Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers’ Rights Committee 51619

Well, good morning, everyone.

Today is Thursday, May 16, 2019. The Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 9.34 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, the chair of the committee.

I'll be joined by Councilmember Bagshot and Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Juarez is excused for today, and we appreciate all of them tuning in.

if they're not here.

We have eight agenda items today, so we'll go pretty fast.

We have council reappointments of Ali Abdul to the Labor Standards Commission, the appointments of Jillian Comroe to the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Coalition, two reappointments and one appointment to the Housing Levy Oversight Committee, and a briefing on Fort Lawton rezoning and redevelopment plan, and finally, a briefing on the Housing Levy Administrative and Financial Plan.

I think this is going to be a very heavy meeting focused on housing.

We focus on housing and health issues.

When you don't have a home, it's hard to be healthy.

We focus on labor issues.

And when you don't have a job, it's hard to be able to afford a healthy home.

And we focus on energy to make sure that everyone has the ability to turn their lights on and that they're able to afford it as well.

So that's what we focus on here at the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

I did that explanation for our new friends who are in the audience.

I want to welcome everyone who is here from Maple Elementary, Beacon Hill.

Thank you, fifth graders, for being here.

A huge round of applause for everything you're doing today.

We understand that you're here looking at the three branches of government.

And what are the three branches of government?

Legislative.

Judicial?

Executive and judicial.

Great, good job.

So we welcome teacher Marcia Ventura.

Thank you so much for being here.

And we do have public testimony.

So if you and your students or anybody else who's here would like to come up and sign up for public testimony, which we'll do is we'll have the chance to hear from all of you who'd like to say something.

You'll see a little clock up here so you have within two minutes to say your words and we'll let you speak into the microphone and then you will say your name and what you're here to share with us.

Thank you for being part of this legislative branch at the city level.

We're very excited to have you in our legislative chambers here today.

I'm one of nine legislative members and I represent the entire So that's all 725,000 people here in our city.

If you think about this legislative branch compared to the D.C.

legislative branch, I represent about the same amount of people as the congressional members do.

Do folks know who our congressional member here is in Seattle?

Who represents us in the House of Representatives?

Deborah Smith, good, yes.

Also Pramila Jayapal, she's here in Seattle.

Anybody else?

So we got a letter from, so we wrote letters to Adam Smith.

Go ahead and go to the microphone.

Oh great, Adam Smith came to you, that's excellent.

Oh, good.

Well, we're really excited to have you.

Thank you so much.

This is Erin House.

She's our legislative aide who works on housing, transportation, energy, zoning, all of these things that make it possible for us to live in the city that we work and study.

So why don't we go ahead and get started.

And Teacher Ventura, did you want to share some words before we get started with public testimony?

No, I'm just so excited to see you and see the legislative branch in action.

Well, we are excited to have you.

So before we get started with some of the students, let's hear from the friends at the Master Builders Association.

Alicia Ruiz, you're welcome to come to the microphone.

Thank you so much for being here today.

My name is Alicia Ruiz, today representing the Master Builders Association, and we enthusiastically support the rezoning in Fort Lawton.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We're really excited to have Fort Lawton in our committee.

And for folks in the viewing audience, we do have agendas at the front of the table, too.

You're welcome to grab some of those.

The next person that we have to speak is Simon Rosenthal.

Hi, Simon.

Hi, I'm Simon, and I'm in fifth grade.

I think that homelessness is too big a problem in Seattle.

I think that many people have problems that cause them to become homeless that could be helped with some of the money going towards encampments when there are not enough authorized encampments for all homeless people in Seattle.

Instead, I think that there should be more apartments so homeless people can have housing before dealing with other problems.

Also, they could get an amount of time where their housing is paid for so they can focus on getting a job.

For unauthorized encampments, people could go to them and help them with their individual problems and get them into housing.

These are my solutions to homelessness.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Simon.

I agree with you 100%.

Next, we have Tianli Guan.

Hello, my name is, hello, council members.

My name is Tian, and I'm in fifth grade.

I am here to talk about homelessness, which is an issue.

I think one solution to homelessness should be instead of building more buildings, I think we could build shelters or apartments that homeless people could live in.

I care about this issue because I pass by homeless people about every day, and I feel bad for them.

My parents don't give money to homeless people, but in my heart, I want to give money to them or help them in some way.

But by talking to you, I have a chance to help them or at least make it better for them to live.

I hope you still keep thinking about this issue, but thank you all for coming and talking and taking time off your schedule to be here.

Thank you so much, Dan.

So folks, we're joined now by Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Lisa Herbold represents the Southwest West District 1, which is West Seattle.

You can see it right here through these windows.

And she's an alternate to this committee.

So when somebody can't be here, she comes and we work together a lot on human rights and labor issues and all the good things.

The next step we have is Angelina Zhu.

Hello, my name is Angelina Zhu, and I'm in fifth grade.

I'm here to talk about homelessness in Seattle.

I think one solution to homelessness could be lowering housing prices and having empty business space be used for homeless.

I care about this issue because there are so many homeless in Seattle.

I heard that Seattle's in top 10 cities of most homeless.

That's not a good sign if people want to come to our city.

They will see so many homeless.

what they want to live here and there are so many youth homelessness in the city and some people don't care about how children adults live on the streets.

This is why I'm speaking to you about this issue because I care.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next we have Carmelo Jordan.

Hi, my name is Carmelo.

Recently the homeless population has been growing.

I think a solution for this problem is instead of making so many buildings, use that space for authorized encampments or make more apartments.

I care about this problem because almost every day pass homeless.

I think, do they have a place to go?

And most of the time the answer is no.

So if there's more authorized encampments or more apartments, homeless don't need to worry where they're gonna sleep.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next we have Susanna Chan.

Hi, my name is Susanna.

I'm 11 years old.

I go to Mabel Elementary School.

I'm in fifth grade.

I'm very excited to be able to meet you for the first time.

I'm here to talk about homelessness.

There are more homeless out there every day.

We need to help them.

There's more everyday filling the streets of Seattle.

I need solutions that will work.

I have solutions.

My solution is how instead of building more buildings, we should use those spaces to build apartments or authorize encampments for homeless.

We should build it around town where the stores are.

Homeless still have jobs.

They walk many hours and miles just to get to a place.

They get very tired every day for walking so long.

They need to rest.

Another solution is that to not sweep until homeless find another place to stay.

If we sweep in 24 hours, homeless will even lose their original belongings.

The more we sweep, the more stuff homeless lose.

If we are going to sweep, then give them at least two to three days.

24 hours isn't enough time.

The thing I worry about the most is about the kids that are homeless.

Some of the kids are very young.

They try to survive being homeless, but at the same time, they're trying to get good grades in school.

We really need to stop the population of homeless.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Anthony Santiago, welcome.

Hi, my name is Anthony.

Recently, homelessness has been becoming a huge problem in Seattle.

Hundreds and hundreds of people are getting homeless every day whenever they lose their job or take drugs and drink alcohol.

Fortunately, I found solutions to this huge problem.

One solution to this problem is to have authorized encampments for groups of homeless people.

The reason I prefer authorized encampments much better than shelters is because shelters don't have privacy, space for people to put their luggage, and no privacy.

We sometimes need some time alone, even homeless people.

Another solution is to have leftover buildings that are unused anymore into apartments for homeless people.

For example, Amazon has been planning to give an office for homeless people.

My idea of using this office is to make half of the office as a place for homeless people to live, and the other half of the place as a workspace.

Some people like the idea of building apartments on top of stores and other workplaces.

I like the idea, too.

If we don't do anything to help homeless people to get out of the streets, we'll never get to do stuff we ever want to do, like having the Olympics in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next person shares my name, Teresa.

Hi, Teresa.

Welcome.

I spell mine without an H, but you have an H, so people will know the difference between us now.

Go ahead, Teresa.

Hi, my name is Teresa.

I'm in fifth grade at Maple Elementary.

I came to talk to you about homelessness.

There are encampments in the city for homeless people and the police tell them that they have to be out by 24 hours, so they have to go somewhere else.

I think one solution to homelessness could be that the city gives homeless people a place to stay.

They could go to their job, and take showers, and eat their food, and they can serve them fresh clothes, and even then, they get money, and they can buy their own house, and then they won't have to stay there anymore.

You know, some neighborhood encampments, and there would probably be houses and families there, there are homeless people that live in encampments, and You got it.

And they have to leave there.

And they have to...

Good job.

Yes, they have to leave their home and they don't have a place to go.

That's right.

Thank you so much, Teresa.

You did a great job.

The next person we have is Josie.

Hi, Josie.

Hi, my name is Josephine Leroy O. Josie, and I'm here to talk about the homeless issue, and I think there should be more soup kitchens and more resources for homeless people, and I think there should not be anymore sweeping for homelessness.

Thank you so much, Josie.

Good job.

The last person we have is Tanya Leroy.

Hi, welcome.

Hi, my name is Tanya Leroy, and I am a Maple parent.

And there's a lot of suggestions about housing for homelessness.

My concern is the housing inequality, I guess, in Seattle.

There's been a direct rise with homelessness with rent prices.

They directly correlate.

And if we somehow bridge the gap of people who lose their rent and become homelessness, they wind up on the street, and have no income, they somehow need the resources to develop to be, we could give them a home, but they still need to be able to earn 150 to $200,000 a year in order to live in Seattle.

So some kind of bridge needs to be made to tend to that, to really eradicate homelessness in Seattle.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Was there anybody else who wanted to testify today that didn't get a chance to sign up?

Teacher, Marsha?

No?

Okay.

So.

Welcome teacher Marsha Ventura.

Thank you council members.

I'm just, I feel so blessed to be their teacher.

I think that they have some really great solutions that just come from common sense.

And I hope that we can listen to this next generation because they have some really, really great ideas.

But thank you both so much for your work on council and both for your service to our government.

Thank you so much.

One more round of applause for all of you as well.

Thank you for being here.

I know you took time out of your class schedule to come here today.

I want to thank Councilmember Sawant and Ted, who's in the back.

Thank you so much for arranging to have folks come.

When we work on issues here, we divide them up into various committees, as you may have seen.

Councilmember Sawant works on issues related to homelessness, and in our committee, we work on issues related to housing, health, and workers' rights, as you heard.

Councilmember Herbold works on issues, CRUERA,

Civil rights, economic development, utilities, and arts.

So we divide up these issues because there's a lot of pressing issues in the city, as you can tell, and there's only nine of us.

Everything you said today is 100% accurate.

And many of these ideas that you've talked about are things that we would want to put into law.

And we will keep working to change the law so that we can actually have more housing.

It takes about two, three, sometimes four to five years to create an actual home, the door, the roof.

the building that we want to move folks into, and then want to provide them with a counselor and other support services so that they have health care as well.

In the meantime, you're right, we have to do more to make sure that people aren't sleeping outside so that there's not families and children and workers who are sleeping outdoors.

And you're right, somebody said earlier, I think it was Anthony, you said sometimes people just need a little alone space and going to a shelter doesn't give you that alone space.

So we're going to keep working to make sure everybody has their own place to call home, whether it's in a tiny house so that they can get into a larger house later, or making sure people have the enhanced shelters that they need so people have lockers and bathrooms and a bed to call their own.

Right now, we have only six bathrooms in the entire city for people to use if they're sleeping outside.

The United Nations, you know the United Nations that looks at human rights across the entire globe?

They said that you need one bathroom for every 20 people.

That would mean we need 224 bathrooms, and we only have six here in Seattle.

So we got a lot of work to do to make sure that there's bathrooms and showers and beds and counselors and healthcare, and with your help and good ideas today, I think we're on our way to make some progress, but it's gonna take a lot of us working together, because we need that revenue to the resources that you talked about to make it possible.

So a huge round of applause for everything you're doing.

I hope the whole city heard you this morning.

Thank you so much.

Teacher Marsha, if we line up here, could we take a quick photo of Aaron?

If Aaron stood up there and took a photo of us, is that okay with the viewing audience?

Okay.

Or do you want them up here?

Okay, guys, come up here real quick.

We'll come up to the dialogue.

Go up where Aaron's at.

All right.

Thank you.

Go ahead, go right ahead.

Thank you for coming and visiting us.

Ted, do you want in?

I'm sure you do.

Are there any parents who want to come join us?

Oh, come on, parents.

Hi, how are you?

It's good to see you.

Yeah.

One shoulder, lean in with one shoulder.

Beautiful.

What should we say?

Let's solve homelessness!

Let's solve homelessness!

Thanks for coming and talking to us.

All right.

Well, thank you guys so much for being here today and your words will continue to resonate as we work on this next agenda item.

Erin, let's go ahead and move on to the first item of business, if you can.

At this time, let's have our Labor Standards Advisory Commission reappointment folks come to the table.

If we can have Ali Abdu join us.

Aliya, if you're here.

Okay.

I don't see Aliya.

She can't make it.

Okay.

And anybody from the Labor Standards Advisory Committee?

Kenny, did you want to come up and say anything?

She's not here yet.

Okay.

Jill's not here yet either.

Why don't we move to, if it's okay with you, Council Member Hurdle, we'll move to item number three and come back to items one and two.

Let's move to items three to five in our agenda.

And while you're doing that, if we can be please joined at the table by Stephanie and Kelly, that'd be great.

And anybody else who's here, hi, on this topic.

I think the microphone might not be on for you.

Let me try that again.

Thank you.

Appointments number 01313, 01314, and 01312, members of the Housing Levy Oversight Committee.

Wonderful.

Hi, guys.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Hello.

Good morning.

If you want to do a quick introduction overview, we're really excited to have folks coming forward to be part of this body.

Really excited about the reappointments and the appointments to the Housing Levy Oversight Committee.

Anne and Pradeepta, why don't we do a quick overview and then we'll hear what you guys have been up to.

That sounds great.

So I'm Stephanie Velasco with the Office of Housing.

And I'm going to do just a little overview of the Housing Levy Oversight Committee.

And then, as you said, we have two reappointments.

And I'm joined here with Kelly Larson, who will be a new appointment.

So the Housing Levy Oversight Committee is made up of 13 members.

whose mission is to monitor progress of the housing levy programs, and then also review and provide recommendations on our housing funding policies and the housing levy administrative and financial plan, which you'll actually hear about a little bit later in the agenda.

And it's made up of folks from a range of fields within the housing community.

So we've got funders, affordable housing providers, architects, developers, residents, kind of runs the gamut.

And you'll see that here in our reappointment.

So I'll go ahead and start here with Anne Malone, who's a reappointment through the term of 12-31-2021.

So, Anne Malone is a business development officer for affordable housing investments at U.S.

Bancorp, where she's responsible for originating low-income housing tax credit investments in the Northwest and Rocky Mountain states.

She's been with U.S.

Bank since 2005, previously serving as a relationship manager in the bank's commercial real estate division, where she originated, underwrote, and managed a more than $250 million affordable housing portfolio.

Anne Malone also serves on the Board of Directors for Impact Capital and holds an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis.

So that is our first reappointment.

Should I move on to our second reappointment?

Great.

So our second reappointment is Pradeepta Upadhyay.

And she is also, that's also will be for a term to 12-31-2021.

So Pradeepta Upadhyay is the Executive Director of Interim Community Development Association, a community-based organization in the Chinatown International District.

The organization's mission is to advance social justice and equity for Asian Pacific Islanders, immigrants, refugees, and low-income individuals.

Pradeepta leads Interim's work in housing, community development, leadership development, and social services, and is active in the community and currently co-chairs the CID Community Stabilization Work Group, focused on sustaining affordable housing, small businesses, and service organizations in the community.

So as you have heard already, we've got two kind of pretty diverse perspectives represented there on the Housing Levy Oversight Committee.

And so we are very excited to bring forward a new appointment of Kelly Larson, who joins me here today.

And Kelly represents the Permanent Supportive Housing and Homelessness perspective.

And I'll read a little bit about her background and then give her a chance to talk if she'd like to.

That's great.

So Kelly Larson is the Chief Program Officer for Plymouth Housing, where she oversees services provided to Plymouth residents and leads policy, program development, and strategic planning initiatives.

Kelly has participated in numerous Seattle, King County, and all homelessness planning and policy efforts, bringing expertise related to operations of permanent supportive housing and the support services needs of chronically homeless adults.

Prior to joining Plymouth Housing, she worked as a King County program manager with a focus on funding coordination, policy and planning, and oversight of permanent supportive housing contracts.

Kelly has a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Washington and has worked for organizations dedicated to international human rights, immigrant rights, and labor rights.

Excellent.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for being here, Kelly.

Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself and why you're interested in serving?

Yes, I'm looking forward to this.

I believe housing is a human right.

The housing levy is so critical.

I've been involved in this community for over a decade.

I'm inspired by my family who immigrated just up the hill from Japan and their experience in this country.

And that is what drives me to be doing the work of social justice in my career.

I believe the cause that Plymouth is engaged in, ending homelessness, is one of the most important causes the city faces, and I just believe the solution, our intervention of supportive housing, is one of the most effective, impactful ways to house people who are most vulnerable in our city.

So that is my lens and perspective that I bring to the Housing Levy Oversight Committee, and I'm really fortunate to work with these amazing staff people at the Office of Housing and my fellow committee members.

Thank you.

as well as all that you've done in the housing realm over many, many years.

And just a shout out to Plymouth, a great, great piece in the Times about the supportive housing projects that you're bringing on online and specifically the genius of leveraging the funding from Plymouth.

health providers and their interest, our shared self-interest in ensuring that folks who need permanent supportive housing and otherwise are using up health services in our hospitals, that there's a strong interest in getting those folks into permanent housing.

So really excited about those projects and thank you for all that you had to do.

Thank you.

It's very exciting.

Do you have any thoughts about what some of the biggest challenges you think the Housing Living Oversight Committee will face in the near term?

We hear a lot about the operation and maintenance dollars both drying up and not being sufficient.

That's one big challenge I know.

Obviously, we have the challenge of not enough revenue to build as much housing as we want.

What are some of the big challenges that you're interested in tackling on the committee?

Yeah, I mean, those are two of my top three.

My third is a dogged focus on 0% to 30% area median income, the lowest income bracket, the most vulnerable people in our community.

At Plymouth, the average income of our tenants is 11% AMI.

So there is a huge need for housing for that group of people that are between 0% and 15%.

And that really should be the work that the housing levy is focused on with need, of course, up the income tranches.

But hey, Sally, how are you?

Council Member Baxhaw, excuse me.

So yes, continuing to find more resources for that income tranche, zero to 30% AMI, and dedicating space for operating maintenance, which is critical, a really, really important part of it.

And we could also build more housing.

We can do zero to 18 months in the ground and up with the building.

It's all the time to get all the resources together.

So we get more resources, we can build faster if we have the O&M.

we can actually make these buildings work long term.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much, Kelly.

Thank you for joining us, Council Member Bagshaw.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

Okay.

We're really excited about this.

As you can tell, Kelly has a long time commitment and engagement with the housing and housing as a human rights.

committee, or I should say principal.

Pradeepta, we're very excited.

She's a mayoral appointment, resides in District 4, and Anne is a mayoral appointment, resides in District 3. So we have some really excellent local knowledge that will be added to the Housing Levy Oversight Committee.

If there's no more comments or questions, I'd like to move the committee recommend confirmation of Anne Malone, Pradeepta, Upadhyay.

Upadhyay.

Okay.

And Kelly Yukino.

Okay.

As a member of the Housing Levy Oversight Committee.

Second.

Any other comments?

Okay.

All those in favor?

Thank you.

Aye.

Opposed?

None.

It's unanimous.

Great.

We will move forward this recommendation to the May 20th full council meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

So apologies for the change in the schedule.

Let's go back to agenda item number one.

If we could please be joined at the table by Aliyah Abdoon and Aaron if you would like to read agenda item number one into the record.

Agenda item number one, appointment 01186, appointment of Aliyah Abood as member of the Labor Standards Advisory Commission.

Okay, great.

And could you also read in agenda item number two, please?

And if we could also be joined at the table by Kenny Pittman and Jillian Kahn.

Agenda item number two, appointment 01282, appointment of Jillian Cronauer as member of the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program Governing Council.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Hi, Jillian.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Thank you.

And Kenny, why don't you come on up here and welcome.

Thank you, guys.

If you want us to start with introductions from this way down, and we'll have Kenny do some introductory comments at that before we get started.

And just your name for the record.

Jill Kronauer.

Kronauer.

Kronauer.

Thank you.

Yeah, a lot of vowels in there.

I'm Sarah Shoemake.

I work at Capitol Hill Housing, where Jill is hopefully about to be a board member.

OK, great.

I'm Kenny Pittman, Officer Intergovernmental Relations.

OK, wonderful.

So we're here to talk about the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Project appointment.

And Kenny, do you want to get us started here?

Sure.

Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity to present Ms. Jill Kuenhauer to the board for confirmation as an appointee to the Capitol Hill Housing.

She is currently the Chief Operating Officer for Hunter Capital, which specializes in preserving and historic buildings, and they have a very large footprint in the Capitol Hill, First Hill neighborhoods.

And she brings a lot of experience, been doing that since 2008. And at one time, and maybe still is the president and chairperson of the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce, and brings a lot of experience to the board and was came highly, highly recommended.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Do you have any comments about Capitol Hill housing before we go into Jill's remarks?

Oh, just a little bit more background knowledge.

We own and manage 49 buildings across the city of Seattle and we provide affordable housing and we do community development as well.

And our affordable units offer, we offer a range of affordability.

We have some subsidized buildings, 30% all the way up to 80%.

Great.

Thank you.

Well, welcome.

Thank you so much for being here, Jill.

Tell us a little bit more about yourself and why you're interested in serving on the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Project.

Sure.

I've been working in Capitol Hill for almost 11 years now, and through that time have worked with Capitol Hill Housing on and off through different community initiatives.

They've always been a great community partner.

We office in Capitol Hill and have nine properties on Capitol Hill as well.

I hope to help bring some knowledge and support through property management, development, and also budgeting and more that side of things.

Excellent.

Great.

Any questions?

But thank you for doing that work.

I mean, obviously, the more the better in terms of affordable housing.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you.

And you reside in District 3 as well?

I do.

Excellent.

OK, great.

We're really excited about your appointment and very excited to continue working in partnership with our folks at Capitol Hill Housing.

Are there any big challenges that you also want to talk about that you are looking forward to tackling with this appointment?

Well, I think capital housing has a really impressive and daunting pipeline.

And so kind of just helping, you know, get our arms around that and, you know, making sure that we're set up for success.

Great.

Comments?

But in spite of that pipeline, I want to thank you for your ongoing commitment to fulfilling the community's interest as well as this council's interest in ensuring that we move forward in building some senior housing for our LGBTQ community.

Absolutely.

It's a big priority for the public.

It's a big priority for this council.

I know it's been sort of fits and starts and getting it going, but I'm really pleased to know that it's moving forward.

We cannot be a major city without housing for this population any longer.

So thank you so much.

I completely agree.

Excellent.

Any other comments?

I think it also ties in with our work around age-friendly Seattle.

So thank you for doing that.

Excellent.

Well, if there's no other comments, I'd like to move that the committee recommend the confirmation of Jillian.

Cronauer.

Cronauer, thank you.

As a member of the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program Public Development Authority.

Good.

Second.

Great.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

None.

It is unanimous as well.

We will move your recommendation to the full council meeting on May 20th.

You're not required to be there.

You're welcome to be there.

But we will speak highly of you and the work that you all do.

Very excited to have you and thank you for waiting this morning as we got through the kiddos as well.

It was enjoyable.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then I will go ahead and move the confirmation of Aaliyah, who is a reappointment.

So there's no need for her to be here today.

But just so that you folks know, this is a reappointment to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission.

Aliyah Abdud is a council reappointment currently living in North Admiral District 1. Aliyah is the owner of Quick Service Restaurant where she oversees a team of about 137 employees.

Aliyah has worked very hard to provide her employees with educational opportunities and a safe and welcoming workplace for everyone.

She is very active in the community and volunteers on behalf of the school district and the national helping hands.

This will be Aliyah's second term serving on the commission.

Anybody want to make any comments?

Sure, I just would love to say a few words.

I've really enjoyed working with Aliyah.

She is a Labor Standards Advisory Committee appointment that I put forward at the beginning of the creation of LSAC and really enjoy both her perspective from a community development, economic development focus, but also really caring deeply about her workforce and going above and beyond sort of the minimum requirements and has really, I think, helped driven the conversation forward about what it means to be a High Road employer.

Excellent.

Thank you.

I didn't realize that you were the original nominator.

Would you like to move her appointment?

Thank you.

Yes, I would like to move appointment of Aliyah Abdu to the Labor Standards Advisory Board.

Excellent.

Labor Standards Advisory Commission for reappointment.

I will second that.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

None.

Great.

It is unanimous.

We will bring forward this reappointment on Monday, May 20th as well.

If she is listening, no need to be there in person.

Very excited to help represent her and we will speak highly of her as well.

So thank you, Aliyah, for your continued commitment.

to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission.

With that, let's move on to items 6 and 7. Erin, if you can please read items 6 and 7 into the record.

And while she's doing that, if Emily, Chip, Kenny, and Tracy could please join us at the table, and we will go ahead with introductions in just a moment.

Agenda items six and seven, CB119510, an ordinance related to land use and zoning, and resolution 31887, a resolution adopting and approving an application for surplus federal property at Fort Lawton.

Welcome, guys.

Thank you so much for being here.

Before we get started, why don't we do introductions, and Trace, if you want to lead us down to Kenny, and then I'll make a few comments.

Will do.

Tracey Ratzliff, Council of Central Staff.

Chip Nevin, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Emily Alvarado, Office of Housing.

Rachel Verboort, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Kenny Pittman, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So this is the third conversation that we have had in this committee to create 238 new affordable homes, along with ample parks and open space on the former Fort Lawton site, including an initial overview of the plan of the Office of Housing on April 16th.

Thank you so much, Emily.

And I want to just say very quickly, thank you to Miriam and to Director Walker for also being here for that.

We did not get a chance to say thank you to Miriam before her leave of absence.

And if she is watching from vacation or somewhere, Sunny.

We just want to say, you know, in addition to praising the team that Director Walker has put together, we want to say Miriam has been an integral part of making this housing come online that we were able to celebrate and highlight in our last few committees.

So thanks to Miriam for all of her work.

Please do pass on our appreciation for her tenure here.

and for all that she'll hopefully continue to do on housing and affordable issues.

Thank you.

Can I just pile on on that?

But also, Emily, thank you for your leadership on this.

We talked about here just the three meetings that you've come.

We didn't talk about the 14 years prior to that.

And I don't know how many meetings, if you start not just community, but how many that we have had here somewhere in city council chambers, it's extraordinary.

And I'm really glad that we've held the course and that we've gotten where we are and working with the school district for their six acres for the active probably fields that they're going to be building at some point, but thank you.

So we're just talking about only the three meetings we've had just this year, but let's not forget we've had 14 to 15 years that you guys have all been working on this.

So thank you so much.

We also had a deep dive from the department and community partners on the implementation of key elements of the plan on May 2nd.

And so today we're looking forward to having a little bit more of a comprehensive overview with a reminder to folks that we do have a public hearing on the redevelopment plan and rezone legislation on Tuesday, May 21st at 530. It will be right here in council chambers.

We want to remind people that childcare will be provided, so bring your kiddos.

And the discussion and possible vote on the redevelopment plan and rezone legislation will be on June 6th here in the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

So with that, I have a few other comments, but why don't we go ahead and get started.

Okay, so this is a light presentation in terms of slides because I think the primary focus was to answer questions that folks have raised, council members have pointed to in the previous meetings, particularly around some of the parks and open space component, the Seattle Public Schools component, as well as some questions around future infrastructure and planning needs around transportation and other infrastructure purposes.

As a reminder, I'm not gonna linger on this slide.

This is a vision to provide, as you said, up to 238 affordable homes, a range of permanent supportive housing, housing for low-wage working people, and permanently affordable homeownership for low-income households on approximately nine to 10 acres, and then parks and park-related uses that include approximately 13 acres for passive recreation, active open space on approximately five to six acres, and then a maintenance building.

And if you have questions about the maintenance building, we can pause now, or I can just keep moving.

Okay.

The Seattle Public Schools component during, as we had mentioned when Fred Podesta was here at our last presentation, during the EIS, we had a significant amount of comment from the public of having an interest in creating educational uses out as part of this Fort Lawton redevelopment plan.

And so the EIS had studied the opportunity to use active multipurpose fields and the Seattle Public Schools and the City of Seattle share a need and interest in providing multipurpose athletic space.

It is a need that's identified by us, and it is an educational need that's identified by the school district.

So what this plan does is it allows for the opportunity for Seattle Public Schools to submit an application for the purposes of a conveyance for approximately five to six acres that they would use to create those multi-purpose athletic fields.

And accompanying this redevelopment plan and application is an ordinance and an MOU between SPS, Seattle Public Schools, and the City of Seattle that would outline what some of the roles, responsibilities, and timeline would be relative to that arrangement.

And a few things to highlight in this case, the redevelopment plan identifies that the This exists as an opportunity for SPS, but it also acknowledges that in the event that SPS chooses not to go ahead with this conveyance, that Seattle Parks and Recreation will proceed so that we can ensure the public benefit that has been outlined in this redevelopment plan.

That this will likely be the subject of a joint use facilities agreement.

These are the agreements that are regularly in place with the Seattle Parks and Recreation because, as I said, there is a joint need for active recreation space across the city.

The memorandum of agreement that we have negotiated with Seattle Public Schools outlines even more specific details, and it says that they have the right to submit an application to the federal government, the Department of Education specifically, for the five to six acres for educational uses.

And the district will decide, per the terms of this agreement, whether or not they want to go ahead with that acquisition based on the terms that are approved by the Department of Education.

As in some of the other conveyances, there is a chance that the discount is not a full discount, It could be an up to 100%, depending on the approach that's taken by Seattle Public Schools.

So if they are not interested in the terms that are provided by the federal government, which would call on them to provide more resources than they might otherwise want to, based on the appraised value of the land, they may choose not to participate in this deal.

And this memorandum gives them the exclusive authority to be able to make that determination.

The financial responsibilities are outlined in this memorandum of agreement, particularly for the purposes of pre-development and caretaker costs.

So, as you all know, the federal government has This has taken a long time, and one of the ways in which we maintain our good standing with the federal government is by virtue of a lease agreement that sets out responsibilities that we need to accomplish in order with them on this property.

Part of that is paying for costs associated with the present infrastructure safety and security at the site.

And so this memorandum acknowledges that SPS is responsible for a quarter of some portion of those pre-development and caretaker costs up to an outlined amount of $249,000.

And that cap is set because this MOA will be supported by the superintendent.

And then upon their interest in the application, should they choose to go ahead with the conveyance, they will then take board action in order to accept the acquisition of the site.

And at that point, the board action could allow for an increase in proportional pre-development and caretaker costs attributed to the Seattle Public Schools.

If the district elects not to acquire the property, as I said previously, this MOA creates even more explicit understanding of the timeline by which they need to make their determination so that we can ensure that our Parks and Recreation Department can go ahead and have the outcome of multipurpose athletic fields at the site.

The ordinance that is submitted along with this memorandum outlines that the departments and the Seattle Public Schools can go ahead and enter into an MOA substantially similar to the one that's presented to and hopefully supported and adopted by you all.

And that legislation will be transmitted, we think, in the next couple of weeks, so we'll have it in time for the June 6th action by the committee.

Oh, good, so it's all in one package.

Yes, it'll be all in one package.

The other thing I will say is the MOA does set out timelines for action by the school district, so this is not gonna be, you get to take forever to submit your application, forever to develop, there are specific timelines by which they have to perform those different functions, which I think is good, gives us the opportunity, if they choose not to, to step in in the absence of them deciding to move forward.

Can I just ask the two of you how this ties in?

Before then Mayor Burgess was, before he left, one of the things that he did in November of that year, 2017, was to sign an agreement that the school board president, Leslie Harris, signed also.

And it had multiple things that the school district was going to do And it sounds like we're stepping up here, and they're stepping up with around the six acres.

But there were some other things in that agreement, and I'm wondering whether or not we're still discussing those elements.

I'm not in a position to talk about, I'm not on the front lines of the negotiations more broadly with Seattle Public Schools about satisfying the terms of that MOA, but understand that for the purposes of this specific line item, we've reached an agreement, both Seattle Public Schools and Our side, the executive, feel that this both satisfies that agreement and is a good opportunity.

So we'd be happy to get back to you on that.

Super.

Well, and I know, Emily, this is not in your bailiwick.

However, I think there was a sense within the city, anyway, that we had agreed on multiple parts.

and carving out one part and saying, hey, we're going to do that, but then the other parts are not addressed, I think is of concern.

So I'd like, and I think Marshall Foster is working on this, and I know Fred Podesta in his new role is as well.

So I just would like to flag that I think it's still important for us to go back and look at the terms of the agreement that we signed in November of 2017, make sure that it's all moving forward.

So, we've talked about in the last presentation the various components of the plan and the application to the federal government.

Then there is a technical process by which we would go ahead after adoption of the plan by the city and adoption of the plan by the federal government that we would proceed with actual applications for conveyances.

And that is a complicated process.

I wanted to be clear that all of the descriptions of acreage that we've used for the purposes of presentation will be corroborated by virtue of a survey.

and an appraisal of the site.

That will be done prior to the conveyance process.

The lease agreement stipulates that we will request for the acquisitions, we'll submit our request for acquisitions to the Army by January 1st, 2020. That's a deadline in the lease.

And those conveyances will be several.

They'll include the component for homeless and supportive housing that will come from HUD.

There'll be a negotiated sale.

That means we'll be paying market value, being really clear about that, for the purposes of the affordable rental housing.

That's not a technical eligible conveyance, but we believe that it's really important in creating a diverse and supportive community.

The public conveyance for Habitat for Humanity for the purposes of self-help homeownership would come through the U.S.

Department of HUD again.

There'll be a public conveyance to the U.S.

Interior Department for the parks and recreation uses, including the passive park space and the maintenance building.

For the opportunity for the Seattle Public School.

It would be a conveyance through the Department of Education that they'll be seeking, and in the event that it's not, it will go through the Department of Interior to satisfy it for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

And then also important to note that presently the main right-of-way running throughout the redevelopment area is a private right-of-way.

It's owned by the federal government, Texas Way, and so we'll also have a public conveyance for the purposes of turning that into a public right-of-way.

And that concludes my presentation.

Lovely.

Okay, great.

So the goal for today is for us to really identify some of the issue areas that have come up in both presentations before in community meetings.

Many of us have been part of the community discussions over the last few years or longer on this issue.

One of the issues that I heard about in community and then also was discussed on the Seattle Channel was this desire to sort of right size or reduce the size of the parking lots for the park maintenance facility.

And in our ongoing desire to try to reduce the footprint of surface parking lots, it did seem to resonate a little bit.

And so we do have Chip here from the office, from the Department of Parks and Recreation, Looking forward to hearing sort of your analysis on analyzing the needs, the size of the parking lot.

And my hope and my desire, as we've been talking about and working up amendments on, is to see if we can reduce the size of the surface level parking or surface parking lot so that we can create more park space and ideally more areas for natural habitat.

Thanks for being here.

Well, thank you for having us.

So you're right, it's a big, it's a big parking lot.

I don't think anyone would disagree that it's a lot of pavement out there.

And so we did look at, so the intent of the department is to move our Central West crew there with associated equipment, trucks.

And materials.

And so we looked at other facilities that had the same level of service.

And we feel very confident that we can reduce the parking area by about 30%.

30% is about an acre.

I think there's about three acres of parking there, including the building.

It's about three acres.

it seems like we can take about a third off.

And what that would look like, we think it would look like taking the, you know, the northern 100 feet and kind of incorporating that green, turning that green incorporated into the hillside above.

Obviously, we need to make sure that vehicle circulation and drainage all works, but that is the intent.

Can I just ask a question?

Chip, so the 100 feet, you carve that off, you dig up the pavement and you plant what native trees are consistent with what's already there or do we know?

We haven't got that far in discussions.

I think the community wants greenery and I would assume that we'd be tearing up the pavement and planting.

Consistent with what is already on the hillside to the to the north, but I don't we haven't I don't know exactly what we'd be planting there I'm not even sure what's there right now so one of the issues that we did hear about and you know as we think about greenery or Natural habitat is that this would be an additional place for the blue heron to be able to travel through and live in So I assume that it would be trying to repopulate it with natural habitat and great space for the blue heron.

Is that accurate?

Yes, that's correct.

So I mean The whole Kiwanis Ravine and parts of this part of Fort Lawton are identified as heron habitat, even though the herons have since moved to Commodore Park, but it is all part of the heron habitat.

So yes, we would be planted it natively.

May I just ask that we reach out to our friends with the heron habitat group, make sure that they're included?

as we're moving forward about what they would recommend that we plant so that they have some input.

And I think simultaneously that there is quite an organization around birdwatching in Discovery Park.

I'd like to invite them also to provide us with their recommendations.

So if I can just ask.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

We do work with Heron Habitat helpers quite a bit, so we'll make sure they're involved.

But you're right, there's a big birding population, birder population.

So I think that's great in terms of implementation.

I also want to make sure folks hear that when their issues are raised, we do take those issues seriously and we do try to find remedies for them.

You know, this happens to be something that's near and dear to my heart, trying to remove surface level parking spaces where it's not needed.

And I think this is a great example.

I want to give our council colleagues a heads up that as we get closer to amending both the bill and attachment one which is the large document in your packet.

I will be putting forward a amendment for section 5.2.4 which is the park maintenance building to acknowledge that Seattle Parks and Recreation has analyzed the feasibility of reducing the parking area and the addition would be based on usage requirements at other similar facilities, as you heard.

Seattle Parks and Recreation has determined that it can reduce the parking area by approximately 30%.

The intent is to convert the northern approximately 100 feet of the parking lot to open space.

But the exact configuration will be determined by circulation.

and drainage constraints.

Got that out.

And we should also maybe potentially add in consultation or in discussions with our community partners as well who've been working on this issue.

I'm sure you will, but just specifying and letting them know we're sending love and we really want to hear what the recommendations are.

Okay, great.

That's a great idea.

So if there's no other comments on the parks, I do have a few comments and questions for our folks from SDOT and Metro can't be here today, but thank you so much for being here from SDOT.

We've heard that there is also a desire to make sure that we're increasing transit options and serving the future Fort Lawton community.

and residents, and would love to hear more about the process that both SDOT and Metro will go through to analyze additional transit needs in the area as we have increased population, and specifically encouraging folks to get out of their cars, thinking about multi-modal use, but not only that, especially for our seniors.

And families who will be living in this area, I know, wanting to make sure that access to transit is both addressed head on, it is an important issue, and that we're doing it specifically for the population that will be moving in is critical.

So thanks for being here today and for sharing with us any of the process that you will go through to analyze new transit needs.

So I just want to stipulate again, I'm a representative of the Department of Transportation, not King County Metro, so I will be speaking to what they have in their adopted policies and plans.

And so, pardon, the main document that we'll be using and that Metro uses to guide their service decisions is their King County Metro service guidelines, which is a part of their strategic plan.

And this document outlines how they add, reduce, and restructure service and guides a lot of their service decisions.

They make investment decisions, so they add additional service based on several criteria.

The first and foremost one they look at is passenger crowding.

So when routes are overcrowded, they will add service to meet that demand.

Second, they look at schedule reliability.

So when buses are chronically late, they will try to address that.

The third criteria that they look at are what are the target service levels for a corridor?

And to define that, they base it on three criteria.

Productivity, which is a combination of jobs and households, so this project will add households.

Social equity, so the number of low income and minority residents along that corridor.

and geographic value.

What connections does this route provide to regional centers?

So that is where, that is the quantitative process that Metro goes through to assign target service levels.

Looking at the Fort Lawton site, there are two routes that serve it, Route 24 and Route 33. Both of those have identified target service levels in King County Metro service guidelines and their 2018 annual system evaluation report.

The Route 24 is identified as a very frequent route, which would have 15-minute service in the peak and off-peak.

This is a goal that Metro has assigned.

It is not the current frequency.

But what Metro does is they compile a list of what they think service should be given the productivity, social equity, and geographic value.

And as resources are available, they will allocate those to increase service levels on those corridors.

Route 33 has a target service level of frequent, which would give it 15-minute service in the peak and 30-minute service in the off-peak at night.

Both of those routes operate generally about every 30 minutes, with some increases in the peak periods.

So both of those target service levels would be increases from today's levels.

This is consistent with Metro's long-range plan, which they define as Metro Connects, which establishes a 2025 and a 2040 transit service network.

Both of these routes are identified in that, in the 2025 network.

And then there is an additional route in the 2040 network.

So they have long-term plans to continue to serve the area and to increase service as resources allow.

Thank you for bringing up the point that there's going to be a significant number of seniors in this new development.

Is there an opportunity to look at the access vans or some of the circulators that could be different than just the 24 and the 33?

I just would like to ask that we request Metro to take another look at that, because especially if we've got people that were walking, it's difficult to have to walk a few blocks to get to the 24 or 33. If we could plan ahead about the access van type, I'm not saying it's got to be that, but something where we've got circulators that can come right into Fort Lawton and pick people up.

Of course, by 2035, we'll have a nice light rail that gets down to Dravis, but between now and then.

We've got to figure something else out.

Yes.

I will follow up with them on that.

Thank you.

The other piece about that is that, you know, one of the changes in the redevelopment plan was moving from having housing for homeless families and really converting it into the PSH model for seniors.

And part of that acknowledgment was the way in which services are delivered is different and the ability to provide really targeted services on site for the population, for seniors, kind of changes some of the transportation needs for the people living there.

It doesn't mean that people won't travel, but because many of the services are provided on site, the needs are a little different.

And Catholic Housing Services is aware and has done before fundraising and other opportunities to use vans to serve populations in their senior buildings, and that's something that we have talked about.

So I think one of the issues that has come up in the past is grocery stores, and you know, the closest one is the QFC down on Dravis and close to 15th, but it still is a big schlep if you don't, if walking isn't easy for you.

So it's something I'd really like, as Catholic Community Services is looking at that.

And we've also talked about having a mobile grocery store.

And maybe this is an opportunity, because we talked about it going to Magnuson Park with some of the low income there.

And maybe this is an opportunity to pilot something like that.

That's great to hear that other people are talking about mobile grocery stores.

Council Member Hurdle, did you have another comment as well?

I have a question.

So the metro service guidelines by which they decide to add additional resources, crowding, reliability, and then the third one, correct me if I'm wrong too, service frequency goals, is that correct?

Yes.

And the one that we're focusing on for purposes of for a lot is the service frequency goal.

Right.

And that's focused on the frequency of a route.

at different times of the day.

Correct.

So my question about that is, are these surface frequency goals based on current use of those routes or is it based on projected future use of the routes?

So sort of both, and I'll elaborate.

So those three categories, that productivity, social equity, and geographic value is that first step in the process in which they look at kind of the potential of the route and what riders could be there and what connections it serves.

And then they have a second step in which they look at what the current loads are on the route to see if they need additional boosts.

And so that second step is an opportunity to increase service levels even further above and beyond the potential based on current utilization.

And so within the context of potential, was it part of the analysis that this site would be developed with this density of housing?

No, so the system evaluation evaluates the system jobs and households that are on place, or in the, sorry, that are built today.

So they're all based on the current year, and this is an annual evaluation that Metro does.

Metro Service Guidelines also provides guidance on planning for upcoming development, and they do this citywide.

So as things are coming online, they do take that into consideration when they look at service levels and any service decisions they make.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions?

No, it's great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Just keep us informed, would you?

Definitely, will do.

I'm just going to put a plug in right now while we're talking about frequency.

I would love to be part of future conversations as we look at what frequent transit actually means.

Ideally, having 10 minutes between buses coming is, I think, a really great way to make sure that people can rely on transit no matter when it's coming.

I'm very excited to be moving from one area that came every 20 minutes to now an area that has bus service every 10 minutes, and it makes my life a lot easier.

And I think as we think about people getting to doctor's appointments or to their kiddos' schools or to work, making that transit frequency change soon, do you know when Metro or SDOT will be engaging in sort of reevaluating the frequency measure?

Yep.

So King County Metro identifies service levels for the county as across the entire all 39 jurisdictions.

But the city of Seattle actually has its own definitions of frequent.

And what they define as very frequent is 10 minutes.

So through the funding of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, 71% of Seattle households actually have access to a 10-minute or better route within a 10-minute walk of their house.

And so the city has really used voter-approved funds to improve frequencies above and beyond.

what is established in Metro service guidelines.

Okay, great.

And then lastly, I don't know if anybody can speak to this, but the other big concern that we did hear in community was less related to, I think the purchase details of the play fields for the schools, but also an analysis of whether or not new school services would be needed.

Any comments about what the school district school board will go through in terms of analyzing the need for new school services with the population increase?

Yeah, I can't say specifically the frequency with which they do their analysis.

I don't know if it's annual when they look across the city of what schools' needs are.

I know that for the purposes of the site, that the schools are interested in considering this a potential land banking for a potential school at a hypothetical time.

And in the event that were to occur, of course, they would have to do their own environmental analysis and it would be an additional process and a negotiation with the federal government to convert to that use.

In the meantime, it will be the schools, the educational use on athletic fields.

But they are contemplating that as part of their rationale for engagement in this opportunity.

Great.

Kenny or Tracy, any additional comments you'd like to make today?

Okay.

I have a question just about process here at council.

Because I have, I'm not a regular attending member of this committee.

You should be, you so fit in.

She's our alternate, so we know you're watching every time anyways.

Listening maybe.

Yeah.

So this is, is this the first time we've heard this resolution?

No.

Okay.

This is the third.

I know there's been multiple meetings, but we've had this specific resolution before us already.

Would you like to comment on that, Tracy?

No, you've adequately done that.

We will have yet another public hearing.

This will be the first one for this round on the 21st.

And then the final, at least at this point, proposal is to come into committee on the 6th and vote out the resolution, and then the rezone ordinance, and then the ordinance to adopt the MOA with SPS.

And so as it relates specifically to the resolution, I understand, you know, obviously there's been a lot of negotiations for many, many, many years, and this resolution is, Moving forward, a plan that has been subject to that negotiation, and I know we don't want to uptip the apple cart, but as it, you know, for instance, things like this parking lot issue, is there going to be sort of an issue ID section of this discussion?

This was it, and this was the only issue that any of the committee members had raised to me.

So yeah, unless there's something else hidden here.

All right.

Yeah, we've been hearing about it.

Yeah.

Can I just say one thing about the public hearing?

And I apologize for not being there, but I'm going to be out of state looking at looking at our retirement system.

So it's not like I'm out fooling around, not going to be here to listen to the public on this topic.

But if people will take copious notes and let me know if there's anything that comes up at this next upcoming meeting on the 21st.

Great, thank you.

And then just looking back over at our meeting minutes from before, from the April 16th meeting or the May 2nd meeting, the question was if there's any additional central staff memos or summaries, we would want to send those out to council again.

So we did send out a memo that.

I didn't see anything attached to this agenda.

No, it was sent out actually just before the first committee discussion to set up the schedule and the contents of the development plan.

I'm sure I have it somewhere.

I'll send it to you.

No worries.

Happy to do it.

And then as we're talking about this, just a reminder for our full council as well, there is a binder that was created.

We'll make sure that that gets recirculated or that we ping each office and that as we do so that we bring the memo around.

I will also bring around my tiny amendment here.

And if you do have any other questions, please let us know, ideally before the May 21st meeting, which is when we'll have the next public meeting.

And then as a reminder, we'll have a discussion and possible vote on the June 6th meeting here at the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee at 930 on Thursday.

Thank you for all of your interest in this.

I want to say especially thank you, Chip, and to the Department Parks and Rec for your quick work on helping us analyze whether or not we could convert part of that parking lot to more natural habitat for our friends who are feathered and otherwise.

And I think it's a really great way for us to show that we're both being responsive to community concerns that are coming up and seeing this as a real win-win.

So we'll see all of you on the 21st if you're able to come to the public meeting.

Otherwise, we will be back here in council chambers on June 6 for a final or for a possible vote.

Great, thank you.

Can I just say one thing?

Yes, please.

Emily Alvarado, I'm always impressed by your presentations.

And thank you for being here, so articulate about this.

And you are often the front line for our Office of Housing.

I've been at many public meetings where I watch you successfully navigate some people with different opinions.

So I just want to acknowledge that and say thanks.

Thank you very much.

And thanks, Estop, for being here with all of us.

the answers to the questions that we pepper you with about Metro over which you have no control.

I appreciate it.

We appreciate being brought into the conversation.

Good.

Thank you all so much.

At this point, I think we're going to go ahead and move into our last item of business.

And Erin, if you'd like to read into the record item number eight regarding the administration and finance plan.

And we'll be at the table with Emily, Stephanie, and Tracy again.

Thank you guys so much.

Hi.

agenda item number eight Seattle housing levy administrative and financial plan for years 2019 and 2020 excellent thank you so welcome again if you guys want to just read your name into the record and then I'll have a few opening comments as well Tracy rats of council central staff Stephanie Velasco, Office of Housing.

Arriving.

Emily Alvarado, Office of Housing.

Excellent, thank you.

So we're very excited to have this conversation coming up.

This is something that I've been looking forward to for over a year now, as we've talked about opportunities for us to have truly community-oriented development be the first and foremost thing that we think of when we create new housing opportunities.

The ANF plan is updated every two years and this is an opportunity for us to recalibrate how we administer the city's affordable housing dollars based on the housing needs of both the community and the future residents.

This proposal is a plan for 2019 and 2020. for office of housing program years.

This plan relates to the office of housing levy funds, incentive zoning payments, mandatory housing affordability payments, as well as other funding sources that the city administers for the creation of affordable housing.

So this is truly our kind of moral compass for how we will use all of our housing dollars.

A few notes on the timeline.

After today's briefing and discussion, we'll have a briefing and discussion of potential amendments at the June 6th meeting.

We'll also have, on June 10th, the final Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee discussion and possible vote, and then potential for a full council vote either that day or on June 17th as well.

So we have three future meetings potentially planned for this.

Our office has heard a great deal about the desire to make sure that they're including their voice in the ANF plan, making sure that organizations rooted in and led by communities mostly impacted by housing unaffordability and displacement have truly a seat at the table and that their voices and words are reflected in the plan as we move forward.

Some of those priorities are going to be reflected in our conversations today in today's update.

The first being supporting community-driven displacement and harmonizing, I'm sorry, let me say that again.

Supporting community-driven development and harmonizing this policy with surplus land disposition policy that we passed last year in our committee prioritizes community-driven projects for city-owned surplus land.

So let me say that really briefly again.

Last year we said that public land that is surplus, that is underutilized, should be prioritized for affordable housing and the community said absolutely we support that.

However, we are struggling to get the resources that we need to be able to actually build on that land.

So yes, creating a policy that reserves surplus land for affordable housing is great in your disposition policies, but we really want to work on the ANF plan to make sure that we're at the forefront of getting these dollars so there can be more community-oriented development, especially for organizations who are helping to serve those who are historically more at risk for displacement.

So really excited that that conversation from a year ago continues and their words are reflected here going forward.

The second issue that we continue to hear about is support for community preference and affirmative marketing strategies.

And this proposed update really prioritizes community members with historic ties to neighborhoods for new affordable housing in areas with high risk of displacement.

So this is something that I know Councilmember Herbold has been working on.

We're really excited that we're going to have elements of that in this ANF plan as well.

And third, I just want to highlight that one of the things that we're looking to advance in this policy is creating more resources for acquisition of existing buildings, which we've heard from affordable housing developers is an increasing need, a very much more cost effective way to increase affordable housing as the cost of new construction becomes more expensive.

This is true both for our nonprofit housing developers, our folks who are working in community and community organizations that are beginning to get into more affordable housing development as part of their commitment to the community, and also something that we heard directly from the Seattle Housing Authority, where they've said the sheer cost of land and construction is so overwhelming that for them it's much more effective to look at purchasing of existing buildings and making sure that they maintain affordability and update those buildings so that they're great options for the community.

which also helps with some of our displacement pressures as well.

Absolutely is an anti-displacement strategy as well.

So I really want to just underscore some of the comments we've already heard.

We've already said thank you to the Office of Housing.

I just want to say thank you one more time, especially in this time when you have so much going on.

We continue to have you at committee and you continue to be present and so thank you so much for your time and attention, especially to the priorities that are coming from our office.

As we've heard that the need for including the community voice is much, much, much more than just about putting those words in the document, but being intentional about making sure that we're convening and creating opportunities for folks to actually co-write the policies together.

So just a quick overview.

Office of Housing was here to give a report on the 2018 Housing Incentives Meeting, or sorry, Investments Meeting at the April 18th meeting here at the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

And some of the highlights I'd like to mention to ground us in this conversation today in terms of how we administer the 2019 and 2020 dollars.

revolve around the fact that in 2018, the city invested 68 million in our rental housing program to create an additional 1,197 affordable homes.

City dollars used to create affordable homes are leveraged against other funding sources, including county, state, and federal dollars and private funds.

In 2018, we were able to leverage over $5 of public and private investments, $5?

Okay.

So for every $1, 5, that's a good ROI.

Okay.

Leverage $5 of public and private non-city funding for every $1 of city investments.

And by leveraging against outside funding sources, those homes were created at an average cost of, drumroll please.

Because everybody talks about affordable housing being expensive, about it being over $350,000 or $300,000 per unit.

But when we leveraged these dollars, the average cost of creating these affordable units was $56,000, $808.

The city's contribution.

The price is still the same, unfortunately, but the city's contribution shrunk to $56,000.

So I think it's just really important to highlight the amount of work that the Office of Housing has done, the importance of having folks who understand The importance of having folks who understand how these dollars can be leveraged against each other and the incredibly cost-effective ways in which we can do this when we do partner with our friends at the national level, at the state level, and at the county level.

So, you know, I have a few more comments, but I think I'll hold off and see if you guys want to get into the meat of this presentation.

And then I know our colleagues have some comments and questions too.

Yeah, question.

Just a structural question.

The legislation that we will pass approves two policies, correct?

One of them is related only to the financial policies related to the levy, and the other is to all of the Office of Housing Administered Programs, is that correct?

Exactly.

And which is which?

The administrative and financial plan is related specifically to the levy, which is required by that ordinance.

And our housing funding policies, which attach to the administrative and financial plan, are our broader department policies.

Thank you so much.

And together they make up our moral compass.

I'm going to use that.

I like that.

Our policy roadmap.

Exactly.

So, Emily, I know you have a small presentation for us, and then I think we have some questions and ideas we'd like to throw in there.

Great.

So, the Office of Housing is really excited to present our administrative and financial plan and housing funding policies.

As you said, this is our moral compass, and what we are doing is we are balancing many things through our policies.

We are balancing a commitment to delivering for multiple populations, providing homeless housing, as the young fifth graders mentioned earlier, one of our proven solutions to homelessness, creating housing for a range of populations, seniors, people with disabilities.

It is our way to achieve our equitable development and anti-displacement goals.

And we are balancing those populations with an interest in affirmatively furthering fair housing, creating housing across the city.

We are including in these policies our commitment to stewardship.

We are making multimillion-dollar investments in real estate that we steward for at least 50 years by our incredible asset management team.

And so part of that includes the hard work of ensuring that these are financeable and that they are sustainable assets in our community.

And all of these issues come together and then get incorporated in our intense regulatory agreements and loan documents that we execute with our partners.

So this is not just moral at a high philosophical level but it then emanates down into the documents that we make sure as we are stewarding our public resources well.

So keeping that in mind as we move forward, as we like to use these documents as a moment in which we can provide clarity, we can clarify our policy goals, we can make improvements to the way in which we administer programs, we also want to be clear that they're not the moments where we can completely move a ship.

We are doing long-term real estate development and investment, and we want some level of consistency to ensure that we are creating cost savings and timeliness in the community.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Stephanie.

Great.

So actually Council Member Mosqueda set us up really well here.

I think she gave most of what is on this slide, so I made my job really easy here.

But to answer your question and in response to your question Council Member Herbold, here's kind of the outline of what the administrative and financial plan does and then what the housing funding policies do.

In my notes, I had said that the ANF plan is really our guidebook for how we manage the OH housing levy programs.

I like Moral Compass as well.

We'll start using that one.

But really want to point out here under housing funding policies, to reiterate what Emily said, is that we are focusing here in this update on providing clear policy direction while also having the flexibility to do implementation that is responsive to changing market conditions and the funding environment.

So we want to stay nimble while also making sure that we're staying true to the priorities and values that the city has for these policies.

Here we go.

Okay, so looking then at what the current existing housing funding policies are, and you'll see again that these themes are going to carry through and be highlighted through our proposed updates, but here are our Basically, the office has continued priorities for investments when we talk about resident populations and the locations of our investments.

So under resident populations, you'll see there that we prioritize low-income seniors and people with disabilities, homeless adults, families, youth and young adults, and also low-wage working people and their families.

And then in terms of the locations, we want to emphasize investments throughout the entire city so that we can provide housing choice across the city and continue to affirmatively further fair housing.

So you'll see those bullet points under there.

We're looking at high cost areas, areas around transit, communities that are at high risk of displacement, and especially as Emily pointed out here, and we'll talk about a little bit more later, publicly owned sites.

I just want to call out a specific resident population that the council has identified that in some ways you cover in your bullets, but a little bit more granularity, as mentioned earlier, when we had the appointee from CHIP, I'm sorry, Capitol Hill Housing, boy, I'm dating myself.

Specifically, low-income LGBTQ seniors is a priority population that the council identified both when we put the levy on the ballot and then in a subsequent A&F

Absolutely.

And one of the things I should say that by virtue of having all of these priorities, of which there are many, and resources which are constrained, we don't hit every single priority every year.

And that's unfortunate.

I wish we could.

But what we do is show that over the balance of many years, we continue to have projects that represent all of these priorities, and I think it's a bit of a longer strategic look to make sure that we're delivering on all of these priorities.

And actually, LGBTQ is called out on page four.

Oh, I see that.

It was in the presentation, so I wanted to speak to it.

Exactly.

You knew it was there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so here's kind of the story of how we got to the point that we are, and that is really, as you can see here, driven by community engagement.

This is my first time working on this housing funding policies update, and I've been really impressed by just the level of engagement by stakeholders, community advocates, council members, the mayor, and who are all bringing very diverse kind of expertise and experience, as well as passion, especially on the side of the community advocates.

You can see here in November, we started out just kind of a general scoping meeting to lay out what the direction of these funding policies update might look like.

In February 2019, you can see that Mayor Durkan's executive order really included a few different policies and themes that we'll talk about certainly later, but specifically called out here is community preference, and that's gonna be a big piece of what Emily's going to talk about.

And there you can see also anti-displacement policies are kind of at the forefront of a citywide effort around that.

We also had another community meeting there to review draft policies.

And coming out of that community meeting, we found that there were a couple issues that really warranted some additional discussion.

One, again, is community preference, which I'm sure we'll say probably about 100 times over the course of this presentation.

And then the other one was an issue around open one bedrooms.

And then in March 2019, we updated on our website kind of the draft policies as they stood.

And we welcomed public comments, which received a few.

And then in April, we brought these draft policies to the Housing Levy Oversight Committee, who really had the chance to do a deep dive and provide some additional recommendations on that front.

Okay, and so here is where you can see kind of the major themes of this round of updates.

And I think we put anti-displacement as the top one there because a lot of these other themes kind of cascade from that.

They really are interwoven into this anti-displacement effort that comes, again, is sort of a citywide effort.

Also, again, a focus of Mayor Durkin's executive order.

But these themes here that you see are not new.

The housing levy funding policies have a long track record of addressing these themes.

And just here in our latest opportunity for a policy update, we, the Office of Housing, again, with the community, advocates and support from council members have really taken a hard look at what existing policies we have, how we can really bolster those around these particular themes.

So you can see here under anti-displacement, then we also are looking at the strategic acquisition and preservation program, and particularly around publicly owned sites, sustainable home ownership, and facilitating more effective program and administration.

That's really looking just kind of at a suite of these technical fixes that'll really just help us to make program and administration a little bit more smooth.

And then the last bullet point there is advancing racial and social equity.

A fair number of these policies were actually informed by and grown out of racial equity toolkits that the Office of Housing led or participated in.

And so, again, all of these themes kind of are interwoven together.

And you'll hear a little bit more about each of these themes and the policies that are associated with each of these themes as Emily continues the presentation.

So the biggest body of work reflected in this housing funding policy change is around community preference and affirmative marketing.

And must start this discussion by saying this grew out of community.

This was work that was instigated by, asked for, and led by community.

It was made initially concrete as part of the MHA resolution accompanying the MHA in the Chinatown International District.

There was some urging from council, including Council Member Herbold, to do research and exploration on this body of work.

It was then made actionable by Mayor Durkin to move forward on it.

And what this work is, is really saying, how can we hone our investments to ensure that people who are at risk of displacement, people who have been displaced, particularly in communities where there is a lot of displacement, how can we hone our housing investments to ensure that people are able to stay and thrive in their neighborhoods?

And this is a complex body of work because it is really related to federal fair housing law.

And as we presented previously to this committee, there is a way in which we can design these policies to affirmatively further fair housing and foster and sustain integrated communities.

And there is also a way to design these policies in which we can have the unintended consequences of disparately impacting protected classes.

We want to be in the former camp, not in the latter.

So the policy that you see proposed is one in which we can have an on-ramp to achieving the outcomes while mitigating any risk that we're violating fair housing law.

So the policy included here is one that would enable private, enable developers who use affordable housing subsidy, use city subsidy, to propose community preference policies in high risk of displacement communities.

So they may come to us, say, and I'm gonna use interim as an example because I know that they are an advocate for this policy.

As they move forward on Uncle Bob's Place, if they say, we'd like to propose a preference for people who live in or formerly resided in the Chinatown International District to be able to participate in this building and have access to these units, we would work closely with them, providing technical assistance and guidance to help them achieve that goal and outcome, ensuring that the way in which they implement it is consistent with fair housing law.

So, yeah.

Can I give an example?

That is a perfect project, and we know that so many people either feel like they can't afford to live in Chinatown, ID area, or they've moved out for whatever reasons and want to come back.

How do you do that in such a way that we're not violating the federal fair housing?

Yeah, so a little teaser, although it's not signed off on completely, but what we intend to do over the coming months is create guidelines that would help create an analytical framework of what the best parameters are about implementing these policies.

And it would be based on a disparate impact analysis.

This is what has been done in other places, like in California, who have put these policies in place.

And it would say something like, although not firmly, you probably want to extend your preference to less than 50% of the units.

So for that 60% of the units, there is equal access by all people.

And for 40% of the units, there is a preference.

You're on a different list or have a different applicant pool for folks who can demonstrate that they currently reside in or formerly resided in the community.

We, the guidelines might say other things about what demographic data is necessary to demonstrate as a baseline utilization of this policy.

We believe that by restricting application of this policy in high risk of displacement areas, we're already pretty set out to say that these are generally our more integrated communities.

It might be, however, that someone says, well, times are changing, and I feel like this community is really a high risk of displacement community now, and here is some data consistent with the guidelines you're creating that justifies why we should be able to use it.

Those are the kind of things that might come up in the guidelines, for example.

But what you typically see is that for a minority portion of the units, you have different kind of access for people who have historic ties or current ties to the community, and that they get allocated a different level of points for gaining access to the property.

In our research of other cities who have done this, The city have a role in creating lists of people who have been displaced and want to be considered in the future as these buildings come online?

Really good question.

So it's different in different cities, and the answer is yes.

Other cities take a far more active role in tenant selection, but that's because they do tenant selection in-house.

It is something that our city does not do, as distinct from New York City, for example, who holds the list for their inclusionary housing units.

We have chosen to use more third-party directly through the non-profit and for-profit developers, and so we don't have that kind of infrastructure in place to do it.

San Francisco, as another example, holds lists of folks who have been exited from former rent-controlled units.

But they have different infrastructure in place that we don't.

It would occur to me, though, that the nonprofits aren't going to have this infrastructure either, though.

Nobody's collecting the names.

and contact information of people who are forced to move from their community.

And if I was a tenant living in a building that I was priced out of, I wouldn't think to contact somebody who builds housing in that community to say, hey, can you put me on that list sometime in the future?

Yeah.

I mean, part of the problem here is that I think this is a really important and valuable policy.

It is also not right to return because there are going to be more people who are displaced or implicated than who will ever be able to get into these units.

And so we can try to create lists, but that demand will exceed the supply.

So what the focus here really is, is on community connections, partnerships with community organizations who can do the kind of advertising, organizing to let people know about these opportunities.

And then, as our guidelines will probably do, suggest more minimal requirements for the purposes of demonstrating you know, residency or any connection to a community so that it's not burdensome on people who have been displaced to show that they're connected.

So just relying on the, not just, relying on the affirmative marketing side.

Absolutely.

this issue and that separate policy to help drive those previously displaced folks to these opportunities.

Thank you.

That's a perfect connection.

I'm going to talk about that because there is much more robust policies in place in this document than we've ever had on affirmative marketing.

And I'll just add real quick to that.

What I also heard you say is that it's possible that the Office of Housing and Creating Guidelines will then be able to offer some maybe best practices or tools to these organizations.

We've created a few community housing roundtables and asked folks specifically, you know, what elements would you like to see in the ANF plan?

One of the things that we heard from our friends in South Park is that they truly are sort of creating this ongoing list of community members that they know who are being displaced from the area that they grew up in, want to live in, that they work in.

And so they do have, in some ways, kind of a sense of who's leaving, but want to be able to more accurately or robustly keep track of that information and then affirmatively market it once the buildings are created.

So I hear that this, and we should remind ourselves as we always want to Remember, there's a huge list.

There's a spectrum of all the housing options and policies and interventions that we need.

This is one element along that list.

So it is not the end-all be-all, but it could be a helpful tool.

And if you all are creating resources, I think that will be helpful for organizations like that.

Council Member Baxhaw.

I think, you know, I'll just let's move on.

Okay.

So with community preference, just one thing to point out about this proposed policy is that while it gives the space for city funded housing to propose policies to us, it restricts that only to high risk of displacement communities.

And we think that is really important.

I think that is the best guardrail we have to ensure that we don't have a disparate impact.

I'm going to say this pretty explicitly.

If we were in implementing community preference in a majority white community, it is possible that that could have unintended consequences of providing an advantage to people of one race as opposed to others.

And that is the exact fact situation in New York City that led to a legal challenge.

Very helpful, thank you.

As Councilmember Herbold said, affirmative marketing is completely related to community preference.

So if community preference is about selecting from a pool of applicants and giving advantage to a pool, I shouldn't say giving advantage because this is actually in many cases, trying to address past government harm.

So that's not an appropriate word.

But giving priority to folks from a certain pool.

Affirmative marketing is about making sure you create a good, broad, equitable pool of potential applicants.

And so affirmative marketing is really important.

It has always been in our housing funding policies.

It has longstanding been a requirement by the federal government for the purposes of federally funded housing.

But our policy to date has been very thin.

And so we've seen that people have implemented it very differently.

And in some cases, when they don't know what to do, they have had a hard time doing robust affirmative marketing.

What we want to do through this policy proposal is to give more set a more clear expectation of what housing developers need to do while still recognizing that they may want to do different things and balancing that requirement with flexibility.

So a few things you'll notice in this policy proposal is that it makes more clear this emphasis on doing outreach with community-based organizations as a key piece of how we do affirmative marketing.

One aside on affirmative marketing, we've seen really successful effects through the Liberty Bank project by virtue of partnering with community-based organizations rooted in the Central District as a way in which we can attract potential applicants.

And so affirmative marketing can be successful.

We're hearing early from Building 9, Mercy's Project, that a different approach of engaging local institutions to find low-wage workers at those institutions was another effective affirmative marketing approach.

So both of those would fit under this policy, which says, look at the location you're in.

If you're in a high-risk of displacement community in particular, we'd like you to work with community-based organizations in that neighborhood.

In other neighborhoods, there might be other community-based organizations you want to work with.

We're asking for folks to include in the management plan more information about their strategies to address tenants who have other kinds of barriers, and think that we'll follow this up, as we will the community preference policy, with more robust guidelines that are informed by our community partners and our developers.

When's Building 9 going to be ready to go?

It is presently leasing.

And when do people move in?

A few months.

2019. These days I'm looking at summer.

Yeah, great.

And the same thing true with the Louisa Hotel.

I got to walk through that down in the International District.

It is pretty splendid what they've accomplished down there.

Yeah, I don't know the timing of that.

But I just want to acknowledge the Gorders, Val and Greg Gorder, that put this idea together.

And there's so many empty hotels down there.

It would just be fabulous if we could do more of that.

Okay, so now we're going to get from a high level of our bigger policy changes to some more specific policy priorities and changes that are included in this legislation.

The first is around development on publicly owned sites.

As Councilmember Mosqueda said, this is really growing out of some work that a change in A&F plan a year or so ago that allowed for opportunities of direct strategic acquisition by the Office of Housing to create additional opportunities on publicly owned sites.

We are proposing policy changes that would more explicitly encourage partnerships with culturally competent and historically rooted nonprofit organizations when we're doing RFPs for affordable housing development on publicly-owned sites in high-risk of displacement communities.

We're also advancing permanently affordable home ownership on publicly-owned sites.

We know that it's going to take public land at a reduced or no cost in order to bring permanently affordable homeownership to fruition for households at or below 80% AMI.

So what we know of in our pipeline, we just advanced Yakima, which was a publicly owned site.

We're looking at Fort Lawton for permanently affordable homeownership.

And when we go through all of the efforts to make land, publicly owned land available for permanently affordable home ownership, this policy would allow us to go higher than our existing per unit funding amount to bring those projects across the finish line.

At Yakima, for example, we need to include some market rate units in order to cross-subsidize the affordable units.

These are rare opportunities.

We'd like the opportunity to be able to make them wholly, fully affordable and to do that we would need to increase the subsidy amount which currently is based exactly on the unit size.

Thank you.

As it relates to the Acquisition and Preservation Program, it references a loan amount for a total of $30 million outstanding at any time.

My notes refer to a cap of $30 million for projects paid back through rental, income, and other funding sources, but suggest that we're removing the cap under this plan?

Good clarification.

So in our next policy proposal around the acquisition and preservation program, we see a lot of opportunity, particularly in the current market and with folks like Seattle Housing Authority, to provide shorter term lending for acquisition of existing multifamily buildings or land.

in some cases, for which we get repaid for those loans.

Presently, the policies allow for over the seven-year housing levy period to lend a total of $30 million, even though we get those loans back.

We have extended, I think, around $29 million or maybe the full $30 million at this point.

So, presently our policies would not allow us to do any more acquisition and preservation lending.

What we're proposing under this policy is to not change the $30 million cap, But to revolve that $30 million so as we're repaid off of those loans we can relend those resources.

So we expect over the coming years we'll get some of the money back from projects who may or may not need our long-term permanent funding.

And then we can reinvest that in a new acquisition loan.

So there's still a $30 million limit, but it revolves now.

Correct.

And it didn't revolve before.

Exactly.

And as it relates to the partnerships with Seattle Housing Authority, when it came to their HOPE VI projects, we had expectations in our ANF plan for those dollars as it related specifically to SHA.

Is there a need to do that?

I mean, it's obviously a different scenario.

We were really, we really cared a lot about replacement housing for those HOPE VI projects, so we wanted to make sure that when they were building replacement housing that they weren't using a lot of levy dollars to fulfill commitments that the city was putting on them in exchange for agreeing to the project.

But I'm wondering if there are scenarios that we need to consider as it relates to our partnership with SHA.

Really good question.

I think in this case, our partnership with SHA is maybe the most mutually beneficial thing that can come out of revolving this $30 million fund.

And that is that what they're looking for is short-term lending to purchase existing multifamily developments that are not presently under the housing authority's purview, to bring them into the housing authority's portfolio, and long-term, they will have the resources to operate that building.

They don't need our long-term money.

we would love a partnership in which we can help them with short-term financing to save overall governmental costs while then being able to get our money back and reinvest it wholly in something else.

So we see this as an exciting opportunity to work with them.

The partnership that we could have with them is different than our lending and other projects like presently at Midtown Center where we both provided an acquisition loan and we anticipate that we will be the long-term capital funder.

Just a follow-up question on that.

I think somewhere in here we have a section related to community workforce agreements.

It's priority hire.

Obligations to utilize apprentices as well as pre-apprentices and draw, require contractors to draw from workers from distressed communities.

I'd like to know more about what our expectations will be for projects built by SHA using city dollars.

I've begun to hear in the community that there are some concerns about that.

that SHA may be declining to follow the city's lead on its expectations for utilizing priority hire.

Thank you.

I will look into that.

I do want to clarify that our present policies don't require a community workforce agreement on city funded projects.

What we do require is prevailing wages as set by L&I, residential prevailing wages, or Davis-Bacon if federal dollars are used.

And we do have WIMBY and Apprentice Utilization Goals as well.

So we have a strong labor equity component.

Our CWA has been piloted for the first time or will be piloted on the case site, and we're doing an analysis to understand the benefits and costs of using that agreement.

SHA has used project labor agreements previously as part of Yesler Terrace.

I know they have their own experience.

They also have their own federal requirements that they are required to use.

But I'm happy to report back when we invest our dollars at Yesler Terrace, for example, which kinds, what does that partnership look like?

Under the previous administration, there was an executive order as it relates to priority hire and what our expectations were for public-private partnerships.

So to the extent it was an executive order, was not enacted into law, but to the extent that we could use that as a way to move towards negotiating those elements in, not just SHA projects, but other projects that are getting substantial city resources upwards of, under priority hire, it's more than $5 million.

And just taking a look at last year's Levy Awards, there are several projects that have upwards of $5 million awards.

And again, to reiterate, I think when the ANF plan came before us a couple of years ago, the first one, there was quite a bit of discussion about this.

And there really was a feeling that we needed to understand what would be the implications on the housing cost of doing community workforce and private.

Hopefully we've figured that out in the last couple of years.

Well, they're in the process.

Well, they're in the process with the K-10.

And I don't think you have that data.

But we are waiting to see what the implications are.

Because as we try to balance out all these competing policy goals, we need to understand what are the tradeoffs.

If we're going to impose those requirements, then what does that do to the cost?

Does it impact the cost?

We think it may.

We certainly hear, I have heard from SHA that there are some consequences or implications of that.

And it would be good to have them come in and talk about that.

But I just think we need to understand before we just say, oh, we're just going to have them all apply and not understand, well, that might have an impact on,

I will flag that this is a priority of mine as well and we are engaged in conversations with folks in the building trades about these pieces.

Heard yesterday that there is some initial feedback from the case site and so we'll be looking forward to bringing that forward.

I was excited to include some of the language in the K-site construction last year so that we could advance our commitments to not just creating affordable housing, but making sure that those who are building it are also not then eligible for the same programs.

For the units that they are building.

ideally, that helps us live our values.

Council Member Bagshaw, I know you have to leave.

Yes, thank you.

I've got a place to be right now.

So, thank you again.

I appreciate this presentation.

Stephanie, thank you, too, for your participation.

Tracy, as always.

Thank you very much for bringing this forward to us today.

And I will follow up with you on a couple of other items.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

And we'll have this conversation in front of us a few more times, so good chance to engage.

And you have one more slide?

I'm going to finish this slide and then I have one more slide.

So after the policy changes around the acquisition and preservation program, we're proposing a few changes to our homeownership program around home repair for low-income owners.

We presently have two different loan terms that are offered for our home repair loans.

As a reminder, these are loans for low-income people for health and safety upgrades to their home, typically a $20,000 loan that helps save a low-income homeowner's home and provides them with stability.

We have a 3% term right now, a 0% term.

We are proposing to turn it all into a 0% term to try to increase people's appetite for this program and don't believe that it'll have a significant financial difference.

We're also proposing a pilot program to allow funds in our home repair program to support improved or increased habitable space.

And that's a wonky way of saying that we want to further support sustainability of low-income homeowners' homes.

And coming out of Councilmember O'Brien's racial equity toolkit on ADUs and DADUs, what was identified from low-income communities and communities of color was an interest in really just improving their homes, taking a mudroom or an unimproved area and making it habitable so that they can bring on additional household members and stabilize their home, or bring on some rent-paying folks who can help provide income that'll stabilize a household.

In addition, this could be used to finance an ADU for a low-income homeowner.

And if it were to do that and then be rented out, that unit would need to be rent and income restricted.

We're doing some outreach and engagement with community organizations to help implement this pilot and are excited about this expansion.

Our more technical policies are as follows.

First, we're proposing a change to our community relations policy that would help clarify the timing of OH required community notification and outreach on our projects.

I will say this, and that is previously it was that the majority of applicants for our single funding round would prevail.

In this case, we are highly competitive and more projects do not receive awards than that do.

And for that reason, we do not wanna trigger requirements for significant community engagement until we know that a project has been funded and will be accurately and genuinely representing to community what will be included in their project.

This does not change the purposes of neighborhood notification, which remain at an early stage in the process.

We are seeing units on the market called open one bedrooms.

Again, this is a bit of a wonky thing, which is that there are units that are created that are neither really a studio or a one bedroom that are in between, might have half walls, three-quarter walls.

We see them as In two-bedroom units as well, where the second bedroom has a half wall, our office recognizes that we haven't been uniformly treating these units the same, in part because they're a market innovation.

And so what we want to just do is have the authority to determine the way in which we're going to treat these units through a director's rule.

so that on a regular basis we can really balance both the implications of cost and the expectations of tenants to be able to have good functioning, reasonable apartments that meet their families' and households' needs.

We're proposing two policies as it relates to serving extremely low income residents.

One is that we presently have a policy that when a community has a certain level of extremely low income housing already in that neighborhood, we will decline to provide funding to additional projects in that community.

What we find, however, and the purpose of that rule is to further fair housing across our city.

providing access to housing across the city.

What we find, however, is that in some instances, particularly with protected classes, households serving people with disabilities, we make a significant investment in a project.

We make commensurate investment in health care facilities.

And then another project that would utilize that healthcare facility is unable to be cited in that community because of this policy.

So we are adding additional criteria to ensure that when we're making a determination about whether or not to extend funding for purposes of this citing policy, we include criteria like exceptions for buildings that would accommodate certain protected classes, or recognizing in instances in which the data is not representative of what's happening in a particular neighborhood.

There's also one last policy proposal.

You heard Kelly Larson talking about operating and maintenance funds earlier.

Presently, as part of the levy, we took an important step that we hadn't taken before, and we modeled that in buildings that we are creating at 50 and 60% AMI, we still wanted to achieve some 30% AMI units.

That's the first time we are doing that as part of the last levy where fundamental to our modeling is this idea that we're going to extract more extremely low income units in those mixed income buildings.

However, we're allowed to use O&M in those buildings, but our present O&M policies say that you need to then adjust it so a person pays no more than 30% of their income on rent.

This is a minor adjustment to say that where O&M is used in mixed income buildings, the property owner can continue to charge the 30% rent chart rent even when O&M is present.

And that concludes the policy changes that we've proposed as part of the ANF plan and housing funding policies for this two-year period.

So there's a number of other ideas that Tracy has been privy to in our conversations with sort of the community housing roundtables that we've been pulling together.

Tracy, remind me in terms of a central staff memo outlining some of what's being proposed, what the changes are, some of the ideas coming from the chair and potentially some other committee members, will that be something that will be present at our next meeting?

That's what the plan would be is that I would come in with a memo that would hopefully have all of the proposed amendments and the actual language for you all to begin to look at and to discuss and to massage if you so want to.

Okay, great.

So if the next committee meeting on potential amendments And briefing again will be on June 6th.

How early would you like to make sure that we get all of those amendment ideas to you?

Well, ideally within the next week.

Okay.

So that I can have the memo prepared and out to you all before you walk into committee.

Okay, so I'm going to just do some impromptu planning here, and Aaron, you feel free to push back if the timeline is not what you had initially proposed.

So if we look at end of the week next week, May 24th, is that in alignment, Aaron, with sort of our thinking as well?

Okay.

So that would give us another week plus a day, or I guess a half day, Council Member Arbol.

a week plus a half day for us to get ideas to you.

I'd love to be copied on those so that if there's any council members that are interested in amendments, we could work with your offices to make sure that we're thinking through changes together.

And then that will give us, Tracy, a full week for us to look at some of the policy ideas and craft it into a memo so that then folks will have about another week prior to the 6th to take a look at that information.

Okay.

Great.

Happy to work with you sooner.

I'm already working with actually both of you.

You guys are preaching to the choir right now because that's what I said.

I'm talking to both the people who have been.

Yeah.

So it's great.

Any other comments?

Okay.

So I just want to say thank you.

This is something that is covered in wonky sauce.

And it is so exciting because I think it really does help us elevate what we've heard from community members directly, gives people an avenue for policy change.

And I see these amendments, the plan itself, yes, we talked about it being a moral document or a guiding document, but also this is going to continue to live on in the grant applications and the priorities that you elevate there.

I see this as one of our strongest tools for social inclusion, for poverty reduction, for creating healthier communities and more resilient communities.

I think that we have talked a lot about how housing, affordable housing, both for renters and first-time homeowners, that this is one of our, really our only tools to help address generational poverty, minus reliable retirement systems, living wages, which we will continue to work on in this corner of the United States.

creating affordable housing, rental, and ownership options is really a poverty reduction tool.

And I think it also helps us live our values as Councilmember Herbold and Bagshaw were talking about today with access to transit, reducing our carbon footprint, making sure that people have more mobility, and also you mentioned earlier, and I think Councilmember Herbold and I have some comments out today in a press release that's either out already or forthcoming, it's out.

You know, one of the things that I think really resonates from the author of The Color of Law is that our past segregationist housing policies were intentionally created to be racist and exclusionary and classist in nature.

And those, we have to remember, were public policies.

And it is going to require us as public administrators and both members of the public to demand that our public policies truly change to better reflect our zoning and housing policies to undo those historic wrongs that were embedded in our public policies in the past.

So this is, I think, truly an effort for us to be conscious and intentional about including communities of color, our lowest income workers, those who are disproportionately affected by displacement as we create new investment policies and strategies for the city.

So I thank you for working with us and for continuing to engage with our community partners as well.

as we look forward to future amendments to this plan.

And then to also recognize that it's a living document, because even after that happens on the sixth and the final vote on the 17th, on the discussion and possible vote on the 10th, and then if we need to, another holdover for the 17th.

But ideally, knock on wood, we can get this done in three meetings, and we'll be done on June 10th.

Councilmember Herbold, thank you so much for your presence the entire meeting today.

Very excited to have you.

Wanted to let folks know that our next committee meeting again is on June 6th at 930 a.m.

The notice of intent to sell will be discussed in that meeting which is another great hopefully Housing Displacement Mitigation Tool and Affordable Housing Tool, our Seattle City Light Review Panel appointments, rent bidding legislation.

If you'll remember, this was one of the first policies I passed to prevent the rent bidding platforms and created a moratorium.

And good news, it was coming from the court.

So we just need to extend that rent bidding legislation for another year, I believe, is what we're going to do.

And then the administration and financial planning and housing funding policies.

Can we come up with a cool new name for this?

The moral compass document.

Yes.

Okay.

As long as we're talking about new names for things.

Yes.

Can I suggest, it's not my idea, it's been suggested to me by others, that we might want to think of a different name for weatherization program.

That is more about our desire and interest in promoting green buildings.

Maybe a, I don't know, a greening building program since it's focused on energy and the preservation of energy.

New Green Deal housing policy.

Also a reminder if folks can join us on May 21st at 5.30 for the Fort Lawton hearing.

We will be here in Council Chambers.

If you are desiring child care, you can sign up when you get here for the day of check-in.

But also if you know that you want it, it's complimentary, it's free.

Please email our office, either Feride Cuevas or Ashley Harrison.

at Seattle.gov.

Parking is available in Seapark Garage located between Cherry and James Street on 5th and 6th Avenues at a discounted rate of $5.

That begins at 4.30 p.m.

Please note the garage closes at 10 p.m.

We will try and get everyone out of here before then.

I want to also note that this is Housing Affordability Week.

Last Monday we passed a proclamation honoring May 13th through May 17th as affordable housing week in Seattle.

Keep transposing those words.

Affordable housing week will be a full week of events and celebrations, advocacy across a dozen cities in King County.

This is well underway.

It is Thursday.

You still have one more day to engage.

There's more activities that you can find from our partners at housingconsortium.org, at the HTC website.

We hope that you will join in the many events happening throughout the week.

The idea of this week came from East Bay, where they've been organizing a week of action for 20 years.

And nationally, there will also be a week of action May 30th through June 5th, focused on federal affordable housing investments.

as we all know, have been declining over the years.

And without those dollars, it is going to be very hard for us to reach the 156,000 affordable units that we know our region currently needs.

So please do check out all of the events happening this week.

Thanks to our partners in the housing advocacy community for all of their work this week.

And we will post more today and tomorrow about Housing Affordability Week.

And we kept to that theme, as you can see.

Today was all about housing, so we do appreciate everybody's work.

If there's no other comments, we will see you on June 6th.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Aaron.

In recognition of Housing Affordability Week, thank you for all of your work on housing as well.

And our meeting's adjourned.