Conclusions & Recommendations

Summary of Key Findings

Discussion

In this section, I explored practical strategies to enhance owner-occupancy for low- and middle-income populations, focusing on their early involvement in the property development process. This inclusive approach transforms them from mere consumers to active development partners, leveraging the remodeling of existing single-family homes as a primary method for creating new housing units. The research advocates for a collaborative, community-driven approach to housing development, detailing three specific strategies: partnering with homeowners to build subsidized units, facilitating multi-party co-buying for redevelopment, and enabling public utility developers to acquire and redevelop properties for affordable housing. These methods, supported by existing co-housing legal structures and innovative land use policies, aim to increase affordable homeownership opportunities and foster community wealth building, despite the challenges posed by current financial and regulatory environments.

One of the best ways to invest public resources into affordable housing development is to expand inventory of community land trust and non-market housing. Community land trust homes and de-commodified/non-market housing are not a comparable wealth-generating mechanism when compared to market-commodity home ownership, but it does offer considerably greater financial stability and housing security when compared to market rentals. De-commodifying the property of a housing unit offers greater long-range return on investment for the expenditure of public funds than subsidy of construction costs or purchase price alone. Subsidies for construction costs and down payment assistance remain a vital part of theequation for producing “housing for all income levels”, especially for households earning below 30% area median income. But to increase production of both subsidized low-income housing as well as middle-income housing, a new middle-ground can be described where the only part that is subsidized is the land ownership and installation of in-ground utility services, while the building structures might still be produced as market rate construction costs. If such housing units are owned by or held within a community land trust or other privately formed limited equity cooperative, the units can be made available to middle-income households as a more financially stable form of housing that occupies a market space somewhere between renting and condo ownership, producing a high rate of return on the investment of public funds.

As applied by these research findings, the concept of “Simple Small Things First”, and “Low-hanging fruit” emphasize the importance of starting with easily achievable, yet impactful strategies in the realm of affordable housing development. The approach described below advocates for leveraging existing resources and opportunities, such as remodeling single-family homes and many individual small-scale development projects, to quickly create new housing. By engaging low- and middle-income individuals as partners in development rather than passive recipients, this strategy aims to catalyze owner-occupancy and foster community-driven development processes. It represents a pragmatic step towards addressing housing challenges by focusing on straightforward, readily implementable solutions that can have an immediate and significant impact.

Shifting towards form based code rather than Euclidean (use-based) code represents a paradigm shift in urban planning and zoning. Form-based codes focus on the physical form of the built environment, rather than segregating land uses, as is common in traditional Euclidean zoning. This shift enables more flexible, adaptive use of space, catering to the evolving needs of communities and demographics. It allows for a more inclusive, diverse urban landscape, facilitating a mix of residential, commercial, and communal spaces. This approach can contribute to more vibrant, walkable neighborhoods and can be instrumental in overcoming historical zoning practices that have often led to socioeconomic and racial segregation, promoting greater equity and accessibility in housing.

Simple Small Things First

A pivotal strategy to boost owner-occupancy prospects for low- and middle-income populations is their early integration into the property development process. This approach positions them as development partners rather than consumers or clients. With this re-framing, the remodel and redevelopment of existing single-family homes is a primary opportunity for rapidly creating new housing units. Infill development is expensive and finicky and does not offer high enough return on investment to satisfy pro-forma models of most housing developers. This research proposes a localized practice with an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to affordable housing development, with four clearly defined development pathways.

• One, partner directly with existing single-family homeowners to build subsidized housing units on their properties with an affordability covenant attached to the resulting unit.
• Two, enable multi-party co-buying of existing single-family homes, to be re-developed by the occupants to create middle housing for themselves.
• Three, strategically acquire bottom-market residential and infill properties for re-development as permanently affordable housing.
• Four, expand mortgage assistance and financing options for households earning 50 – 120% of area median income.

For all four of these strategies, the existing legal structures of a co-housing condo association can be used to enable affordable homeownership opportunities. The condoization of detached accessory housing units can be used to affect a pre-emptive lot subdivision, in anticipation of state-level reform to legalize small lot subdivisions. This research also finds that over long-term investment timelines, it is more important to subsidize land acquisition and installation of utility services than to subsidize construction of the building itself. Expanding the overall inventory of residential property that is owned in public trust, such as the community land trust model, increases opportunity for retention and recapture of public housing subsidies in tandem with affordable homeownership and community wealth building.

Adoption of recently passed state legislation takes a considerable step towards enabling affordable housing development and entry level home ownership opportunities. But the 2023 package of bills focuses mainly on reducing zoning and land use barriers to the architectural forms of middle housing. Additional incentives, funding sources and financing mechanisms are also needed to ensure that the housing units produced will be affordable to low- and middle-income households. Bellingham can and should do more at the local level to incentivize the development of affordable and entry level homeownership opportunities through infill development. I also found that Bellingham has existing policy frameworks that reflect best practices and innovations identified in my literature review and case studies, but Bellingham’s existing policies need reform and revision to be accessible to small-scale developers.

The primary issue that restricts the strategies described in this research is the availability of financial products to support multi-party co-buying of land and property. This research focuses mainly on municipal land use and zoning policies, and the availability of financial products is beyond the jurisdiction of local municipal governments. However, there are several pro-active measures that local municipalities can implement within zoning and land use policies to encourage and enable the financial industry to accommodate multi-party co-buying. There are also measures that local municipalities can take to proactively lobby for state and federal level reforms, to allow subsidized down payment assistance and home repair funding to be more accessible to co-living and co-owned households.

Implementing such reforms at the state and federal level would be the fastest way to spur corresponding actions and mortgage products within finance industries. Within financial and real-estate industries, the biggest concern for expanding the practice of co-ownership and co-buying is the need for a clearly defined legal structure to support individual co-owners to buy in-and and buy-out of co-owned properties, without triggering refinance of the primary mortgage. The legal structure of a condominium association, as currently embedded in the Bellingham Municipal Code Definition for “CoHousing”, is the most robust existing legal structure to allow for this. However, there are several other structures to support cooperative co-ownership of residential properties that can and should be expanded alongside the condominium structure, including limited equity cooperatives, and tenants in common ownership structures.  

Expanding support and opportunity for Co-buying

This research proposes an additional mechanism, described through inquiry with Wilson Law Group, where a single-family homeowner with an existing mortgage (for whom there is a strong financial incentive to avoid refinancing their mortgage) sells either an undeveloped portion of their property or a fully developed ADU to a buyer, thereby converting the ADU rental unit into an owner-occupied condo. This type of sale would avoid refinance of the existing homeowner’s mortgage through the legal mechanism of a partial release, or partial reconveyance. In conversations with local mortgage broker Brian Crovo, as well as Joe Hoppis of Pairadime, both expressed the sentiment that there is no reason for an existing mortgage lender to allow a partial reconveyance as described by Wilson. Further research is needed to determine whether this is a viable and scalable model, and to identify potential financial incentives for a homeowner with an existing mortgage to do this.

Pairadime is a company based in Bellingham, serving clients in the United States and Canada, that supports co-buying purchases for anyone looking to purchase property together outside of a standard marriage relationship – including extended family, non-married partners, and groups of friends. The primary innovation that Pairadime offers is a structured process for determining equity shares for co-buyers, negotiating and drafting a robust agreement contract for co-buyers that outlines the terms of their shared property ownership, as well as terms for any partner to be bought out should they desire to divest from the property and move away at any time. As discussed with Hoppis, there is no reason that one of the co-buyers couldn’t be a community land trust, and there’s no reason that the co-buying agreement couldn’t mirror the ADU Condominiumization model practiced by Wilson Law Group in Seattle, whereby a pre-platting agreement is drawn up so that the owner of an individual unit also owns the surrounding micro-lot that their unit sits on. Again, more research is needed to investigate and describe the potential legal mechanisms and financial incentives for co-buying, co-ownership, and pre-platting of residential properties.

Describing an Underserved Market Sector

              The above literature review, data analysis, and community survey results in this research support the re-framing of low- and middle-income households as an underserved market sector and potential development partners, rather than a category of social service clients. Re-framed in this light, the production of middle housing and affordable homeownership opportunities can be approached as a design challenge and a long-rage economic investment. Our housing development systems are all geared towards providing a fully completed consumer product that is designed and constructed around the primary metric of producing profit for developers and builders, with the interests of the end user/occupant secondarily represented through building code and sales markets. In this current scenario, buyers must choose between a relatively limited range of housing that existing developers know to be reliably profitable. Custom-built homes are, for the most part, only accessible to very high-income clients served by a high-end boutique building industry.

On the other side, developers specializing in subsidized housing development for low-income households are burdened with layers of increased administrative requirements and greatly extended project timelines that increase overall cost per square foot to construct individual units. Often, this increased cost per square foot to produce units translates into choosing lower grade construction materials and appliances to keep projects within available funding budgets. Beyond considerations of overall building costs, affordable housing developers are always chasing a shifting baseline of continuously expanding need, even as they seek to increase s of low-income unit production.

Middle income households existing in the awkward space between limited supply of subsidized affordable housing, and market-rate housing developers seeking to max-out their profit margins and the “highest and best use” of a property. Middle income households have historically relied on the cast-off housing of higher-income developments, as the buildings age and deteriorate over time and as elder households pass away or downsize into assisted living arrangements. This is the model of the “fixer-upper” and “sweat-equity” opportunities for entry-level homeownership. But this model has been failing to meet the needs of middle-income households for some time, and has become a fairy tale under current market conditions. This research proposes that homeownership products that are accessible to all income levels and all sectors of a region’s local economy, as well as entry level starter homes with opportunity for expansion and improvement by the occupants, must be designed as upfront market products, not assumed as downstream byproducts of market turnover. 

This research also describes a sort of “DIY Social Housing” tactic – by making the mechanisms of property development available to middle-income households to invest in and develop residential properties for themselves. One pioneer in this model is the Little Mountain Co-Housing Development in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Little Mountain Co-Housing Development is a private development built by and for a group of friends consisting of multiple household family units who collaborated to build and develop an eight-unit condo building to suit their specific desire for semi-private and semi-shared co-housing architectural form. Little Mountain Co-Housing is a pioneer, and they share their specific frustrations and the barriers they faced in producing this new architectural form and “irregular building use”, as well as their relative privilege as well-resourced families on the higher end of “middle-income”. But it still provides an excellent early example of the kind of “DIY Social Housing” model I am seeking to design a tactical mechanism for. One important aspect of developing non-market housing is that it does not inherently rely on public subsidy to make the units affordable. Affordability comes from the long-range investment of removing those housing units from the commodities market so that the unit rents do not rise at pace with economic inflation. Instead, rents reflect the cost of construction and development at the time they are built, while the units are operated, managed, and maintained at cost by building occupants. This model simply removes the building owner and their need for profit and investment returns from the rental property management equation and returns that income value directly to the occupants.

Opportunities for DIY labor in small-scale property development

Table 14 at the end of this section describes a rough outline of the stages of residential home building and identifies key opportunities for DIY labor and sweat equity. This Strategy Matrix was developed from conversations with residential builders and homeowners who have completed DIY construction of both attached and detached accessory dwelling units. Most general contractors expressed discomfort or outright refusal to participate in projects where homeowners are completing any portion of the work themselves, based on their business operations for larger projects with complex schedule coordination and tightly controlled timelines. But beyond general contractors who provide that sort of turn-key service, there is a vast economy of small-scale specialty contractors whose business models are focused on isolated repair and remodel projects. The most accessible DIY labor for homeowners to take on is the role of general contractor, which includes overall project permitting and scheduling each specialty contractor for various stages of project work. The most likely DIY projects undertaken by homeowners tended to be remodel projects within existing structures. Homeowners reported that overall, interior finishing work was the most accessible DIY labor, aside from overall project management. Homeowners that took on larger portions of DIY labor, or projects involving new construction, often had some relevant professional expertise within the building trades. One was a union electrician; another was a project coordinator for home repair projects at a local social service agency. All the participants I interviewed who took on a DIY ADU project were married couples, where the spouse taking on the bulk of the project management and labor had the ability to take extensive time off work.

Shifting Away from Use-Based Code, Towards Form Based Code

              Single Family Zoning is an example of use-based code that employs an outdated definition of what a family unit looks like. The rational for single-family use-based zoning is described as an attempt to prevent overcrowding of existing structures and neighborhood utility infrastructure. But use-based codes and single-family zoning often serve to restrict adaptive re-use and make it difficult to remodel existing homes to match changing household demographics. Further, single-family zoning is rooted in positions of out-right racial and socioeconomic prejudice, and the attempt to preserve a dominant racial identity and cultural norm that revolves around a white heteronormative family unit of two adult parents and their immediate offspring (Bird et al., 2018; Wells et al., 2010). This baseline cultural norm actively restricts alternative household arrangements such as generational households, chosen family units, and cooperative living arrangements. Use-based code and zoning also centers around car-dependent neighborhoods, segregated away from commercial areas and multi-family housing.

 “Evidence shows that single-household only residential zoning has a disproportionate impact on the ability of historically disadvantaged and vulnerable groups to access attainable housing and quality schools and services.”

American Planning Association, 2022

Use-based code often creates functional absurdities, that subvert the stated purpose of the code, as described in the discussion above. Switching over to form-based code ensures that building structures can be safe, healthy and energy efficient, while allowing greater flexibility for adaptive re-use according to occupants’ need. It also allows neighborhood occupants to customize building functions and create both residential and commercial structures according to their own needs. Furthermore, form-based code can make it easier to transition away from car-dependency, allowing neighborhood occupants to customize walking and bicycle infrastructure for their own neighborhoods with development that supports the immediate needs of the neighborhood. This creates opportunity for cross-sector co-benefits, increases access to economic opportunity and entrepreneurship, and reduces overall carbon emissions as community members create the kind of businesses and housing units that are most needed. These small, neighborhood-scale businesses might look like corner stores, produce stands, childcare services, bicycle repair, front-yard storefronts, and in-home cottage industries.

Investing In Non-Market Housing & Expanding Mechanisms for CLT Land Acquisition

              One primary mechanism for producing and stabilizing an inventory of homes that are affordable to low- and middle-income households is to expand the supply of non-market housing. Haberle and House describe some of the limitations of CLTs in delivering racial equity through homeownership, and suggests that the community land trust model be considered as a mechanism for expanding supply and inventory of public housing more than a mechanism for household wealth building (Haberle & House, 2021). While there is “an inherent tension between CLTs’ permanent affordability protections and asset building,” CLTs offer a cost-effective mechanism for expanding the overall supply of non-market housing (Haberle & House, 2021). While there is limited data in the US to determine the overall impacts of Community Land Trust homes on surrounding housing prices, the WEF Insight Report titled “Making Affordable Housing a Reality in Cities” identifies the expansion of and investment in a supply of non-market housing as a primary tactic for stabilizing a city’s housing markets (Nelson et al., 2020; World Economic Forum Insight Report, 2019).

              Based on my interviews with Kulshan Community Land Trust, Habitat for Humanity of Whatcom County, and the KCLT Board Home Equity Investment Working Group, as well as subject matter experts across the nation, there are an emerging set of tactics for increasing the overall rate of CLT land acquisition. One, is existing elders deeding or donating their homes into the land trust, upon which the land trust develops infill units on the property and provides building maintenance and upkeep on the existing home, supporting the residents to age in place In this donated property scenario, the new residential units are operated as affordable housing rental units by the community land trust. A second mechanism is for homeowners of large lots with ADU infill rights who have paid off their mortgages in full, is to donate portions of the property that are eligible for infill development directly to a community land trust, thereby reducing their overall tax burden for the property that they retain. These first two mechanisms are relatively straightforward and easily operate within existing land use law and legal functions.

Small Lot Acquisition and Pre-Development

One way to design an upfront affordable housing product is to break-up the stages of housing development and connect each stage to a greater variety of funding sources. A primary suggestion from the Business Advisory Council’s working group on housing is to use the Port of Bellingham (technically under Whatcom County jurisdiction) Economic Development Investment fund for affordable housing and workforce housing development. One restriction on this funding source is that it can only be used for improvements to publicly owned land. This would imply that it can only be used for the development of publicly owned housing and in-street utility infrastructure associated with increasing residential density. It could not be used to construct accessory dwelling units on privately-owned single-family properties, and not an existing privately owned property seeking to add new infill units. One way to navigate around this requirement is for community land trusts to engage in land acquisition and pre-development for infill with EDI funding and other public funding sources, then sell the pre-developed lots to directly to income qualifying middle- and low-income home buyers as a sweat-equity DIY development opportunity with packages of pre-approved building designs, prefabricated housing units and DIY build kits.

Within current regulatory environments and market conditions, Kulshan Community Land Trust has had to completely cease scattered site home purchasing, as the funds they have available for housing unit subsidies cannot compete with current real estate market prices for single-family homes. While Kulshan has pivoted their business model towards the development of new housing units with publicly owned and donated land. The possibility of pre-developing infill lots creates a new source of land acquisition for community land trust and affordable housing development to replace the purchasing of scattered site single family homes. Wilson described a “wild west land-grab” atmosphere in the city of Seattle around the purchasing of single-family lots for redevelopment into ADU Condos.

Policy Recommendations

Key Strategies to Encourage Production of Homeownership Opportunities Accessible to Low- and Middle-Income Households

              The policy recommendations below seek to fill in gaps in Bellingham’s affordable housing development infrastructures identified through Stakeholder Interviews and the Policy Review. Bellingham has several progressive policies that seek to support the development of middle housing, like the Infill Toolkit and the pre-emptive adoption of HB 1337 for reduced restrictions on Accessory Dwelling Units. However, uptake on new building permits for these middle housing types still lags well behind the goals set by the Housing for All Planning Tool. Restrictions on total building mass governed by the Floor Area Ratio may prevent a homeowner or builder from building taller structures that preserve more landscaping area of the yard. Bellingham has an existing municipal code for CoHousing developments that utilizes the legal mechanism of a condominium, but it is restricted with a minimum lot size and minimum number of units that has drastically limited the feasibility of CoHousing, and acquisition of a large enough parcel to meet the minimum requirement is more and more cost prohibitive as land values rise. Most of all, there is a need for connecting public subsidies for affordable housing and utility infrastructure development to small scale and owner-occupied housing developers. Bellingham has an Incentive Program for Innovative Affordable Housing Projects intended to spur affordable housing infill projects, but the administrative requirements for participation are complex and the program is only usable for large-scale affordable housing developers. Similarly, Whatcom County and the Port of Bellingham have a program to fund infrastructure improvements for affordable workforce housing, but the administrative requirements for proving public benefit prevent small scale developers from accessing this funding source. Within all of these gaps, the most limiting is the need for a dedicated funding source to focus on strategic acquisition of buildable lands to be transferred into community land trust ownership.

Create a New Organization to Implement Programming Support for Small-Scale Infill Development:

Establish program funding to support the formation of an expanded city planning department, public utility, or non-profit agency dedicated to the development of affordable home ownership and affordable rental housing units. The development of this agency should look to the model of Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, and be customized to the local context of Bellingham, Washinton. Once formed, this agency is to implement a city-wide program of systematically purchasing bottom-market and dilapidated residential properties, to be transferred into CLT ownership for repair and/or re-development as permanently affordable non-market housing. In tandem with a program of land and property acquisition, this agency will operate to provide support, training and oversight for small-scale developers and homeowner.

• Acquire developable and re-developable residential properties, complete pre-development to install utility services to build sites.
  
• Provide institutional support for multi-party co-buying and privately formed limited equity coop structures of property ownership. Provide any necessary institutional support for the formation of legal frameworks and land acquisition for:
  • Financial and land use legal support for the formation of condo associations and limited equity cooperative entities necessary for the co-ownership of residential property, support the drafting to tenants-in-common contracts.
  • Convert existing single-family buildings into co-housing developments. Encourage the conversion of single-family properties into cluster short subdivision as co-housing developments. Use EDI and other affordable housing subsidy funding to pre-develop cluster short subdivision lots with in-ground utilities, necessary groundwork, and/or installation of foundations for pre-approved building designs.
  • Support adaptive re-use of existing housing stock: small home remodel projects adding kitchen and bathroom facilities to existing single family homes to make them more appropriate for co-housing and shared housing arrangements.
    
• Facilitate small-scale and owner-occupied developers to access affordable housing funding subsidies. Provide institutional and administrative oversight for small-scale developers to construct infill development as permanent affordable housing units. Provide ongoing technical assistance to support small-scale incremental development, customized to individual property scenarios.
  • Funding Source: Whatcom County’s Economic Development Investment funds under the existing Infrastructure Improvements for Affordable Workforce Housing Program, as well as state funding for affordable housing development. (in tandem with state-funding programs for affordable housing development)
  • Incentive: BMC 20.29 Affordable Homeownership Program (as amended by KCLT policy recommendations).
  • Case Studies & Model Programs:
    • California HFA – ADU Grant Program, $40,000 grant to cover pre-development  costs (ADU Grant Program | CalHFA, n.d.)
    • South Bend, Indiana – Sewer Lateral Reimbursement Policy (“New Neighborhood Homes Initiative,” n.d.)
      
• Partner directly with existing homeowners to build Accessory/Infill Units on their properties.
  Construct ADU rental units on properties where it doesn’t make sense to subdivide or condominium-ize (because of existing mortgage terms or owner preference).
  -&-
  Provide institutional oversight and property management services for participating rental unit owners to receive tax rebates in exchange for offering below market rent.
  Facilitate private property owners with any kind of rental unit to receive tax exemptions for offering rental units with below market rate rent. Partner with an existing non-profit housing services provider that already does property management to connect income qualifying tenants with subsidized rental units.
  • Case Studies & Model Programs – National:
    • Durham, North Carolina (Home – Durham Community Land Trustees, n.d.)
    • Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (Creating Homes, n.d.)
  • Case Studies & Policy Precedence – in Washington
    • Habitat for Humanity Development in Ferndale
    • WashingtonState Bill 5045 – Creates a property tax exemption for ADUs to owners who offer them at rent affordable to people making 60 percent of the area median income. SB 5045 only applies to counties with +2mil population and does not apply to Whatcom County, but provides a template for developing our own version.
      
• Operate ongoing training and education in property development for a local cohort of small-scale real estate developers. Sponsor and host ongoing training and education in property development for homeowners and small-scale developers, such as the Incremental Development Alliance programming like the “The Swarm” Small Developer Curriculum offered in South Bend, Indiana.
  • Coordinate with university, community college, or technical college to design localized curriculum and certification programming for small-scale property development and real estate finance as a stand-alone professional development course available to local community.
  • Collaborate with Whatcom Housing Alliance, Incremental Development Alliance, and Neighborhood Workshop consulting services to develop localized curriculum, as well as training for planning staff and development professionals in incremental development principles and tactics.
  • Informal monthly workshop between Planning director, staff, land use consultants, bankers and mortgage brokers, homeowner-developers, tenants, for-profit and non-profit developers for feedback in all directions.
  • Case Studies & Model Programs:
    • South Bend, IN Departments of Community Investment & Neighborhood Investment (City of South Bend, n.d.; Herriges, 2021)
      
• Homeowner Mentorship
  Provide ongoing mentorship and support for homeowners and condo coops in budgeting and planning for long-term maintenance/upgrades of their building structures.
  • Home buyer education and preparation classes.
  • Coaching and curriculum for ongoing home maintenance.
  • Support access to funding programs for long-term maintenance, repairs, and improvements, coordinated with existing low-income weatherization and home repair loan and grant programs.
  • Case Studies & Model Programs:
    • Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (Creating Homes, n.d.)
    • Kulshan Community Land Trust (discontinued since COVID, but Kulshan has operated home buyer education classes for residents of Bellingham and Whatcom County)

Recommended Policy Revisions to enable tactics of Affordable Infill in Bellingham, Washington:

Further amend Bellingham Municipal Code to encourage greater diversity of housing types and adaptive re-use strategies of existing housing stock.

• Include municipal code definitions and allowances for a greater variety of small building types: pocket neighborhoods, cottage courts, cluster housing, stacked flats, co-living manor, guest/co-living suites, and mobile tiny houses as approved building types.
• Revise municipal code and zoning allowances for small lot and zero lot line subdivisions.Add municipal code and zoning definitions for cooperative housing, co-ownership, and small condo developments.
• To encourage both density and the preservation of greenspace/permeable landscaping for stormwater management: revise floor-area-ratio (FAR) calculation to only include building footprints, rely on height restriction to limit overall building height and density development.
• In place of the ADU owner-occupancy requirement, adopt and opt-in affordability covenant in tandem with Bellingham Municipal Code 20.29 – Affordable Homeownership Incentive Program. This measure would allow public funding (to be made available for installation of water supply, sewer and electrical utility services for infill development, when an affordability or deed-restriction covenant is in place.

• Revise BMC 20.08.020 Terminology Definitions:
  • Revise existing definition for “boarding and rooming house”:
    “Boarding and rooming house” means a structure used for the purpose of providing lodging or lodging and meals, for persons other than those under the “family” definition. This term includes dormitories, cooperative housing and similar establishments but does not include hotels, motels, medical care facilities or short-term rentals. [add: Designation as a boarding or rooming house implies that each renter occupant has an individual lease directly with the homeowner or property manager.]
  • Add definition for “co-living or guest suite”:
    “Co-living suite or guest suite” means any attached or detached set of adjoining rooms that may include sanitation facilities and a partial kitchen, such as a wet bar sink and plug-in cooking or refrigeration appliances. Guest suites must have close access to any shared household amenities not provided within the suite, including bathrooms and bathing, laundry facilities, and/or communal household kitchen spaces. May or may not have an independent exterior entrance. May not be operated as independent rental unit but may be rented as a room when primary dwelling is owner occupied or occupied in the context of a co-living or cooperative housing arrangement.
  • Add new definition for “cooperative housing”:
    “Cooperative housing” means a structure used for the purpose of housing a self-organized group of non-family individuals. This term also includes co-living, extended family, and chosen family households. When occurring in rental units, defined by the household having a single shared lease agreement. This term also includes any housing structure that is owned by an LLC or limited equity cooperative, where the occupants own a share of the LLC or LEC, but not an individual dwelling unit.
  • Revise “co-housing” definition to include “cluster short subdivision”:
    “Co-housing” means a residential development on one contiguous parcel of land, designed by and developed for members of an existing co-housing organization in which members of the co-housing organization will own and reside. A co-housing development shall consist of at least five residential dwelling units and shall be operated as a condominium, co-op or similar form which allows for individual ownership of each dwelling unit. It shall also include one or more common structures containing a shared kitchen, library, computer room, laundry, greenhouse, play area or other common residential facilities for use by the residents.
  • Revise existing definition for “family”:
    “Family” means one or more persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption, or not more than three unrelated persons [add: “or choice”], living together within a single dwelling unit. For purposes of this definition, children with familial status within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. 3602(k) and individuals with disabilities within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. 3602(h) will not be counted as unrelated persons. “Adult family homes,” as defined by RCW 70.128.010, are included within the definition of “family.” Facilities housing individuals who are incarcerated as the result of a conviction or other court order shall not be included within this definition.
  • Revise existing definition for “floor area ratio”:
    “Floor area ratio (FAR)” means the total floor area [add: footprint of enclosed floor area of the building(s) and any building overhang] on a site divided by the site area. For the purposes of calculating FAR, all floor area with ceiling height not more than three feet above the adjacent finished ground level is excluded.

• Revise BMC 20.28 – Infill Toolkit
  • In response to HB 1337, Remove any contradictions or redundancies between Infill Toolkit and International Residential Code, Energy Code, and recently passed HB 1110 & 1337.
    • July 7 – City Council Adopted revisions to BMC to comply with HB 1337
      (except owner occupancy).
      
• In place of the ADU owner-occupancy requirement, adopt an opt-in affordability covenant in tandem with Bellingham Municipal Code 20.29 – Affordable Homeownership Incentive Program.
  • Adoption of affordability covenant can allow the development of subsidized housing units on existing privately owned property, and can allow existing housing units to be converted into affordable housing subsidies in tandem with
  • Allow access to public funding for pre-development costs, including installation of water supply, sewer and electrical utility services for infill development, when an affordability or deed-restriction covenant is in place.
  • Use as a template, “2021 Model Declaration of Affordability Covenants with Refinance and Resale Restriction and Purchase Option” published by the Grounded Solutions Network (2021 Model Deed Restriction, n.d.)
    
• Revise BMC 20.29 – Affordable Homeownership Incentive Program
  • Increase the earned density bonus for affordable housing units to 200% (goes beyond density allowed in transit zones under HB 1110), as proposed by Kulshan Community Land Trust leadership staff.
  • Allow non-profit housing developers and community land trust organizations to provide administrative oversight and technical support to small-scale developers seeking to participate in affordable housing incentive programs that require income qualification for potential tenants/home buyers.
    
• Revise BMC 19 – Impact Fees & BMC 21 – Procedures and Administration
  • Waive or restructure development fees and streamline permitting processes.
    • Waive all permitting fees altogether for housing units developed with affordability covenant, either as homeownership or rental units.
  • Change fee structure for Water Meter Upgrade/Fixture Count to reduce the $7,000 charge.
    • HB 1326 – Reduce utility costs for affordable housing by authorizing local waivers of utility connection charges for affordable and supportive housing owned by nonprofits and housing authorities.

• Further reduce permit review timelines and waive or reduce permitting fees:
  • HB 1293 – Streamlines local design review processes, requiring them to use “clear and objective” standards that don’t reduce development capacity otherwise allowed. In addition, the process cannot require more than one public meeting.
  • HB 5412 – Reduces unnecessary environmental review of homebuilding proposals, exempting from State Environmental Policy Act review proposed housing developments within urban growth areas that comply with local Comprehensive Plans.
  • SB 5290 – Supports local governments in streamlining their permit processes for new housing, establishing grant programs for them to reduce permit review timelines and to support local governments’ transition from paper-based to software/web-based systems.
    
• Adopt a catalogue of pre-approved building designs for infill development (already underway).
  • Include housing types allowed by HB 1110 – four and six-plex multifamily – in pre-approved design catalogue.
  • HB 1337 allows two ADUs per lot, new maximum 1,000 square feet per unit (assumes new construction not remodel).
    • A two-story 1,000 square foot unit (500sf footprint) with one kitchen and bathroom currently maximizes cost/square foot price points. A two-story building with a 500sf footprint can also be two stacked studio apartments. Develop a pre-approved net-zero building design to max-out this cost/square foot price point and further subsidize this unit. Allow this unit to be developed as zero lot-line townhouses, stacked flats, and cottage court cluster housing.
  • Design small footprint homeownership starter units with options and flexibility for future addition, expansion and improvements.
  • • Develop starter home design into a flat-pack DIY build kit sourced from local lumber & material suppliers.
    • • Simple structural components, easy to configure in different ways.
    • Encourage localized factory construction of pre-approved housing designs.
    • Encourage the production of flat pack DIY build kits with local lumber and building supply industries.