Lakefront luxury

Here is one last wacky scenario – my next post will talk about what is likely to be a more typical Middle Housing structure.

There is an interesting loophole generated by the addition of the 38′ building height allowed by the proposed Middle Housing LUCA and the 12′ height bonus for tree retention offered by subsection E.5.c of the Tree Code, which passed in July 2024.

When we add these together and also consider the potential differences in lot elevation that are present on a sloping site, you could get a very tall structure. Because of this effect of slopes, current code limits houses with flat roofs to 30′ and also has a facade maximum of 40′ that is sometimes the true limit.

There will be no facade maximum for Middle Housing (I asked, and this is not an oversight), so it might be reasonable to think that they could be 38′ + 12′ + 10′ = 60′ (that last one will depend on the particular lot elevations.

I went to Meydenbauer Bay Park this week and looked across at the already very tall homes along the waterfront, and could easily imagine one that was six stories and preserved some uphill trees on the Enatai slope.

Of course, since a six story building is only possible with the Middle Housing rules, you’d have to make it a duplex, triplex, fourplex, fiveplex, sixplex or some other configuration. The housing types that just specify a number of units are very open ended in terms of what you can make. It couldn’t be a stacked flat, since those are technically limited to three stories, and you might not be able to make it a courtyard apartment, since it would be hard to give all units direct access to the courtyard.

I should point out that page 26 of the Middle Housing User Guide pdf from Commerce says that “Cities may also develop reasonable definitions for undefined middle housing types to help ensure that, when in conjunction with development and any optional design standards, they are compatible in scale, form, and character with single-family houses.” This is a very reasonable idea.

The other interesting option is that it could be a boutique hotel under the rules for co-living, but the lakefront homes that are nearest the downtown perimeter (see page 13) are juuust over the 1/4 mile walking distance where six units would be allowed by right, enabling co-living starting in January 2026.

Note: The subsection of the Tree Code immediately before that also allows development to extend into half of the front yard and five feet of the rear yard, effectively reducing the setbacks, and that is on top of a 10′ setback reduction for each the front and the back for middle housing that is in the current Middle Housing LUCA proposal (compare the tables on pages 6 and 30 of the strike-draft). I do not know if this will make a difference, since I assume everyone is already building right up to the shoreline setback from the ordinary high water mark, but there’s also no reason you couldn’t have a six story building on a more ordinary lot anywhere in Bellevue.