Seattle City Council Community Economic Development Committee 9/8/21

We are recording.

Great, thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

The September 8th, 2021 special meeting of the Community Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 2.03 p.m.

I'm Tame Morales, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Present.

And Chair Morales.

Here.

Sorry, that is five present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, we only have one agenda item today.

We're here because several businesses on 15th Avenue have proposed creating a new business improvement area.

We do have central staff here and OED staff who will walk us through the process for creating a BIA.

As you all know, in summary, proponents of a new BIA have to engage with potential rate payers, and get a percentage of them to agree to assess themselves a tax to supplement city services and provide business area improvements.

Council receives the proposal from the proponents, and our role here is to facilitate the process by having this public hearing.

So our central staff and OED will walk us through that a little more in depth.

But first, we are going to have a public hearing.

And I will also have some questions from the proponents, as I'm sure my colleagues will too, but we will get to that after the public hearing and after the presentation.

I do want to also mention that we have two opportunities to call in.

The first is the general public comments period that we always have before each committee meeting.

And then because this is about creating a business improvement area, we do have a special public hearing that we will do afterward.

So at this time we'll open the remote general public comment period on items related to the committee.

Because there is a public hearing associated with agenda item one, which is Council Bill 120162, related to the proposed 15th Avenue BIA, this public hearing will begin after the public comment period.

And as a reminder, if you're signed up for the public hearing agenda item, Please hold your comments until we reach that item on the agenda.

So I ask everyone be patient as we operate this online system.

We're always looking for ways to fine tune this to ensure that our public participation continues at council meetings.

And it does remain the strong intent of city council to have public comment regularly on our agendas.

However, if the council reserves the right to modify this public comment period at any point, if we deem that the system is being abused, and in order to allow our meetings to be conducted efficiently, we do reserve that right.

So I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

I think we only have one or two people signed up.

So each commenter will have two minutes.

I'll call on the speakers in the order in which they're registered on the website.

If you have not yet registered but would like to speak during the public comment period, you can sign up before the end of the period on the council's website at Seattle.gov slash council.

And the public comment link is also linked on today's agenda.

So I will call your name.

You will receive a prompt that says you have been unmuted.

At that time, it's your cue as the speaker to push star six before you begin to speak.

State your name and the item that you're addressing.

And you'll hear a chime when there are 10 seconds left.

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you wrap up your comments to allow time for the next speaker.

If you would like to continue listening after your turn on public comment, please disconnect from the line and you can continue to follow via Seattle Channel or the listening options that are listed on the agenda.

And again, as a reminder, if you have comments related to the 15th Avenue IA, please stay on the line until we officially begin the public hearing portion of this committee.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open.

I have One person signed up for public comment.

Jill Cronauer.

Jill, if you're here, please press star six.

Hi, and I apologize.

My comments are related to the 15th Avenue Business Improvement Area.

Okay, fair enough.

We will get to the hearing portion next, so just stand by.

Let's see.

I do not show anyone else signed up for public comment.

will you just confirm that, please?

There are no other public comment registrants.

Thank you very much.

So that concludes our public comment period, and we will now move on to the first item on our agenda.

Darzell, will you please read item one into the record?

One second, sorry.

Item one.

is an ordinance establishing a new 15th Avenue East business improvement area, levying special assessments upon owners of commercial property, multifamily residential property, and mixed-use property within the area, providing for the deposit of revenues in a special account and expenditures therefrom Providing for collection of penalties for delinquencies, providing for the establishment of a BIA advisory board, providing for an implementation agreement with the program manager, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts for public hearing, briefing, and discussion.

Thank you.

And as a reminder, we will open the public hearing first and then hear from city staff and from the proponents of the BIA, followed by discussion.

We will not be voting on this today.

So just keep that in mind as we proceed.

Okay, so as presiding officer, I'm now opening the public hearing on Council Bill 120162 relating to an ordinance establishing a new 15th Avenue East business improvement area.

The online registration to sign up to speak at this hearing opened at noon today.

I will call on speakers in the order of registration.

The online registration will remain open until the conclusion of this hearing.

The rules applied to the public comment period also apply to the public hearing.

Each speaker will be provided two minutes and a 10-second warning to wrap up comments.

Speakers' mics will be muted at the end of the allotted public comment time.

Public comment related to Council Bill 120162 is only being accepted at this public hearing.

Speakers are asked to begin their comments by stating their name, and I will Sorry, I need to get to my list again.

Okay, so it looks like we have three speakers.

The first speaker is Don Blakeney followed by Christopher Forsythe.

Apologies if I'm mispronouncing that.

Don, please go ahead.

Thank you and good afternoon council members.

I'm Don Blakeney.

I'm a neighbor on Capitol Hill just a few blocks from this proposed BIA on 15th.

15th is a, I'm a neighbor in support.

I think this is a great idea.

We have a BIA on Broadway that does cleaning.

Seems like this is kind of a very similar setup, even a more modest budget, but it's not as big of a street.

So that makes sense.

I would say that, you know, 15th is one of our growing commercial corridors.

Every year it has more businesses and more people and more activity.

And with that come challenges that, you know, the community needs to come together and help figure out how to solve.

The city doesn't usually provide the role of cleaning.

And so I think the community coming together and property owners wanting to make that investment makes a lot of sense.

And so I support this and look forward to seeing the benefits.

Also, I know it sounds like they wanted to focus on some beautification efforts.

I think that's great, too.

We've seen this help in a lot of different neighborhoods throughout the city.

So it's about giving, you know, in my mind, more autonomy to the neighborhood to kind of chart its own vision.

seems like this is a very thorough and thoughtful process.

So thanks for the folks who are pulling this together, and thanks for the council for considering it today.

Very good.

Thank you, Don.

The next speaker is Christopher Forsyth.

Thank you to the city council for allowing me to participate.

My name is Christopher Forsyth, and I'm the owner of Smith Restaurant on Capitol Hill.

I am opposed to the BIA at the current time for two reasons.

First, cost.

Revenue in general is down due to COVID and many businesses are operating at a loss.

Customer confidence is down because of COVID and the variants that are still affecting our businesses.

My business is down 31% versus 2019. Also, the cost of the BIA is being passed on to the property owners, but since it is a tax, they can pass it on to the business owner through the lease.

the cost of the BIA to my business would be $1,500.

I have 30 other signatures of businesses on 15th Avenue who do not feel that this is the appropriate time to tax their businesses and do not have the financial resources such as those of our neighbors at Kaiser, Safeway, Key Bank, Uncle Ike's, and et cetera.

The second objection is with regards to process.

Unfortunately, local business owners were not made aware of the development of the BIA and had no opportunity to participate in its formation or how it would be established.

I personally have been on the street for two years and have never met anyone from the 15th Avenue Business Association.

While I might approve of the idea of a BIA overall, I would suggest that at this time, those with the deepest pockets fund the BIA for a period of two years to help determine the effectiveness of a BIA on 15th Avenue.

This would allow the smaller businesses the opportunity to recover from the reduction in sales revenue due to COVID more fully.

If it is successful, we could assess the situation after a two-year trial period.

I would be glad to be invited to participate in the process moving forward at that time.

This suggestion would allow the BIA to proceed in the interim without the financial burden on smaller businesses who are just trying to make ends meet.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Mr. Forczyk.

I really appreciate hearing from you and your perspective on how this should move forward.

Our last speaker that I see signed up is Jill Kronauer.

Jill, please go ahead and press star six to unmute yourself.

Hi, thank you.

This is Jill Trenner.

I'm with Hunter's Capital.

We're a real estate development company on Capitol Hill.

Our focus is usually on preservation of historic buildings.

If you know Capitol Hill at all, you'll recognize some of our buildings.

They house some tenants like Blick Art Materials, Pookie Toes, Blue Dot.

We brought Elite Bay books up from Pioneer Square more than 10 years ago now.

We recently purchased two pieces of property on 15th, which we hope to develop in the coming years to add more housing to the neighborhood.

Once we do, the added square foot will make us a large rate payer in the district.

Typically, developers and large property owners are against BIAs because our assessment amount easily outmatches the direct physical benefit we receive to our buildings.

However, we are supportive of this BIA.

Our office is on Broadway, and so we are therefore a part of the Broadway BIA, and we see the positive effects of the daily street cleaning, graffiti removal, tree lighting, the ability to convene as a group, solve issues, and obtain additional grants.

We clean the storefronts of our buildings outside of the BIA, but it's more expensive.

It's less effective.

The trash from your neighbor's storefront just flows across into your building.

And when there's issues like utility upgrades, prolonged street closures, there's no unified body to work with the city to mitigate and minimize the negative impact that these changes bring to businesses, help things run more smoothly.

We will end up paying a considerable percentage of the overall assessment, which will most likely be to the benefit of the storefront businesses, but we are in support of the formation of the BIA.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jill.

I believe Jill was the last speaker that we have signed up.

And so the public hearing on Council Bill 120162 is now closed.

Thanks to those of you who called in.

Okay, so we're going to move on to briefing and discussion.

First, we'll hear an overview of the BIA formation process and the city's role in the process.

And then the proponents of the 15th Avenue BIA will present their proposal.

We'll have time afterward for questions from colleagues about the presentation.

So I want to pass it, I don't know, Yolanda or Philip, are you both speaking?

I'll go first and then I'll hand it over to Philip.

Great, thank you very much.

Okay, so Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff, as the chair voted, I just wanted to give a brief overview of the steps required to establish a business improvement area, also known as a BIA.

The procedures for establishing and operating a BIA are governed by state law and city policies, which are adopted by Resolution a 31567 in 2016. Per these adopted policies, the city will consider a new BIA when presented with a petition by potential ratepayers representing 60% or more of the total assessment of the proposed BIA.

Where one ratepayer would pay more than 25% of the total assessment, the city policies encourage BIA proponents to achieve support from potential ratepayers representing at least 65% of the total assessment.

In the case of the proposed 15th Avenue BIA, a single ratepayer, Kaiser Permanente, would represent nearly 38% of the total assessment.

Earlier this year, BIA proponents submitted to the city petitions signed by potential ratepayers representing almost 73% of the total assessment, exceeding the recommended 63% threshold.

These petitions can be found in clerk file 322031. creating a new BIA is quite process intensive.

Multiple pieces of legislation are required by state law.

There is a resolution that initiates consideration of the BIA, then a resolution that establishes the city's intent to establish the BIA, and then also sets a date and location for the public hearing on the proposal.

And then finally, an ordinance that creates the BIA and levies the special assessment to fund BIA activities.

On August 9th, the council introduced two resolutions related to the new 15th Avenue BIA, adopting resolution 32013, initiating consideration, and resolution 32014, establishing the city's intent to establish the BIA and set the public hearing date for today.

On August 16th, the council introduced the third piece of legislation creating the BIA, Council Bill 120162, and referred it to this committee.

As required by state law, notice of this public hearing was published in the Seattle Times and the Daily Journal of Commerce and mailed to all potential ratepayers at least 10 days in advance of the public hearing.

Looking ahead in the process, at the next Community Economic Development Committee meeting on September 21st, the committee will continue discussion of the proposal, consider any amendments, and possibly vote on the legislation.

If anyone has any questions, let me know.

But otherwise, I'll turn it over to Philip in the Office of Economic Development.

Thank you, Yolanda.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Philip Sit.

I work as the BIA Business District Advocate out of the Office of Economic Development.

I'll be providing a short overview about the current BIA program out of the Office of Economic Development, along with some of the baseline information regarding this 15th Avenue proposal.

Currently there's 10 BIAs in the city limits generating around $26 million in enhanced services that could be stemming from marketing, enhanced cleaning, special events.

And in the past 18 months, definitely that necessary pivot to support small business owners and property owners with COVID response.

Some of the general appeal of forming a BIA at a localized level is that it does provide a predictable and sustainable funding for collective action within a business district and corridor.

The revenue is billed and collected by the city and OED and FAS establish an annual contract with the BIA program manager that outlines a budget and a work plan.

That budget and work plan is approved at an annual meeting by all rate payers within the BIA boundaries.

As I mentioned, BIAs have served as a vital partner between city departments, stakeholders within the business district, and the city as a whole.

As I mentioned with our 10 BIAs, some of them predates back into the early 80s.

We have set up currently, as I mentioned, 10 BIAs that kind of runs the gamut in terms of size, budget, and scopes of work.

Currently, our smallest BIA is in Columbia City, which was established in 2008. The 15th Avenue will be slightly bigger than the Columbia City BIA in terms of geographic coverage and budget, but similarly in terms of overall size and budget and work scope.

As I mentioned, some of the programs in terms of the enhanced service and programming that BIA traditionally provides are in the area that serves the general public, but also including the business community and general employees and residents of their districts.

We have a number of chambers and merchants association across the city, including the 15th Avenue Merchants Association over the past couple of decades as these organizations evolves and grows.

to adapt to the changing nature of their district.

These are some of the programmings that a BIA can provide in terms of a sustainable program manager and the funding to provide these efforts in economic development, professional management, advocacy, public realm improvements, clean and safe, and marketing promotions.

As Yolanda had alluded to, the BIA formation process generally requires 60% of support from identified rate payers.

Across our BIAs, we have some BIAs that are business-based, where the assessment is paid by the merchants, and we have other BIAs where the property owners are the direct rate payers.

State RCW allows for a limited range, but some variables in which they could determine their assessment formula in which OED reviews and approves.

Community must demonstrate 60% of support, but in regards to larger entities that make up more than 25% of the overall assessment, the city does recommend 65% or more support.

Upon receiving the petitions, the city departments, including OED and FAS, does a property validation process on King County records.

We also provide a BIA benefit analysis reviewing the proposed budget and work plan.

We complete a racial equity toolkit out of our office based on those proposed work plan items and what we can gather in terms of needs within that district.

Every five years, we do a program evaluation of each of our BIAs.

And before I turn it over to the 15th Avenue BIA proponents, just a high level recap.

The BIA proposal that we're reviewing and discussing today was brought upon by the 15th Avenue Merchants Association.

They've secured 72.8% of petition support.

Within the proposed boundaries, there are 37 properties.

We have received petitions signed from 29 of those property owners or property representatives.

That has also been subsequently validated by a mailer that FAS sent out about a month ago, just to confirm that the petitions that we received and the non-petitions, that there was indeed a piece of communication that was received.

The base budget, if passed, would establish a seven-year BIA with a base year budget of $116,000.

Additional details about the work plan proposal will be provided at the next presentation by the 15th Avenue Merchants Group.

The assessment rate for this particular BIA, as I mentioned, is based on property owners and property information.

The two components for the assessment formula is based on total appraised value and total lost square footage.

The rationale being the latter, that the majority of the proposed budget will be spent on public realm improvements and general cleaning, and therefore lost square footage would be an equitable way to measure that cost-benefit analysis.

With that, I'll turn it over, if there isn't any follow-up questions at this moment, to the 15th Avenue proponents, and they will go over the details of their proposal.

I have a question, Madam Chair.

Yes, please go ahead.

Oh, well, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair Morales, Council Member Morales.

I have a few just general questions.

And first of all, thank you, Phil.

I know that you've walked us through this before when we were dealing with the UW BIA, I think.

and some of the questions and some of the PowerPoints that you walked us through.

First of all, I didn't get a chance to look at the map really quickly with the 10 BIAs.

So is there only one BIA north of the ship canal and that's the UW?

That is correct.

We have some explorational conversations with some local districts north of the Ship Canal, but those at the moment are still in explorational phases, and we're just doing some general level setting with folks on if this is the right approach for their district, just going based on some current recent examples of BIAs.

So I understand the procedural and the due process and the notice, and I get that part.

Mine is a little bit more organic.

Like, how does that start?

I know with the 15th Avenue, you know, you say there's a merchants association.

You had 72% of people that came for it.

How does that, how does that, when you say, is that what you're talking about when you're saying it's explorational conversations?

Is that where our staff, like, I know Dean's been coming to you and talking to you.

How does that start?

Because what I'm worried about, obviously, and concerned about is that there are some neighborhoods and areas and business areas that may need to organize and have a BIA.

And we're certainly going to see that kind of growth where we're at, at Northgate and 130th and Light Rail and the development that we have here.

So how does that normally begin?

Do we, just in general, do you need a merchants association?

Yeah, to borrow your words from an organic standpoint, I think to distill it down, from my observation, there's been really two mainstream ways to explore BIA.

One is you already have a pre-existing organization.

So for example, the Ballard Alliance, which is one of our more recent BIAs, originated from the Ballard Chamber of Commerce, which has been around for more than, I think, two decades, right?

So they've already had the staff capacity and also the stakeholders from a business, property, and residential standpoint to really dig deep into that conversation about should they explore and move forward with BIA.

But to answer your second question about districts that may not have as much capacity, or are just starting to really form, we are working with a number of those neighborhood groups and chambers or emerging organizations through the Only in Seattle program, which is the business district program out of OET.

So we do make annual grants investments to those organizations to kind of mobilize and figure out what is the next logical steps for them.

Sometimes it is just immediately from we have convened for 12 months and we have a list of priorities that we want to form a BIA to solve, or sometimes it's actually one more step, which is we just want to form a chamber of commerce, we want to form a neighborhood association, and then they proceed to downstream, do we explore BIA?

So I guess to answer your question, it's really dependent on the neighborhood.

I think one of the biggest things I've heard back from folks about why they arrived at a BIA conclusion is we're attempting to either solve some issues or there's an opportunity for us to get ahead of the curvature.

And it might be gentrification, might be displacement.

So it's really about the motivation behind.

Yeah.

Well, two quick questions again.

So when you, when you do the rate payers and they pay, do they pay quarterly or yearly?

It's dependent on the district.

So we have a hotel BIA that is invoice and billed on a monthly basis, but generally speaking, it is quarterly or biannually.

and that is a partnership between OED and FAS.

In the case of this 15th Avenue BIA, it would be bi-annual.

by annually, twice a year.

So this sounds a lot like a local improvement district, like a LID that we just did on the waterfront.

Some of the mechanics seemed the same as far as notice and taxing yourself for this added benefit.

But this would be for added amenities, like some of the people were saying about cleaning and the things that a BIA provides.

And it's provided in the state law.

So if it's provided in the state law, is there a good example where, maybe not in the city of Seattle, that it's been like the most successful where it came out of somewhere.

In terms of the formation process or in terms of like their service delivery over time of the organization?

Yeah, yeah.

Because when people asked us kind of a quick history on the lids, they didn't understand that the number 6432 meant it was the 6432nd lid local improvement district tax.

So there was some history there from, you know, 18 whatever.

to say this is why it's a civic duty responsibility if businesses want this, why you would do this.

So I'm asking if there's an analogous or a comparison with BIAs with that kind of history.

Sure.

I think a quick distinction I would make, the difference between the LIDS and the BIAs, and there is a lot of commonalities, is that the BIAs is super hyperlocal, right?

The BIA annual budget and work plan is designed by the local organization within the district.

And every ratepayer has an opportunity annually to vote yay or nay on that proposal.

But hopefully there is continuous conversation.

Most BIAs hold, if not monthly meetings, quarterly.

So that process is a little bit different from the LID because the LID is much more expansive in terms of stakeholders.

a little bit more complicated in terms of decision-making process, whereas BIA is extremely hyperlocal.

In terms of successful stories, I think, you know, as the BIA representative for OED, I think we know that a number of our business districts, if not all of them, have faced tremendous challenges over the last 18 months.

But if we look at where the neighborhoods have the most capacity to make that pivot in phase one, phase two, and now the unknowns of the Delta variant, A lot of our BIAs are kind of leading the way in that work.

Anywhere from like the Ballard Avenue street closure in partnership with OED and SDOT to the West Seattle Junction trying to navigate a pandemic and also a massive infrastructure closure.

I think those pivots in terms of being adaptive to take advantage of city programs, pushing city departments, and then also providing outlets for business owners like digital marketplace across city promotions.

I think it's hard to just cherry pick one or two examples, but if you look into some of the districts, I think their work speaks for themselves, even more so over the last 18 months.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

you Councilmember Juarez for those good questions and for your having deep in those Philip appreciate it.

So we are going to move on to the actual proponents of this BIA so I'm gonna ask Jeff, Danielle and Jill I believe.

Just me and Jeff.

Please go ahead.

I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and then I'll get started.

And if you'll make sure to introduce yourselves as well.

Yes, I will.

So thank you everybody for that.

My name is Danielle Holton.

I'm the owner of ADAS Technical Books and Cafe on 15th Avenue East, and I also own my property there.

So I'm a very small property owner on 15th Avenue East, a potential ratepayer, and I'm here with Jeff Pelletier, who owns Bourne & Bellum Architecture and is a resident in the district as well.

And Bourne & Bellum is also in the district.

So both his business and his residence are in the proposed area.

And we're both part of the working group, but also part of the 15th Avenue Merchants Association, which has kind of been brought up a couple of times.

So this first slide here is just a very brief amount of background.

into the 15th Avenue East Merchants Association.

We are a group of small business owners, primarily that formed in 2013. And over the last several years, we've acted as a leader and a collective voice for our neighborhood.

We've done things like street festivals.

We've also had regular meetings where we talk about specific issues on the street or specific things that are the businesses are dealing with.

We've also become a point of contact for the city with important information from things like there was a parking survey several years ago, or construction that's happening on our street.

And we have been, you know, really put in on growth in our neighborhood and seeing how can we encourage new business owners and longtime business owners.

And so historically, it's always been a small group of small merchants.

And Oh, sorry, just a brief moment.

There we go.

Several years ago, around three years ago, actually, we started discussing this potential of evolving into a BIA.

And we had several meetings that were both formal and informal, where we had members of OED come and present, like, what is a BIA?

Why would that be helpful for the 15th Avenue neighborhood?

And then we had informal ones where it's just the merchants talking about pros and cons, what would be helpful.

And over The last three years, we've had at least three to five meetings.

It's hard to know because some of them were informal of this potential and whether or not it would be beneficial for our neighborhood.

And at all of those meetings, it was unanimous among the small merchants that this was something we wanted to do.

So a small working group, myself and Jeff are part of it, formed to try to get it passed.

And in that time, But we started reaching out to the larger stakeholders at that point because we knew in order to get it passed, we needed to have some buy-in from Hunter's Capital and Kaiser and Safeway specifically.

So over the last year, we've spent some time reaching out to them and they are also in support, which is really exciting for me personally as a small business owner on the street.

I can add as well, Danielle, that one of the things that became really apparent is that obviously as small business owners, We're all volunteering our time, and our time is limited.

And I think when the pandemic hit, it became really apparent that our time was especially limited.

And I think it became really appealing to have the BIA in the support of a funded organization to help advocate for the neighborhood in terms of things like access to grants and just moving the city ahead, the neighborhood ahead, was really, really going to be useful.

Absolutely.

So sorry, let me minimize my screen here.

So just to drive that home a little bit, why are we forming a BIA?

It seemed like the next step to evolve our association to something that was more sustainable, that would support the small businesses and also engage the larger property owners in our neighborhood.

We've seen successful models around the city that are really encouraging, and it looks like a great model for community collaboration.

It also gives us access to grants, potentially with a part-time employee that can help us apply to them.

and a point of contact for the city that's more formal.

We've been told directly from many different city members that we really love to coordinate with BIAs, that that's a clear way to connect with neighborhoods.

And I think most importantly, the biggest point for us is that it's a way to use local funds that are raised locally from the businesses here for local programming.

I think also to expand upon that, one of the things that's so unique about this street is that the effort was started with a small group of merchants, but we have the ability with several large rate payers who are happy to buy on but don't want any real involvement in what's happening, that we can really kind of leverage their money to help support the small businesses.

And I think the large rate payers are also very invested in our neighborhood and would like to would like to help the small business owners.

That was the message we got loud and clear that they want that way to plug in.

So how much effort has there been to reach out to stakeholders?

So as has been mentioned, we currently have 73% of stakeholders that have signed petitions.

And we had additional verbal support, but we turned in our petitions as early as we could so that this could get onto the timeline.

potentially get passed at the beginning of the year, should it be voted in approval.

Again, it's been something we've been working on for several years.

And because of the pandemic, I think we felt a little bit of urgency to, there was unanimous support, we wanted to get it going.

Our working group represents around 13% of the total district.

And as I said before, we've had multiple informal merchants meetings over the last several years discussing pros and cons of forming a BIA Um, those have been mostly unanimous with a variety of voices in them from business owners and community members.

And then formally, we emailed all the rate or sorry, not mailed paper mailing every rate pair physical invitations in April.

And we, we held 2 virtual public meetings for the potential rate payers.

Danielle, can I stop you there for just a minute?

So you're, as you're talking, this is a big part of my question here, is the engagement with the business community there, because a lot of this is about rate payers and even the presentation, the memo that we got from OED, they're encouraged by the level of communication indicating that it was happening not just with rate payers, but with indirect rate payers or the smallest tenants.

So, but we're also hearing from some business tenants who may not be the property owners that they weren't aware of this effort.

And so, can you talk a little bit about the difference between the kinds of conversations you were having with the property owners and the kind of conversations you're having with the merchants or the tenants?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think what's happening a little bit of some folks feeling like they weren't involved or they weren't plugged in is that there was a period of time that was pre-pandemic, honestly, where there was a lot of in-person meetings and talking about the BIA.

These were not with property owners.

These were with the merchants and the 15th Avenue Merchants Association.

The large, even like Hunter's Capital and those type of players were not involved in those conversations.

It was purely just the 15th Avenue Merchants Group.

Those were the ones that were all unanimous.

All the merchants felt like there was a lot of value in that.

And the working group formed from that.

Jeff and I both were part of those discussions, and we formed along with several other people.

One person, Ross, he owns Rainbow Remedies.

He's the founder of 15th Avenue Merchants, and he was very involved throughout the whole process as well.

So the smaller working group formed and started really engaging with the city on the actual formal process and how we would get that going.

And we held one in-person meeting during the pandemic as well, like last summer when it was still a little safe to have a masked in-person distanced meeting with the merchants and kind of checked in.

I do think that this last year has provided some really interesting like communication challenges.

So while that had a really amazing turnout, I think there were around 30 people that came and we discussed that, hey, we're going to move forward with this.

I, I'm certain it's clear, you know, that some folks either didn't hear about it or chose not to come to it because they didn't know what we were talking about, or I'm just not quite sure.

And so one lesson that I've learned too is that, cause then we started talking with the rate payers.

Those were the folks that need to sign the petition.

And that was the first time we started engaging them was around last summer of 2020. Um, and so I think that, Part of it is a lesson in community engagement for myself as well to continue, even though I'm running my business and trying to do these other things, to continue to bring the non-direct rate payers along as much as I can.

And I do know that there are several people in the neighborhood that are non-direct rate payers that are not on the working board that are also really excited about it.

So I think that, yeah, that's my answer, I guess.

That's great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um, okay.

Oh yeah, go ahead, Jeff.

One last piece on that one.

One of the things, because of the Council's schedule, too, is when we started, we weren't sure we were going to get on the schedule for this year.

So when we started actually pulling in petitions, within three weeks, we had hit 73%.

So we'd already kind of surpassed the 65% required.

And now we have another just shy of 80% that was verbal and on board, ready to go, but, you know, needed to just get to it, and so we don't have that sign.

So we effectively have over 80% on board in terms of property owners at this point.

This is just a, you know, graphical map of our boundary.

As Philip mentioned, it's the, if it were to pass, it would be the second smallest in the city.

So it's a pretty modest BIA.

This next, sorry, this next pie graph goes a little bit into that assessment formula that Philip mentioned.

And I would like to draw attention that for the average assessment for a rate payer that has less than 10,000 square feet, which are the majority of the rate payers in our area, it would be a little bit more than $1,200 per year would be the assessment on average.

This has a pie graph of everything broken out, but I'm actually going to go to the next slide that kind of It still has those percentages, but it goes a little bit more into detail.

One clarification, I just wanted to address a previous public comment.

Chris, the owner of a Smith, who's a great guy, by the way, that property would be $1,200 a year.

I think it's $1,220, but there's over two tenants.

So the landlord did decide to pass that down to the tenant.

His drinks expense would be around $600, not $1,500, just to clarify.

So a little bit about what we're hoping to do should it pass.

We have the vast majority of our budget is going towards cleanliness.

We would love to have six day a week street cleaning, some additional garbage cans or a garbage can program.

We don't even have really a garbage can program right now.

Any external garbage cans on our street are provided by business owners, graffiti removal, sidewalk cleaning.

An example for me personally, several times a year I need to remove graffiti or pressure wash my sidewalks.

And that alone can come at a rate of around $100 per hour for either of those things.

So I see a lot of value in this for me personally, because around $100 a month is what I would be paying.

So I see this going a lot further than just cleaning my sidewalk or removing graffiti.

And then we have The second largest allocation is for advocacy, which would be long-term sustaining communications and marketing for our street, doing this 15th Avenue Street Festival, which we really love.

It takes a lot of bandwidth to run that.

And I think that a lot, we've had kind of, we've had a few years where we weren't able to do it because none of the business owners had the bandwidth to actually pull it together.

So we would love to have a very part-time staffing person to help us run events like that, somebody to help us apply for grants at the neighborhood level.

And that really leads into the global pandemic response or COVID-19 response in supporting small businesses and employees and residents in our neighborhood looking at best practices that other BIAs are doing being plugged into access to grants being plugged into just kind of the like how to help our district move through this current unprecedented time and also move into a very sustainable and vibrant future.

Our neighborhood is, regardless of the pandemic or not, about to go through some really big changes with large developments that are coming in the next couple years.

And so I see this as a really great way to help our neighborhood thrive during that time.

One of the things that stands out to me in particular, aside from the fact that I'll end up paying less as a business for cleaning and graffiti, but is really the access to grants.

I mean, if this group didn't even exist, we wouldn't even be made aware of the recent Neighborhood Economic Recovery Fund grant that has tens of thousands of dollars available to help businesses sort of, you know, come out of the pandemic.

So I think a group like this and having the staff time to do that as a business owner, I don't have any more time.

You know, it's like I'm, we're tapped out.

And so I think that's a huge resource.

Like to that point as well, just even discussions of how we're trying to form this has really opened a lot of doors for us.

We've been involved.

I've been, I've personally been involved to several meetings where other BIAs are invited to talk about how to survive the pandemic, how to navigate this.

And it's just because we're discussing that we would like to do that.

So I, I feel like it's very exciting to me to see the, I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

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I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

four of which would be property owners because it is an assessment on property owners, but specifically one of those would be a large property owner, one would be a small, and then the other two could be property owners of any size.

Again, the majority of the rate payers in this area would be small rate payers.

And then we would specifically want two business owners that are not rate payers and one resident as well on our board.

So I did want to ask about the board makeup there because in this previous slide, it did indicate that his tenants would be on the repair board.

So can you talk a little bit about there?

That's a good question.

If you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing my screen.

Is that OK?

So I think that.

Jeff or Philip may even be able to answer, but we don't have all that many residents that are actually getting assessed because it's over a certain size.

Jeff, do you happen to know how many tenants are in the assessment versus non-direct rate payers?

I don't know how many residents there are.

There's only about four or five buildings at the moment.

Oh, sorry.

I'm not necessarily talking just about residents, but just like business owners who aren't necessarily property owners.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's really important to us that we have at minimum three people on our board that are not direct rate payers, so business owners or a resident.

And then I will also say there's, 15th is a really interesting neighborhood to me.

In Seattle, there's a handful of business owners like myself that also own their property.

Just speaking from personal experience, there are not that many neighborhoods in Seattle anymore where a small business owner could also purchase their property.

It's usually like you have to have this huge development or something like that.

So there are a handful of business owners that also own their property here, which is kind of great, I think.

Yeah, sure.

We definitely want to encourage that.

I'm very supportive of small businesses being able to own their storefronts.

Absolutely.

Okay I think I had one more question and then colleagues if you have questions I would love to allow you to chime in.

So can you talk a little bit about efforts that are being made?

I know there's the array of programming that you indicated already but are there any programs or things in place that could address economic recovery that could address displacement in particular, particularly of these very small businesses.

Councilmember Peterson was very helpful in the last conversation we had about the U-District BIA when it comes to addressing, you know, trying to prevent displacement of small businesses.

I can start.

I think the first piece is, this is a very modest BIA, and so the budget is $116,000.

So what we can do with that is pretty limited, but we know that right now we can't do anything.

And so I think the first point was really to assemble some staff time to help look for grants, to help build a marketing plan for businesses, to help maybe create events where people can come to the street and shop and dine here.

And also mainly to connect with other BIAs and with the city to understand what resources are available.

Because I'm one of those business owners who doesn't own my property here.

I live just a house a few doors down from the neighborhood.

I don't have time to research grants and things like that.

And I know that as a business owner during the pandemic, we're all completely tapped out.

So I think for me, this is a starting point and a resource where I have one person I can go to for help.

And that person may know where to connect me with.

Yeah, and I think Jeff kind of mentioned, reaching out to other BIAs about best strategies.

several vacant storefronts currently on our street of varying sizes.

And I personally would love to see those filled with small businesses and with folks that are maybe trying to get started or really struggling and also answering the folks that are really struggling right now.

What are the best strategies for engaging with landlords?

Are there access to funding where we can help get directly help those businesses survive?

I know that there are other neighborhoods that are investigating that as well.

So I would love to even in Q4 before it goes into effect, connect with some of those neighborhoods, see what they're doing, see if we're able to do anything for our neighborhood as well, even before should this past even before it starts.

I want to add to that, you know, this street has the infamous QFC, the Kroger that closed and has a big, you know, it's boarded up and there's a big chain fence around it.

So there's a big public perception that is 15th closing, you know, what's happening on the street.

And I think this is some really great news about neighborhood reinvesting in itself.

And it gives us a chance to really support the neighborhood and bring people back to the street.

Perfect.

Thank you, Jeff and Danielle.

Colleagues, are there any questions or comments for our presenters?

Council Member Peterson, please.

Hi.

Thank you.

Chair Morales, it was a pleasure working with you on the U-District renewal through this committee, so thank you for mentioning that.

I think that was the most recent one that we've worked on, and so I really appreciate the mentioning of preventing displacement, especially when Danielle was mentioning, the real estate development that will be occurring.

And it sounds like when you're talking about grants that you might be interested in pursuing, it sounds like you might want to help out businesses that might be struggling and in danger of displacement.

So one of the things we did with the U District BIA is we just wrote those good intentions into the actual legislation, and it was It was actually part of the mission of the BIA when we renewed it in the U-District, that preventing displacement was part of the mission.

And so I would certainly support an enhancement such as that.

And then in terms of getting at those businesses that if they are subject to a triple net lease and so all the costs are being passed through to them by the business that's paying the assessment or the property owner paying the assessment.

That might be another refinement is just to actually identify triple net lease businesses.

Those are the most vulnerable to these costs that might not feel like they have a voice, but yet they're paying for it.

just curious as to what the proponents' thoughts are on those.

And also, you know, just want to recognize this is in Council Member Sawant's district, so, you know, be deferential to, you know, any issues she might be raising in the future.

Absolutely.

I guess I'll just, like, comment and say that I, both of those items that you listed, things, you know, fees being passed through on Triple Net and then also businesses being displaced are very important to me.

And it's been very difficult through the pandemic as we see more and more businesses being displaced or not able to survive.

And so I personally am very invested in this neighborhood.

There's a lot of established businesses that I would like to see continue and thrive.

And I think I see something, a funding mechanism like the BAA as a really amazing way to learn best strategies and to really amplify what we're able to do in our neighborhood to help those folks.

And I would love, like, if there's language that could be put into it or anything like that, I think that would be really powerful and important for our neighborhood.

Thank you.

So, Council Member Sawant, I do want to give you an opportunity, if you're interested, to chime in here.

No pressure, but I do want to acknowledge we have a full committee, which is nice.

Okay, well, I really want to thank you for a robust conversation.

I think it's important that we do consider the two things that Councilmember Peterson and I talked about.

So I will tell you I'm considering amendments to address the anti-displacement question and ensuring representation from tenants, although it sounds like that is already part of what you're interested in doing, so I appreciate that.

And I do want to thank Council Member Peterson and his staff for sharing their experience with the University of BIA.

So what I intend to do then is to talk to central staff about some possible language changes under consideration and bring those forward at the September 21st meeting.

And just for the viewing public, Council Bill 120162 will not be voted out of committee today.

Per council rules, we cannot vote on something the same day that we have the public hearing on it.

So we'll resume the discussion of this legislation and take a possible vote at the next meeting, September 21st.

It's a Tuesday at 2 p.m.

That is going to be the last Community Economic Development Committee meeting until after the budget process is over.

So in the meantime, if you have comments about this legislation, If you want any of the council members to be aware of, please let us know.

You can send questions to me, Tame.Morales at Seattle.gov.

You can also copy our committee clerk, Darzel Touch, D-A-R-O-Z-Y-L dot T-O-U-C-H at Seattle.gov.

If there are no further questions, I don't see any further questions, Then that concludes the September 8th meeting of the Special Committee of Community Economic Development Committee.

I want to thank all of you for joining us.

Thanks to Philip at OED and to Yolanda from Council Central staff.

Thanks everyone.

We are adjourned at 2.57 p.m.