City Council - Regular Meeting

[Music] hello everybody and welcome to the March 24th regular meeting of the Bellingham city council I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order a couple announcements uh but before we begin we acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional and unseated territory of the Lumi noack samish and seamu people who have cared for and ended this land since time immemorial truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of Heritage indifference We Begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth we pay respect to their Elders past and present please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence displacement migration and settlement that bring us together here today and please join us in EN covering such truths at any and all public events the Belling city council provides Spanish interpretation at all regular evening meetings interpretation can be accessed by in-person attendees by utilizing the headsets located at the front of the room remote viewers can log on to cob.org frcc zoom and click on the language icon at the bottom of the screen to listen listen in Spanish and I'll go ahead and let our interpreter repeat that thank you roll call please Hannah Stone here Dan HL here skams here Lisa Anderson here Michael list here jce cotton here Holly hutman here all council members are present all right and up first we have a public hearing it's a public hearing on an ordinance relating to land

use and Zoning adopting an interim zoning ordinance applying Bellingham M Municipal Code 20.28 infill housing in all areas that are zoned predominantly for residential use except on property regulated by BMC chapter 16.80 Lake Wacom Reservoir regulatory Provisions to stimulate and the construction of middle housing uh this is a public hearing to consider an interim ordinance applying to INF full housing in all areas that are zoned predominantly for residential uses to stimulate the construction of middle housing as proposed the ordinance would allow for up to four units per lot with the potential for a fifth or sixth unit if affordable as defined by the state addition consideration will be given to the floor area R ratios associated with the state's model code and here to present to us is planning and Community Development director Blake konk you council president Huffman um members of the council members of the public uh mayor thank you for the opportunity yes my name is Blake lion I'm the director for planning and Community Development also with me here this evening are CT ABF Feld and Chris Cook with our planning department I'm going to take a few minut tonight and walk you through uh for those that were participating in the study session on February 24th we went through this in Greater detail I'll just give a few highlights of that and then talk a little bit about uh what the ordinances um options are for you for the ordinance so if you recall back in that meeting we

talked about the city adopted the infill toolkit which was an opportunity to think about ways to provide additional housing options that um went beyond just the use for single family zoning and in 2009 when the program was originally adopted it was applied to all the areas that were kind of in the pink um pinkish color and then in 2018 we had we amended it a little bit and added in the areas that are Illustrated here in green uh and what the proposal is before you this evening is that it would include the areas in yellow with the exception of the area the land area that's uh in and around the uh Lake watom Watershed and so we would move forward in there uh we have a um website that does a lot of the tracking to show the general public where we are seeing different uh uses that are there in this illustration uh anything that has kind of the red dots references projects that have been completed uh those that are in blue or under construction and then we have some that are kind of in a in a green olive color that uh represent those that are in application and as you can see in the table below we've got about uh about 760 units in total the large majority of those are represented in um townhouse format but there are a variety of different housing types that are available through the toolkit uh option and so one of the things that we're talking about in this ordinance and before you tonight is the opportunity to expand those opportunities uh Citywide in all areas that are zoned

for and allow for predominantly uh residential uses we've got a range of different housing types these are all examples uh that exist within the city right now uh and that you could go out and see today um to take you back a little bit uh you may recall seeing this in February this is a um an illustration that was put out by opticos Design and it really talks about uh the use of middle housing or as they refer to as missing middle and it's referring to the fact that in this country we've got a strong commitment and utilization of detached single family homes that's seen on the left side of this uh illustration and then we've got kind of midrise to high-rise uh throughout this country and what we've moved away from especially post kind of uh World War II and there's a little bit of examples in the 60s and 70s but as modern zoning kind of really took hold in the 70s and 80s we kind of lost a lot of that um those different housing forms that are in the middle I left this particular graph up here to show you because we'll talk a little bit later uh this evening about housing scale and what the role of floor area ratios are and you'll see a little bit of that kind of um side by side duplex up to the town home models talked about in a house scale where it's similar to your scale of your detached single family and then there's a portion of the different unit types that get a little bit more into the block scale which is a larger larger building format types any of you may recall

that in the state's legislative session in 2023 there was an adoption of House Bill 1110 which is what predicated all of this and in that bill um there was a timeline for cities that are referred to as tier one cities or that have more than 75,000 in population are obligated to to implement this code um by June 30th of 2026 and so one of the things that the mayor's executive order looked to do is to help stimulate some of that uh in in a more advanced time frame and so we've looked at that opportunity to apply this infill toolkit so so it's familiar to those in the community um but advances some of those initiatives that are brought forward uh in the state requirements similarly uh we did that with the Adu requirements that you all helped us enact taking uh a substantial the way there in advance of the state requirements so this is by no means all of the details that are in that state law but I did want to just point out so one of the things that the ordinance does is it says okay where you have single family detached zoning where there's one unit per lot this would allow uh up to four units per lot so it's a intensification of those number of units and as the title described earlier you can get to that Fifth and that sixth unit um if those are afford aordable unit types there's a few other Provisions in there that talk about um the state identifies nine different middle housing forms we're obligated to provide at least six of those but we can do certainly more the state set

up this model code and this law as basically the floor you must do at least this or cities cannot prevent you from doing less than this but you can be more permissive should we choose to go that direction so this is a an illustrative example of the different housing types the nine different housing types that are enumerated in the state law the two that you see in the kind of upper right the Stacked Flats if you think about that is each floor or each story is a different unit um and so you have a a ground floor middle floor and an upper floor unit and so that would be an example of a three-unit building but but vertically oriented and then the five and six Plex that you see in the upper right those are the two that are not represented in the infill tool kit currently but that would be allowed uh in the provisions of the state law so when you flip back to the infill toolkit two that are in the infill toolkit that are not expressly identified in the state are the small lot that's a configuration if you recall back to February when we talked about a 5,000 square foot lot in a a detached single family home being allowed and then the um state law doesn't specifically call out but it does not prevent to preclude the use of accessory dwelling units as well and that's something that we that we have um in our repertoire right now so as written and I won't go through all the details of the ordinance itself I did want to call out one thing that I think uh probably could have been a

little bit clearer uh in my representation of this um you'll see on page 10 of the staff report there's a table in there that calls out the floor air ratio and then has size limits um I should have included a reference in the way the code is currently written is whichever of those two is greater so the floor area versus the size limit so the 12200 squ ft is in the code but it's you can actually get higher than 1200 because in some instances the 35 F will be more permissive than that so I should have added that Clarity but in the actual ordinance itself uh as all ordinances do we've got a number of whereases and then you get into section8 and there's a couple that I wanted to uh a couple points I wanted to clarify in this um for the public as well um you'll start to see in kind of eight um and then it gets into outright permitted uses under 8D it's on page 14 if you're following along um one of the points that we wanted to be clear about is that the infill tool kit would be applied to many of the areas that are currently zoned single single family uh residential all the uses that are permitted in that would still would remain permissible so this doesn't override that it just adds the infill toolkit to that as a permissive use so all those things that are currently allowed in those use would would be maintained um the other piece that I think is probably worth mentioning a little bit is um the state law identifies uh and we see here on page 16 uh Section 8 H we're talking about

uh declarations and governing documents and I wanted to bring this up because this topic actually got brought up at the Planning Commission last week as well the state law identifies that there are many um homeowners association covenants that are out there uh throughout the state and this and the state law does not uh supersede or um take any action on those what it does say is that you can't if you're develop in a new subdivision or new HOA you cannot put in uh any declarations or government that would prevent or preclude this from happening um but as one of the public commenters at the Planning Commission pointed out there are many that are already in existence it has been the city's practice um that those covenants are an agreement between the private property owner and that body that is not something that the city gets involved in in terms of the application or enforcement of those pieces so one of the things that we do as a practice within City staff is certainly work with um applicants that are coming in to make sure that they are aware of and and and uh addressing those particular issues but you may have a situation where a private property owner chooses to pursue something that is allowed under city code Andor state law that may be in direct conflict with what their HOA is doing and that's not something we're going to take an enforcement position on that's a that's a private legal matter that they would need to address all right now we are recommending the ordinance

that's included in your packet we've also provided for you a couple Alternatives one is a no action alternative if you choose not to move forward in the ordinance then the regulations would stay in effect until that new state law comes into play um if we do not take an action by the time that deadline occurs then the state's model code would supersede any of our local development regulations um so we are certainly intending to uh comply with that timeline and to bring all that forward um but just wanted you to be aware of that the other opt option that's uh for your consideration is modifying the floor air ratios now we didn't talk about this at the last study session so I want to uh beg your Indulgence for a few minutes and kind of walk talk you through and the and the public through a little bit about floor area ratio and what that means and and how that can be uh kind of visualized so if you think about just a a generic uh property okay and you start to identify what the width is and what the length is you can take those two different dimensions and you can do the math equation and you come out with a square footage of the particular property in this illustrative example we have a 5,000 ft lot okay so that's your initial first part of your equation then you take that same Dimension and you start to think about the different um setbacks associated with it and you can begin to pull those setbacks in a little bit and you end up with a buildable area now I should say that the

floor are ratio is based on the the overall size of that 5000t lot so for example if you have a floor area sh one and a 5,000 ft lot then your maximum buildable area would be 5,000 ft on that lot if it was 0.5 it would be half of that as an example so in this scenario what we do is we take this kind of buildable area that I Illustrated here in red and you also think about that that sets your where your building can be placed on the lot and then you have to also add in that kind of Third Dimension which is the overall height and that sells your set your building envelope so you start to begin to think about how you can work through and in this case you've got 2800 square feet in where you can place your building and you can work on it in single story or multistory scenarios so here's a different way of kind of illustrating that on the left you see an example again of a 5,000 foot lot and if the F was3 it's roughly a third of that so500 square ft you could do that entirely within one story if you were to add a second story to that you would need a floor area of 6 if you were to add a third uh story you need an F of 0.9 so you can start to see how some of this plays itself out and increases the floor area ratio based on that buildable area the image on the right looks at different ways that you can get a one F so you can see there uh where one story one story built the covered the entire property you can do two stories over half the property that's still an F of one or in the

the example on the on the far right you can build on 25% of the lot and go four stories and that would be and F still all three of those examples in the image on the right are still an f one so hopefully that kind of illustrates a little bit I'm going to take it a step further and kind of show you a few different example scenarios um the upper line is all .5 F so you can see again building on half the lot or 25% of the lot in multi- stories and you can go through and see these different examples of how part of why f is a tool that is used um is because the state law will say that we have to have clear and objective design criteria when we talk about that so we can't have subjective nature in it so this is a an equation that can be easily applied to and scaled up B based on the size of the property there's also another pretty uh clear distinction between this so the the left half of the table that you see there in blue text is the F that exists within the infill toolkit right now and one of the things that's most important to note is that it differs based on unit typology so the small lot has the lowest F at.

35 the next four different housing types that are in there have the 6 and then the town home you see there at 75 under the state model code it goes uh different and it bases it based on unit count so as as I alluded to earlier under that code you're allowed to build one up to four units by right so you could have that depending on what unit count you were providing on that property you would have a corresponding F based on the um the numbers here in green and if you were and if you were to get up to the fifth and the sixth unit you could get those additional uh F contributions that are shown here in the lower part so the green is on unit density and Associated F ARS um and so when we start to think about that and you look at okay what does that mean on a per lot basis now the model the model code that the state developed is generally based off of a 5,000 foot lot which is why I use that illustration reference so you can imagine that if if you're talking about four units on that given lot that's about a 6,000 square ft building of sorts and the average unit size you can see on the far right there so kind of gives you that General illustration so I'm going to show you a few examples these are not uh Bellingham specific examples but I just want to kind of give you a little bit of sense of how that could play itself out so this is an illustration that came comes out of Lane Fab and it shows you an example where you could have a 4unit building and in the right you can see kind of

how the different units are are broken out I'm not suggesting this is the architecture that would be appropriate for Bellingham or anything of that nature I'm just simply trying to show you kind of how the different orientation in fact this has a slightly higher F than the code uh the model code would allow and it's also a fairly narrow lot at 33 ft wide but just to kind of give you an idea of where you can get those different unit uh mixes played out here's another examp example of again those stack Flats you can get some where the image on the left is a central stair uh where you'll have a individual stairway and then there's basically two units on the bottom maybe on either side of the entryway and then two units on top or they could have the image on the right is where you have kind of two in the front and two in the rear um so you can see different examples that might show up and the image on the right although it's kind of a a rendering kind of shows you the scale of maybe what would be a typical single family home so you can see how they would be integrated into an existing uh block face like that here's a different example of tow houses where typically they're more vertically oriented um so in the image on the left you can see kind of the the end unit in the white stucco maybe the middle unit in the gray and yellow and so on and so forth and you can see different examples where that may be and then again on the image on the right you can see where there's potentially

uh adjacent homes around that kind of scenario where that might fit in wanted to end with this little piece just because I know that when we talked previously kind of the interest of affordability and financing comes into play this is a a couple slides here that are from uh cronberg um and this is east coast so it's not a Bellingham or it's not even a Washington state example but I think it illustrates the point about out even though the dollars are different uh from what where they are here you'll start to see kind of the concept that breaks out so you have a existing detach single family home on a modest size infill lot um and in this scenario you can see that that home based on this location is about 145% of their area mediate income and if you were able to allow for the additional middle housing what you see is that then this adds three additional units in this case they're Illustrated as as independent detached units but you can see that the value of that single family home on lot one drops down to about 110% of the Ami because you don't have the additional land area associated with it um but it it keeps that strong value uh by and large and then when you start to see what the value is for those that second third and or fourth unit you can see that that comes in at a much different price point and allows it to be more accessible so whether you're talking rental or whether you're talking ownership you can start to see how the additional units then puts uh it within reach

to a greater segment of our population um and again if you were to do a fifth and a sixth then those would be subject to additional um Ami restrictions by the state regulations so I'm going to stop there the three of us are here to help uh answer any questions oh I should should mention Next Step so um we're hopeful that you'll take public comment this evening um and if you feel so inclined to uh Advance this particular request again we are asking that you um adopt a first and second reading of the ordinance tonight we do offer the middle housing tours so if people want to see examples of those uh that are within our Community already and get a sense of what that feels like in real life the next available middle housing tour is on April 9th uh and so you can go through and sign up for that it does require a registration process we'll then continue to move forward with additional public Outreach efforts and a type six legislative process for a more formal ordinance by the prior to the adoption date of the state requirements which you see is listed there so again uh that's my time for this evening and happy to answer any questions you have or come back after the public comment so thank you director lion uh Council any clarifying questions before we open up the public hearing seeing none I'll we'll read uh three names at a time and folks there is a microphone up there at the top of the stairs as well as one down here couple guidelines uh please St state your name for the record

uh each speaker will be allowed three minutes unless interpretation is needed only speakers who have signed up ahead of time will be called speakers cannot donate their time to another person please refrain from disorderly spee or action name calling personal attacks obscenities keep it respectful uh please speak into the microphone um and so that everybody feels comfortable speaking and this remains a neutral uh area no cheering or booing or clapping we want to make sure everybody feels comfortable speaking um okay oh and also uh again this is for the public hearing so you you would be speaking just to this topic um public comment will happen later uh first three names all right we have 11 individuals signed up uh first up is Ron gbec Ryan Bowman Rose Lup and then Daniel blumer Ron gck wasn't as aware of the specific topic of the infill but I was aware that it was partially having to do with adus that's what I'd like to speak to about as I've been trying to build some for eight years in this city very confusing results and expectations and some things that were just a made unaware as a private person not aware of a lot of things that were going on but I was aware of all this time progressed watching the state head toward this direction I began to create two adus in my single residence excuse me single single property the attachments that I understood could be built were to be something like a garage which is what I did I took the roof off my garage set it on the house built

two spaces and I expected that that would be something that would come about so I was looking forward to that with this Situation's changing with the state I was given my accessory dwelling permit authorization for type one projects for both adus now you have to understand this is after several permits from a larger project to a very smaller project try to get it down to I get something done with addresses with fire department acknowledgements everybody saying yay you're going forward with this to the last statement that said the 2018 International Residential Building Code only allows for one and two family dwellings no three family dwellings therefore could be allowed as two adus on a single family residence I think the state knew that going to have three units they're not always going to be family members and I didn't understand why this 2018 code was being thrown at me at the end of all of this after hundreds of dollars of permits after letters like this that said you're getting your addresses you're getting everything done I finally gave up and I said fine give me one permit for 1 Adu then I got a bill for $26,000 for the 28u to be hooked up to sewer hooked up for building permits the building is complete I don't need a building permit I don't need another electrical permit so by going down to one Adu I got that money down to $111,000 after hundreds of thousand in time built it's made it impossible the process was accepted was allowed for me to take permits pay money

have inspections everything done but no 2018 IRC says no I don't know if the council's aware of that if the mayor's aware of that I don't know if any of these people are aware of that that's what's happened to me and I think there should be at least more transparency and some sort of accounting for this Bill thank you Ron your time is up thank you thank you Ron Aloha Community my name is Ryan Bowman for the record uh here to speak on behalf of the ordinance suggested uh and to his point here is where my questions come for first off I want to thank uh Mr Lions I've been to a lot of the Bellingham planning and appreciate all the work you guys put in but um the execution of plans and things seems to be halfhazard at times here uh we have a fantastic Community here uh this gentleman is an example uh that want to do things and are actually taking their personal finances to execute helping with the crisis we have when it comes to housing homelessness and so forth and they are receiving little to no assistance in fact it seems like they're actually receiving push back and financial uh hardships as they try to help you execute something that City with all the resources has not been able to attain because housing crisis gets worse homelessness gets worse none of those problems are getting better year after year just like the prices for things it just goes up so my question is um how are we supposed to rely on that changing moving forward with some of these things um are we going to be

allowing for this ordinance to go forward and expecting those problems to be improved or are we going to be expecting to see other uh profits going to other avenues we have a couple different areas of town that have been clear-cut recently and they're Prime areas for commercial real estate and multif family uh housing which the city of Bellingham was so kind to address a few days after the Maplewood clearance um that they were going to be doing some sort of idea building behind that property um now is that execution going to be relevant to what is proposed or is it going to just be another project that doesn't really pan out the way it is supposed to pan out for the benefit of our community and as I keep coming to these things and seeing things progress it's quite often not the case that it's helping the community because again housing numbers housing crisis homeless crisis these things just aren't getting better um and that's just statistics that you guys have yourselves so I want to see if there's any way we can answer those questions and get some assurances that moving this forward is going to result in that some smart goals maybe a sit down and little SWAT session do some business type things about this and get it straightened out thank you thank you Ryan good evening Council my name is Rose leop I'm executive director of culture and Community Land Trust and I have been waiting a very long time for this public hearing where we get to um show our support for Middle housing

um I am this is a critical uh important housing type that we need for our community we need more homes for more people we strongly support uh allowing middle housing Citywide because it directly addresses the urgent need because uh for more affordable housing options diversifying housing types not only supports affordability but also Fosters vibrant diverse neighborhoods we are particularly excited about the potential to leverage the additional units permitted through this policy with the forthcoming multif family tax exemption as we all know the Divine is in the details so as our other members spoke I'm so excited that you're moving this forward and we can see this happen this year and thank you director lion for your very um wonky explanation of F this is a time when we'll this next year we're get to try this out and find where the where the barriers are we're going to see what what happens and what works and what doesn't and so we have this opport unity and I just encourage that as we think through this policy we think about the flexibility that's needed and a lot of those things come around with public works I'm thinking about Street Frontage improvements that add a lot of cost um utilities and then lot splitting are three things that come to mind and how we really make this function because what we want to see is that this is a usable functional policy that results in more housing um so thank you very much for working so hard on getting this done and doing it early um

this is a huge win for our city and um I look forward to being able to use this policy very soon thank you thank you Rose all right and then after Daniel we'll have Cameron Dorman miles Silverman and Alex Ross good evening all my name is Dan blemker I'm an engineer and resident of the Birchwood neighborhood I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the mayor's middle housing reforms middle housing includes duplexes qu plexes town homes and all the other forms you saw tonight they already exist throughout our city seamlessly blended into our individual neighborhoods typically built in a time before restrictions designed to reduce the ability of the non-white or non-affluent from living where they want these homes are not in any less any less in dignity than the single detached home my mother bought her first home in Folcroft Pennsylvania in 1988 at the time she was a single middle school teacher she bought a town home it was perfect for her a two- bed one bath that was with her price within her price range and gave her a home I would spend the first parts of my life in that home I now see friends and family that out were my mother's age hoping to find a home here in Bellingham and in other cities unable to do the same with a median detached single home here over $600,000 that isn't something a single person can manage most of the time those that do find a home here are almost always either have to live far away from the where they prefer or managed to find one of the few condos or

town homes available mostly in cordado or Barkley when my parents did end up selling that town home they did buy a single detached home why was that home for sale at all it turns out the previous owner was an empty nester and was looking for a home that was significantly less work and more size to their needs they bought a town home opening the middle housing reforms to all of our neighbors neighborhoods just makes sense as a way to keep us from forcing people who love to be a citizen here from picking up and leaving it allows individuals to choose the form that best suits their needs and gives breathing room to our housing Supply I hope we open up these possibilities in our city and adopt these reforms along with the state's middle housing model code section 7g that Blake Lions earlier mentioned which is on page 10 of your agenda packet thank you for your time thank you Dan hello all I'm Cameron Dorman I live in seahome and uh I'm a member of strong towns which is an international nonprofit that Media company that communicates great ideas to improve the financial solvency of cities um and I'm straightforward thrilled about this ordinance uh they have a strong towns has a six step checklist on how to make a city housing ready the only city in Washington that meets these requirements is Spokane and I don't like being second place so policy one is allow single family home conversion to duplexes or triplexes permit backyard Cottages in all residential zones legalize starting

homes in all residential zones eliminate minimum lot sizes repeal parking mandates and streamline the approval process so we have completed one of those with the interum ordinance on parking which is super exciting and this ordinance would complete three more the uh only ones left which have been talked about already uh is to streamline the approval process and also take a look at reducing minimum lot sizes so thank you very much thank you Cameron is this working wonderful okay hi I'm miles I live in the cordada neighborhood and I recently saw the some new town homes being that are currently being built both off of Northwest and then up by Klein and I must say that they look great I think in terms of if anyone here's is still concerned about neighborhood character I think town homes are much cuter than MC Mansions so do with that what you will um so so there there's that and then of course as previously discussed middle housing offers a lot of fantastic benefits in terms of allowing a little bit greater density in terms of access to Transit and amenity and financial solvency for the city and it of course improves walkability because you have more places to walk to it allows people to stay in their neighborhoods if their housing needs needs change so instead of only having 5,000 square foot behemoths and little condos you have other places depending on what you need which I think is great and so it's good to see that that all of this is being widely supported I'd not been

aware of the approval and infrastructure challenges but hearing about them that sounds like it is very important and I hope that everyone in the city will will heed what is being said and make sure there are good options available to build the housing that that needs to be built and that people want to be built and I don't think there's much else to say I let's build this middle housing thank you miles all right and then after Alex we will have uh Scott Jones Rebecca Quirk and Carrie Burnside followed by Scott Pelton hello good evening my name is Alex and as might be able to guess I am also here with strong towns Bellingham who could have th it um Dan spoke a little bit before me and some other people have spoken before about the kind of wonkiness of regulations like these the complicated details the stats the figures the logic and the law I don't want to talk about that you could talk to Dan you could talk to our planning commissioner I want to speak a little bit personally today um the theme of my speech you could say is gratitude I am for one grateful for our wonderful city council here in Bellingham for another I am grateful for our mayor and the Beautiful work that she has been putting in on the housing crisis I am of course grateful for our Planning Commission they all seem to have the good heads on their shoulders and above all I am grateful for the work that our planning director Blake Lions is putting in and the work he's put in into this ordinance similarly I live

downtown and every day I I wake up and I am grateful for a host of things I am grateful for the businesses for the food for the community I am grateful for the Neighbors in my building one of whom is even here today the connections that I am able to form by living in forms of housing that are not just single family homes where you never see your neighbors because the only time you spend in your front yard is the short walk to get into your car and then drive 30 minutes to enter the town proper and yet in spite of how wonderful I believe that my form of living is and in spite of how wonderful other people tell me it is and how much they tell me that they Envy my luckiness for getting to live downtown it is the case that the way in which I live is illegal throughout most of America you cannot build homes of the density that I live in and not only that you cannot build homes of half the density that I live in of one tenth the density that I live in of 12th of the density that I get to live in not only that in the few areas where you are allowed to live as such it is prohibitively expensive a lot of talk happens in matters of housing affordability of those who are living in the 0 to 50% Ami I myself and my fiance happen to be in that income bracket it is already difficult for us to be able to afford this apartment Just the Two of Us spreading that rent over two people if I was alone and was not lucky to have the wonderful fiance that I do it would be completely out of the picture

because of that I have nothing but the most firm outspoken enthusiastic support for every action that our city council can take in order to liberalize the zoning that is in this city and move past the outdated 20th century notion that it is the city's job to decide what your house looks like thank you thank you Alex evening my name is Scott Jones and I'm a resident of Bellingham tonight I will probably be removed from the Planning Commission by the administration it seems that my focus on current neighbors and their struggles is not aligned with her office's focus on City growth and future residents now her growth and market rate Focus point of view will have a rubber stamp super majority at the Planning Commission for years residents have been told that everything is being done to help their housing struggle that is fiction according to the city's planning department projections indicate a huge surplus of higher end housing within 20 years while we'll still have a critical shortage of affordable a Workforce housing yet here we are with another temporary ordinance creating more market rate housing without any real affordability solution the other recent one was the minimum parking giveaway tonight's ordinance has affordability built in only in just it's another bait and switch created by the likes of the building Lobby group the Wacom housing Alliance there is nothing in this ordinance that would help a developer decide to build the afford units it's a Feelgood paragraph with

catastrophic ramifications it continues to Plate tens of thousands of residents who are suffering while the status quo stays the same builders make money well-off residents get housing Choice while city employees and other Workforce residents are forced to spend too much to keep a roof over their heads although this ordinance is baked word for word from HB 1110 there is nothing keeping the city from offering incentives to make a developer financially whole and actually build the extra units struggling residents deserve in this ordinance or the next and final version the city to include incentives that will make affordable units a reality housing choice is not a crisis housing affordability is I say this to those who are tired of not being able to afford housing in their own town the city has tools to help help you it's time they use them thank you Scott I think I'm in love um Rebecca Quirk with tenants Revolt um have you missed me I'm incredibly impressed by the amount of detail time and focus spent on the new zoning and development but I really want to make sure that we don't lose sight of the rotting infrastructure that more than our H more than half of our city already enjoys so before jumping into what's next it would be incredible to have adherence to habitability standards for our current housing real repercussions for patterns of illegal behavior and penalties for vacant properties Bellingham has new construction from 2017 and 2019 that does not meet the standards of

the warranty of habitability they've just somehow flown under the radar so these places are rapidly deteriorating and unsafe for the people who currently pay to live there pay through the nose to live there also or ear so we need to have robust tenant protections and real consequences in place before we select wallpaper building housing does not mean people are housed many of these properties are intentionally kept vacant serving as tax shelters if the goal is to House people those guidelines need to be put in place before any shovel touches the ground and organizations like the culan Community Land Trust I'm learning and sustainable connections are funded by the people who are set to profit from this development they're not investing in the community they're extracting from it the people in this community are the renters and we're all we've been begging and playing for years for something to really be done so this is an inordinate amount of energy and time and focus to be spent helping a few people line their pockets and destroy the community more and more so we're calling for real action for renters now because we've been asking so nicely for so long and all of the energy and all of the focus is just going down the drain with plans that really don't help us at all so I want to make sure that we're focused on the war being against making people homeless and not people who are made homeless thank you Rebecca good evening Council mayor City sta staff Community my my name is

Carrie Burnside and I'm an organizer with the Bellingham Tenants Union I um long time or grew up here in Bellingham third generation hamster yes I did bring a slide however we're not using the projector anymore so do the best that you can to read it and there will be a test at the end this was presented to uh planning department as part of the comprehensive plan normally in these graphs red means bad uh and blue means good however this is the opposite it blue is is the need red is the supply uh this will this gives us the housing units that will be developed based on the the need and includes the need in our community over the next I think 20 25 years 20 years it's based off of the area median income of a family of four which is 106 plus th000 so I added on here which I'm sure you can all easily read is what that translates to the area median income for an individual and then put where minimum wage falls on the graph so that puts minimum wage workers down here in the 30 to 50% Ami and as we listen to the slide while I do support this ordinance I'm con I have some concerns with it because it's not bringing housing where it's needed we have a need of 4,117 units over the next 20 years and we have a plan of meeting 850 of those that's a huge disparity for our minimum wage workers in town and then when you look at what the M the area median income which did drop by $10,000 is 54,8 167 which is still going to put you pretty much in that 30 to 50% Ami where we have our biggest need

and the lowest um we don't have plans to meet that so again I live in a townhouse and I love it and I definitely encourage more tow houses because I do I I would pick that over an apartment any day and it I like my townhouse within the ordinance I'm concerned that there's a there's a lack of affordability requirements no specific protect protections against displacement insufficient incentives for deep affordability so that 30 to 50% Ami where our biggest need is lack of monitoring and evaluation metrics when we look at chat time we need to be able to evaluate this as it moves along Po and then there's a potential for over resilient on market rate development we're focusing on developing where the need is not we do have to have plans there but we need to have actual development where the need substantially lies and Mar on the market rate things have dramatically changed since the invention of price setting algorithms and that needs to be factored in So within rentals that is dramatically increasing artificially increasing rates thank you for your time thank you Carrie the test will follow all right Scott you should be able to turn on your camera and unmute this time if you wish okay yeah can can you hear me yep we're ready for you awesome uh good evening council members my name is Scott and I manage the Wacom housing Alliance uh I'm here tonight in strong support of this interim ordinance because it doesn't just align with HP 1110 it reflects the kind of leadership our

community needs right now for over eight years the housing Alliance and our partners have worked to expand awareness build coalitions and Champion policy change to make more types of housing legal in more parts of Bellingham and this represents another tool that this ordinance and is is excuse me and is a major step forward and I want to offer sincere thanks to Mayor lond councel and especially planning director Blake lion and planning staff who have been working steadily on these changes for years uh their technical expertise Community engagement and policy development have laid the foundation for this moment expanding the infield toolkit C wide is a Bold And Timely move it recognizes that we what we've know long known that limiting neighborhoods to single detached homes perpetuates exclusion dries up housing costs and deepens our our crisis middle housing duplexes fourplexes Courtyard Cottages creates opportunity it invites more people to live near jobs schools Transit and Community it's more efficient more Equitable and more climate aligned what I appreciate most about this ordinance is that it's not rea actionary it's proactive it doesn't wait until 2026 to comply with state law it lays the groundwork now and by streamlining review and eliminating outdated parking mandates we're showing that Bellingham isn't just following the rules we're shaping a future that reflects our values that said I urge us not to treat this interim measure as a Finish Line let's treat it as a

floor not a ceiling over the next year we have a real opportunity to layer in deeper tools especially reforming our multif family tax exemption program mfte has the potential to support the kind of compact diverse housing this ordinance an ordinance such as enables if we modernize it to reflect to reflect today's needs and today's Builders again thank you to planning staff director lion and mayor lond and councel for your leadership and long-standing commitment to this work this is a moment to celebrate and to build on with courage creativity and Care thank you thank you Scott that concludes our sign up okay we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to council council member list um this is I think uh a good day thank everyone for turning out I especially appreciate the strong towns people you may not know it but Chuck morone was right here in this room about 10 years ago so uh we've been falling strong towns for a while I think at that time it had to do with infrastructure problems and the infrastructure trap that that Chuck talks about um I'd also uh like to say that I I do think tiny con condos are part of the problem tiny condos like mine so Miles I'm looking at you tiny condos are part of the solution too um what this brings is gentle density when we adopted the infill toolkit I stood at that elron right there not as a city council member I said we're making a big mistake because we're taking the infill toolkit which is actually a spectrum from things

which are detached homik to things which are multif family like and we're taking that whole thing and we're shoving it m multif family and that was a mistake and I said at the time because it's actually a spectrum and we're trying to put it on one side of a line that was the opticos illustration right it shows that actually middle housing spans that that kind of false dichotomy and so I'm glad to see we're finally kind of like breaking down that false economy recognizing that housing occurs in a spectrum instead um I have a question I want to pursue with staff later on that has to do with how the mfte applies to these middle housing forms especially the smaller forms especially when you have three or four detached uh um infill Types on a lot that probably doesn't count as multif family therefore the MFD probably doesn't apply so I think that's an issue i' like to explore technically um the other issue is that I would like to make a motion uh with regard to the f um when we adopted the F for the um infil housing toolkit types uh we were imagining one on a lot back then infill had to do with like had little opportunity lots and you wanted to put something on there maybe a couple somethings on there if it was like a courtyard type um but the uh the F didn't contemplate what we're now looking at as many potentially many infill types on the same lot four or up to six with um uh with affordability so the advantage of the state um f table is that it increases the F the more units

you put on the lot and because state law now manag anticipates more than one or two or three units on a lot our F doesn't handle that situation well it's the thing we didn't contemplate at the time luckily if you do have just one infill type on a lot it pretty much exactly matches with our code we chose 6 and if you have one unit the state says 6 so where our infill tool it overlaps with state law they already align but where our F doesn't go it needs to go if otherwise what'll happen is we're going to have strange regulations which may get in the way of actually achieving more than one infill toolkit type per lot which is kind of the whole point behind the middle housing uh therefore I would move that the city um amend the draft interim ordinance to use the state's middle housing model code regulations table for f as discussed in the staff report on page 10 second motion by council member lillquist and a second by council member Stone further discussion council member Anderson thank you good segue I had questions about the F too um not opposed I just want some clarification so when it comes to the F there's a couple of things um you know the example you had given us I'm just thinking the avoidance of conflict so there's the the setback um there's a certain amount of open space there are height restrictions depending on location I keep thinking of transitional in um transitional zones in the um Urban Village which is stepped down and um does changing the F to be a larger uh

area um does that at all impede like the height uh that would be utilized or how much green space or open space we're also looking at trying to work around tree preservation is there any kind of carve out that you know when designing because that hasn't been completely fleshed forward I just want to make sure making this change that some of the other things that we're working towards um are not going to be in Conflict so in it in its simplest form f is is really talking about uh bulk massing scale so you still have the setback requirements uh that would be applicable in the zoning designation you still have the height criteria and so what that does is it basically creates a three-dimensional box in which in which you can build the unit there are not in the state regul or uh our code where it requires different volumes based on different floors step backs some jurisdictions refer to setbacks as being ground floor and they use step backs as being upper stories or they'll have a different f for second or third story kind of scenarios the state does not contemplate that in the model ordinance it's not something that we have in ours so essentially what you'll see is um an opportunity to have that building take shape there now that doesn't prevent or preclude anybody from having to address the landmark tree ordinance or any other applicable ordinances that come into play there anything further you want to add can I also ask for clarification because down at this is going back but

when I was on the Planning Commission down at the Port property the Waterfront I believe that there were the requirements for some of that step back you know that the basically the layering of the cake you couldn't have the box you had first floor larger and then tiered you'd have a setback and kind of a a change design does this conflict with that no the kind of the the the setback requirements that you're talking about are really um focused around our Urban Villages and our Urban Village design standards that's where those types of things and then some of our transition zones where they step into but um the way that uh the code is drafted is to essentially use the existing rules and regulations for the infield toolkit or um and those would apply um as you have this discussion I think it's a very great discussion it's something that we as staff want to have as well um you've got that model ordinance out there you've got our code that is working quite well right now um one of the things that is reflective in the staff recommendation here is um we know that the toolkit Works based with those flary ratios right now um and they work in connection with all the things you were talking about the set backs the open space requirements the Landscaping um all of those things work together with that um the FL a ratios that are in the toolkit now one of the concerns that we have about changing the FL ratios to the state model code is that we're only taking a section out of the model code

right and you're the model code is based the FL ratios of the model code are based on all those other things that are contemplated in that model ordinance so if you just take that one section out of the model ordinance it may not fit as well with the other standards that that we' we've talked about um so I think that there's valuable discussion in what the set what the floor area ratios end up being but I think generally as was um noted in the staff recommendation we we think that using the existing standards is best now and giving us that time to be able to research this do a little bit more and maybe we come back with something even more um that just want to make sure that staff has that that or the council has that information as you debate this um if you so choose to go forward with it we can we can put it in in in practice as well though so just for clarification because my concern was is if if we went with as the motion was if it hadn't been able to look at these other possible conflicts um is the I guess I hate putting you guys on the spot but I want to make sure that BAS B on the motion made is there the do you need more time to figure out whether or not that is going to devil in all the different codes that um may need to be adjusted I mean is this the time to pass this part of it trying to I'm trying to figure out how best to articulate this I think as Kurt was saying the we've kind of tested the infill tool toolkit over the last decade or so of utilization so

that's a known quantity um and to do the interim ordinance and add the fs at the state there's going to be elements of that that aren't as fully vetted and fully tested that's one of the benefits of doing an interim ordinance is to go through and see how those uh examples can play out how we can work through that we have confidence that there are other things like uh the open space requirements the height requirements the tree preservation requirements those are tools we're used to working with and doing it it's how that gets interpreted how that gets applied from an F perspective that we don't have you know full uh utilization and seeing how it's translating from code to to real-time practice I think we can go either way with it I think we can go to the sense that um we can test it we can understand it we can adjust it uh as we get into the permanent ordinance but you know if you're asking us where our confidence lies it's in the tool that we've been using for the past decade a followup just to speak to it um so on my end because I worry about festing and unintended consequences and creating a lot of hardship and work that maybe we don't need to go there because this is temporary uh it is one year I would hate for for someone to if we make this change and then they vest under it and then it becomes an issue that dovetailing it in um we're finding that there's a lot of other things that need to be adjusted I think perhaps this motion is a little premature so um I don't oppose

changing the f I just want to make sure that it's very Mindful and looked at to make sure that all the different layers from uh Port property the Waterfront to the transitional zones all of that could be vetted out so I won't be supporting the motion council member Stone thank you very much um so I'm looking at this as as you mentioned interim ordinance and I think about the inter ordinance as a great opportunity to to test things and to see how right how that shes out while the interim ordinance is in place um also in looking at the proposed amendment what I'm thinking about is that these are maximum floor area ratio so it's not an obligation for you know whoever is developing at that time to go to that to that maximum um but it is allowing additional flexibility and in the off chance that there are lots that can support the additional right F and make that work with all the other considerations that we have I understand that there may be some additional leg work that's required to make all of that mesh but at this point and knowing how much we need housing is not wanting to to leave any of those M opportunities on the table Council M Williams listening to the discussion about this um I'm falling in line with this as an interim ordinance that's going to get us moving but as we move you you are going to do the research and the testing and the the how things develop out so that when we get to the permanent ordinance we'll have something that works that'll be right in line with

the state requirements and everything else um I can't support the motion because I feel it it makes a permanent move at this point when we're in an interim stage now we can go the other way I suppose but if we find that something doesn't work then we're in in the in the situation where we've done something and it's not working then we have to either change it at that point or wait until the final version comes in and we're working on something that doesn't work so I'd be more in favor of staying with the course that's been presented and begin the work of coming to The Final Answer down the road uh question question with the uh with the F guidelines that are proposed in the motion would there be situations where these are more restrictive than what we have um at the [Music] moment um only thing I can think of is that there's for example uh town homes under the infield tool kit that have an F of 75 uh and then you could go to a scenario under under the state model code where the one unit starts at 6 but I don't imagine somebody would build just one town home you know so that is possible but very very unlikely I don't know if you then I don't see any scenario where would be more restrictive that's um and as a I guess is a secondary question um does how much of a complication would this add for people in the planning process um or uh for our staff to to to make this change we've tried to lay out the staff report um where it gives the discussion up front and then there's a bullet

point on uh page 10 that has some language and the thought was one of two ways to approach that is to take that language and either insert it into the ordinance uh as it's written right now as you know kind of maybe after the density which I think is uh Section 8 uh portion or at the end make and just add a a next you know another enumeration on that so from a technical part of putting it into the ordinance that that part's not as difficult but I think your question is also getting at the Practical implementation of that and I think there's a little bit of we've got very uh accomplished and capable planning staff and part of what we try to do is kind of walk through with our applicants with the design Community to think about how they're applying it and interpreting those pieces and so that's I think one of the advantages of doing it is an interim because we want to see what that practical application is so it may take a little bit more exchange UPF front in terms of trying to identify that the um as Kurt was alluding to earlier the state has put out a user guide for the model code and it pro it tries to address a variety of those different issues so there's already some kind of some guidance documents that are out there and it's just a matter of kind of working through some of the new respes and and trying to anticipate how it's being uh applied from the design Community side of it so it won't be without some effort uh I don't think it will be a Herculean effort in that

respect but it is something we would need to put a little time and energy behind I just to add to that one of the things that I also wanted to make sure um Council and the the public know um about is we do in the existing um toolkit we do have the ability to um for departures or um when you look at let's take a townhouse for example where you've got the F of 75 um and you let's just take you got four of them in a row you got the the the two end ones that generally have a little bit more land on these sides and then you got the two units in the Middle where you're really you know property lines are at the building wall and your your building per se on that lot goes more than that that 75 fi so we're already allowing increases in the F from that perspective as long as the parent parcel meets the F so those individual Parcels that U may be in the tow houses or something like that um those floor are ratios can can go up in certain circumstances as long as that that so there is that flexibility that's built in there as long as the the flary ratio for the the parent parcel is being met if I could add one more component to that I mean part of the directive that we received through the mayor's executive order is to find ways to um be uh be creative be flexible be accommodating move those forward to get to the housing production I mean that really ultimately is the goal is to to provide the housing needs of this community and so we are to the extent that we're still following the law

and the regulations that are in front of us we are trying to really be proactive in how we interpret that and apply those things and I have note that jce we're not able to see him right now but he he has his hand raised so go ahead uh council member m cotton okay I'm just GNA pray that the wifi holds here the back City Hall um I'm inclin to many cases with a more permissive f um you're just going to run into other uh constraints on the site and I think we we want we want to be permissive we want to enable as much housing to be built as possible and um I think that uh one of the mindset shifts we need to make is that uh we've got to be iterative and we've got to to learn as we go overdue and I'm so thrilled um the leadership of Mayor Lund and director lion and and staff and councel to bring this forward but uh We've we've got to stay Nimble and we've got to um keep getting at the of um this crisis and taking those who are struggling right now so um so that's my my two cents I'll be supporting the motion hopefully you heard most of that yeah no problem council member cotton we got it all right any further discussion Council M list well first of all I'm gonna Channel a little more strong towns one of the things that uh Mr Marone and strong towns movement has talked about is that there there's there's wisdom to some of our historical housing types because they were built up through an iterative trial and error process and so that's why I'm all that's one of the reasons why I'm in

favor of pilot projects um and we won't know if the state's table works until we try it if we don't try it now if we don't do it in a year we won't know year we'll have no information um whatsoever are these exact right numbers I don't know I don't think we will know maybe they're too high maybe they're too low but I do think we need a stepped a stepping up for more units I know that I just don't know if it's the right number so I think we should try it I do have one question though um which said as currently drafted this would kind of apply to all the infill housing types but what about our outlier the small lot which has a lower uh than 6 F so when we had this conversation uh Mr lion I had actually Rewritten the the ordinance myself and I went through and I laboriously inserted kind of reference to the table in each of the sections except for the small lot to kind of keep it out of Harm's Way um if this is adopted what happens to the small lot type well uh I think one of the ways that we can interpret that is that because that's not identified in the state model code in terms they don't do it by ordinance I mean by unit type we could certainly keep that as a you know independent version of that um but we could also say okay well that's typically one unit on the lot so they get then go from the 35 f up to the 6 so essentially what you're going to get is a larger the potential for a larger home on a smaller lot so it doesn't it wouldn't have that same size restriction you're

saying if a small lot home coexisted with other types they would certain it would give a little bit more freedom to those other types because the small lot sort of undershot the average so small lots are 5,000 square ft um or smaller yeah so I'm just uh 5,000 or smaller and then you would apply like we were talking about before in the in the illustration you take that and you add this 6 to that so you're going to likely have a you know modes size home but larger than what could currently be allowed on that smaller lot so yeah I used to have a home on a 4,000 4,50 squ foot lot and it was a 16600 foot home so I lived in one of these it's was a great place to raise my daughter um so if you don't think there's a problem with that one outlier with the way you've drafted it then I'm I feel reassured I mean do you see any problem with the small lot as an outlier do you have any thought you guys have got to do the interpreting so you know yeah no um again this is great conversation and something that we definitely need to have um one thing that I think again to just add to the the conversation here is by increasing the floor area ratio you're increasing the size of the units right one of the things that we have talked about with um uh the infill toolkit and getting more housing in there is Choice scale as well so smaller buildings potentially have a smaller price point associated with them if we have larger buildings you get more floor area which potentially drive a higher price and

that's one of the things that we've talked about um when we start talking about the FL area ratios what what does that do if we go with a really high Flor area ratio what are we going to see you're going to see larger buildings larger units why do we see so many tow houses they have the highest Flor ratio in our toolkit people build those because they can get the largest units out of those things so a lot of the discussion we heard today or some of the discussion that we heard today was you know about just increasing Supply in numbers but we also heard about affordability um one reason to keep the floor area ratio smaller could mean that you get smaller un units which means you could have lower prices knowing our market now it's pretty crazy out there so that that's just kind of the basic economics of of that right so I think it's again more to add to this discussion as we talk about it I just want to give you a little bit of context on the user guide and the model code so when the state went through was developing the model code they looked at the average single family home across the state of Washington was 2100 plus feet somewhere in that range and the average uh multifam apartment was about 824 Square ft so they put a Target around that the middle of that at around 1,400 square fet and when you start to look at some of those Provisions most of the fs that are driven by the model code fall into that kind of average of about 1,500 square fet per unit um so that's where

they're starting to to kind of drive those F numbers I'm not saying it's like you said it's not necessarily right it's just kind of what they were using as a a general reference point to give you that kind of frame of reference with the idea of trying to have the accom the ability to accommodate a three and four bedroom unit type to allow for family housing as well further discussion council member Stone so I guess one of my questions is looking at the density so it says unit density on the lot and one unit so a a duplex is considered one unit or two it's two right okay um I mean part of it with the increase in size I understand that you may end up right with a larger a larger um building on on the lot with the increased maximum floor area ratio but it also allows for a lot more flexibility and options where if the potential is there for up to six right units on the lot then hopefully I mean that's where I'm aiming for is the higher number because one that's what's going to trigger the affordability requirements and um again just wanting to increase increase Supply and hopefully reach that affordability piece and so I think yes there will be outliers potentially in any situation um but here for me I'm just thinking about the potential creativity from right members of the community and developers coming to US versus I understand what staff's saying we're you know currently we're accommodating things and sometimes there are exceptions made and um but those are sort of you know

maybe the oneoff versus here hoping that um having this standard and maximum a little bit higher and just differently oriented um may help to to cater to some of that that creativity and more diversity in our our housing and really seeing right more of those missing middle mixed housing types that that we've been striving for so okay I have to say I'm um back and forth too on this one um I think ultimately though I I I tend to Veer towards flexibility adding more flexibility um as council member Stone mentioned I think you know this is an interim ordinance um if we come to find that that you know we overshot the F on this um we can we can always adjust um I think you know the the encouraging the smaller units smaller units more of them is also appealing um but but yeah given that that we are we're trying to be more flexible we're trying to loosen up on our requirements to give um to give the people that are building more creativity to be able to build more um and more densely uh I probably you're on the side of of uh of that option so I I will be supporting the motion um any further conversation before I call the question okay all in favor say I I any opposed no no extenstions okay that passes 5 to two council member H Hamil um yeah so um I think this is this gets us started uh in this conversation when it comes to um a number of different things in terms of improving the zoning um and it it speaks to a little bit of affordability but in my opinion it's it's just kind of like

baby steps at this point we should be doing more um so the seventh whereas in here talks about um if you're if you've got six units per lot two of them need to be affordable and I think that's a that's a good step um so that I'll leave that part here um the thing that I'm concerned about is the ability for for Builders to actually um make these projects pencil and what I'm hearing from the building Community is that it's just really challenging right now so land cost um construction costs are going up every year we've talked about this before um and then the the the potential of tariffs on you know Canadian steel things like that really just will affect the the viability of um of this what I don't want to do is I don't want to pass a zombie ordinance that's just not going to do anything I just want so I want to make sure and and part of that's incumbent upon the on the market itself to figure out ways to make these things work and you know the building industry that's what that's their profession so I'm I'm sure that the that that'll happen I just want to make sure that that does happen because I want the production the housing production component to um to really take off the numbers that we talked about before um we're just not we're we're not near where we need to be and we all know that um and when I say we I think it's the global it's the building Community it's the city it's the the permit per permitting Center and such so um I just want to make it as um available as

possible to um to get the housing created and and I'm all for the smaller units I just don't know that that's going to be the preference and I'm not saying to build McMan mcmansions I'm not for that at all but I want to make sure that we're just realistic in our thinking and so I guess one other component to me would be to figure out affordability um incentives and part of that we've talked about that tonight about the multif family tax exemption and so we've got the eight-year right now you know why why is nobody picking up the 12E and what if we we ex what if we added a third category of 20 to that so I'm just trying to to be creative and trying to figure out ways to to incent um Builders to to pass on those savings to people who are either renting or buying that's it if I can um provide a little context on that as well um reading the tea leaves or kind of polishing the crystal ball I think um the state has done a lot the city has done a lot to allow for adus um and that will be the path of lease resistance to getting additional density uh on residents in part because there are things like the state law does not it says that uh we cannot require Frontage improvements when you're building adus so the street uh sidewalk curb gutter those kind of things the um impact fees are 50% of what you would get for the housing typically those are done under the international residential code which is easier so there's a number of things that are being set up for adus to make them very

uh achievable by a lot of people's um standards in terms of being able to do that so we we think and we anticipate that we'll see that in in strong numbers um there's a price break when you start talking about middle housing and I think the F conversation will certainly contribute to making that more viable but when you get into um three units or more you start getting into the international building code requirement uh which adds a level of complexity to the whole permitting and review process um you have the frontage requirements you have the different fee so there are some price points the F will certainly help uh you know give some flexibility to that but it's also going to mean that that getting to that Fifth and that sixth unit is going to be a cost barrier because I don't know if the fourth is going to be enough to advertise some of those costs so as we' started talking about it and that's why we were thinking through the mfte piece and Chris is working actually on both this ordinance and he's been doing uh a lot of the heavy lifting for us and in both of those camps to see um council member Anderson I think you brought it up last time is how these kind of fit hand and glove and work together and so we've really been trying to spend some time to get those pieces pieces uh connected in a way that we feel like will give every opportunity to make that happen but there still will be that opportunity when people will look for the path of lease resistance and and ideally

what we see is a little bit of everything uh so that there are those choices that we heard talked about tonight where people can make those based on their lifestyle or circumstances that's the hope uh go ahead I did have an actual question about um on page nine and I appreciate one of the conversations we've I've I think I've been talking about this for nine years since Planning Commission is how do we create an Adaptive reuse of our old historic stock and so on page nine the second paragraph I think is the first attempt towards that direction where additional consideration has been given to the city's desire to retain exist exist residential homes and can support the city's climate action goals it then kind of goes over you know pre-World War II and the type of housing um therefore the regulation include a provision in section e 8e 2D that serve as an incentive to retain the existing residential building by allowing the building to be converted to a multi-unit Building without having those units count towards the maximum infill housing density subject to um the appable building and fire code regulation I just kind of want to have a little bit better understanding how that fits into um so by right you'll be able to go up to like a a fourplex or uh a duplex in two adus or whatever and that doesn't trigger the affordability function but if you have a three-story Victorian home and you decide you're going to make that a Triplex and it doesn't count toward towards the overall

count that you're allowed does that Triplex because it's a it originally was one building does it count towards one and then you can have three more added which would make six and that doesn't trigger you can see where my questions if I was a developer is going to be coming in asking you how does this actually work so could you give if I was a developer and I'm coming in and I've got this property I'm thinking I could build four uh like a fourplex and then convert to a Triplex and that gives me seven does that bypass the affordability requirement or what does that really look like because in here it's a very sparse I read the whole thing to people he how are you going to interpret that when I'm a developer coming in asking how does this fit not oppos just want to have more understanding uh this we've wrestled with with this very question ourselves so so you're spoton with that um we've had the conversation where the existing unit we want to encourage the retention so we were going to allow that to be um again cut up in different ways and or partitioned in different ways um and then looking at the net new is where you start to get the affordability and density requirements so you're basically given no restrictions on the existing uh and then we would apply that to to the new so if you are trying to get to that Fifth and six it's for the new units that are being applied that's the way we've kind of discussed it internally but we've we've actually gone both sides of that

conversation okay this is where I launch a little bit um temporary ordinance devils in the details um talking about affordability in the long run and incentivizing what of the conversations we've had um one of many and I don't know if you remember them all but um trying to figure out how to incentivize um that we don't have the tear downs we keep the housing we create um more affordability and it was things like being able to convert an old house into a duplex or Triplex and not necessar you know giving a reduction of um the fees like the hookup fees especially if they wanted to condom miniz oh my gosh I got that word out um if they wanted to condom minimization that Triplex and sell the units how do we um incentivize or create um those kind of opportunities I'm hoping on the permanent ordinance we'll be looking not just at the tax exemption but how could we creatively reduce the cost for the developer to be able to pass on through an agreement or a covenant some of those cost savings now it might not take it down to the um 80% Ami but if um if they only had to do if they could show that um they could take the street development down to like half or 34s um to be able to save 30,000 on that street Frontage development they still have a sidewalk but there's other amenities maybe not there or the hookup cost or the you know the park impect fees those things that we start charging if if we can pass on a cost savings that then goes to the purchaser um one of the things about the f

is smaller buildings hopefully will sell for a smaller price and the idea behind the infill toolkit is not having a fullsize big house that's going to be enveloped on the property but perhaps two small units that could be sold off based on lot splitting so you have a lot of work ahead of you and I'm hoping we can really think outside the box how we going to create these opportunities of affordability we keep giving away our levers and I understand that um we'll revisit the parking but I for six years I was holding on to that thought along with the ability to put for plexes on properties providing that part of one would be at a reduced cost and so these things are kind of given out in hopes of encouraging development but we're really losing our tools to create what we most need and we're going to really have to start thinking outside those boxes um other than just parking and other than additional housing units and I'm hoping when that comes back to us we're going to hear a lot more and I did have one more question after my soapbox speech I had just one thought and I I think we're very close in our approach I'm going to use a slightly different uh phraseology and wording but when we talked about affordability before there's natural affordability and and the subsidy portion of it and I think where we're talking or at least from our thought process is when you have those existing buildings and you are um you know segmenting them up you're going to have a natural affordability

that's going to be created in many of those if you think back to kind of some of the state analysis and those homes being typically around that 2100 Square fet you could then uh split that up into say two or three uh units in that particular building and then you're probably talking in the order of about 1,000 to you know 700 Square ft per unit so those might be Studios one bedrooms those kind of scenarios and there's a natural affordability that goes just inherently in pulling those uh units uh within that particular building and then the net new can then come come across as we were talking about earlier so I think we're very much appreciative of your comments and we're thinking along those same lines and we're just you kind of have to work through some of the details as we get to the formal ordinance council member Hil did you have a second before okay got you uh type six process um so the we have now two temporary ordinances we have the parking and now we'll have this one and both will be going through a type six process the comp plan is also similar to that will these be independently coming forward so that they are Standalone changes are they going to get wrapped into the comp plan and be sections of presentation um that I wasn't clear how we'd be progressing bringing all of this forward in one year I'm not passing judgment just kind of want to know what to expect and I've been asked that question by several community members and I told them I'll get back to you because

I really don't know so there will be enabling language in the Bellingham plan the comp plan piece I I would not say that these are wrapped into that because we want to keep the regulatory piece outside of the comp plan and of itself so we have a schedule that will move the comp plan forward we certainly have our timelines um laid out for what that looks like we are a little bit uh at the mercy of working with the county on getting the draft EAS done and getting that so the the timeline is not of our own making in in totality but we are working through that we've also gone through from a staff perspective and talked about we have on the order of about 13 or 14 ordinances that we have to write uh and bring forward before you um they're generally categorized in a couple different buckets if you will there are those that are the interim ordinances where we have a specific timeline where we have to get back to you all or or extend them we have some that are needing to be done uh in concert with the comprehensive plan adoption process we have some that are required to be done within six months of the adopted timeline and then we have some that are of our own making so when council member liquis brought up the uh request to you earlier today to get uh Council staff to do some of those uh minimum height criteria this is exactly why because we're up to up to uh drinking out of the snorkel or breathing out of the snorkel right now so we we've got our work cut out for us uh and we

certainly will make every effort to to make those achievements go to council member Stone and then haml sorry one question looking forward is I know that we're currently at well categorized as a tier one city right populations over 75,000 now that we're inching closer and closer to 100,000 will that trigger any new classific for us as a city no the tier one cities are the highest order of magnitude in that scenario um so tier one and tier 2 cities uh is what the current model ordinance is for um I'm going off of memory so I may not have this entirely right but the thresholds are essentially 75,000 and above and then the next tier is if you're between 25 and 75 but you're you're kind of contiguous so if you think about like King County where there's maybe a lot of smaller cities but they're kind of in total uh you know representative of a bigger metropolitan area and then those cities that are yeah even less than that 25 fall into that tier three kind of scenario um another question was just looking at the last section section J on page 16 was talking about parking and it's referencing the other interim ordinance that's currently in place and I just notice there's going to be a a lag in time and so I wasn't sure how we were going to address that so um yes very St uh there is a scenario whereby if we don't finish the interim parking ordinance uh in terms of a more permanent discussion or we don't extend it that the two may not line up 100% if we don't take the action to keep

the parking then you may find a scenario where somebody's coming into develop a middle housing scenario and we've def deferred back to the previous parking so we're we're tracking all those timelines and trying to make sure that we can line all those things up but that is a possibility that you might have about a two to three month uh differential there one very small housekeeping item on page 13 my understanding was that the last whereas which addresses um adopts the forgoing as findings of fact that that should be under the therefore that that's part of the the sort of action taken as part of the ordinance but I'll defer to to the legal team on thatc member Hamil yeah uh I don't see a reason to refer this back to committee I think that the the work has largely been done um I would just move adoption with the f f um amendment that was proposed and passed second motion by council member Hamill and a second by council member Anderson further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I any opposed or extensions that passes 70 okay this is a long one thank you thank you to the planning staff for for the presentation and answering all of those questions we don't normally talk this much during our late meetings that's usually saved for the day okay up next we have the mayor's report good evening Council good evening to members of the community and to the city staff team that is here tonight I have two appointments this evening requiring council's approval the first is seeking that

I am uh seeking to appoint Daniel blomer to a first term on the planning and development commission move to approve second motion by council member haml second by council member Stone council member Anderson thank you I wanted to speak to this um I've already uh spoken with the mayor as to why I'll be abstaining um it is not due to the individual being nominated it was more of my um disappointed during the comp plan that's uh the sitting uh member uh Scott Jones was um interested put an application and wasn't selected um I think it's an important voice on the plan in commission that will be missed um and I just wanted to register that I understand it's the mayor's prerogative but um when the comp plan is underway um it's it saddens me a little bit that somebody who is skilled and committed to service to this community wasn't selected Mist well I also um don't think it's great to change a planning commissioner middle of the planning process um and generally planning Commissioners get renewals I remember years ago when David hour was not appointed to a second term that also raised the stir so um but I don't have the choice of voting to reappoint uh Mr Jones I do have the opportunity to vote for Mr blumer and um he seems emly qualified and I'll be voting yes discussion seeing none all in favor say I I I I any opposed or extensions obain passes 601 thank you also for your approval tonight I'm seeking to appoint Dana Dickerson to a second term to the Greenways advisory committee

move approval second motion by council member Williams and a second by council member Anderson any further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I any opposed or extensions that passes 70 thank you I wanted to give an update this evening on the conversation that we had this afternoon about the emission control upgrade project at post point we had an important presentation this morning about the next steps at the postp point wastewater treatment plant and I encourage anyone in the public who is interested to watch the video when it is posted from today's committee as background in 2022 city council directed staff to abandon plans to pursue biodigestion due to past concerns and refocus efforts on maintaining and upgrading our existing Hearth incinerators the emissions control project that we discuss today is a direct result of that direction because continued operations and investment in the incinerators will trigger more stringent air emission standards in the next few years the emissions and pollution control project we discussed this morning is the only viable path for forward for timely and costeffective compliance to meet Regulatory Compliance the city must pursue this project now regardless of what the long-term future holds for solids handling processing and what may have been lost in the conversation today is the assurance that we will continue monitoring Technologies for solids management breakthroughs and we will continue to monitor how today's nent Technologies

are maturing over time we will do this while we are moving forward to come into near-term Regulatory Compliance with improved air equality at postp point I also wanted to share with Council that Deputy Keller and I had a good meeting with nuac chair chairwoman Rosemary llaa and the niac tribal council a few weeks ago we took the important opportunity to listen and share news of Interest with these leaders including an update on our comprehensive plan as well as our commitment to continuing to work together on local Watershed and water supply planning issues we also discussed our shared interests in affordable housing and services for members of our community who are experiencing houseless next we look forward to building a relationship and continuing government toover discussions with our important neighbors and lastly I wanted to say that March has been a big month for celebrating important Milestones with plenty of golden shovels and big scissors I've had the opportunity to join with many of you business and nonprofit leaders and other community members to celebrate several important projects that the city has played key roles in helping to make happen so far this month that has included a March 5th ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of the Northern Lights Park this s bellingham's newest Park and it is a unique example of a public private partnership which is creating an Innovative Park and new trails on the north side of our town I was able to attend the March 6

groundbreaking for a culion Community Land Trust project to build 18 permanently affordable homes in the Birchwood neighborhood which is being Advanced through $800,000 in local housing Levy funds there was a March 14th groundbreaking to commemorate the start of the construction of the Visionary Oldtown development which is expected to bring more than 800 new residential units and more commercial space to the Oldtown District over the next 10 years and last but certainly not least uh it was a joy to attend the March 17th opening of the new YWCA shelter the shelter is designed to serve pregnant women and mothers with young children its main focus is trans to transition their residents into permanent housing but it also offers intensive case management physical and behavioral health support and access to Community Resources the city provided $ 1.4 million for the property acquisition and over $550,000 for improvements to support the residents who get to call this amazing shelter home and that concludes mayor's report tonight thank you thank you so much mayor and now we move on to uh committee reports first up we had Public Works and natural resources and that was chaired by council member Stone thank you very much president huthman so this morning we started at 10:00 a.m.

on public works and natural resources I was joined by council members Anderson and cotton we had two items before us the first was agenda bill 24481 this is regarding adoption of the 2025 to 2035 water use efficiency goal and measures so the 2025 to 2035 water use efficiency program sets goals for reducing water consumption in Bellingham to ensure long-term water supply reliability state law requires the city to adopt these goals every six years or in alignment with updates to the water system plan staff provided an overview of the water use efficiency program a summary of recent program activities and the proposed goal and measures for Council to consider adopting as recommended the program was developed through a thorough public input process including review and recommendation by the Water Resources Advisory Board and so these recommendations include um looking at the fiscal impact so the W the water use efficiency program reduces operational costs of the water utility through conservation measures and right now the $200,000 program um would also include expenses for staff um is funded through water rates and charges and so that again is an annual an annual cost or um an annual budget we heard this morning from Riley Grant Public Works Communications and Outreach manager she provided the presentation just highlighting um some of the work that is currently ongoing and so wanting to um just go through the measures currently so looking at continuing the rebate programs their

rebate programs for single family residences as well as multif family residences and Commercial and institutional um entities in the Pro in the city as well as um high water use notifications so thinking about when there may be leakages in the in the system and wanting to make sure that that's resolved as quickly as possible because again this work is focused on conservation of of the water um that we use here in the city and creating a plan again to address during the summer um water usage when things may Peak because of heat or other conditions and the city wanting to highlight there's been a switch to monthly billing which has helped for to allow closer monitoring of people's individual um use from month to month and so also looking at just education and engagement programs which will will continue um and at this point trying to cap um or keep the city at that 54 um that 154 gallons per um residential account so that's our goal right now um is to maintain that 154 gallons or less per unit um and so today we were considering a resolution to adopt the 2025 to 2035 water use efficiency goal and measures there was unanimous recommendation from the committee and is so move second motion by the chair second by council member Hamill any further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I I I any opposed or extensions that passes 60 with one absent thank you very much and just noting that that new time frame that's going to align now um with the with the update for our water

system plan as well as that cyclical review every six years so we will be on a new course charting forward the next item before the committee was agenda bill 24482 this as the mayor addressed during um her report was a post-point wastewater treatment plant emission control upgrades project so staff provided a briefing on major upcoming solids handling project at the post Point wastewater treatment plant the project will upgrade the plant sewage sludge incinerators with new air pollution control equipment to reduce emissions and ensure continued Regulatory Compliance in the future based on preliminary estimates the project is expected to cost approximately $40 million and take approximately four years to complete this would be inclusive of design permitting and construction um this morning we were joined by Mike Olinger who's interim public works co-director for um again for public works and also joined by Casey Gish with brown and Caldwell so the um who have done the the work to um help guide the city and assessment of what options are available moving forward and so this item this morning was for discussion only but wanting to highlight that we are at sort of this critical point I know that there was discussion among Council just thinking about you know if we in hindsight looking back many years if we could have should have or would have made different decisions um or wanting a crystal ball to look 20 or so years into the future about what you know the options may be really

at this point in time needing to make the best decision we can right now looking at the cost as well as the timing um right now looking at the potential to need to meet the quad L requirements um is fast approaching with you know maintaining and upgrading the incinerators that we currently have and so um this work will be going forward at this time and we're expecting sometime next year for the city to come back to the council for consideration of um potential bid bid awards for that project um but in the inter room this was for and discussion only I would encourage members of the community who are interested in this program to go back and watch the presentation um the work from Casey Gish and his team um was really well done and he did a great job in the presentation just of explaining all of the intricacies of you know what the city is looking to take on as well as the site plan there at post point so again for information and discussion only but with that we concluded business and I'll return it back to you president Huffman thank you council member Stone uh next this afternoon we had the public health safety Justice and Equity committee and that was chaired by council member Hamill uh thanks uh council president I was join uh by council members lillquist and Williams this afternoon at 1 um we had two items both for for discussion and information only the first was an over overview of Bellingham Police Department wellness program uh Bellingham Police Department has

contracted with breakthrough psychology pllc for wellness program progamming and support Dr Michael early was here with us today he's been working with the police department since uh June of 2022 and provided an overview of the benefits and the programs and Investments towards uh peace officer Wellness we're also joined by Officer uh allendorf 30-year veteran of um Bellingham Police and officer Mara who's been with us for six years and they are involved they um associated with that program and we actually had a very long discussion I think it was probably half an hour um so I think if if folks are interested in learning more about that uh how um the officers are um able to access those programs that's it's a good uh video good presentation that was for information discussion only second item was an update on the grace program so that's the uh ground level response and coordinated engagement so wam County Health and community services and Bellingham fire department Community paramedic uh staff provided an update on the grace program that supports individuals that are frequent users of emergency responses through intensive case uh care coordination the overarching goals of the grace program are to reduce first responder calls emergency department visits arrests and Jail admissions while improving the health well-being and stability of the folks that are in that program um the I'll just real quick highlight um that program is very SU successful has an 84% um success rate um

folks that go into that into that program have case management and they really get the the help that they need uh it's been around since 2018 I was one of the original um founders of that of that program and just really I'm proud of the the team that came here today so it's Ashley Smith from wam uh County Health and Comm community services and Steve Larson who's Captain Steve Larson who's our um Bellingham uh fire paramedic and he's been on that role for um some time now and so that again was for information and discussion only also uh if you're interested in what that alternate response looks like that's a uh that video is great to kind of get a sense of what that program does and with that end the committee report thank you council member Hill and then up next this afternoon we had Committee of the whole chaired by myself uh we had two agenda items the first was agenda Bill 244 485 it was an update on the 2025 State legislative session and City lobbying activities so we had our lobbyist Nick federici and Luke Esser uh Who provided an update about the legislative session if you're interested you can watch the recording on the city website at meetings.com um I will also add an an update overall for our from our our lobbying team uh as the session moves forward we're finally starting to see the budget and revenue proposals the lobby has touched on some of the revenue proposals for transportation specifically they also provided an update on some of the bills we have been

tracking including the two remaining Public Safety bills House Bill 2015 and Senate Bill uh 5775 additionally our City's staff have been busy in Olympia director lion testified in support of Senate Bill 5184 related to parking minimums he also signed in support of House Bill 1109 which makes changes to public fac public facility districts and for House Bill 1217 which addresses rent stabilization Council staff also submitted the letter that we sent to our delegations in support of rent stabilization as uh written testimony for House Bill 1217 regarding rent stabilization um and then for the second item uh we had agenda 24486 a presentation on public engagement regarding proposed rental fees ordinances Bellingham city council is weighing two proposed ordinances that Define which rental rental fees are permitted limit amounts for some rental fees and promote fee transparency as part of considering these ordinances Council directed staff to seek public feedback about the ordinances public engagement efforts recently completed included administering an informal non-scientific online survey and holding focus groups facilitated by the watom dispute resolution center staff presented a summary of the public engagement findings an executive summary and full report of this public engagement work are also available at engage bellingham.to proceeded um and again you can see these results at engag Bellingham .org there are 500 pages that you can look through if you choose there are also

some uh some summaries for a little bit lighter reading um but uh some some really great work by our our Council staff to put that together um and it is much much appreciated and we'll certainly help inform um our decisions with the the upcoming ordinance uh old and new anything for NOP okay with that I can move to the executive session report um this afternoon we had two items first was a potential property acquisition with stamps staff provided information on a potential Lake wcom Watershed property acquisition totaling 3.3 Acres with one potential development unit I will now entertain a motion to authorize the mayor to close the real estate transaction described in the city's executed purchase and sale agreement with the property owner the Arlene s Barbosa trust with a purchase price of $162,000 closing is to occur on or around April 4th 2025 move approval second motion by council member Williams and a second by council member Lilo Quist any further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I I I any opposed that passes six Z with one absent next up we had a litigation matter de Bruin versus city of Bellingham with good staff provided information on a litigation matter for information and discussion no action was taken consent agenda move approval second motion by council member Williams second by council member Lilo Quist further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I I I any opposed or abion iions passes 60 with one absent okay with that that concludes the regular

business of the meeting um we will move to the public comment SE session if you are watching live online or on BTV the broadcast will now end however you can continue watching via Zoom at cob.org CC Zoom or listen via phone by dialing 253 215 8782 and entering meeting ID 896 98120 44 and password 9 again that's cob.org for cc Zoom or dial 253 215 8782 and enter meeting ID 896 98120 44 and password 9 to continue to watch or listen live if you are watching a recorded version of this recording you can view public comment videos at cob.org CCU comment and you know what we've been going at this for