetation and things that would, you know, not create an immediate health or issue, health or safety issue, but are not pleasant for the neighbors and certainly give the wrong signal to people who may be passing by.

And then also they require the building be secured from access as well.

So either windows and doors in place or they need to be boarded up with plywood and things like that.

If there's a reason for us to require higher standards, we can, in particular, if a building has been broken in and plywood's not doing the trick, then we can ask them to put in sturdier materials and things like that.

In practice, we have found that people who want to get into a building will find a way, but we do have the authority and the code.

And then again, in terms of enforcement of these standards, they cover a wide range of issues ranging from peeling paint to cracked windows, all the way to, you know, crumbling foundations.

And so we typically, you know, have to kind of prioritize our attention and resources.

And in a building like this one in the picture, if it just has kind of some peeling paint, we may not issue a notice of violation just for that.

We may kind of prioritize resources there.

And there are also, I would say, some delicate situations with property owners where staff uses discretion and flexibility and compassion where it's appropriate.

So, in terms of policy options for adjusting the maintenance standards, we could start by more aggressively enforcing our current standards.

Again, that may change our ability to use flexibility where we think it's appropriate, but that's definitely one option.

We could decide that, you know, peeling paint is a priority and move on and more enforcement in that direction.

We could also change the code to raise the baseline for all buildings in certain ways.

We could decide that there are certain categories of buildings, maybe if they've been open to entry, that we just, all of a sudden, that bumps you up to a higher category of maintenance standards.

Or we could figure out some, or maybe explore, rather, some ways if a building's going to be empty for a very long time.

There are a lot of legacy cities that have huge volumes of tens of thousands of vacant buildings that have been empty for decades.

And so those cities have explored some of those more long-term vacancy problems, and we could look into those too.

In terms of fees and penalties, it took the liberty in the presentation and in the report of kind of combining those two requests from the ordinance.

I hope that that was OK.

They kind of get into similar issues of kind of the financial impacts and constraints of monitoring and enforcement of vacant buildings.

When, in terms of background, when STCI visits a property for the first time because of the complaint, we don't charge the property owner for that.

That's something that's handled by our staff through the general fund.

If a property is enrolled in the vacant building monitoring program, there is a quarterly monitoring charge associated with that.

When an inspector goes to the property, if they find that it's in good shape and maintained, there's a lower fee.

If it still has violations or worse, if it's open to entry, then there's a higher fee for that.

And so the total amount that a property owner would pay annually would, you know, be between $100,000 depending on.

how they maintain their property in the meantime.

There are penalties for unaddressed violations, like if you're issued a notice of violation and you don't correct it, we could collect those potentially, but usually that requires court proceedings or kind of a harder press.

And what are the options for quarterly monitoring charge fees not being collected?

You mentioned here that they're not always paid.

Yeah, they're not.

So we do invoice property owners for those, and a less than meaningful portion of those invoices tend to get paid in the long run.

And so what are the options for collecting those funds?

Because, I mean, if one of the things we're doing, we're talking about doing is expanding the monitoring program to include different types of buildings and creating a fee structure that compensates SDCI for its work in the monitoring program, we need to make sure that people are paying their fees.

Right, the only options that we have right now are to send the invoices to a collection agency.

We get a very small percentage of whatever the collection agency collects, comes back to the general fund.

We'll write them off after some number of years, and I don't know how many dollars we've written off in the last four or five years, but as Christina mentioned, we collect a fairly low percentage of these monitoring fees.

We do.

We should take a look at what some of the other cities do that have robust vacant building monitoring programs, because I think that's a key element of making this work for Seattle.

Because, I mean, I think you mentioned that in your report that you only have two inspectors right now.

And if we're going to increase, again, the number of buildings, in this program by changing the types that you enroll.

We need to have more inspectors and those inspectors costs must get covered by the program.

Okay, great.

There is also, in terms of just kind of what it can cost a property owner, occasionally a property will be very messy, and a CCI will work with the Conservation Corps through the Parks Department and have them go on site and actually clean it up.

So the picture on the screen is, I think, a week or two ago.

We had the Conservation Corps out cleaning up a property, and those cleanups, depending on the condition, It costs between $1,000 and $15,000, and so we have more success collecting those.

We end up putting a lien on that.

We often will get a court order if we really have a big cleanup.

So I'll say our big cleanups will go to court, get an order, and then we can record.

the judgment and a lien against the property.

So we get that.

It may take us several years.

The big ones we think are worth the tradeoff of going to court.

The smaller ones haven't yet gotten to that point.

So policy options related to what you were discussing, explore ways to improve cost recovery.

It can be tricky again.

Some of the vacant buildings that are chronic issues were problems before they became vacant and end up becoming part of an estate.

That also makes it more complicated to try to recover costs, but we can certainly look into different accounting practices and billing practices that could help out with that.

And then the rest of the alternatives, or I guess the next couple of them, kind of depend on how the monitoring program is structured.

So depending on what the enrollment triggers are, if we made some changes to the program, we could similarly adjust the monitoring charges.

So if we had a two-tiered program, We'll lower it for compliant properties and raise it for different scenarios.

You know, have it be an escalating charge if there's a repeat problem, things like that.

One also alternative is right now our monitoring program is on a quarterly basis, and if we increase the frequency of that, that would not necessarily increase the per visit cost, but it would certainly be a harder push.

on property owners as well, and potentially also improve our ability to monitor and enforce those properties.

As we mentioned, we have some alternatives for, some options for civil penalties.

We don't collect those very often, again, because we have to kind of push through the law department to make those happen, but we could explore raising those.

And then just, you know, general catch-all.

I'm always open to exploring different ways.

Yes.

Moving on to building evaluation.

So as Faith and as Councilor Johnson expressed, I believe earlier, we have a current process for unfit buildings to be So that's like a sagging roof or a failing foundation or the physical structure is not habitable for humans.

We can order that they be repaired, replaced, or demolished.

And the existing processes we have to pursue that, there's a complex financial evaluation process where we kind of look at the cost to repair and the cost to replace and do this ratio.

And then in the legislation last fall, council gave us the authority also now to consider the history of the building and whether there have been break-ins and dangerous activity there, and so that's a new pathway.

We have, in 2018, used that twice already, and we have two other buildings coming up for, kind of queued up for the unfit process.

It does seem that you're still using the valuation process.

We are.

How do you determine when you use the valuation process versus when you use the history of break-ins, dangerous activity?

If we have good information from the police or fire department, we're using the shorter process.

And our inspectors about two months ago met with both police and fire, and they've come up with kind of a little form with the right language that helps us say it really is the sort of public health or safety hazard that we need.

in order to take the more quick approach.

Okay, thank you.

And just for clarity's sake, regardless of the two pathways that we would use to pursue, prepare, or in this situation, demolition, there's still always an opportunity for the property owner to kind of appeal that and contest that, and so there's a legal procedure for that.

So ways we could streamline that process.

There may be ways that we could, on a business practice end, buy new technology or do little things here and there that would help.

Historically, we only did a couple of these a year, so it probably wasn't worth buying a new software tool.

But if we got up into doing, you know, dozens of them a year, that may be something worth pursuing.

And we could also explore whether we could develop some clear criteria for the worst kind of case buildings.

Like if there is a missing roof, like the building in the picture, kind of the plain face judgment of whether a building is ready for demolition.

I could look into having very clear, defensible criteria for that.

And if we were interested in trying to figure out the condition of structures sooner before they look like this building in Ravenna up here, we could explore ways for property owners to self-report the condition, or having more detailed inspections.

Those are, I think, ideas we had not gone down the path very far of, but certainly there's some opportunity to think about those in more detail.

And then I think from here, I'm going to pass it off to Faith to talk about the last piece.

Right.

The last one was to look at the idea of the temporary caretaker program and the council heard from WELD Seattle last year.

I'm really happy to report that we continue to be in touch with WELD.

WELD has actually just formed a new coalition agencies, housing providers, interested developers to look at the idea of short-term but temporary housing in homes that are slated for redevelopment in the coming, you know, six months to a year or two.

So we are helping them.

We've reached out with one of our senior inspectors and the vacant building checklist to help them make sure everybody knows what we think is habitable so we don't wind up in those situations.

We're also now just, we've just completed a flyer that we'll hand out to applicants at the permit counter at pre-ops.

We have a flat fire.

This one is sort of fun and fancy.

It opens from, I don't know where the camera is, but it, does this work?

It opens up from a picture of a very bad looking vacant building house and then talks about options that you can approach the city with for keeping tenants in your home.

So that's, I think, a pretty good accomplishment.

want to continue to promote these sorts of ideas.

It really is a great new process.

It's a little different, but there are people who you can get a tax credit if you're providing transitional housing.

So that's beginning, I think, to capture people's attention.

And then it saves our inspectors work because the house isn't vacant.

So I'm happy to report we've made some good progress on that option.

And I think that wraps up most of what we have for today's presentation.

Clearly, here's some interest in using the tools that we have.

And I know you always hear from me, yes, my inspectors are really busy.

vacant building monitoring takes a lot of time and it doesn't really pay for itself yet.

But open to additional thoughts from you that we'll do our best to follow up on.

Well, I think I'm grateful for the time, Faith and Christina in particular.

And, you know, we don't currently have any schedule for an update of the ordinance, at least in front of the committee, but open to concepts as we contemplate what a 2019 work plan would look like to think about ways that either folks around this table from the council side or folks around the table from the SDCI side would like to see us make some changes in order to make sure that the program works better.

So happy to facilitate that in whatever way we might want it to be.

Thanks.

I just have a quick question on some of the options that you've provided.

Does option B, problem-based, all violations, no code changes, does it encapsulate option C, redeveloping properties, no code changes?

Because under the option C, redeveloping properties, and the redeveloping properties option is your recommendation of the options.

you do require that there's been a violation even under the redeveloping properties option.

So I'm just wondering if B is sort of developing properties with violations and non-developing properties with violations.

I think B encapsulates C and that's just what I'm trying to get a handle on.

So I kind of scoped them to be kind of mix and match potentially.

So it can be, awkward to imagine changing one thing without changing the other, but we could do any combination of those two things.

I'm very interested in option B if it does, in fact, include by its definition option C, which I think it does.

And so maybe as a next step, it would be helpful to get some information, some fee-related information of what a fee would be, because you say that that would result in four times as many properties enrolled in the program.

I think that would be really helpful for discussion of next steps.

Four times as many properties enrolled, does that equal four times as many inspectors out there monitoring those properties, presumably?

depends on what else we don't do.

So, and some of those properties we would be at anyway.

So I don't know if it's a one-to-one ratio, but four times as many would be probably more work than I can afford with current staffing, but we can look at that.

And Alex had some District 1 specific stuff.

I know we don't have time to cover it, so maybe you could share it with folks.

I do want to highlight one thing that was in that presentation.

STCI in its report defined what types of properties get into the vacant building program as it is now.

And it says other times properties have much more significant violations that are not corrected right away or quickly return after being addressed.

Such properties are typically enrolled in the program and visited quarterly until they're no longer vacant.

So that doesn't coincide.

with the experience in District 1. In District 1, there are significantly more buildings that have repeat violations than the number of buildings that are in the monitoring program.

There's only, again, two buildings in the monitoring program.

There are significantly more who have repeat violations.

And so, to me, that speaks to my interest in, I know you say that a number of these things just require business practice changes and would not necessarily require code changes.

I'm interested in looking at some code changes because I want to make sure that what you describe as your business practices are really what is being implemented.

I think it's good for the public to understand, and an ordinance helps do that so they know Not only do they understand, they know what to expect in response from the department.

Understood.

Yeah, we'll take all this back to the executive.

Great.

Thanks.

Excellent.

Thank you for your patience.

Thanks for being back with us.

Looking forward to continuing.

Noah, shall we move on to agenda item number five?

Clerk file 314346, application of the University of Washington to prepare a new major institution master plan for the University of Washington Seattle campus at 4015th Avenue Northeast.

Welcome the always patients, and we're grateful to have you here with us, Lish Whitson.

Thank you.

So as a reminder for those folks that might just be tuning in to us an hour over time, we are in the phase of the major institution master plan process where with the University of Washington program we have an identification of potential amendments.

We're intending to spend today talking about those amendments, but not taking any action on those amendments with an objective of taking action at our meeting on the 19th, where we'll have lots of time for debate and discussion on that, I promise.

And also, as a reminder, at that point, if we were to approve that action on the 19th, the bill would go, the resolution would go to full council for action, and then the process, if the resolution were adopted by full council, would then move over to review by the University of Washington Board of Regents, and I believe the Department of Construction and Inspections as well.

Yeah, anyone who submitted a petition so that people who are eligible to testify at the hearing that you held.

And then they provide comments for us to consider as part of what could be a final bill for final action sometime after our budget process.

So I did okay, Alish.

That's not too bad.

That was perfect.

So what other introductory remarks would you like to make, Mr. Whitson, before we talk about the actual text of amendments?

So under the city-university agreement, which governs the development of the master plan and how the council reviews it, you are required to prepare a preliminary recommendation.

And that preliminary recommendation should, in preparing the preliminary recommendation, you should consider the record before the hearing examiner and the comments received at your public hearing.

And then that gets distributed.

So you held a public hearing about a month ago.

July 31st.

You have a significant record in front of you from the hearing examiner.

Based on that, council members have identified a number of different amendments that could move forward.

I have a memo for you that includes two attachments.

The first is a draft of that preliminary recommendation, which at this point recommends approval of the master plan with conditions.

Most of those conditions would be the conditions recommended by the hearing examiner, but with amendments proposed by council members.

That draft resolution includes three attachments, findings of fact, conclusions based on findings of fact, and from what you heard at the hearing and see in the record, the conditions, and then there's a fourth amendment that are proposed zoning changes that would be implemented with the final legislation.

Is it fair to say, Lish, that the findings of facts document that is part of that update is mostly about sort of tone changes from the hearings examiner's perspective to a council perspective?

Yeah.

Yeah.

As we get into specific language related to some of these amendments, some council member amendments might propose changes to the findings of fact or add more information from the record as appropriate.

But the draft findings, the fact that you have attached to today's agenda reflects mostly technical changes of tone between what was the hearings examiner's tone to a city council focused tone.

Right.

Council members have identified 14 amendments which are found in attachment two.

And I will try and very briefly walk through those, and please stop me as you wanna say anything about them.

Council Member O'Brien proposes to require the university to provide housing for staff earning up to 80% of area median income.

Anything you'd like to add, Council Member O'Brien?

I think it speaks for itself.

Folks have any questions?

Councilmember Herbold recommends requiring participation in the mandatory housing affordability program in those instances when industry partners are leasing space.

So when what is generally going to be institutional space is instead acting as office or research and development space.

That space in other parts of the city would be subject to the mandatory housing affordability program and this amendment would require it to be treated similarly on the University of Washington campus.

Thoughts?

Sure.

I just want to highlight sort of the needs, the affordable housing needs in the University District.

According to documents on the record, an estimated 560 employees earning less than 50% of AMI and 160 employees earning between 50% and 80% AMI will be hired during the life of the master plan.

It seems pretty clear that there isn't currently sufficient affordable housing in the plan.

I do appreciate the fact that the University of Washington is voluntarily agreeing to provide some affordable housing.

The city planning documents, I think, conclude that the current and anticipated city regulations will not fully mitigate the affordable housing impacts of the anticipated growth.

I just want to flag that, you know, while I'm not opposed to the concept, I think it's going to be really difficult for us to apply because I would imagine that unless the University of Washington is building a building at the behest of a non-institutional partner,

They need to know in the front end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, I have questions that still need to be resolved about the application of MHA to a property that the University of Washington would be constructing and how we would find that out at the front end about a pre-leasing agreement, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So.

There are definitely some implementation issues.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, sure.

Switching over to transportation, Council Member O'Brien proposes to lower the share of single occupancy vehicles.

In 2028, from 15% to 12%, this would also include lowering the 2018 share from 20% to what is being experienced as 17% on the University of campus today under the university's data.

2018 the share of trips by single occupancy vehicles goes from 20% down to 17% and then 10 years later The share goes from 15% down to 12% Similar drop but the sort of front-end Estimate is better tied to what we're currently seeing anything to add councilmember Brian

I'll just say that I think this at a high level gets at a lot of the kind of urgency around the transportation issues.

And we'll talk about a couple more in the coming minutes, but I think this is intended to give the university the flexibility to address that issue, but also make clear that we want to see continued improvements.

I believe the record, I don't remember the exact data, but showed that really significant significantly low numbers of students in single occupancy vehicles.

There'd been some call for looking at setting a target separately for students, for staff, and for faculty.

And I think this overall goal, reducing it, my hope is that we see reductions across the board.

Student numbers are so low to achieve this number, it's not clear how much lower that could go.

And I know we've seen, I mean, one of the great stories out of the University of Washington is their success in getting students to make mode shifts.

And I think that's part of a really robust UPAT system for students.

And so as they're looking to reduce the overall mode and look at the two buckets that are higher, that is certainly a model that I hope they'll be looking at for similarly robust access to transit, affordable transit.

Lish, I have not had a chance to read through the specific detail of this.

So as we contemplate this, I'd love to make sure that if we were to adopt this, it would be tied to the opening of a light rail system to a particular geography as opposed to a particular year.

I could envision a scenario where, for example, the Trump administration says, No, Seattle, you don't get your full funding grant agreement for Linwood Link and where we would have thought we were going to open all the way to Linwood by a particular date of 2023, that either timeline is delayed or we're only opening station by station as opposed to the entirety of the line.

So as we contemplate those, I want to make sure that we are not binding the university to a timeline that they have no control over, because the opening of light rail system is not within their purview, it's within Sound Transit's purview.

So, walking that fine line, I think, Council Member O'Brien, with your permission, would be something that I'd want us to consider as part of that.

I'm open to exploring that.

Councilmember O'Brien and Johnson both recommended amendments related to the parking for residence halls.

Currently in the plan there is a cap of 12,300 spaces for parking on campus, but that cap does not include parking associated with residence halls.

There are currently 1,878 parking spaces that are not subject to the parking cap.

This amendment would include those 1,878 spaces more or less.

I think some of those spaces are not residence hall, but like loading spaces that still would not be included, but we don't have that broken out.

So the cap would increase to 12,545 spaces, residence halls.

There's also currently in the plan a requirement for parking associated with residence halls, which would be removed under this amendment.

So the university would be able to decide how many parking spaces they provide for those.

Up to that cap?

Up to the cap, yes.

And can you remind us, I know you know the number off the top of your head, how many, if we were to account for residence hall parking spaces, how many total parking spaces?

That's 12,545 because currently there's 10,667 spaces on campus.

Got it.

Not discount, not accounting for those residence hall parking spaces.

Right.

Any further comments, Council Member Brown?

No.

I'm willing to combine our efforts on this one.

Thank you.

Council Member O'Brien proposes to go a step further and lower the parking cap from 12,300 spaces currently to 9,000 spaces, which better reflects the actual parking use.

The transportation studies prepared for the plan showed that 6,720 parking spaces are in use during the midday peak when school is in session.

So adding the 878 spaces that are not subject to the camp to the 6,720 spaces that are actually in use, you get to just under 9,000 spaces.

This amendment would require that the university close parking facilities before they could provide new parking facilities somewhere else on campus.

And so I'm open to continuing to think through this one.

The issue, the reason I put this forward and the issue I'm trying to address is just this reality that There seems to be excess parking.

And if that parking, if additional parking is billed or even the existing excess parking is utilized at a higher rate, it's going to create significant transportation impacts.

The thing I want to be sensitive to and would like your help thinking through what's in the record on this, I know there's a lot of surface lots around Husky Stadium.

My sense is those are pretty underutilized, probably midday during a business day.

But on a game day, they're probably overutilized on the six or seven days a year or whatever, there's a home game going on there.

And so I want to think through, I don't, you know, I don't, I'm not interested in, you know, taking 1,000 spots away for the seven days of game day.

I'm concerned about those being utilized.

on a daily basis for other commutes.

And so that's the path I want to walk.

And so in the next week or two, we'll keep thinking through how to finesse that.

So as I hear that, I just want to make sure that I understand Council Member Bronson.

I'm going to say it back to you and make sure that this is consistent.

The objective here is to use what you've got before you build new parking spaces.

enough parking on campus to be able to accommodate most everything considering what is currently out there is underutilized.

So rather than allow for the construction of new parking spaces associated with new development, we would cap the number of parking spaces at the number that is currently existing on campus and say you can't go higher than that until you can show us 100% utilization.

Is that the goal?

which helped me out, the 9,000 number, is that more than exists on campus right now?

Yes.

Okay.

It's less, isn't it?

I thought you said it was 10,000.

Sorry.

It's less than exists on campus.

It's more than is being used on campus.

Right.

So that's largely the concept.

But there's excess parking capacity even with what already exists.

And I strongly want to discourage a situation where There's how can we fill up those existing spots?

Because I think it's OK to have those spots for the handful of game days where they're critically important for making that system work.

But I don't want those six days to turn into 300 days of parking utilization, because I think the transportation impacts for our system are going to be significant.

So a little bit of work to do there.

And let's just keep talking about how we can fix that.

The next amendment is related to bike parking facilities and what is defined as a bike parking facility.

And this amendment would include showers and other facilities like lockers that are commonly seen as part of a system of bike parking for commuters.

And there's obviously a whole range of needs for bike commuters and oftentimes just a Simple bike rack in front of a building works great, especially for folks that are actually living on campus and bouncing back and forth to classes.

But for folks that are trying to get people to commute from longer distances, there's a different need.

And so trying to make sure that we're not saying simple bike racks for whatever the number is is enough, because there needs to be a mix of these kind of more robust facilities, including showers.

Do we have anything on the record that talks about showers within buildings?

Yes.

Somewhere there is a mention of how the university currently provides showers for some bike parking.

And presumably that's not related to the dorms, which of course are going to have a bunch of showers, but is more related to the commercial work environment.

The university has a plan for the Burke-Gilman Trail to, over time, both widen and separate modes along the trail, so separate paths for pedestrians and bicyclists.

They've implemented this in parts of the campus.

They proposed in their comments to council to implement trail separation.

So they have proposed language and Council Member O'Brien's amendment would include that and it would also provide a little bit more clarity about when trail widening would occur and clarify that when developments occurring next to the trail then it should be widened for some of the areas along the central campus so north of the Rainier Vista development may not occur within the lifespan of this plan but it ties it more directly to that timing.

Child care.

Councilmember Herbold proposes an amendment that would recognize statements the university has made regarding growth in child care slots that they expect over the life of the plan.

It would encourage them to provide that space by exempting child care space from the six million square foot limit that is in the plan.

new child care spaces wouldn't apply towards that limit.

And it would encourage the university to use resources the city has to support child care and preschool.

Anything you want to add?

Yeah, we hear that even without the projected growth, university staff are already experiencing multi-year wait times to access child care for their children.

Child care is typically more expensive than low-wage workers at the University of Washington can afford, and so I appreciate the stated interest in continuing to explore a childcare voucher program for employees.

The UW is the second largest employer in the city, and so I think the comp plan policies that we have related to childcare should apply to our second largest employer.

And that is the need to create equitable access to high quality early learning services and support families so that their children can be prepared for school.

I would just add two other quick contextual points.

Obviously the decision from many of our faith institutions in the university to redevelop their properties is having an impact on child care facilities in the neighborhood.

So the numbers aren't dwindling but There's concerns about whether or not those existing providers will be able to continue to stay in the neighborhood.

But my question from a technical perspective, which is the proposal in front of us contemplates the allowance of up to 6 million additional square feet.

This proposal would effectively exempt any child care facility that's developed by the University of Washington from that six million, correct?

So in theory, if they built one million square feet of childcare space, that one million would not count towards the six million cap that we would put on there.

Right.

There are other caps in the plan in terms of individual buildings and development sites that would limit to some extent, but I think they've built in about 12 million square feet total under the plan, so yes.

I think it's very unlikely that anyone would build 1 million square feet on the University of Washington campus.

I agree, but I, you know, it's easier to talk in those generalities than it is to say if we're going to build 100 square feet of, so.

Okay, that's helpful.

Good.

The next two amendments are both related to zoning changes proposed for the West Campus.

The West Campus is the area west of 15th Avenue.

And these two sites are both close to the University Bridge, so on the west end of the West Campus.

W22 is located north of Campus Parkway on the west side of 11th Avenue Northeast.

basically where the university bridge lands in in the U District.

And it's currently zoned for 105 feet.

The proposal would take that up to 240 feet.

This amendment would keep it at 105 feet.

The second is a site on the west side of...

There are three blocks, actually, on the west side of the University Bridge that currently have height limit of 65 feet.

And this amendment could keep the height at 65 feet rather than the 100 and I can't remember what the height is proposed for that site.

It's I think it's proposed at 160 but conditioned to 130.

Right.

Thank you.

So as it relates to site W22, the issue that's been raised is that this area is considered the gateway to the university district and a 240 foot height would sort of block the gateway.

A gateway is a visual thing that if you have a very large building in front of it, there's no gateway.

And so this would allow for a more gradual transition from this.

surrounding area, the newer multifamily residential buildings in the area are 65 feet high.

So the keeping it, or not keeping it, but proposing to maintain the site's current 105 foot limit I think preserves both the gateway element of this particular location as well as a better transition.

As it relates to site W37, unlike the other West Campus sites being considered, it sits in a kind of a unique location on the west side of the bridge, as Lish mentioned.

And again, the concern is that the proposed height is inconsistent with the zoning in the surrounding area.

As we contemplate those two in particular, Lish, for our next conversation, I think it'd be helpful for us to have some visuals, both of the existing zoning, the proposal from the University of Washington, but then the built environment.

You know, sometimes let's just pick on previous zoning decisions we've made.

The public perception may be that The neighborhood has 25 or 30 foot tall buildings when the zoning may actually allow for 65 foot tall buildings.

And the proposal may take that up an additional story or two to have a better sense about how many buildings might in the neighborhood have already built out to that.

you know, existing zoning capacity, or would be unlikely to redevelop because of the relatively recent nature of their development, it would be helpful to understand the context of these proposals.

Okay.

Councilmember O'Brien has a proposal related to the priority hire program.

This is a program that the city, county, port, and the convention center all use to support equitable hiring for construction projects, for major construction projects.

And this wouldn't be binding, but we would just state this is a good goal and we'd like you to incorporate it.

Yes.

So recitals have that sort of flexibility where we may not necessarily need to point to something directly in the record, but allow for us to provide encouraging statements, for example?

Right.

OK.

Yeah.

At your hearing, you heard a number of people make statements about the importance of small businesses in the U District and on the University of Washington campus.

Council Member Herbold has an amendment that would exempt space for small businesses from the 6 million square foot cap.

Not really anything to add here.

I know this doesn't quite accomplish the goals that were requested.

In addition to the reduction of small business leasing from the cap, I think there's also an aspirational request for the university to work with the small business community to look at opportunities for leasing space on campus.

They, I think the request or the recommendation from the community was to do something to kind of require that.

I think this is a good step towards that without fully realizing that request.