Marysville City Council was scheduled to weigh four lot-size options for middle housing rules

What the records say

The May 5, 2025 City Council work session agenda included an item titled “Middle Housing – Major Policy Direction Discussion,” marked discussion only with no action requested. ¹ The attached staff memo asked the Council to choose among four approaches to minimum lot sizes: keeping current lot sizes; larger single-family lot sizes paired with increased multi-family density; a moderate Planned Residential Development increase with a small standard-subdivision increase; or moderate increases to both. ¹ The memo also proposes consolidating the city's four single-family residential zones (R-4.5, R-6.5, R-8, and WR-R-4-8) into a single Neighborhood Residential zone, with density calculated by lots per acre rather than units per acre, and says an average density of roughly 4.58 dwelling units per gross acre must be maintained to preserve residential land capacity. ¹ The records in this packet are pre-meeting materials and do not establish what direction, if any, the Council gave on May 5. ¹

• Staff requested Council policy direction on four matters: the preferred lot-size/density option; whether to prohibit single-family detached homes in higher-density multi-family zones (staff recommended at minimum the R-18 and R-28 zones); whether to exempt up to 25 percent of single-family lots from middle housing requirements; and the density and permitting approach for Master Planned Senior Communities. ¹
• The memo states that over the past 15 years duplexes have made up less than one percent of combined single-family and duplex building permits, and staff proposed monitoring how builders respond to the new density rules. ¹
• The memo lays out a middle housing schedule with open houses in May and June, a Planning Commission public hearing on July 14, and a target City Council adoption on September 8, 2025. ¹
• The same work session agenda also carried a separate “Unit Lot Subdivisions – Policy Discussion” item, also discussion only with no action requested; the packet does not link the two items beyond appearing on the same agenda. ¹

Why it matters

The memo defines middle housing as housing types such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, courtyard apartments, and cottage housing, and identifies those as Marysville's preferred types based on a community survey and Planning Commission discussion. ¹ The lot-size choice directly shapes how many of these homes can be built in residential neighborhoods: the memo states that larger minimum lot sizes reduce achievable density, and that Option 1 (current lot sizes) would allow more residential capacity while the other options trade capacity against larger lots. ¹ Residents of single-family neighborhoods would see the effects in what can be built nearby and in the city's overall housing supply. ¹

What changed / what's next

• No rule changed. The May 5, 2025 work session was scheduled as a discussion at which staff asked the Council to choose a preferred lot-size and density approach for implementing state middle housing requirements. ¹
• The packet contains only pre-meeting materials and does not establish what direction the Council gave or whether any option was preferred. ¹
• Per the staff schedule in the memo, the full package of proposed code and Comprehensive Plan amendments was slated for the July 7 work session, with a Planning Commission public hearing July 14 and target Council action September 8, 2025. ¹
• The available records do not establish the meeting's outcome.