AN ORDINANCE concerning protecting conservation lands in King County; adopting financial policies to accelerate the protection of vital open spaces, including urban green spaces, natural areas, wildlife and salmon habitat, trails, river corridors, farmlands and forests in King County; to address equity and social justice issues by increasing the availability of open spaces in historically under-served areas; and to address generational equity by spreading costs of protecting vital open spaces over time; amending Ordinance 8867, Section 1 and K.C.C. 26.12.010, Ordinance 13717, Section 1 and K.C.C. 26.12.003, as amended, and Ordinance 13717, Section 4 and K.C.C. 26.12.025 and adding a new section to K.C.C. chapter 26.12.
All right. So for the record, on Mary Bergen on from the council staff and the materials for this item began on page 39 of your packet, but I'm going to begin at page 40 and just give a little bit of background on what led to this ordinance. Back in 2015, the council passed motion 14458 which declared that it is county policy to protect and conserve land and water resources and directed the executive to develop and transmit a work plan by March 30th of 2016. To do that, the executive came back with an initial work plan in early 2016 and then convened a land conservation advisory group which met throughout much of 2016 and 2017 and developed a first phase report in January of last year and then a final report in December of last year. That report set the goal of acquiring 65,000 acres of open space lands within the next 30 years, at a cost estimated over the 30 years of $1.9 billion . The group came up with a number of ideas for how funding could be secured to do that, which included, among other things, resetting the conservation futures tax to its state maximum of 6.2 cents per $1,000. That would require voter approval. And so instead of that, at this point, the Executive has come forward with several of the other concepts from the Land Conservation Advisory Group, one of which includes an increasing the bonding level against the conservation futures tax. And then the other, which is also in this ordinance to establish equity areas in underserved areas of the county. In the middle of page 41, you'll see a description of the conservation futures tax. This is a dedicated portion of the property tax that's authorized by state law to acquire property rights to conserve open space. It's been collected in King County since the early 1980s. And as I mentioned, state law sets the maximum for this levy at 6.2 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The CFT was at this maximum level when it was first imposed in the 1980s, but since then it has eroded and it is now under $0.04. King County currently allocates about 12 and a half million dollars in CFT proceeds each year, and those allocation processes are governed by sections of the King County Code, which establish an application process for local communities. A citizen's oversight committee from whom you heard this afternoon to review the applications, and then a process by which first the executive and then the council review those recommendations and allocate funding. Now I'm moving on to page 43 in terms of the proposed changes that are included in this ordinance. The first thing the ordinance would do, as I mentioned, is change the financial policies for the CFT to allow that 80% of the proceeds could be used for debt service so that the amount of money bonded against the CFT could be increased. Currently, there is not a set limit for bonding, but there's been an informal limit set by the council, an executive of about half the proceeds used for bonding. And right now about 46% of annual CFT revenues are used to support debt service with the proposal going to 80%. That would provide an additional 6 to $8 million a year. That could potentially be set aside for debt service and could lead depending on the length of the bonds. The interest rate, somewhere between 80 and $150 million in proceeds that could be used immediately to acquire property. The second thing the ordinance would do, and here I'm on the top of page 44, is to eliminate the match requirement for what are defined as equity areas. I should note that right now any jurisdiction applying for funding through the CFT is required to provide local match equal to the amount they ask for from the CFT for equity areas. And I'll get to that definition in a minute. There would be no local match which would allow for more jurisdictions and underserved areas to seek funding. You'll see a little bit farther down on page 44 the definition of equity areas, which would require three criteria to be met. First, areas located in a census tract in which the median household income is in the lowest third in the county. Second areas located in a census tract in which hospitalization rates for asthma, diabetes and heart disease are in the highest third in the county. And then finally, areas that do not have easy access to parks, either those within the urban growth growth boundary no park within a quarter mile or areas outside the urban growth boundary, no park within two miles. There is also language in the ordinance that would allow for some flexibility so that an applicant can demonstrate and the CFTC Citizen's Oversight Committee can determine that a project proposed for funding would be eligible to be considered an equity area. With that turning to the bottom of page 44 and staff's analysis. First, the definition of equity area. As I noted, there are three criteria as well as some language that allows for flexibility. Those obviously are policy choices for the council, whether you wish to add this definition and then if you are satisfied with the combination of set criteria as well as flexibility that the Oversight Committee could apply. The next policy issue for the Council is the elimination of the match requirement for equity areas. Again, this would allow for underserved communities to apply more easily for T funding, but would mean that because there is not a local match, more money would need to come from the CFT or other sources to acquire that open space. Again, a policy choice for the Council. Next, the increased bonding. As I noted, setting the bond limit higher would allow for an immediate cash infusion to purchase property, but would mean that in future years more of the C of T revenues are being used to support debt service. Again, there are pros and cons of that. It's a policy choice for the council. And then finally, the nexus between equity and open space. The proposed ordinance talks about this to some extent, but staff has identified a number of both adopted policies and regional plans that specifically call out this nexus, including King County's Determinants of Equity Report , the King County Open Space Plan and the recently adopted Puget Sound Regional Council Regional Open Space Conservation Plan. The final issue I'll note is the ongoing erosion of the C of T. As I mentioned, the state maximum for that tax is 6.25. Since it has eroded over time to under $0.04. And this proposal would not affect that erosion. So it will continue to erode over time. Mary, you used the term erode, but can you explain what you mean? What I mean is that there are limits in state law by how much property taxes can increase each year. And because of those limits, the portion of any particular dedicated source of funding such as the CFA, go down in value year over year. And so again, over the 30 plus years that this tax has been enacted, it has gone down from 6.2 $0.05 to under $0.04 now. And that diminishment would continue unless there is some action and in this case, voter approval to reset that levy amount. Finally, I'll note and as you had mentioned, Mr. Chair, this ordinance is a dual mandatory referral. It was heard by and approved by the Regional Policy Committee earlier this month. And that concludes my staff report. Bob Burns is here from the Department of Natural Resources and Parks, if you have questions. Thank you very much for the staff report and the presentation, Mary. Let's take a couple of questions and then we'll see. Councilmember Cole Wells is the co-sponsor of the legislation with me, if you might, when we're ready to be able to put it forward. Start with Councilmember Lambert and then Councilmember Gossett. Thank you. To look at instead of eliminating the match, look at a sliding scale. I think that's a great question for the executive. So I'll call bumpers up. So well he's coming up asking the second question. So, you know, we talked about the 6.2 going down to $0.04. But during that time, the housing in this county pretty much doubled in value. So while that the amount to 4000 went down, the assessed values went way up. Right. Yes. That's so it didn't really erode the amount of money because the assessed values were so much higher. The rate has been what eroded. That was what I was trying to impress and apologize if there is any confusion. But I wasn't. And I know you weren't, but I just want to make sure the citizens listening who don't do this everyday got that little twist. And then I know that in the catalog. And maybe there's another question for you, Bob, but there is a catalog of county planners, city planners that says that for every thousand people you have, you have to have so much open space. Do you know what that formula is for? So for the record, Paul Byrnes, King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks. So on that question, I think each jurisdiction has their own, you know, comprehensive plans and part plan. And so it varies by jurisdiction in terms of what those goals and targets are. There's not a legal requirement. I don't think that's uniform across jurisdictions. But many jurisdictions set targets and goals for numbers of acres, numbers of ballfields, numbers of certain park amenities. So that that's true. And thank you. What I was asking was, what is the guideline? There's a guideline formula. And so I think it would be interesting as we go forward to maybe have something in the bill that says that you need to you need to get closer to the guidelines so that you don't end up in these problems. Because I used to know that there's what the number was, but I don't remember off the top of my head. But there is a formula. So maybe we should find that out and then see other cities that in going forward you need to make decisions that don't put us in the situation in the past. So did you ever look at a sliding scale as opposed to eliminating it? So the advisory group recommendation was to eliminate the match, but what we did was assessed where are the areas of most acute need? And I think that the sense was that there weren't there's not a lot of gradation when it comes to acute need areas that are bottom third of income, bottom or top third of hospitalization, rates for heart disease, diabetes, asthma and a lack of proximity to greenspace. And the strong consensus coming out of the advisory group process was elimination of the match entirely is the thing that is going to allow those areas to catch back up and get some greenspace going. If we if we take gradations and gets very complicated, it's hard to, you know, describe an area with an acute sort of need as just, you know, gradations of of of waiver. And so the strong consensus was to eliminate the match entirely. Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you. Councilmember Lambert, Councilmember Gossett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was impacted by many of the people who testified because they reminded us that already the King County Council has preserved a lot of open space where our public funding. More so than most other places, at least proportionately speaking around the country. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Larry Phillips was our leader for so many years on a county council, and he was the father of the growth manager plan when he was in the state legislature. And I also like the fact that the CFP has that program that you and Council remember had been talking about where we could give priority consideration to low income communities getting a little bit of open space because I think communities like Harlem and North Philly that you can go from miles and have no open space. You got some cement basketball courts, but no open space for a long time. Here's the challenge that I have. If we increase the bonding capacity for our county from 50 to 80% of all the money, yes, it's true that that means that right now we can bond that money and have an I think oh, I think you said about 100 3050 million available to spare. And two or three speakers said if we could spend money now better than we're waiting for later because the cost of land would be so much more. And that that's a consideration. Here's what bothers me. The FBI guy in the Seattle Times, his name is Bork. Eugene Bork. Yeah. Okay. And he said The poor people in King County in Seattle are King County. I can't remember which pay way more taxes than anybody else in the state of Washington and perhaps in a lot of other places. And they sound like we pay for 18% of their money for sales tax and most put it on their homes. But I'm sure it's even more than that if they if they do and have to pay taxes, because those are two primary taxing possibilities here. I don't know about this having more. And Mary, very clearly explain what it means. It means we have to have more capacity to pay off a larger debt in years in the future to pay off that empty debt. That would be really high. And then the other point, she said, because each year something falls. And what was that? It was the rate of the tax know. So it's going to be much more difficult to get resources in the future. So I wanted to ask either one of you. The debt service payment being so high in your future, what are the redeeming values of having that kind of situation? Thank you, Councilman, for the question so that the action in front of you today would put the financial tool in the toolbox to allow bonding at a higher level, but it would not cause any increase in taxes. So what what would happen? No, I mean, why not? So we would rely on an existing the existing conservation futures tax revenues, which is an existing, stable, predictable revenue stream. We would use those existing revenues to pay off any debt that would be council magically issued. And so it wouldn't require increasing the tax, it would just be binding against an existing stable funding source. And the reason we think that's prudent is pulling that capital forward allows us to accelerate the pace and buy land before it disappears to other uses and wallets. While it's maybe more affordable in the future, we project the price of land to only go higher, and the longer we wait, we'll lose these opportunities to get green space in urban areas, to protect farmlands, connect trail corridors, etc.. So those are the rationale set. Up by me. Mary, also a comment on Macron because if the because are using all of this, the money, the value of it is going to go down in the future. Well, understand what it means. It's easy to pay it off. What I mean, sir, is that essentially the county would be taking this existing revenue source, which Bob mentioned, and it's essentially putting more of it on the county credit card. We'd be saying we need the money upfront because land values are increasing so quickly, we're going to borrow to get more money. So it's as if you said your salary is the same, but you're going to put more in your credit card because you need to buy a new car or you're going to take out a home loan to buy a new house. And that's essentially the proposal here. So it's not a new tax. It's not an increased tax. It's just saying we're going to borrow some money now to have more up front. Somebody has to be paid back. So the county would be paying it back out of its existing revenues from this tax. And it just means that in future years there would be less to spend on an ongoing basis because the county would be spending more to pay back the debt. Definitely would be less to spend in the future. Thank you. Thank you. If I might come at Mr.. And I think one of the reasons you got comfortable with the proposal in the Regional Policy Committee and were able to support it there is because this legislation authorizes us to go up to 80%. But there are still two additional steps before we would actually do that. At least tier one you would be able to approve the specific proposed acquisitions of land with the money or recall that comes before us every year on recommendations of the CFP committee. And two, you would have to vote to issue the debt and there may even be a budget vote in there somewhere as well. So I think there were those additional steps that would be required to where your concern, which I think is valid with respect to does the proposal comply with our financial policies? Are we not overextending ourselves? All of those issues are certainly going to be able to be presented and addressed if we were able to move forward. This simply sets the framework to be able to do it. Did I messed that up, Bob? That that was exactly right, Mr. Chair. This just even a blind squirrel finds the knot once in a while, so. Okay. No, he's always pretty good at explaining count. Thank you, Councilmember Garcia, that's kind of you to say Councilmember Lambert had an additional comment before we put it before us. Yeah, well, I found it online line. So it was just what you said. But it was also that prior to from 1919 60 to 19 eighties, the National Recreation and Parks Association standard was ten acres per thousand. And then in the 1990s people were saying that there was too much parkland, surprisingly enough. And so then, then they said, but each city establish its own standard. And so some cities have like nine acres, a couple cities have 12 acres, Tampa has 9.9. So, you know, it's interesting that the cities, very few of them look like they've gone over the ten per acre, that it was actually a way of making it less, which was very interesting. But I think, you know, looking at some kind of standard, even though that was the old standard for 20 years, it gave a guideline so that if your city didn't have proper and we know that it's needed for health and all these other good reasons, including mental health. So anyway, I threw that out because they thought it was something that we should at least know how our cities are doing. Are they getting close to a 10th acre just so we know, or are they doing it like one city has four acres per thousand, which is completely not acceptable as far as I'm concerned. So know. I just want you to know that. Thank you, Councilmember about duty and then Councilmember Caldwell's. Thank you. Looking left. I just wanted to repeat something that we said at the Regional Policy Committee, mainly because there are people in this discussion that weren't in that discussion. First of all, there was some discussion at our P.C. about whether pulling this money forward would limit our ability to fund things in the future, which is, of course, always true when you bond because then you then tied up your revenue streams. However, I'll repeat what I said there, which is for this kind of a project, it's a very sensible kind of strategy for funding because of the risk of losing the lands that we're trying to preserve. If you don't preserve them now, the risk is that they go away. So pulling money forward to me makes a lot of sense in this kind of situation. I just thought I'd repeat that. And the other thing I wanted to repeat was this I am I'm very appreciative of and and excited by the work that's been done in the proposal that's coming forward. I am particularly excited about the equity investments. I think there's an incredibly strong case for that. And it's a it's a it's a nice way of making up for past inequities in access to open space and safe ways, places to play outside. I do want to again, though, stressed that when we talk about conserving land outside the urban growth boundary or at the urban growth boundary, that sort of brings to my mind of the discussion around the whole balance of good, the Growth Management Act. And the balance was we're going to grow inside that urban growth boundary, we're going to provide housing, we're going to provide density, smart growth, transportation, all everything that people need so that at the same time, we can conserve the land outside the urban growth boundary and not sprawl all the way to the Cascade Mountains. Right. We seem to do a pretty good job of the conservation part, but we're not doing the greatest job on the housing part and the density part. We're not keeping up with the demand for housing and the cost just keeps going up and up and up and up. So maybe I'll frame it as a question this time. Was any thought or discussion giving to a way to tie these two things together because they are linked like a TDR program for housing or any kind of innovation? A better way to try to support that second really critical part of growth management while we're doing the conservation, that is also very critical. Yeah, thank you. Great question. That actually came up yet. But I do say. That that came up through the advisory group process. We actually did an analysis based on questions from advisory group members and we looked at the buildable lands capacity in the urban area. It's about 417,000 units of capacity. And the Land Conservation Initiative that we estimate is about double what we need for that, I think the 30 year growth target. But but that's, you know, there's the next 30 years in the 30 years beyond that that land conservation initiative would impact that by about two and a half to 3%. So the advisory group, I think, got comfortable with the idea that that's a fairly de minimis impact, but it's an impact. And the point you made is we're struggling with affordability and. And can I jump in? Yeah. It's not about the impact of this. I'm not arguing that because we're taking land out of production, we should. Therefore, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is this is regardless of what our targets are and what our buildable lands may look like, we are failing egregiously at providing enough housing so that people can afford it in this market. So there's something wrong with that analysis there. There's something not working there. And this provides an opportunity to potentially encourage more density in places where people will actually build it. Maybe just put it that way. Yeah. And so we've been working with the Development Committee on how do we grow the TR program, which you referenced. I want to suggest that as part of this, we should try to do that. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually was we as part of the Land Conservation Initiative, we assumed a higher level of revenue from TDR as part of the non CFT revenue that would help support land conservation. The more we can grow TDR, those proceeds can help cover some of the cost of land acquisition. If we pass this as written, does it limit our ability to use TDR or some other incentive program in that way? In this package, it. Doesn't limit our ability to use TDR or any other private or public private partnership opportunity. That's very that's very comforting. And I want to work with you all on finding ways to do that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Customer Resolution. I want to remind colleagues that in our comprehensive plan update, we included a work plan item to explore adding flexibility and new types of TDRS with our program. And I think the department is working on that, which would include urban to urban TDR using I call supercharging TDRS to incentivize their use in underinvested communities and even some perhaps rural to rural, whether that should be TDR to be able to facilitate these things. So I think some work. Is underway on that, and I'm very interested in seeing the results. We're running low on time, and I'm going to turn to Councilmember Caldwell's to take up this item. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I proposed ordinance 2018 020268 that would make changes to the code to allow increased funding of conservation features, tax proceeds and establish policies for the purchase of equity areas in underserved census tracts. All right, that's before us. Comments on passage. We don't have amendments at this time right here. Effectively, Amanda, we got to go back to their pieces, hopefully do that. Councilmember One Right, Bart tells me, is a full agenda at the IPC Council Member Lambert Thank you. As we go forward in this, I think there's some things that we need to continue to think about. So I'm just going to listen quickly. First of all, our citizens are saying their property taxes are too high. So that's a problem. And one of the reasons our property taxes is too high, it's because 61% of the land is not paying full taxes and much of it is not paying any taxes. So that's a problem with this. It would probably go up closer to 63% of the land not paying full taxes in this. 3% of it would be on buildable lands. And we also have a problem with affordable housing. And yet part of the properties that were on the list, I don't know if they're still on the list, but are buildable land properties. The issue about having more open space land is that we still have many, many noxious weeds. We're not doing a good job and fire prevention in the unincorporated areas. We're not doing a good job of making sure people are not parking illegally and we are not doing a good job with the amount of garbage that is being taken into our rural areas that my citizens. One group spent $14,000 last year paying for that garbage to clean up after their property. That was not their garbage. $14,000 last year. So as we go forward and we have people out in open spaces, they need to not be bringing their garbage and leaving it for somebody else to clean up. The chance for development rights has impacts on the rural roads, and as we change that, we need to be aware that the rural roads are a huge problem. And every time we do a transfer of development rights, it makes the Rural Roads Fund worse. It makes it better for the unincorporated area incorporated, it makes it worse for the unincorporated areas. So it has an impact. That is not. But I was here when we talked about the 50% rate for bonding and there was a lot of discussion that day because people were worried that it would ruin our discussion in the future . And they were really worried that we'd get up to 50% right away and that wasn't going to happen. And so it was almost humorous. I laughed when I read 80%. I thought, Wow, we debated a long time on 50 and now we're talking about 80. So I have those concerns as we go forward. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Limmer, Councilmember Colo. Mr. Chair, who shared the comments made by Councilmember Lambert that I think there is something eminently, eminently compelling about this legislation. As as Executive Constantine wrote in his transmittal letter, which is found in attachment to in the first paragraph, he referred to finishing the job of protecting and preserving irreplaceable open space lands in King County. Timing can be everything, and if we don't take this opportunity, we may lose the opportunity to actually have these lands being saved. And then on attachment for the last two lines, and this is from supporters of the Land Conservation Initiative and refers to the initiative will pair the creation of new green space with new housing units to promote livability as our cities grow and densify. We still have time, but if we wait, these lands will either be developed or priced beyond our capacity to secure. And thus, Mr. Chair, I strongly support this motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. Or. Well, you're always Madam Chair. You can't go wrong with that, can you? I want to just say a few remarks. I've spoken on this item many times, but I'm pleased the prime sponsor. I want to thank and commend the county executive for his leadership and initiative on this and our advisory group that worked for a couple of years, plus on putting it together with outreach to the community, including especially the co-chairs, Larry Phillips, our former colleague, and Shawn Quinn from Tugwell on the city council. There we are all from my district, talked about growing up and be able to walk out his front door to Cougar Mountain. We're both Hazen Highlanders, and we both now represent the Shawcross Scotts, whose motto is Our mascot is a Highlander as well. Like the Shortcrust delivered their mascot down to Hayes, and when it opened up, there's a connection there. But the reason that Will Hall was able to walk out his door and to Cougar Mountain was because 50 years ago, in 1968, voters in this region approved Proposition number six and the forward thrust bond package. And that bond package preserved things like Coal Creek and May Valley Wetlands and Cougar Mountain and Maplewood Park, all part of the network in south east King County that surrounded the places where Will Hall and I grew up. But for that foresight and investment by the region's voters to make a long term investment and significant down payment, those lands probably would have been paved over. This is a continuation in my mind of that tradition, but very well thought out. The technical expertize that the department natural resources in parks has brought to this proposal, the specificity with respect to which 65,000 acres we want to preserve and protect from our farmlands and our forests and our open space and parks and waters is a new level of precision and focus. And I just I think it's terrific. The equity piece fits with our county values of making sure we do right by those who have leased. So I think it is a very, very compelling proposal and I'm excited hopefully to see it advanced today. And I want to thank Bob Burns for his leadership on it, as always, with that will come through. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Belushi. Hi, Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Garcia. Hi. Councilmember Coldwell I. Councilmember Lambert No. Councilmember McDermott. High. Council Member of the ground. Councilmember Bond right there. Mr. Chair. Hi. Mr. Chair. The vote is seven I Council member. Member no and one excused. All right, we've advanced that recommendation. I would like to expedite it to Monday's County Council calendar, given the break that's coming, and it'll just be on the regular calendar there. So thank you all for coming today on that item and to my colleagues for your work on it. We will turn now to item 38 Ordinance 2018 0257 Building for Culture Reallocations. Mary will have a staff report on this and then we'll move to take action.