Seattle City Council Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan 1/6/25

6, 2025 meeting of the select committee of the comprehensive plan will come to order.

It is 934 AM.

I am Joy Hollingsworth.

I'm chair of the select committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Moore.

Present.

Council member Nelson.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you.

Council member Rink.

Here.

Council Member DeVetta.

Present.

Council Member Sacca.

Here.

And Chair Hollingsworth.

Here.

H present.

Awesome.

Thank you.

It is really great to see a lot of my colleagues.

I know that this is our first meeting back from the recess that we had.

So I just want to thank you all for joining us here for the first meeting of 2025 at 930 AM.

We will now consider the agenda.

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

Hearing no objections, the agenda is adopted.

With that, we're gonna move right into our open hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should be related to the items on today's agenda or within the purview of the select committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have 17 in-person and 11 remote speakers.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, perfect.

Everyone will get two minutes to speak for their comments.

I wanna thank the people that have come down today in person and thank the people online for coming down and engaging with us today.

We're looking forward to hearing your comments about the comprehensive plan and will the clerk, will you please read the instructions for public comment?

Two minutes.

The public comment will be moderated in the following manner.

I will call on speakers by name in the order which they registered, both from the council's website and from the sign-up sheets available here in council chambers.

We will start with in-person speakers first and alternate with 10 speakers.

I should say, we will complete in-person speakers and then move on to remote speakers.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period.

Just go to the council's website or signing up on the sign-up sheets near the public comment microphone.

The online link is listed on today's agenda.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their allotted time as speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time period provided.

The speakers microphones will be muted to allow us to call on the next person.

The public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first speakers and I'm gonna call the first 10 numbers, numbers one through 10. And we have two microphones that are listed or two microphones here and one on the other side.

So if you can just please alternate, that'd be great.

So speakers one through 10, starting with number one, who is speaker Susan McCormick.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

I'm Susan McCormick speaking to the comp plan as it applies to Madrona.

I'm speaking on behalf of a large group of Madrona neighbors.

I'm a 24-year homeowner in Madrona and less shy before that.

We need more affordable housing, but the city's specific plans for new Madrona neighborhood center and designated Madrona Drive as a frequent transit zone are deeply flawed.

The city plan goes far beyond what the state requires, with increased zoning capacity for over 330,000 new units, more than doubling the city's housing capacity and far exceeding the set growth targets.

Drastic zoning changes are not needed.

Madrona is slated to allow five-story buildings fanning out several steep blocks from its center, plus a long Madrona drive down to Lake Washington.

Madrona is a small, out-of-the-way neighborhood.

It does not have the amenities listed as criteria for an up zone, and it does not have easy access to rapid transit.

What does it have?

Environmentally critical areas with steep slopes and past landslides.

Even with our current number of residents, we've had sewer overflow events into Lake Washington.

We have a unique tree canopy, the highest category the city records at 40 to 68%, helping climate change and tree canopy goals.

With the 2023 tree ordinance, even giant trees can be removed for development.

And the proposed five foot setbacks in this plan also will destroy trees.

We worry about displacement of long-term residents and businesses when their property taxes increase with the up zone.

Lastly, affordable housing starts with affordable land.

The land in Madrona is expensive.

Stabilizing steep slopes is expensive, if feasible at all.

These units will not be affordable.

Developers will build more five-story, high-end, high-profit luxury buildings with views of Lake Washington and Mount Rainier, blocking these same views from the public and from private homeowners.

The trees will be gone, the Madrona neighborhood will be forever altered, and the city will not get its affordable housing.

I voted for many of you happily.

I invite our council member Joy Hollingsworth to walk our neighborhood with us.

Speaker number two, then following speaker number two, Lily Church will be Denny.

Speaker number three.

And we also have, before you start, I'm so sorry.

We also have two microphones.

So if the next speaker, if you want to come and stand up at the microphone just to prep, that would be great.

Thank you.

Great.

My name is Lily Church.

I lived on Capitol Hill and Madrona for 40 years, supported every tax increase, and voted for many of you.

I have four points to bring.

Number one, the proposed plan doesn't actually solve affordability because density in itself doesn't translate to lower housing costs.

There is much Seattle data to support that.

Number two, we were blindsided by the lack of outreach and short deadline for comments.

Details weren't identified until October 16, and we only learned about it weeks later because some resident distributed flyers.

As constituents, we need to be engaged and valued as much as developers and special groups have been.

Number three, and this is my most important point, The devil is in the details.

Many residents, in response to the announcement, have spent a whole lot of their time on a very short timeline to submit to you high-level research, data, smart solutions.

The extensive comments will actually help you a lot.

They've done much of the work for you.

Please take advantage.

But you need to read the details, not just some tally summary.

Number four is an invitation.

Joy, our district hasn't heard anything from you yet on this issue.

I'd love you, like Susan invited, to visit us in Madrona.

We can walk around.

You can learn what we're talking about when we talk about steep slopes.

And we can help address concerns or reservations you may have.

Thank you.

Secret number three.

Thank you.

Can we hear OK?

Works?

Good morning, committee members.

My name is Denny Beckmeyer.

My family and I chose to live in Madrona over 55 years ago.

We are still committed to our historical and vibrant neighborhood.

I will not repeat the detailed comments regarding the proposed proposed zoning plan that a number of my neighbors have submitted, but they're important.

And you and your staff ought to your constituents to read and consider them carefully.

You have no doubt heard of a solution in search of a problem.

Not quite the case here.

More like an inappropriate proposed solution for a misperceived problem.

Or worst case, a craven concession to commercial developers at the expense of Seattle residents.

Homelessness and affordable housing are real problems.

Address them.

But allowing commercial development of redundant new housing that does not address these issues is not only unnecessary, it facilitates gratuitous damage to some of Seattle's most valuable neighborhood assets.

My request, slow down.

Reassess all parts of the proposed plan that exceed what is mandated by HB 1110. The template used by the planning committee is not one size fits all.

Consider the effect of its practical application in specific cases.

Increasing permissible neighborhood density across Seattle by more than four fold in one fell swoop is not only unnecessary, it's foolish and destructive.

Remember, neither commercial developers nor spokespersons and advisors who stand to gain by their actions are your legal constituency.

We, the residents of Seattle, please listen and act responsibly.

Thank you very much.

Next is speaker number five, Carolyn, followed by speaker number six.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Caroline Ullman.

This is my neighbor, Deb Lester.

We're here to talk about the comp plan in Maple Leaf.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today.

We live in Maple Leaf in the middle of the mayor's proposed neighborhood center area that allows five-story apartment buildings on narrow side streets.

We bring a petition today signed by 743 people who oppose that designation, most of whom live in Maple Leaf and nearby.

Our community strongly supports the need for well-sited, affordable housing, but we have grave concerns that the Mayor's Plan does not, in fact, help the people who need it most.

Maple Leaf is the wrong spot for a neighborhood service center, a neighborhood center.

The centers are supposed to be sited around commercial cores, where you have easy access to bike or cycle or hop a bus to get to the grocery store or the bank or the pharmacy.

Well, we don't have any of that.

We don't have a commercial core.

We don't have those everyday services, and we don't have good public transit.

We also are concerned about the effect of high-density development on the city's recently designated 12th Avenue Greenway, and we will be back at a later meeting to talk about that.

And we also are concerned, as others are, about the effect of mature trees.

We, too, have a moderate tree canopy, and the city's own DIS EIS said that development in the neighborhood center area would adversely affect the reaching the city's tree canopy goal.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Donna, I believe.

And then the speaker number seven is William.

Good morning, Ms. Donna.

Welcome.

Yeah.

If you can, we'll, our clerk will take it.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Donna Breski.

I am a licensed professional engineer.

I'm here today to point out a real time ongoing social inequity crisis that is crushing new housing outcomes within neighborhoods of historically marginalized populations within the city of Seattle.

Grouped within a two block area on 21st Avenue South are five lots in which a total of 16 new dwelling units have gone on built due to the inability to obtain new water service.

This is just a very small sampling of housing permits crushed due to the issuance of over 1,600 not approved water availability certificates from SPU within the last 10 years.

I am holding the water supply line These include aging water supply lines and feeder mains that run in a north-south direction through BIPOC communities.

SBU has determined that these older pipes have no new taps restrictions.

There are over 25 miles of these pipes in the city.

The 16 potential dwelling units on 21st Avenue South fell victim to the no new taps restriction.

SBU's no new tap policy can be found within director's rule WTR 440. By virtue of the location of the supply lines predominantly in historically underserved communities, there is an inherent social injustice component within SPUs, no new taps policy.

I trust the council will take action to correct this alarming echo of redlining and ensure the full potential for new housing within BIPOC communities can be achieved.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Donna.

Following speaker seven will be speaker eight.

Janet.

Morning.

Hi, my name is Will McNeil.

I'm a Seattle resident and one of hundreds of house builders who has been blindsided by a denied water availability certificate and thus building permits from Seattle Public Utilities.

Rather than provide public water infrastructure necessary for city growth, Seattle is trying to force homeowners and developers to pay for what should be city funded and maintain public utility systems.

Building off what Donna said earlier, I purchased a vacant lot on Concord Street in South Park, shown on this map here.

It's a historical area of social inequality within the city, home to many lower income residents that desperately need new affordable housing.

Myself and two of my neighbors were planning to develop our vacant lots with similar homes to the residential neighborhood, but we were denied water availability certificates and thus building permits.

SPU mandated in order to develop the property with a single-family home that I install an 8-inch ductile iron pipe water main for the entire street, a capital improvement costing over $800,000 and capable of serving hundreds of additional homes, all for a single-family housing development, which could have easily been served by a $20,000 one-inch water line, similar to how all the other homes in the neighborhood connect to water.

This $800,000 mandated water main upgrade is not necessary.

It stops development in low socioeconomic neighborhoods and is contrary to Seattle's goals of providing affordable housing.

My story is not an uncommon one.

After looking into similar cases, SPU's denial of water availability certificates has resulted in over 5,000 unrealized housing units in the past five years alone.

This statistic comes from a published source in The Urbanist from October 14, 2024. As Seattle considers its comprehensive plan moving forward, I urge council members to consider how affordable publicly funded water service connections are essential towards achieving its goals of increasing affordable housing in our city, as well as a requirement of Washington's growth management.

Thank you, Will.

Good morning, Sandy.

Hi, yeah, good morning.

I'm Sandy Shetler with Tree Action Seattle.

I'm asking you to please require shared walls in neighborhood residential zones.

Shared walls save trees and space for future trees.

This plan won't give us stacked flats surrounded by trees or friendly cottages around common green space.

If it did, we would already be, excuse me, I get nervous up here.

If it did, we would already be seeing these in South Park, which has had this zoning for five years.

Instead, all South Park has gotten on new projects is lot sprawl.

The trees are cut and the land is cut up into single family homes surrounded by pavement.

The houses cost more than shared wall units, and there's no space for trees.

This should not have happened in an environmental justice priority community.

Please end this practice there and stop it from spreading to the rest of Seattle.

And I brought you a picture of a South Park project that is built to the current specifications.

I'll leave it for you.

And I'll take you there if you'd like to go.

Thank you, Sandy.

Our next speaker is Speakers 9 and 10, Sandy and David.

Thank you.

Good morning, David.

You can do any mic you choose.

Your choice.

Good morning.

My name is Dave Glogera, and I live in District 5. I will be commenting about the draft environmental impact statement for the One Seattle Plan and the connection to the killer whales of Puget Sound.

I searched through the EIS, which is over 1,000 pages long, and I could not find the word whale even once.

These whales are defined as a critically endangered species by the federal government, but there is nothing in the EIS that defines how the One Seattle plan would affect the whales or their recovery plan.

The proposed increase in housing density, with a corresponding increase in hardscape and a reduction in trees, would surely result in increased runoff and increased water temperature, and thus an impact on the whales.

And again, not a single word in the EIS.

The EIS is also lacking in its assessment of what it calls Seattle's small lakes, Green Lake, Howler Lake, and Bitter Lake.

It states that there is no water quality impairment for these lakes.

Contrary to this, Green Lake is designated by the Washington State's Department of Ecology as Category 5. This is the highest level of impairment, which is due to harmful algae blooms, pesticides, PCBs, and more.

And Haller Lake is listed in Category 2. This information is available online.

Why is it missing from the EIS?

These are just two serious issues that are not addressed by the draft EIS.

If these items are missing, how can the One Seattle Plan address these environmental issues and be ready to actually implement anything?

Please protect our environment and keep Seattle green and livable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sandy?

Are you speaker number nine?

11. OK.

Is Sandy Shetler?

She already went.

Oh, sorry.

I apologize.

Yes, 11. Jennifer and followed by speaker number 11 will be number 12, Josh.

Thank you.

Good morning, Jennifer.

Hi.

Welcome.

Hi.

So I am here to speak in memory of J61, who is still being carried by Tahlequah.

and for our three dead, critically endangered southern resident killer whale babies this past year.

I request Seattle follow the NOAA recovery plan guidelines, which say the highest population areas on Puget Sound must take greater measures to control polluted runoff, as pollution is one of their top three threats.

J-35 is still carrying her dead calf as of yesterday, which means she's not really eating.

Orca gestation is 15 months.

These beloved giants are telling us, through their rising deaths, that they cannot take more human obstacles like pollution increases.

The orcas are not in the draft environmental impact statement for the One Seattle Plan.

Quote, the only ESA-listed or state-listed species known or expected to use habitats in the city are fish.

That's from the DEIS.

King County DNR, the USDA, the EPA say trees absorb and clean stormwater, which can be heavily polluted in hardscape urban areas lacking trees.

Trees cool the air, fight urban heat islands, and can lower salmon waterway temperatures even when they are not adjacent to a waterway.

Salmon need cool water to thrive.

Hot air temperatures can create unsurvivable water temperatures conditions for salmon.

Removing space for our most powerful phytoremediators is not the answer, as demonstrated by Portland's large tree amendment after their 2019 middle housing process.

West Point cannot remove all of the harmful contaminants in wastewater.

And we also are in a more enclosed body of water than a lot of other West Coast cities, which makes it More difficult for killer whales.

So one Seattle plan goes well beyond the state HB 1110, allowing significantly more hardscape and expensive lot sprawl, not affordable housing.

Allowing our most- No words, you can also send in the rest of your comments to council as well.

Thank you.

Speaker number 13, sorry, 12 is Josh followed by 13 is Jesse and then speakers 14 through 17.

Good morning, Josh.

Morning.

Council members, my name is Josh Friedman.

I'm a land use lawyer at the Hillis Clark law firm and a born and raised Seattle resident.

On the Complete Communities Coalition Steering Committee, I represent NAOP.

Today I'm commenting to ask you to be bold in supporting and building on the mayor's strong start to the comprehensive planning process.

The One Seattle Comprehensive Plan can be focused on housing affordability and job creation, as well as sustainable infill development that brings this housing and jobs into our urban areas instead of sending that growth as sprawl into the foothills of the Cascades.

As you review and augment the mayor's proposal, please remember the difference between zoned capacity and actual units brought to market.

Just because a plan provides zoned capacity for a certain number of units does not mean those housing units actually can or will be built.

If the council is aiming to provide actual housing and actual jobs, the plan needs to provide more than zoned capacity.

It needs to aim high and it needs to resolve code and zoning issues that are stopping housing from being built and being affordable in our city.

At this first stage, I hope you'll prioritize increasing housing capacity along existing and new neighborhood centers and corridors with mixed rise zoning whenever possible.

Please maximize opportunities for multifamily around major transit hubs and arterial corridors.

Similarly, to support sustainable density, please retain the critical proposed height increases in neighborhood residential zones.

This will be critical to allow for sustainable infill development.

We look forward to working with you to advance housing affordability, job creation, and sustainable development across our city.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Jesse Simpson, Director of Government Relations and Policy for the Housing Development Consortium, representing all of the major nonprofit affordable housing developers and operators in Seattle.

I'm also co-chair of the Complete Communities Coalition, a broad coalition united in wanting a bold, comprehensive plan update that allows for more abundant housing across Seattle.

Housing affordability is at the core of so many of the challenges that Seattle faces.

Families struggle to stay housed, low wage workers are forced into long commutes, and communities face continual displacement.

We need more homes of all shapes and sizes in all neighborhoods to address our housing shortage and to become a more affordable, equitable, and sustainable city.

The Complete Communities Coalition applauds many of the strong proposals in the mayor's proposed, recommended one Seattle plan, including allowing for four plexes and other middle housing types citywide, creating 30 new neighborhood centers, and expanding existing urban centers near transit.

To further strengthen this plan, we urge you to adopt some specific enhancements.

First, to expand the proposed affordable housing density bonus citywide, and to couple it with a similar bonus for low rise zones.

Second, to allow for stacked flats on all lots near frequent transit, regardless of size, to encourage the creation of more accessible middle housing.

Third, to expand mixed use zoning along transit corridors.

And fourth, to establish additional neighborhood centers in high opportunity and low displacement risk areas.

We know you've heard and will continue to hear pushback from some voices worried about change.

I urge you to stay anchored in your values and guided by a North Star of creating a Seattle where everyone can feel welcomed, where people can live near their work, raise families, find stable homes within their communities, and age in place.

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration and your leadership on these issues.

Look forward to collaborating more over the coming months.

Thanks.

Thank you, Jessie.

Speaker number 14, Dawn, followed by Ruth, 15.

Good morning.

I'm Dawn Seiler.

I've lived in North Queen Anne for over 40 years.

Thank you for involving public comment.

I represent over 400 neighbors who have signed a petition and letter to Councilmember Kettle opposing proposed LR3 upzoning North Queen Anne that would allow five-story units apartments with scant parking.

We support common sense growth where community centers and their residents are involved in planning.

However, we were shut out of this process.

Our comments to this dramatic upzoning are the goal of OSP upzoning is to link people between centers through transportation, but the number one bus only links people between upper and lower Queen Anne and downtown.

Our concerns cover only 13 heli blocks on North Queen Anne, but in that area includes 111 restored homes over 100 years old.

The avenue that runs through our little neighborhood, the historic Queen Anne Boulevard, is the original street Seattle's trolley ran on.

Within that area are 40-, 60-year-old large trees whose canopies provide shade that will be destroyed.

When the OPC upzoned our historic Quinan Boulevard, they did not consider the infrastructure of old sewer lines, narrow streets, limited parking, additional traffic pollution, and destroying Seattle's history.

The proposed plan has no community buy-in.

OPCD planners excluded community councils at the exhibition hall.

Planners lacked knowledge and had vague understanding of our neighborhood.

We, we want growth and we are asking the city to pause in the planning to get buy-in from community councils.

We look forward to working with each of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Speaker number 15, Ruth followed by Ruth would be speaker number 16, Henry and 17.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Hello, my name is Ruth Deid.

I live on Queen Anne.

None of my neighbors and almost none of the 400 people who signed our petition about LR3 zoning on 10th Avenue knew about zoning changes being proposed.

They were shocked and concerned.

Many of us who attended one of the planning department's open houses came away just to be a presentation to a sitting crowd with questions and answers all we'd be able to hear.

Instead, we had private conversations with staff where no one else benefited from what we learned.

I came away with many questions, even hours after reading through planning documents.

As has already been mentioned, one of my questions is why 330,000 units, 300 to 400 percent more than we are being required to plan for, especially given a recent Seattle Times report that a record number of housing units were built in 2024, and a 20-year goal of 70,000 new units was recently met 11 years early.

I have some more questions, and I can talk a lot about the high densities proposed on Queen Anne proper, an area that already can take 40 minutes to get off the hill.

It's very restricted by topography.

But I want to talk about something that I don't think people have realized.

When documents were handed out by staff at the open house, they did not show where six-unit middle housing will be allowed in neighborhood zones.

not on any of the documents I had here.

I only found out by asking staff, why did they not make it clear that nearly all of Queen Anne will be eligible for six units?

Why did they not make it clear that these units will be 40 feet high, plus a pitched roof?

Also, it is very unclear what the city considers to be bus rapid transit or major transit stops.

Apparently, any bus route in Queen Anne quote.

We need affordable housing.

No one in my neighborhood says no to density.

We need this process to slow down.

We welcome any of you to walk our neighborhood.

Thank you.

Speaker number 16, Henry, followed by, excuse me.

What number?

13. You're number 13. I have number 13. I have Jessie Simpson.

What was your name?

Janet Wang.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Happy New Year.

My name is Henry Sawyer.

I'm here to comment on the comprehensive plan process.

I've lived in Montlake since 1996 with my family, and I've just learned about this proposal just in the last week.

It seems to me a kind of clever form of redlining that has been ramrodded through for the benefit of big developers, bankers, and financial institutions.

I think this proposal will destroy neighborhoods, which people have fought hard for to preserve and grow.

If you want to have a simple solution to having your housing crisis solved, why not ban vacation rentals by owner?

VRBO and Airbnb, this has worked in other cities around the world, and it can work here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Henry.

We have Janet Way, and then following Janet Way will be our last in-person speaker will be Jasmine Smith.

Good morning, Miss Janet and the orca.

Good morning, Council.

I'm Janet Way.

I'm from Shoreline.

I live in the Thornton Creek Watershed.

I'm a founding member of Thornton Creek Alliance.

I'm a member of Trees and People Coalition and TREEPAC.

I'm here to speak about the fate of the baby orca.

What is responsible for the death of this orca is pollution.

Seattle is not properly enforcing the critical areas ordinance, which was so meticulously drafted.

It includes steep slopes, wetlands, and stream corridors.

And that is where the trees need to be protected, and they're not being properly protected.

Seattle is salmon habitat.

Salmon, steelhead, and orca are key.

The EIS for the comp plan was not included orca whales.

Trees are the most effective water quality, air quality, control, bioremediation, and stormwater impact Enforcer, your permitting agencies must be required to enforce the CAO, including existing trees.

Please instruct staff to effectively enforce when reviewing development proposals.

Housing can coexist with our trees with good design.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jasmine Smith.

I am the Director of Local Advocacy with FutureWise and co-chair of the Complete Communities Coalition.

I want to thank you for the work that you have done and will be doing on the comprehensive plan and really looking at how we can have a one Seattle for everyone.

It's just a great example of what a complete community can be.

It's one with enough housing for all, one with businesses in the neighborhood across the city for vibrant, walkable communities.

We deserve a Seattle that everyone can call home from Lake City to Columbia City, from Queen Anne to Madrona.

There's gonna be a lot of work that needs to be done across the board, but there's already a lot of work that we have done.

For years, we've been working on this comprehensive plan process, We've gotten a lot done with the mayor's office and we really appreciate the really strong start that we have to build from thus far.

And while there's some opportunities for growth with capacity on neighborhood centers and corridors where we can expand mixed use wherever possible and maximize housing around transit, One of the things that's really clear to me is it's environmentally critical that we understand that we are a city for everyone and that we also have a responsibility for our region around us to build enough housing that we aren't sprawling out into some of the other communities nearby and so that we can do our part as we address the housing crisis and build for what we need.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jasmine.

We'll now move into remote speakers.

Thank you.

Once I call a remote speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, automatic prompt if you have been unmuted, you will be the speaker's cue that they're trying to speak.

Speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Our first speaker is Robin Briggs.

Hello, I got the cue to speak, but I'm actually Ruth Williams.

Should I go ahead?

Can you please state your name?

Ruth Williams.

I don't see you signed up, Ruth.

Are you signed up on behalf of Robin?

No, I don't know who Robin is, but I did sign up.

So we'll go ahead and sign Ruth up.

Ruth, just give us a second, but Robin, you are off mute and you are, your time starts now.

Thank you.

Super.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Robin Briggs.

I live on Capitol Hill and I'm very concerned about the climate and the comprehensive plan details, among other things, the city's plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving resilience.

So I urge you to pay particular attention to the climate implications of the plan as the latest emissions inventory released in December shows that while we have made incremental progress to reducing emissions, we are not nearly on track to meeting the reductions required to keep emissions to the 1.5 degree level rise called for by the Paris Agreement.

We had a reduction in emissions from 2008 to 2022 of 11%, which is positive, Nor can we be sure that this 11% reduction is not just a temporary byproduct of the pandemic since our emissions are growing year over year since 2020. So I urge you to consider climate-friendly improvements.

People's emissions go down when they move to the city.

More density means people don't have to travel as much to meet their daily needs, nor do they expend as much energy in heating and cooling spaces in multifamily buildings.

Are we planning massive seawalls in South Park and Smith Cove?

How would another heat dome affect people who don't have access to cooling or people who don't even have housing?

This is a 20 year plan.

Please look ahead and create the plan we will need in 2045. Thanks very much.

Our next speaker is Jacob Kurlander.

Morning, Jacob.

Please press star six, Jacob.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Wonderful.

I'm Jake Kurlander, a resident of Montlake in the area plan for upzoning under the comprehensive plan.

I absolutely love my neighborhood.

I want more people to have an opportunity to live here, and I fully support the upzoning plan.

I'm extremely excited about the two extra neighborhood commercial blocks, which will make room for more businesses to serve our community.

The changes support our city's urgent need for a dramatically increased housing supply and will make our neighborhood stronger and more vibrant.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Colleen McAller.

Morning Colleen, just press star six.

Good morning, city council.

Welcome back.

This is Colleen McAleer and I'm president of our local Northeast Seattle community council.

We've got 2,900 households under our jurisdiction.

And we have some comments just for about the comp plan.

First of all, the early shaping process, location, and the small data side used to form it makes the whole One Seattle plan skewed by OPCD.

It excludes broader input from official neighborhood organizations, particularly north of the Ship Canal where 300,000 people live.

They limited it to five organizations with 300 people.

So there's a whole bunch of people who have no idea what was going on.

Second, the final comment period It was December 20th, followed by a two-week long holiday break.

Who and how are the comments read?

Have any of the public comments changed, integrated into the Seattle plan you're going to see today?

Will these comments be part of a formal review process to form amendments?

Who edits out the duplicate ones from individuals who sit at their computer and repeat the comments?

Number three, with the billion-dollar light rail extensions activating this year, why is Seattle requiring itself so much more density required than beyond HB 1110?

and the GMA targets in Seattle.

This is the most expensive land, highest construction costs in the region, and commuting is expected to be shorter and less expensive in 10 years.

Number four, the final one Seattle comp plan and the tree canopy must be retained with Seattle's livability and not be given away in its character.

The requirements of HB 1110, section 21, page five states, quote, middle housing means buildings that are compatible in scale, JoAnne Hanrahan- form and character with single family housing and quote doubling and tripling the heights in these proposed new zoning changes, especially along bus routes, but not either not even major transit routes.

JoAnne Hanrahan- Does not meet the HP one one zero criteria and should be amended thanks for your efforts for all these complexities we appreciate your work on this, thank you bye bye.

Thank you, Colleen.

Our next speaker is June blue spruce.

Hi Janet.

Good morning.

Just press star six and you can go ahead.

Time is yours.

Can you hear me?

We sure can.

Okay.

Hello.

Hello.

My name is June blues Bruce and I live in district two.

The city council needs to do two things before approving any zoning changes to avoid harming our people, neighborhoods, trees, and environment.

One, pass a robust, effective tree protection ordinance that protects both mature trees and trees on lots under development.

Two, create a robust, effective anti-displacement plan.

None yet exists.

Contrary to information presented by OPCD, the property tax assessor uses the standard of highest and best use to determine tax rates.

Rapidly increasing taxes push out legacy homeowners and other residents.

allowing significant up zones in areas that have been neighborhood residential results in blocks that transform into tall multifamily dwellings with no architectural relationship to existing homes.

These buildings surround and shade out any single family dwellings that remain.

This also pushes people out.

Anti-displacement policies must include tax relief for households, particularly legacy homeowners, and require ensuring daylight for residents around taller buildings and design architecture consistent with neighborhood character.

The burden of upzoning to date has fallen disproportionately on the Central Area and Southeast Seattle and the Rainier Valley, areas that were harmed by past discriminatory housing practices and that houses a higher percentage of BIPOC immigrants and low-income people.

The city must exempt these areas from any upzones.

Almost the entire neighborhood of Hillman City is now designated as a neighborhood center a departure from earlier plans hillman city is a vibrant diverse neighborhood with a diversity of housing types and a bustling business district proposed drastic up zones will completely alter its character place existing resistance residents this is not acceptable thank you thank you our next speaker is harvey ferlich

Good morning, Harvey.

Just press star six and come off mute.

And once you talk, your time will begin.

Thank you.

My name is Harvey Froelich.

I'm speaking for four households in the Montlake neighborhood, just west of 24th and two blocks from Montlake Elementary.

We have three concerns with the one Seattle plan that proposes significant zoning changes in residential neighborhoods.

The first is parking.

Though we live near very good transit, the reality is that residents have private cars.

We must plan based on this reality and not what we wish people would do in using public transit.

In fact, there is ample evidence today of future parking problems in our neighborhood.

Due to the renovation of Montlake Elementary, our streets have been lined with many private and company vehicles of construction workers.

There's been minimal evidence of enforcement of the two-hour limit for daytime parking.

Our second concern is property values for individual detached homes like ours.

Increased density can be improved by adding ADUs that also enhance property values.

Multi-story middle housing will not.

Our third concern is replacement.

From what we have seen in the plan and other speakers have mentioned, there's no limit on location for these middle housing developments.

Placing them on busy streets like 24th makes sense.

Deep in residential areas does not make sense.

Those are our three concerns, parking, property value, and placement.

Other speakers have mentioned detailed alternative plans, which I look forward to looking at and I hope the Seattle Council will also consider in this one Seattle friend.

Thank you.

How many more speakers do we have?

We have about eight more speakers.

All right.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Martha Baskin.

Hi, Martha.

Just press star six and your time will start once you speak.

Hello.

Good morning.

Yes.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good morning.

Hello there.

Martha Beth.

Yes.

Good morning to all of you.

Good to be with you.

I'm a member of birds connect Seattle's conservation committee, as well as the tree and people coalition.

The goal of the comp plan zoning update is to increase the supply and diversity of housing.

Nothing to argue with there, especially if the emphasis is affordable housing, which isn't entirely clear.

But when the zoning allows residential lot clearing to such an extent that the outcome is a gulag of hardscape, the city is doing a disservice to everyone who lives here, especially in neighborhoods suffering from heavy industry and a lack of canopy.

Housing should be a human right, but it shouldn't mean a barren, denuded landscape with no trees to filter polluted air and no bird songs to heal the soul.

The zoning updates are an act of climate denial, which will ensure heat islands, unfiltered wildfire smoke, and storm runoff pouring into city streets, poisoning waterways.

Setbacks are so limited that there is no space for private property or street trees, no space to protect trees on the periphery of a lot, where they can often be saved with creative construction and design.

The canopies of mature trees mitigate heat islands while their roots help curb runoff.

The increased hardscape allowance and proposed zoning prioritizes pavement over green space, a sure recipe for an unlivable and very unhealthy city.

Why is the city intent on ignoring its own canopy goals and stated understanding of climate change when it talks about diverse housing?

Can't it chew gum and walk at the same time?

Can't we have a diverse supply of housing that includes protecting existing trees with space to plant more?

Seattle does need a diverse supply of housing, especially at the affordable kind.

But 25 years into the 21st century, it also needs to be a city that's ready for.

That took care of that.

Our next speaker is Anne Tyson.

Morning and just press star six and your time will start once you speak.

Good morning.

I'm a longtime Northeast Seattle resident.

My family has lived here since 1961. I strongly agree with the criticisms made by city council members as well as by prior callers about the mistakes, rushed process, threats to the tree canopy and wildlife, and unnecessary overreach of the plant.

I represent scores of my neighbors in voicing strong opposition to proposed upzoning to LR3 along the small segment of Northeast 45th Street between 38th Avenue Northeast and 45th Avenue Northeast.

This is clearly a planning mistake that we respectfully request be corrected.

This proposal is based on a mischaracterization of this area as part of the frequent transit network.

This is simply wrong.

As shown on the Seattle Transit Master Plan, this small spur along the end of 45th Street is not part of that network.

In addition, such a four-block spur would be contrary to the service design principles used to establish the frequent transit network, which prioritizes routes that connect urban centers and urban villages, places with jobs, shops, services, and access to major transit.

This segment of Northeast 45th Street has none of that.

It's residential, has no commercial, and does not serve as a destination for the city or region.

It's essentially a dead end.

So this area does not qualify for upzoning based on any stated criteria.

The upzoning is overwhelmingly opposed by residents.

I respectfully request that you correct this error, and given the rushed process, time needs to be taken.

It's impossible for the planning authorities to consider public comments such as mine in a very short duration.

These are valid comments, and they need to be weighed through a legitimate process.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Karen Davis.

Morning, Karen.

Just star six.

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

My name is Karen Davis.

I really appreciate this effort to create more housing.

We clearly need that.

But at what cost?

I want to ask you all, why do you live here?

Why do you live in Seattle?

I live in Seattle because of the natural beauty of this place.

I live here for the trees, the birds, the water.

the salmon, the orca, and all of that is at risk with this plan.

The southern resident orcas are critically endangered and protected by the Endangered Species Act, and yet they aren't even mentioned in this plan.

There is one swimming out there right now carrying her dead calf that died likely from malnutrition because we've killed the salmon and we've polluted the water.

She's making world news, and she's not even mentioned in our plan.

When people see pictures of orcas breaching with downtown in the background, they think it's photoshopped.

They can't believe that that actually exists.

And it actually exists.

But we are rapidly stealing their fate, and this plan is just one more nail in the coffin.

We need to see a plan with a lot more accommodation for the environment and green space.

We need to see a plan that allows for big trees on every single city lot.

The decreased setbacks on the increase in hardscaping and cramming four to six units on every city lot will not leave any room for shade trees.

And shade trees are critical to fighting climate change, to absorbing and filtering water, to preventing flooding and landslides, and to biodiversity.

The beauty, the environment, the green, and the wildlife are what makes Seattle such a beautiful, livable city.

And this plan does not prioritize that.

Density without livability is useless because no one will want to live here.

Livability must go hand in hand with density.

We are the Emerald City.

How can we be the Emerald City without any green?

Please make green space a priority in this plan by saving the big house.

Let's remember the green that gave Emerald City its name, not just the green that lines the pockets of developers.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Cassinian.

Morning, David.

I think he just dropped.

And so I'm going to go to the next speaker, Ruth Williams.

Good morning, Ruth.

Go ahead and press star six.

Can you hear me?

Loud and clear.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Ruth Williams, speaking on behalf of Thornton Creek Alliance, an all-volunteer group of 180 members.

Thornton Creek is the largest watershed in both Seattle and Shoreline.

No need to remind this group of the grieving orca mother in Puget Sound and how urban runoff is a major contributor to its degraded condition.

Increased pavement will bring increased runoff.

The Seattle portion of Thornton Creek is in D5.

This historical salmon-bearing stream like many urban streams, is today a federal Category 303-D impaired waterway.

Returning salmon mostly die at the mouth.

The polluted waters of Thornton flow into Lake Washington at Matthews Beach Park where the prevailing current washes them over to the swimming beach.

These waters eventually flow into the Sound and mix with urban outflows there.

The Puget Sound Regional Council's Vision 2050 sets this environmental goal.

The natural environment is restored, protected, and sustained, preserving and enhancing natural functions and wildlife habitats.

We don't see effort expended in this direction.

What we see is homes being built even in historical wetlands and lots being scraped of all vegetation for the convenience of builders.

While the March DEIS cites numerous federal regulations, it's not at all clear how the city plans to comply with them.

The discussion and analyses are inadequate and a cumulative impact analysis is needed.

Let's hope for more thorough work supportive of a sustainable environment this time round.

We look forward to reading the new EIS to be released later this month.

Thank you for your time and all your work.

Our next speaker is David Haynes.

Let's go ahead and press star six, David.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

The comp plan is supposed to have 21st century, first-world quality, robust floor plan housing build-outs where you build higher than six stories to give livable amenity 21st century qualitative space so you can enjoy the view from the rooftop without dealing with low-level noise pollutions from the street or the transit.

where you want to build three levels, five different buildings running trash trucks in between it.

The problem I hear with these public commenters is the same thing that sabotage the comp plan where you're not allowed to build anything else in my neighborhood because all these people who think they're entitled and you know, a privileged like homeowner, they get to claim two and three and four mortgages that they try to sell out on making sure that nobody else is allowed to build in the area.

And then whatever is built is sabotaged by other people to say, well, you're not allowed to build that high and you're not allowed to like impact my tree that I need driving through toxifying your neighborhood.

Like we need a comp plan that trades out the service roads and some of these side streets to people to robustly build out You know, like eight plexus that don't have the car driving in between each section of the quad.

You know, that's a misinterpretation that's car-centric.

We need to get to pedestrian-friendly, resident-friendly neighborhoods where you're not walking out your front door and being overwhelmed by 3rd Avenue street dust and public safety predators.

It's like, why does anybody want to live in Seattle if we have a priority to...

put repeat offending criminals connected to the underworld housing and services first without dealing with the proper policy of building drug purchases in jail and having a robust housing build out without sellouts sabotaging it.

Thank you, David.

Our next speaker is Matt Hutchins.

Morning, Matt.

Just press star six.

Hi.

My name is Matt Hutchins, and I'm an architect working on affordable housing and infill development.

Too many Seattleites struggle with housing, homelessness, high rents, housing instability, and access to quality housing in close proximity to where people want to live and work near parks and schools is absolutely essential for everyone's quality of life, not just new residents.

I want to distinguish between capital A affordable housing and lowercase a affordable housing.

Capital A affordable housing is subsidized by public money versus lowercase a affordable housing.

It's just inexpensive housing by nature of its type, size, or age.

We need both, and this plan does some of what is needed.

The new place type neighborhood centers are a key element for capital A affordable housing where the cost is subsidized by public money because they are where nonprofits can build the scale of affordable housing projects that they need to make them viable.

Please preserve every one of these and consider expanding them.

The small A affordable housing is going to be also backfilled by allowing four and six units per parcel.

This creates less expensive homes like townhouses and flats and cottages.

And these are also important.

These two elements are two prongs in getting more affordable housing in our city.

And I wanted to point out the difference between development capacity and our housing goals.

Having 330,000 possible housing units doesn't mean that we're going to get them.

It means that we only develop a small percentage of the capacity every year.

And so we need to keep that development capacity very high in order to get the housing we need.

Thank you very much for your time today and look forward to engaging in the process later.

Thank you, Matt.

Our next speaker is going to be Charlie Inman, then followed by Riley Averon, and then our last speaker will go back to David Kazeed.

Morning, Charlie.

Go ahead and press star six.

Hello, can you hear me?

Loud and clear.

Yeah, you're all good.

Thank you very much.

My name is hello, excuse me.

Hello, council members.

My name is Charlie Lehman, president of Wallingford.

I urge the council to consider the examples of Spokane, Washington, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Austin, Texas, in eliminating single-family zoning in Seattle, and at a minimum, move forward with the abstinence proposed in the current plan to allow Seattle to build more housing.

Supply-side solutions to housing allow the city to meet housing demand and reduce housing costs, as has been observed in other areas that have implemented these solutions across the nation.

Pushback to upzoning due to loss of tree cover, water runoff, orca and salmon populations, other environmental concerns blatantly ignore the environmental detriment of what continued housing and automobile sprawl does to the environment, and objections relating to neighborhood character, daylight locks, enrichment of developers, parking, lack of outreach, and other NIMBY claims are specious at best.

The concerns of prohibitively expensive housing enclaves presented here today do not represent most of the Seattleites.

Please adopt the proposed plan and consider additional measures for up-zoning.

Thank you.

Ryleigh?

Good morning, Ryleigh.

Just star six.

Hi there.

Good morning.

We can hear you.

Hi there.

My name is Ryleigh Avron.

and I live in West Seattle in Councilmember Saka's district.

First, thank you for the thorough public outreach that has occurred on this plan over the last three years.

I'm always shocked when people describe the process as rushed.

The city has held dozens of meetings, sent hundreds of emails, and accepted thousands of comments during multiple periods since 2021. Second, I live in an area due to be significantly up-zoned to LR3, and I'm so excited about that change, as are scores of my neighbors.

I hear much concern here about neighborhood character, but the character of my neighborhood is the people who live here, not the buildings in which they live.

If we don't allow change to the physical structures in our neighborhoods, then we will continue to price out existing and new neighbors.

That doesn't work for anyone except the incumbent homeowners who are dramatically overrepresented.

Finally, my neighborhood is disproportionately wealthy and has some of the lowest displacement risks in the whole city.

Neighborhoods like mine are the perfect place to allow even more homes for more.

We're in a housing crisis, so let's act like it.

Building dramatically more homes is the only sustainable way to dig ourselves out.

Please make this plan even bolder and proceed quickly.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is David.

Good morning, David.

Just press star six and you're good to go.

Hi there.

Thank you.

Sorry about that earlier.

My name is David Kakininden.

I'm a Seattle resident, occupational therapist, and small business owner.

As an occupational therapist, I am concerned that the One Seattle plan decreases accessibility to life activities necessary for human health and wellness.

The environmental impact statement began by assuming that a commercial development is inevitable Rather than starting with existing ecosystems or assessing the short and long-term impacts to air, temperature, water, overall pollution, and the accessibility of our city's built environments on the hottest, coldest, wettest, driest, and windiest days that climate change will continue to throw at us.

Our residents, human and otherwise, cannot survive yet more thoughtless sprawl.

We have already lost far too many trees due to poor planning and lack of ordinance enforcement.

Please start over and do an honest environmental impact assessment that prioritizes trees orcas and all native residents, the core covering yet more about ecosystem in concrete.

Thank you.

That's our last registered speaker.

Awesome, thank you and thank you to our public commenters who came today and also online as well.

One of the things I was listening to when you all were talking about the environment, it reminded me of 2014 when we had the Oso landslide and I was listening to some of the tribes, indigenous tribes speak about how they felt like mother nature was crying during that time and seeing the well and unfortunately, young orca that has passed away and understanding how important it is that we protect our environment.

So I just wanted to throw that out there, listen to y'all, I hear y'all and looking forward to the presentation today.

Before I go into my comments and set the table, I would like us to read item number one into the record so we can invite our guests to the table and then I will say my comments and set the table and we'll get started.

Thank you.

Agenda item one, introduction to the comprehensive plan process for a briefing and discussion.

Awesome.

Thank you all.

Before we jump into our present presentation, I'd like to set the table a little bit about our comprehensive plan.

As you all know, I took on this responsibility about a month ago.

So I appreciate your grace and understanding as we move through this process together.

I'd also like to thank our OPCD, our Council staff, our mayor's office, I know you all worked hard over the recess break to put presentation together for us to start off the 2025. There's nothing more fun than starting off 2025 with a comprehensive plan, okay?

I just want you all to know that.

I would also like to thank council member Morales.

She's the former chair of this committee.

It also happens to be her last official day on record.

And so just wanna thank her for the, I had the opportunity to meet with her and her staff to go over a lot of the work that they did in preparation for this.

And so very grateful for that meeting and thank you to her and her service to our city Officially, I know a lot of us have gone on record thanking her, but just wanted to throw that out there as well.

I also wanted to point out that I have talked to many of you of my colleagues and about how housing is very important to you all in your districts.

And also in addition to grocery stores and parks and buildings and trees and community centers, trails, green spaces, local small businesses, all of this has an impact on our comprehensive plan.

And a lot of the values that I've heard from our community have been, you know, we want a welcoming city for newcomers and our families.

We also want an affordable city from young to old, which is incredibly important.

We need an accessible city for our community.

We also need a livable city for Seattle and we also need a safe city.

All these play into part with our comprehensive plan and how important it is.

This meeting for my colleagues is intended to us to give an introduction regarding the process.

The mayor's comprehensive plan is being sent down to council today, transmitted.

And we will be getting, during this presentation, I've read it and I wanna thank you all for sending it over for me to read over and everything.

But this is, we'll talk about the pre-briefings, the layers in the comprehensive plan, also the amendment process.

We have central staff here who will talk about that.

Also the high level timelines and due dates as well.

And I think it's important that number one, when we're talking about amendments and timelines that we stay true to those timelines.

there's also a legal component to that uh you know a certain window in which we're allowed to bring amendments so i just want to remind my colleagues about that and bring that up the second thing too is when we're running these meetings everyone will have an opportunity to speak first and then we'll go through the second round of folks who want to speak but i want to make sure that everyone always has an opportunity to speak first i also would this is a strong ask for us to do our homework.

So for you all to get pre-briefings about the comprehensive plan.

A lot of the questions that I know that you all might have can be answered in pre-briefings with our staff with OPCD.

So we can make sure that these meetings are high level and we can go into a lot of the work that needs to be done.

Cause I think it's important that we do our homework.

It's important that when we are making changes to city code and people's neighborhoods and lives and all these things that we need to have a really great understanding about how that's gonna affect people and how that's gonna change neighborhoods and what the impact is going to be.

So I just want us to make sure that we are on top of that as well.

I also like to thank my vice chair, council member Strauss as well for all your hard work and all of your stewardship as well and coaching in the background.

You're a great coach.

And last but not least, I believe that's all the comments I have.

So I don't know if any other council members have any questions or comments, but we're gonna move right in to our presentation.

Welcome.

And please state your name for the record and we can just jump right in.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Chris DeVias.

I'm deputy director of policy in the mayor's office.

And on behalf of the mayor's office, I want to thank you all for having us here today and thank you for pulling together a select committee in recognition of this most critical issue before the city.

And a big shout out to you, council member Hollingsworth, for stepping up to take the helm.

Major updates to the Comprehensive Plan happen only every 10 years, and these 10-year updates require jurisdictions to plan for the next 20 years of anticipated growth.

This is also a fairly complex and lengthy process with numerous requirements and layers of decision-making involved.

So I also want to thank the general public and various stakeholders for their engagement to date on this issue, which we know can sometimes feel overly bureaucratic and difficult to follow.

I'd like to take a moment to note that the latest and last round of public engagement on the executive side concluded on December 20th.

Staff from our planning department will very quickly be pulling together a readout on the feedback received.

We will be using this to refine two major pieces of legislation that we will be sending down to you in March and May.

Obviously, all of you will also have an important role in shaping the plan that is ultimately adopted.

And we anticipate you will be conducting your own public process, gathering input from a variety of constituents as you strive to balance a range of interests.

We look forward to working with you in the coming months and helping to support your decision-making.

And with that, I will turn it over to our planning staff who have prepared a presentation that is largely about table setting and the various topics and issues we'll be taking up in the coming months.

Thank you.

Awesome.

And before, real quick, I just wanna, if we could wait till the end for us to answer our questions, we'll go through the whole presentation and then the end you will be recognized for questions.

Thank you.

Can you guys hear me okay?

Yes.

Go ahead, director.

You're good.

So, good morning.

Welcome back from holiday, and thank you all for starting off the year with the comprehensive plan.

My name is Riko Kidding Dongu.

I'm the director of the Office of Planning and Community Development.

I know that you all know this, but just to state it for the record, this is the beginning of nine months of conversation about comprehensive plan.

We have three pieces of legislation over the course of the nine months for your consideration that we'll talk about today.

And this is a very important time.

I would also like to thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for chairing this Committee of the Whole, and thank all of you for your participation already.

and know that you have many things that you're going to have to be considering this year and appreciate the time that you will be putting forward to talk about everything that we're contemplating in the comprehensive plan for a growing in a city that is continuing to evolve and expand.

We have a lot to jump into, so I will keep my comments short.

But again, know that We want to be here for you as staff, as you have questions.

We want to make sure that we are present for you to answer your questions, to provide you the information you need as you reach out to stakeholders and know that this is a process for the community and thank all of you that have come today to provide comment and everybody that provided comment online.

We are beginning another, you are beginning another uh comment public comment process in advance of a public hearing a month from now and we'll come back around to that next slide so we have a slight we have a slide deck to present to you today if we could pull that up one second vice chair just wanted to confirm we don't see your slides

That is confirmed.

Thank you for that.

Yep.

All right.

We will work on that.

No worries.

We'll get that going.

I noticed you saying next slide, and I was like.

This is a great time for me to talk.

People care about the environment.

If everyone goes vegan today for one day, that will reduce your total carbon footprint by food by 70%.

So just think about that one day.

Thank you.

Just one day.

70%.

All right.

I think that we are good.

We are all good.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Vice Chair.

All right.

So the agenda that you see in front of you, we want to give you a very quick overview of comprehensive plan requirements, move into a conversation around planning for housing growth, talk about the schedule of consideration, not only the work we've been doing the last two and a half years, but what we anticipate over the next nine months.

We want to touch on the environmental review process that has been underway, including the release of the final environmental impact statement forthcoming.

We also want to provide an overview of the public engagement process that we've conducted over the last couple of years, as well as the council process that we will be conducting with you over the next nine months.

Next slide.

And I will pass on to our land use planning manager, Michael Hubner.

Thank you, Rico.

Can you hear me?

Mic live?

Great.

Yes.

Thank you, Rico.

Thank you, Krista.

Good morning, council members.

For the record, I'm Michael Hubner.

I'm the Long Range Planning Manager in the Office of Planning and Community Development.

And I'm the project lead for the One Seattle Plan comprehensive plan update.

Oops.

So the One Seattle Plan, the Comprehensive Plan, is the city's vision for 20 years of growth, how and where we will grow, what priorities guide investments to address community needs as we grow.

The plan is also shaped by requirements at the state and regional levels.

Having a comp plan to begin with is a requirement of the Growth Management Act, which was adopted by the state in 1991. It includes both procedural and substantive requirements for our local plan.

The Puget Sound Regional Council's Vision 2050 is the growth management plan for our four-county central Puget Sound region.

It includes a regional growth strategy with expectations for counties and cities like Seattle.

PSRC designates regional centers, of which there are several within the city, and it distributes federal transportation dollars to support the mobility of the region as we grow.

Importantly, PSRC also reviews our adopted comprehensive plans once they're updated and certifies them for consistency with the regional plan.

And finally, at the county level, there's a body called the Growth Management Planning Council that adopts what are called countywide planning policies that provide more detailed guidance and requirements for local comprehensive plans.

And those were also recently updated in 2021. Specifically with regard to the Growth Management Act, just at a high level on process, we are required to update the plan at least every 10 years.

Our current comprehensive plan is called Seattle 2035. It was adopted in 2015, so we're about at that 10-year point now.

When we update the plan, it requires early and ongoing public involvement.

We're going to focus on that today as well as in a later meeting with you to talk about the public involvement for this plan.

Once adopted, the plan can only be changed once per year through an annual amendment process.

All amendments must receive public hearing, and there's environmental review that's required.

And in the case of a major update, we're doing a full EIS.

Substantively, the comp plan must accommodate 20 years of growth projections for both population and for jobs.

The plan must include specific topic areas called elements.

Those are chapters in our comprehensive plan, which we'll be presenting to you at a later date as well.

And the plan must include certain data on transportation, housing, and facilities and services.

Several important amendments to our state and regional requirements occurred since the last time we updated the Comprehensive Plan that I want to just highlight for you before as a precursor to talking about this update.

They include what the state legislature did in adopting significant amendments to the Growth Management Act over the past several years.

House Bill 1220 was adopted in 2021. It has new requirements for cities to plan for housing that is affordable at a full range of economic levels.

The plan must contain certain data detail and address policies on housing affordability, on housing supply, affordability, equity, and anti-displacement.

House Bill 1110, adopted in 2023, requires that certain middle housing types, such as duplexes and triplexes, townhomes, or stacked flats, be allowed on all residential lots at a density of at least four units per lot or six units per lot in proximity to certain transit options or where affordability is provided.

Importantly here, too, there's a timing aspect to 1110. there's a state deadline to adopt the zoning that implements 1110 by June 30th of 2025, where we turn to that in highlighting the major milestones in your council process.

House Bill 1181 also adopted in 2023 created a new requirement for a climate change element in the comprehensive plan.

That element must address both greenhouse gas emissions reductions

Just speaking into the microphone, the microphone just moved towards you just a little bit.

Yes.

Apologies.

No worries.

Is that better?

Yes.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Both greenhouse gas emissions reductions and climate resilience.

At the regional level, Vision 2050 was updated in 2020 with a regional growth strategy that focuses housing and jobs in large cities and around transit.

And finally, the countywide planning policies were updated in 2021, most importantly, with new housing and job growth targets for cities as a minimum to accommodate in their plans.

Next slide.

Or I can do it, yeah.

So a major theme of this comprehensive plan update is to address the city's ongoing housing crisis, both in terms of supply and affordability.

We'll be coming back to this committee on January 15th.

to present in detail the mayor's recommended growth strategy that provides for and addresses the housing needs of the city over the next 20 years and beyond.

For the purposes of today's introductory briefing, we just want to highlight two things, the goals around housing that drove this update, and a definition of some key terms in how we talk about future housing need and the numbers that are, whoops, apologies, and the numbers that are referenced with regard to housing.

The One Seattle plan is intended to result in more housing overall.

The plan will enable us, as was noted in some of our public comment, to add more housing at a level of 330,000 potential new units to meet future housing needs over the next 20 years and beyond.

More housing diversity, allowing more housing types across the city, including family-sized housing.

More affordable housing with incentives for affordability, especially near transit.

Wealth-building opportunities, especially around home ownership.

Housing in walkable communities.

We especially added housing in areas that have high-quality transit and neighborhood amenities.

And finally, more equitable housing, including reducing exclusionary zoning and displacement pressures.

As we walk through the details of the mayor's plan in the coming weeks, we will talk about several types of numbers that quantify future need and quantify what the mayor's plan does to meet that need.

Some of these numbers are appeared in the media and online, not always accurately, so we want to set the stage for your consideration with the definition of terms.

First is the housing growth target adopted by GMPC.

When prorated to the 20 years covered by this plan, that target is for approximately 80,000 new housing units over the next 20 years.

The target represents the minimum that the city is required to plan for.

We can plan for more housing, and there are many reasons to do so, which we shall discuss.

Second is the housing growth assumption in the EIS.

In the draft EIS, we studied a broad range of growth alternatives.

For the purposes of comparing the alternatives in the EIS, we made some high-level assumptions about the total amount of housing that may occur over the next 20 years, and that ranged from a low of 80,000 additional units up to 120,000 additional units.

The mayor's plan is at the top of that range studied in the EIS, and that's an important point that we'll discuss on January 15th.

We would stress that these are assumptions and not forecasts, and actual growth over time may be higher or lower.

And finally, and perhaps most important, is residential development capacity.

Capacity represents the theoretical number of new housing units the city could potentially add if we needed to in order to meet demand over the next 20 years and beyond.

We have estimated that the mayor's plan would roughly double our zoned capacity to 330,000 units, as noted.

Again, this is not a forecast.

Just because we zoned for it doesn't mean it gets built over 20 years.

But maintaining ample capacity is important to reduce market pressure to provide for a variety of housing choices and to be prepared as a city for that kind of rapid demand for housing we saw over the last decade.

And as I began, we will return on January 15th and do a deeper dive on these issues, the numbers, housing need, and especially the mayor's growth strategy.

I'm going to talk about schedule briefly.

We launched the One Seattle Plan update in the spring of 2022. There was an environmental impact statement or EIS scoping in the summer of 2022 into the fall.

We had deeper public engagement in 2022 into 2023 developed the draft plan for its release in the spring of spring of last year 2024. As well as the draft EIS, which was also released at that time, followed by public engagement and a 60 day comment period.

Just this last fall, we did engagement on what had been released as draft zoning that implements the Growth Strategy and the Comprehensive Plan, and it did another round of public engagement in a 60-day comment period.

We are releasing to the public the final plan today on the OPCD website, and we'll be releasing the EIS, the final EIS, later this month.

And, of course, the Council legislative process is beginning as we speak.

I'm going to say a few words about the environmental review process.

As part of the comprehensive plan update, we are required to do an EIS.

This is a programmatic EIS, and at the scale and the kinds of changes we're talking about citywide, a full EIS is required.

This is a requirement of the State Environmental Policy Act.

The purpose of the EIS is to inform decision makers about a proposal's potential impacts to the built and natural environment.

If there are impacts, the EIS identifies measures the city can take to mitigate those impacts.

Importantly, it's not the purpose of the EIS to determine what the best course of action is, but rather to provide the public and you with the information that you need to make an informed decision.

There were three major steps in the EIS process.

As I mentioned in a prior slide, we started with SEPA scoping in the summer, fall of 2022, identifying alternatives to study in the EIS.

These alternatives were informed by public engagement, as well as by the council itself at that time.

The draft EIS was released last spring.

It analyzed the impacts of five different alternatives that represent a broad range of choices for the executive and for the council to plan for the locations and types of growth over the next 20 years.

The public review yielded a large volume of public comment, which we are responding to in the last document, the last step in the process, which is the final EIS that will be released later this month and analyzes the preferred alternative as well.

which is essentially the mayor's proposed growth strategy, and the very same kind of analysis we did with the five action alternatives is done with the preferred alternative.

Once released, there's a 14-day appeal period for the FEIS.

We want to spend a little time here talking about the extensive engagement that OPCD did over the last several years for the plan update.

To begin with, we want to acknowledge that doing outreach for a long-range, policy-centered initiative like a comprehensive plan update or technical land use proposals such as zoning can be a challenge for communicating with the public and for bringing as many people into the process as we would like.

OPCD approached this challenge with a sustained effort over several years with dedicated staffing and using new and innovative strategies.

And we were guided by the goals you see on this slide, broad engagement, reaching residents and neighborhoods across the city, engaging specifically with key stakeholders, including a wide range of citywide and community-based organizations, such as community councils and others, using a hybrid approach with both in-person and online participation.

You might note that looking at this calendar in 2022, when we launched the update, we were still climbing out of the pandemic and the restrictions on communicating with people in person.

Thankfully, that relaxed over the course of the project, and we adopted a very broad range of approaches for meeting with people and talking about the plan.

Equitable engagement included outreach and capacity of historically underrepresented groups.

Visibility of the plan, we raised awareness through email, social media, press, advertising, flyers, and stakeholder outreach.

Accessibility meant providing information that was clear and accessible to the public, including in multiple languages, and providing meaningful opportunities for input, including multiple options to comment that were tailored to the specific questions and decision points at each phase of the process.

And finally, transparency, providing feedback to the public on what we heard and how their input was used to shape the plan.

I'm going to walk through each of the phases of engagement and just highlight just at a high level what their purpose was and what some of the major activities that we undertook at OPCD.

So the early engagement, which we called Listen and Learn in early 2022, was intended to raise awareness about the plan update, to establish community partnerships, and to seek early input on vision issues of concern to the public, early ideas for growth concepts for the next 20 years, and on the engagement process itself, how best to reach community members.

Highlights of our engagement activities included presentations to over 20 city boards and commissions, establishing contracts with seven different community-based organizations that assisted us in reaching communities that have historically been marginalized from the kinds of processes that led to comprehensive plan updates, working with the Department of Neighborhoods, and specifically the Community Liaison Program, as well to enhance our ability to meet marginalized communities, to provide language access and technical support.

Initial outreach as well was made to both citywide and community organizations.

We did an online public survey, and we started doing pop-up engagements with the Seattle Department of Transportation, which had begun its process of creating the Seattle Transportation Plan.

Phase 2, which we called Shape the Plan, started in 2022 and extended through 2023. Its purpose was to provide input on the EIS scoping, particularly the alternatives that were studied, to engage BIPOC and other marginalized communities to create a more equitable growth strategy going forward, and to seek input on potential goals and policies in the comprehensive plan document itself.

This is our first round of open house style events.

We had five in-person events citywide and one virtual open house with over 1,000 attendees.

We received comment letters from over 30 stakeholder organizations for the EIS scoping.

We met with 40 stakeholder organizations engaged around equity and displacement.

And we received report outs from each of the CBOs that worked with us with recommendations for the comp plan.

Phase three, which we called review and refine, was centered around the release of key draft documents toward what's before you this spring.

One was the draft comprehensive plan and the draft growth strategy, including seeking input on the number and location of new and expanded centers, such as neighborhood centers.

and also the corridors which are proposed for new housing density and supply.

A draft approach to the new neighborhood residential zones in response to House Bill 1110 was also released.

And finally, the draft environmental impact statement.

Highlights of our activities included another round of open houses, seven in-person events, one in each council district, and we had over 1,500 attendees.

We met with over 30 citywide neighborhood and community groups, including community councils, environment, business community, and others.

And we received over 80 letters from organizations and 6,000 comments from individuals across the city, both on our website, the engagement hub, via email, and comments made at the open houses.

The final phase of engagement, which just concluded in December, centered on the zoning proposal.

So this looked beyond the plan itself to the zones that would be applied to implement the mayor's recommended growth strategy.

We released that growth strategy in September and released draft zoning maps and draft legislation, both for neighborhood residential and modifying development standards in other zones to promote housing supply and diversity.

We sought public comment over 60 days on those zoning proposals.

We had another round of open house style sessions with over 2,000 participants, three virtual online open house information sessions.

And we also did a new tactic using office hour sessions, which were several hour periods during the day where people could log on and ask their questions.

We had very high participation for the office hours as well during this last fall.

The zoning update website itself had an interactive map and other comment tools, and we received numerous comments.

processing those comments and we'll be reporting out to you what we heard later this month.

We already have two reports online for earlier phases of engagement that phase one and phase two of engagement have been posted on our website for some months and we will be adding to those with report outs on phase three and phase four in just several weeks here.

Finally, I want to turn to the council process.

We're transitioning from the executive-led engagement and process of considering the plan, of course.

We worked closely with essential staff and with Council Member Hallingsworth's office to project a proposed schedule for this select committee in the coming weeks and several months.

To begin with, it's important to highlight that we're talking about three pieces of legislation.

The first is the legislation adopting the comp plan itself, including the new growth strategy map.

That will be transmitted as legislation to council by early February.

As I mentioned before, the plan is being released today on our website, so that will be available to the council starting now and to the public.

with a likely council vote in May.

The second piece of legislation is for the new neighborhood residential zoning that complies with House Bill 1110. We'll be transmitting that to you in March, again with a likely vote in May after the adoption of the comprehensive plan.

It's important to underscore that the comp plan itself must be adopted before you can adopt the new zoning legislation.

And the second piece of that zoning legislation is different that goes beyond the neighborhood residential and addresses the maps that were released this last fall, which had new zoning designations inside our neighborhood centers, in our new and expanded urban centers, and along transit corridors.

We are processing, we're reading, we're considering the public comment from this last fall.

We're working on revisions to those maps and that proposal, which we will transmit to you in May.

So we're going to take our time with that and provide a revised proposal for your consideration starting in May and then with a projected adoption in September before you go into the budget period of the year.

Here's another way of viewing the council process and timeline.

This is a phased and overlapping process over the coming weeks and several months.

We understand and recognize that that adds some complexity, and we're here to answer any questions, either from the public or from you, about how these several pieces work together in tandem in a process that, by the time you go into budget in the fall, we will have an adopted comprehensive plan and zoning implements that plan in place.

I just want to say a few words looking ahead to the select committee schedule itself.

Again, we developed this in coordination with central staff.

We recognize this is a provisional schedule at this point, but wanted to paint a picture for you of how this process could play out in future meetings.

Obviously, today we're providing background and process briefing on the plan.

On January 15th, as I mentioned, we'll do a deep dive on the growth strategy and provide an overview of our neighborhood residential changes to comply with 1110. On January 29th, we will brief you on several special topics, including anti-displacement strategies and an overview of what we heard through public comment.

On February 5th, we will provide an overview of each of the dozen or so elements in the comprehensive plan and the new goals and policies in those.

There's a public hearing on the 5th.

And then we reserved February 19th as a time and a space for spillover topics.

There's a lot of information that we're going to be presenting you with in the coming weeks, and we think that reserving that time is a wise, choice in terms of if there are questions, issues that we don't get to where we need to return to at that meeting.

During March, we'll be handing it off mainly to central staff to work with you to identify issues and potential amendments.

That process will continue into April.

OPCD will come back and brief you on the neighborhood residential zoning legislation, which will be introduced at that time.

The amendment process will continue into May.

There are key votes that are proposed in May, including on amendments to the comp plan adoption ordinance, as well as to the neighborhood residential changes, and then final votes on that legislation.

And then in June, we can come back and brief you on the revised zoning legislation for our neighborhood centers and our transit corridors, and then with the council process extending over the summer until September.

And that's the end of our presentation on process and background today.

Rico, do you want to say a few words before we answer questions?

Again, I want to thank you all for your patience as we begin this next step of the process.

Know that if you go online to seattle.gov, OPCD, One Seattle Plan, We have a bunch of resources online right now, so we have project documents that go into detail about all the components of the plan.

We have an engagement tab which documents our engagement activities to date, and we'll be updating that soon.

And we just want to make sure that, as I stated at the beginning at 9.30 or at 10.30, We want to be present to answer your questions and to help you dive into the nuances of the plan, understanding that there are so many parts and pieces.

With that, I think we just want to open up for your questions and comments.

Thank you so much.

I also want to recognize Lish if you had any comments regarding timeline and all that good stuff.

Yeah, Lischwitz and council central staff.

Michael, could you go back two slides?

So you may have noticed that the letter from the council president setting up the select committee only goes through the meetings on February 5th.

The FEIS is being published in January.

That provides an opportunity for a appeal for members of the public.

If there is an appeal, council may not vote on the legislation and the phase one legislation or the comprehensive plan legislation until that appeal is resolved.

And so we'll have a decision point if there is an appeal of the EIS in mid-February about next steps and how you want to approach this legislation.

Thank you for that.

And I know, thank you for the presentation is very thorough.

So really appreciate you all setting the table and just giving us a background and timeline and looking forward to receiving the mayor's plan and his proposal and engaging in that process.

I want to right now also mention that I'm working, our office is working with our central staff communications.

There's a special page, actually Council Member Morales had set this up, but we're gonna be ensuring that it's digestible for the public to understand some of the dates and comment period and open period and how to, connect with us and all, you know, just a landing page for council, I think is incredibly important.

Also OPCD has a landing page as well, but I wanted us to actually have a landing page for us to have the information just so people can digest some of this information a little bit easier.

Also, we will now take questions.

So if you raise your little yellow hand on Zoom, I will recognize you and you can have the floor to ask your questions.

And so I see council president, you are recognized.

The floor is yours.

Thank you very much.

I have maybe a couple of different questions depending on the answers that I get, but I just want to recognize that any comp plan update is is complex and it does raise a lot of different opinions about what people are going to be experiencing in their neighborhoods and living situations with their transportation, et cetera.

I hear that.

My questions are more to do with process.

So, Lish, you mentioned that, did you give a date when the FEIS will be published?

I have not gotten a date from OPCD yet about the FEIS publication.

It's mid-January.

We don't have an exact date yet.

We're still working with our consultant, but we're anticipating the third week of January.

It could slide to the fourth week, but definitely before the end of the month.

okay um that so what happens if it's appealed i mean i imagine that there will be an appeal from either side so how long does that take to resolve but that can be a lengthy process uh depending on the subjects of the appeal um there's normally a discovery process and after

that discovery is complete, the hearing examiner will set a schedule for the hearing itself.

Yeah, they can take a long time.

The council can't act on legislation while an appeal is pending, so there may be other routes to putting something in temporarily related to House Bill 1110 and other state mandates, and we'll have conversations if it comes to that.

I have a follow-up unless the executive would like to...

I think I'll just add that we would advocate to continue moving through the legislation and the plan as proposed even during the appeal period.

While LISH is correct that you cannot take a vote to the extent that those get resolved in time to adopt the legislation to meet the state deadline, you will be better prepared to do that if we continue to meet throughout the appeal period.

Okay, well, so it sounds like the executive is putting us into a position of passing maybe some temporary or some, not necessarily interim, but we are supposed to comply to state law by June, and so we're gonna be passing legislation in May, and it's likely that the appeal will go longer than that if there is any, or maybe the appeal period isn't even done, so.

Has that been

So yeah, we've been in talk with the law departments about the length of appeal periods and they vary widely.

And so at this point, there is a possibility that the appeals could still be outstanding by May, but also a possibility that they've been resolved and we could take a vote and meet the state deadline without passing interim legislation.

But certainly if there are ongoing appeals, we will take a look at what interim legislation might entail.

I will try to be optimistic.

I just don't want folks to have to do the work twice.

Anyway, go on.

Thank you, Council President.

We have Council Member Rivera.

You are next.

Floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair.

And I just want to also acknowledge and thank you for taking on the helm of this process.

very much appreciate you stepping in to do that and wanted to recognize that publicly.

Also want to thank the department and the mayor's office and our central staff for being here and present this plan.

And want to thank council president for her questions because I have many of the same questions.

And toward that end, I do have a question about process and concerns about process that I've heard that I've had myself and I've heard from constituents of the D4 that I represent.

And I'm wondering, related to the final EIS, why has that not been finalized by now?

Because presumably it would have been helpful to have had that finalized before the legislation came down.

And so I'm wondering what the holdup is.

I know this entire process is actually behind schedule, so I'm wondering what the reasons are for this in general and then specific to the EIS, the final.

So I would say just to address the general comment about being behind in the process, many moving parts.

We've been working, OPCD has been working very closely with the mayor's office regarding the policy framework and the implications of all the different pieces of the plan, including working with all of our departments, uh, our capital departments and other, um, to ensure that the policy framework that's built into each of the elements of the plan, uh, represents what we really need as a city, uh, moving forward.

Um, I think because of all of those parts and pieces, it is just, it has taken, it is, I mean, it's taken the time that it has taken over the last two and a half years.

Um, I think that if There are things that we do not know as has already been brought up around whether there will be an appeal or not.

I think that the process that we have laid out working with LISH and council staff has been to ensure that we can meet our state deadline.

And so I am hopeful that we can still proceed in a way that allows us to meet our obligations.

As Michael has stated, and I'll let him comment further, we have been working very actively with our consultant to try to deliver the final EIS in a timely fashion.

in part to our response to public input over the latter half of 2024 has informed some of our consultant work which also has been a part of our extended process, if that makes sense.

But Michael, I'll add to you.

Yes, specifically on the EIS, I think it's worth recognizing, and I think you will experience this in considering the comprehensive plan and the zoning legislation this year, is that this proposal is complex.

It has a lot of moving parts.

The EIS specifically is not just an environmental review.

of the comprehensive plan, the high-level policy document that guides growth in the city.

It also is an EIS that is studying the zoning proposal and making a set of assumptions about very specific land use changes across the city.

For that reason, when you do an EIS, you do things like transportation modeling and air quality.

impact assessments and other very detailed data-driven analyses.

That's why we bring in a consultant team to do that work.

And the mayor took a very thoughtful approach to finalizing his recommendation for the growth strategy.

Likewise, the zoning proposals put out this fall.

A lot of work went into those.

And we couldn't feed the EIS process with all of the data that was needed to do that analysis until fairly late, sometime into the fall.

So it just really took some time.

At the end of the day, what that means is we have a stronger, more informative EIS, one that can is more robust to withstand an appeal, we hope.

And what we can do, it will be available quite soon, prior, certainly before you're going to see the actual comp plan legislation.

We'd be happy, if needed, to come back and provide a very digestible summary of what we learned through the EIS, if that would be helpful to your process.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you for answering the question.

I have to admit I'm a little confused.

This is a process that happens every 10 years, so I'm not really sure what is different about this recent process that has delayed it for this 10-year go-round.

We can take the conversation offline so I can learn more.

Appreciate that.

Also, the Growth Management Act also requires, as part of the comp plan, to have these transportation, infrastructure, climate plans.

You've talked about required elements.

I haven't seen any of those plans or elements.

When will that get released for our consideration as we look at this holistic, comprehensive plan?

That's factual, yeah.

So the plan itself, including all of the topical elements on transportation, climate, and others, is available today.

There was a draft available to the public last spring, as I covered in the presentation.

There are also the final plan released today also has the appendices, which have quite a lot of information specifically on things like capital facilities needs and transportation.

and utilities, I know topics that the council is going to be interested in reviewing.

So that's available today.

We'll be coming back to brief you on that in a later meeting soon, early February, but you'll have some time to review the materials before we do that briefing as well.

Thank you, Michael.

I will review those today.

It would have been helpful as part of the back and forth that we've been engaged in to have had a preview of those plans, um, because we know that the, uh, infrastructure and the transportation plans are really important.

Would love to hear how you engage with Metro.

Cause of course we don't control, um, Metro buses and sound transit as part of those transportation plans and how you worked with your sister departments, SPU and city light as part of this entire process.

that would be helpful as well.

Chair, I'm just gonna make one quick comment and then I'll pass it off because I know my colleagues have other questions as well.

I wanna make it clear that I've spoken with many D4 residents over the last two years and my takeaway from these conversations is that no one disputes that we need more housing of all types across the city.

We have vulnerable populations that need homes.

bus drivers and teachers and other workers that you know, they want to live rightfully so where they work.

And we have young people returning home who can't afford to rent or buy in the city that they grew up in.

So the need is critical.

And then, of course, we need to ensure that that infrastructure, transportation, and climate impacts are in place to accommodate for that growth.

And I just remember very vividly SPU sitting here earlier this year talking about being under a consent decree because our aging infrastructure and runoff, and some of our folks who came here today talked about this runoff going into Lake Union and other bodies of water that really impact, have big climate impacts.

So wanna make sure that we have those plans in place.

And then also on the process, I will say that I've heard from many, many constituents in the D4 who feel like they were not, they did not have they were not reached out to, they didn't feel like the proper outreach was there and engagement.

And I will say in phase one planning, I didn't see that you did sessions with broad constituents like you did in the spring and in the fall.

So I'm wondering why in phase one, you didn't engage the public broadly that way.

It seemed a more limited engagement.

And so that left people feeling like this process has not been transparent.

And that is unfortunate because I feel like when people feel like government is transparent, they trust government more.

And that is something that I've been very concerned about in general.

and in particular to the comp plan is just that process by which you engaged constituents.

So they were very clear on what was going to be included in the comprehensive plan.

And the last thing I'll say is in the spring sessions I attended, the maps were very confusing.

I gave feedback about that.

I'm sure many of my colleagues did as well.

for the fall process maps were clear, but then there wasn't a lot of opportunity with the December 20th deadline to provide feedback.

And then how did you incorporate that?

We are now getting this plan on the first, there were the holidays, someone else was here saying that as well.

And people are feeling like their feedback is not getting considered.

I understand you said you will be considering as part of the zoning process, but that's very different from the comprehensive plan.

So I'm looking forward to engaging more that way, but just to say the process is of concern to the constituents, not just in the D4, obviously across the city, as we've heard from some of the folks here today.

Thank you, Chair.

Chair, could I just provide a quick clarification?

So just regarding earlier phases of engagement, for folks that want to go online to get more information, we do have a good One Seattle Plan community series feedback report that was developed from our engagement from November of 2022 and January of 2023. when we were in an earlier phase.

We also have a good public engagement summary that's dated March of 2024. So, I mean, just to say that we have tried to create a very transparent process and we know we still have more work to do there and more to document.

So just know that that's coming as well.

Chair, may I just do a follow up just I will be request and I have requested D for comments, public comments to see those because I have not and I want to make sure that I am clear as to what comment the district gave as part of this process and how you all intend to incorporate those into this process.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Next up, we have Council Member Kettle and we have Council Member Saka followed by Council Member Moore.

And then I will also recognize Vice Chair Strauss or Council Member Rank if you all have comments and then we will go from there.

Council Member Kettle, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth, and I wanted to second all the other thank yous to you for taking on this position.

I appreciate it very much.

Also, thank you to Ms. Vallis from the mayor's office, and Director Cuiandango, and Mr. Hubner from OPCD and from the One Seattle Plan.

And of course, Mr. Whitson from the central staff.

I appreciate your being here.

I added a comprehensive plan, essentially a paragraph for my end of year newsletter, which I'll walk through and ask questions just to go use it as an outline.

But before doing that, I do want to say it's not a question of whether one happens or not.

an appeal.

And that's automatic.

And that really should have been factored in as automatic as it relates to the state timeline.

Whether one happens or not is not factual.

There's no doubt there will be one.

We should just plan for it in terms of the timeline.

That goes to the earlier questions.

I'm from Queen Anne.

I know that groups like to appeal.

So that's a definite.

And for good reason, too, I might add.

So to add that in there.

So to my paragraph, I wrote, when it comes to the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, we will continue our outreach efforts, particularly in the Queen Anne and Magnolia.

As in this stage, our District 7 regional centers are not included in the effort.

The majority of District 7 is regional centers, downtown, South Lake Union, uptown.

And that is, as noted in the timeline, it goes into the September I was a little confused seeing some of the slides talking about neighborhood centers and some of the transit-oriented development pieces also going to September.

My understanding was just the regional centers are going to September.

Is that the case?

So the legislation, that second piece of zoning legislation, which we plan to transmit in May, includes all of the zoning changes that we released in the form of draft maps this past fall, and that includes the new and expanded regional or urban centers.

So in your district, for example, the Uptown Regional Center has an expansion area.

Upper Queen Anne has an expanded urban center.

And there are also a couple of neighborhood centers.

And then there are also the transit corridors and the zoning changes along the transit corridor.

So all of that would be within one package of amending the zoning code.

that will be transmitted in May, hopefully with action by September.

We are working with the mayor's office to identify a future possibility of zoning changes within our existing regional and urban centers.

That's a phase three that's not even on the map of what the council would be dealing with in 2025. You might be confusing those two pieces, but what you're going to see in May is everything that was released in the fall in the form of draft maps in a revised form for your consideration.

Okay, good.

That was my understanding.

And so I was interpreting the slides suggesting maybe some of that was also going to September.

I always think of Uptown as a regional center, not an Uptown center.

And kind of like we always say, ex-formally Twitter, another good habit to get into is urban centers, formerly urban villages, because this process is constantly changing the names of everything, which does not help the general public at all, nor council members, to be frank.

I know that comes from above.

That's not us here in Seattle.

In my next sentence, I say I do believe in densification and building more housing.

I did not mention it.

I'm a Com Plan 5 guy.

Most people don't understand Com Plan 5, except for folks that are really into this.

And I think that's part of the challenge.

People don't understand some of these plans and the genesis of them and how they came together.

But to add on to...

my comment here within the newsletter, I do believe in densification and building more housing.

And I also say that, importantly, we need varied types of housing and varied zoning to help.

Clearly, skinny townhomes cannot be our future because everything I see is, for the most part, skinny townhomes.

And we have to have that varied types of housing being developed and how to make that happen, whether it's the triplexes or the flax stacks or even ad-dos and dad-dos as an anti-displacement process to get these varied types of housing.

Because what we can't have is like the LR3 version of skinny townhomes.

We have to have the varying types, which are so helpful in our housing market.

And I said, I also believe in neighborhood centers.

And I said this to you before, so I'm saying this publicly.

That's what I said in person.

that I was disappointed in the numbers and the sizing of the centers citywide.

And somewhat this goes to the sizing.

As you've mentioned, as I mentioned before, I like skinny rectangle type neighborhood centers.

For one, that you can get better buy-in, and these will grow organically, some more than others, that can get really helpful in the future.

I think that is, you know, a point that I think that we can improve on.

And one way that we can improve on it is to create what I call mini-neighborhood centers, which is pretty much taking that kind of idea of skinny rectangles, so it's not a surprise to the team here, leveraging areas where we do have transit, where we do have a commercial presence, and that's where, you know, the higher LR3, for example, would be to kind of create that.

that mini-neighborhood center, which in turn for the next time around could really be the genesis of a full neighborhood center and then so on.

And as I mentioned, and I'll just say it because I wrote it, I do think we could create mini-neighborhood centers where we have a commercial presence along transit-oriented development that may create some organic neighborhood center-like densification.

This along with being smart with our urban centers, formerly known as urban villages, generally can create opportunities to reach our goals that also reflect unique elements of our neighborhoods.

Each of our neighborhoods and our districts are very different.

And in fact, this is a very different process, too, because in 2015, we didn't have regional, we didn't have district representatives, so it's a new dynamic here in 2025. And our outreach is important because I know that there may be some local factors.

that the mayor's office and the Office of Planning and Community Development did not take into account in their still draft comprehensive plan.

And on this outreach, I will be, I think joining you, Director Quirondongo at the Queen Anne Historical Society, we'll be doing outreach with the Queen Anne Community Council and the Magnolia Community Council.

Uptown is what it is, it's the Urban Neighborhood Center, so there's not much happening.

It's more with a little bit of Magnolia, but largely Queen Anne.

And I invite engagement with these community councils and to also include our District 7 Neighborhood Council, because that's a great way to do outreach on this and any other topic in District 7. Noting District 7 is obviously different each of my colleagues and their districts.

So thank you again for coming up to us today.

And I look forward to working through these pieces and definitely with our central staff team.

So thank you, Mr. Whitson.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

We have Councilmember Saka and followed by Councilmember Moore.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I too, Madam Chair, wanna extend my appreciation and gratitude to you for stepping up to lead and lead us and shepherd us through this process, lead the city, and help us adopt this critically important piece of legislation or series of pieces of legislation.

We're lucky to have you.

I also want to thank members of the public who showed up today to testify and share your views and your concerns on any number of elements individually and collectively in this plan that took the time to show up in person in chambers or remotely or even write emails.

We've seen those as well.

I want you all to know that I am listening to all of it and it is greatly appreciated.

And which by the way, just for clarity, it's not the same as like, you know, I'm not committing to one course of action or another at this very early juncture.

But I do want you to know that it's greatly appreciated and that we hear you, we see you and we appreciate you providing your input.

And, Third and finally, I want to thank our executive department, OPCD, for all the work in the mayor's office, for all the work you've done over many or a few years now to get us to this point.

And also our council expert Lish here as well, council central staff expert Lish.

Thank you for all your hard work in the past and on a going forward basis as well.

There's definitely some dependencies here, as a few of my colleagues have astutely pointed out in terms of scenarios that may have contingencies that may or may not happen, and that's always going to be the case.

There's always going to be some dependencies, things, circumstances with directly within our span of control and directly without or not within our span of control.

And I'm focused, for me, not meeting our legal obligations is not an option.

For me, not meeting our also fiduciary and due diligence obligations to listen, learn, and make the most well-informed Kind of circling back to a point I made a moment ago, making sure that whatever decision that I personally choose to make at the end of the day, when the smoke clears in this process, is a very well-informed one.

And meeting our legal obligations is not a choice, is not a wise or prudent policy choice that I'm going to make, nor is not doing the work of listening.

And making sure we have a fully informed, fully informed set of facts here.

So, couple questions.

If you could just first go back to slide 13. They're all focused on slide 13 of the presentation.

And I understand today it was more of a very high level orientation kind of thing.

And thank you, Madam Chair, for your strong, I heard you, your strong guidance to all of us to take those pre-briefings.

As a matter of routine practice, I generally take them myself as well, but your strong encouragement is duly noted and I will make sure fully live up to that.

But okay, so slide, is it slide?

Maybe slide nine, try slide nine.

So I have a couple, the one that says planning for 20 year housing growth.

Yeah, there it is.

All right, well, first off, would love to just better understand at a high level, because I heard that these estimates are quote, unquote, assumptions only, and they're .

And I imagine later, we'll dive a little deeper into that and what that means, but would just love to have an initial understanding, if you can clarify, More about what that specifically means.

Don't we get these numbers as forecasts from the state?

Or what is the source of these numbers?

And then how can we get actual forecasts?

And I know it's planning out for 20 years is not like, is a bit of an impossible task, I guess.

Just talk a little bit more about assumptions versus forecasts, that distinction.

So I'll, and I think this question primarily refers to the growth targeting process itself, what we do pursuant to the Growth Management Act.

I think at best can be described as a combination, as they say, art and science.

This is both based on statewide, high-level state projections of population.

The Puget Sound Regional Council does forecasts for our job growth.

Those forecasts, those projections are made primarily at the county and regional levels.

When it gets to devolving those numbers down to individual jurisdictions like the City of Seattle, that's where the policy piece comes in, so there's projection and policy.

We have that regional growth strategy that I mentioned that PSRC adopted in Vision 2050. It sets very broad numbers for cities of different sizes, how much growth roughly they should be planning for.

The growth targets that are adopted by GMPC likewise are informed by policy and just discussion and a little bit of horse trading, quite frankly, and when GMPC meets and determines those targets.

So it's a mixture of projection, of forecasting, and policy.

And because of that, and just because of the very nature of the uncertainty of the future, there's a tremendous deal of uncertainty in the growth numbers that we're given.

Statutorily, they are minimums.

The 80,000 housing units is the minimum amount of growth that we're required to plan for.

But in reality, the future can look quite different than that growth target.

For example, the Seattle 2035 plan.

was predicated on a target of 70,000 housing units over 20 years.

We grew at more than double that rate since that time.

So we really don't know what the future's gonna look like.

And that was one of the things that, that's one of the lenses that we use into going from target to plan and why it's prudent for the city to provide additional development capacity for housing.

Thank you.

So I have, you in part addressed a few more of my questions, and I have three more, and would love more detail, more granularity offline, but especially, I think we could all benefit from this, including members of the public.

It sounds like we're gonna have another series of briefings, including to dive a little deeper in some of the substance here.

So I have three questions.

I welcome any initial reaction that you have now, but I think some of this is gonna require a little more analysis offline, and then I would love, again, to make sure it's incorporated I will put a respectful request to the chair if at your discretion and decision you think it makes sense to include in a broader presentation, either next one or at some point going forward.

So three questions.

And this relates to that third question.

full bullet on this slide here and also kind of ties into some of the feedback that we've heard today.

A gentleman earlier, probably an attorney of some sort, I think mentioned that there's a salient actual point.

He mentioned that like it's important to understand the distinction between housing capacity and actual housing brought to market.

And so you mentioned in the last time, if you could repeat that, that would be great, just for the record.

During the last time we went through this process in 2015 or whatever it was, what was that called, by the way, first off?

Seattle 2035.

Seattle 2035, that was the last comp plan process in Seattle.

Okay, so during the Seattle 2035 plan process, can you restate what is the delta of what we planned for versus what we actually saw in terms of the actual housing brought to market?

So question one.

Question two is, And this, I think, definitely probably requires a more extensive analysis and some research offline.

And this will be no surprise to my colleagues, but of the top three in terms of size jurisdictions in Washington state, what did they plan for under their last process?

and what did they actually see in terms of actual housing brought to market, top three or top five, a top list.

I just wanna better understand a comparator of, so we know, and you shed light initially on what we've seen in Seattle, If you can clarify again, just for the record, it'd be great.

That was question one.

Question two is a comparator.

How does what we've seen in Seattle compare to other top three, top five jurisdictions in terms of larger population cities?

And the third question is, what are some of the market factors that contribute to what we actually see?

Well, what we plan for versus what we actually see.

All right.

Thank you for the questions.

There's a lot there.

And I think that we'll try to address a little bit of it today and know that we'll come back with greater detail when we're back here on January 15th.

Because my background is as an architect, I'll start with your last question first.

What are the market pressures?

So, It is important to note that the land use map that we put forth, which begins with our growth management strategy and the flume that you'll be looking at, the future land use map that you'll be looking at as part of the comprehensive plan itself, that that does lay the groundwork for what gets built and what does not get built.

Insurance rates have a huge impact.

Availability of materials has a huge impact.

The labor workforce availability is also a major factor.

We know that interest rates has had a huge impact to what has gotten built and what hasn't.

over the course of the last five years or so, and we don't know what it's gonna look like moving forward.

I would also say that even things like the condo law have an impact to what gets built, so there's been a lot of feedback that we've gotten from the community and from stakeholders around a need for more stacked flats.

And we hear that and see that need, but we know that there's changes that we need to work with our legislators at a state level in order to actually make that a reality.

So lots of moving parts.

And just as Rico indicated, we'll have to look up some of the numbers for other cities, of course.

And as you may have recently read in the paper, we're in the midst of a banner year for permitting.

I want to bring, for your information, the latest and greatest permit counts that we have.

So happy to come back January 14th.

Great background, great questions.

The only thing I would add to what Rico ticked off in terms of some of those barriers are land price, availability, you know, is the land for sale, is it available for development, and parcel size.

Those are also huge and a very urbanized place like Seattle, regardless of the zoning, they're going to have an impact over time.

Thank you, and I appreciate the initial responses here and look forward to getting even further clarity at a later date.

And I would add that I would really appreciate a look back of the last two, the last two, so not just the Seattle 2035 plan, but the one immediately before that.

I think that would be gathering data for that, what was planned for versus what the market actually born.

And then locally here in Seattle and then across the top three, top whatever jurisdictions across the state by population, that would be helpful from my perspective because again, I think it is important to understand history and as one data point to make sure wherever we land on this is a fully informed view.

So that is all I have.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

And thank you for the feedback as well.

We'll look at the calendar and see how we can incorporate some of those elements in presentations and stuff.

So thank you for that.

Council Member Moore, you're recognized.

Thank you very much, Chair.

And I too want to say thank you very much for taking on this huge, huge task.

I will give everyone my Cash App and Venmo.

So I'll wait for that.

Thank you.

I just have my eternal gratitude.

How much you love it.

and respect for taking this on and also to everyone in the mayor's office who's worked very hard on this and I know you had to work on it over the holiday or while we were on break so very much appreciate all the efforts I have a couple of general questions and then I have some general comments to make in terms of the deadlines so I'm assuming that you are still accepting public comment on the zoning portion of this legislation.

Is that correct?

The public comment for the zoning legislation was December 20th.

So that public comment period has closed.

Um, but that's not to say that, um, as public comment goes on during the council process, that that can't also be considered.

So you're not officially taking any more comments on the zoning maps that just came out in the fall?

Correct.

Okay.

And then the other question about since we've got the public hearing scheduled for February 5th and yet there's no confirmation that we will have had the EIS by then, how is that going to work?

Because it seems a waste of time to have a public hearing when we don't have the EIS.

The schedule does include multiple public hearings on the comprehensive plan.

So the intent of this first public hearing is for people to focus on the comprehensive plan and the document itself.

There will be another public hearing currently scheduled for late April that will cover council member amendments, zoning text amendments that are related to the changes within the comprehensive plan, and then that can also be informed by the EIS contents more deeply.

I think we need to have a separate hearing, and the chair's gone, but my request would be we have a separate hearing once the EIS comes out, because the EIS is critical to the legislation and what we do with it and how we view it, and also within broader context of this as a comprehensive plan.

And part of the EIS also addresses, as I understand it, the social impact and consequences, which gets to the issue about affordability.

So I guess I'm just going to make my general comments now, which is...

that I'm going to be looking at this to the eye of, does this in fact produce affordable housing?

And what I've seen so far is that it does not.

And simply equating density with affordability is a lie.

It's a myth.

There's a little bit of trickle down that will happen, but not enough to meet our affordability requirements.

And I view this as an opportunity to really open the doors to home ownership opportunities.

We need to be looking at not just the condo law change in Olympia, but we need to be looking at other ownership models such as co-ops and increasing the number of land trust opportunities.

And I don't think this model allows us to do that.

It specifically states that where we need our most housing is in the zero to 60% AMI, and yet we are not getting that, we're not getting zoned for affordability in that range.

And we need to keep an eagle eye on that, because as others have said, townhouses, do not equal affordability, nor do they equal the ability to age in place, which is also important.

So I will be keeping a close eye on this plan and coming at it from that perspective.

I think the market will, the market always takes care of itself.

The market will continue to take care of itself.

Our role, my role, is to make sure that we are meeting the affordability requirements.

So it is a one Seattle.

This is a city where our baristas and our pizza drivers and our teachers can afford to live.

And so that leads me to the second piece, which is we need more housing type diversity.

We don't want this to just be a giveaway to developers for townhouses, partly because we're not structuring it in a way that incentivizes the ability to build stacked flats, community courtyards, other sorts of housing diversity.

It's that housing diversity, I think, that people are going to welcome and be less afraid of.

And it's also the affordability piece.

I know that people often equate the people who come here as NIMBYs.

And when I have talked to my constituents, particularly in Maple Leaf, which is slated for a neighborhood center, despite my two formal requests to the mayor's office to remove it, people have always said to me, we need affordability, but what's being built is not affordable.

And I'm not prepared to sacrifice this particular And the reason that I live here and support this neighborhood so that we can just throw a bunch of townhouses up that start at $700,000.

So it's not about being opposed to affordability, it's about making sure that what's actually being built is affordable and that there's a range of affordability and that requires that we have a range of diversity options.

The other thing that's critically important that I'll be looking at this plan is trees.

Again, people diminish trees as a NIMBY issue.

They are not a NIMBY issue.

They are an ecological necessity.

And I think, unfortunately, the building industry has been able to capture the dialogue on affordability and trees.

And they've been very successful in pitting trees against affordability, and they're not either or.

They can very much co-exist.

And that's our goal, is to co-exist in this city as a one Seattle.

And it's important that we continue to break down this lie and this myth.

Because this is also, in my opinion, an economic justice issue.

Too many of our young people cannot afford to live in this city, and this is what's driving a lot of this.

And yet they are told, well, if you just let us have a free reign and build, you'll be able to afford.

You'll be able to have housing.

It's not true.

It is an economic justice issue.

And so allowing free range zoning is not going to get you into the home that you want.

It's not going to create the home ownership opportunity that you need to grow your wealth, to create a stable society where people are engaged socially and politically.

What we're talking about is building high-end townhouses and lots of rentals.

Rentals are not stable.

We already have tremendous pressures on our rental market.

It's not working well.

And so we have these competing pressures about we want to build, build, build more rental housing, and yet the rental housing isn't working and it's bringing in more private equity.

And that's the last thing we need.

So we also need to challenge this statement that density is going to produce what people are seeking.

When I talk to young people, they want a place of their own.

They want a little garden.

They want the amenities that us current homeowners have.

And we're creating a false promise with what we're putting out here and what the urbanist people are telling us and what the building association is telling us and even some of the housing, affordable housing providers who desperately need more affordable housing and have had to, because of the structure of the Mandatory Housing Affordability Act, have had to tie their allegiance to them.

So let us use this as an opportunity to really speak some truths, to really dig down into what is truly going to make this city a one Seattle.

Let's not shy away from discussing true infrastructure capacity issues.

Pinehurst is scheduled to be in my neighbor in District 5 to read having a tremendous amount of up zones.

We currently don't have sufficient cable capacity in Pinehurst.

We have rolling blackouts.

And now we're talking about up zoning it.

We're talking about District five that has the least number of sidewalks across the city.

And thanks to Councilmember Saka in his leadership, the transportation levy, we now have a commitment to a huge number of sidewalks, but that's gonna take decades to get those sidewalks.

Where are people going to go when we now have all of these townhouses and multiplexes?

How are people actually going to navigate the landscape The other issue is transit.

People seem to believe that if you build all this multifamily housing, transit will come.

Let me tell you, it will not come.

That's not how it works.

We don't control Metro.

We have one voice on the Sound Transit Board.

They want to put a neighborhood center in Maple Leaf because we have one little bus that runs down Roosevelt to University District.

That's not rapid transit, that's not mass transit.

Why aren't we looking at upzoning 5th to connect with Northgate where they're doing incredible work with bringing in density.

There's so many missed opportunities in this plan.

We should be looking at utilizing more arterioles.

And to the argument that arterioles are racist, I would say that to the people who are currently living there in their single family homes.

So we also do need to do a better job of making sure that we do expand into neighborhoods, but we do so in a way that is true to the nature character of those neighborhoods as required by HB 1110, and that we're not shoving all of this down people's throats.

That is not how you get buy-in, that's not how you get people to feel good about their government.

And the last thing I'm gonna say is that the public process has been abysmal.

I have so many people in my district.

If we could use, no, no, you're good.

If we could use jazz hands, appreciate it.

And those are just shake your hands and not, thank you.

Go ahead, council member.

Yeah, it's just been abysmal.

I've had so many people say to me, like I had no idea till yesterday what was happening.

I had no idea.

I mean, it's been amazing that we have this petition with over 700 signatures against opposing the designation of neighborhood center in Maple Leaf that was accomplished.

They had 403 days.

Then they got over 700 over the holidays.

To me, that speaks volumes about the lack of connection by the city to the neighborhood.

people who live there, to the people who are going to have to absorb the growth, to the people who are going to be either welcoming or hostile to the new people that we do have to make room for.

There has not been sufficient public outreach.

There's not been sufficient discussion about this.

Most people don't even know about HB 1110. And that piece of legislation is going to have a profound impact on the city, and we're trying to navigate it.

But let's start with even educating people about what's coming, what they have no control over, first of all, and then let's make sure we talk to people how it's going to actually play out in their neighborhoods.

And the last thing I will say, thank you, Chair, for your indulgence, is that a lot of this, obviously, HB 1110 was state-driven, There's legislation right now that will probably be introduced in Olympia that is called the builder's remedy, which means that if Seattle doesn't sort of toe the line based on the Master Builders Association and other proponents of growth, that it will be shoved down our throat.

So I would encourage you to reach out to all of your state representatives in the 36, I mean all of them in Seattle and you need to pay attention to what's happening in Olympia because what we're trying to do is we're trying to respond to what Olympia has mandated and we're doing the best that we can.

But things are also percolating and it's important that you be on the ground there and that your voices be heard as well.

Thank you Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

If there's any response at all, I'll pause if there's any comments.

I don't know if that was a statement.

Okay, awesome.

It was a statement and a mic drop.

You're good.

I just want to, no, you're all good.

I see that we have Council Member Strauss and then I'll also, following that will be Council Member Rank.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Vice Chair Strauss, my apologies.

I'm just Dan.

Thanks, Chair.

Just wanted to clarify, Lish, I know that the Chair had said this at the beginning of the meeting, she ran through it so quickly, I almost missed it, which is the amendments, any amendments that a council member proposes need to be publicly published for 30 days.

Is that correct?

That's correct, yes.

And so just working back, and I share this, I raise this point again, colleagues, because I think that this is going to be one of the larger, whereas in the budget, we could have walk-on amendments technically and legally against my best request, We can't with this process because it is not only that our amendments have to be published to a publication of record, which is the DJC in the Seattle Times.

It has to be published for 30 days.

That means we have to walk two to three weeks out ahead of that to ensure that our amendments are complete and then they're sent out for publishing about a week beforehand.

Is that correct, Lish?

Correct.

And they, of course, all need legal review as well.

And so I, I, I highlight that point now, um, because as you know, I've been looking around this map and, and seeing different things.

It's, it's, it's just so important because it's so different than any other body of work that we'll take up as the, as the city council member that with this, that 30 day publish requirement really requires us to work, start working now.

Um, I will say, I wasn't gonna share comments because we're way over time, but just my gratitude to OPCD, you had a tough job and you provided a good start.

But for me, this plan really is the base minimum because as you said, Michael, in our last growth projections, we doubled our targets.

I've already had a lot of, meetings with my residents, with residents in district six about, you know, where are refinements needed?

And what I've shared with them and I'll share with you colleagues is anyone who, and I've already done walking tours in the neighborhoods.

I've already met with residents during office hours and I'm looking forward to any, to many more.

So if you're a D6 resident and you want to go for a walk, you want to have a meeting.

I hold office hours every week.

This week we aren't.

It's, uh, It's not usual, but here we are.

For residents requesting down zones in their areas, I'm also requesting them to bring me up zones and that they work with their neighbors because what this represents is citywide a base minimum for the amount of density that we're taking on.

Council Member Moore, your points are very well taken regarding home ownership being different than rental.

So I hear you loud and clear.

appreciated much of what you had to say.

And, you know, this plan, we're going to need to make refinements.

One of the reasons that I say that this is a base minimum is because of zoning.

actualities versus zoning on a map.

Lish, can you help me out with this one?

In LR1 zones, I'm just, I've got the SDCI GIS map up with me right now.

So in an L, I'm just gonna double check if this is correct.

So in an LR, is this LR1?

Hang with me real quick colleagues.

An LR2 zone, how many stories are we allowed to build in an LR2 zone?

So these are traditionally townhomes.

I do not have that off the top of my head.

I'm sorry.

Four, we're allowed to build four stories.

Thank you, Director Kirandango.

Allowed to build four stories on townhome or in LR2 zones.

I will tell you, I lived on 63rd and 20th for four years in the neighborhood that I grew up in, and I had an incredibly emotionally challenging experience of watching the neighborhood that I grew up in get torn down.

There's nothing that'll set you up for that.

and I also recognize the benefits of density of all of those new neighbors on that block have increased the vibrancy of the neighborhood that I grew up in.

And while it might be true that I can't go back to the neighborhood I grew up in, I am in a more vibrant neighborhood today than the butt of all of the Almost Live jokes.

I love those jokes, by the way, and I love Almost Live, but the neighborhood I grew up in was the but of all the jokes in the city.

And today we are one of the most vibrant places in the city.

We have higher foot traffic in downtown Ballard than we did before the pandemic.

But the reason that I say that it meets a base minimum is because the zone capacity is different than the actual capacity.

When I lived in upper Fremont in an area that is proposed to have zoning changes here.

I see that we are changing from, and yeah, I've got your interactive map up, so you might wanna pull yours up too, because I got more questions coming, which is that you've changed it from along Aurora, I lived on Motor Place in Aurora, that we're changing it from NC 55 to NC 65. Director Kieran Dongo, that's essentially just one story, is that correct?

And so when I, for the record nodded yes.

The reason that I say zoning capacity is different than actual capacity is because at the end of Motor and Aurora, we had a five story multifamily building put in, which was actually a benefit to the entire neighborhood because it blocked the road noise off of Aurora from the rest of the neighborhood.

I bet you $100 nobody's going to come down and tear down that five-story apartment building to build a six-story apartment building, right?

So, I look at the town homes when, sorry, this was the back to the point of four stories versus three stories.

I got distracted with my emotions about watching my neighborhood get torn down but I come, the reason I say that is because the actual zoning capacity on 63rd and 20th is four stories.

But nobody was building four stories.

They were all building three stories.

Because is it not correct that once you get to four stories, you have to have an elevator?

Sorry, lots of questions.

This is what happens when we don't have pre-briefings.

This is what happens when I appreciate the fact that we're here at 9.30 on the first day back.

from winter break, but we also have two more abilities to have this meeting later this week.

But I share with you that whether it's an ecologically sensitive zone that is not allowed to be built in or townhome, I see so many places on this map already where you've zoned it for a higher density, but the townhomes were already just built.

And so when I say that this meets a base minimum, That's what I'm talking about because I think that the actual capacity is much lower.

And also to say that in our market, nobody is forced to sell.

There's a lot more work that we need to do with the county.

I mean, back to your point, Council Member Moore, we don't control Metro.

We don't control the tax assessor.

And we need to have deeper senior property tax discounts.

We need to have a step down, not a cliff.

And we need to have better bus service.

But I just look at this and to save, I think that this plan meets the minimum that our city needs because in the last time we had this exercise, we underestimated by twofold the growth that we were gonna take up.

I didn't expect to say anything, and I think I've been talking for about 10 minutes.

So I'm at the end of my council aloud speaking time.

Chair, back to you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I'm pretty sure if the first floor is ADA accessible, you don't need an elevator for three.

I'm now talking whatever, but I'm pretty sure we can get that answer for you regarding elevators.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Rank.

Thank you so much, Chair, and as evidenced by our lively discussion here on the dais and being a bit over time, I can tell it's gonna be an exciting year getting through this process.

I wanna first express my appreciation again to the staff for today's presentation, as well as members of the public who have taken time out of their day to come and provide public comment.

Thank you for caring about your neighborhoods and communities.

And it's important to note that these processes can be lengthy and abstract.

Early in my career, I worked on Vision 2050 and the CPPs, and that was years ago, which just goes to show just how long these processes can take.

So it's now really exciting, of course, to be at this stage in the comprehensive plan where we have it on the horizon.

And I would also say as a young-ish person and a renter, it is really exciting to be working on this plan, which again represents the opportunities that our next generation will have as it relates to homeownership and aging in place.

And so I'm certainly eager to see the draft legislation that will be available later today.

From that point, I'm sure I'll have many questions, but wanted to take a moment at this onset of this stage to just publicly state again our dire need for more housing, a diversity of housing types across the city to be addressing our affordability challenges.

And as noted in the last draft of the comp plan, there will be 170,000 jobs, 220,000 new residents by 2020, pardon me, 2044. And we need to have a place for folks to live with projections in the past undershooting the real number of new residents.

And so making sure that we build a city that works to solve our problems long-term.

And I certainly agree that the planning for this number of folks means that we will need to be serious about our long-term infrastructure investments, making sure that we have electricity and sewer.

Even with looking at our present state, being unable to reliably deliver on utilities to all parts of the city is unacceptable.

And I would also note that we find ourselves in a homelessness and housing crisis as a result of our past mistakes.

We can't continue this cycle of failure for our residents in most need.

And so addressing affordability will be key for improving livability in our city, of course, but we can have a plan that also in turn supports our climate goals through protecting and expanding our tree canopy, but also through bringing down our emissions.

The number one local contributor to greenhouse gases are cars, which I think is a hard reality for many in this room.

And so making sure that we have a plan that allows for people to live nearby where they work, go to school, and have fun will help us in bringing down our emissions and support working people in this city.

And lastly, I'd state in this plan, I wanna make sure that we are not repeating our history of discriminatory land use practices, which is fuel disparity for too many communities in this city.

A meaningful anti-displacement strategy needs to be a part of this plan to ensure the spirit of bringing in and making sure that we are making space for our new neighbors, we're not in turn pushing out the neighbors who have given Seattle the spirit that truly makes it alive.

So again, incredibly excited to be working with you all on this process and of working, of course, with each neighborhood to figure out how we can create a plan that works for everyone.

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to speak.

Thank you, Councilmember Rank.

Is that an old hand, Councilmember Strauss?

Yes, ma'am.

It is?

Okay.

Got it.

I just wanted to make sure.

I know we are over time, but I think it was important that we set the table today with OPCD, our mayor's office, and our central staff, and for us to get a briefing regarding the timeline information and just for us to engage in dialogue in this conversation on the stage.

I took this on obviously to get your Venmo and Cash App, but most importantly, I was talking about I'm a fourth generation Seattleite and my brother recently brought home the fifth generation Seattleite in the home that my grandmother bought in 1947. And that Seattle does not exist today where people can be able to have those opportunities.

Wanting big apart was affordability.

Seattle was affordable.

And so wanting to have that, and I hear every comment that people have said, I agree with you.

I understand where we're coming from.

This is the first time we're doing a comprehensive plan where we have district representatives.

And so we're put in a place where we're gonna hear directly from constituents about what is important to our neighborhood and how do we continue to build our city and make it livable and all those good things.

And we're gonna have to have hard conversations.

team, we're gonna have to have hard conversations.

One of them, one of the conversations, and before we wrap up, is I was door knocking neighborhoods and I would see six, seven, eight people live in a single family home and someone from the outside would say, well, there's a single family home, we should knock it down and build four town homes.

And I was like, a lot of the I don't think a lot of people understand a lot of those houses that exist from my community, particularly a lot of the Black Legacy homeowner folks.

They had multiple generations living in their homes, eight, nine people, because they could not afford to move into another home.

And so we're going to have to have hard, tough conversations.

But I do believe that everyone up here wants housing.

We want an affordable city.

We want to make sure our renters are not paying over 50% of their income to go to rent.

We want to make sure that people can age in place.

We want to make sure that people are not coming 50 miles, you know, two, three hours to come outside of the city just to come and work.

I think that's really incredibly important.

We know that there's gonna be a delicate balance.

We love trees.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Those can exist with housing and density and trees and make sure that people, make sure that this city is affordable.

I'm looking forward to helping guide this conversation with you all, and we'll be doing a lot of work in the background.

I also will be following up with the people that were here today, especially in District 3 with Madrona.

Know the neighborhood very well, have gone to Epiphany and Madrona Grace to talk to folks and have worship services, and then Montlake as well.

I know you all are dealing with the wonderful 520 community.

stuff going on, but we'll be sure to reach out to you all so we can have these conversations and we can continue to move forward.

So just want to thank all my colleagues on a Monday at 9.30.

I know it was difficult, but I really appreciate y'all.

Thank you.

I don't know if you'll have, Director Rico, if you have anything you want to add or the mayor's office or Lish?

Well, sorry, I just wanted, am I on?

Before we wrap up.

I want to thank everybody for their patience and taking the extra time this morning.

I also, Councilmember Hollingsworth, you embedded in our brains when we met earlier your values, welcoming, affordable, accessible, livable, and safe.

We want to ensure that as we move forward with this comprehensive plan and the deliberations that we have here, that we meet the intent and needs of our city of Seattle community and stakeholders and really step up to the plate.

So thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, awesome.

And if there is no further business for the committee, that will, we will call it adjourn.

1225 PM, thank you.