LISC and city staff push anti-displacement measures for South Everett as light rail nears Casino Road

Everett ' Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) presenter Tina Blassity and Everett planning staff summarized three years of community work on March 12, urging the city to adopt anti-displacement policies, explore inclusionary zoning and preserve small commercial spaces along Casino Road as Sound Transit prepares new light rail station nodes.

The recommendations aim to reduce the risk that current residents and local businesses are priced out when light rail and related development arrive. "We have a really good relationship with Sound Transit and have been really regularly briefing them on all of the work that we've been doing," Blassity said, noting tours with Sound Transit and ongoing conversations about parcel acquisition and potential surplus property that could be used for community benefit.

Why it matters: Casino Road lies inside a high-displacement-risk area on a Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) map the presenters displayed. Planning staff said those indicators ' including proximity to jobs and transit, a high share of renters and linguistic isolation ' put South Everett in the region's top 10 percent of displacement risk. Jorek, city planning staff, described PSRC's method: "PSRC put some numbers to that and there are 12 indicators across neighborhood characteristics," and said the city is deciding how and whether to show that mapping in the comprehensive plan.

Key recommendations and staff response

- Clear anti-displacement language in housing goals: LISC and its partners want explicit anti-displacement goals and policies called out in the housing element rather than relying solely on general equity language.

- Inclusionary zoning targeted to high-risk areas: Presenters urged adoption of an inclusionary zoning framework so new developments include affordable units. Planning staff said an early council draft already contains a policy to "implement inclusionary zoning requirements in areas of the city subject to high displacement risk" (listed in the draft as HO 18) and staff are preparing code language to follow that policy.

- Community preference strategies: The group recommended tools to support long-term residents (for example, tenant opportunity-to-purchase or targeted preference strategies). Planning staff flagged an existing draft policy (HO 49) to study community-preference approaches, while noting federal fair-housing restrictions constrain how preferences can be implemented.

- Preserve and enable neighborhood commercial space: The briefing emphasized the long, largely noncommercial stretch of Casino Road and suggested expanding neighborhood-commercial allowances (the current draft would permit small corner commercial uses up to about 3,000 square feet or the ground floor of a multistory building). Staff said the proposed urban form includes a 'neighborhood commercial' concept at corners but that many intersections along Casino Road are private drives, complicating where commercial could be added.

- Work with faith institutions on redevelopment: Several churches own sizeable parcels and congregations have shrunk; presenters recommended incentives or partnerships so faith-owned land could be reused for affordable housing or mixed-use redevelopment.

- Zoning and urban form notes: Staff described proposed zones along Casino Road (UR7 as a residential zone up to 7 stories, UR4 up to six) and said much of the road is currently restricted for commercial uses except at certain nodes. Staff did not recommend pausing the zoning changes while additional policies are developed; instead they have incorporated several recommended policies into the early council draft.

Other technical issues discussed

- Building-code stairway rule: Committee members raised the state and national building-code requirement for two egress stairways in buildings above certain heights. Staff said the requirement can increase building cost and constrain layouts and that some jurisdictions are reexamining the rule; public-safety officials would be involved in any change.

- Occupancy and shared housing: Participants noted a state law removed limits on unrelated persons in a dwelling for zoning purposes. Presenters said co-living and promoting family-size units (including multigenerational designs) were part of the recommended toolbox to expand housing options.

- Sound Transit coordination and mitigation: Blassity said LISC has been briefing Sound Transit and that the agency has shown more openness to community input. She said mitigation packages for small businesses are typically negotiated as construction approaches and that opportunities may exist to acquire staging or surplus parcels for community uses.

Outreach and next steps

Blassity and partners described a community event last October that engaged 60 mostly Latino residents; that engagement included Spanish-language facilitation and post-it style input stations. Staff said they have shared the collected feedback with multiple city departments and have placed several recommendations into the early council draft of the comprehensive plan. Staff and LISC said they plan to return to neighborhood groups and to coordinate forthcoming Sound Transit outreach to avoid creating duplicative meetings.

The city's immediate next steps, as described at the meeting, include preparing code language to implement the inclusionary zoning policy, continuing targeted outreach with Connect Casino Road and other community partners, and refining the housing and urban-form elements before presenting a final plan package to the council.