Seattle City Council Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan 1/15/2025

meeting of the select committee of the comprehensive plan will come to order.

It is 2.04 PM.

My name is Joy Hollingsworth.

I am the chair of the select committee.

Will the best clerk in the world please call the roll.

Present.

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Councilmember Strauss.

Present.

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Councilmember Moore.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

And Chair Hollingsworth.

I'm present.

Eight.

Present.

Awesome.

Everyone's here and present and alive and well.

We will now consider the agenda.

If there's no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing none, the agenda is adopted.

Before we get into public comment, I want to recognize, I want to thank Council Member Stross for reminding me yesterday.

It is Martin Luther King's birthday.

I know that we celebrate on the Monday, which is coming up, and we all...

celebrate his birthday, but that he was born January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.

He is one of the most notable civil rights leaders of our time.

And we went to Morehouse, Montgomery Boycott.

He's known for his I Have a Dream speech and Nobel Peace Prize.

But one of my favorite quotes that he talks about, and I think it's more...

a time to say something like this, that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

And so just want to throw that out there.

I know a lot of times that the comprehensive plan can bring a lot of enemies, but we gotta love each other.

But I think it's important as we're taking a reflection to think about our own lives and Martin Luther King on how we can continue to be the dream that he saw for all of us to live in a society where we, where we were able to come together, love on each other, be respectful, and also have economic justice as well.

There was a lot of things that he talked about.

And so just wanted to throw that out there and kind of just ground us and set the tone.

before we have public comment on that.

With that being said, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up?

I believe the in-person is about 37, is that correct?

37, and then online?

We have 16. Okay, awesome.

Okay, so we are gonna give everybody one minute, and I know that some people are, we usually give two minutes, but public comment is 20 minutes, and we continue to extend it, so we can get through speakers today.

It's gonna be important that we also understand that we gotta get to the work with OPCD, you are more than welcome to send in your public comments directly to us.

This is also a reminder that we're gonna have a public hearing where we're just listening to public comments.

That's on February 5th.

That begins at 5 p.m.

Everyone will get 2 p.m., or 2 p.m., two minutes to speak, and we will be here for as long as it takes for us to get through everyone for public comment on February 5th, at 5 p.m.

And that will be a public hearing where we will be here for as long as it takes to get through everyone.

So with that being said, we'll go ahead and jump into our, oh, excuse me.

Our clerk will read the rules for public comment.

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

Speakers will be called in the name in the order which they registered, both on the council's website and from the sign-up sheet available here in council chambers.

We will start with all in-person speakers first.

If you have not registered to speak, we would like to.

You can sign up before the end of the public comment period.

Just go to council's website or by signing up on the sign-up sheet near the public comment microphone.

The online link is listed on today's agenda as well.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item that you're addressing.

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

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

Awesome, I will be reading off the speaker's name today.

I'm gonna call everybody's name in threes.

I would love if we could come make our way.

There's three microphones that work, two in the front, one on the side.

First speaker up, we have Alexis.

I can't read your last name, I apologize.

Then we have Randy Banneker and then Morgan Robinson.

Hello, good afternoon.

Alexis?

Yes.

Awesome.

Yes.

Can I go?

You can go whenever you want.

Absolutely.

Alexis Ulner from Fauntleroy.

Closer to the microphone, please.

Thank you.

Alexis Ulner from Fauntleroy.

Some people call it in the line as well.

The comprehensive plan proposes to rezone hundreds of single-family homes into five-story apartment buildings.

Not a great idea.

I would urge the council to enact an ordinance that would require the city to notify homeowners that their properties or their neighborhoods are going to be subject to rezoning.

It would add respect to the process, and it would also add more transparency to the process.

If you could put that on the docket, that'd be great.

The EIS is worthless unless it examines the impact on specific neighborhoods.

So when you look at Fauntleroy, it is dominated by the ferry dock.

By 2040, the state estimates there will be 2 million vehicles using this area.

Compounding that with hundreds of five-story apartment buildings, it's a recipe for disaster.

Thank you, Alexis.

And you can leave your public comment more stuff, too, as well with our clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Randy.

Madam Chair, members of the council, thank you for the opportunity to comment.

My name is Randy Banneker.

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

And we're here for greater housing affordability and quality of life.

Our region has experienced tremendous job growth during the past 20 years.

And a house is where a job goes at night.

When there are more jobs than houses, houses get expensive.

And it really is about supply and demand.

We've done a very poor job of providing enough zone capacity to enable the private sector to build housing in response to demand.

It's harmed our quality of life, and it's sent many middle-income families out of Seattle in search of affordability.

The com plan update must increase housing supply through zone density.

Sufficient housing relative to demand is the first and best strategy to make housing affordable.

We can add housing in a manner that makes our neighborhoods and our city even more vibrant and welcoming.

Thank you.

Thank you, Randy.

Hello, Morgan.

And the next three after Morgan are going to be Matt, Blair, and Deb.

Hi.

My name is Morgan Robinson from Madrona.

And I want to talk a little bit about steep slopes.

The current plan is attempting to figure out where development should happen.

And unfortunately, some of the places where extensive development LR3 housing is proposed are not only steep slopes, but landslide areas.

Specifically, if we look at the blue, the blue represents steep slopes.

and you'll see that there's LR3 and LR1 steep slopes.

The red represents known landslide areas, the green areas of landslide risk, and the little black circles are places where landslides have occurred.

I have to ask, how on earth have we decided to have extensive development in a place in known landslide zones?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

I think that we need to be careful about where we place this, and that means that these things need a more thorough review, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

If you want to leave, okay.

Thank you, Morgan.

Next, we have Matt, Blair, and Deb.

Good afternoon.

I'm a resident of Madrona.

This is the street I live on.

It's Grand Avenue.

Two-thirds of Grand Avenue is slated for upzoning.

And Grand Avenue, as you can see from this, is a very narrow, curved street with parked cars on one side and a concrete wall on the other.

When you encounter another vehicle on this street, someone has to back up.

If you encounter a truck of any kind, The car always has to back up.

There's almost never any open parking spot.

So you can have to either wait for 10 minutes while the truck does its business or someone has to back up around a curved street on a hill.

More concerning than that to us is things like this.

This is Newport, which is one street adjacent to Grand, where a fire truck encountered a car.

You can see how incredibly close that fire truck is to the car.

Fortunately, the car that it encountered was very close to the end of the street, and it was able to back up.

But the more upzoning we get in areas like this, the more trouble we're going to have with our curved narrow streets.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have Deb, and we have Ron next, and Marty McAllen.

Thanks.

My name is Blair, and I'm also a resident of Madrona.

I've lived in Madrona for over 45 years as my parents came to the neighborhood in the 1970s.

And when I was able, I bought a home in the neighborhood.

I chose Madrona for many reasons, but paramount among them is Madrona's history of racial integration, which continues today as compared to other upper middle class neighborhoods in Seattle.

The racial diversity in Madrona was not by accident.

Up until the 1960s, redlining and racial tension segregated our community.

The Black Panthers, Seattle citizens, and local community leaders fought for the integration that allowed my parents to purchase their home.

My parents paid what the market demanded for their property, but they were no longer precluded by laws that disallowed the purchase.

I returned to Madrona because of the diversity, with many black families, including my own, still in the neighborhood, as well as, of course, the beautiful tree canopy, the views, and the location.

I have made many financial sacrifices to make returning to the neighborhood a reality.

The proposed upzoning in Madrona is more dramatic and potentially devastating than what is being proposed in other similar upper-middle class or upper-class Seattle neighborhoods.

This feels concerningly similar to the way I grabbed because it occurred throughout history to disenfranchise racially diverse neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you, Blair.

And Madrona, I know we have a lot of people from Madrona, which I represent.

I will be having a meeting with you all, so I just want to let you all know that that is on the docket.

Deb?

Hi, Deb.

Council Member Moore for acknowledging the concerns of her constituents at last week's meeting.

We now have over 850 signatures from Maple Leaf neighbors who do not support designation of Maple Leaf as a neighborhood center.

We realize that the city is growing and needs more housing, especially affordable and family-friendly housing, which we strongly support.

However, we want smart community appropriate rezoning that supports a vibrant multi-generational and livable neighborhood that protects and enhances our tree canopy.

We also wanna maintain our newly developed Greenway on 12th Ave as a safe, calm street without proliferation of high rise apartment buildings on narrow side streets.

Simply designating Maple Leaf as a neighborhood center with no overall plan or input from residents will likely result in a very haphazard approach to development and it will be left to developers to do what they want where they want it.

We wanna see a well thought up

plan for growth and includes neighborhood input and thorough assessment of transmit and infrastructure needs which was lacking in the dis you want a plan that has greater chances of success and meeting the goals thank you deb next up we have ron chambers marty mcowen i probably butchered your name i'm sorry i can't read and then maggie lewis Hello.

Mr. Ron, you're up, my friend.

Hi.

Hello.

So I didn't get anything until December 15. Someone sticks a flyer in my mailbox.

That's it.

That's all the outreach we got.

My neighbors got the same thing.

Some other areas got the same thing.

No outreach.

Same address, 45 years, same phone number, 50 years, nothing but this flyer.

So they say there was outreach.

Where, oh, it went to the developers.

Aha, I get it.

So the developers got the outreach, and that would explain the last three months of all those phone calls I've been getting.

Mr. Chambers, would you like to sell your house?

Mr. Chambers, we have a cash offer for your house.

I didn't understand what was going on.

Now I do.

I'm also worried about these developers cutting corners when they go to build these structures, because we've often seen new structure up there, and all of a sudden, boom.

Plumbing's bad.

Roofs leak.

What's going on?

Anyway, talk to the city inspectors and make certain that they're building good buildings.

Otherwise, we'll have affordable housing.

Thank you, Ron.

Jerron, what neighborhood do you live in?

Do you mind me asking?

Pardon?

What neighborhood?

West Green Lake.

Understood.

Neighborhood center, I guess.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Next, we have Marty, Maggie, and then Bob Huppie.

I'm sorry.

My name is Marty McEwen.

Marty.

Yes, ma'am.

Go ahead.

I am also from the West Green Lake neighborhood.

I agree with Ron Chambers' previous comments.

No one I've talked to in our neighborhood has heard of this proposal until December 15th, and many have not yet.

Whatever outreach may have happened, it did not reach us.

I would like to comment on the decision-making process and propose a course of action.

In short, we request adopting a minimally required comprehensive land use plan to meet the HB 1110 deadline.

Then, proof of concept prototype locations could determine whether there are hoped for results, and we could consider a citywide phased rollout.

For those of us who are scrambling to understand this, it's crucial to point out the difference between the statewide HB 1110 requirements and what the mayor's overlaid one Seattle comprehensive plan entails.

I propose that, with your permission, I would like to give you a list of our questions that we've compiled so that you can ask the planning committee for direct questions and make those public meetings.

Yep, you can put that right there and we'll get it.

Thank you, Marty.

Now we have Maggie.

Bob is next.

Thank you.

Hi, Maggie.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

I live in West Seattle, the Gatewood area, more or less.

We do need more affordable housing.

However, and that is why the House Bill 1110 was passed.

However, the One Seattle plan goes way beyond what is required by House Bill 1110. I request that the city council vote on those parts of the One Seattle Plan that are absolutely required by the state law, but do not vote on the rest of the plan until important questions are thoroughly answered.

Things such as why are urban village boundaries being expanded when the current urban villages have not been fully developed according to the former plan?

Why do some of those expanded boundaries include areas that have steep ravines that have already had slides?

Why are there four and five-story buildings along all fast transit routes when maybe three-story buildings would be sufficient?

Do city planners look carefully at what they're looking at?

Are they just using a ruler and a flat map?

Are they looking at the small streets?

Are they looking at the traffic?

Are they looking?

Thank you, Maggie.

Hi, Bob.

You can go to anyone.

And I would love for you to tell us your last name, because I butchered it.

I'm sorry.

You did just whips.

Just on?

Yes.

You did just find out my name, Huppie, it's like puppy.

Huppie, Huppie, okay, thank you.

So I'll refer to this in a while.

My name is Bob Huppie and I've been a resident of the same block in the Gatewood area of West Seattle for the last 42 years or so.

I stand before you today to ask that the vote on parts of the One Seattle Plan that go beyond what is required by High School 1110 be postponed until the city takes measures to direct directly through email, texts, phone calls, and things like this that didn't get sent to us.

This came from sound transit.

It did not come from the city.

Until we can get a process, substantially add time to this process so we can really think about which parts of our city need to have taller buildings and which parts don't.

The hours that happened, there were two posters in two libraries in West Seattle.

There were two mentions in Rob Saka's newsletter, and there were two.

Thank you, Bob.

Next three names are AP Heard, Ruth, Dite or Pite.

I'm sorry.

I'm the worst at reading handwriting, so I apologize.

So please bear with me.

And then Angela Davis.

Hi, AP.

Hi, thank you.

I'm AP Hurd, and I'm here to speak in favor of keeping the neighborhood centers in the comp plan.

We have a deep shortage of affordable housing, and there's only two ways to get it.

Subsidize more, which we're kind of at the limit of what the taxpayers will pay, or maybe not.

I hope we'll get more, and also make it less expensive to build.

I work in land use, and I advise cities and counties and transit agencies about how to get more housing near transit.

I've also built buildings in Seattle, including the first mass timber workforce housing project in the country.

Developers do build housing.

I like the neighborhood centers because the lower buildings make for a simpler structure that's less expensive to build, and there's room to park the cars on the street, so we're building housing for people without making it a prerequisite to build housing for the cars.

If we make it less expensive to build quality homes for people in three to four-story buildings, we can get more people in Seattle in neighborhood centers.

I urge you to maintain the neighborhood centers in the comp plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ruth.

Or AP, I'm sorry.

Thank you, AP.

I apologize.

And if people, can I just remind folks to just speak in the microphone so we can pick up, so we can hear it on the Seattle channel, and then also for the council members as well.

I know we have Ruth and then Ms. Angela.

Good to see you both.

The core flaw in the draft plan is total housing capacity, a capacity far beyond what is needed based on forecasts.

We saw alternatives of 80 to 120,000 units.

How did we get from those to 160,000 for a grand total of 330,000?

four times the state-mandated amount.

The city of Bellevue has 66,000 housing units.

Do we need to shoehorn the equivalent of five Bellevues into Seattle?

This is a 10-year plan.

One will revisit 10, not 20 years from now.

The city appears to adopt the state's model housing ordinance, which increases lot coverage and decreases setback.

This is optional according to the law.

The city may apply standards for single family housing to middle housing.

Show us what this would look like.

Height limits and setbacks define neighborhood character.

Make clear in layman's terms what single-family will be changed and why.

These are radical changes.

Our heads are spinning every time I meet people who still haven't heard and are shocked, dismayed, and angry.

We urge you to slow down and dial it back.

Thank you so much, Ruth.

Now we have Ms. Angela.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Loud and clear.

Great.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

I am a Seattle native.

I currently live in West Seattle.

I have lived in Central District, South Seattle, and other parts of King County.

Whatever decision that is made, it is vital that we integrate the mindset from the womb to the tomb, from the cradle to the grave when it comes to designing housing.

We can no longer consider the fact that there are elderly isolated in different places and spaces.

People that have mobility issues are not able to interact with their family members because the design is not considering the impact of these intergenerational relationships.

And when we consider that, we are also considering the delay, the decrease in the need for social services when we have family units that are connected and integrated in housing plan.

Thank you, Ms. Angela.

Next three names, we have Cecilia, Anna, and Tanisha.

I hope I said those right.

Cecilia, Anna, and Tanisha.

Hi Cecilia, welcome.

Good to see you again.

Hello, my name is Cecilia Black.

I'm a community organizer at Disability Rights Washington and a D4 renter.

Transit quarters and the 30 neighborhood centers consisting of just a few blocks are the two primary areas that will add accessible housing.

We cannot lose these.

I don't think people can even begin to understand how difficult it is to find accessible housing in this city.

It took me eight months to find a wheelchair accessible apartment close to transit and services I could walk to.

It has been life-changing.

When you face so many transportation barriers living in a world not built for you, walkability is a lifeline.

Unlike most disabled people, I can afford the rent in urban centers.

Almost all accessible housing is multifamily housing where unlike townhomes and single family housing, it must meet some level of accessibility requirements.

It's the high rise buildings with four more stories, while elevators.

Less than 10% of new single family homes are accessible, which means disabled people have very few opportunities to access the 75% of Seattle's zone for single family housing.

Thank you, Cecilia.

Next up we have Anna and then Tanisha.

Hopefully I said that right.

Hello, hi.

There's a glaring omission in Seattle's strategic planning, and that is the impact from companion animals.

People bring their animals with them.

With more people, there will be more pet businesses needing regulation, more animal cruelty cases that need investigating.

Off-leash areas are in short supply, leading to tensions between park users.

Overlaps with difficult social issues such as homelessness and domestic violence call for increased attention and greater shelter options.

The plan has no mention of the burden of pet fees on renters, the lack of pet-friendly housing, the needs for low-cost vet care, pet food banks, and spay-neuter services, demand for which will increase.

These are also issues of equity.

It is reasonable to ask for this to be included in the city's planning.

This pet-friendly reputation, let's see our growth planning reflect that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Were you Anna at all?

Oh, Anna, okay.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I didn't read last names.

That's my fault.

Anna, go ahead.

No, no, no.

Absolutely.

No, no, no.

We got two Annas.

So thank you, Anna.

And go ahead, Anna.

And then we'll jump to Tanisha.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah, hi.

This is Anna Zivarts.

And I'm here as a...

a resident of the Hillman City neighborhood.

We're also in the Graham Street area that's all getting upzoned.

Really excited to see the increased density because it means we'll have better transit service and more services in our neighborhood.

I was trying to get Casper to share, but one of our neighbors had to move away recently because they couldn't afford housing in Seattle, and they had a kid that was his good friend, and so he wanted to also share how important it is to have housing that all of us can afford so families can remain in Seattle, and he doesn't lose more friends to being priced out of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ana.

Hi, Tanisha.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

Go right ahead.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Tanisha Sepulveda, and I'm a resident of the West Seattle Highland Park neighborhood, and I am here to support the urban villages and upzoning in neighborhood centers due to the fact that, as Cecilia was saying, people with disabilities often have an extremely hard time finding housing.

I know I have in the past and even now looking forward to possibly moving into a more permanent home or residence that I would love to stay in the West Seattle neighborhood and I do love the neighborhood aspect of that area.

However, we know the city is growing and we know that by excluding certain areas it is essentially continuing a history of redlining that we no longer want to see.

you know, brought back to our city.

It is oftentimes diversity and that is including socioeconomic race that makes a neighborhood, you know, more livable.

It really makes our community come together and we need more housing that'll be accessible.

Thank you, Tanisha.

Appreciate you.

Next three is going to be Lisa Pfeiffer.

I'm going to start reading people's last name because I understand there's people with multiple names.

Same names.

Lisa, I don't know if I said your name.

Pfeiffer, Smith, Scott Berkley, and I think we already had Anna Hennessy speak.

So Lisa Jasmine Scott.

That's Pfeiffer, Jasmine Smith, Scott Berkley.

My name's Lisa Pfeiffer.

I'm a homeowner in the Madison Valley neighborhood.

I'm a homeowner simply because I moved here in 2010. If I were to move here today, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

Seattle homeowners, like me, have made hundreds of thousands of dollars simply by the luck of when they moved to Seattle.

Myself of the past is no more deserving of this windfall than myself of today.

My point is that homeowners have the incentive to protect this windfall by opposing change, such as you heard today you hear in your neighborhood meetings.

This opposition is fully consistent with our financial incentives.

However, I recognize that this mentality is not a good or a desirable system.

It's your job as representing the city to plan for what's best for everyone.

If we want a city where families can move to, where school enrollment funds neighborhood schools, where people can upsize or downsize depending on their life stage, we must plan for the growth of housing in all.

I'm a Seattle homeowner, and I support the whole comprehensive life.

Thank you, Lisa.

We have Jasmine Smith.

Welcome.

And then Scott Berkley is right behind you.

Hi, Jasmine.

Hi.

Hi, thank you.

Hello, council members.

Thank you so much for your time.

My name's Jasmine Smith from FutureWise and a neighbor of Queen Anne.

As transit expands in the city over the next 20 years, there's an immense need for more housing along with it to support our communities and our neighborhoods.

That's why it's absolutely critical that we expand mixed-use zoning around transit corridors for spaces for childcare, grocery stores, small businesses in every neighborhood, and expand our existing neighborhood centers around transit.

Housing affordability is a huge issue, not just for bringing the cost of rent down, but ensuring that everyone has access to ownership opportunities across the city, as we just heard.

and making sure that we're able to stand in this crisis and do something bold as our neighbors continue to get priced out and their kids continue to move away for our young families, for our seniors and essential workers.

As we look to be leaders in our region on our comprehensive plan, it's our impetus to put

Thank you, Jasmine.

Hi, Scott.

Welcome.

Go ahead and start when you're ready.

Thank you.

My name is Scott Berkley.

I'm a West Seattle resident and I know council member Saka has been doing tremendous work on the transportation committee.

We recently passed a historic transportation levy to make investments in our transportation infrastructure.

Like many people in this room, I don't enjoy sitting in traffic or fighting for a parking spot.

That's why it's so wonderful that we have such great public transportation and ways of getting around.

Unfortunately, despite the name the comprehensive plan, there has been somewhat of an oversight of integrating our transportation plan with our housing plan.

There are to comply with state law.

Some of the bonuses, density bonuses, elimination of parking mandates are based around current transit frequency.

But in our transportation plan, we have the frequent transit network that is what we will have in the next 20 years.

So I encourage you to integrate those.

Let's plan for...

Thank you, Scott.

And then I know, I think Anna Hennessy already went, because I mistakenly just said first name.

So next we have Lily Hayward, Parker Dawson, and Donna Breske, if I said that right.

Hi, Lily.

Hello, good afternoon Chair Hollingsworth and select committee members.

My name is Lily Hayward speaking on behalf of the more than 2,500 members of the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce and as a member of the Complete Communities Coalition in support of a bold and ambitious comprehensive plan.

We'd like to commend Mayor Bruce Harrell and Director Kiran Dongo for proposing a plan that would create the capacity for at least 300,000 new units of housing.

This plan will also allow for more commercial spaces in our neighborhoods, improving walkability and opportunities for new and expanded small businesses right in your districts.

Housing is critical to the health of our economy.

As we welcome large and small employers into our communities, we also need to create housing stock so that workers and business owners can afford to live and grow their families right here in Seattle.

And for your constituents, housing continues to be a top priority.

According to the chamber's index polling, 69% of voters support new and diverse housing right in their own neighborhoods.

As you contemplate this plan, we ask that you preserve its strengths, including new neighborhood centers, and ensure that any amendments enhance our ability to accommodate the growth that the city will inevitably undergo.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lily, Parker, and then Donna.

Hi, Parker.

Welcome.

Likewise.

Council Parker Dawson, Master Builders.

I'm here to urge this council to first consider the canopy loss in Seattle.

I say we reviewed the 2024 PSRC report or Seattle's 2021 assessment that asserts a 1.2% canopy loss in neighborhood areas, but a 5.1% loss on parkland or SDCI's data that shows construction plants and protects more than four times the number of trees it removes.

I'm also here to urge this council to consider our infrastructure capacity and the consequences of our status quo.

We ought to review SPU's water availability requirements that thwarted an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 units of housing in the last five years, or how SDOT publicly funded just 250 of Seattle's 13.5 thousand missing blocks of sidewalk in the last nine years.

This council will be faced with hard truths and difficult decisions in the comp plan process, but the fact is we need more housing and our city desperately needs each of you to meet this opportunity and challenge with the urgency our circumstances demand.

Thank you.

Thank you, Parker.

Hi, Donna.

Thank you for the stop.

Welcome.

Don't worry.

Take your time.

You can start when you're ready.

I'm ready.

You want to take your mask off?

It will come off.

It's stuck in my earring.

Oh, okay.

No worries.

All right.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is Donna Breski.

I'm a licensed professional engineer.

My area of practice includes water system design and policy analysis.

On January 6, just over a week ago, the Office of Planning and Community Development released appendices to the comprehensive plan.

Within is referenced an outdated 2019 Seattle Public Utilities water system plan.

The 2019 business plan is outdated as confirmed by Carrie Bouchard-Ores, Development Services Director at SPU, where she stated, the water system today is not the water system of 2019. What is blatantly missing from the information released on January 6th by the Office of Planning and Community Development is an identified public funding source needed to address replacement of aging water pipes with no new taps restrictions.

SBU's no new taps policy is found within Director's Rural WTR 440. There's hundreds of miles of no new taps.

Go to the GIS Development Services Office, SPU map and look at these.

These are not addressed.

We're rezoning, and there's miles and miles with no new capability.

Thank you, Donna.

Next up, we have Sandy Shetler.

Wait, did I get, yep.

Sandy Shetler, David Glogan, and Josh Friedman.

It's like Goldilocks, I don't know which one to pick.

Anyone that's more comfortable, you're good.

Okay, good, yeah.

Hi, council members.

I'm requesting that hardscape and residential zones be reduced.

Climate Central is a clearing house for peer-reviewed studies and rates Seattle number five in the nation for urban heat islands.

It's not because we're hotter than cities like Phoenix, it's because we've added so much pavement.

Living in a heat island is a leading cause of death in summer heat waves, and it causes your body's inflammatory markers to spike.

The new zoning plans for 90% hardscape and neighborhood residential where most of our trees are, that's 50% for buildings and 40% for other pavement.

Surprisingly, few people outside the building industry know that for the purpose of calculating lot coverage, Seattle allows developers to count half of the alley.

So on any lot with an alley, over 90% of it can be legally paved under the new plan.

Please require shared walls to eliminate lot sprawl and reduce lot coverage.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sandy.

We have David Glogan and next, Josh Friedman.

Hi, David.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

My name is David Gloger, and I'm a resident of Seattle.

At the last meeting of this committee, members of OPCD were touting how much information they provided to the public about the One Seattle Plan.

However, at the public meeting like the one I attended at Nathan Hale High School, their information boards included facts that were very deceptive at best, if not totally untruthful.

One board stated, the tree protection code limits the number, size, and type of trees that can be removed.

This is not true.

Seattle's tree ordinance provides little protection for trees on properties under construction.

In the past year and a half, we have seen properties clear cut of all their mature trees, including ones not in the way of proposed development.

And the current draft of the One Seattle Plan does nothing to change this.

And there are other omissions on these books about open space.

If Seattle's true to this, why doesn't OPCD go back and make the plan fit what their board stated?

We can make Seattle green while

Thank you, David.

I apologize for saying your wrong last name.

Your N looks like an R.

I just want to throw that out there.

Hello, Josh.

Hi there.

Is this on?

Yeah, do a test.

Hello.

Yep, you're all good.

I'm Josh Friedman, and I'm a land use attorney here in town.

I represent NAOP on the Complete Communities Coalition, and I live in the Seward Park neighborhood.

We again commend the city's professional staff for their careful work creating a bold but thoughtful strategy to legalize more housing for all throughout our neighborhoods.

All of our neighborhoods need to do their fair share for affordability and welcome duplexes, fourplexes, and yes, even mid-rise apartments.

For too long, our regs have excluded middle housing.

Now, we must correct for that by prioritizing options.

More density is needed to allow for equitable, livable, sustainable, and resilient Seattle.

Without those regs, we cannot achieve our shared goals of prosperity, inclusion, and sustainability for the next generations, who are all counting on us to think bravely now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Josh.

And then we have last two, oh, remote, sorry, I was reading your message, I shouldn't read it out loud.

Do we have any more in person?

We do, okay.

Three more in person, yeah, we'll go ahead and knock those out, and then we'll switch to online.

Online, just hang tight, we're gonna jump through here.

We have Jesse Simpson, we have Gordon, and then I see Al.

Licata, no, I don't know, I'm sorry, I apologize.

Hi Jesse.

Hey, good afternoon council members.

I'm Jesse Simpson, director of government relations and policy at the Housing Development Consortium, also a lifelong Seattleite growing up in West Seattle and a current Capitol Hill resident.

I'm here today to speak in favor of a bold comprehensive plan update that allows for more abundant housing across Seattle.

past plans and restrictive zoning have sharply limited our ability to add more homes in neighborhoods across seattle by deliberately so and even as demand has grown this has created a intense competition for the limited homes that we have the growing competition for the homes that exist has squeezed out the young families aging seniors and essential workers who are who we need for an overall economy and society to function properly.

This comprehensive plan is a major opportunity to change the basic framework for growth.

And I want to commend the mayor's office and OPCD for going beyond state minimums to allow more housing, neighborhood centers, transit corridors, and the expanded urban centers across the city.

If we want more housing, we have to plan for it.

Thanks.

Thank you, Jesse.

We have Gordon next.

Hi, Gordon.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, Councilmembers.

My name is Gordon Padelford.

I'm a lifelong D3 resident, and I work for Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

You're probably used to me coming and chatting about Vision Zero and sidewalks, and so why is this guy here talking about the comp plan?

And the reason is walkability.

Seattleites love walkable neighborhoods, but right now only 46% of Seattleites can walk to some of their daily necessities, and this comp plan represents a really exciting opportunity to make all of Seattle more walkable.

And so we're really excited about the neighborhood centers.

We hope to see those expanded.

There's been a lot of talk today about the transit corridors.

Some really good thinking needs to go into that.

And one area I'd love to collaborate with some of your offices on is the corner store legislation.

And spanning corner stores, you may have heard that Shoreline sort of beat us to the punch.

They just adopted a new comp plan, and it goes even further than Seattle's proposed regulations alone, reallowing corner stores, which can really provide amenities for folks to walk to.

So we'd love to work with some of you all about that.

Thanks.

Thank you, Gordon.

Hi, Al.

Could you tell me your last name so I didn't butcher it?

Yeah, you gotta write the second time.

Hi, my name is Al Licata.

Thank you council for allowing us to speak today.

I want to speak today in favor of the Seattle comp plan, as well as all of the upzoning that's proposed, neighborhood centers, urban villages, and having that be transit oriented.

I am a resident of Lake City, I'm a renter, and this is an issue that affects me and people in my generation and my peers profoundly.

When we don't have enough housing, as we do in Seattle, we need more housing, more affordable housing, we play a game of musical chairs.

would-be home owners become high-end renters, high-end renters become low-end renters, and those who might be low-end renters, we're seeing them out on the street, and we all pay the price of that, whether that be from taxes, paying for services of folks living out there, or just the moral cost of walking by someone in our city, in this country, living in substandard conditions.

So I want to applaud the council on creating a bold plan for moving Seattle forward and speak in favor of upzoning across the board.

Thank you.

Thank you, Al.

Really appreciate you.

And I believe that is the end of our in-person speakers.

We will now switch to our online speakers as well.

The speakers can please remember to press star six when you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.

And clerk, I'm gonna ask for your help to read the first couple names as I'm looking for the list.

Thank you.

The first speaker is Reed Hampton followed by Dennis Sills.

Hi, counsel.

My name is Reed Hampton, and I'm a resident of Ballard.

I'm here to voice my support for the various neighborhood centers and increase housing supply that this plan includes, which I've learned about through the public engagement opportunities in my neighborhood.

My wife and I have lived in Ballard for almost five years now, and we've completely fallen in love with our neighborhood.

Unfortunately, for so many the Adelites, living in our neighborhood is out of reach.

I'm not sure when the last time any of you looked at Villa was, but the price of entry for a starter home in so many of our neighborhoods is close to a million dollars.

For some of us, the single-family home is still preferred, but we should not legally require people to be either a perpetual renter or a million-dollar single-family homeowner.

We should not deny our neighbors the opportunity of purchasing a place they can call home, even if it's different from your home.

Without the increased density in this comp plan, prices will remain high as people compete for a scarce resource, and rents will only continue to climb, pricing people out of their neighborhoods and making it that much harder to save for these ownership opportunities.

Thanks for your time and please support the neighborhood centers and increase density in this plan.

Thank you, Reed.

Next we have Dennis Sills and then Michael Gamblava.

Hi Dennis, press star six and you can go ahead and speak.

Thank you council members for the opportunity to provide public comment.

My name is Dennis Sills and I work at Plymouth Housing in Seattle.

We provide permanent supportive housing to more than 1300 individuals who have experienced homelessness.

Plymouth supported the Complete Communities Coalition letter urging the creation of new neighborhood centers, expansion of urban centers, and other policies to improve the comprehensive plan.

We work to enable individuals to exit homelessness.

In the book, Homelessness is a Housing Problem, author Greg Colburn, professor at University of Washington, shows how developing more housing units is the most effective way to reduce homelessness in Seattle.

Many of our staff must travel far from other counties just to serve our residents.

On Martin Luther King Jr.' 's birthday, there is no better way to honor his legacy than to support a robust, comprehensive plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dennis.

Next we have Michael and then on deck Jennifer Godfrey.

Michael, go ahead and press star six and you can go ahead and talk.

Hi.

Hi, I'm Mike and I live in West Green Lake, and I just wanted to call in to support the comprehensive growth plan.

I moved to Seattle 15 years ago from Dallas.

And in that time, despite lots of change in the city, housing affordability has only gotten worse.

I still have families spread out all over the country that would love to move here, but the high cost of housing has made that impossible.

We need not just more growth, but also more choice in housing options.

This includes fourplexes citywide stacked flats and new and up zone neighborhood centers.

We also must expand mixed-use zoning along transit corners, create space for childcare, grocery stores, small businesses, and corner stores would increase walkability and livability in our neighborhoods.

This has worked in other cities.

Austin built more housing supply and rents were dropping there.

I would love it if that could happen here.

I love this city, and I would love to be able to share it with more people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Next, we have Jennifer Godfrey, then Henry Roller.

You're on deck, star six, and you can go ahead and give your public comment.

Hello, thank you for accepting my comments.

I would like to request that the city council adopt the minimal state requirement by HB 1110 and use shared walls to leave room for trees.

I also wanted to share my experience with the final OPCD December 17th, virtual one Seattle plan meeting.

I arrived at the meeting at the same time as a friend who texted after her first question had been answered and her second question had been published.

Yet my initial question submitted at the same time was not allowed.

Why the critically endangered killer whales were not in the DEIS when they have a federal recovery plan that specifically refers to areas of high population needing to reduce polluted runoff?

I asked more than four times why my question wasn't published.

There were no similar questions to mine that were published.

I can't understand how local critically endangered species would be excluded from a so-called environmental impact statement.

I would request the Seattle city government follow the federal NOAA Southern Resident Killer Whale Recovery Plan.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Next, we have Henry Roller, and following that, Sarah Bell.

Please press star six.

Thank you.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Loud and clear.

Thank you.

Cool.

I support having increased density in Seattle.

However, I'm asking for increased environmental protection, specifically for large trees.

This is urgently needed to address Puget Sound's pollution issues, as science shows that large trees are critical for reducing pollution and stormwater.

This protecting large trees while allowing more development would allow us to protect the southern resident orcas, as well as Puget Sound salmon, both of which are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

So I'm all for increased density.

However, I would like the city council to make sure that large trees are protected in order to help filter stormwater.

reduce pollutants, and protect salmon and orcas.

Please consider implementing a policy similar to Portland's large tree amendment in order to protect large trees throughout this process while providing benefits to humans, salmon, and orcas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Henry.

Next, we have Sarah Bell followed by Grace.

Before you start, Sarah, just so we have our time check.

We're about 54 minutes into public comment.

We have about 12 more people to go that are present and we'll continue to go.

Sarah Bell, thank you.

Star six.

Can you hear me?

Yes, loud and clear.

Go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Perfect.

I wanted to comment that if there needs to be more respect in this process as a Seattle homeowner, I would like to remind the council and everyone else present that there are 60% of Seattle residents who are renters and who also were not informed of this process.

But more importantly, I really wanted to remind the council that in the upcoming turbulent years that we are expecting to see A lot of people are going to want to come to Seattle and we should consider those future residents and consider how welcoming and how much we want to make their life easier given what they're going to suffer in the rest of this country.

That was it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

Next we have Grace Schillett and then Matthew Hagan.

Hi, Grace.

Hello.

Hi there.

Hi, my name is Grace, and I'm a resident of Madrona.

I have serious concerns about the current zoning proposal's ability to create affordable housing in our neighborhood.

I'm a homeowner of a modest bungalow, and since this plan came to light last spring, I've been receiving unsolicited calls and texts daily, and one while I was waiting on hold for this meeting, from local, out of state, and even international developers.

offering to purchase my home sight unseen at high prices.

Most recently, I had an offer suggesting they'd pay far above the current market value.

How could this scenario possibly result in affordable housing?

The only people benefiting from this are the developers, and there is no way this will create affordable housing for anyone.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you, Grace.

Next, we have Matthew Hagan and Steve Zemke.

You are on deck.

Hi, Matthew.

Star six.

He might be muted on his end.

He might be muted, Matthew.

Press star six.

If we can't hear you, we'll come back to you.

Matthew, can you hear us?

I'm mute his phone.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

There you go.

We got you.

I'm here.

Sorry.

You good.

Go ahead.

My name is Matthew Hagan.

I live in the Westwood neighborhood of West Seattle.

I'm a local architect with my own small firm.

I want to advocate in favor of the mayor's plan, and to put it simply, please keep the 30 neighborhood centers intact.

I've been saddened by some of the neighbors and council members striving to keep the status quo, attempting to water down the plans that have already been watered down from what a majority of Seattle citizens have repeatedly asked for these past few years on public engagement forums.

It has been happening, everybody.

I also want to remind you that it's the entire city's responsibility to increase density and not just the neighborhoods that can't muster up people to attend one of these meetings.

Density should be more of a priority in our affluent neighborhoods that completely lack any density.

And I want to remind the council, it's not the responsibility of historically redlined areas to increase the density simply to save the views and parking for the affluent.

The neighborhood centers proposed the least you can do to fairly address the density uniformly.

Thank you, Matthew.

Next, we have Steve Zemke and Ruby Holland.

You are on deck.

Hi, Steve.

Just press star six.

This is Steve Zemke speaking for Friends of Seattle's Urban Forest and Tree Pack.

In 2023, the state legislature amended the comprehensive plan requirements under House Bill 1181. They added a resiliency sub-element which said we must equitably enhance resiliency to and avoid or substantially reduce the adverse impacts of climate change in human communities and ecological systems through goals, policies, and programs consistent with the best available science and scientifically credible climate projections and impact scenarios that moderate or avoid harm, enhance the resiliency of natural and human systems, and enhance beneficial opportunities.

This includes identify, protect, and enhance community resiliency to climate change impacts, including social, economic, and built environment factors that support adaptation to climate impacts consistent with environmental justice.

Bump Plan needs to incorporate more ways to save and plant trees in neighborhoods where people live for healthy communities.

Trees are essential for climate resiliency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Next, we have Ruby Holland and then Adrienne Thornsberry.

You are on deck.

Hi, Ms. Ruby.

My name is Ruby Harlan, and I live in the CD.

Upzoning has led to massive displacement for Seattle's working class in the urban villages, especially in the CD.

Please reject the new comp plan, which threatens to further upzone the CD, displace us, and has no adequate anti-displacement plan as mandated by Governor Inslee.

I totally support HB 1110 to help with growth.

Upzoning has created million dollar townhomes in the CD, not affordability or density.

Somehow it is not being connected what we're hearing and what we're expecting with what's being built on the ground.

We need to work on that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms. Ruby.

Next we have Adrian Thornsberry and then Gabriel Newman.

Go ahead and press star six and you're good to go.

Hello, Council.

I would like to leave a public comment in support of the mayor's proposed growth strategy.

Seattle has experienced an increase in housing prices because we've added more jobs and housing units to make up with this.

To make up with this, we must allow more homes and more neighborhoods an increased overall housing capacity to allow Seattle to grow with future housing demand.

The proposed plan will be successful at allowing more homes and more neighborhoods, and the neighborhood centers have been thoughtfully placed to support more density where it makes sense.

near grocery stores, intersection of transit lines, and near amenities.

I am looking forward to the opportunity to have more affordable options to live in different neighborhoods in Seattle.

I have been following this process for years, giving my input through each phase to support more housing.

Extensive public outreach has been done, which has culminated in the mayor's excellent plan.

I am also supportive of the neighborhood residential proposals and the bonus for Stock

Thank you, Adrian.

Next, we have Gabriel Newman and up next, that was Adrian.

Okay, my apologies.

Okay, we have Gabriel Newman.

Next, we have Matt Hutchinson after that on deck.

Hi, Gabriel.

Just star six.

Hi, good afternoon, Seattle City Council.

I am Gabriel Newman, the Policy Council and Government Relations Manager at GSBA, Washington's LGBTQ and Allied Chamber of Commerce.

I wish I could be there in person with you all.

We support the Community Complete Coalition's request for additional housing.

I'm here with an additional simple request that you have managed a plan to allow corner stores to open anywhere in Seattle's residential areas.

The current proposal calls to allow corner stores only on corners.

This unfortunately hinders the potential that corner stores could bring to our economy.

These establishments support small and micro entrepreneurs who take their first step towards brick and mortar sales, help neighbors get to know each other, and support public safety by increasing eyes on the ground.

I have expanded on this advocacy in an email letter that I sent to you today.

Thank you for considering this very simple update and for allowing food stores throughout the city.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, Gabriel.

Time check, we're 3.02.

We have seven more online speakers for public comment.

Matt Hutchins, you are next.

And then on deck, we have Karen Davis.

Hi, Matt.

And go press, if you press star six, then you're good to go.

Mike Walsh dot, fees.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Yeah, okay, hi.

My name is Matt Hutchins, and I'm an architect working on affordable housing and infill development, and I'm a West Seattle resident.

In this discourse with this 20-year horizon, it's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Seattle is growing, and that is a good thing.

We are really, really lucky.

So how do we best turn this transformation into an opportunity to chart a path towards more affordable housing, more walkable neighborhoods, you know, lower carbon footprint per person?

Less cars, more cafes.

Less parking and more parks.

Less homeless, more housed.

This plan is a good one.

It could certainly be better, but I want to make sure that we maintain a strong vision for the future of the city that we're all going to live in.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Matt.

Next, we have Karen Davis and then Elizabeth Archambault.

Hi, Karen.

Just press star six.

Hi, thanks for taking my comment.

This plan has two glaring omissions.

It fails to protect large trees, which are crucial to our health and the health of our ecosystem.

It also fails to mention our southern resident killer whales as endangered species in this area.

The southern residents have been ESA listed for 20 years, and this official status affords them protection by law.

Under the ESA, developers must assess if their project might impact endangered species or their critical habitat.

which this plan absolutely does.

And if so, they must take steps to avoid or minimize those impacts.

This is the law, not something you can choose to ignore.

Trees are essential to cleaning and filtering the runoff that enters our waterways.

Toxic runoff is one of the three main threats to our southern residents.

We have an obligation to accommodate all the beings who call this place home, not just the human ones.

Since we clearly don't have the good sense to take care of our environment for ourselves, Thank goodness there's a law in place that makes us do it for the species we are driving to extinction.

Thank you.

Thank you, Karen.

Next we'll have Elizabeth.

You're up.

And then Lois Martin.

Hi, Elizabeth.

Just press star six.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Archambeau, and I'm a lifelong resident of Seattle.

I was born here.

I live in the South Lake Union neighborhood, and I'm just I wanted to thank the council for giving me this opportunity to speak today on the importance of building affordable housing and the way that the Seattle comprehensive plan addresses that.

I'm a senior that depends on Social Security for my primary source of income.

So affordable housing is very important for me and for seniors like me so that we are able to keep our housing and don't become unsheltered or homeless.

So that is why I'm urging you to support the Seattle Comp Plan and more density and affordable housing.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Goodbye.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Next, we have Lois Martin and then Erica Petroy.

Hi, Ms. Lois.

Just press star six.

Lois, are you there?

Go ahead and press star six.

If not, we'll move on and we'll come back to see when you can join us.

Yeah, can you?

There we go.

Sorry about that.

Good afternoon, council members.

I want to thank council member Hollingsworth for leading the select committee on the comprehensive plan.

Having your calm hand at the helm makes me hopeful that community voices will be considered.

and not just the tinkling brass of those paid to represent the self-interest of others.

The current draft growth strategy, zoning, and inconsequential anti-displacement plans continue to cause harm to neighborhoods that have historically been damaged by redlining gentrification and upzoning.

Please reject it.

These constant disruptors fracture the social fabric and cause current residents to leave the central area As developers poach, taxes rise and livability decline.

Since the 1990s, our area has experienced multiple up zones that has resulted in many legacy residents, working class families, and small businesses being pushed out.

Harder blocks, less trees, and a community that is losing its soul.

Please reject this plan.

Thank you, Ms. Lois.

Next, we have Erica, Petroy, Morgan, and Patrick.

Hi, Erica, just go press star six.

Go ahead.

Yes.

Hello, this is Erica.

I'm calling in today to express my strong support for the important work being undertaken by this council and the ambitious upselling provisions outlined in the comprehensive plan.

Specifically, as a resident of Finney Ridge, I especially express support for the neighborhood centers in the Greenwood, West Green Lake and Finney neighborhoods and the upselling in the surrounding areas.

I think that would be great for those neighborhoods and really to enable more people to live in this wonderful place.

I also wanna advocate for one additional step of just removing parking minimums citywide.

Research has shown that cities that eliminate these requirements citywide are better able to build more affordable housing and foster denser, more transit oriented communities.

These policies not only support more housing affordability, but also contribute to better transit infrastructure and overall urban vitality.

So thank you again for all your work and I appreciate

Thank you, Erica.

Next we have Morgan and then our last speaker is Patrick.

Hey there.

My name is Morgan.

Thank you, council members.

I'm a homeowner of a modest house in Seattle and I've lived in Seattle for 20 years.

And I would please like to amend this upselling bill specifically from the NR3 to LR3 segment on the East end of 45th Street based on the mischaracterization of this area as part of a frequent transit network.

The proposed upzoning is being justified by the designation of this eastern segment of 45th Street as a frequent transit corridor.

However, this designation is not supported by the existing Seattle Transit Master Plan.

The Transit Master Plan actually terminates at the merge point with CM Point Way and 38th Ave.

So just for that segment, So please amend.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And Patrick Taylor.

Go ahead and press star six and you can begin your comment.

Hey, Patrick, we're not hearing you.

All right.

Can you hear me?

There we go.

Let's go, Patrick.

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

My name is Patrick Taylor.

I'm a homeowner in the North Beacon Hill neighborhood and work in the proposed Madrona neighborhood center.

I am an architect focused on housing and the fourth generation of my family to live in the city.

I'm calling to support the new housing opportunities proposed in the mayor's plan.

We're in a housing and homelessness crisis, the root of which is not enough housing, not enough kinds of housing, and not enough places.

The evidence shows that in communities that build homes, rent doesn't go up as much as in the places that do not.

The same with homelessness, the same with displacement.

The best thing you could do for developers and landlords is to allow less housing, which will give them more power to raise rent.

And please don't let trees be an excuse to stop new homes, as many are requesting.

The best choice we can make for the environment and for our climate is to build urban homes.

Every house pushed to the exurbs and suburbs comes at the cost of fields and forests.

Every urban home built allows someone to drive less and walk more.

And almost every new development comes with more trees and new sidewalks.

Please adopt the mayor's plan as proposed and do not reduce opportunities for folks to live in our great city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Patrick.

With that public comment period is now closed.

Wanna thank everyone that came in person today and then also people that are online as well for public comment.

Want to remind everyone February 5th is a public hearing at 2 p.m.

Excuse me, February 5th at 5 p.m.

Don't show up at 2 p.m.

You can, but 5 p.m.

where we'll hear everyone's comment and we'll be here for as long as it takes.

Everyone will have two minutes as we listen.

Now, let's proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record from the agenda?

Agenda item one, growth strategy overview for briefing and discussion.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

I want to thank OPCD and our executive office for being here today to present the growth strategy.

Would love for you all to, I've had the opportunity to meet with a lot of my colleagues one-on-one to help provide background maps, information, and timeline.

So I just want to thank you all for your participation as we're staying organized on our end to ensure that my colleagues have all the tools they need to engage in these conversations and understand what is being presented by our executive office.

During this presentation, colleagues, before our presenters jump into it, I wanna let you know that you're more than welcome to ask questions throughout the presentation.

I've had a chance to have a briefing before of the presentation.

There's a lot of information here, so please use your hand.

And I'll call on you just so we can be able to steer the conversation that way.

If we start getting a little bit into the weeds of things, we're going to continue to move along the presentation just so we can get through it.

But just wanted to throw that out there for you all that you're more than welcome to engage in that way.

So thank you all.

You all have to jump.

Please state your name for the record.

And then let's look forward to the presentation.

Liz Whitson, Council Central Staff.

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

Rico Kitting Dongo, Director of Office of Planning and Community Development.

Michael Hubner, Office of Planning and Community Development.

Brennan Staley, Office of Planning and Community Development.

So I'm just going to kick it off today with a few words about what we're going to be covering.

Before I do that, I wanna note that I heard a lot of the comments and concerns about displacement.

We too are concerned about displacement and we are slated to come back to the city council on the 29th to talk more about the existing anti-displacement strategies the city has in place, as well as ways in which we think we can do better on those.

So we will be back on that topic.

But I do want to note one of the research indicates one of the best things we can do to address displacement is to support more housing production.

So that's really what we're going to focus on today.

Our planning department staff will be presenting various aspects of the mayor's proposed growth strategy.

As we have discussed, the growth strategy is a required component of the comprehensive plan and must demonstrate how we will accommodate expected future population and job growth.

As you'll see today, our proposal assumes we need enough capacity to not only meet but to exceed Seattle's assigned growth targets for housing.

The reality is Seattle has outpaced its growth allocations in both past and present planning cycles.

Providing adequate zoning capacity is foundational in supporting the conditions necessary to bring about more housing.

Absent more supply, housing costs will continue to escalate.

To this end, Mayor Harrell's intent has been to design a plan that thoughtfully adds more housing diversity and capacity at a scale necessary to make a difference.

And while a significant share of the anticipated zoning changes in the mayor's plan stem from the implementation of State House Bill 1110, which aims to address constraints on building more missing mental housing, you will also hear about additional strategies the mayor is advancing to create more opportunities for renters and aspiring homeowners.

And finally, staff will also explain how different aspects of the mayor's plan will be addressed in different pieces of legislation and the timing of each of those pieces.

And while we may be making further refinements to the draft legislation before transmittal, we are going to focus on The plan that we released is part of this latest round of public engagement.

So there might be more tweaks to come as we transmit the legislation.

But I just wanted to, given we haven't yet gone through all of the public feedback that we've received, so I just wanted to have that caveat in there.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our department staff to get into the proposal.

Thank you all for having us back.

I'm gonna keep my comments short.

Thank you for being patient with us.

We're throwing a lot of information at you.

Council Member Hollingsworth, thank you for your convening and your smooth running of these meetings.

Really looking forward to working with all of you as we continue to roll out information.

With that, I'm just gonna turn it over to Michael.

That was brief, Rico.

Thank you.

So I'm going to start off a presentation today that will get into some of the details around our growth strategy, and also we will be talking about some of the zoning changes that will implement the growth strategy, especially implementing House Bill 1110. But we'll start off with just a couple of slides that provide some background and context for the growth strategy.

Next slide, please.

Actually, there you go.

So as a centerpiece of any of our comprehensive plans, and this is the latest update in the comprehensive plans that extend back to the early 1990s, is the growth strategy.

And it describes where and how the city will accommodate expecting housing and jobs, and in the case of the current update, to achieve a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient development and investment pattern.

And zoning is a key tool in implementing the growth strategy.

We're a growing city.

I think everybody knows that.

In the past decade, Seattle has grown at a very rapid pace.

Since 2015, when the last ComPlan update was adopted, Seattle has increased in population by 150,000 people and has also added more than 100,000 jobs.

Seattle is likely to reach a population of a million people by 2050 or quite likely before then.

Housing production, meanwhile, has not kept pace with job growth and housing costs have soared.

From 2010 to 2020, the last decade before the pandemic disrupted many of our markets and our growth patterns, jobs increased in Seattle by 40 percent, while at the same time housing only increased by 20 percent.

During that same period, the Puget Sound Regional Council estimated that for our entire metro region, we sank into a deficit of nearly 50,000 housing units as a region.

And over the past couple of years, with the flattening of our job growth through the pandemic and the recovery and ongoing strong production of housing in the city, we've begun to dig out of that hole, but there's a lot of work yet to do.

If we don't create enough housing units into the future, housing costs will continue to rise, pushing many people out of Seattle, worsening our homelessness crisis, and making many neighborhoods accessible only to high-income households.

Next slide, please.

So these are just some of the aspects of an ongoing and acute housing affordability and supply crisis.

Some of the high-level statistics that are really quite worrisome during this crisis that we have been monitoring include home ownership, which is now out of reach of many people.

Over the last 10 years, the average price of a detached home has more than doubled to nearly a million dollars, and as a result, many renters or people that want to move here view the prospect of ever owning a home in Seattle an impossibility.

Rents have become increasingly unaffordable as well.

The median monthly cost of rent and basic utilities has increased by 75% from just over $1,000 in 2011 to nearly $1,800 in 2021. And many working households cannot even afford to rent a home in Seattle.

And for people lucky enough to be able to afford the rent, they can't save for a down payment.

And finally, more residents are housing cost burdened.

Almost 20% of renters now pay more than half of their income for rent.

And an increasing cost burden, especially for renters, makes it even more difficult for existing residents to remain in the city.

Next slide.

So as we briefly covered at the last presentation with you, there are many benefits of providing more homes through our comprehensive plan.

Those include supporting economic opportunity and mobility by decreasing costs and increasing home ownership opportunities.

It helps to address a root cause of homelessness.

A recent study by the University of Washington highlighted that housing prices and housing costs in regions across the country is a major driver of homelessness.

It helps to create inclusive neighborhoods where more people can find the housing that works for their households and also where they can remain in the communities that they love.

It reduces regional sprawl and greenhouse gas emissions.

Transportation is the leading sector contributing to our greenhouse gas emissions.

And finally, it helps businesses attract and retain employees.

Next slide, please.

So in our current comprehensive plan, the Seattle 2035 plan, our growth strategy is called the Urban Village Strategy, and that has been Seattle's growth strategy with relatively minor changes since 1994. The urban village strategy concentrates new housing and jobs in designated urban centers and villages, and also designates manufacturing and industrial centers.

And you can see a map image of that growth strategy here on this slide.

The aim of the strategy in terms of our policy intent is to focus growth in compact, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that are linked by transit.

And over the past 10 years, more than 80 percent of our housing has actually been built in the designated centers and villages.

And meanwhile, most of the land outside of the urban centers and villages is occupied primarily by single-family homes.

And there has been a growing concern over time, especially through this housing crisis that we're experiencing, that the urban village strategy has limited the supply and diversity of housing available and restricted new housing development to just a few areas of the city.

And as highlighted in a racial equity analysis that we conducted at the start of the update process, the origins of this strategy are rooted in a long-standing pattern of development that was shaped by racial segregation and exclusion, things like redlining and racial covenants that we still see reflected in the plans that we have in place now.

So the city is taking steps with this update to move away from past inequities and to meet our housing needs more effectively going forward.

One key step is promoting the production of middle housing.

New construction in recent years has mostly been rental apartments and large buildings.

More than 75% of new units are rentals.

70% of new units are in buildings of 50 or more units.

Missing middle housing, by contrast, are smaller developments in our residential neighborhoods across the city that would include duplexes and fourplexes, townhomes, or smaller apartment options, like stacked flats or courtyard apartments.

Currently, under our current zoning, less than 10 percent of our capacity is for housing of that type.

And as we'll hear about today, the One Seattle Plan and the zoning implements it will significantly increase that capacity to nearly a third of the available potential units going forward.

Next slide.

So I'll just close by summarizing the goals for updating the growth strategy before turning it over to my colleague to walk through its details.

And those are to provide more housing overall, more housing diversity, opportunities for affordability, more opportunities for wealth building, housing in more walkable communities, and finally, more equitable housing outcomes for everybody in the city.

And with that, my colleague Brennan Staley will talk about the growth strategy, walk through its details, and also talk about zoning, and then we'll close at the end by talking about process going forward.

Great.

So as we talk about the comp plan and the growth strategy, there's a number of different numbers we're talking about.

We want to start by taking a minute just to go over those.

There really are three types of numbers.

One are the growth targets.

These are numbers that were created through state and regional processes and were ultimately adopted by the Growth Management Planning Council.

They require Seattle to plan for, over the next 20 years, at least 80,000 homes and 158,000 jobs.

These are not forecasts.

These are really minimums necessary that we're required to plan for.

You'll do note that given the number of jobs that we have, if we only plan for 80,000 homes, we will likely continue to see underproduction of housing going forward.

The second set of numbers that we're going to talk about are what we started in our environmental impact statement.

Those are assumptions that we use to understand the impacts the growth might have over the future.

The draft environmental impact study looked at five different alternatives that looked at a range of housing assumptions and growth in different aspects.

But the preferred alternative, which represents the mayor's recommended growth strategy that's studied in the FEIS, studies 120,000 new housing units over 20 years.

So again, these are assumptions we're studying to understand potential impacts.

This is not a forecast.

The last of the numbers that we're going to be talking about is development capacity.

These are very high level estimates of the number of homes that could theoretically be built on properties that are potentially redevelopable.

These are intended to be a high level planning estimate for what might be possible to occur.

These numbers really look at comparing the amount of development that could occur under zoning with what exists today.

They do not look at local circumstances such as local house prices or market values.

They look at individual requirements or infrastructure needs on projects.

They also don't look at the supply of housing or land that might be available at any given time.

Development capacity models were really created with the idea of looking for where there might be insufficient, kind of as a warning light for what was happening, rather as an estimate of what is needed.

But it does help us to understand the effects of change that might happen.

And with the zoning changes under the mayor's plan, it would double the residential development capacity to 330,000 units.

And that will help to relieve the market pressures that have been driving up prices and create more opportunities for housing of all times throughout the neighborhoods.

This slide is a summary of how that development capacity change would occur by place type.

In blue, you'll see what is the development capacity today under existing zoning, and the gray is as proposed under the mayor's plan.

You can see on the left, the biggest change is in our urban neighborhood place sites and those areas that are remaining in neighborhood residential zoning.

It's a pretty substantial increase in capacity because despite the fact that neighborhood residential represents about two-thirds of the city, it has a pretty limited development capacity today.

Next, you can see the change on frequent transit.

There's a smaller but meaningful change in our urban centers, significant increase in neighborhood centers, and really only minor changes in our regional centers.

This slide shows the range of environmental impact statement alternatives that were looked at.

On the right are the five alternatives that were looked at in the draft environmental impact statement, looking at growth from 80,000 to 120,000 jobs and diversity of distributions.

The preferred alternative on the left, again, is analyzing that 120,000 housing unit assumption.

It is in the range of the alternatives that were studied in the draft, but obviously is most close to alternative five.

So it's at the high end of that range.

So the mayor's recommended growth strategy focuses on five key place types.

And these place types basically describe the role that different parts of the city will have in accommodating jobs and housing.

And they also describe the types of zoning that might be appropriate in those areas.

The first of those place types is regional centers.

These were previously called urban centers.

These are areas of regional importance with the highest density of housing and jobs.

The next is urban centers, which were previously called urban villages.

These are places with a citywide important role.

They still have a dense mix of housing and jobs.

Sorry.

And then lastly, there's a new center type called neighborhood center, and that would allow a diverse mix of moderate density housing around a commercial core or frequent transit area.

Areas outside of centers that are intended for primarily residential use are called urban neighborhood.

This is a new place type that really combines different existing ones.

Most of the urban neighborhood place type would continue to be composed of places zoned for neighborhood residential development, but would also look to allow a mix of low and moderate denser housing and commercial uses around arterials.

The last of those key place types is the manufacturing industrial centers.

These are, again, areas of concentrated industrial, manufacturing, and maritime activity.

The manufacturing industrial center place type was recently updated as part of the industrial maritime strategy, and so we're not proposing any farther changes to the boundaries or the basic policies in that area.

So those place types are located on a future land use map.

And this map you can see here is the mayor's recommended growth strategy.

And there would be seven regional centers which are shown in that dark blue.

There are 26 urban centers which were shown in this lighter blue and the kind of more neon blue represents where those are proposed to be expanded.

There are 30 neighborhood centers, which are the lightest blue and are smaller in scale.

Then the neighborhood centers are represented by the majority of the city as yellow.

And then the gray areas are the two manufacturing industrial centers.

So now I'm going to spend a little time kind of going by place by type to describe what they mean and the changes that we're proposing there.

So for regional centers, again, we're proposing seven regional centers.

Those are the six existing, which include portions of Center City, the University District in Northgate, and we're also proposing to reclassify Ballard as a regional center based on the growth that's been happening there over the recent years.

We're also proposing boundary expansions to two centers, one uptown and near the new light rail station that is proposed there.

And in the First Hill, Capitol Hill area, a portion of Squire Park, which would help fill in a gap in an area that is surrounded by centers today.

So regional centers are intended to have a diverse mix of moderate and high density housing, and they can include high rise towers as well.

They're also really critically major employment centers.

We are still expecting that the significant majority of job growth over the next 20 years would continue to happen in these areas.

We're proposing 26 urban centers.

25 of those are existing, and we're proposing one new, the Pinehurst Holler Lake Urban Center located around the 130th Street Light Rail Station.

We're proposing boundary expansions around six existing urban centers.

Four of those are areas that are dramatically smaller than other urban centers in the city and don't meet the criteria for countywide centers under the King County's plans.

There's a couple areas that have new light rail stations that would also be expanded, and then a small expansion also, again, around the Squire Park area to help to fill in a gap that is otherwise surrounded by urban centers.

The size of these areas are generally areas that are within a 10-minute walk of a light rail station, that's around a half mile, or eight-minute walk around a central intersection if no light rail exists.

And again, that's around 2,000 feet.

The type of housing that would be expected here is generally moderate density housing of three to eight stories.

Because these are good size, it does allow for transitions, so you can have more density in the middle, and then it generally tapers as it goes out to the edges.

The next place type is the new place type neighborhood centers.

We're proposing 30 neighborhood centers.

That's 29 new neighborhood centers, plus we're proposing to reclassify South Park as a neighborhood center, given a lot of the issues and constraints in that area.

So neighborhood centers, this new place type, are proposed to be located around frequent transit, neighborhood business districts.

The basic idea is that we want to create housing in places where people can walk to shops, services, transit.

So it's easier to meet your everyday needs in a short distance from your house.

As we created the initial proposal for these neighborhood centers, the major criteria we looked at are, do they have access to transit?

Is there shops and services, especially a local business district?

We also tried to make sure there was a good geographic spread when looking at both neighborhood centers and regional urban centers so that all area of the cities can have an opportunity for a diverse mix of housing options so people can stay in the neighborhoods they love as their needs change.

The size of these are generally a four-minute walk from a central intersection.

That's about 1,000 square feet or generally one to three blocks.

Neighborhood centers are in a lot of ways similar to urban centers.

One of the major ways they're different is they're much, much smaller.

They're generally about a fourth or a fifth of the size of a neighborhood center.

And also, because of that, they have a slightly lower intensity within them.

The types of housing that would be appropriate here are generally three to six-story buildings.

However, we really, especially the purpose of this is to get five and six-story multifamily zones, because this is where we can encourage apartments and condos.

One of the key purposes of neighborhood centers is to create a greater diversity of housing types and neighborhoods throughout the city.

And really, what we find is that you really don't get apartments until you get into five and six-story zones.

looking back in the history, there's been almost no apartment development in our three- and four-story zones to date.

In places where there are parking requirements, we are looking back, we found no examples of apartments in zones that were less than five stories.

And that's really because the cost of the underground parking, you really have to get to five stories to make that viable.

And again, that's not excluding neighbor commercial zones, which are very different.

But so one of the key things here is really trying to especially get that five-story zoning, because that's where we think we can start to produce more apartments and condos.

Lastly, again, as urban neighborhoods, these are areas outside of centers that are appropriate for neighborhood residential growth.

And again, in these areas, the zoning would primarily continue to be neighborhood residential.

But again, as part complying with HB 1110, we're required to allow a broader range of housing types in those areas.

duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, stacked flats, cottage housing, courtyard apartments, as well as continue to see production of accessory dwelling units.

And these are, again, also the areas we're required to allow at least four units per lot and six units if it's within a quarter mile of light rail rapid transit or if two are affordable.

In addition to that neighborhood residential zoning, we're also proposing to allow some higher density housing on areas that are frequent transit.

So basically properties that are adjacent to or almost immediately next to frequent transit routes in those areas.

So at this point, I'm going to go a little bit more into the proposed changes to neighborhood residential.

Obviously, what we've been talking about is the growth strategy, which is primarily represented in the comp plan itself.

And the changes to neighborhood residential will be in that first piece of legislation for implementation, the HB 1110 compliance legislation.

Yeah, we're going to go a little bit into detail.

So obviously, the major change here is that we have to allow a wider variety of housing types.

This is the kind of illustrations of those types that we just talked about that was put together by Commerce.

That would be accomplished by changing the number of homes allowed on the yacht or density, changing the floor area allowed on the lot, as well as changes to setbacks and other factors in order to make sure that you can get better living arrangements for those additional homes.

There are also a couple of areas where we're going beyond HB 1110 to do some different things to respond to what we've been hearing from the public.

One example of that is we're proposing a stacked flat bonus.

So stacked flats are condos, apartments, buildings where you can live on a single level.

During public comments, we heard a lot of comments that people would like to see more of this throughout the city so that people can live on one floor so they can have accessible units, they can age in place.

And so we're proposing that in areas, lots that are 6,000 square feet or greater and are located within a quarter mile of frequent transit, that if you build stacked flats, you'd be able to have slightly higher floor area and a slightly greater density.

So that'd be a density equal, if on a 6,000 square foot lot, nine units or three per floor.

On the right, you can see a map where in blue we're showing those lots in which that stacked flat bonus would be allowed.

I think it is important to recognize this we expect to happen very infrequently.

The developers we talk to think that three stories is not sufficient for doing stacked flats.

Our economic analysis suggests that's also true.

But we've also heard from homeowners, especially people who already own property, that you can do things a little bit differently if you already own the property and they want that opportunity to be able to do stacked flats.

And so we think this is an important thing for making that possible.

The other is that we're proposing an affordable housing bonus.

So for buildings that are located within a quarter mile of frequent transit, if they provide at least half of the units as affordable units, they would have additional height.

They could do four stories rather than three.

They would have an additional density equal to about 12 units on a 5,000 square foot lot.

They could build a slightly larger building with more floor area, and they'd actually have more flexibility on lot coverage as well.

You know, for affordable housing, in this case, means housing that is a rent and income restricted so that it's affordable to renters that are not making more than 60% of area median income and homeowners that are not making more than 80% of area median income.

Again, with this bonus, because of the very high level affordability, this would be something that a market rate developer would not be able to use, but instead would be for projects that are getting public subsidy.

And we have been talking with Habitat, HomeSite.

There are people who are interested in this type of opportunity.

Another area where we're going on HB 1110 is by allowing for corner stores in our neighborhood residential and low-rise zones.

And these would basically be restaurants or retail stores would be allowed in these areas on basically on corner lots only.

And they would be required to meet certain standards for size, hours of operation, noise in order to make sure that they're good neighbors.

So in addition to those changes in neighborhood residential, that would be in that first HB 1110 compliance legislation, we're also proposing zoning changes in centers and corridors.

Again, this would be part of that second piece of legislation that is proposed to come down in late May.

But we are, again, proposing changes to zoning in neighborhood centers along transit corridors and in the expansion areas of urban centers.

And the idea really here is HB 1110 will create a lot more opportunity for primarily ownership units, like duplexes, triplexes, et cetera.

But the zoning in centers and corridors could also provide a lot more opportunity for apartments and condos.

And so together, those two things will operate in order to make most increase our supply to help address the housing price issues, but also create a wider diversity of housing types for people across the city.

Another change is in the parking requirements.

Today, no parking is required in centers that are near frequent transit.

You can see on the map on the right in that those are the areas that are dark blue.

Consistent with state law, we're proposing to make a change that no parking would be required within a half mile of light rail and bus rapid transit stops.

That's a requirement of HB 1110. Those are the areas in light purple.

But we're also proposing to go beyond that.

The mayor's draft proposal would reduce the parking requirements in other parts of the city from what today is generally one space per principal dwelling unit, although there are some places where it is smaller and some where it's a slightly higher.

So it would be a new requirement of one space per two principal dwelling units so that we could have...

You know, more flexibility for homes.

You know, not every single unit needs to have a parking space.

There are some people who don't live without cars.

There's an article today about how we're at a new high that 20% of households don't have parking, don't have a car, sorry, in our city.

And that is especially true for rental properties.

And then, of course, accessory dual units and low-income housing developments would be, continue to be exempt from parking requirements as they are today.

In terms of mandatory housing affordability, again, this is a requirement that certain new development has to either set aside a portion of their units as affordable or pay into a fund, do that offsite.

MHA is currently applied in existing multifamily and commercial zones.

Those are shown in blue in this map.

As part of this proposal, we're proposing to apply MHA in all the areas that would be rezoned to multifamily or commercial zones.

Those are the areas that are shown in red.

And then MHA would continue not to apply in our neighborhood residential zones, which are shown in the yellow.

So I'm going to turn it over to Michael now to talk about how this would be implemented through legislation.

Sure.

Thank you, Brennan.

So Brennan, I think you act.

Before you start, Michael, sorry.

Vice Chair Strauss, please.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

Happy Martin Luther King Jayard.

birthday day.

Just before we changed presenters, Brennan, excellent job here.

I want to go over a couple of things that you mentioned in this slide is actually appropriate.

Number one, you mentioned that Ballard is being re-designated as a regional center.

I've heard before, which is that Ballard already has the zoning that would meet that criteria.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Yes, that is correct.

The Puget Sound Regional Council requires a certain density to be designated by PSRC.

My new question for you today that you didn't expect coming, one thing that I heard from you, Brennan, in this presentation is that it's not just the zoning, but the growth has caught up and made that designation a reality.

Did I catch that nuance correctly?

And maybe I'll tease it out.

I'm going to ask Brennan to answer the question, if you could, which is...

that just because it's zoned a certain way doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna be developed that way.

But when those two come together, then that becomes an appropriate time to redesignate.

And in this case for Ballard, even though we've been zoned at that level, we haven't had access to the transportation dollars that come along with a regional growth center.

Did I get that correct?

Yeah, I think at a high level, I was simply pointing out that Ballard has had pretty strong growth over the recent years.

And basically, that amount of growth makes it qualify as a reasonable regional center under the requirements that are put forward.

I don't know if that answers the question, though.

There's a lot more there.

Essentially, we'll probably dig in a little bit deeper.

You'd also mentioned in this that the industrial maritime lands were rezoned, that we had changes to those zones earlier in 2023. Through this presentation, you've given us a fair amount of background and history on all of these other areas.

I noticed that we...

skipped over a little bit with the industrial zones.

Can you remind me, if it's my memory, that there was a facilitated stakeholder work group that started in 2017 or 2018, took a brief pause during the pandemic, was restarted and formalized recommendations in 22. Is that generally correct?

So I'm probably the best person to answer that.

So that is the general framework, and that was all essentially two and a half years of community engagement with that large stakeholder group representing around 60 different organizations that led to the legislation that you adopted in July of 23.

Thanks.

And the reason that that work group came together in 2017-18 was because the last rezone of industrial maritime lands had occurred in about 2007. Is that correct?

And so, thanks.

I saw an affirmative head nod from the director.

And one of the reasons that the work group had to be facilitated by a third party, not necessarily because of the number of participants, was because of the divergent nature of their perspectives.

They were so far apart and there were issues that we really needed somebody other than the city to mediate and facilitate.

Is that a generally correct understanding?

The city brought on a facilitator to help mediate a wide range of opinions and interests.

Yes.

Very well said.

So between 2007 and 2023, no changes were made to industrial lands because of the level of disagreement that had occurred within that community.

That's my take on it.

That wasn't a question.

And when the mayor transmitted the plan, it did not include housing in Soto.

Was that correct?

So I just want to make a clarification.

In that legislation, we rezoned all of our industrial lands to one of three designations.

The most flexible of those three designations did include accommodation for a limited amount of housing within our industrial lands.

the stadium overlay was excluded from that consideration.

So there's no housing allowed in the stadium overlay zone.

So what I just, I'm gonna have you repeat that again, because what I just heard from you is that housing is allowed in the stadium overlay zone.

It is not allowed in the stadium overlay zone.

That was my understanding.

And thank you for reminding me of that history that we did include for the first time, possibly ever, that housing, other than the two caretaker units, that there was housing allowed in industrial zones.

Colleagues, the reason that I bring this up is because industrial zones never come back.

Once we change the designation, they are...

they will not return to industrial zones.

As we went through the budget process over the last year, despite downturn revenue forecasts, the two places in our economy that outperformed the rest of the nation was in our industrial areas and our port activities.

In good economic times, we don't understand the importance of these areas because they are performing at a lower level than retail or tech or any of these other things.

But in bad economic times, because industrial and manufacturing does import activities, do not change with that great variability.

They are our buoy in hard economic times.

And so with this slide up here, if you were to have proposed such a change to industrial lands, whether it was housing in Soto or adding or any other changes, you would have proposed those changes in what is before us with this slide deck in one of these three cat buckets.

Is that a general assumption?

if you were to have changed industrial zoning now, would it have come in this process?

I think that OPCD has been very clear from the beginning of the major update of the comp plan that we were not going to be considering changes to the industrial and maritime, the industrial zones, the manufacturing and industrial centers.

And we did not very intentionally scope, in the English scope for the EIS for this project, we did not include anything relating to industrial lands in that scope.

That was the clearest statement right from the get-go of the bounds of this project.

Would you say that that is because we had just completed a six year process of updating them for the first time in almost 14 years?

That is correct.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And just to add to that, I would say that the industrial maritime strategy work that we did over that period of time was essentially our first installment at a comprehensive high major update, but just specific to that designation of our two manufacturing and industrial centers.

And let me ask my question again.

Point of order.

I'm sorry.

May I have a point of order, Chair?

Absolutely.

This is the back and forth without asking for the continued to, you know, may I speak, the decorum that Chair Strauss when he was going over the budget is not being followed, but more to the point, this is a discussion that is taking us a bit off track.

It's clear the reason for this discussion, and I'm not going to go ahead and rebut and get into a policy discussion about legislation that was introduced yesterday.

I just would ask that we can continue with our discussion.

Chair, I'm almost finished.

Just one second, please.

Okay.

I hear Vice Chair Strauss has the floor.

I allowed Council President to intervene and have a point of order.

I'm going to continue with Vice Chair Strauss, and then I will recognize Council Member Kettle.

Okay?

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

But just real quick, we are going into the details.

Councilmember Strauss, can we get to the...

Thank you.

Amen.

Your point well taken that from the get-go in this round of zoning changes, that you were not planning to make changes in the industrial zones.

because of the six years of work that had occurred before.

If you were to make changes in the industrial zones from the time that we wrapped that up for, let's say, the next six years, is this where you would have done it?

Is this process where you would have made changes to industrial zones?

I think I understand the question that you're asking.

I don't have a good answer for you simply because it was never part of our consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Strauss, Council Member Kettle, and then followed by Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair, Director Quindago.

Just one question.

I've had three briefings from OPCD, two related to D7, and one that I requested regarding the port that you basically stated all those points that you made to me.

And you acknowledged to me in your answer to my question that the Maritime Industrial Lands has nothing to do with this comprehensive plan reflecting OPC and administration policy.

Correct?

Sorry, I want to repeat it back just to make sure I get it right.

We made a major, took a major rezone action related to our manufacturing and industrial centers, which you all adopted in 2013. Because we did that at that time, we did not contemplate additional changes as a part of this comprehensive plan, EIS.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you.

Thank you for this presentation.

It's actually been incredibly helpful.

You know, I'm not a big fan of a lot of these things, but in looking at slide 21, all of those options, so one of the things that I understand about HB 1110 is that it does require the housing to be consistent with the nature, character, and scale of the neighborhood.

And when we're looking at single-family neighborhoods, a lot of them tend to be, you know, one or two stories.

And looking at the options that are put here on 21, those seem to be really consistent, at least visually, with nature character and scale of the neighborhoods.

And so I'm interested in...

But then your comments about, well, basically we need five stories for apartments to pencil out.

So again, the things that I continue to focus on are how do we get affordability, how do we get home ownership?

So an HB 1110 is allowing for all of these different options.

So how do we incentivize?

How do we get around the need to have five stories in order to incentivize the building of these kinds of options, which I think do create the kind of diversity and harmonization with the single family neighborhoods.

So that's one question.

And then my second question is, So you're saying then that the neighborhood centers, what we're really aiming for there is to get to five and six stories so we can get apartment buildings.

My question is, is that fifth and sixth story going to actually be mandated to be affordable at 60 or 80% AMI?

Great, yeah, so I think in terms of these housing types, these represent a wide range of both attached and detached units, things like townhouses.

I think it's easy to get that type of diversity in in a wide variety of zones because there's still ownership units where you can own from the floor to the ceiling.

The challenge becomes when you start stacking things.

And when you stack units, there's a wide variety of new requirements that come into place.

Some of them are state requirements, like condo liability law, which adds substantial cost.

Some of those are building code issues, increased fire protection, sprinklers.

more hallways, more stairs.

And some of those are market factors that you need to have more insulation between floors in order to prevent the noise.

And for all those reasons, when you start stacking, it adds a lot of additional costs.

And so you have to have both a larger building to make those costs justified.

It also, there's interplay with Parking requirements.

With the parking requirements, it's easy to find space for two to four units if you're doing something low rise.

And once you get above that, you have to do it underground.

And so also, once you're getting into that underground parking, there's a lot more there.

So I guess the major factors that people can play with, obviously, we can lobby the state for things like condo reform.

There are certain things we can do, like thinking about reducing or removing parking requirements.

There are also building code things.

So there's kind of a wide range of things you can do to make it easier to build stack flats.

But there's some big hurdles there.

And so that's why, as it is today, that balance is enough that you really have to start getting to the fifth floor before it makes sense.

I don't know if that answered the question thoroughly.

So the council member, the other question you had was about the five to six stories and neighborhood centers and affordability requirements.

There's no, it's, it's market rate housing that we're, I mean, it's, it's just going to be zoned straight up five to six, but those are areas where we are proposing to extend the mandatory housing affordability program.

And so that will be applicable in those areas where we're zoning higher beyond HB 1110. So neighborhood centers and along those arterials.

Okay, so that's interesting because the last slide says MHA would continue not to apply to neighborhood residential zoning.

So you're saying it will apply in neighborhood centers?

No, no.

Where the five and six stories are being zoned is the neighborhood centers and along select arterials.

That's for multifamily zoning.

that's where we are proposing to extend MHA.

We are not proposing to extend MHA in what we are calling the urban neighborhood, neighborhood residential zoning currently, where HB 1110 will take effect.

So HB 1110, is four units on any parcel or six if two of those are affordable.

So that in some ways is sort of already an inclusionary zoning standard and then six within a quarter mile of major transit.

So we are not proposing on those if someone builds six units within a quarter mile major transit, then any of those have to be affordable.

We do have an affordable housing bonus though, as Brennan discussed separately, and that is applicable to any parcel.

So I'm sorry, the areas that you are proposing to, that you've designated as neighborhood centers, those would MHA would apply in the neighborhood center.

Okay.

That's right.

And would that be onsite performance or would that be in lieu?

Our program does not distinguish or require one way or the other.

So it would be up to the developer to decide how they wanna execute on that.

Okay, but aside from that, how do we incentivize these other unit, these other building types for affordability and ownership so that we're not running into this sort of, this need to get to five in order for it to pencil out?

Can I ask this clarification?

So the question is, when you say these new types, are you talking about the different commerce types?

Sorry.

Like everything you have on 21, all of those, how do we work with developers to get these things built rather than apartment buildings, five and six-story apartment buildings in current neighborhood, residential neighborhoods?

Because I think that there would be a lot of buy-in to these other types of housing.

And what I'm hearing is not penciling out, that's why we have to go for the apartment buildings.

How do we help the city and developers make this pencil out so we've got better diversity, better ownership, better affordability, nature scale, and character harmonization?

So Councilmember, I'll offer one piece just recalling a slide, another slide that Brendan covered on the stacked flat bonus.

So that very intentionally is just such an incentive with regard to stacked flats essentially providing more flexibility to build a larger structure, other relaxation of development standards that would, we hope, incentivize stacked flats in selected locations, greater than 6,000 square foot lots and nearby transit.

So that is an incentive included in this proposal.

I will say also generally, and the legislation that will be coming to you, especially the legislation in May, the second round of zoning legislation, In addition to the map changes in neighborhood centers and along corridors, it does include a number of other development standard changes that we went through a very thoughtful process of looking at our existing low-rise zones, for example, and tweaking some of those development standards to incentivize, to make it easier to build stacked flats, maybe four or five, six story in that range more easily.

So those are steps that we have taken with the proposal that you'll be looking at.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Can I just add to that?

I think in neighborhood residential zones, these are zones that have three-story height limits, I think these types are the things that will naturally occur.

That's what people will build.

The idea, though, is we think that's great and that, again, the majority of the city would continue to be zoned neighborhood residential, so we would continue to see these in the majority of the city.

The idea is that they also, though, you know, this type of development is almost entirely home ownership.

And because it's home ownership, you know, it's affordable to a higher income of families generally.

And so we also want to make sure that we will get, you know, the apartments and condos which have a lower cost and allow, you know, for people to live on a single floor.

And that's why that might occur in those other zones, like the low rise zones that are in neighborhood centers.

I appreciate that, but I also think it's our responsibility to make home ownership affordable and reachable to people who wouldn't normally be able to.

And all of these other models would work both as condo and co-ops.

So that's another thing that we need to be thinking about is how are we expanding our ownership models so that we can get people...

who wouldn't normally be the higher income because, I mean, I guess I would push back a little bit in that I'm not seeing this kind of development.

What I'm seeing are the monoculture townhouses that are starting at $700,000 and $800,000.

You know, many, many people cannot afford that.

How do we build things that people want to live in?

And how do we help subsidize that at a higher level?

So those are things that are spinning around in my mind.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

I hear the same thing.

What are we doing as a city to help streamline that process?

And when I talk to folks, they talk about the permitting process or if they're developing a property, they have to replace a water main and that adds to the cost or how long it takes for them to get a gas, excuse me, a meter installed and all this stuff goes into the cost when developing and that just hits the bottom line.

Anyways, I hear that.

What are we doing as a city to add cost to the housing that makes it unaffordable for folks, is what I hear you say.

I don't want to repeat back what you said, but Council Member Rivera, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, OPCD, for being here in Mayor's office and our central staff.

So I'm going to ask a question because I've heard a lot from constituents, and so I want to ask it in a way that I think I know the answer, but I just want to make sure that I'm, um, I'm accurate and really more so folks understand.

So this 21, uh, page 21 are all examples of HB 1110. This is all now allowable under the state legislature's requirements that we have to, um, comply with.

We don't have a choice.

There's a, A bit of a, close, there's a bit of a nuance with this slide.

This shows nine types of middle housing.

Technically, HB 1110 requires that we allow seven out of the nine.

But this is a range of unit types that we actually generally allow in many places in the city anyway, and this proposal just simplifies it.

We do all nine.

It would be nearly identical legislation if we restricted one or two of these, so it's a little bit of nuance there.

So I guess, Michael, thank you, which two of these are not allowed under HB 1110 that, are you saying it's, there are two of these that are not HB 1110 that we are proposing as part of the comp plan?

No, and I apologize.

Let me take another cut out of it.

It is, HB 1110 has some complicated provisions here, so yes, we want to make sure it's clear.

The state law identifies all nine of the types that you see on this slide, and then it says we must allow at least seven of the nine, and essentially leaves it at the discretion of a city, which seven that it must permit in all of its residential areas.

So to me, my original was all of these are allowed under 11, HB 1110, and the answer is yes.

And so one thing is, and Council Member Moore talked about this, the character, it's in the legislation that what you build has to be in line with the character of what's existing.

in the currently in the neighborhood.

And so folks are asking me, well, then how can we be allowing in these neighborhood centers, even more up zone, because that's not in line with what is currently allowed in the neighborhood.

So it's out of character.

And then it's not in compliance with HB 1110. And I think that's because we can go higher than HB 1110, not lower.

And so it's not, It's true that is not encaptured in HB 1110, but we can do it anyway because we can go stronger than the state.

And I see our central staff nodding.

Correct.

And that's important because I think that people are not understanding that if we're only to do HB 1110, yes, everything then under HB 1110, it would have to stay within the character of the neighborhood.

But in the comp plan, we're going further than HB 1110, which is why you can go outside of that character piece.

And I'm not taking a position here, I just want clarity for constituents, because this is a piece, as you know, that I have found frustrating because my constituents have also found frustrating and they're coming to us with these questions and concerns.

It's I just want to give the information so people are very clear on what we are proposing.

And there isn't anything in here that's somehow hidden or or inconsistent with the state because I've heard people say to me, well, this isn't true, what you guys are doing or what the city's doing is not allowable.

I just wanna be really clear so people have the accurate information.

And just one point of clarity, HB 1110 doesn't require that new development is consistent, must be consistent with the existing character of a neighborhood.

Rather, it requires that we allow middle housing and then defines middle era housing as housing that is of a scale that is generally consistent with it.

And so for that means for the state, that means a three-story height limit.

The height limits for neighborhood residential, they are three stories.

They want basically anything that's three stories or less, they define as middle housing.

So there isn't a requirement that we have to review, develop it to make sure it's consistent with a specific neighborhood, just that we have to allow development that's in a three-story context.

Thank you.

Thank you, chair.

Awesome.

No worries.

I know that we were on slide 26. No, I lied.

29. This is nearly our last slide, and perhaps cover these last two, and then additional questions.

So the purpose of this slide was just based on, and there's a lot of detail in the slides you've heard today.

Some of those details are included in our comprehensive plan.

Some are in different pieces of zoning legislation.

So this slide is just to provide an overview of where the different pieces reside in the legislation that you'll be considering this year.

So first, there's the adoption legislation for the comprehensive plan.

The issues before you and the decisions you'll be making in adopting that plan are the growth strategy in a map that's called the future land use map.

So that's that very high level map.

You saw it on some of the slides today.

For example, it just shows neighborhood centers as just a single color, just a very simplified map that indicates different areas of the city and their role.

as we are planning for growth.

It will have boundaries for the expansion areas and for the neighborhood centers themselves.

Because you will be considering zoning legislation later this year, effectively those are, in many sense, preliminary boundaries.

You will continue to consider the density and extent of zoning changes as you proceed through the other pieces of legislation.

You will also be approving the policies that describe each type of area and its role in terms of housing.

Generally the scale, three to six stories or three to eight stories, those kinds of statements are in the comp plan.

So that's the first piece of legislation.

Second is the implementation of House Bill 1110. That is nearly entirely just adopting new neighborhood residential zoning that is compliant with the new statutory requirements, and then has those additional pieces like the Staff Plats incentives, affordable housing bonus that we've been talking about today.

And then the third piece of legislation is that second round of the zoning legislation, which we're calling centers and corridors.

And that is primarily the map changes that the new zoning maps, much more detailed for the neighborhood centers, for the areas where we're proposing to expand existing urban and regional centers, and along our frequent transit corridors.

Those are the maps that we went out into the public.

within the fall.

That legislation will have a version of those maps, a revised version.

We're taking in and reviewing public comment right now, and we'll bring a revised version back in that legislation.

And then, as I mentioned, some modest to minor changes to existing code in low-rise and other zones.

to promote housing development, just really kind of clean up and making our code a little more housing friendly.

That'll be in that piece of legislation.

And that's where you'll have a chance to really look in detail at the geography of the neighborhood centers and the intensity of development that would be allowed there.

Thank you.

Oh, and then here's the calendar.

The goal here from now through June is to make the state deadline for House Bill 1110. There are two things that would need to happen legislatively to meet that deadline.

Adopt the comprehensive plan and adopt that first piece of zoning legislation with new neighborhood residential.

We would have more time as a city to adopt that second piece of legislation, the centers and corridors.

This schedule, which we developed with central staff, aims to complete that process before the budget season in the fall, so maybe action in September or so.

That's the game plan.

Obviously, we're getting started with it now, and it's certainly subject to change depending on how things go.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And then before we have people jump into second questions, I know, Council President, you haven't had your time to ask questions.

I definitely want to make this time if Council Member Rink and also Council Member Saka have questions as well.

And we'll start with Council President Nelson.

This is the fast one.

Sorry if you mentioned this already, but has the EIS been published?

It has not.

It will be by the end of this month.

We're working very hard with our consultants to get over the finish line.

All right.

Thank you.

Awesome, and then would you also, I think it'd be helpful, and I've talked to some council members, if you all could talk about the window for the environmental impact study, the 14-day window in which it's released, and the public can comment and all that good stuff regarding the timeline as well.

Once the EIS is released, there is a 14-day period within which any member of the public could appeal the findings of the environmental impact statement.

That appeal would go to the Cielo hearing examiner, and state law says that you should not act on legislation that is studied under the EIS until any appeals are resolved.

And to be clear, there is no comment period.

There's a comment period after the draft, this is the final, and no comment or changes after that.

Thank you for correcting me.

People still will comment on it, but thank you.

Of course.

But that window has been already gone and passed already.

This is the final, but people can't appeal during that 14-day window.

Thank you.

Are there questions?

Council Member Rank want to make sure that you're recognized if you have any questions, no?

Or Council Member Saka, if you have any, no?

Damn.

Oh, excuse my language.

Don't tell me, Madam Chair.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm just, hey, I'm just, I'm just playing.

I'm just shocked.

Okay.

Also, do any of my colleagues have any questions regarding the growth strategy as well?

No.

Okay.

That was pretty.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you all for being here.

No, I'm just playing.

Council Member Strauss, I see.

We can go around too if you all have questions.

I have a couple.

I'll wait till the end.

Council Member Strauss.

Thanks.

No, this is just following up on, I'm putting my Sound Transit board member hat on, following up on the conversation that I had at council briefing the other day about the Pinehurst Howler Lake.

neighborhood in this new center.

It is being accompanied by the new light rail station, the Deborah Juarez station.

And so I think that we need to change the name of that center to Deborah Juarez.

Thank you for not laughing at my bad jokes.

In all reality, next week, while we are here having interviews with potential applicants to fill in the vacant position, Sound Transit will be finalizing the name for that station, which is simply Pinehurst.

And so, Council Member Moore, I think we should work together.

This is probably one of the more unique opportunities in the city because it...

is going to have a lot of change.

And it's a brand new station that is not open right now.

And so by naming the station, it has implications on naming the community.

The community needs to be in control of that name.

And I will say, The results from the survey regarding the name were pretty clear.

It was either Pinehurst or Pinehurst 130th.

Pinehurst is a little bit more clear than those two.

So I just, I raised that today.

I know we talked about it briefly on the dais, but just wanted to raise that.

So thank you.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Strauss.

And before I jump into my questions, I just wanna make sure any of my colleagues, which I'm not seeing any hands, absolutely, Council Member Kettle.

Chair, thank you.

And I don't have any questions.

I just wanted to say thank you to all those that have come to do public comment.

I appreciate it.

To your point at the very beginning, this is a fraught topic area.

It goes to everyone's heart.

So I do appreciate it.

Clearly, we need to densify.

But clearly, also, we have to take in some consideration some pieces.

And so while I am for densification plan five guy and the rest, I do recognize some unique circumstances that may exist.

Like somebody mentioned slopes or something like that.

You know, there's some pieces that, you know, some tweaks may be in order, but we definitely need to move forward.

But I really appreciate the public comments that everyone's made.

Thank you, Councilmember Cattle.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I too wanted to thank everyone who showed up today for public comment.

And then I also wanna say that we just got the comp plan and all the transportation climate, the infrastructure plans that accompany the whole thing's about 360 pages, so just really for the public's awareness, we are reviewing and reading through that very lengthy plan, which is probably why, well, I, for my part, don't have more questions today, but will, and I know that we will be meeting with OPCD individual as council offices to continue to dig through this information and ask questions.

So I don't want to leave the impression that we don't have any questions or that this is it.

We're continuing to engage.

We have a lot.

We are getting through all this reading of this comp plan, and we will continue the engagement.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

And before we continue and close out, I just wanna have a couple of questions or comments, what I've heard today from my colleagues.

And I have met with most of you individually.

I think I have one more meeting, a couple of folks.

But what I heard today, obviously, maritime land and industrial lands are important.

We've heard that.

Number two, heard from comments regarding how do we incentivize more stacked flats and different types of housing, not just townhomes.

I'm talking to people, it is really difficult for people our older, seasoned folks, my parents told me don't call them old, call them seasoned, seasoned folks, to get up and down the stairs.

Or if you have a family, your toddler, you know, it's three, four flights of stairs, that's really difficult.

So incentivizing stack flats, I heard that.

And I've heard about walkable neighborhoods, and also too, which I don't want us to forget, and I made a comment to central staff regarding this is our ability to work with our school districts.

I know that we do not govern with them, but we have a low enrollment with a lot of the schools around Seattle.

And that's because families just can't afford to live here.

And we don't incentivize two, three bedroom homes and apartments or condos in Seattle and how that's gonna, our society is going to only exist with the new generation and young people and families and people being able to afford to live here.

And then that helps our school district.

So I'm gonna be looking for the family housing piece, which I think is incredibly important.

and that I've heard from you all as well.

And so anyways, as we wrap this up, thank you all for the presentation.

I know that we had a lot of people come and talk to public comment.

I plan on to walk all of the proposed neighborhood centers that are in our district so I can understand what people are looking at and just physically get out there and see the neighborhood.

Just hang on for that, that is coming for me in district three.

Thank you all for being here.

Our next meeting is January 29th.

We are still working on, I know you all have proposed like four spicy topics.

That's a lot to handle.

It's like MHA and trees.

That alone is like a five day presentation.

I think we actually amended that, to be clear, to just focus on displacement, the public engagement.

And we actually weren't planning on bringing anything back on MHA beyond what we presented today, unless you want to spend more time on that issue.

And then we're happy to tee up a discussion on trees if you'd like, but I would suggest we maybe find another committee time for that one.

Absolutely.

There's a lot of spicy topics and we're going to talk to them.

And I'm talking to my colleagues too, to find out what's important to you all and what extra committee time that you want to spend talking, talking about certain topics.

So just let me know and I'll be working with OPCD and central staff and creating and crafting that.

So thank you all.

Thank you everyone.

With that, if we don't have any items on the agenda for today, do any of my colleagues have any more items of business for the select committee?

Seeing none, this concludes our January 15th meeting of the Select Committee of the Comprehensive Plan.

Next scheduled meeting is January 29th at 2 p.m., subject to change as well.

We might have some, but 2 p.m., please plan on that.

If no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Hearing no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, everyone.