Tag: Dan Strauss

City Council, housing

“We’re Gonna Throw It Away.” Dan Strauss, on Losing End of Stadium Housing Vote, Predicts Disaster for Industrial Seattle

By Erica C. Barnett

On a 6-3 vote yesterday, the Seattle City Council approved legislation sponsored by Council President Sara Nelson to allow new apartments in the area immediately south of Seattle’s two stadiums, after weeks of often acrimonious debate between supporters of the bill (including affordable housing developers, community groups, small manufacturers, and the Building Trades union) and opponents (representatives from maritime industries, the Port, and housing advocates who argue it’s unhealthy to allow apartments on arterial streets near an industrial zone.)

Councilmember Rob Saka, considered the swing vote, voted “yes,” as did Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who voted against the bill in committee.

The new law will allow a maximum of 990 apartments, half of them affordable to people making less than 90 percent of median income (smaller units would lower income limits). Under amendments adopted yesterday, renters would have to affirm in their lease that they know they’re living in a “geologic hazard” area that’s vulnerable during earthquakes; building owners would have to post several prominent warning signs saying the same; and housing would be prohibited along the west side of First Ave. S., the main artery through the area. The amendments also prohibit building owners from seeking any public subsidy at any point, including for future environmental remediation.

Without belaboring the five-hour meeting (which I covered in real time over on Bluesky), one key dynamic jumped out: Councilmember Dan Strauss, who opposed Nelson’s legislation from the jump, dominated yesterday’s meeting, first by attempting repeatedly to delay the vote, and then by reiterating his arguments against the proposal long after it was clear that the vote wasn’t going to go his way. In about three and a half hours of deliberation, which included nine amendments by other councilmembers, Strauss spoke for well over an hour, returning to the same points again and again and suggesting repeatedly that if his colleagues had only done their homework, they would be voting with him.

It’s common for city councilmembers to speak out in vociferously when they know they’re going to lose (as Bob Kettle, who also opposed the bill from the beginning, did yesterday, even accusing his colleagues of being “aligned with the Trump administration” by voting to put housing near a polluted area). It’s unusual, with the notable exception of former councilmember Kshama Sawant, for a council member to use every opportunity for comment to make the same repetitive points long after it’s clear they’ve lost.

Strauss returned more than a dozen times to the fact that hotels are already allowed around the stadiums, suggesting at one point that his colleagues probably weren’t even aware of that. (There’s a Silver Cloud Inn right next to the stadiums, so it’s hard to imagine they aren’t). Strausswas chair of the land use committee when the city adopted an updated industrial lands policy that was changed at the last minute to allow hotels and offices in the stadium district, but not housing, a decision Strauss characterized as a maximalist and permanent compromise. (Proponents of housing in the area have argued that the deal was actually the opposite—the city would approve industrial lands without the contentious housing element, then revisit the housing question later.)

“Again, say it with me now,” Strauss intoned, some four hours in. “This proposal could be built today, if the units were hotels.” Since one of the main arguments against housing in the area is that renters’ cars would jam up traffic to and from the Port’s freight terminals, it’s hard to see how hotels would be much better—unless the idea is that tourists would use transit and renters would not, a conclusion that isn’t borne out by Seattle’s own experience with parking mandates, which have shown that renters in areas served by transit are far less likely to own cars than other Seattle residents.

As the meeting neared its 7pm conclusion, Strauss went so far as to imply that the 990 proposed apartments would actually obliterate the city’s maritime and industrial industry. Gesturing toward the “orange cranes” on the waterfront outside City Hall, he wondered aloud, “how much training does it take to get a skilled operator? How much investment does it take? And we’re gonna throw it away. We’ll keep the picture of it, though, in the conference room.”

Strauss repeatedly suggested shadowy forces were at play in some of his colleagues’ yes votes, fixating on a comment from Cathy Moore about a walking tour she and Maritza Rivera took at which, they said, a neighborhood group member suggested vacating South Occidental Street near the stadiums so it could become a pedestrian-only zone.. “The package of amendments today clearly demonstrates that council members have good intent, and that they know that housing in this area is a bad idea, but feel compelled to vote on this proposal or for this proposal,” Strauss said. “Today, for even me, new information has come to light, which further leads me to believe there were commitments or things shared in private.”

“If the next step from here as an alley vacation, this isn’t about affordable housing or union-built anything—this is back to 2016 about a whole different conversation,” Strauss said. The apparent implication was that the owner of much of the property rezoned for housing yesterday, Chris Hansen, had cut a side deal with other council members to bring back his 2016 stadium proposal without Strauss’ knowledge; that proposal died after the council narrowly rejected a proposal to vacate Occidental. Rivera and Moore denied this and said they regretted bringing it up.

Strauss said the zoning change, if approved, would “possibly be the first decision before this council that cannot be taken back.” While it’s true that once a building goes up, the council doesn’t have the power to tear it down, the city does change zoning laws all the time. It seemed like what Strauss wanted to say is that he didn’t like the way his colleagues were voting. But that’s sometimes just part of the job.

City Council, Crime, Elections, public safety, Transportation

Transportation Levy Funds Leary Bypass of Burke-Gilman Trail; Council Escalates Street Racing Rhetoric (and Fines)

1. The Seattle City Council voted Tuesday to approve a $1.55 billion, eight-year transportation levy for the November ballot, and Mayor Bruce Harrell signed the legislation Wednesday.

In a reversal from its previous position, the council decided Tuesday to earmark $20 million to “complete” the long-disputed Burke-Gilman Trail by rerouting cyclists and pedestrians off the current route and onto new path next to busy Leary Way NW. Cycling advocates and industrial businesses have spent decades locked in a legal battle over the “missing link” of the trail along Shilshole Ave. NW, with business groups opposed to a straightforward link between two sections of the trail through Ballard.

By explicitly funding the Leary detour, Strauss said his amendment will finally settle that debate, “putting this 30-year problem to rest.” But the debate is likely to continue, even assuming voters approve the transportation levy and secure the $20 million for the Leary option. The proposed route, as we’ve reported previously, would require cyclists to cross 13 active intersections, the most of any alternative the city has studied, plus 33 driveways and loading docks—each presenting its own opportunities for collisions.

Three council members—Sara Nelson, Bob Kettle, and Maritza Rivera—voted against Strauss’ proposal, with Cathy Moore and Rob Saka reversing their previous “no” votes. Rivera said she supported completing the Missing Link, but that she didn’t support earmarking so much money for a specific option when there would be more opportunities to discuss the alternatives and finalize the details later; Nelson said she was concerned about stripping all but $6 million from an arterial maintenance fund that was supposed to help leverage millions of dollars in other investments.

Model T speedster photo via ModelTPix.com.

2. Also this week, the council’s public safety committee, chaired by Kettle, approved legislation that will allow police to issue tickets to anyone engaged in illegal street racing in Seattle.

The new ordinance (much like last year’s controversial drug law, which incorporated an existing state law into a local ordinance) imposes a fine of $500 for the first infraction and, thanks to an amendment added by Councilmember Rob Saka, escalating fines that top out at $1,500 per infraction. Another Saka amendment, modeled on a law in Kent, makes it a civil infraction for people to be “spectators” at street races.

“Many of these races are occurring because they’re putting on a sideshow. They’re putting on a show for people,” Saka said, adding that spectators can number in the “hundreds—hundreds!” The “key delta” between the Kent law and Seattle’s proposal, Saka added, is that Seattle’s only imposes a civil fine, while Kent’s allows criminal penalties.

“We can’t be afraid of taking risks and taking strong action to solve this problem that has plagued our city over and over again,” Saka said.

A council spokesperson said it “will ultimately be up to SPD” how to enforce the ban on watching street races, which could include issuing tickets on site or using footage from nearby surveillance cameras to track down and ticket people after the fact.

None of these measures are likely to end street racing, which has been illegal in Washington state since the age of the Model T. State law has banned street racing since at least 1915, suggesting it has been a perennial problem. The original law banning street races allowed officers to arrest drivers for “racing on the public highways,” except when local authorities set aside time for “speed trials or speed contests.”

City Council, homelessness, King County, Morning Fizz

Morning Fizz: COVID at City Hall, Why “Consolidation” Won’t Fix the City Budget, and More on Burien’s Efforts to Kill a Church Encampment

1. Seattle City Councilmember Bob Kettle recently contracted COVID after coming in to his City Hall office while a family member was home sick with the highly infectious disease. During the period when he was not yet testing positive, he and his staff continued to work at City Hall without wearing masks, according to sources on the floor.

Although Kettle told PubliCola that he personally stayed home for a week after his first positive COVID test (including five days after his symptoms receded), his presence on the second floor during the time when his family member was sick unnerved at least one council member, Tammy Morales, who wrote in an email to the city clerk and council HR, “I just learned that a couple folks on the floor are home with Covid. Can I ask you to send around our policies to remind folks WHEN TO STAY HOME.”

According to a staffer for his office, Kettle “took multiple tests and the moment he received a positive result, he immediately began to work from home, and followed the five-day protocol once he received a negative test(s).” The city asks employees to isolate for five days after a positive test and stay home if they still have symptoms; however, even asymptomatic people can be contagious. Kettle and a staffer confirmed that no one else in his office contracted COVID from him.

Council president Sara Nelson and other council members have frequently touted the benefits of in-person work to council members and their staff as well as the recovery of downtown businesses. The council now holds all its meetings in person; previously, some council members attended remotely, including one council member with a young child and one who is immunocompromised.

Saka and Strauss are correct that the city has arborists in multiple departments. It has a total of two: One in the Parks Department, and one in SDOT. It’s unclear how moving both positions into one department or the other would save the city money.

2. Facing the largest budget shortfall in recent history, many city council members have latched on to the idea that city departments are inefficient and full of costly redundancies—a problem council budget committee chair Dan Strauss has recently taken to illustrating with the example of city arborists. “We have multiple different departments that have arborists,” Strauss said at a committee meeting last month, and “I think it makes more sense to have them all in one department.”

Earlier this week, Councilmember Rob Saka took up the mantle, calling the city’s many arborists the “canonical example” of the need for “consolidation” at the city on an episode of the Seattle Channel’s “City Inside/Out,” which features panel discussions with city council members.

“Do we need 17 different departments with arborists, or can they sit under one [department]—parks, for example, or whatever it is. But we need to better consolidate our functions, services, our lines of business, avoid duplication of efforts, [and] I think we’ll achieve some some great savings through that,” Saka said.

Curious, we looked to see how many arborists the city has and in how many different departments. As it turns out, Saka and Strauss are correct that the city has arborists in multiple departments. It has a total of two: One in the Parks Department, and one in SDOT. It’s unclear how moving both positions into one department or the other would save the city money.

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3. As PubliCola reported late last year, Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon failed to inform the city council about a letter from Deputy King County Executive Shannon Braddock telling him the city needed to come up with a plan to spend $1 million the county was offering to build a shelter or lose the money.

Bailon sat on the letter for a week before telling the full council about it, claiming he was too busy responding to to emails opposing a temporary encampment at a local church that was run by a nonprofit started by then-council member Cydney Moore.

Although Bailon later changed his story, documents obtained through a records request show that he did spend a great deal of time responding to opponents of the encampment and raising questions about its legality. Those emails included:

• A note to the Burien fire chief asking him if the city could ensure that all the tents at the encampment would be “flame retardant”;

• An email to Burien Police Chief Ted Boe asking him to send an officer to a meeting to refute “potentially false claims” by the encampment’s sponsor that sex offenders would be barred from the encampment (which they were);

• An email warning the superintendent of the Highline Public School District about the church encampment’s “proximity to Highline High School” and claiming that the encampment violated city law;

• At least seven emails to people who wrote him to oppose the encampment, saying he was “very sorry to hear” about the problems the encampment would cause them and encouraging them to attend an upcoming meeting where they could express their opposition.

The encampment closed in February.

 

 

City Council, Elections

PubliCola Questions: City Councilmember Dan Strauss, District 6

By Erica C. Barnett

The 2023 election will dramatically reshape the Seattle City Council. Four council members are not seeking reelection, while a fifth, Teresa Mosqueda, is running for King County Council and will be replaced by an appointee if she wins. Even if all three of the incumbents who are running win reelection, the council will probably have at least five new members next year—a new majority of freshmen on a council whose most experienced members will, at most, be entering their second terms. If all eight seats turn over, it would make Sara Nelson, an at-large council member who started her first term last year, the most senior member of the council.

Debates over issues and ideology are understandably front and center in campaigns. But with eight of nine council seats up for grabs, I want to focus for a moment on an often overlooked question that impacts how the city council makes decisions and functions on a daily basis:  Can these people work together? Among the current council, the answer is frequently no. At best, there’s a sense that council members aren’t talking to each other outside public meetings, which are still largely virtual. At worst, the hostility bursts out into the open—as it has during this election, when one council member, Sara Nelson, is actively campaigning against three of her incumbent colleagues.

In this setting, five—and up to eight—new council members could provide a needed reset and eliminate some of the bad blood that has built up over the past several years.

Less optimistically, an inexperienced council could leave Mayor Bruce Harrell’s exercise of executive power unchecked, allowing the mayor to push through any number of priorities that the current council has shot down—like raiding the JumpStart payroll tax, which is supposed to be spend on housing and equitable development, to pay for general city obligations.

The next council will have to get up to speed fast, because they’ll soon face challenges that are only growing in scope—from homelessness, gun violence, and addiction to a looming $250 million budget deficit that will require tough decisions and could mean significant service cuts.

To get a better sense of how council incumbents, challengers, and first-time candidates would tackle these challenges, PubliCola spoke with 10 of the 14 council candidates, representing every council district.

Two candidates—Rob Saka in District 1 and Tanya Woo in District 2—ignored our emailed requests to sit down for an interview and did not follow up after I asked again in person. One candidate, District 3’s Joy Hollingsworth, set up an interview but then canceled, and did not respond to my request to reschedule. Maritza Rivera, running in District 4, would not sit down for an interview but did provide emailed responses to written questions. And Cathy Moore, in District 5, declined my request in an email.

The number of candidates who declined, canceled, or ignored our requests for an interview is unusual. While PubliCola isn’t shy about expressing our views on issues, that has rarely been an impediment to dialogue in the past. These candidates’ refusal to sit down for an in-depth conversation about the issues they will have to address if elected could bode poorly for transparency on the new council; in our experience, candidates who refuse to talk to members of the press they perceive as critical rarely become more tolerant of tough questions under the pressure of public office.

I’ll be rolling out interviews with the council candidates in every race over the next two weeks. I hope readers will learn more about the candidates from these in-depth conversations and use them to inform your vote. Ballots go out on October 18.

Today’s interview is with city council incumbent Dan Strauss, who represents Northwest Seattle in District 6.

PubliCola [ECB]: Your opponent, Pete Hanning, has criticized you for saying on your campaign mailers that “defund the police was a mistake,” given that you did vote to reduce the size of the police department by 50 percent in 2020. Why did you decide to stake out this anti-defund ground now, and how do you respond to his criticism that you flip-flopped?

Dan Strauss [DS]: The thing that I found is that those three words mean something different to every single person I talk to. So I was [doorbelling] on one block and a person asked me, ‘Did you vote to defund the police?’ And the answer was, yes. And then just halfway down the block, somebody else said, ‘Did you actually defund the police?’ And the answer is, no.

And when you look at my council colleagues, some wanted to defund completely, some were at 50 percent. And what I said is that we have to define our cuts and we have to scale up our alternatives before we scale down the police force, and that police officers shouldn’t be responding to homelessness or mental health calls or traffic stops.

“Do I want government to work faster across the board on all things? The answer’s yes, I do. I also understand why sometimes it takes time. And so it’s important for us to continue moving forward, continue trying things like the CARE Department and co-response, rather than just saying, ‘Oh, it took too long, we’re done.’”

ECB: So why did you turn around and say that was a mistake?

DS: The reason why [the vote] was a mistake is it didn’t say what we were going to do. It didn’t say that those three words means something different to every single person.  And frankly, there was so much yelling going on, that people couldn’t hear my nuanced position, which was that we need to define cuts before we make them, because blanket cuts doesn’t make sense. You know, the really clear answer here is, defunding doesn’t create accountability. So one of the things that was important to me is that we have more accountability.

ECB: Some critics have claimed that the loss of hundreds of police officers since 2020 is because the council support defunding the police, and that that damaged morale. Why do you think retaining and hiring police has been so challenging?

DS: I’ll focus on the positive, which is that we have some of the highest recruiting numbers right now. And part of the role I played in that was fully funding our police recruitment plan last year.

You know, nationwide, there is a shortage of police officers. Almost every municipality in the area is looking to hire police officers. Republican cities in western Washington are down on their police officers. And we know that this is in a situation on the horizon for a long time. And at the end of the day, for me, what matters most is that we recruit the types of officers that meet Seattle’s values, so that the folks that are hired to wear a badge and carry a gun share the values, and the culture of the department shares the values, of Seattleites.

ECB: How far away do you think the current culture is from that goal?

DS: There are clearly some issues that have come out just in the last couple of weeks that demonstrate that there are problems that need to be fixed, because we need our police officers to be caring, to be setting an example for how you behave with your neighbors and using racist slurs or diminishing a person’s life is not in keeping with those values.

ECB: The council is currently discussing the mayor’s proposed budget. Do you think the proposal to pilot a new co-responder model for some low-priority calls is adequate? Will adding six new civilian responders be able to make noticeable progress toward the goal of reducing the number of police responding to calls where they aren’t needed, and is the city acting with enough urgency toward this goal?

DS: I think co-response is incredibly important. And right now, it’s too early to ask, is this a success? Is this a failure? The important thing about a pilot is you try it and you fix what isn’t working and you double down on what is working. I heard the same skepticism about Health One, which we know to be a very successful model.

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It took 10 years to get [the Seattle Fire Department’s mobile response unit,] Health One. The time it takes to get to a place doesn’t determine how successful will be. Perfect world, wave a magic wand, and yes. I would love government to work faster in so many different areas. I mean, we’ve got us we’ve got a power outage down the street now that’s been going on for, I think, 12 hours. And that was following a power outage yesterday.

Would I like to see park rangers up here at Ballard Commons Park? Yes, absolutely. Do I want to see the people-only lane on Ballard Avenue implemented four months ago? Yes, absolutely. Do I want government to work faster across the board on all things? The answer’s yes, I do. I also understand why sometimes it takes time. And so it’s important for us to continue moving forward, continue trying things like the CARE Department and co-response, rather than just saying, ‘Oh, it took too long, we’re done.’

I mean, again, when I look at Health One, that was a 10-year endeavor to get to 2019, where we started with one unit, and then that one unit demonstrated its value very quickly. And that’s why it continues to expand.

And I think the missing ingredient right now is, where do people go? We’ve got this post-overdose site that’s being stood up right now. But what happens after that? Where does somebody go for anything from needle exchange to long term inpatient? This is why having the crisis center levy investments coming up as fast as possible is important.

ECB: You voted twice for the drug criminalization bill, but you never gave any speeches about it or publicly explained your vote. Why did you support it?

DS: I voted for the bill because I do believe that that diversion and treatment should be our first, second, and third choice. For some people, if they fail in those avenues, we have to have every option on the table. Jail is the most expensive option we have. It is the least rehabilitative. And for some people, that’s the option that they [reach]. And so for me, it’s having all options on the table.

ECB: The city has challenged a recent ruling that found the city’s practice of removing encampments with no notice on the grounds that they constitute an “obstruction” unconstitutional. The city has interpreted its own policy broadly in recent years, to include any tent or encampment on virtually any city property, including isolated areas in parks. Do you support the city’s position on clearing “obstruction” encampments?

DS: You know, Portland got sued [for violating the] ADA, because they were not keeping their sidewalks passable [because of encampments]. There are absolutely sidewalks that are a half mile from [central Ballard] that are not passable. And those encampments are not being removed right now, because we’re doing a drawdown. The sidewalk shouldn’t be blocked. We have worked in every way, shape and form possible to have voluntary compliance to make sure that the sidewalks are not blocked, and they’re not getting swept.

When we were doing our drawdowns in Ballard Commons Park and Woodland Park, people were camping in the park. And we as the city said, we see a better way to get people inside than just pushing them down the street, because it’s going to make things worse. And so we are not going to enforce that rule right now. At the Ballard Commons, we got 69 people inside. At Woodland Park, we got 89 people inside. And so we see the the broader benefit there.

“When the overall economy downturns, the economic engine in the industrial zones stays the same. And it suddenly is the thing that is keeping us all power as a city through the economic downturn. And that’s why developers are always thirsty to change industrial zones into other zoning, because they can get more money for it.”

ECB: Do you think transportation impact fees are going to pass next year, now that the council’s two most vocal advocates for the fees, Lisa Herbold and Alex Pedersen, are leaving? [Editor’s note: I conducted this interview before the council voted to move forward with a proposal to incorporate the fees into the city’s Comprehensive Plan.]

DS: For us to take on a complex policy like this, we do need to understand what we are doing, because it’s not just that the two people who are the loudest advocates for it are leaving, it’s that none of the council members who are currently council members, other than Councilmember Herbold and, I’d say, Council President [Debora] Juarez, ever dug deeply into it. And so that’s why I scheduled the public hearing.

[Mandatory Housing Affordability] was passed during an economic boom, and a building boom. And I’m not sure that it would pass today, because we’re not in an economic boom. The thing with transportation impact fees is that during a building boom would be the time to pass it. We’re in a building depression, and I have concerns about that.

ECB: Your committee passed a significant rezone of the city’s maritime and industrial areas earlier this year. Controversially, it eliminated an entire proposed zone that would have allowed some limited housing above light-industrial businesses, like commissary kitchens and craftspeople, around the stadiums. Do you think prohibiting housing in industrial areas was the right long-term call?

DS: What I found is that among stakeholders who disagree on almost everything, there was almost unanimous agreement on everything in that plan, except for the stadium district. And so we were faced with the choice. Do we wait until the stadium district has resolved? Or do we move forward with zoning changes that have been desired since 2007 and create benefits to our city?

You were asking me all those other questions. But this is this is the good stuff. Because when our economy does well, nobody pays attention to the industrial zones, because they’re not creating as much economic activity and generating as much economic growth. But when the overall economy downturns, the economic engine in the industrial zones stays the same. And it suddenly is the thing that is keeping us all power as a city through the economic downturn. And that’s why developers are always thirsty to change industrial zones into other zoning, because they can get more money for it.

ECB: What about the “brewery district” in Ballard? That’s a huge change in use from what that area was like 20 years ago, and now there are tons of people coming into the area because the breweries are a destination. Wouldn’t it be better to have housing above those breweries, rather than having people drive in and park?

DS: If you have housing in the industrial area, in in the brewery zone, the top dollar for housing is going to exceed the top dollar that [breweries] can pay for the space. And that space will be sold and turned into housing, and then you won’t have a brewery district.

So what we did change in the brewery district is allowing office space to be above [industrial uses], as long as you preserve an industrial space. And that is a pretty big change, and the brewers already are feeling worried that that’s going to push them out of the neighborhood.

ECB: If you’re reelected, you will be one of the most senior members on a council full of newcomers. Are you concerned about the loss of institutional knowledge on the council, and how do you plan to tackle the looming budget deficit as one of only four, and perhaps fewer, councilmembers with any experience? Will the council be at the mercy of the mayor?

DS: Man, do you have any non-downer questions?

ECB: Nope.

DS: Mayor Harrell has a very collaborative way of doing business. The thing that I really appreciate about him is that he hires smart people, and listens to them and takes their advice, even if it’s not necessarily the first thing that he personally would have jumped to. I think that that demonstrates real leadership. Mayor Harrell and I both grew up in the city. We grew up on opposite ends of the city, we grew up at different times, and we share a certain kind of know a certain chutzpah for our city.

Something [else] that I share with him is engaging in collaboration. Unfortunately, with some of my current colleagues, when I offer collaboration, they choose conflict. And whenever you choose conflict, it makes our solutions harder. It makes the conversations harder. And so when I look at our new council going on, we need to do some cultural resets. The council picked up some really bad habits and the pandemic. A lot of those stemmed from having to work remotely, because it reduced the opportunity for happenstance conversations—like the ability for somebody to just pop down into somebody else’s office and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ‘What’s your take on this?’ It’s incredibly important.

The majority of us, and I’m including myself in this, are doing council briefing [meetings] from our offices [over Zoom], and council briefing should be done [in person, so] we’re all looking at each other. That sets up a really positive relationship, even if we disagree, that we are all still working together.

For anyone to come in and take on the seat, it will take them a year to figure out what’s going on. And that’s not a disparagement of anyone, it’s just a fact of taking a new job. And you know, what’s most important to me is being accessible to my residents, continuing to hold office hours, continuing to be the only council member with a permanent district office so that people don’t have to have it go out of their way to have their voice heard by City Hall.

City Council, Density, Development, housing, Taxes, Transportation

Council Fast-Tracks Plan to Legalize “Impact Fees” on New Apartments
Seattle’s list of projects that impact fees could fund includes projects that have already been funded and are nearing completion.

By Erica C. Barnett

In an unusual move, City Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Alex Pedersen persuaded a majority of their council colleagues last week to fast-track an amendment to the city’s Comprehensive Plan that would set the stage for “transportation impact fees” on new housing—fees that are based on the premise that dense, urban living causes negative impacts on the city’s transportation system.

The Comprehensive Plan is the overarching framework for planning and development decisions in Seattle. The changes the council is considering would allow transportation impact fees, “identify deficiencies in the transportation system associated with new development,” and adopt a list of projects that could be funded through such fees.

Pedersen has said fees on new housing could allow the city to reduce the size of the Seattle Transportation Levy, which is paid for by property taxes—lowering taxes for homeowners while raising the cost of new apartments for renters.

The council voted to bypass the normal process for approving changes to the comp plan, skipping Councilmember Dan Strauss’ land use committee to send the proposal directly to the full council, with a single public hearing scheduled for the council’s 2pm meeting on November 7 (coincidentally, Election Day). The council would vote on the amendment itself two weeks later, on November 21—the deadline to push the changes through this year.

Unlike MHA, in which developers fund new affordable housing in exchange for greater housing density, impact fees treat new housing as a bad thing that must be offset by fees to offset its negative impact. This anti-urbanist assumption elides the fact that the hundreds of thousands of people moving to Seattle over the coming decades are going to have to live somewhere—and that if there isn’t enough housing in the city, people, including many who can no longer afford to live in Seattle, will be pushed out into car-dependent suburbs.

Strauss, who has already scheduled a public hearing in the land use committee for November 29, protested this departure from the council’s normal procedures, noting that the city spent years deliberating over changes to industrial zoning and a tree protection ordinance, and both still need work after passing earlier this year. In addition, Strauss noted that the city’s hearing examiner has yet to issue a ruling on an appeal related to the fee proposal, which developers say would have a significant negative environmental impact—namely, it would reduce the amount of new housing in the city.

“I believe it is important that we receive the hearing examiner’s decision and have the time needed … to understand the policy” and hold a public hearing before voting the changes through, Strauss said.

Proponents of the legislation, including Herbold and Council President Debora Juarez, have minimized its impact, calling it a minor “procedural vote” with no actual policy impacts. In reality, changing the city’s Comprehensive Plan to allow impact fees is a consequential decision that could ultimately reduce the amount of housing that gets built inside city limits.

Juarez, Herbold, and Pedersen are not running for reelection and will leave the council at the end of this year.

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According to a staff analysis, impact fees could bring in between $200 million and $760 million over 10 years—similar to the Mandatory Housing Affordability program the city adopted in 2019, which allowed denser development in some areas while helping to fund new affordable housing. MHA, like impact fees, was controversial, and the council held “at least 20 committee meetings” before passing it, Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda noted.

Unlike MHA, in which developers fund new affordable housing in exchange for greater housing density, impact fees treat new housing as a bad thing that must be offset by fees to offset its negative impact. This anti-urbanist assumption elides the fact that the hundreds of thousands of people moving to Seattle over the coming decades are going to have to live somewhere—and that if there isn’t enough housing in the city, people, including many who can no longer afford to live in Seattle, will be pushed out into car-dependent suburbs whose negative impacts are well-documented.

Advocates on both sides of the issue will now have just two opportunities to weigh in—once at the full councl meeting on November 7, and two weeks later, when the council is scheduled to take its final vote. Although Pedersen claimed last week that the commenters who showed up to oppose impact fees were just “paid lobbyists” who were “afraid of a public hearing,” Mosqueda argued that the accelerated schedule makes it less likely that ordinary members of the public will be able to weigh in on changes that could further depress housing development in the middle of a housing downturn.

Once the council adopts the changes to the Comprehensive Plan, they can begin the process of adopting the fees themselves. That process will almost certainly have to include additional comp plan changes, since the proposal the council is considering includes a list of projects that includes some that have already received funding—like the RapidRide G line on Madison Street, set to open next year.

City Council, Density, Development, Environment

Pedersen Fails to Stifle Housing Development in the Guise of “Tree Protection”

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Alex Pedersen, who’s leaving next year after a single term, had hoped to stuff a new tree-protection ordinance with amendments that would prohibit new development in many historically exclusive single-family areas.

Instead, Pedersen’s colleagues rejected nearly every one of his proposed amendments, leaving Pedersen—whose Zoom background includes a yard sign promoting the Seattle advocacy group TREEPAC—to vote against a bill that would have represented his primary legacy on the council.

The bill that passed out of committee, without Pedersen’s amendments, still creates a Byzantine maze of new regulations aimed at preventing tree removal on private property.

But Pedersen’s proposals would have gone much further—dramatically increasing the cost to remove trees, restricting where new trees could be planted, and shrinking the area where a property owner could build new housing through a series of overlapping protections that would require a PhD. in math to decipher. Pedersen said he based his amendments on a letter from the Urban Forestry Commission.

In all, Pedersen proposed 17 amendments that would have imposed new restrictions on development or made it more expensive to build. Every one of his substantive amendments failed—a limp denouement to the Northeast Seattle council member’s years-long efforts to prevent new housing in the guise of tree protection.

Some, like an amendment to change the way the maximum developable area on a piece of property is calculated, would have made it harder to build anything other than a single-family house in neighborhoods where, thanks to a groundbreaking density bill the state legislature passed this year, it’s now possible to build up to four units per property. Others, like an amendment to increase the amount property owners must pay to remove trees, were designed to maximize the financial pain of removing trees for development. A third group of amendments would have created new reporting requirements and enlarged the bureaucracy charged with enforcing the new tree laws.

All of Pedersen’s amendments failed—a limp denouement to the Northeast Seattle council member’s years-long efforts to prevent new housing in the guise of tree protection.

One of the primary new rules in the underlying tree protection bill is a change allowing development on up to 85 percent of residential lots, with exceptions that would make the development area smaller or larger in some cases. Pedersen wanted to change that baseline, in zones where multifamily housing is allowed, to a variable rate based on floor-area ratio—a measure of the total square footage inside a building, including buildings with multiple floors—which could have the impact of reducing the size of new housing developments or making them infeasible to build.

“This almost feels like a proxy for anti-density more than it is about protecting trees,” land use chair Dan Strauss, who sponsored the underlying tree legislation, said before the vote.

Councilmember Sara Nelson—a frequent Pedersen ally—also voted against several Pedersen amendments, citing the need to encourage new housing in lower-density zones. Mid-rise areas, where small apartment buildings and townhouses are allowed, are “where some of the most affordable pathways to homeownership, through townhomes, is happening,” Nelson said, “and so that’s a pretty important zone to just single out [for new restrictions].”

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The committee also voted down a Pedersen amendment that would change the “tree protection area,” where construction is prohibited, from a consistent area defined by a tree’s “drip line” to a complicated, variable formula based on a tree’s diameter, age, root spread, soil health, tree health, and species. At its upper limit, Pedersen’s proposal could have prohibited construction within hundreds of feet of a tree in every direction.

Pedersen also attempted, unsuccessfully, to change the standard for replacing trees removed for development to an “inch for inch” requirement, meaning that if a person removed a 24-inch tree, for example, they would have to plant six four-inch trees somewhere else.

The term echoes anti-development demands for “one-for-one replacement” of dilapidated housing as well as the concept of “concurrency”—the idea that cities should not allow new development until they expand the capacity of its streets, transit systems, sewers, and other amenities to accommodate new residents. The biggest difference between “inch for inch” and “one for one,” of course, is that trees grow.

The legislation still places the burden of tree preservation and replacement on individual property owners, despite the fact that almost half the tree loss in Seattle has occurred in city-owned parks and rights-of-way.

Pedersen also failed to pass an amendment that would require property owners to plant new trees only in areas of the city with low tree canopies. The idea sounds equitable—historically, the city failed to plant trees in neighborhoods where more people of color live, and has an obligation to right that wrong—but, in practice, it would do little to improve tree canopy in underserved areas. And it would create logistical and ethical questions—requiring homeowners building a backyard apartment in North Seattle, for example, to physically take trees to South Seattle and plant them in front of other people’s homes.

A final Pedersen amendment, which would increase the fee to remove midsize trees from $2,833 (in the underlying legislation) to a variable rate ranging from $4,000 to $7,425, didn’t get a vote. (Making the case, Pedersen claimed developers would choose to take lower profits rather than passing the cost of tree replacement fees on to renters or homebuyers.) Instead, the council adopted an amendment from Strauss increasing the fee to remove some protected tree species while keeping the basic fee at $2,833.

The full council will vote on the entire tree protection later this month.

As we’ve noted, the legislation still places the burden of tree preservation and replacement on individual property owners, despite the fact that almost half the tree loss in Seattle has occurred in city-owned parks and rights-of-way. Forcing private property owners to plant or preserve trees on their lawns won’t save Seattle’s tree canopy, but it will prevent some development and drive up the cost of housing as developers pass along their increased costs. The good news is that the council majority seems to have prevented Pedersen, an anti-density crusader to the end, from using tree protections to place a stranglehold on new housing in every corner of the city.