16 townhouses proposed near these single-family homes in Bellingham
A mobile home and detached garage in Bellingham’s King Mountain neighborhood will soon be demolished to make room for a 16-unit townhouse development in three separate buildings.
One building will have seven units, another will have five units and the third will have four units. The townhouses will be subdivided into individual lots for sale to individual buyers, according to Bellingham-based AVT Consulting, the permit consultant company for the project.
The project will be located at 4179 James Street off East Bakerview Road. Each unit will be three stories with two bedrooms and an attached, two-car garage.
Additional guest stalls for parking will be provided along the driveway access road to the units.
The townhouses will be built as an infill toolkit project. Infill housing uses remaining residential land by focusing on vacant and underused space, according to the city of Bellingham’s website.
“Especially on tighter sites, infill allows us to be a little bit more creative with how we develop the site,” said AVT’s Jack Bloss in a telephone interview with The Bellingham Herald.
The rest of the site will remain undeveloped and put in a conservation easement to preserve critical areas on the south side of the property. There are several wetlands on the site but AVT is consolidating much of the project to avoid directly impacting those areas.
In order to mitigate any indirect impact on the wetlands, the site will likely undergo wetland restoration.
“A lot of that is just helping the site to be made natural again,” Bloss said.
Some existing residents living in single-family homes on the east and west sides of the property expressed concerns about losing privacy as a result of the height of the new buildings, according to Bloss.
“We’re growing a really thick vegetative buffer along the east and the west side near the development,” Bloss told The Herald. “Whether it’s soon after it’s developed or at least a few years later, the plants will have grown and they’ll shield the tenants in these buildings from those houses and vice versa.”
Other residents expressed concerns about increased traffic as that area continues to be developed so AVT proposed widening the road that connects the townhouses to James Street in order to allow for two-way traffic.
Permitting for the project is ongoing with a goal of beginning construction by 2024.
