Bellevue's balancing act with development

REVITALIZATION is critical to the health of communities and, unarguably, Bellevue is a thriving city because of it. City planners also have a duty to shape and protect the community's character.

Bellevue is rightfully moving toward zoning restrictions on megahomes, those outsize structures that can negatively impact neighborhoods. Bellevue's older neighborhoods have been hardest hit by megahome development.

An up-and-coming city like Bellevue is attractive to young families and home buyers. An unfortunate tension has been created by the trend of tearing down old homes and replacing them with bigger ones.

The result is large homes perched awkwardly on tiny lots. A poignant example is West Bellevue, a long-established neighborhood of tree-lined streets and compact houses dwarfed by McMansions.

The larger edifices block sunlight and tend to be built close to the property line, creating the sense, if not the reality, of lost space between houses. Vegetation is often cleared to make way for the structure.

Bellevue's Planning Commission offers timely solutions. Proposed ordinances would restrict height and require houses that take up more than 50 percent of a lot to include 7 ½-foot setbacks and to limit shading of adjacent homes.

This is all reasonable.

Bellevue has an obligation to balance the competing needs of its citizens. The city has retained its residential character in other ways, for example, requiring preservation of 30 percent of trees on a lot and requiring more greenery in front yards. Homebuilders are forbidden from piling dirt to raise the grade and make homes taller.

Bellevue's latest proposed ordinances seek to do their part.

Megahomes would appear not to be a problem in the current housing slump. But the economy will rebound. Smart zoning restrictions will be waiting.