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Housing Hope site likely to seek flexibility under Lynnwood's revised critical-areas rules, staff says
Summary
Planning staff told council the Housing Hope project will likely use a development agreement to secure flexibility for daylighting and phased construction rather than routine reasonable-use exemptions under the new critical-areas ordinance.
Council members asked how the proposed critical-areas rules would affect a specific Housing Hope project that includes two buildings and potential stream daylighting. Carl Ongren said the Housing Hope site is likely to seek flexibility through a development agreement rather than through the reasonable-use process because the project is phased and the daylighting and design constraints differ from a single-lot reasonable-use case.
Ongren said reasonable-use exceptions remain for individual constrained lots and include case-by-case analysis by a qualified wetland or stream biologist, but that large, phased developments often use development agreements to negotiate site-specific flexibility. "Housing Hope is likely to be a development agreement because it's likely to be a phased project," Ongren said, adding that development agreements allow negotiators to address daylighting, phasing and design constraints separately from the standard permitting process.
Staff also noted the draft ordinance provides a guide for minimum footprints in deeply encumbered lots (a 600-square-foot footprint for a two-story house was cited as an example), but emphasized that many exemptions would be judged on site-specific criteria and that reasonable-use cases go to the hearing examiner for unbiased review.
