Following up our work on the Anacortes Comprehensive Plan, we led a complete update of the City’s development regulations and crafted citywide form-based design standards for residential and commercial development. The project included substantial reorganization of the code for ease of navigation, new development review procedures, updated zoning provisions to implement the comprehensive plan policies, and extensive use of graphics to support the code. We collaborated with community members, staff, and the property owner on permitted uses, dimensional standards, circulation, and design standards for a new zone on a large vacant waterfront site. The code has facilitated a significant increase in the diversity of new housing in the years since adoption.
Outcomes
- Facilitation of nearly 20 Planning Commission and City Council meetings and response to hundreds of public comments
- Delivered a flexible code that can be updated when conditions change
- The code attracted more missing middle and multifamily housing projects during the two years after adoption than in the previous 10 years combined, and a major waterfront development is underway
