Seattle City Council Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee 51221

We are recording.

Good morning.

The May 12, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It is 9.32 AM.

I am Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Chair Strauss?

Present.

5, present.

Thank you.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of the City of Seattle starts with land acknowledgement, since we are the Land Use Committee.

This is not a checklist, nor should it be a rote behavior.

This does not give us a passport or permission to proceed however we desire.

This is a reminder that we must steward our work here in this committee as guests, as our time here on the committee, in the government, and alive is short.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of the City of Seattle begins by acknowledging we are on the traditional land and ancestral ancestral land of the first people of this region past and present represented in a number of tribes and as urban natives and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people of this land.

We start with this acknowledgement to recognize again the fact that we are guests and should steward our land as such as guests.

We are on indigenous land and we want it back.

So I just thought I'd add that.

A welcome addition.

Thank you, Council Member.

We have four items on today's agenda.

A briefing discussion and vote on Council Bill 12068, which extends our street cafe and sidewalk cafe permits for an additional year as currently permitted.

A briefing and discussion of a proposed land use overlay to preserve mobile home parks.

a briefing discussion and vote on Council Bill 120067, which accepts a grant for Department of Neighborhood Census outreach work, and a briefing and discussion on proposed updates to SDCI's technical codes.

The next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will be on Wednesday, May 26, starting at 930 AM.

Before we begin, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will open the remote public comment period for the items on today's agenda.

Before we begin, I ask that everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time.

While it remains our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point.

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I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Public comment period for this meeting is up to 10 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak, but would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

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At that point, the speaker must press star six, not pound six, star six.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item in which you are addressing.

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

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And if you plan to continue following the meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Today, we have three people signed up.

We have Ray Dubicki, Gay Gilmore, and Jesse Crosson.

All are present.

So please, good morning, Ray.

You are up first.

And hang on just a second.

You can press star six.

Just a moment, Ray.

And you are free to take it away.

Hi, council members.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Fantastic.

My name is Ray Dubicki.

I'm a renter in Ballard and I'm speaking on CB 120068. I'm council members.

Thank you for the chance to speak in support of the legislation.

I've been writing about open streets for the urbanist for about a year now, particularly the ones around Seattle that have been formed up in order to let people social distance during this pandemic.

Few have been as successful as the Ballard Avenue.

open street due to coordination between the city and Ballard Alliance and the businesses on the street.

CB 120068 opens the pathway to make this success permanent.

And I really encourage the city council to move ahead with this legislation.

One real quick note, the staff's fiscal note says there is really only one fiscal impact for the proposed legislation.

and that is SDOT forgoing any permit fees associated with giving up parking spaces in front of the businesses.

I just hope that as this legislation moves forward, SDOT and the city will look at how much money the city will be making from sales tax and salaries and other things from people being able to eat and enjoy restaurants and Ballard Avenue in the new pergolas and things outside.

So with that note, I really look forward to making Ballard Avenue's pergola safe streets permanent and hopefully finding other places around the city to do the same.

Thank you very much, council members.

Thank you, Ray.

Up next is Gay Gilmore followed by Jesse Claussen.

Hi, my name is Gay Gilmore and I'm the co-founder of Optimism Brewing Company, Seattle's largest taproom brewery located on Seattle's Capitol Hill.

I'm here also to speak in favor of the street.

Continuation COVID obviously hit our business very hard.

We're incredibly grateful for the temporary street permitting.

We truly would have had to close our doors without this, but the effect goes beyond our survival.

It was an incredible activation for the entire city.

Guests eating in fancy restaurants, right next to a taco window place is powerful.

When you live outside in community with your neighbors, things change.

I'm here to speak in favor of the extension beyond October and rulemaking to make this a permanent feature for our city.

Keep in mind, this is not just about the cute parking space tables that you see around the city.

There are two elements that you might not know about that we in particular benefited from.

First, more liberal food truck permitting, because we do not serve food ourselves, but partner with tens of minority-owned food trucks by moving the food truck off our own parking property to extend our seating into temporary on-street parking.

This was crucial for those trucks' survival during COVID.

It expanded their customers and was a great benefit to activation for our entire neighborhood.

Second, temporary street closures.

Like many businesses, ours actually does not have adjacent parking that we could use for seating.

We do have a small side street that we were able to completely close down just in the evenings and weekends when we would need it.

Creating all of these options took coordination of SDOT police and fire, as well as with our neighbors at a time when no one had any money to put into these things.

There were owners nailing up boards and putting up camping tents just to make it work, but the design will get better.

and the rules for permitting will evolve, and we should give them ample time to do the work right rather than lose this incredible community feeling.

Seattle, we can favor people and businesses that employ them and nourish them over the cars that would normally live in the street.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Gay.

Very well said.

I appreciate your time and the activation that you have brought to Capitol Hill.

Last, we have Jesse Clawson.

Jesse, good morning.

Hello, council members.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Good morning, Jesse.

Great to hear your voice.

Hi, everybody.

It's Jesse Clawson, 701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 6600. I represent the owners of the Bella Bee, which is one of the two mobile home parks which will be impacted by the legislation you're discussing today.

I sent a SEPA comment letter in on Friday.

Um, outlining our concerns with the SIPA checklist and SIPA determination that was prepared by staff.

Um, the SIPA checklist is riddled with errors and it doesn't fully analyze the true impact of this legislation, which could be to put this.

These mobile home parks out of business, which is exactly what the council, I think, is trying to avoid in this situation.

This is legislation that the council really needs to get right.

And there's an opportunity here to actually assist the people who live at the Bellabee and at the Halcyon rather than build them out of existence, which we're very concerned that this legislation is going to do.

I also want to note that it appears as though I'm the only person who is commenting publicly today.

That raises some public participation concerns for me.

During COVID-19, I wonder about council's outreach to the individuals who live in the mobile home parks and asking them what they think this legislation could do for the parks.

In terms of SEPA, we request that the SEPA comment period be extended to 30 days rather than the 14 day optional comment period so that it gives time for staff to actually analyze the SEPA impacts and for council to have that information in front of them before they consider this legislation.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, Jessie.

IT, can you confirm there are no further speakers?

There are no other public comment registrants.

Thank you.

Seeing as we have no additional speakers remotely present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Our first item of business today is a briefing discussion and vote on Council Bill 129. 0068, which extends street cafe and cafe street permits.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the item, the abbreviated title into the record?

Agenda item one, Council Bill 120068, an ordinance relating to street and sidewalk use, amending ordinance 125706 and the street use permit fee schedule in the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you, Mr. Ahn.

We are joined today by Elyse Nelson from SDOT and Calvin Chow Central staff.

Elyse and her team have moved mountains this year to approve street cafe, sidewalk cafe, and curb space permits.

Their team has stretched as far as they can go, which is why I oftentimes refer to their work.

They do wizardly work and can create new uses.

they can, they give us the ability to use our streets in so many new ways.

And it's, as we heard from public commenters, this has saved businesses.

I've heard from many businesses that they have been saved during this pandemic because we allowed them to operate in our streets.

And so I want to thank Elise and her team up front for all of that work to make this possible, to make today possible.

We're gonna hear from Elise and Calvin, and then I have an amendment to add to the legislation This is important that we move as quickly as possible to give businesses the certainty that they need to be successful for the next year, which is why I have an amendment that was not included in the original draft.

Elyse, Calvin, welcome.

Would you both introduce yourselves and take us away?

Good morning, Council Members.

I'm Calvin Chow with Council Central staff, and I'll be doing the presentation of your legislation and amendment, Council Member Strauss.

And Elyse is here to help us with any questions with the program.

Elyse, do you want to introduce yourself?

Yeah, thank you for having me today.

I'm Elyse Nilsson.

I'm the Acting Public Space Manager for Street Use's Public Space Management Group, and I'm happy to be here and help answer any questions you have.

Great, so I'm trying to share.

Sorry.

Council members, so Council Member Strauss, at your direction, I drafted some legislation to extend the cafe streets permit.

If you'll remember, last year SDOT started a new program to allow for temporary business uses of sidewalks and curb space vending displays and cafe uses.

And that program was currently authorized through October 31st, 2021. basically through the street use fee schedule.

A lot of the existing program is administered under SDOT's administration of the right-of-way, and Council's focus to date has really been in establishing the fee schedule.

That could change in the future depending on where the program goes, but the legislation in front of you today amends that street fee schedule to allow the free use permits through May 31st, 2022. It's a very simple piece of legislation.

It literally just changes the table A2, which established the temporary business uses and extends that to May 31st of next year.

You also asked to have a proposed amendment, amendment number one, and this does two things.

It adds a new section two that allows SDOT to waive permit fees for existing long-term permit holders.

And so, those folks who use the right-of-way in a similar way under the long-term permits would have the same fee waiver through May 31st as the temporary users.

And then you also added a new section or you're proposing to add a new section 3 which would direct SDOT to develop a long-term program with a draft proposal due on December 15th and a legislative proposal due on May 31st.

And then Elyse, I don't know if there's any comments or things that you might want to say at this point.

I'll just say that, you know, we support the amendments here and are working steadily to think about what the permanent program should look like.

So this seems totally within reach for us as far as a timeframe.

And Council Member, I don't know that this is a very complicated piece of legislation, but if there are any questions or things that you would like us to get into further, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Calvin.

And colleagues, you know from my past practice, I like to have bills before the committee for two meetings before passing them so as not to rush anything, to ensure everyone has time to comment, ask questions, and have a deliberative process.

Because this bill has been before us before, because this bill is simply changing the date for the extension of the free permits, and because this bill is setting forward a work plan for the pathway to permanency, I would love to be able to move this out of the committee today.

I want to frame our conversation today that we started off with a pilot program, and this is a pathway to permanency.

So, between having a pilot and the permanent regulations, we need to have this interim moment to give SDOT time to complete the final outreach, to ensure that the fee schedule is correct and we are creating spaces that are accessible for all ages and abilities, as well as this legislation will give businesses an additional year of free permits for them to recover from the pandemic.

And so I do want to call out Alisa's team again.

They could have been doing this research and doing this outreach in the last year to create a pathway to permanency right now.

However, they were using their time to ensure that they got as many permits out the door as possible.

And so I just again want to congratulate and thank Elise and her team for spending their time in that way.

Otherwise we would not have as many curbspace sidewalk cafe or cafe street permits out there right now.

So just really good job.

I do see we have a couple of questions.

I see Council Member Peterson and then Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Peterson, please take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thanks for bringing this legislation forward.

I definitely support extending this through, you know, as we are still in the pandemic and businesses are struggling and some of those have made those capital investments to set things up.

I do want to learn more about And I'll have questions when we get closer to anything being permanent.

Just want to better understand.

So SDOT is being asked to come back in December with a plan and then legislation in March.

So what exactly is being made permanent?

The fact that businesses can, that there'll always be this program available to them to for free get to get permits to occupy the space or is it that their existing permits would be made permanent?

Great questions Councilmember.

So this is a pathway to permanency.

Elise has been great in educating me and please Elise jump in if I get any of this wrong that these permits already exist within SDOT's purview.

So Businesses could in the past have applied for these permits.

What has been prohibitive is the cost associated with the permits because in some ways and sometimes they are associated with the amount of money that a parking space would generate in revenue.

We heard from public commenters today that that might not be the right fee to associate with the permit because it's cost prohibitive for the business.

And we're not taking into consideration the other aspects of sales tax revenue generation.

So that's something that we need to look at.

Again, I brought up earlier that we need to make sure that these spaces are accessible for all ages and abilities.

And so there's some of these small tweaks that need to be made to the existing program.

What does need to be legislated is removing the requirement of SDOT to charge a fee.

And so I wanted to provide businesses that additional year to recover without having to pay for these while we finalize these regulations of a currently existing program.

Elise, did I get that right?

Jump in if I missed anything.

No, I think you did a really good job summarizing.

I would just add, like you said, that partly we see this as an extension to give us more time to really work through some of, you know, what we've done so far, what's working well, what maybe could be changed, and really to listen to businesses and residents to hear what their perspectives are.

We haven't had as much time to do that outreach and engagement, so I think in addition to hearing from permit holders and understanding their experience a little bit better.

We also want to make sure we're reaching out and listening to business districts in general and residents to understand what they're seeing and appreciating or not about the program to refine maybe our strategy moving forward into a permanent proposal.

Like Council Member Strauss said, we do have existing tools in our toolbox and so I think That part's there for us, but there might be some refinements that we want to make in addition to thinking about the fees and what's appropriate moving forward.

And to add on to that, which is I always like to be upfront and public about how we're going to do outreach.

So it gives everyone the most opportunity to participate, which is why we wanted to include it in the legislation today.

Thank you, Chair.

So this is, again, it would be making, potentially making permanent the, that it would be a free cost.

There'd be no cost to the business, but it's not necessarily giving somebody a permit in perpetuity.

to occupy that city space?

Correct.

So as permits, permits always have a lifetime that they then have to be renewed.

So even in the last year, the existing permits expired and Elisa's team had to re-review all permits.

So that's why we know, for instance, on Ballard Avenue, 35 out of 36 businesses surveyed We're supportive.

And so no matter when a permit is, you know, they can have a, SDOT can have a permanent pathway.

Permits are always have, always have expirations and have to be renewed.

This legislation does not make these permits free in perpetuity.

The free aspect is only for one year.

And this legislation outlines what additional outreach needs to occur before we make any permanent changes.

If I may just add, our permits are temporary and revocable.

So we can't guarantee a long-term use of the right of way through a permit, but that's not we're not in the game of going out and revoking unnecessarily, but you know, there's no guarantees, I guess, for long-term use of the right of way.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson, any other thoughts, questions?

No, I'll look forward to it in December and then I can ask questions then or leading up to December so that things are incorporated in whatever they provide in December.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Lewis, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm certainly very supportive of this legislation and I appreciate the phasing of this approach.

I actually wanted to ask something sort of related to the end of the discussion with Council Member Peterson just now, which is that I know a lot of business owners have You know, certainly have plans, you know, just from my conversations with a lot of folks who have decided to take on these street areas that have sort of more ambitious plans in the future for the nature of the street area, you know, like putting in.

semi-permanent platforms instead of just having them on the asphalt, on the pavement, putting in other kind of features that, for example, putting it on a platform with a ramp, which could make it more ADA compliant, for example, but also has an impact in sort of putting down a more permanent footprint on the right of way.

Just to put my cards on the table, I'm all for that.

I mean, I see the tension as basically being between use as a streetery or use for vehicle parking.

And I think between those competing interests, I would prefer that we have these street areas that seems to be the overwhelming consensus to most of the businesses I talked to, though I want to say not all.

And that is just anecdotal.

I haven't done like a scientific survey or anything.

The folks that I have talked to have noticed a real uptick in business.

I mean, similarly, Council Member Strauss have spent a decent amount of time on Ballard Avenue, where the streetery program really is credited with giving a real shot in the arm to those businesses during the most bleak times of the pandemic and increasing foot traffic and creating sort of almost a festival-like atmosphere, because you have people outside mixing around.

So going towards the future, I would like to keep that lightning in a bottle in our local economy.

I would like to expand it.

And I would like businesses to be able to make that investment.

to have a quasi-permanent and more sophisticated streetery that does have some of those additional infrastructure improvements instead of just basically a plywood frame that is over the street.

But that would seem to implicate giving a little bit more time and a little bit more guidance and maybe a right of renewal if there is compliance with The permitting, because I could see an issue if we're expecting people to sort of annually kind of reapply to competitive process.

And if it's sort of an arbitrary decision.

People making big investments in these sophisticated street areas.

The city then coming in and saying, actually, we want more parking here.

And I would like a little bit of deference to if a business owner makes this investment, and if they're current on everything, and if they've been complying with the terms of their permit, they can just keep rolling it over.

unless there's some kind of urgent need where the city has to come in, like maybe we have to replace a gas main or something, and it would require removal of the streetery.

But barring something like that, I'd like people to be able to rely on the investment that they've made as a business to keep it there and to keep it in place.

So I guess I just wanted to throw it out there.

I guess that's also sort of feedback and guidance as we continue to develop as a central staff and a department, what that final legislation is going to look like down the road, making sure that we have that consistency and making sure that we have that priority so that people can invest in these more souped up and sophisticated street areas that are also just really great additions to our built environment.

There's a particularly great one in Council Member Peterson's district at Big Time on the Ave, for example.

that is a much more sophisticated structure.

So I don't know if there's necessarily a question there or if that was just more guidance for the conversation, but I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this.

And I appreciate that this is gonna be something coming out of the pandemic that we are gonna really lean into and make a bigger part of what we do in reclaiming street space for social and business uses instead of just single vehicle parking.

Really well said Councilmember Lewis.

I know Elise has educated me many times over about the need to possibly address utility problems underneath the street and that's something that we have to take into consideration as well as I'll highlight term permits by SDOT even for structurally sound pedestrian bridges for instance the one on Westlake in your district They are also on-term permits, and so they have the same legal language that is included in these that are temporary and revocable, and it's for legal reasons, despite the pedestrian bridges being very permanent.

Elyse, do you have any other thoughts to share?

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity.

So I would note that we have had a permanent streetery and Parklet program for several years.

I think it started in 2015. And so we are seeing people, businesses making investments in more kind of permanent type streetery structures.

When we are reviewing something like that, part of our permit review process is really to make sure we're permitting something that we think there's some certainty that it can stay for that business investment reason.

We don't want to be having to work with somebody to remove something in a shorter duration.

You know, we're working with folks that are looking at the modal plans, and is this curb space going to stay for parking?

Is it planned for something different in the future?

We're looking at future construction and utility impacts.

So that's something that we do, because we want to make sure that when people are investing in a curb space, despite the fact we can't guarantee it, that we're doing what we can to limit that future state from occurring.

So I wanted to mention that, and then just to clarify, public space management long-term permits that we issue, they do have an annual renewing cycle, but we don't re-review or kind of make a different decision at a yearly basis.

We're doing work to inspect and to invoice if that's appropriate, but we don't necessarily make a change to their approval at that time.

And if I could just add, I mean, I think you know, since we have seen the growth of the use of these types of uses on our streets, it really is time for broader conversation with, you know, the folks who are taking advantage of that, the folks who are impacted by it to understand, you know, what does that mean for how SDOT administers the program.

That could be administrative changes that are wholly done on the SDOT side that could require legislative changes that will likely require a rate change.

It's probably not a free permit, but how does the cost center sort shift the cost to make that work long-term.

So this is to buy us some time to kind of understand what that is.

And then there'll be time for council to take this up next year.

Thank you, Calvin.

And thank you, Elise.

Very well said.

I've got a couple of questions and I see Vice Chair Mosqueda has some questions.

So I'll wait to see if others ask the questions that I have.

Vice Chair Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the presentation today.

And thank you, Mr. Chair, for bringing forward this legislation.

As you and I chatted yesterday, I mentioned that there was an opportunity that I was trying to eke out of the federal ARPA funds.

to see if there was any way for us to continue or put a mark down to make sure that these type of supports for our smallest restaurants and folks trying to encourage people to get back out and post vaccine, enjoy our local eateries.

If we could include that in ARPA some way and so your legislation is very timely.

I think and probably a more appropriate vehicle for making sure that this program continues and that we do the research necessary.

So I'm very supportive of this.

And as we get additional guidance from ARPA, I think your legislation is probably the best vehicle at this point to make sure that that program continues.

So thanks again for bringing this forward.

The question that I have for the department, you know, one of the One of my favorite local breweries, Optimism, who testified today, had some great examples of how this has been a wonderful asset for allowing them to stay afloat during this time.

And I think that as patrons around the city have noted, this is also something that I think is encouraging people to want to get back out, especially since we all want to enjoy nice days out there and when there's cover, hide from the rain.

One of the things I'm hearing, though, from others is, I guess, a concern around timing.

Is there, are there a few things that you'd like to flag for us in anticipation of the stakeholder discussions that you're to have that you think are the top two or three issues that you're hoping to address as you have stakeholder engagement?

Like, what are some of the concerns that you're hearing that you're hoping to get more understanding of so that we can have policy solutions for?

Thanks for the question.

I think one of the things we want to make sure we're doing is hearing from all of our businesses, like not just people who are participating in the program, you know, but really generally and more broadly business districts and understanding the different needs and wants of the entire community.

So I think one of the issues that comes up is around parking and, um, the loss the impacts that business loss and kind of trying how to think about that from a perspective.

I think during the pandemic, we really saw a need to work and activate as much outdoor space as we could.

So businesses had an available spot to serve customers.

And I think that, you know, we have worked closely with our colleagues in the Curbspace Management Group, and they've been very supportive of the work done so far.

And, you know, I think That's one of the things, the balances that we need to strike.

It's like between the parking and the activation use and just kind of considering what the temperature is among the community for that.

I think that's one main thing.

I think, you know, obviously, I think businesses that have been participating or maybe want to participate will obviously be interested in the fees part of it and what we want to come up with as far as a fee framework moving forward.

I guess the other thing I'd say is we're curious about maybe if we should add more tools to our toolbox, our permitting toolkit, so to speak.

You know, we have seen temporary curbspace cafes and displays pop up.

You know, I mentioned we have a permanent program for streeteries and parklets, but we have about a dozen or so permanent streeteries and parklets where we have over 100 curbspace cafes now.

And so I think it's interesting to think about that shift and what made it more accessible besides the permitting fees, and then how that might frame some new options maybe for temporary uses over the summer.

So in addition to adding more thresholds around the design and permanence for people who want that, maybe we wanna have some more options for kind of temporary use too.

So I'm curious to explore that kind of concept too with with the business community.

Very well said Elyse and I look forward to that discussion about what additional tools we can put in your tool belt to help businesses in our in our city.

Councilmember Lewis I still see a hand.

Is that an old hand?

It is an old hand.

Well, great.

I do have a couple of questions Elise and Vice Chair Mosqueda got to some of it.

Can you, you know, I've heard from many businesses that this saved them over the last year.

you know, the flexibility to use their outside spaces, serving customers during the changing realities of the COVID-19 pandemic has provided them that lifeline because as public health guidance has changed, they're still able to use their outdoor spaces.

Would you be able to share some feedback that you've heard from businesses about what's going well and what's not going well?

Yeah, I've heard similar input, Council Member Strauss, as far as The businesses that have permits really have benefited from being able to use the outdoor space.

I think that we've seen a lot of people think that they're really critical to the success of their business.

And we honestly haven't received a lot of negative feedback.

I think when we have it's been around the loss of parking and just that kind of prioritization of activation and streetery kind of use over parking and what's the right scale for that.

We have been working to make sure that there's clear paths for loading, so we're still thinking about loading when we're looking at activating the curb.

But in general, I think, We haven't received a lot of negative comments to date, but that's one of the reasons we want to make sure to have a robust outreach process.

So we're hearing from people who are really happy and we're hearing from people who may not have permits who want them and like, what's their barriers?

Why are they not applying?

And then, you know, with businesses who might not see a need for this and maybe have some concerns and work through that with them.

So that's kind of what we're excited to do.

And I think we're excited to have this extension because then we give businesses who might not have applied yet an opportunity to make use of this over the summer months and into next year, you know, because I think there might be some concern if they know it expires in October, like would they, do they want to make the investments this summer?

So I'm also excited to continue to work throughout the spring and summer to get more interest in the program that we have now.

pilot program, so to speak.

And I think that'll also help inform the permanent program development.

Thank you.

Well said.

Vice Chair Mosqueda, do you have a question?

Yeah, just that prompted another comment that I'd love to make, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the question and thanks for the answer, Elise.

I also want to echo the other council members' comments about the desire to continue to see decreased number of parking slots overall.

I think this is a great example of how we can activate that space and potentially create additional revenue by generating more economic activity for these smallest businesses, which in turn also helps the city, et cetera.

But as we think about ways to address the loss of parking spaces, making it safer for people to walk and bike is critical, making it more accessible to get on transit is important.

So I'm hoping that the stakeholder outreach also involves a more robust, holistic discussion about what are alternatives to those parking spaces.

Just felt like that needed to be said because parking and The one side of the consequence of losing that space has come up a few times, but I want to lift up the why I think folks are very important in replacing those parking spaces.

And then as I say that, I wanted to mention something that has come up for the last few years, and this is pre-COVID, but especially important as we think about a post-COVID recovery, and that is creating spaces for our musicians and artists to be able to have a space to unload or park their vehicles.

I think it's probably more important to make sure that those artists don't have to run out and pay the meter midway through their gig.

And also recognize that in many cases, artists are not earning large incomes and having to pay a certain portion, whether it's, you know, $15 or $30 on parking as it really eats into the potential revenue for those artists and musicians.

One thing that's come up directly from the artist community is having a space out in front of certain business areas or in certain business districts that allow for them to have free parking.

So that is potentially something to add to your list of stakeholder strategies or discussions to consider so that more musicians can have a place to unload heavy equipment like drums and make sure that they can get in and out of those spaces into places where they're hopefully going to be able to play music very soon and patrons will be able to enjoy it.

And that also allows for them to not have to pay their income back to the city in the form of parking fees.

So I just thought it was a good opportunity to marry those two concepts today.

Well said, Vice Chair, in addition to the fact that artists are not paid enough money to perform for the room that is being entertained, and then they have to split that little bit of money amongst however many people are in their band.

And then to have to pay parking, I mean, well said.

Calvin, I see you have your hand raised.

Hey, council members, I just wanted to I think one of the issues that you all are raising is sort of the issue of thresholds, where it's one thing when maybe one individual business wants to pursue a permit.

That's generally how we've tended to work with these things.

But now we have larger sort of district impacts.

And what does that really mean in the broader context?

And I think that's really what this this new proposal is meant to try to understand is how do we approach that type of request, that type of desire.

So I think there's a question of thresholds and a question of how is the SDOT going to manage that.

That will have to overlap with parking, will have to overlap with curb use.

So I think it remains to be seen just how far this program is going to go.

I think there's a lot of things that they could approach and we'll have to get something that they can actually implement.

It may be incremental as I see that there's a lot of interest in expanding the scope of this.

Well said, Calvin.

And Vice Chair Mosqueda brought up ARPA dollars as an avenue to make this a permanent feature in our city.

And I do want to highlight that there is a need for federal relief to this program because public space management is a fee-based, operates off of the fees that it generates.

And so for Elise and her team to continue operating, they have been operating at a deficit because we have not been charging businesses for these permits.

And so I just want to raise that, Vice Chair Mosqueda, that is a high priority of mine to have them be able to receive some of those ARPA dollars.

Great to talk to you about that yesterday.

Lisa, I just have two more questions.

You know, you've been hearing from me since January and how we can make this permanent.

And I think that the step that we're taking today is the right next step.

Can you speak to some of the reasons why the intermediate step is important before establishing the permanent program?

And what are some of the key considerations in establishing the permanent program?

Yeah, thank you, Council Member Stiles.

I think, like I mentioned, I think extending it is the right decision at this point in time, just because we're already in May and You know, these permits right now expire in October.

And what we've heard is the importance of certainty in the business community.

And so we want to provide that.

And while this doesn't give them like permanent long-term certainty, it does give them some additional benefit of time that they know that they'll have that investment and it will be there for them.

I think that it also allows SDOT more time to do equitable outreach and engagement.

As well as, I think another benefit is to be able to do more promotion of the existing program now ahead of the sunny weather.

If we were trying to do it all before October, I think we would end up doing a lot more of the outreach on what's next as opposed to having the time to really talk to businesses and encourage them to continue to apply and to review those applications that come in.

So I think that's kind of why I support the extension.

I think I've spoken a bit to some of the things I think we need to talk about.

For one, I just wanna hear, I wanna listen and understand what the pulse of business communities are, what different advocacy groups are thinking about this, the disability rights advocates, other stakeholders besides businesses, residents.

I wanna hear from as many people as we can to help inform because I think it's always more powerful when you hear from other people and aren't trying to work too quickly.

So I think that again, the extension allows us to do a more robust and thorough job, reaching out to communities we might not otherwise hear from if we're not doing a thorough job.

So, I think that will help inform some of the characteristics or questions that we need to engage on to think about that permanent program.

But for me, it's about, prioritizing activation and parking and loading and kind of considering the curb space allocation kind of question.

It's about design.

And, you know, do we want to put more specifications on what design requirements we expect?

And then like the permitting toolbox of options.

Do we want to add to the toolkit of options with more options for temporary uses, that kind of thing.

And then fees.

These would be the last thing I would say.

So those are kind of, I think, the big buckets.

Hopefully, I'm not forgetting anything off the top of my head.

But that's what I would say is some of what I expect to kind of get into.

Excellent, thank you.

And I have to again, send my appreciation for continuing to review permits rather than doing the outreach because that has enabled more businesses to utilize these permits.

The certainty that we're providing in this legislation will give our businesses the green light to invest in their outdoor spaces and give them a longer runway to recover.

And businesses using outdoor space impacts a lot of people, not just who's using it.

and this is why we need to ensure all perspectives are considered, just as you just mentioned about the outreach program, as we make permanent changes, what is the process for establishing the permanent program that, I guess, I know what it is, I'm asking rhetorically, and what stakeholder voices do we need to make sure are heard?

Well, I think I want to work with our colleagues in Office of Economic Development to make sure we have a robust list of businesses and business districts and other advocacy groups to represent not just food service, but a variety of different types of businesses.

I also want to work with them to help hear from, you know, different geographies, different businesses that might have less official BIAs, you know, make sure we're getting the word out that we're potentially translating outreach materials and working to have a campaign that hits everyone, everyone with a business in the city of Seattle.

So that's like kind of one bucket.

And then I really think, you know, disability rights advocates are important to talk to and understand what they've been seeing.

We worked to create a video that we have on our website that kind of talks about the importance of making sure you keep the sidewalk clear for people that, you know, are using canes to detect or using wheelchairs.

So I think continuing to work with them on any permanent programs is another kind of stakeholder bucket.

You know, I think those come to mind.

There's probably more, I think more broadly, I'm just interested in hearing from the general public, people who might not be a business owner, but their residents nearby and like what they're enjoying about these spaces or not hearing from that perspective as well.

So, and I think we'll also work with DON to try to share the word more broadly and also understand if there's any other groups that they would recommend that we continue to make sure we reach with our outreach.

And I welcome feedback from you all too, if you have any suggestions for people to make sure to talk to.

And of course, SDOT has a strong equity team internally.

That's a very good resource for them, particularly for some of the location questions that I know people want investigated or looked into.

So it is clear that you have given this much thought.

And with that, I would like to move my amendment one, which does add a new section to allow existing permit holders to.

Existing long-term permit holders through May 31st to be consistent with the free permit program, as well as it outlines the step, the dates in which we will receive a draft proposal by December 15th, ensuring that no one has to work over the holiday break to make sure that that gets in.

And then a legislative proposal due March 31st, 2022, to give us enough time to pass any permanent changes that need to be made before This legislation before us expires on Memorial Day 2022. Again, for reference, the current legislation expires six months from now, and this gives us about 54 weeks of time before this legislation would expire.

So with that, I move Amendment 1 to Council Bill 12068 as shown in Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

It has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 12068. If there are no additional comments, looking, seeing no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Mr. Ahn, the motion carries.

Colleagues, is there any further discussion on the underlying bill as amended?

Seeing none at this time, I just want to highlight, again, the great work of Elise Nelson and the public space wizards that are making this all possible.

We did not have the opportunity to have these permits available in this way last summer.

So this is going to be the first summer that we see this program fully utilized.

And I'm excited to have this legislation before us next Monday on sit into my.

the 17th of May, Norwegian Constitution Day.

And Ballard, we have had the largest sit-in-a-mai parade in the world outside of Norway, and we have not had the opportunity to have that the last two years because of COVID.

And so this is gonna be a really exciting way to celebrate sit-in-a-mai.

Seeing no further discussion, I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 12068 as amended.

Is there a second?

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend the passage of the bill as amended.

If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Stroud?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Thank you, Calvin, Elise, all of the public space wizards.

This will be before full council next Monday on sit in the mine.

Thank you.

Our next item of business today is a briefing and discussion on potential legislation to establish a mobile home park overlay district.

Mr. On, will you please read this item into the record?

Agenda item two, proposed mobile home park overlay district.

Thank you, Mr on this legislation would use our land use code regarding mobile home parks in our city, which provide affordable housing to seniors and working class people.

I'm glad to be to have worked on this and will be introducing legislation with Councilmember Juarez who has worked for years to make.

has been working on this for many years.

This issue was first brought to city council's attention in 2019. And after more than two years of moratoriums and discussion, Council Member Juarez and I are proposing a long-term solution to bring resolution to this important issue.

We are joined by Ketil Freeman of Council Central staff.

And unless other council members have comments before we begin, Mr. Freeman, I guess Council Member Juarez, anything off the top?

Thank you.

Mr. Freeman, please take it away.

Hello, committee.

There's a lawnmower going outside, so I apologize for that in advance.

If you have any problems hearing me, just let me know.

Today, there's an initial briefing on a proposal to establish a mobile home park overlay district attached to the agenda.

You have a memo from me that includes a draft of the bill.

And there's also a presentation which I'll walk through here in just a minute that describes the legislative history, background and context, and the proposed overlay district and next steps.

So unless you have any questions, I'll just launch, I'll share my screen and launch into the presentation.

Alright.

Let me get oriented here.

As Council Member Strauss mentioned, Council Member Strauss and Council Member Juarez have been working on a proposal to replace the ongoing temporary moratorium on redevelopment of mobile home parks.

Let me get over to the right page here.

That moratorium was initially established in 2019 through Ordinance 125-764.

Sort of the instant cause of that proposed moratorium was intended to reduce pressure on the city's two remaining mobile home parks at the time the Halcyon mobile home park was up for sale and potential purchasers were looking at redevelopment proposals for that mobile home park.

The temporary moratorium has been extended for three additional six-month periods through ordinances 126-006, 126-090, and most recently through ordinance 126-241.

The current moratorium will expire in July.

A SEPA threshold determination has been issued for the proposed Mobile Home Park overlay district, and we are in the middle of the SEPA comment slash appeal period as council for the Bellaby mentioned in her comments.

So background and regulatory context, the city's two remaining mobile home parks, the Bellaby and the Halcyon are both like located in the Bitter Lake residential urban village.

I'll just use my cursor here.

Hopefully you can see it.

They're both like located here in kind of the southeast corner of the urban village.

Zoning in the vicinity is commercial zoning.

There's some confusion about what the actual zoning is now, and that's in part because official city maps don't reflect the correct zoning.

The council intended to upzone, to actually to keep the zoning at C-140 through the MHA implementation ordinance and made that recommendation through the committee process.

Unfortunately, that recommendation was not reflected in the final piece of legislation that was acted on by council.

So the zoning for the site is C-155M, which informs the overlay concept as a regulatory approach.

The sites are located, for those just to orient everybody, it's located to the east of Aurora Avenue North.

You can see kind of in the picture over here to the right, some of the PUDS golf course and just above it, a Lincoln Towing Yard.

Both of those sites are currently being redeveloped or are the subject of purpose redevelopment.

There are approximately 240 units proposed for both of those sites.

Any council members have any questions about the context here?

I guess I should mention that, as you all know, residential urban villages have growth estimates, so not quite targets, but estimates of how much growth may occur in an urban village over the 20-year planning period.

Bitter Lake is well on its way towards achieving its growth target.

It's about 30% of its growth target has been achieved in about the six years of the 20-year planning period.

So how do other jurisdictions preserve mobile home parks?

This is not an issue that's unique to the city of Seattle.

A lot of jurisdictions, as part of their affordable housing strategies, have put in place preservation regulatory schemes to help preserve mobile home parks, which are a source of nationally occurring affordable housing.

Tumwater, as many of you know, has a mobile home park zone that was created in 2008 that was the subject of a lawsuit in federal court and zoning for Tumwater was upheld.

Bothell has had a mobile home park overlay since about 1996 to promote retention of parks with rental lots.

And Kenmore most recently adopted an approach to preserve the existing mobile home parks in Kenmore, phased zoning with a 10-year horizon for certain mobile home parks and longer-term protection for two mobile home parks.

I think this has been the subject of a growth board appeal and may still be on the growth board.

So the proposed overlay, what would it do?

It would establish, maybe just for the interest of demystifying some jargon here, you may wonder what is an overlay or folks may wonder what is an overlay.

It's a supplemental, typically more restrictive set of development standards that are on top of the underlying zoning.

So they overlay the underlying zoning.

Seattle has many overlay districts.

Probably the one that people are most familiar with is the Shoreline Overlay District.

which is a set of more restrictive development standards that are in place in the shoreline to preserve the shoreline for water-dependent and water-related uses.

That shoreline, that overlay implements the Shoreline Management Act, sort of an overlay that the city operationalizes on behalf of the state.

Every jurisdiction in Washington does that.

And Mr. Freeman, I see Council Member Juarez, would you like to ask your question now or wait until the end of this?

Oh, I just want to make a clarification keel if we can and chair, just so when people are watching.

It isn't just a mobile home park.

These are manufactured mobile home parks in which they're actually homes that are cemented down with a pad in which people took out loans to buy their homes and they actually lease it.

So I think what we are hearing in the last two years and all the public comment, all the hearings that we've had when the residents came down from Bella Bee and Halcyon made it very clear to us the visits that we have physically made there These aren't like trailer courts.

These are actual homes, manufactured homes.

And that's a big distinction.

So I just wanted to make sure we're clear on that.

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

And you are correct.

And of course, an associated difficulty with relocating those mobile homes is that if they are old, if the manufactured home is old, relocation is not really an option.

And relocation ultimately results in the destruction of the mobile home.

Correct.

Thank you.

They can be, they're just like a home.

They can be, they can make, not make payments on their mortgage.

So they're not actually, you know, moving around.

They're actually cemented down as homes.

So thank you.

Yeah.

So what would the overlay do?

Um, it would limit residential uses to mobile homes and mobile home parks.

That would be the only kind of residential use, um, allowed, um, in the overlays out.

It would establish a minimum and maximum residential densities for mobile home parks in the overlay.

It would allow some commercial uses.

So as I mentioned earlier, the zoning here is commercial, and so some commercial uses would be allowed, but it would limit the size of those uses.

There would be heightened setback limitations for commercial uses to make that consistent with ongoing mobile home park residential use.

And then there would be some development standards that would kick in if a mobile home park was redeveloped.

Specifically, if somebody really redeveloped a portion of the mobile home park above a 25% threshold, they'd be required to provide some amenities for mobile home park residents.

Finally, the mobile home park would be temporary.

I mean, the mobile home park overlay would be temporary.

It wouldn't last forever.

And the SEPA analysis contemplated a period for up to 50 years.

The legislation that will be introduced on this coming week would have a period of less than that.

There's one other piece here.

It's sort of a nod.

There's a non-codified section of the bill I want to bring to your attention.

It requests that the Office of Housing add this particular census tract to census tracts that are eligible for Affirmative marketing and right to return policies.

Those are elective policies that applicants to the city for affordable housing funds can choose to participate in.

Bitter Lake, Hollow Lake is eligible for designation for those policies because it is an area identified in the comprehensive plan as being at a high risk of displacement.

Next steps, the PPAP period will end on May 17th.

A public hearing is currently scheduled for this committee on May 26th.

I mentioned that the current moratorium expires on July 10th.

Consequently, if the council wanted to enact something to be effective before that expiration, a full council vote should happen no later than June 2nd.

So that's the presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys might have.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Council Member Juarez, is that a new hand?

Yes, that is my Indian name, New Hand.

Hey, Ketel, when we were looking at the memos that you had written, can you just clarify something for people that are watching?

I don't know if it was the Tumwater or the Bothell case, but with the overlay, there are some particular uses that can be also in addition to, correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

So, you know, it's, the jurisdictions that I mentioned, Bothell, Tumwater and Kenmore, they allow uses in addition to mobile homes.

And sort of the circumstances is a little bit different for many of those mobile home parks.

I believe many of them are already in residential areas as opposed to the cities remaining too, which is in a commercial area.

But the types of uses that would otherwise be allowed in those, in Tumwater, Bothell and Kenmore are the types of uses that you would generally find in a residential area.

So schools, institutions, daycares, childcares, in-home, senior care, or senior living homes, those are all uses that are allowed under the regulatory regimes in those jurisdictions.

or similar uses.

And those are some of the concerns that we heard from the people that live there, that we have these complimentary uses that are allowed under the law.

So it isn't just manufactured mobile homes, but uses that the people could actually use.

That's right.

And accessory uses to a mobile home park would be allowed as well.

So for example, if a mobile home park operator wanted to expand a laundry or recreational facilities or something like that within the mobile home park, there would be no limitation on that activity.

Was that, when you were talking about the Tumwater, was that the Laurel Park case?

Yes, I believe so.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm good.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Very good questions, helping to clarify some of what has been discussed.

I think one of the things that I want to highlight again, Council Member Juarez pointed out that these are for manufactured homes, which in effect, you know, you can get a mortgage for.

You own that home.

It is cemented to a foundation.

And when they are old, if they are moved, they they could be destroyed.

And so while you own the manufactured home, you do not necessarily own the land underneath you, which is, so you could be paying a mortgage on a home that you don't own the land.

And if you had to move that manufactured home, it would be destroyed.

So that is the crux of what we're talking about here today.

Colleagues, any other questions on this briefing?

Legislation has not been introduced.

There is a draft for review on Legistar on the council's website.

Seeing no further questions, I just want to again, thank Ketil for your work on this legislation.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez for keeping this well-defined and refined.

And thanking everyone from public, we heard from in public comment this morning.

When this legislation will be, it will be, formally introduced after the SEPA comment period has ended next week.

And we will hold a public hearing and possible vote in the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on May 26th, starting at 9.30 a.m.

Mr. Chair, may I add one other comment?

Please.

As we heard from the attorney in public comment, the letter that we received, I'm just going to put this out there just to be candid.

We had many public hearings and many trips.

In fact, I think two buses of the elders and people that came from Bellabee and Halcyon to City Hall to provide public comment.

So we've had two years of public comment in person and in writing and numerous visits by my office and I think your office and Council Member Solan's office to Bellabee and Halcyon to hear what their issues and concerns are.

So this has been well vetted as far as I'm concerned and I'm certainly welcome more but I just want to disabuse anyone of the notion that nobody has spoken to the individuals and the families that actually live there.

So thank you.

Well said Council Member Juarez.

We have held a public hearing every six months for the last two years on this topic.

With that, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Thank you, Ketel and Council Member Juarez.

Our next agenda item is Council Bill 12067, which accepts a grant for the Department of Neighborhoods.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Item three, Council Bill 12067, an ordinance relating to the 2021 budget authorizing the director of the Department of Neighborhoods to accept a grant and execute related agreements.

Thank you.

Joining us for this item today is Elsa, and my apologies if I get this wrong, Beatrice Boni from the Department of Neighborhoods.

Elsa, you joined us at our last committee meeting.

It's great to see you again.

Can you walk us, and it was a great presentation you had for us last time, can you walk us through this legislation with the presentation that you have ready?

Yes, thank you, and welcome.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

Let me see if I can, I have the presentation here.

Well, good morning, everybody.

Thank you for having me here.

My name is Elsa Batres Barney.

I almost got it there.

Very phonetical.

I am a Civic Engagement Advisor for the Department of Neighborhoods, and I'm here to present information for our request to accept this grant that we got for some post-census engagement efforts that we are doing.

We got this grant through the National League of Cities, and it's a grant that it's meant to support the work that we did for the census.

And we will keep hearing about the census and how important it is because it is.

And so this is in support of a national trend to make sure that we keep the connections that we built throughout our census, very successful outreach efforts, and making sure that communities are engaged through different programs.

And so The basic grant was to support the continuous efforts on this.

And it's a small grant of $20,000, but this will go to fund directly a very good strategy that worked really well in the census efforts, which was making sure that community members got some kind of compensation for their work.

So as I presented last week or so, We have this new version of the People's Academy for Community Engagement, which now it's a digital version and a shorter version that we are doing in partnership with community-based organizations that participated in the census, mostly BIPOC communities.

And so this is what I have the information for you.

The program is going.

It's going great.

And we are using those funds to support that effort.

So we have to get this funds out by July 31st.

That's why they need to do it today.

And we are halfway through our programs for the year.

So that's what I have for you council members Strauss and everybody.

Thank you, Elsa.

I only have one question.

Colleagues, if you have other questions, please feel free to jump in.

I believe you mentioned that there's a timing issue, which is why we're considering this grant through separate legislation rather than the usual grant acceptance ordinance.

Can you speak to the timeline you expect to have this program up and running?

Yes.

Actually, this grant, we're basing it on somebody else's grants.

This funds came from It was not really left over, but this initiative to keep funding efforts from the census work.

And so we need to spend this money before July 31st.

So we need to get this grant out to the organizations that we have partnered with.

So I don't know if that answers your question.

Yes, it does.

And I see our finance chair, vice chair Mosqueda has her hand up, vice chair.

Thank you so much.

Not necessarily to that comment.

I just wanted to thank Elsa and her team for their work.

When we were deliberating the budget last year, I think there was some questions about, you know, what the ongoing funding would go to and, you know, since this was over.

And so Elsa really did have an opportunity to educate me and I know other members of the council and the public about the work that they're doing.

And Elsa, this is just sort of the tip of the iceberg in terms of the type of work that you're currently doing.

And just wanted to give you a chance to feature some of the post-census work that you've done.

You've mentioned the importance of keeping those connections and relationships and really rebuilding trust, especially with government in the wake of the last four years of the federal administration.

But wanted to thank you for your work and for continuing to educate us on how you're broadening out those networks and the value of it for good public service.

Thank you, Nelson.

Yeah.

Elsa, I mean, we had the same thing to say, well said.

And thank you, Elsa, for all of your work.

Colleagues, any other questions?

This is very straightforward.

And because you were in our last committee presenting about the PACE program and all of your census work, I guess it's not surprising because you did a great job sharing with us all of the amazing work that you've done with census numbers coming in higher rates and the people that you tapped to work with you.

Colleagues, I'm not seeing any questions, so unless there is further discussion, we can now vote on this bill.

I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 12067. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez and Vice-Chair Mosqueda.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

If there are no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Thank you, Elsa, and to everyone at Department of Neighborhoods for your amazing work.

This will be back before full council next Monday on Sit and Demind.

Our final agenda item for today is a briefing and discussion of new technical codes from SDCI.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Agenda item four, proposed updates to the Seattle grading code, steam engineer and boiler operator license code, and Seattle construction codes errata.

Thank you, Mr. Ahn.

This conversation today is timely as May is building safety month.

which is recognized every year to raise awareness about the importance of building safety and the critical nature of good technical building codes.

Happy Building Safety Month, everyone.

We are now joined by presenters from SDCI.

Will you please introduce yourself and feel free to take it away.

Morning, everyone.

I'm Micah Chappell, Technical Code Development Manager for the Department of Construction and Inspections.

I'm joined today by Edie Courtney, our Site Review Program Manager.

and Chief Boiler Inspector Steve Frazier.

We're going to be walking through a short presentation that Steve is going to be sharing for us.

I appreciate Steve's effort in moving our slides since my bandwidth is having a little trouble this morning.

So next slide, please.

This legislation is going to cover, again, some changes to the grading code and the boiler steam engineer and boiler operator license law.

as well as some Seattle construction code or RADA.

And it's brought to you by SDCI, where our purpose is helping people build a safe, livable, and inclusive Seattle.

And we do that by using and incorporating equity, respect, quality, integrity, and service in all that we do.

Next slide.

Today, we're going to be covering a few quick slides on our grading code, steam engineer, and boiler operators license law and our construction codes are at.

Next slide.

For the grading code, the primary intent of this update is to align with the stormwater code.

Previously, the grading code and stormwater codes were a single code, but they were divided for the ease of use, but it's important to keep them aligned.

And that is the primary reason we're moving forward with some changes to that code.

SDCI did provide significant outreach to various organizations in 2021, and we did incorporate suggested changes that the development community made.

Next slide.

Some of those will be threshold revisions, definition clarifications, and exemption changes.

Next slide.

The threshold changes you will see in this small graph there are going to include those changes to land disturbing activities where we are lowering that threshold from one acre to 5,000 square feet.

We are also changing the surface or excuse me, replacement of hard surface from 2,000 to 750 square feet.

In other words, when those thresholds are lowered, that means you will need to obtain a permit a little earlier when you're doing these activities, as well as we're adding areas where you're extracting groundwater, dewatering wells for construction remediation or what those are for.

Next slide.

The definitions that were changed in the revisions for the grading code are changing impervious surface to hard surface.

That is an alignment issue with the stormwater code.

And then we are indicating that the potentially hazardous locations will include any state or federal listed list or database areas that include potential contamination.

Next slide.

The exemption changes that I mentioned include utility exceptions, and the change to that will be new installations will no longer be exempted from these review and permit requirements in environmentally critical areas, and additionally, for new stormwater systems for short plats and subdivisions.

We are also removing an exemption for underground storage tank removal or replacement.

Next slide.

For the storm, excuse me, for the steam and boiler operator update, this ordinance, excuse me, this law is fairly outdated with deficiencies.

There were areas where you would have to take a step back in licensing to take a step forward in licensing, if that makes any sense at all.

So we wanted to correct that.

We are also moving to the Acela platform for application and the issuance process for permits.

And so that necessitated rewriting some of the municipal code.

And then we are changing areas to a gender neutral language.

This was previously called the steam and boiler fireman operator licensure law.

And so we are now calling it, excuse me, fireman license law.

And we are changing that to a steam and boiler operator language throughout this code.

All these changes were reviewed and recommended by the Steam License Advisory Board.

Next slide.

The Steam License and Boiler Operator Board is comprised of public stakeholders that are appointed by the director of SDCI, and you can see the list included here on this slide.

Next slide.

Lastly, there's a piece of legislation that is covering some construction code errata As you are aware, we did adopt earlier this year our 2018 Seattle codes.

There were some errors and omissions in there, and we had some inconsistencies with some of the Washington state regulations, and we are just providing some errata to fix that.

One of the primary ones is there's a correction to the plumbing fixture table.

That table identifies the requirements for providing plumbing fixtures, and there was a column that was missing that we wanted to make sure we got in there as quickly as possible.

Other corrections are just changes to language where we had minor errors, like we had an and when it should have been an or or something similar to that, and then other omissions.

Also, we verified that some of our code references in various sections of the codes referenced sections that were not accurate, so we wanted to correct that.

And then some of the language and state changes that we adopted was not identical, and so we wanted to make sure that we got that corrected.

And that's what this errata legislation does.

Next slide.

And that's the end of the presentation.

For that, we are here and available for questions, both all Steve, Edie, and myself.

Thank you.

Micah, great to see you again.

First question is high level.

Can you, the last time we saw you, it was when you had the construction and energy codes before us.

Can you remind us the difference between these code changes and the construction and energy codes?

So these code changes, the licensure law is a separate Seattle Municipal Code.

and not an actual construction, not a construction code that stands alone by itself as part of the Seattle Municipal Code, as well as the grading code.

They're part of the Title 22, excuse me.

There's so many of them.

I have to keep them all straight.

So the boiler licensure law is something separate, but the grading code is part of the Seattle Municipal Code, Title 22. And then the construction code errata are various errata energy.

There's one in there for the energy code where it was a minor omission in one of the sections.

We have some from the building code and several from the building code as well.

So that's kind of the difference.

Hopefully that gives you a little bit of answer.

Yes, that's helpful.

And should we be expecting any other code updates this year?

I don't anticipate any additional code updates.

If there is anything that should come forward, it would be additional errata, but I'm hoping we have captured the majority of those.

There may be another errata piece of legislation, but I do not anticipate that before the end of the year.

Great.

And I think having a meeting to dive a little bit deeper into some of these would be helpful.

Always great to see you, Micah.

Thank you.

Off-topic question, where is your background?

That is a lake in North Idaho, actually.

That is great.

Which lake was it?

I want to say that's Lake Pend Oreille.

That's how you say it?

You mean Pend Oreille?

Yes, he means Pend Oreille.

Is it?

OK.

It's French.

Yeah.

There you go.

Sorry.

We want that back.

I love it.

I love it.

Colleagues, any other questions on this presentation?

We are not putting this up for a vote today.

It will be before the committee again on May 26th for further discussion and possible vote.

Last question here, Micah.

Is there a time requirement for us to pass this out of committee on the 26th?

Yes, sir, there is.

The stormwater changes are going to affect on July 1st.

of this year and so we would like to align with that and if it is passed out of committee on the 26th, I think we should become close to meeting that adoption date.

Great.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions?

Seeing none, no items for the good of the order.

Typically, this committee has run past noon, and today we are on an opposite schedule.

So this concludes the May 12th, 2020 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

As a reminder, our next committee will be on May 26th, starting at 9.30 AM.

Thank you all for attending.

We are adjourned.

Thank you, Micah.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Noah.

Thank you, Monica.

Thank you, Amelia.

You missed somebody.

Son, who else did I miss?

Andrew.