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The City of Seattle
Ordinance
Council Bill
title
An ordinance relating to Council land use decisions; amending Sections 23.76.050, 23.76.062, and 25.05.680 of the Seattle Municipal Code to clarify processes for Council land use decisions.
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Recitals:
In the past several years, Washington State has updated the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) to exempt from administrative appeals various types of local legislative actions.
Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 43.21C.075 allows local jurisdictions to decide whether to provide pre-decision administrative appeals of environmental determinations under SEPA.
The City of Seattle (City) has opted to use an administrative process to consider appeals of SEPA decisions, through the City's Hearing Examiner.
Many jurisdictions that have administrative appeals processes for SEPA decisions, including King County, Bellevue, Tacoma, and Everett, exempt SEPA procedural decisions for legislative actions from administrative appeals.
Washington State has adopted numerous statutes requiring timely updates to the City's land use regulations. The City has been in danger of missing deadlines to update its regulations due to additional time needed for administrative appeals of environmental documents.
The Seattle Hearing Examiner has dismissed administrative appeals of environmental documents on statutory grounds that administrative appeals are not allowed for certain types of regulatory changes, but the consideration of whether an appeal is permitted can take months or more to process.
SEPA does not require jurisdictions to allow administrative appeals of SEPA Determinations of Non-Significance or Environmental Impact Statements.
The Land Use Code requires the development of director's reports for Type IV and V Council land use decisions but does not contemplate Council-sponsored land use decisions.
This bill makes director's r...
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