[Music] I'll set let me log in here okay good okay all right good morning the February 20th 2024 meeting of the transportation committee will come to order it is 9:32 a.m. I'm Rob Saka chair of the transportation committee will the committee clerk please call the role council member Kettle here council member Strauss present council member woo present Vice chair hollingworth president chair Saka here chair there are five members members present all right if there are no objections the agenda wil
l be adopted hearing no objections the agenda is adopted colleagues at this time we we we will open the hybrid public comment period public comment should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the transportation committee clerk how many speakers are signed up today uh we have two remote speakers and no in-person speakers all right we will start with the remote speakers first if no iners today each speaker will have approximately two minutes the public comment period will be
moderated in the following manner clerk please read the instructions I will call on each speaker by name and in the order which they registered on the council's website or on the signup sheet available here in council chambers I will alternate between sets of five well well there aren't that many inperson and remote commenters until the public comment period is concluded if you've not yet registered to speak but would like to you can sign up before the end of the public comment period by going t
o the council's website or by signing up in the signup sheet near the public comment microphone the public comment link is also listed on today's agenda once I call a remote speaker's name staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak and then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing as a reminder public comme
nt should relate to an item on today's agenda or within the purview of the transportation committee speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time once you hear the chime we will ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment if speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker once you've completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the li
ne and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on today's agenda the public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted okay okay okay John Grant is our first speaker good morning Cher Saka and committee members my name is John Grant and I'm the chief strategy officer for the low-income housing Institute o
r Lehi I'm speaking today in favor of the resolution for a honorary street sign for former Senator George Fleming in May of 2022 Lehi opened George Fleming place named in honor of the former state senator and washing Washington Husky football star uh George Fleming was Washington's uh first African-American state senator he was elected in 1971 and represented the 37th District of Southeast Seattle and the Rainer Valley Lehi specifically honoring George Fleming for for being the prime sponsor in
the senate for creating the state Housing Trust Fund in 1986 now a nationally recognized housing program George was EST George also established the Washington State Housing Finance commission back in 1983 and also established the office of minority and Women's Business Enterprise for all these reasons we encourage you to vote Yes on this resolution and celebrate this civil rights icon thank you next we will have David Haynes all right thank you my name is David Haynes you have to make Public Saf
ety number one priority in order for people to come back to using public transportation and you really need to consider I think if the move Levy had money to um help the metro police work with the city police to trespass all the junky thieves and like question all the low-level drug pushers then maybe there'd be an improvement in the transportation and perhaps like some pothole like focus with the bus drivers reporting all the potholes that they drive over that damage the buses could be included
in that and we need noise abatement at Transit oriented housing so that people don't have to listen to the beeps and the horn honking and the grumbling of the engines and the air pressure release valves who are that are extremely loud and really like set people off and you need to consider having green light priority when you come up to like a Fremont Bridge or you're going through like intersections um you need like the train that ridiculous trolley train it sits at the stoplight with the bus
coming out of South Lake Union and if you're on your bike and you just run the red light or you catch the Light just in time you can beat the train all the way to West Lake from South Lake Union and it's a Telltale sign that we have a bad idea for transportation that seems to like impose like a whole bunch of noise pollution that's completely unnecessary throughout the residential and Commercial area and hopefully like you'll realize that it's not safe to go into the West Lake tunnel or anywhere
between third and fourth Avenue between Pine and Pike because the police chief is manipulating the crime fighting data and the crime hotspots to make it seem like he's having progress and it's unsafe to take public transportation and we need walls before the levies even voted or considered like like in the next council member our next speaker is Margaret who's with us here Margaret Peele Friends of the market president and I have packets for the council members that are on the committee sorry I
did not bring a a six one but I'd be happy to furnish it later this addresses the levy and the phrase is multimodal transportation in there dear council members please do not support funding the First Avenue street car through the transportation Levy or any other funding mechanism I feel it's necessary to make this request because the project has not been officially ended by the mayor and so it seems to be moving forward operation of a street car line on First Avenue would significantly interfe
re with Pike Place Market's operation because it would eliminate left turns into the market and load and load space along First Avenue I have attached some plans that I annotated to EXP explain the issues Pike Place Market is a tremendous economic driver for downtown and it led the way in recovery during the pandemic it is a resilient community that includes not only businesses and residents mostly lwi income but also a senior center Food Bank daycare medical clinic and offices Pike Place functi
ons as the only loading dock at the market in addition to being its front door for these reasons the market depends on full access access from First Avenue at all times most of all Pike Place Market is a very special cultural place in the history of our city saved by voters initiative that created a historic district to protect the market therefore we should think very carefully about impacts from outside to this special place such as from City Planning including Transportation let's bring some
of the already funded buses on Third Avenue back to First Avenue to connect the neighborhoods at either end of it it is reversible and lower impact transportation and moving some routes to First Avenue might also help alleviate the effects of too many buses on Third Avenue please ask the mayor to work with King County Metro to move this plan forward thank you Amilia that concludes public comment all right thank you madam clerk so with the conclusion of the public comment period I want to first o
ff recognize my esteemed colleague Tammy council member Tammy Morales thank you so much for being here uh council member Morales has uh I I invited her to speak on behalf of the the first item on on the agenda today um and I will recognize her momentarily uh after we get a a briefing from our staff on the item but welcome council member Morales and thank you so much for being here uh we will now move on to to our first item of business will the clerk please read into or read item one into the re
cord resolution number 32126 a resol resolution providing an honorary designation of 43 Avenue South between South Al aello Street and South Webster Street as Senator George Fleming way all right Council of Central staff will you please introduce yourself and provide an overview of the resolution good morning council members I'm Calvin cha with Council Central staff the resolution before you is a honorary designation of a Street 43rd Avenue South which is um immediately adjacent to the athela pl
ayground it would name uh give an honorary designation of the street to Senator George Fleming way uh the cost of establishing signs and installing them is approximately $2,000 and would be covered by a third party and I will um let council member Mor speak to the merits of the legisl that she is bringing forward all right council member Morales thank you chair Saka uh thanks very much Calvin um as we just heard uh this resolution would designate um a block between oelo uh and Webster as uh Sena
tor George Fleming way uh George Fleming was Washington's first African-American senator uh he was elected in 1971 and represented the 37th District uh which includes South Seattle and parts of uh the CD uh for 22 years um he was the Prime sponsor as has been noted uh in the senate for creating the Washington State Housing Trust Fund in 1986 um and that fund has become a nationally recognized program and a way for folks uh across the state and and as others have modeled it um across the country
to actually Finance um affordable housing projects in different communities he also established the office of minority and women business Enterprise um in 2022 when Lehi open opened the George Fleming place at othell and 43rd uh Senator Fleming was there um and stated that he was honored and wish to thank Lehi for naming their new apartment building after me setting up the state Housing Trust Fund was a top priority and achievement for me I'm pleased to know that George Fleming place will contin
ue to serve the 37th district and the community in perpetuity affordable affordable housing is closest to my heart there is no nobler work and there is no clearer sign that a society is working than when our member than when our neighbors have a place to call home uh long before the current housing and homelessness crisis Senator Fleming recognized the importance that affordable housing plays in the everyday well-being of people in our communities uh I'm proud to bring this resolution forward to
acknowledge and honor the work of Senator Fleming and the long- lasting impact that he'll have especially on the people of South Seattle thank you for inviting me chair thank you council member moral and thank you Cal as well for for that um so I I never had the pleasure of of meeting uh the late Senator Fleming before he passed but I do know that he was the champion of champions and you know I make no apologies about the fact and I'm proud of the fact that and I've made clear in the past that
you know I happen to be a council member who was black and as a result I believe firmly that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants that includes people like Sam Smith Mayor Bruce harrold Norm Rice and yes Senator Fleming so it is with great honor and privilege that this resolution comes through the committee that I have the pleasure of chairing so council member Morales thank you for your leadership and helping bring this to life uh I communicated with um with the late senator's daughter Yi uh
Yi Fleming Jackson who is a friend dear friend and also a professional Mentor she's a lawyer as well uh and let her know about this today and she was very excited so um was I'm I'm honored again to be able to shepher this through at least this committee here uh now that said I move that the committee recommend adoption of resolution 321 32126 is there a second second second thank you Vice chair Hollingsworth it has been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution are there any further comments a
ll right will the clerk please call the role on adoption of resolution 32126 Vice chair Hollingsworth I council member Kettle I council member Strauss yes council member woo yes chair Saka I all right the motion carries and the committee recommendation that Council adopt resolution 32126 will be sent to the February 27th 2024 city council meeting thank you chair thank you council member Morales we will now move on to our our second item of business will the clerk please read item two into the re
cord uh we're going to hear the levy to move Seattle briefing all right thank you will our presenters please join us at the table which you already have done thank you um and once ready please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation good morning I'm Greg spots uh estat director before I begin this item I'd like to pay tribute to esot director of regional and Inter agency programs Jonathan laser who passed away this weekend after a long illness John has been a beloved figure at esot most
recently leading our interaction with Washington State Department of Transportation neighboring cities and other governmental agencies on some of the regions larg and most complex construction projects just after I joined the agency in the fall of 2022 John was the lead writer and editor of our top to bottom review of vision zero bringing Keen insight to this essential project in addition to his many accomplishments John will be remembered for His Brilliant mind his kind and thoughtful Manner a
nd his generous mentorship thank you for the opportunity to present item two I'll briefly introduce the topic and then pass it to my team members who will give the presentation the levy to move Seattle is maintaining and modernizing our street Network the levy has made it safer to walk our kids to school has improved the speed and reliability of Transit has made it more attractive and convenient to get around on bikes ebikes and scooters and has filled potholes p streets planted trees and constr
ucted new sidewalks along the way the levy has aligned Major Street projects with opportunities to update our water and sewer infrastructure in the process of improving our streets the levy has also catalyzed steady Improvement within esot itself across the first eight years of the levy esot has strengthened our ability to manage uh to attract and manage grants expanded our capacity to deliver projects large and small and enriched our collaboration with communities and neighborhoods during my 18
months as s. director I've been orienting the agency towards two primary goals strengthening our safety programs and finishing strong on the levy to move Seattle with a Relentless focus on delivery in 2023 we completed design on dozens of Levy funed projects which you will see going into construction throughout 20 24 all three of my Deputy directors have been leading the way on Levy projects and programs for today's presentation I'm pleased to feature senior deputy director franciscoca Stefan w
ho oversees both our design and capital projects divisions take it away Francisco good morning chair Saka Vice chair Hollingsworth council members thank you for your time today I really appreciate you having an interest in this Levy and taking the time with us this morning to find out more um I'll start with just a quick overview we want to give you some information some background information give get you up to date on where we stand with achievements on the program Serena Leman the program por
tfolio manager will give you some information on current status as we finish strong and financial information we'll also get you up to date on the levy oversight committee so starting with a little bit of the background so the move Seattle Levy is the the 18th year of Transportation levies for the city of Seattle um we've been really fortunate that the voters have been generous and have um first started with the 2006 Bridging the Gap Levy which was about $365 million it was the first steady cons
istent focused source of funds for maintenance it was a set up to address a serious maintenance backlog in our Paving it was dedicating 67% of its funding towards Paving Al loone and maintenance alone so it was very maintenance focused it was coming at a time when um the city in the state was struggling to figure out how to fund those types of improvements in 2015 the voters again went back to The Ballot Box and approved a tripling of the levy size to 930 million it was an interesting moment it
was a moment where Seattle was growing incredibly rapidly and we continue to grow but when you think about it we've added 100,000 new Seattle residents since we passed the move Seattle Levy is pretty incredible so top of Voters mind at that time was congestion so it had a slightly different focus it had uh it continued to focus on safety it continu to focus on maintenance but it introduced a new focus on moving people more efficiently and effectively and lower emissions through the city which we
called congestion management so it was a it was an interesting response to a very distinct challenge of that time and this Levy it's currently in in uh in effect it expires December 31st of this year um it funds about 30% of es Do's budget and so we are working right now on developing a renewal Levy and looking forward to talking with you more about it this spring next so a little bit I think you may have seen this at the s. 10 one presentation we gave but just a reminder you know as a consiste
nt source of funding for esot the move Seattle Levy is our single largest consistent source of funds um we do benefit from many other funds in the city but they are um more uh fluctuating and subject to uh different changes in the market next so diving in um approved by 58% of Voters in 2015 we talked a little bit about the timing um um but it has an enabling legislation uh that outlines 30 very specific programs and very specific deliverables and we'll talk quite a bit about that today so you'r
e familiar with how it was structured and what those were and it's overseen by an oversight committee um that is appointed in part by Council and in part by the mayor um they meet monthly to review key deliverables reports and um to discuss and provide guidance for the overall Levy I will say um this Levy is important it's a $930 million Levy but in reality it has leveraged significant Grant funds significant partner funds and we have taken a whole of s do approach to implementing this Levy it i
s I would argue the the organizing principle of much of ot's work right now we are fully 110% committed to implementing this Levy so in addition to that 930 million it's easily double that in the amount of resources that have gone towards making sure we're meeting the uh spirit and intent of what the voters approved next so as I mentioned there's three major groupings safe routes maintenance and repair and congestion relief um within that are very specific programs and each has specific delivera
bles um they can get as specific as you know how many we have uh one has one of the metrics is an improvement a safe rout to school Improvement at every School in the city of Seattle which we will meet and exceed in the term of this Levy others are a little bit more broad um just making sure we're staying on top of uh sidewalk repairs but we do report we actually track every single repair made and Report numerically on how many are done you'll see in some of the categories there are very specifi
c projects that have been completed and we'll show some photos of those in a minute um so it's a mix of operations distinct Capital repair and uh Services a key piece of this Levy as well as we were working to figure out how to move people more efficiently throughout the city was a huge surge in the network of bicycle facilities that we have in the city we have this Levy to thank for many of the protected bikeways that keep people safe as they move throughout the city um many new sidewalks and m
any um key key pieces of the infrastructure that moves Seattle next so um N9 years is a long time and things happen and we want to just acknowledge that as especially as we're thinking about projecting into the future um that when when we adopted the ordinance we could not have seen covid-19 coming we could not have seen the West Seattle Bridge uh crisis that happened um and we also got Direction in 2018 to reassess the work plan the good news of all of this is we pivoted every time but then in
2021 we stopped and said wait a second the voters in 2015 asked us to do very something very very specific and they still think that and so what we did in 2021 is we said what can we do to Pivot to make sure we hit as many of the targets of the original legislation as humanly possible um where we had increased targets we tried to stick with those increases and there's some areas where we said we're never going to stop doing safety projects even if we hit the minimum that's not enough so we're go
ing to keep going but in 2021 we doubled down and recommitted and Serena is going to talk more about that but I think that's an important thing to remember through all the bumps in the road um we've come back to the original Foundation of what people thought they were getting so that they're going to be getting what they thought next um so the levy oversight committee um this is a key role for us um they are the recipient of our quarterly reports our annual reports and the place that we go when
there might be adjustments needed for example uh if we have the neighborhood street fund as a good example um that is one of the programs that we do where we uh put out a call and an open call for neighborhoods to submit projects they'd like to do and then those are vetted by staff and ultimately the selection of the 25 was up to the levy oversight committee um we also bring to them areas where there might have been a pivot um Serena will talk a little bit about our pivot in uh the bridge seismi
c program um we brought we bring those types of policy and specific project pivots to them and we're really grateful for their volunteer work and labor because it's a lot to Monitor and it's a lot of information in fact we have our 2023 report uh about ready to hit the streets and it's about a 100 Pages just as a little bit of volume although I know you read probably way more than that but it's a lot for volunteer uh for volunteer board um next so this is just uh you know you'll this takes some
time to get through I'm not going to walk through each piece of it but it gives you a sense of you know we try to sort of give summary over in addition to our 100 page annual report we try to give a summary overview of work that's been completed so people can see both the breadth and the and the number of what we do um key examples in here would be the spot improvements uh new painted crosswalks and blocks of new sidewalks but we'll talk about those in a minute as well so um but just an idea of
kind of how we try and make it accessible to someone who's got 30 seconds to spend on the levy as well as in depth for those that are volunteering to help us do oversight next so what's what have we done um a key piece of what was also happening in 2015 is Metro had decided that they wanted to ex create a really strong backbone of Rapid rides in the city of Seattle that was a key partnership and a and a really important foundation of the move Seattle Levy so that's um how we get projects like th
e Delridge rapid ride how you see the construction on Madison of the rapid ride G and how we're about to celebrate the um opening or the start of construction for Rapid ride J in addition there are a number of more surgical insertions that we have worked out with Metro that are um not not branded as rapid ride they're not the red buses and and the that bus Furniture but they are um I like to call them A String of Pearls of Transit improvements that in areas where there's uh uh congestion and tha
t buses can't reliably get through we are doing corridors to say okay we're going to create dedicated red Lanes in spots where there are there it is there's current congestion so the bus can get through and if people are taking the most space efficient and most energy efficient mode of travel they'll get through quick um so that includes Route 44 48 40 um and many other Transit routes so these are key P pieces that um pieces of our city landscape that this Levy has funded next moving Goods relia
bly this is really important the Lander Street Bridge um was a marquee project of this Levy the levy didn't pay for it all in fact paid for a small portion of it but an important portion right someone has to start the seed funding and the levy was an important part of having match funds for the federal government um and indicating a seriousness around moving this project forward um we also do a very consistent Freight spot Improvement program so that's taking places where it's a railroad crossin
g that's got some safety concerns um and other places where trucks Maybe turning radi adjustments this is a key part of the levy as well um and where we do uh Paving Paving it was a huge part of this Levy um upwards of $200 million um we have really focused on arterials that serve our freight Network and arterials that serve our Transit Network so um an important part of thinking about Paving is that we're doing it in places that are moving the most people on the busiest streets next um safe and
sustainable Transportation options as I mentioned this was a huge surge in our bike Network it was a huge um surge in our new sidewalk Network 25 blocks of new sidewalks a year leading to 20 225 over the life of the levy did I say 225 a year 25 a year excuse me 25 blocks a year um and then we also were doing safety corridors as I mentioned earlier next connecting people and places um this is really important this was the John Lewis Memorial Bridge on the bottom leftand corner a key piece of inf
rastructure connecting across I5 um we created a safe rats to school program that has been a huge asset to the community and then we have our um impressive public staircase Network and we've done we've either reconstructed or significantly repaired 45 of our public staircases throughout the move Seattle Levy next um and last but not least um investing in our assets um we know that bridges are a key part of how we keep our city connected they keep our our over our waterways over our Ravines all o
f those places are are key connections um this program the move Seattle Levy put together a bridge seismic retrofit program it had a bridge spot repair program to remove our backlog in Bridge spot repairs and also a number of other strengthening efforts on our bridges so it was a key step toward um being more proactive in our Bridge asset management and I'll just leave obviously can't read take some time to read that but I think the important thing is knowing that the people of Seattle have real
ly appreciated this effort in in Myriad ways that it has changed the way that they live the way they move and where they can get on a regular basis in the city so with that I want to pass it off to my colleague Serena thank you so much um so now you know we're we're in year nine of the love to move Seattle and so I'm going to touch on where we are with our 30 programs that Francisca has walked us through um so despite all the challenges that we have faced in the city over the last eight years in
cluding covid-19 the West Seattle Bridge closure um we believe we're on track to Meet 27 of our 30 program commitments as outlined in the 2015 Levy ordinance um so the green for the green boxes are where we're meeting or exceeding those 2015 goals and then I'll walk through on the next Slide the three programs where we we will not be meeting our targets all right so the first one I'm going to touch on is our bicycle safety program in the original Levy ordinance we committed to building uh 50 mil
es of protected bike lanes and 60 mies of neighborhood Greenways um we are on track to currently build between um 90 and 107 miles of that 110 um the next program that we touch on is multimodal improvements and this is a very large program this encompasses a commitment to build seven Transit plus multimodal corridors um and then do several um individual four individual projects which I'll touch in a minute so we we are on track to complete seven orb in construction on seven Transit plus multimod
al corridors by the end of 2024 and that includes projects that you've probably seen in your neighborhood including the delid rapid ride project Madison rapid ride G which is in construction right here downtown um Rosevelt rapid ride J will be starting construction early this year and then routes 7 40 44 and 48 um we are we've completed um a connection on Northeast 45th and then we are currently doing an aurora planning study and then the two places where we are not going to be meeting our commi
tments um are that we've been delayed on the burkman trail project due to ongoing litigation and then last but not least is there was a font ly Boulevard Southwest project um and we paused this in 2018 due to down transit 3 planning um they were currently looking at where they wanted to site their different um Light Rail stations and so we didn't want to go and invest you know want to be thoughtful about how we were using taxpayers dollars and we didn't want to go and invest a bunch of uh taxpay
er dollars when it would potentially be torn up um and then the last one that we will not be meeting our commitments is on the Graham Street um light rail connection um Sound Transit is planning on do eventually planning on doing a infill station on Graham Street through Southeast Seattle however that work is not going to be complete until 2031 and in conversations with Sound Transit um we acknowledge that the work that would esot would be contributing to wouldn't start till after the life of ou
r current Levy so we we paused that work um and then one that we have not highlighted here is our Bridge seismic Pro program which francisa alluded to earlier um for those who have youve been tracking this has gone through a journey and um when we originally passed the levy s published some material materials committing to a series of 16 Bridges and then as we you know held ourselves to very high standards we realized a few of those bridges would pretty much eat up the entire budget of um of the
bridge seismic program and more and so we paused the program however as Francisco alluded to back in TW uh 2021 we were looking at what you know what can we do to get as close as we possibly can to meeting our commitments to the voters so we worked with our very talented Bridge seismic team to identify additional bridges that we could then do some seismic retrofits on by the end of the year that fit within the budget that we had and so we're able to identify four key uh pedestrian bridges that
we'll be moving forward with and we'll be starting construction on this year next slide all right so now I'm going to talk about how we've been spending on the levy to move Seattle over the last nine years so this graph shows how we've spent each year um the blue is kind of other funds that we've used this includes grants local funds and then the G is our Levy dollars um this is a pretty normal spending curve for a levy this large um as we mentioned at the beginning the levy move Seattle pretty
much tripled the levy budget when it passed from Bridging the Gap into our current Levy and so during those first few years we were doing planning and design ramping up and now you can see we've been maintaining a pretty high spending rate over the last um five years and we're looking to spend likely even more going into 2024 you know thinking about those big projects that are out in construction that we see all over the city um so today we've spent 728 uh Levy dollars um and we anticipate spend
ing we've programmed out the rest of the levy dollars to be spent start you know in 2024 and then beyond um so we're very excited that that money is we've pinned it to all of our projects next slide um and so on this slide this shows this kind of side bys side comparison of where we thought we would be when we originally scoped the levy to where we are now in terms of local dollars and um partnership and Grant funds um so back in 2015 we thought the whole package to deliver on what we had commit
ted to to vote to vot would be 1.8 billion um and this included pretty ambitious Grant goals of 400 million in Grants and then 160 million in Partnership funds and those partnership funds we expected to be mostly from King County Metro um as we were looking at expanding the rapid ride Network you know Zoom forward so now we are have completed eight years and the poll package looks closer to $2 billion um with you know the levy dollars stay the same at 932 we met our grant goal of 401 million um
and then our partnership funding ended up being lower than expected as King County did not end up um they end up scaling back on their rapid ride deployment plans so hand it back to Francisco thank you great thank you um I think it's important to note the sustained delivery that esot has been able to hold for the last four years on you know over $200 million a year in projects that are mix of crew and contractor delivered um as Serena mentioned we have um fully programmed all of the RO Seattle b
udget towards projects within within the portfolio um and have a ton of projects coming forward this year um some really big highlights um include this sort of start on the bridge seismic retrofit projects um 10 of those neighborhood street fund Community requested projects will be starting construction um and uh 20 plus miles of neighborhood Greenways this is going to be a really exciting summer to be out and about in your neighborhood walking and biking um and it will be a really great way to
connect our different neighborhoods so um we are excited about doing these projects um we're excited to engage you in the next phases um and to celebrate all the work that has been done this is really one of the things that has shaped the face of this city and the way that we get around and the places we can get to and how we can get there so very very exciting and the last slide is just where you can see more we are committed to transparency and accountability um in addition to having annual an
d quarterly reports we have a levy performance dashboard available online we also have a capital project dashboard online so those are the ones that go to contractors that are the larger projects um those are available anytime and you can filter information and zoom in to different projects and programs um so please feel free um at your leisure thank you very much we're here for questions all right well thank you director spot and your executive leadership team for sharing your insights on the o
n the current move Seattle Levy with us um you know I I was struck by a couple things one is is those Force majour events the the bridge closure the West Seattle Bridge closure and and a global pandemic which obviously weren't at all anticipated or or contemplated during the you know original once the original Levy was passed um but seeing on on the slide you know we it sounds like we've sub despite that those challenges we've substantially performed um always opportunity for continued growth an
d and you know Improvement but uh kudos to the team at esot for working hard to to live up to those commitments and I'm looking forward to working alongside you all to make sure we do even better um on a going forward basis so uh what but what one thing another thing that sort of struck me with that personally is that well the West Seattle Bridge the closure there and as I understand it that wasn't um that wasn't something that was related to necessarily A a state of poor like a poor quality of
the bridge that was a design flaw that caused that uh and here we are in in a position where there are a lot of we're all familiar with the 21 audit and this the current high level state of the bridges across the city colleagues I'll be we we we'll have a separate uh you know topical briefing and discussion on on the state of our bridges um in the coming weeks and months ahead and just as an aside I've also invited the some members of the levy oversight committee uh to come and share their persp
ective next month um but regardless there I think there's a huge opportunity on a going forward basis to make sure that bridge maintenance and modernization efforts are are are better funded not only in this upcoming move Levy or renewal uh but also just on an annual going forward basis as well um you know one of my goals in addition to being the king of potholes if you will and being pothole royalty alongside my colleagues here uh is to make sure that no other community in Seattle experiences w
hat we experience in West Seattle with the 2 and a half year closure of a critical Ingress egress route um so in any event there I think there is a huge opportunity to to do better and that is one prime example of what Biden Administration fix the first approach looks like uh so but I would just be curious to to hear from from all your perspectives how did those two Force major events the pandemic and the West Seattle Bridge closure how did that impact we saw it on some slides uh but would be cu
rious to learn more about how that impacted our performance with with this move Levy I can take that although I wasn't here then um you know finding a way to diagnose whether the West Seattle Bridge could be repaired or not and then repairing it that became the number one priority of the agency for a couple years uh and it was a number number one priority of elected officials up and down the chain um in this region um and a lot of federal funds were brought in and state funds um and it was reall
y a heroic effort it was simultaneously a a very difficult period for West Seattle residence and um a really amazing all hands on deck effort to um get that b Bridge back up and running um and then there was also a concrete strike uh which hasn't been mentioned previously so uh there was a change of focus during a period of time um but you know I I happen to turn up um right before the bridge was reopened and during my confirmation hearing I committed to this committee regarding the bridges that
I would ensure esot had the people Systems and Technology to bring a contemporary Asset Management approach to the bridge Network and that's what we're doing and uh We've delivered on all of the a bridge audit recommendations um we've gone beyond that uh I've appointed a the first Chief infrastructure engineer uh as a deputy director Elizabeth Sheldon so that I have a civil engineer on the executive team and she's overseeing our bridges and roadway structures group so we are continuously improv
ing our ability to be good stewards of that asset class and um there's a variety of different reports we're going to be publishing about that and bringing through this committee and the next Levy offers a unique opportunity to make investments in that area thank youal council member if I might I'm Calvin cha with Central staff and I i' just like to add a couple comments to uh your question uh from my perspective a lot of what ha those the impact of those uh events was um really Financial uh the
pandemic really took a hit on Transportation revenues and sort of forced a lot of rethinking about how estop was going to deliver deliver on its promises and the West Seattle Bridge actually required us to use a fair amount of our debt capacity uh so that is um you know future that we issued bonds to be able to pay for that so that limits our ability to use other debt because we are servicing that debt now um I think both those efforts required a lot of um internal work to figure out how to deli
ver on the promises that were already made with sort of restricted funding and that's the main impact on all of this thank you um looks like every last one of my uh colleagues has a question I I'll go in the order that they appear here uh starting first with council member Strauss uh thank you chair Saka I'm G to not speak a whole lot departure I know because I know that we all have something to do everyone's got coughs all of a sudden I have an air purifier if you need it um for I'm going to ta
ke a moment here um I just learned here on the Das about John laser passing away colleagues I don't know if you all had interaction with John um he was one of the few in our city government that um I mean there are a lot of these folks that are still alive and I don't want to have to talk about them and it's always hits hardest when somebody of his stature passes uh the last person of this category was Angela steel um in our public space uh depart um sector of of Department of Transportation um
the reason that John's passing hits me quite hard is because if you we wouldn't have the Waterfront we wouldn't have the tunnel we wouldn't have so many aspects of our city infrastructure in place without him because he was both firm and kind he was able to tell you no and not be a jerk and still have that relation if you think and the example I'll give you if you remember all of the litigation around Bertha not working in whose fault was it was it the insurance was it washed out was it a tunnel
maker that was John representing the city On th in those meetings um he was incredible uh I still disagree The Battery Street tunnel shouldn't have been filled but I'll leave that for another day um but when we had Marshall Foster here last week talking about the Seattle Center in the Waterfront it was Marshall and John working on these projects and so um he's somebody that I looked up to personally for both how to live life and also for how to show up in your professional environment so my tho
ughts feelings and condolences to the family um I will just say with the Burke Gilman Trail I noticed it was incomplete on your project has been my whole life don't need to go into it here but I will also say despite litigation you have been able to push that project forward um even though the section on Market Street is not complete it does not have have its its final markings and it doesn't have its final treatments Etc because of this ongoing litigation that section from 24th to the locks has
made a huge difference and so um we're only going on 30 years on this project it's a couple more actually I mean I would like it done today but that's another statement um talking about bridges I believe the the thank you SL or the question slide at the end was my favorite picture um as much as I would love the Ballard bridge to stay in its current form I know that we need to have it replaced I'm hoping that that can this is my plug for the next Levy um but also to say colleagues we have so muc
h Bridge infrastructure and so much sidewalk infrastructure that is left undone we could have a levy on each of those individually just I mean when I ran for office the first time if we had stayed on schedule to complete our sidewalks it would have taken 350 years to complete and so that's where my question is how are the alternatives to sidewalks coming along working with spu using asphalt treatment I know you've done a couple statements of legislative intent um I know there's a couple out ther
e right now that uh are in my district that we're looking at how are things going with sidewalk Alternatives yeah I mean I there's been I think a wonderful growth and ability to work through some of the contextual challenges that happen with alternative sidewalks they definitely you know they vary each time time based on width and what what drainage currently exists and the conditions um so I would say we've we are in a good place with having demonstrated many different varieties and many differ
ent ways to deliver them um we still um I think you know in in there's discussion still underway around how we can continue to do it and Loop in some additional drainage uh work there um so I would say continues to improve and continues to move forward with it being very uh sight specific and how we approach each one thank you all right well uh thank you council member Strauss um sidewalks are really really important to me as well and Trust we will have a separate topical briefing focused on sid
ewalks uh I will now recognize Vice chair Hollingsworth thank you chair Saka um director spots I was waiting for you to say flat fast and flavorful uh for some values but I but I know that's that's um very catchy um one of the questions I had was um I know that we've seen a really big increase in the micro Transit options like the scooters and and we've gotten a ton of emails to talk about like safety uh pieces of of scooters and are they on the sidewalk are they in the bike lanes are in the roa
d um could you talk a little bit more about you know like what we're doing with the scooter safety piece is that going to be you know in the move Levy what what what what is OT kind of um doing right now so the good news is that you know as we have more protected bike Lanes in particularly downtown um there's less scooter riding going on in the sidewalks along those corridors when there is a safer place to ride um but our scooter program is uh vendors who have a uh taken out a permit uh to opera
te here and so we have to work collaboratively with them and industry is changing very fast um we're probably going to have fewer vendors functioning on the street this year than previous because of changes in that industry um so we're working closely with the vendors uh on improving technology improving um uh a a kind of a Geo fencing uh so that you could keep the scooter where it needs to be and also improving uh those vendors ability to come and clean up or pick pick up scooters that are in t
he wrong place I did a um a walk with a representative from our visually impaired communities and she showed me um how jarring it can be when you're trying to um navigate our streets with a visual impairment and all of a sudden there's a scooter where you weren't expecting it to be um so this is something we're working very hard on and um and it is evolving as the industry keeps changing awesome thank you and then um my second question was um side roads I know um we pay a lot of attention to the
corridors and the main pieces um but I also know our side roads are you know continuing to to um the decrease as well like just like the the way they look potholes you know some side streets obviously are like old Cobblestone roads and so forth um is there like um money in the budget is there like a emphasis on hey there are some side roads that we are going to um start you know taking care of or prioritizing just because I know a lot of times for example like uh 23rd Avenue that has we done a
lot of street caling but that has also pushed people into the side roads and it's created you know a lot of heavy traffic trafficed areas you know in those ways um so just wondering if there's going to be emphasis on side roads repairing some of the you know um main ones you know this current Levy although concentrated the large Paving on our biggest arterials it also had other categories for uh smaller Paving projects for uh projects where you're fixing the roadway but less than the full block
and actually we have built out uh several Paving Crews that we have to do smaller projects within with our own estat staff and and I think an important um point of discussion when there's a levy proposal will be at the balance of investing in the roadway condition of our arterials versus the side roads awesome thank you is there anything you guys want to add and I'm assuming it's going to be fast and flavorful for those side roads okay awesome thank you there there's a there's a nice plug from V
ice chair Hollingsworth for our focus on our non-arterial streets so super cool um all right let's see Council M Kettle uh thank you uh chair Saka thank you uh director spots for coming today and and I wanted to say also thank you for your how you started off I think it's important to recognize the work uh of your colleague that was lost Mr Fleming and I think it's really important to highlight that get it into record have the opportunity for council member Strauss to also speak to it I did not
know him um but I think it's really important to have this opportunity in in an official record way to to get that in and not knowing him I do know the vision zero program as you mentioned and uh would like to thank him and his family and his legacy on that because it's really important um that's something that we worked in the queenan not just in the queenan but the surrounding areas as well um quite often and um and that's a very important piece particularly too because it's the kind of overla
p as well in terms of the Public Safety Committee and the transportation committee and uh by the way I'd like to add that uh pedestrian safety is uh very important to me and playing off comments last last week I just wanted to say thank you council member Hollingsworth talking about scooters because the scooter issue is what I was referring to the last meeting um when you had your Mobility uh bullet on your slide and that is a big issue for the residents downtown and Belltown even with the uh th
e bike Lanes which I 110% support like on Second Avenue particularly with the lighting and everything it's so important to have those uh very well done bike lanes because they do provide that separation for the different uh parts of you know the traveling public and I also support uh those new ones too like coming off the Waterfront up onto Elliott into Belltown so I definitely support those um those bike Lanes um separately when I was talking pedestrian safety last week I was making note of a v
ery different bike lane up on West Lake but that is very different from the other bike lanes that we've been building through the levy and and the like and so I just wanted to to highlight that and uh off the vision zero point um thank you very much and you had some slides last week that had pictures around co elementary and the like the safe schools uh project is so important uh one thing I've learned from being on the on the campaign Trail and now as a council member and I will work with my my
colleague from district 6 is that Magnolia often times Magnolia is kind of the Forgotten piece of this it's it's out of the way it's it's to the side if you will um but The Pedestrian safety uh pieces there in terms of crosswalks all the calming pieces um that we see in places like Queen Anne and other parts of districts of don't necessarily get seen in in Magnolia so I will work with my colleague uh council member Strauss and to ensure that those um requirements are also um highlighted and add
ressed so it's very important also in terms of uh pedestrian safety um and I'm not sure if this will play you have the Aurora piece sadly we a lady was killed not long ago because she tried to cross Aurora because she thought it was too dangerous to go under the deck underpass um at least that's the understanding and so these are the things where again where we have the transportation Community the public safety there's definitely a lot of non-transport uh issues with that Dexter underpass area
of Aurora but it plays in together and this is where we need to ensure that we have good answers uh for for places um like that Dexter underpass at Aurora also thank you for the uh pieces on the bridges uh as we as we know from district 7 between magnol and uh and queen an and and also East Lake many number of bridges so thank you for the work that's ongoing right now with the Wolf Creek Ravine the mcra U very important to have that done a lot of people don't even realize that that's a bridge uh
they just go over it not even thinking about it but that kind of background maintenance work is really what not just the committee but this new council is all about it's about getting to the nuts and bolts and just taking care of the foundational pieces so um thank you for that uh now one question or I guess it's not so much a question um the route 40 I can't speak to the district 6 or other District aspects of it um but Westlake um doesn't really need a bus lane dedicated at least from the Fre
emont bridge I can I can imagine as you got like a block or two from Mercer but for that entire distance um I don't think it's quite needed in terms of my personal experience but also in terms of working and talking with constituents and so i' just like you to think about you know not just giving a blanket kind of approach and really look at the different segments of the route 40 uh plan because that would be problematic in a lot of areas for the West Lake specific again West Lake seems to be co
ming up on Transportation issues but uh uh you know it could have major impacts in you know the residents that now live in the area but also the businesses um really interested in the freight piece related to the uh the port and I was curious this is a question now is like do we have a a specific Port program that brings in all the various pieces of these you know Transportation questions the Freight mobility and the like do it all come together in one package one program as relates to the port
you know we collaborate very closely with the port and sometimes we identify co-investment opportunities and we're about to break ground on the East Marginal Way project which is a really exciting um Paving project that will also create a fully separated Bikeway there so that Trucking and bikes can be prioritized and separated and the port has some money in that project so we we continue to collaborate to look at um large opportunities where we can co-invest and smaller things where esot can jus
t program and make the spot repairs that uh the freight Community tells us are needed I also wanted to thank you for um what you said about John laser you know when I got here I I knew that I I I was important to immediately do kind of a performance audit of vision zero but I also knew I had to tread carefully being brand new in the job and everyone told me the only person who can lead this review is John laser the only person who has the credibility and Trust across this entire 1100 person orga
nization to interrogate the question of what could we do better in in a way that would bring forward staff collaboration and participation rather than make people feel under attack or on the defense the only person who could do that with integrity was John there was no one else there there was no second choice offered and he you know even outdid those expectations and it's it's incredible to think of a person who's regarded that way in such a large and complex place like estad that's again a gre
at uh recognition of his work of course that b good question is who's the next John are you developing the next John's out there or and the like so that's a very important part of my job is to do just that so thank you all right uh council member woo did not know John but he sounds like an amazing person I'm very sorry for our Collective loss um so thank you for this presentation thank you for all the work that you do I have I have a question um for the move seatt Levy how closely do you work wi
th mayor's office what goes into the I guess how do you pick which projects that the move Seattle Levy will focus on you know a very interesting design question for the next Levy is the balance between specificity and flexibility so the way this particular Levy was designed in 2015 High degree of specificity 30 different categories of projects um it promised 16 Bridge seismic projects even though a bridge seismic project can cost $800,000 or $30 million depending on what bridge and what kind of
seismic issues are there with the bridge and so for this particular Levy because of its specificity a whole lot of it was wired right into the original um ordinance and we've been taking you know Direction and briefing and seeking consultation with the mayor's office throughout the way but I think a very interesting question for the elected officials as we tee up the next Levy isn't just the size of it and what the main themes of it will be but how to balance enough specificity so the voters hav
e confidence they know what they're getting with perhaps maybe a little more flexibility to respond to individual communities and the concerns that emerge during the course of the levy um in some ways my tenure here so far has been building a set of projects that two directors ago picked in 2014 and that's what I need to do right now is finish strong on that collection of projects but I I think it could be intriguing to offer future directors a little bit more flexibility to respond to evolving
Community needs with these funds in some way council member if I might also add um the levy uh legislation itself put restrictions on what the money could be spent for and so that's really the ultimate sort of legal commitment uh the mayor will propose a budget every year with what projects actually get funded that's based on you know what the department thinks they can deliver and then that comes to council for approval but largely um the spending restrictions on what the levy um what we promis
e voters that that we could spend on really set what the CIP budget was for the last nine years and that will be the discussion before you when we think about renewal all right um let's see here council member Kettle do you have another question or is that a hold over hand that's a lack of a lowered hand oh goodness well uh thank you director spots uh s. team here really appreciate it and I also Echo the the sentiment of my colleagues um and and expressing our our sadness uh for the passing of J
ohn laser long longtime s. employee um and as chair of this committee uh on behalf of this committee I offer my sincere condolences and thoughts to the family of John laser and everyone at esot uh whom he he's touched and the broader Community it's clear impact is profound so thank you again for uh for sharing a little bit about the Legacy and life of of John we will uh we will now move on actually F first off while while I'm here I'm I'm hearing some of my team is uh is pinging me about some so
me scheduling snafus potentially uh we've had on the calendar for a long time and while I got to director spots and Bill um we've had on the calendar for about weeks now uh some pothole I was going to visit some of the Frontline Crews tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. doing some pothole work so uh it and it sounds like we're we're working I I I would appreciate your commitment to make sure that still happens can't keep kicking this down the road so thank you um V all right we will now move on to our th
ird item of business will the clerk please read item three into the record Petition of the U LLC for the vacation of a portion of the alley lying within block two wagoners addition to the city of Seattle being the block bounded by North 87th Street 1st Avenue Northwest Palatine Avenue North and North 85th Street at 8623 Palatine Avenue North all right welcome uh already had a seat so please settle yourselves in and begin your presentation introduce yourselves of course uh L witson Council Centra
l staff Beverly Barnett Seattle Department of Transportation we're just getting ourselves hooked up here thank you thing Kevin Clary I'm with Bess Architects I'm Michael Jenkins I'm the director of the Seattle design commission uh so this morning you're going to hear about a petition to vacate a alley in the Greenwood neighborhood um approval of the petition would transfer ownership of the alley and facilitate the development of a 70 unit uh multif family project um this is an early briefing whi
ch is intended to provide you both a overview of the project which will come back to you at a later time for your approval and also provide an opportunity for you to highlight any issues that you'd like to raise at this time uh to be considered during the uh departmental review of the petition um and with that I'll hand it over to Beverly to talk a little bit more about the vacation process good morning um thank you for having us back we had the opport to be at the first committee and here we ar
e I don't think we'll be on every committee but we will come as often as invited so we wanted to start with this slide after lisha's introduction so we did um that um in our um 101 presentation and I guess it went away um but as uh Lish indicated this is provided for in the street vacation policies that when we have a new vacation petition we we'll bring it in early in the processing so we do not have an s. recommendation We're not scheduled for a public hearing it hasn't been through all of the
processing um such as the design commission review that Michael will talk about so it really just creates an opportunity for you to see um a project early and you can provide us some guidance if there's things that you really want us to focus on through the review um if you think the normal review is fine you can always uh share ideas with us later that you heard from um a Community member or something you thought of so we are at the first green box which is petition submitt introduction to cit
y council and early committee briefing so we're just um kicking that off today with the um overview of the project and we're here receptive to any ideas of things that you want us to consider and review um then we're going to have U Michael Jenkins go over the design commission which is a really significant part of the review um looking at um some of the key issues and then uh Kevin Clary from bis Architects will run through the PowerPoint which shows where the project is what they want to vacat
e and why to give you some overview and context and then we'll see if you have questions or guidance for us but yeah there there isn't a vote today so this is just the fun part of talking about these interesting issues so Michael you want to go next just briefly there there's um a lot of information in the PowerPoint that you see about the scope of the vacation and some of the early issues that the design commission addressed um just I think maybe there are a lot of new faces here who may not kn
ow exactly what the C design commission's role is so just very briefly uh we the design commission advises the mayor the council and City departments on the design and environmental implications of city capital projects as well as projects that seek long-term or permanent use of a rideway like this project um the design commission is comprised of 10 architecture design and planning professionals who are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council back in 2018 the the then council did a s
ignificant update to the council vacation policies and really as in terms of the role of the commission really further defined and provide guidance to you about what it is that you want the commission to look at relative to these issues and you can see in the diagram above presubmit is a very important part of the work that we do they have not the prese submittal work is prior to the submittal of a petition we tried to provide some initial direction to the applicant about key issues that may be
of interest to the commission about when you remove that alley what the remaining role and function of the right of way looks like and any potential public benefits that might be appropriate to offset the loss of that uh Street or alley or public place we did that work in May of 2023 and we provided that direction that you'll see in just a moment with the presentation and I'll speak more to that in a moment okay so um I guess we're ready for the presentation bill will run the PowerPoint for us h
e's our he always helps us through everything so uh Kevin thank you good morning I'm Kevin Clary Bess Architects I'm speaking on behalf of the ownership the Greenwood shopping center this will be our second project in this neighborhood the project site as you see on the slide here this is a view looking from the uh North looking uh South sorry Southwest uh it's one block west from Greenwood AB at the corner of Palatine and 87th um next slide please so the project that we Invision is a 70 what I'
ll call larger sized more marketable unit mix we've been working after the completion of the first project to find homes that fit the size of the neighborhood based on what was least successfully in the previous project which was across the street we're targeting uh almost a one to1 parking ratio at 68 residents uh bike storage we're looking at enhanced sidewalk improvements some off-site sidewalk improvements um thematic sentage Street Furniture uh as well as some asphalt resurfacing on 87th as
well as Palatine we are hoping to get construction going in the fall of 2024 this year uh we feel Ali vacation will provide better security as well as let this project respond to the surrounding context better next slide please so where we're at we're pretty much right Square in the middle the orange dot that says side on it uh right Square in the middle of the neighborhood we have Fred Meyer just directly to the west of us we are on the edge of the Greenwood finey Ridge residential Urban Villa
ge uh as mentioned the big fat purple line going up and down that's Greenwood a which is a principal arterial and then we have um 87th which of course connects across and is a uh uh residential street next slide please so this kind of gives a context again another just large scale zoom out first slide on the left is the existing alley looking Northeast there we've highlighted in the alley where it's where it would be it actually currently doesn't exist it hasn't existed for uh some time except u
m for some dots on a piece of paper uh the next picture on the right just shows its alignment with where is the residential Zone across the street uh where it would align next slide please so the first question that gets posed to us is what would we do if we did not vac V at the alley um there used to be an alley going more south of this alley it was previously vacated when uh the project there was developed uh I want to say around early 2000s uh so what we would do if we didn't is we would prob
ably build a smaller project of likely smaller unit sizes I've put the unit mix that we probably would achieve over on the right the alley of course would be retained and then what I'll call a little sliver of land that remains we would probably look to do again a a sort of project that we haven't quite vetted with ownership there so it would be kind of a bifurcated building is what it would be uh you can see 87th where it sits just to the north and Palatine to the right next slide please so the
rationale of our alley vacation is basically at this point is a remnant of the previous full alley it's a Remnant function that really serves serves no existing purpose I'll get into that more it bifurcates the site as I mentioned it does not hold any current utility functions in the alley that most alleys do have um being that there's no developed projects on that site at this point it doesn't serve for Access as well uh one major benefit that we see is of course if we were able to do this bei
ng on the edge of the uh Urban Village we're going to be able to create a more marketable larger scale unit mix I'll touch on that more construction one building is way more financially feasible than two buildings you save on circulation costs number of elevators number of stairs overall just number of in order to create you know more efficient development uh it allows more flexibility in design by removing the alley and lastly we see that dead end alley as a bit of a security concern for the uh
family that owns this project and maintains this project the surrounding projects next slide please uh we did do a community outreach as part of our early design guidance um this is kind of a quick summary of some of the Outreach that we did um what we what we heard was people really want parking they really want the sidewalk connections improved pedestrian realm improvements open space Street safety authentic architecture and so that kind of informed our design and how we we looked at it movin
g forward one of the goals that we heard from when we did the previous project across the street was the one to1 parking ratio which kind of developed design you know we we definitely wanted to look at these sidewalk connections and and find ways to do what we do with our our open space areas next slide please this is what we would propose then so what we're proposing is a a mixed use building it's about 70 units it's got a uh larger unit mix uh less Studios more larger one-bedroom one bedroom d
ens more two bedroom rooms uh we obviously use the whole site we take our access off of 87th in approximately the same location that the previous alley uh served that was intentional because we felt like that would provide a network of how the street grid previously functioned and could maintain that um in the corner where you see item two this is kind of why we call it the U there was uh across the street on Palatine where we developed the Maro project there was a utree that was saved it was mo
ved to this site that creates what we call the corner pin and the rationale for the U corner it's a nice way to create this sort of large shared public Corner open space we see that as the anchor for the sidewalk improvements other improvements that we're looking at um besides the larger enhanced Street would be uh item three improving the traffic circle there it's um settled substantially it could use some Greenery Improvement we see uh improving the sidewalk connection for the entire Tire bloc
k going past with this item seven connecting it there's currently no sidewalk in that area and uh some better security fencing around a uh uh green detention Pond area that's been preserved next slide please proposed public benefits I touched on briefly already uh the enlarged sidewalk going and connecting the streetcape experience on the North edge of the Urban Village border at 87th um that would include thematic light building elements decorative fencing improvements informational signage we'
ve had some early conversations with SDC that's talked about opportunities that we could do to kind of enhance that uh again that U Corner public space that I talked about we see that as a great opportunity for a pause point a public landscape Plaza open to all highlighting the mature UT tree offering a place for people to pause along their way and roundabout improvements item three there the asphalt it's a bit of a roller coaster ride as you go through it so you know we see that as a great way
to um clean up our front door again highlight the strength that you Plaza makes the road safer for bikes cars Etc next slide please so we looked uh quickly and we'll look at this more with SDC how the public and Street impact would be used if this alley was vacated so this is a a very colorful chart but it shows sort of all of the public trust functions that we're going to dive into with SDC you know where the um bicycles would circulate where the water the sewer the utilities essentially would
serve this building how autos and pedestrians move again none of those functions currently are in this currently non-existent alley but are currently taken in that alley so um we don't see an impact to that grid next next slide please uh quick as we'll do this more but it was a Seattle subcommittee design feedback this is kind of their main bullet points from an early meeting we had with them emphasis on public benefit importance of community engagement environmental and sustainab focus there th
at's where we touch on some of the signage along the walkways things that kind of can enhance that public realm movement sidewalk improvements and uh their General perspective was they did not see the vacation the alley as a major issue next slide please thank you for your time this is kind of how we as Bess Architects Envision the possibility of this space is looking at the U corner thank you just wanted to take a moment and just build on the role of the Seattle design commission I give you a v
ery high level overview um in May of 2023 we held what's called a a a subcommittee it's a not a quorum of the commission but we really try to bring in Commissioners that have a significant role um in Street and Alley vacations our Urban designer our landscape architect and our architect um this is very typical the kind of direction that we provide it's before the petition has been submitted so it's really at a high level what are the sort of highlevel moves that the commission has flagged for th
em that they need to think about as they Advance not only their commitments to the public realm but how it informs the work that they do with Seattle Department of construction and inspection on the design review program on the actual building so those those six bullet points that you see really are trying to highlight for them if you move if you remove that alley from service what happens to the remaining functions of the ride of way we've heard a numerous times that this alley really hasn't be
en developed to the level that we would like to see in other alleys but it still provides an important function for Access and circulation how are they offsetting the impacts of moving those functions out to the rer way where people will see them and potentially the negative con con consequences of that on movement through the public realm we'll help be holding our First full meeting with them in a month where we look more closely at the implications of the loss of the rideway and how they inten
d to offset those losses through a public benefit package that you've seen a little bit about not only in the presentation but how the public has indicated how they want to have the remaining public spaces enhanced for movement for rest and other functions of the ride ofo that are important to that community thank you all right well thank you all for this very insightful overview and presentation here and colleagues I remind this is a this is the the intro um you know this is part of a continuin
g ongoing conversation and briefings we'll have on this particular and more uh similar matters on a going forward basis um I have a question about uh a blurb in this memo dated it's linked in the agenda but it's dated February 14th 2023 um maybe that was 24 but it's from Lish uh it should be 24 all all good uh but on the second page there on that second full par paragraph it says in 20 in the 2024 budget the council added a Proviso of $150,000 of the esot budget for sidewalks to fund the constru
ction of a sidewalk on the south side of North 87th Street between First Avenue Northwest and palentine Avenue North AB budding the used property was that that Proviso at the time the budget was adopted was was uh with it was this specific project and this petition contemplated at the time jar may I please go ahead thank you this was a budget provisor that I brought this is something that I've been working with the U uh their property owners which is a family um and and The Architects for quite
some time I'm happy to give you a more indepth understanding but the thought here is and if we could go to slide I'm sorry I was going to address some of this um so here we go um colleagues as you may know this uh project used to be centrally located in district 6 until I had some of my district taken from me I will tell you that that was not um appreciated to lose Crown Hill and Greenwood because it's direct connection to the rest of the district is pretty incredible if you could go to slide uh
um oh slide page three according to your notes on this colleague says you can see here um my district now has the boundary on 87th so if it's that actually if you want to go up to that first slide um the very first slide so this 87th street is now the District boundary uh council member Moore staff has been in the chamber during this discussion um and what I can tell you is that we've been working pretty intensely here if you can move back to that page three so what we have here is on that site
between uh the Fred Meyer and the Eastern edge of the orange bubble called the site that is the only block that does not have sidewalks between I think it might even be a Aurora and Third Avenue right and so what we have here is it's a missing link if you will of how do people navigate that area so on the north side of 87th is kind of it's hard to tell is it public is a private it's a little bit of a dirt track in in on the side of the road and then on the south side if you could go back actual
ly to that first slide you'll see that there are curbs here you can actually see the Ada improvements that are up to specs of since the Ada curb ramp consent decree that the city has been under so you can see that they've already got the drainage this is an opportunity that literally the s crew could come in and pour in Asphalt um it would be one of the cheapest Alternatives because you're not doing drainage you don't have to do the Ada um and at the same time I've made agreements uh with the pr
operty owners that if the city was to spend money in the inter room that we would need to recoup those costs because um you may also know that uh there's a permitting audit that was done last year because they're talking about putting in permits or or pulling permits in Fall of this year but if for some reason one thing doesn't go correctly with this alley vacation and they don't have that submitted To Us by mid this is where I'm also giving um the team a our calendar road map that we can't miss
because if the team was to not transmit this alley vacation by the middle or early August that means we probably wouldn't have time in your Committee in September before we get into the budget session which then takes us to the earliest time of pulling permits uh at the in December right much less all of the other issues going on with the permit and so when we look and then there's going to be construction and so when you look at this um Proviso of what you know I've seen the upper uh costing o
f 175,000 but my best guess is you could get it done for 30 um just because of all of the different sidewalk alternative work that I've done I have these back of the envelope figures that 30,000 or 40,000 or maybe 175 if you put in every Bell and whistle you got would be present throughout construction and so when I go back to page three if you will we're talking multiple years of impact of not being able to get from third all the way there's Sandell Park is a block north of here there's a Green
wood Park another two blocks to the east of this map um that's where that budget provisa comes from because and I wouldn't have put it in there if I hadn't had these conv Sation to say if we add if we spend City dollars here I am going to request it to be recouped within the public benefits aspect of this plan and project that's probably longer than you expected all good no yeah very helpful thank you council member Strauss uh I guess from my perspective um yeah I think it I think it would be a
fair sort of ask item uh as part of this in exchange for this uh to make sure that you know the development takes care of the the sidewalk infrastructure adding that along that missing link if you will along North 87th Street um but also you know exploring making sure that the sidewalks in the adjacent areas surrounding the properties were appropriate are are also uh in in good overall you know state of repairs and you know modernization if you will um the only other thing I'll I'll or or commen
t guidance as these discussions evolve that that I have from my perspective in addition to highlighting the importance of sidewalks uh is the affordable housing component so as I understand it this property is in a neighborhood commercial so and I'm reading verbatim now on page one of the memo in that uh let's see fifth uh full paragraph it says says the property is in a neighborhood commercial 2- 75 Zone with an M2 mandatory housing affordable affordability designation which you know under the
the sub bullet there uh that Des that specific designation combined with a designation of the Greenwood finny Ridge Urban Village as a medium area under mha and requires a specific payment um or 10% of the units to in that that project to be affordable so I think we we need to do as our the best job possible to make sure that at the end of the day when When the Smoke Clears in this project after shovels are on the ground and the this great project is fully brought to life that no one pays a fee
we we actually live up to the 10% intended commitment of affordable housing um so th those will be my only comments uh I acknowledge and recognize council member woo I have a um question regarding who owns the alley it's it's currently city-owned well alley streets are an odd ownership but basically the city owns it and we're being requested to give it to sell it to the uh you property can you talk a little bit more about that process and like how does that work and what does it look like and wh
ere does that money go yeah uh the money will go into the general fund fa yeah it's split under state law where one half of the money goes for uh transportation and open space purposes and one half of the money um goes for to into the general fund to be dispersed through the normal budget process um and so the process any property owner has the right to petition the city for a vacation of the right of way that's next to their property um generally we only approve petitions when Property Owners o
n both sides of the property are seeking it and where there's a project that would use the property we have a set of criteria in our street vacation policies about when we would consider giving up RightWay and we want to make sure that we're protecting the Public's interest in having the Streeter alley so if the alley is going to be used for Access we don't want to give it up because that's an important role um alleys provide some light and air to the adjacent properties they um they uh those ar
e the they can also use uh be used for utility um lines so you know we look at uh what the next steps are for the city departments to sort of review all of those different functions of the alley um and see if it's appropriate to vacate it and transfer the ownership to um the U property um they will come back to the council with a recommendation hopefully in August or September um and then this committee will decide whether or not they feel it's appropriate and whether or not what is being given
up and giving up ownership of the driveway is being offset by the public benefits they're proposed as part of the project is that Al currently being rented out or just it's just sitting there um in this case undeveloped as you know walking by you wouldn't necessarily even know that the alley exists there but it exists legally um great thank you um and my second question is parking you mentioned that there may be parking thank you for uh the Alternatives it looks like a very amazing project um bu
t want to learn more about Community concerns and garden parking certainly uh a community outreach um for this project as well as the morrow project which is across the street from Palatine parking has come up in this neighborhood as a concern over basically providing enough um I know in this Zone the parking requirement is very limited I don't think we have have to provide parking however uh we're working with our leasing team that was probably one of the main drawbacks when we leased up the pr
oject across the street was providing enough parking we had people that didn't feel they wanted to either leave their car in the street or wanted to look elsewhere in order to have it so when we started looking at this project um from the ownership side they looked at saying I want to provide enough parking to attract tenants to the size H were looking at on the community feedback side the conversation was generally make sure you have parking so they don't park in front of my place and take my m
y my spot basically um so that kind of developed our goal of trying to then come up with a design that still allowed for you know neighborhood friendly functions facing the street to the greatest extent we can but providing essentially as close to a one:1 parking ratio one:1 meaning one parking stall per unit uh inside inside the structured parking so we're um we're a couple stalls under that goal but we're really close to that goal thank you all right thank you and and uh council member Kettle
uh thank you uh chair Saka um uh before I start I would like to note that um council member Strauss may have lost some of his district six but that was more than offset by uh that he gained from District s uh just to put that point out there really quickly um Ali vacation uh first thank you for the briefing I appreciate it um I understand I've seen similar things in district 7 and um some of my volunteer work um the Aly question very important um one thing that I learned so this is actually more
for the commission side versus you know the the project in itself is that um as it relates to Ali vacation um policy this is a big issue in district 7 particularly downtown and Belltown and it becomes a question of logistics and I didn't see Logistics in your slide but for the central staff for the mayor side that is like the number one thing with me is that we have to make sure that the logistics of whatever project is addressed whether it's a residential like this one or maybe more commercial
um because I've been all over um district 7 particularly downtown btown and what ends up happening is if we don't address this from a you know from a planning and and zoning and the like is that we push Logistics on the street which then creates other problems so we have to address Logistics as part of the you know the planning process but also any question related to Alley vacation the first question is going to be from me is what's the logistic so um if this project wants to do that you can d
o that as well in terms of addressing Logistics because this is so important residential commercial and I I always say it comes down to two words loading docks I've seen some bad loading docks throughout district 7 um this goes to the our architect friend here you make sure loading docks are are well designed both for commercial and residential and um so I just wanted to highlight that piece um again Logistics Logistics Logistics um one last Point too is I really appreciate the design review uh
slide here is that uh because that's really important too I do believe in design review I know some others don't I recognize that uh often times we need guard rails uh between the community and the developers and other players are in in play because we can't have things slow down but I really appreciate the input that's coming from the community Through design review and it's shown up in this briefing uh so I appreciate that point so Mr chair I just want to get those two points out really quick
and that's it for me all right than thank you council member member Kettle uh emphasized from my perspective that I'm curious to glad to hear some of the initial feedback is reflected in this presentation from the community but uh as this process evolves um you know also curious to hear if if there are any more what kind of more refined uh Contours of that Community feedback and Outreach look like in specific asss from from the community's perspective so um let's see coun go go ahead oh yeah sor
ry chair I I gave you what I was going to tell you about just that uh sidewalk alternative and Proviso but I I did have some more to say and council member kettle's point is right I'm very excited to get Magnolia back in my district uh just pissed as all can be about losing Crown Hill um I may have gone to preschool in Magnolia but if you could go to slide three I bought my toys childhood toys at top 10 po which now snap doodle as represented on the map um it's good to be local um I want to go i
f you could to slide four to help answer uh council member Woo's question of what is the alley like when we are in the built environment it's hard to tell where is public and private and so the private alley is working as a as a public space right now even though it's private so folks are moving back and forth I walked across it when I went to the tap rot theater last week myself um and so that is good I will say that when I'm hearing from the the neighbors uh you were right about the parking pa
rking is already really tough in the neighborhood um and I know that y'all are working to I believe the minimum is zero if not nearly there and to provide one for one is above and beyond also colleagues demonstrates that the private Market can provide when they choose to um the sidewalk connections and if you look just across palentine on that southwest corner there's about a 15t section of sidewalk that needs to be remediated it seems as if there was Private development private development hous
e and in front of that house there's not a sidewalk that is connected just to that one little corner um and overall you know meshing that neighborhood commercial like uh Cher Saka said to the neighborhood residential Zone U I think those you know meeting places these these are all great but if you could go to the last slide and then I'll be done chair because I know we're we have time here uh you know um I say this with love like great drawing and if we can get this I you'll surprise me and it's
nothing about your building it's because colleagues the Greenwood Blog the Greenwood bog I'll save it for another day to brief you on but if you can get that traffic circle onto the same level as the sidewalk that will be a feat of in history because colleagues right now that um roundabout it's about 12 to 18 possibly more inches above Where the Sidewalk is because the Greenwood bog thank you colleagues I look forward to working with you more all right thank you council member Strauss uh collea
gues any other questions comments feedback all right well thank you again for this very helpful overview look forward to working alongside you all as as we proceed here make sure we get hopefully shovels and ground by the end of this year early next uh we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn hearing no from business to come before the committee we are adjourned at 11:16 a.m.
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