September 2025 Update: Status of Phase 1

Commercial Uses

While the original vision was for ‘corner stores’, the new legislation allows ground-floor commercial uses on all Neighborhood Residential lots. Allowed uses include not only stores, but restaurants, food processing (think: meat smoking, butchering), and craft work. 

Structure Size, Setbacks, and Lot Coverage

• The basic maximum residential building height increased from 30 to 32 feet.

• Height can be 42 feet (4 stories plus a daylight basement) by taking advantage of some of the ‘bonus’ scenarios, described below.

• Heights can be increased another 5 feet if a pitched roof is used.

• Front setbacks have been reduced from 20 feet to a nominal 10 feet, but there are important exceptions. If certain trees are retained on the lot, the setbacks can go to as low as zero feet.

• Front porches can extend 5 feet into the front setback.

• If the first floor is for commercial use, the basic front setback is 2 feet. 

• Rear setbacks are nominally 10 feet, or zero feet abutting an alley, but as with front setbacks, can go as low as zero feet to retain trees.

• Side setbacks are reduced from 5 feet to 3 feet on lots smaller than 5,000 sq ft and located in a Frequent Transit Service Area (which covers about two thirds of Seattle). 

• Maximum lot coverage increased from 35% to 50%, but it can increase to 60% with various bonus scenarios. 

• Floor Area Ratio (FAR) is also greatly increased in many instances. This is the maximum amount of floor space a building can have as a function of the lot size. Max floor area = lot area x FAR.

Density

There are very-high maximum density limits, as measured by the number of dwelling units per lot. Let’s take a 4,000 sq foot lot as an example.

• On a 4,000 sq. ft. lot, nominally, four dwelling units are allowed. With the popular configuration of “stacked flats”, six units are allowed. At a height of 32’ feet, this could be configured with two units per floor, each with about 1,000 sq. ft. Or utilizing a daylight basement, some mix of larger and smaller units can be built.

• With bonuses bringing the height to 42 feet, there are four floors plus possibly a daylight basement to work with for a total of five floors.

• With additional bonuses, up to 10 dwelling units could be built. This may not be achievable when stairwells and hallways are taken into account. 

Bonuses

There are a number of bonuses to incentivize developers. Depending on the particular bonus, the results include increased height, FAR, lot coverage, and maximum density; smaller setbacks and amenity areas; and elimination of parking requirements.

• Low-income / Affordable housing: Renters or buyers have to meet income thresholds, and typically but not in every case the owner has a 50-year commitment to maintaining low-income rates.

• Build stacked-dwelling units (aka stacked flats), in lieu of tall, skinny separate structures.

• Provide social housing

• A popular incentive is to be within a “Frequent Transit Area”; most of Montlake meets this criterion.

• Be within ¼ mile of a school and 25% of the units must have 3-bedrooms and be larger than 1,050 square feet. This incentive is to increase the number of families in neighborhoods and increase the number of students in our schools. 

Trees and Tree Canopy

There are complex rules to incentivize preserving mature trees and the resulting canopy, and if not preserved, to require planting of trees that, once mature, will create additional canopy. In the One Seattle Plan, there are goals and policies supporting the Urban Forest and Tree Canopy element. Policy CE 12.1 in particular aims to achieve an overall tree canopy coverage of 30% by 2037. Of course, only retained trees will contribute canopy in this timeframe; hence tree retention is weighted more favorably over tree planting.

There are two overall concepts to maintain and grow canopy. One is the requirement with incentives to retain existing trees, with a focus on Tier 2 trees (24” diameter or larger). The other is the requirement to meet an overall tree score, which is achieved by a mix of retaining trees and planting new trees.

• Existing trees are retained by defining a Tree Protection Area (TPA). However, trees can be removed if the new structure cannot be built at maximum lot coverage without encroaching into the TPA.

• Incentives to avoid tree removal include a 42’ height bonus if a Tier 2 tree is preserved; reduced setbacks all the way to zero feet, among others.

• Newly-planted trees must be planted a specified distance from the structure, and the owner must ensure they remain healthy for at least five years.

• The overall tree score can be met in one of three ways: (a) Using a “Tree Point System”, which assigns points to each size and type (deciduous or evergreen) of tree with retention being worth more than newly-planted to encourage preservation; (b) a “Green Factor” score which includes non-tree elements such as green roofs; (c) Plant new trees to result in more trees than the tree point system yields.

• Street trees must also be planted in accordance with SDOT standards.

Parking

State law is guiding our parking requirements, but at least one of the amendments goes further in reducing required off-street parking. Also, there is a fundamental tradeoff between providing parking and the associated driveway, versus reducing hardscape and retaining trees and green space.

• The basic requirement is to provide one parking space for every two dwelling units that are 1,200 sq. ft. or larger.

• This means that on a 4,000 sq. ft. lot, with a stacked flat configuration with six 1,000 sq. ft. units, no parking is required for these six units.

• No parking is required for ADUs.

• In certain tree-retention scenarios, no parking is required. This is to incentivize saving trees over providing parking.

• One of the items in the Council resolution recommends studying the elimination of parking requirements citywide.

ADUs and DADUs

Accessory Dwelling Units can be attached, detached or stacked. 

• In addition to the main structure discussed above, two ADUs can be built on any property. This is already allowed in the current code.

• If an ADU has up to two bedrooms, the size is limited to 1,000 sq. ft. This increases to 1,200 sq ft. if there are three or more bedrooms.