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.

On August 11, the Shoreline City Council eliminated car parking mandates and revised bicycle requirements for new developments in Shoreline. Proponents say the change will spur new housing construction, lower housing costs, reduce car dependency, and encourage greener modes of transportation.

Rather than restrictive, government-issued per-unit requirements, Shoreline builders can now determine how much car parking is appropriate for new development projects. The City has also expanded bike parking standards for new construction. The legislation follows the opening of two light rail stations and a bus network overhaul that boosted frequency. The idea is that improving transportation options will allow Shoreline residents to reduce reliance on cars and make better use of space near new transit investments. 

Allison Luzader is a Shoreline resident who submitted public comment in favor of the parking reform at the August 4 City Council meeting. Luzader moved to Shoreline from Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, where she says she walked most places and traveling by foot was much more accessible. She wishes the neighborhoods in Shoreline were more walkable and had more amenities. 

“It’s something that I think can really pave the way for more housing to be built in the area,” Luzader said.

In 2023, the Washington State Legislature required that cities reform single family zoning via House Bill 1110 and HB 1337, seeking to respond to the housing crisis. This spring, the Legislature followed up with statewide parking reform to encourage the development of “middle housing.” Senate Bill 5184 requires that cities reduce their parking mandates on builders. Some cities have opted to go beyond that minimum standard and eliminate parking mandates altogether.

Approximately half of Washingtonians spend 30% of their income on housing costs, with a quarter of residents paying 50%, according to a report published by the University of Washington. 

A report by the Sightline Institute, a non-partisan environmental think tank, estimates that a parking space costs between $5,000 and $60,000 to build, thereby significantly increasing the cost of housing. Mike Appleby, vice president of Chicago Title Insurance, estimates the maximums are even higher for underground parking. Chicago Title Insurance is a real estate services firm with extensive operations in the Seattle region. 

“We need to come up with a product that someone doesn’t have to spend a million dollars to be a homeowner,” Appleby said. 

The ordinance eliminates all parking minimum requirements for buildings in Shoreline. Any house, apartment, business, and new building in Shoreline can forego pavement for motor vehicles. However, this does not mean developments cannot supply parking. If a developer chooses to provide parking, they must follow all pre-existing design requirements. 

Sightline Institute reported that one in four homeowners in Washington has zero to one car, yet 91 jurisdictions in Washington require two or more off-street parking spaces per housing unit. 

Shoreline City Councilmember Keith Scully has participated in the parking discussion for 15 years, as both a city council member and a former member of the Planning Commission. He says Shoreline will still be recognizably Shoreline, especially since the ordinance does not affect pre-existing parking. However, it allows builders to follow market demand, whether that be through parking lots or development near bus stops. 

“Developers have to sell or rent what they build, and so they are much more market-driven than they are regulation-driven,” Scully said. “Most of the big ones aren’t really going to be that different, just because, if you’ve got 300 units and no parking, that’s not an attractive place to rent or lease.” 

Scully was initially hesitant about the plan to eliminate required parking, but found through his work with the Planning Commission and City Council that something had to give for Shoreline to grow. 

“Watching our attempts to bring urban density to Shoreline, particularly around high-capacity transit, and trying to figure out how we can do that while still preserving open space and parks and a diversity of businesses, and realizing that you can’t have everything,” Scully said. “So the evolution was just realizing that parking is going to have to be the thing to go, and then doing our best to design these new high-density places so that you don’t need parking.”

The ordinance now requires builders to allocate space for short-term and long-term bike parking. Short-term parking spots are standard bike racks for visitors, whereas long-term bike parking spots are enclosed lockers to protect from theft, vandalism, and weather. 

As for pre-existing buildings, Scully would eventually like the city to develop grant programs to build bike racks. Until then, nonprofits such as Urbanist Shoreline are working to supply bike racks, with seven racks currently installed from Lake Forrest Park to Richmond Beach.

The required bike parking goes hand in hand with Shoreline’s Bicycle Plan and the Transportation Element of its recently passed Comprehensive Plan update. The Bicycle Plan is intended to provide connecting routes for cyclists of all skill levels, from families with young children to cycling commuters. 

Scully says gaps in routes, such as on the Interurban Trail, are what stop less secure cyclists from biking as a main mode of transportation based on public testimony. 

Luzader echoed this sentiment. 

“If I go to the grocery store, like to the QFC at 145th,” Luzader said. “I would not be excited to bike down 145th.” 

Of those who are unable to bike, Appleby says billions of dollars are being allocated to public transportation. 

“This is one piece of a really big process to make sure that the density we’re allowing works,” Appleby said. 

Scully predicts there will be unforeseen issues that arise with the elimination of parking minimums, but believes those can and will be managed as they come up. 

Public comments opposing the ordinance cited concerns about giving developers too much power to shape our communities. Opponents of the measure were outnumbered by supporters.

Appleby pushed back on the “evil developer” trope, saying that builders often live in the communities they work in. 

“Homebuilders, developers, most live in this community already and in the area; they’re not doing something that is not thoughtful,” Appleby said. 

Other public comments referred to urban density leading to more crime and increased hazards due to increased street parking. Logan Schmidt, King County Government Affairs Coordinator with the Master Builders Association, says with population growth and city density, there will be more of everything. However, without parking restrictions, more housing can be built to create safer communities. 

“If people can safely live in homes in the communities where they work, where they have family, etc., that creates safer, healthier, thriving communities,” Schmidt said. 

Shoreline Mayor Chris Roberts says the city will still be responsible for maintaining parking. He says research on parking and parking reform in other cities supports the elimination of parking minimums. 

“The areas in Seattle that have no parking minimums, I believe that most developers are still putting in parking and as a city,” Roberts said. “This is not a new concept, and it’s been a lot of research that’s been done across the nation on the effects of parking and how required parking adds to the costs.”

The Parking Reform Network provides a national map of cities that have adopted parking reforms. According to a study published in Transportation Policy journal, parking reform in Boulder, Colorado, has allowed investment into alternative modes of transportation and reduced automobile travel. Shoreline’s neighboring city of Seattle has already saved $537 million through parking reform. 

Appleby says cities should refer to other cities that have produced successful models of development and parking reform but also believes collaboration between all parties is integral to meeting the needs of individual communities. 

“That collaboration versus top-down thinking ‘just do it like this’ always seems to be the best option,” Appleby said. “Communities that do that end up with something that works really well.”

The post Why Shoreline’s Vote to Erase Parking Mandates Is a Big Deal first appeared on The Urbanist.

Dropping parking mandates is intended to help ease housing costs and provide more flexibility to homebuilders. Letting builders tailor parking to expected demand is intended to reduce the number of excess stalls, which can cost upwards of $60,000 per underground parking stall, according to the Sightline Institute, a local environmental thinktank that supports parking reform.

“This really takes a large step to addressing affordability in the city, and as parking is one of the largest pieces of affordability for new development,” Shoreline Mayor Chris Roberts, who has served on the council since 2010, told The Urbanist ahead of the vote. “It will make a difference, making sure that more houses are built within the city.”

Shoreline’s vote fulfills a promise the council made late last year to adopt the change as a part of updating the City’s 20-year growth plan.

One of the fastest-growing cities in Puget Sound, Shoreline has been aggressive about reducing barriers to homebuilding in the city, particularly around its two light rail stations, which opened last year. Well ahead of the start of train service, Shoreline rezoned significant areas around the 148th Street and 185th Street Station, a move which has clearly paid off. Between 2019 and 2024, the city issued permits for over 4,600 new homes, a number that translates to nearly 20% of the existing housing stock within Shoreline.

But Shoreline’s zoning code has continued to require 0.75 to 1.5 parking stalls for every unit, with only a potential 50% reduction in the amount of off-street parking available for projects near transit.

“We want affordable housing, and reduced hardscape, and trees, and something’s got to give if you’re mandating all those things, and parking is the obvious choice,” Councilmember Keith Scully said at a meeting last week on the topic.

Roberts also sees right-sizing the amount of parking being built in Shoreline as advancing the city’s goals around making it easier to get around the city by walking and biking. Shoreline’s safe bike network continues to be built out.

“There’s so many people in Shoreline who don’t drive and who rely on other forms of transportation to get around, whether walking, by bike or public transit, and we have to make sure that people have access to all different forms of mobility, and not just cater to one type of transportation,” Roberts said. “We want to see more of our development around the light rail stations, around places with frequent transit on Aurora, so that people who choose can get around the city and get around the region without a car.”

Fostering more small-scale commercial storefronts closer to homes also brings Shoreline closer to that goal, and it was a major impetus behind a December vote to legalize neighborhood cafes and corner stores, a policy that was replicated in nearby Bothell last month.

Shoreline’s vote is likely to be among the first in a wave across the state in the coming months, following the passage of Senate Bill 5184 this spring. That law sets a new ceiling on minimum parking requirements at 0.5 stalls for every unit in apartment buildings, and spells out an array of instances where no parking can be required, including with affordable housing, smaller apartment units, mixed-use commercial spaces, and senior housing. Cities and counties will have anywhere from 18 months to three years to comply, depending on their population, and many may decide that simply eliminating those minimums makes more sense.

In Seattle, a proposal wrapped up in the draft One Seattle Comprehensive Plan update wouldn’t even go as far as the new state baseline, requiring more work by the end of 2026. But citywide Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck has proposed an amendment that would follow Shoreline in dropping all parking mandates, which is set to be taken up in September.

“A growing number of cities right here in Washington state have found that when parking minimums are repealed, parking does still get built,” Shoreline resident Katie Lorah, founder and lead organizer with Urbanist Shoreline, told the council Monday. “It just doesn’t get over built based on arbitrary numbers that were set a long time ago, and it’s frankly just way more appropriate for an urban fabric like our own, where we’re trying to emphasize infill housing, middle housing, mixed use projects, everything that our zoning code is built to support.”

Parking is a topic that has prompted considerable rancor and debate elsewhere, but in Shoreline, the issue hasn’t proven incredibly controversial. Ahead of the final vote Monday, just one Shoreline resident voiced opposition to the change.

“I think we have a community that is largely aligned and largely recognizes the benefits of not only increased density, but also our commitment to — passion around — protecting the environment,” Roberts said. “I think we did a lot of work with the community to say: these are the benefits — from environmental benefits to affordability benefits to just general city revenue benefits — all of the things benefit from the more people choosing, and I think rightly choosing, to want to live in Shoreline.”

The post Shoreline Makes Good on Pledge to Stop Mandating Car Parking Citywide first appeared on The Urbanist.

The girl in front of you drives an electric vehicle, which her family bought because it emits less carbon. The boy behind you has been carpooling consistently since sophomore year. You, like many others, drive to school by yourself in a standard gas car.

Parking passes are issued first-come-first-served, and seniors get first priority. There is no consideration for who is contributing less to traffic jams, air pollution, or parking lot crowding. The EV driver pays the same as the carpooler who pays the same as you. 

What if we could incentivize students to reduce emissions and congestion by carpooling?

King County has a goal to reduce county-wide carbon emissions 50% by 2030 from a 2007 baseline. Their Strategic Climate Action Plan calls for reducing car trips to lower transportation emissions. Sustainability policies adopted by the Issaquah, Bellevue, and Lake Washington school districts reinforce these carbon reduction goals, opening the door for student-focused strategies.

When it comes to environmentally-friendly forms of transportation, nothing beats walking, biking, or riding an e-scooter. Taking public transportation also reduces one’s emissions. Many students who live close to school, have access to safe biking infrastructure, or live near a bus route are already walking, biking, and using transit. But what about the students who aren’t? 

Students who do have to drive should consider carpooling to cut their emissions and reduce traffic congestion. But right now most schools offer no incentives for students to carpool. 

Fifteen high schools in King County sent us data on their current parking fees and carpooling incentives. Only three have carpooling incentives: Issaquah, Redmond, and Interlake high schools. 

Issaquah High School prioritizes carpooling in their permitting process by allowing students to register multiple vehicles under one permit, and students can split the $140 fee amongst those in their carpool. 

At Redmond High School carpools are assigned a designated stall in their carpool lot and the permit fee is half-price. Two cars can be registered per permit, so two students are able to switch off driving responsibilities throughout the year. 

At Interlake High School, students who are in a three-person or larger carpool are given priority in securing a $100 permit. This means that students who carpool will be given a permit until they run out of available spaces. Students who do not carpool are placed in a lottery to have the chance to get a permit. 

The other twelve schools we collected data from do not offer any incentives to carpool. Instead students are charged a flat rate ranging anywhere from $50, like at North Creek High School, up to $140, like at Gibson Ek and Liberty high schools. Choice schools, like Tesla STEM and International Community School, do not even charge students a fee to park. 

Issaquah, Redmond, and Interlake high schools show that carpooling can be incentivized — something other schools could adopt to align with climate goals. 

Recommended policy changes: 

• Cut parking permit fees in half for verified carpoolers.
• Give carpoolers priority in receiving parking permits before solo drivers.
• Increase fees for single-occupant vehicles to reflect their higher per-person environmental impact.

If 25% of student drivers began carpooling, the environmental impact would be significant. For example, Juanita High School has an average of 300 student drivers, so that would be 75 students carpooling. Assuming each carpool is just two students that would reduce the number of cars by 37 each day. If each car emits 3.5 pounds of CO₂ daily on a four-mile round trip, this shift would cut 130 pounds of climate pollution every school day. Over a 180-day school year, that amounts to almost 11 metric tons of CO₂ avoided. That’s equivalent to avoiding 17 flights between Seattle and New York! 

If 25% of students at our fifteen surveyed high schools made this change it would prevent 171 metric tons of carbon emissions. There are 83 high schools in King County. Imagine how much we could reduce our emissions if just a quarter of student drivers carpooled to school.

How students commute to school matters.

The post Op-Ed: Students Advocate for Carpooling Incentives at High School Parking Lots first appeared on The Urbanist.

Citywide Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck is pushing for Seattle to take a few steps back toward a more ambitious growth strategy that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s administration had previously left by the wayside. In amendments to the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan set to be discussed this Monday, Rinck proposes restoring eight previously studied neighborhood centers that didn’t make it into the final plan.

The restored neighborhood centers, in Alki, North Capitol Hill, South Wallingford, Loyal Heights, South Wedgwood, Broadview and Seward Park, would match the 29 other proposed centers around the city in bringing zoning changes allowing larger apartment buildings and commercial zoning intended to foster larger business districts. Sited in areas that already have access to significant amenities, these centers are a natural place for additional density, but were cut after the plan’s early scoping, using opaque criteria, which raised concerns among housing advocates.

“Simply put, we need more housing. Being able to build more housing across the city is a major step we can take towards addressing our affordability challenges,” Rinck told The Urbanist in an interview this week. “Our city is continuing to experience tremendous growth. We see from recent numbers, what 20,000 new neighbors coming in [in the last year], we are a city that increasingly folks across the U.S. are turning to whether they’re seeking refuge for whatever reason: political refuge, social refuge, to be able to get the care that they need, and so us preparing ourselves as a city to be able to accommodate for that growth, will allow us bring in our new neighbors and have the housing that we need, so we’re not also pushing working folks out of this city.”

Restoring these neighborhood centers had been a big focus of the Complete Communities Coalition, a group of advocacy organizations focused on improving the One Seattle Plan. (The Urbanist is a member of the coalition, through its advocacy team.) While groups like the Seattle Planning Commission have also offered other recommendations to improve the plan — including growing the boundaries of existing neighborhood centers — adding proposals into the mix that weren’t previously studied in the plan’s environmental review adds more challenges and would face significant headwinds. Restoration represents a more clear pathway to improving the entire plan.

“By adding neighborhood centers to the map, we can support the kind of livable walkable communities city-wide at a smaller scale than our urban centers (formerly known as urban villages),” Futurewise’s Jazmine Smith wrote in an op-ed making the case for restoration back in June. “Doing so works to undo the compounding historical impacts of redlining and housing discrimination and reduce displacement pressures in South Seattle.” (Smith is also co-chair of The Urbanist Elections Committee and a member of The Urbanist board.)

While the city’s seven district councilmembers have been deep in negotiations over specific blocks of potential neighborhood centers, Rinck made it clear that she wanted to push in the other direction as a directly elected representative of the entire city.

“As a citywide council member, I take it as: we have an opportunity to be zoomed out and looking citywide and really taking a balanced approach to where we’re developing across the city,” Rinck said, noting that historically, Seattle’s growth has been far from equal across the city. “We’ve done neighborhood walks with concerned residents across the political spectrum, but I think being we’ve been able to marry both district specific-concerns while also taking a citywide approach and reckoning with historical harm.”

Two potential paths on parking mandates

Rinck has proposed two major amendments tackling the topic of how much off-street parking builders should be required to include in new development. One amendment would bring Seattle in line with Senate Bill 5184, approved by the state legislature this spring, which dropped the ceiling on required parking to one stall for every two units of housing and two stalls for every 1,000 square feet of commercial space, with exemptions for apartment units smaller than 1,200 square feet, mixed-use commercial spaces, and affordable and senior housing.

Seattle isn’t required to comply with SB 5184 until early 2027, but folding compliance into the Comprehensive Plan would get that step out of the way early and allow builders to start building less parking if they determine it’s feasible for their specific project. The proposal in the One Seattle Plan now would drop mandates to one stall for every two units, but without the exemptions included in the Senate bill.

Rinck’s other amendment would go even further, following in the footsteps of Spokane, Bremerton, and Bothell in fully ditching all minimum parking requirements from Seattle’s land use code.

“Our parking mandates just make it more expensive to build housing,” Rinck said. “And if we really are building towards a green energy future, we need to be encouraging more folks into taking transit, increasing pedestrianization, and improving our transit connections. [I’m] hoping that we can make some progress in alleviating some of the requirements around parking when it comes to development.”

Corner stores: not just for corners

Rinck is also targeting the issue of allowing neighborhood corner stores, letting business owners open shops in residential areas that are currently off-limits. The mayor’s One Seattle proposal would legalize corner stores and neighborhood cafes, but only literally on corner lots, despite longstanding examples of grandfathered-in cafes located mid-block that work great. Another Rinck amendment would remove that restriction — along with extending the potential hours that cafes can be open.

“It seems like an arbitrary policy decision in a number of ways, especially given the value that small, little neighborhood spots — corner stores, however you might define that — the benefit that they can add to a neighborhood,” Rinck said. “And it’s a funny thing, because the limited number of corner stores that exist in neighborhood residential areas that do exist are so beloved and busy, which I think just speaks to again, the value and vibrance they can bring to a neighborhood.”

Improving the Harrell Administration’s corner store proposal has been a priority for Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, with more amenities in neighborhoods that people can walk and bike to a clear goal.

“Every neighborhood deserves places for community members to gather, buy essential goods, create art together, and build a community,” the group wrote in an action alert created in conjunction with Futurewise and the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA). “But right now, that kind of commercial and community space can be hard to find or afford. Legalizing corner stores would help bring these services and community spaces to every neighborhood.”

In pushing the One Seattle Plan in a more bold direction, Rinck told The Urbanist that she’s optimistic that she’ll be able to bring other councilmembers along.

“I think the data is clear that when we’ve seen cities increase their housing supply through land use changes, the cities that have done that increase their housing supply, [and] they’ve seen a drop in rents or some amount of stagnation,” Rinck said. “I think a number of folks on this floor [of councilmembers] see that, understand that, and hear the demand for housing at this point. We’re not just hearing from people who are experiencing housing instability, or folks who are rent burdened. I’m hearing from homeowners who are retirees who are concerned about the housing crisis because their kids got priced out of the city, and they want to be near by their grandkids. So it’s become a real unifying issue.”

The post Rinck Proposes Restoring Growth Centers Dropped from One Seattle Plan first appeared on The Urbanist.

In Tacoma, we apply different standards to dealing with private property stored in the right-of-way: if you’re homeless, you and what is yours are targeted for removal. If you’re a motorist, we say “stay.”

As of September 2024, the City has installed more than 1,000 rocks and boulders — at a cost of $163,000 — in planting strips across the city to deter homeless encampments. 

Planting strips are fair game, however, if you happen to arrive at your location and you cannot find a parking space curbside. Hop the curb and park on the planting strip; chances are no one will complain and parking enforcement won’t ticket you (even though driving or parking in this part of the right-of-way is against Washington State law).  

Throughout the city, you can find people parking (storing) their private property in the right-of-way, and neighbors and law enforcement largely willing to look the other way. 

This contradiction says a lot about Tacoma and Tacomans.

This intolerance towards the property of unhoused people in the right-of-way is evidenced in the high levels of complaints the City receives about “the homeless,” in laws passed that prevent setting up a camp near certain facilities that serve those experiencing housing insecurity or lack of housing, and in the hostile architecture deployed to prevent unhoused people from placing their property in the right-of-way.

Look around and you are likely to find evidence of the tolerant attitudes we have towards similar and, arguably, equally disruptive and destructive use of that right-of-way if those storing their property on planting strips are, we presume, property owners (or renters, at least), just like us. Find vehicles, trailers, boats, campers, and RVs parked on the planting strip throughout the city.

But homeless encampments bring crime and trash, we are told, and therefore detract from property values. Others say that the unhoused make them feel unsafe or uneasy. Tacoma, like many cities, is willing to remove unhoused people and their property when residents call to complain. 

A vehicle on the planting strip does not evoke similar feelings, responses, or enforcement. Some might defend this instance of storing private property in the right-of-way in opposite terms, arguing that parking on the planting strip does not pose a threat to the public. Except that it does: cars parked on the planting strip do not contribute to traffic calming and they obfuscate the sight lines of other drivers. This combination of factors—higher speeds and blind spots—put children and others at risk on our already dangerous roads. 

Sometimes it is oversized vanity trucks and RVs that are stored on planting strips because these exceed the available space allotted to vehicle storage at the curb. To park on the street would disadvantage other motorists, so let’s park on the planting strip and inconvenience non-motorists instead. You see this when an oversized vehicle’s front- or tail-end extends onto the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians onto the roadway.

For many, this is just “a Tacoma thing” (not that you don’t observe this behavior in other Washington cities — but you especially see it in the City of Destiny). For others it is another clear example of how a society and its communities use property and its ownership as a meaningful differentiator.

Private property comes with its privileges in our society and in Tacoma, too. It gives you a greater claim to public assets and to how presence and access to these is enforced. A lack of property — or giving the appearance that you don’t own anything — strips you of access and dignity.

Certainly, the City will say that it does not have enough resources to curb the illegal behavior that is parking on planting strips (and there are so many things that could be done on a planting strip that are not hostile and which promote the common good). 

Yet, the City is capable and resourced enough to enforce against unhoused people using the planting strip to store their things. 

Here is an opportunity to ask better questions about access, equity, and dignity in our city, as well as the uneven attitudes and standards we all apply to how we care for our common property. Because this is just as much about the willingness of our City to act on behalf of people with “real” property against those who don’t own it, as it is about our contradictory standards and what it says about us.

Tacoma is making strides in restoring and growing the urban tree canopy, an ambitious and laudable effort that has been partly articulated as a matter of equity. The right-of-way, particularly our planting strips, offers one of the most ready resources to make more progress. We can scale-up depaving and tree-planting to maximize the public good, or we can continue to cultivate rock gardens and de-facto parking lots.

The City has deployed rocks and boulders at more than 20 sites across Tacoma. As large as this figure reads, it represents a fraction of the vehicles and other private property you will find stored in planting strips across the city on any given day.

In Tacoma, an unhoused person stands to be left alone for longer if they put their car on the planting strip before turning in for the night than if they close their eyes in a tent. We should ask ourselves what the implications are when we apply different standards to whose property is accommodated in the planting strip — and why.

The post Op-Ed: The War Over Tacoma’s Planting Strips first appeared on The Urbanist.

Bothell’s vote to completely ditch off-street parking requirements is a first for any city in King or Snohomish County — Bothell straddles both — and it becomes only the fifth city statewide to take such a step. With the cost of structured parking in new buildings regularly approaching $60,000 per stall, according to the Sightline Institute, allowing builders to tailor the amount of parking to meet demand without an arbitrary minimum to hit will remove excess costs from homebuilding.

Without costly parking requirements, builders can make more projects pencil out as feasible, especially on smaller lots. Not needing to add parking stalls on-site can make room for additional housing than otherwise possible. Given those advantages, dropping parking mandates tends to stimulate homebuilding while getting rid of a hidden subsidy for cars.

“I am really excited tonight, because we get to take a big step away from the way we’ve always done things, toward our community’s values a little bit closer,” Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson said ahead of the vote. “And the mechanics of parking minimums essentially tax new housing and new businesses that we say we really want, and we use that tax toward building something that creates more traffic and more pollution. And I’ve had thousands of conversations with Bothell residents over the last few years, and I’ve never had a single person say, do you know what? We need more traffic and more pollution. And I’m really excited to get rid of policy that subsidizes both.”

Buoyed by a progressive supermajority its city council, Bothell has been taking bolder and bolder steps toward increased vibrancy and denser housing in recent years. Its bustling downtown, which benefited from rerouting State Route 522 away from the urban core in the early 2010s, turned into an even bigger draw with the pedestrianization of Main Street. The city took steps to allow additional residential density in the wake of new state mandates in late 2023, well over a year before many larger cities scrambled to comply this summer.

The idea of reforming parking reforms in Bothell was prompted, in part, by the passage of Senate Bill 5184 this spring, which requires large and mid-sized cities to reduce required parking stalls to 0.5 per housing unit in multifamily buildings. It also requires cities to exempt uses like affordable housing and smaller apartment units from minimums entirely. During a discussion of potential Comprehensive Plan updates earlier this spring, a majority of the Bothell Council was in favor of just going ahead and removing all parking mandates, 18 months ahead of schedule.

“I will be another voice to supporting the removal of outdated, unscientific, kind of like throwing darts at a dart board parking minimums and how they have developed over time, so that developers can choose what is most marketable for them,” Councilmember Jenne Alderks said at that time.

Cafes and corner stores: legal in all Bothell neighborhoods

Bothell’s new rules for allowing neighborhood corner stores and cafes are some of the most permissive in the state. Along with those uses, property owners can open bars and taverns, bike shops, boutiques, artisan manufacturing facilities with on-site sales, offices, art galleries, salons, and child care centers in all residential zones. Operating hours would be limited to 6am to 10pm Monday through Friday — the opening hour limit goes to 7am on weekends.

“Neighborhood Scale Commercial uses are intended to promote neighborhood vitality and compatibility with surrounding residential areas, allowing only small-scale retail, service, and residential uses that primarily serve local residents with minimal traffic from outside the neighborhood,” the new code states. “These businesses should support live-work opportunities, be easily accessible by walking, biking, and local transit, and contribute to vibrant, pedestrian-friendly community hubs which eliminate reliance on automobiles.”

On small lots, neighborhood commercial spaces are capped at 1,800 square feet, or square footage can scale up by calculating 30% of the net buildable area of a lot, up to a maximum size of 2,500 square feet. In nearby Shoreline, which legalized neighborhood commercial storefronts early this year, a cap of 1,200 square feet was adopted for most residential zones, but that cap can be lifted to 2,000 square feet if a store is built within an existing building.

Other cities are set to follow in these jurisdictions’ footprints, though potentially with more onerous restrictions. In Burien, for example, corner stores and cafes are set to have a required closing time of 8pm, a move that could limit what types of businesses become viable. Meanwhile, Seattle’s pending neighborhood cafe regulations are poised to restrict corner stores to literal corners, keeping them banned mid-block.

“I am really excited about corner stores,” Thompson said as the policy was advancing back in June. “More cool businesses to walk to, more opportunities for entrepreneurs getting started, for small businesses, I think this is so cool and I think when we finally start getting these things built people are going to absolutely love it.”

Bothell’s support for creating small business incubators isn’t confined to its residential neighborhoods. In 2021, the city utilized a vacant lot downtown for its Pop Shops on Main program, in which tiny temporary retail spaces provided space for entrepreneurs to be able to have a brick-and-mortar space while at the same time encouraging people to come downtown.

This week’s votes clearly solidify Bothell’s role as a regional leader when it comes to land use reforms, particularly on the Eastside. During a panel discussion this past weekend hosted by The Urbanist at Bellevue’s Highland Community Center, Thompson was asked what factors led to his city being able to take these major steps ahead of other cities.

“I think in a lot of ways, we got pretty lucky. We have some exceptionally talented people with really good values that ran for office,” Thompson said. “I think just if there’s any special sauce we’ve had, it’s just some really brilliant people and the ability to communicate with people where they’re at about things they care about, because not everybody cares about the same things I care about, and if I talk about things I care about, I’m losing. I need to talk about things somebody else cares about.”

The post Bothell Drops Parking Mandates, Legalizes Neighborhood Corner Stores Citywide first appeared on The Urbanist.

Safe Eastside has 90 days from the end of the legislative session to turn in enough signatures to make it onto this fall’s general election ballot, giving them a deadline of July 26.

The two targeted laws were a part of a broad slate of housing reforms passed in 2025, which lawmakers have dubbed as the “Year of Housing 2.0.” Once phased in, the Parking Reform and Modernization Act will bar medium and large-sized cities in Washington from requiring more than one off-street parking stall for every two units in an apartment building — and it will prohibit parking mandates altogether in the case of affordable housing, among other select uses.

The TOD law (which passed as House Bill 1491) will require local governments to rezone areas within a half-mile of light rail and commuter rail stations, and within a quarter-mile of bus rapid transit stations. TOD requirements kick in as part of the next scheduled update to their respective comprehensive plans, which chart out growth for decades to come.

Both policies were top priorities for Democrats in the legislature in 2025, intended to make a dent in the state’s acute housing affordability crisis. They featured prominently in Governor Bob Ferguson’s transition report on housing, which claimed that “no single housing policy” would be as effective for allowing housing construction as a transit-oriented development bill.

A referendum hasn’t qualified to make it onto the statewide ballot in Washington since 2020, when voters rejected R-90, which would have pulled back requirements for schools to develop sex education curricula. To get their referenda on the ballot, Safe Eastside would need to secure the signatures of nearly 155,000 registered voters — half the number required to get an initiative on the ballot.

Formed in 2021 as a political action committee, Safe Eastside‘s advocacy has mostly focused on opposing housing for people exiting homelessness in the Redmond and Kirkland area. Its first campaign targeted King County’s conversion of the Redmond Silver Cloud Inn for permanent supportive housing (PSH) as part of the Health Through Housing program.

Most recently, Safe Eastside has targeted plans for a new Plymouth Housing PSH building on city-owned land in Downtown Redmond, a project Redmond took over after it was rejected by the Kenmore City Council.

In addition to opposing the Plymouth project, Safe Eastside has called for the resignation of Redmond Council President Vanessa Kritzer for supporting it, and for the city to explore eliminating the separately elected position of Redmond Mayor. The group has also supported slates of right-wing candidates in recent election cycles, including Dave Reichert for Governor, Raul Garcia for US Senate, and the full slate of initiatives proposed by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood in 2024.

Safe Eastside has blasted the Plymouth project as targeting the “unstable type of homeless people” and Plymouth itself as a “wealthy NGO that gives pipes and needles to its tenants.” But permanent supportive housing projects, a type of response being scaled up in response to the region-wide homelessness crisis, has proven more successful than traditional shelter interventions. New data from King County’s Health Through Housing program showed that 95% of residents who end up housed in PSH were still housed a year later, compared to 58% at shelters.

You may be wondering, what’s the tie between parking reform and the Plymouth project? Redmond’s land use code initially would have required that Plymouth find room for 125 parking stalls, despite the fact that the residents in the building would be directly exiting homelessness, with a high proportion of people with disabilities, most of which do not own cars. The building is also located steps from Downtown Redmond’s new light rail station. The City approved a variance to allow the project to move forward with just four off-street parking stalls, but three individuals have filed appeals contesting that decision — including Nicholas Strathy, a Safe Eastside donor who is sponsoring the two referenda.

Those appeals are still active, with a July 2 hearing scheduled at Redmond’s Hearing Examiner.

In addition to the Parking Reform and Modernization Act barring cities from requiring off-street parking as part of affordable housing projects, the TOD law is also set to bar most off-street parking requirements close to light rail stations and bus rapid transit stops. It also categorically exempts the work cities and counties are required to do to encourage transit-oriented development from appeals under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), limiting the ability for future litigation to tie up projects. Those changes come on the heels of other SEPA exemptions in the name of streamlining housing production, including legislation that led to the dismissal of appeals of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan earlier this year.

“Critics warn the laws silence public input on parking impacts and remove environmental review protections long available under SEPA,” a Safe Eastside press release touting the two referendums read, going on to quote Strathy. “These laws are a direct assault on local democracy and public participation,” the quote said. “People had no idea these sweeping changes were coming. Now they’re finding out the hard way.”

If Safe Eastside is successful in getting either referenda on the ballot, their effective date would be put on hold until the results of the November general election are certified.

In the case of the Parking Reform and Modernization Act, that would push required implementation of new thresholds for minimum parking requirements back by around five months, if the voters ultimately affirmed the law. Cities between 30,000 and 50,000 residents would be required to conform within three years, and cities over 50,000 would have 18 months.

In the case of the TOD law, implementation timelines wouldn’t change due to a referendum appearing on the ballot — unless voters side with repeal. Puget Sound cities won’t be required to rezone areas around transit stations until December 31, 2029, with cities like Vancouver and Spokane required to make zoning changes by mid-2026 and 2027, respectively.

Safe Eastside has not yet publicized any signature-gathering events or provided an update on progress. The group was given the green light to start collecting signatures on June 12.

The post Repeal Referendum Campaign Targets State Parking Reform, Transit-Oriented Housing Law first appeared on The Urbanist.

Bremerton’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan, approved on the same night, anticipates significant housing growth in a city that’s currently home to just over 45,000 people. The plan primes Downtown Bremerton for a building boom, raising height limits to 80 feet and removing all density limits for new development. Additional planned density is focused in commercial centers around the city and along a planned bus rapid transit line that is envisioned in Kitsap Transit’s long-range plan.

With parking mandates dropped, builders in Bremerton have the option to choose additional homes over parking, particularly in areas close to transit. Structured parking in new apartment buildings can cost builders up to $60,000 per stall, according to the Sightline Institute, a cost that is passed onto the renters who live in those buildings.

Parking mandates also put a damper on the opening of new businesses, requiring business owners to add parking to existing environments when wanting to change a use. This dynamic contributed to the hollowing out of historic main street business districts in favor of sprawled-out strip malls.

“This does not ban parking. It doesn’t prohibit parking. It doesn’t remove any existing parking, and we have a lot of surface lots across the city already. What it does do is enable extra housing. It enables businesses,” said Councilmember Jeff Coughlin, challenging incumbent Mayor Greg Wheeler to lead the city in this fall’s election, on Wednesday night. “We have the parking, and we have the ability to manage it. We just have to be smart about it. But when it comes to tackling these longstanding Bremerton problems that have not gotten better, this is a concrete step we can take. I’m happy to be bold. We need to take the lead. We need to do something big. This is something big.”

With a council that is highly focused on improving safety for people walking and biking, Bremerton’s leaders framed the change as pushing the city toward a place where depending on a single-occupancy vehicle to get around is less necessary.

“In theory, we’re supposed to be growing a city, and every city I’ve lived in, from New Orleans to New York City and Boston, I never owned a car. I walked everywhere or took a bus, or if was a little bit farther, got a cab,” Councilmember Jane Rebelowski said, noting that there’s a positive feedback loop between housing density and transit improvements. “So hopefully by [passing] this — and we get more tight development in areas — Kitsap Transit will get better.”

“Parking is absolutely a hindrance to home construction. Without a doubt, this is a huge opportunity for the City of Bremerton to be the leader in the county and in western Washington,” Jake Carter, the director of construction for Habitat for Humanity of Kitsap County, told the council. “It’s a chicken and an egg. We can’t have housing. We can’t have transit. You look at transit models, they’re based on housing density. […] Parking inhibits housing, period.”

Bremerton is on the leading edge of a wave of parking reform that is set to overtake Washington State thanks to recent moves by the legislature. With the passage of Senate Bill 5184 earlier this year, all cities with more than 30,000 people will be forced to curb the mandates in their land use codes within three years. The newly enacted law includes a new ceiling of one stall for every two units in an apartment building, with additional exemptions for affordable housing, senior housing, and smaller housing units — everything under 1,200 square feet.

While some cities, like Lynnwood, are already taking steps to adopt the framework of these new requirements as written, others are following Bremerton’s lead and exploring dropping mandates entirely, a move that is much simpler and includes less potential for unintended incentives. For example, if cities want to encourage more two and three-bedroom units, an exemption for smaller units might actually work against that.

Shoreline, which committed to unraveling parking from its land use code late last year, is still heading toward that goal, and earlier this year a majority of the Bothell City Council signed onto the idea as well. But it remains notable that cities outside of King County, which is home to the most frequent transit service in the state, moved forward first, debunking the idea that abolishing parking mandates is only possible in areas of the state with incredibly high levels of transit service.

The impacts of mandating copious parking are far-reaching, driving up air pollution that worsens human health and generating runoff contaminated with toxic tire chemicals (i.e., 6PPDQ) that has been tied to declining salmon runs. Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson drew just this connection.

“Parking is a government-mandated tax on new housing and small businesses that we want, and the result that we get from it is more pavement, more air pollution, more tire dust, 6PPDQ pollution, and we know that it drives more traffic,” Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson said in April.

With more and more cities realizing the detrimental impacts that parking mandates have on their built environment and their goals around improving transit and mobility, Bremerton is part of an early group of trend-setting cities, but there almost certainly will be more to come.

The post Bremerton Becomes Latest Washington City to Ditch Parking Mandates first appeared on The Urbanist.

Ending the city’s parking mandate would not prevent or prohibit new parking. Instead, new housing and commercial developments would decide on a project-by-project level how much parking is needed, which helps drive down the cost of new housing. Adopting market-based parking (as dozens of US cities have) is a well-studied policy that results in more housing, increased tax base and reduced dependence on single-occupancy vehicles.

In its 2025 session, Washington State Legislature passed statewide parking reform that would eventually have forced Bremerton to scale back parking mandates to one stall per two homes in most cases and exempt small commercial spaces and those in mixed-use residential buildings. Cities with populations between 30,000 and 50,000, such as Bremerton, have until 2028 to comply. However, Bremerton appears to be on a proactive course of action, complying early and going beyond the floor the state has set.  

Onerous off-street parking requirements

Bremerton’s current off-street parking regulations is vast at 17 pages and more than 5,400 words, with specific parking minimums for 48 different types of businesses – including pool halls, bowling alleys and racquetball clubs. Despite the regulatory ink spilled, Bremerton has nary a pool hall, bowling alley, nor a racquetball club.

Parking mandates for new housing are particularly onerous. A theoretical 80-unit, 5-story apartment block, which might require 16,000 square feet of land for the building itself, but would need nearly 50,000 square feet for the 160 required parking stalls – that’s about the size of a football field. If those 160 stalls were built as ‘structured’ parking inside the building, each stall would add at least $25,000, or $4 million in total, to the cost of the building.

Bremerton’s current parking regulations make homes more expensive, reduce the total number of new homes built and make urban in-fill housing less profitable. The high cost of developing in the City incentivizes sprawling development on top of former forests in unincorporated Kitsap County. That sprawl increases traffic, vastly expands expenses to maintain roads, sewers and school bus routes, and chokes off growth of Bremerton’s property tax base. 

Final debates on parking minimums

All year, parking reform has been advancing as part of Bremerton’s 2044 Comp Plan. Elimination of parking minimums seems to have a strong majority on Bremerton’s Planning Commission and City Council, and virtually no dissent has yet been heard from the public, or Mayor Greg Wheeler (who rarely weighs in on controversial issues). 

In a February meeting, the Planning Commission looked set to approve recommendations for “Staff to remove minimum parking requirements within the Comprehensive Plan… in Land Use policy LU1-Cen(F)… [and] Transportation policy TR5(K)”. 

A last minute curveball was thrown in the subsequent April 21st Planning Commission meeting, when Commissioner Richard Tift (who is also a city council candidate) requested a final debate on the topic of excluding ‘Low Density Residential’ (LDR) zones from parking reforms.

Excluding LDR, as Commissioner Tift recommends, would gut parking reform. LDR zones make up 80% of the parts of the City zoned for housing, pushing nearly all affordable housing into just 20% of the City. Excluding LDR would drive up the cost of development over the vast majority of Bremerton, would make many in-fill housing projects impractical and hinder homeowners from adding accessory dwelling units on their properties.

Planning Commissioners — and later City Council — must vote down Commissioner Tift’s proposal. 

Mission critical: More housing in Bremerton

Bremerton is desperate for more housing. Additionally, the U.S. Navy has recently announced a multi-billion-dollar plan to expand and modernize Bremerton’s shipyards, meaning an immediate influx of 5,000 construction workers and thousands of additional permanent jobs once the expansion is complete.

In 2022, Bremerton’s Kitsap County announced a shortage of 9,500 housing units, requiring 1,400 new homes every year. But Kitsap has averaged just over 1,200 new homes per year over the past five years, and over 75% of those were built outside Bremerton city limits, most in sprawling suburban subdivisions. This housing pattern forces Bremerton workers into long commutes, which snarl traffic, increase air pollution, stretch public services like utilities and school bus routes.  

Bremerton desperately needs to increase infill housing — homes built within the City, on land already served by streets, utilities and school buses. Bremerton’s current parking regulations make new housing much more expensive. And if low-density residential is excluded from parking reform, Bremerton will never realize sufficient infill growth. 

Towards market-based parking

Bremerton’s move to market-based parking is good government. For decades, Bremerton’s development has been governed by heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all regulations that assume well-meaning City officials know better than the people who own the land and seek to build on it. 

Homebuilders generally aren’t clueless people. They are risking their own money and have every incentive to build homes that people want. They are profit seeking and therefore carefully balance the extra expense of building parking units against the higher price they can charge for parking amenities. 

Small, inexpensive apartments near Bremerton’s ferries and shipyard may be prized by people who get around on foot or a scooter, or by a single mom on a budget. Larger, more expensive projects would still come with ample off-street parking, often times more than is required.

Market-based parking does not mean no new parking. A study of Seattle’s 2012 parking minimum reduction showed developers still built 60% as many parking stalls as would have previously been required to. Developers didn’t eliminate parking, but scaled parking according to local conditions, like availability of transit and walkable amenities.

Bremerton should join the scores of American cities like Bellingham, Spokane, and Port Townsend, and Eugene, Salem, and Beaverton in Oregon that have eliminated parking minimums citywide. 

The Bremerton Planning Commission will debate the market-based parking proposal on Monday, May 19th at 5:30pm at City Hall.

The post Bremerton Ponders Ending Parking Mandates to Spur Housing first appeared on The Urbanist.