## Meeting Overview On this bright Cinco de Mayo morning, the City of Bellingham's Planning Committee convened for what would prove to be one of the most consequential planning discussions in recent memory. Council Member Lisa Anderson opened the meeting in place of Chair Michael Lilliquist, who was delayed finding parking — a small irony given the morning's focus on density and development patterns. Joining Anderson were Council Members Hannah Stone and the eventual arrival of Lilliquist himself. The committee faced two substantial agenda items that, while distinct, were intimately connected parts of Bellingham's evolving approach to growth and housing. The first session would examine the retirement of the city's 25 neighborhood plans in favor of a unified citywide planning approach. The second would delve into the nuts and bolts of implementing state middle housing requirements. Together, these discussions represented nothing less than a fundamental reorientation of how Bellingham plans for its future — from a patchwork of neighborhood-specific rules developed over decades to a streamlined, equitable system designed for the housing challenges of today. ## The End of an Era: Retiring Bellingham's Neighborhood Plans Chris Behe, the city's Long Range Division Manager, opened with what he acknowledged was "a conversation that's been evolving for actually a good number of years." The neighborhood plans that have guided Bellingham's development since 1980 — when the city's population was half what it is today — were approaching their expiration date. Not through neglect or oversight, but through the inexorable march of state law, housing crisis, and the accumulated weight of their own complexity. The numbers told a stark story of bureaucratic proliferation. What began as 22 neighborhood plans covering 350 subareas had grown into 25 plans encompassing 434 unique land use subareas, each with its own special conditions, prerequisite requirements, and regulatory quirks. In 2005, the city had tried to simplify things by moving zoning regulations from neighborhood plans into the municipal code, but this had only created a mirror system of complexity — 25 unique zoning tables reflecting those same 434 subareas. "At its simplest, we just really need to simplify our system," Behe explained, pulling up a diagram that looked like an organizational chart gone wild. The comprehensive plan sat at the top, with a dizzying array of neighborhood plans, infrastructure plans, urban village plans, and institutional master plans cascading below it, all connected by cross-references and interdependencies. "To operate within Bellingham's land use regulatory environment with any level of success, you really do need to be an expert, which is pretty limiting across the community." But the complexity wasn't just an administrative headache. Behe and Planning Director Blake Lyon painted a picture of systemic inequity baked into the very structure of Bellingham's planning system. Some neighborhood plans ran 10 to 15 pages; others stretched to nearly 60. Some neighborhoods had detailed design guidelines and sophisticated planning concepts; others had basic land use designations. The difference, Behe explained with characteristic frankness, came down to resources and engagement. "The folks that lived in those neighborhoods, some had more resources, some had more expertise, and really were just to be, you know, perfectly frank and honest. They were able to interact with and drive city involvement to a greater degree," he said. "And they've really have benefited from those those efforts and those just kind of embodied skills." The historical context was telling. The neighborhood plans had emerged from late-1970s and early-1980s grassroots planning efforts — admirable in intent but exclusionary in practice. As Behe noted, the participants "were, for the most part, property owners and people of color. Renters and lower income households were largely excluded from those not intentionally." This reflected the city's notification procedures of the time, which focused on property owners within certain distances of proposed changes. The legacy of those early planning efforts lived on in the language of the neighborhood plans themselves. References to "preserving neighborhood character" appeared repeatedly — language that Behe identified as "kind of code for preserving single family detached neighborhoods." Such policies often allowed multifamily housing only if it would not "affect in any kind of adverse way, the adjacent single family neighborhoods." The state Department of Commerce had specifically highlighted such language as an example of barriers that needed to be removed under new housing legislation. Council Member Lisa Anderson, who had participated in updating the York neighborhood plan around 2012, pushed back on characterizing "neighborhood character" as inherently exclusionary. "When I hear from people who just moved to the community, to people who have been lifelong residents, when they say that they love their neighborhood character, I've never taken it as an exclusionary, keep people out racist kind of aspect," she said. "Often they're referring to the fact that we have so much old housing stock and big trees, and it's walkable and it kind of feels it makes them feel like it's home." Anderson's point touched on a tension running through the morning's discussion. The neighborhood plans, whatever their limitations, had captured local knowledge and community investment. The York plan, she noted, had addressed specific transition issues like ensuring Ellis Street could accommodate live-work units at an appropriate scale, preventing six-story buildings from casting shadows over neighboring one and two-story Victorian and Craftsman houses. Such attention to the "scale between the distance of the building envelope and the next residential unit" represented exactly the kind of nuanced local planning that could be lost in a citywide system. This concern about losing local specificity dominated much of the discussion. Council Member Michael Lilliquist, once he arrived and took over as chair, focused particularly on the "special conditions, prerequisites and special regulations" that distinguished the various zoning subareas. These weren't just bureaucratic artifacts, but often addressed real concerns about infrastructure, traffic, stormwater management, shoreline setbacks, and transitions between different types of development. "A lot of the multiplicity is not the zoning, it's these other things," Lilliquist observed. "And I want to capture these other things." He worried about the practical challenge of ensuring that important local considerations weren't lost in the consolidation process. Planning Director Lyon acknowledged this challenge but argued that the city was moving toward a more sophisticated approach that could capture the essence of local concerns while applying them systematically. Instead of having neighborhood-specific rules about transitioning from commercial corridors to residential areas, for example, the city could develop contextual standards that would apply wherever such transitions occurred — whether on Ellis Street in York, Meridian near the Fountain District, or anywhere else similar conditions existed. "We can take that example of what does it look like to have a certain capacity of development along a corridor, and what does it do to transition down into now the infill housing or neighborhood context?" Lyon explained. "And we can have that example that shows up in different geographic locations, but doesn't have to be a specific subarea in this particular zoning table versus that one." The conversation revealed the scope of the challenge ahead. Council Member Stone pressed staff on what seemed like two separate projects: retiring neighborhood plans (one task) and completely revamping the city's zoning tables (a much larger undertaking). The middle housing code changes required by state law would need to be completed by June 2026, but commercial, industrial, and institutional zones could be addressed later. "I had assumed we'd still have individual zoning tables, and the goal would be to have all those zoning tables lined up right, that they would all draw from the same vocabulary," Stone said. The reality, as Behe explained, was more complex. The city was moving toward eventual consolidation into a single citywide zoning table — a significant departure from current practice, but one that would align Bellingham with most other municipalities in Washington and across the country. The infrastructure question provided perhaps the strongest argument for the transition. Much of what had made the neighborhood plans valuable in the 1980s — their detailed identification of needed sidewalks, trails, parks, and utility improvements — had already been incorporated into citywide infrastructure plans. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans, the Parks Recreation and Open Space Plan, and other system-wide documents now provided the kind of network-based, equity-informed planning that the neighborhood plans had attempted on a smaller scale. "Those citywide plans take that micro level detail from each of those unique sub areas and fold it into a systemic approach," Behe explained. "They look holistically across the city, they do include social equity in the way that they weigh capital improvements." What remained in the neighborhood plans was often outdated, out of sync with completed improvements, and lacking the citywide context that made for effective infrastructure investment. As the discussion continued, it became clear that retiring the neighborhood plans wasn't really a choice. State law changes, particularly House Bill 1220's requirements to identify and remove barriers to housing development and address systemic inequities, made it impossible to adopt the neighborhood plans by reference as part of the 2025 comprehensive plan update. "If we were to, as we have in past periodic update planning cycles, adopt the neighborhood plans by reference, we would be inconsistent in our land use policies," Behe explained. The path forward would involve incorporating the best elements of neighborhood-level planning into the new citywide Bellingham Plan. The community design chapter, housing chapter, and land use chapter would include policies promoting "pedestrian scale streetscapes," "connectivity with nature," and "placemaking and community identity." But these would apply consistently across all neighborhoods, rather than varying based on historical accidents of engagement and resources. Council Member Anderson requested a follow-up session that would include "kind of like a diagram or timeline that is showing the work that's going to be happening" so that council members could visualize how the consolidation would work and ensure that important elements weren't lost in the transition. The request reflected a broader concern about managing such a significant change while preserving what had worked well in the existing system. ## Reimagining Residential Zoning for Middle Housing The second half of the committee's work session focused on the practical implementation of House Bill 1110, the state's middle housing law that requires cities to allow up to four housing units on every residential lot, with the possibility of six units if some are designated as affordable housing. This wasn't just about tweaking existing regulations; it represented a fundamental shift from what Behe called the "binary single and multi system" to something that recognized "the full continuum of housing types." Behe walked through several examples to illustrate how the new rules would work in practice. An existing single-family home could be converted into multiple units, either by dividing the existing structure or adding accessory dwelling units. Recent infill townhomes built under the city's existing Infill Toolkit could potentially add additional units, though building code requirements might make this challenging in practice. Large vacant lots could be developed with cottage homes that could later be subdivided into individual ownership lots, each eligible for additional units. The examples highlighted both the potential and the complexity of the new requirements. A 12,000-square-foot lot developed with four cottage homes could eventually become sixteen units spread across four separately-owned lots, each with the potential for townhomes or duplexes. The sequencing mattered — whether someone subdivided first and then built, or built first and then subdivided — but either way, the result would be dramatically more housing capacity than under current rules. Bellingham's existing residential zoning system, with its distinction between "residential single" and "residential multi" zones, wasn't well-suited to this new reality. The city had made progress in 2021 by consolidating and simplifying residential multi zones, but significant work remained. Council Member Lilliquist suggested moving away from the "family" terminology altogether, focusing instead on "single detached units, single attached units, multiple attached units" to better reflect the housing types rather than assumptions about household composition. The density discussion proved particularly complex, in part because of the confusing way the city talked about lot sizes and density requirements. As Lilliquist pointed out, staff were using "minimum lot size" and "density" somewhat interchangeably, when they were actually inverse relationships. To achieve higher density — a stated goal — the city needed smaller lot sizes, but the regulatory language didn't always make this clear. Staff presented a framework for consolidating the existing zones into a smaller number of categories: a "Residential Watershed" zone for the Lake Whatcom area, "Residential Low" for most current single-family areas, "Residential Medium" for current moderate-density multi-family areas, and "Residential High" for existing high-density zones. Each would include minimum density requirements to ensure that new development made efficient use of land and infrastructure investments. The minimum density question proved particularly contentious. Current residential multi zones required a minimum of 7,200 square feet per unit; staff suggested considering something closer to 5,000 square feet for the new system. Council Member Anderson, whose York neighborhood already had lots around 3,000 square feet, wanted to understand exactly how this would translate to livable development. "I guess what I'll need to know is of that 5000, how much of that 5000 remains open and unbuildable based on the setbacks and what's required," Anderson said. "York is very livable. I think at the 3000, it would not be livable if two thirds of the remaining yard space was converted into housing." The question touched on broader concerns about balancing density with livability — ensuring that new development provided adequate open space for children, pets, gardens, and the mature trees that contributed to neighborhood character. Anderson's concern wasn't about preventing density, but about ensuring that density requirements didn't inadvertently create unlivable conditions. Council Member Stone raised questions about the interplay between density requirements and lot splitting. If someone had a large lot, the sequencing of subdivision and development could affect the ultimate outcome. Staff acknowledged that they were still working through these details, particularly technical issues around site access and fire response for narrow lots. Council Member Lilliquist brought a different perspective to the density discussion, focusing on ownership opportunities. He worried that many middle housing units would end up as rental properties, since a single owner couldn't occupy all four units on a lot. Lot splitting could create ownership opportunities, allowing people to purchase individual townhomes or cottage units rather than renting. This connected to community feedback about wanting more ownership-oriented housing options, particularly for small-scale, affordable housing types. "One of the things I like about lot splitting," Lilliquist explained, "is those are each now ownership opportunities. The person who did own four units on one lot has to rent three, but now the person who did own four units now on four lots, they can potentially sell them ownership opportunities." The ownership discussion highlighted the complexity of implementing middle housing effectively. While state law required allowing up to four units per lot, it didn't specify how those units should be owned or managed. Condominium ownership could provide individual ownership without lot splitting, but as Planning Director Lyon noted, many people preferred fee-simple ownership with individual lots to avoid homeowner association complications. The committee's discussion of specific density thresholds and zoning categories was necessarily preliminary. Staff were seeking early feedback to guide more detailed code development, recognizing that many technical details still needed to be worked out. But the conversation revealed some of the fundamental tensions in implementing middle housing: balancing density with livability, ensuring adequate infrastructure, creating ownership opportunities, and managing the transition from a system designed around single-family development to one that embraced housing diversity. Public engagement had supported the general direction of the changes. The city's extensive outreach for the Bellingham Plan — involving over 10,000 individual touchpoints through surveys, open houses, and online engagement — had shown strong support for "living closer to neighbors in exchange for greater access to neighborhood commercial services," more owner-oriented housing options, and changes to zoning "in all neighborhoods to ensure every area benefits from greater housing choice." But translating that general support into specific regulatory changes would require careful attention to the details that could make or break the livability of new development. Council Member Anderson's concerns about setbacks and open space, Stone's questions about lot splitting mechanics, and Lilliquist's focus on ownership opportunities all reflected the challenge of implementing state requirements while maintaining the qualities that made Bellingham neighborhoods desirable places to live. ## Closing and What's Ahead As the nearly two-hour session concluded, it was clear that the Planning Committee had only begun to grapple with the magnitude of the changes ahead. Chair Lilliquist acknowledged that they had barely scratched the surface of the issues raised, covering perhaps the first two of six questions staff had prepared for discussion on residential zoning alone. "There's another hour of conversation here," Lilliquist observed, calling for follow-up sessions to continue the work. The complexity wasn't just in the details — though there were plenty of those — but in the fundamental shift from neighborhood-specific planning to citywide systems, and from a housing system designed around single-family development to one that embraced diverse housing types at various scales. The committee agreed to schedule additional work sessions, recognizing that these decisions would shape Bellingham's development patterns for decades to come. As Lilliquist noted with some irony, he supported the idea of a special watershed residential zone even though the committee had just spent the morning discussing the problems with having too many different types of zones. Sometimes, he acknowledged, a little complexity was necessary to address unique circumstances. The morning's discussion highlighted both the promise and the peril of Bellingham's planning transition. The retirement of neighborhood plans offered the opportunity to create a more equitable, transparent, and efficient system for guiding development. The implementation of middle housing requirements could significantly expand housing opportunities and choice. But managing these changes while preserving what worked well in existing neighborhoods — the mature trees, walkable streets, and human scale that residents valued — would require careful attention to the details that could easily get lost in the complexity of regulatory reform. As the Planning Committee adjourned and handed control back to Council President Huffman for an executive session on property acquisition and potential litigation, the real work of implementation lay ahead. The vision was becoming clearer, but the path to get there remained complex, requiring continued engagement with neighborhoods, developers, and the broader community to ensure that Bellingham's planning evolution served all residents well. The transformation from neighborhood plans to citywide planning represented more than a regulatory change; it embodied a different philosophy about how cities should grow and who should benefit from that growth. Whether that philosophy could be successfully implemented while preserving the qualities that made Bellingham's neighborhoods special would be determined in the months and years ahead, as abstract planning concepts were translated into the concrete reality of homes, streets, and communities.

### Meeting Overview The City of Bellingham Planning Committee met on May 5, 2025 to discuss major changes to how the city handles land use planning, focusing on retiring 25 neighborhood plans in favor of citywide planning and implementing state-required middle housing regulations. ### Key Terms and Concepts **Neighborhood Plans:** 25 local planning documents adopted in 1980, covering 434 unique land use subareas with varying levels of detail and complexity across different neighborhoods. **Middle Housing:** State-required housing types including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and cottage housing that bridge the gap between single-family homes and large apartment buildings. **House Bill 1110:** 2023 state legislation requiring cities to allow up to 4 housing units per residential lot, with up to 6 units if affordable housing is provided. **Zoning Tables:** Regulatory documents in the municipal code that specify what can be built in each area, currently organized into 25 separate tables with hundreds of unique subareas. **Systemic Inequities:** Differences in planning resources and outcomes across neighborhoods, largely based on which communities had residents with time, resources, and expertise to engage in planning processes. **Lot Splitting:** The process of dividing one lot into multiple smaller lots, each of which can then accommodate additional housing units under the new state requirements. **Minimum Density:** A planning tool that sets a floor for how many housing units must be built per acre to ensure efficient use of infrastructure and land. ### Key People at This Meeting | Name | Role | |---|---| | Lisa Anderson | Council Member, Fifth Ward (chaired meeting) | | Michael Lilliquist | Council Member, Sixth Ward (Committee Chair) | | Hannah Stone | Council Member, First Ward | | Chris Behe | Long Range Division Manager, Planning & Community Development | | Blake Lyon | Planning Director | ### Background Context This meeting addressed two interconnected planning challenges facing Bellingham. First, the city's current neighborhood-based planning system, established in 1980, has become increasingly complex and inequitable, with 25 different neighborhood plans creating 434 unique zoning subareas. Some neighborhoods have robust 60-page plans while others have just 10-15 pages, largely depending on which communities had residents with resources to engage in planning processes. Second, new state laws require major changes to residential zoning. House Bill 1110 mandates that cities allow up to 4 housing units on every residential lot, with potential for 6 units if affordable housing is provided. This represents a fundamental shift from traditional single-family zoning to accommodate "missing middle" housing types that can help address the housing crisis. ### What Happened — The Short Version Staff presented their recommendation to retire all 25 neighborhood plans and move to a simpler, citywide planning system. They argued this would eliminate inequities between neighborhoods and make the planning system more transparent and easier to navigate. The infrastructure and policy elements from neighborhood plans would be incorporated into citywide plans or the comprehensive plan. For middle housing implementation, staff proposed consolidating current residential zones into fewer categories: Residential Watershed (for Lake Whatcom area), Residential Low, Residential Medium, and Residential High. Council members raised detailed questions about lot sizes, setbacks, and how to preserve neighborhood livability while accommodating more housing. Key unresolved questions included what minimum density standards to set and how to handle the transition between different housing types. ### What to Watch Next - A follow-up work session to continue discussing zoning table consolidation and address unanswered questions about lot sizes and density standards - Development of the permanent middle housing code, due by June 2026 - Adoption of The Bellingham Plan (comprehensive plan update) by end of 2025, which will determine whether neighborhood plans are retired ---

**Q:** How many neighborhood plans does Bellingham currently have? **A:** 25 neighborhood plans covering 434 unique land use subareas. **Q:** When were Bellingham's neighborhood plans originally adopted? **A:** 1980, with most updated between 1996-2012. **Q:** What does House Bill 1110 require for residential lots? **A:** Up to 4 housing units per residential lot, with up to 6 units if affordable housing is provided. **Q:** When must the final middle housing code be adopted? **A:** By June 30, 2026. **Q:** What percentage of Bellingham's residential land is single-unit detached housing? **A:** About 70% of residential land area. **Q:** Who chaired this Planning Committee meeting? **A:** Council Member Lisa Anderson, filling in for Committee Chair Michael Lilliquist. **Q:** What are the three main reasons staff gave for retiring neighborhood plans? **A:** System complexity, systemic inequities between neighborhoods, and conflicts with state housing requirements. **Q:** Name three types of middle housing required by state law. **A:** Duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, cottage housing, courtyard apartments. **Q:** What is the current minimum density in residential multi zones? **A:** 7,200 square feet per unit. **Q:** What new zoning categories did staff propose? **A:** Residential Watershed, Residential Low, Residential Medium, and Residential High. **Q:** Which neighborhood was cited as an example of high-density residential single zoning? **A:** York neighborhood. **Q:** What infrastructure plans have replaced much of the detail from neighborhood plans? **A:** Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans, Parks Recreation and Open Space (PRO) Plan, and utility infrastructure plans. **Q:** How many community touchpoints did staff report for Bellingham Plan engagement? **A:** Around 10,000 total touchpoints across 14 open houses, surveys, and online engagement. **Q:** What did community engagement reveal about housing preferences? **A:** Preference for more affordable housing, owner-oriented housing, 2-bedroom units, and townhomes. **Q:** What happens after middle housing units are built on a lot? **A:** Individual lots may be created for each housing unit, creating ownership opportunities. **Q:** Which area would get special zoning consideration under the new system? **A:** Lake Whatcom watershed would become "Residential Watershed" zone. **Q:** What was Council Member Anderson's concern about York neighborhood? **A:** How to fit required ADUs and maintain livability on small 3,000 square foot lots. **Q:** What did Council Member Lilliquist emphasize about lot splitting? **A:** It creates ownership opportunities rather than just rental opportunities. **Q:** When is The Bellingham Plan due for adoption? **A:** End of 2025. **Q:** What will happen to existing neighborhood associations? **A:** They will continue to exist; only the formal neighborhood plans are being retired. ---