Lake Forest Park housing production lags behind neighbors

Data from the Washington Center for Real Estate Research shows the number of net new housing units completed per 1000 residents in cities neighboring Lake Forest Park

By Oliver Moffat

As the city begins to update its development code, Lake Forest Park lags behind neighboring cities in building housing, especially affordable homes and  homeless housing

Amidst a housing affordability crisis and escalating homelessness, Lake Forest Park is lagging behind neighboring cities in building new homes, particularly affordable housing and homeless shelters.  

While neighboring cities are actively constructing homes, affordable housing and homeless shelters, Lake Forest Park is focused on updating its development code to only meet the minimum state mandates.  

The city has also taken steps to prevent homeless housing in its Town Center, despite state laws requiring cities to remove barriers to homeless housing.

A graph from the LFP Comprehensive Plan shows the number of existing homes versus targets across income bands

New home construction shortfall: 

Lake Forest Park is not meeting its affordable housing production targets and has the lowest rate of new home construction per capita compared to neighboring cities.

According to data from the city’s Comprehensive Plan, to meet assigned targets, Lake Forest Park should build at least 30 new affordable homes every year but instead is only building three new affordable homes per year. 

Those affordable housing targets were assigned by King County’s Affordable Housing Committee (AHC) who set the targets based on the total amount of housing needed across the county. 

Cities (such as Lake Forest Park) that have historically provided less affordable housing relative to other cities in King County were assigned a larger proportional share of affordable housing. 

According to data compiled from the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, Lake Forest Park has built fewer new homes per capita than any other neighboring city in North King or South Snohomish counties. 

Since 2020, the number of homes in Lake Forest Park increased by a net total of 34 units. With a 2020 population of 13,631, the city added less than three new homes for every 1000 residents. 

In comparison, Shoreline built 36 net new homes per 1000 residents, Kenmore created 12, and Mountlake Terrace delivered a whopping 86 units of new homes for every 1000 residents. Even Brier and Woodway added more units per capita than Lake Forest Park. 

County recommendation and city response: 

King County recently recommended Lake Forest Park amend its recently adopted Comprehensive Plan to increase affordable housing production. But the city is already working on development code updates without incorporating those recommendations.

On February 6, 2025 the county’s affordable housing committee said Lake Forest Park should amend its comp plan with six recommendations. 

Amongst those recommendation, the county said the city’s comp plan lacks policies that would meaningfully increase housing for low-income households and would fail to maximize the benefits of investments in the future Stride S3 rapid transit service.

In an emailed response to questions, a Lake Forest Park employee said the city believes the county’s recommendations are “…more fitting to implementation items, to be decided by the city on a local level.” The city may amend the comp plan this year and “the recommendations of the AHC will be part of that update effort,” he said. 

This year’s proposed comprehensive plan amendments were due on February 1st to be added to a docket of changes for consideration later this year. However, the county’s recommendations were received on February 6th after the docket cut off. 

In December, the county warned Lake Forest Park the city had delivered its comp plan too late to the county for review before adoption. 

Now, the planning commission is focused on updating the city’s development code to meet minimum state mandates. 

At the February 13 city council meeting, Councilmember John Lebo said the Planning Commission is working to bring the city’s development code into compliance with the state’s Middle Housing law before a June 30th deadline and is focused on meeting the minimum required under the law. 

“They are focused primarily on what I'll call a sort of a minimum requirement, which is that there are a couple of different alternatives within the minimum, which would be that you have two principals for every lot… The other is that you may have a principal residence with two ADUs. So those two options represent the minimum that are required,” said Lebo.

Neighboring affordable housing projects: 

Shoreline, Kenmore, and Bothell are delivering affordable housing projects, including shelters, permanent housing, and affordable apartments while LFP has acted to keep homeless housing out of Town Center. 

The Oaks Shelter in Shoreline has provided shelter for 60 people since 2021. The city of Shoreline donated land on Aurora near the YMCA and Costco where St. Margaret’s Place has provided 100 permanent homes for people who would otherwise be homeless since 2023. And a new severe weather shelter opened this winter in Shoreline. 

On Valentine’s day, Kenmore celebrated the opening of a new shelter for senior women and the future Larus apartments in Kenmore will provide 175 affordable units for seniors on low and fixed incomes. And the city of Kenmore recently won a legal battle to preserve affordable manufactured housing communities.

Last month, Bothell donated a downtown vacant lot for affordable housing. Both Bothell and Kenmore contribute to A Regional Coalition for Housing (ARCH) to fund affordable housing and services. Lake Forest Park does not contribute to ARCH and in 2023, the Shoreline council directed staff to not pursue membership with ARCH.

Like other neighboring cities, Lake Forest Park contributes to the King County Region Housing Authority, budgeting $21,000 the city receives from a state sales tax for “Affordable/Supportive Housing” to pay a $16,834.32 annual contribution towards the Shoreline severe weather shelter.

Although the Lake Forest Park council passed an ordinance in 2023 allowing the city to donate property for affordable housing, the city has so far not done so. 

To the contrary, since 2021 the LFP city council acted six times to keep homeless housing out of Town Center. 

The state’s Emergency Housing law requires cities to remove barriers stifling homeless housing. Under that state law the city must allow emergency, transitional and permanent homeless housing near transit or anywhere that hotels are allowed.

But instead of allowing homeless housing in Town Center, the Lake Forest Park city council has banned hotels in Town Center in September of 2021, March of 2022, September of 2022, March of 2023, September of 2023, and most recently in November of 2024. The ban expires in March unless the council renews the ordinance. 

Information on how to contact the LFP city council and attend meetings is available on the city’s website.