Land Use Committee Special Meeting 10/20/23

Councilmember Nelson, Councilmember Morales have been excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

Present.

Councilmember Peterson.

Present.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

Three present.

Thank you.

We have three items on today's agenda.

We have a contract rezone 3-1-4-5-1-3, briefing discussion and possible vote on a rezone proposal in Northgate neighborhood.

Contract rezone 3-1-4-4-7-4, briefing discussion and possible vote on a rezone proposal in the Central District neighborhood.

And we have an informational item today, item 2-3-4-8, a briefing and discussion on the audit of the construction permitting process.

Before we begin, if there's no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

This is a special land use committee meeting during the budget process, which is not standard.

The reason that we are having this meeting today is to vote on the contract rezones, which we must do within a certain period of time legally.

So we are legally bound to pass these within a certain window of time.

At the same time, I long ago requested the audit on permitting process within construction, the construction permitting process.

That permit or that audit from the city auditor is out and we want to have a brief discussion today.

We're going to keep it very high level because the auditor's team and all departments who have review desks will come back to the committee either on November 29th or the following land use committee meeting in December to have a longer, more robust conversation.

Because again, we're in budget.

Our budget chair is here in the committee.

I know that she has a lot of work that she must accomplish right now.

As well as we did not have the lead time to be able to invite every single department who is responsible for the permitting process to the table today.

So we will have Seattle Department of Construction Inspections who has the bulk of the review desks, but it is not a comprehensive representation of our permit review process.

So colleagues, Feel free to ask questions.

I have told, or I've asked both the permanent, the city auditor's office and SDCI to keep comments brief today.

And we will have a longer opportunity to go into, to dive into this permit audit at our next committee meeting.

So with that, at this time, we will begin the open hybrid public comment period for items on today's agenda.

We do have, Let me just check.

Do we have to do a public hearing on the rezones?

No.

Great.

So we are just doing a public comment period.

I'm not going to ask the clerk to play the video.

I think everyone knows the standards are to be nice.

Speak to the item on the agenda, and we'll go from there.

So at this time, the public comment period is now open.

We have two public commenters virtually.

And clerk, do we have any in person?

We will start with our online, we have Bill Zosel and Angie Gerald.

What does this mean?

Public comment is not accepted for the contract rezone, according to the deputy clerks.

Okay, so we are not going to accept public comment on the contract rezone.

So Bill Zosel, hang tight real quick.

Emilia Sanchez, clerk, we're having a little bit of confusion on the dais.

Are we accepting public comment on the contract rezones or not?

Councilmember Strauss, the contract rezones are quasi judicial and central staff is on the line to also confirm.

I see Keil Freeman who can also opine on this.

Mr. Freeman to the rescue.

Correct so, because the 2 contract reasons are quasi judicial, the council and the committee has to rely on the record that's compiled by the hearing examiner.

Essentially, the council delegates responsibility to the hearing examiner to hold an open record public hearing.

That hearing has already occurred on both of these contract rezones.

The clerk's files and the record contain the public comments that was submitted to SDCI.

There's, of course, an audio recording of the hearing that is available to the committee to review as well.

That includes testimony that may have been provided at the hearing of the Samaritan's Open Record public hearing.

But the council can't take new testimony now.

The record is closed.

There hasn't been a motion to supplement the record or any appeals of these two contract rezones.

There's not an opportunity for public comment at this time.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Bill Zosel, I see you are here to comment on the contract rezone.

I want to just double check that you would not like to speak to a different item on the agenda.

Bill Zosel, I see you here.

Star six to unmute.

Bill Zolsel.

Seeing as Bill Zolsel is not coming off mute, we're going to go on to Angie Gerald.

Angie, welcome.

Hi, my name is Angie and I'm a small landlord in Ballard and a member of Seattle Grassroots Landlords.

I look forward to hearing the presentation from the city auditor today on recommendations for improving FDCI's construction permit process.

As you listen in, I ask that you keep in mind the smallest property owners and aspiring property owners in Seattle who are greatly impacted by the complexity and length of time it takes to shepherd projects forward.

The disparity between who can feasibly own, maintain, and improve properties, especially small independent rentals, continues to widen at the same time that Seattle says it is trying to prioritize anti-displacement and access to opportunity.

I would also like to remind council that SDCI has not publicly released any rental registration or RIO data since August, 2022, well over a year ago.

Well, at the same time, council has continued to propose and pass risky, complicated new rental regulations.

There has been a great loss of small rentals in one to four unit properties according to that data.

And the city's open data portal makes it look like there has been no recovery.

Please keep this in mind as you consider today's report and as you await the auditor's upcoming report that is focused on the RRIO program.

Amid Seattle's great need for more diverse and affordable rental housing, city council and city departments need to greatly improve their working relationship with everyday Seattleites who own and operate rentals, as well as those who might aspire to.

We need to lessen the gap, not continue widening it, of who can feasibly own and operate small properties in Seattle.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Angie.

Well said.

Seeing as we have, I'm going to double check Bill's also one more time.

Are you here to talk about something other than the contract rezone?

In his online form, it says.

Hello.

Yes.

Yes.

Sorry, I was.

Before you start going, Bill, you cannot speak to the contract rezone today.

Is there something else that you.

Right.

I understand.

I understand.

Is there anything else you'd like to speak to today?

That was my purpose for registering for public comment, so that's all.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Bill.

We will talk to you after the quasi-judicial elements of this are complete.

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

The next agenda item is a briefing discussion and possible vote on Contract Rezone 314513. a rezone proposal in Northgate.

Clerk, will you please read the item into the record?

Item 1, contract rezone 314-513, rezone proposal at 1000 Northeast Northgate Way for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

We are joined by Lish Whitson from Council Central staff for this discussion.

Lish, would you take it away?

And given your time constraints, I'm going to try and go very quickly.

So please interrupt me if you have questions.

Wonderful, thank you.

And.

This is a contract rezone in the Northgate Urban Center.

As you've heard, it's a quasi judicial decision, which means that your decisions must be made on the record established by the hearing examiner.

Um, the proposal in front of you is a reason of 2 parcels at the Northeast corner of Northeast North gateway and Roosevelt way, Northeast and the North gate urban center.

Um, it's on the East end of the North gate urban center, um, along North gateway.

The proposal is to rezone the two parcels from neighborhood commercial 355 with a M mandatory housing affordability designation to neighborhood commercial 365 with an M1 neighborhood commercial 3 or M1 mandatory housing affordability suffix.

Um, so, uh, height increase of 10 feet and an increase in the requirements.

Uh, the parcels together are approximately 40,000 square feet total.

Uh, the reason would facilitate the development of a 184 unit affordable housing development with ground floor, retail and parking.

Uh, the, uh, testimony at the hearing examiner indicated that about 31 of those units would be attributable to the reason.

Uh, as I mentioned, the site is at the eastern end of the North gate urban center and North Northeast corner of North gateway and Roosevelt way.

Northeast, uh, the area in red on the map on the right.

Um, and labeled on as site on the, um.

On the, uh, map on the left.

Surrounding the area is predominantly neighborhood commercial 355. There's a directly North, a detention pond for the.

Uh, grocery store directly to the East on the same block and then farther to the East is victory Creek Park.

Um, to the South are small commercial structures and a few residential structures.

Uh, this is the project is proposed 184 residential units with ground floor retail at the corner of North gateway and Roosevelt way.

Um, here's a site plan, uh, showing where the commercial space is on the Western end of the project.

And, um, it's adjacency to the grocery store and, um, the street.

Um, I recommended to conditionally approve, uh, the proposal, um, in July hearing examiner held a hearing in August and made a recommendation to conditionally approve it.

Um, the hearing examiner's recommendation sets a deadline for council to act by November 22nd.

Uh, the hearing examiner recommended 3 conditions, uh, to the.

To the property use and development agreement.

Um, the 1st, is that there be a mandatory housing affordability destination of them.

1. The 2nd, that development of the reason property be subject to the requirements of.

And they recommended that the PUDA specify the payment and performance calculation amounts for the purposes of applying those chapters of the municipal code.

Those chapters are the MHA chapters that lay out the performance and payment calculation amounts.

Because those chapters, which would be required to be followed, already contain payment and performance calculation amounts, I am recommending that you not include that second sentence.

In this condition, um, payment and performance is covered.

By the code already, um, and the.

Including those numbers in the is redundant.

In addition, this is a 100% affordable housing project that is exempt from the requirements of those chapters.

Um, so we have sort of a double redundancy here where.

As an affordable housing project, it's already complying with all of the requirements of the chapters.

And that second sentence is not necessary.

And the third condition is that the plans be in substantial conformance with the approved plans for the master use permit that accompanies this.

Those plans include the requirements that the project be affordable housing as proposed.

If you choose to support this rezone, which is again, a 10 foot height increase on these two properties, you should first vote to add the draft findings, conclusion, and decision to the clerk file.

That document is attachment four to my memo, which is attached to your agenda.

It basically says that the council is accepting the hearing examiner's recommendation.

A second vote to recommend approval of the clerk file.

If you do so, then we'll make sure that a council bill with the signed PUDA is introduced next Tuesday, which would provide for a council vote at the following council meeting.

Any questions?

Yes, thank you, Lish.

Seeing as you have a recommendation to strike some language, is that language already struck or do we need to pass an amendment at this time?

The findings, conclusions, and decision do assume that you are striking that language.

So you do not need to take any additional action.

Excellent.

Thank you, Liz.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, concerns?

I would like to vote this out of committee today.

Seeing none, we must be in the budget session with people's attention elsewhere.

Rightly so, in my opinion.

So just checking again, is there any further discussion before we vote?

Seeing none, I move to recommend the rezone application in Clerk File 314513 to be granted.

Oh, yes.

Sorry, Council Member.

First, please add the findings, conclusion, and decision.

Okay.

I would like to add the findings and conclusions decision to the record.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

add the findings and conclusions to the record.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Screen in favor.

Thank you.

It has been approved and the findings have been attached to the record.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, I move to recommend the rezone application in clerk file 314513 to be granted.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to grant the rezone application in clerk file 314513. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Three in favor.

Thank you.

The motion passes.

Clerk file 314513 passes the Land Use Committee.

And this clerk file and its companion council bill will be sent to the November 7, 2023 full city council meeting for final adoption.

The next agenda item on our next agenda item is a briefing discussion and possible vote on contract rezone 31447 for a rezone proposal in the Central District Clerk, will you please read the short title into the record?

Item 2, Contract Rezone 1314474, Rezone Proposal at 2210 East Cherry Street for Briefing Discussion and Possible Vote.

Thank you.

We are joined by Ketel Freeman from Council Central staff for this part of the discussion.

Ketel, please take it away.

All right.

Well, this will be very similar to what Lyft just did.

Let me share my screen here.

All right.

This is another contract rezone.

Again, this is an action that the council has to take because of the time period that's prescribed by the code for turning around decisions on contract rezones.

There's 90 days, this 90-day requirement, unless there's an appeal and there's not an appeal in this case, hence the committee taking this up during budget.

This is for a contract rezone at 2210 East Cherry Street.

Scroll down here.

That's also a quasi judicial actions subject to the appearance of fairness doctrine.

So.

As you all are familiar, it's, it's the council's action here is restricted to the record compiled by the hearing examiner.

And the committee members cannot receive cannot be lobbied.

So they can't receive ex parte communications from proponents or opponents.

The application is the reason on the site that's located at the.

Northwest corner of the intersection of East cherry street and 23rd Avenue.

And the 23rd Jackson urban village.

Eastern portion of the site is owned and see 140. that would be rezoned and see 165 and 1. The Western portion of the side of the zone and see 140 and 2, and that would be rezoned and see 165 and 2. so essentially going from 40 feet to 65 feet.

There's some housekeeping that needs to be done here.

We'll get to that at the end.

But there is, the original application was for a lower height, 55 feet, and that needs to be corrected in the quick file title.

The overall project site is approximately 19,000 square feet, and the reason I would facilitate development of a mixed-use building designed in a futurist style with 114 apartments and ground floor commercial space.

The applicant intends to perform under the mandatory housing affordability program and also seek a multi-family tax exemption program.

I also participate in the multi-family tax exemption program.

The applicant may seek funding from the Office of Housing.

Here is Here's some information about the site again, it's located at the Northwest corner of the intersection of.

23rd Avenue and East cherry street in the central area.

It's essentially northwest of Garfield High School.

And whoever's pool and the Garfield community center.

Down here, you see a photograph of the site.

Now, part of the site is vacant.

The other half is occupied by a commercial.

Buildings and some are residential as well, including to single family houses.

Here's what the site might look like if it's completed.

It's a six-story mixed-use building, ground floor retail, apartment units above.

This doesn't show it here in this rendering, but it steps back properties at the door at the upper levels.

Process, I recommended conditional approval of the project on June 8th.

The hearing examiner held an open record public hearing.

On July 19th, there were 4 folks who testified at that hearing.

The hearing examiner's recommendation was issued on August 17th.

There are no appeals, so council should act no later than November 7th to meet the deadline prescribed by code.

Hearing examiner recommended conditions prior to issuance of a building permit condition would be that the project look like what was.

On approved Massachusetts permit plan sets, there are some construction later permits here to construction management plan.

Monitoring for archaeological monitoring in case there's inadvertent discovery of.

Archaeological resources and notification to the tribes should there be a discovery.

And then there is a condition for the life of the project.

This is essentially the standard contract reason condition, which says that what's built in the future has to conform with approved plans for the project.

From housekeeping staff here, I mentioned that the clerk's file reflects an application that is not the application that the hearing examiner issued a recommendation on, nor did SBCI issue a recommendation on it.

So we need to amend the clerk's file title.

The amended title is on page two and three of the memo in your packet.

I can read it if you'd like, but we need a motion here to amend the title.

Sure.

Read it for the record and I'm sure I've got it.

I'll read how the amended title would read.

Application to Racer House LLC for a contract rezone of 19,343 square foot site located at 2210 East Cherry Street from neighborhood commercial 140 with an M mandatory housing affordability suffix NC 140 M to neighborhood commercial one with a 65 foot height limit and M1 mandatory housing affordability suffix NC 165 M1.

And from neighborhood commercial 1 with a 40 foot height limit and 2 mandatory housing affordability suffix and see 140 and 2 to neighborhood commercial 1 with a 65 foot height limit and 2 mandatory housing affordability suffix and see 165 project number 3037185 dash.

Type 4. Very good.

Thank you so much.

Is that the conclusion of your presentation, Mr. Freeman?

Uh, we need to, so we need a motion to amend the title here and then we need to add the finance conclusion and decision, um, uh, to the clerk file and get a recommendation from the committee on the finance conclusion and decision.

Ah, yes.

I have that all teed up here.

I'm wondering, are you complete with your, uh, presentation?

I am.

Excellent.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, concerns?

Um, Quito just laid out our next step, so I don't have to.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

I'm seeing no further discussions, so I am going to make these motions.

I move to amend clerk file 314474 title to reflect the recommended rezone.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved in second and direct to amend the title in the clerk file 314474. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Three in favor.

Thank you.

The motion passes and the title has been amended.

I move to add the findings, conclusions, and decisions to the clerk file 314474. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to add findings, conclusions, and decision to the clerk file 314474. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Three in favor.

Thank you.

The motion passes.

The findings, conclusions, and decision have been attached to Clerk File 314474. Final motion here.

Colleagues, any last thoughts?

Seeing none, I move to recommend the rezone application in clerk file 314474 to be granted.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to grant the rezone application in clerk file 314474. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Three in favor.

Thank you.

Uh, the motion passes and clerk file three one four four seven four is approved and will be sent it and its companion bill will be sent to the November 7th, 2023 full city council for final adoption.

Thank you everyone for joining us today.

Um, our final item on the agenda is a briefing and discussion on the informational item two, three, four, um, Item 8, an audit report on the construction permitting process.

Clerk, will you please read the short title into the record?

Item 3, informational item 2, 3, 4, 8, audit on the construction permitting process for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

And we made an error on the agenda today.

We listed this for 44 zero minutes.

I am hoping this is going to take us about 10 to 15 minutes max.

Um, colleagues, as I mentioned at the start of this meeting, we are going to do a high level overview for the record today, and then we are going to come back in either the November or the December meeting for a more robust, conversation, discussion, and deep dive into this audit.

We do have Director Nathan Torgelson with us today.

He is at a mayoral retreat, so he's joining us virtually.

Director Torgelson, thank you for being able to be in two places at once.

With that, did you read this in already?

Thank you very much.

Last year, I requested an audit of the construction permitting process to assess how the process can be improved and in a more timely manner.

We have David Jones, Melissa Alderson, and Andrew Scoggin with the city auditor's office here to give us an overview of the report.

And I'd like you to take it away from here.

Melissa and Andrew, you did really, really great work.

Over to you.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for requesting this audit.

And we want to thank SDCI.

They really were very cooperative during the audit, and we really appreciate that.

I'm going to turn it over to Melissa and Andrew, who are going to take you, as you requested, giving you a high-level overview of our audit reports, findings, and recommendations.

So Melissa, go ahead.

Thank you.

So our audit looked at the process for construction permits.

And construction permits are things like new buildings or additions.

And we focused on part of the construction permitting process, which you can see on this slide, intake through corrections.

And we tried to approach our work from the customer's perspective.

So you'll see that a lot of our findings and recommendations focus on things that customers care about, like timeliness and consistency.

We grouped our findings into four categories, which we'll go through on the next few slides.

So our first category here that we'll discuss is about the city needing to reinforce a customer focus in the permitting process.

We have two findings here.

Our first is that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, or SDCI, should reevaluate its tracking metrics and reporting methods to reduce review times.

The current setup creates an incentive for reviewers to clear applications from their queue rather than focus on how long an application is taking overall, which is critical to customers.

We recommend that SDCI track applications by total review time as they are being processed.

The second finding here is that SDCI lacks a process to routinely collect customer feedback.

Customers are frustrated with aspects of the permitting process, such as how long it takes and knowing who to contact at the city.

We recommend that SDCI complete a racial equity toolkit, which is an integral part of the city's race and social justice initiative, and then use the results to inform the creation of a strategic customer engagement program.

Our second category is about transparency and fairness, and we have two findings here.

We found that the city does not prioritize construction permit applications in a consistent and transparent way, which could lead to customers being treated unfairly.

So we recommend that SDCI review and formalize their prioritization process, and then communicate that to customers.

Our next finding is that SDCI can do more internally to create a positive ethical culture.

As we were going about our interviews, we heard from a lot of employees questions and concerns around perceived conflicts of interest.

And some examples of that were things like secondary employment and personal relationships.

I want to be really clear that we did not investigate any of the things that we heard to the extent necessary to substantiate them.

But we do know that even perceived conflicts of interest can negatively impact the city's ability to have a fair and transparent process for all customers.

And we take that very seriously.

So we recommend that SDCI do more work to evaluate and then improve their ethical culture through things like training and employee expectations.

Our third category is on how there could be a stronger citywide approach to the permitting process.

Multiple departments are involved in the process, and while SDCI is seen as the owner, they cannot direct other departments.

The first finding here is that the city has engaged in multiple prior permitting improvement efforts, but not all identified changes have been made.

We recommend that the city evaluate and prioritize past and future recommendations, assign a department as owner, and track them publicly.

The second finding here is that there is not a unified approach to funding staff, nor is there an effective strategy to support software used to process and review permits.

We recommend that the city evaluate governance and department's funding for staff to meet fluctuations in demand.

We also recommend that the city create a strategy to support software and better integrate department's use of this technology.

Our last two findings are focused specifically on the corrections process, and that's when permit reviewers issue comments or corrections on a permit application.

So we found inconsistencies both in how staff issue corrections and then how supervisors evaluate the corrections that have been issued by their staff to make sure that they align with SDCI's guidelines.

So we make recommendations to standardize those parts of the process.

And I believe I have the last slide here.

Just want to say to the public, anyone, you can go and see this address here and read the report.

It has a lot more details on what Melissa and Andrew talked about.

And I'm pleased to note that, and you can find its appendix via the report, that the SDCI generally concurred with the recommendations made in the report.

We're really pleased with that.

Just to remind the viewing audience, we have an annual process that we go through and we follow up on the implementation status of every recommendation we make.

So we're going to follow these to make sure to identify what their implementation status was.

And again, I just want to end up by, again, thanking SDI staff and management.

They were really cooperative.

answered a million questions that we asked them, and we really appreciate that very, very much.

So at this point, that concludes our presentation, Chair Strauss, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you or other members of the committee may have for us.

Wonderful, and I might, I'll make a couple comments and then maybe if we could run through the recommendations and the appendix just real briefly.

The topics that you just touched on, spot on, I really appreciate your work.

You know, when I requested this audit, Andy Higgins from SDCI had taught me quite a lot about the permitting process.

And I lovingly joked that I'd taken permitting 101, 201, and 301. And it's complex.

There's a lot of different issues.

recommendations really hit on some really important and key themes.

One of the most important, I would say, is that Director Torgelson, and I'll pass the mic to you in just a minute, Director, but Director Torgelson doesn't, is not in the chain of command for many review desks, and that not having a singular person able to say, we have to keep these processes moving, is a very difficult problem and it must be solved.

When I look at Exhibit two in your audit about the city reviews beyond round one of corrections not meeting internal targets.

Round one, it absolutely meets internal targets.

And what I've heard anecdotally is that corrections show up on round two, three, four, and five that could have been addressed in round one.

And so, you know, this is another area that I think that is very important that we're able to address.

And just speaking to, you know, your findings about the ethical culture, highlighting, again, you did not find any violations of ethics here, but that the perception and ambiguity creates a problem.

You know, Director Torgelson will have you speak in just a minute and we'll talk about what can be done between now and the next time we meet in committee because addressing this is pretty important.

But I'd say let's run through the recommendations really briefly and then Director Torgelson, I'll pass it over to you.

And would you like to share screen or were you, did I not prep you for that?

I could share screen.

I'm ready.

Mr. G, am I allowed to share screen?

Yes, you should be able to share screen.

Oh, OK.

I'm just going to share Appendix B, and we can just rapidly run through them.

Apologies for not giving you more notice on this.

There we are.

Appendix B, and just tell me when you want me to scroll.

Cool.

Yeah, we'll start here with recommendation one, which speaks.

And I know you talked at the high level, which is what I asked for, but let's just jump in.

Yeah.

So yeah, this one speaks to the timeliness and tracking of the process, which You know, what we recommend here is that STCI, you know, renew a focus on the total review time as projects are being processed.

Okay, and then the next recommendation, you know, we have an office practice of looking at the city's race and social justice initiative in every audit that we do.

Some of the things we look for are you know, did they complete a racial equity toolkit?

Do they have, you know, an RSGI work plan that is relevant to the topic that we're looking at?

So because, you know, the permitting process is so customer focused, We are recommending that the city complete a racial equity toolkit for permitting so we can uncover what some potential barriers that some customers might face, especially customers that are new to the process or infrequent users.

Yeah, and going on to recommendation three.

So this one, thank you, Dan.

This one is speaking to our recommendation that SDCI create a strategic customer engagement program, which we say here that could include establishing baseline data for customer service and satisfaction.

defining performance measures that relate to the department's strategic goals, process to monitor those performance measures, and then defined roles for employees who are responsible for implementing process improvements.

Thank you.

And Andrew and Melissa, just for the viewing public, the screen I'm sharing right now also shares STCI's response.

And so I'm highlighting this for the public because STCI is already working on many of these things.

So I want to give credit where credit is due.

Absolutely.

Recommendation four, so SDCI has an internal document that they use to prioritize permit applications, but we found that they don't do a good job of communicating that to customers so that all customers can take advantage of what that prioritization is.

So we're recommending that SDCI look at the process that they use and then make it more transparent for customers.

Oh, next one's mine too.

Recommendation five, as I mentioned, we heard confusion questions from employees as we were going about our interviews across different work groups and different levels in the department.

And so what we're looking for here is for SDCI to do more research to uncover what some of those issues are that is creating this kind of environment through things like anonymous surveys, and then provide more training, provide more clarity to employees about what is and what is not allowed to reduce the confusion.

And Director Torgelson, I'm going to give you the opportunity just to jump in here and if you'd like, because this one is, I think, one that none of us quite expected.

And I also have your department response here, and that you are already working on this.

But anything you want to share on this one in particular?

I think I'll wait for my concluding comments at the end, and I can run through a lot of these things.

Excellent.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you.

So recommendation six so the this recommendation here is About our We're recommending that the city, specifically the mayor's office here, leading a coordinated effort to document recommendations related to the permitting process that have been made either through consultant reports or efforts that are being done internally by the city, you know, I think that when we were working on our audit, we did find that, you know, there are, there have been efforts and ongoing efforts right now as well to improve the process.

And so, you know, what we recommend here is that the that the city broadly and departments should take those recommendations, prioritize them, assign an owner who's responsible for overseeing the implementation of it and then estimating a due date for implementation.

And then we also recommend that they be tracked in a central public place such as a dashboard.

Yeah, the department to its credit has, outside entities looking at the department within the city, the executive branch.

has had a number of studies and hired consultants to look at them, and all we're saying is, you know, they're so busy putting out fires sometimes, SDCI, that, you know, some of these improvement efforts or recommendations get lost, and it would just be a good thing to keep track of them and make a conscious decision about whether or not you're going to do it.

Sometimes maybe they won't want to do it, and there might be a good reason why they don't want to follow a consultant's recommendation.

But, you know, to standardize it and systematize that, as Andrew said.

And then recommendation seven, we recommend here that the budget office, along working with other departments, evaluate governance and funding structures.

of departments that review permit applications and determine whether or not changes need to be made to better respond to changes in demand.

Something that we learned during our audit is that the way that SDCI and the way that other departments are able to fund their staff is different.

is able to better respond to those changes in demand as the number of permits that come in fluctuate.

We don't give the fire department the same staffing that we give all of the other departments, and it's not their fault.

Yeah, and as you observed, Chair Strauss, there are a number of other departments, you know, that SDCI has to rely upon during the permitting process.

There are seven other departments that are involved.

So as Andrew was saying, the funding structure of some of those is an impediment.

They can't put as many people on a permit as SDCI and they don't have the funding flexibility.

That's right.

And what Andy Higgins always reminds me is a team of four that loses one has 25 percent of their workforce down as compared to a team of 25 that loses two.

Right.

Sorry.

I know I told I said I wasn't going to start talking.

But here I am on the recommendation.

So recommendation eight is on the technology that the city uses to process and review permits.

So what we're recommending here is that the mayor's office develop a strategy which includes the resources required to implement it to provide ongoing support for the online portal that's used for permits and other software that's used.

You know, something we learned is that, you know, since the current portal Acela was launched in 2018, it's experienced some performance issues.

And that was something that we heard was a source of frustration too from both staff at the city and for customers.

And then recommendation nine is a related recommendation to that, which is that STCI should evaluate which departments are using Acela, which is that online permitting portal.

and then determine how to improve the way that departments are integrated into its use.

Okay, I'll take the last two.

The next two are a little in the weeds in the corrections part of the process.

So recommendation 10, when we did our interviews, we interviewed a lot of city staff and we asked them, how do you do your work?

How do you review permit applications?

How do you determine what to work on each day?

And what we found is that there were some inconsistencies among staff in how they issue corrections.

What levels or what rises to the level of an official correction versus what's like a phone call to a customer.

So we are recommending more consistency here so that customers kind of know what to expect citywide.

And then recommendation 11, you know, SDCI has some internal guidelines as to, for employees on what's a good correction, you know, how to make sure that their corrections are quality, necessary, reference the code, clear.

you know, when we interviewed supervisors, we learned that supervisors are not consistently evaluating the corrections issued by their staff.

It's one of those things where it provides value, but as people understandably get busy, it's one of those things that might fall lower in the priority list.

So we're asking SDCI to find a consistent, sustainable way that they can evaluate corrections in the future.

And this again involves other departments to, you know, making sure that they're applying this as consistently as possible so that they're not doing something different than what SDCI is doing with corrections.

Exactly.

Well, thank you team.

And thank you for running through those recommendations.

Director Torgalson, do you want me to put up any slides?

I'm going to stop sharing slides and council member Peterson, is it all right if we let director Torgalson make a couple of comments and then I'll call on you?

Thank you.

Director Torgalski.

Hey, good morning.

Good morning, council members and auditor's office staff.

I just want to thank council member Strauss and the auditor's office for going through this process.

We take this work very seriously.

Council member Strauss and the auditor's office have been a great partner throughout this process and have kept us very much in the communication loop.

So we really appreciate that again, Apologize for not being there in person.

I'm off-site at a mayor's cabinet retreat.

So I just want to talk a little bit about SDCI's purpose statement, and that's helping people build a safe, livable, and inclusive Seattle.

And we ground our work every day in equity, quality, integrity, and service.

When I first became department director, we went through a department wide exercise to ground these values.

It's something that I take really seriously and I'm here every day trying to make our department better.

So again, I appreciate this examination of how we do permitting.

We have already implemented some of the recommendations that are in the report.

We have put our plan prioritization guidelines on our publicly facing website.

Uh, just as an example, we prioritize all a hundred percent affordable housing permits.

That's a huge priority for us.

Um, there are also key council, uh, and, uh, mayor priorities, uh, that are very important, um, in our permitting process.

Climate pledge arena, for example, um, was a huge priority for all our elected officials.

Um, we have also reexamined which city employees need to fill out our financial interest statement.

Um, and we now have a process to double check that all the applicable employees are filling out that form.

And we are also working on metrics to track the overall permitting timelines.

Um, not just to focus on how long that first correction process takes, um, but for us to get a complete idea where changes should be made.

throughout the process.

So we look forward to working with the mayor's office to address other key items that are identified in the audit and always looking for ways to improve our customer experience.

Consistency in correction letters was cited in the presentation from the auditor.

That's a huge issue for our customers.

We are working with our change team on a racial equity toolkit focused on specific areas of the permitting process.

That's really important.

In December, we'll be opening a kiosk on the fourth floor of the Seattle Municipal Tower that will be co-staffed by SDCI and SDOT street use.

That's for people who lack computer skills or otherwise are uncomfortable navigating our virtual coaching or online tools.

That's super important for members of the public.

We are currently working on a new customer care team that will funnel all customer questions.

One of the challenges is the permitting process is very complicated.

A lot of members of the public, whether they're getting an application for the first time, or just want to understand what's going on in their neighborhood, they have no idea where to start or who to contact.

And that customer care team will be sort of a one-stop shop for all of those folks.

We are working with ethics and elections on specific ethical guidelines unique to SDCI and the permitting process.

I'm in discussion with Wayne Barnett about how we can do that.

We are increasing our required training.

I'm pleased that the ethics training is now available online for staff.

I have previously consulted with ethics and elections on individual scenarios unique to STCI, just to ensure that our ethical practices are being followed.

We will be issuing more specific guidelines and disclosure for STCI employees who may be pursuing permits within the city.

Obviously, we have employees who live in the city and need to get permits.

They may be doing a home remodel.

There's only one place they can get a permit.

And we're also aware that there are some STCI employees who may be developing a triplex in the city on their own initiative, and again, having more specific ethical guidelines for how they go about that process.

I just want to state that we meet with a variety of stakeholders and community groups on a regular basis to discuss a wide variety of issues.

We receive feedback from these groups.

In other cases, we provide resources Last weekend, we had six live virtual lectures for the public on a variety of topics, earthquake preparedness, landslides, how to retrofit your home, renting in Seattle.

And tomorrow, I'm super excited, we're having our annual home fair at the Filipino Community Center in Southeast Seattle.

And this is a great opportunity for us to bring staff to the community and answer a variety of questions for homeowners and renters.

So I just want to conclude by saying again, thanking council member Strauss and the auditor's office.

And we're hard at work on these recommendations.

And again, we take this very seriously.

I look forward to coming back to the committee sometime later this year to report on our progress.

Thank you very much, Director Torgelson.

And again, that was more robust than I was expecting.

I did not realize how much work that you have already accomplished.

I will give you the charge.

Let's get more done before the next committee meeting.

Um, and I also, again, want to acknowledge that you are here representing seven departments in which you are not in control of all of them.

And so wanting to highlight that, uh, council member Peterson, I'm going to pass it over to you for high level comments and questions.

Um, I will note we are trying to wrap up committee in about five minutes or so.

Thank you, Chair, for requesting this report and many thanks to the City Auditor team for this October 18, 2023 performance audit regarding SDCI's construction permitting process.

Similar to the excellent audit on bridges that you completed in 2020, you produced another report proving the benefits of our City Auditor's Office, which is the public May, or may not know is part of the legislative branch of government.

Similar to the US government accountability office.

formally known as the General Accounting Office, the GAO at the federal level.

The City Auditor not only helps us to discover and daylight problems, make recommendations, monitor the various departments, but also finds budget savings for some of your projects.

So I would just wanna highlight that I'll support providing our City Auditor's Office with additional bandwidth as part of our budget process over the next few weeks.

Yesterday, October 19th, the news outlet KUOW highlighted some of the findings and recommendations in the audit.

They have a, we just got this in our news clips this morning, audit alleges nepotism, other ethical problems at Seattle's building department.

So when we have this item returned to our land use committee, The public may want to see more information and specifics, and that could include more about what the audit mentions on pages 9 and 10 regarding access.

And I appreciate the director mentioning some of the work that's already started to address this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I will say that the auditors used, I think, more specific language than that.

Would the auditors team like to respond to that?

You don't have to, I just, or Director Torkelson, given you the opportunity to respond to those words used.

At this time, Council Member Strauss, particularly since you're going to have us come back, you know, we think that comments speak for themselves and we really appreciate Director Torkelson's efforts to, you know, work on implementing the recommendations as soon as possible.

We're really grateful for that.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson, for your steadfast support of our office.

We really appreciate that.

That means a lot to us, so thank you.

Director Torgelson, anything you want to share here?

I know you're already hard at work, and I will also say within recommendation five, the auditors noted leadership's demonstrated commitment to strong ethical values through their directives, attitude and behavior, also known as tone at the top.

Just reading that into the record and for the viewing public, you can read the entire audit on the auditor's website.

Director Torgelson, anything, any last words to share from you?

Again, we need to double down and educate our staff on our plan prioritization matrix and why some permits are prioritized over others and make sure that staff thoroughly understand that.

And that prioritization is now available on our website.

Wonderful.

Well, I look forward to having you and all six other department directors back at the table and just checking colleagues, any other questions?

With that, I want to say thank you, Andrew, Melissa, really great work.

Melissa, I know you were leading this work.

David Jones, always appreciate you.

Director Torgelson, thank you for your prompt responses already.

I was not aware that you were already underway with your responsiveness to this audit and it demonstrates your good leadership.

So more to do and as using your words, we have to double down to make these improvements.

We will have this group back at a future land use meeting.

And with no further items, this does conclude the Friday, October 20th, 2023 land use committee meeting.

The next land use committee meeting is a special meeting on November 29th, 2023 at 2 p.m.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned and budget committee starts in 30 minutes.