## Meeting Overview On the afternoon of December 3, 2024, the City of Bellingham Design Review Board convened for what would prove to be a remarkably smooth early design guidance session. Four board members gathered in City Council Chambers — Chair Ryan Van Straten, Maggie Bates, Coby Jones, and David Heck — along with staff planner Moshe Quinn and administrative staff Fiona Star. The meeting, conducted with both in-person and virtual participation options, focused on a single agenda item: a proposed four-lot infill housing development at 2729 Peabody Street in the Cornwall Park neighborhood's Fountain District Urban Village. The project represented a familiar yet evolving story in Bellingham's ongoing densification efforts. Developer Jason Loeb, working through consultant Jack Bloss of AVT Consulting, sought early design guidance for a small-lot subdivision that would create four narrow lots, each 25 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Each lot would house a two-story small-lot residence fronting Peabody Street, with a detached carriage house ADU (accessory dwelling unit) positioned at the rear, oriented toward the alley. What made this proposal particularly notable was its relationship to a similar project just to the south — also developed by Loeb — which had been built under more restrictive infill toolkit standards. This new iteration promised to demonstrate how recent code changes could yield better design outcomes while maintaining neighborhood compatibility. The meeting's relaxed tone reflected both the quality of the applicant's early-stage presentation and the relatively straightforward nature of the proposal. As Van Straten would observe, this was "a perfect example" of how early design guidance should work — detailed enough to evaluate, but not so far along that major changes would be problematic. ## The Infill Toolkit Evolution at 2729 Peabody Street Jack Bloss opened his presentation by placing the project in context with his client's previous work just one lot south. "Our client, Jason Loeb, actually did the project directly south of this one, and that project at the time infill toolkit standards were a little bit different," Bloss explained. "The ADU standards were a little bit different. Both were a little bit more restrictive than they are now." That earlier project had been constrained by tighter floor area limits and different parking requirements, resulting in 15-foot-wide homes that were notably smaller than what current code allowed. …