Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee 92421

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Present.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

Before present.

Thank you.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of the City of Seattle.

We begin this committee meeting, as always, by acknowledging that we are on the traditional and ancestral lands of the first people of this region, past and present.

Represented in a number of tribes and as urban natives.

And we honor with gratitude the land itself and the people of this land.

We start with this land acknowledgement at each committee to recognize the fact that we are guests on this land and should steward our land and our process as such as guests.

This is not a checklist or a rote behavior.

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

We must instead take this moment to reflect that we must steward our work here as guests as our time on earth is short.

Thank you.

At today's committee, this is a special meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee because we had to reschedule our committee meeting from earlier this month to observe Rosh Hashanah.

We have six items on today's agenda.

The majority are items that were discussed in this past Wednesday's committee.

And we have one other item, which is the treat report, which we'll get to.

So of our six items today, we have a discussion and vote on council bill 120181, which adopts a regional transferable development rights program with Pearson Snohomish County.

Secondly, we have a discussion and vote on council bill 120155, which amends the comprehensive plan to change the name of single family areas to neighborhood residential areas.

We have a discussion and vote on council bill 120154, which makes several other annual amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Following that, we will have a discussion and vote on Council Bill 120149, which increases the maximum size limit for sports and recreational uses in industrial general two zones, and a briefing on public engagement plan for the comprehensive plan major update, and lastly, a briefing on the quarterly tree report from SDCI and OSC.

This is a long agenda, so I'm hopeful that we can move through some of these items quickly, as we have discussed them in the committee just two days ago.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is after council's budget process on Wednesday, December 8, 2021, beginning at 9.30 AM.

We may need to schedule special meetings during the budget process to consider a contract rezone in the state required timeline.

And 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 the items on today's agenda.

We will be providing, there are 14, 12 people signed up for public comment today.

To keep us within the 20 minutes of public comment, I'm gonna provide one minute to each individual to speak, especially in case others sign up as we are in public comment.

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 our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods 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.

public comment period for this meeting is up to 10 minutes.

Let's just extend it to 14 minutes at the outset and each speaker will be given one minute 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 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 by speaking by stating your name and the item in which you are addressing.

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

Once a speaker hears the chime and we ask that you please begin to wrap up your public comments.

If speakers do not end their public comments at the end of the allotted time provided, 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 comments, 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 the agenda.

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

For the record, I would also like to note that Councilmember Vice Chair Mosqueda has joined the meeting.

I will first give you an overview so everyone knows where on the list they are located.

Bringing this up now, we have Ray Dubicki, followed by Steve Zemke, Martha Baskin, Rebecca Schwartzman, Anna Pedroso, Michael Oxman, Erica Berg, Richard Ellison, David Mooring, Suzanne Grant, Woody Wheeler, and then a couple duplicates.

Those who are not present at this time are Martha Baskin, Anna Pedroso, and Erica Berg.

Martha, Anna, and Erica, you have received an email after you've signed up for public comment that gives you the instructions to call in.

If you are on the listen line, you're in the wrong place.

Please refer to the email in which you have received.

First up, we have Ray Dubicki, followed by Steve Zempke.

Ray, good afternoon.

I see you there.

Just press star six, not pound six.

You'll be able to take it away.

There you are.

Thank you, council member.

Thank you, committee.

I'm Ray Dubicki speaking on CB120149.

I get to advocate and write about industrial lands in and around Interbay.

Two concerns about the proposed bill, spot zoning and changing industrial uses.

First, I asked the committee to specifically discuss the rules of changing development standards.

Wednesday's meeting included a lot about how this process is not spot zoning, Could you tell the city a little bit more about what is actually happening?

When is it appropriate to change these development standards and where has the city done it before?

Second, the concern about how this facility fits into industrial interbay is very real.

If this was a 50,000 square foot LA fitness, we would all agree it doesn't fit.

Some of this conflict is in the contradictory statements of the last meeting.

Is this a general rule or will this activate the neighborhood and have That gets to the broadest picture.

I want the storm to have a world-class practice facility, but addressing concerns about litigation and delays will strengthen throughout the whole city's industrial lands.

Thank you, Ray.

Always great to hear from you.

Up next, we have Steve Zemke, followed by Martha Baskin.

Martha, you are not present at this time.

Rebecca Schwartzman follows Martha.

Good afternoon, Steve.

Steve Zemke, representing 3PAC.

I want to note that in the SDCI tree report, it talks about developing initial recommendations and identifying possible implementation updates, et cetera.

But what isn't there at all is a tree ordinance draft.

It then says to look in December as targeting to issue SIPA discussion recommendations.

That's known as a determination of non-significance.

You cannot do that.

without an actual ordinance before the public.

That is biasing the process and eliminating the public from being involved in the draft.

Also sent out to the council a polling results from TREPAC and Northwest Progressive Institute that you should look at that shows 70 to 80% support for provisions that you've outlined in your council resolution to update the tree ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Martha Baskin, you are present.

Thank you for calling in.

You're up next.

Press star six.

There you are.

Good afternoon, Martha.

Good afternoon, all.

Yes.

Regarding the proposed changes to Seattle's Comprehensive Plan, I'd like to know how changing the name Single Family to Neighborhood Residential will encourage affordable housing and preservation of mature tree canopy.

Over the last decade, there have been a dozen significant upzones that more than doubled Seattle's own capacity.

Since 2015, the city has added nearly 53,000 new residential units, nearly all expensive and completely out of reach for frontline communities, food workers, and educators, and definitely out of reach for the unhoused.

How will the new plan change this pattern?

In 2019, when accessory dwelling units were approved, the requirement for preserving a minimum of two inches of tree diameter for each 1,000 square feet lot was omitted.

Will the zoning change restore this requirement?

Or is it the city's view that those who live in ADUs would prefer to live in a setting without canopy?

What is the current status of tree loss in the city?

Some data show a very small amount of tree loss, but as anyone living in Seattle knows,

Thank you, Martha.

And if there's more that you'd like to email to us, on the screen right now is the email address, council at Seattle.gov, or you can email me directly.

Rebecca Schwartz, I see you're off mute.

You're next.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Chair Strauss and committee members.

My name is Rebecca, and I am calling on behalf of FORTERRA to ask that you please support the ordinance to update the city's regional TDR program as it's drafted.

Along with key partners such as King County and the city, Porterra was the chief architect of the regional TDR program that Seattle has been using since 2013. The program has exceeded expectations, both in terms of the conservation outcomes in the county and in terms of how much new revenue it is generating for public improvements that support growth in the city's urban core.

The spirit and letter of state law creating this program is for participating cities to accept TDR credits from Pierce, King, and Snohomish County.

And by only accepting credits from King County, Seattle is out of compliance with statute.

And the ordinance before you today is a simple technical update that remedies the issue and will open the door to the use of TDR credits from all three counties.

Demand for regional TDR in the city remains robust as new high-rise developments have been proposed that would need to buy TDR credits through the regional program.

Thank you for your time today, and please send the ordinance as drafted to council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Up next, we have Anna Pedroso.

But Anna, you are not present.

Erica Berg, you are also not present.

If you are listening, please follow the instructions on the email sent to you.

If you're on the listen line, that's not the right place.

We will move on to Michael Oxman, followed by Richard Ellison and Dave Mooring.

If Anna and Erica, if you call in, we'll get you back in the queue.

Michael, good afternoon.

I see you're here.

Press star six and take it away.

Not pound six, star six, if you would.

Mr. Oxman?

If we could move on to Richard, we'll come back to Michael Oxman at the end.

Michael, just remember to press star six next time.

We'll come back to you.

Richard Ellison, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, thank you.

I'd like to address both the changes from the single-family zoning to the neighborhood label and also the fact that there's no tree ordinance yet.

It's not possible to change the zoning and not have significant changes.

This idea that it's just a language change and it has no significant impact is absurd.

We know that you're gonna go from single-family to creating multiplex homes in single-family zoned areas currently.

This is going to have potential tremendous impact to the canopy as majority of the canopy in Seattle is in single-family zoning.

So if there is going to be a large zoning change in this capacity, there needs to be a serious environmental impact statement.

You can't have a serious environmental impacts in place.

If there's not going to be a tree ordinance, then that would be one place to evaluate it.

If there's a plan to be one, then it is required that you You cannot give a DNS to anything on a zoning change without having done a significant environmental impact state.

Thank you, Richard.

If you have more to say, please do send it to me, dan.straus at seattle.gov or counsel at seattle.gov.

Up next, we have Dave Mooring, followed by Suzanne Grant, and then Woody Wheeler.

We will come back to Michael Oxman, Anna Pedroso, and Erika Berg.

Anna and Erika, you are still not present.

Good afternoon, Dave.

I see you're already off the mute, and take it away.

Thank you, Council Member Stelz.

My name is David Mooring, a Seattle architect and also a member of CPAC.

I would like the council members present to go to the report slide 9 and 10, where it basically has the strategies that are being presented.

And notice how many of those strategies seem to be missing those recommendations that were made from the Urban Forestry Commission a couple of years ago.

The City of Seattle is the 10th worst in the nation as it comes to urban heat island effects, and urban forest is really only the way to combat that all over the city.

We currently have 2016 28% tree cover, as you know, I'm anticipating, like any other city, we're going to drop to about 25, 26%.

And relying on, you know, this to happen by chance, to grow our canopy while we grow our density, is not going to happen.

So we really need stronger strategies presented.

We need to know that the trees are going to be, where to plant the trees.

and that every site in residential properties will contribute to tree planting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate you testifying today.

Up next, we have Suzanne Grant, followed by Woody Wheeler.

We'll come back to Michael Oxman, and then Anna and Erica, you're still not present.

Good afternoon, Suzanne.

I see you're already off mute.

Take it away.

Good afternoon.

This is Suzanne Grant.

I'm commenting about the tree ordinance report.

First, I want to thank CM Peterson for taking responsibility around the tree issue.

I hope you read his newsletters.

He is the only one on this committee that actually cares.

The rest of you are either mute on the issue or talk obliquely around it.

Does SDCI control the city's policy on trees?

Does OSC or does the Seattle City Council have power to save the mature and exceptional trees that we have left?

Where is the tree ordinance draft?

Now there's yet another delay until December 2021 and SDCI's quote progress.

Why don't you listen to UFC's recommendations?

So many of us care deeply about trees and how they can help.

Have you read Linda Mates?

We take our time without pay, CM Strauss, to comment and work continually looking for ways to stop the clear-cutting of Seattle.

What are you doing?

The next time you see a latke neutered of all its trees, including the exceptional ones, take a good look in the mirror and wonder if you could have actually done something to save them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Suzanne.

Always great to hear from you.

Up next is Woody Wheeler.

Woody, I see you're there.

And off mute, take it away.

Thank you very much.

I'm talking about the tree ordinance also.

Seattle likes to think of itself as a progressive green forward thinking city but we are resting on our laurels.

Other cities are far more progressive than Seattle in terms of tree protection.

Those cities understand the importance of tree canopy to the health of all of their residents especially the BIPOC and lower income communities who often live in tree scarce urban heat islands.

They cannot simply turn up the air conditioning We are trying to reach a 30% tree canopy in Seattle and are likely backsliding, as David Mooring mentioned earlier.

Meanwhile, there are four major cities that have already surpassed our tree canopy goal, including New York City, 39%, Atlanta, 36%, Tampa, 36%, and Portland, 32%.

A recent poll shows a whopping 80% of Seattleites support stronger tree protections.

Right now, city council and the mayor are way behind their constituents when it comes to tree protection.

It is time to catch up to the 80%.

Thank you.

Thank you, Woody.

Michael, I see you're back, and you're off mute.

Welcome, Michael.

Take it away.

Good afternoon.

Hey, how's it going?

This is Michael Oxman calling.

I just wanted to let you know that Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 25.11.090 is a Seattle law requiring replanting of exceptional trees.

with specimens that will grow as large as the exceptional tree being removed.

This law was passed by the city council as a way to prevent attrition of the urban forest.

The PowerPoint slide shows current strategy, however, does not mention this law or even this concept of tree replacement as a way to keep Seattle's ecology healthy.

The method used by SMC 25.11.090 to ensure that canopy replacement is achieved is to require enough soil space for the newly replanted tree to allow its roots to mature.

This law uses the term designed to describe and mandate both the sampling and the site where it will live for the following few decades.

The powerpoint slideshow says we will seek to identify

Thank you, Michael.

And please do feel free to send in any additional written comments.

Anna Pedroso, Erica Berg, I am seeing that you are not listed as present.

If you would also like to send in your written comments to dan.strauss at seattle.gov or council at seattle.gov, we would gladly put your comments on the record.

IT, can you confirm there are no further registrants for public comment at this time?

There are no other public comment or registrants.

Thank you.

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

Item number one, our first item of business today is Council Bill 120181, which adopts a regional transferable development rights program.

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

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 130181, an ordinance amending sections of the Seattle Municipal Code to facilitate the transfer of development rights from Pierce and Snohomish Counties to Seattle.

Thank you.

We are joined today by Ketel Freeman of Council Central staff, as well as representatives from King County and Snohomish County who are here to share a bit about how this legislation could impact the region around us.

Will you each introduce yourselves?

I'll go ahead and start, and then maybe I'll popcorn it to Michael.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central staff.

Thanks, Ketel.

Michael Murphy.

I run the Transfer Development Rights Program at King County.

Steve Skorney, Senior Planner with Snohomish County, and I'm the TDR Coordinator for the county.

Excellent, thank you for coming today.

Steve really appreciate it and same to you Michael.

Great to have you.

I know that we had this briefing in committee just the other day.

Could you just provide us a brief reminder of what the legislation does?

i'll be i'll be very brief on wednesday i went through some of the legislative history i won't do that again i'll just remind the committee that uh...

this iteration of the city's regional tdr program dates back to two thousand thirteen by multiple ordinances to implement uh...

collectively all of those ordinances i'm established a tdr program with king county on the city was utilizing authority on that came from the state after the advocacy of for terror uh...

back in two thousand seven Um, what does Council vote 120181 do?

It amends the land use code to adopt by reference a chapter in the Washington Administrative Code.

That's WAC 365-198.

Adoption by reference obviates the need for the city to enter into local agreements with Pierce or Snohomish counties for TDR programs.

I think I mentioned this on Wednesday, but in the city's regulatory framework for TDRs, we have what are called exchange rates for development rights that could be transferred from both Pierce and Snohomish counties.

WAC 365-198 essentially establishes minimum requirements for cities and towns, those are where the receiving sites are, and minimum requirements for counties, those are where the sending sites are, and joint requirements for both cities and counties when it comes to reporting to each other about transferable development rights.

One thing that I mentioned on Wednesday is that it's not clear to me that this is self-executing.

There may still need to be regulatory changes made in Pearson's to Homish County's.

Perhaps Mr. Scornick can speak to that first in Homish County.

But that, in a nutshell, is what Council Bill 120181 does.

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Michael, we heard from and it was great to hear from you during the public hearing on Wednesday.

Would you be able to share a bit of King County's perspective on this legislation in the TDR program?

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me, Chair Strauss and other members of the committee.

Yeah, King County has been the beneficiary of the agreement with Seattle.

Since 2013, and it's a major demand for the transferable development rights from King County is a major driver for conservation in King County.

So we've used this tool to great effect.

I believe personally and we as a county believe that conservation is a regional endeavor.

Chair Strauss, you spoke about it on Wednesday, driving to Mount Rainier, you're driving through Pierce County or going up to looking at the foothills and looking up north.

It's really there's the conservation regionally benefits all of the residents in the region.

And with Seattle's growth, we have an opportunity through the transfer of development rights mechanism to spread the benefit to the region.

There's one other element that I'd like to highlight, and that's that for farming in particular, and the agreement that King County and Seattle have had since 2013 has done a lot to protect farms in King County.

Since 2013, over 2,000 acres at 36 different farms have been permanently protected from future development.

Farming works best when there are other farmers who can farm their land too.

So if we have a agricultural economy that spans three counties, That's better for the farmers than just protected farms in King County.

So there really are benefits to permanently conserving forest land, farmland, river corridors, other natural lands throughout the region on a regional scale, not just in one county alone.

And of course, this legislation would open the door to Pierce and Snohomish counties to be able to share and some of the conservation benefits that King County has enjoyed through this partnership.

So unless there are questions, that's really the point I wanted to make in addition to what I said at the meeting on Wednesday.

So I urge your support for this legislation.

King County supports this.

Thank you, Michael.

And before we hear from Steve, Michael, I understand you may have a map to visually describe what you just said.

Sure.

I will show you a property map of that is on King County's website at, you can get there through by going to kingcounty.gov slash TDR and looking for the property map.

What's showing on my screen right now, are you seeing my screen?

Yes, we are.

Very good.

The green dots are the sites throughout King County that have been permanently protected.

Each of those represents a property, some of which are many parcels, some of which are just a single parcel.

This shade of green are the polygons representing the land that's permanently protected.

So you can see major forest blocks.

This is the Snoqualmie Forest, which if I had my shades drawn up right now, I could see out my window and look at this.

This is the headwaters of the Green River down here.

When you scroll in to the farmland in the Snoqualmie Valley, you can see individual farms that we have permanently protected.

Many of the deals, of the conservation acquisitions that are shown on this map have been driven by demand for transferable development rights from Seattle developers.

The orange dots on the map are where the transferable development rights have landed, where they've been used.

You can see a cluster in downtown Denny Triangle and South Lake Union, which is the areas of Seattle where King County transferable development rights can be used.

And then a smattering of sites in some other jurisdictions and unincorporated urban King County areas.

So this map is available for any to see.

It's interactive.

If you can click any dot and learn more attributes.

But the point is that this is a very powerful tool for conservation in the region.

And we urge your support for this bill so that it can accrue to Pierce and Snohomish counties as well.

Thank you, Michael.

This map really does demonstrate how different Eastern King County is and that tracks with Snohomish and Pierce County as compared to Western County.

And as I was saying on Wednesday, when we look out at the mountains from Seattle or we drive up to Index or down to Mount Rainier, if we want to continue driving through forests and farmland rather than looking at continued expansion of development that is not dense, we need to use this program.

Thank you.

I will stop sharing now if that sounds.

All right.

Very good.

Steve, please, we're really quite excited to have you and thank you for being here earlier this year, I was able to meet with county executive Dave Summers to discuss the need for regional TDR program.

Can you share a little bit about how Snohomish County could benefit from this change?

OK, well, thank you, Chair Strauss.

Well, I've been involved with this program since its inception back in 2013. And we had worked with Fort Terra over the years in terms of trying to draft legislation, both policy and implementing code here.

And so we've had this program, and it's actually sort of in its infancy compared to King County.

King County's had a successful TDR program for many decades, and we hope to catch up somewhat to what King County's success has been.

So, we've only currently only got a couple of hundred acres or so of land that has been set aside to conservation these through the TDR program.

What we have up there is so much count is we don't have any sort of TDR receiving area engine like.

like there is down here with the City of Seattle and King County.

A few cities in Stonemish County have adopted any type of TDR legislation and we've worked with them, but there just hasn't been any real demand by developers to purchase any of the TDR credits from our resource land sending areas.

in Snohomish County and the county does have in fact some sending receiving areas in urban unincorporated Snohomish County but those areas are limited and we've had a little bit of success there but the county is really supportive of the passage of this legislation here to so we could enter into transferring those credits to the city of Seattle And I should mention that as part of the authorizing legislation back in 2013, the county did adopt by reference that section of Washington Administrative Code to allow for transfer of those development rights without having to enter into interlocal agreements.

So we're all set up on our end for sending those TDR credits once demand becomes I should mention that our TDR sending areas are all our designated farm and forest lands on our comprehensive plan maps.

We have hundreds of thousands of acres of forest land, but we have a very finite amount of designated farmland.

We have about 56,000 acres currently, and that agricultural land is a generates, well, this is a couple of years ago, $139 million toward our county economy.

So not only will this legislation help, hopefully help preserve and reduce the conversion of farmland in our county for, you know, obviously there's open space attributes and, but it really is, a key part of our economy up in the county there.

And so we certainly would like to see that agricultural economy enhanced and grow.

And hopefully these participation by the city of Seattle in this in the regional TDR program will help us with that.

Very well said, Steve, and I think that that also demonstrates that network that Michael was talking about, about across the tri-county area.

You know, as I was just saying, eastern county versus western county has kind of two distinct environments to it, and making sure there's good north-south connectivity from Snohomish down to Pierce County is going to be critical for that economy to thrive.

Well, yeah, in fact, we have physical connections there.

I mean, the Snohomish River Valley, which you see, as you drive up I-5 there, a portion of that valley is the Snoqualmie River Valley, which we have a portion of that in our county.

So, that certainly extends out in the King County.

So, yeah, you can easily see what preservation of farmland can do to our environment and just, you know, overall providing that preservation of open space, which is critical in our region.

Very well said, Steve.

And while Pierce County was unable to send a representative due to scheduling constraints, my staff has spoken with their TDR staff.

And it's my understanding that Pierce County is also supportive of this change and are working to best implement regional TDR themselves.

Colleagues, at this time, I want to double check to see if there are any questions for Steve, Michael, or Ketel.

I know we just had this before us.

but 48 hour, two days ago.

So I am seeing no questions.

Gentlemen, you've done an excellent job at explaining this concept to us and the importance in both combating climate change and preserving the environment in which we enjoy throughout our region.

If there is no further discussion before we vote, I guess we'll move on to voting.

Thank you.

So seeing as there's no further discussion before we vote on the legislation, I will move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120181. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120181. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

This legislation will be back before the full council on Monday, October 4th for a final vote.

Up next is Council Bill 120155, which will amend the comprehensive plan to change the name of single-family areas to neighborhood residential areas.

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

Tom Epstein, Applicant OLIV, PB – He, Him, His): agenda item to counsel, but 120155 in ordinance relating to land use zoning and many in the comprehensive plan to change the name of single family areas neighborhood residential areas as part of the 2020 2021 comprehensive plan.

Thank you, Mr. Ahn.

This is now the third committee meeting at which we have discussed this change following an initial public hearing on July 28th and a second public hearing on Wednesday, this last Wednesday.

It has also appeared on the council's comprehensive plan amendment docket every year since 2019. As I've shared previously, we are proposing the neighborhood residential name change for the simple fact that it better most accurately reflects the reality of today.

The neighborhoods we call single-family already include much more than just single-family homes.

They include households with multiple families, as well as legacy duplexes, backyard cottages, in-law units, and apartment buildings built before the current zoning rules were applied.

I've been happy to co-sponsor this legislation with Councilmember Mosqueda, who has been working towards this moment since at least 2019. It's my understanding Councilmember Mosqueda will say more on this bill when it comes to full council.

but feel free to interrupt me, Council Member Resqueda, should you desire.

I know that we just had this before committee two days ago, and Mr. Lish Whitson of Council Central staff is here as well.

Lish, would you like to share a very brief refresher, or Council colleagues, do you have any questions at this time?

I think you've described the bill pretty well.

It's both lengthy and simple.

It changes the term single family to neighborhood residential throughout the comprehensive plan.

That's it.

Uh, thank you, Mr Woodson.

Uh, and I know I asked this question every time this comes up, and it's because the chief concern I've heard with this legislation is a concern that it does more than a simple name change.

Wish I know, as I've said, I've asked this before, but can you confirm that this amendment only changes the name of single family areas and does not change what is allowed to be built in this area in these areas?

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions?

Council Member Peterson, please take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

First, I want to thank you as our chair for giving us an opportunity to hear these bills more than once before voting on them.

It's very helpful.

And because we might have a different audience listening in today, just quickly reiterate my comments from Wednesday.

You know, originally I had been struggling with this legislation because I I did hear from some concerned community leaders in my district about what it might mean or lead to.

But as you had mentioned, and several staff reinforced, there's no substantive impact of the name change.

And it does more accurately reflect the existing reality of housing uses in these geographic areas.

So I'll be voting yes today.

What will really matter to me is what might come next.

So I just want to reiterate, I generally don't support blanket-up zones unless there are clear, compelling, immediate public benefits, such as the creation of on-site, very low-income housing, and ideally, the additional densities located near frequent transit, among sufficient infrastructure, such as school capacity, and that we put in place mitigation to prevent demolition of existing naturally occurring affordable housing and prevent the loss of mature tree canopy before we put those changes, mitigations in place before we implement substantive zoning changes.

So I'm fine with this name change and look forward to a robust and fact-based discussion of the impact of current and proposed up zones in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Colleagues, if there are no further questions or discussion, we do have an amendment to consider today.

It's technical in nature, coming at the request of Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Mosqueda and I are co-sponsoring the amendment.

Before we bring that up, I will need to move the bill for consideration.

So at this time, I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120155. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Councilmember, Vice Chair Mosqueda with the second.

Coming back to Amendment 1, Councilmember Mosqueda and I are co-sponsoring Amendment 1 to our legislation as requested by Councilmember Herbold.

It corrects awkward language in two neighborhood plans that result from a neighborhood residential name change specifically in the Morgan Community Plan and the Northgate Neighborhood Plan.

Lish, could you share just a little bit more?

Yeah, both Morgan Junction and Northgate refer currently to single family neighborhoods in their neighborhood plans.

Changing the phrase single family to neighborhood residential would result in the phrase neighborhood residential neighborhoods and the change in the amendment would change those two instances from neighborhood residential neighborhood to neighborhood residential area.

Thank you.

Well said, Lish.

Any further questions or comments on this amendment?

Vice Chair Mosqueda, please take it away.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to work with you on this legislation and also to help co-sponsor this legislation along with the support of Councilmember Herbold.

Happy to move this language along as I think that it really helps to make sure folks know that we're really considering removing redundancy in the language in two of the neighborhood plans resulting from the shift to neighborhood residential.

I think this is in alignment with the Planning Commission.

They've recommended consistency across neighborhood plans and how we approach the name change and making sure that all neighborhood plans receive the same consideration in order to be in compliance with the legislation in front of us.

We are being equitable in our approach.

So I want to thank you.

I want to thank central staff for helping to identify all of the neighborhood plans that have slightly different nuances in their language.

And these are the only two that are included in this amendment, the Morgan Junction and Northgate.

So I'm very supportive of this change.

And I think it helps to comply with our desire for more consistency.

And I think it's a minor tweak that helps maintain the integrity of the legislation in front of us.

Happy to help move this forward to accomplish our goal of a single name, which is universal image approach, neighborhood residential.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

If there's no further discussion, I will move to vote on this amendment.

Seeing none, I move to amend Council Bill 120155 as shown in Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you, Vice Chair and Council Member Peterson.

It has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 120155 as shown in Amendment 1. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries.

We are now going to move to vote on the amended bill, double checking.

Is there further discussion or questions?

Seeing none at this time, I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120155 as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

It has been moved in segment to recommend passage of Council Bill 120155 as amended.

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.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

This legislation will be back before full council on Monday, October 4th.

We are moving quickly because we have so many items on the agenda, and many of these we discussed just a couple days ago.

And of course, because it's Friday and it's beautiful, it's one of the first days of autumn and we still have great weather.

So thank you for being patient with me.

Our next item of business is Council Bill 120154, which makes more annual amendments to the Comprehensive Plan.

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

Agenda Item 3, Council Bill 120154, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, amending the Seattle Comprehensive Plan to incorporate changes proposed as part of the 2021 Comprehensive Plan annual amendment process.

Thank you.

We are joined once again by Lish Whitson of Central Staff.

Lish, would you provide a reminder of the amendments contained in this legislation and the amendment before us?

So there are two sets of amendments that will be in the bill after you consider the amendment that's before you.

So let me try and be less confusing about how many amendments you're talking about.

In the bill, Currently, there are three sets of amendments.

One is related to the University District.

It would add a half block to the University District Urban Center.

That half block is along the west side of 15th Avenue Northeast, just south of the Ravenna Boulevard.

The second amendment is at 130th and I have five near the future light rail station and would amend the future land use map to change a block in between the future light rail station and Jefferson Park golf course to a mix of commercial and multifamily areas from single family.

Also in the bill are a couple of amendments related to the manufacturing industrial study.

Environmental review is still continuing for those amendments.

And so you have an amendment in front of you to remove those from the bill pending further environmental review.

And that's amendment one attached to your agenda.

Thank you.

And just to lift up what you just said, we have an amendment to the bill to remove the aspects from the maritime and industrial lands process as they are now being moved into the EIS process.

Colleagues, any questions at this time or discussion?

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Again, just in case we have a different audience viewing today, there is an amendment in my district, District 4, at the University District Urban Center boundary.

I want to, again, thank Office of Planning and Community Development for reaching out to my office early to alert us to this proposal.

Some nearby residents, community leaders had raised concerns, and I want to explain why I support this particular up zone.

The area is just 25% of the entire block.

It's already multifamily housing.

It's attached to the existing boundary of the urban center boundary.

It's not across the street.

It's at the intersection of two arterials.

It's near frequent transit and other necessary infrastructure.

and City Hall will have another crack at reviewing what actually happens on those parcels if something were to change.

So I will be supporting it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

If there's no further discussion, I will say that we should bring the amendment to the bill.

And to do that, I will need to move this legislation.

So at this time, I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120154. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez and Peterson.

It has been moved and seconded.

As we are now taking up Amendment 1, as described by LISH, this amendment removes the industrial lands amendments from the legislation.

These amendments were included in the legislation when it was transmitted under the assumption we would be able to act on them this year.

Due to the outstanding SEPA issues, they will not be considered until next year at the earliest.

Lish, anything to add there?

Colleagues, any questions, comments, or concerns on this amendment?

Nothing to add from me.

Council Member Peterson, is that a new hand or a residual?

Take it away if you want to.

It's a new hand.

Real quick, I appreciate the effect statement on that amendment one, because originally when I read it, it was, It was showing deletions of what could be some good ideas, but that was something that had been added, and it's just being taken out.

So as I understand from the effect statement, no changes to industrial land policies would be affected with the approval of this amendment.

Is that correct, Lish?

Correct.

With this amendment, there will be no changes to maritime or industrial policies.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

If there's no further discussion, let's vote on the amendment.

So I, at this time, move to amend Council Bill 120154 as shown in Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

It has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 120154 as shown in Amendment 1. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Richardson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Chair Kras.

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Colleagues, are there further questions, comments, concerns, or discussion on the base bill as amended?

Seeing none, I would like to move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120154 as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez and Peterson and Vice Chair Mosqueda.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120154 as amended.

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.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and this bill will be before full council on Monday, October 4th.

Thank you, colleagues, for indulging me and moving quickly.

Our next item of business today is Item No. 4, Council Bill 120149, which increases the maximum size of sports and recreation uses in General 2, Industrial General 2 zones.

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

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120149, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, amending maximum size of use limits and minimum parking requirements for indoor sports and recreation use.

Thank you.

Mr. Lish Whitson of our Council Central staff is here with us.

Lish, I know that we had a deep briefing about this on Wednesday.

Can you refresh us on the legislation?

Yeah, so this legislation will allow would allow larger indoor sports and recreation facilities in a couple of areas.

of the Ballard Interbay North End Manufacturing Industrial Center, indoor sports and recreation facilities, or facilities where people go to recreate or participate in sports indoors without a audience.

So rather than a spectator sports facility, these are places like gyms, bowling alleys, sports clubs, and other facilities where any spectatorship is incidental to the activities that are occurring.

Currently in the general industrial zones, indoor sports and recreation facilities are limited to 10,000 square feet.

The proposed legislation would expand that limitation to 50,000 square feet.

in the Ben Mick Ballard Interbay North End Manufacturing Industrial Center, near Neighborhood Commercial and Seattle Mixed Zones, and parks with active recreation uses away from the shoreline and would limit sports facilities greater than 25,000 square feet so that there can't be two within a mile of each other.

It also amends the parking regulations and reduces them.

Thank you, Mr. Whitson.

We did have a chance to discuss this legislation in depth on Wednesday, so I'll highlight just a few things that are motivating my strong support for this bill.

Local governments have long supported their sports franchises for a year, whether it be the Seahawks, Mariners, Kraken, or Sounders, and it's important that we show the same support for our most winningest team, the Seattle Storm, who have more championships than any of those teams I just listed combined.

I'll leave my comments there as I see Councilmember Lewis would like to speak.

Councilmember Lewis, please take it away.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Is this a time for...

I had some questions for Lish.

I don't know if you want general comments.

Yes, sir.

Perfect time.

Okay, great.

So, Lish, this bill in front of us changes under certain circumstances how big existing uses in the BNMIC can be.

Is that correct?

Correct.

So this ordinance in front of us is not a zoning ordinance because it's not permitting new uses.

These are uses that are already allowed in the BNBEC, correct?

Correct, I mean, it amends the zoning, but it does not change the zoning for particular properties.

It changes the provisions of the land use code.

Right, yeah, thank you.

Those are the only questions I had.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, and you had great words as the district representative for Interbay.

Of the 45 parcels that could be utilized under this law, they all reside in District 6 and District 7. Both of us are great supporters of the storm in this legislation.

Councilmember Juarez, I see you have come off of mute.

Would you like?

No?

Okay, just get ready to vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm good.

Yes, ma'am.

Councilmember Peterson, please take it away.

Thank you, chair Strauss.

So during the past couple of days, I was able to conduct additional research on this legislation, which included conferring with our city attorney's office and completing other due diligence.

And as I understand it, the type of land use proposed in the mayor's legislation is already allowed in this geographic area.

The legislation will not endanger the good paying jobs created by Seattle's maritime industry that we need to protect.

And if the Seattle Storm professional basketball team uses this as an opportunity to build a training facility, I believe that would be a good development, a positive development, because the women's team provides great benefits to our city.

Moreover, our district-based city council system, the view of the district council members who represent the geographic area is very important to me on issues like this.

And I understand they support this legislation.

So based in large part on these various factors, I'll be voting yes today for the committee.

If there's any new information that contradicts what I've used to make my decision thus far, then we can revisit during the full city council meeting.

But I'm a yes today, and thank you for bringing this forward.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

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

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I should just reiterate here publicly, given Councilmember Peterson's comments, that I do strongly support this legislation and appreciate Councilmember Peterson's words about acknowledging the view of the District Councilmember in considering legislation like this.

I did also, I touched on this with my back and forth with Liz just now, but I do think since We did have a public commenter today talking about the spot zone thing, and it was an item of contention in the Seattle Times piece that was just written.

You know, I don't want to get into the weeds on it, but I would just say as a threshold matter, you can't have a spot zone on a use that's already allowed in an area.

A spot zone would be if we took some parcel in the middle of a single family neighborhood and let them build a fertilizer factory there.

That's not what this is.

We're allowing something to be bigger than it currently is that's already permitted in this zone that is a complementary use.

And I just wanted to put that out there since it's been introduced as an issue.

It's gotten a little bit more traction with a few additional people out there in the world.

But just to put it to bed, just categorically doesn't even meet the threshold to be considered as something like this.

And I just want to make that as a brief comment.

I agree with Judge Juarez.

Thank you for her assessment.

Thank you, council member.

Always good to defer to our judges.

But I did want to just put that point in open session.

It has been brought to my attention that I didn't provide specific examples of why it wasn't a spa zone last time, probably because we're not actually changing the zoning.

But anyway, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

I see Council Member Juarez.

I'm just going to say quickly, thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

We do defer, and I'm glad that's why we went to a district system.

Thank you for weighing in and supporting this, because it is in your district.

And I know you pay attention, like I do, on the ground, what's going on with economic development, public assets, brick and mortar buildings, how this enhances.

And thank you, Mr. Chair.

because I know that you understand these issues.

That's why you're the chair of this committee.

And with that, I hope that we have our colleagues support this today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

And just briefly commenting on Councilmember Lewis's comments, I know that there has been some speculation that this legislation could be a spot rezone.

And after consulting with the city attorney's office, OPCD, the mayor's office and my colleagues, I'm confident that this is not a spot rezone.

It does not allow any new uses.

It simply adjusts maximum sizes of sports and recreation facilities, a use that is already allowed in industrial general two zones.

Because this is a use that is already allowed in these zones, inconsistent with the surrounding area, surrounding uses.

Any further comments?

Otherwise I will wrap us out with lifting up.

Sue Bird provided testimony at the public hearing this week and as Sue Bird shared at public comment on Wednesday, teams can lose their star players when they do not have the infrastructure to support their players.

We have seen a beautiful new hockey facility open in Northgate this year.

We're getting ready to inaugurate the Climate Pledge Arena in just a few weeks, and this legislation allows for another sports facility to be built in Seattle, something that will support our teams and create opportunities for residents of our city.

We need to have our Seattle Storms back.

We need to have our players back in this moment.

We don't need them worrying about whether or not they have our support.

We need their minds focused on the game so that They're focused simply on the court and so they can win our next championship.

For anyone who is listening from the storm, we are very excited and honored to have you as representatives of our city.

And good luck on Sunday.

We're here with you.

There's no further discussion.

I'd like to bring this to a vote.

Seeing no further discussion, I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 120149. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded by Councilmember Juarez and Lewis.

It is to recommend passage of Council Bill 120149. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Pierson?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries.

This legislation will be back before the full Council on Monday, October 4th.

Let's go Storm!

Thank you, colleagues.

We are an hour into the special committee meeting and already on item five of six.

The next two items have not been presented before and committed the previous four have.

So we may take a little bit slower, but I endeavor to get us out in a reasonable amount of time.

Our next agenda item is a briefing from OPCD on the public engagement report for the comprehensive plan major update.

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

agenda item 5, comprehensive plan major update public engagement report.

Thank you.

This report is required to lift a proviso on the public engagement budget for the comprehensive plan major update.

It will be important to deeply engage communities across Seattle as we work towards the major update in 2024, which will shape the future of growth in Seattle.

We are joined by Interim Director Rico Quirendongo and Michael Hubner of OPCD.

Gentlemen, please take it away.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, council members.

I should check to see whether my director, Kieran Dalgo, has joined us.

We are just moving too quickly.

Yeah, he didn't anticipate you'd be so speedy this afternoon, but he's empowered me to plow ahead.

Wonderful.

With the sun shining.

He may join us during my presentation.

I know he has a few words that he wants to say as well and entertain your questions.

Wonderful.

But I'm going to share my screen and have a few slides to share.

We're good to go.

Can you see that?

We can see it.

Take it away.

Excellent.

So as I know, the committee well knows we are about to launch our comprehensive plan update.

This plan is a 20 year guide for how our city grows and makes investments for a more equitable and resilient future.

It's informed by it, by our values.

And as well, every time we update the comprehensive plan, this effort is, fundamentally shaped by broad and deep community engagement.

The next update is due in 2024 and we are eager to roll up our sleeves and begin working with communities across the city on the update and what we're here to do today is to share with you our thinking, our game plan, if you will, for engaging with community over the next two and a half years or more as we work toward June 2022. 24 when you will be considering the plan update for adoption.

As Mr. Chair, you noted this information is intended to satisfy the proviso for $100,000 as the first installment of a budget that would enable us to do a robust community engagement plan going forward.

And we're eager to start that work during the fourth quarter of this year.

This plan starts with articulating what our goals are for community engagement.

We are very cognizant of the high expectations that community has for meaningful and deep and broad and equitable engagement related to this plan.

And we know that we both have a citywide scope as well as at the neighborhood level to reach people in meaningful and interactive ways.

We are centering our effort around race and equity.

prioritized and marginalized communities both in terms of hearing from them engaging with them on this plan but also building capacity for engagement over the long term.

We are emphasizing effective communication that is meaningful and relevant.

It's always a bit of a challenge with an effort like comprehensive planning which is long term covers many different policy topics.

But we are aiming to rise to the challenge to make this a meaningful, relatable conversation about the future of the city using plain talk and graphics, multiple channels of communication and ability to have input on the plan and making this effort accessible and multilingual.

This meaningful engagement is not only about providing information to communities and to the public, but really it's hard about interaction dialogue and co-creation of a plan that meets our goals and our values going forward and to be truly transparent responsive and accountable to the outcomes.

So guided by these goals one of the first things we're doing as well is thinking about who we are trying to reach and how we are prioritizing our resources.

First and foremost in centering race and equity in this effort we are prioritizing our limited resources to engage with marginalized communities, communities that have not had the access and the ability and the influence over citywide policymaking in the past, resulting in historical and ongoing harms, specifically BIPOC communities, limited English populations and refugees, immigrant communities, LGBTQ community, and people with disabilities.

But we also know that we have a duty to reach the entire city, the general public, a full range of people, residents, businesses, organizations, and this effort will endeavor to do both while keep as a north star making this an equitable and inclusive engagement process.

So specifically with respect to using our resources, and I know that as a budget proviso, I'm sure that you're interested in hearing from us how we intend to use the monies in this year's budget and then going into next year.

We have a total expected at this point budget of $150,000 for the community engagement specifically over the three years, supplemented by the OPCD staffing that we have and long range planning and our communications team.

What we intend to do is use the $150,000 nearly exclusively to enable equitable engagement and to resource organizations and individuals to be part of this planning effort.

Specifically agreements with community-based organizations to inform the planning effort and to reach the communities that they serve.

Those are organizations that serve or work with or are embedded in in particular the marginalized communities, BIPOC and others that we just highlighted, working with the Department of Neighborhoods to bring on a cohort, if you will, a small group of community liaisons who would be with our working with them directly to orient them, to train them, to represent the comprehensive plan process, but also reach the communities that they represent and connect with.

Between the community-based organizations and community liaisons, we endeavor to fill in the gaps, to be very cognizant that we're reaching a full range of marginalized communities across the city.

And we're hopeful that we will have the resources to be able to do that, but do it in a very thoughtful way and listening to community if we're not meeting that objective.

Translation and interpretation is another area where we'd be putting resources from our budget as well not only in written form but also video is a new and emerging format for reaching people to comprehensive plan update.

And then really being nimble to provide additional supports for community involvement especially as the planning work gets deeper or complicated and we hear back from community of what it is and what is not working.

Staff at OPCD would be taking on materials, graphics, and online engagements, standing up a website and platforms for interactive virtual engagement, citywide outreach, meetings and events, media, and then analyzing and processing comments and reporting them out.

That's all work that we would handle in-house.

Michael, before you move on to the next slide, I just have a quick question.

I'd like to flag that $150,000 for a three-year engagement process of this importance seems like a small budget.

I'm interested to know how that figure compares to past budgets.

Do you have that offhand or you can follow up with that?

No, at least I have a rough estimate.

It's a bit challenging looking backward to get a precise number from the last comprehensive plan update.

It was an attenuated process over several years, but this is a smaller budget than the overall expenditures for community engagement during the last update, which was in the neighborhood of $225,000 to $250,000.

I would also add to that that we understand that the expectations of community for the kind of engagement that we would be doing, the kind of capacity building for marginalized communities, is setting a higher bar going into this update than was arguably experienced from the last time when Seattle 2035 was being developed.

So it's both less resources, and we think the needs are greater.

So this is going to be a challenge.

OK.

I'll keep my eyes on this.

And this leads me to a general question.

Maybe I could save it for the end, but just thinking about it now, how can we as council members help you in this work?

Well, I think being I think one of the things that we will be doing throughout this process is being in communication with you about how it is going and how effective we are.

I think there are the opportunities for briefing you at key junctures in the process.

I'm about to go on to a timeline slide, which will give you some ideas to when those major milestones are.

And as you just highlighted, the resource question is going to be an important one, and we may need additional resources to rise to both community expectations and what the city wants to achieve in making this a meaningful planning effort.

Wonderful.

Then I'll save my other questions.

And I see that we have been joined by Director Karen Dongo.

Director, my apologies.

Our committee clerk is so good and my colleagues are so straightforward with their questions that we are ahead of schedule.

Oh, you're still on mute, Director.

No problem, Council Member Strasse.

You run a tight meeting, which I super appreciate, so thank you.

And I apologize for missing the first part of Michael's presentation, but I know it well, obviously.

I would like to add to the answer to your question, though, and I guess I would say that what we know is that when this budget was put together, this $150,000, it didn't contemplate amongst other things, compensation of community involvement and the amount of community engagement that we now know that we need in this season of change and reconciliation that I believe that we are in now.

So it is something that I think bears further conversation as we dive into the work in 2022.

That's an important flag and alert there.

I'll save my other questions because I bet you Michael will answer them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rico and Council Member.

One of the things we're focusing on is leveraging partnerships and coordination, both inside and outside of the city.

Briefly here, I really want to focus on the most important partnerships and coordination pieces that we are taking on.

I mentioned the working externally with community-based organizations.

That is going to be key.

It's one of the key recommendations of the racial equity analysis that we presented to you over the summer from PolicyLink was that role of external organizations in reaching BIPOC and other marginalized communities.

Internally coordination and partnerships with other departments and there are a number of opportunities.

We're blessed.

if you will, with there being other similar policy efforts in other departments, most prominently this Department of Transportation taking on what they expect is a broad citywide transportation planning effort on very much the same timeline as the Comprehensive Plan.

And we are seeking opportunities for joint engagement, joint partnerships with community-based organizations, messaging, bringing people together around a unified conversation about the future of the city that covers both transportation and a variety of issues in the Comprehensive Plan.

There are others as well, the Share Our Waters project, the Jump Up Utilities and others, as well as leveraging work that OPCD is already doing around stationary planning, our EDI program and the industrial maritime strategy.

We are doing engagement in these other areas and they all relate to the comp plan and we're going to try to leverage that work.

This approach will be flexible and responsive to both the constraints and opportunities that the COVID-19 pandemic and how we're doing engagement in a hybrid way online and in person and we're really going to try to be nimble through that as this work goes forward as well as continuous learning and improvement through the various phases of outreach.

This slide shows a very simplified timeline for the project, including major milestones, a launch this fall, scoping for a SEPA analysis around the middle of next year, draft EIS and draft plan in early 2023, and then what is anticipated to be a final mayor's plan transmitted to council.

and a final EIS at about the end of 2023 in advance of adoption in June of 2024. And this roughly coincides with four phases of engagement.

There's a lot of information on this slide, just want to highlight a few important elements of this we've intended to summarize objectives and activities in each of these four phases.

You'll probably be most interested in what's going to be happening over the next year.

The first phase, what we're calling learn and listen, roughly between now and the beginning of spring of next year, we are going to be raising awareness and beginning that citywide discussion, establishing internal and external partnerships, refining the community engagement plans.

The information we're giving you today will be further refined through working with community liaisons, with CBOs, with boards and commissions for a more public-facing public participation plan that would be available around the end of this year and initiating our racial equity toolkit.

Specifically, we'll be launching our website with branding and public materials, endeavoring to go truly live with that effort again around the end of this year and doing the work iteratively with our partners to and in coordination with SDOT and others to make this a more robust and public facing effort going into 2022 doing outreach to boards and commissions getting that community liaison board and CBO contracts in place early or mid this fall.

So we are hitting the ground running going into the new year.

During our shaping the plan phase into next year This is when we'll be engaging the general public, as well as emphasizing marginalized communities around the growth strategy.

That is where and how we will be planning for housing and jobs over the next 20, 25 years, as well as the gaps and needs in our plan elements.

That's where the policies reside in the plan.

We'll be standing up an interactive web platform for getting that information out and hearing from community about those various elements of the plan.

communicating what does what do the plan alternatives that we'll be studying in an EIS look like and what do they mean in a way that's relatable to at a neighborhood scale to different communities.

Using tools such as focus groups workshops and community meetings for more interactive conversations around these topics and continuing partnerships around the racial equity toolkit which I'm going to cover in the next slide to give you a bigger better picture of that.

Briefly into 2023, that's when we have our draft EIS and draft plan.

And it's really about getting the information out there and hearing from people, sustaining the capacity of marginalized communities through the latter stages of this work.

It is always easier to get people excited and engaged at the beginning of a lengthy planning process.

And our challenge here is going to be keeping those communities engaged through to when some of the big decisions are made as we move toward a preferred alternative for future growth and the final plan that comes back to you in 2024.

So before we move on to the next slide, just wanting to check in about these key, are we able to move back one or are we kind of stuck forward?

There we are.

Will you be able to come back to committee at these key milestones that you've laid out so that you can report out to let us know what you are already hearing?

Yes, I think that that is an excellent idea.

One of the things we're already contemplating just with regard to community engagement is that toward the end of each of these phases to intentionally ask the question of community and of ourselves, how are we doing?

Are we effectively reaching people?

What are we hearing?

Those would be excellent junctures to come back to council and also share that information.

Thank you.

And what's the best way for council members to communicate with you their goals and what they're hearing from community?

If you need to circle back with me, I'm happy to follow up offline.

I think that's probably a lengthy, you know, clearly these kinds of opportunities to come to council, certainly going into that, that there's, there may be an opportunity for the council to consider what your goals are for the process through resolution or other format going as we are launching this effort into next year.

There's certainly other ways we're certainly happy to meet with council members to share what we're hearing and to have that conversation as we go along, especially looking at these phases and considering where you want to plug in.

Great, yeah, let's definitely create some clear parameters and channels because the last thing that I want to do is start sending resolutions every week or doing it kind of piecemeal.

I'd like to be able to give my colleagues a very clear channel of engagement so that we're able to focus that input.

We are certainly available to engage with council in a variety of modes.

So let's talk offline about that for sure.

I'm sure my director will have some ideas about that as well.

Yeah I uh Council Member Strauss I think that's a great idea and I think that as we as we lay out in 2022 what our engagement plan is for like reaching out to stakeholders and with our CLs I think that clearly identifying the milestones where we're coming back to uh the council to both report out and then also hear what you are hearing I think that's gonna be really important.

I also think that you have a really good idea of people and organizations that you know that we need to be talking with.

And so we really want that feedback as well.

I mean, to inform the plan, right?

Exactly.

Thank you.

No further questions at this time.

So this is essentially my last substantive slide.

It summarizes what we anticipate in terms of how a racial equity tool process maps onto this planning effort.

It's based on the steps that were developed by the Office of Civil Rights a number of years ago for racial equity toolkits, but it's tailored to the kinds of questions and activities and the framework that we would be using to develop a really robust RET process essentially starting now and really meaningfully starting with the racial equity analysis that we developed and brought to this this committee this this past summer.

It is grounded in involvement with stakeholders which really threads throughout all of the other steps.

We are working with the EDI advisory board for oversight and as a working group.

for key junctures in this process and really providing for the continuity throughout the RET process.

The focus on marginalized communities through a general outreach will, what we will be doing with EDI advisory board and a staff and working very closely with Department of Neighborhoods and the Office of Civil Rights is developing a set of questions and topics and the kind of dialogue with community that are related to each of the steps that you see here in the REP that the REP process becomes part of our community engagement.

It is informed by data.

We have a wealth of data that was summarized in a racial equity analysis report as well as the equitable development monitoring program which is an ongoing body of work.

We have a set of dashboards and other data that are on our website.

It's a great starting point for considering some of the core questions of the RET.

We will be updating our displacement risk and opportunity mapping, which were very instrumental in the last planning plan update effort, as well as a background report, which establishes a story weaving in data and messaging around what is at issue in this plan that is very much grounded in race and equity.

and the needs of a of a RET dialogue going forward and we hope that will be an excellent resource for this effort.

We expect that background report to be available around the end of this year as well.

This process will define outcomes for the update that address racial disparities that are evident in the data and that we're hearing from community.

This is the outcomes will be documented early in the process so that when we get to the end of the process with a final plan going to council, we can answer the question as to whether we have addressed those outcomes and really are moving in the right direction.

The outcomes will endeavor to maximize the benefits for BIPOC and other marginalized communities and minimize the burdens and advance opportunities and minimizing harm.

We see this as being very essential conversation around how we are advancing a growth strategy for not only housing, but for jobs, and as well as for identifying gaps in our policy elements.

We'll be working with the EDI advisory board very closely to highlight that material going forward and producing a report that will be part of what goes to council later in the process, as well as integrating an equity analysis into our environmental impact statement.

That is a very high level summary of the RET process.

Happy to come back to council and talk in more detail as we go through each of these phases of work.

But it is something unlike the last update, which we are starting very intentionally at the beginning of the process and carrying it through to the end.

And with that, any further questions?

We hope that you'll agree that this is giving you a good picture of what we plan to do and how we plan to use the budget resources that can satisfy the proviso and we can get to work.

Great.

Thank you, Michael.

My only question that has come up just since during this presentation is that at this time, many members of the public now think about geography of the city in terms of city council districts.

And you already anticipated that relationship between citywide neighborhood level outreach in the council districts, which are, I guess, in some ways, an intermediate level of geography.

We hadn't worked that.

the council district geography explicitly into our planning for the community engagement.

But I think suffice it to say that we know we need to reach all areas of the city, essentially all of the districts in a very meaningful way.

And it's something we'll certainly be cognizant of going forward.

And a feedback from that's certainly a piece of feedback from council members too.

We wanna make sure that we are reaching the people who reside in the stakeholders in your district.

So if we're not doing that well, we're going to want to hear about it.

Yeah.

And maybe that's just in the, when you provide us the parameters of how we best can funnel feedback to you, you know, that intermediate geography level, I see director Karen Dongo, and then I'll tee up director.

My last question of the day is just a desire to hear a little bit more about what that neighborhood level outreach looks like.

Sorry.

I think.

I think that neighborhood level outreach is a plan that we still need to put in place.

And when I say that, having come from a community engagement background myself, we need to put together a plan which outlines what is our vision, mission, and goals for the outreach process.

Be very literal about who is it that we are trying to engage, what organizations, what which stakeholders, what groups, what's the process we're going to engage to do that and what are our intended outcomes in the sense that as we go out into community that people have a clear understanding of.

Given your input, how does that translate into what you will see in the plan and then how is that implemented by the city and by community?

after a plan that has been completed.

That's actually a lot of work.

And so that's what we will jump into is to begin to start to outline that once we have to revise a lift and start down a road with consultants and work internal to the office.

I think to your earlier point about districts, I think that the very intentional work that we want to do with council members is identification of both issues in each of your districts and individuals and organizations that you know need to be tied into the conversation and the process.

I think that different from that the lines that are drawn in the comp plan are lines like our six sub-area plans that we also know that we need to do a concerted planning effort for that that that is it that's a different effort that's not explicitly outlined in the in the initial scoping of the process that was adopted by the Puget Sound Regional Council in 2018 and and so that's where we're going to need to jump to in 2022 as well.

So there's there's some different frames but I think that we need to make sure that in the process that we are both looking at outcomes related to each of your districts and outcomes related to any of a number of neighborhoods, and then also outcomes related to the six sub-area plans that we are gonna need to start to effort a process for as well.

I hope that helps.

Yeah, no, well said, and I look forward to hearing more and continuing to work with you on this.

Thank you, likewise, likewise.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments, concerns at this time?

I'm seeing none.

I want to thank you both for being with us today.

And we are looking forward to continuing to work closely as we get ready to shape the major update in 2024. And I'm glad to have this proviso lifted.

Thank you very much.

Have a good weekend.

Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

Moving ahead.

We are on our last item of the agenda today.

Our final agenda item is the quarterly tree report from SDCI and OSE.

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

Agenda item six, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections and Office of Sustainability and Environment quarterly tree report.

Thank you.

And today we will be hearing the latest quarterly report on tree protections as required by Resolution 31902, which the Council passed almost exactly two years ago, which I helped author there.

We are joined by presenters from SDCI and OSE.

Will you all introduce yourselves and take away the presentation?

We're glad to have you with us today, Patty and Shonda.

All right, thank you, Chair Strauss.

I'm going to share my screen so that I can drive the presentation.

Hopefully you all can see that.

All right.

Yes, we can.

Okay, great, great.

Thank you.

So yeah, STCI and OSC are happy to be here with you today for the third quarterly briefing of 2021 on progress made in our work to update tree protection.

I am Patty Bacher, Interim Urban Forestry Policy Advisor in OSC.

I will be covering information on the Urban Forest Management Plan, which we are pleased to say is now finalized and available online.

And then Shonda Emery from SDCI will provide updates on the work that we've been undertaking to update tree protection.

So for the management plan, today we're proud to share with you this work that is a culmination of several years of effort.

The city's urban forest is an increasingly important asset.

Indeed, we've all seen, particularly this year, the devastating effects of extreme heat on our communities, spotlighting how critical this infrastructure is, especially in environmental justice priority communities.

We know that trees are an effective tool to reduce the impacts of heat events as trees reduce temperatures in and around homes.

And this is just one example of how critical the urban forest is to our community and why it is important that we have an effective plan ensuring that it is cared for adequately.

So to help provide that care and protect this important resource, we have a planning document that provides a framework for policy and action that guides city government decision making to help Seattle maintain, preserve, enhance, and restore its urban forest.

Seattle's urban forestry functions are organized in an integrated approach where the responsibilities for the work are housed in nine departments that conduct the work, and the departments work together to develop this plan to ensure effective management of the citywide resource across those departments.

The plan was originally created in 2007, and we strive to update it every five years.

The first update took place in 2013, and this is the plan's second update, which began in 2018. and was substantively complete in 2020. We've worked this year then to finalize the documents, the plan itself, and an executive summary.

And now as of September 14th, they are live and published online.

The process to develop the plan was led by the Urban Forestry Corps team, which is made up of representatives from seven of the nine departments with urban forestry responsibilities, which are all shown here in this graphic in the top right.

The Seattle Center and Finance and Administrative Services are the two departments that are involved in more of an ad hoc manner.

And the other departments there are the active members of the core team and worked together in developing the plan.

We began by establishing the purpose of the plan update, which again is for the updated plan to provide that framework for policy and action to guide city government in helping maintain, preserve, enhance, and restore our urban forest.

The core of the plan is a set of goals strategies and actions and indicators that will guide department staff in supporting a healthy and sustainable urban forest across Seattle's publicly and privately owned lands.

Support team members worked with their department leadership and staff teams throughout the plan development process.

And it was also important to hear from community in preparing this update.

So we created an inclusive engagement plan to reach out to historically underrepresented communities as the plan was developed.

And we carried out that public engagement in two phases with an initial outreach focusing on BIPOC communities, as well as other key stakeholders in 2018 and 19 prior to putting pen to paper.

And then with the initial input received, we created a first draft of the plan.

Then the second phase included engagement with and feedback from the Urban Forestry Commission, as well as sharing the draft plan out with the community and other key stakeholders.

We also reached back out to those listening session participants and the community-based organizations that supported that BIPOC engagement in phase one to make sure that we incorporated their input into the goals, strategies, and actions in the plan.

Then once all of this input was summarized and considered and appropriate changes incorporated into the plan, the team then produced a SIPA checklist, as is customary with plans such as this management plan, SDCI then issued a determination of non-significance, which was out for public comment in March and April of 2020, and there's no appeal to that finding.

Then once the CPER process was finalized, we gained mayoral approval to take the plan to final production and release it, and today it's our pleasure to be sharing the plan with you.

So the plan is posted online on the Trees for Seattle website, and we'll just cover some of the highlights from it here.

The plan overall covers the current status of the urban forest and details on the existing management approach, and it includes details that frame and guide our urban forest management.

But to start with, the plan covers Seattle's urban forest as a resource.

So it describes the management units as the organizing principle of the plan's canopy cover goals.

It acknowledges the different types of trees based on land ownership, public, private, and right of way.

which informs the city's role in managing those trees.

For instance, on public land, the city has full responsibility for planting and maintaining trees.

And on private lands, our role is more limited and is focused on incentivizing and supporting tree planting and enforcing regulations governing trees.

The plan also covers how the 2016 canopy cover assessment informs what we know of the urban forest status, as well as other assessments and tree inventory efforts.

such as SDOT's work to complete an inventory of all street trees in the city.

It also lists the challenges and threats to our urban trees that impact how we can best manage them, including aging, establishment and maintenance costs, climate change, competing uses, development and urban design, invasive plants, soils, and space.

I mentioned that the management units are the organizing principle of the plan's canopy cover goals, and I just want to spend a minute on those.

This is a similar framework to the 2013 plan update and acknowledges that properties are very different across the city, and the urban forest can't be viewed as a single unit for management purposes.

So the plan defines these nine management units corresponding with land use types whose GIS layers can be coordinated.

And these unit types include eight areas based on physical characteristics.

And then the right of way runs throughout the other eight units.

And the plan includes a map and graph to illustrate the distribution of these throughout the city.

I'll give just a couple of examples of how we manage trees differently in these different management units to illustrate how these units contribute to organizing our urban forestry work.

So in parks, natural areas, for instance, we focus on removal of invasive plants and installation of native plants.

to ensure diversity of forest and understory.

And these tend to be the management areas where stormwater and carbon reduction benefits are the greatest, given the size of many of these forest patches.

Whereas in rights of way, we focus on planting trees that increase shade and livability, but also can thrive in an environment that receives pollutants and has limited soil and space.

But in these areas, tree management is a partnership between SDOT and adjacent property owners.

where SDOT regulates all street trees, provides information for landowners regarding appropriate tree types and tree care, and maintains roughly 16% of street trees, while the abutting property owners are responsible for maintaining the remaining street trees.

The plan also covers how our city government currently manages this resource.

It summarizes the roles of the departments that support and maintain our urban forest.

It describes the existing plans, policies, and programs that have intersections with and help inform the city's urban forestry work, such as the Comprehensive Plan, the Race and Social Justice Initiative, which helps guide the work toward more equitable outcomes, the Duwamish Valley Action Plan, which helps outline how urban forestry fits into the needs of Duwamish Valley communities, the Pedestrian Master Plan, Housing Affordability, Trees for Seattle, which is the umbrella for urban forestry coordination, and the Green Seattle Partnership Program.

It also describes the city's management of street and public trees, and it lists regulations governing trees on private property, such as Seattle Municipal Code 2511, which regulates tree removal both outside development and during the development process, as well as listing incentives for planting and preservation of trees, such as development standards departures, where applicants may apply for departures from development standards to preserve an existing tree during development.

The plan then dives into the outcome and strategies to be used in guiding the city's urban forestry work in the next five years.

The team developed a set of diverse, comprehensive goals or outcomes to guide our urban forestry work.

Those are listed here on the left.

And these are what we aim to accomplish in managing this asset and reflect updates to urban forestry or urban forest management including an increased emphasis on racial and social equity.

And then in order to achieve the plan's outcomes, the team confirmed seven overarching strategies that represent a comprehensive approach to mobilizing informed and effective action.

Some of these strategies are consistent with and carried over from the 2013 plan updates.

And then two new strategies were added in order to focus on the needs of environmental justice priority communities and to address the need for resiliency in the face of impacts such as climate change.

These strategies were then used to develop the specific actions that form the action agenda through which the plan will be implemented in the urban forest is managed.

This action agenda again outlines the steps that the city and community partners will take to implement the plan and through which we aim to ensure that the urban forest is effectively managed.

This is a more concise action agenda than in previous plans in order to be targeted and effective in this planning.

So the plan doesn't include details for implementing the actions, since those details are contained in departmental work plans.

And these actions don't include work that is performed ongoingly by city departments, such as planting trees and complying with the two-for-one tree replacement policy, and management of city properties and natural landscape.

That work is already ongoing, and the action agenda aims to focus on actions that advance our work beyond those ongoing actions.

So there are 17 actions, actually 19 actions, and they are organized within the strategies.

And then within this list, the team identified actions that are priorities due to their importance in managing the urban forest and in supporting and responding to community concerns.

The actions that are bolded are those priority actions.

This prioritization reflects input provided by BIPOC communities, key stakeholders, and through the public comment process, the input of the public at large.

So this slide shows actions for the first four strategies.

And again, this plan update includes a focus on the needs of BIPOC communities, and that's reflected in the ordering of these strategies and the concentration of priority actions in the strategies focused on BIPOC communities.

And here are the remaining three strategies and associated actions.

Notice that updating the tree protection regulations is another priority action.

And again, Shonda Emery will be providing updates for you on the work that is ongoing on that action.

But before I hand it over to Shonda to go into the updates on tree protection regulations work, I just wanted to pause here for any questions on the management plan and its process and contents before we move into the tree protection update.

Thank you, Patty.

Great presentation, and I appreciate all of your work on this.

I do have one question, and then colleagues, if you have any questions, this will be the time.

My question for this slide and the previous slide, are these strategies, for instance, like the citywide canopy cover assessments and urban forestry jobs program, are these programs already funded, or would they need to be identified in the city budget for funding at this time?

These were items that were that have existing funding within programs and departments.

Okay.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Colleagues, for the urban forestry management plan, are there any questions at this time?

I'm seeing no questions.

Councilmember Peterson?

Is that, yep, there you are.

Take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

And thank you, Director, for this presentation.

Is there anything in here about, you mentioned the many departments that oversee the tree regulations.

Was there any mention in the forest management plan about consolidating that under one agency?

I see coordinating communication.

But yeah, that wasn't covered in this management plan.

OK.

Yeah.

Because the action agenda includes items that are near term work that is agreed upon by the court team and the urban forestry teams is work that needs to move forward.

And again, there is a strategy here for coordinating communication.

And we always aim to continue to improve the coordination of urban forestry work across the departments, right?

Because we do have this integrated approach where the functions live within those nine different departments.

And as we continue that work to increase that coordination, the structure and function of those, of how that's distributed could evolve.

Thank you.

We had, uh, there was a statement of legislative intent adopted by the council last fall that asked for, um, looking at different models for how to manage tree protections.

And, um, we, we did receive a response to that, but it, it, I, I, it was a little bit lacking because it just said we might need to hire a consultant to then look into what to do.

And, um, But I think looking at, there are other cities that have it under one department or have a chief arborist that helps to make the tougher decisions on whether to take down exceptional trees, for example.

So it's something that I'll be interested in doing more research on.

Thank you.

Yeah, that is a big body of work that would warrant some focus efforts to evaluate that.

Colleagues, any other questions at this time?

Patty, amazing job.

Thank you.

And yeah, I'll still be here if there are any other questions come up on the management plan.

And Shonda now will go into details on our tree protection work.

Long awaited.

Welcome, Shonda.

Take it away.

Thank you, Patty.

I'm happy to provide an update on tree protections.

Before I talk about this slide, I want to give you a quick overview at this time right now.

Actions this quarter are on track and underway.

Our team is concluding the outreach and is on target to issue the SEPA decision by the end of the year.

I would like to cover the timeline in more detail at the end of the presentation.

So I'm just going to start here with our next slide here, which is our outreach.

As you recall from our last briefing, July 14th, that our public outreach included two parallel outreach processes to hear from community on tree protection updates.

One of those processes was to hear from the focus groups, the listening sessions.

And so our team facilitated a number of listening sessions through the months of July and August.

And the participants included homeowners, builders, environmental groups, community organizations, tree service providers, and then there would be like landscape companies, and then real estate agents.

Participation in all groups was thoughtful and constructive with approximately two to nine participants in each group.

These structured conversations allowed for focused feedback as well as group conversation.

This approach gave room for participants to share their individual experiences as well as engage in a conversation with each other and an iterative feedback loop.

So now our team is currently in the process of reviewing that feedback to identify key themes, key topics that we heard across all groups.

And then after that, we will prepare a summary report to be posted on the SDCI website in the next few weeks.

Next slide, please.

The other outreach process is hearing from BIPOC communities and other underrepresented communities.

Our team is working with the Department of Neighborhoods to do this piece.

Since we last reported, SDCI and OSC has trained the Department of Neighborhoods community liaisons to do this work.

We also conducted and completed orientations which was necessary to prepare them for the next steps.

Part of this included preparing and translating outreach materials in multiple languages such as Somali, Chinese, and Spanish.

We've been very careful to make sure that every step of the way throughout our outreach process that we're centering BIPOC voices and really being fully aware of all things necessary to tailor engagement to the communities that we are serving because it's of the most importance that we hear from everyone.

So right now, our team of community liaisons, they're active and they're out in the communities collecting information in language and they're using culturally appropriate engagement methodologies that are tailored for the populations that they're serving.

We expect that we will receive a lot of really valuable feedback that will tie together with the feedback that we already received from the online listening sessions.

One note to this work with the community liaisons, is that we're working with the same CLs that we reached out to the community for the urban forest management plan update, which, you know, helps increase the efficiency and not only just starting from scratch, but orienting these folks, but also contributes to the request from these communities over the years to continue to be engaged in the city's tree work.

So we are on track to receive the summary reports from the community liaisons as soon as early October.

And once we receive those reports, then our team will post all that information online as soon as we get it October or the first week of November of the latest.

Next slide.

So this slide here summarizes the four topic areas that we're covering in the outreach process.

We'll be receiving feedback on protecting exceptional trees, expanding the definition of exceptional trees, creating a new definition for significant trees, establishing a tree removal permit system, developing and implementing a voluntary payment-in-lieu alternative, and then exploring a tree service provider registration program.

Just before we move on there, the arborist qualifications and registration, this is a bill that's very similar to what the proposal of Councilmember Peterson.

And that's a piece of legislation that I am supportive of.

Quite frankly, I think it's a good idea.

I'll be very curious to see the outcome of this public engagement and hopefully that can help us inform the bill.

I'll just kind of speak plainly that if we are able to receive the tree ordinance, as you mentioned in the slide just a minute ago, to have that SIPA beginning by the end of this year, I'll save my commentary about that for just a minute.

If you are able to transmit us this bill, I think we'll hopefully be able to wrap in Councilmember Peterson's process into that.

I don't know, Councilmember Peterson, I guess I'm speaking a lot for you.

Do you want to say anything?

I just wanted to say I'm supporting your concept, Councilmember Peterson.

Maybe I'll put it that plainly.

Thank you, chair Strauss.

Yes, we, you know, we're looking forward, obviously, to the comprehensive tree protection ordinance, which we'll talk about a little bit later here.

And I'm glad to know that there's some common ground on.

you know, the need to qualify arborists and register them to increase transparency and accountability.

And, you know, of course, that's just a modest but necessary, you know, step forward.

And with so many other things here, like on this slide about protecting exceptional trees.

And so thank you for indicating your support for that concept.

I appreciate it.

Next slide, please.

So this slide kind of covers the additional staff that SDCI hired earlier this year that allowed our GIS analysts to make progress expediting entering tree related data into our GIS system.

So this work again is supporting our staff to monitor canopy coverage and also supports data-driven decisions.

For code compliance, we continue to levy penalties ranging from $10,000 to $99,000 under the triple penalty provision for illegal tree removal.

The triple penalty provision is language that SDCI added in a director's role to clarify willful and malicious cutting warrants a triple penalty.

I want to call out here that unfortunately this slide is a little bit out of date.

We submitted slides for approval by the mayor's office and over the week and week we did receive a large penalty in the amount of $28,572 for a damaged exceptional beach tree.

The correction on this slide should read 66,696 or approximately 70,000 rather than 38,124 to date for that provision.

That's really excellent news.

Next slide, please.

So As far as timing, SDCI and OSC are concluding the outreach and concluding the racial equity toolkit analysis and then the related analysis and are in the process right now of developing our initial recommendations.

Concurrently, we're taking steps to identify and document potential implementation and code compliance enforcement needs as we further develop our proposal.

We are on target to issue, like I said, the SEPA decision before the end of the year.

So Shonda, I guess maybe this is the time for my commentary here, which is I know that the outreach and everything that you have been engaged in is a product of the resolution that I helped resolution 31902 which I helped author, a number of years ago.

At our last committee meeting where you presented, I was very clear, and also with Mike Podolsky, that I needed to see the SEPA work completed by September.

So I understand in-language takes a little bit more time, and it's incredibly important to do that.

Nevertheless, when we created that resolution two years ago, we didn't foresee the pandemic coming.

My desire would have been we could have been at this place much sooner understanding all of those constraints and that we will have a new mayor in a number of months.

It's very critical to me I see that when you say target the issue see the decision before the end of the year what I want to note for the listening public is that.

When that occurs, it means that there's a draft bill out for public consumption.

My preference is for the mayor's office to be able to transmit something to us by the end of the year.

That's why I wanted a SEPA beginning in September.

It does not seem that they will be able to transmit us the bill, understanding that SEPA may not be able to be completed by the end of the year.

For the listening public, I do want to highlight, though, when that SEPA process begins, that means that there will be a draft bill for public consumption.

And even if the mayor's office cannot transmit it, we will be able to take a copy from the public record to continue moving this work forward.

So with that, my request here to SDCI and the mayor's office is to complete SEPA by November, by Thanksgiving, so that we are able to work together in the last month that Mayor Durkan is the executive of the City of Seattle.

Okay.

Noted.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you.

Colleagues, Councilmember Peterson, take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and thank you for setting the table with those expectations.

And of course, your leadership on Resolution 31902, adopted in, I believe, September 2019. So just share the concerns that we don't have the Tree Protection Ordinance draft from the Durkin administration at this time.

We were hoping to get it in 2020, and the quarterly reports that we get, it's really, I'm really glad the resolution required these quarterly reports that we're getting like the one today.

It does seem to show, you know, when I compare the March to the July to the September quarterly reports, that the goalposts seem to be moving farther away each time.

There's some subtle differences to each one, but the the net result is that we still don't have the ordinance from the Durkin administration.

And so I wanted to piggyback on some of the comments I heard during the public comment period, which is, I guess, to do the SEPA analysis, the State Environmental Policy Act analysis, wouldn't it help to have a draft ordinance before us, so even though you're not delivering the ordinance, transmitting it to the council to act upon, but that there's a draft document that's available to inform the CEPA and even to inform this outreach that you're doing, it would seem, so I guess the question for the executive is, will you, could you clarify when a draft, a draft ordinance would be available either for the, to help you with your outreach or to help with the CEPA analysis?

I'd be happy to answer that.

Um, so the, the SIPA, uh, means ordinance.

So those go together and we're going to work on getting that as soon as possible.

So, um, cause I know that you're saying to finish the SIPA, um, have a SIPA decision before the end of the year, but, but when, I guess, would a draft bill be available to review?

The draft bill will go with the SIPA.

So right now we are working on forming the initial SIPA concepts.

And so, you know, like I pointed out earlier, the tree service provider registration is one of the strategies that was called out for in resolution 31902. And it's also one of the things that we looked at when we were doing the draft director's role to update the 2008 exceptional tree director's role.

So a lot of this work has already been done.

It's just a matter of assembling it into a SEPA checklist and an ordinance.

Thank you for mentioning the director's rule.

I believe you had issued a director's rule last year to protect exceptional trees.

Thank you for that draft.

When will that be finalized?

The draft director's rule?

I'm sorry.

Right now, we haven't received direction from the mayor's office on that, but the draft ordinance will come out at the same time that SEPA does.

So I think that's the most efficient, fastest manner that we can do this.

Shawnda, maybe I could put this in a different way, which is that the director's rule that SDCI transferred to the mayor's office over a year ago to increase protections needs to have a CFA checklist.

And if it's determined is not significant, then that that's a decision, or then it would have an environmental impact statement.

So to actuate the work that SDCI completed a year ago that has been with the mayor's office, they need to do SEPA on that work.

And that's what the SEPA decision will entail, as well as the ordinance itself.

When that determination of non-significance, or if it is determined to be significant and they have to start an EIS process, That information will then be publicly available to us so we can then review and refer to the draft ordinance that has been determined to be not significant or that is then determined to be significant.

So if we were and maybe Shonda now I'm going out on a limb so real me back or Patty or clerk on or anyone out there wants to reel me back in for what I think is going on here.

Hypothetically, if we were to receive a determination of non-significance, that bill would be published.

At that time, there could be appeals to that and that could extend the SEPA process.

If there's not an appeal, then we could theoretically take this bill up by the end of December if we were to receive that CEPA checklist, the determination of non-significance by Thanksgiving.

That's correct.

The rule would be reviewed with the ordinance, and it would need CEPA review just to clarify that.

But yes, that's correct.

So once that determination of non-significance is or the determination of significance is reached, that bill and the director's rule will be publicly available for us so that we will be able to have a copy of it if the bill is not able to be transmitted by this mayor.

Correct.

And I'd like to add that everyone would see this at the same time for fairness.

So when we issue it, we want to make sure everyone sees what's issued, which is standard.

which is why I am so critically serious about receiving that, starting the SEPA process as soon as possible, hopefully to be completed before Thanksgiving would be my strongest desire.

Council Member Peterson, do you have more?

No?

Council Member Juarez, I see you there.

All good, no questions?

Council Member Lewis, any thoughts, questions?

No, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

Ms. Shonda, Patty, I really appreciate you coming before us.

Shonda, I know, you know, part of that, the accountability of that resolution to make sure that we are progressing are these reports.

And while I also had made the request to have that SEPA begin or at least complete, at least begun, hopefully completed by now, I understand that you are still on track to have that completed as soon as possible.

You'll hear me say that I'd like to have that completed by Thanksgiving.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Schell.

Thank you, committee.

My favorite holiday.

I'm sorry.

No, it's not.

I know.

I didn't know you'd be able to stop.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Anyhow, colleagues, if I am seeing no further questions on this report, Shonda, I thank you for your work.

Patty, I thank you for your work.

I look forward to continue working with you as we move ahead.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for starting the conversation about the registration.

With no further ado, I want to thank you all for being here today.

Any items for the good of the order?

We started exactly at 2 p.m., had public comment and six items, and we are concluding at 4.04.

So this concludes Friday, September 24th, 2020 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

As a reminder, our next regularly scheduled committee meeting will be Wednesday, December 8th, starting at 9.30 a.m.

It is now 4.05 p.m.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.