Bothell donates downtown vacant lot for affordable housing
The Bothell council voted to donate a downtown vacant lot for affordable housing despite divisive misinformation spread by opponents.
At the January 21 meeting, the Bothell city council voted to donate a downtown vacant lot to become affordable housing. The vote was split 5-2 and came after opponents spread misinformation in an attempt to derail the project.
Starting in 2009, Bothell spent roughly $20.6 million to buy 18 acres downtown from the Northshore School District. Since then, the city has sold eight properties for more than $28.8 million. One parcel, known as “Lot P-South,” near the library and Pop Keeney Stadium was purchased for $1.9 million in 2010. The city subsequently spent about $2 million settling a lawsuit and cleaning up petroleum contamination at the 1.67 acre lot.
The parcel was appraised at $6 million dollars in 2022 (some say it could sell for more) but instead of selling Lot P South at a profit, as the city has for other nearby lots, the city will donate the site to Bothell United Methodist Church (BUMC) to build affordable housing. Under the agreed plan, BUMC will lease the land to BRIDGE Housing (the developers building affordable housing at the Northgate Transit Station) for 99 years. In addition to hundreds of affordable rental apartments, BUMC and BRIDGE plan a community space, offices for human services, food & beverage retail for job training, public meeting rooms, and public outdoor plazas.
Mayor Mason Thompson spoke in favor of the affordable housing donation and expressed the concern shared by many parents in the region. “I continue to believe that if the character of our neighborhoods won't allow our children to live in them after they move out of their parents' home, then the character of our neighborhoods needs work. And we're doing everything we can to make Bothell more welcoming for the kids who were raised here who want to stay here and tonight's a big step in that direction... I am so excited to go to a ribbon cutting,” said Thompson. “These couple hundred housing units over the next 99 years will help thousands of people.”
According to data from Bothell’s recently adopted Comprehensive Plan, the city needs 12,782 new homes in the next twenty years and more the three quarters of those homes need to be affordable to people making less than the average median income. The number of homeless people in King County has increased 23% since 2022 according to last year’s Point-in-Time Count.
In November of 2023, Shoreline opened St. Margaret’s Place to provide 100 homes for tenants who would otherwise be homelessness. The city of Shoreline donated the site on Aurora Avenue near the YMCA and Costco. Last year, the Kenmore city council backed out of a plan to donate a parcel to build 100 units of affordable homes for disabled seniors facing homelessness after divisive backlash from some residents. The city of Redmond swooped in to save that project (and snagged the tens of millions of dollars already raised for the project). The Lake Forest Park city council has banned homeless housing six times since September of 2021. Under 2021’s HB1220 (co-sponsored by local Representatives Shelley Kloba, Cindy Ryu and Lauren Davis) cities must allow homeless housing anywhere hotels are allowed. Instead of allowing homeless shelters, the LFP council has banned hotels in March of 2022, September of 2022, March of 2023, September of 2023, and most recently in November of 2024.
In October, misinformation spread by opponents prompted Amanda Dodd to admonish fellow councilmembers. “What we say from this dais matters. This is the third time in discussing this issue overall that some of us have chosen to use insinuations and imply that secret meetings have happened. Site offers on the property that were never actually made to staff and other facts that are made up and they've been picked up in our community and amplified by people speaking irresponsibly. We need to ensure that what we say is factual and that if we have a claim about someone else's conduct that we have proof or evidence that it happened it's really alarming to see the way that some people on this Council have really let the level of discourse fall and I would task all of us with bringing it back up,” said Dodd.
Councilmembers Jeanne Zornes and Benjamin Mahnkey opposed the donation.
The lot isn't yet owned by the church. It will be, though, after they secure funding to build the homes. Likely to be a couple years wait.
I'm so happy to see reporting on Bothell. Cheers!