Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Olympia City Council approved a set of amendments to the Urban Village zoning code and voted to terminate the Briggs Urban Village Development agreement, actions that could potentially lead to an increase in housing and alter commercial requirements for the area.
At a council meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 24, council members voted to amend Olympia Municipal Code Chapter 18.05, which governs urban villages. The approved changes are:
The amendment to Table 5.02 was intended to remove vagueness about how required commercial floor area is calculated.
Olympia Senior Planner Jackson Ewing said the code was “generally silent on how to calculate the village acreage, and the Table 5.02 amendment provides that clarification.”
Council members debated the minimum grocery size. They voted to retain the staff recommended minimum of 9,200 square feet, with a maximum of 50,000 square feet.
Mayor Pro Tem Yen Huynh advocated for flexibility to allow for smaller or multiple tenants to meet the grocery requirement.
“I don’t think the 9,200 square feet being only a single grocery location is the only way to have a store where people can walk and get fresh food. If a smaller footprint works, that’s fine, as long as it serves the community," Huynh said.
Another amendment failed to pass that would have required a 12,000-square-foot grocery store, while allowing a 9,200-square-foot exception if backed by a contract with a grocer.
Council member Dani Madrone pointed out that the 9,200-square-foot minimum is based on data-driven recommendations from staff.
Olympia Economic Development Division Director Jennica Machado said the 9,200-square-foot threshold was based on market analysis identifying a viable size for a neighborhood-scale grocery.
Shortly after approving amendments to the zoning code, the council unanimously approved terminating the Briggs development agreement.
Ewing said most provisions of the agreement have been executed or incorporated into city code. The remaining restriction was a unit cap of 810, including accessory dwelling units (ADUs).
“The only thing that staff was able to find applicable from this agreement that is left over is the unit cap,” Ewing said.
He said the termination removes that cap and allows Briggs to rely on the updated Urban Village code, including allowing ADUs within subdivisions covered by the master plan.
Ewing said that the agreement predates the city’s adoption of its Urban Village zoning chapter and was created at a time when those standards were still being developed.
The council’s discussion also tackled the balance between increasing housing capacity and preserving neighborhood expectations for a full-service grocery.
Ewing said future project reviews and master plan amendments would address infrastructure, parking and traffic concerns.
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BillSpencer
Good. This is a common sense decision that should have been made years ago. They also need to cut parking minimums, and reduce drive aisle/ stall widths if they truly want to build an urban village and not a Walmart style parking lot.
Wednesday, February 25 Report this
jimlazar
This is a very disappointing decision.
The Briggs Village concept was approved by the City with the intent to create an urban village, where residents could walk to a grocery, to restaurants, and to other realtors. The Briggs family was strongly supportive of the concept.
Now, years later, the development has been purchased by a Canadian owner, who has no interest in anything but profit maximization. He wants to fill the space with apartments. The people who bought homes at Briggs, expecting to live in an urban village, have been shortchanged.
The residents and neighbors provides solid evidence that a larger grocery store, like a Trader Joe's size, was viable there. The City Council chose to listen to their staff, which did little more than trust the developer.
Quite sad.
Wednesday, February 25 Report this
BobJacobs
It appears that the city council is overly reliant on staff and on private interests.
Reliance on staff even when that seemed questionable is the source of this mess.
And reliance on private interests, especially "interested parties", is inappropriate (to use a polite term).
Our governments are far too close to business and development interests, rather than the general public which they are supposed to serve.
Bob Jacobs
Wednesday, February 25 Report this
MartyKenney
Curious what the people of Briggs have to say. I see no comments from a neighborhood association, or HOA, does one even exist? Do the people who moved there actually have any input on what happens or are they just regular homeowners? I hear Jim say that the folks who moved there are being shortchanged, where’s their voices? From the outside (with hopeful heart) it look like the Briggs experiment seems to have failed, which is sad for the outlook of community village living. I’d love to see an analysis of what went wrong over the 20 years. And does the current planning department care that it failed or were they against it the whole time?
Wednesday, February 25 Report this
johnvaneenwyk
Looks like green spaces take another hit. Urban villages need green spaces to ensure good quality of life. At the moment, development and profit seem always to win out over livability and love for neighborhood.
Thursday, February 26 Report this
lindseyac
Fellow Briggs resident here. My husband and I moved here recently and have been educating ourselves on the neighborhood and village history. Really frustrating to hear that the new owner appears profit hungry and that council is heavily weighing the staff’s input.
It would be great to have a grocery store here, even a small one like Spuds or something similar to the frog convenience store off Capitol. Thankfully we’re able-bodied and have a car, otherwise buying groceries would be a much bigger chore. Yelm Hwy/Cleveland aren’t the safest streets to walk along, even Henderson Ave, since folks really speed and take turns way too fast for crossing pedestrians.
We’re grateful for Briggs Taphouse and Briggs & Maple (previously Fikka Cafe) being so close, but would obviously love more options close by.
@ Marty Kenney, I personally don’t know if an HOA exists for the townhomes along Briggs Dr and I sort of doubt it given that so many are now rentals, but it would be great (if it does exist!) to get resident feedback in front of council and the developers.
Also I saw a previous comment asking about how the YMCA would impact future parking if more apartments/ADUs are built. The YMCA and Briggs Taphouse parking definitely makes its way onto the streets in the to-be square. Can’t imagine how packed, or totally full, parking will be with so many more housing units getting added.
Plus, we have tons of wildlife here like killdeer, hawks, eagles, native moles, and coyotes who will be at at even higher risk of getting hit by a car with these additional units being approved.
Thursday, February 26 Report this
BevBassett
The Olympia City Council is deeply in the pockets of developers with the exception of Clark Gilman.
Thursday, February 26 Report this
Yeti1981
There’s a lot of frustration in this thread, but let’s ground this in facts.
9,200 square feet is a small neighborhood-scale grocery. A typical Safeway is 40,000 to 50,000 square feet. Trader Joe’s stores are often in the 10,000 to 15,000 square foot range. This is not a big-box requirement. It is firmly small format.
Increasing the minimum square footage does not guarantee a specific type of store. It simply increases the size of space that must be built. If that size exceeds what the surrounding trade area can realistically support, the likely outcome is vacancy, not a better tenant.
On the “profit hungry developer” narrative, we need to be honest about how projects work. If the economics do not pencil, nothing gets built. The original 2003 vision included a much larger grocery and a hard unit cap. Two decades later, the grocery was never delivered and the Village Center remained largely undeveloped. That is not because there was too much flexibility. It is because the assumptions did not match market reality.
Removing a 20-year-old unit cap in the only designated Urban Village is not a giveaway. It is aligning zoning with current housing needs. If we want growth concentrated where infrastructure already exists instead of pushing it outward, this is exactly where additional housing belongs.
Urban villages succeed when policy aligns with feasibility. Freezing them in time does not protect community character. It prevents implementation.
The Council made a data-based decision that gives Briggs a realistic chance to function as a mixed-use neighborhood rather than remain stalled.
Thursday, February 26 Report this
Dj_V_Squid
The Briggs area needs a lot more businesses in order to be a healthy. The animal habitat in that area has already been largely paved to death, so the space needs to be used now. The area feels desolate with only a few businesses. It is not fair for such a vast, paved wasteland to exist. We erased the nature that existed there, its only fair to allow and help any businesses in the area. Otherwise, the area feels like a failed project covered in pavement.
Friday, February 27 Report this