AN ORDINANCE relating to land use and zoning; correcting typographical errors, correcting section references, clarifying regulations, and making minor amendments; amending Sections 22.214.040, 22.214.050, 23.22.062, 23.22.100, 23.24.040, 23.24.045, 23.28.030, 23.40.060, 23.41.004, 23.41.012, 23.42.048, 23.42.112, 23.44.008, 23.44.010, 23.44.014, 23.44.016, 23.44.026, 23.44.041, 23.45.506, 23.45.512, 23.45.518, 23.45.522, 23.45.545, 23.47A.008, 23.47A.012, 23.47A.013, 23.48.005, 23.48.020, 23.48.025, 23.48.220, 23.48.225, 23.48.245, 23.48.720, 23.48.724, 23.48.740, 23.49.008, 23.49.011, 23.49.014, 23.49.056,  23.49.166, 23.52.008, 23.54.015, 23.54.025, 23.54.030, 23.54.040, 23.58C.040, 23.58D.006, 23.66.342, 23.69.032, 23.73.009, 23.73.012, 23.84A.004, 23.84A.032, 23.84A.036, 23.86.007, 23.90.018, and 25.09.060 of the Seattle Municipal Code; and adding a new Section 23.48.007 to the Seattle Municipal Code.
The motion carries and the appointments are confirmed. Okay. Moving on now to committee reports of the Land Use Committee item 17, will the clerk please read the short title of item 17 into the Record. Report of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee Agenda Item 17 Council Bill 119835. An Ordinance relating to land use and zoning. Correcting typographical errors, correcting section references, clarifying regulations and making minor amendments. The committee recommends that the excuse me, the committee recommends the council pass the bill as amended. Thank you. Sorry about that mount clerk I got ahead of you. I apologize. Okay. Item number 17. Councilmember Strauss, as chair of this committee, you are recognized in order to provide the committee report. Please. Thank you. Council President. This is the land use omnibus bill, which is considered roughly annual, roughly once a year and makes technical and clarifying amendments to our land use code. The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee made several amendments to this legislation, including removing confusing language regarding unit lot subdivisions in response to resident communication. We changed. We made a change that will make it easier to include decks and patios on detached dwelling units and a compromise amendment regarding long term bike parking requirements for affordable housing and senior living facilities. There are there is a substitute amendment to consider today before we consider the base legislation, and that substitute makes several technical corrections and clarifications. The substitute also makes minor changes to the bike parking requirements to clarify the allowance for up to five steps to access bike parking only as applied to exterior stairs and to allow a waiver from that step. Maximum for townhomes and row houses that are built steeply are on sloped sides. I think that there might be a little bit more work to do here and understand that it's important to move forward today. I can address, though, Councilmember Peterson's landmark amendment as it comes up. Thank you, council president. Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss, for addressing the Bass legislation and the substitutes. I'm going to hand it back over to you to formally move the substitute version of the bill. Thank you. I will move to post. Substitute. To Council Bill 119835. Okay, colleagues, we are entertaining a motion to amend Council Bill 119835 by substituting version three for version two. Is there a second? Becca, thank you so much. It's been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 119835 by substituting version three for version two. Councilmember Strauss, you already addressed the substitutes. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Not at this time, other than it made some technical and clarifying changes on technical nature. Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss. Are there any other comments on the substitute? Councilmember Peterson. Council president. Will this be the time where I would move to amend the substitute? Okay. No, the substitute is not formally adopted yet. So once we we have to adopt a substitute before any amendments to the substitute can be considered. Thank you for asking that procedural question. Any other comments on the substitute? Hearing? None. Will the clerk please call the roll on the substitute? Our bold. Yes. Whereas. I. Lewis. Yes. MORALES Yes. What's better? Yes. Peterson. Yes. So on. Yes. Strauss. Yes. Council President Gonzales. I. Not in favor and then opposed. The motion carries the amendment is adopted and the substituted bill is before the council. Councilmember Peterson, I understand that you have an amendment, so I am going to hand it over to you to formally introduce the amendment, and then we will open it up to discussion. Thank you, Council President and thank you, Chair Strauss, for shepherding this bill forward. This omnibus land use bill. At the most recent land use committee, I had introduced an amendment to cancel the request from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection to take the authority from the Landmarks Board regarding landmarks sites. That amendment tied in a vote of 2 to 2 in the Land Use Committee and was therefore not incorporated in the version of the bill that advanced. And we just talked about the substitute since the time of our committee vote, we confirm that the Landmarks Board has not officially weighed in on this move to take authority from them. In addition, historic Seattle opposes that change to strike the words cites from the bill so or to the right to add the word cites to the bill. So this amendment that I have recirculated this morning gives council members a chance to consider this amendment if they weren't on the land use committee and those who might have been okay with it previously to reconsider it. This memo was crafted by central staff and approved by the law department, and so I'd like some moves to amend Council Bill 119835 as presented on the amendment. Amending Section 17 of the bill, which was distributed earlier, basically striking the word sites so that the authority for sites would still stay with the Landmarks Board and that it's something that Stsci can come back with later if they want to. Is there a second? Was that you can't remember her. It was okay. Sorry. We accidentally spoke over each other, so I appreciate it. It's been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 119835 as presented on the amendment. Are there any additional comments on the amendment? Councilmember Strauss, followed by Councilmember Hertel. Thank you. Council president. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for your robust work on this amendment. I will be voting no on this amendment, as I did previously in committee, and my office has spoken with our central staff and staff from Department of Neighborhoods Historic Preservation Program and South Park Reconstruction Inspections. Many of the concerns I've heard over email seem to be describing changes that are not proposed in this bill, and I understand that confusion in this in this manner is not helpful. So everything is working quickly and we're trying to work together. So that's why I really commend Councilmember Peterson for continuing to work on this. The proposal that this amendment seeks to remove is simply a technical correction that would not have a wide ranging impact that that has been thought. Specifically, these changes would not remove or weaken any authority of the Department of Neighborhoods or Landmarks Preservation Board currently has. The Landmarks Board currently does not have jurisdiction over use. And so that is how the building is used that already belongs with the sale of apartment construction and inspections, the Landmarks Board would continue to have authority over any physical change to the designated features of a landmark structure or site. That does not change with with this amendment. Seattle Department of Construction Inspections already has the authority to grant nonconforming uses, so they already have the authority to grant this nonconforming use to landmark structures if they meet the criteria. This includes the proposed uses compatible with the existing structure. The uses that are allowed within the zone are impractical to provide. In the landmark structure or do not provide inadequate. Financial support to maintain the landmark. And that the use is not detrimental to the surrounding uses or public interest. So they have to already be allowed in this area. This change would not change the existing authority other than to clarify that it applies to the landmark site as well as the structure. So the reason that the site, the we're focusing on this word site versus structure is because the existing authority already exists within the building. And so now we're talking about what is occurring outside of the building on the on the same property. The exclusion of sites from the code seems to have been a previous oversight and code drafting rather than a policy choice. I understand that there are policy implications, and that's why Councilmember Peterson, rightly so, has brought this forward again. And I think that there we could and should have that that policy conversation if if warranted. The current distinction between sites and structures leads to weird constraints in these land use decisions. For example, CCI could approve a child care center inside a landmark structure as a nonconforming use. However, if that structure has a parking lot outside or an outdoor area for kids to play, Stsci could not approve using that parking or outdoor space to support the child care facility because it is part of the site rather than the structure. So to kind of sum all of these changes up, there's no changes to how the Landmarks Board Authority operates. The board will still have authority over any physical changes to designated features, just an addition of sites to sitka's existing authority. I also understand that Stsci first consulted with Department of Neighborhoods Historic Preservation staff last year, but that does not mean that more robust conversation needs to occur. So unfortunately, it sounds like we have crossed wires in working remotely as virtual meetings can be difficult, and I hope that my comments clarify the proposal. This is not something that I'm going to, you know, fall on my sword about. I think that there are important conversations to have about how we use the sites of our historically designated. Buildings. I just wanted to clarify that the what we're discussing here about the site, the one the parking lot, the space around the buildings is already within the code for the building and it impacts only use and not the structure. And so, again, I really want to thank Councilmember Peterson for bringing this forward, continuing this conversation. And thank you, colleagues, for your time. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, Councilmember Herbold. Let's see here. Okay. Thank you. So, you know, I think really for me, this hedges on this question of whether or not this is a tactical amendment or not. And, you know, we have a long standing practice of how we handle legislation that is part of the omnibus bill coming out of C.I. for the land use code . And to my knowledge, the understanding is that because it's a very large bill, it covers dozens of different code sections. In this case, this bill is 121 pages long. We have an agreement that we handle only technical amendments in the omnibus bill, and that we have an agreement and a commitment from the executive that the bills that are there have impacts on policy and that aren't technical in nature, are bills that we hear separately because of a heightened interest on behalf of the public and because of the existence of stakeholders, in this case, stakeholders that we have that we have a charter to give us advice on properties such as the the the incentive program that zoning code relief for historic sites. And so I don't believe this change is technical in nature. One of the things that Eugenia Woo said is adding the word with I'm sorry, with historic Seattle, adding the word site or sites might seem like a minor thing and it's not one word can have a lot of meeting when it comes to legislation and land use and zoning. The proposed addition of site or sites is not a correction of or of a typo typographical error. It is not correct section references. It does not clarify a regulation and it is not a minor amendment. Again, this is not a distinction. Our discussion on whether or not this is a good amendment or a bad amendment, merely that we have an agreement and a commitment with with stakeholders, with ourselves, with the executive of the types of of changes that we will consider in omnibus legislation. And then just wanting to also quote Barker, who is a former Land Works board member, when she said to basically shift authority from these sites, from our land landmarks board to the executive through this. This bill, she says, is a disservice to the hard work that the Landmarks staff and the Volunteer Landmarks Board perform. And I really think that Landmarks Preservation Board input would be would be invaluable in a discussion around what what may be useful inappropriate zoning code relief as an incentive to provide more flexibility for existing landmarks, whether or not they are properties or sites. So thank you. Alex, any other comments? I see councilmember Luis think elsewhere Mosqueda than Councilmember Morales. Thank you so much, Madam President. So I agree with everything that Councilmember Herbold just said in terms of really queuing up the posture of where this lands for me, in terms of the context of what the change is and and how it's packaged into the omnibus legislation. And I do want to hear, especially as someone who, like many of us formerly served on an on a city border commission from the landmark board on the the impact of this change. I'm especially given Eugenia Wu's email from historic Seattle earlier, really underscoring that historic Seattle does have some concerns with this legislation. And really for me, I was one of the councilmembers in the committee that did vote for this amendment before. I was certainly all kind of potentially changing my vote in the committee today. I do think the email from historic Seattle was really impactful, given that they are a very critical stakeholder on our mission of historic preservation, especially as relates to the critical work they've done around place. Make the Washington Hall and the Good Shepherd Center and just a lot of the organizations they put a lot of investment in gives me a lot of respect for for what they do or don't think is important in this world of historic preservation in the city of Seattle . And I would certainly like to work with them more, as they said, not necessarily to oppose this change forever, but to to see what a more deliberative process, to discuss some of the implications around the potential change of the site and sites, language that could have bigger implications. So for those reasons, I am going to vote for this amendment again today and and appreciate Councilmember Peterson. Bringing it forward again. I think Councilmember Mosqueda was next and then Councilmember Morales. Thank you very much, council president. I want to underscore the comments that. Council. Member Strauss made today and as chair of the committee, what he has brought to light in the last few conversations that we've had. So to add to the conversation that we had this morning, I want to reiterate that this omnibus change only applies to single family zones. So this will not apply to, for example, the Beacon Hill Garden House, which was mentioned earlier today from our friends in Beacon Hill. This is not within a single family zone, so that is not going to be affected. Furthermore, nonconforming uses may be approved on landmark buildings already. This is already a practice. So this is a technical change in nature. The omnibus change would extend this to include sites and approving nonconforming users through the administrative conditional use process is the jurisdiction of CCI after consulting with the Department of Neighborhoods. The Landmarks Preservation Board does not have jurisdiction over this use. I just want to say that one more time, because I think there has been some. Confusion out there. The Landmarks Preservation Board does not have jurisdiction over this use. This is not shifting any role that they currently have. Additionally, any physical change to the designated features of a. Landmark building. Or site is the jurisdiction of the Landmarks Preservation Board. And that authority is not changing within the omnibus omnibus building code. So Councilmember Strauss said this already, and I'm just lifting this up. To. Underscore the importance so that this doesn't get lost in the in the discussion around this, because I know some of these topics can be somewhat contentious. We're very interested in preserving landmarks. We want to make sure also that we're looking at opportunities for the best use of public spaces or other spaces to serve the public. But this again, this does not change the jurisdiction of the Landmarks Preservation Board within this code. This is a technical change. Department of Neighborhoods and CCI treat landmark buildings and sites the same deal and has authority over physical changes at end of our building and the CCI. And again, I want to reiterate. The nonconforming uses may be approved on landmark buildings. Already the omnibus change would extend this to include sites and approving non-conforming use through the administrative conditional use process is again the jurisdiction of CCI. After consultation with feeling, I'll be supporting this. That wasn't clear from my earlier comments and just now. Thank you very much. You can have some of us get a customer. Morales. Just to clarify, I'll be supporting the bill Aziz Ansari and Councilmember Peterson. I'm not supporting the amendment. I just want make that clear. Sorry about. Okay. So I. As I understand it, you know, this is as an omnibus bill, supposed to be technical in nature. And I will say that it does sound like it's getting sticky because there is a deeper policy issue being addressed. And what seems like a minor word change in May leaves more questions about unintended consequences. We did have a conversation today with central staff who pointed out that there are no pending applications would be impacted by this change. But it is also my understanding, and maybe Councilmember Strauss can clarify this is one property that would benefit from this right now, from this kind of a change. So I think for me, the question is that clarity around what what would be impacted by this beyond just one potential project and how that relates to, you know, does a policy change being made for one purpose? Or if there is a deeper or a broader implication here as we're trying to make a decision. Councilmember Strauss, that question was addressed to you. So you're welcome to respond. Great. Thank you so much. And thank you, Councilmember Morales. My understanding is, as I explained before, the deeper. The long term benefits of this are that a building's use and the site's use could both be considered by the Seattle Department of Construction and inspections rather than this situation which we have today, which the use is only able the decisions can only be made within the building. And I think that childcare really is a great example because the State Department of Children, Youth and Families requires both parking and outdoor space. And so when we're looking at it from that type of technical change, allowing a department to make a decision based on an entire facility is is important. Now, when it comes to the one site that I've heard repeatedly also brought up, I don't it's not my understanding that there's an application and maybe Councilmember Peterson can enlighten us more about that site, because it's not within my district and it's not something that I've had my my fingertips. Right on top of. So when I hear that there is a bit of confusion regarding whether this is a policy change or a technical change. And that's why I said earlier, this is it's not the end of the world. It's not something that I'm going to die on my sword for. Because if there is a policy change, if this is a policy implication that people need to have a conversation about, then that's fine. And that's something that we should do when we're looking at especially historic buildings and single family zones, which comprise the majority of the city of Seattle. This could create cumbersome red tape that could be unnecessary in places. Now, if we need to protect certain aspects of our historic sites or historic sites and buildings, I think that that's really important. And that's why the Landmarks Board's jurisdiction over this does not change. Because the look and feel of. The historic site will not be altered by this one work change. It is simply the use of child care facilities. It is why I keep going back to that example, because child care facilities do require parking, drive up, load, unload and outdoor outdoor use, whereas most other uses are able to be confined into into the building. I do believe that the site that has repeatedly come up has a restriction for educational uses. But I'm not going to read it. I'm not going to wade into those waters because I don't have enough information to discuss it appropriately. Thank you. Hey. All right. Going to. It's. It's your amendment, so you get the last word. Councilmember Peterson, I'm going to just make a couple of brief remarks before you. You you do that. So my understanding of what we're voting on now is, in fact, an omnibus bill. It is designed to reflect technical corrections to the land use code as a cleanup effort. And frankly, I feel like we're making a mountain out of a molehill on this one. And I do think and believe that it is a technical correction. We have heard language both from Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Mesquita, and I have not heard any any concrete citation to specific language that proves otherwise that Stsci already has the authority to make these sorts of decisions. And if that is true, and I don't have to have a reason to believe it is not true, then this language is clean up and is simply designed to make sure that the decision making by SDI is consistent as it relates to the site and use issues that Councilmember Strauss has highlighted. So I intend to vote no on this amendment and I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Peterson to close out debate on this amendment so that we can go ahead and call it to a vote and and address the underlying bill accordingly. So, Casmir Peterson, sorry. Now we're going to close that. We're going to close out debate. I'm sorry, Councilmember Peterson. And please. You. Thank you. And want to thank everybody who did call in and who wrote to us with their concerns about this from the different communities across the city. And, you know, there it's whether it's about a use or not because it talks about configuration of the site, which is is more than just use configuration of the site is is what CCI wants to put in there and have authority over. And so I'm it's precisely because of this confusion as to whether it is substantive or not that it's, in my opinion, should be pulled out, which is what this amendment would do to enable CCI. If they really feel that this is necessary change, that they can just come back and we can daylight everything and have a full, robust discussion about it. But it's just not appropriate in an omnibus bill traditionally to have what could be considered substantive change. And so I just asked my colleagues to consider approving this amendment, and then we can discuss this at a later date about the use and configuration of various sites and open space, etc.. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson, we're going to go ahead and again close that debate because we've had a long conversation about this during council briefing. We're having a long conversation about it now, and there was a long conversation about it in the committee. So we are, I think, at the the end of the road here, and it's time for us to make make a call one way or the other. So I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the role on the amendment as proposed by Councilmember Peterson. For both. Yes. Whereas. No. Lewis. Yes. Morales now. Let's get to know. Peterson. Yes. Salon? Yes. Strauss No. It's our council president Gonzalez now. Four in favor, five opposed. Thank you so much, Madam Park. The motion fails and the amendment is not adopted. Are there any further comments on the bill as amended? Councilmember Rosetta And then Councilmember Strauss, you'll have the last word since you're the sponsor of the bill, because we're almost there. Thank you, Madam President. Again, thanks to Councilmember Strauss for shepherding this omnibus bill through. I want to say thank you for the work that you did to include amendments, technical in nature, to make sure that we codified the intent of what we passed through the ADU and dating legislation last year. This is going to go a long way to making sure that unclosed decks and rooftops over patios can extend to make sure that there's more ability for people to enjoy their ideas. And that is with rooftop areas. Because as we create greater density in the city, we know that we want to create a city that's livable and walkable and accessible for all ages and abilities. I know that we use our rooftop as our backyard because we don't have a backyard. And this is where we have our dinners on our patio and our kiddo plays and we visit with our elders. So I'm looking forward to supporting this legislation for a number of reasons, but especially I want to thank you for working with our office to include that technical amendments and make sure that we were clear on that effort. And I hope that that will go a long way for the livability of the city. Thank. Thank you, Councilor Mosquito. Are there any other comments on the bill? Councilmember Strauss, last word is yours. Just again, want to thank Councilmember Peterson for bringing this amendment forward and other amendments forward. Councilmember Herbold also spoke to the importance of omnibus bills making technical and not policy changes. And I know that in days of working virtually and remotely, that it can be confusing what is technical and what is policy. And I appreciate everyone's willingness to work together. Some of the other, as I said previously, some of the other confusing language that we removed was regarding what unit subdivisions, which again could be viewed as either technical or it could be viewed as is policy already discussed was the patios and decks for a use. And also I want to highlight the there was a lot of work put into one amendment regarding long term bike parking and I know that there's now there could be some additional work to clean it up in the future. Just that in this moment where we continue to hear how divisive everything is, this was a moment where people came together and really were able to compromise and find a solution that works as best as it can for everyone engaged. And so I want to thank my colleagues on the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee and thank everyone all excellent public stakeholders and city departments who weighed in on this very long bill. Thank you, Council President and I look forward to the passage of this omnibus bill. Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss, for all your work on this particular bill. Well, Kirk, please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended. Revolt. Yes. Yes. Whereas. I. Lewis. Yes. Morales. What's that? Yes, Peterson. No. Sergeant. Yes. Strauss Yes. Council President Gonzalez. I. Eight in favor. One Oppose the bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affects my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Okay. Committee reports we are now going to hear from the Transportation and Utilities Committee agenda item 18. Will the clerk please read Agenda Item 18 into the record?