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 Looks like it’s all over for the SEPA bill but the day-after news analyses and the explainations and repurposing from councilmembers.

Despite opposition to all or part of the SEPA legialtion from citizens all over Seattle, they did it anyway.  Today City Councilmembers passed Council Bill 116010 8-0.  Hours later Councilmember Tim Burgess’ newsletter arrived in my inbox to explain…

“The Council passed legislation this afternoon that raises [emphasis mine] the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) thresholds for certain projects in the city, but only after amendments I proposed in an earlier committee meeting significantly reduced the scope of the changes originally proposed by the Mayor by limiting them to the city’s six Urban Centers and Station Area Overlay Districts.  Single-family residential neighborhoods outside of the six Urban Centers are not affected by today’s changes. {Emphasis not mine.]”

Read the legislation that passed today here.  The six Urban Centers – Downtown, South Lake Union, Uptown/Lower Queen Anne, First Hill/Capitol Hill, University Community, and Northgate – are shown on this map.”   [Ed Note: Same as the map above, but much more legible.]

In other words, the areas where all the development is concentrated and most of it controlled by large developers, some from cities and countries far from Seattle.  So sure, it makes lots of sense to remove an environmental check on those developers, in those six areas.  Doesn’t it? 

The map above was included in the CB fiscal note, as an attachment (that is, an attachment to an attachment).   It shows the six urban centers where SEPA reviews are now being replaced by the Design Review Board process.  That would be the process that doesn’t include things like parking because who needs parking in dense urban cores?

Interesting.  So is the name “University Community.”  Does anyone know who split the University District and created a  ”University Community”?   Looks like the shaded area on the map is what old surveys call University Heights, not to be confused with the University Heights Community Center that’s in it.

Some people must have special powers.