Edmonds planning board approves cottage-housing option for large lots with affordability conditions

The City of Edmonds Citizens Planning Board voted to add “cottage housing” as an allowed middle-housing type on large low-density residential lots, but only under specific conditions, and sent more detailed design issues to a later round of work.

The board approved a motion to allow cottage housing in LDR-Large (12,000- and 20,000-square-foot) lots with a maximum of four units per development, with up to two additional units allowed only if they are affordable; the motion also set a 1,000-square-foot maximum finished floor area per cottage unit. The motion passed following an amendment that preserved the existing medium-lot cottage option without a density bonus for affordability.

Why it matters: the decision is part of Edmonds’ middle-housing code update, a state-directed effort to add more diverse housing types. The planning board’s vote narrows where higher-density cottage developments may be built in Edmonds and ties bonuses to affordability requirements, a common tool to push for subsidized housing in market-rate projects.

Board and staff debate focused on whether the standard four-unit cap would make cottage housing economically viable, how unit size affects affordability, and where the type should be allowed. Supporters argued that allowing modest increases in unit counts (for example, six units where two extra are affordable) and capping unit sizes could make cottage developments feasible and produce smaller units more likely to meet affordability goals. Opponents warned the board could be exceeding state minimums and urged caution in approving untested models broadly.

The board also agreed to several process and scope decisions during the same discussion: it directed staff to move detailed work on courtyard-apartment design, frontage-type illustrations and certain porch/setback mechanics into a later “phase 3” review so the planning board and staff can address them with more time and clearer illustrations; it removed the specific “porch-engaged” frontage prototype from immediate consideration and instructed staff to keep other frontage types in the draft but not to allow porch projections into required setbacks without a later decision.

Staff clarified technical controls that will govern cottage housing — for example, lot coverage and maximum unit-size caps in the draft code will limit building scale even where bonuses are allowed. Board members asked staff to incorporate clearer diagrams and cross‑references so that unit counts, lot coverage, maximum finished floor area, and open‑space standards align and produce the intended smaller-scale housing rather than larger market-rate homes disguised as “cottages.”

The board also discussed ways to make cottage housing more likely to be built, including testing the type on a pilot parcel and using lot-size-based rules modeled on jurisdictions with longstanding cottage-housing regulations. Staff noted that the draft already caps cottage units’ finished floor area and that lot-coverage rules will tend to limit footprint and overall scale.

The planning board directed staff to: (1) reflect the adopted cottage-housing rules in the draft code and the recommendation memo to council, including the affordability bonus language and finished-floor cap; (2) retain cottage housing as an option in medium-lot overlays but without the bonus; and (3) carry the more complex questions about courtyard-apartment scale and frontage/projection rules into a phase 3 work program for further study and clearer illustrations.

Board members and staff said they will circulate a clean code draft and a short recommendation memo to accompany the packet for City Council review.