Seattle City Council Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee 5/26/21

Morning, everyone.

Apologies for hitting the wrong button.

I am here this morning.

Colleagues, we are going to get underway, confirming that we have quorum.

Sounds like it.

So the May 26, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It is 930 AM.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Wise.

Council Member McKenna.

Present.

Clerk Stroud.

Present.

Three present.

Thank you.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of the City of Seattle begins our meetings with a land acknowledgement.

This is not to be a rote behavior or a habit to be just said, this is not intended to just say the words and move on.

So I always like to take a moment to pause before we do so and a moment afterwards.

The city of Seattle begins this committee meeting by acknowledging we are on the traditional and ancestral lands of the first people of this region, past and present, represented in a number of tribes and as urban natives.

And we honor with gratitude the land itself and the people of this land.

We start with this acknowledgment to recognize the fact that we are guests on this land and should steward our land as such as guests.

Again, this is not a checklist.

It doesn't give us a passport.

Starting with the land acknowledgment is not a checklist or a rote behavior.

It doesn't give us a passport to proceed however we desire.

It is a reminder that we must steward our work as guests as our time here, both as elected officials on the committee and in life, is short.

We have seven items on today's agenda.

So I'm going to keep my thank yous and my comment my questions, shorter than usual.

We have a public hearing on Council Bill 12079 which preserves manufactured home parks.

This legislation is currently on hold, due to a SIPA appeal so we are only are only holding a public hearing today.

briefing and the bill, all the work on the bill will happen at a later date.

We will have a briefing and vote on the appointment of Nick setting to the Pike Place market PDA governing council will have a briefing discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 12086, which transfers the Greenwood Senior Center to the Phinney neighborhood Association.

We'll have a briefing and discussion on Council Bill 12081, which provides land use flexibility to affordable housing developments on religious institutions' lands.

And we'll have a final briefing and vote on Council Bills 12083, 84, and 85, which are technical codes from SDCI.

We are not planning to hold the regularly scheduled June 9th meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

So the next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will be on June 23rd, starting at 930 a.m.

Before we begin, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will open the remote public comment period for the items on today's agenda.

Before we begin, I ask that everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time.

While it remains our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that this system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently.

and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate the public comment in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 10 minutes, and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak and would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda and is separate from the call-in and listen line, which is also a Zoom number.

Once I call on the speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

Before beginning to speak, please begin by speaking by stating your name and the item in which you are addressing.

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

Once the speaker hears the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comments.

If speakers do not end their public comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted after 10 seconds to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via the Seattle channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

There is a separate public hearing for item one, the long-term manufactured home park preservation bill.

So again, if you are calling in about the manufactured home preservation bill, we will need to have you in the public hearing and not in public comment.

So if you have signed up for public hearing and we call on you, please just ask to be switched to the public hearing.

And please reserve any comments about that legislation for that public hearing.

The public comment period is now open.

Pulling up the list as I speak.

And Council Member Strauss, Council Member Lewis, I just wanted to say before public comment that I am present.

Great, good morning, Council Member Lewis.

Wonderful, we have Sorry, IT, we just moved to the public hearing.

There we are.

So I have a number of people signed up.

Most are not, Reverend Robert Jeffrey, you are not present.

So if you are here and want to speak, please call in now.

Yakov Sinai, you are also not present.

So we have April Little and Julia Sant.

And then if Yaakov and Reverend Jeffrey call in, we'll be able to speak to you.

So up first is April and then followed by Julia.

Good morning, April.

There you are.

I'm April Little speaking on behalf of the Faith Land Initiative at the Church Council of Greater Seattle about CB 120081. Through decades of advocacy and organizing around housing, we've seen the role that land ownership, zoning, and land use policy plays in racial and social justice.

We are at a critical moment in this story.

Seattle is in the midst of a deeply inequitable homelessness and housing crisis made worse by the pandemic.

Faith leaders and congregations we work closely with are living into their call to be stewards of the land where their churches are located and are eager to use that land in service of the common good.

Together, our priority is that this proposed bill concretely supports churches in being effective stewards of our land in this community.

Although we support the proposed legislation, we have heard in our conversations with faith communities, policy leaders, and community organizations that there are many other challenges facing faith-based organizations in the process of land development.

including accessing the scale of resources needed to respond to the housing crisis.

And our hope is that this policy is just the beginning of ways the city and other layers of government can support faith communities.

In our conversations, we have surfaced two key needs for churches, financial resources in order to pay for the high construction costs and flexibility in what is allowed into development, including community space, small business space, support services, and also market rate and low-income housing in the same building.

in order to meet both their missional and financial needs.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, April.

Up next, we have Julia Sant.

Yakov, I see you are now present.

Thank you.

And Reverend Jeffrey, we still see that you are not present.

So if you'd like to speak, please call in now.

Julia, you are up.

Awesome.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Good morning.

Perfect.

Good morning.

My name is Julia.

I live in District 3. I'm calling today also in regard to Council Bill 12081, which proposes development of a bonus for construction of affordable housing on property owned or controlled by a religious organization.

I'd just like to personally commend the Office of Planning and Community Development and the Office of Housing for their creativity and work in addressing the serious need for affordable housing in our city.

As a short-term resident in this city I've been extremely disappointed in the response to Seattle's housing crisis that has left so many unhoused in our community.

And I say crisis because that's what I feel the lack of affordable housing should be treated as a crisis.

There's just no reason good enough that a city like this one that values social justice as much as it says it does and that's a hub for innovation and progress to not have more opportunities for affordable housing for its residents.

And I've witnessed these unnecessary and dangerous sweeps on homeless encampments that do little if anything to help the members of our community who are experiencing homelessness especially if a large part of Seattle's homeless population doesn't have a home because of a lack of affordable housing.

So these sweeps I feel act more as a method of displacement and violence against people trying to survive in our city.

And I urge this council and committee to first and foremost work for nonviolent ways to address homelessness in our city but also to sincerely consider Council Bill 120081 and other bills like it.

which address this crisis that impacts one of the most marginalized and overlooked communities in our city and allows for more diverse housing options that encourage affordability.

Thank you so much.

Have a great meeting.

Thank you, Julia.

Next, we have Yakov, Reverend Robert Jeffrey.

We still see that you are not present.

I want to confirm Yakov, did you want to speak during the public comment or should we have you speak during public hearing?

Hi, good morning.

This is Yaakov Sinai.

Hi, Yaakov.

Are your comments strictly reserved to the manufactured home park preservation bill?

Yes, sir.

I have a statement.

Let me know when I can...

Great.

We'll come back to you in just a moment.

Okay.

Thank you.

And IT, can you confirm to me that Reverend Jeffrey is not here, not present, and that there are no further registrants?

There are no other public comment registrants.

Thank you.

Seeing as we have no additional speakers remotely present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Reverend Jeffrey, if you are hearing this, please feel free to send your comments into myself at dan.straus at seattle.gov.

Our first item of, just making sure I don't need to, Great, our next item of business today is a public hearing on Council Bill 12079. Mr. Ahn, will you please read the short title into the record?

Agenda item one, Council Bill 12079, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, amending the official land use map to establish a mobile home park overlay district.

Thank you.

We were first briefing on this legislation two weeks ago in committee before the bill was introduced.

At that meeting, we discussed voting legislation out of committee today.

Unfortunately, we received an appeal to our State Environmental Policy Act analysis of the legislation, which means the council cannot take action on this legislation until the appeal is resolved by the hearing examiner.

While we are proceeding with the public hearing today, we will not be able to vote in the near future.

While that appeal works its way through the process Councilmember Juarez and I have introduced legislation Council Bill 12080, which would extend the six month, which would extend for six months, the current moratorium on the redevelopment of manufactured home parks.

This ensures that our remaining manufactured home parks are preserved while we move forward with the long-term legislation.

There will be a public hearing on the moratorium extension at full City Council meeting next Tuesday, June 1st, starting at 2 p.m.

We will hold a vote on the moratorium extension at the City Council meeting on Monday, June 7th.

We are joined by Ketil Freeman of Council Central staff.

Ketil, could you provide us a brief overview before we begin the public hearing?

Certainly.

Chair Strauss, I'll just briefly walk through the presentation from last week.

I think Mr. Sinai, who may be the only person testifying at the hearing today, is probably very familiar with the legislation and legislative history, but in the interest of reminding the council members what the bill does and also the viewing public, I'll just walk through this very briefly.

All right, so as the council members will recall, the committee is considering a bill, or will in the future consider a potential bill that would establish a mobile home park overlay district to help protect the city's remaining two mobile home parks.

Let's see here.

CCCCO, Rm 630 – Jack Scott Conference Room, Stage 4 the executive to propose permanent regulations to protect the remaining two mobile home parks.

That moratorium has been extended three times for additional six-month periods, as council members just mentioned.

The council will be considering a fourth extension in early June.

The city did publish, or the council published, a SEPA threshold determination in April, and that SEPA threshold determination has been appealed, which forced all council action in the near term.

A little bit on background and regulatory context.

So I mentioned there are just two remaining mobile home parks in the city, the Bellaby and the house yeah and they're both located in the better like residential urban village and comprise about 11 acres in total.

The Bellevue is about 3.8 acres, has 65 homes.

The Halcyon is about twice as large.

It's 7.6 acres.

It has about 76 homes.

There's a little bit of confusion about the zoning for the site, and part of that is because some of the city's online maps are incorrect.

The council did upzone both of these sites through the MHA ordinance a few years ago.

The prior zoning designation was C-140.

The sites are zoned C-155M now.

That resulted from an error in the council and sort of a slip between cup and lip between a committee decision on MHA and what happened at full council and the maps that the full council voted on did not reflect a committee recommendation to keep the zoning at C-140.

So Seattle's not alone in addressing and seeking to address the issue of preserving market-rate affordable housing that is present in mobile home parks.

In 2008, Tumwater passed a bill that applies to six of Tumwater's 10 mobile home parks.

More recently, Kenmore passed a set of regulations that apply to some mobile home parks in that city.

I believe that legislation has been appealed to the growth management hearings board.

The proposed overlay districts, just to demystify some jargon here, an overlay district is a set of regulations that lay over the underlying zoning.

There are many of these in the city of Seattle.

Probably one that many people are familiar with is the shoreline overlay district that overlays the city's shorelines and that implements the shoreline management act for the state.

The proposed overlay district would limit residential uses to mobile homes and mobile home parks, establish a minimum and maximum residential densities, allow some commercial uses but limit the size of those uses, establish heightened setback limitations that are consistent with ongoing use of the mobile home parks as residential uses, and require some residential amenities when parks are redeveloped.

And it would expire.

The slide here says up within 50 years of the legislation that was introduced had an expiration 30 years from effectiveness.

Next steps, as council members just mentioned, there is a CEPA appeal, which means that council cannot consider cannot act on this legislation until that SEPA appeal is resolved.

A bill that would extend the moratorium for an additional six months is scheduled for a public hearing on June, this coming Tuesday, with a potential full council vote the following Monday.

So that's all for the recap, Councilor Duras.

If you all have any questions, I'm happy to answer them before the hearing.

Mr. Freeman, that was very helpful.

Colleagues, I know that we have had public hearings on the moratorium extension every six months for the last two plus years.

In the interest of time, I won't be asking clarifying questions to you today, Mr. Freeman.

Uh, anyone watching who would like more information, please do refer to our legislative agenda, which takes you to our legislator page, which has much more information.

Uh, and we went into a more deep presence.

We had that presentation on a deeper level at our last committee meeting.

Um, colleagues, any other questions for Mr Freeman at this time?

Seeing none, I would like to move us into the public hearing.

And before we open the, thank you, Mr. Freeman, before we open the remote public hearing, I would again ask that everyone please be patient as we continue to learn to operate this new system in real time and navigate through the inevitable growing pains as we are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process and adding new features that allow for additional public participation in our council meetings.

I will moderate the public hearing in the following manner.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on one speaker at a time and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak and would like to, you can sign up before the end of public hearing by going to the council's website at seattle.gov forward slash council.

This link is also listed on today's agenda and is different than the listening, listen line option, which is also a Zoom number.

Once I call on a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt if you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is your turn to speak.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item which you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to Council Bill 120079. If you have comments about something that is not on, that is not this bill, please provide written comments by emailing my office, dan.straus at seattle.gov.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

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

Once you've completed your public comment, We ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options on the agenda.

The public hearing on Council Bill 120079 is now open, and we will begin by calling on the first speaker on the list.

IT, I'm just confirming I am seeing the correct list.

Is that, I see.

Yaakov Sinai and Linda McCoy present.

So that is correct.

Thank you, son.

Up first is, uh, Yaakov and then Linda.

Good morning, Yaakov.

Uh, good morning.

This is Yaakov Sinai.

Can confirm that I, you can hear me?

Absolutely.

Good morning.

Oh, let me know when I can start, please.

Um, You can start at your convenience, anytime you'd like.

Okay, good morning.

Dear Seattle City Council Land Use Committee members, my name is Yacov Sinai, and I have proudly owned the Bellabe Mobile Home Park for more than four years.

The preservation of this type of housing for residents like mine is important.

There are so few mobile home parks left in Seattle and my homeowners are hard working and many are low income.

These homes are a stable affordable place for them to live.

I've said this in my prior testimony before the council and want to be clear again as the property owner I have no intention of selling or redeveloping this park into any other use than it is now.

A place that serves the current resident and provide them with affordable home they own.

To operate the land for the long term, I suggest a few friendly changes to the current legislation that will allow me the flexibility needed over time to take care of the property and make modest changes without overburdening the property and our owners.

The legislation changes that would help include not including a density limit on the number of manufactured homes on our property, which would restrict adding new owners in the future or reconfiguring the site.

Adding, also adding setbacks when new homes are added are greatly restricted the amount of land we are able to use for our owners over time.

Additionally, these setbacks benefit wealthier single family homeowners at the expense of our low income owners.

Additionally, the requirement to add open space if we add or change our more than 30% of the total homes, again, restrict the finite amount of land we have to add new manufactured homes.

We are not master plan site and planning for future open space on our land would greatly impact our ability.

We have reached the past the 10 seconds that IT usually will automatically mute your microphone.

Please do send in the remainder of any of your comments to dan.strauss at seattle.gov.

And I know that through the hearing examiner's process, many of your concerns will be addressed.

Up next, we have Linda McCoy.

Linda, you have two minutes.

And if you do not wrap up at the end of your two minutes, your microphone will be muted after 10 seconds.

So good morning, Linda.

Hello?

Hi, good morning.

Hi.

Can you hear me?

We can.

OK, good.

Thank you.

I just want to say that I do think that what Jakob said is something that needs to be addressed.

because Bella Bee to have new setback requirements would really disturb the whole arrangement there.

So I just wanted to say that.

So I hope that you can find a solution to that that works for him.

And so that said, I speak in favor of the land use overlay to protect us from development that would cause the park to close.

And I want to specifically address some of the points in the paper by the lawyer regarding the SEPA.

And the first is, it may not mean like the most important to you, seem like that, but to me reading it, there was a comment in there that it was sort of like, well, if we close the park and kick these people out, we'll give them an opportunity to buy into a new apartment.

And that is just such a slap in the face to those of us who are here because we do not have the financial resources to do those things.

That's how come we live here.

And we also live here because we enjoy being in a place where we're not just side by side in a little box.

we have more of a real life in a mobile home.

So I just want to make that point.

And then there is another point that I wanted to make.

I did send in comments in writing.

I think that's it.

Is that my time?

You have five seconds left.

Five seconds.

Well, I do want you to address any errors in the SEPA.

The thing about the grasses, I think it's a point well taken.

The thing about the zoning height, there is a difference between Bellaby and Halcyon, and I don't know how that happened, but that needs to be resolved, I would think.

Those are my comments.

Thank you so much for all your work on this.

We do need another moratorium.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for sending in your written comments.

Son, can you confirm there are no more public registrants for this public hearing?

There are no more.

public hearing registrants.

Public hearing registrants.

Thank you, sir.

This was our last speaker remotely present to speak at this public hearing.

The public hearing on Council Bill 120079 is now closed.

Thank you to everyone who provided public comment today.

We plan to take this legislation back up after the appeal has been resolved.

Until then, we will move forward with the six-month moratorium extension with a public hearing for that extension on Tuesday, June 1st at 2 p.m.

Public comment registration opens at noon on Tuesday, June 1st, and we will vote the following week on June 7th.

Our next item of business today is a briefing discussion and vote on an appointment to Pike Place Market PDA.

Governing Council, Mr. Ahn, will you please read this item into the record?

And item two, appointment 01917, appointment of Nick Sutton as member of Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to June 30th, 2022.

Thank you.

We are joined by Nick Seton, the appointee, as well as Executive Director Mary Bacarella, and the Governing Council Chair Colleen Bowman from the Pike Place Market PDA, and Hannah Smith from our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, as well as speaking to this PDA being in District 7, we have Councilmember Lewis on the committee as well as a standing member.

Several weeks ago, Councilmember Lewis facilitated a conversation with Mary, Colleen, and others to discuss this appointment.

Councilmember Lewis, would you like to add anything before we begin?

No, Mr. Chair, in my capacity as someone who represents the Pike Place Market community, I was happy that you were willing to take the time with me to talk a little bit more about this appointment and the broader concern coming out of COVID and going into recovery for the market and how we can be a good regional partner with the PDA and this institution that forms a jewel in the heart of the city's cultural, economic, and historic space.

And I think that, you know, we have a good nominee here who has been sent down for our consideration today, and I look forward to the hearing.

Thank you.

Well said.

I guess from here, who would like to take this away?

Is it Mary, Nick Seton, would you like to say anything, Colleen?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes, Colleen.

Thank you so much and thank you Council Member Lewis for your comments.

We're happy to be here today and very supportive of this appointee that you're considering.

If it's okay with you, I'd just like to share a little bit about Nick's history.

I'll turn it over to Mary for any additional comments and then we'll be happy to take any questions that I have.

Nick has been a very avid volunteer in the market community for about a decade.

He is currently a board member of the Friends of the Market, which is the organization that is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Initiative to Save the Market later this year.

He has also been on the executive committee of the Pike Place Market constituency since 2017, formerly serving as the vice chair and the 2020 secretary treasurer.

In addition to his volunteerism to governance roles, Nick has also been a longtime supporter and volunteer of the Market Foundation, with contributions that range from general event support to being the keynote speaker at fundraising events.

Nick has a deep well of knowledge and passion about the history of the market, and because of that, he has designed several history tours for the PDA.

Also a virtual history walking tour of the market for HistoryLink, which is a great organization whose offices reside in our market as well.

Nick currently works for Zillow and he's bringing that expanding toolkit in real estate transactions and tenant relations to the table.

He formerly worked for Visit Seattle as attendant of the information booth.

very much being the face of the front of the market.

And before that, as a food tour guide for Saver Seattle, introducing thousands of visitors to the wonder that is the Pike Place Market.

So I'll just say one more thing before I turn it over to Mary.

I'd like to thank our PDA staff.

I'd like to thank Hannah, who has been in collaboration with us, making sure that we dotted our I's and crossed our T's and followed our policy all along the way.

So thank you to staff for that.

Mary, anything to add?

said most of it Colleen.

And I want to thank everybody here also for that we're here.

Thank Hannah, council members, council member Strauss for having us here.

And thank you to Nick to be able to want to join our council.

Everything Colleen said and more.

But what's really interesting over the years since I've talked to Nick is he understands the market, not only as history and community, but it's also an economic engine for the city.

And that as we go through COVID recovery, how important it is that we all work together to be able to get the market to the other side of this.

And at this time, especially with the 50th anniversary of saving the market, but especially at this time, it is very important that people put on our council and in our community, put their energies toward that to get us through this and work with downtown also to get us through this and to the other side.

Excellent.

Thank you, Colleen and Mary.

Nick, if you have anything that you'd like to say, and then Hannah, if you could round us out.

Well, thank you all so much for considering this today.

Colleen, Mary, thank you so much for your thoughts.

I think you did a pretty good job of summing it up.

As Colleen mentioned, I've been serving with the Pike Place Market constituency for a number of years now, and I've run it previously for this PDA appointed appointee seat here on the PDA.

And I'm excited to explore the next steps and to move forward and figure things out.

Thank you.

Thanks, Nick.

Are there any, just real briefly, any interesting facts about the market from your historical tours that you have created that you'd like to share with us?

Oh, sure.

Well, let's see.

I mean, my favorite one, this might be a little bit personal, but my favorite one is that we've got potentially the oldest public restrooms on the entire West Coast down there, right below Pike Place Fish.

At very least the longest consecutively used ones that have been in use since 1909. There was, let's see.

Oh, I mean there's so much.

One of my favorite things when I was when I was doing the tours was having those sort of, oh my gosh sort of like Disney moments of.

you know, the market community, you know, finding ways to help each other out and to, you know, overcome their own adversity, whether it's the story of, you know, Vladimir and Zina Kotelnikov at Piroshki Piroshki with their anonymous thousand dollar donation that they, you know, put forward and brought that sense of paying it forward into their business model today, or if it's, you know, being, you know, being privy to and sitting in on the, on the decision of the four of the former employees of Pike Place Fish working with the then owner of the company to take it over and bring those sort of market ideals of community, even further.

There's so much and if the councilman or any other councilman would ever like to come or council people would like to come and take a tour with me, I'd be happy to show you around the market and try to cram it into as short of a time as I can, but I can go pretty long about it.

Nick, I'd love that.

I'd love to take you up on that.

And hopefully, well, I know I will show you my tile at the market, and hopefully you'll include that in your tour.

I'll show you my charm on the new market front fence.

There we are.

It'll be a nice little quiproquo.

Thanks.

And Hana, anything else you'd like to round us out before we end this conversation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Not much to add there.

We're happy to bring forward Nick's appointment.

Clearly, there's a lot of passion here for the market, which is so important to all of us in Seattle, and especially now in the recovery.

So thanks to everyone for your patience with me really combing through the paperwork, and it was a long process, but nothing to add there.

So happy to bring forward the packet for Nick's first term.

Thanks.

Great.

Well said, Hannah.

I was going to say one more thing.

Sure.

I just want to thank Hannah if I did not.

She takes our calls and my assistant Karen's calls all the time for a number of reasons, and is always really great at helping us through the process here.

And I want to also thank Council Member Lewis, because he's doing the same thing, especially through COVID, through all of this, taking our calls and trying to navigate through this.

So if I missed the two of them, I wanted to say thank you.

Great.

And from our discussion with Council Member Lewis, sorry, this has reminded me of a number of questions from our last meeting, so I hope I know that I was sharing steering us in a direction to wrap up, but I realize I've got a couple questions that I'd like to just put on the record.

I already know the answers, but, um, can you remind me of, uh, if anything in the rules and regulations of the PDA call for the constituency to hold an election for the seat and the background regarding that in this situation?

I can take that if you'd like, Mary.

The policies for the PDA and the constituency are the same.

The constituency is an organ of the PDA, and they're very, very clear for filling vacancies.

It is not supposed to be handled by a live election.

It's supposed to be handled by a vote of membership present, which did not happen.

Once a two-month clock is up on that, it is incumbent on the PDA.

to elect someone to the seat.

So what we simply did was take the process, picked it up right where it was left off with the nominees that were identified, and simply finished the process.

Thanks.

Were there opportunities for remote participation in the election, or was it just in-person only?

Our policies, if the two-month period is up, our policy is that the PDA council itself elects.

So it is a remote meeting where we heard public comment, but the council members are actually the ones that vote.

Okay, so the rules require in person, but it was held remotely.

The rules for the constituency had they filled the seat within two months were to have a remote meeting with membership present.

Once that clock is up, the rule becomes that it is incumbent on the PDA council to make a vote and decision on that.

So two different processes.

Sorry, it can get a little bit confusing in there, but yeah.

And So can you remind me, has Nick begun already serving as the appointee as of now?

Yes, and we checked with Hannah on this as well.

Our appointees start serving until and unless we hear differently from your body or the mayor's office.

Okay.

And Council Member Lewis, is there anything else that you'd like to add about the process in which has brought us to today?

No, Mr. Chair, I think that that covered it well.

I do just want to say that, you know, in this era of COVID and having to work remotely, you know, it has led to a lot of adaptations that we've had to make.

I mean, we are sitting here in a virtual meeting conducting city business out of that horrible necessity.

And, you know, I think that this has been another one of those awkward workarounds where we have to sort of deal with the rules and deal with the situation that COVID has dealt us to still conduct the people's business in a way that is in keeping with the public health goals, in a way that's in keeping with making sure everyone can participate and feel safe, and in a way where we're not, I mean we're not asking someone to balance you know, their public health versus participation in democracy.

And that has required, you know, making some adaptations in how we conduct business.

And this is just another example of that.

And, you know, I do just want to say, I mean, it's clear that from the analysis that the PDA did follow the rules, the way that they have to be implemented during this time.

And I'm sure all of us look forward to being able to conduct business in person again.

But I do appreciate putting on the record that this was another one of those COVID era anomalies.

And when Nick comes back for reconfirmation, it'll probably be along the lines of what we are historically used to.

Well said.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you all for that additional background.

Any further comments?

Seeing none, we can now vote on this.

Yes.

Sorry, I did just want to I didn't want to put these comments into my response to your last question, but I just wanted to give a just a brief shout out.

To the pipe place market community that has been really, really resilient during this very difficult time.

Pike Place Market has sort of been this resilient readout in the middle of the downtown neighborhood that has really helped to maintain a really important source of grocery for the neighborhood, that has maintained a cultural center of restaurants and gathering spaces, even during the COVID crisis.

that has not just helped that unique ecosystem and community sustain itself, but also been really helpful to a neighborhood that has experienced a lot of hardship over the course of COVID.

And that is due in no small part to the leadership of the folks who are present here today, the leadership of Mary and Colleen and Nick, but also just due to the countless vendors, residents, the people, the artists, the buskers, I mean, the people that have really made Pike Place Market this unique example of placemaking in the city of Seattle.

And, you know, I know that like in some, in a practical sense, we're only here to confirm Nick today.

But in a broader sense, I do like that we've all, yourself included, Mr. Chair, taken just a few moments to recognize as it looks like we're coming out on the other side of this.

what the market has been through and that the market has survived, thrived, and it's going to come back even better, hopefully on the other side of this going into recovery.

And, you know, history could have been different, but the leadership of the people here has really made it so we could hang on, adapt, and get through the crisis.

And, you know, at the beginning of this, I remember, Mary, you told me we were in your office And you were just, I mean, you know, we were just beside ourselves.

It was the beginning of this.

It was looking really grim.

And I remember you just saying, when this is all over, we've got to have a big party.

big party here at the market.

And as we're going forward, if you want to program that big party, I feel like we can almost start planning now.

Fingers crossed we're getting close, but I agree with that sentiment.

So thank you so much, and I look forward to voting to confirm, Nick, in just a few seconds here.

Well said.

As long as Mudhoney plays on top of the market roof again, I'm in.

That said, Unless there's further discussion, colleagues, we can now vote on this appointment.

Seeing none, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 01917. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation if there are no additional speakers or comments.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Yes.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The motion carries.

Thank you, Nick, for your service.

Thank you, Mary, Colleen, Hannah, for everything you do.

This appointment will be before the full council on Tuesday, June 1.

Thank you all for your time.

See you.

Thank you all.

Our next agenda item is Council Bill 120086, which transfers ownership of the Greenwood Senior Center property to the Finney Neighborhood Association.

Mr. Ong, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Item three, Council Bill 120086, an ordinance relating to the transfer of city property located at 525 North 85th Street, authorizing the conveyance of the property to the Finney Neighborhood Association.

Thank you, Mr on colleagues I'm very excited to bring this to you today our Seattle Fire Department is rolling by City Hall so please.

I'll wait till it goes.

There we are.

We are very excited for this piece of legislation.

It has been long awaited to have this before our committee.

It was part of a package with Burbar place in the central area senior center because of a couple refinements that needed to be made.

Those.

That package was split out.

And so we had these pieces of legislation before us, the same type of package before us already this year.

This legislation was part of that package was split out to make sure everything would move forward as fast as possible.

And so this has been a long awaited piece of legislation.

And we're very excited to have it before the committee today.

I know Councilmember Peterson, we had spoken about possibly having this for two meetings.

I am unfortunately going to need to move this today.

We're not able to, typically I like to have two meetings for pieces of policy.

Because this has been long awaited, because this was part of a package that we have already discussed, voted on at city council, both in the finance and housing committee and at full council, because this is part of that package that we've already heard and the new desire to stay on our timeline for Finney Neighborhood Association to be able to start activating the space in really important ways for our community, we are going to move forward today.

So apologies for any miscommunication on my behalf there, or the assumption that there would be no amendments.

So that is an assumption that I made as the chair.

And so we are going to be engaging in the exception to my rule, which is to have this in one committee today.

Before we begin, I would like to make sure to recognize the people who are here with us today.

Lish Whitson of our central staff, Christy Beckley, the Executive Director of the Finney Neighborhood Association, Katie Shee from OPCD, Karen Gruen, and Director Mantilla.

We have an award-winning group with us today.

And presenters, if you'd like to introduce yourselves, and then I believe Executive Director Christy Beckley will be kicking us off.

Please take it away.

Great, thank you.

Andres Montilla, Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

Lish Whitson, Council of Central Staff.

Karen Gruen, Finance and Administrative Services.

Katie Sheehy, Office of Planning and Community Development.

All right, and Christy Beckley with the City Neighborhood Association.

And I'm happy to start with just an overview about the PNA and the Greenwood Senior Center before we get into a conversation about the legislation.

But first, I'm just going to do a quick shout out for Nick Sutton.

Congratulations.

I'm so happy to have witnessed that.

And I couldn't think of a better appointment.

So anyway, back to the PNA.

I just want to say we're just so grateful to be part of this long-term partnership and for this opportunity to talk about possibilities of a transfer.

For us, it means that we can continue to serve our community as we are doing, and we are committed to that.

But it also means that we can think towards the future.

And our community is changing.

More and more seniors are becoming seniors and aging in place.

And more and more are struggling with basic needs and housing issues that we can help them support.

But let me, well, and let me just also say, Council Member Strauss alluded to, this has been a long process.

So after years of conversation, we're really excited to be here.

And we arrive here with the support of our community.

Just outside my door is a banner with thousands of signatures on it, support from our members on board and from our community partners at the Finney and Greenwood Community Councils.

So the P&A's mission, just gonna give a quick overview, because we're a little bit more than your standard association, if you don't mind.

The PNA's mission is to build, engage, and support our diverse communities through programs, services, and activities that connect neighbors and foster civic engagement.

So we do have about 25 members of the PNA, as well as an additional, or and 25 members of the Senior Center.

There's some overlap there, but not entirely.

But we also serve the community in a lot of really unique ways.

where we connect and bring people together.

So we have our quarterly newspaper.

I know I look forward to it every time that goes out to about 20,000 households.

We have the popular Finneywood blog that we maintain as part of our support network to local small businesses.

We offer room rentals, providing affordable space and subsidized space for childcare, education, fitness, music, and other meetings in the community.

Our Finney Center site, where I'm located now, The lobby and front desk is open for space for the community to be and gather, as well as connections to resources and information in the community.

We have hundreds of families that utilize our licensed childcare and preschool, as well as participate in one of our three co-op preschools.

We host tens of thousands of people at our community events each year, normal year.

that connect people like we did last weekend at Garage Sale Day, or help celebrate cultural events like Diosdado Mortis or Holy Festival, or help small businesses like the Art Stroll and Rainbow Hop, and finally, not finally, but, and that we serve about 20,000 meals each year through our Hot Meal Program, which also serves as a connection point for connecting people with on-site dental and health resources.

Again, all of that just to highlight that we're more than what a lot of people think of as an association.

And then, of course, a big part of our work is at the Greenwood Senior Center.

So the Greenwood Senior Center is an inclusive community that provides social, physical, and emotional activities focused around the needs of older adults.

We work to fight isolation, build camaraderie, and enrich each other's lives.

And a few just unique things that we do at the Greenwood Senior Center that I think are relevant here We host a nationally or operate a nationally recognized memory loss program.

We're actually the hub for the whole region.

We're part of the, you know, senior center, well, seniors and veterans levy programming and are the official hub as that.

And also we're connected with all of our senior center partners.

Our memory loss program includes support groups, both for individuals and their families, along with some other really specialized programming.

We also offer social work, support groups, and counseling for all seniors and the village.

So the village program enables seniors to age in place and stay in their homes and communities, utilizing the help of volunteers for basic chores and other help.

So many of our seniors are actually They've been in the neighborhood for decades.

They purchased a modest home that they've now aged out or priced out of the ability to move anywhere else, like many people in Seattle.

So the senior center and being able to continue to support that community is really crucial, as well as, as I mentioned, more and more seniors becoming seniors and our community growing and changing and the needs of our community growing and changing.

So this transfer, again, allows us to do that now and in the future.

And the last thing I want to say is just that our plan is to, once this is all finalized, is to conduct a really comprehensive needs assessment.

It's been a while since we've done that.

So we can truly understand what we need this space to be for the community that will complement some existing site feasibility studies about possible use of the site that will also be updating.

So thanks for the opportunity to provide that overview.

Happy to answer any questions.

That's really great, Christy.

You are literally a beacon on our ridge.

Thank you for everything that you're doing in our community.

I know Director Mantilla has a presentation for us.

So colleagues, if you have questions during the presentation, please take it away and I'll open it up for questions to Christy, Katie, Karen, and Director Mantilla after the presentation as well.

Director Mentia, please feel free to take it.

Or if Liz Whitson, I'll leave it up to whoever's doing the presentation.

You're both amazing stewards of this work.

We should go through the presentation and I may have some comments afterwards.

Great.

Great.

So just checking that folks can see that.

OK.

Yes.

So we are thrilled.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

So, the department neighborhoods on behalf of the 6 involved departments that constitute our IDT are thrilled to bring the Greenwood senior center legislation to this committee for consideration of transfer.

As was mentioned before, this is a continuation of a broader package.

That the IDC has been working on over the last two years to transfer these mutual and offsetting benefit buildings to the into the hands of community as a as a core tenant or principle of our community wealth building work that is supported.

by the departments involved and highlighted by the mayor as well.

I wanna see, there you go.

As a little bit of context, at the start of this process, there were six mutual and offsetting benefit buildings.

The three that we are now, hopefully with the transfer of the Greenwood Senior Center would include the Central Area Senior Center that was finalized in late 2020, Bird Bar Place, which was also finalized and transferred in 2020, And then the Greenwood senior center, and then just to note, I know there's a great interest from council about the work that's happening in the South Park neighborhood center.

And that is still ongoing as we work to build additional capacity for the community organizations for future and eventual ownership of that asset as well.

I will turn it over to my colleague from take us to the next slide.

Thanks, Andres, and thanks, Council Member Strauss.

I'm also really excited about this legislation finally getting to Council.

My involvement actually goes back a little further to the late 2016, early 2017, when a smaller interdepartmental team was working to establish organizational readiness criteria for these three MOBs that we've talked about today.

And so the initial group included My office of the planning of Office of Planning and Community Development, the Department of Neighborhoods and the Office of Economic Development and so we set the groundwork for the organizational readiness criteria we also brought in staff from FAS, obviously, and Human Services Department.

And so this group and the office of housing as well to review housing potential on any of these sites.

So we developed the organizational readiness criteria that included a statement of interest from the community organizations, and then met continuously from 2019 into early 2020 to review and make sure that all of the community organizations.

have the organizational eligibility, that they will be demonstrating public benefits, that if their current operations and the facility maintenance, everyone is on the same page and understanding what's happening with the building itself and developing long-term building system replacement plans, and then also making sure that there is a clear public record that the community supports this transfer of property.

I will be glad to answer any questions, but for now, turn it over to Karen for the next slide.

I'll take the next time and Karen can go to the final 1. so this is just to reiterate some of what Christie has talked about, but just a history of.

Of this building, which was purchased in 1977 with a combination of state bonds and funds, which.

in the negotiation and some of the organizational eligibility required us to do a little bit more of a deep dive in terms of making sure that we were aware of what the criteria was that we needed to continue for those CDBG funds.

P&A was founded in 1980 with a federal block grant, as Christy was saying, now serves well over 2,500 community members.

And then the city entered into this negotiation way back in 1987, and not shortly after that realized that probably we needed to move.

I remember for my part that this conversation started in the Nichols administration.

So, just to give you a quick summary and the next slide, we'll talk about some key elements.

Of the agreement, and then we can pause for questions.

So, Karen.

Yes, thank you, Andres.

And FAS also as a department here at the city is just thrilled to be a part of this transaction.

And it's a long time coming, as everyone has commented.

The key points of the agreement between the city and the PNA to transfer the Greenwood Senior Center are summarized on this slide.

There's four.

The first is that the PNA will continue to provide social services to the public with a focus on seniors.

The second is that the P&A will assume all environmental risk and the P&A indemnifies the city for environmental liabilities associated with the property.

The third is that if the P&A redevelops the property for some reason or expands, the improvements shall be for the provision of social services, which may be combined with affordable housing.

And then the property shall revert to the city's ownership if it is not used for the provision of social services.

That's the final point.

I think with this, we've got an end of the presentation and we turn it over to Lish or perhaps the chair.

Not sure.

Yeah, Lish, any further comments?

I've got a couple questions to kick us off.

I know Councilmember Peterson has some amendments.

Yeah, just briefly, so the city and the finney neighborhood associations obligations under the community development block grant.

Which require a sub recipient agreement will extend for 15 years under the agreement and then under quirks of federal law for another 5 years after the agreement is completed.

But the city and P&H requirements under state law and that source of funding will extend forever, as far as I can tell.

So the property will continue to be required to be used for social services for as long as state law will require it.

Thank you, Lish.

You answered two of my questions there, which is, can you elaborate on the requirements for affordable housing?

I understand it's 80% AMI and that that will extend as long as state law is in place regarding this, as well as the services that are going to be provided to seniors.

So there's a requirement for both senior services and affordable housing.

Is that a correct understanding?

Yes, so it's required to be used for social services.

Those services can be accompanied by affordable housing.

And the affordability in the agreement is all units affordable below 80% of the area median income, and at least half of the units affordable at 60% area median income or below.

It's currently at 60, not 80.

It's all of them below 80 and at least half below 60.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um, and then that is only if the property is redeveloped.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And, uh, Christy, can you remind me that it's my understanding there are no plans for redevelopment.

Is that correct?

We don't have any specific plans.

Um, but we are, looking at what the opportunities, options, and best use could be.

Great.

And just want to flag for the viewing public who can't see our amazing director, Rico Carandongo.

He has joined us as well.

He's been here the whole time.

He's waving to say hi.

Director Carandongo, any words before we get into questions and amendments?

Sorry for being late to the party.

I thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I have nothing to add.

I think that the materials that have been presented by Director Montilla and Katie in our office, it's all, this has been a long time coming.

It's great to be at this point.

Thank you, Director.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Otherwise, I will pass it off to Councilmember Peterson, who has a number of amendments to bring forward today.

Seeing no other questions, Councilmember Peterson, please take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

And thank you to the Fenny Neighborhood Association for all the work you've done for decades and will continue to do.

And the two amendments are mainly to strengthen the public benefit notion of this structure.

I do have concerns with how the Durkin administration, and I know this was inherited from the Murray administration, actually.

It was going on back then as well.

in sort of structuring a transfer in perpetuity of public property, giving public property to a private entity, basically, in perpetuity with these restrictions, rather than what I've seen in jurisdictions across the country, which I've seen is more common when transferring public properties to do it through a 99-year lease or other long-term lease.

That gives you the same benefits.

redeveloped property, you can still get financing through a 99-year lease, but it keeps the land in public ownership.

And I've seen that throughout the country, also the RCW, I think that undergirds our ability to do this.

RCW 43.83.410 specifically calls out leases, long-term leases as an option.

So I just wanted to put that out there that that's sort of overall concern and would ask the Durkin administration.

look at 99-year leases as options going forward.

These two amendments would simply strengthen the public benefit.

The first one clarifies, makes it more clear when title would automatically revert back to the city government.

And the other one is to focus, it sounds like there are no immediate plans to redevelop.

Ideally, this won't matter that much, Amendment 2, because it's focusing in on very low-income households, especially seniors typically would fit this low-income measure of a 50% AMI instead of 80%.

Right now, 80% AMI is...

over $90,000 for a family of four with rents.

Extrapolating the rents would be about $2,000 for a two-bedroom unit, which is about at market.

So really, they're not even below market if they're 80%.

So that's what Amendment 2 is.

So, Chair, what I could do is move the amendments and then answer questions for each one, or I could take questions now, however you want to do it, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Let's do them one at a time.

I am supporting Amendment 1, and I have, I'm not going to be supporting Amendment 2, and I'll be happy to share why.

So as far as Amendment 1 goes, there's, as you mentioned, this is a technical and clarifying in nature, which is why I'll support it.

I don't have any further discussion, colleagues, any further discussion about Amendment 1. And Lish, could you actually pull this up on the screen so that we have a visual of what we're voting on?

Happy to.

Thank you.

Thank you, and many thanks to Lish and the law department for looking at these so quickly.

Great.

So this is essentially putting in a comma, a paragraph and renumerating remainder of the sections B of exhibit B.

Yes, the way in discussions with the law department, the way it read originally, because several things are squished together, by separating them, it makes it much more clear, especially if there's something that's gonna be in place for so long.

It'll be good to have this clarity about when title can revert back to the city.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

And did you bring this amendment for Bird Bar or Central Area Senior Center?

The agreements were different because they didn't have the same funding sources, so.

Thank you.

Helpful clarification.

Colleagues, any further questions on this amendment?

If not, Council Member Peterson, you are free to move it.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I'd like to move to amend Council Bill 12086 by amending it with this Amendment 1 before us today.

I will second that.

Thank you.

Mr. Ong, it has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 12086 as shown in Amendment 1. Will you please call the roll?

Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Straps?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

And Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to your, I guess, the two questions that I have for you, Council Member Peterson, is when, if you were able to do outreach with the Finney Neighborhood Association prior to proposing this amendment, and just clarify for the record when the amendment was circulated.

Well, since we received this legislation, this legislation was approved on the introduction referral calendar less than 48 hours ago.

I'm glad that my staff and I were able to go through the 45 pages of the eight documents and confer with the law department on this.

And since there are no immediate plans for a housing development on this project, but this is, legislation is granting the property in perpetuity.

I think this would, focusing it in on very low income housing would serve the public benefit better, the city better, especially with our homelessness crisis.

Most seniors would be at 50% AMI or less.

I'm concerned about 80% AMI because those rents are at market.

So it's not even below market at 80% AMI.

And I think the purpose is to provide that additional public benefit to bring them below market.

And 50% AMI is a standard used by several HUD programs and other low-income housing programs, even our housing levy.

So that's why I came in at the 50% level for the public benefit.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I will just let the record reflect that in addition to the affordable housing on the site, there are social services, which is the actual, which is the crux of why I can't support your amendment today.

Councilmember Peterson, I absolutely support your desire and agree with you about 80% being market rate.

But because we have senior services, social services occurring on site, and as Mr. Whitson let us know, there is an additional requirement of below 60% AMI.

And maybe, Mr. Whitson, can you remind the committee the requirements are for all housing to be under 80% and subsection to be under 60?

Yeah, let me share this because it includes the underlying language.

Sorry, it's not showing up anymore.

Just a second.

So under the existing language, it's that Affordable housing on the site needs to be affordable to households with income levels up to 80% of area median income.

And with the majority of units serving households with incomes up to 60% of area median income.

Okay, thank you.

Just noting for Council Member Peterson, did you have something to add to that?

I was just going to try to move it.

And I appreciate your bringing this forward.

I think it is brought in good faith and with good intention.

And my apologies, my assumption had been that everyone had been briefed about this due to the fact that it had been part of the Bird Bar and Central Area Senior Center package.

I guess that was my my myopic view of being so in engaged in land use issues.

And so my apologies to you, Mr. Peterson, Councilmember Peterson.

I just want to also recognize that the months of work that went into negotiating the details of this agreement between the city and PNA is what makes it hard for me to vote for this.

And I don't believe it would be appropriate to change the terms of the agreement in this final step in the process without A longer consultation with the community organizations providing these services.

And again, there are no current plans to redevelop the site.

So we can.

We can't, we are discussing what could be in the future.

My concerns about the impact of a 50% requirement is that when we have so many other city requirements and fending mechanisms geared towards the 60%.

Am I affordability level, I guess.

There's two things we've got one that there's a 60% requirement and that we've got these other requirements from the, from the city that.

I don't see the wrinkles being ironed out.

Most importantly, it's my understanding that in the event of the redevelopment, any housing portion would likely be, in effect, subsidizing the senior services that the P&A would be required to provide.

If the P&A is unable to provide housing affordability to 80% AMI, providing senior services, the redevelopment would otherwise, we are redeveloping an otherwise underutilized parcel, providing senior services and housing, allowing that housing to be up to 80% AMI help subsidize those services, what I'm trying to say here.

And reducing that requirement to 50% would make it more challenging to provide those senior services required in the agreement.

Did, I guess, Christy, did I summarize that correctly?

Do you have thoughts you want to share?

And then I see Council Member, Vice Chair Mosqueda and then Council Member Peterson.

Yes, you did summarize that correctly.

And I'll just clarify my comment about no immediate plans for redevelopment.

We do plan to redevelopment the site, redevelop the site.

And I think we're in favor of when that happens.

you know, looking at all options.

And so for us, we're in favor of an agreement that provides the most flexibility to do the biggest impact, utilizing all the resources we can, and also supporting the community with housing and social services.

Thank you, Christy.

Vice Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you so much.

I don't ever like to do a vote without giving the sponsor a heads up on where I am at.

I just want to let the sponsor of the amendment know, Council Member Peterson, unfortunately, I am also not going to be able to support this amendment today for the reasons outlined by the chair.

And I appreciate, Kristi, your follow-up comments.

And also, I understand that there will probably be opportunities to work with you about what that best use is for the community.

I appreciate you noting housing and the importance of that, especially in the area.

With that, I just wanted to make sure I was transparent with the prime sponsor about where I was at on this amendment.

And thank you for the intent behind it, but not able to support today.

Thank you, Vice Chair Mosqueda, Councilmember Peterson.

And if Councilmember Lewis doesn't have anything to say, I'll let you round it out at this time.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for that context.

Maybe Lish could answer this question, because it brings up an interesting point about what happens to the, so if it is, if the property's redeveloped, there are several profit-motivated transactions that occur.

A real estate developer Would a real estate, a for-profit real estate developer be allowed to reap developer profit, developer fee from this is one.

And then the rents, the net operating income from that property, where is that net operating income and cashflow from that property allowed to go?

And then third, can it be resold to another entity as long as the.

services are provided and if it's sold, where do those net sale proceeds go?

So now we're really talking about a for-profit transaction that's here as a potentiality, both with the developer fee, developer profit, the net operating income and cashflow, and then the net sale proceeds if that property is redeveloped and then eventually sold.

So where does all that money go that we're enabling to happen with giving this property away in perpetuity?

Okay.

Can't answer all of those questions.

But what we have seen with other development projects is that an organization like Finney Neighborhood Association tends not to have the expertise in-house to redevelop a property like this.

So you will typically partner with an organization, either a nonprofit or for-profit affordable housing developer, that has that expertise and can manage construct the building.

And developers tend to need developer fees to pay their costs, both personnel and the transaction costs as part of those deals.

So it's likely that Finney Neighborhood Association, unless they hire someone in-house, would be partnering with another developer.

they would not be permitted to sell the property.

without the profits from the sale going back, without the property reverting back to the city under the state law provisions.

So they would need to remain owners of the property or else it will come back to the city.

And so long-term they would be the owners and managers of any affordable housing on site is my understanding of the agreement, but Karen Gruen from FAS may be able to correct me if I've gotten anything wrong.

I agree with you, Lish.

Councilmember Peterson, does that answer your question?

It's not clear where the excess debt operating income or cash will go during the ownership.

That's the only remaining question, I think.

Go ahead.

It was my understanding that it goes back to subsidize the services provided on site.

I'm seeing Director Mantilla, if you want to jump in, Christy, if you feel comfortable to speak to that, if not.

I know that Councilmember Peterson can have an offline conversation with you.

These are, again, I just want to center for the discussion and the record that this was part of a package that is our, the other two parts of this package already came before council and were voted on.

This is a third part of that package, which is, my apologies, Councilmember Peterson, why am I assumption that this would be uncontroversial?

And just lastly, your line of questioning Councilmember Peterson omitted the benefits that are being provided to the city through social services, and sounds like we have disagreement on the affordable housing as being a social service to the city but just want to, again, I don't know if there's anything else that I can do to round this out with the fact that if there is a profit motivation occurring, that the property will revert back to the city.

So I see Christy Beckley has her hand raised, and then Director Mentee, if you have anything to share.

And of course, Council Member Peterson, I'll give you the last word before moving the amendment.

Christy.

benefits from the housing profits or cash flow, if you will, would go back into services as an operator of those services.

And that just to say that our intent would also be to partner with, as Lisha was saying, another nonprofit housing organization.

And no, we don't have a development department on staff.

Thank you, Christy.

Director Mentea, anything that you'd like to share?

You know, just to underscore that the principle of cash generated going back to the community organization, local organizations to sustain that organization is a core principle of the community wealth building model that we're hoping to sustain here.

So just to add that.

Thank you.

And director, can you confirm that 80% AMI, what we have before us here was also in the other 2 agreements.

Is that correct?

Right.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to move your motion?

Thank you.

Council Members, just so we can have this on the record, I'd like to move to amend Council Bill 12086 as shown in Amendment 2 to change it to 50% AMI.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Thank you.

And I will unfortunately not be able to support this, but will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

No.

Council Member Mendoza?

No.

Mr. Stratton?

No.

One in favor, three opposed.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The motion fails.

Unless there's, Council Member Peterson?

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thanks, everybody, on the committee here.

I think, too, I know that this is, it sounds like this has been worked on over many, many months and years, and so I still have concerns about it, about the way the Durkin administration structured this.

I support the Finney Neighborhood Association, absolutely, and I'm excited about the social services they'll continue to provide, and I'm obviously disappointed about, you know, we were focused on very low-income households, but so as to not create a divided report, I will abstain from the final package so that Chair Strauss, you can you know, get this through, move it on.

Um, I, I, I did want to be transparent that I still need to look at the documents again, based on the discussion here about where the, the, the net cashflow goes.

And, and, and so I may be a no at full council, but I don't want to hold up the, the progression here today for you chair.

So I'll, I'll be abstaining on this final vote here today.

Thank you for that consideration, uh, colleagues or presenters, any final words before we call the roll?

Seeing none, I just again want to thank Christy.

You got this across the finish line.

Katie, you've been working on this for so long.

Director Mantilla, thank you for making this happen.

Karen, again, without FAS, without your work, we would not be here today.

And Director Kierndonko, it's good to Thank you for coming in at this moment, and I'm glad to have your name on this list.

And as always, Lish, thank you for everything you do.

And of course, to Mr. Ahn, our committee clerk, for making this happen.

With that, Mr. Ahn, will you please call the roll?

I actually have to move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 12086 as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

Mr. Ahn, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Abstain.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Three in favor, none opposed, one abstention.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The motion carries.

And thank you all for all of your hard work on this.

This legislation will be back before full council on Tuesday, June 1, next Tuesday.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson, for your consideration with your vote today.

With that, we'll move on to the next agenda item.

Really great to see you all.

Thank you, Christy, for everything you're doing up on the ridge.

Thank you, everybody.

Appreciate it.

Great.

We are coming to our item four of seven.

The last five through seven are a bit shorter in nature, hopefully.

And item number four is regarding affordable housing developments on religious institution land.

The official title is our next agenda item is a briefing and discussion on Council Bill 120081, providing flexibility for affordable housing developments on religious institution land.

Mr. Ong, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120081, an ordinance relating to affordable housing on properties owned or controlled by religious organizations, modifying existing development standards to facilitate creation of affordable housing.

Thank you.

We have a great group of presenters before us today.

Again, this is another bill that has been long awaited, and it's going to have a great impact in our community and is a state, is part of a state bill that passed.

We have with us today Director Alvarado of the Office of Housing, Daniel Murillo, Director Kieran Dongo, OPCD, Nick Welch from OPCD, and Ketil Freeman, who's been working on this and getting it across the finish line.

So thank you all.

If you'd like to briefly introduce yourself and then Ketel or Director Alvarado, you can take us away with your presentation.

I'll start with introductions and maybe just say a few things, and this is mostly going to be OH and OPCD today.

This is an initial briefing.

Thank you, Freeman, Council Central staff.

This is an initial briefing on Council Bill 120081. As Council Member Strauss mentioned, this implements a law that passed in 2019, Substitute House Bill 1377, which is now codified.

the Growth Management Act for those portions that are applicable to the city of Seattle.

There's a presentation from OPCD and OH that is attached to the agenda, as well as a memo from central staff that has a preliminary issue identification.

A public hearing is scheduled for June 23rd.

And I'll just note, actually, that I will be out of the office in late June, and to the extent that you all have any questions about the proposal or an interest in amendments, better to get them to me sooner rather than later.

Um, there will, of course, be coverage by central staff when that time comes.

But I'll just commend my memo, uh, the memo from me to you touch read.

But otherwise, this is going to be O.

P. C. D. N. O. H. Today.

Thank you, Mr Freeman.

Good morning, Council members.

I'm Emily Alvarado, director of the Office of Housing.

I'm Rico Kidding Nongo, Interim Director, Office of Planning and Community Development.

Nick Welch, Office of Planning and Community Development.

And I'm Daniel Murillo from the Office of Housing.

Wonderful.

And Director Alvarado, would you like to take us away?

Rico is going to kick it off, and I think Nick is going to get the PowerPoint rolling.

Here we are.

So I just wanted I just wanted to make a couple introductory comments.

Councilmember Stress thank you for the introductions and you are absolutely correct this has been a long time coming and I I am I stand on the shoulders of the great work of Director Alvarado and the great work that Nick has been doing in our office on this one.

Can you go to the next slide Nick.

So what we're going to be going through and I'm going to hand the baton back to Director Alvarado here in a second.

We want to give a little background on the origins of the proposal.

Talk about the eligibility and affordability requirements.

We want to make sure that you understand what we've heard from stakeholders in this process.

as well as a summary of the proposed land use changes, land use code changes, and prospective impact of this for our community.

And it's something that there's a lot of folks who have been really looking forward to this coming to pass.

With that, Emily, I'll pass back to you.

Thank you.

So as has been mentioned, this is a new tool that would allow for religious institutions to access additional development capacity when they redevelop their property for long term rent and income restricted affordable housing.

And as was mentioned by Ketel, this is local legislation that implements state legislation.

And as was commented on by public comment earlier this morning, this is following, this local legislation is following years of advocacy at the state level, including by faith organizations who sought to use their land in a way that fits with their values and mission.

And at the state, the state passed substitute House Bill 1377, as Kito mentioned.

And that law, I should say very clearly, requires local jurisdictions to adopt these allowances that would create additional density for affordable housing on religious land.

So it is a state requirement.

We are implementing that state requirement and doing so in a way that is consistent with some of our local needs and priorities and the public comment that we heard.

Next slide, please.

Director Alvarado, on that slide, I know in our discussion, at least, we discussed the difference between a may versus a shall.

It's my understanding that this state legislation states that we shall implement this law.

Is that a correct understanding?

Any additional comments you'd like to provide on that?

Yeah, exactly right.

If you zoom in very close to the picture of the bill that you see on the right there, it does say a city planning under this chapter must allow an increased density bonus.

So we are acting consistent with that direction from the state, and the state also recognizes that that should be implemented consistent with local needs for affordable housing, and that's what you'll see reflected in the proposal.

Thank you to take that one step further.

We would be out of compliance with state law if we did not pass this.

Is that a correct understanding?

I'm taking it in the negative.

I think it's fair to say that the state is directing us to do so.

I think it's also fair to say that there are many jurisdictions who have not yet implemented this.

And so we would be on the early side of taking action to implement this state law.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

So the state is quite prescriptive in the law about what the eligibility and affordability levels are to access this additional development capacity.

And under the state law, which we're tracking as part of this local legislation to access this new tool, a property must be owned or controlled by a religious organization.

all housing must be income restricted.

And in layman's terms, that is that the people who occupy either the ownership or rental units have to be income eligible.

And the housing can be rental or ownership, but regardless of rental or ownership, all of the units have to be affordable at at least 80% of area median income or below.

at most 80% of area median income or below.

And as mentioned by Councilmember Peterson earlier, that roughly equates to a four-person household at around $92,000 annually, a one-person household at around $65,000 annually with current AMIs.

probably most important to this legislation all property that access is this additional development capacity.

must be affordable for at least 50 years, and that is with a covenant so that runs with the land, regardless of whether the property is sold, and I should also just explain for the viewing audience that when something is. rent and income restricted for 50 years, it means that the Office of Housing does compliance monitoring on those units to ensure that during the affordability term, the units are occupied by folks who are income eligible and the rent and affordability levels are consistent with what is supposed to be done.

And Director Alvarado, is it a correct understanding that to be able to meet these affordability metrics, benchmarks that institutions that would be participating in this program would almost guarantee a very high likelihood that they would be accepting public funds?

And does that increase the, I guess, requirements for them to provide public housing?

Does that strengthen any of these requirements of time, duration, or AMI?

Yeah, it's a great question.

I would say that I anticipate at this point that most properties that would access this development capacity would also be seeking public subsidy from either the city or other public funders.

And that's because when your building is wholly at 80% AMI, even if that might not be too dissimilar from market, a 50-year regulatory agreement does, in many cases, acts as a barrier to people who would want to do something else with their property, who would want to use it as a cash generating property.

So we anticipate that most projects will also seek public subsidy.

Now, it is not the case that that is required.

So there could be cases where there are properties that are developed under this that become wholly rent and income restricted for 50 years by virtue of this incentive alone.

But it's likely not that valuable of an incentive to see that happen in too many cases.

Thank you.

And I would say that where public subsidy goes into projects, our housing funding policies do drive subsidy into lower affordability levels.

So our housing levy, for example, in the rental space is at 60% AMA and below, although ownership is also at 80. So where public subsidy comes into play, many of those units would also be more affordable.

I'll pass it on to Daniel.

Thank you.

So in development of this proposed legislation, the Office of Housing and Office of Planning, Community Development staff did extensive community outreach and engagement with various stakeholders.

We met with faith organizations exploring redevelopment.

Those were from those who are in the very early stages and maybe visioning to those who are more in depth and maybe even have a proposal in mind.

We also engage with neighborhood-based efforts within the Central District affordable housing developers and did other outreach.

And through that process and through that engagement we found some common themes.

First was the desire to include community spaces such as office space for the for the faith organization.

Space for nonprofits.

A commercial space for a community-based small business that could be part of a larger redevelopment effort of that project.

Another theme and in alignment with what Director Alvarado mentioned regarding the more than likelihood for public subsidy and what that would require.

So a need for technical support that include through partnerships with non-profit housing providers who regularly operate this in this space.

Regulatory support in many ways that this will help provide.

And then lastly the organizations made clear that and any development that they would bring forward, they would continue to engage the community in this work and in this process so that it would be a community inclusive process and development proposal.

So with that, I will turn it over to Nick, who will go more into details about the actual proposal.

Thanks, Daniel.

So in addition to talking with stakeholders over the last year, we've also analyzed where faith institutions own property in Seattle.

We found that their sites are located in neighborhoods throughout the city across a range of zones and that the size of their properties varies quite widely.

Some are small infill sites and others are much larger.

But altogether, their property amounts to just about 1% of all Seattle land.

So as we mentioned earlier, this proposed development bonus really focuses on a small share of sites in the city, and specifically only for long-term affordable housing on those sites.

This tool would be available on religious property citywide, though we've tailored the development bonus to specific zones and contexts, as we'll describe in a moment.

And then we've also completed our environmental review of the proposal under the State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA.

And as Ketel mentioned at the outset, there's a public hearing scheduled in this committee on June 23rd.

Now, before we look at the specific details of the legislation, here's how it would generally work at a high level.

Religious organizations often have a portion of their land that's underdeveloped, like in this case, the surface parking lot that we've illustrated, where they may face other changes or challenges like having a facility that needs to be upgraded or expanded.

We've heard examples of that through our outreach.

Currently, when they redevelop their property, religious organizations are limited to the height and the scale that existing zoning allows.

This diagram here imagines that that could be a four-story development based on current zoning rules.

The proposal here would provide flexibility so that when faith institutions are pursuing long-term affordable housing, they're able to compete more effectively for public funding.

And importantly, that they're able to create more affordable homes than would otherwise be possible.

So getting, yes.

Could we go back to that last slide?

Could you, oh, no, I had it for a different slide.

Nevermind, keep moving.

Keep moving, okay.

So this gets a little bit more into the specifics.

The proposed legislation would implement the development bonus for affordable housing, primarily by allowing additional height, floor area, or residential density on religious organization property.

This table summarizes those specific allowances depending on the type of zone.

So just to go row by row here in multifamily zones development under current zoning can range from three to eight stories in height, depending on the zone.

The proposal would allow for one additional floor of development for projects that are 100% affordable housing.

Similarly, in mixed-use commercial zones, maximum heights currently range from three to eight stories, and the proposal here would allow one to three additional floors for affordable housing on faith-owned sites.

In zones with height limits above 85 feet, maximum heights today vary quite a bit, up to more than 40 stories, depending on the zone and the neighborhood we're talking about.

And in these areas, the proposal would allow up to six additional floors, again, depending on the specific zone.

And then finally, in single-family zones, current rules set a height limit of three stories and a density limit of one unit or one home for a specific amount of lot area.

And that amount varies depending on the zone, but it ranges from 2,000 to just under 10,000 square feet.

So the proposal here would generally maintain the existing height and scale of development that we already have in single-family areas But by lowering the density limit would allow more affordable homes to be created within that space.

And it would provide some flexibility for other housing types like townhouses that could provide an affordable home ownership option.

This is really helpful.

Do you have a sense of which of these zones would probably have the most development?

Are some more preferred or some less preferred?

Yes, most likely the multifamily and mixed use commercial zones are probably where there's the most opportunity to see this proposal put into action, just given the scale of development that's possible there and the type of affordable housing applications that the city often funds.

And we may want to elaborate on that.

It is possible that in the single family context, a form like affordable townhomes could provide a homeownership option that is similar to some recent affordable homeownership projects that OH has funded?

That's really helpful.

Yeah, just to reinforce Nick's point.

I mean, again, it is possible that developments could go forward without public subsidy and utilize this tool.

However, where they are seeking subsidy, what I would say is that we would typically see projects developing in multifamily zones or mixed use commercial zones because of the sense of scale that that allows us to invest in and leverage other resources.

We have invested in projects in high rise zones, but notably one main one in the last many years.

And then I'd say in single-family zones, what our investment would most likely look like is, to Nick's point, permanently affordable homeownership.

And we've been increasing our investment in that space for townhomes or cottages that are permanently affordable but a home buyer option.

Thank you.

That was very helpful.

And again, kudos, congratulations, and thank you, Director Alvarado, for your fast work on the townhome project by Habitat for Humanity on 80th and 28th in Loyal Heights.

I was able to join you for the groundbreaking there in October and the for sale signs are already on the street.

So it's a great, there's a great opportunity with single family zones.

And I appreciate your comments that most likely we would be in other zones to get the best return on investment.

Nick, can you clarify for me, the land must be owned by a religious institution.

That does not necessarily mean it's a church.

So the example I'll provide is also in the Loyal Heights neighborhood.

There are three parcels owned by a religious institution.

One is the church.

Another is a automotive repair that they rent out to someone else.

And the third is an office building.

Would all of these parcels be eligible for this program or just the building that has a church.

It would be all parcels that are owned or controlled by a religious organization.

Many of those, about two thirds based on our analysis, are parcels that have a current use of a religious facility today.

That could be a church or some other place of worship that's recognized as a religious facility.

But there are sites like you mentioned throughout the city where a religious organization owns a different type of property or building.

Some of those are schools.

Some are housing.

There's a chart in the director's report that breaks down that analysis.

But the answer to your question is the provisions here for affordable housing would apply on all of those sites.

Thank you.

So it was mentioned in public comment that we should not see this as the be-all end-all of tools in addressing our affordable housing crisis, and that's absolutely true.

But what this does is it helps to work in concert with many of the other activities that we're undertaking to support affordable housing, to help make those investments and make those strategies go better and go farther.

And so on the right here, you see a picture of Good Shepherd Supportive Housing.

I should remind you all that as part of our Permanent Supportive Housing pilot that we launched last year, We invested in six buildings to provide permanent supportive housing.

And in one case, we made a conditional funding award to Lehigh and Good Shepherd to create permanent supportive housing, 103 units of permanent supportive housing on this site in the Central District.

This is a site owned by the congregation.

And the reason why we made a conditional funding award is because the project did not have the necessary zoning capacity that it needed at the time to move forward with the level of speed that we were hoping out of our pilot.

So these are exactly the kinds of projects that we think will be facilitated and barriers will be reduced for these to go forward.

Other examples, we just did an intent to apply where we sought information from the public about who intends to apply for city housing funds.

and we received an intent to apply from St. Luke's in Ballard and also from New Hope Missionary Baptist in the Central District.

So more and more we are seeing these faith-based partnerships and this legislation would help them to fulfill their mission.

I also wanna acknowledge to Daniel's point made earlier in some of the community outreach that increasingly we're hearing from black churches in the Central District who see using their land for their mission is a key way to help address displacement.

And so this becomes a tool to help work with community organizations and religious organizations to see whether there's flexibility that will help them to achieve that goal.

So again, this is a tool.

It's not a huge tool, but it helps us move forward in facilitating the goals and mission of religious organizations and does so in a way as directed by state law.

Director Alvarado, I have to compliment you on that.

Those last comments and scooping the story that I've been excited to work on for many months now, which is assisting St. Luke's in their proposal to redevelop their property.

Here it is, it's now public.

So, completely.

Okay.

I mean, it's, it's an entire, it's almost an entire city block in downtown Ballard.

And the ability, this legislation provides the ability to put in 1 of the biggest.

new affordable housing programs in downtown Ballard.

We can literally change the face of downtown Ballard by passing this legislation and supporting St. Luke's and their redevelopment plan program.

My office has been helping them along the way to move the process faster, to get them ready to be, to have submitted their request to you before we even were able to pass this bill that we are considering today.

Thank you, Director Alvarado and I'm excited District 6 residents.

I'm excited to share more with you when the time is right about the redevelopment program that is being sought for the St. Luke's property in downtown Ballard.

Thank you.

And that is the end of the presentation.

Council Member Peterson, I see your hand is raised.

Colleagues, any questions?

Now is a great time.

And we are not voting on this today as per my typical rule of having it before us twice.

And then we'll also be holding a public hearing on June 23rd.

That's June 23rd.

Council Member Peterson, take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Was central staff going to present or talk more about their memo?

I'm happy to.

A lot of the content of that memo was described by OPCD and OH just now, including some of the development capacity increases.

There are three issues that I flagged there for this committee's consideration, and I'll just walk through each of those now.

This is not exhaustive.

There may be other issues that committee members identify in the course of their review of the bill, but I'll just flag a few of them here.

Level of affordability and term.

The state statute sets out 80% of AMI as the minimum and a 50-year term as the minimum.

I note in the memo that some of our regulatory incentive programs have different levels of affordability.

Notably, our MHA program sets a 60% AMI level for rental 80% for ownership and also has a 75-year term for ownership.

An issue for the council could be whether or not to true up this proposed tool with some of our other regulatory programs.

Design review is currently not required for any affordable housing projects because of COVID-19 modifications to our regulatory programs.

This proposal would allow development of a scale in single-family zones, but would be subject to design review if they were located in a multifamily zone.

There's a question here for the committee about whether to require design review for projects that avail themselves of this tool in single-family zones.

And finally, there's this language, owned and controlled by, and that comes directly from the state statute.

The city has some experience working with that.

description of a property interest when it comes to tiny house villages that are sponsored by religious organizations.

And for the purposes of the city's implementation of that language for tiny house villages, controlled by has been interpreted to mean something as arm's length as a contractual fiscal sponsorship agreement.

So a question here for the committee is, should there be some further definition around the term controlled by?

So those are three issues flagged, preliminary issues flagged for your consideration.

I think reasonable minds can disagree on what to do with those issues and different approaches here as this policy tool is implemented.

I'm happy to work with the committee and interested council members and potential amendments or to help answer further questions.

in June.

As I did mention, the sooner that you engage with me on this, the better because I can do some preliminary work and then hand things off to my colleagues when I go on vacation.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kito.

Really appreciate and value your analysis and input on this.

And those three issues that you raised are really important in terms of focusing this.

I support the increased density here and want it to be tied to very low income housing.

So the concept of truing it up to the MHA parameters, As we know, the state legislature as a whole is by far more conservative than the city of Seattle, and so it's no surprise that they would have done an 80% AMI as they're up to level.

But here in the city of Seattle, knowing how high incomes are averaged out with the AMI, even though people are struggling because of the we're blessed to have such uh...

high-paying tech jobs et cetera lifts up the a m i and then but then these rental programs are paid to that and so it i would love to see uh...

focus more on low-income uh...

very low-income excuse me so fifty percent in my sixty percent in my uh...

and then uh...

this issue of control by religious organization week i think i would i would think the intent of the the state laws that it's it's it's something owned by a religious organization, or if it's controlled, it's something that's very strong, such as a managing member of the limited liability company, or the managing general partner of the limited partnership, or something where they actually have real control, which is something that's well-known in business transactions, to have actual control versus just a very loose arms-length transaction, which seems like would go against the intent of the law.

And then the design review in single-family I'd have to talk to you about that and what that would mean, but I really appreciate you raising these and just want to signal that I'd be interested in working with at least another colleague on the committee to advance amendments the next time we hear this.

Thank you for that early alert Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do have a question.

It's sort of in a similar vein to the comments Councilmember Peterson raised just now around the affordability thresholds.

When we worked on the legislation in the fall and the winter, around the permanent supportive housing, streamlining and red tape cutting.

We spent a lot of time talking about ways to have sideboards on that to make sure that the incomes you were talking about really were targeted toward And so, you know, folks who are chronically homeless who are typically completely indigent, I mean, it's typically an AMI of like near zero or what support they do have is being enrolled in SSI or something else.

So making sure we could figure out ways to get that as low as possible, but I remember there were issues surrounding just how the financing of these projects generally works, which required kind of those higher thresholds.

Obviously here, you know, we're not talking exclusively about permanent supportive housing, but I do wonder, you know, I mean, just sort of as a follow-up to Council Member Peterson's comments, maybe if we, if I could just hear sort of a, the corresponding analysis for this project, similar to what we went through in, in, some of the ways just in how these projects are put together and financed that the AMI conversation informs.

It might be just a useful refresher certainly for me and for the rest of the committee if someone on the panel wants to address it.

Council Member Lewis, I'd be happy to jump in a little bit there.

I think the distinction in this case is that this legislation is created in a way that it could potentially be accessed by buildings that do not seek public subsidies.

So in that way, if a religious organization wanted to redevelop their land and help address the affordable housing challenges with 80% AMI housing, that's long-term rent and income restricted, and they can figure out how to finance that without subsidy, they could do so.

I think that what your question suggests and some of the earlier Sarah Silver, PB – she-her, PB – she-her, PB – she-her, PB – she-her, But our rental investments, the vast majority of them max out at 60% of area median income with a high preference and priority on extremely low income housing.

Though, to your point, Council Member Lewis, financing does sometimes drive us to, and other public policy goals drives us to create more mixed income buildings from zero.

up to 60 with a mix of units.

So the threshold question, again, for council is, do you want to keep open the idea that there are properties who might create affordable housing without subsidy?

And if so, that 80% creates some opportunity to do so.

If you'd rather tie it more specifically to what we would be subsidizing at the Office of Housing, then that might justify different AMIs.

A follow-up just real quick, Mr. Chair, if I may.

And well said, Director Alvarado.

Yeah, so Emily, I appreciate those clarifications.

That's exactly what I was asking for.

So that was great.

In terms of the projects that are envisioned, right?

Like when I look at this, I sort of think about not the exact projects, maybe in some cases the exact projects.

I don't know if...

Representative Chop through his efforts has sites that are faith-owned.

But I sort of think of the kind of developments that like that Home Through Hope, that Enterprise and, you know, Frank Chop are trying to put together where it's sort of a mix, right, of, you know, there's like a little permanent supportive housing, there's like some market rate housing, there's some workforce housing.

And this looks like a flexible enough model where, you know, someone could do something like that, where there's like sort of that big kind of mix of different types all kind of co located with some sort of, you know, like childcare or.

the retail space that's also included.

I wonder if the department or anyone has done any analysis on like how we do sort of anticipate people to respond to this regulation.

Like, are we expecting that more people are going to be doing, you know, like kind of maximizing it out to the 80% and having more of a workforce housing?

Do we expect like a mix of models or do we expect people to sort of go deep and try to do subsidized PSH, because it seems like they could do anything on the spectrum.

And I wonder if there's a sense of how that would be distributed, because I think that also gets Council Member Peterson's concern, right?

I think that, you know, ideally we would like to see as much of this regulation change spur a lot more development at the lower end of AMI.

And I think that it'd be interesting if there's been some assessment of how we think the sector will respond to this change.

Mr. Chair, if I might interrupt real quick, I apologize.

I do have a hard stop at 1130, so I'm going to have to go, but I wanted to express my appreciation for the questions just asked and the bills in front of us.

I would just want to be on the record saying I support all the bills that we haven't yet voted on and look forward to voting on them in full council.

And Director Alvarado, I apologize for interrupting you.

Always happy to support additional efforts to get more housing in our community, especially on land like this with important partners.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, thank you very much.

We look forward to having you back at committee next time, and thank you for readjusting your schedule to make time today.

I know that was...

I appreciate it.

You're great.

You're awesome.

Thanks, Vice Chair.

Director Alvarado, the conversation with you and Council Member Lewis, please feel free to continue at your convenience.

Thank you.

So I'd say that my crystal ball might not be any better than yours about what might happen to development in the future.

What I can say is I would generally anticipate that most projects moving forward under this legislation would seek public subsidy because the incentive is not that valuable that it provides sufficient additional resource that can be driven into the project from the value of the added capacity itself.

So if projects seek public subsidy, that's when we get into the conversation of what are the populations that are being served.

This is agnostic to what those populations are, so long as they are income eligible.

And it's really the funding process that goes through the Office of Housing in collaboration with the vision of community partners that then dictates that mix of populations.

So just looking backwards at what we've done, and I'll mention some projects that I want to be really clear to anyone watching.

These are not projects that necessarily needed additional zoning capacity, but they are projects associated with religious organizations that we have previously funded at the Office of Housing.

So, for example, we have a long track record of funding Compass Housing Alliance at places like Gethsemane Lutheran, in South Lake Union that was a reconstruction of some of their space and extremely low income housing primarily at that location.

We have worked in the University District with Bellwether and Now I'm blanking on the church name and the university district.

Maybe Council Member Peterson could help me.

And that is a mixed income development with 30, 50% AMI and 60% AMI housing units.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

And so I give those examples to show that in many cases what we're doing is being responsive to the faith organizations and their vision.

And we're supporting them with subsidy.

In this case, too, 80% AMI gives some flexibility for religious organizations to imagine what populations they might want to serve.

And then the subsidized process would maybe drive that affordability level more deep.

I don't know, Nick, if you have anything to add from the analysis of the size and scale of opportunities that exist currently.

No, probably not much in detail, but there's just a wide range of the size of sites and the zones in which they're located.

And of the ones that we've been engaged with, as Daniel described, that have expressed some interest, most are in more of a multifamily or mixed-use context.

And some of the eligible sites are in single-family zones as well.

Mr. Chair, if I may ask actually just one more follow-up of Director Alvarado.

Please.

Your response just now actually spurred another quick question.

Would it perhaps provide any additional incentive in addition to the fact that there would probably need to be subsidy for things to pencil out?

The permanent supportive housing changes that we passed, does that provide an additional incentive that might not have existed previously?

And how might that interact with this policy?

Because that might even help a step further to incentivize going at a lower AMI.

Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean, I tend to think that the more we make it simple, straightforward, cost effective and predictable to develop, those taken together make it more likely that a faith organization would follow through on that mission and vision to create affordable housing.

So taken together when you're reducing barriers around design review, when you're reducing barriers around needing to pursue contract rezones and instead having some buy right capacity provided by the land use code, when you have technical assistance that's provided, all of that makes it less complicated for religious organizations who might not be more regularly participating in a development process.

So I do think they work together and that's In part, what shows you know this is a partnership between the Office of Housing and OPCD.

Previously, we've partnered with SDCI to create efficiencies through the development process and all of these departments working together and creating those efficiencies, I think will maybe create more opportunity for people to want to engage in development of their property.

great thank you for answering uh...

all of my questions i promise i have no more no more yielding back to you mister chair

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Colleagues, Councilmember Peterson, any further questions at this time?

Excellent.

Thank you.

And thank you, Daniel.

Thank you, Nick.

Thank you, Director Alvarado.

And Director Kierandongo did have to step away just about a few minutes ago.

Just want to thank you all.

And thank you, Ketel.

I hope that we are able to.

A reminder to all colleagues, please get your amendment ideas to Mr. Freeman as soon as possible so that we can have this as a smooth process.

Thank you again also for the introduction of this bill.

We plan to hold the public hearing on this bill at our June 23rd committee meeting.

And at that meeting, I plan to ask that we suspend the rules so that we are able to vote on the legislation on the same day that we have the public hearing.

This advance briefing will serve as this one of two meetings that I like to have before passing legislation.

Are there any concerns at this time, colleagues, about that plan?

Seeing none, great.

Well, thank you all for joining us today.

We're gonna move on to items five through seven.

Really great to see you on.

Thank you for all of your hard work on behalf of the city.

Our three agenda items to close us out today are all updates to technical codes from SDCI and we will consider them all together.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the abbreviated titles of all three records, all three bills into the record?

Agenda item five, Council Bill 120083, an ordinance relating to Seattle's construction codes, amending the Seattle building code, energy code, and Seattle existing building code.

Agenda item six, Council Bill 120084, an ordinance relating to land disturbing activity, updating the grading code.

And agenda item seven, Council Bill 120085, an ordinance relating to boiler and steam engine operations.

Thank you, Mr. Ahn.

We have with us today Micah Chappell, Steve Frazier, and Edie Courtney has been working on this but is unable to join us today.

We still want to thank Edie for all of her work on this legislation.

SDCI central staff, will you please introduce yourself and then refresh us on the proposal, which we heard previously in committee at our last committee meeting, and then provide the presentation?

Sure Freeman Council Central staff and I think Micah and STC I'll be walking through the presentation just to remind the committee members this.

These are the last I believe last set of so-called construction codes that the council will be considering.

One of these is actually a code that happened to do with licensing folks who operate boilers and steam engines.

And I think this will be the last few and then the council will be set for the next several years until the next cycle of technical road updates.

It looks like Micah might be frozen.

There you are.

Oh, there we are.

Great.

All right.

Thank you very much.

I am Micah Chappell.

I am the technical code development manager for SDCI.

We're going to walk you through a quick presentation again.

I am joined today by Steve Fraser, our chief boiler inspector.

And unfortunately, Edie cannot be here to participate today, but I will cover anything for the grading code.

So next slide, please.

These changes are being proposed by and presented by the Department of Construction and Inspections where our purpose is helping people build a safe, livable, and inclusive Seattle.

And we are accomplishing that purpose by actively pursuing our values of equity, respect, quality, integrity, and service.

Next slide.

Today we're going through the short updates to the grading code, the STEAM engineer boiler operators, license law update, and some Seattle construction codes.

Excellent.

The intent of the grading code update is to align with the 2021 Seattle stormwater code update that was just approved by you city council and is necessary to comply with the department of ecology requirements and the clean water act extensive outreach and public comment opportunities for the proposed update occurred as part of the development process done for the 2021 stormwater code.

SBCI addressed the comments and incorporated suggestions from these meetings.

The changes we will highlight today for the grading code include permit threshold revisions, clarifications to definitions, and minor modifications to some exceptions.

Next slide.

At one point, the stormwater code and grading code were one code, but they were separated, and over time, the permitting and review thresholds shifted apart, and this update realigns those review thresholds.

As you can see in the table, the land disturbing activity area in the 2016 stormwater code was 750 square feet.

That threshold is being increased to 5,000 square feet.

Then in the 2012 grading code, it was a threshold of one acre, and that threshold is being reduced to 5,000 square feet for the land disturbing activity area.

That will align both of those codes.

For the new plus replaced hard surface areas, this 2016 and 2021 stormwater code were at 750 square feet, where the 2012 grading code was at 2,000 square feet.

And you can see in the table that the 2021 threshold is being reduced to 750 square feet to align with that stormwater code.

Thank you, Mike.

Before we move on, I think this is just a great opportunity to demonstrate and I'll ask my question, which is these codes that are before these code changes before us are to ensure that we are complying with state and federal code.

Is that correct?

That is correct, and that's what we're moving forward to is to align with the Department of Ecology requirements and Clean Water Act federal requirements.

Thank you.

And this slide clearly demonstrates to us that we are creating a uniform code.

And that means increasing the square footage in the stormwater code drainage and reducing in the grading code drainage so that all are matched up.

So I just wanted to point that out and highlight your good work.

Thank you, Micah.

Thank you.

All right, next slide, please.

Additionally, we're doing some definition clarifications.

Impervious surface in the grading code is now being changed to hard surface.

And again, that is to align with the stormwater code.

And then we're changing the potentially hazardous location to verify it will include any state or federal list or database that includes areas of potential contamination.

And, Micah, just on this slide, can you help me understand the difference in definition between impervious surface and hard surface?

Absolutely.

In 2019, the Department of Ecology wanted to track all hard surfaces, and so that term and definition were included in the 2016 stormwater code.

So changing hard surface in the grading code for this update it will align the stormwater and grading codes.

What that means is a hard surface, impervious surface is something that water cannot get through.

But hard surface, actually water can get through that.

So if you can think of like a pervious concrete, I'm not sure if you folks are aware of that, there's some that actually would drain water through it.

And so that is a hard surface, but it is a pervious surface.

So it wouldn't have been tracked under that previous term.

And so what we're doing is making sure that term is going to capture those types of surfaces that the department of ecology would like to identify.

Thank you.

That was very helpful.

Okay.

All right.

And then the last changes we're going to cover today for the grading code are some modifications to the, some exemptions where new utility installations in environmentally critical areas, or new stormwater systems for short flats and subdivisions will no longer be exempt from a review of permit.

Additionally, we remove the exemption for underground storage tank removal and replacement to align with the requirements of the Department of Ecology.

All right, next slide.

Then we're going to get into what we have done for the storm, excuse me, the steam boiler and operator update.

This ordinance was last updated in 2006, so it was a little overdue.

In 2018, the license application and issuance process was moved to our Excella computer platform.

And what this did was necessary, required us to do a reordering of section 16.420.040 to accurately capture that process.

There's no real change there.

It was just a, these are the now newer steps to modify and go along with that computer platform.

Additionally, there are editorial changes for updating to the current legislative format and switching to a gender neutral language.

Also, we have created a direct path for advancement to a grade one and grade two boiler supervisor.

This legislation also modifies the existing table B in section 6.420.100 to correct mistakes that occurred in the 2006 update.

All these changes were reviewed and approved by the STEAM License Advisory Board.

Next slide.

And those members are shown there on the screen.

Thank you.

I know that if we could go back to that last slide briefly.

Certainly.

There's a lot of technical changes included in this densely packed slide.

I just want to maybe call out for as an example, can you share with me the direct path for advancement for boiler supervisors?

What was the situation before and what have we changed to now?

Absolutely.

So previously, the language actually required a individual who is a supervisor to take a step back and certification.

for one year in order to take a step forward in certification.

So if you were a grade one, you would have to, you would have to step back to a different license.

Um, and, and now for one year, and now that clarifies that you don't have to take that step back.

It's just a direct path from one step to the other.

Thanks, Steve.

Please jump.

Yeah.

Let me jump in there.

Um, grade one is actually the highest level of license.

So As an example for that, if you were a grade 3 boiler supervisor to go to a grade 2 supervisor, you would have to take a step back from being a supervisor and become a regular grade 2 steam engineer for a year.

And that has two adverse impacts.

One is on the licensee's ability to maintain his job and income.

And the other is it reduces the available pool of boiler supervisors to assist boiler owners and operators with properly attending their boilers.

Very helpful.

And I believe that was the end of your presentation.

Is that correct?

Oh, we have one more slide.

One more.

Sorry.

IS the last thing we're going to cover today is our errata.

And this legislation is just clarifying some of the regulations.

Adopting some amendments that are consistent with Washington state and making some technical corrections from our errors and omissions.

Those include some in the plumbing fixture table for the Seattle building code, various language, one of the items of course, or several items are going to be code reference sections and making sure those are correct.

So that errages legislation.

Legislation is minor and hopefully we won't have too many more of those errors and omissions in the future.

And now that will be all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Micah.

Thank you.

And again, also thank you to Edie Courtney, who couldn't be with us today and did a lot of really great work on this.

Colleagues, do you have questions?

I know that we had this before our committee in the last committee meeting.

This is our second time before us.

I know it's dense and exciting information, but Council Member Peter, any questions?

Seeing none, Council Member Lewis, any questions?

No, Mr. Chair, thank you.

Thank you.

I spent probably about an hour and a half or more with Micah, Steve and Edie getting into the details of this.

And it's very interesting, although I don't know that we need to go into that now.

I guess, Micah, my only question is, is your background still Lake Pend Oreille or is that a new background?

That is a new background that is in Yellowstone National Park after doing some fly fishing on the Firehole River.

You have good travels.

I would love to come with you next time.

I do.

I'd be more than happy to have you.

Yeah, I'm in on that too.

And Steve, I assume that's SMT in your background?

It is.

It is SMT 2231D.

There we are.

Thank you for coming into the office today.

And it's part of this reopening that we are close to.

I am editorializing.

We do have work to round out the day.

Any other questions on these three items?

Council Member Lewis said no.

Council Member Peterson said no.

If I would like to move the committee recommend the passage of Council Bill 120083. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend the passage of Council Bill 120083. If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Mayor Stroud?

Yes.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries.

Up next is Council Bill 120084. I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120084. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 120084. Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Oh, sorry, I was muted, yes.

Chair Strass?

Yes.

Three in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries.

I move that the committee now recommend passage of Council Bill 12085. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage Will you please call the roll?

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

And I just want to confirm with the clerk, since we did those three in succession, we have passed all three bills at this time.

And I've said it correct.

Great, thank you.

Steve, I see you've got a hand up.

Which council bill was the steam engineer and boiler operator license law?

The third of the three votes.

1, 2, 0, 0, 8, 5.

Correct.

Thank you very much.

And I'm pulling up my agenda now just to put it on the record that we just passed three bills.

Council Bill 12083, the ordinance relating to Seattle construction codes, amending sections of the many sections.

And then there is Council Bill 12084, the ordinance relating to land disturbing activity.

And then ordinance, Council Bill 12085, the ordinance relating to boiler and steam engine operations.

Thank you, colleagues, and thank you, Steve, Edie, Micah, for all your work on these updates.

And this is a great way to wrap up Building Safety Month.

These bills will be back.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Great to see you.

These bills will be back before the full council on Tuesday, June 1st.

Good of the order, any items for the good of the order, council members, colleagues?

Seeing none, this concludes the Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

As a reminder, our next committee meeting will be on June 23rd, starting at 9.30 a.m.

Thank you all for attending.

We are adjourned.