First 100 Days / Package 2
Mixed Use Area Vision
This page is part of Package 2 of my First 100 Days strategy: Mixed-Use and Growth-Area Rules.
If the Comprehensive Plan says Mixed Use, the ordinance should require actual mixed-use development. East Bethel should not allow planned growth areas to become conventional residential subdivisions with commercial development shown only as a future possibility.
Package 2 is designed to concentrate growth where the Comprehensive Plan already expects it, while requiring a higher standard of planning, connectivity, commercial development, open space, architecture, and accountability. Rather than launching a series of separate ordinance projects, I would ask the Council to initiate one coordinated package built around two motions.
Motion 1
Mixed-Use & Master Planning Ordinance Package
This motion defines what must be built.
I move to direct planning staff, the Planning Commission, City Engineer, and City Attorney to prepare one coordinated Mixed-Use and Growth-Area ordinance package implementing the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. The package shall establish a Mixed Use district and master-planning standards for qualifying large developments, including requirements for a meaningful mix of residential and nonresidential uses, appropriate housing types and density, unified master planning, interconnected streets and pedestrian systems, meaningful open space, public amenities, objective architectural and landscaping standards, infrastructure planning, and concept review before preliminary plat approval.
What the ordinance package should accomplish
- Require true mixed use. Residential development should be integrated with meaningful commercial, employment, civic, institutional, or other nonresidential uses.
- Prevent stand-alone R-1-style development from becoming the default. Planned Mixed Use areas should preserve appropriate R-2 townhomes, attached housing, and other housing forms consistent with the Comprehensive Plan.
- Require unified master planning for large sites. The City should approve the overall community framework before approving individual plats and disconnected phases.
- Require connected streets. Large developments should use interconnected street networks, multiple access points, future connections, and pedestrian routes. Cul-de-sacs should be limited to legitimate physical constraints.
- Require meaningful open space. Open space should preserve and connect woods, meadows, habitat, trails, community greens, and other valuable land rather than relying mainly on residual or already-unbuildable acreage.
- Require objective design standards. Architecture, landscaping, commercial design, parking, signage, screening, building placement, and the public realm should be governed by standards that are clear before a developer submits a project.
- Require public and common amenities on major projects. Large developments should include gathering places such as village greens, plazas, trailheads, civic lawns, pavilions, or similar amenities proportionate to project size.
- Use density to reward quality. Where additional density or PUD flexibility is granted, the project should provide measurable community benefits beyond what conventional zoning would produce.
- Shape projects early. Large developments should receive concept review before preliminary plat approval and detailed engineering so the City can address land-use mix, street pattern, open space, commercial location, public realm, and phasing before the plan hardens.
Motion 2
Phasing, Development Agreements & Accountability
This motion defines how the City makes sure the approved community is actually delivered.
I move to direct the City Attorney and planning staff to prepare enforceable phasing and development-agreement standards for Mixed Use and Master Planned Community developments. The standards shall tie residential development to measurable commercial, infrastructure, open-space, public-amenity, and other required milestones; define material changes requiring Council approval; limit administrative amendments to minor technical matters; establish appropriate remedies and performance requirements; and require compliance review before later development phases proceed.
What the accountability standards should prevent
- Residential construction advancing while required commercial development is indefinitely deferred.
- Major changes to density, housing type, commercial acreage, open space, street connections, public amenities, or phasing being treated as minor administrative adjustments.
- Development agreements containing important commitments without measurable deadlines, remedies, or performance requirements.
- Later phases proceeding when earlier commercial, infrastructure, open-space, or public-amenity obligations have not been satisfied.
How Master Planned Communities Fit
Master Planned Community standards are not a separate first-100-day initiative. They are the large-development component of Package 2. Staff and the City Attorney may recommend a dedicated Master Planned Community section of the code, or they may integrate the requirements into the Mixed Use, PUD, and subdivision ordinances. The name and codification method are less important than the result: large Mixed Use projects should be governed by one enforceable community plan.
The Standard
Mixed-use development should look and function like mixed use. Residential neighborhoods, townhomes, commercial areas, civic spaces, streets, trails, and open space should be designed as parts of one connected district rather than separate projects sharing a boundary.
In rural East Bethel, preserve land. In planned growth areas, concentrate development and require quality. For major projects, approve the whole community before approving the lots—and make the development agreement enforce what was approved.
Read how the Master Planned Community standards fit inside Package 2 →