![](https://westseattleblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/encampmentdiscussion-e1423005123529.jpg)
(Screengrab from Seattle Channel webcast of committee meeting; we’ll substitute SC video when available)
Just wrapped up at the City Council’s Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee meeting: The first discussion of the new encampment proposal that emerged from Mayor Murray‘s office.
As mentioned here last Friday, the proposal specifies commercial and industrial areas of the city as possible locations for encampments; there would be a limit of three (not counting any hosted by religious institutions) in the city at any one time, no closer to each other than a mile, no closer to a residentially zoned site than 25 feet, with each encampment having gone through an official permitting process and occupied by no more than 100 people. (See the full list of toplines in the slide-deck PDF.)
The team that briefed councilmembers today was led by Deputy Mayor Hyeok Kim and Department of Planning and Development director Diane Sugimura. Deputy Mayor Kim reiterated multiple times that the intent was not to “aggressively recruit” new encampments/sites, but to find a temporary way to get at least a few hundred more people off the streets. She mentioned the “alarming increase … in unsheltered homeless people on (Seattle’s) streets,” as most recently documented in the One-Night Count.
The briefing team said that within a month of the ordinance’s passage, they expect to have a list of city-owned sites that could be considered by groups interested in managing encampments. While, as shown on the zoning map, private sites could be proposed, the city briefers said there was no intent to “recruit” them. Sugimura said DPD would have a “streamlined” permit process so that encampment proposals did not get hung up in endless reviews.
In the public comment period that preceded the committee discussion, many of those commenting identified themselves as affiliated with current encampments and unhappy that the proposal excludes residential-zoned areas from consideration.
The committee didn’t vote; chair Mike O’Brien decided the measure would be discussed again when they next meet on February 20th, which will be less than a week before the 5:30 pm February 26th public hearing devoted exclusively to the proposal. That is expected to be followed by a March 3rd committee vote, with full Council consideration after that.
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