Land Use Committee - Special Meeting 4/30/2025

All right, good morning.

The April 30th, 2025 Special Land Use Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.37 a.m.

I'm Mark Solomon, Chair of the Land Use Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Chair Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Chair Solomon?

Present.

Chair, there are five members.

Thank you very much.

All right.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

So thank you all very much and thank you for your patience coming this Wednesday morning to discuss land use.

As always, thank you to our city clerks and central staff and SDCI for helping us prepare for today's meeting.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up for this morning?

Okay, two in-person, two remote.

Great, thank you.

Each speaker will get two minutes.

We'll start with the in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the instructions for the public comment period?

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

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

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

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

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

That is Lily Hayward.

Thank you very much and good morning Chair Solomon and committee members.

My name is Lily Hayward and I'm here speaking on behalf of the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association to express our support for the proposed code amendments to streamline permitting of light rail under your consideration today.

The Chamber and DSA are working with stakeholders representing the region's large and small employers, arts and culture organizations, property owners, freight operators, sports teams, and community leaders to ensure that light rail construction doesn't undo the investments made in downtown's recovery.

Seattle's downtown is the economic, cultural, and transportation core of our region, home to more than 337,000 jobs, 108,000 residents, and hosts over 10 million visitors every year.

As the Ballard and West Seattle Link Extensions move forward, we appreciate the city's leadership and partnership with Sound Transit in improving the permitting framework to ensure light rail is delivered efficiently and equitably.

We are here today to support this progress, and we also urge the council and the city's sound transit team to remain laser-focused on mitigation.

The scale and duration of downtown construction, expected to last a decade or more, calls for a coordinated strategy that maintains mobility, protects businesses and residents, and ensures downtown continues a strong recovery.

We ask that the city build on this permitting reform by ensuring robust mitigation, clear accountability measures, and transparent public engagement remain central to project planning, engineering, and permitting.

Thanks so much for your time today.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Steve Rubstello.

This doesn't really feel like a special meeting to me as the Land Use Committee has had one regularly scheduled meeting in five months.

However, I think we should take a look at a couple of things for the general public, because it looks like you're doing mainly housekeeping right now.

This has become a very minimalist committee.

I see a problem with the failure continued to look at raising the MHA fees, getting housing exactly when the buildings come online instead of two to five years later.

And I understand that the main reason for this is not just the developers don't want to pay, but there are people who don't want, people who make even less than I do in their community, let alone in their buildings.

So when you talk about being pro-housing, raise that MHA fee.

It only was meant to be for a few buildings that were going to be very expensive, very luxurious, and now everybody buys out, which is actually holding up housing, and you're destroying the housing that the people who make less than $100,000, less than $80,000 a year formerly used to live in and you're just not replacing it.

And trees, only got a few seconds left.

When the last tree is down, that's probably when you're going to react, it looks like.

You're equalizing the north end and the south end as you promised.

The trouble is the number is zero you're going for.

We should be saving trees, large trees, shade trees, trees that are good for the environment.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to virtual comments.

First up, we have David Haynes.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

How much salary has Sound Transit SD3 team pocketed over the last five years, acting like they've been working to streamline the process?

you can tell we have the wrong people in charge because they think it's more important to compete with an already established and overpriced rapid ride C bus that already goes to the same area of West Seattle that could probably beat the train if you started from the entrances to the future deep tunnel and the rapid ride D bus that goes to the same area of Ballard as the future link light rail.

What's dumbfoundingly illogical is the fact we need more density Yet West Seattle has already been enlisted as a smaller neighborhood, restricting future levels of density, negating the justification to put an overpriced train into the neighborhood that still requires a bus transfer to get to Alki Beach.

Even Ballard has restrictions on future housing levels.

This project originated from the same defund the police progressives who lived in the area who wanted to use billions of tax dollars to build their political resume.

And you all are going through with it, trying to force it.

Seattle cannot fix any of their bridges properly.

They have to patchwork fix them.

And yet you all want to build another bridge for an antiquated, rough riding, miserable train competing with the rapid ride bus, proving Seattle has piss poor planners.

It's like West Seattle and Ballard could build higher with no restrictions where a whole bunch more people could live.

This would seemingly be more of a justification for the train.

but because West Seattle has already been listed as a smaller neighborhood on the comprehensive plan and rapid ride has already been paid for, you're foolishly going through with it.

Maybe it would be better to just cancel ST3 and have better investment in oversight of sound transit two and one and force them to fix and build properly what they're still attempting to open for ST2 that has been delayed over a year because of corruption and incompetence that keeps getting a punch pulling path exempted from scrutiny.

Maybe we need a type of doge on soundtrack.

There are no more speakers.

Thank you very much.

As are no additional speakers, we'll now close the public comment period and proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one.

Council Bill 120949, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, expanding housing options by easing barriers to the construction and use of accessory dwelling units as required by state legislation.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

And see our presenters have joined us at the table.

Please introduce yourselves for the record and begin when you are ready.

All right.

Lish Whitson, Council Central Staff.

Dave VanSkyke, SDCI.

And this is the third meeting on Council Bill 120949. It would amend Seattle's zoning regulations to comply with State House Bill 7, which requires that the city allow two detached accessory dwelling units and make other changes to its ADU regulations.

And you've had two meetings on this subject, so I won't...

dive in much deeper, but we are happy to answer any questions that you have.

Great.

So are there any questions from the panel, from my colleagues for our presenters regarding this legislation?

Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair.

I just had a clarification.

I think I had asked Lish if the ADUs are counted toward the city's housing goals, and you responded that they Attached, detached accessory dwelling units are not modeled and are estimated separately, but then went on to say they are however counted toward reaching the city's housing goals when they are built.

Can you just clarify what that means?

Yeah, so the Office of Planning and Community Development has a development model where they estimate how much growth will happen in different parts of the city.

That model does not assume that accessory dwelling units will be built.

But when accessory dwelling units are built, they are counted towards the city's achievement of its housing goals.

So they're sort of on top of the base amount of growth that the city's estimating can happen in neighborhoods.

Okay, so the city is estimating zoning capacity for 300,000 units, ADUs are not included in that?

Correct.

Okay, so we're actually going to get quite a bit more, assuming that we pass the comp plan as is, we would actually get quite a bit more capacity on the ground with the ADU legislation?

Well, as you remember, four units would be allowed on every neighborhood residential lot.

So generally with ADUs, and ADUs are counted towards that four unit total.

So they are sort of captured within the estimates that we have for the amount of growth happening in Seattle.

Or they could be accommodating in Seattle.

So you're saying they're just a substitute for the four units per lot?

Right.

OK.

But they will show up once they're built?

Correct.

OK.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions?

Sure.

Yes.

Thank you, Chair.

I believe, Chair, this is the third time we've had this in committee, including the public hearing.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

Oftentimes, in the Land Use Committee, we are provided state regulations coming from Olympia that the city has to comply with, leaving us little ability to change, modify, or reject.

This is one of those moments.

and we've fulfilled the regulations and David, thank you for all your work on this and Lish for briefing me offline as well.

Seems like I'll be voting yes because there's not an option to modify, reject or change.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much.

Any other comments, questions from the committee?

If none, then I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120949. Is there a second?

Second.

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

Are there any other comments?

And I think I know where you're going, which is the amendment to, and I'll make that motion now to amend the council bill 120949 to add a provision that the effective date of the bill will be June 30th, 2025. And that's consistent with the amendment that has been circulated.

Correct?

Second.

Okay, and we have a second on that.

Great.

It has been moved and second to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 1. Okay, are there any further questions, any comments, anything we need to address?

Or shall we move to the vote?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?

Vice Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Aye.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Chair Salmon.

Aye.

Chair, there are five vets in favor and zero opposed.

Okay.

The motion carries on Amendment 1 is adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to pass Council Bill 120949 as amended.

Vice Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Rinken?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Yes.

Aye.

My apologies.

No worries.

He's just so excited.

Chair Solvin.

Aye.

I'm sure there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Great.

The motion carries on the committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended will be sent to the May 6th City Council meeting.

So thank you very much, gentlemen.

Appreciate you being here.

Now, moving forward, we'll now move to our next item of business as reflected on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item two, Council Bill 120975. In ordinance relating to land use and zoning, addressing signage, clarifying requirements, and supporting efficient permitting processes for light rail transit facilities, adding new sections to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Okay, great.

So I see that we're going to have briefing discussion and a possible vote on this.

Very good.

I see our presenters have joined us at the table.

So will you please introduce yourselves for the record and begin when you are ready.

I guess I'll start down here.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central Staff.

Sarah Maxana, Sound Transit Program Director, Office of Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit.

Angela Brady, Director, Office of the Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit.

Lindsay King, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Waiting on the presentation here.

Okay.

Just say a few introductory remarks here.

This is an initial briefing to the Council on Council Bill 120975. which would amend the land use code and also Title 25, which is the city's environmental code to facilitate siting of light rail transit facilities.

I think the chair may have misspoken just a minute ago.

This is not up for a vote today.

There's a public hearing that's scheduled for May 29th.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

No, there isn't one.

Wrong one.

Excellent.

All right, we'll get started.

Thank you council members for having us here today to present our proposed light rail land use code amendment legislation for your consideration.

As you may know, in February of this year, the mayor announced the expansion of my office to include the sound transit program.

We've enjoyed a strong track record working across city departments, external agencies and communities.

to deliver major transformative projects like the city's waterfront program, which we're very close to completing construction of, and I intend to harness our collective experience and talents toward delivery of the ST3 program with our partners at Sound Transit.

One of the key components of our office's work is to lead and manage, through an interdepartmental team and matrixed effort, a very large number of permits related to the Sound Transit 3 program, and this legislation we're bringing forward today intends to streamline that process for Sound Transit and for the city.

Sarah and Lindsey and our stellar cross-departmental team have worked incredibly hard on these code amendments alongside Sound Transit over the last several years, and it is with great pride that I hand this conversation over to Sarah to tell you why this legislation is so important to light rail in our city, and also Lindsey will follow on the more specific details of the code amendment.

Thanks.

All right.

Thank you so much for having us here today.

I cannot overstate what an incredible milestone this is for our team as we're preparing to shepherd light rail through the city of Seattle.

Our team's been working for over five years on this package of code amendments, and it is a critical step for the planning, permitting, and delivery of these investments in the city.

Maybe if we could go to the agenda slide, I'll walk through what we're planning to cover today, talk a little bit, as Angie noted, about the importance of this work to our city team, to our city at large, and then hand things to Lindsey for some specifics.

We're going to start a little bit about just we always like to couch all of our presentations in the Sound Transit 3 voter approved package and our ST3 city team that's supporting that effort.

We'll then talk a little bit more in depth on the light rail code amendments including amendments that are intended to improve the process by which we permit projects through the city, and then also amendments that will improve the outcome or the design that we see in the light rail facilities as they're constructed through Seattle.

And we'll wrap up with some next steps for the next committee meeting, as well as public hearing, and then additional legislation later this year.

So going to the next slide, we always like to start out by talking about ST3 and that ST3 was passed by over 70% of Seattle voters said yes to that package in 2016. The two primary projects that we're seeing through the City of Seattle, Ballard Link Extension and West Seattle Link Extension projects, represent the largest infrastructure projects in the city's history.

And they bring just tremendous opportunity to rethink about how community members are accessing their jobs, their destinations, their residences, how they're getting around our region, how they're accessing destinations.

And they also bring the real potential to have impacts in our neighborhoods as these projects are gonna be developed through the fabric of existing communities.

And so our team has been working very hard with Sound Transit, with community members, with stakeholder organizations on thinking about how these projects are going to be folded out into the city.

Our ST3 City team is our interdepartmental One Seattle effort to do that work, to work with Sound Transit and Seattle communities.

led by the Office of Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit.

We are absolutely dependent on the involvement of departments across the city.

Over 20 departments touch our work in one way or another.

In fact, we're joined today in the gallery by the Seattle Design Commission and members of SDOT and SDCI, who have all been instrumental in moving this particular milestone forward.

I'm gonna hand things to Lindsey to take us into the details.

Oh, sorry.

I'm gonna go back for just a second.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you for having us here today.

My name is Lindsey King and I work for Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Today, I have the honor of presenting the code amendments to support streamline permitting for the West Seattle Link Extension and Ballard Link Extension projects.

Before I do, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of my colleagues.

For the last five years, City of Seattle staff have worked tirelessly to help streamline the permitting process to support delivery of Light Rail 3 projects.

While we have a cornucopia of tools to do so, light rail code amendments are a cornerstone of our work.

The legislation you will see today was developed in coordination with subject matter experts across many city departments.

The legislation was informed by community members, business leaders, and stakeholders across the city who have participated in a multi-year planning engagement effort for this project.

Our work was done in collaboration with Sound Transit.

This work is solid, grounded in the community's best interest and balances the need for the city of Seattle to assess and mitigate impacts of the project while balancing the need to do so quickly and efficiently.

While I have the honor to present our work to you today, I champion the work of those who have created a strategy to streamline permitting for this massive infrastructure project.

What you will see today is not a reduction in regulatory authority, but a revisioning of how regulations apply commensurate with the scale of this project.

I hope at the end of my presentation, you will see the value of the code amendments and do your part to bring them to the finish line so that we can permit the project.

Let's see.

Oh, we're missing a slide.

There we go, okay.

My apologies.

Why are we pursuing code amendments?

Our code amendments have two goals.

Remove code conflicts and streamline the permit process.

Light rail transit facilities are considered essential public facilities.

Essential public facilities are a designation given at the state level to facilities that are typically hard to site because they do not fit in the built environment or people do not want them in their neighborhood.

The state statute requires that local jurisdictions do not preclude the siting of EPFs.

For our work, we are required to review the regulations that would pertain to light rail to determine if there are conflicts in code that would prevent us from permitting the project.

The second guiding principle is based in partnership.

In 2018, the City of Seattle and Sound Transit acknowledged that delivering light rail in a built environment would be very difficult if we do not work together.

To that end, we have spent years aligning the development process with our permitting process so that we can deliver light rail on time while still applying regulations.

These code amendments reflect our work to support streamlined permitting.

Let's dive in.

Our code amendments can be categorized into two themes, process related improvements and design related improvements.

Process related improvements include revisions and optimization of the processes and regulations we already apply to light rail.

We are changing how we apply the code.

This includes revisions to the master use permit process, the integration of a preliminary construction management plan and a tree and vegetation management plan.

Design improvements include the standards that will guide light rail development.

How will it be designed to fit in the Seattle built environment?

We will create new light rail development standards, revise the bicycle parking requirements, and establish the Seattle Design Commission as an advisory review body.

I'll go into each in detail.

Before I go into the MUP process, I'd like to give you an orientation to this at-a-glance slide.

For each topic, I will address the intent of the code amendment, the current state, what code would already say about how to apply regulations in a do-nothing scenario, and then I'll address the new code we are proposing, how it will work, and then the benefits of the proposed change.

Starting first with the master use permit process.

STCI issues master use permits anywhere that light rail touches a parcel, all work that exists outside the right of way.

For the West Seattle Link Extension, we anticipate 59 master use permits.

For the Ballard Link Extension, there will be more.

STCI permits include a rigorous public process.

Our goal for the MUP is to create an efficient permit process with clear regulations and ensure that we maintain the public engagement opportunities.

The primary difference between the current state and the proposed code amendments are the change to the appeal process.

Currently, MUPS are appealable twice, once to the Seattle Hearing Examiner and once via the Land Use Petition Act, otherwise known as LUPA.

Through the code amendments, MUPS will become appealable once via LUPA.

We will maintain all existing public touch points, the large white sign, the mail notice, the comment period, and our land use decision.

We'll go one step further.

For key permits of broad significance, like stations, work in environmentally critical areas, we will add a public meeting early in the permitting process so that we are in community sharing the project and able to receive feedback when it is most timely to our permitting decisions.

The revision to the MUP process makes appeals efficient, but does not detract from the public engagement opportunities that currently exist in permitting.

The preliminary construction management plan was developed in response to city of Seattle and community member concerns regarding the impacts of light rail construction, specifically multiple construction projects occurring at the same time in the same place.

Our goal is to create a strategy that shows how multiple construction activities can occur at the same time while maintaining the ability to walk, bike, bus, drive, and truck around the neighborhoods that will be impacted by construction.

This holistic approach to assessing impacts of construction is in contrast to the current requirement to assess impacts permit by permit.

For a project of this scale with the number of permits required and neighborhood level strategy is critical to the successful multi-year construction effort.

The PCMP is a tool that can be used by Sound Transit, City of Seattle staff and community members to both understand construction activities and demonstrate how light rail can be built while maintaining predictable movement of community members.

We will require a preliminary construction management plan to be submitted as a part of the master use permit application.

That will allow our preliminary construction management plan to be available for public viewing.

What is important to note, oh, I'm sorry.

The preliminary construction management plan will include a number of different things.

It'll include a list of all the required permits in a neighborhood.

a strategy for how construction would be sequenced, information about the street closures and other major projects to avoid conflicts.

It will include the location for construction staging and hall routes, detour plans, and a designated point of contact for construction communication.

What is important to note about the PCMP is it is a strategy for construction.

Sound Transit will continually be refining means and methods of construction to optimize cost and schedule.

To that end, a final construction management plan would be approved prior to commencing construction.

The two CMPs bookend the permitting process.

The PCMP would be provided at the beginning, laying out a roadmap for construction.

A final CMP would be required prior to commencing.

Similar to a PCMP, we need to think about trees at a project level.

The city will require a project level tree and vegetation management plan.

One for the West Seattle Link Extension and one for the Ballard Link Extension.

The TVMP will describe tree impacts and a replacement strategy for each extension.

This is important when you consider the alternative.

While I have identified that 59 master use permits are necessary for the West Seattle Link Extension, that doesn't include all of permitting.

When you add demo, grading, and building permits, in total, in a do-nothing scenario, SDCI would be assessing tree impacts and mitigation on each of the 300 anticipated permits.

The intention is to do something better.

Create one document with consolidated tree management information, review and approve the document with public input before permitting, and then apply the document to all of the 300 permits.

Oh, shoot, sorry, can I go back?

The TVMP is a tool that addresses tree management before, during, and after construction.

It allows community members to participate and comment on the development of a project level tree plan.

It improves the delivery of existing tree policies because it applies policies comprehensively.

early and integrated into the project footprint.

Very importantly, it also provides a vehicle for the city and sound transit to work collaboratively to replace trees early while light rail is still being built.

Oh, I need someone else to drive.

Oh, it's okay.

Okay, thank you though.

All right, I wanna take a moment to address the city of Seattle's tree policies.

The expectation is that Sound Transit meets our existing policies and that doing so at a project level will allow for trees to be more thoughtfully integrated into the project area.

The tree and vegetation management plan will show how Sound Transit will restore ecological function in environmentally sensitive locations, replace lost tree canopy and create new tree canopy, and replace lost trees from City of Seattle with a minimum of three to one.

We will also require them to locate trees in high opportunity areas, such as along public streets and within parks.

So what will be in a TVMP?

The plan will focus on the project footprint being developed by Sound Transit and include an entire inventory and map of trees to be protected and those to be replaced.

It will include documentation of the protection methods for those to be retained along with a description of the proposed tree mitigation.

It'll include the best management practices to be used during construction and site restoration requirements.

The tree and vegetation management plan is also unique and that'll show Sound Transit practices post-construction.

Sound Transit is a long-term land holder with guideway as a part of the West Seattle and Ballard Link extension.

They will be required to maintain their trees for perpetuity of the project.

Finally, and just as importantly, we will have to develop a strategy for tree replacement that cannot fit in the project footprint.

Sound Transit will be required to replace more trees than those that are lost.

a good percentage of those trees will fit within the project footprint, but not all of them.

The Delta, the trees that cannot fit within the project footprint will be coordinated with the city of Seattle, urban forestry core team and priority given to replace those trees early while light rail is still under construction.

All right, so this is where I pivot from process to new standards for sound transit.

Take a breath for a second.

Light rail transit facilities north to south will pass through 19 different zoning designations.

Each of those zoning designations has a unique set of standards that have been developed to support residential, commercial, and industrial development.

They were not designed for a linear transportation facility.

Our goal for the code amendments is to create one set of standards guiding light rail design, regardless of the location.

This will create equitable and consistent set of standards across the city.

It provides transparency for the public city staff and sound transit on the expectations for future light rail design.

It will minimize the request to modify standards on individual permits, which has slowed the process in the past.

Standards provide a minimum baseline requirement that is quantifiable, but those standards will be supplemented by design guidelines that specify the aspirational design qualities of station design.

And I'll talk more about that when I talk about the Seattle Design Commission.

The list of standards represented on this slide is not comprehensive, but it does give you a flavor of the type of things that we would regulate for light rail transit facilities.

A big portion of a user experience is how someone accesses a station.

We will require full street improvements around light rail stations, but add new pedestrian lighting requirements.

Sound Transit facilities also provide many driveways, pedestrian, and bicycle pathways on their site.

We will define the standards.

We will provide standards for signs and wayfinding.

Moving towards the building, we care about the design quality, whether the entrances are visible and how pedestrians move and feel around a station environment, safety being a primary key.

We will deliberate and provide standards on the quality of station facades, including blank facades and transparency that are already regulated in the code.

We will provide provisions for landscaping and street trees and weather protection at stations, platforms, and in the right of way.

A subset of development standards is bicycle parking.

The current bicycle parking requirement that exists in the land use code has never been applied to a light rail transit facility.

It was adopted after the ST2 projects were permitted and lacks key definitions that would allow us to permit it for the ST3 project.

It is also a one size fits all approach and lacks key definitions.

The anticipated demand or the required amount of bike parking would exceed the anticipated demand.

To give you an example, for the Westlake Station where the primary mode of transportation to a station is walking would require nearly 650 bicycle parking stalls.

We don't need 650 bike parking stalls at Westlake, but we do need many at Ballard and Alaska Junction where there will be the primary mode of travel or one of the primary modes would be bicycle.

Our new code requirement will tailor the amount of bike parking for station location and ridership patterns.

We will require a variety of different bike parking styles to be provided and include space for micromobility.

When we were in community, one of the biggest concerns we heard was that bicycle parking be able to accommodate all the different types of bikes that come to a station, cargo bikes being a major element on the roads today.

The benefits of our code amendments will be that we will be able to tailor the bicycle parking requirements to meet the anticipated demand for the life of the station, but we're gonna go one step further.

We are aspirational at the city of Seattle.

We hope for more bike ridership than what is anticipated.

We have a backup plan.

If the amount that is provided at day of opening meets or exceeds, if demand exceeds the amount that we provide at day of opening, we will put an in-reserve requirement in.

Sound Transit will need to provide more bike parking.

And I'll talk through what that looks like in a second.

Okay, so this slide, yay for a picture, shows the light rail stations north to south and identifies the four station typologies that we will create for bike parking.

I'll start at the top.

Terminus stations are at the end of the alignment.

These stations have a large catchment area for ridership and we would anticipate an increased bicycle parking ridership pattern.

They will have a 5.5% a day of opening, and if needed, it will go to a 7% total requirement.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, down at the bottom, you have your central stations.

These stations are located in the downtown urban center, the Westlake, Denny, and Pioneer Square stations.

These stations primarily have ridership that is walking.

They are all within a 10 minute walk shed of one another.

They have the least amount of anticipated bike parking need, but the highest amount of ridership.

We would do 1% a day opening and 2% total.

Moving from a concentric ring out from the central stations, we've defined a new mid center.

These are stations within a half mile of the downtown urban center.

They are still in a primarily walk shed environment and developed in larger, denser areas of the city.

From mid-center, you have your local stations.

These stations are primarily in residential areas with mixed ridership patterns.

Inner Bay and Soto are also unique in their geography, context and ridership patterns.

We've provided a larger requirement at 4% day of opening and 7% total.

Each of these stations has variation in ridership.

We've created a new minimum requirement.

Regardless of ridership, we would require 54 bike parking spots per station.

Our last topic is establishing the STC as an advisory review body.

It is normal for a project of this scale to have an advisory review body.

For the Sound Transit II program, we used the light rail review panel, which was mostly the Seattle Design Commission supplemented by other boards and commissions.

We asked the Seattle Design Commission to advise on the ST3 projects and our light rail code amendments will define the subjects of the SDC purview that inform our permitting decisions.

The benefits of the SDC as an advisory review body are numerous.

It facilitates a context-specific response for light rail design.

The minimum standards that we are putting in the code create baseline minimum expectations for the program as a total.

can review the stations being proposed in the context of the neighborhood, apply light rail design guidelines in order to inform the design quality contextual to that location.

It also allows a public meeting to assess the design qualities.

This slide documents the type of review that we are asking the SDC to do to provide recommendations for our permitting decisions.

We're asking the SDC to advise on architectural aesthetic and urban design qualities of the light rail facilities.

transportation, pedestrian accessibility and circulation, quality and type of public amenity features and spaces, the visibility and legibility of entries, and the integration of public art into the facilities.

That covers the six topics.

I could do a whole presentation on each one of them, but tried to summarize each into within two minutes.

So I hope that I hit the primary points.

There's a lot of information that we've provided online to help support the public's understanding of our code amendments and yours.

I welcome any questions.

And again, I'm very proud of the work that the city of Seattle has done to help streamline the process and create a comprehensive package of code amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

So anyone else on the panel like to add?

Or should we just drop right in?

Just a real quick on, just wanted to highlight some of the next steps that we anticipate and then open it up to eager to hear your questions.

and comments.

For the code amendment legislation, we're anticipating being back in front of your committee in May and we'll be prepared to bring any additional information or requests that you have at that time and then have a public hearing that is scheduled for May 29th.

Then later in Q2, we will be bringing separate legislation to City Council.

This would be to move forward on adoption of the West Seattle Link Extension project.

That's done by both ordinance and resolution.

It follows a key milestone of the FTA and sound transit that just was hit yesterday afternoon, the record of decision for West Seattle Link Extension that will allow the city to move forward with the city's actions to adopt the project, which then allows the city's departments to begin the permit process, which we anticipate for West Seattle Link Extension will be sometime in Q3.

And with that, I think the next slide just takes us to additional questions and comments.

Thank you so much for having us here today.

Great, thank you.

Colleagues, any comments or questions for our panel?

Okay.

Let's see.

I'm not sure who went first, but Council Member Rankin.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for today's presentation.

I have a couple questions for today.

Just focused on one on a matter of assessment.

What metrics should we look at to determine if this proposal were a success once we have the data to access?

That's a very good question.

So the partnering agreement that we established with Sound Transit in 2018 set a bar where we would issue master use permits within 120 days of acceptance, and that's a chess clock approach.

in our court 120 days.

We were able to look back at the old permits that were issued for Sound Transit II.

Those showed that on average that our permitting decisions were 240 days.

So our goal and the metric is to achieve master use permitting in 120 days.

Thank you for that.

Um, this likely ties in, but thinking about, you know, how much faster do we anticipate this proposal to save our link extension projects at a high level and kind of understanding at a high level, how much time loss do we anticipate could be, um, projected if we were in our current process in our current state of without addressing the code issues.

I think that's where looking back at the metrics from sound transit two, we would anticipate in a do nothing scenario, we would be closer to 240 days for those 59 master use permits.

In addition, the additional appeal opportunity would add potentially six months onto the permits.

So in total, that's quite a number of days that we're trying to shave from the process.

Yeah, certainly.

I would like to keep projects on timeline and be able to deliver.

Certainly, that's a priority for our office.

And my final question just related to bike parking and some of the elements.

Certainly, we want to find more ways to get folks bike commuting.

I know I've been using my bike to be able to bike to places and bring it onto light rail.

And I'm wondering, kind of related to that, are there car parking requirements for Seattle stations?

there are no car parking requirements for light rail stations.

Understood.

All right, that concludes my questions.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation.

A lot there, so just an initial reaction.

And the first thing, obviously, I'm going to go to is the discussion of trees.

So thank you for what you've put forth.

I'm not going to ask any questions at this point, more just I'll do that offline, but more just to make a couple of statements around what I think are the things I'd like to see there which I know that you've talked about the tree and vegetation management plan would maintain existing city policies for tree replacements so that basically three to one what I would note though is that there's I think there's some skepticism around what those replacement plans are.

I mean, we have the example now at Green Lake of a giant sequoia that's being replaced with two shore pines.

They are not comparable by any stretch of the imagination.

So wanting just to make sure that really when we're talking about replacement of tree canopy that we're looking at it holistically, not in a very narrow definition of what constitutes comparable, we need to look at height, age, volume, the whole thing.

So the other thing I'd like to have explored is looking at actually making an effort to transplant the trees.

There'd been some discussion about trying to move the giant sequoia at Green Lake, like they did in Boise, actually successfully, an even bigger tree.

But we didn't start soon enough, unfortunately.

But I don't think that that option has been utilized enough.

And if we're looking at having to take down a lot of mature trees, even tier three trees and tier two trees maybe because the replacement isn't really comparable in the long run because it's going to take so long for those trees to grow.

And also given what we're experiencing in climate, we don't have the same kind of hospitable climate.

In fact, we have a hostile climate to trying to grow trees, vegetation.

So to the extent that we can actually preserve what we have by moving them to parks and right away.

I think we should look at that.

It's expensive, but I think ultimately it's worth it.

So it's just another option I think we should be talking about.

In terms of who gets to be part of the conversation, I definitely would ask that the Urban Forestry Commission be at the table and also that community groups who have been very active about sort of the ways the tree ordinance is not working currently also have an opportunity to be at the table and that there be broad outreach because it would be nice to be able to bring some creativity to this discussion as well.

So those are sort of my high level thoughts and points at this point.

And then the other thing that I wanted to ask about relates to universal design principles and how those are going to be applied to the development design of the stations And how are we making sure that we're getting elevators, making the escalators wide enough for people not necessarily, you know, people who have walkers that want to be able to get on and off an escalator.

So how are we utilizing sort of universal design principles and designing these stations?

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Yeah, thanks.

Council Member Rivera.

Excuse me.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And thank you all for being here and also for briefing me about this earlier.

I'm going to raise a couple points that I made when we all met.

But first, I want to echo the sentiments of my colleague, Councilmember Moore, in terms of the trees.

Often we hear, and Councilmember Moore and I have similar constituents who care about trees and often we hear about tree replacement as oh we'll take down a tree but we're gonna put five more but then it's not this it's not a it is not a substitute a proper or good substitute because we've talked about the fact that it takes so long to grow a tree and If it's not the same kind of tree, it won't have that canopy.

So just having that, excuse me, I have allergies.

Making sure that as you're putting this plan together, and I was happy to see there was a plan in here to vegetation and trees, making sure that what is getting replaced is comparable to what is getting taken away.

And to council member Moore's point, if we can save the tree, that is always preferable.

So ensuring that we're really doing that work and with community on the front end, it will be important.

And then the other pieces that I know I raised with you all just preliminarily is the displacement of residents and businesses as this work is happening.

And what work are we doing to make sure that we are providing opportunities to offer folks who are getting displaced.

And I'm not sure, you know, I have not heard specifics about that, but I would like to before we vote on this legislation.

And then complementary to that is the outreach that you've currently done as you've put this plan together or that you plan to do beyond the public hearing.

I know there's a public hearing scheduled you just showed, but, um, you know, who have you done the outreach to and, and what have you heard and what we can expect to hear from, uh, residents, um, and businesses at that public hearing.

Um, it is good for us to know ahead of time what the outreach has been and what we've heard to date.

And the outreach should be robust because this is a big project.

And, you know, I support light rail.

I'm a big proponent of public transportation options.

At the same time, I want to make sure that we are addressing displacement and other issues and how do we mitigate for that very importantly.

And then the last thing I'll say, which is probably less related to you all, but just stating for the record that we're expanding light rail.

We have a lot of issues currently on light rail, and I would love to hear how we, how Sound Transit, the work that they're doing to mitigate for the current issues that we see on the light rail, including The escalators being broken, elevators out of service.

You know, we're providing the service so people will, you know, it'll benefit people and make people's lives easier and take people out of their cars as much as we can, given climate change.

And if we don't provide a system that is safe and user-friendly and reliable, folks are not going to get out of their cars and use the system.

So that needs to be part of this conversation as well.

So thank you, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

All right.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

And Council Member Rivera, I'll just start responding to some of the things that you shared.

Your comments well received.

I'm not sure that the city family is where to direct that too, because the issues that you just described are solely within sound transit's jurisdiction, a separate governing body as we know.

I know that council member Saka has brought sound transit to the transportation committee.

I've even carried some of the issues that you've just raised to sound transit on behalf of our city.

And one of the presentations that council member Saka brought to the transportation committee was Related specifically to this, what we've had the conversation about is safety, reliability, resilience, the escalators and the elevators.

And that is what I'm heartened to know is that Sound Transit is doing a better job looking in the future of those areas.

of the escalators and elevators.

I think specifically one of the problems that we have is the downtown tunnel.

We recently had to replace one of the tracks in the downtown tunnel.

This comes from the tunnel being built before light rail was a reality.

It was future proofed by putting the rails into the concrete.

which is different than if they would build a tunnel today.

The reason that those rails were in the concrete is so that we could use the buses in the meantime.

I can tell you whether it's the head house that's in City Hall Park that creates blind spots in a park that should be open or some of the access points in and out of that tunnel I got a lot of issues with it.

I'm hoping that as we continue building forward that we're able to mitigate some of those from the lessons that aren't going well, that you've well described and that I've carried on your behalf.

So I'd say, you know, and I've talked to council member Sokka about bringing sound transit back to the transportation committee.

I want to refocus on this because we're in land use committee and we're talking about permitting the next, I don't know what the cost of escalations have gotten to.

Are we above $20 billion of construction that is coming to the city of Seattle?

You're not Sound Transit?

We don't have all the numbers.

Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.

But as we talk about in the budget committee about the situation that we're in right now with reduced sales tax regarding construction, most of that's private.

But we've also been buoyed in our city's budget by Public Works, the Convention Center, the Waterfront, Climate Pledge Arena.

These are all three projects that have continued through the pandemic.

and contributed not only to union workforces, union jobs, but it also contributed into our sales tax regarding construction beyond a whole host of other things.

We right now, from a budget perspective, do not have a civics project of that scale going on.

I'm hoping and excited for Memorial Stadium soon, but that alone isn't...

the convention center, the waterfront and climate pledge arena, right?

Those are three pretty big projects.

What we have before us once it gets underway is going to be larger than those three projects that we just discussed.

So I wanna come back here because we are going to have a decade of impact in downtown Seattle.

Light rail construction is not fast, it takes a long time.

And so the mitigation strategies, again, I know some of that lies in the permitting process and Sound Transit will need to again do more than what is necessarily required in these permits.

So there's not a question for you here because again, you are not Sound Transit, you are simply the permitters of their activity.

I want to jump into some questions I have here.

One of the things that I heard is that permit appeals, appeals to permit decisions are still appealable they are being refocused, if that's the right word, the form and the batching of changes.

So can I just confirm that anything that can be appealed today in a permit will still be able to be appealed once this bill passes?

The only thing that changes is the venue or the fact that we have batched these appeals together.

Is that a correct understanding?

Yes.

Every permit is still appealable.

And so from there, can you remind us, and this gets back to time and construction, et cetera.

Time is money, especially when it comes to sound transit.

The less amount of time that we have to spend, the more money we have to build.

How many of the, did I recall it went from 120 appealable venues and four, explain it to me, down to 60?

Help me understand this better.

If you take the 59 master use permits and you round them to 60, in a current state scenario, you would have 120 appeal opportunities.

Each one of those permits is appealable twice.

In a future state scenario, they will be appealable once.

Still appealable, but 60 times rather than 120. So it's a half.

And this is because we're sending it directly to superior court rather than the hearing examiner.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And if we were to send all of these appeals to the hearing examiner, again, you're not the hearing examiner, what type of time impact would that potentially have on that office?

And what I, yeah, so maybe we'll follow up with the hearing examiner.

Colleagues, I illustrate this point to say that we utilize the hearing examiner on so many different fronts, whether it was the comprehensive plan appeals that we recently had, the list goes on and on and on.

They are already at their maximum.

if we were to, so now this is Dan editorializing.

If we were to add all of this work to their plate, we would either have to add staff, add database capacity, add office space only for a short period of time if they were still to operate like they're operating today.

So it's more of an editorial, not for you to answer.

I would love to get the hearing examiner's perspective on this as well.

I'll come back to Trees, just again to refocus us here that what we have before us is a bill about process and not about permits.

And colleagues, all of your comments are well taken.

And those are conversations that will be had during the permitting process.

I want to highlight some things that you've done well here in this, which is you are requiring trees to be planted before they're cut.

That is not something that happens and couldn't happen without this change.

And that you changed in this, the language from a three to one replacement to a minimum of three to one replacement.

While that might not seem significant, it does set us on a better playing field to have leverage to get more than three for one replacement.

Where we are today, much like each of those permits, I don't know what we're going to be able to leverage.

But I just want to raise that the team made that slight change, which puts us in a much better position.

So I just wanted to take that opportunity to thank you.

Last question here, Chair, and then we can move on.

I could sit here all day.

Bike parking.

You did mention that we will be setting up different types of parking.

We kind of ran over this pretty quickly.

Help me understand.

Are we not building bike parking that is able to be used by cargo bikes and bikes for children?

What's the problem we're solving here?

And for the record, I know the answer, but I'd like to hear it more.

I can't go into great detail about Sun Transit's existing facilities, but the general perception from the public was that they wanted bike facilities closer to station entry, have more of a commercial storefront type experience, good visibility, and be able to accommodate a variety of bike parking sizes.

Depending on how the bike parking is set up, whether it's on a wall or whether it's in a a container, those fit or they don't fit the majority of different bicycle parking bikes that are coming to the stations.

And so while we don't know what is going to be the best technology for supplying bike parking 10 years from now when stations are built, the expectation is that the bike parking rooms be able to accommodate all the different bike parking styles that would be relevant at that point in time.

I'm not sure if that meets your expectation.

Yeah, that's helpful because I can tell you from just my personal perspective, getting a cargo bike into a standard bike parking spot is not easy.

And we are seeing continued electrification of these alternative transportation methods.

One thing, though, that I don't know the answer to.

I did know the answer to that one.

Don't know the answer to.

So here we are live on TV.

You shared with us that we have minimum bike parking stalls at the outset, and if we see a need to increase those bike parking spaces, that it can be increased.

Help me understand this, because from my understanding, once we issue a permit with a specificity on anything, from bike parking to trash location to anything, we can't come back 10 years later and say, oops, can you add 15 feet to that loading dock so we can actually pull the delivery truck out of the alleyway.

So the benefit about setting up the expectation at this point in the process is that sound transit planners and staff can envision what a full build out of bike parking would look like as they're designing stations right now.

Whether or not they're utilizing the space as bike parking at this point, They can use it for something else, but there needs to be space in reserved to accommodate the additional parking built into the structure and station environment at this point in the design.

What we will do once station's operational is do yearly surveys to figure out if we are at an 85% utilization rate.

Once we trip the 85% utilization rate, Sound Transit would then activate the additional space for more bike parking to be provided.

Sorry, what's the leverage point for us to say you have to turn that storage room into bike parking now?

The fact that it is in the code.

So it's in the code that we can come back and require the change.

Yes.

And if they don't...

Yes.

And we could also condition the permit.

Okay.

To utilize...

to do the annual survey and then at the point of 85% provide the additional bike parking.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Last bit here is just appreciation for the uniform design and building standards across 19 distinct zoning districts.

The reason that I share this appreciation with you is the same reason colleagues that Councilmember Saka brought Sound Transit into his transportation committee to describe and discuss the different changes that Sound Transit's making in order to streamline and save money.

Right now, colleagues, West Seattle is way over budget.

Ballard is over budget.

Neither of these projects have been baselined.

I'm excited to hear that the record of decision has been made for West Seattle.

And what Sound Transit is looking through is how do you make the support columns smaller?

Can we have precast concrete instead of pouring the concrete in the guideways as we're building it?

These types of building changes have the potential to reduce the cost of construction, and the bill before us will then leverage that as well.

Because right now, in Sound Transit's board meeting last week, there was already a discussion of building minimum operating standards, which is not good.

And so we as the city do need to be doing as much as we can to support the other agency, Sound Transit's projects.

No question there, Chair.

Appreciate you having the bill before committee.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Strauss, Vice Chair.

There's so much that you've presented.

I mean, there was a lot of meat in that presentation, so thank you very much for that.

And as has been mentioned, there's much about this particular project that I have questions about that are more appropriate for Sound Transit to respond to.

So I have to be mindful that for this committee, for our purpose, it's really just looking at the land use, the zoning stuff and not the other stuff, which is difficult because it's hard to separate them, right?

Because not only does this project impact land use, it is transit and it's also public safety, right?

I've had the benefit of, in my previous role, of looking at the station placement, station design for West Seattle and Soto, and looking at the design for those places with the public safety lens, right?

So what I'm seeing your, like slide 13, about the design standards in slide 17, I'm seeing crime prevention through environmental design baked into that.

So given my background, that really appeals to me, so I want to thank you for that.

At the same time, I'm hearing the concern about tree removal and tree replacement.

I would just like to emphasize what Council Member Moore said.

about rather than tree replacement, tree relocation.

If we can, you know, it's possible to relocate mature trees without damage.

Is it expensive?

Yep.

And, you know, again, depends on where the placement of the tree is.

If the equipment to...

that happened.

So there may be some logistic things that need to be taken into consideration.

But given that we have an overabundance of heat islands, given that we have less tree canopy than I think we want, the more we can relocate a mature tree as opposed to replacing that mature tree with a sampling that's not going to give us the benefits for 30 to 50 years, I think it's worth spending that money, you know, to do that.

At the same time, again, this is more for sound transit than it is for this body.

The concern that Councilmember Rivera made is something that I've expressed as well is Making sure, and I think Council Member Saka has also alluded to this as well, making sure that those businesses and homes that are displaced by this project are made whole.

There's going to be a lot of disruption to a lot of folks.

And how do we mitigate that?

How do we make those folks who are going to lose their homes or lose their businesses because of this expansion, how do we make them whole?

We've already seen in my district, D2, what happens when light rail comes in and people aren't made whole.

When communities are divided by light rail running down the middle of the street.

So I would like those experiences not to be repeated in other neighborhoods.

So again, probably more of a thing for Sound Transit than for you, but something that I also just like to get on the record.

And I don't think I have any more questions for you.

We've had an opportunity to speak before.

I do appreciate what you've been able to give us today and share with us.

And again, focusing in on what's the charge from you in front of this committee really does count down to the code changes, the zoning stuff, the specifics of the project that are sound transits to answer.

Maybe this committee would be interested in having sound transit come before us, especially when we're talking about stakeholder engagement.

What are they doing to inform people about this project and this process?

Did you have something else, Council Member Rivera?

Thank you, Chair.

In response to something you're saying, and I agree with all the points that you made, and I appreciate your leadership.

And I also want to acknowledge that I've had the pleasure of working with Angie Brady before in her role, she was very instrumental in the waterfront.

So I am really pleased to see your leadership in this new role and also your office being the R1 Seattle working with all the city departments and being the centralized location for all of this work.

And so I wanna acknowledge you and your team, and I am happy to see that you're taking this on.

I wanna say, Chair, that you're absolutely right.

These things can't be separated and just reemphasize that Sound Transit is a separate organization, Our role is to give the permitting and those pieces of it.

And we owe it to our residents to make sure that when we're doing that, we are working with that agency to ensure that all these other issues are being addressed, that we are clear, that we are permitting a project that is getting done.

in a way that we've discussed, and I won't go through all those points again.

So to me, it's a due diligence as part of our work to permit this project that I believe many of us are in support of and making sure that it is done right.

And so to me, it's not a separate issue.

It is very much the same issue, and we really need to have those questions answered, including the very important outreach pieces.

because that's how we take care of our residents, both our home residents and our small businesses, especially who are very impacted by these projects in our city.

And that's how we do this one Seattle way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Any further comments or questions from the committee?

Hearing none, I want to thank you again for your presentation today.

I know we will have you back, and I look forward to hearing from you again.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

So we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Our next meeting is Monday, May 12th, 9.30 a.m.

Is there any further business to come before the committee?

Hearing none, we are adjourned.

The time is 1054 AM.

Thank you very much.