EVERETT — After more than three years of work, the Everett City Council approved a massive change to its land use map and development regulations Wednesday as part of a periodic comprehensive plan update.
The plan, known as Everett 2044, eliminates most single-family zoning across the city in accordance with new state law and requires larger developments in parts of Everett with a high risk of displacement to include affordable units. It also puts a policy into place allowing for small-scale commercial uses, like bakeries and coffee shops, on corner lots in certain residential areas of the city.
The city is required by state law to create a comprehensive plan to prepare for population and job growth over the next two decades. Everett updates its plan every 10 years.
Under regional growth targets, Everett needs to plan to accommodate a total of 179,200 people, 85,600 housing units and 167,200 jobs by 2044.
The plan will direct most growth in its downtown core, areas near high-capacity transit stops and at major arterial streets like Broadway, Evergreen Way and Everett Mall Way. The city will also allow a wider range of housing types “to support people in many different types of households and at all stages in life,” the plan reads.
The comprehensive plan update includes other changes to comply with state law, allowing “middle housing” — townhouses, duplexes and triplexes, among other types — in most areas of the city previously restricted to single-family homes.
Middle housing units are some of the most affordable forms of housing developers can build, city planning director Yorik Stevens-Wajda previously said. Housing experts say increasing the supply of available units could bring down housing costs and combat Washington’s ongoing affordability crisis.
By focusing growth up, not out, the plan intends to help cluster destinations to make “access by transit, walking, and rolling more practical and desirable,” the plan reads, reducing the amount of driving needed to access work and services.
If the plans reduces trips in single-occupancy vehicles by encouraging walking, biking or transit, that could lower greenhouse gas emissions, research has shown, which would help combat climate change.
The upward growth would also help protect the natural environment by concentrating growth away from critical areas like streams, wetlands and animal habitats, the plan reads.
The plan also includes a requirement known as inclusionary zoning, mandating larger housing developments to set aside a percentage of units for people with lower incomes than the area average. It only applies in a small area of south Everett, mostly centered around the Casino Road neighborhood.
Community advocates and housing nonprofits had spoken up for months hoping to include the requirement in the comprehensive plan, citing fears of displacement because of light rail’s imminent arrival. Putting inclusionary zoning into the plan can allow people with lower incomes to live near transit and employment, the comprehensive plan reads.
On June 3, however, the city planning commission recommended that the council remove inclusionary zoning requirements from the comprehensive plan, fearing the policy could increase construction costs and slow development, possibly driving up rents.
Research on the policy’s effectiveness has shown mixed results. But inclusionary zoning has been implemented in hundreds of cities nationwide, and included as part of Snohomish County’s comprehensive plan, which includes a goal of implementing the policy near light rail stations.
In response to the planning commission’s recommendation, community members and housing advocates returned to the council chambers last week to speak in favor of the policy.
“We want our neighbors to stay,” Melinda Cervantes said on June 11. “We want them to be part of the growth and investment coming, not be pushed out.”
Bobby Thompson, the executive director of the Housing Consortium of Everett and Snohomish County, called inclusionary zoning “a vital anti-displacement strategy.”
“This is a landmark opportunity,” Thompson said Wednesday. “With this policy, Everett can grow without displacing the people who already call it home and those who have been marginalized in planning processes.”
Others spoke out against the policy. Russell Joe, a representative from the Snohomish County Builders Council, a lobbying group for housing developers, said inclusionary zoning could slow development and raise rents.
“We need to find a way to create more housing choices and more housing options, giving the buyers and renters more leverage and power when they’re trying to find a place to live,” Joe said Wednesday. “However, we assert that inclusionary zoning will run counter to that. It will make fewer projects feasible for builders.”
The City Council would have had to made an amendment to the comprehensive plan and its subsequent development regulations to remove inclusionary zoning, but decided to leave the policy in place as recommended by city staff. Council later approved a motion telling city staff to prepare a report on the policy’s effects by June 2027.
The plan also introduces new allowances for neighborhood commercial businesses on corner lots in some residential areas of the city.
At first, city staff had intended to allow the small-scale businesses, which are limited in size and scope by code, on corners in most residential parts of the city. Some council members raised concerns over potential negative effects, however, and formed a subcommittee to study the topic further.
As a result, the policy was cut back to only include it in certain parts of the city. Most areas of District 1, District 2 and District 4 now allow for neighborhood commercial businesses while almost all of District 3 and District 5 will not allow the corner stores.
Council members Paula Rhyne and Mary Fosse hoped to amend the policy to include it in all areas of the city. That vote failed 2-4.
The two said limiting the areas where the businesses could operate was overly prohibitive and could contribute to food or convenience deserts.
“We should be developing a universal and consistent policy for the location of corner stores, not a patchwork approach,” Rhyne said.
The council members who supported narrowing the policy worried about unintended consequences and said allowing the corner stores city-wide was too big of a change, too fast.
“We’re pulling more commercial uses into residential neighborhoods,” council member Ben Zarlingo said. “Not necessarily a bad thing, but a complicated thing, and that’s going to have impacts on the residents who will already be seeing other density impacts.”
The city will also prepare a report on the effects of the neighborhood business policy by January 2027.
Other amendments the council approved on Wednesday mostly downzoned small areas of the city after residents raised concerns over limited access or effects on historical neighborhoods.
The city approved its comprehensive plan about six months after its state-mandated deadline of December 2024. The state was aware of the delay but knew the city was making solid progress on the plan, city spokesperson Simone Tarver previously said.
That delay meant Everett was able to implement its required middle housing regulations at the same time as the full comprehensive plan update. Some other cities are still in the process of implementing those regulations after completing their comprehensive plan updates last year.
More information on the city’s comprehensive plan, including interactive maps which show how your neighborhood’s zoning has changed, can be found online at everettwa.gov/2044.
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
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