AN ORDINANCE relating to housing for low-income households; adopting the Housing Levy Administrative and Financial Plan for program years 2021-2023; adopting Housing Funding Policies for the 2016 Housing Levy and other fund sources; authorizing actions by the Director of Housing regarding past and future housing loans and contracts; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
General item for Council Bill 120101 An ordinance relating to housing for low income households. Adopting the Housing Levy, Administrative and Financial Plan for Program Years 2021 through 2023. Adopting Housing Funding Policies. For the 2016 housing levy and other funds sources authorizing actions by the Director of Housing regarding past and future housing loans and contracts and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts. The committee recommends the bill pass. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mr. Mosquito. This bill comes out of your committee as well, so I'm going to hand it over to you to provide the community report. Thank you very much. Council President. Colleagues, this legislation updates the city's affordable housing funding policies, also known as the NF plan, and it makes some important updates building on the deep changes that were rooted in community needs and suggestions that we took in my community, in my committee back in 2019. Those changes included expanding upon and clarifying the city's intent to use community preference and affirmative markets marketing policies as a framework, as a policy framework for ensuring that those who've been most disproportionately impacted by displacement had a strong opportunity to remain in our city and have access to affordable housing. At that point, we included stronger labor standards to make sure that our new housing that was being built had opportunities for greater labor standards, and that we looked for opportunities to strengthen our commitment to good living wage jobs as we built housing. Language on that should be forthcoming in a report on the case site and other work that we did as well. We also at that point increased Office of Housing Acquisition Authority up to a cap of $30 million at the time. And a lot of that work that we did in 2019 was really rooted in a number of community roundtable discussions that we had, specifically with Bipoc led housing development groups and communities who are most in need of affordable housing in the city. So fast forward to 2021. This is an opportunity for us to expand upon some of those really important changes that we made and make some important and make some small sort of tweaks to really allow for some of those important policy changes to come to fruition. But this does not include major policy directive changes, given that this is a proposal that I think was really well crafted as it was sent to us and included some of the previous work that we had done just two years ago. There's a few things that we should be really excited about in this legislation that we haven't had a chance to hear me say this before. This is a really great opportunity for the Office of Housing to increase its home ownership subsidy, to make sure that we're adequately funding the construction of permanent, affordable homes, to make sure that our very competitive and hot housing market has actual chance of having competition and being able to have more for folks access first time home ownership opportunities. We are in this legislation removing that cap. Previously we had upped the cap on the acquisition authority and now we're removing it. So the Office of Housing has the authority where needed, when there is new revenue available to quickly move and seize opportunities to acquire property for the creation of affordable housing. Given the changing market conditions we're seeing, and why is this important right now? If we see multifamily structures going on the market or derelict buildings that could be used for affordable housing now or in the future, we want to be competitive and to bring in more publicly owned housing options and create public opportunities for folks to have access to good, affordable housing within the city. And removing this cap is a smart way for us to make sure that we're seizing those opportunities. With the onset of COVID, we've also seen a huge demand and acquisition. We built some of the acquisition language into our Jumpstart legislation from last year, and with the money now coming in January of this upcoming year, we'll have the chance to spend those dollars. We just put a portion of the $28.5 million for acquisition and development that you all just voted on in the Seattle Rescue Plan Act Bill. Acquisition acquisition. Acquisition is the theme of the show when it relates to affordable housing right now. And we have made sure that the state is a priority in this plan as well. And there's already several products projects that have given notice to the city to apply for acquisition from funds directly rooted in community organizations and communities that are working. Community organizations that are working on building, building affordable housing have already submitted their notice to apply for acquisition funds in this year's notice of intent to apply around. And we know that there's much more opportunities needed on the horizon. So really excited to have these important changes included in the NF plan and look forward to having your support. And just very quickly, want to thank Emily Alvarado and her team at the Office of Housing, Tracy Ratcliff from Central Staff and Erin House from my office, who've been working closely on getting this legislation ready for us to go out today. I hope you'll support it. Thank you so much because. We're almost there for those comments. Are there any additional comments on the bill? I don't see any hands raised for any additional comments. So I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the role on the passage of the bill. Palace. S Macheda. Hi, Paterson. Hi. Sergeant. Yes. Strauss. That's Herbold. As Juarez as Luis? Yes. And Counselor, President Gonzalez. I need a favor. And unopposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? All right. Item five, will the clerk please read item five into the record. Report of the Transportation and Utilities Committee Agenda Item five Council Bill 120100 An ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities authorizing the general manager CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to enter into a water quality combined financial assistance agreement between the State of Washington, Department of Ecology and the City of Seattle Public Utilities Department to partially finance costs related