To the Planning Commission and Staff:
I appreciated very much the updated March 20th strike-draft, in which the proposed nine middle housing units has been taken out. Thank you for listening to the commissioners and the public who believe nine units would be too many for Bellevue.
We have an ambitious goal for middle housing in our state. We are being asked to implement four units over most of the city, with as many as six in very small areas that are a five minute walk from Link and RapidRide bus lines where permanent infrastructure has been built.
In other cities and regions we have seen examples of middle housing policies for duplexes and triplexes (Minneapolis) and up to fourplexes (Portland, Sacramento, Vermont, and Salt Lake City). Minneapolis was recently in the news because rents there fell while they were rising in the rest of the country.
Our current proposal proposes to exceed the state requirements by authorizing two extra ADU units for every residential lot; this will increase the potential number of homes in Bellevue by about 60,000. It was clear that this was not the intention of our legislators because they included wording that ADUs could be counted as part of unit density in both HB 1110 and HB 2321.
In addition to the additional density contributed by the alternate method of counting ADUs, a much larger portion of the city is being proposed to have six middle housing units instead of four, and there are tens of thousands of potential units being added this way. It is understated by the maps, which do not show large areas that will be affected by East Link Connections bus service changes (later this year) or the RapidRide K (2028).
In addition, allowing six units by right will require us to also allow extremely dense co-housing (HB 1998) in more areas of the city, including some areas far from transit that are really not well-suited to it. Some co-housing that exists in this model has dozens of units in a single property. It is likely to be more successful in the areas where our state legislators intended for it to go, such as areas that already allow multifamily housing and which are a 5 minute walk from permanent transit options.
I would also like to point out that with the Comprehensive Plan upzoning and TOD areas, the Housing Opportunity in Mixed-Use Areas effort, conversion of commercial to housing (HB 1042), and the co-housing in urban areas (HB 1998, passed in 2023), we have many ways to potentially exceed our target of 35,000 housing units by 2044. Other legislation in Olympia may also add population: Lot-splitting (HB 1096), TOD development (HB 1491), and Mobile Dwellings (HB 1443).
There are numerous decisions we can make about how generous our implementation policies should be; I think we should start with an Interim Zoning policy as Seattle appears to be doing, with the intent of adding more options once we are more familiar with these and figure out what the pace of growth is likely to be.
Time is of the essence for these decisions; today we provided a draft of our proposal to the Department of Commerce for their review. If we were to make any of the alterations I am requesting, presumably it would restart the clock or add to their review time. I recognize that this is challenging, since we have a public hearing that is planned in about 3 weeks’ time. If there is a possibility of working on these things in parallel, I would appreciate any help you can give to make this possible.
Thanks!
1. ADUs should count toward unit density, as allowed by HB 2321, Section 2, subsection 5. Otherwise, a lot can have 4 or 6 middle housing units, plus 2 ADUs.
2. Whether or not they count toward the unit density, ADUs should be 1000 sqft or less. HB 1337 Sec 4, subsection 1(f). …though I do not disagree with a 150-250 sqft exemption for a garage. Our current draft allows them to be at least 1200 sqft plus 250 sqft of unfinished garage space. In some cases they can be larger if they’re on a single floor of a house or are a guest cottage conversion.
3. We can choose an ADU height cap of 24’ HB 1337 Sec 4, subsection 1(g). If we go with the 28′ option, the ADU will be only 2′ shorter than a standard house. Since I think this adds another floor, there should be clear renderings for the community showing how that makes a configuration with a garage more feasible, and please highlight this choice when requesting community feedback.
4. DADU rear setback should match the requirement for other types of middle housing, rather than being as small as 5 feet (strike-draft page 13, 20.20.125 D.2). Please keep front, side yard, and rear setbacks the same for middle housing, ADUs, and SFH. HB 1337 Sec 4, subsection 1(h). Bellevue’s strike-draft has front and rear yard setbacks for middle housing that are each 10′ smaller than SFH (compare pages 6 and 27), creating a building envelope that is 20′ longer.
5. It would be easy to use the same FAR for SFH and middle housing; there is no requirement to have a tiered approach. We can also count the ADU FAR toward the total far if we choose to.
I think this is less of a concern, but it has also been pointed out that reducing single family FAR could have unintended consequences for areas which can only have single family residences due to CC&Rs or challenging terrain. Reductions in the FAR or changes to the exemptions (e.g., garage, unfinished attics, porches, etc. page 40 of strike-draft) allowed could cause these properties to stagnate instead of being redeveloped like other areas of the city.
6. Do not give a middle housing building height allowance of 38’ for a flat roof; it’s essentially an extra floor. We can allow the same building height as SFH (30/35 in Chart 20.20.010 vs. 38 in Table 20.20.538.C.1)
7. Avoid flexibilities for lot coverage, hard surface coverage, and impervious surface, and alternative maximum impervious surface. During the presentation, it was stated that these would be a change of 5%; see Chart 20.20.010 If we want to loosen these rules, please provide more transparency into the determination that these will not cause stormwater flooding problems.
8. Require open space for all types of middle housing, as is being proposed for Seattle. https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/OPCD/SeattlePlan/UpdatingNeighborhoodResidentialZoning.pdf See pages 5 and 12. We do have a minimum % greenscape of the front yard setback for SFH, but strike-draft Table 20.20.538.C.1 for middle housing has front yard setbacks of only 10 feet, and no greenscape percentage requirement.
I also like Salt Lake City’s requirement that in cottage developments there be 250 sqft of common open space for each cottage – so 1000 sqft if there are four cottages. It appears that our requirement for cottages open space in the March 20th strike-draft may have just been lowered from 400 sqft to 225 sqft. Edit: I see there is also a requirement for 100 sqft per unit in the Bellevue strike-draft.
9. Please require off-street parking for ADUs that are more than 0.5 miles walking distance from a major transit stop or frequent transit stop (allowed by HB 1337 Sec 4, subsection 1(k)(2)(i)). The March strike-draft provides an additional exemption if the ADU is <1000 sf, but by definition this is only relevant when the site is more than a ten minute walk from transit access.
10. Start with 6 of 9 housing types instead of 9 of 9, and then add the others over time when we have time to think them through and discuss them as a community (at least one PC meeting per added housing type). There should be visuals with examples of these housing layouts in both corner lot and non-corner configurations, showing how open space can fit in an sample arrangement. Please see my recent “Outreach requests” email to see how Seattle is doing it. We could also copy Seattle by only offering FAR bonuses for types of housing we want to encourage, e.g., “6000 sf lot within 1/4 mile of frequent transit”
11. Only allow 6 units within 1/4 mile roadway walking distance of Major Transit (Link, RapidRide) (would also accept public access paths without stairs, personally) or when affordable units are created. This will also ensure co-housing buildings (HB 1998) are well-served by transit.
12. There is no requirement to add density around Neighborhood Centers, Growth Centers, or frequent transit. These should have 4 middle housing units, or 2 middle housing units and 2 ADUs, etc.
13. Don’t offer fee-in-lieu option until we have at least a year of evaluating our housing production rate under the new system. It undercuts the potential for affordable housing to be built as part of projects and also is likely to cause dispersal of the 6 unit projects across areas that are harder to serve with transit. There is no requirement for fee-in-lieu, and I believe that no dollar amount has yet been proposed for the community to discuss. It is blank in the March 20th strike-draft.
14. We also should not have an unlimited number of cottages unless we have better renderings of what that looks like in reality and get really concrete examples of what different proposals for cottage max square footage would mean.
15. If it is possible to have an extension, it would be nice to finalize the middle housing rules or the vesting rules only after the Critical Areas update, since otherwise there could be permits that vest with encroachments on important wildlife habitat (according to the Best Available Science). It may be allowable to use an alternate zoning overlay to show which areas are affected so that people don’t have to be savvy about property tax appeals to avoid being over-taxed for development potential that doesn’t exist in reality.
16. Please don’t reduce the tree code requirements, which were drafted after long discussion with the community. Do consider the impact of setback and height incentives provided by the Tree Code, and avoid stacking these (such as the 12′ height bonus) unless we have a very transparent discussion with imagery presented to the community about what is proposed.
17. Ensure that the parking maximums are adequate. 20.20.590F currently shows no maximum, so I’m not sure why it was stated that this is a developer concern.
18. Clarify item on page 29 of the strike-draft that parking exemption in note (4) applies within one-half mile walking distance of a major transit stop. Same on page 12, item 5.b.
Note: Major Transit stop is defined differently on Page 11 and Page 24 of our strike-draft (page 27 of the new strike-draft). The former includes frequent bus stops. There is a third definition in HB 1998 which may apply to very small parts of the city.
19. Page 30, definition C.1 says that changes in lot coverage of up to 20% do not count as “development activity.” I’m not enough of an expert to evaluate this one, but it seems like a new exemption, and one to scrutinize.
20. In the Applicablility section of the Model Code (page 9), it says that these provisions do not apply to a lot that was created through the splitting of a single residential lot. If it is possible to create rules that kick in once lot-splitting gets legislated, but which would allow us to handle the scenario where there is no lot-splitting differently, that would be very nice.
21. Strike-draft page 26, item 8.a says that internal walkways are only needed for cottages and courtyard housing, but I think most townhome developments should have these too.
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