Post navigation

Prev: (07/19/22) | Next: (07/19/22)

City Council considers resolution to include ‘focus on climate change and resiliency’ in Seattle’s growth plan

(Image: WSDOT)

Seattle’s efforts to update its growth plans will be shaped with a “focus on climate change and resiliency” under a resolution set to be voted on by is city council Tuesday afternoon.

The resolution will help direct the Seattle City Council’s actions around the process to update the city’s comprehensive plan.

CHS reported here on the start of a two-year process, mandated by state law, to update the city’s comprehensive plan as Seattle faces ongoing high demand for housing but is restricted by its current growth “urban village” strategies with new development concentrated in a handful of areas including Capitol Hill and the Central District, leaving the bulk of the city’s land as low-density, single-family neighborhoods.

A housing analysis conducted last year found that Seattle would have needed to produce 9,000 more housing units than it did between 2005 and 2019 just to keep pace with the number of people moving here. To address that shortfall, the city is considering a strategies to add more density.

An effort to include consideration of climate change in comprehensive plan requirements at the state level previously failed in Olympia.

But Seattle could now included the guidance in its own planning. If approved, Tuesday’s resolution could support growth as a strategy for cutting greenhouse emissions. According to a staff summar, the council’s proposed resolution “recognizes the importance of addressing climate change, improving resilience and adaptation to the effects of climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and centering environmental justice as a core part of the update to the City’s plan for growth over the next twenty years.”

Sponsored by Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Dan Strauss, the resolution includes several planks to shape city growth policy including “increasing the amount and diversity of housing and providing amenities near housing to reduce dependence on cars.”

The full text of the proposed resolutions is below:

A RESOLUTION stating The City of Seattle’s intent to address climate change and improve resiliency as part of the One Seattle update to the Comprehensive Plan.

body

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEATTLE, THE MAYOR CONCURRING, THAT:

Section 1. As part of the One Seattle update to the Comprehensive Plan, it is the City’s intent to address greenhouse gas emissions reductions, climate resiliency and adaptation, and environmental justice. City staff is directed to study and develop new and revised goals and policies founded in science that include, but are not limited to, the following:

A. Reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions, and other harmful pollutants that exacerbate climate impacts, including:

1. Reducing per capita vehicle miles traveled within the city limits of Seattle;

2. Increasing the amount and diversity of housing and providing amenities near housing to reduce dependence on cars;

3. Planning for future transportation investments to equitably meet forecasted multimodal transportation demands across the city; and

4. Updating level of service standards for all locally owned arterials, transit routes, and active transportation facilities.

B. Fostering the resilience of natural and human systems to climate impacts and natural hazards, including:

1.  Enhancing the resilience of existing natural areas, including wetlands, riparian areas, and vital habitat for safe passage and species migration;

2. Increasing resilience against natural hazards created or aggravated by climate change, including sea-level rise, landslides, flooding, drought, heat, smoke, wildfire, and other effects of changes to temperature and precipitation patterns;

3. Leveraging investments in natural and “gray” infrastructure to increase climate resiliency and provide co-benefits, such as stormwater management, salmon recovery, and other ecosystem services; and

4. Enhancing tree canopy to reduce airborne pollutants, decrease stormwater runoff, and mitigate urban heat island effects, particularly in residential areas with low canopy coverage.

C. Working toward environmental justice by:

1. Reducing environmental health disparities;

2. Prioritizing work in communities that have experienced disproportionate harm due to air, water, and soil pollution or will disproportionately suffer from compounding environmental impacts and will be most impacted by natural hazards due to climate change;

3. Providing opportunities for communities that have been displaced to return to the city in healthy environments and addressing the needs of those at risk of being displaced; and

4. Incorporating strategies to prevent displacement of vulnerable communities that could result from implementation of measures to address climate change and resiliency.

Section 2. The City should consider the following information when revising and adding to the Comprehensive Plan’s goals and policies:

A. Analysis of climate-related trends to identify current and anticipated impacts, including from the Seattle Hazard Identification and Vulnerability Analysis;

B. Identification of vulnerable populations and assets (including social, cultural, and economic assets);

C. Classification of risks, capital facilities and utilities, and community assets to determine where change is most needed to equitably address climate change, with a specific focus on vulnerable populations;

D. Inventories of air, water, and ground transportation facilities and services, including transit alignments, active transportation facilities, and general aviation airport facilities;

E. Analysis of disparities in health, environmental burden, and access to green space;

F. Identification of natural areas and infrastructure that may be vulnerable to changing environmental conditions; and

G. Identification of environmentally critical areas, including habitat, vital for safe passage and species migration.

 

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.

 

 

 

Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

2 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
d4l3d
d4l3d
1 year ago

Laudable but about 2 decades too late, reducing this to political window dressing with little impact even if every city in the US adopted this now. These are potentially decades long proposals. This is the same thing I see time and again with some deluded notion we still have tons of time.

nic p
nic p
1 year ago

Cities are already highly effective at mitigating climate change. By far the most important measure to enact would be removing caps on density something that would be inline with seattle’s directive. Hopefully this won’t be used as a NIMBY device to further obstruct and delay much needed expansion of Seattle’s residential inventory.