The Edmonds Citizens Planning Board voted 3-2 to adopt a bonus-floor incentive that links additional building area to the amount and type of public amenity space provided by private developments.

The board approved a formula, proposed by Planning Board member Lauren Golubisky, that grants 5 square feet of bonus floor area for every 1 square foot of outdoor public amenity space and 10 square feet of bonus floor area for every 1 square foot of indoor public amenity space. Golubisky moved the measure; the motion was seconded and passed with three members in favor and two opposed.

The change refines an incentive the city is testing in select neighborhood centers and hubs to encourage private developments to include plazas, pocket parks, courtyards or indoor community rooms in exchange for an extra building story. Planning staff noted the baseline code already requires 10% of a building footprint as public amenity space, and the new formula applies where the city allows a bonus floor.

Board members and staff debated how the incentive would work in practice and whether it would produce overly large, underused outdoor plazas. "I think it's, in my opinion, it's a little bit too much," said Planning Board member Jeremy Mitchell, arguing the requirement may be out of scale in smaller centers. Planning staff noted the proposal applies only in a small set of locations where the bonus floor is offered, specifically Westgate, the medical-district expansion near the intersection referenced in the packet, and the designated village center parcels listed in the code maps.

Several board members supported incentivizing indoor community space to avoid large, seldom-used outdoor plazas that are uninviting in Edmonds' winter months. "For every 1 square foot of indoor amenity space, you get 10 square feet of bonus area," Golubisky said when she introduced the motion.

The board discussed but did not adopt a separate cap on the maximum contiguous outdoor amenity area. Instead, members asked staff to rely on dimensional limits (minimum and maximum dimensions, and distribution across a site) and design review to avoid creating large, unused expanses. Planning staff suggested a 5,000-square-foot practical threshold as a design reference and noted examples in Edmonds (the Hazel Miller Plaza and the space in front of the Edmonds Center for the Arts) to frame scale, but the board did not set a numerical cap.

The planning board directed staff to include the adopted ratio language in the redlined code to be forwarded with other NCH (neighborhood centers and hubs) amendments to city council. Staff said the item will be reflected in the packet for the council committee of the whole and that planning staff will incorporate board edits prior to transmittal.

Implementation details remain to be worked out administratively. The board left open options such as (1) permitting a mixed indoor/outdoor approach with different ratios, (2) allowing the amenity requirement to be distributed across a site rather than in one contiguous plaza, and (3) using indoor space or other features (art, stormwater amenities, programmed community rooms) as alternatives to large outdoor plazas.

What this means going forward: the code language approved by the board establishes the square-foot exchange ratios for bonus-floor incentives, but site-specific design review and staff-level checks are expected to shape final proposals when developers apply for permits.