[0:20] All right.
Uh
[0:23] welcome to the
tonight's meeting, May 21st, 2026
[0:29] of the Bellingham City Planning
Commission.
[0:32] I'm filling in for the chair and vice
chair tonight. So, Heather, can you
[0:36] please call the roll?
[0:40] Claire Swingle.
Here. Mike Estes. Here. Eric Richmond.
[0:45] Here. Lisa Marks. Here.
[0:48] Um I don't think no minutes.
And
[0:54] uh so, tonight's agenda is a work
session, I believe, on um
[0:59] general strategy for changes to
residential zoning related to the comp
[1:04] plan and state law changes, missing
middle implementation details
[1:09] around our residential zoning. Uh so,
we'll get into a conversation and
[1:13] presentation from staff on that topic in
a few minutes. Before we do that,
[1:17] um
opportunity for the public to give any
[1:20] general public comments um
on any topic. So, if you're here to give
[1:25] public comment, come on down to the
podium. We'll do 3 minutes.
[1:28] Um tonight doesn't have a hearing, so
there's no other opportunity to give uh
[1:33] public comment on anything.
If you're on Zoom, please raise your
[1:37] hand.
And um
[1:40] we'll do 3 minutes and state your name
and your neighborhood and
[1:46] Heather will uh bring you in to do
comments.
[1:50] Go ahead, Miles.
Hello, Miles Silverman from the Cordata
[1:53] neighborhood. I'm calling in to talk
about the new zoning changes and
[1:56] specifically single stair or scissor
stairs small apartment buildings because
[2:01] my understanding is that there are state
level building code changes happening
[2:05] and underway to make these more feasible
to build than they have been in a long
[2:10] time and this presents a huge
opportunity that the new residential
[2:14] zoning code low middle and high should
all be jumping on and I want to explain
[2:19] why that is. Um, first of all these
small apartments are often better to
[2:25] live in because there's you don't have
to do the double loaded corridor thing.
[2:30] There's more light, more air. It's
easier to do family size apartments and
[2:34] because the individual buildings are
relatively small, it can be easier to
[2:40] know your neighbors within your
building. Um, it also these smaller
[2:45] apartments also can fit more easily into
existing residential neighborhoods to
[2:52] reduce neighborhood opposition. The
buildings are very human scale. They fit
[2:57] They fit well into the rhythm of any
streetscape and particularly if paired
[3:02] with
thoughtful objective design standards,
[3:05] they work really well with vernacular
architecture as well. So, again, great
[3:10] for fitting into existing old street
grid neighborhoods. Um, they're also
[3:17] more feasible to build more quickly. You
because they're smaller, you only need
[3:22] one lot. Um, so you don't need to buy up
a bunch of houses which could take more
[3:26] time. Because they're smaller, that also
makes them easier to finance which means
[3:30] that you don't need to rely on large
investment banks to fund them which
[3:36] should mean in addition to making them
quicker to build, this should also mean
[3:40] they're more resilient to the state of
international finance. They also of
[3:46] course have all the benefits of density
that we would expect. More housing with
[3:51] a single stair four-story building with
three units per floor, you could easily
[3:58] be doing basically a 12-plex on a
lot where you used to only be able to
[4:05] put one house. If with a larger lot and
six stories with scissor stairs, you
[4:09] could possibly do twice that. This means
that you can really help with the
[4:15] housing shortage quickly with these
buildings, um better support
[4:19] neighborhood commercial, and better
support transit, and better support city
[4:22] budgets. So, all in all, small apartment
buildings can be a great tool to help
[4:28] solve this housing shortage while
improving our neighborhoods. So, please
[4:33] make sure there's space for these in the
new zoning code to take advantage of
[4:38] building codes now allowing them. Thank
you. [clears throat]
[4:42] Thank you, Miles.
Anyone else on Zoom for public comment?
[4:55] Last call in-house, in person, for
public comment.
[5:02] Seeing none. Okay, we will close our
public comment portion,
[5:06] and I'll turn it over to Chris and staff
for our presentation.
[5:12] All right. Good evening, commissioners.
Thanks for being here tonight.
[5:16] Let's see if I can turn this.
[5:22] All right. Uh so, Chris Behee, uh I'm
long-range division manager in planning
[5:27] and community development. I'm joined
tonight by Chris Cook, who's
[5:31] our planner, who's
well-versed over many years in the
[5:36] depths of our residential housing code.
Um so, he's here to answer questions
[5:41] that might get down further in the weeds
than I'm comfortable going.
[5:45] Um
As we indicated earlier in um in the
[5:49] description, uh we are talking about
kind of general high-level zoning
[5:52] concepts. Over the past several months,
you've had briefings on some of the
[5:56] interim measures and a few of the
permanent measures that were passed near
[5:59] the end of last year that dovetail with
the comprehensive plan that implement
[6:03] the variety of state requirements that
were passed in 2023 and 2024 around
[6:09] middle housing, accessory dwelling
units, co-living housing, um and uh and
[6:14] also the parking reform
uh
[6:17] um
uh
[6:18] interim measures. So, uh this is kind of
the next step in that conversation. It's
[6:23] again a little bit of a high-level
briefing, but we'll get down in the
[6:26] weeds on a few of the topics.
Um and in advance of this and then after
[6:30] this uh internal staff teams in our
department have been working for the
[6:35] last several months on the strategy for
the new residential zoning. Um and so,
[6:40] we'll be covering again some kind of
contextual pieces for that and then
[6:43] asking for thoughts and and uh feedback
from you on a couple of specific things.
[6:49] Uh and then you can anticipate over the
next year that we will be coming back to
[6:52] you a variety of times for similar uh
more feedback on these things as we as
[6:58] we work our way through them and then
eventually what will have is a that type
[7:01] six process as we bring forward the new
residential zoning code that that
[7:06] includes a lot of what we'll be talking
about tonight, but also all that the
[7:09] detail for the pieces.
[7:14] So, we'll talk about some of the
background and history behind the rules
[7:17] that we have today. Um and then again,
the policy direction we'll touch on uh a
[7:21] lot of you're familiar cuz you had a
hand in developing the Bellingham Plan.
[7:25] Um just touch base on on a few specific
pieces there related to the future land
[7:30] use map. I'll review some of the
community feedback from the surveys that
[7:34] we conducted during the the Bellingham
Plan public engagement process that
[7:37] relate just a a few of the touch points
that are specifically related to housing
[7:42] types, densities, the nature of
residential zoning,
[7:46] and what the community's preferences,
concerns,
[7:49] those kinds of things were.
We'll just focus on the map for a few
[7:53] minutes and walk through some of the
geography of how today's existing zoning
[7:58] map relates to the future land use map
and then what we anticipate these future
[8:02] residential zones will look like.
And how some things might be changing
[8:06] categories or shifting shifting around.
We'll look a little bit at some of the
[8:12] the statistics.
Won't spend too much time on that, but
[8:14] just kind of give you a a primer on what
some of the existing platting patterns
[8:18] are throughout the city and how those
relate to residential densities and
[8:22] zoning.
And then again, we'll have a couple of
[8:25] things we'll touch base on near the end
to get some feedback and generate some
[8:28] conversation
so that'll help us inform again the the
[8:31] ongoing work that our our team is
working on.
[8:38] I think this is a slide we showed you
guys
[8:40] a year or two ago during the the
process. It's something that was
[8:43] developed quite a while ago and we
updated it, but it's not something to
[8:47] spend too much time staring at, but it
kind of it basically from left to right
[8:50] kind of gives you that that long history
we've had of zoning in Bellingham. Our
[8:55] first zoning ordinance was passed in the
1940s
[8:59] and before that we'd had
regulations that were more general in
[9:02] nature. You can see the the evolution of
the the
[9:08] 25 neighborhood plans that Bellingham
developed in the 1980s.
[9:13] In the 1990s, we had the Visions for
Bellingham process that fed into our
[9:18] first growth management comprehensive
plan. That was the 1995
[9:23] 1995 plan and then we've updated that
plan three times since then in 2006,
[9:29] 2016, and then most recently just this
last year.
[9:33] Um
And then there's been a variety of uh
[9:36] broader community discussions around
growth that uh were actually outside of
[9:41] those comprehensive planning cycles, but
but informed them and related to them.
[9:45] Uh the most notable that I'll talk about
in a few more minutes uh in another
[9:49] slide is that community forum on growth
in the early 2000s. That was a point
[9:53] where
Bellingham had and while of Whatcom
[9:56] County had been growing much like
Western Washington as a whole at a
[9:59] pretty steady clip through the 1990s,
and by the end of the '90s and the early
[10:02] 2000s, we were really feeling a lot of
those infrastructure pressures. And so
[10:07] we we uh along with Whatcom County and
Whatcom Transportation Authority uh
[10:12] spun up a a community-wide conversation
on growth. So, that was a a significant
[10:17] kind of a watershed moment and was a
kind of a pivot point for our local land
[10:21] use policies.
Um and then you can see again just this
[10:25] doesn't show anything by show all of the
the things uh
[10:29] but it does show that there's this been
this very busy time within the last say
[10:33] 2 to 3 years of uh
very uh um aggressive state legislative
[10:38] sessions and then a lot of local uh
things handed down to local
[10:42] jurisdictions to include in our comp
plans and implement. And you are keenly
[10:47] aware of that of having been through the
again the recent comp plan update
[10:50] process.
[10:54] So, again just to kind of hit the the
main pieces that have been driving a lot
[10:59] of this change um were again some of
those house bills and Senate bills that
[11:03] were passed uh a couple of years ago by
the state. Um the main ones being that
[11:08] House Bill 1110, which is the the middle
housing bill, 1337, which is the
[11:12] accessory dwelling unit bill.
And then we've got um
[11:16] uh
1998, which was the co-living, and then
[11:19] House Bill 1293 is that uh design review
uh and permit streamlining bill. All of
[11:26] those together are really what was
addressed in that November-December push
[11:30] as we had those either permanent or
interim measures that were um brought
[11:35] forward and and passed along with the
Bellingham plan.
[11:39] In general, if you were to look at those
from a very high level, it's it's a
[11:42] shift from the sort of I guess binary is
a good way of thinking about it,
[11:46] residential single residential multi
land use model that we've had for
[11:49] decades in Bellingham and which a lot of
communities have had and really going
[11:54] for a more towards a more inclusive
model which includes certainly
[11:58] residential single and the larger multi
forms as well, but also in the middle
[12:03] those middle housing styles that kind of
continue or fill in that spectrum of
[12:08] housing between the larger buildings and
single detached forms and also include
[12:13] just
a wider variety of smaller housing forms
[12:17] whether they be smaller cottages and
just small lot single family development
[12:22] or the duplexes, townhomes and other
attached forms.
[12:30] And just reflecting back to the main
kind of policy areas within the
[12:34] Bellingham plan that this more inclusive
more broad type of zoning that we're
[12:41] talking about and we'll be talking about
more
[12:44] throughout the evening here really hits
on a on kind of four main policy areas.
[12:49] One is the the idea of housing for all
meeting that House Bill 1220 requirement
[12:54] where we plan for housing for all income
segments in the community.
[12:58] Providing really just more opportunities
and more options for people whether it
[13:02] be owner oriented or rental style
housing.
[13:05] Overall, we're looking for that compact
development form really trying to keep
[13:10] Bellingham's boundary from growing out
as much as possible
[13:14] for again for
meeting our climate action goals
[13:18] reducing carbon emissions reducing not
just the number of trips people need to
[13:23] take but recognizing that vehicle trips
are a necessary part of all of our lives
[13:27] at various times that we can maybe keep
those trips to be as short as possible
[13:31] by connecting where people live and
having housing being closer to services
[13:35] and those kinds of things. Again, that
direct relationship between density and
[13:39] kind of efficiency that way.
Um environmental protection um through a
[13:44] whole variety of things. One, again, not
expanding our our community footprint,
[13:48] so kind of the big like countywide
picture, having fewer impacts on those
[13:52] rural and resource lands. And then also
um just within the city doing things
[13:56] like using clustering to kind of
strategically place development in areas
[14:01] that has minimal environmental impacts
and leaves natural areas natural to the
[14:04] greatest degree possible. Provides that
protection there.
[14:08] And then sustainable urban services. Um
if you've again listened to any of the
[14:12] conversations, particularly around
annexation,
[14:15] uh the cost to not just put pipes in the
ground and build streets, but also to
[14:20] provide public safety services um and
all the the related uh elements of of
[14:26] maintenance of city facilities. Um the
greater distance that we have to travel
[14:31] or the more miles of those facilities
that we need to maintain, just it's a
[14:34] greater burden that the entire community
bears. The the closer we can get people
[14:38] living to services and the closer to
each other, all of those [snorts] things
[14:42] are made more efficient and they they
can be smaller. So just the again the
[14:47] the cost model that goes along with
that.
[14:49] So those are just again just kind of
connecting the dots. It's intuitive, but
[14:53] it's helpful to just vocalize that and
really point it out that those are all
[14:56] very intentional choices that our
community has made. Um and a lot of
[15:00] those code updates on those timelines
relate to
[15:03] uh those four things in particular.
[15:08] This is that again hearkening back to
2004 and then um when we had those uh
[15:13] community conversations. If if some of
you in the room may remember those, but
[15:18] if you if you can imagine the
Bellingham's
[15:20] uh Bellingham High School's auditorium,
which you know, seats over 1,000 people.
[15:24] We had that packed on a number of
occasions during those community forum
[15:28] on growth conversations and had large
large cross-sections of the community
[15:32] there to learn um get kind of the same
kind of information that you as planning
[15:36] commissioners get on a frequent basis,
gain a better understanding of how land
[15:40] use and transportation intersect and
inform each other um and uh to kind of
[15:44] portray in that early 2000s context what
growth pressures Bellingham and Whatcom
[15:50] County as a whole were feeling
and to ponder those things and to come
[15:53] up with uh
with potential solutions that we could
[15:56] use as a community.
Um
[15:59] after those conversations, a couple
years later, uh Bellingham hosted the
[16:03] Bellingham Planning Academy sessions,
which were smaller, more focused growth
[16:07] sessions, again with a good
cross-section of the community.
[16:10] And the conversations that came out of
that effort really were sort of the the
[16:14] early stages of what would eventually
become the Infill Toolkit that
[16:17] Bellingham then uh formally got into the
Bellingham Municipal Code in uh 2009.
[16:23] So, it was a kind of a evolving organic
community conversation about how we
[16:28] address those growth pressures.
And then the other key thing that came
[16:31] out of both the for the the growth
management uh community forum on growth
[16:36] and then also those planning academy
conversations was the urban village
[16:39] concept. Um and [snorts] that would
played right into the 2006 comprehensive
[16:44] plan update when we formally adopted
those those urban village concepts and
[16:49] then those later became urban village
master plans over the the ensuing
[16:52] decade.
[16:56] This is another timeline with a lot of a
lot going on on it, but if you just um
[17:00] again, it's really just uh to indicate
that Bellingham has been heading in this
[17:05] direction for quite some time and that
while there's a lot of change that we're
[17:09] having to digest as a community in the
last few years around middle housing, um
[17:13] that that the um
the direction is not new. It's just
[17:18] a a greater emphasis on it in the last
few years. And you can see again this
[17:23] kind of takes off where the previous
slides left off that 2006 comprehensive
[17:27] plan and those early [clears throat]
conversations that we looking at the
[17:31] just the green things here. We passed in
2009 the initial infill toolkit. Um
[17:37] Originally it applied only in the
residential multi and urban village
[17:41] zones.
And that really didn't have a a great
[17:45] deal of uptake for the a number of
years. There were people were unfamiliar
[17:49] with the code. There weren't as many
builders in town that were familiar with
[17:53] middle housing forms. Um took a while
for people to understand that code and
[17:57] get used to it. Around 2014-15
we started to see the first few projects
[18:02] come through that were utilizing that
code. Um and then you know by 2018 or so
[18:08] there were quite a few projects that we
were seeing land in different
[18:11] neighborhoods utilizing the toolkit
code. In 2018 along with the update to
[18:17] our subdivision code that the
application for the infill toolkit the
[18:21] area was expanded into residential
single zones that had the cluster
[18:26] provision. So that included a lot of the
areas in North Bellingham where we had
[18:30] annexed land in recent years and then
also some areas around the edge that had
[18:34] the the cluster provision in them. So
that was an expansion.
[18:39] And then in 2021 there was a really
significant update to a lot of details
[18:42] in the code around pedestrian oriented
design.
[18:46] And that was a a big improvement as well
again based on experience learned
[18:50] through previous projects brought
through that that code and then just
[18:53] kind of planning best practices.
And then most recently the adoption of
[18:58] the interim middle housing ordinance in
December
[19:01] that that really expanded that citywide
and aligned us with House Bill 1110
[19:07] where we're requiring up to or we're
allowing rather up to four
[19:13] four homes per lot or six if they're in
proximity to transit or provide an
[19:17] affordability component. Um
The other things on here I'm not going
[19:22] to dwell on a lot, but you can see the
urban village plans after that 2006
[19:26] comprehensive plan with the kind of
formalized urban village concept.
[19:30] We had a variety of extended public
conversations for each of these
[19:34] districts most recently just this last
year for the Barkley area formalizing
[19:39] that in an urban village
code update. Um but you can see each of
[19:43] these took a year or two to finish.
There was a lot of public outreach and
[19:47] engagement as we had a different
visioning process for each of those.
[19:52] As you're familiar with these areas,
they all have similarities as being
[19:56] being areas of increased urban density
and intensity, but also they all have
[20:00] very unique characters and their own own
unique aspects to them.
[20:05] And so the conversations varied for each
of those areas as well.
[20:10] Um and then again just calling attention
there's a few things you can see also in
[20:14] here are various multimodal
infrastructure plans getting initialized
[20:19] and then updated throughout this time
period and our climate action plan.
[20:23] Those things all all again kind of
getting into those four points on the
[20:26] previous slide all playing together to
kind of form our community-wide growth
[20:31] strategy aiming for being more
sustainable, more efficient,
[20:36] and and providing opportunities for
people around the city.
[20:41] So again just kind of a talking point to
show how a lot of those things relate to
[20:44] each other and how we've had this steady
progression of of um
[20:49] kind of evolvement on the land use
front.
[20:54] Also just as as you know we've had
conversations over the past couple years
[20:58] about the 25 neighborhood plans that
importantly were were not adopted under
[21:03] the
most recent comprehensive plan this last
[21:06] December. They had been under previous
ones.
[21:09] And that's really just largely out of um
one recognition that the the zoning that
[21:14] is um
uh envisioned within those plans is not
[21:19] consistent with our new middle housing
and uh middle housing regulations and
[21:23] other state requirements.
Um
[21:26] Also, again, uh just from a practical
standpoint, they represent a uh
[21:31] a complexity in our zoning code that is
just not sustainable for us to manage
[21:35] anymore or for the community to really
use in a in an efficient way. And so,
[21:40] for all those reasons, um we decided at
that point to uh retire the plans
[21:45] themselves.
Um that's not to say they have not been
[21:48] enormously valuable over the past number
of decades as Bellingham has grown and
[21:52] thrived. Um
I think what we've we've uh talked in
[21:56] front of City Council and the
um Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory
[22:00] Commission and other bodies in recent
years about
[22:04] how um a lot of the really good stuff in
those neighborhood plans informed our
[22:08] first bike plan, our first pedestrian
plan, um our infrastructure plans. And
[22:13] um we've really really used um a lot of
the guidance in those documents over
[22:18] many, many years to do a lot of great
stuff in the community.
[22:22] But they are now um
really out of date. A lot of the things
[22:26] are out of sync with our current plans.
And we just don't have the the
[22:29] horsepower to nurse along that many
different vision documents for the city.
[22:33] So, we're relying on the community-wide
comprehensive plan and our development
[22:37] code together to work together to
realize the vision now.
[22:41] » [snorts]
[22:45] » One of those things um that was pulled
out of those 25 neighborhood plans in
[22:51] the early 2000s, in 2005, were the
actual development regulations for each
[22:56] subarea in those neighborhood plans. And
those were moved into the Bellingham
[23:00] Municipal Code under Title 20.
If you've ever popped open one of those
[23:04] 25 tables in the in the BMC, you're
familiar with the format. You've got sub
[23:09] areas listed and it's kind of a grid of
columns that talks about the general
[23:14] zoning type, use qualifiers and the
density that's allowed if it's a a
[23:19] residential zone.
And then there is these three columns
[23:22] that follow that that are
special
[23:26] regulations and prerequisite
considerations.
[23:29] And those really encapsulate a lot of
those legacy infrastructure components
[23:34] or other special requirements that a lot
of them, for instance, like around
[23:39] environmental protection, that we back
in the '80s when these plans were
[23:44] drafted, we didn't have separate code
pieces to address. And so it was
[23:48] appropriate to do that in a neighborhood
plan. And over the ensuing years, we did
[23:52] things like adopt a critical areas
ordinance that applies environmental
[23:55] protection regulations consistently
across the city for every development
[23:59] project. Um,
we did things like adopt those bicycle
[24:03] and pedestrian plans and a park and
recreation open space plan that have
[24:08] current thinking on all of those
infrastructure pieces across the city.
[24:11] Again, a lot of their
the first drafts of those plans pulled a
[24:16] lot of information out of the
neighborhood plans. Um, but maintaining
[24:19] those two systems in parallel to each
other is not an efficient way of working
[24:24] and so
our goal is to simplify the zoning
[24:28] tables in the municipal code to
eliminate those last three columns.
[24:33] We have an internal process that we have
a staff team working on to evaluate
[24:38] every one of these entries and every one
of those cells in those 25 tables and to
[24:42] point to the current place that those
concerns are addressed. And some of them
[24:46] have already been built. Some of them
are actually addressed in, like you
[24:50] said, in the critical areas ordinance or
other pieces of our of our municipal
[24:53] code.
And to search for anything that's a a
[24:57] nugget that has value that isn't
addressed anywhere and to make [snorts]
[25:01] a list of those things. We don't know
how many of those we might find going
[25:05] through all of these, but when we do,
that will be a project unto itself unto
[25:08] itself to decide, "Okay, these are
things that maybe haven't been addressed
[25:12] anywhere else and what's our strategy
for addressing those and have a a
[25:17] process spun up for that." Um but once
that work is complete, then we will be
[25:22] able to simplify these tables.
And not just drop some columns off of
[25:27] here, but also
as you'll see in the the coming slides,
[25:31] the goal is to also simplify the number
of zoning subareas that we have so that
[25:35] instead of a couple hundred residential
subareas, we just really have four or so
[25:40] types of residential zoning and that
they are consistent across the city. Um
[25:45] again, for simplification and
predictability, transparency,
[25:49] both for the broader community, for a
builder, for us as administrators to to
[25:54] be fair and equitable in how we
administer the code.
[25:57] All of those reasons.
[26:04] This is taken right from the land use
chapter of the new plan. We've got our
[26:06] land use map and then we have a policy
for each of
[26:10] land use types which correspond to the
colors on the land use map.
[26:14] And the types that we'll be talking
about tonight, we'll just touch briefly
[26:17] on the residential watershed. That's a a
future project defining what that zone
[26:22] entails, but for the most part we're
looking right now at the residential
[26:26] low, medium, and high
land use categories and again those
[26:31] correlate or will be the replacements
for the existing residential single and
[26:36] residential multi zones that you'd see
on our existing zoning map in the BMC.
[26:41] Um so again it's a
recasting of those
[26:45] regulations into these categories. And
again with that goal [snorts] of not
[26:50] having that binary separated single and
multi-housing types, but a a broader
[26:55] zone that relies more on levels of
intensity and allows a wider range of
[27:00] housing types.
[27:04] Just wanted to focus on a couple of
different things. Um first the watershed
[27:09] uh zone permits a limited range of
small-scale housing. Again, uh looking
[27:14] for low-intensity impacts within the
watershed to protect water quality. Very
[27:18] intentional. Uh we haven't had a
specific watershed zone previously, and
[27:22] we felt again the the logic being that
um knowing that we're trying to focus
[27:27] uh more housing and development in all
other areas of the city that the
[27:30] watershed zone would be something we
would very specifically spell out that
[27:34] its intent is to minimize impacts on the
lake.
[27:38] And then looking at the low, medium, and
high in sequence that we'd have uh a
[27:42] small
permit a range of small-scale housing
[27:45] types and densities in the low,
mid-scale housing types and densities in
[27:49] the medium, and the same range of uses
in the high that are allowed in the
[27:55] medium,
um
[27:56] but that we would allow a higher density
in those areas.
[28:00] And then just flipping these ones, you
can see again the density. Again, low
[28:04] density [snorts] for the watershed,
um
[28:07] minimum density standards in the low
zone so that we don't underutilize uh
[28:12] what constitutes a very large part of
our community.
[28:15] And then um in the medium and the high,
progressively larger minimum densities.
[28:25] Last thing I'll touch on just briefly on
this slide is that we also have our
[28:28] transit-oriented development. Um we did
not in the Bellingham plan update
[28:33] process designate these specific uh
areas where that as an overlay would
[28:38] apply, but we did talk generally that
that would relate to our high-frequency
[28:42] transit routes. Um what we haven't done
is the work to decide how wide should
[28:47] those corridors be, should there be
different types of TOD corridors, and
[28:51] what some of the standards that could be
employed in those areas are. That's
[28:54] something we'll touch on later during
our discussion.
[29:00] Again, that's these are just some
referencing some pages in the
[29:03] transportation and land use chapters
that relate. Um, I think you probably
[29:06] remember in the land use chapter we have
the concept of those transit-oriented
[29:11] development or TOD corridors, looking at
some of the major destination nodes
[29:16] within the community, um, the urban
villages, our institutional campuses for
[29:21] the colleges and also the hospital, the
airport, and and some of the major park
[29:25] and recreation sites as well.
Um, and then again, the uh, modal
[29:30] hierarchy pyramid pyramid, rather, the
inverted pyramid that we have in the
[29:34] transportation chapter, and committing
to, um,
[29:38] that as an overall growth strategy and
how that relates to the land use the
[29:42] land use map.
[29:48] All right, I'm going to pivot just a bit
to some of the engagement that we did,
[29:51] those surveys that I was talking about.
We had three major surveys, uh, done in
[29:56] late 2023 and into 2024. Uh, the
community vision survey, we had the
[30:01] housing preference survey, and then a
growth survey. And I'll just step
[30:04] through those in sequence and just
highlight a couple of things relevant
[30:08] for tonight's discussion.
The vision survey was, uh, a broad
[30:12] survey. It was mailed out to every
household in the city. It was also, uh,
[30:17] uh, shopped around at all of the tabling
opportunities and other public, uh, open
[30:21] houses and, uh, community events that,
uh, over a couple of months in 2023.
[30:27] Um, trying to get responses, uh, from as
many people, including visitors to the
[30:31] community, uh, that we could.
And we also collected demographic
[30:34] information with that to really
understand who we were hearing from and
[30:37] how that compared to Bellingham as a
whole for the community.
[30:41] Um, we had a Spanish version and had
some uh Spanish-speaking community
[30:44] members respond.
Um, and it was also distributed in a
[30:48] paper and online form at a variety of
events. We had over 4,000 uh responses
[30:55] to that, which when you think about it,
that's 10% ish of the community. That's
[30:59] a really good response rate. We were
super excited about that. Um, and uh
[31:04] felt like it was really valuable
information.
[31:07] Uh this is just one of the summary
slides. Basically, it was about uh
[31:11] concerns and kind of rating uh like a
report card for the community in that
[31:15] 2023 time frame. And really addressing
what what are the main concerns or you
[31:20] know, what do you think Bellingham needs
to improve on and what are the things
[31:22] that we do really well.
Um, the top concerns are the things that
[31:26] were more on the the red side of the
ledger that were things that we need to
[31:30] do better on. Um, housing for all
incomes was clearly articulated as as
[31:34] the the biggest uh concern and home
ownership was right behind that. Um,
[31:40] also living wage job stability. So,
those three things together um, just
[31:45] really indicate that a large large
segment of the of our community is
[31:48] really struggling um to find housing, to
keep uh having an income that keeps pace
[31:53] with the cost of housing. Um, and so
those are again, none of us was
[31:57] surprised and and certainly wouldn't be
a surprise to anybody that keeps track
[32:00] of what's going on in Bellingham or
really uh
[32:03] across the country and the state. But um
it was good to get some some hard data
[32:08] that correlated that so that we could
focus our policy work.
[32:14] The housing preference survey was um
a little bit uh it was a smaller survey.
[32:19] It was very focused on housing types and
conversations around housing. It was a
[32:23] statistically valid survey as opposed to
the vision survey, which was just a mail
[32:28] out and mail back and we
um didn't really do any any uh serious
[32:33] control over who we we back from.
Uh this was intentionally mailed to um a
[32:39] random selection of addresses throughout
the community.
[32:42] We we did some balancing at the front
end. So, for uh
[32:47] uh
typically underrepresented respondents
[32:50] that we find in the community. So, folks
with lower incomes,
[32:54] BIPOC community members, um
uh young people in particular, people
[33:00] that are 24 and under are typically ones
that are underrepresented in surveys.
[33:04] And so, census tracts that we know had
higher concentrations of those folks, we
[33:08] oversaturated with the mail out. Again,
to try and balance out, make sure what
[33:13] we got back was a closer sample to what
our community demographics are.
[33:17] And that was where we had a consultant
help with that. That was a little bit
[33:20] more than we were willing to do on our
own.
[33:23] Some of the main takeaways were that
residents prefer the small-scale and
[33:28] urban residential neighborhood types.
And I'll touch on what those are exactly
[33:31] on the next slide.
Um that people definitely preferred
[33:35] owning over renting. Again, no surprise
there.
[33:38] Lots of challenges around that,
obviously. But that that's given a
[33:41] choice, most people would rather own a
home than rent a home.
[33:44] Um and then when considering a wide
variety of trade-offs, so trying to kind
[33:48] of bring a little bit more of reality
into it and just saying instead of just
[33:51] saying what's your ideal,
people had a indicated a preference for
[33:57] homes on smaller lots and closer
together. So, greater density in
[34:01] exchange for getting better access to
things like multimodal infrastructure,
[34:05] amenities like parks, and proximity to
services like groceries and pharmacies
[34:10] and daycares and those kinds of things.
Also, when we talked about home sizes
[34:15] and configurations, the two-bedroom unit
was something that everybody felt we
[34:20] didn't have enough of in town, and they
felt like that was a good compromise
[34:24] between
on the size range between affordability
[34:28] and what they would like, livability.
So,
[34:31] that was something that was very
interesting to us was that two bedrooms
[34:34] are very popular. They go very quickly
in the community when they become
[34:38] available for rent or for sale. Um, and
that um, that's just something to pay
[34:43] attention to as we uh, develop our code.
[34:49] Again, those it just seeing here that
the the two types of neighborhoods
[34:53] people were most interested in living
in, not saying that they live in those
[34:58] neighborhood types today, were the
small-scale residential and the urban
[35:02] residential type neighborhoods. I've
just plopped these kind of circles on
[35:06] top of the the Opticos
uh, missing middle housing diagram that
[35:10] I think a lot of you have seen many
times before to just put a little bit of
[35:14] a visual to it, but the small-scale
residential is that kind of up to
[35:19] three-story sort of moderate density
with the wide mix of housing types, and
[35:23] then the urban residential is
uh, more the the smaller block size or
[35:29] quarter block size type buildings that
are maybe up to five stories. Um, which
[35:33] we see a lot of in our urban villages
um, and in in a few other parts of town,
[35:38] but those were the the kinds of
neighborhoods again with a mix of things
[35:41] happening within those neighborhoods
that people indicated a preference for.
[35:48] These are kind of complicated
statistical summary things from the the
[35:52] uh, report, but I just want to call your
attention to um,
[35:57] on the left here, these are the
percentages of the neighborhood types
[36:00] that people are actually living in
today. So, you can see we had kind of a
[36:04] spectrum of uh,
uh,
[36:06] maybe 12% living in kind of the more
dense urban core areas,
[36:10] um,
and then kind of a even split between
[36:13] our very suburban kind of uh,
low-density neighborhoods, and then the
[36:17] medium-density neighborhoods. And then
going across, these are the types of
[36:21] neighborhoods that people said they
would prefer to live in.
[36:25] Um, and so it's no surprise people that
live in fairly suburban areas tagged the
[36:30] suburban type of neighborhood as an area
they'd like to stay in. But what what we
[36:35] felt was
kind of a revelation or an important key
[36:38] point to key into were that the people
that maybe live in the more dense areas
[36:44] now
um
[36:45] were not necessarily all keyed into
living in a low-density suburban area.
[36:50] That their preference aimed more for
those kind of moderate-density,
[36:53] mixed-use, more variety of housing types
neighborhoods, which is that small-scale
[36:58] and urban residential. So again, that
kind of
[37:01] intuitive recognition that while I might
maybe I would want to live in a large
[37:07] home on a large lot at the edge of town,
I understand that there are some some
[37:10] costs that come with that in the
transportation realm, also environmental
[37:14] impacts,
um
[37:16] and and [snorts] the like, and that
maybe they were willing to compromise
[37:19] and live in a denser environment with a
more variety of housing styles in
[37:23] exchange for those amenities and
services that come with the denser
[37:27] neighborhood.
[37:31] And again, just on this side over here,
this was indicating again the strong
[37:36] preference for owning your home as
opposed to renting, and then also
[37:41] just again willing to compromise on or
to accept living closer to others in
[37:48] exchange for having things like access
to transit, access to other community
[37:53] amenities.
[37:57] So that was the housing preference
survey, and then the last survey we did
[38:00] was conducted largely online, and that
was the growth survey, and this we ran
[38:04] off of our Engage Bellingham page, and
also did some postcard mail outs with a
[38:09] QR code on it. Um, and again, this was
done in in English and Spanish, and we
[38:14] had a lot of outreach through our
project email lists that were fairly
[38:18] well developed by this time. Um, several
thousand went out that way, Um, and also
[38:23] it was promoted on social media and at
community events. We had over 3,000
[38:26] responses, which we felt was again a
really good response um, for the for the
[38:31] effort.
And
[38:34] uh, a lot of the responses echoed what
we'd seen in the vision and the housing
[38:37] preference survey, but we did ask some
of the questions in different ways. And
[38:41] um, again, there was that smaller
housing closer to amenities was a value
[38:45] that people had. We again saw a
preference for two-bedroom formats um,
[38:50] as opposed to larger homes farther away
from the core of the community.
[38:55] One of the interesting things we asked
about was um,
[38:58] we asked a variety of urban village
questions about where people liked to go
[39:02] in the community, what they liked about
urban villages, or maybe what they were
[39:05] concerned about about urban villages.
Um, you could see one of those comments
[39:09] was that our urban villages are too
auto-centric for some folks. Uh, they'd
[39:13] like to see more pedestrian
infrastructure in those areas. Um, one
[39:17] of the key things we asked was where
where should we have more urban villages
[39:20] in Bellingham? And we had a kind of a
heat map that people were able to drop
[39:24] points on. Um, there were some
interesting locations around town next
[39:28] to people's favorite park and those kind
of things, which maybe maybe or maybe
[39:31] not as practical. But Cordata and the
north part of Bellingham came out as a
[39:35] clear preference where people were like,
"Hey, we really need to have uh, that
[39:39] there." And that's the sentiment we've
heard in public hearings and through
[39:42] other kinds of um, not necessarily
surveys, but other other That's another
[39:47] uh, point that we hear frequently at the
city is that they'd like to have a
[39:51] mixed-use urban village in the north
part of the city. And so that's
[39:54] something that we're putting putting a
pin in that conversation. We're doing
[39:57] this residential zoning code update
first. When we do again pivot to looking
[40:02] at more urban villages, we'll pay close
attention to that and really look at
[40:05] that area out in Cordata as as maybe one
of the next potential areas to do that
[40:09] kind of a kind of a district.
[40:17] Okay, looking at the future land use and
zoning maps.
[40:20] Um
this is just
[40:23] basically looking at our existing
uh zoning map and turning off the
[40:28] » [snorts]
>> uh the the non-residential categories,
[40:30] so you don't see the green parks, the
the blue institutional
[40:35] uh campus zones, or the the gray
industrial or red commercial zones, but
[40:39] what you see is the existing residential
single zones that are the yellow areas,
[40:43] and the existing residential multi,
which are the orange, and then our urban
[40:47] villages are the pink areas.
Um again, we've you know
[40:51] we're in this kind of transition time.
We have interim middle housing
[40:54] regulations that apply across all of
these zones,
[40:58] um with the exception of the areas in
the Lake Whatcom watershed.
[41:01] Um so, while these are zoned residential
single in our zoning code, there's an
[41:05] interim ordinance that overrides that
and allows people to develop middle
[41:08] housing in these areas. But, this is
just the lay of the land from a
[41:11] geographic standpoint.
[41:15] Oops.
[41:17] So, there's the zoning, and here's our
future land use map, again with just the
[41:21] residential colors turned on from our
the Bellingham plan.
[41:25] And you can see instead of that
residential
[41:28] single multi paradigm that you have on
the existing zoning
[41:32] the new land use map has that
residential low, and then a residential
[41:35] medium, and the residential high zone.
You can see the lighter color out here
[41:39] for the residential watershed, and then
the urban villages are uh the same
[41:43] districts as they are on the on the
zoning map and on the future land use
[41:47] map.
[41:49] Just focusing on each of those
individually, uh the residential low
[41:54] zone, first and foremost, it's it's all
of the residential single zones from the
[41:58] current zoning map. And then a few other
things, um namely, you see these
[42:03] highlighted uh kind of turquoise or blue
areas that we brought in. There's a big
[42:08] one out here in uh Barkley,
uh one along um
[42:13] uh
the edge of the Birchwood neighborhood
[42:15] that fronts the the
bluff there by the waterfront, and then
[42:19] a couple of small ones in the uh Whatcom
Falls, and I think it's the Samish
[42:24] neighborhood. These are the few existing
residential medium zones that have a
[42:29] low-density designation in the zoning
code. Um we did the kind of pondering
[42:35] this as we were pulling together the
draft land use map. I think it's
[42:38] something it's something that we brought
forward to you uh when we were going
[42:41] through the different residential
policies in the land use chapter.
[42:46] And uh council agreed as well that those
were most appropriate to land in the
[42:51] residential low zone because they
already had that low-density identifier
[42:55] on them.
And that with the middle housing
[42:58] ordinance coming forward, that it was
likely that that that would be the best
[43:02] fit. So, it's all the residential single
zones, and then those low-density
[43:06] residential multi zones.
[43:12] Looking at the medium zone, these are um
all
[43:15] uh what would formally be residential
multi zones with the medium density
[43:20] designation in today's zoning code. So,
just saying instead of residential multi
[43:26] medium density, we're just calling them
residential medium.
[43:29] And then the allowed uses as per our
current interim and eventually our
[43:33] permanent residential regulations, they
would allow not just the multi uses, but
[43:37] also the range of middle housing. Um and
they have an appropriate minimum density
[43:43] um as they do today to make sure that
things get developed in an efficient
[43:46] way.
[43:50] And then the residential high is again
for the most part, today's residential
[43:56] multi high-density zones. And then we
have a series of mixed-use zones which
[44:03] allow um out at north end of Cordata
here, in the middle of Cordata, right
[44:07] next to the Cordata Park. Uh Those are
areas that are designated commercial,
[44:13] industrial, residential multi.
If you were to go out to those areas
[44:17] today, the developed properties are for
the most part all residential.
[44:22] There are a few non-residential uses,
but not many that have been developed in
[44:27] those areas.
So, we felt the best fit looking at
[44:30] existing development, the few vacant
properties that are left in these areas
[44:35] was to to drop them into the residential
high category because that was
[44:40] the most the closest fit for those.
And then,
[44:45] you can see next to the hospital, there
is a commercial, or rather an
[44:50] institutional residential multi zone.
And so, we felt again that the best fit
[44:54] for that would be the residential high
zone. So, those are ones that they show
[44:59] up as mixed on the current map, but we
would anticipate that those if we were
[45:03] to pick between the low, medium, and
high, it would be most appropriate if
[45:06] the most appropriate if they would land
in the high zone.
[45:13] And then, looking at the residential
watershed, again on the zoning map,
[45:16] there are residential single and
residential multi zones in the
[45:21] watershed.
If you recall in 2023, the residential
[45:26] multi zones were all down zoned to the
low density category.
[45:30] And so, we felt again it was most
appropriate to just capture all of them
[45:35] in that residential watershed zone.
That's a conversation for a future time
[45:39] as to what exactly is allowed in that
zone. But again, the the clear guidance
[45:44] from the the Bellingham plan from a
policy standpoint is that it be low
[45:49] density and have minimal impacts on
water quality in the lake.
[45:53] And again, there's a a variety of ways
we could approach that, and that'll be
[45:57] something that we'll bring forward to
you for for detailed conversation when
[46:01] we get our different experts in the city
together and come up with some
[46:04] recommendations.
[46:09] One of the just details that is left to
figure out about that is just the
[46:13] boundary for the watershed. We have a
couple of different um
[46:17] different um
things to ponder. We have the red Silver
[46:21] Beach neighborhood boundary here.
And then we have the uh this is the the
[46:25] black and white map in the background
here is taken right from the municipal
[46:29] code related to the Silver Beach overlay
zone and which controls when certain
[46:34] things can happen for development in the
watershed to minimize impacts on the
[46:38] lake. And there's the gray area which is
all within the Lake Whatcom watershed
[46:41] and then the cross-hatched area is
within the watershed but drains to um
[46:47] the area uh that goes to Whatcom Creek
as opposed to the lake. So, it all the
[46:52] drainage all comes down to the west of
the Electric Avenue bridge there.
[46:56] Um so, there's some choices to make
there. Again, we haven't haven't made
[47:00] those choices yet, but that'll be part
of that conversation when we decide what
[47:04] will be allowed in those zones and how
how that will be crafted in development
[47:08] code.
[47:15] One more loose end that we'll need to
figure out um
[47:18] and again this is something our our team
is talking about internally, but we
[47:21] don't have a a strong recommendation yet
um but we'll bring back uh when when we
[47:26] do have some some options for you guys
to to discuss and talk about. Um
[47:31] within each of the urban villages there
are these transition zones which are
[47:35] highlighted there in the darker pink.
They generally
[47:39] uh but up against adjacent residential
low or medium or high density areas. And
[47:44] so, we what we want to avoid at least
for a great length of time is setting up
[47:49] a situation where you might have higher
density just outside of an urban village
[47:53] and then a lower density or lower level
of intensity allowed within a transition
[47:58] area and then back up to a higher level
of intensity in the core of an urban
[48:02] village. So, those are things that we'll
have to we'll have to navigate that and
[48:05] figure out how we're going to designate
those areas.
[48:08] If they'll become part of the adjacent
residential medium or high zones or
[48:13] maybe they will be redesignated as high.
Um there's a variety of things there,
[48:17] but we need to do some more thinking on
that. We'll come back to you with some
[48:20] recommendations. That will likely happen
alongside [snorts]
[48:24] these code updates.
[48:30] This is just illustrating the wide
variety of existing zoning densities
[48:34] that are applied in the current
residential single zones. So, all of the
[48:38] stuff that's
uh shown in color on the map here is is
[48:41] inside that residential proposed
residential low zone.
[48:45] Um
and you can see there's some definite
[48:48] patterns of the core areas are are older
gridded neighborhoods having higher
[48:52] densities.
Um lot sizes allowed lot sizes that are
[48:57] as small as 3,000 square feet in the
York neighborhood and then um as you go
[49:01] towards the edges
um or the example of Birchwood, you have
[49:05] densities that go up to those in some
cases almost a half acre lot size, the
[49:10] 20,000 square foot areas.
And then we have quite a few that are in
[49:14] those around the 7,000 square foot lot
size in different parts of town. Um
[49:19] but it is interesting to see what the
pattern is and how that relates.
[49:25] And then also
these are the densities that are listed
[49:28] in those zoning tables and then as as
the
[49:32] note says here, some of these zones um
in particular some of the ones that
[49:37] we've annexed over the last 20 or so
years from Whatcom County have
[49:41] opportunities for uh bonuses for
clustering
[49:45] um or other kinds of uh provisions to
increase density. Um some of them
[49:49] through like a TDR transfer of
development rights kind of program um or
[49:54] other kinds of kinds of options.
Um so there's some level of complexity
[49:58] there, but this is the base
the base density that's that's
[50:02] referenced.
Wait, can I just cut in for a second? It
[50:06] is what was um this is being proposed
going forward, not was in the previous
[50:10] one. This would carry forward with us or
something we're trying to simplify.
[50:14] Uh
so these would be again in that the kind
[50:17] of 97 unique zoning subareas. This is
one of those things we're looking to
[50:21] really simplify.
Um and I'll we're going to jump into
[50:24] some of uh existing platting patterns
next. Just making sure. The residential
[50:28] low confused me I think versus
residential single whether it was the
[50:32] previous or the proposed. Thank you.
>> Yeah. Yeah, so great observation that
[50:37] it's I mean it's uh I'll clarify that
that yeah, so these are existing
[50:41] densities in the Bellingham municipal
code for those residential single zones.
[50:46] Um
and again just just in the past couple
[50:49] of years that we've had just since we've
had the interim middle housing
[50:52] ordinance.
Um
[50:55] previously this was your minimum lot
size and it corresponded to one home per
[50:59] lot. And now now that we allow four or
in some cases up to six per lot, that's
[51:04] really changed the landscape. Um
and then accessory dwelling units as
[51:08] well as another another variable in
there. Uh so those are where
[51:13] again we're we're um stepping back,
examining the landscape, looking at
[51:19] these areas in context of also the
medium and high
[51:22] uh
proposed zoning areas and trying to
[51:25] figure out what makes the most sense as
a recommendation for a more uniform
[51:29] density across the city.
[51:37] So these are I'm just going to step
through a few of these and not not dwell
[51:40] on them for a long time, but just to
give give you an idea. Um these are all
[51:43] of the tax parcels or lots throughout
that same set of zones. Um
[51:48] you know, you can't see a lot of the
detail here, but you can you can see
[51:51] some of the large unplatted areas around
the edges.
[51:55] Um, and then as you get into these
gridded neighborhoods, you know, a lot
[51:58] of these are are those like 4 or 5,000
or maybe 7,000 square foot lots. Um,
[52:05] overall, the entire entire set of zones
contain just under 16,000 tax parcel
[52:12] parcels covers about um,
5,800 acres.
[52:17] Uh,
that's that's a good section of
[52:20] Bellingham. It's about 70% of our
residential zoning as far as acreage
[52:25] goes. Um, it's about uh, roughly a third
of the city's land area.
[52:31] Um, of those 15,900
uh,
[52:35] nearly all of them about 90% are platted
lots.
[52:39] Um, and that makes up uh, about 75% of
that total area. The 300 unplatted lots
[52:45] are about 25%. And again, you can see
that
[52:48] those are the unplatted ones are not
insignificant. It's it's some of them
[52:52] are quite large. Um,
but [snorts] they are for the most part
[52:55] those those areas around the edge.
[53:02] Doing a little bit of uh,
digging uh,
[53:06] comparing some of our GIS data about a
majority, just a little bit over half of
[53:11] those platted lots are less than 7,500
square feet. Those have all been
[53:15] highlighted here so you can kind of see
where they are. Predictably, a lot of
[53:18] our core neighborhoods with those those
uh, defined gridded blocks and regular
[53:24] lot lot rectangular lot sizes um, are
are where you'd see a lot of those and
[53:29] you're probably familiar with, you know,
the the lettered streets and uh,
[53:33] Columbia neighborhood, South Hill, um,
Happy Valley, a lot of those areas where
[53:37] you'd experience those kind of blocks.
And then just from a statistical
[53:41] statistical standpoint, the 5,000 square
foot lot is is the most common platted
[53:46] lot size.
There's a lot of, you know, again,
[53:49] between the the five and the kind of
7,000 square foot size, there there's a
[53:53] lot of a lot of them in there. Yes,
yeah.
[53:57] I'm squinting [clears throat] at that
chart. It it Is there much below 5,000?
[54:00] I I I I saw you we have like some 3,000
and 4,000 zoned areas, but it kind of
[54:06] looks like there's nothing at all lower
than the 5,000 hash. This is it's
[54:11] basically 5,000 and
uh the the
[54:16] smaller ones, it's the label is
somewhere in
[54:20] the range there. The um I'll
Next time we come back to you, I can
[54:25] pull up or I can send you guys the
actual table with the occurrences on it.
[54:28] Um but that gives you the
from a frequency standpoint, um
[54:33] those that's the most common size.
This is looking at the
[54:39] uh
And then again, these highlighted ones
[54:42] are are everything 7,500 below, which
would include all those ones that are
[54:46] like in York that are 3,000 or 4,000
square feet.
[54:57] Looking at all the the lots again in
that same collection, um
[55:02] again, of just under 16,000 total, about
13,500 or about 85% have a single
[55:07] housing unit on them. Um and of all
those ones with just a single housing
[55:12] unit, the majority of those, clear
majority,
[55:16] um have less than 50% lot coverage. Um
and so that's using our our buildings
[55:21] layer that has, you know, if you have a
lot with a building and a garage, it's
[55:24] got two
two polygons on it. Single Just single
[55:27] home by itself, it's a single one. But
we When we add up the square footage of
[55:30] those and compare it to the square
footage of the entire lot, um and so
[55:34] that's, you know, that's not accounting
for driveways and other hardscape
[55:37] features, but it gives you some idea
that there's definitely a fair amount of
[55:41] development capacity for adding middle
housing
[55:45] on areas without really impacting
existing the existing housing units on
[55:49] those lots or there's there's definitely
some opportunities there.
[55:53] That's the kind of analysis that
was incorporated into the land capacity
[55:58] estimate that informed the comprehensive
plan to make sure that we have enough
[56:01] land to accommodate the projected
growth. Um, this is just but it just
[56:06] from a very general standpoint, it's a
useful thing to know.
[56:09] Um,
about 850 of those lots accommodate
[56:13] multiple housing units. So, a lot of
those would be like a single home with
[56:16] an accessory dwelling unit. Um, could be
a duplex or other kind of housing form
[56:22] that's that's uh
been built previously in those zones.
[56:26] And then just under 1% about 120
accommodate non-residential uses and so
[56:32] those are things like schools or
churches or maybe a corner market or
[56:35] some other some other
commercial or non-residential use
[56:40] that's in one of our one of those zones.
And then around the edge, uh, there's
[56:45] about 1,500 or so that are vacant. So,
about 10% overall.
[56:54] I'm just going to step through a series
of images that that give you the pattern
[56:58] in these 5,000 square foot increments.
So, what you're seeing here and I'll go
[57:03] through it a couple times just so you
kind of see, but these are all the lots
[57:06] that are less than 5,000 and then you
can see between 5 and 10.
[57:13] And then 10 to 15.
15 to 20
[57:18] and then 20 to 25.
And then anything greater than 25,000.
[57:25] Um, and these are the uh
these are the lots that are platted. So,
[57:29] you're you're seeing the vacant uh
unplatted stuff show up like on
[57:33] Sammamish Hill or some of the other edge
areas. These are just the platted lots.
[57:37] Um
So, I'll just go back through that in
[57:39] sequence. What I want to Basically, what
you're going to see is that the pattern
[57:43] is that you get those
those ones that are between
[57:48] 5 and less than 5 and up to maybe 7,500
are for the most part in a lot of these
[57:54] core areas.
And then we start to get a more
[57:57] distributed pattern for those larger
lots.
[58:00] Um but you do also see, for instance,
that Birchwood is an area that shows up
[58:05] with a larger number of the those big
like 20,000 square foot, 15,000 square
[58:10] foot, or even larger lots.
[58:18] And then the last kind of lot pattern
thing I wanted to bring to your
[58:21] attention just because
when you're doing those infill housing
[58:25] infill toolkit style projects where
you're adding uh adding units to a lot
[58:29] that may already have an existing home
on it, um a couple of things make that a
[58:34] lot easier. One is if it's a corner lot
because then you have a couple of
[58:37] different access points to the lot. Um
and oftentimes those are just by nature
[58:41] sometimes larger lots.
Uh but having a having two points of
[58:45] access is an important one. And then in
that same vein, access lots that are
[58:50] along an improved alleyway.
Um again, because you can get in
[58:53] oftentimes without Maybe the home is
situated in such a way that you can't
[58:57] get a driveway by the side of the home,
but if you get to the alley, you can add
[59:01] a town home or an ADU or something like
that in the back. Um
[59:06] And so again, it's you know, for the
particularly for the platted alleys um
[59:10] that are improved, again, it's in some
very focused areas of town.
[59:15] Um corner lots, we have those obviously
in a wide variety of places, but again,
[59:19] you could see because of the gridded
streets, those those interior
[59:22] neighborhoods, you do see a lot of
opportunities there as well.
[59:27] So again, just something to be thinking
of. Um That's one thing that
[59:31] our staff has pondered quite a bit in
the past 6 months or so are where we do
[59:37] have things like platted and improved
alleys, where do we have platted alleys
[59:42] that aren't improved, and what kinds of
opportunities those present. And then
[59:46] where do we not have alleys platted, but
we might have deep lots that could
[59:50] really benefit from having alleys at
some point. Or
[59:54] to just broaden that a little bit, maybe
not necessarily an alley, but an
[59:57] improved lane or other small some kind
of small street form that could be used
[1:00:02] to to provide access for fire, to
provide just access for again residents
[1:00:08] in their daily lives.
Also things like access for SSC for
[1:00:12] garbage collection,
just the whole variety of things where
[1:00:15] it's it's challenging sometimes when you
only have one way of getting in to a
[1:00:20] property. So those are all
all things we're trying to ponder and
[1:00:23] work with our friends in public works
and try and figure out what's what are
[1:00:27] some strategies
for the variety of neighborhood forms
[1:00:30] that we have that could really where we
could leverage some of these things. Um
[1:00:34] all of which we have to balance costs
with those things and impacts to to
[1:00:39] neighbors.
But but again, it's something that we're
[1:00:41] talking about.
[1:00:46] So before I just open it up for
discussion, I just wanted to touch on a
[1:00:49] couple of things and the discussion can
be on of course anything we've talked
[1:00:52] about or any other related questions you
have, but just a couple of things it
[1:00:55] would be great to get some initial
thoughts on.
[1:00:58] The idea of for those for those proposed
low, medium, and high zones that we
[1:01:03] would bring code forward for
just having a framework
[1:01:07] for how we differentiate those zones.
And one of the ideas that we're
[1:01:13] pondering is for the low zone having
both a minimum and a maximum lot size.
[1:01:19] So that the minimum or rather the
maximum lot size is effectively setting
[1:01:22] kind of what your minimum density is, so
that we are able to um
[1:01:28] uh make the best use of the limited land
that we have in town, and understand
[1:01:32] that we don't have too many more
opportunities to expand our boundary
[1:01:35] before we run into watershed or
agricultural land, or we have saltwater
[1:01:40] and hills. So, we we just don't have
that much more many more places to grow
[1:01:43] over the next series of decades. We want
to make the best use of the land we
[1:01:47] have, and so setting a a minimum density
is a a common way for communities to
[1:01:51] really curate that limited land.
And then also, um
[1:01:57] having a uh
uh for the medium and high zones,
[1:02:02] um having at least uh we have for those
areas today a minimum density, and so
[1:02:06] maintaining that, um and not worrying as
much about the lot sizes in those areas,
[1:02:11] understanding that they're really going
to be accommodating more of those
[1:02:14] multi-multi-story
forms, um but really just focusing on
[1:02:19] what's the established minimum for those
areas from a performance standpoint.
[1:02:23] Again, to make sure that we're getting
the um
[1:02:27] the amount of development that we are
are anticipating, um so that the
[1:02:32] infrastructure we provide is used to the
greatest degree possible, whether that
[1:02:35] be transit or parks or other kinds of
urban amenities.
[1:02:39] So,
so that's one kind of framework
[1:02:42] conversation and point that we'd like to
get feedback on.
[1:02:47] Another is just looking at our existing
interim rules, um where we allow um
[1:02:53] up to, for instance, if we're looking at
like the townhome form, we allow up to
[1:02:56] four units to be attached in a row, um
under the interim uh infill rules.
[1:03:03] Is that appropriate to hang on to that?
Is that a number we want to make bigger?
[1:03:07] Um
should we allow five or sixplexes?
[1:03:10] Um
and uh you know, that they would
[1:03:13] obviously that that would fit within the
agreed-upon low zone standards for like
[1:03:18] height and open space standards.
Um
[1:03:21] and is it really about the number of
units? Um or is it more about the bulk
[1:03:25] and mass of the overall building itself?
Um
[1:03:28] aiming you know, leaning towards more of
a form-based approach um as opposed to
[1:03:33] just controlling the number of units.
So, those are again kind of open-ended
[1:03:36] questions, but things that we're
thinking about. And if if you all have
[1:03:40] thoughts or questions related to that
that that's that's um helpful for us as
[1:03:46] we go through these these conversations.
[1:03:50] And then the last one I touched briefly
on those uh TOD transit-oriented
[1:03:54] development corridors.
We have not delineated those yet. We we
[1:03:58] know that they're likely going to be
along uh Whatcom Transportation
[1:04:01] Authority's GO lines where they have
their uh fifth currently 15-minute
[1:04:05] service intervals for transit. Um
they're in the midst, if you've been
[1:04:09] watching recent council meetings, of
uh
[1:04:13] um
working with the city uh to move forward
[1:04:17] with uh
um shortening up those service intervals
[1:04:20] along those GO lines. Uh there's now an
agreement between the city and Whatcom
[1:04:24] Transportation to work collaboratively
towards that goal. Uh picking off some
[1:04:28] easy or relatively achievable uh things
along those routes to take about 5
[1:04:34] minutes off of those headway times. Um
and that's one of those necessary
[1:04:38] ingredients to really make
transit-oriented development successful.
[1:04:41] And it's kind of a feedback loop that
that it makes the transit successful,
[1:04:45] too, cuz you have ridership.
Um so
[1:04:49] to think about what those corridors
might look like, whether they're
[1:04:52] occurring in a low, medium, or high
zone. Um what kinds of additional
[1:04:58] um what kinds of flexibility should we
include in those areas?
[1:05:02] Um whether it be height or reduced
setbacks or other kinds of things. So,
[1:05:07] those are
those are some of the things we'd like
[1:05:11] to have feedback on and again, like I
said, I'm we're happy to respond to
[1:05:15] any questions you have around those
things. Also, any of the other material
[1:05:19] and like I said, my friend Chris is here
who's well versed in the the the BMC and
[1:05:24] also is heavily involved in the team
working on the residential zoning stuff.
[1:05:28] So.
[1:05:32] Great.
Feedback? Questions?
[1:05:39] I have a question
for either Chris.
[1:05:43] Um
I'm curious uh
[1:05:46] with uh
with the low
[1:05:49] um
the low zoning
[1:05:53] um and and maybe I'll just phrase it in
a question. Um if I if I owned a 5,000
[1:05:58] square foot lot and I was thinking about
building a fourplex
[1:06:03] uh and I went to the building department
to obtain a permit. Um
[1:06:09] if that fourplex
took up 4,000 square feet of impervious
[1:06:14] surface
am I eligible
[1:06:17] for a permit? Uh did the new middle
housing
[1:06:22] um requirements supersede what our local
stormwater regs are?
[1:06:32] Uh right now, there is an open space
requirement. So, if you don't meet the
[1:06:36] open space requirement for your
development, regardless of the number of
[1:06:38] units, then it would not be allowed.
So, is that open space uh requirement
[1:06:46] changing or is it the same formula that
we've been using?
[1:06:51] Uh it's a formula that was adopted for
the middle housing
[1:06:57] ordinance.
Um
[1:07:00] and
uh again, we are evaluating that right
[1:07:04] now. So, we don't know if it will change
or if we've actually got it dialed in
[1:07:10] where we want it to be at this point.
We're
[1:07:12] looking at the projects that are coming
in right now under the current interim
[1:07:16] ordinance
and the the previous interim ordinance
[1:07:19] and um
just
[1:07:23] we'll we'll evaluate that and come up
with a proposal
[1:07:28] or recommendation.
[1:07:31] Um
[1:07:35] on the graph
that when the poll was taken and an
[1:07:39] overwhelming amount of people said,
"Hey, it'd be great to own a home and
[1:07:42] not rent a home
in Bellingham." And that's, you know, we
[1:07:46] hear that all the time. And making
housing affordable, which seems to be
[1:07:51] the biggest challenge with not much
developable land. Um when we move to
[1:07:56] this
would it be fair to say if somebody in
[1:08:00] the Birchwood neighborhood
um that had a 15,000 square foot lot
[1:08:04] would there be a minimum lot size where
instead of just developing an ADU,
[1:08:09] something that they could rent, would
that person be able to subdivide their
[1:08:13] property into three 5,000 square foot
lots and sell those two lots for
[1:08:19] development so somebody might be able to
afford
[1:08:22] a smaller home on a subdivided lot?
Yes, you would be able to subdivide. You
[1:08:28] are able to subdivide right now under
the current uh interim ordinance. So the
[1:08:33] current one, depending on what
neighborhood you're in, uh the graph
[1:08:37] that Chris showed. So if you were in a
neighborhood that said, "Hey, your
[1:08:39] minimum lot size in this neighborhood is
8,000 square feet." Are we going to have
[1:08:44] a new minimum lot size for middle
housing?
[1:08:48] Uh
we're looking to come up with a
[1:08:53] minimum lot size that would
apply citywide. Universal. Universal.
[1:09:01] Um
say right now under say a single-family
[1:09:06] 5,000 zone,
you can put four to six units on that.
[1:09:11] You can subdivide those four to six
units into four lots.
[1:09:15] So, for example, a townhouse lot where
the townhouse is only 16 ft wide,
[1:09:21] you're creating a very small lot. The
end units tend to take up
[1:09:27] the open space on the outside. So, those
lots tend to be a little bit larger.
[1:09:32] So, a 5,000 sq ft lot could be
subdivided into four to six units. A
[1:09:37] 20,000 sq ft lot could be subdivided
into four to six units.
[1:09:43] Potentially, if you know, if we do come
up with this universal
[1:09:47] mm minimum lot size parent lot size,
uh in the Birchwood neighborhood, if
[1:09:53] that
that lot size is 5,000 sq ft and you
[1:09:57] have a 20,000 sq ft lot,
then you could create four parent lots.
[1:10:03] Each of those parent lots would be
eligible for four to six units.
[1:10:07] Each of those units could be subdivided
onto individual lots.
[1:10:11] So,
basically, it it gets to a point where
[1:10:16] you're not able to
keep subdividing
[1:10:20] into smaller lots. Or there's a there's
a point where you just can't subdivide
[1:10:24] it further.
Sure. And when you see people applying
[1:10:27] for that sort of development, is the
biggest hurdle then
[1:10:32] uh pervious surface?
Stormwater?
[1:10:36] That that is one of the bigger um
roadblocks. The others are, you know,
[1:10:42] existing trees on site for preservation.
Um
[1:10:48] sometimes it's existing homes on site
that
[1:10:51] they want to preserve. So, there there
there's
[1:10:54] all kinds of variables.
Um
[1:10:57] but stormwater's definitely one of the
bigger ones.
[1:11:02] Yeah, thank you.
I guess that following on to that
[1:11:05] is there a reason there should be any
minimum lot size
[1:11:11] given the confusion it causes when we're
I guess looking at community goals of
[1:11:16] increasing
um access to ownership and increasing
[1:11:20] affordability minimum lot size obviously
tends to correlate with increasing
[1:11:25] property expenses and price.
Um
[1:11:30] so yeah, wondering if
we if it's possible to just not have a
[1:11:35] minimum lot size recognizing
that we're not talking about the
[1:11:39] watershed and that any that it would be
form base. You'd still have to uh comply
[1:11:45] with the impervious surfaces and the
setback and the heights and everything
[1:11:49] else. Um
and assuming connected to sewer and you
[1:11:54] didn't need enough space for a septic
and all of that stuff.
[1:11:57] Have you thought about just not having a
minimum lot at all?
[1:12:02] That's a possibility.
That's an option.
[1:12:10] Do you know any reasons your staff has
talked about why that's a bad idea or
[1:12:14] why that shouldn't move forward just out
of curiosity?
[1:12:21] It's one of those where it's it's an
unknown. It's it's something we have
[1:12:25] never had before. So it's
you know, right now we're operating
[1:12:30] under this uh interim ordinance and
we're able to see
[1:12:34] how it plays out
on this, you know, short-term basis and
[1:12:39] then explore options based on what those
outcomes are and that's that's kind of
[1:12:44] the beauty of it.
Um if we just jump to something that we
[1:12:50] It's don't know um
we don't know what the outcomes are.
[1:12:56] That that's a little more challenging.
[1:12:59] But I think I think to your point
though, the um
[1:13:03] the idea
uh
[1:13:07] we we've talked about, you know, the
range of potential values to consider
[1:13:10] for both a minimum or a maximum. And in
our conversations
[1:13:15] um
it's been uh and again set up by the
[1:13:18] policies in the the land use chapter,
the the maximum lot size is really the
[1:13:23] the one that we feel is is um
that's the one that really helps you
[1:13:27] achieve that minimum density threshold
to make sure that again that we're we're
[1:13:31] making the best use of the areas we have
left to develop in town.
[1:13:35] Um
But but that's a that is an interesting
[1:13:38] idea to just say maybe maybe if you only
need a maximum, can you accomplish what
[1:13:42] you need?
So.
[1:13:47] Chris, you mentioned TDR transfer of
development rights. I'm not familiar
[1:13:52] with that. Can you explain it to me?
Yeah, it's a it's a program that the
[1:13:56] it's been a county-wide program for a
good number of years, um over 20. And
[1:14:01] it's not anything that's really caught
on locally. We've studied it uh the
[1:14:06] county and the cities have studied it
jointly a number of times over the past
[1:14:09] 20 years. And it's really been uh we
haven't had the market to support it.
[1:14:14] But it's basically in concept, you have
areas in rural areas uh
[1:14:19] that you want to limit development in
and it could be the watershed, it could
[1:14:22] be the agricultural zone. Those are kind
of the two most common that are talked
[1:14:25] about.
And to effectively move development
[1:14:30] rights out of that zone
or either of those kinds of areas, you
[1:14:34] set up receiving zones in areas like a
city where you're willing to increase
[1:14:39] density in exchange for a property owner
or developer buying development rights
[1:14:44] out of those areas that you want to
preserve. And in that exchange, there's
[1:14:48] some negotiation that happens. There's
an agreed-upon price per unit. And then
[1:14:52] the the deed for the property out in the
area you want to remove units from,
[1:14:57] there's the deed gets modified to say
the property rights have been purchased.
[1:15:01] They've been used in, you know,
Bellingham or wherever, or they've gone
[1:15:04] into a bank for further use somewhere
generically.
[1:15:07] Um
It's it's something that really has
[1:15:10] never taken off. There are a few
examples in Whatcom County where it's
[1:15:14] happened, but in general, the market has
not been there um
[1:15:18] to really force the issue on those. A
simpler program is what we've had
[1:15:24] um running beside that and is in our
zoning as well. It's a purchase of
[1:15:28] development rights program, and we've
had that in a in some areas we've
[1:15:32] annexed from Whatcom County where you
can do TDRs or PDRs.
[1:15:36] We've had one example in the last 15 or
so years where some uh
[1:15:40] a project was built. I think it was out
on Telegraph,
[1:15:44] where someone was able to purchase some
development rights and able to add
[1:15:48] additional units on a multi-family
project um just by, you know, basically
[1:15:52] much simpler. You don't have to
negotiate back and forth with
[1:15:54] development rights. You can just write a
check. It goes into the watershed
[1:15:57] purchase fund, and you're granted it
additional floors or additional units in
[1:16:01] a project. Um
[1:16:05] Yeah, and it goes into like, you know,
it's designated for a special fund, and
[1:16:08] in exchange, you're given additional
density. Um the only place that
[1:16:13] one of the only places in the state that
programs like that have worked very well
[1:16:18] were were in the kind of boom years of
when the South Lake Union projects
[1:16:21] around Amazon were developing, and you
had
[1:16:25] towers over 20 stories going up, and in
exchange for buying agricultural
[1:16:30] development rights or watershed
development rights in King County,
[1:16:33] developers were able to add 10 or 15
floors to a building. In that kind of
[1:16:37] environment, it definitely made sense.
It penciled out for them.
[1:16:41] The environment in Whatcom County, it's
the market's never been there to really
[1:16:45] make the development rights valuable
enough to force that.
[1:16:48] Um the other thing, again, just given
the last 3 years worth of state
[1:16:53] legislation, we've just been given a
huge
[1:16:57] density boost in
in Bellingham in particular because
[1:17:00] House Bill 1110 applies here. And so
that just makes it even less likely
[1:17:05] that a developer isn't going to be able
to build as many units as they want and
[1:17:08] they're going to pay extra to get that.
So it's just again one of those things
[1:17:14] um that just from a market standpoint
has never really made sense here. Um
[1:17:18] great great policy and laudable cause,
but it's just not a mechanism that's
[1:17:23] been able to work.
[1:17:30] Um
looking through the map, it I think
[1:17:34] we're I'm curious at how rigid we need
to be about mapping current RS to low
[1:17:39] and current RM to medium.
And what
[1:17:44] what the philosophical difference
between low and medium is given
[1:17:49] 1110 applies in both.
Um
[1:17:53] we've got your
your
[1:17:57] uh
lot size analysis is only in the low.
[1:18:01] And if you
>> Yeah, I I what we showed you tonight is
[1:18:04] in the low zone. We've got we've got
that for the whole city, but it's yeah,
[1:18:07] you're right. It's we've we focused on
for instance
[1:18:10] again, because we were less concerned
about lot sizes in the medium and high
[1:18:14] zones. It's more about setting a minimum
density threshold Yeah. knowing that lot
[1:18:20] sizes work differently with with
residential multi projects in
[1:18:23] particular. Um
But I
[1:18:26] I mean I I I just observe that there's
there's some areas that are lower lot
[1:18:31] size like 3,000 lot size that are going
to get tagged as low and some areas that
[1:18:35] are 5,000 lot size that going to get
tagged as medium
[1:18:39] and they're like across the street the
same distance from a transit center.
[1:18:43] Like it's it's arbitrary. It's the
historical layers of, you know, decades
[1:18:48] of built-up decision-making.
The built environment
[1:18:54] may be more appropriate in some cases
for a medium
[1:18:58] if for something that might get tagged
as low. And so
[1:19:01] kind of going back to what
um
[1:19:04] he was asking
is there other dimensions around open
[1:19:08] space requirements or setbacks or other
fact- limiting factors like that between
[1:19:14] low and medium
that maybe makes sense
[1:19:17] to cuz
inside the
[1:19:20] existing built neighborhoods
you've got a whole street of 3,000 ft
[1:19:26] lots and a whole and a whole street of
5,000 ft lots. That's not going to
[1:19:28] change very much. Oh it's going to be
very very slow for any sort of bundling
[1:19:32] to happen.
Um
[1:19:36] if any
redevelopment is going to happen, does
[1:19:38] it come down to things like open
space requirements? And do we have any
[1:19:44] are those are we anticipating those
being different at the medium and high?
[1:19:50] Well, you you have the the building
envelope that you can build within based
[1:19:53] on the standards. So for the middle
housing
[1:19:56] um you have your floor area ratio. And
it's um
[1:20:01] it's scaled so that it if you're just
going to build one unit on site you get
[1:20:05] a 0.6 FAR.
Um based on the the lot size. If you
[1:20:10] build six units on it, you get 1.6. So
it's for every unit you add, you get a
[1:20:17] 0.2 bonus.
So that is one of the
[1:20:22] things that are limiting your envelope.
You have your setbacks. You have open
[1:20:27] space. You have height limits.
Um
[1:20:31] those are those are really the the main
factors there.
[1:20:35] Are there credits between four and six?
[1:20:39] Uh yes. It It Again,
at four, you're at 1.2, at five, you're
[1:20:45] 1.4, and at six, you're at 1.6. So, you
get a credit of 0.2 FAR
[1:20:51] for each unit.
[1:20:57] I I'd say that
with the low zones, um
[1:21:02] you know, Portland has
uh
[1:21:05] been doing this for a while where they
created these zones, and in the low
[1:21:11] zones,
it's the FAR that is actually
[1:21:15] creating the incentive for more building
more units.
[1:21:20] If you only have, say, a a single FAR
uh that allows
[1:21:28] um
a
[1:21:30] a 1.6 on a lot, regardless of the number
of dwelling units,
[1:21:35] you're going to have developers building
the largest single-family home that they
[1:21:38] can. And, you know, we have developers
in the city that just focus on
[1:21:42] single-family. That's all they want.
Um
[1:21:45] but if you have a this progressive scale
starting at 0.6 at one unit and
[1:21:52] um tapering up to the 1.6 for six units,
there is an incentive to build [snorts]
[1:21:58] more units because you get more floor
area for each unit that you add to the
[1:22:02] site. So, it's it's more likely that
you're going to
[1:22:06] get those units.
And the
[1:22:09] um
medium or high zones, where typically
[1:22:13] it's a multi-family zones at this time,
looking at
[1:22:17] uh limiting
development size just by
[1:22:22] the building envelope, not by a floor
area ratio. So, if you have a 35-ft
[1:22:27] height limit in a medium zone
or a 45-ft height limit in a high zone,
[1:22:32] it's more of the
the building height limit, the setbacks,
[1:22:37] open space. It's not based on the FAR.
And again, in those zones
[1:22:43] those are just hypothetical throwing out
those numbers of 35 ft and 45 ft.
[1:22:49] Those are recommendations that we're
looking for from the commission of what
[1:22:52] is the appropriate height limits for
those
[1:22:55] for those zones.
[1:23:04] With the
Yeah, it
[1:23:11] The thing that
I really have been drawn to this idea of
[1:23:14] like the the density model
the low, medium, high isn't really the
[1:23:20] it's not the biggest factor for the
density anymore. Um,
[1:23:24] but
being stuck in the old
[1:23:28] mental model. Like like I'm really drawn
to the idea of like proximity to
[1:23:34] interesting things. Proximity to
commercial, proximity to schools, parks,
[1:23:38] trails, and like
that's the TOD strategy kind of misses
[1:23:43] that general proximity to amenities.
Um,
[1:23:48] and I just I see
a lot of yellow where we have low lot
[1:23:53] small lot sizes, and that kind of
doesn't make sense. And and you see
[1:23:57] yellow
touching urban villages.
[1:24:00] And and it kind of doesn't make sense.
It's It's a low, medium, high is going
[1:24:03] to be like a height differentiator.
Graduated heights.
[1:24:08] You know,
I I think one of the I think we're
[1:24:10] trying to map the the residential
transition urban village solution that
[1:24:15] we've
had over the last 20 years.
[1:24:18] And maybe
maybe it's a different way of
[1:24:21] approaching that is like stepping down
from urban village to high then medium
[1:24:26] then low.
And and having like
[1:24:29] radiuses of of
And because right, if you have like as
[1:24:34] Chris pointed out, a low zone next to
an urban village, that's that's a
[1:24:41] conflict.
But if
[1:24:43] fourplexes are everywhere, does that
conflict really matter? Well, maybe
[1:24:46] maybe the height distinction is what
matters.
[1:24:51] I think and that's where I think maybe
this is just the detailed like uh
[1:24:57] interactive version of the land use map
from the Bellingham plan. And so this is
[1:25:00] where you're, you know, we still got the
urban villages wrapped in these pink
[1:25:03] lines here, but
we've exposed those transition areas
[1:25:07] you're talking about. And so that might
be
[1:25:09] again to that that one slide we talked
about where we need to figure out what
[1:25:13] are we doing with those transition zones
as these code updates occur. Um but I
[1:25:18] think that gets at, you know, looking at
Fountain, for instance, you've got that
[1:25:21] kind of core commercial corridor.
And then
[1:25:25] and then a fairly substantial transition
zone that that brackets that before you
[1:25:29] get into the the other neighborhoods
around there. So I think that probably
[1:25:33] is
that's where some of those
[1:25:38] some of those considerations can play
out. Um
[1:25:41] the other thing I would offer is
we have that low, medium, and high
[1:25:46] uh name that we've applied to these land
use areas.
[1:25:50] And particularly with the new interim
middle housing regs, it's it's helpful
[1:25:54] to think of it There is definitely a
density correlation there. But it's
[1:25:58] almost it's it's almost more helpful or
realistic to think about it as low,
[1:26:02] medium, and high form.
Because those examples like in
[1:26:07] Birchwood, the the example Chris was
talking about where maybe you can get
[1:26:11] three parent three or four parent lots,
and then you have the the
[1:26:15] middle housing units allowed on each of
those lots
[1:26:18] Um um
that it is
[1:26:20] » The capacity to subdivide, not
necessarily the unit count. Yeah. That
[1:26:25] those three zones dictate.
>> Yeah, and there's definitely a
[1:26:28] relationship there, but that it's fairly
disconnected from the old residential
[1:26:33] single patterns that we've had in up to
this point. Yeah. And so that's that's
[1:26:38] just how transformative that that middle
housing legislation really is. And so it
[1:26:43] is again just in in our minds when we're
talking about the development standards
[1:26:47] that kind of thinking about the form is
is instructive and and what those
[1:26:53] standards are and how they vary between
the low and medium and high.
[1:26:57] But that would be for us to to change.
Right now it's still proposed going
[1:27:01] forward based off of the square foot of
land area per unit. So it is still unit
[1:27:07] based. So I think it's one I mean
to your points of the specific heights
[1:27:11] and recommendations from us. I mean I I
I think staff is probably much more
[1:27:16] expert in this than us and well better
positioned to come up with some of those
[1:27:20] specific numbers, but in terms of broad
principles, I would say I would suggest
[1:27:25] it being form based, not unit based per
our discussions of the height
[1:27:30] transitions and recognizing that middle
housing allows, you know, four units or
[1:27:35] six if it's affordable in every location
where single family housing is allowed.
[1:27:41] So that already disrupts all of this. So
I think shifting to that kind of
[1:27:46] thinking rather than unit size, which is
kind of what I was trying to get at with
[1:27:49] the the minimum lot size kind of
becoming a a confusing barrier that
[1:27:54] would you know, add confusion and time
to construction costs. So so form-based
[1:28:00] thinking I would suggest would be one
principle to think about as you move
[1:28:04] forward. Um
No maximum density I I
[1:28:09] said before um and then just yeah,
simple
[1:28:13] what can be done by right clearly
communicated I guess would be three
[1:28:18] principles on this that I would just
um support for kind of that that ease of
[1:28:26] of development um
to expand housing options for community
[1:28:32] members keeping with kind of the
community forms we have.
[1:28:40] Thank you. That's helpful.
I
[1:28:43] I'll tell you it's it's a tough, you
know, just the should it be a four unit
[1:28:47] or a six unit um
I've had the opportunity to walk around
[1:28:52] some neighborhoods in Seattle like the
Ballard neighborhoods where this is
[1:28:55] zoning's already been implemented and
the neighborhoods have changed radically
[1:29:01] and honestly I don't know if it's
for the better uh for the people who
[1:29:06] live there for a long time. Uh there's a
house and now there's a house in the
[1:29:10] backyard of a house and a lot of it's
planted with an alley so there's two
[1:29:13] houses in the back of a house and then
if a developer who's able to buy two
[1:29:17] houses now it's a 12-plex there and
there was the promise of light rail and
[1:29:21] less cars needed but honestly you can't
park anywhere. Um it it's been a a
[1:29:26] disruption and I I understand why we
need it. Um
[1:29:31] I don't know if I would jump on board
with just maximizing units um with the
[1:29:36] caveat of maybe maybe you keep it at
four if it's going to be an apartment
[1:29:41] but if a developer wants to do a six and
a townhouse
[1:29:45] uh format to a to be able to supply more
affordable housing towards people maybe
[1:29:51] that's a an incentive that we could work
on.
[1:30:04] I I idea if this is legal.
Um wondering about
[1:30:11] yeah, the legality possibility of um I
get for instance um that our short-term
[1:30:18] rental Airbnb policy
um doesn't allow for detached
[1:30:26] dwelling unit short-term rentals
um tied to this could be reevaluated if
[1:30:32] the
Bellingham vacancy rate rises above 4%.
[1:30:36] I think it says so it's tied to a
community value.
[1:30:41] We value
um
[1:30:43] having housing here for people who are
living here and that's a value we've
[1:30:47] decided as a community. So we'll
reevaluate this if we feel that need is
[1:30:51] being met to open up more investment
opportunities and I'm wondering if
[1:30:55] there's some equivalent possibility
within the
[1:30:59] space that we're talking about here of
cons- I'm hearing a lot of concerns
[1:31:03] about change and unknowns and and things
is there a way to mitigate that with a
[1:31:09] proposal kind of like the interim of
let's do this for a few years and then
[1:31:14] come back and and reevaluate or tie it
to a marker like affordable housing for
[1:31:19] the community, you know, um we're going
to allow
[1:31:23] expanded or remove minimum lot sizes and
this will be reevaluated at a point at
[1:31:29] which
housing the average price of the house
[1:31:33] sold is only
10 times
[1:31:37] area median income
or only eight times or only five times.
[1:31:42] I won't get down to three which would
actually be affordable, but maybe you
[1:31:46] know, five or eight or something and
then that way we've tied it to community
[1:31:50] values that you've captured in
so many
[1:31:55] um surveys of wanting affordable
housing.
[1:31:59] So here we're tying it like we have with
our short-term rental policy to be
[1:32:02] reevaluated
at certain periods.
[1:32:06] So, recognizing some disruption is
necessary
[1:32:10] to increase housing and affordability
while also recognizing we want to this
[1:32:16] is unknown, we want a chance to
reevaluate, and this is why we're doing
[1:32:19] it. But, I don't even know if it's legal
to tie to housing prices and and stuff
[1:32:23] like that. But, just throwing that idea
out there.
[1:32:34] I was just kind of wondering, would it
make sense to just go ahead and try and
[1:32:38] the areas, just like what you were
saying, that
[1:32:41] already have potential for that growth,
you know, to try and make some of those
[1:32:45] changes there, see what the impacts are
going to be and everything, especially
[1:32:48] with all the folks that are wanting to
own a home, you know, and be close to
[1:32:54] transportation and work and and all of
that to start in those
[1:32:59] close to those urban village areas where
you have the potential to be able to do
[1:33:04] that and see what the impact is going to
be before going into some of maybe some
[1:33:09] of the more rural areas where the
watersheds and stuff are at.
[1:33:17] I'm trying to make sure I understand
what you're suggesting um
[1:33:21] because right now the interims are
applying citywide except for in the
[1:33:25] watershed.
Um
[1:33:27] And so, are you suggesting if we were to
do like a tiered implementation or
[1:33:31] phased implementation of new um
new zoning?
[1:33:36] Okay.
[1:33:39] Yeah, it's it's it's
uh It's tricky because you have to do
[1:33:43] 1110 universally.
And I think some of the reason to do
[1:33:46] this is to mitigate
in the right way the fourplexes thing
[1:33:51] cuz we can't phase that in
in pilot projects. We have to do that
[1:33:55] everywhere.
[1:33:58] I think what one of just on
tangentially related or overlapping with
[1:34:03] with what you're saying, Lisa, and I
think what what Mike had been talking
[1:34:07] about about those transition areas
around the urban villages is really I
[1:34:11] think a lot of that will also um play
into the TOD corridor conversation just
[1:34:17] because as a practical matter, if we're
looking at a like a quarter-mile walk
[1:34:20] distance from those GO lines,
that really encompasses the majority of
[1:34:25] those transition areas that are either
bonafide transition areas inside of an
[1:34:31] urban village like Fountain or the
adjacent neighborhood areas that are
[1:34:35] kind of also um not named transition
areas, but they are effectively kind of
[1:34:40] transitions between the surrounding
areas.
[1:34:43] Um
And and so that's that's something again
[1:34:48] as as the internal team is working on
kind of draft proposals for these code
[1:34:52] updates, the TOD conversation is
we as we went through the Bellingham
[1:34:57] plan update, we you know, we
acknowledged that that would need to be
[1:35:00] kind of a phase two with its own public
process, obviously coordination with
[1:35:05] Whatcom Transportation,
um
[1:35:08] and that there's there's
a good amount of uh you know, that that
[1:35:12] could
that could be done in sort of reaches,
[1:35:16] so to speak, like, "Hey, we're going to
look between these two particular urban
[1:35:19] villages and design a corridor and maybe
there'll be something specific
[1:35:23] and we would potentially learn from that
and apply it to the next corridor
[1:35:27] in similar fashion to the way that our
urban village plans have evolved that
[1:35:32] we did one and then we learned from that
and we applied some of what we learned
[1:35:35] in the next one and they kind of have
have fed up on each other as you go
[1:35:39] forward. Um
[1:35:43] So So those are again, I guess what I'm
trying to say is that I I think just
[1:35:47] geographically because
the GO lines relate very strongly to the
[1:35:51] urban villages, I think some of those
things will happen naturally in those
[1:35:56] in those follow-on processes.
Chris and the the internal team are
[1:36:01] trying to leave space
as they think about what that code will
[1:36:04] look like, leave space for that
transit-oriented development
[1:36:08] conversation as a follow-up and make
sure that we don't paint ourselves into
[1:36:12] a corner where we can't, hey, you know,
have like rows in a table of standards
[1:36:17] or columns in a table of standards where
we have, you know, this is what applies.
[1:36:21] And if you're in a in proximity to a
transit line, then there are these
[1:36:26] kind of what we were talking about,
maybe additional height is allowed or
[1:36:29] maybe additional something else or
reduced setbacks, those kinds of things,
[1:36:33] um to allow that additional intensity
that we hope for in in proximity to the
[1:36:38] to the transit amenity.
[1:36:42] I I also think that it might come down
to like
[1:36:44] like we've upzoned everywhere, but that
doesn't mean we're going to see building
[1:36:47] everywhere. There's challenging
situations that the math the penciling
[1:36:51] doesn't happen.
I
[1:36:54] If if we can use those those
TOD zones or
[1:36:59] the transition zones around urban
villages, that that might be
[1:37:02] a similar overlapping Venn diagram
to find the factors that increase the
[1:37:07] likelihood of development. We we want to
see redevelopment near an urban village
[1:37:11] because an urban village makes sense
when it's built out, not when it's a one
[1:37:15] apartment building and a parking lot.
Like we want to see Fountain and
[1:37:18] Sammamish like come together. There that
that there's more value there for
[1:37:23] the whole urban village picture. So,
if we can tweak those likelihood to see
[1:37:28] development factors, whether it's open
space or setbacks or any of these
[1:37:31] different kind of
out outside of the the periphery of
[1:37:36] zoning itself that make up the
likelihood,
[1:37:39] um and that's that's what high means.
That's what TOD means. That's what, you
[1:37:43] know, adjacent to urban village means is
it's it's a a little bit of a community
[1:37:48] predictability that
the area next to an urban village is
[1:37:52] more likely to see this type of
redevelopment than the middle of a
[1:37:55] yellow zone.
Even though it's
[1:37:58] you know, some of the high the macro
level math is allowed everywhere.
[1:38:02] And we do we do have some tools that are
different than just the form standards.
[1:38:06] Um, you know, two of them that are that
we use already to in incentivize
[1:38:10] development like inside urban villages
are the the the multi-family tax
[1:38:14] exemption is an example. Um
and we have expanded that city-wide for
[1:38:19] the 12-year program. The 8-year program
right now just applies within those
[1:38:22] those pink boundaries on the map. Um,
and then the other is we we discount
[1:38:26] impact fees inside urban villages.
Um, and so that's another tool that that
[1:38:32] the city has to say, "Hey, we
you know, maybe the development
[1:38:36] regulations are very similar in
different areas, but if there is an area
[1:38:39] where we'd
like to say, "Hey, we want to make it a
[1:38:42] little bit easier in these areas."
that we have some of those things where
[1:38:46] we could tweak those programs over time
to to say, "Hey, you know, um and those
[1:38:52] are things like, you know, obviously the
city's
[1:38:54] modified our MFTE
uh regulations recently and it had been
[1:38:58] a long time since we'd changed it before
that, but
[1:39:01] that's a
that's a tool that is as needs change in
[1:39:05] a community, those are policies that can
be adjusted to to help
[1:39:09] like sit and courage growth where we
where we feel like we need it.
[1:39:17] Yes, uh for me in summary, uh if if
you're going to take anything
[1:39:22] away uh from us our feedback, I would
just recommend since we're getting rid
[1:39:27] of the 20-some different neighborhood
requirements and going to one
[1:39:32] residential low, medium, high to do a
universal minimum lot size. I think that
[1:39:37] would make the process
easier for people trying to develop in
[1:39:42] all neighborhoods.
[1:40:00] Any Anything we didn't touch on that
you'd love to hear about?
[1:40:04] No, I think I mean that was I think
that's helpful to hear kind of where
[1:40:07] you're at with it and what you I mean
interesting questions I think and and
[1:40:11] some ideas too that are um some mirror
some of what we've been kind of talking
[1:40:16] about internally, but some of it's new,
too. So, that's helpful.
[1:40:20] So.
Um
[1:40:22] Yeah. There there was a topic of say in
the
[1:40:26] um low zones,
currently we have a maximum project size
[1:40:31] of four units.
You can have six units on a lot, but any
[1:40:35] individual building can't have more than
four units. Do you have uh
[1:40:40] uh recommendations on, you know,
could that be six units?
[1:40:47] That four it comes from the interim
ordinance.
[1:40:50] Comes from the interim ordinance. Yes.
I mean again,
[1:40:55] uh
for me, I don't I wouldn't be inclined
[1:40:58] to to maximize and say, "Yeah, let's
just do six." knowing that it's going to
[1:41:02] be an impact for people in those
neighborhoods. Um
[1:41:06] but again, because there's a need for
people to buy an affordable house, if
[1:41:12] you can incentivize it by saying, "It's
a town home. It's not an apartment." If
[1:41:17] if you tell a developer, "You can have
six, but you you have to sell them as
[1:41:20] town homes and not rent them."
And I don't know how else we're going to
[1:41:25] get affordable housing for people.
It's just I mean, I know that we're
[1:41:30] looking at the UGA and Accordata and
that's going to be some development. Uh
[1:41:35] so, people will be able to afford
whatever's being developed out there,
[1:41:38] but if we're talking about infill in the
city
[1:41:41] and I think we're going to have to get
clever.
[1:41:46] Does the physical split from four
like four and two, does that make it
[1:41:52] harder to do the bonus two affordable?
Like are we just sort of
[1:41:57] accidentally taking that off the table
cuz it's going to be harder to meet the
[1:42:00] other constraints if you have to
physically separate the buildings?
[1:42:02] » Yes, so so currently I think one to four
units is IRC construction.
[1:42:08] Once you get into five units or more
becomes IBC. So the construction becomes
[1:42:14] more expensive.
So But that's that'll eventually
[1:42:19] potentially be addressed at the state
level.
[1:42:22] Hopefully, yes.
[1:42:27] So but uh
if if more units are allowed to be
[1:42:32] attached, say up to six units
should that be limited to just
[1:42:37] townhouse housing form or
or does not matter? Could you have a
[1:42:42] sixplex, a fiveplex and a sixplex
in the low zone?
[1:42:49] There's so many barriers to getting to
six anywhere.
[1:42:54] I mean the development side of me says
yeah, you know, let's you know, go for
[1:42:59] six and and open that up, but I just
just having physically seen it and
[1:43:04] knowing that we're still a very
car-centric community and there's no
[1:43:08] parking requirements.
It's hard to visualize that.
[1:43:32] We don't have all the answers.
>> [laughter]
[1:43:34] » Okay.
And what's I mean what's the temperature
[1:43:37] in the planning department?
[1:43:41] I think right now um
we we're we're hoping for temperature
[1:43:46] from the planning commission.
>> [laughter]
[1:43:49] » Are we voting? Are we voting on 4 or 6?
We were just going to bring a tablet and
[1:43:55] then hope you could write the code with
us. Yeah.
[1:43:59] I don't envy you.
Now, we have we have some great
[1:44:02] conversations. We have like weekly
conversations around these issues and we
[1:44:08] we sing swing one way and the other and
go through it's it's the
[1:44:13] a mix of long-range and development
review short-range planners and and in
[1:44:18] the mix is always what projects are
currently being reviewed under these
[1:44:22] interims. And so it's a continual
week-by-week learning process and then
[1:44:25] trying to think
uh you know, what's one thing Chris is
[1:44:28] doing is looking at the route projects
that are being reviewed and then also
[1:44:31] trying to anticipate
what what will the permanent code look
[1:44:35] like that will make this work better.
And and so it's yeah, it's a real
[1:44:39] challenge, but we're definitely learning
a lot as those projects are coming in.
[1:44:44] And right now the uh 1110 the minimum is
four. Is that right? Or It's not a
[1:44:49] minimum
we we allow four outright. You allow
[1:44:52] four? Yeah, there's no minimum, but it's
it's it's allow four outright and then
[1:44:57] an additional two if there's the
affordability or the project
[1:45:00] » Are you saying if we allow six then
we're exceeding what the House Bill 1110
[1:45:04] minimum is? We're doing that on our own?
The the the House Bill allows um
[1:45:10] plexes up to six plex.
And it's up to the local community to
[1:45:14] decide if they want say the five-plex
and six-plex. They just have to choose
[1:45:19] what five of the nine housing types that
are in the
[1:45:23] middle housing
bill in House Bill 1110.
[1:45:28] So that we we can choose to
>> Yeah, they've left the heavy lifting to
[1:45:31] you.
[1:45:39] All right. Well, I appreciate the
conversation. We will be back a number
[1:45:43] of times in front of you before you get
you know, before we get to like a public
[1:45:47] hearing with code proposals
cuz there are a lot of moving pieces
[1:45:50] here as you can see.
But we appreciate this. The next two
[1:45:56] sessions on June 4th,
you'll have a public hearing on the
[1:46:00] parking standards that are being brought
forward. You remember we've got the
[1:46:05] interims now and we we need to
move on to the next step there.
[1:46:09] And then on the 18th, we'll have two
public hearings. Um
[1:46:14] one on the home occupation permit
changes
[1:46:17] and then one on the landmark tree
ordinance.
[1:46:21] So again, just coming we kind of briefed
you on those earlier in the year to
[1:46:26] bring you up to speed and so now you'll
see what the the proposed code
[1:46:30] amendments are related to that and have
a chance to hear
[1:46:33] from the public your testimony on that
and then discuss them. So
[1:46:37] look forward to that.
Again, thank you for the good
[1:46:40] discussion. Yeah, thank you. Um
at some point in a future meeting soon,
[1:46:46] we need to appoint a shoreline
committee.
[1:46:49] Um we'll talk more about it. Just keep
that in the back of your mind. Um
[1:46:53] when
[1:46:56] Heather and I also thought we had one.
Um
[1:46:58] but we've been emailing about it. So
anyways, when when our when the other
[1:47:01] two when our
chairs are here, we'll
[1:47:04] we'll do some business on that next
time.
[1:47:08] Um
otherwise, we shall adjourn. Have a good
[1:47:11] night. Thanks.
Thanks.
[1:47:35] » [music]
[1:47:41] » Mhm.