TL;DR Currently 2026 has no projects to improve housing affordability. We need to push to legalize housing throughout the Totem Lake center and to make progress on expanding middle housing this year, not in 2028.

The 2026-2028 Planning Work Program is finally going to be discussed for the first time at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, during the Study Session.

Unfortunately, the proposed plan will ❌ not ❌ be enough to improve housing costs in Kirkland 📈. That’s why it is critical that you send an email to the City Council and Planning Commission. You can take inspiration from our email template here:

We are asking the City to:

These are ambitious targets, but we have a housing cost crisis here in Kirkland, and the City Council knows this. We must focus on apartments and smaller homes to overcome this crisis. These housing types are the most affordable, and more can be built in a given area. Increasing the supply of homes is key to making a difference. Tell the City Council and Planning Commission that you want to see action!

Some more information about our priorities:

On Saturday, March 14 we’ll be hosting a scavenger hunt 🔍 in Downtown Kirkland!

This is the first in a series of scavenger hunts we’ll be holding across Kirkland’s neighborhoods. We want to give our community an excuse to get out and explore parts of their city they may not have happened upon in their daily routines. 😃 And we're hoping that having an event earlier in the day, and on a weekend, will make it possible for families with younger children 👪 to be able to join in the fun too.

Between 11a and 4p, come to Peter Kirk Park, between the baseball field and the library, and we’ll give you a link to a list of photo clues and a “scavenger card”. There will be two clue lists: FAMILY for younger participants, and CHALLENGE for more experienced sleuths. Track down each clue’s location and a volunteer there will stamp your card. Then bring your card back to the start to have your time logged. The fastest teams will get a prize! 🏆

We hope you’ll come out and join us! And if you’d really like to make this event a success we’d love it if you could help as a volunteer and stamp participants’ cards at one of the clue locations. If you're interested in helping volunteer (for even just part of the event), please sign up here! ❤ ❤ ❤

Below are some highlighted items from the agenda of the next City Council meeting (February 17th). You can read the full meeting materials here. To share your thoughts with the City Council about any of these topics, send an email to [email protected]. You can also sign up to speak during Items from the Audience (in-person or remotely). Sign-ups open at 7PM on the day of the City Council meeting.

🗺 Planning Work Program

Staff will present a status update of current work program items and an initial draft of the updated 2026-28 work program. While the work program is updated every year, the City Council wanted to do a bigger round of review and changes this time, so there was some delay.

There are 5 listed projects that were intended to be finished in 2025, but are being carried forward because they have not been completed. This includes code updates to "activate" the NE 85th St Station Area, new code to facilitate housing development on properties owned by faith-based organizations, and a new neighborhood plan amendment process. 

In the memo, the stated priorities of the work program proposal are 1) complete 2025 projects; 2) create more affordable housing faster; 3) streamline the development review process; and 4) respond to new state mandates. There are 26 projects to be worked on for the rest of this year, but only two projects (both in Totem Lake) seem to include increasing zoning capacity for homes. The “short term rental” project is the only project from the existing work program to be brought forward in the schedule. Many items were either newly added, removed, or delayed until a later year.

Many of the proposed projects for this year are related to re-writing zoning code and permitting processes. While zoning research and permitting do add significant overhead and costs to building homes, they are far from the only cause. Even simplified requirements can be too restrictive, and lead to no homes being built.

The current proposal for 2027 would see zoning changes throughout many parts of the city at once as a part of the Neighborhood Center Zone Consolidation, and the Transit Oriented Development bill (HB 1491) implementation. However, as mentioned above, cutting down the number of zones does not inherently lead to better conditions for building homes.

Finally, the proposal for 2028 includes optimizing middle housing code, and the “greater downtown action plan”. It’s curious that these items are in 2028, given the repeated statements of support for middle housing from councilmembers, and the desire to activate the Station Area. The 85th St Station Area is a large part of the Greater Downtown regional growth center, and by the end of 2028, both the Stride BRT and RapidRide K bus service should be just around the corner. It takes time for zoning changes to really make an impact, so sequencing these events is important.

After the Study Session with the City Council, the Planning Commission is scheduled to discuss the work program during their March 12th and 26th meetings, with the City Council likely adopting a plan in April.

🏛️ State Legislative Session Update

The City Council will receive an update on the soon to finish state legislative session. Of note in this week’s packet is a draft letter to be sent by the Mayor continuing the City’s opposition to the biggest housing legislation for the 2026 session: SB 6026 the bill to allow housing in commercial areas. The letter specifically asks the legislature to amend 6026 to allow cites to require ground floor commercial spaces in 50% of commercial areas instead of 20%. That change, among others, was adopted as part of an amendment by state legislators after February 20th, the date of the mayor’s letter. Tuesday will provide the council the first opportunity to change their position after their requested changes have been adopted into the bill.

📝 LRM

Mayor Curtis made a Legislative Request Memo asking city staff to provide options to respond to federal actions involving immigration enforcement. The options council will consider on Tuesday include:

🅿️ SB 5184 Parking Reform

The information presented by staff was largely a repeat of the last City Council meeting. 

The Early Action Ordinance is tentatively scheduled for a public hearing before the Planning Commission on March 12th, with a planned April 7 adoption by the City Council.

Join Liveable Kirkland in a conversation about our city’s present and future! We have an active community on Discord and Facebook and we’d love it if you joined in too : )

(And if you add a picture you took to #photos on Discord it might get featured in next week’s issue!)