Seattle City Council Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan 5/7/2025

Oh.

Good afternoon, everyone.

We are here.

It is, excuse me, it is Wednesday, May the 7th, 2025. It is 2.01.

The select committee on the comprehensive plan will come to order.

I'm Joy Hollingsworth.

I am your chair of the select committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Council Member Rink.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Vice Chair Solomon.

Here.

Chair Hollingsworth.

Here.

There are eight members present.

Please recall Council Member Rink.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

There are nine council members present.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And, uh, we're going to now consider the agenda.

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

Hearing none, the agenda, the agenda is adopted.

Uh, good afternoon, everyone, colleagues, thank you all for coming and for our people in the audience.

Thank you all for coming.

We are nearing the finish line of our journey.

for the interim legislation of House Bill 1110. I will not jinx that, but as a reminder for House Bill 1110, it's a state mandated legislation to create missing middle housing in the state's implementation deadline of June the 30th.

Just a couple table settings here, just so we're all on the same page.

And I say this every meeting, just so we have as much communication out there as possible and we're always being transparent.

The date of our next public hearing is Monday, May the 19th.

The public hearing is specifically for us to hear community feedback regarding the amendments to interim legislation.

There will be an opportunity of our future public hearings to provide comment on the comprehensive plan and the permanent legislation of House Bill 1110. This coming public hearing is not dedicated to those pieces of legislation.

So just a reminder, the public hearing that is Monday, May the 19th is specifically for the interim legislation of House Bill 1110 and the amendments that we are bringing forth, me and my colleagues.

The May 19th public hearing session will be broken into two sessions.

Session one is gonna be at 930 and that will be reserved just for remote Session two will be at 4 p.m.

and that will be reserved for in-person commentators.

There are separate registration windows for each session.

So please look online to get more details about our public hearing.

Today, we have central staff.

They're going to be elaborating on a series of amendments to interim legislation House Bill 1110. Today, we'll also only be accepting written public comments so we can do a deep dive right into some of the legislation.

But don't worry, because on May 19th, you all can be able to come down and give us public comment hearing.

We'll have enough time to hear people's comments about that.

Please drop off your written public comments at the front of chambers or send us your thoughts on the comprehensive plan.

You can send us an email and it will come to all of our inboxes.

The email address, and don't tell anyone, I'm only gonna tell you all, is council at seattle.gov.

So it's council at seattle.gov.

Don't tell anyone, but that email will send to all of us, okay?

Clerk, will you please read item one into the agenda?

Council Bill 120969, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, implementing interim controls to comply with various state laws, establishing findings and adopting a work plan for permanent legislation for briefing and discussion.

Presenting today are members of the council central staff.

Awesome.

We have a phenomenal central staff that have dedicated long days to this and deep nights.

So we want to thank them.

The amendments are a number of amendments.

There are a number of amendments before us for discussion today.

we will have central staff start off by a brief overview of each amendment, and then at the end of their overview, well, sorry, let me rewind, I'm reading this wrong.

After central staff, they're gonna talk about each person's amendment, but, after they talk about one sponsor's amendment, then we'll go to that sponsor for you all to articulate what that amendment means for the discussion of the group.

So we won't hear all the amendments at one time.

We're gonna hear amendment by amendment and then allow that sponsor on the dais to be able to articulate that.

Does that sound like a plan?

Thank you.

So for the record, please introduce yourself and you may begin your presentation.

Thank you.

So we have seven amendments today to talk about, and I'll share them as we walk through them.

The first one is an amendment sponsored by Council Member Solomon.

It would, as you probably remember yesterday, you passed legislation related to accessory dwelling units.

It also is implementing, it implemented a state mandate that needs to be in effect by June 30th.

Council Bill 120949 amends sections of the land use code that are also amended by the interim legislation that's in front of you today.

This amendment is fairly simple.

It takes the changes that were adopted under the bill you passed yesterday and updates the legislation in front of you now with those changes and updates some of the legislative findings in the bill based on what's happened between uh, when the legislation was, uh, sent to council and today, uh, for example, the, um, SEPA appeal, uh, was resolved.

Oh, my apologies.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lish.

Um, council member Solomon, you are recognized to discuss your amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Harsinsworth.

I really don't have anything to add to what's been presented by central staff.

It really is a matter of making sure the ADU legislation and the overall legislation of 1110 actually come into compliance with each other.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon.

I'll now open it up to potential questions that some of my colleagues might have regarding this.

And we can also digest this and wait till the end as well.

I just wanna give opportunities for folks.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Happy to wait till the end as well.

You want me to just go?

Clarifying what I believe I already heard you say, which is that this change brings this bill into alignment with the state code bill that we passed yesterday.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Nothing further, nothing less?

Nope.

So in some ways, like when I asked if I could make amendments to that bill, I was told no thank you because it's a state requirement.

The same would be true here.

This is just simply bringing us in line with the state.

Is that essentially correct?

Correct.

Nice work.

Council Member Solomon.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I don't see any other hands, but doesn't mean that you can't ask a question at the end.

So let's roll on to item number two.

All right.

Council Bill 120969 is interim legislation that includes a work program that identifies how the council will adopt permanent legislation.

This amendment does two things.

It updates the language around the work program.

The select committee on the comprehensive plan will be working through September to adopt that legislation with anticipated effective date in October.

And then it also identifies a list of different things that the council is the council members have identified that they would like to consider in reviewing the permanent legislation.

And I will walk through those really briefly.

Supporting measures to reduce displacement pressure, considering whether residential densities would be based on the number of units on a lot or the square footage per unit.

That's one key difference between the interim legislation that you're looking at now and the permanent legislation the executive is going to propose.

Considering whether accessory dwelling units should be counted towards determining the density of development on a lot, providing for consistent and appropriate thresholds for street, alley, driveway, and pedestrian improvements.

Clarifying designated non-disturbance areas and steep slopes, lots with potential landslide hazards.

Adjusting setbacks in neighborhood residential zones to maximize tree protection.

And here we have an updated version of this amendment.

The chair who is sponsoring this amendment overall has made a few changes.

So the amendment that will be placed in front of you would say, support flexibility and design to address neighborhood needs.

and transit safety, rather than the previous language that was posted to the agenda.

Item seven includes considering adjustments to amenity area regulations related to trees, and finally, considering whether to extend mandatory housing affordability to neighborhood residential zones.

I expect that this list of council topics may get further amended before it's placed in front of you in a couple weeks.

But this is a preliminary list, again, subject to change.

And I will call on myself to talk about my amendment, sorry.

Thank you, Lish.

Okay, so colleagues, this amendment adds a work plan to interim House Bill 1110 legislation that indicates what we as a select committee will have a dialogue conversation over.

It doesn't mean that these are going to be amendments brought forth.

It's more so of a dialogue conversation.

That's stuff that we can explore.

When we first started considering interim House Bill 1110 legislation, we were still waiting on challenges to the EIS to be resolved.

We literally had no idea how long this temporary legislation might be in effect.

So I understand that many of my colleagues develop amendments to the interim legislation under the impression that this could be on the books for potentially a long time, not knowing the EIS situation.

So, however, all the challenges to the environmental impact statement were resolved quickly, making this process of heavily amending the interim legislation a little bit of redundancy.

So this amendment is designed to ensure that none of the hard work that some of my colleagues had made, central staff, legislative aides over the past month goes to waste.

worked with many of you already to identify several areas of focus and redefine some of the language to the amendments.

So I'd like to thank you all.

It's still open for discussion for if we need to tweak some stuff.

At this time, I welcome discussions to my amendments, but I wanna highlight, I wanna highlight, One important one obviously was the anti-displacement measure.

I know a lot of us, a lot of you all have gotten feedback from communities and that was one thing that I had heard significantly from folks, particularly in the central district regarding some of the anti-displacement measures that the city was implementing.

not a document, not words, but an actual plan.

We had innovative performance IP come to the council to give us a brief overview to set the table of all of the programs that the city had to offer, which was a great first step so we could understand the differences of the programs, who was being targeted and what that looked like so we can kind of figure out a plan to those.

The next thing I wanted to highlight is number six.

So I know that Lish walked us through the amendments to some of the languages that we addressed.

Just my initial, just initial stating that my support for, I'd like to make clear that when I stated my support for neighborhood character, my intention was about the flexibility and design it was not a term to use neighborhood character regarding racist policies or historical redlining.

So I just wanted to bring that out there as a black woman.

I know what a racial, you know, racist language is.

And so I just wanted to make sure that people knew that my intent there particularly.

So that's why we're gonna change flexibility and design to address neighborhood needs and transit safety.

Just wanted to throw that out there because I've been elevated to us as well.

Other than that, would love to take questions and please know this is a WIP, work in progress.

And I know we have some other people that wanted to bring some stuff to this.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, you may or may not notice I don't have any amendments.

I made the choice.

I have some amendment ideas that I've been working with central staff on.

made the choice not to bring them forward to the interim legislation because, as you said, Chair, the appeal was resolved rather quicker than I think we anticipated.

I'm gonna save staff time to work on the permanent legislation rather than ask them to spin up right now.

So really appreciate this work program.

I might check in with you about adding, some might not.

Just wanted to thank you and colleagues and for the general public to understand why I don't have any amendments here.

It's because I'm gonna wait for the full permanent bill.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Rink, you're recognized.

Following next, Council Member Moore.

thank you chair Hollingsworth and also thank you for working with my team to adjust some of the language included within this amendment very thankful that we were able to work quickly and remedy and change the language to really clarify intent so thank you and I also wanted to flag for the public in collaboration with council member Hollingsworth's office I'll also be working on some proposed added language related to amenity access and parking mandates into this workflow plan amendment.

Exact language is being finalized by my office and central staff, but wanted to share my intent publicly today to work with you on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rank.

Appreciate that.

And we're looking forward to getting that added to the work plan.

So appreciate your work and your staff's diligent work on that.

So thank you so much.

Council Member Moore.

Yeah, thank you very much, Chair.

So I too wanted to thank you very much for being willing to include items related to trees and also considering MHA and upon additional research so thank you for you know your collaboration and flexibility and also just thank you for how you've been handling this whole thing this whole complicated process of making a comp plan that we all can feel good about and I'm glad to hear that this isn't exhaustive I did there were some things that I too pulled back but I would probably be bringing forth like looking at FAR for encouraging stacked flats, social housing, making sure we're providing for social housing placement.

So those are just a couple of additional things I'm thinking about as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Council Member Rivera, followed by Council President Nelson.

Thank you, chair.

I really also wanted to lend my voice of gratitude for taking on this process, chairing this committee and taking a lead on this comprehensive plan process from beginning to end.

I do also want to, in particular, thank you for this work plan because many of the things that you added here were things that I, I, was thinking about as well.

So it's nice to have them work in a work plan related to the permanent HB 1110 codification versus this interim piece.

So I very much appreciate you including things about in particular trees, which is something that the district that I represent very much cares about in the context of this plan and the continuation of the conversation about we can have housing and trees.

It's not either or.

So thank you for that.

And many of the other things like the flora area ratio and things of that matter that we're going to dig into as we move along.

I'm happy that you included that in there.

So just really wanted to publicly acknowledge that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera, Council Member, sorry, Council President Nelson.

Thank you.

So what I'm thinking about today is that Trump just released his proposed budget And it would reduce the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development's funding by nearly 44%, including a 43% cut to rent assistance for people living on low incomes.

And the cuts included in this proposed budget has Washington housing advocates warning that this will be devastating.

So with that in mind, I am...

I just want to explain that, first of all, I am waiting for the permanent legislation to really seriously consider my colleagues' amendments and also additional amendments and also potential amendments of my own.

And in addition to allowing for greater capacity for housing all over the city, I will be looking at ways in which we can, if possible, through the comp plan.

But I know it's probably not.

But how can we make housing more inexpensive and easier to build?

I mean, if there's any possible way of doing that.

Now, I don't know if anybody is going to read into what I'm saying now as proposing something that I'm not talking in code, people.

I am just basically saying that I am mindful of the fact that any opportunity we have to really think about the added burdens when people do want to build housing, it's a good thing to do.

So more on that later.

Thank you.

Oh, I had a question about the Amendment 6, or the Item 6, please.

I don't understand why.

Well, it's maintain public transit.

The words maintain and public were crossed out.

So I would like to know more about that because we're not anticipating private transit, are we?

Thank you, council president for that.

And I know some other council members have brought up the meaning of transit and then transportation.

And so we're gonna work on that language to make sure that it's clear the intent behind the, and someone educated me regarding private property versus public and the difference and whatnot.

So we'll get that clarified on number six to make sure that it reads properly regarding that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for that feedback.

It was good.

I appreciate it.

I was thinking I wasn't understanding something.

Yeah, I wasn't understanding.

We'll work with the language and then I know that some other people want to bring some more stuff to the work plan to add, which we will totally love and we'll get it.

we'll get it so we're all on the same page, but just to remind people it's for a conversation.

It doesn't mean that people can't bring their amendments to this process and whatnot.

I just wanted to try to get everything all into one for a comprehensive work plan to the comprehensive plan.

Okay, amendment number three.

And the next three amendments are basically restoring provisions that are currently in the land use code back into the council bill.

All right.

Amendment number three is sponsored by Councilmember Moore.

It would maintain current lot coverage maximums, so 35 percent when single-family development is proposed in neighborhood residential zones or middle housing could be developed.

Under the interim regulations, maximum lot coverage of 50 percent is proposed by the mayor.

So this is an amendment that is sort of geared towards a McMansion loophole in the legislation to make it such that single-family development can't take advantage of middle housing development standards.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you.

This is just really straightforward.

This is just to, because this is interim legislation and the intent of this HB 1110 was to allow for and encourage middle housing.

So just making sure that a single family home isn't able to basically prematurely vest and get the benefit of 50% when the purpose of the 50% is to allow for middle housing.

That's all, thank you.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Moore.

And I will pause here for if my colleagues have any questions about this amendment for central staff or to the sponsor.

Don't be so quick to throw up your hand.

Okay, awesome.

I'm sorry, Chair, can I just make one?

Yeah, go right ahead.

Right now, it seems to apply to accessory dwelling units and that's an error.

So this is meant just to be to single family homes.

So we will be correcting that.

Thank you for that clarification, Council Member Moore.

We don't have any questions.

We'll move on to amendment number four.

Amendment 4 is sponsored by Councilmember Kettle.

It would retain the current standards for front yards along Queen Anne Boulevard.

Queen Anne Boulevard is a landmark public right-of-way ostensibly in Queen Anne, and this amendment would retain the current front yard requirements as opposed to updating them to 10 feet as proposed in the legislation.

And there's just one minor other technical amendment that corrects an incorrect reference.

Thank you, Asha.

Council Member Kettle, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you to the central staff team.

Really appreciate the support on this and other ideas for the comprehensive plan.

Vital to have the expertise that we have on central staff.

It's really helpful as we walk through the issues and as we engage with constituents and others, groups and the like.

on the issues within the Comprehensive Plan, so thank you.

This amendment relates to the Queen Anne Boulevard Park.

It is a park, and it's one of the Olmstead.

It wasn't part of the original 1903 with John Charles Olmstead, but John Charles Olmstead, along with James Frederick in 1906, designed it, and it was built between 1911 and 1916. And the park gives vistas, north, south, east, and west, taking advantage of Queen Anne Hill.

It's basically a crown on top of the hill.

There's some notable pieces to this, the Wilcox Wall and others.

And it also connects to some of the various park vista points to include Marshall Park, which is where the locals know where to go when Kerry Park is overrun with tourists.

You go down to Marshall Park.

On the other, that's on the, in terms of viewing the bay and the sound.

And then there's Bright Cracky Park on the other side to the east.

I mentioned Kerry Park.

But then there's also places like the Boston Street Viewpoint, where if you're watching the 4th of July fireworks, that's where you wanna be in terms of taking it in.

in addition to many other viewpoints throughout the entire loop, which is nearly four miles long.

And it's unique among parks, and this is one reason why this amendment's come on, is that I understand what's happening around other parks, but the street is the park, and the area aside the street is the park.

So it's very different circumstances.

It is a street use, and we talk about street uses for pedestrians, but this is that for runners and for bikers.

It's been used for Queen Anne community runs, fundraising and the like.

It was there for all of us during the pandemic.

I, for one, when I couldn't go to the gym anymore on the weekend mornings, would get up and go and walk the entire loop as exercise when we couldn't be inside in the gym and the like.

And it provides that, by the way, not just for Queen Anne residents or District 7 residents, but for the entire of the city.

One thing that's come out of this for me is I've learned that actually people do come from all over the city because it's beautiful.

Like somebody had mentioned about walking through you know, a tree tunnel, various sections of it really do have like a tree tunnel where you walk and you have that opportunity to have that.

And I think this is important, not just for, you know, the example of the pandemic when gyms and et cetera are closed, but as we densify in other areas of Queen Anne District 7 in the city, this is a place for those people who are living in that more dense environment to have an opportunity to go.

So for example, in Queen Anne, we have the 21 Boston Project, also known as the Safeway Project.

325 apartments.

So talk about densification.

It's a perfect example.

And it's on Queen Avenue North.

But if they want to have that opportunity, they just have to walk down Boston Street to Bigelow, go left or right, and they can do this loop.

And I think this is really important that we need to be mindful of as we densify to maintain those opportunities for our neighbors, our city residents and friends to have that opportunity.

And so that is the background, if you will, on this really important, unique park within our system.

So thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

And thank you again, central staff team.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

You just took us on a very vivid walk through Queen Anne.

Is there anyone else?

Is there anyone who has questions?

No, okay.

We can always wait till the end too as well.

If you're just all digesting this, I know this is a lot.

So thank you, Council Member Kettle.

And then let's move to amendment number five.

Amendment 5 is sponsored by Council Member Rink.

It restores language related to how much development you can do on a small lot, a lot less than 5,000 square feet.

It takes existing language from the code and restores it to say that on a small lot, you can have at least 2,500 square feet of residential development.

Awesome.

And Council Member Rink, you're recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you for working with us on this leash.

So this amendment is meant to be technical and really a clarifying amendment to restore the minimum floor area on smaller lots.

The standards in the amendment are already in place today and are meant to match the existing code, not to make a policy change.

It is our understanding this change was somewhat unintentional, so working to remedy this.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Rank.

I don't know if there's other questions regarding that or else we'll keep plugging away.

Okay, we'll do amendment number six.

Thank you for your work on that, Council Member Rank.

Amendment six is by far the most complicated of the amendments.

It amends two different sections of the code related to residential density limits.

One in the neighborhood residential chapter and the other in the multifamily chapter, applying to low-rise development.

It reorganizes both sections in order to increase usability, in particular to emphasize that on all lots, four units are allowed or six units in particular circumstances.

It updates the date that lots, so you may remember that under Council Bill 120969, lots created after, as drafted March 28th, wouldn't be able to use the four or six units.

This updates that provision to the effective date of the bill, so June 30, 2025, rather than that March date, so that people aren't unintentionally subdividing their property and then suddenly finding out that they can't actually apply the land use code.

It clarifies that in residential small lot zones, one principal unit is permitted per 2,000 square feet, which is current code or a minimum of four or six units, applying the requirements of House Bill 1110. It adjusts the rounding threshold for neighborhood residential zones, applying current rounding provisions.

does a number of other clarifications, and then makes one correction to the low rise zone provisions.

In our current low rise residential code, there are density limits that apply to townhouses and row houses and single family.

houses, but apartment buildings or stacked flats don't have a density limit.

As drafted, it appeared that the bill would apply a density limit to stacked flats, and so this amendment corrects that to clarify that we are not suddenly applying a new density limit to stacked flats that isn't in the current code, and it wasn't intended by the executive.

Yeah, happy to answer questions as they come up.

Awesome, and I'll take this moment to recognize the sponsor of the bill, Councilmember Inc.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you again, Lish.

So colleagues, don't be daunted.

This amendment is just a collection of technical tweaks in the form of a singular amendment to ensure we are meeting House Bill 1110 requirements.

So for instance, it says in plain language that you can have four units on every law regardless of size.

It clarifies subdivision rules and leaves many sections of the interim legislation as is.

This is meant to serve as mostly technical and a clarifying amendment, not meant to serve as a major change in policy.

And happy to answer any questions.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Rank.

I'll pause here and before we move on, but we can also ask questions at the end as we're digesting all of this.

Awesome, well, we will move on to amendment number six, or excuse me, that was number six, number seven, my apologies.

So you might remember your meeting at the end of March, I think it was, where the executive brought in real estate finance experts and discussed some of the impediments to building stacked flats in Seattle.

They identified that the increased requirements that apply to projects that have to go through review under the residential code Those increased costs are one barrier to seeing stacked flats built in Seattle.

The state legislature has recognized that and required the Washington State Building Council to review the state building code.

to identify whether or not changes should be made to allow a broader range of middle housing types to be reviewed under that code.

That work is expected to be done by the end of the year.

The city can't change its building in residential code until the state acts.

So what this amendment says, it basically asks the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections code development team to report back to the council in January about what's happened at the state level and talk about next steps for implementing any changes to the residential code to allow, for example, stack flats to be reviewed under it.

Awesome.

Thank you, Lish.

Council Member Rink, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

And Lish really covered it.

This amendment would provide us with a report on how to better incorporate middle housing.

I think this would be tremendously important material for us to receive as a council to guide further decision making.

Thank you.

Awesome.

And I will pause there to see if other folks have any questions.

Uh, council member Rivera, you were recognized.

Thank you, chair Lish.

So SDCI, once those code, um, uh, is updated, would they come, would we need to do legislation, right?

Like SDCI would have to forward legislation for us to approve.

Okay.

I just want to make sure there's no, nothing unilateral here.

They'd have to come to us to, to make the change as to match whatever the code is updated to be.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Council member Rivera.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I don't know if we have any, uh, additional questions.

So, uh, oh, sorry.

Council member Moore.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh, just going back to amendment six, just wanting some clarification.

I appreciate Councilman Rink.

This is a mostly a technical bill, but I'm curious, can you, um, let's explain number eight.

So it says restore language stating that in low rise zones, minimum lot sizes only apply to those rather than attached and detached housing.

Um, so currently in our low rise zoning code, We have density limits that apply to I'm trying to find the language.

We have density limits that apply to row houses and townhouses and single family houses.

Other types of multifamily housing that are allowed in the low rise one zone, for example, like stacked flats does not have a density limit.

As drafted, the bill would say that there are density limits for attached and detached housing.

Those are terms that are likely to appear in the permanent legislation and be defined as something different than stock flats.

But because we don't have those definitions in the interim legislation, They don't have the same meaning as is intended under the permanent legislation.

And so this is intended to basically take the current way that we regulate stack flats in low-rise zones and continue that and not make any changes.

Okay, so this facilitates keeping stacked flats.

Okay, thank you.

And then the next piece, single-family dwellings are subject to the development standards for townhouses.

Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, and that's a current provision in the multifamily code that says that single-family houses and townhouses have the same development requirements.

Okay.

Is that being changed in the proposal?

Not changed at all.

No.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member Moore.

I'll pause here if we have other questions.

I think it would super, it would be helpful for central staff to walk us along potentially like the next steps regarding in this process with the amendments and public hearing and just the timeline, if that's good and deadlines you have for us for amendments.

So, You have a public hearing scheduled for May 19th.

Hopefully, there won't be many changes to the amendments coming out of that meeting, but please let us know by, like, 10 a.m.

on the morning of the 20th if you think anything that you've put forward really needs to change.

The meeting...

To vote on amendments and vote on the bill is May 21st.

And in order to meet the deadline for having everything in effect, we do have a committee vote that day and council vote the following Tuesday.

Awesome, thank you.

And colleagues, as I said that our work plan is a work in progress.

I know that I've talked to a couple offices, Council Member Rink's office and some other folks about adding some language to the work plan, which we are completely open to and wanna work with your office.

So everyone feels comfortable about our work plan and the language in there as well.

So just wanted to throw that out there as well.

And this is also a reminder that after we get through the interim legislation for, I heard someone today on a meeting call it 1110, House Bill 1110. And I thought that was, that kind of threw me off.

So I won't name it that, it will be 1110. So House Bill 1110, interim legislation to that, then our next big chunk is the permanent legislation to this whole piece, which is the permanent House Bill 1110 legislation, which I know will be a heavy lift and a lot of work for central staff because this will be the permanent legislation that will be for our city.

and we wanna make sure we get it right.

And so I'm looking forward to working with you all and during that process and phase one of the comprehensive plan as well that we'll be working on and taking that on before budget.

So just wanted to make sure that we were all, I know that I've had conversations with all of you, but that we are aware of that.

Council member Moore, is that an old hand or new hand?

It's stale.

Okay, no worries.

Old hand.

No, no, you're good.

Is there other questions that we have today for central staff?

Any clarifications or any clarifications on amendments that we have?

Y'all are an easy bunch.

Okay, so before we conclude, well, let me rewind.

First of all, thank you central staff because I know that this has been a lot of work.

It's gone back and forth with the executive and timelines and not knowing and EIS.

public hearings and there's just been a lot to juggle here and timelines and work back.

And I am so grateful for central staff and all your work during this process and being so flexible with grace.

My grandmother always said, you always have to have grace with everything.

So you all have been flexible and graceful, those two things, as well as we have been navigating this as well.

That's the first thing.

The second thing, and I had just found this out today and I was on a massive group email, but I wanted to send our thoughts and prayers to Representative Jamila Taylor who had a medical emergency today and is in the hospital.

And I wanna highlight, so Rep. Taylor worked with former, rest in peace, Representative Frank Chopp in the Home Covenant Fund that passed a couple years ago and was really a champion this year as well.

And the reason why that bill is so important to community folks is because it gives first time home buyers an opportunity to buy a home where people who were originally disproportionately targeted with the racist practices of home buying in our city.

And just so you know, colleagues, you know about redlining and so forth, and the amount of wealth that was taken from communities of color, particularly black communities.

My grandmother went to, back in 1947, 46, went to McGilville Boulevard in Madrona, or excuse me, Madison Park, and wanted to buy a home in McGilville Boulevard in the 1940s and was told, I can sell it to you, but you can't live here.

And a lot of that happened throughout our cities, whether they were black, whether they were Jewish, Asian, Hispanic, all these different things.

And so the other day, I received an email from a woman who bought her first home with covenant funds from the state.

And she also got funds from community reinvestment fund, which was funds set forth from cannabis tax dollars to reinvest the communities who were disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.

So she used those two funds to buy her home.

This woman used to live in the Central District, born and raised, single mom, a seven-year-old daughter who was around a lot of violence and drugs and so forth in her neighborhood growing up.

And she bought a home.

The video shows her, and I'm gonna blast it out because this video is phenomenal, goes, takes her daughter into this home and it's the first home her family has ever had in her entire lifetime.

And she shows her daughter her room for the very first time.

They had always lived in one bedroom apartments.

She's always shared a room with her mom.

Brought her into this house, and she said, do you like this home?

And the girl said yes, and she said, this is your room.

And the girl starts crying and celebrating.

And I share that story because that would not have been possible without Representative Jamila Taylor and former Representative Frank Chop for the bold stance they did on the home covenant program, which is yes, a form of reparations of the wealth that was extracted from black community.

So anyways, sending our thoughts and prayers to Representative Jamila Taylor, get well soon, know that we love you, and I'm gonna send you that video.

Anywho, I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you, everyone.

With that, we have no other items on the agenda for today, but do my colleagues have any more items of business that they would like to bring up?

Just seeing smiling faces.

Okay, easy money.

Thank you.

This is gonna conclude our May 7th meeting.

The next committee meeting is our public hearing, and that is Monday, May 19th.

This public session will be broken into two sessions, 9.30 for online, okay?

And then the second one will be 4 p.m., which will be there in person.

So we have two separate registrations because we have an online and we also have an in-person as well.

And so if there's no further business, it is May 7th, 2.48 p.m.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.