Explore Bellingham's Middle Housing

Almost every residential neighborhood in Bellingham has examples of middle housing. They were more commonly developed pre-World War II, then traditional zoning became more common in cities across the country and led to rules prohibiting middle housing. Development of middle housing picked up again in Bellingham after the City adopted an infill housing toolkit in 2009, which supported development of middle housing and established design standards that helped them blend into surrounding neighborhoods. 

At one end of the housing spectrum are single-family homes. At the other end are larger scale multi-family homes, such as mid-rise and high-rise apartments. Middle housing describes home types at various price points and scales between those two ends of the spectrum.

This map shows the distribution of middle housing by neighborhood based on available data (some older middle housing is not reflected; ADUs are reflected in the map, but not the table).