Mercer Island continues to focus on compliance with comprehensive plan

Published 11:00 am Thursday, March 12, 2026

Ever since the city of Mercer Island learned of an appeal to its 2024 comprehensive plan and a need for compliance by July 31, City Manager Jessi Bon said they’ve been in “gas pedal down mode.”

Word came down from the state Growth Management Hearings Board in August 2025 that it was issuing a final decision and order requiring Mercer Island to fuel up and begin revising its plan after completing a periodic review and update in November 2024.

The board is comprised of members appointed by the governor. During an appeal to the board earlier in 2025, it found noncompliance in the Mercer Island housing element with some of the Growth Management Act’s provisions. The board ordered the city to amend its land capacity analysis, adequate provisions, Sound Transit light rail station area subarea plan and anti-displacement measures sections.

The city, which has since been moving toward compliance, held a webinar March 10 to inform Islanders about the situation.

“A lot of these items, these policies, these actions we needed to take were identified in our comprehensive plan and put onto the list of things we’d be working on. The Growth Board essentially said you’ve got to get it done now,” Bon said during the webinar.

According to the city, its comprehensive plan is a “statement of vision, goals, policies and actions the city will take to manage growth in a 20-year period” and is implemented through development regulations, capital investments, projects and special programs. It features the elements of housing, shoreline, parks, economic development, transportation, utilities, capital facilities and land use.

In the compliance realm, the city has completed 75% of its land capacity analysis that it has been working on since last fall with the Community Attributes economic consultant firm of Seattle.

Affordable housing, which is the focal point of Mercer Island’s Growth Management Act matter, falls under that category and the adequate provisions classification. According to Mercer Island’s Community Planning and Development Director Jeff Thomas, the analysis identified a deficit of 519 units below 50% area median income (AMI) that require new subsidies or incentives.

That affordable housing deficit is where the city has hit a roadblock in the funding sphere. The webinar’s affordable housing summary notes that the city faces significant financial challenges in building the units (below 30% AMI) with an estimate of $264.7 million and $311.4 million — not including infrastructure costs — to accomplish the job.

When noting that presently this cost is completely unfunded, Thomas added: “I think it’s fair to say, this is an extremely tall task that we’re facing here on Mercer Island.”

Bon said it’s a staggering number, adding that it’s still a preliminary figure.

“We don’t have these resources. We will do what we can to meet the hearing board order and put plans in place to begin working toward this, but that is not a gap we can close independently, especially not considering all of our other challenges as well,” Bon said.

While the city hasn’t discussed acquiring additional property to close the gap and is not looking to buy land in Town Center, Bon said one scenario could have the city establishing a fee-in-lieu program to start building up some resources and partnering with an affordable housing provider or unit development expert.

In other areas of the city’s compliance strategy, the station area boundary is 50% complete. At the Mercer Island City Council’s Feb. 17 regular meeting, the council reviewed a draft station area boundary, “which includes the area within a half-mile walk from the light rail station entrances,” according to the city.

The city has not yet started the other three major steps in its compliance strategy, which includes phase one upzones (required to create additional development capacity), adequate provisions, anti-displacement measures (which address the potential displacement that can occur with changes in zoning and redevelopment of lower-cost housing) and STEP housing permanent regulations (includes shelters, transitional housing, emergency housing and permanent supportive housing).

Regarding the July 31 compliance deadline, Thomas said: “We have been working on a scope and schedule to do that successfully in a timely fashion.”

The city’s tentative project schedule includes city council work sessions in March and April, a planning commission review and draft comprehensive plan recommendation in April and June, and a city council review and adoption in early summer. The Growth Management Hearings Board’s compliance hearing is slated for Sept. 15.

To view the entire webinar, visit: https://tinyurl.com/48skmtc6