Bellevue residents want more policies that encourage transit oriented development

Four promis­ing ideas for cat­alyz­ing tran­sit ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment in the City of Belle­vue enjoy broad and deep sup­port among res­i­dents of Wash­ing­ton’s fifth largest city, a sur­vey con­duct­ed a few weeks ago for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and the Belle­vue Hous­ing Research Coali­tion has found.

Aver­age sup­port for the four ideas we asked about totaled 75.75%, or more than three-fourths of respon­dents. Aver­age oppo­si­tion totaled just 18.75%.

The Belle­vue Hous­ing Research Coali­tion — a project of NPI, Com­plete Streets Belle­vue, the Sight­line Insti­tute, East­side For All, and the Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Con­sor­tium (HDC) — set out this past sum­mer to gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of how peo­ple in Belle­vue feel about the local hous­ing mar­ket and pro­pos­als being stud­ied by city staff and the Belle­vue City Coun­cil to make it eas­i­er for peo­ple in Washington’s fifth largest city to find attain­able and afford­able homes.

We released our ini­tial find­ings on Sep­tem­ber 12th and a sec­ond set of find­ings at the end of the month. On Octo­ber 3rd, we released a third set of find­ings, and last week, we released a fourth set of find­ings.

As Octo­ber draws to a close, we have more heart­en­ing data to share.

Here’s the TOD ideas ques­tion we asked and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: Please indi­cate whether you sup­port or oppose each of the fol­low­ing ideas about tran­sit-ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment in the City of Bellevue.

IDEAS & ANSWERS

Allow mixed use devel­op­ment (like apart­ments with stores and doc­tor’s offices under­neath) any­where in the city with good tran­sit access

Sup­port: 89%		Oppose: 9%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	2%
62%	26%	4%	5%	———

Autho­rize the con­struc­tion of duplex­es, triplex­es and quad­plex­es – includ­ing a mech­a­nism for sep­a­rate own­er­ship – near all major tran­sit hubs

Sup­port: 79%		Oppose: 14%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	7%
49%	30%	6%	8%	———

Acquire prop­er­ty near light rail sta­tions for hous­ing projects with pub­lic funds and part­ner with afford­abil­i­ty-focused devel­op­ers to build new homes there

Sup­port: 71%		Oppose: 21%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	8%
41%	30%	10%	12%	———

Let devel­op­ers exceed nor­mal build­ing height lim­its near all major tran­sit hubs

Sup­port: 64%		Oppose: 31%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	5%
36%	28%	13%	19%	———

Our hous­ing-focused sur­vey of 475 Belle­vue city res­i­dents was in the field from Mon­day, August 15th, through Fri­day, August 19th, 2022.

The poll was con­duct­ed entire­ly online for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and its part­ners by Change Research. It has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 5.2%.

Fol­low this link if you’re inter­est­ed in a detailed primer on the survey’s method­ol­o­gy along with infor­ma­tion about who took the poll.

Since 2008, Belle­vue has been get­ting ready for a huge trans­porta­tion shift that will reshape trav­el to and from the East­side as well as with­in it: the open­ing of Sound Tran­sit’s East Link / Line 2 light rail line. Most of the con­struc­tion on Line 2 is now fin­ished, and the agency has begun test­ing out trains on the tracks, as you can see in these real­ly cool videos that we record­ed ear­li­er this year.

Line 2 will pro­vide fast, fre­quent, reli­able, high capac­i­ty tran­sit ser­vice between many neigh­bor­hoods in Belle­vue. It will link the city togeth­er with Seat­tle, Mer­cer Island, Red­mond, and points beyond. Neigh­bor­hoods direct­ly served by the line include Sur­rey Downs, Down­town, Wilbur­ton, the Spring Dis­trict, Bel-Red, and Over­lake. The Spring Dis­trict and Over­lake in par­tic­u­lar have expe­ri­enced con­struc­tion booms in recent years as devel­op­ers have seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate hous­ing, retail, and com­mer­cial office space near future light rail stations.

Despite this progress, afford­able and attain­able hous­ing in Belle­vue remains out of reach for many res­i­dents. The City Coun­cil and city staff have been pon­der­ing how to address the urgent need for more hous­ing by study­ing a range of ideas for updat­ing the city’s hous­ing strat­e­gy. Our research shows that tak­ing addi­tion­al steps to encour­age tran­sit ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment would be wel­comed by res­i­dents. Even the least pop­u­lar of the ideas we test­ed — let­ting builders exceed nor­mal build­ing height lim­its near all major tran­sit hubs — had 64% support.

In a pre­vi­ous open-end­ed ques­tion that pre­ced­ed this and our oth­er ideas ques­tions (What do you think the Belle­vue City Coun­cil should do to make hous­ing more afford­able?), we received a few com­ments about tran­sit ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment from res­i­dents who are eager to see the city invest in hous­ing options that are paired with free­dom of mobil­i­ty as well as bet­ter transit.

“Con­tin­ue to endorse ADU’s, mixed used devel­op­ment (hous­ing & com­mer­cial). High­er den­si­ty along bus routes,” said a North­west Belle­vue homeowner.

“Change zon­ing to allow high den­si­ty next to light rail and tran­sit lines,” said a Lake Hills homeowner. 

A West Lake Sam­mamish home­own­er added: “Make tran­sit eas­i­er for non-res­i­dents to com­mute into Belle­vue for work.”

“More afford­able hous­ing apart­ments in city cen­ter and bet­ter trans­porta­tion to sub­urbs,” said a North­east Belle­vue renter who pre­sum­ably is refer­ring to the city’s out­ly­ing neigh­bor­hoods in addi­tion to neigh­bor­ing cities like Redmond.

“Allow DADUs and make it eas­i­er for res­i­dents to pro­vide long term rentals for young pro­fes­sion­als at rea­son­able cost. Incen­tivize devel­op­ers and iron out red tape to build low­er cost rental hous­ing near trans­porta­tion hubs and shop­ping cen­ters,” said a Bri­dle Trails homeowner.

“Allow upzon­ing, apply rent con­trol, invest in pub­lic trans­porta­tion,” said a down­town renter.

We were par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­py to see that more sev­en in ten respon­dents react­ed pos­i­tive­ly to the idea of acquir­ing prop­er­ty near light rail sta­tions for hous­ing projects with pub­lic funds and part­ner­ing with afford­abil­i­ty-focused devel­op­ers to build new homes there. In Seat­tle, the Cedar Cross­ing project adja­cent to the Roo­sevelt light rail sta­tion (toured by NPI staff while it was under con­struc­tion) built 254 afford­able apart­ments that have max­i­mum income thresh­olds.

Cedar Cross­ing by Bell­wether Hous­ing is an exam­ple of the kinds of projects that our respon­dents have indi­cat­ed they def­i­nite­ly want to see in Bellevue.

Because the mar­ket is not deliv­er­ing enough afford­able homes, res­i­dents want the city to step up and take a greater “hands on” role in ensur­ing that there are hous­ing options for peo­ple in every income bracket.