AN ORDINANCE relating to land use and zoning; amending Sections 22.206.200, 22.208.020, 23.40.006, and 23.91.002 of the Seattle Municipal Code; to modify maintenance and demolition standards related to vacant buildings.
Bill passes and serves on the amended bill. Please read the next agenda item. Constable one one 8971 Relating to land use and zoning, many sections 22.20 6.220 2.28.0 2020 3.40 .306 and 23.90 1.002. At the center. Mr. Curtin Modified maintenance and demolition standards related to vacant buildings committee recommends bill passes amended consumer. Johnson Thanks. I promise to be a little bit less rusty on this one. We we've been approached by the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection on behalf of several different constituencies that have been concerned about the number of vacant buildings in the city. In this legislation in front of us would improve security standards to keep vacant buildings more secure, allow for buildings that have been subject to an emergency order or had two or more unauthorized entries within the preceding 12 months, and received notice from Seattle Fire Department or the Police Department that the building presents a danger to the general public. Those buildings would be allowed to be demolished slightly faster than they have in the past. And it would also allow a building that hasn't been occupied as rental housing for the prior six months to be demolished, pending the master use permit from the city of Seattle. In committee, we added some important baseline information that I think made the bill much stronger. Councilmember Herbold proposed additional recitals to establish competing, not competing to establish additional policy and regulatory objectives to balance the the approach that we're trying to take with vacant buildings, as well as better describe the intent of the legislation to respond to an increase in complaints and to balance out the safety and security against the preservation of the city's housing stock. We also added a section in the bill requesting that the seven Department of Construction and inspections prepare policy options and a cost estimate for a vacant building monitoring program that would allow us to expand the program authorized by the existing code and really give us a better sense of exactly what the violation of building standards would look like in a quarterly monitoring program. So those are some the elements that I think are going to be really important. Fundamentally, this is responding, I think, to public safety concerns that we've heard from a lot of community members, while also balancing the need for us to work with nonprofit community organizations like Weld and others that are very interested in the preservation of housing stock to make sure that we're walking that fine line between having a roof over people's heads who need it and responding to safety concerns of vacant buildings that are no longer habitable and have become a real nuisance in the community. So without I'm happy to answer questions that folks have, I'm sure there are a couple of my colleagues, Councilmember Wise, and I imagine Councilmember Herbold may want to share some thoughts on the topic as well. Thank you, Catherine. Just any comments? COUNCILMEMBER Worse. Thank you. First of all, I'm proud to say that we I helped co-sponsor this legislation, this vacant building legislation. I want to thank Councilmember Johnson and also central staff Kyle Friedman, the CDC director, Tom Wilson, Faith Lipson and Shawna Larson, who were very helpful in our office and answering questions. And, of course, Chief Scoggins of the fire department. The intent of this legislation is to expedite the permitting process of vacant buildings in response to a significant uptick of hazardous vacant building complaints. The previous 12 months policy has led to substantial squatter events and public safety issues which pose risk to neighbors, transient occupants, and the first responders who must enter into the building in the event of an emergency. In the last five years have been a 58% increase in citywide vacant building. Complaints in District five alone near Linton Springs and Lake City neighborhoods have been particularly hit hard by vacant building occurrences. In committee, I introduced an amendment to shorten the vacancy period to six months of waiting time prior to demolition. Every month the building lays vacant. There is an exponential impact on the public safety and health of the transient occupants and neighbors. This legislation is a huge win to address our city's imminent public nuisance and health and safety needs. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman. Words from Herbold. Thank you. I want to thank my colleagues on the Council on the plus committee and the folks who aren't on the committee but attended. And working with me on some of the amendments that passed, i, I, I am concerned that there is a, a balance that was struck with the old approach between valuing housing that still has a useful life. And public safety interests were we were replacing what was an objective valuation approach of on on actually looking at what the with the replacement value of the property is with an approach that may be a little bit more subjective. Time will tell when the development of the directors rules that talk about how it is that speed and the fire department identify properties as as being imminent safety hazards. You know Stsci identified this the current approach, the current valuation approach is a barrier to demolishing abandoned properties. And, you know, there are over 250 abandoned properties that DCI is aware of. Of all of the districts in Seattle, District One has the greatest number of them. And so I was really concerned when I contacted DCI and asked them how many abandoned buildings did they have on file that they were trying to do an evaluation process with and they were unable to do so and thus removed them. And they reported to me that. The vast majority of those 250 properties actually had not received any evaluation, so the SDR hadn't even attempted to use the process. Of the six that were ordered for demolition in 2016, all were successful. So in each of the six times in 2016 of over over 250 buildings, they were able to successfully demolish and meet that existing standard in all six times. I'm concerned that the current proposal might reward disinvestment and an abandonment. The reality is, is that a property that still has useful life can go from being potentially safe housing to really housing that is dangerous and unfit within a course of a year of being abandoned. And I feel the reason for that is that we aren't doing enough to monitor our existing vacant properties and hold property owners responsible for maintaining those properties. For that reason, I'm really looking forward to receiving information from SDC early next year to work on how how we can make more robust and more frankly effective our existing vacant building monitoring program. In addition, I'm looking forward to receiving from SDC information from them of of the approximately 250 buildings that they know that are vacant now, how many of them are likely to meet the new basic standard of having one emergency order in two unauthorized entries? And then also what their process is going to be to develop standards for the fire and police departments to recommend buildings that need removed. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Herbold, any further questions or comments? Okay. Please call the rule on the passage of the bill. So what I think Sharna Burgess Herbold Johnson Suarez O'Brian President Harrell High Ayton favor an unopposed. Bill passes and show so please read the next agenda item.