City Inside/Out: Council Edition - December 2018

I'm your host, Brian Calaman.

What are city leaders keeping an eye on as the rebuilding of Key Arena kicks into high gear?

What impact will Seattle's mandatory housing affordability plans have on your neighborhood?

Plus, what does it really mean to have a regional homeless response?

Seattle City Council President Bruce Harreld and Council Member Mike O'Brien will answer these questions and the ones you're sending in, too, next on Council Edition.

For the three to four weeks of The Viaduct shutdown, it's going to be a little rough.

You want to develop in the city, that's great.

We're open for business and you're required to pay for affordable housing.

All that and more, coming up next on City Inside Out, Council Edition.

And here they are.

Council President Bruce Harrell, Council Member Mike O'Brien.

Thank you very much for joining me during a very busy holiday season.

And what better gift for Seattle other than a new pro hockey franchise coming here?

Big buzz around this right now.

And Bruce, you co-chaired the arena committee.

Your thoughts on landing a new team here in Seattle, what that means for Seattle Center and the city at large, too.

Well, it's a great unifier.

And, you know, it's sort of funny because everyone talks about basketball as much with Gonzaga and the University of Washington doing so well, and the rain, of course.

But I've become a hockey fan more than I have as well.

And the slight delay, the one-year delay, I don't think is going to hamper things.

In fact, it'd probably be pretty smart to delay it.

We want to make sure this construction project is finished, the transportation issues are addressed.

But there's a buzz that will start.

It's really hot right now.

Maybe die down a little bit, and then it'll revamp up.

And the equity owners and the participants, they know how to market sports very well.

So it's going to be exciting times here in Seattle, sports-wise.

And so I look forward to it.

And Mike, just keying in on what Bruce mentioned here, so the NHL will be starting in 2021, not 2020 as they originally had hoped here, but OVG, the Oak View group that's the developer here, is still saying we're going to go big time here, push to get this facility open in 2020, have those 18-hour construction days going on or whatever else.

I wanted to talk about that, the impact, at least the construction phase you think we'll have on the city.

Yeah, I mean, this project is one of a number of significant projects that are happening.

Obviously, the construction itself is going to be relatively self-contained, but the folks that are adjacent to the Seattle Center will feel the impacts of it.

But the transportation impacts of this project and other projects throughout the city, it's part of a whole series of things that are happening over the next couple of years.

It'll be really intense.

I do think it's probably not a bad thing that we have a little more breathing room.

I appreciate OVG trying to make sure that they're going to be open, certainly in time for the Seattle Storm and hopefully some other events.

We all benefit from that sooner.

I think it's a great model for how to get pro sports teams where they're largely privately financed and the city's more of a partner than an investor in it, and I think that's a good thing.

And there were some public benefits there.

I'm thinking specifically of this $40 million transportation fund paid out over the 40-year lease that the arena group would have at that new spot there.

Do we have any idea yet where that money's going to go?

Who's talking about that?

Are you involved in those talks?

There's like three different tiers of kind of transportation investments that are happening with that project.

So the first, the first here is just the mitigation they have to do because of the State Environmental Protection Act requirements on that.

And so, and then the $40 million is a pool of money that we mix in with other projects that we want to do in that region too.

The specific projects that that money's going to has not yet been decided.

And some of, you know, there's just an open question.

Do we spend a million dollars a year over 40 years or do we bond against it and do a $20 million worth of stuff up front?

Even that kind of policy decision has been made.

But we know that there'll be significant investments in both bike and pedestrian and transit infrastructure around that so that people who are coming to and from the arena or just live or work in that community will have hopefully a lessened impact during event days.

And Bruce, just your thoughts on this.

Is there something you're going to be keeping an eye on as this construction phase gets underway?

Not only the construction and the transportation mitigation investments, but the community investments.

I would not have gotten behind this project if I didn't think it was good for the city and the residents and even some of our pressing issues, such as homelessness.

So when I look at the $10 million as an example to youth care, looking at homeless youth, I'm looking at the use of women and minority-owned construction companies and contractors for revenue opportunities.

So again, it's an exciting opportunity.

And I think what came out when we finalized the transaction documents with strong community support from labor, from community groups.

And that's what you want to see, quite candidly.

I had to sort of, I don't want to say retract some of my words.

I was somewhat critical about key arena possibilities early when I was looking at the other facility.

And I had to be sort of sold on this being a great package, not just from a transportation standpoint, but from the community benefits standpoint.

And I am now.

So I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, a lot of different community groups are involved with this.

I got to tell you, though, when it comes to the name, we've been having a lot of fun time with the name.

What do you got?

All yours.

I don't want to.

That's a no-win scenario.

I mean, people.

But I do want something.

to remind us of our Seattle history.

I'll just sort of keep it vague enough.

And this Kraken stuff, those things scare me.

Well, the Oakview Group came on this set.

You're a big fisherman.

I know.

The Oakview Group was on this set just last week and said it would be water-related.

So we'll see where that goes.

We'll see where that goes.

Let me switch gears to another land-use issue in play right now.

And Mike, I'll bring you in here.

I'm talking about the mandatory housing affordability plan for the city.

MHA would allow developers to build bigger buildings, but they'd have to pay a fee to go towards affordable housing.

So I know the MHA plan has been given a green light with a few conditions by a hearing examiner.

The council could vote to approve it soon.

Let me throw two comments your way just to set this up.

Seattle needs more housing of all kinds in all neighborhoods, not legally dubious fees and mandates.

MHA will make housing infeasible and raise prices.

Roger, thank you for that comment.

The fact that building has continued at a breakneck pace indicates that there is plenty of money for developers to make even with these fees.

Your take on how MHA will impact Seattle.

I think it's going to have a really positive impact on the city of Seattle because we will have a requirement for the first time in the history that pretty much any development happening in the city will have to contribute to affordable housing.

Now we already have MHA or the linkage fee for commercial development in some of the neighborhoods, downtown South Lake Union, University District.

where a lot of development's already happening, but to be able to finish this piece so that citywide, it now becomes the norm that you want to develop in the city, that's great, we're open for business, and you're required to pay for affordable housing.

Now, you know, to the folks that say that, oh, this will kill development, you know, you look at states around the country that have been doing this for decades and they are still developing.

Does it shift the burden a bit?

Yeah, absolutely.

But businesses, even developers that I talk to that are in Seattle that do work around the country say, oh yeah, we can do that.

We do that everywhere.

And so this is going to be the new norm.

Some of the folks will need to adjust to it.

And it's going to produce thousands of additional units of affordable housing, which we absolutely need right now.

And this alone won't fix that crisis, but it's a big piece to solving it.

Bruce, could you weigh in here?

I know that MHA was really heralded as part of this grand bargain, but it has been somewhat of a divisive issue, I know, in this city.

Do you have an idea on the impact it will have or what you hope it will have?

It has been divisive for a variety of reasons, and when the folks formed neighborhood groups to challenge some of our work, I heard their concerns if they're talking about air quality, lack of open space.

I understand their concerns and their pain.

I just hope that many folks understand that the sanctity, if you will, of single-family neighborhoods, that that's not really what's at issue here, that many of us support and enjoy single-family neighborhoods.

But if you look at the growth areas we're looking at, this kind of approach just makes sense from an urban planner standpoint.

And I'm not an urban planner, but I'm smart enough to look at where growth makes sense.

And I try to tell laypersons that we've had some success stories.

If you look around the Chinatown International District, South Lake Union or University District, we had many projects implementing MHA, we generated over $13 million in affordable housing.

So uh...

we need more inventory around areas that make sense but i think there's a larger issue i think the larger issue that many critics uh...

with this would think that the council or even a mayor are making decisions in a vacuum that they are not listening to uh...

the people at the coffee shops or on the soccer fields but we are and so we're not giving away all of this precious land that people treasure because they want to live in a single house.

We're trying to embrace growth where it makes sense.

And again, I think we have some success here.

We're not approaching this blindly.

So I think at the end of the day, our approach makes sense.

Mike, can you touch briefly a follow-up on what's happening with the accessory dwelling units, the ADUs?

There's been an appeal on this, the backyard cottage legislation you've been working on for three years now.

You've been trying to clear the air on this a little bit.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, so three years ago, well, let me go back a little bit.

Since 1994 in the city, it's been legal throughout the single family zone to build the basement units.

Some people call those in-law units.

And then in about 2006, we made it legal to build backyard cottages throughout the city.

So we've got decades of history of this flexibility in our single family zones.

And yet what we've seen is very few people have taken advantage of this.

And when we're in a housing crisis, we want more opportunities.

You know, single-family zones represent a lot of the city, a lot of the places where people can live.

Let's give some more flexibility to that.

So, three years ago, we created some legislation to allow those units to be a little bigger, to allow people to have a couple units, to remove parking requirements.

Those types of adjustments allow them to be a foot or two taller.

And that got challenged, as you know, had to do a full environmental impact statement that took a couple years.

That statement was released this fall.

And the adequacy of that impact statement was challenged again by the same folks.

So we'll work through that legal process.

We'll know by the end of March, what the hearing, the hearing examiner will hear it in March, probably by April, there'll be a decision out.

And the plan is, assuming we get the green light, and I expect we will, is that we'll move forward with legislation to make it easier to do backyard cottages and in-law units throughout the city.

And we also did a racial equity toolkit on this, because we really wanted to understand how this will impact different sets of the community disproportionately.

And what we saw was that, you know, Wealthier homeowners who tend to be white, who own homes, will be able to benefit from this.

And lower income communities, which are often communities of color, will have trouble accessing some of this benefit.

So we are also, in this year's budget, creating a pilot program to help low income homeowners also take advantage of this.

And we really want to make sure that renters have access to these units, too.

So we're trying to attack it from all fronts.

The first thing, though, is the land use changes, which I expect we'll have some resolution to in the first half of next year.

And Bruce, you want to weigh in?

I just want to say that I was really pleased to hear Council Member O'Brien.

Oh, we call each other by our first name based on the show.

Mike, you can do that.

When he talked about the race and social justice issue, looking at ADUs and DADAUs, DADUs, the same approach on the MHA plan, the mandatory housing affordability plan.

will be used as well.

I mean, I'm suggesting that when we look at it next year, and we will look at it very closely, that we're hearing many critics say, are we really looking at this from that kind of lens, number one.

But number two, we all know that Hala, the grand bargain, if you will, had come out of the Murray administration.

And I think we all know that Mary Murray resigned and the circumstances by which he resigned.

And so I think a lot of people are just saying, While that resignation has nothing to do with this plan, let's reset, let's revisit and listen to the neighborhoods.

And so as the council president, we did start and created a select committee of the whole such that every district is represented and the two at large positions.

We will continue with that kind of approach.

That's way too tall of an order for Councilmember Johnson to hold on his own.

So my hope is next year that we, that the neighborhoods are convinced that we're listening and we're working with them and we're looking through the race and social justice lens that Mike talked about.

This really has to do with who we will be as a city for our lifetimes and our kids' lifetimes.

So it's not to be taken lightly, although I seem to joke a lot about it.

I tell folks that Seattle is uniquely beautiful, and it will continue to be, and we will approach it from that lens.

We're not all going to be living in, like, sardines in a box somewhere.

And people's worst fears come out in these conversations.

So next year, I'm looking forward to working collaboratively with the neighborhoods.

I want to stick with you, Bruce, and talk a little bit about the consent decree process that's going on right now involving the Seattle Police Department, the federal oversight there stemming from how officers use force.

The council approved a new contract for the Police Officers Guild a short while ago.

The federal judge overseeing the consent decree has some concerns about that.

Mainly, he's asking, does it roll back the reforms the council approved in its police accountability legislation?

I know the judge also had a question or a concern about an officer rehired after punching a female suspect in his patrol car.

My big question is this, are we in danger of seeing the SPD out of compliance with the consent decree?

Well, maybe.

And that's exactly the question mark we should always ask, that we don't take it for granted that they will comply.

By objective standards right now, I think they're going to remain in compliance.

And I applaud Judge Robart for asking why an officer who punched Ms., I think her name is, Durden Bosley in the face, why he is still with the force.

And there was, I think we all know, there was a ruling, an employment ruling that required reinstatement.

But I think it's fair to ask, is that the kind of culture consistent with the decree?

The other issue was when this notion of rolling back reforms, it was a pretty heated discussion that we had in chambers.

And when someone says that, particularly on the watch of many of us who've been working on police accountability and who've actually cross-examined officers, I want to know what provisions we were rolling back.

It was a union contract, and we did make some compromises.

But in terms of what we created with the inspector general office, with civilians actually doing investigations, with just the whole process, it was a strong package, one of the strongest, I think, in the country.

And was it perfect?

No.

And so I think that part of the process to always ask, will they comply?

How can we improve it?

But at the end of the day, that was a labor contract.

You know, when people were critical of what we're trying to do the police department, I understand that, but accountability is not the only issue we have to concern ourselves with.

We still need to recruit officers.

We still need to have them around.

We need to give them an attractive package to make it attractive to work in the city.

So all in all, I think the city is going to be better served by this contract we approved and the accountability package.

Mike, your thoughts on this?

This has been another contentious issue for the council.

really complex and we're trying to navigate a number of things simultaneously.

Part of the complexity is that no one party controls all what happens.

We have labor laws that we have to abide by and most of us are very committed to those.

All city workers, all workers for that matter, have the right to collectively bargain and advocate for fair raises and stuff and the police workers have been working without a raise since 2014. I understand the pressure to move something, and so we address that.

There's also a requirement that we all feel that we need to reform the police department, not just because we're under a federal consent decree and the Department of Justice has told us to do it and the judge is telling us to do it, but because our community members are telling us to do that.

And our laws are such that we don't get to go out and unilaterally just tell what has to happen.

Because it's a collectively bargained agreement, we have to negotiate the terms of that.

At the same time, you have the federal government telling us you have to do some things.

And so we're trying to navigate both these areas.

And then, you know, we have where another federal agency tells us we have to rehire someone that we didn't want to rehire, you know, so we're kind of caught between things.

You know, I think the next month or two, we're going to hopefully get a little more clarity on this.

But the reality is, we're probably going to be struggling with this for a few years to come.

Yeah.

Let's talk about a much easier topic like homelessness if we may.

Bruce, I'll start with you just to shift gears a little bit.

You established a homelessness committee on the council a short while ago to get a more centralized approach to this issue.

Every council member is a part of that.

Had a meeting in September.

Nothing much since then.

I'm trying to figure out what's happening with this committee and are we at this back to the drawing board moment when it comes to homelessness right now or what's happening?

There's a regional approach I know the council is talking about a lot.

I won't say back to the drawing board, because that maybe suggests that either we left it or we had to finish.

I get the expression.

So we, of course, went through our budget process.

And so we didn't have any committee meetings for the most part.

We had an exception, maybe one or two.

But so we had to temporarily disband, as we do every year during the budget process.

We put some really good stuff in there in terms of, I think, smart investments to address homelessness in our budget.

So I anticipate next year we will reconvene.

And just for the viewing audience, that usually just tune on to look at this handsome face.

There's two of them here, come on.

Give them some love.

In all seriousness, one of my challenges was who do I deal with in the city for homelessness?

I mean, we just had so many departments that had so many pieces of it.

And you had the enforcement piece, the housing piece, the human services piece.

And so I wasn't, we talk about a regional approach and involving the state and the county in it.

Yes, that's fine.

But I wasn't convinced that even as a city, we sort of had ownership of how we're approaching our investments.

Seattle Public Utilities, as an example, in the cleanups that they are doing in terms of just litter and trash.

And so I'm hopeful that through if the council, working with the mayor, can demonstrate a very cohesive strategic approach with all of our departments, and working efficiently and letting people know.

I mean, I think the biggest criticism that I hear weekly is that we're not doing anything or that we say this is the new norm, just get used to it.

And they don't know how feverishly we work on it.

I don't think a day goes by where we're either thinking of new solutions or new investments or a new strategy, but we're not insensitive to it, nor have we just gotten numb to where we just don't care.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

So when I thought of this sort of committee of the whole, if you will, I said, this is how we're going to be able to really, with laser precision, go in there and change things.

Because status quo is completely unacceptable.

And I think we could at least agree on that.

OK.

Mike, your thoughts here.

I know the city's definitely investing more in our homelessness crisis in the recent budget.

adding a mental health specialist to the navigation team.

I know giving some raises to shelter workers, among other things.

But I'm looking ahead to a few weeks from now, the one night count or point in time count for the homeless.

I know you've taken part in it a number of times here.

Do you expect to see fewer people on our streets when the next count comes in January?

Um, you know, based on my personal experience out there in the community, um, I would not expect to see a radical shift one way or the other.

It feels like the crisis is still big.

Um, you know, it's interesting.

The things that we're doing are actually working to move people out of homelessness.

So, in the first half of this year, over 2,500 households transitioned from homelessness into permanent housing, which was about a 30 percent increase over 2017. We're, we continue to do better work getting people into housing.

We last year opened about 250 units of new affordable housing.

This year it's going to be about 350 units.

Next year we're going to hit about 900 units of new affordable housing coming online because of some of the things like the mandatory housing affordability and impact fees and those types of things.

So we're adding more housing, we're adding more shelter, we're getting people off the street, but we haven't been able to go upstream and change what's causing homelessness.

So while our numbers are really good on getting people out, we're being overwhelmed by more and more people coming in.

We have an opiate epidemic that needs more federal attention.

We have rising housing costs.

We don't get to control rents in this city.

You know, we have a prohibition on that, and so it gets more and more expensive.

We have an economy that's creating more haves and have-nots, and those, more and more families are dropping into poverty, and they're showing up on our doorsteps and our parks.

So, I'm really proud of the work the city's doing.

I think we're doing what we can at the local level, and we need to do more.

In addition to what you mentioned in this budget, we added a million dollars for treatment of drug addiction.

And so, because, you know, there's thousands of people that are going through that right now and you go to the front door, it's like, we do not take walk-ins today.

So we want to expand, you know, the nurses and caseworkers to help people do that.

But we also need help.

You know, we need the federal government to recognize this is a national crisis and put some resources into it and help us slow down the path into it.

I'm going to try to pick up the pace slightly if I can.

And Mike, I'm going to head to you with a question about Uber, other transportation network companies, these TNCs.

You're working on this with Bruce.

I know the city's legal battle to unionize these workers is continuing here.

Help me out with this modification you're working on to get rid of provisions about wages, benefits, driver protections.

Yes, that's still part of it, but why not wages?

What's behind that change there?

So we created the right for all drivers in the for hire industry, taxi, Uber, Lyft drivers, to collectively bargain as independent contractors.

That was challenged by the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce.

We went up through the Ninth Circuit.

And there were two things we were challenged on.

One was, do we have the right to do that or is it preempted federally?

And we won on that.

No, independent contractors can collectively bargain.

There was an open question about antitrust.

Can independent contractors come together and discuss wages and other terms?

And what we've heard from the Ninth Circuit, they said, we need to go back to the local court and hear it, was that they're really concerned about the wages.

But there's a whole host of reasons why drivers would want to bargain.

Who gets kicked off the system?

Who gets the prime hours?

What do I have to wear?

When do I work?

Those types of things.

And so what we're talking about is maybe saying we'll take the wages out of that and we'll manage wages at the city level, which we can do.

And so we're not sure exactly what that looks like, but we can take a little pressure off that lawsuit and maybe get that resolved relatively soon.

Bruce, any thoughts on this, hoping to resolve it?

We're scheduled to publicly discuss this next Tuesday at 9.30.

And I look forward to the discussion.

I think Mike hit it on the head.

I mean, at the end of the day, we want a robust TNC system and we want Independent contractors and drivers will be treated fairly and so we'll work on that next week.

Great.

Mike, back to you.

As the taping of the show, we're just about a month away from the closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the so-called Seattle Squeeze, or period of maximum constraint.

So I know you head up the Transportation Committee.

When's the council going to start handing out jet packs to commuters?

Let us know.

It's going to be rough, everyone, and we all need to do our part.

This is going to be, frankly, unprecedented.

And I know that every couple of years there's a major closure for a few weeks and we've all seen it before.

And oftentimes it never turns out as bad as we thought.

But that's only because people change their behavior.

Now, this one's particularly challenging for a couple of reasons.

One, it's happening in January, so we don't have people typically taking vacation in the middle of January to relieve pressure.

Two, we're going to close that viaduct for three weeks, but when we reopen it, The viaduct is not going to be open.

It's going to be a tunnel and it doesn't serve the same places.

And then a month later, we're going to kick all the buses out of the bus tunnel to make way for the convention center and ultimately light rail.

Those are going to be out on the streets permanently.

Then a few months later, we're going to add tolls to that tunnel.

That'll shift behavior again.

So it's an opportunity, but it's going to be a challenge too.

The thing that I want to tell everyone out there, Make a plan.

I hope your New Year's resolution includes what are you going to do for those three weeks.

Don't wait till January 10th to figure it out.

Because if you can choose to walk or bike to work, that's great.

If you can telecommute, even if just for an hour in the morning or an hour in the afternoon, so that you're not in that peak rush hour.

If you're currently driving, think about switching to transit.

If you're currently taking transit, can you do it before 7 or after 9 in the morning?

Because those buses are already really packed, and they're going to be even more packed.

So we all need to think through what we can do.

And we know that there's some people that have no choices, right?

They have to be at work at a certain time.

They have to bring the car because of their job.

The rest of us need to pick up a little extra burden to help us all get through this.

Bruce, your concerns about this?

Well, for the three to four weeks of The viaduct shutdown, it's going to be a little rough.

I don't think we could mince words there.

There will be some delays in the bus and so one of the communications I hope to get out with Councilmember O'Brien's leadership is in our own department as an example, perhaps our uh...

nine thirty meeting should start at ten or yeah or even earlier uh...

i'm gonna try to get some communications to our court system because many people will rely on transit to get to court for a certain appearance at eight o'clock or nine o'clock there might be some delays there we don't want people unfairly punished we know there a lot of low income wage earners who have to be there at a certain time of day and they may be delayed so we don't want enforce it but we don't want employers to take Disclosure into consideration.

So hopefully we could come together as a city and realize There will be some challenges for three weeks and like Mike said this is unprecedented We I do look forward to what's on the other side of this project in the next couple of years because this is This is gonna be some really good stuff for our region But the three weeks are gonna be a growing pain that we have to deal with.

All right wrapping up here Mike I know we are still a few weeks from New Year's, but you were saying Resolutions there any other ideas about what you're resolving to do as a council member in 2019 coming up

You know, I'll use this as an opportunity to talk about climate change.

We've had some really kind of dreadful reports that came out this fall about us not doing enough and the change coming faster.

We've seen it, fires here locally, California.

And so, you know, one of the things that I hope folks think about for the new years is what can we do personally and as a community to figure out how we can better address climate change?

Federal government's not there to help us for the next few years.

But we need to do more locally.

Got it.

Bruce, in the next year, Joe sent in this question.

Do you intend to be council president in 2019 or please endorse Council Member Gonzalez for the position?

Also, will you please ban Alex Zimmerman for six months of his continued disruption of the Seattle Council?

What are your plans for 2019?

I do know Joe, by the way.

My colleagues have elected me to be council president for next year as well.

And one of the, I only have a few seconds left.

is I'm going to put a lot of energy next year into the re-entry world where people have been in custody and they've served their debt to society and we'll see hundreds and thousands in our city and in our region looking for job opportunities and housing opportunities and we're making some real good investments in this arena.

I really want to see how our lorch, our companies through their social responsibility efforts can align themselves with what we're trying to do as a city.

Okay, thank you both very much for this and we will see you next time right here on Counselors.