Name: Bellingham Planning Commission meeting, Apr 2, 2026
Start: 2026-04-02
End: 2026-04-02
Location: City of Bellingham

Planning Commission

Thu, April 2, 2026

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Meeting summaryAI-generated

Planning Commission — April 2, 2026

This was an informational (non-binding) work session for the Planning Commission, featuring two staff presentations on active code update projects. The meeting also welcomed a new commissioner and included substantive public comment on several topics.

Roll Call and New Commissioner Introduction

All commissioners were present: Clara Swingle, Daniel Blunker, Jerry Richmond, Lisa Mars, Mike Estes, Rose Lethre, and Jed Bellow. The commission welcomed new member Clara Swingle, who introduced herself as a renewable energy policy professional with prior experience on local land planning boards in Vermont, joining the commission in part to feel more connected to Bellingham civic life.

Public Comment (General, Non-Agenda)

Steve Spitzer (4204 Samish Way) raised concerns about a proposed infill development at 40th and Wilin — reportedly 27 homes on two acres near Lake Whatcom's Padden Creek watershed. He argued the density is out of character with the semi-rural neighborhood, that stormwater runoff from 27 units could harm Padden Creek and Lake Padden, and that traffic on Samish Way is already unmanageable. He noted the Comprehensive Plan contains language allowing exceptions to infill requirements where development does not respect surrounding neighborhood character.

Brian Gas (Bellingham resident) offered sharp criticism of city planning processes broadly, arguing that parking reform is economically unjustified, that the Planning Commission and department are unaccountable to residents, and that the Comprehensive Plan lacks actionable language. He challenged the analogy between one-time parking construction costs and ongoing housing affordability, and cited what he described as a contradiction on the Mayor's website regarding building fee reductions.

Jay Nagosti (board member, Walk + Roll Bellingham) spoke in support of making parking reform permanent, noting that the interim ordinance has now been renewed twice and that the Type 6 public process has not yet begun. He pointed out that other Washington cities have already adopted permanent reforms and urged the commission to move toward permanency rather than a third emergency extension.

Slater Meyer (Roosevelt neighborhood) encouraged the commission to pursue citywide mixed-use zoning, citing Barkley Village and Nelson's Market as examples of walkable neighborhood commercial that residents rally around. He noted that under current code, building another Nelson's Market-style structure would be prohibited.

Miles Silverman (Cordata neighborhood, via Zoom) spoke in favor of design review standards that encourage traditional building aesthetics, arguing that attractive new construction builds political support for housing development over time. He encouraged planners to be intentional about what new buildings look like, referencing DC and New York as examples of dense but visually appealing urban fabric.

Update on Parking Reform Project and Interim Ordinance Extension

Background: Planner Ana Guth (Long Range Planning Division), Planning Director Blake Lion, and Development Services Manager Kurt Nubfeld presented the history and current status of Bellingham's parking reform effort.

The city's interim ordinance eliminating minimum parking requirements citywide was first adopted in January 2025 for one year (passed 5–2 by City Council), then extended six months in November 2025 (passed 7–0). It is now set to expire in late July 2026. The interim ordinance also established minimum bicycle parking requirements.

State context: Several state laws now constrain how much parking cities can *require*, most significantly SB 5184 (the Parking Reform and Modernization Act), which limits parking requirements for multifamily, single-family, and commercial uses based on square footage and housing type. Jurisdictions over 50,000 population must comply by January 27, 2027. Bellingham's current interim ordinance is *more permissive* than state law requires, and staff confirmed nothing in the interim ordinance conflicts with state requirements. The Department of Commerce is expected to release implementation guidance this summer.

Observed impacts so far: Staff noted a mixed picture: some developers (particularly in north Bellingham where street parking is limited) are providing *more* parking than previously required; most are providing roughly what would have been approved under the old waiver process (a 20–30% reduction); a few are providing significantly less. Two notable examples were highlighted: an Old Town project that more than doubled its unit count (from ~30 to over 60 units) by replacing three stories of structured parking with one story; and a Barkley Urban Village project by Talbot with 142 units that became financially feasible only after parking reform and the multifamily tax exemption.

Two options presented to the commission:

1. Extend the interim ordinance another six months (through approximately January 2027), allowing time to review Commerce guidance and develop a more complete permanent code with parking management tools.

2. Adopt the interim regulations as permanent before July expiration, via the Type 6 public process (public hearings before both the Planning Commission and City Council).

Commission discussion: Commissioners generally expressed directional support for moving toward permanency rather than further extensions. Commissioner Blunker noted the regulations appear "directionally correct, not drastic, and statutorily compliant." Commissioner Richmond indicated it would be "unfortunate" to have a gap if the Type 6 process couldn't be completed in time, and expressed support for advancing the interim language as a permanent ordinance. Staff confirmed that regardless of outcome, permanent code must be in place by January 2027 per state law.

No binding vote was taken. This was an informational session. Staff will return with a formal proposal.

Home Occupation Code Update Discussion

Background: Planners Sydney Prusac and Sarah Olman presented a brainstorming-phase overview of proposed updates to Bellingham's home occupation (home-based business) regulations, which have not been substantially updated in decades. The current code restricts home occupations to the interior of the primary dwelling, prohibits retail sales, limits employees to one person on-site, and bars any exterior changes.

Why now: Staff framed this as the first step in a "commercial continuum" — an incremental pathway toward allowing small-scale neighborhood commercial uses in residential zones, consistent with goals in the newly adopted Bellingham Comprehensive Plan. A 2024 citywide household survey found 62% of respondents supported small-scale commercial amenities in their neighborhoods — an unusually high level of public consensus. Staff also noted that HB 1175, a state bill that would have *required* cities to allow neighborhood cafes and stores in all residential zones, passed the House but stalled in the Senate in 2026; it may return in 2027.

Proposed changes under exploration (not yet final):

Allow home occupations in accessory buildings (detached garages, sheds, etc.)

Limit home occupations to a percentage of combined dwelling/accessory building floor area

Increase or expand employee allowances

Ensure compliance with state child care legislation

Allow retail sale of handcrafted goods (textiles, jewelry, pottery)

Allow retail sales in conjunction with personal services (e.g., a massage therapist selling foam rollers)

Create a discretionary/staff-review approval pathway for higher-impact uses (noise, deliveries, odors)

Allow structural expansions tied to the home occupation (e.g., expanding a kitchen for a home baker)

Codify compliance with all applicable local, state, and federal regulations

Defer parking requirements pending the larger parking code update

Commission discussion: Commissioners were generally supportive of the direction. Discussion touched on: the importance of neighbor notification and permit revocability for noisier uses; whether to cap the number of permits per dwelling (staff noted Port Townsend caps at two); whether a floor area limit would naturally self-regulate the number of concurrent businesses; the building code's existing 500 sq. ft. threshold for commercial compliance as a practical limiting factor; the challenges of applying these rules to multifamily and rental housing; and the value of permits in legitimizing existing informal businesses and helping entrepreneurs access financing.

Staff noted that uses like unlicensed coffee roasting and home carpentry already occur unpermitted — the goal is to create a legal pathway with appropriate performance standards. Director Lion observed that the recently passed SB 6026 now also allows residential uses in commercially zoned areas, signaling a broader statewide blurring of residential and commercial boundaries.

No binding vote was taken. Staff will return in the coming months with a draft ordinance for commission review and a formal vote.

Director's Report / Looking Ahead

Director Lion noted the April 16th meeting will feature a similar informational briefing on the middle housing and design review interim ordinances — both of which were fast-tracked at the Council level and will be introduced to the Planning Commission ahead of future action.

Key Takeaways

Parking reform is nearing a decision point. The interim ordinance removing all parking minimums citywide expires in late July 2026. Commissioners signaled support for pursuing permanent adoption via the Type 6 process rather than a third extension — though no vote was taken and staff has not yet made a formal recommendation.

State law is driving a hard deadline. SB 5184 requires permanent parking code compliance by January 27, 2027, regardless of what the city decides about its own interim rules.

Early results from parking reform are modestly positive. Developments like the Old Town project (unit count more than doubled) and the 142-unit Barkley project illustrate real housing gains; most developers are self-selecting parking levels close to what the old waiver process would have allowed.

Home occupation code updates are in early development. Staff are exploring meaningful expansions — including use of accessory buildings and limited retail sales — as a first step toward allowing small-scale neighborhood commercial uses, consistent with the Comp Plan and strong public survey support (62%). A draft ordinance will come before the commission in the coming months.

A state bill (HB 1175) that would require neighborhood cafes and stores in all residential zones failed this session but could return in 2027, giving the city a window to proactively update its codes before being required to comply.

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

What happened at this meeting

Update on Parking Reform Project and Interim Ordinance Extension

# Roll Call Summary

The meeting began with Roll Call, with commissioners Clara Swingle, Daniel Blunker, Jerry Richmond, Lisa Mars, Mike Estes, Rose Lethre, and Jed Bellow all present. The chair noted there were no minutes to vote on and explained this was an informational meeting for the planning commission. Staff presented a comprehensive update on the Parking Reform Project and interim ordinance extension, covering the progression from February 2024 council direction through the January 2025 approval of an interim ordinance removing minimum parking requirements citywide, along with state legislation requirements including Senate Bill 5184, which mandates permanent parking regulation implementation by January 2027. Public commenters offered mixed perspectives: Jay Nagosti from Walk and Roll Bellingham supported parking reform as critical for enabling housing supply, while another commenter criticized the moratorium as economically unjustified and expressed concerns about neighborhood quality of life impacts. Multiple commissioners expressed support for moving the interim ordinance forward through a Type 6 process, with staff clarifying that adoption would improve efficiency by eliminating confusion in the current waiver-based system while providing clarity to developers.

Home Occupation Code Update Discussion

# Home Occupation Code Update Discussion Summary

Staff presenters Sydney Prusac and Sarah Olman introduced a comprehensive Home Occupation Code Update designed to align with Bellingham's newly adopted comprehensive plan and comply with state legislative requirements, particularly House Bill 1175, which could mandate neighborhood-scale commercial uses in residential zones. The proposal would expand current restrictive regulations by allowing home occupations in accessory buildings, increasing employee allowances, permitting retail sales of on-site produced goods, and allowing structural enlargements for uses like home baking, while implementing a tiered regulatory approach with performance standards (such as noise limits and hours of operation) for higher-intensity uses. Commission members raised concerns about secondary impacts including noise, parking, and delivery volumes—citing examples like wood shops or welding operations—and questioned scalability across different housing types, particularly whether multifamily or rental units should be included, though staff clarified that owner or resident occupancy would generally be required. The discussion referenced community support from a summer 2024 growth survey and public comment about uses like Nelson's Market, with staff indicating they would explore scalability concerns and develop a draft ordinance for future commission review, potentially incorporating renewal mechanisms similar to short-term rental permits as a community safeguard.

Agenda items (2)

General Business

1General BusinessUpdate on Parking Reform Project and Interim Ordinance Extension

Staff will update the council on changes to parking rules and request an extension of temporary parking rules currently in place.

What happened

2General BusinessHome Occupation Code Update Discussion

The council will discuss potential updates to the rules that allow residents to run small businesses from their homes.

What happened

Verbatim transcript available

311 transcript segments indexed

Welcome everyone. I'd like to call to order the April 2nd, 2026 meeting of the City of Bellingham Planning Commission. I would like to ask everyone if you could please uh put your electronic devices on on silent.

And um Fiona, please call the role. >> Clara Swingle >> here. >> And Daniel Blunker >> here. >> Jerry Richmond >> here. >> Lisa Mars, Mike Estes >> here. >> Rose Lethre and Jed Bellow >> here. >> Thank you.

>> We don't have any minutes to vote on. So, approval. So, um we're going to go ahead and since tonight's just aformational meeting for the planning commission, um typically we start these meetings with public uh comment and these are not necessarily comments related to the agenda.

That's just um anything that the public cares to speak about in front of the planning commission. Um we would ask that people um limit those comments to three minutes and we'll start with people who are present here and then we would move on to people who are joining uh via the web.

So if you have any comments you're welcome to come on down. If you would please uh state your name and then your your address. >> Where do I come to? >> Down here. Okay, very good. Thank you. Uh, thank you for your time.

I've never been here before and I have no idea what your influence is in terms of what I'm going to talk about, but I'm talking about a new development that our neighborhood understands and it's on 40th and Wilin and it was done by Greenbryer.

He had a number of of developments called Lucky Dog. And in that development, which is now 42nd Street, I live right next door to that. And um he was fabulous. We had a great time. Um but what's happening is that the neighborhood characteristics where it's sort of semi-ural for all that area.

I don't know if anybody's really been there, but um the first development was for eight houses all the way to Wilin. They built four right next door to me and they're very nice. But now they're thinking of putting in 27 homes on two acres, which would be the infill that's supposed to happen now.

But it doesn't make any sense for the characterization of the neighborhood at all. The characterization of the neighborhood is very, very important to all of us in that neighborhood. And in the um in the comprehensive plan for development, there is a uh section there that says there is an exception to the infill and to the middle housing.

And it says it blends with and respects the character of its surroundings if neighborhoods are to accept higher densities. And we're willing to do that. We're not saying that there shouldn't be, but at least the characterization of those buildings that they're going to put in there are not three-story condos or those little cottages that are next to the um um going down to the um um gez uh the Greek church, right?

They shouldn't be that way. That's not the way the neighborhood looks like. And the other thing is the ecology because of 27 homes in that area. All the water, the storm water, the runoff will go to Patton Creek and that's not healthy for Lake Patton at all.

Um, let me see. I have some other writtens here, other things written. Um, yeah. Uh, impervious storm waters. um storm water management. We do not believe the requirements can be possibly met with 27 homes on two acres right at the corner of 40th and Wilin.

I don't know if anybody's been there, but if you've been to Lake Patton, you've driven down 40th Street and made a left, right? and the the the houses and the whole development is going to be right at west right near the west um opening of Lake Patton.

So, it's going to be very congested. It's not going to be healthy for safety of the street. >> About 30 seconds left. And 30 seconds. And could you say your name when you finish? So, so then the the next thing I have is the traffic that's on Samish Way is just you can't you can't make a left currently.

And when I came up the south, there was a sign that says trucks should go to Route 20 and go to nine and go to Sumass. That is not happening at all. You need to know that. That is terrible. My house shakes sometimes when a guy downshifts.

So, >> can we get your name for the record? >> Excuse me. >> Could we get your name? >> Yes. My name is Steve Spitzer and I live at 4204 Samish Way. >> Okay. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Good evening everybody.

This is Brian Gas. I live here in Bellingham. Uh it's it's been a while. It's been over a year since the first time I came down here and my eyes were opened on just what happens with planning commissions and the planning departments and what goes on and what doesn't go on, what's said and what isn't said.

And uh I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of this gentleman's question is they're not going to care what your neighborhood's like, dude. They're just going to ram anything they want on there and it has to do with money.

It has nothing to do with in infill or housing. Um, what I've learned is we have this whole planning commission which also has our city planning department and our county planning department that basically are unelected, unaccountable to anything that is said or done.

And I'm making it my point to make sure everybody knows because I'm not sure if the planning commissions are getting the right information, but we have a, you know, I'm I'm not going to bring up uh I will bring it up.

So essentially a year ago, you sat here in a in a meeting secretly because nobody goes to these really and said that the detached single family home is now considered an exclusionary housing policy because quote unquote not everybody can afford them.

Well, here's a news flash. You're sitting at the table of the people who really are making sure it's unaffordable. I also learned recently that the uh the comprehensive plan that happened 20 years ago was a joke.

The one that you've designed now is a joke. If you look at the uh actual PL, if you look at the actual comprehensive plan, of all the words that had like will do, will provide, will end up with, anything that's actionable or quantifiable, less than 3% of that entire uh comprehensive plan has any kind of action words on it.

And that's how we ended up with 10,000 developable lots 20 years ago where you guys only permitted 2400, shrinking the city. Uh I don't understand what you guys think is going to happen when you don't allow just natural growth and it's basically being developed by people who don't really care.

I don't think um one of the things I wanted to talk about tonight is this illconceived parking moratorum which has no real reason to have any economic or or reason to to there to have if you go they present and say oh it's going to save money and the mayor puts on a $20,000 permit a parking lot as if um like we we're not allowed to park or or friends aren't allowed to visit or family's allowed to visit or the $20,000 amount they put on there is a one-time cost.

It's not an ongoing cost. And the whatever they're feeding you is a is a is a it's like a study from Colorado that's has to do with apartment complexes with already garages, not not neighborhoods like the Leonard Streets or Geneva, not Geneva, but um Colombia that have smaller driveways, smaller roads.

Where do you think 6x um density is going to go if you're putting six plexes next to a house that's on a 3,000 or 4,000 square foot lot? You cannot blanket get rid of parking. Like it's just unc it's inconceivable.

Plus, I'm just going to say on the mayor's site when it says, "Hey, can't you just cut building fees?" The mayor's own site in her FAQ says, "Well, cutting building fees, that's not that the market's going to decide that.

Uh it doesn't make housing cheaper. It's on her own website. Okay. It's on her own website, which means that the same onetime cost that they're trying to gaslight everybody into thinking that it's going to save housing is the same.

It's actually more to have um the the uh uh you get a better benefit from cutting building fees, but you can't have your cake needed, too. You can't say, "Oh, don't cut building fees because it doesn't, you know, the market determines that." and you sit there and you keep cutting parking like some, you know, ridiculous uh uh I don't know what they're saying about the the parking, but I'm telling you that parking is a has utility value past one-time purchase.

And do not think that just cuz you're cutting parking that people are going to say it's okay and park it on the street and jam up your parking lots. If you think Samish is bad now, wait until that Samish is going to be every parking, you know, every road that's in the smaller neighborhoods without a comprehensive plan.

Okay. Thank you. >> Hi, commission members. My name is Jay Nagosti. Um I'm on the board of Walk and Roll Bell Bellingham and here to talk about the parking reform update. Um, as many of you on the commission know, because we've probably talked this one to death over the last four years, parking reform is a critical aspect of enabling creation of housing supply both at the market rate and below market rate developments.

It's a tool that market rate developers have used to add additional units to lots like in Oldtown and un below market rate developers like Kolin Community Land Trust have used to add additional units to affordable housing developments.

This reform is so important in fact that it was the very first thing listed on the mayor's executive order on housing and it was one of the boldest reforms at the state level during the last uh legislative session.

It's been over a year since the city council passed the first emergency ordinance 5 to2 and uh about 5 months since the city council reuped that ordinance 70. Unfortunately, we have not yet seen a permanent process type six process start yet.

Um, and I think it's past time for for that to happen. Um, while we've been living off of emergency ordinances, cities across Washington State and the King County region and Spokane have have left us in the dust and have been implementing this at a permanent level.

Um, I think the question for the commission tonight when you get your update is should it take four emergency ordinances to make this reform permanent? We're on number two now and we're careening towards number three and a type six process typically takes several months.

Um should it take two years to implement this type of reform that has the support from the mayor, from city council and historically from members of this commission? Uh why hasn't this hit your agenda and well will it when will it?

Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Hello. My name is Slater Meyer and I am and I'm a resident of Roosevelt and I'm speaking tonight to encourage this commission to pursue citywide mixeduse zoning. Living directly across the street from Barkley Village has been a one has been wonderful because of its walkability and many enjoyable activities.

Participating has made me feel like I belong in the community. Um, as a Bellingham resident, I would love to see the the city reexamine its building and zoning codes so it would be possible for neighborhoods to easily build places like Barkley Village or Nelson's Market.

Um, locations that people rally around to build a sense of community. Nelson's Market in particular is an excellent example of how a mixeduse property became a neighborhood institution, but under current codes and guidelines, building another mixeduse structure like Nelson's would be considered illegal.

Allowing more mixed mixeduse properties to be built within city limits would pay dividends down the line in the form of more walkable, livelier neighborhoods like Barkley. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to speak on this issue.

>> Thank you. Um, now if we have anyone on the web, if you could uh raise your Zoom hand, Miles Silverman, I will get you able to talk. >> Hello, I'm Miles Silverman. I live in the Cordata neighborhood and I'd like to take a different tack at the neighborhood character question and that is design review.

Design review I think is deeply important because it determines what new buildings will look like. That means we're saying that's what the city might look more like in 50 years. That will determine how pleasant our ne our neighborhoods are.

And it will also determine how much political support exists for new construction years to come. New studies suggest that people are more likely to support new housing and such like if the new housing looks nice and less likely to support it if it looks ugly.

And as someone who is myself, even as a housing supporter, not a huge fan of the grayscale gentrification box, um I think I can see where this is coming from. Um, with this in mind, I'm in favor of the current interim design review rules encouraging more traditional designs.

I've recently been spent some time walking around in DC and New York, and there are so many beautiful old buildings there with wonderful high walkable densities that would be great in our old neighborhood in our old neighborhoods like the lettered streets.

I love the way that these buildings have a nice combination of um they they have consistency, but they also have some variety to them. There's a nice rhythm to the way they're built that makes them really comfortable to look at.

I also, of course, enjoy the way that they use texture and ornamentation to make the buildings feel very alive, and I'm of course in favor of the current design review encouraging this type of approach.

The point is, let's make sure that the design review it works to create buildings that people will love and is very intentional about what sorts of buildings what buildings look like because that will affect what the city looks like.

So, I ask that planners keep that in mind when determining what design review rules look like. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. And there's no other on online. Thank you. >> So, I guess before we kick into the agenda, um we do have a new uh planning commissioner.

So, we have uh Claire Swingle. And I just want to give her the opportunity to um introduce herself and um maybe anything interesting that you think about uh why you like Bellingham. Um, hi. Yeah, I'm Claire.

This is my first meeting. I'm excited to be joining on and taking into all of your considerations into account. Um I my day job is in renewable energy policy and I have a remote job and so this is a great opportunity for me to feel more um placeoriented and um I have some previous experience on uh local land planning departments in Vermont and um I don't know what's not to love about Bellingham.

I'll stop there. Thanks. >> All right. Thanks. Um so tonight for our meeting is a staff presentation. We have two items on the agenda. One is the update on parking reform project and interim ordinance extension and then the second part is the home occupation code update discussion.

And so I guess we'll pass it on to Blake and his team to present. >> Thank you. Um Ana Guth is here to walk us through a little bit. Again, the goal for this evening is just to uh bring the planning commission up to speed on where we uh have come from and and where the council has brought us to this point and then tee up uh as you heard earlier for some of the public comment the type six process which will begin underway and kind of consider how we're going to move forward there and frame up a few options for you.

So happy to entertain any questions as we go through it or if you want to save them to the end, we can do that, too. Just wanted to make sure you're aware of what's been uh put forward before the city.

>> All right. Hello everyone. Um I'll start by introducing myself. So I'm Ana Getth. I'm a planner too with the city's long range planning department um or planning division within the uh planning department.

And I'm joined by director Blake Lion and development services manager Kurt Nubfeld as well as Sydney Prusk and Sarah Olman who will be giving a presentation after we've we're done talking about parking.

Um so I'm here today to provide an update on the city's parking reform work and bring you up to speed um on the work that we've done to date. Also let you know where we're headed and open up the topic for discussion.

So, just a quick agenda so you know what to expect from the presentation, which will hopefully be not too detailed um or long, but I'll provide a little bit of background and context um on the parking reform project and kind of the timeline of the actions that we've seen so far um especially at the state level with the new state legislation um and some city council initiatives as well with the staff has been doing.

Um then I'll talk about moving towards a market driven approach to parking. Um I'll touch on some of the parking management um work plan items that we proposed um as a staff and then kind of those impacts and changes that we've seen from the interimm parking ordinance um as well as next steps and what to expect moving forward.

So for those of you who aren't as familiar, I'll begin by introducing the importance of parking reforms. I won't delve too deeply into this topic. There's um a lot to learn behind the theory. Um but just in brief, reducing or eliminating parking minimums has been identified as a reform strategy with many downstream positive impacts um especially related to the cost and availability of housing um along with other environmental and climate benefits.

So you might have noticed that cities across the US of all sizes have begun to enact change to eliminate or reduce minimum parking requirements um which is discussed in detail by the parking reform network.

Um they do a lot of research and advocacy and coalition building around this topic and they actually have a map that has all the cities across the US as well as across the world that have done some parking reform work.

So I encourage you to check that out. um parking reforms can remove an obstacle to housing leads to a more market driven approach to how much parking is provided um with development. So for further uh background information on this topic again there's a lot of resources out there.

I also recommend referring um to previous council presentations as well as the report that was linked in the November 2025 staff memo. So with this theory in mind, Belling has engaged in parking reform discussions over the last several years, especially in the context of supporting increased housing opportunities.

So going back to February 2024, uh was when city council directed staff to develop options for reforming parking with a look at how other jurisdictions are approaching this topic and the implications associated with eliminating parking minimums.

Um staff then developed se several iter iterations which were discussed in May 2024. That led to city council directing staff to evaluate two different options at the time. One was eliminating parking requirements entirely.

The other was eliminating them based on geographic areas, for example, only in urban villages and transit corridors. And then in November 2024, we saw Mayor Lund um sign an executive order directing staff to take several immediate actions to increase housing opportunities.

So, one of those actions that was called for was to present an interim ordinance to temporarily remove parking minimums citywide while still following best practices for ADA parking, access requirements, electric vehicle charging, and other key factors.

That brings us to January 2025 when the interim ordinance was approved for a one-year period. The ordinance removes minimum parking requirements and it also establishes minimal minimum bicycle parking requirements citywide.

Through the ordinance, city council directed staff to evaluate the effects of that ordinance and continue to develop permanent regulations that consider ADA parking, EV charging, and also looking at affordable housing opportunities.

So, um, the ordinance has been in effect for more than a year now. Um, it would have expired in January 2026. Um, so staff went to council in November and it requested a six-month extension of this interim ordinance.

The impetus for that extension was to give staff more time to evaluate the impacts of the ordinance before developing um a permanent set of parking regulations. It would also give us more time um to implement new state legislation which I'll discuss next in this presentation.

and staff also requested the additional time so that we could explore potential parking management tools to accompany our per permanent parking regulations which I'll also review at a high level in this presentation.

So this brings me to a brief overview of the relevant state legislation that has dealt with parking. Um, at a similar time that Bellingham was engaging in parking reform discussions, the state passed several House bills and Senate bills that impact the amount of parking that jurisdictions can require based on different scenarios and different land uses.

So, for example, HB 1042 relates to existing buildings that are proposing to add additional units. We have 1110 and HB1 1290 or sorry 1923 which limits parking requirements for middle housing and housing for people with disabilities based on lot size and proximity to transit.

Um 1998 deals with parking for co-living housing and then Senate Bill 6015 concerns parking stall size and design requirements. Um, so also known as the Parking Reform and Modernization Act, I'll review SB5184 in more detail as this has some wide-reaching implications.

Jurisdictions of our size um, and any jurisdiction greater than 50,000 people must implement this Senate bill by January 27th, 2027. This legislation limits how much parking can be provided for multifamily, for single family, and commercial.

It also limits parking requirements for residences and commercial spaces based on square footage along with affordable housing, senior housing, child care, um as well as grant ground level spaces and mixeduse buildings.

So by this spring or late spring, early summer, the department of commerce is expected to release u more guidance about this new state law which will include parking management um strategies and other best practices.

So, this will help clear up some ambiguity about interpreting the law um and help ensure our compliance with it as well as inform our recommendations for adopting permanent parking regulations. So, now I'll turn to our work plan and our approach to date.

Um, one of the reasons we focused on a work plan to address parking management, um, in addition to removing parking requirements is that we know that regardless of income, the majority of individuals who commute to work still do rely on single occupancy vehicles.

So, we acknowledge that the need for parking is still a reality, but we want um, as regular regulators to increase the efficiency of every parking space, ensure that we're not requiring an over supply of parking.

um and ultimately encourage a mode shift and alternatives to single occupancy vehicles. So ultimately we're moving towards a market driven approach that allows property owners and developers to rightsize the amount of parking they provide based on demand and not on city mandates without shifting the burden of providing parking entirely onto public infrastructure.

So this depends greatly on contextual factors such as the proximity to transit, walkability, um access to amenity like who's living in the building um and really needs a holistic management of private and public infrastructure as a whole and ultimately again a move away from our dependence on single occupancy vehicles with a shift towards other modes of transit.

What we also hope to discourage and see moving forward is underparking of private projects and over reliance on street parking alone. So that's where our proposed work plan and parking management strategies come in.

Here's an a brief overview of the five different categories of management tools that were discussed in the work plan presented to council in November. We've identified each of these categories of management tools have importance and deserve some level of exploration as we move the direction of permanent parking regulations.

So since late 2025, staff has been exploring the feasibility and capacity to adopt these various management approaches. The categories of management tools include encourage encouraging an appropriate amount of private parking with development.

Then there's managing our public parking inventory. So that would include things like looking at paid parking, pricing, enforcement, curb management. Um then there's the whole topic of encouraging mode shift across our community over time as well as addressing ADA parking and addressing EV charging.

So it's important to acknowledge that a lot of this work is cross departmental and touches a lot of different work groups at the city. Um and in many cases it may already be underway or ongoing. So now I'll turn to some of the impacts and changes we've seen since we adopted our interimm parking regulations.

So six months after initial adoption, we also passed the interimm ordinance for middle housing and amended our infill toolkit to apply citywide except um for the lake walkershed. This ordinance was then amended in December 2025, bringing the city into full compliance with the new state laws on middle housing.

As I discussed, SB5184 was passed in the same year. So while with all these changes in mind, we've needed the time to observe observe what the impacts have been in the community. But that said, we haven't had that much time to see many projects come to fruition or been able to observe like longer term impacts based on the interim parking ordinance.

We do know and what we have heard and seen anecdotally anecdotally is a mix of scenarios that involve either providing more parking than would have been required pre-ordinance. Um so an example of that might be some the developments you see in the northern part of the city where there's less street parking available.

Um those have often provided more parking than required or projects will provide as much parking as would have been required pre-ordinance. Um, so we've seen that one example is an infill toolkit development in a highdensity residential multiszoneed area providing the same amount of parking uh that we would have required with the code beforehand.

Um, and then there's other projects that are providing less parking than would have been required. Pre-ordinance. Um, so an example would be an infill toolkit development in an urban village might be providing half the previously required parking.

um or in many cases often the projects are providing less parking that's pretty consistent with the amount of parking that would have been provided um with a parking waiver request before this interim ordinance went into effect.

So maybe like a 20 to 30% reduction in parking stalls. Um, and then I just wanted to note another positive impact is that that we've seen is that with the interim parking regulations, it really helps ease our administration and review of project proposals.

Okay. So, where do we go from here? We will continue to assess and monitor impacts on the community and um monitor development proposals. We have enough of an early indication of an early indication to continue along the parking reform path.

And what regardless of what um we choose to adopt in terms of the permit regulations, it is important to note that we are significantly constrained by the state legislation now at play. Um and at this point we foresee two pretty clear pathways for next steps.

So, one option is to propose an additional extension of the interim ordinance, which is set to expire at the end of July. Um, and that would continue the no parking requirements citywide for another 6 months.

This would also give us additional time to review that guidance from commerce, which is intended to come out this summer, um, when it becomes publicly available, and then give us time to set a concrete work plan for adopting some of the parking management approaches that we've been looking at.

Um the other option would be to adopt our interim parking regulations um basically as permanent requirements more immediately um before the interim ordinance expires in July. Um obviously the timeline for this is much more constrained and wouldn't give us as much time to review commerce's guidance or tweak the inter the interim regulations as needed.

Um so those are kind of the next steps and at this point I alongside with my team um I'm happy to take any questions or comments and also welcome any discussion on this topic. >> Um I wanted to ask about Oldtown.

um that kind of got a jump start on the parking ordinance and we you know we I think we originated the idea for um doing no parking minimums in the new oldtown developments and we've seen I mean there's one building seeming like almost done a couple permits have come through.

Does that factor into your analysis of where you've seen people take advantage of less parking and the I know there was some realization of additional units there. Yeah, that that particular project um kind of predates as you mentioned the the interim ordinance.

We did the uh revision to the development agreement and the requirements associated with that. But by way of example, that particular project when in one of its earlier iterations uh was really more constrained by the six-story height limit.

And so what we were seeing based on the parking requirements for there was like basically three stories of structured parking with three stories of residential units up on top if memory serves me correctly um was about 30 units.

And with the changes uh eliminating parking requirements for that old town area, the developer was able to go with um a singlestory parking accommodations. some in a in a structured portion and some on the site itself.

Um and then and then a full five stories of residential above. So it more than doubled the the unit count based on the unit mix. Um but it's also worth noting that particular developer controls a number of the different lots immediately adjacent to that particular property.

And so they have the distinct advantage of being able to use those if they feel like they've underparked this particular project. It hasn't been occupied yet, so we don't have, you know, kind of real-time data associated with that, but they've got kind of a contingency plan available to them to see how that's going to continue to play out over the course of time.

So it absolutely is one that we've been watching and monitoring and seeing how that's going to work. And as Ana pointed out, we've seen a kind of a gamut or of different type of development proposals.

Some that have I would say maybe the most significant number have kind of come in at that 20 to 30% reduction. We've seen very few that have not parked it at all. Um and so they they kind of are pursuing what we would have granted in the waiver process, but they're just doing it as kind of a natural way to respond to the market.

Another probably more notable example um is up in the Barkley Urban Village area. There's if you recall where the former um driving range was um Talbit was able to to um look at a property or to have a property up there and had had developed plans for a project um and the the economic conditions wouldn't allow them to pursue that project.

And with two things that came out of the mayor's executive order, one being the parking reform and the other one being the multifamily tax exemption, they were able to go back in make some modifications to that project and they pursued a project that has 142 units that they wouldn't otherwise been able to make pencil.

So that's under construction right now. So, those are probably two very notable examples of projects that either increased the yield or became financially feasible that wouldn't have otherwise uh pencled in the current economic conditions.

>> On slide 11, it said that it's one of our favorite words is like encouraging rightsiz parking. And do we have any methods or ideas for how we would encourage that? I think some of and Kirk and other folks can speak to this as well, but oftentimes when we get um pre-application process and and we're we're sitting down with um applicants and and developers and they're thinking about it is it's talking about kind of the the context, the surrounding area, what the needs are, what their overall approach is.

It's not a regulatory framework. It's not a mandatory thing, but we are trying to make sure that there's, you know, again, allowing those market forces to drive some of those decisions, understand kind of which direction they're going with that.

But it is a it's a conversation we're having and we're talking about the variety of different uh development requirements, but u it stopped short of requiring you must do this and and more and an interest in making sure they're thinking about those things and taking into full consideration, you know, the the broader context.

Yeah, I guess I I just add to that the the encourage the right size um is really what we should be focusing on. I think um if you take a a look back at the history of how parking minimums came about. It was like literally guessing.

It was guesswork. Well, we think this works. Um and many jurisdictions copied and pasted what other jurisdictions did. So, um there's not a lot of data behind it. um it was just what seemed right and what people thought was right.

And so what we have realized over the the decades is that having these arbitrary numbers and minimums is not the right size. It's not the right fit. But allowing developers to um and even banks banks and developers know what they need, right?

Banks aren't going to finance a project that they don't believe will be um viable rented. And parking is one of those big things. And so instead of us telling you some arbitrary number to put in, we're letting you rightsize it um to what you believe is.

And I'll just I'll give you a few numbers. Um we have about six parking spaces per vehicle in this country. Um so we have over supplied parking availability um in much of the country and we certainly see examples of that uh throughout this community as well.

um just in downtown alone, I think 18% of the downtown area is surface parking lots and it's just um so the goal is to understand and respect that some people will continue to choose that but making parts of our community more walkable, more accessible to a range of different modes.

We also want to acknowledge that autonomous vehicles are potential. Uh, you know, we've seen in larger municipal areas like Los Angeles and others, you know, where you're starting to see some of those.

And so it, uh, we are still start to see ride share and other things like that that start to lessen the demand for individuals. Uh, certainly Bellingham is a very bike friendly community and we want to encourage uh, that component of it as well.

and and we're starting to see a full range of that even across the seasons. Uh and so there's opportunities to to look to those types of things as well. >> Um I have a question just kind of related to process of outside of commerce clarification on the um new Senate Bill 5184.

uh what additional information are you hoping to have by July or by the time that the this extension would end that would help better inform and understand um or alter versus the information that you have right now.

>> I think we'll need more time, like I said, to see how this plays out in the community long term. But I think having additional time to review um first and foremost what Congress is proposing as far as best practices and interpretation of some of the terms and in definitions that are in the um legislation, but also just having um time to have cross-dep departmental um coordinated conversations on what those specific um other actions would be that we want to move forward on as we have our permanent parking um regulations.

in effect. >> Is it just time to tee that up? >> Yeah, I'll add um we would have loved to have been in a position where 2025 was a banner year for the number of projects that came in and had a bigger sample size.

That wasn't the case. Um I mean we definitely trended a little bit up from where we were in 2024. Uh but the sample size wasn't quite as large as we were hoping for. But having said that, the sky didn't fall either, you know.

So the inverse is true. We we appreciate that, you know, even those projects that were being pursued um you know, had that flexibility. And so Ana did a good job of kind of teeing up the two options. And this is really where we would welcome your feedback as well is do we want to get into taking more time and and deliberating on some of those things or do we want to just certainly move forward and say hey you know there's an opportunity to to take this bold step now and take this action forward.

That's certainly the direction that the mayor's asked us to to look at very uh intentionally and and see if we can move forward in that. But part of this is the first time we've really formally introduced this to this body.

And so we wanted to kind of tee you up with which of those two options uh you know you have an interest in and and which one we want to pursue as a community. So cler kind of hijacked my question, but uh so the constraints that you talk about at the state level, are they adverse to what you're doing now, is there new information?

I guess what you made it sound like is you've been studying it, we're getting closer, but now there might be new things to study. Um there's so the the guidance there's a few different pieces to it. It's interpreting um exactly what the requirements of that legislation are.

What we're doing right now exceeds the requirements of the legislation. So the legislation says you can't provide more than x amount of parking based on these uses, square footage, etc. Um right now we're not requiring any parking.

Um so it's just a matter of assessing um you know if there's any value in making any changes to that but also um I'm particularly interested in the parking management strate strategies and best practices um that commerce is um planning to include in that guidance document.

So, just other things for us to consider and put on our work plan, whether that's this year or upcoming years, longer term, just things to think about that we might not have already looked at internally.

>> Just to give you kind of one uh maybe more specific example in in the state legislation, it it references the fact that local governments are not allowed to require parking for residents under 1,200 square feet.

Um what we're asking for clarity from commerce is how they you know if that's a a single building with let's say a duplex and the units are under 1,200 square f feet but the total building is more than 1,200 square you know like so getting I mean sometimes when you get into actual development code regulations as you know uh those details matter and so we're trying to get that clarity but to Anya's exact point under the state law we're allowed to be more permissive.

We just can't be more restrictive. And so the ability to say, "Hey, we we're we're eliminating parking requirements. We're allowing a market driven approach." We have that ability to go and be more permissive in that context.

>> I'm kind of sensing that you're going to ask for another extension. >> We're not trying to come in and and presuppose a a direction for you all this evening. We wanted to just kind of set the the table with both options.

We understand that um and part of this was to put it in the public realm too and see where where it might come. But u we know that the type six process and uh just to clarify for the general public's p um understanding is you know it requires a public hearing through this body and you all would make a recommendation to the city council.

City Council would also have a public hearing and we would go for it. If we were going to pursue a permanent ordinance given that time frame, the need to do all of that, we would be more than likely looking at just taking the interim and making that permanent, not going through a significant, you know, rewrite of the interim.

It would be of, you know, fairly consistent with it as it exists today. If there is an interest in doing some of the parking management strategies and other things that Anya talked about, then then the then the extension would be appropriate to be able to build in a few of those things.

I think one thing maybe this will help you um with this topic is uh it's very similar or this happens occasionally with um state rules is the state will adopt some sort of rule and then they will direct the department of commerce to clarify or write wax regarding it.

Right? Um they did this sort of with the metal housing ordinance that came forward as they adopted the rules. Then the guidance to commerce was go draft a model ordinance and that model ordinance is what jurisdictions will have to adopt if they don't do something else.

As a part of that, they also provided some like a a a guidance on how to and things to consider when you adopt the middle housing rules. Um but as Blake was mentioning, that's guidance. That's kind of the minimum, right?

We can always go below. And so we have that ability as our community to say let's just go below now or not. >> All right, Daniel. >> So with our current interim parking ordinance, do we think there's anything in 5184 or any other bits of state law that would be in conflict with our current temporary or is our current temporary good to go?

I don't think we have anything that I can recall that would uh be in conflict. I think the probably the most notable piece of that is um if for some reason we don't go forward with the interim ordinance either the extension or the full adoption of that to become a permanent ordinance.

We're not going back to pre uh interim ordinance conditions. We would be going back to where the state uh 5184 regulations are. So if you think about it, I'm going to sorry I use my hands a little bit, but if you think about it, we started here.

The interim regulations took us to here. Now with the state law, we wouldn't be going back to here. We'd be going back part way uh to be consistent with that. But we're allowed to be more again as I mentioned earlier more permissive in those those contexts.

>> Do we see opportunity to have a more like kind of where we're at right now, which is the no parking requirement that that will allow for creative solutions that wouldn't be possible otherwise? Um, I do know of other cities where maybe they've got light rail or something like that, but developments that have no parking that are close to a station that then have ride share as kind of a a perk and things like that.

Do we think that this stance that we currently have is going to bring things about that maybe wouldn't come about otherwise? Um, I would hesitate to use the or or create a commitment to mass transit in a meaningful way.

I don't think it's I don't I think there's so much more that goes into that in terms of capital construction costs and ongoing maintenance costs. Um, what I think it will do more than anything is it will um it will open up the possibility for additional units and those additional units will help support um certainly to some degree WTA in its current capacity and whether that means enhanced go lines or bus rapid transit systems there that's a much more plausible scenario rather than going to a full street car or light rail or you know commuter rail kind of scenarios.

That's just a we would require state and federal funding to get to those uh you know those options. Um and so I I wouldn't want to tie that to just the the parking reform in and of itself. But >> just a I mean my I know we've got a group of here who have like various jobs and things that they do on you know aside from this and it's like my own experience has been that I see that almost all of my clients who are doing multif family are they're still providing it and it's probably close to what the levels were um before.

So like they're hitting out there. Um I I have seen a couple occurrences where they're like you know not even meeting what might be the uh the state requirement. um of the the current the bill. And so, but I think for the most part, it's like I'm really not seeing a lot of people pushing that hard for going to underparking a project.

But I do hear conversations about like, well, there's not a lot of parking being used on the street currently, so like maybe we can take advantage of that. Which to me that kind of does bring about I think you had it in the presentation the risk of like if you rely on the parking on the street and then it all of a sudden becomes taken up then you may not have the opportunity to park your project and you might later down the road find yourself in a a bad situation.

Well, and I think what we're what we're hearing from the landlord community and those that are kind of managing uh multifamily uh rental products is that if you underpark projects, you see a higher turnover rate in teny because somebody may be willing to take on that unit um without that dedicated parking space um because it's a lower price point and they can get in there.

But if they have a vehicle and they feel the need for that, you know, it can be challenging and, you know, finding on street parking or finding other, you know, responses to that. And so they'll look to get into someplace different.

But but having a variety of different price points for where people are, if you happen to be somebody that doesn't uh, you know, rely on a vehicle, that's a great opportunity to to have a cost reduction in the overall um unit.

I think the other part that Anya kind of alluded to is um excuse me the we're going to have to deal with kind of uh our human nature uh and being creatures of habit and we have you know um neighborhoods across the city where people are used to parking right out in front of their home and when you start to add in uh middle housing and ADUs and other things like that that's going to put a little more compet competition for the on street uh spaces.

Um and so you may not h have those creature comforts that you've had for a longer period of time. And so there's going to be a bit of a an adjustment period in some of that. Um the the benefit to to those particular neighborhoods is that's an individual choice.

If you happen to own you you certainly can provide parking. We're not mandating that you get rid of your garage or or your driveway or any of those kinds of things, but um if you rely on on street parking, then that's a public amenity.

That is a is a right that everybody has the opportunity to exercise and it's not dedicated to any one person just because it's happens to be in front of your property. So >> this uh this question is is rooted in my ignorance of how your planning department works, but is it fair to say that if we adopt this policy instead of study it for another 6 months, uh it frees your staff up to work more efficiently on other topics?

We certainly have a fairly robust work plan and and uh uh amount of efforts that we're trying to do to not only implement the recent adoption of the Bellingham plan, but all of the state regulations that go along with that.

So, the short answer is there's no shortage of work. Um but again, we're not trying to presuppose an outcome on this particular piece. um you know, we will we will continue to do what's needed to be in compliance with state law and the direction that that you all provide the city council and ultimately the mayor provides.

And so, um I could go I could go a variety of different directions with a response to that. So, I'm sorry to be evasive, but it, you know, um you know, we've got a lot on the plate, so >> I won't be as evasive.

Yeah. Um I'll tell you that um our staff doing permit review um as Ana even noted it there is some efficiency created there. It's less work that we do now in a majority of the pro projects that we saw um throughout the city.

We were seeing applicants request 20% reductions, which is something that was kind of our start a few, you know, years ago is we were like, okay, we know parking's not really right. What's an easy way to kind of get at that?

So, we adopted rules that allowed for folks to seek waiverss. Um, you know, depending on where you were, there was different levels of a percentage of waiver that you could seek. So what we started seeing is that more and more applications included waiverss and when staff got those it was it wasn't very predictable for the applicant because they didn't really know.

They're like we're trying to design this project. We're asking for a waiver. We don't know if we're going to get it. So how do we design our project? And so that created a lot of confusion and time um issues upfront for someone designing a project.

Then it would come to staff and we'd have to do analysis on it and that takes time. So I think to answer the the question, I think it would free up staff time because it it frees up staff time because we're not doing that analysis and it gives more clarity to the developer or the applicant upfront as well, right?

they don't have to wait that time frame to whether or not they're going to get that waiver. >> Could I just add to the temporary extension being something that people may feel like there's a risk for adopting parking regulations and if they're underparking something they're kind of like I don't know if I can do this in however many months down the line.

So >> yeah, I mean there that's absolutely true is we've we've seen that or we've heard that not only with the parking but with the middle housing and other like that degree of certainty is very valuable.

Um and so if if that's the direction is to just give that assurance. Uh we're also trying to get uh a little bit better as we start to get into streamlining the review process and doing a lot of the kind of process improvements.

Um the hope is is that these codes, Kurt mentioned it earlier, but um you know uh the zoning ordinance for Bellingham was originated in 1947. Uh we had it was I think 55 that we did a a revision. Um, and then in 1969, and the parking regulations haven't substantially changed since 1969.

Uh, and to to Kurt's earlier point, a lot of those were predicated off of the uh, Institute of Transportation Engineers and they did these national studies and it was kind of all this stuff that uh, pick a number out of the hat kind of approach.

we're committed to you that it won't take us uh you know 50 years to come back and edit and revise this uh if if we feel like there's a need to to do that. But we shouldn't be uh leerary of making a decision and and moving forward on that too.

>> Just a reminder that regardless of what we do, we have to have permanent code um by January of 2027. So, um, doesn't mean we're going to wait all that all the way till January 2027, but that's when the, um, the state reg the state legislation um, deadline is, too.

>> Well, if you're if you're looking for opinions tonight, I would say it'd be unfortunate if we had a gap in in losing the intimate ordinance if we couldn't get the process done in time. And I think I see from everything I've heard, I see a lot of appeal in taking a look at something that looks like the interim ordinance and and moving that forward in the type six process.

>> Thank you. >> Yeah, I second that. I think it's directionally correct, not drastic and statutoily compliant. So I would support also moving it forward to free up staff time for other activities. >> Great.

Thank you. And by no means is this the end of the conversation. If you all have other questions or if we can help guide uh any of that discussion in the future, more than happy to entertain those as well.

So, thank you for your time tonight. And uh with that, we'll conclude this item. We're going to bring up um Sarah and Sydney to talk a little bit more about the home occupation code update. So, this is similar uh in regards to again the number of different state legislative pieces.

Another number of things that we're looking at in our Bellingham municipal code and ways to address some of this. We heard a little bit of public comment earlier tonight about um you know, Nelson's Market and and and some of that kind of introduction or reintroduction of kind of neighborhood scale commercial.

This is what I would refer to as maybe the start of that conversation where we have home occupations, people working uh out of primarily out of their residences. And so we're going to talk about that a little bit uh this evening, but understand that there's kind of as we get through compliment implementation, there's going to be a even more robust conversation about kind of that how do we rightsize the neighborhood commercial as well.

So Sydney, >> thank you Blake. Hello everyone. It's good to see you again in the new year. It's been a while. Um, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Sydney Prusac, a planner to the planning department, and Sarah's going to help me with this presentation today and answer we have some directed questions for you, and then of course we'll be here to answer some questions.

Um, we're presenting on our progress with updating the home occupation code. Like Blake said, um the home occupation code is quite niche and not really on top of mind for many people. Um but yes, as we look to allow smaller uh scale commercial uses in traditionally residential neighborhoods, it's critical that we update our home occupation code.

In other words, it doesn't really make sense if we're going to allow a full-ervice restaurant to occur in a residential area, but we would continue to prohibit a homebased salon business from selling shampoo.

This just got to make sure that they're working in tandem with each other. Um, so here is the our outline tonight. Um, I will go into more in depth on why we're updating the code section and then Sarah will describe the existing home occupation code and get more detailed in the proposed updates.

We'll end, like I said, with a few discussion questions to help us refine an ordinance. Before I get into this slide, I want to explain what a home occupation is just so we're all on the same page moving forward.

A home occupation or sometimes referred to as a homebased business is when a person operates a business out of their residence. So popular examples include piano lessons or maybe massage therapy. These businesses are different than someone who works remotely from a home office for a private company as there's no outward manifestation of the business and customers or employees for remote workers are not really coming to the home.

It's also important to note that the home occupation operates within the home which is different than a traditional mixeduse building which would have separated retail on the first floor and then a residential use above.

So why are we updating this very niche code right now? Well firstly we want to start implementing the goals and policies from our newly adopted comprehensive plan which is huge. It feels really great to get started on a code update so quickly after comp plan adoption.

Um, and in the meeting memo provided to you all, we outlined some policies related to encouraging small-cale commercial uses in residential areas to encourage walkability place make it making and that all came out of extensive public outreach related to this topic.

And I want to be clear that we don't anticipate by expanding the allowances for home occupations, we're going to see bustling neighborhood streets or a boom in residential commerce. But this is the first logical step in an incremental approach to expanding uses for commercial uses in residential zones.

And we all know from classic anecdotes or maybe even from personal experience that starting and operating a business is expensive and it involves a lot of risk. And there's a need in our community for smaller and more affordable business incubator space which could be very well be in someone's basement or a backyard accessory building.

And this eliminates the need to sign a lease and pay rent. And also just the ease of operating a business at home is huge. um the hopes that once the business scales up and they'll have the capital and need to rent out a larger space in one of our urban villages or industrial zones and like I alluded to expanding what's allowed under the current home occupation code is the first step in what we've coined the commercial continuum which I will get into on this next slide.

So you may remember this graphic from our public engagement for the Bellingham plan. That's what we've coined the commercial continuum. Um, we're currently at that first level of inhome business. So, currently under specific conditions, home occupations are allowed in residence already.

And what we're proposing with this code update is to get to level two of this continuum to allow separated in home businesses like an accessory building or above a detached garage. Um, and like I'll show on the next slide, there's strong community desire for more smallcale commercial uses in neighborhoods in Bellingham.

We even heard some public testimony on that topic tonight. Um, as we update our residential zoning code to be in compliance with the new comp plan and state law, we plan to incorporate commercial uses at a certain scale in residential neighborhoods, which would get us to level three of this continuum.

And while that greater residential code update will take some time to come into fruition, we want to expand the home occupation allowances in the meantime so they're in scale with future updates. And like I mentioned at the start of this presentation, doesn't make sense for us to allow businesses and commercial uses in residential areas and not allow home occupations to occur in accessory buildings and continue to prohibit retail sales from these businesses.

Um, and this graph shows the response to one of the questions on a city-wide survey that was distributed to every household in the summer of 2024 as part of the Bellingham plan's public outreach. And we asked, "How open are you to having smallcale commercial amenities in your neighborhood, within walking distance, or allowed across Bellingham more generally?" And as you can see, the results were clearly supportive with 62% of respondents saying that this sounds wonderful.

And most of us know that we rarely get this much public support for really any topic. So seeing this consensus was pretty outstanding. Um so this response coupled with some proposed changes at the state level and other public feedback from open houses and even tonight.

Um well not tonight but what we've heard before it led us to incorporate this smallcale commercial use um in residential neighborhood as part of our growth strategy in the comp plan. And like I've been saying, updating our home occupation code is the first step in making these changes a reality.

And with that, I'm now going to turn it over to Sarah to describe our current home occupation and then our proposed updates so far. And then we'll turn over to some questions for you. >> Thanks, Sydney.

Hi, commissioners. Um, so home occupations exist throughout Bellingham. Um, some have operated in our neighborhoods for decades and others we don't even know about. It's it's something like bookkeeping, mostly desk work, and it doesn't require a permit.

Home occupations have historically been a way for people to discreetly earn income from within their house. Um, the Bellingham home occupation regulations allow for those in-home businesses, as Sydney mentioned, um, that first tier in the commercial continuum, but there are a lot of rules.

The home occupation has to be totally contained within the house. It can't expand into other buildings or portions of the property. You can't change the house on the exterior in any way as part of the home occupation.

You can only have one employee in addition to the home uh or the the operator who lives in the house. And you can't have any retail sales. Um, so we've been watching this one bill at the state legislature.

Um, throughout 2025 and 2026, the legislature considered but didn't approve House Bill 1175 to provide new opportunities for small-scale commercial uses in residential zones. The gist of the bill is that it proposed to require cities uh to allow neighborhood cafes and neighborhood stores in all residential zones.

Um the the bill passed the ha the House chamber in January, but it stalled out in committee in the Senate chamber. However, it could return in the 2027 session. If the if or when this bill does pass, there will be a disparity between the strict regulations of our home occupation code and the permissiveness of allowing a full-blown cafe in a residential zone.

So, the goal of our proposed update is to bridge that gap. um allow separated in-home businesses, retain residential uses uh and balance commercial impacts. Staff have identified several potential changes to the existing home occupation regulations.

These changes are really in the brainstorming phase and so we're looking for planning commission feedback before we solidify specific language or thresholds. We're considering allowing home occupations in accessory buildings such as a shed or a garage.

This has been an expressed desire by applicants in the past, but we've had to turn them down because the rules did not allow uh home occupations to occur within accessory buildings, even for storage use.

Uh we're looking at limiting home occupations to a percentage of the floor area of a house and/or accessory building. A size limit could ensure that the home occupation is truly accessory to the home.

Uh building code uh requires commercial compliance for home occupations over 500 square ft. So we could look at a similar threshold and dovetail that in our zoning code. Allowing more than one employee to be on payroll or increasing the number altogether to be allowed on site could provide more flexibility for staffing which can help small businesses evolve and grow over time.

Uh we also want to study um some recently passed legislation at the state level regarding child care uses. We think we're in compliance with our home occupation regulations, but we want to make sure that we are.

Um, allowing retail sales of products made on site under certain terms and conditions could again bridge that gap and provide small neighborhood services consistent with the comprehensive plan goals. One idea we had is to allow for production and sale of handiccraft goods.

Uh, we reviewed our zoning code and handiccraft manufacturing is actually called out as an allowed use in most of our urban villages, but we don't define it anywhere. So, we could here. Um, one idea is to define it as goods made by hand, such as textiles, jewelry, and pottery.

We'd also like to explore allowing retail sales in conjunction with a personal service or other use like a mass selling foam rollers. Uh and a discretionary approval process for higher intensity or larger uses may be a strategy to expand the range of allowed home occupations while mitigating their impacts.

This could be for uses that involve power tools, deliveries, odors, or similar impacts. Um, and this doesn't necessarily mean a hearing examiner process. I mean, we're rethinking everything. This could be a staff review that reviews for performance standards and approval criteria.

Uh, and we also are considering allowing for structural enlargements to a dwelling or accessory building as a part of a home occupation. So, this might look like somebody expanding their kitchen if they're a home baker.

and codifying that home occupations must comply with local, state, and federal regulations may help remind businesses and business owners to research required approvals outside of just our city. Um, and finally, we would like to postpone any parking requirements with respect to home occupations until the larger conversation about parking code updates is solidified.

Oh, I'm sorry. I left you a slide behind. Um, I think we're going to transition to some questions. Um, and I'm going to move back over here. >> I have a question. I missed your name. >> I'm sorry. I'm Sarah Olman.

I'm a planner with >> You said it. I just didn't hear it. Sarah, you're you're very good at public speaking. That was a good >> Oh, thank you. It's taken me a long time to feel comfortable. Um, our our first question is kind of have we captured this?

Have have the ideas that we've proposed to y'all been enough to sort of start the conversation about bridging that gap from inhome to separated home business? Is there anything that we've missed? Is there anything that you want to unpack that has been in that list that's in your packet?

Um, reading through it, I mean, I like the idea. I like the direction. Um there's language that says um if after the issuance of the permit, the use violates any of the conditions of the permit or if the director otherwise finds the use to have detrimental effect on the surrounding neighborhood, the or the director shall have the authority to place additional restrictions on the permit or revoke the permit um or have it abaded.

Sounds fair. Um, I mean, we all know our our neighborhoods are are, you know, they're our sanctuary. Um, and this is just kind of at at the ground level. I think it would be nice to issue a permit, but maybe it's a um something that needs to be reviewed and give some power to the neighborhood or the neighbors.

For instance, if a somebody if if we allow this to happen and somebody opens a wood shop in an accessory dwelling and he's running a planer all day and the neighbor wants to sit outside and read, you know, on the decibel level even though it's inside, there has to be some avenue for the neighbors to say, "Hey, this isn't working." So, does this language encompass that or is that something that we need to add?

So currently the home occupation permit process does require public notice. It's a little less than what we do with bigger land use projects. Um folks are supposed to or the city provides public notice to neighbors within 100 ft of the project site.

So that's currently how we operate. Um to your point, yes, that does make a lot of sense, especially with those uses like we described in the presentation that might be noisier. Um, we can look at all matter manner of things.

We can look at hours of operation. We can look at the public noticing. Um, I think we'd like to move in a direction a direction of maybe less public noticing for these quiet uses, but maybe keep it for these these more intensive or impactful uses.

Um, and oh, I was cur I did want to ask what were you reading from in the first statement? I just wanted to pull that up and make sure I was on the same page >> that we were sent. So, home occupation 20-10 or 20.10.045 um section C paragraph 2.

>> Jerry to respond a little bit to Sarah mentioned uh one of the options that we have available is like performance standards. So that example was hours of operation. But if there are certain things that we feel like whether that's noise, whether that's uh you know something different, we can look at whether or not performance standards are appropriate to do that.

>> Yeah. I I mean, we we all know that these businesses already exist and I think they do well because they're not permitted and they don't want to piss off the neighbors and they're making money and they're they're surviving.

They're doing their thing, but they're they're under the radar and just giving somebody a permit might change the balance a little bit. I think one of the things that I'll also mention and we didn't really get into it this evening, but on this continuum is is there a point at which the business starts to overtake the residents uh so to speak or or the or the neighborhood or the community and it really becomes more appropriate for them to operate in a different environment.

And so that's >> that's that that's the hope. Like you said, it's an incubator. You know, we all start somewhere, >> right? I mean, you think think about some of the most recognizable brands. Nike started in the garage.

Apple computers started in the garage. I mean, there's this is part of the American culture. You know, you start your your dream in the garage and grow it from there. So, thank you. Um, I'm curious where we think we might go in like a couple years with the intention of the comp plan.

Like I think when people talk about this, there's like the romantic idea of the neighborhood cafe in the Nelson's Market. There's also I think everyone can imagine like potential horror story of like their neighbor doing like lumber sawing in the middle of the night.

Um, you know, a a neighborhood cafe is definitely like somewhere third or fourth down that diagram of yellow houses where it's kind of like the full front sidewalk experience. Um, is that a new zoning designation where you would have a Nelson's Market compatible new use permitted or is that something where we go three iterations down this sort of like opening it up a little bit more and seeing what happens?

it. I think right now we're in like phase one of many. Phase one is is just this narrow home occupation expansion of of flexibility. Um I think small-cale commercial as you're describing was identified in the comprehensive plan outreach as being desirable for our community as to how we implement that on our own outside of whatever the legislature does.

I don't I think we're still exploring that and I think that these conversations will inform that future effort. I think we're balancing things. Um right now we have a lot of commercial vacancy in our city, especially in downtown.

Um and we're trying to preserve and build more housing. And so, you know, it's just being really mindful that we're not, you know, deleting a house to put a commercial use where it would have otherwise gone into a vacant existing commercial building.

Um, so there's a lot to consider. I think that's why we're taking this really, you know, delicate first intentional step, you know, just at, you know, expanding what a home occupation can be. It still preserves the housing stock.

It just allows for more incubator space and opportunities for entrepreneurs in our community >> as we start to think through. Sorry, city. Go ahead, Cindy. You go first. >> It's okay. I just I mean the bill didn't pass the legislature, but it did.

The first number one thing was that a city or town must allow neighborhood stores and neighborhood cafes to be permitted in any zone allowing residential uses, provided that a cafe must offer food. if alcoholic drinks are provide are offered.

So if this comes back again next year in kind of like House Bill 1110 or parking if that is what's required then yes we will have to allow them in all zones and be in compliance with state law. I mean that didn't pass this year but that's been how it's been proposed in the past year.

So, >> I was going to offer that um during part of the discussion at the state legislative level in the public comments, part of that question is whether or not there is an opportunity for what's referred to as home rule, which is local jurisdictions being able to decide for themselves to what to what degree.

So, in some instances, the state uh supersedes our abilities to regulate that stuff. But this since it didn't pass there is that conversation. So is it appropriate to think about as you get down lower on that continuum are those occurring on arterial streets or on corners or you know are there geographic uh you know placement of these that make more sense or do we want them fully allowed anywhere?

Uh and so you know those are kind of the levels of discussion and nuance that um we certainly anticipate having. Um we see that play out a little bit at the state level. There was a I'm going to go down a slightly different path here, but there was a a bill Senate Bill uh 6026 that passed in this year's legislative session that now says that um and it gets back to Sarah's comment about uh commercial kind of intruding into the residential.

Now the now the opposite is also true. Residential can go into commercial. So local local governments cannot mandate groundf flooror retail or mixed use in more than 40% of their area zone for commercial.

So you're now allowed to put residential in there. So it's it's it's kind of the we heard earlier in the public comment about kind of the mixeduse zoning everywhere. There's a that's happening on an incremental basis and and will be in the next coming you know year or so as we get into this a little more.

I think for the scope we have here which is these are secondary to the residents what you have makes a lot of sense. I think I think the cafe and store conversation has a different set of things to get into down the road.

>> Totally. Um I'm going to just put up the two other questions that we have for you on this side because it's turning more into discussion. So I just want to make sure that we hit those points. >> Is it I don't know.

I feel bad for Dan. He's been sitting there but um >> it's all good. I can wait to the next one. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Our next question um was, should the city regulate the number of home occupation permits issued for a dwelling unit?

And I'll give a little more context to this. Um at the end of 2025, the city passed new rules that say that we cannot limit the number of unrelated individuals that live in a house together. And so we're entering into an era where we could have multiple adults living in a home together that may all want to operate home occupations.

And we need to think about these things. Do we need a cap on the number of home occupation permits that can be issued for any residence? Um, >> yeah, >> that sounds like a sitcom. Um, >> yes, it does.

>> Dan, did you have did you want to go? >> Sure. And I guess it kind of ties into the last spot of I think this is the third time in three years that the state legislature has put some sort of bill like this together.

So, I'd be very surprised if in the next couple we don't see something. I think probably trying to give as much flexibility to entrepreneurs in our community is the best thing we can do. Um, so I as funny as it would be to see a five person household with five different businesses, I think that's probably a niche problem that we probably don't need to concern ourselves with specifically.

Is there um a pro or con to that being covered by the percentage of floor area? Um you is the one better to do by number of permits versus percentage of floor area. Is there trade-offs there? >> Um I I don't know.

I think that it could regulate itself if we have a floor area limitation. Um, I think it would require a little more effort to go back and study a permit and the plans approved in order to respond to an interested applicant to say, "Oh, you get 75 square feet left over for your business." So, it does add another layer of of review.

Um, but it's certainly possible. Um, and I forgot to add the city of Port Townsen in our research, they were one of the cities that did have a cap on the number to be issued and it it was two per house.

Yeah, that was kind of I guess my question was um case study cities and uh neighborhoods and communities that have done this that like what seems to work and what have there been disasters that people have seen like you know worst case scenario.

>> Um in our research we reviewed our our kind of sister cities sometimes are are Olympia and Port Townsen. Uh Port Townsen's regulations were very inspiring. They were very permissive. Uh we did reach out to the city of Port Townsen and they had minimal issues.

It sounded like the issues that they dealt with were when code enforcement got involved with an existing home business that did not have a permit and those were the only issues that they cited. Um yeah, so feel free to read through their their home occupation code.

was really interesting and we got a lot of ideas from them. >> I'll offer just Go ahead, Kurt. I I was just going to say I think back to the the question about size or number. Um I think what could happen naturally is that 500 square foot threshold from a building code perspective.

Um because once you go above that 500 square foot, you're you're subjected to a bunch of different commercial rules and regulations which are generally going to cost more money to do that. So I think you're going to have that threshold that's probably going to cap those uses anyway.

>> I was just going to respond a little bit to Jed's comment about um maybe the worst case scenarios. There's a couple of us that have worked in different jurisdictions and and maybe have experienced things uh outside of Bellingham and and I'll offer for context uh and and Jerry touched on this a little bit.

Typically, it's one of a few um kind of secondary things. It's noise production. It's hours of operations. you know, things happening early in the morning or late at night out of consistency with the way people might expect to have a residential neighborhood.

Um, sometimes it's deliveries being impactful if you've got, you know, volume of deliveries coming, um, you know, or, uh, multiple employees and they're parking all over the front yard kind of scenario.

So there are things like that to think about kind of those secondary impacts. When we start talking about like um cafes, breweries, other things like that where glass is involved, dumping of glass beverage containers has a unbelievably like shrill.

It's very short in duration, but it can be very impactful. And so it's thinking about those kind of kind of operational challenges or for example like washing kitchen mats and having that stuff uh flow down the storm drains.

Those kind of things become, you know, just questions that we want to make sure we >> Yeah, I feel like signage would potentially be maybe complicated, but something that you'd have to regulate in a different way.

I think one one other way just to kind of lead in actually your question goes straight into kind of this third bullet item here is um you know different types of uses. So if go back to your carpentry type of thing, we could just say carpentry is not allowed, right?

Or we could say carpentry may be allowed through this additional process and you do certain mitigating measures to to deal with those things, right? So that I mean that's the beauty of us creating these development regulations right now is we can pick and choose the level that we want.

Um, so we can list a bunch of types of home occupations that generally don't create noise. Um, and maybe study those that do or have a more robust review process for those that do. >> Yeah. I don't know if you should handcuff, you know, if if somebody wants to operate a wood shop and and it doesn't bother anybody, you shouldn't just, you know, not include that that occupation.

But again, with a a revocable permit or or something that needs to be reapplied for on the condition that you don't have any complaints, uh that would say, "Yeah, you're doing just fine." Or or it turns out you opened a restaurant, you installed a hood, and the neighbors allergic to curry, or you know, it's just there's any host of things that it would be a shame if somebody made a huge investment and then the neighborhood got together and said, "No, we don't want it." But again, I think we're talking about small niche things and for the greater good.

This is all a good trajectory. >> I have a a great example of of one that um that we actually had um coffee roasting. >> Yeah, >> it was a small scale, very small scale coffee roaster and we were like, "Wow, who doesn't love the smell of coffee?" A lot of people.

So, we got a lot of calls and complaints about coffee roasting. Yeah. >> On a personal note, I I grew up in Los Angeles and if you know Sriracha hot sauce, that was a local business in and that was a a challenge for a number of people dealing with the that >> um for for context on the renewal question.

Um, our home occupations do permits do not require a renewal currently, but we could explore that. Our short-term rental permits do require a renewal process. They're only valid for two years. When those two years are up, you pay a reduced fee and you submit some information showing that you're consistent with the original permit.

We could look at something like that. I think you'd get less push back from the community if we had something in place where it was a safeguard where people said, "Okay, we'll allow it, but at least I have an avenue to to, you know, kind of protect my sanctuary just in case somebody oversteps." Guess jumping on to the like the certain uses that produce a lot of sound or you know are distracting like welding and carpentry like as it is we've got Etsy and we've got these other markets that you can sell online and you know maybe not even be on the radar as being a commercial enterprise.

Is is that something that is probably already going on in in neighborhoods that we're just kind of like, well, there's plenty of people are home carpenters and they may sell stuff. Um, you know, by expanding this to c certain uses like that, are we are we even really introducing anything that that much different than what may already exist?

>> Um, yeah, I think that there's a lot that goes on that, you know, is we're not aware of, nobody complains about. It's it's hard to discern sometimes what between a hobby and somebody making something and then selling it later.

Um I think that this option provides business owners legitimacy. Um it shows that they have a permit in hand. It shows it it could help them get loans later to then grow their business. Um we don't know but and it also I guess it's it provides some assurance.

Let's say somebody is doing welding at home and selling on Etsy and somebody complains right now. They would have to stop what they're doing. If we amended the code and provided a permit pathway, they could legitimize their business and continue operating.

So, it it provides options to business owners. Yes, exactly. Did we say what obviously residential and uh low density it's sounding like but did we specify which zones that this would apply to? >> So right now it's pretty vague but we think that it would apply to any home.

So that would be a single family residence, one of our infill units or even an apartment building. um we can we can look at that um in this update. Um I think that there will be kind of some natural limiting factors depending on the housing product you're working with.

>> Multif family seems like it might be tricky. Um I don't know, even a duplex feels like it could be tricky as well. Um I I wonder back to the case study of like other places and and does this exist in Olympia or Port Townsend or these other communities?

>> Yeah. So a classic example in an apartment, I mean it wouldn't be like it likely wouldn't be carpentry or welding, but going in for um a massage or a facial if you have a two-bedroom apartment, you can it's a very low impact use.

And I know that's happens unpermitted and this is just again a pathway to use an extra bedroom for your work. >> It should also be noted that if you're talking about a rental product, we're not typically a party to the lease term agreements between a tenant and a landlord.

And so oftentimes that's going to preside over anything that we would have uh or or certainly be in in addition to any kind of permit we would require. But um that's something to consider. So most of these are likely to be um you know in an ownership product or um at a at a very minimum be an addendum to you know to a lease as an example.

Um just wondering out of curiosity that lovely graph with all of the community support um did the question specify what small snail commercial was just thinking about how many people have specifically noted Nelson's market etc.

Did people think that they were voting in support of that? Thinking about the commercial continuum and you know what is the pathway for sliding down this scale you know and if it's years away or you know just thinking about the staged approach and having community buy in for for different uses.

>> Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I reme I wrote this question so I remember putting in plant store because I thought that was just a random cute use and I remember plant store. Um, so it was like I think neighborhood cafe and a plant store.

I know that's quite random, but um there was buying of like what we were talking about and we I used other graphics to show complete neighborhoods and these smaller uses. And then in so many of our presentations and all of our open houses, Nelson's the p I feel like every staff member here has used a photo of Nelson's in a presentation probably the same one and that's the one that we hear about most.

So just talking with people at the open houses, we would just site Nelson's all the time because it's very relatable and people support that business. >> Was that chart from the open houses for the comp plan or was it from the uh postcard like quantitative survey?

>> Um I can come up to that. >> It was because I think it was it was like the scale had like 2,000 votes. So it seems like it might be like the quantitative survey. So, this one was part of our growth survey that we sent out um in the summer of 2024.

We had a lot of questions about transitorient development and our different growth approaches. And we were like, okay, we're touching every household. Let's just ask them about smallcale commercial. So, we snuck that one in that survey because it was tangential to our growth.

And then this graphic we used at um I don't remember which one it was, but I think it was one of our open houses at Bellingham High School. We had like names for all the open houses. And just to describe the smallcale commercial because I feel like when you hear smallcale commercial maybe people think that last large business all commercial.

So we just wanted to show that it is um yeah a continuum. And then we had an exercise. It's I don't have it right here, but it's still all on our engage page from our Bellingham hand feedback of people filling out those worksheets and then deciding, okay, where would you like this?

Where would this be appropriate? And just seeing the support and that was a roundt activity. So, >> and this is where I got a little bit confused just in terms of talking about multif family and like other uh housing forms is like if you're looking at of course the top tier like in inh home business that seems pretty simple like you could do that in an apartment or something but the second tier down where you're like separated in home business then I'm kind of wondering is like if that's what we're talking about here then does that work for an apartment or condo or um duplex or whatever.

Yeah. And that's something that I mean I've seen or heard anecdotal examples like in LA or New York, people will rent a residential unit in an apartment to operate their business and not live there. But with the home occupation, we would require I mean, yes, it's hard to enforce, but require residency in the owner occupancy of that unit.

So, we would not allow just one residential unit in an apartment to be used as a business. We would allow maybe if the lease allotted a bedroom in that unit, but we make sure that it's owner occupied or not necessar or the resident occupied, it can be a renter that has their own business, but it sounds like there might be a concern about the scalability of a home occupation with different types of housing units.

Is that correct? I think there's just an assumption that there is a naturally an appropriate scale at those different units. A massage makes sense in an apartment but not but um not the not the lumber.

>> Yeah. Yeah. We can explore that um more as we further our effort in this. Sounds like we may be at a wrap unless you guys have more on this presentation. I >> think that was super helpful. Thank you everybody.

We're going to start where Sarah and I will start working on a draft ordinance then to update our code and we'll come forward in the next few months with that for a vote from you all. >> All right. So, I guess um as far as looking forward to future meetings, is there anything um kind of in the works or update for what's coming up?

>> I know you've got at your next meeting um we're going to come back and do a similar um conversation around the middle housing and design review components. I believe both of them. Um, so the idea is those again are interim ordinances that have uh kind of been fasttracked at the council level.

We're going to come back, brief you on what those are in kind of an opportunity to tee up what's going to come in the months ahead. So that's that's what's coming up at your next meeting. And I just wanted to um take a minute and thank Fiona for stepping in on very short notice.

Um he He Heather's uh absence was unexpected. Um and so just a a great opportunity for u Fiona to step in and we really appreciate her doing that in such short notice. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um so our next meeting would be uh April 16th looks like and without anything else I guess we'll journ