## Meeting Overview The May 21, 2025 meeting of Bellingham's Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Commission was dominated by a detailed presentation from Planning Director Blake Lyon and Senior Planner Chris about the city's comprehensive plan update and the future of neighborhood plans. The evening-long discussion revealed deep tensions between the city's push for streamlined, citywide planning and residents' concerns about preserving neighborhood character while managing growth pressures from state-mandated housing laws. The meeting drew commissioners representing neighborhoods across Bellingham, from established areas like York and Fairhaven to newer developments like King Mountain. What emerged was a complex conversation about equity, housing affordability, development pressures, and the balance between simplifying regulations and maintaining local identity. ## The End of Neighborhood Plans as Regulatory Documents The central revelation of the evening was that Bellingham's 25 neighborhood plans, some dating back to 1980, will no longer be adopted by reference in the city's updated comprehensive plan. These documents, along with their 435 individual land use sub-areas, represent what Chris described as a "beehive" of regulatory complexity that city staff can no longer effectively administer. Chris explained that the current system requires staff to navigate numerous documents for any given project: "You can imagine opening up many, many documents—used to be spreading out the binders on the counter downstairs, and now it's opening up all the windows on the computer and trying to navigate through them." This complexity, he argued, creates barriers for both residents trying to understand what can happen in their neighborhoods and builders attempting to navigate the system. The neighborhood plans emerged from a different era—the late 1970s and early 1980s—when Bellingham was processing a few hundred building permits per year rather than today's 800-1,000 annually. The participation in creating these plans was "largely predicated on property owner notification," meaning rental populations and lower-income residents were underrepresented in the original planning conversations. While the plans will lose their regulatory power, the physical documents will remain on the city's website as historical references. The zoning and infrastructure information will be maintained in electronic format through the city's geographic interface system. ## State Housing Mandates Drive Change The push to eliminate neighborhood plans stems partly from new state legislation that fundamentally changes how cities must plan for housing. House Bill 1110, passed in 2023, allows up to four housing units on any residential lot citywide, with up to six units if some are affordable. House Bill 1220 requires cities to plan for housing by income level—lower, moderate, and upper income bands—something Bellingham has never done before. Blake Lyon emphasized that these changes aim to create "more housing and a wider range of housing types, and a wider range of housing price points." The state is also pushing cities to "grow up instead of out," concentrating development within existing urban boundaries. Chris noted that these state mandates make many neighborhood plan regulations obsolete: "Adopting the neighborhood plans by reference under the Bellingham Plan at the end of this year would mean that we were internally inconsistent with our land use regulations and our comprehensive plan." ## Community Concerns About Gentrification and Displacement Several commissioners raised sharp concerns about the potential for outside developers to exploit the new regulations. One participant worried about "opening the door to the wolves," noting the "financialization of the real estate market" over the past 20 years. The concern centered on absentee landlords and LLCs buying up properties without local ownership requirements. Another commissioner shared worries about "people from Texas" or other out-of-state investors "wiping out neighborhoods and making blocks and blocks of absentee landlords." This fear reflects broader anxieties about losing Bellingham's character to generic development. The city has built in some protections: the multifamily tax exemption program doesn't apply if historic homes over 50 years old are demolished, and middle housing regulations offer density bonuses for retaining existing structures. Any units created within existing home envelopes don't count against the four-unit limit, incentivizing preservation over teardowns. However, these concerns highlight a fundamental tension: the regulations are designed to increase housing options and affordability, but residents worry the primary beneficiaries will be investors rather than local families seeking homeownership opportunities. ## Equity and Representation Challenges The presentation repeatedly emphasized equity as a driving force behind the changes, but commissioners questioned what equity means in practice. One participant noted that renters—who don't own property—have little voice in decisions about what gets built on land owned by others. The binary choice for renters is simply whether to rent in a particular place or move elsewhere. Chris acknowledged ongoing challenges in community engagement: "55% of our responses were not from renters, so it doesn't represent the population of Bellingham." Despite targeted outreach to marginalized communities through organizations like VAMOS and sessions at places like Via Santa Fe, rental populations remain underrepresented in planning processes. The city established a community work group with a dozen representative residents who met eleven times over a year, helping test presentation materials and providing policy input. This group was more than 50% renters and included diverse ages, genders, and income levels, offering a model for future engagement. ## From Neighborhood Complexity to Citywide Simplicity The technical heart of the presentation showed Bellingham's current regulatory maze: 25 neighborhood plans, 25 corresponding zoning tables, 435 sub-areas with unique regulations, plus various infrastructure and master plans. The goal is to collapse this into a single citywide zoning table, similar to how most Washington cities operate. Chris used an example from the Samish or Puget neighborhood where a 1990s density bonus for affordable housing was designed for a small sub-area. The property owner instead built six single-family homes, rendering the complex affordable housing regulations useless for over 20 years. Such examples illustrate how site-specific regulations often fail while creating ongoing administrative burden. The city has already begun standardization, reducing 60 residential multi-zones to just three types in 2021. The middle housing implementation will similarly consolidate single-family zones, which all become middle housing zones under state law. Urban village plans will remain separate, as they've been updated more recently and have more standardized approaches. The institutional master plans for Western Washington University, Whatcom Community College, and the hospital will also continue as separate documents. ## Infrastructure and Services Coordination Commissioner Chelsea from King Mountain raised concerns about coordinating housing growth with infrastructure needs. Her neighborhood lacks an elementary school, though new development continues rapidly. Chris explained that the city maintains active relationships with the Bellingham School District, sharing growth projections and housing type information to help with capital facility planning. The school district tracks enrollment data and student generation rates for different housing types, adjusting their planning accordingly. As they update their capital facilities plan alongside the city's comprehensive plan update, they can anticipate where new schools might be needed. This coordination extends to other services—the city works with the Meridian School District for areas north of Horton Road, and infrastructure planning considers transit needs, sidewalks, and utilities alongside housing development. ## Small-Scale Commercial in Residential Areas One significant policy shift allows small-scale commercial uses in all residential areas—corner markets, healthcare uses, childcare facilities, and other services within walking distance of homes. This represents a departure from strict residential-only zoning toward mixed-use neighborhoods. The regulations will create "a carefully curated set of regulations" governing parking, hours, noise, and other compatibility concerns, but the goal is enabling neighborhood-serving businesses without requiring car trips for basic services. This change aligns with the overall strategy of accommodating more housing while creating more complete neighborhoods with services nearby. ## Tree Preservation Versus Housing Development Commissioner Michael raised the ongoing conflict between infill development and tree preservation. Chris acknowledged that comprehensive plans inherently contain conflicting priorities: "In some cases, trees will be more important, and in other cases, things like housing will be more important." The challenge involves finding context-sensitive solutions—the south end of Bellingham has many more trees than the north end, so approaches will vary by area. The principle of "right tree, right place" will guide decisions based on development type, existing canopy, and neighborhood needs. Rather than resolving the conflict, the comprehensive plan provides criteria for evaluating competing priorities on a case-by-case basis. ## Banking and Financing Barriers One commissioner highlighted an often-overlooked obstacle: banking practices that force small businesses and homeowners to work with developers rather than accessing direct financing. Examples included the food co-op and Village Books, both required to use developer-built spaces they then lease back rather than owning their buildings directly. This pattern could extend to individual homeowners wanting to add housing units to their properties, potentially limiting the community-ownership benefits the regulations are meant to create. ## Senior Needs and Accessibility The discussion concluded with emphasis on senior housing needs, particularly parking for caregivers and accessibility to services and parks. As Bellingham's senior population grows countywide, ensuring adequate transportation access becomes crucial for preventing isolation. One commissioner stressed: "Seniors need access to a car, to their property where they're living, or to a park, or whatever, because otherwise they can't get there. Otherwise we're making private parks, and we're isolating seniors." ## Looking Forward The comprehensive plan update must be completed by the end of 2025 to meet state deadlines. The neighborhood plans will not be readopted, but the transition to simplified citywide regulations will take several years. Industrial, commercial, and other zone standardization will follow residential zone consolidation. Despite losing their regulatory power, neighborhoods remain important to Bellingham's identity. As one participant noted, "It's the people that make that neighborhood. It's not the paper document." The challenge ahead is maintaining that neighborhood character and community engagement without the technical documents that have structured local planning for over 40 years. The evening revealed Bellingham at a crossroads—balancing state mandates for housing growth, community desires for neighborhood character, equity concerns about who benefits from development, and practical challenges of managing a complex city through simplified regulations. The success of this transition will depend on whether the city can deliver on promises of community engagement, affordable housing creation, and neighborhood preservation while implementing one of the most significant regulatory changes in decades. --- *Real Briefings Full Meeting Narrative v1.1 | Real Housing Reform Initiative | realhousingreform.org*