Olympia senior planner Joyce Phillips provided an overview of the city's plans to update its land use codes and regulations to comply with new state laws and further the goal of increasing housing availability and affordability.
At the Land Use and Environment Committee meeting on Thursday, October 26, Phillips said the city would work to comply with House Bill 1181, which requires allowing more than one housing unit per lot in residential zones, and House Bill 1337 on accessory dwelling units (ADUs). She said it will involve amendments to definitions, design standards, and parking requirements.
House Bill 1181, the Middle Housing Bill, was adopted earlier this year. Phillips explained that it is one of two bills passed this year that will require amendments to Olympia's land use code. The bill includes several new requirements for cities; the most significant of which is to allow more than one housing unit on each lot in areas zoned primarily for residential use.
"Some of those provisions are also tied to affordability requirements. There's going to be work we need to do to ensure those units are affordable and that they will remain affordable for the 50-year time period in order to allow that," the principal planner added.
One provision in House Bill 1181 addresses unit lot subdivisions. Phillips said the bill essentially allows development to include multiple housing units on a single lot as long as the overall lot meets zoning requirements.
The bill requires cities to have a process allowing individual housing units to be sold separately.
"That's a great way to offer affordability and homeownership. But our code doesn't currently allow that unless you're going through a townhouse subdivision process. We'll need to look at our subdivision code as well," Phillips added.
House Bill 1337 addresses ADUs, which Phillips said the city is already in compliance with its ADU code amendments from December 2020. However, Phillips noted a few key changes required by the new law.
First, cities can no longer impose a size limit for ADUs less than 1,000 square feet. Olympia currently has a maximum size of 850 square feet.
Second, the law requires cities to allow the independent sale of ADUs, separate from the primary residence. Currently, the city only allows this as a condominium arrangement.
Phillips stated that Olympia would need to review and potentially amend its ADU standards to fully align with the provisions of HB 1337 around size limits, independent sales, and treatment of non-conforming structures.
Phillips mentioned that some of the things they plan to work on in 2024 include the missing middle housing. She updated the committee that the city has prevailed in the courts on the ordinance, and all of the appeal periods have concluded. "It has been remanded back to the Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB) for dismissal…which may occur before the end of this year."
In 2018, Olympia adopted the missing middle housing ordinance to increase affordable housing options. The city has been locked in a legal battle against the Olympians for Smart Development and Livable Neighborhoods (OSD&LN), which challenged the ordinance in multiple venues.
The GMHB invalidated the ordinance but was later reversed and upheld by the Thurston County Superior Court and the Washington State Court of Appeals.
Phillips said they would need to go through a process of "harmonizing" the missing middle ordinance with housing option code amendments, residential parking standards, and other related regulations.
Community Planning and Development Director Leonard Bauer announced that Olympia won a $75,000 grant from the State Department of Commerce to help fund the efforts to harmonize missing middle ordinance and ADU regulations.
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PhyllisBooth
October 31 2023
The Olympia Community and Planning Department does not listen nor plan for affordable housing in my opinion. For the past 40 years, wages of Americans have fallen for the 99 percent, yet there has been NO planning to prevent a housing crisis. In fact, mobile home parks within cities where jobs exist have been replaced by upscale apartments or these parks have been bought by private equity firms who massively increase the rent. Please vote for anyone who is Not Supported by the realtors and building industries if you want a reversal of the Missing Middle Class because Missing Middle Housing is just another way to exploit poor and middle income people so the rich own it all. Phyllis Booth
Tuesday, October 31, 2023 Report this