Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan 4/30/2025

Good afternoon, is my mic on?

Yes, it is.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The April 30th, 2025 meeting of the select committee on the comprehensive plan is going to come to order.

It is a sharp 201. I'm Joy Hollingsworth, chair of the select committee.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Kittle?

Here.

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Solomon.

Here.

And Chair Hollingsworth.

I am here.

Seven.

Present.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

We're going to now consider the agenda.

And if there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing none, agenda is adopted.

So before we jump into public comment, first, thank you everyone for coming down today on a sunny, a little bit windy.

I always look at the flags to see if it's windy.

Sunny, windy afternoon in the great city of Seattle.

We're gonna do a little table setting.

So established at our last meeting, we continue to move forward to pass the interim legislation of House Bill 1110, so we can still meet the deadline for the state's implementation, which is June the 30th.

As a reminder, House Bill 1110 is a state mandated legislation to create missing middle housing.

As soon as we pass the interim legislation, House Bill 1110, we're gonna move next with the comprehensive plan and the permanent House Bill 1110 legislation, which is phase one.

We hope to pass the comprehensive plan and phase one legislation through the select committee.

And we have a timeline for that, which is before council takes up budget this fall.

Let the record reflect as well that we are joined by council member, Rob Saka, welcome.

We are excited to announce that the date for our next public hearing is Monday, May 19th, and that's gonna begin at 9.30.

We're gonna release more information.

Some people, please note that 9.30 is for our virtual comment period, and then we are doing a in-person, which will be in the afternoon, so we can be able to take in all the comments that we have from people.

So we're doing a 9.31 in the morning, and then the following one will be at 4 p.m.

the same day for in-person as well.

not the following day, the same day.

I'm sorry.

We're gonna release more information, but 9.30, it's gonna be 9.30 on May 19th, Monday in the morning for online.

And then we're gonna do four o'clock for in-person as well.

This topic for the public comment for public hearing for the amendments to the interim House Bill 1110 legislation.

So this public hearing is for the interim legislation for House Bill 1110. After the public hearing that we had ended early on February 5th, due to severe weather, our office made promises to honor the speaking order of those who were not able to speak at the end of that meeting.

There will be explicit instructions for these individuals in the official public hearing announcement once it's released, which we will release pretty soon here so people know that.

I know some people have asked our office, are we still gonna honor that?

And you have it on the record here on Seattle Channel blue sky, all those things to let people know we are gonna honor that as well.

So reorienting us on today's topic, the executive has brought forward a comprehensive plan presentation on the Seattle urban forestry plan, which strategies from across the city departments.

This is an opportunity for the executive to present on existing urban forest strategy as well as to cover their proposal for changes in zoning.

Our office and I'm sure many others have received emails with concerns that are covered today.

about trees because we all love trees.

I would like to emphasize that you'll see later in the presentation that the tree protection, ECA and street tree requirements would not change in the mayor's proposal.

We are currently focused on interim legislation.

I've heard from colleagues and some community members and neighborhood groups and people about their deep passion and commitments to protecting trees.

The passion is felt and appreciated and also shared.

We will continue to have robust conversations on this topic and we are committed to bringing a broad range of voices to the table.

A diversity of perspective is essential to crafting smart and effective policy.

This is not the first time that we have talked about trees, nor will it be the last time that we talk about trees.

So to everyone that has sent an email, a phone call, that have stopped me at the grocery store, or share their concerns.

True.

You all like to stop me right as I'm checking out to tell me about trees and that is okay.

I will listen.

Please know that we hear you, we see you and we are listening.

Okay.

There will be more opportunities for our community input and engagement when we take up permanent legislation for this and our comprehensive plan.

For now, our focus remains on the interim legislation.

We need to have a presentation today that will tell us what our baseline is.

With that, we'll now open to the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should be related to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the select committee.

Or you can share a comment about how much you enjoy being a vegan.

We will allow those comments as well.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

30 in person, 18 remote.

Okay, 30 in person, 18 remote.

And let the record reflect, we're joined by the phenomenal council member from District Four, Council Member Rivera.

All my council members are phenomenal, thank you.

So that's 48 speakers.

Everyone, so we can jump into presentations, gonna get one minute today to speak on the topic.

And clerk, will you please read the instructions for the public comment period?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

I will call on speakers by name in the order in which they register, both on the council's website or from the sign-up sheet available here in council chambers.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

If you have not registered to speak, but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the...

Second chimes is heard.

That means that you have 10 seconds left of your allotted time.

The speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time, provided the speaker's microphones will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Awesome.

So I have that list.

We're going to go 10 in person, then we'll do 10 online, and then we'll bounce back to our wonderful people here in the council chambers.

So the first speaker up, I'll name them in threes.

We have Scott Berkley, Sahar Amini, and L.

Harrison Jerome.

You are welcome to committee.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council.

My name is Scott Berkley.

I am an organizer with Tech for Housing and a homeowner in West Seattle, beautiful District 1. I live on a property with several large trees.

some of which I love, some are a little more problematic.

But I have been heartened to hear that our tree advocate friends, many of whom are in the room with us right now, claim that tree canopy and housing abundance are not opposing goals.

I agree with that, and let's get real about strategies to achieve it.

Number one, we need to build taller height limits, including six stories within two full blocks of bus routes and four-story stack flats everywhere else.

Number two, we need to reprioritize space away from personal vehicles towards trees and housing.

That includes eliminating all parking mandates and allocating more public right-of-way to trees.

To save the trees, build tall, not sprawl.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and council members.

My name is Sahar Amini.

I'm the advocacy and policy manager at Habitat for Humanity and serve on the steering committee of the Complete Communities Coalition.

Like you said, Madam Chair, we all love trees.

Seattle needs more homes and more trees.

These are not priorities that are mutually exclusive.

And Habitat supports the direction the city has taken with the current tree code.

The existing code strikes a thoughtful balance.

It protects significant trees while providing flexibility to keep housing production moving through options like additional height, reduced setbacks, or departures from certain requirements when trees are preserved.

These tools help make it possible to deliver the homes our community urgently needs and retain our urban canopy.

But preservation alone isn't enough.

The city should also lead by investing in new tree plantings and right away in parks, places where we can grow the canopy without limiting.

Habitat proves every day that we can have both trees and housing.

We've grown our pipeline from under 200 units to over 300.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have Elle Harrison.

And then following Elle Harrison, we have Walter, Ian, and Galen.

You all are next up on the docket.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Council.

I'm here on behalf of myself and the thousands of people across the city who would never be able to make it to a public comment scheduled at 2 p.m.

on a weekday.

As a result, you are going to hear that this comp plan's destiny is to turn Seattle into a treeless tarmac.

I'm here to tell you the reality is the exact opposite.

We have to be prepared for the population of this city to be in the millions by mid-century.

We must build enough housing so that the kids in this room don't have to put someone else out in order to live close to their parents or have acres and acres of forest out east be cut down in order to live nearby.

In the city of the future, I hope that the decisions of this council do not mean that the forest will be twice as far away as they used to be.

I hope that we don't have to level more trees in the city for the parking that those people on the outskirts will need to commute to their jobs.

Also that a few people in the past didn't have to have a tall building close to them.

We must build up, not out.

That means keeping neighborhood centers, higher height limits, and stacked in every part of the city.

Build tall, not sprawl.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next up, we have Walter, Ian, and Galen.

Hi, my name is Walter Hatch.

I live in Greenwood, and I'm a volunteer for the Green Lake Homeless Advocates.

We need much greater density in this city to slow the rise of rents, to make housing available to young people and others without resources.

We need to reduce homelessness in this city.

If you're against upzoning, I think you lose credibility when you complain about the homeless.

Trees and density don't need to be in opposition.

The Urbanist newspaper or magazine online wrote recently about the city of Munich in Germany and suggested that greater density was possible there as well as retaining the canopy.

We can do both.

Thank you.

Ian then Galen.

Hi Ian.

Hi there.

My name is Ian Moser and I'm a homeowner in Mount Baker and here representing the University Unitarian Church as the co-chair of the Social Justice Steering Committee and a member of Tech for Housing.

I love the trees of Mount Plant more trees throughout Seattle.

Planting more trees that can become large consistently in all areas of Seattle ensures that we have a pathway to an increasing tree canopy over generations, where single trees are able to be removed when necessary to allow for greater density and thus greater diversity in our neighborhoods, strengthening the social fabric of Seattle.

Our environment depends on greater density, proximity to transit, and closeness to basic needs like food and groceries allowed me to live without a car in Seattle for nine years, something that we can extend to more of our neighbors by allowing more housing types, prioritizing long-term urban canopy rather than any single tree.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ian.

And following Galen, we have Martha, we have Penelope and Adele, and then Ezekiel.

You all are up next.

Good afternoon, council.

I'm a Finney Ridge homeowner and a father of two.

And I love the energy in this room from people who truly care about making and keeping Seattle a world-class city.

And I want to remind you all that for every one of us here, there are 1,000 other constituents at home who are either picking their kids up or at their work who worry about housing costs every month.

They're worried about rents going up.

They're worried about their mortgage.

If I have kids, will I be able to get another apartment with a larger footprint or a house?

I used to be one of those people.

I won't go into that.

Sorry.

Distracted.

So Seattle needs more homes, and Seattle also needs more trees.

I think we all agree on that.

And they are not mutually exclusive.

We can do things like allowing additional height, floor area, or departures from parking requirements while preserving trees and making stacked flats four stories.

Let's make enough housing for everyone in Seattle.

Thank you, Galen.

Next we have Martha, Penelope, and Adele, and Ezekiel.

Good afternoon, council members, and thank you for this opportunity.

We're Seattle Public School students from McDonald International.

We're here because we found out that the Green Lake Giant Sequoia is in danger of being cut down.

Although she's just one tree, she represents thousands of trees in Seattle.

We need you to save Seattle's trees for many reasons, including...

Big trees help reduce heat islands.

Big trees help keep our water clean for salmon, orca, and other animals.

Big trees help people live longer and healthier lives.

Big trees help slow the impact of global warming.

You might be thinking that we won't be able to build more houses if we don't cut down trees, but there are ways to build houses without cutting down trees.

You can hire an environmental architect to arrange the buildings in a different way so you will not have to cut down trees.

Please help save Seattle's trees.

Thank you for your consideration and time.

Thank you, my young people, for coming.

Anytime young people come to talk in front of people, it's like the hardest thing to do.

And the fact that you all know how to publicly speak, just want to thank y'all for coming and expressing that.

So thank y'all.

And skipping school.

Did you skip school?

You got out early?

You know.

Oh, early dismissal.

Mm-hmm.

OK.

I got you.

That's what they call it now.

All right.

Ezekiel.

Is that Ezekiel?

OK.

Ezekiel Lapis, and I'm almost nine years old.

I'm here to talk about Dan Strauss and the rest of the city council, first interested in protesting Seattle trees when I met Luma, a cedar tree in Wedgwood.

We worked hard to save Luma, but since every single tree I've tried to save has been cut down, this is wrong.

But today, you have a chance to make it right for me and all the kids in City Council who deserve Green Seattle.

Thank you, Ezekiel.

Thank you, Ezeko.

Did you have early dismissal too?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, I got you.

Thank you so much for coming.

Appreciate you.

That's a really tough act to follow, but good afternoon, Council.

My name is Martha Brown.

And on slide 21 of today's presentation, it says that 141 Tier 2 trees have been removed and 665 have been protected.

This makes it look like more large trees were saved than were removed.

In reality, data shows that only 3% of these saved trees were protected by the ordinance, and that is only 20 of the claimed 665 protected trees.

The rest of them on the list are there only to distract from the ongoing loss of our largest and most valuable trees.

SDCI now requires that even kitchen remodel permit applications list all the trees in the yard so they can be called protected.

SDCI submitted this to the Urban Forestry Commission last June, and this article in Investigate West confirms the deception.

Thank you.

And here's an article if you want to keep it on file.

Yeah, please put it in there.

We'll get it.

Thank you so much.

Now we're gonna bounce to online speakers and we'll come back to in-person.

Once your name is called, you'll press star six to unmute yourself and you can go ahead and give public comment.

First person up, Cecilia Black.

Hi, my name's Cecilia Black.

I'm a wheelchair user, renter and community organizer at Deslaris Washington.

And I just want to echo what so many people have already called in to say and that we must protect our trees and we must also protect our renters.

Choosing between housing, our communities, and protecting our trees is a false narrative we can't get into.

Between 2016 and 2021, canopy loss due to new developments accounted for just 0.25% of Seattle's total tree canopy.

And the EIS report also notes that the majority of tree loss from developments will be removed We are in a housing crisis.

We do not have enough homes for people who are here now or for people who will be coming to Seattle in the next decades.

This must be our city's priority.

Like others have said, building a denser city is critical to our environment.

We know that single-family housing encourages sprawl, increases reliance on cars, and forces people further into the suburbs with disastrous consequences for the environment.

The city should absolutely be protecting and expanding our tree canopy.

with efforts focused on planting trees in our right of way, which counts for 27% of Seattle's land and also in parks.

But we will not fix our tree canopy with policies that keep people vulnerable and displaced in our housing market.

Thanks.

Thank you, Cecilia.

We have Joshua Morris followed by Hans Rasmussen.

Just press star six, Joshua.

Hi there.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Joshua Morris.

I'm the Conservation Director at Birds Connect Seattle.

I served on Seattle's Urban Forestry Commission from 2019 to March of this year.

I am no longer on the commission and I'm excuse me.

Under our current regulatory funding and cultural conditions, there is no way Seattle will reach its canopy goals.

Canopy inequities will worsen.

The growth strategy and rezoning proposed in the comprehensive plan update in interim compliance legislation will further exacerbate canopy decline.

Do not be misled by the executive's optimistic narrative.

The Office of Sustainability and Environment published an irresponsible and misleading analysis of the impact of development on tree canopy that the previous caller referred to.

Its conclusions grossly overstepped the scale of inference of the analysis.

The chief among them is the assertion that development is only a minor driver of tree loss, an assertion not supported by that analysis.

To get our housing canopy and equity built to be intended to incentivize the context for requesting extract flats, and we need explicit requirements to retain sufficiently large areas of sustainable space on every lot, typically for trees.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joshua.

Hans, and then next up, Robin Briggs.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Hans Rasmussen de los Rios.

I'm an architect and small builder of housing here in the city.

Later in this presentation from SDOT, you're going to see some proposals to use the right of way to expand canopy.

And I would encourage you to support those efforts and to encourage SDOT to come back with proposals that are bigger and bolder about how we can use the right of way for more trees.

This benefits everyone equitably without reducing the much needed expansion of housing and zoning capacity.

Supporting canopy growth shouldn't come at the expense of housing.

uh so you know we have an opportunity to get tree-lined streets in every neighborhood that are also full of homes and people we want a city not for trees and cars but a city for trees and people over the coming months you'll review bold proposals for uh comprehensive plan updates don't blink build more housing thank you hans next we have robin briggs followed by tiffany mccoy

Hi, good afternoon, council members.

My name is Robin Briggs.

The comprehensive plan handles trade-offs and land use between different uses.

Housing, cars, trees, pick two, because you can't optimize for all three.

In my neighborhood in Capitol Hill in central Seattle, the city has put large planters as roundabouts in the intersections of non-arterial streets.

These serve as traffic calming and keep people from driving too fast, but they also serve as space for trees, and the trees planted there back in the 70s are now full-sized.

I'm sure that was an expense to doing this, but they did it in the 70s, so it can't be that expensive.

Paris has been doing this big time over the last five years and vastly reduced their pollution.

One thing you all could do for free, and that's to raise height limits.

With taller buildings, you can fit family-sized apartments and still have more ground space for trees and gardens.

And if you require or incentivize shared walls, there would be larger spaces to allow for larger trees.

One thing I'm sure of, if you increase open space at the expense of housing, that will make the city a poorer place.

There are solutions, but they require trade-offs.

Thank you, Robin.

Next, we have Tiffany McCoy, followed by Randy Banneker.

Just press star six.

Thank you, council members.

My name is Tiffany McCoy.

I'm the co-executive director at House Our Neighbors.

I'm calling in support of the tree canopy, and density and decarbonization and old climate mitigation.

I believe everyone showing up today has one core goal in common, and that is to address the climate crisis in our city.

Where we differ is on the strategies to address the climate crisis.

We need a strong tree canopy, and we must also address our reliance on vehicles.

According to a 2022 city study, nearly 98% of transportation emissions came from vehicles.

40% of our emissions came from buildings and their reliance on the burning of fossil fuels for energy and heating.

Our next comp plan should be prioritizing carbon neutral buildings, passive house construction, decarbonizing upgrades, and depaving.

Ask the council to look at the wide range of ways to reduce our carbon footprint in this city and to take a yes and approach.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Following Randy Banneker and then Ruby Holland.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the Council.

I'm Randy Banneker.

I'm here on behalf of the Seattle King County Realtors.

I want to thank you for your work on the comprehensive plan and urge that you be bold in enabling more housing to be built throughout our city.

More market-rate housing supply is the only way to improve affordability for homebuyers and ranchers.

Today, you're focused on trees, and we urge that you not pit trees against housing.

We can have both.

Flexibility in the front and rear setbacks can facilitate tree retention.

In addition, we can get much more sophisticated about our street tree program.

We have excellent examples of well-treed, beautiful streets throughout our city.

Let's bring SDOT in on the tree solution.

Lastly, I urge that you avoid financial obstacles to the development of middle housing, such as MHA-type fees at that level.

Increasing the cost of building will either halt middle housing development or make it to afford it.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Randy.

Next we have Ms. Holland.

Hi, Ms. Ruby.

And then Steve Zemke.

Mayor Harold uses up-zoning to steal lots from the working class to give to and house the rich white and immigrant oligarchs who he has recruited to Seattle where available land is scarce.

Absent a strong anti-displacement plan, he is expected to continue this practice.

I fully embrace HB 1110, which allows us to keep our yards and our trees and would consider it an anti-displacement strategy in itself for up-zone communities to be treated like every other community in Washington State, no more, no less.

Birds are on the decline due to lack of trees, People are, working class people are on the decline due to lack of affordable housing and lack of housing that we're not being displaced of.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Ruby.

Next we have Steve Zimke followed by Brittany Cox.

My name is Steve Zemke, speaking for TREEPAC and Friends of Seattle's Urban Forest.

To save more trees while building more needed housing under the Comprehensive Plan, it is necessary to make amendments to SMC 2511. First issue is remove the definition of basic tree protection area proposed by the Master Builders Association and added to the 2023 tree ordinance.

It has allowed developers to remove most trees on NR, LR, MR, commercial, and Seattle mixed zones.

is remove the ability of SDCI to ask for an alternative site plan to save trees, which are possible under current ISA guidelines.

Second issue is to change the in-lieu fee of planting trees for trees removed and in-lieu mitigation fee for tree services lost when removing larger trees.

This is what Portland, Oregon does, and they're collecting over $1 million a year to compensate for tree services lost and using it to plant more trees.

They also allow four plexus in Portland.

Ask the city how much money is it collected under the current in-loop.

Thank you, Steve.

Next we have Brittany followed by Eileen.

Hi, my name is Brittany Cox.

I'm a renter in District 3 for nearly two decades.

Our current tree code does not protect trees.

Exceptional trees are being removed for driveways.

Planting young trees and cutting down an exceptional tree does not make up for the tree that was lost, especially when that tree was over 100 years old.

We have a climate crisis and need to find solutions to increase density and protect trees.

Let's think about practical solutions.

Preserve setbacks.

If we eliminate proposals to shrink front yards from 20 to 10 feet and rear yards from 25 to 10 feet, this will reduce space for trees.

We need to protect green spaces.

If we remove increased hardscape allowances, such as 90% hardscape, if we work on that, that'll leave space for trees.

If we look to Portland example, by requiring 20 to 40% of lots to support tree retention and planting, we'll maintain trees.

If we, prior to removal, require developers to provide alternative site plans that achieve the same density while retaining trees, we can look at other solutions.

We need to restrict

Thank you, Brittany.

And then we have Eileen.

That's the last online speaker before we jump back in person and we'll go back online.

Eileen, just press star six.

We'll see you online.

Just press star six to unmute yourself.

Hi, my name is Aline Fortang.

Perhaps you know the song by Joni Mitchell in which she sings, don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.

Is this what the city council legacy will be?

That trees are cut and the land paved over?

That the council allowed majestic old trees to be destroyed instead of requiring that they be saved through thoughtful planning, even if it costs more?

We all know the benefits of trees to humans, but we also know that trees are essential for wildlife.

They provide vital habitat in which animals can reproduce, escape predators, and find shade and food.

So I'm asking you to please adopt significantly improved tree policies in the comp plan and the interim bill.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

And if there are no objections, I'm going to promote that we continue to extend the public comment period.

We reached 20 minutes, but we'd love to extend it some more.

So we have all our speakers speak.

Any objection?

Awesome.

We'll keep going.

There was going to be, you were going to hear no objection.

Peter, Alex Zimmerman and Grace.

I can't pronounce your last name.

I apologize.

So I see Peter.

It's a nice P you have on your sign in too.

Chair Hollingsworth, council members, my name is Peter Reese.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak with you.

My request is simply that you bring a critical eye to the discussion of trees in the One Seattle plan.

The presentation you will receive, as is natural for such things, highlights the positive things that staff in the city have done.

It glosses over an undeniable truth.

When you reduce setbacks and increase lot coverage throughout the city, you can avoid having an adverse effect on our tree canopy and our quality of life.

The proposed interim legislation proposes both reduced setbacks and greater lot coverage, regardless of whether there'll be one dwelling unit, two, three, or four.

That, for me, is either a drafting area or a misunderstanding of the intent of HB 1110 and one Seattle plan.

Compliance with HB 1110 does not require alterations to current setback and lot coverage regulations as outlined in the Department of Commerce's own checklist, which I'll share with you by email.

And I'd like you to stick with a minimalist approach, at least until more thoughtful legislation is proposed.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Peter.

Next, we have Alex Zimmerman, followed by Grace.

And Alex, Mr. Zimmerman, I'm not listening to the Nazi salute today.

So you can say, I'm not going to tolerate your Nazi salute today.

You can have whatever you want for your public comments, but we're not going to have.

No problem.

No salute.

No, no salute.

Thank you.

No, no, no salute.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I'm president of Stand Up America.

I support Rhyme from the beginning.

I'm a MAGA member.

I have 6,000 days of trespass, and five times you prosecute me.

I like you.

How many thousand times I told you that Seattle is a city of degenerative idiots?

You have housing, and you have three.

You have housing, you're not supposed to be half-three.

You have three, you're not supposed to be half-housing.

And you start doing this for last three years.

Yeah, and this for my expression, I think this international expression, you cannot sit with one ass in two toilet.

You know what it means?

You tried doing this for 30 years and nothing happened.

No housing, no tree.

My opinion, cut all tree, build all housing.

Stand up for Donald Trump.

Stand up for American Revolution.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Next we have- Thank you very much.

Next, we have Grace, followed by Suzanne, and then Matt Hutchinson.

Matt Hutchinson, my apologies.

Hi, Grace.

Hi, I'm Grace Ensminger, and I'm 11 years old and in the fifth grade.

I have always cared about the environment, and I have recently started to learn about the trees in Seattle and the crisis.

and the crisis that Seattle's mature trees are in.

Mature trees stop too much rainwater runoff from going into the Puget Sound and polluting it.

And it's the mature trees that really help with that.

My friends and I will inherit this city and we don't want a city full of pollution.

We want a city full of greenery and life because these trees are thriving.

I encourage the city council to declare our city as being in a climate crisis and to save our trees and to take steps to fight against climate change.

This cannot wait or else it will be too late.

Thank you.

Thank you, Grace.

Early dismissal, too, as well?

Good job.

My teacher said I could be here.

Hey, okay.

All right, awesome.

And we actually have, you know, you're on record, too, for saying that, so she can see.

Hi, Suzanne.

Good job, Grace.

Thank you for coming.

Really appreciate you.

Hi, Suzanne.

In the net, we have Matt Hutchins.

Suzanne Grant here to talk about the common plan and trees.

Two years ago, I was here when this council promised to amend the disastrous tree ordinance.

You may not have been part of that promise, but it needs to be honored now.

Trees in density can and must coexist in order to create a healthy environment for all of us.

I'm glad to hear that some of you support amendments allowing at least 20% of original lots to be allocated as permeable space.

This could be achieved, for example, by retaining the current setbacks or moving structures closer together on the property to save existing trees on the perimeter, and especially by utilizing creative architectural planning and dismissing the desire by developers to clear-cut the entire lot and cover every inch of it with structures.

We need to retain trees on private property, as that's where most of our existing canopy is and can be accommodated.

The city cannot afford to provide and maintain an equitable 30% canopy on public land.

Don't do what Trump is doing with our national forests.

Don't cut down Seattle's valuable trees.

Thank you.

Thank you, Grace.

You probably came up with the best hook line ever in council.

There's a hole in the sky where the tree once was.

Somebody's making money.

I remember that.

That was shared across social media.

Hi, Matt, welcome.

Hi.

We all agree that when urban trees cut down, it is a visceral loss.

It's a hole in the sky.

But the problem with tree canopy loss, we should put it in perspective.

In the five years between 2016 and 2021, we lost less than a quarter of 1% of our tree canopy.

That's 35 acres versus 15,000 total acres.

Over the same period, we built 40,000 homes.

Clearly, we can build housing without destroying our tree canopy.

Typically, suburban sprawl is about 10 dwelling units per acre.

So if we were to build those 40,000 units out in the ex-urban areas, that's 4,000 acres of tree forested land that would be sacrificed to build those same number of units.

So by building in Seattle, we saved 3,965 acres of trees and only at the price of 35 acres.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

Next, we have Judy, Kathy, Susan, and Jennifer.

Judy, Kathy, Susan, and Jennifer, and then we'll jump back to our online folks.

Hi, I'm Judy Benditch.

I've written to every single one of you many times.

And I'm sorry, the urban forestry commission never knew about this meeting happening today.

And everybody's covered all the stuff about we can have both.

They've talked about the Portland plan, 60-40.

So I'm gonna jump to one thing you haven't covered yet today.

I had it all lined out, but this is the one that's not mentioned.

Stop giving discretion to SDCI on whether or not they can cut an exceptional tier two tree.

Mr. Torgelson and his office are responsible for that tree in my neighborhood that was 103 years old, cedar that was cut down.

He's now dithering about having somebody's driveway stop dithering.

We need to have him not have that discretion.

We need to have an ordinance that says those trees stay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Kathy, Susan, and then Jennifer.

Hi.

My name is Kathy Kirkhoff, and I'm in District 6. What we build is not easily undone, and we are in a crisis with the climate.

I want you to read the book, The Heat Will Kill You First.

You could read the 20-page prologue and the chapter on Paris, which is very pertinent to us.

Please educate yourself of what we're going to face and what it's going to mean.

You're not going to keep people in the city if it's not survivable because of heat.

So the trees are essential to our survival.

Please, please find a way.

Be creative.

Don't keep doing the same old, same old.

have a choice you know there's always presented either or either or all the time and we've always chosen the economic rather than the environment thank you Kathy next we have Susan and then Jennifer Susan then Jennifer

Hello, Susan Fedora, West Seattle, native Seattleite.

There's been a lot of nasty stuff coming out of Washington DC these days, but one thing they're doing right is preserving urban tree canopy, which is currently at 39.7%.

They've been prioritizing responsible balanced growth from the beginning, but in 2002 enacted several ordinances to protect their oldest and largest trees.

In DC, there are nearly 10,000 people per square mile.

In Seattle, it's just over 9,000.

Master Builders Association and Legacy Capital should not be running the show here.

They've been exploiting the 2023 tree ordinance and building codes for maximum profit.

I've watched it happen next door, across the street, all over the city.

Neighborhoods are terrified of becoming ballardized, as they're putting it.

As the city continues to get hotter, trees are replaced with hardscaping, making it hotter still.

Keep in mind, there are still hundreds of thousands of us who don't have AC or can't afford it.

Even when the sun goes down, pavement continues to emit heat.

Trees don't clean the air, but they keep it considerably cooler.

Urban Forestry Commission is far better equipped to make decisions that take into account the environmentally significant impacts of our city and region as a whole.

Thank you, Susan.

Next, we have Jennifer.

Hi, Jennifer.

So I am pro-affordable housing increases, and I am pro-human health.

Countless studies support human health benefits of urban trees.

However, who filters the water for the southern resident killer whales?

King County says stormwater runoff is the number one source of Puget Sound pollution, and NOAA says pollution is one of the top three threats to the 74 remaining critically endangered southern residents.

NOAA's SRKW recovery plan guidelines ask highest population areas to reduce their polluted runoff, and I ask the city of Seattle to follow these guidelines by leaving space for big trees in this legislation.

They filter and reduce Size matters, especially when it comes to trees and ecosystem services.

One 30-inch Douglas fir tree manages 5,457 gallons of stormwater and rainwater.

One three-inch Douglas fir tree manages only 295 gallons in one year.

That's 5%.

Where are the stormwater benefits in Seattle's Canopy Cover Assessment?

What is good for the orcas is good for us.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Online, we have Sharon Dobie next and then Tanisha.

Just press star six, Sharon.

Sharon, can you hear us?

Just press star six.

We see you online.

Sharon, can you hear us?

Star six.

If not, we'll go on to the next speaker.

We'll come back to you.

Tanisha, just press star six.

Star six.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Hey everyone.

My name is Tanisha Sepulveda and I would like to thank you all for holding this meeting, as important as trees are, as everyone has already spoken on, we know that housing is an issue here in Seattle.

As a Highland Park resident and as a person with a disability, as a power wheelchair user, it is extremely important that we continue with our up zoning and that we do not decrease as far as meeting taller buildings built, especially with the staff flats, more multifamily housing.

since that is mainly where any type of accessible housing gets built.

We see a lot of single-family homes and townhomes going up, all of which are not built with any accessibility standards, and we do need more of this in our city.

As far as people with disabilities born with or whether you're someone trying to age in place, we can have trees and we can have housing.

Let's make this work.

Thank you.

Thank you, next we have Sharon.

Oh, Sharon, you're ready to go.

You are next, followed, and then Jesse Simpson is next.

Press star six again, Sharon.

There you go.

We can't hear you.

Can you hear us, Sharon?

My phone might be muted.

Your phone might be muted.

We'll come back to you.

Don't worry.

Jessie Simpson, you're up next.

Star six.

OK, can you hear me now?

Now we can.

Never mind, Jessie.

Yes, go ahead, Sharon.

OK, I'm Sharon Dobie, and I have a question, which is I really don't understand why the Urban Forestry Commission isn't in the speakers group today.

And going on from there, I think we absolutely have to redo the 2023 tree ordinance.

It has not protected Tier 2 or Tier 1 trees, as has been mentioned by many people today.

Secondly, we need to move tree management out of SDCI.

We know that they are biased, we know that they present misleading data, and we know that they have responded more to developers than they have to conservationists.

We need a new 2023 plan, we need a 2025 plan, and we need it really before the interim plan is put into effect.

We also need to amend the interim plan to reduce the setbacks, have setbacks go back to what we had before, not increase lot coverage until such time as we have redone the tree plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sharon.

Next, we have Jesse Simpson, followed by Bernice.

Just press star six, Jesse, and you're good to go.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Justin Simpson with the Housing Development Consortium.

Jail needs more homes and more trees.

We support smart policies to encourage tree preservation during redevelopment with an incentive and flexibility.

That can look like promoting stacked flats, offering height or floor area bonuses, or allowing reduced setbacks when it helps to move the bulk of a building around a lot to help save mature trees.

We can't let tree protection become a backdoor way to stop desperately needed housing.

City should instead scale up efforts to plant new trees in the right-of-way in parks.

That's where the city can directly lead to expand our tree canopy without restricting new housing.

Of course, we want to save every tree and build all the homes we need.

But when those goals come into conflict, we must choose housing because people need a place to live.

Let's be clear, building homes in Seattle is good for the environment.

lets people live close to jobs, reduces car pollution and carbon emissions, and protects forests and farmland from sprawl.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you, Jesse.

And our last three online speakers before we jump back on to when that completes our online is Bernice, Holden, and David.

So Bernice, you're up, star six, Holden, and then David.

Got it.

Hi, I'm Bernice Masson, Greenwood resident.

Seattle's proposed comprehensive plan is terrible for trees.

allowing our city to literally be paved over.

About 75% of Seattle's trees are on privately owned land.

If we allow 90 to 100% of every private lot to become hardscape, that doesn't leave many trees and will result in islands where temperatures can be 20 degrees hotter than other areas.

Given the very high cost of planting and maintaining new trees, $600 million over a 20-year period, and the very real loss of mature tree benefits, It makes the most sense to maintain existing trees by requiring developers to build densely with shared walls and stacked flats instead of spreading out housing within the lot.

Please pass legislation like Portland, Oregon, allowing at least 20% of current original lots trees within private property.

We need both housing and trees.

And thank you to the previous speakers and for allowing us.

Thank you.

Next we have Holden and followed by David Haynes.

Hi to council.

Thank you for being here today.

My name is Holden.

I'm addressing the comp plan as it relates to trees.

I love trees and I don't know anybody who doesn't.

While biking and walking around all over the city, I can't help but notice how much space we give to cars instead of trees.

The surface parking lots or people parking in their yards or intersections that can use some traffic calming measures.

Driving in Seattle is the largest contributor to climate change.

Why are we prioritizing cars over trees, especially given our city's commitment to tackling the climate crisis?

Folks want to save the trees, ride the bus, ride a bike.

That's built and encouraged since housing so folks can affordably live closer to where they need to go, making cars less necessary.

Since housing all across the city is not the enemy of the trees.

Car-dependent infrastructure is.

Don't over-regulate the process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have David Haynes.

It's repulsive when people drive through your neighborhood thinking they're so environmentally sophisticated that the tree on your lot is there for them to allow their toxic exhaust to be consumed by that tree.

If you want to start improving the neighborhoods, we need to start blocking and getting rid of the road.

Just dig it up and give it over to developers to build more housing and plant more trees.

Instead of always assuming that asphalt and concrete is the foundation of the car-centric neighborhoods.

People should not weaponize the tree ordinance, trying to ruin it for others who want 21st century first world quality housing.

Why is city council trying to restrict higher levels of housing?

Going higher levels does not kill off any more trees.

It builds way more homes without low level sprawl, providing better views and more enjoyable, livable amenities.

instead of more street-level inner-city noise.

Shame on mayor and council for arbitrary restrictions and fill-in-the-blank numbers and square finishes.

Some bureaucracy appeasing sellouts who conspired to deny others a better class of home and neighborhood without the lazy accommodation of the modern wheel.

Awesome.

Last speaker, Dave Mintz.

And that will conclude our online speakers.

Dave Mintz.

Just press star six, Dave.

Hi, I'm Dave Mintz, Madrona resident and active with quality of life and housing and homelessness issues in our city.

I support and reinforce that it is truly a false choice to assume that trees and density cannot coexist.

There are many proven planning concepts that counter this false choice.

And moreover, if our concern is the climate, nothing can be worse than to accommodate our growing population by avoiding density.

And of course, there is the existential crisis of housing and homelessness in our city, acknowledged by most as a critical issue in Seattle.

We simply must invest in the most efficacious strategies for addressing housing and homelessness, namely increasing the supply and density of housing.

The comprehensive plan represents a rare opportunity for us to address this dual existential crisis of housing and climate.

Thank you.

Now we'll go back to our in-person speakers.

We have Mary Lily Parker.

That's not like they could be one name, Mary Lily Parker, but Mary Lily Parker, you three are up.

I'm Mary Ellen Flanagan and I'm from Maple Leaf and I'm here to talk about trees.

Yesterday, I attended a workshop put on by the Maple Leaf Community Council.

They want to know where Maple Leaf stands on zoning.

They identified six areas of interest through previous workshops.

They were affordability, trees, walkability, parking and transit, small business, and aesthetics.

We were each asked to rank these areas.

Far and away, the top priority was trees.

I suspect you would get similar results in other parts of Seattle.

It's time to step up and listen to what our citizens value.

Revise the tree ordinance, particularly regarding contractor responsibilities.

Revisit property setbacks.

The proposed setbacks leave no room for saving trees or adding significant new trees.

Step up and take leadership.

Seattleites care about trees in this time of climate change.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

Next up we have Lily followed by Parker.

Thank you, and good afternoon, Chair Hollingsworth and committee members.

My name is Lily Hayward speaking on behalf of the over 2,500 members of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in support of the proposed One Seattle Comprehensive Plan.

Housing affordability continues to be a rising concern for many Seattleites.

The chamber's latest index poll, which was released just this week, shows that 61% of voters believe that growth and development has been positive for their area, and 66% believe that building more housing will help slow down Seattle.

and 74% believe that the city needs to streamline permitting to build new housing.

Creating more onerous requirements around tree protection would work against that priority and the city's housing needs.

Trees don't need to be pitted against housing.

Preserving and adding to Seattle's tree canopy is essential to our natural environment, health, and quality of life, and so is building more housing.

These goals are not mutually exclusive, and we support policies that incentivize tree production during development, such as adding additional floor area allowances or departures from parking requirements.

Creating more livable and walkable communities is fundamentally good for the environment, so that we ask that you.

Thank you, Lily.

Next up, we have Parker Dawson, followed by Alexander, Jasmine, and Robert.

Alexander, Jasmine, and Robert.

And just so my colleagues check in, we have 11 more speakers in person.

Parker.

Really quick, did somebody leave their glasses?

No?

Okay.

Sorry.

No worries.

I suppose I'll start just by endorsing your characterization.

It's wonderful to see all of you phenomenal public servants.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I wanted to touch on some statistics that SDCI puts out and publishes since 2023, keeping track of and monitoring the performance of the current tree ordinance For Tier 2 and Tier 1 trees, our oldest and largest trees in Seattle since 2023, without the presence of construction, 625 of those trees have been removed.

In their place have been planted 1,409 new trees.

When you look at tree activity with construction, those numbers are 180 removed with 3,137 new trees planted.

I'm left with two questions asking, first, are trees and housing mutually exclusive?

It really doesn't look like it.

And second, what the impact of these new tree plantings will be on our canopy in 15 years, where I think that we've got an exciting future ahead.

I hope that you keep these facts in mind and appreciate your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Parker.

Next we have Alexander, Jasmine, and Robert.

Hi, Alexander.

Welcome.

Hi, thank you so much.

I'm here to talk about equity and about the climate.

So my wife works for the Puget Sound Institute down in Tacoma, and they were doing some research recently which found that particulate runoff from vehicle tires is essentially incredibly toxic to salmon.

And in fact, there's very little we can do about this other than shortening commute times and making it easier for people to live near their daily errands and their daily jobs.

And for that reason, I think density is pretty much the only thing that we can do to protect our salmon habitats.

Building more trees doesn't help, or keeping the trees that we have doesn't help.

This is the only thing we can do.

But even then, I want to talk also about tree cover.

We all love trees here, and having trees in the King County metro areas are the highest priority of any residents.

But when we don't build dents, we end up cutting trees down in Issaquah, in Linwood, and areas outside of the city.

So why should those residents have to suffer from us not building?

Thank you, Alexander.

Next, we have Jasmine Smith, followed by Robert Reed.

And the next speakers will be Susan, David, and Megan.

Hi, thank you so much, council members.

My name's Jasmine Smith.

I'm with FutureWise and the Complete Communities Coalition.

The city's planted 22,000 trees in two years.

This is huge, and it needs to continue, but it needn't come at the expense of housing our neighbors.

With providing incentives and flexibility for retaining and adding trees without losing out on development capacity, with extending increased housing beyond just the transit arterials to the walk sheds around them.

By replacing parking with trees, there's real ways that we can keep adding trees without losing out on housing.

And if we don't, we don't just lose out on homes for our neighbors, which is the number one reason we should be caring about the comprehensive plan.

We lose out on trees outside of the urban growth boundary.

And to quote Harrison, Bill Tall, not Sproul.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jasmine.

Next, we have Robert, followed by Susan, David, Megan.

Hi, Robert.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you so much for letting me speak, and thank you so much for being here.

I just had a couple things.

Have any of you ever read this book, Escaping the Housing Trap, The Strong Town's Response to the Housing Crisis?

I highly recommend it.

It's not a very cheerful look.

It'll get you upset, but the last third of it is very inspirational, and it's very appropriate for this time.

The second thing I want to say is the 1.0 green factor score.

I keep hearing that it's impossible, that it can't work, and you can't build with that.

I live in a 1.0 green factor score landscape, and across the street, there's five other houses that all have 1.0 or greater green factor scores.

It can happen.

It can be done.

They're all over Seattle.

Thanks, you guys.

Thank you, Robert.

Hi, Susan.

Susan, David, Megan, Debbie.

Yes, thank you for hearing me.

I know there's a lot of competing voices here and a lot of competing needs, and there have been a lot of good comments that have been made.

I'm here for several reasons, and first is I'm an asthmatic, and I have to use corticosteroids twice a day.

I used to live north of University Village, six blocks, and if you know anything about that area, you know how dense it's become.

So I moved out about seven and a half years ago to District 5, and I want to thank Kathy Moore because she's been a terrific and responsive representative for us.

I had, my asthma kept increasing, but I know since I've moved out where there are so much, so many trees and so forth, my asthma has improved quite a bit.

And I guess I just breathe.

Thank you.

Thank you, Susan.

And you can send also your comments into council.

We appreciate you coming down.

David, Megan, and Debbie.

Good afternoon.

My name is Dave Gloger, and I am a Seattle resident.

In the presentation that is to be shown today, it is stated that 141 Tier 2 trees were removed on properties under construction.

What they won't tell you is that in 2024, over 2,000 trees were cut down in Seattle.

In year-to-date, trees are being cut down at such a rate that almost 4,900 trees, 4,900 trees, will be removed in 2025. This is based on data from the STCI Permit Tree Tracking Database, which I have right here, and I will submit into record.

How can we grow our tree canopy to 30% when we're cutting down almost 5,000 trees a year?

And now with the upzoning, there will be even less room.

The presentation today will tell stories about planting small trees, but does little to offset the impact of cutting...

but stop the carnage, fix the tree ordinance in the interim legislation.

Thank you, David.

Next we have Megan and Debbie.

I'm here to speak on behalf of the trees who no longer have a voice.

These are, I have a number of color copies.

These are the trees that were not in the way of housing.

They had nothing to do with density, with affordability.

They were perimeter trees.

They were removed for a parking spot, a driveway.

They were partially, in one case I'll talk about, even partially on the neighbor's lot.

We have to stop this.

We have to stop this.

Dave just mentioned if we kept at the rate we've gone so far this year.

Here are two trees that will be fallen within the week if something doesn't happen.

And you know about the Green Lake Sequoia.

You probably don't know about what we call the log cabin tree in North Seattle.

It's on the perimeter.

In fact, we think it might

I'm going to leave these for you to see.

Will you please promise me that you will each take a look at each and every one of these?

None of these were in the way of our housing.

None of them.

You can leave it in the box.

Thank you.

No, you're fine.

You're fine.

You're passionate.

You're good.

You're good.

No worries.

I've seen worse.

No, you're good.

You can just put it in the box.

You're good.

Thank you so much.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate you.

Is Debbie here?

Thank you, Megan.

Hi, my name is Debbie Moranville.

I am a homeowner in Maple Leaf and was a 40-year homeowner in Wallingford before that.

I have two daughters, neither of whom can afford to live here like most of the younger generation.

So I'm passionate about the need for more housing.

I'm also involved in My church's effort to support Tensity Three, so I see the problems in very human terms.

At the same time, I'm very appreciative of the heritage, the big trees.

And I know you all have a very challenging job ahead of you, trying to balance all of the different needs.

But I think you can do it, and you can do it with housing, affordability, and trees.

Thanks.

Thank you, Debbie.

Next we have Ruth, followed by Esmeralda, Chris, and then Susan.

And those are our last in-person speakers.

Ruth, Esmeralda, Chris, and Susan.

The price is right.

Come on up.

Ruth?

Is Ruth here?

She is.

Hello?

Followed by Esmeralda, Chris, and then Susan Whitehead.

Hi, thank you for letting me speak.

I'm here to talk about HB 1110. I too have attached the checklist from the Department of Commerce that shows the city does not have to change height, setbacks, lot coverage, FARs.

It's not required.

under the law.

The model ordinance is advisory, not mandatory.

I also want to note that the Eco Northwest study actually found that there was plenty of feasibly developable land to build middle family housing, but the demand wasn't there, that middle housing and adjacent jurisdictions would take away some of that demand.

We welcome middle family housing and know it is feasible to build and can be made to fit in our neighborhoods.

We are especially concerned about the front yard setbacks, which are important part of our urban greenways.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ruth.

We have Esmeralda followed by Chris and then Susan.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello, council members.

I'm Esmeralda.

I'm an intern with FutureWise, and I live in West Seattle.

We need trees and housing together.

Stack flats and more housing within a five minute walk of transit.

Also, we need more flexibility for builders to retain trees without reducing the amount of housing units.

If we don't make it possible for there to be more housing available, more of our neighbors will be displaced because we already cannot afford the housing prices and the prices will continue to increase.

Thank you, that's it.

Thank you, Esmeralda.

Chris and then Susan.

Hi, Chris.

Followed by Susan Whitehead.

Hello, council.

Thanks for having me.

Members of the committee, my name is Chris Ash.

I'm a longtime resident at Capitol Hill and I rent.

Our street on Summit Avenue East is a testament to the fact that you can be in one of the densest walkable neighborhoods and be completely surrounded by trees.

It's common to run into neighbors when I'm out walking the dog who are out there gardening on the weekends.

Sometimes, I don't know if Estad agree is good with it, but sometimes they fix up the roundabouts and make them look good as well.

It's really quite idyllic, especially when everything's in bloom this spring.

Reaching our 1220 housing targets and tree canopy are not mutually exclusive.

When we can count on more people moving into our neighborhoods, they share the cost of that infrastructure with everyone else.

And this is especially important at a time when there are fewer people living in each unit.

It makes it more possible for the neighborhood to have tree-lined sidewalks to those that currently don't have them, which only adds to everyone's property values.

We have an extraordinary opportunity here to just make our streets more walkable, make good on our environmental and health justice commitments.

Thank you, Chris.

Next, we have Suzanne.

Welcome.

This is our last public comment speaker.

Hi, I'm Susie Whitehead.

I live in Gasworks Park Marina.

I wasn't actually prepared to speak today, so I don't really have a linear argument, but you've heard most of them.

I'll just point out a few things.

who's spoken here on behalf of the trees.

There are so many other people who either haven't made it here or are totally unaware of how unprotected our trees are.

And when I mention it, they are horrified and don't believe it.

They're like, no, Seattle protect, they must protect the trees.

They don't believe it.

Two, I will say that for all these other trees that are planted, We're supposed to have a drought this summer.

How are these trees going to live?

Are they going to actually be maintained, watered?

That's unfeasible.

And for these big trees that have managed to survive in the challenging climate change environment, to cut them down when it's not necessary and sure.

But to cut them down when it's not necessary is just a crime.

And the trees have to be protected at the beginning of the building permit process.

It's too prohibitive.

Thank you, Susie.

Thank you all for doing a public comment period.

Before I give my comments about public comment, I'd like to invite our guests to the table, our presenters to the table so you can come.

Will the clerk read agenda item number one into the record?

And then I'll give my comments.

Agenda and one, one Seattle urban forestry for briefing and discussion.

Awesome, thank you.

And while our presenters are coming to the table, we heard trees are important, housing is important, walkable neighborhoods, the rent and costs have gone up significantly in Seattle, sustainability, better jobs, and a very passionate table bang is what we heard today.

I'm just playing, but we hear you.

We appreciate your comments and you all coming down and your messages and your emails as well.

and we're taking all this into consideration as we navigate this process.

So please presenters, please state your name for the record and then you can go right into your presentation.

You're okay, just press that on.

Brennan Staley, Office of Planning and Community Development.

Lauren Ergenson, Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Megan Newman, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Chris DeVias, Deputy Director of Policy in the Mayor's Office.

And I'm gonna get us kicked off today before we go into the formal presentation.

Just a few table setting comments.

Thank you council members for having us here today to talk about this very important issue.

And thanks to everyone from the public who showed up or commented online.

We appreciate your feedback and input as part of this process.

So I just wanna start out by saying that We're going to need to become a more climate resilient city in the years to come, especially in the face of the next four years of inaction we are going to be seeing at the federal level when it comes to addressing the climate emergency that we are in.

A more climate resilient city means that we need to build more houses and grow more trees.

So in the context of the comprehensive plan update that we've been talking to you all about today, we've been really focused on the housing part.

We appreciate the opportunity to also talk about the this vision of a climate resilient city.

So when it comes to trees, we have a couple of different general approaches that we can take.

One is regulating trees on private property, and the other is taking advantage of what we can do on public property and rights away.

So we're going to talk about both of those strategies.

We employ both at the city.

A lot of people have been dialed in on the private property piece, especially when construction is involved.

We wanted to make sure that as we focus in on that issue, that we're also taking the bigger picture context into consideration and all the things the city is doing to grow and manage its tree canopy.

And I think by virtue of all the different departments that we have, both at the table and departments that are not sitting at the table with us today, but also play a very key role.

That would include SDOT, SPU, and the Parks Department.

But honestly, we had to reduce our deck a bit because we would have been here for too long if we had talked about in depth on all of these things.

So today's presentation, bear with us, we're gonna start out by giving you a brief overview of what we're doing on the public side of things, and then we will do a deeper dive into the tree code, as well as some of the other ways in which trees factor into both the comprehensive plan and the legislation that we're gonna be sending down, including our permanent HB 1110 legislation that we will be transmitting um, in the next couple of weeks here.

So with that, I want to turn it over to staff and, um, you know, your preference, if you want to ask questions as we go or save them for later, we don't, we don't mind if you want to interject.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll ask throughout the presentation.

We'll probably hold for a couple of slides in and then I'll ask people if they have any questions.

So we'll go.

Thank you.

That's great.

Thanks.

So our presentation today, as Krista mentioned, will be an overview of Seattle's urban forests.

We'll talk about our citywide approach to managing our urban forests on public and private land.

We'll talk about the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan as it relates to managing our urban forests.

And we'll touch on some new and upcoming efforts, things we're leaning into to continue to grow our urban forests.

We'll start with our Seattle vision, our citywide vision.

And as we heard with many of the comments today, a healthy, thriving Seattle needs more housing and more trees, and we can achieve both.

Part of this vision is achieving our goal of at least 30% canopy coverage that is equitably distributed across the city so that all neighborhoods, starting with those most harmed by environmental inequities, have access to trees and the benefits they provide.

So this slide is focusing in on Seattle's urban forest.

So when we're talking about the urban forest, we're talking about all the trees and the city boundaries.

Our urban forest is critical public infrastructure and essential to the health and livability of Seattle neighborhoods.

Trees are key tools to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

They create shade to protect us from urban heat.

They clean our air and they clean our stormwater.

Trees are also part of Seattle's identity as the Emerald City.

They keep us rooted in our relationship to this place and to each other.

And trees are an investment that we can make that only increase their value over time.

Now, our urban forest covers both public and private land.

And as a city, our roles and responsibility for urban forest management.

It's supposed to be on a slide that pops up.

I guess that didn't work.

Yeah.

And as a city, our role in urban forest management varies across these land use types.

So we'll start with city property.

And those are places like our parks and our natural areas.

And these are where our urban forest is owned, managed, and maintained by the city.

Next, we'll go to private trees.

So those are like yard trees.

And there, the role of the city is to develop regulations and provide incentives to support residents and landholders in managing trees on their own property.

And then finally, we have the right-of-way, or our street trees.

And this property is owned and managed by the city, but those trees are maintained cooperatively with residents.

So if the city plants a street tree, the city will take care of that tree throughout its life.

And if the resident plants the tree, the resident will then be responsible for maintaining that tree across its life.

And in the city, we take an integrated approach to urban forest management.

So our urban forests are connected with the work of multiple departments.

There are seven core departments listed up here that work very closely together under the umbrella of Trees for Seattle.

Each department has roles and responsibilities specific to the mandates and services of that department.

For OSC, we work across departments to develop holistic strategies and cooperative approaches to be able to meet our vision and goals for managing our urban forests.

There are some slides, but that's okay.

Okay, so every five years, the city does a canopy assessment, and our last canopy assessment was conducted in 2021. And from that assessment, we know that most of Seattle canopy is located in the right-of-way, in parks, natural areas, and developed parks, and in neighborhood residential zones.

So a little less than a quarter of our tree canopy is in the right-of-way, 23%.

19% is in parks, natural areas and developed parks, and then 47% is in neighborhood residential zones.

And another important key factors that we think about when we're managing our urban forests is understanding the challenges that city trees face and knowing that the reasons for tree loss are often complex.

The impacts of climate change, infrastructure and development projects, competing budgets and maintenance costs, all pests and disease, which are issues that are exacerbated under climate change, these are all critical factors.

They're all critical factors that influence how our canopy changes over time.

So next in this presentation, we'll focus in on what we're doing as a city to grow our urban forests on both public and private land.

So we'll start with public land.

And here, again, we're the land owner, so we have responsibility for planting, managing, and maintaining these trees.

and our city land is a key opportunity area to grow our urban forest.

Parks and right-of-way alone make up 42% of Seattle's canopy as of our last canopy assessment, and everyone has access to the benefits of these trees.

Our right-of-way access connective tissue throughout the city, and 99% of residents live within walking distance to a park.

We can manage our public lands to provide all communities access to the urban forest and the benefits it provides.

And as a city, we grow thousands of trees every year.

In 2003 and 2004 alone, city departments planted around 4,700 trees, and the Parks-Green Seattle partnership planted around 18,000 trees in parks' natural areas.

And the mayor's 2003 One Seattle Tree Plan requires that for every tree, healthy, site-appropriate tree that's removed, three are planted on public land.

So we're planting trees and we're making sure that our urban forest is growing.

But planting trees is just the first step in the process.

Those trees need to be maintained and cared for, especially for those first five years.

Our executive order also requires five years of establishment care for all trees that are planted, which is watering and mulching those trees that are planted on our public land so that they can survive to become mature trees.

And then mature tree care is also absolutely critical for growing our urban forests.

We have phenomenal city staff that manage our urban forests, that manage for pests and disease, that do the pruning, that care for these trees so they may stay healthy and safe, and that also reduce conflicts with utilities and other infrastructure.

And we partner with residents to plant and care trees on our public spaces.

The cities and Seattle communities work together to grow Seattle's urban forest.

Oh.

Oh.

OK.

All right, thank you.

So also something else we do is we do coordination and planning for multiple benefits.

And so we're deepening our coordination and collaboration across and within departments to set holistic priorities and to optimize public spaces to meet multiple mandates, including tree canopy.

And the picture on the right is just one example of many.

It's a Seattle Department of Transportation project where they were able to create accessible sidewalk that's ADA compliant at the same time protecting and increasing the growing space for trees in the right of way.

And we partner with our residents to plan and care for trees in our public spaces.

And here's two examples.

And so the picture on the left is the right-of-way.

And so as I mentioned, the city manages right-of-way trees cooperatively with the public.

And so out of about quarter million street trees we have in Seattle, over 75% are planted and maintained by the public.

and then SDOT permits and provides guidance.

So we get right tree in the right place and that those trees are cared for over time.

Additionally, the Green Seattle Partnership, is a long-standing model of community-driven tree planting and forest stewardship in Seattle's parks natural areas.

It's a public-private partnership to care for Seattle's forested parklands, and there's volunteer opportunities that are community-led and community-centered almost every day of the year to grow trees in our parks natural areas.

So next, that sums up our focus on our work to grow our urban forest on public land.

And next we'll focus on private property.

Would you like to pause here?

This is a perfect time to pause and see if I want to recognize Council Member Moore has a question.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation so far.

Just some questions about that.

So...

you know, you're talking about the public land being on right-of-way and then also in natural spaces.

So how do you address the issue that right-of-way also presents its own issues around maintenance?

So, you know, we've received a lot of emails about Beacon Avenue in the Beacon Hill urban village and SDOT wanting to, or Parks...

is I start wanting to cut down all of those trees because they're dealing, you know, they're having problems with roots, they're having problems with drainage.

Like, this is, I appreciate the idea of wanting to put trees in right-of-way, but that too comes with issues.

So to say that that in and of itself is a solution, I think is a little bit problematic.

So how do you deal with...

the challenges of maintaining tree canopy and right-of-way.

The other question I have is, while you say everybody is 10 minutes walking distance from a park, not everybody's mobile.

And also I don't think that you can necessarily get the benefit of a tree by it being in a park.

I mean, sometimes the benefit of the tree is that you're standing outside your apartment building or your house when it's 90 degrees and you're getting some relief from the heat.

You have the benefit of looking out a window and seeing a tree that you might not see in a park.

So how do you address those particular issues?

I think the first question is about risk of trees in the right-of-way.

Is that right?

And whether that's a sustainable place to grow our canopy?

Yeah.

How really, truly sustainable is right-of-way?

Yeah.

I would say that during projects, all trees are stamped as like, Anyway, trees are protected during right-of-way projects, and just because every tree has a notice on it, most of those trees will never be removed.

They only have a notice in case it shows that they're a safety risk during the project, and they may need to be removed.

And so that's an important thing to understand when folks are talking about notices on trees in the right-of-way.

Also, like that picture we saw, there are a lot of opportunities through coordination and careful planning to, here, yeah, would you go, see right here, There was a need to build new sidewalk, ADA accessible sidewalk, and there was the ability to create adequate growing space to support these large trees that they can grow healthy over time.

And so it really is that type of holistic project planning and implementation that is one path that we can use to grow trees in the right of way.

There are other examples as well throughout the city where Estat has worked with communities and neighbors.

trees in the right-of-way.

There's a street called Dallas Avenue in South Park, and SDOT did incredible work working with the community.

They were really concerned about losing these big, beautiful maple trees along the roadway, and they needed to create accessible sidewalk.

So SDOT worked with the community, and they came up with a solution.

Few parking spaces and the neighbors agreed to do this because they prioritized trees and they were able to meet these multiple mandates.

So it requires working with community, it requires some careful and thoughtful planning, but it's entirely possible given this project and other projects I've seen on the ground.

So I do think we need to continue to look at the right of way as a key place to grow our urban forest canopy.

I think your other question was about parks and access to parks.

And we're really fortunate as a city that we do have parks within walking distance.

And it is important that access to those parks is accessible to all.

And I'll just, I'll agree with that and see the parks as a place where we can continue to grow our canopy as well and a really good place to have those big, beautiful, large trees.

I think the other part of your question, council member, though, has to do with parks in and of itself right away in and of itself are insufficient.

And we would also agree with that.

We are just simply trying to present a fuller picture of what comprises the urban forest here in Seattle, understanding that people really are, in this context, dialed in on the private property side.

But we just wanted to start off the conversation with talking about all the things that we need to do and be concerned about in order to have a healthy urban forest in Seattle.

Yeah, no, I absolutely appreciate that.

I absolutely support, you know, increasing right-of-way parks.

And I think we have studies that show a significant amount of tree losses that occurred in our parks and our natural areas.

So I just want to be sure, though, that we're not presenting that as the only issue, right?

And that there needs to be a real commitment.

And I think you talked about this program.

the green seattle partnership like just you know making sure uh because um that that their resources and the attention and the intent are dedicated to making right-of-way and natural areas truly a viable option and thinking about that as we're planning too so that we don't get into position of having to cut down all the trees that have been planted.

And also in working with private developers, you know, I went and toured a place where Estot told them they had to take down 14 trees.

Well, in retrospect, they didn't actually have to take down any of those trees.

So just being really thoughtful about trying to preserve trees in those conversations, getting all of the city departments.

I know you mentioned like Estot working with the neighbors on a particular project.

Like that ought to be front and center, and how do we creatively keep trees and increase trees?

That ought to be a priority for all departments in your circle here of everybody who has a responsibility.

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

I see Council Member Kettle followed by Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth, and welcome everyone at the table.

We only heard from half, Ms. Vallis and Ms. Ergenstein.

I might have missed it when you were on slide six.

It's a great graphic, but at the same time, we have so many pieces that are involved, and so many departments, and the idea that if everyone's in charge, no one's in charge.

the office sustainability environments at the top of this graphic.

Can you speak to OSC's role and his relationship with the other departments in terms of, are you driving these pieces?

Are you driving SDOT to do its pieces or parks, which I'll bring up in a separate question.

And of course not depicted here as the office of the mayor.

So I recognize that point too, but can you speak to that?

Yeah, and so in OSC, we consider ourselves collaborative leaders.

And so we work closely with all these departments, understanding their mandates and needs and knitting together an overall strategy and vision to grow our urban forest.

So that's really our role.

And we have a structure, a working structure across departments.

So we have what we call as an urban forestry core team.

And so we have urban forestry leads from all the departments that come together to coordinate, to implement our urban forest management plan.

And OSE convenes that work.

So that's just one thing that we do to knit together this overall vision and strategy for managing our urban forests.

Okay, and by the way, congratulations on being interim director, because you were saying that we do have Deputy Mayor Farrell, who at that additional level should be hopefully driving this point and reconciling any challenges.

And I bring this up because in community, I've often heard about the city arborists.

There's some here, some there, and that's like an example.

It's like, how is our arborist program doing, and what can we do to improve it?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I would love to give you a more detailed response to that.

I would say, too, that the way I honestly think about it is that we have urban forestry superheroes embedded in each one of our departments, people that know the work of the department inside and out and know trees inside and out.

And so that sort of integrated structure benefits our work in many ways.

That's how I think about it.

I also think it's fair to say, though, at least from where I sit, it's an ongoing conversation about how to better coordinate and integrate this work.

And so we're constantly, I think, asking ourselves, how can we make sure that we're approaching this work both effectively and efficiently?

Yeah.

By the way, that's really important because you can take the tree ordinance, for example.

Trust me, I have a lot of people who I know, respect, very smart, who are 110% the tree ordinance, including my colleague at the other end of this.

But I also have a lot of people I know and super smart and respect who are like, it's the worst thing ever.

And it's like, we need this kind of driven to get the data to basically lay out the...

ground truth, if you will.

So yes, so that kind of goes to what Ms. Vallis was saying.

My next question quickly on slide five.

One of the things I say on a regular basis, and granted I'm the District 7 guy, and so I'm downtown, and then we have a lot of trees in the northern part of the district, but when I'm downtown on the waterfront, it really strikes me that the thing that makes Seattle different, in my mind, which makes it attractive to come back or to visit, it's the uniqueness of it, is the evergreen trees.

And so when I see slide five with all these deciduous trees, you mentioned, somebody had mentioned Emerald City.

If we're going to be the Emerald City, Emerald City means 365, and that is what makes us unique.

Can you speak to the prioritization of trees and the native trees and particularly the evergreens?

Yeah.

We also really like large evergreen trees, and we want to plant them and grow them as much as we can, because they do provide great benefit.

This picture is not a Seattle-focused picture.

It's a picture I borrowed from colleagues on the East Coast.

And so this isn't meant to represent our vision for Seattle, just to be clear.

And, you know, native trees have a very important role in our forest.

And when we're planting trees in our natural areas and parks, it's almost all native trees, right?

But we also make sure we have a diversity of tree species in a city and that we have climate resilient species.

And so those are the factors that we think about.

We think about where we wanna make sure we're focusing primarily on native trees that's in our parks and throughout the city, and also places where we really want to make sure that we have species diversity and climate resilience.

Because, again, I mentioned pests and disease.

Pests and disease are not a little issue in cities.

They're a big issue for urban forest health and survivorship in cities.

And when you have a diversity of species, you're more resilient to pests and disease.

So those are some of the factors that we think about when we're doing tree species selection.

By the way, when I speak to that, I speak to the evergreens.

Native, as you're pointing out, and I recognize with climate change, maybe we have to go to some pines from Oregon or something.

But the other thing is the native community.

I just wanted to say that, too, that we should be embracing our native community heritage in addition to the evergreen trees.

One slide on slide eight, costs of tree establishment and maintenance.

This is key, and this kind of highlights the first question.

Like in Queen Anne, Queen Anne Boulevard Park is like a, an asset not just for Queen Anne or District 7, but the entire city.

And it's at that kind of cycle where there's replantings.

And they definitely need that three-year Head Start watering plan and to be an effective watering plan.

But that is actually overseen by parks as opposed to SDOT, even though it's right away trees.

So that's an example.

of that and again, OSC, what your role in terms of ensuring that we make all these plantings, there's a huge planting plan about two or three years ago, I forget exactly, but if we do all that and then at year five they're all dead, that's a missed opportunity.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I can say that there is some right-of-way that's managed by Parks if it's on Parks land.

And Parks has done an incredible job in the last few years in building out their tree planting staff and committing to that five years watering just in the last few years of all planted trees.

So that's something that Parks is on top of and taking care of.

And that's fairly new as of the last few years that that's standardized across their plantings.

Good, I know they're listening and watching.

Chair, sorry, last question, or actually statement, I guess.

You're not sorry.

Slide 10, city land and so forth.

Key, and I mentioned my district and then the southern part, we need to have this community access.

You know one community that doesn't have any access?

Belltown.

Belltown.

Uh, so I'm going to take the opportunity to say, you know, greater town needs to have this access, but especially bell town.

So we need to press, this is partly for parks on the portal park, as I like to call it, um, until we get a better name.

Anyways, I just want to put that plug, and I'm sure that OSCE and Deputy Mayor Farrell are well aware of Portal Park and are going to be championing it within this ecosystem and twisting Ms. Velez's arm and the rest of the mayor's team to make sure that it happens in a smooth, quick fashion.

Thank you, Council Member.

No need to respond.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for this initial portion of this presentation.

Really appreciate it.

I was remarking on the side a moment ago with my distinguished colleague from Ballard, and we're apparently both big data geeks.

Data reflected there on slide seven that highlights the 27% of the city is in the right of way.

And then 23% of the total city canopy or tree canopy in the city is in the right of way as well.

So, and as chair of our city's transportation committee, this is a challenge that I've been thinking about as well.

And I appreciate council member Moore for raising it.

I echo the sentiment that she expressed with respect to that.

It is, on the one hand, I definitely recognize that the right of way is an appropriate place to plant trees and build our tree canopy.

On the other hand, I do think we need to be thoughtful about that for two reasons.

Councilmember Moore did a great job of accurately describing the first reason.

And that is there are associated costs, non-trivial costs, associated with maintaining these tree canopies in our public right-of-ways.

If I'm recalling correctly from back last fall on the budget, I think I saw trends, which makes sense year over year are the budget summary levels or BCLs or whatever they're called.

There's a line item in SDOT's budget specifically for this, as you know.

I think year over year, we've seen that grow and grow and we're only gonna continue to see it grow.

What concerns me or what worries me is the prospect of transforming what is principally an engineering organization, SDOT, full of a bunch of smart traffic engineers, transforming them into an arborist organization.

I love arborists out there, great.

And similarly, getting to a point, getting to a state where our ongoing annual maintenance costs for maintaining tree canopy alone and trebbery alone eclipses our ability, what we spend to repair basic potholes.

So that kind of thinking some of this through does concern me.

And then the second dimension is thinking all this through even further, When you plant trees in a specific location, it necessarily and understandably locks you in to a specific design for a long time.

And that has the effect of doing two things.

It limits our freedom to operate and removes any sense of flexibility or agility that we need as a city because design and safety standards and engineering standards and best practices of today aren't what they looked like 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

Not gonna look the same 10 years from now, 20 years, and so when you plant a lot of trees and rights away and fully leverage that space, Again, it limits our flexibility to accommodate new modes of travel, new traffic patterns, make the most beneficial use of our roads that works for all.

And so these two competing concerns are things that I've been thinking about.

So thank you again, Council Member Moore for raising them.

Again, I do recognize it is an appropriate and needed place to grow trees, but we need to be thoughtful also for those two reasons that I mentioned.

But my question is, How do you, and thank you for the anecdote about kind of how SDOT has previously led engagement and community outreach in this effort with respect to right-of-ways.

Can you tell me more about how your office and it's not necessarily, this is the public right-of-way we're talking about, so SDOT is probably the lead department.

But how does your office work with SDOT to examine new tree canopy growth opportunities in right-of-ways?

And how do you balance those disparate needs?

Yeah, I can answer that question speaking a little bit to OSC's work and role in the right-of-way.

So SDOT, you're absolutely right, is the lead in right-of-way management.

Also, a number of different departmental mandates and needs intersect in the right-of-way.

Our solid waste goes in the right-of-way, our utility infrastructure sometimes goes in the right-of-way, electrification infrastructure, bike parking, the right-of-way holds many different and sometimes conflicting mandates and needs.

And so OSC's role in that work, and it's something that we're just stepping into, is to coordinate departments.

We had a recent workshop where we brought departments together to better understand those various mandates and needs and to be able to come to a more holistic vision and considerate planning moving forward.

So that's one of the roles that OSC plays in that space.

Thank you, can you just talk just a little bit more about your specific roles and responsibilities pertaining to this work?

OSEs.

Relative to SDOTs in this context?

Yeah, SDOT is the lead, you know, and so we play a role in facilitating interdepartmental agreements and conversations when there's multiple mandates and needs intersecting in the right-of-way.

So we play that, again, that collaborative leadership role to bring in other departments.

We had a really great workshop that started with understanding all the different mandates and needs in the right of way, mapping it out.

We actually had an artist come and map out so we could all see together what all those conflicting mandates and needs look like and then begin to come up with more holistic solutions.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you.

Appreciate your responses, the conversation so far and and highlighting the importance of balancing, effectively balancing trade-offs.

It's really important.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And council member Solomon, um, we're at slide nine of 32. I'm asked for you to hold that question for the next piece, if that's okay.

Sure.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

We'll do the next segment.

Thank you.

And then council member Solomon, you'll be the first one we call him.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, thank you very much.

And so now moving forward with the presentation, we're gonna focus on the city's roles and responsibility in growing our urban forest on private property.

And as I mentioned, there we have the role of developing regulations and incentives to support residents and private landowners in planting and growing trees on their property.

And here I'm gonna, oh, next slide please.

And so here, as stated, we can grow our canopy and address our housing crisis by preserving existing trees where possible and developing regulations and incentives to support tree planting and replacement of trees where preservation is not possible.

And this picture is just one example.

It's the high point redevelopment, just to illustrate an example of where there's increased density and increased trees.

And I'll hand the next slides over to my colleague, Megan, from SDCI.

Thank you, Lauren.

SDCI connects to our city's urban canopy through our regulatory framework.

And what I mean by that is the codes that apply to trees on private property.

There are three main branches of the regulatory framework, the tree code just being one part of it, and it is an important part.

So the first branch of the regulatory framework is the tree protection and replacement component.

The tree code as well as our environmentally critical areas code are part of that and prohibit removal of trees on private property unless removal is explicitly stated in the code and allowed.

In those limited instances when removal is allowed, replacement or payment in lieu of planting is typically required.

The next branch of our framework are the zoning provisions of our land use code, and those standards require trees to be planted or preserved when certain construction activities are happening on a lot.

We have tree tracking data from July of 2023 through February of this year that shows over 2,400 trees were planted on private property on lots that were undergoing redevelopment.

The third branch of our framework is around compliance.

SDCI is responsible for responding to calls related to possible code violations, including illegal tree cutting, and enforcing our ability to collect significant penalties for illegal tree work.

We also regulate who can do commercial tree work on private property through the Tree Service Provider Registry.

And we publish a map of tree public notices, which has provided much visibility to the community of tree activity around the city.

Since the tree protection ordinance went into effect, STCI has collected almost $1 million in penalties for violations of the tree and ECA codes.

So let's take a quick minute to look at the journey that we've traveled to get to our current regulatory framework.

The tree protection ordinance was 20 years in the making.

In 2009, the city put interim tree regulations in place.

Since then, the process has experienced many starts and stops, including at least two drafts that were considered by council and never came to fruition, several appeals both by home builders and tree advocates, and finally in 2023, the council adopted our current regulations.

That long process resulted in several changes to the regulatory framework, and I will highlight a few that are up here on the slide for you today.

From a protection and replacement standpoint, smaller trees are now protected and must be replaced if removed.

Payment of lieu of planting is now an option to mitigate tree removal.

There are more predictable standards for tree retention in low-rise zone.

From a tree planting perspective, street trees are now required in NR zones where they were not prior to adoption of the Tree Protection The framework penalties were increased by 50% for illegal removal of trees.

I hope that these highlights show the hard work and churn that went into the 2023 Tree Protection Ordinance, recognizing that that was adopted not too long ago, less than two years ago.

Okay, at this time I'd like to provide a deeper dive into the regulations in the tree code.

which as I mentioned before is a main component of the protection and replacement part of our regulatory framework.

With the exception of locations within some ECAs, the tree code applies broadly to private property in Seattle For ease of talking about regulated trees, and there's a little key at the top of this slide, the code groups trees generally by size into four tiers.

Tier one being heritage trees, tier two being trees 24 inches or greater, and some smaller trees as designated by rule, as well as tree groves.

Tier three trees are between 12 and 24 inches, and tier four are the smallest group of regulated trees between six and 12 inches.

So let's remember that our tree code protects trees on private property unless the code allows for removal.

So I'm gonna go into a little more detail about the removal allowances in the code.

There are certain trees that are simply exempt from the protection requirements in the code.

These are trees that don't really serve our urban canopy due to disease, infestation, hazardous conditions.

Trees that fall into this exempt category are able to be removed and replaced with review by SDCI, and this can occur either with or without a construction permit.

Then there are trees that the code allows to be removed in certain circumstances.

With construction, tier three and tier four trees, remember those are the two smaller buckets of trees regulated by our ordinance.

Those trees may be removed or retained at the applicant's option during construction.

Removal of tier two trees in NR and LR zones must meet criteria that is identified in the code.

The criteria differ between the zones, but generally relate to how a basic tree protection area around the tree intersects with the development capacity on the lot.

Lastly, when there are no active construction permits, the code allows property owners to remove a limited number of smaller trees in a defined period of time.

The 2023 tree protection ordinance significantly reduced the number and size of trees that could be removed without SDCI review, resulting in 1,000 more regulated trees on private property.

And of course, when the code allows removal, replacement is typically required.

The code standards for replacement trees is to achieve a canopy at maturity that is roughly proportionate to the existing canopy of the tree that is allowed for removal.

The new trees must be native, climate resistance, and also come with a maintenance plan to ensure survival.

An applicant can choose to mitigate removal of trees in one of three ways.

They can choose to plant on the same site that the tree is removed.

They can plant on another lot.

Or they can choose to pay in lieu of planting, which funds planting on the public right of way or in parks property.

The code also offers flexibility to protect trees, and these show up as modifications to zoning standards, such as allowing structures to be closer to a front or rear property line in NR zones, which could make room for preservation of a tree and a development proposal.

Or in LR zones, the applicant has the option to utilize reduced setbacks or flexibility in the size and shape of structures in order to protect a tier two tree that would otherwise be allowed for removal.

It's worth noting that of the many, many, many trees in Seattle, only 141 of the larger trees in the tier two tree category have been removed with construction since the tree production ordinance went into effect.

Looking at that same timeframe that I mentioned earlier, July 2023 through February of this year, approximately 660 tier two trees were retained during the construction process.

and they were retained either because they were far and away from construction, because an applicant chose to retain, or because the code required it.

Overall, we are seeing more trees planted than removed across the board, and in that same time frame, since the tree production ordinance went into effect, almost 10,000 housing units have been approved for construction.

Let's shift to the tree planting branch of our regulatory framework and take a look at our land use code.

When redevelopment occurs in NR zones, the code requires a certain number of new trees or preservation of existing trees on a lot.

In other zones, we have a green factor requirement that require a certain amount of landscaping on a lot after construction.

Tree planting and preservation are two very attractive options to satisfy these requirements.

Additionally, redevelopment now requires new street trees to be planted in all zones across the city.

These new or preserved trees contribute to growing our urban canopy, especially on sites where there are no existing trees.

And of course, if an applicant chooses to preserve a tree to satisfy these zoning requirements, there are requirements in our tree protection code on protection measures that would have to be taken during construction to ensure viability of the tree for the long term.

All of these regulations are reviewed for compliance through our permitting process.

SDCI's hardworking and dedicated staff confirm that materials submitted by an applicant meet our code requirements.

Each site and proposal is unique, and SDCI staff is available to coach applicants on code requirements, including the tree code, throughout the development process.

We provide coaching through our counter services, pre-submittal conferences, we will meet people on site, After a permit application is made, we begin our permit review process and ultimately grant approval of the permit, including any tree removals that are allowed by code and protection measures that need to be put in place.

Finally, after issuance of the permit, the applicant, if there is tree work associated with their project, must create a tree public notice, and then we shift into inspections and finally project completion.

So balancing housing with trees on private land is important, but we cannot forget that this is only one small part towards reaching our canopy goals.

I'll hand this back over to Lauren to tell you more about other efforts by the city on private property.

Okay, so I mentioned that our other strategy for private property is to provide incentives and support so private residents and landholders can plant and manage trees on their own property.

And one key example of that is the Seattle Public Utilities Trees for Neighborhoods program.

Trees for Neighborhoods works with residents to plant 1,000 trees per year.

on private property including the right-of-way and parcels.

The team provides free trees, watering bags, mulch, technical assistance, street tree permitting, summer watering reminders, and tree care workshops all for participants.

They offer planting assistance if residents are not able to plant the trees on their own.

They oversee all utility locating for street trees, planted through the program, and work closely with SDOT to issue street tree permits at no cost to participants.

They've been tracking the survivorship of trees planted through Trees for Neighborhoods over 10 years, so from 2014 to 2024, and those trees have had an 88% survivorship, which is really good for city trees, and any tree that doesn't survive is replaced.

So that's just one example of the types of incentives and support we provide.

Now we're gonna move on to the next topic.

So would you like to pause?

For sure.

I'd like to recognize council member Solomon.

I know he had a question and then followed by council member Moore.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The question, there's a couple of questions I have.

I think you got to one of my primary questions on slide 19. I've heard a lot of talk about tier one, tier two trees.

And I just wanted to educate myself.

It's like, what does that mean?

I don't know what you're talking about.

So now that I see when you're talking about the different types of diameters for the trees, I'm thinking about what I have in my yard and how many of them.

I know I've got a tier one because it takes up half the block in terms of its canopy.

So just having that was helpful.

So that takes care of one thing.

Question about the arborist, city arborist.

Where do they sit?

Or is there more than one?

What was the question exactly?

Arborists throughout the city.

Oh, where do the arborists sit?

Yes.

Parks has arborists.

SDOT has arborists.

SDCI has arborists.

Wow, okay.

We have tree staff, but no arborists.

Gosh.

Oh, Seattle City Light has arborists.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I think that's leading to my confusion because I'm thinking about different projects I've worked on in the past.

where we actually needed trees in the right-of-way to have some maintenance, but really wasn't sure, okay, who do we talk to?

Who owns those particular trees?

Again, this is more for definitely my education, my information, maybe some of the folks who may be watching.

It seems we have arborists spread out throughout many different departments.

And it's going to take some navigating to figure out who to go to for a particular issue.

And that also can be a barrier for folks.

Yeah, I hear that.

I'm sure I mentioned that SDOT has arborists, too, just in case.

So I would also say that the Council allocated some funding for urban forestry to do a communication strategy, and that's front and center.

That exact thing that you're talking about, Council Member Solomon, is helping the public understand what departments do and who to contact is front and center in the communication strategy that we've been working on across departments.

We also have a Trees for Seattle central line.

And if folks reach out to the Trees for, I mentioned that's the umbrella for all of our city departments.

So if folks reach out to Trees for Seattle, that team will help them get routed to the right place.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

A couple other ones.

And again, this gets to the issue of trees and the right-of-way.

I know in my personal experience when I had a tree that the root system basically compromised my drainage system.

It was my responsibility to take care of that damage to my home.

It was also my responsibility to take care of the tree.

And I thought that that was kind of unfair because I didn't plant the tree, yet I became responsible for removing the tree that caused damage to my property.

And I believe hearing from you all or a different presentation that there is a fund that can help with that remediation.

At the same time, I'm getting a lot of concern from my Beacon Hill neighbors who are looking at the tree removal between McClellan and Spokane because the tree roots have really gummed up the sidewalk and made it ADA impassable.

And the responses I've seen is that From what I recall, those trees will be removed and three other trees will be replaced with a root system in a location that's not going to impede sidewalks.

So just a couple of things there.

Since this is a second time Beacon has come up, I thought I should address that my understanding is that at least half of those trees will no longer be subject to removal and they are continuing to evaluate whether they can retain a further number of trees related to that project.

OK, great.

Thank you for that.

And this is more of a technical question.

As we're talking about setbacks and the amount of area that's going to be paved, it seems to me that one of the ways that we can preserve trees is by actually increasing the FAR.

Not necessarily the lot area coverage, but the FAR allowed per parcel to go up as opposed to spread out.

Your opinions on that?

Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on the context and the zone.

Obviously, in certain zones, it's harder to go up, and in other zones, it's very easy, especially in our neighborhood commercial zones, some of the larger low-rise zones, that adding a story is very easy.

In neighborhood residential zones, we definitely are going to be talking a lot with the permanent legislation about some opportunities to get more stacked flats.

But we've also kind of encountered a lot of people who are also concerned about adding a forest story, for example, in neighborhood residential zones.

I think it's a great idea that we can talk more about, but there can be trade-offs depending on what the context is.

Again, because, you know, hearing the commentary today, I'm also of the mind that it's not a question of housing or trees.

It doesn't have to be an either-or.

It can be a both-and.

And it seems that one of the ways you make it a both-and is to go higher.

So anyway, that's all the comments I have for now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon.

I see Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for this.

I know we're at 4.06 and I just have a slew of questions, so I'm going to be respectful of my colleagues' time and really just make my points.

So I guess just overall, the first point is that I think, frankly, this has been portrayed as a zero-sum game, and it's not a zero-sum game.

And it isn't, the people who are sitting out here who are arguing for trees are not here because they're trying to weaponize the tree ordinance to prevent development from happening.

You know, maybe one or two.

But overall, that's not what's going on.

These are people who recognize that trees are part of our climate infrastructure, and they are essential to the health and well-being of everybody that lives in this city.

And it is disingenuous, I think, to talk about, you know, if we don't build density, then we're going to sprawl.

We are constrained by the Growth Management Act.

If we don't have density in Seattle, we're not going to sprawl out because we're constrained by state law.

So that's a red herring, frankly.

But...

And I want to just point out that I think the issue, and I also think that people recognize when they've been sold a bill of goods, and I think when the sly that we get, and thank you for the sly, but when it concludes that the overall increase in trees suggests that the regulatory framework is working to contribute to the city's urban canopy, A disingenuous representation about what's happening with the tree ordinance.

And I think that, and I've said this before, that the tree ordinance can be divided into sections.

There's the part about what we're doing on the public lands and I think What we've heard here today demonstrates that there's a lot of good work being done there and a lot of preservation happening and an intent to do so.

We've also raised some of the issues about, you know, how does that work with the sort of tension between right-of-way and the transportation and being able to design.

And also, I'll just point out, planting trees is expensive.

I spent a lot of money at High Point on trees.

I think it's $3,000 a tree.

So there's the public piece.

Then there's the piece about private development.

And that's where I think we need to be honest about where the tree ordinance is not working.

And one of the things that I have really appreciated about this council is that we came to office saying things are not working in this city, and for too long we have not had the courage to acknowledge what's not working, particularly in the public safety arena, and we all agreed we were going to acknowledge what's not working and fix it, and to not view that as a weakness.

But for some reason, we have not yet gotten to that point on trees.

And we have to be able to acknowledge where the tree ordinance is not meeting its goal to increase tree canopy and to be honest about that and to put on our...

All of us are very smart.

We have tremendous resources.

We've heard great suggestions here today.

This can be done, but the first step to fixing it is to acknowledge that it's broken.

And so far, I haven't heard that from the executive.

And I would really appreciate hearing that rather than being told it's all fine.

Everybody who comes here every time we talk about trees are just a bunch of nimbies.

The point made about the giant sequoia is that it was not taken down to build affordable housing.

In fact, most of the trees that have been contested by Tree Action and other tree activists were not taken down to build affordable housing.

They were taken down to build driveways for single-family houses.

So this narrative that we're, you know, the people who are, that we keep these trees as suddenly we're going to have affordable housing is incorrect.

And I challenged the department, SDCI, to show me how many of these permits were for affordable housing.

I submit to you that none of them were affordable housing.

So again, we have to pierce these false narratives that are preventing us from actually moving forward.

So one of the things that's wrong with the ordinance is that it doesn't allow SDCI to mandate site alteration when it's possible to design around the tree.

Giant Sequoia is one example.

There are a handful of examples, I can't list them all right now, where it was possible to design around the tree, still get what you wanted and keep the tree.

Was gonna cost a little bit more money, absolutely.

But SDCI needs to have the authority to mandate that.

That is a simple way to preserve a tree.

And it's a win-win.

You still get to have your 5,000, 6,000-foot square single-family home and your driveway in the tree.

So that's an important fix that we need to bring to this.

We also need to be clear that when we say, oh, I think the representation was made here that, oh, we've planted more trees than we've removed.

Well, yeah, when you look at it, it says it's a 3 to 1 ratio, but that does not address the issue of comparability.

is not comparable.

Replacing a giant sequoia that will live for 200 years and provide, I mean, you may have the same canopy range, you do not have the same volume, you don't have the same height, you don't have the same kind of protection.

Replacing that with two shore pines that will live for 50 years is not comparable.

So it's disingenuous to say that the statute already requires us to replace with comparable trees.

That is not true.

And so we have to fix the comparability piece and truly replace with comparable trees.

We also need to incentivize transplanting trees.

We looked at trying to move the giant sequoia.

Unfortunately, that dialogue began way too late.

It's a big tree.

It's possible.

They did it in Boise.

They moved a much bigger tree in Boise.

It's a heritage tree.

It's now a community amenity.

It's part of the fabric of that community.

We need to be doing more.

We need to incentivize moving, transplanting trees and to create a fund to do that.

We also, when you talk about, oh, we have removals with construction equals removals without.

Well, again, that's a disingenuous comparison because The non-construction removal is due to hazards and diseases versus a construction removal, which is allowed because it interferes with the construction.

The other thing that we haven't talked about is tree protection area.

That's now the standard.

That's changed from what we had before, which I believe was a drip line.

You can now remove a tree if it gets anywhere it has any kind of effect on the tree protection area.

That's part of why we are losing so many trees because the tree protection area well-intentioned or not, has been defined in such a broad diameter that really any kind of development is gonna interfere with that.

And so we have to change the way we define that and perhaps go back to the original definition, the drip line, or look at some other definition that's not gonna just open up the doors.

The other thing is, tree removal is necessary for construction of new structures.

Vehicle and pedestrian access.

I read vehicle access as a driveway.

Really?

We're going to take it down for a driveway?

Again, that gets back to my point about we need to be able to mandate redesign in that situation.

We also need to look at the way we are classifying the data that's collected.

You know, they talk about the number of trees being protected.

Well, I would direct my colleagues and everybody else to go look at the KUOW article based on data that was collected by many of the tree activists to show that trees were being listed as protected when they were absolutely under no threat of being removed.

Trees, projects, 100 trees, projects which have zero ground disturbance, i.e. kitchen remodels, those trees were listed as protected to inflate the number that SDCI is presenting of protected trees.

Trees that had already been removed or proved to be removed were listed as protected.

Let's see, any tree remaining on a site with major ground disturbance was also listed.

So, I mean, the way the SDCI is collecting and reporting data needs to be evaluated, so it's accurate.

We also need to make sure that the general public has ability to get involved earlier on.

So often what's happening is that the permit has already been issued before people become aware of what's happening.

And so once a permit is issued, there's no way for any changes to be made unless the developer and the homeowner are willing to do that.

And to date, that has not been the case.

So, and then this thing about, well, we're protecting more trees on private property.

In fact, we've made it a lot harder for property owners to remove trees, and perhaps that's a good thing.

I'm not taking a position on that, but we've made it.

property than we have for developers and I don't think that that's a fair balance and we need to look at that as well.

It shouldn't be that difficult.

It shouldn't be more onerous for a homeowner than it is for a developer who's going to make a significant profit and not necessarily be building affordable housing from which we can all benefit.

This would be really my main points is that there are You know, and certainly I support looking at FAR increases.

There are ways to do that.

I think that the proposal that's come down from the mayor's office doesn't necessarily go far enough with FAR.

And there's going to have to be, obviously, a tradeoff between height and trees.

I think we've heard many of the tree advocates talk about the need for stacked flats, and that's something that we can be looking at as well.

But we have to go back and address the pieces that are not working because it does a disservice to us as elected representatives to engage in this willful ignorance or selling of things that are not true.

Let's get it right because we can get it right.

We absolutely can get it right and it will not take a whole lot of, it doesn't, we don't need to be enemies here.

Let's just figure out a creative way to do this because we can truly have housing, affordable housing and all housing and trees which benefit everybody and we need to be bringing more trees to the south end Maybe our transplant program would be helpful because we have phenomenal heat islands down there.

Anyway, those are my comments.

I appreciate the time.

Thank you, Count.

Just jazz hands, please.

Sorry, I don't wanna, but thank you.

I don't know if you all have a response or you just wanna, okay.

So we can manage time properly.

If we could just jump to, I'm gonna say jump to, because I was reading through the presentation, but I think the most important piece is slide 27 and 28, so we could talk about the key policy goals that are in the comprehensive plan and the proposed changes in the zoning.

I think it'd be great.

Thank you.

I'm going to be previewing a lot of the conversation and topics we'll be talking about when counsel takes up the comp plan and the permanent legislation to comply with HB 1110. Obviously, the interim legislation that you have in front of them is more limited in scope.

It's focused on those things that are in the model ordinance or otherwise required by state law.

But we're going to have a lot more opportunities to think broadly as part of the permanent legislation.

So the comprehensive plan itself makes a lot of changes to better address the kind of approach to urban forestry that we have as a city.

We have a new section on urban forestry and trees.

We have a lot of new policies that take the work we've been doing across departments on climate resilience, heel island effects, et cetera, and puts that in the plan.

The plan has some key policies on trees.

One is a goal that comes directly from the urban forest management plan, that Seattle has a healthy urban forest with a tree canopy, which maximizes the environmental, economic, social, and climate-related benefits of trees.

It also codifies the tree canopy goal, which is in the urban forest management plan and in the current plan today, which is that we aim to achieve an overall tree canopy of 30% by 2037. It has a new policy on regularly updating our tree canopy analysis to monitor changes and trends so we can practically respond to things that are happening.

coordination, education, maintenance, regulations, incentives, and pests.

And it updates and has new policies and a lot of the elements as well, land use, transportation, and parks.

So there's a lot in there that really kind of takes the work we've been doing as a city across departments and kind of puts that together to help people understand our overall approach.

I also want to talk about some of the changes that we're going to be proposing as part of the permanent legislation.

There's a number of things we're doing to try and increase the planting and space on lots for trees.

One is that we'll be proposing to update our tree planting requirements in neighborhood residential areas.

Those are the only set of regulations that we didn't just update in 2023. We're looking for moving from a system that focuses on the size of trees at planting.

to a system that focuses on the size of trees at maturity.

And that really was the idea of having something that focuses on the eventual canopy cover, rather than what happens to be getting put in place at the time of construction, just in terms of tree size.

We're also putting in place a new amenity area requirement in neighborhood residential zones.

Obviously, there's going to be more density, but to help kind of offset and mitigate that, this new amenity area would allow for space for individuals as well as the residents, that is, as well as planting and vegetation.

There are incentives for stacked flats.

Stacked flats provide an opportunity for a much more compact form of development, which can mean that a lot more of the lot is preserved for green space.

And then lastly, adding some new waivers specifically to parking, allowing that to be reduced or waived in order to preserve a tier two or three tree, which I think kind of gets to some of the issues we've been talking about as well.

Very important to note that we are not proposing to, as part of this, to change the tree protection code, the environment-like critical areas code, or the street tree requirements.

Thankfully, that we have a kind of robust, comprehensive system that we recently updated in 2023. So our proposal is not to kind of change those, but again, to do a lot with the things that weren't updated in 2023.

I just want to stress these are all things that are included in our permanent HB 1110 legislation.

We provided you with a stripped down version of interim legislation for HB 1110 with the hope that that would only be in place for a very short time before being uh, replaced with the permanent legislation.

So, um, just want to be clear that these are things that you're, are going to show up in the permanent legislation that we will be transmitting in the next couple of weeks.

Uh, the next slides are on work that we're doing.

So we can pause for questions if you want.

Great.

Yeah, let's pause there.

I think these are probably the most two important sides.

Um, I want to recognize council member rank.

I know you had your hand up and then you threw it down.

Hand up.

Sorry, I don't mean to put you on the spot.

I apologize.

No, I love it.

Thank you, Chair.

And quickly, before I get Krista, we matched today.

We coordinated that.

Thank you all for the presentation.

I actually wanted to start off my remarks by actually just taking a moment to correct the record on a point made about sprawl not being allowed under GMA and just The framing about concerns about sprawl here being a red herring because that is just simply not true.

I say this as someone who has worked with suburban and rural jurisdictions in King County on the housing chapter of the countywide planning policies of which our comp plan needs to fall under.

There is a consistent theme with discussions with our rural jurisdictions around opening up land beyond the urban growth boundary, for development and there's an area within the boundary that house green lands and forests that aren't protected and they're being systematically cut down.

So I just wanted to take that moment to correct the record on that point given my work I know we've had a fair amount of discussion on right-of-way trees, and I'll just champion for a moment, I represent a lot of Seattleites who have only ever looked to right-of-way trees and our park trees for enjoyment and reprieve from the heat.

I've never had the luxury of having a residential tree, and that's okay.

I've lived, in fact, I've thrived.

Trees that everyone can enjoy are a worthy and important public investment, so on that note, how can we work to use trees and the right of ways to both increase our tree canopy, but also as a traffic calming measure to make sure we're promoting pedestrian safety.

Yeah, so you mentioned how we can use trees, right-of-way trees, both to have shade and canopy and as a traffic calming measure.

Yeah, I mean, all the projects where you see, like the Dallas Avenue project that I described, you know, where they took over the flex zone for the sidewalk and left all the space for those really large right-of-way trees.

When you narrow the roadway, you have the additional benefit of creating road safety.

Cars necessarily have to drive slower through more narrow roadways, and that's a good thing, especially in our residential zones.

And so with a lot of these projects, you often have the dual benefits of having more tree canopy, having accessible sidewalk, and creating safer streets for our communities.

Certainly.

And so thinking about, you know, the ongoing work to be able to do exactly just that is certainly something we're interested in.

So I know we've seen some great examples with Paris actually taking steps to replace on-street parking to grow tree canopy.

How viable is that process theoretically here in Seattle?

It only takes money, I think.

And so thank you for your comments, council member.

The mayor is very much interested in supporting and growing the tree canopy and recognizes the importance of doing so.

And I think as you've heard today, there's a lot of efforts that we're doing especially on the lands that we can control to do that.

And I think as Council Member Saka pointed out, and maybe some others, that it's not a small sum of money.

I mean, and from our perspective, it's worth every penny, and it's a good investment for so many reasons.

So we are committed to prioritizing this as much as we possibly can.

Of course, we live in a world of trade-offs, and that's some of what we're talking about today, but very much committed to as much as we possibly can.

And I would agree that's a certainly worthwhile and critical investment, particularly looking at, again, just the resilience of our city as well.

And my final question related to this area is just then thinking about, you know, again, the equitable distribution of growing our canopy.

In another life, I worked in homelessness services and around severe weather, and folks don't often know this, but in severe weather events, outreach teams don't work on weekends, but the weather doesn't necessarily care about that, so I myself, along with a number of government staff would go out on weekends during heat events to deploy water and ice to areas that are urban areas pardon me, our urban heat islands.

And it is rough out there without that tree canopy.

I think Lauren was being too modest today.

I did not see this mentioned in the slides, but OSCE received a $12 million federal grant, was it last year, to do more planting of trees in areas of the city that don't have as robust of a tree canopy.

So definitely looking at investments in that area as well.

Fabulous.

Thank you for the update on, I'm fingers crossed that that federal grant is still, still coming through certainly, but you know, we want to make sure that there are certainly areas of the city that need to need to have a greater tree canopy for the sake of resilience, climate resilience, keeping those temperatures down.

It can be particularly dangerous out there, especially when we're thinking about people that are quite literally unhoused and subject to those elements.

And I'll close my comments by saying those folks need a home.

And so again, our comp plan an amazing opportunity to be allowing for more housing to house all of our neighbors.

Thank you, chair.

Thank you, council member Rank.

Council member.

Chair.

And we've gone on for quite some time.

I want to thank the panel for your presentation today.

This is one of the deepest dives that I've seen into tree policy.

And colleagues, welcome to what I have learned and known over many years, as well as thank you for producing, I don't see SDCI up here, but thank you for producing, there we go, sorry, apologies, here you are, for sharing that sly report today.

Chair, I'm not gonna use this time to bully pulpit my questions, I will just note for the record that both growing the tree canopy and building the housing stock that we need for our city to thrive is incredibly important to me.

And those two things do not have to be in conflict.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I know that, so what I've heard today, thank you for those comments and my colleagues for all your questions and so forth.

I know that what I've heard from people obviously is what Council Member Strauss has said, that they can be connected as well.

And then also too, I wanted to point out that I appreciate us planting new trees.

However, it is only going to have an impact.

It's going to take 30 to 40 years for those trees to have impacts in what we have in our big trees.

And the point that Council Member Moore made about driveways, and I see here that in the proposed changes, parking waivers allowing preservation tier two, tier three trees.

I would love to see some data behind, hey, if we do these parking waivers, these amount of trees have the potential of being saved because right now what's happening is when developers are building homes in single family neighborhoods and they're tearing down trees, Even if they had a parking waiver, they would still build a driveway because that's what it demands.

Someone paying a $1, $2 million home wants a driveway.

They don't want to park on the street.

And so they build these driveways and they tear down these trees.

So...

There's a lot of things I know that the council members, you know, everyone has different perspectives, but I think what we, what we can all agree on is that we need to get better on our tree preservation in our, in our city.

And we need to be, particularly like, hey, say that these things aren't working and these are things we want to get better at.

And it's okay to say like, hey, these things are not working right now.

You know, like I hear it all the time.

What I'm doing is not working through emails and people telling me what you're not doing is working, Joy.

And you shift and you...

That's the athlete in us.

You shift and you change to do something different and new.

So anyways, I wanted to point that out.

And last but not least, I think we need more ownership in our parks, in our trees, in our community.

My dad worked for the Parks Department 35 years, and this goes back onto housing.

And the point I wanted to make is that he manicured and took care of so many parks in our city.

because his kids played at these parks.

And the reason why his kids played at this park is because he could afford a house in this city because he worked in this city.

And so the ownership piece of, I live in this community, I work in this community, this is my park too, I'm gonna make sure I take care of this.

That's the ownership piece that we have, the problem that we have in our city.

And that goes back to the people that work in Seattle need to be able to afford to live in Seattle because now you have more ownership piece in your parks, in your community, in your sidewalks, in your streets.

We're complaining about trash, we're complaining about graffiti, we're complaining about parks, all these things.

The thing that that has in common is an ownership piece on ourselves, not just relying on the city, which are a group of people, to always clean up and take after people.

That is our responsibility to some extent.

We gotta have ownership.

And I just wanted to hammer that home, that people that work here have to be able to live here, to afford here, so they can have ownership in our community.

I will say that I see Councilmember Kettle know that we're kind of at time, but you recognize that.

So Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Allingsworth.

I just wanted to make, on a positive note, as I look at our numbers here.

We can do density, and we can save trees.

And people in District 7, particularly Queen Anne, know of an example, but a lot of people around the city do not.

And so I just wanted to say, hey, at one point, the Seattle Children's Home was located, and I've mentioned this to different folks, on the west side of Queen Anne, pretty much taken up an entire block.

and had different structures on it, a lot of trees, a lot of trees.

And it was sold, and it was developed.

And the community got involved with a developer, national developer, with local support.

They, in the end, built 59 townhomes, and then they also had two housing units and a cottage building, which is the only building remaining from the original Seattle Children's Home.

And I bring this up because the massive elms on 9th Avenue West are still there.

The fir trees on the corner of 9th and McGraw are still there.

There is a cedar on 10th Avenue West that they built around.

All the townhomes on 10th West were like this and then all of a sudden they had a cedar and they perpendicular orientated it.

59 townhomes, couple of cottage housing units, 61. Admittedly not affordable, but I think it's important for the city to know that this can be done.

Now my concern is this was essentially a decade ago.

Could it be done today?

And that's an interesting question, but it is shows that we can do it.

And I just invite the entire city, particularly those that are interested in this topic, to investigate that, which is now called McGraw Square, and see an example where we have maintained these mature trees, but then also densified.

On a positive note, Chair, to finish off the meeting.

It's always positive up here.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you all.

Well, first of all, thank you all for coming to present.

Thank you also for the work that you do.

We know that we need to get better at stuff and looking forward to working with you all to implement those changes as well.

So thank you.

Do my colleagues have any more questions for the good of the order?

Hearing and seeing none.

Thank you.

This is going to conclude our comprehensive plan select committee of the comprehensive plan.

Um, it is Wednesday, April 20, April 30th.

It is, I don't have my script in front of me, so I'm going off the top of my head.

I apologize.

It is 4 37 PM.

Our next comprehensive plan meeting is Wednesday, May 7th at 2 PM.

And with you, like I said, and this concludes our meeting 4 37 PM.

Thank you.

Thank you.