From project conception to occupancy, we bring sustainable building expertise, thoughtful analysis, and technical skills to every project, delivering performance and value for clients in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Our sustainability experts assist project teams to articulate building-specific, program-specific, or jurisdictional goals that work for each client.
Our robust skills and inspiring facilitation enable projects to achieve your sustainability goals. Based on feedback from members of the Small Business Advisory Council, I have decided to move the implementation date from July to January and the enforcement date from July to January to ensure businesses have ample time to successfully implement this ordinance.
The proposed Commuter Benefit Ordinance passed my committee on Sept. By allowing employees to reduce their commuting costs and lowering businesses tax liability, the Commuter Benefit Ordinance will save money and can help reduce congestion and carbon emissions. When I think of the sweetened beverage tax, I picture the face of Nora Jenkins. Low-income communities and communities of color bear the burden of poor health outcomes in the city. Communities of color have long been targets of the soda industry, leading to higher rates of consumption, and thus, are paying more of the tax.
For this tax to be fair, revenue must be reinvested into the health of these communities. The board is made up of community members involved in grassroots solutions to food justice issues, and public health and education experts working with low income communities and communities of color. The CAB works collaboratively with the community to make recommendations on where money collected through the tax should go.
The Community Advisory Board will present their recommendations to my committee on Friday at p. Nora Jenkins, right, being interviewed about Fresh Bucks. A lot of vegetables and fruits. My doctor is happy. My body is happy. Fresh Bucks also helps our local farmers and their businesses. Clayton Burrows, Executive Director of Growing Washington, said the farmers market system in Seattle has done a wonderful job promoting and securing funding for Fresh Bucks.
In our society food is really undervalued. In addition, Fresh Bucks is expanding to invest further in community thanks to the Sweetened Beverage Tax. This year, Fresh Bucks has been able to:. I look forward to continuing to support these programs as they grow, to help ensure low-income families and families of color in Seattle have access to healthy food. Last week the city council passed Resolution committing the city to completing certain pieces of the downtown bike network in the next 18 months.
I will be continually monitoring their work to ensure this occurs. I also recognize that certain improvements may come with significant costs because of the existing road design or other existing deficiencies that will need to be addressed. In these instances, if the project is still the best solution to address safety needs, I will also support these projects.
It is important that we not sacrifice the safety of some people simply to save money and we must also be aware that sometimes the cost of doing nothing can be significantly more than a safety investment. This challenge has recently come to light as the city opened a couple of new protected bike lanes in downtown Seattle:. A breakdown of some of the costs were detailed in the Seattle Times two months ago.
This has raised questions such as why some bike lanes cost as much as they do and what is the appropriate amount to invest in safety projects for various roadway users. I want to address both of these questions. First, why are some safety projects so expensive? The context in which we make safety investments plays a huge role in how expensive the projects are. For decades our road system has been designed to move cars, often at the detriment of other road users, and the cost to retrofit that system can be expensive in some circumstances.
In the case of 2nd Avenue, to make that roadway function for all users required a complete upgrade to the traffic signal system that was decades old and in need of being replaced at some point regardless of this project.
Forty percent of the project costs were to cover the signal replacement which was mostly to manage car traffic. When safety projects require broader system upgrades that would ultimately be necessary regardless, it can make those safety projects look more expensive than they would otherwise be.
An alternative example to this are the safety investments made along Pike and Pine streets between 2nd t Ave and 7th Ave. Sometimes decisions that are not directly related to the safety improvement have a cost impact on the project. For example, on Second Avenue, a decision was made to minimize the disruption to Pike Place Market during the summer months by not partially tearing up that road to determine the exact location of other infrastructure.
This was an intentional and well considered decision and it resulted in greater costs to the safety project. The second question I field in my office is also a fair one: what is the appropriate amount to spend on safety improvements? We need to be smart and thoughtful about what are the appropriate investments to make at this time, but it is also critical that we make significant strides to meeting our Vision Zero goals to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by We have a comprehensive strategy to achieve this goal that includes investment in roadway infrastructure to ensure safety for all road users.
In some cases we can make low cost investments that deliver the necessary safety improvements, like we were able to do on Pike and Pine streets. Other times there are significant costs to make the necessary safety improvements, such as was the case on 2nd Ave. Above all, it is also important to recognize that there can be significant costs to not making necessary safety improvements. In the case of 2nd Ave. As we work to make investments so that all road users are safe, we need to be smart in finding the most cost-effective ways to deliver the necessary safety improvements and in some locations there will be projects where it will require significant investments to correct a design that is inherently dangerous.
To meet our Vision Zero goals, I will continue to support safety improvements for all users. In recent years there have been a series of commitments made about specific investments downtown, but many projects have been postponed putting Seattle behind our targets on ridership.
I was joined by advocates from the Seattle Bike Advisory Board , Seattle Neighborhood Greenways , Cascade Bicycle Club and other people who ride bikes to express broad community support for a Bike Network that everyone can feel safe using.
Together we reaffirmed our commitment to establishing a connected, protected bicycle lane network in downtown Seattle. We also restated our commitment to achieve zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries by Seattle City Hall 4th Ave. Councilmember O'Brien left office on December 31, This website is for archival purposes only and is no longer updated.
Hearing Examiner Clears Way for Backyard Cottage Legislation May 15th, Hello, I am excited to share with you some updates about a longtime legislative priority of mine: making it easier to build backyard cottages and basement units. We will be discussing a path forward at the following Sustainability and Transportation committee meetings: I want to share with you two important changes to my original proposal: Floor Area Ratio FAR limits are often used to regulate the size of a building.
Under current regulations, there is not a maximum FAR limit in single-family zones. Under the proposal, a maximum FAR limit would govern the size and scale of development of new homes in single-family zones, along with maximum height limit, maximum lot coverage limit, and yard requirements. More information about the proposed FAR requirement to limit the construction of very large houses i.
McMansions and McModerns , can be found here. Owner occupancy, under current regulations, a property owner is required to occupy either the main house or the accessory dwelling unit ADU for six months of the year.
They cannot rent out both the main house and the ADU. The current proposal would remove the owner-occupancy requirement. I am not convinced that the ownership requirement for a second ADU makes sense at this point and I am asking staff for options to instead include an affordability requirement or a higher level of green building in order to be allowed to build a second ADU. Money well spent. The door was making a slight rumbling sound, but everything was operational. They were quick and helped solved the issue before it became a very expensive fix.
Now, our door is absolutely quiet! Very quick and professional. Work was completed in less time than we thought. Definitely recommend them. Contact Us.
0コメント