- Home
- Government
- Elected / Appointed Officials
- City Council
- Councilmember Views
- Deputy Mayor Jon Quitslund Views
Deputy Mayor Jon Quitslund Views
- May 1, 2023
- March 1, 2023
- February 27, 2023
- January 27, 2023
- January 3, 2023
- December 14, 2022
- December 5, 2022
- October 3, 2022
- September 16, 2022
- September 9, 2022
- August 8, 2022
- July 12, 2022
- June 30, 2022
- May 31, 2022
- April 28, 2022
- April 12, 2022
- March 28, 2022
- March 10, 2022
- March 7, 2022
House Bill 1110: What’s In It For Bainbridge Island?
May 1, 2023
Actions taken by the Legislature this year have included substantive responses to the statewide need for more housing, and for housing that is more affordable. Those needs are nowhere more apparent and urgent than on Bainbridge Island. We have now taken some giant steps toward understanding our housing needs and how they coexist with other characteristics of our community.
We have a limited supply of developable land. We have been committed for decades to low-density development, even in the more urban parts of the Island. Most of our land area (the ‘conservation zones’) is more ‘exurban’ than ‘suburban’ in character. Have we been good stewards of the land’s resources, or have we, in our housing policies, used them selfishly and wastefully?
Our population has grown slowly in recent years, due to the high costs and low availability of housing. The population is growing older, with a declining number of young families and school-age children. A high percentage of the service-sector workforce that we depend upon can’t afford to live here; this predicament negatively affects quality of life and sense of community for all of us. Under the surface and around the edges, our social and economic fabric is inequitable. Can we call this way of life sustainable?
When the legislation known as HB 1110 first emerged, I wasn’t sure how it would, if enacted, affect us here on Bainbridge. Now that it’s the law and must be implemented, I feel a need to understand what we will be dealing with. To be clear: I dislike HB 1110, because I think it introduces more confusion than clarity into the process of reforming housing policies. But our old zoning regulations are in need of reform, and maybe – just maybe – this shock to the system will produce positive change.
In its final form, the bill runs to 21 pages, and it’s not easy reading, but it’s clear enough. Section 1, the rationale, recites familiar themes. “Washington is facing an unprecedented housing crisis for its current population,” and the future holds more of the same. It is anticipated that Washington state will need a million new homes by 2044, suited to “all income levels, including middle housing that will provide a wider variety of housing options,” enabling more people to live near where they work. Making housing affordable involves subsidies, and “the magnitude of the housing shortage requires both public and private investment.”
As you may know, the basic strategy followed in this bill involves overriding the density regulations in local zoning codes, in order to move away from long-established principles and practices in which detached single-family houses predominate, in favor of developing multi-family housing and “middle housing” building types. Such buildings, regarded as “compatible in scale, form, and character with single-family houses,” include “two or more attached, stacked, or clustered homes.” These types include duplexes (plus other -plexes, up to six units), townhouses, courtyard apartments, and cottage housing.
According to HB 1110, the extent of density increases that must be allowed varies with a city’s population. Bainbridge Island, with a current population close to 25,000, ought to plan for the near future, in which we will be among cities with a population of at least 25,000 but less than 75,000: see Sec. 3.(1)(a) of the bill.
The legislation applies to “all lots zoned predominantly for residential use,” which excludes the districts in Winslow governed by FAR standards and intended for mixed-use and commercial development. In accordance with Section 3.(1), Bainbridge Island “must provide by ordinance and incorporate into its development regulations, authorization for . . . development of at least two units per lot on all lots zoned predominantly for residential use.” In addition, on lots that are either “within one-quarter mile walking distance of a major transit stop,” or if “at least one unit is affordable housing,” at least four units per lot must be allowed.
What will this jiggering of density regulations mean, in practical terms, here on Bainbridge? Bear in mind that while the allowed number of units increases, the allowed building types are expected to shrink in size and cost.
I can imagine some positive outcomes and a number of dismal possibilities. A great deal will depend on how we adapt our zoning code and development regulations, and how property owners, architects, and contractors respond to a changing building environment. I’m not holding my breath: I expect at least two years to pass before much happens here – good, bad, or indifferent.
It is somewhat problematic that allowing two or more units applies to lots rather than acres or some other specific unit of measure. This policy choice provides for variability across our residential zones, but the larger lots in low-density zones, whether they are developed or not, will have the most room for higher-density development. That could be directly contrary to our Comprehensive Plan’s land use strategy, although the requirement of middle housing building types will tend to rule out the jumbo-size and very costly detached houses that now predominate in subdivisions and on single-family lots.
The City’s obligation to “authorize” or “allow” a doubling of density across most of the Island doesn’t mean that it can and will happen anywhere. Property rights include the right to do nothing, and HB 1110 doesn’t push a property owner to build as many units as the regulations might permit. The size of the lot, its physical characteristics, and our stringent environmental regulations will limit what is possible and economically feasible. Septic system regulations and access to drinking water are limiting factors in most parts of the Island. I expect that HB 1110 will be less applicable and much less impactful here than it will be in larger cities where big tracts of land are zoned for suburban development.
As we plan for the future, accommodating our share of the region’s population growth, adapting to climate change and working to correct social inequities, we also ought to plan on living both practically and imaginatively within the limits of our land. Increasing housing density allowances might lead in other places to crowded cookie-cutter developments, but I believe that we can do better here.
On the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Housing Strategy
March 1, 2023
All of Bainbridge Island’s long-range planning efforts, culminating in the next update of our Comprehensive Plan, are taking place in a regional context. Counties and other cities on both sides of Puget Sound are also involved in Comprehensive Plan updates, and some are developing, or have already completed, plans for housing and transportation.
The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), based in Seattle, serves as a resource for planning professionals, elected and appointed public officials, and interested citizens. The PSRC carries much of the responsibility for interpreting and implementing the Growth Management Act, as modified from time to time by the legislature and the Department of Commerce.
The City Council’s Study Session on February 21 included a presentation by Paul Inghram, who is the Growth Management Director at the PSRC. Mr. Inghram undertook to explain the PSRC’s Regional Housing Strategy, which is one aspect of VISION 2050, a long-range planning document that anticipates and responds to changes in our region (King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties).
As a participant in the monthly meetings of PSRC’s Growth Management Policy Board, I have been looking forward to this presentation for some time. It came at an opportune time, as we anticipate completion of the Housing Action Plan in the near future, and as community engagement for the Winslow Subarea Plan update gets under way.
Following Mr. Inghram’s presentation, the Council responded with comments and questions. We went somewhat over the 30 minutes allotted on the agenda, and I commented that we could have used another hour to dig deeper. In this essay I will elaborate on some points made in the presentation and discussion, adding ideas of my own that couldn’t be included in the time available during the study session.
The Regional Housing Strategy might appear to be a big-city vision of the future that should not be imposed upon Bainbridge Island. In fact, the PSRC’s data-gathering and analysis has paid close attention to the ways in which each of the four counties are distinctive, and they all enjoy a great deal of autonomy in setting goals and making plans. In their turn, the plans made by cities have to be consistent with countywide policies, but the PSRC supports planning that is suited to place-specific conditions and opportunities.
Mr. Inghram offered a forecast of regional growth in population and jobs between 2020 and 2050: 1.6 million people and 1.1 million jobs. He said that in the past, housing shortages were an issue in some parts of the region, but now the problems are pervasive. The jobs-housing balance is a key issue regionally, and it certainly is for us on the Island. Our Comprehensive Plan’s Housing element includes Policy HO 1.7: “Achieve a jobs-housing balance of 0.8 (up from 0.59).” I don’t think we’ve made much progress since 2016.
The PSRC estimates that between 2020 and 2050, the region needs 800,000 additional housing units to accommodate the anticipated population growth. Kitsap County’s share of that total is relatively modest: 43,000 units. The Island’s share remains to be determined at the County level; our Housing Needs Assessment, which I find persuasive, specifies 2,672 new units by 2044. That may look like a large number, but it’s only 6.2% of the County’s share.
How many of those new homes on Bainbridge will be created by the real estate industry for sale or rent at market rates, and how many will be built and reserved for income-qualified households? These are questions we can’t answer definitively, of course: time will tell. We’ll see how much of our future is determined by inertia and forces beyond our control, and how much can be achieved by deliberate and pro-active leadership.
In the past, market forces and the profit motive have been determinants of almost all of the housing that gets built, and also of what it will cost a buyer. We also have to face the fact that building anything on Bainbridge involves confronting many obstacles that increase risks and raise prices: the scarcity and high price of buildable land, environmental constraints, the rigors and absurdities of the permitting process, and costs of materials and labor.
No doubt we will always fall short of any goals that we establish in the imaginary kingdom of affordable housing, but does that mean that we shouldn’t have goals, or shouldn’t try to meet them? I believe that our 2022 Housing Needs Assessment is persuasive and sets sensible goals. They are closely aligned with what we have heard from the PSRC.
During the discussion after Paul Inghram’s presentation, a good deal of attention was given to the graph on his tenth page, which showed percentages of households by income level. “Over one-third of new units should be affordable to moderate- and lower-income households to meet future affordability needs.”
Conventionally, household income categories are defined with reference to the median income. For Kitsap County in 2020, the median income was $78,969. For Bainbridge Island in 2020, it was $125,861, and it’s worth noting that between 2000 and 2020, the Island’s median income rose by 19.4%, much more than increases in the rest of Kitsap and in the state as a whole.
The figures on page 10 are for the region as a whole. Figures for Kitsap County, provided in our HNA, are much the same. Within the 34% with incomes at or below 80% of AMI, the largest group earns between 51 and 80% of the median income. This group makes up 14% of the regional total, and 16% of Kitsap’s total. It is a very diverse group that generalizations can’t describe, except that we can say that they are not “poor.” As individuals or couples, with or without children, they are self-supporting but they may struggle to make ends meet, and most likely their housing costs make them “cost-burdened,” even extremely so. They would probably meet the criteria for income-qualified housing if it were more available.
We should also look at the group earning between 81 and 120% of AMI: it constitutes 23% of the anticipated population increase regionally, and 21% in Kitsap County. Again, this is a very diverse group of people. By the income classification system used in the Bremerton-Silverdale area and on Bainbridge, these are moderate- and middle-income households. With few exceptions, they are earning too much to qualify for housing administered by H R B, and nobody that I know of on Bainbridge is building, selling, or renting housing with this income group in mind.
In addition to any anticipated population growth, there must be many people in these moderate- and middle-income categories who have lived on the Island for years. They probably have substantial equity in their homes, but with property taxes and other rising costs of living, they may be at risk of displacement. People very much like them, but in a younger generation, have no way into a “starter” home here. What can our housing policies do to meet the housing needs of these diverse groups, present and future Bainbridge residents?
A case can be made for including households earning between 81 and 120% in our planning for affordable and income-qualified housing. I have advanced this idea before; it remains sketchy in my own mind, and it would benefit from free-wheeling discussion.
The main point is that if we accept the long-range planning done by the PSRC, by Kitsap County, and in our own Housing Needs Assessment, more than 50% of the housing units we will need in the next twenty years won’t be produced without some involvement of our local government – developing policies and regulations, engaging in partnerships, and leveraging funding from various sources.
Building and selling for buyers in the upper portion of the income spectrum has a front-and-center place in our local economy, but shouldn’t be the only game in town, defining our community as increasingly exclusive, shutting out young people, and relying more and more on essential workers who live somewhere else. I think that a mixture of cooperation and competition within the broad arena of housing development is essential to our well being, now and for years to come.
Returning to Paul Inghram’s presentation: he used the terms Supply, Stability, and Subsidy to describe actions that Bainbridge Island and other municipalities should take to create broader access to housing.
To increase Supply, allow for more multi-family housing – “near transit,” which suggests apartments and condos in downtown Winslow, and development of the Kitsap Transit network. Also, allow for more “middle density” housing (duplexes, townhomes), with more housing choices in single-family zones (relaxing the rules in some units-per-acre zones, and reconsidering how “density” is regulated).
In support of Stability, the PSRC identifies a number of equity-related measures, protecting the interests of vulnerable existing residents and preserving existing affordable housing. Also, to increase access to home ownership, it is important to recognize disparities in accumulated wealth and equity in our multi-cultural population.
Remarks on Subsidy focused first on developing long-term funding to provide for very low income households and the homeless, and also proposed working with major employers “to finance affordable housing construction and preservation” on behalf of their employees.
Near the end of his remarks, Mr. Inghram introduced the concept of “place typology,” which will be more fully developed by the PSRC this Spring with an interactive website. For Bainbridge Island, it will support our efforts to maintain and enhance our shared “sense of place” across the Island while taking actions that make our community more inclusive and equitable. I will be following the emergence of these planning resources with great interest.
Replacing the 2006 Winslow Master Plan with a New Subarea Plan
January 27, 2023; revised February 27, 2023
The consultants chosen to draft a new Winslow Subarea Plan have begun their work, supported by a team of top-level City staff members. Members of the team have also met with City Council members in small groups, to share information and obtain our individual perspectives on the project. Leslie Schneider and I took our turn on January 6th. I mentioned at the end of our meeting that I planned to follow up the discussion with some further comments on the planning process. This essay makes public those comments, somewhat revised.
I think it’s important that members of the City Council are involved, in effective and appropriate ways, during the planning process, so that we can assume responsibility for acting upon and implementing the Subarea Plan’s findings and recommendations.
Before thinking much about what I wanted to say in this essay, I re-read the first three chapters of the 2006 update of the Winslow Master Plan: an 8-page Introduction and Summary, the 18-page Land Use chapter, and the 3-page Housing chapter. It appears that this update of the 1998 Master Plan grew out of the ‘Winslow Tomorrow’ planning process, and that both efforts were undertaken to implement the 2004 update of the Island’s Comprehensive Plan.
As a member of the Planning Commission I was deeply involved in the 2016 update of the Comprehensive Plan. I remember well that at the end of that process, Joe Tovar (the expert consultant who directed the update) said that to implement the Plan, the City’s first priority should be revision of the Winslow Master Plan. The City Council and administration failed to act on that advice. Now we are finally making progress with a suite of long-range planning exercises (including the Climate Action Plan, the Sustainable Transportation Plan, and the Housing Action Plan), for which the 2024 Comprehensive Plan will be the capstone.
I see the Winslow Subarea Plan as the most challenging, and potentially the most consequential, component in all of those planning efforts. Meeting the challenges won’t be easy.
The 2006 Winslow Master Plan provides some foundation stones for the new Subarea Plan, and I think it also serves as a cautionary example. It does little to imagine a future different from Winslow’s circumstances at that time. Pages 2 and 3 in the WMP present, in a series of twelve bullet points, a Vision statement that had been created during the Winslow Tomorrow process. It begins, “The Island is a complete community: Winslow develops as a sustainable, affordable, diverse, livable and economically vital downtown.” Don’t we wish that was all true today?
I guess that the Island seemed on the way to being ‘complete’ in 2006, but what did that mean? If ‘complete’ meant ‘no more need for growth,’ we are certainly not entitled to think that way now. Also, Winslow may be ‘affordable’ for some people, and perhaps the population is culturally more ‘diverse’ now than in 2006, but don’t we still have a long way to go?
With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that the creators of the 2006 Winslow Master Plan were naïve in their imagining of the future. They put a positive spin on the planning done during ‘Winslow Tomorrow’ – a contentious process that produced much less than was expected. For instance: “There was agreement on the need for a flexible ‘blueprint’ of what to build, as well as a ‘greenprint’ of what to preserve and the importance of the natural landscape informing urban design. It was agreed that the plan for Winslow should be flexible, allowing the downtown to evolve organically over time rather than promoting immediate wholesale change” (p. 7).
The false dichotomy in that last sentence is telling. I doubt that ‘immediate’ and ‘wholesale’ change was promoted by anyone; perhaps that was imagined as the future that ‘greedy developers’ wanted. Organic evolution is obviously preferable, but as we know from agriculture, ‘organic’ development isn’t easy; it’s based on principles, involves regulations, and requires hard work year after year.
Most of the Master Plan’s active verbs are soft and squishy – words like ‘allow’ and ‘encourage.’ For example: “Recommended policies and projects encourage higher density, a mix of uses, more downtown residences and expanded services to serve the growing island population” (p. 8). Nowhere in the Land Use and Housing chapters of the Master Plan is there a rationale for the specifics of Base and Bonus FAR allowances. In the short Housing chapter, there’s a moment of candor: “It is not certain that new development or redevelopment will be using the maximum densities permitted. Some developers may not wish to participate in the FAR bonusing system or provide additional affordable units” (p. 30).
Planning on Bainbridge has always involved a mixture of laissez-faire and an abundance of caution. We take pride in our ‘special’ place, and a sense of ownership and entitlement seems to come with the territory when you have lived here for a while. In 2006, there was reason to think that Winslow had plenty of room to grow – to the extent that any growth was desirable. The development that has happened, within small-town limits and with nothing mandatory, has to some extent been wasteful of golden opportunities. Winslow’s development over the last twenty-plus years was not exclusive or exclusionary by design, but it has had the inequitable effect of excluding many commercial enterprises, a large portion of the Island’s workforce, and all sorts of people who aren’t already well-off.
Unfortunately, Winslow’s development since 2006 has imposed limits on what can be done now without significant changes in FAR allowances, use regulations, and provisions for more diverse housing in the units-per-acre zones. Within the Town Center and High School Road districts, almost the only opportunities I can see to provide for the future will depend on large-scale re-development. Needless to say, there’s no magic wand to make that happen. Most such development, I imagine, takes ten years to be realized, so the sooner we begin considering what is both feasible and desirable, the better.
Will the new Subarea Plan focus mostly on the districts where development is governed by FAR allowances and use-related standards, or will it also deal in detail with the patchwork of units-per-acre residential zones that surround the Town Center? The broader agenda could be unmanageable in the time available, but we need to begin thinking about the present-day and future dynamics of the urban center in relation to the less-dense zones that surround the center.
In the residential zones within the Winslow Study Area, a small portion is zoned R-14. A few segments, most of them in the High School Road area, are zoned R-8. These are the only units-per-acre zones where multi-family housing is a permitted use; elsewhere, multi-family design (defined as two or more primary housing units under one roof) is a conditional use.
Most of the Winslow Study Area east of Highway 305 is zoned R-2.9 or R-2. On the west side of the Town Center, segments are zoned R-2.9, R-3.5 or R-4.3.
In these zones, and in the additional areas served by Winslow’s water and sewer systems, what development potential remains? Where will it be possible to introduce the more affordable housing types that are urgently called for now, not only by state-level and regional planning guidance but in our current Comprehensive Plan? Whatever is persuasively proposed in the new Winslow Subarea Plan will, I expect, predetermine what will be consolidated in the 2024 Comprehensive Plan, in the Vision statements and Goals and Policies of the Land Use and Housing elements.
I have been asked what I want to see in Winslow’s future. Since I’m only one member of the Council, and the community engagement process is still in its exploratory and formative phase, I ought to be careful what I wish for. I’m aware of many more questions than answers. In the immediate future, we have a complex planning process to complete. This will call for understanding what’s valuable and what’s problematic in our present circumstances, and trying to imagine what Winslow could become in the next twenty years.
The planning process needs participants who are eager to work together, to learn from one another and from our consultants and Planning staff. Originally, it was expected that the plan would be completed before the end of this year, and I now think it will need another six months.
Look around Winslow today, and you may see things we don’t need more of in Winslow tomorrow. There are also exemplary projects in the works, with others being discussed, that may show us the way forward. Take a tour of the Buxton Center for Bainbridge Performing Arts, as I did recently: what an inspirational community asset that will be! Think about the possibility of expanding the Waterfront Center, adding some senior housing, and bringing more people down to the water. Let’s discuss what would be the highest and best use of the corner property that will be vacated by the Police Department, and let’s talk about redevelopment of properties along the south side of Winslow Way East.
Who doubts that the Island’s workforce needs more opportunities to live here? It’s already been decided that at least 50% of any population growth should be accommodated in Winslow. We can’t know who will show up, but the kinds of housing that the City plans and provides for will determine, to some extent, who is able to settle here and contribute to our community’s continuing vitality. More housing, as I imagine it, means more commercial activity, a healthier service economy, and new businesses, some of which may be home-based.
There are other things on my mind, but I’ve reached a stopping point. I want to emphasize that this essay presents one person’s perspective, not representative of assumptions and objectives in the Council as a whole. I have tried to provide a backdrop for further inquiry and discussion, involving as many people as possible.
Replacing the 2006 Winslow Master Plan with a New Subarea Plan
January 27, 2023
The consultants chosen to draft a new Winslow Subarea Plan have begun their work, supported by a team of top-level City staff members. Members of the team have also met with City Council members in small groups, to share information and obtain our individual perspectives on the project. Leslie Schneider and I took our turn on January 6th. I mentioned at the end of our meeting that I planned to follow up the discussion with some further comments on the planning process. This essay makes public those comments, somewhat revised.
I think it’s important that members of the City Council are involved, in effective and appropriate ways, during the planning process, so that we can assume responsibility for acting upon and implementing the Subarea Plan’s findings and recommendations.
Before thinking much about what I wanted to say in this essay, I re-read the first three chapters of the 2006 update of the Winslow Master Plan: an 8-page Introduction and Summary, the 18-page Land Use chapter, and the 3-page Housing chapter. It appears that this update of the 1998 Master Plan grew out of the ‘Winslow Tomorrow’ planning process, and that both efforts were undertaken to implement the 2004 update of the Island’s Comprehensive Plan.
As a member of the Planning Commission I was deeply involved in the 2016 update of the Comprehensive Plan. I remember well that at the end of that process, Joe Tovar (the expert consultant who directed the update) said that to implement the Plan, the City’s first priority should be revision of the Winslow Master Plan. The City Council and administration failed to act on that advice. Now we are finally making progress with a suite of long-range planning exercises (including the Climate Action Plan, the Sustainable Transportation Plan, and the Housing Action Plan), for which the 2024 Comprehensive Plan will be the capstone.
I see the Winslow Subarea Plan as the most challenging, and potentially the most consequential, component in all of those planning efforts. Meeting the challenges won’t be easy.
The 2006 Winslow Master Plan provides some foundation stones for the new Subarea Plan, and I think it also serves as a cautionary example. It does little to imagine a future different from Winslow’s circumstances at that time. Pages 2 and 3 in the WMP present, in a series of twelve bullet points, a Vision statement that had been created during the Winslow Tomorrow process. It begins, “The Island is a complete community: Winslow develops as a sustainable, affordable, diverse, livable and economically vital downtown.” Don’t we wish that was all true today?
I guess that the Island seemed on the way to being ‘complete’ in 2006, but what did that mean? If ‘complete’ meant ‘no more need for growth,’ we are certainly not entitled to think that way now. Also, Winslow may be ‘affordable’ for some people, and perhaps the population is culturally more ‘diverse’ now than in 2006, but don’t we still have a long way to go?
With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that the creators of the 2006 Winslow Master Plan were naïve in their imagining of the future. They put a positive spin on the planning done during ‘Winslow Tomorrow’ – a contentious process that produced much less than was expected. For instance: “There was agreement on the need for a flexible ‘blueprint’ of what to build, as well as a ‘greenprint’ of what to preserve and the importance of the natural landscape informing urban design. It was agreed that the plan for Winslow should be flexible, allowing the downtown to evolve organically over time rather than promoting immediate wholesale change” (p. 7).
The false dichotomy in that last sentence is telling. I doubt that ‘immediate’ and ‘wholesale’ change was promoted by anyone; perhaps that was imagined as the future that ‘greedy developers’ wanted. Organic evolution is obviously preferable, but as we know from agriculture, ‘organic’ development isn’t easy; it’s based on principles, involves regulations, and requires hard work year after year.
Most of the Master Plan’s active verbs are soft and squishy – words like ‘allow’ and ‘encourage.’ For example: “Recommended policies and projects encourage higher density, a mix of uses, more downtown residences and expanded services to serve the growing island population” (p. 8). Nowhere in the Land Use and Housing chapters of the Master Plan is there a rationale for the specifics of Base and Bonus FAR allowances. In the short Housing chapter, there’s a moment of candor: “It is not certain that new development or redevelopment will be using the maximum densities permitted. Some developers may not wish to participate in the FAR bonusing system or provide additional affordable units” (p. 30).
Planning on Bainbridge has always involved a mixture of laissez-faire and an abundance of caution. We take pride in our ‘special’ place, and a sense of ownership and entitlement seems to come with the territory when you have lived here for a while. In 2006, there was reason to think that Winslow had plenty of room to grow – to the extent that any growth was desirable. The development that has happened, within small-town limits and with nothing mandatory, has to some extent been wasteful of golden opportunities. Winslow’s development over the last twenty-plus years was not exclusive or exclusionary by design, but it has had the inequitable effect of excluding many commercial enterprises, a large portion of the Island’s workforce, and all sorts of people who aren’t already well-off.
Unfortunately, Winslow’s development since 2006 has imposed limits on what can be done now without significant changes in FAR allowances, use regulations, and provisions for more diverse housing in the units-per-acre zones. Within the Town Center and High School Road districts, almost the only opportunities I can see to provide for the future will depend on large-scale re-development. Needless to say, there’s no magic wand to make that happen. Most such development, I imagine, takes ten years to be realized, so the sooner we begin considering what is both feasible and desirable, the better.
Will the new Subarea Plan focus mostly on the districts where development is governed by FAR allowances and use-related standards, or will it also deal in detail with the patchwork of units-per-acre residential zones that surround the Town Center? The broader agenda could be unmanageable in the time available, but we need to begin thinking about the present-day and future dynamics of the urban center in relation to the less-dense zones that surround the center.
In the residential zones within the Winslow Study Area, a small portion is zoned R-14. A few segments, most of them in the High School Road area, are zoned R-8. These are the only units-per-acre zones where multi-family housing is a permitted use; elsewhere, multi-family design (defined as two or more primary housing units under one roof) is a conditional use.
Most of the Winslow Study Area east of Highway 305 is zoned R-2.9 or R-2. On the west side of the Town Center, segments are zoned R-2.9, R-3.5 or R-4.3.
In these zones, and in the additional areas served by Winslow’s water and sewer systems, what development potential remains? Where will it be possible to introduce the more affordable housing types that are urgently called for now, not only by state-level and regional planning guidance but in our current Comprehensive Plan? Whatever is persuasively proposed in the new Winslow Subarea Plan will, I expect, predetermine what will be consolidated in the 2024 Comprehensive Plan, in the Vision statements and Goals and Policies of the Land Use and Housing elements.
There are other things on my mind, but I will stop here. I realize that what I’ve said may not be entirely welcome, and I want to emphasize that this essay presents one person’s perspective, not representative of assumptions and objectives in the Council as a whole. At this point, the Council has had no opportunity to discuss any of the issues, nor have Winslow stakeholders and other citizens been heard from. I have tried to provide a backdrop for further inquiry and discussion, involving as many people as possible.
“Existing Housing Policies” in the Housing Needs Assessment
January 3, 2023
An earlier essay summarizing the Housing Needs Assessment put off discussion of Part 4, which describes the planning regimes at several levels (state, regional, county, and municipal) that are the framework for Bainbridge Island’s future housing policies. Here is that missing piece.
Part 4 of the HNA begins by displaying an inverted pyramid, with the Washington State Growth Management Act – the overarching authority for land use planning – at the top and the administration of local regulations at the bottom. In between, the Puget Sound Regional Council’s VISION 2050 and other data-rich planning scenarios establish goals and strategies for responding to the region’s recent and anticipated population growth, and Kitsap County planning policies add more specificity.
In PSRC planning, ideas suited to the population, urban infrastructure, and economic development of Seattle and King County are dominant; in Kitsap County the regional principles apply on a scale appropriate to the county’s geography, population, economy, and the natural and built environments. The HNA says this of the Kitsap Countywide Planning Policies: “Some of the policies are focused on regional coordination efforts while others provide ideas which can be implemented by individual jurisdictions. All policies are intended to be balanced with siting and design that are compatible with existing neighborhoods” (p. 79).
Considering the “special character of the Island,” it will be difficult to develop and implement housing policies that are consistent with regional and county-level guidance. I feel strongly, however, that resistance or indifference to regional perspectives on growth management would be counter-productive: we have been there and done that.
For the four-county region and specifically for Kitsap County, the PSRC has estimated the needs for new housing to accommodate all income levels of the anticipated population. For Kitsap County, the estimates are “9% of new units at 0-30% AMI, 8% of units at 31-50% AMI, 16% of units at 51-80% AMI, 9% of units at 81-100% AMI, 12% of units at 101-120% AMI, and 45% of units above 120% AMI” (p. 78; compare p. 73).
These specific numbers don’t tell any municipality what must be done, but they provide useful reference points, and require us to think in new ways about housing for income-qualified households. Outside of publicly supported housing projects, the for-profit real estate industry does not and cannot provide for households below 120% AMI. Also, if 55% of new housing is needed for households below 120% AMI, it makes little sense to plan for projects in which 80% or more of the units are “market rate,” unless most of the market rate units are designed to be rented or sold to middle-income households.
While construction of single-family homes is not coming to an end on Bainbridge, that type of housing has become less normative – even, in some circles, under a cloud. “The regional strategy emphasizes planning for diverse housing types and densities to accommodate new growth while minimizing displacement of existing residents” (p. 78). Complying with this strategy will require some changes in our zoning regulations, and perhaps we can begin to think differently about “density.” Most of the buildable lots on the Island are in zones where detached single-family homes are the norm. Our units-per-acre zoning effectively prohibits diverse housing types except in the form of accessory dwelling units.
In the HNA’s summary of Kitsap Countywide Planning Policies (pp. 79-80), two points are worth noting. Municipalities are obliged “to make adequate provisions for the needs of middle- and lower-income persons.” We are also called upon to expand “areas zoned for moderate density (‘missing middle’) housing to bridge the gap between single-family and more intensive multifamily development” (p. 79). The HNA defines “moderate density housing” as between 2 and 19 units per parcel (p. 78).
What this guidance suggests to me is that the zones termed “suburban” in our Code (specifically, R-2.9 and R-3.5) should be made more hospitable to moderate- and middle-income households. Also, in our Code R-4.3 is considered an “urban” density; we could look at the development potential there and the housing types that would be appropriate.
Multifamily housing (two or more units under one roof) is already a permitted use in all but the lowest-density zones, and in those (R-2, R-1, and R-0.4), multifamily residential development is a conditional use. However, multifamily housing (duplex only, perhaps) would be feasible in the R-n zones only if the units-per-acre regulation can be relaxed and replaced by limits on footprint and lot coverage.
As we have seen, increasing the diversity of housing types is an imperative in regional and county-level planning, in order to increase the supply of housing and bring down costs. The same imperative is already present, and even paramount, in our Comprehensive Plan Housing element: Goal HO-1 calls for “steady progress” toward “aspirational targets.” Other goal and policy statements throughout the Housing element add emphasis and specificity. Needless to say, up to now we have fallen far short of implementing such policies.
The HNA provides, in pp. 80-91, a summary of directives in COBI’s long-range planning documents (the Affordable Housing Task Force Report, the Climate Action Plan, and the Sustainable Transportation Plan in addition to the Comprehensive Plan), and it also evaluates the effectiveness of existing “policies, programs, incentives, and tools subsidizing housing and aiming to support increased production of affordable housing” (p. 86).
If I may generalize, the status quo is not a pretty picture, but we have many resources to work with. I believe that both political will and public support for more effective housing policies exist now at greater-than-ever levels, and in that spirit, I am expecting the Housing Action Plan to show us how to move forward.
Bainbridge Island’s Housing Needs Assessment:
A Guide to the Hot Parts
December 14, 2022
A DRAFT of the long-awaited Housing Needs Assessment was discussed by the City Council in October, and a revised version has now been published. With the HNA as a foundation, the ECONorthwest consultants are moving on to the drafting of a Housing Action Plan for Bainbridge Island.
I expect that early in the New Year, the Council will devote Study Session and Business Meeting time to discussion of some of the issues that will be addressed in the Action Plan. Without the benefit of Council direction in certain policy areas, the Action Plan is apt to be tentative and vague, falling short of what will be needed during completion of the Winslow Subarea Plan and revision of the Comprehensive Plan.
What follows is an attempt to summarize the most important findings of the HNA, and to define issues that I believe the Council, along with other engaged and knowledgeable citizens, ought to focus upon. As Mayor Deets has commented, the HNA answers the “Why?” questions related to housing affordability, and brings us face to face with a bigger question: How can we better meet the needs of people who work here, or may have lived here for many years, who now can’t afford to live here?
The Assessment is 100 pages long, dense and detailed. This essay will summarize some parts in a few words and ponder others at some length. It won’t cover existing housing policies (described on pp. 76-91) at all – saving that big subject for later. There’s an even bigger subject, the various housing types that are needed as alternatives to detached single-family houses and apartment buildings, that I will set aside, expecting that alternative housing types will be described in the Housing Action Plan.
The characteristics of our current housing stock are already familiar; what’s worth considering is why things are as they are, and how our housing could be made to serve the community’s needs better. What adaptations and compromises will be needed? What innovations and experiments should be considered? I don’t have answers to these questions, but let’s start thinking about them.
The characteristics of our current population are an important consideration, and difficult to describe. In demographic terms, we are a puzzle – several separate puzzles, perhaps. Our social fabric is a crazy quilt. Now and for the foreseeable future, most of the jobs on Bainbridge are in the service sector, and a high percentage are filled by people who can’t afford to live among us. And to make things really impossible, the imperatives of long-range planning call upon us to think in terms of the future population, in addition to the needs and wishes of people here and now. Who will be here in 2034 and 2044, and how many of us will be gone?
The future is unknowable, of course, but we can make some educated guesses. We can also act deliberately to prevent bad outcomes and make a better future possible. To a large extent, our future is already baked into the present, and we need to think ahead, making wise choices and investments. There’s much that is alarming in current trends, and I would like to think that the general public’s concern about our future will translate into support for planning and activism on the part of the Council and City staff. That support won’t exist without deliberate efforts to build trust and confidence.
The Introduction to the Housing Needs Assessment begins by addressing the question, “What do we mean by Affordable Housing?” A rule of thumb provides the basis for federal and local housing regulations and subsidy programs: housing is affordable if it “does not require more than 30% of a household’s gross annual income.” This rule is most appropriate to the needs and resources of people at or below median area income; the higher your income, the more you can afford to spend on housing, and the more likely it is that you will find something to rent or buy in the real estate market.
Throughout our region, many households below the median income are “cost burdened,” or even “severely cost burdened,” especially if the distance between home and work involves a long commute. Some people who commute to the Island are well enough situated where they are, but others are not so lucky. We bear just as much responsibility as other Kitsap County jurisdictions to plan equitably for an economically diverse population.
The first premise of planning for affordable housing is that in all communities, the public interest is best served when people at all income levels have access to housing at a cost that is not severely burdensome. Throughout our region, there is a shortage of housing for people around and below the middle of the income range. The shortage is especially acute on Bainbridge, due to several years of low productivity in the housing industry and a focus in that industry on the upper end of the market.
Nationwide, affordable housing programs provide, through subsidies, for housing that is adjusted to a qualifying household’s income, with reference to standard income categories that are updated annually. Bainbridge uses the Area Median Income (AMI) metrics established for the Bremerton-Silverdale area. Communities such as ours, where the median household income and housing costs are unusually high, are now expected to develop policies that make housing available at the “middle income" level (between 96 and 120% of AMI) and below. Currently, our affordable housing policies primarily benefit households at or below 80% of AMI, and our housing supply doesn’t come close to meeting the demand.
The HNA documents differences between the housing stock on Bainbridge and in the rest of Kitsap County. For decades, property values and house prices have been much higher on Bainbridge than elsewhere in the County. “In mid 2022, the median sales price of single-family homes on Bainbridge was around $1.5 million, almost three times greater than the median sales price of the County” (pp. 6-7). Also on Bainbridge, home ownership is the norm: “Nearly four in five Bainbridge households are owned as of 2020,” while in Kitsap County the proportion of ownership to rental households is 68 to 32% (p. 23).
The trends in household incomes are also dramatically different when Bainbridge is compared to Kitsap County. Between 2000 and 2020, on the Island the median household income went from $105,373 to $125,861 (a 19.4% increase), while in the County the median income went up 12.2%, from $70,399 to $78,969. The HNA also says that on Bainbridge the share of households earning over $150,000 increased from 27% in 2010 to 40% in 2020, while the share of households earning less than $50,000 decreased from 28% to 20% (p. 21).
“Bainbridge Island’s population is aging at a faster rate than both Kitsap County and the State of Washington. The Island’s median age increased from 43 years in 2000 to about 50 years in 2020,” and in that period the number over 60 years old has doubled, from 17 to 35% (p. 4; see also p. 18). In that older population, many are like me, or perhaps wealthier, living comfortable and inflation-proof lives, while many others, who may have lived most of their lives on Bainbridge, are on fixed incomes and very sensitive to any increases in the cost of living. They are first and foremost in the number of residents at risk of displacement (see p. 22). Affordable housing should be planned with that older population in mind.
At the same time, “Bainbridge is increasingly losing families with children. Over the 2000 to 2020 period, the share of households with children declined from 49% in 2000 down to 39% in 2020” (p. 4; see also p. 26). Over this period, “the share of younger homeowners (55 years or younger) decreased by about 26 percentage points,” from 59 to 33% (p. 5; see also p. 24). Also, generally speaking, renting on Bainbridge is not a viable alternative: places for rent are scarce and expensive (see pp. 5, 23, 39-41).
“Bainbridge Island’s population has become slightly more diverse over the past twenty years but remains predominantly non-Hispanic White. During the 2000 to 2020 period, the share of non-Hispanic White residents decreased by about 7.5%” (pp. 19-20). In the same period, in municipalities on both sides of Puget Sound, communities of color have grown dramatically, with transformative effects on the region’s culture and economic vitality. Here on Bainbridge, the bubble that an upper-middle-class White population developed over several decades may have broken open, but we need to do more to achieve real economic and cultural diversity.
Planning for a changing population and stimulating the development of housing will entail some changes in our land use policies and development regulations. Any discussion of population growth is apt to be difficult – a high anxiety exercise. In recent years, population growth has been constrained, to some extent by economic factors, but also by policymakers’ lapses of attention. The HNA describes an “underproducing” housing industry (p. 69) and a marketplace where supply and demand have been way out of balance.
Part 3 of the HNA, “Housing Demand and Needs” (pp. 66-75), brings together the crucial information on population growth and housing needs. Planning at the regional, county, and local levels has established an estimate: “The currently available 2044 Bainbridge Island population projection is 29,349 persons in total, which is around 4,524 persons over 2020 Census numbers. . . . This [anticipated] growth is based on a method estimating the current annual growth from 2013-2020 of 1.007 percent” per year” (p. 66). We should bear in mind that this is a “net” figure – the number of new residents in excess of the number departing. It strikes me as a conservative estimate, and it is certainly not a prediction, or any sort of advocacy, of radical change.
Based on this estimate of population growth, the HNA model arrives at a total of “2,277 new homes needed by 2044.” Adding an estimated 395 homes – the current deficit due to underproduction – “brings the total to 2,672 new housing units needed by 2044,” which is an average of 127 units per year over 21 years (p. 68). This average number is higher than the rate of production between 2010 and 2020, but lower than the average for the last twenty years, so it shouldn’t be seen as an “explosion” of unprecedented development.
If growth in the Island’s population is concerning, a look back into our history may be reassuring. Between 1960 and 1990, our population grew from 6,404 to 15,846 people, a total increase of 9,442 residents. Between 1990 and 2020, the population grew to 25,070, a total increase of 9,224 people. Over those years, in percentage terms the annual rate of growth declined, but the net growth in numbers was roughly the same for each 30-year period. We are anticipating approximately half as much growth between 2020 and 2050.
Considering that I’m not likely to be alive in 2034, what gets me excited is that even before 2050, younger generations will have arisen to take charge of the Island’s future. It’s our responsibility now, and our privilege, to open the doors for them.
After estimating the total number of new housing units that will be needed by 2044, the HNA breaks down that number with reference to seven distinct household income categories, beginning at 30% or less of AMI and ending at 150% or more of AMI. These pages (71 to 75) deserve careful attention, because they offer a way to plan for more access to housing across the full economic spectrum. Two scenarios are presented: one uses income data from Bainbridge Island, and the other uses Kitsap County data.
To be clear: the 2,672 new housing units planned for in this analysis are not all for the population that needs “affordable” (i. e., subsidized) housing. Approximately half of the units in each scenario are for the three income categories at or above the median income. The two highest income categories, beginning at 120% of AMI, claim 41% of the housing units in one scenario, and 36% in the other. These, I imagine, would be “market rate” housing, and of course, the market may produce more than the number of such homes than are prescribed in the HNA model.
Focusing now on the model that uses Bainbridge Island AMI data, the number of housing units that would require some degree of subsidy are in five categories, with the lowest between 30% or less of AMI and the highest between 100 and 120% of AMI. All told, these five categories require 1,575 new housing units. (That amounts to an average of 75 units of income-qualified housing per year over 21 years.) The middle category, between 50 and 80% of AMI, calls for 444 units. The two lowest need 550, and the two higher categories (between 80 and 120% of AMI) need 581 units. Income-qualified households in the higher categories could be seen as to some degree subsidizing the lowest-income categories.
Although there’s much more to discuss in the Housing Needs Assessment, this essay may already be too long. I’m aware that it’s not easy reading; in places I may have gone too far into the weeds. I would welcome feedback, including requests for clarification and dissenting opinions.
Interpretation and Implementation of Our Comprehensive Plan
December 5, 2022
In its several different Elements, our Comprehensive Plan is open to many interpretations. What the Comprehensive Plan “says” – what it requires us to do, or to avoid doing – can be, and has been, discussed ad nauseum. Such discussions usually involve people with an axe to grind, and appeals to the Plan sometimes do more to stall decision-making than to promote sound policies.
In my opinion, the City Council and the general public would do well to focus less on competing interpretations of the Comprehensive Plan (as if it were a set-in-stone book of rules and warnings), and more on the interminable and creative work of implementing specific policy directives, amending the Municipal Code and improving the City’s programs and services.
In some respects, the Comprehensive Plan serves as our local government’s constitution, but unlike the federal and state governments’ constitutions, it is a planning document, consisting of policies rather than prohibitions and regulations. By law, it is subject to extensive revision at regular intervals. The long-range planning that we’re involved in now will produce several contributions to the revised Plan that is due to be completed at the end of 2024. I expect that, as in the past, the revision will closely resemble what it replaces, but we will have to take many changes in our circumstances into account, and our future isn’t what it used to be.
The Introduction to the 2016 Comprehensive Plan lays down eight Guiding Principles, and each is accompanied by several Guiding Policies. Many citizens can recite some of the Principles from memory – especially #1, “Preserve the special character of the Island, . . .” I’ll be very surprised if the principles are revised in 2024, but some of the guiding policies might be, based on what we have learned since 2016 and our obligation to plan with 2044 in mind.
The eleven Elements of the Plan (going from Land Use to Human Services) are each, in turn, aspirational in some respects, and down-to-earth in others. Each begins with a Vision statement, imagining what will have been accomplished in the twenty years after adoption of the Plan. Each of the Elements then sets out several Goals, and the goal statements are followed by several Policy statements.
If the guiding principles and the goal statements are the soul and the brains of the Plan, the Policy statements are its beating heart and limbs. Some policies direct citizens to do certain things, or to live in a certain way. Other policies tell policymakers and others in positions of authority what should be done to make real progress toward the stated goals.
For example, in the Land Use element, GOAL LU-2 says, “This Comprehensive Plan recognizes and affirms that as an Island, the city has natural constraints based on the carrying capacity of its natural systems. The plan strives to establish a development pattern that is consistent with the Goals of the community and compatible with the Island’s natural systems.” Following this, the first Policy states, in part, “Recognizing that the carrying capacity of the Island is not known, the citizens of Bainbridge Island should strive to conserve and protect its natural systems within the parameters of existing data. Revisions to the Plan should be made as new information becomes available.”
Here is a further Policy statement: “Establish a public education program to foster the community’s understanding of the natural systems on the Island and their carrying capacity.” There are many such directives in the Plan, and implementation of all of them may be too much to expect. In this instance, significant steps have been taken. City staff, consultants, and members of several citizen committees have been working on a Groundwater Management Plan that, I’m told, is about half-way complete. Information on this Plan is available on the City website under ‘City Projects,’ and from there you can download a four-page Groundwater Fact Sheet, prepared more than a year ago by members of the Environmental Technical Advisory Committee.
As I have said elsewhere in this collection of essays, it troubles me that in the past, the Council and the City administration have been very slow to revise land use and housing regulations in the Municipal Code, implementing specific Policy directives in the current Comprehensive Plan. Now that I’ve served on the Council for over a year, I’ve come to understand better why making such changes is never easy. We (the Council, the City Manager and Planning staff, and many others), can and must do better. Month by month in the year ahead, the pressure will be building.
COMMUNITY PLANNING MONTH on Bainbridge Island
October 3, 2022
In the City Council meeting last week, I had the pleasure of reading a Proclamation, which I then presented to Patty Charnas, the Director of Planning and Community Development. Nationally, October is recognized as Community Planning Month, and the Council took action to celebrate this designation locally.
I am writing this essay to summarize the Proclamation’s content, and to offer some reflections based on my experience working with the Planning department over the last twenty years. In the middle, you’ll find a digression into some fun facts from 19th- and 20th-century census reports.
The WHEREAS clauses of the Proclamation employ a mixture of lofty and plain language to describe community planning as a choice, not an obligation. It’s a natural and creative response to the inevitability of change. The choice isn’t available only to public officials; “community planning provides an opportunity for all residents to be meaningfully involved in making choices that determine the future.”
Community planning can be done well, or badly. “The full benefits of planning require public officials and residents who understand, support, and demand excellence in planning and plan implementation.” The Proclamation’s last WHEREAS recital offers recognition and heartfelt thanks to all “members of planning commissions, members of volunteer advisory committees and boards, and the professional community and planners who have contributed their time and expertise to the improvement of the City of Bainbridge Island.”
Citizens of Bainbridge Island have understood the need for community planning for many years, beginning long before the incorporation of the City and the creation of our first Comprehensive Plan. I believe that planning for the future should always be grounded in an awareness of where we came from. Character traits that defined our local culture many decades ago – both strengths and weaknesses – remain influential today. We ought to honor the best in our past, and also recognize mistakes and failures.
II
The first non-native settlers established small and separate communities in different parts of the island, and for at least the first fifty years, little could be done to pull those settlements together into a cohesive whole. Eventually, however, the town of Winslow emerged as the most prosperous and populous part of the Island, and a transportation network was developed, improving on logging roads and local pathways.
I recently came across a page copied from a Historical Society publication that provided information from U. S. Census records on the Island’s population growth. The settlement in Port Madison appears for the first time in 1860, with a total of 188 residents. (At that time there were 544 residents in all of Kitsap County.) Those 188 pioneers were “168 men, 19 women, 1 free colored.”
A decade later, there were 249 people in Port Madison and 61 in another census tract, Port Blakely. Eagle Harbor appears for the first time in 1900, with 330 residents, and by 1910 Eagle Harbor had grown to 1,055. (I don’t know the boundaries of that census tract, but I’m guessing that it included areas on both sides of the harbor.)
In 1950, Winslow appears for the first time, but there were only 637 residents within the incorporated town limits. By that time, unincorporated Bainbridge Island had grown to include 3,495 people. The population grew steadily, Island-wide, from that point on. Forty years later, the 1990 census counted 3,081 residents in Winslow and 15,846 in the unincorporated areas.
During the 1980s, the “home rule” movement arose from a felt need to plan, locally and democratically, for the future of a growing community. In 1990, by a narrow margin, voters approved the annexation of unincorporated Bainbridge Island by the town of Winslow. The first Comprehensive Plan was completed in 1994, responsive to requirements of the recently passed Growth Management Act.
The contending forces that were apparent in the 1980s weren’t resolved by the formation of an all-Island government and completion of the first Comprehensive Plan in 1994. From the beginning, the City of Bainbridge Island had an elected Mayor, a seven-person City Council, a Planning Commission, and a small police force. Engaged citizens without official status contributed energy and intelligence to the foundation of the new City, and citizen engagement has been a feature of our government, not a bug, ever since.
Apparently, people on both sides in the contest over incorporation agreed that the main objective was to “keep Bainbridge rural” – i. e., to preserve low-density development and maintain as much open space as possible. The Growth Management Hearings Board didn’t accept the paradox of a city that was mostly rural, so the Comprehensive Plan’s first guiding principle was revised: “Preserve the special character of the Island . . .” We continue to quarrel over how best to manage that duty of preservation.
III
I didn’t return to the Island for good until 2000, so I missed the first decade of all-Island government. When I began following political discussions and the work of the City Council’s Land Use committee, I often saw the Department of Planning and Community Development caught in the middle between rival factions and interest groups. Environmental activists (myself included) were on one side, and on the other were advocates for property rights and development. The City Council was similarly divided, and many conflicts remained unresolved.
Nobody argued explicitly in favor of population growth, but it continued. The 11.8% increase between 2000 and 2010 was a lower rate than in the previous two decades, but still significant. Some (myself included) thought we should plan for growth and take steps to accommodate it, providing incentives and seeking subsidies for housing that the real estate market wasn’t producing. Others resisted development on principle, and thought that land use regulations were too lax: it was said that residential development “never pays for itself,” and it inevitably harms our environment.
From the beginning, our Comprehensive Plan has promoted environmental conservation and the protection of our natural amenities and resources. Those goals and policies have been carefully implemented in our Municipal Code, especially in Title 16 (Environment) but also in development regulations and Title 18 (Zoning). The Comprehensive Plan does not, at the same time, promote population growth, and what should we make of that?
Well, the Plan also doesn’t promote the growth of trees, proliferation of the deer population, or more rainy days. The main premise of the Growth Management Act is that in our region the population has been growing and will continue to grow. Other circumstances will change as well, and much of that change is beyond our control. That’s why community planning is important.
I said at the beginning of this essay that planning is a choice, and an opportunity. I also said that community planning can be done well, or badly. It’s complicated, and consensus around policies affecting the built environment is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Our Comprehensive Plan contains many forward-looking policies pertaining to land use and housing, but too little has been done to implement those policies in the Municipal Code.
IV
Who is in charge of planning for our future? I think it’s generally understood that the City Council is the ultimate policy-making body, answerable to Washington state law and responsive to the goals and policies of the Comprehensive Plan. While the Council is ultimately responsible for policy-making, the City Manager is in charge, through the City’s administrative Departments (e. g., Planning and Public Works), of implementing those policies. And as I see it, the relationship between policy-making and implementation is dynamic – necessarily slow-moving, but action-oriented, not meant to be stalled.
The whole process of community planning involves several distinct entities, each enjoying some autonomy and authority, all working together in a collaborative enterprise. Sometimes the collaboration encounters conflicts, and there’s some need for check-and-balance course correction. Individual citizens and organized groups have roles to play, sometimes ad hoc and sometimes within the formal structures of governance. Given this complexity, I don’t see our local government as a hierarchy with the Council at the top. It is true, however, that if the Council isn’t disciplined and working well together, the whole system suffers.
What kind of City government do the citizens of Bainbridge Island want? There may never be a consensus with a single answer to this question. I just hope that the community will evolve in the direction of stability and confidence in their elected and appointed public servants and the professional workforce of COBI.
I am troubled, but not entirely surprised, to find that in the minds of some people here, the whole enterprise of community planning is suspect and those in charge of it can’t be trusted. This resistance is understandable, given the ambitious scope of several long-range planning efforts that have been undertaken, with the completion of most of that work expected by the end of 2024.
We may be in a political moment now that resembles the contentious and creative time when the City of Bainbridge Island was incorporated and the first Comprehensive Plan was created. The rationality and resilience of our whole community is being tested now, as it was then.
What Is “Density Done Right”?
September 16, 2022
In community planning, the regulations that set limits on the density of development are fundamental determinants of character, function and appeal in a neighborhood and throughout a broader zoning district. Here on Bainbridge, for most of the island, density is determined on the basis of housing units per acre, and most of the units are single family homes: R-4 would mean four houses on an acre, and R-0.4 means one house on 2.5 acres.
How effectively do density standards manage residential development and population growth on Bainbridge? In their present shape, do the zoning regulations (Title 18 in the Municipal Code) serve us well enough? The significance of ‘density’ is not precise, but relative: “low density” stands in contrast to “high density,” and what’s called “high density” here is in a world apart from high density development in Seattle.
The prevalence of low density zoning on Bainbridge is given most of the credit for our uniqueness as a city. It may be the foundation for our sense of place and some of our community values, but we ought to recognize that the development rights conferred by our zoning code produce some odd outcomes. A big house on a small lot is equivalent to an even bigger house with several outbuildings. How are both of them essentially the same, in terms of allowed density, as a small house on a large lot that remains mostly forested?
I am convinced that the density standards in the zoning code do relatively little to advance our conservation goals. Density calculations do not measure the environmental impacts of development, and they are not related to a given property’s potential for conservation of natural resources.
Over the years, our preference for low-density development has produced sprawl and the traffic that accompanies it, plus high and rapidly increasing real estate prices. Also, when the only good density is low density, it becomes impossible to plan effectively for diversity in housing types to suit an economically and culturally diverse population. We have made commitments in the Comprehensive Plan’s conservation and development strategy (Goal LU-4) without taking the necessary steps to implement those policies.
The Bainbridge zoning map is not without a rationale, but its design is a patchwork, providing more for variety than for uniformity. And variety – even inconsistency – contributes positively to our distinctive sense of place. You’re likely to see R-2 lots across the road from an expanse of R-0.4 properties. R-2 is the zoning classification for many waterfront lots, which are often long and narrow, with houses close together and close to the waterfront view.
The R-0.4 zone, which mandates the lowest density of residential development, covers approximately 90% of the island’s land mass. The actual density of development across that length and breadth of the island is far from uniform, which suits our variable terrain. It’s the most rural portion of the island, and large tracts of the land are forested, including many acres that in the early 20th century were served by roads and cleared for houses and farms. The Parks district and the B. I. Land Trust now reserve much of the acreage for recreational and conservation purposes. On the other hand, in much of the R-0.4 zone residential development exists on nonconforming lots, one acre or less in area, because the lots were platted before the imposition of R-0.4 zoning. Finally, we should bear in mind that this large part of the island, zoned for low-density residential use and conservation of our critical areas, wildlife habitat, and natural resources, also allows forestry and agriculture as permitted uses. Several other uses, including multifamily housing, are conditionally permitted.
To summarize: across the expanse of R-0.4 zoning, the pattern of residential and other forms of development, together with large and small tracts that will never be developed for residences, forms a patchwork that is similar in its variety to the more suburban and urban densities zoned R-1 and at higher densities.
So far in this essay, I have mentioned only the units-per-acre zoning that is applicable where development is primarily residential. In most of Winslow, a different set of rules applies, based on Floor Area Ratio (FAR) allowances. Through this methodology, combined with limits on building height and lot coverage, density is defined not in terms of a maximum number of building units for housing or some other purpose, but by the building design, the uses it accommodates, and its relationship to other buildings. These regulations are spelled out in BIMC 18.12 (Dimensional Standards). The FAR methodology is well suited to medium-density urban development, supporting a mixture of commercial and other non-residential land uses, together with residential development at an urban density in a variety of housing types.
The units-per-acre zoning outside of Winslow and the FAR-based zoning in town are not in synch with each other. In the single-family zones we place strict limits on the number of units permitted per acre, but only in special circumstances is the size of a house limited, so low-density housing can be big, bold, and environmentally high-impact. In Winslow, where we expect higher densities and efficient uses of the limited land available, we also see single-story buildings, suburban-style sprawl, and spacious parking lots. The FAR allowances for ‘base’ and ‘bonus’ density were set at low levels many years ago, and they have not been revised upward to enable the development and re-development that is needed now.
Development in Winslow has not been prevented, but only certain types of development have been profitable. Mixed-use development, combining residential capacity with retail and service-oriented businesses, has been neither mandated nor effectively supported by incentives. According to the Comprehensive Plan, “increasing the diversity of housing types and the supply of affordable housing” is a high priority in Winslow, but to date nothing has been mandated.
During my years on the Planning Commission, I was involved in some wide-ranging conversations about possible changes in the zoning regulations for Winslow. Back then, of course, no such changes were being called for by the City Council or the Planning department, so the talk went nowhere. Now we all see the need for updating the Winslow sub-area plan, and it is time to get serious about making some such changes.
Based on the title of this essay, you may have thought that by the end it would reveal what “density done right” amounts to. No such luck! Google the phrase, and you’ll find lots to read, just as I have. Finding out what’s right for Bainbridge will be, I assume, a slow, somewhat contentious, and ultimately collaborative process.
Maybe, months from now, I’ll be able to say more on this topic. At this point, I’m sure of only one thing: the right answer is not going to be “high density.” We need to stop thinking in black-and-white absolute terms; we need moderate and purpose-driven increases in density, and imaginative design. And planning for the future of this community can’t be a zero-sum game.
In Our Comprehensive Plan, Is the Housing Element Inconsistent with Land Use Goals and Policies?
September 9, 2022
In conversations about housing policies and the failure of our Municipal Code to provide effectively for the development of affordable housing, I have often complained that in the past, the City’s decision-makers have been lax and lacking in political will: they have not cared enough to implement the Comprehensive Plan’s forward-looking Housing element.
In response, I have heard more than once from a former Council member that policies promoted in the Housing element were, unfortunately, inconsistent or in conflict with the Land Use element’s goals and policies. Remembering the care that was taken to achieve internal consistency throughout the Comprehensive Plan drafting process, both in the Planning Commission and in the City Council’s review, I haven’t accepted that excuse, but’s it’s been bothering me.
This morning, in one of the 4 a. m. intervals of wakefulness that are an occupational hazard of Council service, I decided to read the Land Use and Housing elements carefully, once again, to see whether or not they fit together. Here is some of what I found.
For obvious reasons, Land Use comes first among the Comprehensive Plan elements; the goals and policies there establish a foundation for all that follows. The Economic element comes next, and then Environmental and Water Resources. Housing and Transportation follow.
The brief Introduction to the Land Use element ends with two paragraphs that seem specifically designed to establish consistency between Land Use and Housing. They state that “any localized increase in density over current zoning should further one or more of these public purposes”: five are listed, one of which is “Increase the range and supply of housing types and affordable housing.” As an example of the Plan’s benchmarks for measuring progress in implementation, “the Housing Element sets aspirational targets to increase the diversity of housing types and supply of affordable housing” (p. LU-1 & 2).
The ”Island-wide Conservation and Development Strategy” is described in Goal LU-4 and nine distinct Policy statements. In the minds of many, conservation is the highest priority among land uses, and perennially a reason for saying NO! to development. Actually, every one of the policies in LU-4 is a strategy for managing development in a way that is consistent with conservation.
To understand the Comprehensive Plan, it’s essential to think about conservation and development not as adversaries, but as potentially in a dynamic relationship. That has always been possible, but it hasn’t happened consistently and conspicuously enough.
Policy LU 4.3: “Updating the Winslow Master Plan is a high work program priority because the greatest potential for achieving many of the City’s development priorities is focused there, including increasing the diversity of housing types and the supply of affordable housing while helping to reduce the development pressures in the Island’s conservation areas.” So here we are now, planning to make an updated Winslow Subarea Plan a centerpiece of the 2024 Comprehensive Plan update. Time’s a-wasting!
As I look closely at the Land Use element and the list of implementation action items that the City Council appended to it (pp. LU-29 to 33), it is obvious that the Housing element wasn’t singled out for dilatory treatment. Business as usual! It’s also obvious that many “high priority” Land Use policies pertain directly to housing, and to the types of housing that are now so conspicuously in short supply.
Among the implementation action items, here is #7: “Consider development of a new Conservation Village land use regulation to incentivize creation of a new housing pattern that consolidates and dedicates open space” (p. LU-32). This bright idea has found no traction yet. In the highest-value conservation areas, zoned for the least-dense residential development, we are still stuck with regulations that facilitate market-driven single-family residential development.
Multi-family housing is a conditional use if it is not outright permitted in the zones outside of Winslow and the neighborhood centers, but I don’t see “a new housing pattern” emerging in Bainbridge Island’s expanse of R-0.4 zoning any time soon. Funny thing, though: although it is confined by roadways, not in the midst of fields or a forest, the Bethany Lutheran project actually has a good deal in common with the conservation village concept. When the project is appealing to so many people, why is it so bitterly opposed by defenders of the Comprehensive Plan’s conservation agenda?
What Is Equity, and What Strategy Is Needed To Achieve and Maintain Equity in Our Culture on Bainbridge?
August 8, 2022
On July 20th, I participated in the first of the racial equity training sessions being offered to City Council members, City staff, members of the Police department, and others. I jumped at the opportunity. I have seen the need to become more self-aware of my unconscious biases and their effect on patterns of behavior. I am also acutely aware that I haven’t been able to talk effectively about racial differences, about the presence of ingrained bias and inequities in our population and our policies, and about positive steps that we can take to address these problems. The training session laid some groundwork, and I am writing this essay to reinforce the lessons I learned, that I will try to live by. Writing is my way of finding out, beyond wishful thinking and lip service, what I believe and what makes sense to me as a course of action. I hope that this essay makes sense to others and will be useful in the work we do as a community.
City Manager Blair King led off the session, calling attention to the goals of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. These are values espoused here, and their significance goes beyond good intentions, but in some respects they are not well embodied in our public policies. I would say this is due to a certain lack of political will. Regarding Equity, I think there is a good deal of confusion around what the word means, and what changes in attitudes and actions the principle requires of us.
In this essay I’ll try to convey the insights I have gained to date; I’m still learning, and I want to discuss equity and the concept’s practical implications with others, some of whom will disagree with me.
The racial equity training session was led by Scott Winn. I’ll be referring to my notes and quoting from the power point deck that Mr. Winn used during the session and provided to participants afterwards. I will also refer to a work plan published by the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC): the Council’s Regional Equity Strategy will inform the updating of our Comprehensive Plan, along with the Housing Action Plan and Winslow Subarea Plan that will contribute to the Comp Plan update.
Scott Winn skillfully addressed equity issues at an individual level, and he explained the concept as a social vision: “just and fair inclusion in a society in which all can participate, prosper and reach their full potential.” The PSRC strategy establishes a historical framework and focuses on public policy initiatives. “The central Puget Sound region has a long history of racism that continues to cause enormous harm. Generations of discrimination, disinvestment, and inequitable opportunities have helped lay the groundwork for a region where people of color and white residents too often have completely different experiences. . . . The region’s vision for advancing prosperity, a healthy environment, housing choices, and great public spaces in vibrant urban centers is not available to everyone, especially people of color.”
Equity, as “just and fair inclusion,” is a human right independent of racial categories, and inequities can be explained in strictly economic terms. I have felt at times that the emotion-laden topic of racial identity distracts attention from the broader topic of equity, but there are several good reasons for putting race and racial bias in the foreground. “PSRC will lead with race, which has proven to be an effective method for not only increasing equitable outcomes for people of color but developing a framework, tools, and resources that can remove barriers for other marginalized groups.” Other marginalized groups include women, white people from poor or working-class backgrounds, the elderly, people with disabilities, those who are not sexually “straight,” and those for whom English is not their first language.
I have thought for some time that we need race-sensitive policies, but our regulations must be race-neutral and non-discriminatory. Members of racial minorities, together with equity advocates from the privileged majority, should recognize how multi-faceted the problem is – and how multi-faceted any success will be as we achieve a more inclusive community.
In any community within the United States today, racism may be unobtrusively powerful despite the invisibility of outright racists and the decent, tolerant attitudes of the general population. Institutional racism is defined as “Policies, practices and procedures that work to the benefit of white people and to the detriment of people of color, often unintentionally or inadvertently.” Heather McGhee, in The Sum of Us (2021), which examines how all Americans have been adversely affected by racism, points out that “segregation didn’t originate in the South; nor was it confined to the Jim Crow states.” She also observes, “White people are the most segregated people in America” (pp. 168-69).
If we all live with the consequences of institutional racism as it has developed across many generations, nobody ought to feel guilty or ashamed, and nobody can claim the high ground and look down on others, can they? So what can we say, and what should we do? Scott Winn’s presentation described a sequence of strategic responses to racial and ethnic differences, emerging at different points in our history.
The first was assimilation, assuming that minority groups could and should be absorbed into the dominant culture. That seemed to work with some individuals and not for others, who were then regarded as failures. Another response to racism was color-blindness, assuming that separateness and differences should be tolerated and more or less ignored, along with obvious disparities in status and opportunities. A more constructive alternative eventually emerged: commitments to diversity and multiculturalism, in which differences were celebrated and opened up for dialogue. The problem with this mind-set is that despite its belief that we’re all equal, a hierarchy of privileges and disadvantages has remained in place.
Equity and equality are two different principles. As Scott Winn put it, equality involves “sameness in inputs” (such advantages as equal rights under the law and equal opportunities in the marketplace), while equity insists on “fairness in outcomes”: some will need more obstacles removed from the path to success. Both Scott Winn and the PSRC use the phrase targeted universalism, which “establishes universal goals while considering how different groups have faced, and continue to face, different barriers.”
Where liberal multiculturalism valued racial differences and rejected racist behavior, the commitment to equity starts from a recognition that racial differences are socially constructed, lodged in unconscious biases, and perpetuated institutionally by the dominant culture. What must be dismantled is deeply entrenched: not only individual assumptions and behavior but the whole apparatus of inequities. So where do we start?
All of us need to reflect on our biases. We may not be prejudiced against any racial or cultural group, but there are always people out there to regard as different – committed to values or goals or a lifestyle different from our own. And the assumptions we form around that polarizing difference may work incidentally to the disadvantage of a host of others standing outside of our frame of reference.
Scott Winn offered valuable insights into the consequences of unconscious bias. When individuals and groups act on their biases consciously, they are discriminating, and they may be rude or hurtful, even violent, but the damage is limited in scope. When they act on those biases unconsciously and imbed them in organizational policies and practices, the ripple effects may be huge over the course of time. Also, unconscious biases are apt to motivate not just one person or a few, but a larger group devoted to what they regard as a righteous cause.
I see unconscious biases at work in the belief that any significant growth in the Island’s population should be resisted, and should not be planned for, because planned development (especially residential development) is destructive, not creative: it is apt to seem contrary to the Island’s “special character,” doing irreparable harm to our limited natural resources. We are obligated to manage growth, and at the same time we have opportunities to accommodate growth that suits our long-range interests in a diverse and demographically balanced population.
At any one time on Bainbridge Island, there is always a lot going on, and nobody can be fully aware of more than a fraction of what’s happening. Superficial observers think that year after year, the Island and its people don’t change. Wrong: change happens slowly, and all at once it is noticeable – no longer on the margins but claiming a central place in our attention. Some changes are imposed upon us, and largely beyond our control: prices in the upscale real estate market, for example. Other problematic changes happen because those responsible for managing them have failed to act wisely, in time to make a difference. We can no longer ignore the need for a more diverse, affordable, and well-planned stock of housing for a growing population.
Guidance from the Puget Sound Regional Council on Housing Policies
July 12, 2022
I represent Bainbridge Island on the Growth Management Policy Board, and I found the meeting of the Board on July 7th to be especially important. Two discussion items got my full attention. The first was devoted to PSRC’s Climate Work Program, presented by Kelly McGourty. I had an opportunity to speak with her afterwards; she volunteered an observation that Bainbridge, while a small community, is still “doing big things.” We can be very proud of the work being done by Autumn Salamack and the Climate Change Advisory Committee.
The second discussion item was devoted to Comprehensive Plan Review, Housing, and Certification. Paul Inghram, the Council’s Director of Growth Management, spoke on this topic, and the agenda packet included a six-page memo providing background for his remarks. My summary, in what follows, will quote from that document and from my notes on the 30-minute presentation and discussion.
Mr. Inghram began by noting that “the 2024 periodic comprehensive plan update cycle is now underway.” At the regional level, guidance is provided with reference to the overarching planning document, VISION 2050, and several more specific publications, such as the 18-page Regional Housing Strategy. Kitsap County, through its Regional Coordinating Council (KRCC), is responsible for both planning and the implementation of the regional vision and strategies.
Within this system, as I see it, Bainbridge Island and other local jurisdictions enjoy unencumbered autonomy in both comprehensive planning and the implementation of our own goals and policies. We are still years away from the deadline for completion of the 2024 Comprehensive Plan, but in all of the long-range planning that’s been undertaken to date (on shoreline management, actions responding to climate change, surface and groundwater modeling, mobility and transportation plans, action on affordable housing, and plans for the future of Winslow), the City is already laying the groundwork for the 2024 update.
This essay will provide one person’s perspective on guidance from the PSRC, and I hope it will spark some discussion in the City Council, because I’m aware that we are not all in agreement on the land use and growth management issues that we’ll be dealing with in the months ahead. Where we make different assumptions as individuals, those differences should be out in the open and discussed, so that we can understand each other better and determine where we stand as a group.
If, in the City Council as a whole, we enjoy unencumbered autonomy in our policy-making and planning, that doesn’t mean that we are free to do nothing, or to postpone decisions indefinitely. There’s been enough of that in the past, and I think we can all agree that our community has suffered from lapses in long-range planning. I firmly believe that the members of the present Council, with the City Manager and City staff, are capable of making tough decisions, and managing our future to the extent that that is possible.
You may wonder how the PSRC can contribute positively to our decision-making. Their kind of strategic planning and agenda-setting is obviously more relevant to the municipalities in King County than to those in Kitsap, and we enjoy our separateness from both the east and the west sides of Puget Sound. However, like it or not, we are umbilically connected to the vital and changeable environment that surrounds us. I think that if we neglect those connections and dwell too much on our “special” status within the Puget Sound’s cultural ecosystems, our utopia will become increasingly dystopian.
I have digressed, and I will return to the specifics of planning for housing, which was one focus of Paul Inghram’s presentation. He emphasized that “PSRC does not have regulatory power to enforce the actions of the Regional Housing Strategy.” Also, with reference to the eventual review of Comprehensive Plans by PSRC and the Department of Commerce, he distinguished between approval and certification.
PSRC review and certification are focused on transportation-related components of local Plans. Those components are expected to be coordinated with other plans. “PSRC’s goal is to help each jurisdiction in the region successfully demonstrate how their local plan is consistent with state planning requirements and VISION 2050.” The process of certification establishes eligibility for PSRC-managed funding: that’s the carrot on the end of the stick.
Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council meetings have also made clear that there is a strong nexus between housing policies and the development of transportation infrastructure. In both KRCC and PSRC meetings, a representative of the Department of Commerce has explained how HB 1220 has broadened the definition of affordable housing, going beyond “encouraging” such development. In Paul Inghram’s words, “One of the most significant changes to GMA was the adoption of HB 1220 that expanded the requirements for housing elements and development regulations. Planning for sufficient housing options that meet household needs has a direct impact on travel choices and commute patterns.”
Here is one more quotation: “Every community has a role to play in expanding housing choices. Housing has become a regional issue—if housing becomes too expensive in one city, it impacts costs and affordability in neighboring communities.”
I am confident that the findings and recommendations in our forthcoming Housing Needs Assessment will be consistent with the PSRC’s guidance. I also think that success with our Housing Action Plan will be enhanced, right from the start, if the Council gets up to speed and stands explicitly behind a set of goals and policies, based in our current Comprehensive Plan’s Housing Element and oriented toward its revision in 2024.
Throughout the summer and fall, the PSRC will be hosting workshops on topics such as housing, climate, and transportation. PSRC staff are also available to “present to local councils and planning commissions to help guide local planning efforts.” I will be seeking support from the City Manager and the Council for scheduling such a meeting, perhaps in a study session on August 16 or September 6.
What Is Wrong with “Single Family Zoning”?
June 30, 2022
Single-family homes are the most prevalent type of housing on Bainbridge Island. Some are on small lots and close together; some sit on five acres. Some homes are quite small, but for many years now, bigger has been identified as better, even on small lots. The trend may be turning: smaller homes are more climate-friendly, and given the rising costs of materials and construction, they are apt to be more affordable.
You may have heard a rumor that single-family homes have been outlawed in California, or that an attempt was made in the Washington legislature to impose such a new regime here. Actually, the sky isn’t falling – not yet. But we should expect some push against the market forces and building practices that have used our limited land resources wastefully and produced sprawling, high-priced development.
What gets left out of many discussions of this trend in housing policies is that as American cities expanded after World War II, up-scale new neighborhoods were created that were zoned for single family only development: with or without discriminatory covenants, this policy tended to create segregated all-white enclaves. Such exclusionary zoning is the true and proper target of policies that seek to diversify the types of housing available in cities and suburbs.
I gather that many years ago, there were some places on Bainbridge where discriminatory covenants excluded “less desirable” new residents. Such covenants have been invalidated, of course. And, with one exception (the “R-8 SF overlay district” in Fort Ward), our zoning code has never established any areas where single-family residences are the only permitted use. Multifamily dwellings (defined as two or more primary units under one roof) are a permitted use in the R-5 zone, in the neighborhood centers, and throughout the Winslow area. In all other zones, including the least dense conservation areas, multifamily development is a conditional use.
In fact, multifamily development has not been happening everywhere it is permitted on Bainbridge, nor where it is a conditional use. Why is this? I guess that in recent decades, single-family homes have suited the perceived best interests of our mostly white and mostly upper-middle-class population.
It’s not hard to imagine, however, why more multifamily development is desirable now. Housing policies could be crafted to both encourage and regulate diversification of our housing stock, making more housing affordable for households in the middle of the income spectrum (between 80 and 120% of the area median income).
What is the median size of a single-family home on Bainbridge Island, and what is the average family size? In a few months, the updated Housing Needs Assessment will answer that and other questions. Here’s one piece of anecdotal evidence, from Jason Shutt’s real estate market report for May of this year: “Sold homes ranged in size from 1,112 to 4,819 square feet. The average was 2,806 sf.”
I am definitely not in favor of preventing the building of single-family homes, although our ability to control their design and environmental impacts is limited. Also, I am definitely not in favor of imposing incompatible structures and uses on an established neighborhood. But supposing that the average size of a single-family home is 2,800 square feet, why not permit a duplex of that size? Alternatively, since the compatibility of new development with the established neighborhood is important, it would be possible to determine the average or median square footage for homes within a quarter-mile radius of a new homesite, and let that determine the maximum size of a duplex.
Does allowing a duplex in place of a single-family home double the density? Some would say “Yes, of course,” but I wouldn’t agree. Units per acre is a crude measure of density when we pay no attention to the size of the units and the number of occupants. If we’re regulating residential density, what matters most are the long-term impacts of development on the natural environment and on quality of life. There are many ways of limiting those impacts.
“Density done right” is a much-discussed topic in community planning circles nowadays, and I expect that topic to be addressed as we proceed with the Housing Action Plan. What “done right” will mean here on Bainbridge has to be considered not in the abstract, but with reference to our specific limitations, obligations, and opportunities.
The Puget Sound Regional Council’s Housing Strategy
May 31, 2022
I have written previously about useful information that is readily available on the Puget Sound Regional Council’s website. Currently, several planning documents related to the development of housing are featured there. This is timely, specifically for me, because on June 2nd I will represent Bainbridge Island in a meeting of the Growth Management Policy Board, and implementation of the Regional Housing Strategy will be the principal subject for discussion.
The following documents can be accessed on the website: the Regional Housing Strategy (18 pp.), an Executive Summary of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (10 pp.), and the full Regional Housing Needs Assessment completed in January 2022 (116 pp.). I have read only portions of the third document; I will be summarizing here what I’ve learned to date, primarily from the shorter documents and the upcoming meeting’s agenda packet.
Let me comment first on how I view the PSRC and the policy documents they publish for the benefit of the four counties in their jurisdiction (King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap). Here’s a quotation from the June 2nd agenda: “By providing data, guidance, and technical assistance, PSRC supports jurisdictions in their efforts to adopt best housing practices and establish coordinated local housing and affordable housing targets.”
The goals and policies articulated by the Regional Council resemble, on a more general level, those found in our Comprehensive Plan. The policies are not mandatory regulations, and the goals are somewhat aspirational. PSRC guidance is based on an understanding that local circumstances impose limits on what is appropriate and possible. “At the local level, places vary in their needs for housing investments and interventions. A place typology is a way to identify actions based on local conditions such as size, housing needs, market conditions, demographics, growth expectations, and staff capacity” (quoting again from the meeting agenda regarding implementation of the regional strategy).
As I see it, the long-range planning efforts we are undertaking now, culminating in the 2024 Comprehensive Plan, are our opportunity to develop a “place typology” suited to Bainbridge Island that is consistent with PSRC’s broad strategies.
The Executive Summary of regional housing needs states bluntly, “The region is two years behind in housing production.” 46,000 units are needed to address this backlog. Not only that: to accommodate the population growth anticipated by 2050, a breathtaking 810,000 new housing units are needed – 418,000 for King, 187,000 for Snohomish, 161,000 for Pierce, and 43,000 for Kitsap County.
These numbers are daunting, but of course whatever progress is made in the next 25 years will be achieved gradually, in various ways, across the region. Most important, perhaps, is the need for housing of different types, breaking with development practices that have relied too much on building for the single-family home ownership market. “To meet the region’s vision for a more livable, prosperous, and equitable future, more housing is needed of different types, costs, and with access to jobs, transit and services.” This diversity is easy enough to justify, but it will be hard to achieve.
The Regional Housing Strategy is a three-fold program devoted to Supply, Stability, and Subsidy. Implementation of the strategy will not take place from the top down. “Many of the needed actions require work by cities and counties, as zoning and permitting are local functions.” Pages 14 to 16 in the Strategy document display many ways in which a local jurisdiction’s initiatives can be supported by the Regional Council and by policies and funding at the State and Federal levels.
I will have more to say in another essay about information in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment that will be pertinent to our needs on Bainbridge Island. For the time being, I will close with one passage that jumped out at me from p. 17 of the Assessment:
People of color make up about one-third of the region’s current population and increased by 174,000 residents, or 100 percent, from 2000 to 2018. This increase in population is over twice the size of the existing population in Kitsap County. The white population in the region has grown at a much slower rate of 159,000 residents, or 6 percent. People of color represent 83 percent of the region’s population growth since 2000.
Next Steps, Revising Ordinance 2022-02 (Affordable Housing on Church Property)
April 28, 2022
It goes without saying that the paragraphs below are one person’s views, not those of the City Council, which has not yet had an opportunity to discuss Ordinance 2022-02.
The Planning Commission’s April 14 DRAFT of Ordinance No. 2022-02 can be the basis for a revised DRAFT that completes the Ordinance. I think the Council will be able to reach agreement on several questions that divided the Planning Commission. We should discuss the pros and cons of returning the unfinished business to the P C with some policy direction, but I would rather have the Council accept its decision-making role at this point. The choices that have to be made are clear enough.
The Council must acknowledge that the up-zoning of property currently zoned R-0.4 is controversial. For some people, up-zoning in the “conservation area” can’t or shouldn’t be permitted. However, it should be recognized that R-0.4 zoning was applied across much of the Island in a haphazard fashion. Throughout the R-0.4 zone, many already-platted lots are less than an acre, and properties are far from equal in their value for conservation. Over the years, many things have changed, within the zone and around its edges. The Council needs to decide whether, given the location and characteristics of Bethany Lutheran’s property, any amount of affordable housing is an appropriate use there.
It has come to my attention that our Code provides, in BIMC 2.16.140, for Site-specific rezones. “The city may apply for a rezone of one or more properties as necessary to improve consistency between the official zoning map and the comprehensive plan” (140.D.2). This is a quasi-judicial process, complicated enough to be convincing.
We will need to decide on a rationale for determining how much bonus density – i. e., how many housing units, how much lot coverage, and perhaps other dimensional standards – should be allowed for affordable housing on the Bethany Lutheran site. It should be understood that the enabling Ordinance will only establish limits for a hypothetical project. Several factors, as yet unknown, might modify what will be proposed and what will be permitted. If the limit is set at 21 units, that does not mean 21 units can and will be built.
What is the proper scope for this Ordinance? We will have to choose between a focus on the Bethany site only, and an attempt to provide regulations for churches across the Island, on the assumption that there might be any number of applications for a density bonus.
We will need to determine whether this “pilot project” will set any kind of precedent for development of affordable housing on church property elsewhere on the Island. To my own way of thinking, we are dealing with a one-of-a-kind project, and if there ever is another such project here, very different circumstances will have to be taken into account.
Any such project will, I assume, involve a conditional use permit. It remains to be seen whether Ordinance No. 2022-02 will include CUP conditions suited only to this pilot project, or possibly applicable to another project.
What is most important, in my opinion, is a recognition within the Council, and broadly within the community, that in planning for this development, we are motivated by a commitment to equity in planning. We will be breaking new ground, and we are just beginning to catch up to the world we live in.
With the Bethany Lutheran project, the City can and should take deliberate steps toward the many-faceted goal of social equity: inclusion, free from partiality and prejudice, of people who, in the recent past, have had little or no opportunity to live on the Island. Everybody here knows that for a person or a family interested in moving to Bainbridge Island now, this is an exclusive and expensive place, and it has been for at least the last decade. This de facto policy of exclusion hasn’t happened deliberately. We have just looked the other way, and we haven’t made the effort needed to counteract the consequences of our zonng regulations, planning and development practices, and market forces.
Equity in planning, and planning for equity, should be a pattern in the fabric of our Housing Action Plan. Planning for equity involves imagining a future different from our present – a future that many of us will not live to see. Understanding the importance of equity in planning, we must also understand the multi-cultural history of this country, and the fact that financial and other resources have never been equitably distributed. Now it’s time to make what changes we can, responding better than in the past to the aspirational goals in our Comprehensive Plan.
Regional Population Trends, 2010-20
April 12, 2022
The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), headquartered in Seattle, oversees planning efforts for four counties: King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap. The PSRC website provides access to a great deal of information about our region, and care is taken to make the facts of life comprehensible and useful. Our region is dynamic, and only by understanding the changes surrounding us and within our own community can we develop policies that will shape the future to our liking.
I have been studying several of the brief reports published in recent years under the heading of “PUGET SOUND TRENDS.” In November 2021 – as soon as possible after completion of the 2020 census – the PSRC tallied the past decade’s population growth, across the region and at the county and municipal levels.
Regionally, the population now stands at 4.3 million, up from 3.7 million in 2010.
Of the four counties, Kitsap is the smallest (population 275,611), with the lowest rate of population growth (9.7%).
King County, geographically the largest and also the most populous (2,269,675), also experienced the most rapid rate of growth (17.5%).
The other two counties, though each remains under 1 million in population, are close to King in rate of growth: Pierce at 15.8% and Snohomish at 16.1%.
While Bainbridge Island is economically and culturally linked to Seattle, we are geographically closer to the West Sound, with its mix of suburban, small town, and rural characteristics. We can’t be assured that the rate of growth in Kitsap County will remain below 10% for the next decade, but I think there’s no reason to assume otherwise.
Looking at Bainbridge Island in relation to other West Sound municipalities, I see food for thought. The Island’s growth between 2010 and 2020 involved a net increase of 1,800 people, 7.8%. Gig Harbor, in Pierce County, grew at the remarkable rate of 68.8%. Port Orchard grew by 39.9% (partly by annexation). Poulsbo grew by 30.2%, and if Poulsbo’s Urban Growth Area is included, the population there is 12,503 – roughly half of the Island’s.
Such words as “growth” and “development” are divisive – no way to start a conversation here. Population growth is not something to wish for, and there are obstacles in the way of it, both in our zoning code and in environmental regulations. However, there are downsides to our history of resisting growth: we’ve had to take it as it comes, and the housing market benefits some people while others are excluded.
We have an obligation to plan for population growth: this obligation is accepted and articulated in our Comprehensive Plan, and not something being forced upon us. After more than thirty years as a City, it’s about time we got good at planning for the future.
March 28, 2022
Many obstacles stand in the way of our developing effective housing policies. Under the Growth Management Act, the City has a long-standing obligation to plan for housing that “makes adequate provisions for existing and projected needs of all economic segments of the community.” The GMA wouldn’t exist if its requirements were easy to satisfy; in practice, some of them have seemed impossible. Now, however, we see the consequences of not even trying to make “adequate provisions.” The need for concerted action is recognized in the Housing Element of our current Comprehensive Plan, but we have barely begun to implement those goals and policies.
By effective housing policies, I mean regulations that are not just “on the books,” but are productive of housing that meets a wide range of community needs. In the not too distant past, such needs were met effectively by the housing market and the enterprise of property owners, whether they were building for themselves or for sale. As the Island’s population has increased and the costs of property ownership and development have gone up, however, only the high end of the market has prospered.
The need for housing policies that provide equitably for an economically diverse population has been obvious to some Islanders for at least twenty years, and what has been done? Not nothing, I would say, but not enough. Why is that?
Bainbridge Island may be unique in many ways, but we are not alone in our dearth of affordable housing. Across our region, housing that is accessible to lower-income households is in short supply, and the same is true for people of middle-income means. However, other communities are well ahead of us in responding to the regional need.
What is the problem? It’s not one problem, but many. There are intrinsic difficulties in the crafting of any sort of land use regulations. Whether they emphasize protection of environmental features or the permitting of development, such regulations are all about setting appropriate limits. Except for raising a child, what could be more difficult than that? When the development you desire is to any degree at odds with market forces and the profit motive, the difficulties are compounded exponentially.
Housing policies, like other provisions for the community’s long-term health, safety, and welfare, are designed to solve problems, or at least to make them manageable. This objective has to be broadly understood and supported. What if the so-called “problems” are not apparent and meaningful to the general public? To many, if not most people here on Bainbridge, what is most obvious is that more housing means more people. And – not to put too fine a point on it – would not many more people inevitably mean many more problems?
One of the arguments in favor of establishing Bainbridge Island as a city was that property development and population growth could and would be constrained: we the people would control our own destiny. Since incorporation, our Comprehensive Plan, Municipal Code, and administrative decisions have imposed many constraints on development. Opinions vary on how effective they have been.
Population growth has definitely been constrained in recent years. The Island’s population doubled between 1960 and 1980, going from 6,404 to 12,314. In the next 20 years, the population increased by 64.9%, adding 8,000 people. Then, between 2000 and 2020, the rate of increase was 23.4%, adding less than 5,000 people. The rate of increase was 11.8% in the first decade of this century, and 8.9% in the most recent. The current projections of future growth assume a rate of 1% per year.
How has population growth been constrained so effectively? Not by any policy decisions, unless you count decisions not to go forward with a recommended course of action: there have been several such decisions. To a great extent, market forces and the laws of supply and demand have controlled both the development of housing and population growth on the Island.
Many will say that that’s as it should be. Some people have certainly reaped financial benefits from the housing market. Many others, comfortable in their homes and more or less unperturbed by gradual increases in their property taxes, may want the restrictive status quo to continue indefinitely. I can understand, therefore, why it is difficult to develop long-range plans that will encourage development, and why any proposal for a small-scale change in the density allowed by current zoning regulations is regarded as setting a dangerous precedent.
It should be generally recognized that the housing market, as we’ve known it here on Bainbridge in recent years, provides generously for some people while it excludes many others. An up-to-date Housing Needs Assessment will, I expect, force us to confront some difficult equity issues. (By “us” I mean the general public as well the City Council and other public servants.) I will try to address such issues some other time. add content...
Bainbridge Island’s Housing Needs Assessments, Part Two
March 10, 2022
The 2016 Housing Needs Assessment is more elaborate and data-rich than its predecessor. It responds to guidance from the State level (in the Revised Code of Washington and the Washington Administrative Code) and from the Puget Sound Regional Council and Countywide planning policies.
Here is the opening sentence of the Introduction: “The purpose of this Housing Needs Assessment is to present the City of Bainbridge Island’s current housing goals and policies, along with the City’s current housing supply inventory and demographics, and provide some analysis based on these statistics to determine the current and future housing needs on the Island.”
As a component of the current Comprehensive Plan, the Needs Assessment adds a supplement, in its 62 pages, to the relatively brief Housing element: the “shoulds” and “shalls” in the Assessment could carry just as much weight as those in the Comprehensive Plan itself. To date, however, relatively little has been done to implement the 2016 Housing element’s goals and policies, which is why we need a Housing Action Plan and an updated Winslow Subarea Plan.
As is noted on p. 9 of the Assessment, Kitsap County’s planning policies call for “equitable distribution of affordable housing at all income levels,” and for “implementing regulations to provide a mix of housing types and costs to achieve identified goals.” Those policies focus on dispersing “housing for those below 120% countywide median income throughout Kitsap County” (p. 10).
Pages 12 to 33 provide a Housing Supply Inventory, documenting changes in the supply of different housing types and in the costs of ownership and rental tenancy between 1980 and 2010. It comes as no surprise that “single-family housing makes up 81% of all housing units on Bainbridge Island” (p. 12). Throughout those 30 years, more than 75% of those residences were owner-occupied (pp. 15-16).
As was noted in the 2003 Assessment, sale prices for homes on Bainbridge are well above prices in the rest of Kitsap County. A graph on p. 23 shows that at the peak of the housing market in 2007, the average sale price of a single-family home on Bainbridge was above $800,000, while the average in the rest of Kitsap was below $400,000. As the market rebounded, a similar gap was re-established in 2014.
Pages 33 to 49 provide a wealth of demographic information. The number of households grew from 2,778 in 1970 to 10,584 in 2010, while the average household size decreased from 3.06 to 2.41 (p. 35). Page 38 displays census statistics from 1980 to 2010 to document racial representation by numbers of people and percentages of the population. The percentage classified as White varies from 95.1% in 1990 to 91% in 2010. “African Americans, Some Other Race, and Hispanic categories showed consistent growth through 2010” (p. 37), but the numbers remained low.
As in the 2003 Assessment, changes in the age distribution across the growing population are of considerable interest. “In 1980 Bainbridge Island had a fairly even distribution of age groups. Since that time the population has seen significant increases in the 5 to 17, 35 to 59, and the 60 and over groups” (p. 39). The number of newborns and toddlers peaked at 1,046 in 1990 and was down to 931 in 2010. The largest age group, 35 to 59, went from 3,887 in 1980 to 9,358 in 2010, and it makes sense that a good number of couples of that age would have children of school age.
Has the 35 to 59 age group expanded between 2010 and now, or held steady, or declined? This is one of the questions that the updated Housing Needs Assessment will answer for us. It won’t be my generation, or others who are over 65 now, who will populate and govern Bainbridge Island twenty years from now, but today’s younger citizens, and others who don’t live on Bainbridge now.
It will surprise no one that for a large portion of Bainbridge residents, household incomes have been increasing steadily for decades. The census provides median amounts: half of households will be above, and half below. In 1990, the median household income was $42,135; in 2000, it was $70,110; in 2010, it was $92,558. And the figure for 2020 is $117,990.
The last segment of the Assessment (pp. 49-62) is devoted to Determining Existing and Future Housing Needs. One method used is “Cost Burden Analysis,” on the assumption that 30% of household income is an appropriate amount to spend on housing (rent or mortgage payments and basic utility costs). If these costs are above 50%, a low-income household will be “extremely cost burdened.”
Pages 50 to 53 provide a cost burden analysis based on statistics from 2012. I find the figures and analysis in this section opaque, and the policy implications are not well articulated. The message seems to be that in owner-occupied housing, a significant number of residents (35%) are cost-burdened, but for the majority of homeowners, their incomes are such ($75,000 or more a year) that paying more than 30% for housing is not an intolerable burden. (On the contrary, it may be a smart investment.) Most renters, however, have much lower incomes, and the limited supply of rental units is priced beyond what they can afford.
Pages 53 to 56 look into the availability of housing with reference to different income levels. The population is sorted into Upper, Middle, Moderate, Low, and Very-low income households, with reference to different percentages of the Area Median Income. It doesn’t surprise me to see that 46% of Bainbridge households were classified as Upper-income (earning more than 120% of the AMI), but the percentages in other categories are thought-provoking. A total of 28% are classified as either Low-income or Very low-income (earning less than 50% of AMI): that’s more than I would expect. And on the other hand, only 26% are classified as either Middle-income or Moderate-income (earning between 120% and 50% of AMI). Regionally, the Middle and Moderate categories add up to 40% of the population.
Pages 56 to 62 are devoted to Workforce Housing and the related subjects of Jobs / Housing Balance and Transportation Costs. Regionally and at the County level, growth management planning seeks to reduce the costs (in time, money, and environmental impacts) of long distances between homes and workplaces. It is also worth considering that these costs may fall most heavily on lower-income workers. “Bainbridge Island’s jobs / housing balance is .59 jobs for every housing unit in the City” (p. 61), where a ratio above 1.0 is indicative of a more “complete” community.
As we all know, Bainbridge Island has historically been a bedroom community, with many residents working off-Island. At the same time, many who work on Bainbridge can’t afford to live here, and their transportation costs may tip them into cost-burdened status.
My next essay will consider some of the reasons why, despite recognition of the needs, Bainbridge Island has failed to develop an adequate supply of housing for individuals and families earning below 120% of the area median income.
Bainbridge Island’s Housing Needs Assessments, Part One
March 7, 2022
Last year, the Council voted to approve the design and development of a Housing Action Plan, and now work to accomplish the Plan’s ambitious goals is about to begin. Among the components of that Plan is a Housing Needs Assessment, which will look comprehensively and analytically at our current and anticipated population, considering how well our housing stock meets that population’s needs.
While we’re waiting for an up-to-date Needs Assessment, we can learn a great deal from assessments that were produced at two historic junctures in the City’s past. The City’s first Housing Needs Assessment was completed in September, 2003, to take stock approximately ten years after the creation of our first Comprehensive Plan. Another Assessment was undertaken ten years later; a draft was completed in December, 2014, revised in 2016, and included as an Appendix in the most recent update of our Comprehensive Plan.
In this essay, I will bring to light some significant facts from the 2003 Assessment, and in Part Two I will discuss the 2016 update.
It is startling to see, in a document from twenty years ago, that the issues we are struggling to address today were apparent back then. The need for programmatic action in response to the assessment was also apparent. The 2003 Needs Assessment was conceived as Phase I, to be followed by Phase II deliberations by the Planning Commission and the City Council “to determine what kind of housing programs would best meet the community’s needs and what tools are needed to achieve the desired housing.” Sad to say, I don’t think much was achieved in Phase II.
An Executive Summary of “Key Findings” from the Assessment reports on changes in the Island’s population and residential development between 1980 and 2000 – a period in which the population went from 12,314 to 20,308. These bullet points describe changes over those years:
- The 18-34 year age group declined dramatically (26.2%) and is projected to continue to decrease.
- The 35-59 year age group more than doubled.
- The 60+ age group increased 75%.
- Single parent households have doubled in number while total households increased only 75%.
The summary goes on to say, “The Island is losing the economic diversity it values: the number of households with incomes of $35K or less declined 40.5% while households with incomes of $50K+ increased 778.2%.” The median household income in 2000 was $70,110; between 1990 and 2000, the Island’s median income grew by 60%. During that same period, the average home price increased by 79% -- from $232,687 to $416,975.
Here are a few more bullet points:
- There is a lack of entry level housing for young families.
- Single-family residences have continued as the predominant housing type with almost 10 times as many single-family homes as multi-family units built between 1980 and 2000 – 3,121 single-family versus 329 multifamily units.
- Increasing property taxes place a growing burden on modest-income households and retired citizens on fixed incomes, which could force community members off the Island.
- There is a lack of permanent affordable rental housing, particularly for families needing three- and four-bedroom housing.
Pages 8-11 of the Assessment provide further analysis of population growth and changes in household size and age distribution. It is worth noting that the Island’s population doubled between 1960 and 1980, going from 6,404 to 12,314, and the population increased by 64.9% between 1980 and 2000. (Between 2000 and 2020, we’ve seen a leveling off: 20,308 in 2000, 23,025 in 2010, and 24,825 in 2020.)
The population growth between 1980 and 2000 was very different in its composition from what we’ve seen in the last twenty years. The Assessment notes, “The 35 to 59 age group experienced a 143.7% increase between 1980 and 2002, the largest age group increase,” and the 60+ age group was in second place with a 76.6% increase.
By contrast, almost all of the Island’s population growth since 2000 has been in the cohort over 65. Economic factors, including the very high cost of available housing today, account for this trend. Being elderly myself, I hold nothing against people over 65, but looking ahead, I want to see more people in the 35 to 59 age group bringing their energy and creative potential here. The market now supplies housing for only a fortunate few people of that age.
It is taken for granted today that as a place and as a community of people, Bainbridge Island is different in many ways from the rest of Kitsap County. That was already true before our incorporation as a municipality, and the differences have grown since then. The 2003 Assessment comments on this trend: “In 1990 the difference in the average home sale price between Bainbridge Island and Kitsap County was just over $125,000. By 2002 the price differential had almost doubled to $247,561, despite three years on Bainbridge where the average home sale price dropped” (p. 25). More statistics show that in those years, the population of Kitsap County grew at a faster rate than on Bainbridge, while incomes increased on Bainbridge faster than in the rest of the County.
These are indicators of improvements in the quality of life on Bainbridge, but as the Assessment notes, they are at odds with the Growth Management Act and one of the 13 major goals in the Comprehensive Plan: “Encourage the availability of affordable housing to all economic segments of the population of this state, promote a variety of densities and housing types, and encourage preservation of existing housing stock” (p. 28).
There is much more to the Assessment, going deep into the difficulties of financing and building affordable housing. I will close with one anecdote from the Housing Resources Board (now Housing Resources Bainbridge). In their experience with three projects in ten years, “The per unit cost rose from $77,400 in 1992 to just under $129,000 by 2003,” and the cost (including land cost) per square foot rose from $84 to $213 (see pp. 43-45). Today, of course, everything is much more expensive, but the need for housing suited to all economic segments of the population remains.