Plans to turn Capital Mall area into dense urban neighborhood to get council review
The Land Use and Environment Committee is forwarding the Planned Action Ordinance for turning the Capital Mall Triangle into a dense urban neighborhood to City Council. However, council member Robert Vanderpool raised concerns about some aspects of the plan and potential hindrances to more development.
Council member Dani Madrone said there will be a public hearing scheduled to address engineering design and development standards. The LUEC’s decision comes with a recommendation from the Planning Commission to adopt the Capital Mall Triangle plans, but with the stipulation that a green space or major park be considered in the development process.
As proposed, the Planned Action Ordinance will streamline the environmental review process for development, reduce building setback requirements, increase maximum building heights in the core of the subarea, and reduce parking requirements for restaurants, shopping centers, offices, child care, and retail uses.
The PAO will also create a new overlay area in the core of the subarea where affordable housing projects are allowed additional building height. Thirty percent of the dwellings must be affordable to those making 80% of the area median income. It will also adjust block size requirements and make them more flexible.
Vanderpool raised concerns about the plan’s Vehicle Trip Cap Environmental Impact Statement. It’s the key component in the Planned Action Ordinance that helps to streamline the environmental review for future projects in the area, with the environmental review being performed up front.
Senior Planner David Ginther said as new development occurs in the area, up to when a set trip cap is reached, those developers will receive a streamlined environmental review. Once this trip cap is surpassed, then full project environmental review will be needed.
Vanderpool said the trip cap plan could harm future higher density. He said much of the transportation language regarding vehicle trips “seems prescriptive and may cause development to not occur because the traffic engineer calculus assumes the number of vehicles to increase with density.”
He said the reality is, certain levels of density decrease the number of vehicles as walking, micromobility, and public transit eventually provide faster solutions over private motor vehicles.
“This is common in most major cities when population concentration makes even the widest of roads impossible to overcome,” he said.
Vanderpool was also concerned that an additional trip EIS study could drive up time and costs when approving projects.
“It may be harmful to high-density development for developers who currently do not develop in Olympia,” he said.
He said if it’s legally possible, the trip cap study requirements should have an exception added for a density bonus when a development plans for a density above 20 units per acre. He said he’d go as far as recommending a lowered fee cost and a faster approval development cycle for any development that focuses on meeting any of the city’s climate, housing, affordability or transportation needs.
Vanderpool’s requests
Vanderpool asked that a number of items be done away with in the plan. They included eliminating parking requirements for commercial, industrial, institutional, places of assembly, recreation/amusement, residential, and restaurants. He also wanted to eliminate minimum lot sizes, setbacks, and maximum limits for building heights, building coverage, impervious surface coverage, and hard surface.
His list also included eliminating additional district-wide development standards and minimum lot areas. He asked that a park plan be added, and that the city restrict new drive-thrus, fast-food, and low-density single-use development below 20 units per acre, including new construction on boarding roads and streets.
City staff responded to Vanderpool’s requests ahead of the March 27 meeting in a written memo.
No residential parking would be required for residential projects in the Capital Mall Triangle due to proximity to frequent transit routes. Some area community members raised concerns about parking overflowing into residential areas near the subarea. Based on that, the Subarea Plan recommends reducing parking minimums to zero for a select few commercial land uses including offices, shopping centers, retail, restaurants and childcare.
Staff said there is no minimum lot size in the subarea, except for townhouses which is set at 1,600 square feet. Elimination of the minimum lot size requirement for townhouses would be considered a minor change to the PAO and wouldn’t conflict with any work done so far.
Staff said the intent of keeping setbacks in place is to establish a street edge that is as continuous as possible with buildings which are close to the street, and which have multiple floors, distinctive windows facing the street, and entrances that are visible from the street.
The maximum front yard setback is the primary zoning tool to ensure new buildings are located adjacent to and oriented to the street with parking behind the building.
Staff supported Vanderpool’s call to eliminate the building coverage maximum. The memo says members of the public raised concerns regarding there being too much pavement in the subarea. Middle Housing Phase 2 draft regulations also propose removal of the maximum building coverage for residential zones.
“Staff believes impervious and hard surface coverage requirements work together to encourage use of permeable pavement alternatives and should be retained,” the memo says.
The LUEC is planning to address citywide drive-thru zoning amendments in a future meeting. A park plan is also something not addressed in the PAO, but the subarea plan itself gives direction to prepare a park plan during the next update to the city’s Parks, Arts and Recreation Plan.
This story was originally published March 31, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
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