Building_development

54:06 So this is the detail behind this single slide, but some of the highlights, the top ones you were part of. So we changed the MFT as Chad mentioned, so that we can delayed the payment of fee and lieu payments. And we also waived application fees. We also implemented deferral of SDCs as well as impact fees so that they're paid at the time right around certificate of occupancy. So that saves costs to developers. We reduced development review times within a particular part of our development review cycle. We implemented a single stairwell code. I'll let Chad talk about that. As well as we increased the exemption from the state environmental protection act requirements for larger multifamily projects. So that saves time and expense on projects. And then truly the biggest housing action

55:05 that the city can take is coming to you in a few months, which is the comprehensive plan, which will obviously overhaul land use in the city and open up significant amounts of the city to new housing production. Given the housing economics that we're seeing, it is likely that smaller scale housing production in up zone areas of the city will drive housing growth for the next few years, while the market for bigger multifamily projects catches up. So what the comp plan is doing is actually really significant, particularly given the current market conditions that we're in. But I know Chad has some talking points around some of these comp plan and other things. So I'll turn it to Chad for a second. - Just fill in some color commentary here on the single stairwell code. That has been a feature of most building codes in this nation since the 1970s, where you have a requirement for two stairwells

56:03 in apartment buildings. Recently, some jurisdictions have been trying to come up with a way that adds a lot of costs, at least 200,000 per project. We've been working with our fire marshal and their department to come up with an alternative, which is a single stairwell in the middle of an apartment building instead of two on the ends, to serve up to 49 units and four stories. So that has been approved by our building official and the fire marshal. So it is available. That can significantly reduce costs for small-scale apartment projects. A companion piece to that that we've been working through, also with the same folks in fire and building is the,

57:01 sorry, six-story wooden construction. Right now, that's capped at four stories. Above that, you have to go to steel and concrete. Seattle and Tacoma have allowed six-story wood frame structures for a period of time. There are some conditions that have to exist in order to permit this, either pressurized stairwells or fire-rated construction in different zones in the building. Our fire marshal has explored the studies, found that there really is no evidence to show that it would not be safe, and so this is now allowed as an alternative

58:01 to the steel and concrete construction for six stories or less. Wanted to touch on the SEPA exemption for 200 units. That's already on the books. One of the proposals in our development code update as a companion to the comprehensive plan will be to allow apartment projects that are 200 units or fewer to be processed under a Type 1 land use approval. That's our fastest land use process. Can be 28 days after it's found to be complete. There's no public notice, there's no appeal period. So that's, all of those things add time to a project. It would be a big change for Vancouver, but it's something that we think Vancouver is ready for, and we'll be proposing that

58:58 as part of the comprehensive plan development code. Those were the two things I wanted to touch on. - And the removal of parking minimums, obviously, as part of the comp plan is really, we know the actual cost of parking per, the ads per unit, so that alone, and there's many parts of the city where there is relief from parking minimums, so projects are already benefiting from that, but spreading that further in the city will save a lot of cost. So lastly, just wanna leave you with, these are more, they should have been framed more as questions, but discussion topics, and we can obviously discuss other topics as well, but just, this is kind of how we think about what's out there for us that we can do, particularly on the affordable side, to keep production moving forward. And so the top bullet encompasses, you know, kind of everything we just talked about,

59:57 which is we really need to keep the focus on housing action. Internally, on staff side, that means we, like we really do coordinate with each other. Right now, we're in a very extensive conversation about impact fees and STCs. Each of the different divisions within public works