Building performance standards: Energy or emissions targets that existing buildings must meet over time, reducing climate impacts.Built environment: Man-made or modified structures, landscapes, and infrastructure that provide living, working, and recreational space.Bulk fossil fuel facility: A large fossil fuel storage facility with the primary purpose of storing fossil fuels for sale and distribution and that receives petroleum products by tanker, barge, or pipeline.Business Improvement Area (BIA): A special tax assessment area that is established to aid general economic development and neighborhood revitalization, and to facilitate the cooperation of merchants, businesses, and residential property owners. An assessment is collected from property owners and/or business owners within defined boundaries. The funds collected are used to provide services for the benefit of the businesses and properties being assessed.Capital facilities: Physical features that support urban development, typically features provided by public agencies, such as roads, developed parks, municipal buildings, and libraries.Capital Improvement Program (CIP): The portion of the City’s budget that describes revenue sources and expenditures for funding capital facilities over a six-year periodCarbon neutral: Making no net release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Not net increase in carbon pollution and additional carbon reduction through offsets.Carbon pollution: Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and certain synthetic chemicals, trap some of the Earth's outgoing energy, thus retaining heat in the atmosphere. Also called carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, GHG emissions.Circular economy: A circular economy keeps materials, products, and services in circulation for as long possible. A circular economy reduces material use, redesigns materials, products, and services to be less resource intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.Clean energy: Refers to energy that is generated with no carbon emissions, such as nuclear or large hydroelectric. Although these resources help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they may impact the environment or the economy.Climate adaptation: Refers to actions taken to adapt to unavoidable impacts as a result of climate change.Climate change: A change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late twentieth century onward and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.Climate resilience: The ongoing process of anticipating, preparing for, and adapting to changes in climate and minimizing negative impacts to our natural systems, infrastructure, and communities.Co-benefits: The ancillary or additional benefits of policies that are implemented with a primary goal. For example, policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions also have other, often at least equally important, benefits (e.g., energy savings, economic benefits, air quality benefits, public health benefits). Also referred to as "multiple benefits."Combined Sewer Overflow: Combined sewer systems are the oldest type in Seattle, with infrastructure ranging from about 70 to 100 years in age. Combined sewers convey wastewater from the sinks, showers, toilets, washing machines and dishwashers of households and businesses, combined with stormwater that runs off of rooftops, lawns, streets, parking lots, and sidewalks. Wastewater and stormwater travel together to treatment plants through the same sewer pipe. When too much water enters the pipes the system overflows into waterbodies, in an event called a combined sewer overflow (CSO).Commercial land use: Activities that include the buying and selling of commodities and services. These activities are usually housed in office or retail spaces.Community-based participatory research: A research approach in which communities affected by the research subject participate in or lead the design and implementation of the research itself. In the context of community involvement, this would mean an engagement approach in which communities impacted by a plan or proposal are designing and leading engagement whose inputs will help shape that final proposal.Communities of color: Communities comprised of people of color with a shared racial identity. May also have a geographic component referring to where people of color with a racial identity in common reside.Conditional use: A use that may be located within a zone only upon taking measures to address issues that may make the use detrimental to public health, safety, and welfare, or issues that may impair the integrity and character of the zoned district.Connected and autonomous vehicles: Vehicles that can communicate with other vehicles (connected) and can drive without a human operator (autonomous).Consumption-based emissions inventory: An estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the activity of all residents of a geographic area. It accounts for the emissions associated with all the goods and services consumed within the community, no matter where they are produced.Countywide Planning Policies: The Growth Management Act requires that counties prepare countywide planning policies (CPPs) to provide a common framework for city and county comprehensive plans. The CPPs define the county’s urban growth boundary and set growth targets for all jurisdictions in the county, as well as set expectations for the growth of urban centers and for transportation priorities. The King County Countywide Planning Policies were developed and recommended by the Growth Management Planning Council, a group of elected officials who represent all the jurisdictions in the county.Creative economy: Includes people, organizations, and businesses who do creative and cultural labor, both paid and unpaid, including artists, designers, authors, professionals, and creative entrepreneurs who freelance or “gig.”Critical access needs: A building’s curbside loading needs that must be met for the building to perform its core operating functions safely and successfully. Critical access needs are delineated as curb signage that facilitates access for vehicles and services to buildings (residential, commercial) that provide for the following: mail and package delivery; commercial and urban goods; building maintenance; solid waste servicing; passenger pickup/drop off; and on-demand delivery.Cultural resources: Cultural resources encompass all the physical evidence of past human activity. They are non-renewable resources that are important to our nation’s history as they tell the story of our human past and interaction with the natural environment. This could include a site, object, building, structure, landscape, etc.Cultural spaces: All spaces whose primary purpose is to present or support artists and culture-makers, and their art and culture. It includes spaces for art presentation, art creation, supply for the means of creative production, arts training and education, live/work, art support organizations, and cultural heritage organizations.Curb space: The area within public rights-of-way that are between the sidewalk and travel lanes, or where parking and loading are generally allowed. Decarbonization: Transitioning away from fossil fuels to low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives. It encompasses renewable energy deployment, energy efficiency improvements, and carbon capture and storage technologies.Deconstruction: The systematic disassembly of buildings to maximize reuse and minimize demolition waste.Demand management: The strategy of reducing demand for services such as energy, water, or vehicle trips, rather than increasing production to ensure adequate supply.Density: A measurement of the concentration of development on the land, often expressed in the number of people, housing units, or employees per acre.Development pattern: The arrangement of buildings, lots, and streets.Development regulations: Rules and regulations, such as the Land Use Code, Building Code, Energy Code, Stormwater Code, etc. the City uses to control the development of land and buildings.Development standards: Regulations that limit the size, bulk, or siting conditions of particular types of buildings or uses located within any designated zoning district.Digital inclusion: The activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most disadvantaged, have access to and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) including affordable, robust broadband internet service; internet-enabled devices; digital literacy training; quality technical support; and applications and online content designed to enable and encourage self-sufficiency, participation and collaboration.Displacement: The relocation of residents, businesses, or organizations from an area. Physical displacement is the result of eviction, acquisition, rehabilitation, or demolition of property, or the expiration of covenants on rent/income-restricted housing. Economic displacement occurs when residents or businesses can no longer afford escalating costs. Cultural displacement occurs when residents are compelled to move because the people and institutions that make up their cultural community have left or are leaving the area.Distributed energy: Systems where the supply of water, energy, or other resources come from many sources, such as small solar energy generators or the capture of waste heat, rather than from a central source, such as a power plant. Also referred to as distributed energy resources, and distributed resources.District energy: A highly efficient heating and cooling system using a network of underground pipes to pump steam, hot water, and/or chilled water to multiple buildings in an area such as a downtown district, college or hospital campus, airport, or military base. Providing heating and cooling from a central plant requires less fuel and displaces the need to install separate space heating and cooling and hot water systems in each building.Electrification: Replacing technologies or processes that use fossil fuels, like internal combustion engines and gas boilers, with electrically-powered equivalents, such as electric vehicles or heat pumps. These replacements are typically more efficient, reducing energy demand, and can reduce carbon emissions as electricity generation is decarbonized.Embodied carbon: Greenhouse gas emissions arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials.Energy benchmarking: Measures of energy performance of a single building over time, relative to other similar buildings, or modeled simulations of a reference building built to a specific standard (such as an energy code).Environmentally Critical Area (ECA): Locations in the city that provide critical environmental functions, such as wetlands protecting water quality and providing fish and wildlife habitat or that represent particular challenges for development due to geologic or other natural conditions, such as steep slopes, landslide-prone areas, and liquefaction areas.Environmental justice: The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.Equitable development: Investments, programs, and policies that reduce disparities, prevent displacement, and meet the needs of people of color, low-income persons, and other historically marginalized populations.Essential public facilities: Public facilities that are typically difficult to site such as airports, state education facilities and state or regional transportation facilities, regional transit authority facilities, state and local correctional facilities, solid waste handling facilities, opioid treatment programs including both mobile and fixed-site medication units, recovery residences, harm reduction programs excluding safe injection sites, and inpatient facilities including substance use disorder treatment facilities, mental health facilities, group homes, community facilities, and secure community transition facilities.Federally recognized Tribes: The federal government currently recognizes nine Tribal nations in the Seattle region: Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Nisqually Indian Tribe, Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians, Suquamish Tribe.Flex zone: The portion of a right-of-way between vehicle travel lanes and the pedestrian area that can accommodate parking, loading, plantings, and street furniture.Food desert: Geographic areas where access to affordable, healthy food options (especially fresh fruits and vegetables) is restricted or nonexistent due to the absence of grocery stores within convenient traveling distance.Food security: The ability to consistently access and afford healthy food.Frequent transit network: Buses, trains, and other forms of transit that arrive every 15 minutes or less.Frontline communities: Frontline community members are people who experience the first and worst consequences of climate change. Such residents’ health and livelihoods are often highly vulnerable to climate-exacerbated hazards and economic disruptions, and their communities often lack basic support infrastructure and suffer disproportionately from the compounding impacts of pollution, discrimination, racism, and poverty.Future Land Use Map (FLUM): A required component of a comprehensive plan in Washington that shows the proposed physical distribution and location of the various land uses during the planning period.Greenbelt: Greenbelts and Natural Areas are park sites established for the protection and stewardship of wildlife, habitat and other natural systems support functions. Some natural areas are accessible for low-impact use. Larger natural areas may have small sections developed to serve a community park function. Some Large Natural Area/Greenbelts may be divided into subareas based on vegetation, habitat, restoration status, wildlife area designation, recreation use area, etc. to better differentiate resource needs and use prioritiesGreen streets: A street right-of-way that includes a variety of design and operational treatments to give priority to pedestrian circulation and open space over other transportation uses. The treatments may include sidewalk widening, landscaping, traffic-calming, and other pedestrian-oriented features.Green infrastructure: Green infrastructure refers to the range of measures that use plant or soil systems, permeable pavement or other permeable surfaces or substrates, stormwater harvest and reuse, or landscaping to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to sewer systems or to surface waters. Green infrastructure filters and absorbs stormwater where it falls. Also referred to as green stormwater infrastructure and natural drainage system.Growth Management Act (GMA): The Growth Management Act (Chapter 36.70A RCW) is a series of state statutes, first adopted in 1990, that requires fast-growing cities and counties to develop a comprehensive plan to manage their population growth. State law (RCW 36.70A) that requires local governments to prepare comprehensive plans (including land use, transportation, housing, capital facilities and utilities) to accommodate 20 years of expected growth.High-capacity transit: In Seattle, high-capacity transit consists of both rail and rubber-tired transit modes that can operate in exclusive rights-of-way or in mixed traffic. It can include technologies such as light rail or bus rapid transit.Historic district: Seattle has established eight historic districts: Ballard Avenue, Columbia City, Fort Lawton, Harvard-Belmont, International District, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, and Sand Point. A citizens’ board or the Landmarks Preservation Board reviews the appearance of development activity in these districts to maintain the historical integrity of structures and public spaces.Historic landmark: A property that has been designated by the City as an important resource to the community, city, state, or nation. Designated landmark properties in Seattle include individual buildings and structures, vessels, landscapes and parks, and objects such as street clocks and sculptures. The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board is responsible for determining which properties meet the standards for landmark designation.Impact fees: One-time charges assessed by a local government against a new development project to help pay for new or expanded public capital facilities that will directly address the increased demand for services created by that development.Impervious surface: A surface that cannot absorb water, such as asphalt or concrete.Income-restricted affordable housing: Housing with a regulatory agreement, covenant, or other legal document on the property title that sets a limit on the income of households that may rent or purchase the unit(s) and controls the rent or sales price.Industrial land use: Activities that include production, distribution, and repair of goods; includes uses such as factories, container terminals, rail yards, warehouses, and repair of heavy equipment.Industry cluster: A geographical concentration of similar or related industries that gain economic advantages from their location.Infrastructure: Public services and facilities such as sewage-disposal systems, water-supply systems, other utility systems, schools, roads, bicycle lanes, sidewalks, and transit systems.Land Use Code: The portion of the Seattle Municipal Code that contains regulations governing development activities. The Land Use Code describes the processes and standards that apply for each zone in the city.Life cycle cost: A method of evaluating a capital investment that takes into account the sum total of all costs associated with the investment over the lifetime of the project.Limited English Proficiency (LEP): Refers to a person who is not fluent in English.Liquefaction: The transformation of loose, wet soil from a solid to a liquid state, often as a result of ground shaking during an earthquake.Living wage job: A job that provides approximate income needed to meet a family’s basic needs.Livability: Livability is the sum of the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life, including built and natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity, and cultural, entertainment, and recreational possibilities.Master plan: A document that describes the long-term expectations for growth on a large property controlled by a single entity, such as the campus of a college or hospital.Micromobility: Small, low-speed transportation devices. They are convenient for travelling short distances or the beginning or end of trips. They include bikes and scooters.Mixed-use: Development that contains residential use plus some other, usually commercial use, such as office or retail.Multifamily land use: Properties containing attached homes such as townhouses or stacked homes such as apartments or condos.Multimodal level of service standard: Measures or standards for assessing the performance of the transportation system that encompasses multiple modes of travel. Includes either multiple level-of-service standards that are specific to each mode (e.g., one standard for the pedestrian network, one for transit), or one unified level-of-service standard that considers all modes together (e.g., person-trip capacity across all modes compared to demand).Natural drainage systems: The use of trees, plants, ground covers, and soils to manage stormwater runoff from hard surfaces (like roofs, roads, parking lots, and sidewalks) in ways that mimic nature—slowing and cleaning polluted runoff close to its source and reducing the volume of runoff by allowing it to soak back through the soil and recharge groundwater.Nature play: Nature play is when children are provided with the opportunity to engage in unstructured play activities in outdoor settings where natural elements feature, such as logs, rocks and water, as opposed to conventional manufactured play equipment.Neighborhood delivery hub: Defined as a central drop-off / pick-up location for goods, creating closer proximity to the final and smaller service delivery areas. By distributing operations close to the end customer in city centers and offering additional services onsite, these hubs can alleviate congestion, reduce emissions, consolidate freight vehicle trips, reduce vehicle miles traveled, and enable transfers to low- or zero-emissions fleet for final mile deliveries.Nonconforming use: A use or structure that was valid when brought into existence but that does not meet subsequent regulations. Typically, nonconforming uses are permitted to continue, subject to certain restrictions.Official Land Use Map: A map adopted by ordinance that shows the locations of the designated zones in the city.Open space: Any parcel or area of land that is essentially unimproved and devoted to the preservation of natural resources, the managed production of resources, or outdoor recreation.Parklet: A sidewalk extension, usually in the parking lane that provides more space and amenities for people using the street.People of Color: Persons whose race and ethnicity is other than white alone, non-Hispanic.Placekeeping: Placekeeping is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Placekeeping (or as some call it, placemaking) capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that promote people's health, happiness, and well-being.Placemaking: A people-centered approach to the planning, design, and management of public spaces such as parks, plazas, and streets that helps give activity and identity to those spaces.Renewable energy: A naturally replenishing resource that produces zero carbon emissions. Renewable energy sources include solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biowaste, and eligible hydroelectric.Rent-restricted housing: Housing with a regulatory agreement, covenant, or other legal document on the property title that sets a limit on the income of households that may rent or purchase the unit(s) and controls the rent(s) that may be charged for a specified period of time or sales price.Rezone criteria: A set of considerations specified in the Land Use Code that helps determine the appropriate locations for applying the City’s various zoning designations.Right-of-Way: A strip of land used for certain transportation and/or public use facilities, like roads, railroads, and utility lines. This term is primarily used to the describe public rights-of-way, which include our streets, sidewalks, and planting strips and often abbreviated as ROW.Riparian corridor: Creeks and everything located within 100 feet of a creek.Safe System Approach: The Safe System Approach (SSA) has been embraced by the transportation community as an effective way to address and mitigate the risks inherent in our enormous and complex transportation system. It works by building and reinforcing multiple layers of protection to both prevent crashes from happening in the first place and minimize the harm caused to those involved when crashes do occur. It is a holistic and comprehensive approach that provides a guiding framework to make places safer for people. This is a shift from a conventional safety approach because it focuses on both human mistakes AND human vulnerability and designs a system with many redundancies in place to protect everyone. (USDOT)Setback: The minimum distance required by zoning regulations to be maintained between a structure and a property line.Shared parking: Parking spaces that may be used by more than one user, such as a parking lot that is used by a church on weekends and by commuters during the week.Shoreline street end: Shoreline street ends are City Council designated areas for public access and occur where streets meet a shore. Our program collaborates with community partners on maintaining and improving shoreline street ends for public use.Single-occupant vehicle: A privately operated vehicle whose only occupant is the driver.Smart parking: A system that uses electronic signs to direct incoming drivers to available parking. Smart parking is a technology solution that uses sensors and/or cameras in combination with software to direct users to vacant parking spaces. A broad term to refer to a variety of technologies and policies that improve efficiency of curb management, typically with heavy data use, with performance pricing, to achieve certain policy outcomes. Social equity: Fair access to livelihood, education, and resources; full participation in the political and cultural life of the community; and self-determination in meeting fundamental needs.Stormwater: Water that falls as rain and flows across the ground. In an urban area, most stormwater is directed to drains that collect the water and eventually direct it to streams, lakes, or other large water bodies.Tree canopy: The layer of leaves, branches, and stems that provide tree coverage of the ground when viewed from above. See also urban forest.Urban forest: Urban forest consists of the trees and associated understory plants existing in the city. The urban forest extends across public property, private property, and the right of way including parks and natural areas, as well as the trees along streets and in yards. See also tree canopy.Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita: Total annual miles of vehicle travel divided by the total population.Zoning, Zones: Designations adopted by City ordinance and applied to areas of land to specify allowable uses for property and size restrictions for buildings within these areas.
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