Name: Bellingham Planning Commission meeting, Jul 9, 2026
Start: 2026-07-09
End: 2026-07-09
Location: City of Bellingham

Planning Commission

Thu, July 9, 2026

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Meeting summaryAI-generated

Planning Commission — July 9, 2026

This was a regular Planning Commission meeting with a single substantive agenda item: a public hearing on a proposed new low-income housing development incentive ordinance. Commissioner Lisa Marks was excused. No general public comment unrelated to the agenda was received.

Public Hearing: Low-Income Housing Development Incentive Ordinance

What it is: Community and Economic Development Manager Tara Sundine and planner Kurt Navfeld presented a proposed amendment to Title 20 of the Bellingham Municipal Code that would create a new streamlined development pathway for qualifying low-income housing projects. The incentive is narrowly targeted: it applies only to projects that receive direct city funding, have been vetted and approved through the city's process, and commit to a recorded 50-year affordability covenant. In practice, that means roughly one large apartment complex (60–70 units) per year at current pace.

What the incentive does: For qualifying projects built in urban village, commercial, and residential multi-family zones (not residential single-family zones), the ordinance would:

Remove height limits, except within designated view corridors near historic features (e.g., Old Town and the Waterfront District).

Remove density and floor area ratio requirements.

Keep setbacks consistent with the underlying zoning for that zone type.

Remove lot coverage maximums, while still requiring compliance with state stormwater regulations.

Reduce private usable open space requirements — exempting urban village locations entirely, and waiving the requirement for any project within a quarter mile of a park.

Require no auto parking (consistent with a separate parking ordinance the Commission recently recommended and which goes to City Council Monday). ADA and EV spaces remain required when parking is provided, and bike parking is required.

Maintain landscaping per underlying zoning.

Require design review under the city's newer objective (non-subjective) design standards.

Require SEPA review and critical areas review where applicable.

Staff emphasized that the absence of a height limit does not mean tall towers will appear: wood-frame construction caps out practically at five stories, and above that, concrete or steel construction becomes cost-prohibitive for the affordable housing market. The city retains further oversight as the project funder.

Staff also proposed two amendments to the draft ordinance based on feedback from affordable housing development partners:

1. A revised, more precise definition of "low-income housing" to align with how rental units are actually financed (tying affordability to the unit at a fixed rent level, rather than to the individual household's income), consistent with IRS, HUD, and state standards.

2. A revision to the private usable open space requirement to exempt projects in urban village zones entirely, since those areas already have zero open space requirements under existing code, and residents typically have walkable access to parks and trails.

Public Comment:

*Pete Day* (Birchwood resident, working with Compass Housing Alliance on a local affordable project) spoke in favor. He argued the ordinance reduces costs and uncertainty for nonprofit developers without costing taxpayers anything. He noted that adding a story to an existing building is far more economical than acquiring and building on a separate parcel, and emphasized the ordinance serves people earning 30–80% of Area Median Income — including teachers, first responders, and service workers, not only those exiting homelessness. (At current figures, 80% AMI for a family of four in Bellingham is approximately $95,000/year.)

*Jeff McClure* (RMC Architects) spoke in favor, offering a real-world example: a current project on a sloped site is capped at three stories of housing above its parking deck due to how height is measured from the lowest point — yielding 72 units. One additional floor would add 21 units; two additional floors would bring the total to 120 units — a 60% increase on the same site with the same infrastructure. He also affirmed that the city, as funder, retains ultimate oversight over how projects fit into neighborhoods.

*Mary Lou White* (38-year Birchwood resident) spoke in opposition, raising several concerns: inadequate notice to neighborhood associations (she received notice July 2nd, just before the holiday); potential cumulative environmental impacts from increased impervious surfaces and reduced open space; aging stormwater infrastructure that she argued cannot handle additional development surges; and coal mine subsidence hazards beneath portions of Bellingham (including Birchwood) that she said have not been adequately assessed. She urged the city to address infrastructure deficiencies before reducing development regulations, and recommended mandatory deep geological assessments for any large buildings sited over former mining areas.

Staff responded that existing SEPA, critical areas review, and stormwater regulations remain fully in effect and are not modified by this ordinance. Mining hazard areas already require professional geological assessment under adopted critical areas rules. Stormwater compliance is explicitly required even where lot coverage maximums are removed.

Commission Discussion:

Commissioners were broadly supportive. Key discussion points included:

Whether the ordinance anticipates the city's forthcoming residential rezoning process (moving from single/multi-family categories to low/medium/high). Staff confirmed they intentionally moved forward now rather than waiting, given the rezoning could take a year or more, and this incentive is needed for projects in the current pipeline.

The practical effect of no height limits: commissioners agreed with staff that market economics — not code — effectively cap affordable housing buildings at five stories.

The relationship to the Innovative Affordable Housing Demonstration Ordinance for smaller-scale ownership projects, which staff said will remain in place for residential single-family zones.

Whether future iterations could extend similar incentives to mixed-income projects (e.g., multifamily tax exemption projects) or raise the AMI cap above 80%. Staff noted state law currently limits the AMI ceiling and said they would explore whether a longer affordability covenant could incentivize MFTE projects beyond the state-required 12-year minimum.

Design review: commissioners confirmed that state law now prohibits subjective design standards, and the city's interim objective standards are working well for both staff and developers.

Votes:

Amendment 1 — Revised definition of low-income housing:

Moved by Commissioner Belalu (chair), seconded. Passed unanimously (all ayes, no opposition recorded).

Amendment 2 — Revised private usable open space requirement (urban village exemption):

Moved and seconded. Passed unanimously (all ayes, no opposition recorded).

Final motion — Recommend approval of the Low-Income Housing Development Incentive Ordinance as amended:

Moved and seconded. Passed unanimously (all ayes, no opposition recorded).

The recommendation now goes to Bellingham City Council.

Director's Report

Staff noted the Commission has no meeting next week and is effectively off for the remainder of July.

Key Takeaways

The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of a new low-income housing development incentive ordinance, which removes height limits, density caps, and lot coverage maximums for city-funded affordable housing projects in exchange for a 50-year affordability covenant.

The incentive is narrowly targeted — only projects that have received city funding and gone through city vetting qualify, limiting the scope to roughly one large project per year at current pace.

Real-world impact on unit counts can be significant: removing height restrictions on sloped sites could increase units on a single parcel by 30–60% with no additional land or infrastructure cost.

Existing environmental safeguards remain in place: SEPA review, critical areas review, and stormwater compliance are all still required — a key response to public concerns about infrastructure and mine subsidence hazards.

Commissioners signaled interest in broader future action, including exploring similar incentives for mixed-income (MFTE) projects and revisiting floor area ratios in urban village zones as part of the upcoming residential rezoning process.

AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.

What happened at this meeting

Director's Report

# Low Income Housing Development Incentive Public Hearing Summary

Staff presented a proposed amendment to Title 20 establishing a Low Income Housing Development Incentive designed to streamline zoning and land use requirements for city-funded affordable housing projects that remain permanently affordable for 50 years, targeting urban village zones, commercial zones, and residential multi-zones. Tara Sundine and Kurt explained that the incentive would reduce development costs and timelines by alleviating restrictions on height, density, lot coverage, and parking, with modifications to private usable open space requirements aligned to existing zoning standards (ranging from zero in urban villages to 250 square feet in multifamily zones). Public supporters including Pete Day of Compass Housing Alliance and Jeff McClure of RMC Architects emphasized that reduced development costs and removed height restrictions enable affordable housing projects to serve households earning 30-80% of area median income, including teachers and first responders. Staff clarified that all developments must still adhere to building codes, SEPA review, and existing critical area regulations, and noted that typical resulting developments would be four to five stories rather than the 10-15 feared by some, aiming to achieve an estimated pace of one 60-70 unit complex per year. The Commission voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance with recommended changes, including refined affordability definitions tied to rental units rather than household income for developer financing predictability.

Agenda items (1)

General Business

1General BusinessDirector's Report

The city department director will provide an update on recent activities, projects, and operations within their department. This is a routine informational report to keep the council and public informed about what the department is working on.

What happened

Additional votes recorded in minutes

Amend proposed ordinance to include updated definition of low-income housing

aye 1

voice voteaye

Amend proposed ordinance to adopt recommended change to private usable open space requirement

aye 1

voice voteaye

Adopt low-income housing development incentive ordinance with adopted changes

aye 1

voice voteaye

Verbatim transcript available

191 transcript segments indexed

90 seconds. just start talking. >> Good evening. Like to call to order the July 9th, 2026 meeting of the Bellingham Planning Commission. Heather, would you call the role? Lethre >> here. >> Jerry Richmond >> here.

>> Claire Swingo >> here. >> Jed Belaloo >> here. >> Mike Estes >> here. >> Lisa Marks is excused. >> All right, we have no minutes. So tonight on the agenda, we have one item. It's a public hearing to uh look at the lowincome housing development incentive.

It's a public hearing. So, starting out the meeting, uh, we'll have a public comment period where you can come forward and talk about things that are unrelated to the agenda item. Uh, so anything that is not related to the, um, public hearing, uh, come on down and share what you have to say.

3 minutes is what we ask you to limit your comments to. Um, so please be mindful of that. All right, having no comments, I guess we'll move on to the main agenda. So, Tara or Kurt, I don't know which of you is running the show, but I guess kick it off to you.

>> I'll start. We're both running the show. Uh, Tara Sundine, I'm the community and economic development manager for the city. I don't come here very often. I know a couple of you, but it's good to see and meet the the the others of you that I've never met before, Jerry and Claire.

Um, so I'm going to start us off, turn it over to Kurt. We don't have a very lengthy presentation. I think this is pretty straightforward. Um, we're bringing forward a proposed amendment to Title 20 that would establish a new lowincome housing development incentive.

The purpose of the proposal is to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers that make it more difficult and sometimes and oftentimes more expensive to build housing that serves lowincome households. As you're aware, uh our nonprofit housing developers uh face significant challenges.

They face more challenges than our sometimes our private developers. in that um of course both are faced with rising construction costs. Um but our affordable housing developers are also faced with funding um requirements that are complex and also require deep subsidy utilizing public funding.

In many cases, these projects rely on that limited public funding and every additional cost or delay can mean fewer affordable homes are built. The proposed incentive is intended to address those challenges by creating a more predictable and streamlined development process for qualifying lowincome housing projects.

For eligible developments, the proposal would reduce or eliminate certain zoning and land use requirements and Kurt will provide you with an overview of what those are. This incentive is carefully targeted.

This incentive is um only eligible to those developments that the city funds. Um and so what that looks like is they are are permanently affordable housing units. Um I'll describe what we require, what we're proposing to require.

Um they need to be funded by the city. That means they've gone through our vetting process um and are approved by the city council. So it means that we are all in on those projects. To give you a sense of the pace of our pipeline, we at most build one large and what what I mean by large in this case is like 60 to 70 unit apartment complex every year.

And that's us being at a pretty good pace just to get give you a sense of scale. Um in in exchange for this reduced requirements um as the incentive the project must record a covenant ensuring the housing remains affordable for a period of 50 years.

So it's a significant period of time that's being required. Uh ultimately our goal is to improve project feasibility, reduce those development timelines, and increase the supply of housing. Um tonight, uh the planning commission's role is to conduct the hearing, consider our proposed amendments, um and hopefully um if things look okay, u make findings, conclusions, and a recommendation to the city council.

With that overview, I'll turn it over to Kurt, who will walk you through the proposed code amendments and offer you two additional amendments that um we are proposing based on feedback from our affordable housing development partners.

Kurt, >> great. Thank you, Tara. Um so the why I think Tara just explained why we're here today. Um it's really to try and increase the low-income affordable housing out there. Um secondary, as you may recall, or some of you may recall going through the uh the recent comp plan um process, there's been several state changes, state law changes that require us to um make sure that we are providing housing for all levels of income uh throughout our community.

And so we believe that this will also help fulfill some of those statemandated roles as well and some of the things that we've talked about in our comprehensive plan. Uh now just to kind of get into the details um these rules and regulations will be uh able to be used in our urban village zones, our commercial zones and our residential multiszones.

Um we are not allowing these largecale buildings to go into our residential single zones. um at least not at the the the size and scale that we are we're kind of targeting these rules for. Um and then you know what what the ordinance really entails is it's just reduced development standards.

um and trying to make those processes a little bit smoother so that we can get these houses uh or these housing units built and constructed fastly um and get them through our regulatory process uh quickly um so that we can get those units out there and people in the units.

I'm going to kind of walk through um as Tara mentioned, we've got a couple changes uh that we want to sec or that we recommend moving forward. Um one is just the definition of low-income housing and what that meant.

Um we we have we were doing some scanning through our code and how we define low-income housing. Um, the city actually defines it a little bit different in about four different spots. Uh, the IRS defines it a little bit differently.

The state defines it a little bit differently and HUD defines it a little bit differently. So, we're trying to find the appropriate definition for what we were really targeting at. Um, and so we put our heads together um, and we came up with this a little bit longer one.

Um, but we believe that it's the most appropriate definition and we would recommend uh a change to the the draft uh for your consideration. Um, what it really gets at is again we're we're targeting those lowinccome folks um below the 80% of the area medium income.

Um and where we wanted to clarify was exactly what um you know getting you that 30% income and where that comes from. Uh the the second place that we wanted to make a change uh the current draft requires private usable open space um at 100 square feet everywhere.

And again, this is another one where we were looking through our code. Um, we've got multiple areas in multiple levels of private usable space throughout our code. Um, in some of our multif family zones, it's 250 square feet per unit.

In some of the zones, it's 100 square feet per unit. In our most of our urban villages, it's it's zero. Um so what we wanted to do is really kind of focus those larger scale um units again into our urban villages.

Um part of our urban villages there are opportunities for um other recreational uh facilities as well. A lot of them are located close to parks and trails and things like that. So um we didn't want to inadvertently overburden um these developments in urban village areas where they already don't have to do that.

So those are the the two changes that we are recommending that you um make a motion to amend if you so choose to tonight. Um now to the development standards. Uh these are the kind of the the things that were the meat of it the ordinance tonight.

Um height rules and regulations. There are no height limits except within designated view corridors or near historic historic features. Um got a couple graphics that may show that here. U this is the old town area where we is through those planning processes uh we defined certain views that we wanted to preserve.

um such as through the Aster corridor towards the museum. Um we wanted to make sure that new buildings didn't overpower the territorial courthouse or um the train station there. Um and then also through our waterfront district urban village, we had specific view corridors that we wanted to make sure we maintained through that development and we didn't want to inadvertently um affect those those designated corridors in either the waterfront district or the oldtown area.

uh density and far uh floor area ratio. As you know, most of our residential areas have specific density requirements and density refers to how much land you need per dwelling unit. Uh in a lot of areas such as the downtown um and some of our our commercial areas, there are no density limits uh already.

Um, and for this proposed ordinance, we are not suggesting any sort of density or floor area ratio requirement. When it comes to setbacks, we wanted to make sure that the buildings that are being constructed are at least consistent with the other types of larger scaled uh buildings in that area.

So, uh, for example, in a residential multiszone, there may be a like a a 10-ft setback off of the the property line. And we wanted to make sure that these buildings were constructed consistently with other large scale buildings there.

So setbacks are the same regardless of the type of housing unit you're bu you're building there. Lock coverage um we do not have any sort of lot coverage and lot coverage you may recall is really about how much impervious surface that goes on on the property.

Uh we felt that if you're meeting the storm water rules and regulations um and trying to maximize the the the site area for the housing uh we felt no maximum should be in place. Um usable space again we do believe that it it should be appropriate in some places um except for those urban villages.

Uh, one unique thing that we've added here, and it's something that we've been talking about for a while, um, is having an alternate alternative in here, uh, when you're located within a quarter mile of a park, uh, you do not have to provide that private usable space.

So, our assumption is that folks still have access to that usable space um, if they are within this, you know, walkable distance to a park. Um, parking, uh, as you're very familiar with, uh, there's no requirement.

You passed or made a recommendation on that ordinance just recently. Uh, that's going to the city council on Monday night for their review. Uh, so no auto parking required. Um, ADA and electrical vehicle would be required when parking is provided.

Uh, that's consistent with the ordinance that you recommended approval for. Um and then also part of that parking ordinance uh was consistent standards across the city on on bike parking. So we are requiring that.

Uh landscaping is something that we believe can help uh soften some of these larger buildings, the scale of some of these buildings. Uh and so again, we're keeping that with the underlying zoning. And then design review.

Uh we do feel that design review has gotten more streamlined with our interim ordinance. Uh we've taken that the subjectivity out of it and it is very objective. I believe a few meetings back we we talked a little bit about this here.

Um and what we are finding from a staff review perspective um and I think you could probably ask developers as well is that our new objective standards are much easier from staff's perspective. they're um the projects are moving through the process a lot quicker than they were before.

Um we don't get in that back and forth u again because we've taken that subjectivity out of it. Um so we believe that these buildings should still go through design review. Our community still believes in design review but the objective standards should be in place.

Um beyond that these projects would trip SEPA review as well. So, you know, again, the height, the density, um kind of that lot coverage are the ones that we're really trying to alleviate in hopes to maximize the amount of housing that we get there.

Um beyond that, the the processes throughout the city are going to remain kind of the same. >> Sure. Go ahead. >> And yeah, that's all I had. >> One more. Uh I just wanted to make a comment on scale. Um, first of all, we're talking about land use um, regulations here.

We're not talking about the safety of these structures and building code for those I know you know that commissioners, but just for those that are watching. Um, all of these will still all these developments will still have to to adhere to the building codes.

Um, just to talk to you about scale when we talk about height and density and such these developments. Um, and I'm talking the the ones that are the the largest, not this not the single family or the town home developments, but the largest developments.

Um, apartments are typically somewhere between four and five stories. It would be very rare for us to see them go to six. We do have architect that will be speaking, but um, right now I'm seeing mostly fourstory construction in that arena.

So for for those that are concerned that all of a sudden we're going to open up a 10, you know, the ability to go to 10 stories or 15 stories because there's not a height limit is not um something that we should be concerned about.

That the cost of going into that realm is far out out of these developers are not capable of finding the resources to put that something like that together. So, I just wanted to make sure that that was on the record.

Thank you. Turn it over to you. >> Thank you. Uh, we'll start out with the public comment on this topic. So, if you have comments that you'd like to share, please come on down and limit those to three minutes.

Thanks. I think we're on. Yes. Good evening, uh, Chair Belaloo, commissioners, planning staff, and neighbors. Uh, my name is Pete Day. Uh, I'm a longtime Birchwood neighborhood resident, and I'm currently working with Compass Housing Alliance, which is a regional nonprofit affordable housing developer.

Um, and I'm I'm supporting them on feasibility and pre-development of an affordable housing project here in town. I'm speaking in favor of the ordinance before you, and I wanted to offer a few thoughts from a developer perspective.

So, first uh developing affordable housing in our region is costly and as um some in this room may know finding funding uh is difficult even in the best of times. Um this ordinance improves efficiency and lowers cost by streamlining process and reducing uncertainty for affordable housing developers like I represent.

um it still maintains important safeguards on uh on development. However, uh a tangible example of one way in which this ordinance um can reduce development costs as in the building height allowance. As Terra mentioned, uh it's it's nearly always more economical to add a add an additional story to a building.

um rather than building those same 20, 30 or 40 homes on a separate parcel, everyone benefits from that efficiency, cost savings, and the additional homes built. Uh secondly, this ordinance uh doesn't cost taxpayers in the city anything.

It's essentially an efficiency measure that functions as a nocost lever that the city can use to help address our community's housing needs without requiring unpopular tax levies or putting additional strain on an already stretched city budget.

And finally, I want to remind us of who this ordinance ultimately serves on the continuum of housing. Uh it targets city-f funed affordable housing projects which by definition um is targeting folks earning 30 to 80% of area median income or AMI in Bellingham.

80% AMI is just over $95,000 a year uh for a household of four. So, this ordinance aims to serve not only our neighbors who may be exiting houselessness, or is the 30% end of that AMI spectrum, um, but also working families, teachers, first responders, and many in service and caregiving roles in our community who are struggling to afford to live here.

For these reasons, I would urge you to recommend approval of this ordinance to our city council. And I want to thank the planning staff, Miss Sundine, and Mr. Navfeld for a balanced proposal. And thank you commissioners for your time and consideration.

>> Good evening. Um I'm Jeff Mccclure with RMC Architects. Uh um our firm has been involved in many many affordable housing projects. So, I want to talk a little bit about what this particular proposal allows us to do.

Um, I want to thank the commission and staff for thinking creatively about affordability in our community. Um, I would say in a word, what this provides is efficiency. And of course, efficiency leads directly to affordability.

I guess that's two words, efficiency and affordability. Um but if we have the opportunity through um reductions on restrictions to height and to uh density, we can get obviously more units on the site which helps us defay the cost of site and then also the typical very large cost of the parking deck that that uh supports these buildings.

And I'll give you a real world example of this of how this uh by relaxing these requirements helps us deal with more challenging sites. We're working on a project right now where we have a pretty good slope from the front the access street down to uh the back of the site and because of the way we have to measure the 40ft height restriction from the lowest part of the building it restricts us to only three floors of affordable housing above that parking deck because the parking deck daylights.

So in this particular case that's 72 units. If we are able to add a floor that's 21 extra units. If we're able to add another floor to a five floor, which is what Terara said, which is what is typical that we see in most of these and and is typical in the surrounding buildings were just kind of penalized because of the because of the topography.

And all of a sudden, we can be up to 120 units. So, we've increased it uh the number of units uh 30% with one floor, another 30% up to 60% on the same site with the same infrastructure costs. And that goes directly to the unit costs.

And so that gives us a real good uh um u through line to affordability on this project. That's a direct impact for those who think that this is going to allow tall buildings throughout the city. I want to draw on what Terara said.

Most every multif family project that you see around town has been limited to five stories. And that's a code restriction because above above five stories, we're now out of wood frame construction and we're into more expensive kinds of construction.

Concrete, steel, possibly cross- laminated timber, although we haven't seen tall cross laminated timber in in our city. Those just frankly are unaffordable for the demographic that we're serving. You usually see those types of of higher buildings for condominium construction or very high-end apartments.

that is not the perform that developers are working with in this particular case. So um and ultimately the trump card is in the design review process. The city because they're funding these projects has the ultimate say on exactly how these will fit into the neighborhoods.

Um and I know from experience that they're not they're not going to allow that to happen. So, I think that there's some really good um really good methods for making certain that we have projects that fit well into the neighborhood.

Final thing that I will say is the one thing that caught my eye was the 100 square foot uh per accessible open space per unit, which can sometimes be uh would be perceived as being ownorous. I'm all for open space for people to be able to get out, but but as we have sites that are closer closer to the urban core, that may be difficult to achieve when you're dealing with something that's being built directly to the property lines and you have other pedestrian experiences.

Um uh an example of where that did work was a project we were involved in, Sandwich Commons, uh right across from U Boomers. Um whereas an irregularly shaped site, three buildings around a courtyard, we were able to, not that that we had that requirement, but we were able to get that uh a rather generous courtyard in there.

So that's an example of what 100 square ft per unit would yield. Probably more appropriate for a suburban site, not so much for an urban site. Staff has already come in with a with a proposal for in urban villages that that requirement wouldn't be laid upon that.

I think that's a good solution for what we're talking about. So anyway, thank you for your consideration, full support of the ordinance in front of you. My name is Mary Lou White. Um, I live in the Birchwood neighborhood and I want to give you the perspective of a resident that's lived here for 38 years and living in a neighborhood that's one of the lower income neighborhoods in Bellingham, Washington.

Um this proposal valiates planning goes for RCW26.7A020 specifically with regard to number 10 protecting and enhancing the environment because there can be cumulative effects based off of the larger um imperous areas created by this and the reduction in overview of um environmental regulations.

uh citizen pre precipit participation number 11 same RCW um with regard to ensuring coordination between communities and jurisdictions um our neighborhood for sure the neighborhood there was no talk about this with the neighborhood um association and it's very hard um I know you guys post on a notice site but unless you're looking at the notice site you don't get these I received this notice on June 2nd just before July or July 2nd just before um the holiday and then had to work all week.

I actually had to um take off today to write any comments. Public facilities and services. This is the most important part. I think we have an aging infrastructure and Bellingham has not right at this current moment a plan for replacing our storm water.

Yes, in 20 years over a 20-year period, but with regard to the specific impacts of this ordinance and how the surges may happen on these infrastructures, they don't have a plan. And that violates that means that you can't do an a citywide ordinance um under the uh uh growth management act.

Um climate change and resiliency, again, less open space. um to foster resiliency, less um native vegetation. Um it allows for cumulative significant environmental impacts which I mentioned. Um and uh BTC 16 requires environmental mitigation for development without passing this cost on to local community.

And somebody mentioned taxes, but if you look at the development um benefits already the for infill they're getting um breaks already with regard to utility up to 80% with regard to funding that they get from capital investors also um from local citizens who are when you look at it paying a higher part part of the tax because they're investment is not pro probably part of the $1 million which are exempt from funds from their um retirement or whatever they have invested in.

Um they're paying for taxes with regard to new infrastructure already. We know that. But when you put you compound that with these other projects, they're going to be paying additional um taxes on that infrastructure.

And they're also the ones that take the hit when there's going to be packwater sewage, which has happened in the letter streets. It's happened in Birchwood. I believe it happened on Meridian. It happened in Birch Bay.

And so I'm just saying let's get the infrastructure put in place before we build these large buildings or reduce the regulations we have for these large um buildings. And the other thing I really want to address before I run out of time and I have many things and you can look at what I wrote um is the hazards with regard to the LA the old mining which the city has consistently overlooked partly because the uh tetrate reports are inaccurate and if you go to the um actual report you'll find that the initial um gentleman who did the mining report said that he has no confidence in the information he he supplied to the city and that um the city needed to do a couple of things to build in that confidence.

So I also recommend that if this were to go forward that there anywhere there that there's building these large buildings on top of a mining area which is substantial throughout um Bellingham not just in the Birchwood neighborhood.

um but that there has to be some kind of very good geological assessment and that should go deep enough to find out if there's voids because those voids can hold gases. um you're putting dense, heavy housing on areas that aren't that have subsidance already that potentially can.

And if you look in the report, it will tell you some areas that are more likely than other areas to have that subsidance. Um but if you make a broadwide ordinance that doesn't address these factors, you're putting people at risk.

not only the the current residents or adjacent residents, but the residents in the buildings that will be living in those buildings. Um, and that's that's not acceptable. I just think it needs to we really need to concentrate on our infrastructure in Bellingham before we reduce the um impacts for additional development.

That's pretty much it. >> Thanks. >> Can I leave these with you? Anybody on Zoom? >> No Zoom comments. Okay, I guess we'll move on to our discussion of this topic and just uh have a conversation about our thoughts on it.

Um, anybody itching to start? Feel like this is your baby Rose. >> Well, um, yeah, thanks uh, so much for putting the work together to to take this initiative forward. Um, I think mostly it's like about time Um and and really glad to see that um the city, you know, uh when when we think about the the investment that the city's making that our communities are making in in the home fund um to help these projects move forward.

Um what we don't want to see is that the projects are harder and more expensive. Um so this really makes an efficient use of not just the land um but the resources that um our taxpayers are putting into it.

So um I don't have anything specific that wasn't already mentioned um in terms of like things that I I think we should u modify or change. Um the my only request is that we start thinking now about how what kind of incentives can we put towards the MFTTE projects that are not 100% affordable, but how do we take those those other incentives that we have and and make sure that they start getting utilized more.

definitely agree with the modifications to the open space uh usable open space. We were just chatting about that before uh we started this meeting and so that makes a lot of sense. It's good to not be more restrictive than the underlying zoning on things like that.

Um, in particular, I was wondering about, um, since we're basically going away from residential single zoning. Um, is it correct that basically most of the city is going to allow this type of development because really just the Watcom Lake watershed is going to be limited to uh, traditional single family zoning.

>> Yeah. I was just wondering how this maps to the new residential low, medium, high that's coming soon. >> Exactly. Coming soon. I think that's the that's the key word, right? There's a lot of debate that's going to happen in the next year about what our residential zones look like.

Um and we will we've been started starting that work and um we'll be coming here with to you very soon on that. So, um, our thoughts on this is that we didn't want to wait for that process. Um, because it's likely going to take this entire year before we get through all of that.

Um, maybe even into next year before we have our new residential zoning. And so, we didn't want to preclude any potential units or uh, developments that may be in the plans or may be working this year.

Uh, so we felt that let's get this done now. Um, because as Rose mentioned, it is time. it's about time for us to do it. Um, and as we go through the the residential zoning, there will probably be discussions about density, how many units, um, what the scale is, maybe even height increases.

Uh, then not far along behind that, we've got our, um, transit corridors that we're going to be looking at as well. So, um, we figured we need to get this done now. let's move it forward and if anything comes out of the residential reszone or not reszone but update we can incorporate this into that as well.

>> Would it be fair to guess that like this ordinance is applying to RM that might map to medium and high in the future and not to low >> possible? Yes. Yeah. given extra density in areas that may not be as dense um potential for that.

I would assume that some of these you know what are residential single are there planned residential single areas that would potentially become residential medium or are multifamily medium districts or is that kind of I know we're kind of pushing forward into the crystal ball but is that is that an anticipated thing?

I'm I'm more curious about how this might apply to single family districts once we make the zoning change. >> Well, I think, you know, as you mentioned and as state law and our local ordinances have come into effect, we don't have residential single zoning anymore.

Um or single unit zoning anymore. Um now that you can do four to six units on every single lot, um that that scale and that thought process is just no longer there. Um so we will continue to evaluate what the appropriate zoning uh thresholds or levels are in that that low, medium, and high um wershed.

We've been kicking the idea around with um you know something a little bit different as well in there. Um we know that the the transition between the residential medium and the some of the residential single zones um they're almost compressing and so it it's too early to really get into the weeds on that.

Um but we've got a year ahead of us to do it. So I make a an a comment. Um, I will I would think that most of our nonprofit housing development projects won't necessarily benefit from this because they're already choosing with our urging of going into our urban villages.

Um, our pipeline projects right now that are being built in Oldtown and nearby on Unity Street. This won't do anything for them. But what this will do is those projects like Jeff mentioned where the the way we measure height on that slope.

I mean, that's really what we're talking about. When we help our nonprofit developers purchase land, we're looking for places that make sense. We're looking for places that already have transit or in urban areas.

So, I just wanted to I want to throw that out there that I don't want you to expect that every project all of a sudden is going to be changed by this this ordinance. Um the we've been the parking thing came along recently.

We've been talking about that, Kurt and I, like we wish brought this to you like five years ago because those developers are constantly running up against that uh requirement. And then also um commercial requirements for these nonprofit housing developers that is more problematic for them than almost anything else.

So that's that's kind of more I know we're talking about a lot of height today, but I don't think that's going to be the the big gift necessarily. Um and and I know that that this is not what we're talking about, but the um demonstration ordinance or the um innovative affordable home ownership ordinance when we start thinking about um our formerly residential single zones.

um that ordinance has made a really big difference in projects for the land trust and um knowing with all these changes like what are the things that we can do um one to help get to those six units where they make sense um and then also um making sure that um with all kinds of new rules that those get updated maybe in parallel with um so that it's not a five years later we start thinking about that Um >> yeah, when we first started talking about this, um we had we had a lot of discussion about the uh innovative affordable housing um demonstration ordinance uh and how this would fit in with that.

And um I I think we came to the conclusion is let's keep that in the residential single zones for now, right? And with the increase going from because what that the in innovative ordinance allows is essentially a 50% density increase um on the site um if you go through a certain review process.

It also allows more flexibility and development rules as well. Um and that was really um created for ownership projects, single family ownership projects. Um where this is really shifted kind of that larger scale development.

we just had that gap, right? And so that's why we said let's leave the demonstration ordinance there in place. Um if there's if the the four to six doesn't already help on that site, there's always that to fall back on.

And as we're going through our code um update, um we will be looking at other places that we can modify and change the code, make it better. That's that's the goal, right? I'm quiet, but I just want to let you know that I like the work that has been done.

Um, it's there's a lot of thoughtful um wording in here. Uh, I'd like to thank Jeff for his comments. Um, I feel like explaining kind of what the handcuffs are uh for developers. Um when people hear height they think oh my god you know there's going to be all of uh these big gross buildings and um also Tara your your definition of um what typically is built and uh within the the price parameters develop developers have um I don't think it's a huge concern.

I think the fact that the uh this is geared towards city partnerships and the city um by allowing all of the new language but still setting up guard rails uh with the view corridors uh has um people's best interests at heart.

So, uh in summary, yeah, I'm I'm for it all. Thank you. >> I think it's it's interesting. A lot of people don't know when we talk about height um our downtown core hasn't had height limits um for decades like and we don't have any tall buildings down there.

Um we also have a lot of people don't realize this but many of our commercial planned areas do not have height limits. Um some of our residential multi-planned areas do not have height limits and we don't see largecale buildings and it really does come down to the economics of of development, right?

Um and so Yeah, I I I think that there are other factors that that are going to limit limit height. >> Um I guess I'm wondering why this is restricted to the or 100% of the the units. I know it references um affordability language for the from the single family um one which is over 51% of units and such.

So I'm wondering just the impetus and how 100% of the units was was decided on. >> We decided to start with something that was straightforward and limited and that was to the the projects that we fund.

So, some of those guard rails starting out um and that's why the city funds 100 100% of the units are at 80 or and below. Now, sometimes we and 80 is on the high side honestly, but um that's why we started there.

If I could, um I I do um wanted to just take a minute to respond to Miss Wright's comments. Um if this is an appropriate time for that. Um I think a lot of the comments definitely we heard heard heard what she said.

Um we've been having a little bit of conversation over email uh the last couple of days on this. Um some of the concerns that she expressed um are really project specific or project level types of concerns.

The all of these projects will go through SEPA review. Um if they're in or near critical areas, they go through a critical area review. Um the mine hazards that she spoke clearly of in order to build out in um the Birwood neighborhood or any other we actually have a couple different places in town that have mine coal mines or mines.

um they all have to go through an adopted critical areas review, right? So, they're they're going through it. We're having professional geologists study these sites, biologists are studying these sites.

So, um we do believe that the existing site development rules and regulations are in place to protect them. Those those don't aren't being changed here. Um if there is a site where a water man is not big enough then the development rules will require it to enlarge that water man.

Um so we've got those existing rules and regulations that help protect some of those sight specific type concerns. Um uh one of the other comments that was raised was just this the storm water and you're covering up with impervious surfaces.

uh our the code does reference uh it does it says no lock coverage but it does reference that you do have to comply with stormwater rules and regulations. So again those are statemandated um uh requirements and they have to meet every development has to meet those requirements.

Um, and then, um, there were some other notes about consistency with the comprehensive plan. And I did want to direct your attention to, it's page 15 of the packet. Um, number five, part of the one of the things when we do these rules and regulations, we have to make sure that it is consistent.

These rules and regulations are consistent with our the Bellingham plan and that they implement it. And so there's, you know, six goals there that it does support this. Um, the first one I think is the most telling.

Remove barriers to housing creation and preservation by periodically reviewing existing and proposed development regulations and policies for potential impacts on city-wide housing capacity, development patterns, affordability, and diversity.

So I mean, right there, we put that one right up in front, right? So this is something that we are implementing this. we are removing barriers to help housing. Um so it's a it's completely consistent with um our our comprehensive plan.

Um so just wanted to um acknowledge the the concerns expressed. Um I do believe that our existing review processes through CEN or critical areas will help and other development regulations will help mitigate any of the potential issues that may arise.

Well, I think that I could argue that there's a lot more um goals within the comprehensive plan that support this policy in addition to the ones that are listed. Um and and I would I would put climate goals in there as well just because um increasing density is is good climate policy and small cities take note.

Um city of Bellingham is really setting um a high bar for how to support affordable housing. um trying to do projects in throughout Wakom County, which is important that um Bellingham doesn't become the only repository for affordable housing.

Um but it's really difficult when you don't have system development charges like those fees waved when you don't have these kinds of um incentives and um so I hope um everybody's watching out there in Wacom County role.

We started with uh the two proposed changes to this packet and one of them was the definition um of affordable housing and that's not in this packet, right? I mean, that was something that you just brought up.

So, I'm wondering if there's anything that we might need to discuss um to kind of formalize or see if we agree with that. Um, I don't think it seemed too controversial, but >> yeah, if you make a motion or act on one, we would want you to um consider the um ordinance amended with these two changes that we've proposed.

One is this definition >> and it is complicated. You can tell by >> Right. >> And I'll we should let you do you want a moment to read it? Well, I feel like that, you know, it's like I this is not my area of very technical world here.

>> It seems like we're trying to comply with there are different definitions out there and to include the ownership component. >> Yes, we ownership is handled differently than rental housing. and rental housing.

And the simplest way I can describe it is um first of all, we're trying to line this up with other funders because we're not the only one. So rental housing, the rent is tied to the space. So, when that developer is building that unit and it's two-bedroom, there's an assumed rent that is going to be collected for that um that unit.

We do have Pete Day here if he he needs to to to write me. Um and it doesn't follow the household as a hership model does. It follows the unit. And so our definition there was misaligned because it was following the h the household's income and expenses, not an an assumption.

So, if you've if you've got a 60 unit apartment building, when you go into that financing scenario and you go line up all of these different funding sources, you're saying this many units are going to be affordable to 30% AMI and this many units, these ones are 60%.

You don't know who the households are at that time. So, you fix the rent and that creates predictability of revenue for the developer. So if you earn 25% you that rent doesn't change you're paying something that would have been affordable to 30.

It's complicated but this is why we've had to these our housing developers caught this as they were reviewing it and found misalignment with other requirements in the industry. I I would move that we amend the proposed recommendation to include these changes to the definition of low-inccome housing.

I'm not going to read all that. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> It carries. Um I think probably the next uh modification to the open space. Um that one seemed usable open space. My my only question I was wondering if there's an alternative that says something like you know the requires 100 square feet or the underlying zonings requirement whichever is less.

you know in the future if we do some other change like that today's that it's the equivalent but you know do like carving out just urban village isn't as flexible as saying you know the lesser of this requirement or the underlying zoning is that helpful or >> I can tell you why I argued for this argued we didn't really argue but we um some of our urban villages have that open space requirement in the transition zones.

>> And so we felt like anything that is that close to our core regard our urban villages should just be exempt from the open space. Mike, does that make sense? >> I was wondering about RTS. >> Yeah. >> I mean, this is this is fine.

But I think one of the things that we have noticed um obviously our codes change over the years um and they've gone through different revision cycles and that was part of the problem when I put together a list of what open space requirements were.

It was so different um in so many different places and within the last year we have really been talking about open space and and private or I not open space but private usable space and and we through the comprehensive plan planning process um it's acknowledged that it is it's important we need to have these places um for people um especially as you start to get more dense u so we at this point we believe that the 100 square feet is appropriate for all juris jurisdictions.

Our codes just haven't been changed to catch up with that. And so I I think if if we were to fall back on the underlying zoning, um I'm I think that's going in the opposite direction and where we think we want to go with it.

Um I think this this hundred the last the last code change that we made was 100 square feet. So, >> so I think what you're saying right now is that this code will be ahead of any revisions that we make to other things and that then we're not trying to fix this code later.

>> Yeah, it's it's ahead of three quarters of them and consistent with the last quarter that we just did. So, we're getting closer. We're getting closer to 100%. Well, and then have you mapped out with parks kind of like in where these, you know, multif family districts are like does are there a lot of areas that would not have to meet the open usable open space requirement just because of that proximity?

>> Um, not yet. I what we have at a very high level um in relationship to this proposal, no. But what we've talked about is um if we start to make changes and allow that alternative to not have to provide it on site when you're close to other um parks or trails.

We've we've taken that at a citywide perspective and said, you know, what would this look like if we didn't require it within a quarter mile? Um, and so we've mapped kind of the quarter mile areas of the parks throughout our city, but we didn't do it in context with this ordinance.

We've did it in the context of that bigger discussion of when do we need private usable space and when not do we need it or could not need it. Well, I guess so. If a developer chooses to use this ordinance, then they have to use all of it.

>> That's correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> good point. They don't have to go for this. They can just use the underlying situation. If there was >> yes, >> for example, if there was no uh private usable space requirement in some area and you know they could choose what direction to go.

>> Correct. >> Any further discussion on this item? I think uh >> I guess I'm very supportive. Obviously, increasing height intensity lowers costs and streamlining all this helps it to be more affordable because it's outrageous that affordable housing costs more to develop than other housing.

Um I think my I think I've been quiet partially and because as you said in support but also wondering kind of the extension um of this I understand now the the 100% was to keep it in line with um with what the city funds um so that was helpful clarification but just you know thinking about how this could extend going forward um with other properties that put in an affordability covenant or the underlying land easements or otherwise uh commit to long-term affordability and and having a a higher income cap um than the 80% AMI or or things like that.

And just thinking about the 85 or 95, I'm forgetting what the four person um I think it was 95,000. Um, and just thinking about 30% of that or thinking about what a a house would cost to be only 30% of that depending on mortgage and principal, what 250 350,000 off the top of my head.

And thinking about that gap um that exists for people still making like up to 150 200,000. And so I'm very supportive of this and just like already thinking, you know, what does this mean for how we could further use this to develop, you know, affordable properties when there is that that gap?

>> I think it is something that potentially we should look at next is the multifamily tax exemption program. It might be a way. The state doesn't require those projects to have affordable units for a very long period of time.

It's 12 years. I'm talking 50 here. So maybe there is um a bigger incentive that we might have to work with that would entice one of those projects to have longer affordability period than than what the state requires.

So, we'll take that your comments into account and bring that back to our our leadership team. We figured you would want more maybe then but sometimes we've learned this. I have Rose has definitely learned this.

You have to take that step and maybe take the next step. So, that's where we're at. I think the the last question, this is in line with the other question that I had previously, which is just looking forward to when we don't have single family residential, and I'm just wondering more about the density and floor area ratio side of that and how you might see that that gets implemented into the zoning uh once we make that change.

Yeah, we've um as a part of this process uh we've been looking at our urban vill areas and our urban village areas is where those floor area ratios really come out and play, right? Um when we first started doing urban villages, flurry area ratio was an appropriate tool.

Um as we do continuous process improvement, we learn things change. Um we are re we are reconsidering whether floor area is the appropriate mechanism. Um I think we've we've had this conversation here before um in front of you um about floor ratios and um we've we've updated some of our urban ver plans over the years and like the key things that we've updated when we do update it increase floor area ratios.

Um so we know that what we've established probably aren't appropriate. Uh we know that we've got to go back at some point. Um and that's definitely on the forefront of our our minds. >> We were just talking with sorry City of Bend yesterday and and um they wanted to learn how it's funny having a call from the city of Bend wanting to learn how how we've done things right here.

Um but we we said to them, you know, some of these urban villages were planned 20 years ago. They were planned when our community was scared of a four-story building. Um so times are really different.

I think we you would see us do it differently today. So, we do want to go back through and and and look at those codes and go, did we because we were we were trying to um all of those what if scary scenarios out there, maybe we created more barrier than we need to.

So, we we are recognizing we'd like to to simplify the the urban village regulations as well. >> A question for you. Are all of the lowincome projects that the city's currently working on rental units?

>> We have um well, Habitat for Humanity does currently I think they I can't recall Rosewood would know. We do work with um home ownership as well. Coulson Community Land Trust is our primary partner in the city.

Habitat does a little bit work of work here, but mostly outside of the city. Um, but the the large production is with the rental units. And I think part of the issue with the home ownership model, Claire spoke to a little bit, the gap is really big between what what we can subsidize at 80% AMI and how affordability is more like what 200 AMI to afford a home.

So that gap is really big. Otherwise, I think we'd see um something I'd like to see changed is allow us to go up on that AMI to like 120. I think then we could see a little quicker production. Does that >> No, that answers the question.

If you were going to put a percentage on it, what would it be? >> 95 >> probably. >> Okay. When you just said if we were allowed to go from 80 up to a higher percentage, what do you mean allowed by like state regulations?

>> State of Washington. >> State of Washington regulations. >> Um, yeah, that's the that's what I would be looking for. Yeah. I do want to comment though, like remember the rental product is serving our most vulnerable community members.

um that we we need that too. As much production of 30 and 40 and 50 as needed because we remember half or below the 100 level. So um it's desperately needed. We we could we could probably quadruple our our supply and still not have enough for those incomes.

I think I'd like to go ahead and move forward with a motion to um adopt the recommended change to uh the um private usable open space requirement. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I I Any opposed? Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, >> that's what we did, right? >> Yeah. >> Um I have one other clarifying question. Um parking and design review are key parts of what we're on the bullet points. Um the parking is hardcoded as saying there will not be parking requirements for these.

So depending on what happens with the interim ordinance, this says no parking requirements. The same is not true for design review. So if like we're this is still subject to like what happens with the interim ordinance on design review or does the state changes cover that here?

>> The state changes they really do because what they've said is cities can no longer have subjective design standards. We can only have objective design standards. So, um, we've gotten out of the game of, um, subjectivity.

Uh, and so, anything that comes forward, uh, we are working in an interim ordinance, design review ordinance right now that employs objective design standards. We believe we've been letting them go through letting some of these projects go through make learning over the last you know six months what's working what's not working and they seem to be working well from both the developer side um as well as the staff side.

So um they're I guess the the process is only going to get easier I think because of the state and what we're realizing having the objective standards. So do you think the range of outcomes that we will see in the next near near future from our interim design changes will be beneficial to this?

We don't need to >> become a streamlining process. Um and it if you if you go back to what the interim rules did, the interim rules, we went through and had just updated our urban village uh design review standards and a lot of our other design review standards.

And so what we did is we we just converted a lot of those newly adopted standards from subjective standards to objective standards and made them easier to follow. Um so yeah, I I I think what's going to end up happening is we'll probably continue to, you know, just see how these rules work.

Um if they if we find any issues or concerns, we'll look at tweaking them. But the interim ordinance appears to be working well for everybody. Um, and from what we've seen on plan views, um, we don't believe we're losing quality, um, design quality in these projects.

>> Thank you. Sounds like we probably are getting close. Everybody, anyone want to make a motion? So, we've got two modifications that we've accepted. But any >> We'll make a motion to adopt the uh what are we calling it?

the low-income housing development incentive >> ordinance with the um adopted changes from earlier. >> Second. >> Second it. All right. All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay. Well, thanks. >> Yeah. So, do we have any uh any more news for upcoming?

Um, we have a meeting next week. Is that correct? >> Look to to our our great >> Since you were able to finish this item, you have the month of July off. >> All right. Well, meeting journ. Thanks a lot.