Increase Business Opportunties

Lake Forest Park has minimal commercial property outside of town center and down Bothell Way. That’s both good and bad. Our neighborhoods are quiet, but we lack business opportunities and we lack some of the quiet and cherished corner stores and cafes that other nearby cities have.

Bothell recently expanded their code to allow "neighborhood scale” commercial properties, and Seattle has been talking about the same. This means small, appropriate businesses that complement rather than disrupt quiet neighborhoods. Cafes, small eateries, day cares, little corner stores, usually placed near minor arterials or on isolated corners. Lake Forest Park has very few of these right now, but we do have at least one successful example – the Local 104, which has become a cherished fixture without being disruptive to the surrounding neighborhood.

It’s time to look at expanding opportunities in small neighborhood commercial nodes—in an appropriate and careful way. It’s been successful elsewhere, creating neighborhoods that still feel suburban but with coffee shops and restaurants within a walkable distance.

It’s also time to acknowledge that post pandemic there are a lot more people working from home, many of them running their own small businesses. We need to update our codes to provide for more conditional uses and to improve signage while maintaining the character of our neighborhood.