Consultants: Leavenworth Has Land and Permits to Meet 20-Year Housing Target; Affordability Remains Uncertain

Leavenworth — BHC Consulting told the Leavenworth Planning Commission on Wednesday that the county-assigned target of about 410 additional residents (roughly 364 housing units) over the next 20 years can be accommodated by land currently zoned for housing and a strong permit pipeline, but the consulting team and commissioners said affordable workforce housing is not guaranteed without policy action.

Katie Cody, planning manager at BHC, said the firm’s land-capacity and housing-capacity appendices convert the county’s medium-growth allocation into housing and job figures and then compare those to current zoning and permitted projects. “What we have in the permit pipeline today already meets your allocated threshold,” Cody said during the presentation.

The nut graf: the technical analysis shows physical capacity — and an active permit pipeline — that exceed the county target, but both the consultants and multiple commissioners said market choices by developers, local topography, tourism-related short-term rentals, and household income distribution mean that capacity does not automatically produce housing affordable to the community’s workforce.

BHC’s analysis and key figures

- County allocation and target: the county’s medium-growth scenario assigns Leavenworth growth of about 410 people, which BHC converted to a housing target of roughly 364 units for planning purposes. - Jobs conversion: using an existing-census ratio of about 1.17 employed persons per household, BHC estimated those added units would translate to roughly 422 employed people; the consultants stressed this counts employed persons, not number of jobs per person. - Land and capacity: the consultants’ zoning- and parcel-based analysis produced a housing-capacity estimate of about 655 units on available land, by historic densities and zoning allowances. That total exceeds the 364-unit target and includes vacant, underutilized and partially used parcels, excluding critical slopes, public uses and units already in the permit pipeline. - Permit pipeline and historic permitting: nearly 300 units were permitted between 2015 and 2020, 93 units between 2020 and 2023, and the current permit pipeline contains about 394 units — a pipeline total that already exceeds the 2046 target. BHC presented a rolling projection showing 646 units if permitting continues at an average of 12 units per year through 2046 (a conservative scenario that excluded a recent multifamily spike). - Jobs capacity: using commercial zoning and a conservative assumption of about 1,000 square feet per employee, BHC estimated capacity for just over 2,000 jobs across Leavenworth’s commercial zones; consultants noted many of those jobs are filled by workers who live outside city limits.

Why capacity is not the same as affordability

Commissioners and consultants repeatedly cautioned that zoning capacity and permit counts do not ensure affordable housing for the people who work in Leavenworth. Cody and planner Eli Mulberry listed several reasons: the development community can choose higher-end finishes and charge market rents; short-term rentals and second homes remove units from the year-round market; Leavenworth’s steep topography and constrained developable land limit where and how density can be delivered; and household income distribution in the city is polarized.

“I think what we’re trying to address through these policy discussions is not that there’s not enough land. It’s that there are opportunities that are not being met,” Cody said.

Commissioners’ concerns and policy ideas

Commissioners and participants pressed the consultants for policy options to shift future supply toward workforce and middle-income housing rather than rely solely on zoning capacity. Suggestions and discussion points included:

- Inclusionary zoning and income-controlled units: several commissioners raised inclusionary zoning and income-controlled housing as the clearest levers to produce permanently affordable units. One commissioner said income-controlled housing “is the only thing we can do” to guarantee affordability to lower-income workers, while others noted such policies typically apply only to new construction and cannot be imposed on existing homeowners. - Community land trust and nonprofit ownership models: Cody described community land trusts as a nonprofit mechanism to reduce purchase price by removing land cost from the sale price. - Multifamily tax exemption and development incentives: consultants said Leavenworth has a multifamily tax exemption (MfTE) option that can require affordability when used, but the largest project in the pipeline was not using MfTE, so those units may not be affordable. - Middle housing, ADUs and co-living: BHC noted the city’s allowances for duplexes, triplexes, ADUs and co-living can support smaller, lower-cost units; commissioners asked how to make those options more likely to be built and preserved as affordable. - Vacancy and conversion policy options: commissioners raised Leavenworth’s relatively high vacancy rate (BHC reported roughly 15.3% vacancy in the city versus about 3% in nearby Wenatchee) and asked whether tools exist to discourage long-term vacant ownership; BHC said other jurisdictions have experimented with vacancy taxes and utility-use triggers but legal authority in Washington would require further research.

Workforce-targeting questions

Commissioners asked whether the city can plan for more housing specifically for the workforce that currently commutes into Leavenworth (BHC’s commuting analysis showed many workers travel 10–25 miles or farther; over half of Leavenworth’s workers lived more than 10 miles away in BHC’s tabulation). BHC said the county sets the minimum allocation Leavenworth must plan for under the Growth Management Act (GMA), but the city may choose higher, locally defined targets and then run scenarios allocating additional units into income bands (for example, planning a supplemental target concentrated in 50–80% of area median income). “You can choose higher targets,” Eli Mulberry said, “and you could plan, say, all of those units would go into a certain income band.”

Distinguishing required planning from local priorities

Consultants emphasized the difference between the county-required allocation (the number Leavenworth must show it can accommodate) and policy choices the city can add on top of that allocation to meet local goals. Several participants urged careful public messaging: changes should be framed as options and tools to expand opportunity rather than as requirements that strip property rights.

Next steps and timeline

BHC said it will incorporate commission feedback into revised technical appendices over the next few weeks and deliver a final set of appendices to feed the 2026 comprehensive plan update. Commissioners asked to receive updated scenarios that translate commuter counts into housing units and to see alternative targets that prioritize workforce housing; BHC agreed to run scenarios and to accept written feedback by mid-May so the consultants can incorporate comments into an updated draft.

Ending

The planning commission did not take a final vote on policy changes. Commissioners agreed to continue discussion, requested additional scenario analysis from BHC on workforce-targeting and affordability options, and asked staff to circulate the revised appendices when available.