Issaquah’s light rail station, the last stop on the future 4 Line extending to South Kirkland on its other end, was approved by voters in 2016 as part of the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) ballot measure. Originally slated to be completed by 2041, that timeline has since slipped to 2044. City officials are now voicing concerns about additional delays or even potential changes to the scope of the project, as Sound Transit tries to grapple with a $34 billion budget shortfall within its long-range financial plan.

Wearing a custom purple t-shirt — the color designating the 4 Line on current plan maps — Mullet tried to galvanize the support of the crowd, framing light rail as an opportunity that the entire Eastside can’t let fall by the wayside.

“I know for a lot of people who live in the Seattle area, we might be an afterthought, but this is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes to end the transit desert in East King County,” Mullet said. “I worked in London for five years, in New York City for five years. Transit gives you the opportunity to create really vibrant, walkable retail villages. And this is the opportunity we have right now, in this I-90 corridor, both north and south, to create something magical in Issaquah.”

A former State Senator, Mullet won a race to become Issaquah’s Mayor after an unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2024, trying to carve out a moderate lane statewide and garnering just over 6% of the vote. It was a return to local government for Mullet, who has served on the Issaquah City Council from 2009 to 2012. Since taking office last month, he has turned a focus on light rail into a top priority.

In an op-ed this week in The Urbanist, Councilmembers Kelly Jiang and Kevin Nichols joined Mullet to lay out a path that they think could lead to Issaquah’s light rail line being built more cheaply and efficiently, by ditching planned parking garages, utilizing public right-of-way along I-90, and connecting more directly to the existing 2 Line at South Bellevue. And they made the case that Sound Transit’s ridership forecasts, very modest in comparison to other ST3 lines, aren’t taking into account Issaquah’s full potential.

“Ridership projections for the corridor are based on moderate extrapolations from today’s land use and ridership areas: the big-box stores, the parking lots, the office parks,” the three elected officials wrote. “However, infrastructure is generational. The question is not what Central Issaquah alone looks like now. It is what the Eastside overall looks like in 50 to 100 years with this connection versus without it.”

Advocacy is not stopping at Tuesday’s meeting. Direct visits to Sound Transit board meetings from area residents via a city-funded shuttle are planned next over the coming weeks, with free T-shirts handed out to any resident planning to testify. The board’s March 18 retreat was noted as a red-letter date, though public comment likely won’t be accepted at that all-day strategy session, where board members are expected to truly start to grapple with the “building blocks” that will determine the future of light rail in the region.

Tuesday’s event was kicked off by Fred Butler, Issaquah’s former Mayor and a member of the Sound Transit board from 2003 to 2017. As chair of the board’s Capital Committee, the predecessor of today’s System Expansion Committee, Butler is credited with securing Issaquah’s place in the ST3 plan. Today, Issaquah has no direct representation on the Sound Transit board, with Renton Councilmember Ed Prince and Redmond Mayor Angela Birney representing Eastside cities, alongside County Councilmember Claudia Balducci.

“A light rail station in Issaquah, where our growth is projected to be, will serve as a transit hub for our neighbors east, south, north and west, east for North Bend and Snoqualmie, south to Maple Valley and those communities — certainly to Issaquah, where Costco international headquarters is located, and to Bellevue College, where a lot of our residents and students go for Running Start and other programs,” Butler told the crowd. “Many of those communities that I mentioned are really transit deserts, but light rail would provide the opportunity to provide transit to those communities and to bring them to the transit hub located in the central part of our city. Light rail to Issaquah will really connect all of us to the regional light rail system.”

Mullet has stated that he remains neutral on the issue of the 4 Line’s other end, an independent spur between Wilburton Station in Bellevue and South Kirkland. But his advocacy is drawing notice on the shores of Lake Washington, with Mayor Kelli Curtis writing Mullet on February 17 to express “strong concerns.”

“[A]ny discussion about altering project scopes should be grounded in a process that genuinely reflects broad regional priorities and maintains the integrity of system connectivity approved by voters. If Sound Transit must evaluate project changes, the region should work collaboratively to ensure such changes still meet the collective needs of the region,” Curtis wrote. “To that end, Kirkland cannot support a proposal that would terminate the 4 Line in South Bellevue and eliminate direct connections to Downtown Bellevue and South Kirkland. Truncating the line in that manner would materially diminish network performance and diverge from what voters approved.”

Curtis’s letter demonstrates how quickly local advocacy can turn into negotiations with nearby cities who are also eager to see light rail brought to their communities. Ten years ago, Kirkland residents fought against the idea of a direct transit connection to Kirkland’s growth centers being included in the ST3 plan, as city officials pushed for a bus rapid transit plan instead of light rail. The result was a light rail station that barely enters into the city, with Kirkland’s growth plans relying much more on the planned Stride line along I-405 with stops at NE 85th Street, Totem Lake, and Brickyard Park and Ride.

“No part of our proposal is suggesting we don’t connect Kirkland to the Bellevue line. We are simply speaking for what we can control – which is how Issaquah can connect to Bellevue at the most efficient point and route – which we think is I-90 right of way and South Bellevue.  Nothing in our proposal would impact Kirkland,” Mullet told The Urbanist via a statement. “It would be up to Kirkland to see if they also have ideas on how to lower costs on their leg of the line to connect to Bellevue – we don’t feel comfortable making those suggestions for them. We look forward to working with Kirkland and Bellevue together with Sound Transit in the coming months to develop cost savings ideas and ensure the future alignment addresses the needs of the Eastside.”

While Issaquah’s advocacy may or may not ultimately be enough to push against the significant financial pressures that Sound Transit is facing, it’s clear that the purple shirts will not be going away any time soon.

The post Eastsiders Pack ‘Save Issaquah Light Rail’ Rally first appeared on The Urbanist.

An idea advanced by then-Mayor Lynne Robinson late last year before being fleshed out by City staff, the Interim Official Controls (IOC) will be in place for at least six months, with the council set to consider a longer-term framework for redevelopment in Old Bellevue during that time.

Under the new regulations, redevelopment can still move forward along Main Street, but a property owner must establish that the façade of existing building is less than 50 years old or has “no historic or cultural value” before it can be demolished. Even if it meets one of those two criteria, the new code requires new buildings that are “between or among” older buildings to have reconstructed façades that match those nearby structures, not just in scale but in features and composition.

“New façades built between or among existing structures that are 50 years old or older are required to design the rebuilt façade, up to the second floor, to align with adjacent façades and cornices, storefront entrances, and windows to be compatible with the unique design features of the built environment facing Main Street,” the approved ordinance states. “From the street level up to the second floor of the project, façade building materials, construction methods, building proportions and architectural devices must incorporate and reflect the design of façades in the IOC area that are 50 years old or older.

These two blocks of Main Street just south of Downtown Bellevue Park are already a hodgepodge of low-rise commercial structures next to newer mixed-use developments. Around 10 of the parcels directly fronting two-lane Main Street are home to buildings over 50 years old, though some of those buildings may have newer façades.

Last year, the Vander Hoek Corporation submitted preliminary plans for an eight-story mixed use building on one of the largest parcels left to be developed, currently home to several small businesses including Matcha Magic, Glassybaby, and Araya’s Place Vegan Thai. That permit submittal appears to be a major driving force behind these interim controls; the building moving forward now won’t be required to adhere to any of these new standards since it’s already in the pipeline, vesting to previous regulations.

Of course, any requirements for façade preservation don’t ensure the aim of maintaining the elements of Main Street that most contribute to its character: the small businesses. While the control aims to maintain the area’s pedestrian-oriented configuration, any new commercial storefronts will likely be more expensive than the existing rents in the older buildings, and there are no requirements for storefront size, a major factor behind rent.

With an interim control in place, any property owners still eyeing redevelopment would be likely to hold off on submitting potential redevelopment plans until they know whether any permanent regulations are more favorable toward a future project. At Tuesday’s meeting, staff confirmed that the City of Bellevue was aware of no active projects on deck in the affected area — beyond the unaffected Vander Hoek proposal.

“We know from annual surveys that Old Bellevue is one of the most popular areas in Bellevue, and it’s a strong economic tool for our city. And as a council, we unanimously voted to retain the character of Old Bellevue at, I think, our last retreat, or the one before that,” Robinson said Tuesday. “My reason for wanting the IOC is so that we don’t get a rush to permitting before any decision is made. I don’t want to see people submitting permits really quickly just to get out from under any recommendation, or any legislation that we do. I’m not interested — I don’t think anyone’s interested — in restricting development.”

On the other side of the argument, Councilmember Jared Nieuwenhuis argued that the city shouldn’t be singling out one specific area, and made it clear that he doesn’t see the need for such swift action when it comes to Old Main.

“Old Bellevue is a treasure and certainly worth protecting. We’re all, I think, all on the same page there. However, I do not see an emergency here. And that’s why I’m not in favor of an IOC. I don’t think it’s been clearly articulated why we need one,” Councilmember Jared Nieuwenhuis, who voted no along with Dave Hamilton and Claire Sumadiwirya. “This council has, time and time again, put a strong emphasis and priority on affordable housing. To carve out Old Bellevue, to say, ‘anywhere in the city, except for here,’ just to me kind of smacks of elitism, and I think we should stick to our goal of trying to find as many affordable units as possible in our city.”

Agreeing with Nieuwenhuis, Hamilton also raised the potential issue of other neighborhoods in Bellevue clamoring for interim controls after these regulations are put into place. Sumadiwirya, who owns a small business elsewhere in Downtown Bellevue, cited unpredictability for business owners along Main Street as her rationale for opposing the move.

But for the four councilmembers who voted to adopt the control, the short-term nature of the restriction appeared to make the pros vastly outweigh any of the cons.

“I think Old Bellevue is one of the few places in our city that still feels like a very traditional, old Bellevue,” Mayor Mo Malakoutian said. “If you ask 10 people who live in Seattle, if they come here for the Container Store or for Old Bellevue, it is the only place, one of the only places that we have [that] is a human scale, is walkable, is rooted in the city’s early history. And I understand why there is a concern about maybe losing that feeling, losing that vibe.”

The Council was unanimous in wanting to consider the future of Main Street as part of the upcoming “Downtown Livability 2.0” program that was already on its workplan. That effort, which seeks to coordinate regulations intended to enhance Downtown Bellevue in alignment with the city’s massive Grand Connection project, is expected to launch this spring but not wrap for another year. That means these six-month regulations are likely going to be up for renewal later this year.

The post Bellevue Adds Hurdles to Old Main Redevelopment to Preserve ‘Cultural Value’ first appeared on The Urbanist.

The planned South Kirkland-to-Issaquah Link line would terminate in Issaquah’s underutilized central core, which remains dominated by big box stores and parking lots despite longstanding plans to spur housing growth. The project would connect to the 2 Line in Bellevue via I-90, with two additional stations at Eastgate and Richards Road. A spur north of Wilburton Station would also connect to the South Kirkland Park and Ride, with that entire corridor opening as the 4 Line.

It’s scheduled to be the last light rail project to start construction as part of the ST3 package approved by voters in 2016, with a grand opening date pushed from 2041 to 2044 as a result of Sound Transit’s last attempt to deal with a financial shortfall five years ago.

Sound Transit is now grappling with another financial crisis and working to close a $34 billion shortfall over the next two decades. As a result, Mullet is clearly concerned that the board will turn to the Issaquah line to trim costs. At a meeting Monday night with the Issaquah City Council, he laid out his administration’s approach to keeping things on track, which includes trying to persuade Sound Transit that there are major ways to cut costs that will still allow light rail to come to Central Issaquah, along with what he called a “full court press.”

In addition to hosting a community meeting in Issaquah on February 24, city leaders are gearing up to make a strong showing at upcoming Sound Transit board meetings, including the February 26 full board meeting and the board’s daylong retreat on March 18. At that retreat, the board is expected to start to dig into scenarios that could bring the agency’s long-range financial plan back into alignment.

Originally planned as a $3.3 billion project, the 4 Line has ballooned in cost, along with the rest of Sound Transit’s portfolio, and is now expected to cost anywhere from $5.6 billion to $6.3 billion. While a less expensive line than most of the others planned as part of ST3, it’s also projected to see the lowest number of riders.

Estimates from 2016, likely somewhat outdated at this point, projected 12,000 to 15,000 daily riders using stations between South Kirkland and Issaquah, compared to 37,000 to 45,000 riders between Lynnwood and Everett and 25,000 to 27,000 between West Seattle and Downtown, confirmed in that project’s recent environmental review.

“My whole focus here is to try to approach our light rail segment very differently than, I think, a lot of other communities, where a lot of different segments are asking for changes that drive up the cost and make it a little more complicated. And we’re trying to do the opposite. We’re trying to find suggestions that actually lower the cost and make it easier to build,” Mullet told The Urbanist.

Before being elected Issaquah’s Mayor last fall after a failed gubernatorial run in 2024, Mullet had previously served on the Issaquah City Council from 2009 to 2012 and then served 12 years in the Washington Senate. While his time in the Senate earned Mullet animosity from many of the region’s progressives, support for bringing Sound Transit to Issaquah has been a through line in his career. In 2016, he defeated an anti-light rail challenger for his Senate seat at the very same election that voters approved the overall ST3 package.

Mullet laid out three potential strategies that could gain cost savings for Issaquah Link: ditching any new parking garages, maximizing the amount of the line that lies within WSDOT right-of-way, and optimizing the connection to the existing 2 Line around South Bellevue. He also sees the stop at Richards Road as something that could potentially be dropped, much like a provisonal stop at Lakemont that is unlikely to be built anytime soon.

“I think we’re making an argument, as we met with Julie Meredith, the head of WSDOT, that you could run a line basically using almost exclusively the WSDOT right-of-way,” Mullet told the Council Monday. “And so you’d have to figure out where it ends, but if you’re going to end on WSDOT right-of-way, it’s very likely in the middle of I-90 with some sort of pedestrian overpass. And then you would have a stop at Eastgate, and then you could connect to Bellevue at what is the most cost efficient connection point, which we think would be South Bellevue, most likely.”

Sound Transit’s preliminary design does not interline with South Bellevue Station due to difficulty with the soil conditions and geometry in the Mercer Slough area. Instead, East Main would be the where the Issaquah line ties in to 2 Line, under the agency’s concept, which Mullet appears to be second guessing.

An I-90 median station has a clear precedent in Judkins Park and Mercer Island Stations, but is a harder sell for riders who might not like waiting for a train in the middle of a highway, and leaves out the potential for a station truly at the heart of a walkable neighborhood. But in addition to potentially being cheaper, Mullet painted a median station as providing equal access to the areas both north and south of the highway, long primed for redevelopment.

“I think our vision is that you have a walkable, vibrant retail village, that you can just get on transit,” Mullet said. “But it’s also on both sides of I-90, north and south. We feel like this pedestrian overpass is a way to kind of help connect both parts of town. Right now I-90 is like a river that runs through us, so this is a chance to kind of bridge that divide.”

When it comes to the low ridership forecasts, Mullet pointed to two ways that those numbers could be improved: bringing in riders from elsewhere in the Snoqualmie Valley via feeder bus service, and improving land use in Central Issaquah, which has been a longstanding goal of the city under multiple mayors.

Mullet’s proposal to go all-in in support of Issaquah Link went over well with the city council Monday.

“I will let you know I am thrilled with this approach,” Councilmember Barbara de Michele said. “I think there’s been, in my opinion, there’s been a little bit of mixed messaging coming from Issaquah, and I think that making a forceful statement in that we are here to support this light rail station is really, really important right now.”

During last year’s campaign to lead the city, Mullet touted having worked to bring light rail to Issaquah with former Mayor Fred Butler, the longtime chair of the Sound Transit board’s Capital Committee, which was later renamed the System Expansion Committee. He sees the connection from South Bellevue to Central Issaquah as separate from the spur to South Kirkland, which falls well short of all of Kirkland’s growth centers due in part to local opposition to utilizing the Cross Kirkland Corridor, a rail-to-trail corridor that could have been an economical route.

“I was in this fight way back in 2015, 2016. We weren’t on the map,” Mullet said. “We went to bat for the Issaquah line. They ended up adding in the South Kirkland portion, but our fight was always: we just want to connect to this network. That was our fight, and that’s our still our focus right now, and the Bellevue to Kirkland connection is more challenging, I think, than our connection is, and we don’t want to have that delay our connection.”

Rather than familiar moves to cut segments of lines and delay projects, Mullet hopes that light rail to Issaquah can turn into an opportunity for Sound Transit to get creative about delivering the types of transit investments that cities around the region are clamoring for.

“I am fully aware that they’ve got a budget challenge. I want to help them solve their budget challenge by coming up with ideas to build our line substantially cheaper than what they’re currently estimating, not by having our line removed,” Mullet said. “I’m a big believer that light rail can transform communities in a positive way. I do not have that same conviction that bus rapid transit brings the kind of investments we’re hoping to see. And I think that this is why I’m so committed.”

The post Issaquah Pitches Case for Keeping Its Light Rail Line on Track first appeared on The Urbanist.

The new zoning regulations approved by the Bothell City Council in 2024 upped maximum densities permitted throughout the city, going much further than the new state baseline, which required allowing two units on every residential lot. Bothell’s zoning scales up with lot size, allowing more housing units on larger lots. In many of Bothell’s neighborhoods, using a dwelling units per acre (rather than lot) standard has this effect. Not only that, but those neighborhoods now have minimum densities in place, requiring at least 50% of the maximum density to be built in order to make efficient use of Bothell’s most valuable land.

Here’s an example: on a typical 10,000 square foot lot in the R-M2 zone seen around Bothell, property owners can now build around 12 units (depending on exact buildable area), while a multifamily development with fewer than half of that wouldn’t be allowed. With 15,000 square feet in the R-M4 zone closer to commercial districts, a property owner could build close to 30 homes, with a floor of around 15.

In 2025, Bothell went a step further and eliminated all requirements for off-street parking, at the same time as legalizing commercial storefronts throughout the city’s neighborhood zones, upending decades of restrictions on what builders could do in Bothell.

So far, those new standards are attracting notice from builders and property owners.

The leading indicator in Bothell is projects entering the pre-application stage, an advisory level where City staff work with property owners and developers to determine how best to advance a development forward. Last fall, Bothell’s Development Services Department started to get a sense that pre-applications were really taking off, a fact that was borne out in the final numbers for 2025. Where the city had seen pre-applications for just over 600 units submitted in 2024, and had averaged 580 over the previous five years, that number shot up to more than 1,000 last year.

Christian Geitz, Bothell’s Deputy Community Development Director, told the Council Tuesday that while pre-applications represent a very early stage of development, they’re a strong indicator of future activity, with 90% of projects entering that stage typically seeing permits issued. With such a substantive change to allowed density in Bothell, builders and property owners are still sussing out how exactly they could take advantage of the new zoning code.

“They’re just concepts. They’re anything from a back-of-the napkin drawing to maybe some preliminary engineering plans. A lot of this that we see is about both the developer and the applicant and the staff learning what the code, or the current code or new codes, are throwing at us,” Geitz said.

Bothell has also seen the number of land use development applications submitted increase substantially, another strong indicator of future activity. Last year, those applications shot up by 980% to their highest levels since 2021, with 529 residential units proposed within the entitlement application phase.

“It’s too early for us to say conclusively, ‘look we solved it, we figured it out. Do this, and people will build more housing.’ But all the signs are pointing in the right direction,” Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson told The Urbanist.

Thompson was first elected in 2019, winning his seat by just five votes in a race that went to a hand recount. While pro-housing councilmembers were far from the norm in Bothell in those days, voters have subsequently picked candidates who were aligned with that view, giving the city one of the strongest urbanist majorities on the Eastside.

“I’m really looking forward to these things turning into permits, and those things turning into actual projects, and actual families moving in and living in them, and seeing where it goes,” Thompson continued. “The signs are all good, and that’s really encouraging, and it’s certainly not conclusive yet, but it would be really nice to be able to point to other jurisdictions in the state and say, ‘Here is what happens if you make these policy changes.'”

The new density requirements are also having a big effect on the size of individual developments. A sampling of five different housing projects in the pipeline across Bothell showed a 45% increase in the number of units per project compared to what would have been possible under the previous development code. That includes middle housing projects jumping from four units to eight, two units to six, and five units to 12. A townhome project that would have maxed out at 18 units is now advancing as 79, and an apartment building on 120th Avenue NE now includes 322 units, compared to the 264 that would have been the max before.

The new minimum required densities are also pushing some projects to be redesigned to meet the new floor within Bothell’s denser neighborhoods.

“We are seeing primarily townhomes, but increasingly through the work of our really great staff, making sure that if somebody does have a minimum density that they just couldn’t quite meet with townhome product, they’re starting to blend that,” Geitz said. One example of this is a project on 101st Avenue NE, where a set of nine townhomes will also be built with a small apartment building containing 12 units.

“I was really excited to see the 101st Avenue multifamily [development] respond to the minimum densities, because it looks like they could have fit two more town homes in there, and instead, we get 12 units, and that’s 10 more units that are homes for people that we wouldn’t have had,” Thompson said at Tuesday’s meeting. “And that makes me very happy to see.”

The 322-unit apartment building on 120th Avenue NE would be the tallest building in Bothell, taking the place of a sprawling parking lot with a hot dog stand at the center of it. That project is taking advantage of a newly approved density bonus, with the developer gaining additional height in exchange for providing 32 units of subsidized affordable housing, apartments targeted at households making 60% of King County’s median income.

So far, overall permit activity in Bothell has remained relatively steady over the past few years, with the number of new units permitted mostly down in the wake of several large apartment buildings that received their permits in 2021 and 2022. The projects on the horizon are expected to make up the next wave.

With the state’s overall economic outlook not exactly looking rosy, and the macroeconomic conditions that set the stage for housing construction not showing any signs of improvement, there’s a possibility that the units entering pre-application could ultimately evaporate. But so far there are no signs of that happening in Bothell.

“We’re not seeing any permits lapse,” Geitz said. “We do set time limits for them, but we’re as much paying attention to that as anyone, just to make sure we can plan ahead.”

Across the region, permit activity is down, a fact that is likely traced back to high national interest rates, increased costs due to tariffs, and labor shortages. Data presented last month at the Puget Sound Regional Council showed a clear downward trend in permits issued over recent quarters across the whole of King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap Counties. While the pace of units hitting the market in recent years has stayed relatively robust, without new permits getting issued that pipeline could slow to a trickle — a fact that will likely have an upward pressure on rents around the region.

But if there’s a city that could buck that larger trend, Bothell is a top contender.

“I can’t control macroeconomic factors. I can control land use in Bothell,” Thompson said. “So I think that we should be working on pulling the levers that we can, and knowing that right now isn’t the best time to be building something. But that’s not an excuse to not do everything we can, when our constituents are faced with the real types of problems that exist.”

The post Bothell Housing Boom Brewing in Wake of Recent Zoning Reforms first appeared on The Urbanist.

Inaugurating service on the 2 Line’s 7.4-mile gap will give riders a zippy 20-minute trip between Downtown Bellevue and the International District, becoming the first active light rail line to operate on a floating bridge anywhere in the world. The late March ribbon-cutting will allow Sound Transit to beat its conservative target of opening the line by May 31, well in advance of the FIFA Men’s World Cup coming to Seattle in June and July.

“This day has been over two decades in the making. It was conceived in the early 2000s when we started talking about the idea of connecting East King County to the rest of the (then under planning) light rail system. It was approved by the voters in 2008 and has faced challenges of every imaginable kind in the interim to get here today,” King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci said ahead of the unveiling of a countdown clock above I-90 in Seattle.

Interlining with the 1 Line north of SoDo will transform the 2 Line into a 30-mile line, and it will effectively double train frequency at those stations, as both 1 Line and 2 Line will operate at eight-minute peak frequencies, meaning trains will come every four minutes between Chinatown-International District and Lynnwood. The full 2 Line also brings an extended span of service on the Eastside, where trains currently stop running around 9:30pm.

Next month, Sound Transit will start simulated service on the full 2 Line, mimicking how trains will operate once everything is live without allowing any riders to travel across the bridge. But that simulated service will bring additional trains that riders can utilize between Lynnwood and the International District, alleviating overcrowding on the busiest segments of the 1 Line.

The expansion will offer a transit boost during the remainder of Revive I-5 work, provide another way to mitigate the impacts of months of lane closures on Interstate 5. Through June 5, I-5 across the Ship Canal Bridge is reduced by two lanes, leading to delays for motorists and transit riders on alternate routes. Revive I-5 work will resume after a brief World Cup hiatus.

The opening of the 2 Line has been delayed repeatedly. From local siting battles and planning snags in Mercer Island and Bellevue to issues with defects on the tracks along I-90, the opening has been pushed back repeatedly. Operating a rail line on a floating bridge is a groundbreaking engineering feat, and getting it right is crucial. Ultimately, Sound Transit’s contractor was forced to rebuild the tracks in the segment, pushing the opening back from 2023 to 2026.

“We wouldn’t be here without those in the 1970s who ensured that the Homer Hadley bridge would be built from the start to eventually accommodate rail, even though it was purely speculative at that time, and it had never been done before,” Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine said. “We wouldn’t be here without the regional foresight in the 1980s that brought us the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. We wouldn’t be here without past leaders like Joni Earl and Greg Nickels and State Representative Ruth Fisher, with whom I had the privilege to serve. We would not be here without Jim Ellis, who really, 60 years ago, envisioned rail across this lake and brought the region this close to approving it.”

Sound Transit opened the rest of East Link as a “starter line” minus the cross-lake crossing in 2024, and extended the truncated 2 Line to Downtown Redmond in 2025 as the first Sound Transit 3 project to open to the public. That terminus in Downtown Redmond, built into the city’s urban fabric like few other stations on the Eastside, has become its most popular.

“The Eastside has been doing a lot of future-looking planning,” Balducci said. “Cities like Bellevue and Redmond are leveraging the light rail investment to bring housing and jobs and liveliness to our booming Eastside, and as the Eastside continues to grow and thrive, this moment represents more than just a transit opening. It demonstrates all this region can achieve when we commit to audacious goals and persevere to get things done.”

The initial Eastside-only 2 Line has already beat its ridership projections, showing robust demand for light rail in Bellevue and Redmond. Even in its abridged form, the 2 Line has garnered nearly 11,000 daily riders. By 2030, Sound Transit has projected the 2 Line will attract 50,000 daily riders.

Two days before Friday’s announcement, new Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson joined Sound Transit officials for a tour of the new segment, a step in getting her onboarded for her first meeting as a Sound Transit board member.

“This project is an incredible first of its kind engineering feat,” Wilson said, noting her personal excitement for the project as a carfree Seattleite. “It’s also a brand new doorway to Seattle that will open up our city to our Eastside neighbors, to visit and enjoy all that we have to offer here: jobs, culture, shopping, sports, our incredible waterfront, our amazing neighborhoods, everything, and it’s a doorway that will open up to Seattle residents everything that the Eastside has to offer, great jobs and restaurants and cultural events and parks and trails. I am especially excited for our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities who live on both sides of the lake to be better connected and also to have a direct route to the Chinatown International District. The people of Seattle and this region deserve irresistibly good transit.”

After opening the entire 2 Line, Sound Transit ribbon cuttings will become much more infrequent. Later this year, 1 Line trains will begin stopping at the Pinehurst infill station, just north of N 130th Street in Seattle. Beyond that, Sound Transit won’t open another major project until 2028, when the agency cuts the ribbon on two new Stride bus rapid transit (BRT) lines: the S1 between Bellevue and Burien, and the S3 between Shoreline and Bothell. The S2 line, between Lynnwood and Bellevue, is set to open in 2029.

Sound Transit won’t cut the ribbon on a new rail project until the Graham Street and Boeing Access Road infill stations in 2031, West Seattle Link in 2032, and Tacoma Dome Link Extension in 2035 — if those projects are able to stay on track as the agency recalibrates its financial plan.

The post Sound Transit’s 2 Line Will Finally Connect Across I-90 on March 28 first appeared on The Urbanist.

Last week, the Bellevue City Council unanimously approved expanding the scope for potential changes to parking requirements the city will adopt by the end of this year, in compliance with Senate Bill 5184.

Approved last spring, the new law bars all cities with more than 30,000 residents from requiring more than one parking stall for every two units in an apartment building, nor more than two stalls for every 1,000 square feet of commercial space. It also exempts certain projects from any parking requirements at all, including affordable housing, senior housing, smaller apartment units, and commercial spaces in mixed-use buildings.

Coming into compliance in 2026 will ensure Bellevue meets a January 2027 deadline for cities over 50,000 in population; smaller cities have an additional 18 months. Bellevue will consider dropping all parking mandates citywide, a path that has been chosen in places like Spokane, Shoreline, and Bremerton but that SB 5184 does not require. Short of that bold step, the City will also consider removing minimums near transit routes, and explore treating building rehabilitation or adaptive reuse — typically required to fully comply with parking requirements that could render their project infeasible — differently than it does new developments.

Adopting lower minimums, or even eliminating them altogether, won’t mean builders can’t build more parking stalls than required. But it does mean that developers can tailor the amount of parking to match expected demand. Some development projects that might be on the verge of viability could move forward without an arbitrary number of stalls.

By 2029, Bellevue will have to drop mandated off-street parking within a half-mile distance of light rail stations, and within a quarter mile of King County Metro RapidRide stops, thanks to another 2025 law supporting transit-oriented development. But adopting three years early could be a major win for housing reforms in Bellevue, especially given the zoning changes that have already been adopted near the city’s light rail stations, which are set to be connected to Seattle in a matter of months.

During an initial discussion of this topic last week, it became clear that changes to the Bellevue City Council’s composition over the past year will likely have a major impact on the ultimate outcome. Since 2023, five of the council’s seven seats have turned over, with progressive candidates faring particularly well this past November. Vishal Bhargava and Naren Briar, two of the council’s newest members, seemed the most open to studying the broadest range of options, including full removal of parking mandates citywide.

“Are minimum parking requirements a good thing or not? And I’m not entirely convinced they’re a good thing, and that it sort of impacts the direction, at least my point of view, on the scope for the study. I mean, they do raise costs for development, housing costs. I know there is also a question of not matching real demand,” Bhargava said. “If we’re stuck to those sorts of approaches that are not flexible over time, that creates those hard and fast requirements that don’t seem to work. The other thing that I think that we have to think about is the impact they have on actual development potential.”

Briar, who took office at the beginning of this year after defeating longtime incumbent Conrad Lee, expressed concern about Bellevue receiving a top-down mandate from Olympia but quickly pivoted to using data to guide the city’s position on how far to go. A 2020 study looking at the effect of parking reforms in Seattle showed that dropping minimums near transit led to 18,000 fewer parking spaces, saving more than a half billion dollars in construction costs.

“Personally, I’m not a fan of the state mandates and how prescriptive they can be at times. Nevertheless, I do think we need to expand our scope, especially if we’re seeing continued investments into our transit infrastructure, and if we’re hurting our local businesses. I’ve spoken to so many entrepreneurs who can’t just seem to settle in Bellevue because the minimum parking mandates are not feasible,” Briar said. “It is important that we understand through the engagement and evaluation process what other cities are doing and how these impacts are prevailing.”

Meanwhile Councilmember Lynne Robinson, fresh off a six-year run as Bellevue’s Mayor and now one of the council’s most moderate members, pushed back on the entire concept behind SB 5184. Robinson conflated the idea of removing mandated parking with builders not building any parking, and even suggested that the City should look at trying to get changes made at the legislature. SB 5184 was approved by more than a two-to-one vote across the two legislative chambers, with strong support from Governor Bob Ferguson’s office.

“There are some things the state is assuming that I just don’t agree with. I don’t agree that four-bedroom low-income housing necessarily does not require parking, and that troubles me, because we’ve seen some of our affordable housing families really struggle,” Robinson said. “I also don’t agree that senior housing doesn’t require parking. We’re not talking about the seniors. We’re talking about all the people who come and serve them, who are dependent on cars for their businesses. So that’s troublesome to me, and I almost wonder if we shouldn’t push back a little bit. I know it’s already a done deal, but maybe there could be a revision made if our intergovernmental staff were to think that was a good idea.”

Mo Malakoutian, Bellevue’s new Mayor, referenced a point raised by Bellevue City staff, that the majority of the city’s parking requirements have been sitting on the books unchanged for decades, with regulations in place in a 1962 zoning book — the oldest one found at City Hall — “mostly matching” the ones in effect today.

“It’s really not a compliance [issue], although it is a compliance [issue], but also it’s updating a code that is maybe for a city, that maybe we don’t have that city anymore. We have a much better city,” Malakoutian said.

Much process lies ahead, with Bellevue’s planning commission set to tackle the issue after City staff conduct public outreach with Bellevue residents. That body has watered down bold proposals developed by Bellevue city staff before, significantly scaling back middle housing regulations last year that ultimately mean fewer homes can be built near transit in a city intending to add over 150,000 homes over the next two decades.

But as a starting point, Bellevue is starting much closer to the end zone on parking reform than many Eastside urbanists might have expected, a fact that bodes well for the conversation that will unfold over the next year.

The post Bellevue Could Take State Parking Reform to the Next Level first appeared on The Urbanist.

As Sound Transit grapples with its budget shortfall, some have suggested cutting the light rail extension from South Kirkland to Issaquah (or replacing it with buses) to prioritize funding for Seattle. But this is a lazy take – it ignores Sound Transit’s principle of sub-area equity, and more importantly, the staggering potential for transit-oriented redevelopment along the route. 

Let’s look at how the Eastgate neighborhood in Bellevue could transform by the time light rail arrives in the 2040s.

Link from South Kirkland to Issaquah

Voters approved the Link extension from South Kirkland to Issaquah as part of Sound Transit 3 (ST3) back in 2016. It’s one of the last elements of the ST3 system, with planning set to start in 2027 and service commencing around 2041-2044. 

For now, the only official information is the “representative project”, a napkin sketch that’s unchanged since the vote passed. It shows light rail running about 12 miles from South Kirkland park-and-ride to Issaquah Central, sharing the existing 2 Line tracks through the heart of Bellevue, and adding four new stations and about nine miles of new track. The new track lies mostly within the I-90 median and Eastrail corridor, allowing long stretches to run at-grade, minimizing construction costs and impacts.

Critics of the planned extension point out that it doesn’t extend far enough into Kirkland or Issaquah to reach their respective downtowns, merely running through the lower-density areas in between. Today, that’s true: the area is dominated by sprawling office parks, industrial uses, and car-oriented shopping malls. But to see the potential, we need to look beyond the current land uses. What matters more is how the area will look in two decades, when light rail arrives.

Inspiration: transforming Bel-Red (2009-present)

Fortunately, nearby Bel-Red provides an excellent model. Once an industrial zone, it’s transforming into an urban corridor. In the earliest plans for the 2 Line, then known as East Link, light rail was expected to closely follow State Route 520 between downtown Bellevue and Redmond, skirting around the forgettable area in between. But fast-forward 15 years, and what actually happened is much more exciting: a series of transit-oriented urban villages are blossoming along the route, from Spring District, to Bel-Red, to Overlake Village.

In hindsight, three essential ingredients enabled this transformation: (1) Sound Transit picked an alignment through the area, rather than around it, bringing large swaths of land into the vicinity of new stations; (2) the City of Bellevue boldly laid out a new street grid to break up existing large parcels, with urban amenities like wide sidewalks; and (3) the whole area was upzoned to allow mixed use redevelopment, with the highest density closest to the light rail stations.

Together, these changes are catalyzing significant private investment. While the full build-out will take decades, many projects including thousands of housing units have already been built, with more in the pipeline. Some street corners are almost totally unrecognizable. Here’s a real before/after of the newly rebuilt 132nd Avenue NE in Bel-Red, with new sidewalks, bike lanes, and eight-story apartment buildings clustered around the light rail station.

The striking transformation in Bel-Red was achievable in part because the prior land uses were so forgettable: the City and Sound Transit could afford to acquire new right of way, and the step-change in value from upzoning spurred redevelopment. Bel-Red illustrates a sort of “best case scenario” when major regional transit investments and whole new neighborhoods are planned together.

Could we replicate this success along the light rail to Issaquah?

Link station at 156th Ave SE / Airfield Park

The first step would be a well-situated station.

Sound Transit’s representative project calls for two stations in Bellevue, at Richards Road near Factoria and Eastgate park-and-ride, before light rail transitions into the I-90 median for the five miles to Issaquah. This misses what might be the most promising opportunity for redevelopment: the area around 156th Avenue SE. Previously an airport, it’s over 100 acres of underutilized offices and parking, on the same side of the highway as the train. For perspective, that’s three times larger than Spring District! It’s also near Airfield Park, where the City of Bellevue plans to locate its new Aquatic Center.

A better alignment would see light rail pass under 148th Avenue SE and its access ramps in a retained cut trench, to enable a convenient station on the near side of SE Eastgate Way at 156th Avenue SE, before transitioning to the I-90 median. This alignment is only about 0.1 miles longer and could be accommodated without any property impacts or reconfiguration of the I-90 ramps just by tightening the cloverleaf to a radius more like the NE 8th St interchange in downtown Bellevue. (The current ramps are almost double that radius!)

The station itself could resemble the current trenched station at Spring District. It could be an additional infill station, or a relocation of the provisional Lakemont station. Either way, failing to plan ahead for a station here would make it much harder to add later, with trains already back in the I-90 median.

New walkable local streets

The next step would be an urban street grid. To orient the neighborhood around transit, people need to be able to comfortably walk or bike between the station and where they’re going. Fortunately, the area already has avenues at regular intervals – like 156th, 158th, and 160th – so what’s missing are the cross-streets, namely an extension of SE 33rd Street and all-new SE 34th and SE 35th Streets. Here’s one possible layout that achieves block sizes similar to Bel-Red, about 280 feet by 400 feet.

As in Bel-Red, these new local streets would prioritize walkability, and with minimal through traffic, they could be much narrower than arterials, perhaps just one lane in each direction plus planting and sidewalks. They could either be built by the City’s capital improvement program, extracted from private developers, or more likely a strategic combination of both, with the City and Sound Transit prioritizing the immediate station area and redevelopment filling in the rest over time. As in Bel-Red, the key is to enshrine the required new streets in code early.

Increased density and mixed-use

The final step would be to amend the Land Use Code to allow mixed-use redevelopment around the light rail station. Concentrating growth near transit not only maximizes how many people can live/work car-free, it actually helps preserve the surrounding single-family neighborhoods, too. With mixed-use zoning, active uses like restaurants, storefronts, and daycares add vibrancy at ground level, while housing and offices are stacked efficiently above.

For a conservative baseline, we could apply the exact same zones and dimensional requirements that Bellevue approved last year for Bel-Red. This would limit building heights to 150 feet (squat high rises) in the blocks nearest to the station, then 70 feet (five-over-ones) in the blocks beyond that, and finally 45 feet (townhomes). Here’s how that might look fully built-out, using actual building designs from the area:

This example delivers about 9.5 million habitable square feet on the 3.5 million developable square feet of land (after accounting for streets), for an aggregate floor area ratio (FAR) of about 2.7 – nothing crazy. If this were 100% housing, it would be over 9,000 units within a half-mile walk of transit.

For a more ambitious example, we could incorporate a few blocks of the Mixed-Use Highrise (MU-H) district approved last year for Wilburton, which allows apartments and condo buildings up to 250 feet. This pushes habitable square feet over 11 million, or about 11,000 housing units, with an aggregate FAR of just over 3.0.

We may not think of Eastgate as particularly desirable today, but its prime location is hard to argue. Once light rail arrives, it’ll be just a few stops from downtown Bellevue and downtown Seattle, miles closer than many other growth centers. It’s surrounded by parks, including the soon-to-be-developed Airfield Park and Bellevue Aquatic Center. It’s a short drive to the mountains. A radical transformation isn’t far-fetched – Bel-Red’s history shows that it’s more likely than no change at all.

What happens next

Now is the time to start laying the groundwork. In 2026, the City of Bellevue is set to update its subarea plan for Eastgate, and in 2027, Sound Transit will kick off planning the light rail extension between South Kirkland and Issaquah. The potential for urbanization along the corridor is staggering, and Eastsiders should urge both their elected officials and Sound Transit to pursue a truly ambitious vision. Let’s swing for the fences and create the next Bel-Red!

The post Op-Ed: Light Rail Could Transform Bellevue’s Eastgate into Urban Oasis first appeared on The Urbanist.

Supporters see rezoning the two parcels as advancing a key element of Kirkland’s growth strategy, which seeks to foster “neighborhood centers” outside of downtown and enable more Kirkland residents to live within a 10-minute walk of their daily needs.

Despite that policy alignment, it took nearly two years of process to get to this point. Last month when a final vote was in sight, the developers hired to find a path to maximizing the sites’ development potential nearly had to go back to square one.

The 6-1 vote to increase the height limit in both locations to 75 feet comes on the heels of a closely watched election in Kirkland focused around growth issues. The sole “no” vote came from Jon Pascal, the only candidate on the ballot this November to win his race after being promoted by Kirkland’s slow growth advocates.

Members of Cherish Kirkland, a group that touts itself as being focused on “responsible growth with adequate infrastructure,” supported Pascal and he went on to win by just over 1,000 votes against urbanist candidate Kurt Dresner. But the three other candidates who were part of the same Cherish slate were all defeated.

If those three races had gone differently, Tuesday’s zoning discussion would likely have taken on a very different tenor.

The idea of allowing dense multifamily development on these parcels has faced opposition from within Kirkland, particularly when it comes to the Michael’s site, which is close to the Lake Washington shoreline and within a stone’s throw of two popular city parks. With a wetland buffer precluding development on over a third of the site, the developers eyeing redevelopment of the dilapidated craft store emphasized that a seven-story height limit would be necessary to allow the proposed apartment building to pencil out as feasible. With the rezone completed, 250 to 300 units can now advance.

“There has been so much pushback by the athletic club, by the Indian restaurant, by the Weidner apartment [building], by the citizens of Kirkland. We do not want the Michael’s site to be developed — period,” Kirkland resident Lisa Berenson said ahead of the vote. “Setbacks must be held. Heights must be held. We have to preserve the sky. And that corner there is already a traffic nightmare, I don’t care how much traffic mitigation you do, it’s going to get worse — worse, worse, worse.”

A 2024 petition asking the city council to halt development on the Michael’s site attracted over 700 signatures, citing “[n]egative impact to the various components of the wetlands environment, including decreased flood mitigation, potential runoff and pollution of the wildlife water source, and further endangering the delicate wildlife habitat.” In the end, those arguments didn’t seem to hold sway with most councilmembers, and both projects will have to undergo standard environmental review as part of permitting.

The Goodwill site is less constrained, with up to 500 homes planned close to numerous bus lines. Half of the property is set to be built out as townhomes, but a condition added Tuesday requires the developer — Balboa Retail Partners — to start construction on the multifamily portion of the project within three years of the first townhome being occupied.

On top of accelerating housing construction, the hope is for retail space to be added to the neighborhood more quickly. If the deadline isn’t met, Balboa would be required to pay a sizable fee to fund affordable housing elsewhere in the city.

Despite the Kirkland planning commission giving the green light on a 75-foot height limit for both sites earlier this year, a proposal advanced at the end of October looked to scuttle the past two years of deliberations. On the eve of the council elections, Kirkland city staff put forward the idea of switching the parcels over to a standard “base” mixed-use neighborhood center zoning, capped at 60 feet. To rise higher, the developers would have to go through the process of receiving a development agreement specific to their project, something that would have likely added a few more years of process and erased much of the work that had occurred up to that point.

The move, which took both the developers and housing advocates in Kirkland by surprise, seemed to be a reaction to competing requests from councilmembers around what they’d like to see come out of the zoning amendment process. But it can’t also be removed from the broader context of a highly contentious set of races that had been poised to tilt the Kirkland council in a more reactionary direction.

Ultimately, a council majority declined to sign onto that proposal, and instead pushed to advance the recommendation of the planning commission, with potential tweaks. Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, 27 different amendments were put forward, though several were withdrawn before a vote.

Many of the amendments to scale back the proposed zoning came from Pascal, including amendments to reduce the height limits back to 60 feet and to require upper-level step backs to scale back the potential bulkiness of buildings. The only Pascal amendment to pass was one increasing requirements for street-level commercial uses along the frontages along both 98th Avenue NE and Juanita Drive when it comes to the Michael’s site.

“I have heard loud and clear from from most people I talked to in the community that height and scale are big concerns, mainly because these buildings would stand out as outliers, not just today or four years or five years after they’re built, but perhaps for decades,” Pascal said in framing his amendments. “Coherence is not anti-growth. Coherence is how we grow well, and those are things that we should be thinking about.”

Pascal defended his proposal to require upper-level step backs by pointing to similar regulations elsewhere in the city, in the Bridle Trails neighborhood. That prompted Councilmember Amy Falcone to push back.

“Having these upper-story stepbacks, the reality is, the implications are: that means less housing, right? And so that concerns me. That’s smaller apartments, fewer apartments, and that’s just the reality of the situation,” Falcone said. “And so I feel like if we’re going to stick with our approach, with trying to absorb the growth that’s needed in these types of centers, what we’ve been doing in other areas is not sufficient. It is not working. We are significantly behind on our housing production in the city of Kirkland, and so I feel like applying what we do in other areas is not going to work here, because we know that that’s not working, not getting us to where we need to go.”

After nearly two full years of process, most councilmembers expressed satisfaction with being able to move forward before the end of 2025, while not being 100% comfortable with the process taken to get there, which was heavily tailored to meet the needs for two specific developments. Pascal raised those process concerns when explaining his no vote.

“I support growth in neighborhood centers. I support added housing where it strengthens our long term goals. However, because the [Community-Initiated Amendment Requests] set a president of parcel-specific zoning inconsistent with citywide commercial centers regulations, they also result in a mismatch in building height and scale, and they also result in a continued loss of commercial land, I’m going to have to be voting no tonight.”

Councilmember John Tymczyszyn seemed to speak for the council’s majority when it came time for a final vote.

“Are there ways to improve this process? There absolutely are, and I’m sure we can do that in the future together,” Tymczyszyn said. “But I will be supporting this, because I think it will add housing in our commercial centers, density in our commercial centers, as we talked about. And the process can be improved in the future, but today, we’ve done our job.”

The post Kirkland Council Makes Way for Redevelopment of Contentious Juanita Sites first appeared on The Urbanist.

Concerns around the future of Old Bellevue, one of the only areas around the city’s downtown that features lower rise buildings with storefronts right up to the sidewalk, intensified earlier this year when a permit application was submitted to build an eight-story apartment building at the intersection of Main and 103rd Avenue. The area is currently home to number of small businesses including Lavender Spa, Matcha Magic, Araya’s Place, and Glassybaby. The new project would bring 176 homes along with more than 10,000 square feet of ground floor retail.

While the proposal had been moving through the pipeline for several years, the filings from this past February targeted a start date of early 2026, suggesting a significant change to this quiet pocket of Downtown Bellevue has drawing near. Since the project already vested, it wouldn’t be directly impacted by any interim control.

With the emergency ordinance, the Bellevue Council is targeting the remaining older properties along Main Street, which could be next to enter the development pipeline.

“Old Bellevue is a unique and cherished part of Bellevue, and a lot of businesses and people have located there because of the charm of Old Bellevue, and in fact, during Covid, it was one of the most prosperous parts of of our entire city, because the businesses stayed open and people flocked there,” Robinson said in explaining her request to the rest of the Council. “Currently, we have nothing on the record, nothing in the books, that requires that we preserve whatever it is about Old Bellevue that we love and that attracts businesses there.”

The Interim Official Control (IOC), Robinson explained, had been proposed by staff as a way to add an immediate barrier to wholesale redevelopment, without the need to hold a lengthy public process that involves a public hearing. With that control in place, the City would have breathing room to develop permanent regulations on its own timeline.

“This isn’t really a pause, and it’s not a moratorium,” Robinson said. “Anybody can still permit during this time, it was just mean that instead of being recommended that they retain the character, they would mandate that they retain the character in whatever development they did.”

None of the buildings, or their facades, along the stretch of Main Street in question are listed as historic landmarks, and requiring a developer to preserve a facade is not likely to actually preserve the things community members value about the area — the small businesses themselves. Through a land use control, Bellevue can’t mandate that property owners find a way to accommodate existing businesses within their new development.

In lieu of facade preservation, the Council could ultimately decide to adopt development standards that require buildings to mimic the existing structures. That similarly wouldn’t guarantee the retention of existing storefronts.

While there was broad support on the Council for preserving Old Bellevue’s “character” — however that may be defined — several Councilmembers were not fully on board with the idea of using an emergency control to address an issue that has been known about for some time.

“I do not quite understand why this had to be an emergency,” Councilmember Jared Nieuwenhuis said, referencing a past discussion on the future of Old Bellevue held at the Council’s annual retreat. “That was over, what, a year ago that we had that conversation, and I’m just concerned that this sets — I wouldn’t say it sets a bad precedent, per se — but certainly, I think property owners are caught off guard a little bit on this. So, my preference would have been that we would have convened the property owners first have the discussion, or at least let them know what we were intending to have a conversation about before taking this action.”

The mayor argued the urgency was warranted.

“Let me just explain what my urgency is: I fear that the moment I bring this up, people — developers — are going to start sending in permits to get out from under whatever it is we’re going to do, even though I’m convinced they won’t mind what we come up with,” Robinson said.

“I’m not sure what is meant by the desire to ‘preserve and reinforce the character, scale and identity’, of Old Bellevue, but I’m interested in finding out,” Councilmember Dave Hamilton said. “But considering that this idea regarding the IOC is new, I wouldn’t be ready to move forward with the final version until early next year. I think that there are a number of directly impacted community members and others that deserve the chance to understand the goals and the impact of the IOC. Community members in other neighborhoods will also be watching how we handle a potential IOC in Old Bellevue to understand how our approach there could impact them.”

Deputy Mayor Mo Malakoutian stood behind Robinson’s request, emphasizing the temporary nature of the interim control.

“I think this is a great idea. Whenever I talk to all of my friends in Seattle, the Main Old Bellevue is the only place they believe has a soul in Bellevue, unfortunately,” Malakoutian said. “Everywhere in Bellevue has a soul, in my opinion, but from outside, their view, that’s the only place. Very cute: I’ve heard that word a lot — small businesses. They can walk around. They can feel it’s a really cozy place to be.”

In the end, the Council took a unanimous vote to consider potential options at a future meeting, after staff time is spent fleshing out a recommendation. When the issue comes back, the Council will be forced with a more direct choice around how heavy-handed to be in the name of preserving “character.”

The post Mayor Scrambles to Protect ‘Character’ of Old Bellevue with Emergency Controls first appeared on The Urbanist.

Meanwhile, incumbent Councilmember Amy Lam eked out reelection due only to a write-in campaign that split the opposition.

Sammamish has been working on an update to its 2008 Town Center plan since mid-2023. The revision was in response both to newly approved state laws pushing cities to better accommodate future housing needs and to the plan’s meager results over the decade-and-a-half that it has been in place. Most of the development that Sammamish has seen in Town Center, including The Village at Sammamish Town Center — home to Metropolitan Market — has occurred largely in spite of the plan, not because of it.

Earlier this year, the Sammamish Council voted 6-1 to raise the cap on new housing to 4,000 homes as a preferred alternative for an updated Town Center plan’s environmental review, in the face of significant community opposition. In doing so, the majority had sided with Sammamish City staff in their assessment that without increasing Town Center’s overall development capacity, the projects that occur will likely be lower-density townhouses and not mixed-use buildings that bring retail, community spaces, or affordable housing.

The average Sammamish home is valued at $1.6 million, according to Zillow. High home prices and a dearth of new apartments and condominiums severely limits who can afford to live in the city.

Now it will fall to the new city council to decide how dramatically to change course. Reaffirming the higher 4,000-unit ceiling appears unlikely.

“Previously, we had anticipated continuing in our work on this effort. However, with the transition of our city council, we are pausing work on this,” David Pyle, Sammamish’s Community Development Director, told the City’s planning commission last week. “We have directed the consultant team with Framework Consulting to halt their work as of a couple weeks ago, so they are no longer proceeding on any work until we get some redirection from our new city council in the new year.”

One of those newcomers, Debbie Treen, is a former Mayor of Bothell and the wife of Sammamish Councilmember Kent Treen — the only vote against studying the 4,000-home cap. She directly challenged incumbent Mayor Karen Howe over the issue of Town Center. With Boyer and Amato, the two Treens are likely to form a majority bloc on housing issues.

“All across our region, communities are being pushed to accept high density development in the name of affordable housing,” Treen’s campaign website stated. “Sammamish is no exception, but the criteria for such development is not being met. Why? Because the regional policy is for density to be located near mass transit and employment opportunities, two criteria that Sammamish clearly lacks. One size does not fit all!”

Located just east of Redmond and Bellevue, Sammamish’s neighboring cities have embraced urban growth to a much greater degree. Downtown Redmond has added more than 6,000 homes over the last few decades, with more on the way and a similar boom happening at Overlake. Downtown Bellevue has more than 15,000 homes either recently added or in the development pipeline.

Sammamish has been growing at a fairly steady pace in recent years, but with an explosion of single-family homes rather than apartment buildings. Since the adoption of the Town Center plan in 2008, just 326 units were built within the area — and over 3,500 homes went up in the rest of the city, mostly detached units on single lots. Yet what happens at the Town Center has been at the center, so to speak of the city’s discourse around housing since Sammamish was incorporated in 1999.

Outside of this year’s council campaigns, organized opposition to the updated Town Center plan has come most directly from Save Our Sammamish, a group formed earlier this year that can almost certainly claim some credit for election results. Using sensationalized AI-generated images featuring emergency vehicles stuck on gridlocked streets while a wildfire bears down on the city with residents unable to escape in cars, Save our Sammamish painted a vivid picture of the impacts of increased density. The group published one resident’s argument for a full-blown growth moratorium in the city.

“We believe in a Town Center that honors the values of current Sammamish residents—one that prioritizes responsible growth, fiscal sustainability, safeguards our natural environment to include our wildlife, trees, watershed, creeks, and aquifers, and upholds the integrity, infrastructure, and safety of our city,” the SOS website states. “We believe in measured growth, but not without adequate infrastructure. We want the Town Center that was promised to us in 2008, not the housing density boondoggle.”

Completely halting all work on the Town Center isn’t really an option, however.

“Regardless of where we go going forward, there are some fundamental changes that need to be made to the Town Center plan for us to be in compliance with some key state regulations: changes regarding middle housing, regarding parking, regarding accessory dwelling units, there are some things that do need to be changed,” Pyle told the planning commission, alluding to the fact that right now, density limits in Sammamish are higher outside of the Town Center area than inside of it, after changes made to comply with the state’s Middle Housing Law earlier this year.

The bigger question is whether the new council majority retreats to the bare minimum required under state law at the current moment, abandoning changes to Town Center that could be needed to ensure the city meets its requirements longer-term. Under 2021’s House Bill 1220, cities like Sammamish are required to show they have the capacity to accommodate the types of housing that are accessible to households making lower incomes — the majority of the 2,100 new households that the city is required to plan for through 2044 via direction from King County.

Currently, the city is meeting those requirements through some fuzzy math — assuming that publicly owned properties and parcels owned by religious organizations will be redeveloped in the coming years, development that is required to come with affordable housing under the city’s inclusionary zoning requirements. As long as that development exists on paper, the city argues, it keeps them aligned with state law.

“We are in compliance. However, it takes a lot of work to remain in compliance, and I think the easiest way to understand that is by thinking about it in terms of opportunity cost. So, in order for us to be compliant, we had to show that we had adequate capacity for deeper levels of affordable housing,” Pyle said. “As the Town Center might build out with townhomes, or as other parcels in the city that are our our bonus parcels fill in with other uses and are developed and are not available, we are no longer in compliance because our capacity has been diminished for those areas where we could build mid-rise or low-rise buildings. So, one of the things to keep in mind going forward is that we have to actively maintain compliance, which means that we, every year, have to study if we have enough zoned capacity for low-rise and mid-rise buildings where deeper levels of affordability could be placed.”

The issue of being out of compliance with the state-enforced Growth Management Act (GMA) is not an abstract concept in Sammamish. In 2016, the city was ruled noncompliant when it adopted a citywide Comprehensive Plan update without a plan for Town Center, an issue that was resolved later that year.

In 2020, former Mayor Sammamish Mayor Don Gerend filed another appeal that argued newly adopted requirements around traffic standards were inhibiting development in the Town Center. Rather than fully comply, the city instead enacted a building moratorium while it worked to correct its procedural missteps.

That fight over that Town Center building moratorium, which extended into 2021, saw Karen Howe — not yet elected to the council — call out the move as a “disingenuous means to mask anti-growth attitudes despite the clear and obvious reality of an urbanized region,” the Sammamish Independent reported at the time. Now those anti-growth attitudes have relieved Howe of her council seat and could return the city to the bitter fights that have become a central feature of the city’s short history.

If the new council scales back growth plans, they could put Sammamish on a crash course with an appeal under the GMA yet again. Mercer Island already tested new state laws upping planning requirements and lost, in a case that could set a precedent for other growth-resistant cities across the state.

What happens next remains to be seen. For now, the City will remain in a holding pattern until a planned city council retreat next February.

The post Sammamish Hits Pause on Town Center Planning after Backlash Election first appeared on The Urbanist.