From QACC Member Trevor,

Hi everyone,

I feel compelled to express what I've gathered will be an unpopular opinion regarding the
Council's reaction to Mike O'Brien's ADU legislation.

I voted for Marty's motion to file an appeal on our behalf based on his assessment of the
FEIS. I did so because I agreed that serious and sufficient consideration of the
environmental impacts is warranted, and trust Marty's read on whether the FEIS
contained such consideration.

However, the reaction that's been made on our behalf has gone beyond an assessment of
the validity of the FEIS, and crosses into commentary on the legislation itself that
resembles a rallying cry against it:
• "The destruction of every one of our Seattle neighborhoods lies in the balance!"
-- The email from Marty this morning
• "If advanced, we will lose the very heart and soul of our city and our cherished
neighborhoods as we know them."
-- The public-facing website now live on behalf of the QACC
This isn't what we voted for in this month's meeting, and I personally feel as if someone
is speaking on my behalf both without my permission and in a manner with which I don't
agree.

I'd like to respectfully request that external communication on behalf of the QACC about
the ADU legislation be limited to the validity of the FEIS unless and until we vote to
expand it.

Regards,
Trevor
From Marty Kaplan,

Good Morning,

Thanks Trevor for your email and thoughts concerning the appeal. I’d like to offer a
brief explanation to you for what is being appealed and why many in Seattle should be
concerned. I was not aware of your poll until this morning, however regardless of the
poll numbers and the multiple personal threats I have received since filing, I firmly
believe as do others in the foundations behind appealing the adequacy of the EIS. It
appears that you may not be aware of the critical reasons behind our appeal two years
ago, so please forgive a few moments of bandwidth to offer you a much different
perspective from what I have gleaned from your email.

First, please note that both appeals have nothing to do with rejecting density or any
arguments against encouraging the development of ADU’s! On the contrary Trevor I
was one of a few early advocates for ADU’s and DADU’s as a Seattle Planning
Commissioner who studied nation-wide impacts and programs and after significant time,
I, along with fellow commissioners, helped author the current legislation allowing every
property to build a AADU (Mother-in-Law).unit and every property owner who owns a
lot of 4,000 sq ft or greater in Seattle to build a DADU. To listen to evangelists and
negative bloggers who suggest otherwise is just unfounded folly, and unfortunately
follows a new common Trumpian discourse. Just look at my inbox today compared with
two years ago when we appealed.

Second, our appeal two years ago, in much the same way as this current appeal is
completely and wholeheartedly founded upon government overreach, spin and mis-
information. Now you may disagree, but allow me a few paragraphs for perspective and
reality, without hyperbole and bias.

1. In May of 2016, Mike O’Brien attempted to push through his original legislation
to eliminate single-family zoning without following any legal requirements. In
order to propose such significant changes, he or anyone else is required to follow
Washington State Law specifically outlining required steps for public notices,
public hearings, and finally preparing an EIS to evaluate every environmental
impact. I, and the QACC, did not make this up to delay or attempt to prevent
folks from adding a ADU or DADU. Kool aide was widely spread among
support groups and bloggers, but their positions had no basis in fact, only attempts
to hijack a complex, legal and necessary public discussion.
2. Instead of following the law and respecting public opinion, compromise, and
precedent, O’Brien instead ignored several attempts at my requests for meeting
and discussing a more respectful and legal way forward. I suggested realistic
compromises. He rejected my requests feeling that he had a personal authority to
alone decide that implementing his legislation would pose not even one impact,
and felt comfortable skirting the law. I tried to suggest that each neighborhoods
was unique, many could absorb more parking while others could not for example.
Having practiced for 5-decades in Seattle and been a member of boards and
 commissions, I have a working knowledge of the process that was being illegally
pursued. We appealed and prevailed heavily.
3. It was a complete waste of time and resources. I know Mike, and frankly if he
had listened to me and considered the law and compromise, then everyone would
be well beyond where we are today, with no appeals and building ADU’s.
However he alone chose to be above the law and revealed himself as an ideologue
unwilling to consider facts transparently, fairly, or consider anyone’s objection.
4. The Hearing Examiner Decision was crystal clear as far as describing the appeal,
the results of the conditions litigated, and the requirements imposed by law upon
the city if they chose to continue advancing the legislation. The City was required
to complete a full, transparent, and unbiased EIS to professionally study all the
potential impacts, identify any impacts and suggest alternatives that may mitigate
such impacts. This legally imposed effort is accomplished on projects every day.
The EIS process should be independent and show no advocacy as such. The
public needs to rely upon their government’s commitment to complete such a
balanced exercise under the law.
5. The City waited 6 months as O’Brien evaluated whether to appeal the SEPA
decision and was persuaded otherwise. In October 2017, almost a year after the
Decision they decided to begin the consultant search. This delay had absolutely
nothing to do with QACC. In fact as you read about “our attempts to delay,” ask
Mike why he ignored my call for an EIS before he even advanced his legislation
and false claims in the DNS. As I have often rebutted, Mike made the choice to
ignore the law and every citizen, and personally delayed amending the code in a
responsible manner.
6. In May 2018, the City released the DEIS and I and hundreds of others submitted
comments to the city for their consideration. You offered no objections to my
comprehensive analysis at this time. Unfortunately nothing has changed. I
simply identified many points that the Hearing Examiner identified in her
Decision as changes in the code that required a significant study of environmental
impacts completed in a fair and unbiased manner. Afterall, during our hearing,
we proved that most, if not all, of Mike’s proposed changes to the current code
would have significant impacts to property owners and every neighborhood. The
City’s own witnesses had to reverse their biased testimonies as they agreed with
our experts and evidence. Therefore we expected that the City would commit to a
fair evaluation.
7. Many citizens and neighborhoods commented on the DEIS as prescribed by law,
and the City’s responsibility under the law was to review the comments with
respect and amend if necessary the proposal. Such an amendment to the DEIS
would be released in the FEIS. I and others around our city were hopeful that our
comments and position would be respected and evaluated fairly. It is common for
the City to do so. You may remember the issues surrounding the up-zone of
Uptown and my multiple letters representing QACC. Again, I discussed process,
transparency, and lawful review of alternatives, impacts and adequacy. The FEIS
for Uptown underwent considerable review and city-tweaks.
8. So several weeks ago the City released the FEIS. I and others turned to what I
and many others consider the most impactful conditions – Owner-occupancy and
 Parking. Unfortunately, it became immediately obvious that the study of these
issues was significantly deficient, inadequate, and void of any required alternative
proposals that would mitigate any impacts. In deed they skirted this requirement
by claiming “No Impacts,” Not one!
9. For instance Trevor, a parking analysis for any EIS MUST consider all impacts
upon any neighbor, community, neighborhood, or entity that could be reasonably
impacted by the decision being reviewed. Now, even a lay-person can understand
that if you re-zone a 3,200 sq ft single-family lot to allow for 12 unrelated people
to live within three residences with no owner-occupancy or on-site parking
requirement, and the City’s Traffic Engineer John Shaw testified that data
suggests that each Seattle family, or person living alone, owns on the average 1.2
cars, then there may be a parking problem to identify. The FEIS is silent upon
this condition. Why? The FEIS only studied 4 areas of the city within which to
ascertain parking impacts. They chose a NW neighborhood north of 85th, one
west of Greenlake north of 70th, one SW well south of Alaska Junction, and one
more SE south of Columbia City. You should ask why not neighborhoods that
were platted earlier, with smaller lots, much narrower streets, much higher
densities, more traffic and parking concerns, etc. You would be asking the
questions I asked.
10. The resultant opinion is that this more suburban analysis, done on one night
BTW, was intentional to prove the City’s conclusion that there are no parking
issues. You will agree, that if they chose, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, the Central
Area, Fremont, Wallingford and 20 other older neighborhoods they would have to
admit that there may be significant impacts associated with removing every
restriction, parking and otherwise. But is appears that throughout this FEIS, the
conclusions were predetermined and the consultants were tasked with finding a
way to support these conclusions instead of the legally mandated opposite
engagement.
11. So what were our options besides appealing? We had 14 days only to make a
decision. If you feel that the FEIS is deficient and fails to adequately study all the
issues in a comprehensive and fair manner, you have but two choices: 1)Appeal
and present your evidence at a hearing, or 2)wait until O’Brien brings his
legislation to the Council, which would happen immediately, and try to convince
the Council through a required public hearing, that your objections have merit and
deserve to be reconsidered. I have spent the last 2 weeks discussing these two
options with many people informed in the process. My motion at QACC was
made just in case and to only allow me to appeal as a last resort. In the end, many
others and I felt that it would be unlikely that 5 of 9 Council members would
oppose O’Brien no matter how convincing the evidence would be. You will be
given 1 minute to speak.
12. I submitted the appeal to challenge it’s deficiency, inadequacy, and failure to
truthfully evaluate environmental impacts. While I appreciate your feeling that
my letter includes a “rallying-cry,” please understand Trevor that I and many
others believe that many issues remain un-studied, presented without data and
support, or in fact offered as spin which is contrary to the FEIS process and public
right to engagement In addition, we feel that if left unchallenged, then our public
 officials will continue to base unfounded positions upon ideology and not fact,
and make decisions for YOU that may be harmful without any opportunity for a
public process or discourse. Indeed, my letter and website is meant to expose the
problem which I, along with thousands, feel would eliminate every single-family
neighborhood, and destroy the very foundation of why you have chosen to live
here.
13. While you may agree that doing so may be acceptable and many others do, I can
accept your right to do so, but I cannot accept a flawed EIS process that ignores
lawful practice and the opportunity for the public to review mandated
environment impacts studies free from marketing ideological spin and a pre-
determined outcome. How would you feel if the Council converted Bye-Kracke
park to a homeless encampment and produced a document at your request that
tried to convince you and all of us that there would be not one impact from doing
so? I think you would author a ‘rallying cry.” Remember that O’Brien proposed
just that about 16 months ago!

Thanks Trevor for your concerns. I hope that this unintended novelette can offer you a
bit of a background. I always appreciate your positions and thank you for the important
criticism,
Sincerely
Marty