Land Use
On December 15, 2025, Bellingham City Council approved the Bellingham Plan. You can learn more on the cob.org/comprehensive-plan. These pages are no longer being updated.
See our latest Land Use chapter updates and provide feedback.
Land Use: Existing chapter
The Bellingham Plan's land use section will guide how land in Bellingham can be used in the future. It determines the activities that are best for different areas as the city grows. The Land Use chapter is an important part of the Growth Management Act (GMA). The GMA makes cities show how they will ensure land is appropriately zoned for uses that can support 20 years of community growth.
What changes will happen in the Bellingham Plan?
A key portion of the Comprehensive Plan update will focus on changing the City’s land use map, which guides zoning across the city. Updates to the map will be informed by the 2022 Buildable Lands Report, which evaluated growth from 2016 to 2021 and provided assessments on how well the current plan’s policies are working. The land use update will also include an analysis of existing capacity, updates to the land use map, and a demonstration of how the new map can handle growth over the next 20 years (through 2045). It is likely that the new 2045 allocations will require changes to the land use map. This is to make sure we have enough space for expected jobs and housing. These changes will accommodate population growth across all economic and social ranges.
Watch this 3-minute video about the ways Bellingham could grow!
While all events contributed to our proposed land use chapter updates, the following sessions related most directly. The “Community Vision” event set the stage for conversations about how we want our City to grow in the next 20 years, and what kind of land uses will be allowed where. The “Housing Affordability” session included opportunities to talk about what housing types are needed as we plan for housing needs across the city. The open houses concluded with a final session, “How We Will Grow,” which focused on different ways we can grow to accommodate a range of land uses and changing housing needs.
- Community Vision – February 22, 2024
- Housing Affordability – April 16, 2024
- How We Will Grow – July 17, 2024
Ideas for Housing Growth
We are considering a few different approaches to how the city could grow over the next 20 years. We’d like your input as we develop them. Any approach will include:
- Continued investment and growth in our existing Urban Villages (Downtown, Old Town, the Waterfront, Fairhaven, the Fountain District, Samish Way, and Barkley)
- Compliance with new state laws, particularly allowing a variety of housing types and allowing at least 4 units on most residential lots in the city.
What concerns do you have about the housing growth that might occur under each of the approaches outlined below? What could be done to address those concerns? (View pdf version of approaches).
Post your ideas below. Let us know which approach you are leaving a comment on by indicating a #1, #2 or #3 in your comment. Feel free to leave multiple comments to provide your thoughts on each approach.
| 1. Urban Village Focus Addition of two new Urban Villages and emphasis of middle-scale housing near all Urban Villages.  | 2. Transit-oriented Focus Focus of new growth along high frequency transit routes, with mid-scale housing near these routes. Addition of three new Urban Villages along transit routes.  | 3. Complete Neighborhoods Spreading growth around the city, focusing on providing small-scale commercial uses in every neighborhood with middlescale housing nearby. Addition of some area to the north and south that the city could eventually grow into.  |
On December 15, 2025, Bellingham City Council approved the Bellingham Plan. You can learn more on the cob.org/comprehensive-plan. These pages are no longer being updated.
My concerns about Options #1 and #2 are that (a) Bellingham needs more housing right now, and waiting for existing properties to turn over into higher density uses is a delay the city cannot afford; (b) single-family housing is very much in demand as a product on its own and attached or multifamily housing is not a substitute for it; and (c) there has been a significant increase in large apartment buildings constructed in the past few years, and I have not seen any evidence that it is bringing housing costs down, so I think it must be more complicated than simple supply and demand, and building more apartments is not likely to help. I am in favor of Option #3 because we need to open up more land for new housing of all types. The UGAs can be developed intelligently with commercial uses, parks, and transit. They can be assets to the city. Bellingham seems to have this idea that expansion should be avoided at all costs. I understand some of this comes from the City's interpretation of the GMA. But we can strike a balance between the need to contain urban development and the need to expand to meet the city's housing needs.
I appreciate certain elements of each of these strategies. I would observe that the Complete Neighborhoods scenario could complement the current urban Village plan, with a new Urban Village to be established in the north. This would have the effect to provide a sense of place and completion for the north end of town. While all neighborhoods should have access to efficient transit, solely focusing our future housing strategy on transit routes is cause for concern as it would tend to focus most of the new higher density, lower income housing in a linear pattern along the transit routes and clustered around the transit centers, which may not reflect housing diversity goals.
I would like to see plots of land where homeless people with tents or campers can be. Is it so hard to have campgrounds so resource people could visit often with help? There should be no camping on streets or in the woods. I also think the tiny house sites should be rezoned to allow them to stay where they are now.
#3 scenario. how will yew street Rd be widened to accommodate the growth?
Primary focus should be #2, transit-oriented. We need more housing everywhere, but particularly need increased density along transit corridors.
We should also adopt some ideas from the Complete Neighborhoods approach, relaxing commercial zoning restrictions to allow community-serving commercial such as restaurants, retail, clinics, and services in neighborhood contexts.