The City’s green building programs were a topic of discussion for me and other Councilmembers during a PLUS meeting last year on Ordinance 117516, which allows additional design departures under the Demonstration Program for Living Building Design.

Leading up to that meeting, concerns were raised by the Wallingford Community Council, the Bullitt Foundation, and Living Building Challenge representatives over a Skanska development that applied to be recognized as a Living Building.

The Committee heard public testimony, including comments from Wallingford Community Council President Lee Raaen and Vince Lyon, former Design Review Program Manager for the City’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD). The Committee discussion that followed raised questions on the City’s process for approving green building projects. In response to the testimony and the Committee discussion, I asked for a resolution calling on the City to clarify, update and enhance its Living Building Challenge and Seattle Deep Green pilot programs.

Resolution 31400 declares the City’s intent to continue promoting and encouraging the development of buildings that achieve the highest level of environmental sustainability by requesting updates and enhancements to its Living Building and Seattle Deep Green pilot programs and requesting the formation of a Green Building Technical Advisory Group to advise the City on sustainable building practices.

The resolution’s most important element is its request to the City’s DPD to form the standing Green Building Technical Advisory Group (originally, I’d proposed a Board). Its role is to advise the City on sustainable building practices; to screen proposals for eligibility; and to assist in developing new or updated sustainable building programs. My intent is to establish consistency in the review of our green building programs and green building applications through a dedicated panel of outside experts.

Advisory group members will have experience in LEED architecture, sustainable building practices, and building energy systems engineering, with one member belonging to a neighborhood community council. The group will meet as needed between now and the end of 2014, at which time DPD will report on the group’s performance and recommend improvements, if called for, as the group continues beyond 2014.

Our city has established itself as a leader in sustainable building since first adopting a Sustainable Building Policy in February of 2000. It has also implemented new programs, regulations, and incentives to encourage the private market to respond to the challenges of building a more sustainable city. An excellent example of how green a building can be is the Bullitt Foundation’s Bullitt Center on Capitol Hill, which calls itself the world’s greenest building, meeting all of the rigorous standards set by the Living Building Challenge.

I hope my resolution helps foster more such green buildings in Seattle.

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INTRODUCTION

I begin this UP with a request. After you read this Urban Politics, consider sending a message to the Councilmembers asking them to dramatically increase the City’s plans for providing for more affordable housing in South Lake Union. My prior UP #322 provided background on how the City is developing SLU into a new and vibrant neighborhood, with expectations that in 18 years it will be the site of over 50,000 jobs and hopefully 15,000 housing units to accommodate those employees. Quite likely it will become one of Seattle’s densest urban centers. The question before the City is what kind of a new neighborhood will this be? Will it become a homogenous residential neighborhood, with employees car dependent on getting to work?

BE BOLD – TAKE THE LEAP

Before you is a strategy for creating an environmentally sustainable and an affordable neighborhood in the heart of our city. If you are in agreement, then email Councilmembers and put in the Subject Line: “BE BOLD – TAKE THE LEAP” In the body of the message use your own words for why you believe there should be more affordable housing in Seattle and South Lake Union in particular. Emails for the Councilmembers are:
Sally.Bagshaw@seattle.gov
Tim.Burgess@seattle.gov
Sally.Clark@seattle.gov
Richard.Conlin@seattle.gov
Jean.Godden@seattle.gov
Bruce.Harrell@seattle.gov
Nick.Licata@seattle.gov
Mike.OBrien@seattle.gov
Tom.Rasmussen@seattle.gov

WHAT DOES “TAKE THE LEAP” MEAN?

In short it asks Councilmembers to dramatically increase the requirements on South Lake Union developers to provide affordable housing units when they build larger and higher buildings due to the upzoning of this area. My proposal, which was kindly referred to as the “Licata Leap” by Councilmember Burgess, would do three things. First, reduce carbon emissions from employees driving to work from long distances by creating a greater incentive to provide affordable housing in SLU and in the city. Second, significantly increase the number of affordable housing units beyond what the other plans are proposing. Third, it will begin to make those changes now, capturing the potential to build hundreds of new housing units that would otherwise be lost if we were to wait another year for more discussions.

COMPARISON OF SLU PROPOSALS FOR FUNDING AFFORDABLE HOUSING

The performance requirement (i.e. the developer builds the affordable housing units on or offsite site) and the in-lieu payment amounts (i.e. the developer pays a fee to the city and the funds are used by someone else to build the units elsewhere) would significantly increase with the Leap Plan. Below is a table showing the differences.

This table applies only to new residential construction, not commercial construction, taking advantage of the SLU upzone. Commercial developments would also pay a fee, but their numbers would vary from those presented below.

Notes:

• *AMI is Average Median Income
• **Office of Housing suggests that non-profit developers may build an additional 300 units by 2031.
• *** This is the number of affordable housing units that the Office of Housing has determined that we’ll need by 2031 to meet our needs for the growth of jobs in SLU. Our consultants have confirmed this number and believe that it would be higher by 50% if we included the demand for affordable housing coming from the rest of the central business district.

The Council is moving in the right direction by increasing the amount of affordable housing from what the Mayor has proposed. One way that some Councilmembers have proposed is to increase the fees is by capturing inflation costs through applying the CPI index. This increase is one that could have been administratively applied, without legislation, any of the years since the 2007 passage of our first incentive zoning program.

I’m also glad to see that some Councilmembers are proposing a higher fee (referred to as an “in-lieu premium” of 20-25%) on developers who do not provide onsite affordable housing. I appreciate that Councilmember Burgess, who was the first to propose higher fees than what the Mayor proposed, acknowledges that even with this in-lieu premium, “the fee would be well below what is allowed by state law, RCW 36.70A.540 (h)”… well below the total cost to develop the workforce units.”

My objective is to encourage the development of affordable housing within projects and discourage the practice of developers writing a check to fulfill their incentive zoning obligations. Since its inception, San Francisco’s differential performance requirements and pay in-lieu options has succeeded in this objective, resulting in 80% of projects performing on-site units, 4% have performing offsite, and 16% making an in-lieu fee payment. My proposal is much more modest, but it will still increase the amount of on-site development than is currently being considered.

Here are some of the details of my proposal:

• For developers building affordable housing onsite: 10% of all residential floor area would be set aside as affordable for 60% and 80% average median income workers, which works out to about $60 gross square foot.
• For developers who don’t build affordable housing onsite, they make a “payment in lieu fee” which is equivalent to the cost of developing more units, instead 15% of units, or about $96 gross square foot.

IS THIS PROPOSAL REASONABLE?

The City Council’s consultant produced The Spectrum Report which concluded that an in lieu fee of even $104/gross square foot (mine is estimated as $96) would result in a 6.8% Return On Equity for developers and investors, the baseline threshold accepted by in the current market is 6%. In other words, developers could still make a healthy return on their projects.

Some have suggested that if we ask developers for too much in exchange for them using the upzones, they will not build in SLU if they can make larger profits elsewhere. While that is a possibility, there are other things to consider.

Although incentive zoning should be applied city wide, SLU is and will continue to be the hottest real estate location in the city for some time. The Mayor created a taskforce for considering how incentive zoning should be applied city-wide. It should move quickly and make a proposal by mid-summer, not at the end of the year as is currently planned. We do need city-wide consistency in applying incentive zoning. With a good portion of the Mayor’s appointees on the taskforce being for-profit developers, I expect that they will voice their hesitations about robust incentive programs. Consequently, I have low expectations that they will endorse anything that is bold enough to meet our city’s needs for more affordable housing. However, while the public deserves to hear their concerns, we should not use this taskforce as a barrier for tackling our affordable housing needs now. Rather, we should move forward before the end of the year to address the need city-wide.

Seattle is currently the sixth most active real estate market in the nation, and the risk factor for investors in this market is the second lowest in the nation as well. Both stats come from a report of Real Capital Analytics, a nationally respected firm, whose report received wide attention. However, San Francisco is even a “hotter” and they have a more aggressive affordable program than what I’m proposing (their “in-lieu” fee is over $300 a gross sq. ft. compared to mine of $96, or the Mayor’s at $15.) The requirements of their program applies even when there is no concurrent upzone and any time a builder is building more than 5 units of housing. And developers there have to provide housing units that are affordable to a lower income worker – 55% of Area Median Income, while all our proposals are at 80% of AMI (mine is half at 80% AMI, and half at 60%). Finally in San Francisco the affordable units are permanently affordable, for the life of the project. Our program guarantees affordability for only 50 years.

We need to build housing for our entire workforce, not just those at the highest wage scales. That is why we must have an incentive zoning program that also produces housing for workers earning 60% of the AMI. These are the security, clerical, maintenance, sales and hospitality workers. One proposed new building, just outside the SLU boundary, will be Seattle’s largest hotel employing over 400 people earning less than $25,000 a year. These are people who deserve the opportunity to walk or bike to work, rather than being forced to drive from Kent, Renton or beyond every day because they cannot find affordable housing in Seattle.

CONCLUSION

Council does recognize the opportunity of capturing additional public value for the private value we intend to create.  And, upzoning adds significant value to private property. The Department of Planning and Development has estimated that future growth due to upzoning SLU could result in over $12 billion worth of development over the next 25 years. Is it reasonable to expect that we should shape that development to be sensitive to our physical environment and our community values? I don’t want to see a downtown enclave created that can only house the most highly paid workers.

My vision is the creation of a functional and sustainable new downtown urban center that reflects the social diversity and environmental goals of our city. Can we do that by creating another 500 or even 700 affordable units when we expect there to be 15,000 housing units in SLU by 2031? I, for one, believe we can and must do better.

I welcome the Council’s continued resolve to grapple with these issues now, as well as the fact that we are also collectively rolling up our sleeves to do the same for incentive zoning throughout the City. But we need your guidance. What do you believe we should do?

tion (MFTE) Program

Last year, I requested an Audit on MFTE Rental Program activity.  My primary objective for requesting the audit was to determine whether the rental portion of the MFTE program, when used by private developers, was successful in implementing the program’s goals.  Today the Audit was released including 19 recommendations to improve the program.  Recommendations range from creating new performance measures for program goals to improving program compliance, administration and oversight.

In 1998 the City Council created the MFTE Program to incentivize development and rehabilitation of rental properties and home ownership projects.  The MFTE program grants to the property owner a property tax exemption on the part of the property that is used for housing.  The taxes aren’t lost, instead that exemption is then redistributed to other residential property tax payers in Washington State.  In exchange, the owners are required to maintain the affordability of some of the housing for the length of the period of the tax exemption.   Since 1998, I have been skeptical of using property tax dollars to provide what is essentially market rate housing, believing that, given limited funding, providing housing for those least able to afford housing should be our highest priority.  The 1998 – 2002 program resulted in 6 projects receiving a $5,240,395 tax exemption over a 10 year period.  (*76 of 298 total units are required to be “affordable.”)

Over the years, the program requirements have changed.  The goals and objectives have changed as well.  In 2004, changes expanded the program to 8 new areas, bringing the total to 17 areas.  The 2004 changes also required lower rents than were required in the original 1998 program.  Under the 2004 program, 20% of the units were required to be affordable to people making 65% of median income OR 30% of the units be available to households making 70% median income in order for developers to get the subsidy.  The 2004-2008 program resulted in 9 projects receiving a $14,300,831 exemption over a 10 year period.  (*242 of 1036 total units are required to be “affordable.”)

In 2008, the Council decided to allow a total of 39 neighborhoods to be included in the rental MFTE program and allowed higher rents again (80-90% of median income, depending on unit size), and changed the length of both the exemption and the required affordability from 10 to 12 years.  The 2008-2010 program resulted in 37 projects receiving a $113,325,447 tax exemption over a 12 year period.  (*1171 of 5780 total units are required to be “affordable.”)

Finally, in February 2011 there were additional changes to the program including: a. lowering the affordability requirements that had been increased in 2008, b. increasing the frequency of and expanding the requirements of reporting, and c. eliminating the requirement that each application come to the Council for review (since the Council doesn’t approve the applications, the Director of the Office of Housing does).  Further, the program was reauthorized until 2015.  As of January this year, the 2011 program has resulted in 20 projects receiving a $37,317,677 over a 12 year period (403 of 1813 total units are required to be “affordable”).

An important reference to understand the issue of affordability is what rent is affordable (see this chart for affordable rent rates) to those making 70%, 80%, and 90% median income.  The Housing Needs Assessment of the 2008-2012 Consolidated Plan tells us a lot about where the real need for affordable housing lies.  More than half of the City’s renters have incomes that are less than 80% of median income.  About 1 in 5 renters spend more than half of their income on rent and more than half of this group have incomes less than 30% median income.  On the other hand, of the renter households paying more than half of their income of rent, only 6% are making more than 80% median income housing.

* The total number of actual affordable units exceeds the number required to be affordable by the MFTE program because some projects either have a deed restriction or another source of public funding requiring additional affordability.

The SEPA appeal period ends Monday, October 1.   Members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on these proposed regulations when the Council discusses this ordinance this December, in my Housing, Human Services, Health, and Culture Committee.  Councilmember Sally Clark and I will be visiting Neighborhood Council meetings through December to gather feedback on the proposal.  Additional information on these meetings will be available as they are scheduled.

The  purpose of this proposed ordinance is to limit the off-site impact of larger-scale cannabis-related activity in zones where they may have increased impacts on neighborhood character or security, specifically those zones with a predominately residential or historic character:

• Single family and multifamily residential zones
• Neighborhood Commercial 1 zones
• Pioneer Square Mixed, International District Mixed and Residential, Pike Place Mixed, Harborfront neighborhoods

In these zones, the growing, processing, or dispensing of cannabis would be limited to:

• 45 cannabis plants;
• 72 ounces of useable cannabis; and
• An amount of cannabis product that could reasonably be produced with 72 ounces of useable cannabis.

We want to create standards now so that we don’t repeat what is happening in Los Angeles, where law enforcement raids shut down operations of good and bad businesses alike and eventually City Council banned dispensaries altogether because there were few standards in LA to hold operators accountable.  For this reason, I hope access point operators and neighborhood residents will agree that they each can benefit from the consistency and accountability that these regulations will provide.

More information can be found in the Department of Planning and Development’s Land Use Information Bulletin.

Image from http://waterfrontseattle.org/

On Monday, July 23 the City Council will hear the recommendations of the Central Waterfront Committee about how to redesign the Downtown Seattle waterfront. The Central Waterfront Committee was created by the Council in Resolution 31264 to “advise the City on designing, developing and managing a series of premiere public spaces on the Central Waterfront and the broader connections necessary to reconnect the Central Waterfront to the City.”

The Central Waterfront Committee presentation contains an overview of their design and funding recommendations. The Strategic Plan includes more detail about their proposed timeline and recommendations.

In addition, Monday’s meeting will include a summary of the proposed design.

Last Monday the Council received a high-level Waterfront Design Presentation from City Staff.

12:30-1:30pm
Council Chambers, 2nd Floor City Hall

In the study’s foreword, Ron Sims, former deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and former King County Executive, wrote, “This report advocates for stability in communities of color, not for displacement. It calls for a commitment to moving racial justice to the center of TOD planning. Let us heed its call.  We cannot wait until after displacement has taken place, through racial equity outcomes, people of all incomes and races are able to choose to live in central, dense neighborhoods and can avoid perpetuating suburban sprawl and auto-centric living.”

Howard Greenwich from Puget Sound Sage will present findings from the report, then representatives from Transportation Choices Coalition, Urban Impact and Got Green will join Councilmembers for a roundtable discussion.  Check out the report here.

If you can’t make it, you can watch it live at:  www.seattle.gov/councillive

Some of you may remember in 2007, as Council President, I created a Special Council Committee on Pedestrian Safety and led the Council in passing the Pedestrian Safety Resolution (Resolution 30951), to establish a citizens advisory group for developing a Pedestrian Master Plan.  In 2009, the Council passed the Pedestrian Master Plan that was a requirement of the 2007 Resolution 30951.  The Council Special Committee on Pedestrian Safety operated from 2007-2008.  The goal of the plan was to invest $10 million a year in implementing the recommendations.  Thanks to the Bridging the Gap Levy, $60 million for pedestrian improvements are planned from 2009-2014. This includes funding for new infrastructure like sidewalks, curb ramps, and signals as well as maintenance like sidewalk repair and crosswalk re-striping.

photo credit goes to the Low Income Housing Institute

But sometimes when we are focused on the big master plans, we forget to celebrate the small victories that can occur when we – as elected officials – support the efforts of individual residents trying to make the the places that they walk safer.   In February this year, I learned that the low-income and disabled senior residents of the Bart Harvey Apartments in South Lake Union had been waiting for more than two years for SDOT to put stop signs and traffic calming devices in front of The Bart Harvey.  Many residents are frail, in their 70’s and 80’s, and have problems with mobility. The seniors use canes and walkers; some get around in wheelchairs.

SDOT completed a traffic warrant study in 2011 demonstrating a safety hazard for pedestrians.  Finally, due to the persistence and patience of a lot of people, last month, the crosswalks were installed.  ADA curb ramps will be coming to this intersection as well but this work is not yet scheduled.   Many thanks go to the Seattle Department of Transportation, the residents of the Bart Harvey Apartments, the Low Income Housing Institute, and the Mayor’s Office.

I’d like the City to work towards a broader policy objective in instances like the Bart Harvey Apartments – when the City is funding a housing development that we know will create a need for new pedestrian improvements – of  the Office of Housing working closely with the Department of Transportation coordinating in advance so these improvements can be planned before a new building receiving city funding is open.  If we can plan for these investments in advance, perhaps in the future folks like the residents of the Bart Harvey won’t have to wait.

Finally, I’d like to remind readers of Critical Crossings.  Critical Crossings is a place where you can send me your snapshots of intersections and street crossings you feel might be dangerous.

There are a number of controversial portions of the bill, but the one that garnered the most opposition at today’s meeting was an element that would have allowed small-scale, ground-floor commercial uses in certain multifamily zones that are located in Urban Centers or Station Area Overlay Districts.  

In a previous committee meeting on May 9^th, Councilmembers were interested in supporting the proposal but there was a menu of amendments suggested with the hope that they’d minimize potential negative consequences of the bill.   The amendments ranged from a. limiting the square footage of the permitted ground floor commercial to 2,000 square feet, b. prohibiting restaurants and electric signage, c. applying nighttime disturbance and odor regulations used in other non-residential zones, and d. allowing ground floor commercial only on transit arterials in these residential multifamily zones located in Urban Centers or Station Area Overlay Districts.

The proponents of the proposal said that their hope was to make neighborhoods more walkable by increasing the number of small stores and services close to where people live.  But today we heard from many residents of what is arguably one of Seattle’s most walkable neighborhoods. Capitol Hill came out in force to say that they had the stores and services they need already and that they were worried that the proposal would not only detract from the livability of their neighborhoods, but it could very well threaten the economic vitality of the existing neighborhood commercial business districts – the places that have been designated for these commercial functions.

In the end, the Councilmembers at today’s committee meeting voted to eliminate entirely the part of the bill that would have allowed commercial uses in Low Rise 2 and 3 zones, but the bill would still allow new ground-floor commercial uses in the remaining Midrise zones where such uses are not currently permitted.   The picture in this post (the Thomas St. Bistro and local grocer in Capitol Hill) is one such example of what the bill would allow.  The bill was not voted out of committee because of additional unresolved policy changes that will be tabled until the next PLUS committee meeting on June 13.  You can watch the meeting here.

You may remember that in March, I proposed a program that would require inspection of properties that have been the subject of serious complaints first and then inspecting Seattle’s 42,000 rental properties, slowly over a period of ten years.

Today the Councilmembers in attendance (myself along with Councilmembers Bagshaw, Godden, and Clark) agreed that given that we don’t know exactly how much rental housing is in poor shape, the best way to improve the condition of unsafe housing is to knit together an approach of a. making safe the housing that we know now is not safe and b. inspecting – over the next ten years – the rest of the rental housing in order to gather better information.  After we know more about the condition of all Seattle’s rental housing, we will evaluate the program and determine a schedule for future inspections.

The legislation we will consider next will be drafted with these elements as well as a number of others important to the Councilmembers I’ve been working closely with to develop this program.  Here are just a few of those elements:

1. In the year prior to the implementation of the program, DPD must engage in a multi-language outreach and education for tenants, landlords, and property managers.
2. In the first three years of the program, require landlords to complete a self-declaration that they comply with minimum safety conditions for each unit at their property.  These self-declarations will be submitted when landlords register their properties with the city and renewal will be required every 5 years.
3. DPD will require that landlords with properties that have multiple serious complaints to get an inspection before they are allowed to register their property.
4. DPD will expand its use of civil warrant authority when a 3^rdparty complains about the interior or exterior conditions of a rental property, as long as the conditions meet the legal threshold required by civil warrant authority.
5. Starting in second year, dedicate trained private inspectors to perform random compliance inspections.  Allow inspector flexibility on percentage of units to inspect in multi-unit buildings, but maintain a minimum floor of 15% of the units in multi-unit buildings.  Properties less than 5 years old, owner occupied, or that are otherwise inspected under existing public subsidy programs would be exempt.
6. Require property-owners to maintain inspection records to enable the City to conduct audit of inspection quality.
7. Create a team that includes tenants, landlords, advocates to – on an on-going basis – act in an advisory role in implementation and evaluation.

I have great hopes for the positive impact of the public policy we are shaping today for renters living in substandard.  In LA (because the complaint-based inspection system didn’t work there either), in 1998 they adopted the Systematic Code Enforcement Program (SCEP). SCEP inspects all multi-family residential properties in the City on a 4-year cycle–approximately 185,000 units annually.  The program received the Ash Institute Award from the Kennedy School: and resulted in a $1.3 billion re-investment in the City’s rental housing stock.  On average, this program costs tenants in LA less than $13 year.

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ONE, cofounded by the musician Bono, is a nonpartisan grassroots advocacy organization that works primarily in Africa with African activists and policy makers to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. It does so by raising public awareness and pressuring political leaders to support smart and effective policies and programs that save lives, help put kids in school and improve their futures.

Ahead of the G8 Summit meeting next month at Camp David, Maryland, ONE is sending this video message to President Obama and other world leaders that US foreign aid investments are working and that extreme poverty needs to remain on the global agenda.

An example of applying foreign aid smartly can be seen in Africa’s cowpea industry. Africa produces 70 percent of the world’s cowpeas (black-eyed peas in the US). But, every year up to 50 percent of this crop is lost to insects. The solution? Three-bag storage, where crop is placed in a single three-bag thick container triple tied and sealed air-tight. This creates an inhospitable environment for pests and allows cowpeas to be stored pest-free for up to a year while avoiding the use of harmful pesticides usually employed to fight insects.

Called the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) project, this solution is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Purdue University. PICS ensures the bags are created by local manufacturers, bought by local distributors, sold to local vendors, who then sell to the farmers. PICS supports vendors primarily through media and advertisements so local farmers know where to purchase the bags.

Also contributing to the video are Mayor Mike McGinn; UW President Michael Young; Councilmember Richard Conlin; Seattle Legislative Aide Sahar Fathi; Derek Sciba of World Concern; Dean of the UW School of Public Health Dr. Howard Frumkin; and James Pedrick of World Vision.

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