Seattle City Council Transportation & Utilities Committee 2/19/2020

Good morning, everybody the February 19 2020 meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee will come to order It's 934 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson chair of the committee.

I'm joined by council members Strauss Herbold and Morales.

Good morning Before we begin we will approve our agenda for this committee meeting if there's no objection today's agenda will be adopted Hearing no objection, it is adopted.

At this time, we'll take public comment on items that appear on today's agenda or are under the purview of this committee, Transportation Utilities and Technology.

We'll have up to 20 minutes for public comment.

Each speaker will have two minutes to speak.

I'll read the names here.

Just come up to the microphone.

We've got two speakers, Jan Greylord and Megan Cruz.

Good morning.

My name is Jan Gray Larn.

I'm with Keep Via.

I live in South Seattle.

A year ago, if I wanted to get downtown, UW, if I wanted to connect up with the Rainier Beach station, it would take roughly an hour and a half walking, waiting, riding the 107 to get to Rainier Beach.

Today, it takes me 20 to 30 minutes to call a Via van, to ride Via, to light rail.

That service is supposed to end, it's a demonstration project, April 30th.

So I don't know if May 1st I go back to an hour and a half or not.

VIA in a simple sentence is Uber to light rail at a reasonable cost.

It's in four South Seattle stations and it's in Tukwila.

The VIA riders want and need VIA.

VIA is fast, flexible, efficient, safe, comfortable.

It connects us to jobs, education, healthcare, community.

We want to keep it.

We understand things have to balance out, but it is a vital service in South Seattle.

Any more info, email keepvia at yahoo.com and subject info.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Megan Cruz.

Good morning.

Maybe I'll do this one.

I'm here to talk about Seattle traffic, the good and the bad.

And there is some good.

The first part is transit ridership is up and single occupancy vehicles are down in the city center.

But the other side of the coin is traffic and congestion is still growing.

So why is that?

And the reason is we're not accounting for all forms of traffic, especially the fastest growing.

And that would be trucks and TNCs, which are the ride hailing services, Uber and Lyft.

And consider these facts that I got from the city.

With regard to TNCs, in zip code 98104, which is this one, And 98101, which is the retail core, we get 17,500 riders a day.

And that's a lot of cars.

And these cars are not parking anywhere.

They're constantly circling around.

So that means they have more vehicle miles per hour.

MT vehicle miles traveled than a single occupancy vehicle.

2.8 for a TNC, SOVs only have one.

So we really have to consider these, and they're not in the comp plan as a mode share.

Likewise, trucks are growing 20% annually downtown because of the rise of e-commerce.

The UW just did a cordon study that showed 40,000 trucks come into the city center every day.

And, you know, when you look at 20% annual growth, That's really going to be overwhelming in a short while.

And at the same time, we're taking away curb lanes and putting them into bike and bus lanes, which is very good.

But the new buildings that we're building don't come equipped with workable loading berths.

In fact, SDCI has made the determination that new towers that are going to hold 1,000 people each don't require a loading berth.

And you think about everybody getting their goods and services from e-commerce these days, it's going to quickly become a problem if we don't take charge of this.

So I'd like the committee to do two things.

One is, last May, I submitted an amendment proposal to the comp plan asking that trucks and TNCs be added to the mode share.

so that we can count them and deal with them.

I don't know where that's gone.

It was supposed to take place this last year.

The second thing is...

Thank you, Ms.

Cruz.

But could you please give your comments to our clerk and we can read those later.

Is anybody else signed up to speak?

Okay, seeing as we have no additional speakers signed up, the public comment period is closed, and we will move to the first item on the agenda, the first substantive item.

We'll have our clerk, just an overview of today's committee.

We've got four items on the agenda today, and we'll go to the first item now.

The clerk will read that into the record for us.

Resolution 31932, a resolution relating to the City Light Department acknowledging and approving City Light's adoption of a biennial energy conservation target for 2020 to 2021 and 10-year conservation potential.

Thank you.

And we will actually be hearing this item twice.

There's a public hearing that will be required, so they'll be back for that official public hearing.

And I actually spoke with the general manager and CEO, Deborah Smith, who's joining us here.

And she has offered to give a brief update on what we read about in the Seattle Times and other media outlets about the copper wire theft.

So why don't we do introductions, and then we can

I'm the general manager of Seattle city light.

I'm Jennifer Finnegan, and I'm in Customer Care and Energy Solutions at Seattle City Light.

Great.

So that's kind of fun to hear, actually.

I think that's the first time I've heard that.

So just as a quick aside, and I think this is a really good thing for our community, but we've been doing, as you know, in my year and a half, we've been doing some reorganizations.

And so one of the things that we've now done is taken Our customer care group, which is part of, it's not operational customer service, so it's not the billing collections.

Those are actually in our operations group under Mike Haynes' leadership.

He's our COO and he's here right there.

hands up, Mike.

But Craig now is reporting directly into me, and he's been responsible for customer energy solutions, which is energy efficiency, and most of our value-add, I guess, products and services.

And we've brought those two together, and it's a really, I think we're all discovering that it's a really great marriage.

There's just a lot of similarities.

And these are folks who have just years of experience being in our customers' homes, working with them really directly.

So their knowledge about, you know, the customer experience and what it takes to manage and sustain long-term relationships is really deep.

taking customer care, which includes our UDP program, and key accounts, and some of those folks, and bringing those together, I think, is great.

So anyway, that's the first time I've heard anyone use the name of the new division.

So it kind of rolled off your tongues.

You guys did awesome.

So yeah, I'll just take a quick minute.

Because first of all, we really appreciate the article in The Times.

The reporter, Daniel, did a great job, and we worked with him really over a long period of time to really make sure that the information was presented.

We really appreciate Council Member Herbold for bringing this up during the budget process, and a lot of work has been done since then.

So, actually, staff completed a great report on streetlight copper wire theft analysis report, which I just got a copy of yesterday, and it was finalized at the end of January.

And it's a great, again, it's a great review of both the problem, what other utilities are doing, how it's impacting Seattle, and kind of a best practices review.

So I wanted to share just a bit of information from it, because one of the things they've done is they've provided a set of recommendations.

And again, these are on the ground staff level, not consultants.

So these are folks who are dealing with this on a daily basis, and I think they're really They've hit it.

So number one, which I think is huge, is to develop and launch a public awareness campaign on how to spot a theft in progress and where to report.

Because we know that that is happening and that was one of the things that the Times did a great job of talking about was you know, the lengths to which folks are going in some cases to do the work during the day and then pull the wire at night.

So a part of that is to develop expectations for contractors who are performing our work in the public right-of-way or in the streets so that folks, the community can easily identify that these are folks who are doing work who either are City Light employees who should be in the vault, or who are doing work on our behalf.

And so that'll be part of the public education campaign and then working with those folks.

Undertaking a cost-benefit analysis for replacement of copper wire with aluminum.

So I have no idea how that will turn out, but we do know that The markets are very different for those, and so we will be looking at, as we now are doing a much better job, again, thank you, Councilmember, capturing the cost.

We have a separate work order set up, so we are really able to understand what this is costing us.

It'll allow us to do a cost-benefit to look at other solutions.

We are, and this was mentioned in the story, looking at welding handholds.

And that's a pretty practical solution and one that we're already starting to do.

The downside, which again was discussed, is that when there is a legitimate outage, then it does take a bit longer for restoration.

But I think in the long run, it's the right way to go.

If that is what we do, then of course we'll have to develop a construction standard so that we have that and then it'll take some time to work through the system.

We're looking at staffing and contract language to manage copper wire related activities such as data entry into our system where we keep track of things.

I appreciated that there was, you know, support in general as we learn more and really get our program together.

If there are budget impacts, we'll certainly be talking to you.

That's not what we're doing right now.

We're assuming that there's a lot that we can do with the existing resources and make that work.

And then lastly, there are a lot of, this is, we are not the only community to have this solution or this problem, so there are a lot of, solutions that are out there, and so we're doing that's what I refer to as best practice.

We're exploring other solutions.

So that's where that's at.

We are committed to providing an update to the mayor this week, and I mentioned to Councilmember Peterson that as soon as we have that complete and transmitted, we'll socialize with you as well.

And that'll give you information current from the date of the article.

So again, this is a place where the public's help and involvement is, we don't want people to do anything that puts them obviously in harm's way, but there are we will be educating folks about how to respond if they see activities that they think are suspicious.

And this is a community problem that is just huge.

And I think what's most important is that when copper theft is happening, it is not just, it is not, the repairs are generally not simple because it is a destruction of public property.

And so the expenditures, it's not the cost of the, it's not the cost of the replacement copper, it's the labor and the, I think it is a very important piece of extensive at times work that is having to be done.

Thank you.

Any questions from the colleagues?

Yes.

Not so much questions.

A couple of statements.

Thank you for referencing the work that the Council did during the budget process on this issue.

a citywide issue.

There are other departments that are experiencing theft of scrap metal and so that's why the first of the two budget actions that the council approved was asking the city develop a citywide asset loss program.

You know, we found that a lot of these thefts weren't being reported to SPD from departments throughout the city.

And really, a call out to the public and a thanks for notifying me of outages of lighting in my district because that's really what allowed me to realize that this wasn't a one-off problem, that it was something that was happening in multiple places, and it was sometimes happening in recurring instances at the same place after the infrastructure had been replaced.

So the first budget action was to ask the executive to develop a citywide loss program.

with expectations for all the departments for what to do when they have experienced these types of thefts.

And then the second piece really is focused on how we would like to hold the scrap metal collectors and recyclers responsible for fulfilling their obligations under state law.

And I've had some meetings with some of the, and I appreciate City Light's participation in that meeting as well with the Trade Association.

The folks I met with at least are eager to help the city, but they need some help from the city as well.

And so really appreciate the fact that City Light is now participating in the theft alert program that exists.

I think we need to work on making sure that all the other departments are participating as well.

And I just, I also think of, again, perhaps you could, for the public, say where folks can report outages.

Because, again, we all know that a lot of people contact me and you guys prefer if they contact you directly.

But getting that information out to the public about where they can report outages.

So we prefer folks report it, find it, fix it.

And we are developing new processes that will allow us to track those.

And we have a database that we've put together.

So actually, we just had a meeting on it yesterday.

So we will pull the information from there.

Is that correct, Maura?

Yes.

And then we will be tracking them in the database.

And it will allow, for instance, Maura, if she hears from Alex, and I just use that as an example because that happens quite often.

Yeah, it will allow Maura to access the file, look and see, you know, where is this at.

And one of the things I didn't mention here.

when I was talking about recommendations is we're going to be developing some criteria that we can use for prioritization across the utility.

So it's really tough because we want to prioritize replacement.

We have limited crews.

And so even as we are looking at whether it makes sense to add crews for this activity, we want to be prioritizing based on public safety.

But we also want to make sure that customers who contact us either directly through Find it Fix it or through one of your offices, that they can know that they've been heard, that they are in the queue, and have some information about when they can expect a replacement.

So balancing all those is really challenging, but that's the way to go.

And on that prioritization, because my recollection is that this is something that we're seeing most in Southwest and South, is that correct?

You know, I don't know that that's, there is, some of these big spans that you've heard about that have been in your area, that is definitely the case, MLK Boulevard and the bridge.

But actually, we've been experiencing it fairly equally around the, you know, in lots of darker areas.

And lighting is such an important public safety prevention tool and a way to address public safety threats.

So I would hate to be in a situation where we're prioritizing in such a way that doesn't consider that important utility of lighting, and would rather, rather than deprioritizing your work and making sure that you're out there fixing every outage, I'd rather figure out how to get to the root of this issue, so that you're not put in that position.

Absolutely, yeah.

Because it's not financially sustainable long term, so we know that.

And I completely agree with you.

And it's not your goal as a utility to not fix lights.

Right.

And I think you know I mean we're trying right now because of the public safety issues in a lot of cases We're just going overhead right now in order to get the lights back on and then we'll be coming back and we'll be doing longer-term fixes so And and as we're doing the longer-term fixes, that's where we have the opportunity to explore some of these changes in process, changes in standard that will prevent the reoccurrence, which is what we've experienced.

So really good conversation.

We'll keep you posted.

We've also been really actively participating in the Third and Pine work that the mayor's office is leading because, again, for the same reason, that lighting is such an important deterrent.

And it's so critical to our community members feeling safe and able to be out in the community, which is what we want.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, well, let's jump into the presentation on conservation.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I am here to talk to you about the 2020 through 2021 conservation potential assessment and the target.

This is part of a tradition that we do.

We do a presentation like this every two years to you.

And this is our sixth time that we have come before this body.

I have about 12 slides, and I'm happy to take questions as you think of them.

There are three sections to my presentation.

The first is an introduction to conservation at City Light.

I like to think of it as Conservation 101. The second is the meat of the presentation, and it has to do with the conservation target for 2020 to 2021, and that's why we're here.

And then the final section has to do with, what does it mean?

How is that going to impact conservation here at City Light?

We have a long history of doing conservation at City Light.

In fact, we've been doing it for more than 40 years.

And that's one of the longest running utility programs in conservation in the country.

It's as a result of our legacy and current programs, City Light's annual load was reduced by 157 average megawatts through 2018. And in English, everyday English, that's the equivalent of 190,000 average Seattle homes.

That's the electricity use.

And so that's a small city.

Shifting to 2018, we saved the annual electricity use of 17,000 average Seattle homes.

And we did that through $26 million in incentives.

And we did that with a portfolio of programs that were offered to all types of customers, residential, commercial, industrial, and low income.

For the rest of my presentation, I'm going to talk about conservation and energy efficiency.

They are pretty much equivalent.

Sometimes I will say energy efficiency, but it also means conservation.

So what is conservation, and why is it important to City Light?

Well, most importantly, conservation is a clean resource.

And what's a resource?

Well, a resource is a way of saying, where do we get our electricity at City Light?

And if you look at the pie chart, it looks like Pac-Man.

And you can see that about 75% of our electricity comes from hydro sources.

But the second largest portion of where our resources come from is conservation.

Conservation, the definition, I'm going to read here just to make sure I get it right.

Conservation is any method of reducing energy consumption by using less energy to attain the same amount of useful output.

So the classic definition or the classic example is think of the light bulb that you had as a kid growing up.

It was an incandescent.

And then think about the light bulbs that you see on the shelves at Home Depot right now.

Those are LEDs.

LEDs use 75% less energy than those 60-watt incandescents that we all grew up with.

And yet, it still emits the same amount of light.

And so that's the classic example of conservation.

So if you were to pull together all of the widgets and systems in City Light territory that we have incentivized, that's a lot of conserved energy.

And that conserved energy is clean, green, low cost, and it's local.

Conservation is a big deal at City Light.

It's foundational to how we run the utility.

It helps us to achieve our greenhouse gas goals.

It helps us to live up to that moniker on the bottom of the slide, the nation's greenest utility.

And it's our first choice for load growth in a growing, dynamic city.

Moreover, conservation provides high value to our customer owners by paying customers to buy more efficient equipment with incentives.

Customers use less energy, our dollars stay local, and we sell more clean energy to the market.

So let's do a deep dive into that green area up there.

Where do we get this conservation?

Conservation is dominated by lighting.

Lighting end uses more than 40%.

Lighting is the foundation upon which all legacy energy efficiency programs have been built.

It's our least expensive sources, and it's easiest to do, and it's quick.

We all are familiar with the how to change a light bulb.

The next biggest part is non-lighting at 28%.

And by non-lighting, I mean things like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

I mean chillers.

I mean commercial kitchen equipment.

And I mean low-income weatherization.

We provide incentives for all of those things.

Behavior.

That's a different one.

Behavior is a type of program that we've been offering for 10 years.

We were one of the first utilities to do so.

And the idea is that if I tell you or someone in your neighborhood that you use more energy than your neighbors do, you are most likely to take some voluntary steps to change your behavior about 3%.

And if you average that over hundreds or thousands or millions of households, that adds up.

The final piece of the pie is regional savings.

We work together with more than 140 Northwest utilities to move the regional market by influencing retailers to stock different things on their shelves and by ensuring that there's a pipeline of efficient technologies coming down the line.

So, all told, all together, in one year, we save about 14 average megawatts of energy, equivalent to about 17,000 homes.

And that's as compared to the previous year?

That's the next slide.

Okay.

Before we move to that, how do you measure...

I mean, I see you have a number, 20%, but how do you measure the impacts of behavior on conservation?

Yeah, we have a whole specialized part of our industry that does that.

We do that with measurement and verification and with evaluation.

We do that through studies and we leverage those studies regionally and nationally.

So in other words, we know that we can leverage studies from what is done in New York or what is done in California or what is done here.

And on the behavioral program, we actually use a control group.

So we have the folks who participate, and then we compare their use to a control group.

Got it.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

So how does that compare to the previous year?

Ta-da.

This slide is a 20-year historic view of conservation achievement, or how much energy savings conservation programs have delivered.

And it's an introduction to the conservation target, or the reason why we're here today.

On the horizontal axis is time.

And even though we've been doing conservation programs for the last 40 years, I made it shorter just so that it's easier to read.

On the vertical axis is average megawatts.

That's energy savings.

And one average megawatt is the equivalent of 1,200 residential homes.

The green part is the energy savings.

And if you look at 2018, you'll see a familiar number.

You'll see that we achieved 14 average megawatts.

And you'll see that we were able to achieve that through lighting.

And that we have predominantly been getting our savings from lighting over time.

The other thing that I want to draw your attention to is that when you look at this achievement over time, you see that our opportunities shift greater and lower.

You see that our achievement shifts greater and lower.

You see that our portfolio of programs changes over time.

And then you also see that the conservation target will change over time.

And if I really dig down in there, because I like to get a little bit wonky, you'll see that we technically overachieve, meaning that we get more savings.

We get savings above the conservation target, which means that we capture more savings earlier than we had to.

So back to my question, the 14 average megawatts, what is the baseline?

Is it the previous year?

So the traditional acquisition, so we think of acquiring, so we think of energy efficiency as a generation resource, and so we think of acquiring it.

So we talked about the cumulative savings of about 157, I think, megawatts.

So that's the adding those years.

So for instance, the target of 14 is in addition to what we were already experiencing, the cumulative of the year before.

It's incremental.

Going back to when?

1977.

But there are things do roll off over time.

So that's so a measure has a life associated with it.

So yeah.

So I think another way of answering your question, if I'm understanding it correctly, is if you look at 2017, you can see that we achieved about 16 average megawatts.

And what we achieved last year was about 14.

And so where does that spike in 2017, can you just help flesh this out a little bit more?

How does that spike in 2017 occur as compared to 2018?

Yeah.

You'll see that there, I'm getting ahead, is that there's a downward trend in opportunity in energy efficiency and in conservation.

And the reason for that, I will get to in some future slides, the punchline is that we've transformed the market.

And we also have different levels of opportunity based on the building stock and on the energy codes that are here.

So in 2017 we had larger opportunity?

Yes.

Is that a reasonable understanding?

In 2018 we have less of an opportunity and that's how this number went down?

Yes.

There is a slide that I will linger on, especially for you, a little bit down the way.

So if you think about lighting, because that's one we all remember, you know, and so we went from You know, the old light bulbs that we still like in our icons, and then we went to the compact fluorescent light bulbs.

And so if you look at some of these peaks, 2010, that would be kind of the peak of CFLs.

And so that was when everyone was converting.

their old incandescents into CFLs, and so lighting was a huge issue.

And then it starts to come down, and then you have new technologies that emerge in the form of LEDs, which are now giving you additional savings.

And so what happens is the market transforms, and until a new technology comes that provides new opportunity, you'll see those peaks and valleys.

And along the way, we're providing incentives to customers and other market actors to sort of accelerate that adoption, and then when we reach a certain point, then we'll lock in the savings with higher and higher appliance efficiency standards at the national level.

And then here in Seattle, well, we've got our own commercial energy code for commercial buildings, and we ratchet that up.

So like Nia, and maybe you're going to talk about this, but one of the big stories is televisions, right?

So there was a time when you could buy an energy-efficient television.

And essentially, that market was transformed.

And now you can't buy a non-energy-efficient television.

And so you're not incenting those anymore, because there isn't a basis for incenting that.

And Bonneville, who helps fund our programs with our customers, does the same thing.

It's kind of like how with electric vehicles, Tesla was providing all these incentives, and then when they got to a certain number, it drops.

It's a similar approach.

Okay.

So this slide is the end of Conservation 101. And so what I want to do over the next slides is to talk about that black line, that conservation target, and how we arrive at it.

So we are required to calculate that black line, the conservation target, partly because we are required to do so by I-937 or Initiative 937. I'm going to start at the upper left and then go down.

I-937 was approved by voters in 2006 with 52% of the vote.

It applies to all large utilities or those that have more than 25,000 customers.

And it required these utilities to identify and pursue all cost-effective conservation.

Cost-effective is an important word that I'm going to come back to in a little bit.

Going to the upper right, we calculate that all cost-effective conservation using methodologies that are set by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

This is an entity based in Portland that oversees regional energy planning for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana.

We are required to set these conservation targets every two years.

That's why we come before you every two years.

And we are required to report the savings and targets to the state.

We set a conservation target with a conservation potential assessment.

That's the methodology that was created by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

This conservation potential assessment is a 150-page report, which I believe you got a copy of, and this is the result of a year-long study that we did with our consultant CADMIS and with many colleagues across the utility.

The purpose of this report is to identify how much conservation city light can get in two years, in ten years, and in twenty years.

And the inputs change.

The assumptions change, which is why we have to do it every two years.

This report is specific to our service territory.

What's really fascinating to me is that in some ways you would think that we are very similar to Tacoma Power or that we are very similar to Snohomish PUD.

But really, we have different customer bases.

Tacoma has a lot more industrial customers.

Snohomish PUD has a lot fewer high rises.

And that changes the amount and timing of opportunities that we have.

Though we are required by I-937 to do this conservation potential assessment and to set the targets, we use the outputs of the conservation potential assessment in a lot of ways here at the utility.

It is a foundation to our integrated resource plan, it's a foundation to load forecasting, and it is an important input into conservation program planning.

So now that I've talked about the conservation potential assessment, the conservation target, let's get to the punchline.

What is it?

The conservation target for 2020 through 2021, I'm looking at the middle column, is 21.3 average megawatts.

And that's the equivalent of 26,000 homes.

That's over two years.

We also look at the conservation target over 10 years, and that's the right column.

And you can see there that is 82.7 average megawatts, or 100,000 homes.

You'll see that if you look in there, that the greatest opportunity is within the commercial sector.

And the reason why is that A, we've done a lot of program achievements in the residential sector, and commercial sector has opportunities that are less expensive.

So how about some context?

How does this compare?

This kind of gets at your question.

The conservation target that was set two years ago is on the right side of this slide.

And you can see that it's 24.6 average megawatts, or the equivalent of about 30,000 homes.

And you can see that the current target, the one that I'm presenting to you about today in the middle column, is 21.3 average megawatts.

It's about 13% lower.

One thing that I want you to notice is that in the 2018 through 2019 study, we included street lighting, which is a topic that came up earlier today.

And the reason why it's not included in the 2020 study is because we converted the market.

It looks like you're familiar with that.

Yes.

It also says it.

But yes, I do remember.

Good.

Good.

So what changed?

What caused that 13%?

This is your slide.

There are three reasons.

First is that renewable energy costs have decreased by 27% since the last time that we set the conservation target.

I mentioned before that we need to go after all cost-effective conservation.

And a key input into what is cost effective is to identify what is the thing that we would purchase?

What's the source of energy that we would purchase if we didn't do energy efficiency?

And what we would purchase is more renewable energy.

And from reading the headlines in the energy sector, you know that the cost of renewables has come down, specifically solar and wind.

And that's a worldwide phenomenon.

The second reason why the conservation target has gone down is because electricity demand is flat.

We update our load forecasts every so often, and we did it more recently, and the result of the load forecast show that even though this is a growing and dynamic city filled with cranes, I saw so many this morning on my way in, electricity demand is flat, and that's partly due to all of the 40 years of conservation history that we have.

Lastly, and this gets at the market transformation that Debra and Craig talked about, is that we have a lot of new energy codes.

The 2019 legislative session at the state introduced and passed a bunch of new energy codes and standards.

And essentially that's great for all Washingtonians.

That means that everybody then gets efficient equipment.

But it makes it more challenging for us, the utility, because we offer voluntary programs.

So did I answer your question?

Once a customer is required to do something, there's no longer a reason to provide an incentive.

That's basically what we're talking about.

And the other thing that I would say, and this speaks to the first point, earlier when we heard a definition, you provided a great definition of conservation.

And what I want to say is conservation is one type of what we call a distributed energy resource.

So this just puts it into context.

So distributed energy resources are, it's anything other than central gen. So, you know, our hydropower is centralized generation.

Distributed energy resources are solar on your rooftop there.

And so what's true is, is that customers are also increasingly interested in other forms of distributed energy resources because as those price points have come down, that's more accessible to more people.

Great, I definitely have, oh, Council Member Morales.

Sorry.

Please, please.

Thank you, this is all very interesting and raises a few questions for me that I think are connected.

Okay.

So I'll just ask them and you can answer as you think is appropriate.

So we know that the targets have gone down a little and you explained why.

Mm-hmm.

So my question is, what does this, and my understanding, you said something about basically like the low-hanging fruit we've taken, and now, you know, things have changed.

So what does this mean for future targets?

And what does this mean for additional conservation measures?

And what does this electricity demand, how does the electricity demand change if we start moving toward more building electrification?

Great questions.

Because my understanding is that we are already building like two-thirds of our buildings are all electric and if we try to move toward requiring 100% or, you know, moving in that direction, how does all of that change?

Right.

I'm going to take a stab at your questions and please bring me back if I don't address all of them.

So we do the conservation potential assessment and we set this target based off the best available information that we have at the time.

And the best available information that we had at the time said that our load forecast is flat.

And so what we see coming down the pike, though, is potentially a future with more electrification through vehicles and potentially due to carbon legislation.

And so if those come to pass or as those come to pass, that will impact our load forecasts and that will impact greatly our opportunity with conservation going forward.

So based off the information that we have currently, it's a downward trend for, if you ask me what is going to happen two years from now, I would say based off the information we have now, It is downward trending.

But subject to what happens with legislation and how much electric transportation takes off, we could be seeing a very different story.

And we're getting ready to do a couple studies right now to look at what the implications of mass electrification are for the utility system, both in buildings and transportation.

I'm kicking off a piece of work with the Electric Power Research Institute.

And we'll look at at least a couple of scenarios.

One would be over the planning horizon for our integrated resource plan, which is a 20-year planning horizon.

And then based on a statement of legislative intent that was adopted by the council, we'll be looking at what are those impacts likely to be if we were to have accelerated adoption by 2030.

Yeah, right now in our in our load forecast, and I'm going off of memory, and I don't have the file here, but I believe we continue to show loads declining for at least another 10 years.

And that's with the current forecast from Metro and ferries and others now.

We've all heard that they are interested in accelerating their deployment of electric mass transit, and so that will certainly accelerate that.

But I mean, it is declining for a number of years.

And by the way, just because it's always worth putting this in a plug, that is one of the primary challenges that we face, which is how to continue to do the right thing, do what our customers want, and prioritize responsible use of this critical resource while we manage the affordability impacts of continuously decreasing load.

Okay, is that you good?

Yeah, thank you.

I mean, so I have a number of other questions, and I know that the committee has quite a bit to get to, so maybe if we could follow up with a meeting, and then if need to put any questions on the record, I'll follow up at the public hearing.

Sounds great.

Thank you.

Okay, I have one more slide.

Oh, no, thank you.

Okay.

So what does this all mean for Seattle City Light?

It means that conservation remains a good value for the utility, and we will continue our strong investment in conservation.

Conservation is a cornerstone of how we run the utility and will continue to offer a portfolio of programs for residential, low-income, commercial, and industrial customers.

But this is also a little bit of a canary in the coal mine.

Things are changing, and our world is changing, and we have to change, too.

Our opportunities are evolving.

Specifically, in the future, we will be offering more whole building programs and solutions, and less things like lighting, which is cheap and easy to do.

It means that in the future, we will be offering more social equity programs.

Even though our programs have been really successful over time, there are pockets that we've missed, and so we need to target our investments there.

Third, we will consider location and time value of conservation.

Conservation, when targeted, can really help with areas of the grid that are stretched.

And if we focus where we offer conservation in those areas, there's a lot of great benefits financially that we can bring to the utility and to our customer owners.

And then lastly, we talked about this.

With the future, as we march towards electrification with vehicles and potentially with carbon legislation, there's an increased need for conservation over time.

So our opportunities are changing, but our commitment to conservation remains strong.

Thank you.

And just two quick notes, too.

I think yesterday we transmitted a memo, is that right, Maura, on two of our programs that are kind of new, and they do get at kind of whole building and the focus.

And so it's performance-based energy efficiency and energy efficiency as a service.

So you'll get some information about that.

And those are probably the two newest programs that Craig and his team have launched, and energy efficiency as a service in particular.

We are a leader in releasing that program.

It's one of a kind in the industry, not just in the U.S., but globally.

And I've been at this for, Debra mentioned the years of experience.

I'm the senior citizen of the group.

I've been at this for 42 years now.

I've had the privilege of having a clean energy job my entire career.

But at no point in my career have I seen as much change, as much exciting change as what's going on now.

And we had City Lighter in a great position to innovate and to help lead the industry and the community in the future, so.

Yeah, and I mean, truly, the energy efficiency as a service, it was a hard lift.

But we, these guys were super successful because they were able to bring everybody along.

I mean, not everybody got everything that they wanted, but everybody moved along, and I think everyone's happy with the product.

So that was not easy.

Now we're looking for buildings to come through.

Yes.

So the other thing is, is just because Council Member Morales, I saw you circle something I want to call out that we do have a rate pilot that's under play right now called our Energy Equity Program.

And what that is, is that's a pilot that is specifically being offered for some of our lowest income households.

And that's a great example of what Jessica's talked about because it has wraparound services.

customers get a reduced rate, and that's a program that these guys were very involved in developing as well.

They get a flat as opposed to tiered rate without a fixed cost, but they also get a lot of services wrapped around them.

So we're helping the customer with short-term affordability, but we're also helping the customer by upgrading the building stock so that they have lower ongoing costs.

And so we are always looking for things that we can do that play into those different markets.

And then probably another one, if I can take a minute to highlight, is the work we're doing with the Housing Development Consortium to really look at how we can help reduce the long-term costs for affordable housing with a combination of energy efficiency and distributed resources.

Thank you.

Any final comments, colleagues?

I'm sorry, and I think you may have mentioned this at the start.

What are the next steps?

The memo says that there was a public, the agenda included a public hearing.

Well, we are going to have the public hearing at the next committee meeting.

We want to have the presentation, have some initial questions.

It'll be coming back for the formal public hearing part of it, and then we'll advance it from there.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

I would love an opportunity to follow up with you all as well.

Okay, well, we'll work on scheduling that with your offices.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, our second item of business concerns an agreement between Sound Transit and the City of Seattle for the Northgate Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge over Interstate 5. We'll have this item read into the record.

Council bill one one nine seven four one an ordinance relating to the central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority sound transit authorizing execution of a funding and cooperative agreement for Northgate station area access improvements between sound transit and the city of Seattle and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts

Thank you.

Welcome to our guests.

And we'll get you set up here on the PowerPoint.

Hit the PDF.

They're all open.

Yeah.

You got it?

Yeah.

Great.

Let's start with introductions, please.

Eric Strau, project manager for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

And Bill Laborde from the director's office at SDOT.

Welcome.

Please go ahead.

I'll go ahead and kick it off.

So I'll start with just noting that we've talked about our vision and mission before, and just noting that our six core values for the Seattle Department of Transportation are equity, safety, mobility, sustainability, livability, and excellence.

And I'd say this is also a project that touches on all six of these, but also shows the department's persistence, because we've been at this one for quite a while now.

We're going to get the PowerPoint presentation set up here.

It was working earlier.

No.

It's not showing on the screen.

I'm not sure how to respond to that.

Call ID.

Hi, Bill.

Yay.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

We'll have this set up in just a moment.

Appreciate everyone's patience.

We're waiting for the slide to come back up.

I'll just talk a little bit about the background.

So this project, the Ped Bridge, and the other access projects that Eric will be talking more about really go back to conversations that began in 2010 involving Metro, King County Metro, Sound Transit, and the city.

At the time, Council Member Richard Conlon was the board representative for Sound Transit and represented the city in those conversations.

And also we had a lot of involvement from the maple leaf community.

And I think everyone's interest was in seeing that the Northgate Station area would not just turn into a parking ride, that it would really be the core of a community built around the light rail station.

And by 2012, those conversations had dwelled into agreements between the three parties that King County Metro would take the lead on transit-oriented development and that the city and Sound Transit would partner in funding a, if possible, a ped bridge across I-5 to North Seattle College, and then also a series of access projects, bike ped access projects, that Eric will talk in more detail about in a few minutes.

Which one is it?

It's the north gate one right here.

That one?

OK.

Bill?

Sorry, you're trying to multitask.

When you say that King County Metro is taking the lead on transit-oriented development, can you tell me exactly what you mean?

I think of transit-oriented development as housing, and I don't think of King County as building housing.

Yeah, and that's probably the last part that still needs to fall into place, but they are the property owner, and they, of course, had completed a couple of transit-oriented development projects.

that one was senior housing focused, and the other is market rate focused, and has some retail, including a movie theater in the bottom.

They had completed those projects before these conversations had really gotten going, and so they had some experience with trans-oriented development on bus transfer sites around the county, and so they offered to continue to take the lead as the property owner on developing those properties.

Taking the lead is by merit of them owning the property, so meaning that as the owners of the property, they will manage the process for identifying a developer, doing the RFPs and all that.

Correct, doing RFPs, and the city is a participant in those discussions, but But as the property owner, King County Metro is really the lead.

So by 2012, there were agreements in place, and the council at the time did pass a resolution memorializing or articulating those agreements.

The Sound Transit Board also passed a motion, but a written agreement, an MOA, was never put into place.

The next step in the process is in 2015, the levy to move Seattle passed, and then also the state passed a transportation package connecting Washington that included $10 million for the PedBridge project.

Bill, this is very good information, and I appreciate this overview.

Is there a current cost breakout of who is paying what?

Because I remember at the time that the Connecting Washington and Move Seattle levy were passed, $10 million were put in from each entity because the approximate cost was about $30 million.

I think it had risen to $35 million.

And I understand that today we're at $52 million.

I want to just for the record, allow the record to reflect that these are normal escalation costs.

I would just, I'm interested to know more about as those costs escalated, how were we able to divide the cost sharing?

So Sound Transit's commitment in that 2012 agreement was $10 million, and ostensibly $5 million for the Ped Bridge and $5 million for the other projects.

So even if we couldn't have moved forward on the Ped Bridge, they were still, Committed to five million for the bike bicycle pedestrian access projects including the the first Avenue Northeast protected bike lane and It's also some sidewalk access projects The state committed 10 million and then we had another I think it was 15 million in the levy or 10 at least 10 million in the levy and The escalation is a little bit of a complicated story because the first cost estimates that were floated were actually floated before 2012 when this was a project that was proposed by King County Metro.

And they had never really done any engineering on the project.

It was just a back of the envelope cost estimate.

And so when we started doing engineering, we started to see higher costs.

altered the design to get it within a budget the city could afford with those contributions from the state and Sound Transit.

Yeah, there's a big difference between just a bridge across the freeway and a bridge that connects the communities that need to be connected.

Yeah.

But I think the construction costs by themselves are pretty consistent with some of the earlier cost estimates that were being floated in 2012. It's just there are other soft costs on top of that and normal cost escalation.

And eight years down the road.

And if we don't have a cost breakout today, maybe we could follow up after committee.

Yeah, and there is one in the agreement on Exhibit D, I believe.

Great.

And I'll let Eric take over from here.

Thank you.

So part of the agreement with Sound Transit involves non-motorized access projects?

Thank you.

I don't plan on going over these individually, but as you can see, we have several of them shown here.

We have 10 different projects that were done between bicycle pedestrian lanes, sidewalk improvements, greenways, those kinds of non-motorized improvements.

Here we have a lovely rendering of what the project will look like.

I'll start with number one, which is on the North Seattle College side.

As you move to the east, we have an overlook area that we've done there to look at the wetland area.

Then three and four is where we span over I-5.

There is another resting area there, if you will, at the corner where number four is.

And then the structure heads to the north where it connects to the Sound Transit Northgate station.

And then the pedestrians will also have the option of going down the structure to First and 100th Avenue.

Here are a couple renderings of what it would look like on the bridge.

As part of the agreement, we are connecting to the Sound Transit light rail station, which you can see on the bottom rendering.

I'll just note that the agreement includes several provisions, including affirming the city and Sound Transit responsibilities for all of the access projects.

Some of them are underway already.

The bridge just broke ground.

It also affirms that in the end, when the project's completed, who owns what?

Sound Transit clearly owns the station, and the city will own the other assets, including the Ped Bike Bridge.

So as part of the agreement, we have Exhibit B, which shows the project lists, which were those non-motorized projects, and also the bridge itself.

It has the city as the lead agency for the environmental review.

Sound Transit has the right to review design and permitting documents, which we have been coordinating with them as we went through the design processes.

Grants construction for acts of the ped bridge and other city projects Both parties we coordinate on the construction management side We have right now we have bi-weekly meetings with the with the Northgate station just to make sure we're always staying in sync with each other The city is required to establish the air rights agreement with WSDOT and the Army Corps permits We have gotten our Army Corps permits.

We have our construction agreement with WSDOT and And then we are working on co-branding on the construction postings and advertisings as well in that area.

Sound Transit, of course, has a head start.

They've been working on the station for quite a while, but we're catching up.

And by that, do you mean are we naming this bridge?

Has this bridge been named?

Am I opening a Pandora's box?

The bridge has not been named.

There is work going on with Council Member Juarez to work on the naming of the bridge.

And we believe there'll be a chance for council to weigh in on...

And the public.

And the public on an official name change.

So it will not be the Kraken.

That's not one name we're supporting.

For the bridge.

Just a couple points on the finance provisions.

There's a lot of standard boilerplate in the agreement, including indemnification, which is always a tricky issue between the city and other public agencies.

But we've done enough agreements with Sound Transit at this point that we kind of have that down.

And the indemnification is, I think, what everyone would expect is that Everyone's responsible for their work, their workers, their contractors, and to the extent that there's joint liability, to an extent we will indemnify each other.

Just to follow up on Councilmember Strauss' question about the sources and uses of funds, we do have Exhibit D, which is helpful to show the costs to date.

However, I think what we're looking for, we're all very excited about this project.

We're just looking for sort of a basic the sources of funds, and then the uses, of course, the construction costs for the total project, to just add that as an item would be helpful.

Yes, we can provide you more information on the current cost, and yeah, we'll say that, again, the state is capped at a $10 million contribution, which is already in the process of being paid to the city and so shouldn't be affected by 976, for example.

And the sound transit contribution is more realized in this agreement and will essentially be charging against it, against that $10 million contribution.

It's just useful to see both sources and uses together in one document.

Actually, that's one of the things in the new and improved fiscal note that we'll have is to have that uniform description of here's where all the money's coming from, here's where it's going, and so we don't have to kind of piece it together.

Thank you.

And just to be clear, the rest of the funding for the project is coming from the city, beyond those two contributions.

Thank you.

What schedule we are have started construction Right now are we are on path to have the bridge open?

fall of 2021 which also lines up with what we're roughly hearing from Sound Transit and when they plan on opening that station that You won't get a hard date from Sound Transit at this time, but we're trying to work together that We're we're close to each other when we both open Great Any questions or comments?

I would like to make a motion to approve the scope schedule.

I did not receive a briefing before this committee meeting about this scope schedule and agreement.

I typically would not feel comfortable voting on an agreement without having a briefing beforehand.

I'm happy to be here.

I'm happy to be able to read through these agreements without being briefed.

A committee presentation is very helpful, although it does not allow the amount of time for me to go into the depth of questions that I require to have answered to feel comfortable voting on an agreement between the city and another entity.

Because of my history with this project in particular, I'm able to read through this This will be the last time that I vote on something without having a briefing beforehand.

That's definitely noted.

Thank you.

Any other comments, colleagues?

So I'd like to have a motion to recommend passage of the Council Bill 119741 to pass on to full Council.

Okay.

So, we've got a second.

And all those in favor of passing Council Bill 119741, please indicate by voting aye, raising your hand.

Aye.

Those opposed, no.

Any abstentions?

Okay, the motion carries.

The committee recommendation will be forwarded to the full council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The third item today concerns authorizing the city to accept grant funding for specific capital improvement projects.

We'll read that third item into the record, please.

Council Bill 119743, an ordinance relating to grant funds from non-city sources, authorizing the Director of Transportation to accept specified grants and execute related agreements for and on behalf of the city.

Amending Ordinance 126000. which adopted the 2020 budget, including the 2020 to 2025 Capital Improvement Program, CIP, changing appropriations for the Seattle Department of Transportation, revising allocations and spending plans, for certain projects in the 2020 to 2025 CIP and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you.

Let's have introductions and we'll jump into your presentation.

I'm David Bregesser with Estop Project Development.

Chloe Wilkes, I'm the Capital Improvement Program Manager within SDOT's finance team.

Bill Laborte, SDOT Director's Office.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Okay.

So as the title suggests, we are here to present a standalone grants acceptance ordinance.

You typically see grant acceptances as part of the quarterly supplemental financial legislation that CVO brings to you, but because of the timing of the grants that we often receive and due to needing to get started on some of the work, SDOT typically brings a grant acceptance ordinance around this time every year, and so we're doing that today.

I hope this doesn't mean that we are not going to be seeing quarterly supplementals because I have noticed a little bit of a divergence in the schedule for those supplementals last year.

So I just would hate to see department by department beginning new practices and us not having that historical opportunity that the council has to participate in that supplemental process.

Yeah, and as Chloe has noted, we've traditionally, regardless of the timing in the first quarter supplemental, we've had to come about this time of year with a request for grant approval just because of the way that some of our grant cycles work.

So, this is certainly no indication either way of timing a first quarter supplemental.

Of course.

So in this case, the grant-funded projects have construction deadlines that are driven by Sound Transit's schedule.

So we are hoping to begin design this spring, hence why we bring these to you outside of that quarterly supplemental process.

Next slide.

So Bill did read our vision, mission, and can you go backwards?

And core values.

But I just wanted to point out that the grants that we're looking at accepting will specifically apply to the mobility and safety values.

Okay, so the ordinance that you're considering accepts and appropriates two recent and time-sensitive grants, one of which will fund several access projects near the Judkins Park Link Light Rail Station, and one that will fund a stairway connection to the Rainier Beach Link Light Rail Station.

I'm not going to say that again.

Both grants are from a new funding source.

It's called the Sound Transit Systems Access Fund, and it was a $100 million pot of money made available as part of the 2016 ST3 ballot measure.

In this competition, $50 million was made available, but only $10 million per subarea.

So we were competing for $10 million, and we put in applications and received 33% of those funds.

As far as I'm aware, no subarea received the full $10 million, so we should be able to expect that the next round of competition may be a little bit higher than the $50 million this time.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to David.

He will share a little bit about the projects.

Great, so we submitted two application packages as part of this round of awards.

The first one being the Judkins Park Station Access Package, and that included three individual projects.

A trail lighting project on the Mountains to Sound Trail, so the trail that connects a lot of southeast Seattle and the Judkins Park area with the future station.

The Hiawatha Place stairway connection, which is kind of a direct connection to that project, feeding into Hiawatha Place South, and some ADA and walkway upgrades south of the station.

The other package was a package of high-priority sidewalk and walkway projects in Southeast Seattle.

And among these packages, Sound Transit only selected several projects from each of those to fund, so the list here of the trail lighting and walkways and stairway connection projects as part of the Judkins Park package.

And then the only project that the board chose to fund from the Southeast Seattle package was a new stairway connection on South Henderson Street.

And so for the Judkins Park package, the total award amount was $2.4 million and $900,000 for the Southeast Seattle package.

So a little bit about...

Yeah, please.

Oh.

Do you have a list of other projects that were requested and what didn't get funded?

We do, and we can provide that information.

Yeah.

And so just a little bit about that.

We also kind of went through a selection process of what we were going to apply for based on we did a large station access study around the Judkins Park Station a couple years ago, and that informed a lot of what we were requesting to know.

What are the community's priorities around the Judkins Park Station?

Where do they feel like improvements are needed to access that future station?

and what can we do kind of in time for the station to open.

And then with that sidewalks package in Southeast Seattle, a lot of that was based on other community requests through that process, as well as prioritization through our pedestrian master plan process.

And so just a little bit about the funded projects around the Jenkins Park station area.

So the Mountains to Sound trail lighting project, which you can see on the map on the left side here, through this project, it was one of the top community priorities identified in that station access study.

Many of the portions of the Mountains to Sound trail west of 23rd Ave South are unlit, and It kind of creates a perceived safety issue around the station.

And so there's been a lot of requests to upgrade that lighting.

There's actually some trail access points out there right now that have a caution signage, say, using extreme caution when going through there at night.

There's unlit portions of the trail.

And so as part of that, we'll be evaluating portions of the trail that do have lighting to see if upgrades are needed and adding new lighting where we know that there is completely unlit sections.

And then adjacent to this project, kind of that blue dashed line near Hiawatha Place South that you can see up there.

We'll also be providing a new staircase connection.

So there's currently a kind of an unmaintained dirt path that people have been traveling to make a quicker connection between the mountains of Sound Trail and Hiawatha Place South to access that community.

So formalizing that connection with a staircase.

And then south of the station, we have two segments of new walkways that we'll be constructing, one on South Plum Street between 25th Ave South and MLK Jr.

Way, and that is adjacent to Lighthouse for the Blind, and so providing a connection between our existing sidewalk network and that facility, which will also connect up to Judkins Park Station with the the existing sidewalk network in the area, and then on 22nd Ave South between Bayview and Rainier.

So leveraging some private development that's happening in that area to access a new school that's down there, as well as connecting to the sidewalk network on some of the arterials in that area.

And both of these projects are planned for construction in 2022 before the opening of the light rail station.

And then the South Henderson Stairway Project, which was the only project funded from the Southeast Seattle Sidewalks and Walkways Project.

This was a high-priority connection through our pedestrian master plan process and a long-standing request of some of the neighbors in the area.

And this creates a formalized connection where we have unimproved right-of-way along South Henderson Street that would connect South Beacon Hill directly to Rainier Beach Light Rail Station.

This is currently a steep kind of overgrown area and the existing street network connections using existing streets and sidewalks in some cases would require about a half mile walk around using South Cloverdale Street or Carkeek Drive South to access that station.

So it really opens up the station area and makes transit more accessible for a lot of the neighbors in South Beacon Hill.

Is this another example of a connection that's being informally used?

There is kind of a dirt path back there a little bit.

It's pretty steep though.

But it's pretty steep and gets really muddy.

Right, right.

But that's great connecting.

And so this project is planned for construction next year.

It's a little bit further advanced in design.

Any questions from colleagues?

I echo Councilmember Morales' request for a full list of projects that were requested that ended up not being funded.

And in regards to Councilmember Herbold's request, having worked for the finance chair and staffed transportation issues, I understand that there is a historical use of coming to this committee for capital improvement project funding, grants acceptance.

I do believe that I think putting it into the finance committee and aligning it with our quarterly supplementals is best practice and something that I request we all look into.

Great.

Okay, any other comments?

All right, so I would move that we adopt this or recommend that we adopt this council bill 119743. Second.

Okay, all those in favor indicate by saying aye, Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed?

Any abstentions?

Okay, so this item carries on to the full council.

Council Bill 119743. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

All right.

Let's go ahead and read the fourth item into the record.

Council bill one one nine seven four four an ordinance relating to the Department of Transportation's hazard mitigation program authorizing the director of the Department of Transportation to acquire accept and record on behalf of the City of Seattle 11 catchment wall easements and listed by legal description in the council bill for the purpose of protecting the adjacent roadway of superficial surface erosion of the adjacent slopes along a portion of Rainier Avenue South, placing the real property rights under the jurisdiction of the Seattle Department of Transportation and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you.

Let's start with introductions and we'll start your presentation.

My name is Kit Liu, SDOT Project Manager.

Gretchen Heidel, Real Property Paralegal for SDOT, Capital Projects Division.

Bill LaPorte, SDOT Director's Office.

So we are coming before you today to ask for your approval of accepting 11 easements for the Rainier Avenue South Hazard Mitigation Project.

We'll be looking at the background area, existing conditions, proposal, cost, duration, and provide an update on the project during this presentation.

Historically, there have been many landslides recorded along Rainier.

Avenue South, between South Carver Street and the South Seattle City limits near Ryan Street, resulting in debris blocking public right of way.

In 2000, SDOT commissioned a geotechnical survey of this deep slope area along the street corridor and determined it to be at a moderate to high risk landslide hazard.

Given this assessment and the area's history of landslides, incidences, the city believes there's a high probability of reoccurrence.

These landslides block sidewalks and create hazardous conditions for all modes of transportation.

In addition, the city has at times had to close portions of the sidewalk and streets in response to public safety concerns along the impacted segments of Rainier Avenue South.

Estat crews have also had to conduct cleanup efforts to remove debris and recover sidewalks throughout the years in response to these challenges.

In early 2016, a 60-foot segment of retaining wall was constructed to protect a portion of Rainier Avenue south near South Perry Street as a response to two significant landslides occurring from the same slope within two weeks of each other.

Funding is now available to construct infrastructure to mitigate impact to right-of-way due to encroaching debris from the Jason Street slope.

This vicinity map outlines the areas along Rainier Avenue South that the project team has identified for placement of a soldier pile catchment wall or gravity wall, depending on the slope's characteristics, to protect the adjacent segment of the street corridor.

This legislation accepts 11 catchment wall easements obtained by private property owners to construct and maintain the retaining walls and places these property rights under SDOT's jurisdiction.

Consideration for these property rights were mutual benefit.

These pictures demonstrate existing conditions along portions of this corridor which show debris from the adjacent slope covering the sidewalk as well as unstable slope areas.

Two types of walls will be constructed for this project.

One type is the soldier wall catchment wall.

The benefits of this wall are that they retain larger volumes of debris and are suitable for steeper slope areas.

The soldier wall catchment wall is the more expensive of the two types of walls.

The other type of wall is the gravity wall.

The benefits of these walls are that they are more cost effective than the soldier pawl catchment wall, are good for moderate slope areas, and they are modular and simpler to construct.

This construction work is provided for under SDOT's capital improvement project, known as the Hazard Mitigation Program Landslide Mitigation Plan.

Total costs, total budget for the project is $3.5 million, and funding sources consist of the REIT II capital fund, street use cost center, and gas tax.

In preparation of project construction, city crews have already cleared much of the sidewalks within the project area and extended the existing soldier pile wall that was constructed in 2016 and is located in public right-of-way.

The gravity walls are anticipated to take five weeks to construct, while the soldier pile catchment walls are anticipated to take 15 weeks to construct.

It is anticipated this project will be completed mid-September 2020. And that concludes the presentation.

Do you have any questions?

Any questions, colleagues?

Well, I just want to thank you for looking into this.

This is a really steep area.

It's really dangerous.

And whenever we have heavy rains, I know neighbors get really worried that something like this is going to happen again.

The soldier pile catchment wall, can you share about what portion or how many of the Which areas that you're targeting would get that versus the smaller wall?

There's four sites that's identified that's gravity walls, and primarily they're dictated by just the height of the slopes themselves.

For the soldier power walls, we have four sites that's identified that's going to get those, primarily because the height of those steep slopes are much higher than the ones we're looking at for the gravity walls.

What's the degree of slope that would dictate one?

A lot of it has to do with just the height, how far it's set back from the right of way.

and then also just how much debris has basically flowed in that area in the past, and then also recommendations from the geotech engineer.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Yeah, please.

Thank you.

In 2017, I took a little bit of a dive into the SDOT's approach to landslide mitigation.

And I learned then that, I think as you were referencing in 2000, There was a citywide study done with an effort to focus on landslide mitigation in locations that would likely have significant impacts because they are adjacent to arterials.

There was an assessment using eight design factors at the time.

to determine the priority of 73 known potential landslide locations.

Of the 73 locations that were identified, 24 were rated to be a high priority.

But since 2000, SDOT had budgeted only, this was as of 2017, had only budgeted $500,000 a year for landslide mitigation.

And that $500,000 a year was intended to address these 24 high-priority locations.

I learned that the majority of those funds had not been used to mitigate in advance high-priority locations.

It was used more in a way to respond to landslide activities.

And of the 24 high-rated locations, as of 2017, in 17 years, only 7 of the 24 high-priority locations had proactive mitigation work done.

And so in 2017, I worked with the budget office and SDOT to use the supplemental budget process to prioritize an additional $1.3 million.

To address some of those high priority locations.

You guys did a great great job of Doing this work on a number of locations some of them in in District one so thank you on behalf of my constituents but The commitment was made at that time that we were going to try to figure out how to begin to address this backlog and make sure that we weren't budgeting only sufficient funds to address landslide activities rather than mitigating the likelihood of So I'm just wondering, sorry I haven't checked in on this issue recently, but would be really interested to learn how we're going to get to those high priority locations.

And I'm guessing that 2,000 study was done 20 years ago.

There might be different priorities now as well.

And thank you for the support that council has in terms of unfunded program.

I don't manage that piece of the program and that's something that we could definitely follow up with in terms of how they're reassessing the priorities from that list in 2000.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, so how we're assessing the priorities and also how we're ensuring that we're identifying sufficient budget so that it is actually a mitigation program instead of a response program.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

We can ask that they bring that item to committee to discuss, and then the budgetary implications we hope to see in a supplemental budget in the future.

Any other questions, comments?

Thank you, Chair.

And this may be a question, again, I don't need the answer today.

It would be helpful in follow-up.

There is inherent value that is provided to the adjacent land owners and whom we are purchasing these easements from as we are increasing the stability of the lot that they own.

Is that factored into the cost that we are provided when purchasing this land?

To some extent it is.

We have to realize that what we're doing right now in terms of the catchment walls is really protect the public right-of-way assets and not necessarily property owners.

There's still superficial slides that would occur on that property owners, and that's the property owner's responsibility and not the city's.

One of the things that we're trying to address is not use public money for a private benefit.

And like I said, most of the walls we're designing, or at least all the walls we're designing at this point in time, is really protect the public right-of-way.

And so either way, whether the intent is only to protect the private or the public right-of-way, there is inherent benefit that the private...

There is inherent benefit, yes.

And is that, are we able to factor that into the purchase agreement?

We try.

A lot of it is that we have real estate, real property requirements in terms of compensating for administrative costs to basically get the easements.

But that's a discussion that we typically have with the private owners in terms of what the benefits they would get from having the wall.

But this is actually an example of where we're getting the easements in exchange for the benefit to the property.

So we're not paying cash for these easements.

Oh, great.

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you, Gretchen, especially.

You also, very helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

So, moving on this particular project, I would like to move recommending passage of Council Bill 119744. Those in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Second.

Second.

Oh, second.

Thank you for the second.

Those in favor, please indicate by raising your hand and saying aye.

Aye.

Any against?

Any abstentions?

Great, so that item carries forward, Council Bill 119744. Thank you, everybody.

And this, unless there are further comments for the good of the order.

Just my final comment, Chair.

I thank you for always being prepared and ready to start right at 9.30, and it is my fault that I was not here right on time, and so just kudos to the Chair as well, and Toby, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for the great questions and the constant oversight of these large departments.

I think that concludes our February 19, 2020 meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee.

Thank you, everybody.