Seattle City Council Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee 8/11/21

The August 11, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It is 9.31 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Vice Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Thank you, I will alert the committee when more of our colleagues sign in.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of the City of Seattle, every committee meeting we start, we begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional lands of indigenous people here.

So let me begin with the land acknowledgement and we see that Council Member Lewis has joined us now.

We are on the traditional land and ancestral land of the first people of this region, past and present, represented in a number of tribes and as urban natives, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people of this land.

We start with this acknowledgement to recognize the fact that we are guests on this land and should steward ourselves, steward our work and our land as such as guests.

This is not intended to be a checklist.

It doesn't give us a passport to proceed however we desire.

This is a reminder of the head of every meeting that we need to steward our work as guests as our time here is short.

So with that, we have two items on today's agenda, and Council Member Mosqueda, Vice Chair Mosqueda has also joined us now.

Thank you, good morning.

We have two items on today's agenda, a public hearing discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120121, which adopts interim regulations for downtown storefronts, and a briefing on Council Bill 120153, which updates standards for small lots in Belltown.

Our next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will be Wednesday, September 8th, starting at 9.30 a.m.

Before we begin, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

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

Before we begin, I ask that everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time while it remains the strong intent to have public comment regularly included On meeting agendas, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate the public comment period at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 10 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the Council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak and would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the Council's website.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call the speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt if you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item in which you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are remaining of the allotted time.

Once the speaker hears the chime, we ask you please wrap up your public comments.

Speakers do not end their public comments by the end of the allotted time.

The speaker's microphone will be muted after 10 seconds to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on today's agenda.

There is a separate public hearing for item one, council bill 120121, which adopts interim regulations for downtown storefronts.

If you wish to speak about this item, please sign up for the appropriate public hearing.

The public comment period is now open and we have one speaker signed up today on council bill.

Let me just confirm that 120153, Updating the stumps.

Great.

So public comment is now open.

We have one public commenter, Megan Cruz.

Good morning, Megan.

You've got two minutes.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm commenting.

This is Megan Cruz and I'm commenting today on CB 120153, the bill to establish alternative development standards for small lots in the downtown mixed residential zones.

And you might predict what I have to say, but I hope you'll consider it.

As it currently stands, this bill creates environmental and human health consequences that needs to still be thoroughly vetted and studied for conditional uses.

That issue is the loss of light to adjacent buildings and neighborhood streets.

Current building code provides for graduated upper level setbacks exactly because they provide these things, things people need for their physical and mental health.

In traditional construction zones, just a few blocks away, new tower proposals already mimic box construction designs in order to maximize their ROI.

They have no problem blocking 75 to 99% of light to neighbors in adjacent buildings.

I live in a building such as next to such a proposal where half the people in our building and one third in another residential building will be severely impacted.

And then there's the environmental impacts.

SDCI reports downtown residential construction is now at 95% of the capacity projected in the last major comp plan update.

That means we really haven't studied the impacts of more density, but we have seen the evidence.

The heat map the city recently helped produce shows downtown is in an extreme danger heat zone equivalent only to the County's industrial areas.

And this is due to its dense development and lack of tree coverage.

By allowing every small downtown lot to now achieve maximum density of 145 to even 280 feet, it will not produce a livable, resilient downtown.

It will do the opposite.

Currently, this plan trades monetary gain without protections for human and environmental health, or might I add, providing affordable housing.

Please send this bill back to make sure it does all these things.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

Clerk, can you confirm or IT, can you confirm we have no more public registrants?

There are no more public comment registrants.

Thank you, there are no more public comment registrants and seeing as we have no additional speakers remotely present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

Our first item of business today is a public hearing discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120121, which adopts interim regulations for the downtown storefronts.

Mr. Ahn, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Agenda item one, Council Bill 120121, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, adopting interim provisions to facilitate occupancy of street level spaces downtown during the COVID-19 civil emergency.

Thank you.

We're joined by presenters from our central staff as well as from city departments to answer questions that council members may have.

Mr. Freeman, would you like to kick us off with an overview of the legislation and amendments?

And then I understand that SDCI and OPCD have some slides responding to council members questions from the last meeting.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Cato Freeman, Council Central staff.

I'll just briefly remind the committee what Council Bill 120121 would do and then preview for potential amendments.

So, as the committee will recall, Council Bill 120121 would modify downtown street level use standards.

There's a policy in the comprehensive plan and urban design policy that calls for street level uses to generate pedestrian interest, encourage pedestrian activity, and strengthen connection between functional areas downtown.

How is that implemented?

That's implemented among other ways through street level use development standards that prescribe activating street level uses.

So CB120121 would expand the list of uses that are authorized as street level uses on an interim basis, so up to one year.

It would be enacted under authority in the Growth Management Act, RCW 3670A390, that allows local governments to put in place so-called interim development controls or moratoria.

These are interim development controls.

Proposed additional uses would include food processing and craft work, accessory spaces like lobbies and intermediary areas to downtown residential towers and lodging uses.

and other activating street level uses that otherwise would not be allowed under current regulations.

The bill would also authorize the SDCI director to permit through a type one decision, an administrative decision, so a decision not subject to public comment, notice or appeal.

Any kind of use that meets a couple of criteria increases pedestrian activity and also increases the range of goods and services downtown.

It would reserve to the D.O.N. director and the Pioneer Square Preservation Board the authority to make decisions about uses in Pioneer Square.

in the Pioneer Square Special Review District.

It would also allow uses established through the bill to be maintained as existing non-conforming uses as long as that use is around.

So that makes, you know, obviously entities that want to take advantage of the revised development standards would need to enter into leases.

And so it makes sense to not have those uses expire when the regulations expire.

It would exempt owners of buildings who have participated in bonus programs like the city mandatory housing affordability program or other regulatory programs that preceded MHA.

It would exempt them from additional payments under those bonus programs.

And finally, it would establish a work program for council's consideration of permanent changes, which is a requirement of authorizing legislation under 3670A390, so as an interim control.

There are four amendments proposed by committee members, one by the chair and three by Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Strauss' proposed amendment is largely a housekeeping amendment.

It would modify the findings to reflect the current state of pandemic restrictions and coronavirus spread, and also modify a section that presumed that the council would hold a public hearing after action on the ordinance.

Council member Lewis has three substantive amendments.

He has an amendment that would expand the area where the interim controls apply to the Seattle mixed South Lake Union zone except for Valley Street.

Um, so that's the area more or less across from Lake Union Park.

I would also make some corresponding changes to the findings to support that change.

Council Member Lewis's second amendment would add office with limited frontage and light manufacturing as uses that would qualify as interim street level uses.

The amendment would also remove a proposed limitation on street frontage for accessory uses like lobby space.

And there's a definition of light manufacturing that I can go into when the committee takes up this proposed amendment.

It's not a new definition, it's what's currently in the code.

And finally, Council Member Lewis's third amendment would authorize the DON director to make administrative decisions about authorizing and conditioning uses at the street level in Pioneer Square.

So those are the potential uses.

And I think OPCD and STCI have a presentation that responds to some questions and requests for information from the last committee meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

I see Magda with us and Director Karen Dongo with us.

Either – and Mike.

Good morning, Mike.

Who should I pass it to?

Mr. Podolsky?

Magda?

I can say a couple words and then pass to Magda, who has a presentation to share with us.

So we've had a couple of really good, productive work sessions and conversations in consideration of the amendments.

that were just put on the table.

So we'll, the presentation deck is to address kind of those issues and considerations, and then I'd want to answer any questions that folks have.

So Magda, you should go ahead and jump into it.

Thank you, Rico.

So as Rico mentioned, a lot of this information we've put together in response to the, that was requested last time.

Just as a brief reminder of the kind of pertinent changes that we are hoping to pursue, and a reminder from last time, that this is really just one approach to a need a shared need in really filling these currently vacant storefronts downtown.

And so with this code change, it's one approach.

It would be temporary for 12 months and then remain in perpetuity.

And this is a slide that we showed last time, which is based on the area that we were originally proposing.

This next slide is a comparison showing the area, including South Lake Union.

And so we just wanted to offer a bit of information in terms of context.

Within South Lake Union, the uses where the land use code restricts the uses is much more limited.

And also there was a community process, the urban design framework that really laid out in looking where to require street level uses and what types of uses should be located.

So those are predominantly located along the half blocks facing Westlake as well as Valley.

And also one point of information, the latest data from DSA, shows that the more active uses within South Lake Union are bouncing back, which is good to see.

Another consideration that came up being proposed is the office at street use, at street level.

And so I wanna just pull some additional information to share in that There is currently a vacancy and there's expected to remain above 10% with office use downtown until 2024. And as Mike explained last time, one of the key differences between some of these uses and where we're drawing them from, which is the neighborhood business districts, and the uses downtown, there is a difference in context.

So as we all know, downtown in South Lake Union, there's a variety of office spaces.

And so that's why we originally did not include that within the proposal.

With that, I will...

hand it over to Mike to explain a little bit more about the uses and to do a walkthrough of some of the information that we have.

So we showed this slide last time.

It's the proposed supplemental uses that, as Magda mentioned, are drawn largely from the neighborhood business districts.

Let's look at the next slide, please.

At the last meeting, Council Member Strauss asked us to prepare a crosswalk that compares the different use allowances.

So on the left-hand side of this table is the column of downtown uses that are currently allowed.

And as Ketel pointed out, are exempt from floor area limits and various incentive zoning programs.

In the middle is the more expansive use of things that are allowed at street level in the neighborhood business districts.

Highlighted in yellow are some of the uses, are the uses that we borrowed from this list to propose to use to expand what's allowed downtown.

And then on the far right.

I'm sorry.

Okay, I'll continue.

Should I continue?

Are we good?

Okay.

Yeah, I apologize.

I'm sorry about that.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

It was Councilor Juarez here.

My internet is, something's going on.

So you guys kept freezing.

I thought it was you guys, but it's my internet.

I apologize.

There was a, uh, there, there was a, some sort of zoom interruption there.

Sorry about that.

Oh, okay.

There was, it looks like crash for all of us.

It happened for me as well.

Okay, good.

I'm not the only knucklehead.

Great.

We're in the same boat today.

Should I rewind a little bit?

How much did it?

Yeah, I missed.

Yeah, I missed.

You might want to go back about two minutes or so.

Uh huh.

So the table we're looking at is the crosswalk of uses.

On the far left-hand side is what's currently allowed downtown at street level.

And as Ketil mentioned, these are exempt from floor area limits and the various incentive zoning programs.

The middle column are the list of uses allowed in the business districts.

And the ones that are highlighted in yellow are the ones that we've borrowed to expand the downtown list.

And then on the right, is the cumulative list of what we're proposing to add to downtown includes the yellow lists, the yellow uses, as well as some additional ones that were suggested by the Downtown Seattle Association and other constituents downtown, as well as borrowed from some other parts of the code.

So the proposal is composed of the yellow in the middle and the green.

And that would expand the list of uses that are allowed at street level downtown, and we're proposing that we treat the entire list the same, the existing plus the supplemental uses with respect to how that floor area exemption applies so that, you know, you can pick and choose amongst the broader range of lists as a method to help fill the vacancies that can't be filled with the more restricted set of uses that's allowed downtown.

And I should point out that, you know, the way that exemption applies, it's just where the street-level uses are required.

So it's 75% of the buildings that face the streets that are mapped on that map that Magda showed earlier.

So really, the exemption and the ability to not make an MHA payment, for example, is limited to that space within a building.

And then within that space, currently, you can pick and choose from any of the menu items here on the left-hand column and not have to make any sort of payment and be exempt from the floor area limits.

All we're proposing to do is to expand that list.

So within that same space, within those buildings, you have more to choose from and thereby hopefully fewer vacancies and more opportunities for active uses and drawing people to downtown and more lively sidewalks.

I'll stop there to see if there are any questions.

Thanks, Mike.

I do have a number of questions, although I think that it's more just the clarity of this table.

The one thing that jumps out to me is horticulture uses.

I know in Ballard, when we had horticulture uses, horticultural uses, agricultural uses in Ballard, we had to pass the Ballard cow law.

So when cows wandered south of 65th, those farmers would get fined.

Can you help me understand what's going on with horticultural uses in downtown?

Well, horticultural uses are similar to, like it's a nursery would be the most common form that that would take.

And the thought here was that we allow that in another provision in the code that's intended to help fill vacant and underused sites, sometimes construction projects when the economy is not good, which has been a while, but it can happen so that you end up with a vacant site And horticultural uses was thought to be something that would be kind of interesting and productive to put in there.

And one of the things that came up was the flower stalls that sell fresh cut flowers at the Pike Place Market and then also dried flowers during the wintertime, they might be able to avail themselves of a space in one of these vacancies and actually grow the plants themselves there and then take them over to the market for sale or to do it right here.

So I think a nursery is the most common outcome here.

Maybe not likely to be the most commonly used, but again, we borrowed it from another program that has had some success in the past.

Mike, I froze there.

Are we all back?

I'm not experiencing the freeze, but you probably missed everything I said.

No, I caught it all.

Oh, you did, okay.

Yep, with the flowers, growing them, tech places, yep, copy.

I don't have any further questions at this time.

Colleagues?

Seeing none, do we have more comments from departments on this bill?

Or you've got more slides, please take it away.

One thing to point out on this slide was that, you know, beyond the land use legislation, which would provide more flexibility for filling the vacancies, there are some programmatic things that are being done, and some of them more broadly.

There's been a lot of collaboration with the Office of Economic Development and the federal monies that are available to help people in the recovery, as well as, you know, others in the various neighborhoods that are affected.

I wanted to just highlight the permit support at SDCI.

We are looking at expediting permits, starting with downtown, but also expanding out into the neighborhood business districts and providing for a permit facilitator who can help understand emergent needs, you know, conduct some survey work, prepare language materials, and be ready to facilitate small businesses getting into the spaces and getting the permits that they need.

from SDCI as well as others like the Public Health Agency.

So there's an expansive effort here that includes more than just the land use code changes that are proposed.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Mike.

That's what we wanted to cover and happy to answer questions.

Anything else to add?

Colleagues, any questions?

I have a question, Mr. Chair, and I apologize.

I was trying to print all this out, but I gave up.

Just quickly, it's an interim provision for amending, correct, to expand the uses for downtown?

And you mentioned business and going to other neighborhoods.

Do you have to be an official BIA?

to take advantage of the expansion of filling in storefront spaces.

Because, you know, we have those kind of spaces along Aurora Lake City Way and Northgate.

Sure.

Magda, can you go back to the crosswalk?

I was looking at that.

I just texted my staff to make sure that they paid attention to page six.

Yeah.

So the list in downtown is much more limited than the list that's allowed in the neighborhood business districts outside of downtown.

And that would be one of the things that we'd like to cure with this legislation.

The business districts already enjoy the much broader list.

And we don't expect that the land use code is the impediment there.

It's probably other non land use code things.

Right, but it isn't an official business.

It's just a business district, right?

Our self proclaimed business district.

Yeah, this list applies where the zoning is neighborhood commercial with the pedestrian designation.

Sorry.

Okay, so it's zoning driven.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Excellent question, Council Member Juarez.

Okay.

Colleagues, other questions?

We will have more discussion after the public hearing.

Seeing no further questions at this time, we will move into the public hearing.

Before we open the remote public hearing, I would again ask that everyone please be patient.

As we continue to learn and operate this system in real time and navigate through the inevitable growing pains, we are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process and adding features that allow for additional means of public participation in our council meetings.

I will moderate the public hearing in the following manner.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on one speaker at a time and in the order in which they registered on the council's website if you have not yet registered to speak and would like to.

You can sign up before the end of public hearing by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov forward slash council.

The link is also on today's agenda.

Once I call on the speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt if you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item in which you're addressing.

As a reminder, the public comment should relate to the comprehensive plan docketing, excuse me, for Let me get the, should be in relation to council bill 120121, which adopts interim regulations for the downtown storefronts.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once you hear the chime, we ask you please begin wrapping up your public comments.

If speakers do not end their public comments at the end of the allotted time provided, speakers microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on today's agenda.

The public hearing on Council Bill 120121 is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Confirming with Sun, there are no public hearing registrants currently present.

Is that correct?

Confirmed there are no public hearing registrants.

Thank you.

Being that there is not a member of the public remotely present for the public hearing on Council Bill 120121, public hearing is now closed.

So council members, given this is where we now have to make a decision at the last public at the last meeting regarding this bill.

We had asked for a fair amount of information, Vice Chair Mosqueda I know that you had asked for specific data.

I want to check to see, colleagues, your comfort level.

Because we are having a public hearing on the same day as voting on a bill, possibly, we would need to suspend the rules.

Colleagues, if you do not feel comfortable having received the appropriate data that you feel is necessary to move forward with this bill, we can vote on the amendments today and hold the bill for the next committee meeting, or I'd just like to take this moment to gauge people's interest, or we can make that decision at the end of this bill.

Council Member Lewis, I see you have your hand raised.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would have no objection to suspending the rules and voting on final passage of the bill today, but respect the decision of the chair either way in terms of how you want to approach this.

Okay, and I know Council Member Lewis, I did have some outstanding questions on one of your amendments that I'd love to talk to you about.

Vice Chair Mosqueda, I know that you had questions.

Do you feel that they have been answered at this time?

Or yes, I'm seeing thumbs up.

Wonderful, well then, given- I don't know, I may have some issues.

I don't know.

I don't know if I'm feeling it, thinking about it.

If Councilor McCabe is in, I'm in too.

I think we just do it, get it done.

Oh, okay.

Great.

So I'd like to ask, let's see.

So in that case, I would move to suspend the rules and allow us to vote on the same day as a public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to suspend the rules to allow a vote on the same day as a public hearing.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

And Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor and none opposed.

Thanks.

It's been moved and seconded to suspend the rules to allow a vote on the same day as public hearing and the motion carries.

Let's walk through the amendments first.

I am proposing the first amendment, which makes technical corrections and reflects the current state of pandemic.

Mr. Freeman, is there anything that you'd like to add?

I appreciated your overview at the head of the meeting.

No, would you like me to share these amendments as we go through?

Yes, please.

If you sent around that great summary table.

Yeah, but just for the benefit of those folks who may be watching, I can put them up on the screen.

So this is Council Member Strauss' proposed amendment.

It would make some modifications to the findings to reflect the current state of affairs with respect to the pandemic and how long it's been going on.

The bill as introduced also assumed that the council would hold a public hearing after a full council action, which was an option under RCW 3678-390.

Obviously the hearing was held today.

So this just conforms the proposed bill to what has actually happened.

Great, thank you.

Colleagues, do you have any questions on Amendment 1?

Hearing no questions, I move to amend Council Bill 120121 as shown in the Straus Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Second.

been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 120121 as shown in Strauss Amendment 1. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Motion carries.

Council Member Lewis, we can now move on to your first amendment, Lewis amendment number two.

Would you like Mr. Freeman?

Yeah, Council Member Lewis, take it away and then Mr. Freeman.

Yeah, well, I'll go ahead and let maybe Keetle queue it up for something that I'm happy to make a month after that and formally move the amendment.

Sounds great.

So this is Council Member Lewis's amendment.

Number one is the amendment that would expand the area where the interim controls would apply to the Seattle mix South Lake Union zone.

It makes an exception for Valley Street across from Lake, which is sort of across from Lake Union Park.

And it also makes some corresponding changes to the findings to reflect information from the South Lake Union chamber.

And Mr. Freeman, this is not the amendment that takes up office space.

Is that correct?

That's the next amendment.

That's correct.

Great.

Council Member Lewis, anything to add here?

Colleagues, any questions after Council Member Lewis?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Strauss, and thanks, Ketel, for queuing that up.

One thing I do want to put a fine point on here is, while it's true that the South Lake Union neighborhood has potentially not felt the brunt of the COVID pandemic as much as some of the other core neighborhoods in the center of the city and downtown.

It certainly is the case that the ecosystem, the economic ecosystem in South Lake Union has been very much disrupted by extensive stay-at-home working patterns for large South Lake Union business tenants.

You know, Amazon, of course, looms larger than ever.

having a really big influx of employees with disposable income in the neighborhood on a daily basis to go to lunch, to patronize other businesses in the neighborhood.

So while it is not a neighborhood that is in quite as dire straits as storefronts in downtown, there is interest from the South Lake Union Chamber.

and the Downtown Seattle Association and other stakeholders in putting some flexibility into this neighborhood to have some of these innovative opportunities to put different uses into some of these storefronts.

Certainly this looms larger than ever with delayed return to work schedules from a lot of large employers in South Lake Union.

Of course, Amazon recently announced they're delaying their return to work until 2022, meaning that we could see throughout the fall.

expanded street level vacancy and continued hardship for businesses in this area and an interest in attracting new and dynamic tendencies that can withstand this extended period of touch and go return to work.

And of course, the surging of a Delta variant.

I do wanna highlight one important carve out that my office put into this amendment after consultation with the department, and that was to carve out some of this more flexible office or street level use on Valley Street, which is going to be the frontage that faces the park.

You know, there is a very strong public interest in making sure that that use is going to be a dynamic use that is facing the park, that is really engaging with that open space, and that is really providing a lot of spillover out into the sidewalk and activating those streets.

So making sure that we aren't putting, you know, a use like a maker space or light industrial or something in that frontage facing out towards the park is an important policy concern.

So that is why Valley is carved out of this proposal to make sure that we have a dynamic use in that storefront instead of something that's more static.

But beyond that, it is certainly taking the other considerations for the flexibility in the downtown neighborhood and expanding them to this corridor.

So I would just emphasize that this is an amendment that was strongly requested by stakeholders in the South Lake Union neighborhood, including property owners, the Chamber of Commerce, community members.

So it is something that has been requested by the neighborhood and something that we should adopt today.

So with that, I don't have anything else to add, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

I appreciate the background and explanation.

This is an amendment that I will be supporting this amendment.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Otherwise, I'll bring it to a vote.

Thank you.

I have a quick point.

And this is why I asked the question during the presentation because of these amendments.

You don't have to be specifically carved out in this legislation to enjoy the expansion, the interim, expansion of uses for empty storefront.

That's why I asked if, you know, if it's all controlled, if your area is already zoned for business, then you would be able to enjoy the benefits of this expansion for storefronts for other uses, right?

No one is barred if they're not in this legislation.

Like, I don't have to like do an amendment and say, put in Lake City Way, put in Northgate, put in Aurora.

I'm guessing, I understand Council Member Lewis, his constituency, and I get it, and downtown, I understand.

So I just wanna make sure I'm confirming that I don't have to like have 12 amendments for 12 neighborhoods that have businesses that are zoned for business to enjoy this, correct?

I believe that's correct.

Mr. Freeman, can you correct me if I'm wrong with this next statement, which is that it's my understanding that downtown and South Lake Union have more restrictive street level uses than other business districts.

And so Lake City should be fine.

Ballarat's gonna be fine.

New District's fine.

I just didn't want people to, cause I'm getting some texts saying, well, why aren't, you know, and so I understand if they're more restrictive downtown and it's South Lake Union because of zoning, I understand that why you would have the need for that.

I just don't want the viewing public to say, well, if we're not in there, that means that we can't use our storefronts and take advantage of this great legislation.

So I just wanted that clarification.

And Mr. Chair, I got a couple of texts from people saying that the amendments were not on Legistar.

So why they're texting me, I don't know.

And not you, I'm not the clerk, but they're saying that these amendments are not on Legistar.

So I just thought I'd share that with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm pulling up Legistar right now to check myself.

Happy to share the info.

I am hearing now that they were not circulated in time to be published, and so we will, they were sent to council members yesterday, and we will make sure to update Legistar with the appropriate information.

Apologies.

And they will also be added to the agenda for after this meeting.

It's also helpful why Mr. Freeman is showing them on the screen.

So, Council Member, I see Vice Chair Mosqueda, and then I'll go with you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank Council Member Juarez for raising that point as well.

I also didn't ask a question during the presentation because during the time between your last meeting and this meeting, I had a similar question, if you'll recall, specific to childcare.

So for example, like we're talking about various neighborhoods here, but I was also worried that if we didn't explicitly call out childcare as being a permissible use, then somehow we were missing an opportunity there.

But similarly, just want to confirm that we are making additive recommendations adjustments here the baseline what it was allowable will continue so if you don't see something like child care it's because it's already a permissible use and that's why i didn't bring forward an amendment so i just wanted folks to know that as well this is not an all-inclusive of only what you can do these are additive pieces and as council member juarez was saying can be done across the city but we want to make sure that downtown these areas that had more and now south lake the union these areas that had more restricted uses can take advantage of this legislation and have some additional flexibility, but child care was already one of the allowable uses downtown and across our city.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Child care is an allowable use downtown and in South Lake Union.

Outside of downtown and South Lake Union, so in pedestrian zones and neighborhood areas, it's not actually unauthorized street level use.

So that's something that could be the subject of further consideration by the council, perhaps with the upcoming land use code omnibus bill if the council wants to make that policy change.

I'm sorry.

Can I just check on that something then?

Um, so I was not allowed to do that amendment because the title here didn't permit it.

Is that why this

That's right.

So the title here does not cover 2347, which is sort of the commercial chapter that includes child care.

I can sort of tell you anecdotally what I understand from conversations with my colleagues who have worked in depth in street level use issues.

I'm thinking of Allie here.

At least outside of downtown, childcare was not included in part because, not to restrict sort of where those uses could be located, but because it's often difficult for childcare providers to meet the transparency standards with a level of comfort that they need to for their clients.

So I'll give you a couple of examples just to see if it helps.

In the Chinook building, there's childcare at the street level.

Chinook building is the King County Administration building.

A lot of the windows there are blocked to keep people from looking in at the kids because that's what the parents of those children expect.

So there are some ways in which childcare is not necessarily a great street level use.

It's not to say it's impossible.

Obviously, there are places around town where their childcare is at the street level, but that was a consideration in excluding childcare from a street level uses and the update to the commercial code from a few years ago.

Council Member Mosqueda, does that answer your questions for the time being?

I'm seeing a head nod.

Yes, thank you.

I may have some more work to do on this with you, Council Member Strauss.

Happy to partner with you.

In the future on other legislation.

Let's do it.

I love it.

Council Member Lewis, do you have another comment or would you like to wrap this up?

Final comments before we take a vote?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.

We can wrap it up.

The thing I initially raised my hand for was just to make some clarifications about the special status of downtown and South Lake Union that necessitate these changes and differentiate it from neighborhood business districts.

And I think that has been well covered by yourself and central staff.

So I'm ready just to vote on this.

Thank you.

So if, let's see, I move to amend Council Bill 120121 as shown in a Lewis amendment.

Is it Lewis Amendment 2 or Lewis Amendment 1?

This is Lewis Amendment 2. This is Lewis Amendment 1 actually that we're on here.

So Amendment 2, Lewis Amendment 1. So I move to amend Council Bill 120121 as shown in Amendment 1, amendment two as shown in the Lewis amendment one.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to amend council bill 120121 as shown in Lewis amendment one.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Council Member Lewis, we can now move on to your second amendment.

I will just share at the outset that I do have a slight concern about this amendment, specifically about office space.

I know that my office reached out to your office.

They were only able to respond during the committee, so I have not had time to fully digest that information.

So I'll just start with that.

That is the very narrow section, which I still have questions.

Everything else looks good to me.

So Mr. Freeman, Council Member Lewis, would you like to take it away?

Yeah, I'll jump in first just to give an overview.

And maybe I can kind of make my arguments pitching for this once it's been moved in front of us.

Well, I'll just make all my remarks now, actually.

So this amendment would expand some of the new uses for street level use to include light industrial and office space in the downtown and South Lake Union neighborhoods, again, for South Lake Union with the carve out of Valley, which would not benefit from these expansions.

So, you know, I understand some of the concerns that have been expressed by the department regarding the lack of dynamism, particularly from the office space use as something that's allowed at street level.

This is something that's come from talking to a lot of stakeholders in the downtown core about the fact that they are seeing market demand for, in some cases, having office space as a street level use.

I understand that the public policy advantages are more limited versus more dynamic street level uses that will help to activate the neighborhood more than office space, which is a fairly static use.

I do think that there are advantages if a given street level space is gonna be office space or nothing.

Certainly if office space is competing with other more dynamic uses, I would hope that more dynamic uses would be given the opportunity to be a tenant in that space and to use it.

But if there are circumstances, like I think particularly about the block on 3rd Avenue where there's the old Cress IGA and TJ Maxx, it would certainly be more desirable to have office space as an activation in a location like that than to have nothing activating that space and for it to remain vacant because a different tenant can't be attracted.

So, you know, ultimately I came down on putting this amendment forward to give the option to some of our building owners in the downtown core who might have trouble attracting a more dynamic tenant and then places remain vacant for a long, long period of time.

And it's of course, in all of our interest to make sure that we are utilizing all of the space in our downtown core to to the highest degree and having as low a rate of vacancy as possible.

So for that, I do think that both of these options, expanding and allowing both of these options in addition to some of the other things that we're discussing would be desirable.

Just to touch briefly on the light manufacturing component, one of the existing uses that is being permitted in the base legislation is like craft work, essentially.

So it would be like manufacturing that occurs predominantly by hand.

This would expand to include light industrial, which allows some degree of machine assisted process, but to the point where it obviously isn't as noisy or disruptive or dirty as heavy industrial would be.

So it basically allows, and, you know, Ketel maybe could queue up some better examples, but it would allow for sort of, you know, like maybe like makerspaces or like 3D printing kind of things that, that are machine assisted, but that aren't, you know, manufacturing entirely by hand, like maybe like a, like a leather goods, you know, um, place.

So, uh, with that, I think I'll turn it over to Ketel to maybe provide a little bit more technical, uh, feedback on this and then open it up for more discussion.

Thank you, Council Member.

Mr. Freeman.

Sure.

I guess there are a few things that I may add here.

Another thing that this amendment would do is it would also remove a limitation on accessory uses, uses accessory to lodging and residential uses, a street frontage limitation.

So I just want to make sure that the committee is aware of that proposed change.

With respect to the office use proposed here with a street frontage limitation, a 30-foot street frontage limitation, this is a development standard that is true for, is present in pedestrian zones outside of downtown.

It is an authorized street-level use outside of downtown.

As has been mentioned, downtown is more restrictive.

Outside of downtown and pedestrian-designated zones and commercial areas, office use is allowed with this 30-foot street-level frontage limitation.

With respect to light manufacturing, what it is, light manufacturing is an allowed use in most downtown zones already.

It's just not an allowed street level use.

There's a sort of a brief, the amendment sheet has a brief definition, and there are examples in the code which I'll go to here in just a minute, but a light manufacturing use is a manufacturing use typically having little or no potential for creating noise, smoke, dust, vibration, or other environmental impacts or pollution.

Examples given in the code include things such as production, assembly, finishing, and or packaging of articles from parts made at other locations.

So So we're finishing a product that is made of component parts that are manufactured elsewhere.

And the examples given in the code are things like assembly of clocks, electrical appliances, and medical equipment.

The production of finished household and office goods, so jewelry manufacturing, clothing or toy manufacturing, things like that, is another light manufacturing use.

So those are the types of uses that are light manufacturing.

I call that in the code.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Council Member Lewis, I'll signal to you, I have immense, I think that this is a smart amendment with the light manufacturing.

I'm fully supportive of that.

I think that's a good idea.

I'm still at this point agnostic on office space because I've not had the time to digest the information.

I might ask you just here on the record, real time, would you be open to holding this amendment for full council to digest that office space a little bit more?

Yeah, I think that Mr. Chair, if you want to spend a little bit more time grappling with this, I'm happy to hold this amendment for further along in the process, just so we could maybe go over some of this and make some of the members of the committee a little more comfortable with it.

I think that sounds fine.

Yeah, I think your example of IGA Crest is a good one.

I just want to make sure that, as you said as well, we have the most vibrant uses at the street level as possible.

And I think that your light manufacturing is a really smart move.

Colleagues, do you all have questions on the amendment right now?

I'll just weigh in that I agree with you, Mr. Chair.

I needed a little bit more time on the offices, provided that no more 30 feet.

I'm still kind of trying to figure that part out, but I don't have a problem with the light manufacturing, but I think it'd be a good idea just to, before we can get some more information, to walk it out to full council Monday.

That's great.

Seeing ahead now, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I will want to support Councilmember Lewis is a district council member.

I appreciate the outreach that he's done.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much.

So if this is gonna be discussed again at full council, I think some of the things that I'd love to hear more about are how this sort of conforms with the intent of the legislation as I see it, that would be trying to encourage more people to be interacting at these storefronts, to have a more pedestrian feel, to have a lot of activity on our streets.

I do worry about, storefronts that may be fully covered if it's manufacturing or just business offices that they usually do cover up those windows.

So those are some of the questions that I'd be looking into, Council Member Lewis.

Great, Council Member Lewis, take it away.

Yeah, and you know, I think Council Member Mosqueda's questions are good for queuing up a discussion at full council on this, particularly on the office space.

I mean, as I sort of went over a little bit in my initial remarks, I think that there are, frankly, from talking to downtown stakeholders, two things at play.

I mean, certainly one of them is we want to create a more dynamic environment where there's a lot of interaction street-level use.

But I think that there is, as I touched on, a secondary policy issue here that I think hasn't been addressed quite as forthrightly in the four corners of the legislation.

And frankly, I don't know that this legislation is necessarily designed to confront this as one of the primary purposes, but maybe as more of a tertiary purpose.

But as I alluded to earlier, there are some buildings that we just want to activate, period, in some respect, regardless of if the street level use is going to be dynamic or not, right?

I mean, there's buildings that, in the downtown corridor, where longstanding vacancies and no use of any type, even a static use, is sort of resulting in, you know, buildings becoming eyesores, buildings becoming targets of graffiti.

And the result of that from them not being activated is there is sort of a deteriorating effect to the broader block.

So in a case like that, even though office space isn't that dynamic use, it is still more desirable than nothing being at that location.

So figuring out a way to structure a policy, and this might be Maybe Keita, we could consult on this before full council.

But figuring out some way in some circumstances that office space can come in as kind of a last resort if no other use can be secured is sort of what my intention is.

And I know that this is more permissive than that.

This is sort of like letting the market decide and maybe that would result in an unintended consequence.

And I think that's what we're grappling with.

To pivot to the light manufacturing, though, Council Member Mosqueda, I do think light manufacturing, in some innovative cases, could have the potential to be an interesting street-level activation.

I mean, I think of things like, I know Council Member Strauss and I, in addition to other similarities that are perceived by the public on occasion between us, we also both have Filson briefcases.

And I think of the Filson factory in the Soto neighborhood, where it's not a street level activation, but it almost could be, where as you kind of go up the stairs to get into Filson, you can sort of look out and see their entire manufacturing area where they're putting together, you know, Filson briefcases and other things with their manufacturing workforce.

So I could see the potential of, you know, a tenant, you know, like Filson or something that moves into a space and there's sort of big, you know, windows that open out into the street where the public can kind of look in and watch the manufacturing process.

like I could see how something like that could have an interaction with the street level and create a more dynamic street level space.

So I think there could be some potential with the light industrial to spill out and have that kind of effect.

So I look forward to queuing this stuff again at full council and have no objection to holding the amendment until that time or tabling the amendment until that time.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

That was really well said.

And what I'm gonna ask colleagues, please convene with Council Member Lewis before Friday.

I'm gonna have Mr. Ahn walk the floor to double check that everyone's comfortable.

This is because Council President has made it very clear that she does not prefer amendments at full council.

And so I wanna make sure that if we bring an amendment to full council, that we do so.

In short order, you know, I think Councilmember Lewis your.

Your comments about Filson is correct.

As with Filson, as with this bill, you must have the best, gotta have the best.

And so one thing that comes to mind there is that we have an office space on Ballard Avenue that is used for office space on the street level.

And it has not always had the most active, vibrant storefront, and they have just partnered with the United Indians of all tribes to have their store in the space.

And so the office space, the architects share their store frontage with United Indians of all tribes to have their storefront there.

And it activates that front area and it allows for the office space.

So I think that there are some creative solutions that we can bring to that.

Colleagues, Seeing no further questions on this one, I'm gonna move us on.

Please make sure that you have your questions resolved by Friday and communicate with Mr. Ong.

Moving on, Council Member Lewis, would you like to speak to your third amendment, Lewis Amendment 3?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

So this amendment, well, I'll let Ketel go first on this amendment, and then I'll make some of my comments after central staff kind of cues it up.

Sure, so by way of reminder, there are a couple of different decision makers if this bill passes about what street level uses would be allowed.

There's the SDCI director who would be issuing tenant improvement permits and change of use permits potentially for most of downtown.

And then there is the Department of Neighborhoods director who has regulatory authority over use decisions and Pioneer Square.

Just also by way of reminder, the International District is not included in this legislation, so it is exempt.

So this proposed amendment, the Lewis Amendment 3, would authorize the director of D.O.N. to administratively make decisions about street level use dispensations through the bill.

It also limits some conditioning authority, so it takes away authority to limit to condition based on traffic, parking, and noise, because those are not strictly speaking, related to the scale and character of the pedestrian environment.

And it also allows office uses as an allowed street level use in Pioneer Square, subject to a percentage of the frontage for large blocks.

So that's what proposed amendment three would do.

And this amendment is informed in part by discussions with the Department of Neighborhoods.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

I'll pass this off to Council Member Lewis as the sponsor.

My question here, though, is does the conversation about office space from the last amendment bleed into this amendment?

I know you just mentioned that it would allow office space.

Yeah, I'll push that over to Ketel first and then jump in.

I think Ketel's better positioned to answer that question.

So I, you know, it's the it's I think it's sort of a question for you all.

Actually, I think I mean, it's there's sort of seems like the policy issue is should office be allowed as a street level use.

And if the answer to that is yes, then it seems like that may hold true for Pioneer Square and downtown unless they are distinguishable for some reason and And there may be different developments proposed in Pioneer Square that could benefit from office development at the street level or office development at the street level might have a deleterious effect in Pioneer Square.

I think Sarah Bells from the Department of Neighborhoods is here and her recommendation is reflected in part.

Maybe I shouldn't call it a recommendation, but there's a proposed modification to Council Member Lewis's original concept is reflected here, which is the percent street level frontage reduction or limitation.

Sarah, I don't know if there's anything you want to say about how you perceive this may play with development in Pioneer Square.

Yeah, no, consistent with your comment, the language there in Amendment 3 regarding street-level office uses in Pioneer Square, that was developed in response essentially to Amendment 2 and Council Member Lewis's interest in expanding office uses generally.

So it's not that the Department of Neighborhoods is necessarily advocating for expanded street-level office uses in Pioneer Square.

We just wanted to make sure if office uses were permitted, that there was some sort of, you know, maximum regulation that was applied.

And just to clarify, too, to jump in on this, Sarah and Ketel, Phil Kleisler, CoB, ESF-1430): Due to the unique setup of how the pioneer square neighborhood is constituted in the role of the Department of neighborhoods everything under this amendment would have this additional sort of.

Phil Kleisler, CoB, ESF-1430): administrative you know eight keeping the director of the Department of neighborhoods would hold in in granting administrative approval so it's a little distinct from our downtown neighborhood discussion, because there is.

Phil Kleisler, CoB, he or hes.: : There is still sort of this role where the Department of neighborhoods director, if he wanted to could withhold approval of certain things that if it was not conforming to.

Phil Kleisler, CoB, he or hes.: : You know, like what we want to see in the neighborhood is that the case.

Yeah, actually, Gina Nasham is on the phone or on the line, and I'm going to ask her to speak more directly to this because she's the one that coordinates the Pioneer Square Preservation Board within the Department of Neighborhoods.

And Gina, maybe you can speak a little bit to, you know, kind of what goes before the board at this point and what's handled administratively and how that may change over the next few months, depending on what happens with the emergency COVID protocols.

Right now, with the emergency legislation, I only review any use that is identified as a preferred use administratively, and any other change of use goes to the board for review.

Is there another part of your question that I didn't answer?

So under this legislation, the street level office pieces, the street level uses, that would be reviewed administratively by you and by Andres.

But there are other decisions that are made within the boundaries of the district that are made by the board.

It's not a fully administrative process right now.

And the pieces that are administrative would be subject to change once the emergency protocols are lifted.

Correct.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

And so, Mr Freeman, can you help me understand is what I'm hearing is that if Lewis amendment to office space passes, then that's what Amendment three is for or does Amendment three here have additional expansion?

Can you just make that?

Oh, yeah.

So that question clearly for the record.

Sure.

So Amendment three is specific to the decision making authority in Pioneer Square.

So this this office expansion would just apply in the Pioneer Square.

special review district.

It would not apply outside of Pioneer Square.

So Lewis Amendment 2, which expanded the list of uses to include office, is only applicable in those downtown zones that don't include Pioneer Square.

So that's mostly the Downtown Office Core 1, Downtown Retail Core.

It's pretty much everything that is north of Pioneer Square in the International District.

Is that clear, Council Member Strauss?

So this language in amendment three is specific to Pioneer Square.

It would not authorize office as a street level use outside of the Pioneer Square Special Review District.

And so the second part of the question for the record is, does this amendment provide other administrative decisions or is it just office space?

No, it would allow the, there's actually, there's a distinction here between Pioneer Square and the rest of downtown in this bill.

There is a limitation on the kinds of uses that can be approved in Pioneer Square.

They have to be, there's sort of broader authority for the DON director to approve uses, but they don't necessarily have to be the preferred uses that are identified, but they can't include uses that are not otherwise authorized in Pioneer Square.

The SDCI director, on the other hand, is not subject to that limitation.

So the SDCI director can approve uses at a, you know, through that type one decision at the street level that might not even be authorized by the zone, provided that they meet the test of providing different services and an activated street level.

So as drafted, there are already stronger limitations on approving street level uses in Pioneer Square than there is in the rest of downtown.

Okay.

Colleagues, do you have other questions?

I'm not sure that I support this amendment.

Generally, I guess I still have questions about office space.

So Council Member Lewis.

Right.

I mean, just to jump in on this one, Council Member Strauss, and maybe Ketel, I think Ketel did just kind of answer this, but maybe to put a finer point on it, I think that this amendment, this amendment just gives a little bit more power to the Department of Neighborhoods Director to move things along that would otherwise be subject to getting bogged down in a board approval process.

You know, I like there's still one thing that's sort of different, I think, from the conversation about making office use a broader use in the downtown and South Lake Union neighborhoods is that there is that kind of layer of administrative approval here from the Department of Neighborhoods director.

I would also note that in most business districts across the city, I mean, like we're getting bogged down a lot in like, you know, office use at the street level.

But in most business districts around the city, office use is an allowable street level use.

It's partly going back to our first conversation, why we're not discussing a need to amend urban village business district zoning requirements, for example.

So, I think it comes down to, Do we want to give the Department of Neighborhoods Director the ability to administratively approve used requests for street level office use in the Pioneer Square neighborhood?

Is the Pioneer Square neighborhood more like downtown or more like a neighborhood business district?

And, you know, I think that in some respects, Pioneer Square is an interesting intermediary neighborhood where it does have a lot of um, characteristics in common with downtown.

Obviously, it bleeds into the downtown neighborhood, but it also, in a way, shares a lot in common with, um, you know, urban village business district hubs.

So I think that we're just saying with this amendment and and I, you know, I would like to to pursue voting on this amendment today, if you're satisfied.

Mr. Chair, I do think that just to circle back on it, these are changes that were requested by Alliance for Pioneer Square and other Pioneer Square stakeholders to really try to get some more tenancy and activities in the neighborhood that has really suffered during COVID.

And I do think that some of the safeguards and protections that are in place and the diligence of the Department of Neighborhoods makes me feel confident that we'll have a vibrant Pioneer Square with these changes going forward.

And I think that we should vote on it today.

Thank you.

I see Council Member Juarez has questions.

Keetil, can you scroll down to see the final analysis box?

Yeah, I'm gonna have a problem with this and I'll tell you why.

Council Member Lewis, thank you for providing this.

And again, we didn't have a lot of this information.

I guess my concern is that I have the amendments labeled one, two, three, and four.

Amendments two, three, and four being yours.

So when I refer to that, that's what I'm referring to.

So we have agreed to pull back amendment number three, which is your amendment number two.

Um, and I believe this is just what I think, and I'm obviously we're open for this is why we have committee meetings and have discussion and transparency is, um, I think that your last amendment is legislatively at least connected to amendment your former amendment.

I think in order for the last amendment, the one that you have in front of us to make sense, we need to explore and pass the prior one.

And I'll tell you why, because I was looking at, because I didn't, you know, some of this, I just was just trying to catch up and get copies of this.

I have some concerns and I have some questions about giving the sole authority to Department of Neighborhoods to make administrative decisions and how those are appealable, what the scope would be and the length of what the timing would be if someone were to appeal.

I also just have some basic questions on whether it's 30 feet or 50 or the square footage.

Some of us just got this stuff at the last minute, so I'm trying to catch up.

I felt comfortable voting on the first amendment because I did get that one, and also the second one now that I had some things clarified.

But quite frankly, I don't think I can I don't want to abstain because I think you deserve a full conversation about this.

So I'm not inclined to vote if you want to vote today.

I'm not inclined to vote yes on your last amendment because I think it is connected to the one that you're holding for full council.

I know that the council president doesn't like it when we walk on amendments, but I would certainly support and have our office encourage the council president and our colleagues to allow you to do this, these last two, so we have some time with this.

Because I really agree with what you're doing here.

You want to reactivate all of this empty space, not only in Lake Union, but in downtown and other neighborhoods.

And it's a big lift, but I just wanna do it right and have the right questions.

And right now, I can't really quickly on the fly develop some halfway intelligent questions.

So I will leave it at that, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

I had started with the intention today to pass this bill out, seeing as it seems like we will have longer.

And then my second reaction was, let's send amendments to full council if we can keep the conversation short.

It does seem like there's more conversation to be had.

Council Member Lewis.

Yeah, so I am happy to give a little bit more time on this amendment as well.

I mean, I think for some of the reasons that I shared earlier, this amendment is distinct and separate from the other amendment we've tabled, but I'm happy to take a little bit more time having that conversation with members of the committee leading up to full council.

If we can sort of iron out some of those questions.

That amendment process might not be time consuming at full council.

So, you know, I think this has been a good opportunity to solicit feedback from the committee and tinker with these amendments a little bit to iron out some of the issues.

So I'm happy to also hold this one to take care of some of the confusion and then vote on it on Monday if the chair is okay with that.

Vice Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair.

I'll defer to your process and what you feel most comfortable with for today.

I did want to signal my support for this last amendment as well and appreciate the conversation.

But in case that helps with the future discussions that you all are thinking about either for today or Monday, um, appreciate this amendment being brought forward.

Thank you.

And so the sticky position in which I am in is that if we vote this bill out of committee, we cannot bring it back to committee to then make amendments on in the future.

And that is, so if we were to vote it out today, then that means that all of the questions have to be answered before this coming Monday, or we can hold the bill until September 8th and pass it out that day.

The reason that I had hoped to have it passed today is because September is going to be a very busy month in the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, and there's not a lot of extra time.

That said, from the conversation that we've had today, it's clear that there's more discussion that is needed on both of these amendments, because Council Member Lewis, you're coming from the right place, and these are good amendments.

We just need to make sure that they're finely crafted.

And just to put a finer point on it too, Council Member Strauss, I mean, it seems like the main contention from what I'm hearing is sort of this concern about street level office space as a potential use.

I mean, that seems to be the consistent issue between the two amendments.

So if that is somehow dealt with, I don't think there would be an issue pursuing both of these amendments at full council.

I'm not really sensing any other controversy surrounding these two amendments, but I guess I would just maybe ask for that feedback now in open session so when we go back to work with Ketel and my staff on this, we can kind of queue up everything that's a potential issue to committee members to make sure that if I think it would be helpful to have a quick amendment process.

If we do pursue this at full counsel, it is a quick and smooth amendment process.

Instead of something where some of these issues might get litigated again.

Obviously the street level office use is one thing.

If there is something else committee members want to flag to share those things.

And that might be better than than feeling like we're putting people in a tight spot to like vote on it today.

Not comfortably knowing all the implications.

Sure.

Great.

Thank you.

And customer wars.

Do you have a site you come off me?

No, I agree with what Councilmember Lewis is saying.

I don't I don't, I think it does go around street level offices and I don't, I don't think there's a big controversy.

I think a lot of this, we can just answer it.

You can just brief us offline and we'll be ready to go.

I don't see it as a, you know, just want to make sure I understand what I'm doing.

That's all.

That's it.

It's not, there's no big thing here.

It's just, you know, needed to get it sooner.

Get through some of these questions and the amendments that that was my main concern.

So, and I don't see a problem.

I don't see us going to some in depth.

Conversation at full council, so I agree with what council member.

Louis just shared.

Thank you.

Great, then Council Member Lewis, what I'm gonna ask is that we're gonna hold your two amendments, amendment three and four, or Lewis two and three, however you shall like to note them.

And please, let's work to make sure, and I'm gonna have Mr. Ahn follow up with everyone on Friday to make sure that we have a tight, we are all in agreement so that we don't have a long discussion at full council on Monday.

So at this time, my recommendation is to pass the bill as amended with amendments one and two, Strauss one and Lewis one to go to full council.

We will bring forward Lewis amendments two and three, maybe as just one amendment.

And there may be changes that occur to those amendments between here and there and all council members on this committee need to feel comfortable.

Otherwise we'll hold that bill until September.

Does that sound like a good game plan to everyone?

Seeing nods of yes, so I'm going to move to pass Council Bill 120121 as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

Mr. Ahn, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Pierson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Stroud?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries to pass Council Bill 120121 as amended.

Thank you for the discussion today and thank you Council Member Lewis for your amendments.

We will be back before full council on Monday for a vote.

Understanding we took a little bit more time with that last bill than expected, our next item of business is a briefing on Council Bill 120153. Mr. Ahn, will you please read the abbreviated title into the record?

Addendum 2, Council Bill 120153, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, adding a new section to the Seattle Municipal Code to provide alternative development standards for small lots located in downtown mixed residential zones.

Thank you.

And we are joined by the one and only Brennan Staley from the Office of Community Planning Development.

Brennan, would you like to take us away with what this bill will do?

Understanding, colleagues, this is just a briefing today.

We're not voting.

So cue up any questions that you have for our next committee meeting.

Thank you, Brennan.

Take it away.

Thank you.

Okay, so hopefully you should see this, the presentation.

So, I'm here to talk about some proposed changes in the DMR zones of North Belltown that are intended to help make it easier to develop on small lots.

So, the issue is that in these zones, North Belltown, they are really represent a great location.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, DMR, can you explain for the viewing public?

Downtown mixed residential zones, and we have a map, but it's about 30 blocks in the north part of Belltown.

So close to downtown, a lot of amenities, transit, etc.

But the challenge in building these areas is two things.

One, they have a height limit of 145 feet.

Once you get above 85 feet, you can no longer do wood construction.

You have to do steel and concrete, so it's more expensive.

And at the same time, we have a number of development standards there that require very complicated building shapes that make development impractical on small lots.

At the same time, there actually have been a number of advances in innovative construction that are making it much easier to build to these heights.

Things like modular construction, where you actually kind of build the boxes offsite and stack them.

On the left, the Emmons picture is a modular construction project in Belltown.

but also panelized construction, where you actually build a grid, usually out of metal, and then you have pre-made panels that you simply insert into it.

And on the right, 303 Battery and 47 and 7 are examples of that kind of panelized construction.

And so both of these types of construction actually have the possibility to help bring down costs and time and really could be very helpful in this particular setting of these DMR zones in Belltown.

It's especially good for heights that are above 85 feet and less than 160 feet and are very useful on small lots.

However, they also require building shapes that allow for stacking of units.

You can think of them kind of like lego pieces and you need to kind of be able to stack them up.

You can't cut your lego piece in half and so it needs a little bit more of that a simpler building shape.

And of course these types of constructions not only can make it faster but they can be more sustainable.

They use less materials to construct.

There are also local manufacturers that are building in great water use and you know, solar voltaic panels, so that they have a lot of opportunity there as well.

I should also point out that there's also another type, cross-laminated timber, that at this point is, people, we're not seeing people do that yet, but we think in the long-term this, that also could become another type of innovative construction that could be very useful in these types of areas as well.

It doesn't have the same issues of stacking, but again, would benefit from having a simpler shape.

So that's the context.

The intended goal of this legislation is simply to create more appropriate development standards for small lots in order to create more additional housing in Belltown generally, and then also to support these new types of innovative construction that can help bring down costs and meet our environmental goals.

So how do we develop this proposal?

We actually started this with initial conversations with builders in early 2019 that had these new types of innovative construction and were finding a lot of barriers in this area in particular.

We did outreach in the summer of 2019 to a number of local groups, Belltown Community Council, Belltown Business Association, Denny Triangle Neighborhood Association, the Downtown Seattle Association.

We also met with a couple local developers and some local property owners.

We then released an updated proposal as well as our SEPA, our State Environmental Policy Act Environmental Analysis in February of 2020. And then the project was put on hold due to the pandemic.

So it is a somewhat unique situation in that the proposal hasn't actually changed for more than a year, but it was put on hold obviously because of other priorities during that period.

So in terms of where this would apply, so again, this would apply in the downtown mixed residential zones of Belltown, where those that have the height limits of 145 feet.

You can see on this map, the areas in gray are the areas where this would apply.

That includes about 33 blocks in this northern portion.

In addition to being in those areas, the sites would have to be less than 14,500 square feet.

In Belltown, this was an area that was developed with lots about 6,400 square feet.

They were essentially kind of a larger than average single family lot.

And so it basically would be kind of what we call single lots or double lots.

So either kind of those one single family home lot or two of them put together.

So only those smaller lots where this would apply.

and the buildings would have to be at least 75% residential.

In these areas, almost all buildings are residential, so that is not a major limiting, but we don't want to encourage more office in these areas, we wanna encourage residential.

On the map, you can actually see highlighted in colors all the lots where this might be applicable.

The orange ones are these smaller single lots, and the blue ones are the larger double lots.

Again, so it's 24 individual sites in this area.

And we did do an analysis of what exists on those sites today.

We were especially worried about displacement.

And as we did an analysis, we found there's actually no residential uses of any kind on those sites.

And so we're not worried about residential displacement.

So these are primarily one-story commercial buildings.

Obviously, if they're demolished, that could result in some lower amount of commercial But generally in these areas, not all of them, people generally build retail on the first floor.

So it will obviously be potentially more expensive space, but not probably less of it.

But again, no residential buildings would be likely to be demolished because of this proposal.

And Brennan, do you know what is exactly existing on these current lots?

And maybe that would be helpful for the next committee meeting, only because you just zeroed in on something that's incredibly important, is that we need more residential space downtown.

The reason that downtown feels empty right now is because we have an overabundance of office space and an underabundance of residential.

And so bringing more people to live downtown is what will make make downtown thrive, and I think that this is one of those ways of doing this.

So you don't need to answer now.

You answered my question at the high level, which is that it's commercial.

We're not reducing residential to replace residential.

We're simply increasing residential.

And I think I heard you say it right before I jumped in.

Would storefronts be allowed on the first floor?

Yes, in basically all these areas you can do retail on the ground floor, and in some of the areas it's required to do retail on the ground floor.

Great.

Thank you.

So the proposal itself is basically the idea is to allow housing development on these small lots in the North Belltown.

That would be a slightly simpler shape.

And basically the idea is by having a slightly simpler shape, it allows for the stacking of units that would allow innovative construction techniques to be used and would make it much easier to develop on these small lots.

And that really is two things.

So basically we reduced the number of required upper level setbacks and currently you have to have two breaks where it gets smaller and we'd reduce that to one.

and we allow upper floors to be slightly larger while requiring lower floors to be slightly smaller.

so overall would not increase the size of the building, so floor area or height, it would simply allow for a simpler shape.

and i think it's important to note that The regulations we have here are really unique in the city of Seattle.

There are, other than one specific zone in south downtown, we don't usually require this kind of complicated wedding shape, so wedding cake shape, you might call it.

So this would really be making these standards much more similar to other parts of the city.

Something you just said, Brennan, that I want to highlight is that there's not a change to FAR, floor area ratio, or height, simply the shape.

Thank you.

And so I do have kind of four examples, just to kind of bring home what that means.

On the right here, we have what is probably the most extreme example, the small lot that already has Green Street setbacks.

And you can see just from the form how, again, it requires those two different breaks and it gets skinnier.

On the right, our proposal would reduce that to one break, that break would happen much lower to the ground.

Again, the bottom floors would be skinnier, the top floors would be a little bit wider.

This is one example.

I have another example of what this means on another single lot that doesn't have a green street.

This is going to be the majority of cases in Belltown.

You can see here where there isn't that green street setback, development tends to go to the street anyway.

the differences we're proposing really would only affect what generally would be in kind of a light well on the other side.

So you can see from the street, in most cases, the building would look exactly the same either way, but the light wells, which you can see kind of on the bottom half, would be different.

So it'd be a much easier shape to do, but it wouldn't affect, in most cases, what you see from the street.

I think it is also important to note, again, for green streets, we're only allowing those changes on the north side.

So overall, this should not have a significant difference either way on the amount of light that's hitting the street.

And also I really want to point out that, you know, again, on these existing rules, nobody is building these buildings today.

That is fundamentally the issue that they're so complicated that they're not, people aren't really able to build them.

So we don't actually, these kind of existing examples I'm showing you are, you know, totally theoretical because nobody feels they can build them today.

So really the purpose is mostly to allow development at all on these sites.

I also have two more examples on a double lot.

And again, as you can see how it is a simpler shape, more breaks.

And then on a double lot without a green street, again, similarly, you don't notice much change on most of the building, but the change really occurs on how it's spaced from the building next door.

So there's space going down to a lower level and it's more consistent.

Great.

Thank you, Brendan.

Colleagues, other questions for Brendan?

Vice Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, I think changing the code requirements so that it's easier to build makes all the sense in the world.

I don't think that most folks see a huge difference between one or two setbacks.

in the images that you shared, and if we can build more housing and storefronts, all the better.

I just want to confirm, though, even though this legislation would allow for different types and alternative building models, including modules, that doesn't preclude someone coming in from using a steel frame who's using union work on site from being able to build to these new heights and new setback accommodations.

Is that correct?

Yeah, thank you very much.

So one, it does not require a certain kind of construction, and I think any kind of construction would benefit from these changes.

I think innovative construction obviously is essentially not feasible under the current rules, but we're also not seeing any other kind of construction either.

So I think any kind of construction would benefit.

And I also want to point out that these are kind of optional standards.

So you'll continue to be able to develop under what's in the code, or you can use this if you prefer.

So, yes, this should kind of benefit kind of all types of construction.

Great.

Thank you, Brennan.

Any other questions there, Vice Chair?

Looking good.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

So I'm really excited about this proposal as someone who walks around the Belltown neighborhood on a very regular basis and sees a lot of those typically empty parking lots just kind of sitting there with potential for infill development that is currently not being utilized.

I think this is a great pro-density strategy.

I do also just want to briefly mention some of the potential climate benefits in being able to pursue, as was alluded to earlier, at a new scale and a new level and to incentivize in a bigger way cross-laminated timber construction as a more viable option in the Belltown neighborhood.

I think that it's really important that we continue to try to emphasize our built environment.

The use of building materials that we know have a demonstrably way lower carbon footprint, especially as we continue to see the truly dramatic impact that climate change is having on our region and the world, and especially with the summer unprecedented wildfires in the West.

And, you know, I appreciate having this conversation today because I feel like we as a committee have are moving forward a little bit on a new policy that has climate implications.

And like every morning where we can do that as a council and talk about that as a council, I think it's a good morning to continue to move the ball forward on ways we can be more sustainable and do our part to combat climate change.

And I certainly intend to follow up with some more ideas about how we might incentivize Um, CLT construction and some other, uh, lower carbon intensive, uh, building strategies.

But I think it starts with this proposal on this idea around small lot development, and some of these changes are the first step in that direction.

So I'm very excited about this.

Well said, Councilor Lewis.

colleagues.

Any other questions?

This will be back before our next committee before we take a vote.

Seeing as we have no other questions at this time, Brennan, thank you so much for this presentation.

We are looking forward to bringing this up before our committee on September 22nd.

We are finalizing the September schedule for both meetings now.

And so if we're able to move that up to September 8th, we'll do so.

Colleagues, September is going to be a busy month for this committee.

Just highlighting that now.

So Brennan, any other thoughts you'd like to share?

Really appreciated having you here this morning.

Thank you.

Have a good one.

Have a great day.

Colleagues, is there any other business before the committee?

Anything for the good of the order?

Seeing none, this concludes the Wednesday, August 11, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

As a reminder, our next committee meeting will be on September 8, starting at 9.30 AM.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.