AN ORDINANCE related to street vacations; amending Section 15.62.090 of the Seattle Municipal Code to exempt publicly funded affordable housing projects from compensating the City for vacations.
Gender Item nine Council Bill 120227 An ordinance related to street vacations amending Section 15.6 2.090 of the Seattle Municipal Code to exempt publicly funded affordable housing projects from compensating the city for vacations. The committee recommends the bill passed as amended. Thank you, Madam Quirk. I'm going to hand it back over to Councilmember Mesquita to address this item. Thank you very much, Council President. Colleagues, you've heard me talk about street vacations and the importance of us clearing any fees or hurdles needed to make sure that we can build more affordable housing in the city. Generally, this is now the legislation that helps us move forward this policy commitment into 2022 and beyond. I want to thank Councilmember Peterson, who also had this item up for a briefing discussion in his committee with an agreement that we would have a briefing, discussion and possible vote in mind. This also follows the conversation that we jointly had as a council related to one parcel earlier this year. And so I'm proud that we now have this legislation in front of us removing fees that, quite frankly, go right back to the city of Seattle so that we can clear a path for more affordable housing developers. To be able to build to build affordable housing helps us bring those housing units back on much faster. And I also know that that also comes with a tradeoff. So thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for the work that you've done with Seattle Department of Transportation and support of this legislation ultimately, so that we can help move forward and reduce the fees and thus the barriers to building more affordable housing units. I also want to thank Pastor Willie Seales, who's been working with Lee High, for example, on building this spirit and affordable housing project on church property in the Central District. And with the calls from Pastor Seales and others, we have been able to now move forward on a policy that helps us realize the goal and the desire to make sure that limited dollars, when we are building affordable housing, go directly into building those housing units. For example, without the street vacation that it would only be able to create 45 affordable units with the street vacation. We're now going to be able to see around 68 affordable units. So this has been a great example of how we as a city can work to reduce those barriers and reduce the sort of internal administrative hurdles and fiscal hurdles for community partners as we seek to create more affordable housing. Again, thanks to central staff, the Office of Housing for working with us and Erin House and my office along with Craig for their work on this legislation. I think that this is a win win for everyone as we seek to build more housing as fast as possible. Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda. Appreciate it. Are there any additional comments on Agenda Item nine Council Bill 120227. Hearing no additional comments. Will the Court please call the roll on the passage of Council? Bill 120227 Agenda item nine. Lewis. Yes. Morales. Yes. ROSQUETA. I. Petersen I. Strauss Yes. Herbold Yes. Whereas I council President Gonzalez I it in favor not oppose. The bill passes and the chair will sign it will. This affects my signature to the legislation on my behalf. The Court Please read items ten and 11 into the record.