Site Lines by Rami Al-Kabra
What's changing on the Eastside, explained by someone who helps shape it.
Kirkland's 20-year growth plan, updated through December 2025, includes a policy commitment most homeowners haven't seen. The language is specific: the city intends to develop standards allowing small-scale, neighborhood-oriented commercial uses inside residential areas, naming corner stores and businesses operated out of homes directly. Not in commercial corridors. In neighborhoods. That's a meaningful shift in what Kirkland is working toward, and it's in writing.
To see what that looks like when a city follows through, look at Bothell. On July 8, 2025, the Bothell City Council enacted new Neighborhood Scale Commercial standards. Corner markets and coffee shops became legally permitted in every residential zone in the city. Not a pilot program in a designated district. Citywide, in residential neighborhoods, effective now.
What changed for property owners when that happened is worth being precise about. A lot at the right intersection in Bothell, one where a café or small market could realistically operate, carries permitted uses today that it didn't carry two years ago. Permitted uses shape what a property can become. What a property can become shapes its value over time. Most owners in Bothell haven't looked at their specific address against the new standards to know whether they're sitting on one of those lots.
Kirkland's plan points the same direction. The policy language commits the city to developing standards for small-scale neighborhood commercial inside residential zones. For buyers evaluating residential properties in Kirkland today, the question worth asking is which intersections are positioned to benefit first when those standards arrive. That's the kind of signal that tends to be most useful before it shows up in price, which is where it sits right now.
Next issue: Bellevue's own data shows more than half of its housing units have three or more bedrooms, while more than 60 percent of its households have one or two people. The city's planning documents call this a structural mismatch. For larger-lot owners and underutilized properties, what's now permitted on a specific lot has gotten more interesting.
Rami Al-Kabra
Real Estate Broker, eXp Realty
(206) 701-9272
[email protected]
https://linktr.ee/kabrarealestate
P.S. This is the latest issue of Site Lines newsletter. If you missed the earlier ones, you can find the full archive at newsletter.ramialkabra.com.