A local property owner is asking for city approval to carve a large housing subdivision into the steep, densely forested cliffs and bluffs above the ecologically fragile North Chuckanut Bay (a.k.a. Mud Bay). The site is comprised of severe hydro-geological constraints, including multiple landslide and erosion hazards, four wetlands, exposed rock faces, and highly erodible soils that drain into the Bay, a protected Habitat Conservation Area as well as classified as a protected waters of the U.S. Within this terrain, excavating and gouging the slopes to create a 38-lot urban infill subdivision—served by both public and private roads— appears fundamentally infeasible unless: approved although non-compliant with city regulations; granted numerous variances to circumvent regulations; and/or allowed to defer compliance with a developer/applicant promise there will be future compliance. 

The project’s application documents are written and designed around a 38 single-family lot density. There is no mention that each eventual owner of each of the newly created 38 lots will be allowed to construct multiple single-family or multi-family housing—up to four units—for a total potential of 152 units. Currently the proposed project only provides an infrastructure to support 38-single family homes. There are no plans to provide any low-income housing.

On July 25, 2025, Bellingham city planners decided not to require a thorough environmental impact study for this project, and they approved the subdivision. They made this decision in spite of a massive number of public comment letters whose primary concern was the project’s poor evaluation of the environmental impacts of the proposed project.

The latest news

 As soon as the City of Bellingham (CoB) decided a thorough environmental impact study/statement was not required, a large community organization called Protect Mud Bay Cliffs (PMBC) filed an appeal of the decision. The hearings for this appeal, added to a consolidated appeal for the land use permits, were conducted in January of this year. That hearing lasted five days.

In June, nearly six months later, the hearing examiner released the decision affirming that an Environmental Impact Study/Statement was not required for the project, AND included approval of the 38-lot subdivision, and preliminary plat, and variance, and critical areas permit applications, with conditions. 

On July 28, that decision of consolidated permits was also appealed by PMBC. The full appeal can be found below under Related Files. The newest appeal hearing is scheduled for Monday, August 10, 9 a.m.

This current PMBC Appeal is primarily a list of objections, including:

-The property owner/and hired applicant submitted an incomplete, non-compliant project proposal.

-PMBC identified to CoB planners specific missing and/or inaccurate analyses and supporting information throughout the administrative process for this project.

-CoB was notified that the project record was not only incomplete, but was non-compliant with several city regulations.

-CoB approved the land use permits without requiring the applicant to correct regulation non-compliance before permit approval. The non-compliance issues remain to this day.

-The hearing examiner affirmed the approvals while acknowledging that many of the missing analyses, and the non-compliant code and requirement issues, are being “deferred and (to be) addressed later.”

-In the July 28 appeal, PMBC contended the city and hearing examiner were aware the project record still required future engineering analyses to verify proof of compliance with regulations. Because of that, City Council should overturn the hearing examiner’s decision to approve since regulations are already demonstrating non-compliance. 

PMBC’s appeals have been a consistent chronology centering around the principle of show compliance first, then grant approvals. 

PMBC has identified missing compliance information and insured the CoB knew of those concerns. Still, the needed substantiating information for demonstrating code compliance was not supplied before the permits were granted. Tragically, the hearing examiner has upheld the approvals, relying on the assumed promise that future engineering studies will demonstrate compliance.

The appeal hearing in front of the City Council is scheduled for Monday, August 10 at 9 a.m. in City Hall.

This is a third article updating the progress of a proposed new subdivision planned for North Chuckanut Bay. Two previous articles about this development proposal have appeared in NorthWest Citizen:

What Is the City of Bellingham Hiding? By Janet Migaki. Describes the proposed project in more detail. [published 10/1/25]

Mud Bay: A Tragedy of the Commons? By Janet Migaki. Describes this permit application in the economic and ecological terms where individuals, acting in self-interest, are allowed to exhaust, deplete, and destroy a shared resource to the detriment of the whole group. [published on 11/23/25]