Seattle Suburbs Prepare for Light Rail With Zoning for Transit-Oriented Development

"Mountlake Terrace [Washington] adopted notable changes to its primary urban node, expanding its boundaries and increasing development capacity near its future Link station," report Stephen Fesler.

Mountlake Terrace, located just north of the northern edge of Seattle, joins nearby Lynnwood and Shoreline in overhauling zoning and development regulations near their future stations, according to Fesler. "Edmonds and Everett also doubled down on transit-oriented zoning to make better use of existing high capacity transit investments in their communities, and Snohomish County is in the midst of station area planning in advance of light rail that could result in zoning changes near Ash Way and Mariner Park and Ride–both future Link stations."

Consultant Makers Architecture and Urban Design helped formulate the new subarea for Town Center, as Mountlake Terrace refers to the part of town near the future transit station. Fesler details the substance of the subarea plan as follows:

Much of the existing land use in the Town Center area is residential. The subarea plan highlighted this, indicating that 70% of the acreage is currently in residential use–and 83% of residential land is single-family detached residential use. The zoning changes will help increase development across the new TC-1, TC-2, and TC-3 zones over the next 20 years. The city estimates that Town Center, on the high end, can accommodate up to 8,410 new homes and 1,190,660 square feet of new commercial space. Most of the four-square-mile city will remain single-family zoning even with the more intense changes at the Town Center.

Fesler provides a lot more detail on the various zoning and design regulations included in the new subarea plan. Planetizen previously picked up news about Mountlake Terrace's transit oriented intentions in March 2019.