Policy Council Recap: Bel-Red, Housing and the Transportation Budget With the Deputy Mayor

Bellevue Chamber of Commerce  |  September 22, 2026

Bellevue Deputy Mayor Dave Hamilton opened our September Policy Council meeting with a tour of where the city expects to grow and what it will take to get there, before taking questions from some of our most transportation-focused team members. We then recapped recent work done by the Bellevue Mobility Coalition, and discussed the City's proposed funding models for future transportation projects.

BelRed takes its cue from Wilburton

Deputy Mayor Hamilton described Bel-Red as the city's next growth area; of a district of auto body shops and light industry becoming a transit-oriented neighborhood built around an arts district, with more room for homes and jobs. The template, he said, is Wilburton, where years of work among residents, developers, city staff and the council produced a code that is now moving projects.

He positioned the Wilburton pipeline at eight projects and 3,466 homes — 313 of them affordable — describing the planning model as one that is, "working as intended."

One of our Policy Council members who builds downtown noted that downtown Bellevue is one of the few places in the region still breaking ground on apartments, and asked that BelRed and Wilburton stay on equal footing, since the two neighborhoods sit side by side and compete for the same projects.

Housing & permitting

Earlier this year, the City made the largest affordable housing investment in its history — $37 million across four projects — and some of the next affordable homes are planned on municipal land near transit stations.

Middle housing rules are in place, though little has been built under them yet, and Deputy Mayor Hamilton said the City may adjust them. On permitting, the City now has AI take a first review of applications, and he reported a 10-point improvement in permitting speed.

"I think the easiest way for the City to support businesses is to support the people that work there." — Deputy Mayor Hamilton

Transportation & the budget

The Transportation Benefit District (TBD) the council formed in 2023 has never been funded, and the Council is weighing whether to fund it in the 2027-2028 budget. The Council's transportation work session is October 6, the third budget public hearing is October 27, and adoption is expected before Thanksgiving.

Reviewing the work of the Mobility Coalition

Following Hamilton's presentation, Policy Council leaders walked members back to 2023, when the aforementioned TBD was formed and then paused amid concern that the city had no transportation plan to match the growth it was planning.

Since then, though, the Chamber and our Bellevue Mobility Coalition has:

• Brought in technical consultants to map growth corridors against gaps in the network,
• Submitted a priority list for the city's Transportation Facilities Plan,
• And asked in multiple letters for a citywide transportation master plan.

The City's proposed budget now funds the scoping of that plan, smart mobility technology, and engineering studies on the intersections expected to fail first. (Coalition members said the master plan is the piece they have pressed for longest, because it is meant to test whether fixing one intersection simply moves the congestion downstream.)

Stay tuned for further TBD-related news as the topic comes before the Council in October.