City council approves building height increase

In a 4-3 vote, Blaine City Council approved increasing building heights by one story on the west side of Peace Portal Drive in the downtown core during its November 25 meeting.

The vote garnered opposition from councilmembers Richard May, Sonia Hurt and Eric Lewis, who also voted in opposition to the zoning change during council’s last meeting on November 12. The vote came before council again after it was tied 3-3 with councilmember Eric Davidson excused on November 12.

Before the vote during the November 25 meeting, May introduced a motion to amend the zoning text to require the buildings to be transparent on the bottom floors.

Senior planning official Mike Becht said it would take through January for the Community Development Services Department to determine if the amendment was consistent with the city’s design standards. City manager Mike Harmon added the amendment would also need to go through a public hearing.

Councilmember Rhyan Lopez said he would need to do more research on the amendment because he wasn’t sure if a transparent first floor would make construction more expensive. “If so, we’re just at square one,” he said.

Council shot down May’s motion in a 3-4 vote with mayor Mary Lou Steward, Lopez, Mike Hill and Eric Davidson opposed.

“I think we have to be reasonable. The planning commission is really under a great deal of stress and to, in the middle of the comprehensive plan with deadlines, ask them to drop everything and work on this when we don’t even have a proposal is not being considerate of their workload,” Steward said. “It doesn’t mean we won’t come back in six months’ time and say, ‘Can we now add this?’”

The zoning change will allow building heights to increase 12 feet, from 36 to 48 feet, in the waterview subdistrict on the west side of Peace Portal Drive, running south of F Street to north of Clark Street. Buildings can now be four stories on the west side and three stories on the east side of the roadway.

The city has been reviewing the proposal for over two years after developers said they weren’t receiving an adequate return on investment for developing the west side of Peace Portal Drive, which is a more challenging area to build on. As no development had occurred in the area within recent years, the city formed an ad hoc downtown advisory committee to discuss downtown building heights and parking
regulations.

The ad hoc committee met from January 2023 until June of 2023 before reaching an agreement on downtown building heights. City council directed city staff to research the zoning recommendations further in July 2023, and Blaine Planning Commission has been discussing the recommendation since the beginning of the year. Planning commission voted 4-1 during its October meeting to approve the recommendation, which had changed since the ad hoc committee’s original proposal of increasing building heights by one story in each downtown zone.