The Bellingham Plan: Land Use Capacity

Both the periodic update and buildable lands analyses use a similar process. They use the current (or proposed in the case of the periodic update) land use map and associated development regulations and policies to assume potential build-out scenarios for each land use designation. Unique factors that might impact the likelihood of development, like the presence of wetlands, steep slopes or challenges with access, are taken into account. If land is already built out close to that potential, it is assumed that it likely would not redevelop, whereas vacant or underutilized land is flagged as having the potential to provide additional capacity for development in the city. This information is utilized to calculate assumed capacity across the city for new housing and employment within the planning period.

The results of this work inform land use policy choices. If there is not enough land capacity to accommodate anticipated growth, the City can consider changes to development regulations to increase capacity on available land. These changes might be increases in allowed building height, allowing more building area per lot, more housing units per lot, allowing conversion of existing buildings to new uses, or potentially expanding the city boundary to include more buildable land. State law encourages jurisdictions to explore regulatory changes to increase capacity inside current boundaries before considering expansion to new areas. This is because it is generally more cost-effective and better for the environment and climate to keep urban development as compact as possible. Compact growth also reduces impacts to agricultural, forest, and other resource lands in rural areas. Appendix A of the Bellingham Plan provides details on the methodology used for the land capacity analysis from the 2025 plan.