AN ORDINANCE relating to land use review decision and meeting procedures; temporarily modifying and suspending procedures in Titles 23 and 25 of the Seattle Municipal Code and amending Chapters 23.41, 23.49, 23.66, 23.79, 25.12, 25.16, 25.20, 25.21, 25.22, 25.24, and 25.30 of the Seattle Municipal Code, consistent with the Governor’s proclamations and the Mayor’s proclamation of civil emergency on March 3, 2020; declaring an emergency; and establishing an immediate effective date; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
I. Nine in favor. None opposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation? All right. Item one. Agenda item number one. Will the clerk please read the short title into the records? Agenda Item one Capital 1197629 relating to land use review decision and meeting procedures. Temporary Modifying and suspending procedures in Title 23 and 25 of the SKELMERSDALE Code. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I will move to pass Council Bill 119769. Is there a second floor? I guess it's been moved and seconded to pass the bill. Councilmember Strauss, you are the primary sponsor of this bill, so I am going to yield the floor to you to address council bill 119769. The floor is yours. Thank you. Council President. This emergency legislation addresses design review, historic preservation and permitting processes during the COVID 19 emergency. The intention of this is to allow critically needed housing projects, especially in affordable housing, to continue moving through the permitting process in a way that preserves public input and engagement and protects public health. Specifically, this legislation would allow projects to opt into administrative design review for six months, or until design review boards are able to meet virtually or in person. It would allow for the Pre-Application community outreach to be done virtually and explicitly provides ways to accomplish this. It would allow for minor design or way decisions related to historic landmarks or historic and special review districts to be made administratively while suspending meetings and the major, major decisions of the landmarks and special review boards. Because legislation is being enacted on an emergency basis, all provisions would lapse after 180 days, and we would be required to hold a public hearing within 60 days. We discussed many amendments this morning, and I've had many conversations with most not all of you. And there have been a few changes made since then which we can discuss as we move into amendments. Thank you all for the consideration of this legislation. And while I know that there are small changes needed to be made for some folks here and there, I really do stress the importance of passing this bill today. Again, I'll finally end with while I have staffed this. Body of work, permitting and design review and any land use work for over two years. At this point, the level of complexity and nuance is great. So much so that I have had to be re briefed on many sections of this bill. And so please, if you do have questions on nuance, do not hesitate to ask. And I do urge passage of this bill today. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss. So we have lots of amendments and lots of things that changed sort of at the last minute before we were reconvened. So I'm going to go ahead and call for any comments on the underlying bill. I know that Councilmember Strauss, I wanted to recognize that between the end of our council meeting and now you were able to do successfully work with some of the amendment sponsors to incorporate previously circulated amendments. Many of the amendments that we discussed during council briefing this morning into an updated substitute bill that is now being identified as the Strauss substitute version, to my understanding is that this version includes the following amendments Mosqueda Amendment one, Herbold and Strauss, Amendment six and Herbold Amendment three. There is additional language that was added to version two of this substitute, the stress substitute version two that has not been previously circulated. And I will need to request that you describe the language once you address the substitute. So because of this new language, we will need to move to suspend the council rules to allow the Council to consider version two of the substitute again, because it was circulated after the noon deadline. So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow consideration of the Strauss substitute version two. It was not previous that has not that was not previously circulated. Correct. So I moved to amend Council Bill. You can't move it. You can't move anything until I go through the process of seeing if there's any objection to even consider it. So I called for any objection to considering stress of supervision, to I'm not hearing or seeing any objection. So hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and we can proceed with consideration of version two of the Strauss substitute. So now, Councilmember Strauss, I will hand it over to you to move your substitute. Thank you. I move to amend council bill 119769 by substituting version two for version one A as presented on version two. Strauss Substitute recent recently distributed. There are second. Thank you. All right. It's been moved and seconded to substitute the bill. Councilmember Strauss, I will hand it over to you to address the substitute. Yes, thank you. Council President. This amendment makes several technical and clarifying changes to the legislation that were suggested by different councilmembers. I'd like to thank Councilmember Mosqueda Herbold and Morales, especially for their collaboration. In addition to the items discussed this morning, we were sent a new version of this substitute amendment to councilmembers, which adds in several of the non-controversial amendments discussed this morning. It now includes Councilmember Skaters Amendment One to the Joint Amendment six from Council Member Herbold and myself and Councilmember Herbold, Amendment three. Additionally, this substitute amendment adds new language from Councilmember Morales, a substitute which would remove the Administrative Decision Authority for the International Special Review District and adds language access requirements for any virtual meetings of any other body and adds language prioritizing projects that are important to the community. So it is my understanding, oh, in addition to these new additions that would allow Seattle Housing Authority to utilize design review, exemption for affordable housing, clarifying community outreach requirements, improving tree protections, allow for administrative approval, door and window replacements in historic and special review districts. Allow for administrative approval of Penthouse installations in Pioneer Square. Allow for administrative approval of certain certificates of approval and landmarks. Boards have granted preliminary approval and request S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate a rule protect to protect construction, workplace safety during the COVID 19 pandemic. It finally requests reporting in 60 days on the progress towards implementing virtual meetings. I would like to thank all of my colleagues again who contributed to the development of this amendment. Hand it off to anyone else. And I would like to clarify with Councilmember Morales that this. Language does, in fact, include the ability for the special international special review district to elect to allow for any projects that they deem that they want to put forward to administrative review that they would be able to. I know there were a lot of last minute discussions, and I just want to double check that this meets your the criteria in which you've requested. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for that description of the substitute. So again, that the substitute as described by Councilmember Strauss includes at the Met the following amendments that we discussed at the council briefing. One, if it includes mosquito amendment one listed on the attachment to the agenda, it also includes the Herbold and Strauss Amendment six and the Herbold Amendment. Three. There is again some additional language in there as described by Councilmember Strauss. So that is the version of the bill that is before us for consideration. I'm going to go ahead and call now for any additional comments or questions on the substitute version of the bill. I raise a hands. Okay. So I. Councilmember Peterson first and then Councilmember Morales. Peterson, the floor is yours. Thank you. Council president, just to clarify on the process, what we're about to vote on is simply just swapping out the bill. With the new substitute, not actually voting on the substitute itself. Correct. That is correct. So at this point, we are actually. Mean. Let me go back to that. So we are or we are considering the substitute version. And so what we are considering now is, is to just the procedural act of of substituting the bill. So we will get to a point where we can talk about the substance of the bill. But right now, we're just talking about the substitution before us. Thank you. Yeah. Because we're moralist. That was my question is. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions about the substitution? A hearing nun. Will the clerk please call the roll on the. Yes. Well, the clerk please call the roll on the on the adoption of version two of the Strauss substitute. Macheda I. Peterson, I. So what I. Proust, I. Purple. I. Whereas I. There is. I. Morales. I. President Gonzalez. I. Nine in favor. None oppose the motion carries and the substitute is adopted and version two of the bill is now before the City Council. So again, I'm going to open it back up to comments on version two of the bill that is before us. And before I do that, I just want to make sure customers just don't have anything else to add to this version. Correct. I'm seeing you nod your head. That is correct at this time. All right. So we'll go ahead. And I know that this is where we want to consider several amendments. And I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Herbold, who is going to move her amendment first. Thank you. I move to amend council Bill 11 9769 as presented on the Herbold Amendment one on the agenda. Is there a second? So thank you. It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill. Councilmember Herbold, please feel free to address the amendment. Thank you. So Amendment one would delete the proposed provision that would exempt affordable housing projects from meeting certain requirements from design review, specifically in this case, the requirements associated with this administrative design review. Affordable housing projects are currently subject to administrative design review, which do not require in-person meetings. Everything else in this bill before us today serves to restore public process to certain projects via virtual meetings as necessary during this COVID 19 crisis when we cannot meet in person. If this amendment fails by merit of exempting affordable housing projects from administrative review, affordable housing projects will not benefit from these future virtual meetings that we're working to stand up. Yesterday, Director Tory Wilson confirmed for me that affordable housing projects, as a matter of business practice at GCI, are currently prioritized in the administrative design review process and throughout the entire permitting process. Director Tom Wilson also confirmed that the need for affordable housing projects referenced in his Memo to the City Council, one located in Lake City, one in Bitter Lake, one in Columbia City and one in Rainier Beach. These projects not only have priority in the administrative design review process, but all of them will be able to complete the early community engagement and outreach process. I am hearing from folks that even though the administrative design review process for affordable housing was legislated by the council very recently, it only went into effect in July of 28. I am hearing that people really feel that we need to reform that process for affordable housing, and I would support working on that effort. But it's really concerning to me that the Council would take up a provision in this bill during this public health crisis. And that is really a policy conversation that the Council should be having with broader community participation. The state attorney general has issued guidance on the Open Public Meetings Act, and that guidance states that legislation that we consider must be either necessary and routine or necessary to respond to the COVID 19 outbreak and current public health emergency. Just a little bit more background on that. This guidance from the state attorney general came after the March 24th governor's proclamation proclamation 2028. That proclamation says, subject to the conditions for conducting any meeting as required above, agencies are further prohibited from taking action as defined in RTW 42.3 0.02. Unless those matters are necessary and routine matters or matters necessary to respond to the COVID 19 outbreak and the current public health emergency until such time as regular public participation over under the Open Public Meetings Act is possible. The March 26 Attorney General guidance went on to say that put another way, in this unusual and urgent time when members of the public may not be attending agency meetings as they normally would. We need to ask whether or not agencies could hold on some matters until life returns to normal. They go on to say, Since March six, state and local agencies have placed more restrictions on the public's movements and activities as the means to help stem the spread of the virus. Consistent with the general approach in the March six. Guidance, asking agencies to focus where possible, and holding meetings only on those matters that must be considered. Under the proclamation, agencies must now specifically ask two questions on those matters where they want to take actions. They are whether or not the matter is necessary and routine or necessary to respond to the COVID 19 outbreak and current public health emergency. If the matter does not meet those criteria, then the matter must wait. The the guidance from the state attorney general even go so far as to define action as hearing briefings or reports in committee, not just taking legislative action. And so, again, that's really for me. Makes our decision today as it relates to this particular section of the bill, really something to be taken very seriously at a time when we are pleading with the members of of the public to take the the the proclamations from from the governor seriously. I feel that we have to really model that behavior as well. The language in our own ordinance as it relates to the findings for the need to to act on the section of of the ordinance basically says that the ordinance provides an exemption from design review for certain affordable housing projects. If they can file a permit application in the next six months, potentially long beyond the restriction of meeting in public. The Office of Housing is funding a number of affordable housing projects and will serve populations particularly impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic, including seniors and people at risk or of existing homelessness, and that are far into the permitting process. These projects are currently subject to administrative design review, which allows certain departures to be granted. Exempting these projects from design review and allowing departures to be granted outside of the design review process will shorten the time required for these projects to complete the permitting process, advancing the date by which they could be constructed. All good things. But nevertheless, the focus of this part of the bill is related to recovery, not addressing the public health challenge posed by in-person meeting requirements. On the role of boards and commissions in development decisions and the affordable housing built that might be exempt from design. Administrative Design Review wouldn't come online to house people impacted by COVID 19 for a year at best. So exempting affordable housing from administrative design review will not house people who need housing now. One testifiers correctly said that the COVID 19 emergency did not create the affordable housing crisis. This particular exemption in the legislation will could help those people later after the COVID 19 crisis has has passed. But the affordable housing crisis will still be with us. And I am committed to working with housing providers on administrative design review reform when we can do that in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Herbold. Is there anyone else who would like to give comment? A council member must give. The floor is yours. Thank you very much, council member Gonzalez. And I appreciate your stewardship of this conversation remotely and the public testimony that you made possible today. I also want to thank the sponsor of the legislation for all of your hard work to include a number of amendments, including the two that we talked about this morning, and the amendments from Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Morales. Five very much support. So I appreciate your tough work on that. Colleagues, I do want to speak to the amendment that comes from a just spoke about which would remove the provision exempting affordable housing project from design review. Unfortunately, as Councilmember Purple knows, I mean no on this amendment. I'll be voting no because I disagree with the premise that affordable housing is not part of our emergency response to COVID. I want to draw your attention to two articles that we received as submitted as public comment today, if I might, Madam President. Yes. Yes, you may. Thank you very much. One is from an email that we received from the air from Michael Davis this morning at 1150. He says we're in a critical time regarding affordable housing in the city of Seattle, a crisis only exacerbated by COVID. This bill, by including affordable housing in will help stave off critical time in the process and aid in facilitating the production of more units and more quickly. The housing crisis here in Seattle, in the metro region across the nation is bound to become considerably worse. Must be to emerge from the pandemic with countless numbers of renters, homeowners already in a precarious financial situation. At the federal level, we've seen a lack of leadership. Even historic legislation passed by the federal government fails to adequately address most those that adequately address those directly affected, including those who are housing insecure, elderly people, people with immune compromised systems, people of color, and those who have been disproportionately affected by the disease and its economic impacts. It is precisely because of this, he writes. That is why we are so critically. It is so critically important that we see action at the local level to address these challenges and that those measures be sufficient in duration to actually have an impact. These measures need to be six months and include affordable housing. Christopher Peterson from CEO of Capital Housing wrote this morning, As I know you are all aware, our projects were determined by the governor to be exempt from restrictions under his stay home, stay healthy proclamation because our projects are deemed essential for many affordable housing projects. The league is, and their timing could render them infeasible or at best delay them for months, thereby eliminating or delaying our vital affordable housing efforts for the people impacted by COVID and particularly the homeless. Our project, in partnership with Youth Care will house very low income people, including formerly homeless youth. Without this fix, the project could be delayed for a year. We know that another affordable housing developers are facing serious delays without this legislation, so the impact goes well beyond this project. It is not an attempt to conclude this is not an attempt to sidestep design, review or landmarking, and is only an attempt to move housing forward in a crisis. And although it may not seem like it meets the definition of an emergency, I can assure you for those who are homeless and those seeking affordable housing, it is an emergency. So, colleagues, I would propose, as I talked about this morning, that it is precisely because of the length of time that it takes to build affordable housing, that this is exactly why we need to include affordable housing in this ordinance being considered today under the umbrella of COVID being a crisis that is directly affecting whether or not people can have access to healthy, secure housing. We cannot change how long it takes to actually build and create these affordable housing projects. But we can change the city's role and the timeline it takes to allow for affordable housing to move forward. Just because a project takes a year to actually build doesn't mean we should not act now. In fact, I think COVID 19 underscores why it's so important for us to figure out a way to expedite some of these provisions. I appreciate that Director Torkelson was reached out to, and I know that the Office of Housing was briefed as well. But the comment that affordable housing is always expedited doesn't recognize that the office has created an Office of Policy and Innovation that was going to set up a process where affordable housing projects are actually stewarded through the process. We know right now it takes far too long for affordable housing to get through, and we wouldn't have been setting up this office to steward affordable housing projects if they weren't being prioritized. More affordable housing is critical for creating the ability for people to socially distance. You cannot social distance in overcrowded shelters or in supportive housing that is at capacity. We cannot move people out of shelters and into housing without building the affordable housing. The order from the governor is to stay home in order to stay healthy. We need people to have homes. It is necessary to respond to the COVID outbreak and the current public health crisis. By definition, housing. And it's a necessity for responding to this public health crisis. So I will conclude by just saying I understand the importance for us to make sure that the public has every possibility to engage in the process, even as we're expediting and leaning heavily on staff to in this moment of emergency, move as many projects forward as possible. But we knew we were an affordable housing crisis before this. The fact that we have COVID linking over our community means that it is essential that we construct and move forward with affordable housing wherever possible in keeping our our workers healthy, but in recognition that affordable housing is a way for us to address the crisis of COVID and the public health concerns. I don't think it's accurate for us to say that in a year from now when. In a year from now when the housing would be moving through the process, that we're going to somehow be out of this crisis, we just don't know that the the best case scenarios for a vaccine is 12 to 18 months. We don't know that in a year or in 12 months, we won't even be able to see our way out of here. So I do think that building housing, expediting the process, ensuring the community has, as has a venue, as this audience has articulated, to engage in the process and make sure that we are providing the necessary oversight and input, but that we are building housing now is exactly what we need to be doing in order to make sure people can stay home, can stay healthy, have a home to go to, can move out of overcrowded shelters. And in an effort to be proactive about what is on the horizon. I would encourage our colleagues to keep the affordable housing provision in. Unfortunately, I'm a no on this amendment. Thank you. I have three people in the queue now. Council member so followed by Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Lewis. Councilmember thought the floor is yours. Thank you. President Gonzalez. The COVID 19 crisis goes far beyond the tragic medical impacts of the coronavirus itself. As Councilmember Mosquito is saying, it's also causing a recession that is rapidly developing into a depression. The need for a public jobs program and affordable housing after the medical crisis is abated and there is a lot of uncertainty on when the medical crisis can be abated. So therefore, jobs and affordable housing have to be an important consideration in addressing this emergency. And I do not believe that they can be separated. And we have to do absolutely everything in our power to build social housing and create jobs through that. I've heard members of the community expressing the concern that affordable housing will become low quality housing if it's exempted from the design review. However, I'm not convinced by that argument because the things that determine the quality of affordable housing, such as the apartment size, appliances, bedrooms, you know, factors like that are generally not are generally driven by funding, not by design review. So while I understand the sentiment behind this and sympathize with it, I will be voting no on this amendment. Thank you, Councilmember. Silent. Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Lewis. Well, thank you, council president and to Councilmember Herbold points, we had a long, robust discussion about this this morning. And I will summarize, which is just to say, since affordable housing projects are already able to move through administrative design review, this legislation simply allows them a bypass for six months. Much like the work that we allowed for volunteer design review boards to be moved to administrative design. There is limited staff time in this tranche, which means that we need to alleviate that pressure. So I believe that allowing for affordable housing within this bill is regarding the operationalization of this bill and not outside of our abilities and our parameters under the Governor's orders. I will say that I will I agree with everything that Councilmember Mosqueda said. And with that, I will be supporting Councilmember Gold's bill amendment simply for the fact that I would prefer to see this entire bill passed today than to see it fail. So, again, to reiterate, thank you. I'm going to support this this motion. And I still believe that this, including affordable housing, remains within the spirit of the legislation and under the governor's orders. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss. Councilmember Lewis, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam President. So I'm going to be voting in favor of this amendment today, I would say, in response to councilmember mosquitoes points, which as a matter of policy, I very strongly agree with. I don't know that this particular legislation. Reflects some of the concerns I think it would if affordable housing was on the same footing as other similarly situated development that is subject to review board process like all the other development that we are going to put into the administrative review. I don't think that since the affordable housing is already subject to administrative review, that we're effectively putting it on the shelf or prioritizing it as a city or prioritizing it as a department. If we were in a position where the development of affordable housing was not able to proceed because it required in-person meetings, I think a lot of the concerns that Councilmember Muscat articulated would be a reality. But since it is subject to administrative review and it is the highest priority of ECI, I am not in a place where I think it's warranted to move forward with this particular portion of the bill, which is why I support councilmember proposed amendment. I think that it would be something that we should consider as a council subject to a process. And Councilmember Strauss's Land Use Committee, I think it makes sense as an incentive to figure out if we can exempt affordable housing projects entirely from the design review process from where they currently are in administrative review to the. To the representations of the gist of the department as to how this could be connected to the emergency response. And that's essentially the the process that Councilor Strauss just articulated, where because of the switch that we're going to make of going from the board process over to the administrative review process for other projects, which is going to result in a potential bottleneck there and require us to make further exceptions for affordable housing, which is already an administrative review. My hope is that that point is going to be largely merged in the case that we do transition over to the virtual board meetings, which all of us should be hoping that we are doing in short order rather than a long order. I don't want us to go forward with the assumption that what we are passing right now is an ordinance where we are expecting the entire six months to be taken up by this process where the review boards are going to be completely sidestepped. So. In that case, if the review boards can resume their work, that takes care of the bottleneck that will be created by the expansion of the administrative review. At that level, that's an incentive for SDI to develop an ability to conduct the virtual meetings faster, which I think is something that this substitute, the council member Straus puts forward, makes us a priority. All of us want to see the virtual board stood up as quickly as possible so that we can retain that due process while at the same time not limiting essential projects that we know if we do not take some kind of action, are going to languish and are not going to be able to be completed. So I think it is fully appropriate that in the interim of setting up the virtual process, there needs to be some kind of administrative stopgap, which is what this bill does. And on the whole, I'm very supportive of that process. This particular process where the affordable housing has moved completely out of any kind of design review, feels to me to not be connected to the exigent issue trying to solve as a council. I think that it is a valuable and good piece of policy that we should be exploring, but I don't know that this is the proper forum for it. So with that, I'm going to vote for Councilmember Herbert's amendment, and I would urge my colleagues to do the same. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for those comments. Are there any other questions or comments on Councilmember Herbold Amendment one. Okay. I'm not seeing or hearing any additional comments on the Herbold Amendment one, so we can go ahead and move through the process of voting on this particular amendment. I would say that in in in voting on this issue, I think it's important that the public hear that that that this council is committed to expediting the construction of affordable housing projects. I appreciate and understand the concern that has been expressed by the proponent of Amendment one, Councilmember Herbold, who has has very carefully gone through the process of explaining her rationale as it relates to that particular amendment. I do think that when we are talking about housing infrastructure, it's important for us to acknowledge in the context of this emergency response that really what we are called upon to do is to, in this emergency response, deal with the realities of how COVID 19 and the governor's proclamation order impacts the way we do business and the way we can do business. And so for me, I see this bill as a whole, as a shift in how we operate as the work we're doing is isolated by the realities of the public health emergency. And when we're talking about this in the space of land use, we know that land use is one of those areas where public comment and public testimony and public engagement is a corner store stone of the way we do the work as it relates to land use and as a result of that. This bill I see as as a response to the realities to our new reality of not being able to engage in that work the way that we would ordinarily. So I absolutely suppose support the policy and at this juncture can't support this particular amendment. But I'm looking forward to seeing to see how we can continue the conversation if this amendment does pass. I do hope that we can come together and have a robust policy conversation that frankly, potentially goes and goes even further than this to make sure that we are truly expediting the process of construction and development of affordable housing in the recovery phase of COVID 19. So with that being said, Councilmember Herbal, do you want to have any last words on your amendment? Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I just want excuse me. I do want to clarify that I do believe that affordable housing is part of a COVID 19 response, but for purposes of adherence to the act that would be restricted to the affordable housing units that we can open up now while we're in this crisis, not units that we open up later that are very, very needed in our affordable housing crisis. That is part of recovery not as required by the state attorney general's guidance and the governor's proclamation as it relates. So I just there was a statement that attributed to me that I did not believe that affordable housing was was part of a COVID 19 emergency response. I do believe that. But that would be for units of housing that we are opening up now. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate you. And again, stating your clear position in terms of wanting to be consistent with the governor's order and proclamation. I think, frankly, I have gone back and forth in my own mind on this particular issue. I think that it reasonable minds can disagree and differ in terms of the conclusion in this particular space. So I do appreciate the opportunity to have a really respectful conversation into into sort of put out on the table in a very public, transparent way that the different ways that folks can think about the same issue and come out with a slightly different outcome. But again, regardless of how the vote comes down on this particular amendment that is related to how we review affordable housing projects, I want to make sure that the public hears clearly that this city council is united in the ultimate effort and desire to quickly construct affordable housing that will last in our communities for years to come, and that will be easily accessible to those who need it the most, whether it's now or in in the in the coming in the few coming years which will be difficult for us in this economic recovery as a result of this of this crisis. So with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and move this along so we can go ahead and take a vote on this one. So will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Herbold Amendment one get macheda. No. Peterson. I. So what? No. Strauss. I. Her bold. Lawrence. No. Lewis, I. Morales. No. President Gonzalez. No. Four in favor, five opposed. Okay. The motion fails and the amendment is not adopted. Are there any other comments on the bill as amended? Council president. Matthew, few words quickly. Yes, you may remember, whereas you were recognized. Thank you. First of all, thank you, everybody, for all the hard work you've done and how we went through this vote. And in particular, thank you to Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember Solent. I do appreciate what my other colleagues said, but I just want to share that your words really spoke to that. We are in. Unique times and we have to do extraordinary things. And if there's ever a time for us to move things forward, this would be the time. I know it was an easy vote on a54, but I want to appreciate everybody's hard work. And so I just wanted to end it on that note because again, as County Council president shared, we may have some differences on some of these inclusive issues, but the overall general picture under the governor's proclamation and what we're trying to do through Zoom and all these other technical it has caused us to try to do our jobs in different ways, but still moving our city forward and addressing affordable housing. So with that, thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Juarez, for for those words. Okay. We're going to. Are there any other comments on the list? Yes. Councilmember Peterson, the floor is yours. Thank you. Council president. So just so I'm clear, there are no more amendments at this point. Is that correct? I believe there are no additional amendments to come before the council unless Councilmember Herbold, did I forget one of yours? I did have an amendment, too, but I am I'm withdrawing it at this time because of other items that were included in the substitute. And also just don't don't need to at this point, based on the vote that just occurred for my purposes to to bring forward amendment to. Great. And your amendment, Councilmember Amendment three, is already incorporated in the substitute. And my understanding is that Councilmember Morales will not be advancing her substitute. Is that correct? Councilmember Morales. That's right. Okay. So all amendments have been considered and and any and all of the remaining issues that were pending as of our council briefing this morning, were rolled into one single substitute bill, which we are now considering. So we have a substitute bill and it is ready for discussion and and vote. So you are now officially having a conversation about that. That bill. So, Councilmember Peterson, why don't you go ahead and provide us with your comments and then I see cause we're a mosquito has her hand up and we'll we'll hear from her after we hear from you and then Councilmember Alice as well. Thank you. I'm really grateful to Council President Gonzales and the land use chair Dan Strauss for providing more time for the public to consider this complex land use legislation from the Durkan Administration. I also want to thank my other council colleagues for digging into this and offering amendments to try to make the legislation better. And thanks to our central staff analysts for rapidly organizing those amendments over the past couple of weeks, our office heard from both supporters and opponents of this legislation. The supporters of the legislation seem to be mainly from the real estate real estate development industry. And I want to state for the record my concerns with the legislation. So. The bill is presented as an emergency and based on my experience, managing analysts in the field of commercial real estate and in that working with investors, I do find it hard to believe that that project's that we cannot solve the technological challenge that we have here for design review in our highly advanced tech city. I feel that I'm concerned that. When there isn't an opportunity for the public to weigh in, that the quality of the housing can go down, there can be even we heard concerns from some constituents about economic displacement. And so I think that's that's very serious. And I want to put that concern out on the table. It was mentioned before low income tenants deserve the benefits of design review, including administrative design review. And so I think that. Again, quality of the. Housing sometimes suffers when there's not that public input and the public input has been watered down over the past few years, I think that's important context to have here. And ultimately, you know, there have been amendments to substitutes, but no matter how many times you try to amend this bill, we're stuck with the official title of the legislation, which literally declares an emergency. I think Councilmember Herbold really laid it out well in terms of our concern about the governor's proclamation and the Washington state attorney general's interpretation that there is some additional nuance here. We're also invoking the emergency under the city charter. City Charter title for Section one, which states when an emergency exists in which it is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety that an ordinance shall become effective without delay. So this ordinance is invoking that. And I'm. Concerned about that, asserting that there's an emergency, an emergency need to essentially water down the process of public input for real estate development. I have discussed our city is a world leader in technology. I, i again, i think others may find it hard to believe that we don't have the technological means to fix this. I'm concerned that will not survive legal scrutiny or challenge in the courts. And ironically, a legal challenge could result in the opposite on this bill because any legal challenge would create even longer delays. So I just want to put these concerns out on the table and we'll. Be voting no on. This legislation. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for those comments. Councilmember Mosqueda. And then we will hear from Councilmember Lewis. Thank you, Madam President. And I want to thank Councilmember Herbold. I think that the legislation that has now been amended with your amendment number three in the underlying bill, if I have the numbers correct, was a strong addition to the legislation . And I want to thank the sponsor, Councilmember Strauss, for all of your work with Councilmember Herbold. Councilmember Morales and myself and I know a number of others have been trying to work to the extent possible role of various amendments into the provision there. So I want to really underscore my appreciation for all of our colleagues and specifically to the good member from District one. I definitely did not mean to impugn any motives. I know that you know that housing is a health care issue. I think, as Council President Gonzales said eloquently, perhaps different reasonable minds can differ on what the definition of now might be given the length of the COVID crisis. So I appreciate your clarification on that. I definitely want to underscore how strong of a housing advocate you have been, especially around housing for those who are low income and unsheltered. You have been a true leader and appreciate your heroic effort over the years to make sure that housing is created and temporary housing is built as well. So I thank you for that clarification. And lastly, I just think that the legislation in front of us with the leadership of Councilmember Strauss has put forward some provisions to make sure that we not only are able to ensure that projects move forward, but they are able to, to the extent possible, build in that engagement strategy in a robust way and as soon as possible, make sure that we are getting that that public feedback online. As Councilmember Peterson noted, we have technology in our backyard. I know that it will be a quick process with our departments to make sure that we are creating a full engagement process as we go forward. Last thing you would be to the Building Construction Trades Council. In our last two weeks of Tuesday updates, we sent around both the Washington State Building Trades and the King County and Seattle building trades. COVID 19 Safety Guidelines for construction on the Work Place. Well, we have deemed a number of workers, essential workers. It is essential that we keep their health protected. And we want to make sure that any building that goes forward in this era not only maintain these guidance guidelines, in fact, as permitting is approved, but that we are quick to shut down any construction site that does not meet those guidelines. And it is imperative that we continue to push out the message and the contract numbers for anybody who feels that their worksite is not in compliance with public health requirements. And with that, I just want to say how much I appreciate all of your feedback on that. And I come from a humble I just wanna make sure I clarified my point as well. Thank you. All right. Next up is, I think, Councilmember Lewis. Thank you so much, Madam President. So, you know, I will be voting for this legislation today. I think it's important to note a couple of things about it in advance of voting for it. And I just wanted to flag those things now for my colleagues and for the public. And the first really critical component of this is once the virtual meeting system is stood up, which, as has insisted that they're working on, to be able to do the design review process remotely under the terms of the substitute bill, that's going to revert everything back to a fairly familiar design review system, albeit one that's going to be done remotely and through a remote meeting. And I'm just imploring Stsci here in my final remarks to please work to stand up that process with urgency, even though under this bill there is a there's six months to do it, even though under this bill where there's going to be certain urgently needed exemptions to make sure that a pipeline that would pipeline jam up a project that would do irreparable damage to our economy and our recovery to make sure that that build up does not occur. It's essential that we have this streamlining of the process temporarily, that it has to be temporary. And there's frankly, I'm not convinced of the excuses that are given from Stsci on why it's going to take an exuberant amount of time to stand up this remote meeting process. I understand that it could take up to 30 to 45 days to do it. That is complicated that we as a council took two months to develop the process to get public comment in our meetings. It wasn't until today that we were able to accept them, but we did it and we did it within 60 days. There is no reason why, as a council member who's had a town hall where there was interactivity with members of the public as a council that's been meeting on the Zoom platform for several weeks, that it's going to need to take an exuberant amount of time to set up the design review process. I'm frankly not convinced that, for example, the training needs of the department that were flagged are insurmountable or not surmountable in the short term. So I'm just I just want to say, for the members of the public, the underlying protections of the design review process are going to back once we have the ability to conduct these design review meetings remotely. I know that Council Member Strauss and all of us on the Council are going to be pushing to make sure the department does promulgate those meetings. And frankly, you know, I feel like based on the predictions that have been made not only by some of the people that commented publicly today, but people from the department on the irreparable harm that could happen to our economy, that this is essential legislation that needs to be passed. You know, I wish the attempts to amend it had gone better, but I feel like where we are now, it has to go forward and the department should take the cue that sooner rather than later is better to set up the original process. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for those remarks. Are there any other comments from my colleagues? Councilmember Morales. I think you're on mute still. Thank you. Got it. Thank you, everyone. I know that this has been a lot of work for everybody, including central staff who once again spent the weekend trying to answer all of our questions and help us get to a place where we could move forward. I want to make sure that as the representative from District two, it's really clear to my colleagues that I believe we should not be pushing projects through without the community process, especially in the Sydney and the South End, where the possibility for disaster gentrification is especially high. I do admire that city bill and asked central staff to draft an amendment that would remove the Isrg, the international district, a special review district and preserve the status quo during the crisis. It would allow the community to retain the ability to expedite certain projects that they prioritize for administrative review. And I did ask Councilmember Strauss to incorporate that into his language. I do want my colleagues to be aware of what this bill will and won't do for affordable housing and major projects in historic districts. You know, the memos that we've seen in none of the memos that we've seen related to this bill is a real explanation about the fact that to get approval in product and design processes are what the bill addressed this. We need to be clear that the decisions related to certificates of approval outside the limited authority given to do in the proceeding. This includes some certificates of approval for affordable housing and for major projects. Two thirds of the bill addresses a perceived administrative backlog, but we're still not achieving our goal of moving forward affordable housing projects that haven't received that designation, the certificate of Approval and Submission. I also want to say we all just received an email from the Department of Neighborhoods that highlights why this is so concerning to me and why I really see this bill as a vehicle for promoting downtown development. There are eight new construction projects in the city. One of those projects is for affordable housing. The rest are for market rate housing, condos and hotel projects. Council colleagues, I want you to understand that neighbors in the city are worried about a very real existential threat to the historic nature of the community and for what it means for the preservation of their culture and their community . Neighbors there don't want a dignified version of the city where hotels and chains move and look easily. They want to preserve the ability of the low income Asian families who have neck, who have only ever known life in the city to stay in their neighborhood. I realize that some consider my previous proposal as drastic amendments, and I disagree. What is drastic is a proposal to exclude community from processes that affect their neighborhoods. The department argued that shifting decision making to them is necessary to handle a backlog of projects and that these are only minor benign decisions. But that is in the eye of the beholder. You know, the addition or removal of park benches, for example, might seem benign to some. It might seem like an insignificant decision. But these projects that allow elders to age in place and to do that well requires input from community elders. They're the ones who should be making decisions about whether a park bench is inappropriate, is in the right place or not. The people of District two, especially in the city, believe that these boards and committees were intended to give community input to the decision how their neighborhoods function, and this proposal excludes them from giving that input. To presume that everyone has easy access to technology or to the language skills needed to follow these processes in English is to demonstrate a poor understanding of our racial equity ethos. So I am glad that the amendment is included in this language. I still believe firmly that this should have been two separate bills that it conflicts the issue of participation with the issue of affordable housing. While I'm very supportive of affordable housing and know that that is not going to be problematic in this process, I do believe that we need to be very clear that protecting the ability of our community members to participate in this process is as important. Thank you, Councilman Morales, for those remarks. And is there anyone else who hasn't yet spoken who wanted to provide comment? And I'm going to give Councilmember Strauss the last word on the bills on the on the substitute version of the bill. But I did want to check in with Councilmember Wise who's on the phone and whose face I can't actually see. So I don't know if she's raising her hand or not. But Councilmember Suarez, do you have any comments on that, on the bill? No, I don't. And thank you and thank you for checking in on me because you know how I feel about Zoom. Yeah, I do. I do regret about you. I can't. I handle your facial expressions while we're meeting. Thank you, President. I'm good. Okay, good. Thank you so much. Just wanted to make sure I didn't. I didn't skip you. So it looks like we don't have any other folks who are wanting to speak on the underlying bill and Kilmer. Stross Before I hand it over to you for the last word, I just wanted to to also express my gratitude to you and to our council central staff for doing a lot of tremendous work on these bills over the last several weeks. I think for some council members who just started to engage in the last couple of weeks, it's important to recognize that council central staff has been working on these bills for for a little bit longer than that, trying to work through many of the issues. I do appreciate the difficulty of having to tackle a complex land use issue remotely. When we're not all co-located, it makes it a little bit more difficult. And and when we are left with the only viable venue to have a robust discussion on this being council briefing, it makes it a little a little difficult. But I appreciate your patience and you're willing to engage in the ongoing conversation here. I do intend to support the underlying bill as amended and represented in the substitute bill. I want to thank all the amendment sponsors, including Councilmember Rebel, who again, I have a deep amount of respect and affection for you, Councilmember Herbold, not only as my colleague, but as my district representative and and really do appreciate your your stalwart commitment to making sure that we are maintaining consistency as it relates to your reading of the proclamation and how this bill fits in or doesn't quite fit into that that rubric. I think that that was a very reasonable conversation for us to have, and I really appreciated you bringing it forward so that we can have that conversation. And, you know, when Councilmember Morales speaks about the needs of District two, it's a it's a very powerful reminder that communities of color, communities who have limited English proficiency have been historically and continue to be excluded from many of the systems that we have in place that are represented by government and certainly by our land use codes. And I think it's important for us to recognize that, that when we talk about the recognition of history and the cementing of history in our city, we oftentimes don't see the history of people of color and immigrants and refugees acknowledged or captured throughout our city, Chinatown International District. And Little Saigon is an exception to that. It is a a a amazing representation of the rich history and cultural contributions that that community has historically made and had right here in our own city. And and I deeply respect the perspective that Councilmember Morales is lifting up when she talks about racial equity and as it relates to this particular issue and frankly, many, many more so. But with that being said, I do think it's important for us to acknowledge the operational difficulties in this particular period of time. And I do believe that they are temporary in nature and have the same expectations as Councilmember Lewis that the department and agencies will act swiftly to implement the processes needed in order to to address the public comment and input participation piece of the work that that that belongs to them. So with that being said, I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Strauss, who's going to take us home, and then we'll go ahead and take a vote on this bill. Thank you. Council President. Overall, I want to thank all of my colleagues here. Councilmember Herbold loyalists, council President Gonzalez, Mr. Peterson, Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Serrano looking at Councilmember Suarez, even though I don't see your your face and of course, Councilmember Morales, I want to highlight the importance of making sure that we do not have to pass new decisions without public input. We are responding to an emergency. Virtual meetings can be very difficult. They can be very difficult, especially when you are engaging in deep policy analysis of complex issues. For instance, today, just getting back. On to council for council this afternoon. I was kicked off three times and I'm not even sure that my zoom is working correctly. So I'm in. And here we are two months into this. And so, you know, again, everything the council president said in council member Lewis is you sum this up very well. This is intended to be a temporary procedure of moving. Decision making to departments. We hope that virtual meetings will be up and running as fast as possible. Councilmember Herbold, I know that you are dedicated for affordable housing, to creating affordable housing, and I appreciate all the questions that you you raised in this process. Overall, I really want to thank council central staff. Cheadle wish Ali for being on phone calls with me over the weekend, late into the evenings, all last week. I want to also thank Noah in my office being council president's office. Aaron House. Aldridge Again. Councilmember Mosquito Council. President Gonzales. Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Morales for making this a more robust bill. It is our intent that these practices, the virtual meetings, will be up and running as soon as possible. And I thank you all for your coordination on a very complex subject matter over over Zoom. And I think that that is telling as to the complexity of setting up these virtual meetings that have very complex subject matters. So thank you all for your time. And I urge your support of this bill. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss. I really appreciate those those words. I just want to check in. Speaking of Zoom and technological difficulties, I just want to check in to see if Councilmember Morales is still with us. She is. Yeah, I. I kicked off two in the last 5 minutes, so. Oh, okay. I'm back. Okay. It looks like we've got everybody else still. So before you get kicked off, let's let's let's call this once you call this one to a vote. Okay, so will the clerk please call the role on the passage of the bill as amended? Mosquito I. PETERSON No. So what I. Strauss. I heard both. Okay. Excuse me. No, thank you. Juarez. Hi. Lewis. I. Morales. No. President Gonzalez. I. Six in favor, three opposed. So, colleagues, this is emergency legislation which requires seven votes in the affirmative. We only have six votes in the affirmative. So the motion the motion fails and the bill, as amended, does not pass. For a lack of having the seven required votes. So we have a couple of options. We can let sleeping dogs lie, or we can resurrect a motion for reconsideration that would allow us to find an alternative way to move forward. I will say that on a motion for reconsideration, only the prevailing party is allowed to make a motion for reconsideration, and in this case, the prevailing party are one of the no votes. Councilmember Herbold, you are recognized. Thank you so much. I move for reconsideration of the bill before us, including Amendment One, and into a friendly amendment to that to include other sections of the bill. Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded to reconsider Council Bill 119. Excuse me. I'm just off the bill. Number seven, six, nine. So, colleagues, we're going to just take a vote on the motion to reconsider. So we're not considering any amendments at this point. We have heard a intent statement from Councilmember Herbold, who is part of the prevailing party, because she intends to bring this back for reconsideration with a reintroduction of her amendment, as well as the invitation for other potential amendments to the substitute bill. So but right now we are voting just on the motion to reconsider. Council Bill 119769 as it appears on the agenda. So as I remember from Thelma. I'm sorry. Excuse me. This is Amelia, I'm sure. Yeah, it's Clark. And because of the fact that the council did not pass the bill at this meeting, the motion to reconsider is correct at this point. But actually following through on the motion for reconsideration needs to happen at another meeting per the city charter. Good. And I can quote the city charter, if you. Like, for me to do that right now. Could you please? Because I think that's inconsistent with some motions and motions for reconsideration that we've done in the past. Okay. If a bill is moved for final passage and fails to pass and a motion to reconsider is made, the motion to reconsider shall not be voted on before the next meeting of the City Council. That's the president in. Oh, hold up. Hold on, hold on. Okay. So it is. So, Emilio, last week we have last week or two weeks ago, we had a motion for reconsideration on the introduction of referral calendar and voted on that motion for reconsider. At the same meeting. Why is that correct and correct? And those emotions. Relating to. The adoption of the injection for all. Calendar. Not bills that the charter requires, that bills as fail cannot be reconsidered at the same meeting, but at. Another meeting. Jason So because I want to make sure, because I want colleagues in the public to make sure that we have some consistency and understanding of how this rule applies. So what I'm hearing from you, Amelia, is that as it relates to a motion for reconsideration, because this is a substantive bill, the charter requires us to wait until next Monday to hear the motion for reconsideration. Now, we were able to take the reconsideration vote on the introduction reversal calendar because that wasn't substantive legislation. Is that accurate? That is accurate. You can reconsider any vote except for a passage of a bill that did not pass. So at this juncture, can we vote on a motion to reconsider but have it slated for next Monday? Is that the clerk's recommendation? The clerk's recommendation. Is to do this at the next meeting of the city council. So no motion for reconsideration at all right now? Correct. It'll stay pending until the next meeting of the city council. Okay. So, colleagues, unfortunately, we've heard from our our clerk that that this is not appropriate for us to consider under the charter rules, which is news to me. But but it is what it is. And so we will have to convene with our law department and the clerk and and and discuss what to do next as it relates to council level 119769. Councilmember Strauss. Thank you. Council President. I also have Councilmember Morales on the line because she has been kicked off. I've got her on the phone up against my computer. A question for you and the clerk's. Is there an ability for council members to change their votes on the previous action? That is what a motion for reconsideration is designed to do. And I'm hearing from our clerk, the Council for a motion for reconsideration on a substantive bill is out of order. And there's no opportunity for suspension of that role. Is that is that a correct understanding? Madam Clerk. According to Roberts, both the border and member may actually change their votes if there's unanimous consent. But unfortunately, because the actual council, the city. Charter preempts the. Council, the Roberts rules of order, and the motion has been made to reconsider. It cannot be made today. So unfortunately, the only opportunity that we have at this moment would be to reconsider it. At a future council meeting. Correct. Not today. Thank you for wrestling my deep disappointment in this motion. Thank you. Okay, colleagues, unfortunately, that bill fails, as I mentioned. So we will I will my office will consult with a lot of parliament and the clerk's office on identifying next available steps. My understanding was that this was time sensitive legislation that needed to occur today. So the fact that it is not occurring today and has not been successful today may have some intensely negative consequences for some of the issues that we were discussing here. I will go ahead and move along in our meeting now so that we can continue on the other items of business. On the agenda. Will the clerk please read agenda items two and three into the record? Agenda items two and three quick file.