Seattle City Council Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy 5/31/23

Thank you very much for joining the Seattle City Council Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy.

This is a committee of the whole.

The date is May 31st and the time is 9.33 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Select Committee on the Housing Levy.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Lewis.

Councilmember Morales.

Here.

Councilmember Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Peterson.

Present.

Councilmember Sawant.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Madam Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Madam Chair, that is six present and three absent.

Thank you very much.

At this time, we are going to go ahead and open up public comment.

We do seek to have public comment at the beginning of every committee meeting, but today is a special day where we have a public hearing this evening starting at 4.30 p.m.

The time to sign up for remote public comment will start at 2.30 p.m.

And if you'd like to join us in chambers, you are welcome to do so.

We do encourage masking and social distancing as we continue to try to follow public health best practices.

So at this point, it does not look like there is anybody signed up for public comment either in the room or online.

And I'll just pause real quick to confirm that with the IT.

There are no online public commenters present.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we're going to go ahead and continue with our agenda for today.

Colleagues, we do have an opportunity for really a robust discussion today, and I want to thank members of central staff for their deliberative work that they've done with every office on the legislative floor and with many of your staff members.

This is a process that also involved deep conversations with the members of the Office of Housing and the Mayor's Office as well, in addition to members of the community who work on housing, both building housing, caring for people in housing, and ensuring that we have affordable housing providers.

So this is an opportunity for us to hear directly from you all, members of the community or community via your council members in terms of what you'd like to see.

And in front of us, we have the introduced legislation, which has had some additional tweaks and enhancements prior to introduction.

So we could get as many of your ideas incorporated as possible before having our legislation in front of us.

Madam Clerk, I'm going to ask you to read items one and two into the record, and then I'll share some additional comments.

And before I do, I just also wanted to note, Council Member Juarez, Council President Juarez is excused for today.

Noted, one and two.

Okay, agenda item number one, Council Bill 120584, an ordinance relating to the low-income housing, requesting that a special election be held concurrent to the November 7, 2023, general election for a briefing and discussion.

And agenda item number two, Resolution 32093, a resolution relating to low-income housing for a briefing and discussion.

Excellent.

So colleagues, today is a milestone in our work together as we seek to put forward a consider a package for the consideration of voters in this fall 2023 November ballot.

Our work together as a committee.

housing levy.

This is our fourth select committee meeting on the 2023 housing levy.

And this is the third meeting in which the select committee will be discussing and considering the proposed 2023 housing levy.

The first meeting really of the public dollar.

We are proud to be a member of the board of directors of the public dollar, smart and efficient stewards of the public dollar.

Today we'll continue these conversations related to the legislation submitted by the executive to the council on March 29th.

Before we introduced it to the legislative branch, we had an The executive provided a full briefing and answered the committee's questions.

A number of questions were offered in the moment in terms of the presenters that we had there, and central staff followed up with more detailed answers after those meetings.

The mayor's proposal was discussed at the April 19th Select Committee meeting, and there was a public hearing as well in April.

Today, again, we have the opportunity to hear directly from members of the community and take additional public comment on the package as introduced, which used the mayor's proposal as the base and includes enhancements from the council because of the feedback that you have received from community members.

At the May 3rd select committee meeting, central staff reviewed the mayor's 2023 housing levy and discussed issues.

What central staff does for members of the viewing public is that they identify issues for council members that they could consider adding or tweaking if we like.

They offer options as nonpartisan staff to help us identify if we would like to consider any additional proposals.

And council members do the same as well for central staff.

We flag items that we would like to see in terms of additional changes to policy or enhancements and we work with central staff to work those into legislation.

Where possible, I have tried to work with many of you over the last several weeks in partnership with central staff and we have created a substitute bill that incorporates many of those ideas that came from council members and members of the community It affirms the size and the scope of the mayor's proposed housing levy and reflects those councilmember priorities because of the feedback that we've also received from the community.

Remember, this is a very long stakeholder process that involved almost a, I was going to say a year, but a long time worth of engagement with the technical advisory committee members.

I want to thank the technical advisory committee members, the members of the public who have provided feedback in the last two and a half months here, and all of my council colleagues who have provided feedback on this package.

We have incorporated many of those ideas in partnership with central staff, and so we'll go through those amendments with you all right here, and you'll be able to see your names associated to those various amendments as well.

This 2023 housing levy was formally introduced in yesterday's full council meeting.

It was part of our introduction and referral list so that we could discuss it here today and also in the first meeting in June.

Wednesday, June 7th will be our next committee meeting after this.

And my hope is that after discussion here today, colleagues, and on June 7th, we will be ready to move forward with voting on those amendments.

So today is really just a discussion of the proposal and any additional amendments that council colleagues may want to bring forward.

Central staff today will provide a review of the financial plan for the 2023 housing levy.

They will identify key provisions that were included in the housing levy ordinance and the companion resolution as transmitted by the executive and they will lift up where the council, the legislative branch has added or layered on additional policy ideas or directives.

we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

Our central staff colleagues, Tracy and Jen will walk us through the specific Councilmember proposals that are included in the introduced legislation.

In addition, Council Central staff will describe the Councilmember proposed amendments, and I will then ask the Councilmember who is sponsoring the concept, even if it's included in the base legislation, to feel free to comment on any of those items if they'd like.

As we prepare to dive into the presentation, I want to highlight a few aspects of the legislation as introduced.

After learning about the mayor's proposal over the last several committee meetings and having had a chance to deliberate and discuss the proposal as a committee and have conversations with stakeholders and the broader community, the legislation has introduced affirms and maintains a bold investment into the health and resilience of our community.

The program areas and investment levels included from capital investments and needed operation and maintenance dollars to expanded available permitted supportive housing to workforce stabilization efforts and to homeless prevention investments that help families stay in their homes.

All of these investments were in the base legislation and we have reaffirmed the importance by adding a few additional tweaks to make sure that we are helping thousands of individuals and families achieve housing stability in the 2023 housing levy.

In the legislation as introduced yesterday, we have now included additional strategies to ensure that we are meeting the moment, the need that we see in community.

When we see the shortage of housing in Seattle between 2011 and 2019, we know that we have numbers to point back to for every 2.6 jobs that were created.

only one unit of housing was built.

This has led to escalating housing costs, with about a 45 percent increase in rents over the last decade-plus.

Our housing crisis is having a disproportionate impact on low-income and BIPOC households who are experiencing greater rates of housing instability and homelessness.

The King County Growth Management Planning Council projects that Seattle needs approximately 112,000 new homes by the year 2044. And the greatest housing need is at the lowest end of the income spectrum.

Seattle needs about 30,000 new homes, new affordable homes, to make sure that those who have about a 50% area median income or below have a place to call home.

I just want to put a human face on some of those statistics.

And I'm just reiterating some of the pieces that we've heard over the last two months to talk about how this package is so meaningful and aims to address the statistics that we've heard.

But let's put a face to some of those stats.

At 50% area median income, these are retail workers.

They're human service providers, childcare providers, art teachers, baristas, food service workers, seniors.

They're also folks who are just starting their careers in the building trades who are beginning to get their feet underneath them as they start off on their career.

These are our neighbors.

These are workers who make up the fabric of the city.

And often, this is the workforce that we have talked about over the last few years as not having enough workers in our region to fill urgent frontline needs.

When we create more housing, we create more economic opportunity.

We create more opportunity for small businesses and sectors to have workers and to make sure that workers can afford to live in this area and stay in this area and grow their family.

This is about making sure that our neighbors are not getting priced out, making sure that folks who have also experienced housing discrimination currently and in the past are not also experiencing greater displacement or falling into homelessness due to lack of affordable housing options in Seattle.

We also see tremendous need among the most vulnerable neighbors who often experience homelessness and deal with the shadow pandemic.

And these workers also are some of the workforce that make up our permanent supportive housing workforce.

If we don't invest in those workers, we will never be able to accomplish the housing stability that I know we all so desperately want to see accomplished in our region.

Currently, a permanent supportive housing front desk staff person cannot afford the average one-bedroom apartment in Seattle.

So this not only creates a workforce equity issue, it also creates challenges in recruiting and retaining the staff needed to stand up new permanent supportive housing buildings to house our most vulnerable, our seniors, our kiddos, and those who need additional assistance.

This is the data and that's the human face behind who we are trying to serve in this moment to expand our investments and to make sure that we're investing in deeply affordable and permanent supportive housing to address homelessness and ensure more of our neighbors do not fall into housing instability due to the rising cost of housing in Seattle.

We can accomplish addressing that goal by building more housing options, by building more affordable housing options.

And this legislation, as introduced yesterday, includes the council member priorities, builds on the robust proposal that came from the mayor's office, incorporates those ideas that we heard from the technical advisory committee, and the broader community overall who is excited about having the council consider this legislation this summer.

I'm excited, colleagues, to turn it over to central staff now to ensure that we can walk through your ideas that got incorporated and also any additional questions that you have in the base legislation.

And we will hear how the proposal as introduced strengthens our focus on serving communities at most at risk of displacement.

creates greater support for community-based affordable housing developments that are rooted in and serving communities most at risk of displacement, and incorporates things like small business support, child care space, community and cultural space, and more.

And this resolution and the legislation in front of us formalize our commitment to expanding successful acquisition investments that we've made as a city over the last several years.

I am thrilled that we have this package in front of us, and I want to thank all of you again for the work that you've done with central staff, for your staff's support, for giving ideas to our office so we can incorporate those.

And where we have not included some of those amendments, you will still get a chance to talk about those council colleagues if you decide that you want to bring forward a separate amendment.

I also want to thank Erin House who has been working on housing and land use and homeless services in our office over now going into five years, but this is really a moment of excitement for our office, and especially I want to thank Erin House for her tremendous work on this.

So, with that, thank you again to Jennifer Labreck and Tracy Ratzkliff for being here with us and leading us through the two pieces of legislation in front of us, one resolution and one ordinance.

Pausing?

Any additional comments?

No.

We covered it all.

That was robust.

All right.

Let's go ahead, Central Staff.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Council members, Tracy Rastaf, Council Central staff, joined by my able colleague, Jen Lebrecht.

Council member, thank you, Mosqueda.

You went through a very good summary of what we're going to cover today.

So I think we're going to move right to slide two, where we will talk about the proposed funding plan for the 2023 proposed housing levy measure.

Council member, just to remind you, everything that we will cover today in committee is included in the memo that was emailed to your offices on Thursday, the 25th of May.

That memo is also attached to today's agenda for the public's information and for your convenience if you want to refer to it.

So again, just looking at the overall spending plan proposed for the 2023 housing levy measure, it is a 970 million seven-year levy that will allocate approximately $138 million on an annual basis.

The levy is expected to support the development of over 3,100 new units, including new rental units, as well as new home ownership units.

This 3100 does not, a number does not include the O&M and S outcomes nor the homelessness prevention, eviction prevention and resident services outcomes because those are programmatic outcomes not tied to actually creating new housing units.

So that 3158 unit count is really about the rental production program and the new home buyer units that would be produced with the levy measure.

Again, as we can see, the largest allocation is the rental production and preservation program at $631 million over seven years or approximately $90 million a year that will produce over 2800 new low income rental units serving households at or below 60% of median income.

The operating maintenance and services support funding would receive $88 million over seven years or approximately $12.6 million on an annual basis.

This is expected to provide the operating and services support for 510 of the over 1,000 permanent supportive housing units that we expect to be developed with the levy rental production program.

This levy funding will be matched with vouchers provided by the Seattle Housing Authority, as well as federal, state, and local services support and operating support, and then additional $110 million of jumpstart funding that will be provided over seven years to match the O&M and S funding there.

The preservation program that is part of the rental production and preservation program is funded at $76 million over seven years or nearly up $11 million on an annual basis.

And this will support the rehabilitation of 635 existing city funded units that are in need of upgrades.

The new home buyer assistance program would receive over $49 million over seven years or just over 7 million a year to support 277 households purchase their first new homes.

The new workforce stabilization program is funded at $34 million over seven years or nearly $4.9 million a year that will support staff and services at the city's existing permanent supportive housing projects.

Levy funding will be paired with jumpstart funding of $171 million over seven years to provide support necessary for the over 3,900 permanent supportive housing units in the city's portfolio.

The homelessness prevention, eviction prevention and resident services programs would receive $30 million over seven years or an estimated $1.42 million per program per year.

The jumpstart funding will provide an additional $14 million over seven years or approximately $2 million per year years for the specific resident services program.

And then finally, the Acquisition and Opportunity Loan Program that provides short-term funding for short-term loans actually can expand up to $30 million.

That $30 million is not a separate allocation to that program.

It actually uses funding from the O&M&S program that is not needed in the short term.

to make short term loans that are then repaid and then those funds go back to support the ongoing support of those on M&S services programs, which are again we when we are funding that on M&S we are we are funding it that $88 million for a 20 year commitment.

Any questions about this information Council members.

Yeah, it sounds like we have one question.

And then I'll come back to a comment on the Seattle Housing Authority.

Please go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

So a couple of these numbers are different than the proposal that I've seen before in the presentation that was provided on April 19th.

So the rental production and preservation program, I thought it was gonna be, and it's listed as 707 million, and this number is different.

Council Member, just real quick, I wanna make sure that people can hear you.

Can you hear Council Member Nelson okay on the screen?

Okay, can you pull your mic just a little closer?

Some of these amounts have changed since versions we've seen before, and so I'm just asking why are they different?

Council Member, if you add the new rental production program funding of $631 million with the rental production preservation program, that gets you to the $707 million.

We split it out to show what is for the new rental production and what's for preservation.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you so much and thank you to central staff for highlighting the investments made possible with jumpstart funding being braided together.

I think that's a really good story to tell, especially as many of us have talked about the desire to see additional 3 and 4 bedroom units is made possible at a higher level because we're braiding funding with jumpstart.

And I know that the number of individuals that we will be able to hire and retain within our community partner organizations that provide permanent supportive housing support, that number is also able to be elevated because of the partnership with Jumpstart or the braided funding with Jumpstart.

And in terms of partners, I wanted to just say thank you to Rod who, Rod Brandon, who is our director of the Seattle Housing Authority and the work that they have done to offer housing vouchers.

I believe that they initially were offering 300 vouchers and then came back and said that they could offer 400. And so our Seattle Housing Authority is often a partner who doesn't get a lot of fame and credit for their work.

But at the national level, it seems like everyone was noting how well Seattle was doing with our housing voucher program.

And really, it is the masterminds and the community connected personnel at Seattle Housing Authority, led by Rod Brandon, who is helping to put us on the national map for how well we're doing.

with getting those vouchers out.

So thanks to them for their partnership in this housing levy and for the work that they do on a daily basis as a partner to the City of Seattle, not directly under our departments.

Anything else on those items?

We can go right let's moving to slide number three, and to a summary of the levy ordinance Council Bill 12584, as it was transmitted by the executive, these are the key provisions that were included in that ordinance at at transmittal obviously authorizes the middle to the voters at the November 7 election.

of the $970 million seven-year property tax levy.

It exempts from the levy tax seniors, veterans with disabilities or other persons who qualify for the property tax exemption that's provided under state law.

It requires submittal of a levy administration and financial plan to the city council for approval every two years and describes the policies that are to be included in those plans.

It establishes a 13-member levy oversight committee and the oversight responsibility for that committee.

It requires the Office of Housing to submit an annual progress report on the implementation of the housing levy.

And then finally, it describes the programs to be funded by the levy revenues, and that's included in Attachment A. Moving to slide number four, and a summary of the resolution 32093 as transmitted, it requires OH to develop and submit the very first levy ANF plan to the city council in the second quarter of 2024. And it also requests OH to include the following specific policies in the ANF plan.

Language that would encourage the geographic distribution of levy funded units throughout the city.

to include language to collaborate with community partners and affordable housing developers to explore new housing investments that can support broader community development goals, language that would encourage OH to work with permanent supportive housing providers on implementation of the new PSH Workforce Stabilization Program, and finally includes provisions related to the Community Workforce Agreements and OH-funded rental projects.

Any questions about these two pieces of legislation as transmitted?

If not, we will move on to slide five to discuss the levy legislation and changes made to the legislation at introduction.

Okay, well, just real quick.

Thanks again.

I want to thank our team at the mayor's office and all of the hard work that went into the legislation as transmitted.

So many conversations were had with members of the community, whether they're housing, affordable housing providers or workforce personnel within permanent supportive housing.

people who have been in communities at highest risk of displacement, and also members of our business community who have had many conversations and been part of the Technical Advisory Committee to help put forward the legislation as transmitted.

So a huge thank you to the Mayor's team, Mayor Bruce Harreld himself, for really the collaborative effort that they had initiated with our office as well, and the deep community stakeholdering that they engaged in before this legislation was transmitted.

There, I think, are relatively few, if any, policy tweaks.

It's really enhancements to underlying policies.

So there's a lot of really great and solid work that went into the foundation that we received.

And the comments that we'll go through, the amendments that we'll go through today, are just that.

You'll see where we're making enhancements and underscoring various policy strategies, but the real hard work and the Deliberative community stakeholdering process was very well run by Bruce Harold's administration so thank you very much Mayor Harold and to the team for transmitting the legislation and we are proud to be partners with you in the legislation that was introduced and really thank Office of Housing for their ongoing feedback along with the mayor's office on these amendments that we have in front of us.

So that'll give us a chance to build on and enhance the foundation that we received, but didn't want to go forward to the other slides without, again, saying thanks to all of that hard work.

And central staff, you were part of many of those discussions over the last year plus.

So thanks to your collaborative efforts as well to get us to a place where we had legislation to celebrate as transmitted.

And I think really final touches as we all knew we would do as part of the legislative branch for final passage here today.

But thank you so much to the team that transmitted this.

And I should note that attachment B to Ordinance 12584 actually includes a catalog of the very robust community engagement that OH and the executive went through over the last year.

So it's actually interesting to take a look through that document and see how much they really covered.

Can you explain that just a little bit more?

It's attachment B to Ordinance 12584. It actually documents all of the meetings that the Office of Housing had over the previous year to, in fact, engage various stakeholders in soliciting information that served to support the levy proposal that they brought forth.

So they've included it as an attachment to the ordinance just to document that very robust community engagement.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So now moving to the one amendment that was included in Council Bill 12584. It was an amendment made to attachment, a, and it amended the language that describes administrative funding to include holding costs and pre development costs for land in the city's possession.

that would then provide the legal authority to expand administrative funding for such costs.

This was an issue that central staff identified at the May 3rd committee meeting as an issue to be addressed.

The change is shown in exhibit A, which is attached to the central staff memo, shows that specific amendment that's included in attachment A.

And it now addresses that concern that we had about authority to expand administrative funds for this purpose.

That is the one and only amendment that is being proposed to the council bill.

Otherwise it is remaining as it was transmitted.

And if there are no questions about that proposed change, we'll move on to Ben, who will walk you through the changes that were made to the companion resolution as introduced and then other proposed amendments by council members.

Okay, let's go back a slide real quick.

I wanna thank central staff for your work to identify this as an option and for your analysis of what would be possible here.

I think that that really frees us up for some good conversations to come here.

Council Member Nelson.

Yeah, can you please remind me how much of an overspend we're talking about?

Is that listed someplace?

An underspend, I mean.

This doesn't have anything to do with underspend of administrative costs.

I think you might be referencing what will come up in terms of one of the proposed amendments included in the resolution that talks about having OH provide during each budget, what their proposed expenditures to revenues will be for administrative funding.

Okay, hold that question then.

Yeah, thanks for that clarification.

And that question helped to clarify.

That just provides clarification that the holding costs and pre-development costs for land that the city is holding in anticipation of affordable housing development, that can be used, can be supported with administrative funds.

That's correct.

That is really a technical legal change.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Hold hand, I think, over there so we can go ahead.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you, Tracy, and good morning, council members.

So I will now walk you through 14 amendments that were incorporated into Resolution 32093 prior to introduction, with the exception of one amendment, which I will note when we get to it.

All of these amendments were presented and discussed at the last committee meeting on May 3rd.

I will walk through the amendments on each slide and then stop at the end of each slide for any questions or comments.

Each slide will show who the prime sponsor of the amendment is and the co-sponsor if there is one, although for the sake of expediency, I won't mention the sponsor for each amendment.

So, starting with the amendments, for the first one listed here, you'll recall that one of the issues identified by central staff on May 3rd was that the executive's proposal did not include about $25 million of interest earnings that would be generated by the Rental Production and Preservation Program, or RPP program for short.

This amendment authorizes the use of such interest earnings for pre-development costs incurred by small community-based organizations.

If there are more interest earnings than are needed for this particular purpose, Those earnings could be used, those additional earnings could be used for the RPP program or other levy programs.

The other amendment listed here requests that OH provide information on levy expenditures as part of the annual budget process with the intent that if there were surplus funds, they could be redirected to other levy programs.

So I will pause here now for any questions or comments.

Great, well, I will just speak to this very briefly.

I am thankful for central staff's work on this amendment.

I'm excited about this addition.

I think this is going to help smaller community-based organizations get their projects off the ground.

We often hear about the initial cost being prohibitive, so here is the idea that's coming directly from community organizations, community organizations that have been part of our community housing roundtable that we tried to meet with about quarterly every year.

They talk a lot about how for larger affordable housing developers, it's possible to absorb these upfront pre-development costs within their budget.

But for these smaller new to the efforts developers who are stepping into the arena of building affordable housing to reflect the needs of their communities, think about Filipino Community Center, think about El Centro de la Raza when they initiated this about That must have been 7, 8 years ago.

This they are in the process of still finding and applying for and securing pre development funds from a 3rd party.

And often that can take a significant amount of time.

And when you add time to the process, it adds money.

So this amendment would enable the office of housing to use administrative funds to support pre development costs for smaller community based projects.

And this builds on the work that we included, I think, two years ago now in Jumpstart to ensure that there was a community self-determination fund, similar concept that helps support anti-displacement community building projects and allow for some of those smaller affordable housing developers who are rooted in communities to have some of those upfront costs early.

Questions?

Okay, I'm not seeing any questions.

I just have a brief.

Yes, please go ahead.

In the past, before this program, and I do recognize that funds are needed to help for those purposes, but in the past, what have the interest earnings been used for?

In the past, so in the 2016 levy, OH had the option of using up to $250,000 each year for homelessness prevention, and then the remaining interest earnings would go toward the Rental Preservation and Production Program.

I think there were two out of the seven years that they did choose to move that $250,000 into homelessness prevention, and then for the remaining years, they just used all of the interest earnings for the RRP program, or the RPP program.

And Council Member Nelson, I think that this amendment is getting at your question about the underspend and to be more direct in terms of your response.

As it relates to levy administrative funding underspend for the 2016 levy, at the end of the, in this last year of the levy, they have about $2.5 million of administrative funding that has not yet been expended.

They are holding that in the event that there is something that happens that's not favorable in terms of the levy ballot measure.

So because there would be some responsibility for a covering of cost if that unfortunate situation arose.

If in fact the measure goes forward, they have planned uses for that, those expenditures either to go to capital or to some other administrative costs that would be eligible underneath the levy.

So to answer that first question about what the history has been in terms of underspending, What we know for the 2016 levy is that there's approximately $2.5 million that has accrued at this point.

And that has been somewhat intentional to hold off in the event of unexpected situation at the ballot box.

Great.

OK, let's keep going.

All right, so on this slide.

all the amendments that are listed request that OH add language to the levy administrative and financial plan which will be submitted by the executive.

Jennifer just real quick sorry did in the previous slide did you cover that second box okay yep thank you technical amendment got it okay I'm with you all right um

All right, so all the amendments listed on this slide will be incorporated into the administrative and financial plan, which will be submitted, as Tracy mentioned, by the executive to council by mid-2024.

And I'm just going to ask you to pause after each of the rows so that the council members can speak to each of the items that they want to.

Will do.

So the first amendment listed here requests that OH establish priorities that will include although not be limited to project sponsors grounded in BIPOC communities, and that will encourage the creation of family-sized units.

And my apologies, there is a central staff error here.

Council Member Mosqueda should be the only sponsor listed.

But I'm sure Council Member Herbold is.

I am supportive.

But that is true.

That is not one of the ones that we are co-sponsors on.

There are a number of those.

Okay, great.

So that'll be our process going forward, folks.

We'll pause after each one so people can make a comment if they want to.

I spoke a little bit about this in my comments just a minute ago, but very excited about the opportunity for us to use the rental production and preservation efforts to try to make sure that we are prioritizing investments in communities that have experienced the highest rates of displacement, and also making sure that we are building the housing sizes needed to serve our community, our diverse community.

When we talk about housing levy priorities with community partners, one of the things that they talk about often is the need for more family size units.

And for folks who hear us talk about family size units, it is two and three and four bedrooms.

But also if you think about what family means, often a nuclear family is bigger than just the parents and if there's any dependents.

A family could be grandparents as caregivers.

It could be aunts and uncles all living under one roof.

That's a sense of community for many folks.

And making sure that there's the opportunity for multigenerational households can also be creating a sense of well-being and caregiver opportunities.

And it allows for more people to have that sense of place as they also have a place to call home.

So it's exciting to think about how we are gonna be able to build more support for this multigenerational housing.

And also how this can help support the commitments that the city has already made through jumpstart to ensure that we're building larger family size units.

I mentioned this at the beginning of our presentation here today.

This amendment is intended to braid funding and encourage partnership with the jumpstart funding and request that office of housing, explore ways to incentivize the creation.

of these more larger size family size units and at the same time this amendment directs office of housing to create a codified goal of supporting projects rooted in and serving communities most at risk of displacement who are often BIPOC communities and low-wage workers and have just experienced disproportionate impacts of previous discriminatory lending policies and housing policies that have resulted in more people experiencing eviction because they don't have the ability to own their own homes.

So looking forward to helping to undo some of those historic wrongs and also respond to the moment by providing additional family size units.

All right, let's go to the next one.

I have a question about- Oh, please go ahead.

I'm sorry, I didn't see that hand.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Does the encouraging the development of family size units impact the number of units or do we know if that will reduce the number of units that could be produced or that is planned to be produced by this program?

I appreciate the intent and I'm just wondering if there's been any analysis about the end result.

for number of units or number of houses.

Tracy, do you want to take that one?

Okay.

Council Member, I think the language here is encouraged, and it also includes some language that says that we will look at things like using city-owned land and publicly-owned land that perhaps we got at a discount.

as well as other incentives or ways to try to address what you have correctly identified as a higher cost when it gets into the four plus bedroom unit sizes of apartments.

So the encouragement will be to look at these other ways to try to bring down the overall cost to those units.

I should also add that both the rental production program modeling that has been done for the levy, as well as the home ownership program, both envision and creating and then the home ownership program for bedroom units.

So some are already encouraged and built into the model for the levy in terms of creating family sized units.

I do know that there's an interest in doing more.

And again, the idea is for the Office of Housing to work with developers to try to economize or find ways to bring down that cost so that more of those units can be done and production goals can be met for the levy.

I think that that transitions nicely to the next one if we want to go to the next.

So the next amendment listed here, the next two amendments both relate to the homeownership program.

The first of the homeownership amendments also encourages the development of family sized units and like the language for rental also encourages use of publicly owned or surplus property in order to be able to reduce the cost impacts of creating family sized units.

thanks and you trailed off just a little bit at the end.

But one of the important points was that when we build on city owned or previously city owned property, especially surplus prosperity, it can reduce the overall cost of construction by 10 to 15% if my memory serves me correct.

So as we put this priority into place and encourage the creation of more family sized units, we also want to make sure that there's the opportunity for first time home ownership options.

A really great example of this was up And just north of Ballard Councilor Strauss, let me know if I'm talking about your district or not, but on a Seattle City light own parcel where Habitat for Humanity created first time home ownership options that had three and four bedroom units there on a previously owned parcel from Seattle City Light that was sitting derelict.

And it's really a great opportunity for us to reduce the cost and also create more first-time home ownership options.

So excited about being able to, again, diversify who can purchase their first-time home and also the ability for more intergenerational housing to be permitted and built across our city.

Copper Pines at 28th and 80th, right there.

That's right.

We were there celebrating.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Let's go to the next one.

All right, the next one establishes a focus in the homeownership program on those households at risk of displacement or who have traditionally, who have faced barriers to accessing homeownership in the past.

Of course, the homeownership program will continue to be available to households at or below 80% AMI, so this doesn't change.

the income, the income limits but does establish this focus.

Thanks and Council Member Herbold.

Sure.

Thanks so much.

This is, I believe, one that you and I are sponsoring together, Madam Chair.

That's correct.

And the intent is to, as was described, target home ownership investments in the levy towards folks who are at highest risk of displacement and those impacted by previous city discriminatory practices.

A similar language, or maybe exactly the same, is used for jumpstart homeownership investments.

And this amendment is intended to just really emphasize how important it is to help households build family wealth that city policies have historically locked them out of in previous generations.

Excellent.

Well, thank you for bringing this forward.

And I really appreciate being a co-sponsor on it and love that it builds off that previous language that we got into Jump Start as well.

I'm not seeing any additional hands.

Thanks, Council Member Herbold.

Let's go to the next one.

All right.

So the next two amendments provide greater specificity to language that was included in the version of the resolution transmitted by the executive.

So, the executive's version of the resolution did state that OH would explore integrating broader community development goals into projects.

This amendment provides greater specificity by listing examples of broader community development goals, such as childcare, health services, an affordable commercial space, This amendment also encourages OH to work with other city departments like the Department of Early Learning or the Office of Economic Development on creating and financing such mixed use projects.

Excellent.

Oh, excuse me.

I'm going to let Council Member Herbold describe any additional comments there and then I'll turn it to Council Member Morales.

I think staff covered it well.

I understand that Council Member Morales has some additional language and just wanted to state before you turn it over to her, it's language that if it's offered today or if we're waiting to do it formally later, I'm aware of it and it is definitely friendly amendment line.

Okay, great.

Yeah, I think that this is the perfect time to have that conversation and then we can work with central staff for any tweaks that need to be suggested to the to the substitute bill as introduced yesterday and then it will be nice and clean and all the council members will be able to see it prior to the 7th and we'll be able to take a vote then.

Please, Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you Councilmember Herbold, we have been talking about this so I appreciate the support, and do want to thank both of you for raising this need for access for proximity to services in OH funded projects.

This is something that I talk about a lot and something that I'm really firmly committed to.

I think it's important that all residents, especially working families, have the same level of access to goods and services to high quality services that meet their needs, and that are in close proximity that they're able to get to.

without having to get into a car, hopefully, from a home that they can afford.

So if I can spend just a couple of minutes, Chair, talking about what I'm proposing here, that would be great.

Yeah, please do.

Um, so, uh, colleagues know the public knows that my office has been working with a group of stakeholders, including, uh, the American Institute for Architects of Seattle, the Planning Commission, El Centro de la Raza, other community partners, um, to draft an amendment to our current comp plan, uh, that would bring high quality, culturally, economically relevant services within reach of neighbors across Seattle.

Um, this amendment would follow the 15-minute city idea of proximity and community abundance, and specifically it calls for uses necessary to meet residents' everyday needs, such as commercial or non-profit groceries, child care, health services, fresh healthy food merchants, home goods, and cultural anchors, to be allowed in all residential zones and encouraged within a quarter mile of all residents in the city.

Rather than amending the current comp plan, we decided to work with OPCD to incorporate this set of criteria as part of the scoping for the next major update.

And you will see that there are more ambitious alternatives that the department has proposed as a result.

So, you know, cities are doing this across the globe.

C40 cities are following this idea.

to incorporate a similar set of criteria into their land use and housing policies.

And this set of six uses were determined as everyday needs by this cohort of organizations that I've alluded to, including some that are funded by Office of Housing.

So the Planning Commission is supportive of this, OPCD is supportive in looking at the comp plan scoping for next year.

And I really appreciate the opportunity to start incorporating it through all of our city policies here.

So I'd like to propose a change to this amendment to incorporate those six services as a way to create kind of continuity and make sure that we're centering the need and the desire for all folks in our city, including low income and middle income people to have access to everyday services within proximity of a home they can afford.

So that's the proposal and I'm looking forward to working with all of you to include it.

Thank you very much.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Herold.

Anything else from you?

Just a recognition that my interest in this amendment Whereas it's broader than my district.

It is sort of derives from a piece of city owned property in district one.

You've heard me call it the Dumar site.

It's a city light substation.

And the community in that neighborhood has long been interested in partnering with the city for development of that land.

and issuing an RFP, not just for affordable housing, but for some sort of community based public use on the ground floor.

even worked through the mandatory housing affordability legislation and added this land to the legislation specifically for purposes of ensuring that there's greater height and density opportunities at this location.

And that was done, I think back in 2017, and we're still really hoping that we can get that RFP out this year.

Great.

Thank you for bringing that example.

And I really appreciate that this partnership is with you and Council Member Morales is getting crafted and look forward to having central staff work on that language so that we can all have something to look at in advance of the 7th.

I also think that Oh my gosh, if my memory serves me correct, we include similar language to this when we did mandatory housing affordability work years ago where we tried to include more enhancements and incentives for child care, small business areas, community space areas in those efforts as well.

I'm seeing Councilmember Herbold nod.

Long time effort and I love what Councilmember Morales said.

Let's harmonize everywhere we can the goals of including not just units, but creating a sense of place and community.

I have to say it because that's good for social determinants of health.

Yeah, we got it in once a meeting, I swear.

Let's keep going.

All right.

I will now talk about the final amendment for this slide.

Similar to the one above, this tweaks language submitted by the executive.

So the executive's resolution already encouraged geographic distribution of city-funded housing throughout the city.

This amendment adds a focus on areas at high risk of displacement and areas that currently have a lack of affordable housing projects that are currently underserved by affordable housing.

Great Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you just for the history of the levy and advocacy around geographic dispersion of investments.

Just want to name the fact that the last levy resolution also included this goal, but given although there's a lot of good deliverables in the annual reports associated with the last levy.

I think the dispersion goals have not really quite met our hopes and dreams.

We should really be working to make sure that residents that have the greatest risk of displacement stay not just in the city, but in their neighborhoods.

And so by encouraging affordable homes in all of our neighborhoods when we we hear communities saying that we that they want to welcome affordable homes that the city should be a partner in citing them there.

So really this amendment is intended to make sure that all the tools at the levees command Including new development, acquiring land or buildings from the speculative market.

Preserving affordability and existing buildings that we're spreading affordable homes across the city and throughout neighborhoods where they're needed, but not available.

and in neighborhoods where development is occurring and is pushing out families who have lived there for generations.

And so hopefully by expanding on what we mean by geographic dispersion in this particular amendment, we will see some additional movement and success over the next seven years.

Excellent, thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Okay, I think we're ready to move to slide eight.

Right, the amendments listed on this slide are again in the resolution and also are requesting that OH make changes to the levy administrative and financial plan.

The first amendment requests that OH submit a report on the use of resident services funding that was awarded in 2021 to 15 organizations that were non-permanent supportive housing organizations.

and also to develop policies to guide future resident services funding.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

I think, thank you, Jen.

I think you covered the amendment well.

Just want to lift up that the reporting as proposed in this amendment would be required across fund sources and be included annually in the levy report.

and the housing investment report.

We know that the mayor intends to fund this need with additional non-levy fund sources.

I believe the objective is to fund this need to total at least $23 million over the seven-year time period.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thanks for your work on this.

It also reminds me of A really important quote that I heard in our last community housing roundtable, where folks were talking about the affordable housing that they offer and the support of services that are needed inside.

And they said the buildings might look the same on the outside, but the needs of the residents inside these buildings has changed dramatically over the last several years.

So I really appreciate that this.

builds on the work that we did in last year's budget with the statement of legislative intent that I had the ability to co-sponsor with my colleague, requesting the Office of Housing to report to central staff on how providers have spent the initial funding that we were able to make available for non-permanent supportive housing, or otherwise known as resident services, and the longer-term need for the city to really step in, ideally to provide long-term support for resident services.

So appreciate the effort to make sure that this is using that approach and will help inform future amendments to the administration and finance plan.

And that will be up for discussion next year.

So really excited that this helps to address the changing needs within the building, which we've all seen in our general community as well, increased need across the board.

Let's go on to the next one, number two, the middle row on this chart here.

For this amendment, OH is requested to develop reporting and performance measures for workforce stabilization funding that would monitor how well those funds are doing, especially in terms of decreasing staff turnover and vacancies at the organizations receiving the funding.

Excellent.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much for including this in the in the introduced version.

I just don't think I need to add anything in addition, but I'm willing to answer any questions.

Excellent.

Well, thank you.

Thanks for working with us as well.

I think that is it's a good addition.

And in partnership with the Office of Housing and also the Permanent Support of Provider Organizations, I think working to ensure that there is This level of information will help future investments and future policies to support the residents, which is the ultimate goal.

So thank you so much.

Okay, let's keep going.

The last amendment on this slide requests that OH Explore extending the length of time rental assistance could be provided by the Homelessness Prevention Program.

Currently rental assistance is limited to 12 months during a 36 month period of time.

If OH determined that a change was needed, they would make this change in the administrative and financial plan that will be submitted to council next year.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Again, thank you very much for including this and I have no additions.

Okay, great.

I will just add, I think that this is a continuation of an important goal that the council has expressed over the last few years that I've also been here on Seattle City Council.

I think I mentioned a few meetings ago, when I first came, I believe that the timeline was three months and we heard about so many families just cycling back into homelessness or housing instability.

So grateful that that got extended to 12 months.

But as your amendment notes, 12 months can also not be sufficient for many families who are still trying to achieve economic security and housing security.

So looking at how we can extend that to even a 36 month period seems like a very important goal.

and look forward to the future partnership that we could have on this type of effort.

Okay, let's go to slide nine.

On this slide, this set of amendments would request OH to make changes in the housing policies, which apply to all OH funding, including the levy and also Jumpstart mandatory housing affordability fees and also federal funds.

It is anticipated that the executive would transmit housing policies at the same time that they transmit the administrative and financial plan next year.

The first amendment listed here requests or encourages housing providers, requests that OH encourage housing provider participation in the Housing Connector Program.

This is the one amendment that was not discussed at the May 3rd committee meeting.

While a number of OH funded projects already participate in Housing Connector, The intent here is to further increase that level of participation.

Thank you so much.

I know that there's a lot of appreciation on the legislative branch floor here for the Housing Connector program.

And as folks know, the Housing Connector provides support for the community to connect people with available housing in the private market and to work also within our affordable housing portfolio to make sure that we are placing people into housing as quickly and as efficiently as possible, making sure it's housing that meets their need.

So it provides the housing connector provides people with the ability to see a database caseworkers can see this database and providers can match their clients housing needs with available units.

It's also an incentive program that provides various supports, including case management support.

and guaranteed rent to encourage housing providers to participate and in return it removes barriers to accessing housing like credit checks for tenants.

This amendment is at the request Oh, excuse me, this amendment also requests that the office of housing encourage city funded providers to participate in the housing connector program so we're building out this list of available units, and then we also know that we need to do things like reduce other barriers that are preventing people from getting placed into housing units quickly.

There's a lot of miss.

Understanding out there about what the city might require for renters that there is no city requirement that a renter have a government issued form of identification.

And I know that's 1 of the things that we're working on trying to clarify out there.

Any form of identification is is.

Something that would be great to see more wholly absorbed by various renters, but excuse me, landlords, but how we address some of those barriers might be future conversations to have with small landlords and renters and entities like the housing provider.

But to the degree that we can help remove any barriers by creating a comprehensive database, fantastic and doing so in partnership with a trusted organization.

and partner like the Housing Connector makes a lot of sense.

So thanks.

Thanks for your consideration of this amendment.

Any comments?

OK.

Let's go to the next one.

The next amendment listed here requests that OH collect housing vacancy data at least annually, which it is already doing, and then share that data with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

With an eye towards minimizing vacancies, OH is also asked to report to council if they identify any trends or issues, especially following the COVID pandemic, that would warrant additional resources or other types of policy changes.

Excellent, and this is in partnership with Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmember Peterson, do you want to speak to this first?

Thank you.

I'd like to start by thanking you, Chair Mosqueda, for collaborating with my office to include this revision.

This revision to the resolution pertains to residential unit vacancy rates, and it just encourages enhanced data as well as an ongoing cooperation between the city's Office of Housing and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to the extent residential units become available.

enhanced data on residential unit vacancies, and ongoing cooperation with KCRHA can help to get people into all types of city-funded housing faster.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And appreciate the opportunity to work with you on this as well.

I'll just add over the last several years, the impacts of COVID have, I think, complicated some of our efforts to try to make sure that we're getting people into units and turning those around quickly, including maintenance and service staffing challenges.

And there's also longstanding barriers like the one I just talked about before.

identification requirements, income verification, social security number requirements.

Actually, I was just talking to Mary's Place on Friday last week and they were talking about the large number of people who are coming who don't have, you know, birth certificates and things like that as immigrants and refugees and the process and the time and the money that it takes to get some of those documents required for various programs that have federal requirements tied to it.

So we know that there is multiple ways in which the length of time to place someone can be extended.

And our workforce stabilization as resident service investments need to be utilized as fast as possible.

So with this amendment, we're really elevating our desire to make sure that we're addressing some of the staffing and maintenance challenges that have impacted vacancies.

And this amendment asks Office of Housing to review the vacancy data at least annually and to make sure that we're identifying ways that we can improve this and identifying trends so that those vacancies can continue to be addressed with future policies like some of those that I mentioned, whether it's around identification, income verification, additional federally required documents or anything else.

So excited to have this joint effort here in partnership with my colleague.

And I know that there may be additional policy work or funding needed at some point to help address how we expedite this effort.

But overall, I think it's a a multifaceted issue and look forward to having that information more frequently.

Okay, let's go on to the next one.

The next amendment requests that OH establish a formal program to preserve existing city-funded affordable housing projects that are reaching the end of their affordability requirements, so expiring projects, and to try to preserve those projects when and where feasible.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

We know that during the course of the next seven-year levy that there are an estimated 20 buildings with 568 affordable homes that will come to the end of their affordability agreements with the city and the Office of Housing.

What happens to those homes is ultimately the decision of the housing providers who operate them.

Housing providers that are mission focused on affordable housing.

But I think it's really clear that those decisions need to be made in collaboration with the city in promoting the city's interest in preserving the affordability of as many of those buildings as possible and ensuring that the households, 568 households in those buildings are not pushed out into homes that they can't afford or into homelessness.

So the goal here is to request OHA to develop a deliberate program so that every pathway that would keep tenants affordably housed is explored collaboratively.

among the Office of Housing, the provider, and the tenants.

Just want to repeat for the Housing Development Consortium and affordable housing operators, it is understood that this new preserving affordability program will likely not result in 100% of affordable homes being preserved.

And we understand in requesting OH to develop this program that each building and the financial feasibility around maintaining the building must be evaluated individually.

So you know again the goal is to ensure that we have intentionality to the portfolio of these buildings and homes that are nearing the end of their affordability agreements to provide a set menu of service options to help both building operators and tenants and to formally consider whether a set aside of funding could help with the deferred maintenance on these buildings.

Deferred maintenance that sometimes when the affordability sunset is looming, it's sometimes this deferred maintenance that actually the building operators consider the burden and the challenge of addressing this deferred maintenance.

And that sometimes will lead the operator to make the decision to sell the building.

And sometimes those buildings go to the market or are redeveloped into market rate housing.

And so we just want to really make sure that we are limiting the likelihood of this sort of financial calculation when it's possible.

Right.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

I appreciate the spirit of this amendment and also your comments about collaborating with the actual provider because I was talking to Chris persons about even before this amendment was proposed and.

The existing requirements for maintaining the affordability do deprive them of some flexibility that sometimes they need when their properties are in great need of maintenance.

And so sometimes it does make more sense to sell an aging property that would otherwise require costly renovations.

that has to be part of the equation.

And what we have to consider is by formal program, how flexible is it?

Because he does say that more flexibility is better than less flexibility.

And the best people to decide the fate of a property are basically OH and the nonprofit housing provider, because there's value locked in these buildings that could be used for better, housing for existing tenants.

So yeah, I'll just restate.

It is completely understood that a program like this will not result in 100% of affordable housings being preserved and that each case must be evaluated individually.

I'll also say, I think that, well, thank you for bringing this forward.

I think that there's a lot of interest in our office as well in this concept.

And so I don't see my name there, but I think in theory, we very much support it, especially since it's in the introduced package.

And I think to underscore both of your points, if there was a program that's available, if the entity so desired to continue it and help with the maintenance and figure out a strategy for future financing, that could, maybe alleviate the pressure to sell if they didn't want to.

So I think it just gives more options for figuring out what's the best path forward for those entities.

We recognize there's time limits, but as they get to the end of that time limit, if we can help alleviate some of the other factors that they're considering, that may lead them to feel pressure to sell on the private market, that I think ultimately has a public benefit as well.

So creating an additional program to provide additional options is I think the goal here.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, again, part of this amendment is to also formally consider whether or not a set aside of funding so that buildings don't get to the point where they have so much deferred maintenance that building operators need to make that choice.

If we're doing more to support the O&M, the operation and maintenance of buildings on the front end, these decisions become less necessary.

I'm going to turn to Council Member Morales in our hybrid meeting here.

I did not see your hand.

Apologies for that, Council Member Morales.

That's OK.

Thank you.

I just want to point out that we do, in fact, have the beginnings of a program to handle just this kind of situation.

Once our social housing PDA is set up, this is sort of low hanging fruit for that kind of an entity to ensure permanent affordability and starting with existing buildings and preserving what we already have is precisely the reason for that entity.

So they're brand new, but this is a perfect example of the kind of work that they would be able to do to purchase a building and make sure that the tenants don't get pushed out and that the building doesn't flip, but is actually able to stay in permanent affordability.

And just to put a fine point to this council members this is work that oh has been involved in for many, many years this is just putting more specifics into what a formal program would look like, but they've been doing many things in our impact in the middle of doing more work as it relates in particular to the potential of any of these projects being able to be eligible for tenant purchase.

So we have a consultant that's been hired by the office of housing at the request of the council to look at a program that might allow for some of these projects which are actually single family group homes that might be eligible or might be good candidates for transfer to a household for single family home ownership.

So, the Office of Housing is very much involved in this work has been doing more work, even as we speak.

And there is nothing in this language that mandates oh to maintain every one of these buildings for as affordable housing because they understand that you all understand that that is, in fact decision that is best left to the Office of Housing and the actual providers as they assess their own independent financial situations and the resources available.

There is funding underneath the preservation program and the levy program and both jumpstart that could be used to preserve these units to do some of that asset management work that might be needed to help preserve some of those units as well just to remind folks.

Yay, jumpstart.

All right.

Let's go on.

And I was remiss in not mentioning that all of our council members are present.

Council Member Strauss, as you heard from him earlier, and Council Member Lewis are also here.

So everyone is present.

Our council president is not here this week, so she is excused.

But I just want to make sure that I noted that for the record, all of our council members have been with us throughout the meeting.

We are getting close to the end of this slide.

I think we are on the last line on slide nine, Councilmember Herbold.

So please go ahead, Jennifer, Jen.

All right.

OH has also requested to establish a goal for acquisitions in the city's housing funding policies.

This would be a new goal.

There has not been one specific to acquisitions in the past.

It is also requested that priorities for acquisitions include, although not be limited to, areas at high risk of displacement or those currently underserved with affordable housing.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

And I think after my, my comments, we might hear again from Councilman Morales, that there is some alignment with the, the new I'm sorry, a social housing program that the voters recently voted to support.

I do want to name that I think the housing levy should also be really focused on some of the most cost effective ways of adding housing, affordable housing to the existing supply.

I'd really hoped that the Office of Housing would have time in the month or more since we began discussing the housing levy and I signaled my interest in establishing a goal.

I had hoped that the month plus time would allow the Office of Housing and the Mayor's Office to undertake some analysis and modeling and discussion with some of our affordable housing stakeholders to set an actual numeric goal for acquiring a certain number of affordable housing homes by purchasing land, homes, or buildings off of the speculative housing market.

But it has become clear that we will not be able to get that goal in time to include it alongside the other numeric goals for that housing levy.

So I have adjusted this amendment to instead direct Office of Housing to establish a goal for acquisitions across funding sources, not just the housing levy, but also MHA, Mandatory Housing Affordability Program, and Jumpstart to include that goal in the city's housing funding policies.

Really believe strongly that given Increasing construction costs and long periods of time for development that acquisition will emerge as a cost effective tool to increase the number of city funded homes.

We've seen how focusing OH staff time in geographic areas where the desire to acquire property is intentional and focused.

For instance, in District 1 in South Park, the Office of Housing focused their staff time looking at possible buildings and land to purchase.

And so really this, this amendment is really asking that oh explore the need for additional staff or consultants to operationalize future acquisitions, again, this is an amendment that is directed not.

towards goals in this particular housing levy, but to establish a goal for acquisitions across funding sources and to include that goal in future Office of Housing Funding Policies.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

So who would

own the acquired properties and run these services there?

So I understand that you just said that it would use funding across different funding sources, et cetera, but with the properties acquired, they would use in part levy funding perhaps, or would it be the social housing PDA?

You referenced Council Member Morales maybe wanting to say something about this.

So can you clarify a little bit more about who would ultimately own and then administer?

There would still be just like we do currently for projects like this.

This is simply asking that we establish a goal.

But currently when we have projects like this, where there is existing land or an existing building that we are seeking to use city resources to buy, there's an RFP that the Office of Housing issues for interested purchasers.

who agree in exchange for city funds to help buy the properties that they they enter into these affordability agreements so it's it's no different.

The process is not different than building a new building, it's just focused on acquisitions of land.

existing buildings or existing buildings that are already sort of key turn ready to go.

So we'll be buying land and existing buildings and then letting out an RFP to have you shook your head?

Not necessarily.

In some cases, it will be the developer that is buying the land, but that we will be making the resources available for it.

Let me ask Central Staff, would you like to add anything else there from a technical perspective?

Yeah, and I think this could take a couple of different paths, and we have some recent examples of both.

It could be that a nonprofit purchases an existing building, maybe one that's been recently purchased and it's ready to be leased up.

And in that case, OH would be providing the acquisition funding to the nonprofit to be able to purchase and then own and operate that building in the long term.

In another case, like the one that Council Member Herbold mentioned in South Park, the city might purchase land on which a building could be built and then make that land available through an RFP process to select a developer who, again, would, you know, develop and then own and operate that property over the long term.

This does not envision in any way the city being a longtime owner and operator of an affordable housing project.

It will always be through a nonprofit developer, or I should say a development partner who would build it and then own and operate it.

Thank you, Jen.

Okay, thank you so much.

Um, I think we have gotten to the end of all of the amendments that were included in the introduced legislation.

The substitute bill incorporates all of these ideas that came from a vast majority of our council members via feedback from community and some policy ideas that they had percolating from their discussions with residents across Seattle.

So thank you.

for all of that work, our efforts here to streamline this process made possible by central staff in partnership with you and your team.

So really appreciate that we were able to get this many amendments and these concepts into the introduced legislation for our discussion today.

And I believe that there are two additional amendments that are still being considered for possible discussion and will be In front of us on the seventh if the sponsors decide to move forward at that point.

So while they did not make it into this proposal, we still wanted to offer airtime to the council members here today to talk about any additional ideas that they are thinking of that had been submitted to central staff in time for the publication of the.

Um, and then, um, we have a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a.

Early or mid June.

All right.

So if there's no additional comments on that, we will go to the standalone amendments that central staff have teed up.

All right, so the 1st amendment listed here would be an amendment and attachment a of council bill 120584 and is sponsored by council member Nelson.

This change would allow, but not require, OH to use up to $9 million of the rental preservation and production funding to create rental units for households with incomes between 61 to 80% AMI.

The current levy proposal restricts funding for rental housing to households at or below 60% AMI.

But it is good to note that both the 2002 and 2009 levies did allow a portion of funds to be used for households up to 80% AMI.

The usefulness of this amendment to developers, affordable housing developers, will depend in part upon the amount of other leveraged funds their projects have.

If they need higher income units to subsidize project costs, and whether or not units need to average to 60% AMI as is required by the low income housing tax credit program.

Thank you.

And Council Member Nelson, you are the sponsor of this suggested amendment.

Would you like to speak to it since it did not get included in the proposed substitute today?

Sure, I'll emphasize that this is this allows it does not it does not require or create any kind of inflexible use of funding in this levy, but it is simply made language that the Office of Housing is could encourage this use.

So basically, The last two levies have allowed for the use of the rental production component of the housing levy to be used for housing the production of rental units at 60 and up AMI.

And this would simply continue that allowance for the use of this funding because there is a big gap in what the housing levy is paying.

And so I am concerned about helping fill that gap marginally and this is not that much money so but another advantage is that if we include this language, developers might be able to draw on some of the 50 million in transit oriented oriented housing development partnership match funding that was in the state capital budget passed this year, specifically in section 1022 of Senate Bill 5200. That section funds a competitive program that provides matching grants for construction of housing units affordable at up to 80 AMI.

This would allow for the braiding or the leveraging of other funds to meet the needs of our workforce.

Thank you so much.

Well, I'll start with where I think that there is common ground and then explain where I didn't include this and the why, just for the purposes of discussion.

I think that there's a lot of common ground and wanting to see how we can build out more affordable housing across the income spectrum.

That's why I'm I think in partnership with you on some of our previous votes, why we want to see development of airspace and creating opportunities for folks to live in the city and be closer to the places that they work or retire or go to school.

I think the entire income spectrum, we are lacking housing across that entire income spectrum.

I think the reason, colleagues, and this is just for the purpose of your understanding of why I didn't include it in the introduced proposal here, is that the housing levy in my mind really focuses on what the stakeholders and community process has elevated, and that is all of those signs and those early discussions that the mayor's office really chaired pointed towards needing investments at the lowest income levels for the workforce that is at 50 percent AMI and below.

Again, these are folks like baristas and early construction workers, art teachers, restaurant workers, grocery store workers, many of whom are earning 50 percent AMI and below.

We know that this is where there's the greatest need for creating access to housing and affordable housing.

According to the King County Growth Management Plan, their council conversation noted that what we need to see is about 70,000 new affordable homes.

to be able to invest in folks at 80% AMI and below.

That's correct.

But the vast majority of that 70,000 new affordable homes, 71% of that, or 50,000 of those homes, that's where the biggest need is for people making 50% AMI and below.

So I think that my interest here is, of course, supporting and trying to encourage and incentivize where we can to create additional housing across the income spectrum, but specific to this housing levy, really staying focused on building and pushing funding towards where we don't see that investment in the private market, and that is resulting in a shortage of affordable housing.

It's creating downward pressure on the dwindling more affordable units that are available, and when we don't build that housing stock between zero to 50, we're actually causing more pressure and people are falling into homelessness or getting displaced.

I appreciate that the intent here is to create more housing across the income spectrum.

Specific though to the housing levy, I'm going to stay focused on how we create affordable housing at 50 percent and below and prioritizing creating housing for the lowest wage workers and at the lowest end of the income spectrum because that's where I think the data continues to show that the households who are getting squeezed the most need the most assistance from a stimulus effort, if I can, like the housing levy here.

So that's sort of my rationale and just wanted to make sure that I shared a little bit about what we talked about when we met about this amendment as well.

Council Member Nelson.

Yeah, so just to follow up I understand this was a carefully calibrated package that was presented to us, but it was created by the people that will be receiving this funding and so, and it is our duty to to look at whether or not this is that there are gaps in what we're going to be asking our taxpayers to pay and 60% of the rental production is required to, to pay for housing at zero to 30%.

And so that leaves the remainder 40%, I mean it could be.

There is no allocated definite allocation for 30 to 5030 to 60, etc.

So, I recognize that you're saying that the term workforce encompasses a broad swath of our workers in Seattle.

And I just am asking for a recognition that there could be an allowance for the use of this funding from 62 on up, just because that is a need.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

You may have already mentioned this, but as it relates to targeting the proposed housing levy to the households most in need, I just want to flag that the levy and Jumpstart are the only sources of funding for the zero to 30% because MHA does not fund production of zero to 30% AMI.

So it really makes the need to target these dollars really, really important.

I thought that we're already there is I'm sorry, but ninety five million dollars, I was told by central staff is allocated to not within this package, but we are funding the need through other sources and other initiatives.

I didn't say otherwise.

What?

I didn't say otherwise.

I said, as far as funding sources go, Jumpstart and the housing levy are the only funding sources that target its funding to zero to 30% of city dollars.

because MHA, the Mandatory Housing Affordability Program funds are not used for production.

You're talking about funding sources that are allocated specifically for affordable housing, however there are, yes.

Colleagues, I will ask central staff if they do have any additional information to send around to us in the next two weeks, they can feel free to do so.

But thank you, Council Member Nelson for explaining your interest in this amendment.

And you have one more, as I understand it.

Why don't we move to that one?

And you can also talk about your interest in that.

This is amendment number two, that was also not included in the substitute bill that was in front of us to try to incorporate as many amendments as possible.

Council members, oops, excuse me, let me go to central staff first.

This amendment would be in resolution 32093. And Council Member Nelson is also the sponsor.

It requests that OH lower the need for substance-free housing, specifically for people recovering from addictions who need to live in a substance-free environment.

Several nonprofit providers in Seattle do provide this type of housing, but the current supply may not be sufficient.

Okay, thank you.

And Council Member Nelson, I'll turn to you to describe your amendment.

Yeah, so again, this is this is May language.

We all know that that we need to provide people who are pursuing recovery with a substance free environment if they want that.

But we don't know how much need there is.

And this is requesting that OH explore what is that need and I just wanna make sure that this is clear that I am not, this is not intended to undermine our housing first model, certainly not.

This is a separate need and we need to do both.

This is not either or, this is both.

And we have to consider that people who are seeking to maintain the recovery have a place to go for that.

And if there is, concern about this, I would be happy to just simply ask the Office of Housing to explore the need and certainly just drop the second part of this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Appreciate you putting that out there.

And I think it'd be interesting to see what that looks like.

So maybe we have conversation with you about that.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Excuse me.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just wanted to flag that in my role on the King County RHA Governing Board, I've asked for inclusion of exploring whether or not recovery housing should be part of the continuum of spaces that are needed for folks leaving behind Homelessness, the five-year plan, which the governing committee is expected to vote on tomorrow in light of my request, says that King County RHA will be working with the King County Department of Community and Health Services to explore potential future investment in the area of recovery housing.

Just letting you know that that's another separate from your amendment, just letting you know that that is another area where our regional partners are looking to expand investment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

I appreciate also the comment that there's not an interest to try to upend the housing first approach here, which you said as the sponsor.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold for that additional context and keep us updated on how that amendment and discussion goes.

At RHA, thanks for your work on that body as well.

Okay, I think that we are at the end of our amendment discussions.

There might be something else here.

Council members or central staff.

Oh, goodness, Council Member Morales, your tile was just slightly too far over, so I apologize again to you.

Please go ahead, Council Member Morales.

Yeah, just a couple of, well, a comment and a question.

Just regarding Council Member Nelson's proposed amendment here, I am recalling and will remind colleagues that I don't remember if it was the last budget cycle or the one before that.

We did have a request from Chief Seattle Club.

They were very interested and looking for a property that they could develop specifically for their clients who are in recovery and who can't be in low barrier shelter or housing because they are themselves trying to deal with addictions and they need to be in a clean space.

So, so I'm interested just in just in having the information I do think it would be helpful for us as we're looking through this program and any other investments in housing that we're working on to understand who, what kind of needs, our community has.

And then a question just about all of these amendments, maybe not all of them, but many of them are requesting that the Office of Housing collect data or provide some sort of reporting on different elements that we're discussing here.

And I am wondering if we have any sense of the impact on staffing that these will have.

I don't know if That's something that central staff can address now, but I would be interested in, just as we're thinking about implementation of all of this would be interested to know how staffing is impacted by these things.

Thank you, central staff.

So we have shared all these amendments with the executive and they have seemed capable of agreeing to the work that has been set out in these various amendments.

So I believe that they are on board with the ability to provide the required report back, much of which will come along, frankly, with the levy A and F plan proposals and the housing funding policies that will come to us in the second quarter of 2024.

I would also add that much of the reporting that's being requested is really work that OH was already anticipating doing, you know, around workforce stabilization, resident services, vacancies.

So while it does state the intent, I don't think it's a new body of work for OH.

Great.

Thank you both.

Wonderful.

Any additional comments or questions on the process or the amendments?

Okay, I will say some closing comments here about what to expect next.

So, on June 7th, we will have the opportunity to discuss again the substitute bill.

it is going to be presented as a rolled up bill that has all of those amendments that we walked through in detail today.

It then will have, we will then have the opportunity to consider additional amendments if colleagues decide to move forward with them.

Council Member Nelson and I would also say on amendment number two, interested in seeing what else we might be able to discuss over the next two weeks here in alignment with what Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales also have noted here today.

Then if there are any additional amendments that are not part of our substitute bill, we will consider those on the 7th as well.

Then we will vote on the package as a whole.

I'm going to knock on wood with the hopes of getting this housing levy out of our committee by June 7th.

Then ideally, it will be voted on in the following week at full council.

Having all the council members participate in this select committee makes it an informed discussion throughout the last three months.

And we will hopefully be able to have a streamlined conversation at full council.

I want to thank you again for your creative approach to these amendments to working with central staff, and I'll turn it over to central staff to wrap us up and send us on our way.

But I also want to make sure that folks know that we have a public hearing tonight.

So if you're able to join me, I will be here in council chambers at 4.30.

Again, for members of the public, you can start signing up online at 2.30 p.m.

You're also welcome to join us in the chambers.

We encourage public health practices, social distancing and masking, and especially stay home if you don't feel well.

But we will have the full evening dedicated to hearing from members of our community starting at 4.30 p.m.

I believe member.

Yes, Miss Gator, just to get us ready for that Wednesday, June 7th discussion and vote would need to have any new proposed amendments or modified amendments to central staff by noon tomorrow.

And that is in order for us to be able to prepare the agenda and the materials so that the public and council members can be fully informed and ready for that vote on Wednesday, the 7th of June.

So instead of the next week or so, we'll look forward to chatting with my colleagues over the next few hours.

Any additional comments from central staff?

24 hours.

There we go.

Thank you very much.

Any additional comments from my colleagues?

Yes, just one.

I did request an absence from this evening.

I have a longstanding commitment.

So we.

No problem for all of our viewing public.

It will be available online in case anybody wants to watch it later.

So no problem on this afternoon.

Okay.

With that, our next scheduled meeting is June 7th to discuss the chair's proposed modification to the housing levy renewal legislation and potential amendments that will, uh, the combination between the legislation and the resolution make up the 2023 housing levy for the purposes of council to deliberate on and hand off to the voters.

So our next meeting will be on June 7th at 9 30 a.m.

There's no objection.

Our meeting is adjourned.

Meeting's adjourned.

Thanks, everyone.