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Staff outlines state-driven changes to Edmonds parking code; board to review next week
Summary
Planning staff summarized recent state law changes that limit minimum parking requirements for certain housing and commercial uses and asked the board to recommend the city fold the statutory language into the municipal code. Staff will return next week with a proposed ordinance and GIS layers showing transit stop buffers.
Planning Department staff briefed the Edmonds Planning Board on pending changes to the city’s residential parking code tied to recent state legislation and sought board concurrence to bring draft code text to Council.
Staff said the state has moved to limit local minimum parking mandates for many types of development, and that the city’s existing parking chapter — which contains many use-specific ratios developed over decades — needs simplification and alignment with new statutes. The staff presentation proposed inserting statutory language and definitions (for example, the Department of Commerce definition of “major transit stop”) into Edmonds code, updating the city’s GIS with transit-stop buffers and simplifying commercial parking requirements to a floor of about one stall per 500 square feet for commercial uses.
Staff noted several specific changes discussed in the meeting transcript: a change that extends the radius around major transit stops in which a city cannot require ADU parking from 0.25 miles to 0.5 miles; statutory limits on required spaces for multifamily developments (a referenced standard was 0.5 spaces per unit); and a list of uses for which localities may not require minimum parking (examples in the new law include small commercial spaces and housing units under certain square-foot thresholds or affordability criteria). Staff said the new law gives the city up to three years to adopt revised code text, but recommended moving sooner rather than later to create a consistent code for applicants and staff.
Planning staff asked the board to: (1) review the packet and come back with comments next week; and (2) provide a short recommendation that staff present to City Council asking council to adopt the statutory language into the municipal code and direct staff to prepare an implementing ordinance. The board agreed to discuss the item again at the next meeting and asked staff to add the new statutory language and transit-stop maps to the packet.
Staff said they will add GIS layers showing transit stops and quarter‑/half‑mile buffers, prepare a redlined code showing the statutory insertions, and return to the board with a clean draft for a formal recommendation to City Council.
