This week, the Bellevue City Council took votes to refine the Middle Housing plan that they’ll finalize at their June 24th meeting. The room was full but not overflowing, with much less intensity than was present at the Planning Commission public hearing or the Bridle Trails Community Club meeting.
Changed from the draft:
Six units by right density near major transit stops (Link and RapidRide B [and Rapidride K starting in 2028]) has been reduced to 1/4 mile walking distance instead of 1/2 mile walking distance.
Middle Housing height has been reduced to 32/35′ tall (this is equal for middle housing and single family if the roof is peaked, and middle housing will be allowed two extra feet if it has a flat roof).
Note: There is still a 12′ height bonus that could be obtained through the tree code, allowing a possible 44′ building height, and middle housing has both the FAR and the exemption from facade height limits to make use of that.
Cottages would only be 24′ tall, and the maximum square footage would be 1500 + 300 sqft of storage/garage space
Note 1: Conrad Lee wants to come back to this point to increase cottage size to 1750 sqft + 300 sqft of unheated storage/garage space
Note 2: The slides talk about “garage” space, but I don’t think any modification to remove the unheated storage language has been voted on or discussed publicly.
Note 3: For comparison, ADUs are allowed to be 28′ if over a garage, so potentially taller, but the ADU floor area is only allowed to be 1200 sqft plus 300 sqft of unheated storage/garage space.
Note 4: Cottages are supposed to have their parking grouped in a lot on-site – does the extra garage bonus space make sense?
Voted not to change from the draft:
Six of nine housing types will be allowed, ensuring maximum flexibility for developers in the larger fiveplexes and sixplexes, rather than forcing them to fit five or six units into the form factor of a stacked flat (max 3 stories) or courtyard apartment (all units need access to the courtyard).
Six units by right density near Downtown, Crossroads, BelRed, Wilburton, East Main, Factoria, and Eastgate growth centers will still be allowed within a 1/4 mile walking distance.
Note 1: Please look at the map here to understand these county-wide growth center boundaries, which were set by King County with boundaries that don’t line up with our neighborhood names
Note 2: This will mostly impact these neighborhoods because of the co-living we are required to allow starting in January 2026. Rules for implementing the co-living will come out in the next several months.
Mo Malakoutian made a motion that the $150,000 fee in lieu, as recommended by the Planning Commission, be adopted to allow the 5th and 6th units on every Bellevue residential lot that’s not already included in the 1/4 from growth centers and major transit.
Conrad Lee made an motion to amend that motion and substitute Option D (no fee in lieu, much more likely that the 5th and 6th unit wouldn’t be built outside the six by right areas). There was some discussion and it was unclear what the councilmembers wanted. Mayor Robinson said that she was in favor of option D at the beginning of the discussion, and then ended up abstaining from the vote to support Conrad’s motion, and Mo’s motion passed.
Keep parking requirement at one spot per middle family home outside of the 1/2 mile walking distance around major transit (HB 1110 allows us to require two parking spaces per unit there, unless the parcel is <6000 sqft, which is considered to make it infeasible)
Note 1: According to the Comp Plan FEIS Section 3.2, 95% of the properties outside the 1/2 mile walking distance are >6,000 sqft lots, so they could be required to have 2 parking spots per home.
Note 2: SB 5184 will take effect 18 months from passage (Effective date 7/27/2025, so January 2027) and we will only be allowed to require 1/2 spot per home in a multifamily with four or more units, and zero for homes under 1200 sqft, unless we do a traffic study. Not clear what happens to duplexes and triplexes, they may be considered to fall under the single family rules, depending on the multifamily definition in that part of the RCW.
DADUs will still count toward unit density, unanimous.
Next meeting:
Conrad’s suggestion that the cottages still be allowed to be 1750 sqft + 300 sqft of unheated storage/garage space
Open questions:
Whether AADUs should count toward unit count and/or floor area; this was not one of the options voted on – the options A and B presented by staff only differed in terms of whether DADUs should count toward the unit count or not.
There was some confusion about the fee-in-lieu, so this might come back, and a potential de minimis fee-in-lieu for the area around Downtown, etc. was not discussed – that would determine whether co-housing rules apply in these areas starting in 2026.
$/sqft for fee-in-lieu on large houses – no price difference between a 1200sqft additional home and a 5000+ sqft additional home
Number of fee-in-lieu units available annually – currently unlimited
We are not required to allow middle housing on lots that have been split: Council did not discuss whether to adopt the Model Ordinance language, “The provisions of this ordinance do not apply to: A lot that was created through the splitting of a single residential lot.”
Cottage count min or max – could have two or three cottage homes on a lot just to get the extra lot coverage and impervious area, though max may be addressed by Mayor Robinson’s idea to have pre-designed cottages that you can select, eliminating the possibility of super tiny ones.
Bonus area – will the extra 300 sqft still be given to cottages that are supposed to have their parking grouped in the corner of the lot? Will it be given to units under 1200 sqft that do not have any parking requirement when SB 5184 takes effect, and the areas a 10 minute walk from major transit where middle housing parking will not be required now? Will it be required to be on the ground floor, so that it’s at least useful for strollers and bikes even if it’s not really a garage? Are we redefining it to be garage space?
Facade height unlimited for middle housing in the current proposal; would be reasonable for this to be 2′ higher than single family to match the extra 2′ of building height.
Will floor area of ADU be counted toward overall Floor Area? See Expansive Estates scenario for how this might be 1900 +300 sqft of bonus space, not just 1200 + 300 sqft per ADU
Floor Area Ratio (FAR) will allow much more building than is possible with the new building heights and the likely footprints. We should look at the footprint, calculate space for eaves, and then multiply by three floors to find a reasonable FAR # that should be allotted.
FAR discontinuity is still present, allowing more buildable floor area for 9999 sqft lots than 15,000 sqft lots
Setback changes in Seattle require 3 or more units, but Bellevue is allowing a major setback reduction even for duplexes.
Extra 10% lot coverage for cottages, plus lot coverage and impervious area for cottage porches seems very high (extra 25% of lot area). Adds up to double the lot coverage of a single family home but doesn’t really make sense.
Cottage roof pitch unspecified (Vancouver WA had a 6:12 ratio requirement)
Still no cottage porch requirement, but there are lot coverage and impervious area loopholes (see above).
Cottage common open space is 1/3 of that required by the Model Ordinance, has a higher impervious percentage than is standard (75% vs. 50%), and can include driveway space (last part is very unusual for cottage rules, not sure if any other city has that).
Whether to conduct a parking study as described in HB 1110 and SB 5184 that would allow us to require parking on-site that matches expected needs.
Tree Code credit requirement is much lower for cottages than single family or even other middle housing, and there’s no state requirement to do this.
Tree health loophole that exempts projects from paying for tree credits if they do not have enough unpaved land is being slipped in as part of the Middle Housing LUCA, undermining our community’s work on the Tree Code.
Consider holding back some FAR to be used as carrots – senior housing, critical worker housing, enclosed parking, skylights and sunrooms, mass timber construction methods, roof decks, large trees/groves, bike-ready mudrooms/storage
Eaves could either be given an exemption from lot coverage or the FAR could be recalculated so that there’s no drawback to providing eaves. Developers would be leaving money on the table with the current wording if they provide any eaves at all.
Pedestrian entrance Model Ordinance wording: courtyard apartments shall feature a covered pedestrian entry, such as a covered porch or recessed entry, with minimum weather protection of three feet by three feet, facing the street or yard or court. We could add something similar.
Percentage of frontage that’s garage: limited to 50-60% of frontage in other cities’ code and the Model Ordinance.
Driveway rules left up to the director of the Transportation Department (page 33 of our draft), so we have no idea what these rules will be, and how many driveways pedestrians may be forced to cross.
Whether we really need to eliminate the Transition Areas that govern density where different zones meet. This is a big change that Council has not had any public discussion on.
Other open questions:
Fire code requirements
Trash collection
Sidewalk connectivity and pedestrian shared streets
Healthcare capacity
School siting decisions
Impact fee to cover park acquisition
Road capacity analysis for much larger number of vehicles in these areas (the FEIS only considered 72,200 housing units in the Low Density Residential Areas, for the Preferred Alternative, and we are adding 7 units per lot rather than 3 units per lot)
Fire safety and fire truck access
Utilities expansion discussion (e.g., water capacity RCW 19.27.097)
Transition areas
Real estate appraisal issues – five or more units considered multifamily by federal law
Light and glare
Vehicle charging requirement
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