Land Use Committee 2/7/2024

Go ahead, Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The February 7th, 2024 regularly scheduled meeting of the Land Use Committee will come to order.

It's 2.01 p.m.

I'm Tammy Morales, Chair of the Committee.

Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Councilmember Wu?

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Chair Morales?

Here.

Three present.

Thank you.

Let the record show Council Member Wu is here.

Council Member Strauss is excused for today.

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

Hearing no excuse, today's agenda is adopted.

Before we move to public comment, I just want to welcome everybody and say I'm excited for all of you to be here.

This is the first council meeting, Land Use Committee meeting of the year.

It is my first council meeting as chair, committee meeting as chair.

So I know he's absent today, but I do wanna thank Council Member Strauss for his past leadership of this committee.

I'm really excited to be serving as chair.

As a trained neighborhood planner, I'm eager for us to set a vision for how Seattle can change and grow.

how we can ensure that we accommodate and support the creation of hundreds of thousands of units of housing that we know we need, but not really just to focus on units of production per se.

I think for us, the question is how we set the intention of building healthy neighborhoods with thriving small businesses and an array of essential services for our neighbors.

We know Seattle is changing rapidly, and while our economy is booming right now, we also know that there are lots of folks who are struggling to survive in our city.

You don't need a formal planning education to see what we all know, which is that we are severely short of the number of affordable housing units we need.

Our permitting processes can really hamstring the expansion of our small businesses, and there's a lot of work to do to heal from the scars of redlining and racial exclusion across the city.

So we're living in a city where access to many of our daily essentials are out of reach for folks.

And in my role as chair of the Land Use Committee, I do wanna continue working on these issues that are gripping the city, affordability, neighborhood business districts, finding land use solutions to our homelessness, because I know that my district is suffering from these issues and I know that folks across the city are dealing with these as well, so.

I'm excited to continue the conversations and coalition building that we started in my first term to really focus on solutions for our families.

Seattle, where everyone has access to essential goods and services, to public space, to education and healthcare, to really the essential services that they need that are all within walking distance or rolling distance for some.

from their home.

This afternoon, I will say Council Member Moore and I were at El Centro de la Raza for the announcement of the affordable housing funding.

It was great to hear from the awardees about their intentions and the work that they're doing to really build neighborhoods that do allow folks who have access to transit, grocery stores, banks, childcare, schools and parks.

We have neighborhoods in the city where folks have easy access to these things and my hope is that through the work that this committee does over the next two years, we can sort of set that bar for families across the city to have similar access to the things that they need.

So with that, I will go ahead and open it up to public comment.

I want to say I will moderate public comment in the following way.

We'll have up to 20 minutes for public comment.

We do have, it looks like about 15 people signed up online and I think five or six people here in chambers.

So we'll give everybody two minutes each and see how far we get.

And I will ask Devin to call on the folks who are in chambers first.

Let's do them and then we'll move to the folks who are signed up virtually.

Just as a reminder, you will hear a 10-second chime when you have 10 seconds left, so please begin to wrap up your comments so we can move to the next speaker.

And once we move to the folks who are virtual, if you will push star six to unmute yourself, and then you can state your name and begin.

Okay, Devin, can you start with our first speaker?

The first speaker is Ron Horning, followed by Alex Zimmerman and David Gloger.

Hello.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today.

New council, different direction maybe, hopefully.

For the last 23 years, my neighbors have been trying to acquire my property.

This legislation will help them do that.

I'm here to...

to...

ask the council, well, not really ask the council.

I'm here to declare my right under the Fifth Amendment to retain my home.

I hope no property is taken through any of this social housing or this equitable housing.

I think it's needed.

I hope it's built.

I just don't want to give up my home for it.

I've worked real hard for it.

This legislation will allow the expansion of business zones into what was single families, now is N1.

That's where I live, just off Aurora.

They will be able to build an 85-foot building 10 feet from my house under this legislation.

I believe, anyway.

Maybe I'm wrong.

But I would just like to say this is not as easy as it looks on this page.

They've cleaned this up quite a bit from September.

There was a lot of old language in it and stuff.

It's a lot better than what it was, but it still leaves the door open, I think.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Up next is Alex Simmerman followed by David Gloger.

Ze Heil, a dirty damn Nazi fascist junta.

My name is Alex Zimmerman, and I want to speak about an agenda that includes a work plan.

I'm a professional business consultant.

I give advice to many corporations in my life, small or big, it's not a matter.

This work plan is an absolutely idiotic situation we have.

This work plan is approved by Mayor Harrell.

And Mayor Harrell, from my understanding, for two years don't have one Q&A, and seventh floor closed for two years, so I'm totally confused about his mental condition right now.

So when his mental condition not so good, how is this plan, what is involved 750,000 shareholder.

You know what is mean?

What is you represent can believe him.

So my proposition very simple right now.

I demand is this happened before with many Mary, you know what does mean?

Because I come to this place for 20 year, almost every day.

We need bring him here.

or in Bertha room or in another location and you represent us, give him a question here or to public, you know what this mean?

Because I'm totally confused.

We have right now a dictator, you know what this mean?

A Fuhrer what is mentally sick.

It's absolutely in this exactly what's happened now.

You're very quiet about this.

I don't understand.

You represent shareholder.

You possibly ask him question, thousand question.

You have too many problem for too many year.

Why?

Because only idiot can approve this plan.

So go every year, same again and again, and nothing changed better.

So I demand what is called Mayor Harrell.

You know what it means.

Be here.

You know what it means.

Talk to people.

And open seventh floor.

Because only mentally sick idiots can keep for two years seventh floor closed.

I never see like this before in my life.

Every American president don't have this.

So stand up, Americans.

Thank you.

Next up is David Gloger, followed by Tiernan Martin and Steve Rubestello.

Hello, my name is Dave Gloger.

I live in District five and I am here to state my opposition to the connected connections, connected communities legislation.

for two reasons I oppose this.

One for the 80% minimum income level, medium income level, which is not nearly low enough, and also the opposition to the 5% setback, which will allow for development for greater density, but for removal of trees, which will increase the number of heat islands in our city and make the areas much more unlivable.

So I think we should do more to make these areas more livable, particularly for the income level, I would think that affordable housing would be something that teachers in the Seattle school system could afford.

Well, 80% of the income, medium income that this legislation would have is way over the salary of, the average salary of Seattle teachers is $39,000 a year.

That still doesn't qualify them.

The very people that we asked to educate our children cannot afford to live in our city.

And now you offer legislation that will not help that.

And on top of that, this legislation only applies to 30% of the units.

Are we gonna build affordable housing or are we gonna pretend to build affordable housing while we cut down more of our trees, create more heat islands and make our property less livable, less diverse and less acceptable to our city?

So I again oppose this legislation and I ask you to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Tiernan Martin, followed by Steve Rubstello.

And then last on this list is Jesse Simpson.

Good afternoon, Chair Morales and members of the Land Use Committee.

My name is Tiernan Martin.

I'm here to speak in support of the Connected Communities Pilot Program.

I am the Director of Research at FutureWise.

We're a nonprofit organization that works on land use policy and law across Washington State.

And one of my roles is to support community-based organizations in shaping land use policy with the goal of growing affordable, walkable, and complete communities.

So community development is really challenging work, but it's crucial for the cultural and economic well-being of our neighborhoods.

Every neighborhood needs affordable housing, local businesses, and community services to grow and thrive.

FutureWise urges the council to do everything it can to support the success of the city's community development organizations and aligning our zoning and development regulations with the goals of the Seattle Equitable Development Program would be a significant step towards achieving that outcome.

During my review of the proposal, I was really struck by the collaborative effort involved in its creation.

over two years of teamwork between the city's EDI partners, OPCD staff, Council Central staff, and Chair Morales' team.

That's impressive.

Although I expect the members of the committee to ask tough and thoughtful questions today, I hope you all recognize the value of this proposal and what it would bring to the city.

I look forward to the discussion and briefing and I hope that together you will swiftly enact the Connected Communities Program into law.

Thank you for your leadership.

Thank you.

Up next is Steve Rubistello, followed by Jesse Simpson.

Hopefully there'll be some changes.

The course of the city on land use has been destruction of the middle housing.

You've done real well for the people who have a lot of money.

And you've given some to people with virtually nothing.

But all those people in the middle, and I don't mean a small middle, the large middle is who is suffering the most.

And raising your MHA fees would probably be the first thing you could do.

to do that.

And there was talk of if the fees were too low when it was passed, that that could be done.

The city doesn't seem to want to review that.

I think that it's something that should be done so that we have more housing for people who need it.

How far does the train have to go for the people who actually work in the city who have jobs that don't pay 150K or 100,000 or more?

And some people are telling me now to buy a house, you better have a couple hundred thousand in Seattle for your income to qualify in a lot of neighborhoods.

So I think it's time to start taking a look at not destroying the housing that we have that's paid for, it's less expensive, and it may not be new, you may not have the newest features in it, but it's more than acceptable to a large percentage of people.

The other thing is be careful about using eminent domain and automatic expansion of zones.

We have too little review by the public of land use actions.

I can remember when people building things had to talk about things like parking and impact on their neighbors.

Now it's a very private matter.

It's like dealing with your priest.

You go to the city, you get your permit, and the neighbors live with it.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Jesse Simpson, and that's what we have for in-person speakers for this moment.

Good afternoon, council members.

I am Jesse Simpson.

policy manager for the Housing Development Consortium.

We're a member-based organization representing over 200 members across King County, including all of the nonprofit affordable housing developers, as well as architects, contractors, and more who are working to build the affordable homes that our city desperately needs.

I'm also here today speaking as a lifelong Seattleite, someone who was born in a craftsman bungalow in West Seattle that my parents had bought for $150,000.

It's now worth well over $900,000.

This gross appreciation is pushing people away from home ownership, it's pushing people out of the city, and it's exacerbating every problem that we see in the city of Seattle from the homelessness crisis to the difficulties that businesses are facing in terms of hiring and retaining skilled workers.

Reversing these trends and making our city a more affordable and inclusive place is going to require bold land use reform.

to allow people to build more homes in more places across the entire city.

I think this connected communities pilot is a great step towards ensuring a more equitable future.

It's going to allow our members and other small community-based organizations build new affordable housing across more of the city, utilizing the density bonuses, the floor area ratio increases, and the height bonuses to make all of these projects pencil better.

I urge your support and your thoughtful consideration of this policy.

Thanks for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you.

Chair, we can move on to our virtual speakers.

And then if we have anybody back in chambers, we can go back to them after that.

All right.

So the first speaker I have here today is Angela Gerald.

And I'll go ahead and unmute Angela.

Hi.

My name is Angie and I'm a member of Seattle Grassroots Landlords.

My husband and I have a few single family house rentals and I'm regularly in touch with a wide variety of Seattleites who own and operate local small scale rental housing including duplexes and triplexes, ADUs, small apartment buildings, and rooms in shared houses.

We would like to see many more Seattleites have the opportunity to be housing providers in their communities, whether that be a property they personally reside at or other local investments.

Regarding the equitable development zoning legislation that is on today's agenda, I wanted to raise awareness that there seems to be no evidence of OPCD or city council working with small housing providers or rental housing advocacy organizations despite claims of broad outreach.

This is a blind spot and a missed opportunity.

To work toward goals like preventing displacement and predatory home buying and encouraging equitable development and access to financing and ownership, it would be really healthy for council and city departments to talk to small landlords and aspiring rental owners.

I hope that in encouraging a range of diverse and affordable housing types, Seattle takes the significant losses in recent years in registrations of small-scale rental properties as motivation to turn that around by supporting more people to become and remain small rental owner operators.

Missing middle housing development should include advocacy for individual Seattleites and Seattle families to directly own and operate rental housing in local communities.

I encourage you to make that part of the discussion of EDZ and connected communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Excuse me, next up we will have Lois Martin, followed by Sandy Shetler, and then Talisha Harold.

Lois, you can push star six to unmute.

All right, I apologize.

My name is Rose Martin.

I'm a legacy resident of Seattle Central District.

I'm asking that you not pass the connected community legislation using the language of justice to add more density disproportionately zip codes furthest away from environmental equity as proposed in this draft legislation is problematic.

It should not be passed because it brings up points which need to be included in the comprehensive plan process, and to also include influencers who will be directly impacted.

Receiving input only from organizations who stand to financial benefit is not being inclusive.

This analysis is non-site specific, which does not take neighborhood infrastructure into consideration.

Blanket legislation has increased taxes for many of us who are up-zoned.

Please don't do that to us in gentrified areas for barely hanging on.

And pass legislation that doesn't help many former legacy residents by the AMA that you have set in place.

So I ask that you not pass this.

It should be part of the comprehensive plan and that other groups like Urban Forestry Commission and other community members be not just those who will profit.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Sandy Shetler, followed by Taliesha Harreld, and Saharundin, I'm sorry, Saharundin Apalhelem.

Apologies.

Hi, good afternoon.

This is Sandy Shetler.

And thank you, Chair Morales, for sharing that vision of healthy neighborhoods.

I'm speaking to this proposal, and I'm asking that it not be passed as legislation as it contains provisions which need to be included in our upcoming comprehensive plan process.

Also, in Seattle and in every U.S. city, there is a straight-line correlation between health, wealth, and having trees right where you live.

This proposal, which increases hardscapes would instead expand urban heat islands and exacerbate the tree deserts we already have in Beacon Hill and South Park.

Please reject this proposal, but unite some of its ideas with tree equity and environmental justice in the upcoming comp plan process.

Thank you for your work.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Talisha Harold.

Talisha, you can push star six to unmute.

We've lost a caller.

Okay.

Okay.

Why don't we move on to Saru Dean?

Okay.

Sarah Dean, there we go.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, this is already.

I've done.

Hi.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to provide public comment on the connected communities pilot program.

I'm here to support the program.

I have been in Seattle more than 40 years.

I have witnessed myself to see the explosive growth of population.

Also, the demand of housing.

And I work with the CHAM community, more than 3,000 to 4,000 members and across other community, multiple community that are in need, you know, been displaced due to the demand of housings.

So I see this as a great program that I'm here to support because I have seen in the last 15 years that my community members has been facing a struggle with the housings.

and some of them have been displaced and moved out of the city and then find somewhere a cheaper house.

But here, this program, I think, enables us to develop housing, more dense zone that we're able to accommodate most of our community members living around Seattle area and be able to retain our members and be able to benefit from this program around the neighborhood that continues to strive benefit with many different services programs, like the program that will allow us to quick access to a light rail and to the health clinics, daycare, and within reach, you know, without driving a long distance, like from Ken and other areas that come into Seattle.

Definitely, this is a program that we're strongly supporting, and this will help our community and lots of other communities that are being marginalized in this space.

So I'm 100 percent here to support that.

And I have 3 or 4 thousand members that are lying behind us on this.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide the public comments.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

Thank you.

Up next we have Richard Ellison.

RICHARD ELLISON.

Hello.

Thank you.

My name is Richard Ellison.

I live in Council District 4. Congratulations to Council Member Rivera as my new representative.

I'm a retired community college professor, adjunct professor, and I've been an advocate for saving trees and development process since the 1990s with Jan Drago's urban forest task force under the city council.

The connected community proposal in its current form allows only five foot setbacks.

It would therefore be impossible to save any existing large or medium sized tree on a lot.

While we have a terrible need for affordable housing, Everyone needs a livable community, including open space for families, trees, and native birds.

Without big trees, without real open space, where are the kids going to play and dream and get off their cell phones?

Housing justice and environmental justice go hand in hand.

Do people have to live on properties direct of life?

The solution, build taller, not lot line to lot line.

Regardless of which housing zone, Save the best healthy trees and build around them.

Give extra height bonuses.

Connecting communities is to be a limited experiment.

So let's see if we can build affordable housing with some open space for families and trees and habitat for all of Seattle to breathe easier with.

The current proposal will connect clear-cut lots with more clear-cut, cleared lots.

It will spread tree deserts and urban island heat.

With just a five-foot setback, only tiny trees and bushes may survive.

Extreme weather events like summer droughts with liquid heat require an infrastructure that includes shade trees.

As we build more multiplexes that have few windows that open and fewer with balconies, what happens when the power goes out and it's 100 plus degrees outside?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Jessica Dixon.

Hello can you hear me.

Yes.

Good afternoon to members of the land use committee.

My name is Jessica Dixon and I'm with the last 6000 campaign to find and map the last exceptional trees in the city of Seattle.

I'm commenting on the connected communities pilot project bill.

This bill would eliminate existing development standards or relax existing development standards for affordable housing projects and neighborhood residential zones.

So I'm urging you to look carefully at the changes proposed to these standards, and they include an increase across the board of lot area coverage, which essentially allows for lot-to-lot coverage of buildings and hardscape without room for trees or green space, and the elimination of setbacks, which are reduced in most cases to five feet, again, eliminating space where trees and plants can grow.

While we desperately need more affordable housing in Seattle, we must not sacrifice good design, which integrates trees, plants, and into our housing projects, specifically on the south and west sides of buildings, because these are natural elements that are proven to reduce cooling costs, attenuate stormwater, clean our air, and support mental health, and can make the difference between life and death in a heat wave.

In addition, these changes in this bill circumvent the work that we are doing as a city that is detailed and inclusive to update the comp plan.

As we move forward, we must build publicly supported housing as if people and the planet matter.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Sleiman Apadalo.

Hi, my name is Suleiman Apodolo.

I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to voice my support for the Connect the Communities pilot.

The proposed legislation is a huge step towards achieving the many equitable goals and priorities of Seattle's comprehensive plan, One Seattle.

It empowers the communities and neighborhood anchors to be directly involved in the development of the areas where they live, work, pray, and play.

This pilot will create communities and neighborhoods that are connected to the importance onsite affordable housing programs and services that are needed to thrive.

More importantly, Disconnected Community Pilot is the result of over two years of effort led by Council Member Morales with the participation of many communities, individuals, organizations that shared their lived experiences of being displaced, marginalized, and the negative impacts of historical disinvestment of their areas.

Therefore, I urge the committee and council to pass and adopt the proposed legislation as it ensures that as Seattle continues to rapidly grow, that everyone shares and benefits from the growth of their neighborhoods rather than being sidelined and displaced.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair, just for your awareness, we have the next two callers.

Michelle Balzer and Tiffany McCoy are both marked as not present.

So we'll move on to the caller after that, June Bluespruce.

June, go ahead and press star six.

June, I see your name, but I see you muted.

If you could push star six, you can begin.

I'm so sorry.

Please.

Hello, my name is June Bluespruce and I live in District 2 in one of the areas that could be affected by this legislation.

I applaud its intent and its creative ideas.

but I'm very concerned about its impact.

The pilot project would be carried out in neighborhoods that have long been subjected to racial discrimination, neglect, deforestation, and rampant gentrification.

Will this legislation reverse or exacerbate these problems?

I fear that it's the latter.

I echo the concerns others have said about reducing setbacks to five feet, which would allow no room for trees of any size would likely endanger trees on the perimeter of neighbors' properties.

I'm also greatly concerned that these pilot housing developments would not be truly affordable and will accelerate gentrification.

The Seattle mean income is $115,000.

80% of that is $92,000.

The mean income for households headed by black people in Seattle is $52,000.

That's 45% of the Seattle mean income.

How is an upper income limit of 80 or 100% of area mean income going to produce housing affordable for black families and other families of color who bore the brunt of redlining?

It's my understanding that the people of these neighborhoods and those who have been displaced from them have not had adequate input into the design of this pilot project.

I urge the council to look carefully at what impact this project will have on the neighborhoods and people it aims to benefit.

As Sandy said so eloquently, please include the positive intent and creative ideas of this pilot in the comprehensive plan, which is where it belongs, so that we can have thriving, healthy, truly affordable, diverse, accessible neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you, June.

Next, we have Jennifer Godfrey, followed by Jake Laundrie and Katie Rusciuto.

Hello.

Hello.

Oh, OK.

Yes.

So I my name is Jennifer Godfrey.

I'm in Dan Strauss's district.

I would love to echo what Sandy, June, Jessica, and Lois have said about please include this in the comprehensive plan and do not pass this as legislation.

As many people know, we're fifth in the nation for urban heat islands.

We can retain healthy trees where people live and they lower the internal temperature of a dwelling, which can save lives during heat waves.

They also save 35% annually in heating and cooling costs.

And they also can help our southern resident killer whales, which are dying of starvation and pollution.

And mature trees protect our waterways, retain stormwater, which prevents untreated overflow, which pollutes the water.

So I think the most inclusive choice for everyone is to save as many trees as possible and find more creative solutions to development.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Jake Laundrie, followed by Katie Rusciuto.

And then I see that Tiffany McCoy has rejoined us.

So go ahead, Jake.

Jake appears to have dropped off.

All right.

Well, why don't we head over to Katie?

Hi.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Katie Ricciuto, and I work with the U District Partnership, a community-based organization in the U District and District 4. We are supportive of legislation like the Connected Communities Pilot Program to promote affordable housing growth in neighborhoods across the city, including the U District, and especially in areas of historic redlining and racially restrictive covenants.

The U District has a significant amount of new building happening, but very little of that is affordable housing.

We're also home to the ABB and over 150 businesses in our unique commercial corridors, the vast majority of which are BIPOC, women-owned, and sole proprietorship.

And in our work, we're committed to preventing displacement of our businesses as we experience this significant growth.

To that end, I asked the council to consider how to prevent commercial displacement in the U District's core with this pilot and the bonuses offered to developers.

This could include considering sensitive amendments or language that requires expedited or administrative design review to enforce our existing neighborhood guidelines in certain areas in the U District, especially those that are designated in phase 65. This includes Seattle and some of its cross streets.

And I also suggest additional opportunities to preserve small commercial spaces and owners, such as through guaranteed space on site after redevelopment occurs.

We look forward to seeing a process that promotes affordable housing growth and preserves diverse business districts like the Avs.

And we're eager to collaborate with the council and OPCD to make that happen for the U District.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Tiffany McCoy followed by David Haynes.

Hi.

Good morning, Councilmember.

Good afternoon.

My goodness.

This is Tiffany McCoy.

I am the Policy and Advocacy Director for How's Our Neighbors.

I also live in District 1 in the Arbor Heights neighborhood.

And I'm calling in support of the Connected Communities pilot.

I want to be clear that we do not need to wait for the comprehensive plan update in order to start tackling our housing affordability crisis.

The comprehensive plan is already months behind, and it's uncertain how we'll even finish it within the timeline allotted.

Building dense multifamily communities helps combat heat islands, CO2 emissions, and our reliance on vehicles, which all exacerbate the climate crisis.

We cannot rely on trees as our carbon mitigating strategy.

Majority of the residents here in Seattle are renters, and not everyone wants to become a homeowner.

We need to be building up our rental housing stock with tight bonuses for social and affordable housing as quickly as possible.

We appreciate the over two years of community engagement in this process with multiple organizations that work on anti-displacement measures and are rooted in D2 and other neighborhoods across the City of Seattle.

We ask that you please pass this as soon as possible.

We need hundreds of thousands of units of deeply affordable housing in our region And we need to be using every tool at our disposal to chip away at that amount as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And the last of our present speakers online is David Haynes.

Hello, this is David Haynes.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Okay, thank you.

I just want to point out that the comprehensive plan needs to be updated where you understand we need 21st century first world quality homes, commercial buildings, schools, and libraries with robust floor plans that intellectually stimulate.

There's certain people that want to keep people renting.

in an oppressive low quality housing situation where a whole bunch of affordable homes could have been built with the developers if you just turned over the road and gave them a bigger space to build.

It's like people want to drive a road through every block and then they want to ruin it for somebody else trying to make a better home by saying you can't cut down that tree on your property but you have to understand we could save a lot of trees if you built higher, you put limits.

And there's certain city council that want to sabotage the integrity of the housing efforts to use an apparatus and they're really not requiring the for-profits to like build those homes that have some affordability in them.

They just say, oh, pay into a bank account or a fund and then we're only going to allow our nonprofits who really aren't the best developers to like skim off of something they're really not qualified to build.

It's like if you want to save the trees, block off the roads and start robustly redeveloping.

It's like you're purposely putting people on the loud, noisy, stop-and-go, train-trafficked areas, and you're appeasing the speculators who moved out here in the 70s and the 80s and gentrified and denied the community and now thinks that they can turn against...

our need to progress in the 21st century claiming that their homes are still the only choice in the neighborhood anything that you build has to be worse off in the worst part of the location and then they weaponize the tree ordinance to deny other people additional amounts of homes as if they still want to keep people desperate because they're making money off of organizing and activists who really don't have the best interest of the community it's like

Thank you, David.

Chair, it looks like we have one person who was previously marked as absent, who has just signed up here, who has just become present, Chris Walker.

Following Chris, we'll move back to in-person with Kimberly Wolf.

Okay, and then I'm gonna let those last two speakers go and we'll move on.

So Chris, please go ahead, press star six to unmute.

Chris Walter, When needed.

Thank you.

Councilman Morales.

My name is Chris Walter.

I'm a D2 resident and I'm calling in support of connected communities.

Chris Walter, I am so excited for this pilot and I'm really proud of the work that Morales' office is doing to seriously address the housing crisis.

Chris Walter, Like five foot setbacks are, you know, not scary.

They're super exciting.

They'll activate the street.

They'll make neighborhoods more walkable.

And I really want to push back on all the comments on tree preservation.

We have comprehensive tree preservation legislation that the council has passed last session.

It's extremely comprehensive.

It was debated for years.

And then I think one of the other callers also said dense housing is not in opposition to trees.

It's actually sprawling low single-family homes that are in opposition to trees.

And just like a fun anecdote, I live on 46th and Kenyon, and SDOT just planted dozens of trees on my street in the Plano Strip.

And we have some massive trees in the Plano Strip, like, dense housing and trees are not in opposition to each other.

They go hand in hand.

And that's one of the reasons of many that I'm super excited to support the connected communities pilot.

And I hope it gets passed.

And I hope we see a lot of really much needed housing from it.

Thank you.

Did you say there was one more speaker?

Yes, in person speaker Kimberly Wolf.

Good afternoon.

I actually was here for the gig worker stuff and then found out that that got moved till tomorrow.

So I'll just speak briefly about it.

There's some people wanting you guys to repeal the law that we worked so hard to get years to get.

because the app companies are basically doing propaganda and trying to make it painful for gig workers and customers and basically just sabotage the whole thing so that it doesn't work and they can't propagate it to other places and other people and other cities, states and whatnot can have protections.

So I'm just asking you to stand firm on the law that has been passed especially since we need at least a year to see how it really is going.

These companies, they can afford to lose some money for a short time to stir the pot.

So a year is a little long for them to have to lose money.

And that's pretty much all I have to say about that today.

I'll probably speak tomorrow in a little bit more.

Regarding the trees, though, that I was hearing about, we really do need to go up and not just out.

These super close to the property line regulations are just...

they don't make livable neighborhoods.

I think you need to encourage to go up and down, especially bigger buildings have under a building parking and whatnot.

Don't push everything to the street.

So if you're gonna be dense, be dense.

But how can we call it the Emerald City if we don't have very many trees?

What are you gonna do, paint the buildings all green so you can keep the name?

I mean, come on, this is Seattle.

We got trees.

We need to think about that.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

It looks like you were intending the gig economy competition for tomorrow's economic development committee.

So that'll be at two o'clock tomorrow.

Okay, well, I'm going to conclude the public comment period.

Thank you very much, everyone.

We will move on to today's agenda.

It was my understanding that we may need to shift the order.

Is that right?

Okay.

If there's no objection, colleagues, Director Kiddendonko is going to be late, so I'd like to move to item two, the presentation on the Connected Communities legislation.

Hearing no objection, we will begin there.

So thank you, I've got Kittle and Jeff from OPCD coming up.

Before you begin, I do wanna make some comments about, pardon me?

Oh, Devin, please read item two into the record.

Agenda item two, briefing on equitable development zoning phase two, connected communities pilot legislation, draft legislation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much, Clerk.

So I do want to thank...

Sorry, Chair, can I just...

Listed first was the appointment.

Are we doing that?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes.

So that was an old version of the agenda.

Yeah.

So the appointment that was has been taken off.

So apologies.

Yeah.

So we have two agenda items today.

The presentation on the equitable development zoning connected communities legislation.

And then we will have a presentation from OPCD on their work plan for the year.

So.

Are we good?

Okay, sure.

So we will begin.

I do wanna thank Cato Freeman from Central Staff and Jeff Wentland from OPCD for being here.

I do also wanna thank council members Moore and Rivera for taking me up on our offer to get a little bit of a briefing before this meeting.

I'm excited about this briefing.

and for my new colleagues to hear about this legislation.

We've heard from each of our land use colleagues about the goal of building affordable housing.

We had a lot of conversation about that last year.

We all know that we need more affordable housing.

We need to support our small businesses.

We have to reverse displacement that has happened in our communities.

And we've spoken strongly about our goal of working together, within council and with the executive to make sure that we're tackling the big issues that Seattle is facing.

So this legislation is an example of what can be done when we work together as some callers referenced.

My office has been working on this for a couple of years now with community members, with organizations, with the departments.

And I really believe that once we are able to pass this, which is a pilot as we'll hear a little bit more about later, it'll give us an opportunity to really see what can happen if we work together.

So we are referring to this connected communities legislation as phase two of the equitable development zoning legislation that we passed last year.

We did that under the leadership of council member Strauss.

And that was intended to really align our land use policy more closely with our equitable development goals.

So in partnership with our EDI stakeholders, we were identifying strategies that would remove barriers in city regulation and in our processes to really support anti-displacement projects across the city in our zoning and our land use rules.

In 2022, my office started an outreach strategy that included conversations with over 35 organizations about how our land use code could allow more services, more commerce in our neighborhoods, so that folks could really try to meet their needs within a 15 minute walk of their home.

I will say we've got lots of neighborhoods in the city that meet this, objective, this vision right now, the Chinatown neighborhood, Beacon Hill, Othello, Lake City, these are all parts of the city where it is easy for people to access a park, a school, a grocery store, a bank, and they don't have to get in their cars to do it.

And as some have mentioned, this is an important strategy for reaching our climate justice goals as well.

If we get people out of their cars, if we make it easier for people to walk to some of the things they need to do or to take transit, then we are also doing a lot to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city.

So the group of folks that we've talked to, that 35 organizations, it did include developers.

I heard a little bit of skepticism that we were only speaking to developers.

So we did talk to folks like Lehigh and Homesite and the Housing Development Consortium.

That group also includes partners who want housing in their community, but who aren't necessarily developers themselves.

So the Ethiopian community in Seattle, the Somali Health Board, the Cham refugee organization that we heard from, as well as other groups who are really just advocating for healthy neighborhoods across the city and for more access to housing.

So for example, the Beacon Business Alliance, the U District Partnership we heard from, the Lake City Task Force on Homelessness, the LGBTQ Allyship, Disability Rights Washington, I already said the Somali Health Board.

So that just gives you a flavor of the different constituencies that we've been talking to to get ideas on how this could benefit our neighbors and really make it easier for families to get access to the things they need.

Our goal in proposing this pilot is really to start shifting Seattle from a city of sort of isolated neighborhoods I will say explicitly, really trying to support neighborhoods that have suffered from racial covenants, exclusive covenants in the past, who have suffered from the redlining of the past, and really move us toward a more equitable city.

I personally believe that this draft legislation will move us in that direction.

This pilot would be complimentary to the other city programs that we have in the city that could support affordability, it could support more social cohesion, and would really allow us to meet our affordability needs and bring essential services back to our neighborhoods.

after decades of exclusion.

So the last thing I'll say is that this is a pilot.

The idea is to allow for some number of projects, five or six projects in every neighborhood throughout the city.

I should say in every district throughout the city.

And the pilot itself would be evaluated on four criteria.

Those include providing affordable workforce housing for communities that are cost burdened, providing neighborhoods serving equitable development uses.

So, for example, childcare, pharmacies, even community centers, more access to commerce.

For stalling or preventing economic and physical displacement of our current residents.

and this is particularly true of our communities of color and low-income communities, and demonstrating a variety of missing middle housing types that would be affordable to households within a range of household incomes.

So the last thing I'll say is that I do want to give a huge shout out to OPCD, to the mayor's office.

We've been working with that office as well and really appreciate the opportunity to work together to build a strong bill and present the strongest possible pilot that we can.

I think it provides a really meaningful example of the kind of collaboration that the council and the executive can accomplish together.

That's what good governance looks like.

This is the kind of collaboration that our constituents are asking for us, from us.

And I know that this particular legislation is new to my colleagues, so I am eager to hear your thoughts and ideas, to hear your concerns, and look forward to having a really open discussion about those and understanding your interests so that we can make this legislation better.

so with that i will hand it over to our presenters please introduce yourselves and let's go uh ketel freeman council central staff i'm jeff wentland land use policy manager with the office of planning and community development so today there's an initial briefing for this iteration of the land use committee on the equitable development zoning and community connected communities pilot some of this will be a reprise from a presentation that we gave Back in September, in terms of materials that you have in your packet, there is this presentation, a memo from me dated February 2nd.

SEPA materials from the SEPA threshold determination that was issued back in January are also in your packet.

Just to note that the bill, which is an attachment to the memo, is an updated version of the SEPA draft, so that is the most current version of the bill.

It's the one that starts with the bill amending sections 2340 and 90 in the Seattle Municipal Code.

I'm using bill here incorrectly.

Just a note for everybody, this legislation is not yet introduced.

This is really a proposal at this point.

Once the bill is introduced, it will, of course, be referred to this committee and will be I'm available for amendment.

So I'll just walk through this presentation here really quickly and feel free to interrupt at any point with questions.

A little bit of outline of where we're going with this presentation.

I'll talk a little bit about equitable development zoning, both past phases and current phases.

Council Member Morales always already I discussed in detail the evolution of council work on the connected communities pilot, but we'll have a slide on that.

We'll talk a little bit about the purposes of the pilot, describe what the legislation would do, what incentives would be available under the legislation, and then I'll close with sort of where we are now in terms of the legislative process and talk about next steps.

So, equitable development zoning, past and current phases.

Some of you may be familiar with the Equitable Development Initiative.

It's housed within the Office of Planning and Community Development, but the problem that that initiative intends to solve is how to fund equitable development through the EDI, but also how to regulate development in ways that don't hinder, delay, or complicate or add cost to projects that are anti-displacement projects.

The purpose of equitable development zoning is to align land use policy with our equitable development goals.

Those are contained in the Land Use Code, and not the Land Use Code, but in the Municipal Code, among other places.

And it's informed by work with EDI applicants and grantees, and also OPCD staff.

A little bit of a note on where we've been with equitable development zoning.

In November, not November, but July of last year, the Council passed Ordinance 126858, That bill relaxed some of the permitting requirements for small institutions and neighborhood residential zones.

Maybe I'll ask Jeff if there's anything he wants to add related to OPCD's work there.

Okay.

But it is an ongoing initiative of the cities that has resulted in land use code regulatory changes in the recent past.

So evolution of the council work on connected communities.

Council Member Morales described the stakeholder work done by her office.

I don't know if there's anything more that I can add to what she said, Council Member Morales, but it began a couple of years ago and has included a variety of different stakeholders.

Some of them have identified a few barriers, needs that could promote equitable development uses.

and development in neighborhoods suffering from gentrification, including removal of barriers for small community-based organizations to develop housing in order to stop displacement for their communities, more need for a broad range of incomes and developments in every neighborhood to build and improve community cohesion and opportunity, and also leverage for low- and fixed-income homeowners to fight off predatory home buying.

Some of those needs are addressed at least partially by the stakeholder, by the proposed pilot program.

uh a little bit about the purpose of the pilot program so it's it would be a pilot as councilman morales mentioned it would last for a period of time up until 2029 or when 35 projects have taken advantage of the program it's intended to demonstrate the social benefits of equitable development with community serving uses and housing available to a spectrum of household incomes through on-site affordability standards and incentives It's intended to promote, in a lot of ways, partnerships between organizations that may not have the capacity to develop affordable housing or equitable development uses and other organizations, including nonprofit organizations or for-profit organizations that have more development experience.

Where would it apply?

It would apply in most zones where residential uses are allowed throughout the city.

includes neighborhood residential zones, residential small lot zones, low-rise zones, excluding high-rise zones.

So any place where you can build a townhouse or apartment building up to about 65 feet or so, or 85 feet, but not high-rise zones.

So most of First Hill would be excluded.

It does not apply downtown.

So any downtown zone would be excluded from the program.

And also commercial zones.

So neighborhood commercial and Seattle mixed zones throughout the city, which are the primary zones that one may find in residential urban villages, along the shopping core, and hub urban villages.

There are a couple of places where bonuses would apply, and that's what's sort of depicted here on this map.

So in areas where, in areas identified by the Office of Housing as community preference areas, so there's the green census tracts shown on the map, there would be some additional floor area available to program participants.

Also, if an applicant can demonstrate that their site is located in an area with an historical racially restrictive covenant that would require some deed research and subdivision research by the applicant, there could also potentially be a bonus available to that applicant.

So eligibility and affordability requirements, as I mentioned, the pilot program would expire by 2029 or after 35 projects have taken advantage of it, whichever is sooner.

Eligible projects, eligible applicants for projects would be those that are community development organizations, so registered nonprofits in the state of Washington or public development authorities in partnership with some other entities, so it could include a for-profit developer or a more established nonprofit developer.

There would be some residential affordability requirements that would go along with any development under the pilot.

The requirement would be 30% of units affordable to households up to 80% of AMI for rental or 100% of AMI for ownership or social housing, which has a similar requirement, 30% of units affordable up to 80% of AMI, but also a cap at 120% of AMI.

So what would, how would a development benefit from being in the program?

Development, a couple of slides, we'll sort of look at specific development standards here in a minute, but there would be additional floor area available to development of the program, extra height in most zones, most multifamily and commercial zones, less restrictive physical development standards like setbacks, And there would also be exemptions from other applicable, some otherwise applicable regulatory programs like design review and the mandatory housing affordability program.

Additionally, there would be no parking requirements for development participating in the pilot program.

There would be additional bonuses for, additional bonuses and functionally the equivalent of an additional bonus for, which is an exemption for how we calculate certain things for Certain uses and features including equitable development uses which would be defined by the bill to include uses that have a focus on anti displacement could include things like Community serving institutional uses or commercial uses like a commercial kitchen That's one option for a bonus.

Another would be location in an area with historically racially restrictive covenants.

We just mentioned that on the previous slide and also provision of a unit to a property owner who might otherwise be displaced.

So if there is a property owner who wants to partner with a developer or nonprofit under the program, there could be some additional floor available to the developer and also the benefit of a unit in the building for the owner who chooses to partner.

So looking here at some specific development standards in neighborhood residential and RSL zones, The current standard is shown, the proposed standard in the bill is also shown, so there'd be an increase in FAR and lot coverage allowed as well as a reduction in setback requirements.

The relative magnitude of the change contemplated here is about between almost a doubling of allowed development capacity in the case of neighborhood residential zones.

and about a 67% increase in development capacity for residential small lot zones.

Similarly, oops, oh, here we go.

For commercial multifamily and commercial zones, I'm not showing all of them here.

The Seattle mixed zone is not shown here.

There would be an unallowable increase in FAR and height.

So height is not an allowable increase in neighborhood residential and RSL zones.

But in these zones, there would be an increase in height and floor area ratio with the bump.

for location in a community preference area, or if the applicant can prove that there's been a racially restrictive covenant that applied to the property at some point in the past.

And then FIR exemptions possible for equitable development uses, and also a bonus that would be available for an owner incentive.

Kind of order of magnitude increases here, just for sort of the standard participation, not an owner unit or location in a community preference area would be on the order of a 20 to 30% increase in development capacity.

If all of the bonuses were used in a project, which is a possible but not particularly likely scenario, that would be between a 60 to 100% increase in development capacity in those zones.

So, what next?

OBCD issued a super threshold of determination of non-significance in January.

The appeal period for that super threshold determination ends tomorrow.

The comment period ran through February 1st, and I did not receive any comments, and I don't believe you did either, Jeff.

As I mentioned before, the legislation is not yet introduced and referred to committee, so it is a proposal at this point.

There's a public hearing that is scheduled for the next committee meeting, so February 21st, and I believe the intent of the sponsor would be to have the bill be subject for a committee recommendation by March 6th.

So that's the presentation.

Any questions?

I'm sure there are lots of questions.

Before I hand it over to my colleagues, can you both just talk about this in layman's terms?

and talk a little bit about what this effectively means for the ability to create housing, increase housing capacity, and what it really means in terms of the ability to create partnerships with folks, particularly organizations that aren't themselves developers, and give us the opportunity to create housing in a new way throughout the city.

Sure, I'll give you sort of my off-the-cuff response to that question, is that there are different ways that the city tries to promote, tries to achieve its equitable development goals.

And one is through grant-making, right, through the provision to providing resources to an organization that wants to build some anti-displacement use in their neighborhood, so a community center or something like that.

Sometimes that can be paired with affordable housing.

Obviously affordable housing money that the city may put out there can't be used to develop non-residential space in a project, so it's constrained in that way.

So one way that the city builds capacity is by providing money to organizations to provide these kinds of uses.

I think of this bill as sort of an alternative to that where the city is not providing necessarily some sort of money to build out some sort of an equitable development space, but is providing a subsidy in the form of development capacity.

And what that may do is invite or create a space where there are folks who are experienced in the development field to find partners who are eligible under this program and come up with partnerships that way to develop that space.

So this is potentially one way to provide, to sort of facilitate a certain kind of development in the city, but without a dollar subsidy, but with a development capacity subsidy.

That's my off-the-cuff discussion.

That's my way of thinking about it.

Jeff, I don't know if there's anything you want to add to it.

Do you want to add anything to it?

I'll just add a few comments.

I think it's, as the chair emphasized, it's important to emphasize that this is a pilot and the purpose of a pilot is to try something and see how it works.

And in this case, the proposal as drafted tries a few things that seem important.

One of those is to test a different affordable housing mix.

It requires a 30% of the units to be affordable at a moderate 80% AMI level on-site.

And that's a little bit different than the typical affordability mix that's required of development.

So it would try that and see what the results might be like.

And for...

OPCD's involvement in this work, we were, you know, our entry point was related to the Equitable Development Initiative and supporting those uses.

And another thing this bill would try to encourage more than we do today is a combination of an equitable development type use in a building with affordable housing.

I know that happens sometimes already, but this bill would seek to encourage more of that.

So, you know, a total of...

35 projects would presumably be distributed across the city as a test.

It's not going to have major changes in the former scale of development of the city.

It's going to have some results on a few example sites, and it would be a way to see what those outcomes are.

measure them up against the criteria that the chair walked through and at that point determine whether it's worth continuing to explore this type of approach.

Can you talk a little bit about what the potential for production is?

I would say the potential for production of affordable housing or for the production of equitable space?

Whatever you can share.

Yeah, I would say it is, you know, it is relatively modest, you know, just given the number of projects that could participate in this.

Some of those projects may need to find some subsidy elsewhere if there is some question about their ability to deliver.

But when you sort of think about sort of what the Office of Housing tends to fund in a given year, assuming which can be, anyway, it depends on how much funding is available and how many eligible projects there are out there, but it ranges between like five and ten projects per NOFA.

This would add potentially to that, assuming that these projects are developed without additional subsidy, you know, about...

about the equivalent of a NOFA every year.

So it's not insignificant, but it's not a dramatic, wouldn't result in a dramatic increase in the city's housing stock.

Well, and that's sort of the intent of the pilot is to test it out.

So, okay.

Colleagues, are there questions?

I know we've had a couple of conversations.

that you wanted to dive into a little bit?

Here, I'll start.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Moore.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much for the...

Well, first, thank you, Chair Morales, for reaching out to my office and other offices for a pre-briefing.

That was very helpful, and I do believe that it was done in the spirit of collaboration.

So I appreciate that outreach.

I do have a number of questions.

Well, actually, I have quite a few questions.

So let me just begin first with it looks like there are two avenues here.

One is to utilize for community-based organizations to partner with nonprofits or developers, and then to pursue housing through that route.

The other is for the Social Housing Public Development Authority to be the one to build the housing.

So I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around how would walk this through, walk me through this with the Social Housing PDA.

So are they going to partner with a private developer Or are they going to come up with the money to pursue building a development?

And then if they build it within the areas of community preference or where there's been racially redlining, basically, do they then get to build an apartment building?

Kind of walk me through what it looks like for social housing.

Yeah, so among the eligible organizations would be a public development authority.

There are multiple public development authorities that could build social housing, which is defined in the bill, and that necessarily wouldn't have to be the new social housing PDA.

But assuming that a PDA had the wherewithal to build, it could choose to build on its own, would not necessarily need to partner with I know, you know, some other nonprofit organization.

If the PDA needed a partner for whatever financing reason or to begin to develop a portfolio, for example, some PDAs out there, like say Community Reuse Housing already has a portfolio, so they are a known quantity, but could also qualify under the bill.

Historic Seattle might have a similar status, although they wouldn't be building something new, presumably, which is what this bill contemplates.

But for something like, say, the new social housing developer, for example, if they had the funding and could obtain a site, they could be a potential applicant here without a partner.

they would be able to build in, say, in a neighborhood residential or, let me just go back to that slide, in a neighborhood residential or RSL zone, they wouldn't necessarily be able to build an apartment.

And actually, the community preference bonus wouldn't, as written in the bill now, wouldn't apply in those zones.

But they could build something more along the scale of a townhouse development.

in a neighborhood residential or RSL zone.

Again, in those zones, sort of the benefit to a developer would be an additional FAR bump and also some flexibility when it comes to things like setbacks, but there's not a height increase in those zones.

In a different zone, let's take low-rise neighborhood commercial, If they're located in a place with an historically racially restrictive covenant, they would start out with a base FAR that exceeds the current FAR.

Let's just take a low-rise three zone.

So low-rise three is an apartment zone.

It's also a zone where a fair amount of townhouse development happens, even though sort of the intent of the zone is actually apartment development.

There's a range of FARs available in that zone, depending on what you're building and where you are.

But you would start out with an FAR of about two under current regulations.

If you participate in the bonus, you get one additional FAR in addition to that.

If you happen to be in a place that's a community preference area or there was an historical racially restrictive covenant, you would get about an additional .3 FAR.

And if you wanted to build something in that zone that included a ground level space for an equitable development use, that space would be exempt from your FAR calculation.

So the effect of that is you get another FAR that's not charged towards your total development.

So you get that much more additional density.

But I may be going into sort of more detail here about the development standards, and you were perhaps asking about the partnership.

In that circumstance, let's take the social housing PDA.

To my knowledge, they don't have a lot of resources to draw on, but they may have a site.

So let's assume that they have a site.

They could find a partnering for-profit developer or nonprofit developer or potentially even another PDA and partner with them.

The structure of that partnership agreement might not be fully known to the city, but that would allow them to qualify for the program and get the additional development capacity.

Okay, so there would be a nonprofit or for-profit developer involved in that relationship?

Yeah, there could be.

Okay, and what percentage of ownership would they have?

Oh, yeah, please bring it really close.

Okay, sorry.

Thank you, yeah.

So what ownership percentage would the private or nonprofit developer have in that situation?

Yeah, so the proposal now...

allows for a wide range when it comes to ownership in either the land or the project, essentially.

But in talking about the property, it's at least a 51% ownership That's one, it's not a lease.

That is one criteria, so more than a majority ownership.

But the bill also allows simply a beneficial ownership in a piece of property, and that could include a long-term lease or something else like that.

So there is wide flexibility in the proposal as written to sort of come up with that partnership agreement and percent of ownership.

Okay, so theoretically a for-profit developer could have a long-term lease in that property?

Theoretically, yes.

Okay.

And then if you're...

I guess the other...

One of the other questions that I have is if you're working with...

If the point of the bill, or one of the points of the bill, is to prevent displacement and to allow for the continuation of the growth of intergenerational wealth, how does that square with having at least a 49% ownership interest by a for-profit developer?

I don't know.

I don't know that I can answer that question.

That is maybe one of those questions where that is a question for the decision makers here about how something may square.

I think that sort of the overall intent is to create an opportunity for partnerships.

How that actually translates into generational wealth is sort of an open question.

I just have one more question.

Thank you.

The other piece I'm curious about is the ownership, owner unit incentive.

So it seems kind of unclear to me in the bill how that works.

So if somebody individual, let's say in the CD, black family owns a single family home and the development wants to go in, and they decide to sell, are they required to be given market rate?

The replacement unit, is that required to be a comparable size?

What is the ownership interest?

How does that work?

Do you have some sort of mixed ownership in the building with rental units and condos?

Who pays the HOA?

I mean, there are just so many questions relating to that.

So as drafted, those aspects of the partnership agreements and sort of ongoing affordability are not regulated by this ordinance, right?

So it would be up to the property owner who might be partnering with a developer to come up with the best deal that is available to them.

There are some sort of minimum requirements when it comes to how long they sort of, who would qualify.

A person would have to have resided at their home for at least 10 years, and at the time that they entered the partnership, their household income could not exceed 120% of area median income.

And they also could not resell the unit for an additional 10 years or sublet it.

So there's that restriction on the back end.

But that's primarily intended to sort of thwart a scenario in which there is kind of a, which there's sort of a straw property owner participant who is not necessarily at risk of displacement, but otherwise sort of could partner with somebody to provide some greater financial benefit for development.

But the aspects of the partnership and the protections for a property owner are not proposed to be regulated by this bill.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

Yeah, sure.

And if I could just respond to a couple of those things.

I would say to Kittle's last point that that partnership agreement is not something that we can regulate in this bill.

We are working with the Office of Housing and with OPCD to understand better how we put parameters and sort of guardrails around that element of it.

So that is a piece of the legislation that we're still working on.

Well, it won't be part of this legislation.

It is an element that we are still working on.

And then in terms of the other question, I think a part of the goal here is also to ensure permanent affordability, right?

So the ownership element of it is something that we are contemplating in terms of that one unit that a...

a seller might be able to ensure that they are part of the next development of the project.

They're assured a unit, but the goal is also to ensure that for the other tenants of the building, that there is an assurance of permanent affordability.

And so that is part of the goal of making sure that we are setting this up so that it is stopping the displacement, right?

That element of it is about mitigating against doubling or tripling of rents on a regular basis.

And the long-term lease is intended to help support that goal.

So.

Thank you.

Did you have other questions?

I'll defer.

Okay.

Council Member Wood, did you have questions?

Well, actually, I have comments.

Should I wait?

Sure.

No, go ahead.

OK, great.

So I got briefed about this earlier today.

And some concerns I had are some things I would like to see.

But first off, thank you so much for putting in all this work.

into this legislation, I think it's a good first draft.

And I would like to see it develop a little bit more.

But I would really like to see a racial equity toolkit done on this piece of legislation.

I saw that you did amazing work reaching out to 35 organizations.

But I would like to see their comments and what they had said about this, especially from the Office of Housing, from the mayor's office.

So we don't have to go back and ask.

We could just read what work has already been done.

And there are a couple of pieces that I'm kind of concerned about.

The fact that it states that 30% of that development would be for those who make 80% of AMI.

or less, and so I know who have given that choice, sometimes they may just pick 80% across the board.

So I would like to see looking into what it may look like if we lowered that.

80% of AMI, I think, depending on your income level, your household numbers, is about $70,000 a year.

And so maybe looking at maybe a percentage at 40%, 50%, 60%, perhaps, to make sure it works with the feasibility of the development.

I would also like to re-examine project ownership.

51% of the land is owned by the nonprofit or the person partnering in the project?

I know that's just the land, and the land lease could be used.

Is there a way where there's more project ownership?

Because if they do build a development there, a lot of that revenue, will that go to the developer, or will it go to the person, the nonprofit that owns the lands, to build that generational wealth?

Because that's an important aspect.

I mean, just owning the land.

is not enough.

I think they need some ownership of the project as well.

And we'd like to see maybe 51% ownership for the nonprofit so they have more direction how this project will look, the type of people they could help, especially.

I also would like to see more measurements of effectiveness, measurements of, you know, there's about 30 projects that are allowed, Can we have measurements at 5 or at 10?

Is this legislation really working?

Are we helping people build generational wealth?

Are we helping people age in place, who are able to stay, families, people who who would be able to benefit from a lower AMI than 80%.

And I don't know if this is even legal, but we discussed this earlier.

I'd like to see maybe perhaps the right of first refusal.

If the developer, sometimes they'll stay on for 10 or 15 years, and then they will sell their rights.

Is there a way they could sell it to that nonprofit, to that person in the partnership, so that they can have full ownership?

to build that generational wealth versus having a developer resell to another developer to flip and make, buy another project, like this ownership to the community.

And also, like speaking earlier, if that person who has that land has a unit, what would happen if that person wanted to sell or wanted to...

I guess, or wanted to pass it down to their heirs, what would that look like if the heirs wanted to sell?

Would it go to the developer to buy that land?

How would we retain it in community, basically?

And I would want to go to organizations like the Black Legacy Homeowners, SCIPTA, other organizations, see what they thought about this.

I know you've probably already done that work.

but wanted to see what they had to say, as well as, you know, people who are really concerned about the environment who spoke earlier, and small landowners to see what they think about this and see if there's a way we could work it so that we have a really good piece of legislation here.

But basically, I would also want to see that, make sure there aren't any loopholes that, you know, big developers can take advantage of in trying to...

I guess, with this.

And I think I would need more time to examine this.

But I think this is a great starting point.

But examining those couple of points would be really helpful for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will say we have also been working separately on TOPA and the sort of intent to sell and notification.

So that's another piece of the work that we're doing and happy to, I'm taking extensive notes so that we can continue this conversation and really make sure that we're addressing the questions people have.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I want to first acknowledge that I very much appreciate your office reaching out to us to give us a briefing on this piece of legislation.

I also want to acknowledge that land use and zoning issues are very complex.

And so I recognize that this particular proposal has taken about two years to put together and we've had about a week with it.

So I will say we're gonna, I echo my colleagues questions, comments and concerns We definitely need more time with this proposal, and I know we've been working with central staff on some of those questions this past week, and we will continue to do so.

In addition to the similar concerns and questions that both of my colleagues, Councilmember Moore and Wu have.

I'm also thinking that, and this was briefly touched upon, but OPCD does have some other programs that are trying to address equity and equitable development, the Equitable Development Initiative, and also the Strategic Investment Fund.

And I like to hear more about the intersectionality of those programs with this now third proposal that is very similar, at least in intent, and intention to the other programs.

And then I have a question about the fact that currently we have some other zoning and land use laws on the books, like MHA and MFTE, and I'm wondering if a, because this was given as an example earlier in the week when we were getting briefed on this, If a community organization owns a piece of land, they want to develop housing, and then they would partner with either a not-for-profit or for-profit to actually build the development.

There's nothing currently that would prohibit that organization from leasing the land since they currently own it to a developer to develop it.

And the developer has access to MFTE, I believe.

So, Ketel, can you talk a little bit about whether that's a possibility?

I actually admittedly don't know how MFTE works.

I know the most basic way it works, but not extensively.

And is it available throughout the city, for instance?

Yeah, so you all will have the opportunity to...

to make policy decisions about the next iteration of the multifamily tax exemption program this year.

I'm becoming a council member of the Morris Committee, I believe.

But generally, the way the multifamily tax exemption program works is that in exchange for providing a certain number of units at different levels of affordability, a developer gets, or property owner gets, a 12-year exemption on the residential improvement value of a new building.

If it's a new mixed-use building, that property tax exemption applies to all the residential improvement value.

It wouldn't apply to, say, if there was a restaurant on the ground floor.

That wouldn't be exempt.

It's an opt-out program.

So if a developer chooses at year three to opt out of the program, they can opt out of the program, and they would begin paying property taxes at that point.

So it is in some ways a separate program.

You asked where it applies.

It applies in most areas of the city where residential development is allowed.

It used to be a little bit more targeted, but now it applies more broadly.

In terms of the intersection of the MFTE program and the land use code, definitely the availability of property tax exemptions is something that developers consider when making development decisions.

It is, in some ways, a way to mitigate against the risk of future property tax increases through levy lid lifts and things like that.

But there are some specific intersections in the code, and one is with the mandatory housing affordability program.

We don't let MHA units, if they are performance units, count as your MFT units.

There can't be any other subsidy involved with those units.

They have to be standalone units.

So that's one of the places where there is kind of an intersection with MHA and MFTE and that we don't allow that kind of cross subsidy.

But for this particular project, if I'm a community organization, I have, well, let's say SIF, because I know that some of those organizations, there are six projects out of this strategic investment fund.

I know at least one of them, a community organization, got funds to buy a piece of land, and now presumably this organization could work with a for-profit or non-profit developer, as the example you gave us earlier in the week, Ketel.

Could they not, instead of having to create this new piece of legislation, could they not currently, now that they own the property, lease it to a developer who will develop on the property and thereby they would get benefit, they being the community organization?

Not knowing the particulars about that transaction, I don't know if there was a city property, if when it was conveyed there was some sort of restriction about how it may be used at some point in the future, but assuming that there is not, they could potentially lease that land to a for-profit developer there would be some kind of partnership agreement with that for-profit developer and that developer could develop the property subject to the requirements about affordability that are in the proposal now and however they may change.

So that is one example of a potential partnership.

So I think what's generally envisioned is that sort of when that development is happening, if it's an organization that as a qualifying organization that doesn't have a lot of experience with development and want to sort of build that capacity within their organization, then presumably they would structure the partnership agreement so that they gain that capacity through that partnership with the developer.

So the difference being that they would own part of that, whatever is built, versus they're always...

In my example, they're always...

they're leasing the property to the developers.

So they would still own the land.

So they could do that now.

You don't need this legislation for that scenario.

In this particular legislation, they would co-own whatever development got put up.

Yeah, and the only sort of the advantage to developing under the pilot would be that they would be able to build more, right?

So there would be more of an incentive for a for-profit developer to try to come up with a partnership agreement with, SIF so that in a way that benefits SIF because SIF would have the leverage by virtue of this pilot program and the ability to potentially participate in it to get some potentially better partnership agreement that they might otherwise be able to get.

Although we can't control the partnership agreement because we don't provide any help to the community property owner in their...

I guess I'll say one of my concerns is the property owner, we're not providing legal assistance in how they structure their agreement with the for-profit or non-profit developer.

And so we can't control for what kind of deal they get that will have an impact on how fruitful it is for that community organization or landowner.

Correct, yeah.

So as with the owner unit incentive here, too, there's not, the bill doesn't sort of purport to regulate what those partnerships look like.

It would be sort of up to those two contracting parties to sort of figure out what works best for them.

Okay.

I guess I'll just say, I mean, a comment is that That's of concern just because these are property owners that don't have the experience.

That's why the legislation is being contemplated to begin with.

And so I guess I'll just flag unintended consequences.

If we do something like this without accounting for on the back end, how do we help?

ensure that it is very much what it is intended to be, which is long-term community wealth building and benefits for the underserved landowner, if you will.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, very fruitful conversation, thank you.

This is not the end of the discussion.

As Kittle mentioned, we do have a hearing scheduled for February 21st.

And in the meantime, happy to continue the conversation and continue digging into the concerns that were raised today, as well as reaching out to other partners and community organizations to make sure that We are including the perspectives that were raised here.

And yeah, I wanna thank our partners here for sharing and we will continue the discussion.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Devin, will you please read item one into the agenda?

Agenda item one, 2024 Office of Planning and Community Development Work Plan presentation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We have Director Kirondongo from the Office of Planning Community Development.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

So you are here to share your 2024 work plan with us and we are looking forward to the discussion.

Thank you very much.

Excellent.

And there's some slides.

I saw my intro slide there for a second.

Yes, we will bring that up and everybody should have access to that as well.

Well, and thank you for having me on the agenda.

I know I had the chance to brief a few of you already, so I appreciate you hearing this for a second time, and hopefully you'll hear something new that you didn't hear the first time.

And Councilmember Wu, I think we're on your calendar, or we're trying to get on your calendar to do a briefing as well.

Oh, whoops.

I'm kind of crazy.

There we go.

Thank you, Devin.

Okay, take it away.

So what you see on the bottom part of this slide, and again, Rico Kidding-Dongo, Director of Office of Planning and Community Development.

Our mission is to lead collaborative planning, advance equitable development, and create great places.

Next slide.

Can I control the slides from here?

Okay.

That mission we execute through four existing divisions.

What we did at the beginning of this year was to do a little bit of a reorganization of our office to create a policy and planning group.

embedded in that group is our long-range planning division and our land use policy and strategic initiatives division, and then a community development group, which is headed up by my deputy director, Amy Nguyen.

That group includes our community planning division, our equitable development initiative division, and our indigenous planning lead.

We also have the Design Commission and Planning Commission.

That's part of our portfolio because they operate within their own jurisdiction.

They are bringing their own presentations to council separately.

Next slide.

So OPCD has five priorities this year, which frankly are the same as five priorities that we had last year.

The one thing that dropped off this list was the industrial maritime strategy, which we passed a major body of legislation led by Jeff Wendland in my office last year.

So what we're going to talk with you about today is our comprehensive plan, major update work, our EDI program, our sub-area planning work, the West Seattle and Ballard Link Extension station area planning, and our downtown activation plan, the piece of that program that we are involved in.

Next slide.

So our comprehensive plan, as you all know, we've been working for a couple of years now on updating our current plan.

Currently, if you go online, you can draw down a copy of the Seattle 2035 plan.

We are working on, as a state requirement and a requirement of the Puget Sound Regional Council, an update to the plan, which we're required to do every 10 years.

It used to be every eight years.

In that plan, well, I should say a couple things.

We've already done a good amount of community engagement.

Part of that engagement was focused around scoping for the environmental impact statement.

Part of that has just been listening sessions with individuals, stakeholders, organizations to hear from community what they all wanted to see the city do better and what they wanted to see included as content in this plan.

Part of that outreach has been educating people about what the plan can do and what it cannot.

We are planning to release the draft plan and DEIS in the first week of March.

Following that release, so in the months of March and April, Our intent is to do seven open houses, one in each district, and then also an online open house engagement.

There's anti-displacement workshops that we're going to do with stakeholders, continued outreach to...

community groups and stakeholders based on this large new body of information that we're putting out into public realm.

There's the online engagement hub that continues to be live and online, but that'll be a very robust engine for online engagement once the draft plan is released.

And then, of course, we will have a 60-day comment period for the DEIS.

I should also add that if If in the first half of the year here, we're doing community engagement that's specific to the release of the draft plan and the DEIS required comment period, in the second half of the year, we'll do a renewed community engagement that's specific to zoning implementation.

What that means is if you think about the comp plan and the growth strategy, also Puget Sound Regional Council requirement, If you think of that as operating at a 50,000 foot level, the zoning implementation is more at a 10,000 foot level where we're talking to community about how zoning will be applied block by block.

I'm sorry, Erika, when did you say the EIS comment period starts?

So our plan right now, it'll start concurrent with our release of the draft plan, and our plan right now is the first week of March.

Okay, thank you.

Next slide.

So our Equal Development Initiative, Council Member Moritz, you mentioned it, I think, in your previous comments.

This is a program that we've been operating for the last seven years.

It began as a $5 million program in year one.

It is currently in the budget for $25 million this year.

plan with the EDI Advisory Board is to do some vision and planning activities in the first half of the year.

We're talking about what an EDI 2.0 looks like.

What that means for us is looking at the success of the program to date.

What can we do to be more intentional about our investments?

How can those investments be cross-coordinated with other investments at the city, including Office of Housing, including our utilities, including SDOT?

And then also, how can our EDI work influence more of our policy work at the city.

So the EDZ proposal that you just were in conversation about, that's an example of how we're putting that into action currently.

The EDZ legislation that we passed last year and then what's being contemplated currently, but we want to do that in other areas of our work in collaboration with other departments.

Next slide.

Sub-area planning.

So the Puget Sound Regional Council in 2018 required that for any cities that in designated urban villages, which we will be calling urban centers in the new plan, those as higher growth areas and larger engines of our economic vitality for the city.

We are now required to do a more detailed planning to show how we are delivering jobs and housing in each of those areas.

We currently have six urban villages across the city.

We are working on three of those subareas currently, so that's the downtown subarea plan, Northgate, and then Capitol Hill, First Hill.

and then we will be working on Southlake Union, Uptown and University District as a part of our work plan in 2025 and 2026. Next slide.

As you all know, as a city and multiple departments, we're working on the largest infrastructure program this city has ever seen.

You know, it's around $12 billion estimated currently.

The role that OBCD has is working with SDOT and Sound Transit and the mayor's office to related to our station area planning and those investments for neighborhoods and communities where light rail touches down at a station.

So what is that transit-oriented development opportunity?

How do we plan those areas equitably so that we can have...

not-for-profit community BIPOC partners that are part of the developments that happen at each of those site locations, both on the commercial side and housing and in the public realm.

In 2024, we will continue that program and that work with Sound Transit, both on the Ballard line, which is moving ahead currently, and...

on the West Seattle line, which we're still in kind of that DEIS phase.

Next slide.

So the mayor's downtown activation plan, as you know, is looking at the heavy lift of how do we create a more vibrant and vital downtown environment for our office.

You know, we sit as a member office on the DAP subcabinet.

which is a half a dozen of departments that are cross-coordinating our efforts toward that in the mission of the sub-cabinet.

A bunch of the things we are working on right now, and this is being...

This work that you see on the screen on the right-hand side of the page is being led by our...

Land Use and Strategic Initiatives Division.

The Waska site and Pier 48. Waska represents the five blocks of currently undeveloped property immediately across the street from the stadiums.

This was the lay down site while the tunnel was being constructed by WSDOT.

We set aside that land area to do a master plan at a later date after the industrial and maritime strategy work.

We're leaning into that work now in partnership with WSDOT and working with OSC, Office of Sustainability and Environment, with C40, which is an international organization focused on reduction of climate footprint in cities across the world.

They do an international competition every other year.

to identify sites where there are great opportunities to do development projects, have them be public-private partnerships, and be shining examples of what carbon neutral looks like.

We identified the Huasca site as one of those opportunities, so we're seeing that forward in partnership right now.

that that project is begun as part of this C40 project?

So the site is owned by WSDOT.

This effort is an opportunity to work with WSDOT to develop an RFP that developers both locally, nationally, and internationally would respond to, to put forth.

development ideas to be a part of a public-private partnership development for that land, which WSDOT will continue to hold.

Pier 48, we're also in partnership with them, talking about what the future of that pier looks like, particularly as a hinge point from the waterfront to the stadiums, and part of that consideration is also around the city's preparation for the Men's World Cup in 2026. The second bullet point down, office-to-residential conversions.

Last May, the mayor held a reception for 12 development proposals, real sites across the city that existing building owners and development teams were proposing if we were to convert this existing downtown office into a residential property.

What would it take?

What's the rough order of magnitude cost?

And then what are the impediments that were in the way of that being a successful project?

And what could the city do to help?

Really great conversation, really great proposals.

We're currently working with a number of those development teams to try to take the next step forward in getting from concept to permit application.

So very excited about that work.

King County's Civic Master Plan, Dow Constantine just did a really great presentation at the UW campus at the Hub talking about King County's vision for the existing campus, which is eight block area eight buildings uh you know immediately adjacent to us here now uh and then also their their vision for a south campus and a new jail uh uh in soto and south downtown So we are just beginning conversations about what the opportunities are there for development, for mixed use, for housing, for public realm, a lot for us to talk about.

South downtown vision planning and coordination.

So the King County master plan is one of 11 projects that OPCD and the mayor's office have identified as of interest in south downtown that we want to kind of be a part of weaving together for a greater public benefit.

So more on that as we kind of develop that plan and vision.

the station area planning and the two stations, North and South CID that are being contemplated is also a part of that work and that consideration.

ULI Third Avenue technical assistance panel, which we changed from a technical assistance panel to a forum.

Actually, that's where I just came from right before council session today.

uh we pulled together uh community stakeholders king county metro the downtown seattle association sdot opcd oed to have a conversation about how do we take what really in a lot of ways is the front door of the city if you're coming from the airport, getting on Link Light Rail, and you come downtown, when you come up to get a connection on the bus or go to your hotel, oftentimes the first thing that you're going to experience is Third Avenue.

We need to make that environment better.

And so we are starting a conversation right now about what are the resources we need to bring to bear interdepartmentally and interagency and in public-private partnership to realize a greater vision for that space, both as a kind of a neighborhood district, but also a transportation facility.

Downtown sub-area plan.

I mentioned that in the previous slide.

This is part of our sub-area plan work.

So that's work that will continue through the end of this year.

Stadium area and FIFA World Cup preparation.

In the short term, as an interim use on the WASCA site, we are looking at how we can be in partnership potentially with the stadiums to activate that space prior to and during FIFA.

And then Lit I-5, we completed a million-dollar study on Lit I-5, which I think was two and a half years ago now.

We continue to work with the Lit I-5 group on new planning.

to see that vision forward for the city and kind of bring downtown and First Hill and Capitol Hill, weave them back together.

We're looking at new funding opportunities and working with WSDOT on their long range planning for the corridor.

Next slide.

So this is just a reminder of what our two groups are, planning and policy, as well as community development group, and then the divisions in each.

Next slide.

So citywide and regional planning, we will continue our regional planning coordination, the heavy lift of the comp plan major update work we're doing.

We also have comp plan annual amendments that we execute every year.

And then we're also working in partnership with Office of Sustainability and Environment on climate change and resilience planning for the city.

Under our land use policy and strategic initiatives, we have housed the downtown activation plan, our comprehensive plan zoning implementation, our equitable development zoning work, as well as our strategic housing policy development.

Next slide.

Our area planning work, we have the subarea plan portfolio as well as station area planning.

Reconnect South Park, we have our federal funding that we are continuing to effort there, as well as the Duwamish Valley program and our ongoing collaboration with Department of Neighborhoods on the CID core team.

And then community investments, the EDI program, which I already discussed, We also have a group looking at equitable developments and community partnerships related to equitable transit-oriented development.

We co-lead with the Capital Budget Office, the Capital Sub-Cabinet, and our role there is to help look at how we reach greater outcomes in cross-coordinating our investments across all of our capital departments.

We continue to shepherd our indigenous Seattle program through OPCD, as well as the leadership that's provided by Tim Lehman, who's our indigenous planner in the office.

And then we also have coordination with the county that I mentioned before, as well as philanthropy.

And I think that's my last slide.

Is that, is that it?

That's all you're doing?

That's all you're doing in the city?

Okay.

Director Kidundongo, my apologies.

Thank you.

I just wanted to flag a couple of things that we are, Obviously the comprehensive plan is a huge body of work that we will have to do this year.

We are behind as everyone has noted.

And so to the extent that the community engagement sort of round two of community engagement is happening, I'm assuming that's this summer?

It'll start in March.

In March.

And then...

So we will wanna make sure that we're providing as much opportunity as possible for me and my district to make sure that folks have the opportunity to weigh in and to understand what this process is and to engage and understand it.

And so that those open houses will be, the information about that will be made available.

Yes, and we will coordinate with each of your offices to make sure that the open houses happen at a time that works for your calendars.

In terms of the reorganization, I think it makes a lot of sense to me that you have sort of a policy group and a community development group.

Obviously, as a neighborhood planner, the community planning and the EDI work is really important.

For those who don't know, that really came out of communities of color organizing 10-ish years ago to really have a place for community-led development to take place and to have the capacity building tools and resources available to them.

Yeah, exactly.

And it was a direct outcome of the community engagement the last time that we were doing a comprehensive plan, major update, and a strategy for anti-displacement.

So that is, if you don't know already...

a very important part of my priorities for the work that this department does, because so much of the work that happens in that division is directly connected to our anti-displacement strategies.

And those really affect particularly district two and district three.

So happy to continue working on that.

The last thing I wanted to say, and then if colleagues have questions about anything, I'm happy to hand it off is that My understanding is that the DEIS for the Sound Transit proposals will be at the end of this year.

That sounds right.

I should have that.

That sounds right.

I will confirm that.

I do have, my office has quarterly meetings with Sound Transit about everything light rail related in the district.

And this is absolutely a priority to make sure that...

we're dealing with that and getting another round of community engagement on that as well.

And just a point of clarification that that's for West Seattle.

Right, right, right, sorry.

And then the last thing I will say is I will quibble with you about 3rd Avenue being the front door to the city.

If you're talking about light rail and you're coming from the airport, Rainier Beach is actually the front door to the city, particularly since that's at ground level and you can see all of the beautiful neighborhood as you're coming into town.

But that notwithstanding, I'm glad that this work is proceeding and really exciting.

you've got a very full plate this year, which means that we will be very busy in this committee.

And as we are moving through the year, I really encourage my colleagues to take advantage of our central staff who are the policy experts and have an incredible amount of institutional memory for us.

And the department itself will also be able to provide a lot of support as we're grappling with these issues.

Any questions for my colleagues?

Just a comment about the importance of the comp plan.

This is the 20-year comp plan.

There are times throughout in between those 20 years where we look at comp plan and do minor amendments.

This is a huge one of our, and it is by law that we have to do this every 20 years.

And so to that point, I want to make sure that we have the robust engagement because the entire city cares about the comp plan, every single district, every single neighborhood in every single district, every single community member.

And I want to make sure that the needs of community are incorporated into the comp plan.

This is really, I think, one of the most important pieces because of its longevity.

And notwithstanding the fact that every so often we have an opportunity to make an amendment, this is like the big one.

So just underscoring the importance of that and then just saying that our office is available to work with with OPCD central staff, obviously, and the mayor's office to make sure that we are doing this well and that we get back on track time-wise as much as we can.

So we're here to assist.

We are working very hard to ensure that all of the comments that we receive from community that we're doing the rubric work to take comment input and have that directly inform policy recommendations and components of the plan.

And I mean, as you know, the plan is extremely thick, so that's a very complicated process.

And underscoring the equitable components, development and otherwise to really be included in the plan because oftentimes we do things outside of the plan.

And I think we owe it to community and for the sake of equity to make sure it is in the plan because we know that this is the, like I said earlier, the big plan.

And we want to make sure our community's our diverse communities are not being left out, if you will.

I think that's a really good point.

I think as a point of clarification, I would add, and I think that you placed a good framework around this, we are required to do this update, the major update once every 10 years, and then we do these smaller policy revisions and adjustments on an annual basis.

I think that's important as a message to community to say, you have more than one bite at the apple, right?

And if the comp plan provides a framework at a high level, you know the um sub-area plan work that we do and then the more specific community plan uh and neighborhood planning work that we do will be more implementation level uh and strategy work with community uh we can't pack it all that level of detail all into the comp plan but we will we we want to make sure that we in terms of a policy framework, we don't leave out any large considerations that then prevent us from doing things when we're down at a tactical level trying to execute programs.

Correct.

Thank you.

Of course.

Thank you, Director May.

I just wanted to ask a brief update.

You noted the 2024 priorities list the Northgate subarea plan and engagement process.

I was wondering if you might have an update on that.

on how we are doing engagement in Northgate?

Yes.

Well, so I think there's probably two different answers to your question.

One, we are planning specific engagement around the comp plan, which I don't have a date for it yet.

It will be presumably sometime in late March.

I know that our staff will be working with your staff to make sure that we line up a date that works for your calendar.

I think that we sent a package of information to your office just about a bunch of other work that we have done planning related in Northgate.

And then, you know, there's also been a specific conversation around an indigenous neighborhood as an opportunity in Northgate.

And so that's work that Tim Lehman in our office has been engaged along with the planning work that we've done around Northgate.

Northgate sub-area planning.

So I'm not sure if that gets to the answer to your question, but there's a bunch of stuff that we're working on in your district.

Okay.

If we could just be sure that people are reaching out to my office, as you said they are, but I want to make sure we're staying in conversation, kept apprised.

Thank you so much.

Definitely.

Council Member Wu.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

I have two questions.

The first one involving the comprehensive plan.

When you do this community outreach, is there any...

What report back do you have towards council?

Will you bring...

Will you list the organizations?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So there...

I believe that we are coming back to...

this committee in a couple of weeks or next month to do a Comp Plan 101 presentation.

And in that presentation, we'll provide you a list of all the organizations that we've reached out to so far.

I would also say that if you go online to our OPCD city website, You can go to the comp plan major update link and go to a link that has a list of all of our deliverables so far.

What that will include is a phase one report that talks about the community engagement we did during the scoping phase for the EIS and then some of our more general community engagement we had done at the time.

This was last year, we had a series of open houses.

It'll also document our stakeholder engagement.

And then we also entered into contracts with seven community organization partners.

and 10 community liaisons that are part of the DON program to help us do embedded community engagement in community that would inform different outcomes than city-led engagement.

So what you'll also see online, and we can send you links directly via email as well, what you'll see is seven reports from each of the CBOs regarding the community engagement that was done.

That'll give you a good feel for the breadth of the work that we've done already.

We can also send you a link to the online engagement hub where we've been collecting, I think we have, and I'm gonna get the number wrong, we have over 3,000, I think it's higher than that, but we have thousands of comments from community already regarding uh, the work that we've done on the plan so far, that's just another good resource that's constant in real time being updated.

And that's going to continue going forward for this update.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, and I should say that we'll also be bringing to the committee and then also to full council a more detailed plan breakdown of what the community engagement will look like for the first half and second half of this year.

Thank you.

And my second question has to do with Sound Transit.

I know there's a lot of connections to other committees, but specifically for this committee, what's the purview regarding Sound Transit?

When you say the purview, what do you mean?

What responsibilities does this committee have over Sound Transit?

We don't have any authority over Sound Transit.

But we have two, I don't know who our board appointees are.

I believe Council Member Strauss and I'm assuming the mayor sit on the board.

Yes.

So we have the connection through OPCD and the engagement that happens around those conversations.

But this committee doesn't oversee any.

of that work, any of Sound Transit's work, but you are free to call them yourself and have conversations and get your questions answered.

I mean, I would say that, at least as it relates to OPCD work, being engaged in kind of a public realm and then what happens on the other side of the line on private properties, particularly related to transit-oriented development, embedded in SDOT's team, which is directly engaged in the conversation with Sound Transit.

You know, I think there will be times, whether we're talking about south downtown or neighborhood planning, where we will be getting very directly involved in what are the investments, enhancements, vision that the city should be bringing to a...

a community development conversation related to station areas.

We make recommendations alongside SDOT to the mayor's office that then Mayor Harrell and Council Member Strauss will bring to the Sound Transit Board in their representation since we have those two seats.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Just a comment too.

In terms of community engagement, wanting to make sure that we are helping get the word out extensively across our districts as you look at March and the continued community engagement so that anyone that wants to give input can, we're here to provide support in getting that word out.

Yeah, again, that's a very good point.

We will be putting together kind of a community engagement package of information so that you'll know what the resources are that you can...

as stakeholders or your constituents reach out to you.

That'll be some online resources where they can find the plan, how they can provide input, and also, of course, the...

And we'll have newsletters that we send out to our constituencies, for instance, and there are a lot of opportunities to get the word out and make sure no one feels left behind as you all are moving forward in the planning phase of this next big iteration of the comp plan.

Oh, we appreciate the help in getting the word out because we want to make sure that everybody feels like they have a place to get involved.

Great.

Okay, thank you very much for spending so much time with us.

Really appreciate it and look forward to all the work we have to do this year.

So thank you.

Okay, colleagues, well, thank you very much.

Thanks for hanging in there a little late with us.

We have no further business on the agenda.

The next meeting, Land Use Committee meeting is Wednesday, February 21st at 2 p.m.

This concludes our February 7th meeting and we are adjourned at 421. Thank you.