Middle Housing discussion

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. 

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Bellevue’s Bold Middle Housing Plan Faces Uncertain Fate at Planning Commission

This article provides many good quotes, but it’s such a complicated issue that it’s easy to get tripped up on the details. Here are some clarifications that may help our community understand the actual proposal for Bellevue.

Number of Units:

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Approximately 60 people were in the room for the public hearing about Middle Housing Implementation on April 9th, far more than the usual attendance at a Planning Commission meeting. The staffers who have been working on this Land Use Code Amendment to implement the state legislation HB 1110 and HB 1337 gave a presentation about the current version of the draft code (the initial draft was released on February 24th and there were updates on March 20th and April 4th). The Planning Commission gave each member of the public a full three minutes to speak, which took until well after 9 pm. 

After the hearing closes for public comment, it’s typical for the commission to spend time discussing the topic and asking more questions of the staff (often in direct response to the issues raised during public comment), before voting on a motion. Since it was so late, however, Chair Goeppele suggested that they stop for the night and move on to the next item on the agenda (different staff were present to make a presentation on recent outreach to certain neighborhoods). 

This will give the Planning Commission more time to think about their responses to the public’s advocacy and the conflicting requests they heard. The next meeting slot, which had been prescheduled in case the commission needed more time, is on April 23rd. The Planning Commission may still take into account the emails they receive between now and then, and the public can also see these in the “Written Communications” pdf that’s attached to each meeting agenda posted on the City Calendar. 

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Bellevue is headed for a future with Middle Housing that is not at all what our state legislators *or* residents had in mind. We have an opportunity to be heard by the Planning Commission at the meeting on Wednesday, April 9th, 6:30pm at City Hall.

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A flat fee-in-lieu of $150,000 per unit is included in the strike-draft that was released on April 3rd. My understanding is that this is based on the effective cost of creating affordability for an apartment, but offers tremendous profit potential when the lot is large enough to allow each individual unit to be ~5000 square feet. Imagine a 10,000 sqft duplex! This fee is far below the 50% of lot value that would be the upper bound for adding two units to a lot that could otherwise have four.

In the March 12th meeting Commissioner Vilaveces advocated for allowing vehicular areas to count as open space, since cars would only be driving through in the morning and evening and kids could play there in the middle of the day. As a mom, I thought this was a hot take, but there is a new line in the April 3rd strike-draft saying that for “cottage housing with four or fewer units, area used for driveway access may be utilized as common open space.” In Seattle, their materials specifically say that vehicular areas cannot count toward the open space. Bellevue’s open space requirement was tiny in the first place, only 100 sqft per cottage, whereas it is 250 sqft per cottage in Salt Lake City and 300 sqft in the Washington state model code for Middle Housing.

Massive increases for FAR for lots less than 10,000 square feet were added. In the March 20th draft, a fourplex would have received 0.7 FAR, and a sixplex 0.9 FAR. For comparison, the megahomes that are frequently built now are 0.5 FAR. In the April 3rd strike-draft, fourplexes are now 1.0 FAR, and sixplexes 1.5 FAR. Note that ADU interior space and up to 250 sqft of parking/unfinished storage space per middle housing unit are not counted toward the FAR total, so that is bonus space. You can expect the new structures to be about 3x the mass of the biggest single family homes that are going in now.

Walking distance now includes a “physical impediment” term. This may be worthy of further clarification, but freeways are an obvious one, and I have been told that the greenbelt will also be considered a barrier between much of Woodridge and the upcoming RapidRide K route. It is disappointing that there is still not the use of the actual walking distance, since there is no incentive to create pedestrian cut-throughs if developers get the higher density whether it’s a long walk or not. The use of this terminology may create confusion for people who do not have an inside scoop.

Cottage housing developments are now only expected to have 1/4- 1/2 as many trees as other middle housing types. This undermines all the community’s work to develop the Tree Code. On a 10k SF lot, there could be 10 tiny trees, two trees over 14″ in trunk diameter, or one tree with a 24″+ trunk diameter. Realistically, the tree protection zone for the larger trees would create a large unbuildable area, so it is most likely that the developer will opt to pay the $13,000 for ten tree credits instead, and we will have zero trees, as seen on developments of this type in Seattle.

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The Middle Housing Implementation effort will apply to areas that have single family homes and add density in the form of duplexes to sixplexes, cottages, courtyard housing, flats and townhomes. This Land Use Code Amendment (LUCA) is required by HB 1110, which passed in Olympia in 2023, and will add about 100,000 housing units to Bellevue based on the state requirements. Bellevue has created a special implementation proposal that goes above and beyond and will add roughly 100,000 more units. The implementation draft also includes changes to setbacks, building height, lot coverage, rules for ADUs, the definition of multi-family housing, Tree Code, and more.

The HOMA (Housing Opportunities in Mixed Use Areas) effort is also a LUCA, but entirely separate and happening in parallel. It will add apartments and affordable housing in areas like Downtown, Factoria, Eastgate, and the Neighborhood Centers. It is part of Bellevue’s Next Right Work effort and will help us align with the Comprehensive Plan, but is not being done to meet any specific state requirement. 

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From a letter sent to the Planning Commission:

In the Staff Report issued on March 20th, it was noted that a notice and a copy of the strike-draft was provided to Commerce that day for their comment. 

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Hello! 

There were some surprises in the February/March meetings about Missing Middle Housing. Bellevue is planning to go above and beyond the requirements of HB 1110. In many places where HB 1110 requires that we allow 4 units, the planners are hoping to increase that to 6 middle housing units.

The state law allows us to count ADUs toward the 4 or 6 unit total, but Bellevue’s current proposal does *not* count them. That means a location “near” Major Transit (within a 1/2 mile radius) would be able to have 6 + 2 = 8 units. You should know that developers are writing in and making oral comments to the Planning Commission asking that the cap on ADU size be increased so that they each can have 3 bedrooms (over 1500 sq ft), and some commissioners seem amenable to that. 

Anywhere that 6 units are allowed by right is a place where the developers will not be required to provide affordable housing in exchange for that density.  It will also allow co-housing/boarding houses/SROs as large as the lot allows, in accordance with 2023’s HB 1998, which applies to all lots that are allowed to have 6+ units. With Bellevue’s proposed map, some of the parcels are 0.8-1.0 miles walking distance to the bus stop. An example of this co-housing in Seattle is The Karsti, which has 52 units on a 5,000 square foot lot (average unit size 216 square feet). 

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The tree code currently expects fewer trees to be retained if the parcel is multifamily than if it is a SFH.

We are choosing not to count ADUs as part of the unit density, though that was clearly not the intent of our state legislators, who  included wording that ADUs could be counted as part of unit density in both HB 1110 and HB 2321.

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Develop responsive development incentives based on housing production the previous year.  

Develop incentives for building forms that are better for neighbors and new residents.
– Skylights, sunrooms, and balconies
– Enclosed garages, which cannot otherwise be required per (SB 6015)
– Mudroom/entryway capacity for bike storage
– Space for larger trees on-site

Create a senior housing incentive with age restriction and at least one unit that is ramp-accessible.

If we offer fee-in-lieu, possibly control the number offered each year and target them at particular unit sizes.

Identify locations with both access to transit and proximity to neighborhood/growth centers that would be good places for us to extend sixplex and co-housing zoning in the event housing production falls below targets.