Mountlake Terrace planning commission reviews draft middle‑housing zoning and design standards

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, Wash. — The Mountlake Terrace Planning Commission on May 12 reviewed a substantially revised draft of the city’s middle‑housing zoning and design standards and asked staff to return with refinements before a public hearing next month.

The draft — presented by city planning staff and consultants — bundles changes on scale controls (FAR and lot coverage), bonuses for sustainability and connectivity, new rules for mid‑block connections and alleys, updated parking rules in response to state legislation, and more-detailed facade modulation and articulation standards.

Why it matters: The package is intended to implement recent state housing laws and the city’s comprehensive plan by allowing new middle‑housing types (duplexes, triplexes, cottage and courtyard housing, carriage houses and similar forms) while shaping building scale, design quality and neighborhood connectivity. Commissioners and staff framed the update as a pilot that must balance affordability, buildability and neighborhood character as development begins to follow the new rules.

Staff presentation and scope

A city staff member opened the session saying, “we're back to talk more about the middle housing planning code update” and framed tonight’s purpose as seeking planning‑commission guidance on a packet of draft standards. Staff summarized outreach with developers and brokers that informed the changes and described the draft’s main components: bonuses and flexibilities (including sustainability incentives and photovoltaic exceptions to height limits), updated residential scale rules (FAR and lot coverage), parking standards, and design standards for mid‑block connections, alleys and improved parking courts.

Key proposals and how they would work

- Bonuses and sustainability: The draft would offer area/FAR bonuses for buildings pursuing listed sustainability rating systems and would allow photovoltaic arrays to exceed height limits as an exception. Staff removed a separate bonus for thicker insulation within setbacks after noting a new state law requires that allowance.

- Mid‑block connections and alleys: Staff proposed a pedestrian path 8 feet wide within a 16‑foot easement for mid‑block connections and a 16‑foot half‑alley dedication option (reduced from prior 20‑foot widths to encourage participation). Staff noted mid‑block connections are typically recorded as private easements with required public access; alleys would be dedicated to the city. As staff put it, “Midlot connections are not. They're an easement. So they'll remain on the land for that lot, and they will have to have public access on them. The alleys are dedicated back.” Commissioners discussed timing, maintenance and the risk that isolated stubs might never connect; city staff and consultants described the approach as incentive‑based rather than a mandatory citywide network.

- Improved parking courts: To qualify for a bonus, parking courts would need pedestrian doors at a ratio of one door per garage door, a usable area in front of each door, curbless surfaces made of higher‑quality material than plain asphalt, windows overlooking the court and lighting to improve safety. Staff said courts are intended to be pedestrian‑oriented spaces, not vehicle‑dominated lots.

- Scale: FAR and lot coverage: After discussion of impacts on existing single‑story houses and ADU feasibility, staff proposed a combined approach using both lot coverage and FAR. Highlights included: raising lot coverage limits in lower‑intensity zones (R‑1 and R‑2) to roughly 45–50% (from prior 40%), keeping 60% coverage in R‑3/R‑4, and introducing FAR bands that rise with unit count (examples shown included 0.5 FAR for a single‑unit baseline, 0.6 for two units, 0.8 for three, up to 1.4 by right in R‑3/R‑4 with higher FARs allowed via bonuses — staff showed 1.8 in R‑3 and 2.4 in R‑4 under bonus scenarios). Test fits used a prototypical 7,200‑square‑foot lot to show how unit sizes and counts change with FAR and coverage limits.

- ADUs and exceptions: Consistent with state requirements staff said the code will include exceptions to enable accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Staff stated they would allow an extra 1,000 square feet for a single ADU and 1,600 square feet when two ADUs are added on one lot (examples presented by staff showed how those totals could be used across stories).

- Parking: Staff described changes necessitated by recently enacted state law SB 5184 (referred to in the meeting as the parking reform and modernization act). The draft was revised to comply with SB 5184’s limits on local parking minimums: examples discussed included allowing no more than 0.5 stalls per multifamily unit as a City minimum; 0 stalls for dwelling units under 1,200 square feet, for affordable housing, for senior housing and for units within a half mile of a major transit stop. Staff emphasized these are minimums — developers could still provide more stalls if the market required.

- Design standards: The draft replaces many discretionary design guidelines with clearer, quantified modulation and articulation requirements. For facades under certain widths the code would require a minimum number of modulation or articulation features (examples: inset entries, balconies, bay windows, changes in cladding materials or repeating window groupings). The new approach also recognizes state changes: the draft allows certain building types (affordable housing, passive house projects, conversions and modular/mass‑timber construction) to meet articulation standards as alternatives to mandatory modulation where the state law prohibits required offsets in wall planes for those types.

Cottage housing, courts and carriage houses

Staff proposed treating cottage/courtyard housing consistent with the state model: shared open space equal to 20% of the lot for cottage/courtyard forms that seek the state provision. For other middle‑housing forms staff proposed a 75‑square‑feet‑per‑unit open‑space minimum (shared or private). The draft increases carriage‑house allowances to one carriage house per three units in cottage developments and permits unlimited carriage houses where rear access alleys exist.

Questions, concerns and commissioner feedback

Commissioners welcomed the emphasis on connectivity and design details but raised practical questions and cautions: who will maintain mid‑block connections (city staff confirmed easements typically remain private and are maintained by property owners or HOAs unless dedicated), how to avoid producing “alleys to nowhere,” ongoing cost and long‑term HOA maintenance burdens for improved mid‑block spaces, and whether more prescriptive design requirements will raise construction costs and reduce builder participation.

Fire and emergency access also shaped the discussion: the fire department, staff reported, signaled willingness to accept narrower access in some situations — about 15 feet in some configurations — which informed the discussion of mid‑block widths.

Commissioners repeatedly urged staff to treat the drafting as iterative: adopt a workable baseline to meet the June timeline, monitor early projects and be prepared to revise FAR, coverage or design dimensions later based on feasibility and developer feedback. One commissioner captured the sentiment by urging the code to be treated as provisional and reviewed after initial implementation.

Decisions, directions and next steps

- The commission moved to place the draft on a near‑term schedule: staff said the public hearing will be scheduled at the next commission meeting so the commission can forward a recommendation to council in time for council review this spring. Staff also committed to circulating any late refinements before the hearing.

- Staff will follow up with additional developer interviews and feasibility checks (including affordable‑housing developers) to test whether bonuses and FAR levels yield feasible projects.

- Staff proposed treating detailed mid‑block connection design standards as a follow‑up task that can be refined post‑adoption; commissioners agreed the city should begin with a simplified, incentive‑based approach and expand standards later.

What remains unsettled

Commissioners did not finalize numeric choices for every standard. Specific items flagged for further review included exact FAR limits and proportionality of bonuses (for example, how much extra FAR to award for a half‑block versus a full‑block connection), the lot‑coverage numbers for smaller lots, whether certain cottage/court open‑space thresholds would disincentivize those housing types, and final driveway/turnaround dimensions tied to the fire department’s comments.

Community impact and timing

Staff and commissioners emphasized this is a near‑term implementation of state law and the city comprehensive plan. Staff said a public hearing will be held at the commission’s next meeting and planners aim to forward the ordinance language to council for action before the June deadline identified by council. Commissioners asked staff to track early projects and return with a post‑adoption program of refinements if needed.

Ending note

The commission’s debate focused on making middle housing buildable while protecting neighborhood character and pedestrian connections. Commissioners and staff agreed on the need to start with a practical ordinance package, then monitor outcomes and adjust standards if the pilot implementation shows unforeseen impacts or infeasible results.

Quotes used in this story come from the May 12, 2025 Mountlake Terrace Planning Commission meeting transcript. If further edits are adopted by staff ahead of the public hearing, staff will circulate updated draft language for review.