Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers’ Rights Committee 6/6/19

Good morning, everyone.

Today is Thursday, June 6, 2019. The Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 9.33.

I'm Theresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee, joined by my council colleague, Councilmember Bagshaw.

Thank you so much for being here.

And Councilmember Juarez will be joining us about midway through.

We do have a packed agenda today, so we are going to roll through the items, and we will have timers for each section, though we hope we have allocated each section appropriate time.

We have 12 agenda items the first are a council appointment to the Seattle City light review panel The second is three appointments and one reappointment to the joint apprenticeship apprenticeship training committee an appointment to the Capitol Hill housing improvement program governing council a briefing and possible vote on the one-year prohibition on rent bidding a a briefing and possible vote on Fort Lawton rezoning and redevelopment plan, which includes three pieces of legislation, which I'm told we do have to vote on separately and introduce separately.

So they're all three together, items eight, nine, and 10, though we will vote on them separately.

We'll have a chance to hear about the entire package together.

We will also have a briefing on Council Bill 119537, modifying the city's Notice of Intent to Sell legislation that was passed a few years ago by Councilmember Burgess and Councilmember Clark.

And finally, a briefing on the Housing Levy Administration and Finance Plan.

With the consent of my council colleague, I'd like to switch the last two items, 11 and 12, so that we have the housing, levy, administrative, and financial plan first, which is item number 12, and then go to item number 11, which is Council Bill 119537, modifying the city's notice of intent to sell legislation.

With that, if there's no objection, I will approve today's agenda.

No objection.

Great.

At this time, and we're one minute early, even though we started three minutes late, we are going to get into public comment.

For those who've signed up for public comment, we'll give you two minutes to speak.

Please introduce yourself.

And per council rules, please do keep your comments limited to items that do appear on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.

And if you haven't had a chance to sign up and want to, there's still time.

The first two people that we have are Marva Samet and Rosalind Tan.

Marva, if you're here, come on up to the microphone.

Hi.

Welcome.

I'm in the right place, right?

This is a city council meeting?

Yes.

Your time is starting.

Right here?

This is a city council meeting, right?

In the right place?

Yeah.

And there's no city council members attending?

Ma'am, this is a committee hearing, not a full committee, not a full council meeting.

Okay, I understand.

So there's usually three people here.

Today there's two, and as I said, Council Member Juarez is joining us midway through.

Okay.

Well, I'm here to speak against the development of Fort Lawton.

I believe that it's going to be a grave mistake for the city of Seattle.

It is known and there are studies made that more open space serve the city in environmental concerns.

It'll clean the air.

It'll filter rainwater.

It'll guard against more pollution in Puget Sound.

It'll guard against preventing nesting birds like the great gray heron from passing over the proposed development where they can continue to bring their nesting materials from the existing Discovery Park to the locks where they now have a heron reserve.

preserve, and also the bald eagles.

There are so many reasons why the city of Seattle should purchase Fort Lawton for park.

One of the major reasons is because it is contiguous to existing Discovery Park.

This doesn't happen often.

In fact, this will never happen again.

So for all the people of Seattle, all the tourists who come to visit the very popular Discovery Park, please expand Discovery Park.

Use that acreage for more trees, more trails.

so that more people can enjoy the beauty of what the natural open space of Seattle has to offer.

Thank you very much.

The next person is Rosalyn Tan, followed by James McIntosh.

Welcome.

Good morning.

I'm here on behalf of my husband and myself.

So if he was here, this is what he would say.

I feel it's inappropriate to take a neighborhood with its own quiet character and drop 600 more people and their cars into a very small residential space.

I hear Council Member O'Brien on NPR recently expounding the virtue of upzoning to allow for accessory dwelling units, backyard cottages, as a way to increase density without greatly impacting the character of the neighborhood.

Why isn't this?

Same philosophy being applied here.

Your plan will greatly change the area, an area nowhere near places of employment, shopping, transportation for the people you hope to house here.

And for myself, my comment is this.

For a project that would cost almost $90 million, I haven't heard of this budget figure till only two months ago.

So public feedback is largely, prior to that part, public feedback is largely based on emotions rather than cost benefit.

So if this was your money, would you decide to spend, based on your emotions, $90 million?

So the land may be free, but developing it is not cost effective due to the location of where it is.

Trucking dirt and materials in and out of Magnolia is not cost effective.

So surely there is a more cost-effective location, like somewhere near 15th.

So please scratch the surface when you look at the budget.

Lastly, it'll take eight years to finish this project, so how would it help the homeless and affordable crisis that we are facing today?

I urge you to just look at the budget thoroughly and see what are the cost benefit, what are the, I know we are so late into the game now, but there's still time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, and thank you for sharing your husband's testimony as well.

I know it's hard to be here sometimes at 9.30 on a weekday.

The last person that we have signed up to testify is James McIntosh.

Yes, I am James McIntosh, and I spoke earlier at the other public hearing on my views that I think that the city should choose alternative three, the all parks alternative.

And I say this just for many reasons, but One aspect of this open space, potential open space, is that it's accessible to all.

It's accessible to those that don't drive.

See, I'm visually impaired, but you can get to Discovery Park area by public transportation.

And many of us just don't have the opportunity to drive up to the mountains or out to wilderness, to convene with the wilderness, that this is fair to everyone, that this space, once it becomes park space, it's open to everyone.

It's open to all.

So I just write about this earlier, and I'm just going to add a few things.

Being on the outer fringes of the park, this area could be used for a little more active uses, such as picnicking.

A heritage orchard comes to mind.

Just a little more active use, but there are many concerns that this whole area is kind of interrelated with the heron habitat.

which is in the Kiwanis Ravine.

All this area in North Magnolia is a greenbelt.

It's cooling off the planet.

It's trees.

It's open space.

And that's what we need in a city of soon to be 750,000 people.

That's three-quarters of a million people and more.

We just need the open space.

So missing out on this opportunity, it's just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Once it's gone, it's gone.

And there are other places that affordable housing, and I certainly favor affordable housing and housing for for those in, you know, the need of, you know, that.

Thank you, Mr. McIntosh.

Do you mind summarizing?

The village, Magnolia Village, the Lawton area and Lower Queen Anne all come to mind.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. McIntosh.

Good to see you again.

And if there's anybody else who would like to testify, please go ahead and make your way up and we've put the sign up sheet up there so you can sign in afterwards.

Just say your name for the record and we'll get you in.

Sure.

Welcome.

My name is Phil Vogelsang.

I'm president of Friends of Discovery Park.

Thanks for your time.

Since the early 1960s, Friends of Discovery Parks have been advocating for the beaches, the meadows, and the forests of Seattle's largest and most beloved park.

At the time of its inception in 1974, large amounts of federally owned inholdings remained, which fragmented the park and limited its full potential.

In its original master plan, city leaders urged that all lands remaining as Fort Lawton be returned to the park.

Sadly, despite the best efforts of all Discovery Park supporters, this does not appear to be the course the Council will elect to take.

Decisions such as this are always difficult, and we recognize the many overlapping and conflicting interests this body must adjudicate.

Nonetheless, we urge you to consider one last time this decision, which cannot be reversed and will change the landscape of Discovery Park forever.

The park represents many decades of hard work and advocacy by friends and many other groups.

We ask that you remain committed to the ideals as first put forth by Senator Henry Jackson, Bernie White Bear, Judge Don Voorhees, and of course, Bob Kildall.

To create and protect this place that is free from the noise and the clamor of the city, to provide its citizens a place of refuge and solitude.

Not only is this parcel adjacent to the park, it is also located within a few hundred feet of the riparian zone of Salmon Creek and Kiwanis Ravine, where a small band of great blue herons has been living and nesting for literally thousands of years.

They too are stakeholders in this decision, and we ask that you consider their fate.

Friends of Discovery Park would like to thank Teresa Mosqueda for her diligent efforts to provide a small portion of the proposed Parks Department maintenance yard for demolition and reforestation.

Although only a few acres, this will potentially enlarge the very limited strip of forested land that represents their ancestral home.

As decisions regarding the development of this last remaining Fort Lawton parcel proceed, we ask you to remember that play fields are not habitat.

Paved surfaces are not open space.

We ask that you commit to provide as much real habitat for these animals as we can by creating as much forested canopy as possible for both of humans that will be living and recreating here and the great blue herons that have called this place home for millennia.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I really appreciate you being here, Phil, and thanks to the Friends Coalition as well.

We look forward to talking about the amendments that we've worked on and the future opportunities that are presented with some of the language that's been drafted.

So thank you all for being here to share your perspective, and I think later today you'll hear more about some of the possible changes that are coming to the Fort Lawton plan.

Anybody else here to testify?

Great.

Seeing none, that will close our public testimony.

Let's go ahead, Farideh, and move to the first item of business.

We're going to have Leah Barreca from Seattle City Light, and I believe Mikhail Gonzalez is not available, but if you could come on up.

This has been an issue long in the waiting.

We know that we have had a vacancy on the Seattle City Light review panel for a while, so excited to have you.

Agenda item one, appointment of Makayla Gonzalez as a member of City Light Review Panel for a term of April 11, 2020, for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here, Leah.

Do you want to introduce yourself and a little bit about the City Light Review Panel?

Sure.

Lee Barreca, Seattle City Light.

City Light Review Panel was established in 2010 and provides oversight to the utility on matters such as strategic planning, and city light rates as well as financial policies.

The panel is comprised of nine individuals.

They're all volunteers.

Five are appointed by the mayor's office and four by city council.

Each position is meant to represent a different sector of City Light's customer classes, commercial customers, residential customers, low-income advocacy, et cetera.

The position that Ms. Gonzalez will be filling is position number two, which is our financial analyst.

And would you like to speak a little bit about Ms. Gonzalez?

I sure would.

Ms. Gonzalez has led the Access Solar Network at Spark Northwest since January of 2017. While mastering the business side of solar energy development, she has cultivated partnerships with a range of public, private, and nonprofit organizations.

She also supports solar plus state energy strategy work across Oregon and Washington and is driven to find energy solutions that work for local communities.

So given both her energy experience as well as her learning the business side of that organization, she'll be a great candidate, a great addition to the panel in the role of financial analyst.

Thank you so much.

And we usually do ask the individuals who are being appointed for the first time to come to the table.

We know, as I said earlier, it's hard to come in the middle of the day sometimes.

So we'd like to make an exception today and appreciate you presenting this.

We do have her appointment packet as well in front of us.

Council Member Baxhaw, question.

I just wanted to acknowledge how much work this particular panel does.

And since they're uncompensated, we really appreciate all the work.

And I just want to extend my thanks to her for being willing to participate.

With her background, it's going to be a real asset.

And we'd like to thank you for finalizing this appointment.

We will now, with this appointment, have a full panel.

Yay.

And we're looking forward to working with Ms. Gonzalez going forward.

Great.

Go ahead.

Well, we're really excited about her experience, her credentials, her qualifications, and the diversity that she is also going to help bring to the panel, which is something I think we're all very interested in.

I want to echo Council Member Bagshaw's appreciation for the panel and for City Light.

We know we put a lot on their plate, and we'll be hearing back from them earlier this summer about the work that they've been doing regarding the rate design review, which is going to be critical as we think about next year and rolling out potential new rates for our residents and business owners.

So if there's no other questions and comments, and if everyone's okay with us making this exception, I'd like to move the committee recommends confirmation of Michaela Gonzalez as a member of Seattle City Light Review Panel.

Any other comments?

Seeing none.

Those in favor of recommending confirmation of the appointment, vote aye.

No opposed.

It's unanimous.

Please communicate our thanks and appreciation to Ms. Gonzalez as well.

And the motion has carried.

We will bring this forward to the June 10th full council committee, where you will see all of the committee members or council members to the dais up here.

And that's next Monday.

And we will be inviting her to our June 25th meeting.

Excellent.

We're also working with your staff to include you on our July 16th agenda.

I'd love to be there.

I can be there.

We'll make it happen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

At this time, let's move to items two through five on the agenda.

And, Farideh, if you could read those items into the record while she's doing that, if I could please be joined by Todd Snyder and the appointees.

That includes Kellen Bulman, Michael Starks, and Sean Weeks.

These are our Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee new appointees, and Todd is with the chair of the JATC.

Agenda items a two to five appointment of a Kellen Bowman Michiko Starks Sean weeks and Thomas Kelly afford to be members of the joint apprenticeship training committee for a term December 31st 2021 for briefing discussion and possible vote welcome everybody and am I correct that Thomas Kelly is not able to join us today and

Thomas, hi Thomas.

Wonderful.

Thank you for jumping up here too.

Sorry I didn't call your name.

So first, is there a really great name for the JATC?

We are the City of Seattle-Washington Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee.

But we don't have a fancy kind of acronym for it.

We use JATC.

All right.

I feel like that's on the cusp where we can come up with something fun.

Not JATC.

No, yeah.

Not JATC.

Well, let's begin with introductions.

And Todd, if you could brief us on an update on what the JATC is up to.

And then we'll have each person talk a little bit about themselves and what their interest is in being on this Apprenticeship Training Committee.

Excellent.

Well again, my name is Todd Snyder.

I'm Seattle Public Utilities Apprenticeship Program Manager and the current chair of the JATC.

Under WAC 296-05, the Washington State Apprenticeship and Training Council has recognized the City of Seattle Washington's Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee with the authority and responsibility for administering all registered apprenticeship programs sponsored by the City of Seattle.

Currently, that is FAS, SPU and City Light.

Our committee is represented by both labor and management.

Great.

Well, thank you.

Why don't we go ahead and go down and we'll have folks introduce themselves, their name and their background and a little bit about why you're interested in serving and then we'll ask a few questions and get into the details.

And if you just want to pull this up real close, as long as that green light's on at the bottom, we can hear you.

My name's Kellen Bowman.

I've been

with Seattle City Light for 11 years now.

I've been in the trade since 2005. I'm currently a line crew chief.

For them, I also teach the second year night school for the line apprentices.

I wanted to be on the JTC, kind of give back to the apprenticeship and maintain the integrity of the apprenticeship and take pride in my work and my trade.

And I want to see that continue.

Great.

Thank you very much.

My name is Sean Weeks.

I work for the FAS Department.

Specifically now I am the Apprenticeship Manager over the Mechanics Apprenticeship Program.

I've been with the City of Seattle for 12 years.

I've worked as a mechanic and a senior mechanic and recently took on this new role.

The reason why I would like to be on this JATC committee is so that I can use my Abilities and skills to help lead the apprenticeships throughout the city and help better Each and every one of them Excellent.

Thank you Welcome

Hello, my name is Michiko Starks.

I'm the manager for Seattle City Light Apprenticeship Program.

I've been with Seattle City Light now just about four years.

Prior to that, I worked as the interim training director and assistant training director for Local 46 Electrical Apprenticeship.

Prior to that, I was a journey worker, electrician, and then apprentice prior to that.

and a lot more that I won't mention.

But the reason I want to participate and be on the JTC is, you know, to work with my peers and be involved in the decision-making process.

And, you know, how that impacts the apprentices.

So that's basically it.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm Tom Kelly.

I've been with the City of Seattle Fleets and Facilities for 21 years.

For 20 years, I've worked with apprentices on the job.

I've been on our local committee, oversees our shop for a couple different stints, but I want to be part of the JATC is to help represent the apprentices.

My union asked me to join it, seeing how I work with them, and I'd like to make a difference.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And if folks are represented by a union, do you mind sharing which union you're with?

So we are 289. Local machinists, I guess.

Great.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Yeah, I'm with the IBW Local 77. Great.

I am a 21C, represented by 21C, but that has nothing to do with the apprentices.

Sure, sure.

Okay, great.

Well, we're really excited to have you all.

I think that this is one of the issues that I'm really passionate about coming from the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO prior to getting this job.

We know that access to apprenticeship opportunities and access to good living wage union jobs are really one way to make sure that We maintain the middle class.

We create opportunities out of generational poverty that we can lift up workers and make sure that there's self-determination, self-direction in the careers that they want to choose.

Really excited that you all want to serve on this committee.

One of the things that I'm really interested in, and I think we've had a chance to talk about this last year when we were doing some appointments.

One of the things I would love for you all to think about, and if you have thoughts right now, I'd love to hear.

I think there's opportunities for us to both train folks in the apprenticeship program, but placement has been something that I've heard, especially from some of the folks at Seattle City Light, within IBEW, that there's not a clear pipeline into some of the jobs.

Sometimes we do a good job training folks, and then we don't necessarily have all of the openings that we would want.

Ways in which we may want to try to facilitate the placement or hiring is something that I'm really interested in.

So going from apprenticeship to placement.

Feel free to comment on that as well.

If that's something that you guys are working on, scaling up, or have thoughts on, we'd love to hear more about that.

And just wanted to make that plug as you think about all the work in front of you as well.

Well, initially for your question, I think Michiko Starks would probably be the best person to explain City Light's issues.

Okay.

Yes, and I just want to be clear as far as when you're referencing placement.

One of the things that limits the amount of people that we can bring into the program is that we have a ratio that we work under, under the guidelines for the state.

So, that is a large impact is because there might be a limited number of pockets available.

In some cases, you know, there might be a demand that's higher than for what even we can offer as far as the workforce.

So, for example, if you increase the pockets, that increases the amount of people that we can bring in because then our journeyman to apprentice ratio, you know, we can work without exceeding that.

And the reason the ratio exists is for, it's for the safety of the apprentice, you know, as they gradually learn more about their craft.

The more that they learn, the more they're able to work independently.

But it takes years for them to learn their craft.

In a construction environment, there's a lot of considerations for safety.

And you want them to be a skilled craftsperson at the end, too.

So that's why we can't have too many apprentices.

We want to ensure that the ratio is maintained.

That's very helpful.

That's very helpful.

Questions?

I just want to acknowledge, and I'm very thankful that the four of you are interested in participating in this.

Ten years ago, when I was first on council and learning about this particular program, we were really trying to expand opportunities and be able to reach back, whether it's into the unions now or into our high schools, local colleges, as well, to make sure that they knew that this program was available.

Any of you know, Todd, maybe this is a question for you.

How have we expanded our outreach?

Well, each of the departments does their own outreach when they recruit a class.

There's been other activities.

Part of your higher office is reaching around with pre-apprenticeship programs to link different populations to registered apprenticeship.

I think in some ways outreach is less the issue though, especially when you're talking about citywide apprenticeships where apprenticeship is, in the state of Washington, is hitting record numbers that we've never seen before because of the economy.

And I think that's because of the hard incentives.

The break on prevailed wage and apprenticeship utilization requirements is encouraging and gives a sense of urgency to businesses to participate in the training of the next generation's workforce.

We obviously don't have those incentives for city employment.

So if you want to expand apprenticeship within the city to different departments, which I have seen, and they've come before the JGC as they struggle to create these programs for their own departments, is it takes leadership from policy makers like yourselves.

And I think with your encouragement and you holding our city departments feet to the fire, you will see the city itself embrace more apprenticeship opportunities.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I'm actually, with the apprenticeship that I'm overseeing, we're working on expanding it right now and trying to get approval for more pockets and more funding so that we can actually, I'm planning on quadrupling the size that we are currently doing.

And I've been doing a lot of outreach with local high schools and making connections with the automotive shops.

It's really funny when you go to a high school and you ask the students to go, all right, Who in here can tell me what an apprenticeship is?

Most of them don't even have a clue what that really means.

There's such a focus on getting the four-year degree and going to college, going to college, going to college.

That's what they're.

so taught to do nowadays, and you know, I was a kid that was on the cusp of not graduating high school, and then in turn, I went and got my bachelor's degree in teaching.

So, you know, I spent a lot of my time educating the students in the high schools, and I'm working with different principals in the Seattle School District area that have trade programs in their schools.

I'm a little disappointed, frankly, to hear that that is what you are running into because for years now I've been working with the school board members and they have changed the phraseology rather than being prepared for a four-year for your next steps, it's college or career.

And really hitting the fact that not everybody wants to go to college, nor do they need to go to college if they're getting the kind of training that the apprenticeships are offering.

So if there's anything, any clues you want to give us after this meeting or anything you think that we can do to help just keep that message and the drumbeat going in Seattle Public Schools, which is our closest connection.

It just strikes me that we're missing the boat if we're not getting into the high schools and really providing these alternatives.

I think where a lot of it comes is outreach.

And, you know, if they don't know this exists, they don't even know that it's a possibility for them.

And that's one of the things that a lot of us have been trying to do with different career fairs and things that we've all been working on independently.

Thank you.

So what are the top two items that are in front of the apprenticeship?

Training committee at this point.

What is what are our friends going to be working on?

Well, we've been certainly, our day-to-day responsibilities are making sure that all the apprentices are treated equitably on the job, that they're getting the proper training and the proper wage advancements.

That's what we do on a day-to-day basis when we meet monthly.

We've certainly been trying to encourage, as you spoke of, trying to expand registered apprenticeship opportunities within the city.

Again, there's a couple of other departments that have approached us in the last two years, struggling to do this.

I know some of our departments have struggled internally with classification issues, with pocket issues.

And again, in the private sector, the urgency of the break on prevailed wage and utilization forces that through.

And I think without that hard incentive, that's the struggle that we have with trying to expand those opportunities.

We're talking about expanding pockets.

Is there anything that you need from us?

Is that budget authority?

I don't know what kind of pushback that you're getting from the budget office or the executive.

Is that anything you can offer?

No, I don't think I have a strong enough handle on all of the pocket issues involved, but I'd be happy to help facilitate that conversation with you later.

So what I would love to do, we're doing a little bit of sausage making up here in the public policy world, what I'd love to do is check back in with all of you in September.

We'd ask, I think we'd love to work with you on sort of what the report or report out looks like, but on these issues of outreach, especially to schools, especially reaching our younger kiddos, maybe ninth and 10th grade.

so that people see there's opportunities on the horizon that, you know, I think there's a lot of pressure, especially sophomore, junior year in high school, people are asking, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do?

We want people to know about these good union living wage jobs in the trades, in various sectors that they might not have on their radar.

Want them to know about the apprenticeship training programs that the city provides.

I think we spend a lot of time thinking about and worrying about the, We want to make sure that people have the opportunity to get into those jobs and also for our retirees that there is a stable workforce so people continue to pay into the pensions.

prophecy when we get folks into these jobs we can continue to generate both good living wage jobs for the individuals and also generate the needed pension contributions for our past workers.

Would love to have you all report back to us in September.

What you're thinking is as you come on to the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.

This is why we need a fun, like, jag or something like that, I don't know.

As you come on to the committee, if you can think through with us what it looks like to do that recruitment piece.

We talked a lot this last year about access to free community college, but one of the things that was included in the Seattle Promise Program was access to apprenticeship training programs as well, and wanting to make sure that people knew that that was an opportunity Many of our union apprenticeship training programs are free to the participants who are wanting to enter But we also want them to know about all the work that you all are doing and that the cost should not be a barrier anymore if it ever was So outreach as you talked about the pockets as you talked about and greater diversity.

We'd love to hear more on those three topics So maybe we can brainstorm some more so we're not doing this on the spot but I think that that's really exciting all of the items that you've talked about and Anything else?

Okay.

Let's do this.

I'd like to move the committee recommends the confirmation of Kellen Bulman, Michiko, I said that right?

Okay.

Michiko Starks, Sean Weeks, and Thomas Kelly as members of the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye

All righty, let's go ahead and move on to item number six.

And while we're, Fuddy Day's reading item six into the agenda, if we can be joined by Kenny Pittman and Rachel Stewart.

Agenda item six, appointment of Rachel Stewart as member of the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program Governing Council for term of March 31st, 2020 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Great, well, thank you all for being here.

Why don't we just do quick introductions this way, and then we'll go back to Kenny.

Kenny Pittman, Officer Intergovernmental Relations.

Sarah Shoemake, Executive Assistant and Board Liaison at Capitol Hill Housing.

Rachel Stewart, oncoming board member of Capitol Hill Housing.

Excellent.

And Sarah, sorry I didn't call you up.

I'm happy you're here as well.

Kenny and Rachel, I'm sorry, Kenny and Sarah, why don't you guys give us a quick overview of some of the work the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Project has been doing, and then we will turn it over to you to tell us more about yourself.

You want to do the work?

Sure.

Yeah.

Capitol Hill Housing builds vibrant and engaged communities through affordable housing and community development.

We currently own or manage almost 50 buildings throughout the Seattle area.

And since 1976, we have helped low to moderate income folks around Seattle.

How many people do you serve in those buildings?

Oh, I do not know the exact number off the top of my head.

I think we have a couple thousand residents.

And Kenny, anything else about the work that you'd like to comment on from OIR?

My work?

No, just the work, yeah.

The role that you've had with helping to work with Capitol Hill Housing and various appointees.

In my position, what I do, I work with the various, the eight public development authorities.

And so what I do is I provide technical assistance to them.

And so I have communications with Sarah and also Christopher and whenever they have any questions and also helping them when they're having their board appointees coming before the city council.

Excellent.

Well, thank you Kenny and we'll talk a little bit more about you later because I got some words to say Rachel we're very excited that you're here.

Thank you so much and we have a full packet in front of us including your resume, which is very comprehensive and Really excited that you are interested in this position Can you tell us a little bit more about you and why you're interested in serving on this committee?

Sure

I've benefited from the community assets in Seattle since I was a young woman, so it's wonderful to be able to be able to come back and serve in a volunteer capacity at Capitol Hill Housing.

I also work at Seattle Housing Authority, and prior to that at Seattle University.

And in every capacity, always wanting to be able to bring resources forward in such a way that it really ensures that people have access to the resources in our community, to be able to meet the goals that they have for themselves and their families.

Always looking for different ways to remove barriers that might impede that progress towards goals, and to be really creative.

about how we do that.

So my interest at Capitol Hill Housing is to kind of carry forward a conversation I had with Chris Persons, the Executive Director, some years ago about Capitol Hill Housing finding a way to be a leader in equitable community development across our country.

So being really brave and courageous in thinking about how we prevent displacement, how we develop housing that serves the people who have lived in communities historically, as well as finding ways to get along with people who are coming newly to our community, and ensuring that we all kind of rise together.

And that work, oh boy, that was hard.

That is.

Boy, I tell you what, rising together is a theme that we have for the year.

But really ensuring that for folks who live in Seattle that we do rise together as we're learning together and living together.

So I'm excited to bring my leadership.

Oh, nice.

Can I just ask a follow-up on that?

I mean, you are absolutely singing our song, No Question About It, when you're talking about creative ways of adding more housing and being inclusive.

Tell me some of your creative ways that you are thinking about that we have not yet thought about or have not engaged in.

Well, I think that we are beginning to do that work.

I think the example of the Liberty Bank building development is a really good and recent one.

The work that Capitol Hill Housing did with the Black Community Impact Alliance, with And I think it's important for us to be able to utilize the assets, the collective genius that exists in our communities to think about what development looks like in this transition time that the city of Seattle is in.

And that really required us having difficult conversations with one another over and over and over again and not expecting one conversation to resolve all of the years of us missing one another and doing the work that it takes to rebuild trust and recognize that that is going to also take time because we have to learn how to be different.

I love that.

So I have so many, meetings that I now want you in now that I've met you, because much of that is going to, we're going to talk about later in the agenda, in terms of how we bring in that, what did you say, collective?

Collective genius.

Genius, and how we improve public policy, which is part of what we'll be discussing in the administration and finance plan later today, and how we really not just build units, but build community.

So we're building housing that is, you know, recognizing the need for small women and minority owned businesses and childcare and senior centers and community space on the first and second floor outside and public space and plazas and green space.

So love that you have given us a new vocabulary and I'm really excited about that.

One of the, do you want to talk about any of the big challenges that you're looking forward to helping to address while on the?

Let me count the ways.

Swoon.

Well, I think some of the big challenges are recognizing that We have history that tells us that we shouldn't always trust one another right and we can't ignore that I think part of part of our challenge is is doing the really hard work with folks like you all to change what the rules are and for us to be able to have housing and community that recognizes the diversity that's in our community.

And that diversity is also historic diversity, right?

It's not just a superficial diversity of what we look like.

So I think part of it is, is finding ways for us to ensure that people are also building their assets and their wealth for their families, where those opportunities have been taken from us in the past.

So a lot of the development that's happening in the city is rental development.

And I understand that that pencils out best.

And at the same time, it does not necessarily help communities that have not had access to resources to actually be able to accumulate wealth.

And that goes for our small business owners as well.

So when we're looking at spaces for them to lease, those are still leases.

And oftentimes it creates significant debt that those retailers have to absorb and find ways to pay out.

And they are not able to accumulate wealth and asset for their families in the ways that we like to imagine that they will.

And the same is true for young families who are renting.

We want to be able to find ways for people to have equity and to take it with them and pass it down.

For communities of color, that has been a challenge generation over generation over generation, and that was intentional.

And so if we're going to change that, we have to be very intentional, courageous, brave, creative in doing so.

And we have to start right now.

Absolutely.

Is Michelle Hepburn somebody you've worked with?

No.

She was part of Liberty Bank.

I didn't work with her closely.

We were, I think, in the same orbit.

I don't want to belabor this because you've got so much else to do.

Sound Transit has a lot of little parcels of property, particularly along Rainier Beach.

on Martin Luther King Way.

And my understanding is that they're considered too small to really develop.

But I'm wondering if you're looking at something new, some ideas, whether or not we could consider whether there was space maybe for, you know, a few small businesses on the lower floors like we have been talking about that could be 400 square feet, not 4,000 square feet, and with some spaces on top.

It strikes me that maybe there's some prototype opportunities here that we've overlooked, and I'd love to see if it's something we could do.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

So, and say hello to all of our friends at Seattle Housing.

We appreciate them.

I'll do that.

So we're really excited about this.

One comment before we move, because I think we'd like to move to appoint you.

I love that you talk about changing the dialogue and changing the narrative and recognizing that many of the conversations in the past haven't included communities of color, have explicitly excluded and intentionally tried to divide our communities through segregationists.

racist redlining policies, and that the legacy still continues.

Given that housing was a relatively new topic to me about two years ago as I started to enter more and more into the world, I realized that in the housing world, we use alphabet soup to the nth degree.

HALA, MHA, IZ, FAR, AMI, you know, we could keep going on and on.

And when we use words and we don't create an inclusive dialogue, I think to many folks where transit planning and I should say transportation planning specific to highway creation.

and housing policies in the past where they've been harmful to communities of color in the past.

When we don't use dialogue that's inclusive and bring people to the table to talk about how this can correct historic wrongs, then I think the first thing that people think is, this is going to harm my community.

And it will if we don't have folks who are directly affected at the table.

So just love that you're talking about breaking down that dialogue and creating a more inclusive conversation specifically around housing.

Because I think it is one of those areas where now we are trying to change that corner, correct those wrongs, and we have to create a table and a narrative that is inclusive as well.

So thank you.

And I'd just like to say, Rachel and Sarah both, that if you're running into something and you don't feel that the community is coming together in a way that you're feeling comfortable with, Both of us would really welcome a call to our office and talk about it.

Don't assume we know, because oftentimes we don't.

But if you will actually reach out and tell us what the issues are or what you're seeing or concerned about, then we can get engaged as well.

So please know that at least this committee in particular is very interested in doing that with you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much.

I just wanted to finish by saying that Rachel has actually served on one of our committees as a non-board member for almost three years now.

And as you can see, she is intelligent and thoughtful and has already been really engaged and a wonderful addition.

And we're just really excited and honored to have her officially join our board.

We're very excited, too.

So let's do this officially.

I'd like to move the committee recommend the confirmation of Rachel Stewart as a member of the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Project.

Second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

We'll bring your nomination forward to the full council on June 10th and recommend the passage of your appointment as well.

You do not have to be there.

We welcome you to be there, but we know everybody has busy schedules.

So thank you for being here today.

I'm very excited to have you.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you both Kenny and we know we're gonna see you up here in a few minutes.

So don't forget I got some words for you Thank you so much if you could read into the record item number seven and as she is doing that if we could be please joined by Asha and Asha, you're gonna have to teach me.

I'm sorry.

From central staff at the table, thank you for joining us, Asha, and go ahead.

Agenda item seven, council bill 119507, an ordinance relating to fair housing establishing a one-year prohibition on use of rental housing bidding platforms.

For a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Asha Venkatraman, thank you for joining us at the table today.

I'm really excited to have you, and if you could give us a quick overview and a quick second here of Council Bill 119507. Just as a reminder for folks, this is really exciting for me.

This is one of the issues that we worked on last year in March.

We created a one-year prohibition on the use of the rent-bidding technologies in order to provide time to determine whether these platforms these online platforms, sort of like eBay for rental units, are in violation of our fair housing laws and to analyze how they may impact our housing costs or cause inequities in access to housing or other potential disproportionate impacts in our community.

And over the last year, the Office of Housing, in coordination with the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Construction Inspections, has been working to study and understand how this new technology Impacts our commitment to equitable access to housing and what long-term regulations may be necessary You know, I feel like we're constantly responding to the newest technology And this was one that got put on our radar, especially by the students at the University of Washington So kudos to them for engaging in public policymaking and appreciate their them reaching out Given the pace with the new technologies are emerging and becoming ingrained into our system, we wanted to slow down just a little bit and take a look at this technology to see if it had implications on our rental housing market and to be able to make informed decisions about how the city could respond to protecting our population and uphold our fair housing laws.

So the report is still in the process of being completed, and we anticipate our friends at the Office of Housing will be able to submit the report in July of this year.

Until we have the report, we wanted to make sure that we had time to decide what to do with the information and make sure that we had our protections in place as a city.

So the prohibition of the rent-bidding technologies did expire at the end of April.

That's why we're back here talking about this ordinance, which Asha will talk to us about, and the possibility of another six-month extension.

Thanks, Sasha, for being here.

Sure.

Absolutely.

I think you covered most of it.

At this point, this prohibition, if it is voted on by council, would go into effect for another year rather than six months.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Just to provide time for council to review the report and then to decide if and how to regulate these platforms moving forward.

Because of the timing of this, the original prohibition expired at the end of April, as you mentioned.

And if this does move forward, the prohibition, the new prohibition would go into effect probably about mid-July.

And so that leaves a two-and-a-half-month gap, approximately, of these, of landlords and potential tenants being able to use rent-bidding platforms.

But we haven't heard anything in that interim time to note that that use has really been, has spiked since the last prohibition ended, so.

Do you know how other cities are addressing this?

Has San Francisco in particular put a similar moratorium on this platform, do you know?

I'm not sure if anywhere else has done a prohibition on these.

I know that there have been concerns coming from various cities, so that there have been news reports about the concerns that various cities have about how these platforms may impact equity and housing prices.

Just wondering whether, are people learning from us?

Are we learning from other cities?

Are we sharing information?

My instinct is that people are learning from us.

Some of the studies that had come up when the UW students first brought this to council's attention were studies that had happened overseas for the most part.

And so I don't think there are a lot of studies that have happened within the United States or in this region.

about how rent bidding has affected housing prices or equity.

And I will also note that there's been a number of cities that have reached out to our office interested in this ordinance, specifically because they have seen an impact on the market.

I also think that we got additional attention.

I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about it.

It's covered in the memo, but shortly after the passage of our original ordinance, we did, We did hear that there was individuals who felt that this was an interference with their freedom of speech.

On March 15th of this year, 2019, the U.S.

District for the Western District of Washington ruled in favor of us, the city of Seattle.

And this is, I think, something that is going to continue to get attention from other cities.

I think especially because of that, we got to make sure that we get the policy right.

So appreciate the clarification.

This will be for another year.

We will hear back from the Office of Housing, which gives us ample time to consider public policies.

I just, the last thing I would add is that the plaintiffs in this did file an appeal.

And so depending on when the results of that litigation are completed, it may or may not affect the timing of this prohibition.

But until that goes through its judicial process, we just won't know.

Okay.

One thing, and I don't expect you to know the answer here today, but I'd love it if you would follow up, is also we continue to hear about the first-in-time rental policies.

And I've heard from some students as well saying, you know, it's really, that's not fair either.

And I know that there was unintended consequences.

We were trying to do the right thing to make sure that nobody was intentionally excluded.

What I'm hearing people say is, well, you know, if you're sitting in front of your computer and you've got the time to do that and you can push that button and get your name on, well, then you've got a leg up.

Those of us that are in classes or people who have jobs away from computers feel that they're disadvantaged by that policy.

So as you're moving forward with this, I'd also just like us to keep an eye on that other.

Absolutely, that bill is currently also in litigation on appeal and so I believe oral argument was this month and so we should find out what that looks like at the earliest I think in next January.

Any other comments?

Okay, thank you so much for doing this.

I just want to reiterate for the viewing public, we did have ample conversations.

I believe it was at least two and perhaps three public hearings on this last time with the students from the University of Washington providing a comprehensive presentation data set that they pulled together.

I appreciate that and work from central staff.

I appreciate that last year as well.

If anybody wants to look that up, it was ordinance 125551. And given that comprehensive analysis, I would love to be able to move this legislation forward today as an extension.

Great.

So I'd like to move the committee recommends passage of 119507. That's Council Bill 119507 regarding the one-year prohibition on rental bidding platforms.

Second.

Are there any other comments?

Great.

All those in favor, please vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

So the motion carries and we will bring this forward to our full council meeting on June 10th.

Asha, thanks again for your work on this and for getting us caught up to speed a year ago and for your speedy work this year to make sure that we had policies in place so we can have some time to consider public policies.

Really appreciate your work.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Great.

So we are going to move on to the items on our agenda related to Fort Lawton and what I'm going to have Farideh Cuevas Du is reading to the record items 8, 9, and 10. And as she's doing that, if we can please be joined at the table by Emily Alvarado, Office of Housing, Kenny Pittman from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, Max Jacob from the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Tracy Raskliff, thank you for being up here.

And Kettle Freeman as well from Central Staff, thank you all for being here.

And just as FDU they raised items eight, nine, and 10 to the record, just a reminder for the viewing public and our council colleagues, we will consider each one of these separate.

Agenda item eight, resolution 31887, a resolution adopting and approving an application for surplus federal property at Fort Lawton for a briefing discussion and possible votes.

Agenda item nine, council bill 119510, an ordinance related to land use and zoning amending page 52 of the office land use map for briefing discussion and possible votes.

And agenda item 10, council bill 119535, an ordinance relating to the Fort Lauderdale redevelopment plan application for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Great, well we have a full table today.

I do have a few comments just because this is a really exciting day.

It is after almost 15 years and today will be the fifth committee meeting on the Fort Lawton consideration.

This is a chance for us to have a final committee discussion and possible vote on all aspects of the Fort Lawton redevelopment plan including the proposed rezone legislation and the legislation that adopts and approves the city's application for surplus federal property at Fort Lawton.

We have really an interesting conversation in front of us to talk about not just the preservation of public space and green space, as we heard about this morning, but also the ability to do that on public property that is nearly zero cost to the city.

As we preserve about 60% of this land for open public spaces and green spaces for play and enjoyment, we're also creating a variety of homes that will be very much needed to our region, including homes for seniors and veterans who were previously experiencing homelessness.

affordable rental homes for families and individuals, affordable home ownership opportunities, which we just heard the folks from Capitol Hill Housing talk about the importance of creating opportunities, especially for our lowest income buyers and folks who've been priced out before.

And again, I want to reiterate that Over 60% of the site will be used for parks and open spaces.

One of the biggest challenges about adding new affordable housing throughout our city is that many times we hear from nonprofit developers that it is cost prohibitive to acquire land in the city and that it's very expensive to build in this competitive market.

With the opportunity that presents itself at Fort Lawton, we have a unique chance to gain ownership over a significant portion of the property from the federal government at no cost.

If it is used to build affordable housing, so I don't think that's an important caveat if the public property is used to build affordable housing Then it is at no cost to the city And we know that we're in a housing crisis.

Um, and this is desperately needed housing as well as public space So we talked about as we create new affordable housing units many individuals will Get the chance to enjoy our public spaces parks and open space as if it were their backyard And so we want to also preserve opportunities for public space just as much as we want to do a Expedited process to create affordable housing just a few notes about the process so far I don't need to tell all of you because many of you have been involved in this and intimately, but I want to make sure that folks know for the public record.

On May 1st, we held a special evening public hearing to listen to the public on all aspects of the plan, including the proposed rezone legislation, the legislation that adopts and approves the city's application for surplus federal property at Fort Lawton.

We heard a number of individuals from neighbors, advocates, community members on both the need for housing and public space.

And I want to thank everyone who came in and weighed in.

The public hearing on May 21st followed an extensive public engagement process over many years, including just over the last year and a half since I've been here, an evening public hearing at the Magnolia neighborhood on the draft environmental impact statement that was in January of 2018. That was only two months after I got appointed or elected.

So that was an exciting public hearing to join.

And then again, we had an evening public hearing in Magnolia on the draft redevelopment plan, the 2019 update in March of 2019, and the multiple Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee meetings in April and May, there were four of those.

So we have heard several presentations, discussions in committee on this legislation.

Again, April 16th, May 2nd, May 16th, and the public hearing on May 21st.

Today, we'll make it the fifth public hearing.

In case anybody wants to see any of those records, they are online.

Very briefly, there's a few items that I know are a priority for this council, especially for Council Member Bagshaw and myself.

One is we want to be receptive to many of the comments and ideas that we've heard.

Some of the things that we've heard were the desire, as we've heard this morning, for more space for our wildlife and habitat.

One of the asks that we've had is to make sure that we're looking at not just the parking needs of Parks and Recreation, that we want to make sure you all have those needs met, but that to the extent that we have surplus surface parking lot, we don't want to preserve that.

concrete, we want to create new space for wildlife, especially for blue heron.

And appreciate you working with us at the Parks and Recreation to reduce the Parks and Recreation Department's maintenance facility, reduce the size of the parking lot to make sure that there's more green space for the habitat.

And in working with you, we have some language that Tracy will walk us through, which will help us direct Parks and Recreation to reduce the parking lot size by at least a third, at least 30%, and to work with the community groups, many of whom have testified, including our friend Phil, who you heard from this morning, to make sure that the habitat for herons and other wildlife is part of the planning as we reduce the parking lot size.

So thank you for that.

We've also heard that there's a desire for more homes on site.

That was something that came up in the evening meeting, and I think both Councilmember O'Brien and Sawant, who were there, and I expressed interest in that.

We all know that we need more housing.

We want to be clear that on this site, given the constraints of the environmental impact study, We have really looked at the maximum amount of housing that we can create, also recognizing that it's not just the units, it's the quality of those units.

Wanting to create family-sized units is critical.

And we confirmed at our presentation on May 21st that we are indeed maximizing the number of homes allowable under the IAS for this legislation.

So, yes, we hear that call and we will continue to push for additional housing in other places throughout the city.

Third, we heard the desire for more buses.

and school capacity.

This is something I know both of us are very interested in as public transit riders.

The ability to increase the frequency at which those buses stop in the area is something that our friends at SDOT and I would say Metro have heard via that conversation.

And we also heard from schools, Seattle Public Schools, that there is a process for adding this additional capacity and they will be working with us to assess those needs as the project moves forward.

Today is not the end of those conversations, and the issues still resonate, and we'll be working with those partners.

And finally, what we heard was there is a need to move forward.

We should not delay any further.

This has been happening, these conversations have been happening for nearly 15 years, and many of the community partners, advocates, and I would say all of you, staff involved here, have been working on this proposal, many of you since the very beginning.

So I want to say thank you to the friends who've come and testified.

No matter your position on this issue, we've tried to incorporate many of these ideas.

I want to say thank you especially to Tracy Ratzcliff of Central Staff, who's been here since the beginning.

And thank you for your ongoing work to provide us with analysis.

I also want to say a special thank you to Kenny Pittman.

We understand that you will be retiring very soon, i.e. this week, is that correct?

My official retirement date is August, but my last day in the office is June 11th.

The arrangement is that I'm available to come back.

We do hope that you retire and get some R&R and that this will be a great way to celebrate your tenure at the city.

Oh, good.

Well, I'll see you there.

I'm going to be there in July.

But do let us know, you know, as you all have been working on this for a very long time as you do your presentations today, let us know how long you've been involved so that folks in the community really have a chance to understand the length and the the depth in which you've engaged in this project.

Huge thank you, no matter how many years you've been here, but especially to our friends who've been working on this for a very long time.

Really appreciate all of you.

So with that, I'd love to hear more from our friends at the city.

Tracy, did you want to kick us off?

Well, we're going to do introductions first, and then...

Sure, let's do that.

Great.

Tracy Ratzliff, Council of Central Staff.

Kenny Pittman, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Emily Alvarado, Office of Housing.

Max Jacobs, Parks Department.

Keitel Freeman, Council of Central Staff.

So council members, we actually don't have a formal presentation to do today.

We are ready to vote if you are all ready to vote.

We have not heard, I have not heard any comments or questions from other council members, your colleagues.

So we are actually ready to walk you through each piece of the legislation that is in front of you.

There's three, only one has an amendment.

It is the amendment that you had mentioned regarding the parks and maintenance facility.

So if you'd like, we can go ahead and begin to walk through the legislation.

So let me say thanks in advance, but a couple of questions came up from earlier in public comment, and I know we've heard from many people over the years, but I'm wondering if just collectively you could answer the questions.

First of all, is Discovery Park preserved?

Are we eating into the realm of Discovery Park in this project?

Secondly, if we did not go through this, go forward with this, what does the federal government do?

Because one of the issues that we've all talked about is, and especially for the last 15 years, that the federal government has said this property is to be used for affordable housing, or housing in particular, and that if we didn't do it, what's the fallback?

And I'd love to make sure that that's real clear on the record.

And then at the end of the day, when particularly if this amendment goes through that will allow us to put more trees on the asphalted area that Parks owns now, what is the net gain in terms of acreage, Parks acreage?

And lastly, we can talk about the school district because my good friend, Council Member Muscata talked about her last year and a half.

Goodness knows the number of public meetings all of us have attended prior to her being here.

And one of the things that I've heard over and over again from the Magnolia community is, well, why can't we use this for a school?

So I've got a couple of answers there, but as far as the athletic fields that we've negotiated with the school district, making sure that that is moving forward too.

I wonder if you could just speak to that briefly, and then we'll dive into the amendments.

Why don't we have Kenny, why don't you talk first about our lease with the federal government and your discussions because Kenny has really been our point person in discussions with the federal government about this property.

As you're aware that this property became available to us in 2005 and since that time the federal government has basically been wanting us to move forward with it.

I would say about three or four years ago, they expressed a real frustration about nothing happening with it.

And at that time, they were looking at basically getting an adverse determination, which would then allow them to take the property, make it available to the public to be sold under their general services administration process.

We entered into the lease with them so that we could continue to preserve our rights and so that we can continue to do what you have before you right now with affordable housing, open space at the site and parks department facility there.

So if we had not moved and they had issued that adverse determination, we would have lost an opportunity to develop this site.

I think we saw some of the preliminary plans that were out there looking, and they weren't affordable housing, and they were a lot more housing in areas that might not have been as sensitive as what we are developing here as far as preserving.

Yes, some of the original plans that were done in 2005, 2007, it was more of a mixed income community.

So you had approximately the similar amount of total units, but you did not have the number of affordable units that you have now.

So one of the biggest changes that you have with the plan is that it's more focused on affordable units versus basically market rate housing.

I think the other piece of that is that in the event that the federal government sold the land on the market, while we can't with certainty predict what the market would do with that, it's possible that they would be developed under existing zoning as single family homes on 7,200 square foot lots.

Yes.

access as the local redevelopment authority is that we get to produce a plan that delivers this site for multiple public benefits, including new park spaces.

And in our lease agreement that we entered into, which expires in December of 2021, we actually have some performance measures that we have to hit.

One of which is that by January 1 of 2020, we will have had to apply through this legislation for the property.

and to begin the process of actually negotiating conveyance of that property.

So if we don't meet some of these requirements, the federal government could in fact still decide to move forward and to sell the property on the open market.

So we have a timeline here by which we have to, if we want to preserve it for the purposes that the plan articulates.

And if I may, I'll circle back to the first question, Council Member Bagshaw.

We're adding to the park.

We're not cutting into it.

We're adding approximately 13 acres of recreation land.

So this is a great win for the community in addition to the needed housing facilities.

Very good.

Thank you.

I just I wanted specifically to be able to address the questions that came up today and just have it all on the record in one place.

Last time we had the conversation, we did have a slide up there that showed where this parcel is adjacent to the existing Discovery Park.

And I think sometimes there is a misperception that somehow the housing is being carved out of the existing park.

This would be actually an add to when we add 60% of the Fort Lawton land, then it would be adjacent to the existing public park.

So you can think of it as an add on.

Okay, great, I'm seeing nods.

I think the last question from Councilmember Badshaw was about the schools So, you know we as I mentioned to this committee Previously we heard a lot of community advocacy to identify a portion of the site that could accommodate schools.

We've worked closely closely with Seattle Public Schools, what they have said to us is that they have an educational need for open space.

They have an educational need for athletic fields.

They have a shortage of athletic fields.

And so the partnership of producing athletic fields that were studied under the FEIS and allowing that to be a parcel that is acquired directly by Seattle Public Schools is a win-win between the jurisdictions as well.

And thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

And I just want to underscore what you just said, is that this is followed up, first of all, with public request that we have more athletic fields with the school district's request that we do that.

And I want to acknowledge to the school board president, Leslie Harris, that we signed an agreement with them in November of 2017. And I just want to underscore and thank the fact that staff reached out and was working with the school district.

standing up to our end of the bargain.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for those questions and the clarification that you all have provided.

Did you want to walk through some of the major components?

Sure.

I'd be happy to start working us through the legislation.

I probably should correct one statement that was made about the fact that we're going to get all this land for free for the housing.

We actually are going to get the land for the homeless housing for free.

The other piece is we will have to go into a negotiated sale with the federal government.

we will likely have to pay more than zero for that property.

For some, a whole lot less than full price.

Others, we're hoping to do a good job in terms of getting a reasonable price on that.

So I just wanted to be clear about that.

Emily, did you have something to add to that?

No, just to break down specifically, so the homeless housing land is an eligible conveyance under the federal government.

It will be for free.

Self-help, the homeownership component that we grew under this plan as compared to the last plan is up to 80%.

We have an opportunity to actually access that at 100% as well through a petition to the federal government.

80% and 100% of what?

We could get it up to free.

It's not necessarily free, but we will negotiate and make a case as to why it should be free and it is an eligible conveyance from the federal government.

For the general affordable housing, the affordable rental housing, we will go through a negotiated sale with the federal government for that piece, but it was a critical component to ensure that we were building a mixed income community with housing opportunities for people at all incomes.

And that's something that we have tried citywide for the better part of the last 20 years is to have the mixed income so that we don't end up having an area where people feel like, well, that really isn't inclusive.

It's not a community we want to live in.

Do you want to address the budget question?

I know one of the public commenters was saying, well, it's way too high.

We're spending way too much money in contrast to, frankly, what it looks like and what we can get for it.

What I can say is just echoing the comments made by Councilmember Mosqueda is that accessing reduced cost or free land is one of the key ways that we can actually reduce overall costs of affordable housing development.

We have a really strong track record of building and investing in efficient, high-quality affordable housing.

Our city investment gets leveraged by a significant amount of private financing and other public dollars as well.

So it is something that our city has pursued for over 30 years, and there is nothing about this community that makes it significantly more expensive to develop in.

We will have some infrastructure issues to deal with.

That's something that we deal with in our investments across the city, and we look forward to not only looking at cost, but remembering that this is really a fair housing issue, and that cost can't be our only driver for determining where we invest in affordable housing.

We have a federal obligation to affirmatively further fair housing by providing housing opportunities in communities that have previously been closed off to low-income people and communities of color.

And so part of our equity consideration is balancing cost in some instances with broader public policy and legal goals.

Very good.

Thank you.

That's your usual very succinct statement.

I appreciate that.

And the last thing I want to add to this is I have received many calls from constituents in Magnolia that say, why do you have to put that here?

Why can't you move it somewhere else?

And I want to say that as recently as yesterday, I received a call and said, this isn't an either or, it's an and.

We have to use every possible place in our city to allow us to build this kind of housing, to make it a a place where people can go that has the vitality of parks, access to transportation, and in that corridor, there's going to be, I hope, many, many opportunities for us to be able to build more affordable housing, especially as light rail is coming through.

So I just want to acknowledge that we've heard, and we're really trying to balance, but the fact of the matter is There are lots of places and we need a lot more housing, thousands and thousands of units to address the people that are already here, let alone people that want to come.

And as I've said to people, these aren't bad people that are coming, they're our kids and grandkids that want to come back and live.

They're our grandparents.

And our grandparents, right.

Great, okay, let's walk through.

I'm excited to hear.

Ready?

I know, this does need to turn off.

I know, really.

Okay.

Resolution 31887, this would adopt and approve an application for surplus federal property at Fort Lawton, including a redevelopment plan.

And this is the piece of legislation that has the amendment that I've handed out to you.

It is almost identical to the amendment that was discussed at our previous committee meeting with the slight change in the language as it relates to a reduction in the parking area.

And we changed the language from saying that the Parks Department would reduce it by approximately 30% to a minimum of 30%.

And that is the only change to this language.

And this amendment is ready for you to move.

Great, just want to read it into the record because we don't have it on the screen so that our community knows.

Seattle Parks and Recreation, underline, analyzed the feasibility of reducing the park area for the maintenance, building, and converting this to open space.

new language.

Based on usage requirements at other similar facilities, Seattle Parks and Recreation determined that it can reduce the parking area by, as Teresa said, a minimum of 30%.

The intent is to convert the northern portion of the parking lot to open space, approximately 100 feet, but the exact configuration will be determined by circulation and drainage constraints.

Seattle Parks and Recreation will consult with community partners regarding development of the open space at this location.

Very excited that we were able to work with our community partners.

And again, this was one of the ideas that came up at the Seattle Channel debate.

And happy to have been working with Phil and friends as we help to think through this effort.

Do you have anything to add to that?

Okay.

Let's do that.

Let's go ahead and move amendment to resolution 31887 as presented on the proposed amendment that was distributed to members.

Any comments?

And just to be clear, that's an amendment to the attachment one.

Okay.

All those in favor, say aye.

And nobody opposed, so it has been amended.

Would you like to have us move this section forward?

Yes, now you want to move the substitute attachment one.

Okay, I move to further amend attachment one of resolution 31887 by substituting version three for version two.

No other comments?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Nobody's opposed.

Now I'd like to, unless you have other comments that you'd like to share with us, I'd like to go ahead and move final committee vote on resolution 31887 as amended.

All those in favor?

Nobody opposed.

Excellent.

The motion has carried.

The committee recommends passage and adoption of resolution 31887 as amended, and this will be sent to our full council on June 10th for the city council's final consideration.

Great.

We should move on to council bill 119510, which is item number nine on our agenda.

All right, so the committee is familiar with this bill.

This bill would rezone approximately a third of the redevelopment plan area from single-family 7200 to low-rise 2M1.

That would facilitate redevelopment of a portion of that area to a multifamily housing.

Low-rise 2 is a zone that accommodates a variety of different multifamily housing types, including walk-up apartments and ground-related housing like townhouses.

So that's pretty much what it does.

It's a pretty basic bill.

Just by way of reminder, council took action on the underlying policy here several years ago.

There is, in the comprehensive plan, a document called the future land use map, and that's essentially the policy map that the zoning map is based on.

That policy map shows multifamily zoning at this area currently.

Great.

Are there any other questions about this?

Okay, we've done the briefing on all three of these items together repeatedly.

If there's no other questions, thank you very much, Kettle.

I'd like to move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 119510, related to the land use and zoning, amending pages 52 of the official land use map to rezone property at the Fort Lawton Army Reserve Center.

Are there any other comments?

Seeing none, all of those in favor of passage of Council Bill 119510, vote aye.

Any opposed?

Vote no.

Nobody opposed?

The motion passes unanimously.

The motion carries and the full committee will recommend passage of this at our full council meeting on June 10th with this committee's recommendation.

Let's move on to the final one.

This is going to be Council Bill 119535, which is item number 10 on our agenda.

And this would authorize the memorandum of agreement between the city and the Seattle School District regarding the development of the multipurpose athletic fields at Fort Lawton.

Appreciate your clarification regarding councilmember Bagshaw's questions earlier so that we could All be clear both in this council on this committee and in community about the process by which we have moved forward with the use of the public spaces the play fields per recommendation of the Seattle School District and And again, I want to underscore our appreciation for the school district's ongoing engagement with us and the community as they continue to hear or see or analyze the need for additional school space.

We look forward to working with them as education, especially early learning, is a huge priority of all of ours.

We want to make sure that kiddos have access to high quality education from birth through graduation and also for our seniors that will be there.

Ongoing adult education programs as well will be part of, I think, what the community envisions and some of the community space that's created.

So very excited about that.

Thank you for the clarification.

Any other questions on this?

Okay.

I'd like to move the committee recommend passage of council bill one one nine five three five relating to the Fort Lawton redevelopment plan application authorizing a memorandum of under of agreement setting forth the terms of collaboration between the Seattle the city of Seattle and the Seattle School District number one and the redevelopment of the former Fort Lawton Army Reserve Center Any other comments?

No.

All of those in favor of passage of Council Bill 119535, vote aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposed?

Nobody's opposed.

This motion carries unanimously, and the committee will recommend passage at the full Council meeting on June 10th.

That concludes our Fort Lawton section of the agenda today.

And I already said thank you to your incredible tenure, Kenny Pittman, thank you for being here with us and seeing this through this council.

Tracy, thanks for being there from the beginning.

Kettle, thank you for your central staff work on this and for how long?

How long have you been working on this?

I'm pretty new too, only three years.

So only three years.

Nearly 15. Emily, thanks to you and your entire team at the Office of Housing.

I've been there with you late nights and the community meetings.

I appreciate all of the engagement that you've done on this issue, the analysis, and the tenacity to keep responding to the newest iteration of requests and changes, and engagement with our federal partners as well.

I think this is a great opportunity for us to show what it looks like to put public space to the best public use.

Kenny, any parting words on your behalf?

Oh, I just, I want to say I really appreciated working on this project.

I've been on it for a little over 12 years, but also I want to say that there are a lot of people who are not sitting at this table that got it to this point, and I want to express my appreciation to them and my appreciation of working with Tracy.

We go back to our days at Olympia.

Not on this issue.

Not on this issue.

But I just want to say thank you and I'm looking forward to this actually happening.

Thank you.

I also want to acknowledge the city attorney's office that's here.

Yes.

And they have provided us with excellent advice, litigation support over the years and I'm glad we've gotten it to this point.

And I see Director Walker from the Office of Housing in the audience.

Thank you directly.

Thank you to you for your leadership at the Office of Housing and for the incredible team.

Very excited to be working with all of you.

So we will see many of you, I believe, in full council chambers on June 10th.

That's just Monday coming up.

Again, there's three pieces of legislation that we will be advancing for the full council's consideration.

And congratulations on all your work.

I want to thank one more person, and that would be Erin House, who has stepped in to work with us to get this over the final passage.

Appreciate all of her work on behalf of our office and the council as a whole.

So thank you all.

Really appreciate it.

I would applaud but, you know, we got to keep moving.

So, let's go ahead and as we said earlier, we're going to move to item 12 first and then we will come back to item 11. Farideh, if you could please read into the record item 12.

Agenda item 12, council bill 119531, an ordinance relating to housing for low-income households for briefing and discussion.

Buddy, did you mind just doing that one more time?

I think that the microphone may have been off.

You're good?

Okay.

So just to reiterate for folks who I think they could hear on Seattle Channel, just for folks in here, it's item 12 related to the Administration and Finance Plan for the Office of Housing, which has a longer name.

I'm just going to refer to this as our guiding document, our moral compass for the Office of Housing's funding.

I'm going to do that again.

Let me ask Farideh to turn off the red blinker.

Thank you.

Yes, we're going to go ahead and add some time.

How much time are we giving this item, Farideh?

We're gonna give this item 30 minutes as a reminder to folks, we have extended this committee meeting until 12 today because we have two more meaty topics to cover.

Council Member Baxter, thank you so much for, Council Member, thanks for being here, Council Member Baxter, and Council Member Herbold, thank you for joining us.

Appreciate your engagement on this, and as folks know, Council Member Herbold is an alternate to this committee, and we're excited to have you here today.

So the 12th item on the agenda Emily and Tracy do you want to introduce yourself real quick?

And then we do have a pretty lengthy walkthrough of some of the items here So go ahead and Tracy rats of council central staff Emily Alvarado office of housing Excellent.

So I'm very, very excited about this.

This has been something that I've been hearing about for over a year.

People have been really thrilled that we have done some tremendous work on the city council, for example, by making sure that more public land is available for public use, to stop selling public property, to plug budget holes and instead preserve that land for building affordable housing.

And as we've done that, many of our community partners have said to us, That's great, but we also need revenue.

We also need policy direction to help make sure that we're building affordable housing and community assets at the same time, that we're putting forward to the front of our priority list how we're helping to create affordable housing, especially for those at most risk for displacement, and that we're doing so in a way that builds community into the housing creation, not just creating units, but truly creating community.

This is the second conversation in our committee on the administration and finance plan or the ANF plan.

And again, I'd like to just call this Seattle Housing's moral compass document.

This is an update that happens every two years and is an opportunity for us to recalibrate how we administer the city's affordable housing dollars based on housing needs in our community.

This is a proposal that is updating the 2019 and 2020 Office of Housing Program Year Priorities.

This plan really helps us dictate how we as a city are going to be using housing levy funds, incentive zoning payments, mandatory housing affordability payments, as well as other funding sources the city administers for the creation of affordable housing.

My office has heard from a number of community organizations, nonprofit partners who've actually been engaged in building affordable housing on the ground level.

Organizations rooted in and led by communities most impacted by housing unaffordability and displacement in Seattle, as well as our labor partners who build housing in Seattle and have have had extensive conversations with them.

And based on those conversations, we're really excited to be rolling out not just the proposal as it came down, which was great, thank you, Emily, and all of your work that you guys did leading up to this point, but also includes a number of key provisions based on those conversations that our office has had with community.

I'm just going to flag four of them.

I know there's many, Tracy, I'm thinking almost 20. But the four that I really want to highlight for folks that I want to give huge credit to the community partners who've come to our office.

Erin House, who's been engaged in creating amendments and thinking through what that would look like with our friend Tracy Raskliff here.

Thank you.

And Emily, you guys have both been great on engaging with us.

The first is supporting community-driven development and harmonizing the policies with our surplus land disposition policies that I mentioned we passed last year, making sure that we prioritize community-driven projects for city-owned surplus lands.

The second one I'm excited to highlight here is an ongoing effort from the Office of Housing, but we're really elevating it in this proposal and giving it a little bit more meat, I think, is related to the community preference policy and affirmative marketing policy that is proposing to update our current practices and prioritize community members through a holistic lens, looking at historic ties to neighborhoods as we create new affordable housing in areas with the highest risk of displacement.

The third area I'm really excited about is creating more resources for acquisition.

And when I say acquisition, we've talked about this before, acquiring existing buildings is being seen more and more as a affordable way for us to get new affordable housing online quicker.

We've heard from our housing developers and partners that often the high cost of land and construction can be prohibitive, and sometimes it's more cost effective to acquire existing buildings, and that's something we're highlighting here.

And finally, we're making sure that we're working towards a comprehensive strategy to advance labor equity in our housing investments.

Council Member Herbold and I, I think, have some shared interests on that, which we'll be talking about later.

I really appreciate the Office of Housing working closely with our office as we've thought through some of these amendments to the proposal.

And when we talk about investments in affordable housing, we often talk about the price tag.

Emily, you mentioned this earlier today.

I really want us to focus on not just what the cost is, but how much dollars are leveraged when we build affordable housing.

federal dollars, county dollars, and not to focus on the number of units created, but the number of individuals and families that were housing.

As we think about the cost of housing, it is not $300,000 or $350,000 for each of these units.

That's not the amount coming from the city.

It's much, much less than that.

And I think at a previous committee hearing, you said around $30,000 or so, $30,000 to $40,000 was coming from the city's portion.

A little higher.

A little higher.

On average.

Around that.

Yeah, yeah.

But you're right, not all.

Thank you.

So next week, we're going to have in our committee a chance to hear more about this proposal, potential vote on the legislation on the 13th.

We'll have a substitute bill that includes as many of the amendments as we can.

And we will then, if we are able to pass it out on the 13th, bring to the full council for consideration a potential vote and full council on I believe June 24th.

I am excited about the opportunity to work with all of you on these.

So, Tracy, how would you like to do this?

You gave us a great memo that we could walk through, if that's helpful for you, or what would you prefer?

Sorry, a very lengthy memo that I sent you earlier this week.

It is attached to the agenda for the public to take a look at.

It includes the issues and options that have been identified by you, council members.

as a result of public comment and central staff input.

It does not include, I believe, even some late-breaking issues and options that today's discussion will allow for.

If you would like, I can just start to walk through the various issues, and I can be as brief.

I'm going to be mindful of the 30 minutes.

I talk fast, but I don't want to talk so fast that you all aren't understanding what it is I'm trying to tell you.

So you need to let me know if I'm going too slow or too fast for you.

Just to remind you, we do have a couple of documents that are in front of you.

We have the ordinance that would adopt both the ANF plan, the 2016 levy ANF plan, which actually the ANF plan really is kind of includes the funding for the various programs covered by the levy, kind of a brief description, and then the seven year goal.

So it's kind of a briefer document.

need I think of the policies is in the Exhibit B, which is the housing funding policies.

So you really have those three documents in front of you and the issues and proposed amendments and options really you will see kind of apply to one of those three documents.

So starting off looking at the first issue, which has to do with capacity building for community-based organizations.

This is something that Council Ms. Gata just expressed interest in.

So the housing funding policies do commit to working with community-based nonprofit organizations.

that are culturally relevant and historically rooted in their communities in the development of affordable housing, and particularly in areas of high risk of displacement.

And those areas, just to remind folks, Rainier Beach, Othello, Bitter Lake, Westwind Highland.

However, some organizations don't have the capacity currently to undertake the work of developing and operating housing.

That's quite a specific type of activity and specific skills and abilities that are needed.

So the first option would be to add language to the proposed ordinance that recognizes the need for capacity building for these community-based organizations so that we can assist these organizations to become developers and operators of affordable housing.

So the first option is to include that almost intent language really in the ordinance.

So that is the first option.

The second option would be to not add that language.

Great, so for anybody who's watching this very exciting hearing at home, I hope they are, we are following along with the central staff memo from June 4th.

We're on identified issues number one, which is capacity building for community-based organizations.

Councilmember Herbold and I, I believe, are the only councilmembers so far to have suggested potential options, i.e. amendments.

So as we go through each one, I'll have each of us speak to those, and then folks who have questions or ideas, please chime in as well.

I'll just chime in on this to add, really, this stems from our conversation with community-based organizations.

In reviewing the plan and talking about past work and talking about how we can best access the surplus property that we've made available through the disposition policies we passed last year, we've constantly heard an interest among organizations, particularly in those in neighborhoods experiencing high levels of displacement, that they'd like to get more involved in housing development.

This is really great, I think, when you think about self-determination and direction and the type of housing that can be created when people have site control.

I often use El Centro as an example because of the intricate art that's on the outside of the buildings encompassing the plaza.

This is truly a place for community and created public space.

So this amendment here that is outlined in option A, is an effort for us to expand housing development, recognizing that there's a need for capacity building, acknowledges that this is a tie-in with our existing equitable development initiative, which is tailored towards capacity building for community groups on the frontline of anti-displacement work.

Great, and how, do we just keep going?

We're just going to keep going, if there's no more questions or comments.

Would you just explain, I appreciate very much where we're going with this, but how do we make the decision?

I mean, just what are we thinking in terms of who gets the money, and will that be fleshed out later on?

How do we do this?

Because that's, you know, it's just like,

So this is only going to be a whereas in the legislation.

It is not going to be committing any funds at this point.

We have an upcoming budget process that might allow for that if the council members had a desire to follow it up with actual budget proposal.

But it is not that is not included in this particular item.

Thank you.

And I would like to make sure that Council Member O'Brien.

Is brought back into this conversation because the EDI and how we spend the money is something he's very interested in and we are going to have in my Finance committee next week a conversation around this.

We just want to make sure that it's being coordinated.

Thanks as a recital on the council bill though it is underscoring the commitment that already exists in the housing policies.

So theoretically, it does not, I mean, it would be up to the Office of Housing to make a recommendation under its housing funding policies.

But theoretically, the Office of Housing could propose something to fulfill both its commitment as well as the recital.

of that language?

Probably, well, it could come as an executive request in the budget process.

I don't think that's what we expect here.

I think this is just trying to sedate the need for, they could.

Theoretically, it might also likely come from one of you.

So just to be clear about that, yeah.

Thank you for underscoring that and for asking the question.

My intent here is to make this actionable.

This is not a lofty goal that we should put out there and maybe revisit three years from now.

This is something that is a huge priority for us and I think is shared by the council.

So looking forward to working with all of you to make this actionable.

I'm just saying that the executive has an opportunity as well because this is the ordinance that is accepting the Office of Housing's funding policies.

Point very well taken.

And don't forget to pull this a little closer.

Thank you.

I do appreciate that.

And we'll look forward to working with the Office of Housing and our partners on the seventh floor to see if we can get something in the budget that reflects this priority.

Okay.

Moving to issue number two.

So this has to do with funding affirmative marketing and community preferences policies.

As we just heard, there is a more specific requirements as it relates to affirmative marketing plans, as well as the new ability to impose a community preference policy in new city funded projects.

The successful implementation of an affirmative marketing plan does involve providing information in a variety of formats to community members regarding new housing and also instructions on how to actually submit applications for that housing.

So existing community-based organizations can be strong connections to the community and can actually help nonprofit housing developers in that process of reaching communities about that new housing.

So additional funding could assist these housing providers to more effectively implement affirmative marketing and community preference policies.

So this option A would add language to the proposed ordinance stating the council's intention to provide funding in the 2020 budget to implement the affirmative marketing and community preference policies.

I'll just speak to this very quickly.

This is an area where we've heard a tremendous amount of interest to make sure that those who are in areas where we see new development occurring are able to benefit from that development.

As we think about, for example, the work that We've done to create more affordable units and mixed income units.

Think about some of the wonderful places like Yesler Terrace and others throughout the city that are now next to the beautiful new parks and transit.

We also want to make sure that the folks who've been previously there have a chance to really have a chance to come back.

Now, Yesler Terrace is a little bit unique in how they were able to get folks back in, but the concept is very similar.

If you affirmatively market or you provide a community preference, especially in areas where Our community organizations are able to work with the community who has historically been there.

This is a great opportunity for us to make sure we're not losing community and that people who've been there for generations are able to stay in place.

This, again, as Tracy said, acknowledges that we need to identify funding, hopefully in our 2020 budget.

And this states our intention to do so, and to really build relationships with communities who are experiencing this displacement so that it's seen as a positive.

Great.

And I just would like to add, as your cranky finance chair, that we have a 2020 budget.

We will be in the second year of a budget that we have already passed.

So we're going to have to find additional money to do this or we're going to have to discipline ourselves, which we aren't really good at, of going back and saying there are some other things that maybe we don't want to spend the money on that we want to put here.

I do I appreciate that and I know you have a challenging task ahead.

Well, we all do in Finance chair, you're the nicest crankiest finance chair.

I've met but I also want to acknowledge the worth of the executive this was part of the proposal that I think she also underscored interest in in the press conference that you attended councilmember her bold in terms of a community preference and affirmative marketing.

And so I'm looking forward to that partnership and perhaps to Council Member Herbold's point earlier, there's a chance that this could be potentially rolled in.

No promises, I'm not putting any words in anybody's mouth, but I think that there is some shared interest between the second and seventh floor.

And that's exactly what we want.

Because if the mayor recognizes and we're signaling to her that this is really important to the council, I know it's important to her as well.

So have her, when she's developing her budget, to include this.

And for us to say, thank you for working with us.

Exactly.

Council Member Herbold.

A question for Emily.

Just a little closer.

As it relates to the funding piece, can you talk a little bit about how you would see funding specifically for the community preference policies being used by non-profit housing providers?

How, I recall that some of the analysis that we've seen demonstrates that the community preferences would be different in different parts of the city, dependent on a census-based analysis.

Would some of the funding be used to help them do that so that they can design the preference policy?

So, first of all, yeah, Mayor Durkan's executive order demonstrated her commitment to advancing these policies.

And part of that work is that over the next few months, we're going to be building guidelines to help flesh out what community preference might look like as community-based developers propose putting community preference in their developments.

Part of that guideline process will really be looking at what is necessary from an implementation perspective to get this right.

And so through that, we may learn more about what community organizations would need to implement this effectively.

I could hypothesize, for example, that people will put additional attention both on the marketing side and the preference side that could look like targeted marketing towards communities that have been displaced, targeted outreach and work collaboration with community-based organizations who already work with community who reside there or have been displaced, thinking of social service organizations or faith-based organizations and figuring out what it looks like to have partnerships between housing developers and those community organizations to let people know about the housing opportunity and get them prepared to apply when the preference is put in place.

So I think that kind of outreach marketing and partnership, we hope to be able to do significant data work internally to support communities with internal analysis about

what kinds of...

Numbers of units that could be set aside for whom, that sort of thing.

The city's going to be providing that technical assistance.

That's the kind of work we will do through the guideline process.

And our hope is that the guidelines get to a place where we've really lowered significantly the barriers and work that needs to be done by agencies to implement these policies.

That's helpful to understand.

And then also, I've asked this question before.

I don't know if I've asked it publicly.

I just want to get it out there.

It's my understanding that community preferences can be used not only by nonprofits who are building affordable housing with city dollars, but it can also be used by market rate developers who are, have MHA set-asides, performance set-asides, and MFTE, is that correct?

I think anything's possible.

I think it's probably, and you may want to talk to the city attorney on this one, but it's probably an issue of risk and risk assessment.

Again, we are really trying to carefully balance working within the confines of the Fair Housing Act.

And so to the extent that there are opportunities to partner with private developers and see how we would launch something like that, I think that's worth an exploration.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Great.

Let's move on to item three.

Item three has to do with the affirmative marketing community preference policies.

And this actually would just simply add some intent language.

And this was something that came from the community that just wanted to lift up the fact that the OH does have a commitment to affirmatively furthering fair housing.

to address past discriminatory policies and practices that included government actions.

And so this proposal would be just to add some of that intent language at the very beginning of that section of the affirmative marketing and community preferences policies.

So the- The add-on to two, right?

It's not a different subject?

This is an add-on.

Is that what you asked?

Yes.

So, and I'm gonna just strike the word just from that comment because I think to our point earlier, language does matter, right?

And our community partners have identified that it's important for us to reiterate why we're doing this.

I keep referencing the Color of Law book that talks about how public policies were really the vehicle that put into place racist redlining, race restrictive covenants, and exclusionary zoning.

So as we think about what we're trying to do today through public policy, it's to undo that past behavior and undo that past law that was created by policymakers.

As policymakers now, we want to fix that.

So that's part of what we really want to underscore.

Great, okay, thank you.

Moving to issue number four, advancing equitable development goals and addressing displacement.

So the proposed policies for the rental housing and housing development on publicly owned sites programs prioritize housing projects that advance equitable development goals and address the potential displacement of tenants for projects proposed in areas at high risk for displacement.

There is interest in modifying this language to prioritize projects that are sponsored by local community-based organizations that are culturally relevant and historically rooted, and to also give added consideration to projects that are receiving EDI funding.

So the option before you would in fact add that language into the rental housing and housing development on publicly owned sites programs policies.

Great, so this is an amendment that supports our community-driven development and harmonizes the policy with the surplus land disposition policy as we passed last year, recognizing that obtaining land is a major hurdle to creating community-driven housing and co-located services like childcare and healthcare.

And this amendment is intended to strengthen the city's commitment to supporting these projects by prioritizing city-owned land when available.

So the existing language talks about the what, advancing equitable development goals, and what you're adding is the who.

Exactly.

Great, thank you.

I just want to say for the record, I'm going to keep saying every single project that the city has the ability to touch, fund, or promote should also be including child care, and that is something that we're going to be talking about every single time, but thank you for helping to pepper those commitments throughout the document.

And universal design for seniors.

Yes.

Thank you.

Intergenerational programming.

Okay.

Moving on to issue five, which has to do with the acquisition and preservation program funding limit.

So just to remind folks, the current ANF plan authorizes the use of up to $30 million in existing levy resource program funds for short-term loans for the strategic acquisition of land and buildings for low-income housing development or preservation.

The executive's proposed legislation would actually remove that $30 million cap and allow OH to provide up to $30 million in outstanding loans at any one time.

And the concept here was as soon as those loans begin to be repaid, OH would be able to, again, loan out up to another $30 million of funding.

There are several upcoming opportunities to acquire existing occupied buildings which have federally subsidies that are attached to them that cover the rent for low-income households living in such buildings.

The acquisition of occupied buildings is a priority for the Acquisition and Preservation Program.

and acquiring these buildings will result in the preservation of this housing, and importantly, the retention of the federal rental subsidies.

OH has requested that we modify the language in the Acquisition and Preservation Program funding to provide loans for this limit type of acquisition that may arise that would not be permitted due to funding limits for the Acquisition and Preservation Program.

So the option in front of you would actually add some language to this program to authorize OH to make loans for the acquisition of one or more buildings with a federal rental assistance contract and to exclude such loans from the $30 million cap for their program.

Thank you.

So we've heard from affordable housing developers that acquisition of existing buildings is an increasingly cost-effective way to increase affordable housing.

And I think that, as you just heard, this gives us greater flexibility.

It was a great thing that I think we got to move this to a rolling amount in the first place, and this just enhances that commitment.

For very specific purposes, which is really good.

Okay, moving to issue number six.

I'm just loving the smile over there.

Like, yes, this is a good thing.

Moving to issue six.

This has to do with the co-location of community and public services with affordable housing and specific to Council Member Mesquita's request for child care and health and social human services.

which is not mentioned in the current program policies for the rental housing nor the housing development on publicly owned sites.

It does talk about facilities that include community and public services for low income families.

And the council member would like to add specifically in childcare and health and human services into that language.

And thank you very much.

And I think to Councilmember Bagshaw's point earlier, human services obviously includes our friends who are in the aging and disability services world.

So as we think about some of the really exciting housing that the Office of Housing has been engaged in, you think of community space, adult education classrooms, intergenerational programs.

and really emphasizing where we've spent a lot of time, which is focusing on child care and access to health services.

This is also something that I've heard from some of our federally qualified health centers, that they would love to be more co-located where their community is and to increase access to health services, education, and senior services.

a great thing for us to underscore.

I know it's something that you've been involved in, but every single time we can to affirm what we want to do, no matter who's at this table in the future, this is going to be a helpful document.

So if I can just add, the physical design of this is really important too.

And as we talk about services, really critical is access to the buildings.

So that if someone is in a wheelchair, if inadvertent design has a six-inch threshold And it's just, it's something that we just need to be really intentional about is the thinking, you know, if I am mobility challenged, how do I get in?

So if we could, as we're thinking about this, the services are critical, but I'm also more and more aware of the need to have good universal design too for people.

For strollers, walkers, and wheelchairs.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Number six.

Number seven.

Oh.

Yes, moving on to the housing first approach for rental housing.

Before we move on, I'm wondering if we could just take a pause to hear a little bit about what the ANF policies and our housing funding policies says sort of generally about our funding priorities for housing for our aging populations.

So we have three key population priorities for our housing funds, and those are seniors and people with disabilities, homeless individuals and families, and low-wage working people and their families.

And it is obvious that those are broad categories, and there is not much more specificity about particular subpopulations among those groups.

Really what happens is projects that support particular subpopulations come out through the funding round.

And so there is a bit of nuance between the policy guidance and then the awarding of funds and the partnership with our community organizations in order to make investments.

And so if you look back on a several-year period, I think you see a balance and a mix of projects serving various populations.

In only the last few years, we've made several investments in senior affordable housing.

at North Haven, Filipino community village in Southeast Seattle, serving various populations.

And we know even among our intents to apply right now, there is a project that would serve LGBTQ seniors in Capitol Hill.

There's an intent to apply from a senior housing project sponsored by Ethiopian Community Services in Southeast.

So we continue to work with community for them to bring their own community-driven projects which serve multiple populations, but the ANF plan is more broad in its approach.

And so what I hear you saying is we have expressed to the providers that serving our aging population is a priority, but our ability to fund those projects is really driven by those applications that we receive.

and we are leaving it to them to determine what the priority projects are that are for the broader community to bring forward to us.

Do we ever look to see whether or not we're getting the right mix and then maybe do something to try and encourage more of a type of project?

Because I'm hearing that we should be funding more senior projects, basically.

And if we're, you know, I trust our nonprofit providers have their finger on the pulse on what the need is for housing production.

But if we ever find that we're not getting the applications for what we as a city, as policymakers, determine is the need, is there a way for us to sort of weigh in and get more of the kind of projects that we want?

Absolutely.

So a few responses to that question.

First of all, I think our community organizations do have a pulse on the need.

I also admit that sometimes applications that come to us change based on what kind of resources are available.

So the federal divestment in affordable housing, federal government used to spend a lot of focus on seniors.

That senior money comes and goes.

comes, we are particularly directive with our partners to help produce senior projects because we know what we'd have the specific resources for them.

Same is true for veterans.

When we see an uptick in veteran resources available, then we're able to communicate with our partners, come bring some projects that serve veterans.

So that's one piece.

I think the second piece is that we're also able to direct priorities through our RFPs and strategic acquisition.

An example, I always bring back the K site, but using an application and an RFP there, we were able to dictate a population priority around homeless, formerly homeless folks, a co-location priority around arts.

I could see that similarly happening with various populations, including seniors, for example.

And it helps us be more strategic with geography, another thing that we can balance both what we know exists in our pipeline and where we want to be.

in places like in Magnolia, for example.

Then we have our NOFA, and we're always able to, through our NOFA, to elevate additional priorities as well.

But it typically takes us working with our nonprofits and our for-profits in more of a collegial way to get to the point where then something elevated in the NOFA could have a response to it.

So it happens in all of those multiple ways.

I just want to underscore the importance of this issue.

I think for us, one great example is the senior housing that we all want for the LGBTQ community on Capitol Hill.

That's something that's been in the works for a while.

So, you know, as we look at the document, if there's other ways that we want to underscore that, open to having those conversations over the next week.

I appreciate your answer, Emily, and the flexibility and the ways in which you prioritize, especially our senior and disability population.

Quick public service announcement.

I'm going to ask our council colleagues if it is okay if I hold item 11 on our agenda, which is our notice of intent to sell legislation for next week.

We're meeting again on the 13th of June and we do have time on the agenda for it.

So we're gonna go ahead and continue with the next half an hour on this topic since we are halfway through our suggested items slash amendments.

So we can keep doing issue identification and to the general public issue identification Basically means the amendments we'd like to add to the piece of legislation.

So we are on item number seven and councilmember Herbold This is one of the first items that we have from you.

Thank you And this has to do with the housing first approach for rental housing so the rental housing program includes as we just heard housing for homeless persons and and households as one of the several priorities.

Housing first is a philosophy or an approach that prioritizes moving people who are homeless into low or no barrier housing as soon as possible to end their homelessness.

And then to allow the individuals to focus on other personal goals and issues.

such as obtaining employment, tending to substance use disorders, mental health or physical illnesses, and other issues that will actually enable them then to remain stably housed.

The existing policies for the Rent Housing Program do require providers to provide appropriate levels of support services for the populations that they will serve, but do not specifically reference housing first principles as the expected approach as it relates to providing that housing.

So option A would actually add some language in the rental housing program to reference the housing first principles as the expected approach to providing housing for homeless populations.

And it would also add a definition of housing first into the definition section of the housing funding policies.

This is Council Member Herbold.

Yes, thank you.

As we know, Housing First is a nationally recognized evidence-based practice that recognizes housing stability for people with behavioral health disabilities, recognizes that it depends on the inclusion of services for their needs without preconditions or barriers.

Lowering and reducing the barriers of our own housing that we fund with housing levy dollars and other public dollars is a recommendation of the Bar Papi Report and part of our Pathways Home Plan.

And so I hear sometimes from folks that people describe their housing as housing first, but that they may kind of play fast and loose with some of the principles of housing first.

So I think just having a good definition for our community partners, I think is useful for us all.

There are barriers as opposed to removing barriers.

Barriers to screening, entering into housing, and barriers to staying in the housing.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

I think it is important, as we said earlier, to be intentional about the language that we use and to have clear definitions.

So I just want to indicate my support for having this be part of our comprehensive package as we move forward.

Appreciate you bringing it.

I'm especially thankful for the clarity around the definition because I don't think there is a one of us at this table that wouldn't stand up and say it has sound data behind it.

We have heard so many times from people saying, you know, people need housing and that they are readier than you might think they are.

And if we add barriers like you're saying, it becomes more and more difficult.

So if we can move this whole concept forward and incorporate it, I think it's very valuable for us.

Great, moving on to issue number eight, criminal background checks, which is also Council Member Herbold.

So cities adopt legislation prohibiting landlords from requiring criminal background checks as part of the tenant application process for rental housing, unless required by federal law.

Housing providers who receive federal funds are required to conduct such background checks and they are prohibited from providing housing to individuals who are convicted of methamphetamine production or have a conviction that has resulted in a lifetime sex offender registration requirement.

The policies for the rental housing program require project owners to submit a management plan to OH for approval prior to completion and opening of the housing that they develop.

The executive's proposal does strike references to the use of criminal background checks that's included in the management plan section, but it does not explicitly state that those background checks are prohibited except as required by federal law.

So this option would simply add that language in that makes it clear that those background checks are prohibited except as required by federal law.

Thank you.

So the Office of Housing, prior to passage of the Fair Chance Housing legislation, had done a lot of really, really good work with our nonprofit providers to create some standardized expectations around screening practices, and so that's why The previous language was in the policies and in the plan.

We have now since legislated our expectations as it relates to screening and so this language is simply makes our expectations for our nonprofit providers consistent with that of city law.

Thank you for that.

I again want to indicate my support for having this be part of our comprehensive package of amendments as we potentially move forward next week.

I think it is important to call it out and to be really intentional about that commitment from the council's and city's perspective.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving on to issue number nine, which is mutual termination agreement policy.

So a property manager and a tenant can enter into an agreement to mutually terminate a rental agreement prior to the formal end of a rental agreement.

Such agreements may be pursued for a variety of reasons, one of which is to prevent the need for a landlord to actually instigate a formal eviction proceeding.

When there have been challenges with the tenancy of a resident, formal eviction proceedings can cause difficulty for a tenant and impact their ability to secure housing in the future.

There is a concern that non-profit housing providers use mutual termination agreements without legal justification for evicting a tenant, as is required under the city's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

So requiring that non-profit providers who use such agreements have a written policy that allows the use of these agreements only when conditions for legal eviction are present could address this concern.

So the option before you would add language in the Management Plan section of the Rental Housing Program requiring providers who use mutual tenant termination agreements to have a written policy that allows the use of the agreements only when conditions for eviction might otherwise be acted upon.

Thank you so much, and I'm I really appreciate the time that Central staff and others have taken to work through this issue with me.

It's Complex it's this is one of the issues that was raised in the losing home report from the Seattle Women's Commission that sometimes mutual termination grievance are used in a way that's arbitrary and and not consistent with the rule of law.

And we in no way want to stop the use of termination agreements when appropriate, because as Tracy has mentioned, being able to mutually agree to terminate a tenancy can have benefits both for the landlord as well as the tenant and not have a record of eviction to follow the tenant and the cost associated with the eviction for the nonprofit provider.

But we do need to be very careful that, again, that these agreements aren't being used in a way that's arbitrary.

And that is being used to, you know, get rid of a tenant who, you know, may not be actually in violation of any terms of their rental agreement, but is some, you know, maybe there's a situation where there's, you know, a bad relationship between a manager and a tenant.

And so, again, these are not supposed to be used in a way that is abusive.

and makes already vulnerable tenants more vulnerable.

So this would simply require that our providers have a policy for how they use those agreements.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Will the Office of Housing be working to help create template language that can be used in such a written statement?

I think that on this issue, exactly like on the issue about criminal histories before, part of our work at the Office of Housing is to understand the existing conditions.

survey and bring together our providers to see what's actually happening with mutual terminations and we would be committed to bringing them together and identifying really what their practices are, what we as a shared community believe falls in that realm of appropriate.

because I don't think it is clearly defined at this point.

And it was a successful model that we used on the criminal records work and think that by bringing folks together and really understanding more fully the way in which mutual terminations are used across agencies and maybe even across buildings so we get a sense of whether there's outlier behavior or whether there's shared agreement on what counts as appropriate.

So that's a little bit of a preview of the next amendment that we'll talk about, which will help to study it.

I understand we don't totally know what the universe is of how many people or landlords are using this, but so that study will occur.

And then I think my hope is that to assist folks in having template language based on those conversations, then we would be able to potentially fulfill the suggested text here in amendment number nine.

Are you saying that there's gonna be further conversation at our next committee meeting on this?

We can have further conversation for sure, especially in just a second we can have another conversation about Amendment 10, which will help us outline what potential information Office of Housing will be looking at as they pull together both a study of how frequently this is used and what type of language might be common or desired as this goes forward.

And maybe not at the next committee meeting, but in between, I would love to talk to you further about criminal background checks.

Something has come to my attention, two different lawyers, including the prosecuting attorney, of something that's going on through the Washington State Patrol that is of deep concern to me, that people are being set up, convicted, and I'd like to talk about this with you, just to give you more facts.

It's a major concern, and I haven't been able to get through to people to say, how is this working, because when you have a sex offender record that is following you around for the rest of your life, it is, you know, it's a beyond a late Miserables sort of situation.

So I would love to be able to see what we can do and just to alert you to this.

And Council Member Beksha, just so that I'm clear, and that conversation would be related to criminal background checks more broadly, not just specific to housing policy?

Okay, great.

That's helpful for me.

The huge impact on housing, absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

I think Council Member Mosqueda, to your point about a template on the issue of mutual terminations, it seems that prior to asking through a management plan people to tell us what they do, it is more useful to understand what the best practice is and to drive people to implement towards that best practice.

That's a great point.

That would be our hope in the way in which we collaboratively guide our partners into best outcomes.

Great point.

Okay, I think we can move to item number 10. Item number 10 has to do with the use of payment plans and mutual termination agreements.

So low income tenants that fall behind on rent payments are at risk of being evicted.

It's not clear to what extent providers of city funded housing offer payment plans that allow a tenant to become current on such payments.

So collecting information regarding the extent to which providers are using payment plans could inform future policy development in this area.

In addition, as we just heard, collecting some more information about the use of mutual termination agreements and maybe some best practices that are being used by providers if they're using them and the conditions around that could also help to guide further policy development and maybe template language for folks to use.

So this option would add a new section to the proposed ordinance that requests OH to collect information on the use of mutual termination agreements and payment plans by providers of city funded housing and to provide a report with recommendations to the council by April 30th of 2020. Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

So on this one, this is also an issue that was raised in the losing home report by the Seattle Women's Commission on eviction reform.

We do have wonderful new game-changing eviction reform legislation that was passed in the state legislature that will hopefully result in judges exercising new authority to allow tenants to go into payment plans before facing eviction.

But it would be great to see and learn more about what our nonprofit providers are doing to provide and allow for payment plans before.

a tenant gets into the eviction process, to avoid that altogether.

So that's the intent of collecting this information.

I appreciate the Office of Housing's willingness to work on it.

Absolutely.

And our understanding is that the majority of our nonprofits do, in fact, offer payment plans as a matter of practice.

And so we would be happy to go through a process to really understand more fully how that is operationalized or how that's incorporated into policy for these organizations and drive to the best practices.

OK, moving on to issue number 11, which has to do with forward commitment policy.

So the existing rental housing program policies allow the OH director to forward commit up to 30% or $8.6 million of the following year's 2016 levy rental production and preservation funding to projects applying for funds in the fall notice of funding availability process.

The annual NOFA process does include other fund sources such as CDBG, home, incentive zoning, or mandatory housing affordability funds.

The availability of these fund sources can vary from year to year based on federal appropriations and real estate development activity.

The current policy for forward commitment only applies to 2016 levy funds and not to these other fund sources.

Given the potential volatility of these other fund sources included in the ANUNOFA, the council could include such sources in the maximum forward commitment amount of $8.6 million.

Council could also consider the possibility of bumping that up a little bit from the $8.6 million that might allow for a reasonable amount of forward committing of these funds.

So the option before you would be to revise the language as it relates to the forward commitment to include those other fund sources in that $8.6 million maximum amount or a higher amount.

Thank you.

So I want to also acknowledge that Erin House is at the table with us, and Erin's been working on this ANF plan with us in the Office of Housing, and Tracy, as we've been also hosting what we're calling our Community Housing Roundtables.

And as you heard, many of these ideas came from our discussions directly with the community.

Erin, I just want to acknowledge all your work and see if you have anything else you want to comment on specific to this item.

I think for this one just recognizing as Tracy said that some of these funding sources are not as reliable as the levy and making sure that we just aren't drawing from the next year to fund priorities in any given year and create some consistency around that.

Is it your expectation that we would set up a fund, a pool?

Is this like a smoothing amount?

No, it's actually just setting a maximum amount on what the OH director can actually pull forward from next year's NOFA allocation to fund projects in the current NOFA.

Based on an assumption that we're going to get money that we don't know.

Exactly.

That's exactly right.

Exactly right.

And so the reason this came to light is that there have been some forward commitments made by the Office of Housing.

I think 20 million in 2018 and 15 million in 2017. So we know that they have the ability to go up to 8.6 and clearly they went beyond that with some of these other funding sources.

And as I thought about this, I was actually the one to raise this to say, this makes me a little uncomfortable.

because these other fund sources may not always be there to the levels that they are.

And so is there some reason to maybe put a bit of a cap to include those other fund sources?

Again, I think you could go a little bit above the 8.6 and we can talk with the Office of Housing to not preclude them from taking advantage of some opportunities they might have that just compels them to want to, in fact, do those forward commitments above that $8.6 million.

But I just think it's a prudent policy, especially as we may be looking at a change in the market where maybe we won't have as many dollars coming in from MHA or goodness knows what the federal appropriations in that situation.

So in this instance that you have identified as having already occurred, did that result in us having fewer funds for this year's NOFA?

And Council Member Berkshire has a question after that too.

Correct.

So last year we made forward commitments to two projects, two of which included a permanent supportive housing component to it.

And our intent was to help both of those more complicated projects align other kinds of financing that was going to take a longer period of time.

So that means that of the NOFO Will Award this year, $20 million was taken off the top because it has been previously awarded.

However, the units will be counted as having been delivered as part of this year's award.

So reportedly, we are only going to have about 40 million in this year's NOFA.

Is that with or without that 20?

So we're watching the numbers come in still.

It's a moving target.

I think we, it's at this point, about 50, and that includes the $20 million.

So, Council Member Braxton, then I have a comment.

Thank you.

I'm going to have to excuse myself to get to a 12 o'clock meeting.

I want to say thank you.

One of my favorite phrases of the day was for the community genius coming together.

Thank you for all your good work.

And going back, and thank you for your leadership on this, Council Member Muscata, Council Member Herbold, I appreciate your however many two decades now or more of housing experience.

Just one last thing I'd like to discuss on the acquisition and preservation program funding limit.

I'm all in.

We've talked about unreinforced masonry buildings and what we can do to working with our emergency management group with a policy say put forward if we can I think that's been identified in the neighborhood of 700 buildings that are unreinforced in the city and there's a very strategic number they're focused on but What's that?

Yeah, and I heard 63 at any rate there's there are some numbers that we can really I mean, preserving these buildings are critical.

We know that, making them affordable to people.

is important, too, and working with the ownership, I'd just like to make sure we don't lose sight of that and see how we can work together.

But thank you so much for an excellent meeting.

Thank you so much.

And if you do have any other questions in the meantime, we will be bringing this back to the committee next Thursday with the hope for discussion and possible vote.

I want to just circle back to the questions that were asked about the why behind this.

I think this is precisely why.

I think in the ideal world, and hopefully with this year's budget and potential actions, maybe we will be able to bond against existing sources and identify additional dollars for capital construction projects and additional housing so that we're not in this sort of deficit mentality or scraping for the dollars that we need to build the affordable housing that is ready to go online.

The list of NOFA projects that we see every year is comprehensive.

These folks are ready to go.

have land, they have interests, they have community commitments.

And what we'd love to do is to make sure you have all the funding possible so we totally understand why dollars are being looked at for future years to apply to existing lists for current years.

And the two projects that I know have been identified for funding from next year are incredibly important.

We also want to make sure that if we do hit a downturn, that we're not in a place where we can't respond.

And so thank you to the Office of Housing for your willingness to work with us on this amendment.

And we, just teeing it up, will be working with you all as we think about where we can access additional revenue so that we're not in that situation.

Very concerning, though, to see the amount of dollars go from around $95 million in 2017 to $78 million in 2018, and then to potentially hear about the a smaller amount of 50 million next year.

So I know it's a concern of yours and we're interested in working with you.

Thank you for your consideration on this amendment too.

Okay, trying to finish up here quickly.

Number 12 has to do with the mix of unit sizes and amenities for homeownership projects.

This really is just adding language to the homeownership program that would promote the development of new homeownership units that includes a mix of unit sizes and amenities for families, including large families.

So we'll just be adding some additional intent language.

Obviously, this is something that we've heard a ton about, the desire for more two, three, and one day four, more four bedrooms.

You did a great presentation that showed us how many three and four bedrooms you already have as we think about creating the opportunity for more families to live in the city and thinking also, you know, inclusively about multigenerational families that are more likely to see larger nuclear families from immigrant and refugee families, we want to be an inclusive city.

So let's create the opportunities and this just underscores that commitment that you all have been working on and concretizes it.

Moving to issue number 13, which has to do with the maximum unit cost for homeownership units on publicly owned sites.

So the existing policies for the homeownership program just broadly allow OH to fund development of long-term affordable homeownership units.

OH can provide up to $70,000 per unit for one or two bedroom units and $90,000 per unit for three or more bedroom units.

OH's proposed policies for the housing development on publicly owned sites program would allow OH to fund the development of long-term homeownership units on such sites that exceeds these maximum amounts per unit and does not set a maximum amount.

This would be permitted if it increases the number of affordable homes by reducing the number of market rate units needed to subsidize a project or if it facilitates faster completion of the project.

OH does not anticipate providing funding in excess of $120,000 per unit.

Historically, we have had a maximum amount for the home ownership program.

And so the option before you would be to, in fact, propose that there be a maximum amount of $120,000 per unit for specifically the long-term home ownership units that would be developed on publicly owned sites.

So this amendment will enable us to create 100% affordable units on new homeownership projects.

And this makes our investments in homeownership, I think, go even further.

Basically, we want all units in a project to be affordable rather than having to include market rate units in order to make a project pencil out.

I think this is a big deal and it also doesn't move us away though from our desire to create mixed income housing, which we also know is a great community benefit as well.

But when we can, let's make it all affordable.

Moving to, oh, sorry.

Sorry.

And I have a, not highlighted in the memo, look forward to talking to you more between now and the next meeting.

I have an interest in doing something similar as it relates to family sized units of three or more units, not specific to the, the publicly owned properties, but I am interested in looking at increasing the limit for permanently affordable housing, home ownership opportunities serving 80% and below from 90%, which is what is that now, to 100,000.

Again, only for three bedroom or larger units.

As we know, a family of four currently needs a household income of 110% to afford a mortgage on a $500,000 home.

Even with city down payment assistance, a household income of 90% is actually necessary to sustain that monthly mortgage.

And so this would make it possible for homeowners At 80% AMI to access funding necessary in those larger family size homes to be able to more likely access the city's funds in order to buy those homes.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I think you and I share a vision on this issue.

Would like to underscore for all of my council colleagues, we do want a deadline of noon on Friday.

That's tomorrow, so 24 hours from now.

If we can work with you on that language, that'd be great so that we have ample time to look through the language, get it to law, and have a chance to chat.

So thank you in advance for the heads up on that and for complementing our amendment here.

So moving to item number 14, which has to do with priorities for the housing development on publicly owned sites.

So the current housing development on public loan sites program allow OH to award funding from the rental housing program or the home ownership program for site specific development on publicly owned property.

These policies, that being the Rental Housing Program and the Home Ownership Program, do include objectives for projects funded, but these objectives, including the resident population priorities, are not reflected explicitly in the Housing Development on Publicly Owned Sites policies.

And so this option would actually revise the Housing Development on Publicly Owned Sites Program to reference those resident population priorities that exist in the Rental Housing Program.

So this amendment's all about consistency.

We want to make sure that there's consistency in our program objectives for resident population priorities in our rental housing program and include these priorities in our publicly-owned site projects.

You know, just bears repeating that part of our priority populations include homeless families and individuals, seniors, people with disabilities, and low-wage working families and individuals.

Council Member Herbold, you asked the question earlier about where seniors are emphasized.

I think this is one more area that we're emphasizing it.

I look forward to working with you all on that.

And then the final issue in the memo has to do with fair contracting practices and WIMBY utilization reporting.

So the existing housing funding policies require housing developers to comply with the city's fair contracting policies and are encouraged to increase opportunities for women and minority-owned businesses.

A WMBIE goal of 14% of the total construction and other contracted services contracts applies to all rental housing projects that are funded with the city dollars.

The current housing funding policies also encourage additional efforts to increase WMBIE participation, including mentoring programs and participation in apprenticeship and other training opportunities.

Housing developers are currently required to report on their WMBIE outcomes.

So the option before you would add language to the housing funding policies to acquire an annual report from the Office of Housing on the housing developers and their general contractors that participated in mentoring programs, apprenticeship programs, and other training programs for the city-funded housing projects and the number of workers served by each of the programs for each of those city-funded housing projects.

This is Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, so this, amendment addresses some of the issues that we are hearing from our partners in labor around their hopes for office of housing projects.

I think it starts to move us in a good direction just to get a better sense of where we're at on those projects.

I'm further interested in potentially some other reporting requirements that, again, between now and noon tomorrow, we'll figure out.

But much like we did prior to creating the Priority Hire Program for public works, projects, we created a set of data that really pointed to the need.

That set of data in 2014 showed that less than 5% of these construction jobs were going to construction workers in the city.

And we found that out because we required reporting on that.

So I'm interested in beginning to collect some of that information.

I don't think the onus would be on the Office of Housing to collect the information, but simply be the recipient of the information that the contractors would provide around some of the demographic information around the workforce on these projects.

So, thank you Councilmember Humboldt, and I think this is another area where conceptually you and I have a shared interest, especially in Every Chance We Can, lifting up labor standards.

I know you chaired the effort on worker protections and labor in the past, and I'm honored to have the baton passed for the Labor Committee now.

I think it's no surprise that we have a joint interest in this issue.

Over the next 24 hours, let's work together on this.

There's some language that we've been working on as well, an amendment that would look more broadly, I think, signal our efforts to want to look comprehensively at strategies to advance labor equity and our commitment to infusing good living wage jobs and union jobs into affordable housing.

creation.

Part of this effort, I think, should include a reflection based on the language that we got when we did the K-site project.

The city has just awarded that to Plymouth, and as we look forward to building the housing, we're also looking forward towards building these stronger labor protections into these city-funded projects.

The amendment that we are interested in working on would basically direct Office of Housing and FAS to do an evaluation of strategies to advance labor and equity outcomes on affordable housing sites in Seattle, including what we can learn from the K-site projects so that there can be kind of an apples-to-apples comparison of various projects and sites.

And we lifted some language from K-site.

You might remember that we included some language in the MEETS legislation.

I'm forgetting what the acronym stands for, but it's Building Energy Efficiency Standards for many of our buildings at City Light.

And that was some great language we worked on with the building construction trades.

We'd love to work with you all.

I know our staff are busy chatting already, but if there's a way for us to think about the comprehensive analysis that both of our offices would like so that in the future, our Office of Housing has a report, guidelines, and evaluation that can help us strategically advance labor equity in our housing projects.

We're going to be working with OHFAS to determine a time frame on when the data will be available from the case site, which I think is forthcoming this summer.

It's forthcoming soon.

The report on the NOAA, it probably won't be until the end of 2020. The project is not going to be even beginning construction until 2020.

But I mean the parameters, what we do like.

Yeah, exactly.

So we're working right now with FAS to really figure out what kind of analytical tool is necessary to do kind of data work to figure out what the case site will produce both in terms of benefits to workers and potential costs and how do we assess those as compared to other investments we're making at the same time.

And we'll be working with the trades on that assessment tool and then can be coming to you in 2020 more when the project is under construction to talk about some of the things we're finding.

The Keysight has already been identified as a pilot project for priority hire.

I want to also look at all the other projects that are being built with city dollars.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And beyond sort of the limited scope, I think you referenced some of it.

Part of what we're interested in is apprenticeship utilization, apprentice preference, preferred entry, sorry, apprentice preferred entry, priority work, and utilization of women and people of color.

So I think very similar goals.

Let's see if we can kind of harmonize some of our language and see what we can do in the next 24.

That's great.

And we'd be happy to look forward to reporting to you all on some of the WIMBY utilization that we have that's really strong right now, far exceeding our existing goals and the work that we've done with our affordable housing developers to make improvements and labor equity all the time.

Great.

Well, that concludes the 15 amendments that we've heard of so far.

17th?

So I don't have any others.

I don't know if either one of you had any others that you wanted to talk about today.

Do I need to talk about child care anymore?

No, I think you got it.

We got you.

You got the point across.

Okay, good deal.

Council Member Herbold, I really appreciate the ideas and suggestions that you're putting forward in amendment.

We'll look forward to working with you over the next 24 hours to get those amendments together.

As a reminder to the public, we will bring this back on June 13th at our 9.30 meeting.

I know, right?

Okay.

23 hours and 55 minutes.

See you all in seven days back here to have a discussion on the HSD inflationary adjustments, a possible discussion and possible vote on the administration and finance plan and housing funding policies.

And we will bring back item number 11 from today's agenda, which was the notice of intent to sell legislation for discussion and possible vote.

We'll also have a meeting on June 20th.

I'm sorry, our next regular meeting was on June 20th and it has been canceled.

That's why we're meeting on the 13th, just as a reminder to folks.

One more PSA before we go.

Don't leave everybody because we have a really exciting special committee meeting, i.e. work session on the human service provider inflationary adjustment needs, the ways in which we can stabilize the workforce, our organizations with the rising cost of property and the need for us to stabilize the workforce.

So 1.30 here in council chambers.

Hope you all join us.

And with that, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all so much.

It's been a housing full day.

Appreciate it.

And the meeting's adjourned.