Bellingham Design Review Board

**Ali Taishi, on storage unit site constraints:** "We went back to the drawing board after that pre-op and that work with city staff and Jess came back to me with the idea to do effectively private parking and storage within the footprint of the site that's already developed." **Robert Wright, on design review scope:** "Honestly, I think it's kind of silly that we're even doing this. I don't really see why this is part of our committee. To be honest, it's a garage like it's on an alley." **Maggie Bates, on urban village applicability:** "But when we go through our checklist, Ryan, it's stated on the applicant states that it doesn't apply. It doesn't apply. And I'm like, are we sure it does not apply?" **Ryan Van Straten, on pedestrian accommodation:** "So it almost feels like a foot or two more in front of that building provides a more reasonable experience if somebody is walking to their storage and the car is passing." **Brian Bowen, on historic preservation economics:** "The pre

## Meeting Overview The December 2nd, 2025 meeting of the Bellingham Design Review Board convened at 3:00 PM with Chair Ryan Van Straten presiding over a blend of in-person and virtual participants. Board members Maggie Bates, Robert Wright, and Coby Jones were present, along with city staff including project planners Simran Dhaliwal and Emi Scherer, and administrative staff Fiona Starr. The meeting addressed two distinctly different proposals: a modest storage facility tucked behind a public building near Whatcom Creek, and an ambitious co-housing development that would replace a historically significant 1908 school administration building. Both projects sparked thoughtful debate about the boundaries of design review authority and the competing values that shape Bellingham's urban villages. The storage unit proposal raised questions about whether design guidelines should apply to utilitarian buildings with minimal public visibility, while the co-housing project forced a difficult reckoning between historic preservation ideals and contemporary housing needs. The discussions revealed the board's commitment to design excellence while navigating the practical constraints of challenging sites. ## Storage Units at Whatcom Creek's Edge The first proposal brought an unusual challenge to the Design Review Board: twelve identical storage units proposed for a narrow strip of developable land at 115 Lottie Street, squeezed between an alley and the protected buffer zone of Whatcom Creek. Ali Taishi from ABT Consulting presented on behalf of property owner Jess Knoyer, explaining how environmental constraints and infrastructure limitations had forced them to abandon their original residential vision. "We did start with a residential project on this property when Jess purchased it and actually had a pre-app the city for a residential project," Taishi explained. "But ultimately the critical areas issues predominantly the shoreline buffer that is applied to Whatcom Creek really restricted the land available for development and created a lot of uncertainty around what could be approved." The Department of Ecology's final authority over shoreline permits, combined with the prohibitive cost of extending utilities to serve just three or four small residential units, had driven them toward this storage solution. The building itself would be strikingly simple: a single-story structure with twelve roll-up doors, half designated for vehicle parking and half for general storage. "The idea is to try and kind of match the character of the existing public works building that's directly in front of this site," Taishi said, referencing inspiration photos showing monochromatic silver siding with parapet walls. The design would use vertical metal panels with horizontal accent bands, creating what applicant Jess Knoyer described as "Apple inspired kind of styling where everything's like all one color, smooth, silver, clean." The site's unique constraints shaped every design decision. The building would sit just two feet back from the 20-foot-wide alley, the minimum required for maneuvering space. Any deeper setback would push into the shoreline buffer, potentially triggering regulatory battles with the Department of Ecology. "We might not be allowed, like DOE might say, well, you know, we don't want you encroaching further into the shoreline buffer of Whatcom Creek so people have more space to stand," Taishi cautioned. Board members wrestled with fundamental questions about their role in reviewing such a project. Chair Van Straten observed that two feet felt "a little bit inadequate in terms of providing a reasonable pedestrian experience for somebody to walk to their storage area," but acknowledged the environmental constraints. Board member Robert Wright pushed back more forcefully: "I think we're going overboard with that one, personally... Every building invites pedestrians, and you're not required to put a sidewalk on an alley." The debate exposed deeper philosophical divisions about design review's scope. "I feel like more so we're delving into code compliance type stuff with that topic. And that's not really our purview," Wright argued. Van Straten disagreed: "But we do review them to comply with the intent of those design review tenants... this alleyway is typically intended for back entrances. And we don't write the intents, but we live by them. And in terms of pedestrian applicability, there will be pedestrians that engage with this building." Board member Maggie Bates raised concerns about the building's visual impact, noting it would be visible from the street across a vacant parking lot. "When I first saw it is like, oh, wow, this looks like something you would see in an industrial park. And it's going right on the edge of Whatcom Creek," she said. Wright countered that visibility concerns were misplaced: "It's a garage on an alley... There's garages on alleys all over." The applicant acknowledged the building's utilitarian nature while emphasizing its unique circumstances. "This is just isn't what it's meant for. Let the staff handle the building. And if they're cool with it, I'm cool with it. It's a garage on an alley," Wright concluded. But Bates maintained her position: "I always take into account all the people that are in that building looking out at this right next to it... Does that not matter? It's a public building next door." City staff supported the current design and setback. Project planner Simran Dhaliwal confirmed that the two-foot setback met code requirements and had been recommended to minimize environmental impacts: "City supportive of the current location and the current setback. Yes, yeah, absolutely." The board ultimately agreed on one design improvement: raising the front parapet to match the 13-foot height of the side walls, eliminating what Van Straten called the "antennas" effect of the current design. This change would give the building "a larger sense of scale and presence" and allow for potential architectural detailing along the facade. Despite the philosophical divisions, the board recognized the project's environmental benefits. The remainder of the site would be placed in a conservation easement, preserving the vegetated creek buffer permanently. Stormwater from the small roof area would be clean runoff that would disperse naturally onto the slope toward the creek. The building required no water or sewer service, avoiding infrastructure impacts entirely. ## The Co-Housing Dilemma: Preserving History While Building Community The second proposal presented an entirely different set of challenges and a more painful trade-off between competing community values. Brian Bowen from Caddis Architecture in Boulder, Colorado, sought early design guidance for transforming the former school administration building at 1306 DuPont Street into a 40-50 unit co-housing community called 4th Corner Commons. Bowen brought both professional expertise and personal passion to the project, having lived in co-housing for 18 years in Boulder. "Part of my interest in co-housing is I've lived in Wild Sage Co-Housing in Boulder, Colorado, for about 18 years and raised my family there," he explained. "Co-housing is just people who are coming together to do something to design their own communities and build their own neighborhoods because they're generally not satisfied with what's available out there in the market from developers." The 1908 Rotar Building carried significant historical weight. As project planner Emi Scherer explained, "The building was built in 1908, and it is considered historically significant by National Historic Significance, State Historic Significance, and Local Historic Significance, although it's not listed on our local register." This status triggered mitigation requirements similar to critical areas regulations, requiring the applicant to first demonstrate that preservation wasn't economically feasible. The numbers were stark. Bowen revealed that a previous buyer had obtained cost estimates showing $8 million just for seismic upgrades and fire sprinkler installation—before addressing extensive lead and asbestos contamination or any actual conversion work. "So that's before you spend any money on lead and asbestos and before you convert the building," Bowen emphasized. "So the prices that we've seen on that push it many orders of magnitude out of our reach for having a feasible project if we try to save the building." The compromise solution would preserve only the building's most iconic element: the arched brick entryway facing DuPont Street. This facade would be integrated into a new common house, creating what Bowen described as "a curtain behind an actor on the stage" effect. The rest of the development would consist of residential buildings arranged around a central courtyard, designed to "create good texture" along the Ellsworth Street frontage with stoops and porches. Board members struggled with the loss of such a substantial historic building. "This feels like it's kind of where it lacks," Van Straten observed regarding the proposal's contribution to community identity. "The architectural identity of this neighborhood is the building that's getting knocked down. And so it feels artificial and really unfortunate that a building of such substance is going to get removed for a building with lower end finishes kind of in a similar configuration." Bates pushed for greater integration of historic materials and design elements. "If you're going to use that red brick and bring it into the archway underneath it, then continuing that red brick in some sort of an accent way around the rest of the building or at least in that front area would be kind of a nice way to unify the old and the new," she suggested. The board emphasized that any historic homage should be "really visible to the public too. DuPont Street specifically." The co-housing model itself presented interesting design challenges. Units would range from 650 to 1,500 square feet, deliberately modest to encourage community interaction in shared spaces. "Almost always, the homes in co-housing communities are smaller, and they share more things in the common spaces," Bowen explained. The legal structure would be a standard condominium association, with garages unbundled from individual units to maximize flexibility. Site constraints added complexity to the design process. Overhead power lines, utility easements, and access requirements created what Bowen called "a pretty big form driver." The development would need to negotiate shared access with the adjacent fire station while closing the existing curb cut on DuPont Street, an arterial where residential access is discouraged for safety reasons. The board focused heavily on street-level design quality, consistent with Bowen's own philosophy that "80% of the public experience, the pedestrian, vehicular, bicyclist experience is along the bottom 20% of the building." However, members also pushed for visual interest at the roofline, noting that the proposed buildings showed "super straight" profiles that lacked the variation common in neighborhood examples. "Right now, the way the height limit is set to get three stories in there, we don't have a lot of flexibility to get gables or things to happen in there, but we could, you know, maybe some part of it could like turn into an uplifted shed or something like that," Bowen responded, acknowledging the need for more architectural modulation. The garage building placement sparked particular debate. Van Straten expressed concern that extending the garages beyond the front building line would create visual dominance from the street and block views of the common house. "As you're walking down the street, it's just going to visually dominate the look from both directions," he argued. Bowen committed to providing street-view renderings to help the board evaluate the visual impact more accurately. Despite the challenges, board members appreciated the co-housing concept and the thoughtful site planning. The preservation of mature trees, the courtyard orientation, and the commitment to reusing historic materials where possible all earned positive comments. "The incorporation of the existing mature trees on the site is a great way to preserve natural features," the board noted. ## A Question of Boundaries and Values Both projects forced the Design Review Board to confront fundamental questions about their role and authority. The storage unit proposal challenged whether design guidelines should apply to utilitarian buildings with minimal public visibility, while the co-housing project demanded difficult choices between historic preservation and contemporary housing needs. The storage unit debate revealed philosophical divisions about design review scope. Wright argued for restraint: "This is a perfect example of why Washington kind of got rid of the subjectivity. Like, we could say that anything related to the site is related to pedestrians, therefore it's within our purview. But this one feels outside of what a design review board or the design of the building really should be having an opinion on." Van Straten countered that pedestrian experience remained relevant even on alley-facing buildings: "This alleyway is typically intended for back entrances... there will be pedestrians that engage with this building." The co-housing project generated less procedural debate but more anguished recognition of competing values. Board members clearly regretted the historic building's demolition while acknowledging the economic realities that made preservation infeasible. Their focus shifted to maximizing the new development's contribution to community character through material choices, architectural details, and public realm improvements. Both applicants received clear guidance for their next submissions. The storage facility needed to address the parapet height issue and provide better documentation of environmental constraints that limited setback options. The co-housing project needed to develop more detailed proposals for integrating historic materials, adding roofline variation, addressing garage placement concerns, and creating compelling street-level experiences. ## Closing & What's Ahead The meeting concluded with summaries of guidance for both projects. For the storage units, the board emphasized the single architectural improvement of consistent parapet heights while acknowledging the project's environmental constraints. For the co-housing development, the board provided a more extensive list of design priorities: historic material integration, visual interest additions, garage positioning reconsideration, and enhanced street-facing elements. Both projects would return for final design review once detailed plans were developed. The storage units faced additional regulatory hurdles with the Department of Ecology's shoreline review process, while the co-housing project would need to navigate complex utility easement negotiations and historic mitigation requirements. The December meeting demonstrated the Design Review Board's evolving role in Bellingham's urban development, balancing design excellence aspirations with practical site constraints and regulatory realities. Whether reviewing a simple storage facility or a complex residential community, the board maintained its focus on pedestrian experience, community character, and environmental responsibility—even when those values created difficult trade-offs. As the meeting adjourned, both development teams had clear direction for their next steps, and the board had reinforced its commitment to thoughtful design review that respects both community values and development realities. The discussions revealed a mature process that could handle both routine utility buildings and emotionally charged historic preservation dilemmas with equal attention to the public interest.