How Bellingham’s Planning Department Quietly Took Over Housing

The Untouchables: How Bellingham’s Planning Department Quietly Took Over Housing

The Most Powerful Department You Never Voted For

Everywhere you look, Bellingham is talking about housing. Affordability. Density. Infill. Middle housing. Climate goals. Transit corridors. But almost nobody talks about the most powerful force shaping all of this:

The Planning Department

The department that decides:

• What gets built

• What cannot be built

• How long permits take

• How many homes can exist in each neighborhood

• Which projects move forward

• Which ones never see daylight

• What percentage of "critical areas" they want to assess.

And here’s the part the City doesn’t want the public to understand:

There are no guardrails on Planning’s power. No independent oversight. No accountability when they’re wrong.

And in 2025, that power is being used to quietly end the era of detached single-family homes in Bellingham.

The February Meeting That Told the Truth

At the February Planning Commission meeting, staff did something they rarely do: They said the quiet part out loud. A slide appeared declaring:

Exclusionary Housing Policy.

This is the moment the City crossed from “we value housing choice 'to' we have decided what housing is allowed.”

The justification? “Most people can’t afford them.” Let's set aside the fact that the planning department is one of the reasons housing is as unaffordable as it is, but the same staff started in on the MIDDLE HOUSING HUSTLE™ where they say that it's between single family detached homes and apartments, in styles and prices.

Except they know they are lying. Every style, except for real townhomes, is not more affordable, nor can they even be owned like a single-family detached home. Middle housing is just REBRANDED MULTI-FAMILY RENTALS, plus:

• Middle housing isn’t affordable either

• Construction costs haven’t dropped

• Impact fees are rising

• Permitting adds months or years

• Financing small plexes is harder than financing homes

The problem isn’t single-family housing. The problem is that the Planning Department removed every path to build it affordably.

Say 'goodbye' to the detached single family home

This is what "single family unit" is referring to in the new 2025 Comprehensive Plan for Bellingham

This is what the Planning Department will be calling "single-family units" going forward. So when you see "6000 units" they are assigning 2.5 per person to each, including ADU's. But don't assume "single family detached" existed anymore, the erasure of the standard ownable home, it purposefully being grouped into mult family rentals.

A Contradiction the City Can’t Explain

On the same slide, Planning stated:

"The 25 single-family neighborhoods are not part of the Bellingham Plan."

Everything except apartments or co-living housing will be built in the SINGLE-FAMILY NEIGHBORHOODS!

Except they very much are — because the City’s own numbers in the 2025 Comprehensive Plan show 6,000 middle housing units being placed directly into those same SFR neighborhoods.

You cannot say SFR neighborhoods “aren’t part of the plan” while targeting them for the majority of future citywide density. This is manipulation and deception disguised as planning.

Permitting: The Hidden Weapon

Planning doesn’t need to “ban” single-family development. They kill it through requirements.

Want to split a 2-acre parcel into 9 lots? Build a 600-foot sidewalk to nowhere.

Want to create starter homes? Add full street frontage, oversized stormwater facilities, and utility extensions.

Meanwhile, another favored builder can deliver:

• 19 units on less than an acre

• No sidewalks

• One driveway

• No off-site requirements

• Direct stormwater connection

Same rules.Very different enforcement. That’s not a market. That’s a gatekeeping system.

The Real Crisis Isn’t Housing — It’s Planning

For 20 years, the Planning Department missed housing targets, restricted land supply, and blocked annexations that were supposed to provide thousands of homes.

Now the same department wants the public to believe:

• Single-family homes are immoral

• Middle housing will save affordability

• Parking is unnecessary

• Density creates affordability

• Renters replacing homeowners is a “benefit”

• The city must shrink to be “financially sustainable”

These are political positions — not facts.

And they’re being implemented by unelected staff with no public vote.

What Happens When a Department Has No Oversight

Take any other city function: Fire cannot rewrite the fire code unilaterally. Police cannot rewrite criminal law without legislation. Parks cannot annex land without approval. Public Works cannot raise taxes at will.

But Planning?

They can rewrite zoning, redefine neighborhoods, eliminate housing types, and reshape the entire city — and the public has no mechanism to stop it. Here is a perfect example

They use “townhome” as a political marketing word

Because “fourplex” and “stacked flats” don’t poll well, staff relabeled middle-housing categories using the friendlier word “townhome,” despite those structures not meeting the legal definition of a townhouse under the International Residential Code (IRC).

Under the IRC, a townhouse must:

• Be attached to single-family dwellings

• Each unit must be built on its own, individually platted lot

• Each must extend from foundation to roof

• Require 1-hour fire separation wall assemblies

• Require independent structural systems

• Must qualify for Fannie/Freddie fee-simple mortgage financing

But the “townhomes” in Bellingham’s planning docs:

• Are not on separate lots (many are one parcel with multiple units)

• Cannot be sold individually

• Are not fee-simple ownership

• Often share parking, access, and utilities

• Often qualify only for commercial financing, not residential mortgages

• Are effectively small apartments branded as “townhomes”

Staff uses the word because it sounds like ownership. But the product being delivered is overwhelmingly rental.

The City uses “townhome” in the Housing Survey and Comp Plan as an ownership-sounding filler

Even though the housing pipeline shows:

• Mostly rental plexes

• Mostly multifamily in single ownership

• Virtually no buildable, saleable townhouses under the legal definition

From the Housing Survey snippet: “single-family, duplex, triplex, townhome, and small apartment…” But this is descriptive — not definitional — and doesn’t match code reality.

The City uses “townhome” to inflate ‘ownership compatible housing’ numbers

This is part of the broader misrepresentation where:

• ADUs are counted as "units"

• DADUs are counted as "ownership-compatible"

• Townhomes (in name only) are lumped with SFR in “missing middle” categories

• But very few are actually fee-simple homes you can buy

Bellingham is using “townhome” as a deceptive label to make dense rental housing appear like an ownership product.

• It violates the International Building Code definition

• It violates Fannie/Freddie townhouse financing rules

• It violates RCW expectations for ownership options in planning

• It misleads the public into thinking these are “affordable starter homes,” when legally they are multifamily rentals

That is extraordinary power. And right now in Bellingham, it is being used aggressively.

Conclusion: Bellingham Doesn’t Have a Housing Problem — It Has a Planning Problem

The crisis isn’t the market.It isn’t builders.It isn’t homeowners.It isn’t renters. It’s a Planning Department that:

• Calls single-family homes exclusionary

• Removes them from the city’s growth plan

• Delivers 6,000 middle housing units into SFR areas

• Manipulates public language

• Delays permits

• Chooses winners and losers

• Faces no accountability

When one department holds this much control over a city’s housing future — and no one is watching — affordability is not just unlikely.

It is impossible.

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