Land Use Committee 3/8/23

2023 meeting the land use committee will come to order it is 2 PM I'm Dan Strauss chair of the committee will the clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

Present.

Councilmember Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Peterson.

Here.

Chair Morales.

Here.

present five present.

Thank you.

Uh, today's agenda has no items for voting.

We do have two presentations.

Uh, this is a, it turned out to be not intentionally, and I'm kind of glad that it did turn out this way.

Uh, focuses on how gentle density has played a role in our city since we became a city and how, uh, gentle density or sometimes a lack thereof, IE McMansions, uh, play, I think it's important for us to look at how we have shaped our city and how we are going to be looking at our city as we continue to build for the future that we all know is truly possible for us here.

We're going to be looking at.

Building types that currently exist in the city from Marcus Johnson.

And a presentation from Opie from OPCD on 80 you.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will open the hybrid public comment period for items on today's agenda.

Clerk, will you please play the video?

Hello, Seattle.

We are the Emerald City, the City of Flowers and the City of Goodwill, built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

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and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

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Thank you, Seattle.

Thank you.

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

We will take the two folks in chambers first and then folks that are called in online second.

Sarah Jane Siegfried, I see you are signed up, but you are not present.

So you must take, call in the number, not the listen line, but the number provided to you in the RSVP.

I'm going to remind our viewing public that everything must, public comment must be attending to an item on today's agenda.

So either the, non-conforming use or the ADU bill.

And so as we are going to begin, first we have Steve Rubstello.

Steve, always great to see you, welcome.

I don't know if you remember, but during the last big up zone, District 6 was the only one that didn't have a council member that was willing to move to adjust a little bit and save some of the older buildings.

Even the chairman, who was radically for the measure and sponsored it, went to bat with the consul and made a few changes in District 4. District 6 has not had that opportunity.

Many of those buildings, I believe, are gone now.

But as you take a look at older buildings in the district, while not cheap, They are less expensive and saving them, I think is of some importance.

Maybe you'll have fewer people on the street if you quit raising the costs of landlords to the point where it goes to citizens.

Is this an item on today's agenda?

District six, it doesn't say district six talking about non-conforming buildings.

It is.

Older buildings.

Some are probably before zoning.

This is not on topic.

If you don't want to take it off, I can go to your ADUs, which I don't see anything about looking at parking issues, street capacity, even the loss of trees that we've had with building in Seattle.

Uh, I, I don't know if they're going to do it or not, but I just heard recently about some cherry trees that, uh, have been determined to be too old and therefore must be knocked down.

And, uh, I gather there's a little pushback to the idea, but we've got to be on topic.

So you want to stay with it?

Okay.

Trees are part of what is the cost of an ADU?

What are you going to do on on that truck access, what is the pain to the rest of the community for whatever building you're doing?

And ADUs have the advantage of not destroying existing housing.

Thank you, Steve.

Up next is Alex Zimmerman.

Alex, you're forewarned, must be on topic.

Hi, sir, I very appreciate it.

Yeah.

Yeah, Kyle.

My lovely, dirty, damn Nazi pig with flower from animal farm.

My name Alex Zimmerman, yeah, and I'm candidate for ship to the moon.

I stand here with my red sign and my yellow David star.

Maybe somebody can see me in

Mr. Zimmerman, it's channel.

Yeah.

First warning.

You're not on topic.

Yeah.

It must be a topic today.

I ask your, your, your representative and she explained to me.

So professor from a university who make probably $500,000 income per year, you know what this mean?

We'll be speak about housing, what is done, qualify for standard what as we have right now.

I think this is very good because he brings something what is very important in this exactly what's happened.

It's exactly what's happened.

It's exactly what's happened.

Mr. Zimmerman, second warning, you know.

So, so I want to explain to you what is going on.

I think this housing supposed to be all take out because it's very old.

dirty and have probably rats inside, too many rats inside, too many rats inside.

So this is good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He make half million dollars income.

So thousand people will go to street.

It's make population of homeless bigger.

It's good for business.

It's good for Amazon.

They will build- Mr. Zimmerman, this is your third and final warning.

You're not on topic.

They will build a skyscraper.

They will build skyscrapers for a billion dollars, and thousands and thousands of homeless will be on the street and die.

Mr. Zimmerman, you are out of line with the rules of the council.

As a professor from the university, he's talking about making people happy, happy with the Seattle flower.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.

Up next, we have Martha Baskin, followed by David Mooring, then Sandy Shetler, followed by Michael Oxman, Suzanne Grant and Eric Fisk, Sarah Jane Siegfried, you are still not present.

So Martha, welcome.

We're excited to have you.

And so Martha, before you get started, IT, I'm still not allowed in as a panelist on the Zoom, if you could help me out there.

There we go.

Martha, welcome.

Excited to have you with us today.

The pleasure is mine.

Can you hear me?

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah.

So good afternoon, all.

It's been a busy week for regulations and rules that address community and the contours of urban living and evaluation of ADUs, which I'm here to comment about.

Seattle's much-anticipated tree canopy assessment released last week, showing the city had lost a green-like size loss of urban forest.

much of it in neighborhoods already suffering from low tree canopy, and just yesterday, a new draft tree protection ordinance.

Will expanded ground rules for density and increased housing, of which ADUs are a part, reassess the importance of protecting mature trees, so critical for healthy urban living, or continue to turn a blind eye while they're raised to the ground and clear-cut?

In his executive order about the tree ordinance, Mayor Harrell said, quote, trees are essential to our efforts to combat the impacts of climate change and build healthy communities.

We must act now to get back on track toward meeting our tree canopy goals and build the climate for a future we want to see.

Yeah, I'm with you.

The item must be regarding an item on today's agenda.

But it's ADUs.

That's where I'm getting to, an evaluation of ADUs.

And it's very true.

As the good mayor said, trees are amazing feats of nature.

But they are not being protected with ADUs and I support them.

But despite the mayor's executive order, trees continue to be sacrificed.

Is it beyond our capacity to have density and housing?

I don't think so.

What I'm concerned about is that developers are misinterpreting the council's original 2019 legislation and instead spreading primary homes, ADUs and DADUs across a lot.

And this practice is leaving no space to protect existing large trees.

I think that we can have it all.

We certainly can have expanded density and trees with smoke.

Oh, thank you, Martha.

Sorry, clerk, I was going to give her a couple seconds more because I interrupted.

Martha, please feel free to send in any further comments.

Clerk, if I do interrupt, it's okay to give him a couple extra seconds.

David Mooring, welcome, followed by Sandy Shetler, then Michael Oxman.

David, how are you today?

Good morning chair and good morning council members.

I'm here to talk about DADU, the DADU report that was originally due June 30th of 2022. And another one is due in June of 2023. I'm delighted to hear about the more housing production, especially the housing ADU production through this report.

Good for, especially when there's good design being practiced.

But, uh, I did send a 10 page document before the lunch hour to the members of this council, uh, of this committee, um, to go over a few recommendations.

Basically this report, as you might know, was required to be done on a yearly basis so that the city council legislators could monitor the production of ADUs.

And in fact, see if we could achieve what Mayor Durkin had set forth in her executive order 2019-04.

The mayor basically indicated that the City Council is to implement strategies to encourage more accessible dwelling units as affordable, long-term housing choices throughout Seattle's single-family neighborhoods and to study how accessory dwelling units are addressing our housing affordability crisis and impacting our communities.

That is where you need to take a quick look when you get a presentation today, a thorough look at how much is being produced for affordability.

On page three of the report, you'll see that the King County is looking to provide 171,900 dwellings for those at the 50% AMI and under, and just 91,300 for those at 80% AMI and over.

Are we providing that?

You look at the Seattle Times report, and it clearly indicates that the median selling price for the IDUs is $732,000, which is clearly not affordable by most of the city.

Documents also include several examples beyond those in the report.

The document that I sent out, I encourage you to take a look at, that shows the number of units going on.

Thank you, David, your time.

Please feel free to send in any additional comments at your convenience, and happy to chat with you offline as well.

Sandy, Sandy Shetler, followed by Michael Oxman, and then Suzanne Grant.

Sandy, welcome.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you, Dan.

Yeah, hi.

I'm Sandy Shetler, and I'm commenting on ADUs.

Today, the Seattle Times front page tells us that attached ADUs can be identified by their umbilical cord-like connection between the primary structure and the attached ADU.

I've been following these projects and I've seen tunnels, sheds, or even just siding covered 2x4s with dead space inside used as connectors.

While this seems funny at first, the disturbing truth is that this awkward design has caused the removal of countless large trees.

Most of Seattle's trees grow on the lot's periphery.

When new buildings are spread out instead of clustered together the trees have to go as well as any space for planting new ones.

We need trees for community health and we shouldn't be sacrificing them for weird tunnels or places to store patio furniture.

Why would developers spend more on labor and materials to build two entirely separate structures with a false connection that consumes outdoor green space.

Because when it feels separate, the attached ADU can be marketed like a townhome and command a higher price.

Council can fix this with a simple term clarification.

The 2019 legislation defined an attached ADU as being fully within the primary residence.

But SDCI added two words, or attached, when the rules were written.

sprawling townhomes across lots was not the spirit of the original bill.

Council can fix this with a simple term clarification.

Attached ADUs should be truly attached.

This will save trees while providing the exact same size and number of new homes.

Thanks so much for letting me comment.

Thank you, Sandy.

Always nice to hear your voice.

Up next is Michael Oxman, followed by Suzanne Graham, Eric Fisk, and Sarah Jane.

You are still listed as not present, so please do call into the number provided on your RSVP, not the council list in line.

Michael, welcome.

Hello, Seattle City Council.

Here it is, March 8th, 2023, and we're still talking about whether we want to save trees.

Unfortunately, the accessory dwelling unit ordinance is a couple years late.

The tree canopy assessment report was also a couple years late that was introduced this week.

So the question is, can you outlaw backyards?

And the ADU, which is stuck out in the yard, is where the trees are currently located.

These units are, about $700,000 minimum, and that means that a couple trees that are occupying the real estate where these units are going to be located are worth a couple hundred thousand dollars each.

Now, I know that when the Japanese maple tree at City Hall was bought for $37,000 by Mayor Paul Schell right off the floor of the Seattle Flower and Garden Show, $37,000 for a tree was considered excessive.

Well, now I'm saying that these are worth $350,000 for each tree that are being cut down.

So where's reality?

I think that if these units were all required to be affordable, we wouldn't have this problem.

It's an endless spiral of trees being cut down for construction.

There is no chance for replanting any of these trees because the concrete building foundation will be put right where the tree trunk is now, or the roots, or the canopy.

So thanks a lot when you're deliberating this and listening to the report.

Please make sure that all of the attached units are right up against the building, not on a little breezeway stuck out in the yard, because that's gonna eliminate a whole bunch more trees.

See ya.

Thanks, Michael.

Up next is Suzanne Grant, followed by Eric Fisk and Sarah-Jane Siegfried.

You are still listed as not present.

Suzanne, welcome.

Hello, Chairman Strauss.

This is Suzanne and everyone else.

Hello, Alex Peterson, especially.

Glad you're still there.

This is Suzanne Grant, and I'm speaking about agenda item number two.

Yes, the DADU report shows that we need more housing in Seattle.

No, we do not need more unaffordable housing in Seattle.

According to this ADU 2022 report, the prices for the ADUs and DADUs that have been built are mostly occupied by white people and cost at least $700,000 and up to $1.2 million.

So DADUs and ADUs as they are currently being built are not solving the affordability housing crisis.

Also, no one in this recent report in today's Times coverage where density is ever discussed seems to be mentioning the T word at REE spells tree.

According to OSC, the canopy cover in 2021 is down since 2016. Neighborhood residential areas contribute nearly half of city canopy.

The land that underwent development, sometimes due to Dadus and Adus, had the high canopy loss.

This subject is not mentioned in the Adu report.

As Hilary Franz has quoted in the Times today, trees provide the most valuable tools we have to address the challenges climate change poses for everyone.

Now today, Natalie Graham has brought my tree murder song back to life.

You're back on in the newspaper city council.

And today's online stranger in her report about the cherry trees at Pike Place Market.

In determining how much we want to approve or disapprove of datus and adus, I hope you hear that the community has expressed that they care about housing and they care about saving trees.

Some people don't seem to realize how much we need trees.

It's time for you, the upper echelon of city government, to talk about trees when you discuss adus, dadus, and density.

And don't forget that T word at double R, I mean, don't forget that T word at R-double-E spells tree.

Thank you.

Thank you, Suzanne.

Up next is Eric Fisk, followed by Sarah Jane Siegfried.

Sarah Jane, you are not listed as present currently.

Eric, welcome.

Hi.

Yeah, I want to comment on the 2022 ADU report you'll be reviewing.

And it's showing most critically in the review I thought was that only a fifth of the permitted ADUs are actually being rented long term, which means 80% of these ADUs are just being used as workarounds or are being given to family members and so on and so forth to get more floor area space.

So my concern is that we need to do more to encourage ADU conversions inside existing homes and at affordable rent.

I tried to do this in my own home, and I was blocked by DPD and government rules, and I saw a few issues firsthand that I'd love it if you could fix.

First is that current rules prevent conversion of a garage to a housing space, even if the conversion of the garage would create an on-street parking space, so no loss of parking.

We need to allow single-family homes to repurpose their off-street parking spaces to ADUs, provided that the home is not under restriction.

There's currently no incentives or help for creating and renting out an affordable ADU.

You should be waiving the permit fees that are charged if you are creating an ADU in your home and you agree to have it be rented out at an affordable rate.

A lot of homeowners want to help with affordable housing, and currently the government just says that developers need to tear down your home and put in condos, and there's really no pathway for helping homeowners rent out affordable units in their home.

Third, if a homeowner lives on the property that they're planning to rent out, the rules currently are strongly pushing people towards the short-term rental market, and you see this in all the numbers.

And if you enter the short-term rental market as a homeowner, there's no inspections from the city.

There's no rules to follow about who you rent to.

The person you're renting to you know will pay, you know they'll leave when they're supposed to leave.

It's very simple.

Meanwhile, if you try to do a long-term rental, you have to deal with a number of inspections, and complications.

So those are the three biggest things that I hope you guys look at and not just service this legislation for developers, but also try to help affordable housing for homeowners.

Thank you, Eric.

Sarah Jane Siegfried, you are listed as not present currently.

IT, can you please confirm that the public registrant Sarah Jane Siegfried is not present?

Affirmative, there are no further public comment registrants online.

All right, well, seeing as we have no additional speakers remotely present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Agenda item D, item one.

Our first item is a briefing and discussion on informational item 22440. which is a presentation on non-conforming buildings in Seattle.

We're joined by Marcus Johnson.

Marcus approached us last year as he was a student at the University of Washington and a master's degree in urban planning for For his program, he did an analysis of non-conforming buildings, including duplexes, triplexes, quads, small apartment buildings, and commercial storefronts.

Non-conforming uses simply mean a building that was built in a place that the zone does not allow for today.

So another way of saying that is we have neighborhood residential that does not allow for duplexes to be built.

And we have many duplexes across our neighborhood residential zones.

Currently there are duplexes and triplexes across our city because restrictive zoning only became a true reality in the 1980s.

And when Marcus approached me about his work and his urban planning degree, I asked him to present his findings to the land use committee I find it quite because I learned quite a bit actually, Marcus currently works as an urban designer for makers, which is also.

And I guess with that, I'll let Marcus provide a brief background on the zoning restrictions that have occurred.

And Marcus, if you wanna introduce yourself, please feel free to, and then please take us on the tour of these buildings that were once legal to build and are no longer allowed to be built in our communities and absolutely fit the fabric.

I believe that these buildings, and you'll see on this tour, the nature and the fabric of our community so much more than the McMansions that were being built for so long.

But with no further ado, Marcus, please.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, so I am currently a planner and urban designer at Makers Architecture Urban Design.

But I'm kind of coming here, as Council Member Strauss said, to present on an independent study work that I did actually at the University of Washington while I was still in planning school last year.

So with that being said, The title of my story map and work was missing middle housings waiting to help.

And we gave kind of a understanding or early iteration of what non conforming uses are.

And just to give some background on this was independent study.

Rick Moeller was the academic, he's a professor of architecture at the University of Washington and he was the one that was supervising me during this independent study as well.

And because it was an independent study and not like a full capstone, I focused more on a smaller part of the city.

I live in District 6, so that's what kind of helped make that decision a pretty easy thing versus doing the entirety of the city, but the trends follow throughout the entirety of the city.

And so the main point of which we'll be touching on today is really going through the interactive map and showcasing where duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and other nonconforming uses happen within the area, the study area.

That being said, I also wanted to just give a quick brief rundown of some of the historical processes that happened to get to our current zoning.

And so 1923 is when Seattle introduced this first zoning code.

1947, And 1957 is maybe the first.

Actually, right here, if you could stop just because I'm seeing that this is the area that is now the brewery district down in lower Fremont.

And what I'm seeing is that these lots are titled as C and D.

which means that they were rated the lowest value worth lots in our city.

And this really speaks a lot to the work that I'm doing in the brewery district right now to revitalize and make a vibrant neighborhood there because, and this is just demonstrating the historical lack of investment in this area.

But I know we do have a little bit limited time today, and I'd love to see your tour.

Yes, yes, and just wanted to run through all of these and, um, I guess one last thing because I can't because we have limited time and I won't be able to give the greatest rundown of the historic presentation, please when you visit this website later on and kind of go through the story map.

think of these dates, not just as kind of memory points but also think about the context in which these dates are happening right and so 1947 has a very particular location to the end, you know, near the World War Two and kind of just what happening around that time period.

And 1957 is another area where Brown v. Board of Education happened in 1954, three years after that.

So there's definitely some context that links to all of these different things.

So as you asked for, the tour of the study area, this is what the interactive map is going to look like.

You have the legend over here.

You're able to click off whatever you would want to click off.

So if you want to focus on certain things, you can.

And they give the little icons.

as well.

And so we have this study area right here.

And I'm going to start with duplexes.

And we're just going to run through a couple of areas in the city.

And addresses and stuff like that nature.

So as you click on these points, you'll be able to see both an address, you'll be able to see its current zoning, how many units are existing, the year built, and then you'll also be able to click on this link here, which gives you a street view image of said property.

And so here's an example of a duplex.

within that area.

And you can see, this is a good sign right here that you're going to have multiple units, multiple nonconforming units within one area is that you have different areas and you have an address over here and an address over there.

So this is one example of the duplex over here by kind of the Woodland Park area.

Zoo and kind of down in here, you have this duplex as well.

In this area, and you can go and click down here and see both the entrance on this side and the entrance over here on this side.

And again, a telltale sign, you got two utilities.

And Marcus, just to clarify, these are in areas that do not allow duplexes?

I'm sorry, I know I said that at the start, but this...

That is correct.

This looks like just a normal house.

Yes.

Yeah, that's the thing.

They just blend into kind of the neighborhood environment.

They look very much like other houses around it.

And this is...

in a non, this is a nonconforming building based off of the current zoning of this area.

And colleagues also, if you have questions as we're taking this tour, please do jump in.

Here's another example over by Ballard High School.

So you got this two unit duplex right here.

You got one entrance on this side and you have another entrance over here on this side and you got Ballard High School right here.

And so again, kind of just fits in, doesn't stand out or anything like that.

You have this area.

up by 85th or in between 85th and like the Loyal Heights area.

And here is- This is the one that actually, sorry, Marcus, I'm just gonna keep jumping in because my colleagues aren't, so I'm just gonna keep talking to you.

Go ahead.

This is actually what surprised me the most is, you know, I go up to Larson's all the time and I didn't realize that this was a duplex.

Correct.

And the cool thing about this particular example is it's kind of twin duplexes.

So you have a duplex right here, And you got a duplex right here that is just the twin building right next to each other.

And could you take us down the street just a little bit so that we can see and just so my colleagues can see why I was confused about this being a duplex?

Yeah.

So you have this right here.

I can go right down here.

You got garages on the back end.

and then you can see as you go further into the neighborhood, kind of how there's a similar feel, similar structure.

And I see Council Member Morales has a question.

Similar height, yes.

Yeah, thank you.

Marcus, this is great.

Thank you for showing us.

I think it is important for us to see just how well these duplexes are blending in with the surrounding neighborhood.

I think for me, what's interesting is that these are all single story and a lot of what we're seeing now are, you know, taller and bigger and I think that might be part of why people find them bothersome.

I think they're great.

But I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how big these units are like are all of these two bedrooms are like what is the, what is the capacity that these duplexes have.

Yeah, so that's a great question and without going into too much of the floor plan and we don't that usually is not.

I didn't cover that super deeply within the kind of analysis of the study, but it is kind of, and these are older buildings, so these units are generally going to be kind of in the, you know, 700 to 800 square foot range, which is sizable enough to usually be a two bedroom unit, two bedroom unit, sometimes with two bedrooms, but usually a two bedroom, one bathroom unit that, can house a young family or just a smaller family or any type of structure like that for a more reasonable price.

Sure.

Well, and that's what I appreciate about these is that I can easily see a single parent or a family with one or two kids being able to afford something like this.

And that's an important option for people.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

And I think you'll see maybe as the years change, and these are some, like, again, these are older buildings, so you might see some of the newer buildings have, or the example over here maybe is an example maybe of a taller two-story building versus a one-story building.

But I think generally in these ranges, there's still going to be one or two-story buildings and really not being, reaching to the three-story level quite yet.

And here is actually an example of maybe a two-story kind of larger building in kind of the Tangle Town area.

As you're zooming into these spots, maybe go from a high level and zoom into where you're, so we're looking over by I-5 Tangle Town.

We're looking by I-5 area.

Council Member Nelson, is this one of your neighbors?

We're looking at this bill.

We're looking at this building over here.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you recognize this one, Council Member Niels?

Not up here.

Okay.

Okay.

So then that is kind of the duplexes, kind of a quick rundown of the duplexes.

And let's see if I can.

So here we got triplexes, right?

And so, um, Starting in this area, if you're looking kind of in the greenwood around the northwest portion of Green Lake, around Green Lake, we're looking at a unit over here.

So this is a triplex right here, really wooded area.

We heard the comments about tree canopy and trees and just how these things can fit in.

to this into areas like this and have very well mature trees.

This one has a rain wise garden and you see the three mailboxes right there.

So another good telltale sign right there of how it fits into the area.

And this is kind of its neighbors.

Yeah, that was an important point is that when all three units are in the same building envelope, that there's more room for green space.

Yeah, I think, you know, I think that is one of the challenges with having three units on a lot that are not in the same envelope.

Yeah.

Um, wait, can I ask?

Yeah.

So are you saying that that is not legal right now?

Or if?

I mean, you could not conform.

You can't build this is not conforming.

Yes.

interesting.

Right?

Yes.

I mean, like, this is Councilmember Nielsen, thank you.

I mean, because when Marcus showed me that his his work here, like my mind kind of like I had a light bulb or explosion moment of like, this, I see these all across our neighborhoods.

Right, right.

Many of the duplexes that you showed were on corners.

And I know that years ago, there was a pull the mic a little closer.

I saw that.

Some of the pictures that you showed were on corners and so just confirming that they are not outright allowed right now either.

Yeah, they're not.

Yeah.

They're all non-conforming, they're all not allowed currently.

And as you, if, when, you know, when you look, take a look further, deeper look into this, into the story map, I kind of, I capture that in terms of a future potential problem is that because they are non-conforming uses, if there's any type of maintenance, major maintenance that has to happen, or basically the owners of these buildings can't, You know, do major renovations to to the project that may cause some type of structure with the code that means that they have to read like tear down the home and build a just a single a single unit house, instead of the.

That causes maintenance issues for these older buildings as well because maintenance can be very expensive and sometimes you do need to do major maintenance configurations, but sometimes major configurations trigger.

not being able, trigger you having to relate to the current code, not the former non-conforming code, so.

And Marcus, do you happen to have the, I went to share screen, but it would stop yours.

Do you have the SDCI GIS map available?

I do, so right here.

Because I think this will help Council Member Nelson's question here.

So maybe if you want to zoom in on the spot up by Larson's, just because that one's, I know where that one is.

So it's off to your left a little bit more.

It's between the two dark browns.

Or yeah, actually both.

So Council Member Nelson, as you can see on this screen, it's all, it's Neighborhood Residential, even though it's on a corner lot.

Right.

Yeah, so as you, yeah, you can click on these and you can get Neighborhood Residential 3 versus, you know, if you're clicking in this area, it's something different than Neighborhood Commercial, but yes.

So all of the little, the soft yellow, is neighborhood residential.

So it markets just confirming for the viewing public in your as you're taking us on this tour, you are not looking at buildings that are in the dark, you are only looking in light yellow.

That's correct.

I'm only looking at I've only pulled units, housing units, housing types that are within the light yellow neighborhood residential area.

No, I don't know where I was at before.

Oh, sorry.

Here's another triplex right here.

And this is just up the street of the duplex that I showed a little bit earlier.

So if you go down this way, duplex is right here.

And got your triplex right here.

You got two.

Two units here, and I imagine the other one is right, other entrances over here on this side.

Let me see this one.

This one's also in the Finney Ridge area.

This unit right here, a little bit harder to tell.

But you can, again, see this vegetation area.

Here we go.

And this is the side entrance, or this is where the garages are.

Oh, this is a...

So then we have two triplexes right here.

So you have a triplex here.

This is a triplex unit over here.

So you have different styles kind of right next to each other.

And then additionally, you can kind of see its neighbor.

And this is where maybe you see some of the larger single family homes kind of coming in that might have been replacing one of these type of units of the past.

Can you do street view to see what was there before that?

And so that building that we're looking at right now is just for one family?

Correct.

So let's go to 2007 and see what was there before and see if I can peek behind the trees.

So you have this small house here.

You have that tree on the corner.

Is that tree on the corner, is that on the lot that was developed?

I believe it was.

Oops.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Look at that.

So, I mean, I think that this example, sorry, Marcus, I'm going to just kind of riff here and jump in if you want, Council Member Nelson, this is an example of what the problem has been.

We've been tearing down, like what Steve was saying earlier, the houses that were, you know, part of the fabric of our neighborhood only to be replaced by This home, you can make your subjective judgment about it, which you will, but it doesn't serve any more people than the house that was before that.

And then if you want me going off on a tear about that tree, there was no reason for that tree to get cut down, nor the street trees in front of it.

This is what is contributing to the tree canopy disappearing, the size of Green Lake.

Meanwhile, you've got across the street a very, a house that absolutely fits the character of our neighborhood that is able to serve multiple families.

I mean.

Sorry, Mark, that one kind of.

No, no.

Anyone else have anything you want to share?

I understand.

Yeah, I mean.

Sorry, Marcus, could you go back to that?

I'll go back, yep.

Yeah, I mean, I think that this, if you want to focus on that house, this single family house, like this is, this doesn't add any contribution to our city.

Like, no, there's no more people that are able to be housed by this.

There's, we've lost trees because of this.

And it doesn't really fit the fabric of our neighborhood.

End of rant.

Thank you.

Sorry.

There you go.

Yeah.

So, and this is.

So another example of a triplex this is in the Tangletown area as well.

This one's I think a really fun one to look at.

This is on a unique parcel as well.

So it's on a unique lot.

And actually they did essentially two triplexes connected to each other on the same lot called McKinley Place.

And so you can see, this is the back of the area.

They still have the parking connected to it and they'll have the triplexes.

And this is maybe a good vision of what the front looks like.

right here, so you can see all this vegetation, all this landscaping, and then you have the entrances to the units over here on this front side right here.

And here is one on, let's see, this one is 7805 Fremont, built 1908, and this is also by, this is by Aurora, just south of kind of Greenwood, center of Greenwood, Greenwood neighborhood.

And so it's a little hidden right here, and I'm gonna go down the side a little bit first, just to show kind of like the yard and kind of attachments, and then all of its kind of parking and side spaces.

And this is, again, This is kind of how I've been ground truthing or visually truthing some of these.

And then you have, and age is going to change a little bit.

So this is the most recent picture.

And this is kind of what the front looks like.

Oh, yeah.

It's a gorgeous house.

So yeah.

That's another example right there.

Absolutely fits the character of the neighborhood.

Let me see if I get this right.

Jump around to fourplexes.

And I'll just keep on jumping around unless people want to jump in or ask questions or anything like that as well.

So we got this fourplex over here in the Crown Hill neighborhood.

And there you go.

You've got your four mailboxes right here.

Is that Third Avenue?

That is.

Yes, it is Third Avenue.

Is there a better picture of that building?

Oh, there we go.

There we go.

Yeah, it's landscaping guy.

It blocks the front very well, but this is the unit right here.

I don't know if you researched this part.

Is that in the bog or not?

I don't know.

Okay.

Yeah, we don't need to go down the bug thread.

Yeah.

And yeah, so you can see it's got, you know, there's obviously some bike infrastructure that, you know, is connecting the area and crossing and stuff like that.

And let's see.

We got these units on.

That's definitely third.

On Third Avenue.

And you got, you can see here, it's just like a row of them, kind of got a cluster of them right here.

So you got some four, you got four plexes, all lined right next to each other, along this, this, this third avenue.

So just this block's got that 16, 16 houses, households right there.

Just

I'm just pulling up the STCIGIS on my own computer just to look at this.

I guess I'm...

I can pull it up if you want.

Oh, no, I don't need to distract you from your presentation.

I guess I didn't realize that those were non-conforming as well.

Just, I mean, I drive by them all the time.

All right.

And then this is one up here.

on I believe 85th and yes, 85th and 20th or 28th actually.

So it might be a little bit further right.

But you got this unit right here of a fourplex.

And so I imagine the other units are on the other side, but you got your four mailboxes right there.

They're small and then you got, you know,

Do you have a street view of what was in that house right there?

That one, it looks like it was built in the 90s.

Let's see, I can't go any further back on this.

Nothing back, that's fine.

Yeah.

I'm just, because this, it does look like that one is next to

Right.

So I think this one is next to some neighborhood commercial zones or multifamily zones.

Because it's it's right off.

The zoning change happens between those two parcels.

Is that right?

That's correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do you have any sense on whether or not the art?

I'm imagining a very small percentage of duplexes have the owner living next door.

So is it safe to assume that these are generally two rental units in a duplex?

It's a good question.

I have friends that I know live in, or I have a recent colleague or classmate that actually moved into a fourplex in the city.

And so it's very much possible that a lot of these units have somebody that's actually owning the unit or is kind of part of the ownership group of the unit versus being completely rental units.

But I think it's on both sides.

I don't have a percentage.

to be able to tell you how much of them are owner-occupied versus renter-occupied.

And something that you said at the beginning of this, Marcus, that stood out to me, Council Member Nelson, one of my first office hours back in 2020 that I still got to have in person because it was within the eight weeks before the pandemic struck, was an older couple who lived in Ballard that owned a duplex and they wanted to make changes to it, but because of our current zoning code, if they wanted to, they would have had to remove one of the units because they wanted to make a renovation.

And their story was that they had bought it and lived in it and rented the second unit.

And when they were able to save up enough money to buy their own home, they were able to do so.

So then the duplex that they had was then a rental.

Both were rental.

So it can be an income generating option for the homeowner.

and or it could be an affordable unit if they're non-conforming and less aged for renters.

Yeah.

Yes.

Sorry, Marcus, we're totally taking your presentation.

Keep going.

All right.

And how am I on time?

I can speak through things if we, you know, I think.

I'd say just stay on pace.

Just stay on pace.

Yeah.

All right.

This one is another, I just I like the look of this one, maybe a lot.

This one's in the Sunset Hill area.

Oh, yeah, I know that that one was on my old Ballard News Tribune paper route.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

So you got your three.

So you got your four units right here.

Three doors.

I don't know where the other door is.

Maybe one door goes.

But again, the zoning changes on the border of this of this.

Yes.

Is that right?

It does.

And this reaches to, you know, other issues or other things that are I mentioned in the story map is how these, you know, multifamily gentle density, you know, smaller range things.

can integrate into the neighborhood and then also be very close and kind of elevate these options for neighborhood restaurants and neighborhood cafes and things of that nature that are on the corners maybe or and things of that nature.

So these things are really close to kind of amenities and other stuff and the, you know, it's no surprise that some of the density that is allowed around this area helps support this restaurant or this cafe or any of those things.

Back in my day, it was a lawnmower shop and a piano studio.

I think there's some benefits here.

Benefits.

Piano studios are cool.

Even across the street from this, I believe,

Yeah, what's the zoning there.

I believe this one is zoned in a multifamily or a neighborhood commercial area.

And this one is still in a neighborhood residential.

But similar units, I think they're both duplexes or maybe ones of triplex and ones of duplex, but look very much the same and kind of in the same area.

And also look, you're just down the road from water and nice views.

So nice walk.

This one is in the Fremont area.

This is Dayton.

And again, this is another example where I think you have multiple, so you have a fourplex here.

And so you'll have this unit, this unit, and B and C I think are over on this side.

So the entryway is either, I'm not sure how you get to that one, but, and then this building right here is also a nonconforming building.

And also I think a fourplex as well.

So different styles of building, but...

Do you think that different style is just based on when it was built?

Yeah, it's actually kind of interesting.

I believe these are actually similar years.

Let's see, 1986 and 1989. So the one that looks maybe a little bit older actually is the one that's the newer one, like this one looks, but...

And then also down further down the street, you have one in 1974. So you got a park nearby.

And so again, this is another this is another kind of street or block that has, you know, Three four plexus so an additional what is that 12. Additional 13. guess 12 households.

On the block so.

And then let's see, let me go to the next one, which is small apartments.

So I also captured small apartments.

So these are things that I'm considering anything that's five plus units or more.

So again, we have one in this area.

This is one that's off a bus route that I kind of I take pretty take semi regularly.

Oh, what just happened?

Anyways, so we have, this is a unit, this is a seven, this is a seven unit apartment right here.

So this is seven units, single story, good landscaping, good vegetation.

You got your, some of the back units over here on this side.

And then you got the 62 bus goes downtown.

goes to Roosevelt Station right along this route.

Here's another example of- Is that also off of 3rd?

Sorry, I guess I know 3rd Avenue pretty well.

Let's see, this is 2470th, yep, off of 3rd.

It's also on the third.

And then, so you got your five units.

The fifth unit's over here.

So this one looks like maybe a basement unit, potentially, as their fifth unit, but that's their two-story building.

I think somebody did mention, let's see.

All right, so then we have, This unit as well, 60, 50, and I believe this one is this one over here.

So six unit apartment.

And again, it's kind of in this span of a cluster of different apartments.

So you got another apartment over here on this corner that hits a couple of units you have, and then the other ones would be further down the block.

and what you're looking at around neighborhoods, so this is across the street.

I think what's interesting is that apartment building is shorter than some of these main houses in front of the ADU-DADU couples that we're seeing.

Another five-unit apartment right here off of I guess I won't be able to find that one really quickly.

I know that's on, it looks like it's 83rd and 15th.

83rd, yeah.

So is that 16th that's off to your left?

Sorry, I know my district well.

Yeah.

Is that 16th right there?

Let's see.

Oh, yeah, 16th.

Yeah.

This one stunned me as I was walking through my neighborhood a number of years ago with how many units that they've tucked in there.

I don't know how they did it.

Yeah.

Quite a creative one.

They still have all the off-street parking for it as well, which is interesting.

And you can see vegetation, really sunny area.

This one's right by elementary school, I believe.

but you have this unit right here and you got your additional units.

This is a five-unit apartment as well.

Across the block, it's using the topography to help with the building and just get the units in there.

Are those duplexes or quads across the street as well?

Yes, I believe so.

Yes, they are.

Yes.

So this is another kind of non-conforming use in the area.

And then this one is the, this one's the- Is that over on Spinney Ridge?

I think that's where my uncle's house.

Kind of Woodland Park Zoo area, just up from them.

And this one is actually 25 units.

Your screen went black on us.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure it out myself.

Okay.

Error.

Okay.

You can see this one when you're driving across the bridge.

If you look up, you can see this one.

You recognize this one, Council Member Nelson?

No.

Again, using the topography of this area to help

And this was another one that was a little so like, this is a bit surprising to me because I guess I didn't realize that this was outside of the conforming uses.

It's so close.

Is it close?

Not really.

Yeah, it's about two blocks away from a zoning change.

Yeah.

We're in this area, long third.

OK, let me wrap up with just one other.

So one other thing that I added in this one that I thought was interesting was I wanted to capture not just the residential uses that are non-conforming, but I also wanted to capture office space, retail, commercial aspects that used to be allowed in this area or were built in this area, but are no longer conforming anymore.

You have this one in the Meridian neighborhood.

So you have this one right here, which is a, this one is just a commercial use building.

You get to the national health office space.

And right across from it, this, I think whatever commercial use was in this building is no longer in this building currently right now, but the building is, is designated as a mixed use building.

So it does have office space on the bottom floor, and then you have two units on the top floor.

in this area.

Have this one over by, again, the Meridian Playground, just north of the Meridian Playground.

It's this one right here.

It's actually six units built in 1979 and has office or commercial use.

So this is the commercial area right here.

You kind of have two commercial spaces and then over here on the kind of side lot is you'll see Meridian Apartments and an entryway into a few of the units.

And Meridian, when you take a look at the, when you take a look at the story map and you look throughout the rest of the interactive map, Meridian has quite a few along of nonconforming uses just popping up everywhere, whether it's a duplex or a triplex or something like this.

And I think that has to connect a little bit to the history.

I believe this might've been a street car corridor in its past.

So I think that's part of why you might see a lot of this.

Okay, well, that one of the loads, I guess I'm out of,

You got a lot of time, Marcus, I appreciate you.

Here we go.

Here's a couple last ones.

Okay, so another mixed use office area, you got UMA clinic, I'm, I think that might be how you pronounce it.

Two mailboxes got different utilities, you got your units over here on the back end side.

And then You can see what the neighboring things, and this looks like a large, I wonder what that is actually.

I don't know why that caught my eye this time around, but yeah.

And then let's see if this one works.

There we go.

This is the last one right here.

Um, on often Linda nav again, got a kind of retail store right here.

And then when you wrap around the, got it, got a unit right here as well.

So, and that's about it.

Uh, Well, Marcus, I really appreciate your presentation.

Yeah.

So again, yeah, you can just check out the rest of the story map.

There's there's a lot more context and information in there.

And I put my sources in here as well.

So you can kind of you can find citations and just double check where some of this information is coming from.

Yeah.

And I know you worked on this last year as part of your independent study and your Master's of Urban Planning.

And maybe if you could stop sharing screen so we can see everyone's faces easier again.

There you go.

And I know you worked on this last year when you were doing your Master's of Urban Planning at the University of Washington.

And it was really enlightening for me in a lot of different places to learn about the community that we live in and how these duplexes, triplexes, and sometimes quads are already a part of the fabric.

I mean, I knew it anecdotally, but I didn't quite realize to the extent that you were able to share.

Katherine Nelson, did you have something?

Yeah, sorry.

I was trying to raise my hand just decide to do it in person.

Thank you very much.

I did recognize the corner of 1st and 56th and the two mixed-use places because that is close to McDonald Elementary, so that serves school kids in that neighborhood, and I believe they're I believe that the neighborhood really that is close to my house, I'll just say, and we really appreciate the corner stores that are in that neighborhood as well.

You know, and so I just noticed that I appreciated you, including the commercial spaces on the ground floor, because it does help out to the walkability of a neighborhood to be able to have those small stores, small businesses right there.

Great, yeah.

And I guess I'll just add one thing that I maybe should have covered a little bit closer, just overall numbers of my study area.

So there was 850 nonconforming units or buildings, 850 nonconforming buildings in that study area that I had.

669 of them were duplexes.

130 of them were triplexes.

36 of them were quadplexes.

40 of them were apartments, and then there were 13 office mixed-use commercial spaces.

I really, Marcus, again, this is really helpful information.

It's really opened my eyes in ways that I, even though I'm in these neighborhoods like that apartment on 83rd and 16th, I remember that one from my days of wearing out my sneakers, knocking on everyone's doors, just because that one really stood out to me.

It was how can you cram so many units into such a small space?

And I didn't realize that it was outside of the, you know, I didn't realize it was a neighborhood residential when I was walking around.

So it's provided me a lot of information.

Seems like Council Member Nelson as well.

And we really appreciate you not only and thanks to Rick Moeller for setting up independent study project that you were able to use that time in your education to in, you know, to educate us.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I know we've requested you to take time off out of your job to come and present to us.

So again, um, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It was great to finally present it and, um, hopefully people enjoy, uh, the work.

Thanks again.

Well, thank you.

And now off to our conversation about accessory dwelling units.

So in a lot of ways, uh, the same number of units, but in more buildings, which takes up more space.

Um, so again, ADUs and DADUs are different than triplexes simply because a triplex has three units within the same building envelope.

as compared to three units of ADU and DADU, which are all separate or attached buildings.

With that, clerk, will you please read the short title of our second agenda item into the record?

Informational item 2241, 2022 Accessory Dwelling Unit Annual Report for briefing and discussion.

Thank you for today's discussion, we have Nick Welch from Office of Community Planning and Community Development and Lish Whitson from Council Central staff.

The legislation that enacted ADUs and DADUs was passed before almost everyone on this committee.

This legislation was passed in 2019 and it created limits on the McMansions that I was just sharing my disdain for, which we saw were prolifically built across our city where you would tear down an existing home built for one family and you would build a home built for one family but four or five times the size.

The Seattle Times article today referenced two thirds of the McMansions in 2022 I don't have that article before me.

As we just saw from the non-conforming presentation, there's a long history of having multiple dwelling units on a single lot, but it was done differently previously.

These buildings, both in the presentation previous and the upcoming, are built as gentle density.

It allows for people to better age in place in the communities that they've long called home.

And they're not the end all be all solution of affordable or market rate housing, because, as the Department of Commerce for the state mentioned, we are needing to build 55,000 units of housing per year statewide.

to meet our, to get back into the black.

So this is not, these types of housing solutions are not gonna solve the entire crisis.

It does help us to step in the right direction.

With that, I'll let Nick take it from OPCD, take it away, Nick.

Okay, thank you, Council Member.

bring up our president.

Nick, sorry, just before we get going, I do see Lish with us as well.

Colleagues, if you could note which slide you have questions for, I'm gonna ask Nick to go quickly through his presentation because he's got a lot of information, and then let's cycle back to the slides that you have questions on, if that works for you.

Thank you, Nick, take it away.

Okay, thank you very much.

So go efficiently through our slides today here to present.

Information on our 2022 at you annual report, and this is the outline of what i'll walk through background on the reform that the Council member just mentioned back in 2019 data on at us that have been produced last year and over time.

The use of our pre-approved DADU plans, other information about how ADUs are being used.

We have some interesting new information from a survey we did last year of people who own and live in ADUs, and then some ideas of where we're taking this work in the future.

So first, just to make sure we're all on the same page, this is a great segue from Marcus's presentation, but to present the terms here a little bit, ADUs are accessory dwelling units, and those are small secondary dwellings that the city allows in our residential zones, in particular, our neighborhood residential zones.

And we distinguish two types of ADUs.

The council member described this a little bit, but a TAT ADUs, and you'll see this acronym AADU in some of what I present today, is an ADU that's located either within or connected to a principal dwelling unit or the main house.

And then a detached ADU or a DADU, which is often called a backyard cottage, is an ADU that's located in a separate accessory structure elsewhere on the lot, And sometimes that is an ADU that's above a garage, like the photo on the right.

In 2019, the council passed new rules that were designed to help us create more ADUs and increase ADU production.

This was one part of our much broader work to address housing needs overall.

And some of the key changes of that legislation included allowing two ADUs on every lot in our NR1, NR2, and NR3 zones.

We reduce the minimum lot size that you need for a DADU from 4000 to 3200 square feet that unlocked several thousand sites that previously couldn't have a backyard cottage.

We increase the maximum height and size of DADUs as a way to allow somewhat larger potentially two bedroom units that would work for larger households or families.

We removed off-street parking and owner occupancy requirements that previously had discouraged or outright prevented many people from being able to add an ADU.

And then we established the new limit that the council member mentioned that reduced the size that a new single-family dwelling could be and also acts as an incentive to include ADUs when new development occurs.

And we'll get a little bit more into the results that that has produced.

In that legislation, Council directed OPCD and the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to do annual reporting on the ADUs that are being produced and permitted throughout the city.

And the mayor at the time also signed an executive order identifying several other outcomes and benefits and impacts that we should monitor over time to understand what effect this housing type is having in the city.

So one of the first things that we do in our annual report, which you saw on the right side of that previous slide, and is now available online, is just track overall production of ADUs.

And that's what you see in this chart, those ADU permitting dating back to 2005. And that's a time when we had only a few dozen TAT ADUs initially, and then starting in 2010, detached ADUs permitted each year.

15 or so, we started to see that increase a little bit, particularly as development increased overall in Seattle, but it still remained relatively stable until 2019. That's when we started to see a pretty significant increase in each of those last four years.

Last year, we had almost 1,000 ADUs permitted in 2022, 988 ADUs.

And that was almost a fourfold increase from 2018, which was the last full year before the ADU reforms that I mentioned took effect.

There could be a lot of different drivers of this trend, but overall, this suggests that the work we've done to try to increase ADU production is indeed producing some good results.

The map you see on the right shows the permits just from last year in green.

Others are in smaller dots behind those And you can see here that they're pretty distributed throughout pretty much all of our neighborhood residential zones, there is some clustering in places like Northwest Seattle, Loyal Heights, Greenwood, many of the places that Marcus just took us on in that tour.

Also Bryant, Ravenna area in Northeast Seattle, Madrona, South Beacon Hill, but really quite distributed throughout the city.

So in our report we also we drill down into this production data to try to understand how and in what configurations ADUs are being permitted.

And one of the outcomes we look at is the number of properties that have two ADUs, since that was a new opt-in that the 2019 legislation unlocked for neighborhood residential zones.

So in those zones, we allow either one attached ADU and one detached ADU or two attached ADUs.

And you see examples of each of those in the top and bottom photo on this slide.

In 2022, 44% of the ADU permits that the city issued were for sites that had multiple ADUs, and mostly that was the combination of an attached and a detached ADU.

That was a third of the permits issued last year.

7% of permits were for projects with two ADUs in the bottom image, you can kind of see that one structure, the upper two floors are the principal unit, and then each side of the first floor is an attached ADU.

And then 2% were actually for lots that already had an ADU before 2022. So that might have been someone who had done a basement unit sometime in the past.

And then when we opened up the opportunity to add a second unit, they came back to permit a second ADU.

We can also identify the number of at us that are created alongside new single family homes, as opposed to just a standalone at you project.

that's also something that Council was interested in tracking and so for sites in neighborhood residential zones that had any new construction last year only 14% were for just a new single family home.

About half were for projects that just included ADUs, and then a third were a combination of those two housing types, a new single-family home plus one or two ADUs.

Council was also interested in tracking how often ADU production is associated with demolition of an existing housing unit.

It's actually a little harder than you might expect to really pin down with our construction permit and demolition permit data.

But that last category that you see, the 34 percent that had the two housing types, a new single family home in an ADU is a good indication of projects where probably the existing house was demolished and then a new house with one or two ADUs went up in its place.

The photo illustrates an example of that.

Another way to present this same data is that 70% of new single family homes that were permitted last year included an ADU.

And this is probably due in large part to that size limit, the floor area ratio limit that we established, which Again, did two things it limited the maximum size of new single family homes in response to a lot of community input about oversized new homes that people were seeing in their neighborhood that fell out of scale.

But it also doesn't count floor area in an ad you towards that limit so that acts as an incentive when someone is redeveloping a property to include one or two at us and we're seeing that that's the most common outcome.

We can also look at the characteristics of the sites where ADUs are permitted.

And in 2022, we saw a pretty wide range of lot sizes, a pretty good distribution.

That includes some very small sites, less than 4,000 square feet.

For DADUs, that was a new opportunity to be able to permit a backyard cottage on a smaller site.

And then some that are much larger.

The median overall was a little bit on the larger side, 500, excuse me, 5,000, 666 square feet for attached ADUs and just over 6,000 square feet for DADUs.

That's a little bit above the overall median size for sites in our neighborhood residential zones, which is 5,200 square feet.

Probably this just underscores that if you do have more site area, it's a little more feasible to add a second unit somewhere on the property.

We've also used in our reporting neighborhood level data to look at whether ADUs are more or less common in certain types of areas over other types of areas in the city.

In this map, we're showing median household income for census tracts, and that's shown in green.

Darker areas have a higher median household income.

And then the dot for each census tract represents ADU production from last year.

And we do this to try to understand if ADUs are more concentrated in higher income or lower income areas.

And when we look at this statistically, we see there's really no significant relationship between ADU permitting for last year and household income at the neighborhood level.

In other words, ADUs are pretty much equally likely to be permitted in relatively higher income areas and relatively lower income areas to the extent that some areas in Seattle are lower income.

And until we had a survey of actual owners and occupants of ADUs, This type of neighborhood analysis was really the best that we could do, but as you'll all see in a few slides we now have better information about the actual households, creating and living in at us and that gives us a much stronger picture of the characteristics of households involved in this housing type.

Our report.

Also include some information about the pre approved plans that the city has in 2020 we partnered with designers in the Seattle area to create a gallery of pre approved designs for backyard cottages.

Those are featured on our 80 universe website and we did that through a competitive process.

We've had an overwhelming response to our call for submissions and we reviewed those and selected a subset that then got reviewed for compliance with the city's structural codes and energy codes.

And so the gallery we have includes a wide range of sizes and unit types and styles.

The one featured here is the largest of the set.

It's a two-story, two-bedroom unit.

And if a property owner wants to use one of these, they can get a permit much more quickly than a typical process for a sort of custom-designed daddo.

And they've been used 130 times since they were made available in 2020, and permitting during that time for these 10 designs has averaged 56 days from intake to issuance, which is usually the key milestones that SDCI tracks.

That includes 37 days when it was in SDCI review, 19 days when it's out for corrections with the applicant, and an average of 2.6 correction cycles, rounds of issuing corrections per project.

By comparison, Other permits, so custom regular DADU permits that didn't include a single family house, just a DADU, they averaged 149 days, so a little less than three times as long, and 3.2 correction cycles.

So there's definitely some time savings from using these plans.

Our report has information about how ADUs are used.

One part of that that we look at is short-term rentals.

Since 2017, Seattle has had regulations that limit the number of units that someone can operate as a short-term rental to two units.

That includes the operator's primary residence, if they rent that out as a short-term rental, and then one other unit, a secondary unit.

ADUs can be used as short-term rentals.

That is one use that people tell us they choose to do for their ADU.

But if a property owner has do ADUs and they live in the main house, they can't use both ADUs as short-term rentals.

So the existing regulations that we've had in place for quite a while limit the number of ADUs that someone could potentially put on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo.

Operators have to get a license from the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and that licensing data, we can look at that and it has information about the unit type when someone licenses their short-term rental unit, and it suggests that of the active short-term rental licenses, about 12% are associated with the ADUs that we have in Seattle.

So we have about 528 short-term rental licenses where someone has indicated that it is an attached ADU, a detached ADU, or they've put other, and we've just conservatively thought maybe all of those are actually ADUs that someone didn't know how to categorize.

And all told, that's about 12% of the more than 4,000 ADUs we have throughout the city.

There are some caveats with this data.

It might underrepresent or underestimate the number of ADUs that are used as short-term rentals because we know that not every STR has a license.

But in some ways, it might overrepresent ADU use as short-term rentals because owners might get a license and then decide to change how they use the ADU at some point They also need to get a license even if they rented out just one night a year.

So this licensing data doesn't tell us how often they're actually offering their ADU as a short-term rental.

Thank you, Nick.

And Council Member Mosqueda, if you could hold your question to the end.

We're just, we're going to get through these slides if we could.

Okay.

Thanks.

I see a question on slide 11. We'll come back to you.

Another way that ADUs are used that we are starting to track more closely is as units that are offered for sale as condominiums.

So just a little bit of context here, a condominium is a form of common ownership where the units are owned by some individual entity and then the owners as a group have some sort of interest in the shared elements or community property on the site.

So often that's a multi-family building where there might be common spaces, everyone owns their own unit, but it can also be smaller projects that have just two or three units.

The city actually is not involved directly when condos are formed.

It's governed by state condo law and the administration is at the King County level.

But what we're seeing in neighborhood residential zones is that because you can't subdivide a typical lot, Some ADUs are being sold as condos because that's the way that they can be offered as ownership.

We don't allow the land itself to be divided.

So we've seen that this is increasing in recent years.

We've started to track it more closely by kind of cobbling together different data sources from the city and the county.

And what we saw for 2021, which is the last year where we have really solid, complete data for one year, there's a bit of a lag.

It looks like about one third of ADUs permitted that year.

were located on parcels, where there is a condominium so roughly a third of at us in recent years are being used offered sold in this way as ownership housing.

And we can see that that's a pretty similar share to the number of permits from this is on a previous slide the number of permits that had multiple at us that was 42%.

and the number of projects in neighborhood residential zones that had both an ADU and a new single family home, which was 35%.

And what all of that together suggests to us is that that's kind of the development approach or scheme that's going on.

It's probably developers who are creating a new house with one or two ADUs, in many cases, two ADUs, and then they're offering those three units for sale as condominiums.

So the next question that follows from this is, well, how do those ADU condos affect affordability?

What is the price point for those units?

And we heard some public comment on this.

Because they're smaller and they don't involve acquiring additional land area, the ADUs that are sold as condos, they often are available at a lower price point for new construction than you'd otherwise find in our neighborhood residential zones where housing costs are very, very high.

We don't yet have a systematic way to connect our permitting data with sales data that happens at the county level and focus just on this subset of sales that relate to condos.

So what we've done for now is kind of a manual review of a sample, and you're seeing the results of that on the screen in that chart.

We've manually looked at ADUs and the single-family homes on the same property that were sold as condos in the last two years.

every instance of ADU condos, but a subset.

What we see, the green dots here are the ADUs and DADUs sold, and they're all consistently at a lower price point compared to the single-family homes on the same property.

They vary because of the size, the quality, the location of the project, but they're often between $500,000 and $700,000 for the ADUs.

The house on the same property that's much larger might sell for anywhere from one and a half to upwards of two and a half million dollars.

So they are offering an ownership opt-in at a lower price point than we otherwise get in neighborhood residential zones.

At the same time, $500,000 to $700,000 in general is not a price point that is affordable to lower income homebuyers.

And so this also underscores that we need other tools to provide affordable home ownership opt-ins to people in that sort of income bracket.

So I want to shift here to the next major section of this presentation, which is reporting out the results of the survey we did last year of ADU owners and occupants.

I'll just introduce first what we did.

That same legislation from 2019 directed us to conduct a voluntary survey of ADU owners and occupants in order to learn things that we just can't get through permit data and other data sources that are readily available.

So that includes things like how people are using their ADUs, some characteristics of the ADUs that we just don't track in permitting, questions about how people are financing and paying for their construction, what rent they charge, whether the property owner lives on site, and then also demographic information about ADU owners and occupants, who's actually benefiting most directly and using this opportunity.

So last spring, we partnered with the University of Washington to create and send out a survey to almost 2,500 ADUs to the addresses for those ADUs that were permitted in five years, from 2016 to 2021. And we received 522 responses, more than a 20% response rate, which we thought was actually pretty good.

And we learn a lot from this.

It gives us some insights into things we just otherwise don't have data available for.

But it's also worth saying, we can't draw firm conclusions about the topics we ask people about because it's possible that some respondents are more likely to answer this kind of survey for any number of reasons.

So first, just in terms of who we heard from, we asked about just what is your relationship to the ADU on the property?

And the most common response, the most common type of response that we heard from was people who own the ADU and they use it for some kind of use, meaning they are not themselves the occupant of the ADU.

That might be that they rent it out or they use it for some other use, we asked follow up questions about that.

But it's worth noting here, we also got responses from people who actually built and they now live in their ADU, so they might have downsized into the unit and they use the main house for something else.

We heard from people who rent an ADU, they pay rent to the homeowner to live in the ADU, and heard from people who have actually purchased one of those ADUs that was sold as a condo.

The map on the right here shows that response rate for zip codes across the city.

It was 21% citywide.

Then we asked about how people are using their ADU, both currently and we also asked about how they've used it in the past and how they plan to use it in the future.

This is going the answer to the question, how do you use your at you today, and the most common response was that they use it as a long term rental to someone that they didn't know previously that was 21% of respondents.

Then there was a mix of people who also rented out to a family member or someone they do know short term rental usage was on here, some people are using it as housing for family members or friends, but without charging rent.

We also again heard from people who live in the ADU, including those who use it as a condo and then some number who use it for other purposes, but not as a residence.

We were really eager to learn about the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of folks who have created and who live in ADUs.

The first chart here on the left shows income and we see that 40% of ADU owners reported a household income above $200,000, well above the median income for Seattle overall.

And that's also much more than what we saw for ADU occupants who don't own the unit, whether they pay rent or live in it for free, those folks tended to show up much more in the lower income brackets here.

The chart on race asked about race and ethnicity, excuse me, the chart on the right asked about race and ethnicity.

And on that question, both of the respondent groups, both ADU owners and ADU occupants, disproportionately indicated that, or identified as non-Hispanic white at 78% for ADU occupants and almost 85% for ADU owners.

Both of those, just as a point of context, are much higher than the average for Seattle overall of non-Hispanic white residents, which is just 60% or even for Seattle homeowners in general, which is 70%, so above both of those benchmarks.

So together, these two charts, these results suggest that most of the folks that are benefiting most directly from building an ADU are households that are on average wealthier and whiter.

We also asked about household size, trying to understand what types of households are using these units, It's interesting that almost two-thirds of ADU occupants who own their unit, either as a condo or they own the property, are one-person households.

So that might be single folks who have downsized into the unit and then they're doing something else with the main house.

But for ADU occupants who don't own the unit, so people who are renting it, for example, the most common response was two-person households.

So a bit of a difference there between the two groups.

And then something else that Council was interested in having us track was how often ADUs are part of new construction versus conversion of an existing structure or an addition to an existing structure.

So we can break that down by permit type from city data.

That's the chart on the left.

And you can see more often ADUs and DADUs were done by new construction, but many, especially with tattoos, about half were done through addition or alteration.

And then, similarly, we asked survey respondents the same question, and we saw for ADUs, attached ADUs, conversion of existing space was the most common response, and for detached ADUs, new construction was the most common response.

It's not on the screen, just for context, we also asked about the median size of ADUs and DADUs.

Both were right around 730 or 750 square feet.

So that's less than the maximum size that we allow today, but some of these respondents permitted their unit before the 2019 legislation.

And then we also asked about the number of bedrooms.

And just over half of ADUs are one-bedroom units.

But a third are two bedroom or three bedroom unit, so it does suggest that there are at us out there that are working for larger household sizes, which is probably why we did see some folks reporting two and three bedroom excuse me two and three person households.

So just a couple more key points from the survey first about the rent that people charge for at us, this is something we've been really interested to understand we don't have good.

alternative data sources for this subset of the housing market to understand what the rent charged is.

This chart shows the distribution by different price points.

You see there's a wide range, but the overall median was $1,650 per month.

As a point of context, that's quite a bit less than the current median as of February 2023. for one bedroom apartments across Seattle, which is just under $2,200 a month.

And that's for one bedroom apartments, but we know that actually a third of ADUs are actually two bedroom or three bedroom units.

So there is really some value there in lower rent ADUs, a good portion of those.

In fact, 80% of the ADUs in our responses were reporting rent that was below the city wide median for one bedroom units that $22 excuse me $2200 figure 80% were less than that.

17% were less than $1,000 a month and 7%, which is a small percentage, but they were less than $750 a month so there's quite a range here, including some options at a pretty low price point so ad use permitted during this five year period.

do appear to be offering some relatively lower cost rental options.

We also asked respondents how they paid for the construction of their ADU.

We know that construction costs and limited financing tools are real barriers for a lot of people to build an ADU.

This shows the distribution of costs that people reported.

The median cost for attached ADUs was $100,000, And for daddies, it was $230,000.

So those are big sums, you know, we know that that's probably one of the biggest barriers, people who might want to do this will face.

And then we asked, how did people pay for the construction of their unit, the most common response was with cash.

And the second most common was with home equity tapping into home equity or a home equity line of credit.

So together, this all suggests that you know the people who are most capable of creating an ad you are the folks that do have resources at their disposal and again underscores the work we think we need to do to help folks with fewer resources lower and moderate income households to be able to do this type of project.

Last topic here that we asked about in the survey or.

We actually have a lot of detailed questions last one we're sort of summarizing here for you all is around parking another topic that the Council and the mayor's executive order speak to.

And that is been of particular interest again because we removed the off street parking requirement in the 2019 legislation so first we asked respondents how many vehicles, the adu residents own.

And the vast majority have either zero cars or one car very few have more than one vehicle.

And then we asked how many of those how many vehicles those residents park on the street, because the concern has been that there could be on street parking impacts from new at you production.

And almost half reported that the at you residents don't park any cars on the street at all and 44%.

said they park just one car on the street.

Very, very few said they park more than one vehicle on the street.

Now that number that you see on the bottom, 107 respondents who said they don't park any cars on the street, that does include the folks up here who don't own vehicles.

But even if we just look at the people who do own a vehicle, more than a third said they don't park any cars on the street.

So it does suggest that, you know, ADUs certainly, but when there was a parking requirement, and even today, they do have access to an off-street parking space in some cases, or they may not own a vehicle at all.

So just a couple slides here to conclude, and then I'll be eager to take your questions.

First, looking ahead, we want to continue monitoring really all of the trends that I've spoken about today, but a couple things in particular are worth highlighting.

First, we want to continue looking at the sales data for ADUs that are sold as condos.

We see that as an important trend, and we want to understand a little bit better than in this initial sample.

What is the price range?

What's the relative affordability of ADUs when they are sold as condominium units?

We also want to continue work that we've already started to drill down on actual plan sets, ADU plan documents, to try to identify certain things like the characteristics of the unit, its height, size, and other attributes that we just can't get from permit data.

So again, learning more about how often offbeat parking is provided, and then various things related to tree outcomes, which we know is of great interest and really requires pretty detailed methodical work looking at plan sets to identify that.

So that work has begun, we wanna continue and we'd look forward to reporting that out in the future.

The data in this report also helps inform our work supporting the Mayor's Housing Subcabinet.

And it really helps with our work on the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, where as you all know, a major focus is on doing even more to address our housing shortage by looking at other housing types that we might allow citywide and in particular in our neighborhood residential zones.

So a lot of the trends and the lessons and goals and outcomes we're seeing here with ADUs are pretty instructive as we think about further changes in those areas of the city.

And then the last point here is, as you know, we're continuing to look at how we can realize the vision of ADUs as an anti-displacement tool by helping lower and moderate income homeowners and homeowners of color add housing on their property.

We know that there are cost barriers, financing and other types of barriers that folks need support to overcome if they want to do this, and our survey data really underscored the additional work we need to do that.

Our vision of success here is that, you know, existing residents now and in the future can access and participate in these redevelopment opportunities, and so they can stay in their communities as they evolve over time, and that's going to be an important pillar of our work on the comprehensive plan as well.

We have a lot more information and resources online at AD Universe.

You can access that website through the link on the screen, maps.seattle.gov.

And that includes some interactive versions of a lot of the data that we've presented here today, plus resources for folks who are embarking on their journey of creating an ADU.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nick.

That was a lot of slides, a lot of information.

I see Council Member Nelson in Chambers.

Do you have questions?

I'm just going to go through Council Member by Council Member.

Council Member Mosqueda did have to leave, but she did send me over her questions.

Council Member Nelson.

If she sent a question, I'll...

Oh, don't...

There's a long list.

You might want to get going now.

Sure.

What is the difference between an attached accessory unit and a duplex?

How are the two differentiated?

Good question so an attach a to you the main difference really between an accessory dwelling unit and the principal dwelling unit has to do with a few things one.

You cannot subdivide an accessory dwelling unit from a principal dwelling unit so in our neighborhood residential zones, we have minimum lot sizes that don't allow subdivision unless you have a certain lot area.

And we only allow one principal dwelling unit per lot, whereas in our multifamily zones, you can have multiple principal dwelling units.

You can think of townhouse development, each of those as a principal unit, and each of them is subdivided and sold separately.

That's one difference.

The other is that we have size limits and other development standards that apply just to ADUs.

So, you know, the attached and detached ADUs you saw have a size limit of 1,000 square feet, and they can't be larger than that.

but in a situation where we allow duplexes and triplexes, those individual units can be much bigger than a thousand square feet.

Thank you.

And Nick, just to let me tag on to that, because that was one of my questions.

The reason why I'm having colleagues ask questions first is because I bet you you're going to ask my questions too.

You can have a more even floor square footage between In a duplex as compared to a primary unit and attached dwelling unit where the primary unit is going to have a larger square footage than the attached line is that a correct understanding.

That's right.

So with duplexes, you can have essentially a building that has a mirrored area on either side.

So the house just looks more normal, looks more like what we have traditionally seen built in our city.

Don't need to use the word normal.

Any other questions from you, Council Member Nelson?

Looking good.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I wanted to go up to slide 11, where you indicate about 12% of units are being used for short-term rental.

That's less than I would have expected.

And I heard a caller seem to assume that the majority of ADUs were being used for short-term rental.

So clearly, that is not happening.

which I think is good, frankly.

But I do wonder about the first bullet point you have on the right, which is that not all units that are operating as short-term rentals are licensed.

Can you talk a little bit about why that might be the case?

I can say a little bit.

This is ultimately data in a program that the Department of Finance and Administrative Services runs, so I'm not a total subject matter expert on the short term rental regulation or operations, at least.

But they, you know, like various things, it's it's sort of a question of enforcement.

So when people want to operate as a short term rental, my understanding is they, they're required to get a license, probably not all operators, or people using their life, their units that way, actually do go through with it, I don't have a good gauge of how much FAS thinks that might be.

So we can try to follow up with some more information about that.

But one thing that's helpful, you know, in our first annual report last year, we saw a similar trend to what you see on the screen here, and that was where we left it.

We now have that survey data, and one of the uses that people could indicate for their current use of the ADU was short-term rental, and it was 11%.

So that was helpful in, you know, looking at this five-year sample ADU permits and hearing from the folks who own those units, who indicated, you know, a pretty similar share that were currently used as a short-term rental.

Well, and I wasn't on the council when that legislation was passed, but I thought part of the rationale behind requiring licensing was because we really wanted to limit Short term rentals.

I don't know if we set a number for our, you know, a cap that we wanted but and if we did I don't know where this falls there but I am interested to follow up with you offline just to learn a little bit more about that.

I have one other question.

On the next slide where you start to talk about condos.

So you explained that it's governed by the state, it's administered by the county, the land is not divided, but allows separate ownership of the units.

So who owns the land underneath then?

Or do you have any insight into how those agreements work?

Well, it really functions similarly to a much larger, maybe more traditional form of a condominium that someone might imagine, where there is an owner's association and that entity owns the property and has a board and has to keep records and has a budget and has to have a reserve and do a reserve study.

All of those associated requirements do apply for these much smaller condominiums, for better or worse.

And so in these cases, there's an HOA that essentially has the ownership of the condominium parcel, and then the individual homes, the homes are owned by individual parties.

Okay.

That's what I assumed.

It just seems like an awful lot of work for if we're talking about two units or four units.

But there you go.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate this report.

I appreciate the presentation.

I have not made it all the way through the report, but I'm working on it.

And I think, you know, From my perspective, it's great news that we are increasing production.

I think it's important that we acknowledge this is not a solution to affordable homeownership necessarily, but it does make rents more affordable, somewhat more affordable, which is a good thing.

I think nobody is looking to ADUs to be the sole solution to our our rental affordability problem or even to our housing need problem, but it's certainly an important piece of it.

And I think it's important that we're doing this.

And as the legislature moves into making ADUs easier, fingers crossed, it's good to know that we've got a little bit of a head start in getting this option into every neighborhood in Seattle.

So looking forward to continuing this work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

We heard a lot of public comment today about tree preservation and I noticed in I think slide 23, you mentioned trees there.

So continued monitoring and then retention planning, removal of trees.

The, is there a way to get the same number of units and preserve more trees with these?

Are we able, does the law need to be tweaked to encourage developers to group the units closer together to perhaps preserve trees on the periphery of the lots?

Are you looking at any sort of way to have both of those positive outcomes?

Certainly, as you just framed, those are the two positive outcomes we do want to encourage with ADUs and apart from ADUs and certainly looking ahead to other potential housing types that we might allow in these areas.

I think our approach would be to continue this analysis and then the council's intent, I believe, was receive the information and just consider recommendations for changes that might increase tree protection So we're continuing with that work.

SDCI has some new data available and had an intern internship this past fall that got pretty far in doing that really manual, in a sense, laborious work of reviewing tree, excuse me, plan sets to, you know, understand tree outcomes permit by permit.

So yes, we want to use that information to inform potential recommendations that, you know, another thing to keep in mind is to Councilmember Morales' point, we had 900 plus ADUs permitted in the city, but we have development happening in a lot of different contexts.

And so the tree question is in a sense broader than just ADUs as well.

So this would be one piece of information to inform potential recommendations.

Thank you very much.

And just want to note, I really appreciated the Seattle Times article this morning.

It was very thorough and just to I recall when Councilmember Mike O'Brien was working on this many years ago, and it seems like much of his vision that he had for this law is coming to fruition, so I just wanted to mention that.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Morales, did you have another question?

No, sorry.

I will lower my head.

No problem.

I'm gonna, I've got eight questions of my own.

I might not ask all of them just as we're one minute from the end of the scheduled presentation.

If you could go to slide five.

And I will start with my question, which is just confirming my assumption here is that are ADUs prohibited in the gray areas on the map?

Good question.

So the gray areas there kind of lump together all of the zones that are not in our family of neighborhood residential zones.

So that includes low-rise multifamily zones, for example, where ADUs are not permitted and where we do, I'm sorry, where ADUs are not prohibited and where we do occasionally see them as part of a new townhouse development, although that's somewhat uncommon.

And then, as you can tell, it also includes all of our downtown zones where we really don't see ADUs at all.

It includes our industrial areas where we don't allow housing at all.

So we're focusing in this map and in much of our analysis on the neighborhood residential zones, because that's where we see the vast majority of ADU production.

Thank you.

And Council Member Mosqueda's question is, what zones do the pre-approved design and permitting apply to?

Good.

Thank you for that question.

They are permitted in just our NR1, NR2, and NR3 zones.

They weren't reviewed and pre-approved for our RSL zones or low-rise zones.

Is there a policy reason that they're not set up for RSL?

The requirements, so the way the concept works is that the gallery of designs have all been reviewed when you just think of it as a structure kind of removed from a site.

So they meet building code or residential code.

They meet the energy code.

But once you put it on a site, other reviews have to happen at a site-specific level And the development standards in RSL are just a little bit different, and I think STCI felt like initially focusing on just NR zones made sense, but we have heard from some people who would like to use them in RSL zones.

I think that'll be a question we take on later this year because we're approaching kind of the next chapter of the future of those plans.

Thank you, Nick.

The comments that Council Member Mosqueda shared with me was from a constituent that she's been working with that owned a property in an RSL zone that wanted to build a DADU.

It wasn't until four months into an expensive process that they were told that they could not build a DADU.

Is there a mechanism to ensure that people who are in zones do not begin an expensive process before they learn that they're not able to build their DADU?

Well, that certainly is an outcome we would want to avoid.

I'm happy to connect with you or Council Member Mosqueda to learn more about that particular instance.

And I think connect with SDCI to understand what happened to learn from that.

And if someone wanted to use a pre-approved plan in an RSL zone, they might've learned that they're not, as I mentioned, sort of reviewed and approved for that use.

I think there might be a need to be a legislative correction there

actually caught that is that is an unnecessary barrier or maybe put another way and undetended consequence of this legislation because the pre approved designs and permitting is a really important aspect.

of this is because it makes it more accessible for everyday homeowners.

One of my questions, so that was Council Member Mosqueda's question.

It will be important for the team to follow up with her on that.

My question is regarding the correction cycles, I think slide 10, and then I'll jump back to slide 6. I guess, let's go to slide six first.

Let's just, oh, here we are.

Okay, six, yeah, let's do six.

It's my understanding that to build two units, so either two ADUs or an ADU and a DADU, that there, for a total of three units, there are additional requirements that need to be met.

Can you describe these requirements?

Yes, I think probably the requirement you're referring to is in the code, we have to do a second ADU You have to do one of two things, that second ADU, it depends a little bit whether it's new construction or conversion of existing space, but in general, that second ADU either has to meet a green building standard, or it has to be an affordable unit for a pretty long period of time, 50 years.

So in basically all cases, when we see like the two examples here, construction that includes a second ADU on the property, they are achieving that green building standard, usually, I think, a built green certification.

And so that's the path that those projects are choosing.

Thank you.

It's my understanding that the MFTE program has been reduced from a 50-year requirement to a 12-year requirement, and I know that that was state legislation.

Is this 50-year affordable requirement on DADUs or ADUs, is that an issue that needs to be taken up with the state?

Well, stop me if I'm if I get too in the weeds on this, but.

The multifamily tax exemption isn't something that we have in our neighborhood residential zones.

I mean, sort of, as the name implies, I was, I was just using that as an example of something that used to have a really high.

Long requirement and now it's much shorter requirement.

I, you know, there's a lot going on in Olympia right now.

We, we, we can maybe follow up about what the changes are.

MSDE has a 12-year timeline for a tax exemption.

It can be renewed, and there have been some changes or forthcoming changes to how that works.

What we had in the code that I mentioned in that option to either do a green building standard or an affordable unit was a little bit constrained by some other state law that says that basically if you create an incentive program for affordable housing, 50 years is kind of the minimum term of affordability.

So we put it into the code we really expected that that isn't something that most people would sign on to.

We would be open, if the law permitted it to scaling that back to a different length of time that people might do as a way to encourage affordable at us we would need some things to change to make that happen.

Happy to connect offline to go into more depth about what that might be.

Yeah, let's follow up on that.

Thank you.

So slide 10, if you could, and colleagues, I'll try to wrap this up because I know everyone's got other meetings as well.

Slide 10, if these are pre-approved plans, why is there an average of 2.6 correction cycles?

Well, we can follow up with a more complete response than I can give that comes from SDCI and gets into the details of what's really going on there.

When the ADU is put onto a site, there is still additional review that happens.

It has to meet zoning standards, which includes yards, lot coverage, rear yard coverage.

And then there are things like drainage review.

And as we all know, Seattle has a lot of topography, a lot of different environmental areas on properties, especially in our neighborhood residential zones.

As we've talked about here, trees and free canopy and other vegetation come into play.

So there is still review that happens, and that's partly why it's challenging to get, you know, to expedite this even further to be something that only takes a few days.

And so the review, you know, there is still back and forth that happens between the department and the applicant to make sure that the plan set is complete and compliant.

I can follow up with connecting with STCI to get more information about specifically what types of issues seem to be coming up in those correction cycles and how could we try to bring that number down.

Yes, that would be helpful.

Next, the rest of my questions don't necessarily have a slide attached to them, but one question that was brought to me by a resident was regarding converting existing buildings.

So they've got a garage, they would like to convert it into a DADU.

They don't have enough money to finance the entire project all up front.

They have enough money to finance the exterior of the project, but not necessarily the interior.

What are the policy choices that we should be considering to make these types of conversions more attainable for people who are financially restricted, but maybe every five years they'll have a chunk of money to put into this.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for that question.

That's a really good one.

First of all, we do allow conversion of existing structures to become an ADU, including garages.

We even allow garages that might be non-conforming on the topic that Mark has presented.

you know, they might be too close to a lot line, we do allow those still to become living units, even though they might not meet our standards.

But I think what you're raising is, well, what if you need to kind of phase your work over time, just given your budget?

And to me, my initial thought here, as someone who doesn't work hands on with permitting every day, is it's a little bit of a question of what are we requiring to get a construction permit?

And do you need to be able to demonstrate, you know, you have a whole project ready to go?

Or can you do some of the work that your budget allows before continuing.

I probably don't know much more right off hand about what changes might be needed, but I think we could look into that and figure out, you know, part of what's on the website that happens to be mentioned on this slide is this step-by-step guide and something we don't include right now that maybe we should is information about how you might kind of save your project or what that would involve and we can follow up on that.

Yeah, thank you, Nick, I will admit you know my personal, what I personally like about this legislation that was passed before I was on council is it limited the McMansion size of buildings and it also set up the opportunity to have your garage converted, it allows for you to be able to set up space for whether it's your children or your parents to be able to live on the same lot as you, especially as housing prices in our city have priced out some either children or parents, but when they work together, they're able to live on the same property and in separate buildings.

These are the things that I appreciate about it.

Something that is concerning to me is that builders are buying an existing home, building three units, and then moving forward, we can get into the nuances.

I guess my concern here though there is, are these builders paying into mandatory housing affordability or required to perform on-site?

No.

Mandatory housing affordability or MHA, does not apply in our neighborhood residential zones for any type of development.

That's true for the NR zones, it does apply in RSL.

So these zones, when we implemented zoning changes in 2019 in our multifamily and mixed-use areas and in a small percentage of, at the time, called single-family areas, MHA was implemented there and it was not implemented in our neighborhood residential zones.

That is helpful to know.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions?

I'm gonna save my other questions for offline just because we're already over 10 minutes over time.

I'll keep mine for offline as well.

Oh, thanks.

It has to do with finance.

Good, good.

Nick, any closing comments?

Lish, you've been standing at the ready this whole time, but we haven't had to call on you.

Any thoughts you wanna share before we conclude?

No.

Thank you, OPCD, for a great presentation.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, OPCD for Nick for your report today.

Clearly there are aspects of this program that are working well and other aspects that need to be improved.

And we do look forward to your next presentation on this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

With that, before we conclude this meeting, I am excited to announce that the tree protection ordinance has been transmitted to City Council today.

This means that we can begin our work in earnest to add tree protections to our city.

I will be working with my committee clerk today to finalize the schedule to pass this important legislation, which will occur over the next month.

I know that when we are looking at the schedule, because so many committees have time allotted here in Council Chambers, there are not a lot of opportunities.

So I know both we have the Transportation Chair and the Neighborhoods, looks like Council Member Morales might have left, Neighborhoods Chair here, I'll follow up with you.

If you are planning to cancel either any of your committees over this next month, we'd love to take your time.

And if you would like to connect with me offline to talk about the legislation, happy to chat.

The next regularly scheduled Land Use Committee meeting will be on March 22nd, 2023 at 2 p.m.

And with no further business, this concludes the Wednesday, March 8th, 2023 meeting of the Land Use Committee.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Recording stopped.