Seattle City Council Committee on Finance & Housing 31622

We are recording.

Good morning, everyone.

Thanks so much for joining the Seattle City Council Committee meeting of the Finance and Housing Committee.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Herbold?

Councilmember Peterson?

Present.

Councilmember Nelson?

Present.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Chair Mosqueda?

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you for joining us again today.

We do have three items on our agenda today.

I will read them for your consideration.

We will have a briefing on the capital projects watch list that has a presentation and a memo from central staff.

And then we have some community guests that will be joining us, thanks to Councilmember Herbold and our Vice Chair, who suggested to invite partners from GenPride at Pride Place to provide an overview of some of the great work that they're doing in the community regarding our most vulnerable communities and the most pressing need for green housing.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, we would move right now into public comment.

I do not see anyone signed up for public comment, so I will pause very briefly just to confirm with our IT crew that we don't have anybody signed up for public comment.

There are no public comment registrants.

Okay, well, thanks so much for that, son.

And for anybody who does want to provide us with public comment, of course, you can reach us at council at seattle.gov on any topic related to the Finance and Housing Committee.

And for that matter, any topic related to city business.

We will go ahead and skip public comment then and encourage folks to send in any comments that they may have related to items on our agenda or work plan to us electronically.

Again, council at Seattle.gov.

At this time, let's move on to our first item of business.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item number one into the record?

agenda item number one, capital project watch list for briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And colleagues, I want to welcome to the stage here, Brian Goodnight.

Brian is with our central staff team who has provided us with a memo and a presentation.

Both of those are linked on today's agenda and we'll be going over those in today's committee.

Central staff is here to present on the resolution that the Capital Projects Watch List has created.

And by way of reminder, in 2018, Council passed Resolution 31853, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Bagshaw and Councilmember Herbold.

This required the small list of capital projects that require enhanced quarterly reporting from the mayor to be presented to Council.

Today we're going to hear about some of these proposed items on the list that has been transmitted by Mayor Harrell.

If council members have any amendments they wish to add to the watch list, please do notify Brian Goodnight by next week on March 22nd.

That's Tuesday.

This is an opportunity for us to have a briefing today.

for you to see what the watch list includes for this year.

And if you do have any amendments or additional ideas that you'd like to add, you're welcome to do that again by notifying central staff next Tuesday.

We will endeavor to bring back to this committee a final project watch list with any amendments that you all are suggesting by April 6th.

And in April 6th, we would love to have a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Brian, I will turn it over to you to walk us through the reporting that we have in front of us for our council review.

And again, colleagues, if you haven't had the chance to dive into this watch list before, this includes a list of possible projects for increased departments or city budget.

to provide us with additional oversight.

And we do try to keep this list pretty short because we do have limited capacity, obviously, from staff within various departments to make sure that they're adding additional detail for us has always been appreciated.

But if you're thinking about adding a specific project to this list, just would encourage you to be cautious or thoughtful about the long list already and the work that they have.

And with that, I will turn it over I think we are ready for you, Brian.

walk through the proposed capital project list.

So hopefully you all can see that now.

So as Council Member Mosqueda said, in 2018 the Council established expectations for enhanced reporting on a watch list of capital improvement program or CIP projects.

The process calls for the executive to propose a list of projects for inclusion on the annual watch list by January 15th of each year and the Council typically adopts the watch list via resolution.

You may have noticed that the agenda for today's meeting doesn't include the resolution yet, and that's just an issue of timing.

A resolution has been drafted and will be ready for your consideration at the committee's next meeting.

The resolution as drafted reflects the executive's proposed list of projects for 2022 that we'll walk through in just a moment, which is a starting place for the council's consideration.

So on January 14th, the executive did submit a proposed list of projects for 2022. The list contains 18 projects from six city departments, and there's only one change from the list that Council adopted in 2021. The executive has proposed removing the Seattle Department of Transportation's, or SDOT's, Northgate Bridge and Cycle Track project because it's now open to pedestrian traffic.

And unless there's any questions at this point, I'll just move on to going through the list.

So the first department that has a project on the proposed watch list for 2022 is Finance and Administrative Services, or FAS, and the project is the replacement of Fire Station 31. This project is still in the initial design phase, which is why there's a project cost range of $35 to $56 million, rather than a more concrete total project cost figure.

Just by way of context, project budgets are typically established once a project reaches the 30% design milestone.

I'll also take just a brief moment to describe where the information in the total project cost column comes from, since you'll see that in this slide and then on the future slides as well.

So the figure comes from a summary section at the top of each project page in the Capital Improvement Program book, and it's a separate field that departments must update.

So in some cases, if you are cross-referencing this presentation along with the CIP book, the amounts won't exactly match what the plan spending is over the six years of the CIP.

And this could be the case either because the project extends beyond the six-year time frame of the six-year CIP or because of just a simple oversight by a department in updating the field.

And just to provide clarification, these amounts will not appear in the resolution that council will adopt to establish the watch list.

These are just on these slides for informational purposes only.

I'm going to pause real quick.

I want to welcome Vice Chair Herbold to the committee.

Thanks so much for being here, Vice Chair Herbold.

I just wanted to note it for the record.

And Council Member Herbold, if you do have any additional context regarding the creation of the watch list or any comments after you hear the presentation, I'll go ahead and turn to you first to provide that contextual comments, and then we'll take other council members.

Just wanted to tee that up if that was of interest.

Thanks, Brian.

Thank you.

I did a great job.

I came in.

Okay.

Excellent.

Thank you very much vice chair.

All right.

Brian, please go ahead.

Great.

Thank you.

So, the next department after is the information technology department, and they have just 1 project on the list.

It's a project that's estimated at a little more than 42Million dollars and is intended to replace an outdated case management system.

And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these projects, so please stop me if you have questions.

This is just an overview of the project list.

That's why I'm going relatively quickly.

So the next department is Seattle City Light, and there are two projects on the proposed list for them.

The first is a utility relocations project related to work on the waterfront, and the second is related to overhead equipment replacements, and this does include the accelerated pole replacement program that City Light has been undertaking.

For that project in particular, you'll notice that the cost column is a little different than the others.

And this is because that project isn't a discrete project that has a certain body of work that will at some point be finished, but rather it's an ongoing program of work.

So although the project doesn't have a specific total cost, the slide does show the amount of planned spending that's in the six-year CIP to provide some context for how large that program is.

The next two slides are going to show projects proposed for SDOT.

There are nine capital projects for SDOT, and that makes up approximately, or that makes up exactly half of the total projects that are on the proposed list.

Of these first five, two are related to rapid ride lines G and H on Madison and Delridge, and the other projects are the Alaskan Way Main Corridor, the Center City Streetcar Connector Project, and the Georgetown to South Park Trail.

And the other four SDOT projects include the North Lake Retaining Wall, the Overlook Walk and East-West Connections Project, Rapid Ride for Roosevelt, and then last but not least, the project related to the repair of the West Seattle Bridge.

And there are two more departments.

Seattle Parks and Recreation has three projects on the list.

The replacement of the Lake City Community Center, the rehabilitation and rebuilding of public park facilities on waterfront piers, and the development of Smith Cove Park.

And lastly, the last department is Seattle Public Utilities, or SPU, and they have two projects.

The first of these projects is the largest capital project that the city has, which is the Ship Canal Water Quality Project.

And the second is the South Park Stormwater Program, which is a suite of projects intended to reduce flooding in the South Park neighborhood.

And then the final slide that I have is simply next steps.

And Council Member Mosqueda already touched on this, so I won't spend too long on it.

But if you do have proposed amendments to the list, it would be helpful to know of them by next week, by March 22nd.

And then at the April 6th meeting, the resolution will be before you and any amendments.

Happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much, Brian.

And thanks for the memo as well.

Attached to our agenda, Vice Chair Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

There is one amendment that I am interested in.

potentially pursuing is related to the South Park stormwater project in SPU that you just mentioned, Brian.

That project has a related project in SDOT called the SPU Drainage Partnership South Park.

That project is listed for just under $10 million with 8.1 listed in spending during 2022. The SPU project, as you mentioned, is a pump station and drainage conveyance project.

In the description under the SDOT project describes the SDOT project, which is not on the watch list, saying the project will be used to partner with SPU's South Park drainage improvement projects, and the funding will allow SPU and SDOT to partner to install the needed collection system and repair the deteriorated roads.

So given that these two projects are so closely related and the two departments are partnering on the project and one element is included on the watch list and the other isn't, I'm interested in potentially adding the SDOT project to the Seattle Public Utilities Project since they are related.

Thank you very much Councilmember Herbold.

Thanks for the early heads up on that and the nexus to the item that's already on the list.

Any additional Councilmembers have questions, comments, like to flag anything?

Okay.

Well, I do appreciate the creation of this list and the request from Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Bagshot at the time.

I do appreciate the continued commitment from the Herald Administration to work with Council on providing this watch list.

And thank you, Brian, for all the work you're doing on this.

And again, if Council members do have amendments that you'd like to see, the deadline is March 22nd so that Brian can make those amendments before it comes to us at our next committee.

Vice Chair Hurdle, please go ahead.

Thanks.

I just want to make a pitch for how I hope that this list will be used in the future.

It has never quite realized, I think, its full potential.

The intent, as I know has been discussed of the list, is to allow the council to have more information and more oversight of projects that are identified as high-risk projects according to criteria that we have agreed on with the departments and the budget office.

The hope has always been that when we get our reports on the projects on these lists, that the committees that are sort of the home to the projects would then use their committee time to do sort of a deeper dive on the reporting on the projects on the watch list, just with the idea of getting more transparency and more eyes on the projects.

I know our committee schedules have been deeply impacted over the last two years, but just wanting to put a pitch out there for that once again.

Thanks.

Thank you very much, Council Member.

And that is helpful context.

Thanks for adding that.

Okay, Brian, I don't think that there is any additional comments or questions for you.

So I want to thank you for your time and the work you've done.

Look forward to seeing you on April 6th.

And colleagues, another heads up to you and members of the committee and the executive.

We do look forward to getting those amendments worked into this list, if there are any, by the 22nd so that we can have a briefing discussion and possible vote on the 6th of April.

Okay.

Thank you.

Take care, Brian.

Let's move on to item number two on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, can you please read the item into the record?

Agenda item number two, updating regular payments of claims bill format for briefing and discussion.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and it is great to see you.

Acting Director Panucci and Tom Mikesell from Central Staff.

Always a pleasure to have you in our Finance Committee.

I'm excited about this item here for our preview today.

Colleagues, again, this is just a preview of a possible resolution that we are working on to help provide greater transparency to you all as members of the Finance and Housing Committee.

as members of the Select Budget Committee as well, and to members of the public on the finances for the city.

It is an opportunity for us to update our policies to really reflect current practices.

Again, I want to thank Interim Director Panucci and Tom Meisel from Central Staff for the work that they've done with us throughout the last, now, two years and three months as I've been serving as your Chair of Budget and Finance, and I want to thank them for the work that they're doing to think about how to update some of these practices.

It has been 20 years since we have updated the way in which this information is transmitted to council and really appreciate the work that central staff has done.

And I also want to thank members of the city budget office and director of finance, Glenn Lee, Both of those teams have been connected with and by way of preview for the update that's provided here today and in anticipation of the resolution to clarify the practices that we are hoping to introduce on April 6th, excuse me, for our April 6th committee.

We have begun conversations with them and will continue to do so.

Our hope is that we can have an initial discussion on legislation on April 6th and have the legislation in front of us for April 20th.

And of course, happy to stay flexible if central staff needs additional time or if we are all feeling comfortable moving forward at an earlier date, that's also fine with me.

But without further ado, I wanted to make sure that we previewed this item for you today so that we did have robust discussion in our committee over March and April.

And that way, folks, if you have any questions, can always work with central staff or my office in the upcoming weeks.

I'll turn it over to Interim Director Panucci and to Tom Mikesell to help walk us through the proposed concepts.

And again, this is in anticipation of possible resolution coming next committee meeting.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Allie Panucci of your central staff, and I'll turn it over to Tom to introduce himself while I share my screen.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee.

Tom Mikesell with your council's central staff.

Thank you.

And I just want to make sure, are you seeing the presentation?

My screen looks a little odd right now, so I just want to make sure.

Great.

So we are just going to briefly walk you through the plan for updating the regular payments of claims bill.

So as Chair Mosqueda described, this proposal is in an effort to identify opportunities to increase transparency and clarity in the city's budget.

process and financial management.

And so we have been looking at the payments of claims bill for about a year now and getting more familiar with it and thinking about how we could improve the process.

So just on background, the city charter requires presentation of certain payments of claims to the city council prior to making payment.

So the city council regularly considers a payments of claims bill at its council meetings held every Tuesday afternoon.

Every other week, for example, that bill includes authorization of paying the city's payroll.

The payment and claims bill uses a standard format and as the chair described, it has not been updated since at least 1999. So as we've been looking at some of the various legislative tools that are used in the city's budget and financial management systems.

We identified at least one issue with this bill, which is that the template includes reference to an auditing committee.

The auditing committee was at one time required by the city charter to examine all claims and demands.

the city and then make a recommendation to the city council about whether to approve those payments or not.

That auditing committee was eliminated from the city charter in November of 1999, but the template for this bill has not been updated.

So the proposed changes we are working on with Chair Mosqueda would request via resolution that the Department of Finance and Administrative Services use an updated template for the weekly payments of claims ordinance.

The intent here is to clarify what the purpose of the bill is, so it will provide both greater transparency to the public and clarity to elected officials who are being asked to make a decision on these bills, and really just updating the language to reflect current practice and reference current state law regarding the city's budget.

So specifically, we would be considering changes to the template to remove references to the obsolete auditing committee.

We want to add some language stating that the payments and claims presented by the executive to the city council are consistent with the current adopted budget authority, and that includes all approved budget amendments.

So any changes the council may approve throughout the year to the adopted budget and any payments made based on those changes would be consistent and then makes explicit reference to current state law around the Budget Act.

So it really won't change sort of what the city is doing generally, but it provides more specificity in what the council is being asked to approve.

So it is a fairly technical exercise in terms of updating that bill.

So our next steps is to work with the Department of Finance and Administrative Services to develop the agreed upon template.

and then introduce a resolution for consideration at the Finance and Housing Committee in April.

And really the purpose of doing this through resolution is to memorialize the direction that the council is providing and ensuring that in the future that the proposed changes to the template persist unless directed otherwise by the city council and agreed to by the Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

So that is a quick summary of the proposal.

We're happy to answer questions.

Thank you very much, Allie, and I'm happy to take questions.

I do just want to applaud the work of Allie Panucci and Tom Weigsel.

Since I've been in this seat for the last two years as your budget chair, I've really tried to take the opportunity to mind the expert minds of Tom and Ali as we look at where other jurisdictions have made inroads into greater transparency and accountability and just an opportunity to deconstruct budget and budget making for members of the public.

So thank you for the opportunity to work with you on this and to learn from your past experiences as well in looking at what other jurisdictions have done.

It's been very helpful.

So this may sound minor, but it is, I think, an important element to our larger I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

Okay, well then with that, colleagues, if you do have any questions in the meantime, of course, you know where to find central staff and look forward to having some language in the form of a resolution in front of us in April for your consideration.

Okay, thanks so much, everyone.

Thanks for the early heads up on that so that we can have a robust conversation in anticipation of the drafting.

Thanks so much.

Madam Clerk, let's move on to item number three.

Agenda number three, GenPride at Pride Place for briefing and discussion.

I want to welcome our guests and we are moving right along pretty fast.

So I want to make sure that the folks that we have invited are on the line here with us because we are a little bit ahead of schedule.

So if we don't have everyone already, if we could send them a quick message to let them know that we're coming in early, that would be great.

And as we're doing that, I want to thank Council Member Herbold, who really put this item on our radar and in conversation with community partners said, hey, there's some really great work that's happening here with our partners at Gen Pride and at Pride Place, and it would be great to feature some of that.

I said that sounded like a fantastic idea, so I'm going to let her do a little bit of introduction before the presenters start, but I do want to note for the record who we have with us.

We have Christopher Pearson from the CEO of, oh, excuse me, Hello, Chris.

Hi, there you are.

Okay, great.

And Kelly Dodd, Foundation Executive Director, Mason Cavill, Community Roots Housing, all of that team from Community Roots Housing, and Sarah Nelson, not to be confused with the other Sarah Nelson, who's a member of our committee, from Gen Pride.

This last item really provides us with an opportunity to look at affordable housing projects that are not just creating a place to live, but creating a sense of place and community.

So I will turn it over very briefly to Council Member Herbold to offer some introductory comments, and then I'll wrap up with some comments of my own.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to add anything about the guests who are with us today?

Sure.

Thank you so much, and I really appreciate, Madam Chair, the generosity.

of you providing time for this remarkable project.

I would just and I appreciate also just having the opportunity to provide some context for this presentation and the council's long history of support for this particular project.

Back in 2015 a report found that across every census division in the United States Seattle has the least developed services for LGBT older adults and their families.

And unlike most cities, we are also running behind on developing housing for LGBTQ seniors.

In April of 2016, council passed legislation that put the housing levy on the November 2016 ballot.

And we, for the first time, specifically called out LGBTQ seniors as a priority population in the ordinance, putting the levy on the ballot.

The LGBTQ seniors were the only specific demographic that was named because the council really wanted to emphasize the importance of meeting the completely unmet need for this population.

Then in 2017, the council passed the administrative and finance plan to guide the use of levy funds.

We worked to amend that legislation to prioritize housing development for LGBTQ seniors in that planning document as well.

And then Community Reads Housing, at the time Capitol Hill Housing, applied for levy funds for LGBTQ senior housing.

In 2017, that request was not awarded and the community again began organizing towards lifting up that shared goal.

The community tried a new approach and in 2018, the council approved funding for a housing needs study for low-income LGBTQ seniors.

I want to recognize former council member and former council president, Lorena Gonzalez, in helping to champion that funding.

Over 500 people completed that survey, which identified the challenges in supporting LGBTQ elders and concluded, again, what we had already found, that Seattle was falling behind other major metropolitan areas in providing services to LGBTQ seniors.

It called for creating a LGBTQ senior center and affordable LGBTQ senior housing.

Roots Housing and GenPride tried again and then secured $9.8 million from the Office of Housing for Pride Place.

It broke ground in September 2021. And I really appreciate their tenacity in pursuing this vision.

I think we all have had that experience where So I think it's a really good idea and you just try, try, and try again.

And now they're here with us today to talk about Pride Place.

So thank you.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

And again, I'm really excited about the presentation in front of us.

I want to thank also the folks from Community Roots Housing who invited our team as well to come and see Pride Place site and follow along.

We've been following along on the videos that you've been putting out.

I know that there's a lot of joy.

hope for this project as Councilmember Herbold noted.

I can't wait to hear more and look forward to hearing what you've done in a very short period of time as well since you did have the groundbreaking last September.

With that, CEO Pearson, I'm going to turn it over to you and your team is here along with Sarah Nelson from GenPride.

So why don't you take it away.

Thank you, Council President Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold.

And I think I'm going to turn it over to Kylie Dott, who's going to be pulling up our presentation.

I believe our Sarah Nelson is going to start from Gen Pride.

Hi, everyone.

So happy to be here and thank you for having us.

As I think you know, Steven Knipp, who's the executive director of Gen Pride, is unable to attend today.

And I've been involved with this project just for a little under a year now, helping Gen Pride with the fundraising for Pride Place.

So just to give you a little background on Gen Pride, in 2015, the first national study of LGBT midlife and older adults was conducted by Aging with Pride out of the University of Washington.

And they sought to answer one primary question, which was, do LGBTQ people age differently than the general population?

And the slide here shows what was found from that study.

Primarily only 15% of LGBTQ seniors access services, and that 15% of them fear accessing health care services outside of their own community.

So these and other statistics really were the gen of Gen Pride.

And at this point, Gen Pride now is dedicated to serving and empowering older LGBT adults and their families in King County and surrounding areas.

that we provide fitness, educational and recreational opportunities to meet the specific needs of the community, and also offer a range of individual case management and group support groups for caregivers.

And starting next year at the new center, we'll be providing affordable meals and health services in addition to the other services we provide currently.

And this site will also be the first home for GenPride's mission.

Right now, the office is based in 12th Avenue Arts, along with Community Roots Housing and other nonprofits.

But GenPride is really excited about having kind of their own stamp in their own community and their own building.

So I'll turn it over to back to Kylie, I believe.

I actually think it's over to Chris.

Oh, sorry, Chris.

I was muted.

So a little bit about Community Roots Housing.

We are a 45-year-old community-based organization, really serving the entire city.

We develop, manage affordable housing throughout the city and increasingly outside the city, serving over 2,000 residents.

And one of the things that we've really been focused on as an organization I think most of the city council members know is a deep partnership with community organizations like with Africatown and Bird Bar Place and Black Community Impact Alliance at Liberty Bank building and Africatown Plaza and our work with Gen Pride here at Pride Place.

So we're very thrilled to be part of this project and looking forward to getting it under construction again soon.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned, this is a project that we've been working on for a long, long time.

It's changed location once And we, you know, have a long community process for determining Gen Pride as the partner.

They'll be located, as you know, in the bottom floor, as well as providing services to the community and the residents of the building.

And over to Mason to tell us a little bit about the Senior Center.

All right.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Mason Cavella.

I'm a senior development manager at Community Roots.

As Chris mentioned, we have a 4400 square foot space for the GenPride Community Center.

That's accessed at the ground level.

We have a main lobby entrance where you can either enter into the Gem Pride space or enter into the affordable housing space.

And then we have what we're calling our Satellite Health Center.

It's what's shaded in sort of pinkish red along Broadway.

That's going to be a health services site where Gem Pride will partner with groups like Country Doctor and Gay City to provide both behavioral and primary care health services to senior LGBTQ residents.

We also have a large community meeting space that's about 1,000 feet with a capacity of about 75 people.

We'll be able to reconfigure that space in a variety of ways with a retractable partition down the middle and modular furniture.

We'll also be hosting a meal program in there.

there is an overhead garage door that provides an open air access into the courtyard as well in the nice seasons.

We have a full commercial kitchen.

The idea is that Gem Pride will be providing several meal services per week.

And the kitchen is set up to provide 50 to 75 meals, probably three to five times a week.

As of now, that's the idea.

We also have office space.

There's an open office floor plan for about eight to 10 staff.

And then we have two private staff offices for the director level positions, in addition to a conference room and two small meetings slash Zoom rooms and a break room.

So this will certainly be revolutionary for Gem Pride and their ability to create a headquarter space that they own.

So they're not subject to the whims of the market.

and one where they really have an anchor in a building where they're serving both tenants at the building and the broader community.

Thanks, Mason.

Back to you, Sarah.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Thanks.

So this is a modular view of what the community gathering space that Mason was talking about might look like.

And hold on one second while I apologize.

Um, so there's back here is the kind of gathering area.

Um, and this will also be the center for where service, uh, uh, gen pride services will be provided, um, including meals, um, wellness support and social networking to combat health challenges.

Um, we, um, I know that, um, we've already received some money from the City of Seattle's Aging and Disability Services for, um, meal programs continue right now at Gen Pride, and that we hope will continue in the coming years, starting in 2023. Are we moving on?

Okay.

Yes, and this is just a, a kind of summary of the planned services at the, at Pride Place.

We talked about meals already and some of the social networking and wellness support services.

We also provide caregiver support, case management, and LGBTQ-friendly referrals and facilitate intergenerational LGBTQ mentor and chat programs, trans-specific referrals and support, and we train other regional senior centers and housing providers on how to include culturally competent care in an LGBTQ affirming environment.

Thanks, Sarah.

So I'll just talk you all through how we're funding this project.

You can see this is the funding stack for Pride Place, the total development cost of $52.2 million.

And as you can see, we financed it using the low-income housing tax credit program and have also received funding from the city, state, and county.

We did have a $4.3 million gap on the project that we are filling through a capital campaign, which I will say more about in the following slides.

So Gen Pride and Community Roots Housing are both part of a unique collaborative fundraising effort called Rise Together.

And we're a group of six community-based nonprofit organizations with a collective vision for the future without displacement where everyone can share in our region's success.

And together, we're raising $40 million to build more than 400 new affordable homes in the Central District, Capitol Hill, and White Center.

alongside space for community programs, health and human services, and small minority owned businesses.

And as you can see, you know, we've raised more than $28 million to date toward that goal.

So around 12 million left to raise collectively.

And this campaign really is about creating new opportunities for residents across these rapidly changing neighborhoods in Seattle.

And that includes Pride Place, which, as you know, is the first LGBTQ affirming affordable housing in Seattle.

And so here's a slightly more detailed breakdown of the capital campaign for Pride Place.

In order to build up the senior center cold shell, we need to raise $2 million and we have raised 1.2 to date.

To complete the tenant improvements for the center, we need 2.3 million and we have raised $2 million to date.

So really getting close on that.

And then GenPride's also raising funds for a transitional operating fund to support there needed growth to operate this new senior center.

So altogether, we've raised about three and a quarter million toward a $5 million goal.

And it really is our hope to raise the remaining funds this year.

And we just wanted to let you guys know that we are holding a benefit for pride place.

on May 15th, so please do save the date.

It's called Out and Proud, and it really is about celebrating and honoring LGBTQIA plus elders.

And so I know they're still working on details around venue and getting tickets out for sale, but more to come on that.

And I'll turn it over to Mason to talk project status and timeline.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks, Kylie.

So You know, as previously mentioned, we did break ground in September, October 2021 with the expectation that we'd be complete in April 2023 after about an 18 month construction term.

Um, that has been derailed somewhat by the start of the concrete workers strike in December.

So as of now, we're about three months delayed.

So the expectation is that, um, you know, hopeful, uh, we're going to have a resolution to the concrete impasse sooner than later, and we will complete construction in June or July in 2023. We are also hoping to optimize the timing of the gen pride tenant improvement build out such that we're not starting to build out once we complete construction on the affordable housing project.

We're actually hoping to start construction on those tenant improvements, about eight months prior to the completion of the broader project.

such that we're finishing construction both on the affordable housing piece and on the Gen Pride tenant improvements at the same time.

So Gen Pride can start offering services to residents in the building once the building is complete and residents start moving in.

So, you know, right now, we're effectively seized up.

But again, the hope is that we will wrap up construction in the summer of 2023 and then be stabilized and operational in Q3, hopefully not Q4, 2023. And with that, I'll hand it back over to Chris.

I just hop in there for a quick second to add additional context.

I know a lot of folks have been sending messages of solidarity for the striking Teamster concrete drivers.

And I might reframe it to say that I think, from my perspective, the stall is really, in large part, due to the company's not coming to the table in good faith and offering only a nickel increase.

in the last negotiation.

So I think over 115 days definitely would make an impact on your project.

So it's important that you call that out.

Thank you.

And also, I want to take a second to call out some of the behavior that we've seen on the employer side with an unwillingness to come to the table and negotiate in good faith.

And Councilmember Herbold did a great job summarizing some of the concerning behavior of the sort of, the consequences of that behavior in her latest newsletter, which we lifted a little bit of, Council Member Herbold, in my newsletter yesterday.

But I want to say thanks for first noting it, because we know that it's an important element of how it's affected your timeline, and didn't want that to be dismissed at all, because I know that the timeline has been dramatically affected.

But I also wanted to take a minute to thank the Teamsters.

My understanding is, as of yesterday, they have begun to do some work, even though they are definitely still on strike.

And I can only imagine that's a really tough thing to do, because sometimes a strike is your last leveraging opportunity.

But since these companies are peers that are just going to pass the costs on to all of us, you know, we all want to support them as they try to go back on in some level for working.

don't want to miss the opportunity to let the employers know while that work may continue in some form, all of us, including those who need affordable housing and want a West Seattle Bridge, want them to bargain in good faith.

So the pressure is not off those employers to come to the table and bargain in good faith so that projects like this can continue and appreciate the pressure being placed on them so that they come back with offers that are better than the nickel in these times.

Thank you, Christopher, for letting me opine for a second.

You know, I can take the opportunity to not do so, but I'll pass it back to you and definitely appreciate and understand the importance of how that has impacted this timeline.

So thanks for sharing that.

What I have to say just underscores what you just said, Council President Mosqueda.

We were very grateful to see the good faith offer of the drivers in returning to work on projects and the message from Rick Hicks.

You know, we're a mission-based organization, so we absolutely support fair wages for the workers, health insurance, the right to strike.

We feel very conflicted by the fact that the impasse, and we refer to it as an impasse because we don't want it to sound like it's the fault of the strike, but the impasse has created enormous additional costs on our projects.

Through March on Pride Place alone, we estimate additional costs to be $1.7 million.

And the costs of all of our projects through March is north of $4 million.

This is the additional cost caused by the impact and our projections have showed that going up at about $870,000 a month.

So those are significant costs as an industry.

We're talking about how we're going to find sources to help us pay for those goals in our budget as they become clearer and certainly looking to our partners at the state and city to support those efforts.

One of the messages that has been more difficult to convey is that with Because of the really kind of quirky and arcane financing that we use for affordable housing, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit financing, there are also very significant cliff events that we face in financing and recapture events where the investors can force repayment of all of the equity.

And so we even analyze those and analyze the absolute drop dead date that we have to be under construction.

We've been in contact with the Teamsters and look forward to working collaboratively with them, moving our projects forward as quickly as possible.

Not only are we delayed in delivering you know, vital affordable housing to folks, but the risk placed on the projects themselves and the developers of those projects is existential.

And we want folks to understand that as well.

So I think that concludes the presentation.

We would be happy to answer any questions that anybody might have.

Well, that was a really great presentation.

I want to thank all of you.

Thank you so much, Mason.

Is it Kylie?

Kiley, thank you, Sarah.

Thank you, Christopher.

And thank you, Council Member Herbold, for helping to get this on our agenda here today so that we could get an update.

And I know that this is something that I heard a ton about when I first came into office as well.

So you've been working on it for longer than that, folks, and it's exciting to see it all come to fruition and also probably pretty heartbreaking to have this impasse.

I appreciate that we're at this impasse that's affecting all of you, but I look forward to hearing more from our colleagues to hear more about the projects and any questions about how we might be able to help.

Please go ahead Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I have one question about the project services that are associated with the project and then a question about the concrete strike.

talked about a planned service to train regional senior centers and housing providers on how to include culturally competent care in an LGBT affirming environment.

I wanted to hear a little bit more about that need as identified.

I think it tracks back to some of the surveys you've done, as well as what your plan is for providing that service to the broader community.

provider community?

That's one question.

And then as it relates to the strike, as Madam Chair Mosqueda mentioned, there has been a very significant development, and the Teamsters have offered to four of the concrete suppliers that they are willing to begin delivering concrete again for those four suppliers, and I'm just wondering whether or not this project has one of those four suppliers as its concrete provider.

We'll certainly be prioritizing one of those four.

It hasn't been identified yet.

And as I mentioned, I have reached out to and exchanged some emails with Rick Hicks and hoping to have a conversation with him today just to make sure that we're in unity and how to move forward in a way that doesn't undermine the concrete workers.

That's great.

You shared with me a much larger list of housing development, affordable housing development projects that are in the pipeline.

And the increasing costs, I think it's about additional for all the projects.

It's about $3 million a month increasing for every month of delay.

So to the extent that we can get all the builders who are building those projects to buy their concrete supply for one of the four providers, concrete providers, for whom the workers have agreed to deliver their concrete, we can get them moving.

And that's something we all want to see happen.

Absolutely.

And Council Member Hurdle, just to address your first question about the training and how Gen 5 intends to do that, I can't speak to that specifically.

I'd be happy to get in touch with Stephen and the program people there to answer it more holistically.

But I think it has to do with the fact that this will be the first building of its kind in the Northwest and that GenPride has been working now for a number of years on, you know, trainings targeting specifically this population for competent and culturally competent training.

I think it has to do with the their history in doing this, and they're being contacted by other smaller organizations who are trying to provide similar services.

But I'm just taking a note here that I will get a more complete answer for you and send that in the next couple of days, if that's okay.

Thank you, Sarah.

It's an area that I'm keenly interested in.

Sure.

It's been often identified by the users of many of our human services, the need for providers to offer culturally competent services to LGBTQ members of our community.

And it looks like you might be focused on housing providers.

I would say, if you're able to, include providing these trainings to providers of services for our homeless population.

That would be very, very useful and appreciated.

Yes, well noted.

Thank you.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Please go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

This is a fabulous project.

I don't remember, Chris, if it was you or someone else that was telling me that when an affordable housing provider is building a project that the The ground, the street level is tenant improvements and all that goes in there, whether or not it's the community space, however, it's going to be used.

Can the Office of Housing Funds be used for that that ground level or do all housing providers have to do the capital project for Or is that a separate pot of money or is that an additional cost in addition to the housing on top that has to be paid for?

Thanks.

Yeah, I'll start and then I'm going to turn it over to Mason because he's more the expert on this.

But generally our both our tax credit funding and the housing funding is not allowed to support the development of the ground floor uses.

There are some allowed uses for community purposes that can can be in the So what we call the basis for the tax credit financing, for instance, in a different project, the Yes to a Family project that we're doing in partnership with the SCPTA, the early childhood program is part of the basis.

And so it does get some tax credit financing for GenPride.

I don't think any of the ground floor is in basis, but I'm gonna leave that to Mason to clarify.

Yeah, and that's correct, Chris, because we're not in a qualified census tract.

We do not qualify for low income housing tax credit basis for the community center.

And I would also note that it's a function of zoning that we cannot have residential units along the ground level along Broadway.

And it's also a part of our acquisition agreement with Sound Transit in Seattle Central College that we were required to have a commercial or community use space on the ground level.

We do have a series of private loans, and then the capital campaign that Kylie spoke about earlier to fund those spaces.

But as of now, there's no money from the Office of Housing in those non-residential spaces.

Okay, thank you very much for that background.

I don't know enough about what is allowed funding by the Office of Housing, and I don't know if that's by law or what.

Thank you very much for this information.

Thank you so much.

And for the team, but also especially for Mason, if you do all the trying to braid the funding, is there any good news that came from Olympia from the last session that you would want to highlight for us?

Maybe more generally, or any additional asks that you might have of the city to complement some of that funding?

Well, I think it's obviously good that the state has signaled a willingness to provide more funding than previous years for the low-income workforce housing that we provide, which is great news.

It's a critical supplement, oftentimes, to the funding we get from the Office of Housing.

And it enables us to provide deeper affordability to our projects.

So we're able to offer more 30% and 50% AMI units with the additional state funding.

I think I'll stop there, and I'll also see if Chris has any thoughts.

I know he monitors the legislative agenda as well.

Thank you.

I'm going to pass that to Kylie and do an end around here, because I think Kylie can talk about some of the specific grants that we've gotten for this project from the state and other projects, really.

Great, great.

Yeah, very happy to share that.

Thanks to leadership from Representative Nicole Macri, we received a.

or were included, GenPride was included for a half million dollar direct appropriation in the supplemental capital budget at the state level just this past session.

So it's incredibly impactful.

At this point, we have about $2 million in direct appropriations to support the build out of that senior center.

And so I think that's probably it in terms of what we're going to ask for in a direct appropriation from the state, but that $2 million As you can imagine, toward a $4.3 million goal is really impactful and is helping us leverage private funding into the project as well.

And then if I could just add in kind of to I think Councilmember Nelson's point, I agree with the policy that housing dollars shouldn't be spent on non-housing uses.

But it is very, very challenging developing affordable housing when we have to go through sort of pretzel logic to fund the ground floor and And the additional demand on mission-based organizations to do sort of mission-based things on the ground floor just means that we have to do a lot more fundraising.

And the Rise Together campaign that Kylie alluded to, that's a $40 million campaign.

And all that's doing is essentially raising capital for the ground floor community uses on a bunch of affordable housing.

projects.

There's a little more than that, but the vast majority is the ground floor for affordable housing projects.

Yeah, thank you for featuring that nexus between the mission-based values of the organization and the needing to fill that front floor, that first floor.

I would just add that, if it's okay for me to just add that, I think As far as Gen Pride is concerned, we would never have been able to do this project without the partnership of Community Roots because Gen Pride is a smallish organization, doesn't have much history yet in fundraising.

So this campaign and this project is really just a huge opportunity for Gen Pride to both serve more of the community more effectively, but to really grow at the same time, grow in its fundraising capacity and partnership capacity.

So thank you all for that.

Thank you for that context as well.

And I have a feeling after this project, a lot of folks are going to continue to come to both of you and say, how did you make it happen?

Let's do it.

And that type of technical assistance and capacity building is something that we at the city should be supporting as well.

So we'll stand at the ready to do so.

I want to thank you for also your support for Jump Start.

Two years ago, you were all clamoring for additional dollars for additional affordable housing.

And we said that it needs to also include some supportive services.

So on the macro level, I think you've really helped to keep this conversation alive.

It's not just creating new units.

It's about really creating a sense of place.

And this is a great example of where we can really respect folks and create a housing community that instills a sense of pride and respect for the residents there.

So, excited about this partnership, and I'm very thankful, Council Member Herbold, for putting it on our radar to bring to committee.

Glad we had some time to do so today.

Council Member Herbold, I see your hand may be left over, but wanted to give you a chance to wrap anything up.

Okay, well, you all are incredible.

Thank you for spending your time with us today.

And glad we were able to get you in a little bit early today.

And I will let you all have the rest of your time back.

I don't see any additional questions from our council members.

So thanks all for joining us.

And please don't be shy.

I know you won't be, but don't be shy about letting us know how we can support you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for this time.

Thanks for your expertise.

Really appreciate the presentation.

Colleagues, are there any additional questions or comments for the good of the order?

Okay, not hearing any.

We have reached the end of our agenda.

Our next Finance and Housing Committee meeting will be on April 6th at 9.30 a.m.

We are still finalizing our agenda, but we do anticipate wanting to come back to you.

First, we'll have, again, the topic of cannabis equity and probably a presentation from Housing Levy Oversight Appointments.

And as you heard earlier today, a possible vote and review of the capital projects watch list.

Look forward to seeing you in April.

This year is just flying by so fast already.

I look forward to seeing you in April at our next committee meeting.

Thank you all.

Thanks, Madam Clerk.

Bye everyone.

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