Seattle City Council Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) 1/7/2019

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for being here and joining us this morning.

It is Monday, January 7th, a little after 1030. Welcome to another in our continuing conversations here at the Seattle City Council about mandatory housing affordability.

I'm joined this morning by Council President Harrell and Council Member Bagshaw.

I believe my colleagues, Council Member Juarez and Council Member O'Brien will likely be joining as well.

We have several members who are absent today, so we're a little light on attendance this morning.

But I know this is a topic that is of strong interest to those members, and I'm sure that they'll be watching either live or after the fact.

This is the 15th meeting that we've had over the last couple of years on the Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Housing Affordability.

Today, we're going to be talking about two agenda items.

One, we're going to hear a briefing and update on the analysis that the city has been conducting around historic resources.

And then secondly, we're going to go through some issue identification related to issues that have come up over the last 14 meetings that we've had on citywide MHA to talk through some of the issues that have already been identified as high priorities by council members and our central staff.

As a reminder for my colleagues, I just want to kind of highlight some of the discussions that we've had so far.

So bear with me when I say we believe that we've had at least 40 council led discussions on this topic when you include the community design workshops that we hosted in 2016 and 2017, and all of the meetings that we had in 2018, the 14 open houses, as well as the five public hearings on this topic last year.

In addition, the city writ large has knocked down more than 10,000 homes in urban villages and had probably about another 175 or so meetings just in terms of scale.

As small as coffee, one-on-one coffee dates with people at coffee shops and neighborhoods to as large as the, several public open houses that the city held in 2016 and 2017 where hundreds of people attended.

So and everything in between including some very well attended focus group discussions that lasted throughout the 2016 time frame.

So we do have a lot of wealth of data to go on as we consider the timing and discussion of amendments related to the city's implementation of the mandatory housing affordability program.

And with that in mind, I'd like for us to start with a rundown of the work that has been going on after the hearings examiner results were officially published in November.

And at that point, I'll turn it over to folks at the table to do introductions, although I believe first I need to have Noah read this item officially into the record.

Mr. Owen.

Agenda item one, update on additional environmental analysis for citywide mandatory housing affordability, MHA.

And let's do introductions.

If you don't mind, Mr. Whitson, we'll start with you.

Lischwitzen, Council Central Staff.

Cato Freeman, Council Central Staff.

Ali Panucci, Council Central Staff.

Sarah Maxana, Mayor's Office.

Jeff Wendland, Office of Planning and Community Development.

And if I'm not mistaken, Ms. Maxana and Mr. Wendland, you're gonna walk us through the first agenda item, then we'll turn it over to our central staffers for agenda item number two.

Thank you for having us here this morning to talk about our ongoing work to complete additional environmental review in response to the hearing examiner's decision last November on the adequacy of the final environmental impact statement for citywide MHA implementation.

Of course, we always start out with this slide, as with all of our presentations over the last several years in front of you.

This is about putting in place mandatory housing affordability requirements, creating more affordable housing through growth, putting in place these new zoning changes in order to require new development to contribute to income and rent restricted housing.

I'm going to hand things off to Jeff Wendland in OPCD who has been the project manager for the additional environmental review following the hearing and examiner's decision.

Thank you, Sarah.

Good morning, Council members.

So, as mentioned, the hearing examiner affirmed most aspects of the EIS but called for additional data in the historic resources section.

And so I'm going to give a quick overview of the status of that additional analysis.

and a preview for you of the information that it will contain.

The hearing examiner's decision called for three major components to be looked at.

The first being adding information about landmarks, particularly to a series of maps.

The second being identifying the contents of a city database that exists for survey information.

And the third being related to projects that are exempt from SEPA level project review.

So we'll talk a little bit about each of those.

So the additional analysis of historic resources that you'll receive contains layers of information about historic resources.

It builds on information that was in the EIS.

And this slide shows you what the layers of information are.

A quick reminder that Seattle's designated historic districts are exempt from MHA.

No zoning changes are proposed there.

The information that the analysis will contain pertains to the city's designated landmarks.

Those are City of Seattle designated landmarks.

There's also information on National Register determined eligible places that are not city landmarks, information in the database where surveys have been conducted.

We included some new information on National Register of Historic Places, districts, which are different from city designated districts, and detailed information for you about SEPA thresholds and where there may be gaps in review.

So the City of Seattle's landmarks, designated landmarks, have the strongest protections for historic preservation.

They're designated by a board.

And once designated, a certificate of approval is required for any changes to historic features.

The information that's added in the additional analysis is to show you where all of those landmarks are on much more detailed maps with information on the MHA zone changes.

And we'll talk about that a little bit more.

And there's an expanded discussion for you about the potential impacts, particularly to the setting of a landmark.

So when development occurs, under MHA near to the landmark that could affect its presence.

The next layer of information is a National Register of Historic Places determined eligible properties.

Some of these may be City of Seattle landmarks, many may not be.

Listing as a...

Determined eligible property is determined by the state's Historic Preservation Office and sent to the National Park Service.

For those sites, a determination of effects and mitigation would be required only if the project development project has state funding or is a federal undertaking.

So with or without MHA, these identified sites are subject to impact from development.

You will see added detailed mapped information along with the landmarks and MHA zoning information.

The next layer of information is the city's historic resources survey database.

And so surveys of historic resources have been conducted over many years in neighborhood areas.

And Department of Neighborhoods has a database essentially of where surveys have been conducted.

Information in those surveys doesn't really say whether or not, or doesn't determine whether or not that potential resource should be a landmark or should be protected, but the information is provided nonetheless in the additional analysis.

So, we will describe the content and purpose of that database and these locations where surveys have been conducted.

will also be included for you on a series of maps.

The next layer of information was not included in the hearing examiner's decision, but based on input from stakeholders and others, we felt it was very important.

to add as well.

These are newly designated National Register Districts.

These are different from Seattle's designated historic districts.

They are recognized by the state's Historic Preservation Office and National Park Service.

Two new ones have been recognized since publish of the FEIS, one in the Ravenna Cowan neighborhood near the Roosevelt Urban Village, and one in the Mount Baker Park Edition near the North Rainier Urban Village.

So you will have detailed maps of those new districts along with discussion of potential impact to resources there.

Next slide, please.

The next layer of information has to do with the thresholds for project level review.

This is responsive to the hearing examiner's decision.

This basically means that when project-level development happens, when someone proposes a building, if it's subject to SEPA, it must be reviewed for impacts to landmarks, if there's a landmark nearby, or to other historic resources as part of the checklist.

But if there's not a SEPA review, those checks aren't in place.

So this additional analysis will specify for you the specific MHA zones under the proposal where CEPA-exempt development could be likely.

So this is just an example for you of the series of maps.

And for each urban village, you will have all of the city landmarks that are in that village identified.

In this slide, it's the orange stars.

as well as the National Register of Historic Places determined eligible sites, and you'll be able to see those relative to where there are greater or lesser MHA zone changes proposed.

This is the Green Lake Urban Village, which contains two landmarks and one eligible site.

And in this map Jeff I'm sorry to stop you at this point, but the I think that this is incredibly valuable information for us as we contemplate changes to the proposal as was sent down by then Mayor Burgess.

When you look at this site or look at this example of an urban village you identified both city landmarks and and our HP eligible sites But you also have something called inventory property and and hold properties.

What are those two?

References about thank you.

Those are the The information from the city's historic resources survey database, so there's sites that have had some survey information collected.

We don't know whether they are eligible for protection as a landmark or not, but there is some information in the city's database for those sites.

But that, again, would be sort of new data that wasn't part of the analysis that was done as part of the FEIS, correct?

Yes, more or less.

It was discussed with text and tables in the FEIS, but this makes it more granular and shows on a map for you.

Great, thanks.

Okay, keep going.

So, just about to wrap up here, but we think it's important to kind of look at this additional analysis and then Think about what expanded mitigation measures could be responsive.

These were many, these things were included in the FEIS, but we want to underscore several of them for you that may be important to consider with additional information.

Things that decision makers could do to lessen impacts that are present.

One of those would be to reduce the urban village boundary expansions into the new National Register Historic Districts, the new ones being Ravenna Cowan and Mount Baker Park addition.

That could be something to consider.

The second bullet point would not be part of MHA legislation, but would be very valuable.

Increase funding for comprehensive and systematic survey of historic resources followed by proactive city nominations for landmarking.

Given that landmarking is our strongest protection currently in place for resources, getting as many of the valuable resources designated in landmarks as possible could be effective mitigation.

The third bullet touches on modifying SEPA exemption thresholds.

So if there is a concern about gaps in project level protection to historic resources that it's outside of SEPA, the decision makers could consider modifying those exemption thresholds.

The last bullet has to do with settings of landmarks.

If there's concern about incrementally larger scale buildings near landmarks, you could look at the alternatives that propose less M1 or M2 tier, those larger zoning changes adjacent to landmarks.

The preferred alternative that's before you does that to a certain extent already, but you'll have the maps to consider if there are other places you'd like to do that.

And just one more point that's not on this list here that I want to mention is that the First Hill-Capitol Hill neighborhood is, you'll see, very rich in historic resources, and something we've discussed previously is the option of retaining transfer of development rights for historic preservation in the legislation in the First Hill neighborhood, and we've talked with council about that previously, would also underscore that as an effective mitigation measure you could consider.

I just want to pause here again and say I think that this is really important, those sort of five options for us to consider, the four that are in front of us, and the fifth that you just talked about, Jeff.

And as a reminder to my colleagues, for those issues that Mr. Wendland talks about that require separate action, Remember that we're talking about companion resolution alongside the proposed MHA legislation.

These are exactly the kind of separate actions that we would wanna include in a potential companion resolution to have a commitment to have the council and the city writ large set a timeline for these kinds of analyses and this kind of work.

So I think these are important things for us to differentiate because there's some things that we can do within the scope of the land use code, and there are some things that we cannot.

These two things are great things for us to contemplate, but aren't necessarily things that we can do through the existing MHA bill.

So, just wanted to flag that for folks.

There will be continued discussions, I think, about other really good ideas that'll come up during our MHA discussions that may not be able to be included in the bill.

And the resolution is a really great place for us to highlight those things.

Please, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Thank you for the overview.

And in particular, I just have a few questions.

Just so for the viewing audience and some people who aren't familiar with the transfer of development rights, which is something that came into being about 20 or 30 years ago, which we never used to have in the property rights field of law.

So can you just give a brief explanation what that means for the viewing audience and some people that aren't familiar?

And then maybe explain how your department or you would envision such a scenario where you would have that transfer of development rights and what that would mean for, like, the Capitol Hill community.

Great.

So, yeah, sorry for the wonky language on TDR and so forth.

I'm the only wonk up here.

No, I'm not.

Actually, Rob is the other one.

I don't think it's on the slide.

Yeah, it actually is not on the slide.

So, under the existing incentive zoning program in First Hill, There's an option for transferring development rights if you're saving a historic resource in a in a development, you could sell essentially the air rights for that to allow for a bonus on other portions of the site or another site off-site.

That's in the code today under incentive zoning.

In the initial proposal that was sent to you because a new mandatory requirement for affordable housing was proposed, that TDR option was not carried forward because, you know, we're adding a new requirement for housing, and it wasn't clear how that would dovetail with retaining the incentive zoning for TDR.

We received feedback from First Hill community and others that we should find a way to do both, and an amendment is prepared for you consider how those can both fit together and carry forward the incentive to preserve and add the MHA requirement.

And this is a topic that I think we're going to discuss a little bit later during our issue identification, but it is this overlay between a neighborhood like First Hill, Capitol Hill, where we have existing incentive zoning and will then, after this bill passes, have the mandatory housing affordability program on top of it creates complications.

We've had similar discussions about those complications in neighborhoods like South Lake Union, so it's not the first time that we've had it, but it's a policy choice in front of us as a council about how we marry those two objectives within two different programs.

Okay, so just want to wrap up here.

This is the last slide.

And note that to date, consultants and staff have not found new probable significant adverse impacts as we're looking at the more granular information.

And we expect to publish the additional analysis by the end of January in order for you to be able to move forward.

And Jeff, when you say publish the additional analysis, what does that look like?

What form does that take?

At this point, we're expecting it to be what would be called an addendum to the FEIS.

And would it include individual maps within the proposed urban villages as you kind of highlighted in an example?

So it would include those kinds of maps in all the urban villages where we've contemplated zoning changes?

That's correct.

Okay.

Further questions, colleagues, about these topics for our friends at OPCD?

Okay, seeing none, no need for you to stick around.

Let's move on to agenda item two.

And Noah, I'll ask you to read that into the record and we'll turn to central staff.

Agenda item two, issue identification for citywide mandatory housing affordability, MHA.

So, as I mentioned at the top, we've had, you know, almost three years, maybe three and a half years worth of discussions about MHA.

So, there are several topics that have come to light over the last several years that we thought would be helpful for us to talk through.

I've asked central staff to give us an overview of those.

We're going to focus today on issues that kind of cross jurisdictional boundaries with an objective at our future discussions about talking about proposed changes that are geographically focused.

So today we're going to try to talk about kind of crosscutting issues and at the meetings that we'll have next week we'll talk about districted specific amendments that might relate to boundary expansions or changes to individual properties.

or other types of issues that are more district focused.

So, with that as a tee off, I'll turn it over to central staff and ask you to walk us through issue ID.

Okay.

So, we will be working from a memo.

You'll see a table from that memo up here on the screen.

The memo is dated January 4th, 2019. There are two attachments to the memo.

One is this table, which is a preliminary issue identification table.

And the other is an attachment showing comprehensive plan amendment language with specific language for that would amend neighborhood plan goals and policies.

I'll just maybe make a disclaimer before we dive into this table, which is that this is by no means exhaustive.

This is a preliminary issue identification table and through the committee process between now and February, additional issues will be identified by you and by staff.

and I'll be subject to analysis and discussion here at this committee table.

As you think about potential amendments, I'll just reiterate that there is one thing that should be top of mind for you, which is limitations and the final EIS as it is. added to by the additional work being done by OPCD that was just described here.

Any amendments that the council members consider to the MHA implementation bill or the comprehensive plan have to be within the four corners of that EIS as it is added to.

For amendments that are not within those four corners, there is of course the companion resolution which we'll be developing, which will set out a work program for the city to further implement MHA.

And allow me to sort of volunteer, for instance, colleagues.

I am planning to attend the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association meeting next Tuesday, where I anticipate that some of my neighbors will ask for us to consider contemplating taller than 85 feet around that potential future light rail station.

Our EIS only studied 85 feet in those neighborhoods.

So an addition of stories above and beyond 85 feet in proximity to the light rail station would not be within the four corners of the EIS, so therefore is not an amendment that I would be bringing forward.

So those kinds of screens I think are going to be really important for us and as part of the reason why we've been asking your offices to engage early on so that we can have the time to do that analysis before amendments are drafted and brought forward.

continue.

Thank you.

So we are going to start with a discussion of potential areas of development standards that council members may want to consider amending.

As you may recall, to implement MHA, the executive has proposed development capacity increases in two ways.

One is through changes to the land use map, the official land use map, which would be rezoning a property and along with that adding additional additional development capacity.

In addition, there are changes to the development standards for zones that increases its capacity.

For example, a property zone LR2 today may remain LR2.

It will have the added MHA suffix and the development standards for that zone would change that would increase the capacity by increasing the amount of floor area that can be built on the site, increasing the height, that type of thing.

So what we'll be talking about in this section are those development standards that vary by zone and so we will walk through that today typically generally by zone category and then have a section that talks about sort of development standards that apply across zones.

So we'll start with development standards in the newly new proposed RSL zone and I am on page three of the memo and starting with the potential area for change under A1.

And I'll note here we have just highlighted, sort of described what's proposed in the executive's proposal and briefly described how or why council members may want to consider changes but have not in general included a specific amendment that we will be working with council members to develop further into February.

So the first one, A1, is discussing the maximum unit size for existing dwelling units.

The executive's proposal would apply a maximum size of 2,200 square feet for a principal dwelling unit in this zone.

This is meant to prohibit construction of very large, high-cost, single-family homes and encourage a mix of moderately-sized homes in this district.

Applying the standard to existing structures may make it difficult for existing single-family homeowners to do additions.

For example, if you have a 1,300 square foot, one story home.

If you wanted to do a second story addition and just go straight up, you would be above that maximum.

And doing that type of addition can make it a little architecturally and engineering-wise difficult to do.

or someone may have a home that's like 2,100 square feet and they want to do a small bump out on their kitchen, this maximum size limit may prohibit them from making those small additions.

So this amendment would allow modest additions to existing homes that may bump up against that limit.

So either going straight up within the footprint or doing a small addition, but continue to apply it to new construction.

The next amendment, A2, apartments in RSL zones.

There are density limits proposed in the RSL zone, as well as a limit for small apartment buildings, that's a new development type that would be allowed in this zone, that would not allow more than 12, excuse me, three dwelling units in a small apartment building, as well as not allowing more than one unit per 2200 square feet of lot area.

The combination of that absolute limit on the number of units in an apartment and the density limit may prohibit, for example, a four-unit small apartment building that might be appropriate on a larger lot.

And so this area is just suggesting that you may not need both of those restrictions, because there's other FAR limits, height limits, that would control the overall size of that apartment building.

Section A3 is related to accessory dwelling unit standards in the RSL zones.

The proposal would apply the existing ADU standards from multifamily zones to RSL zones.

This includes requiring that a detached ADU must be located directly behind the principal structure, limits on heights.

the heights of exterior stairs and others.

There may be a area to consider whether these additional limits are necessary, particularly around requiring that the detached accessory dwelling unit is located directly behind the principal structure.

It just might not make sense logistically on a lot to have it sort of bumped.

not directly behind the existing structure.

In addition, I think there have been some comments to consider going further to push the accessory dwelling unit standards similar to what's been studied in a separate body of work for changes in single family zones around accessory dwelling units.

And one thing council members may want to consider is whether accessory dwelling units in this new RSL zone, if you want to incentivize or prioritize those in the same way, because RSL zones allow multiple principal structures on a lot, where a single family zone, you can have your single family home plus an accessory unit.

So it's sort of a different context, and there may be reasons why you want to not put as much priority on promoting ADUs in RSL zones.

conversation about this?

Yes, but feel free to ask questions if you have them now, Council Member Baggio.

I would like to have more conversations with you, Ali, about this.

Maybe not right now, but I am, as you well know, for years have been really advocating for ADUs.

I do want to promote the idea of keeping them low on the property, but also providing flexibility for an owner to determine where on the site it could best be located.

So maybe after this meeting we could get together and talk a little bit about where this is going.

and what we can do based upon the ongoing lawsuits and the hearing examiners about making sure that in 2019 we actually have some movement on this.

I'll be happy to follow up with you.

And I think, again, to reiterate, there is a difference there, too, Council Member Bagshaw, between what we may allow in a single-family zone versus what we want to encourage in a residential small lot zone.

So, you know, while we all await the hearings examiner's results on ADU, this may be an opportunity for us to contemplate some initial conversations about what that really looks like.

So, more to come.

Good.

More to come.

Thank you.

Moving on to A4, this relates to the garage design standards in RSL zones.

The design standards for garages currently in place in multifamily zones would be carried forward into the RSL zone.

This includes allowing garages that face the street.

And there are requirements there about, you know, prioritizing access from the alley and those sorts of things.

And then if it is facing the street, setbacks and width requirements.

But if you had a row of townhomes or row houses, it could result in just a sort of a line of garage doors facing the street.

So you may want to consider making some changes to the development standards that would make it so that while you're walking along the sidewalk, you're not just walking along, you know, sort of blank wall of garage doors versus the windows into the principal structure.

I'm going to move on to the next section, which is development standards and multifamily zones.

So I'm going to page five of the memo and number A5.

The first two, A5 and A6 are related to density limits and floor area ratio limits in low rise zones.

And these standards regulate the sort of bulk of buildings in this zone, as well as the number of units that can be on a lot.

The way they are proposed, it might incentivize certain development types.

So the question for council members in these areas is considering whether or not you want to incentivize certain development types over others.

So for example, for the density limits in low-rise zones, the proposal is to remove density limits for cottage housing and apartment developments and reduce the existing density limits for row houses and townhouses on lots less than 3,000 square feet.

This may incentivize development of cottage houses, excuse me, cottage housing and apartments over and row houses on lots with more than that 3,000 square feet of lot area.

And that may be the policy preference, but it would incentivize that development type over townhomes.

And so you could consider making those density limits uniform across the development, the types of development.

Similarly, the FAR limits proposed in low rise zones are proposed to be simplified for all the development types and the code currently uses different FAR limits to encourage different types of development.

So again, here you could consider varying them more if you want to incentivize or if you have a preference for a certain style of housing development.

Number A7 relates to how height is measured in low-rise zones, and typically there is a total height limit for a zone that, you know, if it's a flat roof, it's measured to the top of the roof.

If it's a pitched roof, it's typically you measure to the midpoint of the roof, and there are some other sort of wonky details on how the height is actually measured.

But there are some exceptions to that height limit for certain types of roofs, and specifically for a pitched roof, The pitched roof may extend up to 5 feet above the maximum height limit if it doesn't exceed a pitch of 6'12", so that's just how steep the roof is. And how the width of the lots and the width of townhouses typically are other development types. Sometimes that doesn't practically make sense. And so in order for someone to build a house with a 312 pitch or something like that, they may need that height limit exception. And it is consistent with other forms in the neighborhood. So you may want to consider just allowing that exception for other pitches of roofs. And finally, this last section, which sort of straddles page 5 and 6, A8, relates to incentive zoning and high-rise zones. And this is the issue that was discussed in the last item on the agenda, where under the existing incentive zoning program, developers in the high-rise zone in the First Hill, Capitol Hill, Urban Village can achieve all of the extra floor area by either contributing to affordable housing, or they can achieve up to 40% of that by providing a combination of public space, implementing Green Street improvements, or purchasing transferable development potential from historic landmark sites. As was discussed in the proposal, the projects would fulfill the requirements to achieve that additional floor area now just with affordable housing. So it takes away the TDP, the transferable development potential, as well as landmark buildings. So council members could consider modifying the proposal in a couple of ways that OPCD has laid out previously where you are either maintaining the voluntary option, so up to 40% of the floor area could be gained through TDP, open space, or Green Street improvements, and that space would be exempt from MHA payments, which is kind of what the issue you were talking, referring to, Council Member Johnson, about the double application. Alternatively, you could apply MHA to the whole building, but still have the optional 40% as a voluntary choice.

And I was just gonna ask Ms. Panucci, memory fails me about the approach that we took to that conflict, which is too strong of a word, but in the South Lake Union neighborhood where we also currently have both incentive zoning and our mandatory housing affordability program in place.

So the way the, that was a little bit different in terms of how the MHA payment and performance amounts were set, and it was specific by zone.

And the MHA payments amounts are applied to the entire building, but the initial amounts were basically set to make it similar to what they would pay now if paying the affordable housing on just a portion of the building.

Well, and to your question, Council Member Bagshaw about recommendations, I think this is one of those instances where awaiting the final analysis that is going to come from the Office of Planning and Community Development will really help to inform us about what the right pathway here is.

I would love to see how expansive the new analysis is and how that more expansive analysis relates to the number of historic properties.

in the First Hill Capitol Hill neighborhood and then use that to inform policy decisions we might want to make about the potential conflict.

Again, I can't, I keep using that word.

I think conflict is too strong of a word, but the difference of opinion between policy objectives here in the First Hill Capitol Hill neighborhood.

So I'd prefer to wait until that analysis is done before coming down on one side or another.

I believe that is the end of A8, unless there's more.

Shall we move on to development standards in commercial and mixed zones?

Yeah, and I will turn it over to Lish.

All right, so the next issue is an issue that has been raised in a number of neighborhoods, particularly as part of discussion of MHA as it's applied in the university district.

Small business districts or business districts around the city have sought tools to encourage the creation of small business space, which is not always part of new construction.

So council members could consider amending the bill to support the creation of spaces for small businesses.

For example, limiting the maximum facade width of ground floor commercial spaces or requiring the buildings include spaces for small businesses if they provide spaces for very large businesses.

If you do want to move forward with this you should consider where those Requirements would apply either in particular neighborhoods like along the ave in the district or in all pedestrian districts or in all neighborhood commercial zones The legislation includes a new Seattle mixed zone for the Rainier Beach neighborhood.

This came out of work that was done with Rainier Beach and particularly the Rainier Beach Action Coalition to support a food innovation district in that community.

So the legislation includes incentives for food and manufacturing space within the station area around the Rainier Beach light rail station.

But it also includes some standards that we normally don't see in light rail station areas, particularly allowance for parking in between buildings in the street.

and a allowance that would allow surface parking area to cover half of the site in the Seattle mixed rainier beach district.

And council members may want to consider the trade-offs between the community's goals for supporting existing businesses in that area with the impact of new development under those standards next to a light rail station.

Please council member Ryan.

Council Member Johnson, on this one, I'm well aware of community members who've been working diligently for a number of years to try to create this vision for their community.

Unfortunately, there have been an ongoing series of roadblocks that have made this a really long process, and so I'm really sensitive to allowing flexibility for them to go forward.

I do think it'd be good to, as we move forward, have some conversation with some of the community members understand what their needs are and there is a tension here between our desire to have the right kind of pedestrian environment and kind of a community vision and I imagine there's a way to navigate that and maybe The proposal as described here is that way or maybe there's some other tweaks we need to do to it

The proposal rezones large sections of the city's single-family zone areas.

Approximately 6% of the city's single-family zone areas would be rezoned under the proposal.

And those three zones are two higher density zones that include different development standards.

The result for some property owners may be that their existing single family homes would no longer be conforming to the zoning standards.

For example, the 2200 square foot.

maximum size limit for houses in the RSL zone if applied to a large single-family home.

Existing single-family home would mean that that home were no longer conforming to the zoning.

The code does include some provisions that allow for existing non-conforming structures to remain and to be used and in the case of a natural disaster, a fire, be rebuilt.

as they were, but council members may want to consider whether those standards go far enough to protect existing single family homeowners.

The next issue is preschool uses.

So the code defines preschools as a subset of childcare facilities.

And that's just in our definition of what a childcare facility is.

It includes preschools.

The proposed legislation includes a number of instances where preschools are given special exemptions.

So in order to support the creation of new preschool space, council members may want to consider whether they want to expand that to all child care facilities, not just preschool facilities.

under the in the current land-use code there's a Pike Pine overlay district that supports the conservation of existing buildings in the Pike Pine neighborhood one of the provisions of the Pike Pine overlay district is that it has an incentive for buildings that include 50% of their floor area in low-income residential use.

That provision is proposed to be deleted and council members may want to consider retaining that in order to provide a little bit more support for buildings with a large percentage of low-income housing in the Pike Pine neighborhood.

The proposed legislation includes a new standard for solid waste and recycling access on lots where there isn't an alley.

There's a new requirement and where access is from the street for recycling and garbage pickup.

There's a requirement for a new ramp to access those solid waste bins and council members may want to consider adding compost to the list of bins that are required for those facilities.

Lish, can you talk a little bit more about access to the garbage cans and the bins, particularly in the downtown alleys?

I know that there have been a lot of concerns raised from people who live in the towers when there are other towers that are going to be built immediately across the alleys, that there's not room right now for a truck to move through, let alone two trucks, and let alone two trucks and garbage cans and access to them.

So how are we going to be addressing those issues?

So the code doesn't...

The proposed legislation doesn't address that issue in particular.

Generally, access to garbage and recycling is from the alley when there is one that exists, but our alleys are not wide enough in downtown to allow two trucks to pass each other.

And this legislation does not change that.

So is there anything that we could do, anything we should be doing to accomplish this, especially when we've got new construction coming in?

I don't know, Ali, if that's something that you've done some work on.

But again, it's a real problem, and as we are becoming more and more dense downtown, We need to make sure that there is room and space for people to do their deliveries and freight and the pickup of compost and recycling and garbage.

We'll take a look at that and get back to you when we're talking about District 7 specific issues next week.

Very good, because maybe we can talk offline about it to get me prepared, but also to let you know the questions that I'm hearing, particularly around as we're getting more dense and what we're doing with the freight and the connections and how we're making decisions about this.

So let's make sure that you and I connect before next week.

Anne.

So A15 is regarding design review exceptions.

The executive's proposal does not include any changes to the design review program.

However, during the discussions on the land use omnibus bill, which is a bill that makes technical and clarifying corrections to the land use code, there was a proposal to reintroduce exemption for row house development under a certain size.

As you may recall, a few years ago, the council changed the design review program and specifically around the threshold, simplified the threshold so that projects that are required to go through design review, it's just based on the size and type of development rather than having different thresholds that vary by zone, by type of housing or building type.

and a number of other factors.

And so when this came through in the omnibus bill, it was flagged as a policy choice rather than a technical correction and the decision was deferred until we were having these discussions.

So one thing that council members could consider is looking at the design review thresholds and whether or not for certain types of development, you want to either use as an incentive to exempt certain development types from design review Or in reviewing the development standards for certain types of developments, like row houses, if you feel that the development standards are prescriptive enough that you will get the urban design outcome that's desired, those projects might not benefit significantly from going through a design review and you could consider removing those.

And so this is just that option.

All right.

The next category of issues have to do with the framework for mandatory housing affordability.

by which I mean the performance amount, the payment amount, and the procedures by which the city requires payment and performance.

So, as council members know, the legislation that's currently in front of the council has payment and performance amounts that are based on market data from 2016. One thing the council could consider in a revised bill is updating the payment amounts to reflect more current market data That could take a couple of dimensions.

One, it could mean just changing those amounts.

It could also mean looking at the boundaries for the high, medium, and low areas.

As the council knows, there are sort of three different implementation areas outside of downtown based more or less on rents.

There's another dimension here having to do with the consumer price index.

In 2016, when the council established the MHAR framework, The council requested that the Office of Housing recommend alternatives to the CPI.

Currently, MHA payment amounts are updated based on the Consumer Price Index.

That request, the request included a July 1st, 2018 reporting date from the Office of Housing.

That report has not been forthcoming, so one thing that the council could consider is taking up a different index on its own.

On the high, medium, and low issue, I think that's one that's going to be important for us to continue to review.

I think that many of us up here have been hearing from folks about the increase in rents in a lot of different neighborhoods, and I think it'll be important for us to have some additional analysis.

to determine whether or not those additional rents have been, rent increases across the board, i.e. yes, it has gotten more expensive to live in the city, but the low areas are still low, even though it's more expensive than it used to be, and the higher areas are still high, even though those are more expensive than they used to be, or whether or not we have seen a significant enough rent increase from some neighborhoods to transform them from medium to high, for example.

So some additional analysis forthcoming on that as part of our final consideration would be helpful.

Yeah, and just so you all are aware, this may be one of those issues that can't be accomplished within the four corners of the EIS.

So this may be a work program item that is captured in the resolution for future refinements to the MHA program.

The next issue has to do with offsite performance.

Currently, offsite performance is only allowed for under the MHAC program, not under the MHAR program.

So for commercial development, a commercial developer can choose to perform off-site if they secure that off-site performance with a letter of credit or some similar security.

Under the mandatory housing affordability residential program, off-site performance is not allowed.

Some constituents have been in touch with the council about allowing off-site performance under MHAR.

It's currently allowed under incentive zoning.

In the past, the city has had some challenges with off-site performance, particularly having to do with the timing of when those units come online and also the value of the off-site performance as opposed to in-lieu fee payment.

The council could consider allowing off-site performance, but perhaps more along the lines of what's allowed under MHAC with a letter of credit securing a payment if off-site performance doesn't occur.

The next issue has to do with the timing of MHA payments.

Currently, MHA payments are due at issuance of the first building permit for a project.

So it's not necessarily a master use permit issuance.

If a master use permit is required, although the MHA amount is locked in at that time, it's a building permit issuance.

One thing the council could consider is amortizing payments over a period of time, thus allowing a developer to pass those payments on to a potential purchaser of a property.

Finally there one thing that the council may want to consider is allowing Is clarifying this is sort of more procedural issue is clarifying How projects can opt-in to MHA if they are currently in the development pipeline as the committee will recall the council established specific opt-in provisions for downtown projects and Southlake Union projects the council may want to consider something similar for projects outside of downtown and Southlake Union and that essentially allow projects that are currently in the development process to more easily opt in to MHA.

Some of it could simply be direction to SDCI to facilitate opting in.

I think that that's going to be critically important for us as we contemplate this because we're nearing the end of the development cycle and the more we can get to capture both the additional market rate units and additional affordable units, I think the better.

Moving on to section C related to rezone criteria.

So the city uses a set of criteria included in the 90s code to determine where zones are appropriate.

And generally the mandatory housing affordability rezones rely on those existing criteria.

Most of those criteria are not proposed to be changed.

However, the RSL zone, which is getting sort of revamped under this proposal, there are changes to the rezone criteria.

One issue that sort of leapt out with those criteria was the issue of access to transit.

And the council last year spent a lot of time defining the term frequent transit service.

Neither the RSL rezone criteria or the mid-rise rezone criteria, which both focused on access to transit as one issues that sort of determines whether or not a zone is appropriate in a particular location, use the defined term frequent transit service.

Not using that term will provide a little bit more flexibility to council members as they're assessing particular rezones, but council members may want to use the defined term and sort of provide more clarity about where those rezones are appropriate.

Okay.

Moving on to section D, which is regarding changes to zone designations on the official land use map.

As described previously, one of the ways the MHA will be implemented is through changes to zone designations and the increased zoning development capacity that comes along with that.

Over the last year or two, council members have had multiple requests for either parcel-specific or area-wide changes to the executive the executive's proposal.

Those specific requests will be presented and discussed at the next two select committee meetings on January 14th and January 16th.

We just wanted to highlight at a high level what the sort of parameters will be for those discussions.

Through the MHA final EIS, the executive considered many options or several options for zoning changes throughout the study area.

Changes that are requested to the proposal that are consistent with the options studied in the final EIS can be considered as amendment as part of this process.

And then also just note that after publication of the additional environmental work, there may be additional changes beyond what the list that is presented.

changes that are beyond the options studied in the final EIS and so that could include parcels that are not within the study area or it could include as Councilmember Johnson described asking for more height or density than what was contemplated in the final EIS will be areas that can't be amended through this process but can be flagged for the executive and with a request to do additional planning work and environmental work to consider if those changes are appropriate and to come back as part of another piece of legislation.

And as far as the schedule goes for next week, colleagues, I believe we're still finalizing these details, but I think that we're planning to do four, six, and possibly seven on Monday, and then one, two, three, and five on Wednesday.

So I believe that that's the schedule for next week, you know, subject to change, but that's the draft that we've got so far.

All right.

Moving on to Section E, which is related to the Comprehensive Plan.

The proposal is accompanied by a bill to amend the comprehensive plan, and that bill will include two different types of changes.

Amendments to the maps in the plan to be consistent with the proposed rezones, particularly in areas where urban villages are proposed to be expanded, and amendments to neighborhood plan policies to maintain consistency with the citywide policy related to the mandatory housing affordability program.

Attachment two to the memo includes the amendments to the neighborhood plan policies.

We'll talk about most of those policy changes as we talk about specific areas next week, but want to highlight two where council members may want to consider changes.

The first is in Fremont, the Fremont neighborhood plan currently has a policy that discusses portions of the Wallingford urban village located between Stone Way and Aurora.

The proposed amendments would amend that policy to refocus it on the area within the Fremont urban village rather than the Wallingford urban village.

As rewritten, the policy doesn't really capture the character of the Fremont Urban Village and doesn't capture the original intent of the policy, which was to talk about areas within the Wallingford Urban Village.

So you may want to look at this policy and consider whether it makes sense to have the Fremont Urban Village Neighborhood Plan talking about the Wallingford Urban Village, and if so, what that policy should be.

The second is the Morgan Junction policy, and this is the only time where you'll see a new policy being proposed as part of the set of comprehensive plan amendments.

This policy encourages community planning in the Morgan Junction community as a response to growth.

Representatives of the community have asked for changes that would make the policy more directive than currently proposed.

Let's plan to make sure we highlight those again next week when we do the geographic specific days within those districts.

And recognizing that E1 sort of is shared between Council Member O'Brien and myself, and let's just plan to make sure that we highlight that again next week.

And the final section, section F, relates to technical changes to the introduced bill.

The MHA legislation was introduced about a year ago.

Since that time, the Council has made several amendments to the Land Use Code, as well as staff in OPCD, the Office of Housing, and others, as well as central staff have identified things in that bill that could benefit from some tweaking or technical corrections or clarifying language.

In order to do that in the most expeditious way, the proposal is to introduce a new bill in January that incorporates all of those technical corrections.

We will present a redlined version between the bill that was introduced a year ago and the bill that's proposed for introduction later this month at the meetings next week.

That's the overview, folks.

Any questions before we move on to public comment?

I just want to say thank you, central staff.

I know culling through several years worth of work to come up with a comprehensive list, but still a pretty short list of the things to discuss today was a lot of work.

So thank you for doing all that work over the last several weeks in particular during the break.

So without further ado, we've got about a half an hour.

The meeting is scheduled to end at noon.

We've got about a half an hour left and about 20 folks who've signed up to give public comment.

So I'm going to ask folks to limit their comment to a minute and a half so that we can make sure that we get through everybody.

Right.

And Council Member Johnson and Noah, may I request that we turn off the side monitors for public comment?

Sure.

So when I call your name, please come up to one of the two microphones in the front and begin your testimony with one minute and a half each.

We'll start with Alex Zimmerman and then Patience Malaba and then Ron Hornan.

Mr. Zimmerman.

Happy New Year, my lovely consul.

Well, that was nice.

OK.

Ms. Melada.

All right.

Happy New Year.

Good morning, Council Members.

Thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Patience, and I'm here on behalf of the Housing Development Consortium.

We are an association that's working towards ensuring that all people live with dignity in safe, healthy, and affordable homes within communities of opportunity.

And I also represent the Seattle for Everyone Coalition, which is united on supporting MHA.

And today I'm here to remind you that this has been a journey of many, many years.

And mandatory inclusionary housing program has eluded the city for two decades.

and it's time and we really appreciate your effort in taking the MHA city-wide legislation forward and ensuring that we're getting to a full-on mandatory inclusionary zoning program in our city.

As you take a look at potential technical issues in preparation for the legislation amendment we urge you to prioritize the maximum affordable homes that this program can produce.

6,300 affordable homes throughout the city, an opportunity to reach neighborhoods, is really an investment that our city needs today.

And we believe that our city has so much to offer for all of us.

And this is an opportunity to ensure that we are a city that is a model of inclusion for the country.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Following Ron Hornung is going to be the group of Cindy and Deb Barker.

Thank you council Mars for the right to talk today.

I'm proposing a historic district along Highway 99 in the Green Lake area you had a slide up there where it showed two Properties that were on the list that's all that's left in the urban village Highway 99 is a historic area.

It's in the comp plan and in the the design guidelines for the city design guidelines it's also in the comp plan for the Green Lake design guidelines that the architecture along there should be saved and preserved and I'd like to propose that as a historic added into this MHA because it will be rezoned under MHA if it is not kept historic.

So I

Thank you.

If you want to leave those with the clerk, we are happy to put them up.

Great.

So the Morgan Community Association folks signed up as groups, so you'll get three minutes.

And then you're going to be followed by Lisa Kuhn and then Angela Compton.

Thank you so hold on for just one second it takes us a minute to reset the there you go okay okay so we're going to speak to item e2 which is the comprehensive plan amendments to the morgan junction policies and to clarify what council member johnson said at the beginning of the meeting on the comp plan amendment language there's been exactly two outreach efforts by the city One was a meeting that happened in West Seattle for the two villages affected by the comp plan, and the other was the considerate surveys, and Deb will talk a little bit more about that.

So we submitted our version of what we wanted that wording to say back to OPCD in December 2017. It says that community planning activities should be triggered when the urban village has been identified to undergo major changes.

That's what we really want.

What the words you have now say, you have to have seen a trend that it's gonna go bad on you and by then it's too late.

And for example, if Morgan is identified as an ST3 station, that should trigger neighborhood planning.

You shouldn't wait until it's built and then see the effects.

Another example is we have a very large property in the Gatewood School that could be sold for redevelopment.

And so those are the triggers that we wanted.

And so I have a memo here that we sent to OPCD that has that wording.

Finally, you'll see that Morgan has provided the wordsmithing.

You know, it says Morgan has committed or has commented.

We're stuck in a hard place.

We have wording that we've submitted at OPCD.

We've been waiting to see what was going to be transmitted to council.

And we haven't seen it yet until today.

knowing that that's what's finally going to be proposed to you.

So we're kind of all the way back into 2017 to have this discussion with you.

Okay, I'm speaking as president of the Morgan Community Association.

I'm going to do it really fast because I also want to say something about the first item on the table.

MOCA again submitted its comprehensive plan amendment February 2017. We could have done some really nice neighborhood planning if we'd been able to get going at that point.

Next month it'll be two years and we still do not have neighborhood planning process to deal with the conflicts between that proposed MHA language and our comprehensive plan language.

We want to have neighborhood planning.

You'll see that the data as we look at it from the outreach when it has occurred, it's overwhelmingly rejects the city's one size fits all language in favor of having an actual neighborhood planning process.

I'm going to stop real quickly and put on my landmarks board.

Vice Chair Hatt and take you back to item number one and I'm going to urge you to support actions that increase funding for historic resources survey.

Morgan Junction and Urban Village does not have a historic resources survey.

Just FYI, reduce the urban village expansions where there are historic districts, modify the SEPA thresholds, and lastly, take those TDRs that you were talking about and expand those TDRs citywide to all urban villages with historic properties.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Ms. Kuhn, you're going to be followed by Angela Compton and then Steve Zemke.

You have to reset it.

Thank you for your patience, Ms. Kuhn.

Go ahead.

Okay, I'm Lisa Kuhn, and I'm here to talk about neighborhood notification.

I would like to remind the city that citizens could have attended numerous meetings if, one, they knew to look at the city's website, two, they had the ability to access the city's website, three, they knew someone who knew someone that knew about the meetings, four, they knew this was going to be MHA was going to be done to them in the first place.

Most of the people in the city who will be affected by the MHA upzones have not been directly contacted by the city that they are going to be upzoned.

The unclear door hangers, notwithstanding.

This may be legal, but the ethics stink.

And I want to remind you, too, that Seattle is now being seen as the cautionary tale of what not to do as a city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Coon.

Ms. Compton, followed by Steve Zemke.

Good morning, City Council.

My name is Angela Compton and I'm here today on behalf of FutureWise to give support for the Mandatory Housing Affordability Program.

The Mandatory Housing Affordability Program will improve the livability of Seattle and the Puget Sound region.

By implementing MHA, we are improving the health of our environment.

Currently, Seattle's restrictive zoning laws force us to continue to sprawl.

Each time we build a new sprawling development, we're reducing the amount of green space and farmland that our community has.

But MHA reduces the sprawl and allows for more homes to be built in our most central opportunity-rich neighborhoods, providing more livable, walkable, and healthy communities.

By implementing MHA, we are also increasing Seattle's affordable housing stock.

Currently, we have a huge deficit of affordable homes.

The impacts of this housing shortage can be seen directly.

Over 12,000 of our neighbors were found without a home last year.

Our neighbors need homes that they can afford.

With rents increasing on an average of 35% in the last five years, the wait for mandatory housing affordability in Seattle cannot be any longer.

By implementing MHA, we are ensuring that we build a more livable and equitable community by allowing for more homes to be built in our opportunity-rich neighborhoods and by beginning to undo the racial implications of our restrictive zoning laws.

MHA gives neighborhoods the opportunity to support equitable communities by saying, we know that we need more homes and we want to welcome in new neighbors and be part of the solution to our affordable housing crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Compton.

Mr. Zemke, you're going to be followed by Megan Cruz and then John Fox.

So Steve Zemke representing the Coalition for Stronger Tree Ordinance.

We want to express concern over the update to the tree ordinance.

The EIS that you did basically said you were going to be doing lots of things within the city to protect trees.

What we see in terms of the ordinance that you've proposed so far is more a tree replacement ordinance rather than a tree protection ordinance with all the removal for protection of exceptional trees.

I want to note also that we believe the city is not complying with the current tree ordinance, which is a very significant.

If you read twenty five eleven zero nine zero, it says each exceptional tree and tree over two feet in diameter.

that is removed in association with development in all zones shall be replaced by one or more new trees.

The size and species of which shall be determined by director.

The tree replacement required shall be designed to result upon maturity in a canopy cover that is at least equal to the canopy cover prior to tree removal.

Preference shall be given to on-site replacement.

When on-site replacement cannot be achieved, the director shall look at off-site replacement on public property.

SDCI has not been keeping track of trees removed trees replaced as directed by the mayor Burgess's executive order There are as far as we can tell Most of these trees that are removed that are exceptional.

They're over 24 inches are not being removed and we urge you to take action to Enforce the current ordinance as you said you would do in the EIS.

Thank you.

Mr. Ziemke.

Ms.

Cruz followed by Mr. Fox

Okay, great, thank you.

I'm Megan Cruz of the Fisher Studio Building, a 106-year-old landmark in downtown Seattle, protected by the Preservation Landmark Board.

We are joined by two other buildings on that block that are also landmarked or historically protected.

And with MHA upzoning, which we don't disagree with, we are faced with a very difficult problem, a 50-story building.

That is sailing through design review.

It's located 16 feet to the east of us across the alley and It has no affordable housing.

It has several 400 foot studio apartments that will retail for $600,000 or more and And it has a number of issues that we'd like to see mitigated, but we've gotten no traction despite asking with the help of current laws on the books, design guidelines, development guidelines, and SMC.

Specifically, this building will dominate the use of our alley.

and two protected light and air corridors.

We would like to ask two questions.

One is, will the hearing examiner's mandate requiring protection be used for mitigating this project?

And two, we've been faithful stewards of the partnership we entered into with the city to protect our building, and we want to know if the city will be keeping their pledge to help us preserve that building.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Fox, you are going to be followed by Esther Barfield and then Rick McLaughlin.

John Fox, Seattle Displacement Coalition.

The committee was advised, and I heard it a number of times here today again, that it should avoid making amendments or changes that fall outside the scope of what was assessed in the environmental impact statement.

Well, we are aware of at least one change that violates that and blatantly violates that guideline.

Unbeknownst to the community, especially affected small businesses, an up zone for University Way Northeast south of 52nd, the ave was quietly added over 14 months after the MHA EIS was completed.

And while it was still under appeal by 29 community groups, obviously, Small businesses affected by that change could not air their concerns about negative impacts since the have up zone wasn't even in the plan nor studied in the EIS.

Three years ago the council passed a resolution committing to do take several steps not just a survey but to do an update of the historical analysis and implement measures to save small businesses.

You may be told that, well, since it was studied four years ago in the EIS specific to the U District, that it doesn't need to be studied now in this EIS.

Well, that's categorically wrong.

Any reading of SEPA and DOE rules require at least an addendum or supplement and a normal process of public review with an appeal.

If that isn't done in legal parlance, up zone specific to the district is ripe for legal challenge.

Thank you, Mr. Please remove it from the plan and fulfill your pledge to the small businesses, which has not been fulfilled.

Thank you, Mr. Fox, Miss Barfield.

You're gonna be followed by Rick McLaughlin and then Cory Crocker.

Morning council members.

My name is Esther Bartfeld.

I live in the Finney Ridge neighborhood and I've spoken with several of you on various occasions over the years.

I hope you'll heed the Seattle Times recommendation to stop the divisive up zones and move to a more neighborhood based approach.

For example, it works for Capitol Hill with all of its urban areas, direct access to the university, downtown, airport, buses in every direction does not work for Finney Ridge where we have a one street long, one mile one mile long, one street wide urban village, and one bus route.

That said, if you're not willing to start over, I want to recommend three discrete amendments that will help keep MHA more in tune with the vision of the comp plan.

concentrating growth in urban villages.

So the first is to limit the upzones to the urban villages.

Right now, the MHA envisions upzoning every parcel of commercial NCLR and RSL throughout the city.

But when urban villages were created in the 90s, those were supposed to be the center of growth and that's where they should be.

for MHA.

Next is to not upzone lots that share a boundary with the NC lots that share a boundary with the single family zone.

Having five stories right on a backyard border is too much.

And third is limiting the height increases of the LR zone so we don't have five story buildings in an LR zone.

And apart from that, the one other thing that I'd urge you to consider is tying up zones to building units that are needed by limiting the number of small efficiency dwelling units and requiring certain size units in buildings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. McLaughlin, followed by Cory Crocker, and then I think it's Darby Ducombe.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Rick McLaughlin.

I represent U District Small Business Association, as well as I'm a small business owner on the Ave of Big Time Brewery.

I'm here today because the Council resolved to study impacts on small businesses before reconsideration of the Ave up zone.

In addition to pledging support for the survey we conducted, small businesses who are impacted by the rezone The city committed to seven key tasks to mitigate impacts of development on small businesses in the E-District in Council Resolution 31732. It was adopted the same day as the E-District Rezone, and to date, this collaboration has not happened.

We're here, and we're willing to work with you, and we're willing to find some answers, but to date, that has not happened.

As well as, the Ave was excluded from the study in the FEIS for MHA.

I mean at the end of the day until there is a prior to adoption of MHA therefore the city must issue a threshold determination presenting it as an addendum or supplement to the FEIS with review and comment period and the right to appeal as SEPA prescribes.

There is a record of city issued addendums for up zones and the city code allows for appeals of rezones for the hearing examiner.

Anyways, we're here, work with us, let's find some solutions, and don't just hammer this down our throats.

Thank you.

Mr. Crocker?

Good morning.

So the U District was the first area of the city that was up-zoned to include MHA, with the highest heights of any neighborhood outside of the contiguous downtown area, at 320 feet.

In comparison, while the U District contributes 9% of new development to MHA, South Lake Union contributes but 2%.

The U-District has demonstrated its generous contribution to MHA and we welcome greater density, but it must have concurrent investments and protections to keep it sustainable, equitable, and livable.

Working with the Council, the U-District rezoned delayed, including the app, to study the impacts on small businesses first.

Through companion resolution 31732, the city promised a number of displacement mitigation strategies.

Two years later, We still await that assistance from the city, but in the meantime, our small businesses organized, raised thousands and conducted a door-to-door survey of 123 businesses along the Ave.

We discovered that a majority are minority women owned and employed minorities and immigrants.

A majority are small or even micro in size.

Their owner operated, they rent their spaces and thus they're highly vulnerable to displacement by development.

So in summary, we ask you to allow us but one street.

Your district has already zoned, been zoned to contribute proportionally the most support to MHA of any urban center or village.

The city has still not studied the impacts on small businesses as promised.

Our small businesses are endangered of being displaced with potentially devastating repercussions.

Help us keep our main shopping street at a human scale by not upzoning University Way Northeast.

Let's save the Ave.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Kum.

And then you're going to be followed by Richard Ellison and David Ward.

Good morning.

Happy New Year.

I'm here representing just a couple of affordable housing providers.

And one, both are in District 3. They have area-specific rezones that you heard of earlier today that will be up hopefully next week.

We've been working with staff closely on them.

But I thought this would be a great opportunity to just flag them for you and see you in person and make sure they're on your radar.

The first one is the Seattle Girls' School site.

It has an RSL.

We zone in the works under MHA, but our LR1 was also studied, and we'd like to have that change from RSL to LR1.

And I have the handout and the working copy for you.

Could you speak a little more into the microphone, please?

Yes, how's that?

And the second one is FAME Housing Association, the Bryant Manor Project at 1801 East Yesler.

It's proposed for a rezone, and we're working with SCALE and council members and staff to find a way to hopefully protect it from the appeal process by creating maybe a separate ordinance or some other way to achieve this rezone, which has now, because we've now received city funding from the Office of Housing, and we're really go, go, go now to bring about this 240-unit affordable housing project.

So here's a handout and working copies.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Mr. Ellison, you're going to be followed by David Ward and then Maria Barrientos.

Thank you very much.

My name is Richard Ellison and I'm representing TREPAC and other urban forestry advocates.

I'd like to talk to you about the Executive Order 2017-11 on tree protection, which the City of Seattle is not actively enforcing.

Whereas recent research shows that existing urban tree protections and enforcement practices related to trees must be strengthened in order to protect Seattle's canopy coverage.

SDCI will require consistent documentation for required tree removal.

on private property, including mitigating canopy cover on trees removed and monitoring the planted trees for survival.

Where are the lists of planted trees?

Where are the lists of funds that were supposed to be used to replace trees that are not being replaced on property?

Tree protection, SDCI in consultation with other city departments and the Urban Forestry Commission is directed to update the SDDI director's rule regarding exceptional trees to include additional tree protection.

Where are these additional tree protections?

The current laws are not being enforced.

The executive order 2017-11 on tree protection is not being enforced.

We were promised a new tree protection ordinance for the last 10 years.

It's now being tabled and put forth into the future.

MHA depends upon an updated tree ordinance.

If we're not getting the old ordinance enforced, the mayor's initiatives enforced, and we're not getting a new ordinance, where's the beef?

Where are the trees being saved?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Ward.

Mr. Ward, you're going to be followed by Maria Barrientos and then Kristen Ryan.

I'd like to speak to having an increase in payment and performance amounts.

At 5 to 10 percent for affordable homes does not create enough affordable housing.

Demolishing, also additionally it demolishes too many affordable buildings and creates new expensive buildings, which makes Seattle less affordable overall, not more so.

And I would agree that upzoning on the ave should not happen because it was not included in the FEIS and it was also removed from the previous MHAU district upzones.

So that should not happen without additional SEPA review.

And I will dovetail on what Deb Barker said about expanding surveys in all areas with historic sites.

And we need amendments to address the RSJI issues that were created in the MHA FDIS.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Barrientos, followed by Kristen Ryan.

Maria Barrientos, I'm here to voice my support for the citywide MHA upzone and urge council to consider increasing density to the maximum extent possible within the EIS options that have been studied.

We need more affordable housing in Seattle and MHA is a framework for more equitable growth.

we must leverage the rapid growth that Seattle has experienced and will continue to experience to create new affordable housing options for everyone in our city.

Thank you, Ms. Perrantes.

Ms. Ryan, you're our final speaker this morning.

Hi, my name is Kristen Ryan.

I was a member of the HALA subcommittee and have been part of other groups working to promote the implementation.

And I'm here just to speak in support of your work in passing the MHA up-zone legislation.

I've been an advocate for providing a range of affordable options for the people in our city so that all Seattleites have an opportunity to thrive and become successful.

And there are many tools that it will take to do so, and MHA is a critical one of those tools.

And as we continue to grow, the tools cannot be delayed in their implementation.

And so, honor the intense time you have in front of you over the next to have careful consideration of the issues that have been raised, but strongly urge you to continue to move forward on the timeline proposed and issue the implementation of the legislation so that projects can continue to grow.

A range of affordable options will exist in our city going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Ryan.

That concludes public comment for this 15th Select Committee on Mandatory Housing Affordability.

We'll be back twice next week, Monday at 2.30 or following our regularly scheduled City Council meetings that begin at 2 o'clock on Mondays.

And then Wednesday, I believe we have it at either 9.30 or 10 o'clock.

It's 9.30 on Wednesday.

On Monday afternoon, we'll be talking about, like I said earlier, Districts 4, 6, and likely District 7. And then on Wednesday morning, we'll be discussing the remaining four districts, 1, 2, 3, and 5. These are important issues.

I appreciate your colleagues' attention.

And just to give you a little bit of a flavor of how difficult some of these discussions are, To highlight an issue in my own district that was brought up several times during public comment, we did put a pause on zoning changes on the Ave when we adopted the U District up zones in 2017. One of the projects that's going on the Ave right now is a target.

And that target is being built to the current allowed zoning, which is about three stories taller than most of the buildings that are on the ave right now.

But that target is not being required to pay into the city's mandatory housing affordability program.

So there are consequences to those choices that we make.

And so I think we have an appropriate balancing act in front of us over the next couple of months as we consider what changes we may make, but I want to offer that that is a cautionary tale for us about some of the trade-offs that we might have when we make those policy decisions.

So with that, we're adjourned and we'll see you back here on Monday afternoon.

Thanks all.