Mill Creek planners prioritize parks and family-sized homes in development-incentives workshop

Mill Creek’s Planning Commission spent its April 16 study session working through how the city might structure development incentives for the Southtown Center, concluding the commission would prioritize public park space and family-sized housing over some other incentives while flagging financing and enforcement challenges.

The session opened with a consultant presentation that framed incentives as a way to make desired community outcomes financially feasible. “Cities essentially have two ways of being able to shape a development: the carrot and the stick,” the presenter said, laying out three incentive categories—regulatory (height or FAR bonuses, expedited permitting), financial (fee credits, tax abatements such as multifamily tax exemptions) and special taxing districts (tax-increment financing and business improvement districts).

The presenter cited examples from other cities—San Diego’s density and height bonuses and parking-minimum reductions, Seattle’s expedited permitting and mass-timber incentives, and Tacoma’s multi-year tax-abatement programs—to illustrate how layered incentives can produce housing and public investments. He reminded commissioners that an effective program must be simple, predictable and aligned with community goals rather than so onerous that projects “don’t pencil.”

Using a hands-on exercise the commission called the “Horn Bucks” prioritization, each commissioner distributed an imaginary $20 among outcome buckets such as catalytic development, affordable and moderate-income housing, green buildings, retail and public space. Commissioners’ combined allocations placed the highest weight on public park space and family-sized homes, with meaningful support also for for-sale homes and retail incentives. Several commissioners said boosting overall housing supply is an important way to ease affordability pressures, while others said targeted moderate- or lower-income options should be considered.

Commissioners discussed tools to prevent stalled projects, including time limits on development rights or clawback clauses for incentives if construction does not proceed, and debated the trade-offs between making some items requirements rather than incentives. Parking and enforcement also drew sustained discussion: commissioners weighed metered or two-hour limits, shared parking agreements, and the administrative cost of any enforcement program.

The group reviewed an earlier troubled site in the East Gateway area where development faltered. The presenter identified multiple causes—ground-floor retail built at the wrong grade, a missing 133rd Street connector that dead-ended the commercial area, regulatory requirements that proved impractical on constrained parcels, and uncertain commitments from landowners—and estimated constructing the missing connector could cost roughly $68 million.

Staff provided two brief updates near the meeting’s end: the city completed an RFQ for a climate-change subelement with 13 firms applying and said it expects to negotiate with a lead candidate and begin work in mid-May; the scope must be completed by June 2027 under the commerce grant. A commissioner also warned of an expected May decision by Sound Transit about ST3 cost-saving scenarios that could delay some Everett extensions and affect local station alignments.

The commission approved the March 19 minutes at the start of the meeting and adjourned at 7:45 p.m.

What’s next: staff and consultants will use the commission’s prioritized outcomes to draft incentive options for future meetings and for an anticipated council workshop, and the commission will revisit detailed incentive design, timing and enforcement costs in subsequent meetings.