Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Affordable Housing (MHA) - Special Meeting - Public Hearing

March 12, 2018 Special Meeting of the Select Committee on Mandatory Housing Affordability.

My name is Rob Johnson.

I'm the chair of the committee, and I know I'm joined so far by Council Member Juarez, who's coming up right now, and I will be joined later on by a couple of other colleagues.

Tonight is our public hearing focused on Districts 5 and District 6 and the proposed zoning changes in Districts 5 and 6 to implement the City's Mandatory Housing Affordability Program.

want to orient you to the discussion tonight.

We're going to first bring up someone from the City Planning Department to give an overview and ground everybody in the proposed zoning changes in District 5 and District 6 and then we will go through the public hearing portion.

That overview should probably take about 20-25 minutes and then right around 6 30 we'll start the public hearing.

Right now we've got about 70 folks signed up to give public comment and we'll give everybody there two minutes So if that sticks according to schedule, we should be out of here between 9 and 9 30 I want to officially read this item into the record and that's council bill 119 184 an ordinance relating to mandatory housing affordability Rezoning certain land and modifying development standards throughout the city implementing MHA requirements and modifying existing development standards to improve livability With that out of the way, I'd like to now welcome up Sarah Maxana.

We will have her do a brief overview of the District 5 and District 6 proposed changes, and then we'll officially open the public hearing so that everybody has their chance for two minutes.

Sarah.

Yes, this is on.

I'm Sarah Maxano with the City of Seattle, and I've been with the Office of Planning and Community Development, which has been the lead on doing the planning process, environmental review, community engagement over the last three years that shaped the proposal that is in front of Council today.

And so I'm going to spend a little bit of time giving an overview of what MHA is, giving a quick overview of each of the urban villages or neighborhoods in District 5 and District 6, and then wrap up a little bit with some next steps.

I see a lot of familiar faces out there, so I know some of you probably could give this presentation as well as I can.

So let's see if we can Fit this on here.

Mandatory housing affordability.

First and foremost, even though we are going to be in the weeds talking about zoning changes.

And the land use code, what this is about is creating more income and rent-restricted housing that would be affordable for 75 years and creating housing for our most vulnerable populations, so those low-income households that are struggling to stay in Seattle.

The goal of the MHA, mandatory housing affordability, is to create at least 6,000 units.

It complies with the state mechanism.

It's a mechanism that's in place, typically called inclusionary zoning, in place in a number of other cities throughout the state.

And essentially here what you see is a picture without MHA.

This is a building that's about five stories of residential over a ground floor of retail market rate building under current code, there'd be no affordability requirement in the development that you see like this today.

In the future with MHA, an additional amount of development capacity is given.

That's shown in the green.

Typically for a building this size, it would be one additional story.

But with that, we get the market rate, we get market rate development, but we also get the contribution either to affordable housing on site or a contribution to the city's funds.

So this proposal came out of the housing affordability and livability agenda process, which spanned from 2014 to 2015 recommendations that came out that summer.

Council adopted a resolution that fall that directed city staff to go out and work with community and do technical analysis on policy and environmental impacts for two years to develop a proposal.

So over the last two years, the Department of Neighborhoods has led a planning process and an engagement process that's included over 200 in-person meetings, but also a lot of ways to engage online.

There's been a real focus and deliberate effort to engage underrepresented communities, so those communities that might have language barriers or other impediments to being involved or being at the table.

So we've done a lot of work in language, we've done a lot of work going to where communities are meeting already.

There are a couple of distinct ways to highlight that that community engagement shaped the proposal.

Some of the things that we heard very loudly and clearly throughout that process was that there is a desperate need for more affordable housing in the city.

Particularly to this program, we heard a lot of viewpoints that varied on the extreme of the spectrum of yes, we love this or no, we really hate this.

But in the middle, we definitely heard a lot of interest in tailoring the program to different communities based on the characteristics there.

So looking particularly at the risk of displacement of current residents and recognizing that some communities are at higher risk of displacement as their neighborhoods change and grow.

Really looking at ways to create more housing choices that can provide family size housing, ownership opportunities, particularly on quieter streets close to parks and schools.

We heard a lot about supporting transit and really encouraging more housing choices, sorry, more housing choices close to transit.

I'll try to move around more so I'm not blocking anyone consistently.

And then importance of sense of place, improving urban design, a lot of comments and interest in looking at how buildings look, finding ways to promote sustainability including supporting trees and transit use.

So I want to walk through the urban villages in districts five and six.

And urban villages, as many of you are familiar with, are the 30 or so urban villages that were defined in the city's comprehensive plan in 1994. And they were deliberately defined to be places where the city would encourage more residential and employment growth and also focus more investments in transit and infrastructure and assets.

And so in districts five and six, We have nine different urban villages that we'll talk about, but then there's also some other multifamily and commercial zoned areas outside of those urban villages where MHA would also apply.

So there are a couple of principles that applied to all urban villages.

One was that the proposal includes comprehensive rezones.

Again, rezone is where we give that additional development capacity in all urban villages.

So it was applied, there were no urban villages that were taken out of the proposal.

And also looked at all other multifamily and commercial zoned lands throughout the city.

This map very quickly shows in pink, those are the areas where MHA rezones were already adopted by City Council last year.

So MHA applies in those communities today.

The rezone proposal that's in front of Council now includes all of the areas in teal.

And the teal includes all of the urban villages and basically all other multifamily and commercial zone areas.

The areas in beige would not contribute to MHA.

Those are areas that are zoned industrial, historic, shoreline, or single family.

So what we did, sorry we won't be able to get through all the slides if we take questions, but what we did here again, as I noted earlier, was to vary the zoning proposal based on community characteristics.

And the characteristics that we heard a lot about fall into the two categories that we discussed in the city's comprehensive plan.

Displacement risk, which looks at characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics of the community that lives there.

And then access to opportunity, which looks at more of the built environment and the transit, the infrastructure, and the other components of a community.

And access to opportunity is a way to relatively compare neighborhoods in terms of the infrastructure and assets that they have to support a growing population.

And displacement risk is a way of evaluating the relative degree to which communities are going to be particularly vulnerable to displacement as those communities change and grow.

So in District 5, there are four urban villages, and they fall in different quadrants on this matrix.

You've got Aurora-Licton Springs right there that's on the border of high and low displacement risk and in low access to opportunity.

You've got Bitter Lake, Northgate, and Lake City that are all in high risk of displacement and in different quadrants for access to opportunity.

And the principle here was that for areas that are at high risk of displacement wanting to be particularly conscientious about the level or amount of change that was being proposed through this rezone.

So walking through the urban villages one by one very quickly.

Aurora-Licton Springs in District 5, the primary principle here is that in communities with low access to opportunity, so the ones that lack a lot of the infrastructure and assets to support that growing population, to moderate the rezone proposal.

There's still a rezone being proposed for every single parcel in that urban village, but there's more of what we call N-level changes.

N is the single tier, the minimum necessary to put the program in place.

But scattered throughout, you'll see a little bit of M1 and M2.

Those are larger scale re-zones.

And with those larger scale re-zones, there's a commensurate larger amount expected in terms of the affordability requirement.

A couple other changes in Aurora-Licton Springs that are being proposed in response to community feedback.

Heard a lot about the desire to go from commercial to neighborhood commercial to promote more of a walkable environment along the Aurora Avenue corridor.

But for the most part, most areas in Aurora-Licton Springs are staying at the same relative level of density.

So if they're low rise today, they're going to remain low rise, just with a little bit more development capacity allowed.

Bitter Lake, a little bit further north, is a community that's at high risk of displacement.

And so for any community that's at high risk of displacement, we propose mostly M-level changes.

That's the minimum necessary to put the program in place, with the exception of nodes around frequent transit.

So like light rail, which is not the case in Bitter Lake, but other intersections of frequent transit, sometimes we propose some M1 and M2 changes there to really encourage more housing choices close to that transit.

Here in Bitter Lake, the primary principle again, high risk of displacement, so just the minimum to put the program in place.

Most multifamily areas in the rezone remain multifamily.

There is a good deal of commercial zoning along Aurora Avenue.

We do propose changing just a little bit of it to neighborhood commercial at the intersection of 130th to try to create more of a walkable node there.

Lake City is an urban village that is entirely multifamily and commercial today.

Again, the primary principle is it is a community at high risk of displacement on that index in the comprehensive plan.

And so we're proposing M changes throughout the urban village.

Most multifamily areas remain in the same low-rise zone.

Lake City was one of the urban villages that also had a recent planning process, so these rezones were consistent with that multi-year planning process that went on there.

And finally, Northgate is the last urban village in D5.

The primary principle, again, as with the last two, this is a community at high risk of displacement, so it's mostly M-level changes that are being proposed throughout the urban village.

The exception, though, is that Northgate is a future light rail station, and there are proposed some of those larger scale changes, M1 and M2, to really try to encourage more housing clustered around that future light rail station.

In particular, this SM zone, it's called, is Seattle mixed Northgate, and it's a tailored zone that came out of a planning process that was roughly seven or eight years there.

It includes some specific design guidelines to encourage more of a conversion from what is now a fairly auto-oriented community to a more pedestrian-scale community.

So moving to District 6, there are five urban villages in District 6. And all five of them are in this quadrant on this matrix.

So they are high access to opportunity.

So relatively on this scale, compared to other communities in the city, have more of the building blocks, the infrastructure, the assets to support growth as those communities change.

And they are all on the low displacement risk.

And again, these are relative scales.

So this is in comparison to other neighborhoods.

They fall in that high access to opportunity, low displacement risk.

Starting out with Ballard, there's two primary principles that informed the proposal.

One is that, again, because this is a high access to opportunity, low risk of displacement, there are proposed some larger rezones so that you see some more M1 and M2 level changes being proposed throughout the neighborhood.

And also in any neighborhood that The urban village did not already encompass the full 10-minute walk around frequent transit We are proposing to expand the urban village boundaries to include that full 10-minute walk shed So this did not apply to any of the district 5 urban villages because they were all already included that 10-minute walk shed but Ballard is the first one here in district 4 that does include an expansion to the east of To include the full 10 minute walk shut around the frequent transit node.

There are no proposed changes again, consistent with the citywide approach to the historic preserved area on Ballard Ave.

The institutional overlays are in the industrial zones.

Crown Hill, similar to Ballard, the two primary principles are this is a community at relatively high access to opportunity and low risk of displacement.

And so you see more M1 and M2 changes that are being proposed throughout the urban village.

And similar to Ballard, because it did not include that full 10 minute walk shed around that frequent transit node that's defined at 15th and 85th, The proposal includes an expansion of that urban village to include that full 10 minute walk shed.

Crown Hill also has some commercial zones in Long 15th and Holman Road today, and we're proposing converting that to neighborhood commercial.

Neighborhood commercial brings the development up to the sidewalk and encourages design features that are more pedestrian friendly rather than kind of the big box with a sea of parking.

So trying to convert that to neighborhood commercial to encourage more of a walkable community.

This is the neighborhood of all of the ones that are being discussed today that includes the most single family zoning today.

And that single family is being proposed to go to either residential small lot or low rise, which both allow a few more housing units per site.

Fremont, dipping down Fremont, primary principle again, as with all of the D6 urban villages, is that community with high access to opportunity, low risk of displacement, you see more M1 and M2 changes being proposed.

There is some commercial zones along Stoneway in the Fremont urban village, and the proposal is that they would go to neighborhood commercial.

Some of them would go to neighborhood commercial, again, to encourage more walkability.

There's the urban village similar to Lake City, I believe, is entirely multifamily and commercial today.

And we do have, both in Fremont and then coming up in Green Lake, a proposal that anywhere that you are within 500 feet of a major freeway, so Aurora or I-5, we propose a 500 foot buffer.

So we only put the minimum changes to put the program in place within that buffer.

So you don't see any of the larger scale changes right on top of the freeway out of concern for air quality and noise.

Next, moving to Greenwood Finney Ridge.

Greenwood Finney Ridge, again, same primary principle as the other D6, high access to opportunity, low risk of displacement.

You see more M1 and M2 changes.

A big difference here, though, as you can see in the map here, Greenwood Finney is a very narrowly drawn urban village, and there is no proposed urban village expansion here.

And that's because the definition of frequent transit that we were using Greenwood Finney did not meet that definition at the time of the environmental review and so no expansion is being considered here today.

And there's similar to Fremont no single family zoning in the urban village.

Finally, sweeping around to Green Lake, again, high access to opportunity, low risk of displacement.

So you see more M1 and M2 changes being proposed.

See some two and three story height increases along the arterials of Green Lake Way and Ravenna Boulevard.

Some limited amount of single family that is being proposed to go to low rise.

And then again, because of I-5 that comes here along the eastern edge, minimizing those changes within 500 feet of the freeway.

Then, outside of the urban villages, there is a fair amount of commercial and multifamily zoning along many of the major arterials throughout Districts 5 and District 6. MHA would also apply in those areas.

In all of the areas outside of urban villages, it is M-level changes that are being proposed.

Again, M-level is the minimum necessary to put the program in place.

In most cases, where a three-story building would be allowed today, under MHA, a four-story building would be allowed.

One issue to highlight is that in a number of these urban villages, there's commercial zoning.

Commercial zoning is certainly a very important part of the economic vitality of the city and a source of jobs.

The urban form or the feel of development in commercially zoned areas tends to be a little more auto-oriented and heavier in terms of the uses.

And in our urban villages, we have a long standing policy in our comp plan to try to move toward neighborhood commercial zoning rather than commercial neighborhood commercial brings the development up to the sidewalk.

You tend to have retail or other uses to engage with at the sidewalk level.

Parking is either reduced or underground or behind the building and so What we have is in a number of the urban villages that were highlighted a proposal that some of the zoning would change from commercial to neighborhood commercial.

An important thing to note with this is that even if the zoning changes, the uses do not have to change.

So any uses, any store or company or business that occupies one of those commercial sites today can still continue operating.

It's just that it would limit any high intensity commercial uses should the building redevelop in the future.

So you wouldn't be able to do a storage facility, for example, or many other heavier or light industrial uses.

Existing, what we call non-conforming uses, so should those businesses be there today, they can continue indefinitely, but they wouldn't be able to expand.

And just recognizing that there was a call from a lot of communities to really convert all commercial to neighborhood commercial But just recognized that that this project wasn't Wasn't able to tackle that entire body of work looking at all of the commercial zoning throughout the city But there is an effort later on this year and next year by the city to to do that analysis and look at recommendations moving forward And finally, I just want to wrap up with a couple slides on the singly, the question that we get the most is, what is this going to look like in my community?

What's this going to look like on my block?

How is this going to change?

And so we did work with a visualization firm.

And this was actually for some of us were at our community meetings where we had these hollow lenses that you could put on and you could walk through your neighborhood.

This imagines on one side of the block a single family zone.

But now has some LR1 zoning which allows townhouses.

So you see some townhouses and row houses that have started to crop up.

This side is low rise today and allows just a little bit more development capacity with MHA.

So you see some taller low rise buildings speckled throughout there.

We did hear a lot during the process about livability, about how these buildings, particularly how new buildings look and feel as you walk down the street.

And so in the proposal, and this is covered in depth online, I won't do it justice right now, but we did make an effort to look at what we call the development standards, and that's what governs how a building The size of the building, the bulk and scale of the building, and different design features.

And we looked at ways to improve the urban design to better support the character that we were hearing about in community feedback.

And so included are additional setbacks, particularly upper level setbacks to add to the light and air getting down to the building.

Promoting sustainability by increasing tree retention, changing our what's called green factor, as a way of measuring the landscaping improvements as a new development goes into place.

And then, again, looking at design features like setbacks and modulations and window placement.

But at the end of the day, when we pull out of the weeds of the land use code, what this is really about is getting more affordable housing for our neighbors and our community members.

So thank you very much.

So it's a little after 620. We have about 90 people currently signed up for public comment, two minutes each.

That would take us about three hours.

So I just want to give the folks who signed up near the end that heads up that if you signed up in the late 20s, 30s, you could be here for just a little while.

So thank you for your patience.

And I would encourage those who are coming up maybe to be mindful of that.

And you can use your full two minutes, but certainly nobody's going to require you to use your full two minutes.

We will officially open the public hearing, and I'm going to call speakers in order of who signed up.

We'll go 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, and so forth.

If you wouldn't mind leaving your cards here on the table when you're concluded, that would be great.

And I will remind speakers to please refrain from using profanity.

kids in the audience today, and I would ask you to please stay on topic, which is proposed zoning changes in the city of Seattle.

So the first speaker, I hope you heard that, Alex Zimmerman, 1A, followed by, I'm gonna say L.

Mischurski, 1B, and please come to the single microphone here in the front, and then Tim Graham, 2A, you'll be a third.

Just on the table is fine, sir.

Just on that table right there is fine, sir.

Go ahead and start Mr. Zimmerman's time, just on the table.

Go ahead, Mr. Zimmerman, please.

I, my best friend, my consul chamber, a Nazi social democratic mafia with progressive Gestapo principle.

Guys, I won't speak to you because everything that has happened in Seattle right now for last couple of years come to an absurd level.

I live in Seattle for 30 years.

What we have right now is so unique, it's not only unique for Seattle, it's probably unique for the United States of America.

We have a pure fascism in Seattle.

It is exactly what you can see in every British encyclopedia.

When people, government, together with corporations, suck blood and money from us.

And for the last few years, you know what this means, everything comes to absurd.

95% of the people in Seattle right now pay for everything.

We stop and live normal civilized life, what is believed in this for many years.

Price go for everything.

Transportation is terrible, you know what it mean?

Everything come to absurd because it's crook, you know what it mean?

Who you elect year by year for last one year, what is I know, and nothing change.

Guys, when you not stand up, You don't start something doing.

This will be worse.

It's not will be better.

Because this crook is a potential gangster, a bandit, a criminal.

It's killer us.

You understand about we are talking?

Many from us right now ever cannot survive.

It's a serious problem what is we have right now.

Why?

Why?

Because you, 95% of Seattle, 700,000 people pardon acting like an idiot.

This is exactly what has happened.

When we don't change this crook, nothing will be changed.

You need to understand this.

It's very simple.

Start thinking, guys.

Start bringing Seattle back to what we had before.

Nice, beautiful city, where I lived for 30 years, and I'm very happy.

I'm not happy right now for the last few years.

Stand up, America.

We need to stop this fascism.

We need to stop Amazon.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.

I'm sorry.

This chamber from this group is only one chance.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Last chance.

Thank you for the assistance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's a tough act to follow, but I appreciate your patience.

Actually, Sarah's a tough act to follow, and so I'm going to cut this really short.

Go ahead.

Oh, I beg your pardon.

I live in what is now called East Fremont on Midvale, which is all single family.

And we understand that there's some plan to change it to possibly LR3.

An LR3 building will pretty much destroy any of those wonderful blocks.

We have a lot of green.

It's very walkable.

It's very livable.

It's close to what you might call downtown Fremont and downtown Wallingford.

And she mentioned displacement, and that's how many of us feel about losing our sweet little houses and destroying this neighborhood, which has a lot of kids in it, you know, young people, raising families.

And there's no schools for them, or there won't be, if you increase the density as much as we understand is proposed.

So we would like it, we would like you to consider keeping it as single family and not changing its zoning.

And if that means withdrawing it from the urban village status, we'd like that considered, you know.

Excuse me.

Some of the buildings that have been built already are pretty nice.

They fit in nicely.

There's an S.H.A. housing facility.

The corner of 45th and Stoneway, there was a lot of input.

There was a lot of neighborhood discussion.

It fits in nicely.

And it seems to us that if some of these proposals go through, that will be wasted.

It is low income.

It is diverse by a long shot, ethnically diverse.

It's quite fine.

But it doesn't look as if that's what's going to happen to our neighborhood.

Thank you, Lawrence.

Is that it already?

Oh my goodness, aren't you lucky.

Tim, 1B.

I'm sorry, 2B, Tim Graham.

Tim Graham, 2B, Tim.

2A, I'm sorry, 2A, 2A.

And then 2B, John Katzenberger.

This three and a half hours will obviously go faster.

If I can read the names correctly, I apologize.

And then also, I would be much benefited, as would all of you, if folks would line up as their names are called.

That'll make things go a lot faster.

Please, Tim.

Again, my name is Tim Gomm.

I live in East Fremont within the Wallingford Urban Village at Midvale and North Allen Place.

I agree with the need for affordable housing.

However, the specific impact of the proposed upzoning to LR3 of my block of small single-family houses is a decrease in livability, affordability, and equity if the holozoning recommendations are adopted as is.

Specifically, abutting all of the backyards of houses on my street, there is an affordable housing complex developed by Bellwether Housing.

The Stoneway apartments include Section 8 and transitional housing, and are home to many low-income immigrant and refugee families.

A change to LR3 zoning on my block will allow construction up to 50 feet, resulting in south-facing Stoneway apartment residents looking into a 50-foot wall, literally 38 feet from their window.

Instead of their current view quarter to the mountains and a green canopy of trees, they will live without sunlight and constant shadow.

How it provides no assurance that affordable housing will be a part of any new construction to the immediate North Allen neighborhood.

What is certain is that livability for low income residents of the stoneway apartments will be significantly decreased.

if LR3 zoning proceeds on this block as currently proposed.

I am requesting the City Council to maintain the single-family zoning on my block on North Allen Place in order to preserve equity and livability for the low-income residents of the Stoneway Apartments.

Additionally, the neighborhood planning process needs to be restored so that impacts such as these are considered.

Thank you, Tim.

If you wouldn't mind giving those to the clerk, Tim, that would be great.

If you give them to me, there's a danger that I lose them.

Jan Katzenberger, 2B.

You're going to be followed by Mark Sherberg, 3A.

And then Elizabeth Riggs, 3B.

I'll stand on my toes.

We want affordable housing in the Ballard neighborhood now this plan has some really good elements But it also has some really big problems that need to be fixed before moving forward I want to thank councilmember O'Brien for requesting a city audit of the incentive zoning program and I look forward to reading that follow-up report that's coming out next month and Tonight I'm asking you to hold city agencies accountable for regarding affordable housing Just like that audit report I'm asking you to dig a little deeper at a recent open house Brennan Staley of OPCD couldn't answer a single question about why specific streets were being rezoned specifically a A narrow non-arterial that's going to go up to 40 feet, 10 more feet with a bump out.

He said that the city didn't do neighborhood-specific environmental impact statements before proposing very specific rezones.

We shouldn't have to dig for information.

You, the city council, should be demanding an accurate environmental impact statement so that you can make informed decisions and so that you can protect your constituents.

I'm also asking you to reconsider the in lieu fees that don't stay in Ballard.

The proposal adds $25,000 to the cost of a home, putting it out of reach for teachers at Adams Elementary and Ballard High.

The funds will build a handful of affordable units on the city outskirts in what will become new low income ghettos.

We need affordable family housing in Ballard, in the Ballard Urban Village.

You said that Ballard is high opportunity, but the in-lieu policy puts that opportunity out of reach for the families who need it.

You mentioned transportation infrastructure, but light rail won't be there for 20 years.

You mentioned displacement.

The historic characteristic of Ballard allows for aging in place.

Your city report says so.

Thank you, Jane.

I'm sorry, your time is up.

Mark, you're going to be followed by Elizabeth Riggs, 3B.

OK.

My name is Mark Sherberg.

Speak into the mic, please.

There's a saying that history repeats itself.

And this, unfortunately, is what we are seeing in the intended mistreatment of both renters and homeowners within the urban villages.

What the city plans to do to urban villages under MHA resembles redlining.

How?

Undesired upzoning is being forced upon the majority of urban villagers, upon homeowners and renters alike.

By doing so, Seattle government is abusing its administrative and regulatory powers to decrease livability for citizens within the borders of urban villages.

Orders created by those who predominantly live outside the urban villages.

Under MHA and its related up zones, those living within urban villages will be subject to ever decreasing livability.

Overpopulated neighborhoods, decreased sunlight, decreased access to green space, fewer trees, more air and noise pollution, higher crime rates, more traffic gridlock.

and ever-increasing demolitions of affordable rental properties to make way for more $700,000 plus townhomes.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of people continue living in Seattle without the adverse consequences that are being concentrated and directed to the urban villages.

It all comes down to the political calculus of our elected officials, and of course, developer campaign contributions.

Developers who can at any time decide that they no longer wish to pay the MHA fees and file a class action lawsuit resulting in the refunding of all MHA fees collected.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Riggs, Elizabeth Riggs, 3B.

You're going to be followed by Christy Robertson, 4A, and then Susan Health, 4B.

OK.

So I live in the Green Lake Greenwood area.

HALA and MHA have a credibility problem.

We are, in the name of affordable housing, we are seeing affordable housing torn down and replaced by housing that is not affordable to the 50% of Seattle taxpayers who have an adjusted gross income of less than $50,000 a year.

That's 50% of our population.

And the housing that's being built, show me the affordable housing that's being built.

Show me where these fees are going to make more affordable housing.

We are seeing affordable housing being torn down, not replaced by affordable housing.

Secondly, we are seeing the livability part of both of those titles.

We are not seeing any improvements in livability anywhere.

What we are seeing is decrease in livability everywhere.

So we feel that this is kind of a 1984 doublespeak proposition.

The MHA and the HALA do not promote either affordability directly.

or livability directly.

We see no improvements.

Show us the money.

My name is Christy Robertson and I'm a Ballard resident who recognizes the need for more housing.

Forty years I've lived in the area of East Ballard where zoning changes are now proposed.

I'm shocked to learn that you're proposing a zoning change which would allow as many as four homes up to 40 feet tall to be built on every 5000 square foot lot in my neighborhood.

Four homes per lot is excessive for my neighborhood.

More duplexes would make sense but not four homes per lot.

What angers me most is that you the leaders of Seattle did not notify me or my neighbors.

You say engagement.

No engagement.

So I didn't know about this until I got a note on my door at the Baker Street group.

I wrote to Mike O'Brien's office asking why information on these changes was not sent directly to affected homes.

And his office responded stating that quote, information is available on the Seattle.gov website.

This is terribly inadequate.

The staff member from his office also stated, quote, we want to see maximum community engagement, end quote.

This is clearly not true.

Because if you really wanted community engagement in this process, you'd be letting the community know about these proposed changes, and you would be seeking input.

There are community groups who want to work with you.

It is your job to inform the community.

It is your job to work with interested community groups.

I've watched the Seattle the city of Seattle destroyed the heart of Ballard over the past several years.

Please move forward in a more thoughtful way to increase housing without decimating another Ballard neighborhood.

Thank you.

Susan, you're going to be followed by 5A, Emily Johnston, and 5B, Lee Pate.

Good evening.

My name is Susan Helf.

I live in Finneywood, and I would be very happy to have single family homes of my block go down in favor of putting up low income housing, but what's coming into my neighborhood is 5000 square foot zero lot line flat roof houses with, with tech couples with no children million dollar houses, they're tearing down modest little houses to put that up all over the neighborhood.

Hala, as Elizabeth said, Hala and MHA have a great credibility problem.

It's proposed or purported to be something that will include, that will increase affordable housing in Seattle.

It does nothing of the kind.

The developers with whom you're all in bed with are not...

They are not doing this.

They are tearing down affordable rental housing, family housing, putting up high-rise apartment buildings for tech people to live in.

They are one- and two-bedroom apartments.

They are far beyond the means of people whose houses were torn down.

I don't know how much you talk to young people these days.

They can't live in Seattle.

I rent out rooms in my house.

People are desperate to find housing.

They're leaving in drones.

And those of us who oppose this problem, again, I don't mind density.

I'd be very happy to have greater variety of economic racial integration in my neighborhood, but that's not what's happening.

What's happening is we are destroying our Seattle, our beloved city for the benefit of the developers, and the mayor, the former mayor abolished the city community councils.

We're not consulted.

Last week was the first time anybody said anything to us as a community in Seattle.

What do you think about this?

What do you think about upzoning your neighborhoods and destroying them for the benefit of rich people coming to live in Seattle and destroying our quality of life?

So there is a tremendous amount of anger and I know that you heard it at community meetings.

We are sick and tired of the up-zoning that is being done without reference to the communities, and that also doesn't benefit low-income people.

In the U District, Michael Bryan, you asked me to show up.

Thank you, Susan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Susan.

Emily, I'm sorry to cut people off, but we're scheduled to be here until 930, folks.

So we need to get pretty strict to our two-minute limit.

Emily Johnston, and then Lee Pate, 5B.

Hi.

Thanks very much for doing this.

So I am here because we have two serious crises.

One of them is local, and it's around housing.

One of them is global, and it's climate change.

We cannot impact Seattle's emissions without significantly increasing density.

The opportunity that we have before us now is to look forward and do that in a way that is equitable and that will make the city more livable for everybody.

We can't have transit that effectively serves working families on a frequent enough basis if we don't have density.

We can't preserve green space for everybody if we don't have density.

What's gonna happen, I hear a lot of false equivalence about what happens when you tear down a single family home and put up expensive townhomes.

But the truth is that those single family homes that are affordable and modestly priced would be torn down for McMansions if they weren't being torn down for townhouses.

So we just flat out need more housing.

There are 1,600 people moving to Seattle every month, and we need to find places for them to live.

If they're not displacing a single, single-family home, they could be displacing six single-family homes.

The answer is not to restrain housing or upzoning, but to understand that a city is about change and a city is about Yeah, a city is a dynamic place.

And if we don't have people moving into the city, and we don't have density, we are going to be having a complete sprawl.

We're going to lose all of our wild lands.

People have to live somewhere, flat out.

Where do you want all these people to go?

So if we're going to do something about climate change, we have to deal with density in Seattle.

We have to deal with change.

Thank you very much.

Lee, you're going to be followed by Calvin Jones, 6A, and then Hugh Geenan, 6B.

Good evening.

My name is Lee Pate, and I live in Crown Hill, Urban Village.

When I used to give people directions to my home, I would tell them, head up north on 15th, You're going to pass a strip club on the left, and then you're going to pass the love zone, the plasma center, and the liquor store on the right.

And if you go through the big intersection and you pass the two other strip clubs on the left, you've gone too far.

Now that was 16 years ago, and things have changed quite a bit in our community since then.

We're down to one strip club now instead of three.

The love zone has become a doggy daycare.

So things have changed.

We have anywhere between four and 600 building permits in the pipeline now, at any given time, as our neighborhood grows and is evolving.

Now, the thing is, is we are an urban village, and it was very surprising to many of us when we learned this, because we'd never heard one part of it before a mere two years ago.

But it's because we have two bus stops.

And we are have a rapid drive line.

We're one of only four urban villages in the city that do not have light rail and aren't scheduled to get it.

And so one of our main concerns about this upzoning is the basic mobility of where how people can can actually get around the city when they move and live here.

How are they going to get to and from work and to and from city services.

The best alternative, the only alternative we've heard so far for transit is in 2023 getting a rapid run line to Northgate where you would have to do a transfer and then you'd have to take light rail all the way into downtown.

And you just, we just have to do better than that.

The other thing that is, we have three recommendations from our neighbor group.

The first is that we want to put the village in the urban village, and we want to do that by rezoning arterials.

First, we have commercial.

I'm sorry you're out of time, but if you have those recommendations, you can leave them with Spencer.

Calvin Jones, this is a group.

So folks who sign up in groups, as you can see, we have a benefit here.

We give them five minutes, but in exchange, five people can give us 10 minutes of testimony.

So Calvin Jones, your group is next, and then Hugh Gannon, 6B, and then Dan Cantrell, 7A.

Please.

I am Jesse Colbert and I'm here with Seattle Tech for Housing.

Thank you council members and staff for being here on a sunny evening.

My husband and I are renters in Green Lake and lucky to live in a co-op, which offers relatively affordable housing for ourselves and our neighbors who are mostly seniors.

As we save to buy a house, which we may mean leaving Seattle, we remind ourselves how privileged we are now to live somewhere with short commutes and being close to friends and family.

I'm here tonight on behalf of not only us, but the people who make our urban lives possible.

The restaurant workers, caretakers, and teachers who are most impacted by the high cost of living in Seattle.

Testifying at a public meeting is a luxury I don't take for granted when countless others can't get time off work to be here.

Supporting MHA means embracing the opportunity to be the inclusive, progressive, and innovative city we know we can be.

Change isn't easy, but it's part of Seattle's history and it must be our future as well.

My name is Josh Hirschland, and I own the house at 825 Northwest 58th, which is included in the Ballard Up Zones.

I am here to speak in support of the efforts to increase affordable housing proposed today.

The path to creating a more equitable, diverse, and affordable Seattle is to create housing density in areas of the city that are walkable and close to transit hubs.

The urban village approach reflected in this plan, combined with increases in public transit, will foster affordability by concentrating development in the neighborhoods best able to meet and support them.

I hear my neighbors' concerns, but I disagree with their conclusions.

Going into the details, the specific zoning changes do a good job of increasing housing capacity while retaining the neighborhood character that caused my wife, dog, and I to move to Ballard.

I want to specifically call out for praise the rezoning of Market Street between 8th and 14th to Neighborhood Commercial.

This move, combined with the Ballard Light Route stationed on 15th Avenue, will extend the walkable Ballard Court, creating a more vibrant West Woodland area.

My name is Chris Sanders, and I'm a renter in District 7. I'm here tonight to support the MHA up zones.

I moved to Seattle nearly four years ago for a job in tech.

In my time, I have watched buildings grow ever skyward out of Belltown pits, houses in my neighborhood torn down and rebuilt, been crammed into buses, watched as the number of my neighbors experiencing homelessness increases exponentially, and talked with friends about their next steps in finding new housing after receiving massive rent increases.

At the same time, I've been welcomed into a community that fights for and prioritizes workers, people of color, and other historically marginalized groups.

Seattle is a city that made $15 real, that provides access to healthcare and services for the LGTBQ community, and provides access to opportunity through education and transportation investments, and championing so many other progressive causes.

It's a city that welcomed me and was a far cry from the conservative rural town where I grew up.

And while tech brought me to Seattle, it's the values and community that keeps me here.

I want to ensure that the same opportunities that I have found here continue to be available for both my neighbors wondering how they'll be able to pay for the increasing rent and for the queer boy from the rural Midwest who will follow me to Seattle.

To do so, we need to ensure housing is affordable for all, and while there is no silver bullet, we need to find as many ways to increase affordable housing as possible, and I believe that MHA and upzones will go a long way in providing density and funds to a company to build affordable housing.

And such, I strongly support the MHA upzone.

Hi, my name is Calvin Jones.

I'm a renter in District 3, also here with Seattle Tech for Housing in support of mandatory housing affordability.

I've been reading the news a lot lately, and three common themes stick out.

Rent is too high, property taxes are too high, and the city is dealing with the homelessness crisis.

And to me, we're kind of having three disparate conversations that has one root problem.

The city just doesn't have enough housing.

And to me, it's actually kind of encouraging.

I really believe that we're all on the same team here.

I really believe that every unit of housing we build in the city benefits every Seattle resident.

We all benefit from lower rent.

We would all benefit from lower taxes, lower property taxes.

and every unit of housing will help us put more people, take more people from the streets and put them into homes.

And just as we're all in this together, I think we all need to put in the work.

I think it's the responsibility of every neighborhood in the city to make room for more housing so that the city can become the equitable and inclusive city that we all want it to be.

I support MHA and thanks for listening.

Hugh, 6B, Dan Cantrell, 7A, and then David Ward, 7B.

My name is Hugh Geenan.

I'm a member of Ballard for Everyone and support MHA.

I acknowledge speaking as a white privileged male.

I love Ballard.

I want more neighbors to get to experience how awesome it is to live here.

We have opportunities and amenities while being a place of low risk for displacement.

Enacting the MHA would mean taking pressure off of other high-risk neighborhoods across Seattle.

It is up to the advantaged to take on our share of future growth.

Considering how I feel about my neighborhood, imagine my surprise when I discovered there's a group in Bellingham putting signs in their yards that say, don't ballardize Bellingham.

Yeah, yeah, it's a thing.

It's a thing.

Bewildered by this, I drove up two hours on a rainy night to watch a speaker from Queen Anne tell the white single-family homeowners why they should be suspicious of gentle infill development like ADUs and other housing unlike their own.

The fear in the room was palpable.

Afterwards, I stayed to speak with residents.

A few had moved from Seattle, even a couple from Ballard.

I can't say any minds changed, but it reinforced something to me.

The same land use and housing issues affect everyone.

Last year, the Urban Institute released a study on low-income renters.

They found that not a single county in the United States has enough affordable homes.

Not one.

This is a nationwide epidemic.

It's not just happening in Seattle or Bellingham or Portland or San Francisco.

There's no running away from the lack of affordable housing.

I agree with many of my friends that the mandatory housing affordability policy is not perfect.

We need to legalize housing everywhere across Seattle, not just on 6% of the land.

But this tool is a first step.

Please Ballardize Ballard.

Good evening, my name is Dan Cantrell and I've been a homeowner and resident in the Finney Ridge neighborhood for over 20 years a lifelong Seattle resident No one disagrees that we need more housing and the challenge of affordability is pronounced all over the region I worry about where my teenage son is going to be able to afford to live, where he's going to be able to rent, and whether he might someday be able to buy a home.

As an environmentalist, I don't believe that we can continue to sprawl and develop further into rural areas.

And so focusing development and housing in existing metropolitan areas makes sense.

MHA is a strategy to increase density and height around frequent transit and in urban centers.

This is why I support incentives for affordable housing in my neighborhood and across the city.

Good luck.

I'm here to support you.

David Ward 7B followed by Brooke Broad 8A and then John Lisbon 8B.

I'm David Ward.

I'm the president of the Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability, and Equity.

And we think that the current NHA environmental impact statement is completely inadequate.

And we ask that the council not rely on such a poor document that 27 neighborhood groups have opposed.

We believe that the city should work with the neighborhoods and their goals and the specifics of what they want in their neighborhoods.

And the current process only benefits developers.

It does not benefit the neighborhoods.

Also, the current plan will displace many low-income people and people of color, because the affordable housing that they already live in will be replaced by unaffordable housing, which is what's happening now, such as in the Central District.

Also, specifically, it'll displace many larger immigrant families who currently rent in single-family rentals.

Once we get rid of those and replace them with $700,000 homes, they will be removed.

Also, the current proposal allows UW to not provide any affordable housing.

And they should at least provide the affordable housing level that's provided in the rest of the U District.

UW is just one example that MHA does not provide enough affordable housing.

And there are many, many ways to create more affordable housing that don't require up zones.

And I refer you particularly to Solutions to Seattle's Housing Emergency, a report that came out when the NHA was being put together that was not used for any of the NHA policies.

Thank you.

Brooke, hold on for just one second while my timekeeper comes back to the table.

Thank you for your patience.

Well, I just want the extra time while he's not there.

Brooke, go ahead.

You're going to be followed by John Lisbon, 8B, and then Nicole Grant, 9A.

Hello, thank you Councilmembers for hosting this hearing, especially in the neighborhood.

My name is Brooke Broad, I'm here to speak in favor of MHA.

I have prepared testimony, but listening to some of the mischaracterizations about density and mischaracterizations about the process, I've decided to speak a little bit off the cuff.

So I live in the U District where I am incredibly fortunate because I'm a third generation Seattleite to own my own home.

And we're also the first neighborhood to get our up zones.

And I'm excited about that because density to me means more students.

It means more multi-generational housing as people move into basements and ADUs that are grandfathered in.

Density means the small businesses that I love and that our family owned have more customers to support them.

And it means that I do not have to get into my car on the weekend to go get my prescriptions filled, or my groceries, or go buy a book at the local bookstore, or go enjoy the park that's at the end of my block.

So I think density is a wonderful thing, and I want more people to enjoy the benefits that I have in my neighborhood.

And just to speak to the process, I've been engaged for about three or four years now, and I can no longer keep track of the amount of community meetings and open houses that I have gone to in which city staff has been incredibly gracious to lay out maps, answer questions, take comments, all sorts of things.

So the idea that the community has not been involved or not had like more than adequate opportunities to comment and have their input is really just a false statement.

So thank you very much for the time and please support MHA as soon as possible.

Hello City Council Members, thank you for listening to us tonight.

I'm John Lisbon, and yes I'm a PTSD survivor from Ballard.

You guys know where I stand, but I'm not sure the residents of District 5 and 6 do.

I wanted to spell a couple of myths while I have a chance that are used to suppress the voice of neighborhood advocates like me and neighborhood residents.

One myth is that we oppose growth.

We don't oppose growth.

We encourage growth.

We want people to move here.

We know they're moving here.

We just want to make sure that there's an infrastructure in place so they can enjoy Ballard just like we do.

There's a myth that 65% of land in Seattle is our single family zoned.

Yet the comprehensive plan, which is right here, clearly shows that it's 35%.

So I don't want to hear that myth anymore.

We need up zones.

That's another myth.

And I don't know if you've seen all the cranes outside lately, but there's been about 10,000 units of housing built last year, which has historical rates.

Those units on average house two people.

This coming year, there's going to be 12,500 units of apartments built.

So we don't need up zones.

We have plenty of capacity right now with the capacity that's currently zoned in Seattle.

And the other one is that we're trying to protect our home values.

That's what this is all about.

Well, first of all, I'm not in an urban village, so I'm not trying to protect my home values.

But I still care about the people who are going to be displaced.

And I care specifically that, well, what developers and developer interests care about.

And their goal is, one, to maximize profits.

We all know they're the private interest.

And to buy influence.

with our government.

Thanks again.

Thanks for listening to me.

Thanks and have a good time.

Thank you Councilmember Johnson, Councilwoman Juarez, Councilman O'Brien.

My name's Nicole Grant.

I've lived in the same Seattle zip code for four generations, and I own a house, and I'm raising two kids.

And I'm also the head of the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, and we represent over 100,000 workers in King County.

And I'm here today because The crisis of housing in this county is making our wages worth less.

100,000 people moved to King County last year.

And we need to have homes for everybody.

When I talk to schoolteachers, like my cousin, who lives with her landscaper husband and their daughter in one one bedroom apartment in Capitol Hill, they're terrified because if they have to move out and there haven't been enough new units, they're not gonna have anywhere that they can afford to go.

And I think that we have an opportunity here to be creative and I think MHA is a crucial first step.

I am Lisa Bogardus.

I'm the assistant executive secretary for the Seattle Building Trades Labor Council and the Seattle Building Trades participated in the HALA committee and developing the recommendations which we supported and we also support the MHA and the recommendations for equitable housing policy.

I'm here as a member and representative of the building trades but I'm also here in addition because I live in Fremont.

I actually live across from the Solstice Center right on Fremont Avenue.

and right on the border of the urban village growth zone.

So my husband and I have lived there for the last 15 years.

My husband is a Teamster, member 174. I work for a nonprofit.

Used to live in an area, in a community, that we were surrounded by artists, musicians, other working people.

They're all gone now.

We feel like a dinosaur.

We're going extinct in our own community.

And this isn't because of MHA.

It's because we don't have something like MHA.

We don't have an equitable policy in place right now.

And that has to change.

Seattle has changed.

We've seen it.

We've all seen it.

It's inevitable.

We can either support changes going forward that are inclusionary or that are exclusionary.

Do we want to have a community where families can continue to live and thrive?

Or do we want something where people have talked about where only people can have the you know, to $3 million homes.

I think we all want an inclusionary community.

In addition, being here representing the building trades, I would be remiss if I didn't mention opportunities for all this development for local jobs and training opportunities that may be available on the development that's going to be going forward.

So please keep that in mind.

We'll be in touch.

Lastly, I think others have already said this, but M.H.A. isn't perfect.

Maybe perfect would have been if we talked about this 20 years ago.

But we can't overlook the good by reaching for some elusive perfect that we can't get to at this point.

So we urge you to adopt MHA recommendations.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Laura.

I'm a U District member and I'm a proud union member.

I'm a bus driver and many of my co-workers live in their cars to drive buses.

They live in Olympia, they live in Tacoma, and they drive buses for the city.

That's sprawl.

That's what sprawl looks like.

Sprawl isn't just about cutting down trees and long commutes.

It's people living in their cars to work in our city.

Speaking about development as a privilege, I went to a conference this weekend, Women Who Rock, and it was supposed to be about reclaiming the city, and I thought that was going to be about urbanist topics like land use and zoning and density.

People were talking about their families and suffering and generational poverty and lack of access to ownership opportunities.

and losing the stories that they lose when you don't have community resiliency and people being able to stay in their community.

And it reminded me that these conversations we have at City Council, especially in the Plus Committee, are so outside of what people are talking about in their everyday lives around land use.

That being said, we do need green jobs.

And the way we're going to get green jobs is by spurring a green housing Spurring green housing.

HALA doesn't do that.

Someone who can't be here asked me to ask you to give increased floor area ratio for deeper greener buildings to speed up and scale up green building that would also provide more green jobs.

Thank you, Laura.

Cheryl Nyberg, 9B.

You're going to be followed by Michael Jones, 10A, and then Ann Selznick, 10B.

Hi, I'm Cheryl Nyberg, and I live in lower Wallingford, early Fremont, and I cede my time to Jenny Braley.

Jenny, you were signed up later.

I will just take you off the list later.

Is that OK?

Yeah, I was 18. Thanks for having us here tonight.

I've been talking to some people in the audience from the Holly S, and I feel strongly, the same way I felt a long time, we have a lot in common in this room.

Rob, I've talked to you for two years about this, saying we appreciate in Wallingford, where I'm from, and East Fremont, also your district.

We appreciate the spirit of HALA and embrace that.

It's really the devil's in the details.

And a lot of what we have been asking for in Wallingford Urban Village, particularly in East Fremont, which is kind of an isolated pocket between Stone and Aurora, 46th and Bridgeway.

We don't have parks and amenities.

We have Aurora with us.

So we have specific requests, and they mirror a lot of walling for community councils, but they are our own.

And I agree with a lot of what's been said tonight, so I'm not going to repeat the questions about whether we're going to get more affordable housing in the end and that kind of thing.

But in East Fremont, I guess I want to make a few points that we have attended every community meeting and said the same thing for two years.

I don't think I've said anything different for two years.

But we would like to see more incentivized higher zoning on Aurora.

and add more height there.

And it's market rate housing, people with good views.

Ask for an M2 or an M1, more than an M.

But you can get a lot of height there with good views for market rate housing.

This is not low income housing that I'm talking about.

I know there's a lot of objection to dirty air.

But a lot of people in Seattle today are paying good money to rent right on Aurora and the different stretches of that corridor.

And it would really help bring up the whole neighborhood, too, in Fremont and Wallingford.

So that's one thing we've asked for consistently, but we feel like we haven't been heard.

And that's because, I will say, the outreach process, while it's been going on a long time, It is the same thing over and over again.

So the same people show up over and over again and say the same thing.

And it's tedious and exhausting and boring.

And here we are again.

So incentivizing rural density is one thing.

And then single family.

In East Fremont, we only have a little bit of single family.

We're already a lot of multifamily there.

So we would like to come out of the urban village or at least be considered for RSL because then we get more tree protection.

We have a lot of yards and gardens that people in the multifamily

Thank you, Jenny.

I'm sorry, Jenny, your time is up.

If you have a testimony that you'd like to leave, feel free to leave it behind.

Michael Jones, 10A, and Selznick, 10B.

All right.

Hi, my name is Michael Jones.

Since 2006, East Green Lake, where I live, is growing faster than the other surrounding urban villages.

We have 14 new units per acre, nearly twice compared to what the next one is, which is Roosevelt.

Since September 2017, Green Lake is by far the densest urban village of any area, nearly 50 units per acre versus 25 in Lake City, which is the next closest.

As of 2017, Green Lake has surpassed its 2005-2024 growth target by 340%.

845 million units were built there versus the 250 that were projected.

And the recommendation for this is more upzoning.

I just want to be clear that I actually do support growth.

And I support what I call humane growth.

And I think one way to do this is to require a minimum of 20% affordable housing in any new development.

That's a high mark, but I think that's something to strive for.

Another way to do this is to work with each urban village in planning what's best for them.

I've written and testified multiple times to the city regarding growth.

I've testified before the hearing examiner about a badly designed building in our neighborhood that subsequently got built anyway and went against the city's design codes.

I even appealed the final environmental impact statement as an individual.

My conclusion is that I'm not really feeling hurt and I'm concerned that our comments today aren't necessarily going to be heard either.

I need a box to stand on.

The microphone comes down.

Thank you.

All right.

So I live in Crown Hill Urban Village and I support our Committee for Smart Growth's recommendations, but I'd like to talk about my neighbors and my block and RSL zoning.

There are 83 people who currently live on the 8300 block of Northwest 17th, and that includes 23 children.

Scott and Sue work for Washington State Ferries.

Joe is a firefighter.

Claire, John, and Dave are all teachers.

Heather is an airline attendant.

Chris is a house painter.

His wife, Sheila, is a bank teller.

Ann is a filmmaker.

Todd is a metal worker.

Bill and Sandy are retired.

Megs is a single mom.

Anna babysits her grandchildren, Natalie is a gym instructor, and her husband, Matt, is renovating their house.

We are homeowners and renters, we are diverse ages and races, we sign for each other's packages, we notify each other when we're traveling, we pet-sit, and we release safety net when she was battling cancer.

As for our 30 homes, most are no taller than one story.

Mid-century modest houses with footprints of 900 square feet or less.

We don't have any million dollar new constructions like in more affluent neighborhoods.

We're living densely and we're living small.

For these reasons, I know that the appropriate zoning for my block and others nearby is residential small lot.

It was first proposed on the draft zoning maps.

RSL was supported by the HALA focus groups and at our neighborhood workshop, and the flyers that were left on our doorknobs, apparently only in Crown Hill, clearly say that most zoning will be to RSL.

Yet somehow, our new map shows extensive low-rise instead.

I'm not opposed to upzoning.

I do want to welcome more neighbors, but RSL is the right way to add density without displacing the current residents and my neighbors.

It fits with the scale, it fits with infrastructure, and the expectations of our neighborhood.

Please zone Crown Hill Side Street's RSL.

Thank you.

We're about one-fifth, we're about 20% of the way there, folks.

Just doing a time check for you.

11A, Sharon Levine.

11B, Andrew Asselmayer.

Sharon?

And then Andrew Karabimus will be 12A.

Hi, it's Sharon Levine.

The MHA will not create the, I'm sorry, that's not what I wanted to say.

Seattle currently has the capacity to build needed housing in areas already zoned for multifamily development and along major arterials.

The housing can be constructed without destroying the characteristics that have made Seattle's neighborhoods desirable, such as our beautiful bountiful tree canopy.

City Council chartered Seattle's neighborhoods to create plans for growth in a lengthy process that involved tens of thousands of residents.

But City Council has disregarded these plans in order to implement HALA and MHA.

You know, this MHA's one-fit solution for each neighborhood is misguided.

Zoning should be tailored to each neighborhood and the residents of each one should be able to determine how their area will grow and how to ensure affordable housing within its borders.

MHA will not create the affordable housing promise in the desirable areas that are represented here tonight, in areas like Queen Anne and Magnolia and Madison Park, because the builders are going to develop for the highest return on their investments.

Their fees right now are so low that they're going to contribute to the affordable housing fund rather than build the so-called affordable units.

That's going to allow you folks to look for land and it's affordable and it's going to be on the outer fringes of the city where the so called affordable units are clustered.

This will not be distributed housing equitably throughout Seattle.

The homes adjoining, people need to be aware that the homes adjoining or within LR1 are going to endure some of the greatest impacts of the higher, bulkier buildings that are going to go lot line to lot line, decimating our urban canopy.

There is no comfort zone.

Thank you, Sharon.

Andrew Tenby.

Andrew, you're going to be followed by Audrey Karabinas, 12A.

My wife and I are recent transplants to the Seattle area and we are single-family renters on 16th between 80 and 85th Crown Hill near the Safeway.

And the rezoning efforts to low-rise 2 is causing us great concern about possibly getting dislocated.

I know there are several other renters also on our block that are going to be also at risk of this.

Relocation is of particular concern to us because our child has a slot in daycare and it is we found to be very very difficult to Just relocate on short notice to get a new daycare slot We both work.

I work in Renton.

She works downtown and it is pretty convenient for us both in our certain locations and we don't particularly want to move we also have dogs and cats and are very in tune with the community that we've come to live in.

So I hope that you would consider about not choosing to push forward with these low-rise to rezoning efforts.

Thank you, Andrew.

Audrey?

Audrey, you're going to be followed by Nicole Harvey, 12B, and then Kirsten Gleim, 13A.

Thank you.

I'm Audrey Karabinas.

I urge the city council to reject the current preferred alternative rezoning map 2018 version for Crown Hill, with this increased concentration of low rise, one and two buildings, and instead for unit numbers focus larger buildings along arterials, while broadening.

Broadening RSL zoning to a greater portion of Seattle We came to our place before there were urban villages and before transit improved The recent change to RSL zoning was digestible and would allow small lot owners some flexibility there are already multifamily uses for some single-family homes and Four rental houses to our immediate north and west often have three unrelated individuals house-sharing.

LR1 zoning will replace buildings, change the look and feel of things, and reduce the ratio of owner-occupied properties, essentially clearing out the core of our community as property owners flip.

The current struggling renters will be pushed out.

Larger buildings mean larger roof surfaces and less yard to percolate storm runoff.

Northwest 87th between 17th and 18th floods regularly with heavy rains So that cyclers and walkers cannot trot through to transit stops The drainage system in place is not handling the volume the city rep at the open house informed me that a drainage repair is not planned Lr1 and Lr2 zoning uphill from this will make the flooding worse I Our street lacks safe pedestrian ways.

As density increases, drivers try to avoid gridlock at the light at Northwest 85th and 15th.

They come through fast and frustrated, while pedestrians with no place else to hide become easy targets.

Common wisdom among those in apartments who keep cars is not give up your car.

It is budget for parking tickets.

Thank you, Audrey.

Thank you.

Nicole?

Nicole, you're going to be followed by Kirsten Gleim.

And then Jack Lofton, 13B.

Hello, my name is Nicole Harvey, and I live in District 6 in Whittier Heights.

Having spent most of my life as a renter as well as a non-profit employee, it's an understatement to say that I've not grown wealthy.

Nevertheless, about five years ago, my partner and I found a somewhat bedraggled Depression-era house that we could afford as our first home.

It's modest, free of ornament, and clearly showed signs of being unloved.

But it was made well, and by those who built it were likely happy to have jobs.

It responded to the needs of its era.

For its time, it was enough.

It's no longer enough.

The needs of this moment are clear.

We are experiencing a housing crisis.

If we accept that housing is a human right, it's unethical to continue to build massive million-dollar single-family homes.

Building such housing offers a short-term solution for the few and reinforces commodification of housing.

If we continue on this path, we're building a future where only the wealthy can afford Seattle.

It makes sense to say yes to more neighbors, to increase access to public transportation, walkability, parks, and schools.

As a homeowner, I want to see more affordable housing within my neighborhood and ultimately the that everyone in Seattle has enough to live.

Thank you.

You're gonna be followed by Jack Lofton and then Alexander Frohlich.

I'm a long for resident and I think everybody can agree we need more density.

We're definitely going to have to have, no matter what we do, more density.

But I have two broad comments.

I think one is on the process.

So I think one of the earlier commenters said that we've been doing this for a couple of years.

We've had open houses.

The city has talked to us about what the plans are.

And I think, Rob, you've talked about turning the dials with the neighborhoods, sitting down with the neighborhoods and turning the dials.

And that's never really happened.

The dials haven't turned.

The plan is the same, worse, if not the same.

So I would like you and the rest of the council to commit to really sitting down with neighborhoods and talking to each individual neighborhood.

not just not just sitting down and telling us what the plans are but listening to us and making changes to the plans based on our comments as to the specifics i think that we need to have i think somebody said 20 minimum affordable housing out of the tone i would say 25 30 it has to be a huge number right and i would like to see the wallingford affordable housing in wallingford rather than outside of wallingford and To address the needs of that growing population, the density, we've gotta have commitments to infrastructure in those areas that are getting up zoned.

More transportation, not just hoping for more transportation, but guaranteed more transportation.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Jack?

13B, Jack Lofton, followed by 14A, Alexander Frilich.

I live in the Crown Hill neighborhood and I was watching the presentation earlier and just see it seemed a total disconnect between that and what I've actually seen around me.

Here I saw the picture of single family on one side of the street and low rise on the other side of the street and it looks all nice and tidy and there's a handful of cars on the street and I'm going, yeah, really?

Have you seen the number of cars on my street before those low-rise buildings go up?

What's going to happen when you double and triple the density?

Where are those cars going to go?

So I have a quick example of the best laid plans.

This is tangential, but it needs to be taken into consideration.

I love the fact that there is a pedestrian crossing at 17th and 85th.

That's great.

But they put the curb bulbs in such a way so that eastbound traffic is now backed up all the way to 20th.

What about talking with the people that live in the neighborhood?

Maybe something could be worked out.

Because I love that, but I don't love the result.

Okay.

I get that Seattle needs affordable housing.

And I get that some growth is inevitable.

And I get that my wish to have some trees and some quiet.

And it might be compromised a little bit.

But what I find objectionable is that I never got to have a say-so.

There are neighborhood groups, Ground Hill Urban Village, Seattle Smart Growth, Fair Growth Seattle.

They have proposals for some kind of compromise between what's being proposed.

And I just want to echo what other people are saying.

I'd like for the city council members to listen to those groups.

One size does not fit all.

Alexander, you're going to be followed by Paulette Murphy, 14B, and then Phil Cochran, 15A.

And I'm ceding my two minutes to the AIA Homelessness Task Force, which will be a statement read by Megan here.

Hello.

My name is Megan Altendorf, and I am a member of the American Institute of Architects Seattle Chapter.

I am also the chair of the Advocacy Subcommittee of the newly formed AIA Homelessness Task Force.

I am here with my colleagues, Alexander Froelich, Jesse Templeton, AIA, who lives in Ballard, Scott Cochran, AIA, who lives in the Lake City Urban Village Boundary, and P.J.

Beninati, who lives in North Green Lake.

AIA Seattle endorses the MHA process as critical to ensuring that the city's growth and the growth of its affordable housing options go hand in hand.

We support efforts to require developers to contribute to affordable housing while the city focuses on equitable development, adding housing development in communities where existing residents are less vulnerable to displacement and where there are more assets to provide for a growing population, like parks and transit.

MHA addresses AIA Seattle's goals of increasing housing supply while addressing the quality of Seattle's housing options and providing nearby urban amenities.

As architects, we are strongly rooted in urban design principles and our desire to make Seattle a vibrant, healthy, and equitable place to live.

As such, we look forward to working with the cities and others to improve the MHA over time.

Specific interests include Determining if the affordable housing rates required of developers should be adjusted in the future Ensuring good design principles are used in the development of affordable housing projects identifying urban amenities that Seattle must invest in alongside affordable housing and Evaluating displacement trends over time.

Thank you.

Thank you I'm sorry.

Did any of you sign up to give testimony later on?

No, you're all just one group.

Okay, thank you.

Paulette Murphy.

Paulette, are you here?

15, I'm sorry, 14B.

Phil Cochran, 15A.

Gary Nolan, 15B.

Thank you, Paulette.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Paulette Murphy, and I live on Woodland Park Avenue North in the Wallingford Urban Village.

I'm here because, like my neighbors, I am a strong advocate for smart growth.

We believe there is an opportunity with a new council and a new mayor to put the smart back into smart growth.

We would like to see growth in our neighborhood, not according to lines drawn on a map, but in accordance with neighborhood input and cooperation.

We feel that there are opportunities that are being squandered and elements of livability given short shrift in past and current plans.

For example, Aurora Avenue in our neighborhood is the crown of the area next door to Woodland Park with an opportunity for mountain view, condos and apartments on both sides of the street.

Now is a perfect opportunity to plan for taller buildings along this corridor rather than compromise the affordability and integrity of the current mixed neighborhood of apartments and single family homes in East Fremont.

Many of the hundreds of new units in our neighborhood are and will be more costly and are being built without the minimal amenities of parking, bin storage, setbacks, and green spaces.

These choices compromise the livability of our neighborhood for all who live in East Fremont, whether they're old timers or newbies.

We are asking you, even imploring you, to restore a process to engage us as partners in true smart growth.

Thank you.

All right, I'll try to be quick.

I know we're all suffering global warming in here.

All right, just a couple points.

First of all, I wish the city could get beyond this nonsense of MHA providing affordable housing in expensive, desirable neighborhoods.

It's not going to happen.

Developers are just going to happily pay the nominal fee and build market rate housing, OK?

Can we move beyond this dog and pony show?

Second of all, I have yet to understand why the city insists on calling this housing multi-family housing.

It should be called multi-unit housing.

They're going to be building 200, 300 square foot cubicles for temporary tech workers before they move on to probably a single family house on the east side, okay?

Lastly, if density is such a wonderful thing, as I've heard many of the supporters suggest it is, then why is it that our neighborhoods are being asked to take on this burden and make a sacrifice for this wonderful thing?

It seems to be kind of a disconnect there.

And there you go.

I'll cede my minute to the next person.

Gary Nolan, Gary 15B, Elizabeth Day, 16B, because 16A crossed themselves out, and then Nikki DeBell, 17A.

My name is Gary Nolan, and I live in East Fremont.

Single family, currently zoned single family.

Proposal is to upzone it to L3.

change for single family.

Now, I would propose that our single family neighborhood, which is a mixture of cute Wallingford bungalows mixed with some larger apartment houses, including a 95 unit, unit apartment house on our block is already providing a fair amount of low income housing, particularly from the single family houses.

Most have ADUs, most have Basement units some bootleg.

I think the city is probably undervaluing most of those units and I suspect that our single-family zone already provides a greater percentage of the low-income housing than Hala will provide Thank you, that's it

First, I'd like to thank you guys for doing child care tonight because it allows me to be here.

My name is Beth Day.

I have been a homeowner in Crown Hill for eight years.

I'm in favor of MHA when we moved here.

This is one of the more affordable neighborhoods and since moving here I've seen many small houses like mine increasingly torn down and replaced with gigantic single-family homes I feel that change is happening.

I'd much rather see these lots develop into more dense affordable multifamily housing Many of my friends with kids are employed in necessary jobs such as teaching and nursing, and they struggle to find affordable housing or, heck, any housing near their jobs.

Families don't want to live on arterials.

We need more diverse housing in the neighborhood hearts, close to parks and other amenities and schools.

If anything, I feel that MHA does not go far enough, but it is at least a start.

Please enact this policy, and please don't delay it any longer.

Thank you.

Nikki?

Nikki, you're going to be followed by Dan Norris, 17B.

I'm really nervous.

But anyway, growth is needed, but we want Growth is needed but we want to encourage smart growth.

I'm particularly concerned about crown hill and 13th avenue and 14th avenue northwest between 85th and Holman road.

Currently they're single family homes, lower income and diverse population.

However, I'm told we're going to be rezoned to be high rise.

The house in front of me has four generations living in it.

The house next to me has three generations.

We have musicians and artists, and none of us are suited to live in an apartment.

Please develop the arterials first.

Do not tear down homes for high rise apartments.

There's so much unused and underused land in the city that would be ideal for apartments.

Please let us be a mix of townhomes, old, new, and backyard cottages.

This would let us stay in place longer.

No cookie cutter plans.

Thank you.

Are you Dan Norris?

Dan, you're next.

You're going to be followed by John Conway, 18A, and then Jessica Westgren, 19A.

Thank you for having this.

My name is Dan Norris.

I'm the retired president of Healthy Buildings, Inc., and I taught sustainability in college.

And I want to talk about three things, health, and sustainability and affordability that exists already.

And the health aspect is, I think we have a human right to light and sunshine.

And the single family house that I live in has A basement apartment and there's room for an affordable separate unit in the back so we could have six or eight people on that lot, a single family house.

If humans need light and they need sunlight, I have eight raised beds and have invested thousands of dollars growing vegetables.

If the house the south of me is torn down and a 40-foot, two- or three-story condo goes up, I have no sunlight left.

I can't have my gardens, and it's not a healthy house.

Sunlight brings a lot of things like vitamin D and there's wind and sky that should be seen, which is taking away.

If you're going to take that away, you have to pay the people to the north for that takeaway.

And also I want to talk about sustainability.

These houses which are being torn down are, many of them, well-built brick houses.

And to tear down something that's functional and working is abhorrent in most of Europe and should not happen here because that is not sustainable.

Then you have to put all this energy and carbon into the air and mining and manufacturing and building all these new buildings out of materials that wouldn't have to be there.

Thank you, Dan.

Thank you.

John Conway?

John Conway, are you still here?

Going twice, John Conway.

Okay, Jessica Westring, 19A, Cheryl Dubois, 19B.

Hello, my name is Jessica, and I'm speaking in favor of MHA and the upcoming up zones.

First of all, council members, I would like to thank you all for your work on this project known as HALA.

Project seems too gentle of a word for this kind of massive undertaking.

And thank you for all of your outreach, opportunities to interact with us throughout all these years.

I didn't know that cities do this much outreach.

I have been to numerous open houses all over the city.

I have received information through the mail, in email, and on the city government websites.

I have engaged with all of you on so many occasions that your legislative assistants seem like old friends.

I've even been able to talk to many of you personally at events.

And here we are.

We're facing an exponentially increasing population, great displacement, continuing affordability issues, and more and more people living on the streets.

We need to build houses.

We need to build densely.

I'm going to confess, I'm not an architect, and I've never built a house before, but I do know that it takes more than a hammer to build a house.

I will need a variety of tools, and that's what HALA is, a variety of tools.

MHA is only one, up zones are another, ADUs, DADUs, another.

I don't think HALA is the perfect solution, but none of them are.

We need multi-modal solutions.

These up zones are modest, they could be bigger, and all of our neighborhoods need to open their zoning for more density.

As a renter, a previous landlord, and a community volunteer, please move forward with MHA and give us this tool to use.

I like that MHA is performance audited each year.

I would also like to note that zoning changes do not mean single family zoning will die.

You're still gonna have to sell your house.

Your neighbors are still gonna have to sell their homes.

It's not like there's a parade of wrecking balls coming in to just take it all away.

Thank you everyone.

Have a great evening, and I appreciate your time.

Obviously, as a group, you guys will have five minutes.

Can please go ahead.

So much.

My name is Evan McKittrick, chief of staff at Boys and Girls Clubs of King County.

I'm here to ask for a specific amendment to the Finney Greenwood Urban Village zoning map.

The current North Seattle Boys and Girls Clubs locate located at 87th and Fremont.

It's just a couple blocks outside the proposed map boundary and Boys and Girls Clubs of King County has been at the Greenwood location for 75 years.

It's our original Boys and Girls Club location.

And I think that a lot of what we're talking about this evening is about the future of our city.

And at Boys and Girls Clubs of King County, we have about 2,000 kids in our clubs every single day that we're open.

We reach about 26,000 kids each year.

We very much feel like we're a part of defining the future of this city and the region more generally.

And like to see ourselves as a key nonprofit youth serving provider as we look forward to the next 75 years.

As the North Seattle Boys and Girls Club location in particular has become more and more expensive to maintain, we've needed to look at options for selling the property as we think about our financial sustainability to ensure that we can continue playing a role for young people here in Seattle for the next 75 years.

As part of that, we've been able to secure an agreement and actually close on a sale today with Bellwether Housing, who I'll turn the microphone over to in a few minutes.

But one of the reasons that we're really excited about this opportunity is not only that it contributes to our financial sustainability, but the opportunity to rezone the property to NC 55 allows us to have a presence in the Greenwood neighborhood for years and years to come.

And as things have been going it's been a little bit.

less certain for us and so we're really excited about the opportunity to partner with Bellwether and as MHA generally is seeking to make Seattle more equitable and affordable, we feel very aligned with a lot of the intentions of MHA.

Thanks.

Hello, I'm Casey like he I'm a resident of district 6. I'm also a Proudly work for bellwether housing We're an organization that creates stable communities and allows access opportunities through affordable housing We're very excited to work with the boys and girls club to redevelop their their site for affordable housing for low-income families to continue the important work that they do, and they will continue to do that in sight with us.

Right here, we have the specific amendment we're asking for, for the Greenwood, Penny Ridge urban village.

I'll give it over to your staff soon.

Please support that major and that's and thank you for the consideration for her question the revision to the amendment.

Hi my name's Shelly cracker and I'm a volunteer board member at Bellwether I live in district 5 and I live in Seattle since 1980. We see at Bellwether housing is one of Seattle's.

great nonprofit affordable housing providers.

And we are seeking this change to the map.

I volunteer because I see the impact of our city's housing affordability crisis firsthand.

I've worked in the past as a lawyer serving bankruptcy debtors and helping with foreclosure prevention.

And I've watched my clients struggle to find places to live that they could afford in the city.

In addition, I have two grown children who are going to want to live here someday.

I support MHA in general as well, because I believe that the measured growth of dense areas close to transportation and commercial neighborhood cores will enhance what makes Seattle such a great place to live.

It provides interesting, diverse neighborhoods that have some pockets of density and some pockets of single-family housing.

Upzoning will help Seattle avoid the economic displacement and gentrification so often feared by creating new opportunities for affordable housing like Bellwether's to be built.

I ask you to support MHA and support a more economically diverse Seattle.

Thank you.

I'm Cheryl Dubois and I live in the Finney neighborhood.

I grew up in poverty and know what it's like to be displaced.

I was displaced as a child and homeless.

So it's very critical that we support efforts like the MHA that provide more affordable housing recently bellwether.

I'm the chief operations and financial officer there open pre-screening for two new buildings our Bora Court in the University District and anchor flats in South Lake Union And we had hundreds of calls within hours of opening that with me as our CEO Susan Boyd and we support this MHA So, thank you.

Thank you.

Cheryl, if you wouldn't mind giving the amendment to Spencer, that would be great.

Thank you very much, you all.

Thomas Gustowski, 20A, you're next, Thomas.

Thomas, you're going to be followed by 21A, Neil Day, and 21B, Cecile Gernes.

My name is Tom Gretowski.

I live on 16th Avenue.

My name is Tom Gretowski.

I live on 16th Avenue Northwest, along with numerous single-family residences between 65th and 85th.

Currently, there are four-story apartments and condos being built or existing on that corridor.

Raising heights to five stories is problematic.

and many others problematic at my property line and many others means less sunlight, privacy, livability, more noise, more traffic.

Four stories is acceptable.

Five stories along this corridor should not be approved.

And I noticed there was a slide earlier where there was a four-story Apartment building and we're going to add a fifth story to Cover the that's where we're going to provide low-income housing I believe that would be 20% of that structure, so if we could fill all those Apartments with people who are lit.

You know live at $57,000 a year that would be something I would support You know so that would be a good trade-off for these developments Thank You Tom

We are, so we're about 40% of the way there, folks.

Neil Day, I told you we'd get to you about 8 o'clock at 7.50.

We're a little ahead of schedule.

Neil, you're going to be followed by Cecile Grenez, 21B, and then Phillip Duggan, 22A.

Thank you, Neil Day.

Certainly in the proposal, there were some elements that were attractive, but I'm here specifically to voice some objection against some of the rezoning for the single-family units in Crown Hill.

I'll echo some of the things that people have mentioned already with regards to family, parking, livability.

For us, we moved to Seattle last spring.

The house we purchased on 14th Northwest, just north of 85th, was appealing for a number of reasons.

It's been a terrific area, as mentioned previously.

It's a street with relatively modest houses, modest lots.

I guess we've been fortunate, it's actually stayed pretty modest in appearance, and it's been very healthy for a number of families, our children, and it's a great community.

Having lived in San Francisco for six years, I can say that one of the biggest appeals of Seattle is the fact that one can live in the city with one's family and have these kinds of communities.

And that was very appealing to us.

We moved here for a position, you know, Fred Hutch and UW and the world-class educational institutions here are very appealing.

I think that's supported by the fact that these neighborhoods are thoughtful in many ways.

Specifically with the street that we live on, one thing that struck us a little bit is acknowledging that Ballard is not necessarily the most diverse part of Seattle.

This particular part of Seattle is very diverse.

And just in the small number of families we know, on our streets.

About a third of them, four families, let's say, that we interact with regularly are comprised of minorities.

And I know it's not systematic or anything, but I think that's also a concern as well.

Some of the other points that I listed were already discussed, safety and parking and livability.

So thank you for your time.

Hi everyone.

My name is Cecile.

I'm an organizer with the Sierra Club.

I live in District 6 in an old house that is only affordable because we cram five people into a four bedroom single family home.

So I'm here today because the Sierra Club supports affordable housing.

It aligns with our mission to protect our communities and the environment.

The transportation sector in Washington is responsible for most of our global warming emissions.

So addressing climate change means we have to have density and we have to have transit.

When people live close to work, social lives, and transit, they don't need to drive as often or as far.

But when people are displaced from neighborhoods, they need to travel further, often with cars, to go to work or see friends and family.

So for example, I currently live in Green Lake as a low-income person.

And I chose Green Lake despite its lack of affordability because it has an easy transit line to my work.

I'm really excited about the new light rail station coming up in just a few years.

But I am really concerned and so are my roommates about the rent going up because of that light rail station or our landlord selling the house to make room for developments.

And without MHA, that would displace us from Green Lake and we would probably have to move to a suburb and get a car.

And I really don't want to get a car.

Because I don't want to contribute to climate change.

But with MHA, if there are affordable options in Green Lake or in other places in Seattle that have easy transit lines, we would not have to do that.

So for that reason, I support MHA as well.

So the Sierra Club supports increasing housing options in Seattle, increasing the number of units of housing, and increasing housing affordability.

We support affordable housing because it helps us fight climate change and because housing is a human right.

We support MHA because it will help to address climate change through density and afford further environmental degradation by reducing urban sprawl.

So we urge the city to pass this legislation.

Hi, my name is Philip Duggan, and I'm going to try to speak to some of the intergenerational issues that make this so complicated.

So I bought a home in District 5 in Pinehurst a few years ago, largely because I couldn't afford a home near my parents where I grew up on Queen Anne.

And so now it's an hour-long bus or so at some times just to get to where they are.

My dad is now looking at selling his house because he needs that money to retire.

And he's looking at where he's going to live.

And it's looking like that's not going to be near me in Seattle at all.

Certainly not necessarily on a bus line that I can get to him to visit.

So I volunteered with a lot of people in this room on a lot of different issues.

And I really appreciate, like, everyone's coming at this from a good place.

But I really, really think we need to support this, HALA, and just any options anywhere that will create more housing opportunities, more affordability.

Like, it's kind of an all of the above thing, because what we are doing now, we are getting further and further behind.

Things are getting more and more expensive.

I won't be able to live near my father and won't be able to theoretically live near my children when I have children.

And so I am afraid of things.

Some of the things people mention here, I really, I am worried about like the shade covering my garden and my yard, like legitimately.

But I'm more afraid of the sprawl.

I'm more afraid of unaffordability.

I'm more afraid of all the homelessness.

And just the pain and suffering that people are experiencing because of all of the affordability problems that I think we need to do everything we can here.

I'm also more afraid of just not welcoming people to the city.

I want to welcome people here.

I want people to experience what I love about this city.

And I want to do the things that will let more people live here, even if it's going to change the city.

I don't feel like it's my right to tell them they can't be here.

So because of that, I support HALA, MHA, and more.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Bill Simpson.

Bill Simpson, 22B.

You're going to be followed by Russ Saunders, 23A, and then Mark Foltz, 23B.

Hi, my name is Bill Sampson and I'm a volunteer with the Sierra Club and I work at a non-profit in Southeast Seattle.

And part of what they do is provide affordable housing.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I have this housing for everyone sign because I believe that Seattle should be for everyone.

I live in District 4 in View Ridge in the North End, and I know many people who have been displaced, and I see there's a big homelessness problem in Districts 4, 5, and 6, the North End districts.

And so I support MHA because there's a plan to create 6,000 new affordable homes, and I think that number needs to be a lot higher so that we can reduce homelessness.

And I also support MHA because of the transit and density issue.

I'm actually jealous of the urban villages like in Roosevelt.

My area is single family and the 71 bus only comes every half an hour and all the buses in the Roosevelt area come more frequently.

because more people use the bus, and so that justifies more frequent bus service.

And so there's a positive feedback loop between affordable, having more dense development, and more transit service, so the more people ride the bus, and that justifies more frequent service.

I've traveled some in East Asia and Europe, and some of their transit systems, the buses come every five or six minutes, and the train is every two to three minutes.

So I think the urban villages in Seattle have improved the transit quite a bit, but we need to keep expanding and making new urban villages to improve transit.

And I see my time is up, so that's all I have.

Thanks.

Hello.

My name's Russ Saunders.

I represent my family's business, which is Handy Andy Rent-A-Tool.

We've been serving Seattle for generations now.

We've been on Aurora since 1980. And I think that the Hall of Rezone of Aurora doesn't fit properly.

I think that the Department of Economic Development needs to do a study on C1 and C2 commercial properties and the need for how that's part of Seattle's infrastructure.

I also don't see Aurora Avenue fitting the criteria with the emissions that you talk about.

Also the pedestrian safety.

From 95 to 2000, 43% of pedestrian accidents in King County happened on Highway 99. Seattle did a great amount to improve that.

But there's three factors for pedestrian safety.

Volume of vehicles, volume of pedestrians, and the safety of the road itself.

And so Aurora is a good place for all these businesses that have also been displaced by all these other zones being rezoned.

And the problem with Aurora is, who wants to live on Aurora?

The question comes in, we're only getting subsidized housing there, which leads to more problems that we're having.

We don't have a diverse amount of people there.

We're not going to get upper level income and medium and lower income.

So it creates a social issue with Aurora.

And we need these goods and services such as my business supplies and other ones.

Auto mechanics are needed to support the single family zone.

Single family zone, C1 was for those, to provide those goods and services.

And we need our C1 and C2 zoning to make a balanced Seattle.

Thank you.

Mark, you're going to be followed by Roberto Altschul, 24A, and then Bonnie Williams, 24B.

Hi, my name is Mark Foltz.

I'm a Wallingford homeowner.

I'm very privileged to be able to own my home and have a roof over my head.

I support the city's HALA program and the upzones that are being proposed through MHA.

Through relatively modest changes to zoning through a few parts of our city, we're going to generate a steady stream of income for affordable housing.

I'm particularly excited to see urban villages expand, kind of around frequent transit, like at Ballard and also around Crown Hill.

Not to organize tonight.

A few kind of specific comments.

You probably heard that Simon's planning on redeveloping Northgate.

I think they should be allowed to build high rise if they want to.

So maybe we could expand Seattle mix 240 to that entire parcel or a big chunk of it.

There's zero displacement from parking, so it's a great opportunity.

I'd like to see amendments that create incentives for family size units throughout our urban villages we don't have enough of them.

Also deep green housing as someone mentioned so that we can continue to create a sustainable, you know, set of housing for our city.

And I just want to point out a lot of people are saying that the affordable housing funds are going to the outskirts.

That's not true.

It's going to Northgate, First Hill, Roosevelt, Fort Lawton.

These are all places where the city is building hundreds, over 1,000 units of affordable housing.

And I encourage the city to do more.

We should be building twice as much at Fort Lawton.

We should be looking at the Roosevelt Reservoir.

We should be looking at all the public lands so that we should up-zone more, get more funds, and use that funds to build a gap.

There are 60,000 rent-burdened households in Seattle.

HALA's only going to build 20,000.

Where's that other 40,000 going to come from?

This is just a first step.

It's not enough.

Let's go bigger.

Thank you.

Roberto.

Thank you.

I'm Roberto Altschul.

I came to see...

I'm sorry.

Is that better?

I came to Seattle 41 years ago, and when we came with my wife, we said, this is it.

We're never going to move ever again.

And I'm very happy having done that.

And I've seen this city grow enormous, to an enormous city.

Though it's way, way smaller than the city I came from, with about 30 million people.

A city that has a transportation system that allows you to go anywhere within two points in the city without public transportation.

That's one of my concerns in this city.

We're talking about housing, affordable housing, great idea.

I'm concerned about how decisions are being made, how decisions are being made as to where and when, how the public transportation is supporting the growth.

I know that at this very moment the definition of frequent transit is being reconsidered by the City Council, and it's disregarding reality and taking a definition based on schedule, which to me is somewhat insulting to the public.

In essence, what I'm failing to see in all this discussion, and I'm very happy to be able to be here, I'm very happy to hear all the stories, many stories, many anecdotes, and this is not just from the people, but there are many anecdotes coming from the decision makers.

I want to see how your decisions are being made.

I don't see data being used efficiently, professionally, and which reminds me of one commercial years ago, Where's the Beef?

Bonnie, you're going to be followed by 25A, Luke Schlitze, and 25B, Alice Lockhart.

Good evening.

There's been all kinds of wonderful Information tonight, and it's interesting to hear the different thoughts that people have from different neighborhoods What I want to talk about mostly is the word affordability has become so meaningless in this marketing campaign.

I don't think the definition is clear of what we're supposed to conceive as affordable.

We're being led to believe that MHA HALA can control market rate housing.

That's totally false.

I mean, when you go to a presentation, they talk about affordable housing is coming in these diverse types, in townhouses, in backyard cottages, etc.

When you pay current construction rates and hire people at current labor rates, you tear down something.

that's older and affordable, it's not going to be replaced by anything but market rate unless it's in a separate program, unless it's in the program where you use the in lieu fees and the performance is not being chosen by developers very often from what we're, at least in the projections in the EIS.

So the low rise one zone category is used across urban villages It's a predominant zone.

Single-family zones have been predictable.

They have had families living on them.

There's a limit of eight people.

That's the current code.

I know that growth is coming.

I think that low-rise zone, the LR1 zone, is supersized.

It's pretty flexible in that predictability is really difficult.

So one example that I have in my neighborhood is a duplex was torn down.

The developer paid $900,000.

Three row houses and one single family home went back on a 4,000 square foot lot.

He paid $900,000.

His costs have to be figured in, but it's like $4.5 million for the four.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Luke, and then Alice.

Hello.

My name is Luke Schlother.

I am a renter in District 4 in the U District Urban Core.

I am anxiously awaiting the day when my landlord sells my home to build a large apartment building there.

I support M.H.A., the M.H.A. framework, and I want to applaud the council for your diligent attention to detail and data-driven work throughout all of this.

I will say every time I look at that 6,000 new affordable homes by 2025, I can't feel that you've misplaced a zero.

I don't think it's enough to halt displacement.

I think we really need to reverse it.

6,000 new affordable homes is a drop in the bucket.

The displacement that we've been seeing over the course of the six years that I've lived in Seattle and the decades before that.

So yeah.

Any way we can find those extra 55,000 homes, that'd be great.

And I don't think that we should do it by sacrificing existing market rate housing, quote unquote.

I think that it has to be.

new homes, however we can find them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alice Lockhart, you're going to be followed by 26A, Bruce Nourish, and then 26B, Gordon Perot.

Hi.

Oh, I can tilt it.

Sorry.

Okay.

My name is Alice Lockhart.

I live in the Aurora Dickton Springs urban village and I support MHA.

I'm a climate activist volunteering with 350 Seattle, and thus I'm very aware that every family forced to the suburbs by lack of affordable housing and every McMansion allowed to be built in our single family neighborhoods each represents roughly a doubling of carbon footprint relative to living in densely built urban neighborhoods.

With time rapidly running out for the planet, we simply can't afford this.

As such, I deeply appreciate that my house in Licton Springs has been rezoned to RSL, which if I understand it correctly, will allow construction of three stacked units of housing on the existing footprint.

Hopefully, some of those in my existing house, which is a net increase of two units and no displacement of people, birds, or our several significant trees.

It would be even nicer if zoning could incentivize or otherwise encourage the stacked model.

My view will be a little blocked by the denser still zoning changes across the street, but them's the brakes.

However, MSA's zoning expansion, as Luke mentioned, is expected to produce at most 6,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years, when we need more like 6,000 per year to meet dire need right now and expected growth.

Let's implement MHA as planned, and HALA of course, and quickly and creatively rezone Seattle, including many areas now zoned single-family, to end our trajectory toward climate-destroying urban sprawl and move to a dense, green, and livable Seattle that will serve as a model for the rest of Washington and the U.S.

I'll testify on transportation and infrastructure needs another time.

Gordon, if you're here, Gordon Breaux, you're 26B, you're next.

Hi, my name is Bruce Norrish.

I am one of those people who live in the heart of Ballard that is putatively being destroyed.

Sorry about that.

So I actually own property up the hill in Ballard on Sunset Hill, and I live now down in the center of Ballard, and I have seen two evolving futures, one of which is north of 65th Street, outside of the urban village.

And every time there's an old house there that comes up for sale, or frequently, it gets bought, torn down, and replaced with a house that costs a million and a half dollars.

And then south of 65th Street, which is in the urban village, houses get torn down, and they get replaced by three, four, five, six townhouses or row houses, which are in the $700,000 range.

Now, that's too much money.

Like, we should be cheaper.

We should be rezoning much more radically around the city.

You know, Minneapolis right now is considering having allowing for plexus on every large single family lot in the entire city.

We should be talking on that scale, but we've seen a future, like you can go and see it just walk down 65th Street.

We need more market rate housing.

We need more diverse housing, so townhouses are great, but we also need to legalize apartments, multifamily houses, so they can be flat and be more accessible rather than being built in the very tall way that townhouses are.

That's an up zone, folks.

Again, I support MHA.

I consider MHA to be a down payment on the radical citywide rezoning that we need to allow for a return to real affordability for middle class people.

Once again, I support MHA.

Let's go.

Gordon, you're going to be followed by Angela Compton, 27A, and then Karen Labelle, 27B.

Thank you, Councilmembers, for meeting with us tonight.

I have a business on Aurora at 94th.

We have four living wage jobs in that business, and I oppose the change from commercial zoning to NC zoning.

I cannot envision a seven-lane state highway being pedestrian-friendly.

Corridor I can visit on Meridian I can envision it on Greenwood But I cannot envision it on Aurora and I cannot see with the lack of tenancy in the oak tree plaza And the empty storefronts already on Aurora.

I can't see a need for more businesses at the bottom of a large building on Aurora That will not be filled with any businesses and probably will be minimum wage jobs if they're filled by them Thank you.

Thank you

Hi.

As she said, my name is Patron Harrell.

Everybody calls me Mr. B. I work with Washington Housing, a low-income housing company, and also I'm a co-chairperson of a program called Risk and Action Program.

And I was just here this morning talking about affordable housing and bus stuff and everything.

We have been working with affordable housing in our states and everything, as well as Kent, Seattle, Auburn.

We even got, now we got a ballot on the radar because there's a lot of stuff going around.

We also have been going to the Senate and they just passed a bill, Senate bill number I don't know.

I don't know.

Got to put the colors to the mortar.

We got to hold the council members accountable.

You know what I'm saying?

We got to be in their face.

We got to go see what they're doing because town hall meetings are good.

But if we're not putting no action to it, all these things that we are talking about here, everybody coming to contestify, you know what I'm saying?

Get with the Senate.

Get with your local legislature and everything, right?

Tell them about these bills.

Write them.

Write your letter steady.

You know what I'm saying, Congressman?

I just had dinner with the lieutenant governor and the governor.

a thing coming instantly and bossed our opinion and threw stuff in there.

So if you don't never put your feet to the pedal, and you don't never tell people about the stuff and everything, like I said, nothing ever gets done.

So what I'm saying, hold your councilmen accountable, hold your state representatives accountable and everything, right?

And be an activist.

That's how it all gets done.

That's how we're going to get stuff done.

And that's how we're going to get stuff caught.

I'm a veteran myself, and I suffer homelessness.

You know what I'm saying?

Because of my best fortune, that's the only reason I was able to survive.

I'm not from Seattle.

I'm from, you know, of course, from Atlanta, but you know what I'm saying?

I came here.

I've been here for about seven years, and I've been suffering some of the same things that people here in Georgia watching me have been suffering.

Thank you.

Karen?

Karen Lovell?

Karen Labelle, 27B.

And then Marisol Diaz, 28A.

Connor Keeney, 28B.

Hello, 27B.

My name is Karen Labelle.

I am a neighbor.

I'm a neighbor, small business owner.

I helped start the Crown Hill Market.

And I am working to rebuild the Crown Hill Neighbors and Business Associations.

I'm here tonight because I love my neighborhood.

I also embrace the reality that as the city grows, Crown Hill has the space for growth.

I want to see that growth happen with an understanding of the needs of the entire neighborhood.

Crown Hill is more than just undeveloped space.

We are a group of neighbors and businesses with connections to our community.

We are folks who have worked to build parks, purchase the Crown Hill Center and most recently say the homing road overpass.

My interests as a neighbor and small business owner definitely overlap.

First, I hope that the city will not just pile developments into the empty space without first dealing with the real infrastructure problems that exist currently in the community.

Second, an accessible, vibrant, inviting business district is vital to my successful community.

Neighbors need places where they can walk, to shop, and entertain themselves right here in our neighborhood.

My concern is that zoning will create a bedroom community to Ballard.

Affordable housing is important, and so is affordable, accessible space that creates opportunity for small business owners and community connection.

The neighborhood is bisected by 15th Avenue Northwest, which turns into Holman Road, changing the residential zoning in the area around this corner or just around the corridor.

Will that create community?

So currently, the center of our neighborhood is zoned C.

So it is populated by large corporate stores with big parking lots.

A zoning change to NC would help create a walkable shopping area and create more opportunities for small business owners.

For example, the Petco and its parking lot could become a five-story residential urban center.

Suddenly, instead of a single business with a giant, mostly unused parking lot dissecting the community, You've created a vibrant business area with access to city transit, affordable housing, and opportunity for small businesses.

We have a strong community and I look forward to working with you to watch.

Thank you.

Marisol Diaz, are you here?

Marisol Diaz, 28A.

Is that you, Marisol, coming on down?

Yes, she left.

Connor Keeney, 28B.

Connor, are you here?

Okay.

Jeff Whitehall, 29A.

Jeff, you're going to be followed by Catherine Jacoby, 29B.

Sure.

Sure.

Hi, I'm Jeff Whitehill.

I live in District 6 in Greenwood.

I'm in support of affordable housing everywhere.

I'm a homeowner.

I love my neighborhood.

I love the businesses in it.

I want more people to be able to visit those businesses.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness you put into the plan and taking so much public comment.

I wish the plan went further, but it's a good step in the right direction.

We cannot discriminate against people in favor of gardens, giant single family homes, or people like me.

Excuse me.

Or people who want to move into the neighborhood.

Or people like me who are lucky enough to buy into the neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Catherine?

Catherine, you're going to be followed by Alex Brennan, 30A, and then Andrew Tseng, 30B.

Hi, my name is Catherine Jacoby.

I own a home in the 6th district.

I own a home in the 6th district between Greenwood and Crown Hill.

My home is a place where I can get 8 to 9 hours of sleep each day, each night, so I can be alert and successful at my job the next day.

It's a place where I can cook healthy meals, maintain my hygiene, and retreat from the world when I'm having a bad day.

My health, my sanity, and my livelihood all depend on having a stable home.

There are too many people in our community and in our city who don't have the same opportunity.

I support NHA.

I support more density.

I support more housing.

And most importantly, I support housing affordable to people at all income levels.

While I have the time, I also just want to address what a lot of people have said about developers coming in and just profit maximizing.

That's not unique to developers.

And without developers, we can't build more housing at all.

So we need to be partners with developers because keeping developers out also keeps housing limited and exclusive.

So I support whatever we can do as a community to build up, build more, and welcome everyone who already lives here.

Thank you.

Alex?

Hi, my name is Alex Brennan.

I grew up in Council District 6 in Tangletown, and my parents still live in Vote in District 6. I'm here to represent our family's support for the proposed MHF Zone.

My mom likes to tell me about how when my parents moved to Seattle in 1970, you could buy black cod for 39 cents a pound.

In 1981, my parents bought the house I grew up in for $72,000.

That's about 230,000 in today's dollars.

Seattle was a very affordable place back then, and my neighborhood offered small starter homes for entry into the middle class, at least for white folks like my family.

A single mom owned a home across the street next to the house owned by young members of a heavy metal band.

Last year, that house I grew up in was appraised at $794,000.

The house hasn't changed that much.

It's still a small house on a 3,500 square foot lot.

Neither my parents nor the subsequent owners invested huge sums into expansion or improvements.

The house just sat there and got more valuable thanks to the increased value of its location.

That's why we are supporting MHA.

Even small single family homes are no longer accessible for the new working and middle class families.

If we want to preserve the social character of the neighborhoods we love, we need more small lot homes, townhomes, and apartments.

And we need more resources to provide housing for our most vulnerable community members.

MHA does all of those things.

That's why I'm here tonight to say, please get this done.

Thank you.

Andrew, you're going to be followed by Wayne Abe, 31A, and Rick Kleinfeld, 31B.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Andrew Tsang, and I'm a student at the University of Washington.

And first off, I have to say thank you for taking time out of your beautiful, beautiful evening to discuss these important civic issues with us.

So first off, thank you.

Just right off the bat, I'd like to just get off my chest that I support all the proposed legislation.

And in fact, my only concern with this legislation is that it does not go far enough.

We have a housing affordability situation right now in Seattle that is simply untenable.

And in addition to that, we have a climate action situation.

And if we're able to address that, we're going to keep sprawling out into the hinterlands, which is just not acceptable in a 21st century society.

So let's just address this issue right now.

And second off, as an ostensibly progressive city, if we're going to put housing in any of these regions, I think that Ballard, I think that Fremont, I think that Green Lake make a lot of sense.

If we're going to live up to our values as a city, I think that not doing so would be, frankly, irresponsible.

And third off, I think that today is a great opportunity to sort of take a chance and look at the sort of automobile-oriented, not so, these opportunities for redevelopment, such as Northgate Mall right across the street from here.

Their owners, in a Seattle Times article recently published, have stated that they are interested in redeveloping their mall right now.

And right now it is zoned for 90 feet.

And I think that would be a tremendous waste.

of our city's potential to have this mall, which is on the 90 feet, right across the street from the L'Ariel station, be redeveloped into a 90 feet building instead of maybe, you know, what have you, like a 400 foot building, even like, you know, how we have Amazon, you know, building these types of, you know, skyscrapers and stuff like that.

You know, I think that this would be a great opportunity for us to capitalize on the immense growth of our city, you know, to leverage MHA dollars, you know, leverage affordable units or what have you, right?

So I think that, you know, we have to take a look at this.

I'm talking about I'd like to conclude by saying I support MHA.

I support these reasons.

I support a reason of Northgate, of Aurora-Licton, and of Lake City.

So thank you so much for listening to me, Council.

Have a great evening.

Thank you, Andrew.

Wayne, you're going to be followed by Rick, 31B, and then James, Daily, 32A.

All right, so nothing I have will be technically profound, but my name is Wayne Abe, and my family has lived on 14th Avenue and Crown Hill for 30 years.

We have already witnessed transformation over the years from single-family homes to multiple-unit buildings.

We fear that the upzoning will bring high-rise apartments that will increase turnover and instability to our neighborhood.

Right now, the street is lined with single-family homes with beautiful yards and gardens, and we watch over one another.

These changes will lead to shorter-term tenants who will tend to invest in their neighborhood much less than longer-term homeowners.

With the increase in number of residents comes more parking issues.

We don't want Crown Hill to turn into another Capitol Hill.

We also care about our breathing space and sunlight for our garden and home.

Our home is already blocked in on one side with townhomes and do not want other high rise buildings boxing us in, preventing us from receiving beautiful sunshine and fresh air.

Our family asks you to reconsider rezoning an already stable neighbourhood that my family has enjoyed for 30 years because we hope our children and future generations will be able to live a high quality of life right where we live today.

Help save our families.

We can't afford to live in a small two-bedroom apartment with one parking space.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Rick Klingle, Greenwood.

The proposed legislation includes upzoning, which increases the bulk of what can be built on a particular piece of land, which increases what a developer can pay for that land, which drives up the price of land, resulting in less affordability citywide.

In other words, the proposed legislation seems designed to reduce affordability.

This is partially offset by a provision to charge a fee which is used to subsidize housing costs for a small percentage of Seattle's future residents, but there is a significant chance that this fee will be thrown out in court.

If and when this court decision occurs, there will be another surge in property costs as developers will then have even more ability to drive up the cost of land, to bid up the cost of land.

At that point, it will be too late for the city to trade upzoning for fees in a legal way, as the upzoning will have already been given away for free, and the city will already have been zoned to far more capacity than is needed to accommodate the predicted growth.

Any law passed in 2018 that ties upzoning to a fee is irresponsible if it does not contain a clawback provision that says that the upzoning will be withdrawn if the fee is thrown out in court.

Please act responsibly.

Do not mortgage away Seattle's future, and do not sign legislation that neglects the possibility that this fee will be lost in court.

This up zone with this fee is likely to lead to less affordability.

Without the fee, it's likely to lead to much less affordability.

If you must pass something like this, don't think short-sightedly.

Don't act short-sightedly.

Make sure you have considered all possible outcomes.

Thank you.

James, James Daly, you're going to be followed by 32B, Jesse Simpson, and then 33A, Brent McFarland.

Hi, my name is James Daly and I live next to a currently zoned 40-foot property, which we knew about when we moved in.

That will rise to 55 feet under the proposed MHA zone changes, right up against the residential zone.

That's along 16th Avenue Northwest.

Recently I met with my neighbors and discussed what was happening with the MHA and to my surprise most of them had not heard of it and I don't believe that enough community engagement has been done.

These are people on fixed income, they're retired, they're teachers, they're bus drivers, they were not engaged, they were not aware.

First, we want smart growth.

We don't want this developer giveaway.

Now, I've been a member of the Sierra Club and a supporter of climate solutions, and I ride my bike everywhere.

I consider myself a greenie, but I just don't believe that this is the right approach.

Zoning should be community-based.

If this MHA comes into effect, not one affordable unit will be created along 15th Avenue, not at the current rate that the developers are going to pay.

Instead, we will lose a community asset in the form of a cafe, Grumpy D's, which hosts open mic nights and artists from all over the place.

It's a great community place.

We will lose Husky Senior Care.

We will lose other assets in the community.

Third, we don't trust the design review process.

Already the developers bought all the land behind us.

and they have already gotten the permits.

So they'll simply add a floor and they'll bypass all these new processes that have been part, made part of the MHA.

That will be a real shame.

If we somehow got, just a different world, if we somehow got a cooperatively owned tower behind us which actually included a diverse set of units, I'd be in support.

Instead, it's a giveaway to developers.

They're the only real beneficiaries.

I want you to set the price to developers at least three times higher.

I want you to follow that guy's advice about making sure it's legal.

I want the community to have a say.

Thank you.

Jesse?

Jesse, you're gonna be followed by Brent McFarlane and then Patience Malone.

Hi, I'm Jesse from the Miller Park Yabers and Capitol Hill Renters Initiative.

I'm a native Seattleite and recent college graduate.

I'm living in a micro studio right now because that's about all I can afford.

By the way, it's a building in an LR3 zone constructed about a year ago.

If the zoning on my block were single family, I would not be able to afford to live there.

I'm in favor of MHA, though I recognize that it alone is insufficient to fully address our housing crisis, which has been decades in the making.

Our zoning rules have frozen many neighborhoods in amber, preventing them from adding the variety and density of housing needed to welcome more people into a growing city.

As it exists today, our zoning is exclusionary.

Single-family zoning is a classist project created to protect property values and driven by a wrongheaded belief that homogenous neighborhoods are healthy neighborhoods.

I don't think anyone in this room can honestly say that property values in Seattle need protection.

People need protection.

They need housing which is affordable and suits their needs.

It's profoundly inequitable that the only thing that can be built across most of the city is unaffordable housing.

$2 million, 3,000 square foot McMansions on 5,000 square foot lots of land.

I fully support accommodating more growth and more affordable housing in our urban villages, but we have to go further if we want to live up to our vision of Seattle as an inclusive and equitable city, a place offering opportunity and refuge from a hotter and increasingly unstable world.

We have a choice of how to react to the pressures of growth and change, walls or houses.

I say we build more housing of all types to welcome newcomers and help those already here afford to stay in the city.

Thanks.

Hello, my name is Brent McFarland, and I live in District 5 in the Bitter Lake neighborhood.

Homeowner, I've lived there for about 18 years.

And I would like to say, we recognize in our neighborhood we're going to see a lot more density.

With climate change, possibly with climate refugees coming to our city, this increase in growth could be much greater than we're predicting now.

But I would like to say a couple of things about the Seattle we live in now.

We live close to a major transit corridor, which does not have sufficient right of way for pedestrians to safely walk to their bus stop.

So if we want to encourage people to not be driving cars and parking cars on the street, we're going to need a walkable city that allows people to get safely to transit.

This does not exist now.

We've seen a lot of increased growth on Greenwood and close to the Aurora Corridor, both of these corridors from Green Lake all the way to the shoreline boundary.

We need a pedestrian infrastructure that's safe for people to walk.

And we need a transit system that gets them where they're going quickly and efficiently.

So if we need to charge impact fees, let's do it.

If we need to find other progressive sources of revenue for this city to grow, let's do that.

I'd also like to say, and this is my own belief, I think we need a stock of public housing in order to not be yoked to the real estate market and to not be yoked to developers controlling what our city looks like.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Patience.

Patience.

You're going to be followed by Eric Hogard, 34A, and then Will Affleck Ash, 34B.

Good evening, council members.

Ms. Shins, can you step closer to the microphone?

Okay, I'm sorry.

I'm Patience Malava, and I am here speaking on behalf of Seattle for Everyone, a broad coalition united on a foundation of support for the housing affordability and livability agenda.

I'm going to go off script a little because this particular hearing tonight is personal to me.

I used to live in District 6 on Finney and Sixth Street.

I took the E-Line bus Pike Street in downtown where I connected with the 36 bus that dropped me off at my office doorstep.

It was an 18 minute commute to work.

I loved the countless bus options that I had.

Bus options that made my environmental activism possible by making my trips easy to my Sierra Club executive committee meetings.

I didn't have a car because I couldn't afford one.

But also, I didn't need one.

I lived in a short trip neighborhood that I truly loved.

The Philly Ridge area welcomed me to Seattle.

And I went and lived in the city.

But it wasn't long before I began searching for a new home with my partner.

Like the fate of many people working in Seattle and unable to live in Seattle, like the fate of many people that look like me, like the fate of many people that come from where I come from, I was pushed out of Seattle.

I was priced out of Seattle.

I was pushed down south.

The commute is often horrible.

It's hard to work in Seattle and not be able to live in it.

I share this story because it's a story of many people like me in many ways.

As Seattle for Everyone, we urge you to prioritize affordable housing goals as you possibly consider any amendments in the process.

We urge you to ensure maximum affordable units goals from all the urban villages, urban village expansion areas, multifamily and commercial zoning areas in District 5 and District 6. This is an aspect that underscores the importance of each neighborhood doing its part to contribute to the housing issue.

We look forward to working with you to ensure that AMHA's statewide program contributes to affordable housing goals.

Thank you.

Thank you, Patricia.

Eric Cobar, are you still here?

How about Will Laugh Like Ash?

Will?

Will, you're going to be followed by Eric Jackson, 38A, and then Carol Tobin, 35B.

35A, sorry, and 35B.

Right.

So I moved here in the 1980s because Seattle literally cost half as much as Vancouver, BC did.

That's actually still true.

When I first moved here, I had a car.

I rented in Wallingford.

Then I moved and I rented in Fremont.

And then I bought a house in Ballard.

sold that and bought a townhouse in downtown Fremont.

So I've literally lived in most of this or I've had friends who've lived there.

My son currently can't afford to buy a house in Seattle.

He rents an apartment up here near Northgate.

So hopefully you'll actually upzone this so that he could maybe buy a condo or something.

My main thing in talking about this is, yes, you should pass HALA as it exists, but realistically, I think you need to go back to the 1933 zoning, where virtually all of this city was multi-family housing zoned.

All of it.

I think you need to stop going with half measures.

I do actually think where I live, it's fine that you're increasing it by, I think it's 20 or 30 feet.

I'm okay with that.

I mean, I'll sell when I want to sell.

I haven't sold yet.

It could be decades before I decide to sell and buy a different place.

Anyway, I encourage you to increase density.

I encourage you to increase transit.

And I encourage you to increase services.

This is a workable start.

But you need to stop having people slow things down with design review for every single project.

It's just crazy.

Anyway, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Eric Jackson?

Eric Jackson, 35A, followed by Carol Tobin, 35B.

My name is Eric Jackson.

With my brother and business partner, we run two small businesses.

Jackson Design Build.

We do exclusively design, build, remodeling on those small bungalows we've heard about all night.

And we work only in districts four, five, and six.

We also run Sound Seismic.

We do earthquake retrofitting, specifically designed to protect the older homes, 1980 and older, in all of Seattle.

For the past 19 years, I've lived in Crown Hill.

I live on Mary Avenue Northwest.

just east of 15th Avenue Northwest.

I've got a four-story building in my backyard.

Technically, it's one block south, as I keep telling my wife every day.

The zoning just to the west of us is 55 feet.

If there's anybody who would stand up here and you'd think would be speaking out not in favor of MHA and HALA, it would be me.

But I'm here to voice my strong support, even at the cost of my livelihood, to pass MHA and to pass HALA.

And frankly, the current plan doesn't go far enough.

The proposed Crown Hill Urban Village plan isn't dense enough.

Specifically, Just north of 85th on the west side, there's a 55 foot zone.

That needs to be 75 feet like the rest of the Crown Hill Village.

The MFTE program will put affordable housing in each building.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Carol, you're going to be followed by Jay Hernandez.

36A, and Christine Charters, 36B.

Hi, I'm Carol Tobin, and I live in Upper Fremont.

I'm outside the Fremont Urban Village, but I'm in a low-rise one zone.

I'm concerned about the impact of the MHA and accompanying zoning changes on historic properties citywide and on neighborhood character.

I would like to see increased flexibility to preserve historic buildings.

Not just those in designated historic districts or individual landmarks.

I think a less stringent type of conservation district approach similar to the one in the Pike Pine area should be considered.

Sorry, I just lost my place here.

And it should be considered for older neighborhoods like Fremont, Wallingford, Greenwood, Capitol Hill.

I also think that requirements for developers to provide affordable housing should be stricter than those proposed.

I would like to see more emphasis on the provision of affordable housing in the neighborhoods where development is occurring.

Make the fees higher.

If fees are charged and housing is built outside the neighborhood where the development takes place.

Let's also preserve as much existing affordable housing as possible.

Older brick apartment buildings scattered throughout the city often provide affordable units.

A nomination of these properties as a special type of thematic historic district should be considered.

The city should also provide funding for seismic upgrades to these buildings.

They're a really important part of Seattle's character.

Thank you.

Jay Hersmark, are you still here?

Jay, 36A.

Christine Charters, 36B.

Christine, aye.

And then Eric Bronson, 37A.

And Lindsey Brown, 37B.

Hello, my name is Christine Charters.

I live proximal to the Crown Hill up zone.

I'm reading from a Seattle Times article on March 6. About 5,700 new apartments opened just in the last past year across a greater downtown region.

An additional 3,600 are set to be completed this year.

Rents downtown have begun dropping for the first time since the last decade amid the construction boom, as some of the new luxury apartments opening in the city's hottest neighborhoods have sat empty.

Although the area has added more, altogether the area has added more than 20,000 new housing units in the past decade.

There are up to 30,000 apartments still left in the pipeline.

The developers recently reported a pullback in new apartment plans now that rents are no longer keeping up with the rising construction costs.

My question is, of the 30,000, how many are affordable?

I have compiled a few photos of the very large trees in Crown Hill, and my concern is with the Crown Hill tree canopy.

We have already lost large trees to recent development, yet Crown Hill has not been intensively developed, and many large trees still remain.

I believe the density up zone offers little protection for Crown Hills tree canopy.

Many trees are in the back of lots and groves of trees exist across multiple lots.

Crown Hill trees should be mapped and protected and pocket parts to be included to preserve existing heritage trees.

The Ballard up zone is, I believe, no example, with large, boxy buildings that are soulless, treeless, gardenless, that have little sense of history and little sense of place.

Thank you, Christine.

Thank you.

Eric, you're going to be followed by Lindsey Brown, 37B, and Gabriella Muller, 38A.

All right, Debra, Rob, Mike, thanks so much for sticking with us through this marathon.

Much appreciated.

My name's Eric Bronson, and I live in Greenwood, just off of Aurora.

I'm actually right behind the business that butts Aurora, so to the guy who asked who wants to live on Aurora, you're looking at him.

And I would like to start up first off to say that I'm a big fan of MHA and HALA and I think they're great programs and I think that they need to go farther.

We need to have an up zone that goes beyond the 6% of the land that's being viewed now.

And I also want to just mention that I work for a housing non-profit here in town that has a number of different shelters, transitional housing, supportive housing, primarily for women.

And every single day I have case managers who come to me and tell me how bad of a day they've had because we have people, women, with families, with children, who are trying to reunify with their husbands, with their spouses, with whoever it may be that constitutes their family.

And they are unable to do so because they have transitioned out of our transitional housing, out of our supportive housing, and they have nowhere to go.

Our case managers have nowhere to put people who have made it through our system.

We are spending a lot of money in this city to try and combat homelessness.

But if all we can do is move people through our pipeline and then have no housing in which to put them, we are going to waste all of those dollars.

So what I'm asking here is that we upzone a lot more than just the 6% we're looking at with this MHA and HALA, and that we focus not on the neighborhood character arguments.

Because those character arguments around historical preservation, around the number of trees, and around the other environmental impact assessments and lawsuits even that have been filed by some community groups here in town, those are all preventing us from building anything at all.

And if we are going to focus on building enough housing so that we can house those women who are in our shelters who we have said we are going to help you get out of homelessness, we have to stop those from happening.

And I also strongly encourage you to move forward with redefining rapid transit and frequent transit, because as it currently stands, it is another ill-advised block to building housing that could be misused by people who just want to stop anyone from living near them who doesn't look like them.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead.

I'm Lindsay Brown.

I live in District 6 on the fringe of the Ballard Urban Village.

I'd like to say thank you for this opportunity to provide community input.

There have been so many opportunities.

This is the first one that I've taken advantage of, but this engagement effort on behalf of the city has been super robust.

I'm a land use planner myself.

I've never been a part of a public outreach and community effort as broad and inclusive as this one.

So thank you for all of your effort.

I agree with MHA.

I agree with the approach.

I find it context sensitive.

I particularly like that it proposes increased density in Ballard, where I know that there is low displacement risk and extremely high opportunity.

I'm a white, middle-class, well-educated white woman, and Ballard is where I like to live precisely because of the amenities and because of transit, and I wish that more people had that opportunity.

I feel that adopting MHA means that homeowners lucky enough to inherit or buy their homes in Seattle's best neighborhoods benefit by increased land value and increased neighborhood amenities with no mandatory changes.

MHA utilizes one of the few legal tools that ties the causes of affordability challenges, new growth, and increased demand to the solutions which are accommodation and inclusion.

The nexus is there.

The affordable housing problem gets worse annually.

We all see it.

And so the mandate is here for you to do something about it.

And I think MHA is a good first step.

Every new unit built here in Seattle, luxury, market rate, or subsidized is one fewer unit that's occupied in Renton and Monroe or Burien, where people who work in Seattle, or want to live in Seattle, or are forced to live and drive increasingly large distances every day.

I wish that the new development and investment we've seen here in this most recent boom had to pay into something that would increase affordability in this city.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Gabriela?

Gabriela, 38A, you're going to be followed by Bonnie Gale, 38B, and Tony Bates, 39A.

Hello good evening my name is Gabrielle Moller and I want to second what the previous speaker said to thank you so much for your time and your attention this evening.

I've also been heartened by the comments I've been hearing from the public.

It's clear to me that everybody in this room deeply cares about the city and cares about how we are going to fund affordable housing in this city.

I moved to Seattle 30 years ago, and about half that time I'd been living in Ballard.

And so I've seen dramatic changes happening right around me, right on my block.

And I'll confess that initially, let's say seven years ago, I had to talk to you, Mike O'Brien, about, no, we really need to do something about the design of these new buildings.

It just doesn't fit with the character of the neighborhood.

But it wasn't something I was going to fight about, because I realized that in the scheme of things, that's not as important as housing for people.

And over the last seven years, my thinking about that has gotten stronger and stronger.

And I want to echo what somebody said earlier, that MHA is a down payment on the radical rezoning that's needed for Seattle.

I strongly support the idea for creating the urban villages and for focusing density around transit.

I think the plan that the council has come up with, that the city has come up with, is intelligent, but I don't think it goes far enough.

I think we need more affordable housing.

Someone else this evening talked about affordable being tossed around.

Right now, AMI in Seattle for a single person is $63,000 a year.

I am a successful business owner.

I don't earn $63,000 a year.

I couldn't afford to live in Seattle if I didn't already own the house I lived in.

And I own it because we purchased it in 1976. So thank you for your efforts.

We're going to get there.

Thank you.

Bonnie Gale, you're going to be followed by Tony Bates, 39A, and then Frank Fye, 39B.

Hello, my name is Bonnie Gale, and I'm a resident of Ballard near Ballard High School.

I have rented my 400 square foot apartment with my dopey lab for four years.

I have the honor and privilege to live in transit-oriented development and reduce my prior commute from two hours to 30 minutes.

allowing me to invest time in my community.

By doing that, I do volunteer work with C.R.R. Club.

We have two commitments right now in the C.R.R. Club Seattle group, and that is climate action and affordability.

I think that this is a huge issue that we need to really concentrate on.

We need to get people in housing as soon as possible.

Our community, our neighbors are out on the street at night.

I know that you've been doing the at night counts.

We really appreciate the work that's been happening.

I'm in support of MHA.

Our community is in support of MHA.

What we really need to do is we need to move up the timeline as quickly as possible.

We need more housing as soon as possible.

This is a pollution issue.

This is a community issue.

And I really strongly encourage everyone to support MHA.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Tony Bates.

Tony.

Frank.

Frank, you're going to be followed by Jordan Ram, 40A, and Christy Caldwell, 40B.

Excuse me.

Good evening.

I'd like to encourage all the council members to take a skeptical view of what's being presented here.

This proposed MHA policy does not benefit current residents, does not benefit displaced residents, just simply benefits building more and more expensive housing.

From the final EIF, from the final environmental impact statement, The current projected production of affordable housing units due to the MHA policy is only 5,633 over 20 years, or 282 units a year average.

This does not even begin to make a difference to, say, housing the homeless, let alone the backlog of affordable housing.

And yet to do this, this policy demands that we destroy and displace, destroy neighborhoods, destroy communities, and displace people who have invested in the city for years and years and raised their families here.

I would make clear, I have two children, and they're 19 and 23, and they can't afford to live here.

But that's not new.

It's been for five years or so.

Because unless you really make a lot of money, nobody can afford to live here without subsidies.

MHA will not change that.

MHA will simply build a lot more units that are only available to wealthy people.

Currently, it only asks for 6% of affordable housing units to be built, but most of those are unlikely to be built because the VIS projects that only 18% of those units will actually be built on site.

Everything else will be handed as fees to the city to try and solve that problem.

Thank you, Frank.

Thank you.

It's getting close to 9 o'clock.

We've got about 30 folks left to go.

Everybody's going to get their fair two minutes, but I will say we're supposed to be out of here at 10. So all of us who have to wrap up tables and put away microphones would appreciate it if you maybe winnowed down to more like 90 seconds if that's possible.

Jordan Rent, 40A, followed by Christy Caldwell, 40B.

Christy.

And then Zachary Lubarsky, 41A, and Noah Ahn, 41B.

My name is Christy Caldwell, and I'm a homeowner at the north end of Maple Leaf in District 5, so on the corner of 11th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 108th Street.

This is one block off Roosevelt Way and one block off Northgate Way.

I believe that the housing problems facing Seattle are compelling and complicated, and it's really been an education for me to come to this and to understand a little bit more of what the whole situation is being proposed.

But somebody said that the devil is in the details, and I guess what I want to do is talk about one of the details.

There's a proposal to upzone one side of 11th Avenue Northeast.

That's the street I live on the West side of the street is now been zoned.

I believe when it originally in the first draft of the proposal was zoned.

And I'm not sure why that was increased.

But the side of the street that I live on, which is the east side of the street, backs up against Victory Creek.

I, therefore, am in the environmentally critical area.

And I am not allowed to add more than 150 square feet to the footprint of my house, which is understandable, and I support that.

But it seems rather ironic that across the street, it would be able to build up to three-story apartment buildings.

And I have a couple other concerns in regard to the safety there also.

People attempt to avoid North Gateway and the intersection there by zooming through the street where I live.

There is a one lane bridge there that already cars zing through there.

And I'm very concerned about whether the configuration of the streets right there are appropriate for having a much higher density.

And I'm also concerned Of all the runoff that would come from the streets there.

Oh, sorry, Christine.

Thank you very much.

Zachary, Zachary Lebarski.

How about Noah?

Noah, come on down.

You're going to be followed by Sylvia Swineberger, 42A, and then Mark Quam, 42B.

Good evening, council members.

Thank you all for being here tonight, so late into the night.

My name's Noah Ahn.

I'm a renter in District 4. I was unable to stay until the end of that last hearing, so I'm here tonight.

And I'm also a student at UW.

And I'm here today as a supporter of affordable housing and citywide MHA.

In June, I will be graduating from UW, and I desperately hope that I can live, work, and continue to contribute to this city that I call home.

But for me and for so many of my classmates, that hope is increasingly uncertain.

To anyone who's looked for a home to rent in this city recently, it's painstakingly clear that as Seattle grows, we are not building enough housing to keep up.

As much as we call ourselves a welcoming city, housing restrictions are a wall that keep too many from calling Seattle home.

To those of us who can't afford a single family home, it often feels like we're just not welcome here.

Luckily, policies like MHA can help change that.

MHA would create more housing options for people like me throughout the city while building 6,300 units of affordable housing along the way.

So I want to thank Councilmember Johnson and all of you for your leadership on this issue.

I hope that we can see this legislation passed so that I and so many others can continue to live in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Noah.

Sylvia?

Sylvia, you're going to be followed by Mark Quam, 42B, and then Michael Eliason, 43A.

Hi.

I'm from the Crown Hill area.

And I do live in a single-family home, but I'm here to talk about the neighborhood rezone.

I also noticed that the original plan had heavy zoning around 15th Avenue Northeast with High rises and commercial and then.

Residential small lot.

Now it's all the chosen plan was with LR1.

And I'm wondering why that change happened.

I mean, it's the biggest.

Rezoning of any section of single family homes, I think, in any of the urban villages.

And we're not going to get a train.

We're not even projected to ever get a train like the Ballard, the one in central Ballard is so I feel like.

Going LR one is a little bit too much for this neighborhood and RSL wouldn't fit better Also, I have concerns about you know, we're in by rezoning all this We're increasing proper taxes property taxes for everybody in that area and that in itself will displace some people and And we're asking property owners and utility rate payers to pay all the infrastructure costs for all the increases in electricity, sewer, water, garbage, police, fire, schools.

And the developers only have to pay 282 housing units per year for the next 20 years.

It seems like a bad trade-off.

We should be asking them for more infrastructure fees, impact fees, so they can pay for the infrastructure and not have that be a burden of property tax.

Thank you, Sylvia.

Mark?

Mark, you're going to be followed by Michael Eliason, 43A, and Angela Compton, 43B.

Thank you very much.

We're Kwong from Crown Hill.

I'm kind of concerned about the effects of this proposal.

I don't support it in total, but maybe the things, improvements along 15th and 85th, that would be fine.

What I'm concerned about in our area where they're proposing four townhouses in my lot.

So that's one house being replaced by four townhouses, two people in the house now that could be eight people in a house later.

And that increases your water consumption by about 300%, and your wastewater increased by about 300%, and your runoff may be somewhere in there.

I don't know what it'd be.

But currently, in about 1980, I measured my water pressure.

It was about 40 PSI.

Now it's 30 PSI.

So what's it going to be when you add all of these apartments?

And I don't see anything addressing that, and that needs to be addressed.

Parking is the other thing.

I don't know how to deal with that, but they're coming off of 15th down into our area because of commercial, and they can't find parking there, so they come down to our area.

If you put apartments there, it's going to be a problem.

So why not have a requirement that says something to the effect, if you're going to rent to somebody, you've got to provide them a parking space, or you can't have a car.

So something like that, that puts it on the landlord to decide whether he wants to provide another enough parking spaces or not and follow that up with heavy fines or something.

The other thing is currently I've seen the building.

down in Ballard, and most of it's vertical.

For us older folks, we don't like to see that.

We like horizontal.

That doesn't mean we can't walk up to floor two or three, but we don't want to be walking from the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom.

And so I would like to see something done about that.

Thank you, Mark.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Mike Eliason.

Thank you for being here.

Oh, I can do that, too.

I'm here for a friendlier Fremont, middle class family, two kids.

We live in a two-bedroom ADU.

We're just outside of the urban village.

All of Fremont, in fact, all of D6, except for the core of Ballard, used to be zoned for multifamily, three-story wood-framed buildings, and now almost none of it.

I'm here to say that I support all 65 recommendations of HALA, including the abolition of single-family zoning.

But I especially support MHA.

A couple of facts about D5 and 6, they're majority renter households.

All but one of the urban villages are overwhelmingly majority renters, so please keep that in mind when you're talking to the community.

We also suffer from significant land use inequities.

We don't have adequate zoning for affordable, family-friendly homes.

Most of our housing growth is focused on arterials.

We're presently trying to figure out how to Stay in the city long-term.

We're working with several households trying to develop, self-develop, Balgruba Cooperative.

None of the zoning in this area really supports that.

We want to be sustainable, affordable.

We want to be scalable.

We want middle-class family housing that's car-free, bike-friendly, and not on an arterial.

Please keep that in mind for families and middle-class people all over the city, not just our area.

A couple other things.

Multifamily housing is illegal in 94% of District 5. This is absurd.

District 6, it's 85%.

We have massive inequities.

Almost none of our parks are surrounded by multifamily housing, multifamily zoned land.

MHA starts to address this.

We need to be bolder.

We could be more progressive in our land use.

MHA starts to get us on track.

If we can rely on MHA and other tools, such as abolishing single family zoning, we can finally become a greener, more sustainable city.

And thank you.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Angela, you're going to be followed by Emily Yasukochi, and then Ray Robinson, 44A and 44B.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Angela Compton.

I'm here today on behalf of FutureWise, a statewide organization that focuses on preserving our green space and farmland by curbing sprawl and making our cities livable for everyone.

We're a part of the Seattle for Everyone coalition that's working to ensure that we have homes in our city for neighbors across the income spectrum.

I'm here today to give support for the proposed reasons to enact mandatory housing affordability.

I actually have a letter here from Garrett McCullough, who lives in Ground Hill.

He's unfortunately out of town this week, but he asked me if I would read this to you guys.

So this will be in the first person from Garrett.

My wife and I own a house in Crown Hill, on a block the MHA plan would rezone from single family to low rise one.

And I want to see these rezones happen in my neighborhood and others.

For the record, I really like my house, my neighbors, neighborhood, and city.

But people like me who have been lucky enough to live here shouldn't lock the door behind us.

And that's why I'm fully embracing this change.

As for rezoning, I'm all for including plenty of family-sized homes in Seattle, but I don't think that always means a single house on 5,000 square feet of land.

I hope that MHA gives families who can't afford a 5,000-square-foot lot the option of half a duplex on 2,500, for instance.

Hopefully individuals or couples who can't afford a market-rate apartment today can hopefully find a place to live as we build more market-rate apartments.

And the affordable housing support will help ensure we don't push others out of the city with entirely high rents.

Will MHA and this specific rezoning proposal make everyone 100% happy?

Of course not.

But there are trade-offs and compromises on all sides.

I see these changes as a first step towards proving we can be an inclusive, affordable city, and I want to see them happen, including those that would be right next door to me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Angela.

Emily?

Emily, are you here?

Emily Yasukochi, and then Ray Robinson.

I didn't see Emily, so Ray, take it away, and then Tim Lanahan, 45A, and Ben Mitchell, 45B, are next.

I'll bring my number back in just a moment.

I'm a longtime resident of Lake City, and I'm a design professional, and I'm also a community advocate.

Just briefly about the regional view, what's happening in Seattle is because of lack of affordability, many of the younger people and economically disadvantaged are moving out into other smaller communities and then adding to congestion.

I support MHA, and I'd like to see us go further with it to enable not only more diversity economically, but also ethnically in other ways.

So talking briefly about Lake City, the thing that I would like to say is one size does not fit all.

Unfortunately, we're zoning and land use driven as a way of controlling what our communities are like or enabling a framework.

And what I'd like to see changed or added to are two things.

One, if you will, an overlay district.

That would be helpful in Lake City.

Further, I would like to see an incentive program for development, which we currently don't have.

And to me, what that incentive program could be is actually enabling Developers to build things that we want with a palette of amenities that are driven by the community and Lake City It'd be open space small gathering spaces better infrastructure so that I'm a proponent of that and then secondly I I'd like to see NIHA go further and actually protect the diversity that we have in our society.

Maybe it's rent control.

I know we can't say that.

But in other programs that will enable us to protect what's there and makes Lake City beautiful and diverse.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I want to say state law doesn't prohibit us from saying the word rent control.

Just implementing.

The 10 o'clock show is totally different from that 9 o'clock show, Councilman O'Brien.

Tim Linehan.

Tim, are you here?

Sorry for that moment of comic relief, Tim.

I know this is a serious topic.

Ben Mitchell, 45BE, and then Ben Katt, 46A.

Hi, Tim Linehan.

My comments aren't for or against.

I just want to talk about some of the things that have been happening.

I graduated from Ballard High School in 1982. I've bought, built, owned rental houses ever since I graduated high school.

My parents didn't have a phone.

They didn't have a car.

We didn't have heat in the winter.

I don't believe that the city is doing anything, zero, to help affordable housing.

What they've done is they've picked winners and losers with their zoning laws.

They've allowed the breakdown of our urban society.

They've allowed the destruction of older homes and apartments.

How are new million dollar houses affordable?

How is stuffing us in like rats gonna make our life better?

How is building multimillion dollar apartment buildings going to invite minority and alternative people?

Our city is housed in opulent buildings while they have unfunded pensions.

There is no inclusive, affordable new construction.

Large white affluent neighborhoods have the smallest impact and they are the least affected by the rezones.

The cost and regulation that the city imposes upon builders, property owners, is what is causing our housing crisis.

If you want a voice, you have a voice.

It's called a vote.

Vote people that do not support affordable housing.

Lastly, if you want to help people, provide early childhood development.

Thank you, Tim.

Ben Mitchell, are you here?

No Ben Mitchell.

How about Ben Katt?

Ben Katt, 46A.

Ben, you're going to be followed by Tamina Arjona, 46B, and Andreas Arjona, 47A.

I want to thank you all for your time tonight, especially the gentleman running the clock.

We all appreciate that.

My name is Ben Katt, and I live in D5 with my wife and our three children.

And I'm here to express my support of HALA and the MHA.

I spent a large chunk of the last 10 years starting and running a non-profit called the Aurora Commons on Aurora Avenue, which we're grateful for the city's support as the commons continues to serve men and women in and out of homelessness, struggling with addiction and mental illness.

and so in that work I've seen firsthand the struggle and while we have made a huge difference over the years with the rapid change that's happened in the city, it is even more apparent now that we need creative housing alternatives for people.

And so in light of that, over the years I've expressed my support and done organizing in favor of DESC's projects originally at Aurora and 100th, also the Licton basically Tent City, the tiny village encampment on Aurora, and also more recently DESC at 96th and Aurora.

And that's kind of where I want to bring you to because I live on that exact street one block away.

and actually live in the last single family house on that block.

And my wife and our kids, we love it.

And yet, because of our support of believing in the need for higher density housing, we actually want to say, don't just make our lot LR1, which is in the preferred alternative.

We actually think that in the northern part of the Aurora-Licton Springs urban village, there should be LR3.

It's a two-minute walk to the bus stop.

There's a lot of creative stuff coming in there, great neighbors.

Along with that, as I have six seconds, I want to say I really support the NC zoning on Aurora because we don't need more storage facilities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tamina?

Tamina Arjona?

Tamina, you're going to be followed by Andres Arjona.

And then Rich Tabor.

Rich is 47B.

Hi.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Let's see if I can do it within 90 seconds.

I live in Ballard District 6. I'm speaking in favor of mandatory housing affordability.

My husband and I are in our late 20s.

We both work full time.

Most of our income goes into our rent.

My husband will be starting grad school next year.

Woo-hoo.

But that means it will only be one income household.

And not only that, we'll be spending more money because we have to pay for his education or probably get a loan.

So not having places for us to live.

Sorry.

It becomes very personal.

We don't even think about owning a house one day.

We really want to start a family, but we can't even afford to start a family.

So yes, MHA is not perfect, but it's a first step.

So please move forward.

Please support young people like us so we can participate in our community and help you make it better and help make the MHA better.

So thank you.

Andres Argena, and then Rich Taber, and Ashley Hamilton, 48A.

Hello, my name is Andres.

I am living in Ballard in that urban village.

One of the reasons we decided to move into the urban village was because I used to live in a village with 400 people in Macedonia.

in that small little village, the amenities that I needed.

I had a grocery store down the store.

Currently, I have a grocery store down the road as well.

It's called Top Banana.

I love the Top Banana.

I am scared for them, though, because that is a location that is prime, and it should be up zoned.

It has to be.

But the grocery store is a place that I go to so often that I want you guys to think about after MHA, and I'm supporting it, what to do to preserve grocery stores like his that are nice and small and to encourage more grocery stores within walking distance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And congratulations on graduate school.

Rich Tabor.

Rich, are you still here?

How about Ashley Hamilton, 48A, Ashley?

Ashley, you're going to be followed by 48B, Steve Rupstela.

Good evening, and thank you for allowing the opportunity to speak.

I'm in favor of MAJ. My name is Ashley Hamilton, and my story is one of unfortunate circumstances, relocation, and leveraging opportunity to help build my future.

A colleague encouraged me to share my story tonight.

After a moment of reluctance and failed excuses, I agreed that I could step up.

At first doubtful that my current circumstances add to the narrative of affordable housing in Seattle.

After deeper reflection, I realized that I have nothing more than to be grateful for the opportunity and availability and accessibility of affordable housing programs.

Unfortunate circumstances.

In 2012, just after graduating, from a graduate school in the area.

I was employed within a month.

Within a year, early 2013, the company I worked for was purchased and I was downsized.

Then I went into tailspin and after several attempts to find employment in my field and having minimal real world experience, it was difficult to say the least.

And so I packed up and I moved to a family in Southern California.

My stay in California was brief, and thanks to a graduate school friend, agreed that I could return to Washington and room with her, so I did.

Although she offered me to stay as long as I needed, I didn't want my independence, and having some background in food service, I took a position at a restaurant in Seattle.

Additionally, I began to work at a temporary staffing firm for law firms in the area.

It was at this time I actively started looking for affordable housing in Seattle.

After repeated no vacancy calls, I found a location that offered a three-month waiting list.

So I waited and worked and saved.

And long story short, because my time's getting down, I would hope that I heard it echoed that it's a comprehensive effort.

So just keep that in mind.

Transportation, homelessness, and everything above.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ashley.

Steve?

Steve, you're going to be followed by David Moring, 49A, and then Kendall Kruver, 51A.

My first concern is the expanding of the urban villages for this concept, and I think we should stay in Fremont with the boundaries which came about a number of years ago and were highly fought.

This is just another opportunity to renounce bargains of the past made with citizens, and I think that's terrible and unfair to citizens.

I know you want to keep your word to developers, but how about trying keeping it to some of the citizens?

not going to be nearly successful.

You're probably going to get rid of more affordable housing units than you're going to have as subsidized units because of your absolutely bargain costs for the development community.

And what many communities find also insulting is the fact that the housing won't be in the neighborhood that you actually are destroying housing in.

So requiring developers to have the housing in the areas they build might make it a little bit more reasonable.

As it is, you're really gentrifying even more than what would happen normally.

And we're having a heck of a push for gentrification right now.

It's easy to see, you'd look at the central area where it used to be 80% black, now it's around 20% black.

The same thing's happening in other neighborhoods, only it's different white people being replaced.

It's economic more than it is racial.

And unless you start raising the things and raising the amounts that developers pay, this doesn't have a chance.

And you should be looking at impact fees for developers.

We're one of the few large cities that doesn't have them.

It looks like maybe you're more concerned with the developer's bottom line than you are with solving problems.

Now if you really want to do things to help, you do things like that.

Don't do like you're doing with the urban forest, absolutely destroying it.

You claim you're for trees.

You claim you're against homelessness.

But these things just keep getting worse because you have established groups you just don't want to go against.

Thank you, Steve.

David?

David, you're going to be followed by Kendall Kruver and then Richie Stair.

Thank you, Council, for listening to all of us here tonight, and thanks for the people who are staying to hear what everybody else has to say.

I also want to kind of repeat some of the things that you've already heard, but the City Council has to do something with this MHA, and we all know what it is.

We have to raise the fees, or we're not going to get—oh, let me say, I'm representing the Baker Street Community Group here tonight.

We have to get more participation from our developers.

If they're buying the lot for a million dollars, they're tearing down whatever's there, and they're printing up for $800,000 units, we're not doing affordable housing here in Seattle.

So please, City Council, think about support this mha program by making it more mandatory to do affordable housing by increasing that amount if you could.

Simply a developer paying $20,000 to the city to build one market rate unit for $800,000 That's not going to get us anywhere.

We're going to have four units.

We're going to get $100,000.

And what can we do with that $100,000?

We can't do much, if anything.

So we're going to build a lot of market rate units.

And when I hear over and over again from the people that we're not doing enough, this is why.

We're never going to be able to do enough until we match those cities like San Francisco or Boston who are paying $300,000 for every market rate unit that is not participating with an affordable unit.

We need more affordable housing.

Let's be serious about this MHA program.

And I support the appeal.

Thank you.

Kendall?

Kendall, you're going to be followed by Richie Stare, 51B, and then Mo Pilgrim, 52A.

I don't think any of us would make the dangerous decision to build a house without a foundation, but that's what's happening in the Crown Hill urban village area.

New residences are going up every day, heralding increased density, which is good, and yet we don't have adequate infrastructure for our existing residents.

And we particularly need sidewalks and better drainage.

To walk to the bus stop in the morning, kids and parents must navigate three-foot-wide puddles.

And we're sometimes forced to walk in the middle of the street, where they're frightened children, as rush hour cars try and avoid traffic using residential streets raised around us.

And at night, low-lit streets like 87th Avenue Northwest are a treacherous place for bus commuters trying to walk home.

As increased car traffic also shares the road, and it can be extremely difficult to see these pedestrians, and even turning a corner at a lowered speed, it's only a matter of time before somebody's going to get hurt because of the darkness and that lack of sidewalks.

Crown Hill is not ready for increased density.

It is currently and will increasingly be a dangerous situation for all if our infrastructure issues are not fixed.

We don't want to live through a repeat of the destruction caused by the flooding in Madison Valley in 2006. And this issue must be addressed because it gets worse and something like that potentially happens again.

I'm sure that you don't want to be paying millions of dollars to fix a problem you could have gotten ahead of in the planning stages.

So I just ask that you prepare Crown Hill for growth.

Do it properly because This is your one chance to get it right.

And if you can't provide adequate sidewalks and drainage now, then please re-evaluate your criteria for increased density so that current and future residents may live in a safe and functional neighborhood.

And do it now, because if it is neglected, you will have an expensive and potentially deadly mess on your hands.

And it just isn't worth it.

Thank you, Kendall.

You're going to be followed by Mo Pilgrim and then Toby Thaler.

Hi, I'm Richie Stare.

I've lived in the Seattle area since the 1950s.

I've lived in lots of the different neighborhoods around.

I'm a big fan of density and I like the proposals for density close to transportation.

In particular, because of climate change, I think it's really smart, because we can live close in, we reduce sprawl, and it improves air quality because we don't have all those cars so jammed up on our freeways.

So many good points.

I'm not going to go on that one more.

I'm going to say one that I haven't heard And that is for climate resilience in this city.

It's getting hotter.

We have to look at ways that even as we Build more density that we keep the trees when we put those little tiny trees in we lose our cloud our our tree cover, the city's hotter and it's getting, we're breaking records every year.

So we have to look at things like can we have incentives for rooftop gardens or other kinds of ways that we get green in our city.

The other one is, is this city in the last five years, the rain has been 30% more, we get more intense.

Weather events the rain comes down harder.

That's going to be the case in coming years even more so as in my neighborhood as we lose those old little houses and we build in more apartments, that's good.

But how about permeable sidewalks, permeable pavement for where there is parking?

How about incentives for rain gardens that will help to address some of these runoff issues?

That's not just a climate issue, it's a pollution issue for our Puget Sound and the Salish Sea and water quality.

So let's build those in.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ruchi.

Mo Pilgrim.

Mo, you're going to be followed by Toby Thaler, 52B, John Lombard, 53A, and Greg Hill, 53B.

Hi, I'm Mo Pilgrim.

Thank you for staying so late to listen, and especially to me.

I'm a merchant on Aurora.

I have a shop on the corner of 100th and Aurora.

And I am totally against cutting all the automotive businesses and some of the businesses that people use in their everyday lives, like fixing your car seats, having your furniture reupholstered, that sort of thing.

It really puts a problem in my lap.

I'm going to be forced out, and I have to spend a lot more money.

I have to go off the main drag.

I have a sign.

My Corvette's parked on the side of a wall up there.

It's a Seattle landmark.

I mean, I can tell people in other cities that And they know exactly where things are.

But that's my piece on the initiative.

I don't know enough about it.

But my eyes have been opened here.

I'm a past Commodore of the Seattle Commodores.

And I will carry this out amongst the people that I know and have conversations.

Because I think you're jumping ahead of yourself a little too much.

I think one at a time.

I haven't seen one done yet.

I live in Roosevelt.

I work in Licton Springs.

I've seen crime increase.

My car's been broken into four times since they put all the apartments in down there by the rail yard that hasn't even opened up yet, or the bus barn, or whatever they're building.

And I think Northgate's a great idea, but I think you should do one area at a time, or three or four, not blanket the whole thing.

That's my piece.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mel.

Toby?

Thank you again for staying tonight.

Thank you.

The last speaker said the right thing, one at a time.

One thing that other cities have learned, like New York, is that inclusionary zoning can help mitigate displacement.

It doesn't solve it.

But in order to be politically tenable, it needs to be done on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

The devil's in the details.

I'm going to give you a couple of details In 2010, Fremont was up-zoned.

Fremont Avenue, the urban village, was up-zoned from L1 to L2.

We lost the unit count limitations so that there would no longer be large apartments because LR2 has FAR.

There's a whole bunch of single-family zoning across a 12-foot alley along Fremont.

It created edge impacts that were not adequately addressed in 2010. The MHA wants to increase that edge effect even more.

not only in the urban village, but all around on Upper Fremont.

There are numerous blocks that have the edge of the urban village against single-family zoning in the middle of the block along lot lines, not even a 12-foot alley.

Another example, along the waterfront, we have a shoreline management program that limits the height to 30 feet in the first 200 feet, and then some more depending on the size of the lot in the uplands.

The MHA proposal is calling for increasing the zoning, the underlying zoning, to 55, 65, 75 feet all along the canal.

Why is that even in there?

That's for not having the discussion with the people and the businesses in each neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you, Toby.

John Lombard, will you be speaking?

John.

John, you're going to be followed by Greg Hill, Richard Ellison, and Julia Park.

Good evening and thank you, Councilmembers.

My name is John Lombard.

I live here in the Northgate area and I support the overall approach behind the MHA legislation.

I would raise two concerns, however, drawing from my experience across District 5 and reinforced over the past three hours of testimony.

First, like the last couple of speakers, I believe rezoning some 22 urban villages and centers across the city all at once, with no individualized environmental review or public outreach, virtually assures mistakes that are counter to the interests of communities affected by the rezoning.

Here in District 5, even active citizens in the Northgate and Bitter Lake neighborhoods are largely unaware of the rezoning that is being proposed for them under this legislation.

I've heard one speaker from Bitter Lake tonight, and only one beside myself from the Northgate area, right here where we're holding this meeting.

The City has identified both Northgate and Bitter Lake as having highly vulnerable populations with a high displacement risk.

I do not believe that moving forward with this citywide legislation on the Council's current fast pace is appropriate.

It should be broken down into much smaller pieces with individualized environmental review and outreach.

I myself would support much higher zoning for the Northgate Mall than is currently in place.

Second, greater density needs to come with appropriate infrastructure and public amenities.

Long stretches of Aurora and the Bitter Lake area do not have safe areas for pedestrians to walk, let alone full-scale sidewalks.

Rezoning involves more than just affordable housing concerns.

Parks, transit, pedestrian safety needs, schools, and other public infrastructure are important too.

That is the second and maybe even more compelling reason for not moving forward with rezoning of urban villages and centers across the city without more careful attention being paid to each one.

Thank you.

Greg Hill, Richard Ellison, Julia Park, and then Jeffrey Lynn will be our final speaker.

Greg Hill from Wallingford.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you.

HALA public outreach is the culmination of a trend away from involving citizens and decisions that affect them.

Property owners are not being notified.

We get this door hanger, which says nowhere that our property is being rezoned.

It does say that you have to rezone to create affordability, which, of course, is a complete myth.

A year or so ago, you guys up-zoned the area of Queen Anne from 40 to 65 feet.

Now, one of those lots with 59 affordable units will be torn down so that 111 new small units can be built there.

The MHA requirement would have to be a 50% replacement in order to result in a break-even on affordable units.

The truth is, MHA is going to destroy more affordable units that will create simple math.

What would you expect from a developer plan?

I prefer no up zone.

The comp plan says there's plenty of space for more growth.

In fact, we've had more growth in the last year in housing than any previous year.

In the last four years, more than any 10-year period before.

If more development was the answer to cheaper, it would already be cheaper.

I do like the Herbold Plan for Housing Bond and Growth Fund.

That makes sense.

And no HALA bonus should be given for any project where 20 or more units is going to be torn down.

Lastly, the Multifamily Tax Exemption, which was developed by developers, for developers.

When developers in our neighborhood build tiny units, 200 square foot units, their return on investment is the best you can get for building housing.

But it's not over, because then we give them a tax break.

$9 million or more a year are going to pay developers who are already making top dollar so they can make even more.

That's ridiculous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Richard.

Hello, I'm not going to recite poetry tonight for you.

You guys are having a hard time staying awake.

Congratulations on being here for three hours.

I'm here to talk about trees and I understand that you asked some very pointed questions at a City Council meeting where one of the departments is presenting and you were asking questions about the green factor and what was the green factor going to be and how they're going to improve it.

But what I saw on TV was they never really gave you an answer about that.

They never really gave you some data to work with.

They said we're going to make it better.

We're making it better.

Trust us.

We trust us before.

My understanding on The affordability for developers here have been building is that they're going to pay $13.25 per square foot.

So that means that for a 750 square foot apartment, they'll pay about 10 grand in fees in lieu of actually making it affordable housing.

Point one.

Another issue is on MHA is that basically what you can do is you're going to build taller buildings, five foot minimum setbacks, maybe seven foot on average setbacks.

Where are the big trees going to stay?

Where are going to be the yards that the kids are going to play?

We're building family housing here, right?

Where are the kids going to play?

Oh, you have to go to the park.

Where's the nearest park?

Well, we have the Parks District Taxing Authority that's not being used to purchase a lot of lands as new parks.

So you're building all these new dense apartments in really you're up zoning and you're creating in Fremont and in Ballard and all these other communities, you're not making affordable housing, making very expensive housing for families to come into and there's no place for the kids to play.

Where are the kids going to play?

That was one of the things Cass Turnbull talked about was, well, where are the kids going to play in the big trees?

And so in this creation of upzoning, as you eliminate the open space, it's gone forever.

If you have a neighborhood with trees, whatever open space you have.

Thank you, Richard.

I'm sorry.

We're at 935. Julia Park.

Julia, are you still here?

Julia.

And then Jeffrey Lynn, who will be our last speaker.

And sorry about the scaring, staggering to this phone here, but I have a little bit of a health issue.

So thank you very much for staying so late to listen to us.

My name is Julia Park.

I come with more than 20 years of land use planning, comprehensive planning, and growth management work and a variety of cultural area.

or cultural activities, I guess, and currently serving as a Ballard community representative for Sound Transit Light Rail Link Extension.

And I just, my main concern is that, of course, we all realize that absolutely density, raising density and increasing affordable housing is an absolute necessity, but in terms of processes that have happened so far, I really have a lot of problem with that because this one size fits all type of approach that involves upzoning in such a huge area in Seattle, normally in a regular comprehensive planning revisions or neighborhood plan revisions that gets implemented in a zoning, upzoning or you know, revision of zoning involves, first of all, making a policy change first rather than the other way around where you mandate the zoning change and then come back and revise the neighborhood plans and conference plan to fit the upzoning you just did.

So what the advantage of doing the planning first before you go ahead and doing this upzoning is that you get to consider all of the infrastructure, coordination of infrastructure, adequacy of the infrastructure concerns, and all the other related issues extensively involving neighborhoods themselves.

So that's really.

Thank you, Judy.

I'm sorry, your time is up.

Thank you, Judy.

Jeffrey Lien.

Jeffrey, you're our final speaker for tonight.

Council members, thank you so much for spending all this time here listening to us.

I live in Wallingford.

I live in the area that's going to be zoned, or proposed to be zoned LR1.

I live in a single family house that we've owned for 15 years.

We have a backyard garden.

We have fruit trees.

We have backyard chickens.

And it's all very lovely, lovely.

And if some higher buildings go in next door, my garden might be shaded.

Good.

I look forward to that because we need more housing than we need a backyard garden.

I would love to be able to put a DADU in my backyard.

I would love to have higher buildings around my house in my neighborhood.

I'd love to have a greater mix of building types in my neighborhood.

I didn't really prepare any remarks.

I'm just going off the cuff.

But there are a lot of people in Wallingford who support HALA and MHA.

They're not retired.

They work.

They have kids.

It's hard for them to come to these things.

But that's it for me.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Jeffrey.

So that concludes.

That concludes our March 12th special meeting of the Select Committee on citywide mandatory housing affordability.

I want to say a special thank you to folks from my office from Council Member O'Brien's office, from Council Member Juarez's office, and from our Council Central staff for sticking out with us tonight.

In terms of schedule of what's ahead, this is our final discussion on the D5 and D6 zoning changes.

Next we'll move to Districts 3 and 7. We'll have an open house at Washington Hall on March 27th and a committee meeting at City Hall on Monday morning of April 16th with a public hearing on that