Well, good evening.
Thank you all so much for being here.
It is 532, and I'm Teresa Mosqueda, the chair of the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.
Today is Tuesday, May 21, 2019, and the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.
I'm joined by Aaron House, policy manager at the office, and Farideh Cuevas and Aretha Basu from our offices as well.
If you need any assistance, please feel free to grab any of us at any point and let us know.
We do want to make some special announcements before we begin with our program today.
For folks in our viewing audience, we want to remind folks that there is childcare tonight.
We know that evening meetings are difficult, daytime meetings are difficult, and we're trying to make these meetings more accessible, especially to working families.
If folks need child care, please let us know.
They're going to be closing up the child care check-in at 6 p.m., so let us know.
Feel free to grab Farideh or Aretha and let them know.
Also, for folks who did not take any public transit here and you have your own car, we want to make sure that this is an accessible and affordable meeting as well.
There is parking at Sea Park Garage, located between Cherry and James Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, at a discounted rate tonight of $5.
If you do have your car there, let us know and we'll get you a parking sticker.
And the parking garage closes at 10 p.m., but I promise you we are not going to be here four and a half hours.
Knock on wood.
Hello.
Welcome, Councilmembers.
Welcome to Councilmember Sawant.
How are you?
Good.
Thank you for being here.
Also, we want to make sure that folks know if you are having any difficult hearing us, if you're having any challenges with hearing us, let us know.
We have hearing aids and a system up here so that we can make it more accessible for folks who need hearing assistance in the room.
So don't feel like anytime you can come up, if there's any challenge, just let us know.
So we're really excited to be here.
Thanks again, Council Members Sawant for joining us.
Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.
I just wanted to apologize in advance.
I might have to leave a little early because of other things that I couldn't avoid.
Evening meetings are challenging, so I appreciate you being here.
And we have been at multiple community meetings on Fort Lawton in the past.
I think folks in the audience have seen us, and we've seen many of you.
I've only had the chance to work on this for the last about year and a half, but I want to remind folks that this is a conversation that's been going on for now 15 years.
This is also the fourth time that we've had this discussion in our community, in our committee, just this year alone.
And the process for today is I'm going to do very brief opening remarks.
Ketel and Tracy from central staff will also join us for some very brief opening, which will be about 10-15 minutes.
And then we're going to do public comment for the rest of the meeting.
So if you haven't yet signed up, there's still some time.
We have some folks who've already signed up, which we really appreciate.
We're here today to talk about the proposed affordable housing development at Fort Lawton.
This plan includes a variety of affordable housing options including supportive housing for seniors, affordable rental homes for low income families and individuals, affordable home ownership opportunities for our community.
We all know, as we've discussed in this committee and I know in Council Member Sawant's committee before, affordable housing is the crisis of our city.
This is a crisis that is affecting West Coast cities up and down our coastline and across our country.
We know that in this county alone, we need at least 156,000 affordable housing units just to meet the current need, not even including the folks who are coming to the city for good economic opportunities, to seek sanctuary as immigrants and refugees.
and to start their own businesses as we've seen a lot of people move to this area for economic stability as well.
One of the biggest challenges is creating new affordable housing options and working with our non-profit developers to make sure that as we make more land available that we're actually creating opportunities for community-driven development, housing that meets our community's needs.
One of the first things that we did in this committee last year was to pass the land disposition policy.
Basically saying that our city should stop selling off public land to plug budget holes and instead hold on to that public land.
Use it to build affordable housing, create parks and open spaces, green spaces for kiddos and seniors and families.
Thank you.
And we know that it's really important to do that to preserve the land in the city that has very limited resources, but it's also important for us to make sure that when we do have public land that we are turning it into affordable housing.
Fort Lawton provides us with a unique opportunity to not only build housing, but to gain ownership of a portion of this property from the federal government at no cost.
A significant portion of public land is available to this city at no cost, and that we can use that land to build affordable housing and create services that our city so desperately needs for people experiencing homelessness.
Welcome, Councilmember O'Brien.
Thank you so much for being here with us.
Appreciate it.
Councilmember O'Brien, you've also been involved in many of the community meetings in the past, and I know that you and all the council members have heard the calls for not only housing, but for strong park elements of the plan, and that we need to preserve areas for green space and open space for play and recreation.
I want to reiterate that this proposal has over 60% of the site preserved for open spaces, large parks, and habitat preservation.
Back in January 2018, I had the opportunity to attend the Magnolia public hearing on the draft environmental impact statement on the proposal and heard broad support from neighbors, advocates, and community members about the need to move forward with the plan at Fort Lawton.
I also heard and I acknowledged in that meeting, we also want to make sure that there's access to transit and there's access to good schools.
And those are two of the issues that we brought forward in this committee last week.
to make sure that we're looking at enhancing access to transit, that we're scaling up the frequency in which buses come by, and that we're working with the school board to assess and create new access to public schools.
On March 4th of this year, I also joined the Office of Housing Public Hearing in Magnolia and again heard the redraft development plan and strong support for the proposal.
One of the asks that I heard at the March 4th public hearing was looking at the need for us to reevaluate how much surface parking lots we need.
And then if any of our friends who were sitting on the Seattle Channel debate with me about two or three months ago, are watching or here in the audience, one of the things that the folks said in the meeting was, instead of this surface parking lot, what if we created more wild-like habitat for the wildlife that's in the area?
Ideally, if we had more blue heron, this would be the spot for them.
And so what we did was we went back and we worked with the park and recreation folks and said, this resonates with me.
In fact, I'd love us to reevaluate all of our surface parking lots across the city and see what we can do to scale back the concrete surface parking lots that we have that frankly are not creating green space or housing for folks.
Because of that call for action, what you'll see from us, what you'll see from me and the amendments that we're putting forward is a reduction in the parking lot so that we'll at least reduce it by a third so that there will be less parking lot and more wild space for our habitat.
Very excited to be working with Parks and Rec on that and want to appreciate and applaud their efforts to move quickly on that, but mostly applaud the community for bringing that issue forward.
So as you all come forward to the mics, please know that we're listening to your ideas and your comments and suggestions, even though we're at the end of a 15-year period here, there's still opportunity for you to give us ideas.
And with that, Tracy Radscliffe and Kettle Freeman are here to give us a brief presentation on what the rezone legislation and redevelopment plans are.
And then you will hear just a little bit of context, and we'll get and drive in deep into public hearing.
We had an initial overview of the plan at the April 16th meeting at the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee from the Office of Housing.
On May 2nd, we had a deep dive from the department and community partners who will be implementing different elements.
I want to flag that on May 16th, the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee meeting had presentations from Office of Housing on the conveyance of the property from the federal government to the city, from Parks Department on the progress of the amendment I just mentioned and helping to create additional green space.
We heard from the Department of Transportation and from our community partners about what it will take for us to go through the evaluation of getting additional bus services and We also had our folks, our friends from school district there as well talking about first the play fields that the school is going to be considering and then also additional services going into the future.
Following this hearing today, we will have a discussion and possible vote on the redevelopment plan and rezone legislation at the June 6th Housing Health Energy and Workers' Rights Committee.
I believe that starts at 930. right here in council chambers.
And before we move on, after these two presentations, we will have public hearing.
I just want to make sure that that is noted in our agenda.
If I could have the indulgence of our colleagues, I'd like to move approval of the agenda, including public comment after our presentation from central staff.
All in favor?
I don't know if that was great.
Tracy and Ketel, thank you so much for being here.
Why don't we have you guys walk us through the overview that you have, any presentation that you have for us today?
Nope.
Okay.
I'll verbally go through it because I think you and the public have heard it again and again.
Okay.
So today we'll just go through it.
You know I will.
I do, yeah.
And for our viewing audience, we do have handouts of legislation on the table.
So if you didn't grab that, please feel free to.
If you want us to bring it to you, just flag us down and we'll do that.
And there's also sign-in sheets.
Again, for anybody who came in late, we will continue with public comment here in a second.
Thank you, Tracy and Ketel.
Cool.
So there are two pieces of legislation that are the topic of the public hearing today.
The first piece of legislation would adopt and approve the city's application for surplus federal property at Fort Lawton, including a redevelopment plan and the Homeless Assistance Submission, which is Appendix H to the legislation.
As you stated, the redevelopment plan will create up to 235 housing units In addition, the plan will provide 21 to 22 acres of parks and recreation area, including approximately 13 acres of passive recreation, up to six acres for the development of two multi-purpose athletic fields and some parking, between four and five acres of forest land on the western edge of Fort Lawton that will actually be incorporated into Discovery Park.
And then as you also mentioned, the reuse of an existing structure to the north as a parks maintenance facility.
And the summary of this information is included that handout at the dais.
Thank you so much, Tracy.
Again, summary of the information included at the handout on the dais.
If you didn't get it, grab one.
Ketel.
Sure.
So one purpose of tonight's public hearing is to meet a code requirement for a piece of rezone legislation.
Every rezone bill is subject to a code required public hearing.
Council Bill 119510 would rezone approximately 10 acres of the 34 acre redevelopment area from a single-family 7,200 to low-rise two multifamily residential with an M1 mandatory housing affordability suffix.
For those folks who are unfamiliar with what a low-rise two zone would allow, it allows walk-up apartments up to a height of about 40 feet and ground-related attached housing, so row houses and townhouses, that housing type.
So the proposal in Council Bill 119510 would be to change the official land use map, the zoning map, to allow those types of uses through a change from single-family to low-rise too.
Excellent.
One of the things that I know is of big interest to the three council members who are here is creating as much affordable housing as we can, especially on publicly owned land.
Can you talk a little bit about the sideboards that are put on us with the environmental impact statement as is and where we landed in terms of affordable housing?
What's in front of us now sure so Tracy can fill in here if I'm missing some details, but the environmental review that was done for this proposal looked at a zoning designation up to low-rise to so that essentially sets the upper limit for council consideration of a development that could occur in this rezone area Is there anything else that I'm missing here, Tracy?
Nope.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we're doing the maximum amount allowed under the existing environmental impact assessment in terms of building units for affordable housing?
That's correct.
I'm not as familiar with Tracy as with some of the parameters of the redevelopment plan itself and what's proposed there.
So I can't say that this is necessarily the maximum amount, but for the purposes of the city's application to the feds, this is the proposal and I think it seeks to achieve a balance.
Okay, great.
One thing I'm going to do, and I'm sorry in advance for our team and our office, I'm looking at our staff here, is we had a really great PowerPoint presentation in the last committee meeting that outlined the various components of the plan.
Maybe we can make some of those available for folks as they're waiting for their name to be called and they can thumb through them.
If we can maybe pull that up from our last committee meeting and make some copies available, that'd be great.
One of the things that I think is important is for us to reiterate the housing aspects and the public space, the open space.
So could you talk a little bit about the preservation of the 60% of the land for open public space?
Sure.
So that was the piece that I talked about in terms of the 21 to 22 acres of parks and recreation area.
13 acres of passive recreation, six acres for the up to two multi-use athletic fields that may be developed by Seattle School District or by the Parks Department, four to five acres of forested land on the western edge of Fort Lawton, and then again, the reuse of that existing structure for the Parks Maintenance Facility.
comments from our uh council colleagues council member Sawant.
Thank you council member Mosqueda.
I just uh wanted to um echo what you said correctly and also what Tracy and Kittel was were stating which is uh one the desire that uh our community and all all of us here we have a desire to maximize affordable housing on public land but also uh I also um uh I thank council member Mosqueda for the emphasis on open space and athletic fields and so on because I think that also is going in the right direction because what the statement we're making through that is that all households regardless of income and their children deserve the best of all facilities, and housing obviously is the primary component of a decent standard of living, but it's not just that, it's also access to open spaces, especially for children, you know, space to play, and so all of that goes hand in hand, and children of wealthier households, higher income households have that, and it's taken for granted, but it's not true for low income people.
I'm struck by the fact, that when we go visit other countries, for example, I just had the chance to go to Berlin last year, and housing is very dense there.
But what they also have is preservation of large public spaces.
And as we create additional housing, one thing that's really critical for us to do is also recognize that parks are people's new backyards.
And it's a great place for those with, you know, all ages and abilities and races, ethnicities and genders to be able to have a place to play and live in the city that they weren't to work, retire, study or, you know, or live.
Council Member O'Brien, any other comments from you?
I know you've been working on this for a while.
I'm excited to see it materialize.
Okay, great.
Ready to get through the next step.
Council Member, I'm sorry, Ketel, did you have anything you wanted to point to in the PowerPoint or just sort of up there just for recognition?
No, I just, this looks, I mean, this is the one image from this particular presentation, so it's probably as good as any for folks to orient themselves to the redevelopment plan area.
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much to the both of you for all of your work and to all of our community partners past council colleagues who are not here at the dais with us today and Have a sense moved on to retirement.
We are looking forward to taking this Forward as councilmember O'Brien said and make turn this plan into action So with that, I think we'll go ahead and start with public comment Any other comments from our council colleagues?
Okay
So thank you all for signing up and for being here.
I want to recognize as well, Carlene from Council Member Pacheco's office is also volunteering with us.
If she's here, she should raise her hand, but thanks so much for their staff for being part of this as well.
The first person up is Mary Steele-Klein.
Please make your way to the microphone.
Thank you, Mary.
And David Hines.
Thank you so much, David.
Hi.
I'm Mary Steele-Klein.
a long time low income housing advocate.
I have myself been homeless when my children were smaller, but I oppose this project strongly because it is an intention to create a ghetto, a socialist, communist, community, which is permanently poor.
These are words that were used by the SHA's presentation in March.
The permanently poor aspect of this thing is devastating for the families involved.
That means that if they work or otherwise better themselves, they can be evicted.
Now, I have a problem with that, and I think somebody has taken an entirely John just look at this problem, and I believe the problem is enormous.
I believe the project is absurd, completely misdirected, and because all of the council virtually will be gone, be coming in the future here to execute this plan.
There's no reason to proceed with this.
Nobody's here from the city.
You're going, you're up for election, which may or may not occur.
I don't know who is listening to us.
And what I'm most concerned about is the mix in the isolated, low-income community of 600 children with a group of disabled, homeless vets who are known to be drug addicted and mentally ill, And that those children who are unsupervised, because there's no employment within easy reach, will be exposed to these vets.
Now with the playing fields, this is a particular problem.
This is called a hypodermic needle.
This is what is going to be in the playing field.
We appreciate your comments.
David, welcome.
Thank you for being here tonight.
The next person will be Kelsey Hamlin.
Less parking lot, more housing.
Embrace the nature that's already there.
The Catholic Church is rotten to the core.
There are still perverted pedophiles in denial and the church keeps expanding a for-profit real estate empire.
City Council needs to stop proving they're aloof and out of touch about the unqualified developers and non-profits mixing religion and state to pull a trick to guarantee City Council should Excuse me.
City Council should reject the Catholic Church out of principle.
The church can't even and won't get insured to let the poor wash their feet or bathe.
It's all because the insurance won't bond them without an exorbitant fee because the Catholic Church has proven untrustworthy and deviant.
Why is City Council lazily resuscitating an outdated 13-year-old business plan that never was improved with choosing a proper developer?
We have suffered the failures of social welfare system at the hands of the Catholic Church and the other so-called nonprofits who get rich off the demise and lies about the forsaken.
The archdiocese is corrupt as hell.
In fact, the real estate empire of the Catholic Church has been turned for profit.
Just look at the building they own in Belltown where they used to have the Seafair Center.
Now it's rented out to two nightclubs serving mostly alcohol and paying the church rent.
Real housing is the only way in America.
Allowing more warehouse cinderblock buildings cosmetically prettified on the outside for deceit is proof the social welfare industry is the problem.
City Council should take the Catholic Church off the list of who gets Fort Lawton because the church only helps people who are guaranteed to get a welfare check from the government so it can be immediately transferred to a Catholic Church bank.
The Catholic Church should have its non-profit exemption taken away for their for profit real estate empire and their political lobbying during the last election.
During the mayor debates, the Catholic Church denied the homeless participation in asking questions.
It was all controlled by a Catholic Church operative.
And anyway, we need real homes, not political favors to a religious church that violates the separation of church and state and gets rich building a rundown subhuman quality real estate empire at taxpayers and donors expense.
Thank you, David.
The next person is Kelsey Hamlin, and then followed by Elizabeth Krenner.
Thank you so much, Kelsey.
Thank you committee members for all the work that you've done and everything else you have worked on.
I work at Sightline Institute, a sustainability think tank.
We are all aware of the climate crisis, but I want to emphasize how every single decision we make from this point forward, though it should have happened a while ago, is paramount.
With that said, Sightline knows we need to build housing for Seattle's residents, doing so to the scale we need in a green way.
means that we need to build things like apartments, which cut GHGs by about half per person compared to a single detached home.
Sateline also knows how false it is to think building is at odds with the environment or green spaces.
The chance to revamp Fort Lawton is not one of this or that.
We can build housing and maintain green spaces.
In fact, Seattle's tree growth happens most during urban development.
I would be remiss if I didn't bring up that keeping Fort Lawton as is, meaning within walking distance of homes that typically cost $939,000 in Magnolia, is an equity issue.
Studies show a huge gap of access to green spaces between incomes and between races.
There are health disadvantages associated with this.
By not building mass affordable housing on one of the rare spots of free land Seattle has left, which will inform rents, We pretend the climate crisis isn't actually happening and that there are no have and have not divides happening within Seattle.
It's a shame we aren't building more, but it would be even more shameful to build not at all.
Letting people live closer to jobs means less people driving long commutes, less traffic, less pollution.
This too has health impacts, stress, financial burdens, the air we breathe and our children breathe.
We cannot afford in every sense of the word, because who can afford it here really, not to make the common sense changes of adding multi-family housing to Portland.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Isabel, followed by Michael George.
Okay.
Hello, council members, and thank you, everybody, for being here.
So my main problem with this plan is I don't think it's been done in the right way, and I don't think it's very creative.
So from what I've heard, you're proposed to spend $90 to $97 million building or housing 600 people eight years from now.
Now, no one can see into the future, so we don't really know where we're going to be in eight years.
So this sort of a plan that's permanent, I think, should be left up to the next city council to decide.
Further, the plan I have would cost $40 million.
It would involve 23 plots of vacant land, maybe a plot on this land, maybe a plot on Roy and Aurora, where there is an SDOT-owned vacant fence gravel parking lot that hasn't been used in years.
And we could use shipping containers.
So I could, with my plan here, you're welcome to have a copy of it.
I could house anywhere from 4,048 to 8,096 people with $40 million using 575 shipping containers.
I see this to be a much more not only green because these shipping containers often end up in the waste cycle, which is why Starbucks uses them to build stores and Japan uses them to build shopping malls, but there are also movable, stackable, and very modifiable.
They're like Legos.
You can do anything you want with them.
And, you know, I understand the need to house people that are on a fixed income.
And now that I'm running for city council, I understand the position that you guys are all in, so I won't yell at you or be mean.
But I do think that this is really the most viable solution.
It would cost $870,000 for eight employees on each site to house anywhere from 176 to 352 people.
And if it does work, we could sell it for profit when it's no longer necessary.
Thank you so much.
We will take your handout.
Michael George followed by George Smith.
Thank you.
Welcome, Michael.
Thank you.
And thank you for having me.
My name is Michael George, I'm running for City Council.
And I'm running on a platform of making sure that this city works for people of all ages and incomes.
And when I look at this project, I think you guys got the balance right.
There's open space.
And what really makes me happy is that there's affordable housing for seniors and families.
That is such a critical need in this city.
And I commend you for really moving this across the line.
I'd also like to say that I've been canvassing the neighborhood to get a neighborhood perspective.
And I've heard a couple of things that I'd like to just surface.
A lot of what I hear is actually that, you know, I'm for this project, but my neighbor, don't tell them.
And it's surprising how many times I hear that.
There's a lot more support than I would have thought in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding this.
I've also heard that for people that do support, they do want to see more transit service.
The 33 needs to run more frequently.
I'm just bringing up concerns.
And the public school system really does need more capacity, which you guys sound like you're really working with the school board to get done.
The last thing I'd like to say is that there is a lack of daycare space in that neighborhood.
It comes up time after time.
Windrose Daycare, which is just a block away from this project, is having trouble finding room to expand.
There is a great need, so I know it at this point probably can't be incorporated into this project, but it would really be an olive branch of the neighborhood if we had this housing, brought children in, and also brought daycare somewhere.
The last thing I'd like to say is beyond all of this, it's a real human issue, the lack of affordable housing.
So I really look forward to meeting the families that someday are going to be living in this project, whose lives are gonna be bettered by this project.
And I really wanna thank all of you for taking the time, making the effort to really move this across the line.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
George Smith, followed by James McIntosh.
Welcome, George.
My name is George Smith.
I'm a Magnolia resident.
I live in Councilmember, or Council District 7 near the proposed development.
I'm testifying tonight in favor of the application for surplus property and also for the rezoning.
The need for affordable housing for low and moderate income individuals has been a crisis in our city for several years and it's continuing to be a crisis.
And this base closure is just an unbelievable opportunity that's been thrust in our laps to have this kind of land in the heart of the city is just really remarkable.
And the close proximity to employment, schools, and other amenities the neighborhood provides, I think, will make an excellent home for a lot of people.
The other thing about this project that really excites me is it's a mix of people.
There's older adults, families, children.
It's like a micro community all to itself.
That's, I think, a function of the fact that this project has the luxury of a lot of land, which you don't normally get in a non-profit housing development opportunity.
The last thing I'd like to just stress is I think housing, and many of us here I think probably feel the same way, that housing is a basic human right.
And the city can't do enough, in my opinion, to try and secure more land for public ownership.
My simple-minded solution to the crisis is we have to take as much housing out of the market as possible.
The market will just continue to go up and up.
If we can freeze land, get it into nonprofit ownership, we can keep housing affordable into the future.
So I encourage you to take every opportunity you can to secure land for public use because I think this in the long run is the most successful strategy.
Thanks.
Thank you so much.
Next we have James McIntosh followed by Lisa Barnes.
Yes, hello fellow city council members and parks personnel.
My name is James McIntosh.
I would like to see the city choose the alternative three all parks alternative.
I am a person who is visually impaired and cannot you know, cannot drive.
Here is why I personally favor alternative three.
Let me tell you personally some things about the location and bus travel.
It's way out on the edge of a bus route.
It's way out on the edge of a bus line.
Travel options for access to shopping and services are very limited.
You have to transfer buses, especially this is very difficult with bags of groceries.
There's just no direct route.
It's very hard for Metro to change routing of buses.
I've worked with Metro for years and very hard to work with the Magnolia area and other locations like West Seattle because, you know, service and ridership is pretty low in Magnolia, you know.
A better alternative would be to develop the housing in areas where there is access to travel, shopping, services, and where all that's readily available.
Examples are Lower Queen Anne, Inner Bay, Magnolia Village, and those Lawton shopping districts.
However, the park is accessible to the disabled by several bus routes.
There's routes 19, 20, and 33 that go to the park.
It was originally intended that this, one of the last and greatest, the best missing piece to Discovery Park, be included in the park.
It's in the founding documents approved by the city in the early 1970s.
So to quote from the Discovery Park Master Plan, Discovery Park is a place of unsurpassed serenity, broad vistas, and unsurpassed shorelines, an open space of quiet and tranquility, a sanctuary away from the city, and the works of humankind are minimized.
Thank you very much, Mr. McIntosh.
Thank you very much, Mr. McIntosh.
We appreciate it.
And if you'd like to leave your written comments with us, you're welcome to, and anybody else is welcome to as well.
Lisa Barnes followed by Rosalind Tan.
Hello, Lisa.
Hi.
I think the most important thing I can say is I'm so ready for this to be built.
There's absolutely no reason, no good reason, not to build low income and affordable housing right now.
I think you all have done a very good job listening to concerns and incorporating those concerns and keep redoing the plan.
It must be tiring.
I really appreciate that it is for a range of income levels.
I think that's awesome.
I work at a nonprofit where we provide eviction prevention assistance, and I am seeing way too many people on the verge of being evicted.
We do not need any more homeless people on the streets.
We need housing that they can afford.
And I see this in this project.
Of course, I'd like to see more, but we got to take every opportunity to build that.
The only other thing, I would love to see a pea patch there.
I think that would be pretty awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Lisa.
And we will take that recommendation to parks.
Rosaline Tan, followed by Jessica Westgren.
Hi, my name is Rosalyn.
Oh, sorry, Rosalyn.
Yes.
I was pronouncing your name wrong.
That's okay.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
I'm a resident of Magnolia.
I grew up in Singapore, a very dense city with high Government provided home ownership.
So I'm in support of affordable housing, but in this instance, I have to say that affordable housing needs to be off-site and we need to annex Fort Lawton to Discovery Park.
So here are my reasons.
In terms of good urban planning, the most sensible thing to do is to increase density near resources and infrastructure like transportation lines, grocery stores, and existing utilities, et cetera.
Fort Lawton is not situated in a location for increasing this density.
There are far more efficient places elsewhere in Seattle.
Also, Fort Lawton is not situated in a location that can provide future ongoing support for these seniors and low-income folks.
More and more people are coming to Seattle, as we know, and these people will seek out parks, especially Discovery Park.
So annexing Fort Lawton to Discovery Park seems to me like the most logical thing to do.
There are no other park land close to the city, and you will be able to find land for affordable housing elsewhere, but not for parks.
So this entire project is estimated to cost $87 million.
Homes for seniors will be budgeted to be $332 million each.
Anyway, it's going to be very expensive.
So at what point would you say that it's too expensive?
How about now?
Lastly, there will be 235 units built.
Is that enough?
These will be built eight years from now.
Is this going to solve the problem that we have right now with the crisis that we face?
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Roslyn.
Appreciate it.
Jessica Westgren, followed by Neil Starkman.
Hello, Jessica.
Thank you, Council members and staff for your time this evening.
My name is Jessica Westgren, and I'm here to speak on behalf of the Seattle Renters Commission.
The Seattle Renters Commission urges the city to move forward with the plan to build 238 units of affordable housing at Fort Lawton as quickly as possible.
Affordability is the single largest issue that renters in Seattle face today.
As the city gets more expensive, renters are forced to either give a greater share of each paycheck to rent or leave the city.
Entire communities are wiped out by displacement.
Working people struggle to pay rent every month.
Thousands of our neighbors sleep on the street.
We need to build as much affordable housing as possible so that all renters can live in the city that we love.
The Fort Lawton development is an excellent opportunity for the city to build 238 affordable units.
The housing will be next to Discovery Park, which provides much-needed proximity to green space, usually reserved for wealthy homeowners.
However, we need to do more.
It has been over 10 years since Fort Lawton was first declared surplus land.
Within the time we've been talking about Fort Lawton, average rent in the city has risen over 60%.
We welcome every unit of affordable housing at Fort Lawton, but we need to do better.
When the next Fort Lawton-like opportunity arises, we should build more affordable housing faster.
We should widen the AMI requirements so that affordable housing includes our neighbors both higher and lower than 60% AMI.
And the city should raise more revenue for affordable housing to fund the backlog of shovel-ready projects currently available to affordable housing developers.
The affordability crisis that Seattle renters face must be addressed with the utmost urgency.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jessica.
Neil Starkman, followed by Karen Nims.
And just for the viewing public's knowledge, we do have PowerPoint presentations every week.
If you don't mind putting these on the counter over there.
And would you like one, Council Member O'Brien?
Okay.
Thank you so much for waiting.
Sorry about the delay, Neil.
You've got two minutes.
Go for it.
Thank you.
I am in favor of building low-income and mixed-income neighborhoods in Seattle.
I am in favor of building low-income and mixed-income neighborhoods in Magnolia.
I am opposed to building low-income and mixed-income neighborhoods in what is probably the most natural and most beautiful park in Seattle, Discovery Park.
Make no mistake about it, the homes currently to the east of Discovery Park are not in Discovery Park.
On the other hand, Fort Lawton is in Discovery Park.
It always has been.
And when you add construction, destruction, traffic, noise, infrastructure, and commuters for 238 apartments, townhouses, and row houses, in addition to 266 parking spaces covering 34 acres, you will be negatively affecting this park, not only while the housing is being built, but also after it has been completed.
I understand that the land is basically free, so it's a good deal for the city.
But if you go ahead with this project, you will be trading some money now for the desecration of Discovery Park for years to come.
This is your choice, but I'd hope that you would think beyond the short-term profits in favor of the long-term preservation of the park.
Fort Lawton is not the place to build.
This is not the Seattle way.
This is not who we are.
There are other places to build housing in Seattle, even in Magnolia.
Find one.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Neil.
And you're welcome to leave your comments if you'd like any written comments as well to be left with us.
Karen Nims followed by Calvin Jones.
Hi, Karen.
Hi, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
And I can't read my notes, so I'm just going to say, I live a block...
Can you pull down the mic just a little?
There you go.
Perfect.
I live a block from Discovery Park.
I take the bus on the corner of 36th and Government Way.
I took the bus today to come down to this hearing.
The Fort Lawton area is just very close, a half a block walk.
I'm totally in favor of this project.
Affordable housing is so necessary in this city.
Across the street from me on 35th and Government Way, a like probably nineplex has just been the people have had to move out.
They're either going to demolish it and build something new and large and expensive or redevelop it.
That affordable housing is gone.
I've lived in Magnolia for 30 years.
I've watched that affordable housing disappear all over.
We have a city of Seattle public housing on the corner of 34th and Government Way Seattle Housing Authority There's no problems with those people.
I don't seek there would be any problems with the low-income elderly people in Discovery Park and having elderly and children live together is The best way for all families to be so I thank you for the time that you've put into this and We don't need to talk about it anymore.
We just need to get it done.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Miss Nims Calvin Jones, followed by Laura Lowe Bernstein.
Hi, my name is Calvin Jones, and I'm an organizer for Tech for Housing and a renter in Madison Valley.
I share a passion for parks and open space like a lot of people in this room.
And I think that Discovery Park is one of the most beautiful parks that we have here in the city.
On a sunny day, the views in the Puget Sound are, you know, Incomparable.
I think our biggest problem with parks and open space in the city is not that we don't have enough of it.
It's just that the parks that we do have are not accessible to most people in the city, especially renters.
Discovery Park is nearly exclusively surrounded by detached single-family homes, which virtually ensures that only people who have enough wealth to afford a single-family home have access to that park.
I think that the best thing we could do to improve Park access for people in the city is to allow more types of housing around our beautiful green spaces so that we can share them with everyone.
I'd also like to address just the amount of affordable housing at Fort Lawton.
I think it's a little bit disheartening to go through a 15-year process and only come out with 238 units of affordable housing at the end.
But I think of Fort Lawton as kind of a practice round for the next time we get public land available.
article not so long ago that the Washington National Guard is going to release 25 acres of land to the city.
And I think it's really an opportunity to, instead of getting 238 units after 15 years, maybe we can get 5,000 units of affordable housing after five years.
or $10,000 after two years.
Why not?
I think the affordability crisis is a crisis in Seattle and deserves a crisis-level response, and that we should dream really, really big with the public land that the city receives.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Next, we'll hear from Laura Lowe and followed by Renee Chu.
Hi, Laura.
Hello.
I just wanted to start off by saying thank you to everyone that's worked so hard and sat through so many hours of testimony from neighbors that are afraid of change and afraid of new neighbors.
We have Catholic Housing Services, Habitat for Humanity.
There hasn't been enough emphasis that this land is going to be for folks to have home ownership opportunities as well as renters.
And the United Indians of All Tribes has been involved, as well as the Office of Housing's tireless work on this.
And I've sat through a lot of those meetings.
I'm a volunteer.
Most of us that are here speaking for housing are volunteers.
There's been some implication that we're paid activists or been bused in from other places.
I live right south of the Ballard Bridge.
I could take a really long walk or a shorter bike ride to this land.
I took the bus here today.
When we look and we zoom out at the county level, this is a transit-rich neighborhood.
This is an amenity-rich neighborhood.
This is a neighborhood that has employment opportunities within 30, 40 minutes.
I have friends that commute two hours by bus each way from Maple Valley.
We're not talking about Maple Valley.
This isn't remote.
This isn't on some island.
This is part of our city.
It's near downtown.
There's grocery stores in Magnolia.
There's grocery stores in Interbay.
It's going to have a big employment center with Expedia.
And the claims about the folks here being isolated and not having services are just not accurate.
It's a cover for fear of change, and I'm speaking that part on behalf of myself.
As a new neighbor, I have felt that fear for my neighbors.
They're afraid of me.
They're afraid that I'm destroying the character of their neighborhood, and it's very sad that they've expressed that.
I want to put on my share of the city's hat real quick and say we work on land parcels, and we want to keep public land in public hands.
And let's look at doing this times a lot.
I want to echo what Calvin said, and thank you for everything that everyone's done.
Thank you, Laura.
Renee?
Renee is going to be followed by Tara Miller-Berry and then Maura Semet.
Hi, everybody, and thank you to the council for all the work you've done so much on this project.
I grew up in Seattle, and I grew up in another fancy neighborhood in Seattle.
And I think that when we were in the MHA hearings, someone from Queen Anne made the point that a lot of the outer neighborhood in Seattle, like Leschi, like Magnolia, haven't had to do their share for MHA.
And so I do think that there is an opportunity for some of the outer wealthier neighborhoods in Seattle, like Magnolia, to do their part in providing and making space for affordable housing.
And like Calvin said, thank you for your great comment.
Hopefully Fort Lawton is just a proving ground for Laurelhurst, for Windermere, for Sandpoint to also be able to make space for affordable housing in the future.
I also want to acknowledge the comments about intruding on the serenity of Discovery Park.
It's a beautiful space, but I do want people to remember that all of Discovery Park used to be a fort.
You know, when I heard about the project, I put up a Google alert for Fort Lawton, and I thought I'd hear about a lot of affordable housing meetings, and instead, almost every week, I heard an obituary about someone who had been disembarked from Fort Lawton during World War II or the Korean War.
And I learned that there had been over 400 structures on Discovery Park at that time that are now taken apart, and that there were 52,000 servicemen at a time at Discovery Park.
So I mean, it's a beautiful space, but I think people should remember what our land is for, and that if we're able to house more people, then we should take that advantage.
Thank you so much.
Our next speaker is Tara Miller-Berry, followed by Mara Cement.
Hello.
Hi.
My name is Tara Miller-Berry, and I live right across the street from Fort Lawton on 36th Avenue.
Thank you so much for considering building affordable housing in my backyard.
My family would be really excited to welcome new neighbors if this redevelopment proposal is approved.
This proposal matters a lot to me because I worked with families and individuals experiencing homelessness in Seattle for five years, and I know how hard it is to find affordable housing anywhere in King County, let alone in Seattle.
Any of these amazing people would be great candidates for the variety of housing being proposed, and we could really use communities like this built in every neighborhood in Seattle.
Housing and rent prices are soaring in Seattle, and people of color, immigrants, and low-income workers are being forced out daily.
Magnolia is a pretty isolated and segregated neighborhood, even for Seattle, and it's time we make amends for the ways we have kept people out.
This proposal is a good step towards remedying our city's immorally slow response to the affordable housing crisis and for my neighborhood's culture of exclusivism and elitism.
Please make this redevelopment plan a reality.
I'd be happy to help in any way I can.
Thank you so much.
Followed by Brian Quant.
My name is Marva Sameh.
Thank you.
And thank you for listening to us.
And I haven't heard any mention about the wildlife that has taken residence in Discovery Park since the military left.
And the great heron that carry their nesting material over Fort Lawton from Discovery Park to nest near the locks right now.
I'm told that they used to be closer.
And I didn't hear anything about all the dead whales that are coming ashore.
In fact, there's more whales this year in 2019 than all of 2018. I didn't hear about the owls who like their night sky.
What are they going to do when some 300 homes plus homes are going to be lit up adjacent to Discovery Park?
We have one chance.
Fort Lawton is contiguous to Discovery Park.
Let's access that and acquire that for park to allow all the wildlife that cannot stand here in front of you and say, help, help, give us more habitat.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ms.
Cement.
Brian Quant, followed by Marty Koistra.
So as someone who grew up in Magnolia with parents and one of my grandparents in Magnolia, I just want to say that this is a fantastic opportunity that this redevelopment plan presents.
This is a fantastic opportunity to chip away at our housing crisis, add gentle density that fits with neighborhood character and provide housing for working people and the elderly.
This is a great opportunity to provide more green space, more room for nature, more room for those animals who live there.
And also with that idea of reducing the amount of paved area, both in the redevelopment area and in Seattle in particular, one thought about that might be a little bit granular.
Using tile and brick paving, more permeable.
It also serves as a traffic calming measure.
People drive slower over it.
Something that you could run with a little bit.
In addition, this also provides recreational area.
As a person who was formerly an SPS student, this would have been amazing to have some play fields there.
pretty close to my home.
There's some other opportunities that go beyond what are mentioned in the plan, too, including some rezoning in the vicinity for some commercial or mixed-use to provide additional nearby amenities, such as more grocery stores or other opportunities such as that, improving transit frequency with the 33, and something that's been mentioned here is, yes, it would be great to build elsewhere.
Yes, we should do that, and we should also build here, too.
So overall, this is this fantastic opportunity for more people, more families, more kids, more elderly to live in and enjoy Magnolia and District 7 and Seattle.
I urge you to, today, approve the reason ordinance, approve the resolution.
Let's develop Fort Lawton.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Marty Koistrov, followed by Daniela Lipsong Ng.
Hi, Marty.
Welcome.
Good evening, Councilmembers, and thank you for this opportunity.
I'm Marty Koistra.
I work for the Housing Development Consortium.
We are a 180-member association focused on housing in King County.
I'm excited to be at this point.
Finally, when I arrived here in 2008, there was a folder on my desk at Habitat for Humanity that said Fort Lawton on it.
This has been a long journey, as Councilmember O'Brien well knows.
With every moment that has passed, however, the need for affordable housing has grown.
We now stop waiting, and we act.
We need to turn this underutilized land into at least 235 affordable homes.
With the scale of need for affordability in our region, at least 44,000 additional affordable homes needed in the next five years, and we continue to need that amount every five years until we get to 2040, until we get caught up with the lack of housing that we have.
We have a responsibility in every neighborhood, in every opportunity to find out where we can provide more affordable housing.
We need every tool in our toolkit and we need to use every piece of surplus land we can possibly find.
We are meeting this moment with determination that it demands.
I ask you to act.
And finally, I'd like to just make a comment or two.
I heard some remarks about the Catholic Church and others.
Two of our members, Catholic Housing Services and Habitat for Humanity, which I worked for for 24 years of my life, are two of the most stellar members that we have in this community.
The Catholic community is standing in the gap like no one else in this entire community or in this region, working with the most vulnerable population, doing the work that most of us would not want to do.
We're talking about two organizations that really care, they know what they're doing, they know how to build community, and Habitat is about Habitat for Humanity as well as everything else.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Marty.
Daniella Lipsong Ng followed by Alicia Ruiz.
Welcome, Daniella.
Thank you.
The City Council is going to be putting housing on the far end of Magnolia but says that there is not enough money to rebuild the Magnolia Bridge.
The Magnolia Bridge is the main thoroughway for transit in and out of Magnolia.
And if you take away the bridge, you're creating more traffic for the buses.
You can't reasonably ask to put in more units of housing while also not having money to replace the bridge.
At the same time, you were saying that Fort Lawton redevelopment, you'll have 24-7 monitoring for the low barrier individuals.
This city right now is unable to maintain a solid oversight of the individuals in low barrier housing.
When talking with local police officers, they mentioned the numerous calls that take them to low barrier housing that the city has put in, and within six months, the units are dirty and filled with drug paraphernalia.
I would ask you, council members, to talk with the local police officers who go into these types of housings every day and see firsthand what is going on.
The fact that the city believes these individuals that will be living here need 24-7 monitoring is an indicator of what will truly be going on.
Logistically, you are isolating low-income individuals.
There is no bus line that goes directly to an affordable grocery store and no bus that goes from Magnolia to Ballard.
As a current District 7 candidate, I am not able to support this project as it stands.
There are no entry-level available jobs, no bus lines, no affordable grocery stores.
We should buy lots where you get an investment for your return.
Look at 15th, look at the Armory.
Entry-level jobs, major bus lines, grocery stores, the future ST3 line.
We can't just add more buses or bus routes.
Right now, there are over 600 bus driver openings, so how are you going to do that?
You can't get Park Space back.
How much more money are we going to put into this project to add buses, add a grocery store, and add entry-level jobs?
It's a lot more than $90 million.
Thank you very much.
Alicia Ruiz, I hope I'm saying that right, followed by Mason Rhodes.
Welcome.
And just pull this microphone on up.
There you go.
Good evening.
My name is Alicia Ruiz, representing the Master Builders Association tonight.
And we recognize that there is an affordable housing crisis both locally and nationally.
To help address this crisis and create much-needed affordable housing in Seattle, we fully support the Fort Lawton redevelopment plan and urge the city to approve it quickly.
After years of discussion, planning with stakeholders, public review and debate, it is time to adopt and implement the plan to create affordable housing here in Seattle.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Alicia.
No problem.
And our last two, thank you so much, Council Member Ryan.
Our last two are Mason Rhodes and David Mooring.
Welcome, Mr. Rhodes.
Hello, I'm a member of Friends of Discovery Park.
I've lived in Magnolia for 30 or more years, but I'm for low cost housing, but not in Discovery Park.
As the city grows, more park space is required, and That's the main point, but there's one other thing, just to loosen things up a little bit.
And I'm going to try this.
This land is your land.
This land is my land.
From California to the New York Island.
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream water, this land is made for you and me.
Thank you very much.
Your Vets for Peace hat, too.
Thank you so much for your service.
David Morbing, welcome.
Thank you so much, David.
Can I get a copy of the memo?
Okay, I just gave you a three-page handout that hopefully you can follow along with.
Appreciate it.
David Morang, I'm here with the Magnolia Community Council, who is actually meeting in about a half hour.
As you've seen in the FEIS, the Magnolia Community Council has supported the alternative number one.
We think it's good to bring affordable housing to our community, so thank you for that.
I want to point to the diagrams I just pointed out in that I'm not sure if we have alternative number one that we can show on the screen or not, but alternative number one, as you know, is basically to the right side of North Texas Way, the units that are an apartment style type of thing.
And then to the east side of North Texas Way is the townhouses and row houses.
So that, what's happening on the, West side is really the LR2, which you're talking about doing.
What's happening on the east side is really just LR1 low-rise zone.
So what page two represents is currently how this is being described as being LR2 all across the board.
So in fact, you'd have, instead of row houses and townhouses, you could have the possibility of the whole thing being multi-story buildings up to 40 feet.
The last page basically shows how you should be describing in your legislation with the LR1 towards the east and the LR2 towards the west.
If you don't do that, then you're going to be exceeding what was conveyed in the FEIS, which would be greater than the scope work.
I have to disagree with Mr. or Cattell, is it?
Cattell, yeah.
Cattell, I'm sorry.
because he mentioned that the FEIS, and I looked through all 1,000 pages, said it was looked at for the four stories, and I didn't see any alternatives, one, two, three, or the preferred alternative that showed with that level LR2 development.
So please take a look at that.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, and thank you for the handout.
Appreciate it.
That, I think we have one more folks, folks who are interested in testifying, and if you haven't yet signed up and you're interested, we will still take your name.
So you're welcome to sign up.
Welcome, thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman.
You know, I don't know, I've spent a lot of time, I guess, in my life experience around folks that are caught up in this homelessness stuff, and I've heard a lot of concerns from a lot of people tonight, There's none that aren't valid.
You know, I think about where we've been with this type of housing, whether it's like we used to have the High Point projects or the stuff over by Harborview.
And, you know, what we're doing now is such a step up from there.
So we're getting better.
You meet all kinds.
There are people that you see amazing success stories, and then you see problems like we've seen with folks that just can't get off whatever this and that and the other thing.
You know, I haven't seen the specifics of this, but it seems like a good idea to me.
You know, I haven't, I'm more of a big picture guy and I look at the numbers and I see where our city is going.
I see the affordability stuff getting so much less because of just the economic side of this, how the economy nationally is going to shape and fix us.
You know, we were so penalized in 2008 with the financial crisis because we didn't have that problem here.
And a large portion of that problem is what has created the financial issues we have in the city today.
And as this goes a different direction long term, that will in a lot of ways, the affordability piece will work itself out for those folks that are willing to work.
The challenge is, is there are a lot of folks on the streets that just are not going to get reintegrated back into the system.
And that's where we really struggle still.
And that's where I think a lot of this stuff and the creative ideas we have really work.
And I'm very hopeful that we can get this done and get however many projects we need to get done to at least get those numbers right for where we're going.
Because where we're going is going to be such a bigger city that we at least have to keep pace with where we've been in the past.
Thank you.
Before you go, do you mind just repeating your name into the microphone for the record?
Sean McEachran.
Thank you, Sean.
And we'll have the folks who are also signed up sign up as you come up and just say your name into the microphone if you haven't yet already.
So let's see who we have next on our list here.
Thank you, Sean.
Next we have Max Baker and then Jesse Simpson.
I apologize for folks who may have been lining up.
I didn't have the last sheet.
So if we could have Max and then Jesse.
Hi, Max.
Hello.
This is my first time.
Get a little closer.
Sorry.
There you go.
This is my first time at a council meeting.
Welcome.
Council hearing.
So I've lived in Seattle for about six, seven years now.
In that time, Lived in Lower Queen Anne, moved to Ballard, currently live in West Seattle, served as an AmeriCorps, went to grad school, got my first professional job.
And I learned about Fort Lawton the first year that I moved here.
And since that time, nothing has happened.
And I've been waiting in earnest to see what's going to happen.
And six years later, here we are again.
I currently live in the Riverview area of West Seattle, and the Seattle Housing Authority is building a new building on Delridge with 79 units planned on just over an acre, and I'm in full support of that project.
I'm kind of shocked to see that that's almost a third of all the affordable homes that are proposed for a 10-acre site at that doing that math it seems that we could have 700 units on 10 acres if we're using the same density for the Seattle Housing Authority project.
Same arguments could be made why the Delridge site isn't appropriate.
Delridge is a food desert.
It's far away from downtown.
It's not near any amenities.
I still think the Delridge neighborhood's a great place for low income housing, affordable housing, market rate housing, and I don't think anyone living in that neighbourhood would have anything bad to say about their experience except for those issues of access to food and easier access walking around the neighbourhood as any resident would have.
So for this site to be ever considered not good enough just seems beyond reason.
So I'm very much in support of it.
Thank you so much.
Next we have Jesse Simpson.
Hi, Jesse.
Hi, I'm Jesse Simpson.
This land is only our land if we can afford to live here.
When we started talking about redeveloping Fort Lawton in 2004, I was in fourth grade.
It's been held up in appeal.
for 15 years because of neighborhood activists who are opposed to accommodating more low income and moderate income folks within their neighborhoods.
And that's a travesty.
We need to build as much affordable housing as we can to stem the homelessness crisis and affordability crisis that plague everyone who rents or wants to rent, wants to live in Seattle.
There are currently only six different affordable apartments affordable buildings within all of Magnolia.
They have combined 18 units.
This housing is necessary.
It will provide people with access to green space and access to a bus stop that will eventually get them to light rail at 15th Avenue.
And by 2035, it's only going to be 10 minutes away from that Inner Bay 15th stop.
This can be transit-oriented development, and it provides amazing access to green space, something that's sorely lacking for many of our affordable housing developments.
I urge you to support this plan and move forward as quickly as you can.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it, Jesse.
Elizabeth Campbell, we have you on the list here as well.
Welcome.
Good afternoon.
I submitted a written comment to you at 5 o'clock.
So I'm here today representing the Discovery Park Community Alliance, myself, and a multiple of people that belong to Safe and Affordable Seattle.
The thing is, is that the city was charged from the very beginning to involve the public and to make something out of Fort Lawton property that had the buy-in of a majority of the city.
And it's that unfortunate history that has brought the city in this project to where it is because the city took a heavy hand and decided to exclude out of the mix the use of the property 100% for parkland.
It was always possible to add additional homes for the homeless and the low-income off-site.
That has never changed, and the city, unfortunately, has misled people about what the conditions were for the BRAC.
It gives me no pleasure to have this drug around, and it'll be drug around for more years.
It's like this has been misstep after misstep on the part of the city.
And I think the city should step up and take its part in all of this.
Unfortunately, Mr. I was in fourth grade, he doesn't see that and how this all came about.
Ms. Kimball, keep your remarks directed to me, thank you.
Anyway, the final part of it is, is we're going to continue to oppose this project.
We sent out a mailing on Friday to 26,000 people, which is far more than the city's ever done, and invited them to step up and be part of this process and to oppose the housing and to advocate for adding Fort Lawton to Discovery Park.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Is there anybody else who would like to speak?
Welcome and if you could say your name for the record and then we will have you sign in before you leave.
Hi, my name is Angela Compton.
I'm a resident of District 7. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight.
I was actually just planning on listening, but I really didn't want this to end on a sour note.
I have grown up in Seattle.
I grew up housing unstable and kind of lived all over the Puget Sound.
I went to three different high schools.
I've worked in homelessness.
I've been a case manager.
Currently, I work in an organization trying to lower barriers to housing and give people more access to housing in our neighborhoods.
And Magnolia is a wonderful place to live.
Like, I take the bus up from my Belltown apartment and go hang out in Discovery Park.
It's beautiful.
It's really easy to access from downtown.
So I'm assuming the access the other way is exactly the same.
So I don't really see how people think Magnolia is so remote and removed from Seattle.
It's part of our urban space.
And we need to be building up our urban spaces to preserve our green spaces for those little animals that I was hearing about.
So if we don't continue building up our urban spaces and making sure we give people new green options, we are going to continue to see our animals going extinct.
We're going to continue seeing climate change.
We really need to see innovative changes like utilizing surplus city land for affordable housing for low-income people and making sure that children have access to parks because that's what we want in our city and this is a wonderful plan.
So as someone who lives in the district where this plan is going to take place, I very much support this and the only thing I would ask is that we maybe double the amount of affordable housing going on this property.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Angela.
who was inspired to come to the microphone.
Okay, well, I really want to say thank you to the almost 30 people who came to testify tonight.
I know many of you have been in many community meetings over the last 15 years.
Thank you for coming to the four that we've now had just this year alone.
This will wrap up our public hearing this evening on the city's application for the federal surplus property at Fort Lawton.
The application, again, includes the Fort Lawton redevelopment plan, the 2019 update, and appendices.
It includes the Homeless Housing Submission Appendix H to Fort Lawton Redevelopment Plan 2019 Update and the Legally Binding Agreement, the Draft Opinion Letter.
That's all included in the application that you can find on our website.
We will be having another conversation, so if you just can't wait for the next discussion, there will be five.
A conversation coming up again in our committee on the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee at 9.30 a.m.
on June 6th right here in Council Chambers.
I want to thank all of you for your generous time, for coming this evening, for your written comments and your public comment.
For folks who are watching at home and listening on KUOW, we appreciate everybody for writing in, calling in, and for providing us with your feedback.
And this will continue on June 6th at 9.30.
Thank you again.
Applause for all of your attendance and to our incredible staff for keeping us going this evening.
The meeting is adjourned.