Seattle City Council 3/18/19

Thank you for being here the March 18 2019 City Council meeting of the full City Council will now come to order I'd asked you to Please tone it down a little bit.

Thank you very much.

It is 2 o 5 p.m I'm Bruce Harreld president of the council will the clerk please call the roll

Bagshaw.

Here.

Gonzalez.

Here.

Herbold.

Here.

Johnson.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Mosqueda.

Here.

O'Brien.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

President Harrell.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Let's see, just one moment here.

I did have a note that Council Member Bagshaw, I think you wanted to amend the introduction and referral calendar.

Thank you.

I would like to move to relieve the Human Services Equitable Development and Renters' Rights Committee of its obligation to Appointment 1237. That's the appointment of Jason Johnson as the Director of Human Services Department, and by re-referring it to the Select Committee on Homelessness and Housing Affordability, upon which we all sit.

Okay.

Is there a second to that amendment?

Okay, Council Member Baxhaw, would you like to say anything about it?

And let me just sort of tell you my understanding that the appointment of Mr. Johnson has been around for a while at the committee level.

There's been a resolution that was made by Council Member Swant that did not pass.

We're still in the middle of the confirmation process.

There still seems to be a lot of work to be done toward that confirmation.

And this select committee is co-chaired by you, Council Member Mosqueda, and Council Member Sawant, the Select Committee on Homelessness and Housing Affordability.

So the appointment would move to that larger committee.

Correct, that's correct.

Okay, got it.

Any questions before we take vote?

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, President Adler.

A few comments.

This appointment was originally and is still until this vote happens in my committee on human services.

On March 4th, the council majority completely disregarded the overwhelming community input into this question and refused to support a resolution to ask the mayor to take their input, to take public and employee input into consideration when making her nomination.

which I thought was an eminently reasonable position to have.

As I said, the council majority disregarded human services workers, human service providers, and the clients of those services.

Now, clearly, council members are attempting to ram through the appointment.

The horrendous results of the Human Services Department employee survey from last year showed that since Mr. Jason Johnson has become the acting director of the Human Services Department, confidence in management has dropped precipitously.

For example, when asked whether Human Services Department workers agree that, quote, the executive team keeps employees informed about matters affecting us, end quote, the results fell a shocking 38 percentage points in two years.

I would think that in light of these shocking survey results, council members, rather than attempting to push through this appointment, would be reconsidering their decision to disregard the input of the human services workers.

But instead, today, they're going to be doubling down on ramming through the mayor's agenda.

And they're attempting to do so without bothering to inform the impacted communities that they are stabbing in the back.

I learned of this amendment to the calendar only a few minutes ago.

I don't agree with this approach.

I think it is shameful, and I will be voting no on this re-referral.

Most council members here have never voted no on a mayoral department director appointment, and the question that the community has and I have is what would it take for them to decide against yet another rubber stamping of the mayor's agenda?

Whom would you have to hear from who has not already come forward to demand that their voices be heard and respected?

And we're talking about a whole gamut of employees of the city of Seattle, community members, especially community members from the black and brown community and the homeless communities.

So therefore, I vote no on this undemocratic surprise maneuver to run through the mayor's nominee.

I would just request that before we act on the confirmation after it has been re-referred that we consider doing some of the elements of the public process that we are concerned that We're not done by the executive and I would really welcome the opportunity to talk with the chairs of the Select Committee on Homelessness about how we can do some of that.

I think Council Member Mosqueda has a resolution today about how we can improve the process moving forward.

So we know that we are going to have those voices heard and I would like to also have those voices heard by the council members making the decision on interim director Johnson before we vote.

Thank you.

Any further comments?

I'll make a comment and I guess we'll vote.

Number one, I think your point, Council Member Herbold, is well received.

I think we should do much more work.

Council Member Swantz points to speak to her points.

I just strongly disagree that we will, I think she was saying ram through.

I think that was the term.

We're not gonna ram through anything.

That we need to do the hard work.

We need to define to the public, to the employees, to all of our constituents exactly what we expect in the department head.

We need to draft a clear letter of expectation.

We need to look at the outcomes and the measurements that need to be defined.

We need to meet with the employees of that department.

Apparently there's been a lot of feedback.

I've met with several of the employees and I will continue to meet with the employees and I would urge my colleagues to meet with these employees in large groups to find out exactly what's going on in this department.

We have to do the work of the confirmation process to date.

We I don't think we've done the work as a council to really know whether we should confirm or not confirm So let's do the hard work.

Let's make the confirmation process meaningful Councilmember skate on your leadership Thank you and others that chimed in on that resolution to talk about what a strong confirmation process looks like so I would suggest that we are doing the exact opposite rather than rubber stamping and that we will do the hard work, and we have it at a committee that all of us are a member of, the select committee on homelessness and affordability.

We're all members.

We have three co-chairs.

Let's do the work and take this confirmation process very seriously.

But to ram through...

And if someone is disruptive, they will be removed.

I've just warned you.

I don't even know who it was, but that was your warning.

So to ram through would be the exact opposite of what I think the intended strategy is here.

So any further comments?

Let's do the work.

Okay, all those in favor of the amendment to the introduction referral calendar, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay.

Nay.

And I think it passed.

So the introduction referral calendar is amended.

All those in favor of adopting the amended introduction referral calendar, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

So we'll move forward to the agenda.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

The minutes of the March 11, 2019 City Council meetings have been reviewed.

If there's no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed.

Presentations.

I believe we have a presentation from Council Member Bagshaw.

Thank you very much.

Jody Waits here.

today, Jody?

Are you?

Oh, good.

Great.

And also is Benjamin Warren here with you?

Excellent.

So I'm going to read a little bit about this proclamation.

I hope you will join me at the front so you can say a few words.

So what we are honoring youth care for today and others is for creating a safe place.

And a safe place is a program that connects runaways and homeless youth ages 12 to 17 to services either by reuniting them with their family or providing them with emergency shelter.

This belong first to Y.

M. C. A. Of greater Louisville, and it's grown to include nearly 140 programs nationally, including in King County.

So just a few phrases from this proclamation.

It's always good to see you, Jody, by the way.

More than 359 3,500,000 youth have been helped at a Safe Place location or received counseling by phone as a result of Safe Place information received at school.

And since the program inception in 1983, more than 15 million youth have been educated through National Safe Place Network, Safe Place outreach efforts.

SafePlace maintains a 24-hour hotline where youth can directly connect with SafePlace staff.

And the average youth age is 16. So if you can just imagine a 16-year-old alone and scared without family and out on the streets themselves and the good work that you have done.

So this is.

This is National Safe Place Week, and it will be celebrated across the nation during the week of March 17th through March 23rd.

This proclamation has been signed.

The Seattle City Council and the mayor hereby proclaim the week of March 17th as National Safe Place Week, signed by all of us.

So thank you very much for your work.

And if it's okay with you, I'd like to present this.

There's no objection.

Rules are suspended.

I'd love to hear from our guests.

Rules are suspended.

I'm going to have to.

We just want to, on behalf of youth care and minors in our community in crisis, just thank you for this incredible proclamation.

And to remind folks that 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, young people or concerned adults can call 1-800-422-TEEN.

And we promise within 45 minutes anywhere in King County, our team will intervene and ensure for safety immediately.

And again, we think of our most in crisis and vulnerable young people.

It's those youth that are making that trek outward without a plan.

And let's be the first to greet and get folks to somewhere safe or back home as soon as possible.

Thanks.

Thank you, Jody.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kessler and Bechdel.

At this time, we'll take public comment on items that appear on our agenda today or the introduction referral calendar or our 2019 work program.

And the public comment will be accepted for 20 minutes unless it is extended.

Speakers are limited to, we have six sign-up sheets, so speakers will be limited to one minute so we can hear from as many people as possible.

I don't even think we'll get through all six sheets, but we'll do the best we could.

And we ask that you begin your comments by identifying yourselves.

So we're going to use both microphones, so I'd ask that I'll call you off two or three at a time, so we'll go this microphone and that microphone.

So Janet, is it Metulia?

You would be first here.

Janet in the middle, and then Jane Hartford.

Jane would be over here.

And then Sean McEachern.

I probably slaughtered that name for that.

I apologize.

We'll be back at the middle microphone.

So Janet, you have the floor.

My name is Janet Metulia, and I represent a large group of taxpaying residents from the North Capitol Hill neighborhood who are asking you today to remove Amendment 4-18 from today's vote.

The amendment upzones Eastlake's Boylston Avenue East from low-rise to mid-rise, permitting the construction of 80-foot tall condos or luxury apartments on Boylston.

This single action will permanently destroy the current and future Seattle residents and tourists, the unique public view of the downtown skyline, Lake Union, the Olympic Mountains, and the Space Needle from the east side of I-5.

We are for affordable housing, but don't believe 4-18 will accomplish that goal on Boylston.

We are greatly concerned that if the amendment is passed, there will be no ability to claw back the resulting permanent damage to this part of the city's natural beauty.

We are counting on the City Council to respect the fundamental purpose of the Seattle Land Code, specifically its environmental policies.

Thank you, Janet.

Thank you very much.

Janna, Janna will be followed by Sean McEachern and then Julia Pesciuto.

I'm Jana Hanford.

I've been a Seattleite for over 50 years.

I love Seattle, and I want to provide affordable housing to all and to my grandchildren, who are of all colors.

But I want to protect her beauty.

Seattle has incentivized developers for over 20 years without adequate results.

Building more luxury apartments is not the answer.

Developers get rich, so maybe another one can buy the presidency of the United States.

As stewards of this city, you have a duty to help protect unique features within the city.

It's not just a planned map of the city to look at.

You need to look at the three-dimensional character of the city and make judgment accordingly.

So please vote no on height increases.

You can see from this photograph what it will do to public viewing for the 4th of July, every day, and for New Year's Eve, please let the neighborhoods help you make the decisions on this.

Thank you, Jenna.

Sean?

Thank you, Council President.

You know, I've been sitting here for a long time, and you guys have seen me around, and I just want to thank you all for what you guys do.

And I look around, I see kind of the political environment, and I just realize how tough a job it is, you guys, and the amount of stuff that you put up with that you guys really shouldn't have to put up with.

So that's about it for me.

I looked at your guys' plan, and I think it's great.

I mean, you look around, you see all the light rail going everywhere, and you see, OK, this is where everything's going to be, and it just looks great.

So I think it's really a fun day.

I hope that it stays that way and that we can really put the stake in the ground and look at what Seattle's going to look like, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.

I think it's going to be a really cool place.

And the only other thing I have to say is that I'm not running for office, not now, not ever.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sean.

Julie, just before you begin, let me call three names out.

So Mackenzie Chase will take the middle mic.

Ben Elowitz, I think I'm Elowitz.

Ben and Marty Bennett.

Mackenzie, Ben, and Marty.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Julia Pasciuto.

I'm a policy analyst and researcher with Puget Sound SAGE.

We have long been supporters of inclusionary zoning, long before MHA was the acronym of the day.

I looked back at our records.

Our first advocacy started in 2008, so I feel like we're excited, but we also feel like we're about 10 years late.

We believe that strong inclusionary zoning policies are needed to share in the benefit of increased land value created through public investment and increases in zoning capacity.

MHA will help reduce the impacts of the affordability crisis for future residents of Seattle, but the policy doesn't do much to prevent impending displacement and eventual houselessness of currently housed low-income communities and communities of color.

which is why we support and urge you to adopt the companion resolution, which sets out a somewhat comprehensive anti-displacement work plan and thinking forward to future policy.

You'll see in the next couple of weeks Council Member Herbold's plan to help mitigate displacement.

Thank you for your hard work on this.

Let's move forward so we can talk about displacement.

Hello, I'm Mackenzie Chase, and on behalf of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, we urge you to pass mandatory housing affordability, Council Bill 119444. This legislation has been under consideration and development for several years, and it's critical that we move forward now.

Consider that had MHA been in place last year, we could have raised another $87 million without raising taxes.

The Chamber is engaged on this issue because high housing prices push people further away from where they work, making it harder for our 2,400 members to recruit and retain workers.

While we are not supportive of some of the amendments that have been adopted, on whole, this is an important opportunity to share prosperity so that Seattle is for everyone.

Finally, we want to thank you for supporting an amendment to support the creation of child care centers.

We know that as Seattle's population has grown, it has put a strain not just on housing, but on child care, too.

Thank you for this opportunity.

And please move forward with this critical step to promote density to ensure that people across the income spectrum can find an affordable place to live, which helps our economy, our community and our environment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Ben Alowitz.

I live on Harvard Avenue.

I urge you to remove the MHA Amendment 418 up zone of Boylston Street, which has not had community input.

Amendment 418 was introduced to the public just several weeks ago, with Councilmember Johnson saying misleadingly, quote, this change to mid-rise allows for slightly taller buildings to be built.

In actuality, this is a change from 30 to 80 feet, multiplying heights 2.7 times, extinguishing views cherished by the entire city and violating MHA design and process guidelines.

80-foot tall luxury units with towering views will hurt affordability, not help affordability.

The MHA and EIS have goals of, quote, moderating development within 500 feet of freeways.

These blocks are right on Interstate 5. This height increase of 2.7 times is not compatible with the EIS.

Most importantly, we learned just this morning that the city specifically avoided public comment on this issue due to an active Eastlake community lawsuit.

This amendment should not proceed without the hard work of getting community input.

Amendment 418 will extinguish the cherished public views of the fireworks, mountains, and Lake Union, imposing an 80-foot blockade without a single community meeting.

Just one sec.

Just one sec, Marty.

Let me call out three more.

So I'm following Marty B., Megan Cruz, and then Judith Boudier.

Go ahead.

Before you start the time, Mr. Harreld, I respectfully request the two minutes that I have made this proposal for, if you would, please.

So that sounds reasonable.

I don't disagree, but the problem is I'm trying to hear from everyone.

So can you just try to get it into a minute, please?

I'll hit the highlights, Mr. Harreld.

Thank you.

I deeply appreciate that, sir.

Off of your Office of Housing website, and this is indicative of the oversight on these programs with the City of Seattle, the MHA program says this individual making $40,320 a year can have a one-bedroom apartment for $1,008.

Now, if you take his salary and times it by 30% divided by the 12 months, it does come out to the $1,008 monthly rent.

But this is a 30% AMI unit.

His salary, $40,320, is 49% of AMI, and he is not eligible for a 30% unit.

He's eligible for a 50% unit.

He should be paying $1,680, and that is not reflective on your website.

These up zones in 27 neighborhoods are going to have a displacement factor, and the affordable housing requirements of the MHA program will not yield enough low-income housings to curb such displacement.

Displacement and gentrification are two of the root problems of the homeless crisis in the City of Seattle, and your affirmative vote today increases that root problem.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marty.

My turn?

Megan?

Okay, thanks.

I am Megan Cruz.

I had an article in the Seattle Times this past weekend calling for a density bill of rights to amend this legislation and some of its negative impacts.

I encourage you to read it and support it.

MHA has been downtown for two years now, and we've seen these things happen.

It's driven speculative investments and raised land prices, pushing affordable housing even further out of reach.

It's created dozens of new towers without affordable units.

It's displaced people in low-income buildings and put leverage on the city to approve inadequate and environmentally harmful designs or lose fees.

The worst part, it's divided people in this room for being for or against affordable housing.

We're all for affordable housing, but it has to be done smart.

We've had a chance to see how the grand bargain works.

It's time for a new deal and a density bill of rights.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Judith, before you begin, let me call three more names.

That'd be Marty Kuistra, Russ Saunders, and Chris Olson.

Marty, Russ, and Chris.

And Marty, you'd be over here.

Hello, my name is Judith Bendich.

I'm here on behalf of Friends of Ravenna Cowan, and I want to thank our member, Rob Johnson, for pushing Amendment 4B so that we have a National Historic District in that area.

Unfortunately, there are over Over 50% of the urban villages have never had a survey done, a historic survey.

We will be losing due to all the up-zone and it'll be too late.

And so I would urge you to postpone this.

I know you won't, but I'm gonna urge it because you will be losing historic resources throughout the city, some of which we will regret, our next generation will regret, and it will be your fault.

because even under your own comprehensive plan, it says you're supposed to do your historic surveys in conjunction with planning.

That has never happened.

So that's what I'd like to see.

I'd also like to give a shout out to three neighborhoods, Beacon Hill, East Lake, and South Park, the most polluted areas in the city, and they should not be up-zoned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

I want to thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Marty Koister and I work for the Housing Development Consortium, Seattle-King County.

I want to express my gratitude for all the hard work you have done during each of your respective tenures on the Council to help Seattle get a tool that has been missing from our toolbox for far too many years.

While much opportunity to ensure that Seattle is truly for everyone has escaped us, it is not too late.

The journey today should move us from a voluntary program to a mandatory one, a vital tool in our toolkit that will provide homes to those who make up the fabric of our daily lives and who make our city thrive.

This remodeling project, if you will, was extremely complicated.

It would have been much easier to have this program in place as the city came to be, but that's not our reality.

In fact, I recently heard an urban planner say that you don't get to create a city just once.

This is your moment.

I want to thank each of you for your leadership and your perseverance, and please vote this MHA program through today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Russ Saunders, and I want to speak about how we often take Aurora for granted and do not give it the respect that it demands as a seven-lane highway that serves Seattle and the surrounding community.

The expansion of the pedestrian-oriented district along Aurora, adding 5,000-plus apartments and above the commercial, puts public health and safety at risk.

It is a simple Google search of proximity to highway shows the public health issues surrounding this.

You've ignored your own EIS, the Department of Ecology.

the CDC, the American Lung Association, State of California, and countless medical studies about how dangerous this is of what you're doing.

I urge you not to use MHA as a means to clean up Aurora.

It puts people at risk.

It's a public health and safety issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chris, before you begin, let me call three names.

That'd be Maria Barriola in the middle mic, Ron Hornung, and then Patience Malaba.

Maria, Ron, and Patience.

Thank you.

Hi, Councilmembers.

My name is Chris Olson.

I'm for the MHA preferred alternative but against Amendment 418. I sent you a postcard.

I hope you had a chance to read it.

I don't think it changed your mind, so I'm going to make three new arguments today.

One, in an article yesterday, Councilmember Johnson defended 418 citing workshops in previous years where there was, quote, interest in increasing density near I-5, specifically step-down style or wedding cake zoning.

Okay, I'm no zoning expert, and this isn't to scale, but I drew a map of these to show that 418 is none of those things.

This is 418. That's the mid-rise zoning, okay?

So, I think Councilmember Johnson, I don't think you thought of Capitol Hill when you were saying these things.

I think in Eastlake that is, but Capitol Hill is upland from this mid-rise zoning.

418 will violate the mid-rise zoning criteria in the EIS.

The EIS states mid-rise designation is limited to the following.

property in areas where upland developments are of sufficient distance or height to retain their views over the area designated for the misdried zone.

I think this zoning is illegal.

The King County Tax Assessor methodology factors views into the value of our property.

This is a taking of that property.

Thank you, Chris.

I'm asking you, take the skeleton out of the closet.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Maria.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Maria Batiola.

It has been a long journey.

Imperfect as MHA may be, the Beacon Hill Council urges its passage with a companion resolution that provides pathways to addressing our neighborhood concerns for displacement, historic resources preservation, an approach to home ownership, and retention of our small and cultural businesses.

Further, we urge you to resolve the city's documented interdepartmental race and social justice report, reverting family housing back to three bedrooms as we badly need it in Beacon Hill, and include and strengthen council member Herbold's anti-displacement measures and monitoring for acceleration of resegregation.

We look forward to working diligently with you and the mayor to bring these companion resolution intentions to full fruition.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Ron, please.

My name is Ron Horning.

I'm here.

I'm a resident of Green Lake.

For the last 19 years, my neighbors have been trying to acquire my property for a parking lot.

That would be also include the school district.

Under MHA, the widening of Aurora, the heights along Aurora come into play as far as the parking in that area.

They're building a new part of the school on their parking lot, which would displace this parking, and then are trying to acquire other property to do that.

I am here to protect my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the United States of America to keep my property there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Patience, before you begin, let me call three more names.

Patience is next.

Enzol Grant.

Oh, Nicole.

Oh, Nicole.

Nicole Grant.

It says Enzol Grant.

Nicole Grant and Elaine Ike.

So Nicole, Elaine, and then Steve Bobstello.

Okay.

Good afternoon, council members.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

My name is Patience Malava.

I'm here on behalf of the Housing Development Consortium, and I'm also here representing Seattle for Everyone, our coalition partners who have been working very hard to get this legislation across the finish line.

First of all, I want to thank you all for your hard work, for your due diligence, and for your leadership in getting us to the finish line.

This has been a very long journey.

And today, I call today historic, because it's been five years in the work, and everyone has been waiting for this day.

We're excited to see this.

This is one day that charts a path to building an inclusive, equitable, and affordable city.

And we are excited to see this happen.

And I also want to say that this is not just about building more homes for people who desperately need them.

This is legislation that takes proactive action on climate change.

This is active action that really takes us to a path where we allow more people to live near transit, near their jobs, and near amenities.

We look forward to working with you in implementing this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't see Nicole.

She had to step away.

So we'll go with Elaine.

Elaine.

And following Elaine will be Steve.

And then Sarah Jane Siegfried.

Good afternoon, City Council.

The world is full of terrible choices it seems today.

Many of my friends and family of color have been displaced from the Central District and particularly from Columbia City, displaced to the Rainier Beach area.

and now it is up for upzoning.

And we still haven't adopted any ordinance to protect the environmental aspects of green space, nor have we done anything to work on the displacement that seems to inevitably happen with the upzones.

I understand right now that Council Member Lisa Herbold has a plan for mitigating displacement, and I'd like to see that adopted before any kind of vote is taken on upzoning of any neighborhoods in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, here we go again.

We've got a proposal which is going to hurt the city in many ways.

First of all, you're going to increase the homeless because you're raising the cost of housing in the city.

You're increasing displacement because while you can't see it in the North End, it happens in the North End as well as the South End and the Central District.

You are becoming a city of only people of wealth.

And to help solve this problem in your MHA, you're going to not require that the housing that does come back, the little that comes back, is even in the neighborhoods where you're taking out the affordable housing.

You're going to further ghettoize the city, and I don't know how far you're going to run the trains to bring in the people to run the city, and I don't know where you're going to go, but it's probably beyond reach.

Steve.

Sergei, before you begin, We have actually exceeded the 20 minutes that our rules allow.

We do have several more people sign up.

So unless there's objection, I'll extend it for another 20 minutes.

Keep trying to plow through.

And so Sarah Jane, after you, we'll have three more speakers.

That'd be Toby Thaler, David Ward, and David Hines.

Toby, David, and David.

So Toby, if you don't mind coming over here.

Sarah Jane, the floor is yours, ma'am.

Thank you so much.

Sarah Jane Siegfried.

I'm a member of Seattle Fair Growth and Scale, living in Lake City.

I want to ask you today to postpone, just for a brief period of time, the resolution, which really was only available to us very recently and is faulty and not fully baked.

It hasn't been fully vetted.

I'll give you an example.

Section G, where it says, develop a consistent and thorough monitoring and reporting process regarding housing production and loss of households at 30 to 120% AMI.

It's the units, the actual apartments that need to be counted, not the households.

If you count the households, you're counting people who are already gone.

and we want to count the units.

So that needs to be addressed.

You still haven't addressed the definition of family size units.

It was changed a couple of years ago in the dark of night from three bedrooms to two bedrooms, and we don't know what we're counting.

We're not really addressing family size if it's not three units.

I have a number of other concerns.

Section D, it says continue to conduct outreach to low-income and elderly households, when it's only low income elderly households, no and, that are eligible for the senior property tax deduction.

So I just ask you to think about taking a little more time with this would have no effect really on outcomes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I know what you're going to do today.

Enjoy the moment.

Toby Thaler from Fremont.

I'm going to do a real quick MHA process.

If the city had actually honestly engaged with impacted communities starting in 2014 when the HALA committee was appointed, the ordinance would have been adopted by now.

You would have inclusionary zoning.

Summarizing info I gave you on historic resources, in Fremont many hundreds of units are likely to be removed without replacement of affordable housing.

Fremont has experienced significant displacement in the last few years, that's documented in the EIS.

South Park does not meet the urban village criteria.

Your vote for Council Bill 119444 basically is a sentence of gradual dismemberment of that low-income and minority community of homeowners.

I support inclusionary zoning.

This is not it.

And the companion resolution is absolutely essential to fix some of the damage you're about to cause.

I'm David Ward.

I'm president of Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability, and Equity.

And scale wants significantly more affordable housing, but MHA will not create that more affordable housing.

The amount proposed is tiny compared to other cities.

It simply won't be affordable, provide affordable housing for everyone.

At 3 to 10 percent, affordable housing.

90 to 97 percent of the people will not have affordable housing.

MHA creates significantly more displacement than affordable housing.

Already in the U District, there are 165 units in eight projects that are lost and only 88 units of affordable provided, so there is nearly a loss of 80 units.

And MHA will create significant displacement in South Seattle, where the overwhelming majority of people are people of color, and there has already been significant loss there, and that will increase even more under MHA.

Thank you.

Leave no doubt there's a revolutionary bout to give true democracy a shout for a great American housing buildout without non-profit unqualified getting in the way or ruining the neighborhoods.

And don't fear baby boomers sellouts desperate to flip their double triple mortgage dilapidated inflated perception of valued house built in 20th century on side of road propped up by the oppressive supply and demand squeeze that sellouts salivate off of that creates a modern third world implosion of local citizens homeless while foreign-born no-fins move into their homes while creepy banks celebrate the overthrow of locals rights with some of the most run-down houses in America.

We need a 20th century development with advanced architects, civil engineers, and vocational education for mass amounts of carpenters union qualified workers to build the homes needed for everyone in this country.

If Seattle government continues to accommodate desperate housing owners speculating off the demise of other peoples, there's going to be a nationwide boycott of Seattle to disempower the very people who are conducting an oppressive subhuman war on local innocent poor.

Following that is Bonnie Williams, is it Stacey Zenka, or Star Zenka?

So Stacey's not, so Bonnie, are you here, Bonnie Williams?

Okay, Bonnie, Stacey, and Sharon Levine.

Oh, Steve Zemke, I'm sorry, Steve.

Okay, sorry, Steve.

So Bonnie, Steve, and Sharon Levine.

Okay, good afternoon.

I'm so you ready?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

I'm not sure.

I'm voting against Council Bill 119443 and 119444. And if the Hall of Public Outreach was really about listening to neighborhood residents instead of being loyal to the grand bargain, possibly a better plan would have evolved.

The inflexibility was apparent as residents offered recommendations and tried to shape policy in countless open houses hearings and council meetings for the last couple years.

The burdens of MHA for neighborhoods far outweigh the benefits.

The whole city should not be turned upside down for only 6,000 affordable units in 20 years when capacity exists without up zones.

MHA diminishes setbacks, increases lot coverage and heights resulting in loss of trees, green space, gardens, Play spaces, private spaces, sunlight, reducing parking requirements does away with density limits, weakens design review.

We are missing impact fees from developers, lagging concurrency, and rezoning will increase property taxes and displace lower and middle income residents.

Neighborhoods need to feel like partners, not like second class citizens.

Thank you.

I'll send an email with my full statement, because it's looking forward.

We need to keep Seattle not just affordable but livable.

For 10 years, Seattle has been saying it's going to update its tree protection ordinance.

It's laudable that you put in a concurrent resolution.

Goals for the city to do that.

There's going to be another 10 years if we get another resolution to not protect our urban forests.

Seattle also continues to constantly violate its existing ordinance.

for tree replacement.

SMC 2911090 says, each exceptional tree can tree over two feet in diameter that is removed and associated with development.

And all zones shall be replaced by one or more trees.

There's some additional language.

What I would ask is, where are the trees?

If they're not replaced by developers, and we did replace them, the city is.

Where's the money the city collected to do that?

And where are the trees?

You know yourself, large trees

Thank you, Steve.

Sharon, before you begin, let me call three names.

After Sharon, it will be Ternan Martin, Jordan Raitu, and John Lisbon, or Jordan Ram.

Thank you.

I am Sharon Levine.

MHA is deficient because it does not mitigate the cumulative impacts of increased density.

Code and upzone changes will have severe impacts.

The potential tax burden on long-term property owners, many with multi-generational households, and retired people on fixed incomes will displace citizens and force many from their beloved residences.

MMHA is primarily about density and money generation and makes no provisions to increase schools, libraries, community centers, parks, fire and police protection, and other infrastructure and services that will be needed as population increases throughout Seattle.

The City has been disingenuous in stating that only a small number of single-family homeowners will be impacted when over 12,000 homes are currently proposed for upzones as high as low-rise 1 and low-rise 2. More homes will subsequently be upzoned when, for example, Queen Anne's residential urban village is more than doubled by upzones as per the comp plan.

You should delay the MHA vote until every single property owner who will be upzoned or impacted by code changes is individually notified and has a chance to comment on your body of city officials.

And you should delay MHA until you include mitigation for impacts on the environment, transportation, infrastructure, parking, trees, urban wildlife, and on livability.

Tiernan, can you don't start Tiernan's question.

Is your mic working?

Can you just do a mic check there?

I don't think it's working.

So let's try this middle mic.

Test, test.

Yeah, I think that one is working.

And you could bend it a little closer, too, if you like.

There you go.

OK, you got it.

Great.

Good afternoon council members.

My name is Tiernan Martin.

I'm here on behalf of Future Wise to encourage you to adopt the MHA citywide policy.

The process of public engagement, impact assessment, and substantive revision on this policy has been an extraordinary one to say the least.

Because of your leadership and the work of many dedicated housing advocates, today we stand ready to expand inclusionary zoning to neighborhoods across the city.

FutureWise recognizes that changes to neighborhood character can be divisive and also that far too often throughout our city's history, marginalized communities have borne disproportionate amounts of the costs of growth.

The policy before you today is not a perfect one, but no policy this transformative can be.

We cannot expect perfection from policies with goals like environmental sustainability and racial equity.

We cannot expect the disastrous impacts of climate change to spare us while we fine tune every detail.

We cannot continue to deny those without homes housing in the name of perfectionism.

MHA citywide is a pragmatic and visionary policy and we needed it yesterday, last year and 10 years ago.

Please pass it.

Thank you for your leadership.

Thank you.

Jordan, John Visbon, and Alex Zimmerman.

You're third on that call, Mr. Zimmerman.

Not quite ready for you.

So we'll start with Jordan, then John, and then Alex.

Was it this mic that works?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Hello.

You know, as I see it, from what I've seen around town and been to many, many meetings about this, HALA works great for the white privilege and MHA is a vacant promise.

You know, I hear lots of lip service about ending redlining, but as I see it, the upzoning is just a new redlining.

Building homes that lower income people cannot afford and the developers only require to add a paltry percentage of affordable housing or pay a linkage fee, which will allow them to build ghettos of the lower income in places where the more affluent will not have to have them as their neighbors.

And the ADUs will really only work if their rent is affordable to those of modest means.

Currently, the code which no longer requires the owner to live in site and does not require off-street parking is just another giveaway to the developers.

As I see it, Seattle, as we sit here, is on the way of becoming a city of a singular demographic, and that is the wealthy.

And I hope that this meeting is just not mandated by law for you all to listen to, but you're actually taking some feedback here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eric, for fixing that.

So, John, following you will be Alex Zimmerman.

Alex, if you don't mind taking the middle mic, and then Calvin Jones will follow you.

So, John, Alex, and Calvin.

Well, council members, thank you for listening to us today.

As you know, I'm not a big proponent of MHA.

From the beginning, when the HALA committee was comprised mostly of interests that would make money from development to the backdoor dealing of the grand bargain to the EIS, which had several flavors of alternatives that were all the same, basically, and from the public outreach that was mostly a roadshow and a marketing public outreach.

Danny Westnede had it right when he said it was all baked in already.

And Peter Steinbreck, who I just met, said when he asked, when he was asked for community participation, community feedback, he was informed that, from a senior planner, that the whole point was mute.

Mute.

So I'm skeptical because of a couple reasons.

One, the naturally affordable housing.

I'm running out of time here.

But what I would say is I was a business person for 15 years, and I listened to a consultant who told me it is really a good idea to have your employees give you ideas because it will make it a lot easier to have your ideas implemented.

I would suggest the same thing in the public sector.

Thank you.

I didn't think you were going to take the side, Mike.

Following you will be Calvin Jones.

to say that we have just about exceeded the second extension, but we'll keep plowing through for a few more, and we'll see, like my council members think, if you're ready to move on with our agenda.

So we'll have a few more speakers I'll call out.

Alex Calvin-Jones, and then Michaela Daffern.

Go ahead, Alex.

Sieg Heil, my Fuhrer, a Nazi garbage rat, a criminal and killer.

Guys, I spoke to you, I like you, you like a small children from fifth grade.

Come in talking and talking and talking, I care every day for many years, you send BS talking again and again and again.

Very freaking idiot, wake up, he come with one simple idea.

Mr. Zimmerman, stop the clock for a minute.

Mr. Zimmerman, Mr. Zimmerman, I'll find you disruptive, I'm giving you a notice even though you don't hear me, and if you continue not to address the agenda item, I will have you removed.

So I'm asking that you speak to an agenda item.

So I do not hear an agenda item, so I'm going to hold you as disruptive because I don't hear an agenda item, sir.

So I don't hear I'm gonna find you disruptive what a surprise Okay, okay, okay, okay Bye-bye so Calvin Jones Calvin Jones we followed by Michaela and then Luis Guerrero

Hi, I'm Calvin Jones.

I'm a renter in District 3 and an organizer for Tech for Housing.

I think a lot of arguments against MHA and progressive housing policy in general take some form of, we shouldn't take action because we need to do some analysis or listen to some neighborhood group.

But I think that really fails to acknowledge that we have dual housing affordability and climate crises in front of us, and that we don't really have time to do endless analysis before we actually do something about it.

Every day that we spend talking about MHA and not implementing, we lose on average two units of affordable housing.

So that means two families don't get to live in the city that we all love, two families don't get to live near beautiful parks, and two families don't get access to our amazing and green public transportation system that we have in the city.

So congratulations on putting together an amazing policy for the city.

Let's pass MHA and then move on to raise more progressive revenue for affordable housing and broader zoning reforms to legalize more types of housing in our exclusive single-family neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Caleb, thank you for coming.

Mikayla.

After Mikayla, we have Luis, Luis Borio, and then Allison, and I think it's Boleano, maybe, and then Nicole Grant.

Please.

Hi, my name is Michaela Daffern.

I am wearing many hats today.

I am a renter.

I am a resident of Capitol Hill.

And I am an advocate for a more equitable and livable Seattle.

I also work for Capitol Hill Housing and help staff something called the Capitol Hill Eco-District.

As a community developer and an affordable housing provider, we provide homes to over 1,400 households in Seattle.

And we view MHA as an essential tool for addressing the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis.

Once adopted, it will create thousands of new homes affordable to low-income families in Seattle who desperately need it and fuel the creation of new market-rate housing opportunities for our rapidly growing population.

We are grateful for the thought, consideration, and time council and city staff and fellow community members have put into this final legislation, and are here today to encourage you to vote yes on this important policy to ensure that Seattle remains welcoming and affordable to all.

Thank you.

Well done.

Luis, good to see you.

Thank you very much.

My name is Luis Borrero.

I used to be co-chair of Land Use and Transportation of the Planning Commission back in 2015. I was part of the ST3 transit analysis to locate the West Seattle light rail stations.

And I'm here to leave legal record against Amendment 1.5 and 1.6 presented by Councilmember Herbold only three weeks ago.

This is the first time, the first opportunity to leave record.

First of all, I believe that there was flowing process.

There was an idea not to change any individual neighborhoods rules and that was overlooked in this case to make it a very particular solution.

Number two, if you look at the video, our 255 to 317 of the last February 25, you realize that there was misinformation spread around.

There's not a decision between two locations of one light rail station, 10 and seven blocks.

There's two light rail stations happening.

And the ones that we're talking about are in the corner of the urban village, are within one block of each other.

So that should not be an argument to change this.

Councilman Gonzalez did not have to recuse herself.

And more importantly, it goes against the concept of what we're trying to achieve.

And I'd love to have the opportunity to talk more about this with you.

Thank you.

But you can't pass it, in my opinion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Allison.

And then Nicole Grant, I was told you are here.

Okay, so you'll follow Allison, please.

Hello, council members.

My name's Allison Bolgiano.

I'm a resident of District 4, and I'm here today representing Bellwether Housing, Seattle's largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing.

And at Bellwether, we believe that the people who make up the social and economic fabric of our city should get to live here.

The people who teach our children, who care for the sick, who maintain buildings like this, seniors, folks experiencing homelessness.

We house all of those people.

We want to house more of them.

We currently have plans in the land to build large new projects in Roosevelt, Rainier Beach, and First Hill.

And it requires city funding to build these projects.

And we're thankful for the partnership of the Office of Housing, but we need more funds.

Each year nonprofits put in projects that just can't get funded.

MHA could more than double the amount of funds available.

So let's pass MHA so that we can build affordable housing around the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President Harrell, council members.

My name is Nicole Grant, and I'm with MLK Labor, representing unions in King County.

And I wanted to take this moment to thank every single one of you for the dozens of hearings that you've participated in to hear from your constituents about housing in the city of Seattle.

And I want to urge you to move forward with your vote on MHA today.

We represent workers in all sectors of the economy, and they are consistent in sharing with us how difficult it has been to have a home in Seattle today.

We have this incredible economy.

We're bringing people from all over the state, the country, and the world to work in aerospace, tech, maritime.

But when you say, come to us, share in this experience, we have to rise to the occasion and make the homes for people to live in.

So I hope we take this vote and then stay smart and active and keep pushing the envelope for housing in Seattle.

Thank you Ms. Grant.

So we've heard from a little under 40 speakers this afternoon.

We've extended public comment a little more than twice and so unless there's a motion I'm going to conclude public comment.

I would remind that I would remind the public that we've had approximately 40 public hearings on this matter, and I think approximately seven on this particular bill.

So I'm going to conclude public comment unless I hear another objection.

Move to payment of the bills.

I will not ignore the question.

I think there's probably another...

30 people or so signed up.

But again, I think we've heard a myriad of opinions, and with that, I'll move to the payment of the bills.

Council Bill 119481, a property mine to pay certain claims and ordain the payment thereof.

I'll move to pass Council Bill 119481. Second.

Moved and seconded the bill to pass.

Any further comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Before we move to committee reports, I'd like to ask that the public and our colleagues just indulge us for a minute as we take just a moment of silence to stand with our brothers and sisters in our sister city of Christchurch in New Zealand.

I think all of us have followed the headlines and we want to make it very clear that we do stand with our Muslim community and there were 50 lives lost and our hearts certainly go out to the victims and families.

So before we get into committee reports, let's just take a few seconds of silence.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

So let's move to committee reports.

The report of the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee, agenda item one, appointment 1252, appointment aside, Bashir as Chief Technology Officer, Seattle Information Technology Department, for a term to January 1st, 2023. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

So before we get into the substance of this very important appointment, I'd like to first move to amend the appointment 01-252 to include the letter of expectations in the clerk file.

And this has been circulated both and put in the public forum.

And so before we do that, I'd like to amend the appointment.

Is there a second?

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to amend the file to include the letter of expectations.

Any comments?

All those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Having said that, this appointment is appointing Saad Bashir as the Director and Chief Technology Officer of the Seattle Information Technology Department.

And during the confirmation process, there was a request, not a directive, to not change the name again, but that was just some and maybe some insight that there's been several name changes.

What is the CTO in this position?

Well, the CTO manages a $277 million Seattle Information Technology budget.

It leads a department of close to 700, actually 680 full-time employees and oversees the delivery of all technology services for the city.

The IT department manages our information technology resources, which includes telecommunications, data, supporting our physical infrastructure, all of our applications, our application infrastructure, our computer engineering and our operations, our data centers, our servers, our storage, our backup equipment, our desktop, mobile apps, our printing devices, our cloud services, our digital engagement services.

It's quite a swath of work.

And as part of the IT consolidation process, they are now responsible for managing all IT projects in the city.

And the most recent biennial budget reflected the new sort of a project-centric structure with a citywide portfolio of about $450 million.

Who is Syed Bashir?

Well, he has a quite impressive background, at least in my humble opinion.

He served as the executive leadership roles in the city of Ottawa since 2010. He served as Ottawa's chief information officer since 2016, and under his leadership, the IT department has transformed into a world-class public sector IT department, recognized by many neutral authorities for that work, with an increased productivity, agility, and a greater focus on clients.

He managed a $100 million IT budget for Ottawa and led a department of 350 IT professionals for about 20,000, approximately 20,000, 19,000 employee clients and brings what I think is a good balance of public and private sector background and offers sort of practical change to management expertise.

He submitted several reference letters.

I could quote many of the reference letters, but the short of that was that he is just known for his leadership style and his very collaborative style of how he makes decisions and how he works with people.

The process itself, the mayor conducted an extensive search process that included national and international candidates.

The CTO search committee was comprised of business, labor, and nonprofit leaders with an experience in technology and technical engineering and operations.

The search for a new CTO also included extensive internal outreach to various City of Seattle groups, including our IT departments, race and social justice, change team, and city employees unions.

It first had come to me on February 5th at 930, and that was the first initial discussion, and again on March 7th for a second discussion, and we had many members at the table, and it was voted out with full passage at a special governance, equity, and technology committee.

I won't go into detail into how he gave such an elaborative description on the questions we posed to him, but I'll just say a couple things that he very, I thought, smartly assessed nine areas for improvement.

And not only addressed the areas that we thought there were some urgent opportunities, but actual strategy on how we will implement those.

I say to my colleagues, it is absolutely my pleasure to introduce Saeed Bashir to many of you as potentially our new CTO for the Seattle Information Technology Department.

Any questions or any comments before we take vote?

Okay.

Those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries.

The appointment is confirmed.

And Mr. Beshear, yeah we can clap for him.

I'd love to hear from you and I do want to thank many members, previous people in the position and the leadership team for stepping up during a period of transition.

They just did outstanding work before this appointment.

I wanted to acknowledge the fine work that many people have done to get us here.

So Mr. Beshear, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Council President and Council Members.

Around six weeks ago, I took on this job in an acting capacity.

And my natural tendency is sort of to get to work and do what the job requires of me.

But this confirmation process also actually gave me a bit of a pause to reflect on the several hundred conversations I've had with people in IT, as well as with client departments.

And I've uncovered a strong desire from people who want to Re-imagine how we run IT operations, how we are delivering services, how we are interacting with our client departments, and more importantly, how we are interacting within IT amongst ourselves.

My fellow department heads and their leadership teams, I have met with many of them.

have made it absolutely clear that they are going to do whatever possible to make sure that IT continues to be a performing and a much more higher performing team.

So I really am encouraged with those comments from them.

And, you know, I just want to say thank you to this city council for your vote and trust.

I deeply appreciate Mayor Durkan's confidence in giving me this opportunity, and I look forward to working with you, which I think is going to be a bit of an adventure over the next few years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bashir.

Please call the next item into the record.

Item two.

Appointment 1265, appointment of Richard F. Short as member of Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission for a term to December 31st, 2021. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Thank you.

So I'm asking the full council to confirm appointment 01265, which is confirming an appointment to the Ethics and Elections Commission, Mr. Richard Short.

And he's been approved by the committee on March 7th.

He came to the committee and gave a very impressive interview.

As you note from his resume in the public file, in your file, he serves as Senior Corporate Counsel on T-Mobile's Compliance and Ethics Team.

He has a strong background in compliance.

His responsibilities are especially relevant to the SEEC's Commission's Administration and Enforcement of the Ethics Election's Lobbying and Whistleblower Codes.

Prior to moving to Seattle, Mr. Short spent nearly a decade in Washington, D.C., working on Capitol Hill as the legislative director for the United States Representative Marcy Kaptur.

He was responsible for ensuring staff compliance with the House's Code of Official Conduct, and he had extensive interactions with registered lobbyists and activists and coordinated with the House Ethics Committee and Office of Congressional Ethics to maintain familiarity with application ethics guidelines.

He also spent seven years practicing law in Seattle and Washington, D.C., where he developed a sophisticated practice representing clients in connection with both civil and criminal litigation.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Toledo and a Juris Doctorate from the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. And with that, I'm very pleased to request that the full council confirm Mr. Short to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

Any comments or questions before we take this appointment?

Those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Congratulations, Mr. Short.

Please read the next agenda item.

The report of the Select Committee on Citywide Mandatory Housing Affordability, agenda item three, Council Bill 119443, relating to land use, amending the Seattle Comprehensive Plan to incorporate changes related to mandatory housing affordability, as proposed as part of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan annual amendment process.

The committee recommends that the bill pass as amended.

Okay, Council Member Johnson, I know we have some amendments that you will make, so we'll just sort of let you walk us through it, but Council Member Johnson, you have the floor.

Thank you, Council President.

So we have four items related to the citywide MAJ today.

And in sequence, we're going to start with the first council bill, which amends the comprehensive plan.

We'll move to the second council bill, which amends the Seattle Municipal Code to implement citywide MAJ. Third, we'll have a solo bill that implements MHA on the TOD side in Northgate.

And finally, a resolution, which is a companion resolution, which is consistent to what we've done in all of our other MHA zoning changes.

There are individual amendments for several of those, so I'll address those as we get up to it.

But I wanted to start, if you'll indulge me, Council President, by just reflecting a little bit on the four plus year process that has gotten us to this point.

And then, after those prepared remarks, walk people through some of those individual amendments.

Please.

So, folks, today we're voting on legislation that addresses a very personal issue, I think, for everyone in Seattle, and that issue is change.

We all have stories to dramatize how our city's changed over the last decade.

Be it something as weighty as now struggling to make rent in Seattle's brutally expensive housing market, to something as wistful as missing our favorite neighborhood haunt because it's closed down.

For my part, I miss Daly's and Eastlake with its great shakes and low-key charm, but Eastlake is a great example of how urbanism can work.

It's a neighborhood without single-family zoning, but with a lot of character.

It's the place where I met and married the girl who lived across the hall from me in our little five-unit apartment building, and it's where we had our twins and where we'd still be today if we hadn't realized that, after doing the math, we were going to be paying more in rent than we would have if we bought that little house in Ravenna.

But that's not an option for many Seattleites now, a majority of whom are renters.

Ultimately, too many of our stories are about struggling, and struggling to make the cost of living, struggling with traffic congestion, struggling to make rent, or struggling to find affordable housing to begin with, like many of my little fifth-generation cousins who struggle to afford to live in the neighborhood they grew up in.

And the source of that change is no mystery.

Seattle's growing at a phenomenal rate.

Consider that at the beginning of this decade, Seattle was 25th largest city in the United States.

But by the end of this decade, we'll have passed Washington, D.C., Boston, and other East Coast cities climbing to 18th biggest in the United States.

During this decade, in raw numbers, we've grown from 608,000 to more than 730,000 people, a near 20% jump.

And whether you're maneuvering your cart in the grocery store or waiting to board a 36 to go to work, whether you're stuck in line at a pharmacy or at a packed restaurant before a show on a Saturday night, it's impossible not to notice Seattle's leap from a mid-sized city to a major metropolis.

Unfortunately, the rules we have in place now have not kept up with that pace of growth.

And in fact, the status quo policy, which bars us from building townhouses and low-rise condos in most of Seattle, has undermined what should be a real boon to us as a city, economic success and population growth, but for too many of us has turned success into a source of disenchantment.

But it's time for city government to step in and change that status quo.

I'm proud to say my colleagues have risen to the occasion.

My colleagues, Councilmembers Mosqueda and Juarez, have been rightfully getting credit for their work to highlight urbanism as a critical social justice issue.

My district colleagues have worked hard to build winning coalitions, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block to implement MHA in their districts.

And three different mayors worked to get us to this point, starting with Mayor Murray's 2015 proposal to Mayor Burgess, who sent the MHA bill to council in 2017, to Mayor Durkan, who's helped us get the bill here to the finish line.

Countless city staff from OPCD, DON, OH, SDCI, the Planning Commission, the Law Department, the Mayor's Office put in long hours to make this moment possible, and I'd like to thank some of those folks this afternoon.

Directors Sam Assefa, Kathy Nyland, Diane Sugimura, Steve Walker, Andres Mantilla, and Nathan Torgelson, thank you for your leadership.

Staff members including Sarah Maxana, Jeff Wentland, Robert Feldstein, Michelle Chen, Nick Welch, Jessica Brand, Susie Phillips, Laura Hewitt Walker, Jason Kelly, Vera Jim Petro, Lindsey Masters, Mike Podowski, Dave LeClerc, Jeff Weber, Leslie Price, Emily Alvarado, and many others who I've left off.

Thank you for your long nights and many tears that we've all shed around MHA.

I want to thank John Howell, who facilitated the HALA Committee and the Council's Community Design Workshops for your leadership, John.

And I want to thank thousands of neighbors who participated in our community engagement events.

We've relied on the help of our clerk's office and our council communications team.

Our central staff land use team has been critical in the last few years, and I want to thank Allie Panucci, Keto Freeman, Lish Whitson, Yolanda Ho, and Eric McConaughey for their good work.

I also want to thank my team who's worked on this legislation since the HALA recommendations were released on the same day the ballots were mailed out in 2015. Amy Gore, Noah Ahn, Spencer Williams, Jerry Morris, Patty Camacho, Maya, Alicia, I couldn't have done this without you guys, and I'm so grateful.

I want to say a quick thank you to Katie and our girls who spent a lot of nights on their own because of the number of public hearings that we took to get us here.

And finally, I want to say an extra thanks to my vice chair, Councilmember Gonzalez, You've been a champion, confidant, and passionate advocate for the program.

And Lorena, if I'm allowed to do so, I'd like to bestow upon you an honorary master's degree in land use planning for all of your meticulous work over the last three and a half years.

I am really passionate about zoning.

It seems like a trivial thing that makes for boring meetings and migraines.

However, I think my colleagues have realized that within the finicky zoning formulas for low-rise 1, low-rise 2, and residential small lot housing, that there's a formula for equity.

And today we passed that formula, a formula that provides for growth and affordable housing.

It does this by creating more opportunities for multifamily stock while tying that new development to an affordable housing fund.

And the mandatory housing affordability program will create 6,000 new units of affordable housing in the next decade.

That growth should be synonymous with creating a sense of place, a place for everyone to live, and that place should be building more housing.

Housing for single moms like Jessica, a service worker who moved back here to pursue her sociology degree when she found affordable housing in a TOD project on the light rail line.

Housing for graduate students like Marlon, who couldn't afford Seattle without a subsidized apartment in a new affordable housing building in the Central District.

Housing for young parents like Laura and Matt who live in an affordable housing townhome on First Hill with their three kids.

Housing for social workers like Natasha Hundley who lives in Bellwether's housing on Stoneway and she says she wouldn't be able to attend good public schools in Wallingford if it wasn't for that affordable housing.

In short, we're embracing growth by embracing inclusion.

And today we're embracing inclusion by updating plans that were drafted 25 years ago, largely by single family neighborhoods.

And we're acknowledging what we've learned in those last 25 years, or more so even in the last five years, that effectively planning for growth means sharing space to make room for everyone who wants to find their place in Seattle.

So for a while we were able to get by without original approach, one that maybe didn't fully embrace equity because Seattle was growing only incrementally and many of us didn't notice something unfair was happening.

But while King County's grown by 13% in the last eight years, Seattle's grown by 20%.

While our fastest growing cities such as Redmond, Kent, and Bellevue have added about 2,000 people in the last year, we've added nearly 17,000 people.

So we've had to jump into action.

And to create a proactive housing policy, we had to get proactive about engaging the community.

And to create that policy, we had to engage more of Seattle.

So we did that by hosting more than 200 meetings on MHA when it was first proposed since 2015. We've knocked on more than 10,000 doors.

The city council itself has hosted more than 40 public meetings, including community design workshops, open houses, and public hearings.

We drafted and considered more than 80 amendments to create more child care space in new buildings, more affordable small business spaces to protect trees in historic buildings, to incentivize more affordable home ownership opportunities, and allowed for taller buildings to be built near frequent transit service without mandating unnecessary and unaffordable parking requirements.

To my deep satisfaction, that outreach has been accompanied by something policymakers in the city haven't seen in the past, and that's a surge of pro-housing activism from a diverse coalition of stakeholders more representative of the city's housing needs.

This coalition reflected what solutions can look like when we all work together.

We've regularly had the MLK Junior County Labor Council show up to support building more housing for their union members.

The Chamber of Commerce often stood by their side.

Groups like the Sierra Club and 350 Seattle recognized this is an environmental issue and joined the cause.

Traditional housing advocates like HDC, Future Wise, and the Seattle Transit Blog were joined by new groups like Welcoming Wallingford, Seattle for Everyone, Seattle Greenways, Seattle Tech for Housing, Share the Cities, the Miller Park Yabers, the Capitol Hill Renters Initiative, and the Urbanist.

And they all helped us frame this policy with one guiding question, who is this city for?

Our new mandatory housing affordability policy answers that question by saying, this city is for people like Jessica and Marlon and Laura and Matt and Natasha.

And with that, I'm proud to introduce this legislation, Council President.

Thank you, Councilman Johnson.

So I would like to move, we have got one technical amendment which would require adoption of an amendment to attachment one.

It would reflect changes to the urban center and urban village boundaries that were adopted by the select committee on February the 25th.

And that amendment is shown in attachment A of the central staff memo.

So with your permission, council president, I'd move to amend council bill 119443 attachment one by submitting version two for version one.

It's been moved and seconded.

This is just the amendment.

Attachment one is Council Member Johnson described.

Any questions on the amendment only?

All those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

It is amended.

Did any other council members want to speak on item three?

We have several companion items to follow, but we're on item three as amended right now.

Everybody good on this one?

Anybody good?

Okay.

The next one's the big one.

The next one is a little larger.

The next one's the big one.

So we have, and we have four amendments, I think, scheduled for the next item.

So why don't we pass this one first?

Okay.

Okay.

Please call the roll on the passage of the amended bill.

Begshaw.

Aye.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read agenda item number four, the short title.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 119444 relating to mandatory housing affordability, rezoning certain land and modifying development standards throughout the city, implementing MHA requirements, modifying existing development standards to improve livability.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

So Council Member Johnson, you have the floor.

I'm aware that there, I believe there's four amendments, and so I'll just sort of let you lead us through the amendment process.

You have it right now regarding the base legislation.

Thank you, Council President.

So this is the main citywide MHA legislation.

The previous bill adopted the comprehensive plan changes to incorporate changes related to MHA.

This is the implementation bill of the citywide zoning changes in the 27 neighborhoods.

There are three amendments proposed, I believe.

Amendment 1 is a substitute version of the bill that reflects technical and clarifying amendments to maintain consistency with other parts of the legislation, including fixing typos and drafting errors to ensure the code language is consistent with the council intent.

It retains some provisions of the code related to incentive zoning.

and adds language clarifying that the requirement to dedicate 5% of MAJ payments to homeownership projects can be dedicated over multiple years.

So in order to effectuate those changes, I would move to amend Council Bill 119444 by substituting version D9 for version 8A and by substituting version 4 for version 3 of attachment 1 and by substituting version 4 for version 3 of attachment 2 as presented on the agenda.

Everyone follow that?

Council Member Wares, could you repeat that please?

Okay, this is just sort of a technical amendment to incorporate the changes described by Council Member Johnson.

All those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Vote nay.

Okay, we have an amendment.

the first amendment.

So we got a couple more, Council President.

So this next amendment, Amendment 2, would amend Attachment 2 to remove areas that were studied in the University District EIS from the Citywide MHA Bill.

It would also remove a requirement for upper-level setbacks along the ave, giving that no zoning changes on the ave will be part of the legislation.

Those re-zones in the U District are going to be considered as part of a separate Council Bill that was introduced in today's Introduction and Referral Calendar.

I would move to amend Council Bill 119444 by amending section 50 by deleting 23.47A.009.G.3 and by adding a new map AH to attachment 2 as presented on the agenda.

Very good.

It's been moved and seconded.

Amendment number 2 has been moved and seconded.

Any further comments?

All those in favor of amendment number 2 say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay.

The ayes passed it so amendment number two is passed.

For this next amendment I'd like to turn it over to our colleague Council Member O'Brien for an amendment related to the Finney Ridge Greenwood neighborhood.

Great.

Thank you, Council Member Johnson.

This is referenced as Amendment 5. I'll move it, and then I'll speak to it.

I move to amend Council Bill 119444, Attachment 2, by substituting Version 5 for Version 4 of the reference map, and by adding a new map, AI, that excludes a site located at 7009 Greenwood from the ReZone, as presented on the distributed Amendment 5.

Second.

moved and seconded to pass amendment number five.

Council Member Brown would you like to explain a little more?

You bet, thank you.

This refers to a project that's going through a contract rezone process.

Colleagues you may recall last year we approved that contract rezone as part of a quasi-judicial process.

Most of the contract rezones I believe that are currently underway have been excluded from the MHA bill to allow them to be the additional height and the affordable housing requirement to be required as part of those negotiated deals.

This particular parcel was was actually left out of that pattern.

So this would put that back in here the the project is still quasi judicial it has our decision last last year has been it was appealed to the Superior Court, and that has since been remanded to us just last week, so we will be likely taking something up in the next few weeks.

By excluding it from MHA, what that allows us to continue to do is to address the affordability and height changes along with other design standards that we previously had addressed in the property use and development agreement.

And I my recommendation would be to continue down that path since that path is what we've been exploring to date And I think makes the most sense for this particular process parcel very good Thank you for that explanation any other comments on amendment number five All those in favor of amendment number five vote aye aye those opposed vote no The ayes have it Councilmember Johnson, do we have any other amendments?

Just one more.

This amendment, Amendment 4, would add a finding of fact, which would recite the background and legislative history related to MHA's implementation.

describe the planning and context for the rezone and implementation of MAJ in the rezone area, and address the relationship of the ordinance to RCW 36.70A.540.

Amendment four is shown in attachment E of the central staff memo, and this would, again, just add some findings of facts.

So I would move to amend Council Bill 119444 by adding a new section 124, which adds a new attachment three, finding as a fact as presented on the agenda.

It's been moved and seconded.

Amendment number four has been moved and seconded as described by Councilman Johnson.

Any further comments?

All those in favor of amendment number four say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and that amendment is approved.

Council President, I would now defer to others that might want to make closing remarks and I'd ask for the privilege to close out those closing remarks before we take final action on this bill.

Absolutely, so we have an amended council bill one one nine four four four and with any council members like to speak on the the the overall amended legislation I'll I'll outweigh you this would be the time so council member O'Brien, please lead us

Councilmember Johnson, I will start by thanking you for your leadership and your dedication to this quite thorough process over the past few years and I appreciate the remarks you made and so many people both city staff and citizens Members of the community live and work here have worked hard on this There's a lot of work and compromise that's done I wanted to speak to to my involvement of this around affordable housing which goes back even a few years prior to that in the spring of 2013 the city was Considering up zones to South Lake Union and as part of that process we had previously received a report from a consultant who did some analysis on the incentive zoning process at the time.

And that report pointed out that we could charge higher fees for incentive zoning at the time without impacting the amount of housing that was being built or other construction that was happening.

As a result of that process, there was a lot of deliberation on the floor at this time, ultimately resulting in, my recollection, was a 5-4 vote to increase the incentive zoning.

And the amount of the additional housing we required was limited by the analysis we had done and the ability to get to five votes on that.

But, simultaneously, the Council passed a resolution, Resolution 31444 in May of 2013. That passed unanimously, and it established a work program for us to update our city's affordable housing incentive program.

From that, we went and hired consultants, three different sets of consultants, who worked through to 2014, ultimately releasing reports that talked about a linkage fee program.

And in October of 2014, the council passed Resolution 31551 indicating their intent to pass a linkage fee program.

Our program outlined different tiers similar to the legislation we see today, high, low, and medium tiers, and different levels of requirements for affordable housing at that point.

The soon-to-be new mayor, Mayor Murray, or I guess he was a new mayor at that point, formed his own group to come up with a counterproposal.

And I'll tell you that personally, I was committed to the linkage fee program because it produced significant number of housings at significant affordability levels.

And in the back and forth, I said I was continued to be open to new proposals if they produced more affordable housing at deeper affordability levels.

And the agreement that Mayor Murray brought forward back in summer of 2015, 15 was the program that we are looking at today.

Now that program, the commitment was to pass that 18 months ago.

That has been delayed significantly for a variety of reasons.

But I'm really thrilled that we have a comprehensive program today that I get to support.

Colleagues, current and past, it's been a pleasure working on this with all of you.

I'm really proud of the piece of legislation we have today.

And again, Councilmember Johnson, I want to just reiterate the amount of work you've done in the past few years to get us where we are today.

It's no small feat.

You were not on the Council when I remember Councilmember Murray said we will do this and it will require up zoning in every single neighborhood And I said, I do not know how that will happen in that time frame and frankly councilmember Johnson We wouldn't be here without your leadership to get us here.

And thank you for you that that work.

Thank you Okay, councilmember Bagshaw Thank you

A number of people have already been recognized by my colleagues, but I also want to say that there are people that are hiding in the back.

Feldstein, you got us started.

Thank you, Steve Walker.

I think you were there as well, and I appreciate that there are so many.

Emily Alvarado, you're back there as well.

This has been a long journey.

As Councilmember O'Brien said, we got started on this really very much in the beginning of our terms.

In the beginning of 2010, people were talking about this.

There were some fisticuffs at that point.

And we've really made a lot of progress here.

We all know why we're doing this.

We're trying to link getting more affordable housing to keep up with the growth.

We've had thousands and thousands of new jobs in our area, which is great.

We need thousands and thousands.

In fact, we'll be talking about the number, I think it's 244,000 across our region is what we're going to need here going forward.

I regard this as a very important drop in the bucket, frankly.

We've done some great things, but there's something about this process that's made me grumpy.

And I'm going to tell you about that in just a moment.

But again, I want to acknowledge Councilmember Johnson, thank you, and your staff, Amy, who's there, Noah, Jerry, and our council central staff.

Thanks to Ali Panucci, Ketel Freeman, and Lish Whitson, Eric McConaughey, and Yolanda Yeo.

Thank you all, because you've made a huge difference.

Now, here's where I am.

Yesterday in Seattle Times, Council Member Johnson wrote a pro article I thought was great, explained why we're doing what we were doing and the number of times that we have been meeting.

You've already heard a lot of that.

I don't need to repeat it all.

But here's what makes me grumpy.

There have been so many things that have been said on the con side of this that I just think have gotten in our way.

And repeating untruths over and over again simply doesn't make something so.

At the beginning of yesterday's Seattle Times con article, it said, railroading neighborhoods is not the way.

The dictionary definition of railroading, we all know what it is, is to force somebody to do something or to force an action, especially quickly.

I don't think four and a half years worth of meetings and 200 community engagement meetings and 20 meetings of the select committee in any way qualifies.

We also have reached a point where things have gotten conflated, and I want to acknowledge something that I think is really important.

I personally supported upzoning in our downtown, my neighborhood, years ago.

I feel that across our city, and certainly across our region, we really need to be making space for our kids and grandkids.

My kids want to come here.

And it is a struggle with a college education to be able to afford something.

And it's so difficult if you are behind the eight ball in any way.

So I want to say thank you to all of you who have shown up over and over again and block by block with the 80 amendments.

But here was a statement in yesterday's paper.

This will eliminate all single family zoning.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We are going to be retaining 94 percent of single-family zones.

That's remaining.

Short of 6 percent of single-family zones is going to be changed through our MHA, but that's existing and proposed urban villages.

And thousands of units are going to be added for rent-restricted units across our city over the next decade.

We have heard complaints, pro and con, about the in-lieu fees.

People said, you don't do enough.

People say you do too much.

But what we know is that thousands of units are going to be added.

The in-lieu fee allows us to leverage the money that the city puts in.

Three really great examples.

And I want to say, I think Daniel Beekman is here.

You've done some great reporting on this.

And the three items that you brought up were our three projects, the Liberty Bank building.

where we're leveraging almost 3 to 1. The Hirabayashi building in the International District, almost 5 to 1 we're leveraging.

In the Arbora Court in the U District, almost 6 to 1. This is going to make a huge number of difference.

Another argument that was brought up in the con side of the article yesterday is that we are eliminating single-family housing regulations, and we're going to have ADU legislation today that is going to destroy all of this.

The ADU legislation isn't even part of this today.

The hearings are going to start next week.

The changes are voluntary.

It's going to allow people to make right-sized choices for their families in the property that they have owned, in some cases, for decades.

So, also, there was some, I think, misstatements about the Planning Commission not liking these ADUs.

What we hear is that the Planning Commission all along has been consistently in favor of both what the MHA is doing today and the prospective ADU legislation, which isn't part of today.

So please, let's try to get this straight.

And lastly, and I want to say, as one of the people that was charged with being a lame duck politician yesterday, I am anything but a lame duck.

And my colleagues over here who have also been working so hard, you will see us working through the end of this year.

We have been working on this for five years to vote today, and I am actually as pleased as could be with the amount of work that has gone into this and the hard work that you have demonstrated.

And I want to say, Councilmember Johnson, say thank you to Katie for me and the girls, the number of nights that you have not been home but working on this.

We are working hard.

We are dedicated to making this city as wonderful a city as we possibly can for everybody that is here, people who are coming, irrespective of income.

So to my colleagues and all of you who have been part of this, many thanks.

Thank you, Kirsten.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, and thank you, Councilmember Bagshaw, for those words.

I think this is such an exciting day.

Councilmember Juarez and I were over here talking about the amount of work that has gone into making this vote today possible.

So thank you, because today we're able to vote for a more inclusive Seattle.

Thank you for helping to respond to Seattle's growing population and the housing crisis.

We know that change is inevitable, but change and development is happening right now, and it's happening over the last few years Because we haven't been able to include MHA, it has not been the change that many of our community members have wanted.

In fact, much of what we have heard in terms of concerns about MHA haven't had anything to do with MHA at all.

In fact, what they've been asking for are things that we are now able to say are on the books, such as childcare in new buildings, such as healthcare clinics in new buildings, such as setbacks so there's greater green space, such as the ability to make sure that we have more pedestrian zones.

These are things that you have wanted to do, Mr. Chair Johnson, for a very long time and have been stymied.

And today, we're able to take the steps to make sure that development is done right, that MHA ensures that we grow, and as we grow, we do it more inclusively.

MHA now requires, because of the amendments that this council has put forward, because of the feedback that many in the communities have asked for, not just affordable housing and income and rent-restricted housing, but creating more homes overall.

And it includes the vision that you all have put forward after years of making sure that it's not just homes that we are building, but we're creating truly inclusive units or buildings.

We're talking about buildings near transportation centers, childcare centers, open spaces, grocery stores.

This is what we need to thrive in our city.

not just survive and have a home to go from place of work to home.

We want communities that will be thriving centers.

And through MHA, we have begun to build the building blocks of what a truly inclusive Seattle and neighborhoods look like.

This helps make sure that as we're developing, we're meeting the needs and the values of our community.

I was really excited to work with Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez, as we worked on creating inclusive space for childcare facilities.

This is the number one thing we hear of, not just from families who need childcare, but from business owners who say that their workers have to commute 90 minutes, two hours to get to their homes and their kiddos' place of childcare, when we ought to be able to create affordable housing in the city that includes childcare.

This is why I'm really excited to vote today, because we've included setbacks and additional green space.

We've included opportunities so that we're creating healthy pedestrian environments so that people can really commute on foot or by bike or by scooter or by bus and have the opportunity to have a healthy environment.

I'm really excited today because we've included additional commercial space on the ground floors.

We've included setbacks so that people can have seating areas outside.

We know that small business owners need affordable places to start their own businesses.

And right now, they're getting the size of a unit that's good for the next CVS when we really need the size for the next Tasty Tacos, like my family started 60 years ago in a small hole in the wall.

We need small commercial spaces that are affordable so that people can truly get out of generational poverty.

We know that this is not about buildings.

Today we're making a vote about people.

We're taking a step to make sure that we can actually live our values.

And Councilmember Johnson, I want to say thank you again so much for your help to champion this through here.

I've only had the chance to work with you on this specifically, sitting on Council over the last year and a half, but I know many in the audience have had the chance to work with you over the last few years.

I want to thank your staff as well for their intense work on this.

You already mentioned the central staff.

I want to thank my staff, Aaron House, appropriately named in the back, for fighting for additional affordable housing, and my former staffers as well.

This is really an incredible process.

Years of intense policy development.

extensive community engagement, the most extensive EIS analysis ever conducted on Seattle's land use policy in our history, a legal battle that lasted an entire year.

And even though we struggled through some of the amendments and I didn't end up supporting some of those, what you have today is a comprehensive package that includes the vision directly from the community involved.

And what's happened in the meantime since we've waited for four, five years now to actually pass this legislation?

We've seen that people have been displaced, people have been pushed into the streets, our community members have had to leave the city because there's not enough affordable housing.

We have seen, because of the delay, upward pressure on the cost of housing because we have failed to be able to create enough affordable housing.

We haven't rezoned to create the density that we need to not only respond to those who are coming, but to create the affordable housing for those who are here.

I talked to the firefighters the other day that said, you know, I do want to make sure that we welcome new folks that are coming, but I'm concerned about the folks who are here.

We're not building enough affordable housing like Councilmember Bagshaw said.

so that our kiddos can afford to stay or that we can take care of our elders in place in the city.

The consequence has been that there's been a dramatic increase in the cost of rent, and we know that a $100 increase in the cost of rent equals a 15% increase in homelessness.

In fact, the Chamber of Commerce, thank you for testifying today, your own report said that there was a 96% correlation between the cost of housing and homelessness.

This is part of our response to the crisis that we see every single day.

And for the folks who are asking what we are doing and how we are trying to respond to the crisis of housing and homelessness, this is one element.

But we've been delayed for years, and today we finally get to move forward.

Obviously, we need additional housing, shelter, and health, but this is one component.

So we're going to continue to work collaboratively.

aggressively, collaboratively, with our friends at the state and the regional level to make sure that we're building affordable housing, that we get additional funding in place to create that housing, and that we get the zoning changes that we need also at the state level to match what we haven't been able to do at the city level.

I applaud Representative Fitzgibbon, Senator Palumbo, Representative Gregerson, Representative Macri, who are really working hard to try to lift that floor at the state level.

And I'm sad that we're not actually having a conversation about city-wide changes.

I think that is the next conversation to have.

I think some of those amendments that we were talking about wouldn't have been so challenging for me if we were talking about larger changes that really create a more inclusive Seattle.

Again, this is just an effort to look at 6% of the single-family zoning.

in our city.

And I want to pass out again for the viewing public and for our colleagues here that this is an effort to truly right the wrongs in our city.

What we have done over the last few decades is we have zoned our city backwards.

We have actually expanded the amount of land that we have included in the city for single-family use.

Now we have two-thirds of our residential area throughout the city of Seattle that is included exclusively for detached single-family homes, basically blocking or prohibiting the type of apartment that I currently live in.

A 1902 beautiful brick building, as you've heard me talk about before, only four stories high that has eight units in it.

We are prohibited from building that kind of gentle infill density because we have actually scaled back.

So as we talked about before, we're trying to actually look at the fabric of our city, look at the history of how we've created an inclusive city in the past, and try to right some wrongs.

In the 1920s, as the Housing Commissioner's Seattle Planning Commission report said, some residential areas began establishing racially discriminatory covenants to prevent people of color and other ethnic and religious groups from buying houses.

In 1923, Seattle's first zoning ordinance is passed, which establishes two residential districts.

One allows detached single household structures and the other that allows apartment types.

These are the types of historic wrongs that we're trying to correct today.

The report goes on to say, Seattle's popularity and existing zoning is resulting in the construction of large, expensive homes at a time when more people need more affordable places to live.

They say, this is not just an issue of addressing the legacy of discriminatory housing and land use practices.

It is about building an equitable Seattle for the present and future generations.

So today, I think, as we've talked about before, This is our effort to try to right some of those historic wrongs.

But again, it's just the beginning of that effort.

We're going to continue to work in my committee, and I believe in the planning committee, on greater inclusive opportunities, home ownership opportunities, which we just amended today, so that more folks can actually have the chance to live in the city, to thrive, and not just survive.

Thank you so much for all your work on this.

Thank you for those words.

Okay, Council Member Herbold.

my stuff together here.

So I want to just underscore a little bit of what we heard in public comment today.

The history of this legislation dates back further than five years, further than 2013. It actually dates back to 2007 when the city started passing incentive zoning programs throughout the city.

And many people at that time, when we were doing incentive zoning, that's when, not when you provide the up zones and then require the the housing affordability requirement, it's when the additional zoning capacity is available in exchange the developer invests in affordable housing.

Even at that time in 2007, many of the people in this room today, including the Housing Development Consortium and Puget Sound SAGE, were advocating for a mandatory program so that we could capture an increment of the value of additional zoning and devote it to housing.

That call from community members and former council members then helped pave the way for where we are today.

I am going to share some of my concerns, but it shouldn't be interpreted as lack of support for inclusionary zonings.

My concerns are based on what's happening in high-cost cities across the country, including cities that have inclusionary zoning.

We all see the same problem.

the lack of affordable housing.

But we have disagreement on the impacts of our approach to deal with that lack of affordable housing.

I don't believe it's just fear of change.

I believe it's legitimate concern that this bill won't raise enough affordable housing and too much will be torn down to make way for new buildings that are actually out of range of most renters.

To afford an average two bedroom apartment in Seattle, two workers need to earn $20 an hour or one earner $40 an hour.

A recent study cited in the Seattle Times reports that 85% of new housing built in this region is luxury housing.

With this legislation today, we're going to shift that a little bit.

It probably won't be 85%, but it's still a lot of housing being built for folks who can't afford to pay their rent.

We talk so much about making it possible for people to live where they work.

But are we making sure that low-income people will also be able to live where they work?

We refer every day to the thousand people a week that move to this region, but as Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned, we don't talk enough about the people who have been pushed out of Seattle.

Heck, we don't even count them.

I wish the affordable housing contribution was more.

Five to 11% of units as well as the payment in lieu fees does seem low when compared to other cities.

But to my knowledge, no other city ensures inclusionary zoning in all residential and commercial development.

So I'm hoping that the comprehensive nature of our bill can counterbalance that the developer obligation per project seems rather low.

We've also heard concern about the division between performance and pay in lieu.

As you know, we've set the goal for the split between number of developers who pay in lieu and the number of developers who perform as a goal of 50-50% split.

I know that we've included in this legislation an amendment that requires us to monitor that and to make adjustments if we're not hitting that goal.

And then finally, as folks have testified today, I will be continuing deliberations around a bill that would help address and help protect existing housing that might otherwise be redeveloped.

And I would really urge the folks up here with me today, as well as members in the public, to Take a look at what's happened in California and the state legislature over the last year or so.

Last year, Senator Wiener had a bill called Senate Bill 827. And this is a bill that statewide would require all municipalities to do high-density development in certain areas, areas like transit areas and within certain walk sheds.

That bill did not get the support it needed last year because of the concerns of what I refer to as, you know, people who think of themselves as urbanists, but I think of them as social justice urbanists.

They are people who are really concerned about just opening the floodgates to development without having measures in place to protect existing housing.

Tenants organizations, the local Sierra Club, local mayors were all really concerned about the impact of this bill.

So there's been a new bill that's been brought forward this year and it's called Senate Bill 50 and it's got enshrined in the bill itself.

prohibition against using this new authority in areas where there is any housing development.

It doesn't make a distinction for affordable housing development, and it actually requires a look back for seven years.

So if there's been housing in that location for seven years, and that's one way to make sure that landlords don't use other unfair ways of moving people out of buildings in order to redevelop them.

And as a result, everybody's coming together and supporting it.

And so I really think it's really critical that we look at what other cities and states are doing to address this problem.

Because again, simply building more housing and earmarking a small amount of it.

to affordable housing is not sufficient to address the growing need in cities that have extremely high costs of housing.

So I look forward to working with my colleagues more on that in the upcoming weeks.

Thank you, Council Member Harbaugh.

Council Member Sawant, would you like to speak?

Sure.

The last one.

I don't see any hands going up.

Thank you, President Harrell.

I thank the tremendous amount of work that was done by city council central staff on this, on the whole body of work that is represented by the mandatory housing affordability legislations.

I grew up in Mumbai, where my family lived in a 450 square foot flat, which was the only affordable housing for available for working people like my parents.

I think density is a good thing for cities and metropolitan regions, both for affordability and for sustainability.

That is why I am glad to be voting in favor of this legislation, but it is also my duty to point out that the affordability that will be generated through this has been described in inaccurately grandiose and greatly exaggerated terms by many of the elected officials.

What will be implemented is small affordable housing mandates on the big real estate speculators and developers who have driven up rents and other housing costs and who are directly responsible for displacing and evicting tens or thousands or maybe if you add up hundreds of thousands of our neighbors, the affordable housing requirements in this legislation are totally insufficient to even prevent Seattle's haemorrhaging of affordable housing, nevermind actually bringing rents down.

However, it is better than nothing, and I support every single affordable home we can win, as I've always said.

It is important to remember where MHA comes from, and not the Chamber of Commerce's version, but working people's version of where MHA came from.

In 2014, after a grassroots movement won the $15 an hour minimum wage, it became clear that the next big struggle would be and would have to be over the accelerating loss of affordable housing in Seattle, which, and the laws had started ballooning in 2010, even though it had started happening long before then.

To solve the affordable housing crisis, our movement knew that we would have to fight, and we still do have to fight, for a major investment in social housing, which is publicly owned affordable housing, paid for by taxing big business, and also for citywide rent control.

To undercut that, movement that had just begun, Seattle's biggest corporate developers and former Mayor Ed Murray of the Democratic establishment launched the so-called Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda Committee, otherwise known as the HALA Committee.

On that committee were some affordable housing advocates, but also big developers, and in the end, as these things go, when you bring corporations to the so-called table, the corporations will be given a virtual veto on the recommendations of the committee.

At that time, the city council had passed a resolution, as Council Member O'Brien mentioned, supporting linkage fees, which is basically a type of impact fee that would have required all developers in the city to pay towards affordable housing.

The big developers on the HALA committee vetoed that.

They vetoed rent control.

They vetoed any taxes on big business to fund social housing.

MHA came out of the HALA committee because that was the only thing that big developers were willing to accept.

And the reason, simple reason, that they were willing to accept it is because it is so limited, so very limited in what it accomplishes for affordable housing, and it has zero impact on their ever-expanding opportunities for profit.

MHA was delayed for years during the development boom, and as a legal mechanism, it is extremely limited, especially in how it is done in Seattle, on how much affordable housing it can generate.

But big developers scored their biggest victory through the fact that when HALA was brought forward, they were successful in disorienting the movement for rent control by getting affordable housing advocates to, well-meaning affordable housing advocates on both sides, to fight each other over whether the zoning changes will result in more or fewer affordable units.

Some excellent affordable housing advocates have subsumed their demands into the support for the MHEF zones, pointing to Seattle's population growth and suggesting that the market will bring rents back down once developers are encouraged to build enough zoning.

Let me be very clear as an economist.

There is zero, zero evidence from anywhere, anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, that would prove the hypothesis that you let the for-profit market expand construction and at some point in the future, rents will come down.

There is no such case.

If you can find that, show it to me.

And I'm happy to correct my position, but my position is based on hard evidence that there is nothing, no hypothesis, no such hypothesis has been proven.

Rents don't go down because for-profit development continues.

There is no such case in the past, and I doubt that there will be in the future.

As a matter of fact, at the same time, you know, just to give you a snapshot, since 2010, construction has boomed in this city.

At that same time, rents have skyrocketed by 69%.

Housing has not become more affordable, it has become less affordable.

And at that same time, the same time that people are being evicted from this city, you know, economically evicted because they can't afford the rising rents, there have been double digit vacancy rates in many neighborhoods.

Why is that?

If there are empty apartments, then why aren't people moving into them?

That's because they can't afford.

And so let's not buy into fake and mythical supply-side arguments by neoliberal economists because there is no evidence to support that idea.

It is true, undoubtedly, that we need more housing.

Absolutely, there is no question about that.

But what we need is affordable housing, and the for-profit market under capitalism is not interested in producing that.

So there's no point in holding our breath to that someday the for-profit market will make housing affordable.

As a matter of fact, Mike Rosenblum of the Seattle Times has already said, and I'm quoting him because I want to quote a non-socialist who has said that It is imaginary thinking, mythical thinking to think that rents will come back down because that has never happened.

What is happening is real estate speculators getting a better return on their investment, building luxury units, and by luxury I mean not necessarily high quality, I mean they may or may not be, but what I mean is expensive units, units that are out of the reach of ordinary working people.

Seattle has been the construction crane capital of the world, and during that time, rents have gone down.

And the MHA payments that this legislation will require of developers will be available to build publicly affordable housing, yes, so some publicly affordable housing will be the result of this MHA, but nowhere at a scale sufficient to address the massive need, and not to mention that there is no accounting, there is no statistical accounting of market-available affordable homes that are going to be lost in the same process.

And again, to be precise, market-available affordable housing is going to be lost, MHA or not MHA, because of the for-profit market.

It is not because or despite MHA, it is because of the for-profit market.

And to the extent that MHA is tied to the for-profit market, it has the same limitations and failures.

The regional affordable housing task force recommendations that will be voted on in today's meeting show that 156,000 affordable homes are needed to meet the city meet the need countywide And the need is 244,000 affordable homes by 2040. This is an official study by King County.

The couple hundred each year built by Seattle will literally never solve the problem.

The problem will keep increasing in size, working people will keep getting displaced, and Seattle will continue to be a place where only rich people can live.

And that is why we need massive policy, you know, and bold, bold policy fights like rent control and taxing big business to have a massive expansion of social housing, which is publicly owned, permanently affordable housing, so that people, working families no longer have to remain at the whim of for-profit developers.

And so I think that, you know, when we look at every piece of evidence, it shows that MHA is not far from the solution that we need.

I will be supporting it because I support density, but I want to be very clear.

Our real fight for our movement, if you are interested in fighting for affordable housing for yourselves and your neighbors and other working people, then we need to fight for rent control and social housing.

Affordable housing advocates are correct to warn that, and I just want to clarify, that for-profit market development is not going to solve the affordable housing crisis, but we should also, I don't agree with opposing the MHF zones either, because it's not, you know, it's not the main problem here.

The main problem is the for-profit market.

At least with the MHA, the developers will have to pay a small amount towards affordable housing.

And as I said, I want every affordable home we can win, and that is why I have and continue to support the MHA up zones.

But at the same time, it is crucial that we now, as affordable housing advocates, we avoid falling into the corporate trap of thinking that this is any kind of fundamental solution to the massive affordable housing crisis in Seattle.

focus on MHA has been used to disrupt the most impactful demands of the affordable housing movement, as I said, particularly social housing by taxing big businesses like Amazon and rent control.

And I can guarantee you, big business is not going to support either of those demands.

And you know what?

That's a rule of thumb.

If big business does not support it, you're probably on the right track to do something good for ordinary working people.

So I am glad to be voting yes on this legislation.

I vote yes because it will, you know, it is pro-density and I favor density.

And for working people, I vote yes because it will help raise some funds for affordable housing.

But I am also glad with this vote that I, and I hope that now affordable housing advocates can and will focus on the real fight, which is for rent control and for taxing big business for massively expanding social housing.

Thank you, Council Member Schwartz.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

So before I give my remarks, I just wanted to thank approximately 75% of the city of Seattle staff who worked on mandatory housing affordability legislation over the last four and a half years.

Really appreciate all of the work that our staff across the city family has contributed to getting us to this point today.

I hope that you all are proud of the work that you have done and And I hope that you hear from us up here that we're proud of the work that you have done and it's been a lot of time away from your own families and friends to dedicate yourself to this work.

So thank you so much to the entire city family for all of the work you have been putting into this and all the sacrifices you have made both in the legislative department and on the executive side to get us to this point.

So as I usually do in my tradition, I'd like for us to Thank the city staff with a round of applause for getting us this far.

Council President Harrell, colleagues, and members of the public, today is a significant day.

After four long years of legislative, legal, and community engagement processes, we have arrived at a place where I believe it is time for us to say yes to more density, yes to more affordable housing, and yes to more neighbors in 27 additional neighborhoods throughout the city of Seattle.

For some, this mandatory housing affordability legislation goes too far.

For others, this mandatory affordable housing legislation does not go far enough.

So let's chat a little bit about that dynamic.

Contrary to the name of the Select Committee on Citywide MHA, this legislation is not even close to citywide.

There are approximately 127 neighborhoods in the city of Seattle.

This legislation only relates to 27 of those 127 neighborhoods, impacting a total of only 6% of existing areas currently and strictly zoned as single-family home zones adjacent to existing urban villages.

That means that even with the passage of the mandatory housing affordability legislation, approximately 60% of the city of Seattle is still under the cloud of exclusionary zoning laws.

So let's talk a little bit about this city's history with exclusionary land use and zoning laws.

Across the country, including right here in Seattle, racially restrictive housing covenants became common in the 1920s.

Those covenants were challenged in the courts, and in 1926, our U.S.

Supreme Court put a stamp of approval, that's a stamp of approval, on those racially restrictive covenants.

Layered on top of these covenants were financial lending policies that prevented the sale of single-family homes located in a racially restricted area from being sold to a non-white person.

This is how redlining came to be in Seattle and across the country.

According to our own City of Seattle archives, a typical racially restrictive housing covenant reads as follows.

No person or persons of, insert your race, blood, lineage, or extraction, shall be permitted to occupy a portion of said property, except a domestic servant or servants who may actually, and in good faith, be employed by white occupants.

Check your deed of trust.

That language is still there.

The effect of these widespread, racially motivated practices is still felt in every major city across the country today.

In Seattle, it meant African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans were prohibited from living in neighborhoods outside of Southeast Seattle, the Central District, and the International District.

Meanwhile, neighborhoods like Ballard, Broadmoor, Green Lake, Laurelhurst, Magnolia, and Queen Anne were historically off-limits to people of color.

Twenty-two years after the Supreme Court said yes to racially restrictive housing covenants, in 1948, the Supreme Court held that these covenants were not enforceable.

It was not until 1968, an additional 20 years later, that the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed.

And that law prohibited, quote, discrimination of sale, rental, and financing of dwellings and other housing-related transactions based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, close quote.

This law officially made the use of racially restrictive covenants in housing illegal.

1968. And in 1968, the city of Seattle followed suit with the passage of the Seattle Open Housing Ordinance after a hard fought grassroots civil rights movement that spanned from 1959 to 1968. So let me be clear.

I'm not calling anyone a racist.

I am, however, calling out the reality that we are living in a city that has a history of implementing and preserving housing laws designed to keep certain people out of certain areas of the city.

As a policymaker, it is my duty to understand this history and to support legislation that will begin the process of dismantling exclusionary zoning laws that are historically rooted in the intention to exclude people who look like me from owning or living in a single-family home.

I acknowledge that these covenants are no longer enforceable, but the vestiges of segregated Seattle surround us.

The question is, what are we willing to do about it?

Seattle is home to some of the richest people in the world.

I don't have to name them by name.

You know them.

But that prosperity is not equally accessible to all.

Equitable access to home ownership and housing stability is not a reality for many in our city, and this is in part due to increasing income inequality.

And this makes it harder for everyday people to afford to live in the city they work in.

People are housing insecure or experiencing homelessness in part because we have a housing shortage crisis, especially for our residents that are in the extremely low-income category.

According to a National Low-Income Housing Coalition report released just last week profiling the housing gap in Washington, Across the state, 234,362 renter households are extremely low-income, and 71 percent of those renter households are severely cost-burdened.

Across the state, there's a shortage of 165,345 affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income renters.

Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue are experiencing the brunt of that shortage with an estimated shortage of 89,000 affordable and available rental homes.

Increasing development capacity is just one policy tool available to this City Council to address the housing gap for people across the income spectrum.

We must build more affordable housing and market rate housing to meet the demands of the people currently here and those that are still coming here.

This mandatory housing legislation is one tool in our toolbox to both incentivize the construction of affordable multifamily housing or capturing precious and limited dollars to provide our nonprofit housing developer community the tools they need to meet the demand to construct more affordable multifamily housing throughout our city and especially in neighborhoods of high opportunity.

This legislation, in my mind, does not destroy neighborhoods.

This legislation will enhance neighborhoods by creating a path for families, workers, students, and others to call our urban villages home.

I want the thousands of Jessicas, Marlins, Natashas, Laurens, and Matts to be able to call Seattle home.

For four years, we have listened to concerns regarding livability by taking into consideration issues related to bulk and scale consistent with the environmental laws and where it makes sense, bake those modifications into this proposal.

So what we have before us now is the policy that not only impacts a total of 6% of single family home zoning around the edges of existing urban villages and increases development capacity within those proposed boundaries.

This is good for Seattle.

In 2010, I rented a condo in the West Seattle Junction over in Village.

In 2011, I bought one of the few condos on the market, literally at the end of the block where I'd been renting for a year.

It seemed like a miracle.

It still seems like a miracle to me.

Would it be possible for me to own a small piece of the junction and call it my own?

I was thrilled then and I'm still thrilled today to be able to call Seattle and the Junction my home.

Every morning, I catch the 55 right in front of my condo building, or I can walk a block to catch the C-Line or the free shuttle to the water taxi.

I live within two blocks of multiple grocery stores, Safeway, QFC, Trader Joe's.

My husband, he's a service worker.

He works in a restaurant.

He serves expensive food to people in our neighborhood.

He makes minimum wage plus tips.

He walks three minutes to get to work and sometimes takes his bike.

We get to enjoy bike rides to Lincoln Park or down to Alki.

This is the Seattle that I want to see built.

It's the Seattle I believe we can build if we do it together.

It is the Seattle that I think is possible for far too few people.

And through this legislation, we take a step towards allowing this to be an opportunity for more people in our great city.

Delay, doing nothing, stopping development, All of those things take us backwards, not forward.

All of those options ask us to pretend as though growth will magically stop or delay.

Today, we have a chance to move, finally move, forward.

as one unified city and as a Seattle that can be for everyone who chooses to live here.

So today I look forward to voting yes for the mandatory housing affordability legislation.

And I wanna express my deep gratitude for the leadership of Council Member Johnson and for the sacrifices that your family has had to make in order to allow you to lead this city council and our entire city through what has been an exhaustive and intensive process to put forth in front of us, as your colleagues, an opportunity to correct some of those historic wrongs and to make space for new neighbors and new families.

So thank you so much, Council Member Johnson.

Thank you, Council Member Gonzalez.

Councilmember Warris.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll be brief.

I just want to say that I will be voting yes today, and I want to thank Councilmember Johnson for all the hard work.

A lot of these meetings have been contentious, difficult, emotional.

We've had them all over the city, and I'm glad that we're coming to a close.

And thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez, for reminding us of what our what the history was of how this city was deliberately planned.

And I'm glad we're moving forward in an enlightened way and in a good way.

I want to end this on one note with what Councilmember Johnson left us with when he asked us the question, who is this city for?

This city is for all of us.

Every one of us.

Long after I'm long gone and my kids who are 28 and 25, have children, and I have grandchildren.

That's what we're looking at today.

And is it perfect?

No.

Do we have more work to do?

You bet.

We'll learn more about our neighborhoods and the density and when light rail comes in.

But I just, again, want to say thank you, not only to staff, but again, to Council Member Johnson and all his hard work, the times that he's been in my office, the times I've been in his office, the times we talked about amendments.

And I can just say that I'm really proud of my city today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Johnson, would you like to close debate?

Thanks.

So I want to say how grateful I am, colleagues, for those very kind words.

This has been a labor of love for many of us, and I am proud to have helped shepherd this important piece of legislation across the finish line.

For me, the idea of MHA is a simple one.

We want to give everyone in Seattle access to neighborhoods with great parks, reliable transit, outstanding schools, green playgrounds, affordable housing, quality groceries, robust infrastructure, and a health and sustainable environment.

And passing MHA begins the job of creating that universal access for people throughout our city.

Two years ago, we passed some specific MHA up zones.

They're working.

They're generating thousands of new units.

And in 2018 alone, generated more than $13 million for affordable housing.

If we'd been able to implement the program a year earlier, we would have been generating $90 million for affordable housing, affordable housing that at a time when we desperately need it, where Steve Walker would desperately love to be able to fund more of the Bellwethers and the Mercies and the Capitol Hill housings of the world who want to be building more of our affordable housing units all throughout the city.

But now by taking the up zones citywide, we're starting the process of dismantling walls around our neighborhoods that have given exclusive groups sole access to the resource-rich communities around our city.

And as Council Member Gonzalez so eloquently reminded us, the hard data shows us that that privileged group has been predominantly white.

And the ugly history of redlining and racial segregation shows that that exclusionary approach was sometimes intentional.

It's out of sync with Seattle's values.

And so I think this is a citywide upzone for citywide equity.

Yard signs around our town say that we're a welcoming city and we don't support walls.

Well, zoning is both a metaphorical and a literal wall around our communities.

And today we begin to take those walls down.

Given the broad consensus we've reached on MHA, it's clear to me the council's poised to create even more citywide equality.

Cities such as Minneapolis are already eliminating their exclusionary zoning altogether and our city needs to take a look at that policy.

As the council member who shepherded this legislation across the Council finish line.

It's my sincere hope that today's vote is a vote not just to embrace growth and a proactive housing policy, but a policy that's intent on undoing barriers to universal equity, a policy that's intent on allowing more and much more housing for everybody in our city.

Throughout this process, we've talked about allowing more housing in Seattle's transit-rich neighborhoods, in our asset-rich neighborhoods, and in our resource-rich neighborhoods.

But today, by passing this legislation, we're recognizing that there's something more important than transit-rich neighborhoods and resource-rich neighborhoods.

It's housing-rich neighborhoods.

The only way for us to create that universal access to housing is by building a housing-rich city.

And that means allowing a wider variety of housing types, such as townhouses and mid-rise condos and low-rise buildings.

Buildings that are known as missing middle housing can really help ensure that Seattle values, like inclusion, don't ever go missing.

So let's simply stop talking about moving people to transit-rich or resource-rich neighborhoods and talk instead about giving people housing-rich neighborhoods.

Because a housing-rich city is a city that welcomes multifamily housing, not a city that's wary of it.

A housing-rich city is a city that supports multifamily development, not a city that segregates it.

A housing-rich city is a city that shares its neighborhoods, not a city that sequesters its neighborhoods.

And mandatory housing affordability is the first step in establishing a housing-rich Seattle, and I believe a housing-rich Seattle is a just Seattle.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilman Johnson.

Okay, I think we are ready to vote.

Please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 119444 as amended.

Bagshaw.

Aye.

Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Wow, look at that.

Please read agenda item number five the short title Council bill one one nine four four five relating to land use and zoning amending chapter twenty three point thirty two the Salem's for code at page twenty eight at the official land use map to rezone land in the Northgate urban center the committee recommends the bill pass

Council Member Johnson.

Thank you.

This would rezone land to implement MHA on a TOD site in the Northgate neighborhood.

There is one technical amendment that's necessary, which updates the base code language to reflect changes to the land use code made in the bill that we just adopted.

This amendment is shown in attachment F of the central staff memo.

So I would move to amend Council Bill 119445 by substituting version two for version 1B as presented on the agenda.

Moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 1194445 by the substitution described by Council Member Johnson.

Any questions?

All those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed vote no.

The ayes have it.

It is amended.

Council Member Johnson.

I have nothing to add.

Any comments before we take vote on this agenda item number five as amended?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Bankshaw, aye.

Gonzales, aye.

Herbold, aye.

Johnson, aye.

Juarez, aye.

Mosqueda, aye.

O'Brien, aye.

Siwat, aye.

President Harrell, aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read agenda item number six.

The report of the city council agenda item six resolution 31870 calling for additional measures by the city and its partners that complement mandatory housing affordability implementation to promote livability and equitable development of mitigated displacement and address challenges and opportunities raised by community members during the MHA public engagement process.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you.

Throughout all of our zoning processes of the last couple years to implement the mandatory housing affordability program, we've traditionally adopted a companion resolution that identifies additional work that the council would like to have city staff, city departments work on.

This is the companion resolution for the citywide MHA program.

There was one amendment to incorporate minor additions requested by council members after the resolution was introduced.

They're summarized in the central staff memo and shown in attachment G to that memo.

They add a reference to childcare, request further analysis of zoning anomalies and zoning artifacts, including example parcels, and request further analysis of the proposed density increases within the U district.

This is also the place where many of my colleagues who have unfortunately not been allowed to include proposed amendments for individual parcels inside the base legislation, this is the resolution where those suggestions live.

I think about affordable housing opportunities, for example, in Council Member O'Brien's district, which we've talked about at length, where a Boys and Girls Club is interested in redeveloping to allow for more affordable housing on top, but because they're outside of an urban village, They were not studied in this environmental impact statement for our previous legislation.

This resolution calls on that property as well as dozens of other properties around the city to continue to be analyzed by the planning department so that they can be included in future legislation.

So without further ado, I'd move to amend resolution 31870 by substituting version 6 for version 5.A and by substituting version 2 for version 1 of attachment 1.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, this is just for the amendment.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the resolutions described by Council Member Johnson.

All those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed vote no.

The amendment is passed.

Council Member Johnson, anything to add?

I have nothing to add.

Any comments on this resolution before we take vote?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you Mr. President.

I just want to say thanks to the chair again for his work with our office to make some of the amendments.

We're really excited about some of the language that we were able to include in the companion resolution to not only recognize but prioritize and include communities most at risk of displacement in thinking through how we do implementation and how we do next steps.

Again echoing what we said earlier, recognizing that MHA is one element of how we will make sure that we're creating more affordable housing.

There's a few pieces, there's actually three that I'd just like to highlight, and again, thank him for his work with our office to get these included.

One is we're calling for an increased enrollment in the property tax relief program for seniors and individuals with disabilities, so that those homeowners can have additional relief.

Currently, we only have about one third of those who are qualified for the program actually enrolled in King County.

We know we can do better.

I'm interested in working with the city and the county assessor's office to help increase enrollment in that program.

The second thing we worked on is to include language specifically to enhance our community priorities and ensure that new development includes elements such as childcare, art, and cultural space.

This is one of the issues, and I'm looking at our friends in Beacon Hill, where we heard repeatedly how challenging it was to include, for example, art on the outside, on the facade, of the Roberto Maesta Plaza as we create new buildings that are intended to be for not just houses, but for community space and plazas and green areas.

We want to make sure that we're listening to the community and how we incorporate some of the ideas for how to truly create place and create a sense of neighborhood.

And then the last thing is I'm excited about some of the work that we're going to be doing that's mentioned in the resolution around community preference and affirmative marketing to ensure that long-time community members in areas in high risk of displacement are prioritized for building more homes.

I think we've all said it, and I'll repeat again, creating additional housing is a key element to helping to address displacement.

We also want to make sure that as new housing is created, as those affordable units go online, those who've been in the neighborhood have the first chance to get back in.

and through the community preference policies that our friends at the office of housing have been working on for a while with community partners.

We're really excited about amping that up.

So thank you to the chair for his work with our office and getting some of those pieces in.

Thank you, Council Member Esqueda.

Could we have an amended resolution?

Would anyone like to speak on it?

Council Member Herbold.

I would as well.

Thank you.

Some items at this resolution.

commits the city to work on, which I really appreciate.

Again, a commitment to carry out a variety of initiatives identified to address displacement, especially focused in neighborhoods of having a high risk of displacement in the growth and equity analysis, prioritizing investment in neighborhoods with high displacement risk and neighborhoods where fees were generated, and also to create more family-sized housing.

We also, in this resolution, signal our intent to evaluate the enforcement of Ordinance 124861, passed with former Council Member Burgess' leadership.

This is an ordinance that requires owners of certain low-income housing to notify the City of the proposed sale of building.

This is an ordinance that has been It's been on the books for a while, and I'm eager to work with the Office of Housing to look at how we can actually enforce it so we can get some of these properties into community ownership so that we can have community-driven development.

We're also interested in looking at expanding this ordinance beyond the scope.

of multifamily housing.

Folks in the Morgan Junction in particular are interested in using this ordinance or successor ordinance to create a pilot to incentivize owners of property to make that property available to groups like Homestead Community Land Trust to encourage entry-level homeownership opportunities.

In addition, this resolution highlights our intent to develop and implement strategies to support and incubate small independent businesses.

And as it relates specifically to some of the district-wide issues, I just want to highlight a couple.

For Admiral, we're asking the Office of Planning and Community Development to update neighborhood design guidelines to address transitions between zones along California Ave.

In the Morgan Junction, in addition to the affordable housing pilot that I mentioned earlier, OPCD has requested to collaborate with community stakeholders to determine the conditions for a pedestrian zone.

And in regards to the West Seattle Junction, we're highlighting the community's interest to begin working with OPCD on community planning in conjunction with the future light rail station.

OPCD has committed to begin background work in 2019 and planning in earnest in 2020, and the community is eager to get started.

And then for Westwood, there is similarly a request of OPCD to bring South Delridge into the planning for the rest of Delridge.

South Delridge has been a neglected part of Delridge and we really need to make sure that we're integrating the planning for that part of the corridor with the rest of Delridge.

And then finally, for South Park, we're really interested in working on examining the question of whether or not South Park meets the criteria for urban village designation, as well as asking the Department of Neighborhoods to support community efforts to protect historic resources in the neighborhood.

And then finally, working with SDCI to see if there are specific public, not private, public views of the Duwamish River that should be protected within the bounds of the urban village.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Herbold.

Okay, any further questions before we vote on the resolution?

Okay, this is going to have to be moved, so I will move to adopt Resolution 31870 as amended.

Okay, all those in favor of adopting the resolution, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the resolution is adopted and the Chair will sign it.

Please read the report of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.

The report of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee, agenda item seven, appointment 1266, reappointment of Michael B. Garrett as member of the LGBTQ Commission for term to October 31st, 2020. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Mr. Garrett has over 35 years of experience in health care, specifically with a focus on disability programs.

His priority focus for the LGBTQ Commission is access to health care for the LGBT community.

He has co-parented as an adult child who identifies as LGBTQ, and his goal as a commission member is to provide insights and representation of the LGBTQ specifically for parents and elders.

Thank you very much.

Any comments or questions?

Those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Please read the report of the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.

The report of the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee, Agenda Item 8, Council Bill 119476, relating to the Pike Place Market Authorizing Renewal of the agreement with the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, commonly known as the Hilt Lakata Agreement, for a term of 10 years.

Committee recommends the bill pass.

Councilmember Bekshaw.

Thank you very much and after all of what we've been going through the last couple of hours I've got four items.

We'll try to get through them quickly.

The first is the Hilt Lakata agreement that it comes up every ten years.

It lays out the rules and regulations and stipulations regarding use and priority of the Pike Place market space and at our committee last Wednesday I was very impressed.

Mary Bacarella was there.

She's the executive director of the market, as well as her staff, as well as a couple of vendors who talked about just how well the process went.

They spent a good portion of the last year discussing the process, the new agreement, and it was very clear that the Groups had worked together, and there was much more positivity than there was 10 years ago.

So I want to say thanks to all.

And finally, thanks to Kenny Pittman of our Office of Intergovernment Relations, and Lish Whitson on our central staff, who helped shepherd this ordinance through.

So we recommend adoption of this renewal.

Very good.

Any other questions or comments?

Just one sec here.

Okay, please call the roll on the pass to the bill.

Shaw.

Aye.

Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passed and the chair was silent.

Please read the next agenda item.

You can read the short title.

Agenda item 9, Council Bill 119478, amending ordinance 125724, which adopted the 2019 budget, include the 2018 through 2020 for capital improvement program.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

This ordinance makes a number of technical corrections to our adopted 2019 budget and reconciles department and the CBO financial systems as CBO launches the new system that will help us have departments talking to each other more closely.

It's going to increase appropriations for the 2019 budget by $2,073,000.

$2,000,000 of this is a technical correction.

It's not like we're changing the revenue, but it applied appropriation authority consistent with the council's adoption of Green Sheet 10-8-A-1.

So, the remaining $73,000 appropriation increase is going to be due to an accounting correction, and it's what they call a double appropriation.

The $73,000 is moved from the general fund to the arts and culture fund associated with council budget actions, and then there's a $2,000 decrease in REIT funding from Parks Project, which was all part of the executive's $10 million funding swap.

So, we move adoption of Council Bill 119478.

Very good, any questions or comments?

If not, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Beg Shaw.

Aye.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Bill passed and the chair will sign it.

Please read the short title of the next agenda item.

Agenda item 10, Council Bill 119479, amending ordinance 125724, which adopted the 2019 budget, including the 2019 through 2024 capital improvement program.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you, so this council bill one one nine four seven nine would reconcile the 2019-2020 adopted budget with the 2018 fourth quarter supplemental budget the ordinance updates CIP project allocations and CIP project pages and adds new CIP projects adopted as part of the fourth quarter supplemental and And that supplemental adoption ordinance was 125739. And we recommend adoption of Council Bill 119479.

Any questions or comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Begshaw.

Aye.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Bill passed and the Chair will sign it.

Please read the next agenda item.

Agenda item 11, resolution 31869, revising resolution 31849, which endorsed a budget for the city of Seattle for 2020 by substituting a new attachment aid that corrects technical omissions and errors.

Committee recommends the resolution be adopted.

This resolution continues to make a number of technical corrections to the endorsed 2020 budget and it will make the following projected appropriation changes.

First, a technical correction to reflect future double appropriations of $50,000 from the general fund.

to arts and culture fund associated with council budget actions and a $175,000 reduction in the fix-it first budget summary level of the REIT 2 capital projects.

I know you're excited about this.

I do want to say thank you to Council Member Gonzalez once again for hanging in there with me and again as I mentioned this morning that we were very pleased with Lisa Lisa Kaye's work.

Thank you.

I know things got a little complicated, but we got through it just fine So in recognition of all that we recommend adoption of resolution three one eight six nine very good any questions or comments Okay, those in favor of adopting the resolution, please vote aye aye those opposed vote No, the motion carries and the resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it please read the report of the full City Council and

I report the City Council agenda item 12 resolution 31868 relating to the City Council confirmation and reconfirmation of city department heads.

Describing the steps that the City Council intends to follow outlining materials that should be submitted to the City Council prior to and as part of the nomination.

Describing general criteria that the Council intends to consider when evaluating the search process for an appointment and department head candidates and superseding resolution 30962. Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I'd like to move to adopt Resolution 31868. Second.

Moved and seconded.

Would you like to speak to it?

Yes.

Before I do, Mr. President, I'd like to actually amend Resolution 31868 by substituting Version 9 for Version 4B, which has been handed out.

Moved and seconded to amend it, as described by Council Member Scata.

Any questions just on the amendment?

All those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed vote no.

Okay, the resolution has been amended.

Mr. President, I just want to double check with the clerk.

Do I need to say 4A?

Because it said 4B here.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I think we did that correctly.

Let me get back on my script here.

I'd also like to request the council rules be suspended to allow consideration of an additional amendment to this resolution.

The amendment has been distributed but was sent after noon deadline, so this is a formality.

So just one moment here.

You know punch-drunk this time of the day so so Should we suspend the rules okay?

Let's just spin the rules if there's no objection to have some explanation of what we're trying to do here at this resolution and that I'm sorry so just for the viewing public the the sum of the language would did not meet our 12 o'clock deadline and we are suspending that rule if there's no objection to allow for the consideration of that language that did not meet our 12 o'clock deadline and so Councilmember Muscata perhaps you could talk about what we're trying to do with this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. President.

As you will see in Amendment 1 that's been handed out, there are literally nine additional words that we're adding.

We're just including the words the city of Seattle in front of employees.

And we're including language that says, with other relevant information such as.

This is just clarifying language, a small technical change that was helpful for the reader's perspective.

And we thought that it was a helpful amendment from the team providing feedback.

Very good.

Do you want me to speak to the underlying bill, Mr. President?

Yes, why don't you speak to it?

It's actually...

Okay, so let's adopt the amendment first.

Let's do that.

This is fun.

Okay, let's adopt the amendment first.

So the amendment has been described.

All those in favor of adopting the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

Okay, the amendment is adopted.

Go ahead, Council Member Esqueda.

Thank you, Mr. President.

As we discussed over the last two weeks, there's been a number of individuals that we've heard from that have come forward and really have brought up some legitimate concerns, questions, and asked us to consider the process that we're using at the City Council level for considering potential nominations.

Thanks to Councilmember Sawant for hosting a number of meetings where individuals had the chance to come forward and raise questions about process.

It really underscored for a number of us on council the desire to make sure that moving forward there was a clear and robust understanding of what the council's expectations are when it comes to new nominees for leading our incredible departments.

I want to reiterate what I've said over the last few weeks, that this is not a substitute or does not specifically pertain to the conversation regarding HSD or Human Services Department.

In fact, it is about a larger conversation, a desire to make sure that we have a clear and transparent process, that we clearly set out our understanding of what council will consider and what desires to consider in evaluating nominees from the executive for future department heads.

The resolution in front of you formalizes a process and formalizes conversations that many council members and the executive expect when putting forward nominations.

And it also concretizes some of the desires that we've heard from silence breakers, from members of the labor unions who've been involved in conversations about how they want to have a seat at the table for new director discussions.

It includes ideas and feedback that we heard from members of the change team and other employees.

As we evolve and our country evolves, we begin to understand best practices a little bit better.

Traditionally, as we all know, having worked on the front line, managers are hired and they're put into place and employees are expected to serve those managers.

But today, I think we're leading by example.

We're showing that a best practice should include all parties at the table.

It should include making sure that the manager and the selection process is inclusive of individuals who have a direct impact on the lives of individuals they serve and who they work with.

The selection, confirmation, and re-confirmation process that's outlined in this resolution affords the city council and the public an opportunity to hear directly from the executive and the mayors in the future goals and visions for department heads, as well as the desired qualifications, experiences, accomplishment, leadership, concerns, or other qualities that the department head needs to sort of outline for us or that the process should outline for us as the council considers these nominations.

The resolution before us helps council better understand the process that the mayor will use and the engagement sessions that will be held and really specifically ask whether the racial equity toolkit and a racial equity analysis was used and who had a seat at the table.

I'm really excited that this has been drafted together.

Again, I understand that our conversations are separate, but I think that the conversation that we have had in the past few months has really underscored the desire for a more transparent, inclusive, and actually just a greater understanding of the background and the inclusion of folks at the table.

So I'm excited that you see in front of you a few changes that came directly from council members and our community.

If I may, Mr. President, I just want to read through four small changes.

Please do, Council Member Esqueda.

In section 1a you will see the amendment clarifies that this resolution outlines the council's expectations and sets forth a more collaborative process from the onset Thank You councilmember Herbold for your work on that section 2a Highlights that we are desiring an assessment of the nominees commitment to racial equity as we all Continue to underscore that the racial equity toolkit and our commitment to that is more than just words on a piece of paper We want this to be a living document that we continue to see reiterated in every decision that the council makes.

In section 3M we add in a review of employee complaints resolved in the employee's favor.

This is something that we really wanted to see highlighted from the silence breakers themselves who said that we'd love to see if there was any concerns in the past but also we wanted to include if any corrective action has been taken and the nominee has participated in various trainings that would also be important as we know correction and corrective behavior is critical as well.

In Section 5, we exclude the appointments and confirmations from a handful of departments, for example, Seattle Police Department, noting that we already have some processes and procedures in place that are outlined in statute, and we have a certain procedure around those appointments that this resolution should not supersede.

Thank you to Councilmember Gonzalez for raising that.

So as you can tell, this resolution has been incredibly collaboratively drafted and right up to the last minute by including additional amendments.

Thanks to all of you for your diligent work to get us amendments early.

I know that we tried to include as many as possible.

I want to thank Amelia for your work in helping to make sure that we had this on time and Jeff Sims and my staff, Sejal Parikh, for their work to get all the amendments in place.

Looking forward to concurrence on this.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Any other comments?

Quick point.

Councilmember Bakeshaw.

Thank you.

And Council Member Mosqueda, thank you for listening to everybody on this.

I know you've picked up many of our recommendations and also work closely with the mayor's office.

And I also acknowledge to the mayor that she wants to be able to do her work under the charter.

We do our work.

We got a lot to do here, but you've set the tone of saying what it is we're looking for.

And I want to acknowledge that you have not at any point been in a position where you're telling the mayor what to do, but you're indicating that this is what we're looking at.

We want to make sure that as somebody is selected, that we have an opportunity to get this information in advance.

And your focus on racial equity is terrific.

So thank you for all your work.

Very good.

Any other comments before we take the vote?

We're good.

Councilman Schwartz.

Thank you, President Harrell.

I support this resolution which states expectations for an inclusive candidate search for City of Seattle Department Directors in the future.

It is obviously a response, as Council Member Skater said, to the shameful disregard the mayor showed human services employees and impacted communities, including vulnerable homeless community members themselves, when she nominated Jason Johnson to be the permanent director of the Human Services Department and then continue to systematically ignore the overwhelming voices that we were hearing.

As has been acknowledged, this resolution is not about the current issue of the Human Services Director appointment and will do nothing to address that issue.

And that's why it is important to point out that While this resolution is correct in many respects, it's about next time and it does not provide an excuse for elected officials failing to represent their constituents this time in the case of the current Human Services Director appointment, which has been quite controversial.

This resolution makes many requests that I fully agree with about how the mayor should make appointments in the future.

But the question that comes to mind is, does the mayor really need the council to recommend she talk to impacted communities before choosing an important department head?

And that just seems obtuse on her part, if that is indeed the case.

And what will council members do in the future if the mayor does not take into account the opinions of the impacted communities?

Because at this moment, the views of the impacted communities are not being taken into account.

So by passing this resolution, will council members do it in the future?

And if they were going to do it in the future, then why don't they do it now?

I mean, I have this entire...

a logical conundrum in my brain that if council members are going to vote for this resolution for the future, then why wouldn't they do it at this moment?

I really think that this that community members should watch for this hypocrisy from council members who will all vote yes on this resolution about the future and at the same time prove that they have no interest in actually following it because they're disregarding all of its principles when it becomes a concrete question such as the human services director appointment and I should congratulate Council Members O'Brien and Mosqueda for voting with me on the resolution that I had brought forward, which said that the mayor should take this nomination back, which has been opposed by a significant proportion of the community, and should really go through a search that will include race and social justice questions and include the impacted communities.

So I vote yes on this resolution, but Ordinary people and City of Seattle employees who are watching this and who will be watching this later this week will have to speak up as courageously as the human services workers have spoken up in order to make sure that these resolutions are not simply in the abstract world, but are followed through by elected officials.

Any other comments on the resolution before we take vote?

Okay.

So, those in favor of adopting Resolution 31868 as amended, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The resolution is adopted and the Chair will sign it.

Please read the next agenda item.

For adoption of other resolutions, Agenda Item 13, Resolution 31871, endorsing the final report and recommendations of the Regional Affordable Housing Task Force.

Council Member Johnson.

Final one, colleagues.

This resolution endorses about 18 months with the work that I was your designee for.

The Regional Affordable Housing Task Force has some incredible statistics and incredible opportunities in there for us to contemplate room for improvement.

But given that we're now on hour three, I won't belabor you with those statistics and just ask you to take a read through.

I will say it does set an ambitious goal of building 244,000 net new units of affordable housing by 2040 with a requisite share goal of 8,800 units a year over the next five years in order to meet our fair share of that goal.

I believe that our action earlier today with mandatory housing affordability is one of the critical ways that we would continue to meet our fair share of that 8,800 unit per year goal.

Similar resolutions are going to be adopted by the county and Sound Cities Association.

What started as a sort of small idea to implement affordable housing targets in our comprehensive plans morphed into something bigger, bolder, and better.

So I encourage your support for Resolution 31871.

Thank you, Councilman Johnson.

Any comments or questions?

If not, I'll move this.

Councilman Mosqueda?

I'm really proud to co-sponsor this with Councilmember Johnson.

This resolution looks forward to future collaboration with our regional partners We know that it's timely as well given our conversations today on MHA We applaud the incredible work it took to get to this point but the boundaries of the city do not define the housing crisis in this region and as we look for additional solutions and hopefully additional revenue as well as well as I'm looking forward to outlining what our local partners can do through the Regional Affordable Housing Task Force recommendations to make sure that other cities around this region pursue policy changes that achieve greater impacts by doing so in harmony with the City of Seattle.

We are taking some important steps today, but in order for us to truly address this regional housing crisis, we need a collaborative approach to work on the solutions that can create the housing, the density, and the affordability to truly create an inclusive region.

Obviously, this is relying on not just funding from the state and federal partners, which at the federal level will most likely continue to not materialize, but we also need to look at smart land use zoning and Housing policies as were outlined in our legislative agenda to ensure local cities are working towards the same solution So excited to co-sponsor this and look forward to future collaboration in our region Thank You councilmember skater any other comments before we take vote Everybody good.

Okay I'll have to move this.

I move to adopt resolution 3 1 8 7 1 as It's been moved and seconded that the resolution be adopted.

Those in favor of adopting the resolution please vote aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

Is there any further business to come before the council?

Councilmember Bagshaw.

Thank you I'd like to be excused on April 1st.

It's been moved and seconded that Councilmember Bagshaw be excused on April 1st.

Any comments?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Councilmember Sawant.

I also move to be excused on April 1st.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that Council Member Swant be excused on April 1st.

Any questions?

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, no.

Council Member Swant is excused.

I would like to say before we adjourn, I want to thank Council Member Juarez for your services, pro tem, present.

We deeply appreciate it.

I heard you.

I heard you were outstanding.

Okay, it's been a long day.

Everyone have a great rest of the afternoon and we stand adjourned.

Ha ha ha!