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POSTED: Monday, Oct. 20, 2008

Bellingham planners aim to limit infill in single-family neighborhoods

BELLINGHAM - The city should automatically allow 13 new housing types -including mother-in-law suites and cottage houses - in areas with apartments and shopping, but not among single-family houses, the city's planning director said.

His announcement has left some people asking: Then what's the point of creating new types of homes?

"I think they hold some of the greatest opportunity for use in the single-family neighborhoods," said Ted Mischaikov, a Bellingham developer who wants to build some of the new home types in north Cordata.

Meanwhile, residents concerned about harm to neighborhood character are pleased the planning director will recommend only allowing the new homes among single-family houses with City Council permission.

"Whew!!! I've been awfully worried. I really have," Columbia neighborhood resident Flip Breskin wrote in her neighborhood e-mail newsletter. "It's a subject that could either be wonderful for our whole community - City and County both, or a disaster for our single-family neighborhoods, depending on how it's implemented."

'INFILL TOOLKIT'

After hosting several planning academy meetings in April and May, Bellingham is drafting what it calls the 'Infill Toolkit,' new types of housing it hopes will be used to accommodate new residents inside city limits. The new home types range from small-lot houses and carriage houses over garages, to large mixed-use buildings.

Building them would help negate the need to expand city limits outward and would provide more affordable homes, officials say.

The city hired Seattle-based LMN Architects to help draft the toolkit.

The City Council and mayor get the final say on the toolkit housing and where those homes will go. Once a final toolkit ordinance is drafted and released, city staff expect to give neighborhoods two months to review it before taking it to the Planning Commission. Final approval by elected leaders isn't expected until 2009.

WHERE TO PUT THEM

On Sept. 18, city Planning Director Tim Stewart told the Planning Commission he recommends automatically allowing the toolkit homes in apartment and condominium zones, mixed-use districts and commercial zones. Existing housing density wouldn't be increased.

Under his proposal, landowners could put them in single-family zones only with City Council permission.

Nicole Oliver, communications coordinator for the planning department, said everything except for the toolkit's large mixed-use buildings automatically would be allowed in the apartment/condo, mixed-use and commercial zones.

On Sept. 11, after a meeting with neighborhood leaders, Oliver e-mailed planners with seven suggestions for the toolkit. One of them was "figure out how, if possible, to reassure neighborhoods that developers will not be able to run with these tools once they are on the books. How are we going to limit their use?"

Stewart said one of the comprehensive plan's goals is to preserve and protect single-family areas.

"The issue there is the concern and the fear on the part of some neighborhood representatives that we were going to apply the toolkit unilaterally across all of the districts, including the single family," he said.

DEVELOPER, NEIGHBOR REACTIONS

Mischaikov, who participated in the planning academy meetings, said he hoped the tools would be used throughout the city.

"By design, these tools are sensitive to neighborhood (character) and density. That's the essence of the toolkit, is to introduce new products into spaces with the goal of enhancement," he said.

The toolkit's concept of more flexibility isn't needed in the planned commercial-zoned areas or residential multi-family areas, because they already offer flexibility, he said, and the toolkit only provides a new way of thinking in single-family areas.

"I don't see it being put into use in those circumstances," he said.

But for some neighbors, Stewart's announcement was welcome news.

"I think people that are really concerned about that breathed a sigh of relief," said Edie Norton, president of the Columbia Neighborhood Association. In her largely single-family zoned Columbia neighborhood, where only about two vacant acres are buildable, mother-in-law suites and carriage houses might be the most likely to work, she said, although some neighbors fear crowding and lack of street parking.

COUNCIL APPROVAL

Under Stewart's proposal, landowners who want to build toolkit housing in single-family areas would have to apply to the city. Then, the Planning Commission and City Council would hold hearings before the council made a decision. The requests could be considered only once a year.

"This additional process in single-family areas is where I hope we can work with neighbors to find appropriate places for additional density and infill," Stewart wrote in a statement to neighborhoods.

But in the past, city leaders facing neighborhood opposition have rejected infill proposals.

Several Birchwood neighborhood residents in 2006 applied to the city to build new housing types on nine acres on single-family-zoned land west of Birchwood Elementary School. An early drawing showed 22 townhomes, four houses, 18 cottages and three bungalows, about 5.2 homes per acre.

Neighbors opposed it, saying it had too much density and was out of character with the rest of the neighborhood.

The City Council in March 2007 voted 6-0 to reject it, without discussing the project.