The Art of the Steal – Bellingham Mayor’s Seat Bought by Industry

In the last weeks of the 2023 mayoral race, nearly $100,000 in real estate money poured into Bellingham—funded by a statewide Real Estate PAC using East Coast publicity firms [1]. Tens of thousands of mailers, texts, and ads boosted Kim Lund over incumbent Seth Fleetwood. The only other local candidate who received similar Real Estate PAC support was Ben Elenbaas, a conservative County Council member.

See all transactions totaling $98,000 here:
https://helpinghousing.org/PDC-Lund-RealEstatePoliticalActionCommittee-2023.pdf

Kim Lund was an unknown candidate with little experience, raising $64,000 on her own. A considerable amount until it is compared with developers and real estate interests who spent  $130,000 more to get her elected. Almost 70% of the money spent to win the mayoral seat came from an industry that makes it impossible to afford to live in Bellingham, intentional or not, for tens of thousands of residents. 

That kind of backing comes with strings attached, and since taking office, Mayor Lund’s actions show who she really works for. At a Neighborhood meeting in 2025 Lund admitted, “I want to provide more flexibility to do more to meet the moment and so that is in part why we didn’t connect it [parking minimums] to affordability”. Lund acts on a crisis of industry fear and profits, while residents feel the crisis of the burden of extreme housing costs.

This isn’t an attack on developers or real estate. Bellingham needs them to build housing, and I hope to work with them on understanding how affordable housing can be profitable. The problem is that Lund owes them – and Bellingham residents are paying the price.

What do they want?

As profit-focused industries, development and real estate’s goals are simple:

• Less regulation (lower costs for them). 
• More capacity to build supply (on limited land). Increased density through zoning.
• More demand (wealthy newcomers to keep prices high) – Lund is suggesting to accept 60% of Whatcom’s growth through 2045, instead of the natural and historical 49%.
• Fear of the unknown, so no support of affordability for workforce housing. – Affordable housing can be made profitable for developers, if incentives like Parking Minimums are not given away for free.

Mayor Lund has been delivering exactly that, and little to help our Workforce.

The 2024 Housing Executive Order – The first payment

On paper, Lund’s Executive Order looked like bold action. In reality, it favored developers while doing nothing for affordability. Her plan prioritized market rate solutions and industry gifts:

• Market Rate
  • Middle housing 
  • Urban village development.
  • Faster permitting.
  • Speeding up market-rate projects.
• Industry Gifts
  • Ending parking requirements (a multimillion-dollar gift to developers with no affordability requirements-a standard practice in all towns grappling with affordability).

City of Bellingham’s own reports [2] admit market rate supply alone won’t help the 40,000 residents struggling with housing costs. The United Way says 45% of Whatcom households are “Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed.” Even the Bellingham City Council declared a housing crisis in 2023. Yet Lund continues to only push policies that fuel growth and profits, not policies that will create affordability for current residents, as industry fears it will limit profits.

“The increase [in market rate supply] was statistically significant for units affordable to renters with higher-than-middle incomes. However, the authors found no evidence of an increase in units affordable for renters with low-to-moderate incomes”. https://nlihc.org/resource/study-finds-less-restrictive-zoning-regulations-increase-housing-supply-though-not#:~:text=These%20findings%20suggest%20that%20land,faced%20by%20low%2Dincome%20renters.

To placate residents and housing advocates, she added token efforts such as a new focus on costly taxpayer-funded low-income projects and some rental protections, a pittance of what is needed. Busy Bellingham residents trusted Mayor Lund and the result is public acceptance of policies that enrich developers while leaving Bellingham residents behind. That trust is now gone.

Housing Supply and the Comprehensive Plan (the Bellingham Plan)

Lund’s executive order was only the first payment. Between 2024–2026, Bellingham must update its Comprehensive Plan, as required by Washington’s Growth Management Act. This plan will set the rules for decades: will it benefit the community with affordable housing, or lock in profits for developers?

The Big Power Grab

Lund needs more than the mayor’s seat to pay back her benefactors. Earlier this year, she reshaped the Planning Commission, replacing three members to secure a 5–2 supermajority that backs deregulation and market-rate supply without affordability. And not just a diverse majority that happens to agree. One that skirts, and probably breaks, City rules on having no more than three industry Commissioners. 

Now, the Comprehensive Plan heading to City Council in late 2025 will reflect her donors’ priorities, not the community’s needs.

Along with the Planning Commission changes, the Mayor plans to silence neighborhoods and delete their plans from City Code. Plans that help make Bellingham, Bellingham by having distinct and beautiful neighborhoods, instead of developer focused ‘profit boxes’. Anyone who opposes for the benefit of the community, or affordability, is silenced. Recently, a devoted Planning Commissioner was specifically not reappointed (in the middle of the Comprehensive Plan review process) due to an honest question on growth being taken as a false opinion that Bellingham should put out the “no vacancy sign” (Lund, March 2025).

If a Mayor did not have such a debt to pay, a balance of supply for all, affordability for the workforce, rental protections, and reasonable profits for industry would be possible, encouraged and the responsibility of the City.

Her last obstacle is the City Council itself. With only a slim rubber stamp majority, she needs to keep her allies in office. That’s why Ms. Lund has tied her Mayoral seat to Council Members Skip Williams and Hollie Huthman’s campaigns. Their re-election in November is key to keeping the industry’s grip on Bellingham government. Real Estate agents recently had a hurriedly thrown together emergency fundraiser for Skip and Hollie, saying that without them, Mayor Lund’s development focused agenda will be at risk. Strangely a donation by ‘Visa Marriot’ is registered with the PDC, with an address of Mayor Lund. All told the PDC reports $3260 was raised, for Skip Williams, two days after a City Council reversal (see below), with all but $250 coming from the real estate industry.

On Monday September 15th, due to pressure from the real estate and development industries, Skip and Hollie helped bring back the possibility of annexing almost 150 acres North of Bellingham. This is simply the latest give and take in the financial relationship that will only get worse in the coming two years, if Mayor Lund, Skip Williams and Hollie Huthman are all in office together. Positive financial relationship for industry and City leaders, but catastrophic for the majority of Bellingham residents. [See donations from the real estate industry given days after the annexation vote]

What’s at Stake

Due to the $130,000 spent on her campaign by developers and the real estate industry, Mayor Lund’s policies have consistently favored expensive supply side density, leaving everyday residents behind. Unless checked, the Comprehensive Plan will lock in decades of profit-driven housing policy, worsening affordability for tens of thousands.

Although Bellingham deserves to have the Mayor step down, just as important is to elect to the City Council caring members who don’t rubber stamp an illegitimate mayor’s profit focused agenda.

The first step, to take Bellingham back, is to NOT re-elect Skip Williams and Hollie Huthman in November. 

P.S.

To those who will call these facts just a NIMBY opinion. That ship has sailed and is old, silencing rhetoric. The facts are: housing is expensive for everyone but the well off. The 5% lowest income are being taken care of with tax dollars. The >50% highest income are being built for, or have a good amount of supply to choose from.

Numbers from the Bellingham Consolidated Plan

The 5-50% are being forgotten, and they include half of Bellingham. Either you are one, or know someone, who is suffering, and none of Mayor Lund’s solutions will help. I accept density and deregulation, but changes better solve the problems we were told they would solve, instead of lining the pockets of the rich.

Based on the actions of the mayor and her staff, and the facts at the Political Disclosure Commission Bellingham is intentionally being held back for profit.

You can spew savagery at these facts all you want, but if Mayor Lunds gets her way, all you’ll get is a little, very expensive, non-profit tax funded housing, and regulatory changes that will create a ‘cool’ place to live for the rich. A rich place, without rich culture, or rich neighborhoods, or a rich economy because an economy’s backbone is its workforce, and they won’t live in Bellingham. 

The answer? Continuing to build, and deregulate. AND work with developers to not fear, and even support affordable housing. Working with mom and pop renters who choose to no maximize profit. Ensure that density is done to alleviate the expense of housing instead of as a punishment to those who just want to own a home, and built where it will have the greatest impact. Stop giving away the keys to the city, with multimillion dollar gifts to developers (parking minimums) that could have been positively leveraged to create tons of affordable housing. Developers and the Real Estate industry are important to our economy but are not charities.

Done right, affordable supply is profitable, and a sustainable business model, as well as the right thing to do. Developers and Real Estate will find that out with the right mayor. Buying a politician is not needed, but it’s too late for Kim Lund.