Bellevue Planning Commission recommends Newport Neighborhood Area Plan to City Council after public hearing and policy edits

The Bellevue Planning Commission voted Wednesday to recommend adoption of the Newport Neighborhood Area Plan and to amend the Factoria subarea map so the portion west of I-405 becomes part of Newport, following a public hearing attended by residents, business owners and neighborhood leaders.

The vote followed staff presentations from the Community Development Department and nearly two hours of public testimony that focused on the future of the Newport Hills commercial district, housing pressure and outreach concerns. Community Development planning manager Kate Nessie told the commission the update aligns the 1994 plan with the citywide Comprehensive Plan and reflects changes in the neighborhood since adoption.

Why it matters: The neighborhood plan sets land-use goals and policy guidance that will be used by staff and future applicants when projects are proposed in Newport. Several commenters said the plan as drafted did not adequately recognize the Newport Hills Shopping Center as a community hub or protect small businesses during redevelopment; commissioners adopted a set of targeted wording changes before forwarding the plan to City Council.

Kate Nessie, Community Development planning manager, summarized the draft and the outreach process and said the proposal is intended to "conduct a final review public hearing for the 2025 comprehensive plan amendments for the Newport Neighborhood Area Plan" and to return a recommendation to council. She described engagement work dating to October 2024 and said staff held nine community-wide events, 23 meetings with neighborhood leaders, received roughly 289 mailed questionnaires and logged more than 1,500 unique visitors to the project website, of whom about 200 provided substantive input.

Residents and business representatives urged different outcomes. Faye Howe, a Newport Hills resident, said the plan relies on an incorrect community profile that overstates owner occupancy and asked the commission to delay adoption until the profile is corrected or to add policies tracking investor ownership and unlicensed business activity. "The entire plan assumes Newport Hills is a stable owner-occupied family neighborhood, but this is no longer true," Howe said.

Anne Brashear, president of the Newport Hills Community Club, said the draft "largely misses the main thing that makes our neighborhood special ... our unique commercial center," and asked that the final recommendation better recognize the shopping center’s role as a social hub. Gary Danberg, speaking for local small-business owners Tang and Jenna Goon, urged deeper, neighborhood-specific planning and stronger protections for seniors and customers who rely on proximate services.

Other speakers urged changes in different directions. Several supported redevelopment that could increase housing supply, including new mixed-use housing in the neighborhood center, and younger residents and others argued the center is past its useful life and could benefit from reinvestment.

Commission discussion focused on balancing neighborhood identity and small-business retention with housing goals. Commissioners said the plan’s 37 policies include several focused on the neighborhood center and transportation; commissioners asked staff to bring specific wording changes forward and debated whether to add policies modeled on Crossroads’ approach to supporting commercial-district organizations.

Before the final motion to forward the plan, the commission adopted a set of amendments offered in a community-submitted letter and refined by staff. Key edits the commission approved included: replacing "locate new buildings adjacent to sidewalks" with wording that uses a clearer verb (the commission voted to use language akin to "place new buildings adjacent to sidewalks"), removing the qualifying phrase "to the extent possible" where it weakened policy direction, reworking language to explicitly encourage mixed-use and multifamily development in the neighborhood center, strengthening wording supporting retention and space for small independent businesses during redevelopment, changing "enhance" to "improve" for pedestrian and bicycle connections to the Eastrail, and adding policy language about pedestrian access and parking proximate to school sites and parks. Some proposed edits that would have directed the city to "enforce the city's tree code" were not added because commissioners noted code already provides those enforcement mechanisms.

Votes at a glance: The Planning Commission moved to recommend adoption of the Newport Neighborhood Area Plan and the associated map amendment to Council. The motion was seconded and carried by voice vote; commissioners present approved the action. (Chair Khan Liu, Vice Chair Johnny Lou, Commissioners Farris, Lu, Neil Chen and Villavessis recorded affirmative votes in the voice tally.)

What’s next: The commission’s recommendation, with the adopted amendments, will be transmitted to the Bellevue City Council for its review and potential final adoption. City staff and commissioners noted that the associated Housing Opportunities and Mixed Use Areas (HOMA/LUCA) work and any rezones would follow separate code and land-use processes.

Quotes limited to meeting speakers are included above. The Planning Commission record shows the public hearing notice was published July 3 and the application filed January 9; staff summarized outreach and public comments during the hearing. The commission paused for a 10-minute break before taking final action and moved the recommendation to council at the close of the session.