WA: Bellingham City Council approves one-year pause on parking minimums for new construction

Bellingham developers won't have to provide off-street parking for new construction projects for one year, under an interim measure that city officials said they hope will jump-start the housing market.

In a 5-2 vote Monday, the City Council agreed to waive minimum parking requirements under an interim measure that takes effect Jan. 28.

Council members Michael Lilliquist and Lisa Anderson dissented. Anderson said that she wanted any parking waiver to carry requirements for construction of affordable housing.

"This is a big step forward," said Councilman Jace Cotton, the only renter on the council.

Anderson also said she was looking for a more "strategic" measure.

"All neighborhoods are not created equal. We do not have the infrastructure in some areas to create bikeable, walkable neighborhoods," she said.

Other council members said they felt that the measure will encourage construction of so-called "workforce" housing for middle-income residents, the kind of residential construction that's most needed locally.

"It's a reform that's proven to spur housing construction," Huthman said. "We stopped building in the Great Recession and that had some really detrimental effects. We stopped building, but people didn't stop coming. There is no keeping people out, if we even attempt to try to limit the growth, the only people that can to afford to live here will be the rich people and we don't want that."

During an hourlong public hearing before Monday's vote, several Bellingham residents voiced support for the ordinance and a few spoke against it.

Owen Begley-Collier of Bellingham echoed city officials, who said off-street parking lots take up nearly 20% of the land in downtown Bellingham.

"Excess parking eats up space, spreading out our city, covering the land with impervious surfaces which pollutes our waterways with toxic runoff when it rains. Perhaps even more significantly, surface parking fuels our reliance on cars, one of the main drivers of the climate crisis," Begley-Collier said.

Eliminating minimum parking requirements is part of a "suite" of reforms proposed by Mayor Kim Lund on Nov. 21, when she challenged the City Council to act quickly to encourage housing construction.

Parking reform is part of a new way of thinking among urban planners and politicians nationwide, an effort to create a stronger feeling of community in cities and neighborhoods by coaxing residents out of their cars and emphasizing travel by bus, bike and on foot.

Blake Lyon, director of the the city's Planning and Community Development Department, told the City Council that parking reforms can boost residential construction by 40% to 70%.

The measure will allow developers to offer only the amount of parking that they think their tenants will need. The average cost to build a .parking space in Washington is $24,600, Lyon said in a memo to the council.

Because the parking reform measure is an interim ordinance, it will allow city officials to examine its effects and make changes if they are necessary, Lyon said.

Randall Stamm of Bellingham opposed the measure, calling it a "Band-Aid" approach that will force apartment tenants to park on nearby residential streets.

"If you want people to get out of their cars and onto mass transit, this is probably the worst way to do it. People drive less when mass transit can compete with their car," Stamm said. He said Bellingham's bus system isn't providing that level of service.

Some speakers feared the measure's effect on people who rely on handicapped parking.

Disabled activist Kyann Flint told council members that "removing parking minimums will ostracize and discriminate against many disabled individuals."

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