In January 2017, City Council approved updated environmentally critical areas (ECA) regulations. Those updates, including a report by our Director explaining the changes, are available on our ECA Code Update website.
The Seattle City Council will be amending the Environmentally Critical Areas Ordinance to correct the effective date of the regulations. The original ordinance incorrectly required the Department of Ecology’s approval of the entire ordinance. The Department of Ecology approval is only needed for the sections of the ordinance that amend the Shoreline Master Program. City Council is expected to approve this amendment in the middle of March and the effective date of the new Environmentally Critical Areas is expected to be the middle of April.
We provided a briefing to the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning (PLUZ) committee on November 29, 2016, the public hearing was held on December 6, 2016 and the PLUZ committee voted on the Ordinance on January 19, 2017. Check out the PowerPoint presentation and the briefing memo to find out more about what we talked about.
Additionally, the briefing, public hearing, and committee discussion and vote can be viewed on the City Council PLUZ Committee webpage.