This is the testimony I plan to give at the meeting of the full Council around 2:30PM. There are no guarantees I’ll be heard since there is only 15 minutes for public comment and that only allows about about 6 or 7 people to speak at 2 minutes each. However, I’m posting this now, just ahead of the meeting so we’re on record. There are two amendments that will be offered, one from Councilmember Tim Burgess eliminating the 100 percent exception and another from Councilmember Tom Rasmussen changing the heights to a complicated calculation rather than 22 feet. We’ve asked Councilmembers to reject both of these amendments. I’ll be posting later about the outcome of the vote on small-lot legislation we’ve been working on for two years. 

Smaller single-family homes are more energy efficient and less expensive than large older homes. This legislation –a compromise two years in the making– ensures that more smaller homes can be built in a predictable way and to an appropriate scale. Please support this legislation without amendment.

The amendment removing the 100 percent rule takes 250 of these new homes away, eliminating not just goods homes for some families that need them, but the jobs and and additional tax revenue that would come with new construction. Why walk away from a good thing — even if it’s a smaller amount of a good thing?

And the amendment changing the height of new homes simply adds more confusion, unpredictability, and  something else for City staff, neighbors, and builders to interpret and argue about. Why make things worse when we’ve just made them a little but better?

This legislation is a compromise that makes modest improvements to the code, will create some new single-family homes that scale to existing houses; it’s everything you set out to do two years ago.