We are temporarily changing our Applicant Services Center in-person office hours between January 14 and February 1, 2019. The temporary hours will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:00 a.m.to 2:00 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
On January 11, 2019, we’ll witness history with the Washington State Department of Transportation’s permanent closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. This is a major step toward realigning SR 99 to the new SR 99 tunnel. When the viaduct closes on January 11, SR 99 will be closed through downtown Seattle for three weeks, and travel patterns will change with traffic moving over to I-5, local downtown surface streets, and Alaskan Way. And over the next several years, large projects such as the Washington State Convention Center, light rail extensions, and the arena at Seattle Center, will further challenge our traffic flow. This is what the City is calling the “Seattle Squeeze.” For a three-week period from January 11 to early February, we expect even greater traffic impacts with the Viaduct gone and the SR 99 tunnel not yet open.
To support the Mayor’s and our City’s efforts to manage congestion downtown, and to help our customers avoid delays during peak travel times, SDCI is modifying our in-person office hours for all services at our Applicant Services Center (ASC).
Starting January 14, all in-person services at the 20th Floor ASC will be available only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:00 a.m.to 2:00 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Services affected by this change include in-person coaching, cashier, and microfilm services. Availability for services conducted through the Seattle Services Portal and by phone and email will not change.
We have several options to connect with and serve our applicants and customers while the ASC is operating with reduced hours.
- Additional counter staff: We will have additional staff working the ASC counter to assist customers in case we have unusually high volumes of customers during our reduced hours.
- Expanded Q&A services: We are expanding the number of questions we can accept through our Q&A applications. We are also assigning additional staff to monitor these services to respond to customer questions in a timely manner. You can access the Q&A services from our Send Us a Question page on our website.
- Design Review and Land Use Pre-submittal conferences and Land Use meetings: The Land Use Division will be reaching out to customers who have scheduled Land Use, EDG, or SDR pre-submittal meetings between Jan. 14 to Feb. 1, 2019 to offer online meetings to attendees using Microsoft Outlook Skype for Business. Land Use Planners will also encourage the use of Skype for other meetings with applicants during this same period. This is part of the Land Use Division’s promotion of telework options to provide our daily functions in order to help reduce vehicle traffic downtown.
Pay fees online: You can pay your fees through your Seattle Services Portal account using a credit card or by setting up a Trust Account. (To set up a Trust Account, of if you have payment questions, email sciaccounting@seattle.gov.) Read How to Pay Fees for more information about paying fees online. - Step-by-step instructions: We have several step-by-step instruction articles on how to schedule appointments, submit applications, and upload documents, as well as several others on frequently requested information in the Seattle Services Portal Help Center.
We originally stated that we would have online chat available. However, we have learned we cannot meet the retention requirements for public disclosure in time for our adjusted hours. For this reason, we will not have chat available.
We expect to resume normal business hours on Monday, February 4, 2019.