The public will have an opportunity on Monday, June 26, to weigh in on a development plan that would transform Bellingham’s Old Town.
Developers and city planners envision a mixture of commercial and residential uses in Old Town, an 18-block area northeast of Roeder Avenue and Chestnut Street at the mouth of Whatcom Creek. Currently, this part of Bellingham is dominated by the former Northwest Recycling facility that had been owned and operated by Parberry’s, Inc. It is also the future site of a 300-bed homeless shelter Lighthouse Mission Ministries will build by mid-2024.
Developers Curt O’Connor and Peter Dawson are buying up Parberry’s lots in Old Town with the aim of developing buildings with retail shops and mostly market-rate multi-family residences, with one 20,000-square-foot lot set aside for affordable housing.
Monday’s hearing isn’t about the specifics of the developers’ plans, however. Rather, the public will be asked to comment on changes to the rules developers must follow as they reshape Old Town.
A proposed ordinance includes three changes:
• Expanding boat sales, storage and repair to parts of Old Town northeast of Holly Street in the short term, until that area can be developed for commercial and residential use;
• Giving density bonuses to affordable housing projects; and
• Reducing residential parking requirements as follows: 0.5 parking spaces for studios, 0.75 spaces for one-bedrooms, and one space for two- and three-bedroom units.
• In a 4–3 vote in April, the city planning commission offered an alternative proposal: Eliminate residential parking requirements altogether in Old Town.
The proposed changes to parking have sparked the most written comments to planners and the city council over the past three months. Most supported no parking minimums.
“These (parking) mandates fly in the face of a brutal housing crisis,” wrote Scott Pelton, manager of the Whatcom Housing Alliance, in an April 20 email. “For every parking spot that we require, we’re taking up valuable building space for affordable housing.”
A planning commissioner who was among the three who supported some parking requirements said in an email to Cascadia Daily News that waiving those requirements would push parking into the residential Lettered Streets neighborhood and would create hardships for people with disabilities.
“It appears that removing the parking requirement also means removing requirements for accessibility,” planning commissioner Barbara Plaskett wrote in the May 21 email.
The public hearing on the Old Town rules will begin shortly after 7 p.m. Monday, June 26, at city hall, 210 Lottie St. People may also participate in the hearing remotely, via Zoom.
