Introduction

“Sustainable infrastructure is a decision-making framework for capital spending that links asset management to an interest in green outcomes and an understanding that the most effective capital investments may require us to explore some non-traditional alternatives and integrate efforts across department silos and lines of business.”

Seattle spends more than $650 million each year to build, renew, and repair infrastructure. This money is divided up between departments, each with its own mission and priorities. An interdepartmental team at the City is exploring how our capital spending can be more effectively directed at integrated, sustainable outcomes—outcomes that not only address expected levels of service, but also add value to the community, the environment, and the economy.

The Coordinated Infrastructure Planning initiative was conceived to develop a coordinated, cross-departmental approach to analyzing future needs for infrastructure investments, and to provide recommendations for new ways to coordinate capital projects, programs, development standards and other solutions to jointly address common infrastructure needs identified. This work is intended to demonstrate a repeatable, data driven approach for determining appropriate infrastructure investments. The overarching goals of this initiative are to a) identify opportunities for achieving more sustainable and/or cost effective outcomes, b) realize multiple objectives by aligning projects, and c) identifying new funding approaches for infrastructure investments.

Who is involved?
A grant from the Washington State Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development helped Seattle develop analytical tools and illustrative examples in support of the Sustainable Infrastructure initiative. This work is summarized in the 2009 Sustainable Infrastructure Initiative Report.

To further develop and implement the Sustainable Infrastructure Initiative, Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development is working with the Central Budget Office, Department of Transportation, Department of Parks and Recreation, Seattle City Light, and Seattle Public Utilities.

This interdepartmental team will be starting a pilot project with two areas of geographic focus, aligned with the neighborhoods slated for the next round of Neighborhood Planning:  1) Broadview / Bitter Lake / Haller Lake and 2) Rainier Beach.  An analysis of planned infrastructure projects which was conducted in 2009 suggests that there are significant opportunities to coordinate capital investments in these areas.  Staff from DPD, SDOT, SPU, SCL and CBO participated in this analysis and reviewed the results.   Although the IDT will be tasked with identifying project-specific opportunities, these opportunities can only be fully realized if the IDT also develops recommendations on solving broad policy issues that hamper the City’s ability to fund these investments or require them of private development.  Therefore, the effort will include two parallel bodies of work:

• Create a repeatable, data driven process for conducting comprehensive infrastructure planning that coordinates projects across a range of capital departments and multiple lines of business, and sets priorities based on the City’s overall growth management strategy; and
• Evaluate the responsibilities of the public sector and private developers, including the associated policy barriers that make it challenging to fund desired infrastructure improvements, and provide recommendations for new funding strategies.

The City is in the middle of this experiment. It is likely that some percentage of the integrated alternatives evaluated will not pencil out. Yet for the alternatives that do, Seattle will gain value for each tax dollar spent. If this approach successfully becomes part of everyday capital processes, the Sustainable Infrastructure Initiative could lead to more efficient and sustainable projects throughout Seattle.