Land Use Committee 6/14/23

14th, 2023 meeting of the Land Use Committee will come to order.

It is 2 p.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Vice Chair Morales.

Here.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

For present.

Thank you.

And Council Member Mosqueda is excused until she arrives.

Today we have five items on the agenda.

We are back to our regularly scheduled business where we have more than one item on the calendar.

And I am going to request that we amend the agenda to put the public hearings directly after Director Curandongo's confirmation.

with, I'm going to move to amend it, but I'll provide you the summary now.

We would have amendment, appointment 02302, possible vote on acting director Karen Dongo's confirmation.

We will have then council bill 120520, the briefing discussion, public hearing and possible vote on home-based businesses.

Then Council Bill 120587, a briefing discussion, public hearing and possible vote on amending SEPA thresholds.

We will then move back to Council Bill 120591, a briefing and discussion office and housing omnibus bill, followed and lastly by Council Bill 120581, a briefing discussion on design review exemptions for affordable housing projects.

Colleagues, are there any concerns?

And Council Member Mosqueda has joined us now.

Hello.

Hello.

No concerns.

Being no concerns, I move to amend the agenda to have Director Quirindango's confirmation, followed by Home-Based Businesses, then SEPA, then Omnibus, and then Affordable Housing Design Review.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Vice Chair Morales.

Yes.

Chair Schaus.

Yes.

Five in favor.

Thank you.

The amended agenda has been adopted.

And at this time, we will move into in-person and remote public comment.

I do see that we have some folks signed up for the public hearings.

And so we will hold those folks until their appropriate public hearings.

And clerk, can you check the in-person sign-in sheet?

Thank you.

We are gonna do in-person first, followed by online.

I have, oh, okay, great.

And then, or, so I see Megan Cruz signed up for the public hearing.

I see Colleen McAleer signed up for a public hearing.

For public comment, I have Steve Rubstello, Jesse Simpson, and Ryan Donahue.

So clerk, will you please play the video and then we'll get started.

And just for the public's viewing purposes, we are not going to play this video three times.

So we're gonna play it once now and it will apply to the next two public hearings.

Thank you.

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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The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

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Thank you, Seattle.

Thank you, everyone.

For public comment, we have Steve Rubstello, our benevolent leader of Fremont Formerly Green Lake, followed by Jesse Simpson and Ryan Donohue.

Steve, at your convenience.

Let's just make sure your mic is on before we start your timer.

Am I working?

You're working today, friend.

Okay.

Well, design review is something that has diminished a great deal and it looks like even more design review was part of the bargain with the citizens.

When you cared at all about them, that, uh, we would have urban villages, more intensity.

we were going to make sure they fit.

Well, we're seeing examples of what happens when you start keeping the public out of the business of what does their city look like.

Design review has taken down a great deal.

Parking was not the only thing that was part of it.

Views was part of it.

Looking how it fit with the neighborhood.

A few weeks ago, you had a presentation about infill and how in many of the residential areas, you had trouble seeing that there were multi-unit places.

Well, that was done at a different time when the people were involved and the developer didn't have the rights citizens had the rights and so therefore they came forward with a plan that fit the neighborhood and you were surprised at how much parking there was for these units you were surprised at how they fit well well now developers have rights Between you and the developer, we make plans and now we see a city that it isn't hard to find where the intensity is.

It isn't hard to find where the problems are.

You know, we don't even have loading docks on large buildings, knowing full well large trucks are going to come there.

We don't have things that will cost developers money.

We just have things that cost citizens their environment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Up next is Jesse Simpson, followed by Ryan Donahue.

Jesse, welcome.

Take it away.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thanks, Chair Stroud.

I'm Jesse Simpson, Government Relations and Policy Manager for the Housing Development Consortium.

Here today to speak in strong support of Council Bill 120591, adopting a permanent exemption from design review for affordable housing.

Dell desperately needs more affordable homes.

Design review delays the housing our community needs and adds cost to affordable housing projects.

We need to be doing everything we can to remove barriers to building new affordable homes.

Current temporary exemptions from design review have worked well.

I've expedited projects and saved costs without sacrificing quality design or inclusive community engagement.

This bill makes those existing exemptions for publicly funded affordable housing permanent.

It also authorizes waiver and modification requests for certain development standards separate from design review for all of those publicly funded low income housing developments.

I'd like to thank the city council for all of your work to bring this common sense legislation forward.

I also support broader efforts this year to make all aspects of design view more efficient, predictable, and inclusive.

I applaud you for leading this work to reform design view and urge passage of Council Bill 120591. Thanks for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you, Jesse.

Up next is Ryan Donahue.

Ryan, I see you're there.

Star six to unmute.

You're off mute at your convenience, friend.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Chair Strauss and members of the committee.

My name is Ryan Donohue, and I'm the Chief Advocacy Officer at Habitat for Humanity, Seattle, King, and Kittitas Counties.

And I want to thank you for bringing this legislation forward and allowing us to show our strong support for Council Bill 120591, the design review legislation that you'll be talking about today.

We at Habitat know better than most just how design review can impact affordable home ownership projects.

We've seen projects get delayed, significantly growing costs, and ultimately die because of design review.

One project and one example is an affordable condo project in Capitol Hill called Olympic Ridge, where we recently had to go through the design review process.

That process added roughly eight to 10 months and a quarter of a million dollars to the project because we were asked to add things like a significantly more expensive window and black powdered steel trellis on the windows.

as opposed to anything that was particularly important or crucial or necessary.

These are purely subjective things that simply make our projects come online slower, cost more taxpayer money, more donor money, and more importantly, more of our homebuyers' money.

This is a project with 17 permanently affordable homes.

Imagine if it was our project that we're working on off of MLK, right next to the light rail line, which is going to be the largest single building Habitat for Humanity project in the world.

Imagine if we had to go through the same design review process on that.

What would the increasing costs in time and money that would occur if we had to go through that process?

Honestly, it would likely end up killing the project, adding 10 or more months, possibly millions of dollars, and most importantly, leaving 58 families without an opportunity to buy a home in this city, and this city losing residents who would contribute to the health and well-being of the city.

We can't wait anymore.

We at Habitat want to build a world where everyone has a safe, decent, affordable place to call home, and this is an important step in that direction.

Please support.

Thank you, Ryan.

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

Our next agenda item is the appointment of Director Rico Quirindango.

So if you and your delegation want to come up, and as you're coming up, I'd like to pass the mic to Vice Chair Morales to welcome the delegation that has joined us in chambers.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I do want to acknowledge and welcome a delegation of folks who are here from Venezuela.

Bienvenidos.

We have several elected officials who are here as part of a State Department International Visitor Leadership Program.

They're here to study transparency and accountability in state and local government.

And I will be meeting with several of them after the Land Use Committee.

So thank you all for being here.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair, and welcome.

We're excited to have you here, and it's a pleasure to have you with us in the land use committee today.

Clerk, would you please read the short title of our first agenda item and please.

I don't want an appointment, 0230 to Rico can dongle confirmation for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Wonderful and we.

I had Director Karen Dongo joined by Deputy Mayor Washington last week.

We also have Lauren Flemister and the Deputy Director in the room as well and others from OPCD.

Just as a reminder, we had questions submitted to us in August of 2022 and additional questions were attached this last week.

I don't have further questions for you, Director Karen Dongo.

I've read all 17 pages of your answers, and I have some thoughts to share in just a moment.

Before I do that, I'd like to open it up to you if you have anything you'd like to share.

Well, I just want to say thank you for having me back.

It's great to be able to talk with you all today, and I feel honored.

I've been with the city now two and a half years.

I've been in an acting director role for all of two months of that time.

Uh, I have a great staff, um, who a number of them are with me today.

Uh, you know, our, our, our mission is to lead collaborative planning, advanced equitable development and create great places.

This is what my career 27 years in architect and now two and a half years, uh, city employee.

It's what my career has been dedicated to.

Um, so I, uh.

I just look forward to the road ahead, and thank you for having me here.

Thank you, Director.

Colleagues, do you have questions before I get into some of my thoughts?

I have some comments and questions, and I can go before you.

OK.

Good afternoon.

Thank you all for being here.

I do want to publicly acknowledge and thank Rico for your leadership the last two years has been incredible.

You and your staff have provided such clear guidance to us as city council.

about how we address the racial disparities in the city.

And I know you're particularly thoughtful about how we go about something as arcane as land use policy and using that to address racial disparities.

So I really want to appreciate your contribution to the department and to the work the city does.

And maybe I'm speaking out of turn, but congratulations on your appointment.

So I do want to shift gears though and I have a couple of pointed questions about the EDI program.

I think everybody knows that the equitable development initiative is really important to me.

It is not just an anti racist anti displacement program.

It stands very often as the first and sometimes the only funder for community projects that allow historically marginalized communities to create and design their own neighborhood projects that meet their needs.

This funding is crucial leveraging for additional government dollars for private funding.

And so I get concerned when I hear that there are possible changes to the funding strategies for our city's only community investment funding program without a robust community engagement process.

So, you know, I know that there has been some, I think it was called reimagining of the RFP process.

I'm interested in learning a little bit more about what concern led to the need for a reimagining and whether the EDI board was involved.

Um, and I'm asking because this funding is crucial to developing cultural spaces.

The Ethiopian village, the Duwamish Longhouse, the Innovation Learning Center at the community, the Filipino Community Center, the Africatown Midtown Center.

Um, and so, you know, I want to make sure that we're clear, uh, and I especially want to thank Council Member Mosqueda in her fight to preserve the intent of the Jumpstart funding here.

Uh, so, I think it's important for us to have a conversation about if we're going to prioritize a decrease in funding that is intended to address equity, that that's against our race and social justice principles.

So I wanna encourage all of us to be working with Council Member Mosqueda as the budget chair with CBO to really uphold the intent of that funding, to balance the support in the general fund and to make sure that we're investing in our communities.

So, so that is my first question like what led to the need to kind of reimagine the RFP process.

And then my second question is, it's been over a year since EDI was without a director and I would like to know what the timeline is to fill that very important role in the department.

Thank you for your questions Councilmember Morales.

Let's see where do I start.

I do want to address something that you asked the EDI advisory board has been very directly involved in this conversation around reimagining.

the drive for that conversation from the board side.

I mean, it was driven by the board and it was around, amongst other things, the issue of how much time and effort it takes for applications to be put together by members of the community.

And that what we've been seeing is that you have, applicants that apply year over year.

They don't get it the first year, they reapply again in a second year and maybe even in a third.

And what we've been, without intending to, what we've been doing is creating some hardship and harm there.

And so the work that we've been engaging in at the end of 2022 and this year has been to try to do a little bit of streamlining of the process so that people that we had already heard from, that we already Chris Ranglos, COB Staff Members' Team Members): New needed funding for a project that was was in the queue that we could have them apply through a simplified process where they didn't have to do the same amount of work that they had done year year over year before.

Chris Ranglos, COB Staff Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' Team Members' How do we not only get dollars into the hands of the community more efficiently, but are we effectively meeting all of the goals that we have for equitable development across the city?

Are we achieving those goals in all of our neighborhoods?

And are we hearing from everybody that we need to hear from?

That work is still very much in progress.

And, you know, you asked a very important question about the fact that we have the vacancy of an EDI director in our office.

We had one of our EDI team leaders, Patrice Thomas, in that role and out of class position.

for a little over a year, which she was great in.

We also had, we went through an initial process to look for a replacement for the role and weren't really, we felt like the pool, it is a challenging position.

It's a heavy management position.

It's a engagement and outreach position.

It's a financial management position.

We're in some ways, we're looking for a unicorn there.

And we felt like we got a, we didn't get, we got a small applicant pool the first time we went out and felt like we needed to do some retooling of the definition of the position and do a reclass, which just came back.

So it's a manager three position now.

and we're gonna be going out again.

I believe we're gonna do that next month.

So it is something that's weighed heavily on my mind for the last year, to be honest.

We're working very hard to fill that position.

Well, I appreciate that and if there's anything I can do to be helpful or my office can do to help spread the word, I'm absolutely willing to do that because this can't go unfilled.

Yeah.

The work is too important.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Any further questions, Vice Chair?

No, thank you very much.

All right.

Council Member Nelson, any questions today?

I have to, but please.

So, back in the day, planning and permitting used to be in the same department, you know, usually people there's lumpers or splitters right and so now with planning and permitting into separate departments, how.

How often do you just sort of meet informally or formally with your cohorts in SPCI and talk about how, for example, really small like building code size things can impact major planning goals?

Because I always say that removing regulatory barriers to meet our policy goals is the easy way to to meet our goals.

So can you just explain that relationship a little bit?

Sure.

So we obviously were born out of STCI.

And I have a great relationship with Nathan Torvaldsen, our STCI director.

We meet on a regular basis at probably, well, at least a couple of times a month, but staff meets more frequently than that.

And we do it based on the programs we're trying to put in place, legislation that we're working on.

There are times where there are projects that a question comes up about where we're consulted since obviously, OBCD is not regulatory.

But, you know, the intent of land use code, we oftentimes will there'll be an interpretation to be made, or a discussion is helpful.

So, and it's not directly related but our, our change team is. is conjoined, that is a word, the SDCI and OPCD.

So I would say that we maintain a very close relationship for the reasons that you suggest.

It's very important that while we are separated, that we still maintain a close connection.

Thank you.

You and I have discussed some of those little tweaks that can happen to be continued.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Colleagues online, Council Member Peterson or Council Member Mosqueda, do you have questions today?

I see Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you for answering all those questions that we provided.

I did have a follow-up to one of the responses.

I think on question 10, it was about displacement.

And I think the response included a key tools that you're exploring include inclusionary zoning to generate construction of housing for low income residents.

And just wanted to make sure the environmental impact statement will be including inclusionary zoning as a potential mitigation measure for displacement.

Because I understand that has to be studied to then be included as a policy.

And the answer is yes.

Thank you.

And that was a tough back and forth.

Councilman Peterson any further questions.

I know thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilman mosquito.

Do you have questions today totally okay if not we have 17 pages of answers so I do Mr. Chair, please take it away.

Oh, okay I'm sitting in the sunshine.

Hello director it's good to see you.

I guess it is.

Premature me to say early congratulations, but I'll get it in since I have the mic.

I want to thank you for your partnership on the work that you've done around a comprehensive plan.

I really appreciate the work that we've been able to do with you on the racial equity report on Seattle's urban village strategy.

I think it's really critical that we have a leader within.

The department that is committed to community engagement and the policy policy framework that has created has that has been created within community that allowed for to really set us on the course for a comprehensive plan that allows for us to reimagine.

what our zoning could look like to re-examine our reform and our approach to land use policies so it can be inclusive, so that we can have adequate and abundant housing, that we can develop this housing not only to serve the population that's coming to our city, but use it as a tool to fight displacement for our current population as well.

And I've seen in you a real commitment to continue to enable communities that have been marginalized by past discriminatory policies to benefit from current land use policies and projected land use policies of the future.

So thank you for the vision that you set out.

I think our office is excited to be able to work with you on any resources that you might need to scale up.

the funding needed for the equitable development initiative.

I share Council Member Morales's concerns and know that this is not directed at you.

Please know that we are having conversations directly with the City Budget's Office and the Mayor about our deep concerns around any holding of equitable development initiative funding, not only because it is an economic anti-displacement tool, but it's also a way for us to generate local economic activity and to be able to buoy future recessions or economic hardship that are prolonged as a consequence of the pandemic.

The question that I would have for you and want to make sure that you know that we appreciate your community partnership.

But I would love for you to be able to help us with seeing the processes to expedite building and building affordable and dense housing.

And frankly, just building in our city as a revenue driver as well.

When we hear about delays that are two or three years and the missed opportunity to see economic activity take place in our city to build housing or cultural hubs, and to put people to work in the time frame that it costs to permit things.

It just underscores for me again the ways in which we should be looking at policies that allow for the department to have the tools to expedite permitting.

So just wanted to see if there's anything off the top of your mind that you'd like to lift up and know that we have a good partner in the department and under your leadership to continue to build on ways to protect equitable development initiative funding, hopefully, fingers crossed, and that we can also do more with public policy directives to ensure that that's actually the case.

And then to work with you to expedite permitting, not only because we want people to build in our city, but because it can bring in revenue.

Thanks again and a premature congratulations for all that you'll continue to do with us.

Thank you Councilmember.

So, I know that this has been a very important issue that we are struggling with as a city, how do we expedite permitting and get projects that are shovel ready out the door so they can get built and, and it can turn into more revenue for the city and.

we can see the production of more housing units across the city.

This is a subject that OBCD is a part of as part of our housing sub-cabinets with the mayor's office and part of a conversation that we're having also with SDCI as we look at ways that we can streamline, ways that we can prioritize affordable housing projects.

and do that meaningful work.

I'd say this is very much a work in progress for all of us.

And we've got a lot more to do on that front.

But I appreciate the subject and we will continue to do that work.

I think you got an approval, a look of approval from Council Member Mosqueda there.

Seeing as all of my colleagues have spoken, I'm gonna, I have your 17 pages of responses here.

I don't have questions for you.

I'm gonna lift, because I already asked them all in these 17 pages.

And so I'm gonna lift up some of your responses because it's important for me that if you do the work to respond to our questions that we, share your answers.

When asked what has surprised you, you shared that staff didn't necessarily feel empowered to fully lean into difficult challenges they saw in front of them and that their voice wasn't necessarily being heard.

And through your support and direction, created a video series to document the great work of the staff and the community, and to tell the stories of the incredible equitable development initiative and other issues that you work on.

You've continued to work on the industrial maritime strategy that we were able to pass last week out of committee you continue to work on the downtown activation plan.

You note here that you were surprised at how much of a toll the challenge of this works takes on staff, particularly of staff of color, and it emboldens you to want to do more and to do better.

That's the spirit we're looking for.

When asked what your goals are and what your metrics are, you mentioned working with the capital subcabinet to develop mapping and tracking tools that will allow us to consistently prioritize and evaluate our investments through an equity lens.

talking about the path for equitable housing for all and resilient and stable, sustainable neighborhoods.

You are working with Office of Economic Development and Office of Sustainability and Environment using social determinants of health as the framework for evaluation, which you will assess what resources are needed or are missing from communities across the city.

This is incredible and important.

Asked what the biggest challenges are for the city's long-term planning goals.

The biggest challenge that you write is that our city's long-term planning goal has two challenges.

One, accommodating the continued growth of our city population and the deficit of sufficient housing stock to serve our communities.

And two, creating generational wealth opportunities for communities of color.

This is something that I agree with.

When asked about.

I'm not going to repeat this question I'm going to highlight your answer that you right here Seattle is a city of unique and wonderful neighborhoods and communities that call them home growth need need not conflict with neighborhood vitality.

The issue of importance that we have is that we have to balance as part of the implementation of the city's comprehensive plan is one of scale and response to existing context.

This is a guiding principle that I think will serve us well as we bring up this major update to the comprehensive plan, because our last one, we had double the growth than projected.

And I think that's where a lot of our issues are coming from right now.

When asked about climate change, Office of Planning and Community Development is addressing climate change by working closely with key departments.

And you have strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions that include, one, encouraging future growth locations near transit, two, expanding locations where people can walk or bike to access daily needs, and three, ensuring land use is coordinated with transportation, infrastructure, and other community assets.

You're also working to create more equitable response to climate change.

One key example is OPCD's work supporting the Duwamish Valley Partnership to plan, implement, plan, and implement adaptation strategies, especially those to adapt to sea level rise, flooding, extreme heat, and air pollution.

I think he wrote that before we had the King Tide event in South Park.

And that's right.

And this is why you'll hear me say this again at the end, that you have exceeded expectations of your time here as acting director.

And this is an example that before that happened, you saw that on our horizon.

Thank you.

Continuing on colleagues, sorry, I've only got a couple more of these 17 pages to get through.

When talking about including race and social justice initiative into the office, you talk about the management team developing a charter through a facilitated process that was focused on collaboration with one another and accountability to staff.

To advance the work individuals on the management team had to embrace their differences that inform their experience and their projects.

The Office of the Ombud led a number of popular trainings with tremendous staff participation focused on topics such as trauma-informed care and bystander intervention.

I haven't seen that written in a director's response to questions yet.

So that was impressive to see.

When talking about the displacement, Council Member Peterson brought this up.

You write, as an integrated anti-displacement strategy informed by analysis and input from community and stakeholders, This will accompany the comprehensive plan update that you will deliver to council in 2024. Key tools are exploring, including inclusionary zoning to generate construction of housing for low-income residents, including MHA and other tools, targeted affordable housing investments, financial and zoning support for existing homeowners to build wealth and housing opportunities on their property, and sustained funding for community-supported investments in nonprofit organizations such as through EDI.

When you talk about the comprehensive plan, you talk about the comprehensive plan EIS that includes an analysis of impacts on potential displacement under each of the growth strategy alternatives.

This sits close to home for me because the neighborhood that I grew up in was a working class neighborhood and I can tell you that's not the case now.

And I wish that we had these types of strategies in place when we experienced that growth.

When talking about the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan update, you've noted that you've been able to add staff with partnership from myself and Council Member Mosqueda.

You've resourced partnerships with community-based organizations.

You've worked with Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaisons, and you've embraced the hybrid nature of engagement accelerated by the pandemic so that we have online tools that are available for people to use at their convenience on at their time and it has the same impact as showing up to an in-person event.

And finally you're striving to be more transparent about what you're hearing from community and how that feedback is shaping city policy including regular report outs from each engagement phase and making unfiltered public input available on your engagement hub.

This is not easy work and I'm impressed with what you've been able to do.

When you are talking about downturns in development, you talk about the troughs and development cycle that are often time to take advantage of downturns that we don't necessarily wanna see, but they are a natural cycle.

And using those troughs is the best time to take up the long range planning that prepares the city for future surges in the local economy.

There's breathing room to take stock of what we've learned from the high growth period, engage with community around a vision and put tools zoning anti displacement capital improvement plans in place.

This can happen at a citywide and neighborhood scale, the fact that you've recognized distinct neighborhoods being part of our fabric and continue to raise them up.

tells me that you understand our city in a very important way.

Talking about the housing subcabinet, you have tactical near-term strategies in quantifying our housing needs and setting measurable targets for meeting them, collaborating across departments to remove barriers during permitting construction, and identifying policy and regulatory changes needed to achieve our housing goals and targets.

When talked about, MHA and builders choosing to pay into the fund or having affordable housing on site, you say payment and performance both have value for our city's affordable housing objectives.

The payment option lets the city produce more homes that are affordable because of leveraging non-city funds and allows us to fund types of units that the market doesn't provide.

And performance helps by producing income-restricted affordable homes in high-opportunity neighborhoods where high cost of land makes it challenging to build subsidized housing.

Performance also lets the private market create income-restricted homes concurrent with the nonprofit sector.

And we're exploring, you say we are exploring, ways to support projects interested in providing affordable homes in on-site through performance.

And legislation we have later today just helps move this forward.

I do believe I'm nearly done.

Regarding urban forestry, you mentioned that it is your job to elevate emphasis on climate resilience and the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, including a new climate element, centers the importance of tree canopy as mitigation for heat impacts, with particular focus on intersection of low canopy cover and BIPOC and other frontline communities.

I know this is important to myself and Council Member Peterson as well.

You have a number of answers to the EDI questions Vice Chair Morales has already asked you these so I'm just going to summarize your final points here, which you are asked to describe revision for our city.

And you say, I quote you, I believe we have a lot of work to do to make the city of Seattle more equitable.

We need to ensure everyone has a voice regardless of where they live in the city, regardless of what level of income they make, regardless of the color of their skin and the nature of their heritage.

We need to ensure that anyone that works in the city of Seattle has the ability to earn a living wage.

We need to ensure that for anyone that chooses or wants to live in the city of Seattle, that they have access to an affordable place to live, whether they are renting, or buying regardless of their income.

And you say, in closing, I have never had any job more meaningful to me than the one of acting director of OPCD.

I love Seattle and see that this is the most meaningful way for me to give back and support the great vision that all of you, us, have for this great city.

I'm incredibly proud of these answers.

I haven't received such thorough answers in a long time.

You have exceeded expectations in your role as acting director.

Industrial Maritime is just one of those many bullet points, and that was a big lift.

And so I just thank you for your service to our city, your servant leadership, and I'll pass it back to you for final comments.

I'm kind of without words.

You know, I meant those words about the value and importance of this job to me.

It is life defining work.

and I have some personal health issues that I'm dealing with right now that bring that very much to the core of the front of my mind.

How do I continue to lean into this important work for the city at this incredibly important time?

And as community is looking for answers.

They're looking for support.

They're wanting to understand how the city will continue to go around them, but how they will continue to be supported to stay, to achieve generational wealth, to support their families, to own a home.

I think that as I look at our comp plan work and I look at our EDI work, we are continuing to try to find ways that we can be that support and land use is not something that is accessible to a lot of people.

I think it is very much our job and our community engagement to bring that to the community as the community brings their needs to us and to be that translator.

And I think that we do, I think we do a pretty damn good job.

So I'm, I'm, I'm emboldened.

I'm excited.

I am daunted by some of the challenges that we have, particularly related to increasing our housing compliment for a city that is in great need.

But I know that with the partnership with all of our departments and with the leadership of the mayor's office, that we will get to where we need to get to.

So I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues with that I'm going to is my humble honor to move the recommendation.

I move to recommend confirmation of appointment 02302, the confirmation of Rico Quirendongo as the Director of Office of Planning and Community Development.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of Rico Quirendongo to the Director of Office of Planning and Community Development, appointment 02302. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Vice Chair Morales?

Yes.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor.

Thank you.

With a unanimous support from the Land Use Committee, your appointment, the motion passes.

Appointment 02302 passes and your appointment will be sent to the June 20th, 2023 City Council meeting for a final vote.

Congratulations.

You have exceeded expectations and we hope, we expect that that will continue.

Thank you, sir.

Wonderful.

With that, we are going to move on to the next agenda item.

The agenda has been amended.

The next agenda item will be Home-Based Businesses, Council Bill 120520. Will the clerk please read the short title into the record?

Item four, council bill 120520, home-based businesses for briefing discussion, public hearing and possible vote.

Wonderful, and we have a presentation from Ketel Freeman, and then we will open up the public hearing.

We have had this before our body a number of times because we passed temporary legislation during the pandemic.

We passed extensions to that.

And we have, we had this bill before us and committee previously.

And so I know that we've had this quite a bit of discussion on this, I'm going to pass it over to Ketel Freeman now, and we will take questions.

Thank you.

Today, I'm having a public hearing and the committee may vote on Council 120520 which would put in place permanent changes to regulations for home occupations.

Last time, we went through a brief presentation about the content of the bill.

On my screen here now there are a couple of questions.

I'm coming out of that presentation that I may be able to answer with a revised version of the presentation.

So hopefully everybody is seeing a PowerPoint presentation for the bill.

A little bit of background as Council Member Strauss mentioned, the Council initially amended our regulations for home occupations on an interim basis during the COVID civil emergency.

That was through Ordinance 126293. That was to allow businesses that may have operated out of storefront prior to pandemic restrictions to allow them to operate more freely out of a home.

Those regulations were extended in March of 2022 for an additional six months and they elapsed in November of last year.

This is a different version of the table that I presented to you last time.

Some of you had some questions about how the proposed regulations differ from the interim regulations.

They are largely the same.

Maybe stepping back here a minute.

To refresh your memory that the city, the city of Seattle currently has pretty permissive regulations for home occupations.

You don't need a land use permit from the city to occupy to operate a business out of your home.

You just need to comply with the performance standards that are in the code.

Other jurisdictions have some kind of a tiered permitting system.

or some sort of special permit that may be needed for home occupations that may have more intense impacts on neighbors.

Seattle does not have that.

We have performance standards.

If you meet those performance standards, you can operate your home occupation.

If there are complaints, you have to come into compliance, so there's not really an issue when it comes to a permit that you may have.

In terms of how Council 120520 differs from current regulations and proposed regulations, there are a couple of key elements, key performance standards here on the left.

The second column has current regulations, third, the proposed regulations, and then a new column about the interim regulations and showing how they are the same and in a few cases different from the proposed regulations.

I'll just walk through these to refresh your memory.

Customer visits, current regulations are that those be by appointment only.

Interim regulations allow walk-up customers, so you didn't have to have an appointment to come to a home occupation.

The proposed regulations maintain that change to performance standards.

Employees, current regulations, and these are also the same regulations pre-pandemic, were that no more than two non-resident employees could be associated with a home occupation.

There are some exceptions there for childcares operated out of a person's home.

Those regulations have no limit, that's the same as the interim regulations.

Vehicles associated with a home occupation, so these would be things like fleet vehicles, let's say you had a flower service, you're a florist that you're operating out of your home.

You could have up to three vehicles under the proposed regulations that would be used for flower deliveries.

The interim regulations allowed no more than two and that was the same as the current regulations.

So that is a slight variation, slight difference from the prior interim regulations.

signage under the current regulations and pre pandemic regulations, a home occupation could have one small 64 square inch sign on the interim regulations allowed up to a 720 square 720 square inch sign the proposed regulation the interim regulations on the same.

Commercial deliveries, this may really just have been an error in the interim regulations, but under the current regulations, only one commercial delivery would be allowed on weekdays and not on the weekends.

The interim regulations actually did not modify that.

Sort of a changed circumstance from 2006 when the home occupation regulations were changed permanently most recently.

Now, of course, we have a lot of deliveries from Amazon and other services like that.

So it's a little bit of a different environment.

The proposed regulations have no limitation on commercial deliveries.

Visual evidence of home occupation.

So previously, the current regulations, I should say, allow no sort of visual evidence from the exterior structure.

There are some exceptions for child care.

The interim regulations allowed home occupations to be located on outdoor areas.

You can't have outdoor storage associated with a home occupation outside, but you can have some evidence of the home occupation outside, like plants, for example, if you're a landscaping business.

The interim regulations are the same as the proposed regulations, so you can have evidence of a home occupation in a yard or side yard, but you can't have outdoor storage associated with a home occupation.

So those are some of the changes to performance standards, how they vary under the proposed regulations as compared to the current and interim regulations.

Issue identification, it's a little bit of a sort of good news, bad news situation.

We don't really know what the uptake will be on new home occupations because of the changed regulations.

Information from STC I indicates that they've had pretty much the same number of complaints pre pandemic as post pandemic.

That's about four complaints a year so not very many know as I mentioned before, no land use permit is required so if the council were to amend the home occupation regulations in the future.

that those existing home occupations would need to come into compliance with the new regulations.

But there is a potential for unintended consequences here.

If there is a high uptake for types of businesses that generate a lot of traffic, then it may be the case that there'd be conflict with adjacent residential uses.

And there's also if there's a significant update to it may mean that the council should consider revisiting our current goals and policies for where commercial uses should be located.

Those are current policies generally encourage concentration and expansion of commercial uses and existing commercial and mixed use areas.

Um, but again, sort of remains to be seen, um, uh, whether there'll be any impacts, um, just based on the last, uh, five years or so of evidence, it seems.

Um, possible that they really won't be that much of a change on an uptake when it comes to home occupations.

So unless the council members have any questions, um, I can, we can enter the public hearing.

Thank you, Ketel.

I've got a couple of questions for you if you want to sit on that last slide, not questions.

And I know we have Gordon Clowers with us online and Mike Podolsky, who I don't think was expecting to speak to this, but Mike's in the crowd here.

Issue identification here.

You had mentioned when I asked the question about requiring permits to track these types of businesses, you shared with me some important information about how permits can make creating changes in the future more difficult?

Could you share what you said to me with the public?

Sure.

Yeah, I mean, sort of good news, bad news about not having permits.

If the city had a permit requirement, and there was some change in regulation to to strengthen performance standards for home occupations because there'd been an increase in complaints.

Existing home occupations with a land use permit would become non-conforming uses.

They would likely remain there and they may be vested to development standards that allow them to maintain their current operating practices.

That's a negative consequence of a permit requirement.

A positive thing about permits, of course, is that you can track where home occupations are being are being established and over time sort of have a better way of understanding how they are impacting their neighborhoods.

There are some proxies that the city can use as identified.

Business licenses as a way to sort of take a rough cut, whether they're sort of how many home occupations.

There are in the city, somebody may have a business license associated with the business that they are doing, but they may not be animate that license may have listed their home address, but they may not be operating a business out of their home.

Another way to track.

and whether they're having a negative effect on near neighbors is complaints.

And so if there is an uptick in complaints, that could be an indication that the performance standards need to be adjusted.

As I mentioned, the number of complaints annually has sort of been more or less the same for the last many years.

Thank you.

And with this, I'll pass this to colleagues in just a second.

With this, you mentioned the potential for unintended consequences associated if there's a high uptake in home-based businesses that create a competition with commercial zones.

It's my understanding we have not seen a large uptake in the last two and a half years that we've had this legislation in place.

Is that your understanding?

That's correct, yeah.

And as well, this, we haven't received very many complaints about this in the last two and a half years.

Is that your understanding as well?

And Gordon, that is my understanding.

Um, I don't know if Gordon wants to chime in with additional information.

Yes.

Um, we haven't, we don't have a record of a lot of complaints now.

And I would say that, yeah, the typical profile of the home occupations, for information we do have, are mostly, you know, in-house sorts of businesses, so not the kind that would generate complaints.

Thank you.

And you know, when we're allowing home-based businesses, this is the incubation space that allows businesses to then move into brick and mortar stores.

Once they have found their footing, this is an innovation bill.

And this has been through a partnership with SDCI and central staff where SDCI wrote the bill, central staff then took it and introduced it.

If we could go back to the previous slide, I do have a couple of questions about the differences We have expanded from two vehicles to three.

And it's my understanding that these are fleet vehicles, not associated with employees.

Is that correct?

Maybe Gordon, if you want to share your understanding of why this change was made, that would be helpful.

The reasoning is primarily for fleet vehicles.

Yes.

But it also accommodates employee parking as well.

Yeah, thank you, Gordon.

And with commercial deliveries, I'll be honest, when I saw this slide, I sat up in my chair a little bit because it wasn't quite what I expected.

And Ketel shared with me important information that he shared with the public just a moment ago that with the number of Amazon and other online deliveries, I have seen my neighbors receive many deliveries per day as well as my own house.

And it's hard to distinguish what is a private delivery and what is a business delivery.

I haven't seen a lot of complaints about the number of deliveries that are being made for personal uses, much less commercial uses.

I do want to flag that these are different, that these are differences from the interim bill and colleagues, if you do have concerns about these items, I'm more than happy to hold the bill for a final vote until our next meeting so that amendments can be made.

I'm not wedded to any of this, but I do think that SDCI created a good bill.

That is exactly the thought that I had when I saw that no limit and then I, you know, but you're absolutely right.

We depend more on online order deliveries.

So to me, it doesn't, that one change does not cause alarm for me.

Oh, great.

Colleagues, I'm opening it up to questions at this time.

I don't have questions.

I think this is a great opportunity for, as you said, entrepreneurship, getting businesses started.

And I think everybody's probably tired of me talking about the opportunity that we need to create in the city for really vibrant neighborhoods where people have access to childcare and healthcare and grocery stores and small businesses that are growing out of our neighbors' homes.

I think it is in keeping with that idea of creating really vibrant neighborhoods and supporting the legislation.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Any other comments?

Seeing no further comments, thank you, Gordon, for your work on this legislation.

Thank you, Ketil, for your analysis and your hard work here.

We are going to now open the public hearing.

We do have Colleen McClure signed up for the public hearing.

We have already played the video with the instructions that essentially say, please be nice.

And so we will now open the public hearing on Council Bill 120520 is now open.

We will begin with in-person speakers first, followed by online speakers.

And so we have Steve Rubstello, our benevolent leader, followed by Colleen McClure online.

Steve, welcome.

Yes.

Context is kind of important and I'd be kind of interested to know if any of the complaints, what happened to them.

It's sort of, we've had a few and that's about it.

The issues with home businesses are not changing over decades, what the home businesses might.

And I think when you talk about deliveries, UPS truck is one thing, semi truck is another thing.

When you talk about, all deliveries are not equal.

And disruption of neighborhood is really what the problem is.

And that goes down to what we used to call the biggie enforcement.

And do people simply give up after a while because the city is not doing the job.

Luckily, I have not been near a troublesome home business, so I don't know how good or bad they are presently.

But that would be something that would be nice to know before one went forward with this sort of plan.

The complaints, do they really solve any problem?

And the smell and hours of disruption.

These are the common things that go with home businesses.

And is the city doing better with that than they are with say assaults and things like that, that the city really doesn't seem to give a darn about.

And that would be my main concern on home businesses.

Are we really going to do something to make sure that the few probably that are a problem are actually taken care of and the neighborhood doesn't further have to take another abusive strike for developer profit or for the, some funder of some.

Thank you, Steve.

Up next is Colleen McClure.

I see you are off mute at your convenience, friend.

Good afternoon, city council.

Colleen McClure for Laura Hearst Community Club Council.

They represent over 2,500 households and we support the in-home business legislation for entrepreneurial ventures and ability to earn income in neighborhood residential areas.

There's so many successful businesses that have started in a garage or a home office and ongoing services such as counseling, but these businesses fit in well because they do not spill impact into adjacent areas where people live and sleep.

And before the bill gets into its final form, there's still a few things that need to be fixed.

And we've gone to council three times to mention this.

Section G prohibits more than three vehicles associated with the home occupation to be at the site.

Clarification is still needed.

Is that in addition to the owner's vehicles at the site?

If not, it should be because that wouldn't comply with our own Seattle Municipal Codes for residential areas with no more than three vehicles may be parked outdoors on a lot.

Section F concerns the vehicle's automotive retail sales and services.

and shall not cause substantial increase in congestion or substantial increases in traffic.

But these are not defined.

And auto services such as repairs, rentals, cleaning businesses often spill over into the neighborhoods with autos and waiting throughout the area.

So cars are scattered everywhere.

And with the neighborhood residential zones, they're designed to have some parking available for residents, visitors, and other people who want to operate their businesses.

So to prevent one business from taking over all of that, It needs, the code needs to be changed.

And so the code needs to say that the businesses should be confined to the site of the business owner.

And at that point, they're confined with the maximum number of three vehicles outside.

And also the bill should define what is congestion and noise impacts to ensure that businesses are really just home business and not commercial businesses that are being permitted in residential areas where people live and sleep.

That's why we have, and we urge you to wait until the business is nailed down before

Thank you, Colleen.

Appreciate your feedback today.

Seeing as we have no additional speakers remotely or physically present, we will close this public hearing.

Colleagues, if there is no objections, I would like to suspend the rules to pass the bill out of committee the same day we've had a public hearing.

If you would prefer to wait, I will wait.

We have a very busy calendar for the rest of this month.

I think in this last quarter, we have had the same number of meetings in the last quarter that we typically do all year.

So I just wanna be also cognizant of your time.

Colleagues, are there any objections to suspending the rules?

No objection.

I'm not seeing any objections.

So if I'm going to formally read the words if there's no objection the council rules will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on Council Bill 120520 on the same day as a public hearing.

Hearing no objection the council rule is suspended.

Is there any further discussion before we vote?

I will close by saying I reviewed.

Oh, yes.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thanks so much.

I will probably add to your comments as well on agenda item, which was agenda item number four, correct, Mr. Chair?

That's correct.

Okay, great.

I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Chair, for your leadership on the initial legislation here.

I think that today is a great example of how we can be innovative, we can be responsive, we can support small businesses and working families stay in place and put roots down in Seattle.

This is another piece of policy that was passed during the COVID emergency on an interim basis that we've been able to show proof of concept.

This flexibility that we've offered for home-based businesses really is a springboard.

It's a springboard for small businesses to be able to get their footing in some of the hardest years, the first, second, and third year often are the toughest.

To the extent that we can support small businesses opening up shops and putting their roots down in neighborhoods, that's fantastic.

You, Mr. Chair, talked a lot about Yonder Cider when we initiated this legislation during COVID, and we've now seen this as a business that is operating successfully, and I want more businesses operating out of their garages, making the transition to commercial space, having the ability to build out their businesses from scratch with really low overhead.

It's not only important for us as a city to support small business recovery, but it's also important for the resiliency and the equity that I think we all want to see as we emerge from COVID to make sure our neighborhoods are more vibrant, that families can walk around and have access to economic hubs.

and that our small businesses can be family small businesses and allow for people to really have economic opportunity.

I've shared during COVID the example of my family who literally operated their taco shop out of the front of their garage as well in Des Moines, Iowa, Tasty Tacos, which has grown into now six restaurants, 65 plus years of existence, and voted the best taco every year in Des Moines, Iowa.

So my hope is that this type of flexibility that we're offering will allow more families to be able to open up their small businesses, create economic stability and economic opportunity for more in our region, and that we see more successful entrepreneurs and a healthier economy and population because of this.

So thanks for your leadership on this, Mr. Chair, and excited to continue to offer this flexibility as we move forward.

Thank you Councilmember Mosqueda, we are still waiting to taste some of those tasty treats your family makes.

With that I see Councilmember Peterson, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, chair Strauss.

Just briefly, I, um, appreciate your hard work on this as well as the department and the central staff analysis and, uh, consistent with the concerns I raised when this was going to be a temporary measure.

Now this is going to be made permanent.

So at full council, I'll probably not be able to support this, but today I'll just abstain.

So it can, it can move forward since all the work has been done on this.

Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome to vote.

No.

I think it's everyone's prerogative.

Yeah, full council I just didn't want to.

If I voted no then it would delay when it goes to full council so that's quite all right I think we might be delaying it anyhow, but

Either way, we appreciate you Council Member Peterson.

I will close this out by saying, I reviewed the tapes of our original committee meetings.

Council President had a lot of tough questions and I appreciate, I have a rule in my office that you shouldn't come to committee if you're not ready to answer Council President's questions.

And they made this bill better.

They made explaining this bill better.

And something that she said was, we should not just adopt permanent legislation because of the pandemic.

And after 2.5 years, we have not seen a negative impact.

And we have seen benefit of this flexibility to provide entrepreneurials more latitude in springboarding into brick and mortar.

And so I hope that she shares that sentiment.

We don't know yet.

And Council President, if you are watching, I am still waiting for some of your fry bread that you promised two and a half years ago.

With that, Seeing as no further questions here, I will move to adopt Council Bill 120520. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Council Bill 120520. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Abstain.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Four in favor, one abstention.

Thank you.

Council Bill 120520 passes.

And this item will be back before full council, I believe on June 27th for a final vote.

Thank you, colleagues.

We are gonna move on to item five, which is a briefing discussion, public hearing and possible vote on Council Bill 120587, which will amend SEPA thresholds for projects downtown.

We will have a short briefing from Lish Whitson.

This is a very simple bill.

We had this in committee last week, and then we will have a public hearing.

Will the clerk please read the short title into the record?

Item 5, Council Bill 120587, Downtown TEPA Thresholds for Briefing, Discussion, Public Hearing, and Possible Vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we had this bill before us last week.

Lish, I'm going to turn it over to you.

I will just note for our records that we had a request both from WSDOT for a formal way to notify their Department of All Projects adjacent to the state route that may right of way that we need to have some way to write this into the threshold change and we received feedback from the Suquamish tribe regarding the need for notification and consultation in order to protect unrecorded archaeological materials and other cultural resources.

I know we were able to meet with WSDOT and I'd like to formalize this in some way if not through legislation today.

I think that it is important that we create this formal pathway even outside of this legislation.

So I'll turn it over to you for a brief presentation, and then we'll open the public hearing.

All right.

Thank you.

I will just remind you very quickly of the content of the bill.

It is initiated in response to two changes.

One change to the Washington Administrative Code which governs the State Environmental Policy Act and implements it at a statewide level, and the other City of Seattle in downtown Seattle, we have exceeded our growth estimates for downtown Seattle under our comprehensive plan.

Our Thresholds for when we require environmental review are tied in part to those growth estimates under the comprehensive plan in downtown Seattle.

If we have not exceeded those thresholds, projects with 250 or more units are exempt from undergoing environmental review.

That level of growth was reviewed under the comp plan.

environmental impact statement.

And under current regulations, once we have exceeded those limits, then any project with 20 or more residential units is required to be reviewed under the State Environmental Policy Act.

This bill will increase that number to 200 units.

Similarly, for non-residential projects, the thresholds are 12,000 units when the growth estimate has been exceeded, and that would be increased to 30,000 square feet of non-residential space.

Those numbers are set under the Washington Administrative Code, so we are applying state law.

Any questions?

I'm checking the dice, but I see Councilmember Peterson has a question.

I will note something that was said earlier in today's committee meeting that the last comprehensive plan did not anticipate the level of growth that we have experienced.

We have had double the amount of growth as projected, and that is what one of the aspects of We did not plan for the amount of growth we've experienced.

So we met the threshold much earlier than anticipated.

With that Council Member Peterson, I see you have a hand.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

So for central staff, is this essentially, is this Council Bill essentially adopting state law?

It is.

It is adopting thresholds that were adopted by the Department of Ecology under changes to their rules in December.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm going to stub my toe here.

I believe that's only for commercial, though.

Is that correct?

And then for residential, we are raising the cap to as if we had not met our growth targets.

Is that correct?

For ecology did raise both thresholds and we are applying those new thresholds under this bill.

And this is why I'm not central staff.

Colleagues any questions on this bill.

I'll save my final comments for after public hearing.

Seeing no questions.

We are going to open the public hearing we played the video earlier today where the rules are essentially please be nice.

The public hearing on Council Bill 120587 is now open.

We have two speakers signed up, one in person and one remote.

Steve Rube Stella, our benevolent leader, followed by Megan Cruz online.

Steve, at your convenience.

Yes, thank you, Chairman Strauss.

Megan Cruz, hang on, Megan.

Sorry, Megan, we are doing Steve first since he's in person.

And then we will pass the mic back to you, Megan.

Just a moment, please.

Steve, please at your convenience.

Okay, this does beat Seattle's tradition of minimizing environmental studies, environmental carrying on it as a city that considers itself green, we have resisted SEPA, we have resisted all the cost adders to development, which of course is more important than what you get for development.

And this would be in the tradition of what the city has done.

Uh, quite frankly, uh, if you think that the environment is improved in Seattle, then you probably should support this.

If you think that, uh, maybe the, a few more projects should be looked at, even though it might cost the developers some money, or they might have to come in in the beginning with a better proposal.

You know, that's usually what happens when you have better regulations back in the.

Stone Age to you people when zoning didn't give developers the rights they do today.

Developers had to come in with proposals that they thought would have a chance of not being killed by the communities around them.

Now that is not a concern.

As a matter of fact, we saw some real changes because banks like to loan on the maximum return.

And so you had some proposals that were actually had to change when developers got their rights because it wouldn't have been profitable enough for the development community and their bankers.

And when that change came, you go to the max.

So I would say it's time to take a look at the environment of the city of Seattle.

You think it's improved and you think that there are more minorities in Seattle than there used to be, then you should be.

Thank you, Steve.

Always wonderful to see you.

Now, Megan Cruz, you are up.

I recognize that you had signed up for both public comment and this public hearing.

So we're going to go ahead and give you four minutes now, two minutes for public comment, two minutes for the public hearing.

Is that all right with you, Megan?

It sounds great.

Which would you rather have me do first, the public comment or the one we're on?

I'm going to leave it up to you how you want to use your four minutes.

You can use your four minutes as you desire.

OK, let's go with this topic that we're on, the SEPA thresholds going from 20 to 200 residential units for the purpose of permit expediting.

As with some other recent city code changes, it was intended for Seattle and was able to circumvent prolonged public discussion here and potential amendments by being promoted in the state legislature versus the more public and accessible form of this city's land use committee.

Last week was the first time it appeared in committee, where it received 10 minutes at the end of a marathon session.

In a brief intro, SEPA was inferred to be unnecessary red tape that was holding back downtown's revival.

But there's no proof of this.

And our missed growth estimates really signal that we need more detailed SEPA.

Although there was no discussion last week, it was announced that the committee would waive protocol and possibly vote on it today.

I hope that doesn't happen.

The process shows that the environmental review committee's role and public input are no longer matter.

Without access to lobbyists, it's getting hard to know what's ahead for your city or neighborhood.

And it's almost guaranteed that no matter what compelling facts, experience, or content might be brought to the table, it won't or can't be because considered because of a recently passed state law or just the simple preference to expedite development.

The state's SEPA website says it was enacted to consider environmental impacts and mitigation and encourage public involvement in decisions.

This bill does none of that.

The increase in threshold was not based on any research of impact, and there is no requirement that the city adopt this maximum 900% increase in SEPA review threshold.

In fact, it could be much lower and it should be.

It should be tabled until there's more data to support it and the opportunity for real public input.

The other bill I wanted to comment on is CB120581.

The name implies the affordable housing design review amendments.

The name implies that it will increase the portable housing, but this bill rewrites hard one MHA rule.

and will likely reduce affordable housing by exempting housing development from design review just by adding one token affordable unit.

That's a drastic decrease from the current performance requirement that a percentage of units be affordable.

The percentages range up to 9%, but the average is 5%.

That means a 200 unit building with one affordable unit would get a 90% decrease from the 10 homes now required.

The incentives don't end there.

This fundamentally renegotiates the grand bargain to be even grander for one side without protections or guarantees for the public.

But perhaps the biggest travesty is that after more than a year of work, this bill eliminates design review against the views of the city's handpicked design review stakeholder group.

With over half its members from BIPOC communities, a January report stated that the group reached consensus that Seattle was better off with design review than without it.

Members wanted meaningful engagement to fix it, but many felt the city had predetermined outcomes for these talks.

And now, instead of taking their suggestions, the city is throwing out public design review requirements for a year.

Please, do more research.

Send this one back.

Thank you.

Thank you, Megan.

Seeing as we have no further speakers, public, physically or Remotely present, we will now close the public hearing on Council Bill 120587. Colleagues, same as the last bill, I would like to suspend the rules to vote this bill out of committee the same day we've had a public hearing.

This is the second time we've had this bill in committee.

Are there any objections before I make the motion?

I'm not seeing any, so I'm gonna make the formal motion Motion, if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on the council bill 120587 on the same day as the public hearing.

Second.

Hearing no objection and a second, the council rule is suspended.

Colleagues, is there any further discussion before we vote?

I have one short statement to make.

I am not seeing any, so I will just say that downtown is bigger than any of us.

It's bigger than any neighborhood.

It is bigger than our city.

It is our regional, our state, and even interstate beacon, because this is the largest downtown core, the next closest being the Twin Cities or Chicago.

Salt Lake City or Denver or Sacramento, San Francisco.

We are the most isolated city of our size.

Bellevue's success depends on downtown Seattle's success.

Washington's success depends on downtown Seattle's success.

And it is incumbent upon us to do everything that we can to cut red tape and make downtown revitalization possible and successful.

That is the reason that we are passing this, that I'm putting this bill forward today.

And that's why I find it to be an urgent matter to vote on.

Seeing no further comment, I would like to move to adopt Council Bill 120587. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Council Bill 120587. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Morales?

Yes.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor.

Thank you.

Council Bill 120587 passes and will be on next week's full council meeting on June 20th.

We are going to move back to item two.

We have no further items to be voted on today.

The remaining items that we have today are briefing and will be voted on at the next committee meeting.

So the next item on the agenda today is a briefing and discussion on Council Bill 120591 which is the Office of Housing Omnibus Bill.

Clerk, will you please read the item into the record and I see we have our team coming up now.

Item to Council Bill 120591 office of housing omnibus bill for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

The purpose of an omnibus bill is to clean up the land use code it is very track track of it is very engaging.

I'm being a little sarcastic because it is just dense technical cleanup.

So the revisions included in this legislation simplify, clarify, improve the readability of complex, unclear, or obsolete provisions specific to affordable housing.

We are joined by Office of Housing Director Michael Winkler-Chin, Laura Hewitt Walker, and Emily Lofsted.

We also have Ketil Freeman from Council Central staff with us today.

I'm going to pass it over to the Office of Housing Director Michael Winkler-Chin.

Welcome.

Is this on?

Oh, yes, it is.

Hi, everyone.

Thank you very much.

Council Member, you've made it sound kind of boring, but we are really excited about this bill.

It's kind of the thought of the Marie Kondo cleaning up or cleaning out your garage.

always kind of a little bit exciting, a little bit daunting, and it'll feel good afterwards, right?

So we are really excited about this bill.

This is the first undertaking of a comprehensive update of the Land Use Code, Title 23, with the goal of making every provision that relates to affordable housing easier to read and digest.

We started prepping for this legislation last summer, I think in July, and worked intensively on the draft through the spring and from the get go the Office of Housing, coordinated closely with Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, and the city's code reviser.

There's a guy named the code reviser.

So their coordination was instrumental in our achieving the overarching goal for this legislation, which is to improve the readability and cohesiveness of the land use code as it relates to affordable housing.

I think we're on the next slide.

There we go.

Thank you very much.

And the omnibus bill has a limited number of changes.

The proposed design review exemption in particular will help facilitate development of publicly funded low-income housing.

This extends permanently some of the rules that were in place during the pandemic.

And you all have discussed previous bills that that had also done in trying to make things moving more towards a permanent.

thing because they worked out really, really well for the development of affordable housing during the pandemic.

The bulk of the changes.

One second, Council Member Mosqueda I see your hand, I'm going to suggest we wait till the presentations over.

That's all right.

Okay, I'm going to have to log off in just a little bit, but it was messaging the chair to see if I could do a raw raw.

Okay, well, he stepped away.

So why don't you go ahead?

Yeah.

Okay, well, thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

And thank you, Mr. Chair.

I saw you walk in the back.

Just very briefly, I wanted to provide a little like raw raw for this too and underscore what what Director Winkler-Chin said, and there's clearly a distinction between land use and the Housing Committee, but there's a little bit of overlap here, so I just wanted to underscore my excitement for this.

This is really about how we scale up to meet Seattle's growing need for affordable housing through resources like the housing levy unanimously passed yesterday, and also from Jumpstart Progressive Payroll Tax, the spending plan unanimously passed a few years ago.

which really provided the revenue and the directive to remove barriers within city code so that we could get projects underway like the one that Councilmember Morales and I went to go celebrate with Director Winkler-Chin with El Centro de la Raza in the central, excuse me, Columbia City today.

So that was really exciting.

And Mr. Chair, I know you and the vice chair probably want to move on.

But I just wanted to express my support for this around health, resilience, stability.

Literally, this is saving lives and infusing activity into our local economy.

So I get that this is separate from the housing levy but I think that it definitely dovetails and complements the affordable housing funding policies that we have advanced in the housing committee through jumpstart and the housing levy that the council just passed, and it really is. those community driven projects that are rooted in and serving those that most at risk of displacement.

So sometimes it's easy to get lost in the alphabet soup of land use and it's easy to get lost in the alphabet soup of housing policy.

And this is one where I want folks to grab that floaty because this is awesome and it's going to be a really great buoy for our investments in land use and affordable housing.

So thank you for that.

Very well said Council Member Mosqueda.

And I'll turn it back to Director Winkler-Chin because I know that you have four outcomes of this Marie Kondo of our land use code.

I do.

So let's remember with all those fine words, the bulk of the changes are really about just cleaning things up, right?

And it follows best practice for the routine maintenance of Seattle's land use code provisions.

And Laura Hewitt Walker and Emily will review the components of the omnibus changes for this very brief presentation and leave time to answer any questions you may have.

So the bulk of it is cleaning things up.

Well, so outcome one is updated defined terms.

This legislation repeals many defined terms that have become obsolete and for that reason are no longer being used when new land use code legislation is forwarded to council.

Today, permit reviewers must grapple with conflicting code language, including what constitutes low income housing.

With this legislation, publicly funded low-income housing is clearly defined, along with three unit-specific definitions, low-income unit, moderate-income unit, and restricted unit.

Although it's more clearly worded, the proposed low-income housing definition does not change minimum requirements already spelled out in the body of the land use code in terms of duration and levels of affordability.

Those stay the same.

And Emily is going to take us through outcome two.

Hi there, I'm Emily Lofsted from SDCI.

Outcome two, we're going to expand the application of design review exemptions that we right now are afforded to permanent supportive housing projects.

Currently, they can request waivers and modifications of land use development standards.

And We've also have currently some temporary provisions that will sunset in January of 24, which apply to low-income housing for rental units.

It does not apply currently for homeowner, low-income buyer affordable projects.

So this legislation will extend the design review exemption to all publicly funded low-income housing developments.

It will provide the same waivers and modifications like it does for permanent supportive housing.

And it will, you know, estimated to help quite a few projects over the coming years.

So that's.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Emily.

Outcome three, consolidated incentive zoning provisions.

The downtown chapter of the land use code currently includes lengthy and complicated incentive zoning affordable housing requirements.

This legislation consolidates all of those requirements in one place land use code chapter 2358 a, which is the city's long standing chapter for incentive zoning.

Payment in lieu amounts are the same as currently published by SDCI, and it's called TIP 258, and that's a document that provides user-friendly information on code compliance policies and procedures related to incentive zoning.

And we also wanted to note that today, incentive zoning affordable housing requirements apply in just a handful of zones.

and not in areas that were up-sown to implement MHA.

So again, it's a nice cleanup.

It's not going to apply in a lot of places, but it's an important one.

And our last outcome improved consistency, clarity, and readability.

Currently permit reviewers and applicants wrestle with affordable housing related land use code provisions that are complicated, unclear, and inconsistent.

So today's prevailing theme, or this presentation's prevailing theme.

The good news is this legislation addresses those issues.

Establishing clearly defined terms and using them throughout the code is foundational to making the code easier to administer.

It's a key element of this 200 plus page bill.

In addition, this legislation simplifies and standardize standardizes routine requirements for units with housing affordability restrictions examples include reporting requirements compliance monitoring fees and inflation adjustment requirements for in lieu payments and fees.

we're ready for next slide.

So in closing, I just wanted to reiterate how excited we are about this bill.

If you poke around in it, I think you'll quickly see what an improvement this will be for affordable housing reviewers and for SDCI and OH permit reviewers also.

And now we appreciate the opportunity to answer any questions you have.

Well, thank you very much.

I'm very excited about this bill.

It's technical in nature and provides some important changes, especially to home ownership projects.

I know we have Copper Pines on 28th and 80th in the Loyal Heights neighborhood that is a home ownership opportunity.

It's important because the family I grew up in can't afford to live in the Ballard of today.

And it's incredibly important that the family that I grew up in be able to afford to live in the Seattle of today and tomorrow.

And this bill helps move that forward.

Colleagues, any questions we will have this back before committee next week.

I have one question.

And this might be for central staff I'm not sure.

On slide five.

It looks like.

We're specifically using the term low income housing, cleaning that up in the legislation.

So, will this exemption include social housing, which does include units that are up to 80%.

That's a great question.

Not sure yet.

I mean, the definition itself is written fairly flexibly.

And my understanding is the social housing has this vision of doing a wide spectrum of affordability levels.

And it is drafted currently so that as long as there's a minimum concentration of lower income units, it should work.

But again, we won't know until we see real projects and what they look like.

Yeah.

OK.

Great, yeah, I mean, the intent is to have, you know, at least 60% of the units below 80%.

So based on my understanding of it, I think it should work, but- Well, and just so you know, the threshold we're working with for rental housing specifically is at least 40% of the units need to be affordable at 60%, 60% of AMI.

Okay, we'll keep figuring it out, thank you.

There's maybe one thing I would add to that.

There's also a definition for moderate income housing proposed by OH in the bill, and that is slightly higher.

It sort of more reflects what's currently available under the city's incentive programs.

That's 80% of AMI for rental and 100% of AMI for ownership.

That's also a defined term that would become more consistently used across the code as a result of this bill passing.

Yeah, and the only difference with that one is it does apply.

It's specific to a unit in a project or a number of units in a project.

But yes, it's definitely we look forward to seeing that definition used.

We think that's going to be a good one, too.

Fantastic.

Any further questions, Vice Chair?

Any other questions, colleagues, on this bill?

Seeing none, we'll be excited to have you back for our next committee where we will plan to vote this out of the Land Use Committee.

Up next, and with no further ado, we have the Council Bill 120581, which exempts certain affordable housing projects from design review.

And we have Mike Podolsky from SDCI joining us.

Mike, In our internal meeting last week I expressed frustration that you weren't able to attend and you had given me due notice at 8am the day before and and again later that day and my apologies for expressing that frustration.

I know we are both busy people.

I did not see those messages until after close of business on Friday, so I wanted to share those words with you today.

Apologies to you, Nathan Torgalson, and Christina Postlewaite.

With that, Naomi, if you could read the short title into the record.

Item 3, Council Bill 120581, Design Review Exemptions for Affordable Housing Projects for Briefing and Discussion.

With that, I will share with you a little bit of background, then I'm gonna pass it over to Mike and Ketel Freeman.

In April, 2020, we passed legislation on the COVID-19 civil emergency that temporarily modified the land use permitting process.

The homelessness crisis and rising cost of housing are inextricably linked, and the purpose of these modifications was to permit much needed affordable housing projects more quickly.

This legislation before us today is a continuation on these modifications.

and formalizing them in a way that we can test the market to see if this in fact has the positive contributions we are hoping for, and specifically regarding affordable housing and performance on site.

With that, Mike Podolsky from the Department of Construction and Inspections.

Mike, please take it away.

Thank you very much.

Let me just advance here.

So, as you mentioned in your opening remarks Thank you very much Councilmember.

The intent here is to accelerate permitting of housing projects throughout the city, building on the experience that we had with some temporary provisions that were put in the code in response to the coven situation.

intended as a pilot.

It would have a shelf life of 12 months within which these provisions would apply.

And we would use the results to study future recommendations for long-term or permanent updates.

I think as we heard during the comment testimony for the committee today that There is some work underway in response to a SLY, a statement of legislative intent that the council adopted, directing SDCI to work with the stakeholder group and the Office of Planning and Community Development to look at some changes to design review with a particular focus on equity and equitable outcomes.

The results of this legislation and the flexibility that it would afford to certain types of projects that we'll get into in a minute then would feed into that overall set of recommendations and come to the council probably sometime next year as some further improvements to design review for your consideration.

But in the meantime, it would give us 12 months to address urgent housing needs, as you mentioned, Council Member Strauss, including for low-income people that would be included in some of the projects here that would be subject to the mandatory housing affordability program.

So just a four-point summary of what's included in the legislation.

The first two items are the main thrust of the legislation.

The first one is an exemption from the designer view program for projects that meet the mandatory housing affordability program requirements through on-site performance.

Also during the comment period at the beginning of this committee, I think one of the people was mixing up this provision here.

threshold for eligibility to be exempt from design review would be a project that agreed to perform with at least one unit to be provided in the project.

It does not at all change the requirements of the MHA program itself.

And so that's all currently structured as according to other parts of the land use code, which we do not touch in this bill at all.

So the second part of the bill would provide an option for housing development that is required to go through design review and they would have the choice of either going through the full design review board process as the code would otherwise have them do or have the option of going through administrative design review.

So those are the two main changes that would go forward here for that 12 month period should you all support the bill.

So as part of that exemption for the mandatory housing affordability performance projects, number three here would also give the director the ability to waive or modify some development standards.

Similar to what was just talked about in the previous presentation in the slide in particular that Emily from STCI addressed.

Contrast with the permanent provisions in the OH bill, as this is a pilot and meant to be somewhat experimental, there is a broader list of development standards that would be eligible to be departed from for these MHA performance projects in this bill for that 12-month period to test the idea of whether or not that we might consider some different departures on a permanent basis as part of that slide response and the later recommendations for design review.

Number four here is a component of the ability to choose between the administrative design review and full design review.

The proponents of those projects would have the ability to switch back if, for extenuating circumstances, it made sense to go back to the board, for example, rather than pursue administrative review.

So, any questions there?

No?

Okay.

Just briefly to remind the council members about the MHA requirements.

It's been in the code and applicable since 2019, and it requires that new commercial and multifamily development contributes to affordable housing, and it's done through two options.

One is the performance option, which is the subject of this bill, and the other one is through a payment option where builders would make a payment to the Office of Housing, and they would use that money to fund affordable housing projects.

And I saw Councilmember Peterson's hand go up and come down and maybe I'll call on you at the end Councilmember Peterson, unless.

Yep.

Okay, great.

We're almost through this is a short presentation.

So this slide just addresses how many projects we might see take advantage of the exemption that this bill would offer.

We have seen in past performance since MHA has been effective that we get approximately 10 to 15 performance projects a year.

And so if that performance with regard to the program continues, that's how many projects we might see take advantage of this legislation.

And then just for purposes of figuring out how sort of big of an incentive this might be, you know, if we got double the number of takers on this, you know, we might see 30 projects.

So, you know, somewhere between 10 on the low end and 30 on the high end is where we expect to maybe be with this.

And then going on to the option to choose between administrative and full design review, just as context for that, idea.

Um, design review background here, um, is required for mid and large size commercial multifamily buildings.

Um, while permanently supported housing is exempt and going forward, if you, um, pass the OH bill, it would be a low income housing, which is publicly funded affordable housing, um, would be exempt in their bill.

So the two types of design review that are at play here are administrative design review.

Um, those are reviews that are completed by the SDCI staff.

It does include public comment like full design review, but it's not a review that's conducted in front of a public meeting before the full design review board.

And so that brings us to full design review, which again includes public comment and public meetings, but it's before the board.

And regardless which type of design review a project is subject to or chooses to go through, should someone think that the department or the board made an error or an omission, those are appealable decisions.

So there could be a hearing before the city's hearing examiner on either case.

So that option is preserved even if a builder has the option to choose either type.

And the reason for allowing this option is that generally we have found over some recent studies that the administrative reviews can be done more quickly.

And part of that has to do potentially with the waiting time that can be incurred in waiting for openings on the designer view boards dockets.

Various parts of town can be busier than others at time.

And sometimes that can lead to delay.

And again, this would be an opportunity to test that and to see if there are.

PB, David Ensign --"you know, circumstances related to the complexity or the scale of the projects that maybe lead to that observation that administrative design review is faster, or if, you know, we can learn other reasons that support the idea that in the interest of bringing more housing more quickly and in a less costly way, maybe we might recommend greater use of administrative review for that purpose. But, you know, the jury's out on that, so to speak." And as I mentioned, we have observed shorter times through the early design guidance phase, which is.

When either the staff or the designer view board provides guidance to a project proponent with respect to the design they propose, and the city's design guidelines.

Um, to the, when the master use permit is issued, um, so between those 2 big milestones in the design review process, we have found that administrative design review saves, um.

Approximately 3 months in permit review time, which, which can be a very meaningful distinction.

And so this would again, offer us an opportunity to test whether it really is that that efficient and to maybe have a greater understanding of what's behind that.

And just to close out the thinking here, based on our experience for the COVID related legislation that Council Member Strauss mentioned, we would see approximately 18 housing projects opt for administrative design review that would otherwise be subject to full design review.

If it occurred in the same proportion as we experienced during the other interim legislation, so approximately 34% of the projects during that eligibility period would avail themselves of this option.

If it was a good incentive, as we were hoping it might be, and it increased to 50% of the applicants making that election, then we would see 27 projects in that time period.

Just as a final point, some project proponents might prefer the board as a way to pursue their design review responsibilities under the code.

And so that's why this would be a choice that not everyone would avail themselves of, but just a portion of them.

So there are benefits to going to the board, even though it might take longer.

So that is it.

If there are any questions, I'd be happy to entertain them now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

Keitel, do you have any thoughts?

I will make a summary in just a moment, and then I'll call on colleagues.

Just one thing to note here is that both this bill and the previous bill, the OH omnibus bill, amend the same section of the code.

So we'll need to reconcile some differences between the OH bill and the STCI interim regulations, probably in STCI's bill.

So I'll put that sort of on your radar for the next committee meeting.

This is up for a public hearing on the 28th.

You'll be receiving an issue identification memo from me sometime here in the next few days.

But that's it for now.

Thank you.

A couple things I want to summarize and Mike, I'll just ask you if these statements are correct.

So this is a temporary measure that tests our ability to incentivize onsite performance of MHA as well as some other attributes.

This is not a directive to choose any type of design review rather that it is an option.

It makes no changes to design review and it lasts one year.

That's correct.

Fantastic.

Colleagues, any questions?

Council Member Nelson, and then Council Member Peterson.

I'm assuming that this does not apply to buildings that are taking advantage of the MFTE program, right?

And if not, was that at all contemplated?

No, it is focused on, For the exemption portion of the bill, it is focused on the mandatory housing affordability.

And one of the thoughts there is that it would be nice to see a greater uptake in people that would provide the building or the units directly rather than paying the office of housing.

And so that's why it's focused there.

And it's different from FTE in that sense.

And that's why we didn't go there with the bill.

Thank you.

there would potentially be some overlap here between MFTE projects and projects that either are exempt fully because they provide an MHA unit or projects that go through design review.

Those are probably going to be the same family of projects, so there would be some overlap.

But no, there are no modifications proposed in the bill to the MFTE program.

Obviously, they're on site with the MFTE program.

I was just wondering if if the choice of an expedited review was a possibility.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Could we go back to slide number three?

Thank you.

The second bullet point there, it says, I mean, I'm very interested in encouraging developers to build on-site low-income housing through the MHA program, so I really like the first bullet point.

The second bullet point, though, it says provide an option for any housing development, so that includes for-profit housing unrelated to MHA, is that right?

That's correct.

So then, But are they getting the same with this any housing development and bullet number two with that is that the same benefit that the developers getting as in bullet point number one.

No, they're different incentives that we're testing here for for bullet number one the mandatory housing affordability performance projects they're exempt from design review so they will not be subject to that review at all as part of their title there's no even administrative review that happens.

That's great.

Okay.

And a follow-up question.

So as I understand, there's been a lot of discussion about design review, how to make it better.

There was a stakeholder process.

And what were the results of that process?

I mean, I guess what I'm concerned about is this is leading toward potentially removing design review process.

And going to administrative design review by by city staff for market rate housing any housing proposal.

But, but I thought the stakeholder process might have come up with ideas on how to make design review better rather than just getting rid of it to save three months.

Mike, I'm going to answer that because that's a political question, not a policy question and directions of where we're going with design review.

We have at this time received the report.

I will be candid in saying that I have not had the opportunity to review it, seeing as we just passed industrial maritime out of committee last week and we have had a full schedule.

We are going to, you know, take our time to review that report.

And in the meantime, we're going to test these, um, these tactics with the market because if we are able to encourage more onsite performance of MHA, that is going to be a really good thing for us.

I think that's probably one of the best attributes of this, um, of this bill and I think that you are leading, Council Member Peterson, you're leading to a conclusion that no one else has made about where this is going to undo or change or any of these things with design review.

We are taking the time to review it because it's very clear is that design review is broken.

What is not clear is what the fix is because I've said time and time again, the design review needs to be able to incorporate neighborhood feedback, On one hand, and you know, it has to be able to incorporate that feedback.

And on the other hand, it cannot be weaponized to slow projects down.

And so what we have before us today is a balanced bill that tests, some of these tactics to see how well and if they work.

And then we'll make that decision of whether to keep them permanent at a future date.

And before making changes to design review, we will be reviewing the stakeholder report and having further engagements.

But just candidly, the committee doesn't have enough bandwidth at this moment to take that out.

Just if I may clarify what I was trying to say before you interrupted me.

I was, I support item one, which is to encourage the onsite development for the low-income housing.

What my concern is, is item two, which is for for-profit market rate development to shift from a citizen-led process to a city staff-led process at SGCI.

So look forward to, taking the time to review the suggestions made to improve design review because maybe it wouldn't have to shift toward a administrative design review if we can make the regular design review better.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Morales.

Thank you.

I want to start by saying a few things I like about this and then I have a couple questions.

So I like that this bill provides incentive for developers and developments to put a greater focus on that kind of social mixing and income diversity that can really combat social isolation and kind of exclusion that we've seen in the way we build housing in the past.

I like that it can help streamline the development of affordable housing.

We all have heard the challenges with design review so I think it's important for us to be looking for ways to mitigate that process.

And I really like that the executive is taking steps to cast a wider net of how we get affordability across developments in the city.

So I want to clarify two things that I think I heard you say.

One is that if you expect 10 to 15 performance projects a year, up to 30, what I think I heard you say is that one unit would be required for, at least one would be required for onsite performance.

So we would get 10 to 30 units in the year.

Is that correct?

Yeah, it's not clear, you know, in terms of the market response to the mandatory housing affordability program whether the size of projects themselves might be limited as a way to limit the requirements for providing the lower income unit.

Uh, or not these projects might have more than 1 unit in them that would be participating in this program.

But as the, as we drafted the legislation, we didn't want it to be a high bar.

We wanted to allow anybody that would be interested in doing it, even if the requirement was only 1 unit to get in the door to.

to benefit from this provision, but we could certainly talk with you more about what the right number should be.

Well, right now it's two to 11%, right?

That's the performance.

Okay.

So based on that, and what I'm trying to understand is how this would stack up to in loopies that are generated for affordable housing right now.

And if we would develop more units or the sort of equivalent amount with the change.

Should I be sending these to you for follow up later?

Yeah, I made note of that and we'll work on that and get back to you and your staff.

Okay.

And then is there a plan from SDCI or OPCD on raising the level of onsite performance?

Or is that still part of the?

The Office of Planning and Community Development is in the process of evaluating the performance of the Mandatory Housing Affordability Program and would look at all that stuff about the appropriate payment amounts and performance requirements.

I didn't hear your question, Council Member.

Is there any plan from SDCI or OPCD to to raise the level of on-site performance that is required.

Thanks.

Okay, and then MHA is targeted in areas of high likelihood of displacement.

Is that right?

Right.

Okay, I just want to make sure that I'm crossing all my tease and whatnot.

Okay.

And so I think what I heard you say too, is that there will not be a change in sort of the criteria for review, whether it's administrative or the full review.

So for example, administrative review doesn't necessarily mean that your paint colors or your window trim and all of that isn't part of the process.

It's just going to be looked at differently or by staff rather than by the design review board.

That's absolutely right.

Everything is on the table, regardless of which flavor of the process you go through.

Okay, thank you.

A distinction here that sort of gets to that question, Council Member Morales, is that there's the, under Bill 0.1, the mandatory housing affordability exemption pathway that's set out on the bill.

That allows for the full suite of design review waivers.

It's not a design review process, but the full suite of design review waivers would be available from the STCI director as a type one decision, so a non-appealable decision.

So it's not design review, it's exempt from design review, but the benefit of design review would still apply for those projects that elect to perform under MHA.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, vice chair.

Colleagues, any other questions at this time?

Vice chair's questions were, Well taken, and that's the reason that we have multiple, we have bills in our committee multiple times before we pass them out.

I will share with you that this will be back before us at a special meeting on June 28th for a public hearing.

I will ask at that time that we suspend the rules again to vote on the same day as a public hearing.

So if you have questions for SDCI, now is the time to meet with them.

I wanna thank SDCI, Mike, for you and your team writing this legislation for the mayor's office.

Liz van Bummel, who played Mike Podowski last week during our internal meetings, she did a darn good job.

With that, I will just say, you know, it's important that the family I grew up in is able to afford to live in the Seattle of today and tomorrow.

And I think that this bill tests some of the tactics that we have to do that.

Thank you, colleagues.

I will say that we almost made it to an on-time meeting.

It is 4.06 p.m.

We're six minutes over.

If only I had spoken less to RICO's confirmation.

I will say that this concludes the Wednesday, June 14th, 2023 Land Use Committee meeting.

The next Land Use Committee meeting is a special meeting on June 26th, 2023 at 9.30 a.m.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.

Recording stopped.

You