Council hears update on Houghton Village plan as consultants promote Option B and stress flexibility

City officials and consultants presented a draft development plan for the city‑owned Houghton Village site and asked the City Council for feedback, with staff stressing the presentation was for input rather than final decisions.

The draft plan, labeled “Option B,” envisions two mixed‑use buildings with roughly 145 residential units combined, about 26,000 square feet of ground‑floor commercial and community space, and a shared below‑grade parking garage. Consultants and staff emphasized a central public courtyard linking 68th Avenue Northeast to a proposed connection to the Cross Kirkland Corridor and Lakeview Elementary School.

The plan is framed as a response to a 2022 council resolution authorizing purchase of the property and its stated goals to preserve affordable housing, community space and arts uses. “Tonight, this is our opportunity to get feedback. So not looking for any final decisions on the development plan. This is your chance to provide us with input,” Deputy City Manager of External Affairs Jim Lopez told the council.

Why it matters: the Houghton Village site is city‑owned and was acquired after the property came to market; the council’s earlier resolution tied the purchase to public benefits including affordable housing and nonprofit space. The draft is meant to guide a future disposition strategy and developer selection while balancing community concerns about building height, traffic and school impacts.

Details of the draft plan

Heidi Oian, project architect, presented a site plan that adds a new street extension (an alignment of 106th Avenue) to reduce curb cuts on Northeast 68th Street, locate a single garage entry off the new street, and create a north plaza with a raised crosswalk to the Cross Kirkland Corridor (CKC). Oian said the design would consolidate parking into “1 below grade, 1 level sloped parking garage with 230 stalls,” and noted code‑required parking under current code would be roughly 355 stalls while station‑area ratios would require fewer (about 180), placing the draft plan between those figures.

Echo Northwest consultant Tyler Bump reviewed feasibility work and told council that parking requirements “greatly affect development feasibility,” and that cooperative ownership or higher levels of affordability can be achievable but are sensitive to tax credit timing and parking costs. “Reducing parking requirements is really important to the feasibility of the site,” Bump said, urging clarity on disposition priorities and developer selection criteria.

Community input and council concerns

Staff summarized public outreach dating to January 2022 and identified four recurring themes: building heights, sense of place, safety and traffic. Lopez said community members repeatedly praised central public spaces and the integration of art, while raising concerns about five‑story massing and the coalescence of two buildings into a single unified place.

Several council members pressed staff and consultants on specific tradeoffs:

- Councilor Amy Falcone asked how changing the mix of retail, nonprofit and community space would affect feasibility. “I would want to prioritize more nonprofit office space in addition to the shared kind of community space,” Falcone said, and asked for modeling of alternative mixes.

- Councilor Pam Sweet urged caution about over‑committing to retail and restaurants, noting downtown examples where commercial uses took longer to materialize. “It worries me … for us to over commit,” she said, while supporting phasing and flexibility.

- Councilor Tim Chisholm emphasized housing as the primary mission. Chisholm said he wanted clearer evidence that four‑ or five‑story designs were the right path to deliver workforce housing and asked for a three‑story option to compare unit yields and feasibility.

Consultants replied that removing the fifth story would reduce units significantly: Heidi Oian said removing one story would eliminate roughly 38 units (about 26 percent), and removing two stories would yield roughly 69 units, which could shift the likely building typology toward townhouses. Tyler Bump reiterated that fewer residential floors make it harder to finance structured parking and commercial ground floor space.

Council direction and next steps

Council members generally supported continuing the planning work with more detail and with explicit flexibility built into an adopted development plan. City staff said they would bring back additional analysis on a three‑story alternative, refine draft language to allow flexible ground‑floor uses, and proceed with targeted developer outreach.

Deputy Mayor Nora Arnold summarized staff’s next step: “To come back with language that shows some of the examples…maybe they would say this is a caveat or this is what it could look like,” and asked if that approach worked for council. Several council members voiced support for continuing to recruit development partners and returning with a revised development plan.

Larger context

The plan references the council’s prior resolution authorizing purchase of the property and cites city code and design standards that would apply to future entitlement and RFP processes. Staff and consultants described the draft design guidelines as illustrations that could be refined during developer selection and detailed design.

What’s next

Staff will return with the requested materials, including modeling of a three‑story alternative, more explicit flexible language for ground‑floor uses, and a plan for outreach to potential developers and funding partners. No formal actions or votes were taken during the study session.

Ending note

Councilors repeatedly emphasized flexibility and the need to balance housing, community services and safety improvements, with several asking staff to preserve options rather than adopt prescriptive use lists.