Parks & Built Environment Committee Meeting - November 12, 2025
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Parks & Built Environment Committee Meeting - November 12, 2025
The Everett City Council's Parks & Built Environment Committee met on November 12, 2025, at 5:00 PM in the City Council Chambers. The sole scheduled item was a staff update on the manufactured home community zoning ordinance. Staff clarified that the proposal is a new zoning district, not an overlay as listed on the agenda. The committee also discussed upcoming topics for the December meeting.
Manufactured Home Community Zoning Update
- Long-range planning manager Alice Ann Wetzel provided the update. She noted the agenda title refers to an "overlay," but the proposal is actually a new stand-alone zone: Neighborhood Residential Manufactured Home Community (NR-MHC), which would permit only manufactured home communities.
- Outreach efforts: Wetzel sent letters to park owners, managers, residents, and neighborhood association presidents. Only one owner responded, asking about one-for-one replacement of units; the proposed legislation allows that. Wetzel attended the Fairway Estates HOA meeting on September 25 and the Silver Lake Community Association meeting on October 30, with representatives from Playa Delago and Silver Shores.
- The new zone would not change densities on existing pads; if a pad is vacant, a unit can replace it. No additional ADU-like units would be permitted. Manufactured homes, modulars, tiny houses, and RVs meeting state regulations would be allowed.
- Councilmember Rhyne (Ryan) noted that the affected population is approximately 1,000 residents—under one percent of the city's population—and that the purpose serves older residents, people with disabilities, low- or fixed-income households, and veterans.
- Council discussion highlighted the unique ownership model: residents typically own their units but not the land. Rent increases have been significant; state legislation caps annual increases at 5%, but new owners can impose one-time increases reportedly ranging from 100% to 200%. Private equity interest in parks was also discussed.
- Wetzel reported that the city plans to delete existing Chapter 17 regulations for manufactured home parks, as they are outdated and no new parks are anticipated.
Critical Areas Regulations Update
- Wetzel also provided a preview of the periodic critical areas regulations update, scheduled for a council briefing on December 3. The planning commission may complete its work on November 18.
- Key changes include increased stream buffers for Type N (non-fish-bearing) streams from approximately 50 feet to 100 feet, but Wetzel noted that in practice many of these streams are already within larger wetland or steep-slope buffers, so the impact is limited.
- The update reorganizes the chapter for readability and clarifies standards for non-conforming development and vegetative buffer thresholds. Wetzel expects no significant impact on developability.
Upcoming Agenda Topics
- The next committee meeting is scheduled for December 10, 2025. Topics will include the Park and Park Amenities Naming Policy and Procedures update and a Downtown Parking staff update.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken.
- The manufactured home zoning ordinance will go to the Planning Commission in December and return to the City Council in January 2026.
- One councilmember, noting they would not be present in January, said they would vote a "resounding yes" if still on the council.
- The committee will meet again on December 10 to discuss park naming and downtown parking.
Meeting Transcript
Greetings everyone out there. It is November 12th, and we're currently starting the Parks and Built Environment Council Committee. I am Councilmember Vowgli, got Councilmember Ryan, Council Vice President Zarlingo. And we're in the Everett City Council Chambers on TV, hopefully too. Um, and today we just have one item on our agenda, and it's super relevant, and I'm glad to have you here, and that is the manufactured home overlay zone ordinance update from staff. And so therefore I will hand it over and you can introduce yourselves and let's get started. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Alice Ann Wetzel. I'm the long-range planning manager for the city of Everett, and I've been leading this project for the manufactured home community zoning. We are not doing an overlay. That is probably one of the updates that I'm going to be giving you. It will be a zone for itself. Since we were last here, I in September, I believe we were here. Gosh. Honestly, I was going to remind everybody beforehand. And I was like, I'm sure everybody's got it down. Nobody calls. Yeah, you would think by now. Please carry on. So when we were here in September, I had recently sent out a letter to all of the owners of the manufactured home parks in the city of Everett, their managers, if that was available information, as well as any residents that I had found information for and the neighborhood association presidents for the different or sites. Since then, I have heard from one owner of one manufactured home park, the um mobile home community. And their concern was being able to replace a one-for-one unit inside if one had to be removed for whatever reasons. And the answer is yes under the proposed legislation. And then I attended the September 25th Homeowners Association meeting of the Fairway Estates Manufactured Home Park at as did Councilmember Zerlingo. And we had a very robust conversation at that time with state senator June Robinson. June Robinson, Council Member Vogley there as well. And Councilmember Vogley was there too. Sorry. It was very big crowd. It was hard to tell in that room. And um a very um robust conversation about the options of either an overlay or a underlying zoning for the manufactured home community, as well as some issues regarding the state legislation, which I won't go into here because we have no control over any of that. And then on October 30th, I attended the Silver Lake Community Association, Neighborhood Association. Councilmember Zarlingo was also at that meeting, and we had a few representatives from Playa Delago as well as the Silver Shores Manufactured Home Community. We are going to be referring to it as all of our residential zones or NR for neighborhood residential. And then we have neighborhood, we have just straight neighborhood residential, we have neighborhood residential constraint for areas where we limit the um middle housing units, and then this would be neighborhood residential manufactured home community. It will permit manufactured home communities, and that's it. So we are in the process of refining the details right now, and we will be going back to planning commission maybe in December because of the schedule and coming back to you in January because of the holidays or changing all the schedules. That is my full update. That's not possible. We have plenty of time left and we can talk. I know I said to York today. I'm gonna take like five minutes. We have questions though. Well, yeah, by all means, ask some questions. Let's get some answers. Yeah, let me start with that. Uh for those who are not as familiar with this, which some of which would still include me. Can you talk about the things that would be part of manufactured homes? We think about trailers, there are modulars, there are tiny houses, mini houses.
openpublica.com