The Community Development Department is the steward of Bellevue's community vision, creating and sustaining positive change, practicing transparency and building strong relationships to form an active, informed and resilient community.
Department Vision
Securing Bellevue's future as a livable, inspiring, vibrant and equitable community.
Department Goals
- Goal 1:Bellevue grows in a manner that enhances the livability of the community, while maintaining the elements that residents cherish.
- Goal 2: Bellevue is a hub for global business and innovation.
- Goal 3: Bellevue is a community of diverse and vibrant neighborhoods.
Metric 1: Percent of residents who agree that Bellevue is doing a good job of planning for growth in ways that will add value to resident's quality of life
This is an annual community survey response regarding how Bellevue residents believe that City is doing in planning for growth.
Note: Surveys are typically conducted at the beginning of the calendar year. Thus, a survey conducted at the beginning of 2020 produces data for 2019. The data seen below reflects this timing.
How was this calculated?
The data for this metric comes from the City's Annual Community Performance Survey, which provides the City with the opportunity to get feedback from the people we serve (our residents). This number is calculated by taking the absolute value of survey respondents who agreed that Bellevue is doing a good job planning for growth, divided by the absolute number of respondents to the question.
Data:
Why is this important?
Bellevue residents continue to strongly agree the City is doing a good job planning for growth with 2019 results of 67%, provided these are below recent highs in 2014 and 2015 of 76% and the City target of 80%. This is an important factor when considering Bellevue's projected increases in both jobs and population over the coming decades. The City's actions to engage the community and thoughtfully locate most of its growth in compact urban neighborhoods served by transit are reflected in these results, but more work can be done to increase survey results to past highs and our City target.
What are the next steps?
The resident survey results for this measure have not matched the City's target of 80% for a sustained period of time. The goal of the department is to continue to refine how it plans for growth in an open and transparent manner. We'll look for ways to engage a full range of community stakeholders while taking advantage of the benefits that come with growth and addressing any associated impacts.
Contact Name: Emil King
Contact Email: eaking@bellevuewa.gov
Metric 2: Percent of residents rating their neighborhood as a good or excellent place to live.
This metric represents the percent of City residents who, when asked about their level of satisfaction with Bellevue's neighborhoods, responded positively.
Note: Surveys are typically conducted at the beginning of the calendar year. Thus, a survey conducted at the beginning of 2020 produces data for 2019. The data seen below reflects this timing.
How was this calculated?
The data for this metric comes from the City's annual community performance measures survey, which provides the City with the opportunity to get feedback from the people we serve (our residents). This number is calculated by taking the absolute value of survey respondents who rated their neighborhood as a good or excellent place to live, divided by the absolute number of respondents to the question.
Data:
Why is this important?
Bellevue residents strongly rate their neighborhoods as good or excellent places to live. More than nine in ten residents have reported this opinion for many consecutive years. This result has exceeded targets for all of those years. Contributing factors include Bellevue's neighborhoods being safe places, clean and well maintained, great schools and local amenities, access to local parks and trails, distinct local neighborhood character and a sense of community.
What are the next steps?
Our department will continue to place a high priority on improving city responsiveness to neighborhood concerns, strengthen neighborhood character and identity, increase public participation in city decision making and strengthen local community connections that make Bellevue a great place to live. This includes engaging residents in the Great Neighborhoods planning process.
Contact Name: Mike McCormick-Huentelman
Contact Email: mmhuent@bellevuewa.gov
Contact Phone Number: 425-452-4089
Metric 3: Percent of businesses that believe Bellevue is a "somewhat" or "significantly" better place to operate a business.
This is the percentage of respondents to the biennial business survey that believe Bellevue is a better place for their business to be. The question is open-ended so the respondents can compare us to any city or town that fits their perspective.
How was this calculated?
This number is calculated by the survey vendor that administers our survey every two years. The number is based on the total number of responses to the question and those who select "somewhat" or "significantly" better among the five options.
Data:
Why is this important?
This is important because business owners and decision makers will share this perspective within their professional network, making it easier for Bellevue to attract and retain companies, which affects the number of people employed in the city as well as tax revenues. This result has trended positive each year since the survey began, with results of 74% in 2015, 75% in 2017, and now 77% in 2019. This means that over three-quarters of our businesses believe Bellevue is the right place for their business and other businesses to open and operate.
What are the next steps?
Staff will continue to meet with companies through our retention and expansion program to ensure the City's policies, resources, and amenities are the right mix for the future, so firms continue to invest here.
Contact Name: Jesse Canedo
Contact Email: JCanedo@bellevuewa.gov
Contact Phone Number: 425-452-5236
Metric 4: Number of new or preserved affordable housing units
City Council adopted the Affordable Housing Strategy (AHS) in June 2017 with a target to achieve 2,500 new or preserved affordable units within 10 years.
How was this calculated?
The AHS includes 21 actions over 5 strategy areas. For each AHS action, an estimate was established for how many affordable units would be created over 10 years. The estimate total for the 21 actions is about 2,500 units. We monitor progress of the AHS and adjust actions periodically based on performance measures, new information, and established review outlines.
Data:
Why is this important?
Affordable housing is a critical need for Bellevue's residents and workforce. The AHS adopted in 2017 is an action approach to substantially increase the City's affordable housing stock over ten-year period. The Community Development Department reports progress on implementation of the AHS to City Council twice per year. For 2019, 310 affordable units were achieved in Bellevue in addition to 75 units during the first year of implementation in 2018. It's normal for affordable housing numbers to vary somewhat from year to year based on when new implementation measures are put in place and the timing of project completion. While 250 units/year will not be achieved for the first 2 years (2018 and 2019) of the AHS, the current pipeline of 245 affordable units is an encouraging indication that the city is on track to meet its ten year target of affordable units with increasing annual production.
What are the next steps?
Actions implemented since the June 2017 adoption of the AHS have increased annual production of affordable units above historic levels. Community Development and our partners will continue to implement new actions and promote existing actions to reach target of 250 affordable units a year.
Contact Name: Janet Lewine
Contact Email: jlewine@bellevuewa.gov
Contact Phone Number: 425-452-4884
Metric 5: Total Office Vacancy Rate in Bellevue.
The vacancy rate is the percentage of the total office square footage in the city that are vacant or unoccupied at a particular time.
How was this calculated?
This number is derived by taking the total number of square feet of office space in Bellevue and subtracting the total amount that is occupied. The remainder is the vacancy rate. This number is calculated by several independent firms, with Cultural and Economic Development staff using the numbers published by Colliers International.
Data:
Why is this important?
This rate is important because it provides a quantitative measure for how attractive Bellevue is as a place to do business. A low vacancy rate means the city is a competitive place and that companies feel confident maintaining or growing their headcount here. This number directly reflects the number of jobs in the city and impacts City tax revenues.
Bellevue's citywide vacancy rate is 4.8%, which reflects a slight uptick of vacancy resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. While new announcements of large employer expansion such as Amazon and Facebook provide strength to the market and absorb new inventory, brokers expect sublease activity to increase and small to mid-sized leases to downsizing their footprints as leases expire. Despite these dynamics, many brokers identify Bellevue’s commercial office market as one of the strongest in the nation.
What are the next steps?
Staff will continue to meet with companies through our retention and expansion program to ensure the City's policies, resources, and amenities are the right mix for the future, so firms continue to invest here and keep our vacancy low.
Contact Name: Jesse Canedo
Contact Email: JCanedo@bellevuewa.gov
Contact Phone Number: 425-452-5236