Redmond planners debate 60- vs. 65-foot baseline and incentives to unlock housing

The Redmond Planning Commission spent its Dec. 18 study session weighing whether to keep the city’s base maximum building height at 60 feet or to allow additional height to accommodate taller mixed‑use ground floors and to protect project feasibility.

Chair Weston opened the discussion after staff summarized the 2025 code package. Jeff Churchill, principal planner, recommended keeping a 60‑foot baseline but amending a note so mixed‑use buildings could add additional height for ground‑floor ceilings taller than 10 feet. Churchill said this narrower approach targets relief to mixed‑use projects without raising the hard baseline that applies to purely residential buildings.

Commissioners focused on the tradeoffs between feet and floors: a five‑foot difference can mean a full additional story in some building typologies, with meaningful effects on unit yield. Staff flagged modeling that showed, in some mixed‑use scenarios, unit counts could fall from 122 to 98 if flexibility is removed; similar urban mixed‑use examples fell from 50 units to 25. Churchill also noted that, with incentives, the maximum theoretical height in downtown and Marymoor could reach as high as 144 feet, though groundwater constraints limit tower development.

Several commissioners pressed for zone‑specific tailoring. Commissioner Aparna asked whether allowances should differ between Marymoor, downtown core and other urban mixed‑use areas; she suggested Marymoor might warrant different treatment because it already carries deeper affordability requirements. Commissioner Copely and others warned that steep inclusionary requirements without accompanying capacity can make projects financially infeasible.

Public commenters raised affordability and feasibility concerns. Developer representative Katie Bridal provided a parcel‑level model for a Marymoor property showing that increasing inclusionary requirements from 10% to 15% at 50% AMI could lower land value on a five‑story project by approximately $4,000,000, and by about $7,000,000 in an alternative 8‑story scenario. David Morton, a resident, urged strong environmental protections and supported higher inclusionary targets in appropriate areas.

The commission did not adopt a final height ordinance. Instead, members agreed to administratively close the separate 'zones and uses' matrix item (copying the content into the broader issues matrix) and to continue detailed trade‑offs in the incentives and requirements matrix. Commissioners asked staff for additional modeling, including the potential effects of temporary "pioneer" provisions that would reduce upfront affordability obligations for an initial set of units to attract early development, and requested that written feedback on the incentive priorities table be emailed to staff by the end of the week.

Next steps: staff will incorporate commissioner feedback, provide targeted feasibility modeling on height and pioneer provisions, and return with revised materials in January so the commission can consider formal recommendations to council.