Bill would limit public design review for housing; planners and builders urge technical fixes

House Local Government Committee members heard testimony on House Bill 1160 on matters of local design review and how cities and counties treat housing permit applications. The bill would restrict most housing-related design review to an administrative process and limit the number of architectural drawings jurisdictions may require.

The bill matters because design-review rules affect how quickly housing can be permitted and built, how much input neighbors have, and whether local governments can apply “clear-and-objective” standards that both guide architects and constrain discretionary reductions in density or scale.

Kellen Wright, staff to the committee, summarized the bill’s changes and legal background, saying the proposal would remove the statutory requirement that counties and cities planning under the Growth Management Act adopt clear-and-objective development regulations for design review and prohibitions on regulations that reduce permitted density, height, bulk or scale. Wright said the bill would, instead, require administrative design review for housing permit applications except where federal or state law or landmark/historic-district status requires additional review, and would limit submittal requirements to a single architectural drawing. Wright also noted…