AN ORDINANCE relating to land use and zoning; establishing regulations for development of permanent supportive housing; adding a new Section 23.42.057 to, and amending Sections 23.41.004, 23.45.510, 23.47A.004, 23.47A.005, 23.47A.013, 23.48.005, 23.48.020, 23.48.605, 23.54.015, and 23.84A.032 of, the Seattle Municipal Code.
Agenda Item five Council Bill 119 and 975 relating to land use and zoning. Establishing regulations for development of permanent supportive housing. The committee recommends the bill passed as amended. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis, as chair of the committee, you are recognized in order to provide our committee report. Thank you so much, President Pro Tem Strauss. I know you're a strict moderator, so I'll try to keep my comments brief from coming from the Land Use Committee. So, you know, I think we've discussed this at length over the last couple of months. We've had three committee sessions to mark up this bill, to talk about it, and to thoroughly vetted with the public and stakeholders. You know, I think it's important as homelessness is the defining issue that we're facing as a city and in a lot of ways the defining issue of urban policy nationally, that we be able to go to the public and say that we are doing everything that we can to stretch the value of taxpayer dollars, to make life easier for the builders that are out there making the permanent supportive housing and to structure policy in a way that is bespoke to the unique needs and unique challenges that people in the permanent supportive housing field have faced over the years in an area that we Seattleites have really been a pioneer in cultivating through employment, housing, downtown Mercy Service Center Chief Seattle Club and others. And with this bill, we go one step closer. We can go and tell the people of Seattle, you know, we took a hard look at what are the processes, where is the red tape that we can cut, what are the things that could be streamlined? And that experience has told us we can we can move past, you know, by passing new laws and changing regulations. And with this legislation, we can carve off almost $50,000 per unit in cost to build permanent supportive housing. We can make sure that those buildings are going up faster and with tighter timelines to make sure that they're coming online to help take pressure off of our shelter system and get more of our neighbors inside. And today we can take that step. And I look forward to voting this through. I do want to thank Jacob Thorpe and Parker Dawson on my staff for their work and really putting this together with a bunch of stakeholders over the past couple of months. I want to thank those stakeholders over at Plymouth Housing, Sara Rankin over at the University of Washington. I really want to thank the third door coalition folks. Matt Galvin, you know Chad over there. Oh, Gaucho. You know, it really shows what we can do when we come together and focus on solving a problem rather than pointing fingers at each other about about what the, you know, what isn't getting done. So here's something we got done by working together. We can build on that to have more victories in the future and just really look forward to getting this passed. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis. Colleagues, any questions, comments? Concerns. We will all sit on the Select Committee of Homelessness, Investments and Strategies. So it does look like we have some some hands. Councilmember Herbold and then Councilmember Mosqueda. Thank you so much. We all know that permanent supportive housing is well established as the most effective and the most cost effective solution to chronic homelessness. People who live outside live stably for long stretches of their lives outside, who struggle with disabilities and are unable to afford rent. Out of that cohort of folks, 95% of people stay housed in permanent supportive housing regardless of their mental health or substance abuse disorder or their disability. Research conducted at Seattle University School of Law found that permanent supportive housing is associated with better outcomes related to quality of life emergency services, physical and psychiatric hospitalizations and substance abuse. Better outcomes for residents also save money, making permanent supportive, supportive housing again the most cost effective long term solution to chronic homelessness. Permanent supportive housing is also cheaper for the public than the alternative one year of permanent supportive housing cost, the same as only three days in a hospital or three months in jail. I've consistently called for doubling the city's investment in permanent supportive housing. And last year, I among, I think, every member of the City Council joined the launch of the Third Door Coalition and signed on to support their plan to build 6500 units of permanent supportive housing in King County in the next five years. I really appreciate the goal of this legislation to make it less expensive and hopefully, hopefully to build permanent supportive housing more quickly in Seattle. And thank you to Councilmember Lewis for his leadership in working with folks together to solve this problem. Thank you. Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Muffet. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Pro tem. I, too, want to thank Councilmember Lewis for bringing forward this legislation, as well as his work to engage both proponents and skeptics to ensure that this policy was both holistic and truly address the difficulties of affordable health that affordable housing providers have had to deal with when creating permanent supportive housing for our most impacted unhoused neighbors. Council colleagues. This legislation is critical to addressing our ongoing housing crisis and currently and as currently even affordable housing projects started today could take anywhere from 4 to 6 years to design. So creating permanent housing, building that housing and making sure that it's designed well makes makes it important for us to do everything that we can to expeditiously create permanent supportive housing across our city. I am happy to be in full support of this legislation today, and I believe that it will shorten that timeline, bring much needed housing online, much faster for those who are impacted by the lack of access to affordable housing throughout our community. We must also be looking at near-term solutions to help shelter those who are in need most, whether through tiny homes or apartment acquisitions or the ongoing efforts that we continue to talk about for the immediate non-covid shelter options. We must do everything that we can to ensure that there is a pipeline out of those shelters and building more permanent supportive housing is the exit plan to open up more beds so that folks who are living outside have a place to go in our shelters. We must have a permanent supportive housing. And during this bill today passes a clear message that we are moving forward, aggressively addressing the regulatory barriers to building permanently affordable housing, while also identifying funding and all opportunities to expand our shelter capacity as soon as possible. Thank you very much, council members, and thank you very much customer list for your leadership on this. Well said. Council of Real Estate and Chutzpah, Peterson. Thank you. I'd like to also thank Councilmember Lewis as chair of our Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments for his leadership in crafting this bill. 119975 to speed the production of permanent supportive housing. I very much appreciate we had ample time to review and consider the legislation and offer our modest amendments to it. We are fortunate to have the voter approved Seattle housing levy and our Office of Housing, which funds the construction of approximately 2400 units of low income housing each year. But only 10% to 20% of those units are for the permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals suffering from behavioral health challenges and other issues. I'm grateful to my colleagues for adopting three of my amendments at the committee last week, and these amendments will encourage broadband, internet and low income housing, require at least one community meeting for new projects, and ensure that vital human services are made available to residents of the new projects that skip these projects and skip the design review process. I'm fully supportive of this and will vote yes. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson. Colleagues. Any other questions or comments? Concerns. Seeing none. I'll share my thoughts of, again, gratitude. And thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for your leadership on this bill. It is rare that I get a land use bill out of my jurisdiction, and I did so only because I knew that you would do the job that you did and move this forward in a very thoughtful manner. So thank you for your leadership on that. Councilmember Lewis, I will pass it back to you for last words and then I'll call for the vote. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss. I'm glad that no unforeseen consequences were realized from putting this through the Select Committee on Homelessness. So I appreciate your indulgence in letting it go from the purview of the Land Use Committee. Just to close this out and I appreciate the the recognition from many colleagues on on what we put together here. And and Councilmember Peterson, your amendments that improved the bill and Councilmember Herbert's long standing commitments to this issue throughout her career, and then particularly Councilmember Mesquita, that, you know, we can do all that, the cutting of red tape that we want to, but without resources to back this up. You know, cheaper, permanent supportive housing is still going to be out of reach unless there are resources to actually build and acquire it. And the investments made through Jumpstart are going to be stretch that much further due to this bill and these regulations. So I appreciate your leadership and making sure that there are resources on the other end of the of the hurdle here to realize a lot of these investments. So with that, I don't have any additional comments and look forward to voting to pass this. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis and Clerks, will you please call the roll? HERBOLD Yes. Lewis Yes. Morales Yes. Macheda I. Petersen Yes. So what? Yes. President Pro Tem Strauss Yes. Seven in favor and unopposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Moving on to item six, adoption of other resolutions. Will the clerk please read the abbreviated title of the short title into the record?