Property Tax Search
Real Briefings

Planning Committee

BEL-CON-PDV-2025-06-23 June 23, 2025 Planning Committee City of Bellingham 14 min
← Back to All Briefings
Jun
Month
23
Day
14
Min
Published
Status

The Planning Committee continued discussions on two major planning initiatives that will fundamentally reshape how Bellingham approaches land use regulation. The session focused on transitioning away from the current system of 25 neighborhood plans with over 400 sub-areas toward unified, citywide planning processes, and implementing new residential zoning frameworks required by state housing legislation. Staff presented compelling arguments for consolidating neighborhood plans into citywide approaches, emphasizing equity, efficiency, and administrative practicality. The Growth Management Act's demanding 10-year update cycles, combined with required buildable lands analysis every five years, make maintaining 25 separate plans increasingly impractical. Chris Behee noted that the city now processes thousands of permits annually compared to hundreds in the 1980s when neighborhood plans were created. The residential zoning discussion centered on implementing House Bill 1110's middle housing requirements through a simplified three-tier system: low, medium, and high residential densities. A critical development emerged when Blake Lyon announced that Senate Bill 5558 has accelerated implementation timelines, requiring adoption by December 31, 2025, rather than the previously expected mid-2026 deadline. Committee members expressed general support for the direction while raising important concerns about preserving neighborhood character and ensuring context-sensitive development. Lisa Anderson highlighted specific examples where neighborhood plans address unique site conditions, such as the York Neighborhood's live-work units along Alice Street. The discussion revealed tension between achieving citywide consistency and accommodating local variations.

This was a work session with no formal votes taken. Staff sought directional feedback on both agenda items and received general committee support for the proposed approaches. **AB 24585 - Neighborhood Plans:** Committee indicated comfort with the shift from neighborhood plans to citywide planning processes, with understand…

About 49% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →
**Neighborhood Plans Transition** Staff outlined how current neighborhood plan elements would be better addressed through existing citywide processes. Open space and parks priorities are now handled through the Parks Recreation and Open Space (PRO) Plan with citywide equity analysis. Utilities planning benefits from citywide engineering approaches that consider network efficiency across pressure zones rather than neighborhood boundaries. Transportation needs are addressed through bicycle/pedestrian master plans and the Transportation Improvement Plan with comprehensive network analysis. The most significant challenge identified was preserving neighborhood character narratives—the one element truly unique to neighborhood plans. Staff acknowledged this gap whi…
About 49% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →
**Committee Member Lisa Anderson** emphasized the value of neighborhood-specific planning, citing York Neighborhood's live-work units as an example of context-sensitive zoning that addresses unique topographic and infrastructure constraints. She advocated for transitional zones along transportation corridors similar to those around urban villages. **Committee Member Hannah Stone** expressed optimism about the citywide approach's potential for increased equity while seeking clarity on how neighborhood identity and character would be preserved outside of land use regulations. **Committee Chair Michael Lilliquist** supported the technical arguments for integratio…
About 50% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →
**Chris Behee, on administrative efficiency:** "When we're doing development review, we don't pull out the neighborhood plan and say, what did someone write down about this sub area 20 years ago or 30 years ago? We pull up city IQ, we run a property report, and we have all that current information at our fingertips." **Blake Lyon, on community values:** "Do we want to have the ability to accommodate housing for future generations and to be able to do these things and do it in a way that defin…
About 50% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →

**July 2025:** Staff will return with a comprehensive work plan showing approximately 12-13 different code provisions that need enactment to comply with state requirements. **December 31, 2025:** Final deadline for implementing House Bill 1110 middle housing regulations and related zoning changes, accelerated from the previous mid-2026 timeline due to Senate Bill 5558. **End of 2025:** Target adoption for …

About 50% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →
The meeting accelerated implementation timelines by six months due to newly discovered implications of Senate Bill 5558. Planning staff now must complete comprehensive plan adoption and housing regulation implementation simultaneously by December 31, 2025. The committee provided clear directional support for both the neighborhood plans transition and the three-tier residential zoning approach, allowing staff to proceed with detailed code development. The discussion establis…
About 49% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →
## Meeting Overview On June 23, 2025, the Bellingham City Council Planning Committee convened at 3:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers to tackle two of the most significant land use policy reforms the city has undertaken in decades. Committee Chair Michael Lilliquist presided, with Hannah Stone and Lisa Anderson present for what would become an hour and fourteen minutes of substantive discussion about the future of how Bellingham plans and regulates development. The meeting addressed two interconnected work sessions: first, the city's proposed shift away from 25 neighborhood-specific plans toward comprehensive citywide planning processes, and second, the implementation of state-mandated changes to residential zoning that will allow multiple housing units on all residential lots. Both discussions were continuations of conversations that began on May 5th, but with new urgency — the state legislature had accelerated the timeline for implementing these changes by six months, requiring completion by December 31, 2025, rather than the originally anticipated June 2026 deadline. What made this meeting particularly significant was the collision of state housing mandates with Bellingham's long-standing commitment to neighborhood character and grassroots planning. The discussion revealed tension between efficiency and local identity, between citywide equity and neighborhood uniqueness, and between administrative simplicity and community-specific needs. ## Retiring the Neighborhood Plans: A New Era for Bellingham Planning Chris Behee, Long Range Planning Manager, opened the substantive discussion by walking the committee through the case for retiring Bellingham's 25 neighborhood plans. These plans, some dating to the 1980s, currently govern land use decisions through a complex web of 343 sub-areas scattered across the city's neighborhoods. "We focused on the need to simplify the land use and regulatory structure that we find ourselves in," Behee explained, referencing the May 5th discussion. "We touched on the complexities of what's in the neighborhood plans... that kind of crazy visual graphic that we showed with all the different bubbles, there's the comp plan at the top. And then underneath that 25 neighborhood plan bubbles and 430 plus of those sub areas." The staff's argument centered on several key points: the current system creates inequities across neighborhoods, with different rules applying to similar situations depending on which side of a neighborhood b…
About 13% shown — sign up free to read the rest Sign up free →
### Meeting Overview The City Council Planning Committee met on June 23, 2025, to discuss two major shifts in Bellingham's planning approach: transitioning from 25 neighborhood plans to citywide planning processes, and restructuring residential zoning to implement state housing legislation. The committee focused on ensuring equity and consistency while preserving neighborhood character. ### Key Terms and Concepts **House Bill 1110:** Washington state legislation requiring cities to allow multiple housing units (middle housing) on all residential lots, with at least four units allowed outright. **Middle Housing:** Housing types between single-family homes and large apartments, including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and cottage clusters. **Growth Management Act (GMA):** State law requiring cities to update comprehensive plans every 10 years and conduct buildable lands analysis every 5 years. **Critical Areas Ordinance:** City regulations protecting wetlands, steep slopes, and other environmentally sensitive areas on a citywide basis. **Minimum Density:** Requirements that new subdivisions create lots small enough to ensure a certain number of housing units per acre. **Senate Bill 5558:** Recent state legislation that moved up the deadline for implementing housing regulations from June 2026 to December 2025. **Infill Toolkit:** Existing city regulations allowing context-sensitive development that staff will build upon for permanent middle housing rules. **City IQ:** The city's real-time database system that tracks current development conditions more efficiently than static neighborhood plans. ### Key People at This Meeting | Name | Role / Affiliation | |---|---| | Michael Lilliquist | Planning Committee Chair, Sixth Ward Council Member | | Hannah Stone | Committee Member, First Ward Council Member | | Lisa Anderson | Committee Member, Fifth Ward Council Member | | Blake Lyon | Planning & Community Development Director | | Chris Behee | Long Range Planning Manager | ### Background Context Bellingham has operated under 2…
About 49% shown — premium members only Upgrade to premium →

Share This Briefing

Tags & Connections

Land Use & Planning Housing Government Operations HB 1110 HB 1293 HB 1337 SB 5558 Bellingham School District Meridian School District Planning Commission Washington State Commerce Whatcom County Blake Lyon Chris Behee Hannah Stone Lisa Anderson Michael Lilliquist Accessory Dwelling Units Comprehensive Plan Equity Planning Growth Management Act Infill Development Middle Housing Neighborhood Plans Parks Recreation Residential Zoning Small Scale Commercial Transportation Corridors Urban Villages Utilities Planning Zoning