Good morning, everyone.
Welcome to a special meeting of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.
My name is Mike O'Brien.
I am chair of the committee.
Today is November 20th, 2019. It's 934 a.m.
We call the meeting to order.
Going to walk through the agenda really quickly.
The first item on our agenda today is a petition of Willow's Crossing to vacate a portion of 39th Avenue South, south of South Willow Street.
We're going to take up that clerk file and also have a public hearing.
And if there's support, we'll likely suspend the rules and go ahead and vote on that clerk file today.
Then we're going to take up a series of appointments.
We have appointments to the Urban Forestry Commission, two of those.
Reappointments to the Seattle Bike Advisory Board, two of those.
We have two reappointments to the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee.
And then we have a couple reappointments to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board.
And then the final item, excuse me, is interlocal agreement between the city of Seattle and King County for operations of the existing streetcar segments.
And so I will go ahead and move to approve the agenda, and I will vote to approve that agenda.
And with that, we'll go ahead and move into public comment.
Have folks signed up for public comment?
I see at least one person excited to speak, so why don't you come on forward to the microphone.
You'll have up to two minutes.
I'm guessing you must be Emily Minetti.
That's me.
Great.
I'll make this quick for this packed room.
My name is Emily Minetti and I'm with the DSA, a member of the Streetcar Coalition.
First, thank you for your exhaustive efforts to create a full and balanced budget this year.
I'm speaking in support of the ILA and to reiterate our support and interest in seeing the TNC tax go to fully funding and ultimately completing the streetcar.
With the passage of I-976, we know that transportation funding is limited and precious.
Given this new reality, it is also imperative that we seek every advantage to maximize our local dollars.
The TNC tax for the streetcar gives us just that opportunity by presenting the FTA with a fully funded project.
Additionally, the TNC tax, oh, sorry, we've recently learned that there are efforts and proposals to use portions of this new funding source and put it to other projects.
Doing this is gambling $75 million in federal funding for relatively small budget items.
We must exhibit to the FTA that the city supports and endorses this project.
We urge you to keep the TNC tax as it is and to allow our city to collect these precious federal transit funds.
Thank you.
Great.
Thanks, Emily.
And we are discussing an interlocal agreement on a different segment of the streetcar, but just for the public, we were not doing any action today on the center city connector, which I think is what you're talking about, but we will take your comments under consideration for sure.
Is there anyone else in the audience that wanted to provide public comment?
Emily's the only one who had signed up.
All right, seeing no one else, we'll go ahead and close public comment.
And I will invite presenters forward for agenda item number one, which is the Street vacation for Willows Crossing.
And then when Kelly is seated, I'll ask you to read the item into the record and give you back your agenda.
Thank you.
All right.
Clerk, file 314422, petition of Willow Crossings LLLP to vacate a portion of 39th Avenue South and South of South Willow Street.
Thank you for that.
Why don't we begin with a set of introductions.
Lish, you can go first.
Yeah.
Lish Whitson, Council Central staff.
Beverly Barnett, Seattle Department of Transportation.
Genevieve Hale-Case with GMD Development.
Jeff Walsh, Studio 19 Architects.
Great.
Welcome, everyone.
Thank you all for being here.
Lish, Beverly, do one of you want to kick this off?
Yeah, just very briefly, what you're seeing today is one of the first street vacation petitions that's coming in under the new street vacation policies that were updated last year.
That's pretty exciting for me.
And this one is using a new, it's not a condition, but a new statement in the policies that says that the council will consider affordable housing as part of a project in its assessment of whether or not the public benefits that are being provided are appropriate.
And so you'll see fewer on-site public benefits than we normally see, but there is a significant amount of affordable housing that would be a component of this project.
And my understanding is it's without city subsidies for that affordable housing too?
Correct.
It's pretty exciting.
So I'll pass it on to Beverly to get into the meat of it.
Great.
Thank you.
Yeah, we're happy to be here.
So this is the first proposal, as Lish mentioned, under the new vacation policies.
The one change to that is that there was an existing map on a building.
And I think Michael was going to address that after we do the PowerPoint presentation on some of the implications of our looking at an existing MOP with a new vacation and how that set kind of the front facade.
But as you have seen, the street vacation recommendation from SDOT follows the direction under the new policy.
So there is discussion in here, a couple of new items that the council member had elevated.
which includes free speech and public assembly.
The other thing in the recommendation you'll see is that in the new policies, the council put together all of the elements of public trust.
So it used to be we had a three-part analysis, which included the public trust elements, land use and public benefit.
and the council has put together all of the elements of the public trust, including land use, which works very well in analyzing a proposal because we do look at not only what we're giving up, but what we're achieving, so we're better able to see how the site's going to be used after a vacation by merging the land use discussion together.
So I think that works very well in terms of the analysis.
And I think the council will be able to more clearly see kind of the before and after kind of elements.
The last thing that Lish also alluded to is some of the changes in public benefit.
And one of the things that's been consistent with the city council is high expectations around public benefit.
And one of the things we experience in implementing those is that this can be an area that is less clear for people coming in.
So the policies did, I think, provide more clarity on what we define as public benefit.
But I think one of the elements that's still more difficult in the implementation is what we do with public serving projects and specifically what we do with low income housing since that has been identified as such a high priority for the council in recent years.
So the policies are really clear that what a developer is providing, so for example, a library, if a library comes in, that the library itself shouldn't be a self-defining public benefit.
That we would still look at the physical implications of the growth, the change in the grid.
so that we would still want to see some public benefits associated with something even as wonderful as a branch library.
And it's even a little more complicated with affordable housing since that is elevated within the city discussion, but the policies are still clear that we don't look at it and say, checked off, you're providing affordable housing.
So what the policies provide and what we tried to do in working with GMD and in the analysis is not self-define affordable housing as a public benefit, but use that as a part of the balancing test that we've always used.
What does the public achieve?
And what does the developer achieve?
What is the public giving up?
So we have the classic balancing test.
So I think in the end, it ends up that Maybe the end result is pretty similar, but the analysis is really clear in saying you're providing something that the city hopes to achieve.
It's not a self-defining public benefit, but we're going to use that to moderate what we expect you to do because you're already doing something that we really want to see.
So in this, and I think we'll go through the PowerPoint next and you can kind of see everything, we have a project that through the vacation is able to achieve the provision a 100% affordable housing project with 211 units, and they're able to do that only because of the vacation.
So when we looked at that, we thought, what is an appropriate level of public benefit for a project that's already achieving something that we all really want to see?
So the public benefit around the site and their offsite contribution, I think we would consider it as being too moderate if this was a market rate project, but we all considered it as appropriate for this affordable housing project.
So, yeah, it was...
It's the first time, so we're setting a precedent of sorts, and I assume future projects will be looking to this.
Yeah, and so we did try to be as careful as possible in teasing out what the council wanted to see under the new policies.
And I think this was a good example for that, because it's proposing something that we know we like, and what do we ask of them in addition to that?
So hopefully we have the right balance.
I think they're okay.
So then we thought, I don't know if you want to do anything or we're going to jump to the PowerPoint.
Okay, all right.
So we'll look at the project.
It makes it easier to see.
Really quick, Michael, you want to introduce yourself just for the record?
Sorry, I was a little late.
Michael Jenkins, Yale Design Commission.
That's me.
I just get going so fast in the committee meetings.
That's keep people on their toes.
Well, we're used to 2 p.m.
meetings, so we're kind of all glad we're here.
It is a few hours early for sure.
All right, go ahead and let's jump in and look at the project.
And you guys were here, I don't know, was it six months ago?
April.
April?
Oh, yeah.
OK.
So here is a brief overview of the project.
As Beverly mentioned, we first purchased the property on Willow and MLK at the corner.
It already had a MUP, and we were able to purchase the second parcel and design a project that encompassed the area of 39th Avenue South and make a feasible affordable housing project.
So we're GMD Development.
We're a private company.
We do only affordable housing tax credit development.
We focus in the Pacific Northwest.
And our partners have over 25 years of experience working in affordable housing.
This will be our third Seattle project, and we focus quite a bit of attention on sustainability and renewable energy in our projects.
We're also long-term holders of all of our projects.
So with this street vacation, I just wanted to highlight a few of the benefits that the city will be getting by vacating this property.
So originally, the original MUP would have provided 178 units of housing.
With the street vacation, we're providing 211. We're also providing significant additional open space through this proposal.
We're reducing the number of parking stalls.
but adding housing units.
We like that.
Well, Kelly and I like that, I'm pretty sure.
We are also providing 211 units of affordable housing, as we've mentioned.
The previous proposal would not have been affordable, would have been 100% market.
We are, through the tax credit program, we are required to adhere to the Evergreen Sustainability Development Standard, which would not have been required in a market rate project.
We're providing some public art on the site, which Jeff will go through later in the presentation.
And we are also including a $25,000 off-site donation to a community organization for a right-of-way improvement project.
And the sustainability requirement for tax credits, so not no city subsidy money in here, but federal tax credits, is that what you'll be accessing for financing?
Exactly.
We have a city acquisition loan through the Office of Housing that we intend to repay at the end of construction.
Great.
So then we, throughout this process, we have conducted a significant amount of outreach.
We've worked with a number of community groups that you can see here, Othello Station Community Action Team, UW Othello Commons, On Board Othello, and also HOSTED, which we will outline later in the presentation as well.
They're the organization that we intend to make the off-site donation to.
As for the development itself, we're looking at a 163,000 square foot building with 142,000 residential floor area, all in 100% affordable housing.
I have about 4,000 square feet of retail commercial space on the ground floor.
Building is 70 feet, seven stories, as Genevieve mentioned, 211 units, 100% affordable housing, 32 parking stalls below grade, and 172 bike stalls.
As you can see on the floor plan here, this is the ground level.
So you can see that we've got a plaza listed as item A there along MLK.
That's a public plaza.
There's also another smaller public plaza along Willow along the north side listed as item E.
The purple areas are the retail, the orange are the apartment lobby and amenity spaces, and the blue areas are the apartments on the ground level.
As we go up, all the floors above are all apartments.
And then you'll see item G here in the middle is a private residential plaza in the middle of the building for the residents.
And I believe the parcel that fronts MLK allowed up to 95 feet of height, but you're only going to 70. Correct.
And is that just construction types?
Construction type budget, yeah, exactly.
And this is about as high as you can get with wood frame over construction.
Correct.
Looking at our public benefit overview, there are three selections that we have for the public benefit.
Number one is the MLK Plaza, which we'll get into.
We'll get into all of these in a minute here, but just the overview, there's a plaza along MLK.
There's what we call Willow Walkway to the north of the project, listed as item two, and the offsite donation to hosted.
This is an image of the MLK Plaza.
So we've got landscaping planters, benches, metal screen artwork that actually is taking off.
The corner of the building has a pretty extensive amount of public art as a gateway feature.
And so the benches will have the front facing piece of the bench will actually be integrated artwork that is taking off of that design.
There's also different colored concrete pavers along the entire plaza there.
Here's an image of that plaza that's going to be accessed to the public.
This is the Willow Walkway Plaza.
So again, the same landscape benches and pavers that we had on the MLK Plaza, and we've reutilized those on the north, so they're in keeping with each other, and also the public art that we're putting on the face of the benches.
And so Beverly, you mentioned the free speech for public plazas.
Can we talk just a second about that?
So this spot will be open to the public 24 hours a day.
And then, you know, if folks want to do a rally or whatever, I'm not sure how likely that is at this location, but you know, there's no prohibitions to that.
No.
Okay.
And Beverly, what is the current best practice and language we use?
Yeah, so that's actually Condition 7, which is language that the council developed on an earlier vacation, which does provide that Members of the public can hand bill, signature gather, hold signs.
Does have some caveat in here about not obstructing the space since this will have public space and access to the building, but it does provide that members of the public can engage in free speech activities on this site.
That's great.
And in this rendering, we do have a sign on the front planter that says it's allowed to be in the public plaza.
Appreciate that.
So I wanted to give a quick overview of the off-site donation that we intend to make to Hosted, which is Healthy Othello, Safer Through Environmental Design.
They're a local nonprofit that has worked with folks in the community pretty extensively to identify problem areas or areas in the neighborhood where community members hope to improve safety in the right-of-way.
They've identified this project, which is at the corner of MLK and Acello, called Influorescence Park.
This is a highly-trafficked area adjacent to the Safeway, and so the intent of this project is to add So they've done a lot of work in terms of seeding and patched the sidewalk and some plantings.
It's a relatively small project and they've actually secured a certain amount or sufficient funding to complete the project.
do subsequent phases of the project that the community has voiced a desire for.
So we, as a small nonprofit, they are not quite at the stage yet where they have permits and designs for those second phases, but our intent is to, through our off-site donation, to help them through that second phase of the project.
And some of those improvements for the second phase of the project are adding flexi-pave in the tree wells, potentially improving one of the crosswalks adjacent to the park, and pedestrian safety, and also costs associated with design and permitting of those improvements.
So just an overview of the cost of our, or the value of our off-site donation.
So the plaza we valued at $47,000.
The improvements along Willow, another almost $22,000.
And our off-site donation at $25,000 for $94,000.
and great access to light rail.
So hopefully folks there, again, going back to the transportation, I really appreciate the balance of bike parking, not putting expensive underground parking in place when you have great access to light rail and hopefully serving a population that's excited to use that.
On the sustainability front, what is your energy source for heating and domestic hot water?
We have, we're doing a pretty significant amount of solar on the roof.
That's sort of our, the main piece.
Electric gas.
And gas hot water.
Gas hot water and electric spacing, okay.
This is somewhat of a loaded question, because I'm about to decide your fate.
But I'm curious, as the first folks that went through this new process from a street vacation, I don't know if you have anything to compare it to.
But I'm curious if the process provided clarity in the upfront conversation.
I don't know.
Any feedback you have on that?
I guess I could ask that question after I vote on the file.
For us, it was a pretty straightforward and easy process to go through.
Just going through the meetings in the different departments was pretty clear as to what they were looking for.
So I think it went pretty well.
Great.
We know it's another step for sure.
Obviously, it's a street vacation, so it's appropriate from my perspective.
And the hope is that we get value for the public out of it, but not at the cost of you know, pulling hair out, making projects really hard to get through.
So, you know, obviously, once we're all done with our process, please continue to provide feedback to, I may not be here at this point, but to the folks on your right and left who will be doing the process, I think we'd be open to it.
Michael Wood, how to work on your end?
Yeah, you know, I think that when the commission looked at this a number of times, in part because I think the successes and the challenges of the project were their creativity in taking them up and turning it in from a market rate proposal, vacating the right of way and turning it into an affordable housing proposal.
If there was a clean slate, I think that in many ways I think we would have been freer to explore things, but I think to the project team's credit, The issues that were important for the commission with public trust and public benefit were resolved, I think, in a positive way.
Relative to public trust, the commission always worries about when you have a vacation and it interrupts where utilities and access occur, how is that limiting its impact on the right of way?
And their garage access is a good example.
They were going to come in off of 39th under the no vacation proposal, the right of way that was vacated.
And in their work, they really limited the impact that that access point would have.
on the right-of-way, in particular, because bikes and cars would be jointly using that.
They spent some significant time in figuring out how do you resolve any potential conflicts there, and I think it was a good outcome.
They're continuing to work with Seattle Public Utilities on the issue about how solid waste will be picked up, and to make sure that any potential impact of that is limited on the right-of-way, which I think is a good solution.
The public benefit piece was also, again, going back to the idea of if this wasn't informed by the previous master's permit, how would public benefit occur?
The primary piece, which is the plaza, went through a lot of redesign to address an important concern that the commission has of all projects.
How does this look and feel public when measured against equity?
Is the public invited?
Does the public have direct access?
And more importantly, can you be there without interacting with the building, use, or identity?
In this particular case, they reprogrammed it to make it less of an area that you pass through.
and more of a place that you go to.
The entrances in part were realigned to move them in a way that didn't become a path, a direct path from Martin Luther King.
It becomes a place that you sit and you have to go around that place to get into the building, which I think is an important win.
Same way with the Willow Walkway, a lot of work there to make sure that it actually provides the public with a true benefit.
One of the key pieces about public space through Hosted, we're really encouraged about that relationship and how they can work with the community.
We have a little bit more work that we need to do to make sure that that agreement is perfected for long-term, the long-term physical improvements that the commission supported.
We'll get there.
It's just a level of work that needs to be completed and we're confident that that would be completed.
In a timely way, the commission is always interested in looking for innovative ways to create public benefit.
There isn't a perfect template for that, so the work that we're doing I think helps to address that issue.
I do want to just comment on the affordable housing provision because we do, I think the commission really struggled with that in wanting to understand How can the commission provide the council with their input on the issue of affordable housing?
Affordable housing in and of itself is not a public benefit.
However, this vacation turned a market rate housing development into an affordable housing development, and that was not lost on the commission.
One of the concerns that they raised, and I think that the development team is really looking at, is making sure that They're figuring out a way to make sure that any displacement that occurs within that area, that this may be an avenue for people who have been displaced as a result of additional development in the area, that this might be a potential location for them.
And that was really important for the commission to highlight and the minutes reflect that issue.
And then I think the big win for us is recognizing that this project, This vacation resulted in 60% AMI housing.
That's really important for this neighborhood.
And the extent to which the design commission helped in that effort, we were happy to see that as a success of the project.
Great.
Well, thanks to the commission for their work on this and the ongoing work to continue to refine this process in this kind of new era.
As your, you know, it didn't, it was not unnoticed by me that this is probably the last meeting where we're going to be interacting.
And I, on behalf of the commission, I just want to say thank you for understanding how the design commission advises the council and the mayor and always keeping an open ear.
to what the commission has been wanting to advise you and the council members on.
And I just want to say thank you for your advocacy in urban design, in particular, the role that the commission plays.
So thank you.
You bet.
Thank you.
And thanks to the commissioners for their great work.
And I got to check out.
I got to keep going.
Great.
I don't have anything else.
I believe I need to suspend the rules before I vote on this.
First, you need to have a public hearing.
Oh, right.
Let's have a public hearing.
So we're going to go ahead and open the public hearing on this.
Kelly, I don't know if there's anyone signed in for the public hearing.
Okay.
You can come on up to the microphone.
You can sign in after your testimony.
That's fine.
This is a great idea I'm my only concern is that the city I think 60% AMI is excellent, and I'm glad it was caught before it became market rate There's a lot of people who still can't afford 60% AMI so I can only hope that as we look at making transportation free in the city of Seattle for everyone that more developments like this and Is it the word, kind of an obscure place become, it looked kind of empty and abandoned and it's going to turn into something really cool that people just walked across.
So I hope people can only see the same potential in public transportation.
It's kind of overlooked right now as something that could be free and funded.
So thank you for discussing this.
Thanks, Megan.
Anyone else want to?
provide comment for the public hearing?
All right, seeing nobody, we will go ahead and close the public hearing.
And then our rules say that we will not vote on the same day as a public hearing, but considering that we've had this before us six months ago and I haven't heard any strong concerns, Previously or today, I'm going to go ahead and move to suspend the rules, and I'll second that and vote to suspend it.
I get to do that in these committee rules.
It's exciting.
And so with the rules suspended, we're now allowed to take a vote on this today.
So I'm going to go ahead and move and second agenda item one, which is clerk file 314422. I'll vote to accept the clerk file.
And so that will, is there anything else I need to say?
Did I do everything okay?
So that will move on to the full council on Monday and my understanding is you are hoping to get this through and their signature or whatever and so that By the end of the year you can get your financing in place, and that's there's some deadline there, so
Thank you.
Great.
Yeah, I think we do all want to note, all of us that we're working on this, that your willingness to schedule this at this time was a significant factor in their being able to meet their development timelines.
So now, well, it's going to happen now.
That's great.
I'll say that it's exciting.
I've been on the council for about 10 years, and we're obviously in a crisis around housing and homelessness.
And I believe the city is doing a lot to respond to that.
The city, not just the entity of the city, but all the entities within the city.
And it's great to see private affordable housing projects, especially ones that aren't, you know, use some city money for the acquisition, but that'll be repaid.
And so now permanent ongoing city funding to create this.
We've more than tripled the amount of city money that's going into affordable housing.
And we're starting to see the results get produced, but we're also seeing private developers produce significant amounts of affordable housing, too.
And so it's really exciting to see how so many different players are responding to the crisis we're in.
Unfortunately, a crisis happens, and we're talking about housing.
It takes years to to do a response even when there's urgency in response, but I believe that this is an example of a type of project that hopefully in a couple years will be running and one of a handful and hopefully that'll be modeled by future projects going forward and we can get a lot more affordable housing in the city.
So thanks for your work on that.
Great.
All right, thank you all.
Kelly, do you want to read the next couple of items into the agenda and we'll invite presenters forward?
All right.
Appointment 01466, appointment of Dylan Jones as a member of Urban Forestry Commission for a term to March 31st, 2020. And I'll read the next one.
Appointment 01467, appointment of Blake Fortes as a member of the Urban Forestry Commission for a term to March 31st, 2020. Hello.
Welcome.
Good morning.
Why don't we start with names, introductions.
I'm Blake Voorhees.
Blake, nice to meet you.
L.B.
Jones.
Nice to meet you.
And Sandra Pinto de Bader, staffing the commission with the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
Great.
Sandra, do you want to walk us through what the Urban Forestry Commission does and our great appointee options here?
Sure, thank you.
So the Urban Forestry Commission was established to advise city council and the mayor on policies, plans, regulations having to do with the protection, management, and conservation of Seattle's urban forest.
The Commission has 13 positions.
Six are appointed by Council, six by the Mayor, and one is appointed by the Commission.
And today it's my pleasure to introduce for your consideration the appointment of L.B.
Jones to position number two, Urban Ecologist.
The mayor is making this recommendation.
LV is the Green Cities Program Manager with Forterra in charge of building stewardship programs and projects in Snohomish County Parks, facilitating forest assessments and working with local government, partner organizations and communities to develop restoration plans.
And they hold a Master of Environmental Horticulture from the UW and have certifications on ecological restoration and wetland science.
LB's strong background and experience working on urban ecology and ecological restoration, coupled with their experience working for local government, will be an asset to the Urban Forestry Commission.
LB is being appointed to finish a term ending March 31st of 2020. And it's also my pleasure to talk a little bit about the background of Blake.
He is being appointed to position number nine, economist, finance advisor, realtor.
And Blake is a real estate broker with Caldo Banker Bain, where he specializes in residential sales.
He also worked over 10 years as a litigation paralegal in firms such as Preston Gates and Ellis and Foster Pepper Sheffelman.
Blake has a clear understanding of the challenges that urban trees face as our city continues to grow.
His passion for trees and his experience working with builders and home buyers as well as his legal background will bring an important perspective to the commission.
He is being appointed to finish a term ending March 31st of 2020.
So you two are ready to take on four months of work?
Absolutely.
Sandra, tell us a little bit.
These are obviously vacancies, and I really appreciate that we don't wait till it's up, because there's the Urban Forestry Commission is doing a lot of critical work, and I imagine early next year will be added, too.
But I'm assuming there'll be reappointments in the few months.
Right, right.
So this is not going to be considered their first term.
It's just finishing a previous term, and it's such a brief time frame that we're going to be very likely recommending reappointment come March.
Great.
I guess it's not bad if you all decide that after a few months, like, whoa, what did we get ourselves into?
So, L.B., why don't we start with you, and just wanna hear your thoughts on the Urban Forestry Commission, the canopy in the city, you obviously work on it in the region, and this is a fairly high profile and can be contentious and really critically important to the values of Seattle to get right, so what you hope to accomplish in the next few years.
Yeah, so I've worked in ecological restoration for the last 15 years in King County and have worked for city government.
So I'm pretty familiar with how contentious trees can be when you're working for the city.
And I'm just excited to apply my knowledge and experience to this position and see how the policy process goes.
That's great.
I'm excited, too.
Blake, how about you?
You're appointed by the commission, so I imagine you had to convince all 12 people on there that you would be doing a decent job.
I can hope so.
Thank you for that.
And Sandra, thank you for the introduction.
I have one correction that I'm actually with WPI Real Estate, but beyond that, Yeah, I've been a broker since 2006. I have a legal background, as Sandra noted.
And I've worked with both developers and private homeowners.
And I understand, I believe, the concerns of both.
And as a citizen of the city, I really do appreciate the green space.
It's the most beautiful city I've ever lived in.
And I look forward to being a part of the initiatives that they'd like to put forth.
to make this a beautiful city in 2037 for future residents while also contributing to the healthy air and environment for everyone.
Yeah.
You both touched on the tensions there.
And I mean, I think the magic we're looking for, I'm hopeful that the city council in the coming months will adopt a new urban forest policy that can be something that can be held up as something that will not just protect our existing canopy, but encourage growth of our canopy, but do it in a way that we're not doing that at the expense of opportunities for more people to live in our city who want to do that.
There's a tension there.
I don't think that they're diametrically opposed.
There are ways to do great housing and other commercial projects and maintain or expand our tree canopy at the same time.
But it takes thoughtfulness and crafting a citywide policy that can be enforced, that also has the flexibility to recognize that different landscapes and different projects need different items.
It's a tricky balancing act that's kind of stymied the council.
But it feels like there's been a lot of good work lately.
And I don't know if you have any other comments on that dynamic, but you'll be in it for sure.
Well, and I also wanted to acknowledge both of them because they started attending commission meetings to get up to speed with knowing that they had no vote because they were not appointed yet.
But they've been steeped already in some of these issues.
That's great.
Well, I really appreciate your commitment and I really appreciate your, it sounds like the history that you each have in working in different aspects of the city and look forward to bringing that expertise together and hopefully building some consensus.
And I do encourage you both and the entire commission to be strong advocates to the public and the council and the mayor when you settle on a path that we need to go to make sure that we put those policies in place, enforce them and hold people to them and move in the direction we need to move, so.
Thanks.
Thank you so much.
And I just wanted to thank you on behalf of the Commission and Office of Sustainability and Environment for your championing a lot of our initiatives throughout the years.
Thank you so much.
You bet, Sandra.
You have an amazing team over there and I'm going to miss working with you from this perspective, but I'm excited to continue to see what OSCE does.
So, if there's nothing else, I will go ahead and move appointments 01466 and 01467, and I will second those, and I will vote to support those and send them on to the full council.
So, thank you all for your time.
We'll be voting on this as a full council on Monday.
You're welcome to attend, but there's no real role for you.
So, and I appreciate that you're both already attending those meetings.
So, keep us posted.
Kelly, let's do the next batch of two.
All right.
Appointment 01460, reappointment of Alexander Liu as member to the Seattle Bike Advisory Board for a term to August 31st, 2021. And appointment 01461, reappointment of Emily Payne as a member to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for a term to August 31st, 2021. Great.
How about introductions?
I'm Serena Lightman.
I'm the Seattle Department of Transportation liaison to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board.
Thanks for being here, Serena.
These are both reappointments, so no, I'm not required that they be here at all.
So tell us a little bit about Emily and Alex and move on.
Yeah.
So the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board was formed about 30 years ago to steward the bicycle master plan and advise city council, the mayor's office, and city departments on all things bicycling.
Emily Payne has been serving on the Bicycle Advisory Board for the last two years.
She also served on the Move Seattle Oversight Committee.
She's been chair for the last year.
She's a dedicated utility cyclist who bikes to both of her jobs.
She currently believes that cycling has the potential to improve health, reduce congestion, and improve the environment, connect communities, and drive human scale development.
She's also a bus driver and brings that perspective to the committee and all the work she does.
And I occasionally get a bike with Emily one direction or the other to work.
So it's great to see her out there.
She's very dedicated.
We're excited to have her continue on the board.
Alex, he is a bike commuter, public transit rider, and a self-identified transportation geek.
He's an urban planner by training.
And he works with public transit agencies to use real-time data to improve transit service.
He's brought that lens of data to looking at bike projects.
looking at how new mobility is arriving in the city of Seattle.
Again, very excited to have him continue on the board.
I am too.
You know, I just, it's amazing we have, you know, a lot of boards and commissions and You know, sometimes it's like, how many of these things do we have?
And then you get down and like, oh my gosh, this commission is so critical.
And we really need good, smart people that bring a variety of perspectives.
And then you look at the people that show up and apply for these jobs.
Like, how did we get all these folks that care so much about the city, that they're passionate and doing their homework and dedicating their time to show up and then advocate for policies?
All just because they want to see better outcomes for the city.
It's pretty great.
It's fantastic to have that Alex and Emily are exemplary models of that as are, you know, hundreds of other folks who do that, so.
Definitely.
Great.
Anything else you want to say?
No, that's it.
Thanks for your work.
I'm excited to reappoint both of them.
So I'm going to go ahead and move and second appointments 01460 and 01461. And then I'll vote yes on those.
And so those will move on to the whole council on Monday.
Great.
Thank you so much.
All right, agenda items six and seven.
Go for it, Kelly.
Appointment 01462, reappointment of Rachel Ben-Shul as member to the levy to move Seattle Oversight Committee for a term to December 31st, 2023. And appointment 01463, reappointment of Lisa Bogardas as member to the levy to move Seattle Oversight Committee for a term to December 31st, 2023. Great.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Quick introduction.
Rachel McCaffrey, SDOT staff liaison to the Levee Oversight Committee.
Another pair of reappointments.
Both folks I know well, but why don't you tell us a little bit about the committee and the appointments, reappointments?
Yeah, the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee is an advisory body that monitors revenues, expenditures, and program and project implementation for the $930 million levy to Move Seattle.
The committee reviews SDOT program and project priorities, financial plans, and makes recommendations to the mayor and council regarding spending of levy proceeds.
So two mayoral reappointees today.
The first is Rachel.
She's been on the Levy Oversight Committee since 2016. So this is two folks, one who's been on for a while and one who's newer.
So she's being reappointed to a second term.
Her background is in real estate development and she's passionate about the juncture between transportation and land use.
Some of her background, she's retired now, but in her career she served as the Executive Director of the Planning Commission.
She spent 10 years at Vulcan working with the city on various development projects in South Lake Union and has volunteered for Capitol Hill Housing as far back as the 1990s.
So she's a great asset to the committee, which I think has been recognized recently through her nomination as co-chair starting in 2020. Then Lisa is a newer committee member.
She started serving in 2018 and filled the remainder of a vacant position.
So she is being reappointed for a full term.
She is assistant executive secretary at Seattle Building and Construction Trades Labor Council.
She's served as a public defender and as labor relations manager and construction labor manager at the Port of Seattle.
She's one of a couple attorneys I think we have on the committee and we appreciate her expertise.
I didn't realize Lisa was an attorney.
I guess I should have known that.
They're both outstanding and I really appreciate Lisa stepping in to fill the vacant spot that has traditionally been held by someone from the labor community, and I think it's a perfect mix, and it's great that she has the capacity to do the work.
And Rachel's been an outstanding member since I've had the pleasure of sitting on this committee.
So really appreciate both their willingness to renew their commitment here and keep going, and it's going to be a critical couple years.
The next few years is a lot of projects supposed to go out the door.
I think the oversight committee has done a great job kind of helping in a really, I think, positive and productive way.
kind of reset some standards for how SDOT's delivering the projects.
I think it was a Herculean task to begin with, to just jump on really short notice from, is this going to be renewed, to almost $100 million a year in projects coming out.
And I think the agency stumbled a bit trying to get up to speed there.
But I think we're on a really good trajectory, and I think the Oversight Committee has done exemplary work to both understand the challenges, but also bring their expertise and put pressure on the whole team to get things going the right direction.
And you've done great work for them, too.
So thank you for that.
Anything else we want to talk about?
Great, I will go ahead and move appointments 01462 and 01463, and I will second those, and I will vote aye on both of those.
They will go to the full council on Monday.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
And we have two more appointments, reappointments.
Why don't you read agenda items eight and nine of the record?
Appointment 01464, reappointment of Jennifer Malley as a member to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2021. And appointment 01465, reappointment of Michelle Zeidman as a member to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2021. Hello.
Hi.
Good morning.
Quick intro.
Sure, Benjamin Smith with SDOT, and I'm the liaison to the Transit Advisory Board.
Thanks for your work over there.
Tell us a little bit about these two appointments.
Sure, definitely.
So the Transit Advisory Board is one of the newer boards and commissions in the city.
It was founded by council in 2015. They're charged with advising the city, council, the mayor on issues of transit.
They also have an oversight role because of our STBD, our Seattle Transportation Benefit District funding for metro bus service.
The TAB has five council-appointed members, six mayor and one get engaged, and both Jen and Michelle are council-appointed positions.
Great.
And so two reappointments today.
These are council appointments.
Yeah.
So yeah, I can talk about Jen.
So both had work commitments and sorry they weren't able to be here.
Jen Malley Crawford.
No need to be here.
That's fine.
Yeah.
Yeah, Jen had filled a vacant term, and this is her second full term.
Jen quickly joined a leadership role in the tab and is currently co-chair.
She had a short statement she wanted to send along, which I'll share with you.
She says, Honorable City Council Members, thank you for considering my reappointment to continue serving on the Seattle Transit Advisory Board.
I'm a passionate advocate for improving mobility options and traffic safety for Seattle residents of all ages, abilities, and income levels.
I'm proud to be a part of the citizen group advising the city on the priorities of Seattle Transportation Benefit District and other transit related projects.
I look forward to continuing to provide feedback to the city and other agencies to sustain and improve residents access to transit and other mobility options.
Thank you, Jen.
That's great.
Yes.
We also have Michelle Zeidman.
So Michelle is one of the newer board members, was appointed to the rest of a vacant term last year.
This is her first full term.
Also wasn't able to join, but had this to share.
I've really enjoyed the opportunity to serve on the TAB since January.
As you may recall, I have a master's in urban planning and master's in public administration from UW with an emphasis in transportation planning and policy.
She recently started a new job as planning analyst with Washington State Ferries.
During the last 11 months, I've focused on getting up to speed on the various new transit projects in Seattle and the STBD funding process.
I've taken a particular interest in the renewal of STBD and am concerned about what the passage of I-976 will mean for it.
In the next two years, I look forward to assisting the city and or county with community engagement and education about the STBD and all the new service and amenities it has provided to Seattle residents and workers.
I bring that perspective of a transit writer as well as an analyst to the board.
I kindly ask that you reappoint me to the tab.
Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle, it's great to have her on the board.
And similarly, Jennifer's been great too.
And so excited to reappoint both of them.
Both bring kind of excellent technical skills.
And one of the things that's I think it's critically important that we have a series of modal boards, the bike, pedestrian, transit, and freight advisory boards.
And obviously how those interact with each other is really important.
And it's great to see individuals on the various boards who can bring that kind of broad expertise.
I know that both these appointees have connections with the bike community.
We saw at the bike appointment a minute when it's a bus driver.
So there's awareness about what a multimodal city looks like.
And the folks that you've been integral in recruiting have been really productive.
So thanks for your work on that.
If there's nothing else, I will go ahead and move.
Let's see here, hang on a sec.
Appointments 01464 and 01465. And I will second those and vote aye on both of those.
So they will go to the full council on Monday.
Thanks for working.
Thank you.
All right, Kelly, last agenda item.
This one will probably take a few more minutes.
Let's jump into agenda item 10, if you could read that in the record.
Council Bill 119704, an ordinance relating to the Seattle streetcar authorizing execution of the new interlocal agreement with King County for operation and maintenance of the Seattle streetcar system and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
Welcome everyone.
Let's start with a round of introductions.
Calvin Chow, Council Central staff.
Chris Eilerman, Streetcar and Transit Quarters Manager, SDOT Transit Mobility.
Candida Lorenzana, Director, SDOT Transit and Mobility.
Welcome, everyone.
All right.
We have an interlocal agreement in front of us today.
Calvin, do you want to tee this up?
Yeah, just to reemphasize what you said at the agenda setting, that this is about the existing streetcar and the operation agreement with Metro that is going to expire at the end of the year.
Great.
Well, we've got a couple of weeks to work on this, so no rush here.
I assume that if we stumble on this committee, we'll just turn the streetcar off for a few months till we figure it out, right?
That is not the goal, so.
There's a presentation today, so do you all want to walk through that presentation?
Sure.
I'm going to kick it off.
So I think we're all aware that SDOT's mission is to deliver a transportation system that provides safe and affordable access to places and opportunities.
And our work every day is really grounded in our values of equity, safety, mobility, sustainability, livability, and excellence.
So what we're here to talk to you about today is the new streetcar interlocal agreement.
This is a result of a year-long collaborative process with King County Metro to revise our prior operations and maintenance agreement for the existing streetcar lines.
The agreement is more streamlined and covers our current operations while allowing for expansion of the system.
Both the King County Council and the City Council need to approve the agreement which, as Cal pointed out, expires at the end of the year.
As a reminder, we have two existing lines that the city owns, the South Lake Union Streetcar and the First Hill Streetcar.
And King County Metro operates those on behalf of the city, as outlined in our prior ILA from 2014. And that ILA is set to expire at the end of the year, hence the timeline that we are on.
But we've been working together with the county to negotiate a new ILA to replace it that provides better processes for coordination and collaboration going forward.
So you may be wondering how this connects to the Center City Connector Project.
And the new ILA only covers operations of our current streetcars.
But it does allow us to accommodate expansion of the system in the future.
And I'll hand it off to Chris to go into some details.
Thank you.
Just a few quick key features of the new interlocal agreement.
This agreement will execute by the end of the year before the termination of the current agreement, and it will go for a five-year term.
So one of the new features is we've provided for some automatic renewals of that term at the discretion of the city that would hopefully make for an easier transition and avoid having to come back with new agreements every five years.
How long are the renewals?
They're each for a five-year term.
Oh, OK.
So this could come.
So this would cover a total of 15 years if the city wants to?
That's correct.
And it says this is not, sorry the previous slide talked about the center city connector, this does not discuss that but anticipates it maybe is the right word.
I assume that, does that mean that if a center city connector goes forward that there would need to be discussions on how that fits in or does this already contemplate that?
Correct.
So the new agreement, and we'll talk about it a little bit later in more detail, anticipates that there could be expansions to the Seattle streetcar system, ostensibly the Center City Connector project.
It anticipates that and it attempts to set up a framework that we could incorporate that extension into this agreement with minimal change.
So the idea is we would likely amend the agreement to incorporate that infrastructure into the suite of vehicles and track and so forth that the county operates and maintains on the city's behalf.
But we wouldn't need to come back with any further legislation to do that.
The expiring agreement was more of an umbrella agreement that had separate agreements for each of the two lines underneath it.
And this is sort of in the same, I mean, it can be adopted and sort of thought of in sort of the same way.
Great.
So the overarching kind of...
The idea is that the provisions of this agreement apply regardless of the size of the streetcar system.
In terms of general roles and responsibilities the new agreement improves some of the efficiency and the quality of maintenance By consolidating some of the responsibilities that the city currently Has to transfer those to the county and some of those are sort of meat and potatoes maintenance type things including the responsibility to maintain the maintenance facility at the First Hill streetcar.
Currently the county is responsible to maintain the South Lake Union maintenance facility.
The city maintains the First Hill facility.
We're consolidating that responsibility under the county for both facilities.
It also includes station stop cleaning and custodial maintenance, emptying trash cans at stops and power washing and things like that.
And then track drain cleaning, which is sort of a a daily or weekly cleaning of the flange way, the groove in the streetcar to make sure that water drains appropriately.
So those will all be consolidated with the county, which we think is going to make for a more efficient operation.
Budget and invoicing was a key change as well.
So this new agreement really sets up a framework that we think will help us to track budgeting and be more accurate in terms of the predictions that we make at budget time about what it's going to cost on a yearly basis to run the streetcar.
We achieve that through increased coordination with Metro early in the budget phase.
So where the previous agreement attempted to lay out over a five-year term specific costs and contributions and sort of predicted that into the future.
with big reconciliations of those amounts at the end of the year.
This attempts to be a more iterative process on an annual basis.
So we'll get into that discussion with the county to try to align our expectations on budget early in our respective budget processes and carry those out throughout the year.
It's really intended to be based on historical actuals as opposed to increasingly old projections and basically gives us a chance to track that more closely and hopefully do a much better job at at hitting the budget at the end of the year.
The county contribution is a key part of that budget and invoicing conversation.
This agreement maintains that contribution.
It's about 1.55 million in 2019 and so The new agreement will increase that, it'll escalate that at 3% annually over the course of the first five-year term of the agreement.
As we talked before, there is an option for the city to renew that five-year term two times.
The county contribution will remain through the first five-year term and at the end of that term, the city and the county would have a discussion about how and if that would continue.
If we're not able to come to an agreement on continuation of that contribution, It does start to ramp down over a three-year period.
And there are some other county, not so much contributions, but other factors that come into play, such as a cap on some of the county overhead costs and some other federal grant money that could come into play there.
Safety and security, one of the things that we have been working on is coming into compliance with some of the new forthcoming federal regulations related to safety and security.
This new agreement continues the work that the county has done on a lot of the day-to-day safety and security responsibilities, namely accident investigations and notifications that are required to the state and to the feds.
One of the things that this will do is align the safety and security planning responsibilities with the new federal regulations which are coming, particularly those related to the public transportation agency safety plan requirement.
That's a requirement that we will have to meet starting about mid next year.
And so continuing the building on the good work that we have been doing with the county and the collaboration we've had there, and then increasing the city's planning responsibilities as it relates to that agency safety plan.
Next steps, as we noted, this agreement has to be executed before the end of this year when the current agreement expires on December 31st.
It does have to be approved by both city council and the county council.
The county council took it up at their mobility committee yesterday and moved it to the full council with a approval, recommendation to approve.
So we expect that they'll pass that at the full county council, if not next week, the following week, the week of December 3rd.
So we ask for your approval to do the same at the city.
And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
I don't actually have any specific questions.
I appreciate the work to work this out.
And I really appreciate the ongoing partnership between the city and the county.
Help me understand a little bit.
the Fair revenue Fairbanks recovery and how that works and is that used still used essentially as an offset to the cost that we provide that's correct So the as relates to orca fair revenue this agreement is the same as the previous agreement whereby the county will collect that orca revenue and then it's basically provided as a credit against the quarterly which will change to monthly invoices from the county for their operations and maintenance costs.
So we track it on our end.
We get the same reporting from ORCA about what's being generated on the streetcar.
So we're able to make sure that those numbers are accurate.
And the county will basically just give us an invoice net of that ORCA revenue and net of the county contribution as well.
Right.
And then as far as them invoicing, is this a Is it kind of a time and material where, you know, every hour of operative it is billed to us, or is it more of a, you know, for, you know, 100 service hours, we will charge you $100 kind of thing?
It's more the former.
So the county's costs break out into generally three categories.
There are direct costs that are incurred by the streetcar Section if you will operators maintainers that are specific to the streetcar.
There are direct costs that are billed from other County Agencies namely those that would work on power and facilities and trolley and things like that And then there is a third category, which is indirect costs, which is the county's overhead So those costs are all billed to the streetcar and that's based primarily on an Discussion we have with the county of budget time at the beginning of the year where we establish what the service?
Expectations are so we would work on a service plan with the county Establish the city's expectation about what the service level should be for that following year and our budget will be based on that service plan and so I'm gonna set the center city streetcar aside which is a obviously a big policy decision that will continue to bounce around here for a little bit, but
On just the existing streetcar lines, if we wanted to add an additional vehicle or extend the hours a day or shorten the headways, that is all things that are anticipated.
We would just work with the county to identify, okay, that will increase our cost 10%, so this is what we'll be billing you in the future.
Or the bill would just have a few more items on there because of that?
That's correct.
We would anticipate having that conversation on an annual basis during the budget.
sort of development process to establish if that was a change we wanted to make going forward.
We also have the ability to do it throughout the year if we want to add.
We've done this on certain occasions where we would add a car for a day or for a weekend on a special event or something like that.
Or there's a major piece of equipment that's necessary for an overhaul that maybe was unanticipated.
So we have the ability throughout the year to make adjustments as necessary, but we also have that annual planning process where we'll attempt to really get into what we want to see each year.
Great.
I just think the moving to sort of a monthly reconciliation and conversation also helps a lot with keeping track of where the expenses are going.
That has sort of been a surprise to us several years ago where maybe some of the changes in South Lake Union And the efficiencies may have caught us off guard, and we ended up having to reconcile the books in terms of what the costs actually were.
So moving to a monthly.
coordination helps sort of keep on track with these types of expenses.
Yeah.
And so if things start to move in one direction or the other, we can get notified early that trends are happening.
I recall that a few years ago.
The city owns the facilities, owns the cars.
I assume we bear the risk on that, like if a car started to fail completely.
the county charges us by the hour to do the work on it, but we're ultimately responsible if a vehicle needs to be replaced or something that's not in the county, is that right?
That's correct.
The city still owns the assets for the system, that includes the vehicles, and so if there were something where a car was out of service for a long period of time and needed a major repair to get back into service, that would be the type of probably unanticipated budget, unbudgeted item that we would need to cover.
And so it's still our facility.
We bear the risk.
But we're leveraging the county's expertise in both maintenance and operations and not setting up another arm of SDOT to do that work and letting them do that work.
Absolutely.
In fact, we've consolidated some of the responsibilities that SDOT was doing in prior years precisely for that reason.
And so we've enjoyed a long partnership with the county.
They are the operators of rail service in the county, and so they do have a lot of expertise, and we're hoping to capitalize on that.
That's great.
And what, there's an electric bill on this.
Does the electric bill come to us, or does that come to the county and get reimbursed by us?
It's a bill that primarily, well, the operating facility, or the operating maintenance facility, and then the trolley wire bills, those are operating expenses that the county incurs on behalf of the streetcar, does come back to us in the monthly billing.
There's some complexity, obviously, to have two big government agencies working in partnership on this.
And I'm really impressed at the, I can imagine that it's not always flawless, but from my perspective, and I'm working with partners at the county council and county executive side too, The relationship that seems to exist between the city and the county on all of our transit operations is a really good one.
And I think it's necessary because the county does provide a lot of expertise and they're running this transit agency.
And the city of Seattle has higher needs and desires for higher investment in transit services.
in our jurisdiction.
And so the only way for us to do that is to figure out how we get in the game, but let's do it in a smart and efficient way.
And this partnership that you all have been working on for years has been a really good one, and I look forward to continuing to grow.
So thanks for that.
Anything else I need to know before we move forward on this?
I'm going to go ahead and move agenda item number 10. Thank you, Kelly.
Council Bill 119704. I will also second that and vote yes on it.
And then that will go to the full council.
I believe we're going to go on Monday, right?
Yeah.
So that'll be passed with the budget.
So thanks for your work on this.
Really appreciate it.
Look forward to maybe another 15 years of smooth operations.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And I was going to say colleagues, but guess we're all colleagues of sorts.
I don't have anything else for the agenda today, so we'll go ahead and be adjourned.