Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us at this special committee.
It is Wednesday, September 18th, 2019. This is our Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.
I'm Sally Bagshaw, chair of this.
We may or may not have colleagues joining us today, but we're not voting anything out of the committee, so we'll have plenty of more time to move forward on the conversations that I know that you're here for.
We actually have two items on the agenda, and since I guess I get to approve the agenda all by myself, so the agenda is adopted.
We've got two items, as I mentioned, the predatory vehicular landlord legislation.
And again, we're not voting on anything other than to put a bill in front of this committee.
And then we will have another opportunity next week to discuss it.
And then I'm going to move forward with the condemnation resolution and the condemnation ordinance as well.
I guess we are voting that out of committee today.
But it is not going forward to our full council committee until December if we decide to move forward with that.
So with that, I am going to ask that the first item, which is the ordinance relating to the use of extensively damaged motor vehicles, after public comment.
And we've got two people.
And maybe you just want to come up to the table for those who are going to be talking to us anyway.
And then we've got David Haynes and our good friend, Reverend Bill Kerlin Hackett.
So if I could ask the two of you to approach microphones, and each will have two minutes.
Good afternoon.
When Council took office, there was blight at 213 South Main Street.
When Council leaves office, the same blight will still be there.
In order for City Council to be more effective, we need hard-hitting ordinance without catering to low-class speculators.
In fact, City Council has to accept the reality that the development deal is dead.
is overwhelmed with the project in Upper Queen Anne Safeway.
City Council needs to stop catering to shady speculators, for profit market, and pay the same amount of $600,000 to that prolific small time owner of a known falling down building.
We need housing.
This seems perfect for a no parking project.
Part of the problem with that development is there's unsafe watery soil.
Take possession, pay maybe a 10% one-time fee on top of the $600,000 and tear down and build affordable housing.
Don't let the government inflate the value.
In the for-profit market, the owner doesn't deserve a reward for doing nothing with an unsafe building and a crappy piece of land.
House to houseless now.
And please, on a separate issue, the RV people, some of those folks are peeing and pooping in pitchers, and they're mixing a little coffee with it.
And then they go out and they spread it on the grass right next to the sidewalk.
And all these people walking by, their dogs are getting it all over them.
And nobody has ever done anything about it.
Thank you, David.
Hi, Reverend Bill Kerlin Hackett, Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness and Schofield Mitigation Team.
I just saw the changes.
Some of them would have been comments I would have made in the original legislation, so I'll try to navigate not making those comments.
We do the Schofield Mitigation Team, which pairs with parking enforcement and the court to make sure no one with four or more tickets gets their vehicle towed.
So we are working also with budget items and other ways to foster the growth of that program and make it more systemic.
But alongside that, we're working with LEED and REACH and others to create intentional vehicle outreach.
One of the things I keep saying is it's not a menu, it's a recipe.
The city keeps wanting to pick menu items off to address vehicle residency.
We see it as needing to be more comprehensive, which is why I like seeing so much red on this, because it looks more comprehensive.
One of the complaints we have is it's not about the vehicle, it's about the people and where are they going.
So that's always our number one focus.
Some of the things, though, I'm curious about are still who's determining what's extensively damaged?
Is it consistent or just going to be arbitrary?
That will always be a concern.
I wasn't able to read this well enough yet to find out if that's a better determination.
What if it's rented and the person who's doing this car ranching is actually renting out very good vehicles and providing a space?
Would it be possible for us, as we've done with tiny homes, to find space like a KOA style lot where they can be housed in Seattle?
We have nothing like that, I know in Kent we have something like that that vacates in the winter.
Those could be lots that are rented and given to people who want to stay in a vehicle.
As colleague Graham Pruss says, some people in these are actually in shelter, better shelter than even the 24-7 shelters we provide.
And it might be that we can use these people who have the capacity to acquire these to do it on a wider range and use their entrepreneurship to actually get people into housing.
And one of the other things I was thinking of is, Let's see.
It always has to come back to the people.
Is it furthering a pathway to stability?
The vehicles are very unsightly.
I see this.
There's many that are in the description I won't go into.
But people are living these right now.
And we're not doing any intentional outreach.
So this isn't the right committee for that big picture.
We know that.
But we really need every committee to start saying this out loud.
The new regional authority with whom I'm working and HUD, who was here last week, And Corporation for Supportive Housing have all agreed we need vehicle residency and addressing it in the regional action plan.
So that has not been the case.
So I am encouraged to see a lot of red.
As I said, I'll read it better and see if there's more recommendations we can make.
Initially, I didn't like this at all because it seemed to target the wrong problem, which was not the people in the vehicle.
So we know that many on the council have that heart in them to help people get out of homelessness.
We want to see more of that.
Thank you.
Great.
Reverend, and I encourage you and welcome you to give further comments to me in my office because I know you and many others have been working this problem for the entire decade that I've been on council.
So let's see what we can do.
My colleague, Jean Darcy, would have been here, but she's standing with Women in Black, which is where we don't want to see homeless people.
So she echoes many of these comments also.
All right.
Thank you so much for coming.
Okay, so do you want to please read this in?
Thank you.
Item number one, Council Bill 119625, an ordinance relating to the use of extensively damaged motor vehicles, prohibiting persons from allowing the occupation of extensively damaged motor vehicles.
Very good, thank you for that.
Jeff Sims, thank you so much for all your work on this, and I just also want to acknowledge Allison McClain, my office, for the work that you have done on this, too, and working with the executive.
I'd just like to say this legislation comes to us from the executive.
You, too, have been working really hard on behalf of the Council Central staff and my office to come up with some, as the Reverend just said, a whole lot of red lines.
But my understanding is we've worked closely with people in the mayor's office, and this is close to a document that I can bring forward to the full council.
Please.
Before moving forward, so I do have a variety of red lines, but these have not been introduced as amendments at this time.
Should I move through that as a proposed amendment and then assume that you'll take action on that or?
Is it appropriate if I can just move that now for our base legislation?
It's just me here at the table, but if I can move that, the red line version.
I can definitely go through this, treating it as if just an explanation of what the amendment would accomplish and then if you want to do it afterwards.
It would be treated as a substitute draft, I guess, but it's just a lot of amending, basically.
So, Council Member, I'll go through the ordinance and just discuss red line edits that we prepared.
I believe that these are available to the public.
They're attached to the agenda, right?
There's at least copies here.
As one of my buddies said in the audience that we have more press than normal here, particularly in relationship to the number of other people who are here.
If we don't have copies, could you make a few?
There's copies.
OK.
All right, great.
There are copies for you at the dais if you want it.
So initially when you're looking at the recital clauses, you'll see that there's a lot of clarifications and additions to that.
That was really to focus the intent per the comments and requests of council members the last time we discussed this bill.
That we focus this ordinance very clearly in the recital clauses on individuals that are predatory vehicle landlords.
So we're noting that these vehicles are often In poor condition, the individuals are often, I'll use the term renting, usually I'll try to avoid that because this is not always a renting.
It's certainly not an official renting situation, but they might be giving some kind of consideration that often there's exploitative behavior where the person that is actually the possessor or the person in control of the vehicle or the owner is taking advantage of a vulnerable individual.
So all of that is reflected in the recital clauses.
Great, and I also want to acknowledge and say thank you both to you and to the mayor's office for differentiating that we're focusing on this from a public health standpoint to take care of the individuals who are within whatever we're calling these vehicles.
But I also want to acknowledge what the Reverend Kerlin Hackett said, which is, The goal of this, one of the primary goals, is for us to have resources available so the individuals can move into something better than what we believe to be a real public health problem.
So I want to acknowledge that up front.
Next you'll see that we've revised what was what the amendment would revise a section 1175 010 to be a definition section So what is what had already been submitted as a definition of being extensively damaged is just set up to be a definition There was one modification to that Where wastewater systems that are inoperable are discussed it was clarified.
This is again per council members requests that we clarified this is vehicles that are supposed to have a wastewater system.
So you wouldn't talk about my car and my Toyota, yeah, that's not supposed to have that in the first place, wouldn't therefore be subject to not having an operable.
There was a discussion previously, but it is not reflected here as you get to what would be revised to section four, where we're talking about a health or fire safety hazard.
There had been some discussion about clarifying things that were possessions versus a person, versus what would just be broadly considered.
junk or debris, things like that, it could be difficult.
And we do have standards that are laid out for the navigation team, for example, as they interact with encampments and individuals residing in those on how to treat possessions.
That was not included here largely because of the difficulties that identifying the difference would be, and especially because of the focus on things that could be combustible in the environment of these RVs as being a safety hazard.
You know what might be useful, because we have so much red line on this version, maybe you could work through the definition of extensively damaged and the items that are here so we can describe it that we really are, again, looking at inadequate sanitation.
That's really the focus here.
We're trying to identify, if we're talking just about vans or RVs, that they really present a public health hazard.
So rather than moving on to the other red lines, could you just walk us through that and what extensively damaged or an unhealthy vehicle looks like?
Sure.
I do want to start by emphasizing that these definitions are for this new chapter only.
They would not be applied anywhere else in the municipal code.
So extensively damaged would be defined as a motor vehicle or recreational vehicle.
I was going to highlight later that this ordinance does still cover all vehicles, not just RVs, which have been the focus of discussion so far.
And you'd have to have at least two of five conditions to consider extensively damaged.
These are all mostly contained in the legislation as transmitted.
So a broken window or a windshield missing and or missing wheels or tires.
Being apparently inoperable, the conditions that we are often shared and have been shared at the table where you can see how a car has been mounted on the front to be towed, to be lifted up and towed away and it's clearly not something that can be moved.
Or you can see the wheels or things like that broken, something that would not be possible.
So you can observe that even if they didn't have the keys in hand.
Inadequate sanitation.
to the extent that either the occupants or the general public are exposed to the risk of illness or injury.
And this is where one of the earlier conditions that I talked about, the wastewater system that's inoperable, that's really focused on, as was highlighted even in public comment, that there's a lot of cases where individuals are dumping into wastewater systems or onto the street, things like that, their bodily waste.
So that's one example.
An accumulation, again, of garbage or rubbish.
Infestation by vermin, insects, rodents, or other pests, which again could be hazards for disease and health.
Leaking fluids and other dangerous materials.
And then inadequate air quality, previously when this was presented we were shown many slides showing the excessive amounts of mold, the exposure to air, seeing tarps draped over vehicles indicating that they were not providing adequate protection from rain, things like that.
So those all together, and then also health or fire safety hazard.
And that really relates to flammable, my understanding is that we've actually had cases where these vehicles have caught fire or even had explosions.
And so reflecting that, and that was where some of the discussion about junk debris, the chance for combustion, things like that.
Do you have a question?
Please.
I was just going to, sorry, highlight, as Reverend Curlin-Hackett mentioned, if someone is renting one of these vehicles out and they are in good conditions, meaning they don't meet any of these standards, then this ordinance would not apply to them.
Thank you for clarifying that.
Yeah, a minimum of two of these.
I think in many cases the vehicles that we're picturing would likely have several of these conditions would be the case.
That's already covered the chances of fire or explosion and then protection from weather.
And there's a listing of some specific conditions like missing walls and missing ceiling, broken windows and doors, leaking, inadequate waterproofing, things like that that you can clearly visibly see that there's not adequate protection.
So that combined is an extensively damaged vehicle.
which was our first definition.
And then the second, and this is a new definition, we kind of moved what was previously kind of contained in the enforcement and penalties to being a definition so that it was very clear.
And again, this is intended to apply to this chapter, so it was very specifically laid out in that way.
And that defines a predatory vehicle landlord.
It's a person, meaning allowing another natural person to occupy any motor vehicle, again, not just RVs, And there's some definitions the municipal code of that that's located on a street or an alley Open to the public municipal or other public property that's extensively damaged.
There was some discussion previously about individuals that are residing in the vehicle themselves and allowing someone else to occupy the vehicle with them and I will get to some later provisions where that has been addressed and so it was the Considerations about a person that's habitating this vehicle not being charged as their own vehicular landlord were not included here in the definition because it's addressed elsewhere.
Great, thank you.
Then the next sections are just kind of some technical edits just to clarify some things but continuing to say that you're not permitted to be a predatory vehicle landlord in the city.
So then we move to This is section 1175.030.
Let's go down to subsection D.
This is a...
This clarifies, this previously had read that an individual, not only a predatory vehicle landlord, I should say, would not only be subject to daily fines for acting in that predatory way, but also would be subject to paying restitution to the individual, especially if they have provided rent or a security deposit, something like that, and potentially also relocation assistance.
As we engaged with the executive in the mayor's office, the ability for that to actually result in support for the occupants that would be affected here.
It was clear that that would be highly unlikely and put a substantial legal burden on those individuals, especially pursuing that over a long period of time when they would have lost access to the vehicle, presumably, to reside in.
So instead, this section has been rewritten to clarify that the predatory vehicular landlord can may also be required to submit relocation assistance and is required to pay return or essentially pay back rent, security deposits, move-in fees, things like that, into a fund that is created later that's a victim's assistance fund.
And that way, it's clear that those conditions are still required of the vehicular landlord.
But we are structuring it so that there will be later with the fund the option to advance these payments to individuals.
And also streamlining the pathway so it's easier to provide assistance to them.
Great, and then we'll talk more about the victim's assistant funds as you get over to page five.
Next is an addition that there is numerous items raised about case management, providing warnings, the type of training that all of those were raised by council members as this has been discussed previously.
So this subsection E is requiring that rules would be promulgated clarifying a lot of those factors.
In discussion with the executive, it's much easier and more typical practice for us to outline those types of things through rulemaking rather than trying to get into such an extensively detailed ordinance that they'd have to follow it all.
And I want to emphasize here that working with our human services department, that the goal is to provide assistance to the individual that's inside the van or vehicle, and that we're looking for not only services, but also to find alternative housing and shelter options.
That is a real primary goal of this, and it's something that I feel very strongly about.
Absolutely.
And so all of that would be included in what would eventually then be brought forward.
Moving down to the next new section is subsection G.
This again reflects what had been presented as the intention here by the executive when they presented this ordinance and raised as an area for further clarification that individuals who are occupying these vehicles should be cooperating.
It should not be done against their will or with them objecting to it.
This has been carefully drafted to make sure it is something that could be implemented given the complexities of these situations where individuals are moving.
It can often be difficult to locate these individuals, that it is often a situation where you don't know who the landlord or the predatory vehicular landlord is. at the time when you encounter the person who's occupying it and are told that such a situation is existing.
And so initiating or continuing an investigation is how this is written so that the initial investigation would not start or be continued if there is an explicit objection from that occupant.
And that way, in those situations where perhaps someone simply moved on and didn't have objection, there would not be a limitation like, gosh, we need to go and find them now, potentially months later, to resolve this situation.
And I think there is one exception, that if there's concern about trafficking, an individual who is currently living in there, perhaps against his or her will, then we can investigate that.
But if an individual just says, no, I want to stay here, I don't have a better option, then it's my understanding that we're not going to continue or push the person out.
Absolutely, yes.
Yeah, as you said, there's a provision for that kind of a situation where the exact term is reasonable suspicion that such coercion is going on.
There was also some consideration of looking at the behavioral health of the individual in these situations, but in looking at the ability to properly assess that, it was decided not to include that, and instead not to create a pathway where someone might, who might in a particular moment be in an especially acute crisis, would not have the opportunity to object to this, but instead to make sure that they would be still participating.
Great.
Thank you.
Now we move to section 040. This is where the Victim's Assistance Program or Victim's Assistance Fund, if you wanted to call it that, I think in common parlance we'd probably call it a Victim's Assistance Fund in order to be careful about accounting procedures.
I'm clarifying it as a program here, but it's a very technical piece.
Could you say that again?
I didn't understand what you just said.
Usually we would call this, often I think, and even in conversations with you, we'd call this the Victim's Assistance Fund to make sure that the way that the accounting needs to work.
I didn't actually put fund in the ordinance.
It just simplifies the bureaucracy of it.
So this would instruct the Human Services Department to create and administer such a program, it would serve two people, either occupants who are victims of these predatory vehicle landlords that are entitled to either reimbursement of the money that they paid or relocation assistance, or occupants who generally are going to be more vulnerable or more likely to live in unsafe conditions because of bringing action against these predatory landlords.
So those are the individuals served, and then defines what we should call it.
And this is where it's laid out that relocation assistance that the van lords are paying or other payments that they are required to pay, such as the daily fine for engaging in these activities if it's a civil infraction, all would be deposited into this program.
So we'd have a stream whereby funds are being replenished.
And then it outlines various activities that will be further fleshed out by the Human Services Department.
Most particularly that it be that these funds could be advanced to the recipient.
If we're talking about a situation as was raised by the council where they are going to immediately lose access going through a restitution process that could be months long would not be very would not be something that would help them locate stable housing, so this allows them to receive assistance more rapidly, and also uses funds that you provided.
Can you tell me, has there been an economic analysis, what people expect, how much money we can expect in this Victims Assistance Fund?
Have we gotten that from the Executive or Department of Human Services?
So I think there's probably two likely answers to your question.
If it's a situation where we're talking about relocation assistance or returning payments received, that is a legal process.
It's not commonly done around civil infractions now, but there would be a requirement of demonstrating the amounts, for example, that were paid.
in order to then go about recouping those payments.
So that would be information that would have to be provided by the individual and there would be a court proceeding, which is why advancing these payments is so important.
The other half of that, because the council has already appropriated funds that could assist these individuals, for those who are not seeking those I should not say restitution, there's relocation assistance or repayments.
They can receive more flexible funding that would allow them to move into a more stable living situation.
That's similar to programs that we already have.
Our diversion program, for example, which has a very high success rate, works with individuals, provides flexible assistance to them so that they can identify and move to permanent housing.
That doesn't always mean paying the first month of rent.
Sometimes that is what it does, but sometimes it might be working with family members or even identifying other means that would allow a person to return to a place where they can maintain their own housing.
Great.
Thank you.
Can I just add, I just think this is one of the more important additions that we made over the last couple months that we're trying to really make it easier for residents in these situations to get out of the vulnerable situation they're in and in the predatory situation to streamline how they can access these more flexible funds.
So instead of going through months long process having to get legal support, having to go to court, this will allow them easier access to those funds.
I'd like to just go back to what you were saying here, that it's not building necessarily on something new.
We have many of these programs already available, whether it's motel vouchers or trying to keep people in good places to live, and if they're in shelter, to be able to find alternatives for them where they can go.
So this is really building on some of the existing things that are already in play.
Right.
It's taking best practices that we're already aware of for serving individuals at risk of or coming into homelessness and and expanding that and making a fund where there's potentially a stream coming in from these predatory vehicle owners or occupant owners or landlords to replenish that fund and assist the people who'd be displaced.
I guess what I was asking initially is do we have any sense about what the dollar amount might be coming in or are we going to be I know that we're going to have to use this pilot to really determine that, but has anybody given us an estimate?
Not at this time.
When we were looking at having to go through a restitution process, it was unlikely that we would see much return there.
Because of the time frame we were looking at, the onus being on the individual to go through a court proceeding, having to initiate those proceedings, that's why we've moved in a different direction.
Now, as you can see in D3, the city would be actually pursuing that, similar to what we do with tenant landlord and emergency relocation assistance, where we can advance the funds But I don't have an estimate on how much we expect we would return.
There's also difficulty in estimating how prevalent this is.
And as we highlighted previously, there's a lot of situations where the legal term, the consideration that's being provided by the occupant in order to be allowed to stay in the RV, for example, is not cash.
It could be other kinds of activity.
Yeah, thank you for that.
All right, please continue.
There's really just one last section.
This clarifies how to handle possessions of the individual.
There are some outstanding questions we have with the city attorney's office on one piece of this, but I believe that this is where we're going to be.
It looks like it's come together here.
outlines procedures and what to do to make sure, a protection and a follow-up procedure to make sure that the occupants have access to their possessions.
You'll recall when this was first presented and also in other conversations that's been shared with us that many of these individuals that are occupying RVs, for example, that are extensively damaged, they're also fearful of leaving their RV because they're worried about what will happen to their possessions.
I've even heard anecdotes that someone wouldn't go to like their case management appointment or a job interview, things like that.
And so that making sure that it's clear that they are protected in that way.
This is currently a city practice.
We allow people if we've moved, if we've towed the RV and it's in this kind of a situation, we will allow them into Lincoln Towing with an escort to regain their possessions if necessary.
But it also lays out that the landlord could not be just towing the vehicle away with all of their things inside and not be responsible for what would essentially be either penalties for having done that and not providing access and getting the daily fine for that, or having to return the value of those belongings.
Great, thank you.
And I think you mentioned something, and I heard from Councilmember O'Brien earlier today, that his concern was that this would be a distraction to some of the other good works we're doing.
What I'm trying to get reassurance from the Human Services Department and the Mayor's Office is that our two-pronged approach, this is a public health issue, we're trying to make sure that people have a healthier place to live, and that we will have some resources to help them get into something better.
So I think those are certainly my two objectives, taking care of the individuals, finding them a better place to be.
And this is a third point that you have raised, is that we already have a process in play, like if we're removing somebody from a tent, that they can get their In fact, we will even bring the belongings back once we have identified to whom they belong.
So the goal here is not to put people in a worse off situation, but both from a public health standpoint, a neighborhood standpoint, and the individuals that we find them a better place to be.
Great.
Anything else, or are you at the conclusion?
No, that actually covers all the changes that we've made as we went through.
I highlighted places that were previously discussed that either were accounted for in changes that we were able to either make not necessary with revising the definitions or things like that.
Okay, great.
Allison, do you want to add anything to this?
I just wanted to ask if you wanted to mention the cohabitate.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Yes, so in the definition of predatory vehicle landlord, Again, we did not keep a component of that definition that would have said that a person actually occupying the vehicle and allowing, let's say it was a partner, to occupy it with them, that that person is not a predatory vehicular landlord because they are residing in it themselves.
It's also their place that they habitate.
That was not kept in the definition.
because as you since we've added a section that requires the cooperation or allows I should say required like if there's an explicit objection and there doesn't seem to be a circumstance in which if I'm possessed if I'm in control of an RV and I allow my partner to partner to stay in it with me it seems very likely that that partner would actually object and say no I'm I'm here voluntarily and this is my partner and you should not be treating them as an exploitative landlord here.
So it made the cohabitation pieces unnecessary and by not having that also makes it simpler to look at other situations.
So I have also asked whether or not that we can preserve, reserve, or create some more spaces, particularly for these individuals.
And what I was talking about was, could we reserve a dozen tiny homes or a dozen beds so that our navigation team would have a place to bring people?
And also, I want to say thank you, Allison, that you brought up something.
very important is we don't want to create a priority list.
We're really trying to focus on the most vulnerable.
Maybe these people qualify for that.
But I do want to come back and emphasize that what we know we need is more 24-7 places for people to be.
And whether it's a tiny home, and Sharon Lee and many others will argue, that those tiny homes are making a big difference for people to go because they can have a door that locks their partner, their possessions, and their pets can stay inside.
And it does give them something a little bit safer and a place to be.
We're not going there at this point.
But I really want to emphasize that in order to address this, we're going to either have to have more modulars, or what our former speaker Frank Chopp pointed out the other day, is with these cottages, more places for people to go.
It's getting to be a pretty obvious statement.
The objective on ending homelessness is to have more houses, more places, more homes for people to go.
That that's the answer, and we're going to have to continue working on that with our Office of Housing, with our new regional governance, with our other friends in some of our suburban cities where they may have land and may be able to help us.
Okay, anything else on this?
Well, I would like to move that we adopt the red lining here in this new version, which is the version D4, and so it will become the baseline.
We're not passing this out today, but I'd like to be able to have this as the version that we will be sharing with our colleagues for further discussion.
We have a special meeting next week.
Tuesday?
At 4 p.m.
Oh, that's great.
Anyway, I'm sure that we're all trying to wedge in so much before budget, but I'm going to move and second this and pass it out.
So this is now going to be the version that we will share and we will look at and vote on next week.
Anything else on that?
OK, well, I think that I am on my own.
Ketel, are you going to help us with conversations?
So I would just like to introduce the next item.
And I do intend to vote this out of this committee today, but not refer it to full council.
So do you want to read this in?
Yeah, may I read item 2 and item 3 in together, please?
Item number 2, Council Bill 119-645, an ordinance relating to eliminating neighborhood blight, authorizing the acquisition of real property commonly known as 213 South Main Street, as well as item number 3, Resolution 31906, a resolution declaring the premises located at 213 South Main Street, Seattle, Washington, commonly known as Old Cannery Building, to be a neighborhood blight requiring acquisition by the City of Seattle in accordance with RCW35.EDA.10.
Thank you.
Ketel, I'm going to ask you to review what we did last week, and then I have an update for anybody who is watching this.
Sure.
So last week, the committee was briefed on both of these pieces of legislation, and they are kind of of a piece.
They're both necessary for the city to consider condemning a property to remedy blight.
And the property is, of course, the old Cannery Building, which is located at 213 South Main Street in Pioneer Square.
And last week, the committee discussed some of the history of the old Cannery Building.
I don't think it was ever actually used as a cannery, but it's referred to as the old Cannery Building.
It's because of the Cannery Union.
Because of the Cannery Union, right, which occupied the building for a while.
And it was, of course, the site of an infamous murder in 1981. some cannery organizers.
The building itself is in deteriorated condition and cannot be safely occupied.
It was the subject of some permit activity in 2017. In fact, there's an issued Massachusetts permit decision for a seven-story building, mixed-use building on the site.
However, that project has not proceeded to construction.
There are two sort of steps that are required here for the city to contemplate acquiring the property.
One is a declaration that acquisition is necessary to address the blighted conditions and a recitation of what those blighted conditions are and that recitation is in resolution 31906 and also the declaration of a neighborhood blight.
We went over the steps last week or the factors that the city needs to consider in determining whether or not the building meets the definition of blighted building or neighborhood blight under RCW 3580A.010 and that it meets at least Two of three factors, and only two need to be met.
It could possibly meet all three factors.
Finally, the council bill would essentially provide the authorization to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and also the Seattle City Attorney's Office to proceed with acquisition of the property, and that could happen in multiple ways.
One, a negotiated purchase by the city, and then disposition through the normal FAS disposition procedures.
And the other would be through condemnation if a negotiated purchase is not agreed to by the parties.
Great.
Thank you very much for that.
So we talked about last week that I have been working on this for the better part of a year.
The Second Avenue, also known as Second Avenue Extension, is being very much improved by a number of building owners from the Metropole building that has now been, my understanding is, procured by the Satterberg Foundation, working with Fortera across the street.
And the Chief Seattle Club is working on the Lazarus Day Center.
That's going to be coming down in just the next couple of months.
All the permitting have been approved.
There'll be low-income units there associated with the Chief Seattle Club.
Around the corner, there's two parcels, one of which is empty, and the other is there's a building on it.
Those buildings are coming down.
We're also working with Allegra developers for a site at Second and Washington.
Then there's another group that's working on the hub.
So the goal there is to really improve the neighborhood from a feeling of adding additional residential units and at the same time, potentially putting in childcare down there.
So a lot is happening.
This parcel, the cannery building is really the last one on that street that has been derelict for so long, over 30 years now.
So that's why that we were moving forward to say, if all else fails, we're going to move forward towards condemnation.
Now, I want to have for an update that yesterday the property owner came to my office.
I met with him and his architect.
I believe that they are serious about moving forward with this.
And I asked them for a timeline, what their permitting process would look like.
And one of the big things that I have asked for is for them to reach out to the Filipino community because it was the cannery building.
within that neighborhood that, and especially when the murders occurred, that the Filipino community was truly impacted by that.
So they are willing to do it.
I have offered to help make introductions, call the community together to ask what the community would like to see, to respect the culture and the history of this.
The property owner said that he was willing to do that.
What we're going to do with this is pass this out of the committee, but not refer it on to full council, which will give them at least 60 days to come back with a plan to do the work that they had promised.
And at that point, the full council will make a decision about what they want to do.
I'm hopeful that we've gotten the property owner's attention, that he has agreed to work with the Pioneer Square Alliance as well as the Pioneer Square Preservation Board to come up with a project, a plan, and a timeline that would restore the block and provide us with housing, both affordable and market rates.
So I think we're making some positive strides, and I want to acknowledge that the property owner did say that he was committed to making this right.
So anything else that you would like to add?
Maybe I'll just note that if and when this is taken up by the full council, there are some procedural things that need to happen first, including notice in the newspaper for two consecutive weeks and also notification to the property owner by certified mail of the potential for the final council action on this.
So that's a procedural step that there's plenty of time to accomplish in 60 days, but it is something that has to happen before full council acts.
great and I want to also acknowledge and thank our law department who's been very helpful on this and we will move forward give the property owner notice that this has come out of this committee after I vote on it and then if everything is proceeding as promised then the city may not take that final action.
Okay, well I am going to first of all move to adopt the resolution.
And do we have a number here?
It's 31906. That will declare the premises as blighted and requiring the acquisition by the city.
So I'm moving it and I'm seconding it.
I'm voting aye and passing it out.
The second item is the ordinance that is again relating to neighborhood blight and it authorizes the acquisition of real property and I'm going to move and second that and vote aye.
So, it also is voted out of this committee, but not referred to the full council until, I believe it is December 9th, which will be the second Monday in December.
And we will take it up if necessary then.
Do I... Yeah, I think I'm not sure if you moved Council Bill 119645.
Okay, so it is Council Bill 119645, this ordinance, and I will move and second that, and vote aye on it.
So it is moved by me, seconded by me, and voted on by me.
Do I need to do anything about, other than what I've just stated, that it won't go to full Council until the 9th, do we need to do anything special on that?
I don't think so.
We'll just make sure that the clerk and the council president know.
Okay, very good.
Thank you.
I appreciate all the work that both of you have done.
Thank you for coming to this committee today and the committee meeting is adjourned.