City Council is meeting tonight at 6pm! You have a chance to be heard about this issue - you can sign up now (see first link below) to be part of the Oral Communications public comment that is held at the beginning of the meeting.
Regarding the possibility of homeownership, see this Oral Communication from the last meeting:
10:25 of the Nov 12 Council meeting recording on YouTubeAnthony Avery, Pres. of West Seattle Land Bank
reSpace is a housing innovation company that has a permitted project in Crown Hill and four more on the way. They are expanding into attainable, collaborative homeownership, sell and stay, and are in the early stages of developing a TOD and multifamily model. He was appreciative that for sale co-living included in the code change. The reSpace website says that there are 60 projects coming to the area, including in Bellevue.
From the most recent Weekly Permit Bulletin (third link), there is a notice of the public hearing and opportunity to comment:
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Bellevue City Council will hold a public hearing during its regular meeting on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 at 6:00 PM to consider a Land Use Code Amendment (LUCA) related to co-living housing, in response to recent changes to the Growth Management Act (Chapter 36.70A RCW) enacted through House Bill (HB) 1998 in 2024. This LUCA is necessary to comply with HB 1998, which requires cities to allow co-living housing in all Land Use Districts that allow six or more units per lot.
A 38 page pdf (link four) with the SEPA environmental checklist and determination of non-significance is linked there, and on page 26 there is a note: "The proposed LUCA will likely increase the development capacity citywide particularly in residential areas, thus increasing demand for on-street parking and public transportation. The City has adopted a multimodal level-of-service standard that ensures impacts to all modes of transportation are mitigated under project-level review." If you have an opinion on whether project-level review will be adequate, I hope you can share that perspective.
The document also clarifies differences between boarding houses and rooming houses for short term rentals, but I haven't had time to fully evaluate whether it adequately addresses the multifamily allowances for short term rentals (see LUC 20.20.800).
Finally, I received a question about why my petition does not ask to eliminate the co-living in areas that are not required under the state mandate, and here was my response:
Given the makeup of the council, their enthusiasm for adding housing, and the intentional way they opted to add co-living to all these neighborhoods in the Middle Housing discussion, I think it is impossible to ask them to give up on the idea of these little apartment buildings in all our neighborhoods.
I am just hoping that they can look at the successful model of Culdesac as an example of how you can add people density without adding car storage density on our streets. My neighborhood is actually pretty convenient for driving to Seattle, and it would make me sad if they build a lot of these here so that people can just get in their cars and drive to their Seattle jobs. I do think it is a great place for people who want to walk into downtown Bellevue, however, and I like the idea of more affordable housing for people who are making that lifestyle choice.
I am not asking that they upend the co-living plans, just that we avoid getting hit with the state mandate. I want our own model of co-living to reflect the places it’s being put that weren’t part of the legislature’s vision.
www.youtube.com/bellevuetelevision
https://bellevuewa.gov/sites/default/files/media/pdf_document/2025/25-105068-ad.pdf