Bellingham and Shoreline took major steps toward eliminating parking minimums for new housing construction citywide this week — the latest Washington cities to do so in an effort to boost housing supply.
In Bellingham, City Council members voted 5-1 during a Monday committee meeting to support a proposal from Mayor Kim Lund to eliminate the parts of the city code that require developers to provide a certain number of parking spaces when building new housing.
“Housing the people of this community, providing them choices and options is far better than housing vehicles,” said Blake Lyon, Bellingham’s director of planning and community development, during the Monday meeting.
Most American cities have parking space requirements for new development, but critics argue these restrictions make cities less friendly to pedestrians and add excessive costs to new housing construction. Port Townsend became the first Washington city to fully eliminate parking minimums in March this year, and Spokane followed suit several months later.
Bellingham City Councilmember Lisa Anderson voted against the proposal. She said she had concerns that the change wouldn’t do enough to guarantee lower housing costs.
“Things are always market rate,” Anderson said. “And the only way that we’re going to have potentially lower rent for some of these units is if we require it.”
The one-year interim ordinance will go into effect in Bellingham following a public hearing and final vote by the Council on Jan. 13.
The Shoreline City Council took similar action on Monday — voting 6-1 to add language eliminating parking mandates citywide to the city’s comprehensive plan.
Councilmember Annette Ademasu said she had previously opposed the idea, but said on Monday that she changed her thinking “after hearing from residents and organizations and just looking at what our goals are for housing affordability, climate, equity and social justice.”
A vote to fully remove parking mandates from Shoreline’s code is now slated for mid-2025.
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