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Seattle City Council wraps a December urbanist package with new street cafe and food truck regulations, and design review exemption for affordable housing

A happy customer and their human friend enjoy the Life on Mars street setup (Image: Life on Mars)

The Seattle City Council approved a slate of legislation Tuesday sure to make the city’s urbanists pleased, unanimously passing one bill hoped to speed the development of affordable housing and another that will help keep outdoor spaces and food trucks a part of Seattle’s vibrant food and drink scene.

CHS reported here on the legislation to exempt affordable multifamily housing developments from the city’s lengthy and expensive public design review process. The legislation is hoped to speed up the approval process to create new low-and-middle-income apartment buildings by moving reviews of the developments into a more streamlined review process conducted by the city.

“This legislation speeds delivery and reduces costs of developing affordable housing. We will continue reforming Design Review to improve the program and streamline bureaucratic functions that slow our ability to bring housing online quickly,” Councilmember Dan Strauss (District 6 – Northwest Seattle), and chair of the council’s Land Use Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday’s vote.

Mayor Bruce Harrell also praised the vote.

The effort will also produce a two-year test with any major development in the city given the option choose to undertake a public review as is currently required or pursue the streamlined administrative design review with public feedback but without public meetings.

Meanwhile in another 9-0 vote, the council passed new rules hoped to continue the pandemic success of street cafes while also reshaping the city’s rules around food trucks and sidewalk merchandise displays.

Tuesday, the council signed off on new fee structures that will make it cheaper for many restaurants and cafes to set up street and patio seating and new rules that “emphasize the public nature of the street” and require cafes to “fit into and enhance” the streetscape while also setting guidelines for structures that are “visually permeable, attractive, durable, graffiti- resistant, and easy to clean and maintain.” The rules also require any street cafe or patio be treated as “public space outside of business hours” and include more structure around full street closures that would continue to allow the motor vehicle closures while adding new requirements like public seating and community programming.

Food trucks are also part of the new regulations as the council vote eliminates the current 50-foot buffer required to keep mobile food vendors away from existing restaurants while also allowing vendors to operate closers to schools and parks, and in non-commercial residential zones of the city.

The new regulations will go into effect in the new year.

 

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zach
zach
1 year ago

CHS reported here on the legislation to exempt affordable multifamily housing developments from the city’s lengthy and expensive public design review process.”

Oh wonderful. Now, new buildings in Seattle (most of them already ugly and cheap-looking) will be even uglier. And developers are cheering because they will make even more money.

Cd resident
Cd resident
1 year ago
Reply to  zach

The wealthier neighborhoods will still find a way to prevent low income housing area. This will impact the cd, rainier valley, Columbia city with ugly poorly built buildings driving homeowners away, allowing for more ugly, poorly built buildings….
This is how neighborhood blight starts.
Still crushing it city council.