AN ORDINANCE relating to Seattle’s construction codes; adopting the Seattle Energy Code and chapters of the Washington Administrative Code by reference and amending certain chapters of the Code; amending Section 22.101.010 of the Seattle Municipal Code; repealing Title 22, Subtitle VII of the Seattle Municipal Code; and repealing Sections 2 through 10 of Ordinance 125159 and Section 5 of Ordinance 125410.
Gin Diamond 32 Constable 119993 related to sales construction code adopting the Chateau Energy Code and chapters of the Washington Administrative Code by reference to committee recommend civil passes amended with Council member Strauss Macheda, Juarez and Lewis and Favre with an abstention from Councilmember Peterson. Thank you so much. Madam Clerk, as members Strauss, I want to hand it back over to you to walk us through this committee report. Thank you, Council President, colleagues. This is the legislation that adopts the new energy code similar to the construction codes we just considered. This new code adopts state level standards and builds upon them in important ways. This legislation comes soon after the most recent greenhouse gas inventory shows that our city's emissions have been increasing, including an 8.3 increase in building emissions between 2016 and 2018. The changes in this legislation will eliminate most carbon emissions resulting from new development and will reduce Seattle's total building emissions by at least 12% by 2050. The main highlight of this new energy code is a prohibition on the use of fossil fuels and electric resistance for space and water heating in multi-family and hotel developments, as well as commercial developments for the space heating requirements. These water heating requirements would take effect in 2022 to allow time for the market to adapt. The space heating requirements will take effect on June 1st, 2021. After an amendment during our last committee meeting. Other changes in this legislation include restricting the building envelope, heat loss, setting higher standards to reduce energy loss through windows, requiring more efficient HVAC systems in multifamily and medical office buildings, and requiring a lot electrical receptacles in dwelling units to allow for future electric electric appliances. As discussed this morning, there was one amendment that passed changing the implementation date of space heating changes. And Councilmember Lewis brought an amendment that would expand the water heating requirements. To commercial buildings. This will need to be considered as a separate piece of legislation. While these changes reduce our reliance on natural gas, we now rely more heavily on heat pumps, which also use refrigerants that, if not maintained and inspected, also have a great impact on our climate. As we transition our society to address the climate crisis, there are people's lives that also must change and making these changes directly change the work of unionized pipe fitters. As I discussed this morning, as we transition to address the climate crisis, we must also ensure this transition is not at the expense of union jobs that provide family wage, paid family wages and apprenticeships rather than student debt. As we've already discussed, working with Councilmember Mosquito through the Board of Health to increase and ensure effective inspections of this and other pipes. My work with Councilmember Herbold on the fire code regarding decommissioned fire lines and my work in the future regarding additional structural safety in the next round of building codes. With this update, Seattle will now have one of the most forward thinking energy codes in the country, and we will be setting the example that the rest of the state can follow in the next update. I especially want to thank Micah Chappelle, Dwayne Johnson, our Delgado, Seattle Department of Construction Inspections for not only helping us understand this complex code. Also doing extensive, extensive outreach to stakeholders and making this extremely effective code. I also want to thank central staff and to all the stakeholders and advocates who participated in this process. And finally, I want to reiterate that as we transition our economy to confront the climate crisis, we must be aware that the way we transition will impact people's lives. And we have to ensure that as we transition to address climate crisis, we are also protecting those jobs. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. Colleagues, I urge you support. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for that summary. I see that Councilman Lewis would like to make some comments on here, so I am going to open this up for any additional comments. So again, colleagues, this is an opportunity to make comments on the bill. I would encourage you to use the raise your hand feature in Zoom if you are able to if not, just give me a wave or send me a quick message. So first up is Councilmember Lewis and then we'll hear from Councilmember Peterson and then Councilmember Mosquito CASMIR Lewis, please. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to reiterate the remarks that I made this morning. Now that we're here, considering the underlying bill and Councilmember Strauss alluded to them about my amendment that I had been pursuing in consultation with stakeholders around expanding this legislation to include certain commercial considerations as well. As I said in briefing this morning, for various reasons that was going to slow down the implementation of this legislation. As Councilmember Strauss indicated, we will be pursuing separate legislation to accomplish that goal in a way that won't slow down the rest of the things that are in this bill. I think that's a good path forward so we can get this this on the books quickly and start implementing it while we take our time developing the other commercial considerations without slowing the overall implementation down. So I just want to signal I'm fully committed to that for folks that are wondering why that that amendment did not go forward. Councilmember Strauss and I are working together on it and we will be introducing legislation to address that. Thank you so much, Councilmember Lewis. And again, for those of you using the raise the hand feature, if you can lower your hand after you're done that, that would be helpful. Thank you. Next up is Councilmember Peterson and then Councilmember Mosquito. Thank you, Council President and thank you, Chair Strauss, for shepherding this. I support these updates to all of our building codes so that our building codes address the climate crisis regarding the Energy Code bill before us. Now, I just needed more time to research it because we heard from a diversity of views during public comment at committee . And so I just needed a few extra days to, to look into this and reconcile some of the concerns we were hearing from both labor and others who are actually building these buildings. And I feel it was really about the effective date that had moved around a bit. There was a previous stakeholder process and then there was additional input on that. And so I feel more comfortable now having that extra time. And so we'll be voting to support this bill. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson. I appreciate you addressing that, because I was going to one of the questions I was going to ask is if there could be some comment about the abstention so I could get a better understanding of what the committee conversation was. So that is you answered my question before I even asked. So I appreciate that. Councilman Muscadet next is next. And then after that will be Councilmember Robles, Councilmember Mosquito. Thank you very much. Madam President, Council colleagues, first, I want to start by thanking the committee. You've really led a very transparent process in considering the piece of legislation in front of us. And the deliberations that you have engaged in with various stakeholders have been authentic in wanting to seek feedback and good ideas, ways for improvements and better understanding on the timeline. And I just want to applaud you for this work. I know it's been a year that you've been on council and the last year felt like five years. But this is a really historic piece of legislation today. And I want to just thank you for your leadership on this and helping to lead the council in this discussion . I also want to thank the council members who are part of the committee who supported the amendment that I had the chance to bring forward with support and in consultation with the good chair, Councilmember Strauss and I had a chance to talk about the the timing and the ability to move forward on space heaters and very thankful for the committee's work on that. In addition to the environmental justice folks that we heard from today, I talked with members of the building construction trades about the technology and the readiness of the technologies to be able to move forward with space heaters more expeditiously than January of 2022. And I think that we landed on a good date with June of 2021 to allow for us to have sufficient time for stakeholder feedback as we develop rules, and also for us to have a better understanding of any potential legislation that the state lawmakers are considering that could have an impact on rulemaking and implementation going forward. Obviously, this is really an exciting day as we consider these two pieces of legislation, but I think it's a great example as well of a deliberative process that has included weighing technology that's available with just transition for workers so that there is the ability to recognize that we have to strike a balance between labor partners and the right timing to respond and shift work from natural gas to refrigerant pipes and doing so in a way that ensures address transit transition for workers is really critical. So very happy to be working with all of you as we continue to center that balance in all of the discussions that we have. Recognizing that the buildings that we've built for today, they're going to last for generations, hopefully, hopefully much longer than that once the average. But if you look at the Pioneer Square buildings from downtown and across our city, we want the buildings that are going up today to truly help build a better and healthier future for our region and our world. So I think that we're doing an important part of that today. It's all part of the bigger puzzle that was discussed this morning. I also want to recognize some of the concerns that we've heard today and also in testimony over the last few weeks from some who have been calling in about concerns regarding the sprinkler requirements, recognizing that both local housing providers and the Master Builders Association are talking about townhomes and projects with less than four units. What I hope to do is to continue to build on some of the recommendations that we have seen and are hoping to see come forward in a major comprehensive plan. Update I fully support allowing more duplexes and triplexes, particularly for Flex six plus those on various sites. As we think about creating opportunities for folks who have mixed income housing options, multi-generational housing options, denser housing options across our city, I think that there's a lot of common ground there. And when we think about costs and trying to weigh the cost of potential changes that we're making today, what's clear, I think, in our conversations with various members of the community is that land is the most expensive thing. And when it comes to creating more housing in our city, we have to make sure that we're allowing for more homes to be built on the precious land within the city's boundaries. So let's continue to work together. Let's reduce the cost of building homes that we so desperately need. And let's move forward with some of those areas where I think there's a lot of alignment on the major comprehensive plan. UPDATE That's soon to come with that. Again, thank you, Mr. Chair, for your leadership on this. Looking forward to voting. Yes, and thanks again for the support on the balanced amendment that we were able to include last week. Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda. Next up is Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. Just very, very quickly, I want to mention that since it has been mentioned a couple of times as it relates to the the sprinkler regulations for for townhomes, that change is. Specifically. Contained in the construction code bill before us. But because the fire department will be coming to my committee next week to talk about fire code changes, we are also going to have an opportunity to have a conversation about the the requirements for sprinklers in townhomes. So just wanting. To let folks know that that will be that that. Topic will be coming for discussion in my committee next week. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Herbold, colleagues. Any additional comments on the bill? It looks like there are no additional comments on the bill. I want to echo my thanks to you, Councilmember Strauss, the chair of our Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, for doing great work on this legislation and making sure that it is balanced as smoothly as it did. So thanks so much, Councilmember Strauss, for all of the hard work in your in your committee. And thanks to all of the committee members for. I'm sure what was robust engagement on the underlying policy issue. Councilmember Strauss. I do want to make sure that you have an opportunity to have the last word as the sponsor and chair of this committee before we call this matter to a roll call. Thank yeah, thank you. And thank you, colleagues, for all of your kind words. This was really a group effort. And again, the kudos should be directed to Mike Chappelle, Dwayne Johnson, Adele, Georgia, all the folks over at Stsci Central staff and my committee director, Noah. So thank you all. For your great work. This is a group effort and. I'm just one person. Thank you all. Thank you, Councilmember Stress. All right. With that being said, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill? Morales Yes. Macheda I. Peterson Yes. So what? Yes. Strauss Yes. Herbold Yes. Juarez, I. Lewis Yes. President Gonzalez High nine in favor. Nine opposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Okay. We have item 33 next. Will the clerk please read the short title of item 33 into the record?