City departments outline how 1 Seattle comprehensive plan will guide services as city grows

City department leaders told the Seattle City Council select committee on the comprehensive plan on Feb. 21 that the mayor’s proposed 1 Seattle plan is intended as an umbrella policy document to guide how the city plans and pays for transportation, parks, utilities, energy and public-safety services as Seattle grows.

Rico Kinindongo, director of the Office of Planning and Community Development, told the committee the comp plan is “a vision and policy document” that must be consistent with state and regional growth rules and with other plan elements so departments can use it to phase capital investments and work plans. He said subarea plans for growth centers and industrial areas will be brought to council separately.

The panel of six department presenters described how their work links to the comp plan and highlighted near‑term metrics and capital programs.

Transportation: Francisco Steffen, senior deputy director at the Seattle Department of Transportation, said the department coordinated closely with OPCD and updated its policy work in tandem with the recently adopted Seattle Transportation Plan. “We obviously have a city in which we have limited roadway width,” Steffen said, and the comp plan’s mode‑shift priorities aim to move more people in the same space by shifting trips to transit, walking, biking and carpools. SDOT described capital work funded by the voter‑approved levy, ongoing maintenance and programmatic efforts (Safe Routes to School, curb management, signal timing) and an appendix of performance metrics including Vision Zero safety measures, vehicle‑miles‑traveled and targets for the share of people within a given distance of frequent transit. Steffen said SDOT tracks baseline access and has a stated goal to increase the share of households near frequent transit from about 55% today to roughly 68% as the city grows.

Parks: Annie Hindenlang, planning manager for Seattle Parks and Recreation, outlined how Parks aligns its six‑year parks and open‑space plan, Park District financial plan and asset inventories with the 1 Seattle plan. “For any of our metrics, anything below 10,000 square feet, we do not characterize as a park,” Hindenlang said, noting the department uses a walkability‑based level‑of‑service that maps access to park entry points rather than people‑per‑acre alone. Parks completed a “light” update in 2024 and plans a full parks and open‑space plan update in early 2026 to align with the comp plan and the Park District financial plan cycle that runs through 2028. She described acquisition, conversion of fields to turf to increase hours of use and improved inventory and condition data for asset‑level service standards.

Utilities: Danielle Purneau, director of corporate policy and planning at Seattle Public Utilities, summarized SPU’s cascading planning approach: long‑range systemwide plans (50‑year outlook), area and asset planning where capacity risks exist, prioritization of rate‑funded capital investments, and developer‑funded requirements at the project level. On supply, SPU said its drinking‑water analysis shows adequate supply through roughly 2060 while drainage and stormwater systems face increasing capacity pressures partly driven by climate‑related precipitation changes. Purneau noted SPU maintains more than 3,000 miles of pipe and estimated that ratepayers invest roughly $400 million a year in the utility’s capital program; she described current projects including a $13.2 million water‑main replacement in Rainier Valley and an $88 million Bitter Lake reservoir undergrounding project designed to address seismic and water‑quality requirements while enabling park/open‑space reuse at surface.

Energy and grid planning: Craig Smith, City Light chief customer officer, said Seattle City Light’s integrated resource planning projects substantial new capacity needs driven by electrification and growth. “This IRP projects that City Light will need to nearly double our nameplate capacity resources in our portfolio,” Smith said, and the utility plans acquisitions in wind, solar, storage and other technologies and expects to update a multi‑year capital plan (City Light described a roughly $2.3 billion six‑year capital program, about 70% of which maintains grid and generation assets). Smith also described grid planning tools — a utilization heat map and targeted substation or distribution upgrades — and the need to plan for customer‑side resources like rooftop solar, efficiency and electric‑vehicle charging.

Public safety and facilities: Angela Sosi, executive director for budget and finance at the Seattle Police Department, said SPD’s planning focuses on staffing and facilities to meet workload and response needs; capital facility needs identified in the comp‑plan appendices include precinct renovations and a North Precinct site purchased earlier for a future facility. Sosi said staffing allocations are driven by calls‑for‑service workload and by hiring pipelines and that facility and staffing decisions are funded through the budget process.

Chief Harold Scoggins of the Seattle Fire Department described operational metrics that guide fire planning, citing national standards for response time and dispatch. “Our goal is to [have] firefighters on scene in 8 minutes or less,” Scoggins said, and he described growth‑era needs including potential station expansions, a North End training facility and shore‑ and water‑based resources for South Lake Union and other waterfront areas. He also described alternative‑response programs (a mobile integrated health team and a nurse line) that redirected thousands of calls in 2024 and reduce pressure on 911 resources.

Why this matters: Council members and staff emphasized that the comp plan’s policy framework is intended to make growth predictable for capital planners so utilities and service departments can sequence investments, meet regulatory obligations and maintain service standards. Departments said many planning cycles do not align perfectly (Parks’ six‑year cycle, SDOT’s transportation plan, SPU and City Light asset plans), which is why OPCD coordinated an inter‑departmental team over more than two years to align goals, data and terminology.

Next steps: OPCD will bring the comprehensive plan legislation forward as the policy vehicle while subarea and center‑specific plans will come by separate legislation. Parks will begin a full parks and open‑space plan update in early 2026 to align with the 1 Seattle plan and Park District financial cycles; SPD and SFD noted ongoing facility and staffing work that will come through the budget process. SPU and City Light identified major capital programs and procurement paths that will be presented in utility capital plans and rate proceedings.

The committee did not take formal votes at the Feb. 21 special meeting; the session consisted of departmental briefings and questions from council members.