AN ORDINANCE relating to environmental review; amending Sections 3.02.110, 25.05.035, 25.05.055, 25.05.070, 25.05.100, 25.05.440, 25.05.448, 25.05.545, 25.05.680, 25.05.800, 25.05.900, and 25.05.914 of the Seattle Municipal Code to clarify timelines and the content of administrative appeals, to authorize the development of Director’s Rules to clarify the content of environmental documents, and to make corrections and technical amendments.
The report of the Planning Land Use and Zoning Committee Agenda Item one Constable 119 600 relating to environmental review amending sections 3.02.1 1020 5.05.0. 35.0. 55.0. 70.100 point four. 40.4 48.5. 45.6. 80.800 point 900 and point 914 of the State of Espaco to clarify timelines and the content of an administrative appeals to authorize the development of directors rules to clarify the content of. Environmental documents. And to make corrections and technical amendments. Committee recommends were passed as amended. Thank you very much, Councilmember Pacheco. Are you leading with a request from O'Brien? I would really like it. Did you want to talk to about the amendments first or did you not? I'd rather talk about the base legislation first. We have four amendments, as I understand them. But let's get through the base legislation and if possible, I'd like the proposers to try to address many of the what seem to be valid concerns from both sides that we heard from public testimony today. So we'll start off just the base legislation. Councilmember Sure. So colleagues, thank you for being here today. And this legislation is a culmination of a three month process that began with environmental organizations like Feature Wise Transportation Choices, Coalition Climate Solutions and Sightline. That's in a letter to the Council requesting that we update our city keeper policies in response to changes to state law. The proposed changes are common sense reforms to make our CPA process work better for the environment. The legislation would align our city code to match changes in state law limits. Here in Examiner appeals to 120 days. Clarifies which portions of the environmental impact statements are subject to appeals and aligns. Are CPC thresholds for urban villages with urban centers. In shaping this legislation, I have met with stakeholders including the hearing examiner Mansell environmental groups Megan Cruz, who spoke earlier today in downtown residents CCI Ted Hunter from the Wallingford Community Council. And I've also had the opportunity to go on the Jason Ranch Show to speak on behalf of the importance of this legislation. So my committee has done is due diligence with regards to meeting with a variety of stakeholders who have had an interest in seeing this process through. We've also held three committee meetings and a public hearing process as well. I also want to take a moment to address some of the claims that I've heard and clarify a few things about what this legislation does not do. This proposal does not and SEEBER review it, does not eliminate SIPA challenges based on transportation impacts. It does not allow CCI or design review boards to unilaterally set rules or thresholds for seat review. And it does not change CPA thresholds for downtown or other urban centers. Opponents of this legislation have unfortunately portrayed this effort as training away environmental protections in exchange for affordable housing. But I reject framing this conversation as a tradeoff between one or the other. This council understands that building dense, sustainable housing in our city and addressing the climate crisis are not contradictory. They go hand in hand. That's why so many environmental advocacy advocates are supporting this legislation. As Brittany Busch Belay of the Sierra Club and Alex Lockhart of Thrifty Seattle wrote in today's Seattle Times, One of the most powerful ways Seattle can safeguard the environment is by welcoming more homes into the city, curtailing climate pollution and sprawl. This legislation helps us do just that. It makes modest changes to update our code to better reflect our climate priorities. Finally, I want to thank my colleagues on the Council. Councilmember O'Brien, Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Herbold for working with me and my team to offer amendments in this legislation, as well as which what's on central staff for all of this work. It's getting us to this far. I also want to thank all the environmental leaders who advocate for advocated for these changes in Olympia and challenge the city of Seattle to move forward as well. So I will I'm happy to discuss each of the amendments, if you like. Council President Let's before we get to amendments, sure. Might be some questions on the Bass legislation. Councilmember. Thank you. Councilmember Pacheco. I don't know if this is something that you want to address or Councilmember O'Brien on the phone. I know that recently, last year, after multiple years of work at the legislature, that laws were passed there that authorized categorical exemptions for infill here in Seattle. And I wonder if you can talk about what the intention was for the legislature there, what the intention of the conversations have been at your committee and where we are now, because we listened to the audience and they're concerned about losing rights of appeal. And I'd like to. To know whether or not, A, we're in a line, we are aligned with the state's legislation. And secondly, how you address the questions that they have said, we're losing our our appeal rights. Sure. So this is in response, direct response to House Bill 1923, which advocates here today had outlined as well to Olympia. And Olympia acted in response to what they had seen in the examples here in Seattle, where the CPA process was misused and weaponized in a way such to see have delays for affordable housing projects and different projects, as we've seen throughout Seattle. The Burke Gilman, for example, as we heard today in testimony where the bullet center as well as for Maté the 82 legislation as as well as for Layton and so Olympia and the state provided until April spring of 2021 for this for cities across the state to update our CPR standards. As such, we led an extensive process that did the outreach with a variety of stakeholders to respond to what the state has allowed us to do. It has not taken away anyone's authority to to to appeal or to use or to allow development projects to not go through, undergo CPR or to circumvent any of the processes, such as some proponents have claimed. Rather, it streamlines that process and allows us to move forward in response to what we've heard from different affordable housing advocates as well as environmental groups. So can I just quickly follow up. Talk to me, please, about the streamlining, because we heard today that many, many concerns have been raised, that their appeal rights had either been eliminated or reduced. Can you describe that? So appeals will now have a 120 day time limit and a 30 day extension if both parties agree, 120 days is the average of what we've heard from the hearing examiner, which is why that date and that timeframe was selected. We've seen appeals where they've dragged on for months, if not years. And so, again, people will still have the opportunity to appeal. But we've now put the the processes in place and a timeline in place so that these process, this appeal process, does not drag on for much longer than that it is intended to. In addition to that, we've also asked for the hearing examiner to come back in the annual report that's due next year with opportunities for us to make additional process improvements. And so we will go through that process again as a council next year to make any additional improvements and hopefully accept those recommendations from the hearing. Examiner. So I had a question to customer, please. Customer Well, thank you. I just want to share with y'all some information from the hearing examiner about the language in the in the ordinance that relates specifically to the timeline. I don't think it's a problem, but I think it's important that people understand the examples where the amount of time has exceeded 120 days. Those examples are times when both parties, the city and the appellant agreed. To. Take more time. So, for instance, during the delay of the MHRA appeal, hearing examiner Vance Hill explained to me that all parties, including the city, had scheduled conflicts for their representatives and witnesses that delayed the conclusion of the hearing. And so that was a that extension was an agreement of both parties. And that is that's pretty that when that happens, it's standard. It's very unusual for one party to object. The Fort Lawton case, the hearing examiner explains that that case was delayed most significantly because it originally required four days to complete, and the hearing schedule could not accommodate four days because the MHRA hearing schedule and other already had already scheduled meetings. So given that the city and the appellant typically agree to extend the timelines and this bill itself doesn't actually prohibit the extension of timelines, even though. We're we're. Giving another another timeline. It's unlikely from the hearing examiners perspective that this aspect of the bill will have an actual impact on the timeline, because it doesn't affect what is the practice that is that has led to previous longer timelines. So that's not these aren't comments to oppose this part of the bill. It's just merely to make sure that we have reasonable expectations of what this language in the bill will actually accomplish. If I may. Because. Brian. I'll recognize you in a minute. I wanted to make a comment or question. So perhaps in your response, you could. Respond to it as well. Part part of my concern on the the base legislation is it seems as though we are put in a position to pit our need and desire to build affordable housing with a a person's right to use the SIPA appeal process as he or she sees fit. That when I hear terms like CPA being used or weaponized, I think it was the term. Perhaps it has been abused in recent years or even some time ago, but it's also been effectively used, I think, to make sure that people's rights are intact and that there there's a CPA appeal process for a reason. And my question really is, is the process here that as we are in the middle of budget, that we're asked to look upon some pretty important legislation that could no doubt affect the our Seattle for years to come. And that shouldn't be taken lightly. And so I'm trying to get a feel for how long you all have been working on this, how much outreach was, in fact, done, and whether we should delay this until more outreach is done. I don't think we I don't know how time sensitive this is, because we shouldn't have to pit one great need versus another one great need for affordable housing versus someone's right to even question or challenge some of the decisions we made. So, so so I'm trying to get a feel for how long we've been working on this and why we're sort of doing this in the middle of a budget and whether it makes sense to have it done when more process is warranted. So that's just my personal concerns. Councilmember O'Brien, you are recognized, sir. Thank you. I just want to reiterate a couple of things that this bill does and doesn't do. The two major substantive, two major substantive things it does do is it provides categorical exemptions to a slightly longer list of projects that would no longer be required under the CPA. And I want to be clear that when we asked federal staff to analyze recent CPI appeals in the 30 plus appeals that came through, only two of those would now be categorically exempt based on this legislation. So maybe five or 6% of the appeals in recent timeframe. So that's a fairly narrow part of the list. But the rest of them, what it does do is require a certain timeline. And as Councilmember Herbold, I think mentioned, we often see that our own attorneys are agreeing to extend that. And I think that part of this requirement is to get both sides to accelerate that process. Multiple times we've heard that attorneys typically on the client side have have been on vacation for a long time, and that required extending eight months, sometimes multiple times. Council President Herald To your question about not pitting folks against each other, in an ideal world, we wouldn't have to do that. You know, this process has been going on, I think, for about three months now. The reason we didn't vote on this before budget, even though it cleared through committee before budget was because of some notice requirements. So it was held by, I think three weeks. So apologize that it's coming up during budget. But I do believe there's been significant chance for public input. And I think the reality is here we're going to have to pick where we want to come down. And I also want to add that it's not just about affordable housing. It's about bike facilities. It's about market rate housing, whether there's zero apartments or backyard cottages. I think about transportation impact fees, which we're not going to be able to act on in 2019, despite the state proposing those in 2018 because of multiple delays during the CPA process. And I think folks should do have access to the tools are almost always wealthier individuals that can afford attorneys. Rarely ever do we see low income communities of color using this tool. And so it's certainly disproportionately used, too, which is, you know, beyond the scope of this legislation. But I think there's more work you need to do to address that. Thank you for your comments, councilmember Brian. Any further customers get a councilmember city on the floor. Thank you. Mr. President, I want to take that chance to say thank you to the co-sponsors. Councilmember Pacheco and Councilmember O'Brien. As you heard, this is a process that have been that has been out there for three months. It's been an inclusive process, one that we knew was coming. And I completely understand, given the amount of huge pieces of legislation we've taken on this year, how this can feel like a big thing to take on prior to budget. But I think the timing is essential. How many folks have red on fire? How many people went to see Naomi Klein? How many people have been talking about the year 2030? The fact that when our kiddos are now going to be 11 years old, if they're born this year, that is going to be too late for us to turn the tide on some of these environmental protections. All of those issues I think we have in common in this body and in this city we've been talking about how do we address the issue of climate change? And that is precisely why we've been on the forefront of supporting the Green New Deal, making sure that the environmental protections that we have put into place are not being used in unintentional ways and predatory ways and as a delay tactic to create the very thing that can help us reduce emissions in this area is to create affordable housing, to create more bike infrastructure, to create more transit infrastructure. And the very tool that we all advocated for once upon a time through the Environmental Protection Act and at the state and the city level has been used, I think, wrongly, to end the ability or to delay the ability to create affordable housing, transit options, multi-modal transit corridors that get people out of cars. And the result of the use of these super provisions has been that less housing has created a delayed timeline, fewer bike lanes, fewer pedestrian opportunities. It has been weaponized in ways that could never have been intended. And when we don't allow for affordable housing and don't allow for more bike and pedestrian and infrastructure projects that keep people in the city, that allow for people who have multi-modal needs and who have different incomes, to stay in the city and work in the city, retire in the city. The consequence is displacement. We are now the third. Largest mega commuter city in the entire country. That means we are third in terms of the longest commute to get into the city to work an hour and a half in an hour and a half out. And one of the folks in the audience talks about they care about birds. They care about trees. They care about wetlands. They care about decreasing commuter idling. They care about water runoff and the mammals that are living out in our Puget Sound. That is precisely what we should be building within our city and is precisely why we should not have tools that are being used erroneously. When we use the opportunity to make sure that Seba is used as a tool to promote green living, to promote denser options, to make sure that there's more tree canopy. We can see ourselves actually moving forward on our shared goals of reducing carbon emissions are promoting more biking and walking, of getting people out of their cars because they live in this city. I'm really excited about how this piece of legislation dovetails with our broader goal of creating more affordable housing, more transit options, and a more welcoming city. I just want to say that I think this is also part of our response to how we're dealing with the crisis of climate change globally. There's about 200 million people on up to 1 billion people who are being forced to migrate because of climate change. Think about raising rising sea levels. Think about desertification. Think about deforestation. Think about crazy snowstorms that we've not seen before. And heat and fire here in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, we've experienced some of those. We now have a new season that Naomi Klein writes about, which is smoke season, wildfire season. And yet here in the Pacific Northwest, we are going to have some of the most temperate climate compared to other parts of the country and, frankly, other parts of the world. We have to be a welcoming city and we have to build housing and transit and infrastructure. If we are going to be that welcoming city that wants to welcome those who want to come here for a good job, come here for cleaner air, come here for economic stability. We have to build density. And we can't let these tools that have been weaponized in the past prevent the ability for folks to live in the city. This is an environmental justice policy, and I'm proud to support it. I think that it will be a good opportunity for us to show what it means to be a welcoming city and to live our environmental justice values as well. Thank you. CASTRO Mosquito tents, applause on that. COUNCILMEMBER So what? Thank you, President Herrell. I will be voting yes on this legislation to alter Seattle's cyber procedures because these changes will, on balance, be a positive change. But we should be clear that they will not necessarily work in every situation, as public testimony has indicated. As has been mentioned, cyber, which of course the State Environmental Policy Protection Act is nominally a policy intended to protect the environment from particularly destructive development. In practice, however, it has most often been used by a tool by anyone who wishes to embroil a land use policy or development in red tape. As a tool. It is imprecise. It has been used in a progressive direction by community activists who correctly desire to negotiate community benefits or affordable housing or for large corporate developer. The threat of a SIPA appeal is the threat of costly delays, which sometimes is enough for community organizations to successfully extract some community benefits. However, it has far more often been used by some elements to delay affordable housing policies and project. For example, the Fort LUDDEN Affordable Housing Project was delayed for years with SIPA appeals, as was the accessory dwelling unit and the detached accessory dwelling unit legislation. And more recently, the tiny house built on my office has been subjected to a SIPA appeal by Elizabeth Campbell, who incidentally is the same person who appealed the Fort Lawton project. To give you a concrete example of how these SIPA appeals have nothing to do with the environment and are only used to slow down legislation. Here is one question out of the 11 pages of discovery questions that Elizabeth Campbell has put forward in her SIPA bill of my tiny house bill. Quote Interrogatory number four Identify every employee of the Office of Housing or the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections who owns property or resides in Seattle. Not only does that have nothing to do with the environment, it has nothing to do with tiny house villages. The legislation that we are voting on today restricts EPA appeal somewhat. It exempts small buildings from CPO review, but not big buildings. And it puts some time limits on how long something like my dining house bill, which actually is a bill that will that is in the interests of our homeless neighbors. How long such a bill can be delayed by appeals? When we consider these changes should be supported, we should not only consider the fact that was most of the time not being used in the way it was intended, but also consider whether limiting this tool will ultimately do more harm than good based on how it is actually being used, not on the intent of the bill. I strongly support affordable housing advocates extracting a couple more affordable homes out of a corporate developer using the tide of the SIPA appeal. But I do not support SIPA being used to disrupt and delay progressive legislation like affordable housing on Fort Lawton or expanding tiny house villages which which actually have a strong track record of addressing housing needs of our homeless neighbors and should be expanded. I do think we should try and avoid exaggeration of the impact of the bill today, and I think both sides have exaggerated the impact of the today's bill. On balance, however, I'm convinced that these changes will do more harm, more good than harm. The reality is to use, as Councilmember O'Brien and others have said, to use CPA to delay policies and projects require requires money and financial resources to hire lawyers to employ many of the tricks like this. 11 pages of discovery questions employ regular people. Ordinary people do not have those resources. Only corporations and wealthy people do. And because of that, frivolously, power bills have been used to delay far more progressive projects and harmful development. And given that balance, I will be voting yes on those reforms today. Thank you. Cassandra Swann So we've had discussion on the base legislation. Casper Pacheco Would you like to say more on the base legislation? Do you want to go through the amendments? How do you like to proceed? Let's go through the amendments and I can have closing remarks. Okay. So we're going to take some amendments to the base legislation. Let's hear any of the comments on the substance of the process. So amendment number one is proposed. By whom is it Councilmember Herbold or Pacheco? Sure. So, member number one, I just want to thank Councilmember Herbold for working with me to improve upon a previous amendment that we had in committee. This amendment goes further towards ensuring the community is involved in shaping the hearing examiners improvements. And I am happy to support. Okay. Can you say a little more about it? Oh, sorry. We we went through the committee and talked about having it in the hearing examiners annual report that's due next year. Additional recommendations that would be provided for the counsel to the hearing examiners would outline additional recommendations for the counsel to consider for and streamlining that process on the front end. This amendment just clarifies the stakeholder group by which the hearing examiner is going to convene to come back with those recommendations. Customer heard what did you want to add any to that? Just want to mention that we worked with the hearing examiner on the amendment and he is supportive. Very good. Councilmember actually had a question. Thank you. Councilmember Pacheco, can you describe how a stakeholders group could work with a hearing examiner? So in particular, the concerns we're hearing today that people feel like their appeal rights are taken away. How can they continue to participate and make sure that they do have a right to appeal concerns? And I'm considering particularly downtown Seattle, because I know many of the voices that are out here that they're focused on that. How can they participate with this amendment? Sure. So we met with the hearing examiner last week, and what we heard was that the hearing examiner will be convening a group of stakeholders who have had experience going through the hearing, a hearing process, expertize in environmental justice and a representative of the city council. So my recommendation would be to get in contact with the city, with your city council office, a city councilmembers office, with regards to trying to get involved with the hearing examiner. But it would be the hearing examiner will be determining those stakeholders and convening them and going through that process. So will the individuals who are interested in participating have an opportunity? And you mentioned next April that there will be some additions to this legislation potentially. Will they have an opportunity to actually influence what comes out from the hearing examiner? Yes. And just a little something to add. I just want to clarify that we made sure to include within the scope of what we ask the hearings, Amina, to consider with the stakeholder group the changes that we're making today. Okay. So for folks who. Have concerns about what we're doing today, that as well as other issues that have an impact on the timeline and the ability of the hearing examiner to hear hear appeals that will still be permitted even after today's vote. That is within the scope of this work. Thank you. Okay. I'm an understanding the amendment number one proposed by consumer check or basically adds a new Section 14 and remembers the remaining sections as presented in Amendment one. As he is, he is articulated. The motions are second, second in all those in favor. Any questions before I call on the vote on amendment number one? All those in favor of amendment number one, say I. I opposed the ayes have it. Amendment number one is passed. Amendment number yes. Oh, Cassie. Brian, what did you do? I hear anything okay from Brian? You're. You're on board member number one, and we're going to move to amendment number two, I believe it comes from I'm a skater. You were proposing amendment number two. You have the floor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I will tee it up. And I want to thank Councilmember Pacheco for co-sponsoring this with us and working on the amendment. This really harmonizes the policy with the comprehensive plan Dockett amendments that we passed earlier in August of this year. With respect to industrial lands. As you'll remember, the comprehensive plan docket resolution signals the Council's Support for work plan and action from the Executive on a review of Seattle's industrial lands as the basis for conversations about future industrial lands. And I'm really interested in how we take these policies and prioritize workers in the industrial sector, as well as thinking about how we marry those areas with mixed housing options. Councilmember Bagshaw earlier this morning talked about, you know, how do we have mixed use housing, preserving industrial lands as we promote affordable housing potentially for those workers or housing just in general? And I think it's a really great strategy that we've used in other areas of the city. So as we look forward to making sure that we're advancing good living wage jobs, also including housing mixed use options, this amendment basically just says let's have a comprehensive strategy across the city and make sure that we're looking at the entire city in our analysis, not just piecemeal sites for land use changes. So this harmonizes our effort with the comprehensive plan docket language from August. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'm hearing councilmember skate as amendment and basically I'm in section ten, as I recall. So she has made the motion described it has been in writing. I would like to move to amend council bill 119600 as presented in amendment number. 2/2. Submitted and second, any further comments or questions on amendment number two? All those in favor of amendment number two say I, I opposed councilmember o'brien is an i i. My amendment number two has passed. We have an amendment number three, I believe is proposed by Councilmember Herbold. Indeed. Thank you. I move to amend Council Bill 1190 600 as proposed in Amendment three 0 seconds. Okay. Can you describe it a little more? Absolutely. So this amendment would direct SDC to report to council on their draft administrative rules that this legislation requires STC to develop. It requires this DCI not only to report to council the draft administrative rules before they they come into effect, but also to convene a stakeholder committee to help them develop the the creation of those rules. And it also I think there's one other thing it does. It also directs SDC to publish notice of the adoption of the rules in the Land Use Information Bulletin. Very good. Any further comments or explanation or questions on amendment number three? Councilmember Pacheco. Just want to clarify. If Councilmember Hubbard had a chance to connect with Director Paulson about this amendment and the Second Amendment. I'm uncertain about that. I've been working through council central staff. This is it's not unusual to ask a DCI to notify us of the content of a director's rule before it goes into effect. So I don't think it's in conflict with prior practices. Okay. Any other questions or comments on amendment number three? Okay. Okay. It's been moved in second. And all those in favor of amendment number three say I. I can remember. Right. I opposed the ayes have it. Amendment number three passes. Okay, let's move to our last amendment, which is amendment number four. And that's Councilmember Herbold again. Councilmember help you. Thank you. So this council has done a lot of work to limit parking requirements in urban villages and urban centers. But we haven't done much to address the impacts of developers who build too much parking, particularly downtown. This amendment would clarify that a project which includes more than 40 parking spaces as non required parking is subject to CPO review and appeal. The. I passed out two articles. One was from 2015 where editorial writer Danny Westgate reports that there were 34 projects in the works that included a total of nearly 12,000 parking spaces. He followed up that report in June of this year, and in that report it documented that at Mercer at Aurora, which in 28, 2015 was already reported to be at capacity carrying 28,000 cars on an average weekday was now carrying 38,000 cars daily, 36% more. State law and city CPA regulations exempt parking lots with 40 or fewer parking spaces from CPA Review. Parking lots with more than 40 parking spaces are currently subject to review under CPA, as CCI has interpreted the code to exempt required accessory parking and to exempt any parking accessory to development in an urban center where growth estimates have not been exceeded. So that means under Stsci interpretation, residential projects that include more parking spaces than they are required to provide may be exempt from CPA review. This amendment is intended to make sure that impacts from building more parking than the code requires. Our study doesn't doesn't prohibit them, but it requires a CPO review. Our parking policy is intended to encourage non single occupancy vehicle commutes. In recent years, parking for the equivalent of six Mariners Stadium garages has been built in South Lake Union alone. More recently, an employer downtown has put up one of the biggest parking complexes in Seattle with 2300 parking stalls. Twice the parking in the six story parking garage at Pacific Place. So I'm concerned that this loophole in our CPA policy makes it very likely that people will continue to drive when we're trying to implement parking policy that discourages that. Very good. I move to amend Council Bill 1196. Oh. Okay. I can and then have some questions. Okay. So it's it's been moved. And second, there's discussions continues. Councilmember Pacheco, I saw your hand go up where Councilmember Beck says you wanna ask questions, first of all, either way. And. Either way. But here, here's my concern. I really like your intention. And my concern at this point is that having seen it starting at about quarter of one today, I appreciate where you're going. I'm going to ask it whether or not there's some way that this could be reviewed a little bit further. And I know that's unusual request, but I'd like to know what the impact is. And I appreciate the Danny West need article that you passed because there really are concerns about I mean, you name the Expedia without saying Expedia, but that's what we're looking at. And until light rail comes through and, you know, 30, 35 people are going to have to figure out alternative ways of getting there and not just make the congestion ridiculous. So I'm just interested in how this is going to work, and I'd love to be able to say let's spend a little bit more time getting analysis from CCI so I understand how that works. So I don't know, I'm not sure how procedurally that this happens to say I like a lot of the amendments. I'm concerned about this one just because of the speed with which it came toward. And I'd like some more thinking. I'd just like to. Say for the record, it did it was sent by the new deadline. Just I understand that you did not see it until 1:00 AM. Yeah, but I just want to say that. For once again. Once again, the Herbold slipped it in at noon. I the chair just sort of recognizes your point that we do have a live amendment that you, as a matter of fact about that, that there there's some appetite for maybe postponing it, but there might be sufficient votes to vote it up or vote it down as well. So let's keep that in the back of our minds as we continue our colloquy. Councilmember Pacheco. Sure. So I appreciate the amendment. Unfortunately, I'm going to vote no on the amendment. It just largely this amendment would have unintended consequences of making far more delays in projects in downtown core. To go through the CBO review process specifically, I had a chance to reach out to Director Tolleson and we received a rough estimate from SSI that about 4363 additional units of housing every year would be subject to CBO delays if this amendment passes between 2012 and 2017. If this amendment were had had been in effect, 120 additional projects in urban centers would have been subject to CBO review, meaning that the units would have been delayed in that time period. In addition, 155 projects in urban villages that would have not been subject to review under the legislation would again be subject to review in this amendment passes. I agree with the premise that this amendment would like to reduce the number of parking stalls as we were adding. But I think this conversation is just better had in regards to parking maximums rather than as part of the CBO conversation. Thank you, Casper and Pacheco, for your comments. Katherine Herbold. Thank you. Rebuttal? Mm hmm. I just want to make the point that 85% of housing development over the last ten years has been luxury housing development. The kinds of of housing developments that are providing more parking than than is needed under the law are unlikely to be affordable housing projects. Affordable housing projects are looking to reduce the costs of of building housing both to the low income housing developer as well as to the tenant. And so this amendment, I believe, is very unlikely to address in impact those types of projects. I think what we're trying to do is we're trying to allow for the public to move towards analyzing these projects for their environmental impacts from the provision of unnecessary parking. That is something that doesn't exist right now. And I think it's an important tool that we can use to change public policy. As it relates to the overprovision of parking, we have to balance the housing development. Housing development for whom? Home needs housing development, as well as our needs to impact public policy as it relates to to to parking development and the use of space for the development of parking. Thank you. Councilmember, I have Councilmember O'Brien in queue. I just have this vibe from the phone that you want to speak. Is that right? Councilmember Brian. That is correct. See that? Amazing. You have the floor, sir. Thank you. I appreciate the incentive, this legislation or this amendment, but I will also be voting against it. I believe, as others have said, that the amount of parking we're building in many neighborhoods is too much and we should address that. But I don't think that that should be through a CPA appeal process where the hearing examiner decides. Rather, I think we should revisit our parking maximums where we have them and perhaps consider lowering them and where we don't have parking maximums, consider setting them. And I think that's a specific policy that the council should take up. I think it's appropriate and consistent with our environmental rules. But I don't think that should be up to whoever has money to appeal to make a decision, I think is an important policy decision that the council should weigh in with the mayor and setting specific targets. Thank you. Thank you. You came in loudly and clearly. We still have an amendment on the table. Would anyone else like to express any opinions or ask any questions before we vote on it? I think we have sufficient information. Councilmember Herbo, would you like to make any closing comments on your proposal? Everyone ready to vote? Okay, so amendment number four, dealing with the. Parking Spaces issue is described by council member Herbold has been moved and seconded all those in favor of the amendment. Raise your hand and say i. I. I'm not gonna leave my sister hanging there. I'll get. Get on that one. Got to ice their accounts from O'Brien. All those in favor. Thank you. All those opposed say no, no, no. No. Okay. The. The amendment fails. Okay. So now we have an amended piece of legislation that had three amendments that did pass, and we're going to vote on that in a minute. I want to make sure that everyone has a chance to say anything they like to about the amended bass legislation. Guzman Pacheco. Sure. Again, I just want to express my gratitude to Councilmember O'Brien for co-sponsoring this legislation with me, Councilmember Herbold and Councilman Mosqueda, for as well for working with me on some of the amendments. You know, as I kind of heard a lot of public comment, both through this process in committee as well as here today and in the public hearing. Very often I heard about the desire to have the next council, the next council, the next council. And as many of us have heard, week after week, just you know what? Don't you know this this council should just wait for the next council. I am appreciative of the fact that we've all been working and continuing to do our jobs, but also mindful of just the urgent need of not just housing and environmental stewardship. And so that's why the value system by which we've acted upon today and I will be voting on today. From a personal experience, you know, I heard just that when I've heard stories of both the ADA legislation being being delayed for a lot and being delayed MHRA for those that have used that process, the CPO process to delay projects for affordable housing, those have very real consequences. And it's not until you have to look your mother in the eye and you have to struggle with her to help her find affordable housing. Do you realize that there's a price to be paid in those that have to pay or the closest to you? That's something that I kept in mind as I kind of went through this process and why we needed to reform it, because those affordable housing projects that are delayed have consequences. Those are consequences that are paid by by those that are most vulnerable in our community. And for me and it happens to be my parents. And so I thank my colleagues on this council for helping me with this through this process, as well as hopefully voting in support of this legislation in a few minutes. Thank you, Councilman Pacheco. Any other comments or questions? Councilmember Herbold, thank you. I just want to speak to some of the things that I've heard from members of the public. I am concerned that people who I believe are well-meaning and who do care about their community and their environment and are not folks who are weaponizing this type of process have significant concerns about this bill. I think, you know, these were characterized early on as common sense super reforms. I think it's when so many people, again, who I feel have really legitimate concerns. We have not been able to use this this process to assuage those concerns. I would suggest that they perhaps are not common sense concerns and that the dialog around this legislation would benefit from more more engagement with the public. That said, I have asked central staff to do sort of a deep dove. One of the things that I heard from a lot of folks is that CPR results in really positive outcomes for the city and the community. Some of those outcomes include better projects. It includes putting the city in a better position to defend its own projects if it goes through that separate review, first in central staff did a review of the 54 cases that were either amended or remanded over the last ten years. An example of one of those cases is this gala tower, which we hear about where the hearing examiner amended the CPA determination on light impacts on adjacent buildings and loading dock management. It appears that some of the the cases that were 25% of 54 cases that were reviewed that were amended or remanded to the hearing examiner. None of those those cases that were actually resulted in positive impacts through the appeal process would be exempted from appeal in this legislation. So that's that's the good news. I do remain concerned about the project action and non project actions that may not be appealable under this legislation. So over seven years of appeals, central staff analysis showed that two of a total of 32 project actions or development proposals appealed would not have been required to undertake CPR under this new legislation. But in both of those cases, the hearing examiner ruled in the city's favor as it related to CPA issues, not in the appellants favor. So though, in one of those cases, the appellants won their case on the basis of the land use code interpretation, not the city issues, not the CPA issues. So that was on the on the project actions on over seven years of appeals of the non project actions. Central staff analysis showed that four of a total of 22 nine project actions would subject would possibly be subject to a waiver of appeals under this law in one of those four cases. It could still be appealed to the Growth Management Hearings Board on other grounds. So I bring this as a little bit of context and texture on a review of the the last seven in one case, seven years and ten years in another case, to basically echo Councilmember Sawant's statement earlier that I think a lot of folks have on both sides have over promised what this legislation will require. I don't think it's going to so limit SIPA appeals as some people fear, and I don't think it's going to so eliminate CPA appeals as some other people are hoping. And so just a couple other issues I want to I want to comment on that. I've heard from members of the public. Many constituents have reached out to me concerned about the lack of ability to use CPA appeal for economic issues. It's important to remember that this legislation will still include economic issues in CPA review and analysis, but not allow for their appeal. This goes beyond what the state already requires. The state does not require the use of CPA review on economic issues. That is something that the City of Seattle has chosen to do, even though the state does not require it. And then lastly, some folks have been writing recently concerned that STC inappropriately and in conflict with. Eight law doesn't follow the code when it comes to the timeline of CEPA consideration. CCI publishes its environmental review in combination with its decision on the permits, and some people suggested that that is in conflict with the requirement of CCI to publish its environmental review on at the earliest possible moment. It's actually the city's practice means that a determination of non significance is published with the master use permit and that is a decision that relies on the design review boards final decision. And so the city legally must weigh into the design review board acts before publishing a determination of non-significant. So the concern that where were dragging out the the determination of significance in the analysis on the CFA process until the last possible moment. And that's why we're getting all these decisions in favor of appellants from the hearing examiner and that that is somehow in conflict with state law is actually not true because state law requires that those things be done together. So just trying to it would have been better if we had been able to use the process, I think to dispel a lot of the create a frequently asked questions document or something to dispel some of the myths about this legislation. So thank you for indulging in going through some of this stuff right now. Can we put an epic you together now? I think that would be a great thing to do. Yeah. Thank you. Councilor Herbold, any questions or comments? Customer Brian, any closing comments? Not for me. Okay. So with that, I'll just sort of say that. Thank you, Casper Herbold, for those comments. Those are and I want to thank Liz Whitson and central staff for for the viewing public. We sort of have a. Impartial agnostic researchers and analysts who just sort of look at the issues and the facts and they give us the facts on prior appeals. And that was very helpful. I take any appeal process very seriously, and even when we have seen, I guess you could call it weaponized or abused is a good word. The process abused anyone's right to appeal. I take very seriously, I guess, as an attorney and someone who's litigated matters against the city, I just take it very seriously. I'm convinced that these are reasonable changes and that we've looked at these from a variety of perspectives and and the amendments and all still make good sense to me. So I will be supporting it as well. Okay. Having said that, please call the roll on the passage of the amended bill. Pacheco. I so want. I make sure. Herbold i. Whereas. Mosquito I. O'Brien. My. President Herrell. Hi. Aid in favor and unopposed. Bill passes and share of Senate seats. Please read the next agenda item and I'll say a few words about it and then get to there. I'm going to sign off. Thank you. I'm okay. Thank you. Casper. Brian. Sure before the clerk reads the next agenda item as provided under RTW. 42.178555 will now consider the adoption of Resolution 31911 and the conclusion of the Council Member comments. We will hear from comments from the public who wish to speak on the resolution.