Land Use and Sustainability Committee 5/6/2026

Good morning, everyone.

The May 6th, 2026 Land Use and Sustainability Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 9.38 AM.

I'm Eddie Lin, chair of the Land Use and Sustainability Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Vice Chair Strauss?

Here.

Council Member Foster?

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Chair Lin?

Present.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you all for coming to this Wednesday morning meeting to discuss land use.

As always, thank you to our city clerks, council central staff, mayor's office, OPCD and SDCI for helping us prepare for this meeting.

Before we move on to the hybrid public comment period, I just want to note we had a little bit of a technical issue for people trying to call in remotely.

And so if you signed up remotely, I think the best approach will be to sign up again to make sure you have the correct meeting ID and password.

We'll start off with in-person public comments.

So hopefully that gives time for anyone signed up remotely to get the correct ID and password.

Oh yeah, and if you could check your email if you signed up remotely for the correct meeting ID and password.

Okay, so we will now move on and open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to items on the agenda or items within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

At present, we have 18 in person and roughly 10 remote.

Okay, so since we have fewer than 30, it'll be two minutes per speaker.

So each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with in-persons first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they're registered.

In-person speakers will be called first after a tool will move to remote speakers until the public comment period is ended.

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

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

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

And that is Andrea Ornelas.

Hi, okay.

Grand Rising, I'm Andrea Ornelas and I'm here today on behalf of more than 20,000 construction workers and their families across King County and the 19 affiliated unions of Seattle King County Building Trades.

As we shared before, the council's previous 6-3 votes, we continue to believe that the proposed makers district and the stadium area represents a major economic opportunity for Seattle.

We believe it is entirely possible to protect our vital industrial and maritime job base while also creating a dynamic entrepreneurial makers district.

This proposal is back before you today due to a procedural technicality, not because the merits have changed.

And we want to be clear that allowing the site to remain underutilized for another decade will be a significant missed opportunity for the city.

Seattle's in the midst of the housing crisis.

The Stadium Makers District would deliver nearly 1,000 housing units, including a commitment that 50% would be affordable housing for those earning 60% to 90% of the area median income.

Seattle urgently needs workforce housing so that teachers, nurses, first responders, artists, hospitality workers, and small business owners can continue to live in the community that they serve.

This project will deliver that housing while supporting family wage union jobs, and it will be privately funded.

At a time when new multifamily permit applications have dropped dramatically, nearly 90% since 2020, according to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, we should be supporting projects that are ready and able to move forward.

We urge the county to seize this opportunity for jobs, for housing, and for Seattle's economic future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Joshua Curtis, after which we'll have Steve Rubstello, Dennis Stills, and Ashley Nervabig.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Joshua Curtis.

I'm the executive director of the Ballpark Public Facilities District, the public owner and steward of T-Mobile Park.

I wanted to make a few points about the Stadium Makers District Bill, a piece of legislation that was approved a year ago with a 6-3 majority and that is being now rescinded because of a city procedural error.

makers district, 50% of all housing would have been affordable for those making between 60 and 90% AMI and also located on site.

In the city and makers district, deals were struck that would have ensured projects were built and staffed by a fully unionized workforce.

In the city and makers district, the residential would have made it possible to provide much needed makerspace for local craft industrial industries.

a sector that is seeing one to two businesses leave the city each month and that is especially vital for supporting women and minority-owned businesses.

Because of these and many other benefits, the City of Makers District was supported across almost 30 organizations representing more than 170,000 workers.

nearly 700 small manufacturing businesses, more than 200 affordable housing developers, neighborhood associations in the Pioneer Square and CID, local landowners and stadiums and their teams.

For our union workers, for cost burden renters, and for our struggling makers industry, I ask that you find a way to keep the door open to one day revisit this opportunity.

A final thought.

Earlier this week, I was at my daughter's track meet in Renton Memorial Stadium.

While there, I was reminded that the BNSF delivers parts for going to assemble airplanes right next to High Regency, which is right next to the apartment building and the Gene Colton Wetlands.

We can do the same here.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Steve Rubestello, followed by Dennis Stills.

You haven't mentioned trees for a while, or the lack thereof.

On Fremont, we are seeing nice little signs about removal of trees that started growing in the 70s.

They'll put saplings in there to replace them.

And what high standard did SDOT have?

The developer asked.

That's the standard.

I think it's time you care more about citizens, you care more, you call yourself environmentalists.

Try practicing it.

In Fremont, we'd like to see real action for the citizens, not just for the development community.

These new units, which you're calling and other people are calling affordable, market rate are not.

We're seeing working class people leaving this city because of the affordability issue.

We're seeing industrial land go away because when you make it dual use, you go to the highest return to the investor.

Now, I know some of the industrial jobs are dirty, and they may not meet office standards, but many of them do pay a living wage and not just a minimum wage.

You know, something that the city has not really been that concerned about.

We're seeing more and more people going down the economic chain and fewer and fewer doing extremely well.

And it's time to start taking a look at housing for the people who really need it.

Now, a few arms for the poor and your whole lot, whole code seems to be provide more housing for people who have options to begin with.

Let's make this city truly diverse and not just a few rich and a lot of poor.

Thank you, Steve.

Next up we have Dennis followed by Ashley, Anitra, Ivan, and Gregory.

Good morning, council members.

Good morning, Chairman Lin.

My name is Dennis Sills.

I'm with the Downtown Seattle Association.

We're happy to be here to support the mayor's effort to deliver 1,000 units of shelter, and we want to thank Councilmember Foster for bringing forward this legislation.

As you consider amendments, we want you to focus on both delivering quickly and also at the lowest cost possible.

As you consider amendments, please try not to enact any additional barriers as we're moving forward with this plan.

I also want to share some information about a project that we're working on in some concentrated areas downtown that we're calling the Downtown Seattle Streets to Housing Program.

We are working with Community Solutions, Purpose, Dignity, Action, and Reach.

And earlier this week, we started doing coordinated outreach to prepare people to move indoors as part of this effort.

But that also means that we need these units to come online soon so that we have a place for people to go.

We know that it takes a lot of work to get people ready to move into housing, and we're willing to do that.

The MID has 165 ambassadors that will be helping with that effort and getting people prepared to move indoors.

but we really need these units to come online quickly.

So thank you for moving this legislation and as you consider amendments, please focus on that delivery and making sure that we can get these up and running as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ashley Nurpivig.

Hi everyone, I'm Ashley Nurbovig with Purpose Dignity Action and I'm here speaking on ordinance 121195 related to land use and zoning for transitional encampments.

Over the last few months, we felt a renewed energy to tackle the homelessness emergency in the city.

and this is a massive undertaking.

That's clearly on display in the amendment proposals related to this bill, which touch on care, public safety, land use.

And what I've seen in the past few months is that every single person on this council is thinking about how we do this in a way that works for service providers, participants, and community members.

I see this bill as an incredible jumping off point that outlines the places where we need to do work together to guide this process, to be a national example of how to tackle homelessness in major cities.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next up we have Anitra followed by Ivan, Gregory, Erin and Kelly.

Good morning, Anitra Freeman with Sharon Weill.

SHARE and WHEEL together operate nearly 500 shelter spots all over Seattle, including two tent cities.

SHARE has 36 years of experience doing shelters and encampments safely without paid security, many times near children and preschoolers and parks.

We strongly oppose the amendments to CB121195 proposed by Councilmember Rivera.

These amendments are based on false and harmful stereotypes.

Homeless people, including those in low barrier shelters, are people in need, not predators.

The amendment by Councilmember Strauss is simply baffling.

Organizing large camps into smaller neighborhoods may help build community, but fencing them off from each other breaks community.

It resembles the organization of a prison more than of a shelter.

In all your legislation, trust experienced providers more.

Work with providers.

Act on reason and compassion, not fear.

Thank you.

Next up we have Ivan.

Hello, Ivan Grutis.

I'm a practitioner.

If you could hold on a sec, could you lift the mic up a little bit?

Wonderful, and then thank you so much.

I'm a participant at Share Wheel.

I live at the Brick House, which is Share's family and disabled shelter.

Honestly, the cost of paid security and the elimination of so many potential homeless shelter locations would severely restrict the creation of new shelters in a time of desperate need.

Without shelter, people do die.

And sometimes red tape kills.

Both of these amendments are based on false harmful stereotypes.

Our discussion about these amendments, one share participant said, I feel like I'm being called a predator.

Homeless people, including those in low barrier shelters, are people in need, not predators.

They don't need to be continually being crushed down by everything.

A lot of these people, if they were just given a chance and given a chance to recover, they would be able to become useful members of society again.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Gregory followed by Aaron N. Kelly.

Hello.

My name is Greg Greer.

I'm with ShareWheel, and I stay at the Bunkhouse Homeless Shelter.

We strongly object the amendments to Council Bill 121195 proposed by Council Member Rivera.

These amendments are not necessarily and severely restrict the creation of new shelter in a time of desperate need.

Without shelter, people die.

The restrictions that are suggested, of distances from parks and schools are not necessary.

The city needs shelters.

These would leave nowhere to put them.

We also object to the mandates that set legislated numbers on security guards and staff, which might sound like a reasonable suggestion, but the decision should be left to those who manage the shelters, oftentimes who use self-governed, voluntary staff who are not paid.

and these suggestions would be very costly, much more than I think people expect and would severely restrict the creation of new shelters in a time of desperate need.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Aaron followed by Kelly.

I'm Aaron with Bunkhouse and Sharon Will.

Ultimately, these proposed amendments do not reflect a rational need, but are based in fear.

We need you to act on a reason and compassion, not on fear.

Please vote no on these amendments.

These are communities, not internment camps.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Kelly followed by Hallie, Ebo, Kara, and Lisa.

Hello.

I'm Kelly.

I live in D3.

I'm a social worker.

I've worked for many years as an outreach case manager, and then right now I work as a full-time trauma therapist.

I am really glad that we are passing legislation to expand housing.

That is awesome.

And I also really want to see that include comprehensive services, but those services also need to be trauma-informed.

They need to be dignified and person-centered.

And as you're hearing, there are people here who have lived experience speaking to that.

So I think we need to take that seriously.

The other reason I'm here is because I started organizing with Services Not Sweeps.

Today, actually, Wednesday morning, a couple blocks from me, there is a sweep happening.

If I wasn't here, I would be there because those are people that I've been in communication with.

Those are my neighbors.

I think there's a real contradiction happening right now.

We're talking about getting safety ambassadors out to bring people inside at the same time that, on average, seven times a day, there are sweeps happening.

That's a huge dissonance for me when I'm thinking about how do we bring people inside while actively treating them like garbage.

That is really inhumane, but it's also ineffective.

It is hugely expensive.

We're spending over $30 million to conduct sweeps.

I would love to see the outreach care model where we send people out that are not police officers, that actually have training, that know what they're doing and also know how to relate with people in a human way.

When I have gone out to sweeps, I have seen that oftentimes there is not housing offer, there is not shelter that is reasonable, and I have given people rides to get where they need to go because no one can offer that.

If we're going to bring people inside, I love that there is outreach that's happening, but that needs to be conjoined with stopping sweeps so that we can make sure that that funding is actually going to where it needs to go.

Thank you.

I look forward to seeing what happens in the right direction.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Next we have Hallie followed by Ibo, Kara, Lisa, and Sam.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Hallie Willis.

I'm the policy manager for the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, and I live in District 5. We're deeply concerned that contract requirements for shelter operators would be added into the land use code.

It's not at all clear how these would be enforced or by what department, and it sets a bad precedent that any contract requirements can be added anywhere in the city code to be enforced by any department.

we must expand shelter in a way that meets people's needs, and we thank Councilmember Foster and Hollingsworth for making improvements to their amendments.

However, we still have significant remaining concerns with the content of Amendments 1, 2, and 5, as well as the two amendments introduced last week by Councilmember Rivera.

These all add significant burdens and restrictions that make it harder to site shelter and operate it at a time where we desperately need more.

They risk making shelter operators responsible for things outside of their control, and they don't improve safety or stability for people staying in tiny home villages or in the surrounding neighborhoods.

We urge a no vote on these amendments today and recommend you take up these important discussions outside of the land use code instead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Evo.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Ebo Barton.

I'm the Director of Housing Services for Lavender Rights Project.

I work in Capitol Hill District 3, supporting a permanent supportive housing site for Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ folks, people who have been often overlooked, pushed out, and too often asked to survive systems that were never built for them.

And I want to start by thanking Council Member Hollingsworth, because being listened to, actually listened to, while doing this work on the ground really matters.

About 63% of people who are unsheltered in Seattle have complex needs.

That's not a statistic to debate, that's a reality we work with every single day.

So the question becomes, are we building systems that match reality?

Because high support housing works, but it only works when it's actually supported, and that means low caseloads, that means 24-hour staffing, that means two people on site at all times, not as a goal, not when it's convenient, but as a baseline.

Councilmember Rink's amendments are the only ones that actually address staffing ratios and 24-7 staffing, and that difference between a model that works and a model that doesn't.

At our site, we use front desk advocate model through an agency called the Bindant Guard.

I also know an agency called We Deliver Care.

These are not security guards, they're trained in de-escalation.

They understand conflict before it becomes a crisis.

They build relationships, hold accountability, and help maintain safety without turning someone's home into what feels like surveillance or detention, because safety and dignity should not be in competition with each other.

A lot of what's being proposed is about safety.

We all want safe and stable communities, but safety without resources is just an expectation.

An expectation without support sets everyone up to fail, and that means my hardworking staff, that means our residents, and our beloved neighborhoods.

Good neighbor agreements alone won't get us there.

What works is real-time response, trained staff, and people who know the community and can intervene before things escalate.

And if we define safety too narrowly, if we say, that traditional security, we risk dismantling models that are actually working.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Kara Nichols Barrett, Lisa Dugard, Sam Wolf, and Kara Williams.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Kara Nichols Barrett, and I serve as a priest, and I work alongside a group of pastors in West Seattle.

Is that better?

Do I need to start again, or am I okay?

Sure, yes, please go ahead and start and speak directly into the mic.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Kara Nichols Barrett, and I serve as a priest in West Seattle and work alongside pastors in West Seattle that are seeking to come alongside neighbors experiencing homelessness.

I appreciate this committee's concern for the potential neighborhood impacts of expansion, and I recognize your role in responding to the concerns of neighbors and trying to hold all of our neighbors' needs and concerns together.

I hear, as I read the amendments, concerns of potential impacts to blocks, to safety, to quality of life, and yet in my own experience and the experience of my faith community, quality of life has been enhanced as we have become more proximate with our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

I also wonder if the operational requirements in these amendments may unintentionally limit the best use of this land in Seattle and undermine proven best practices like resident self-governance, shared responsibility, and community formation that are at the heart of making tiny house villages succeed.

So, council members, I ask that as you hold the question of how do we minimize negative impact, that you also hold the question, how might expanding this capacity lead to mutual flourishing for everyone who calls Seattle home?

I would also ask that you consider moving the issues raised in these amendments to the high acuity work group and ask them how we might not only prevent misuse, but also determine best use.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next up we have Lisa Ducard.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Lisa Dugard, co-executive director at Purpose Dignity Action.

Like others, here to address some of the amendments that are being considered.

I want to recognize that these all really are aiming at common concerns and values about safety, orderly operation.

and those are understandable and legitimate concerns.

And like many, we have concerns about the actual implications were these amendments adopted as originally written.

I wanna acknowledge how receptive many council members who authored some of the amendments have been to feedback.

I know there have already been changes and so I'm not gonna address some of the things that I know are already planned to be changed, but thank you to Council President Hollingsworth, Council Member Foster, Council Member Strauss for hearing concerns and making changes.

I wanna address three points that are still, I think, on the table.

One is, very much as Ibo said, The security requirement actually has something in common with Council Member Rink's minimum staffing concept in that it would require resources.

One cannot perform complicated and essential functions without resources, at least not in communities that are serving people with complex needs and who are themselves often victims of exploitation and violence.

but sort of a standard security approach is generally speaking not the right one for this work.

Many of us have developed and partnered with organizations that provide excellent safety and de-escalation services.

They are not sort of traditionally licensed security companies.

They have different specialized expertise.

I want to thank Council Member Rink for her staffing minimums.

This is the most important thing we can do to foster safety for staff and residents and neighborhoods.

Finally, the land use code probably isn't the best place to govern operations and look to the high acuity work group and Council Member Kettle's proactive efforts around social service impact as maybe a better vehicle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have CM Wolf followed by Kerr Williams, Eshwar, Samastakar, and Kelly Ruffer.

Council, is this on?

Yeah, just kind of more closely.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Sam Wolf.

I work for PDA as the local policy director.

This land use legislation today is aimed at making shelter, recovery, and stability accessible for more people.

Many of the proposed amendments today are understandably aimed at ensuring safe and orderly shelter operations.

These two objectives are not at odds with one another.

Co-lead, a high support shelter housed within PDA, has a track record indicating exactly this.

However, both outcomes rely on shelter providers having adequate resources.

In order to support people with complex needs and in order to support real-time response to issues identified by neighborhoods, shelters must feature high-quality, low caseload services and 24-7 staffing.

I want to voice appreciation to Council Member Rink for including amendments that speak to this.

At CoLead, we've also seen huge benefits from safety teams, like WeDeliverCare, which are not security teams, but which have a six-year track record of demonstrating that they have the intensive de-escalation training, issue identification, and milieu management that's able to make shelters good partners to neighborhoods.

I'd like to ask Council to ensure that any requirement for safety teams and safety capacity allows for teams like WDC and is not limited just to traditional security teams.

And finally, we recognize that the land use code may not be the most appropriate place for guardrails on staffing, but my hope is that these conversations can continue in more appropriate vehicles and that they draw on the lessons learned by providers currently doing the work, best practices, and what we see to be currently working in Seattle today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Carl Williams.

Good morning, council members.

My name's Kara Williams.

I live in D3 and work at the Low Income Housing Institute.

I am here today to voice thoughts on CB121-195 as a whole and ask that you reconsider Amendment 5 and any sort of shelter buffer zone.

Both of these amendments would work against the goal of this legislation to expand shelter in Seattle.

On buffer zones, finding a site for a new village is difficult enough.

Finding one that is big enough and well-suited to serve more than 100 people would make it even more challenging.

This policy would make it nearly impossible to site villages Near transit services and amenities like parks, our unhoused neighbors deserve to feel included on their pathway to housing.

On Amendment 5, separating villages into 75 unit neighborhoods will be complicated operationally.

Providers are prepared to, of course, provide sufficient facilities and increased security to match the higher number of people on site.

However, dividing villages would substantially increase construction costs by duplicating water, sewer and amenity infrastructure and drive up operating costs to ensure security and staffing to manage separate access points, more fence lines and gates.

We ask that you please consider raising the limit for neighborhoods to its current maximum 100 units and please ensure the necessary funding is allocated to support the elevated cost of creating neighborhoods.

The high cost of these changes must have funding allocated, otherwise this will become another barrier.

Tiny House Villages are a tool at your disposal to bring people off the streets of Seattle, but these amendments add restraints that take away from what makes them work.

Their effectiveness, cost efficiency, and the relative ease to add more fast.

We support raising shelter capacity limits, but please consider provider needs and feasibility as we try to meet our most vulnerable neighbors where they're at.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Just another announcement that for those who wanted to sign up remotely, please check your email for an updated call-in and sign-in number and or if you need to, you can attempt to re-register.

Next up we have .

Good morning, council members.

I'm here in my personal capacity as a citizen who's concerned about housing in Seattle.

As you know, Seattle continues to face an acute shortage of housing and has lots of affordability challenges.

Despite this, last year we saw the delivery of approximately 6,500 new housing units, which included about 2,000 that were designated as affordable.

So this was done mostly by private investment, and I think that shows that when the conditions are right, it is possible for private investment to have a meaningful impact on the housing supply and affordability in Seattle.

But today that momentum is at risk of reversing, and permit activity in the city has slowed down to a near standstill.

So across the development community, projects that would deliver both market and affordable housing, many of which participate in the MFT program, are no longer financially feasible under the current conditions.

So the result is a stalled pipeline at a time when Seattle continues to face these acute housing shortages.

I've personally evaluated several of these projects, including one that I'm working on, which is a 100-unit project in the core part of the city.

And it's a very challenging environment to actually get one of these projects off the ground.

So there is actually one project at 5201 Rainier Avenue South where they've had a permit that's been approved years ago that is about to expire.

So I'd like you to request to not let that happen.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Kelly Reefer.

Hello, my name is Kelly Reefer and I'm a District 4 resident and a mom in Seattle.

I'm here today to speak in support of expanding shelter options and specifically tiny house villages.

A few years ago, my daughter and I would pass the tiny house village that was sited on 45th as we were walking to the light rail to head to preschool.

And it really was a village.

We noticed that community members took care of picking up litter and we saw the same faces every day who we could wave hello to.

That tiny house village was relocated and for good reason.

It's going to be affordable housing.

However, it's taken years to break ground on that affordable housing project and that really highlights the need of this kind of shelter option.

It takes a long time to address our housing shortage and the tiny house villages provide a great interim solution for our communities.

I specifically want to address the buffer zone amendment It ignores two really main facts.

There are children experiencing homelessness in our city and they deserve safe shelter as well.

We also know that our parks are not distributed equitably throughout our city and I want to see more tiny house villages in District 4, not less.

It's important that we offer our unhoused neighbors dignity and a roof over their head and a door to lock go a long way in doing that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair, that was our last in-person speaker.

We will now move on to our remote speakers, starting with Jasmine Clark.

Good morning, Chair and Council Members.

My name is Jasmine Clark, and I'm here on behalf of the ACLU of Washington regarding Council Bill 12-1195.

At its core, this proposal is about aligning land use policy with reality and with our constitutional values.

Seattle cannot regulate its way out of homelessness.

When there is nowhere for people to go, policies that restrict where people can exist do not resolve homelessness.

They simply move people around, often at significant human and fiscal costs.

We've seen this play out across Washington.

Local jurisdictions adopt restrictions.

People are displaced and the underlying crisis remains unchanged.

That patchwork approach has not worked and it will not here.

That's why this legislation matters.

By expanding the city's ability to site and scale shelter, including transitional encampments and micro-shelter communities, you are addressing one of the core barriers to a more humane and lawful system, the lack of sufficient appropriate alternatives to being outdoors.

From a land use perspective, it removes some of the structural barriers that have made it harder for the city to site and scale shelter.

Caps, zoning constraints, and siting limitations don't just slow things down.

They contribute to a system where we are functionally expecting people to comply with rules that the city itself has not created the capacity to support.

I do want to be clear about something we see consistently in our work, however.

Capacity is only meaningful if it is actually accessible.

Shelter has to be low barrier.

has to accommodate disabilities, partners, pets and people's belongings.

Otherwise, it is not a real alternative and people will continue to be pushed out of systems that do not work for them.

This council has the opportunity to take a critical step toward a system that prioritizes shelter over punishment and aligns our land use policies with both evidence and constitutional principles.

While we have concerns about some of the amendments, including the buffer zones, we are supportive of the underlying legislation and urge you to continue moving toward a framework where no one is penalized for simply trying to survive when there is nowhere else to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Matt White.

Hi, my name's Matt White.

I'm Senior Construction Project Manager with the Low Income Housing Institute.

I lead land acquisition and development of all of our tiny house villages and RV safe plots.

First, I'd like to speak to the proposed amendment about the buffer zones.

I agree with many of the points made earlier that this would eliminate many, up to 50% of the sites that we review as potential villages.

The key thing being pushing villages away from schools, daycares, parks also pushes them away from necessary services for the people who use our villages.

It would push our villages into industrial zones and rural areas where they would not have the access to public transportation, food, mental health services, things like that, that they need close by.

We recommend that you please revisit that amendment.

The other I'd like to speak to is Amendment 5, requiring the neighborhoods controlled access within larger villages from a construction standpoint.

This would multiply our hygiene facilities, kitchen spaces, laundry, increase water and sewer run connections and ultimately could have about a 30% increase in project setup costs that we want to make sure the Council is aware and is agreeable to funding.

Additionally, the separate access control would harm security.

So more fencing, more gates, reduced ice lines, all has a negative impact that would require more staff and more cameras to monitor.

Additionally, for fire safety, separate zones would require more emergency egress exits, which further complicates the right-of-way.

We thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Sim Hems.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Sam Hamm.

I'm here today on behalf of more than 20,000 construction workers and their families across King County and the 19 affiliated union of the Seattle King County Building Construction Trades Council.

As we made clear during the previous council process that resulted in the passage of this ordinance, we continue to believe that the Stadium Makers District represents a tremendous economic opportunity for Seattle.

We believe Seattle can both protect its historic maritime and industrial economy while also creating a vibrant modern makers district that supports light industrial business, entrepreneurship, innovation, and critically needed workforce housing.

It's important to recognize why this issue is back before the council today.

This is not about the merits of the proposal suddenly changing.

This is about a procedural technicality.

The core opportunity in front of the city remains exactly the same.

And from our perspective, Allowing the site to sit vacant, underutilized, and deteriorating for another decade would be a major missed opportunity for Seattle workers, Seattle families, and Seattle neighborhoods.

We all know Seattle is facing a housing crisis.

The city maker's strategic proposal would create nearly 1,000 new housing units with no public subsidy required for construction.

Importantly, half of those units are planned to be affordable housing serving working people earning between 60-90% of the median income.

These are people who keep Seattle running every day teachers, nurses, first responders, service workers, artists, small business owners, skilled tradespeople, and young families trying to stay in the communities they grew up in.

Seattle cannot continue pushing working class people further and further outside the city limits.

Frankly, at a time when multi-family permit applications in Seattle have dropped dramatically over the past several years, we should be paying attention to projects that are actually viable, privately funded, and prepared to move forward responsibly.

This is about whether Seattle still believes in building opportunities for working people.

Let's keep Seattle open for business.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Jared Peckauer.

Good morning council members.

My name is Jared Pachauer and I'm the project architect on Columbia City Place at 5201 Rainier Avenue South.

I'm here to provide testimony in support of the application by Eagle Rock Ventures and 5201 Rainier LLC to extend the contract rezone originally approved by ordinance 125632. I've worked on this project from its earliest entitlement phases through completed construction documents, and I can say with professional confidence that shovel-ready is a literal description here, not a marketing phrase.

Mupp and building permit are both approved.

Construction documents are complete and stamped.

The drawings around my desk could go out for construction this month.

The remaining barrier is financing, not design or permitting.

The project will deliver 111 homes consisting of 104 apartments, 4 townhomes, and 3 live work units on a vacant Columbia City corner with 20% affordable through MFTE and an additional 9% through MHA plus 2 3 bedroom family size units in a market increasingly dominated by smaller dwellings.

The neighborhood now firmly supports this density.

The 2019 area-wide MHA re-zones brought NC-255 directly adjacent and NC-275 across the street, and a similarly scaled mid-rise was recently completed next door at 5231 Rainier.

The applicant has acted in good faith through more than a decade of process, including four design review board meetings, service as the early test case for MHA compliant, and extensive SEPA studies, all under requirements the City has since substantially revised.

As an architect and a Columbia City resident, I want this housing built.

The month expires on May 15th of this year, and the extension is what allows the project to remain on the path to construction.

I respectfully ask the committee to recommend approval to the full Council.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Marta Kidani.

My name is Martha Quirana and I'm the Community Engagement Manager at Lehigh.

Committee members, thank you for all of the work you have done to expand shelter in the City of Seattle and doing so while considering the needs of the community, our unhoused neighbors, and providers.

We understand that you have prioritized shelter expansion to effectively meet the homelessness crisis, but from our perspective, some of the amendments will hamstring providers' ability to expand shelter, which is the spirit of all three council bills as a part of the mayor's shelter expansion plan.

Firstly, I would like to speak to the walk-on amendment from Council Member Rivera regarding setting no shelter zones.

Prohibiting this siting of micro shelters serving more than 100 people would remove at least half of Seattle as an option, pushing people in need further from services and transit.

We should be working from a perspective of inclusion and not exclusion.

This is the amendment that has the potential to cause the most harm to people in need of shelter.

Furthermore, I understand the goal of Amendment 5 and grouping tiny houses or micro-shelters together in clusters of 75 while creating barriers around them.

But I ask that if this amendment passes, that neighborhoods be set at 100 people capacity to match the current cap of shelter census.

Accordingly, if this amendment passes, we need the council to also allocate funding at the same level as these construction and staffing costs, as they will be equally high.

New funding will need to be determined to make this possible as the Finance Committee budget does not allocate for these changes.

We believe that the attention of many of the amendments to Council Bill 121195 is to create more shelter with adequate services and resources, but this should be expected from staffing and operation strategies.

If enough resources have been allocated for well-trained staff and appropriate guidelines for safety have been established, we believe that...

Thank you, Marta.

Last up, we have David Haynes.

David?

David, I see that you're here, but we cannot hear you.

David, we're going to come back to you.

We have one additional speaker.

That is Walter Hatch.

Walter, please press star six.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi.

Yeah, this is Walter Hatch.

I'm with the Ballard Task Force on Homelessness and...

Walter, I can see that you're speaking, but we cannot hear you.

How about now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay, sorry about that.

Yeah, this is Walter Hatch.

I'm with the Ballard Task Force on Homelessness, and we're really concerned about a number of the amendments that would make it harder to pursue this shelter expansion plan.

In particular, we're concerned about the proposed buffer zones, and also the subdivision of tiny home villages into smaller segments that would increase the cost.

I've been spending a lot of time hearing from neighbors about how expensive it is to live in Seattle, how hard it is to buy housing.

And I think that complaint about cost is legitimate.

I am quite concerned that not only are we gonna make it more difficult to solve our homelessness crisis, we're gonna increase the costs and really undermine the progress we need to make.

I've been reading Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.

What the city council members proposing these amendments seem to wanna do is do exactly what the affordable literature suggests, which is make it harder to solve problems by government.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Walter.

Last, we have David Haynes.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

Zoning is supposed to help improve and balance the quality of life.

the council is taking away the maker's mark stadium district housing and then you're gonna create a law that says an RV and a tent have to move into the same little confined area where some guy's gonna run his combustible generator driving that person in a tent nuts.

Now, let's be real about it.

LEED and co-LEED are prioritizing self-destructive repeat offenders in the tourist and the business district and all these non-profits that got case managers that helped get an ID to fill in the blanks and move people forward without addressing their drug addiction are going to be overwhelming the system.

It stands to reason that if you made more zoning that allowed for authorized encampments that we could get the National Guard to stand up within like 72 hours and process people with the community service officers as the free security on the drug addiction encampments to help people focus 24 seven and then graduate them to a tiny house village that you could prioritize innocent homeless to help them move forward.

Instead of overwhelming the system, I think it would improve a little bit.

But think about this.

It's a little off the subject, except it's exactly to do with land use.

The port is overwhelming the Mariners.

We need a law that says that the trains are not allowed to honk their horn.

A couple of days ago, Munoz is sitting on his derriere for eight innings.

And sometime around the fourth or fifth inning, this godforsaken industrial train comes in with its air horn and just starts blasting, driving people nuts.

And I swear to you, the bullpen is too close to the train track.

So when the horn is honking, it's right on the other side of all this metal that's echoing in their ears and messing up their mental health and causing them to flake like Seattle does too many times at home.

So we need to improve the community and keep the service providers honest about their unqualified case managers only getting IDs.

Thank you, David.

Chair, that concludes public comment.

Thank you.

As there are no additional registered speakers, we'll now proceed to our items of business.

We'll now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one.

Item one, Council Bill 121171, an ordinance related to land use and zoning repealing ordinance 127191, which allowed residential use within the stadium transition area overlay district for briefing discussion possible event.

Thank you.

This legislation would repeal Ordinance 127191, which allowed housing in the stadium transition overlay district responsive to a Growth Hearings Management Board decision.

Finding Ordinance 127191 was incorrectly passed at Council and contained procedural errors.

So we have our representative from Council Central Staff to join us to answer any questions Council may have.

Once ready, can you please introduce yourself?

Hi there, H.B.

Harper, central staff.

We've had this item on a couple of meetings recently, so you've heard most of this information before, but I'll just remind everyone briefly why we're here today.

Last year, the Council voted on Council Bill 120933, which became Ordinance 127191, and that would have allowed residential in a portion of the stadium transition area overlay district.

However, due to a Growth Board finding deeming that invalid, we are here today to discuss a repeal of the bill.

It was passed in March of 2025 last year, and it amended development regulations to allow residential uses as a conditional use within that area.

And I do have a map on the next slide in case we want to revisit where we're talking about.

The port submitted a petition for review to the Growth Management Hearings Board, and they claimed procedural and substantive errors on the part of the city.

So in November of last year, the Growth Management Hearings Board issued a final decision in order deeming the ordinance invalid and ordering the city to take compliance action by May 11th.

So as you can see in the slide here, I do have a note that the city has appealed the board's findings of inconsistencies.

The purpose of that appeal is to get clarity about what would be required for future planning actions, not to quibble regarding the procedural errors.

and so the issue has been before this committee a few times, including a public hearing, and is now before you for potentially a vote.

So this is the stadium transition area overlay district, just as a reminder.

This bill that we are discussing repealing only applied residential uses east of First Avenue, so that's kind of not including the area west of that sort of line there, which is First Avenue.

So just as a reminder of where We are in space, and I did include on the last slide a quick compliance timeline because we are running up against some of the dates that the Growth Board had put forward to us.

We will not probably be having an effective ordinance by May 11th, but if the committee is able to vote today, then I think we'll be able to demonstrate compliance by the time the compliance report and compliance hearing occur.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much.

And fellow committee members, any questions or comments?

Thank you all.

I just wanna make a couple of comments here as sponsor of the bill.

We heard some comments earlier today, and I do just wanna note that as sponsor of the bill, I brought this forward to comply with the Growth Management Hearings Board requirement to address those procedural irregularities.

It was not my intent to revisit, the policy decisions or the substance of that prior bill.

Those are still outstanding issues that we will have to deal with at some point.

And I just wanna speak to some of the parties that spoke today that are in the room.

that it is just my opinion that the best path forward is to come up with a negotiated compromise that everybody can live with.

I think when we have one, you know, when we have situations where things are forced through, where we have lawsuits, these are not sustainable paths forward.

So I just want to state that for the record.

I hope we can find a path forward to get this resolved and in the meantime, It is my belief that we need to move forward with this repeal to comply with the Growth Management Hearings Board.

And I see Council President Hollingsworth, you have your hand raised.

Sorry, thank you, Chair.

Really appreciate your work on this and also the process that you ran.

Obviously very difficult just to navigate all these things and just wanna thank you and your staff for, I believe, running a great process and getting us here.

I do want to make a comment before we just take a vote, just really quickly, is I know that the city, that we had issues with the procedural piece with the city's doing.

And I just wanted to make it clear that my vote is based on that, that this is a procedural issue in this ordinance.

I'm not here to argue whether we should have housing or not down there or restart that.

So people know how I voted and I voted in support of that, but I'm voting on this procedurally and I support your efforts in trying to bring people to the table and trying to find a solution.

So just wanted to state that for the record.

This is a procedural vote that I will be doing based on the information that we received from law.

This is no, this is no, no, this is not a slight or anything on my position on where I stood at and I continue to stand at.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Any other comments?

Okay, I move that committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121-171.

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 121-171.

Are there any final comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on recommendation to pass the bill?

Vice Chair Strasse?

Aye.

Council Member Foster?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Chair Lin?

Yes.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council pass a bill will be sent to the May 12, 2026 city council meeting.

We'll now move on to our second item in business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item two.

Agenda item two, council bill 121195 in ordinance relating to land use and zoning adopting interim provisions to expand the capacity of transitional encampments for briefing discussion and possible votes.

Thank you.

We have our representatives and presenters joining us, and can you please introduce yourselves once you are ready?

And then I'm gonna pass this over to my colleague, Councilmember Foster, to help us move forward.

Kato Freeman, Council Central Staff.

Hi, Jen LeBrec, City Council Central Staff.

And I'm John Grant, Senior Policy Advisor with the Mayor's Office.

Okay, Councilmember Foster, if you could help us move forward.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I really appreciate that.

And I guess I want to start off today by first appreciating all the folks who've been here, not just today, but over the last several weeks on this legislation for public comment.

And I say that because your voices have been really important in this process, and both making clear that we have a need to ensure that we are expanding our shelter capacity, which I believe this council shares that underlying understanding and belief and sees the need to do that.

And I also want to appreciate you for the engagement that folks have had in particular with my office over the last several weeks.

I think because of the conversations that we've had with providers and the public, this legislation and the amendments that we are going to be discussing and voting on today are in a much better place.

My computer is fighting with me right now.

You know, I also want to say a few things around the way that this process has taken place.

You know, when this amendment was sent down to council earlier this year without a sponsor, our office was happy to pick up the ball on this legislation.

And we were happy to do that in the spirit of collaboration, in the spirit of bridge building, and the spirit of problem solving.

because homelessness has long been a crisis and it deserves to be treated as such.

We also know that speed is not the only quality that matters in a policymaking process.

It matters that our planned approach is going to deliver on results.

It matters that our planned approach has transparency and it matters that our planned approach has engagement between the council and the executive's office.

I believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that the rollout of this expansion is well-planned, has clear communication with the public.

I believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that our shelter locations are adequately staffed, because as we heard today, that staffing is critical to ensuring that people have access to good care, support, and case management.

We should also be clear as we advance this legislation that we have sufficient budget and resources to ensure that it can be successful.

And I appreciate the work that was done in the other committee on the two bills that were sent down as part of this package to ensure that we were asking questions around the cost of expansion and who we're focusing on, particularly the work that was done to request a high acuity work group.

Our office really looks forward to that engagement as an opportunity for us to work collaboratively to ensure that we understand what the best standards are and to ensure that our shelter expansion embodies those high standards.

Over the last several weeks, as we have engaged in this process, many of the questions and the amendments that have come forward from Council, I believe have been seeking sort of a common understanding, which is what is the best way to move forward?

How much resources are needed?

In a time when we are approving resources and approving an expansion that allows our executive office to directly contract with providers, we want to make sure that we understand what that process looks like.

and that's what I believe I saw in many of the amendments that were coming from committee members was a desire to ensure that we have that transparency and that understanding.

I also want to speak to the process in terms of the amendments and I appreciate everybody that spoke today around some of the amendments regarding buffer areas and security requirements.

Our office communicated with several providers yesterday.

As you all know, individual council members can bring amendments to any bill Those amendments are not up for discussion and vote today.

They are not on the agenda today.

So I apologize.

I know a lot of people commented about them.

And thank you for that comment.

We will not be voting on those two today.

So I want to make sure that folks have that understanding.

For this legislation, our office set a clear timeline for amendment submission and distribution ahead of today's vote.

And I want to appreciate my colleagues who worked closely with our office to comply with those requests to ensure that we had transparency.

And I want to apologize to folks who were taken by surprise by the walk-on amendments.

We strive to make sure that we have that transparency.

And I'm grateful, like I said last week, that there were folks in chambers who were able to pick up those walk-on amendments so we had some degree of transparency in that moment.

So with that, I will hand it over to the table for discussion.

I'm excited to continue to advance this legislation.

Thank you.

All right, let me share a screen here.

There are five amendments here for committee consideration.

These were discussed previously, or last week, at this time.

Some of them have been revised since then, and where there have been revisions, we'll know sort of what has changed.

Let me share a screen.

All right.

So, amendment number one, this is sponsored by Councilmember Foster and authored by Councilmember Juarez.

This amendment would require that operators of transitional encampments that are newly expanded or newly established after passage of the ordinance have a public safety plan as a component of operations of that encampment.

That public safety plan would include an initial community policing through environmental design assessment, a protocol for contributing public safety information to the city and monitoring public safety impacts associated with encampments, and contact information for a city liaison, the neighborhood residents can reach out to for public safety issues that are beyond the control of the encampment operator.

A previous version of this amendment would have placed some responsibility on encampment operators for doing some initial public safety assessments that were beyond the scope of what they could reasonably perform.

Councilmember Foster, my apologies.

I think I was supposed to move the underlying bill before we get to amendments.

So that was on me.

So I'd like to go ahead and do that.

I'd like to move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121195. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Is it moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 121195?

And then I'm going to pass it back to you.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And Ketel, if I can ask for you to repeat that, there was a portion where you were speaking where you were a little bit away from the mic, and I just want to make sure we got you.

Sure, yeah.

So I'm not exactly sure what portion it was, so I'm able to just recap what I said.

This is a version two of the amendment that was discussed last week.

There have been some changes since the initial version was discussed.

Most of those changes have to do with narrowing the scope of this public safety plan requirement, to things that encampment operators can reasonably perform.

So some things that would have otherwise been the obligation of the city, the initial version contemplated that perhaps the encampment operator would perform those functions.

This narrows that scope.

One of the things that was in the prior version that is not in this version was a requirement that an encampment operator do an initial public safety assessment of an area.

That is something that the city would be performing under the based on the intent that the council established in passing the budget bill a few weeks ago.

Thank you so much for that, Geetle.

I appreciate that.

With that, I will say, I'll speak to this and then I will move, or actually I'll move to amend it and then I'll speak to it.

Excuse me.

I move to amend Council Bill 121195 as presented in the agenda as Amendment 1, Version 2. Second.

Thank you.

And thank you for that overview, Ketel, and I'll again express my appreciation to many of the service providers, well, to all of the service providers, because the work that you all do is incredibly important.

And I will say, as we brought this amendment forward last week and I shared the intent of the bill, the intent is to make sure that we have clarity on some of this public safety information.

Again, knowing that this legislation is temporary legislation that the council will need to take up and make permanent again within one year, and to ensure that we are also not overburdening the providers.

And I know that there's still, as we heard today, some concern around that.

I will say that we worked really hard to clarify this intent and to be clear that we did not wanna be asking operators to take on responsibility the community surrounding the locations that they are operating, and so you see that as an updated change between last week and this week.

And at the same time, we want to make sure that we have clear contact information for a city liaison, for residents, and we want to make sure that we know that there's going to be a CPTED protocol and assessment that is done, as well as clarity on data collection and reporting requirements that are going to come into the city.

So, colleagues, with that, I'm happy to take any questions, and I ask for your support.

And, oh, I forgot to say, this was authored by Councilmember Juarez, but I'm proudly sponsoring it.

Councilmember Foster, I don't have any questions, but I do have some comments.

One, I just want to thank you as sponsor of the underlying bill for all the incredibly hard work you did across the floor, talking to sponsors, working with the mayor's office and community, as well as your hard work on this amendment and many others.

I do just want to speak to some of the Comments we heard today, you know, I do, and I agree with many of your introductory comments that, you know, there's a difficult sort of balance here of moving quickly, but also getting the details right.

There's a balance between, you know, perfect versus being, you know, being good.

And I do think that we are, you know, we're striking that balance here as we move forward.

I also think that it is my commitment that, you know, this is, I think we're, engaging in something new.

And I think we're gonna have a little bit of an iterative process.

I support the mayor's goal of doing 4,000 units over the next four years.

And this is really kicking off that process.

And I think we're gonna learn as we go.

And it's my commitment.

that as we do that, if there are amendments or changes that we need to make to legislation and the permanent legislation or even before is my commitment to work with my colleagues, the public and the mayor's office to do that.

I also think it's important to note, I know there's questions around enforcement and, you know, whether this should live in the land use code or somewhere else.

And I agree that, you know, in general, this probably is not sort of the ideal place for this to live.

But this is temporary legislation.

This is emergency legislation.

And so we are moving quickly.

And so we're, you know, we sort of have to work with the tools that we are given.

but I do want to note that in all of these amendments there's introductory language it talks about this applies to operators who receive funding from the city and it is just my opinion that that is really where the enforcement lies is that this will all be incorporated into any funding agreements that we have with operators and then that will be the primary mechanism for how we will ensure compliance is through that funding agreement.

So with those remarks, again, I appreciate you, Council Member Foster, for all your leadership.

And with that, I will be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions or comments on this amendment?

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of amendment one, version two?

Vice Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Foster.

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Rink.

Abstain.

Chair Lin.

Yes.

Chair, there are four votes in favor, zero opposed and one abstention.

Okay.

The motion carries amendment one, version two is adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

Okay.

I'd like to move on to amendment number two.

Amendment number two, version two, this would be sponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

This would establish a requirement that newly established transitional encampments that receive city funding enter into good neighbor agreements that prescribe minimum communication and public safety protocols that have been prescribed what those protocols would be for inclusion in a good neighbor agreement.

A good neighbor agreement among other things would include the boundaries that would be subject to the good neighbor agreement, the roles and responsibilities of encampment operators, community communication protocols and how those would be escalated for folks to get responses to concerns that may be raised about an encampment.

A commitment by encampment operators to include regular community meetings, behavioral standards for encampment residents, commitment to reporting crime observed by operators to SPD staff and commitment to establish-to publish the GNA on a website that would be available to the public for review.

Thank you, Chair.

And I'm going to move to amend-well, first of all, let me just say this.

I'm going to move the bill-or move to amend this, because I do have some verbal changes that I would like to do.

for this, and I apologize, colleagues, because I didn't get this enough time to staff, so I do have some verbal amendments that I will be presenting today.

Okay, but before we do that, I think we need to suspend the rules to allow for an oral amendment.

Colleagues, if there's no objections, I'd like to suspend the rules to allow this.

Okay, awesome.

Seeing no objection, please proceed, Council Bill President.

Thank you, Chair.

That was my next line, so I didn't know when I was supposed to say that.

So thank you, Chair.

So I'm going to move to amend Council Bill 12195 as presented in the agenda as Amendment 2. And I'm requesting that the rules be suspended.

Okay.

Okay, please proceed.

All right, awesome.

Thank you, colleagues.

If we can go, and this is from provider feedback, from folks that I receive feedback to on council as well, just wanted to make sure that we're getting to the true intention of the Good Neighbor Agreement as well, which is all about communication for me.

So the first thing that I would like to keep is Under letter C, as in cat, you have I under that.

That's going to remain, which is a point of contact for initial concerns, which is posted at the transitional encampment.

But I would like to strike under C, as in cat, number 2, 3, and 4. So 2, 3, and 4 under that.

Two I's, three I's, and then IV would be striked.

I have more.

Surprise!

and then I would also like to keep letter D as in dog and E as in effort.

I don't know if those are the correct words.

Is E for effort?

Or what do they use for E?

Echo.

Echo, okay.

I played basketball.

Effort, you gotta give effort.

And I will remove letter F as in, I don't know, fairy tale.

The letter G as in goat.

and H as in house.

So those will be struck from the good neighbor agreement.

So just to clarify, colleagues, we're keeping C as in cat with the I, that point of just a point of contact, a commitment to attend regular community meetings such as those held by community or business organizations and rules and behavioral standards for transitional encampment and residents and their guests.

Those three, which to me is like communication transparency and having interwovenness in the neighborhood is what we're trying to get to.

And more than happy to take any questions from you all colleagues.

Ketel, did you get all that?

I think so.

I can read what the amendment would be like if those changes were made.

That would be helpful.

I'm sorry.

Thank you, Ketel.

Thank you, colleagues.

I first want to apologize.

I don't like doing walk-ons, but I know that I could not get this in time and how important this is, and I didn't want to bring this to full council.

Thank you for suspending the roll as chair.

Thank you, Council President.

All right.

So the amendment, Amendment 2, version number 2 pursuant to Councilmember Hollingsworth, oral amendment would be changed to read as follows.

The operator of a traditional encampment interim use who receives funding from the City of Seattle and operates an encampment with more than 100 occupants that is established or expanded after the effective date of this ordinance shall enter into a Good Neighbor Agreement.

The Good Neighbor Agreement shall include Good Neighbor Agreement physical boundaries and a corresponding map.

the roles and responsibilities of the operator as a good neighbor, communication protocols for community concerns, including a point of contact for initial concerns which is posted at the traditional encampment and on the operator's website, a commitment to attend regular community meetings such as those held by community or business organizations, rules and behavioral standards for traditional encampment residents and their guests, and a commitment to publish the good neighbor agreement on the operator's website as well as distribute to neighbors neighborhood organizations and neighborhood businesses within the good neighbor agreement boundaries.

And just to make one last verbal change, I had I, was that I?

Yes, HI.

I had I struck out as well.

I missed that one.

So that would be struck as well.

It's just those three ones would be in there.

Thank you, Ketel.

I apologize.

Thank you, committee.

Okay, thank you.

So I think we still need to move that with those oral...

Oh, go ahead.

I just want to make sure I have a clarifying question.

Thank you so much.

I want to check in on A and B, so the physical boundaries and the roles and responsibilities, are those maintained with this verbal amendment?

I wasn't sure if you were saying we're only keeping CI, or I want to make sure I have clarity on that.

Great, yes.

I was keeping A and B, and then under C, you know, striking those two, three, and four, and then the remainder ones that I had specified, which I...

Yes.

Okay, so just confirming.

I want to make sure.

Thank you so much.

You're good.

Thank you so much, Council President.

So we'll have A and B remain.

We'll have C point I, which is the point of contact for initial concerns, posted.

We will maintain D, which is a commitment to attend regular community meetings.

And then we will maintain E, which is rules and behavioral standards for residents and their guests.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Thank you for rereading that.

Thank you for that.

And central staff, is that also correct from what you just read out, Ketel?

I just want to make sure we're tracking everything and sharing it verbally for folks who may not have the physical amendments in front of them.

Yes, that tracks my understanding as well.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all.

I just want to clarify one more.

I think you said H was still in there, correct?

The hours.

Is that correct?

Council President or Ketel?

No, H is struck.

Oh, H is struck.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you all.

This is important.

Okay.

I just want to confirm everybody understands the amendment as amended that we just walked through.

Yes.

Okay.

Good.

Should we move?

Would you like to move it then?

Oh yeah.

Yes.

I would like to move.

Um, I would like to move, uh, council bill one, two, one, one, nine, five, uh, amendment number two.

Would this be version two or version three?

This would be version three, version three.

Thank you.

Second central staff.

Uh, Jen, did you have a, oh, okay.

Version three.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

Second.

So it is moved in second to amend the bill and Council President Hollingsworth, anything else you'd like to speak?

Oh, yes, Council Member Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Council President, for bringing this forward.

I'll note that I came out here today to vote no on this, but in light of some of the changes before us, and I want to I will be supporting this, just given that what remains here is largely really consistent with what we currently expect of sanctioning encampments.

I want to I know you've also taken time to meet with service providers to hear feedback, and I want to commend you for that work, too, of really just working in partnership alongside providers to get this in a good place.

I think there is just broadly additional work needed in the area of good neighbor agreements.

I know in the budget last year, we funded a consultant group to work alongside our local provider community to actually develop a framework for neighborhood engagement and mitigation plans.

And so hoping that we can see the outcome of that work as we continue to wade into this area.

with the changes before us today, I think this is entirely reasonable and hopeful that we can have really a unified strategy moving forward as we approach this topic.

So thank you for your hard work.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Council President Hollingsworth, anything further before we move?

Chair, no final comments.

I really appreciate everyone's, would urge everyone's support on this.

And thank you to the providers who reached out to provide comments regarding this as well.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 2, Version 3?

Vice Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Foster?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Chair Lynn?

Yes.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay, the motion carries.

Amendment 2, Version 3 is adopted.

If there are no further comments on the bill as amended, I'd like to move to Amendment 3.

All right, Amendment 3, Version 2, sponsored by Councilmember Rank.

This amendment would require that operators of new or expanded encampments that receive funding from the City of Seattle and have more than 100 occupants have at least two staff on site, 24 hours a day.

Councilmember Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you to everyone who has come out and made your voices heard, particularly those with lived and living experience of homelessness.

I know at times in the legislative process, things get really alienated and obfuscated from the realities of the work.

And at the heart of this, we are talking about people and particularly our neighbors.

And I feel a deep sense of duty to bring online housing, get our neighbors inside and provide supports to people in their path to stabilization.

And as I stated during committee last week, the essence behind both of the amendments I'm bringing forward today are about health, safety, and well-being, both of the people we're trying to serve, but also of the human services workers who will be staffing the proposed sites.

This entire effort cannot succeed without those workers from operations staff, case managers, clinicians, and more.

and this amendment would require that encampment operators have at least two people on site 24-7.

After engaging with our provider partners, it is clear that having at least two staff on site allows for better safety and outcomes for everyone.

And I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Council member, can you move?

I think we need to move it.

Awesome.

I can do that.

I move to amend Council Bill 121195 as presented in the agenda packet as Amendment 3, Version 2.

Second.

It is moved and seconded to amend the bill.

So council member, any other comments or questions?

Okay.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

There's no other comments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of amendment three, version two.

Vice Chair Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Foster.

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Chair Lin.

Yes.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

The motion carries.

Amendment three version two is adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

Okay, I'd like to move on to amendment number four.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121195 as presented in the agenda packet as amendment four version two.

Second.

It is moved and seconded to amend the bill.

Council Member Rink, his sponsor, recognized to address the amendment.

Thank you, Chair Lynn.

This amendment would set a goal that operators of new and expanded encampments with more than 100 residents strive to provide intensive case management for residents and specifically to set a goal of a ratio of one case manager for every 15 residents with high acuity needs.

A 1 to 15 ratio has been recommended by service providers as what works best for case managers in supporting high acuity clients.

The work that case managers are expected to provide is both both broad and individualized, highly skilled, and physically and emotionally demanding.

If we want this plan to work, and I think everyone in this building does, we really need to make sure that we are providing people the intensive case management care, they're set up to be successful.

And part of that is also avoiding burnout that we often see in caring professions.

And I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member Rank.

I have a quick comment, but if anybody else, just wanna appreciate both this amendment and the previous one.

I appreciate the word strive, which I think sets forth our goals and the real need, but also provide some flexibility, which I think is also important.

I also just think that it is critical for us and the mayor's office to work extremely closely to make sure that we are funding our service providers at the level needed.

That is going to be a lot of hard work that is coming up soon for all of us, but I think there's broad alignment on the desire to see this done right to meet the needs of all of our communities.

So with that, I'll be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

There's no other comments on Amendment 4, Version 2. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Rink.

Council Member Foster?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Chair Lynn?

Yes.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay, the motion carries amendment four version two is adopted.

Any further comments on the bill as amended?

Okay.

Council member Strauss gonna kick it over to you for amendment five.

Thank you, Chair.

And before I move my amendment, I'd like to have a conversation with the committee because I have been receiving a lot of feedback after the amendment deadline.

So colleagues, friends, coworkers, and everyone else, much like Council President Hollingsworth, I don't like bringing walk-on amendments.

I don't like bringing verbal amendments.

I don't like bringing amendments to full council because it creates a lot of confusion.

and the message that everyone needs to hear is that I'm here to work with everyone.

I'm here to see our joint success.

And so I'm gonna talk about my Amendment 5. And there's been a fair amount of mischaracterization and I think it comes from a place of confusion and so I'm gonna not assign malice, I'm gonna assign miscommunication here because the land use amendment that is before us is silent on many of the complaints and concerns that I heard from community members, that I've heard from providers and even from, and I'll start off with, Agreeing with Anitra Freeman, I wish she was still here, but Anitra, I hope you'll be able to watch this tape, because what Anitra described is so far from what we're striving for, it made me pause and said, if Anitra Freeman thinks that we're setting up fences inside of shelters, then there's a really big misunderstanding of what's going on here.

in this amendment before us right now, and I realize I'm doing a little bit of Ketel's job, but maybe we'll get to that in a second, which it says, for shelters with more than 100 micro-module structures, it needs to be divided into neighborhoods of 50 and through verbal amendments that I'll bring today I would raise that to 75 because it was requested and because Council Member Foster has worked with me over the last couple weeks to make sure that we are flexible and responsive to the requests that we're receiving and so I'm coming here ready to go to number 75 but it doesn't say about it and all it says is controlled access says nothing about fences It says nothing about how many kitchens or restrooms or shower facilities or laundry facilities go into each neighborhood, but I heard directly today that I needed to bring a verbal amendment to change that in my amendment, but the amendment is silent on it.

It's up to the providers to make sure that the correct ratios are in the correct neighborhoods of their encampment.

Another really important change from the first time it was presented in committee is this is about units.

Sometimes more than one person can live in a unit and that's to be desired, frankly, if there's a family or if there's a couple.

This amendment is really centered on privacy because right now if we have a shelter with 99 units, then this amendment doesn't take effect.

and that could be up to 150 people, right?

If we have 100 units then it needs to be split into either 50 and 50 or 75 or 25 or any ratio within there.

This is important for privacy.

I know that we as a council, I know that the mayor does not want to, I know that shelter providers do not want to set up a situation of warehousing human beings.

We need to be setting up places where people have the privacy and the resources that they need to stabilize so that they can thrive in our communities.

And so this creates that privacy.

We know when we had congregate shelter mats on the floor, that one individual in that uncontrolled environment could make a dangerous situation for everyone sleeping there that night.

The benefit of tiny homes is that everyone has four walls and a door that they get to lock.

But when there's more than 100, when there's 100, again, 99 units, 150 people.

When there's 150 people, if there's one person in there that's, maybe showing up at your door every night.

Maybe you want to be in a different neighborhood within that shelter space.

Controlled facilities like Anitra was saying are not, I don't want fences.

You could just as easily use you could create flower planters, you could create gardens, you could create barriers that create controlled access that are not fences, that are things that actually make a more vibrant community.

And with controlled access you get to choose as a provider what that control is.

Is it visiting hours between 8 a.m.

and 8 p.m.

and then residents only in the evenings?

This amendment is silent on how you do that.

It's just saying that we have to create a space that folks are able to create, have a little bit more privacy, to create a little bit more of their own space so that they are able to stabilize and thrive.

A lot of the bad, or I guess complaints that I've heard is that this will cost more.

Across the board, we are seeing if we are going to be, we have been doing shelter as cheaply and we've been undercutting ourselves because we've been looking to pinch pennies.

If we're getting donated tiny homes from the Hope Factory to put on city owned land and then trying to spend as few dollars as possible to make that thing work, I wonder why some people don't succeed.

And so we need to have a really clear conversation and that was in the budget amendment in my committee about having a clear conversation about what does shelter actually cost?

And so if we are willing to say that 250 units, 110 units, free for all...

I mean, I heard complaints about there were ideas proposed about putting a big circus tent down in Soto to house all of the homeless, and that's where they would all go.

and that was a bad idea because we don't want to warehouse human beings in the same way that when we are exceeding the units to a level that we've never had in one place in the city, we don't know how that's going to go and we don't want it to be warehousing people.

We want to be setting up neighborhoods within these shelters so that people can really have a place that they call their own.

so that they can start to normalize what it is to be inside all the time so that we can get them into permanent housing faster.

And so with all of that also, I should have started this.

You will see at 1047 or 1048 in your inbox right now clarification from Sharon Lee about her position on this amendment.

she is one of the people that has asked for changes to be made.

And I just said, yeah, sure.

I mean, we're not here to be in opposition of each other.

We're here to be in collaboration with each other.

And so, But these are changes that are being made late fact.

And one of the things she asked was, well, I haven't seen the amendment.

And I said, well, that's because you're asking for changes after the deadline.

And so I just want to draw your attention to this email from Sharon Lee in your inbox.

Because for me, again, I don't like bringing verbal amendments.

I don't like bringing amendments to full council.

If we have the votes, I'd rather vote on it today with a 75 unit allowance under a director's rule.

But if colleagues here, if you need more time so that we can have a more clear conversation about what this is and what this isn't, I would take it to full council.

If we do go to full council, I will be bringing another element of this that talks about and creating a director's rule so that there is a clear definition of how many toilets, showers, laundry, kitchen, what that ratio is between units and neighborhoods there.

I'm kind of giving us that moment right up here to have the conversation before I moved the bill, but I realized that I was probably also supposed to let Ketel brief the bill.

So I just wanted to provide that context and then I'd love to have the conversation with colleagues before I move the bill if we decide to go that direction.

Thank you, Vice Chair Strauss.

I'll just say for my, I look forward to Ketel briefing.

Personally, I'm not ready to sort of vote just because of needing to more time to digest.

So I just wanna put that out there.

But you know, if we have, if others are ready, happy to have that or also happy to have it before full council either way.

Colleagues, any?

Oh, may I, Chair?

Yes, please.

I was comfortable voting for this, especially after I saw from providers that that change got them to where they wanted to be.

But I don't, I just want to speak for myself.

I don't want to speak for my other colleagues where they're at.

But thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Councilmember Strauss for your amendment as well.

Councilmember Rank.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for bringing this forward and for being receptive and engaging and clarifying some of these pieces.

I think I'm trying to digest as well just the email we've received, and I would appreciate just a little bit more time and also the opportunity to further communicate with some of the partners that have weighed in today.

The opportunity to clarify some of these elements, particularly your intention behind this, I think some additional time to just communicate that out would be helpful for the entire effort.

So it would be my preference to perhaps bring this to full council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that, and thank you so much, colleagues, for sharing where you're at with us.

I would love to request if we can be at ease for a moment.

I'd love to make sure I can get a chance to read thoroughly through the email that we received.

I also want to make sure that I understand Councilmember Strauss's comment.

And so what I believe I heard was we, you know, you're intending to make some verbal amendments to this today to bring it into alignment with the conversation that you've had with a provider and that you're prepared to move that forward today in committee.

And then the second portion, I believe you sort of talked about an alternative approach regarding bringing this to full council.

I just want to make sure I've got that completely.

Do you mind repeating that for me, Councilmember Strauss?

Yeah, very helpful.

So in some of the conversations that I've had with providers, there was confusion about if we were putting into the Seattle Municipal Code whether or not, like what the ratios of showers, kitchens, toilets, laundry, what that ratio is to the units, This amendment today is silent on that.

And so that was a moment of confusion.

But it did raise for me the importance in which we call it out.

But it's also not a good idea to have it codified.

And that is the importance of allowing a director's rule to create those standards so that the director's rule can be amended more easily.

It's still an undertaking.

but it doesn't mean that it has to come back before full council.

And so if we are to wait for full council, I'd probably add that element in to say, refer to director's rule, fill in the blank about ratios of amenities to units.

And that was an evolution from those conversations, right?

but the original intent of this amendment was simply to say, to be silent on that.

And so if we were to pass the amendment today, I would make a verbal amendment on the second to last line that says the director in consultation with director of human services department may allow up to 75 micro modular structures or vehicles in a neighborhood to accommodate site constraints across the transitional encampment.

So those are the two paths.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay, thank you.

Ketel, if you could brief us a little bit on- Sure, I'm not sure that I have much to add here.

Maybe I'll just point out some changes from the previous version that was discussed in committee last week.

So two primary changes here.

One is that the previous version would have set the unit for determining when neighborhoods would be divided based on the number of occupants The change here is that that would be based now on the number of micromodular shelter structures or vehicle shelters.

Obviously, there can be more than one occupant per shelter, depending on the type of encampment.

The other, as Councilmember Strauss has pointed out, includes a new section, a new sentence that authorizes the SDCI director in consultation with the Human Services Director to allow changes in the number of micromodular structures, not occupants, and occupants that could be incorporated into any individual neighborhood within a larger transitional encampment.

One thought here, this is just off the top of my head.

If there were to be a director's rule that I sort of set out the ratios that Councilmember Strauss is discussing, I think one thing that we would need to do a little bit of research on is sort of where the authority lies for some of the types of amenities that encampment providers provide.

So there may be a role here for King County Public Health, I'm just not sure, and we'd want to make sure that sort of we have the right authority named in that direction to a director to promulgate a role.

Thank you, Ketel.

Weister Strauss, I'll just say, I think at least with Council Member Rank, my preference would be to bring it to full council.

Sounds like there's a little bit, folks just need some time, but I'd leave it up to you whether to move it today or to bring it to full council.

And I heard a request from Council Member Foster for us to take a moment.

Do you still, I'll let you back to you, Chair.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, my request is if we could just be at ease for a moment.

I wanna make sure that I've thoroughly read the email that came in from the provider.

So if we can have a moment for that, that'd be fantastic, Chair.

Okay, let's take a recess for five minutes.

That's okay.

Okay, thank you.

I'll see you next time I'm going to put it on the top of the top

Okay, thank you, colleagues.

We are back from recess.

It's 1128 AM and I will kick it back to Vice Chair Strauss.

Thank you.

Just again, checking to see if folks need more time.

If we need more time, happy to take it.

Thank you so much.

Chair, if I may, I appreciate that and thank you for the recess, the opportunity to dig into the communication that we received this morning.

After reading it, I believe that having more time is going to be helpful with this particular issue.

We want to, and Council Member Strauss, I want to appreciate you for your clarification today regarding what your intent is behind controlled access.

I think that's very important, and it was really helpful to hear you speak publicly in more detail about this, so thank you for that, and thank you for the clarity on this amendment.

I have always felt clarity on your intent, and you have always had clear and strong communication around your intent with this, so I appreciate you sharing that today from the dais.

Having said that, with the last-minute communication this morning, I do want to request that we have a little bit more time.

Great.

So, colleagues, I will be doing what I hate doing, which is bring an amendment to full council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

And I just want to repeat, what Council Member Foster said.

I know that your, or at least I believe your intent is to have an amendment that meets the needs of our neighbors, that meets the needs of the providers.

And I look forward to having this discussion at full council.

So since we are not addressing amendment number five at this moment, I just want to see, we had the underlying bill, we had the four amendments, any other final comments before we vote on Council Bill 121195 as amended?

yes okay yes council president and i'll be quick because i know there are um we are at time but i do want to take this moment to really thank uh you chair for um you know all your collaborative efforts and having this in your committee um as well you have a very loaded agenda with land use so just really appreciate that and then also thank you to Council Member Foster for your leadership and collaboration and your effort on this and all of the hard work and the engagement and the communications that you did with providers, with council members and the process that you ran was incredibly professional and really appreciate your clarity around things and this was a heavy lift and just appreciate all of the work, because a lot of people don't know all of the work that you did on this.

So thank you, Councilmember Foster.

and I also want to say that I just want to speak really quickly on, I believe that the intentions behind every council member's amendment was all based in good faith and just trying to make this work and it to be successful, number one.

Number two, if there was also a little bit committee meetings, lack of communication from the planning behind a little bit of this.

And so that's why we saw the amendments that we did because of the communication regarding the implementation plan, what that looked like, understanding what the process is going to be, a timeline, just basic stuff.

And so I feel like some amendments possibly could have aroused because of that communication that was not provided to the council.

And so that's why you see all these amendments being made verbally, taken away, striking, because there's a lot of movement in this.

And I actually don't like doing that.

I like to be very public about my amendments so people can see them and I can get feedback.

So I just wanted to say that, that the communication will continue to improve between council and mayor's office with a lot of legislation and issues in our city, and we'll continue to get better, and that is very, very important.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth.

We ready to...

Oh, Councilmember Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, we know that this legislation and entire effort truly at the heart of this is about addressing homelessness and bringing our neighbors inside.

And I want to thank you, Chair, for your leadership throughout this process and bringing us to a vote today.

Thank you for keeping this legislation on track so we can move with urgency to bring people inside.

Thank you colleagues for your support on my amendments.

And I wanna extend a huge thank you to the bill sponsor, Council Member Foster, for your tireless work on this.

As was mentioned, this bill was sent over to council without a sponsor, and it was you and your team who stepped up, picked this up to take it over the finish line.

And I know that is because your commitment to serve our unhoused neighbors and bring people inside.

and I wanna thank you for that because over the past few weeks, your team has moved with diligence, with transparency, and with respect to every council office and the legislative process.

And so I wanna extend a huge vote of gratitude to your entire team for taking that approach.

Thank you for doing right by this body and right by our own house neighbors for shepherding this legislation.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rank.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And before we vote on this, I want to just take a second to, again, appreciate folks who've been here for public comment for many, many weeks, and thank you for the time, the engagement.

the leadership, the expertise that you all have brought to this conversation.

We do not, I do not take it for granted, so thank you for that.

I appreciate colleagues your engagement on this really important issue.

And Councilman Burke, I'm gonna pick up where you left off because at the end of the day, This work is about ensuring that we are making policy change that makes it easier to expand our shelter capacity so that we can bring people inside.

And as we do that, we want to make sure that, again, as I said in my opening comments, we're doing it in a way that is successful, that is sustainable, that is going to work for the folks who are living outside, and that is going to work so that we can continue to scale up this effort.

Because if there's one thing I know, it's that we have to continue to scale up this effort.

So, colleagues, I look forward to working with you in the months and weeks that come to ensure that this legislation is successful and that it will be legislation that works for people, legislation that works for providers, and legislation that continues to build public confidence and trust.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you.

I think we are almost there.

I'll just say a final comment.

Appreciate the mayor's office and all the efforts that have been behind this effort.

Appreciate our providers, our public testimony, This is gonna take all of us working together.

I think the public rightfully expects us to work closely together and it's hard work, it's complicated work.

And we see that happening today where, because we are moving quickly, it's not always perfect and that's okay, but we are getting this done and I appreciate the hard work of everyone here today.

So with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation that the council pass the bill as amended?

Vice Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Foster?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Chair Lin?

Yes.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

Okay, the motion carries.

The committee recommendation that council pass the bill as amended will be sent to the May 19th, 2026 City Council meeting.

and we thank you to our presenters.

We will now move on to our third item of business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item three?

And just for my colleagues, I think this will go pretty quickly, but I appreciate your willingness to stay on a few minutes longer so we can hear agenda item three.

Agenda item three, clerk file 314549, application of Eagle Rock Ventures in 5201 Rainier LLC for an extension of the contract rezone of the property at 5201 Rainier Avenue South.

Original contract rezone application approved through clerk file 314311 in ordinance 125632, project number 3018378-LU type four for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

And Ketel, thank you for staying at the table.

And could you just introduce yourself and then help brief us?

Sure.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central Staff.

This will be a very brief orientation and introduction to a decision that the committee may make on May 20th related to a project-specific application to extend an already granted contract rezone for an additional period of time.

I'll provide a little bit of background, remind the committee members about sort of the type of action that the committee may take on May 20th, and then talk briefly about next steps and sort of materials that are available to you in advance of the 20th.

So by way of background, back in 2018, the council approved a contract rezone for a site located at 5201 Renier Avenue South.

The council rezoned that site from neighborhood commercial two with a 40-foot height limit to neighborhood commercial three with a 65-foot height limit.

At the time, citywide application of MHA was not in effect, but it did apply to a quasi-judicial rezone.

So an M1 suffix was applied that went along with that rezone.

That rezone approval in 2018 also accepted a property use and development agreement that imposes essentially two conditions on the property on the development of the site.

One is that when the property is developed, it ultimately looked like what was approved by the design review board and that the property comply with the mandatory housing affordability program.

Since that time, the applicant, the master use permit has been extended and the applicant has applied for a building permit which keeps the master use permit alive.

There's still an active building permit application and as you heard today in testimony, that application is ready for issuance.

That building permit application extends the life of the master use permit.

So type of action and extension criteria, this is a quasi-judicial action by the city council, meaning that the council is acting like a bank of judges as opposed to legislators, so not balancing benefits and burdens broadly, but making a decision about one entity's rights and land.

As a consequence, the council's quasi-judicial rules apply and the council members should avoid any kind of ex parte communication outside of an open session like this.

However, this type of decision is a little bit different than others in normal and for most quasi-judicial decisions, the council relies on a record that is compiled by the city hearing examiner.

Here, there is no record.

Instead, there's a direct recommendation that comes from SDCI.

That's because this is a minor, so to speak, quasi-judicial action.

And any comments that were submitted to SDCI in the course of making the recommendation to the council.

So that recommendation is attached to the clerk's file, as are the comments that SDCI received.

SDCI did recommend that the contract rezone be extended.

They made their recommendation on April 8th.

As I mentioned, that recommendation is available through the clerk's file.

There are three criteria that the Council and SDCI will use, the Council will use in making its decision, and that SDCI used in making its recommendation.

One is that the reason or basis for the application for the extension is reasonable under the circumstances.

Have there been any changed circumstances in the area?

The recommendation identifies a few.

And whether additional time is reasonably necessary to comply with a condition of approval adopted by the Council that is required to be fulfilled prior to the expiration of the Council land use decision.

that criterion is a little bit less applicable in this case.

SDCI's recommendation to approve the extension is based on a few factors.

One was the pandemic and how that has affected real estate markets and continues to affect real estate markets, and also changed circumstances in the neighborhood, including passage of citywide mandatory housing affordability.

To approve the reasonable extension, it will require an ordinance that accepts an amended property use and development agreement that ordinance could be considered by the Committee as soon as the next regularly scheduled meeting on May 20th.

And unless there are any questions, that's sort of a preview of things to come and a description of the type of action that the Council will take.

Thank you, Ketel.

Colleagues, any questions?

Okay, Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Ketel.

I just want to make sure I have an understanding of the timeline and or deadline for the extension.

Can you repeat that portion again?

Yeah, so if somebody applies for an extension of the term of a contract rezone, they have to make that application within 120 days of the rezone expiring.

There's some question about whether or not May 15th is actually the date that the rezone will expire because the applicant has made a building permit application, which is keeping the mass use permit alive.

But nevertheless, they have made an application 120 days in advance of that expiration date.

So they have essentially secured a decision one way or the other by the council here about extending the contract rezone.

So that effectively keeps things alive.

Thank you.

I just wanted to clarify that.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

Thank you, Ketel.

I think we are good then.

So we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Okay.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned at 1143. Our next scheduled meeting is May 20th at 930 AM.

Thank you, everyone.