AN ORDINANCE relating to land use and zoning; amending Sections 23.30.010, 23.45.502, 23.45.510, 23.45.512, 23.45.514, 23.47A.002, 23.47A.009, 23.47A.012, 23.47A.013, 23.48.002, 23.48.005, 23.48.020, 23.48.021, 23.48.025, 23.48.040, 23.48.045, 23.48.055, 23.48.085, 23.48.240, 23.58A.040, 23.58A.042, 23.58B.040, 23.58B.050, 23.58C.030, 23.58C.035, 23.58C.040, 23.58C.050, 23.61.008, 23.61.014, 23.84A.004, 23.84A.025, 23.84A.028, 23.84A.038, 23.84A.042, and 23.84A.048 of the Seattle Municipal Code (SMC); adding new Sections 23.45.509, 23.45.517, 23.47A.017, 23.48.602, 23.48.605, 23.48.610, 23.48.615, 23.48.620, 23.48.621, 23.48.622, 23.48.623, 23.48.624, 23.48.627, 23.48.630, 23.48.635, 23.48.640, 23.48.645, 23.48.646, 23.48.650, 23.48.680, 23.48.685, and 23.48.690 to the SMC; amending Ordinance 125108 and Ordinance 125233; and amending the Official Land Use Map at pages 60, 61, 78, and 79 to rezone areas in the University District.
Agenda item two Constable 118 and 914. Relating to land use and zoning in many sections 23.30 point zero ten Amending Ordinance 125108 Ordinance 125233 and amended the official Land Use Matter page 60, 61, 78 and 79 to rezone areas in the University District. Before I turn it over to Counsel Johnson, I just wanted to preliminarily or perhaps even prematurely, thank you for all of the work you've put into this. I'm looking down here like you're on my left. Thank you for this. And I'm going to defer to you to sort of help chair through this this important legislation. Councilmember Johnson, the floor is yours. Thank you. So just want to orient my colleagues to a couple of items in front of us. Since we didn't have our council briefing this morning, I thought I would take a couple of minutes just to walk you through the decisions we've got in front of us this afternoon. We have three individual pieces of legislation that we'll be voting on the first of the underlying bill, and that underlying bill has four amendments associated with it. The First Amendment is a finding of fact that's been coordinated with the law department. And we can go into details of folks who like, but it generally recites background and legislative history in the context and the basis for the rezone itself. The second is in town language around the zoning changes being connected to affordable housing requirements. I believe my colleagues, Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Herbold, will want to speak to that amendment itself. The Third Amendment is revisiting an amendment out of committee that was referenced several times during public comment. That is about some zoning changes in the University Heights area of the University District. Nearby the University Arts Community Center, we adopted those zoning changes out of committee. A couple of our colleagues would like us to revisit that decision. And then the fourth issue is around the requirements for mandatory housing affordability. We've got two options here. One advanced by Councilmember O'Brien and one advanced by myself that both get at the similar in Tampa, do it in different ways. So those are the amendments that we'll have in front of us corresponding to the in the underlying legislation. We've got two resolutions that will follow shortly after the legislation itself. One resolution I brought forward, which is a response to a lot of the community concerns that we heard that we can't really address through zoning changes. These issues are things like open space, like child care, like transportation, things that we can't knit into the land use code, but that are critically important investments that we need to see in the community. The second is a resolution that Councilmember Herbold has run for the release of displacement analysis that the city is continuing to do and asking the city to do more on that in that area. So that's sort of an orientation for the issues in front of us. If you like me too, I'm happy to give more context behind each of these, but maybe I'll just pause there before we get into the nitty gritty details of the first piece of legislation. Council President And I'm happy to put the piece of legislation in front of us and recommend the passage of countable 118914 to get the ball rolling. Okay. So we have the base legislation moved. And second, are there comments and that would be the time to discuss any amendments. So I would like to amend the bill by adding a new townsman, which is described in Amendment One. This is the finding of facts piece that I just referenced. Again, give us a little bit more background about our mandatory housing affordability program, recites some legislative history and describes the context for the reasons. Her second on that amendment. Are there any further comments on amendment number one? So it's been moved in second and to amend counts bill 118914. By adding a new section one which basically adds a new exhibit B to the bill entitled Finding a Facts from stating that correctly, all those in favor of that amendment vote i. I opposed. The ayes have it. Councilmember Johnson. With this Second Amendment, Amendment two, I'm happy to move this, but I think it'd be better served coming from my colleagues who are really the chief architects behind this amendment. And I turn it over to you can't remember her, Bill. Thank you. So this amendment, did you move it? I did not. But I wanted to give you that opportunity. I will move Amendment two, otherwise known as the clawback language. Specifically, the new amendment will add a new section if the imposition of requirements under MSA are determined to be unlawful, to adopt an alternative program or to prevent the continuance of the new zoning and increase development capacity in the absence of substantial affordable housing requirements. Second, okay. Okay. There's a Second Amendment that was just moved in. Second, that adds a new section to it. Any further comments on the club? Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. The amendment itself is an intent statement. We struggled with whether or not we could include language in the bill that would affect a specific outcome without future action. We determined that there was a lot of complexity and a lack of agreement on what that specific outcome would be. But what we did agree on is that we wanted an amendment that would be in response to the community, concerns that we've heard that some some developers might be thinking of suing the city specifically to strike down the mandatory affordability requirements, and there should not be a reward with additional development capacity if that were to occur. And the under the amendment further underscores the very important fact of this policy that under MHC, the additional development capacity we are granting today is inextricably an outcome of these mandatory housing affordability requirements. Thank you. Council Member Herbal. Any further comments on the Second Amendment hearing that has been moved? And Second Amendment number two, which is a basically a new section two, is described by Councilmember Herbold. All those in favor of amendment number two say I, I opposed. The ayes have it. Councilman Johnson, I'll defer again to. You. And I'll pass this one over to Councilmember. Thank you. I moved to amend Council Bill 11 8914 Exhibit A by removing the proposed rezoning from the multifamily district between Northeast 50th Street and Northeast 52nd Street from LR three to Mid-rise. Second. We have a Third Amendment that has been moved in. Second, And are there any further comments? Councilmember Johnson I'm. Just going to speak again against this amendment. We had a pretty robust discussion about this in committee and the rationale behind including this section of the city and the zoning changes in front of us is based on a couple of things. One, this consists of a lot of naturally occurring affordable housing, as was outlined in public comment, which means we've got a lot of folks that are seeing year over year rent increases as it is today. We are hearing from a lot of those folks that are being priced out of the city, as was mentioned several times during public comment and with no zoning changes in the neighborhood as it is right now, we're five blocks away from the light rail station that will open in just a couple of years. It's very likely that despite the fact that there's very stable ownership, as has been outlined by several folks in the community of ownership in this neck of the woods, that we will likely see some sort of redevelopment in the neighborhood. It's low. Our analysis shows that it's unlikely that it's going to happen any time soon. But if we do not make any of the zoning changes, what is likely to be redeveloped in the neighborhood is townhouse style development, which is going to result in more sort of single family home ownership, replacing what is currently, as was outlined again during public comment, several sort of family single family homes that have been split up into naturally occurring affordable housing. So based on that analysis, we decided in committee to adopt zoning changes that would allow for slightly taller buildings in this neck of the woods that would not only present the opportunity for if and when development does occur in the neighborhood for us to build more apartment style houses than townhouses. But that also would allow us to increase the amount of funding that we get for affordable housing in the neighborhood because of the zoning changes. So I believe that if if if these if this amendment is adopted, it will end up having a long term negative impact both on our ability to generate more money for affordable housing. And then also if and when development occurs in the neighborhood, it will result in more displacement. So I think that this is just one of those issues where we had some of this discussion in committee. There may be just some philosophical differences about how we guess about what the future of the neighborhood looks like. But I welcome the opportunity for us to talk about it more. Thank you. Councilmember Johnson could be Councilmember Bagshaw. Good. Thank you. I want to say thanks, in all seriousness, for the work that you did, Councilmember Herbold, for bringing this forward. And I want to acknowledge, David Bloom for a very great email that you wrote me last week about why this was important to you. And I do want to also say that I'm going to be taking the position that Councilmember Johnson just articulated for a couple of reasons. One is that I do think this naturally occurring affordable housing is not protected over time, that it is going to be purchased. Landlords can raise their rents, they can sell. But I also want to acknowledge that this is really close to our light rail. And the real goal that we've been trying to do is to make this a place where people will be encouraged to build larger units so that we can get more people safely into this particular location . One final note that I appreciate from Sightline Sightlines, an organization that I frequently read, and they just disagreed with us on this and the whole approach. But Dan Bortoli wrote that any new housing development smaller than what the zoning proposes is a 100 year lost opportunity twice over. It's a loss for affordability simply in terms of few new homes to ameliorate Seattle's housing shortage. And it simultaneously compromises our efforts to concentrate new, higher density housing near the district's future high capacity transit. So I really acknowledge that reasonable minds differ on this, and I'm going to be voting against this amendment. Thank you. Concerned Berkshire Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. I want to make one point before I go into my arguments, and that's the point that the mayor's proposal to the council did actually not include recommending changing the zoning in this area. This was an amendment that was brought forward in committee. Councilmember Johnson is correct. We did debate it. The reason I'm bringing it forward again is because when we had the discussion in committee, I was unaware that if we don't change this area now with today's vote, it will be included for discussion in the city wide up zones. The change will be smaller, but we will still get affordable housing out of that future action of this council and allowing us to do so. Take examining this rezone within the context of the multifamily reasons will allow the Office of Planning and Community Development to study the displacement impacts of of this reason, along with all the citywide reasons as we are requiring them to do under Resolution 31733. Should that resolution pass? One of the concerns that I've had with our displacement analysis that we did for this particular area is it wasn't sufficient to meet our needs for making mitigation strategies. So by taking a pause on this area that was not already included in the mayor's original proposal and studying it as part of the city wide three zones, we can do a more thorough job of doing a displacement risk analysis and identifying mitigating strategies. The the other point that I think is important to make is the reason why people feel like this area is so vulnerable isn't just the the demographics of the people who live in this area, low income people on on Section eight or disabled people or students. But it's also because the location itself is very dense with buildings that are not only affordable to renters, there aren't that many underutilized or vacant lots in the area. This means that increasing the development capacity here may may make redevelopment of existing apartments more likely. It's part of part of what we do in the displacement risk analysis as we look at what other lots are within an area and are might be more likely to have housing developed on it. And when you're looking at an area that has very little underutilized land currently the the apartments that are there currently are more at risk. The only other point I wanted to make is that this is because this did come late. I'm concerned that there's less public awareness of this proposed rezone. And I understand from Reverend Bloom that when he walked the area to do the the sort of video tour that I shared with council members, he talked to many people along the route and nobody knew about the proposal. And so I'm concerned about our ability to. Not only analyze impacts, but also communicate with residents in the area about about our our proposal. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember O'Brien. Thank you. I I'll be supporting Councilmember Herbold amendment to not make zoning changes in this certain neighborhood at this point and instead defer those to part of what we do citywide up zones. I recognize that the work we're doing here is a bit of a balancing act. We're trying to figure out how to create capacity near that light rail investment where we do want to concentrate the growth that's happening in the city next to that billion dollar investment. And also, I think we need to be very cautious about the type in areas where we may cause displacement. Luckily, in the district, a lot of the areas where we're allowing for growth are currently occupied by surface parking lots. So that's a great opportunity to add significant new capacity without displacing any anyone's home or business. And we will be doing plenty of that in the underlying zone regardless of this. When I walk around this neighborhood and look at how it's currently developed, it is a rather densely populated neighborhood already. It's not the form that we would build it in if we were building from scratch today. It's some older apartment buildings. It's single family homes that have converted to apartment buildings are added on to over time. It's an eclectic mix, but it does, I believe, serve the needs at a certain level of affordability without subsidies for the most part in that neighborhood. And I think I think for me at this point in time, concentrating the density and other areas and not this is what I would propose to do moving forward. I want to just acknowledge that, that because most of this housing is not subsidized, there is continual pressure for rents to go up. And as I suspect, folks who live there have felt that. But we also know that older housing stock will continue to lag the newer housing stock in affordability. And so preserving a chunk of that for the moment, I think is a good thing to do. Thank you, Catherine and Brian. It further. Any further comments from any of my colleagues, customers? What I will be supporting considerable amendment, but I won't repeat the point. She herself and customer O'Brien have made relevant points. Thank you for that. Okay. So we have a Third Amendment from Councilmember Herbert that has been second. It was basically removes the proposed rezoning from a certain area that was described in the debate. I'm going to ask that you raise your hand since we have some debate on this and vote accordingly. So it's been moved in second and all those in favor of Amendment three. But I. And raise your hand, please. I. All those oppose. Vote nay and raise your hand, please. Oh. So Amendment three fails. When there are. Amendment. Four voting for you? A I believe we have another amendment from Councilmember O'Brien correct. So I would like to move the amendment for a to council bill 118914. Second, it's. Been moved, and second, it comes from Brown. Would you like to explain your amendment? I will. I'm going to take a few minutes to walk through this. The the main gist of this amendment is it would increase the affordable housing requirement for the areas with the greatest height increase from a 9% set aside of affordable housing to a 10% set aside for affordable housing. Conversely, if there is a commercial building being built, whether or not there are not apartment units to set aside, folks would be paying an in lieu fee. The this amendment would take that in lieu fee from $20 per square foot to $22.25 per square foot. I want to explain the framework within which I believe we are operating and the principles we're operating based on what's been laid out to us previously and why I think it's appropriate to make that change. As folks may recall, we've we've set a number of frameworks in place over the past two years, starting with a resolution and other areas where we've identified how we want to move forward with requiring mandatory affordable housing for all new development throughout the city of Seattle. The legislation before us today is the very first piece where we will actually implement the mandatory affordable housing requirement in the city. It's something I have to actually remind myself because we've been doing this work for a couple of years and spending a lot of time on it, but we haven't actually required any affordable housing to be built by new developers yet. And hopefully in a moment, regardless of where this goes, we will do that for the first time, which is a great step forward. When we passed the framework, one of the pieces of framework legislation ordinance 12523, three, we anticipated that, that there was a variety of ways in which we will be doing the new the new zoning . I think most folks are familiar with the hollow or grand bargain aspects where we said we are going to broadly do a modest up zone. We talked about it being like a floor of height throughout the city. And when we do that, we will require that all new development contribute to affordable housing in those zones at a 5 to 7% requirement. But we also knew that there were neighborhoods like the University District where we'd be doing zoning changes that are much more significant than that one additional floor. And we anticipated that when we come to those neighborhoods, we will also be looking for, along with a greater capacity, we're adding a greater affordable housing requirement , specifically in the ordinance 125233 and says the Council intends to consider whether to include higher performance and payment amounts subject to statutory limits for those areas where the increase in development capacity would likely would be likely to increase displacement. Risk factors to consider are gray areas that have been identified in the Seattle two 2035 Growth and Equity Analysis Impacts on displacement and opportunity related to Seattle's growth strategy in May 2016 as having a high displacement risk. And B this is the most relevant one here areas where the increase, the increment of increased development capacity is greater than the standard major implementing zone change. In other words, greater than that one floor of height that we were giving everywhere. The department came back to us with a framework that this legislation is largely built around, and the technical terms here have been thrown around a little bit, but I just wanted to describe them for a second . For folks that aren't tracking it closely, they decided to call the the base up up zones that are part of the standard haul up zones, an m level of up zone that would require that 5 to 7% of affordable housing. And then they said beyond that, in certain neighborhoods like the U. District, when we have significantly more zoning capacity, we're adding there would be two additional levels one level called M one and one level called the designation of M2, M one being kind of a medium rate of capacity, we're adding into the highest capacity we're adding. And then there were percentages and dollar amounts assigned to M one and into depending on whether it's a low cost, a middle medium, medium cost or a high cost neighborhood. The University District is a medium cost neighborhood by our current analysis at our current point in time. But when we look at all the zoning changes we've done throughout the district, all of them in this proposal are designated as the M one level. And I feel that that's a mistake. Some of the zoning is certainly a modest increase above the hallway and deserves to be an m one in my mind. But some of the zoning in the. Most extreme goes from a 65 foot height to a 325 320 foot height. When we're making those significant height changes, for me that seems to be the type of radical increase in capacity that should require a significantly highest proportion of affordable housing set aside. In other words, that M2 level of affordable housing requirement. In fact, I'm concerned that this is the first time we're implementing this as we go to other neighborhoods throughout the city. If we say 65 feet to 320 feet does not qualify as an M2 level of affordable housing requirement. Are there really going to be any levels anyplace in the city where we use this level? And I question our ability to do that. So I think it's critically important that we take the opportunity in front of us today. While we're making these significant zoning changes to certain parts of the district, to re designate those as an M2 level of affordable housing requirement and increase that affordable housing requirement to either a 10% set aside or increase it by $2 and 25 excuse me, $2.25 to two a 20 to 25 for folks that are paying in lieu fee. I think that's important because our analysis in the new district has shown that over the next ten years that would generate an additional 45 to 65 units of affordable housing. Modest for sure, in comparison to the need in the city. But for the 65 or 50 families that would occupy that, a significant increase to them. And I think it's also important that we signal when we do significant up zones throughout the city, like the 65 to 320 foot, that there will be a requirement on an ongoing basis that those other zones require the highest level of contribution to affordable housing. My mouth is dry from talking so long. Council President Harris also took a pause and I imagine other folks will have some comments on this. Thank you, Councilmember O'Brien. Councilmember Johnson. Again, this is an issue that we talked about in committee council president and is being brought back forward again today. I want to speak against the amendment, but in favor of the next issue. We've got, again, a philosophical, I think, differences of opinion here. Councilmember O'Brien, when we adopted that framework that you outlined and the nice opening sort of mandatory housing affordability one on one, we should take that clip and take it on the road. We adopted those. The map associated with it that identified high cost, medium cost and low cost areas. The University District was identified as a medium cost area, and with those medium cost areas, we've got an opportunity to try to capture development as it's coming in now and try to get those development dollars today. First of all, more affordable housing today. And we've got about 30 projects in the pipeline in the neighborhood that are currently going through our zoning process in the university district. That I think would be the kind of project that we would ask developers to contribute today to affordable housing they're not required to. But if we set this target too high, I'm concerned that they won't if we set it too low. I'm concerned that we miss out. I think the Goldilocks approach here of setting it where it is right now is the right approach with the caveat that our program that we adopted last August, the framework requires a review in June of 2018. So a little more than a year from now. And if we didn't get it right, we will know in a year from now whether or not those 30 folks have opted in. We can change it then, but if we set the program too high now, we risk losing out on this opportunity where where we could be capturing affordable housing today. And I just don't believe the risk of having a higher higher limit today outweighs the benefit of getting those affordable units today. So I'm going to encourage my colleagues to vote no on this requirement and ask them to come back around and vote yes on the next one. Thank you, Councilmember Johnson. And any further comments? Councilmember Bagshaw, quickly. And I want to recognize both Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Johnson for your leadership on this. Every single one of us wants more affordable housing, not just in the district, but across the city. So I want you to know that I really appreciate all the work that you've done with your committee, and also to recognize and to say thank you to all the people that were involved with the Halla negotiations. I personally was not engaged in that, but obviously we were looking for that recommendation that hit the sweet spot, that sweet spot where people will be willing to invest and at the same time, more people get a good place to live and that we will ultimately have more affordable housing. I think there's a disagreement around that precise number that's going to result in the most affordable housing. I appreciate the fact that Councilmember O'Brien is urging us to increase it and it really is slight. I mean, you talk about 9 to 10%, but at the same time, others are saying to us, no, we should dial back the mandates that there are. Numbers that people are saying you should go back to three or 4% to make this work at the university. So personally, I'm I'm thank you for your thank you for your boo's out there, everybody. I want to stick with the deal that was negotiated in the analysis that was arranged initially for us, because I think that is most likely to result in construction. I'm hedging my bets perhaps to stick with the analysis that was conducted by the providers. And I do like Councilmember Johnson's ideas to tie the metrics to rent inflation or for an annual performance review that's going to begin in the summer of 2018. So I'm will be voting against this amendment, but obviously supported wholeheartedly the underlying legislation. Thank you. Consumer Impact Shop. Yeah. Councilmember Suarez. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Council President. First of all, I want to thank all the council members that worked on this. And I just want to say that it's real important for people to understand that reasonable minds can disagree and it happens all the time. It's just a matter. Of philosophically how we want to move this issue forward. There's no doubt that we need. More housing in the city. The greatest demand that is clearly unmet is for low income and affordable housing. The MSA framework is our attempt as a city to create homes and a pool of funding to address that demand. I have received numerous phone phone calls and emails from this about this zoning change and especially about this specific portion of the change. I intend to vote for the option B today. Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Herbold have given me in my office a lot of information over the last few weeks, and I greatly appreciate their dedication to this work. However, Council members Johnson's amendment allows us to do two things. It ensures that these properties can be developed in the short term and contribute to affordable housing needs, while also setting up the process for us to eventually gain even more than the extra $2.25 that is targeted in optioning after the initial evaluation period. We could again, I'm sorry, we can gain an additional $9.75 on top of the current $20 per square foot. I'm also looking forward to voting for the full package today because we need to get this done and we need to move on to other communities. As you know, my district, District five and other neighborhoods are still waiting to have their MSA programs finalized. We have to get this work done before we miss the opportunity to benefit from all the changes that are coming. Investments, particularly in the North End, like the two light rail stations we have coming in in 2021 at Northgate and 130th Street. Again, what I do like about my job is that we can agree to disagree. Some of these are just philosophical changes. We're not just drawing a line in the sand. I'm really looking forward to the data that comes back to us in June, June 2018, because I think from there we can build upon that. And I want to thank again Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Johnson for all their hard work. Thank you. Councilmember Suarez, Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. Councilmember O'Brien very ably reviewed the council's framework legislation. I would just like to again echo his question of if we do not apply the principles that we voted for just five months ago to this first make up zone, when will we do it? I'd also like to address the the question of the consistency with the so-called grand bargain. As a legislative body, it's important that we make policy decisions in public and consequently, we cannot be bound by an agreement that was not made in public. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, requiring higher performance and payment amounts in areas receiving the greatest development capacity is in absolutely no way inconsistent with anything in the Grand Bargain passing out. For historical reference, I had to dig a little bit online to find it myself. The sign document that constitutes the grand bargain and the third sentence in the opening preamble is it is understood that during the course of conducting the necessary analysis and drafting of legislation, some of the terms may be modified. The one section where they talk about what the what the actual requirements are. They are referring to low and mid-rise. They say nothing in in section two about high rise. And in the area where they talk about the university, the district, because they recognize that there are some areas that we've already been reviewing up zones separately from MHC requirements. They specifically identify a a proposed percentage, but they also say that in most cases the areas would be incorporated into the already anticipated additional height and set as comparable. So they're leaving open the possibility in the grand bargain itself that there might be areas within the university district that has higher affordability requirements than than what they are proposing here. So I believe that this amendment is completely consistent with with the discussions that occurred during the context of the the grand bargain. The only other point I'd like to make is, again, as it relates specifically to feasibility. Our very own consultant, Rick Jacobus with Cornerstone, has told us that modest requirements that are tailored to local conditions will not likely increase development costs, but instead they will be borne by the sellers of the property in reduced property costs for the developers purchasing the property. The impact of the feasibility of high rise development from increasing the requirements from 9% to 10% or $20 to $22 and a quarter per square foot are minimal as compared to other factors such as land costs, high higher rate, higher labor costs, rising material costs and market demand. And the the whole question of feasibility is it's an it's a calculation that considers land and development costs as compared to likely rents. I believe that the Council decides that this very small increase in affordable housing requirement will make development infeasible. We are really getting the proverbial wool pulled over our eyes because in the feasibility calculation we have not counted the higher rents typically associated with high rise development that, if considered, would improve feasibility forecasts with more rental income for developers of high rise buildings. The bottom line is we want to see high rise development in the university district and we really want these projects to be feasible while at the same time getting the most affordable housing possible. What we decide here isn't just about the additional requirements for the University District. It's about our city wide options as well and what we're going to be doing moving forward and whether or not we're going to be able to meet our targets. Right. Thank you. Councilmember Burgess. Thank you. I just want to make a few comments about the the bigger picture, the context here that I think is critically important in the framework legislation that we adopted going back almost a year ago. For the first time in Seattle's history, the city council said that if you build a commercial building in Seattle or you build multifamily residential housing in Seattle, you must provide affordable housing either in your project or you'll pay into the pool that the city creates to build that affordable housing in the city. That's a remarkable decision that the mayor and the city council made a very positive decision. And and then we we we had this long discussion about, Hala, about the specifics of what that would involve and how we would set the specific set aside percentage or the specific payment in lieu amount by neighborhood. We consulted real estate experts. We hired economists. We had people do modeling. There was all kinds of extensive analysis that was done. And as my colleagues have pointed out, the actual agreement that was entered into that Councilmember Herbal just passed out on page two in the middle, under paragraph H does in fact suggest that there might be, because of varying circumstances, different amounts, which is exactly. Why. In the you district, in the M one area, we're suggesting that the set aside percentage be 9% and not 5 to 7%, as this document says. So we are making adjustments and we'll continue to make adjustments going forward into the future. Now, on this specific amendment, our central staff analysis shows that if we change the set aside to 10% from 9%, we will produce over a 20 year period. 44 to 65 affordable units. And so I have to ask myself, is a change or an addition if that's if those were all spread equally over that 20 year period , which we know they will not be, but let's assume they would be for this argument that's two or three units a year that we would add in the university district. And is that change worth the potential that this whole enterprise that we've been engaged in for in the district over five years and with Harlow for the last couple of years could fall apart. And I just don't think that risk is worth it. I don't think that's the kind of change that we have any evidence that is justified. So I'm going to oppose this amendment. Thank you. Councilman Burgess. Any further comments? Councilmember Gonzalez. Just just really quickly, I don't have too much more to add. The conversation both in the Pledge Committee and here today is is really covered all of the grounds I am I am continue to be persuaded by Councilmember Johnson's arguments. And I think that your approach in terms of Amendment four BE is a very thoughtful approach that does give us all the opportunity to take a look back after we have additional information in additional data to be able to do a course correction in a timely, relevant manner. And so I appreciate you proposing that as a as an avenue, of course, correction, as we go down this path of trying to evaluate what is the best mechanism by which we can incentivize and increase the amount of affordable housing that is being constructed within our city. So I agree with a lot of the comment that have already been made by a lot of my other by a lot of my colleagues here. I feel like this council, regardless of how you vote on this amendment, is very strongly committed to the creation of affordable housing that is meaningfully affordable for our city. I think what we're what we're debating here and what we ultimately will have a reasonable disagreement upon is is really just a disagreement on the philosophy of how to really address this particular issue. So I really respect the positions that have been described by Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember O'Brien. I see that you approach the issue very thoughtfully, but I continue to be persuaded by Councilmember Johnson's position on this one, and I will also vote no on this amendment. Thank you very much, Counsel. You know, you're supposed to take one bite of a big, juicy Apple amendment. Councilmember O'Brien actually. We're going to be here for a few more minutes. Council President Harold. But I'd like to ask a clarifying question from Councilmember Johnson, and then I'd like to make a few kind of closing points. I know Councilmember Swan also wants to say something so we can do the clarifying question first, if that's okay. Councilmember Johnson, you mentioned a 30 or so projects in the pipeline that you're hoping would opt in. Can you give me in the public some more clarity on like what what you mean by that? Are these projects that are vested to current rules and you're hoping they may permit under the new rules? So we've got, according to the Seattle Department of Construction inspections, about 30 projects that are identified in a review pipeline in the new district itself. 13 of those have been issued a master use permit so they can get ready to begin construction, but they haven't begun construction yet. We anticipate that those that are maybe advanced, it may be vested under the current rules which will change, I hope in less than an hour or so may choose to want to opt in to the mandatory program. I've heard from folks mostly in the downtown core, that they're interested in talking to us about opting in. But there are developers in the district that I think would opt in as well. If my concern again is I articulated a committee and I think I articulated today is that I would rather capture affordable housing dollars today at the end of the development cycle than hit pause and wait four or five, ten, 15 years until the next cycle and capture the resources. Then my hope is that if we set the numbers right, we will have folks that are in that permitting process that will come to us and want to opt in to our program and either build affordable housing on site or pay into a fee in lieu of affordable housing. And then we'll be able to leverage those dollars today during this time of affordable crisis. My concern, as I articulated in committee and again today with your amendment, is that we set the price point when at such a high point that we don't have those folks opting in. And we didn't get into the details today like we did in committee about the relationship with incentive zoning and other places in the city where we will do an MTU suffix. I'm happy to get an. Those details, if you like. That's traditionally what we reserve for a committee. Council President Harrell would probably whack me over the head if we got into that level of detail more than we already have here. But generally, I believe that the approach that we set out for an option for B gives us a higher certainty of affordable housing today and leverages the opportunities with those developers today to build as many units today as possible. Thank you. Councilmember O'Brien and I recognize customers want. To thank you for that clarification. Councilmember Johnson. I now fully understand that there's clearly a difference of opinion here. I want to let folks know we talked about this committee a little bit, but I reiterated, you know, a high rise, high rise construction in the university district, all costs. And we expect that the building cost for a new building is probably around $300 per square foot, including paying into the 9% affordable housing. My amendment would increase that by $2, and $0.25 of the cost for the building would be $302.25 a square foot on a big building. You know, that's that becomes a sizable check, but it's less than 1% of the cost. The risk, I think Councilmember Johnson you're talking about is someone that could currently build a 65 story sorry, 65 foot building under current vested rules and might look at what we're about to do and say, hey, I'm actually interested in doing something much larger and I'm willing to pay for affordable housing to do that. The risk would be someone who's willing to do that at $300 a square foot. But if we were to raise it to $302.25, a square foot would say, nope, I'm just going to stay at 65 feet possible that there's that project that's right on there . And it's you know, I've seen the spreadsheets that could be I think it's highly unlikely that we risk losing that. I think the folks that would not opt in would not opt in regardless and the folks that would opt in would opt in under either scenario. What we do risk, though, is if we follow your path and for be we wait 16 months, those projects are due up to an opt in at a lower level and we don't get those additional units of housing. Modest additions for sure. I mean, we're talking about small on both sides, but I think that's critically important opportunity to get. I'll just make a couple of comments and then I won't ask for another chance of another bite at the Apple Council. President Harrell Councilmember big shot mentioned use the term negotiated if she saw my handwriting on it and said, oh, yeah, you're going to make that point, aren't you? The prices we're talking about, the set aside as we're talking about, were not part of the negotiated grand bargain. These these were specifically designed to say, when we do places like the you districts, we will do that in this public forum to figure out what is the right amount. And you're watching us do that right now. So so I reject any notion that somehow we're going back on some deal that was made. Whether you agree with that deal or not, this was always intended to be an open public process. And when you do larger buildings, larger zoning increases, what is the appropriate amount of affordable housing? So you're seeing that happen in real time. And again, I'll just say the framework that we set out was a framework that said when we add zoning capacity, we will require more affordable housing. The framework, I believe I hear Councilmember Johnson talking about in for BE is a different framework, not one that I'm opposed to. It says that we're don't have to add zoning capacity anymore. When costs go up, we can require additional affordable housing. That's not something that's been called out elsewhere in any of our frameworks. I think there's some challenges about how we would actually do that, which causes me some concern. But if this council wants to say no, we can increase the affordable housing requirement without doing zoning changes. That's a conversation that we can have. We have frankly been have for two years. And we ended up in a place that says, no, we're going to add additional we're going to require the affordable housing when we do the zoning changes. And the idea that we come back a year and a half from now and say things are a little more expensive in this neighborhood and frankly, probably everywhere in the city. And we're going to ratchet up the affordable housing requirement. I don't know that I believe we're going to do that. I hope when we get to discussing the next amendment, we can talk about how we lock us in to do that. But I think it's it's hard for me to believe that we're going to go against the framework we've laid out. So with that, I'll just say I hope that a few of you that have said you're going to be against my amendment have been really compelled by those last statements and decided to come over to my way. Thank you. Council members want. Thank you, President Herrell. I really appreciate the clarifying comments that have been made by both Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Herbold. I think they're very accurate and reflect the reality of our city. I wanted to add some general points. I'm supporting this amendment. Just some general points. Given that we've already agreed on the mandatory housing affordability framework. Our job as elected officials, council members should be to take advantage of every ounce of affordability that can be squeezed out of the legal framework that exists. I do want to reiterate for the record that the major device, you know, as it's been so extolled, but in reality, I mean, it was adopted by the grand a so-called grand bargain. But in reality, it is not the best in the universe of options that need to be considered given the massive crisis of affordability and livability in our city. But given that image is what we have in front of us, I think we have to push for every person to percentage of affordability that we can get under the major plan. And that's the basis on which I will support this amendment. I'm not an expert on real estate economics, but I am an economist and I want to speak as one for a moment. Oh, the idea I'm not surprised that developers might be calling council members and saying that if you go from requiring 9% of the set aside to 10%, somehow that's going to that that magic number is going to take away their incentive to build those extra storeys, those extra feet. I, I mean, as an economist, I just don't buy that. But I'm not surprised that they're making that argument. And I don't think responding to that argument is thoughtful or whatever. I mean, it really is just, you know, appeasing big developers. I'll tell you something, it sounds very familiar to me. This argument that developers, big developers are making sounds very familiar to me. It sounds very much like the argument that were made when we were fighting for 15 that somehow if you increased wages by this much, jobs are going to there's going to be job losses. There are no job losses in Seattle because of $15 an hour. It's the same argument that has been made by the wealthy throughout the country. Whenever you talk about taxing the rich, they'll say, well, if you tax the rich, we'll leave the city. There is no evidence that has ever happened. So none of these arguments are borne out by reality. As a matter of fact, whether or not high rise buildings are built, whether or not developers will take advantage of that really depend on macroeconomic factors. If Seattle is going to be a growing city like today, if the population is growing like it is today, if the tech sector is still moving in, and if tech jobs are still going up, then that will compel developers to take advantage of that growth in the city to build high rises. So I as long as those macroeconomic factors are unchanged, I do not think that going from 9 to 10% is somehow going to take away that incentive. As a matter of fact, I think it's extremely important that if that this as being the first back up zone project, that we set the precedent in favor of affordable housing to the extent that we can. And last but not least, I do not look at the whole so-called grand bargain as something sacrosanct. It was an agreement that was reached under pressure because big developers had a seat at the table, you know. So, you know, this is the legislative body. The city council is the body that has been elected by voters. And we have to be accountable to the needs of working people. And with this just burgeoning crisis of affordability, I don't think it is it responsible not to take advantage as much as we can while we can. I also want to add, though, that in addition to the maximum affordability that can be squeezed out of the immediate program, we need to build a movement to bring back the discussion on linkage fees and rent control. As we get ready to vote. I just want to say a few things. One is I did hear Councilmember Herbold garner some applause when she said the walls being pulled over our eyes. I would get it, but I would disagree with that. I think that would imply that we are making a decision that is either uninformed or misinformed and someone's pulling over something over our eyes. And I don't know who that person will be, whether it's the executive or the developers or some third party. But but I would disagree with that, because I think that everyone here is passionate about trying to build affordable housing. And that sort of the sad part of this debate is many of many folks have been around for a few decades, are seeing a Seattle change into something that is is less than desirable and they're seeing people priced out. So when I see the Displacement Coalition argue vehemently to keep homes here for people that are poorer or underrepresented or in fixed income that they speak about, they speak passionately about this because they are right. That is what we have to do. For me, this is a very tough decision because it just boils down to math. I mean, I used to as attorneys to draft real estate investment trusts and look at the debt financing arrangements. And and I think it's fully committed to affordable housing, as is anyone else. I would add that the grand bargain was not just accomplished by big corporate developers, but it was very intentional. Have labor at the table and a nonprofit housing developers at the table and under people from underrepresented communities to make sure the council is balanced. I think everyone has the right motives. I just think it's a question of math. And as I read the math, I agreed with council member not only Councilmember Johnson's analysis, but s s s c. S CDI. At some point you got to get rid of all of the politicians and all of the developers, and you have to rely on a third party to give you the numbers as to what's the the maximum way to get affordable housing. And that was a process we actually invested in to get third parties to tell us how far we could push it. But I want to applaud the amendment, the the maker of the amendment, Councilmember O'Brien. And I think it's we're now ready to vote. So I'm going to ask that you vote by once again by hand. And so the amendment that we're describing now is for a by Councilmember O'Brien basically increasing the housing affordability requirements in the core area of the district. If you're in favor of that amendment, vote I in. Raise your hand, please. If you're opposed, vote no and raise your hand, please. No. So the amendment fails. Councilmember Johnson, I believe you have another amendment you like just to entertain. Thanks. So, as we discussed Amendment four, I gave a little preview to this amendment. Amendment for B, what amendment four B does is it modifies the way that we collect our residential payment and performance amounts in what we call Seattle Mixed Use Zones. This zoning change creates a new Seattle mixed use zone in the University District, and as Councilmember O'Brien knows, because he's the one who brought this concept forward as part of our framework discussion, when we adopted the Housing Affordability Residential Framework last August, we put in there a tied to a map. And in that map we created three different zones, as we just articulated, low cost zones, medium cause zones and high cost zones. And there are different calculations in each of those zones that results in different amounts. The development in a residential development would pay. This amendment that I brought forward today would require a higher when we get to June of 2018, a review of the cost zones in the city. And if we find that the University District has moved into a higher cost area, it would apply a higher amount to this zone, i.e. 10% of the units are $29.75 per square foot. Again, this approach is trying to be based on data allowing the data to inform us in about a year or so how we've done, whether or not the city has really changed dramatically enough to put the University District in that high cost zone area. And I hope that I'm going to get support from my colleagues today. I think that this approach is consistent with the sort of two step approach that I've taken here. What we're trying to collect as much revenue here at the end of the development cycle as we can for affordable housing that we can build today, while also recognizing that in a year from now, we'll have better data and better analysis. And if that data shows that we, the district, has become a high cost area, we can ask developers in that area to pay more. Thank you, Councilman Johnson. I'll describe this as Amendment four B and just to make sure where the process is. Right. You did make the motion to amend Council Bill 1189144b, is there a second? Second. It's been moved in second. And okay, further comments from my colleagues. Councilmember O'Brien. Yeah, thank you. Councilmember Johnson. I, I will support this amendment. I don't think this amendment is actually mutually exclusive of the one we previously did. We could have moved something to them to, but then also at a later date moved it from medium to high. But I know that failed. But I want to just ask a couple clarifying questions. I think it's highly unlikely that well, it's certainly, I think, near impossible that we will actually have high rise new high rise construction complete in the UK to look at what the actual rents are in the market by June of 2018. There may be some other things that change, but it's unlikely that we'll see significant differences on the ground from new construction that's actually in place. Is your understanding that in addition to June of 18 that this would be annual or every other year kind of process? You know, when we set up the framework, we didn't intentionally put in a date beyond June of 2018. There was a desire by all of us in the committee and then a desire by the full council to have that June of 2018 date. We have talked about whether or not that would be an annual biannual or tri annual five year review. Nothing is set in stone. Again, though, I think my objective here is to do analysis based on the facts on the ground. We're just about to, I hope, adopt the first application of our mandatory housing affordability residential program that will give us hopefully a year plus worth of data to analyze. That's not just the new projects that are going to get built after today, but also those projects that we talked about earlier that are currently under development but that might want to opt into the program. Those two data points will allow us to much better determine not only in the university district but in other parts of the city what we think are high cost, medium cost and low cost areas. This approach allows us, again, to maximize as much money for affordable housing today and allow us to really analyze the data a year from now and tweak it if we think that it does. I, I appreciate that. I think even the ones that are in the pipeline, if they haven't broken ground today, they won't be getting rents by June of 18. So we won't have new rent data, but maybe we'll have some performance stuff. I mean, it won't be as simple as an economic analysis looking at rents. I would like to at least state my legislative intent here that we do it on a I'd love to have more discussion, but a semi-regular basis. I don't know if every year, every two years is more appropriate. My other question, you mentioned that that if if the costs in the U. District have changed. Is your intent of this would apply? I mean, this is you know, if we go through with this, this will be the only area where we have the mandatory housing affordability activated in the city in a moment. But by this time next year, in theory, we'll have it throughout the city. Is your intent that we would be studying costs throughout the city and anywhere in the city where some neighborhood moves from a low cost to a high cost or low cost to medium customer to high cost that we would make adjustments beyond just the district, but wherever that's appropriate. Yes. And that is informed again by the work of the Planning Department. They were the ones who, in conjunction with the U.S. Law Community Collaborative and other advocates, came up with the determination and the numerator, the sort of background numerology behind the designation of high, medium and low cost areas. That framework was something that we supported when we adopted our residential framework in August of last year. So we can go back and take a look at those numbers again in June. And my hope that again, when we adopt the framework discussion next June, that we would take a look at not just the district but the entire city based on those analysis that have already been done by the planning department. Thank you. Thank you, Casper and Brian. Any further comments on Amendment four? BE It's been moved and second amendment four B has been moved in second. And all those in favor of that amendment, vote I, I oppose vote no. The ayes have it. Okay. So according in my record, we have a base piece of legislation that's been amended by Amendment one, two and four B that have passed. And are there any further comments on the amended legislation? I think it's ready to be voted. Any further comments? Councilmember Johnson. Thank you. I just want to take the moment to make a few comments about the underlying piece of legislation. For me, I think this is a reflection of where we want to go as a city. We want to be a welcoming city that allows. For. People to continue to call Seattle home. We want to be a city that proactively makes investments in affordable housing nearby public transportation, because we recognize that that is important for not only. Do in the household costs of individuals. But it's also one of the best ways for us to get people out of poverty and into the middle class. We want to be a city that protects our air and our water and our trees and our natural environment. That's why we want to make investments in all our buildings nearby, our billion dollar light rail stations. These values around creating good jobs, protecting local businesses, protecting our environment, and creating new housing for people with the framework and driving force. For me, when we pull together the conversations around the University District know I'm a transportation planner by training. I'm a fifth generation Seattle on the Capitol Hill. Then my great grandmother moved to in the late 1800s is very different from the Capitol Hill of today. If that Capitol Hill had remained the same, it would be a lot harder for a lot of folks to call Capitol Hill home. We need to create more places for more people to be able to live in our city. But we also need to recognize that there are challenges associated with that growth. And that's why we made some really significant changes to this legislation in response to not only five years of public comment and nearly 100 meetings, but in one year plus of discussions of the committee. We had eight committee meetings. We had one public hearing out in the University District itself. And in response to that, we made really significant changes, including delaying zoning for small businesses on the AV. We heard from folks that they wanted to do more to designate and preserve landmark structures in the University District. So we amended the legislation to allow people to be able to do that more readily. We created incentives for more family size units in the university district responding to folks who want to continue to live in the neighborhood and raise a family. We require developers to provide more public open space to this plan. We required all new projects to encourage transit use and minimize traffic congestions. We worked hard with local nonprofits like the U. District YMCA and the Temple UMC to better utilize their property to build more affordable housing and to be able to serve deliver their mission by serving more people in their neighborhood. I'm really proud of this work. And it is the first project, the first program to go through a mandatory housing affordability program. So every new development that has built in University District after we passed the zoning change will be required to build affordable housing or plan to a city fund where we leverage additional federal and state dollars to build affordable housing. This is the kind of investment that I hope we'll be able to build on in other parts of the city, to be able to showcase not just in the university district, but all throughout the city, that we are a welcoming city. I want to say thank you to my colleagues on the planning, use and Zoning Committee. This has been a huge undertaking over the last year or so. Councilmember O'Brien, Councilmember Herbold, thank you very much for coming along on this journey. I really appreciate the thoughtful approach that you both take to not only this legislation, but to governance in general. I want to say thank you to the Planning Department, Sam Machover ah, director and our just All-Star planner, Dave Clark, who is at, I think each of those 100 community meetings and has made this the heart and soul of his work over the last five years, including giving up lots of time with his wife and young family. I want to say thank you to Ali Banerjee, Annelise Whitson of our council central staff, who spent so much time and energy with myself and my colleagues. And finally, I want to say a big thank you to Amy Gore from my office. She has spent literally hundreds, if not thousands of hours on this project over the last year and a half, not just working with my colleagues, but also out in the community. She has really, really, really been the heart and soul of our team. And I want to say thank you to Amy for all your hard work. So with that, I'm proud to have this legislation in front of us, and I hope my colleagues will support me in voting yes. It's from Johnson, Kashmir. And Bagshaw says You only want to 30 seconds so you can get the clock ready for her. And so one other investment that I would like to make in this area is around our green streets. And one of the people who commented earlier today talked about this, but I haven't heard is actually use these words. I completely concur that having the higher towers in the university district, making it a place where people can come. But I also want to make sure it's a place where it's pedestrian and bicycle and age friendly. This organization that we've been working with, all the people that have weighed in, have talked about how much value will get by affordable housing. But we also need to have these green connections. So I want to make sure and I think, Councilmember Johnson, you're going to bring this up with the resolutions that we make this really clear. If it were up to me and I could do this today, I would like to make that Northeast 43rd of June for a dedicated Green Street. I would like to see that Green Street extend from Brooklyn to 15th and right on to university campus. Similarly, north south Brooklyn can be a green street, a bicycle greenway protected, so people can use that as part of the spine. So I just want to say that's really important to me that again, we make sure that we've got the park and the green connection as we are building in this. Neighborhood thinks those comments customary back off any further closing comments saying that I will move to pass counts bill 118914 as amended. The clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended. Whereas I. O'BRIEN Hi. Suzanne, I beg, shall I? Burgess Gonzalez Hi, Herbal. Hi. Johnson Hi. President Harrell. Hi. Nine in favor and unopposed. Thank you. The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. And congratulations, Councilmember Johnson, a big body of work that you've accomplished. Please read the next agenda item and you'll have the floor again.