In a 5-1 vote Monday, the Bellingham City Council backed Mayor Kim Lund’s plan to end parking mandates citywide as part of her multi-pronged strategy to boost housing production. The vote signaled support for Mayor Lund’s broader strategy, which includes pursuing allowing sixplexes citywide on a faster timeline than required by the state and streamlining the permitting process.
On November 21, Lund issued an executive order directing City departments to take immediate actions to increase housing opportunities in Bellingham and pushed a package of reforms with the city council. Lund was elected in 2023 on a pro-housing platform, and appears intent on making good on those campaign pledges to ease the housing crisis. On December 9, Lund presented her executive order and associated legislation to Bellingham City Council. Monday’s committee vote will be followed by a full council vote in early January, but the vote is all but certain.
“The executive order is about taking immediate actions across the city that are within the city’s control to reduce these barriers that are getting in the way of expanding housing opportunities in Bellingham, and that many of these changes must happen in the coming years, because they are required by state law,” Lund told Council. “Yet I believe we can do much of the important work more quickly. So, much of the intention behind the executive order is to accelerate these actions, because we do not want our community to wait longer than necessary for action, and so we are proactively jumpstarting this process.”
Housing cost increases are outstripping wage growth and inflation, leading a majority of Bellingham renters to be cost-burdened, Lund noted.
“We’ve reached a critical point for housing affordability in Bellingham,” Lund said in her executive order. “Over the years, housing costs have increased, and incomes haven’t kept pace. In the last five years, the median rent in Bellingham has increased by 37% and the median home price by 56%. Additionally, 24% of homeowners and 56% of renters are cost-burdened, meaning more than 30% of their income goes toward housing. This order is designed to increase the supply of housing, which can increase vacancy rates and, in turn, helps keep rents and home values from rising – or even reduces them.”
Bellingham’s Director of Planning and Community Development Blake Lyon shared similar stats and sentiments during his presentation to Council laying out the case for ending parking mandates.
“Housing the people of this community, providing them choices and options, is far better than housing vehicles,” Lyon said. “[I] would much rather come to this topic with a way to provide housing for somebody and a range of people in this community, and giving that choice back to the members of this community at a variety of different [income] ranges.”
