News - Local News - Growth

POSTED: Wednesday, Sep. 10, 2008

County approves size limits on big-box stores

New stores must be no more than 35,000 square feet in rural Whatcom County, and those in unincorporated urban growth areas are limited to 65,000 square feet after the County Council approved a law change on Tuesday, Sept. 9.

The council voted to install size caps in three zones - general commercial, light impact industrial and general manufacturing - making it so all zones that allow retail development now have size caps. Stores in rural areas are now limited to less than 35,000 square feet, and those in short-term urban growth areas are limited to 65,000 square feet.

For comparison, JCPenney at Bellis Fair mall is nearly 65,000 square feet, and Best Buy along Meridian Street is about 35,000 square feet. The county's decision doesn't affect land inside any city's limits.

The new size limits apply to 480 parcels of commercial and light-impact industrial land countywide, although only 194 of them are vacant, according to a staff report. The county doesn't have any general manufacturing land, but the zone still exists on the books, said county planning technician Alex Cleanthous.

The council voted 5-2, with council members Barbara Brenner and Sam Crawford opposed, to approve the changes. They came more than 11/2 years after the council first approved a temporary ban on stores larger than 75,000 square feet. That ban was renewed several times while county staff developed the new rules.

Brenner first proposed the moratorium in February 2007, but she voted against the new rules because she said 35,000 square feet was too small. Crawford opposed the temporary ban in 2007 because he believed it would encourage retailers to develop on tribal land, where the county couldn't regulate it.

Brenner said the 75,000-square-feet limit was reasonable and was willing to compromise to 65,000 square feet, but not 35,000 square feet.

"That is a very small limit on a store or any kind of sales place, especially when you're talking about selling big things," she said.

The county Planning Commission selected the 65,000-square-foot limit because that's what Lynden has, and it wanted to stay consistent. For rural areas, the 35,000-square-foot limit was selected by staff because that was the largest size cap already in place under county zoning, Cleanthous said.

No residents spoke to the council about the new rules on Tuesday, Sept. 9, and the County Council office didn't get any written comments. That's in contrast to the flood of interest during past big-box limits decisions.

Perry Eskridge, government affairs director at the Whatcom Association of Realtors, said his group doesn't support the changes, but the County Council had to react to Bellingham when it instituted a 90,000-square-foot limit.

Public concern about the county's limit lessened, he said, when Ferndale instituted a new program called EAGLE, which allows stores to build as large as they want as long as they meet strict standards and provide amenities. That made vacant land along Slater Road in southern Ferndale available for big-box development.

"The county was looking for some kind of pressure-relief valve," Eskridge said, "and they found it with Ferndale's adoption of the EAGLE program."