CITY OF SEATTLE
RESOLUTION __________________
title
A RESOLUTION relating to Council direction on budget and other matters related to the North Precinct capital project (A1PS107).
body
WHEREAS, the state of Washington assigns to charter cities the obligation to provide a chief law enforcement officer (RCW 35A.12.020), and The City of Seattle Charter Article VI, Section 5 has accordingly charged the Chief of Police with the duty of maintaining the peace and quiet of the City; and
WHEREAS, the Seattle Police Department’s North Precinct serves approximately 280,000 residents of Seattle, who represent over 40 percent of the City of Seattle’s population, plus students, in-district hospital visitors, workers, local businesses, and customers; all living, working, and recreating in Council Districts 4, 5, and 6; and
WHEREAS, of the service calls that the Seattle Police Department receives citywide, approximately 30 percent are received from North Seattle; and
WHEREAS, the police officers from the North Precinct respond to a variety of emergencies, including the tragic Café Racer mass shooting in the Roosevelt neighborhood in May 2012; and
WHEREAS, the existing North Precinct facility opened over thirty years ago in 1984 and was intended to house 154 staff; and
WHEREAS, the 1998 Seattle Police Department Long-Range Facilities Plan from the former City of Seattle Executive Services Department noted 18 years ago that the North Precinct facility was at that time already overcrowded by 30 percent; and
WHEREAS, the existing North Precinct currently houses 254 staff, which is 65 percent over its designed capacity; and
WHEREAS, aspects of the existing North Precinct have been repurposed, such as converting the community room into a locker room, to address overcrowding; and
WHEREAS, a 2002 analysis by consulting architects and City staff from the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Utilities, and the former Fleets and Facilities Department determined that the existing facility could only accommodate limited expansion at the current site; and
WHEREAS, consulting architects provided further predesign studies in 2007 and 2012 updating the space and cost needs related to construction of a new North Precinct facility; and
WHEREAS, fire, rescue, and police facilities are essential facilities that are required by the Seattle Building Code to be built to allow first responders to operate during and after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The North Precinct is the only precinct located north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the precinct facility would operate as a stand-alone Precinct Area Command with spaces intended to function in the event of a major citywide disaster; and
WHEREAS, the proposed North Precinct facility will play an important role in fulfilling conditions of the federal consent decree entered into by The City of Seattle in 2012, by providing training space to be used by police officers citywide in order to accommodate new training requirements for a more accountable police force and community meeting space that allows police and the community to interact with each other and build relationships; and
WHEREAS, as a result of the federal consent decree entered into by The City of Seattle in 2012, the Seattle Police Department conducts five times the amount of training compared to the years preceding the imposition of the federal consent decree; and
WHEREAS, the Seattle Police Department shall continue to provide training to its officers at or above the current rate even after The City of Seattle has achieved substantial compliance with the federal consent decree; and
WHEREAS, the proposed North Precinct facility design includes space accessible to the public both in the interior and exterior of the facility, including a community meeting space with a large lobby. The exterior public use elements of the facility are designed for public use consistent with the federal consent decree’s statement that “[e]ffective and constitutional policing requires a partnership between the Police Department, its officers, community members, and public officials”; and
WHEREAS, the Seattle Police Department is committed to utilizing the City’s Racial Equity Toolkit on the design and programmatic spaces of the building in order to construct a facility that meets the spirit of the federal consent decree’s statement above and promotes community trust and engagement, particularly from communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by policing; and
WHEREAS, as indicated in the City’s Memorandum of Understanding entered into with the United States Department of Justice as part of the consent decree, “SPD needs strong community relationships and sustainable dialogue with Seattle’s diverse communities to ensure constitutional and bias-free policing, to closely interact with the community to resolve neighborhood problems, and to increase community confidence in the Department,” all of which are assisted, in part, by the public-space elements of the North Precinct design; and
WHEREAS, by unanimous Council action in 2013, land for the North Precinct project was acquired pursuant to Ordinances 124387, 124390, and 124391; and
WHEREAS, in 2015, the Council approved a total project cost estimate of $160.2 million, which included $14.3 million for land acquisition, $145.1 million for the construction and design of the facility, and $800,000 for public art; and
WHEREAS, in addition to land acquisition costs, the City has expended approximately $4.5 million through July 2016 in design, consultant, and other costs; and
WHEREAS, the Department of Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) and the City Budget Office (CBO) have projected that delay of this project will cost the taxpayers of Seattle approximately $500,000 per month of delay; and
WHEREAS, FAS has indicated that the design of the new North Precinct is at 60 percent design; and
WHEREAS, the North Precinct project used an independent third-party cost estimator to independently verify the cost estimates of the General Contractor/Construction Manager. This independent verification work, completed at the end of the design development phase for the North Precinct project, resulted in a value engineered reduction of over $18 million in the scope of the project; and
WHEREAS, further value engineering that occurred in 2016 at the request of Councilmembers identified an additional $11 million in cost savings, leading to a revised total project cost estimate of $149 million for the North Precinct project; and
WHEREAS, it is anticipated that the facility will have a life expectancy of 50 years and meet the operational needs of the Seattle Police Department for many years to come; and
WHEREAS, the City is committed to providing the 280,000 residents of North Seattle with an effective and efficient precinct that will accommodate population growth and associated public safety needs of the community over the next 50 years and that is responsive to the needs of all communities, including underrepresented communities, and that is mindful of the cost impact to the City’s General Fund; NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEATTLE, THE MAYOR CONCURRING, THAT:
Section 1. In November 2016, the Council intends to appropriate funding for the North Precinct project and approve a total project cost estimate as part of the 2017-2022 Capital Improvement Program. The Department of Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) shall regularly engage an independent third party cost estimator throughout the design process in order to help ensure that the North Precinct project costs are accurate and reasonable; all independent third party cost estimators shall be selected in consultation with the Council. Specifically, as it did at the end of the design development phase of the project, FAS shall engage an independent third-party cost estimator after the design team completes its 60 percent Construction Documents submittal, in order to verify cost assumptions by the General Contractor/Construction Manager (GC/CM), correct cost models as needed, and align material and labor costs. The GC/CM cost estimate should be within range of the third-party cost estimator’s cost estimate and costs must be aligned before the project proceeds. The same cost reconciliation process shall be undertaken when the design team completes its 90 percent Construction Documents submittal, in order to reach the final estimates that will be used to negotiate and set the price for the construction contract with the GC/CM.
Section 2. FAS shall, with the assistance of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, Department of Neighborhoods, and Seattle Police Department, engage in a full Racial Equity Toolkit (RET) analysis of the facility’s design and operations, including the interior and exterior building design for all planned programmatic aspects of the facility, pursuant to the City's Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI) and consistent with Council Resolution 31164 (2009), which directed City Departments to use available tools to assist in the elimination of racial and social disparities. In conducting the RET analysis, FAS shall solicit community perspectives from the North Precinct service area’s various demographic groups, including but not limited to historically underrepresented populations, vulnerable populations, those most likely to interact with the police, those historically disproportionately impacted by police action, and those most likely to be victims of crime. FAS shall provide the Gender Equity, Safe Communities and New Americans Committee with a report of its intended community engagement plan. The RET analysis should be completed by October 3, 2016. The results of the RET analysis shall be provided to the Gender Equity, Safe Communities and New Americans Committee upon completion. The results of the RET analysis will help to inform the Council’s decision on what is the appropriate total project cost of the North Precinct project in the 2017-2022 Capital Improvement Program.
Section 3. The North Precinct facility is a valuable opportunity to build stronger community-police partnerships through the provision of inviting public spaces that encourage positive police-community interactions. Accordingly, the project design should retain common public areas and community amenities; provided, that the RET analysis described in Section 2 may inform the project design and programmatic features of any public space, including review of community priorities for use of those public spaces.
Section 4. The design of the new North Precinct facility includes a training facility that will be used by all members of the Seattle Police Department. The training facility is a critical component of ensuring that police officers are properly trained to respond to emergencies, such as the 2012 Café Racer mass shooting, and in constitutional policing, including de-escalation and bias-free policing. Accordingly, the project design should retain training facilities, although completion of basement facilities may be deferred if necessary to remain within budget.
Section 5. It is expected that the project will retain the planned construction start date of April 2017. FAS shall, at the earliest point in time, report to the Gender Equity, Safe Communities and New Americans Committee if any delay is anticipated for any reason.
Section 6. FAS shall provide regular briefings on project progress for the North Precinct to the Gender Equity, Safe Communities and New Americans Committee. In addition, FAS shall provide written North Precinct Monthly Progress Reports to the City Council; the reports shall include information on the current project status, design and community engagement efforts and outcomes, a detailing of life-to-date expenditures, the most recent total project cost estimate with explanation of any changes since the last report, and budget risk issues.
Section 7. The City of Seattle finds itself in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. One of the recommendations made by the Housing Affordability and Livability Advisory Committee was to identify opportunities for City-owned property to be surplused and used either by the Office of Housing or a non-profit housing developer to increase the stock of affordable housing in the City. Accordingly, it is the City Council’s intent to use the current site, or to appropriate all proceeds from the sale of the land or building where the current North Precinct is located if the site is surplused, to further meet the City’s affordable housing needs.
Adopted by the City Council the ________ day of _________________________, 2016, and signed by me in open session in authentication of its adoption this ________ day of _________________________, 2016.
____________________________________
President ____________ of the City Council
The Mayor concurred the _____ day of _______________________, 2016.
_________________________________
Edward B. Murray, Mayor
Filed by me this ________ day of _________________________, 2016.
____________________________________
Monica Martinez Simmons, City Clerk
(Seal)