Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy 5323

Thank you so much for joining the Seattle City Council Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy.

Today is May 3rd.

The time is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Madam Chair, that is seven present and three absent.

Well, thank you everybody for joining here today.

We will have an opportunity to hear from folks both remotely and in person as we continue to monitor cobit cases hospitalizations.

And even though infection rates are down, we know that there is a large number of cases that are under reported.

So appreciate the hybrid model that we have going here today.

We will continue to have all of our presenters join us.

remotely.

Due to the Open Public Meetings Act, we also want to make sure that we provide equity in how the public comment is being shared.

So there is no video of any of the presenters, but we definitely appreciate people who dial in and provide public comment in person.

We do have an agenda today that includes a briefing and discussion of issues and options for the 2023 housing levy renewal measure.

This is going to be presented by Tracy Radscliff and Jennifer Labreck from Council Central staff.

Folks, if you take this meeting in combination with the last month that we had and the last two meetings, this is really an opportunity for central staff to do their analysis of what the Office of Housing and the executive team have presented over the course of the last month.

And thus, central staff will give us their own independent, nonpartisan analysis of issues and options that they either have seen as a central staff, an analyst or ideas that have percolated from Committee members, council colleagues, as you've been listening to the presentation, you have identified some issues that you'd like to look into more as well.

So we'll have a chance to walk through that central staff memo and begin our discussion of issues and options.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

We're going to go right into public comment this morning.

We do have folks who are both in person and remote, about 10 people online and two people in person.

So we're going to start with the two people in person.

Folks will have two minutes to speak.

You'll hear a little chime when your time is wrapping up.

That's your indication to summarize your last comment there.

We will.

Make sure to keep our eyes peeled for any additional comments that you'd like to send to council at Seattle.gov if you are not able to get through your full comments.

But whether you're in person or online at the end of your two minutes, the microphone will stop working.

So please do wrap up those comments so you don't get cut off.

For folks on the dial-in option, thanks again for dialing in today.

Just a reminder that you're going to hear a note that says you have been unmuted.

That's your indication that you need to hit star six to unmute yourself.

Make sure your own phone's off of mute as well, and you'll hear that same chime when you have 10 seconds to wrap up.

Please hang up and continue listening in on the listen-in options posted on today's agenda.

With that, I'm going to open up public comment.

Thank you.

Our clerk today for getting that all teed up on the screen.

And the 1st, 2 speakers are Nicole grant from local 46 and Charlie Lampkin.

I'm okay.

Labor.

Good morning.

Nicole grant.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda, Council Members.

My name's Nicole Grant, I use she and her pronouns, and I'm a member of IBEW Local 46, representing 6,200 electricians in our community.

And we as a union wanted to express our support for the proposal for the Seattle Housing Levy.

We felt like we were very well stakeholdered and have a lot of gratitude to the council, to the mayor's office.

The reason that our union is in such strong support of the housing levy this year, and the proposal put forward, is because our members have been so supportive have family, and we also have members that are lower income that want to be able to access safe, affordable, quality housing.

There are also over 500 electricians that are unemployed in King County right now.

And I think people have been talking about a recession and the risk of a recession since the COVID pandemic, but this is something that's real for a lot of families that are trying to get by right now.

And the opportunity to transform our city to support workers that are in permanent supportive housing, whereas their careers, and also support workers that build this housing that they can be proud of for having done something for their community is a really big deal for us, especially right now.

So tons of gratitude to the council, to the mayor, Councilwoman Mosqueda, you especially, thank you so much.

And to Deputy Mayor Washington and Breonna Thomas, tons of gratitude.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thanks and welcome up Charlie Lam.

At this mic?

Yes, that works either one.

Thank you.

All right.

Hi, Council and all those watching on Seattle Channel.

My name is Charlie LaFamme.

I'm the Communications Director at the King County Labor Council.

We represent more than 150 unions and 100,000 union workers and I'm a proud member of OPEIU Local 8 as well.

And I'm gonna echo a lot of what my sister Nicole said from IBW.

This housing levy is so important because it can do so much good for our city.

It invests in the area where I think we all are agreement is needing the most investment right now, which is in housing.

It's a limitation for people of all income levels to live in our city and to have a good quality of life all across our region.

This is just a real solid investment in housing that we need.

And at the labor council, we are really happy with the work that's been done to make this levy big and historic and to make it so that it truly can make a big difference in this issue.

So we applaud the mayor, we applaud city council for the work that you've put into this.

but it goes beyond just housing.

This levy, um, is a real, uh, job creator for, um, from the construction that can be done union to all the ongoing jobs to support, to maintain and operate the permanent supportive housing facilities.

Uh, this is a real win for workers in our region.

And we, um, we're looking forward to, uh, seeing this levy on the ballot this fall.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you both very much.

I am going to turn it over to our clerk to call on the folks who are signed up online again.

We have 9 people and you're all present.

So we'll get through everybody here.

1st off, we have Dennis sales.

Hello, Chair Mosqueda and committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment.

My name is Dennis Sills and I work at Plymouth Housing, a PSH provider that serves more than 1,200 chronically homeless adults in Seattle.

On behalf of those residents, my colleagues in Plymouth Housing, I applaud the Seattle Housing Levy proposal of $970 million over seven years and encourage the City Council to move it forward.

Over the next two years, Plymouth will be opening five apartment buildings and housing 500 people.

We're opening Blake House later this month.

The city's first permanent supportive housing high-rise in over 50 years.

Without the housing levy, many of our residents would not have places to call home.

This levy is not about dollars and projects.

It's about making things better for our neighbors.

Our residents come from all walks of life and communities, and many are veterans and seniors.

People in Seattle should not have to wait years or even decades to find an affordable home.

And that will not happen under this levy.

So we're thrilled about it.

We appreciate the amendments being considered to fine tune the proposal.

We support the amendment identifying up to 21 million in levy interest earnings that can be used for additional program outcomes.

We also support the amendment to facilitate the integration of health services with affordable housing.

We also support amendments to review annual administrative expenditures to ensure there are no surplus funds that could be available to be redirected to other levy-funded housing programs to allow a portion of administrative funds to be used for pre-development.

This proposal lists all areas of levy programs to meet diverse challenges in our city.

We support additional operations and maintenance funding for staff who provide human services every day.

This proposal can help us lift up frontline workers and provide truly competitive wages, especially when coupled with jumpstart funding.

We're grateful that the city is considering stepping up help for the housing human services sector.

These are important steps towards dignity for support housing workers.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment.

Thank you.

Up next we have Lauren Fay followed by Cliff Cawthon.

Good morning Chair Mosqueda and Council Members.

My name is Lauren Fay and I'm here today representing DESC to speak in support of the Mayor's proposed plan for the Seattle housing levy renewal.

There is so much in this levy to be excited about but today I want to highlight the importance of two issues the proposal addresses.

First is more funding for the creation of permanent of additional permanent supportive housing units in the city.

As a developer and operator of permanent supportive housing, the EFC staff see daily how crucial these apartment homes are to individuals escaping homelessness, who also have long histories of disabling conditions.

We need more units to address the homelessness crisis that our city continues to face.

Second, permanent supportive housing is a unique model that works to prevent future returns to homelessness and brings health and stability to tenants.

In order to achieve this, investments in operations, maintenance, and services provided within PSH programs are critical.

The proposed levy plan bring toward these additional resources that will help the city achieve its goal of reducing chronic homelessness.

Last for today, I want to highlight the importance of workforce investment for service providers who are tasked with helping to end the homelessness crisis.

Today in our city to afford a studio apartment and not be rent burdened by paying more than 30% of income towards housing costs, An individual must earn $81,680 a year.

This may sound astronomical, but it is entirely true.

While we've made significant progress at DUC towards the goal of ensuring our workers can afford to live in the city they serve, we still have a long way to go to right the historic wage suppression in human services.

Thank you so much for your time today and for your support of this levy proposal as written.

We really appreciate all your work and effort.

on this.

Thank you so much.

We have Cliff Cawthon followed by Shad Bakulan.

Thank you chair, I share her role in other council members.

My name is the policy manager for Seattle.

We're also a member of the black home initiative and member and speaking support of the proposal, several amendments and edit.

And as I testified before, this housing levy is massively impactful and groundbreaking to work that not just ourselves, but many other housing providers do in the city in order to house the very people that keep our city moving forward every single day.

So, suffice to say we're in support of so of course 51 million for homeownership.

And we are in support of a number of the proposed amendments to make the levy better, particularly to include affordable homeownership in terms of family size units and homeownership as a way to address displacement or racial homeownership gaps.

And also I'd like to thank staff first of all for amendment A, identifying 21 million levy interest savings that could be used for additional program outcomes.

We're also in support of amendment four to integrate the facility affordable housing without redirecting dollars to be used to build more houses, truly innovative.

And we also support amendments to this right to review annual administrative expenditures to ensure that there are no surplus funds that can be used, that can be available to be redirected to other levy-funded programs, and to allow a portion of those administrative funds to be used for pre-development costs, small community-based non-profit housing developers, and to have language to, of course, Anyway, thank you for your time and please move forward with this proposal.

We look forward to supporting, or rather, many of us look forward to supporting this.

We have Ashad Bakulan followed by Donald King.

Thank you, Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Chad Vaculum of the Housing Development Consortium, speaking in strong support for the renewal of the Seattle Housing Levy at $970 million.

Housing affordability right now is at a crisis level in Seattle, and we currently need 30,000 homes affordable at less than 50% of area median income.

And this shortage will only grow over time unless we really act to meet the moment and create more affordable and abundant housing.

I'd like to thank council and to thank staff for the hard work of really diving in, digging into the details to fine tune the proposal.

And I appreciate issue A, which identifies up to $21 million in levy interest earnings that could be used for additional program outcomes.

I'm also supportive of issue four, aiming to integrate childcare and health services and other services into community spaces with affordable housing, especially without using housing dollars to support these broader community development programs and goals.

I'm also supportive of issues six through eight, which Cliff just mentioned.

I'm not going to go over them all, but I'm very supportive of all three of those.

And really, given the state of housing, this year's levy is especially important because It will help to meet the increased needs of our neighbors.

And this is really a chance to make a meaningful impact in our community by creating more than 3,000 affordable homes and preventing thousands more from falling into homelessness.

Please renew the Seattle Housing Levy at 970 million dollars and send it forward to the voters so we can approve it in November.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next we have Donald King followed by Katie Randall.

Good morning, Councilmember Muscata and Select Committee members of the Housing Levy Select Task Force.

I'm Donald King, and I'm President and CEO of the Nehemiah Initiative.

We are members of the Housing Development Consortium of King County, Seattle, King County, and the Black Home Initiative.

And on behalf of our Black church members, we are supportive of the renewal and the expansion of the Seattle Housing Levy.

We look particularly at the ability for the levy to expand its dollars towards $51 million in homeownership with over 200 years of history in the Black church to social and social justice mission of the church.

We feel that closing the wealth gap between black and white families through property ownership and home ownership is a new mission for the church.

At the same time, our churches, our black churches in Central Seattle are also threatened as their congregation and community members are threatened with displacement from Seattle.

This levy will certainly help stem that flow of outflow from the city and displacement of our community.

And we look forward to that work being done by others as well as the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle and providing up to 360 affordable home ownership opportunities.

Seattle has become less and less of a graded community.

And we are looking for the levy to begin to resolve that and seeing Seattle be more diverse.

Thank you.

We have Katie Randall followed by John Grant.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda and other council members.

My name is Katie Randall.

I'm a project developer at Mercy Housing Northwest and a Seattle homeowner.

Mercy Housing Northwest is the local business center for Mercy Housing, Inc., one of the largest nonprofit affordable housing providers in the country.

And our Seattle properties provide housing opportunities to hundreds of families and seniors.

I'm here to testify in strong support of the proposed renewal of the Seattle housing levy at $970 million.

and would like to thank the council for your work to delve into the housing levy renewal details and fine-tune the proposal.

Seattle faces an exacerbating housing crisis, as you've heard.

We need 30,000 homes affordable at less than 50% of area median income now.

Significant investment from the city of Seattle levy has a direct relationship with housing developers like Mercy Housing, being able to create units affordable to those with lower income.

I'm supportive of amendment for to facilitate the integration of child care health services affordable commercial space cetera with affordable housing and appreciate the prompt for the opposite housing to work with other departments to find funding sources for the community spaces.

Also supportive of amendment 8 family unit units are a critical need for supporting children who face housing instability and providing opportunities for intergenerational living that support family Because these units are larger, they cost more than to construct a studio, but a single three-bedroom apartment often houses as many as five people.

The housing levy has been foundational for affordable housing in our city for over 40 years.

Tools like Jump Start and mandatory housing affordability are helpful for supplementing the levy, but they vary from year to year.

And the need for affordable housing in Seattle is so great that even if Jump Start and MHA revenues increase, there is still a need for the $970 million levy.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for your careful consideration of this issue.

Thank you.

We have John Grant and Jesse Simpson up next.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is John Grant, and I'm the Chief Strategy Officer for the Longhouse Housing Institute.

I'm testifying today in strong support of the housing levy renewal at $970 million.

As you know, Lehigh has utilized the Housing and Level 3 Great Effect to significantly reduce the number of people who experience homelessness.

Today, I'd like to call out support specifically to Amendment 4 to emphasize community development goals, especially as it relates to child care.

As you know, there are many low-income communities that are in child care deserts.

Lehigh has actively partnered with the Refugee Women's Alliance to build out new early learning centers such as the Tony Lee apartments and are in the process of developing MLK affordable housing and early learning center in the neighborhood.

These partnerships between affordable housing providers and early learning groups that focus on BIPOC and immigrant and refugee families are key to ensure communities can thrive in place.

I thank Council Member Herbold for this inclusion.

We also want to thank Council Member Mosqueda for Amendment 7 to allow administrative funds to be used for pre-development costs.

This can help address a major barrier for smaller community-based organizations to launch innovative affordable housing projects that are geared towards serving historically marginalized communities.

The lack of adequate pre-development funds has been a way to lock out BIPOC organizations that have lacked access to mainland funding streams to launch their projects.

And finally, in regards to Amendment 14 on vacancy data, we would urge caution on requiring quarterly reporting on this data that could create an administrative burden on providers.

We believe collecting vacancy data from market rate housing providers could be useful as there are issues of luxury units that sit vacant.

However, that data point is less useful in the nonprofit housing setting where our housing units are highly sought after and quickly filled given the extreme shortage of available units.

Thank you for your time today and all your work.

Thank you for that.

Jesse Simpson, you're up next.

Morning, Council Members.

I'm Jesse Simpson, Government Relations and Policy Manager for the Housing Development Consortium.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you.

I'm here today to speak in strong support of the proposed $970 million housing levy renewal and would like to thank Council and staff for your diligent work to delve into renewal details and fine-tune this proposal.

I'd like to echo my colleagues and others' comments about the importance of the housing levy as a proven effective solution for building affordable homes they all desperately need.

I support the policy intent of Amendment 3, adding a program for preserving existing city-funded affordable housing projects coming to the end of affordability requirements.

I request that this amendment be carefully crafted to give providers flexibility on this preservation.

There are some instances where preservation of small, older buildings with substantial deferred maintenance rehabilitation needs does not make sense, where providers are better able to serve more low-income people by selling a building and using the proceeds to build or acquire new affordable homes.

We need to ensure providers can do the difficult cost-benefit analysis of preservation.

I'd also like to raise concerns about Amendment 14 concerning the collection of vacancy data and use of vacant units.

Our members already work hard to ensure affordable homes are filled as quickly as possible, and the vacancies they have are largely just a result of unit terms in between tenants.

Adding quarterly vacancy reporting requirements would just add more administrative burden to housing providers.

Housing levy has been foundational for affordable housing in our city for over 40 years.

And while tools like JumpStart and managed housing affordability are helpful for supplementing the levy, they vary year to year depending on economic climate, development conditions, and the job market.

The need for affordable housing is so great that even as Jumpstart and MHA revenues increase more than projected, there is still a critical need for $970 million housing level.

I urge you to renew the housing levy at $970 million, and thank you for your thoughtful consideration.

Madam Chair, that is the last public comment, person signed up online.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Thank you to everybody who dialed in today.

That does conclude everybody who has signed up for public comment.

We appreciate the items that you've shared with us today and we will continue to take into consideration the comments that you have made in the discussions here today.

And we also encourage people to dial in on Wednesday, May 31st, we will have a public hearing in the evening, late afternoon, I should say.

And we also have a opportunity to have public comment that morning again at 930. But the large afternoon, late evening, excuse me, what time does it start, Madam?

It starts at 430. The opportunity for folks to dial in and hear from everybody is provided for that afternoon at 430 on May 31st.

That will be our last big public hearing.

But you also have the chance to dial in every time that we meet at 930 in the morning as well.

That concludes our public comment for today.

Let's move on to item one on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, could you read item one into the record?

Agenda item number one, discussion of issues and options for 2023 housing levy renewal measure for briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, today we have with us Tracy Radscliff and Jennifer Labreck from Council Central Staff.

Thank you so much for being here.

We also have all of the Council members here who have shared ideas with Central Staff, so feel free as we walk through the Central Staff memo to ask questions, and if and when we get to the item on central staff's agenda.

That includes your item that you'd like to speak to.

There will for sure be time, but we'll have central staff walk through those concepts before getting to the council member who might be considering the possible amendment and enhancement to the housing levy.

We are thrilled to have with us Tracy Radcliffe and Jennifer Labreck from central staff who've been working closely with the Office of Housing and with council members to get all of their questions answered and to really fully understand the proposed 2023 levy that has been transmitted to council.

Before we introduce the legislation officially, we wanted to make sure that we do what we do every time there is a piece of legislation and allow for central staff to walk through that, analyze what technical amendments might be necessary and what additional strategies the council would like to include prior to introduction, if any.

So, today we will go through the memo that they provided as a recap on April 5th.

We had the kickoff discussion that included members of the mayor's office on April 19th.

We also received an overview from the office of housing that went a little bit deeper into the mayor's proposed legislation.

And we, of course, have had the chance to hear from council members throughout the last month on any questions that they had directly to the office of housing.

Today, we will have the initial discussion of the issue identification and discussion on possible council priorities.

This is really just a discussion today.

This is not going to probably lead to answers to specific questions.

More of those answers can get looked into if we don't have those.

at the tip of our tongue from central staff.

And this is not unnecessarily where we have to have a debate on policy ideas, but if we want to have a discussion, that is welcomed.

And I've had a chance to meet with all of our council colleagues over the last two weeks.

I appreciate many of you have shared some of the ideas that you're looking into.

You've shared some of the questions that you have.

And I genuinely thank you for the overall support that many of you have expressed for the housing levy and for the work that the Technical Advisory Committee and the community at large have been able to offer to us as we go into considering the 2023 levy for voter consideration.

should it move out of the council committee and out of the council chambers prior to the end of June.

Voters will get the chance to decide and it's really an exciting opportunity to think about how Seattle contributes to the overall 17,000 units that our county overall needs in the next 20 years.

This is a huge component of making that a possibility, but we have to make sure that all of these questions and ideas that council members may have get addressed before it gets moved out of our committee.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to central staff, Tracy Ratzcliff.

I see you and Jennifer Labreck on screen.

So thanks for being here with us, and we'll hand it over to central staff.

Great.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you, Councilmembers.

Today, we will cover three things in our presentation, just as Chairman Skada mentioned.

One, we will provide a brief overview of the Mayor's proposed 2022 housing levy.

We will discuss issues identified by Census staff, and then present initial council meetings.

This slide shows the Mayor's 2023 proposed housing levy.

I know you've all heard this information several times, so I will be brief.

The total proposed levy is approximately 970 million dollars and will create 3,158 new units of affordable rental and home ownership.

In addition to creating new units, the proposed housing levy will preserve existing affordable housing, provide operating, cleaning, food services, support, fund workforce stabilization, and pay for homelessness prevention, eviction prevention, and resilient services.

We have to align data to compete with expenses related to the ministry.

There's a couple of things I want to highlight that are not here on the slide.

One is that operating maintenance and services, OMFs for short, are contracts that are for 20 years.

So when the city enters into one of those contracts, it is a 20-year commitment.

At least 60% of the combined rental, production, and preservation program plus OMF will be for households that are below 30% AMI, which is consistent with all of those.

And additionally, I wanted to note that the Seattle Housing Authority has committed 300 vouchers to housing that we purchase, which will be used to support new tenants who call housing or missing shorts.

Jennifer, your microphone is like a little muffled on my end.

I wonder if you could get it closer to your mouth or if we need to try to go without the headphones.

I moved it a little bit closer now.

Is it just me, or is it muffled for others?

No, it's muffled.

It's muffled.

Okay.

Okay.

May I have 1 moment, please?

And if you want to, we have an empty chambers here.

You are welcome to come out to the dais as well.

And we have masks as well, but up to you.

I just wanted to make sure folks could hear you because it kind of comes in and out a little bit.

I'm right there.

I'll be there in a moment.

Okay, sounds good.

Sorry about that, folks.

And appreciate the ongoing effort to ensure that we have greater compliance with public health recommendations, obviously not requirements anymore.

But we're going to just take a quick pause, and we will come right back to this.

Tracy, is there anything else that you'd like to add as Jennifer transitions to a different microphone?

I don't, but I would be happy to answer questions if council members have any questions.

Again this is information that you have seen a couple of different times in a couple of different venues from committee to offices so happy to answer any questions that you might have about this slide and the mayor's proposed levy measure.

Great, appreciate that.

Thanks for filibustering with me.

And the good news is that you are coming in clear.

We can hear you really well.

Thanks so much, Tracy.

Before we turn it over to questions, just to help get the fuller picture of where we were in terms of our full analysis, and then where we're headed in terms of looking into questions, I'm gonna let Jennifer continue, who is out here on the dais, and let's try that microphone.

All right, how does this sound?

Sounds good to me.

How about all of you?

Okay, beautiful they say.

Do I need to do this slide over again or was it clear enough before?

Let's do it.

All right.

Is that okay?

Of course.

Okay, sorry I didn't interrupt you earlier.

Just so folks know, I don't have people in front of me on the screen here, so I will glance there.

I'll look for hands as well.

Thank you.

Just to review this slide again, this slide is the mayor's proposed 2023 housing levy.

You've heard this information before, including just now, so I will be brief.

The levy is approximately $970 million.

and will create 3,158 new units of housing, and that is both rental and home ownership.

In addition to creating new units, the housing levy would preserve existing affordable housing, provide operating maintenance and services dollars, support workforce stabilization, and pay for homelessness prevention, eviction prevention, and resident services.

There's also a line item for expenses to administer the levy.

A couple of things to highlight here.

The city is entering into operating maintenance and services contracts, OMS for short, that would be for 20 years.

If you combine, or I should say it in another way, at least 60% of the combined rental production and preservation program along with OMS will be for households at or below 60% AMI, which is consistent with prior levies.

Although additionally, Council Member Strauss, if you don't mind just hitting mute real quick, I think we're getting a little feedback.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Is there somebody who can help me mute that?

Thank you.

No problem.

Additionally, although it doesn't appear here, I wanted to note that the Seattle Housing Authority has committed 300 vouchers, which will be used to support the creation of new permanent supportive housing or PSH.

And finally, the Acquisition and Opportunity Loan Program is not a separate allocation of funding.

It uses OMS that has been collected, but not yet expended.

And I will pause here and see if there are any questions on the mayor's proposal.

Not seeing any yet.

Great.

Next slide please.

All right, this slide shows both 2023 proposed levy funding, along with the executives proposed use of jumpstart funding over the same seven year time frame between 2024 and 2030. The total number of rental and homeownership units over that seven-year time frame is 5,377.

So that's the total that is projected to be produced with both fund sources, and that's inclusive of both affordable rental and homeownership.

While this is a substantial number, it is still well below the need projected recently by the Growth Management Planning Council.

Next slide, please.

Under the housing levy proposal, jumpstart funding will be needed to achieve full impact for some programs, and I will spend the next couple of minutes walking through how that is intended to work.

As you'll recall, the 2023 housing levy proposal includes two new programs, one being workforce stabilization and the other being resident services.

The goal of the workforce stabilization program is to increase the amount of operating maintenance and service dollars going to existing PSH projects with the intent that this additional funding will be used to increase the wages of workers at PSH buildings.

To achieve this, $34 million would be paired with $170 million of Jumpstart to support wages at 3,900 existing PSH units.

The Resident Services Program would fund services at non-PSH housing to support tenant stability, and that could include things like case management or other staff support to help residents access the services that they need.

Here, about $10 million of levy funds would be combined with about $14 million of JumpStart dollars.

Finally, Levy and Jumpstart would be paired to support new OMS contracts for new permanent supportive housing projects.

Per unit, OMS amounts are being increased from $2,500 to $5,400 under this current levy proposal to support this increased amount of OMS funding and the continued creation of new PSH units.

Up to $110 million of Jump Start funding may be needed.

The final amount of Jump Start may end up being lower depending upon the availability of other funds for OMS.

Next slide, please.

This slide highlights a few key components of the levy ordinance that has been transmitted from City Council, it authorizes the levy to be placed on the November 7 ballot which is the general election and exempt certain seniors, and those veterans with disabilities and others from having to pay for the levy.

It requires the executive to submit an administrative and financial plan, as well as report annually on levy progress, and it establishes a levy oversight committee.

There's also an attachment A, which describes in more detail the programs to be funded with levy revenues.

Next slide.

Actually.

Oh, is there a question?

Yeah, I just wanted to point something out here on slide four.

Okay.

Um, I think that it's important to highlight and one of the public commenters mentioned this as well.

Highlight the importance of the jumpstart progressive payroll tax money that is complementing the housing levy here to really get to the overall goals for workforce stabilization, resident services, the family size units.

I'm looking at slide four.

Sorry.

Um, and that we can chat about this again, but the levy combination with this summary of investments needs to also be paired with JumpStart investments.

And so I think we'll get to that in a little bit.

But mostly, we think about solely this revenue stream, but what the mayor's office has done is contemplate this in partnership with JumpStart Progressive Payroll Tax to get to the level of services and units that they're proposing.

Could you comment on that a little bit too?

Yeah, and why don't we go back I think it's slide three.

Okay.

Slide two.

So this chart does show the combination of levy and jumpstart funding to be able to achieve the total number of units over the seven year time period and then if you go to the next slide.

Thank you.

This talks in detail about exactly what you mentioned Council Member Mosqueda, which is that the mayor's proposal does assume a braiding of both levy and jumpstart funding to be able to fully implement some programs.

And that includes both the Workforce Stabilization Program and Resident Services.

So to really be able to increase funding for the 3,900 existing PSH units, to be able to provide that additional funding largely for the purpose of increasing worker wages.

The mayor's proposal would need both workforce, I'm sorry, would need both levy funding and jumpstart funding to be able to achieve that.

Great, so we're just the levy and jumpstart and funding from sources like mandatory housing affordability combined with any other sources that could come our way from the state or the federal government.

Together, we are trying to invest in a broader picture of permanent supportive housing, stabilizing the workforce, supporting residents.

and meeting the range of housing needs and household sizes at all income levels.

I know Council Member Nelson and I have had a conversation about our joint interest in seeing more three and four bedrooms.

In fact, I think that's probably a shared priority for most of the Council members, if not all.

So we're able to achieve that level of three and four bedrooms solely by partnering and preserving and protecting the funding for Jumpstart.

I just think that that's important to lift up and appreciate that you've complemented the full analysis of the housing levy proposal with the job start funding because that is what was contemplated that was sent down to us and we just need to be really transparent with members of the public as well that this is braided together funding that allows for us to meet higher goals, more population serve, better services, and enhance workforce.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you chair mosquito and thanks for highlighting the, the partnership with a lot of those jumpstart funds.

I wanted to know if the presentation will also be talking about the mandatory housing affordability and Lucy revenue.

which was 75 million or 75.7 million in 2021 and 75.1 million in 2022. So over seven years, if it were 75 million, kept going, it'd be $525 million, 75 times seven.

So just want to know if we could talk about how MHA revenue will apply to this also with the pass of the state preempting Seattle on some land use issues and passing House Bill 1110. If we extend MHA to those new upzone areas, MHA revenue could potentially increase even more for this purpose of producing low-income housing.

Go ahead, Tracy.

Okay, so we can talk about that now Councilmember Peterson, or we could wait until we get to your proposal which I think is where you're squarely going to talk about.

those potential estimated revenues, which is you have done your estimate of what you think MHA might create over the next seven years.

It is different than what has been modeled by the Office of Housing.

Again, that fund source is to be paired not with the levy, but with the jumpstart.

So it is germane to what the jumpstart might be anticipated to create versus what the levy actually is expected to create.

So I just want to us to be able to separate in our minds that the MHA goes with the jumpstart in terms of what production might happen, and you have your thoughts about that.

But levy actually is intended not to be leveraged with MHA, but to be limited to very specific amounts of home and CDBG funding.

Thanks.

We'll chat about that a little bit more.

It sounds like when we talk about the issue identification, Council Member Peterson may be highlighting for us in the near future here.

Okay, Tracy, can you go to the, let's see, slide five, please?

There we go.

So along with the ordinance that was transmitted by the executive, there was also a companion resolution, and that did several things.

It does require OH to develop and submit a levy administrative and financial plan, ANF plan for short, in the second quarter of 2024. That resolution requests that the A&F plan contains some specific policies, and those include encouraging geographic distribution of levy-funded units across the city, housing investments, encouraging housing investments that support broader community development goals, and continued progress on implementing the Workforce Stabilization Fund.

Next slide, please.

The companion resolution also directs the Office of Housing and the Department of Administrative and Financial Services to work with affordable housing and labor partners to update the city's Community Workforce Agreement, or CWA, by establishing criteria specific to OH-funded affordable housing with a focus on projects on city-owned sites.

The resolution anticipates that CWAs will be applied to between four to six OH-funded new rental construction projects early on in the levy period.

And finally, the resolution states that a neutral third party will collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data for CWA and non-CWA projects to inform future policy updates.

I will pause here and see if there are any questions on the ordinance or the resolution.

I'm not seeing anything.

Okay, I'm now going to turn it over to my colleague, Tracy.

Thank you.

Looks like Councilmember Peterson might have a question.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Back to the previous slide on the resolution.

Hold it.

Yes.

Thank you.

Will, could you talk about the

cwa a little bit more what does that mean does that increase the cost of each unit of housing and if so by how much the cwa is a essentially an agreement between the city the developer and um the contractor um and it does include goals or targets for example around apprenticeship utilization priority hire wimby utilization um in other items um there was uh one cw so in um several years ago the city and the office of housing conducted a pilot project on the first and mercer site um which was completed i believe in 2022 um tracy do you want to take this one or do you want me to continue you're doing fine i'm happy to step in if you need a variety of that more So, as I mentioned, there was one pilot project that was done.

It was on the 2nd and Mercer sites.

As part of that, there was an assessment that compared that pilot project, the K site or 2nd and Mercer, against three other projects that did not have a CWA on it.

I think one of the key things I want to mention is that all those projects were completed during COVID.

you know, it's hard to draw any conclusive findings given that there was one project and that it happened during a very unique time in history.

And so that is part of the intent for doing further studies with a neutral third party is to be able to collect additional information on the CWAs to inform policy.

Did I answer all your questions?

I'll add to it a little bit.

As the chair, excuse me, as the sponsor of the language that we included, In the Mercer maker sale to require there to be a pilot study on the case site which you might be familiar with with any conversations you've had with friends from the building construction trades or MLK labor.

The concept was to really make sure that we could advance similar strategies that King County uses for almost every major levy and major project they invest in.

They have community workforce agreement language in Sound Transit, community workforce language in the behavioral health levy that just passed, community health community workforce agreement language in the Best Starts for Kids.

Nobody's ever asked whether or not there was fewer beds that were going to be created in the behavioral health levy or fewer kids that were going to be able to be served, or less miles of rail that was going to be laid because we're investing in good living wage jobs with public sector dollars.

So similar to places like the city of Duluth, who in Minneapolis has had project labor agreements and community workforce agreements, has seen not only an increase in workforce stability and opportunity for folks to get good living wage jobs, there's also increased production and excuse me, increased numbers of women apprenticeship, people of color apprenticeship participants on those sites.

And we have great data as well from the analysis from the case site study.

But I think that it's a good governance effort to make sure that public dollars are going into the public good, meaning making sure that we're also investing in good living wage jobs as we build more affordable housing.

Now, my understanding is that This is just a continuation of a ramp up of pilots that the city will be launching.

Building on the examples of the case site already, we had three other sites that were in the mix that were going to be part of our near term housing projects that would use good living wage standards as we build additional units.

And I will also say that in my conversations with our federal delegation when I went back for the National League of Cities, And the conversations I had directly with our delegation who was in leadership positions in Congress, when I raced with them and their staff, the importance of having additional federal funds to go to housing, affordable housing projects that are investing in projects that have community workforce agreements, they expressed a lot of interest in seeing what else we can do to provide additional federal dollars.

And the same is true for the state level.

Many state legislators in this last session and the session before are continuing to advance additional funds for affordable housing dollars, affordable housing tied to public works projects that have included language similar to CWAs in the past.

So I just want to make sure that it's clear that it's not solely the housing levy that will only be used for these dollars.

It would be impossible to compare Just housing levy dollars to the units when we're obviously always talking about braiding funding and the overall importance of making sure that we're investing in what our communities need overall is housing economic stability as well so happy to have a conversation about those additional details and the why something like this is so exciting and important and encourages as well to have those discussions with the building trades partners who were part of the case site pilot, who have really, I think, been good partners with the mayor's office and with the city of Seattle for providing proof of concept.

Vice Chair Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Just for the record, I want to make clear that the city does have a policy for other levies.

that requires community workforce agreements with good labor standards, requirements for apprentices and pre-apprentices.

The housing levy, with the exception of the K-site pilot, has long been the exception, but typically, other capital projects throughout the city that have more than $5 million of investment, do have to follow priority hire.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Very important reminder.

Tracy.

Council Member Peterson, if you want to see the results of that case site evaluation, the document, the report is actually in your levy notebook.

I think we put it underneath the background materials, so you can look more extensively at that report if you would like.

And I think Jen did a good job of saying that the results were somewhat mixed in that project and with the comparison, but it was an unusual time for us in terms of COVID and potential material and labor shortages and other protocols that were in place.

It just did not feel appropriate to rely on that one site to say, we shouldn't do more, we can do more.

This effort to collect more quantitative and qualitative data will help us really understand in a more normal situation what the impacts are in terms of achieving the many goals that go along with CWA.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I think Council Member Herbold, that's an old hand.

So I think we'll move on unless she jumps in.

And my apologies, I'm sharing screen for the first time, so you can tell that I'm trying to figure out how things work.

So apologies for moving through some of those slides during the course of the conversation.

So thank you, council members.

We're now going to move on to issues that have been identified by central staff.

This would be if you're following along in your memo it's on page for the memo.

So the first has to do with what has been mentioned already by a number of folks which is the levy levy interest earnings from the rental production and preservation program.

We're not accounted for in the financial or the production model.

that was submitted by the mayor.

We estimate roughly that about $21 million might be generated in terms of interest over the seven-year period of the levy.

So where do these earnings come from?

So they come from the accrual of the Rental Production and Preservation Program funding that happens because there is a lag between when the Office of Housing makes a financial commitment to a project, and when that project actually begins construction and begins to draw down the resources or the funding.

There is that lag that allows for a fund balance to build, and those monies sit in a cash pool and they generate interest.

That's the thing that is what gets us to that $21 million, potentially over the seven-year period.

The proposal as the mayor has submitted, the ordinance would stipulate that guidelines for how those interest earnings get spent would be included in the ANF plan that would be submitted to the council again in the second quarter of 2024. The council, if they so choose, could actually decide to direct now or when that ANF plan is submitted to the council, how you might want to have those interest earnings utilized, or you can leave it up to the mayor's office to make their proposal when they submit the ANF plan to the council in that second quarter of 2024. Any questions about this one?

If not, I will move on to the second item which was a description of administrative costs, do not cover all the proposed expenditure activities so the mayor's proposal assumes that about $10 million of the $60 million of administrative funding could be used to support costs related to maintaining land that's in the city's possession, but not yet developed.

The costs that go along with us holding some of this land include things like security, utilities, maintenance of the property, those kinds of expenses.

In addition, his proposal assumes that the funds could also be used for pre-development cost.

Those costs relate to determining the suitability of fights that the city might have in their possession or that might be publicly owned and trying to figure out what would be the potential development opportunities there.

The levy ordinance itself does not specifically call out these two activities under the description of administrative costs, and central staff really does believe that if we're okay with the use of administrative funds for these purposes, that we should include it explicitly in the ordinance just for legal clarity.

Any questions about that item?

If not, we're going to move on now to the council members initial proposals and we'll do this in alphabetical order.

I'm going to pause after each one of the items that I described to give the sponsor the opportunity to add anything further that they would like to.

So with that, I will just get started.

So the first set of proposals.

That sorry, sorry, Tracy, just to rephrase that.

So I just want folks to know, like, it's we're still in the exploratory time.

So you don't have to consider yourself a sponsor of an amendment.

But if you, as the person who raises for central staff want to add any additional context.

any additional questions, this is the time to do so.

Ideally, this full list will not necessitate a full list of corresponding amendments if we can get some of these questions answered.

So I just wanted to encourage folks to, of course, share their ideas and the questions that they have, but also encourage us if we can find solutions or if we feel comfortable, with minor tweaks here or there.

That's all things that I think we can do pre-introduction as well to try to identify any friendly amendments.

Of course, I would love to include those pre-introduction for our May 31st meeting.

Thank you.

And also, you know, it's okay as well if you just want to raise questions today and then we happen to get to the answers that's great too.

So don't feel like you have to put forward an amendment today as a sponsor just because it's being discussed.

This is for the discussion and deliberation aspect of the pre-introduction period for the housing levy.

Okay, with that.

So the first proposal from Councilmember Herbold would request a report on the results of the 2021 request proposals for the resident services associated with non PSH housing providers.

So this, in my memory, refers to the $2 million RFP that was issued in 2021. for the non-PSH housing providers.

This would specifically ask for information on the activities that were funded with that 2021 allocation of funding.

And that this information would be used by the Office of Housing to develop the policies for the levy ANF plan that will include additional funds for this effort.

So again, to remind you, there's about $10 million that is estimated to be proposed in terms of levy funding over the seven years for this specific activity.

moving on.

Do you want me to pause at the end of each one or the end of the full list?

I'm happy to do it however you all feel comfortable.

Let's pause at the end of each one if you don't mind.

Council Member Herbold, did you want to add anything else to that?

Sure, just a few words.

As I've mentioned before, funding for resident services, In our affordable housing investments that aren't permanent supportive housing, it's a real need.

It's a need that's not going away.

We're hearing also from affordable housing providers that these funds are really important to help their tenants retain their housing, prevent homelessness, and to stabilize an underpaid workforce.

Really appreciate the development of the amendment from Council Central staff and discussion with the housing office for how to really learn more about how the original tranche of $2 million provided for this need previously, how that has been used to meet the need.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I will also just add to this.

I wanted to thank you for the work that you've done on this amendment.

I agree that this is an exciting addition potentially to the housing levy preintroduction.

We've heard from providers, the buildings look the same on the outside.

But over time, the needs for the residents on the inside have changed drastically.

And I appreciate the statement of legislative intent that I had the chance to co-sponsor with you in 2023's adopted budget, requesting the Office of Housing to report to Council on how providers have spent the initial funding that we were able to make available to support our non-permanent supportive housing resident services and the longer term need for resident services.

So I think that this is a great way for us to make sure that the data is helping to inform future actions on the administrative and finance plan.

and as folks probably know, we get lost in alphabet soup all the time, but the ANF plan, the administration and finance plan, is really our chance to have policy directive that corresponds with concepts in the levy, but the administration and finance plan gets more into the details.

So this is an opportunity for us to have that data help inform the ANF plan updates that folks will have the chance to update next year, and I'd be excited to work with Council Member Herbold with you on this concept over the next few weeks as well.

And just to add, the Office of Housing is intending to do a deeper dive on the results of this RFP and to get a better understanding of what the needs are currently and in the future.

So I think this is very consistent with what the intent is of the Office of Housing as it relates to this matter.

So moving on to the next proposal, it would be to establish a specific outcome in the levy for acquisition of buildings.

Such acquisitions could include existing naturally occurring affordable buildings that are owned by for-profit entities.

It could include existing affordable buildings that are coming to the end of affordability requirements, whether they're owned by a non-profit or for-profit.

Could also include newly constructed buildings that are owned by a for-profit entity.

Is that my cue?

Yeah, please go ahead.

Sorry about that.

Me stopping will be your cue, council member.

Thank you so much.

So as we've discussed before, we're hearing a lot about soaring construction costs and how that's really cutting into the number of affordable housing units that we can produce.

The conditions of building are changing really drastically.

Price is increasing so much.

And I think it's time that we begin to consider how to more fully embrace the strategy of purchasing affordable homes and buildings from the private market.

I really feel that we need to grapple with the fact that we might be at a point where we get more value for our dollar from purchasing buildings and building them.

And I'd like to explore whether or not it makes sense to adjust the proportion of funding available to do doing so.

I also think that a formal acquisition program could really help us meet what has been a long standing goal of this levy of increasing geographic dispersion.

of affordable housing that the city's funds build.

And, you know, I say long standing goal of geographic dispersion, the last levy also included in the resolution with a goal of ensuring OH investments are being spread throughout the city.

And so, you know, I appreciate that aspirational language, but I'm feeling like some sort of a specific acquisition goal might be more concrete in driving us in this direction.

I want to also take the opportunity to say that focus on acquisition in a particular neighborhood has seen really positive results in my district, specifically in South Park, where OH has been focused on finding land and building to purchase and provide preserve for affordable homes.

I'd really like that we take this approach in other neighborhoods throughout the city that are at high risk of displacement, but are consistently year after year lacking in affordable homes, even as development is happening that is displacing the communities who have lived in those neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilmember Herbold.

I think this is an exciting area of our housing investments and I think that it would complement some of the work that we've been doing over the last several years and just for context for folks who might not have been as involved as Councilmember Herbold or the Councilmembers here today.

We have removed the cap on acquisitions that Office of Housing is able to fund.

So this enables Office of Housing to buy and hold buildings and land.

We've invested ARPA funds, American Rescue Plan Act dollars combined with state dollars and Jump Start funds.

to seize opportunities to purchase buildings for converting into affordable housing.

So far we have seven buildings that we've purchased.

That's over 400 new affordable units.

And we have updated the notice of intent to sell policy.

Council Member Morales and myself have been interested in that policy and language and updating that.

I know Council Member Herbold did some work on that prior to the ability to do notice of intent to sell.

And we included language in last year's budget in the form of a statement of legislative intent, requesting the Office of Housing to continue to advance that policy.

And finally, we passed the Jumpstart Community Self-Determination Fund, so siloing funds within Jumpstart dedicated to affordable housing, but really putting at the front of the line those community-based organizations who are led by communities, who are serving communities at highest risk of displacement so that they had better ability to access resources to acquire land and buildings by removing the barriers to funding and providing technical assistance and capacity building.

So I think all of those four examples really complement this concept that you just outlined in more detail.

And these efforts, I think, across all of our fund sources should be expanded upon so that we can have a timely availability of additional funds and we can leverage other funding sources to further promote acquisition.

I appreciate the concept here.

I really also appreciate the focus on those at most risk of displacement and working with community organizations that are intended to serve those communities and led by those communities.

And we'll look forward to working with you, Council Member Herbold, on how we lift up our ability to brave multiple funding sources to accomplish this as well.

Council Member Nelson.

So, I just want to make sure I understand Council Member Herbold, this program is the acquisition and preservation program and right now it's, it's sort of has a An estimate of 30Million dollars, are you proposing that that program increase or are is your main interest in the when you say specific outcome?

Are you mostly interested in that?

We acquire more buildings than build new buildings or is it that the whatever the units are.

Are more geographically dispersed.

I'm proposing that within the broader category that we include a goal.

For some of the, the housing that is produced within a category, it may be under acquisition.

It may be under rental housing production, it may, and it may result in potentially backing out some of the rental housing production.

units within the goal because, again, the objective is to see if we can produce more with the same amount, not to increase the size of the levy.

As it relates specifically to a geographic focus, I was simply giving that as an example, that if you have a goal of acquiring housing in particular neighborhoods, It helps make more likely that you, you meet that goal because you're really focused on the real estate activities that are happening within a particular community that you're seeking to mitigate the displacement impacts of development in that community.

Well, as you'll see in my comments about a couple of my proposals, I do think that it's very cost effective to preserve existing rental units more cost effective than building new ones.

And I'll just have to think, I'll have to talk offline about what are the potential downsides on this.

It's not clear to me right now, thanks.

Great, thanks.

Let's go to number three.

The next one would be to add a new program for preserving city-funded affordable housing projects that are coming to the end of the affordable requirements.

This program would include such elements as tracking those projects that we know are city-funded and have expiring affordability requirements, talking to owners in advance of when those affordability requirements are coming to an end, in order to try to facilitate continuation of those units for use.

A number of these things, the Office of Housing is actually already participating in.

Great.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Tracy did a great job as usual describing the amendment summit some information we received from the Office of Housing since our last meeting is that during the course of the next seven year levy and estimated 20 buildings with 568 affordable homes will come to the end of their affordability agreements with the Office of Housing.

What happens in those homes is ultimately the decision of the housing providers who operate them.

But the city, of course, has an interest in preserving the affordability of as many as possible and ensuring those 568 households are not pushed out of their homes and into homes they can't afford.

The amendment would ask the Office of Housing to establish a program that builds off of the program that they currently have, and to explore whether support from the city would make it possible to continue affordability or to support tenants to purchase the building.

The goal is not to preserve 100 percent of the buildings.

It's really about going through, as properties are scheduled to to come up out of their affordability requirements.

It's intended to make sure that the city and the owner of the property as well as the tenants and other affordable housing stakeholders are working together to decide what the best future is for that particular building.

I also want to flag that the Office of Housing has identified that among the 20 buildings that I mentioned that will be lapsing during the upcoming levy, half of them are single family homes with multiple residents living within the homes like a sort of a rooming house model or group home model.

The Office of Housing is exploring the possibility of an opportunity to purchase program for smaller buildings like this.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Similarly, I want to thank you for considering this amendment.

I'm looking forward to supporting you as well with the 50-year affordable term that's coming up and the importance of the city having a plan, a uniform plan to ensure that we have a strategy to continue affordability.

And as you said, if it's not every building, at least there's a rubric that we go through to analyze which ones we can provide either technical support to or financial support so that we continue to be good stewards of our public investments and also support those residents.

So I'll look forward to hearing more about this concept and love to partner with you on it.

Moving to the fourth item, this would be a proposal to modify the existing language that's in the companion resolution regarding mixed-use, low-income housing projects that support broader community development goals.

And it would be modifying to specifically mention childcare, health services, affordable commercial space, and other desired community spaces.

Or services, not spaces, services.

Council Member Herbold, do you want to provide additional context?

Not not much more to say, and it feel bad about that because I really appreciate how, how much we heard testimony about this particular amendment, I know, community members and affordable housing safe quarters in in.

Community Development Stakeholders are really excited to know how we can work together with other city departments to leverage city dollars to fulfill broader community development needs while also addressing the dire affordable housing needs of our community.

So I'm looking forward to this work.

Thank you so much.

And I'll just add to this.

I think that the vision or the example of thinking about Reverso Maya Plaza, El Centro's housing or the Filipino Community Center and the village that they've created with multi-generational housing, child care on the first floors, affordable housing above, intergenerational housing, space for community events and gathering.

All of these things are examples of how we support economic stability as well as housing stability.

And I think arguably, as we've all talked about before, how we improve the population's health with greater opportunities for social cohesion and self-determination and really a sense of place as well as a place to call home.

So I'm thrilled about this item and love to see this included as well.

The final proposal from Councilmember Herbold would be to add language regarding the Levee Affordable Homeownership Program being used to assist those at risk of displacement and to address the racial equity gap.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Well, we all know that one of the strongest tools to address the racial wealth gap is homeownership.

This racial wealth gap was created in the first place by the city's past discriminatory policies and practices, such as redlining, restrictive racial covenants.

I really am proud that the city is working to do more to use housing investments to address these past practices.

And I believe with support of our low-income homeownership stakeholders who provide this housing, work with first-time homeowners, we can do much more.

The Jumpstart funding, had some language included that set aside a steady percentage of funding specifically for affordable homeownership, reserved those funds for households at risk of displacement from their communities, or households who face barriers to homeownership due to the city's past discriminatory language.

This amendment simply adds that same language to the levies investments in affordable homeownership ensure that these funds are targeted to address the city's past wrongs and benefit the folks who have suffered from them.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Finally, I'll just continue with my appreciation for these items.

Appreciate your partnership and making sure that the levy funding is consistent with jumpstarts focus on investing in communities most at risk of displacement.

We talked about that a minute ago and looking forward to making sure that the broader.

to make sure that we have a conversation and opportunity around where we can break funds and where we've relied on jump start remains central in our discussion here so that those funds don't get lost or, you know, spent twice.

And to really make sure that we're harmonizing language across the jump start policies and the housing levies.

It makes a ton of sense as we know that the funds are being contemplated in the formula for how we accomplish some of the goals here.

I think this is great language to add regarding homeownership.

All right, moving on to the proposals from Chair Mosqueda.

So the first would require an annual review of the administrative expenditures during the annual budget process.

And this would be to ensure that all of the funds that are designated for administrative costs are actually needed and that there isn't the ability to reallocate if some of the revenues are not needed to be able to fund other levy programs.

Yeah, I'll comment on my own.

Excuse me.

I just have one sentence here.

The amendment is intended to formalize a practice that central staff is already doing throughout our budget on an annual basis.

So thank you very much for that work that you've done.

And we'd like to include that here.

Sure.

So the next proposal would be to expand the use of administrative funds for pre-development costs, specifically for small community-based projects.

As we discussed earlier, the language in the mayor's proposal does allow administrative funds to be used for pre-development costs.

This would be now specifying that it could be pre-development costs specifically for small community-based projects.

Thanks.

Just to provide additional context to this, this is an addition to the levy that I believe will help smaller community-based organizations get projects off the ground faster.

As folks know, there is community housing roundtable that we hold quarterly.

And for the larger affordable housing developers, it's possible to absorb many of the upfront costs that redevelopment analysis and reports require.

But for some of our smaller developers, especially newer developers who are coming from community of color excuse me, who are coming from within communities of color, who are stepping up to the plate to build affordable housing to reflect the needs of their community.

Think of the Filipino Center, for example.

They are newer to creating affordable housing, shifting their focus to really try to respond to the community needs.

What they've told us, along with El Centro and um, Africatown and a number of other organizations is that the process for finding and applying for and then securing pre-development funding from a third party to then come to the city can add significant time and it can delay the process and sometimes it can lead to losing the property or the opportunity to build So this amendment would help enable the Office of Housing to use administrative funds to support the pre-development costs for smaller community-based projects to help remove that barrier so that we can build on the concepts that are already codified in statute, like the Community Self-Determination Fund from Jump Start.

And really, this is an effort to also help support anti-displacement and community-driven projects so that more smaller developers can have access to those pre-development funds at the beginning.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I really like this idea and support it to use administrative funds for pre-development costs.

And I also support what you all were saying earlier about acquisitions, looking to have some goals for acquiring existing buildings so that we can provide that affordable housing faster and integrate it into more neighborhoods.

I was wondering if this could be defined to include free acquisition costs as well, because there are similar due diligence reports that nonprofits would have to get if they're thinking about acquiring a building, environmental reports, preliminary title reports.

cost estimate reports, so just wanted to put that idea out there.

You know, if OH wanted to help a nonprofit do that initial due diligence, those expenses pre-acquisition, that would be also helpful to some of those nonprofits, I would think.

The term here is pretty broad, the pre-development cost.

It doesn't say for only new construction buildings, for example.

So I think it's broad enough to be able to incorporate acquisition in addition to new construction projects.

Thank you.

Councillor Nelson, please go ahead.

So what is the Office of Housing think about this?

Are they feeling as though they need all the administrative costs to support the levy projects?

And I know that there are some suggestions that we require additional accounting of, you know, a better tracking of inventory, et cetera, which I assume will require more administration.

So what has been their feedback?

Well, we have Kelly Larson from the Office of Housing available.

And Kelly, I don't want to speak for you and want to see if you want to speak for yourself or if we need to get a formal response back in a written form from you.

Thank you for the question.

We are, you know, regularly tracking these expenditures and we do everything we can if we're not utilizing these funds for administrative expenses to put them to work, to build and support new housing.

We look forward, as Council Central staff indicated, we work with them regularly to examine these expenditures and we look forward to talking more.

Go ahead.

Does that mean that in the past, have you used all the administrative funding for administration?

Do you often have leftover?

We have underspend at times due to staff vacancies or other operating changes in our environment and we deploy those funds to develop new housing if they exist in excess.

That's true.

We have worked with the Office of Housing in previous years when there have been some excess funds to fund joint council and mayoral priorities or sometimes just the council priority during budget.

We have worked collaboratively with them during the budget process when excess available funds have been identified for other purposes.

Now, I'll just talk offline about how much that underspend has tended to be in the past.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Go ahead, Trustee.

Moving to the final proposal from Council Member Esqueda.

This would be a proposal to add language that would support the development of family size units through the levy rental production and preservation as well as the homeownership program.

The mayor's proposal does in fact assume development of two and three bedroom units through the rental production program and two, three and four bedroom units through the homeownership development program.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So I alluded to this interest earlier in my comments today and I appreciate that there's a lot of council members who've raised this over the years.

When we think about family size units and the opportunity to create either roots in Seattle or keep your roots into Seattle.

One of the main issues that is pushing families out of the Seattle area is not having significant or sufficient space for affordable units to also be family size units.

And I want us to think broadly about what family means.

This is an opportunity for us to think about families who include elders or extended family members, the opportunity to ensure that three and four bedrooms can allow for intergenerational learning and growing together and support.

That's really about how we create a sense of community and support systems that help keep people in place and also provide them with the stability that they need, not only to go to a job, but to have greater individual family and population health.

So for me, this kind of goes back to the concept of what is a healthy community.

It is the ability to have access to a house for sure, but the ability to have a sense of belonging and place also often means being able to keep your family Going to the same school, having a short commute to your place of employment, being able to have your parents live with you if they so desire and if you desire towards the end of their life and to have greater care options within your home.

That's what three and four bedrooms can afford.

And it's also really, I think, an opportunity for us to think about it through an equity lens.

Often immigrant and refugee populations have larger nuclear families that live under one house, and having the opportunity for us to have three and four bedrooms to really be a welcoming city to all is critical.

So I'm excited about the opportunity to add language to support our commitments that are there in the housing levy, but really reliant on us to partner these funds with Jumpstart.

Jumpstart is playing a critical role, if not a larger role, right, Tracy, in helping to build these family-sized units.

So what we want to do is lift up that partnership in terms of funding that is already embedded within Jumpstart's spend plan.

Again, spend plan was unanimously I think it's important for us to recognize that this is a housing levy adopted by the council and continues to be reinforced in our efforts to make sure that we are continuing our commitment to the community, maintaining that social contract.

to this related to this housing levy we are intentionally braiding funding for three and four bedrooms with jumpstart funds so the amendment requests office of housing to really explore ways to incentivize and create more family-sized affordable units as we braid that funds and really help prioritize the advancement of those larger two, three, and four bedrooms.

Councilmember Nelson, I see you on screen.

I know you had chatted about three and four bedrooms at one point.

Did you have anything you wanted to add there?

I do support this.

I don't know.

I don't understand the combining of funds from Jump Start and the housing, let it be, et cetera, to get to this goal.

But I do think that we do have to account for the fact that we want people to stay in Seattle.

And so as their families grow, they should have more options.

And we want more people to come here that might have different needs than existing rental populations.

So I support in principle this goal.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Tracy, is there anything else that you would want to add to further?

No, just let me clarify.

Yes, I think I just want to clarify.

Jumpstart is going to be separately creating homeownership units and rental production units that are family-sized.

Again, remember, in this case, we're not on those two fronts going to be braiding together.

We're not going to be mixing levy on the rental production and homeownership.

Those are going to have separate unit goals and separate activities from the levy.

I just want to make sure that you understand that as it relates to the rental production and the homeownership programs.

We're keeping those funds intentionally separate so that we can properly account for unit production, And so just to provide that clarity.

But they both have strong goals as relates to doing family size units.

And you're just proposing, because we've already done this for Jump Start, to add some language that just amplifies that priority for family size unit for the levy.

Happy to move along.

to Council Member Nelson's proposals.

So the first would be to authorize up to 10% or approximately $9 million of the rental production program to be used for workforce housing, serving households from 61 to 80% of AMI.

The Mayor's proposal currently would allow the rental production program only to be used to serve households up to 60% of AMI.

Great.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Thank you so I think I want to provide some remarks, just to contextualize where this idea is coming from or where, where I'm thinking about this.

So, we, we know that Seattle lights are caring people that have that have voted in wide margins to to increase their taxes to help people that are more vulnerable than.

than they are.

And we also know that every single property tax measure that we that we pass does contribute to housing and affordability, and the added costs of property taxes gets passed down to both homeowners and renters alike.

You know, and every time we do renew a levy, we usually we always I don't know of an example where we haven't increased the size to at least maintain the existing service and account for inflationary costs.

And then and then we add a little bit more.

And over time, although individually, each of those increases might not sound like much as we're discussing them before we put them to the voters together.

they do make an impact.

And sometimes it's talked about, well, this is just, you know, the this yearly increase is about as much as a latte once a week over the course of a year.

Well, if you're already struggling to hang on to your housing, that can be difficult.

And then combined with all the other things, in addition to property tax measures at the county level, it can be devastating for people whose incomes aren't growing or whose are shrinking.

And we just talked about displacement.

So that is that is 1 thing that I'm thinking about and another thing that is that is feeding into this idea is the fact that this housing levy is triple the tax rate of the current 1. and so in.

that is going to be a significant increase in what people are paying.

All of this means that when this measure comes to me, I have to really think about what are going to be the impacts across the board to my constituents.

It's my duty to make sure that the benefits of this housing levy are spread as equitably as possible to help as many people as possible.

And so that's what this measure is about, my proposal, is because there's nothing in this levy proposal that helps people that are earning from 61 to 80%, really.

I mean, there's homeowner assistance that targets that affordability level, but there aren't rental units.

And so what are we gonna do for our artists and our bartenders and our retail?

workers and even the kids of homeowners who are perhaps getting their first jobs and so that is what the intent of this.

This idea is again it's an idea and I.

We had a conversation with HTC.

There is precedent for this.

This is not wholly new idea.

Let's see.

I'm looking up for the 2029. In the 2029 levy, there was 10% of rental production that was allocated for workforce, housing, in the rental production tranche of the whole program.

And so that, I'm not saying, and it was up to 10%, and that is that, so this mirrors that idea.

So that is the sort of where I'm coming from here.

I understand that the HGC membership carefully, carefully, carefully crafted this proposal so that everybody received funds that could make their projects work over the course of seven years.

I understand the work that went into this.

However, it's our job to kick the tires and make sure that we're doing our due diligence as well.

If there are gaps, then we could seek to fill them by moving money around or changing the allocations.

So that's where this is coming from, and I welcome questions or pushback.

I just feel that this is something that we do have to think about.

Our workforce housing stock is dwindling.

And Councilor, I think you meant the 2009 housing levy, not the 2029.

Yeah, I found my line.

The 2009 levy allowed up to 10% of the rental production and preservation program to be spent on housing, serving those between 61% and 80% AMI.

Thank you, Tracy.

You're welcome.

And I was nodding when you were saying that the up to 80% is in fact there is the homeownership money that goes up to 80% but you are correct that the rental production program or O and M can go up to 80% so just for clarity purposes there.

Okay, moving on to the next item.

It would be to request the Office of Housing to explore extending the length of time that rental assistance can be provided by the Homelessness Prevention Program.

So historically, this program has allowed assistance to be provided for up to 12 months over a 36 month period.

Right, and so we're trying, yep, I'm sorry.

Go ahead, yeah, that's fine.

Thanks.

Like I said, I believe that it's better to prevent people from from going homeless by keeping them in their existing homes.

And we have heard commenters been merits has proposed or has communicated the idea of permanent rental assistance.

I'm not going there, but I do believe that that we should Help people stay in where they are.

And I recognize that the the private housing providers were not part of this of the advisory committee.

And so maybe this wasn't this idea wasn't fleshed out a lot.

But we but we have a responsibility, I think, to help people stay in their homes.

So when we talk about longer term than 12 months, I don't know what that is.

It can't be permanent because obviously this is a seven year levy.

But we need to provide time for that household to stabilize and also provide the housing provider with the knowledge that they will have a tenant first for a particular amount of time.

So I think that lengthening this could serve both purposes.

And I don't know what that would cost or if this would require changing of the allocation among programs.

It's just we're going to be able to move it forward.

That's the principle I'm advancing.

Great.

Thanks.

Yeah.

If you can believe it, I think when I was first elected, the conversation in 2018 was around how we move it from a three-month support to then 12 months.

So appreciate the thinking here and have in the past

Number 11. So the next proposal would be to increase funding for the homelessness prevention program.

So the mayor's proposal would assume that $1.42 million a year or $10 million over seven years would be designated for this program.

Go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

Sure, during one of our discussions I don't know if it was the last one but the one before that there was there, I sent some, not necessarily resistance but the Office of Housing explained why it is difficult to, I think it was during the conversation about the inventory of vacant units.

The point is that it was expressed that it is difficult to nimbly get people into those empty units.

And that got me thinking.

And we talked about housing connector in that meeting and also previously in finance and housing, that that is a very effective, efficient way of getting people who need housing into into rental units, private rental units using the Zillow platform.

Housing Connector is funded through the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, but they do not have any city funding and they are extremely successful.

But we heard that oftentimes they don't have, they end up operating at a deficit.

And so I would love to be able to find some way to support their program because they're actually doing a good job of filling empty units quickly.

Thank you.

So not wanting to contradict you, Council Member Nelson, but the information that we have received is that the Housing Connector does get city funding, and I think it's around a ballpark of $300,000 to $500,000 a year that flows through the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

The contract used to be with HSD, but when HSD moved its funding over to the regional authority, that money went to the regional authority, so that may be where the confusion is.

Sure, I should have said administered by.

Yeah, beautiful.

Thanks.

So the final item would require reporting and performance measures for the workforce stabilization funding program so this is the new program that would provide additional funding to our PSH providers to hopefully help to increase wages for their, their staff, and they would be asked that these reporting and performance measures be included in the levy administration and finance plan.

The proposed levy ordinance does include language requiring the levy to provide the Office of Housing to provide an annual report and that is to include progress and performance reports for each levy program.

So this proposal is very consistent with what would be intended.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

So this is a new program, and the, the bigger conversation that we had during budget, is that, that it is hard to fill these positions it's hard to keep workers in these positions.

One of the reasons why it's.

Progress on addressing homelessness is slowed down.

One of the barriers is the fact that these workers are hard to find and then keeping them in these jobs because of their pay levels is difficult.

And so that's why we talked about increasing the annual adjustment of our service providers last year.

And here we are again talking about the need to raise wages, but I think that the ultimate goal is not just raise wages, it is to keep people in these jobs so that there's less turnover and so that we can get the job of the housing levy done.

So then that raises the question for me, how are these service providers or the nonprofits that are utilizing these dollars, Are those dollars getting to the frontline workers or is it going to administrators?

What is the turnover rate?

Can we see an improvement?

Are people staying on the job longer?

And so those are the questions that I have that are motivating this reporting request.

Okay, thanks Councilmember N I know that Councilmember Herbold and I and others on the council as well are very interested in making sure that the dollars are getting to the workforce at the front line, too.

So I'm interested in working with you and central And I'm trying to remember what some of the limitations were on our directive in the last few years, but generally appreciate that there's a focus and interest on tracking and continuing our commitments to investing in the workforce.

And customer the executive has indicated that they are supportive of additional reporting and measurement because it is such a new program that they want to make sure that the funds are spent for the intended purpose as well.

So I think it's very consistent with what the executives has articulated as their interest as well.

Great, thank you.

I'll just add, you know, I'm sure if some of our providers were here, they'd also say that they are interested in helping to provide this transparency and whatever we can do on our end to try to make sure that it's not more of a reporting barrier or burden to folks is something that we could probably think through as well.

How do we provide the analysis versus having to have multiple reports?

Just want to flag that because I don't want that to be another worry for folks to have to add that to their already overburdened list.

Okay, let's go on to number 12. Oh, excuse me, slide 12. Yes, go.

Yeah.

So the next proposals are from Councilmember Peterson's proposals.

How about that?

Slide 11, I think.

The following two are from Council Member Peterson.

The first one would be to explore a different approach to increase funding for low-income housing that would reduce reliance on property taxes.

This could include changing the assumptions regarding revenues such as the mandatory housing affordability program and approving a new revenue source to support low-income housing.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thanks, Tracy, for working on this.

I appreciate this presentation and continue to be a steadfast supporter of creating more low-income housing in Seattle.

I spent two decades of my career financing the construction and preservation of 30,000 low-income units across the country.

That said, I just want to make sure we're exploring all of our options here to get the most progressive revenue sources.

Same grand total dollar amount, it's just that it's 100 percent property tax which is being proposed here and it's a tripling of that portion of property taxes.

What I hear from constituents is they're feeling the city government and county government have initiated several new or increased property taxes lately.

I think King County was just debating the veterans and housing levy at the county level and worried about property taxes as well.

Yet here we are jumping in.

To do a tripling of this and so also concerned about the transportation levy coming up next year is transportation chair, even though I won't be here for that.

We are doing the sale transportation plan right now.

We're trying to repair our bridges.

We need funding to address transportation needs.

If that's going to be a property tax, then.

I just want to make sure that we are looking at some progressive alternatives early.

We know that the state government passed a capital gains excise tax for earnings over a certain amount.

I think it's over $250,000.

And it's non-retirement.

It's not real estate transactions.

It's a very narrow universe, very progressive source that was upheld by the Washington State Supreme Court.

As I understand it, one percent locally would generate about $25 million.

If you did a capital gains excise tax in Seattle, it's possible that the property tax request here could drop to almost zero, and you could still end up with the same dollar amount for low-income housing.

The other thing we were talking about earlier is the MHA revenue as we know, real estate developers have choice to pay the in lieu fee $75 million in 2021, a smaller $75 million portion.

I think 75.7 in 2021, 75.1 in 2022. But I think we're only assuming about $23 million a year in the MHA revenue, which I think is, I think if we were optimistic, we would be expecting about 75 million every year going forward.

So three times as much as we're assuming in the office of housing model for this.

If we assume the MHA revenue is 75 million a year, especially with House Bill 1110 being passed and we hope to extend MHA into those new zones, and then we look at something like a capital gains excise tax, the property tax burden could drop to almost nothing.

That's what this is for, is just to keep that on the table and just signal my interest in having these additional progressive revenue sources reduce regressive tax burdens, which could include even this proposal here.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Nelson.

Councilmember Peterson, I do appreciate that you're consistent in your concern for the impacts on our constituents.

That was your message during the parks district spending plan discussion.

And and I've heard this from you consistently during during these deliberations as well.

And it is true.

I mean, I'm a citywide council member and I just want to echo that people are concerned.

I mean, It's not an exaggeration to say that many people who own homes are really, they're considering leaving because they can no longer afford to keep them.

It is really true.

I am not going to comment on an additional source of funding to pay for housing, but I do want to just express my appreciation for your keeping your eye on that.

Thanks.

Great.

Number 14. Okay.

The final proposal from Council Member Peterson would be to refine the collection of vacancy data and use of vacant units for city-funded housing units.

OH currently collects and reviews vacancy data on city-funded units on an annual basis as part of the annual reporting that providers have to provide to the Office of Housing.

This proposal would request that that vacancy data information be collected on a quarterly basis instead of an annual basis.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Yes, so as we know, the Office of Housing is providing gap funding for a lot of these low income housing projects.

Typically, they're getting the bulk of their money from low income housing tax credit program, the federal program administered through the Washington State Housing and Finance Commission.

and that's equity that's coming in in exchange for those tax credits going to the investors.

Those investors are keeping an eye on those projects for at least the first 15 years, if not longer.

They require very frequent reporting, including rent rolls, which provide vacancy data.

It's not an administrative burden to just simply have them also forward a copy to the Office of Housing.

What we found with the annual reporting, it's completely inadequate.

In fact, we still don't have all that vacancy information in hand for the most recent annual reporting.

And when we've asked for this last year and the year before, it was the information trickles in.

And then by the time we get it all, it's stale.

so that we can't make a policy decision.

Going from annual to quarterly is necessary for proper oversight and to maximize the use of those vacant units.

Also, the other issue for me is making sure that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and the mayor's office and office of housing and even with housing connector partnerships that there is the ability to help out more people who are experiencing homelessness.

So if somebody is housing ready in a tiny home village, if somebody is housing ready in an enhanced shelter.

And we have unauthorized encampments throughout the city, including one in my district that was under I-5 for several months.

And the KCRHA and the city were struggling to find 15 units out of the 400 potentially that were vacant in the OH portfolio.

So just because we're the funders, we're creating, we're renewing this program, we're potentially tripling the amount.

I think we should have the right to ask those who are getting these dollars to take an additional person in one of their projects.

And so I think that that flexibility should be coupled with the additional vacancy reporting.

Thank you.

Thanks.

we can go on.

Okay, moving on to next steps.

So the select committee is scheduled to meet.

Oops, is there a hand?

Let me just double check.

Council Member Nelson, did you have a question on that last one?

Yeah, I just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly support that last council member Peterson's proposal, because I've heard Mark Jones say several times real time list of available units.

And so anything that we can do to to provide a resource for our outreach providers, I think to to help people who are unhoused get into housing, I think that we should do.

Thank you very much for proposing this.

Thank you.

Let's go on.

Moving on to next steps.

The subcommittee is scheduled to meet as you indicated earlier on Wednesday, the 31st of May at 9.30 for purposes of discussing what would likely by that time be the introduced levy proposal and related legislation.

and also discuss council members' actual proposed amendments to that legislation.

There is a public hearing that is scheduled for that afternoon.

It actually starts at 4 p.m., not 4.30 p.m., and is a hybrid in the council chambers.

The committee is then scheduled to meet on Wednesday, the 7th of June, again, to discuss the levy proposed legislation and amendments.

Then finally, the final meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, the 21st of June at 9.30 to discuss and possibly vote, hopefully vote on the levy proposal and related legislation for then consideration of full council and the week after.

Great.

Can I get clarification?

It says 4 p.m.

for the public hearing here.

I said 4.30 earlier.

What is the exact time that we have?

And can I confirm that our communication that's gone out, I think we had infographics that said the time and with the clerks, does everybody have 4 p.m.

on their calendars?

Do you want to use the microphone, Madam Clerk?

Can you use the microphone?

So initially, we had our 4pm, but it's currently at 4.30pm.

Okay, so 4.30pm.

Sorry for the confusion.

Okay, 4.30.

I want to make sure we update our infographics and we will ask communications team, our incredible team, and the skills of especially Joseph Piha and Jesse Franz to help us get that infographic for May 31st available for council members to send out to their constituents, put in your newsletters, put on your social media, that we're going to have a 9.30 meeting.

We will also have a 430 public hearing and we will make sure that that information gets sent out to council members so you can upload that and put it in your newsletters as well.

And then, as I mentioned to many of you, as we were having our discussions about the timeline and the approach to this, we will definitely have the opportunity on May 31st to hear proposed amendments that are.

In addition to any amendments that we include and concepts that we include pre-introduction, some of these, as you've heard, I think are about lifting up language, emphasizing language, creating language that directs Office of Housing to incentivize or prioritize.

Some of those things we might be able to do in a pre-introduction bill.

For our consideration, that would be, I would phrase them and as I think the central staff said, things that we all kind of can generally consider friendly amendments, things that need additional discussion, not that they're unfriendly, but things that would need additional discussion or might warrant additional debate.

would be something that would not necessarily be included pre-introduction, but council members would have the chance to have those amendments be discussed on the 31st.

And then we would also have those amendments and the introduced legislation on June 7th.

If it's possible for us to get this discussed and voted on and moved out on June 7th, fantastic.

That allows for us to send it to the full council and for those deliberations to get wrapped up.

I know everybody has a really packed agenda and we have put all of our housing and finance items on hold until we get through the housing levy with the absence of one updated revenue forecast discussion that we'll have mid-May.

Ideally, if we can get this out on June 7th, fantastic.

We also have time held on your calendars for a Wednesday, June 21st meeting.

Regardless, we will be wrapping this up by the end of next month with the intent to make sure that there's plenty of time for discussion and deliberation, both on May 31st in the morning and on June 7th, and hope that we can find as much common ground as possible with our pre-introduction concepts and more to come for individual amendments that will be up for discussion as well.

I wanted to thank central staff for their work on these concepts for your memo.

Over the next two weeks, the chance will be up to council members and central staff to work on any language that they'd like to see, whether it's in a introduced amendment and concept in pre-introduction or your own proposed amendment.

Please do reach out to central staff, or you can always reach out to our chief of staff, Aaron House, in my office, who is our lead on all things We'll be reaching out to you to discuss the process or concept that you'd like to discuss.

Our offices will be reaching out to schedule another round of meetings with your offices on May 18th, 22nd, and 23rd.

So we'll reach out for some time here soon.

Okay I'm seeing shaking of the head that means we are two minutes over time and appreciate your generous time today and for the active discussion.

I did want to put a plug in for our other committee meeting and that is our finance and housing committee meeting.

This is the one that we generally encourage or invite other council members to attend so it's not technically a meeting of the whole like we have here today but if you're interested in attending, we encourage you to let us know if you'd like to come because the Finance and Housing Committee meeting on May 17th at 9.30 will include a presentation from the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecast Director, the City Budgets Office, and central staff who will be providing us with an update on the revenue forecast.

Importantly, the central staff team is doing an analysis of the existing revenue forecast information that we have.

And we'll be providing us with an update on the general fund financial plan for review.

And we will be looking at any carry forward and exceptions bills.

So while members of the committee are not allowed to vote, we encourage you to tune in or participate if you have questions about revenue and our overall fiscal health, given the updated revenue forecast in the last meeting.

And pre We have reached the end of our meeting and we will see you again in the For public hearing.

Okay.

Take care everyone.

Bye.

Bye.