Findings, Conclusions, and Decision of the City Council of the City of Seattle In the Matter of the Final Assessment Roll for Local Improvement District No. 6751 (Waterfront LID) and the Appeals of Multiple Appellants.
Agenda item 745314 476. Finance conclusions and Decision of the City Council of the City of Seattle and the matter of the final assessment role for Local Improvement District number 6751 and the appeals and multiple appellants. Thank you so much. I move the adoption of the findings, conclusions and decision of the council as presented in clerk filed 314476. Is there a second look? It's been moved and seconded to adopt the findings, conclusions and decision of the Council. I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Juarez, who's the sponsor of this item, this clerk file, and looking forward to being walked right them. Thank you. Council president colleagues, we have item seven. Eight. And nine that all have to do with the lid. So Kels question, I guess I'll just do each individual. As we call them in. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If your comments are divided up in a way where we can do that, that'd be great. Otherwise, I can have the clerk read the next two items into the record if if you planned on addressing them all at once. Can we do that? Would you mind? Sure. Madam Clerk, can you also please read item eight and nine into the record? The short titles are fine. Thank you. The Report of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee Agenda Item eight modifying, approving and confirming the final assessments and assessment role of Local Improvement. District Number 6751. The Committee recommended the bill pass and Agenda Item nine Council 1200 73 relating to financing public improvements within local improvement district number 6751 authorize and providing for the issuance and sale of local improvement district bonds. The committee recommended the bill pass. Great. We will take an individual vote on each of these items. But for purposes of the discussion, I consider, whereas you may now address all three items as part of your comments related to the subject matter. Take it away. Thank you. So Council, council colleagues and. President. As you know, we've been working on the list for a while. So I'm just going to go ahead and briefly touch on item seven, eight and nine, starting with, of course, agenda item seven. And that is the clerk filed the finance conclusions, the decisions, and this document is the written record on the matter of the waterfront with six. Seven, five one. The Council's adoption of the findings and conclusions decision would approve the final assessment role with the local improvement district, with revisions recommended by the hearing examiner, which also denied each of the appeals and confirmed the hearing examiner's recommendation for each. The what I should say. That is also on the clerk's file is all of the appeals, the hearing examiner's decision, the initial report, the final report, and also a chronology dating back to 2000th November 2011, I believe. So the whole history is there. So we made sure. That that was in the clerk file. For everybody's reading and recommendation and which all of our. Colleagues got as well as the public. And we had a hearing on that. The second item and item number eight, Council Bill 120072 approves the final assessment role. Again, this would establish the final assessment role for the construction of the improvements of the list numbering six, seven, five one. That's the number of the list. And the third is the bill that authorizes the city. It's the financing piece to issue bonds to pay the cost for the improvements to the waterfront lit. So Council President, this all came out of committee unanimously. And so I as the chair, I would ask. That the. City council adopt the clerk file item number seven, which is clerk file 314476. Agenda item number eight that I ask the committee or the full council to pass council bill 120072. And I ask that full council pass council bill 120073. Thank you. Council President Thank you so much. Council Members and thanks for addressing all three items at once that it's going to make it much more efficient. So colleagues. Any additional comments on any three of these items? So we're talking about items seven, eight and nine related to the live customer. Lewis, please. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to take a moment to really thank Chair Waters for her transparency and accessibility throughout the process and her committee. I am not a member of the relevant committee, but certainly this is an area of intense interest in District seven and I really appreciated the opportunity to be able to drop by the committee, be able to ask questions of central staff and and other relevant analysts on these various bills and get clarification on things that I was unclear about. Just speaking generally to the entire Waterfront Land Project, which I'm free to do here in this open session and in this context. I did just want to share some of. The takeaways from that hearing and from the questions that were asked. You know, I do think fundamentally it is appropriate to seek the use of local improvement districts for significant, significant infrastructure changes that are going to have the benefit of the entire neighborhood as a whole and part. And we know that there's going to be considerable improvement to the core of downtown, to the waterfront and to the area around the Pike Place Market from some of the investments that are going to be paid for partially through this list. I do want to say, you know, I I know that there are cases out there of folks who are going to get caught in. The boundaries of the local improvement district where payment could be a hardship and that the residential portion of the list as a whole is a fee is a fairly small portion. This was useful information from the hearing that I attended that it's about 20% of the $174 million, just to remind the general public. The lid is assessed to pay for about 49% of the improvements involved in this project. 51% of the improvements to be paid for with other taxes and with private philanthropy. But I think it is important to flag that the residential portion of the land is a fairly modest part of the overall project. I would certainly be interested in pursuing in the future, especially as we go through implementation and assessment, that if there if there are people reporting significant hardship over the course of the period where people are expected to pay into the lit under the council, explore some kind of mitigation for the residential portion of the LED folks that are assessed based on a hardship to pay or based on on other extenuating circumstances. But that said, having reviewed the clerk's file and having reviewed the rest of the process that the hearing examiner and that the relevant committee and indeed a lot of the outreach work that has gone into the overall waterfront project, I cannot say sitting here in the in a quasi judicial capacity that this that this to lead has or and I have to agree that this led has been conducted in a way that is squaring the law and the rules around how a lead assessment is carried out and implemented. For those reasons, I am going to vote today on all three pieces of legislation to move forward on this project. But I do want to flag that going forward, the residential portion of the land is something I would be interested in exploring future ways to mitigate over the pendency of the assessments in cases where there is real hardship, particularly for people that are on fixed incomes. With that, I don't have any other comments. Madam President, I do just want to once more express my appreciation to the Chair for for being very accessible throughout this process and allowing ample opportunity for me to engage. If you come from our Louis any any other comments on the bill. Right. Because there was any closing remarks before we close out debate. Yes. I want to thank Councilmember Lewis. I'm glad you had an. Opportunity to read the Clarke file and that the law aligns itself with the state law. Thank you for that. Yeah. This led the number 675 one means that we've had 6751. Leads since the turning of the century, which. Aligns with state law. So that's great. I'm glad you had a chance. To look at that and that you approved. So with that council president, I'd like us to take a vote on that. Thank you so much, Councilmember Waters. Thanks for closing our debate. Hearing no additional comments, will the clerk please call the role on the adoption of the findings, conclusions and decision of the Council as presented in clerk? File 314476. Lewis. I. Morales Yes. Peterson. Yes. Silent? Yes. Strauss. Yes. Verbal. That's. Whereas s council president Gonzalez I it in favor and then oppose. The motion carries and the findings, conclusions and decision of the Council as presented in clerk file 314476 as adopted. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the findings, conclusions and decision of the City Council on my behalf? We have already read items eight and nine into the record and have debate, so I'm just going to call each of these items up individually for a vote at this time. Well, the clerk, please call the roll on the passage of item eight, which is one minute squirrel here. Council Bill 120072. Lewis. Yes. Morales. Yes. Petersen Yes. So want. Yes. Strauss. Yes. Purple? Yes. Whereas. Yes. Council President Gonzales. Yes. Eight in favor. Nine opposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it with a quick. Please fix my signature on the legislation on my behalf. Okay. Moving over to item nine, which again has already been read into the record, described and debated. So I'm going to go ahead and just call this one up for a vote now. So will the parties call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 1 to 0 073, which is item nine? Lewis. Yes. Morales. As. Peterson Yes. Swan Yes. Strauss. Yes. Verbal? Yes. Whereas s council President Gonzalez s eight in favor and unopposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will this affect my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Well the quick please read item ten into the record.