Transportation, Waterfront, and Seattle Center Committee 8/20/2026

All right, good morning.

The August 20th, 2026 meeting of the Safety, Transportation, Engineering, Project, Sports and Experiences Committee will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Rob Saka, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Lin?

Vice Chair Rink?

Here.

Chair Saka?

Here.

Council Member Foster?

Here.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you.

Let the record reflect that Council Member Lynn is excused until he arrives.

All right.

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

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is hereby adopted.

Good morning, colleagues, members of the public.

Thank you for joining us today at this morning's meeting.

Before we begin today's substantive discussion, I want to start with why we are here.

In December 2023, Steve Holzman was struck and killed by a car while riding his bicycle in West Seattle.

In December 2024, a 56-year-old woman walking in a crosswalk in South Park was struck and killed at 14th Avenue South and South Henderson Street.

Tragically, yet another pedestrian would be killed at the very same intersection just months later in May of 2025. This June, Maradie Bonadie was killed while riding her bicycle in Fauntleroy.

And just last week, a 37-year-old man riding an electric scooter was struck and killed near 24th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 85th Street.

People walking people biking, people rolling, vulnerable users whose lives were tragically cut short on Seattle streets, families and communities forever change.

And tragically, they're not alone, as this is simply an illustrative list of people who died on Seattle roads in the last few years alone.

So before we continue, I'd like us to observe a brief moment of silence for Steve, Meredith, the two pedestrians in South Park, this most recent victim in the North End, and all those who have lost their lives on Seattle streets.

Thank you.

When we launched this expanded and reorganized transportation committee in January, we intentionally put safety first.

It is the first S in steps, the informal name.

At our very first meeting, I said safety would be the foundation of everything this committee does.

We made Vision Zero our very first substantive agenda item, and we've maintained regular traffic safety oversight throughout this year, including quarterly briefings from SDOT.

In April, I formally requested a performance audit of Seattle's Vision Zero program because accountability requires us to understand what's working, what isn't, and where we need to sharpen our approach.

Seattle adopted Vision Zero more than a decade ago.

We have made some solid initial progress.

But people are still dying.

And our outcomes demonstrate something important.

Aspiration and administrative policy alone are not enough.

When we know certain practices can save lives, we should ask whether they deserve the durability, accountability and force of law.

And that brings us to the first item on today's agenda, which I'm proud to formally unveil today.

the Seattle Safer Streets Act.

Safer Streets is a three piece legislative package intended to turn vision zero from an ambitious goal into the way Seattle operates.

Among other reforms, this package would establish a durable baseline for how SDOT responds after fatal crashes while putting us on a path toward a faster and more ambitious response.

It would advance intersection daylighting and stronger vision zero safety reviews.

It would use the city's contracting power to advance truck side guard protections on qualifying vehicles performing municipal work.

And it will combine and strengthen our chief traffic engineering and safety leadership, empowering that position to move more quickly and cut through inter-department silos when safety is at stake.

Importantly, Safer Streets was not developed in isolation here in City Hall.

We listened, we worked collaboratively with advocates, affected families, transportation organizers, labor, community members, and others who challenged our city to do better.

I've personally gotten to know Rita Holzman, Steve's widow, throughout this work in the last couple years.

Rita has been able to turn unimaginable personal loss into persistent advocacy.

She has challenged the status quo, challenged government, and yes, even challenged me at times, but always in a thoughtful, respectful, willingness to engage manner.

Her thoughtful and extensive feedback helped shape this legislation and make it stronger.

as did a number of other organizations like Cascade, Seattle Streets Alliance, and so many others.

I've also spoken with Lani Bonadilla, Meredith's daughter, including shortly after her mother's tragic death, and again last week at Fauntleroy's Bicycle Safety Forum.

When families who have experienced these tragedies tell us government must move with greater urgency, we need to listen.

Now, no ordinance or policy directive can guarantee another tragedy will never occur.

And no single legislative package will achieve Vision Zero by itself.

But that cannot become an excuse for incrementalism or inaction.

We know many of the interventions that make streets safer.

Our responsibility is to make proven practices systematic empower experts to act, learn from tragedy faster, and ensure important safety commitments endure, even as leaders, personnel, and priorities change over time.

That's what Safer Streets is about.

Preserving what works, requiring what matters, empowering faster action, and keep building and iterating from there.

And importantly, today's broader agenda demonstrates that legislation is only one piece of the work.

Our second agenda item concerns appointments to the Transportation Funding Task Force, which will examine long-term strategies for major infrastructure needs, including sidewalks, bridges, and pavement, roads.

That has a direct safety nexus.

We need sustainable funding to improve our pavement conditions, and those investments create opportunities to rebuild streets through our complete streets policy, with safety designed in from the start.

and we know that roughly 27% of Seattle's sidewalk network remains missing.

Closing that gap and moving with urgency to do so is a critical safety imperative, particularly for vulnerable users.

Safer Streets strengthens how we approach safety.

The task force can help us confront how we sustainably fund the infrastructure needed to deliver it.

And finally, a third agenda item today is a briefing from on the Seattle's Street Improvement Permitting Program and how SDOT reviews complex improvements in the public right of way.

It is distinct.

separate from safer streets, but it represents another important part of how our transportation policies ultimately become physical streets, sidewalks, and infrastructure that are safe, accessible, and functional for all.

And we'll learn there's an important non-trivial housing imperative tied to that initiative as well, impacting our ability to quickly build more affordable housing.

There's a common thread throughout today's full agenda.

Safety must be something we design for, fund, build, and institutionalize.

Thank you.

We will now move to the open hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up?

Chair, currently we have nine in-person speakers signed up and there are three remote speakers.

Great, thank you.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

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

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

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

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list, Rob McVickers.

After Rob, we'll hear from Kevin Gee.

My name is Rob McVickers with BuildSound.

We've built about 400 houses in the last 20 years.

I'm here to speak about the broken SIP process.

According to the city data, an average SIP takes 1,484 days, 610 days of that in city control.

A SIP lied to 675 days, 306 days in city control.

I want to give two scenarios that speak to the time SIPs take, the cost of SIPs, and the larger problems these issues create.

The first example is a project where we're required to install a new curb and sidewalk.

This particular SIP was a SIP light that took 708 days to issue and the permit fee was $29,230.

Those numbers are shocking enough, but when you take into account the engineering that was required for the SIP, which cost $15,000, you can see the disparity.

SDOT's fees were almost double the cost of private engineering to simply review the work of the engineer.

SDOT reviewed this permit for almost 400 days and charged twice as much money as the engineer that did the work.

The second example I would like to highlight is a SIP we did not apply for.

We had a site that had a non-conforming curb on our street frontage, so the only way to weep the stormwater onto the street was to raise the height of the curb, which would have taken a sip.

We determined quite quickly that tearing a street up, part of the curb included, to tie directly into the storming was a cheaper and more certain path.

We have created a world where digging a 12-foot deep trench across an entire street is a better alternative to going through the sip process to simply make a curb three inches taller.

Recently, SPU service development charges that are in theory intended to subsidize the cost of a builder would bear to install new storm or sewer mains.

These new fees not only add to the cost of housing, but no builder that builds for the for sale housing will use this program due to the fact that all of these infrastructure work requires a SIPP.

The SIPP process is so broken that no builder wants

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

And feel free to leave your written comments.

If you have them in that box right there, all council members will get them.

And a friendly reminder to folks, when you hear the chime, that means 10 seconds are left on your time.

Our next speaker will be Kevin G. Following Kevin, we'll hear from Lani Bonade.

Hello.

Hello, my name is Kevin.

I'm a South Seattle resident.

I can't drive due to personal reasons.

So that means I depend on street improvements and street safety.

It would behoove the city to think about streamlining both the normal SIP permitting process as well as the SIP light permitting process, because when you compare it to cities like Fort Worth, Texas, their timelines are in weeks, not months.

and we can drastically improve safety and the quality lived experience of the built environment if we shorten the timelines for permitting and allow way more street improvements.

I cede the rest of my time.

Thank you, Kevin.

Our next speaker will be Lani Bonadea.

After that, we'll hear from Mike Heikries.

Lani Bonadea.

Good attempt.

So my mother was Mary Bonadea.

She was in great health.

She spent over 40 years biking in this city and biking around the world.

She was a safe cyclist.

She did not have to die.

I feel like if Vision Zero had not been had been doing its job better and that part of West Seattle had not been ignored, she would have been safe on that street.

As I spent time at her site, it was very clear everyone was well aware how dangerous that street was and Rob, to talk to you and have you not know about that street and how dangerous it was was really disheartening and I hope that you've been there.

I'm glad you guys are removing parking there, but You need to do more.

You need to put West Seattle back on your radar and you need to make it safe because people are afraid to bike there.

People who live there are scared of those streets.

People who commute through there are scared to go to work on their bikes.

It's just not safe.

And truck guards on municipal vehicles just seems like it barely scratches the surface.

It's a nice gesture, but it needs to be required on all trucks.

Trucks need to be removed from certain streets that are too narrow.

like this needs to just be like the start of it and so I hope that you'll continue to work on these things so that you can reach your goal by 2030 because I would love for you to be proactive like Vision Zero calls for instead of reactive and people like us have to come out and tell you how much these people meant to us.

because she meant a lot to a lot of people, and it just didn't have to happen.

So please keep yourselves in gear and address these issues in West Seattle and around the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lonnie.

Our next speaker will be Mike.

After Mike, we'll hear from Everest.

Yeah, Mike Nickram here, builder here in the West Seattle area, and it's hard to follow this.

My own cousin in 1963 was killed on the Seattle City Street.

So I hear you and I'm, excuse me.

We were very close.

We were born three months apart.

So Jennifer's mom became an activist.

She was a University of Washington professor, and she sold to it to take the hood ornaments off the vehicles that killed my cousin nationwide as banned by 1965. This is what we could do to help our streets.

Now, I'm a builder, OK?

I'm over here in West Seattle.

I'm trying to widen about 300 feet a street that's way too narrow in West Seattle.

I am now eight years in my permit process for this.

There's no excuse for that.

I have, from my engineering that I have spent, the city review fees, almost 50, I've spent like $70,000 in engineering.

The city review fees are $120,000 spent today.

There is no excuse for this.

We need our CIFs, we need our permits right now.

Now, we have the technology here.

We live in the land of Microsoft, right?

We have the technology now that can review these permits.

I have the software, willing to give it to the city, that can review these permits within 15 minutes, not eight years.

so we need to improve our safety of the streets.

Jennifer died 65 years ago.

We need to get on this now.

I want my permits now.

I wanna be able to improve these streets now.

Thanks for listening.

Thank you, Mike.

Our next speaker will be Everest.

After Everest, we'll hear from Clive Hayward.

Hi, my name is and I'm a Central District resident and UW student.

I'm mostly concerned about current timelines for the street improvement permits.

As a Seattle resident, I want to see more street safety improvements and especially more of our streets brought to modern accessibility standards because there are just too many sidewalks and areas in our city that are difficult or impossible to navigate with a wheelchair or mobility aid.

I'm frustrated with how long these improvements are taking to hop in.

Also, as an occasional cyclist, there are a lot of routes I just don't feel safe taking because of lack of protection from fast moving traffic lanes.

I'm concerned that the long permit approval times for both SIP and SIP Lite are undermining our ability to build these essential improvements that will save lives and enable more people to travel car light or car free.

Thank you.

Thank you, Evers.

Our next speaker is Clive Hayward.

After Clive, we'll hear from Josh Friedman.

Thank you for your questions during the last Seattle Waterfront meeting about the free speech spaces at the waterfront.

I'm not going to re-argue the policy.

I just want to talk about what happens after I speak.

After the meeting, I wrote regarding what the staff said.

I offered to present it, to answer questions in writing, and to walk the park with any of you.

So far, no one's replied.

This is not unusual.

It's a pattern.

Fifteen months of it, no engagement, and everything swept under the rug.

The only window I have into the city is its public records Twelve of mine are still open The oldest is open since July last year What comes back is a department that cannot produce training records.

It cannot account for a video.

Its commander told me he had watched, and he did not write a report on the night that one of his officers put his hands on me.

I have lost my ability to exercise my First Amendment rights in a public forum.

I have lost an income stream, and so have many other performers.

If you're not gonna engage with me, say so.

If no one reaches out before the committee meeting, the next committee meeting, I will have my answer.

Thank you, Mr. Hayward.

Our next speaker will be Josh Friedman.

After Josh, we'll hear from Clara Cantor.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, my name is Josh Friedman and I'm an attorney who helps affordable market and workforce housing providers as they try to bring new housing online in Seattle.

Thank you for convening this session to investigate the deeply problematic delays and costs that the SIPP process has been imposing on new housing projects at all affordability levels, even in the midst of an acute housing supply crisis.

Our city's infrastructure bureaucracy badly needs your leadership to reduce the degree to which gas-guzzling cars and dangerous automotive habits are being subsidized on the backs of renters and their housing providers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Josh.

Next, we'll hear from Clara Cantor.

After Clara, it'll be Tyler Vasquez.

Hi.

Hi, can you hear me?

My name is Clara Cantor.

I'm a community organizer with Seattle Streets Alliance, and I'm here to speak about the Traffic Safety Ordinance.

I do want to thank the council for highlighting the importance of safety on our streets and Vision Zero.

We've heard from a number of people today who have lost loved ones, as we heard.

over the course of this year, as we heard after Rob Mason was killed, after Steve Holzman was killed, earlier this year, all of these people in your district, and I'm grateful to the council for taking this moment to highlight this issue.

I think this is an important thing to do, to have a moment of silence to start this meeting, to codify the language of safety into into an ordinance like this.

And I'm also excited to keep working with this council to make sure this fall that we're funding projects that will actually make these safety improvements, that we're moving projects forward that would help save lives on our streets.

and I think while this is an important and vital step, it's also important to keep working on the individual improvements that are gonna actually save lives.

I am particularly excited about intersection daylighting, which prevents people from parking illegally close to crosswalks.

and stops cars from blocking sight lines at intersections.

Most of our injuries and fatalities in Seattle are at intersections, and improving the visibility there is a very quick, very inexpensive, very easy way to make intersections a lot safer.

We can also increase accessibility by utilizing that space to park scooters off the sidewalks at the same time, which also makes our sidewalks more accessible.

and in my last 10 seconds, I just wanna say that I'm also on the agenda to be confirmed for the transportation funding task force.

And so I look forward to further discussions with the council to push forward progressive funding through that body.

Thank you.

Thank you, Clara.

Our final in-person speaker is Tyler Vasquez.

Good morning.

My name is Tyler Vasquez.

I'm with Cascade Bicycle Club.

I'm also a resident of District 3. One of the things that is very personal to me is I was introduced to death really early in my life.

One of the first deaths that I remember was warming up for a baseball game, and our pitcher wasn't present because he was killed that night.

And this is eight years old.

So when I look at this traffic safety, when I look at Vision Zero, when I look at my work, I look at little Tyler with a lot of unanswered questions.

One of the things that my parents did is they didn't have the vocabulary to describe what this was or answer the many questions of the whole team.

These are the communities and people that are impacted daily by our traffic system, regardless of if you're driving a car, if you're riding a bike, if you're walking on our streets, or you're simply rolling, just to get from point A to point B.

One of the things that I'm excited about with the safety ordinance is the aspect of operationalizing and accelerating safety improvements.

One of the things that I know is that safety improvements are the most visible construction that we have in our community.

When you see visible transformation of your community, you see trust, you see trust in your work, you see trust in the mayor's work, and you also see trust in SDOT.

And that's what I'm here to do today, is be able to aspect and let's build trust.

Let's build those bridges that need to happen with the community and let's make sure that we work towards Vision Zero and in 2030 we have zero deaths.

You know, that's not aspirational, that's a policy.

And we have a policy problem that needs to be solved by management issues.

And when we see management issues, that's your job.

And so when I take away, the takeaway today, when you ask questions, ask about the proactive stuff that's happening, the fatal response systems, the aspects of hardening.

Hardening daylight intersections, why?

Those are the questions that I had when I was a little boy warming up for that baseball game.

So thank you and good luck today.

Thank you, Tyler.

We'll now move on to our remote public commenters.

First on the list is Sarah Schacht.

After Sarah, we'll hear from Billy Hetherington.

Sarah, please hit star six to talk.

Hi, my name is Sarah Schott.

I'm a resident of Dallas Maple Leaf neighborhood, and I'm commenting today regarding the Maple Leaf-Pinehurst, Roosevelt-Pinehurst Community Safety Plan, which has not been clearly communicated to the community, and hides a lot of the details of the plan.

My husband and I have filed a public records request with SDOT, and it's in Stonewall, I find this interesting because I have over 20 years' experience in open government and transparency, working with governments around the world, and yet ASAD is using a common tactic to style and delay.

They have not posted the actual reports of community findings and have not posted impact on parking on the surrounding area and how this would impact the dentist area in Naples along Roosevelt Way with often low-income residents who are oftentimes new to the United States and living in these lower-income denser housing.

We already see where conflict or access to emergency services is hampered by deliveries using our multi-family driveways on Roosevelt instead of parking.

And over 90% of the parking in this area will be removed by this project.

We assume that there will be higher levels of conflict, that these drivers will be blocked by deliveries, and that this will lead to spillage of present parking onto side streets which do not have sidewalks, increasing pedestrian danger.

It is something that does not seem to be taken into account by FDOT, and so I'm asking this committee, to request SDOT to release its reports on findings from its research it's done over the last year and a half and engage with residents along Roosevelt Way on the impacts that they will see and not to delay these findings and engagement since work begins in January and we've only been told.

Thank you, sir.

Our next speaker will be Billy Hetherington.

After Billy, we'll hear from Gordon Pedalford.

Billy, please hit star six.

Thank you, Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Billy Hetherington.

I am the political director for Lyona Local 242 and serve as the president of the Washington State Good Roads Association.

I just wanted to speak to item two, the resolution appointing members of the funding task force, which I am a part of.

And I just wanted to thank the staff during the process.

They've been very attentive and responsive to any questions that I might have had and just thankful for the opportunity to serve in this body throughout my career as a laborer, I worked on several projects that were funded by Seattle taxpayers around the ADA accessibility, safety measures in and around the Seattle area.

And so just really happy that I can bring that experience coupled with the experience I've had working with MIUNA to this task force.

So lastly, just a quick note for staff.

I just wanted to correct the, my last name is not spelled with an A.

It's H-E-T-H.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hetherington.

Our final remote speaker is Gordon Pedalford.

Gordon, please hit star six.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Pedalford, Executive Director of the Seattle Streets Alliance, and I'm just calling in to say thank you for keeping a focus on Vision Zero and making sure everyone gets home safely.

My heart goes out to Meredith's family who's in attendance today.

We need to prevent strategies like that from occurring.

Everyone should be able to get home safely to their loved ones.

I want to call out specifically one strategy that we've been emphasizing that we feel like would have saved lives this year and in previous years, and it is sort of an obscure strategy, but it makes its real difference, which is truck sideguards The US DOT reports that large trucks comprise only 4% of vehicles, but 8% of pedestrian fatalities and 11% of people biking who are killed are involved with a large vehicle.

And we know that 50% of people biking and 25% of people walking are actually hit by the side of the truck first before they are killed by that truck.

So truck side guards have a real positive safety benefit.

Fatality rate for people biking and walking decreased 61% and 20% respectively, following a national side guard implementation in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.

Fortunately, we can't wait for the federal government here in the United States for obvious reasons.

So we've got to do what we can locally at the state level.

So I appreciate the Council's attention to Vision Zero and attention on proven safety countermeasures.

There's no one silver bullet.

It's gonna be a whole suite of strategies that help keep people safe on our streets.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gordon.

Chair, that was our final public commenter.

All right, thank you.

After no more public commenters signed up, we will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, briefing and discussion.

Seattle Safer Streets Act, draft review of traffic safety legislation.

Thank you, and looks like our presenters have already joined us at the table, welcome.

Before introducing yourselves, I wanna take a moment to briefly put the legislative history of this critical work on the record.

So as I hope is clear, traffic safety is my highest priority as chair, as part of our broader public safety charter responsibility.

and my office has initiated this legislative work stream back in January of this year and appreciate that central staff has developed an initial draft through late April and a few weeks later, we needed to temporarily pause to focus on the Seattle Transit measure, including 30-plus proposed amendments.

And in July, after the measure work stream concluded, My office directed that work resume and provided substantive policy direction for a significantly strengthened traffic safety package.

on August 5th.

Central staff and I agreed that updated drafts would be developed for review at today's committee meeting and also earlier this month to help meet that deadline.

I decided to slightly narrow the focus and scope of the initial package but still put forth comprehensive legislation so we could advance strong priority reforms this year, starting this year, and build upon that later, returning to explore additional measures and concepts in 27 and beyond.

So I totally recognize that this is a complex legislative package on a compressed timeline and I appreciate central staff's diligent work and strong partnership on this.

That said, the package we expected to have before us today is not yet complete.

So today's initial briefing therefore marks significant progress but is not the finish line, of course, and I expect us to complete the remaining work promptly and maintain the urgency this issue demands.

With that, I will turn it over to Central Staff once again.

Please do introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Good morning, everyone.

Amanda Allen with Central Staff.

I'm Calvin Chow with Council Central Staff.

Should we jump right in?

Yeah.

Okay.

Today we're talking about the Seattle Safer Streets Act that Council Member, that the Chair, Chair Saka has put together.

I'll walk through some of the draft concepts that we, the draft ordinances and some of the other, another concept that hasn't yet been drafted into an ordinance and just provide a little bit of an overview.

if I can move to the next screen.

Okay.

So there are three components to the Safer Streets Act.

There is a draft traffic safety ordinance, a draft ordinance that speaks to combining responsibilities for the SDOT traffic safety, or sorry, chief safety officer and traffic engineer, and then a concept that we want to talk about related to requiring truck side guards.

The first piece of legislation that I'm gonna talk about is the Traffic Safety Ordinance.

So this legislation proposes changes to the Municipal Code working to codify the city's Vision Zero Plan and to codify the use and reliance on the U.S.

Department of Transportation's safe systems approach.

SDET's Vision Zero program was first launched in 2015 as a framework to evolve our approach based on best practices and evaluation of our transportation network with an overarching goal to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on city streets by 2030. This Seattle-specific plan is based on the Safe Systems approach.

The Safe Systems approach is a framework that USDOT has created for transportation safety centered on the idea that there are multiple layers of protection to prevent collisions from occurring and to reduce their severity when they do occur.

It's based in six principles.

One, death and serious injuries are unacceptable.

Two, humans do make mistakes.

Three, humans are vulnerable.

responsibility is shared, five that safety is proactive, and the six is that redundancy is crucial.

So the legislation draft that you all have seeks to work references to vision zero and the safe systems approach throughout the code that SDOT needs to follow.

In Section 3, there's also a reference requesting that Washington State Department of Transportation return feedback on SDOT on and off ramp designs within 180 days.

and I would just say that throughout the legislation, you'll see that it works to infuse the Vision Zero and Safe Systems approach throughout SDOT's planning, operations and maintenance work.

Last on this slide, the legislation works to leverage the city's racial and social equity index for investments to address issues identified via the high injury network.

The High Injury Network is S-DOT's tracking of collisions and rating of the severity of collisions.

It excludes collisions that took place when cars were being parked or rear-ended.

And it also factors in the severity of injuries that took place.

The legislation goes on to just clarify the requirement and the need to protect vulnerable users.

We would say pedestrians, anybody rolling, whether it's electric micromobility or a bicycle or a person in a wheelchair would all be considered under those vulnerable populations.

It also specifically adds references to safety countermeasures, such as leading pedestrian intervals, no turn on red restrictions, and daylighting intersections.

and it also works to clarify the dimensions of SDOT's data collection.

It codifies the collection of where these countermeasures are being installed and helps to make public that data.

The pieces of the legislation that are still under development that the council member is interested in.

One would make a requirement that SDOT add intersections daylighting.

Also that SDOT would be required to perform Vision Zero reviews on all projects with the ability to request design revisions prior to approval.

or finalization of the project.

And lastly, requires the codification of post crash safety reviews.

Council member, are you interested in, I'll just go through all the whole presentation.

Yeah, that sounds great.

And then we'll take comments, questions right after that.

I might chime in with a few pieces of additional explanatory context as needed, but let's just press.

Thank you.

So the second piece of legislation that you have in draft form works to combine the stop position responsibilities.

As I mentioned, the chief transportation safety officer responsibilities would be combined with the duties codified for the city traffic engineer.

It would add key areas of oversight for the traffic engineer to act as primary administrative authority and executive coordinator over Vision Zero, the Vision Zero Initiative.

This is operationally taking place today.

This legislation would work to codify that.

It also adds oversight of the city traffic engineer to review and provide recommendations to enhance the safety of roadways and transportation infrastructure.

There are some additional new authority, emergency authority proposed for the traffic engineer, which includes directing and expediting safety improvements on the high injury network, including requiring coordination across all of SDOT's divisions and establishing priority protocols for rapid low-cost safety treatments.

And lastly, it explicitly grants authority to implement immediate temporary or pilot safety interventions to respond to imminent risks.

and then the last- Amanda, if I may just chime in here, if you don't mind going back to that slide briefly.

So just to pile on from my perspective with respect to two of the provisions listed there, one, the post crash response.

So I have in my hand a copy of the current SDOT post crash response programmatic fatal crash response policy dated May 18, 2026. It is obviously a fairly recent, newly developed internal department policy that SDOT developed.

I think it's a good start, and I'm grateful for SDOT and their leadership in putting this together to formalize you know, how we should show up and respond to these tragedies.

And having talked with many members of various communities over the past few months, I also think it leaves a bit more to be desired.

And so the intent in terms of being able to require a stronger, more prompt response.

And so the intent here is to codify existing current department policy with respect to this one specific provision, because we know they are capable of and they are operationalizing it today, but also put them as part of this legislation, put them on a path to come back and study some options.

What additional resources, personnel, potential other policy revisions might be needed and come back to council with some options next year that lays things out, ideally with the goal of providing a 72-hour response.

That would be the most ambitious.

And we could then codify that.

But the department is not positioned to achieve that today.

And so this specific element codifies what they are.

position to achieve today and also puts us on a stronger path to be more ambitious, more responsive with the goal of a 72-hour response.

And for clarity, to set expectations, the engineers, just because this would purport to require more prompt response, the expertise within the department, they would have final decision-making authority to determine if and what specific and safety treatments are needed.

And then the second piece I'll just briefly speak to is the expanded authority for SDOT leadership.

Colleagues, friendly reminder, over the last few years, this council has passed legislation that grants expanded authority to act to certain leadership and experts within the various departments.

particularly as it relates to public safety.

So for example, last year we passed the chronic public nuisance ordinance which granted the police chief expanded authority to take stronger action in certain instances.

Proceeding that bill was the vacant fire legislation, vacant building legislation granting the fire marshal and the Seattle Fire chief expanded authority to take stronger action to address problem vacant buildings because they pose a significant risk and hazard to fire and safety.

And so along the same lines, because If we can expand authority for experts in other contexts as it relates to broader public safety, our broader public safety strategy, surely we can do the same thing here.

And also there's some inter-department silos that we wanna address and better position our teams to move more, be more nimble, move more quickly.

So thank you, thank you.

Okay, the last concept that we want to share with you all today that's currently under development is the idea of creating an ordinance that would require contractors, city contractors, to have side guards on their trucks.

And so this bill, as envisioned, would require all contractors using trucks in the city to do work, sorry, all contractors doing work in the city No, let me say that again.

All city contractors with trucks doing our work would have side guards installed.

Side guards are the safety barriers installed on the sides of trucks as seen in this visual, which will help prevent pedestrian cyclists and motorcyclists from being run over or crushed when side impacts occur, side impact collisions occur.

Thank you, Amanda.

And so some additional context on that particular initiative.

First off, I wanna thank community for all of their tremendous, ideas and involvement and helping our office cobble together community.

That's effectively what went on here.

We cobbled together community ideas into a comprehensive three piece legislative package.

And this is one of those community ideas that has been long, has been cited, often cited and requested since at least earlier this summer, but the conversation preceded that as well.

And so I wanna thank the many advocates.

This one we're probably least along in terms of finalizing, but we're still fairly close, which is good news.

And good news, I wanna thank Tom Fukuluru from the Seattle Bike Blog, his reporting yesterday revealed that there is a model to build off of.

The Boston, the city of Boston, codified a, the first in the nation, truck side guard, contractor truck side guard ordinance back in, I think, 2014. and so we hope to, as part of this effort, leverage that as a model, at least as a starting point, to build out our own sort of ordinance.

And for clarity, these are starting points only.

But continued inaction and hoping these best practices survive administrations, leaders, policy shifts and changes over time is not the best approach, so that's why we endeavor to make these best practices more durable in any event.

Looks like we are wrapped up with the presentation, is that correct?

Yes, I could just only share that this committee will be meeting again on September 8th and we would plan to continue briefing a discussion.

There will next be a meeting on September 17th where we hope for a briefing and discussion and possible vote on this legislation.

Thank you, Amanda.

And before I take additional questions, comments from my colleagues, I wanna just share that this is obviously a very comprehensive piece of community-driven legislation that stitches together safety, project review, post-fatality response, authority, daylighting, vulnerable users, transparency, contractor safety, and other critical community-led initiatives.

And to that end, I want to thank the many community advocates for partnering again so closely with me and my office to develop this package.

I can't emphasize enough how instrumental community ideas were to formulating and revising this package.

Again, diverse coalition of advocates, affected families, youth, transportation advocates, labor and others.

So can't thank folks enough.

All right.

Well, thank you, Ms. Allen, Mr. Chow, appreciate the presentation here.

Colleagues, I will turn it over to you all for any comments, questions that you may have from your perspective, starting first with Vice Chair Rink.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

I wanna start my remarks today just acknowledging the grief that's in this room.

And I wanna thank every person who came here today to share about their loved ones, and the lives that we've lost.

Meredith should be here.

Christian should be here.

Liliana should be here.

So many others should be here.

I know many people in this community follow urbanist journalist Ryan Packer who reports on our neighbors who are injured and killed on Seattle streets.

and I always get nervous when I see a post from Ryan for what it means, knowing the rippling impacts that every injury or death in our community and what it does to all of us.

I found out my friend died from one of those posts.

So this conversation, every discussion we have on Vision Zero in this committee feels very real.

And I wanted to acknowledge that because we were talking about our neighbors who every single one of these deaths is entirely preventable.

And we've lacked the political will and focus to be able to move the action that has been so needed.

I know my office has explored a number of things the city can be taking up.

We've hit dead ends, we've found ways, barriers in the work, but there's still much the city can and should be doing.

Built environment changes, there's action and partnership that we need on the state level to be able to make the changes that we need.

and I know all of us on this body want to be able to push forward for that change because meaningful action is overdue.

So I'm grateful for the discussion today and I'm glad that we are continuing to make this a focus in this committee.

I understand this draft bill became public yesterday, so I haven't spent as much time with this legislation as I would have liked before this committee.

So my questions on this today are much more clarifying on what this legislation does operationally and particularly how this translates to meaningful action that our community is demanding and frankly deserves.

So on that note, thank you, Amanda, for walking through these pieces of legislation.

In just the simplest of terms, can you highlight what aspects of the two draft bills that are developed before us?

I know there's a third bill that is still pending development, but for the two draft bills, what are the kind of clear differences between current SDOT work and what these bills are proposing to do?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

I would say the leading focus of these bills is really to work to codify things that are already taking place that we think are best practice and are aligned with in the transportation industry is consensus as where we want to be going.

So it works to codify Vision Zero, which is a policy that's been operationalized within SDOT.

It really works to infuse and ensure through the code that Vision Zero is showing up in all aspects of SDOT's work.

and then again works to codify what's been operationalized within SDOT as far as the traffic engineer's roles and responsibilities of formalizing the chief safety officer role within SDOT.

So really we're looking at our legislative responsibility or our legislative opportunity to codify things that have been operationalized.

I think it also, asks SDOT to create additional data around the safety countermeasures and to make those countermeasures, the installation of those countermeasures visible to the public, and additionally formally grants the responsibilities of immediate response to the traffic engineer.

Thank you for that, Amanda.

When I look at Section 1 of the first draft bill, I'm noticing just in the beginning portion, these Section 1 reads as recitals.

Some of these seem, I'm just noticing some language differences here in the recital section in terms of declaring in that that first portion and I'm wondering why this language is reflected this way and that we're putting some of this into code rather than having these as typical recital paragraphs.

Perhaps the chair wants to respond to that.

Yeah, I can speak on that.

Appreciate the question.

And I'll let central staff chime in if they have any other thoughts, but recitals are important.

They're also non-binding.

And so the goal and intent here is to put the most impactful findings of facts, I think that's what the framing here is, council findings of fact and declarations that underlie this important work and really show our intent, policy goal and rationale and sort of really speak to why, but do so in a more stringent and binding manner, but it's an astute observation that they definitely read like recitals, but that is an intentional policy choice to structure it in such a way to make it more durable and binding.

Thank you for outlining that.

That was just a point of curiosity, and so understanding that's a direct decision to put this into code to ensure that these components are binding is helpful to understand.

and wondering, just in that same spirit, I know we talked a little bit about the new fatal crash policy that the department has developed.

I am unclear at this time what the effective date of that has been.

I don't know if we've put that policy into practice yet.

I mean, and if it's actually been into play, would love some additional detail on that point.

So the SDOT policy memo that the council member was referring to earlier, the May 18, 2026 programmatic fatal crash response policy is something that's in effect in SDOT currently.

Certainly.

Thank you.

And wondering, too, just this matter of hearing that the intent is to incorporate this language into code, I'm wondering how we can strike the balance to understanding having flexibility for the department to be able to iterate as they implement this new policy, and wondering if central staff has an analysis on whether some of these moves may bind the department in a way that could be counterintuitive.

The fatal crash response policy does have two different phases of response.

There is a phase one, which they describe as fatal crash rapid response, which is typically two to four weeks after the final police traffic collision report.

So that's not after the accident happens, but rather after we get the police report.

and that is to address maintenance and repair option and provide repair options as appropriate which then would be built within one to three months and it has a phase two response which takes a more programmatic review of fatal crashes and is something that takes place every six months so it's not It's not bound to one single crash at one location.

It's a broader city-wide view.

So anything departing from what's in the policy currently is something I would have to explore with the department.

and as I understand it, this response policy is a significant change from what SDOT has committed to in the past with a shorter timeframe.

Thank you, Amanda.

And just to pile on, appreciate the question, Vice Chair Rank.

Just to pile on from the author's intent perspective, I 100% share your goal.

As implied by the question that we don't wanna have adverse or unintended consequences.

and that's why I asked central staff to work closely with the department to codify what they do today.

I know that this is a four page document so obviously we would not detail with the prolixity of a code all four pages but include just high level elements only and the intent goal there just wanna emphasize is durability.

We know the department is able to do this today and they're doing this today.

And it's a good start.

We also want stronger, more rapid action as well.

And the intent is to put us on a path.

But I share your goal and look forward to working with you and central staff to finalize that language.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

And if I may, I just have one last question on this.

If we can go to page four of the presentation, it lists some areas here that are still undecided or up in the air but a part of the conversation on this.

Or just for the purposes of my understanding, are these policies meant to be included in this bill or are we going to be considering them at a later date?

because just thinking about digging into this topic, I'm just wondering kind of what, if there's going to be major changes taking place with this bill.

I know we're working under a very compressed timeline.

The goal currently is to try to include as many of these into the current bills for the September meeting dates.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair, and great questions.

Appreciate the feedback there and can't emphasize enough the contracts underlying this whole package of durability.

So as was noted, with Vice Chair's questions and some of the public comment we heard today, this package, codifies key elements of SDOT's current approach.

That's an intentional choice because, again, administrative policies at the department level change, leadership changes, priorities change, practices disappear, wane.

So the purpose of legislation is in part to decide which practices are sufficiently important that they should outlast the people currently running City Hall.

So on the one hand, this package certainly does codify key elements of SDOT's approach.

On the other hand, it goes beyond that in a more comprehensive manner and does other things, including mandatory safety project reviews, expanded cross silo authority, systemic and automatic day lighting, contractor side guard protections, and legislatively required pathway toward faster, fatal crash response, among other things.

And so durability is the hallmark of this legislative package.

All right, but great questions.

Councilmember Foster, you are recognized.

Thank you so much chair and I'll just start by saying I appreciate everyone that was here today and just my gratitude to the department for their work and just feeling the heaviness of listening to the families here testify this morning and other community members just testify about your experience and I know that that is not easy to both have the experience and then come share it with us and the public.

So I just want to take a moment and say thank you for doing that work.

And yeah, just feeling heavy, but really looking forward to continued thoughtful conversation on how we make progress as a city to achieve vision zero.

I wanna ask a question around the codification of the safety standard and follow up a little bit on Council Member Rink's questions and Vice Chair Rink's questions.

So as we see that the new safety standard came from the department I think in May, do we have examples of where the safety standard has been applied already?

Are you talking about the fatal post-crash standard?

Yeah, that's correct, the four-page document.

And you're wondering what instances SDOT has already You know, I am not aware of specific applications, and I understand that this is already in place, and I have to believe that, well, I believe we've had some fatalities, well, since May, so.

And I can follow up with the department to learn more about the application of the new standard, and part that's leading to my other question, which is just, through the proposal here to codify this standard, would that require then SDOC coming back to Council if they want to continue to make improvements in their safety response?

Would they then need to come back to us to get that response approved?

Or would they be able to keep making improvements and iterating without Council approval?

Yeah, that's a good question, council member.

We haven't finalized language, proposed language for an ordinance, and it would depend on how stringent that language is, how narrow the language is.

If it refers only to SDOT's programmatic fatal crash response policy in broad terms, then I would say that would allow them to continue to iterate and make changes.

If it was prescriptive and said that certain things had to happen within a certain timeline that mirrored the current policy, then that would require them to come back if they decided they needed to make changes.

Okay, that's helpful.

And I think I just want to make sure that in the pursuit of this, this policy, I want to make sure that we are allowing the department to continue making improvements and I think it was their work inside the department that put together this new response in May and I wouldn't want us to take an action that hampers their ability to continue to innovate and speed up their responses in pursuit of to achieve vision zero.

So that's something we can continue to engage on as this legislation gets further developed and flushed out.

Councilmember Foster, if I may, because I appreciate that question.

I know it was directed at center staff, but I'll just pile on just from the author's perspective.

100% share the goal there, in terms of not wanting to limit or impede the department's ability to further iterate, to operationalize and improve the current standard, and couldn't agree more.

It really depends on how it's structured, but I'll share from an author's perspective, definitely share that goal.

The intent here is to codify the current existing policies as the new baseline, as the new baseline that SDOT is free to and fully flexible enough to, on its own, iterate, improve, make better.

They just couldn't, the legislative intent there, they just couldn't water it down or pare it back in any way.

if anything, I would appreciate if they make it more stringent.

And then the next piece of that is what I mentioned earlier is part of this would require them to come back with a plan and a proposal and with some options to including what resources and personnel would be required to have a more stringent exacting standard, ideally with the goal of getting a 72-hour response window.

But great question, thank you.

Thank you.

And then the other question I wanted to ask, I appreciated the reference with the contractor side guard requirement.

I appreciated the reference to Boston as I think maybe that came from the chair earlier today.

I'm just wondering when it comes to some of the other components that are in the two pieces of legislation, are there, and I know much of what it seems that we're proposing is the codification of existing standards.

And we know that intersection daylighting is an ongoing need and an ongoing body of work.

But my question is, are there any other pieces of the package that are sort of built on successful work in other cities.

I think one of the things we want to continue to do with Vision Zero is look at what works and what's proven and make sure that we are keeping pace and implementing.

And I wonder if you can just speak to any of the proposed changes here and how they mirror or reflect known best practices.

Sure.

So, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, Vision Zero was first launched in 2015. It's not a static policy, and SDOT has continued to iterate and improve upon it based on our own experience as a city and also on other cities' experiences.

That being said, there's nothing in the current documents that specifically in the last months was inspired by one particular jurisdiction.

Got it, thank you.

And then finally, I know that the third piece of legislation is under development.

Do we know when we can expect to see a draft of that legislation, or are we anticipating that that would not be part of the September Committee?

The Chair's goal is that it would be part of the September committee review.

I think what we're working on right now is trying to identify really how to codify that requirement because it would, if we're going to make a requirement, we would need to know We need to have more information about the types of trucks that would be impacted and potentially cost to our contracts.

And that information is not something that we have at the moment.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Excellent questions.

Appreciate central staff comment on that and revealing the opportunity.

You know, good news is there's a model to use and, you know, figure out the Seattle-specific legislative implementation, what that would best look like for this when we talk about the 2014 Boston Ordinance.

So appreciate media journalists, Tom, for surfacing that opportunity.

All right, any final comments, questions?

Colleagues on this particular item?

All right, looks like hearing and seeing none.

Thank you Mr. Chow, Ms. Allen again for your presentation today and more importantly for the work, the tremendous amount of work that has gone into this package today and We'll go into it in the next few days.

For clarity on the record, I expect the complete legislative package to be introduced, referred to this committee and ready for consideration at our September 8th special meeting of this committee so that we can fully consider it and then remain positioned for potential committee action on September 17th before our annual budget deliberations pause regular committee work, which will allow us to treat this important issue with the urgency and action that it deserves from a legislative perspective.

So please continue to work with me in my office and organize the remaining drafting and review accordingly.

I also want to thank the city attorney Evans for her partnership on this and the city attorney and the city attorney's office.

I especially appreciate how they graciously agreed to help prioritize and expedite legal reviews of this package and some important legal guidance to help shape this.

So really appreciate the partnership here and thank you for the initial briefing.

All right, we will now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Agenda item two, briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Resolution 32215, a resolution appointing the members of the Transportation Funding Task Force.

All right, thank you.

Looks like our presenters are joining us at the table.

Welcome.

When you're ready, please do introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

to build a board as Seattle Department of Transportation.

Megan Shepherd, Seattle Department of Transportation, Director of Policy and Planning.

Sarah Strand, Seattle Department of Transportation, Policy and Planning.

I would like to begin today by thanking all of the attendees who are here, as well as the members of the committee and the chair, for having us here to advance this important work.

I think the comments that we've heard today connected to safety and concerns about safety tied directly to work that we're gonna be asking the Transportation Funding Task Force to advance.

And I appreciate you making that linkage in your opening comments, Chair.

When the 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy was coming together, levy, which we're so thankful to the voters for approving because of the dedicated stable funding that allows us to put into safety improvements, as well as the other needs of our transportation network.

But we really heard a lot from the stakeholders who were involved in that process about needs beyond the eight-year life of a levy that they were really asking us to consider and address.

as well.

And so these needs went into the actual final legislation for the levy.

And Sarah's going to talk a little bit about that means.

But some of the things people were saying to us were like, well, the levy is great.

It's going to build 350 new blocks of sidewalks.

But how do we continue to build them in a city that's missing around 11,000 blocks of sidewalks?

and the city has 134 vehicle bridges.

And how do we continue to prepare for repairing and replacing these aging structures?

And paving, our arterial streets carry people moving, whether they are in cars, trucks, buses, biking, walking.

They are the arteries of our network.

And when we repave them, that is often our opportunity to really think in a substantially different way.

about how that street can be safer.

So these questions led to the establishment of the need and our call to action to create this transportation funding task force and invite stakeholders and members of the public to sit and learn with us and tackle some of these real questions that we have.

So I want to thank the mayor's office for their partnership.

I want to thank council for their partnership on getting to this point.

I really want to thank the folks of you who are here in the audience today, as well as the ones who are online, who have agreed to join us on this adventure journey process to explore our needs.

And so thank you all very much.

I want to turn it over to Sarah Strand, who is the project manager for this work, and she'll just quickly cover a little bit more about how we got here.

Thanks, Megan.

And as Megan so poignantly gave the background on how this originated from the 2024 voter-approved Seattle transportation levy, this is a complex challenge that these task force members are gonna be helping us work through.

We have some really bold and ambitious goals that we are going to be exploring through this work.

three different focus areas for asset condition, including our paving, our sidewalk network, our bridges, and some really specific tools that we want to dig in and explore as well.

And so we made this commitment through the levee.

And if we can go to the next slide, Bill.

and council built upon that initial legislation out of the levee to give us some more direction on how we'll go forward and do this work.

And so we are convening the transportation funding task force.

We have a clear scope and guidelines for what we will explore through this work.

We'll be convening these members to review the current funding policies and asset management practices that SDOC currently operates with, and we're going to be looking across a variety of different policy and funding tools and mechanisms to consider how they might advance those asset condition targets and build out the network further.

We'll be back to City Council with updates at six-month increments to provide information on where we're at, what the task force's work, and we'll be bringing final recommendations to City Council.

The resolution deadline is December 2027. There's also details in the guiding resolution related specifically to the task force composition and membership.

And this was intended to make sure that we had all the range of voices at the table that will help make this a strong and successful process.

whether it's people who live in the neighborhoods that will be affected by this, businesses, accessibility advocates, mobility advocates, labor, development, and people who do this as a profession or have expertise, whether it is in funding, finance, policy, delivering and building this work.

And the other piece of this resolution is that we bring it here to you to be appointed by City Council by resolution.

and so we went through a very robust process to make sure that we build a membership slate that meets the charge of that resolution.

We had a public process, a call for applications, and we cast a really wide net.

We reached out to so many different networks across those areas of representation.

We thank you all again on council and in the mayor's office and all of our networks of stakeholders public agency partners who helped get the word out and spread the word and invite people and encourage folks to apply.

We did multiple Q&A sessions to answer any inquiries folks had about what to expect, what this process would look like.

and we had a really great response.

And so we worked through all of the written applications that we received.

We interviewed candidates to consider the best fit and really thought through the balance of representation and making sure that we had that diversity of voices at the table.

and we coordinated really closely per resolution with council leadership and the mayor's office to make sure that we had all of those voices covered.

So we're here today to submit for your consideration appointing these members.

We can jump to the next slide.

And so here you have your transportation funding task force appointees submitted for your consideration today.

And I just want to pause and do a really, really big shout out and kudos to all of these folks, as well as the folks not shown here who we were not able to select because we had more candidates than we were able to take on and still balance that representation and size of this group.

And I don't wanna understate the value of folks who are willing to raise their hands and roll their sleeves up and volunteer their public service, their time to this really important topic for the city.

And so huge thanks.

And if there are folks in the audience who are being appointed today, if you would love to, would love if you would raise your hand and just identify yourself.

and folks online as well and folks who are not able to join us today, huge thank you.

We're really excited to work with these individuals who really demonstrated just great caliber and expertise and perspectives to add and contribute to this work.

And so last but not least, we are getting to work.

Progress is happening.

This work is happening.

We're gonna be doing one-on-one onboarding meetings with all of our newly appointed task force members.

We're going to be hosting a welcome reception and orientation to kick off the work.

And we will begin our monthly cadence of meetings to really dig in and work through this process in October.

And again, we'll be back with some city council updates at a six month increment.

And so with that, we'll pass it over to the chair.

Thank you so much, Ms. Strand, Ms. Shepherd, Mr. Laborde for presenting today and your partnership in crafting this package and all the work that you all did.

And thank you to the mayor's office as well for all the work you all led in creating this a panel of experts and just to kind of frame the conversation and pile on from my perspective as one of the sort of architects of this effort.

A couple of years ago, this flowed from a recognition that at the time, what was the largest levy in Seattle's history, $1.55 billion.

At the time, there were calls from some community asking for a $3 billion levy that didn't include funding for bridges.

And sort of where we landed in the legislation is a $1.55 billion package and included some great things to improve safety, add more bike lanes, safer connections to transit.

improve our overall pavement conditions, providing a generational investment at a bare minimum, probably the single biggest, largest city investment in Seattle's history, but at a bare minimum, generational investment in new sidewalks and completing our 27% missing sidewalk gap.

But this was sort of born out of the fact that even if we had a larger levy, which by the way would have impeded our ability to make decisions to bolster our library, the recently voter approved library levy and the like.

But even if we had heeded some of those calls for significantly larger package, it still wouldn't have been enough to meet the robust need when we talk about those three asset classes in particular, new sidewalks, or pavement conditions and roads, and then third and finally, bridges.

And as was noted, there's 130 something bridges in the city's inventory.

My understanding, Megan, we'll talk offline.

I didn't think that was the, You mentioned that was the vehicle bridge.

I thought that was all of the, including pedestrians in our inventory, but we'll iterate offline so I can get the clarity I need.

I defer to you for now, but we have a lot of bridges.

that the city owns and is responsible for maintaining.

So this helps better position us to actually fund and properly take care and sustainably fund our robust transportation infrastructure and network across the city.

So thank you again for the presentation.

At this time, I welcome any comments, questions from my colleagues, starting first with Vice Chair Rink.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

First and foremost, I just wanna note my excitement that this is all coming together and for the work of this task force to really begin.

And I'm just so grateful to the people who will be a part of this task force.

So for the folks in person, thank you.

Thank you for being willing to spend your time with us and just problem solving around this so we can fund our important transportation projects across the city.

Truly appreciated.

And thank you for pulling together such an incredible diverse set of stakeholders to be a part of this task force.

I do have just one quick question and maybe you can read through the lines just how eager I am to hear from this task force.

You mentioned that there will be reporting back to council in six month increments.

What can we expect to see in those report backs?

What kind of level of information?

And I understand a final report will be coming in December, 2027. But again, for those six month increment updates, what can we expect to see?

Yeah, so we're working with the team to roadmap out basically modules that will step through.

There will be a lot of context setting up front, but by the six month period, we should have a sense of the breadth of tools that are being explored and we'll be going through a narrowing process.

We'll be looking at what is legally viable, what has the highest revenue potential, a lot of different criteria that will be in large part guided by the task force as well.

And so when we come back, we'll be able to provide an update on where we're at in that conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Appreciate your questions there.

And is there any other comments, questions on this item?

All right.

Well, hearing and seeing none, I will just conclude that also an important feature of this particular task force is we wanted to get community experts together to come up with some specific recommendations for how we can sustainably fund these three critically important asset classes.

But as part of that backdrop, we also wanted to make sure that the specific ideas and proposals that are being put forth for recommendation and consideration are truly actionable There was a great revenue stabilization task force a few years back.

Some of those ideas didn't fully have the full and complete legal vetting and therefore were not truly implementable, truly operational, capable of being implemented at the city level because the state preemption issues in the law, for example, like vacant building fees and the like.

And so that's why we backed this task force with appropriate funding to make sure we can fully vet the ideas that come forth so that should this body and should this mayor decide to pass and implement any of these recommendations we know we can actually do it.

So appreciate the partnership there and the resources that we committed to SDOT and its broader work stream to make sure we have fully vetted, fleshed out ideas.

In any event, thank you again.

Appreciate the presentation here.

Let's see.

I move the committee recommend adoption of this resolution.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of this resolution.

Is there any further discussion?

Hearing and seeing none, will the committee clerk please call the roll on the recommendation?

Council Member Foster.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Vice Chair Rank.

Yes.

Chair Sacca.

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the city council adopt this resolution appointing members of the transportation funding task force will be sent to the September 15th, 2026 city council meeting.

Thank you again, SDOC colleagues.

We will now move on to our third and final item of business.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Agenda Item 3, Briefing and Discussion, Seattle Street Improvement Program.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And it looks like our presenters are joining us at the table.

Welcome.

When you're ready, please do introduce yourselves, begin your presentation.

Before we get there, I want to thank all the 20 plus members of the community leaders for stepping up to serve on this important task force, a handful of which are in this room.

Really appreciate your leadership, your expertise, and willingness to serve in such a truly profound and impactful capacity.

This is quite literally gonna help save lives and provide sustainable funding paths so we can better look after our robust transportation network and infrastructure.

So your work matters and is greatly appreciated.

All right.

Panelists, welcome.

Again, please do introduce yourselves, and SDOT has a formal kind of presentation, and we have some community voices as well.

Great.

Thank you, Committee Sheriff Hawka.

I'm Liz Sheldon, Deputy Director at SDOT.

I'm Elise Nelson, the Street Use Division Director for SDOT.

Good morning.

I'm currently out-of-class Operations Street Use Manager.

I'm Lucas de Herrera with Blueprint Capital, Director of Land Use Policy.

Logan Schmidt with the Master Builders Association of King and Sonomish Counties.

I am our Seattle Government Affairs Manager.

All right.

With that, we'll begin our presentation.

I want to set the stage here a little bit.

We were asked to come in to give this presentation about SIPs.

There is so much to be covered in street use permitting.

and I think we have 10 minutes to give this presentation.

So we'll move through this at a pretty high clip but want to offer if there are any threads that would be helpful to come back and present or give briefings at a later date, happy to do that.

So that's a lot to cover in a very short presentation.

with the next slide, this slide.

Oh, let's go back to the previous slide.

I do want to take a minute though to one, thank our master builder friends for being at the table with us and also reflect a little bit on SDOT and our transportation vision and goals and just realize that and recognize that we can't do this without having the private development community and others on the kind of the private side of the city.

recognize our vision to have a place that all people, business and businesses can access their daily needs and feel connected to their community.

There would be no community without kind of that balance between development and right of way.

Again, this is gonna be a fairly quick street use and SIP 101. We can cover the agenda as we go.

So I want to back up a little bit and oftentimes you hear the acronym SIPs or Street Improvement Permits or Street Improvement Plans.

And sometimes that really refers to SIPs, sometimes that refers to kind of the broader world and realm of street use permitting as a whole.

So looking at kind of what that means is we issue a few categories of permits.

One are our simple permits.

These are things that take very little review, can be issued fairly quickly.

things like a resident getting a moving pod or kind of those small, kind of in and out, low impact uses of the right of way.

The second and by far most issued permit that we have are what we call right of way use permits.

And those can include either like a private developer using the public space for storage or cranes or loading.

It also includes all of our utility partners as they are doing kind of maintenance work in the right of way.

So PSE having to fix a gas valve or some small amount of work that is basically straight restoration.

and then our larger construction permits are called major permits and they are both street improvement permits which are generally kind of private development or civic projects and then utility major projects where utilities are actually adding new infrastructure into the public right of way.

I think it's about two thirds, one third, it varies a little bit on those major permits between kind of the CIP permits and the utility major permits and then finally our public space management permits.

not construction use of the right-of-way, generally activation permits, so things like sidewalk cafes, block parties, and then they can be used for kind of long-term management of the right-of-way, so things like if someone needs to build a retaining wall in the right-of-way or a rockery.

Next slide.

So, again, in context, street permits are under our major permit category and are really about, make up 5% of the overall number of permits that we issue through the street use permit division.

but they are a catalyst.

So they are a catalyst for a lot of those other permits.

So both for kind of those use of right-of-way permits as developers are working on private property using space in the right-of-way.

And also they kind of add to the ability to then create that public space that we want in the public realm.

So they often lead to those public space management permits.

I kind of think of it as an overall cycle, right?

So you have the street improvement permit that's kind of the start of that development.

And then after that, you have the public space management permits that are really managing the right of way and the activation and the right of way.

and then you start getting into more of those right-of-way management permits where there starts to need to be some maintenance in the right-of-way, either the utilities or private buildings needing to do work on their frontages.

And then you get to the end of kind of that building life cycle and are starting to look at again what that redevelopment looks like and back to the SIP permit.

All right, so next one.

I think this is when I take over.

All right, so what is a SIP?

It's our most complex permit type.

They involve new infrastructure, where we need an engineer and a survey to help design and guide the design.

It involves multiple stakeholders, a variety of city infrastructure assets, and many different codes and rules we have to consider.

There's also as-built records after the construction so we can document that new infrastructure that was added.

The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, or SDCI for short, they determine what improvements are required for a project based on the land use code.

Our role in SDOT is to review and approve the improvements in the public right-of-way and issue permits for their construction.

Typical projects that require a SIP include projects that have new curbs, sidewalks, or frontage improvements, water, sewer, or stormwater main extensions, new paving or street widening projects where you're adding more than 2,000 square feet of new impervious surface, and also major projects such as our light rail extensions.

Here, I don't expect you to be able to look at this plan set, but we wanted to include a few screenshots so you could see kind of what a SIP looks like.

This is the Grand Street Commons project near Judkins Park Light Rail Station, and it includes over 700 new homes, including a mix of affordable housing near a transit station.

You may recall this project because it came to City Council for a street vacation.

And like I said, I don't expect you to be able to see these plans, but the point is that SIPs are quite complex and comprehensive, and the review includes considering roadway, utilities, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and how they'll connect well with that private development.

Here's another picture.

This is from Google Street View, so you can see the same project before and after.

SIP projects are critical in helping create livable and vibrant streetscapes as we develop more housing and jobs in Seattle.

And just imagine how great this will look in a few years as the street trees continue to grow larger and new businesses and residents continue to move in and add amenities such as outdoor cafes that will only add to the area's vibrancy.

We have critical links with SDCI and we work closely to make sure that the onsite improvements and street improvements will work well together.

We have tie-ins with our SIP process and SDCI project to make sure that the design doesn't move too far ahead of the building permit.

We also don't hold up the issuance of the building permit, but we do continue to work with the applicant on their SIP.

And then during construction, we're coordinating between our inspectors and SDCI inspectors to make sure that all the required street improvements are completed before the certificate of occupancy is issued.

In summary, we want to relay that SIP projects help transform streets to create the future streetscape we envision for Seattle.

In addition, these types of projects that we're talking about today, CIPs also are a tool for permitting major civic projects.

This slide features some of our more recent examples, including the Ocean Pavilion on the Waterfront, Climate Pledge Arena, Washington State Convention Center, and Sound Transit facilities.

Like Liz talked about during the beginning of our presentation, we want to keep SIP permits in the appropriate context.

There are many more SDCI construction permits issued than SIP or SIP light permits triggered.

We see less than 3% of overall construction permits requiring a SIP or SIP light permit.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Siloja, who will go over the high-level process for SIP and SIP light permits.

Thank you.

As you can see here, this is a flow schematic, high-level flow schematic.

We have two groups that closely work on the SIP projects from very early on in the process.

We provide early guidance to our applicants in the development community right from the preliminary assessment report where we inform them of the various types of permits that are required and then and guide them through, once they submit an application with us, where we provide initial conceptual approval on where these curbs and sidewalks that Alice has showed has to be placed.

And as we get that conceptual approval and then tie in with STCI, their MAP application, we move forward into more detailed design review of the 60% design and that is where we make sure all the utilities are coordinated and make sure that both the right of fare and the private property is seamlessly connected so that as people are moving and vehicles are moving there is a continuous path forward.

and after that we further deep dive into the holistic review of the 90% stage where we make sure everything is coordinated on this complex design and we continue to provide them the approval process and also oversight during construction.

Well, SIPs, as you heard, is definitely more complex, as you have seen.

And as more and more pedestrian circulation improvements are important in the city, we introduced a fast-track SIP light process in 2020 in the height of the pandemic.

And this is for small-scale street improvements.

But after we implemented in 2020, we started working back with our MBA partners in 2023 after we came back into the offices and understood there were some pain points.

So we closely worked with the MBA community and the engineering community and then further refined the process.

In the last one and a half year, we did pilot testing of a much faster process.

If you go to the next slide, please.

where we have further reduced some of the tie-ins.

These are like small-scale projects but yet very profound like curb ramps which happen at that intersection and as you know with most cost of increase in this infrastructure it is very important to make sure we are in the city as a consent degree with the for the ADA and we make sure that these are well designed and constructed.

And so hence, yeah, we reduced some of the initial tie-ins and then very streamlined process.

We believe that the engineering community is doing a good job and so hence we moved it from the 30, 60 we removed and then directly moving it to 90% level process.

Liz, back to you.

All right.

So I'll wrap this up.

So CIPS matter.

They matter, and they're really important for really creating that livable city that we want and that we can see, and that really connects to the neighborhood, particularly as developers are building out previously single family and smaller areas that we were able to create and reflect that density in our public transportation infrastructure.

Do you want me to run fast?

Okay.

Let's see.

So next slide.

They are really complex.

And I think one thing to note is we have historically been managing our review processes on each review cycle.

And so I want to acknowledge that there is work to be done to help us continue to streamline and make sure that they are both that we are getting what we need out of the SIP process and that it is not an undue burden and that we are continuing to be reflective of, as smaller scale developments come online, how to be responsive to those needs.

So we had historically been measuring things at a review cycle timeframe and have been meeting those goals fairly consistently.

But what we have noticed over time is that as you manage that, managing to review cycles has actually led to a longer process and many review cycles.

So kind of our next steps of what we want to look at is really how to draw down those overall timeframes from permit application over to permit issuance.

There are likely some needs for some lags in there as we coordinate with SDCI, but really want to be mindful and understand how we're becoming more effective as we continue reviews.

We are working closely with an interdepartmental team to kind of continue our improvements.

Sailaja mentioned the SIP Lite permit, and that was really intended to get to kind of some of the smaller developments and reflecting and the lower complexity of those, but need to do work.

So just want to acknowledge that in kind of this wrap up slide.

Next slide.

Again, this is again looking at a different version of how long it takes to get to a permit in calendar days.

So looking at, there's a good chunk of time that is kind of under city control.

There's also a good chunk of time that's under applicant control.

So really looking at how to balance and align where we are asking for requirements.

and how to make sure that we aren't going through multiple review iterations.

I think it's kind of where our next steps are to look at improvements.

Sorry, I condensed that really fast, but happy to take any questions.

Next slide is just questions.

Sure, well, first off, thank you so much to SDOT for this very helpful overview.

Such a truly impactful program, really appreciate that and appreciate your flexibility here, because in about 10 minutes at 1130, we're gonna, Lose at least one member and potentially therefore lose quorum.

So I appreciate your willingness to be flexible and present the highest level overview of this important program.

Before I turn it over to additional comments or questions.

We do have some stakeholders here directly from the community and would love for you all to share in your own words, you know, kind of how this program impacts your work and your ability to be successful in what you do.

Great.

Thank you again for having us here today.

Yeah, MBEX's members see firsthand where projects stall and where these costs compound and where these policy changes can meaningfully reduce the barriers.

The reason for improving processes like the SIPP is pretty simple.

Timeliness and predictability directly translate to housing affordability and availability.

Committee members here have had a direct hand in shaping the One Seattle plan and our growth strategy.

In order for the One Seattle Plan to be successful, we need to address these infrastructure and process barriers that will prevent that vision from becoming achieved.

And we want to see that vision achieved, too, here at MBACS.

One thing I definitely want to frame with the issue of infrastructure is that our members are not opposed to the actual infrastructure improvements that are required.

It's the issue of the timeline and process and scope, and rather the unpredictability of this process in trying to do those upgrades.

And SDOT is not alone in this barrier.

There's many other infrastructure barriers that we're seeing with Seattle City Light and their undergrounding, Seattle Public Utilities and their water main extensions.

but nearly all of those departments' infrastructure requirements also do route through the SIP process, which kind of makes it a visible choke point in making all of those a reality.

I'll have Lucas kind of talk a little bit to some of the costs with some of these projects.

But for us, yeah, we would like to see some more published standards and review timelines, as well as some of those performance benchmarks, and having those broken down by project size and type.

as well as some of the actual infrastructure requirements.

Clarifying and reducing the number of reviewers, I think that's a big issue.

As SDOT mentioned, there's a lot of third-party reviewers.

It goes to SDCI, Traffic Ops, SPU for other comments, which do delay the process outside of SDOT's control to some degree.

But yeah, just want to say thank you again to my SDOT counterparts here for this and Chair Saka for having us all here today.

This briefing is just sort of the start of this work and we're just looking to be a helpful partner.

Thanks Logan.

Yeah I'll just say for Blueprint what we mainly work on is infill middle housing projects and I think you'll see in the presentation today you won't see any projects that are four or six units or less but they're subject to the SIPP process and it's a major reason why we don't do projects in the city.

We just can't, especially during this time, we can't take on the risk and the the year plus timeline of getting a SIP permit with a four-unit project.

So it's just a choke point for middle housing that really needs to be addressed.

It's not scalable for small projects.

Some examples are minor improvements like Alley Crush Rock can cost us up to $45,000 in total fees.

and about 10,000 of that is really construction.

That means for every dollar we're spending on construction, we're spending about $4 on permitting and design and engineering.

So it's just a real challenge, especially right now with the market.

And we can get a building permit in the city of Seattle in about three to six months.

As you can see by the numbers, the SIP can take three to six times that length.

So it just doesn't work with small development.

And we wanna do these improvements, as Logan alluded to, We want nice sidewalks, we want nice alleys.

It's just that the pain to get to that point is too much of a stretch for small developers to do.

And right now, middle housing is suffering because of it.

And in the land use code, maybe that's for another time, it has a big part to play in this and so does SPU and so does City Light.

And like I said, the SIP process was designed at the height of mixed-use development.

They're designed for big projects that take two years to build, a year to permit.

That works fine in that timeline.

Four-unit sites that take three months to permit and six months to build don't work with a SIP process.

and I'll just use Kirkland as an example.

They have an integrated process with their building permit.

You submit one permit with all your onsite improvements with your building permit and all of your infrastructure improvements in the right of way and we can get that permit in six months with everything.

It's a little bit more upfront in design and for us a heavy lift to get it all designed and submitted but in the end a six month turnaround is worth it for us and we would make that leap if we had more surety in Seattle if we had those numbers.

Thank you.

Thank you, appreciate the community perspective and voice on this important policy topic as well, and we want to give you the surety that you need to be successful, and I appreciate our partners at SDOT working hard every day to deliver on exactly that.

It sounds like there's some opportunities for continued iteration, of course, with any program, but really appreciate the perspective.

We'll note, before I turn it over to questions or comments, we'll note a couple things.

First off, as was alluded to, this important program could have very, given the cross-functional, cross-policy nature of this program, it could have very well easily been presented in the Land Use Committee, chaired by Councilmember Lin.

Given the housing nexus, could have been very easily presented in the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee, chaired by Council Member Foster.

Given the important economic development and labor pieces, could have been in your committee that you chair, Vice Chair Rank, City Light, any number of committees, but I wanted to at least to initiate this important conversation here today, because it does touch so many different aspects of various policies, not just limited to the right of way.

which of course SDOT generally owns and manages or bears, I'll say, primary responsibility, not exclusive responsibility.

And all right, let me acknowledge we have some youth in the room.

We have that just arrived a moment ago, members of the Transportation Equity Workgroup Youth Mentorship Program.

Welcome everyone, looking forward to connecting with you all offline for a bit after this committee meeting ends, but welcome and glad you're able to kick the tires a little bit in terms of the nuts and bolts, nitty gritty nuts and bolts of local government.

All right, Councilmember Rank, or Vice Chair Rank, you're recognized.

Thank you and welcome.

And thank you all so much for the presentation.

Appreciate the work that you do on this really important policy matter.

And so thank you for walking us through both the body of work and then the steps you all have taken to try and streamline things.

And also wanna appreciate the insights that the builders at the table have shared on this matter.

In acknowledgement of some of the data shared today from SDOT, we see that the SIPP process can take many months.

And an acknowledgement that SIP light being brought online as a way to try and make things a little bit faster, we know that this time still can often with a construction project taking additional time can increase costs and create again that uncertainty.

And so I'm wondering, beyond publishing a dashboard, what would it look like for S-DOT to look at creating some more performance benchmarks or a public timeline for reducing review times, and can that data possibly be broken up by project size or type?

Yeah, I'm happy to answer that.

So to your first question about adding more granular data, absolutely, we can look at that.

I think the thing that I've been wanting to look at next is really formalizing that structure.

Again, I talked about each review cycle is generally close to on time, and we're generally close to meeting our metrics, but really the number of reviews is what's driving that length of time.

So what I would really like to do is start looking at how many review cycles and being able to publish how that happens.

And then also looking at a process if projects are indeed making.

Like why are projects getting into multiple review cycles?

Is it something, you know, where is that breaking down?

And so looking for improvements there.

The second question is a little bit more difficult of like project size.

And wanna recognize that a lot of the work in the public right of way can be complex, completely independent of how big a project is, particularly when you're looking at something like a four to six unit building.

If it happens to be in a location with easy grades to match, infrastructure that's already there, close to an already developed street, that's an easy, easier, kind of conversation about the engineering than when you are looking at maybe that same development in a closed contour alley that hasn't been improved with other single family developments that have come at different grades over time with potentially building into our existing right of way, right?

And so it's hard to equate the number of units with the complexity that you'll have to see as far as the engineering that goes into making an accessible building that doesn't have drainage problems and has the utilities that are needed to serve it.

So that's a little bit of a different...

We've thought a little bit about it, and I know Lucas and I have had conversations about this, but it's a little bit hard to get at what that metric is specifically for.

If it's one unit, it should be this amount.

If it's four units, it should be this time frame.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, it does.

I think just holistically, ways that we can make sure that we're driving towards, again, improving performance and shortening those timelines would be tremendously helpful.

and I don't know if builders at the table have any response or feedback to that or any additional insights to share on this topic.

Yeah, I guess I would lean back to the land use code where, you know, and there's things that change over time, but two units in a single family zone was all you could build and that's all the code ever, it didn't require improvement and now we went to four units and that requires a SIP or it's kind of just, it's kind of eliminating the benefit of having that fourth unit now with HB 1110. So it's a thing where I think there was wide eyes at HB 1110 and the new permanent code that just passed until you look at development through all lenses, not just the land use code, but look at the impacts.

Well, if it triggers a SIP, was that basically going to nullify the benefit of adding that land use capability?

And I think that's where, you know, I think the council and the city need to look at that in city light and SBU's policies is like, what is important?

Is the housing important or is the additional crushed rock on the alley important?

So I think decisions need to be made.

Appreciate it.

Maybe we'll take a part of that conversation in Land Use Committee.

Would love to connect the dots there.

Just make sure we're taking a holistic approach.

And my next question, you started to answer this, but I'm wondering if we can dig in just a little bit more, just the matter of how we're looking to simplify the SIPP process by reducing or clarifying those number of requirements or the reviewers involved while also establishing a clear path for resolving those competing requirements from departments.

Yeah, I wanna take that.

Regulations are always hard as things get added over time, right?

And I think there's always a need periodically to go back and kind of refresh what each of those regulations have meant as far as additional reviewers and additional criteria and maybe reflect on, you know, a new requirement comes online, we add a new review stop.

And a lot of that is rightfully needed, and we also need to look periodically about, okay, now that's been five years of us doing that kind of incremental review, how do we then go back and look at the efficiencies of those review stops and how to best prioritize it.

And so I think that's an effort we're planning on undertaking kind of the tail end of this year.

I think a lot of our focus, we're the same group that's been doing a lot of the work to build up to FIFA and kind of the public space management work.

And so I think we can shift a little bit to really taking that on and looking how to reduce those and to make sure that everyone who is reviewing is adding value through our Excel and the permitting system and that we have some consistency in making sure that we're tracking and holding people accountable for each of those reviews, because they do build up over time.

So I think that's something that we want to look at is as we have built and added people, is there a way to consolidate those again?

So that's something we want to look at.

And I absolutely agree with you.

Getting stuck in the review cycle churn.

I know this is something that is a pain point for everyone.

So really looking at formalizing a structure to have some oversight in those review structures.

And once you hit a certain number, to take a step back and say, what's not working about getting the permit through the process?

So I think those are two improvements that we really want to dive into, kind of the tail end of this year.

I really appreciate the thoroughness of that response and acknowledging the complexity of everything you're holding in trying to do this.

I know we're all united in trying to find a way to not get stuck in the churn of constant reviews and just get things going and streamline the work.

And if I may, my last question, So it's my understanding that right-of-way improvements under SIP have to be completed and accepted before SDCI can issue a certificate of occupancy.

So if the SIP process is delayed, it directly delays when housing can actually be occupied or sold, even after the building itself may be finished.

And as we discussed on smaller projects, especially those delays can increase the amount of bonding required to keep the project open, creating a significant and additional financial burden while tying up capital that could be utilized elsewhere.

So I'm wondering how are we accounting for some of the costs of SIP delays for units that might be sitting unoccupied when we're evaluating some of these timelines?

I'd actually pass that to our master builders friends.

I'm not super, as far as the like post SIP permit issuance, I'm not sure.

I know there's a lot of delays in the review process.

I don't know how that ties up with once the building is built, if there are lags getting the SIP.

Yeah, I mean, we don't do a ton of SIPs just because they're a barrier to entry for us.

When we have done them in the past in a better market, we've had sales fall out because we couldn't get the CFO, and we had to beg, beg, beg for a temporary CFO, and some banks don't want that, so it just creates a big friction point, and right now the market is terrible to say the best of what it is.

So right now it's a big part of it.

I mean, it factors into the time and review to get it submitted.

You need to have 60% approval accepted by SDOT.

That can take three months plus to get to that stage before you can even submit your building permit.

So for a small project right there, right now, that is a no from the start.

A few projects that may work for various reasons.

the majority of them are just a no right now.

And I think this bonding requirement, I have one right now, I'm embarrassed to say, it was a townhouse project we started five years ago.

It is not done and we had to re-up our bond and I think we paid 10 grand for it.

So it's a real deal for big and small project.

And I'll just say, this affects not just market rate developers, it affects Habitat, all low income developers.

There is no exemption or they go through the same pains.

They avoid projects for the same reasons as market rate developers.

I appreciate that response and also appreciate the fact that we are talking about strategies to address our housing crisis here in the Transportation, Waterfront and Committee.

And so thank you, Chair, for pulling together this table to be able to discuss this really important issue.

This feels workable and solvable and so here as a partner to figure out how we can streamline these processes and get more housing online.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Rank.

Well said.

Thoughtful questions as always.

Councilmember Foster, you're recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you for the presentation.

I appreciate all the work that you all are doing.

And I'm just going to have several questions, but I unfortunately have a Finance Committee meeting to attend.

So I'll just ask one of those, which is it's my understanding that as you talked about the Kirkland process, one of the things that cuts down on the timeline there is that they're doing concurrent review as opposed to sequenced review.

I want to confirm that that's correct and then I want to ask whether we have tried to do that kind of review here at the city.

Yeah, I mean, I'd just say Kirkland, it is a unified submittal.

You submit all your right-of-way improvement.

They require main extensions and improvements, just like Seattle.

It does take us a little more to design both packages to get your civil design, your architectural design.

They need to work together.

It takes a little more coordination, but yeah, we can get a permit right there in about six months.

I mean, permits are down all over, but their review times are about six months to get a permit right now for all the work.

Yeah and part of that too is Seattle in most instances has concurrency in their review process so it's not necessarily an issue of the sequencing it's just that there are there's multiple owners of these permits and various permit processes SDCI sort of lives in their own world with their construction permit and building permit SDOT obviously oversees the SIP and so those do run concurrently but are for better or for worse, just sort of are existing in their own worlds.

Kirkland and a lot of other neighboring jurisdictions have sort of all in-house, just one team of senior planners, other reviewers who are overseeing every single aspect of all reviews and permits.

So it would take a really huge overhaul Seattle's entire permit system across all departments to get to something like what we have in a place like Kirkland.

But there's definitely ways that we can have a little bit more of that cross departmental coordination that can absolutely slow down, or sorry, that can absolutely speed up the process that we've seen here today.

Just echoing, we do, yeah, we do try to run concurrently and kind of the process that Sileja was highlighting has kind of the touch points that we have that try to drive to that, that concurrent review.

Got it.

And I'll just squeeze in one more question before I have to run, which is, and I appreciate somebody bringing up the impact, not just for infill, which we are trying to support and the way that this has impacted the implementation of HB 1110. I really appreciate that.

and I appreciate that you also brought up the connection to our affordable housing providers and their costs.

And I wonder if we have done any analysis or looked at our understanding of the time that that adds to, that our SIP process adds to the development of affordable housing or the average cost that it adds to the development of affordable housing?

I know Office of Housing has done some of that work.

I don't have it here, but I can get it for you as a follow-up.

And Councilmember Foster, I've also, we've been in conversation with Habitat for Humanity, SCIPTA, and some of our other affordable housing partners who, yeah, are very much in support of today's briefing.

We're kind of tied up with other commitments today, but we can absolutely work to sort of get you some of that data, because they want to be part of this conversation, too.

Yeah, thank you for that.

And the reason I raised that question, obviously, as Chair of Housing, I've heard this concern from a number of our affordable housing developers as well as our market rate developers.

And it sounds the same, right?

I think people believe in what we are trying to create with the streets and the kind of accessibility and the design that we want to have.

And I've also just talked about the impact to their projects.

In particular, when I hear from folks, it's around when they're working in areas where there isn't a lot of neighboring development.

sometimes that makes it a place that is easier for our affordable housing providers to acquire, but then shows up with additional costs because there is not a lot of neighboring development, meaning that there's a lot of street improvement to do.

And so we've heard that concern from folks and it's something I look forward to working with you all to continue to address.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Appreciate your feedback here as always.

Colleagues, any other comments, questions on this item of business?

Hearing, seeing none, I will just say thank you again.

First to our partners at SDOT for being here and providing this presentation, helping to shed light and bring transparency onto this important work.

And then also our community partners as well who help, who are directly impacted by this work and and kind of brought to life some of the cross-functional, cross-policy implications of this program.

So appreciate everyone again.

We have reached the end of today's robust meeting agenda.

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 8th, special meeting at 2 p.m.

Please note that this, again, will be a special meeting outside of our typical cadence.

Is there any final business to come before the committee before we adjourn today?

Hearing and seeing no further business to come before the committee.

We are adjourned.

It is 1142 AM.

Thank you.