UW lease lid: time to lift and move on?

SEATTLE—A City Council committee last week approved legislation to permanently lift the University of Washington's so-called lease lid, with conditions under which the university must report on its leasing activity to the City.

The vote, however, was split, with some Council members advocating to continue the lease lid as leverage to keep the university from overdeveloping in the University District. This means the council will take an extra week to consider the legislation before taking a full Council vote on June 16.

Nonetheless, supporters of lifting the lease lid expressed optimism.

"I'm excited about the prospect of bringing jobs and housing to the U District," said Councilmember Judy Nicastro, who co-chaired the joint Finance, Budget, Business & Labor Committee and Land Use Committee meeting on the issue.

"It's time to move on," said Councilmember Jan Drago, also a committee co-chair. "The City would like to see an economic revitalization of the U District, and the university wants to expand. We both agree that these mutual needs will not proceed effectively with a lease lid in place."

The legislation would allow the university to lease unlimited space in the University District, or anywhere throughout the City. It, however, encourages the UW to concentrate 75 percent of its leasing in a core University District area immediately west of the main campus.

After five years, according to the legislation, the City would conduct a review of the impacts of the UW's leasing and development in the district to consider whether another lease lid should be established. At that time, both the City and university would need to agree to place another cap on UW leasing.

"Whether we ever see another lease lid, the City can enforce its land use laws to keep the university in check," said Nicastro.

Before approving the legislation, the Council committee rejected a plan to keep the lease lid in place and simply raise the square-footage of space the university could lease.

"When the lease lid was first imposed it was done so to protect the neighborhood. The needs haven't changed, but today out of apparent concern that the UW wouldn't sign the agreement, the Council voted against the only mechanism we had," said Councilmember Nick Licata, who, along with Councilmember Richard McIver, voted against the final plan. "I'm not convinced that if we had voted to either increase the leasing capacity for the UW as I proposed, or at least maintained the leasing boundaries as proposed by Council just last week, the UW would not have agreed that a compromise was preferable to the current leasing restriction."

Seattle City Council release, June 4

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