Okay, good morning everyone.

July 23rd, 2026 land use and sustainability committee will come to order.

It's 9 34 a.m.

I'm Eddie Len, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the rule?

Victor Strauss.

Councilmember Foster.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Present.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

Chair Lynn here.

Chair, there are four members present.

There's no objection.

The agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you all very much for coming to this Thursday morning meeting to discuss land use as always.

Thank you to our city clerks, council central staff, mayor's office, SDOP, and OPCD for helping us prepare for this meeting.

Uh we'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on the agenda or items within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have one in-person and three remote.

Okay.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

We'll start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The poll comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they're registered.

In-person speakers will be called first.

After which we will move to remote speakers until the public comment period is ended.

Speakers will hear a time when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers mics will be muted if they do not in their comments within the lotted time to allow us to call the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

And we will start with our first speaker.

Uh and that is Steve LeCroix.

Either one, but you do have to speak directly into the mic for it to it.

Okay.

Good morning.

My name is Steve Lequro.

I'm a uh uh resident of uh North Seattle, and I'm here representing Thornton Creek Alliance.

Uh we appreciate the overall tenor of the plan to increase tree canopy, improving pedestrian and bicycle movement, use of native plants, and honoring the stewardship of indigenous cultures.

We agree and support work to increase affordable housing while providing access to natural surroundings, tree canopy, wildlife, et cetera.

But these these are not mutually exclusive goals.

We recommend respecting Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's recommended 200 foot riparian management zones between 2016 and 2021.

Northgate lost 18.55 acres of tree canopy.

This fact must be in integral to all planning.

This trend must be reversed.

Tall trees are imperative to maintain maintaining water quality for salmon and other beloved wildlife.

Walking trails are needed.

Let's use this opportunity to offer the community forest bathing as people walk to do their errands.

Casual gathering places are needed.

Let's build on that.

Please don't give away any more mid-block corridors as was done for the Modera on 8th Northeast.

Some key initiatives, Hubster, Hubbard Homestead Park.

Refer to the public advisory committee comments and make this more interesting and inviting.

Consider Northeast 8th near the Northgate as a pedestrian street.

Use best practices of lighting to balance safety and needless light pollution.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Oh, and for the record, I believe Councilmember Foster has joined us online.

That's our last in-person speaker.

We will now move to our remote speakers, starting with Megan Cruz.

Good morning.

I'm Megan Cruz, a downtown resident, speaking on the regional plan and asking the city to partner with downtown's neighborhood council to refine it.

The plan goals are commendable, but proposed actions don't always reflect the reality on the ground.

For example, instead of integrating density throughout downtown, intense upsillance are proposed on crowded third avenue, the nation's largest transit corridor where current residents and businesses already struggle with basic access for service vehicles and loading.

Yes, the city's technical report proposes upzoning with market rate towers at 500 to 100,000 homes with parking for 75% of the units.

Downtown residents have embraced density, and we understand what it takes to succeed.

We want affordable housing, transportation, logistics, livability metrics, and a plan for the 31 preservation landmarks in this small up zone area.

Upzoning without these requirements to deliver these elements is like writing a blank check without oversight.

Please put citizens back into city planning.

Engage downtown community groups and reestablish a project review process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Sabrina Boglio.

Councilmember Lynn, this is Sabrina Bully on behalf of the Port of Seattle and the Northwest Seaport Alliance.

I want to thank you for your leadership in ushering the mixed sub-area plans forward for council consideration and upholding the no net loss principle of industrial land.

We look forward to working with you as council deliberates on this planet issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Jean Bateman.

Thank you.

My name is Jean Bateman.

I'm a 35-year resident and small business person in the downtown commercial core, commenting on the downtown plan.

First, I really want to thank you.

The plan appears to have returned us to our five neighborhoods and boundaries.

The previously proposed waterfront neighborhood is gone, and we thank you for this change.

Two specific examples are the Pike Place Market Historical District and the newly proposed and expanded waterfront district.

The Flume map and its related district narratives are very unclear.

Please reference the legal boundaries of the market historical district.

Please clearly show and describe the proposed boundaries of the waterfront district.

And importantly, update the related CEPA document, which has already been approved, which calls it the waterfront historical district, and then places the market inside of it.

There is no waterfront historical district.

The historical district is the Pike Place Market Historical District.

Also, please give us more information on the cultural strategies for downtown revitalization report.

It's mentioned 10 times in the plan, but not described.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We will now move back to in-person speakers with Hannah Ziff.

Hi, my name is Hannah Ziff.

I live downtown in Pioneer Square.

My idea for Seattle is everybody agrees here that we want it to be beautiful and we like walking.

My great-grandfather actually made one of the first federal laws requiring everybody to buy exit signs.

And I heard that we're thinking about widening the streets for fire trucks.

And I'm going to say if we have to widen one street for fire trucks, we are going to have to widen all the streets.

And it's not going to be beautiful.

It's not going to be good for walking, and we need to say no to widening the streets for fire trucks.

We need to build new fire trucks or something else.

That's there's one thing we can agree on.

We want the city to be beautiful.

So please say no to widening the streets for fire trucks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

There are no additional registered speakers.

We'll now proceed to our items of business.

We'll now move on to our only item of business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item one?

Agenda item one overview of Northgate Downtown in Manufacturing and Industrial Center MIC sub-area plans for briefing and discussion.

Okay, thank you.

Will our presenters please join us?

Um once you're ready, introduce yourselves and leave Vice Chair Strauss, you're joining us online.

So we will share.

This one is on now.

Uh good morning, Chair Lynn.

Uh, thank you so much for having us today.

Uh, my name is Alison Miller.

I'm the community planning manager at the Office of Planning and Community Development.

I'm joined by my colleagues.

Hi, good morning.

I'm Jesse London, a regional centers planner at OPCD.

And I'm Erica Bush.

I am currently a district planner with OBCD and now working for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Thank you.

So today, uh just kind of a quick overview of our agenda for today.

So we were here in June talking about we kind of gave an orientation uh briefing around the um this package one of sub-area plans and how um that is related to the 2026 comprehensive plan amendment.

Um meaning this is the comprehensive plan amendment uh package this year is this package of four sub-area plans that we have um submitted to council uh for your review and and consideration.

Um there as we sort of discussed last month, just a quick refresher.

There are in total nine sub-area plans that we'll be looking to have adopted over the next three years as comprehensive plan amendments.

Um yeah, in June, we kind of just went over what are those plans, why why are we doing these planning processes, um, and and talked about how we uh went through the process of developing those plans.

Um so for today, our we're going to talk through the Northgate Regional Center, the downtown regional center plans, um, and our our colleague Jim Holmes will uh swap with us and talk about the two MIC plans.

So we'll first dive into the Northgate Regional Center plan.

Thanks, Allison.

And uh I'll there will be a brief pause at the end of the Northgate uh slides for uh any questions or discussion on that before we transition into downtown, just FYI.

Uh okay, so the Northgate Regional Center plan, it's it's it's an interesting one to start with because it actually uh in many ways doesn't look and operate like our other regional centers in in reality currently.

Uh you know, it's it's it's much less dense, it's got much larger blocks, relatively poor walkability, and that large large sea of surface parking.

Uh but um, you know, the this sort of what we see when we look at it is the the opportunity in its in that state of transition that it's currently in.

Uh we we have uh an opportunity as we make this plan to uh influence its development, and thankfully uh as as I'm sure many of you are familiar, there are a lot of uh really great assets that uh uh we can use as a starting point and leverage into transitioning this neighborhood into a uh uh an operating uh regional center.

It's it's centered around this gradually redeveloping former mall site, the obviously the the light rail station and transit-oriented development opportunity that that presents, uh that aggregation of of medical uses that uh exists throughout the sub-area, uh the Kraken Iceplex that generates uh over a million visitors uh a year, and um obviously some some great natural features, uh, Thornton Creek, the Beaver Pond, Barton Woods, et cetera.

Uh and and multiple affordable housing projects either recently completed or in the pipeline.

So we have a good uh starting place there as our like existing uh condition.

Um so like in our other uh plans as you as you'll see uh when we introduce these over the course of the next uh uh year uh it's grounded in our uh uh equity priorities and robust constituent uh engagement.

It's supported by our technical research that we conducted with our consultant teams.

Um after using these initial findings to develop uh a vision statement and some high-level ideas.

We took that information, vetted that with constituents again, and uh the next year we were uh we released a full draft plan for for public comments, and then of course there was our um uh interdepartmental collaboration uh thro throughout uh all of this uh all of this process with our our partner uh agencies.

Um so the the the engagement uh we had a few different phases of that.

Uh I'd say at the beginning, this was maybe like uh mid-late 23.

Uh we you know decided we wanted to uh focus hard on our uh historically underrepresented groups in the neighborhood.

So a lot of our the in-person engagement that our consultants conducted uh was uh focus groups with with these uh uh target audiences.

Um held focus groups in language with uh East African elders, the Idris Mosque, uh group of uh primarily Asian uh restaurant workers, an Indigenous youth program, a couple different cohorts of students uh among others.

Um but we also had of course our our more wide-reaching uh surveys to generate that large uh sample of feedback from um our more uh uh uh involved uh members of the community uh historically.

Um and ultimately a few uh themes uh emerged.

Um the activity level in the neighborhood uh was something that people were curious about.

You know, what what is the post mall uh neighborhood look like?

Um that and that's sort of tied in with the with the neighborhood identity, like what is this uh neighborhood uh gonna be in the long term, who's who does it uh serve when people think about Northgate, what do they what do they think about?

Uh and then, of course, the the the bare the bare minimum stuff like uh um walkability and uh and increasing uh uh our access to parks and open spaces as the neighborhood uh grows.

Um as part of our technical work and engagement, I want to I wanted to pause and talk about uh this for a moment.

We we looked into how best to use the neighborhood's um state of transition and opportunity presented uh by some simultaneous projects in the neighborhood to implement elements of of a neighborhood that could serve an urban indigenous community.

Uh we worked with uh um uh an indigenous uh-led uh consulting firm, uh Old Growth Solutions, which was at the at the time was Tohoma Peak Solutions, um, uh, to develop these reports on what these urban elements might be and how that could that could work in a neighborhood uh like Northgate.

Uh these included things like certain housing typologies, uh public services, and uh particularly uh a relationship with areas uh natural features, and I'll uh get into examples of how we how that uh manifests in the plan here in a few slides.

Uh so I'm not gonna read the full vision statement here, but this this yielded our all this work yielded our sort of North Star here, this this vision statement.

Uh and I think in summary, we think this neighborhood can have it all.

I think that's totally a realistic thing over the course of the 20-year planning period.

We think this place can have all of the building blocks of a complete urban neighborhood, comprehensive amenities, walkability, uh, public spaces, and and uh this planning process is sort of the first step to um leveraging the the development interests in the neighborhood to make to make that happen.

Um like with all of our regional centers plans, uh the our the basic structure of this plan are these five big picture policy themes that help us to achieve the aforementioned uh vision.

Uh and these are they're based on some of the more uh prominent themes identified by community throughout our uh outreach and and research process.

Uh so neighborhood for all seasons, that's kind of a sneaky way of saying two things at once here.

We're talking about the the seasons uh of life, you know, uh uh accommodating uh residents and visitors uh from a young age to to older age with housing and amenities and uh uh that are commensurate with those um uh life uh phases.

Um and then but then of course we're also talking about seasons of the year and and uh uh our the neighborhood's ability to be resilient to uh climate change and the impacts from that.

Uh the living with place uh uh theme, that's uh about uh the neighborhood's relationship with the natural environment, the uh uh beer pond Thornton Creek, etc.

And how we uh uh uh accentuate those things and emphasize those things and improve the uh the the way that uh our residents and workers uh can interact with those spaces.

Um create Northgate, that's about encouraging the organic uh creation of that neighborhood identity that I that I talked about uh earlier, trying to figure out um what it is that people are going to be going to Northgate for and to do.

Um connected communities, that's that's that's a pretty focused uh transportation element of this of this plan where uh we have a lot of our um uh STOT oriented uh policies uh originated uh policies and best odd project lists and things like that.

Um shared abundance, then that's about our growth and economic development in the neighborhood and how uh folks along uh various uh parts of the uh household income spectrum can can benefit from how the neighborhood grows and changes over the uh planning horizon.

Uh so I'm gonna start to gradually zoom into some policy uh focuses of this plan and get to a little some more tangible things.

Uh I'll we'll start with just the when you read the plan, these might be some of the bigger uh takeaways, some are more obvious than others, uh, but but you know, we want to uh through uh the this plan and the implementation of its policies.

We want to add uh strategically add density and and and housing uh and take advantage of our transit-oriented development opportunity presented by the light rail station.

Uh we want to expand our access to open spaces, um, mitigate climate vulnerabilities like the impervious surfaces and include some deep having where practical.

Uh we want to improve the walkability conditions dramatically.

We want to we want to mitigate against some of the the negative impacts of having I5 go through the middle of the neighborhood.

The obviously the walkability and connectivity implications of that, but also the the environmental and noise impacts.

And then we want to implement the elements of the the native neighborhood that were identified by our indigenous consulting uh work that uh I mentioned earlier.

So I'll dive into a few even more concrete examples here.

Um the uh mid-block corridors, something we're we're already uh uh working on uh a little bit with uh our land use implementation team.

Uh this involves leveraging the uh development demand uh to expand the uh transportation network uh throughout the neighborhood.

Effectively, we think we can use the land use code to ask developers to build uh additional streets or pedestrian paths uh through their properties uh in exchange for uh the uh the density that they want and as as a result uh end up with a with a better connected neighborhood with smaller blocks.

Uh I mean don't don't take the image to the right uh by but by heart by by any means.

It's it's uh it's it's just like an example of what uh the uh it's comparing what the current block sizes look like to like what a typical Seattle urban neighborhood uh might look like and how uh uh mid-block corridors could uh help us to get to that uh condition uh and improved uh pedestrian experience.

Um we want to uh again, something that this is the the land use implementation team is already taking some steps on.

We want to make strategic zoning changes uh throughout the neighborhood.

That's something that's captured in our future land use map.

Uh that again something that appears in in all of the plans because it's required.

Um but uh you know we want to create those addition more destinations, replace the vast surface parking uh with uh something that uh lends itself to uh a functional uh urban neighborhood.

Um the Stop project list again, an example, another example of something that appears in all of the plans.

We work uh closely with SDOT to further their work from the uh Seattle Transportation Plan that they completed a couple years ago uh by identifying some incrementally more specific transportation investments in key locations.

Uh as you might imagine, walkability was the was the primary focus, but uh there are uh bike and transit improvements here as well.

Uh crosswalks, sidewalks, bike lanes, you know, more pleasant ways to cross uh I5, uh things like that.

So um encourage you to open that up because uh it's it's a long one.

Um the uh ecology corridor, uh that's uh uh one of our more uh abstract concepts in the in the plan, but it's it's it's uh effectively an implementation of a recommendation from those indigenous uh consultants and the the collaborators and supporters of those uh of those products.

Um this the intent is to improve the neighborhood's relationship with its natural features uh through this uh linear uh uh path between the the the Barton Woods area just north of North Seattle College, down the 100th street uh right of way and up into Thornton Creek.

And uh the result uh we would hope would be an improved uh ecological function in these areas, uh a much higher native tree uh and plant density in the uh in the in these spaces, including the public right-of-way on 100th and along uh I-5.

Um, and then we'll we're exploring uh the use of Barton Woods or or neighboring um uh forested areas as uh as a uh a native food forest.

Um which uh that's actually something we're also uh starting to work on with uh some partners at Department of Neighborhoods of Sustainability Environments, and then we're just starting to have conversations with North Seattle uh college about some appropriate spaces uh for for fruit forest, which is effectively uh this uh multi-tiered uh edible ecosystem that's a historically significant part of the food production uh for the Coast Salish uh peoples.

Um yeah, those are all of the examples I have.

I'll I'll pause here and uh if anyone has questions about the plan or anything like that.

Thanks.

Okay, thank thank you so much.

Um, there's a lot there uh colleagues and just for this morning.

I mean, obviously we went through that presentation, uh, but feel free if if you have questions along the way for the next presentation.

But um any questions or comments.

Um and if uh colleagues don't have any, I I have a few.

Uh just holding on one more minute.

Um could you talk um about um so I as part of the Puget Sound Regional Council, I know that there are some conditions um and deadlines.

Could you just remind us uh what those are and also just for the public sake?

Sure.

Um do you uh I can speak to the um I'll uh I'll speak uh overall to the um condition around uh adopting sub-area plans.

Um so the Puget Sound Regional Council um has uh now required municipalities to adopt um sub-area plans for all regional centers and manufacturing and industrial centers by um for existing ones um that have previously been designated um by the end of 2027.

So that's kind of the the staggered um uh packages of plans that you are receiving.

Um yeah, Jesse, I think if there's any anything you want to add specifically around Northgate.

Uh yeah, well, I mean both the downtown and Northgate plans um we we're we're eager to uh yeah adopt these as as soon as possible to like uh with within this annual comp plan amendment window of this year so that we're not trying to do that with you know nine plans or seven plans next year, which would be uh start to challenge our um ability to meet the deadlines with these and uh and then also uh enable these centers to qualify for those transportation funds sooner rather than later.

Wonderful.

And do you recall and and we can chat offline, but do you recall the conditions?

I I just don't recall off the top of my head what the conditions were.

I know that the the PSRC had a few concerns about the size of the regional center.

For North Gate in particular, yeah, for Northgate in particular.

Thank you for that uh reframing there.

I uh yes, so um the PSRC did ask that we um uh revisit the uh the the boundary and and shape of the of the Northgate uh regional center, um, which is something that we talk about in the plan and tee up uh to do um uh after this plan's adoption.

Uh at this point uh for for the timeline reasons that we were just talking about our our intention is to adopt uh it with the with the existing shape, but but there are uh I think uh good reasons for us to um uh after after we make sure we meet that deadline for next year just to uh think about um uh places where we could I both expand and contract uh the the regional center in in certain places uh in a in a way that um uh makes it uh serve as a as a logical like single um you know or urban neighborhood that it has connectivity provided to all of the spaces uh within the boundary.

Yeah.

So that's that's when we and we detail in the plan uh how exactly we would um evaluate that.

Okay.

Um and then uh could you just speak.

Uh we have uh representative from Thornton Creek Alliance, they've obviously been deeply involved in this uh sub-area for decades.

Um could you just speak to uh kind of some of the the engagement, some of the uh feedback you've heard and responses to any of that feedback?

Sure.

Uh yeah, so we had uh a few different phases of uh engagement.

Uh we had our big more visioning uh high-level priorities uh engagement that I referenced earlier.

We had where we had a a couple a little less than a couple thousand participants in total, uh you know, uh helping us set our initial direction to find the themes of the plan, and that that included uh a lot of our um uh you know partner community groups like the Thornton Creek Alliance.

Um and and then uh later on in the process, uh more more towards the end when the public draft plan was uh being released.

Um yeah, we we reached out to these organizations, shared a copy of the plan, encouraged them to provide comment.

And I think we got uh I think maybe 10 or 12 letters um uh I don't know off the top of my head, but some around there um uh from uh these organizations and we yeah, we take all those comments uh seriously and and try to figure out like which uh uh made sense to um incorporate into changes that we make in the plan.

And we we did we did make uh a few um uh but obviously there's a lot of uh uh you know opinions about um about what should be in the plan or not.

So uh not 100% of those, but that's that's how we incorporated them.

Um thank you.

And and um just a couple more questions.

Um this sort of relates to kind of the how to mitigate the impacts of I-5, but also um just how to address sort of the the vast amounts of kind of impervious surfaces uh devoted to parking and you know, you I heard you mention deep having a little uh where practical.

Could you just talk about sort of um how you think about that from a planning perspective and you know what we would need to do to sort of make that more of a uh reality, you know, after we finish the planning perspective?

Sure.

Yeah, so uh in Northgate, uh that's actually um I think a little more straightforward than it might be in other centers because of its state of transition and and and redevelopment.

If we uh you know, if we work uh quickly and and strategically, we can't we have an opportunity here to uh make changes to our to our land use regulations that you know encourage uh the these on the private side these redevelopments to accommodate a lot of those goals.

So whether that's uh you know, I mean I I don't I want to I don't want to commit necessarily just like specific uh regulations, but like just for example, you know, those those min block corridors and what appears in those, how how big they are, uh what kind of gathering spaces they offer, if any, but but also you know, there's um pathways through our uh zoning code to to ask for um open spaces in in different uh in different ways um that that we've used throughout the city and other centers and beyond uh as well.

So uh and uh that that would uh uh I think that that could that could come in a lot of different shapes that could come on like you know um privately owned public spaces or or opportunities for uh acquisitions or something like that.

There's a lot of uh ways to do that.

I think that's so I think Northgate is is is pretty well positioned to to handle that.

Yeah.

Okay, wonderful.

And um, I mean, could you just talk about in terms of like timing after kind of sub-area plan, what would the next steps be in terms of you know, uh trying to develop those regulations or make that more of a reality?

Sure.

Um so with Northgate, we're at we're actually already uh kind of starting to hit the ground running a little bit here with with some of our uh ideas that might take a little longer or that we want to make sure we get uh in the door before uh you know a lot of that redevelopment takes place and we miss that that window.

So I I mentioned the the land use code changes uh around mid block corridors.

That that's something we're already working on.

Um obviously they're through different avenues uh of uh uh uh making changes to uh uh the the zoning code throughout uh the the center um through the recommendations that are made in the future land use map that feature in the plan.

Obviously we have a uh multi-phase um comp comprehensive plan zoning implementation work that's happening concurrently and that's uh works in tandem with the recommendations uh in this plan.

So that's that's an ongoing thing.

And then I mentioned that we're um yeah, we're working on the uh trying to find a location for the for the food forest.

Um and uh and yeah, I think it kind of depends.

The the the plan produces a lot of recommended action steps.

Uh some will uh you know take a long time to identify like what the best opportunity, uh, but but I think there will there are um some that are uh a little bit uh more low-hanging fruit that we can accomplish in the in the in the shorter term, just like the the three that I uh mentioned.

So and and and the um if you if you go into the plan, there is uh a couple different lists of projects that might help uh a reader to orient themselves to uh what some of those projects might be.

Um there's a there uh as the a list of uh action uh uh actions that are like our most like tangible um pieces of policy uh from from the plans that that are included in all of the plans.

Um and then there's also um uh transportation project list that's required by PSRC that uh SDOT um produced uh as I mentioned with a lot of inspiration from the Seattle Transportation Plan, but also uh inspired by some extra um engagement that they did in specifically in Northgate during this planning process.

So those are um and those I think uh are uh labeled by you know like sh short medium long-term types of investments and cost and things like that.

So that's I think that's a good way for a reader to figure that out.

Okay.

Thank thank you.

And I guess uh just sort of for from my own sort of uh uh big picture here is it sounds like we have some important updates to uh to yes, allow more housing, but also to make it sort of uh a greener, more pedestrian friendly, more uh bike friendly, some um uh indigenous uh uh sort of elements um planning elements to this.

And um until we sort of move forward with both the sub-area plan and then the related development relay regulations that there could be uh you know development that occurs under our current zoning and rules that would sort of um you know that that doesn't have those elements to it.

Um and so um look look forward to uh continuing uh it's it's sort of exciting to reimagine.

I mean, there's just such an incredible opportunity up in this area, I think.

Um, you know, I I think that about the history of this area with Northgate Mall, one of the first uh uh, if not like the first sort of suburban type mall with just vast fields of parking and sort of the harm that occurred um from that and and the potential that we have to to reimagine this area for um again, sort of a a more dense, walkable, green um affordable uh neighborhood.

And uh so look forward to to that work, look forward to continuing to gauge with with the neighborhood, including um, of course, the the Thornton Creek Alliance, which again has been an incredible partner for decades up um up in that neighborhood.

So thank you and look forward to the next presentation.

Thanks.

A little transition and I might have to be a little bit more than a little bit.

Sorry, Chair.

I didn't get my hand up there fast enough for the next time.

Sorry, Vice Chair, yes.

No problem.

Um just want to thank uh the team for putting this together.

You know, when I was growing up, most of Northgate were parking lots.

It's nice to see that there's more tree canopy along and daylighting of the creek since you know 20 years ago, but we've got a lot more work to do.

So I just really wanted to appreciate our public commenter for coming in and making sure to hold our feet to the fire about increasing the canopy at what has you know.

This was one of the few springs in Seattle.

There it's been a long time connection point.

That's why we just landmarked the park on the other side of the freeway, which is not technically in this regional center, but you know, just to say that Northgate has been an important place historically since time of memorial, and it's important that we continue to work to repair the concrete you know damage that we've done so that we're able to both increase our jobs and our housing and our transit and also increase uh the restoration to the area that we have disturbed so much in just such a short period of time.

So just wanted to say thank you and uh looking forward to the rest of the conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Strauss.

Couldn't agree more.

All right, so transitioning to the downtown regional center plan.

Um I think is a uh transitioning to that from the Northgate Center plan is a um helpful kind of illustration of why we do um sub-area planning.

Um right, these two areas are uh designated both as regional centers and our comprehensive plan and and have policies related to them in that plan.

However, they are very different contexts with um very different histories and very different um kind of uh needs and constituencies.

So I'll dig into the Northgate or the downtown regional center plan.

Um and as we've introduced uh Erica Bush is joining me.

Um she uh stewarded this plan through most of its um uh history at OPCD.

Um so I'm very thankful to for for her to join us and answer any questions, um, any more in-depth questions.

Um so I don't I don't need to uh really introduce the downtown regional center um to all of you.

I we are in downtown right now.

Um we all uh know and love downtown.

Um but just in terms of how we define it um kind of geographically in the comprehensive plan and our regional center plan.

Um you can see the boundaries are are the waterfront, um north to Denny, um south to the international district and pioneer square, um, and mainly uh bounded on the east by I-5.

Um we all know it's the kind of regional heart of our uh of the Puget Sound area um in terms of housing, employment, uh, transportation and culture.

Um and it's a it is not one distinct center, it's a collection of uh five distinct neighborhoods, as well as um several um you know specific districts um and identities.

So we're very careful in the plan to um engage uh geographically throughout the um throughout the center, as well as speak specifically to the needs and and gaps and assets in each specific neighborhood and area uh within the plan.

So again, uh very uh kind of similar approaches to uh equitable engagement for the downtown regional center with the idea of being um very intentional, intentional of reaching out to um historically under uh represented groups through different uh opportunities like pop-up events, public workshops, uh surveys, um, uh artist-led interviews, use using our racial equity toolkit.

Um we also similarly released released a draft plan for public comment and incorporated um comments uh into the final plan that you have now for consideration.

Oh, sure, thanks.

Um again, I won't read the the full vision, but this is um kind of the statement that uh grounds the the five themes that you'll see in the plan and and kind of the overall uh vision statement for the downtown center.

Again, I won't read the full vision, but this is kind of the statement that grounds the five themes that you'll see in the plan and kind of the overall vision statement for the downtown center.

Those five themes, similar to Northgate, we sort of shying away from the more topic descriptive chapters like transportation and housing and more bringing those things together based on what we heard from the community and the vision that they articulated for us for downtown.

So first is downtown is home, really focusing on housing growth, affordability and supporting families.

Make downtown safe and welcoming, both thinking about safety as well as belonging and open space and culture.

Make use of every square foot, thinking about jobs, retail, adaptive reuse, and economic vitality.

That's talking about climate, indigenous stewardship and resilience, and then find our way, transportation, streets, wayfinding, and accessibility.

There's 16 specific projects that are discussed.

And they kind of again bring together those the five themes in a way that you can kind of view and see with ideas to prioritize people and designing our public spaces and rights of way to make sure everyone feels safe and welcome.

Supporting and designing key commercial corridors to support culture, community, and economic opportunity.

Focusing on navigation, particularly for populations like children, older adults, and people with disabilities.

The plan really points towards embracing and embracing the waterfront and the waterfront edge throughout the plan, but also focusing on kind of green connections and clear site lines, and then advancing station area planning that supports additional housing.

So you can kind of see those like those two hubs that we're really thinking about the Westlake Hub and the South Downtown Hub as we move towards some really some nearer term opportunities for additional planning and housing.

So the first theme and really kind of a core component of the downtown plan as a whole and the direction that you know, I think from the community and we really heard resounding support for is the idea of downtown as home.

So really working to transition and support additional housing downtown.

The plan calls for uh 13,500 new housing units by 2044.

And to do that, we want to make sure that we're preserving and expanding housing across income levels, as well as evolving downtown as a neighborhood, as a set of neighborhoods that actually that really meet diverse resident needs of people who live there now and future residents.

So that includes several policies and actions around using things like incentive zoning and um and redevelopment tools to advance um housing and conversion, conversion of existing stock or buildings to meet those needs.

Um again, also exploring key opportunities for station area redevelopment, um, especially when we think about uh the need for family scale housing.

So make downtown safe and welcoming.

Uh this involves both uh thinking about safety for everyone at all hours in our public spaces, as well as creating that uh welcoming and inclusive public realm that includes expanding parks and green space and celebrating downtown's history and culture.

Um so things like investing in new public space as well as stewarding the spaces that we have, um, specific safety strategies that that pair that physical or environmental design with social service coordination and then weaving culture and heritage preservation into our public realm investments.

Making use of every square foot again, so the downtown plan calls for uh planning for 60,000 net new jobs over the next 20 years, and to do that, uh we really need to look at how are we using the space that we have now between existing um parking lots, uh vacant land, vacant structures, um so this theme includes strategies to activate um some of those properties, supporting um new uh legacy and small businesses, um, really uh supporting and um our creative industry uh through visibility and space initiatives, um, and thinking again about adaptive reuse and mixed use repositioning of existing buildings.

So this theme includes strategies to activate some of those properties, supporting new uh legacy and small businesses, really uh supporting and um uh our creative industry uh through visibility and space initiatives um and thinking again about adaptive reuse and mixed use repositioning of of existing buildings.

I'm gonna move this really quick.

No, okay, there we go.

Like I can't see.

Okay.

Theme four, uh stewarding our home for the next seven generations.

Um this is about connecting people to nature, caring for our natural resources, reducing fossil fuel reliance, and building resilience to natural disasters and climate change.

Um and so in downtown, um, that includes using a foundation of indigenous-led design principles and multi-generational environmental responsibility, um, thinking about uh our seismic resilience and uh URM resources, um, as well as green infrastructure and uh recovering and expanding our tree canopy downtown uh as well as equal waterfront ecological restoration.

And last but not least, uh find our way is really um our again our transportation focused theme, thinking about uh people-oriented public spaces, rethinking street space, uh making travel safe and comfortable, um, celebrating indigenous culture, cultural history through the transportation system and building sustainable and legible mobility.

Um so things like rebalancing existing street right-of-way, uh, enhancing our wayfinding and accessibility investments, things like hill climb assists, seating and shade, it uh advancing the Seattle Transportation Plan projects uh for multimodal corridor and safety projects.

Jesse spoke a lot about that in the Northgate plan.

There is also a um uh Seattle Transportation Plan project list for downtown.

Um, and then street design uh to additionally support economic activity, things like activated frontages, event ready corridors, uh things like that.

So uh again, each regional center plan includes a future land use map.

Um we really found in um looking at downtown there is a lot of existing capacity.

Um, and so this is maybe less of a traditional future land use maps map, and instead it identifies um downtown specific place types and districts and provides guidance um for how we want to um approach each area.

Um it does introduce the waterfront as a distinct district.

Again, it's not you know it's not renaming um any existing neighborhoods, but more more so focusing on what is the type of development we want to see in the waterfront area, um, and how do we want to see that area grow and change now that that we've seen the the investment that we have.

Um so it does uh dis the plan discusses height and density increases near uh the civic campus and transit hubs, again, those opportunities for station area planning, uh protecting view corridors and and um maintaining a lower scale near Pike Place Market, uh thinking about adaptive reuse and emphasizing that in places like the Pioneer Square, as well as um studying an anti-displacement approach in places like the um CID.

And so this is also this is um uh similar to both plans, our implementation approach and kind of uh how these plans will move forward over the next 20 years.

Uh each plan has this implementation matrix that identifies for each action a city steward as well as partners and an anticipated um kind of timeline.

So overall, OPCD will remain the plans champion, um, but similar to how we've developed the plans, uh we'll be working in very close collaborative collaboration with all of our interdepartmental partners and and working with them to uh implement uh the activities that are distributed across all of those departments and agencies.

Um we're planning now for 20 years in the future.

Uh we don't necessarily know all of the things that will happen in 20 years, just like we didn't predict COVID-19 or the impact that that would have on um on downtown.

So the idea is that these are um living implementation roadmaps as uh kind of priorities and resources change uh with the city where you know the plans are are developed to be you know re-sequenced and and different actions brought to the surface as um funding and partnerships and opportunities evolve.

And I think that's the that's the end of our presentation on downtown and and the regional centers.

So before we transition to the manufacturing and industrial centers, let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Okay, colleagues.

Any questions.

Again, I I have a few um questions and just reflections.

Um, but uh just giving uh one more second for colleagues.

Um just thinking about the downtown.

Obviously, it's uh quite diverse area with the the five areas.

We've got the CID, Pioneer Square, we've got three different city council districts, we've got our citywide folks who represent this area, um, but um so unique issues with each um kind of distinct part of downtown.

But um one thing that just sort of uh caught my attention is the the planning for 60,000 additional jobs, and you know, just thinking about the the history of our city and um what has really sort of driven in uh the transformation of our city was it's that those jobs, uh the tech sector, right?

And um, but we are seeing this major sort of um you know change in that industry.

We we see office vacancies uh quite high.

Um I don't know for from my perspective, it's a little bit hard to predict what's gonna happen um with with AI, with the job sector, with the office uh sector.

Could you just talk a little bit about um you know how that's um you know playing out in your thinking, what sort of flexibility do we have depending upon um you know it depending on what's happening in the economy.

Yeah, I'm happy to start that.

So I think you're absolutely right.

There's only so much that we can control in the work that we do.

You know, what we can help is to create an environment that's induced conducive to economic growth and to liveability.

And what this plan really tried to center on was creating a much more diverse and engaging downtown that was inspiring for folks to develop and to come here.

I think what we just saw with FIFA, what we've seen over time is that we sometimes forget how incredible our city is and how much of an incredibly beautiful, walkable, accessible environment we have here.

And the fact of the matter is we've leaned in really hard on that tech sector, and we do need to diversify.

It doesn't create a resilient economy.

And what you will see in the section, the economic section of this plan is talking about how if we don't sort of pause and take note of the need to diversify, we put ourselves in a really risky place.

And we've heard a lot from folks throughout the planning that they want a diverse city.

Artists want to work downtown, educators want to work downtown, the maritime industry wants to continue to function and thrive downtown.

We have an incredible design and architectural culture here.

We have industries basically that cover every spectrum, and we need to encourage growth in all of those sectors versus kind of leaning into just one.

And I think that will continue to help Seattle thrive and actually become what the plan defines as our largest residential hub as well as just job growth.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, um, if there's no other questions or comments from colleagues, um pass it over to Jim Bob.

I don't know if they said they're gonna be here.

Thank you.

I am ready.

I am having trouble.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yep.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Okay, yeah.

Could um could you go ahead and introduce yourself for the record and please go ahead and get started when you're ready.

Yeah, uh, Jim Holmes, senior planner with Office of Planning and Community Development.

I'm here to give you a presentation on both of the manufacturing industrial center plans.

Before I do that, I really want to talk about a little bit about the industrial maritime strategy.

And these plans are an implementation action of that strategy.

That strategy was something that was initiated in 2019.

It was informed by a very strong interdepartmental team and a 60 plus community stakeholder group, including representatives from industry, property owners, agencies, such as supportive Seattle and Sound Transit, other groups like the Georgetown Community Council, Transportation Choices Coalition, Dormish Valley River Cleanup Coalition.

And there are four neighborhood subgroups focusing on Ballard, Inner Bay, the Soto area and Georgetown South Park.

They also included a component of engagement with BIPOC youth about how to assess these job opportunities in these sectors.

And finally, we had very detailed outreach to the South Park and Georgetown communities.

And in June 2021, this advisory council adopted a set of consensus recommendations.

I'll share those with you in a moment.

In 2022, some initial budget actions to begin implementing key features of the strategy, including uh funding around workforce development programs, environmental remediation, standing up a stewardship entity, which uh we know today is the Sound Industrial Alliance, um, funding for transportation studies in the mix.

And in 2023, the council adopted a package of landmark legislation that really represented the largest reform of our industrial land use regulations in about 30 years.

Um it included also a set of comprehensive plan policies for industrial land use that were adopted in 2023 and reaffirmed with the one Seattle plan adoption last fall.

Um another implementation has been the master planning around the Wasca site, and I'll talk about that on the next slide.

And um finally the manufacturing industrial center plans.

So the advisory council recommendations outlined 11 broad strategies.

Under investment strategies was investments in workforce development and training, public safety partnerships, transportation investments, um, environmental initiatives, in terms of land use strategies, stronger protections for industrial land, encouraging dense industrial development around future transit stations, healthier transition areas between industrial and non-industrial areas, uh no new residential uses.

Um there are some obvious uh exceptions in there, but generally speaking, no new residential uses.

Um there were some community goals in the Georgetown and South Park neighborhood.

We were able to advance through this process.

In terms of action strategies, there were two large parcels uh in the mix, and one's in BinMick, Ballard Inner Bay North End Manufacturing Industrial Center, the other one is in the DeWamish Mick, and those are the Wasca site and the Armory National National Guard Armory site in Inner Bay.

They are owned by the state of Washington.

Umdeveloped, the armory site will be once the National Guard relocates.

Uh so that we have incorporated in the plan that in the future we will be doing some master planning in partnership with the state to determine what happens on those large parcels, and finally standing up the stewardship energy, which is an important part to help us work with the industrial community.

So let's talk about the sub-area plans.

And that's the earlier presenters said it's required for recertification of the manufacturing industrial centers, and it's important for continued federal financing uh of transportation projects.

Um the chapters in both the plans are the same.

There's a vision statement, land use chapter, transportation chapter, economic development chapter, environment chapter, and public services chapter.

When you read the plan, they are already it's this is a little bit how it's organized.

Each chapter has an overview and background information.

It's very descriptive.

Then we have a discussion a section discussing key challenges and opportunities related to that topic area.

And finally, we have goals and policies.

The goals in both plans are the same, and many of them are already being advanced through citywide comprehensive plan policies, other citywide functional plans like the Seattle Transportation Plan or the Climate Action Plan, um, or other regulations.

And so when you see a goal in the plan, you will see a description of the other activities that the city is doing to advance that goal.

And then we will have MIC specific policies to advance that goal below that.

So I'm going to quickly run through the chapters and do some policy highlights.

So for land use, key opportunities and challenges.

So that is sound transit, light rail station integration within the MIC, and residential encroachment.

In the BINMIC, future redevelopment of the Inner Bay Armory is a major opportunity.

And we really want to maintain irreplaceable water dependent uses in Salmon Bay.

That is a very important maritime ecosystem that once lost probably will be lost forever.

Within the Greater Dewamish MIC, the Wasca site.

Ensuring Seattle's Container Port maintains a vital economic engine going into the future.

We really need to pay attention to Georgetown and South Park adjacencies to ensure that there aren't disproportionate share of impacts being suffered in those communities.

Look at the opportunities with reconnect South Park.

There's potential to create new industrial land, actually, with some of those scenarios.

And ensuring stadium district compatibility with the MiC.

So the land use goals for both MICs in 20 years.

The MICs will be defined by a strong presence of industrial activity, predictable land uses, transit that supports and is compatible with industrial activity, and that there's healthy transitions between industrial and non-industrial areas.

Land use policy highlights guidance on armory master planning.

So there's policy criteria about what a master plan should look like on the National Guard Armory site.

The same is true for the WASCA site.

There's some parts of Seattle that have industrial zoning that play an important maritime use that are outside the BIMIC or outside the Duwamish MIC.

We would like to study the potential of including them in the BINMIC.

I'm talking about the area on Southeast Lake Union.

We want to avoid citing major new land uses that would disrupt the functionality of critical rail and truck infrastructure links to water dependent uses.

One-time boundary, this is a big one.

Both plans allow for a one-time city-led boundary adjustment for future sound transit stations.

The intent there is that whatever is done is done in a comprehensive, non-piecemeal way, and we offer criteria for that one-time adjustment.

For example, in the BINMIC, there has to be no net loss of industrial land.

That there be no housing in the station area overlay district, and that a working group be established to guide future planning within the station overlay district and adjacent areas.

Common to both MICs, maintaining the freight network, integrating sound transit stations, making and improving a safe active transportation network and ensuring travel time reliability of the freight network.

Unique to the BINMIC is also the maintaining the viability of 15th Avenue corridor, including the Ballard Bridge, and East-West connectivity in Inner Bay.

Within the DeWamish MIC, Reconnect South Park, that is a potential challenge that we need to monitor to understand its potential impacts on freight movement.

Transportation goals for both MICs in 20 years.

There will be a high efficiency use of limited rights of way and a robust freight network that will have strong intermodal connections and that there will be an active transportation network safely coexisting with the freight network.

Policy highlights include new street typologies within the urban industrial and industry and innovation zones.

These are zones where we expect much more pedestrian activity in the future.

And so we want to ensure freight can move safely and pedestrians can move safely.

We want to improve last mile connections between the transit stations and employment locations within both MICs.

Resurface and improved roadways and approaches to Smith Cove and Salmon Bay that are in substandard conditions.

This is really an issue in the BINMIC.

Improve visibility of pedestrian and bike riders to truck and car drivers.

Seek to separate active transportation facilities from freight facilities.

The economic development chapter, key challenges and opportunities common to both MICs, encroaching land uses, the light rail stations, which comes across in many of these almost all of these chapters.

Emerging maritime innovations, so we'll keep that industry cutting edge.

And climate change and uh how that impacts particularly the water dependent areas.

Within the uh BinMek, we also want to support the brewery district and looking forward once again to the Inter Bay Armory Redevelopment as a modern industrial project.

And the Greater Duwamish MIC, as far as economic development, Seattle's container port is the big story there, and we really want to maintain its presence.

Goals for both MICs in 20 years.

There will be a strong presence of industrial maritime sectors and the living wage jobs they provide, which is really the motivator for all of this work.

That there be equitable access to those living wage jobs, that these areas are home to our merging subsectors of the industrial and maritime economy, and that around light rail stations, we have high density employment anchored by industrial activity.

Policy highlights include support for the Ballard Brewery District, uh raising awareness of maritime sector careers in locational training programs, high schools and middle schools, ensure major public works are designed to reserve the functionality and operation of maritime and industrial operations, encourage new resident industrial projects in your residential areas to offer job training and insurp internship opportunities to the local workforce.

And to continue to work with stakeholders to support maritime sector innovations to ensure a thriving and modern container port operation.

And finally, in the environment and open space chapter, common uh opportunities, challenges include both areas feature substantial amount of contamination, historic contamination and fill, sea level rise also affects both areas, and uh improving bike trail trail connectivity for that active transportation network.

Uh within the BINMIC, uh the Inner Bay Armory is also an environmental challenge given its location and its history.

And uh the combined sewer overflow, that's a great opportunity.

That's uh investment in the BIMIC that's been completed.

Um, in the Duwamish MIC, uh environmental justice issues, particularly related to South Park and Georgetown communities that are adversely impacted by industrial activity in that area, and water quality on the Duwamish River.

In 20 years, our goal will be that we will be we'll have rehabilitated environmentally critical areas, that new projects will be characterized by innovative stormwater management practices, that there's a high quality network of open spaces and trails, that we'll we will avoid environmental impacts on vulnerable populations, that we will reduce greenhouse gases, and once again we will have innovative green building practices in new development.

Um policy highlights include include encouraging shoreline restoration, assisting operators of vessels and the fishing fleet and other maritime companies based in Salmon Bay and Ali Bay to transit transition over time to alternative fuels, incentivize, encourage mass timber construction, use publicly owned remnant spaces for open space to serve nearby residents and workers, work with property owners along shorelines that are uh impacted by sea level rise to coordinate public-private investments uh to protect inland areas, and expand electric electric transportation and maritime and marine infrastructure, including expansion of electrical shore power and charging infrastructure for heavy duty equipment and freight.

And that is a presentation on the MIC plans, and happy to take any questions.

Okay.

Colleagues, Vice Chair Strauss.

Okay, thanks so much, Jim.

Great work.

Uh colleagues, you may or may not know.

Jim and Jeff Wetland are the two folks from OPCD, amongst many others, and now Naomi Lewis also works at OPCD, but the three of them and Chase Kitchen really got the maritime and industrial plans passed in 2023 after so many years of stakeholdering.

And so this is good to see this back today.

And Jim, thank you for the in-depth meeting as well as the comparison policy chart.

Uh just wanted to share a couple.

Well, I'll share some background just about the space that we're talking about in Bin MiC specifically, Duwamish as well.

Which is the Salmon Bay, the Ballard in the Ballard Bin MiC.

Is the closest freshwater port to the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea?

The importance of it is why we have the North Pacific fishing fleet there.

We have the largest domestic producer of seafood in the United States, headquartered in Salmon Bay, Trident Seafoods.

I can't really stress the importance of our maritime and port lands enough.

And I say that because one third of our sales and use tax comes from the maritime and industrial zones.

And so in good time, good economic times, some folks overlook them, and in bad economic times, they are the only ones buoying us through the storm.

And so just wanted to jump in here.

Actually, if you could go back to slide seven, I think it is a very descriptive slide of uh Dravis area of Inner Bay.

Something that folks may or may not know is that this was a tide land.

It was there has been uh indigenous population in Salmon Bay since time immemorial, and the tide land that is now a rail yard uh an industrial zone is was this picture right here.

So, what you see in the foreground are the net sheds on Salmon Bay, and in the far ground, you see the cruise ship terminal.

This area used to all be tide land that was the food access for the indigenous community living in Salmon Bay.

Here you see it today.

And what is striking to me about this photo is when you look at it from the side from the sky, it looks all very well connected.

You know, Magnolia is very close to Queen Anne, Salmon Bay is very close to Elliott Bay.

But our built environment has created a lot of barriers here, and I really appreciate you, Jim, bringing this up.

In this map, you see one bridge crossing the train tracks right there.

That's the Dravis Bridge.

It is already too small.

Uh what you see, there used to be an armory street bridge crossing the train tracks here.

And then in the foreground, you see the causeway of the Ballard Bridge, which could, if improved, create a much better connection between Queen Anne, the port facilities there, Fisherman's Terminal, and the Ballard area.

And so, you know, when I look at this area, you you also actually here you see a golf course there.

It's on top of a former dump landfill.

Um, and if you squint real real hard, you can see the storms practice facility.

If you squint even harder, you can see the inner bay stadium where national champion Salmon Bay FC won the national championship right there.

We've got Ballard FC hot in the playoffs.

They play tomorrow at 3 p.m.

And you also see in the far left corner the pickle in the palms, the new pickleball court.

And what folks may or may not know is the owner of that property was the host of the most recent uh RV safe lot that it's been closed so long that they've built a building.

We were supposed to open a new RV safe lot before that one closed, and yet Glassyards Commons still is not open.

Sorry, on the Ballard Bridge Causeway, you also see that big loop de loo over there on the left-hand side.

That creates a lot of disconnect.

All of this creates a lot of disconnection for the human experience through Inner Bay.

It is incredibly important that we, as Jim mentioned, create more connectivity across and through.

Uh, and then you know, looking at all of the sports activity that's going on right here.

I I do think that we need to start looking at how do we support that vibrancy that national champions, Salmon Bay FC, national champions, Ballard FC, the most winningest team in Seattle's history, the Seattle Storm, how we promote these and really placemake to support all of these excellent attributes of our industrial zone.

So I just want to thank you for letting me wax poetic a little bit there about the importance of you know the fisherman's terminal.

You see those net sheds right there, that is the home of the North Pacific fishing fleet, and then across the train tracks, the importance of our sport, the vibrancy of our sports community here in Inner Bay.

Something that um just kind of strikes me, and uh I guess that's the end of me needing that slip that picture to show there.

Uh, I do appreciate some of the amendments that have been put in about the light rail uh station area planning.

Ballard light rail's not dead.

We're gonna get it done.

And when we do, we need to have our land use because it the light rail station in at Dravis is dead smack in the middle of the industrial zone, and up on 15th and market is it's on the very edge of the industrial zone.

And so we do need to be flexible and at the same time we need to have no net loss of industrial zones during those stationary placements because in the 2023 zoning updates for maritime and industrial areas, we provided a new level of flexibility for industrial zones surrounding light rail stations, in addition to relaxing the housing require uh relaxing the housing bans inside of the industrial zones completely uh by just a little bit uh for the ones that are right along the water for a little bit more for the ones that aren't, and then the industrial buffer zones allowed a lot more housing.

And so I just say that as we do the station area planning, we've made those important land use changes to our industrial zone, and if we need to exchange properties so that there's no net loss, I see that as being important.

One thing that you'll hear me talk about both in the comp plan, you know, throughout the comp plan throughout our disposition policies for the city-owned land, is our need to do better with recognizing tribal sovereignty.

And so, Jim, I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about how the Bin MiC and the Duwamish MIC plans in particular can better support our federally recognized tribes who may have trust land within the city.

For those viewing right now, trust land is a specific legal designation of land uh owned by federally recognized tribes, and that designation is through the federal government.

And so I do think that we we need to be a little bit more uh we might need to make one ad there.

So, Jim, I'd love to follow up with you about that.

And just really appreciate all sorry, I was checking my notes.

I've been looking through all your policies here.

I just want to really appreciate also the understanding that the Bin MiC does extend maybe non-contiguously into Lake Union.

It's really incredibly important that we preserve our maritime industry here, especially in Salmon Bay, as I said, it's the closest freshwater port to the Gulf of Alaska in the Bering Sea, which means that it is the safest and least destructive place to somebody's vessel to get work done and to over the winter stay here in calm fresh water.

So all that to say, Jim, thank you to you and Jeff uh for all your work.

I look forward to following up with you about some of these uh additions that I may bring.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Vice Chair Strauss.

Really appreciated uh the in-depth uh look at uh the inner bay area.

When I could I give one more thing, sorry, Chair.

Of course.

I might even be wild enough to ask if I can share screen just because we uh discussed the armory site.

Yeah.

And yeah, let's see.

If you've got if you're able to see if it works, let's see if it works here.

Give me just one second.

I just wanted to bring up the um armory site because uh Jim did mention that it will be up for redevelopment.

Yeah, and I discussed it a little bit about the tide lands that are existing that used to exist there.

And when we were filling in Inner Bay in the 1930s, the armory site was one of the last places to be filled in, which is why the state government got it.

And so here is the 1936 aerial photograph of the city of Seattle.

We're gonna zoom right in here into and you can see here Salmon Bay at that time, the timber capital of the world.

Um, but here is the inner bay area.

You can see the dump here, which is now the golf course.

Uh, here you see the port terminals.

But this is the exact outline of our armory site today.

And you can see it is underwater, and so I just share that with you because across all of in most of uh the inner bay area, you can see here uh where the tide lands are.

These are all this was also under tide land.

Here we have Smith Cove Park now.

Um these are all actually Smithfield Park is right here underneath the bridge where there was shorefront housing at that time.

So I just share that with you because I do believe that it is important that as most of our industrial land is built on fill, that we have to be careful about what we place there, not only for sea level rise, but also for uh the liquefaction, because we know that when you build in places like this, the pilings have to be very deep.

Um this is one of the reasons why the National Guard is moving is because it is they base their emergency operations out of there.

And if they're underwater during an emergency, they're not going to be able to help very many people.

And I just think that we we need to keep that in consideration as we are looking at the Bin MIC there in Intervay.

Thank you for letting me take you on my uh aerial view tour.

And thank you.

How old was that uh image from 1936?

1936.

Uh thank you.

Thank you.

I love love geeking out on the history, Vice Chair Strauss.

Umly 19 years after Ballard was uh forcibly annexed by the city of Seattle.

Um so uh I'll just share a little bit.

Um when I first moved here in 1998, our our first apartment was right off Dravis's 14th and Dravis, right there.

Used to love to uh explore fisherman's terminal, that whole area, and um just this weekend got uh I don't make it up to the locks very often, um, but I got to enjoy the locks this Sunday with uh with my mom wanted to show her and just an incredible history there, and it was fun to look at um they were looking at exploring different places to do the locks, and they had all these different um options.

Um, and one of them I think was through uh through Enterbay, one was through like South Lake Union, right through down to all these different uh potential.

Um, but it's just it's incredible to you know think about how much we have uh changed the landscape.

Uh and for me, it's just as we reflect on this comprehensive plan.

Um, you know, uh this this area has been um there are very few areas that are undisturbed or unchouched.

We have just completely uh changed uh so many parts of of the landscape.

And so how can we, in a sense, sort of unearth, how can we kind of um reimagine um and and do better as part of this next phase?

So I I think you know that to your point, councilman uh vice chair Strauss, you know, looking at that armory um and sort of the history there and what was there before and and it can we um do anything that would sort of honors and respects some of that that history um and certainly would be interested in in the idea of trust land, so would love to uh work on that with you.

Um also think you know, um just uh to uh the incredible incredible importance of these maritime industrial to to our economy to making sure that as we were talking about downtown, um the the importance of a diverse economy, as you mentioned, um and I do think um too often um maritime industrial kind of gets overlooked um in terms of the importance to our uh local economy just because it's not as flashy um or in the news as some you know our tech sector.

Um but as we think about long-term having a diverse economy, and and just kind of one question.

Um, mentioned climate change.

Um earlier we were talking about sort of the changes, potential the the difficulties of predicting where our economy is gonna go and and sort of like tech and office.

Um could you just speak to um sort of long range, any sort of thoughts about um how the maritime industrial uh in any um bellweth is there, anything that we might need to be just concerned about or thinking about in that injury, uh just broadly.

I mean, we we know there's already some industrial industrial areas near South Park the flood during high tides and storms at the city through many departments is actively working to mediate, but there's some long-term investments that need to be made to protect from sea level rise in those areas so we don't get contamination when they flood industrial sites.

Um other things we talk about in the climate element or the environment and open space element is really the importance of develop better stormwater management practices to protect water quality, uh green building design to reduce and conserve resources used and production and uh transportation and investments in shore power and other electrification of maritime activities uh in terms of bringing down greenhouse gas emissions.

I mean, it's a full package of things that need to be done.

Um specific bell weather, I can't really point to.

Um fair enough.

Okay, thank you so much.

Okay, uh colleagues, any other questions or comments?

Let's see.

I believe that might be is that the end of our presentations for today?

Believe so.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much, everyone.

Uh um, thank you for the presentations, and let's see.

Okay.

If we don't just double checking.

Um, okay, we've reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Um, there's no further business to come before the committee.

Um, we are adjourned at ten fifty nine AM.

Thank you all.