We are recording.
Good morning.
The April 5, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will come to order.
The time is 9.32 a.m.
I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council Member Herbold?
Here.
Council Member Morales?
Sorry.
Council Member Morales?
Here.
Council Member Strauss.
Present.
Chair Peterson.
Present.
Or present.
Thank you.
And Council Member Sawant is excused.
Approval of the agenda.
If there is no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
Chair's report.
Good morning and welcome to the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.
Today we'll finally vote on the term permit for the plaza in East Lake and the vacation of the alley downtown at 2nd Avenue and University Street.
We received presentations on both of those projects at our previous meeting.
We'll also consider the renewal of a term permit for pedestrian tunnels near Boeing Field and we will make a technical correction to the water rate classifications for the service SPU provides in Vurian.
At this time, we'll open the general public comment period for the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.
I ask that everyone please be patient as we operate this online system.
We are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process of public participation.
It remains the strong intent of the City Council to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.
However, the City Council preserves the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently.
I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.
The public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes, up to 20 minutes, and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.
I will call on two speakers at a time and in the order in which they are registered on the council's website.
If you've not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at seattle.gov forward slash council.
The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.
Once I call on a 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 and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.
Star six.
Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.
As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or to our committee's oversight responsibilities.
Speakers will hear a chime and 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.
Once you hear the chime, we ask that you please begin to wrap up your public comment.
If speakers do not end their comments at the time allotted, the speaker's microphone will be muted 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 Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.
The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.
Please remember to press star six before speaking.
First, we've got Jack Alderman, followed by David Haynes.
Go ahead, Jack Alderman.
Hello, my name is Jack Alderman and I'm speaking in support of the term permit and East house steps Plaza.
I've been an Eastlake resident for over six years and I'm also a consultant that's working on the project and a strong project supporter.
I've been working on this project since 2018, but I was picking up after years of work had already been completed.
I was able to witness firsthand the energy and patience and commitment of the community group that was driving this project, and it has been uplifting and inspiring.
The project shows what community organizations and community-based design can lead to.
The strong connection between this local community and adjacent business is an example of mutual benefits that a public and private partnership can have on a neighborhood.
Not only will this project be the culmination of years of hard work by the community group and our team, but it will provide a public space where there was previously only parking lot.
The new plaza will provide a place of respite for the neighborhood and a much needed terminus for the East House stair climb.
This new space will be filled with new planting, trees, plenty of seating and rest opportunities, and it saves a large existing conifer tree.
The plaza will provide a transition up to the existing East House steps and will act as an anchor for community-led events in agreement with the adjacent business.
Overall, this project represents years of hard work and a win for community-driven design and locally-led efforts.
It's been a pleasure to work on this project and I urge you to vote in favor of it.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
And our last speaker is David Haynes.
This is not present, so could we have our IT folks just confirm that our next and last speaker is not present?
There are no other public comment or registrants.
Thank you.
Well, that concludes our list of speakers present from the general public, so we can move on to the first legislative item on our agenda.
will the clerk please read the short title of the first agenda item into the record.
an ordinance vacating a portion of the alley in Block 6, AA Denny 2nd Edition, in the block bounded by University Street, 1st Avenue, Seneca Street, and 2nd Avenue in downtown, and accepting a property use and development agreement on the petition of HS2U owner LLC for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
Thank you.
As with the next item on our agenda, this project is at the second and final stage for approval.
This item is an alley vacation, conceptually approved back in 2016, I believe.
And with this council bill 120282, we are essentially recognizing that SDOT and our own city council central staff have confirmed the applicant has met or and or will meet the public benefit and other conditions previously adopted by the city.
And we had a briefing on this alley vacation, a presentation at our last meeting of March 15. We're pleased to have with us our city council staff analyst, Lish Whitson.
Lish, any additional comments or context for council members before we vote?
Just a couple of additional points.
The project, the vacation facilitated a 38-story office building just south of the Seattle Art Museum downtown.
And public benefits that have been provided include extensive public spaces, extensive bicycle facilities, including electric bike charging stations, and a performing arts rehearsal space that's available rent-free to emerging artists.
Excellent, thank you.
Colleagues, any additional comments or questions about this item before we vote?
Council Member Strauss, please.
Thank you, Chair Peterson.
Just going on the record saying I wish and I hope that all developments take this level of public benefit into consideration when doing street vacations.
And I think that this is a really good use of the public space.
And I really just want to compliment the architects, the builders, the laborers, and everyone else who's had a hand in this project.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Strauss.
Colleagues, any other comments or questions?
Excellent.
Well, again, as I mentioned, we did have a thorough presentation on this at our previous committee meeting, and we're simply ratifying, confirming that those public benefits have and will be met.
So we can go ahead and vote on this.
I'll go ahead and move the item for a vote.
Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120282, item one on our agenda.
Is there a second?
Thank you.
It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the council bill.
Are there any final comments?
Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council bill 120282 out of committee.
Council member Herbold?
Yes.
Council member Morales?
Yes.
Council member Strauss?
Yes.
Chair Peterson?
Yes.
Four in favor, none opposed.
Thank you, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that they'll pass will be sent to the April 12 city council meeting.
Okay, thank you, Lish.
Oh, I think you'll be with us for the next one too.
Will the clerk please read the short title of the next agenda item into the record.
Agenda item two, council bill 120281, an ordinance granting BSOP1 LLC permission to construct, maintain and operate a private parking area on East house street.
East of Fairview Avenue East for a 15-year term, renewable for one successive 15-year term, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
Thank you.
This project is also the second and final stage.
In this case, it's approving a 15-year term permit to enable a public plaza, improved walkway, and related parking improvements in the East Lake neighborhood in District 4. The proposal enhances the use of the space for the public and even helps to protect a large conifer tree, as the public speaker mentioned.
This committee and the city council previously adopted Resolution 31988, granting conceptual approval for this project.
And with today's Council Bill 120281, we're essentially recognizing that SDOT and our own City Council Central staff have confirmed the applicant has met and and or will meet the public benefit and other conditions we adopted a year ago.
We received a briefing on this at our March 15 committee meeting and presentation.
I also wanna recognize a collaboration among SDOT, Eastlake community and the private property owners for moving this forward and making these improvements that everyone will be able to enjoy.
We do have Lish Whitson from our city council central staff here available to answer any final questions and we can also take comments too.
Ilish.
I don't have anything to add on this one, thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Colleagues, any comments or questions on this council bill?
Okay, well, I will go ahead and move this for a vote by our committee.
Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of council bill 120281, item two on our agenda.
Is there a second?
Thank you.
Oh, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the council.
Are there any comments, final comments?
Councilor Strauss.
Yeah, thank you, Chair Peterson.
Just again, I think that this is another example.
As we just had a street vacation, we now have a term permit.
And so the terms of the term permit can be changed upon the final renewal or once all of the renewals are approved.
have expired, and we redo it.
And I think that this is just another example of how term permits should be done.
We've got great public events that are going to be occurring.
We're preserving a tree.
We're increasing.
We're delineating where people are supposed to walk.
I think that this is a great project all around.
I want to, again, thank everyone who's been involved.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.
Colleagues, again, it's been moved and seconded, recommend passage.
Any comments from other committee members?
Great.
All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120281 out of committee.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Council Member Morales?
Yes.
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Chair Peterson?
Yes.
Four in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the April 12 city council meeting.
All right.
And will the clerk please read the short title of the next agenda item into the record.
Agenda item three, Council Bill 120290, an ordinance granting the Boeing Company permission to continue maintaining and operating two pedestrian tunnels under and across 16th Avenue South, 565 feet south of East Marginal Way South and under and across East Marginal Way South, 510 feet east of 16th Avenue South.
For briefing discussion and possible vote.
Thank you very much.
And council members, because this is a renewal of an existing term permit for pedestrian tunnels, and our committee will get very crowded as we go forward this year, I would like to consider voting this out of committee today.
We'll get our presentation at plenty of time to answer questions.
That's my hope.
We'll see how it goes.
And I appreciate having Seattle Department of Transportation here, Amy Gray, and we also have Lish Whitson from Council Central Staff here with us.
Again, thank you, Lish.
So we'll turn it over to Eszta for a presentation.
Good morning.
Good morning, council members.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this term permit renewal to you.
It's not as exciting as a plaza that saves a tree.
It's in an industrial area.
Bill, did you want to start the slide presentation?
Hopefully, fingers crossed.
So this is the Boeing facilities located near Boeing Field in the King County Airport.
Next slide, please.
The Boeing company is seeking to renew a term permit for two existing pedestrian tunnels as noted.
Both tunnels primarily are used by Boeing employees and authorized personnel.
The tunnel under East Marginal Way is also used by visitors to the facility.
The tunnels connect the various departments within Boeing that are separated by 16th Avenue South and East Marginal Way.
Both these streets are high volume traffic areas and they have a lot of freight going past them every day to and from the industrial area.
So this provides a pedestrian connection between their facilities without having to have pedestrians cross at grade and facilitates the operation of the facilities.
Next slide, please.
This term permit was originally permitted in 1955, so it's been renewed more than a few times.
This council bill updates the conditions of the permit, including the maintenance obligations, inspection reports, insurance, and fees.
The 2022 fee is $3,778.77, and the bond that we require for the life of the permit is $410,000.
Next slide, please.
This is a map showing the general location of the tunnels.
The one on East Marginal is to the right.
The one on 16th Avenue South is to the left.
The Duwamish River and 16th Avenue South Bridge are further south.
And South Park is across the bridge.
And this is located in the Georgetown neighborhood.
Here are some images of the tunnels.
pretty 1955-ish looking.
They, like I said, just connect the visitors to the Boeing facilities and staff and authorized personnel.
And I think the last slide.
So if the ordinance is approved, the permit would expire in 2037, and SDOT is recommending approval to renew this permit from City Council.
Thank you.
Thank you.
and we do have a question from Council Member Strauss, please.
Thank you, and I know usually we have conversations offline before we jump on Seattle Channel.
Just wondering, are these tunnels open, especially the one crossing 16th, is it open to the public?
No, the one at 16th Ave South is not open to the public because that is Boeing secured growing property over there.
There the one across East Marginal does allow visitors that are authorized to enter the Boeing facilities so.
They're not open to the public where they can walk back and forth.
That's not true.
The one the one on 16th does have an opening down.
It also does connect to the facility on the.
north east side of the system.
I've got a few more questions, but I think it might be better if we just talk offline.
So if we're voting on this today, Chair Peterson, I will be abstaining, but not for any other reason than I just need to dive into this a little bit more deeply.
And usually, permits are just so simple and straightforward.
So I apologize if that's hanging anything up.
That's OK.
I completely understand.
And colleagues, any other questions on this?
We can get them all out there if there are any others.
Council Member Herbold.
Thanks.
Can you tell me again, I know you said it already, but just, I didn't catch it.
The number of times that this particular permit has been renewed, I think you said the tunnels have been there since the 50s?
Yeah, it was renewed, it was originally approved in 1955, and so 30 years from there would be 1985, and then 30 years from there would be 2015. And then now we're at the next 30-year renewal.
OK.
All right.
Great.
Well, 30-year term with two renewals.
And I've gone by those tunnels many times, and they're very interesting feature.
How do they maintain the access, the restricted access?
They don't look, like when you go by, they don't look like they're restricted access.
Everybody needs to know that they are.
I think they're restricted on the Boeing side, so you can enter the tunnel and get out, but you can't enter the Boeing facility.
I think there's like a footprint there that's closed off and then you have to have approved access to get into the building, cross the gate, that sort of thing.
Got it.
All right.
Thank you.
Colleagues, any other questions?
One idea I have is that what we could do is to pass it out or we could take a vote and then have it go to the April 19 full council meeting.
And that'll give us some time in between to get questions answered.
Yeah, Councilor Strauss.
Chair Peterson, just without having the full information that I need to be able to make some decisions, it seems like this project, while we've renewed the term permit, has some other uses in the, there's some other projects in the area that might fit nicely with this one.
And so I think that there might be an opportunity to make improvements to this, but without, diving deep into the weeds and this isn't the right place to do that.
I don't know where we're at there.
I just don't want to miss an opportunity.
Appreciate that.
Yeah, thanks for mentioning that.
We can also bring it back to committee too.
But Lish, did you want to say, did you want to add anything?
Yeah, because we're in the middle of the term of the 30 year term, council can't unilaterally ask for changes to the permit at this point.
In 15 years, there would be that opportunity to look at new or different circumstances.
I'm still happy to bring it back to committee next.
That's really helpful.
Thank you, Lish.
And I thought I heard Amy say the 30-year started in 2015, so that would come up in 2030?
Yes.
We've changed a little bit of the aligning permits.
It would be 2037. So we gave a, there was an extension while we worked through the renewal process from then.
So it's actually till 2037. So we're now, we're no longer amending the original ordinance.
We're granting a renewal ordinance that extends it to the 15 years.
So it's a little, It's a wonky thing that I'm happy to discuss with you offline of how we did all this.
I'm happy to answer any questions you have at any time.
So it is very weedy.
So for the viewing public, you're now seeing some of why we have these conversations offline first, because Seems so simple and then it gets so so complicated.
So I guess what I'm hearing right now is even if we wanted to make changes to the terms of this term permit, we do not have the ability until 2037. Is that a correct understanding?
Yeah, the renewals update the terms and conditions like fees, any insurance requirements.
For older permits that have, that had like affirmative action language in them that was ruled unconstitutional, we've had to take those out.
So it's those type of adjustments that happen at renewals, so.
Okay, I think it would still be good to touch base offline.
With that further and new information, Chair Peterson, I'll be happy to vote yes today.
OK, thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Strauss.
And we'll also, if it's OK with everybody, we'll also recommend that it arrive at full council on the 19th, just to get more air time for it.
No pun intended with Boeing.
So all right, well, thank you very much for the presentation from ESTOP.
Thank you, Amy Gray.
And thank you, Les Schwitzen, for answering questions you can right now.
And so I'll go ahead and recommend that we move this item.
But again, it would be instead of to the 12th, April 12th full council to the April 19th full council.
So council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of council bill 120290 out of committee.
Is there a second?
Thank you.
It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the council bill out of committee.
Any final comments?
Clerk, please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council bill 120290. Council member Herbold.
Yes.
Council member Morales.
Yes.
Council member Strauss.
Yes.
Chair Peterson.
Yes.
Four opposed, none in, excuse me, four in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the April 19 city council meeting.
So April 19th for that one.
Thank you very much.
We have one more item colleagues on our agenda today.
So will the clerk please read the short title of the next and final agenda item into the record.
Agenda Item 4, Council Bill 120291, an ordinance relating to rates and charges for water services of Seattle Public Utilities for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
Thank you, and appreciate having Seattle Public Utilities here, as well as Brian Goodnight from City Council Central Staff.
Council members, due to what appears to be a minor technical nature of this bill impacting no SPU customers in Burien at this point, I'd like to vote on this item today as well.
Are there any, so, but let's have this presentation and see how that goes.
Welcome SPU.
Thank you.
Oh, and Paula, you're on mute.
You said Paul or Paula?
Paula is on mute.
Alright.
Can you see the screen OK?
Yes, thank you.
OK, just want to make sure.
Thanks for taking the time this morning.
As you mentioned.
Councilmember, this is a small technical update and it does not affect any customers at this point in time, but we want to be prepared in case it does.
To give you a quick reminder of what the water system that we have looks like, we serve about 1.6 million people in total, a little over half of them through a retail service area, which is the yellow section, obviously the Seattle section, a little bit below and a little bit above the city limits, and the rest primarily on the east side and then down south a little bit through wholesale customers.
So we do serve a lot of people, both inside and outside the city.
So what we're looking to do today is really make a small correction for a small potential group of customers.
There are no customers now that would be affected to reconcile meter sizes differences in our new Burien section of code.
So to kind of give you an idea of how we got here, last year you guys approved rates.
for 2022 and 2023. As part of those rates, we added a new section for Burien because Burien added a new local tax that we send to their government.
And when we created the new section, we had a small error in this group of master metered residential developments.
So what we really want to do today is correct that mistake in case we end up getting some of those customers down there.
To kind of give you the technical nature of what it is we're looking at doing, on the left, you can see the meter sizes that we have for all of our other jurisdictions for master meter residential developments.
They go from one and a half inches to 24 inches.
On the right, you can see what we actually put in code with Burien.
So we want to remove those small two meters and add the four inch and larger meters so that we can provide the water should the customers need it.
That's really all we're trying to do.
Are there any questions?
Thank you very much.
I wanted to give our city council central staff analyst a chance to let us know just to confirm that this is technical correction and it does not impact existing customers in Burien and that you would recommend approval.
Thank you, council member.
Brian, good night, council central staff.
Yep, I will just confirm that I view this as a purely technical correction to the ordinance that council passed last year.
Thank you.
Colleagues, any comments or questions from either SPU staff or our city council central staff?
Okay, great.
Well, again, I'll go ahead and make a motion to have our committee recommend passage of this bill.
Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120291, item four on our agenda.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you.
It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this council bill onto the full council.
Are there any final comments?
Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass out of committee Council Bill 120291.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Council Member Morales?
Yes.
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Chair Peterson?
Yes.
Four in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the April 12th City Council meeting.
All right, colleagues, that concludes our list of items for the April 5, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.
We anticipate that our next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 19. I want to thank our excellent committee clerk, Willa Heavily, and everybody else who joined us today.
Thank you.
We are adjourned.
Good job, Chair.