How is the Shoreline Master Program different from other Bellevue land use plans and regulations?
The Shoreline Master Program (SMP) protects natural resources, encourages land uses that require a waterfront location and promotes access to public shorelines. The SMP must be consistent with Bellevue’s Comprehensive Plan and zoning regulations. Bellevue’s critical-areas regulations also apply to Bellevue shorelines but the geographic scope of the regulations is broader because they apply to all water bodies, not just the larger ones regulated by the Shoreline Management Act. The SMP applies to these areas only when they are located within the shoreline area. Because the critical-area regulations were updated in 2006 after an exhaustive public process, Bellevue will rely on the substantive content of those regulations as much as possible in its effort to comply with Ecology’s SMP requirements. This will be accomplished by adopting an internally consistent SMP with standards similar to those in the existing critical-areas regulations.
