Powerpoint Presentation from: 9:30-11:30AM @ County Civic Building - Garden Conference Room | 322 N. Commercial Street
City of Bellingham
Planning & Community Development Department
Environmental Resources Department
March 2011
Assumptions and Disclaimers:
Since 2005, the City of Bellingham Planning Department has
performed a basic analysis of Existing Residential Housing Units and potential
Developable lands in the Lake Whatcom Watershed.
This analysis has been general in nature and considered a
“gross” analysis, so as to make the process simple and repeatable on a yearly
basis. The purpose is to provide a
generalized view of development in the Lake Whatcom Watershed. The build-out
analysis does NOT take into consideration specific lot restrictions such as 25
year restrictions, temporary or permanent restrictions, current issued/finaled
permits, or critical area reductions.
Lands in public ownership (including all land owned by the Sudden Valley
Community Association), land devoted to utilities/streets, and lands where
residential construction is not permitted are excluded from the available land
supply.
Definitions:
Existing Dwelling
Units: Parcels with an Assessor Land Use Code and Improvement Value greater
than $10,000 (including uses coded with forestry or ranch descriptions and an
improvement value greater than $10,000).
Developable Capacity (Potential Units on Vacant Land):
Parcels that are within in an area with a residential zoning use (or where
residential units are permitted) and also have an Assessor Improvement Value
less than or equal to $10,000.
“Capacity” is simply
performed using current total parcel acreage (derived from GIS and excluding
areas over water) and the underlying current zoning density.
Parcel data since the beginning of this analysis in 2005 has
varied greatly in accuracy. In 2005,
county parcel GIS data was not updated at the same time as the assessor’s
database and resulted in “unmatched” GIS parcel records, or records that did
not contain current information. Recent
efforts from both the City and County mapping/assessor departments has resulted
in better and more accurate parcel data.
However, in 2010 the County Assessor’s Office implemented a new database
and parcel maintenance system which resulted in back-logs to parcel
updates. Therefore the date of parcel
data for the 2010 and 2011 analysis is approximate.
In looking back since 2005, there are several reasons for
yearly discrepancies in capacity estimates.
First is the above mentioned “lag” in parcel data updates. Assessor paper maps, assessor GIS datasets
and the Assessor database are not always updated at the same time. This results in data that is “out-of-sync”
with each other. Secondly, the GIS
parcel data is spatially updated and made more accurate each year. This results in minor changes to the parcel
acreage in which capacity is calculated, and in turn can adjust the capacity
potential. Additional is the issue of
predicting/modelling capacity based on current zoning and acreage versus what
actually ends up happening in the “real world”.
Examples are lot consolidations and clustering. Down/Up zoning can also have an impact on
capacity calculations, as we saw in February of 2008 where the Geneva UGA
boundary was adjusted and portions of that area were “down zoned”.
