Land Use Committee 4/17/2024

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The April 17, 2024 regularly scheduled meeting of the Land Use Committee will come to order.

It's 2 p.m.

I'm Tami Morales, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Wu?

Present.

Vice Chair Strauss?

Chair Morales.

Here.

For present.

Thank you.

I believe Vice Chair Strauss is on his way.

When he gets here, we will acknowledge him.

Okay, good afternoon, colleagues.

We have 27 items on the agenda today.

The first 25 are appointments to the Design Review Board.

So after a briefing and discussion, we will have a vote on those appointments.

We also have Council Bill 120749, which is a bill to amend allowable height for properties within Georgetown.

And we have Council Bill 120750, which is the Connected Communities pilot that we have been talking about for two months now.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

And I want to acknowledge Vice Chair Strauss is here.

Okay, we will go ahead and open the hybrid public comment period.

Naomi, how many speakers do we have?

We have four remotely present.

We have four in person and one here for the public comment.

Sorry, two here for the public comment and six remotely present.

Okay.

Just to let folks know, we do have a public hearing on the Georgetown bill today.

So if you're here to comment on that legislation, please wait until we get to that part of the agenda.

We will first have general public comment though.

So Each speaker will have two minutes.

We'll start with in-person speakers and then move to remote.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered and will alternate between in-person and remote.

As a reminder, you'll hear a chime when you've got 10 seconds left.

So please start to wrap up your comments at that point so we can move on to the next speaker.

Okay, the public comment period is now open.

Those are hearing.

Okay, so we're going to start with Ron Postuma followed by Alicia Gosson.

Are you Ron?

Okay, thank you very much.

Alicia.

Hi.

I'm Alicia Gasoin.

I'm here to offer my support for the Connected Communities pilot.

I work in Pioneer Square, and All All Cafe is my third place.

And much of its beauty comes from it being a first place for so many.

It is a space that houses, feeds, and heals people.

When I'm in All All, I'm part of a community.

I meet artists, healers, community builders, chefs, and students.

I have conversations ranging from people sharing their experiences with homelessness to people lamenting about their romantic life.

Community is the soul of a place.

Approving this legislation means that our city will have more places where everyday people can live, work, play, and support each other.

People thrive when they're able to put down both roots, both economically and socially.

In a time when many of us are asking what Seattle's future looks like with a budget deficit and a cost of living crisis, we need to put forth legislation that enables communities to better serve themselves.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, we have Dave Gloger, followed by Steve Robstello.

Hello, my name is Dave blogger and I live in district five and I'm here to speak about connected communities, but I'd like to start with speaking about the irony of the agenda today.

You're starting this meeting with having all this approval for people for the design review board, and then you're going to talk about a project that doesn't have design review.

That seems sort of a oxymoron and it seems like there's something that you don't want the design review board to see.

And I guess I have an idea of what that is because at the last meeting on this subject, you showed us a slide that showed an example of what a building would look like under this pilot.

It looks like a fortress.

I don't call that a connected community.

I call it, it's only connected because people can reach out of their building and touch the building next door to them.

So let's put some space between the buildings.

And also as far as design review, if you're doing a pilot project, let the design review board get involved.

We don't want to just start having things that don't get reviewed.

So I urge you to have a design review process.

But there's other exemptions in this.

You're exempt from the Seattle's affordable housing program.

So why is that?

We have a program and then we're making exemptions for it for a program that really provides very little affordable housing.

And it's also exempt from trees because there's only a five foot setback from all from the properties in all directions, so how do you plant trees to make this not turn into another heat island.

And it's exempt from parking and exempt for spaces for bicycles So how does this make a livable city that we're trying to promote if we're have all these exemptions for programs that the city has.

So in some ways I would say it's exempt from affordable housing because in the last meeting, one of the council members asked the city presenter how much affordable housing this would provide.

And he didn't know.

It shouldn't be a hard to calculate, but he didn't have that answer.

I would say it's probably very little.

So providing all these exemptions for this project

Thank you.

Okay, next we have Steve Rubistello.

Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to another gift to your gods, and your gods are the big developers.

Now, how many working class people have to leave the city?

Unimportant.

This is for their gods.

Let's see what's happened by...

The same procedures the council and the city has done for the last...

40 years, we have removed most of the black people from the CD.

It was about 80%.

Officially the city at one point was saying 20% and I had black people laughing at me at that number.

They were saying that it was far, far less than 20%.

Let's look at what really is happening with these policies.

Developers get rich.

They don't have to even give alms to the poor.

We've got MHA, which is one of the least costly anywhere, and they don't even have to do that.

So there's nothing even for the bottom if you're kicking the working class people out of the city, slowly but effectively, and you are not even supplying for the lowest people on the end.

This is just another drop in the water torture, just another drop of moving people out of the city slowly but very effectively.

I think that you should take a look at what type of city do you want?

We have a comprehensive plan coming up.

And I don't see anything for looking at a city which has many levels of income in it.

People who are needed in the city, we have no place for them.

And we're having less and less.

So you're going to make it even on trees.

What you're going to do is eliminate the trees in the places where we do have them with plans like this.

Thank you.

I believe that is all the in-person speakers we have on the connected communities legislation.

Naomi, can you move to the remote folks, please?

First is June Bluespruce, and after June is Martha Baskin.

June Bluespruce, please unmute your mic.

June Bluespruce, if you press star 69, you'll be able to unmute your mic.

I don't see her.

So let's move on to the next one and we'll come back.

Next we have Martha Baskin.

Hello.

Hello.

Now can you hear me.

Yes.

Yes.

We see you June.

Please go ahead.

Sorry.

I pushed it like six times.

Thank you.

My name is June Bluesfors.

I live in District 2 and I urge the Land Use Committee to vote no on the connected project.

The city is now undertaking a public review process for the One Seattle plan.

I attended a meeting about it just last night, and there's still a lot of public education and commoning to go.

Why approve a huge, years-long pilot project before that process is complete?

The pilot has a great sounding name and uses the language of racial and economic justice, but it would have profound negative impacts on communities that have been the most harmed by bad policies in the past, including redlining.

Community residents will bear the brunt of increased heat-producing hardscape, tall sun-blocking buildings that are inconsistent with neighborhood character, and significant loss of the health and environmental benefits of trees.

These projects will be exempt from SEPA, and they'll be exempt from design review.

That's a big problem.

There is no evidence that the project's increased density will benefit communities by making housing truly affordable.

The definition of qualifying community development organizations is also not clear.

This leaves the door open for for-profit developers to exploit communities for their own benefit.

Please vote no on this legislation.

Thank you.

ELLIE WILSON- Next we have Sandy Shetler.

Sandy Shetler, if you press star six, you should be able to unmute your mic.

Sandy, are you there?

If you're on, please press star six to unmute.

Okay, let's move on.

Is there another speaker?

Hi, sorry.

No, it wouldn't let me unmute.

I've pressed star six like 10 times.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

This is Sandy Shetler with Tree Action Seattle, and I'm asking you to please vote no on the Connected Communities bill.

This morning, I sent you a new analysis which shows that Seattle's frontline communities will lose over 200 acres of trees under our current development policies and the new tree ordinance.

This bill continues the outdated practice of building new housing with no trees and no room to plant them.

The communities it targets deserve healthy housing.

To survive climate impacts, people need trees right where they live, not just in parks or along streets.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

Next we have Louis Martin.

Louis, you can press star sticks to unmute.

Sounds like folks might be happy.

There we go.

Oh, okay.

Good afternoon.

My name is Lois Martin.

I'm a legacy resident of Seattle's District 3. I'm asking that you not pass the connected community legislation or any of the proposed amendments.

Using the language of justice to add density disproportionately in zip codes that are furthest away from environmental equity is problematic.

Our neighborhoods can be negatively impacted by pilot developments.

Once built, these buildings cannot be taken back.

Blanket legislation similar to this has increased taxes for many of us whose homes were up zoned, causing property taxes to grow with no relief.

The initial intent is commendable, but with removing the path to home ownership, it makes the legislation no different than current affordable housing funding models.

At least the ownership piece was novel, even if there were no guardrails in place to protect the purchaser.

Please vote no on all versions of this legislation.

The language in the amendment simply apply lipstick to a pig.

Thank you.

We can try Martha Baskin one more time.

Martha Baskin, if you press star six to unmute yourself.

I see you're unmuted.

Martha, you're unmuted if you want to go ahead.

I am unmuted.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

So again, wonderful name for this legislation, but changes proposed in this pilot program will again further reduce the city's tree canopy, which is already dwindled by 1.7%, creating more heat islands in lower income neighborhoods who already have less tree canopy coverage.

referring to the 2021 tree canopy report from the Seattle office of sustainability net losses in tree canopy from redeveloped parcels over the years 2016 to 21 was 33.6 in neighborhood residential and 49 in multi-family zones which told a total a loss of 3.6 of the entire city's canopy in those years and doubled the decline rate of other tree locations in Seattle.

This bill will add more fuel to that loss by allowing more lots covered with structures made from masonry, concrete, bricks, and mortar with no requirement to save mature trees that make for a climate, make it for a breathing and living city.

In addition, not requiring design review is a policy of inequity in and of itself.

These standards for housing are supposed to be deemed applying these design review standards makes affordable for affordable housing.

Lower priced housing will not be in zoning areas that are already incompatible in character.

And I would say, again, to the drawing board, you can certainly with affordable housing.

Thank you.

That is the last speaker on the list.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

There are no further speakers.

I will go ahead and close public comment and ask Naomi to read agenda items one, the short item, short title items one through 25 into the record.

Agenda items one through 25, appointment 02784 through 02808 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

Okay, colleagues, we are joined by Theresa Nalon and Erica Ekstrom with the Department of Construction and Inspection, who will give a briefing on the Design Review Board.

And then we will hear from any appointees who are here.

Yes, great.

There should be a PowerPoint to put up.

You should be able to share your screen.

Yeah, Teresa or Erica, if you can share your screen, we can do it that way.

Thank you.

Let me go ahead and do that.

June, I'm sorry, give me a second here.

Okay, hold on just a second.

Sorry, colleagues, that is just I apologize.

Okay.

I'm going to get this right now.

Teresa Nelon, I apologize, I okay.

Teresa Nelon, Okay, thank you.

Teresa Nelon, Good afternoon, my name is Teresa nail on, and I am a senior land use planner and the land use review team at sdci i'm standing in for shelley bolster the design review program manager who's out of the office today.

Teresa Nelon, Erica extremes, the design review program specialist is joining me in the meeting.

SDC's purpose is helping people build a safe, livable and inclusive Seattle.

Our values include equity, respect, quality, integrity and service.

I'd like to give a quick overview of the design review program.

The program was established in 1994 and updated in 2018. The purpose of the design review program is to encourage design excellence in site planning, urban design, and architecture, to ensure a new development responds to its context, and to provide flexibility to some code requirements for project design.

The program also aids in communication among developers, the city and the communities where the projects are proposed.

Design review applies to new commercial and multifamily development across the city.

There are three types of design review.

For smaller projects, there are two types of design review that are administrative, where reviews are done by staff.

The third type of design review is for larger development proposals, and these projects go before a neighborhood design review board for review.

There are eight neighborhood design review boards.

The boards are comprised of volunteers who are appointed by the mayor and council.

The board member positions are appointed for two-year terms.

Five board members are on each board, including perspectives from architecture and landscape design, development and business professions, as well as local community and residential perspectives.

board members are not restricted to representing only the perspective of their position all board members are tasked with the duties of synthesizing community input providing early design guidance recommending conditions of approval to sdci if needed to meet design guidelines and ensuring fair and consistent application of design guidelines today we have 23 new appointments and two reappointments to the neighborhood design review boards the design review program also works with the ymca get engaged program to place two additional young adult board members who may be placed on any of the neighborhood boards these positions are one year terms and are considered for appointment later in the year i would now like to hand this over to erica to give more information on the board members roles

Good afternoon.

My name is Erica Ekstroms.

I'm a program specialist at SDCI.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that all of our board members are volunteers in this role and that obligation uses many hours of their personal time.

This group has collectively demonstrated tremendous knowledge, passion, and commitment to serving the city of Seattle and representing their respective interests and neighborhoods.

We're thrilled to have these new appointees join the program, and we are very much appreciative of their dedication to this community.

And that's the end of our presentation.

Okay.

And can you let me know, are there any of the appointees who are joining us?

Steve Allwine, it looks like you are here.

Okay, so I can't see how many folks are here, but for those who are, I'm happy to give you a moment to share what your interests are in joining the board, and I'll start with you, Steve.

Steve Allwein, That's great.

Thank you very much for having me.

Again, my name is Steve Allwein.

I'd like to thank the Land Use Committee on considering my confirmation design review board for the Western District.

Real quick, just a little bit about me.

I live with my family in Ballard up here in District 6. I have a master's in infrastructure planning from the College of Built Environments there at the University of Washington and a degree in communications from Central Washington University.

I worked 15 years at an architecture firm going through the whole process from the side developers, but I want to be able to help provide a balanced viewpoint for the public.

homeowners, renters, families, and yes, developers.

And then just finally, I recently finished up my contract with the U.S.

Coast Guard doing small boat rescues out of Station Seattle.

And I really look forward to serving a new role with the public and in a very different role.

So thank you.

That's great.

Thank you very much.

Anna Alvarez?

Yes.

Hi, thank you.

I'm joining the Southwest Board as the business and landscape rep. My background, I have a master of supply chain management from the business school here at UW.

Been in the city for eight years.

I love it.

I'm passionate about design and architecture and real estate development.

So that's why I'm interested in joining the board.

And I'm excited to see how the city is growing in the next five to 20 years.

So anything to be part of that process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, I see Akhil Arun.

Hi, thank you.

Hi, everyone.

I'll be joining the East Design Review Board as the development representative.

I moved to Seattle four years ago with a background in architecture.

I moved into the world of real estate development.

I've worked with commercial and residential developers.

And I've slowly but surely fallen in love with the city of Seattle.

I hope that the design review board is to start to give back and guide projects through their design phases.

I'm extremely passionate about urban design, and I continue to learn about how we can positively impact the urban fabric here in Seattle.

Thank you, Akhil.

I don't see Brenda Baxter.

Correct.

Okay, that's fine.

Vanessa Boehm?

Yeah.

Hello.

My name is Vanessa Boehm.

I also want to thank the Land Use Committee for considering my appointment today to the Northwest Review Board.

I'm going to be joining as a local residential representative Um, I just love living in Seattle.

I'm an immigrant.

I grew up in Germany and I'm so grateful for being part of this community.

And I hope that, um, I can give back, um, with, um, give back by being part, um, and helping shape Seattle and make it more inclusive and welcoming to everyone, including immigrants and ventures.

Thank you.

Next I have Benjamin door.

Hi, I'm Ben.

I've been in Seattle for about nine years or so, joining the Northeast Design Review Board.

I've seen a lot of construction in the city in the past nine years or so and excited to get involved in the process.

Thank you, Ben.

Nick Duda, did you go already?

No.

Not yet.

Hi, my name is Nick Duda.

I'm excited to join the Southeast Design Review Board.

I've been a resident of Seattle for the last 12 years.

I have a background in business and a personal interest in our built environment.

I also have a deep personal connection to Southeast Seattle, having spent about six of my years here and there.

So looking forward to be a positive voice for the development of the area going forward.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Next, I see Che Fortaleza.

Is Che here?

No, okay.

Stuart, please go ahead.

Oh, Stuart, we cannot hear you.

It doesn't look like you're muted, but I don't hear you.

Can you hear me now?

Better.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So, yes, Stuart Herrera Enzuate.

I'm going to be serving in the design review profession as a design professional.

And I've been in Seattle for over 27 years practicing architecture.

And I'm currently an ADA accessibility consultant in Seattle as well.

And I'm hoping to give back to the community with my experience, providing positive feedback to the design proposals being reviewed by the board and also ensure improvements in the design quality of the projects coming into the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chenlin Hu.

I have a background in urban planning real estate development and community development and being a central area resident and business owner for the past seven years or 12 years as a resident.

Professionally and personally I would like to continue serving as the Business representation for the Central Area Board to continue to advocate for the history and cultural legacy.

Back in 2017, I was the planner at the city to create the Central Area Design Guideline and the Design Review Board.

So I know how important it is for the community.

I would like to continue to advocate for that.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Ethan Carlinsie?

Hello, I'm Ethan Carlinski.

I'm excited to begin serving as the local community representative for the central area.

I think the way we develop housing and urban spaces has an outsized impact on a lot of issues like climate change, systematic racism, and just health and well-being for many people.

So I'm excited to start getting a bit of experience and getting involved in how Seattle does urban design.

Great, thank you very much.

There are several other appointees, but I don't see any of them.

So if you are an appointee and I did not call your name, please speak up.

Hi there.

I can speak up now.

My name is Keshav Pratibhati.

I am joining the Northwest Design Review Board as a community member.

And yeah, I'd like to thank the Land Use Committee for considering me for appointment.

I just moved to Seattle about a year ago, living in the Greenwood neighborhood.

Got work up here as an aerodynamics engineer.

So kind of an outsider, but really got into learning about how housing is developed here, how unique it is compared to other places, and just really fell in love with the city in this past year that I've been here and really see the potential that we have here, especially with a lot of the development coming up here in the next few years.

So very excited to help be a part of how Seattle grows and can't wait to help out.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else I missed?

Oh, it looks like there's a few.

I see Jesse, Brittany and Kirsten.

Jesse, go ahead.

I am Jessie McClurg and I am joining the Southwest Design Review Board as a local community representative.

I do have a design and construction background.

I'm a registered architect and currently worked as a construction manager.

And I've always been passionate about urban design and passionate about equity.

And I'm very excited to be part of shaping our very beautiful city.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Brittany.

Brittany Porteau- Good afternoon City Council members, my name is Brittany ports and i'm an urban planner living in the last neighborhood of Seattle.

Brittany Porteau- i've been working as an urban planner for 10 years and during that time i've worked on both private development projects, as well as for municipalities throughout Washington in both current and long range planning.

Brittany Porteau- i've enjoyed serving my first term on the central area design review board as the development representative.

And if appointed for a second term, I am excited to continue to use my skills as a planner to serve my community and continue the board's work in ensuring that new development is well-designed and sensitive to the context and character of the neighborhood that I live in.

Thank you.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- And Kirsten?

Hi, I'm Kirsten Wild.

I'm being considered for the local community position on the southeast board.

I'm a partner at Weinstein AU Architects in Seattle, and I've lived in Seattle since 1993 when I came here to the UW for grad school.

We moved to Rainier Beach in 1998, and I've raised two kids here, and now that they are mostly grown and flown, I have some time to give back, and I'm excited to sit on the design review board.

I've been involved with design review for many years as an architect, but it'll be interesting looking at it from the inside out, and I'll work hard to represent the very diverse needs and goals of the Southeast District.

Okay, and I think Gavin, I think I saw Gavin as well.

Oh, hey.

Hi, my name is Gavin Schaefer.

I'm a West Seattle resident and father of two.

I'm hoping to continue for a second term as chair of the Southwest Design Review Board.

I'm an architect with a background in large scale urban projects.

I have an extensive background in development economics, design standards and project management, both in the US and Canada.

I'm currently a principal architect at Sound Transit helping to build out the link light rail system expansion.

So really looking at things on a large scale.

So thanks for your consideration.

Thanks very much.

Okay, this time for real.

Is there anyone else I missed?

Okay.

Very good.

Well, thank you all.

And thank you to Teresa and Erica for being here.

Colleagues, are there any questions for our candidates?

Council Member Strauss.

Yeah, Chair, no questions.

I just want to thank you all for your volunteer service to our city of Seattle and a shout out to the D6ers.

I know some of you, looking forward to meeting the rest of you.

Thank you all.

And I will also say, I really appreciate the willingness of these neighbors to serve on these volunteer boards.

We've got lots of them and we understand the work that you put in to participating in these processes.

And I do wanna say that I understand the goal of this particular board is to provide design guidelines and to help make sure that we are creating a beautiful city.

And I wanna say that that is important work, but we also have important work to achieve our goals of making sure that people are housed in this city.

And so I just urge you to keep in mind that good design is important and we can't let these processes create barriers to meeting the crisis that we face in this city.

I'm sure we've all heard discussions about some of the challenges with creating processes that could slow down construction of housing.

And we really wanna make sure that we are achieving both goals at once, you know, creating a beautiful city, creating beautiful neighborhoods, and also making sure that we are creating space for our people, our residents, our neighbors, our seniors, our families, to be able to find places to live.

So I thank you very much for your willingness to serve in this role.

And if there are no other comments, then I will move recommendation that we confirm appointments 02784 through 02808. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

To recommend confirmation of these appointments, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Vice Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Morales.

Yes.

Five in favor.

Thank you.

The committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the April 23rd, 2024 City Council meeting for final action.

And just so you know, appointees, you do not need to attend that council meeting.

And we want to thank you again for your willingness to serve on this advisory board.

Thank you so much.

Okay, Naomi, will you please read the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 26. Amending the Seattle Municipal Code to provide a 10-foot height limit exception in a portion of the Georgetown neighborhood for briefing, discussion, and public hearing.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

We're joined by Lish Whitson from Central Staff, Council Central Staff, and Jeff Wendland from the Office of Planning and Community Development.

If you will both please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Lish Whitson, Council Central Staff.

And Jeff Wendland, I'm the Land Use Policy Manager at the City's Office of Planning and Community Development.

Terrific.

Thank you very much.

And just so you know, colleagues, I am bringing an amendment to this bill that we've been working on with the Georgetown folks who brought it.

But we will not be voting on that today because we have the public hearing.

So we'll be doing that at the next land use committee meeting.

So please take it away.

Okay.

Share my screen just a moment.

Okay, this is a brief overview for you of a proposal for a height limit exception, which is a land use code amendment and only changes the text of the land use code.

The Office of Planning and Community Development prepared this legislation and the mayor is recommending it for your consideration.

This slide gives you a brief summary of what is in this proposal.

This change would provide a 10 foot height limit exception from an existing 75 foot height limit to a proposed 85 foot limit.

It's supporting development that can maximize efficient wood frame construction of upper level housing.

while also enabling high-clearance ground floor spaces that are conducive to light industry and arts.

This amendment only applies to a focused area within the Georgetown general vicinity.

It's 9.7 acres of contiguous land centered on 4th Avenue South.

It's completely surrounded by other industrial zones.

It itself is zoned commercial currently.

All of the existing height limits around this area are already 85 feet.

And this amendment would have several criteria to access the height limit exception.

The development would have to be built to a green building standard.

At least five of the stories would have to be in residential use.

At least 20% of the ground floor would have to be active street level uses.

and all dwelling units created would be required to have sound insulating windows and air cooling and ventilation systems.

Not noted in the bullets, a portion of the ground floor would also be required to be a tall 20-foot ground to ceiling clearance.

The city conducted a SEPA review on this proposal and no appeals were received.

So why are we proposing this?

What's the purpose and the policy basis?

Really, we're talking about increasing housing supply here.

So we'll hear from the Watershed Community Development Authority, formerly the Georgetown Community Development Authority, who owns a large share of this land.

They would seek to build roughly 600 homes in the area, and most of those would be affordable.

They would all be affordable in the 60% to AMI range, according to the information we've been provided.

The purpose is also to respond to Georgetown's unique context of arts and light industry.

This is different from many other places around the city.

It's more integrated with an industrial area.

And the neighborhood has a very high number of art studios, building supply and materials businesses, and maker spaces.

So this proposal responds to that.

It's also true that the Georgetown residential community nearby during the 2023 industrial and maritime strategy process generally advocated for a more complete neighborhood, more mixed use.

And this is an area that's already zoned commercial and allows that, but would do a little bit more of it.

And Watershed held public meetings in the neighborhood and reported pretty strong support for their proposal.

This map just orients you to the area.

This text amendment would only apply within that yellow line, so it's centered on 4th Avenue South, as I mentioned.

You can see in this slide to the right or to the east, there's the residential portion of the Georgetown neighborhood between Homer Street and Fidalgo Street.

And that triangular area is generally thought of as the center of Georgetown.

So immediately surrounding the area is industrially designated land.

Here is the same map with the zoning designations.

So this proposal only again applies to that area in pink with the commercial 175 zoning designation.

Again, no change to the map is required.

This is only a text amendment.

The areas in teal or blue around it are industrial zones.

And over to the right where you see, The area is shaded in brown.

There's some low-rise two multifamily zoning.

And the center of the Georgetown neighborhood has a neighborhood commercial three zone with a 55-foot height limit that encourages mixed-use development there.

This is just a photo for you of the area.

There's not a lot of large-scale development there today, as you see.

Generally, one- and two-story commercial and light industrial buildings.

The Seattle Design Center, which you see off to the right there, is in this general vicinity.

The area is served by transit.

It's actually a frequent transit network line with the 132 and 131 buses.

And it is a truck street as well.

So this graphic summarizes for you what's being proposed here.

So the intent of this 10-foot height limit exception as I mentioned, is to allow for the full six stories of wood framed construction.

So you see in the graphic, those six stories shown.

With this 10 foot exception, the builder can include all those six stories while still providing that high 20 foot ground clearance at the street level.

And that's really the intent here.

Without the exception, The builder would either have to not include that top floor of residential or significantly shorten or lower the height clearance for the ground floor space.

With the context and character of the area, many agree that encouraging more commercial light, industrial, and art space is important.

So builders would like to be able to do that on the ground floor without having to limit the potential for residential development on the upper floors.

And when I say maximize the six stories, that is a building code kind of maximum that you can do in you know, stick-built type 3A, it's called construction.

So that's, you know, once you put in the ground floor and all of the infrastructure, those upper floors are quite efficient.

So the intent here is to allow for that really to be maximized without compromising the ground floor of the structure.

And affordability information, this is my last slide, and then I'll...

conclude the city's mha requirements would be required in the area so that would be five percent of the on-site units is affordable watershed cda does intend to provide those affordable units on site and watershed cda reports that they would like to provide additional affordable housing beyond the mha requirements It does not currently have city funding, but is funded from some other sources.

And it intends to provide most of the units at the 60% AMI level and some of the units at the 80% AMI level.

As well, they are reporting an agreement with the Seattle Housing Authority for some three-bedroom units.

And that concludes my presentation.

Again, we're recommending...

this proposal move forward and welcome any questions from you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Jeff.

an opportunity for us in the Georgetown area.

I appreciate hearing the community engagement that happened.

Colleagues, I did reach out to Council Member Saka, since this is in his district, just to make sure that he was aware and understood.

And so as far as I know, there are no issues there.

Are there any questions before we open up the public hearing?

Council Member Wood.

So remind me again, this area is zoned for housing.

Correct, it's currently a commercial zone, which allows for multi-family housing in it.

And it's not industrial, maritime, or nearby?

Correct, it's not an industrial zone.

Also, is there a watershed nearby as well?

That Watershed CDA is the name of the organization.

I don't know why they're called that.

Yeah, it's probably a reference to the Duwamish watershed.

Uh, so the site is part of Duwamish watershed.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

You mentioned that the zoning around the buildings around this proposal are already zoned for 85 feet.

So why was this not part of that or how did that come to be?

where this isn't included, or can you give some context and background to that, please?

Yeah, it was, well, the history is that it's been zoned commercial for many decades, and for a long time it was zoned commercial with a 65-foot height limit.

That was a very common height limit in most of the city's, many of the city's commercial corridors.

When MHA was implemented, the 65 feet was increased to 75 feet, so that's the history there.

Many of the industrial zones have kind of a default 85-foot height limit, so that's where that mismatch came from historically.

So the surrounding buildings are in industrial lands, but this is not, and that's why, and so we're wanting to accommodate that to the rest of the surrounding area?

Yeah.

Any other questions?

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public hearing.

I know we've got two speakers here in person.

Do we have any folks online?

We have one person online.

Okay, great.

And since I have lost that place in my script, I will say that we will open the public hearing period.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

You'll have a 10-second chime, and when you hear that, please wrap up your comments.

And we'll start with the two folks we've got here in person.

So first we have Ron Postuma and Steve Pustello.

Welcome back.

Thank you, Councilmember.

My name is Ron Postuma.

I live in Councilmember Strauss' district, and I'm currently the board chair for Watershed, which also goes by Georgetown Community Development Authority.

That's our more formal name.

And we did go to Watershed because we're the Duwamish Watershed and wanted to honor some of that history.

I want to thank Council Member Morales for sponsoring this legislation and scheduling time before your committee.

I know your time is valuable and so we appreciate it.

Today, as you know, there's very little housing of any kind in Georgetown.

And what we're attempting to do is alleviate some of that job housing imbalance by creating a affordable workforce live work district right along 4th Avenue in that small area you saw on the diagram in pink where you can build housing.

All the area around us is no housing permitted, manufacturing, industrial.

And we're doing this in part because we've got hundreds of artists at our studios who are trying to get housing nearby.

And there are thousands more employees in the Georgetown area who would love to be able to walk to work but can't do that now because of that imbalance between jobs and housing.

We've bought up enough land to build five multi-story buildings.

this consideration you're doing to a modest height increase would help us get those buildings built in a couple of ways, as the staff pointed out.

Our artists love 20 foot ceilings in their studios, and we can't accommodate that very well without this change.

So that's my time, I guess.

If we get all this done this year, that'd be great because we want to invite you all down to the groundbreaking later this year.

Thank you very much.

Gee, I thought we had a comprehensive plan coming up, but more goodies, as we say.

I come from the Fremont area, many years doing business in that area, and it was once an artist haven.

And then it was...

and as I call it, gentrified, because that's what you folks are doing rather than just density, because density is also coming with throwing a lot of people out.

So if you're really going to take a look at an area here and you're going to make room for artists, let's have some contracts involved.

Let's just say that if you're going to have at least a reasonable percentage at 60% or less that it should be in the contract, because I have seen many times the start where you bring in this good cause, and then the investors later want more money.

So what do you do?

You convert, you come in good, give them a, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more, and then you make it pay.

Now, the other thing I have concern about is I didn't hear anything about how this ground looks like.

Are there any major trees in there which are going to be I'm understanding is the south end as has a deficit compared to the north end.

And are we going to take a look at more than just one thing?

That's the reason why I think you should.

look at your design review and let's go back to the good old days when design review was design review.

You looked at the parking, you looked at the size of the streets.

You looked at, was there water and power?

All of these things that we don't look at anymore for developer profit is the only thing that really counts, right?

No, Naomi, do we have any online folks?

No online folks.

Okay.

Richard Conlon in person.

I do not see him.

Is Mr. Conlon here?

No.

Okay.

I didn't think so.

That's okay.

Okay.

Seeing as how we have no additional speakers.

Sorry, Richard Conlon is online.

Oh, he is.

Okay.

Council member, please go ahead.

Thank you very much.

I'm Richard Conlon.

I'm speaking in support of Council Bill 120749. I'm here as part of the Watershed Community Development Team that is creating a new Georgetown neighborhood that will include between 600 and 900 units of workforce housing, along with associated community infrastructure.

We're building a green street on Fifth Avenue South.

We intend to build a new park.

We have funding for an early childhood learning center.

We're going to put a food hub in here, and we're going to provide opportunities for the arts and small business.

The residential units are intended to target artists and the 29,000 employees of Seattle's industrial community that work within a half mile of our project.

And that's why our project has the support of the Manufacturing and Industrial Council.

This legislation allows us to build to the 85 foot height that's permitted in all the surrounding zoning, as you heard.

It will permit a taller plinth with more flexibility for small business and artist spaces, preserving the working character of the Georgetown neighborhood, including the potential use of shipping containers instead of fixed walls.

It will also allow additional residential units, higher residential ceilings for more livable spaces, and will reduce construction costs by increasing interfloor utility space.

PWG, our development partner in our initial building of 158 units at 4th and Lucille, has received its MUP and is ready to apply for building permits as soon as this legislation is approved.

We appreciate the support of the mayor and Councilmember Morales, and we ask Councilmembers to vote for this text amendment with the minor wording changes in the substitute, and that will be in support of a more livable Georgetown community.

Thank you very much, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Is that the final speaker?

We have one more online speaker, David Haynes.

Mr. Haynes, please go ahead.

Mr. Haynes, please press star six.

There you go.

Hi, thank you.

David Haynes.

We need 21st century, first world quality housing.

We don't need watered down designs where other people virtue signal the belief that forcing people to live in a commercial industrial zone on the side of a busy highway without any noise abatement is suitable.

And how close are the cars coming to the residential units?

Are you going to be listening to people delivering stuff in the mornings, waking you up because they're down below you?

You know, we really need a reprieve from the accommodation to the laziness of the modern wheel driving through every residential block and area.

And we need a reprieve from the commercial encroachments.

And you have to have qualitative walls, noise abated walls.

You can't have warehouse echo where you can hear the train horn honking or screeching its brakes or rubbing its metal against each other.

or just like toxic vehicles driving past your residential unit, leaving soot all over the building while somebody is claiming that they're helping the housing crisis.

Like density comes from taking over the road, not allowing, I'm not talking forest necessarily, but a lot of residents don't need a road driving through every block.

But if you trade that to the developers and let them build higher than 85 feet, You know, we can have more density with people enjoying the view and getting a reprieve from the ground noise, the street noise.

It's like low level, low quality from really not necessarily the most qualified developers looking to find the cheapest land that nobody wants to live in to virtue signal skimming, you know, God knows how much tax dollars.

But we need 21st century housing and the legislation to prioritize that financing to the banks with huge job creations for union.

Thank you.

Any other speakers for the public hearing?

There are no more speakers remotely present.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much, everyone.

At this time, I will close the public hearing and move on to the next agenda item.

This legislation will be before this land use committee on May 1st for a possible vote.

So we will see you then.

Okay.

Naomi, will you please read the final agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 27, establishing the connected community development partnership bonus pilot program for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

Before I hand it over to Lish and Ketel from our central staff, I do want to review a little bit of how we got here.

For the benefit of my new colleagues, I'll say that typically legislation receives two committee briefings to allow committee members time to hear about the legislation and propose any new amendments.

And so I wanted to make sure that our new colleagues had plenty of time to read the legislation and ask questions.

to give myself time to address any concerns that were raised and give time to this committee to draft amendments if they chose to do so.

So this is our fifth committee meeting on this bill and we will be voting on it today.

Just so everyone knows, on April 3rd, my office convened a work group of community members and practitioners to discuss some of the concerns that were raised by my colleagues and also community during public comment.

After that work group, I asked Lish to incorporate changes that could address the concerns of this committee and of the work group, and that's what's before us today as Amendment 1, Substitute Bill.

That bill is a tool that will help the city achieve its comp plan goals for developing middle housing and more commercial and cultural spaces.

It reduces costs of development by offering density bonuses and exemptions from some of the things that we keep hearing contribute to the high cost of housing development.

This is anti-displacement legislation.

One of the reasons that it exempts MHA is because while that program requires onsite or payment, if you're not producing onsite, the restriction is between, I think it's two and 11%, maybe it's four and 11% of onsite production.

And this bill requires 30%.

So the MHA guidelines don't necessarily apply to what we're trying to do here.

It also incentivizes development, not in low income neighborhoods, but in areas where people of color has historically been excluded, which is part of the approach in trying to address the access to opportunity as well.

So it's not about pricing people out of neighborhoods, it's about giving them opportunity to find more housing in more parts of the city.

It will help us build important workforce housing for renters up to 80% and increased home ownership for folks up to 100%.

It helps to create a pathway to build green buildings.

It helps create a pathway to support religious institutions, to support community-based organizations that are interested in providing development for their particular constituency, but who need the assistance of a more experienced developer.

And the next phase is to create a pathway for individual homeowners to better navigate the bureaucracy and try to provide some incentive for those folks as well.

Right now, OPCD, SDCI and OH are working with community organizations and developers to develop housing, but we need better supports to help them build out the commercial space.

The Georgetown Rezone that we just talked about is a prime example of the kinds of projects that we currently do.

But the goal here is to try to streamline the process and to really understand better what kind of incentives are needed in order to facilitate this kind of development.

This isn't a funding program, it's an incentive program.

And it is a pilot so that we can see what menu of options facilitate that kind of development better.

We all know that we need housing, particularly from those who are at 30 to 60% of area median income.

We need family size housing.

We need housing for workers earning 60 to 100%.

And this pilot will help reduce the administrative red tape that we currently have that creates the bottleneck in developing the housing that we need in the city.

It'll help us create a process that better utilizes the city's finite resources and help community groups who are asking for this, those are the ones asking for this, will help them work with developers to create affordable housing, vibrant commercial space, neighborhood centers, and cultural space or third places that really make our community safer and more vibrant.

So I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for raising concerns over the last couple months.

The substitute bill has been revised significantly to ensure that the bill is consistent with addressing those concerns, with meeting community needs, and is a tool that will align with the comprehensive planning efforts.

Ultimately, this is a tool that communities need so they can navigate their own development, so they can contribute to the equitable community wealth building opportunities that the city is trying to lay the groundwork for.

I want to say again that this is a pilot.

It sunsets, the legislation sunsets in 2029, or when 35 projects are complete, whichever is first.

Finally, I wanna say that I've heard concerns about wanting to wait for a major update to the comprehensive plan before passing this legislation.

I will say that that update happens once every 10 years and this particular plan is already two years late.

We can't wait any longer to start to create the affordable housing that we know we need in the city.

We're in a housing crisis and this legislation will help fill the housing gap and get us closer to the amount of housing that we need.

So just procedurally, because we do have several amendments to let you know, we will move the base bill before discussing the amendments.

And then we will vote, begin going down the line with amendments.

I will let the committee know that amendment one and amendment five are mutually exclusive.

So as we go down the list, I will ask central staff to address the amendments.

So we'll have a discussion on each one before we take the vote.

I think that's all.

Any questions before we begin?

Okay, very good.

In that case, I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120750. Is there a second?

Can I get a courtesy second for this bill, please?

Okay.

I'm the only one on this committee who understands that we have an affordable housing crisis.

Is that my understanding?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

As I said to you before the committee, I apologize for not getting my amendments in order.

That's why I was not comfortable voting on the bill today.

I am taking complete ownership of not having my amendments correct.

I worked with central staff, and it's not central staff's fault at all.

Not having excuses, but the committee meeting this morning was a big lift, and I'm currently self-staffing this policy area.

I'm more than happy to work with you to...

see if I can get my amendments right to a place that I'm comfortable with the language in the bill.

As I said in the last committee, I support the intent of this bill.

I understand two and a half years, five committee meetings, and I also wanna honor the fact that you're doing this yourself.

You didn't have the typical support of departments or central staff during the initial sections of developing this bill.

So I know that that feels like an additional burden.

I'm not comfortable voting on this today.

If I was to vote, I would either abstain or I'd vote no, but I want to be in a place where I can vote yes.

Okay, well, I will say that we cannot discuss the bill any further if I can't get it moved.

Is that correct, Amelia?

Calling on our city council clerk.

Hello, council members, Amelia Sanchez, deputy city clerk.

You can vote on the legislation if you get a second and consider the amendments and then you can hold the bill.

So therefore not to vote the bill out of committee today, if that is a preference as well too.

So you can proceed to move forward with considering those amendments.

So if you were to get a second at this point.

Okay, thank you.

So I will ask again, if I can have a second so that we can discuss any amendments to this bill.

Chair, may I follow up the question?

Because I also understand, Amelia, that we could move, we could read this bill under the record again, as we've done many times before, and discuss the amendments.

Yes, correct.

We can discuss the amendments, but can we vote on them?

Robert's Rules of Order provides that in order for you to debate amendments, that would mean that something would need to be before you.

To do that, we would need the base bill before the committee.

If the committee agrees to have the bill before them, then they can then move forward and proceed to discuss the amendments.

Again, once those amendments are discussed and you dispose of all the amendments, then you can consider whether or not you're ready to vote the bill out of committee or you can postpone that vote for a later date as well too.

but we can't do any of that if I don't get a second and we have the bill before us.

If there's no objection, the committee's more than welcome to move forward and discuss them only.

Okay.

Well, I will say we don't yet have the amendment you're suggesting before us.

Do you have a timeline?

I can work rather quickly.

I mean, I feel like I would be ready at the next committee meeting.

Okay, well, it will be surprising to no one, I'm sure, to hear that this is incredibly frustrating.

This is the fifth committee meeting we've had on this bill, and I haven't heard anything about objections.

I appreciate the other amendments that you submitted.

So...

So...

Amelia, do you have a suggestion for how we proceed if we're going to contemplate one more amendment that is not yet drafted?

As a chair, whatever your preference may be as far as discussing scenarios, you're more than welcome to do round robin and discuss and workshop any other further amendments at this point.

As far as moving the amendments, again, that's going to be up to the committee as to whether or not they will second that motion to move that bill.

Okay.

Council Member Strauss, could you please discuss the bill you're contemplating?

Chair, I will bring you an amendment, and as I discussed with you before this committee, I will meet with you, Lish, and with Ketel to discuss it, because I'm not going to take up committee time if it's not welcome.

I would offer that this is a time to discuss your substitute amendment, because as I was reading it, I thought...

It was different than what I expected is the best way I can say.

It's not bad, not good, but if that's how you want to move forward.

Okay.

Lish, I will ask you to walk through the substitute bill.

so we at least can get on the record what I had proposed.

May I ask a point of clarification?

If we get a second on the bill, does that mean we would proceed to discuss?

I mean, I have your substitute bill, and then I have, I think, three other amendments proposed by Councilmember Strauss that we would address those today.

I have resolution on this legislation today.

The amendments drafted on my behalf were done with excellent ability from central staff and it was my error of not more clearly articulating what I was hoping to achieve.

And so the amendments that I have today are not, I'm not ready to vote on.

Um, and I also want to highlight that central staff did a very good job.

Okay, so this is my intent.

I want this bill to be resolved today.

I don't think it's fair to the chair or to the rest of the members of this committee to continue to engage in committee time on this issue.

So I want to facilitate a fair discussion and presentation and a vote.

So I will second it for that purpose so that we will take final votes on everything that's before the committee today.

Okay, so thank you very much, Council Member Moore.

It's been moved and seconded.

Lish, I will ask you to review, well, no.

Now I have to move Amendment 1, which is the substitute bill, so Lish can discuss it.

Can I get a second to put Amendment 1 before us?

Second.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead, Lish.

Amendment 1 does two things.

It amends the affordability requirements for projects participating in the program.

and it amends the development qualifications for projects that seek to participate in the pilot program.

Regarding affordability requirements, it generally, it reduces the affordability requirement for projects for one and two bedroom units from 80% of area median income to 60% of area median income.

For units with two or more bedrooms and all owner-occupied units, the existing proposal would stay, so that's 80% of area median income for two bedroom or more units.

and 100% or more of area median income for ownership units.

Based on data from the Office of Housing and from conversations with developers who are providing affordable housing units, the market is not providing units affordable at 80% a very immediate income that have two or more bedrooms.

It is providing those units at one and one unit, one bedroom and smaller.

Um, in addition, the substitute, um, changes the term of affordability from 75 years to 50 years.

Many non-city affordable housing programs use a 50-year term, so this amendment would align the bill with those other sources of funding for affordable housing.

And as Councilmember Morales mentioned, this portion of the bill is is different from the affordability requirements included in Councilmember Strauss' Amendment 5. So if this passes, Amendment 5 as drafted could not pass.

The other major amendments to the bill are to remove the ownership incentive components of the bill.

As you may remember, there was additional floor air ratio allowed for projects where a moderate income homeowner sells their land to the project and is guaranteed a unit in future development on the site.

And those provisions are removed based on conversations with community.

The bill, the substitute changes some of the provisions related to qualifying development.

It simplifies those provisions.

Under the substitute bill, a qualifying community development organization would either need to own at least 51% of the property or would need to have a controlling and active management role in the organization that owns the land in order to qualify for the program.

Liz, can you repeat that last part, please?

Yeah.

QUALIFYING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION COULD QUALIFY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVES IF THEY HAVE A CONTROLLING AND ACTIVE MANAGEMENT ROLE IN THE ORGANIZATION THAT OWNS THE PROPERTY THAT'S BEING DEVELOPED.

THANK YOU.

ARE YOU DENLISH?

YEAH.

Okay, thank you very much for walking through that.

I will just say that, as I've said before, the substitute is really in response to concerns that I heard from my colleagues regarding the affordability issue, regarding the home ownership piece in particular.

There was a lot of conversation we've had about How do we put guardrails around the creation of the development agreements between individual homeowners who might be interested and a developer they might want to partner with?

As part of that work group conversation, we realized that there is a lot of work happening around supporting low-income homeowners or homeowners who want to take advantage of programs.

But this legislation isn't really the right vehicle for creating more opportunity to bring those development consultants together, which is why we pulled that out of this legislation and we'll be working on a separate initiative to try to bring those resources together.

This is, again, legislation that meets the goals of the current draft EIS comprehensive plan.

Many of the goals that are in there around neighborhood commercial, around affordability, are things that we put in just in the last year or so.

Finally, this amendment does simplify the criteria for determining whether a project is a qualifying development project.

a qualifying development, and as Lish said, changes the ownership to 51% of the property or have an active management role in it.

So those are the changes that were made.

I appreciate the work, Lish, of attending these conversations, attending the meetings, and really hearing the issues that were raised and trying to incorporate them all into this substitute.

So are there any questions or comments for Lish on Amendment 1?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Lish, for all of this drafting work.

It's my understanding that this is in conflict with Amendment 5, which was my substitute bill reconciling with religious bonus bill.

Is that correct?

Correct.

The religious institution...

The code provisions related to affordable housing on property owned by religious institutions has a different affordability level.

For that program, 100% of units need to be affordable at 80% or below with no differences for unit types or ownership.

And is that the only place that Amendment 5 and 1 are in conflict?

Correct.

And I believe that you had been able to develop another amendment that could de-conflict these.

Is that correct?

Correct.

I do have Amendment 5A drafted if you would like to move that at the appropriate time.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And I assume that's later.

Sorry.

Are you done, Council Member?

Yes.

Okay.

Council Member?

I'm sorry.

We've not seen Amendment 5A.

NO.

SO THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMENDMENT 5 AND 5A IS THAT AMENDMENT 5A INCLUDES THE AFFORDABLE AFFORDABILITY PROVISIONS THAT ARE INCLUDED IN COUNCIL MEMBER MORALES' AMENDMENT 1. SO THAT ONE I CAN SHOW YOU ON THE SCREEN RIGHT HERE.

SO AMENDMENT 5A INCLUDES THIS LANGUAGE RATHER THAN THE LANGUAGE THAT'S IN THE VERSION THAT WAS ATTACHED TO THE AGENDA.

Also, Amendment 5A makes some minor changes to the amount of FAR that would be allowed in different zones to make it consistent with the religious institutions bonus regulations.

But that's true of both 5A and 5A.

Okay.

That's correct.

Councilmember Wu, did you have a question?

I had a procedural question.

Are we just going to go through all the amendments and then vote, or are we going to vote for each amendment?

No, we'll vote one by one.

OK.

Well, I wanted to make a quick statement on what I'm planning to vote.

So I appreciate the intent, and I really appreciate the goal of the bill.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for hearing everyone's concerns and changing PMI, for example, and really digging into community.

So I'm an affordable housing developer.

And if you wrote the bill, I wrote the bill.

You can go line for line on this bill.

talk about a whole bunch of unintentional consequences.

You know, for instance, land ownership is not the same as project ownership, and that makes a big difference in project control.

Also, who...

a developer looking for land versus those who have land, I mean, there's different incentives there.

But I could talk about this for hours, so I'm gonna just limit this to a couple of points.

So when a developer invests in a project, they are certain to get a nominal return for their investment.

So back when I was redeveloping the Louisa, that preferred return was 15 to 23%.

So most developers require at least a 15% internal rate of return.

And for the Louisa, our IRR, internal rate of return, was at 6%.

We couldn't find an investor.

It took us five years, and we had 100% ownership of the land.

And the Louisa project only got funded because a developer, which was another local family, wanted also to provide workforce housing within 40% to 80% in our community.

Also, I want to add, Louisa is a historic building and costed three times more than a built new.

So developers who want to do affordable housing are already doing it.

We have several PDAs who do this well and are able to keep AMAs down in the 40s.

And so developers exist to bring profits to their investors.

This bill essentially incentivize developers to develop affordable units, but it builds more housing, but it does not stop gentrification or displacement.

So, you know, these areas that we have designated, the land there is, you know, desirable and, you know, more cost-efficient, cheaper, consequently because they happen to be in communities of color or low-income communities.

And, you know, we hear about this stat a lot.

The Central District neighborhood was, you know, 75% black in the 1970s.

Today, it's 15% black, and that's decades of, like, slow gentrification.

And so, you know, having the AMI for this housing at 60 to 80% is not helping black or brown residents because the median income for a household headed by a black person in Seattle is 42,500.

And, you know, this is with an average median income at 120K.

So, you know, the people we're trying to help are not being served with 60% to 80% AMI.

And also, this doesn't really help legacy homeowners because if they own the land, there's no incentive for a developer to want to be involved.

I know that's taken out because the IRR is not there, which is why I suspect that was taken out.

So this makes nonprofit people on land look attractive to developers, but not vice versa.

So I'm afraid that if a nonprofit does not have a developer advocate, they might be taken advantage of.

And we also can't guarantee that a nonprofit will get the space on the first floor.

And so fighting gentrification displacement doesn't involve a person of color selling their land.

So, I mean, you said this yourself, the goal of this legislation is, one, address the harmful history of redlining, exclusion of low-income communities, exclusion in zoning, building of generational wealth, incentive for more developers to partner with community orgs, and two, bring community-serving small businesses and ground floor economic uses.

And so, you know, besides the point I need, I would like to see a racial equity toolkit done on this, but I think it's a bit late for this now.

So this bill allows for developers to partner with nonprofits to build housing in communities of color that, you know, communities of color, people can't afford to live in.

Now, the real question here is, you know, this allows, this doesn't help gentrification and displacement, but it helps build more housing.

So how do we incentivize developers to build, to build with nonprofits?

And in this case, in this bill, it's very specific areas.

So why are we specifically targeting these areas?

Why are we limiting it to these areas if it's not doing the thing we want it to do?

you know, this will build more housing, so why limit it?

We need to build more housing for the whole city.

So why don't we just roll this out, this developer incentive plan out to the whole city?

Why don't we include this in the comprehensive plan?

If we can't get it into the comprehensive plan, then make this our insurance policy.

so that we can be able to build more housing if it doesn't allow for it.

It takes about two to five years to fund, design, and permit housing.

So regardless if we do this now or after the comprehensive plan, I don't believe it will make much of a difference.

And so citywide, we need to build more housing.

Let's fight for that in the comprehensive plan or use this after the comprehensive plan because You know, that's the goal here is to build more housing.

There are other ways to fight gentrification, displacement, reparations.

How do we help black homeowners keep their homes?

But this bill, these amendments don't do the thing we want it to do.

So let's do the other thing, and that is to build more housing and include that later.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Yes, thank you.

Council Member Morales, I very much appreciate you listening to our concerns and working to further make amendments to this bill, however, to this piece of legislation.

However, I agree with Council Member Wu.

This doesn't accomplish the thing that I understood we were trying to solve for.

Solving for generational wealth building, this doesn't accomplish it.

And I will say that I recently heard a story from a family, a black family, whose great-grandmother actually owned quite a bit of land at a time when that was unheard of in black community, and particularly for a black woman.

She lost her land.

It's unclear how, whether it was taken or how.

But it took that family then another two generations to be able to be property owners, to buy a home and be property owners again.

Owning property is generational wealth building.

That's what you pass on to your generation.

Having the ability to have black and brown homeowners keep their land and home to pass on to their generations, that's generational wealth building.

This bill doesn't accomplish that.

I mean, that is just, that is true.

And I will say that I continue to have concerns about putting forward legislation, you know, putting the proverbial cart before the horse.

We are in the middle of our comp plan, as Councilmember Wu just spoke about, and we And initially, I had concerns.

One of my big concerns was not doing this before completion of the comp plan, making sure that we're using the comp plan to address the goals that we're trying to create via this particular bill.

And after the comp plan, then we can look at legislation and strategies and incentives to be able to accomplish the goals of the comp plan And in terms of housing, the city just passed a billion dollar housing levy.

And I am not clear what, when, how all that housing will be built.

So we're also adding in a piece of standalone legislation that doesn't contemplate what the Office of Housing will be doing in the housing development space.

I don't think that this bill is going to create housing quickly because we all know it takes many, many years to create housing.

So given that the housing levy just passed and we're not clear as to what housing that will create and what the strategies for that will be, given that we're in the middle of this comp plan that we will have to do legally, by the end of the year, we have to complete this comp plan.

I don't think that this is a bill that I would support moving forward as is and at the moment.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay.

Seeing no further comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?

Council Member Moore?

No.

Council Member Rivera?

No.

Council Member Wu?

No.

Vice Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Two in favor, three opposed.

Okay, the motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Council Member Strauss, it's not clear to me if you want to move your amendments.

Well, if we're going to vote on the whole darn shebang today, let's just keep on moving.

This is the best we got for today.

But, you know, I do want to say, Council Member Morales, I do believe in your bill and the intent that you're bringing it forward with, because we've already seen with the religious bonus bill, the impact that it's had in our city.

You may have just recently heard another development on Capitol Hill at St. at the cathedral there is, I believe, utilizing some of these bonuses.

We do see that this type of policy does create good impacts in the community.

And so for this, uh amendment before us today and i think lish is bringing it up it um some council member chef's sponsor you're recognized to move your bill oh yes sorry thank you chair i move amendment two to council bill one two zero seven five zero it is moved is there a second second it's moved and seconded to adopt amendment two please go ahead Thank you, Council Chair Morales.

This simply clarifies who is eligible to qualify, making sure that public housing authorities are able to, as well as removing the state or federal funding requirement, because not all affordable housing projects receive state or federal funding.

Okay.

Did you want central staff to review at all?

Sure.

Lish, if you want to take it away.

That's a fairly good summary.

The only other thing I would add is that it allows for a partnership or limited liability company that includes a community development organization or organizations as the controlling general partner or managing member to also qualify.

Okay, thank you very much.

Colleagues, are there any questions or comments on Amendment 2?

I'm not seeing any.

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 2?

Council Member Moore?

No.

Council Member Rivera?

No.

Council Member Wu?

No.

Vice Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Two in favor, three against.

Okay, the motion fails and we will move on to Amendment 3. Lish, can you please give an overview of Amendment 3?

Yes, Amendment 3, REMOVES EXEMPTIONS OF PROJECTS FROM THE MANDATORY HOUSING AFFORDABILITY PROGRAM AND INCENTIVE ZONING PROGRAMS.

IN OTHER WORDS, IT WOULD REQUIRE PARTICIPATION, MHA, AND INCENTIVE ZONING PROGRAMS.

MHA APPLIES TO ANY UNITS ABOVE 60% OF AREA MEDIAN INCOME IN A PROJECT.

THANK YOU.

COUNCILMEMBER STRAUSS, AS SPONSOR, YOU'RE RECOGNIZED TO MOVE AMENDMENT 3.

I will just move Amendment 3 to Council Bill 120750.

It's been moved, I'll second.

Do you want to address the amendment?

Yes, may I please?

Lish has done a wonderful job.

So what you, this reoccurring theme with my amendments is making this, reconciling this with the religious bonus bill, because much like this bill, the religious bonus bill had a total of four to six public meetings, was voted, into law and then brought back for a second round because changes needed to be made.

So the MHA was a part of the religious bonus bill.

Specifically, the incentive zoning program is important to me because it allows public benefits in exchange.

And these things can be childcare, schools, public open space, art spaces, or historic preservation.

Overall, this is to bring this to reconcile it with the religious bonus bill.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Are there any questions or comments?

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3?

Councilmember Moore?

No.

Councilmember Rivera?

No.

Councilmember Wu?

No.

Vice Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Two in favor, three opposed.

Okay, the motion fails.

Lish, will you please give an overview of Amendment 4?

Yeah, Amendment 4 recognizes childcare centers as an equitable development use.

They're probably included already in the definition, but this makes it clear that a childcare center would be an equitable development use under the bill.

Okay, Council Member Strauss, you are recognized to move Amendment 4.

I move Amendment 4 to Council Bill 120750. And I'll second.

Would you like to address the amendment?

I list it a very good job.

We always like to call out child care because we don't have enough of it in this darn city.

Okay.

As Lish said, these projects are already supported by EDI, but I absolutely don't object to explicitly calling out childcare.

We know we need much more of it.

So I will support this amendment today.

Are there any questions or comments?

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 4?

Councilmember Moore?

No.

Councilmember Rivera?

No.

Councilmember Wu?

No.

Vice Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Two in favor, three opposed.

Okay.

Lish, will you please give an overview of Amendment 5?

Since Amendment 1 failed, we can consider Amendment 5.

Do you intend to move it?

Chair, I would like to move the 5A language.

I see.

Okay.

If it's okay.

I'll do whatever Lish says.

Amendment 5 and 5A were both drafted assuming that Amendments 1 through 4 would pass.

So the Amendment 5 that you have in front of you includes provisions that the committee has voted down and cannot be part of the final bill.

So if you do move them, if you do want to move Amendment 5, I would recommend moving Amendment 5 with the exception of any provisions in Amendments 1 to 4 that were included in the draft.

And I don't have a draft of that to show you, unfortunately.

Is that clear?

Yeah, Chair, may I?

Or maybe I've convinced colleagues of Amendments 1 through 4.

I think our clerk would tell us that you cannot have another vote on those items without the member in the prevailing side calling it up for another vote.

Okay.

Okay.

And so we cannot bring Amendment 5?

You can bring Amendment 5 with a verbal amendment to exclude anything that was included in Amendments 1 through 4.

So can you walk us through what's left?

Chair, may I?

Sure.

Is there somebody else on the committee that will support this?

If not, I just won't move it.

I'm not seeing so.

I'm not going to move the amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay.

Seeing no further amendments, we have...

Uh, where are we?

I've lost track.

Uh, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the base bill?

Councilmember Moore?

Oh, sorry.

You've got hands up.

I have hands up, sorry.

There are too many places.

Council Member Moore.

Okay, thank you.

Before I vote on the base bill, I did want to make some comments.

Thank you.

I did want to thank you, Chair Morales and Council Member Strauss for both of your thoughtful work on the legislation.

I do appreciate the effort to address the city's dire need for affordable housing.

I have given this bill many hours of consideration, particularly with the changes and proposed amendments, but I have to say my reservations remain.

And at this point, the main issue for me is that the legislation allots additional development capacity solely based on an ownership model.

It is a model that intentionally and explicitly bestows benefits to a select handful of organizations, 35 in total, whose eligibility for this development capacity benefit will be based upon future criteria developed and implemented solely by city departments with no recourse to independent review or appeal from exclusion.

So, while this ownership model may have been a necessary work around restrictive zoning laws under the current comprehensive plan, we now have the opportunity, as noted by my colleagues, to re-envision zoning under the pending comprehensive plan.

So, as such, in my opinion, a more effective approach to attaining citywide neighborhood affordability is to make the benefit of development capacity generally available to all, and to do so through the draft comprehensive plan currently before Council.

So it's for those reasons that I am voting no, and I do look forward to working on expanding the benefit of affordable development capacity to all throughout the city through the vehicle of the comprehensive plan currently before Council for consideration and adoption.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera, did you have a final comment?

Thank you.

I just wanted to add to my earlier comments that in terms of housing and the need for housing, I echo.

I think in general there isn't a person currently on the council that does not agree that we need more housing of all kinds, including affordable housing.

all the way up to market rate housing.

So I wanted it stated on the record that my opposition to this bill has nothing to do with my support for housing.

We definitely need more housing across the city and I wanted that to be noted.

My opposition to this are for the reasons I stated earlier that I won't restate now.

But we do need to develop more housing, which is why I think we really need to use the comp plan vehicle as well as we need to have more information about the recently passed housing levy and how we hope to accomplish more housing across the city with that voter approved levy, which I was in full support of.

So thank you for the opportunity to give additional comments.

But like I said, I wanted it to be noted on the record that I do support more housing.

We need more housing.

This is not the vehicle that I can support at the moment.

Any final comments?

Anyone else?

Okay, I'll take a moment to make my own remarks.

It's not clear to me how waiting for another year for the comprehensive plan to pass and get finalized does anything at all to contribute to the building of affordable housing.

right now.

Seattle can't waste any more time failing to provide affordable housing.

I'll say we were elected to take action.

This is not a controversial bill.

Cutting red tape to let organizations like Habitat for Humanity build more homes is not controversial.

In the midst of this housing crisis, we have to be bold and we have to take action.

We've been here for four months.

and we've not passed any significant legislation so far.

This legislation is supported by affordable housing developers, by community-based organizations who are asking for support, by the Master Builders Association, by over 1,000 constituents across all of our districts.

And I will say it is disappointing, not just for me as the person working on this legislation, but for the 35 potential projects that we could have had that could have supported the creation of more housing across the income spectrum in the city.

So if there's no further discussion, I will ask the clerk to call the final roll.

Council Member Moore.

No.

Council Member Rivera.

No.

Council Member Wu.

No.

Vice Chair Strauss.

Abstain.

Chair Morales.

Yes.

One in favor, one abstention, three opposed.

Okay.

The committee recommendation will be sent to the April 23rd city council meeting for a final vote.

It will go as a recommendation not to pass.

Chair Morales, with a divided vote, I think it would go to the following council meeting.

Oh, right.

So April 30th.

Okay, so because it's a divided vote, it will go not to the next full council meeting, but to the one after that.

So the committee recommendation will be sent to the April 30th city council meeting for a final vote.

With no further business, this committee is adjourned.

Thank you.