Plan to advance city affordable housing goals over next seven years heads to Council

Published January 26 2026

The Bellevue City Council will review a draft 2026-2032 Affordable Housing Strategy at its meeting Tuesday, Feb. 3. After more than a year of work, this citywide seven-year plan has identified strategies and actions to expand access to housing for everyone, across all incomes and backgrounds.

"The Affordable Housing Strategy is a crucial element in Bellevue's ongoing effort to meet bold housing goals," said Deputy Mayor Dave Hamilton. "This work exemplifies the city's continued prioritization of creating an affordable Bellevue for all."

Bellevue adopted its first Affordable Housing Strategy in 2017. Recent updates are focused on providing an organizational roadmap for how the city will continue to improve housing opportunities for people in Bellevue.

The draft Affordable Housing Strategy contains 24 high-level strategies across five goal areas: Affordable Housing, Housing Equity, Housing Stability, Housing for Unique Needs, and Supply and Diversity. These strategies identify cost-effective, high-impact ways to advance the city's housing goals, which include implementing policy guidance from the Bellevue 2044 Comprehensive Plan and identifying new funding resources to meet the city's affordable housing needs.

The strategy update has new focus areas, which include:

• preserving older multifamily housing - often considered "naturally affordable" - for long-term affordability
• reducing the time and costs to build affordable housing
• exploring new revenue sources for creating deeply affordable housing

The plan was informed by significant community engagement with community members and organizational partners, including more than 650 residents and 60 organizations. Draft strategies were presented to the public for review in December.

The complete draft Affordable Housing Strategy can be viewed on Engaging Bellevue. Comments on the draft should be directed to the Office of Housing at [email protected].