MARYSVILLE — Marysville planning staff are hoping to minimize the impacts of new changes to its land use laws while leaving enough flexibility for new housing, staff shared at an open house Monday.
The changes, mandated by state housing laws passed in 2023, will allow more housing types like duplexes, triplexes and townhomes — known as middle housing — in all residential areas, including areas previously designated only for single-family homes. State law will also reduce the number of parking spaces required per housing unit and allow for more accessory dwelling units.
The state passed the laws in an attempt to increase the availability of housing, which experts say could bring down prices and combat Washington’s housing affordability crisis.
The city is hoping to hit a “sweet spot,” Marysville Principal Planner Angela Gemmer said at the open house. It’s attempting to balance between meeting the state law’s intent and growth targets while making sure the changes aren’t too intense in a city primarily made up of single-family homes.
“Those are our two overarching goals,” Gemmer said. “Minimizing impacts and making sure we still have capacity to accommodate our housing allocation.”
Marysville needs to allow for more than 14,000 additional housing units by 2044 to meet state growth targets, according to its most recent comprehensive plan the City Council approved in December.
To soften the impact of the new middle housing regulations, the city plans to increase its minimum lot size in residential areas while maintaining current standards for lot coverage and height limits. Doing so would limit some density while allowing for the new housing types, Gemmer said.
At the meeting, some attendees raised concerns over developments with multiple units in single-family neighborhoods and parking availability.
Currently, city law requires three parking spaces per dwelling unit for most residential homes. State requirements would drop those requirements to one parking space per unit for a lot less than 6,000 square feet in size, or two for a lot more than 6,000 square feet. Builders could still provide more if they chose.
Some transportation researchers argue mandatory parking spaces take up too much valuable space which could instead be put to more productive use. But Gemmer said Marysville would have hoped to keep its current parking standards in place.
“We are going to do our best to get as many areas exempted from these lower parking allowances so we can maintain our current level of parking,” she said. “We get a lot of parking complaints, and we don’t want unsafe conditions.”
Building dense, transit-oriented housing can help conserve open space, reduce air pollution, decrease local infrastructure costs and promote economic development, research shows.
Currently, however, the vast majority of homes in Marysville are single-family units. About 72% of people in Marysville live in a single-unit structure, according to census data. Rapid transit is also not set to arrive in Marysville until Community Transit’s new Gold Line opens for service, likely in 2031.
The prevalence of single-family homes is part of the reason Marysville is going for the “soft landing” approach, Gemmer said. The city also doesn’t expect their measures to slow down housing construction too much, city planning manager Chris Holland said, because the city is already seeing new developments being built without the new middle housing rules in place.
Marysville has allowed middle housing in parts of the city’s downtown area since 2009, Holland said, but there have been no middle housing developments in that area since it’s been allowed. Most developers in the area are still building single-family homes.
“I don’t see them changing what they’re doing,” Holland said. “They’re doing single-families on small lots, and that’s what’s marketable, that’s what people want.”
That could change as Marysville’s population grows. Once it rises over 75,000 — which will likely happen around 2030 — state law will require the city to allow for four housing units on all residential lots. At that point, there may be more triplexes and fourplexes being built in the city, Holland said.
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
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