AN ORDINANCE relating to relocation assistance for economically displaced tenants; requiring the payment of economic displacement relocation assistance to households that are vacating a housing unit after receiving notice of a rent increase of ten percent or more or of less than ten percent where the cumulative effect for the household’s tenancy is ten percent or more; and adding a new Chapter 22.212 to the Seattle Municipal Code.
President Gonzalez. Yes. Eight in favor and unopposed. The motion carries and the appointments are confirmed. Will it work? Please read item 20 into the record report of the Finance and Housing Committee agenda item 20 Constable 1201 78 minutes 26 to 37, which adopted the 2021 budget, changing preparations to various departments and budget control levels all from various funds in the budget and listing of proviso all 54 of the City Council. The committee recommends the bill passed as amended. Thank you so much. I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Muscadet, who is the chair of the committee to provide the report. Thank you very much. Colleagues, this is the legislation that I mentioned this morning that I am so excited about. Council Bill 120178. Item number 20 on our agenda is the legislation that follows up on the priorities that many in the community had worked on for years and the priorities that you council had worked to prioritize in last year's budget and the budget cycle in 2019 as well. This legislation lifts the proviso excuse me, on the $30 million that we had set aside and put a proviso on for the Strategic Investment Fund, following through on the years long process and advocacy by community organizations that work to ensure that the city made good on its promise that when we sold the Mercer Mega BLOCK, that we maintained our commitment that $30 million would go to investments in historically and historically in communities, historically experiencing displacement and having lack of access to high opportunity neighborhoods. As a reminder that this legislation was fully established in 2019 when, in addition to allocating a portion of the Mercer mega sale to historic investments and housing, the City Council also passed a budget proviso to create a community driven strategic acquisition fund. This included an advisory board to make recommendations on how to spend the money to support equitable development projects in communities experiencing high rates of displacement and low access to opportunity as defined by the community themselves. Last year, we as a council worked to reinstate the $30 million fund when this funding was cut by the mayor's proposed 2021 budget and the 2021 final budget. We made sure that this funding was prioritized and the community celebrated. It is exciting to celebrate again today to see this proviso lift and the legislation today move forward. We will now be able to see the $30 million that had been requested by the community at a bare minimum get out the door to community driven anti displacement acquisitions, supporting investments for the creation of housing, child care, small business and community space. We've heard time and time again from community advocates that it is very important, if not one of the most important things that we can do to displaced, to combat displacement is to make sure that we are taking land off the open market and to make sure that the city does everything it can when we have under-utilised public property to hold it in our hands. Since the sale of the Mercer Mega BLOCK. We have changed our policies in the city to maintain public land in public hands and use it for promoting public good. But this sale had already been in the works prior to my arrival on council and the community. Organizations that knew that this transaction was already in place demanded that the community organizations be able to at least get $30 million in addition to the investments in affordable housing, to build assets that promote resiliency and support community vision. So this piece of legislation and this property has been through a long process, and I think we are in a much better position public policy wise to make sure that future properties like of the Mercer mega parcel are remain in public hands. And then today we're following through on that commitment and the vision of the community and the Community Advisory Board and the hard work of opacity, especially Juliet and Uber, who have presented to our community our committee meeting a handful of times and their intensive work that they did and their brave actions that they took to stand up to make sure that the project applications, the selection process, was really in alignment with what the community had been calling for. We know there are many, many worthy projects that have not been selected for this limited pool of funds. We are very much interested in continuing to work with members of the public council colleagues here to continue to leverage additional dollars coming in through the door, such as through the Jumpstart Progressive Revenue legislation that we passed last year to see which additional projects we can continue to move forward as we seek to fulfill the vision of those who had applied for these dollars in whole. Cause I want to thank you for your consideration today. I know many of you have been working on this for many years and to the community as well as the members that I mentioned at obesity. And I want to thank Erin House who has been working on this for a number of years as well for our work on this legislation in front of us today and hope to have your support. Thank you so much. Colleagues, are there any additional comments on the bill? Harry Nunn will a quick piece called the wall on the passage of the bill strauss. Yes. Herbold. Yes. Lewis. Yes. Morales. Let's get to Abby Peterson. Hi. So what? Yes. President Gonzalez I 18 in favor and unopposed passes and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Is there any further business to come before the Council? Here in non-college, this does conclude the items of business on today's agenda. Our next regularly scheduled city council meeting is on October 4th, 2021, at 2:00 PM. I hope that you all have a wonderful evening. We're adjourned. Thanks so much.