Seattle City Council Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee 22421

We are recording.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues.

The February 24th, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It is 930 on the dot.

I am Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Chair Strauss?

Present.

Four present.

Thank you.

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

We begin all of our land use meetings in this committee meeting by acknowledging that we are on the traditional and ancestral lands of the first people of this region, both 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 acknowledgement to recognize the fact that we are guests on this land and that we should steward our land as such as guests.

It's important for us to start our meetings this way because the decisions that we make in this committee are directly related to land and neighborhoods.

And we need to keep at the forefront of our mind to make decisions from the perspective of guests on this land.

We are only here for a short bit of time.

On today's committee meeting, we have three items on the agenda, a presentation from the Department of Neighborhoods on their race and social justice initiative report, a presentation from the Urban Forestry Commission on their 2020 and annual report and their 2021 work plan, and a briefing and discussion of Council Bill 120001, the bringing business home bill, a small business flexibility bill.

I've always, I've been trying to call it the garage entrepreneurial bill, but, Bringing business home is a little bit more concise.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is on Wednesday, March 10th, starting at 9.30 AM.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

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

Before we begin, I ask that everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time.

While it remains 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 public meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You must press star six, not pound six, but star six on your end to unmute.

Please begin by speaking by stating your name and which item of the agenda you will be addressing.

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

When speakers hear the chime, we ask that you 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 comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open at 9.34 a.m., and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

We have three speakers signed up to speak this morning.

Steve Zemke, Caitlin Bram, and Jessica Dixon.

Steve, welcome.

I see you there.

If you unmute.

Star six on your end.

There we are.

Good morning, Steve.

Morning.

So my name is Steve Zemke.

I'm a former member of the Seattle Urban Forest Commission, having served over six years.

So my comments relate to the Urban Forestry Commission presentation.

So it's my opinion after being involved over 12 years and trying to work for an updated tree and urban forest protection ordinance, that the Urban Forest Commission has become, in large part, just another member of the public.

It's mostly on the outside looking in.

Two examples of this, one is the development of the Urban Forest Management Plan, the draft plan produced that mostly the commissioners had several talking sessions but were not involved in writing or reviewing the draft prior to its release for public comment.

The commission reviewed the publicly released draft and submitted comments like other members of the public.

And we do not know if these concerns that were addressed by the commission will be incorporated in the final draft presented to you, the council, to adopt.

The other is the confusion over what is happening with updating the urban forest tree protection ordinance that it says in the work plan that the USC be involved in deliberative sessions and the tree and urban forest protection ordinance with SBCI and OSE.

There were no deliberative sessions held in 2020 specifically relating to the draft pre-ordinance or issues as mentioned in 31902. The commission was involved in reviewing regulations, but not in discussing potential ordinance language.

And to note in the urban forest management plan, actually it says that SDCI alone will be involved in quote, an update of city tree protection regulations.

Nowhere is there mentioned of an update of the ordinance, nor does it mention that the OSE or the urban forestry commission should be involved.

So we think you need to be aware.

We think that this is just more continuation of prolonging this process without action.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Up next, we have Kaitlyn Bram followed by Jessica Dixon.

Good morning, Kaitlyn.

Good morning, everyone.

This is Kaitlyn Bram, the founder of Yonder Cider.

Thank you for having me.

I am calling in support of the Bringing Business Home Small Business Flexibility Bill.

As many of you probably know by this point, Yonder Cider had a small garage operation that was a retail-only, quote-unquote, tasting room.

out of my personal garage in my home in the Finney Ridge Greenwood neighborhood.

We actually ended up closing our doors to our retail establishment on February 15th due to zoning issues.

We had been open for six months.

I'm calling in support of the bill because I want to emphasize what opening in our garage did for Yonder Cider.

We had plans for a full tasting room when we began this process.

But of course, that was in January of last year and the pandemic hit in March.

So all of our plans changed.

Being able to launch a business and launch a brand with no tasting room and with no retail presence is challenging.

It's also challenging as a very small business just getting started to look at commercial leases for five to seven years on knowing the viability of your business and how successful it will be.

And if in a year, you'll still be around.

So by opening our business in our garage, we were able to kickstart Yonder and to grow its success from the ground up.

We, of course, went through all of the licensing that we need to do with the Liquor Control Board, which is not for the faint of heart, mind you, before we opened and slowly but surely gained support of our neighborhood.

We did announce about three or four weeks ago that we were closing our doors and have been working with zoning to try and find a solution.

But at the end, the solution that was given did not make it able for us to continue staying open.

We had to close our doors, but did receive 4,200 signatures in support.

What Yonder Cider has done and what Yonder Bar, as we lovingly call it, has done is provide a vibrant place for people to walk to during the pandemic.

It's also provided a friendly neighborhood feeling, and it's provided Yonder Cider with the ability to succeed.

And I hope to see this.

Thank you, Caitlin.

And if you would like to follow up with any more written comments, feel free to email us, dan.straus at seattle.gov.

Last signed up, we have Jessica Dixon.

If other members of the public would like to sign up, please do so and we will call on you.

Otherwise, we will end public comment after Jessica speaks.

Good morning, Jessica.

I see you're unmuted.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Again, I'm Jessica Dixon.

I am on the Phinney Ridge Community Council Board and a volunteer with Plant Amnesty.

I'm calling in this morning to support the Urban Forestry Commission's efforts to work with city agencies and the Council to update both the Exceptional Tree Director's Rule and the Seattle Tree Ordinance.

Seattle's urban forest is an integral and vital part of our city.

It provides many benefits and amenities to everyone living in our city now and in the future.

Trees help clean our air, enhance public health, reduce storm water runoff, mitigate climate change, decrease the impacts of excessive heat and wind, provide habitat for birds and wildlife, and connect us with nature in our urban neighborhoods.

Seattle's current rules regarding tree removal have not been effective in identifying and preserving trees.

Due to increasing densification of our residential neighborhoods, where according to the 2016 LIDAR study, 72% of our trees are located.

Seattle is rapidly losing its urban canopy and the critical functions a robust tree canopy provides.

It is imperative that the council pass not only an updated director's rule that clarifies the current tree protection ordinance, but prioritizes passing the updated tree ordinance drafted by the Urban Forestry Commission.

It balances tree preservation and growth with a goal of a net increase in the Seattle urban tree cover to reach the city's stated goal of 30% tree canopy.

It is urgent that the mayor and the city council act now to stop the loss of trees, particularly exceptional trees, heritage trees, and tree groves throughout the city, and to promote environmental equity as we commit to increasing our tree canopy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica.

Mr. Ahn, RIT, can you confirm we have no other speakers signed up to speak?

Affirmative.

There are no more registrants.

Thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, the public comment period.

Seeing as we have no further speakers signed up, the public comment period is now closed.

We'll move on to the next agenda item.

Our first item of business today is a presentation from the Department of Neighborhoods on their Race and Social Justice Initiative Report.

Mr. Allen, will you please read this item into the record?

Item one, Department of Neighborhoods Overview and Race and Social Justice Initiative Report.

Thank you, we are joined by Director Andres Montilla and amazing people from the Department of Neighborhoods.

Will you please just start us off by introducing yourself and I'll let you take away the discussion and lead us through it.

Great, thank you, Council Member Andres Montilla, Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

Turn it over to Vera to introduce herself.

Yeah, Vera Jaguna, Department of Neighborhoods with the Community Liaison Program.

Kenya.

Good morning, Kenya Friede, Department of Neighborhoods P-PATCH Program Supervisor.

And then Sunny.

Sunny Issa, Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaisons Program and Living Systems Co-Lead and Facilitator.

Well, thank you, council member, for having us here at the committee today.

It is our pleasure to come and talk about what we are doing as a department through our race and social justice initiative and to highlight today just two of our departmental programs that I think are doing this work really well.

I am joined by our colleagues, Sunny, Kenya, and Vera.

We wanted, before we go into the programs, into the specifics of the living systems, which is our way of Doing a resource justice change team to talk a little bit about our department 1st, and then go into those slides.

So next slide please.

So our overall mission is to provide resources and opportunities for community members to build strong communities and to help neighbors develop a stronger sense of place, build closer ties, and engage with their community and city government.

The department currently is composed of over 60 staff members, majority people of color, around 53%, including in our leadership, which is overwhelmingly staff of color.

In order to achieve our mission, we as a department, next slide, please, Went through about an 18 month collaborative process with our staff to develop our two North Star goals.

These goals guide our work, our decision making and our project prioritization and they are to put race and equity at the center of all our decisions and to invest in the power of communities to forge their own solutions.

DLN is committed to these two-star goals, and we achieve these two-star goals through our four core strategies, which are being trusted advocates, promoting trusted advocates, and promoting people-centered storytelling, putting up civic education and investing in civic education, and carrying out equitable engagement and investments.

And specifically in 2020, DLN worked on a number of racial equity toolkits in partnership with our number of departments, including the Office for Civil Rights, two of which are the very important racial equity toolkit around Sound Transit 3 and the West Seattle to Ballard link.

And then specifically within the impacts of the Chinatown International District in Little Saigon racial equity toolkit.

In 2021, we hope to continue both of these as well as adding relevant to this committee work with office of planning community development around the racial equity toolkits related to the comprehensive plan.

Next slide.

So we're going to talk a little bit about our living systems, but just a few words to set up the context at our staff venture to reimagine the race and social justice change team concept.

And we did that reimagination through what we call a living systems.

And Sonny is going to talk to you a little bit more about this in a minute.

But I wanted to highlight how this is set up and the work that that is happening on top of all the other DON priorities.

All DON staff members participate in the living systems, and at least one of the living systems, and you'll see here what those are in a second.

And several staff members participate and serve in leadership roles as part of this work.

And then also in the broader citywide change team effort, the core team.

This is part of our commitment to ensure DLN reaches its North Star goals.

And you'll hear from Sunny next here, as Sunny is one of the DLN's living system co-leads.

So with that, we'll go to the next slide, and I'll turn it over to Sunny.

Hello, this is Sunny.

Like Andra said, the conception of the living system started a few years ago, as we moved away from the traditional change team model that a lot of departments still practice.

What the change team modeled people serve on terms on a rotational basis but it meant that a group of core people were in charge of intra-departments organizing around racial equity.

And with the living systems conception at the Department of Neighborhoods everyone is involved and is a leader of organizing around racial equity and justice in the departments.

Concept of the living system emphasizes a state of being, of an environment and a culture in which we hope everyone is able to thrive and prosper.

This is exemplified in our purpose or in our vision, which reads a healthy, whole, thriving living system results in a diverse people who are resilient, full of energy, peace, compassion and balance, Interdependent and connected and in community.

A place where there is movement and growth.

In this living system people feel loved trusted grateful protected and safe.

There is integrity and vulnerability and people are in relationship.

In this living system everyone is visible and everyone is seen and heard.

This is the vision of the living system is quite vital to the work that we do at dawn, as it not only just states that we are here working at dawn, but then there is a culture and environment that influences the work that we do.

However, we recently felt that the statement was quite visionary in a place that we wanted to aim for or to try to get to, but yet there are still structures of power in place that hinder us achieving 100 percent the state of being or environment.

Next slide please.

Our current organization or iteration of how we organize our living systems or the structures or spaces that we have at the Department of Neighborhoods are the learning community hiring recruitment and retention workgroup which is more focused on different HR policies that are affecting hiring leave balances different policies that affect employees at DAWN.

Our new policy workgroup which I'll speak on more in a little bit.

The network and peer support group which we are sunsetting but the work of this workgroup is being absorbed by the different co-leads and facilitators of these different workgroups.

And then Two spaces for personal growth and for racial caucusing which are the White Caucus and the People of Color Caucus.

Our nearest our newest workgroup is the Policy Workgroup which is focused on two different things.

One is a space for people to bring programmatic or strategic changes to the program and to discuss if their program is moving in the direction in terms of racial equity that someone who's bringing those changes to the group.

It's also a space to break down and discuss and potentially influence department processes and practices, such as formalizing relationships with other departments, budgets, et cetera.

It sounds like the council member had a question.

Just pause real quick.

Yeah, thank you, director.

Looking at your slide as compared to what you just reported in great reports, I really appreciate this.

The slide makes it look as if the white caucus and people of color caucus are two separate entities that are bullet points, just like with the learning group hiring retention policy.

And when you reported it, you made it clear that these are two connected groups.

Can you just share briefly about why they're connected and how they operate.

As Andra said earlier, it's our living systems quite interesting in the fact that people aren't just tied or participating in one work group.

They're often part of all the different work groups.

They usually are part of one caucus group depending on their identities, And then an additional work group on top of that.

So one of the the four listed.

And then the caucus groups don't work outside of the they're not although there are bullet points here as a separate work group the work of the different caucuses aren't separate necessarily from the different work groups.

So there are moments in time Where the People of Color Caucus collaborates with the H&R workgroup particularly on for example departmental changes that affect BIPOC employees at DAWN.

And then so that's one example of the way that we are interconnected.

And then one thing in our next slide that I'll speak more about is the ways in which we envisioning bringing together our groups even more so.

So the Living Systems 2021 goals hopefully this answers your quest question council member is to build White Caucus accountability to people of color in the departments.

This was largely gain coming from the White Caucus itself to bridge a relationship with the People of Color Caucus and to make sure that our personal growth goals were aligned.

Increase accountability between the co-leads and departments at large to promote two-way communication and create more buy-in among more DAWN staff broadly.

Support DAWN staff in developing a racial equity analysis.

Increase collaboration between workgroups for DAWN-wide events.

And lastly to invest in growing citywide RSJA support network and work to address systemic harms impacting staff of color.

So we do understand that there has been some ways in which our workers can be seen as distinct.

But I think in the what we're working towards as a co-lead and as a facilitator of one particularly for me as a facilitator of the POC caucus is looking at that the iterations of the workgroups aren't just working in silos or just working in their particular workgroups separate from the other workgroups.

But really everyone is looking to achieve what is our vision of that healthy and whole living systems.

And the workgroups actually came out of wanting to address the different things that hinder us from achieving that vision.

That is all and that's then for me.

Thank you.

Thank you Sunny.

Uh, and council member, I think, uh, in implied in the title, as Sonny said, is that this is a living system.

So, what's what's great as a director in interacting with the staff is that these, these categories or buckets are is constantly evolving based on the feedback that we hear from from the staff and how it's relevant to their work.

I wanted to turn to our first of two program examples, we're going to hear from Kenya, the P patch program.

I think it's no surprise that since the start of the pandemic interest in community gardening has really skyrocketed and we'll show you some of the numbers here.

But with that, there's an opportunity of bringing in new gardeners and really updating What Kenya and her team has really worked on anti-racist principles and policies.

And for me, this is really a program, an example of a legacy, a DON legacy program that has been transforming its work to meet our North Star goals and respond to the times that we're living in.

I also just want to draw your attention.

We won't go over it here, but as part of your meeting packet, I highly recommend you take a look at the P-Patch video that we sent as well as the annual report to give you a little bit more of that storytelling and more specific data.

But I'll turn it over to Kenya, the DON P-PATCH Program Supervisor.

Thanks so much, Andreas.

And thanks, Sunny, for your presentation.

Good morning.

So in 2020, P-PATCH Program developed an anti-racism statement, which was directly related to Dawn's North Stars that Andreas shared with us earlier this morning.

And what I'd like to do is share with you our anti-racism statement.

The Pea Patch Program is committed to achieving racial equity and dismantling the institutional racism that has prevented people of color from fully participating in our program.

We believe that we each have a responsibility to make our gardens more inclusive and welcoming to all.

This requires us to commit to addressing racism of all forms of injustices in our communities and center people most impacted by systemic racism, i.e., Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Some of our highlights in which we did this work, this in 2020 anti-racism work is we shifted programmatic goals, strategies and resources towards expanding relationships to our BIPOC communities.

We adopted new plot assignment guidelines to emphasis priority placement of underrepresented communities.

And we continue to offer anti-racism trainings and strategies to all Peabatch gardeners.

Next slide.

I did have one question on that slide.

And first and foremost, just need to.

elevate the amazing work that you do, Kenya.

Our P-PATCH program is, you know, we have them on all different types of land, park land, on the top of parking garages, on private religious land, on land that GRO owns themselves.

And so there is just such a wide variety of ownership of the land.

And as we all know that people are very, The folks who like to garden are very serious about their gardening and you are able to just move the, you manage this program so well with all of these competing priorities.

And so first and foremost, just want to elevate your great work.

Bless your heart.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

And it really takes a community to do the work.

I can't take all the credit, but you know, we all work together.

It takes the village, right?

Right.

And having you as our leaders is extremely helpful.

My question here is, do the plot assignment guidelines include any emphasis or consideration for applicants with financial, cultural, or religious barriers to food access?

Absolutely.

So we have priority placement that people self-identify as a historically underserved, represented, low-income, elder, or youth organization.

And from there, once they're assigned a plot, they can ask for plot fee assistance, and it's available to all.

And in 2020, we did about, I don't know, it's on one of my slides, so forgive me if I misquote, but we did a total of about $525,000 worth of plot fee assistance to those who need it.

And the guidelines are based off of Parks Department's scholarships.

Wonderful.

And you answered my next question, which is how is that plot fee assistance funded?

And is the number of gardeners receiving that assistance limited by the funding availability or is it the number of gardeners who qualify?

Whoever asked for it gets it.

And it's based off of two questions, whether how many people are in your household and your monthly or annual income.

And then the matrix is built off this parks department guidelines.

So they just call staff.

We have that conversation and we apply the plot fee assistance.

We're not trying to create any barriers to the program.

This is just an example.

This is an amazing example of putting work into practice.

Thank you, Kenya.

Thank you, council member.

To continue on with the presentation, Here are some numbers that we achieved, our outcomes for 2020. As we discussed earlier, we had an increase in BIPOC community gardeners by 45% in 2020, and then 741 gardeners, established gardeners received plot fee assistance totaling $525,000.

Next slide, please.

So here, another, example of community helping neighbors to dismantle food insecurities is our Growing for Giving program, in which over 42,000 pounds of organic fresh vegetables were donated to area food programs, which equates to over $100,000.

And that's over 85,000 servings of food.

And the servings, for your information, are based on the USDA's estimate of a half a pound of produce per serving.

So the over 100,000 is based on an average price of organic produce of about $2.60 per pound.

Next slide.

And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for all your great work, Kenya.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kenya, and a future presentation council member.

We'd love to come back and talk a little bit more in detail about some of the additional improvements and changes that are happening in the program.

The next yeah, great.

The next program, the final program you'll hear from us today is our trusted advocate model program called the community liaison program.

And it really this program is a franchise for the, for the department really demonstrates the commitment to creating opportunities for stronger alignment between programs and departments in the city.

And through the years, as you'll hear, has started maybe as kind of a translation and translation interpretation program and really has transitioned into a partnership with community to bring in policy expertise and program expertise as we work with our other departments.

So turn it over to Vera from the community liaison supervisor.

Thank you, Andres.

Good morning, everyone.

I'll start with a brief overview of the program.

Next slide, please.

So the goal of the program is to implement the city's commitment to inclusive outreach and public engagement through meaningful inclusion of historically underrepresented communities in civic participation and their right to be informed.

And we do so via the trusted advocates model.

with CLs or community liaisons as trusted messengers who have deep connections to their communities as organizers, are able to navigate cultural and language differences, and have trust established with people in their communities.

In 2020, we partnered with 54 CLs representing 35 different communities and languages.

And some of the focus areas for CLs include advising on city outreach plans, that could be long-range planning with multiple phases of outreach and engagement, conducting outreach and engagement, such as community education about project impacts or feedback on development or impact of a project, and language access in terms of ensuring equitable access to information via translation and or interpretation work.

Next slide, please.

So 2020 was a crucial year for the program in ensuring we're connecting community with city resources and information.

Uh, we partnered with 13 different departments on 38 various projects ranging from COVID related, uh, that could be small business outreach support with OED, uh, amplifying information about the paid sick and safe time to the gig worker premium pay ordinance with OLS, um, and also language access support with a wire out on translation and proofreading on messaging.

Some other projects that we worked on, not COVID-related, included working with departments such as Seattle Parks and Rec on their big day of play, or SDOT on the West Seattle Bridge, or Seattle Public Library on your next job, to name a few.

And I'd like to just highlight one CL who's with our East African community representing the Ethiopian community.

who worked with OED on the small business outreach in the Rainier Beach area.

So this is obviously a project with multiple moving parts, from the Small Business Stabilization Fund to the Paycheck Protection Program, with several challenges that were experienced by the businesses he worked with, from language barriers to access to technology.

And this particular CL was able to connect with 12 businesses and provided technical assistance in applying for both funding resources, and out of the 12, three received the Small Business Stabilization Fund and five of which were able to receive the PPP.

So the CL played a crucial part in ensuring these businesses had access to information and amplified any issue areas with our OED partners for them to cater their messaging and strategy to his community's needs.

With that, some of the new areas of focus that we started on last year, we integrated storytelling as part of the reimagine Seattle effort, whereby CL connected with community to tell their own stories on their current experience in Seattle, how they've been impacted by the events of 2020, and their hopes for the future of our city.

These stories have been shared in the DON blog page.

In addition, as part of our efforts to ensure equitable digital access, we've aligned our efforts with the Citywide Internet for All initiative.

Thus far, we have 804CLs from various communities who have worked with community members to document their stories on video, highlighting the impact of the digital divide on their families, their communities, and their organizations.

In the future, CLs will continue to support this effort as digital navigators, working with community-based organizations to provide on-the-ground digital support in digital equity zones and in-language assistance.

We've also provided training opportunities for CLs on how to engage with their communities digitally via various platforms and also how to cater their messaging from a digital space.

Next slide, please.

So as we continue this year, CLs are positioned to support with COVID-19 relief testing and vaccination efforts.

Actually, as of yesterday, we had 13 CLs from the Latinx, East African, Indigenous, and Asian communities assisting vulnerable community members with registering to get their vaccine appointments in Southeast Seattle.

We're also looking to continue centering community voices through storytelling.

and equitable digital access to inform decision-making, and partnering with departments whose projects or programs have a key impact on historically underserved communities.

Internally, we'll be working on leadership development and capacity-building training opportunities via the train-the-trainer model for CLs, whereby they will be engaged in learning more about creative facilitation, project planning and management, strategies used in grassroots community organizing, data access and applicability, to name a few.

And lastly, we're also looking to build stronger alignment with CLs and department partners by hosting Lunch and Learns with department partners for them to understand our program functions and avenues for partnering with CLs.

And also creating a curriculum with the department partners for CLs to get a comprehensive understanding on their programs and services so they can be better informed when providing outreach support.

And with that, I think what for us as a program, we have a lot of work to do this year, both to meet demand, but more importantly, to lift historically underserved communities.

Thank you.

Here, that's just such amazing work.

Can you remind me?

And maybe you said it.

Our community liaisons are the internal city staff or they identified members of the community.

They are identified members of the community.

And that's an integral part of our partnership with them based on our trusted advocates model.

They're considered consultants, but embedded in community.

That's really amazing.

We know that people in the community who are closest to others are the best advocates.

Is there any compensation that we provide them for their work?

Yeah, certainly.

So for outreach and engagement, they are compensated at $75 per hour.

We also have a rapid response rate.

That could be an example of that could be the COVID work we did last year.

And the rate for that is $100 per hour.

And we also have rates for the language access component via translation or proofreading work.

So it's certain rates per word for translation or proofreading.

This is so critical and important because when we ask people to do work like this, so often it's uncompensated.

And the fact that you are leading this program in this way, I'm just so thankful for you doing it in this way and doing this great work.

We know that having community members lead their neighbors is how we get the right solutions in a quick and earnest manner, and we get the right answer.

So Vera, really, really great work.

And thank you.

It's a lot of effort over time that has been built.

So a lot of great work has been done by people over the years.

So thank you.

Thank you, Vera, and thank you, council member, just to highlight 1 element of what Vera talked about the need for the community liaison program in the time of covid was extraordinary.

It was as you all lived such a changing dynamic in terms of information and the ability to get relevant and up to date information out to community in language was such a huge need for our communities to make sure that.

both everybody kind of had the basics around COVID around masking and now around COVID testing and now vaccinations.

I do also want to point out that although we have been focused on southeast Seattle in our vaccinations we are also working north Seattle and northeast Seattle specifically in the Lake City area around vaccinations as well and partnering with community liaisons And great organizations like Lake City collective to help us pair vaccination ready and qualified folks to get those shots.

So.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Council member.

It's just a small snapshot of our work.

We look forward to returning this year to give deeper program updates.

I'd love to come and talk more about the Neighborhood Matching Fund and our historic preservation work.

And as always, we invite you to partner and work with D.O.N. in any way that you're interested and is possible during these COVID times.

Thank you.

That feeling is mutual, Director Montilla, and you kind of summed it up really well.

We lived in an emergent world this year where we did The requests and the requirements born upon us were unexpected, and the levels that we had to respond, we could not have anticipated.

Two of the biggest gaps that we had to face were digital divide and language divide.

And so just very appreciative of your work, Director Mantilla, Vera, Sonny, and Kenya.

Happy to partner with you on anything you want.

So looking forward to seeing you next time.

All right, take care.

Again, thank you all for being here.

And our next item of business today is the Urban Forestry Commission's presentation on their annual report and plan for 2021. Mr. Ahn, will you please read this item into the record?

Agenda item two, Urban Forestry Commission annual report and 2021 work plan.

Thank you.

And joining us for this item are the Chair of the Urban Forestry Commission, Weston Brinkley, Vice Chair, Sarah Rader, and Sandra Pinto from the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Welcome.

Would you all like to briefly introduce yourself and take the presentation away?

Thank you for having us.

My name is Weston Brinkley.

I'm the current Chair of the Urban Forestry Commission.

And I'm joined today by Sarah, our Vice Chair, and Sandra, who is our excellent staff, provided by OSE.

Do you both want to introduce yourselves as well?

Sure.

Hi, I'm Sarah Rader.

And as Wessa mentioned, I'm the Vice Chair and currently hold the hydrologist position.

And I'm Sandra Pinto.

I am the urban forestry policy advisor in the office of sustainability and environment.

And it is my pleasure to staff the urban forestry commission.

Thank you.

Well, lucky to have you take it away, Western.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, so yeah, first off, thanks for having us.

We, uh, annually submit our, uh, report of activity and work plan to, um, council and the mayor and, um, last year, for obvious reasons, was unable to do so in person, which had been practiced.

So it's been a while.

And we're happy to be here.

And you hear from us a lot.

I'll just acknowledge that.

We send in a lot of recommendations.

We set another record, I think, in 2020 for recommendations to you all.

So I want to just acknowledge that and say, we can utilize this time for conversation and discussion as well.

This presentation is accompanied with our annual report and our work plan so that you have the materials that we'll be talking about today.

And hopefully, we can spend some time looking at questions that you might have as well.

Next slide, please.

So we'll talk a bit about what the Urban Forestry Commission is and what we do.

We'll talk a bit about 2020. and what a unique year that was even for us.

And then we'll look ahead a bit towards 2021. Next slide, please.

This is our mission, so to speak, not wholly different in purpose than most boards and commissions.

We're here to advise you all and the mayor relating to trees and vegetation.

What I think is important that we acknowledge, point out right now when we're talking about our mission is why trees?

I know you all are dealing with a lot of really critical issues right now.

We have various states of emergency going on.

There's a lot of things that feel urgent.

Why do we need to spend some time talking about trees and vegetation?

I think there's a variety of reasons and just Putting those out there to begin with I think really helps kind of center our conversation for today.

We heard about some of them in public comment earlier on, but trees are critical for things like our air pollution, which we know is a comorbidity for COVID.

Trees are a critical element in combating climate change.

Trees are a critical element in saving Puget Sound.

Trees are a critical element in our balance of CSO and the billions of dollars that we're sinking into gray infrastructure.

And all those things, we also have to realize that trees are the only part of our infrastructure that appreciate in value over time.

Unlike our gray infrastructure, When we plant trees, they gain value each year that passes.

A 10-year-old dog fur is dramatically more valuable to the city than a one-year-old.

An 100-year-old is dramatically more valuable than a 10-year-old.

We can't really say that about our pipes and pavement and wire or even our lawns.

So we think about, you know, why trees and the value they provide, let's keep these things in mind.

Next slide, please.

Actually, I'll also say on that point, Council Member Strauss, you gave a nice acknowledgement to begin the committee meeting this morning, and I really enjoyed your phrase that we're gonna store our land as guests.

And what we're talking about today is very much that as well.

That is, credit is due to Council Member Juarez who has taught me well.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

For our 2020 objectives, which is what we're looking at here, were pretty varied and all quite important items.

I think as the years have passed, we've been seeing more and more flurry of activity and really impactful activity from the Forest Commission.

I would point out that, as we said, 2020 was an unusual year.

we as a commission were acknowledging the need to deal with COVID as kind of the preeminent crisis, but then also that we were facing a crisis within the city and race and social justice and systemic racism that was part of the city and the commission as part of the city, we needed to address that as well.

And so we took on these two new crises in addition to our existing ones of climate change and homelessness, both which have dramatic impacts on trees and vegetation, and tried to build a work plan for 2020 that addressed those things.

And the key item that touches across all of this, and it's the most important thing that we'll keep hammering home today, is updating the Urban Forestry Tree Protection Ordinance.

This is an item that I get to now say close to 12 years in process.

2009, we had what at the time was deemed an interim ordinance, and it's still on the books, and we know it's ineffective.

We are now working from Council Resolution, as you see there, 319-02, which was passed at the very end of 2019 by then Council Member Bagshaw's lead.

And it acknowledged a lot of things that were already put forth in executive order.

And to the commission, essentially really simplify the equation for us.

We have agreement from council and the executive on the items that the ordinance needs to have.

Staff is putting in the time we need to implement.

The next big item from last year was updating the urban forestry management plan.

And this is, again, kind of a multi-year process.

We'll touch on more of that in a minute.

Digging into more about our urban forestry funding, And then, as I said, looking at how do we make changes on the commission side when it comes to race, social justice, inclusion within the Forestry Commission and in terms of the impacts of our work.

Next slide, please.

I'm going to talk a little bit here about the Tree Protection Ordinance, and then I'm going to pass off to Sarah to discuss some of our other work from 2020. Briefly, I'll just say, again, we're going on 12 years.

You see here seven key recommendations.

These I think are no longer controversial.

We have distilled, we have discussed.

And as I said before, we've seen these repeated in council resolution.

We've seen them repeated in a draft director's rule.

We've seen them repeated in executive order.

There is consensus.

It's time to take action on these items.

There is, I think a lot of baggage associated with tree protection.

There's perhaps fear around it.

And I think we just need to take action and embrace that conflict and manage for it.

We can't ignore it and throw our hands up and say, oh, this is too difficult.

We know that we have a limited amount of space in the city and we know we need to you know, manage for it.

We do this well when it's something like right of way.

We know we need a bike lane and a bus lane and a parking lane and street trees.

And we don't just say, oh, there's no room for bike lanes, sorry, right?

We embrace the conflict, we manage for it, we find trade-offs and we make it work.

We can be doing that with our private property as well.

We can be doing that in a variety of ways to accommodate trees to grow our forest.

Listen, I think that's really well said.

One of the points of, you know, we need to be better managing our street trees as well.

One of the points of conflict that I have noticed on a private property is we with people who are building new buildings on private property, there are not the incentives that we need to have them preserve the trees that are existing.

I've seen some really great new I mean, I don't like the aesthetics of townhomes.

I do like the density that they provide and the townhomes that have embraced retaining the trees on their lots, make the lot feel as if it's always been there because that tree is providing, as you say, value that is only additive every year that that tree is alive.

And so one of the things that I've noticed is really the need to allow for greater flexibility for people building buildings when trees are preserved, whether it's, you know, setback flexibility, height flexibility, floor area ratio flexibility.

There's been too many times that our code has been too restrictive on people building buildings when they want to save these trees as well.

Yeah, thank you for that.

I think those are some key points and really gets to the heart of what we're looking at, which is that we need to have more options, right?

We need to have more ways in which we can get trees onto property.

And we need to provide more incentives, more flexibility.

Those are things that we provide for other common benefits, other common goods that we hope are provided in our developments.

We should have those available for trees as well.

And thank you for your point about preservation.

Retaining a tree is always gonna be more effective than starting from scratch.

Absolutely, there's a there's a townhome complex on 20th and I want to say 61st in Ballard that they preserved the tree, they were able to build the building in an L shape around it, and it makes the building feel like it's always been there in a way that couldn't have been accomplished.

without preserving that tree, you know, whereas two blocks north of there on, I believe it was 63rd, two blocks north and one block west, 63rd and 22nd, you know, they tore down all, they cut down all of the trees that were there and it just, it doesn't have that feeling as if people have always been there, so.

Yeah, yeah, softening the impact of development.

We know development's gonna take place.

How do we make sure that it works for everybody?

Trees are a big part of that.

Because people, you know, we need to have more.

There is an environmental reason for having people in a dense environment.

We're preserving land.

in the foothills and the outskirts of town by having more people here.

I think New York City has one of the better ratios of impact of people to land because they have people in a really dense situation.

Now, again, I'm not arguing for Ballard to become New York City.

What I am saying is that when we have people living in in a dense environment, we're able to lessen our environmental impact.

And there's a way to preserve trees with that.

And I think as we discussed just a second ago, providing greater flexibility for people building that density that we need to be able to create the density and preserve the trees.

Yeah.

Yeah, great point.

And I think bringing up pure cities is important here.

It's not that we see strong tree protection ordinances in cities that don't have growth.

It's, in fact, the contrary, right?

The strong tree protection ordinances we see are associated with cities with strong growth.

For instance, a city like Austin, one of the fastest growing cities in the country, has one of the strongest tree protection ordinances.

Our peer cities, if you look at, say, a Portland or a Denver, have very strong tree protection ordinances.

So this isn't something that needs to not be associated with growth.

It's in fact something that we would want to pair with growth.

Just like anything else where we're considering externalities, where we're considering impacts, stakeholders and benefits, you know, we need to be looking at the broader picture when we have these kinds of large changes.

Next slide, please.

So this is kind of just getting at some of the ways that we, from our end, have been tackling this.

We know staff is working on it to some extent.

But just talking about the larger impact here, we've developed a one-pager to distill this pretty complex issue of an ordinance to something that's digestible for a public audience.

We've received a lot of public input.

And I think these are things we want to continue on.

We'll talk a bit about 2021. And just to drive on one last point on the tree protection ordinance, why this is needed.

We don't have data.

We can't make good policy for our trees and vegetation unless we have information to make policy.

We don't know necessarily what activities are causing to the most tree loss.

We don't know what activities lead to the most tree growth.

We don't have data.

We do know that we're losing our big trees, our most important trees, and we have a good sense that we are losing some canopy cover over time.

We're headed the wrong direction from our goal.

But generally, we don't really know how to address that because we don't have data.

And the tree protection ordinance starts to give us data through tree tracking, through incorporating trees in development processes, through permitting.

We permit things that are important.

We incentivize things that are important.

Those are the activities that we use to govern important things.

And trees have far more positive benefits and externalities than a back porch or a roof slope or all the other things that we permit and regulate.

So we should be permitting and regulating the things that actually benefit our neighbors, actually benefit the broader community.

That's where the incentives need to be.

Oh, excuse me, I just got one more point.

We need a process that has clear rules right we want our trees to be things that we know what we're supposed to do and we know how to handle it and we know how to get the most benefits.

Right now, far too much of our tree issues are handled with the city attorney involved, right?

We need to be able to have rules, have everyone decide what we're gonna do, have developers know exactly what they're supposed to do, understand the rules and abide by them.

And we wanna provide a clear and logical process.

I was just going to add on to your point about code regulation and permitting which is, you know, we just passed the strongest energy code in the nation.

A few weeks ago, and something that comes front of mind I'm just going to keep focusing on this townhome and tree situation where townhomes or buildings.

any building that has a mature canopy over and or around it is going to use fewer resources to heat and cool the property.

I guess I'm riffing off of your comments that we have these codes that determine how we use our energy and we could be using less energy with canopy cover.

Exactly.

Yeah, we know that our drainage rate incorporates impervious cover for our private lots.

We could be leaning much further into that in terms of getting efficient resource use and incentivizing trees and vegetation.

And I see on the slide you have a picture of a tree bag, which helps a tree and its first years of life make sure that it makes it on one thing that district six resident who met with me during district six office hours that I hold every week, Sandy from Green Lake.

takes it upon herself to go to the neighbors of new townhomes that have just moved in to educate them on how to make sure that their tree grows and thrives.

I think that she has really keyed into a gap that we have that when people are purchasing townhomes, it may be their first home and maybe they have never had the opportunity to care for a tree in their yard.

And there are just, you know, if you don't know that you have to water the tree, then you might not water it.

And that could be the difference between success and failure in this situation.

I know that we through a budget action in last fall's budget session, produced a statement of legislative intent to identify ways that we can expand the tree ambassador program.

And so maybe not now, but we would love your input on how we could expand that tree ambassador program to allow everyday people to have more tools to care for the trees in their neighborhood.

Excellent.

Yeah, it's a tremendous program.

And as you point out, kind of a key component of the stewardship and management of their forest.

And thank you for your anecdote, you know, we have a tremendous group of tree advocates passionate who are deeply engaged.

And I think it's part of our mission to, to expand our community, um, to bring in voices that haven't been part of the conversation.

Um, and that means, you know, not only, um, perhaps BIPOC community that isn't well represented within the tree advocate community, but also perhaps, um, business interests, uh, development interests and those who are huge stakeholders when it comes to our forest, but, um, often aren't at the table for the conversations.

With that, I'm going to pass over to Sarah to kind of talk a bit more about other items we were looking at last year.

Thank you, Weston.

What is shown on the slide are some of the key conversations we were a part of with the different either city department or different initial letters that we sent out in support.

So for Safe Routes to School, for SDOT's program, one thing was that they really highlighted how they're utilizing trees to provide a better walking environment for the students, and then also using the trees to help reduce vehicular speeds on the adjacent roadways.

So that was great to hear that they are using the trees to be able to meet their goals for providing safe routes to school.

For the SPU's Ship Canal Water Quality Project, one of the big things was there were tree removals as part of the project.

And with the city's two-for-one replacement, one of the challenges was finding where to place the replacement trees.

or plant the replacement trees.

And so working with the SPU on looking at trying to keep the tree replantings in the neighborhood they are removed from and if they can't, where to prioritize replanting the trees.

For the navigation team, the presentation was in early of the year and really we were setting up to discuss the multi-departmental rules, but due to COVID, that went out the window.

And so really it was trying to, the conversation was mostly about how they really needed to pivot to address the COVID crisis.

And one of the big takeaways though, was it from, that we were wanting to be part of the conversation is we are seeing how encampments often in our treed areas is starting to add a more negative connotation for treed areas in Seattle.

And so we're wanting to make sure we understand the public opinion and also the challenges of trying to house our unhoused population and make sure that we can find a way to help prioritize the efforts to protect the investment of our urban forest.

For the Green New Deal, again, they were beginning to staff the positions, but due to COVID had to really kind of It was a big challenge to continue that work, but we're very excited about the possibilities of the Great New Deal in helping us be better stewards for our urban forests and what kind of job creation this can bring to the city.

With the Black Lives Matter statement of support, I wanna just acknowledge that the urban, excuse me, the canopy cover within our communities of our BIPOC communities is a lot lower than other neighborhoods.

And so we see the inequities within our built environment and want to try to make sure as a part of the city, as Weston said, we are acknowledging that and working on how to remove the, address the racism that has been kind of institutionalized through our processes.

SDOT's test readiness, one of the big things that came out from this briefing was that they have yet really been able to get SDCI on board at the time of the briefing, which was in September, so things might have changed.

But with over 70% of the tree canopy on private property, the Urban Forest Commission felt that it was very important to get SDCI on board to be able to address any threat we have of pests coming into the community, into our city.

Another thing with this is also part of their SDOT's kind of self-evaluation was they acknowledge they don't have information.

They, again, to Weston's point, we need to know what we have in order to manage it.

And we are looking to the to the ordinance changes to help fill in some of these gaps.

And, you know, just wanted to highlight another place where we're seeing this lack of information impacting the ability of the city to meet these goals.

Jumping in when you say pests, we're not talking about rodents and mice.

We're talking about like the tree ash beetle.

And yes, yes, we're talking about.

Yes, that is correct.

We're not talking about the more what you think about is like the rats and everything in our in our city, but more the threats to the urban forest where I can't remember how many years ago, sorry, I apologize.

I'm the hydrologist.

I might be not using the right terms, but as far as bringing in the different diseases and different bugs that will wipe out set species.

And one of the things is we have a ton of maple trees.

And if there's a, a threat to maple trees, we could easily lose a lot of our urban forests.

And so trying to understand how much of what type of urban forest we have is very important to understand how we need to respond.

And again, this is being kind of, it's a multi-departmental team, but one of the gaps was including that getting SDCI kind of more integrated And we're concerned because so much of the urban forest canopy is within our on private property.

If I, if I may add a little bit, thank you.

So, it's actually the lead for the city, but this is a regional effort and Seattle parks and recreations, Seattle, public utilities, other urban forestry departments are very much involved.

I also wanted to just point out that this kind of issue is another 1 of the kind of fallouts of climate change where.

we're having a drier and hotter summers which tend to place an impact on the health of the trees and when they are kind of weakened by ongoing drought then it's easier that they are invaded and succumb to like the emerald ash borer.

ESDOT has done a great job with the street tree inventory, and they have a great accounting of how many of the street trees are ashes and how many are kind of like potentially going to be lost once the emerald ash borer gets here.

So all of this planning, again, is regional, and the city is part of that regional effort, and ESDOT is leading that.

Thank you, Sandra.

And I guess I'll do a real quick point.

I'm seeing we're getting closer to time for the urban forest management plan update.

One of the things that in the draft we commented on was a lot of the narrative of tree versus development versus, you know, densification.

And so trying to break that narrative up and similar like South Lake Union.

has gone through a ton of development, has gone through a ton of densification and its tree canopy has been increased.

So one of the things is just trying to break down that narrative to be more specific and define the terms that we really want to acknowledge are creating the friction of preserving our trees.

Next slide, please.

And if I may just really quickly, I just would like to respond to what I heard in public comment.

Just wanted to clarify that as part of the work that the urban forestry team has done, we have included and I'm speaking now as part of the urban forestry core team.

We included the Urban Forestry Commission in key ways.

In 2018, when we were just getting going with the plan update, we held a listening session in July to make sure that we understood the Commission's vision for the plan update.

Then we held two different deliberative sessions.

To be able to share with the commission one was in March and the other one in August of 2019, where we shared with these smaller subcommittee of the commission.

The initial assessment that we have done the inclusive engagement plan and kind of like the findings of that important work we shared a potential plan structure as well as initial goals.

to be discussed and for the commission to have the opportunity to weigh in.

Then we also shared later in 2019, the progress that we were achieving, specific actions, performance indicators, all of these to be able to inform the work that the team was doing to update the plan.

And then in 2020, we kicked off the public comment period with a briefing in detail to the Urban Forestry Commission in October.

So I just wanted to say, because I feel that finding creative ways to engage the commission without having to have a big, elaborate public meetings, but really get their key experience in all of the skills that they bring to the table, that's why we've been having these deliberative sessions.

And for sure, I personally don't believe that we are considering the commission just another member of the public.

Well, thank you.

Thanks, Sandra.

I want to just, with interest in time, highlight the Forest Health Watch Project and I See Tree.

Those two organizations are utilizing or are using web platforms to engage youth in public in research and in education.

And we found that very encouraging to try to instill the appreciation for our urban forest and nature in the community.

Next slide.

For our internal operations, we, again, just want to highlight that one of the things we were doing by reevaluating our bylaws, different protocols, was to make sure we strict out any restrictive language.

And with regard to eliminating gendered pronouns And then also we wanted to make sure that in the prompts to both presenters and ourselves, we took a moment to make sure that we looked at different conversations through the race and social justice lens so that we may rebuild that into our monthly, our bi-monthly meetings and all the different coordination we have with the partners.

And that also tied in to our annual meeting with between the Urban Forestry Commission and the IDT team, where we were looking at training, we participated in training on racial equity and the urban forest.

And that also went into how to reevaluate how we are providing material to the public and making sure that it is as accessible as possible.

Thank you.

And that'll be back.

Next slide.

Yep.

Back to Weston.

Thanks, Sarah.

Just to wrap up here real quick, and then I'd love it if there's time for a question or two.

Looking towards this year, and these are things I think you've generally heard about, the urban forest management plan update, obviously tree regulations.

The one we haven't talked about yet is the slide issued last year, and I think it's supposed to be due back to you all in September.

And this is focused on restructuring urban forestry management within the city.

obviously a very big issue.

As you know, currently nine departments work on trees and vegetation in the city.

And an auditor report almost a decade ago showed that perhaps there's some efficiencies in management that we could be capitalizing on if things were restructured.

And a lot of this is tied up in the ordinance and issues of protection and regulation.

and how do we most effectively get to those.

We're looking at removing any potential conflicts, conflicts of interest.

And so engaging with staff on the slide is a big part of our upcoming year.

And in fact, the commission has called out specifically in the slide to be a co-creator of recommendations.

So I'll go ahead and, I guess, leave it there and open it up to see if any of you have questions, comments, anything else for us.

Great.

Thank you, Wes, and thank you, Sarah and Sandra.

Colleagues, questions?

I see Council Member Peterson with your screen on and your Save the Trees.

I've got...

Mine right here, too.

Welcome.

Take it away, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

And I just want to thank everybody on the Urban Forestry Commission for their work.

One of my staff members attends most of your meetings, and we did look at this work plan, and we're happy to see the scope of it.

Obviously, we'd love to see things achieved even earlier.

We know our our executive departments are under a lot of strain from the COVID pandemic and other things they're doing.

And so we'll just continue to work with the commission and appreciate your SAGE advice and expertise in these areas.

Thank you.

Of course.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Colleagues, any other questions?

I guess I'll just wrap up by saying this last picture that you show is illustrative of the importance of protecting both street trees and providing those opportunities to protect the trees on private property.

Not knowing the zoning or where this photo was taken, if the zoning allowed for it, we could have a more dense neighborhood in this photograph and protect trees.

And so, again, Density helps protect the environment and address climate crisis, as well as trees.

Thank you all again for having us.

As always, feel free to utilize us as a resource.

We're here to serve you all.

Let's get tree protections passed.

If you've got challenges, if you've got roadblocks, we're here as a resource.

Thank you, Weston.

Thank you, Sarah.

Thank you, Sandra.

And moving on to the next agenda item, again, thank you to our last presenters.

Our final item on the agenda today is Council Bill 120001, the Bringing Business Home Bill, a small business flexibility bill.

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

Item 3, Council Bill 120001, an ordinance relating to land use regulation of home occupations, adopting interim regulations to allow home occupation businesses to operate with fewer limitations during the COVID-19 civil emergency.

Thank you.

I spoke about this legislation at Council briefing on Monday morning, and I'm excited to have it.

here in committee today.

I'm proposing the bringing business home legislation with Council President Gonzalez and as well Council Member Mosqueda would like to sign on as a co-sponsor here and we can open that up to other members if you'd like to join us.

for us to be able to provide additional flexibility to small and micro businesses and entrepreneurs during the pandemic.

It recognizes that as business owners have been nimble and found creative ways to stay open during the pandemic, our city's land use regulations have not been able to keep up with the changing environment in which we live in.

An example of that you may be familiar with, as we heard in public comment today, is Yonder Bar, Yonder Tasting Room in Greenwood.

And yonder has been welcomed by its neighbors and it created created a place for community during a difficult year during a year where we have to be physically distanced, which has directly impacted our ability to create community and yonder has really done a great job of fostering that unfortunately.

After a complaint was filed with the city, yonder was found to be out of compliance and closed last week.

They were found in compliance by both the Liquor Control Board and by the Department of Health.

I want to also just make sure that it's front and center to everyone's mind.

This bill is not about yonder.

This bill is about all of the small businesses, micro businesses and entrepreneurs who are operating in our city.

There's a pizza shop just down the street from me that if they were to be to receive a similar complaint, they would be found out of compliance.

And this is another great entity that provides vibrancy in the neighborhood.

For people who are licensed massage therapists, people who are mental health therapists, people who are operating their businesses out of their homes, they need to have the flexibility to survive and thrive during this pandemic.

This is a temporary bill, and this is really meant to ensure that we are supporting our entrepreneurs to find the success.

As I said earlier this week, that some of the most successful businesses in this country and in this world started out of garages, and we should be doing what we can to support them.

As small businesses are struggling to survive, the last thing we need to do is force them to shut down.

This legislation will allow more small businesses to stay open, operate out of residences and providing the businesses an alternative to high commercial rents and while they add vibrancy and community to our neighborhoods.

With that, I'll hand it to Ketel Freeman who will walk us through the legislation.

Mr. Freeman, welcome.

Yeah, thank you.

Council Central staff and I'll, there's a presentation that is attached to the agenda and I'll share my screen with that presentation here.

You all seeing that?

Okay.

Yes.

Today is an initial briefing on Council Bill 120001, which would amend the Land Use Code to temporarily modify regulations for home occupations.

I'll talk a little bit about the purpose of the bill, what our current regulations are, what's proposed to change, and then what the next steps are associated with the bill.

With respect to the purpose, and these are stated in the findings of fact, which are at the beginning of the bill, as the Council members know, when the council annexed interim regulations.

There need to be findings of fact to support those interim regulations.

But they are COVID-related.

They would allow home-based businesses, including those that may have once operated out of a brick and mortar location, to operate with fewer restrictions from people's homes during the COVID civil emergency.

And that hopefully will allow small businesses to remain operating to speed economic recovery after the civil emergency restrictions.

are lifted and businesses can operate more freely.

So how does the land use code currently regulate home occupations?

So currently home occupations are allowed as an accessory use to a residential use in all zones.

So there's not a zonal restriction on where home occupations can be located.

They can be in single family zones, multifamily zones, commercial zones.

The home occupation has to be operated by a resident of the of the residential use.

So somebody could not lease out their garage to somebody else to operate a home occupation.

And you don't actually need a permit to have a home occupation.

You don't need a land use permit to have a home occupation.

You just need to comply with operating requirements.

And those operating requirements include limitations on the number of commercial vehicle deliveries and pickups by day.

appointments have to be by, customers can only visit by appointment only.

There cannot be walk-up customers.

The residential appearance of the building has to be maintained.

No more than two non-residents or no more than two employees may work at the home occupation.

That doesn't include folks who may be residing in that dwelling unit.

The home occupation cannot substantially increase traffic and on-street parking in the vicinity.

Home occupations can have signs, but they're pretty small in size.

And the sort of the things that you would associate with more intense business activity like outdoor storage and noise, odor, dust, light glare, those are not allowed to be associated with home occupations.

Do you guys have any questions about what the current regulations are?

Not so far from me because I've been well-versed in all of this, but opening up.

Colleagues, any questions?

Seeing none.

Not yet.

Council Member Peterson.

Not yet, but later.

Thank you.

I'll keep going here then.

So what would change?

On an interim basis, that is one year, home occupations would not be subject to limitations on the number of employees at a business, the type of customer visits, so there could be walk-up customer visits, and limitations on increased traffic and parking would not apply to home-based businesses.

I omitted something from this slide, apologies for that, but also, as drafted and as introduced, the requirement that a home-based business that the structure with the home-based business retaining residential character would also be modified as well.

Additionally, home occupations would be allowed to have a larger sign, 720 square inches, and just by way of reference, for those of you who have been in City Hall or are sitting at your desk in City Hall right now, the standard size of a A stand-up city desk is about twice 720 square inches.

That's about half the size of a standing desk in City Hall.

And finally, spaces that may be occupied by required parking or used for required parking could be used for the home occupation.

So if you have a garage that satisfies the requirement for a required parking space, you could use your garage for your home-based business.

So next steps, as I mentioned, this would be authorized as interim development controls, and that means that the council still needs to hold a public hearing on the bill.

There's a committee meeting scheduled for March 10th.

The public hearing can happen after council action, so assuming that council approves the bill, that hearing would be scheduled 60 days after council action.

The bill does establish a work program for the Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections to propose permanent changes to home occupations.

Those could just be a refresh of our current regulations, or they could be something broader, depending on where we are with the COVID civil emergency about a year from now.

So that is my brief on the bill.

I'm happy to answer questions that you guys might have.

I have a few, but Council Member Juarez, take it away.

I think Council Member Peterson was ahead of me.

Is this the time, because I can, Council Member Peterson?

Please go ahead.

Are you sure?

Yeah.

Okay.

Is this the point where we have a bunch of questions for Ketel now about this whole thing?

Yes.

Is there more to come?

This is, okay, good.

I think that is, the next slide says questions.

Okay.

Okay, so I'm going to be just real frank.

As it stands, I cannot support this.

And let me just tell you why.

And I know that we're going to have a hearing and we're going to clean it up and we're going to do more.

I understand the intent and the spirit and the passion.

I get it.

So, number one, I have three questions and then Keela can answer or not answer.

We can just, as Councilmember Herbold loves to say, put a pin in it and come back to it.

We need a better definition of interim because you have it as COVID-19 civil emergency.

We don't know how long that will be.

That could be months, that could be years.

I'm concerned about that.

I'm concerned about I understand the desire to protect existing small and micro businesses, but this would also create more small and micro businesses out of people's garages.

If that's the case, which is fine, my concern is what would be this impact to the existing small businesses when it comes to parking, competition, and also in light of the fact that we are encouraging people not to use third party apps for delivery.

So small businesses and restaurants get 100% of the fee or the cost of the revenue instead of just 85. So I'm concerned about those small businesses on spines like Aurora, Lake City Way, Ballard.

If you have businesses operating out of your driveway, and we don't know for how long, as long as COVID-19 is gonna be around, where there's more signage, more parking.

You can have many employees as you want.

This could go anything from operating, selling cider to being a masseuse to, does this mean, as I told my husband on the phone an hour ago, can I, I said, hey, good news.

I can open up the driveway and sell fry bread.

So does that mean I can just open a business in my driveway right you know if this were to pass as is for as long as COVID is around to compete with all the small businesses and restaurants four blocks away with none of the constraints of regulation permitting all the things that small businesses have to comply with for parking employees all of those things seems to me that we may be creating an unfair playing field for those existing small businesses that we are indeed trying to protect and keep open.

As you done, Council Member Strauss, to your credit, making sure that our sidewalks could be open so small businesses could seat people outside, have coffee outside.

Does this mean that I can open up an espresso stand in my driveway and sell lattes to all my neighbors while Coffee Clatch four blocks away isn't going to get their business anymore.

This is the kind of stuff that I'm concerned about.

I am supportive of the intent, but the application, where we get a little wonky, is where I get concerned.

So I'm going to be quiet after this.

Thank you.

Councilmember Juarez, I love it.

You always bring the best questions and you nailed something that is really important to me as well, which is that we're not moving our business districts out of our business areas and into our neighborhoods.

To answer some of your questions, and Keto, please correct me if I'm wrong, you would not be able to operate fry bread or coffee out of your driveway.

You would be able to operate it out of your garage.

I know that's a small difference, and it doesn't change the intent in which you shared, which is coffee flash.

Well, out of my garage, I'd definitely put a stove in my garage then.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Out of my garage, my two-car garage.

My huge two-car garage and driveway is huge.

So great, I can sell fry bread and fireworks.

Thank you.

Yes, and to your point about making sure that we're not creating an uneven playing field about what other levels of government are regulating, whether it's Department of Health or Liquor Control Board, these other levels of government still have their jurisdiction.

So to your point of, you know, to operate, to do fry bread, you would have to have a commercial kitchen.

And so that just as it stands, the incentive would still be for a commercial.

There are already existing commercial kitchens that you could rent for cheaper than you could build in your garage.

So there's really a lot.

The intent here is to help to create the code changes for existing, for what is already existing.

And the interim and Kito, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe it is for one year rather than for the duration of the covid pandemic.

I know we had initially talked about the covid pandemic, but to your point, council member Juarez, we didn't we wanted to create a set timeline for this interim measure so that we could create to take the time and process for any permanent changes to occur in a thoughtful way.

Guido, you want to correct me if I'm wrong?

Yeah, I can speak to that.

Interim here has a specific meaning, and it's a meaning that comes from the Growth Management Act.

So this bill would be authorized under a section in the GMA, section 3670A390, and that allows local governments to put in place what are called interim development controls.

a local government can't put in place an interim development control that lasts longer than a year.

And hence the kind of the structure of the bill, which has a work program for STCI, that allows the count that would sort of give STCI the opportunity to come up with something that could be more permanent or could just be a refresh of our current regulations that make modest changes.

that the council could consider by November or so.

But under this particular pathway, the council can't authorize something that is longer than a year.

In the future, the council could consider an extension of it, but at least the intent of the bill is that STCI provide a proposal for the council to consider before the regulations expire.

Okay, so I just quickly, Council President, I mean, Mr. Chair, I was just looking at the fiscal note, the summary and fiscal note.

I know you haven't done a memo yet that you're gonna get to us next week, I understand.

So I was just reading the heading and the, well, the whole summary and fiscal note, and it just says, it just says during the COVID-19 emergency.

Yeah, I missed that somewhere, I apologize.

Yeah, and so my apologies if the fiscal note is not clear, but if the bill as drafted now would expire 365 days after it becomes effective.

Just to speak to a few of your comments, Council Member Juarez, I mentioned that, as it is now, a person doesn't need a land use approval from the city to operate a home-based business, provided they just have to comply with the development standards that are associated with the home occupation.

There may be other permissions that they may need from the city or from other bodies that have regulatory authority over them like King County Public Health or the State Department of Health.

So, for example, if somebody wanted to operate.

sell coffee, for example, out of their driveway, they would probably need an approval from Seattle King County Public Health for that.

That's something that Seattle King County Public Health regulates, not SDCI.

You mentioned Freibrand.

As you guys are probably aware, Last year, there was a bill to allow microenterprise home kitchens.

There's a state regulatory framework that precludes those types of kitchens from operating out of people's homes.

There is a bill this year, HB 1258, and as of this morning, it looked like it was in committee in the House that would establish a pilot program for microenterprise home kitchens.

something like that would need to pass for those types of uses to be authorized as a home occupation in the city of Seattle.

So there's a state framework above the city's land use code that would regulate it.

Okay, well, I can cook other things besides fry bread.

I just threw that out there.

So just so I don't want, you know, the front page banner of the Seattle Times say Council Member Juarez is going to sell fry bread.

So let's just get that cleared up.

Thank you.

And to that point, Council Member Juarez, using Yonder as an example here, they opened as a tasting room and not as a bar.

So that is an important distinction there.

And then from there, with the COVID pandemic, it is unsafe for them to have people inside of their garage because their garage was built for a Model T. If they had a two-car garage, I think they would be in a different situation.

And so just understanding that those are the small nuances that we're intending to create the flexibility for, and all of your points I think are really valid.

This is the second time that I'll say it today.

You teach me well, Council Member Juarez, and you make us all better people.

Well, you don't always listen to me, Mr. Strauss, but I'll let that go.

That's fair, that's fair.

Colleagues, any other colleagues?

Council Member Peterson, do you have questions?

Yeah, take it away.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez for those questions.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for bringing this forward, designed to support small businesses, which I think there's a lot of common ground here on the council for wanting to do that.

And I'm supportive of measures to ensure the economic health of small businesses, especially our neighborhood business districts.

I did a quick read of the council bill 120-001, and as I understand it, it does not change the land use or business codes inside of existing business districts, but rather it loosens the regulations in residential zones where most retail business activities are prohibited or limited in some way.

So this is liberalizing those for that 12-month period.

My questions concern the potential unmitigated impacts on the residential areas, which people living in them now might want to know more about new small businesses and the related conditions popping up like traffic, maybe unintended consequences for the small businesses in the neighborhood business districts that Council Member Juarez mentioned.

I see a lot of benefits of the clustering of businesses together in those business districts.

They generate foot traffic together, they get customers together, they're struggling to reopen their storefronts.

And I've got a lot of my district, University District, Wallingford, East Lake, Ravenna, Roosevelt, Wedgwood, So I just asking for a little grace here as I try to work through my questions.

I read the bill, it's well intentioned.

I see it as being very innovative.

It was introduced on Monday and it was online Friday afternoon, but I was not able to take a look at it over the weekend.

I need more time to check in with constituents in my district about this.

And I'm glad that we are required to have this other meeting two weeks from now.

So this is really helpful.

And it sounds like our central staff, Ketel Freeman, will be doing a memo.

So please view these questions as just sort of getting them out there just so Ketel will help address some of them in the memo and they don't have to be answered now.

Does that sound okay?

Should I just sort of rattle off some questions?

Please, take it away.

And I don't think we're required to have another meeting in two weeks from now, but it's a best practice and something I strive to do.

Okay.

I didn't know if it was required for GMA or something.

And I, you know, as we emerge from the pandemic, I wanna normalize, it's healthy to ask these questions.

I think people expect us to ask questions.

It's not meant to be negative about any sort of concept or a piece of legislation.

So please view this as just sort of, you know, people getting this, the public getting to see us work in real time, asking these questions because we're curious, we wanna make the legislation better, we wanna prevent I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next item, which is the unintended consequences.

So here we go.

So Councilmember Juarez asked the question about the COVID emergency.

It's clarified to me it's just for 12 months is really what the governing provisions are in this bill.

Okay.

So that was my first question about the 12-month period.

the council approves the following work plan for the development of permanent regulations.

So I'm just trying to understand the work plan in the legislation goes through January 2022. The 12 month period would be through presumably March or April 2022. So is the intent here to make this a permanent thing or is it truly just meant to expire in April of next year.

It is a yes and a both.

I think it is important that we make these changes during the COVID emergency while people are spending more time in the residential neighborhoods than compared to downtown where they typically work.

And if we see benefit to these regulations, it's important for us to spell out what that work plan would be to get to those permanent regulations so that we include all so that every stakeholder knows from the outset when, how, and where they can participate.

in a process for creating permanent regulations to understand what works well and what doesn't work well.

I'm coming in agnostic as far as what needs to happen for permanent regulations.

I think that this one-year period will give us the opportunity to see what works and what doesn't work.

OK.

Thank you.

And I don't, it's okay if we don't answer all these questions now.

However, at the discretion of the chair, I'll just rattle them off here so that you know that the making them a permanent that that's where I'm sort of struggling as we as we try to reopen the storefronts and the neighborhood business districts I want to and I'm just worried if this would conflict with that.

How they're going to measure success or failure, like how are we going to look back and see well what worked and what didn't work is just feedback we're getting from is there a way to put some metrics into what their work plan is, is one thought so that they have direction on that.

You know, I know we're trying to get them to do things faster.

You know, we're trying to get them to grant permitting for affordable housing faster.

We're trying to get them to get the tree protection ordinance done.

And I just didn't know whether this would create additional workload for SDCI to monitor this and to do the work plan.

That's just one thought.

and then um real briefly on that point councilmember peterson we'll be hearing in the next committee briefing uh next the march 10th committee about the permitting backlog so you'll have and we are due to receive their first report about permitting now It's been conveyed to me from the executive's office that we should be seeing the tree ordinance in quarter three of this year.

And so this work plan would allow for that cascading impact so that they could be working on this work plan during our budget process, during the council's budget process.

So everything is, great question.

Yes.

Thank you.

Basically, I just wanted a quick question.

Thank you.

And I know you're really sensitive to that issue with the department.

Um, so, um, one of the things some of this legislation requires us to do is the council to make so-called findings.

And there was one finding that just made me a little bit nervous, um, where it says, you know, basically, if we don't enact this, this would stymie the city's and region's recovery from COVID-19 emergency.

I don't know if it definitely would.

I feel a little uncomfortable saying it would.

I mean, perhaps it could.

I just want to be sensitive to the findings that we're signing our name to.

And then, you know, I'll wait to get feedback from my own district on this.

I know there were really compelling examples in Northwest Seattle about this, and I just, I want to, you know, part of this is cautioning, like, based on powerful anecdotes that we receive, is it, is there, are there ways to grant exceptions versus implementing blanket changes to citywide policy?

And so I'm glad this is, you know, view it as an interim basis so we can explore this.

Regarding the sign, Ketel mentioned, I just want to clarify the sign for Ketel.

Is this in addition to the existing sign or is it just making the sign bigger that they can already do?

As it currently stands, they can have multiple signs.

This can't be greater than 64 inches.

So this would replace that requirement.

So they could have one non illuminated larger sign.

Okay, and is there and this is again, something that can be explored in the memo.

I'm not looking for answers today.

Just getting them all out there.

if there's some sort of explanation for, you know, the rational basis for the change in the, in the sign size, just it's like, what, what are we getting that number from the 720?

Um, sure.

Yeah.

And, and go ahead.

No, go ahead.

Go ahead.

I, I, you know, it's, this is one of those things that I think it's just a matter of judgment here for the council about what is, what is large enough and what is too large.

a problem that Yonder Cider had when their initial notice of violation had to do with sign code stuff.

So this is something that would acknowledge that a larger sign might be appropriate for a home occupation on an interim basis.

But how big that is, that's a matter of kind of judgment here for the council.

Okay.

And Council Member Peterson, to that point exactly is that we are not trying to just open the door here, right?

You can, there are loopholes in our current code where you could have the multiple signs of the smaller dimensions.

And here we're just trying to create that level playing field of you get one sign and this is as big as it can go.

Just the last question kind of touches on that.

Would it make sense to define what type of small businesses could operate under this interim regulation?

The way I'm reading is it's just saying small business.

It's not specifying retail or something to provide some guardrails and an explanation to the public of what might pop up.

in their neighborhood, which they could be excited about, or they could be surprised about, or just having some guardrails on that, maybe defining it in some way.

Those are all my comments and questions, and appreciate the grace to ask them all here, so that, because we'll look forward to Ketel's memo.

I mean, this is just part of the process, so thank you.

Ketel, do you have input on that last question?

I don't believe that the land use code is where we determine what businesses are able to operate in a certain place.

I think you said earlier that currently any business can operate out of a home as it stands.

It's just that they

They have to meet the operating requirements, right?

And so some of the operating requirements include limitations on noise, odor, things like that.

And so that automatically precludes certain businesses that might have those kind of negative externalities associated with them.

So a coffee roaster, for example, you can't limit the smell of coffee roasting to the property line if you're doing that in your backyard.

That's probably not going to qualify for a home occupation.

But generally, as long as you meet the development standards in the zone and you meet the requirements for a home occupation, meet the limitations for a home occupation, then you can operate and there's not a limitation on the type of business activity associated with your home occupation.

You know, Seattle is, I have not done an extensive amount of research on this, but Seattle's current regulations are more permissive than Portland's, which actually has sort of two criteria and requires a land use permit for more intensive home occupations.

So that's not the current structure of our code now.

That's something that could result from work that STCI or the council does this year and sort of figuring out whether or how to change how we regulate home occupations.

Councilmember Peterson, you did ask about the work plan and that work plan and sort of concerns about how this might stand with STCI capacity.

I just want to make for the committee that there's a mechanical component to this work plan as well under that authorizing authority from the Growth Management Act 3678-390.

There are two time periods that during which, for which a council could, a local government could implement interim regulations.

One is a year and the other is six months.

If a local jurisdiction wants to have regular interim regulations in place for more than six months, so for up to a year, there must be a work plan.

So there is a mechanical component to this work plan and this piece of legislation that reflects the requirements of 3670A390.

If the council for whatever reason wanted to just have a six-month set of interim regulations associated with home occupations, the work plan would not need to be part of the legislation.

Either way, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Just following up on what you just said, but does RCW 36.78.390 say that it has to be development of permanent regulations?

So it's, you know, this tool, which the council has invoked more recently, is really intended to, it's a tool that is intended to address kind of unforeseen circumstances and land use planning.

So, for example, if a city adopted a set of regulations or if a novel land use came along that was not not addressed by current regulations, then this is a tool that is available to local governments to put interim regulations in place while it's considering whether or not to make permanent changes.

So a couple of examples of how the council has used this tool in the past, and for the Aurora-Licton Urban Village, a lot of sort of an unintended thing that was happening there was a lot of a lot of storage facilities were being developed in the neighborhood commercial zone where folks wanted a more active street life.

So the council put in place on a temporary basis a moratorium on development of storage units.

Well you're gonna bring that up, huh Ketel?

You're gonna drag me into this, okay.

That's a good example.

How convenient.

And then that moratorium went away when MHA was adopted and different regulations were put in place for the Aurora-Licton Urban Village.

Another example of how the council has used this tool in the past has been for mobile home parks.

So the council has some ongoing interim regulations that apply to the two remaining mobile home park developments in the city of Seattle, and the council hopefully In the next few months here, we'll be looking at more permanent regulations to address kind of the unique circumstances associated with those parks.

So it's a tool that's intended to develop kind of emergent situations or unintended consequences.

And here it's sort of the emergent situation is the COVID civil emergency and the difficult circumstances that may put small businesses under.

Well, now that you put me on blast, can I just say this?

First of all, Chairman Strauss, thank you so much for giving us so much latitude to ask these questions, because I sometimes I think committees devolve into just performance art.

We really are talking about issues that we should be doing without the fear of, or people thinking that we're anti-anything.

We're just trying to figure this out so we can respond to all of our critics and constituents.

When we put those moratoriums in, let me tell you, it was no easy feat, as Ketel knows, and there was a ton of blowback, but we did all the work on the Aurora Corridor with the groups and the businesses, and as usual, and we were very clear that it was interim and it didn't affect existing, and we also looked at the impact to existing businesses there.

So I just want to put that out there.

Same thing with some of the zoning issues we're dealing with the manufactured homes.

We're trying to get away from that showbox example and not look at spot zoning, but how we are actually going to look at this for the public good.

But again, work with community, business, and everyone who are the other stakeholders.

That being said, Mr. Chair, may I make a few more comments or questions that I had about this?

Okay, great.

So we all know, and I've been saying this, I have two words and you heard me say this before, and it's not happy birthday, but the two words that I've been saying over and over is the vaccine and recovery.

And we know that that's our motto and our clarion call for big business, downtown Capitol Hill, you know, North and Seattle Center, OVG, NHL, Waterfront.

So when we look at small businesses, I understand what we're trying to do here, and that makes complete sense.

I had an opportunity to attend the Downtown Seattle Association.

I think some of you all did, too, last week.

And this morning, I had an opportunity to address the Mercer Quarter Stakeholder Committee, in which there's over 110 businesses all in, you know, South Lake Union, that whole quarter, the whole Mercer Quarter.

which also includes the Ballard District Council, Uptown, just, you know, DSA, all those groups.

And believe it or not, the bigger issues that you talk about business also affect the smaller businesses.

So in the sense that we want to get our economy moving again, we want to encourage entrepreneurship.

We want to encourage and streamline permitting in certain businesses, because we're in the middle of this pandemic-fueled recession.

So we want to do everything we can to help businesses.

I just don't want to overlook that we're not setting up an uneven playing field with the already existing businesses three or four blocks away from where we have single-family zoning residents to do things that they normally couldn't do.

So that is where my questioning is just coming in.

So I really look forward to working with you, Council Member Strauss, or Chairman Strauss, and Ketel, and the memo, and the work plan, so we can work together how this would also impact existing small businesses.

And maybe, Ketel, you can follow up with us where that bill is.

If you could give me the bill number again, how we can do a compare and contrast about what's going to happen on the state side, the state bill that you referenced.

Yeah, I'll send you the link.

It's House Bill 1258.

OK.

So that's all I have to say.

And then I will look forward to opening my fry bread business.

So thank you.

and councilmember Juarez you're just completely spot-on with not wanting to take away from the business district wanting to make sure that we're just focusing here during dirt to ensure that when we reopen we're able to do so in a really fast and quick manner and so I just take us back to slide three here on today's presentation and to Councilmember Peterson's question earlier, where we are talking about the home occupation businesses already exist.

There are, again, other levels of government and other entities of government that license and ensure health, safety, et cetera.

So, again, this bill would just change the number of employees in the space, the type of customer visits, and the increased traffic and parking demands.

Again, it would change their sign code regulations and requirement for space required for parking.

This is pretty narrowly tailored and Council Member Juarez, to your point of making sure that we recover and have the businesses, you reported the number of businesses that have closed downtown during this pandemic, and what I want to highlight is that so many successful businesses started out of garages.

And while we are, when we open back up and when everyone's downtown again, we wanna make sure that there are businesses that have, that are ready to scale up and fill in those vacant spaces that we're currently seeing today.

So that's the intent.

I absolutely welcome all of your questions because it's clarifying for the public, and it will make this bill stronger.

Ms. Ketel, any further?

Council Member Peterson, please.

I just wanted to say that I'm ready for, you know, I'm getting hungry and thirsty listening to all this about fry bread and cider and pizza.

Just last question that mentioned the employees.

I don't know if there's been any consideration to, again, putting some guardrails on that, because it sounds like it's being lifted to potentially an unlimited number of staff that could go in and out of the home and just I don't know if there are any amendments to consider.

There could be a finite number of that.

Thank you.

public health requirements of how many people can be in a certain space together.

So it wouldn't eliminate any regulation altogether, just it would eliminate it from or temporarily remove it from the land use code where it's enumerated today.

Right.

So the current regulations are that no more than two people, no more than two non-residents can work in a home occupation.

There probably are operating limitations that go along with just the general guidance from King County Public Health about COVID and that, you know, the number of employees in that sense may be contingent if somebody were complying with that, may be contingent on the, you know, just the characteristics of a particular site, you know, if it's a large site, if there's, you know, if it's a two or three car garage, as opposed to a one car garage, and there could be more employees, but there is not a cap.

There is not a land use code cap on the number as for the bill as introduced on the number of employees that could work out of a home based business.

Well, it seems as if we have exhausted the questions and colleagues, please feel free to ask me questions, ask Keto questions in the next two weeks.

This is meant to be a conversation.

It's meant, I love being able to disagree and not be disagreeable.

I think that when we disagree, we're able to find, we're strengthening ourselves and we're strengthening what we pass.

I really appreciate everyone's comments today and questions.

Anything further there?

Not seeing anything?

Well, thank you, Keto.

Yeah.

I'm just wondering, are we done with this love fest?

Because I got to go.

I was going to thank you.

Actually, my script says, thank you, Ketel.

I am looking forward to this legislation coming back before committee on March 10th for further discussion in a committee vote.

If there's nothing, if there's no good of the order, I'll just, again, for the clerks, Council Member Mosqueda had requested to sign on as co-sponsor of this bill.

I will not be opening it for co-sponsorship in full council, and so just wanted to highlight that.

Seeing nothing for the good of the order, this concludes the Wednesday, February 24th, 2021 meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

As a reminder, our next committee is on March 10th at 9.30 a.m.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.