Updates: Please see the recent post on Building Heights – the outcome of the April 23rd Planning Commission vote was that the height limit for middle housing is 38′ and four stories will still be possible, though it was recognized that this might result in housing with low ceilings that’s like “a shoebox” and “not great accommodations.” There is still a chance that the City Council will be able to resolve the issue before the policy is finalized; please reach out to them if you have an opinion about this!
Page 12 of the April 18th draft (April 23rd header) still says one-half mile instead of one-half mile *walking* distance, as HB 1337 requires in Sec. 4, 2 (a)(i). Again, it still seems possible that this will be fixed.
During the April 23rd meeting, the commission voted to allow 300 sqft of “free” area for garage/unheated storage use, a small increase from the 250 sqft mentioned in this post. Also, cottage developments larger than 4 units will be now able to use the driveway to count toward the common open space required for four of their units.
I think the lot splitting allowed by HB 1096 is actually more important (for greasing the administrative skids) now that there is a new minimum lot size for affordable housing that was slipped into the April 18th draft – a 23% reduction that will allow some parcels to split and have twice as many units, even if they are not otherwise a double lot. The impact is greater when they will additionally cross below the 10,000 sqft lot threshold for FAR, allowing a 66% increase in building size based on FAR and a doubling of the uncounted ADU/garage/storage space.
There were also substantial changes to the cottage policy following critiques like mine about the porch issue, though I wouldn’t say it was really fixed – see the Ah, Cottages post.
After thinking about it a little more, I think the sixplex is a better “type” to get the stacked townhome apartments, since there is no need for “direct” courtyard access. This is primarily relevant where the 2024 Tree Code provisions give you 12′ of height in addition to the 38′ for middle housing, and middle housing would be allowed to have a 50’+ facade.
I had a meeting today that clarified some important things:
Deadlines: Commerce is really flexible and easy to work with, so we don’t have to worry about the 60 day review period after all. This means we should have plenty of time to incorporate input from city council, and it makes me feel so much less stressed about raising community awareness in time to make a difference. Please still come to the April 23rd Planning Commission meeting if you can, of course!
Walking distance: The intent is really to use the walking distance that would be found on Google Maps, not the radius, and there may be places that were still stated as a radius in the last draft where the intent is to refer to them as walking distances and these should get corrected (page 12, 28, 29?). There might be a possibility of tweaking the language on page 28 to make this more clear, and I’m also hoping for an FAQ blurb about it. I think this will create an incentive to create pedestrian connections between adjacent streets (Kirkland has some great examples of this), and also is more fair in allocating density to parcels that are equally convenient for pedestrians.
With this clarification, the areas around Major Transit will only be about 4x larger than the state requires, and these may be overtaken by the TOD legislation (HB 1491) anyway, which has passed both chambers in Olympia but is still not over the line yet.
Of course, the areas around neighborhood centers, Downtown, BelRed, Wilburton, Crossroads and frequent bus lines will have some additional density as well. It’s important to recognize that in many cases these are already places with middle housing or apartments, however, so a more refined map would be needed to assess how much it matters.
Not four stories: The intent is for 38’ to only allow three stories max, though of course with higher ceilings than a three-story house with a 30’ flat roof or 35′ peaked roof (the rule for single family homes now). Since so many Bellevue lots have a slope that affects the average lot height determination, and therefore effectively get a taller building, I’ll keep looking at this, and look for clarity in the final wording that middle housing will have no more than three floors. Previously, I was only aware that stacked flats were limited to three floors by definition in HB 1110.
In minutes from a PC meeting, it was mentioned that 38-40 feet could accommodate three stories with reasonable ceiling heights, and improve quality, allowing rooftop decks or larger windows. I had reached out to a different person about a month ago to mention that I thought this was an typo, and that 40′ would allow four stories, not three, but never got a response.
I do think it might be nice to have a differential in roof height for pitched roofs, as there is in the Model Ordinance and our unchanging single family height limits. We could say middle housing is 35’ flat and 40’ peaked, or (preferably) use an allowable slope as the Model Ordinance does.
I do have some questions about whether ceilings this tall really make sense, since I think they could make it feel like a commercial building, but this is apparently what builders think their customers like. As trees are cut down or there is warming from other sources, having a high ceiling is good for staying cool, and I think radiant heating could mean it’s equally efficient in winter. Do you have thoughts about this? Please comment! There will still be no facade limitation for middle housing; facades are a 40’ maximum height for single family homes.
Parking: Certainly, limiting the middle housing to three stories reduces the degree to which Floor Area Ratio (FAR) is a constraint, so the extra 250 sqft allocated for garage/unheated storage space is a less useful incentive; I may have underestimated the impacts on street parking previously because I thought we were giving a “free” interior parking space to every ADU and middle housing unit.
Profitability: Cottages are allowed to be up to 1750 sqft. It is theorized that making a smaller cottage to leverage the free 250 sqft of garage storage per additional unit doesn’t pencil out, since the impact fees are charged on a per-unit basis, and that may be enough to discourage any small units from being built at a price people will want to pay. I still think this is not too different from the little minihouses being sold in Seattle, but I concede I am not sure whether those are selling well. The stairs also take up more space when each floor has such high ceilings, so putting 32 flights of stairs on a 10,000 sqft lot may be even less reasonable.
While I can *imagine* these vertical cottages, I also think it’s perfectly reasonable to cap their height at 22’ as the Seattle Interim proposed rules did, and which would be consistent with the imagery of cottage housing shown to the community (see below), and then strongly encourage builders to put in stacked flats that can benefit from the updated condo liability laws and be a more efficient use of space (since there are no in-unit stairs and building surface area is minimized). Stacked flats units will also better for aging in place and nicer to live in for families with kids.
Photo of cottage housing from Bellevue’s Middle Housing project webpage
We also are in agreement that the intent is that lot splitting (HB 1096) should not lead to an increase in housing density, except that it might make it easier to sell off half your lot without doing the construction of the new home(s) first. I had thought we needed to include wording to specify that it won’t double density, as seen on page 9 on the Model Ordinance, but I think staff has more expertise here, and I am optimistic that I was wrong. Either way, we have time to figure this out by working together, so we can be sure that the final wording will match the intent.
I am not the only one who likes the idea of a stacked townhome/apartment unit that gives you an extra floor to get away from your upstairs neighbors; I think this would be possible as part of a courtyard apartment if the three story limit were not an issue, and even with that, at least the downstairs units could have two levels. 🙂
I also made a pitch for higher density for a Neighborhood Amenity Center, which I would define as having at least a small grocery store, restaurant, child care, frequent bus stop, medical office (primary care, urgent care, or dental), entertainment/athletic space (play gym, bowling, pool, arcade, or fitness classes, etc.), mail drop, and library kiosk. It’s possible that this is more of a direct incentive in the context of Housing Opportunities in Mixed Use Areas (HOMA), but I think this could also justify increased density in the residential areas around such a cluster of amenities (and reduce the need for car trips going outside the area). I expect this would be less frustrating for residents who perceive that a “neighborhood center” near them doesn’t offer the community much in the way of amenities.
The things that I think are still issues:
Even with the walking distance clarification, there are a lot more areas with six units by-right/potential co-housing than we would have had with the state minimum. Hopefully the community can help us look at this scenario in their neighborhoods and make sure that it seems reasonable. There are probably few if any instances, for example, where it would take a long time to get a fire response but a frequent bus stop or center is just a five minute walk away, but the risk of this increases as we start to rely on pedestrian paths to calculate distance. I am also not sure if areas with a large number of stairs would be considered when calculating that distance, or if it will only be ADA-accessible routes, as recommended by Bob Steed during the public hearing.
The fee-in-lieu is probably too low when it enables larger houses (5000+ sqft still seems possible), and is not indexed to inflation.
I also hope to get clarification about 3 story ADUs, since if 38′ doesn’t mean 4 stories, it stands to reason that 28′ does not mean 3 stories. There is an ADU here that has 2 stories with a peaked roof at 24′ – it has two parking spots, so even though it says it’s 749 sqft, It is a pretty close approximation of the 1200sqft Bellevue will allow. The garage is almost 700 sqft and we only allow you to deduct 250 sqft for parking (both total 1450 sqft). It is not clear to me how they’re counting the deck and stairs. It does seem especially nice to have higher ceilings if you have a compact living space.
I would still like cottages to have porches and 300 sqft of common open space per cottage (like the Model Ordinance), instead of 100 sqft like the strike draft, and ideally more than 25% pervious common open space, but it will really help if they can only be up to three stories. I don’t really think cottage housing should be expected to have fewer trees than other middle housing, and I really don’t like calling the driveway the common open space for parcels that have 4 cottages or fewer, but I can understand that the vision for these is more of a 3 story, 1750 sqft three bedroom house, and they will need room on the parcel for driveways just like other houses. Hopefully we can get some renderings so the community can understand what we’re signing up for.
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