AN ORDINANCE relating to street and sidewalk use; amending Ordinance 125706 and the Street Use Permit Fee Schedule authorized by Section 15.04.074 of the Seattle Municipal Code; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
Agenda Item 19 Council Bill 119865 An ordinance relating to street and sidewalk use amending ordinance 125706 and the street use permit fee schedule authorized by section 15.0 4.074 of the Seattle Missile Code and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts. The committee recommends the bill pass. Thank you, Madam Peterson. As Chair of the committee. You are more than welcome to be recognized first, unless you would like to hand this over to Councilmember Strauss to address the bill. Thank you. Council President Yes. Councilmember Strauss has done a lot of work on this and so I'd like to turn it over to him if you would like. Otherwise I can address it as well. Yeah. All right. I just want to thank you. Councilmember Peterson, chair of Transportation Utilities Committee. This bill was intended primarily to address sidewalk cafes and street cafes. Permitting, I did hear during public comment some other concerns, and I would have liked to be able to address those earlier on. And again, anyone who's engaged in land use, please don't hesitate to reach out to our office. We look forward to working with all stakeholders and Councilmember Peterson, who's done some really great work on this, and we work really well together. So all that to say is that sidewalk cafes and and cafe streets are really going to be the way that we create an economic ability, the ability for our economy to exist during COVID times, because outdoor transmission is lower than indoor transmission. And so the ability to use our public rights of way for economic activity is incredibly important. And this bill not only allows that, but also allows that to be free of charge so that we are ensuring that our economy is able to restart as quickly as possible and outdoors in an outdoor setting. We've seen these sidewalk cafes and street cafes and Seattle together, streets popping up across our city. And it's a really amazing feature that I think will have a lasting impact in a positive way for the city of Seattle and how we eat, dine, shop and and speak to one another, whether it's in COVID or once we're out of this pandemic. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson, would you like to add anything on to that? Councilmember Strauss Well said. And also just to remind everybody, this did pass unanimously out of the committee with all five members of the committee. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, Councilmember Mosqueda. I see your hand up and colleagues of anyone else would like to make comments. Please do let me know. Thank you. Council President Ford, the chair of transportation and for the prime sponsor of the bill. Actually, just a quick question, if you don't mind. And to catch us up, I wondering if you can talk about the timeline of some of these street cafes and the permitting process. I saw some comments online about the short duration of some of the permitting and a desire to either see the duration extended or in some cases , to make these locations permanent so that we can have some super black spots across our city as a possible positive outcome of this policy change. Can you comment a little bit if it's appropriate, Madam President, just on the duration and the possibility of extension or permanent nature? Sure. Councilmember Peterson, would you like to take that question? Yes, it is. For just a few months. It is supposed to be about during COVID pandemic. And first, we need to collect the data on how it how it's going, what the impacts are to other businesses who might not be getting these permits to who might want more parking nearby or bus routes, etc.. So we're collecting it's going to be collecting data on this so that we can determine what to do on a more permanent basis, if at all. Councilmember Strauss. Yes. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson. I would say that these permits were set up as quickly as possible by start working to respond to the COVID pandemic. So much like some of these other emergency responses, there was a short timeline associated with them. I think that with any pilot project, this one included, we will see the benefits and we'll also see what doesn't work so well. I am going to champion that we make these permanent features within our community because I think street cafes and sidewalk cafes are even before the pandemic. I was a very large fan of these. And to your point, the super blocks where we're able to really create a pedestrianized space that still allows for deliveries, operations, people with all ages and abilities are able to access that space and the three minute to go orders as well. There's a real opportunity here. I'm going to champion to make these permanent, and I would hope that my colleagues would join me in that. And with that, I want to thank Scott for working as quickly as possible to get this temporary permit available free of charge. Thank you both very much. Thank you so much. Are there any other comments by my colleagues? Okay. I would just say that I did reach out to the Department of Transportation related to some concerns that we received sort of in the in the in the in the 11th hour here about and we heard a little bit about this in public comment about the impact of this bill on street use fees on on construction of affordable homes. And unfortunately, my understanding is that Ascot did, in fact, do a presentation for the organization that reached out to us via letter and in public comment today, and that they received no concerns or feedback at that time. Again, that doesn't that doesn't mean that that there weren't concerns. It just means that that there was an opportunity and the opportunity was not taken at that time to provide any concerns. And again, the Department of Transportation believes that the intention of this proposal is to actually reduce the cost for townhouse type developments, and that projects outside of urban centers should remain pretty even. The increases proposed in the street use fees will primarily be in the downtown core. So Director Zimbabwe and his team are are happy to connect with any of us colleagues that continue to have concerns about this particular issue. And I look forward to supporting the bill as it is introduced today with the understanding that obviously there there could be there will be more to come on this policy issue as flagged by Councilmember Strauss in terms of. The potential long term nature of this kind of a program. So that being said, let's go and close that debate. And I would ask that the clerk call the roll on the passage of the bill. Or both? Yes. Whereas. I. Lewis. I. Morales, I. We'll get up. PETERSON. Yes. Sergeant. Yes. Strauss. Yes. Council President Gonzalez. I vote in favor and oppose. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Agenda Item 20 Will the clerk please read item 20 into the record? Agenda Item 20 Council Bill 119867. An ordinance relating to the city's traffic code amending sections 11.4 6.10 and 11.4 6.020 of the Seattle Invisible Code to revise permissible areas of operation and the right of way and other public pathways for electric personal assistive mobility devices and motorized scooters.