Seattle City Council 7/1/19

So there's an opportunity for us to like...

Good afternoon, everyone.

It's July...

The July 1st, 2019 City Council meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It's 2.04 p.m.

I'm Council Member Shama Sawan, Council President Pro Tem of the Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Bagshaw?

Here.

Gonzales?

Here.

Herbold?

Here.

Juarez?

Here.

Mosqueda?

Here.

O'Brien?

Here.

Pacheco?

Here.

President Pro Tem Salant.

Here.

Eight present.

If there is no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

The minutes of the June 24, 2019 City Council meeting have been reviewed.

If there is no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes will be signed.

We have a couple of presentations here.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow the presentation of the proclamations and for the items, and I think Council Member O'Brien, you have the first one.

Great.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Sawant.

That's a mouthful.

Colleagues, later today, well, the first item on this afternoon's agenda, once we get through public comment, is an ordinance that will change the name of the Festival Street portion of East Denny Way between Broadway East and 10th Avenue East, and rename it to East Barbara Bailey Way.

Barbara Bailey was a community leader and a community fixture for so many in our community for so many years.

And I wanted to just take a moment during presentations to offer up to her brother, Bruce Bailey, to say a few words about this designation.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me for a few minutes about my sister.

I know you have a very busy agenda.

My name is Bruce Bailey, and I'm here today representing my family and many friends to express our sincere appreciation to Mayor Durkan and the Seattle City Council for considering action to rename a portion of Denny Way to honor our sister Barbara.

We all are a bit overwhelmed by this, but we are very grateful for your consideration.

Barbara was a remarkable person.

who interacted and impacted many different individuals and groups in Seattle and around the country in a variety of positive ways.

In fact, it wasn't until her sudden death last September from a massive stroke that those of us closest to her really truly began to understand and appreciate the magnitude of her impact.

The huge gathering of support we received at the time of her death from so many people was confirmation of the depth and breadth and quality of her life.

Barbara had an outgoing personality and a strong set of beliefs that she was never shy about expressing.

But in no way was she a self-promoter, seeking accolades.

Sometimes I wonder if she herself was even aware of the positive influence she had on so many areas of her life.

Certainly, she never talked about them nor took credit for them.

Therefore, we are particularly thankful for your consideration to recognize her contribution in this formal way.

Barbara had many friends and acquaintances and groups that respected, admired, and yes, even loved her.

That her name might stand close to where she lived, went to school and worked at our iconic Broadway bookstore will be so appreciated by so many, and hence seems particularly appropriate to us.

Thank you again from a grateful Bailey family and from a community that loved and misses Barbara Bailey.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Bruce.

Thank you.

And our next presentation from Council Member Baxter.

I'm not presenting this.

No, the next one.

So you think we're moving right into item number two?

No, no, I believe you had a presentation.

I don't, not today.

Complexity, sorry.

Is anybody presenting on this?

No.

I thought there were two, okay.

I'm sorry.

At this time, we will take public comment on items that appear on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar, and the city council's 2019 work program.

The public comment will be accepted for 20 minutes, and the speakers are limited to two minutes of public comment.

If the speaker's comment exceeds the two minutes, the clerk will turn off the microphone.

Speakers are asked to begin their comments by identifying themselves and the agenda item that they wish to address.

And I believe we will go over the 20 minutes, very likely, so we will come to that when we come to it.

The first speaker is Michelle Hassan.

The second is Per Olaf Swanson, and third is Laura Lowe Bernstein.

So if you hear your name being called out, even if you're next in line, just make sure you're ready so we don't spend time with people walking over.

Please go ahead.

Thank you to the council and to Mayor Durkan.

I'm Michelle Hassan, and I chair the AIDS Memorial Pathway Project.

We are over the moon that Barbara Bailey Way will be an integral part of this project, which I know you have all supported.

I am going to just see if I can get someone to pass this out to you.

Excuse me, could you just pass this up?

Because I want you to look at this picture of Barbara.

I don't know how many of you really know her or knew her, but I want you to see that she has a glass in one hand, which was always fun, but the other hand, what she's doing is she's reaching out.

And that was so Barbara, because she reached out to everyone in the community, no matter what.

lesbian, whatever, she reached out.

The bookstore was reaching out.

And by that picture, I think she's still reaching out.

So I want to thank you so much, Mike O'Brien.

Thank you for sponsoring this.

And the mayor, again, thank you.

And thank all of you, because I know you'll be voting yes to name this Barbara Bailey Way.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Harold Swanson.

I was born in Seattle.

I plan on dying here.

I love this city.

It's why I'm here, and I think it's why all of you are here, too.

You know, with the backyard cottages, I think it can be a really great idea.

It can allow people to have a little extra revenue.

It can make it easier for kids to stay at home, which I guess is becoming more popular these days.

They can do a lot of great things.

But I have a couple problems with it.

I've been racking my head trying to figure out why we would allow anybody to invest, not having any requirement to even live in the city, invest in these backyard cottages.

If there's something having to do with it being easier to get a loan, then maybe attack where the loan is.

But I really don't want to see my city turned into a place where every single family home turns into a rental property.

If we're going to make Seattle a rental city, I want to see something more efficient, apartment buildings.

And also with the parking, you know, I would love Seattle to be a city where you didn't need to drive, but that's not the case.

And I feel like this is an example of the city wishing cars away with not actually understanding that they're not going to go away.

You know, there's a lot of parts of the city you cannot get to without a car.

And, you know, if we had mass transit everywhere, that'd be great, but I'd much rather see density go around where the mass transit hubs are.

And I know there has been upzoning around that, and I'm excited for that.

I was reading this morning the 20-year plan for Seattle.

And it says there's housing capacity for over 220,000 more homes.

Well, not homes, but apartment buildings, housing units, whatever you want to describe it as.

So putting auxiliary dwelling units, I think it's great to have it as an option, but I don't want it to be an investment option.

I want it to be something that people can do for other people, like in their families, so they can rent it, get more, you know, get some relief on, you know, high expenses, things like that.

But it does really bother me to see that that particular option has been taken out, and the parking also bothers me.

Thank you for your time.

Next is Laura Lowe Bernstein, and then after that, we have Kimberly Kinchin, Shelley Cohen, and Stuart McFeely.

Please be ready to speak.

We're speaking as a group.

I believe they get extra time, I think five minutes.

Hi, everyone.

First of all, I want to say thank you so much to the council members that have shown such strong support for this legislation and spoken out.

Council Member Mosqueda, O'Brien, Gonzalez, Abel, thank you so much for everything that you've done to educate folks about this really important issue for renters.

So I have a sign here that says, renters make good neighbors.

And a lot of the arguments we've heard over the last three years have been questioning whether renters make good neighbors or not.

That's really upsetting to everybody that's standing here with me.

On May 14th, Como News reported that the City of Seattle hearing examiner threw out the Queen Anne Neighborhood Council's challenge to accessory dwelling units.

Ellen Monrad, the chair of the Queen Anne Community Council, told Como that the proposal by the City Council will put a lot of stress on a neighborhood.

When you have a lot of renters in your neighborhood, it changes the entire dynamic.

It's not as friendly.

What do they care if they keep the yard nice?

I'm a renter in Queen Anne.

I've lived in Seattle for almost 10 years.

I think that the level of friendliness and commitment to civic engagement isn't dependent on your housing status, regardless of what that is.

There's great neighbors in Seattle living in houses with eight renters.

There's 10 awesome folks living in my seven-unit apartment building in Queen Anne.

And the idea that we need to preserve some outdated notion of family structures cloaked under the phrase livability by preserving ownership of the buildings in our neighborhoods is classist.

If our city wants to ramp up support for homeownership opportunities as a generational wealth building tool, that should be handled separately.

Please pass the accessory dwelling unit legislation today.

We must allow new renters to live in every single neighborhood in our city.

This legislation today is one of the only ways that we have to deal with the apartment bans in 81% of our city according to recent maps from the New York Times.

We must pass this legislation immediately.

Hello, I'm Jessica Westren.

I'm a renter.

I live in Wallingford.

I have been renting in Seattle since 2007. And as an additional note, I've never owned a car in Seattle and can count on both my hands how many times I've borrowed one in those 12 years.

I'm concerned about the proposed amendment to have an owner have to own a property for an additional year before they can build two homes.

The proposed rule is a response to stop speculative purchase of old houses for teardown, causing displacement of low-income renters.

But the EIS has found that this legislation would lead to fewer teardowns and less teardowns in lower-priced neighborhoods.

So I'm concerned that this proposal is feel-good legislation that actually is more damaging than it is helpful.

There is an efficiency to building everything at once.

Research from Vancouver shows that if you wait a year to build a second ADU, you could add $50,000 in additional costs to getting your second ADU built.

The fear is that a builder will come in and construct a property and rent all three when the research from Vancouver is showing that they almost always sell to someone who lives on site and rents the other two.

So I don't want us to create more problems by trying to make people feel good when we're actually making it harder and more impactful on our low-income homeowners who want to help out their families.

I'm Jesse Simpson from the Capitol Hill Renter Initiative, and I would just like you to not accept any additional parking requirements for ADUs.

While Seattle may not be a place where you can get around easily without a car now, we need to plan for a city where it is possible to get everywhere you need to go efficiently and safely by transit, bike, and walking.

We have a climate crisis and need to cut our carbon emissions rapidly if we have even a chance of enjoying smoke-free summer skies in the future.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Paul Chapman.

I have just recently finished an ADU in my basement.

In a climate crisis, in a homelessness crisis, this is one of the least impactful things we can do in the city in order to provide more housing.

I encourage you to pass this reform right away, following on the reform that just happened in Oregon this week, following upon the reform that happened in Vancouver last year where they allowed four units on every single family lot in the city.

Please pass this right away.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kimberly Kinchin.

I'm a resident of Capitol Hill, and we bought a co-op condo in 2015, so technically my partner owns it, so I'm technically not a renter anymore.

I am here to talk about backyard cottages and speak in favor of the legislation.

And before I do that, thank you to all the council members who've spent years at this point working for this, and also to all of the unpaid and underpaid housing advocates in the room for their work as well.

Until 2015, when we bought our co-op on Capitol Hill, I was a renter for 40 years in many different cities.

And here are five things that my renter neighbors did for each other over those years.

Spent decades tending and developing a community garden adjacent to the apartment building.

Cooked a holiday meal for one of our elderly neighbors, who was a World War II veteran, and his caretaker daughter, because he could no longer leave the apartment without a lot of effort and assistance, so it was hard for her to get out for holidays, too, and she didn't have a lot of help.

Pet sit as a favor when other neighbors went on vacation.

hold keys for the apartment across the hall so that a new roommate didn't have to get locked out of their apartment that they were moving into.

And stopped to wait for an ambulance to arrive after coming across a neighbor who was injured on a trail and stopped at his apartment to give his family a personal update after he went to the hospital and take his personal belongings back.

And that last person was me.

So in short, I just want to say renters make great neighbors.

And backyard cottages give us more housing choices at a time when we desperately need them.

Please pass this without parking amendments, without other amendments.

Thank you.

So Shelly will go next, then Stuart McFeely, Ira Appelman, and Judith Benditch.

Hello, Council.

You folks know me quite well.

I'm many different hats.

and hopefully you did your assignment that I gave you last time I was here regarding Facing Homelessness and the Block Project.

Because today I'm actually putting on a different hat.

Rex Holbein with Facing Homelessness and the Block Project gave me a statement to read.

Please speak as a longtime volunteer for Facing Homelessness and a believer in the importance of integrated solutions for ending homelessness.

integrated as a means for removing the stigma of other given to those experiencing homelessness.

The block project is an integrated solution that brings community into the task of addressing our unhoused and does it with dignity, providing the same needs of home we have, kitchen, bath and sleeping.

It all begins when each of us steps forward.

Just say hello.

And he ends, love you, Shelly.

The other folks really said it, that we've heard so far.

And the block project in particular, it requires the homeowner to be there.

Chances of it needing additional parking, Not likely, because of the clientele that we have.

Maybe room for bikes, because that's a likely target.

So make any improvements you can to help the block project.

And having two additional units besides that would be great.

Thank you very much.

Yes, hello, my name is Stuart McFeely.

I am a licensed architect.

I have been doing residential architecture in the city of Seattle for 27 years.

I support accessory dwelling units.

I do not support removing the owner occupancy aspect of that legislation because you are creating duplexes or triplexes that can just be picked off by developers.

Our problem with ADUs and DADUs right now is the building department.

They are dysfunctional.

It takes six months to get a building permit and the average homeowner, it makes it very difficult to be able to get a permit for an ADU and even worse for a DADU.

Why?

Because The new DADU has to meet every aspect of the building code.

So an old house that's built 100 years ago, your basement door's 32 inches wide, you know what?

It doesn't qualify to be a DADU.

So what we have to do is loosen the regulations, create an expedited permitting process for the DADUs.

The second issue is the FAR.

Going 0.5 is too restrictive.

It's taking the pendulum the other way.

Again, the problem here is that the buildings are torn down because they're 80, 90, 100 years old.

There's no way to make an old bungalow meet the current building code.

It's called...

and a total redo.

The building department doesn't let you do it.

It's two by fours, knob and tubes.

The building department is the elephant in the room.

If you're going to change this legislation, you have to change the way the building department is issuing permits.

They are the obstructive problem here and the cost of construction, not the regulations.

Thank you.

Ira Appelman, then we have Judith Bendich, and then M.

Wells, I think, and then Rebecca Brown.

Okay, Ira Appelman, I'm representing the Duwamish Valley Neighborhood Preservation Coalition.

And earlier this morning, I presented detailed comments, which I think were circulated to everyone.

And I also presented 29 exhibits, which I believe was given to Council Member O'Brien.

We agree with the Seattle Times editorial board that this is really the adu-dadu, I call it the end single family neighborhood legislation is damaging Seattle and you shouldn't go there.

but I'm not really thinking that you're not gonna go there today.

The examples that are given to support this legislation are also usually human interest examples, such as grandpa and grandma want to continue to live on their land, and so they need to build an ADU.

or somebody is having difficulty staying on their property because of taxes or how much money they have to spend, and so they need to get a little extra money.

But all that can really be taken care of now, as the gentleman who said that he already built an ADU in his basement.

What this legislation really does is it allows speculators and developers to make single-family neighborhoods multi-family neighborhoods by building three units.

And I always wonder, I've been at some of these meetings before, and I always wonder where are the developers and speculators?

I don't recall a developer or speculator ever coming here and saying anything.

The only people who come here are the special interest people, are the are the people who have something that we probably agree with, that you can have an ADU if you want to stay on your property.

But I think that can already be done.

And as the gentleman said before, changes could be made to make it easier.

But that's not what this legislation does.

This legislation turns single family neighborhoods into multifamily neighborhoods for the benefit of people with a lot of money, developers and speculators.

Thank you.

And I'd like to, can I hand in my comments somewhere?

The box isn't here.

Thank you.

I'm Judith Bendich.

I'm here on behalf of myself.

I'm a homeowner, and I think that adus and dadus are great.

I think that they're great.

I think renters are great.

I used to be a renter for years.

My husband grew up in the Bronx.

You can't be anything but a renter in the Bronx.

But that's not what this does.

It doesn't have long-term rentals.

So we can have speculators come in, buy up the house, have basically four units.

You have the basement, you have the house, you have two, you have an additional one along the side, and then you have a dadu.

So, it's great.

I sent you a copy of Berkshire Hathaway soliciting homes in my neighborhood, and if you don't think that's going to happen in Seattle, you have your heads in the sand.

And so, you need to put in.

You can't have B&Bs.

All these long-term rentals, I have great friends in my neighborhood who are renters, but that's not what's happening.

We have beautiful dadoos in my neighborhood.

They're costing a minimum of $250,000 to build, part of which our architect just spoke about.

You don't have any provisions in here for financing, for people who really need it, for seniors who want to stay in their homes.

You need to have that.

You also need to increase open space because you're taking more and more of it away.

So I would urge you, even though I think it's fruitless among this group and I'm hoping in the next council election we can turn some of this around, but I'm hoping for long-term rentals and I'm hoping you retain the owner occupancy that's already there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next few speakers are Michael Wells, Rebecca Brown, Risa Blythe, and Sally Clark.

And we are almost at the end of 20 minutes.

If there are no objections, I will extend it by another 20 minutes.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'll be brief.

I know it's a busy agenda today.

I had the honor and pleasure to be the manager of Bailey Coy Books, Barbara Bailey's bookstore, for 15 years before I became the owner after Barbara decided to retire.

Barbara was my mentor, my friend.

She opened the door to worlds to me in Seattle that were not possible before I knew her, and she did that for other people as well.

Barbara and I came from very different backgrounds.

I was a Midwestern boy from normal Illinois.

She was a Seattle Kennedy girl who had been to the Peace Corps in Turkey, where they gave her a box of books to take with her, where she read some of the great world classics.

She was one of the first Peace Corps classes under Robert Kennedy.

You know, Bailey Coy was a place that Barbara created in the world when such places didn't exist.

When Barbara made a bookstore, she wanted a place where people could buy the joy of cooking and a copy of The Advocate.

And in 1982, when she opened B.A.

Bailey Books, that place didn't exist.

And she made that place exist in Seattle.

And she made a safe place for a lot of community members.

Every week, we had some scared teenager come in that store looking for answers to questions, for help.

We had worried parents.

We had people who were sick and dying with a new disease that none of us understood.

And they came there because it was safe and because she had created a place where they were respected and could come for education, community, enlightenment, any of those things she wanted.

She was a very special woman.

I'm very, very proud of this moment.

And I know that the Bailey family is as well.

So thank you very much for your appreciation for her.

I couldn't be prouder.

to spend some time on East Barbara Bailey Way.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council and fellow citizens.

My name is Rebecca Brown, and I'm a novelist, essayist, and writer.

And I've published 13 books, and I've done readings and speaking in London, New York, Tokyo, and other places because I had, partly because, I had the good fortune to live in Seattle in the early 80s and come across the very welcoming community of Bailey Coy Books, which is founded by Barb Bailey.

My first book was published in 1984, and a lot of people weren't interested in reading or supporting the book of an out lesbian then.

But Barb Bailey and the gang up at Bailey Coy supported me and gave me a book reading and went on to support many gay and lesbian writers from the region, from the nation, and from around the world.

and then non-gay and lesbian writers also from around the world.

And Bayley Corps is really a big part of putting Seattle on the international literary map with the folks that Barb brought to the store.

and the conversations that happened in the store.

And she was also really great at bringing culture and literature together with the personal life.

In 1986, when my second book was published, my mom, who couldn't talk to me for two years after I came out as a lesbian, came to Barb Bailey's bookstore for my second reading and was happy as a clam.

that there was this great community supporting gay and lesbian writers, and that there was an out, successful, attractive, charming, funny, bright lesbian like Barb Bailey to make the women of my mother's generation feel safe about their kids.

And I'll just end with saying that my wife and I are grandparents of a bunch of beautiful grandkids, but one of whom is profoundly effeminate gay boy.

Chris, my wife, took our grandson Lincoln to New York this fall, and they went to the Gay and Lesbian Monument at the Stonewall together, grandmother and grandson.

And Barb Bailey was part of making a world in which gay and lesbian people are considered fully human.

So she needs to be honored in this way.

Thanks.

My name is Risa Blythe, and I've been a small business owner in Seattle for over 20 years.

I'm here to speak in support of East Barbara Bailey Way.

And Barbara and her bookstore was an anchor business in Broadway Capitol Hill that brought tons of shoppers to the area.

Remember when Broadway was booming in the 90s?

Bailey Goy books.

was more than a bookstore, but a de facto community gathering spot where people felt accepted and celebrated.

When she died, there was such an outpouring of messages on social media, I think maybe more than the people that were close to her even realized, talking about how finding Bailey Coy books felt like finding a home for so many people when they were young and as people have gotten older.

It was a lifeline.

Barbara and her example as an out, proud, successful lesbian influenced and lifted up so many lives, including my own.

Her generosity and support of progressive causes was legendary.

She helped make Seattle the hub of creative energy and welcome that it is today.

Honoring her legacy by naming a street after her is a wonderful tribute.

one that is well-deserved, and one that Seattle needs as it changes and grows.

Thank you.

After Sally Clark, we have Jane Tobin, Martin Kaplan, and Joey Jim Pietro.

I'm sorry if I'm not saying your first name correctly.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Thank you very much for the time today.

I am here to speak in favor of the naming of East Barbara Bailey Way.

I want to thank Council Member O'Brien for sponsoring and Mayor Durkin for proposing.

It is great timing and obviously intentional timing.

We celebrated Pride all this month, but yesterday in particular with most of the events and the commemoration of the Stonewall Riots and the heroes of a particular start of a particular phase of the movement.

And so it's great to be able to talk about Barbara here today and to think about how Seattle honors heroes and a particular way and a particular action that you'll take here today.

So it's great to get to talk about Barbara.

People have said really great things here, and I'm going to repeat a couple of them.

As was noted by Michael, Bailey Coy Books was more than just a bookstore.

And as noted by others, Barbara was more than just a bookseller.

As Risa was talking about the investment that she made in people and that it was about more than a bookstore, more than a handful of times, I walked into Bailey Coy Books after maybe a Queer Nation meeting or a Women's Action Coalition meeting or something like that, and it's like, Barbara, we just need 50 bucks.

And Barbara most often said yes.

I mean, you had to answer a bunch of questions.

She probably had her arms folded and probably a V-neck sweater on of some kind, and she was probably asking you some questions about when was this going to happen and exactly, all right, OK.

She gave Scott Pluskalak and me $100 once because we said we were going to do a debate.

You know how people love debates.

Nobody comes to a debate, but we're going to do a debate because somebody is running against Slade Gordon, and that person happens to like LGBTQ rights.

And so, yeah, we're going to do a debate.

We're going to do it at Kane Hall, and people will show up.

No, no one's going to show up.

But Barbara's like, yeah, OK, I'll give you $100.

Scott Pluskalek and I were delighted to have our $100 from Barbara Bailey, which at the time would do a lot of flyers and probably purchase some coffee for the event.

And I think we got about seven people at that event.

But look at Scott and me now.

We're well-employed.

It's fine.

She invested in us.

And she did that in so many different ways for people through the presence of the bookstore, through the community sense of the bookstore.

And it's so great to be able to honor her and to be able to support your action today.

Thank you.

My name is Jane Tobin.

I'm from West Seattle.

I'm well aware of the housing problem we have in Seattle and that the city council is trying to do something to address all the issues.

But I really do have some problems with the new proposals for the ADUs and the DADUs, you know, all these acronyms.

I have owned small apartments and large apartments throughout the last 40 years of my life, and anything over five units, I had a resident person living in that property at a reduced rent to make sure that everything ran smoothly.

Maybe I am not reading things correctly or I'm just trying to play catch up, but I don't see any rules and regulations in the control of how these ADUs and DADUs function.

Will they be kept to the same standards as owners of small apartment buildings or large apartment buildings as far as how do we get tenants in, how do we get tenants out?

Are there any rules and regulations for these units.

You're now upping it from what I read in the proposals from 8 to 12 individuals in these various dwelling units.

If someone in that decides that or one or two people that we have a tenant that we can't get along with, who's going to be taking care of all of this?

Is it now the non occupant owner who is not on site.

How do we take care of all these issues?

Who's going to maintain the property?

We've had good tenants in our life, and we've had bad tenants.

And we love renters.

They're my income.

But there are tenants who don't care about their properties.

So who's going to be addressing this issue when you have the owner that is not living on site?

I'm very concerned about these.

We're supposed to be a green city, and you're saying that there's no room for parking.

We live in West Seattle, we can barely drive up our streets now because there are so many people.

We don't have garages.

My time is out, I realize that.

I would like the council to refer to the Seattle Times article June 28th for practical changes to preserve neighborhoods.

Their point should be considered before any vote is taken on the proposed rules.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

I'm Marty Kaplan, architect and chair of our Queen Anne Community Council Land Use Review Committee.

The first sentence on Saturday's op-ed by Council Member Mosqueda reads like this.

Making it easier for homeowners to add mother-in-law suites, basement apartments, and backyard cottages is a good idea for housing choices and affordability.

In fact, This legislation that you're considering today favors uncontrolled development of market rate triplexes by developers and speculators.

It does not consider the intended homeowners and affordability that Councilmember Mosqueda favors.

The current homeowner occupancy requirement is the only protection against wholesale conversions of our single-family neighborhoods.

Your EIS is clear throughout, including page 5-9.

that this legislation is, quote, disproportionately favors wealthy white homeowners and developers who produce costly market-rate housing because ADUs are very expensive.

That's what it says.

While Councilmember O'Brien and his committee have denied that such speculation will occur in Seattle, it began here during the recession in 2009. Now thousands of Seattleites have been displaced, and their homes are now owned by Blackstone other hedge funds, and national corporate interests just waiting for you to eliminate regulations.

Just last week, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal featured front-page, in-depth stories highlighting the rapid metastasizing of corporate investment portfolios assembling single-family homes ripe for conversion all across the country.

Our neighborhoods citywide deserve better.

and we find the owner occupancy requirement the most important regulation to be protected.

Let's not gift away our wealth of neighborhoods and homes to profit-driven hedge funds and developers instead of actually considering homeowners, affordability, and neighborhoods.

Let's be smart.

Thank you.

Just before the next speaker goes, we have Gelsie Hamlin and Larry Kelly next.

Thank you for taking comments here today, City Council.

My name is Joe Giampietro.

I'm an architect and a low-energy building consultant.

As a long-time homeowner in Ballard, I'm one of those who might take exception to having addos and daddos come near my house.

Having children, however, I realize how impossible it has become for the next generation to live here in our fair city, simply because of economic growth.

So I fully support the proposed changes to the accessory dwelling unit regulations.

We have a problem that is very difficult to overcome.

A land use history of primarily single family zoning, which by its nature is exclusionary.

For example, I was in Philadelphia recently for a conference where I had gone to school and noticed that there were no homeless anywhere to be seen.

In spite of the low income population in Philadelphia, in which 25% live below the poverty line, they have fewer than 1,500 homeless in a city of 1.5 million, twice the size of the city of Seattle.

In other words, their homelessness problem in Philadelphia is less than one-tenth of ours.

So how could that be?

Well, Philadelphia is a city of row houses, with no restriction on numbers of dwellings per row house.

Therefore, the affordable housing opportunities are not constrained by land use regulation.

I suggest that by this one action, Seattle will be able to, over time, welcome our children, our grandchildren, new residents, teachers, childcare workers, and those who serve our community who need much less expensive housing to live amongst us.

So, thank you.

All right.

Hello, I'm Kelsey Hamlin.

I'm the one who has made this sign and done a lot of the research for it.

I do want to clarify, since someone brought up the ADUs are typically a minimum of 250,000, that is false.

The ADU depicted, oh, sorry.

The ADU depicted here is actually pretty large and has a lot of extravagant components to it.

So it's not typical to the standard ADU cost.

Someone I know who built their ADU pretty recently was estimated at $130,000.

So yes, homeowners have to build these items.

Yes, they are expensive to the typical person who hears that price, but they're definitely less expensive than buying a million-dollar home.

And they're also less expensive to rent out.

If they're rented to families and friends, zero or below market rate because we care about the people that we love.

I also want to point out that these units help the climate crisis, which we all know is pretty present.

Right now, India has pretty much zero water at the moment.

We all breathe the same air globally, so no matter what happens across the globe or what emissions we spread here, it impacts all of us.

ADUs typically have residents who travel less in their cars, so that also means that we're pumping less CO2 into the air.

It means that we can actually meet our climate goal for Seattle, which we aren't doing so great at the moment.

I also want to point out that today you're hearing from a lot of people who are older and white.

At the last hearing, you also heard from people who were predominantly white, but there was a little bit more diversity, and there was certainly younger people there as well.

There were a lot of renters.

And I want to point out that this happens because it is 2 p.m.

on a workday at the moment, and so that limits working people who can attend.

I also want to acknowledge that in other cities, ADUs typically rent anywhere from zero to below market weight 50% of the time, because the renting to friends and family, this is not an anomaly.

Thank you.

My name is Larry Calley.

I'm a resident of Queen Anne, and this is basically to seek confirmation on the ADU ordinance.

that this ordinance applies to all neighborhoods in the city with properties that meet lot size and environmental criteria and that no neighborhood is exempt from this ordinance.

Is that correct?

And a nod of the head from Mr. O'Brien would be sufficient.

That is correct.

Every neighborhood, no exceptions.

And unless there are any proposals to extend public comment again, our last speaker will be Emily Johnston.

How many more are there, council member?

There are 10, 12, at least 15. I'm okay if people want to extend.

Can we go to Emily Johnston and then go to one minute for the remainder?

That's fine with me.

Good.

Thank you, everybody.

I'm Emily Johnston.

And as I've said repeatedly here in recent days, Seattle needs more housing.

When we experience job growth and don't grow housing at the same rate, people get pushed out.

And it's nearly always the most vulnerable people who get pushed out first.

And whether someone is a retired nurse's aide or whether they're an Amazon tech worker, if they're pushed out to the suburbs, they tend to move to much larger dwelling units and they need to drive much more.

Their quality of life goes down and their carbon pollution goes up.

Climate breakdown is a crisis that completely dwarfs all of our other problems.

And if we don't respond urgently and boldly, the problems that we have right now will seem like the hopelessly good old days.

From a climate perspective, where we live is the single most important decision we ever make.

It determines whether we need to drive and how much energy we use.

We here in Washington State were once considered climate leaders, but no more.

In recent years, Seattle emissions have been rising, and that's even without considering the rising emissions of those we've pushed out of the city.

People have a lot of reasonable sounding fears about developers buying up all the neighborhoods.

But it's important to understand that the law that just passed in Oregon that legalized fourplexes in all cities over 25,000 throughout the state was opposed by the Home Builders Association because it was going to make it less necessary to expand the urban growth boundaries.

Developers are simply not very interested in two to four units on a lot.

They're much more focused on large projects and new suburban developments.

We need to make it easy and affordable for people to do the right thing and build additional housing units.

If people can build two ADUs at the same time in or adjacent to their house, construction prices and disruption are minimized.

If I can figure out the financing, I myself would like to take down my 800 square foot single family house less than two miles from downtown and build a larger house with two ADUs inside so that I can share my lot and my neighborhood with friends and other community members.

Please make sure that people who want to do the right thing can do so with minimal friction.

Thank you.

So our next speaker is Steve Zanki, or Zarki.

I'm sorry, I can't read.

And after that is Alice Lockhart, Sarah Weaver, and Sherry Newbold.

And I'm sure you all heard you all have one minute each.

So I'm Steve Zemke, I'm a chair of Tree PAC.

So this particular legislation, we have concern among other issues that you're reducing the number of trees required down to one, two inch tree planting, as I understand.

And this falls in line with the fact that as part of the MHA process and also the ADU process here, you said anything dealing with the tree ordinance issues is a separate issue.

So I'm here urging that we both look at keeping Seattle affordable, plus we look at keeping it livable.

That means trying to keep nature in the city.

It means trying to be sure that we, when trees are removed, that they are replanted, that we put in place a permit system for removing trees like other cities have.

The Urban Forestry has submitted to Council Member Bagshaw a draft, and we urge you to try and consider getting it done this year rather than extending next year, 10 years, that this process has been going on as long enough.

You are in agreement with most, with all the issues that we're, that the tree people out there are in agreement with, and we think it's time to move forward and solve this before you go into the budget process in October.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council.

It's really exciting to be here a moment before a vote for more climate-friendly housing in Seattle without weakening amendments to that legislation.

I personally, not speaking for any organization, will be very grateful if there is no owner occupancy requirement.

I've testified here about the 280Us that I would like to build and how they will help me to, I believe, preserve some big, beautiful trees on my lot by building them on the existing footprint.

Because I could need to leave town for periods of time to support family members, I can't do that without the flexibility of being able to rent out all three units.

So I just want to extend my deep thanks for this legislation as a whole and for preserving that flexibility.

Thank you.

estate investor and developer in Seattle and I have a lot of great tenants and they do make great neighbors I want to say that I am against the City Council approving this a proposal.

I think that the Seattle Times editorial board said it best so I just like to reiterate some of their key points.

Number one, this is one of the most consequential land use decisions in city history and it should not be made by a lame duck council during a summer session.

Seattle deserves better governance and stewardship.

Any decision should be made by the new accountable council that the voters elect in November.

There is little urgency.

Number two, Seattle has allowed backyard cottages since 2009, and they are allowed on most lots.

Backyard cottage development has more than doubled since 2014, when 53 were built.

120 were permitted annually for the last three years.

Counting attached units, production averaged 252 this last year.

At this rate, the city may see as many units built with no rule changes as it originally sought by removing neighborhood protections.

If the city wants to help homeowners add an additional unit, it should streamline the permitting process and lower utility connection charges.

Number three, this change isn't needed to accommodate growth.

In March, Seattle upzoned and enlarged urban villages where density is supposed to be clustered.

The city projected this would add capacity for 69,520 units.

Could you please wrap up, please?

Housing affordability is a problem requiring a multifaceted response.

Weakening livability standards and tripling neighborhood density would only have a marginal effect on affordability, the city's own analysis concluded.

And this is just my personal note.

If you think that investors aren't going to be coming in to pick up these properties, you're sadly wrong.

If this proposal passes, we've already looked up houses that we're going to purchase.

We have Andrew Kirsch, Esther Bartfeld, and Sylvia Schweinberger.

Hello, Council.

Thank you for letting us speak today, and I want to thank everyone who's worked on this legislation for so long.

I heartily support the legislation as it's currently written, and I would really encourage the Council to not add any other amendments that would make it less flexible for people to add ADUs, especially second ADUs.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Among the reasons I oppose CB 11-119-544.

Sorry, can you please start by saying your name?

Oh sorry, Andrew Kirsch, speaking for myself.

Among the reasons I oppose the ADU bill is that it would permanently reduce the tree canopy in single-family zones, which currently hold most of Seattle's tree canopy.

The proposed tree replacement requirement is severely inadequate.

It is based not on how many trees are destroyed to make room for a structure, which might encourage tree preservation, but on the lot size.

So one could, for example, cut down three 23-inch diameter trees or just one five-inch diameter tree for an ADU or a DADU, and the replacement requirement would be the same on a 3,000-square-foot lot, a single tree with a trunk diameter of only three inches.

The bill lacks even a fee in lieu of replacement for planting trees elsewhere in the city.

The bill includes a requirement on paper for the homeowner to take care of the replacement tree for five years.

This is probably unenforceable and quite evidently not in the interest of SDCI, which has ignored Mayor Burgess's executive order regarding the enforcement of tree protections.

The bill would also remove the owner occupancy requirement.

If you don't care about the tree canopy or the urban heat island effect, why should Blackstone or a real estate investment trust place tree preservation over profit?

Please wrap up.

Okay.

In reality, there is no tree replacement requirement because the minimum replacement requirement on the law can be satisfied by the owner if they simply refrain from cutting down the existing healthy street trees.

The bill would sacrifice the tree canopy for more Airbnbs.

Please keep Seattle green and homeownership local and vote no.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Esther Bartfeld, and I'm urging you to vote no on this legislation.

This is not about whether to allow ADUs or DADUs.

We already allow that, as you know.

It is fundamentally changing the game.

And it's also not about affordable housing.

It's about investment housing that will increase the social stratification in Seattle.

I lived in an ADU when we first moved to Seattle and it was great, but the owner lived upstairs and I fully support ADU making the process easier with an owner occupancy requirement.

Otherwise, we will have the more modest neighborhoods bought up by investors and we will be pricing out families and eliminating inventory for families in all but the wealthiest neighborhoods of Seattle.

And every homeowner will pay more for their property taxes because the land valuation portion of your property appraisals will increase because it will be considered as triplex potential.

Most of us don't own the land next door to our property like Councilmember O'Brien does, so we can't control what's done to it.

This legislation offers less privacy and light and air protections than single-family zones that back up to neighborhood commercial zones.

You can build a two-story structure five feet from the property line in this legislation.

We can and should study incentives to make ADUs and DADUs easier to build.

We only need one on a property and owner occupancy requirements, and I hope the council will start in a new direction.

Thank you.

Sylvia here.

After Sylvia will be Johanna Sarla, Marissa Vega, and Elliot Brunowitz.

Hi, I'm Sylvia Schweinberger.

I'm a neighborhood resident, and I also own rentals.

And I have great renters.

And it's not about renters being bad people or anything like that.

But I'm still not in favor of this legislation.

I'm a longtime Seattleite.

think that bringing in the, well, removing the owner occupancy requirement will bring in developers.

Developers are writing to me every day now.

And just having investors tearing down houses to build triplexes, make money and leave, they don't care about Seattle.

They don't care about what these people are talking about, the tree canopy.

They don't care about our neighborhoods and how they're organized.

And I don't think it makes for a very good Seattle.

We've already just upzoned 27 neighborhoods.

The building permits haven't even been issued for all those yet.

Let's wait.

There's no rush.

Let's let that build itself out.

Meanwhile, figure out how we can make it easier for owners who want to do this.

Get the roadblocks out of the building department.

Thank you.

said me, Johanna Searle.

I'm not prepared, wasn't prepared to speak.

I would like to say to the woman who's, I'm a homeowner in Seattle.

I've been here for 42 years.

It breaks my heart that people are being priced out of this neighborhood, out of this city who have built this city, I don't see anything in the legislation that is going to keep developers from doing what they have in Ballard, tearing down houses, putting two and three in.

I don't see any incentive for them to make this affordable housing.

Wasn't this what this legislation, wasn't this what this started about?

I've been following it for several years to make housing more affordable.

It does depend on the goodwill of people.

And if the woman here and other people who have spoken want to do something to rent out their back, build something and rent it out cheaply to their children, that's great.

I have no confidence that a developer has any incentive to do that.

I would not recommend passing this.

I think it's a disaster.

I don't think it will improve affordability for people at all unless somebody really cares in their heart to do that.

And I'm not confident that developers do do that.

Thank you.

Marissa Vega, Elliot Brunowitz, and Dawn Cave.

Hi, I'm Marissa.

I am here on behalf of Unified Seattle.

I've lived in the city for four years, and in this short time, I've watched many neighborhoods turn into health and environmental hazards, and streets been made unsafe for citizens.

And I'm here to talk about the concern for South Lake Union enclosure village.

Seattle's solution of building low barrier enclosures with shacks like Lakes Union Village lets elected officials claim they are compassionate but does nothing to address the problem.

Putting addicts and mentally ill humans together in shacks while offering support in the form of fresh needles is not caring.

There's no drug rehabilitation, there's no job training, there's no mental health counseling, and there's no alternative housing for them.

Our city officials who advertise these shacks as temporary housing communities are putting vulnerable people in need of treatment inside the Lake Union Village and disguising it as aid.

This is why groups like Unified Seattle are challenging this broken system and calling attention to what low barrier shack encampments are, unacceptable justifications for responsibility and revision.

Unified Seattle calls for real change that will help those suffering from addiction and mental illness to get off the streets.

Closing sick people in low barrier shack encampments will only allow the problem to fester and grow with the roof over its head.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Elliott Brenowitz.

I'm a professor of biology at UW.

I'm only speaking for myself today.

And I wanted to talk about environmental impacts, which have gotten short shrift, I think, especially the certainty that allowing increased lot coverage under this proposal will lead to increased stormwater pollution.

As I understand it, most of these proposals will fall under the threshold for drainage review.

but they can increase lot coverage up to 65%.

This is going to lead to increased water running into the drains with all the chemicals that pick up in the roadways.

My colleagues at the National Marine Fisheries have already showed that coho salmon have 100% mortality when exposed to this wastewater.

Last year, we got all upset about that orca, and it's pushing its dead baby around.

But really, being green doesn't mean anything if we only do it when it's economically convenient.

Thank you.

Of Dawn Cave, Matt Hutchins, Michelle Linden.

I was going to say something really bitter, but I've decided to not bother.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Matt Hutchins.

I'm speaking on behalf of AIA Seattle.

I'm the co-chair of the Housing Task Force.

We've sent you guys a letter expressing our support.

I'm just going to summarize.

AIA Seattle, representing 2,400 licensed architects, supports this legislation, especially removing the parking and owner occupancy requirements.

We also strongly support the FAR limitations on home size.

We think that, in general, this is an important point of change in our city with respect to deciding who gets to live here and how and what our neighborhoods look like.

We've done the study and it's time to act.

We encourage you now to approve this legislation and its key components.

Thank you for all your work.

Hi, my name is Michelle Linden, and I'm also a licensed architect.

I agree with a lot of what he just said, except for as it comes to the FAR limits.

I'm really confused as to why the FAR limit has been added to this legislation.

Limiting someone's ability to build what they want isn't going to incentivize them to build additional units.

Frankly, I would suggest that it's extremely classist and elitist to tell Seattleites that the only ones worthy of a larger home are the ones that can afford a large lot.

As we know, there are fewer and fewer families that can afford a large lot in Seattle.

The FAR limit is penalizing families.

That's my target demographic.

without benefiting the residents of potential backyard cottages.

I feel that the backyard cottage legislation, while imperfect, should be supported and it should be accepted, but you should nix the FAR regulations from it.

Thank you.

The last three speakers are Glenn Pittenger.

I'm sorry if I'm saying it wrong.

Julie Campbell and Angela Compton.

Good afternoon, Council.

I'm Glenn Pittenger.

I'm a third generation Seattle resident.

I've lived here since 1967. I've owned my single family home for 26 years.

And I urge you to vote yes today and pass this legislation.

It's time to stop stalling the ability to add more options to our neighborhoods.

And it's time to end the classism that has dominated zoning in Seattle for the last hundred years.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Julie Campbell.

I'm an architect here in Seattle.

And with all due respect to Matt Hutchins of the AI, I represent a smaller group of AI members, single family architects, who have some issues with the proposals that they stand right now.

I'm going to go off script because I want to make my point brief.

We all, all of us, every one of us, believe in accessory dwelling units.

I want to build one on my property.

But what we all fear is that this is going to be a big giveaway to developers that is really going to change the fabric of our city beyond what any of us can imagine.

And I think that fear has been represented in this room today because many people are talking about how, especially this woman who's a real estate agent, how developers will come in, like swoop in like hawks.

That was a comment that came up in the AI forum last month with guest speakers from Minneapolis.

One of those city planners said that while they're in the midst of passing these new bills, their phones are getting blown up by developers looking for opportunities with this.

So I urge you to consider one of two points today when you cast your vote.

Either remove the third unit or remove the homeowner occupancy just as a way to slow this train down.

We could add that in two years when we see how this is going to shape up.

Please wrap up.

That's what I want to say.

Thank you.

Hello, City Council.

Thank you so much for being here today.

My name is Angela Compton, and I am also a third-generation Seattleite who has never lived in a home owned by me or my family.

We've been renters my entire life and have lived in a variety of homes, from duplexes to backyard cottages to living with family members in single-family houses and all of it.

I would really like to say that I support this legislation without any additional amendments.

In my adult life, I have never owned a car, and I live in Seattle.

I actually walk most places.

Occasionally I take transit, but for the most part, my feet are my way of transportation.

So the fact that you can't get around Seattle without a car is just oblivious and is not true.

But another thing is, as I would like to tell a story about my grandma.

So my grandma owned a very large single family house with four bedrooms in it.

And after my aunts and uncles were all old and moved out, and my grandfather died, that was a really large home for my grandma.

My grandma then, actually she owned a fourplex.

She moved into one of the units in her fourplex and rented out that single family house.

When my uncle got out of the Marines, him and his family didn't have anywhere to go.

And my grandma actually built a basement unit in that single family home that she was renting out.

And my uncle and his family moved into that home and are still living there.

So that is like one of the ways that we can create solutions in our community.

There are currently about 30,000 single family homes that are used as rentals in Seattle.

And if we add an owner occupancy requirement, and if we add parking requirements, we are going to hinder those homes from allowing more families to live in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do you have anyone who testified in public comment?

Please, this, so, there's no, we are now on payment of bills.

Please read the title.

Council Bill 119559, appropriating money to pay certain claims, and ordering payment thereof.

I move to pass Council Bill 119559. Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw.

Aye.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Pacheco.

Aye.

President Salant.

Aye.

Eight in favor and none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read the report of the City Council.

Item number four.

Just paying the bills.

The report of the City Council, agenda item one, Council Bill 119558, relating to the city streets, changing the name of the designated festival street portion of East Denny Way between Broadway East and 10th Avenue East to East Barbara Bailey Way, and superseding the relevant portions of Ordinance 4044, Ordinance 88910, Ordinance 102981, and other ordinances to the extent inconsistent.

Thank you, Council President.

I don't have much to add to the great public comment we heard in testimony from family members, friends, co-workers, co-owners, and even charity cases like former Council Member Clark.

Barbara Bailey clearly is an icon in the city and in particular in Capitol Hill.

And her loss was not just a loss to the family members and friends, but the whole city.

And I'm proud to have been the sponsor of this legislation, but the credit really goes to Mayor Durkan and her team for doing the work to get this before us.

And I'm grateful for Mayor Durkan's leadership on this.

And colleagues, I think it'll be exciting when that sign goes up and we get to see that stretch of East Barbara Bailey Way.

Any other comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw?

Aye.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

Pacheco?

Aye.

President Swann?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read the report of the City Council.

Agenda Item 2, Council Bill 119553 relating to city employment, authorizing execution of a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Seattle and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union Number 77, Power Marketers Unit to be effective January 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2020, and ratifying confirming searching prior acts.

Great.

Council Member Baxter.

Thank you very much.

Thank you colleagues for this.

This legislation was referred directly to the full council.

It's being proposed by our Seattle Department of Human Resources and normally that particular department would the legislation from there would be referred through my committee but it's coming directly here today.

The legislation authorizes the execution of a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Seattle and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, that's local union number 77, called the Power Marketers Unit.

It has 1515 regular employees, and this contract will be effective January 1st through December 31st, 2020. And since it's already two and a half years behind, it will be effective retroactive.

So the extended process of deliberation proposed a result of a three-year process that began in 2016, and it reflects the extended negotiation, as I mentioned.

So it will update wages from 2014, and it has no impact on the current budget since it was included in our 2019 budget.

And funding in 2020 will be addressed by the executive first in the annual budgeting process, and we recommend do pass.

With the comments, I will call on myself before calling on the passage of the bill.

This agenda item approves the union contract, as Council Member Baxter said, negotiated with the city and the government, and IBEW 77, who represent many Seattle City Light workers, who maintain the power lines, substations, and power plants to keep the lights on in Seattle.

On rainy, windy winter nights, when a tree falls on the power lines and your power goes out, It is IBEW 77 members who go out in the storm and fix the problem.

Without their work, we would have no street lights, Amazon would have no power to run their data centers, and Nucor could not melt their steel.

These are really the ultimate green jobs, providing carbon-free power to Seattle and beyond.

under a good union contract.

Seattle should add many more of these positions as part of a Green New Deal to add wind generation to Seattle's hydropower to export electricity outside the city, replacing the coal and natural gas power used in the region.

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw?

Aye.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Moraes?

Aye.

We're calling roll on the passage of the bill.

Musqueda?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

Pacheco?

Aye.

President Sawant?

Aye.

Eight in favor, nine opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read the report of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

The report of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee, agenda item 3, Council Bill 119544, relating to land use and zoning amending sections 23.44.011.014.017.020.041 23.45.545, 23.8.84, 8.002, 0.032, 0.038, and 23.86.007 in Seattle Municipal Code to remove barriers to the creation of attached and detached accessory dwelling units and to add a floor area ratio requirement in certain single-family zones.

The committee recommends it will pass as amended.

Thank you.

And I know that there are amendments on this item, so if you want to make introductory comments and then take the amendments.

That's great.

Thank you, Council President.

Yeah, so I'll make a few opening comments about this, and then we can walk through maybe the amendments in order.

First, I want to just give some highlights of what this legislation does do.

The intent here is to make it easier for folks to build accessory dwelling units, whether those are attached or detached.

The legislation is based on, well, over four years of work now and receiving community feedback on what people in our communities would like to see and what kind of flexibility they would like to have or what kind of barriers they see today.

The main changes are going to happen.

One is that Currently, the restrictions are that you can only build an 800 square foot backyard cottage.

This would allow them to be 1,000 square feet.

We allow them to be one to two feet taller because we heard from a lot of folks that that second floor of living space is very difficult to make it a habitable space, but one to two extra feet of height would make a big difference.

We do eliminate the parking requirement.

We hear that the expense and the necessity of building an off-street parking spot for these units is a barrier, and it goes against some of our climate values also.

Currently, there's a limit.

You can either build a backyard cottage or an in-law unit.

This legislation would allow you to build both.

and finally the current requirement there's an owner occupancy requirement meaning the owner has to live on-site what we heard from community members was often that they plan to live on-site but making the investment necessary to add an accessory unit and then the fear that that something might happen in their life whether they get transferred for a job or have to move out of town to take care of a family member they'd be required to either leave their main house vacant or kick their tenant out and lose that rent and That uncertainty made it really challenging for them to make the type of investment they were hoping to make.

Those are the main changes.

There's obviously some other ones there.

In addition, we heard today in comment that it would place a FAR limit, a floor area ratio limit, of 0.5 square feet per square foot of lot with an absolute minimum of 2,500, whichever is greater between that on lot size.

couple things this doesn't do I just want to clarify because we heard in public comment current city law in the single-family zone you're only allowed to cover 35% of the lot the other 65% of the lot needs to be open this does not change that at all So if someone commented that we could cover 65% of the lot, it's not accurate.

65% of the lot has to be open.

There's no change to what's currently allowed in the single-family zone.

Similarly, this doesn't loosen tree regulations.

It adds a modest regulation about adding an additional tree in certain cases.

But it largely leaves the existing tree regulations in place, recognizing, at least for me, that I think we need to do some work to have a better tree code, but to not address it exclusively in this backyard cottage legislation, to rather address that comprehensively.

And as we heard in public comment, there's a request and an energy to hopefully get something done this year, which I would fully support.

With that, colleagues, I'll save other comments, unless there's questions, and walk through the amendments, if it's okay with you, Council President, starting with the proposed amendment number one on the agenda.

Would you like to move the amendment?

Yeah, so why don't I, I'll go ahead and move amendment number one, which is a technical amendment and just a substitute for the legislation to clean up a lot of the language, but doesn't change any of the policy issues.

Do you want to speak to it or?

You know, it just cleans things up, fixes typos and other drafting errors identified by central staff.

So I'd move to substitute version D6 for D5, which is amendment number 1.

And I think you've got a second.

I think we've got a second already.

Any comments on the amendment?

Those in favor of amendment number 1, please vote aye and raise your hands.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no, raise your hands.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Second amendment is being proposed by Councilmember Pacheco, so I defer to him to speak to this and make a motion.

Councilmember Pacheco.

I am proposing this amendment to recognize that as we add more households and greater density to our single-family neighborhoods, we should also be expanding opportunities for folks to get around by bike or other future mobility options in those areas.

This amendment would incentivize building bike parking in DADUs by exempting up to 35 square feet of bike parking area from the maximum size of a DADU.

It would also request that SDOT look into opportunities for expanding public bike parking in single family zones, which I believe should be a priority as we add more density and as bike and scooter programs expand in our city.

I hope I can count on your support for this amendment.

Do we need a second for the amendment?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded and introduced by Council Member Pacheco.

Any other comments?

I'll just say Council Member Pacheco, I really appreciate your work on this to find a creative way to make this happen and your commitment to not penalizing folks that are creating that extra space for alternative transportation modes.

Thank you for leadership on that.

Any other comments?

Those in favor of amendment number two, please vote aye and raise your hands.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Council Member O'Brien, I believe you're moving this.

I am moving this.

We've had a lot of discussion throughout this process including a committee about the impact that short-term rentals may have on the use of accessory dwelling units and backyard cottages.

We did a pretty extensive body of work around short-term rentals about a year and a half ago when we put those regulations in place.

just to be clear what those regulations allow is that individuals in the city of Seattle may use their primary residence as a short-term rental so if that's a single-family home they could either rent out a guest room in that single-family home or they could rent out the entire home while they're away on vacation or traveling or whatever that might be and they could have a second unit to use an accessory as a short-term rental.

So that would allow someone in addition to their primary home to own a second unit.

It could be a single family home, it could be a townhouse, it could be a condo, it could be an accessory unit, but they could just have their primary plus one other unit is what the limits are.

I think that there's a possibility as we look forward and if we think short-term rentals is, more broadly, is a challenge to our housing needs, I would certainly be open to considering changing that, but at the moment I don't think it's fair to limit what people can do in an accessory unit beyond what's already defined versus what people could do by owning single-family homes, townhomes, row houses, the like.

I do think it' s important to watch what happens and we have language in the bill already that directs the office of the finance and administrative services which authorize short-term rental use to monitor the license and we also request the department of construction and inspections to work with FAS to identify Other recommendations is appropriate to modify that legislation.

What this amendment would do would add the language that basically states the council's intent and says if this report would reveal that a significant number of accessory dwelling units are being used solely as short-term rentals the City Council intends to impose additional restrictions or prohibition on short-term rental use and accessory dwelling units.

So I would go ahead and move amendment number three.

It's been moved and seconded and described by Councilmember O'Brien.

Any other comments on this amendment?

Thank you, Madam President, and I want to thank Councilmember O'Brien for your leadership on this effort overall and especially for this amendment.

I think that many of us share the desire that you've just articulated and one that we've heard from Council.

are in these council chambers before, which is to make sure that we are meeting our goals of creating greater long-term rental housing options in Seattle.

And what is clear from the data is that speculation has not materialized.

In fact, we've seen in other similar cities like Portland, that the units that are being created as backyard cottages, detached dwelling units, accessory dwelling units, are in fact predominantly being used for long-term housing rentals and not short-term.

housing rentals or vacation rentals.

So the first line from the Seattle Times editorial board said data and research ought to guide the city council as they consider policies that would address housing.

In fact, we are exactly doing that.

We're using data to drive the policy solutions.

The data shows from the report that was presented in your committee just a few weeks ago, shows that overwhelmingly 2 thirds of those who currently have a backyard cottage in Portland, for example, have lived in their homes, in their primary residence, or own their home as a primary residence for longer than five years.

And if you count those who own or live in the primary residence for greater than one year, 95% of people actually have that owner occupancy self-imposed because they've owned it for longer than one year.

And when you ask the question, how are these rental units being used, who is occupying them, 74%, so three quarters of the individuals that are renting these units that have been created because of the allowance of backyard cottages are long-term rentals and also to friends and family.

The vast majority are being used for long-term rentals and for friends and family.

This is exactly what we want to do.

We're using data-driven solutions to get to our desire to create greater stability for rental units and for greater affordability.

So I'm very excited that you put forward this legislation.

I think that it's rooted in what we've heard from community over the last few years, frankly, about how we can create access and fewer restrictions to these rental units.

And community partners believe that the language that you've already worked on from my conversations with folks is going to help us get there.

Looking forward to looking at the data that comes in from our own city, but I think it's important that we underscore we are absolutely using data-driven solutions here and the data has shown that the speculation has not occurred.

Thank you for putting forward this amendment.

Those in favor of amendment number three, please vote aye and raise your hands.

There are no opposed, so the motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Are there any other amendments?

Council Member Harpold.

Thank you.

So I move to amend Council Bill 119544 by amending Section 5 as shown in Amendment 4, and I will pass this out.

This was distributed via email, but it is not attached to folks' agendas.

It was distributed this morning before noon per our council rules.

1159, I think that might be right.

This is the same amendment that was discussed in the Pleas Committee.

I think I'll wait for, hopefully I might get a second.

Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

I do not support the amendment, but I'll give you a courtesy second to speak to it.

I appreciate the courtesy second.

Thank you.

Yes, so yeah, this was this amendment was discussed in the Sustainability and Transportation Committee and it We had a vote on it.

It was voted on two to two not passing I had two amendments in that particular meeting the first amendment was to focus on My desire for us to really make sure that this strategy of accessory dwelling units is really being focused on rental housing.

And so it was the intention of the amendment was to, as we voted on it, was to really drastically limit the conversion of these units to short-term rentals.

I'm not bringing that amendment forward again because I've taken a look at sort of what the numbers are as relates to the residential housing market and the Puget Sound Sage 2016 report indicated that at that time, in the city of Seattle, there are about 2,800 short-term rental whole units of about 357,000 residential housing units in the city.

So that works out to be less than 1%.

It's 7 tenths of a percent.

So if you take a look at what's anticipated under the EIS, for ADU development over the next ten years, the estimate is 4,400 units per year, I mean, sorry, over 10 years or 440 units per year.

That works out to be about 35 of the units becoming short-term rentals.

So I've been reassured that my concerns about that, I think it's good to put them on hold until we have more information.

So I appreciate Council Member O'Brien's amendment to study this issue.

I am still concerned about the speculative market shifting to take advantage of these new regulations.

And so the second amendment is one that is focused on trying to address a speculative market that will flip these units in such a way that will have a displacement impact on renters.

So just for clarification's sake, this amendment would require one year ownership before permitting the second ADU.

It is not an owner occupancy requirement.

It's not about whether or not renters make good neighbors at all.

And it is not an additional year.

So folks who own a house and have done so for a year or more, which is the vast majority of homeowners in the city, could build two ADUs immediately.

But what this does is the study area showed that 80% of the study area for the ADU legislation was currently owner-occupied, and 20% of that study area was renter-occupied.

So it also found, the EIS found, that there is a chance of Basically, the property's being flipped.

And that also aligned with the 20% number.

So 20% of the ADUs being built under these, again, speculative market conditions.

And it's true that we don't know for sure about what's going to happen in this market.

But we do know what's been happening in other cities.

And there's no reason to believe that this isn't already happening here, we just haven't done an analysis of how it's happened here.

So Fortune Magazine says, single family home rentals have long been dominated by local entrepreneurs, mom and pop investors, and historically when bigger fish such as hedge funds and real estate investment trusts invested in real estate.

Historically, they focused on apartment buildings.

But the historic housing crash of the 2000s changed the math.

And over the past seven years, those investors have amassed a substantial portfolio, some 300,000 houses in all.

These players include Invitation Home, a REIT that is a product of a merger of rental divisions of several investment firms, including Blackstone, Starwood Capital, and Colony Capital, American Homes for Rent, and Amherst.

All of these landlords use automated house hunting to fuel their growth.

The Wall Street Journal says big private equity firms, real estate speculators, and others that buy properties comprised more than 11% of all home purchases in 2018. These investor purchases are the highest on record in nearly twice the levels before the 2008 housing crash.

The New York Times writes, trends are being spurred by a fast-growing industry that promotes an investment in single-family homes, lenders who provide the capital, brokers who handle transactions, wholesalers who buy homes by the dozens and sell them before they even take possession.

Finally, The Guardian writes that the UN's housing advisor has accused private equity firms and one of the world's largest corporate residential landlords, Blackstone Group, of exploiting tenants, wrecking havoc in communities, and helping to fuel a new global housing crisis.

Blackstone's business practices include massively inflating rents and imposing an array of heavy fees and charges for ordinary repairs.

So when you take this 20% number, 20% of the units that are currently renter occupied, and you look at the EIS that says that those are properties that could be flipped and the renter is displaced, I ask myself how many families does that represent in a year?

And again, using the numbers in the EIS of 440 new ADUs a year, that could displace 88 families a year in our city.

And so this amendment, again, we don't know what's necessarily going to happen in this housing market.

And we can't prohibit speculative development, but the amendment would create a speed bump as a disincentive for speculative development, creating a more cautious approach in case, you know, the assumptions that we have about development are wrong.

This would provide a small disincentive.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold.

I appreciate the concern and the intent of this although my concern and the reason I'll oppose this is what I see that is actually happening with backyard cottages and accessory units is that it is typically a lot of the folks we heard from today are our neighbors who want to build these and if someone is to buy a you know a new house or a If someone buys a house in a neighborhood and they're moving in and they're doing a remodel at that point before they move in and they want to add two units at that point because that would be the logical time while they're under construction to do it, I think that is a good thing and I want to be clear that I'm not sheepish about folks having two accessory units on a lot.

The point of this legislation is I hope that we see two accessory units on a lot of single family lots because I think that's going to be good for our neighborhoods.

That'll add new opportunities for people who can't afford to live in some of these neighborhoods to live in those neighborhoods and it might help the homeowner too.

And I think the logic of doing that all at once, as opposed to saying, I'm going to come in and remodel the house or whatever and add accessories, and then I have to pause for a year until I can add the second one, will significantly add cost and disruption.

And I think that that is the reason not to do this, to allow it to move forward.

May I ask a clarifying question?

The scenario that you're describing though, that is not the, that is a scenario for somebody newly buying a property, correct?

Not for people who currently own their homes.

Correct.

And want to, okay.

Councilmember, any other councilmembers want to speak?

Councilmember Pacheco?

So I voted against this amendment in committee and will be voting no again today.

We are voting on this legislation because we need more ADUs in Seattle to provide more people with housing options.

And I'm concerned that this amendment would make it more difficult and costly to build a second ADU.

I do share Council Member Herbold's concern about speculation, but between the EIS and trends in other cities, I have not found compelling evidence that ADU reform will cause speculation.

Without data supporting that concern, I don't think now is the time to restrict ADU development.

That said, this legislation does include regular reports to the council on ADU development trends, so while I'm voting no today, if a future council wishes to address any potential challenges, they can do so at that time.

I wanted to add a couple of comments to this before handing it to Councilmember Herbold to close it out because it's her amendment.

I really appreciate Councilmember Herbold's efforts on making sure that we really speak up against speculation, against corporate developers.

I'm really strongly supportive of all of those points, but I also would echo the points that Council Member O'Brien made.

And in addition to that, and I will be voting no as well on this amendment, but in addition to that, also say that absolutely we have to be pushing back against the for-profit market.

But again, as other Council Members have said, the data is not, the data is showing that speculation is much more, is very rampant in the building of towers of luxury units and row houses.

I have not seen any speculative ADU bubble anywhere.

And so I think that what we should be doing instead is passing this bill through and then also fighting for rent control and a massive expansion of social housing, which is high quality publicly owned housing.

Sure.

Yeah, the only closing remarks I have is, again, the EIS showed that at most with an amendment like this, perhaps 80 units a year might not get built.

We also know that 20% of the study area represents renter households, 80 units approximately.

So again, this is about preserving the housing for 88 families a year who rely on that rental housing and trying to make sure that those properties aren't flipped over to a speculative market.

Thank you guys.

Those in favor of amendment number four, please vote aye and raise your hands.

Aye.

Those opposed, please vote no and raise your hands.

No.

No.

The motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Are there any other, so I think we're done with the amendments as far as I understand.

I was about to say that.

Please.

Do you want to close it out?

I'd love to say a few words and let my colleagues make some comments and then if I can wrap up if that's okay.

I want to thank my colleagues.

I want to thank folks here today.

I know that we heard mixed comments today, as we have throughout the three to four year process we've been working on this.

And I know some people will feel like this is a win, some will feel like it's a loss, some feel like it's mixed.

But I think it's...

I often get asked why did it take so many years to pass a piece of legislation that we're talking about 4,400 units, actually about 2,400 additional units being built in the next 10 years.

And I think it's a fair question because it's a lot of work that people have done for a relatively modest shift in what we predict will happen in our neighborhoods.

But I also think the reason folks have engaged at such a deep level is because there's a fundamental question about what are we going to do in our single family zones and what's appropriate.

And I do think that that's why this has taken so long.

That's why so many folks have been engaged.

And I think it's been a really robust conversation, an important conversation.

It's an important conversation for Seattle to have.

And frankly, it's a conversation that's happening in high-cost communities around the country right now.

And I believe that in a city where our single-family zoning represents about 3 quarters of the residential zoning in the city of Seattle, and in a city that's been growing as fast as Seattle has, We've seen the population in our single-family zones decline over years because there's really not capacity to add additional housing in the single-family zones and because the household sizes are continuing to shrink in our country and in our city.

As a result, this big chunk of land that's set aside for single-family zoning is housing fewer and fewer people.

And I think this is an opportunity to to stem that trend, to allow additional units, to allow smaller units that will be more affordable, as we've seen the evidence from other cities that my colleague Council Member Scata pointed to so eloquently.

These are often rented at or below market rate, often to friends, families, and neighbors.

And while it is relatively modest, modest both in terms that I don't think this is going to solve our housing crisis, nor do I think it's going to radically transform our neighborhoods, I do think it asks a big question of what are we going to do with our single-family zones going forward, and who gets access to those, and who is locked out because of the pricing.

There's a lot of comments we've made.

We don't know exactly how this is going to play out.

We have a lot of evidence from what's happened in similar cities, and so I believe that that's probably what will happen here.

But we will clearly be watching this closely as it moves forward, and I believe this is going to be an opportunity to invite so many more people into some of our most exclusive neighborhoods in a way that will really strengthen those neighborhoods.

They'll make them more diverse from an economic, more diverse racially, more richer, also not rich in terms of financial wealth rich, but rich of like richness of humanity.

And those additional people will be supporting the businesses and make those businesses stronger.

It means transit ridership will be able to be served better by transit.

And I think it'll make our schools more mixed, our parks better used, and I think overall it's a really beneficial thing for our community.

I know that some folks are disappointed, some folks are thrilled by what I think will happen in a few minutes, but I really appreciate everyone's engagement on this and look forward for the conversation about our single family zones to continue.

I'd like to reserve just a minute at the end, but I will step back and let my colleagues make some comments.

Councilmember O'Brien, thank you so much for your words and your leadership on this, and I want to acknowledge the division that this particular legislation has had.

The whole ADU-DADU complication and discussions we have had over the last decade has been amazing to me, whether it's the owner occupancy, rule or parking, whether or not we should deal with size of lots.

And even among some of my favorite architects and designers, I have heard and received dozens of emails, even this weekend and as early as 6.30 this morning, I'm still having debates with people about whether or not the legislation goes too far or doesn't go far enough.

So I do recognize that there is a division and there is a concern about this.

But frankly, I am a big fan of these DADUs.

and ADUs in residential zones.

I lived in a single-family home for 20 years in Lake Forest Park.

My husband and I now live in a condo downtown.

But one of the things that was terrific about our place downtown is that we were able to move my father into a unit that was right next door to us.

Now, had we had the single-family home, we had looked at having a detached dwelling unit for him in Lake Forest Park.

I think one of the most important things about expanding this legislation is that we can focus on the all ages and abilities part, and that's something I've been advocating for for years, making sure that seniors, if they chose, could stay in their house, have a place they could rent out, or the reverse, which is something that we're hearing particularly in some of the larger homes.

Our seniors would like to stay in their neighborhood.

They have their community.

They want to stay there.

But it's easier for them to have a nice detached accessory dwelling unit or even one that is attached where their family can move into the home.

We've seen that happen in some of the other cities such as Portland, Los Angeles, Austin that are DADU friendly.

We're going to be taking another step forward and once again people will be looking at how is this impacting us?

How does it impact our neighborhoods?

And I really respect the Third Amendment Councilmember O'Brien for we're going to be looking at what actually happens allowing space and some grace that if we need to change this again next year that we can.

I'm also a real believer that allowing for flexibility in what these designs look like so that somebody who has a disability can build something that is going to accommodate him or herself, and I believe this is going to be a real opportunity for us.

And with regard to the no on-site parking requirements, I'll tell you that's one that I scratched my head over and struggled with, talked to a lot of people about, ultimately believe that not everybody in the city does have a car, wants to drive a car, and where these neighborhoods are going to accommodate it, there is transit, there's Lyft, there's other opportunities for people to get around, as one young woman said earlier, that she uses her feet to get around.

That's a good thing for all of us.

So, I've concluded that I can live with this no parking requirement for now.

Again, I'd like to see what kind of an impact that has on the neighborhoods.

And if it has a negative impact, I'd like to look at RPZ opportunities once again and see what we can do.

we can do or should be doing with those.

So just in short, I'm an advocate for the cottages, for the in-law suites.

I want to acknowledge what Rex Holbein has done with the Block Project.

Someone brought this up earlier.

I want to say thank you to the AIA, those of you that have contacted me over the years.

And it hasn't just been for the last year.

We all went to Portland in 2011. It was the first time I had seen what could be accomplished for a relatively I think financially frugal amount of money in people's backyards.

I also want to acknowledge the fact that what we're trying to do here is not discriminate against renters.

Everybody who spoke today acknowledged that as well.

But the next step I think is financial innovation, what we can do, what options are available to encourage emerging loan projects or more available financing options around capital for construction.

And we will just see what we can do, I think, in the city.

I'd love to see if we couldn't be a leader in that front.

So, just in sum, I believe that this is a change that is important.

As Council Member Mosqueda said, thank you.

It is data-driven.

I was quite surprised when I read the editorial from the Seattle Times suggesting that we weren't thinking about that.

But I'm really glad that we are embracing and welcoming people who want to live in our beautiful neighborhoods.

And I'm glad that we can help move this forward.

So I'll be voting yes.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

I'll go next.

if I may.

Please do.

Okay, thank you.

So this legislation obviously has been a long time in the making.

I want to give a special thanks to Council Member Mike O'Brien for all of the years of work that you have been doing on this particular piece of legislation.

Thank you so much for your steadfast commitment and dedication to making sure that we have a path forward for additional housing choice.

And I just want to acknowledge and recognize all of the countless number of hours and days and weeks you have spent on really championing this.

So thank you so much for all of that.

So I really, you know, I think it's important for us to acknowledge that what we're doing here today is really at its core a modest change to existing law and the code as it exists.

It is not a massive zoning change despite what you may be reading in some of the print media.

And frankly, I think that that recycled and reused rhetoric does not make it true just because you keep saying it.

So currently, we already allow single-family homes three units on each lot.

This legislation will address barriers to construction for many homeowners who want to see natural density in their neighborhood and welcome more neighbors in the course of doing so.

Some of the same rhetoric out there that have led many to believe that ADU and DADUs and triplexes are the same thing, as though ADU and DADU construction will lead to a three-story structure next door to a single-family home.

is simply just not true, nor is it the reality.

While they can have the same number of units, ADUs and DADUs, by definition, are auxiliary to the single-family home already on the lot as basement apartments or backyard cottages.

And I don't believe there is such a thing as too much housing in a city that is growing as quickly as the city of Seattle.

And this bill will help to bring more housing to every single neighborhood.

My support for this legislation is about creating more housing choice for everyone.

We have a lot of work to do to build the amount of housing Seattle and this region needs now and in the future.

We need more permanent supportive housing, we need more deeply affordable housing, and we also need this kind of housing.

ADU and DADUs are housing options that can be affordable as well as fill some of that need for the missing middle housing.

More than any of these options, what I've heard from constituents about ADUs and DADUs is that this will be their plan to be able to age in place and still stay in the city, or how their kids, now or soon to be young adults, can find an affordable place to stay in an increasingly expensive competitive housing market.

ADU and DADUs can mean multi-generational housing for families to stay close but still have space and independence.

And I had an opportunity to attend some of the charrettes in community that were led by the Department of Neighborhoods and heard this theme over and over again from people who were interested, not speculators, not developers, ordinary single-family home owners who are looking for that tool, that way to continue to be able to stay in their house while also welcoming more people into the neighborhood.

And I think that that is the intent that is driving my vote in favor of this legislation.

We have a housing shortage.

This is felt by many residents of Seattle, particularly for renters and for households who have zero or limited options when it comes to housing.

Just last week, Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies joined the chorus of research and data.

I said research and data.

with their 2019 National State of Housing Report, adding to what we know about the state of housing in the Seattle area.

One stark statistic showed that the cost of land in King County has changed 86.4%, and housing construction overall has not kept pace with household growth in the last eight years.

With expensive land costs, adding more ADUs and DADUs is one strategy to minimize land cost while building more housing on the footprint that currently exists.

That same report showed that since 2011, there has been a 54% decline in housing units that are considered affordable units in this region.

More and more households are becoming increasingly cost burdened, paying more of their income towards rent.

We need more housing, and we need more housing choice.

For me, as a policymaker, I will not leave any policy tool off the table that will help bring more housing units to our growing city.

This also means I will work with my current and future colleagues to identify ways to make this tool a reality and accessible for every homeowner and neighborhood in Seattle.

For example, as Councilmember Bagshaw already referenced, there's exciting work being done in other places to help us in this space.

In Portland, Oregon, for example, there are non-bank community lenders like Craft3 that help homeowners finance ADU construction.

Our Office of Housing has an ADU-DADU financing pilot for low-income homeowners as well.

So I would like to continue to develop those creative financing options and also work with our state legislators, along with my colleagues on council, to have more of these tools available for Seattle homeowners to be able to access financing to be able to bring their ADU and DADU plans to a reality.

I also wanted to take an opportunity to share a constituent perspective that I received over the many several last weeks that we've all been getting inundated with emails.

And I think this is important because there have been some comments during public testimony that somehow, as nine elected officials up on this dais who represent this city, that we have our heads stuck in the sand or that we don't quite get what's happening in this city.

I take great pride in reading the emails that I receive from constituents, and I also take great pride in just having conversations with my neighbors and moving about the city like an ordinary person would do, and engaging with folks about their stories.

And there's one constituent who shared a personal story with me in response to a newsletter that I recently sent out on this particular issue.

She shared with me that she had been a resident since 1959, and she has also seen how Seattle has changed over their decades to become an increasingly complex urban environment.

She also is the owner of a mother-in-law apartment in her home, as well as the owner of a short-term rental.

She told me that without the income from these two units, that she rents below market rate, that she's chosen to rent below market rate, she wouldn't be able to keep her home and she would no longer live in the city of Seattle.

She shared with me that she feels a sense of security from having people come and go, living their lives and looking out for each other along the way.

Having an ADU and short-term rental to her humanizes the city.

The diversity this has brought into our neighborhood and life is good for anyone, that is her belief.

And she encouraged me today to take a bold step and vote in favor of this legislation.

And I couldn't agree more with her sentiment.

So today I will be voting in support of this legislation and I want to again thank Council Member O'Brien for his years of dedication in seeing this code change through.

Your leadership on this issue will help to eliminate some of these barriers to bring more ADUs and DADUs to every Seattle neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam President, and I'm really excited about today.

I'm really excited to applaud Councilmember O'Brien and your entire staff.

I see current and former staff back there.

I know you've been working on this for a number of years.

My staff has helped us get over the final finish line with your office, and I just can't thank you enough.

for your leadership on this effort.

So thank you for shepherding this forward over the last four years.

This is a really exciting day for us to put forward a piece of legislation and I think vote on it that includes the right balance to make sure that there is access to more housing options around the city and to make sure that we're mitigating against the speculation in the market that we've heard so much about and that we're concerned about but doesn't seem to be playing out in other cities.

We're also figuring out how to set the foundation for future rezoning to correct past historic wrongs and this is one important key piece of the puzzle as we try to address the housing crisis across the city.

There's a few issues that have come up and I want to thank the folks from the AIA who are here, the architects, who have also raised some of the issues that we've heard from some of the people who are concerned about this legislation not going far enough regarding permitting and we did see some of that as well in the Seattle Times editorial piece and I'm going to address that.

I think that we do have a lot to do to help improve permitting.

That is something that we can do and also pass this legislation today.

We are also concerned about some of the fees that we've heard about that our friends at the King County Council are also trying to address.

Some folks have talked about a $10,000 hookup fee for sewer.

That could be too costly for many people.

And we're working in partnership, and I just got great news that the King County Council is taking this issue up in the third quarter of 2019. These real issues that she brought to us are things that we've heard and we can address by working together, but we have got to pass this legislation today.

So I'm going to commit to you to continue to work on this, because I'm not lame, and I'm really excited about action, and I'm really excited about the foundation, I'm going to use that pun intended, that is being set here in this legislation for future rezoning.

Until 65 days ago, I was a renter and have been a renter my entire time in Seattle.

In that time that I was a renter, for example, in Queen Anne, when I lived at 10th and Olympic, had the chance to hold the door open for my neighbor who was leaving that day to go get married.

I had the chance to go visit my other neighbor who was in the hospital because he's a World War II vet and was in home care and had just had surgery.

I had the chance to hear from my husband about how he literally carried home our elderly neighbor because she fell while walking her dog and carried her home to her house.

We've walked our neighbors' dogs, we've been there to take care of our friends as if they were family.

Renters are good, and not only are they good, Seattle is already a rental city.

There's 52% of our residents who make up Seattle.

They're residents, they're renters, and they absolutely need more options around this city.

So I'm excited about putting forward with your leadership the opportunity for more people to be able to afford to live in this city.

Accessing the limited rental units that we have has continued to shrink over and over the years as we've seen a 20% increase in the population size in just the last six to eight years.

And as that population has increased, we have not been able to address the housing crisis that's in front of us, mostly because of litigation and delays.

And today, we're responding to that need that we see in our community for more affordable rental units to address the increase in population and to address the fact that we need more folks to be able to afford to live in the city and hopefully creating an accessory dwelling unit, a detached dwelling unit in their backyard helps more people also stay in place, age in place, and not be pushed out of the city.

I think that this bill that you have in front of us helps to address the acute housing shortage that, frankly, has been exacerbated by an influx of the increased population.

But the reason that it's exacerbated is we already had an insufficient housing supply that was rooted in exclusionary housing and zoning issues, that was rooted in redlining and racist policies of the past.

And as we take bit by bit to address the policy changes that are needed, again, we know that there's no one single policy solution, but we have got to have the political courage to pass the public policy to undo past wrongs and pass public policy that left so many out of our city.

I'm really excited also that this legislation helps us create the ability to get away from the owner occupancy requirements.

I'm going to also flag that one day I think we should change the lot size requirements so that maybe more people can afford to own that parcel and we can have smaller lot requirements so that more people could potentially have the ability for first-time home buyer options like I just had.

I want to address the second thing that has come up, I think, repeatedly over the last few weeks.

Many of us sat up here just last week, and we all signed a commitment to address the climate crisis.

We all signed a commitment to address the Green New Deal.

And as we put forward our solutions around it, we have got to recognize that the largest contributor to greenhouse emissions and pollutions is car emissions.

And we are now the third largest mega commuter city in the entire country.

Part of the reason that people are having to commute such long distances is because we haven't created that affordable housing.

So this is exactly how we live our values as a green city.

This is exactly what we should be doing to address the impacts of environmental encroachment by that is created by sprawl when we're not creating the ability for folks to build in our city.

This is how we move forward with our commitment to, in part, address the Green New Deal that's so needed.

So I'm really excited because the housing that we're now permitting will allow people to live near their schools, live closer to grocery stores, live closer to health centers, and This coupled with additional housing and zoning changes and our commitments to bike lanes and scooters, legalizing scooters, and more buses and more dedicated bus lanes, I think helps to address the public health crisis that's been created by not having sufficient housing in our city.

Again, this is an intersection of climate, public health, and affordability goals.

And I'm really excited because we know that also when we create smaller dwelling units, we can reduce our carbon footprint because they're more efficient and they consume half as much energy as these larger units.

I'll just wrap up by saying, you know, the other environmental component of this is we're protecting the land that is potentially getting encroached upon by sprawl, like forests.

parks and farms and wildlife habitat.

That's the land we should be protecting, not past policies that have excluded folks from living in the city.

And I do think that we have an opportunity in combination with the language that you have helped to champion with the mandatory housing affordability, that allowed for greener setbacks and tree protections in MHA, this language that we've put in front of us today.

Thank you for including my amendment a few weeks ago that allowed for rooftops to be created so people can have gardens and rooftop spaces.

As we think about denser living situations, I know that having access to a rooftop and allowing people to get some sunlight is really important, allowing them to build or to grow in their own garden and things like that will be really a beneficial add to the city.

And thank you for helping to address the FAR requirements needed so that more people could have rooftops.

I want to thank my friend, Sam, who let me come over to his daddo recently.

It's a two-bedroom daddo in District 5. And we had the chance to see how the mother of the family that lived there was able to live near her kiddos, care for her grandkiddos.

and to not have to commute two hours to come see them, and they're helping to care for the family.

This is about intergenerational commitments to create additional affordable housing throughout the city, helping more people stay in the city.

And my hope is that we do more to address the need for us to build on this.

The headline from Sightline a few weeks ago said, a duplex, a triplex, and a fourplex can cut a single block's carbon emission by 20%.

So today's a good first start.

Really excited to work with you on the next efforts as this full council continues to address the housing crisis throughout this year.

Council Member Herbold was next and then Council Member Pacheco.

Thank you.

So as I mentioned before, I definitely support the ability of existing owners to build two new units on their lot, but the EIS shows that it's more profitable under this ordinance to sell one's property than to build.

And so a new owner, whether or not it's an investor or a resident, who buys with the intention of immediately purchasing a property and immediately building two ADUs as soon as they do so, as soon as they buy the primary unit, is likely to do so and displace an existing renter family.

I'm a little bit at a loss why we would not discourage this from occurring, all for the sake of maintaining the profit motive for a new owner to purchase property, displace a rental tenant.

I just think that the amendment I offered earlier is a really useful safeguard.

But nevertheless, I do strongly support this legislation.

And I just want to say a few words to the folks who to I hear with concerns that, I mean, the rhetoric is that ADUs are going to destroy their neighborhoods.

And, you know, we've thrown around this 4,400 over 10 years number a bit.

That works out to be 440 units a year over the study area, which is 35,000 acres.

And if you convert that to that, that is one ADU a year over 80 acres, which works out to be about one ADU for every 30 to 50 square blocks in the city.

So I just think it's really out of perspective to suggest that this legislation is going to destroy single family neighborhoods.

I support the overall goals of the legislation to increase opportunities and flexibility for both renters and existing homeowners.

And I'm excited about being able to do more so that these units that are being built are actually affordable both by reducing the permitting costs, the design costs, the construction costs, as well as further development of the Office of Housing's pilot program to support the development of affordable rentals.

So for those reasons, I will be voting in favor of the legislation.

So in September 2014, Council Member O'Brien, the City Council adopted Resolution 31547. That's almost five years ago, and as my mother would always tell me, keep trying for five years on anything, she had a word for me, which was, terrigo.

So thank you for just your willingness and your your willingness and your desire to keep going on this legislation over those five years, because we are finally at a vote today.

So when I first moved to Seattle a decade ago to attend grad school at UW, I found my first place to call home in a backyard cottage in Wedgwood, and I later lived in another ADU in Wallingford.

Without these ADUs, I don't know if I would have been found an affordable place to live and if I would be calling Seattle home today.

I'm excited that we have the opportunity to make sure that more people have the housing options that allowed me to make Seattle home.

As someone who has watched my own parents struggle to stay in their own home, I also see this legislation as a valuable tool for homeowners who are struggling to hang on or who want to age in place.

or who are watching their family and community members be pushed out of the city.

The amendments that were offered in committee will allow us to really continue to make this legislation better by having unpermitted ADUs come into compliance with reports back to the council on the ADU loan pilot and reports back on demographics and rents charged for ADUs.

Lastly, This conversation surrounding density, as this conversation surrounding density continues, I encourage folks not to demonize one another.

I've heard today and during my office hours within the district that renters don't care about their neighborhoods.

As a renter myself, I show up every day to work with a desire to make my community better.

Let me be clear, we're all neighbors, and it's time that we show each other the respect that we each deserve.

As our city grows, we should grow together and grow equitably.

This legislation helps us do just that, and I'm proud to vote in support of this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I forgot to mention, Allie Panucci, thank you.

Thank you so much for all your good work on that.

Susie and Lakeisha.

as well.

I really appreciate all of the work that you have done.

And when the question about the trees came up, I forgot to mention that the Urban Forestry Commission and I are working with the mayor's office to look for a work plan that we can lay out and make really clear what we're doing, how we're preserving and protecting the trees.

And once again, Ali Panucci will be helping us work on that.

So many thanks.

Aksha, I wanted to make a few comments myself and then I will hand it over to Council Member O'Brien to close it out before we take the vote.

I am strongly in favor of this legislation and I will be voting yes and I thank all the activists and community organizations that have advocated for this, not just this year, but for several years.

And I do agree with many who have said that this was a long time coming and it should have been done a long time ago, especially given the acute housing crisis that we're facing.

I also think it is really bad for anybody to make any ‑‑ create any context where there is negative rhetoric against renters.

Renters are not only about half of our city.

Renters are now more and more of the residents of metropolitan areas.

Most working class and middle class people cannot afford to buy homes and they are forced to rent and there is nothing wrong with renting.

It is You know, regardless of whether you have ownership of your property or not, you are residents of the neighborhood.

In fact, I would extend that even farther and say that even if you are homeless, you are community members and it doesn't matter.

And you not only have every right to your community and to your neighborhood and to your city, but nobody should question your commitment to society.

In fact, if anybody's commitment should be questioned, it should be the for-profit corporate developers and the property management corporations who are enriching themselves beyond belief at the expense of the renters in our city.

I also wanted to add that, again, I appreciated Council Member O'Brien's putting it in perspective and also Council Member Herbold.

I think this bill has been greatly exaggerated by It's detractors.

Right now, as the Urbanist article from October last year mentions, only 1% of single-family lots in Seattle have an ADU or a DADU, so I don't think this is...

in any way going to, to paraphrase what Council Member Herbold said, destroy single-family neighborhoods.

I also think it is important to note, as Council Member O'Brien did, and I appreciate that, that the bill's promoters have also greatly exaggerated the bill in terms of the effect it will have for affordable housing, I absolutely support.

It will have some positive effect, there is no question about it.

And I support every single affordable home that we can generate through a series of comprehensive policies.

But we should also have it in perspective that it is not going to address the housing crisis in the way that we want to address the housing crisis.

And so we do need to get to work on far bigger public policies than this one, although I strongly support this one and we need to go forward on this one.

I also wanted to thank.

The working class and middle class homeowners, like Ruby Holland, who's an African American homeowner in District 3, who have advocated for this bill as well.

Making the important point that for the homeowners who are able to build a backyard cottage, it could potentially be a very urgently needed source of income, especially people who are hit with large healthcare costs and the high property taxes because the city does not really have any progressive taxes.

So I really appreciate the homeowners who have joined the renters in advocating for this bill.

And it's a really good positive example where homeowners and renters can come together and fight together for affordable housing policies.

I also wanted to reiterate a point that We have we've made repeatedly in council member o'brien's committee, which is that um, the the data also shows that the homeowners who can afford to build Backyard cottages are the more well-off homeowners and the homeowners who need to build You know in order to get a source of income and rent it out as affordable housing often cannot afford to build it And so I do want to keep alive the question of how we will provide public sources of funds for the homeowners who want to build a backyard cottage, but cannot afford to raise the capital expenses that they will need to in order to make that happen.

I also wanted to add one other thing, again from the Urbanist article in October of last year, where they report that in contrast to what we have in Seattle, in Vancouver, British Columbia, which has been a pioneer in ADU, land use code liberalization, roughly 35% of single-family lots have ADUs.

which they refer to as laneway housing, resulting in about 25,300 ADUs and 1,350 DADUs across the city.

I think Vancouver BC has led on this and I think it should be our goal to really move forward in a big way in Seattle as well because we have, you know, they're sister cities in many different ways in terms of what the problems, the density and all of that.

So I think that does provide a good guidance for us.

Last but not least, I will say I hope all the activists and the community organizations who've been fighting for this correctly will also join us in the struggle for much more far-reaching public policies, and not only join us in Seattle, but join the movement in New York, which have just won major historic victories by forcing the New York State Legislature to pass not only a closing of the loopholes on the existing rent control legislation in the city, in New York City, but also enabling a whole host of tenants rights to be passed and also enabling other municipalities in the state, in New York State, to pass rent control because we have seen that when rent control does not have corporate loopholes, it has provided a lifeline to many people.

In fact, I just met a constituent recently who said that her son and his wife used to live in the Bay Area.

They lived in a rent-controlled home, particularly at a time when they had a young family and they needed rent control, and rent control enabled them to actually save up even on their middle-class salaries, and they were able to come and buy a house here.

So in reality, homeowners and renters have a joint incentive to fight for rent control together, and I really urge everybody who's watching this to join us at the rent control rally on July 20th at 6 p.m.

at the All Pilgrims Christian Church on Broadway.

And I will now hand it over to Councilmember O'Brien.

And I just wanted to point out actually that The petition for rent control, both my staff and many, many volunteers who are now volunteering with us have gone throughout the city in different farmer's markets, including Lake City Farmer's Market, at Solstice, at all the Three Days of Pride.

And we've collected 7,500 signatures, which is a huge amount, especially given all the negative mythology about rent control.

So I really urge everybody who's not joined the struggle yet to please join it with us.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, thank you so much again for your work on this.

I appreciate the kind words you shared with me personally.

You know better than anyone else that the work I do is a mere fraction of the actual work that's done, and I get a lot of credit for that.

We bounce around from topic to topic, and the staff behind us that support us make this possible.

So I want to say thanks to some of those folks.

I want to start with a couple volunteers that are here.

I know Laura and Matt, for example, have been dedicating a lot of your unpaid time to making this work, so thank you.

You know, you're advocates and your voice matters, but you've been really good at helping me connect with community members and really understand what the need is in community, and I'm grateful for that.

Allie, I want to thank you so much for your years of work on this.

Not just in the typical role as a central staff member, but spending multiple hours on the stand during the hearing examiner examination and all sorts of other roles.

You're an amazing resource for the city.

You've been an amazing resource for me on this particular piece of legislation.

I'm very grateful for that.

I want to thank Nick and the mayors you've worked for.

Your work has been amazing, and I'm really grateful to this mayor and past mayors who've allowed the city council to have access to your expertise and your team's expertise.

Going back to the very first kind of community meetings when I first met you, doing this over three years ago, your just thoughtful approach has been really really helpful to guiding this policy along the way, and I really applaud your work for that.

And we can all applaud Nick.

As has been mentioned, this process has taken quite some time.

Both the long process during which babies have been born, including a baby that's in the back today.

So I want to thank my staff member, Susie, who has been working on this tirelessly for years.

She's currently on parental leave.

But Ezra is at, I believe, his first city council meeting today.

So we gave enough time for Ezra to be here.

And then in the more near term, we've taken enough time today, colleagues, and we have managed to put Ezra to sleep.

So that's also one of our strengths up here, so great way to go.

But Susie, thanks for your work on that.

And Susie's absence, Alicia in my office has been the lead picking up this work.

We've gone long enough that Alicia probably had to go to the meeting that I was supposed to be at 20 minutes ago, but I'm really grateful for her.

Oh, hi, Alicia, there you are, you're back.

Thank you so much for you.

My whole team has played a part of all this, but Alicia, I really appreciate your leadership on this.

That is all I have to say, colleagues.

There's so many amazing folks throughout the community that have worked on this, and other departments elsewhere, but it's a team effort here, and I look forward to this vote.

We'll see how it goes.

Thank you, Council Member Bryan.

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Thanks, Sean.

Gonzalez, aye.

Herbold, aye.

Juarez, aye.

Mosqueda, aye.

O'Brien, aye.

Pacheco, aye.

President Swann, aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

I know I've overlooked a few folks, but I'm looking at Sherry right now, and I apologize I didn't mention you with the likes of Matt and Laura.

You've been an amazing point person to work with, so thank you for all that.

Thank you, everyone.

Please read the report of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.

The report of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee, agenda item four, appointment 1376, reappointment of Briam Simpson as member of the LGBTQ commission for a term of April 30, 2021. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

has been a LGBTQ commissioner for a short period of time, but they have only become more passionate about building bridges between the LGBT community and city government and ensuring that the voices of the most marginalized are not only being heard but elevated in a city with increasing national stature.

Byram has experience working as a program manager for pathways and training at youth care and is excited to continue working with the commission to ensure that meetings are accessible and accountable to the community the LGBT Commission is tasked with representing.

Any other comments?

Those in favor of confirming the appointment please vote aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries, and the appointment is confirmed.

Please read the report of the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.

The report of the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee, agenda item 5, Council Bill 119552, relating to the Yesler Crescent improvements.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you very much.

I know all of us have been here for two hours and 22 minutes.

I'm going to try to shorten this.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Many of you are well aware that I have been supporting what we call the Yesler Crescent for years.

We got 900,000 plus in the budget last year.

So what we're doing is lifting a proviso.

The Parks Department has been fabulous, and we have worked very closely with our King County friends, the judges, and the facilities folks across the street at DESC, the Pioneer Square Alliance down the street.

People have come together.

The money has been identified.

We're going to be activating that park, adding more tables and chairs, a kiosk, better lighting, cleaning it up, continuing to limb, and I recommend that we proceed with this and lift the proviso.

Any other comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bankshaw?

Aye.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

Pacheco?

Aye.

President Sawant?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read the item of the Finance and Neighbors Committee.

Yes, agenda item six, Council Bill 119540, relating to historic preservation, imposing controls upon the Ainsworth and Dunn Warehouse.

Committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, and again, this is landmark legislation that unanimously passed out of the committee, the Ainsworth and Dunn Warehouse.

Commonly known as the old spaghetti factory, will have controls on the outside, the exterior.

They've actually done a fantastic job with cleaning up the bricks, the outside, and they've restored the old windows.

So they're complying, they want to do this work, and the exposed interior structure as well as these old, very old beams that they are restoring to look like they did when they were new.

It's really been an impressive part of the new waterfront, and we recommend that this be, the landmark legislation be accepted.

Thank you, Councilman Bagshaw.

Any other comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw?

Aye.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Mosqueda?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

Pacheco?

Aye.

President Sawant?

Aye.

Seven in favor and none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read the report of the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.

The report of the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee, agenda item seven, Council Bill 119547, relating to a community service office program, amending Ordinance 125724, which adopted the 2019 budget, lifting a proviso and ratifying and confirming search and repair acts.

Committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Council President Swann.

Council Bill 119547, as I mentioned this morning during Council briefing, would lift a 2019 budget proviso to allow the Seattle Police Department to advance its implementation of the Community Service Officer Program.

Really quickly, by way of background, this program and this unit will be staffed by non-commissioned officers who are trained and work as liaisons between the community and the police department.

Community service officers will not carry weapons nor enforce criminal laws.

Instead, they will serve to bridge the service gap on non-criminal calls for service and perform a variety of public safety-related community service and outreach work, therefore freeing up sworn police officers to focus on more critical matters.

They will receive training in police operations, social work, de-escalation, conflict resolution and mediation, crisis intervention, institutional racism, and cultural competency using internal and external training channels.

The community service officers will also develop community partnerships to support increased collaboration between the Seattle Police Department and the community for the purpose of leveraging community strengths and identifying alternative strategies to various law enforcement and social issues.

Community service officers will work assigned areas of the city on foot or in marked community service officer vehicles responding to radio dispatch calls for service largely at the direction of Patrol officers the Seattle Police Department plans to deploy initially ten community service officers and two community service officer Supervisors across two shifts shifts up to six days a week Monday through Saturday excluding Sundays and holidays that is subject to change depending on calls and demands of the program and of course, future funding in the future.

So I promised this morning during council briefing that I would bring and share with you all a copy of the job description and posting for the community service officer program.

I've distributed that for you all to take a look at, but I think with all of this information, we are ready to lift the proviso and the committee recommends that we do so to allow the Seattle Police Department to advance the community service officer program.

Any other comments?

Just thank you.

Real quickly, I truly believe that bringing back the community service officer program will be a really valuable addition to policing in Seattle.

In the southwest precinct, a top community concern is that the number of police officers are not sufficient to meet the staffing needs to adequately address public safety.

a proud co-sponsor of legislation to bring back the CSOs, but recognize that Council Member O'Brien took the lead on proposing it in a couple budget cycles back, and many, many thanks to Council Member Gonzalez for adeptly and expertly getting us to this point.

Unsworn officers can prioritize non-emergency community services associated with law enforcement.

And as we've heard, that frees up law police officers to better respond to 911 calls and needs for proactive policing.

Given our challenge in this city, as well as other large cities in hiring new officers, bringing back the CSO program is a really important step.

And also a shout out to Assistant Chief Diaz for his work on this as well.

It's done great work.

Any other comments?

Council Member Gonzalez, I really appreciate your leadership on this.

I apologize for not being able to be at the committee meeting last week, but as Council Member Gold mentioned, it's been over a year and a half since we allocated the budget to this, and it's a little disappointing it's taken this long, but setting that aside and how we move forward, I really appreciate your leadership and keeping an eye on how this moves forward, so I'm grateful for that.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

All right, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw?

Aye.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

Pacheco?

Aye.

President Swann?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Is there any other further business to come before the council?

Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President.

I would like to ask to be excused next Monday for the purposes of going to Washington, D.C.

to meet with the folks from the National League of Cities on their housing task force revealing of the report.

So, it will be a very short trip, but I will have to miss next Monday if I can be excused.

It's been moved and seconded.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

So, that passes.

Any other motions?

Seeing none, meeting is adjourned.