Here are two things I’ve worked on this weekend – first, an excerpt from the weekly newsletter that summarizes the HOMA item on the Planning Commission agenda on Wednesday night. This is only part of the newsletter, which this week also covered the Human Services Commission agenda, Council’s consent calendar, the Hazard Mitigation Plan, FIFA World Cup plans, mandatory minimum, NAP for Eastgate and Factoria, Affordable Housing Strategy, Curb Pricing, and the Transportation Facility Plan Update. Please sign up for the newsletter using the link in the upper right if this sort of thing interests you.
Second, a letter to the Planning Commission. I probably should have titled it Medium to Large scale HOMA opportunities, since there are also a lot of even smaller parcels that will likely be affected and will need a different approach. I will try to add references here, such as the link to childcare recommendations, in advance of the meeting on Wednesday. I should also caveat that I haven’t talked to anyone about most of these ideas, such as curb-sharing, microvotes, or commercial space occupancy requirements. I also see value in copying other jurisdictions and past projects, so that we can have more confidence that an experiment will work, and I have more legwork here before I expect anyone to be convinced, this is just my vision.
Newsletter Excerpt
Housing Opportunities in Mixed Use Areas: Bellevue has adopted a target to create 5,700 affordable housing units between 2026-2036. The agenda memo has a rundown of the past Council and Planning Commission discussions that have led to this point, and also points to the economic analysis which was done. Lowrise development was the only housing type that would have favorable market conditions that allow feasibility. Positive conditions for lowrise development can almost entirely be attributed to its utilization of surface parking rather than structured parking. One change in the proposed rules is an alteration in lot coverage that would disincentivize surface parking but still allow density. It is interesting to see in the analysis how parking spot construction costs increase with depth. In a prototypical 250 unit building, the Middle Housing changes reduced the parking requirement from 338 to 250 spaces, and a further decrease will come soon with ESSB 5184 implementation.
Some bonuses rely on developments being able to use additional FAR, but it is possible for buildings to hit their height caps before they use all their FAR (a project just south of the library has asked for an exemption because of this). Bonuses would come from adding affordable housing, and exemptions would come from childcare, grocery stores, non-profit business, affordable commercial space, etc. The PC asked staff to explore encouraging three additional uses: third places, indoor bike parking, and stacked flats, but staff is pushing back since they think third spaces are hard to define, and street frontage is expected to be pedestrian-oriented anyway. There are questions from community members in the letters that ask whether an isolated spot with pedestrian-oriented street frontage is better than “neighborhood serving” development that might include more parking. I think there is a strategy we could find here that doesn’t just put the walking areas along arterial streets but still gives a sense of prioritizing transit users rather than making them walk across a big parking lot to get to the stores.
There is already an outdoor bicycle parking requirement, and indoor bicycle parking in a parking structure doesn’t count under existing rules. I hope the PC continues to ask for in-lobby bike parking FAR exemptions (including associated internal passageway width) as an option, since this can be a little more secure from theft due to foot traffic, and is not incompatible with a sleek lobby experience.
The PC had an opportunity to incentivize stacked flats in the Middle Housing LUCA, and it is strange that they did not do so then but are requesting it for mixed use areas – does anyone know the thinking on this?*
HOMA proposes a 25-foot ground-level landscaped setback along all property lines abutting residential districts, plus an additional 15-foot upper-level stepback for any building facade over 80 feet tall that are within 50 feet of a residential district. The PC questions why the wedding cake concept is not being applied to mixed-use areas outside of Downtown. Staff says there’s only enough room for this in some places like Crossroads and Factoria. Please see the maps for Crossroads and Eastgate/Factoria to see how scattered some of the additional height is. Staff point to tree retention requirements in the Tree Code as protections for well-treed transition areas, though there are loopholes that I have written about previously.
Staff has responded to concerns about the minimum amount of affordable housing to be eligible for incentives, and now smaller amounts of affordable housing will be eligible for small incentives.
This LUCA also includes an update to the rules around phased projects, and non-conforming provisions are being updated to build on what was done for Wilburton. More substantial zoning changes, including floorplate and building height increases, commercial parking reductions, and a new development incentive program option, will be addressed through the Downtown Livability 2.0 LUCA, which launches next year. There are also changes to the energy code and life safety requirements that may affect project costs for buildings which aren’t far enough into the pipeline.
The PC may decide at this meeting whether we have advanced enough with HOMA to schedule a public hearing, but there is no external timeline that we must meet.
Letter to the Planning Commission
Dear Planning Commissioners,
I won’t be able to attend the meeting on Wednesday, so I’m hoping you’ll see this letter in time to possibly take this into account for your discussion on HOMA.
As a pedestrian, I do not think it is relaxing or desirable for the sidewalk to be sandwiched between the building and an arterial road. Compare this to shopping streets that are usually much smaller, so that you’d not be crazy to jaywalk across to a store on the opposite side, with cars that are traveling slower. It is also more useful to have sidewalks around the outside of a block if it is part of a street grid, whereas HOMA seems to be proposing mostly isolated upzones.
I think we should start by designing this from the perspective of a transit user. There should be enough room along the arterial side of the parcel for a bus stop to be provided, and the project should deed land for the pull-out to the city so that traffic along the street isn’t impeded. We should combine bus location monitoring technology with signage that uses green/yellow/red lights to let rideshares and other drop-off drivers know when they can also use this curb space.
This bus stop node should then lead to the pedestrian core of the facility. If there is a grocery store on-site, a cart corral should be located as conveniently to the bus stop as possible. The pedestrian core should have a defined minimum width based on site size, probably 14-20′ if open-air and 10’ wide if enclosed, though it would probably be slightly wider at the mouth, since open space would be incentivized to be placed along the pedestrian core, and the ends would be the most likely to have good sun exposure for the landscaping.
We shouldn’t need to invent the rules for the pedestrian core from scratch, since we already have the work that was done for Wilburton and alleys with addresses, etc. We will need to do work to calibrate the amount of active space, and determine the uses that qualify, based on their relevance to the community. It is important that these active uses get (more) credit when they front the pedestrian core, and that they don’t have to have street frontage.
Parking access and/or at-grade parking could go on the sides of the parcel, ideally functionally increasing the setback to neighboring residences. If this design were extended across an urban area, this layout would mean a plaid pattern of pedestrian corridors offset from the car streets, and midblock pedestrian crossings.
Goals:
1. An elevated pedestrian/customer experience
2. Bus transit riders have an experience that’s just as nice as people who drive (and if upzoned parcels do not have a bus stop, whether because they are too small or are not on a bus line, that should mean another category of requirements apply – I don’t have that answer now, but I think the right answer is out there.)
3. Any building that adds height should justify its existence to the community with the addition of meaningful amenities that are required to be open for business (this could mean a tenant business is paying lower rents than desired, but to help with financing, there should be a floor for those rents based on a city-wide formula at time of construction plus inflation).
4. Minimum parking requirements are likely to decrease, so added height should be dependent on adequate parking, unless exempted in exchange for a bonus amenity by microvote (households within 1-2 blocks). We should create a map of building height caps rather than upzones, with the option to provide affordable housing and amenities to get that potential height. (Link to Culdesac Tempe parking approach)
5. Maybe the assumptions about well-treed transition zones mean we should revisit the Tree Code changes made in June. Also, what is the typical tree protection zone, and how reasonable would construction that encroaches on a certain percentage of it be?
6. It would make sense for one of the main amenities near transit to be childcare, so that you can drop off a kid and then hop on the bus, but I’ve previously cited an economic analysis of minimum size when speaking to city council about this, and the sqft needed is surprisingly high to have operational efficiencies where the staff can cover for each other and there are designated spaces for necessities.
I do think a more robust public participation process, that focuses in series on parcels/parcel groupings on each scale, would yield much better results for the city. Even if the smallest chunks that are affected by HOMA are small individually, they represent a large opportunity when you put them together. We should also expect the rules we create to mesh well with likely corner stores legislation.
Re: the discussion about third spaces, I believe it is possible to create a whitelist of business types that qualify, and while it may not be exhaustive, we’d at least be able to encourage the items on that list. Third spaces may also include patio spaces (possibly with retractable covers), but I do think figuring out the incentives and lot coverage implications might take more time than we have now.
Sincerely,
Nicole Myers
* I think this does make sense in light of the potential that it could create family-sized units with bedrooms that face away from the arterials. See here. I still think the primary obstacle is liability as defined by state legislation, but we should be ready to capitalize on that liability reform, if it comes. There is also a letter on page 43 of this week’s Written Communications that claims stacked flats have a higher construction cost per sqft, and appeal to renters drops. It would be interesting to follow up on these points.
** The pedestrian core could include a driveway, but it should be low-traffic, narrow and something that would be comfortable to cross at any point, even if there are designated crossings.
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