Community Design Chapter

As others have mentioned, it would be nice to have sidewalk cohesion. For example, in the Columbia neighborhood, sidewalks will abruptly end leaving pedestrians walking in the street. It would be more pedestrian friendly if these sidewalks existed and were accessible to everyone.

It has also been pointed out that greater access to the waterfront would be great. From the Columbia neighborhood, a pedestrian/bike friendly bridge or walkway over the tracks would encourage us to walk down to the waterfront more, instead of having to walk all the way around, or drive.

I have heard the words "Bellingham Plan" for a few months now. There have been surveys and public meetings but today after I watched the 02.06.2025 Planning Committee meeting on BTV I just realized that "The Plan" is to get rid of all the neighborhood plans and make one wholistic Bellingham Plan. It was explained in the meeting that this was a good thing so that a developer that is building something in Cordata or in Fairhaven has the same consistent set of rules. It was also explained that there would be 4 categories of zoning R1 - R4. This sounds great, especially from a developer point of view, until you think of the different neighborhoods and why people move to one neighborhood or another. In the meeting the planning department said that this will make their job easier but that doesn’t make Bellingham a better place to live. Bellingham neighborhoods are one of the things that makes Bellingham great. Bellingham doesn’t have to look like Lynnwood to accommodate the projected increase in population density.

I am opposed to scrapping the neighborhood plans and adopting a wholistic approach to planning in the city. Just because having separate plans for each neighborhood is hard doesn't mean the planning department should take the lazy way out and make a single plan for the whole city.

A crucial priority for future large development within the city needs to be ground floor retail/public space! If large multifamily buildings get built without retail spaces on the ground floor, it will lead to a future where residents of these buildings just take the elevator down to their car, and drive away to shop/eat/drink/socialize. We need to bring opportunities for "third places" and small businesses that build community and a sense of place to all developments that get permitted, especially in our urban villages/downtown core, but even beyond. One example is an apartment building (primarily student housing) in Happy Valley. How many car trips have been eliminated due to the corner store on the ground floor of that building? We need to enshrine this feature of ground floor activation as a high priority.

Additionally, walking on the sidewalk needs to feel dignifying as a pedestrian, otherwise again, people will just drive. A good rule of thumb as to whether a sidewalk has been designed in a dignifying way is if you were to be driving past and see your friend walking down the street. If the first thought in your head is "Oh no, their car must have broken down" then they likely aren't walking somewhere that is designed with pedestrians in mind. We need to design our streetscapes and pedestrian corridors such that this first thought will consistently be "Oh that's so nice, they're out for a walk!" .

This can be done, I believe in you Bellingham!

With regard to distinct neighborhoods and streets as places, Cordata's great walking and cycling infrastructure (greenways! roundabouts!) and solid transit access deserve better uses. Most of the neighborhood is made of residential-only areas and industrial/institutional uses, and while WCC and Cordata Park are great, WCC's campus is sometimes closed, and neither of these options will help a person who wants salami or scones. As lovely as Cordata Parkway is as a road, I would appreciate more reasons to walk along that road.

Love the addition of tree canopy as priority
Also something about less strip malls that are heavily reliant on large car parks

Staff Note: Comments made early than this one were based on an older version of the chapter material released in November 2024.

Site & Building Design
• Implement light pollution control measures; e.g., lighting needs to be aimed and shaded so that it is limited to any individual property and not flooding nearby areas and other properties.
• Reconsider CPTED standards that dramatically amplify light pollution in the name of limiting petty crimes.
• Develop an aggressive tree planting program for aesthetics, carbon sequestration, recreation, shade, oxygen production, habitat, etc. and apply it to all construction review and development proposals in the City.

Integrating natural features and open space into new housing areas is a great idea. These natural features should be linked and designs should work around these with flexible rules to accommodate site specific issues. In already dense areas, move utilities to alleys and allow large scale native trees along street frontage. New developments should be grid streets adapted to landscapes (thinking Broadway). Trees are culturally significant and should be included as resources needing protection.

The Community Design updates are spot on. Love to see walkability, preservation, sustainability, diversity, renovation, and a mix of other concepts included in this section.

I support flexibility of street standards, especially for private street access. Use of alleys can be helpful where site access is constrained by topography and is useful where full standards are excessive for access to a few units, however they are often limited by environmental constraints and the cost of providing access to both sides of a parcel.

Preserving the character of our unique neighborhoods is a high priority in the face of mandated infill. More mindful interaction with the existing stakeholders and active neighborhood associations can help ease the trepidation. Solutions and strategies are out there, one neighborhood at a time. Ideas around co-housing, form based zoning, re-use of existing buildings, townhomes, etc... are intriguing. It seems however that our visions for peaceful neighborhood streetscapes will become dominated by parked cars as the densities increase (more than they already are). How can we design around the fact that people drive cars ?

Appreciate the removal of redundancy in all the sub-plans and urban villages. Permit review time should also be greatly reduced so that construction of much needed housing can happen. Review times are still being touted as 8-12 weeks for FIRST review after a permit application is submitted. Make the design requirements standards and take out the arbitrary opinion of the non-licensed city reviewers. If staff can't tell the applicant why they don't meet a standard. or tell the applicant what will meet the standard, then the proposal meets the requirement. Design review process must be part of the building permit review process, not a stand alone review. This only adds to the backlog of permitting.

It would be lovely if Bellingham could have more cohesion with sidewalks to promote the "human-scale streetscapes." As it stands now, some neighborhoods have sidewalks, others don't (and may have a ditch one needs to retreat to from careless drivers, and in many more cases sidewalks start and stop with little reason. More cohesion will help the pedestrian experience.

I also support better connections to the waterfront. It's unfortunate that we have a very large area from F street to Lafayette where there is no reasonable access to the waterfront. Ideally, there would be new pedestrian infrastructure that allows for access between the waterfront and neighborhoods over the bluff and railroad tracks.

I love that Bellingham is adding a Community Design chapter to the Comp Plan, and I really like what I'm reading. I hope the City will provide ample, well-advertised opportunities for the public to comment on the design criteria that will be established. (For my part, I am very tired of seeing new apartment buildings going up that are just big boxes painted three different shades of gray. Come on, folks, the sky is gray 3/4 of the year! And colored paint can't cost that much more!)

Future residential alleyways could be designed with more open space in mind. Leave a lot or two that would otherwise be for a home and dedicate it to a mini community garden, a basketball court, a fenced-in dog run, food truck parking, secure bike parking, an outdoor kitchen space, or simply an intentionally designed, well-lit, community gathering open space. Something that would be considered a hidden gem in an alley. The possibilities are endless!

I support activating our alleyways both downtown and throughout neighborhoods that are lucky enough to have alley homes. Streeteries in alleys, vendors and markets in alleys, hanging plants and floating art work along with string lights. Allow blank canvases for guerilla street art (thinking about WayPoint Park here). Encourage unique placemaking opportunities! There is such potential to make our downtown alleyways a "hidden" tourist destination.