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.
Agenda Item. One Constable 119. 769 relating to land use review decision and procedures, temporally modifying and suspending procedures in Title. 23 and 25 and on the. Code. Just think I will need somebody on the prevailing side to act on this motion for reconsideration to call up the motion. Councilmember Morales. I am sorry I lost track of where we are here. I call the motion to reconsider passage of House Bill 119769. Thank you so much. This motion does not require a second. So reconsideration of Council Bill 119769 is now before the Council for consideration. Council members at the April 20th City Council meeting, we considered and amended Council Bill 119769. The bill, as amended, did not secure the needed seven votes to pass it and Councilmember Verbal moved to reconsider the bill on April 20th. So pursuant to the City Charter, that motion was moved and seconded and held until this city council meeting. We now have before us the motion to reconsider the ballot, the bill. Councilmember Morales as the maker. I'm sorry. Councilmember Herbold As the maker of the original motion. Do you have any comments? Oh, my comments. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any further comments on the motion to reconsider the bill? Again, we're not voting on the actual substance of the bill at this point. We're still voting on the procedural vote to reconsider passage of Council Bill 119769. You hear and see no comments. The city council will now vote to reconsider passage of Council Bill 119769. Will the clerk please call the roll? PETERSON No. So what. I. Strauss takes her vote. No. Whereas I. Lewis. Hi. Or. I. Let's get to. I. President Gonzalez, I. Seven in favor, two opposed. Thank you, Madam Clerk. That vote only required a majority. In other words, five council members present to be in favor of moving forward. And so that motion carries in Council Bill 119769 is now before the council. Council Member Strauss As sponsor of this bill, do you have any opening remarks that you would like to make? Yes, thank you. Council President I'll try and make this short. As we've discussed this many times before, this emergency legislation addresses design review, historic preservation and permitting process, including the COVID 19. Emergency is temporary in nature, and the intention of this legislation is to allow critically needed housing projects to continue moving forward through the permitting process in a way that preserves public input and engagement and protects public health. Specifically as such, the legislation would allow projects to opt into administrative design review for six months, or until the design review boards are able to meet virtually or in person. It would allow for Pre-Application community outreach to be done virtually and explicitly highlights how that can be done. It would allow for minor decisions related to his remarks or historic and special review districts to be made administratively while suspending meetings and major decisions of the landmarks and special review boards. Because the legislation is being enacted on an emergency basis. All provisions would lapse after 180 days and would be. And we are required to hold a public hearing within 60 days more than the time. Sensitivity around this is more than 20 proposed residential projects representing over 3500 housing units. And ending this living facility are currently on hold because design review meetings have been indefinitely canceled. Another 20 projects are expected to be delayed each month, creating a significant backlog for their design review boards that could outlast our current emergency and typically takes the project about a year to move through the design review process. So allowing these projects to keep moving is important. Another 30 projects, including four affordable housing projects, are unable to proceed because they cannot complete their early community outreach until this legislation is passed. There's also a minor landmark recommendation that the key arena project needs and has been delayed for several weeks. This will become a pinch point in May. While departments have been taking steps to hold design review boards, meetings virtually, there are several barriers that still need to be addressed. And I share with you that this is different than our city council meetings. It's different than the design commission meetings because there is feedback and conversation that is needed on detailed documents, and that can be confusing. Even last week, I personally experienced not speaking for any other council members experience. I was kicked off our virtual meetings here at City Council twice. We have only been able to start our public input last week and this is just. This doesn't even begin to cover the complex level of design review. The size of the design review program, which involves 20 to 30 meetings each month. Councilmember Lewis I did confirm it's over 100 staff members who would need additional training and 70 volunteer board members with varying abilities and technological access. There are also challenges with facilitating comment and signing for these complex and technical documents that are graphic rich in their presentation. We are all able to be together on this call today for because it's our jobs and the design review process relies on volunteers dealing with all the challenges of this pandemic, which changes their availability for frequent and virtual meetings and doesn't guarantee that full participation is able to to occur. The Design Commission has, as I said, been able to hold a virtual meeting, which is promising. Again, this is different than design review boards. One of my amendments that we passed last week would require reporting in 60 days on the executive's progress towards these virtual meetings, and the legislation is written to virtually mirror the public engagement opportunities the community members would have used if we were using the typical process. I will, just as a final note, go over the. Amendments that we made last week that would allow projects to receive a recommendation through administrative administrative design review process to remain in that process, allow self nominated projects seeking landmark designation to negotiate their controls and incentive agreements. Not the final designation allows the Housing Authority to utilize the design review exemption for affordable housing, clarifying community outreach requirements, improving tree protections by removing an exemption that would allow for hazardous tree removal to be done. So administratively is allow another amendment to allow for administrative approval of door and window replacements in historic and special review districts and allow for administrative approval of penthouses when those guidelines already exist. Nevermore. I will leave it at that, because we are we have had extensive conversation on this bill. And also, I would like to compliment Councilmember Lewis for his community outreach on his amendment. So thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for those introductory remarks. I know that we have two amendments to manage. As we discussed during council briefing this morning, so I'm going to go through the amendments at this point in the order that they appeared on the published agenda. So that means that Councilmember Morales will be up first, followed by Councilmember Lewis on his amendment. So I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Morales so that she can make her motion to have us consider Amendment one. Councilmember Alice, the floor is yours. Thank you. I move to amend Council Bill 119769 presented on the Morales Amendment one. That can. It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill. Councilmember Morales I will go ahead and hand it over to you to address the amendment. Okay. Thank you. So this amendment would allow the director of neighborhoods to approve certificates of approval for some changes within the International Special Review District. It would also remove a provision that would have allowed for virtual meetings of the ISRG Board in lieu of in-person meetings. If in-person meetings could not be held safely, Isrg board meetings would not be held for 60 days. And the amendment also corrects some drafting errors that were in the version that we had last week. The purpose of this really is, as I said this morning in briefing, to allow meetings to continue. Once we have once we are able to meet in-person again safely, but not meet virtually. And the real point here is to protect the community that doesn't have a lot of access to technology and where we can't always have assurance that there will be sufficient language interpretation services available for some of these technical conversations. And so the community is willing to just wait and and gather again in that when it's safe to do so. After the 60 day period. I thank you, Councilmember Morales, for addressing the amendment. Are there any other comments on this amendment? Councilmember Herbold, the floor is yours. Thank you. Councilman Morales, could you, for my benefit, explain to me how this amendment is different from the one that you brought forward last week? The reason why I am asking is the guidance I received from the clerk's office is for if an amendment fails in order for us to bring it back, it has to be a different question. And so I would just really appreciate the clarity of of understanding how this amendment differs from the one that you brought last week . So what happened last week was that there were some drafting errors. As I said, the intention was to eliminate the option for electronic meetings. But what was actually incorporated into the language from last week would have would have allowed for the certificate of approval process, administrative process to continue for the Pioneer Square Review District, but not for the International District's special review district. So so part of the challenge was that there was just that drafting error that needed to be removed from what we were trying to accomplish. So I'm trying to provide an opportunity for you to say that this the effect of this amendment is different than the amendment that you brought forward. Is that would that be an accurate statement? Yes, because the effect of the previous amendment was much broader, had a much broader scope of that. It would have changed the ability of the isrg to meet. So this is sort of narrowing the scope of what had been proposed or what had been included in last week's version. And that was a mistake. Perfect. Thank you. I thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold, for that kind of questioning. Are there any other comments on the on the Morales Amendment one? Okay. Hearing none. I'm going to go ahead. However, I'm a skater. Did I see your hand go up? Thank you. President, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate Councilmember Morales's work with the folks who brought up the need for additional clarity and happy to support this amendment. Appreciate all your work. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm going to go ahead and close out discussion on this particular amendment. Will the Kirk call the roll on the adoption of the Morales Amendment one? Peterson, I. The ones. I. Strauss. I. Purple. I. Suarez. I. Lewis. Hi. Or else I. Macheda I. President Gonzalez. I. Nine in favor. None oppose. The motion carries and the amendment is adopted. Are there any further comments on the bill as amended? And I think this is an opportunity for Councilmember Lewis to walk us through Amendment two. So I'm going to hand it over to you, Councilmember Lewis, to put Amendment two on the on the table. Thank you, Madam President. I move to amend Council Bill 119769 as presented on version two of the Lewis amendment to on the agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill. Councilmember Lewis, I'm going to hand it back over to you so that you can address your amendment. Well, I'll just be brief. I think we had a good discussion of this amendment during briefing this morning. Just to reiterate some of the arguments that I brought up at that time. I think that for two reasons this amendment is appropriate. First, that the buildings that are going forward under this pilot program are of a particular size involved. The design review is more important than for similarly situated projects that are not part of the just of the Living Building Pilot program. I think too, that given the status of the three projects that this amendment would address, all of which are mid-stream through the established in-person design review process, that it would be warranted for these projects to continue along in that path and go back to the design review boards, be they in-person or virtual, to get the final go ahead to proceed to the master use permit. For those reasons, I think that this amendment at this time is appropriate. It's narrowly tailored. It speaks to specific, articulable reasons why exemptions like this would be warranted given the scope of the current ordinance. And I would ask that the council approved this amendment. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis, are there any comments on Councilmember Lewis's amendment? Councilmember Mosqueda, the floor is yours. I will defer to the prime sponsor. I'm sorry. Again, just want to compliment Councilmember Lewis on his joint outreach. This is the very type of outreach and amendment that I appreciate when engaging in land use decisions. He did an excellent job of convincing me that this should come forward, despite my request of no new topics on the bill because we're trying to get it across the finish line. So I just want all of Councilmember Lewis's constituents to know that he is doing work in their stead. I appreciate it. Despite my desire to really not engage in new topics on this bill since it's been such a heavy lift so far. Thank you. Councilmember Strauss, councilmember mosqueda you're recognized for resource. Thank you very much, Madam President. And I do appreciate the hard work that has gone into this legislation, both from the prime sponsor and from the folks who've been crafting amendments. I know we're trying to do our best to make sure that basic city government functions in the time of COVID and making sure that our community constituent engagement processes and don't miss a beat. And you all have been exemplary in that action. I do need to speak up, as I noted this morning, with my concerns about this amendment and offer a first piece of clarification and second, sort of my rationale for not voting for this amendment. First, I think it's really important that we make sure that folks know that there's been a misperception about community engagement not continuing. In fact, Administrative Design Review mirrors the public engagement process that takes place during full design review. It simply replaces the in-person comment period with a written comment period. All the same, public engagement opportunities exist. They just take a different form. People can call, send written comments to CCI rather than providing comments in person. All steps in the administrative review process are publicly posted through a website, and if you sign up to be part of the administrative design review process, you receive notifications on all materials, submitted planners, comments and recommendations similar to full design review. I would also posture, as I said in last week's conversation, it's arguably more inclusive to be able to accept phone calls and written comments than just having meetings in person. Think about all the folks who are working two and three jobs, the people who would like to be there, but for their error or possibilities at home or at work and or mobility issues, and want to make sure that we're thinking about inclusivity and equity as we think about engaging in soliciting public comment, especially now during COVID. I think that this bill strikes that nice balance. Secondly, the reason that I'm speaking in opposition to this amendment is that I think that living buildings projects is exactly the type of outstanding projects that we'd like to see, be able to get the design review process moving forward and get the green light to move forward so that we don't lose any interest in the ability to build these exact types of buildings. These are socially just sustainable, human health oriented green buildings, as I talked about this morning. This is not just about setbacks or green roofs. It's about incorporating nature in every aspect of the building design in the materials and the energy systems to create spaces that integrate the physical and psychological well-being of people and the health of the surrounding environment. And I think it's really important that we think about how we encourage more, more developers to go this route. So this pilot is extremely important as we think about reducing the amount of energy use, creating green spaces and and really facilitating that integration between community preference and what we'd like to see in these buildings, if we I think the unintended consequence here is that if we pull out living buildings, there's a chance that folks who are interested in building greener buildings will opt for the administrative design review. And we've missed the opportunity to see more of these living buildings come into fruition. And in fact, I'm worry about the message that we send to folks that might be considering future living buildings, that they don't want to go down this route either. I am appreciative of the conversation. It sounds like you've had in districts. I think that is important for us though, to push back to say that living building projects just like this are exactly what we'd like to see to make sure that we can incorporate the public feedback that has already been received. Work with CCI to ensure that that public comment is integrated as we move forward and make sure for the environment's sake that we are encouraging, facilitating and creating more opportunities for living, building and projects to move forward. Especially in this time where we worry that with COVID developers could potentially pull out of projects like this as uncertain economic forecasts cause people to question future investments, let's move forward. Let's include living buildings in our efforts. And let's remember that this will absolutely allow for community engagement to continue as outlined by our department partners in previous presentations. Thank you for letting me explain my position on this and for your ongoing work colleagues to make sure that the public comment is included and that we hopefully include living buildings as well. I think you can sometimes get out. Are there any other comments? I see. Councilmember Herbold, the floor is yours if you have a question for the amendment sponsor, Councilmember Lewis. It's been said that there's a concern that for buildings that have been have submitted their their permit applications as living buildings, that if we passed an amendment today that had those buildings that had already submitted their permits as a living building and were already in the design review process, that they would then that that might somehow be a damper, might have a chilling effect on on on either those particular buildings or future buildings. I want to just clarify that this is only for buildings that have already filed their permits and are already have already already have a design review track. This is not for future living buildings. This is only for the ones that are that are currently on track. And I think. I am speculating that the costs associated with redesigning one of those buildings to not be subject to the same design review track as they are before passage of this legislation would be pretty, pretty extensive. So I'm just giving you another another chance to defend your your amendment or correct me if I'm wrong. And I also want to reference the point of the bill sponsor. Councilmember Strauss, for the purposes just I know we all know what the rules are among us on the Council, but for purposes of the viewing public, I just want to clarify that we don't require the consent of of bill sponsors in order to bring forward amendments during full council, even in this very in this very stressful time of trying to hear hear legislation not in committee, but all only in full council. So we have we're working on a compressed time, time period. And I believe Councilmember Straus was only referring to his preference to not address new issues that we as individual council members do, as long as we follow our rules, do have the ability to bring forward amendments, even in this in this time of compressed meetings. Thank you. So I think there was a question in there for Councilmember Lewis that I'll let him field in terms of the procedure and council rules. I'll I'll address that since since I am the presiding officer, if you will, on these meetings. You are you are correct, Councilmember Herbold, that so long as council rules are followed, amendments can be brought forward by any of us as individually elected council members. I took Councilmember Strauss's comments as being a preference that that not occur, given that he is the prime sponsor of this council bill. And that is pretty ordinary. Many of us on many occasions who have a message that or signaled that in the course of advancing our legislation, that that we're not supporting a particular amendment because of a feeling that it's untimely or opens up potential new issues that could compromise the need to pass a bill on a particular timeline. So I think you're absolutely correct in your observation that it's not a rule that new issues not be brought up. But I do I do sort of want to agree with that that perspective and with sort of my understanding of Councilmember Strauss's plea, which was let's let's minimize the issues we're considering here, given given that this is our second go around on this. And I certainly respect his encouragement for us to expedite this. That's where. Lewis. Can you. Would you like to address the question that was posed by Councilmember Herbold? And then I see Councilmember Strauss has raised his hand. Yeah, very briefly. I mean, you know, I think it is it's an open question as to the concerns that Councilmember Mosquito raised. And I think they are, well, well-taken. And I'm glad that she did raise it as to whether kind of any kind of legislating around this pilot program could have a freezing effect or deterrent effect, I think that's certainly something that is credible to bring up and credible to raise. I would say that the way that the amendment is drafted, it would actually only ever, for the entire history of this amendment, affect three projects, because any subsequent projects that did come in, as Councilmember Skirboll mentioned in her comments, would immediately be put into the administrative review track. So it would only be these projects that are already engaged in design review, have had a meeting and are sort of locked. This amendment would basically lock those three projects in. So the 15 current living building projects, only three would be affected. No subsequent living building project would be affected by the amendment. They would be able to take advantage of the other letting the administrative track that the ordinance provides. But I do think the broader point made by Councilmember Skate is certainly fair and and appreciate it. I would also add that there'd be a procedural not or not. I do appreciate Councilmember Strauss's indulgence in letting this issue be aired. So I want to thank him for that. And that that can even be my closing comments to on the amendment. Council President. If after Councilmember Strauss's comments you were to come back to me, I think I'll just rest on that and and leave it there. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis. I appreciate that. And Councilmember Strauss, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you. I think the fact that we've had this long of debate on this amendment is probably approving Councilmember Strauss's point around not wanting to introduce a last minute issues into an already kind of complex bill. But Councilmember Strauss, I'll go ahead and hand it over to you. Yes, I'm just responding to Councilmember Herbold. You are correct in everything that you've said, I and really, I just want to say thank you to Councilmember Lewis for bringing this process forward. And with that, Councilmember Lewis, great work. All right. Okay. Council rooms. Get a one. One last time. I need you to really be succinct and in. And let's let's try to move forward on this minute. Thank you, council president. You know, I am really hopeful that this legislation does pass today, and I'm hopeful that we get a chance to revisit the living building conversation that Councilmember Lewis has started. Thank you so much. I know that you understand where I'm coming from. Councilmember Lewis, so appreciate the ongoing work that you are doing to try to elevate the issue of how folks continue to stay engaged in these conversations. I shouldn't have asked the question this morning when we had the opportunity here from central staff. I think that it does bear sort of me underscoring. I think that we have a difference of opinion, though, and perhaps I'm reading it wrong. But my my read is that projects in the future would not be able to opt in to participating in living buildings later in the permitting process if this amendment is in place. And so I'm not sure that I am reading it the same way. I am hopeful that the amendment doesn't hang and we can continue to look into this question and and have a conversation about the importance of living buildings in the future. But I worry that if projects decide to opt into living buildings after they go through an early design guidance, they would be stuck in a full design review path. And so that's where my concern is coming from. I don't want to sort of belabor the point any more because I know you're about to call the question, but I think that just precisely because this question is out there and I have a different read of it, I wanted to underscore my concern about the language as is. I won't repeat myself. Councilmember Lewis, I appreciate everything you did to put this forward, but I just wanted to be clear about where my my concerns were coming from. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda. Councilmember Lewis, you are the primary sponsor of this amendment. I know that you had indicated that you didn't have anything else to add, but just wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to have the last word if you need to have it done. I'll stand by my previous commitment to rest it where I did. That's what I like to hear. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and move forward. I'm going to close out discussion on the Lewis amendment, too, and and ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of version two of the Lewis amendment. Peterson, I. So I don't. No. Strauss Yeah. Herbold, I. SUAREZ No. Lewis. I. MORALES No. Macheda? No. President Gonzalez. Now. Three in favor, six opposed. Thank you. The motion fails and the amendment is not adopted. Are there any further comments on the bill as amended and colleagues. This is going to be a vote on. The next thing that we're going to do is we're going to make we're going to we're going to vote on that on the passage of the bill as amended today and last Monday. So are there any comments on the bill as amended? I saw Councilmember Lewis first, then Councilmember Peterson and then Councilmember Morales. So I'm going to be really brief. I mean, I do intend to vote for this ordinance again today, as I did last week. I did want to flag just a couple of things first. You know, I continue to to implore Stsci to develop a way to conduct these meetings online sooner rather than later. You know, I actually if there's any council members here that's privy to more information on the current status of that, since SETI has now had an additional week to plan and prepare for that. If anyone can provide that information, that would be great. Because, you know, I do think that that it is critical. It's really the underlying issue here. There wouldn't even be any debate in this, wouldn't be a contentious issue if we could see a plan of action or see some more public effort on the part of Stsci to stand up this meeting. So I would just flag that one more time that, you know, I would urge the department to do that sooner rather than later. The second thing I would say is I have talked to Stsci and I know a number of folks in my district commenting today have been sending me emails, I've been reaching out some talking about particular and specific projects. Folks at Stsci have told me that they're happy to work with my office to make sure people concerned about particular projects can get in touch, that their input can be taken in, as Councilmember Mesquita indicated earlier, into the administrative process, and that they can be included in that administrative process. So I just wanted to flag if there's folks there still listening, if there's specific projects you're concerned about, contact my office and I'll make sure that you're put in touch with Stsci so that you can engage in the administrative process. And those are the only comments I wanted to make before voting on this. I think you council member Lewis for those remarks. I am now going to move over to Councilmember Peterson, who's next in the queue for Peterson. The floor is yours. Thank you. Again, I want to thank Council President Gonzales and Councilmember Strauss for providing us with an extra week between April 13 and April 20 to review this complex council bill. 119769. I'd also like to thank the many constituents who have written with their views on the legislation, whether they are for or against this council bill. They clearly care about land use policies, real estate projects, their neighborhoods and our city. I also appreciate the various amendments from my council colleagues to try to make this legislation better, to be consistent with my vote last week. And based on. My many years of experience in the field of commercial real estate finance, I will be voting no again because I don't think it meets the requirements of an emergency, and I'm concerned that reduces input and discussion from the general public. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson, we're not going to hear from Councilmember Morales or yours. Thank you, everyone, for this long discussion. I want to thank Councilmember Strauss and his staff for working with my office over the last week, the last few weeks. We've heard lots of concerns from neighbors, particularly in the Chinatown International District. So I appreciate your willingness to collaborate with us. I will say I do intend to support this bill, and I stand conflicted in this, as I said last week. I do think that this bill conflates some issues around affordable housing with lots of other issues. It moves construction forward, and we might think that that is generally a good thing. But the only way to address the affordable housing issue is to prioritize and build affordable housing. And this bill seems to be, especially as it relates to the Chinatown International District. The overwhelming majority of projects, there are hotels and market rate condos. So, you know, I was elected to ensure that we have a racial equity lens as we're making these decisions and quickening the pace of administrative backlog in the name of progress very often has disparate impacts on communities of color. I was elected to stop displacement and knowing that making the development process easier is rarely a benefit for the communities that I represent. And the trade off is that what's seen as efficient for government or for developers often means inequity for my community. So I do plan to vote yes today, and this will be my first and last concession in the name of easing process or relieving administrative burdens, especially if it means that it will accelerate disaster gentrification. It's my responsibility to vote in a way that benefits my community. Sometimes that means slowing down the process to ensure that their voices are heard. But don't mistake that for naivete or for confusion. That's about ensuring that those voices have access to power. I know that we all want to see affordable housing built, and it's going to we're going to have regular discussions about how to make that happen . And I know that if our plans for a post-COVID life mean going back to business as usual, we will have done this wrong. So I look forward to continuing conversations with all of you about how to ensure that the recovery is just and equitable and that we work together to make sure that that happens. Thank you. Thank you so much. Councilmember Morales, I know that we have other council members who might want to make comment on the bill before we. But I'm going to give Councilmember Strauss as the primary sponsor the final word. But I see Councilmember Herbals is raise your hand. Please. The floor is yours. Thank you. As I hope I have expressed over the last couple of weeks, I'm generally supportive of this legislation, excepting the concern, as I've expressed last, with the section of the bill that exempts affordable housing from all design review. I believe this section of the law is in conflict with the Governor's Proclamation 2028 relating to adherence to the Open Public Meetings Act and the State Attorney General's guidance on that proclamation. This guidance states that the matter before the Council must be a matter that is either necessary and routine or necessary to respond to the COVID 19 outbreak and current public health emergency. My amendment failed last week by one vote. Had it passed, I would have supported this bill. Council rules dictate that I cannot make a motion for reconsideration of this amendment. Because they wanted to find a way to support the bill. I considered altering the amendment substantially enough so that I could bring forth another version of my amendment. But I was unable to find a substantial enough edit that would fulfill our council rules that are reconsidered. Motion be substantially a substantially new question while also accomplishing my goal of removing the section that I believe conflicts with the Governor's Proclamation 2028 relating to adherence to the Open Public Meetings Act. Finally in. And in order to find another way to support this bill, I also reached out to Seattle Department of Construction Director Tom Wilson again to see if the findings could be written. The findings are the the the the words in the bill that explain the why it is in this case we feel that this is consistent with the governor's PMA Act order. So I reached out to see if the findings could be written differently to clarify that this section of the bill actually addressed a need related to the COVID 19 crisis. For instance, I suggested perhaps there might be barriers to the existing CCI policy that affordable housing be prioritized as a result of the current public health emergency, or the passage of this bill putting more other kinds of construction projects through administrative design review. My hope was to include legal findings like these in the legislation that might create a legal path forward. Unfortunately, Director Tom Wilson responded that I mean, it's good news that this is the case, but it did not meet my my, my hoped to draft the different legal finding. But the response was ultimately good news that if a significant number of projects were to move from full design review to administrative design review due to the passage of this legislation and affordable housing projects were still required to go through administrative design review. We would continue to prioritize affordable housing projects in relation to market rate housing projects and commercial projects going through design review. So consequently, I could not conceive of another finding to clarify that this section of the bill actually addressed a need resulting from the COVID 19 crisis. Despite all of my efforts, I don't see a path forward for me to support this bill with. That includes brand new policy to address a need unrelated to COVID 19. That is, I believe, out of the scope of the Governor's proclamation. I have been a stalwart supporter of affordable housing for three decades, and I heard many people testify last week and today that the need to change administrative design review predated the COVID 19 crisis. I would have been interested in design review reform at the right time, but my commitment to the Open Public Meetings Act and the obligations to follow it when deliberating on new policy unrelated to COVID 19 is unwavering in principle. Nevertheless, I really appreciate the support of amendments by council members last week that I have sponsored regarding a number of amendments, a number of issues, including regarding historic landmarks that were supported by historic Seattle. Thank you. I thank you, Councilmember, for those remarks. Are there any other council members who'd like to make some remarks at this point? Hey. And Counselor Suarez. I'm not ignoring you. You do have some remarks you'd like to make. I'm happy to. Hear from you. Actually, for the love of God, let's take the vote. Okay. Councilmember Suarez. Thank you. Thank you so much. We will we will make sure that the record reflects that. Those are your comments. Bill, you know, I just wanted to before I hand it over to Councilmember Strauss, who's going to make the closing remarks. I do want to address Councilmember Rebel's comments that she believes that that the inclusion of certain portions of this bill run afoul of the governor's proclamation that prohibits us from considering anything that is either not COVID 19 related or that is neither routine nor necessary. I do want to say that I and my staff spent quite a bit of time talking with the law department in consultation with the clerk's office, to evaluate very closely this bill, just like we evaluate all of the legislation that comes before us to make a determination as to whether or not it is appropriately before the City Council in the construct of the Governor's proclamation. And again, while I think that, you know, there could be different perspectives and points of view and in fact, I think that the example is right here, it's a living example. I think Councilmember Herbold has a a much more conservative read of the proclamation. I, however, came to the conclusion, along with a lot of partment, that there's enough of a nexus here for us to appropriately consider this bill as as COVID and emergency related. So there is an argument that can be made. There is an argument that has been made. There is, you know, many conversations I've had with the Office of Housing, for example, related to. The realities of how this economic crisis is going to impact not just access to affordable housing, but the development of affordable housing. And our design review processes and permits and other administrative processes has a direct impact on what that pipeline will look like in the future. So they're very is, in my view, a reasonable, rational connection between trying to address some of the operational issues that we control as government in the context of this emergency that I think merit action and consideration by the city council. Now, through this Council Bill, in order to address those real operational impacts that are before us in in only because we are in, in an emergency response period of time in where the way that business is usually conducted by these commissions and by the Office of Housing are directly impacted. So I just feel really I feel compelled to sort of explain my rationale and my reasoning for allowing this legislation to be on the introduction referral calendar in the first place. And again, I respect that there is a difference of opinion as it relates to the applicability of the Governor's proclamation on this particular bill. And colleagues, I will and will endeavor to work with each of you transparently and collaboratively on future Council bills to make sure that we have consistent application of the Governor's Proclamation, so long as it is in effect, on future pieces of legislation that come before the Council. So that with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Councilmember Strauss to close out debate so that we can, as Councilmember wise, his so aptly put it, for the love of God, put this to a vote. Thank you, council president and thank you, Councilmember Juarez, for that extra little oomph of getting it. Let's wrap this up. So I want to start by restating my goal, which is to get this bill passed. If Kevin Scofield last week wrote about this is what council looks like in the area in the era of OPM, where open public meetings, act requirements require us to not count votes. And so sometimes this becomes messy in the public's eye. And so this is my request that if anyone we have heard from Councilmember Herbold about what is needed for her to support this bill. There's anyone who's not anticipating to support the bill who had done so previously. Please make that be known before we take this vote. You know, really what I want to say is this experience has demonstrated to me the complexity of working remotely on complex information, very deep amounts of detailed analysis has to be done. And working remotely can sometimes be challenging. So I want to thank my colleagues. Councilmember Lewis, Councilmember Peterson, I know. Thank you for all of your thoughts. Council President Gonzales And a pleasure. Councilmember Swan. Thank you. Councilmember Herbold. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda. Councilmember Morales, thank you very much for your work over this last week. Councilmember Waters Thank you for your get it done mentality. And finally, I want to thank the staff, Noah and my office, Ketel, Allie Lish, the Lexus Devan Christina Gunn passed away. Anthony Arriola for your assistance in this bill. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Strauss So I'm going to go ahead and close out debate and discussion on this particular bill. And I'm going to ask the clerk to please call the role of the passage of the bill as amended. PETERSON No. So what. I. Strauss, I. Purple Day. Excuse me. Nay? No. Thank you. Juarez. Yes. I'm sorry. Where is. Yes. Thank you, Louis. I. Morales. I. Let's get up. I. President Gonzalez. I. Seven in favor, two opposed. Okay. The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. I would ask that the clerk please fix my signature to the legislation. Thank you, colleagues, for that conversation. We're going to go ahead and move quickly through our agenda. The good news is that we spent a lot of time on that particular agenda, which is agenda item one, but it's going to be smooth sailing from here on out. So item two is our next agenda item. Will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record?