Road Standards

City of SeaTac Public Works is in the process of updating its rules and regulations for development on city owned roadways and developments subject to roadway improvements.

SeaTac currently adopts the 2016 King County Road Standards as its guiding document for work in the right-of-way. While this document has been a convenient reference for many years, it is a document that is intentionally broad to meet the needs of an entire county. It includes irrelevant information and is not specific to the needs of our community, which is always growing and changing.

Major Changes

While SeaTac will be adopting an entirely new document, many of the existing rules and regulations currently in the 2016 King County Road Standards will be returning. The items below have been identified by Public Works staff as significant departures:

• City of SeaTac specific. The document will be tailored specifically to SeaTac. The final version will serve as a one-stop shop for all Engineering related permitting documents and design standards for those looking to construct within city right-of-way.
• Public Works policies are formally adopted within the standard. These include policies that are already enforced but are not readily available to view by the public. These include frontage improvement standards, street lighting standards, overlay district design requirements and utility abandonment
• City of SeaTac standard drawing details. SeaTac will now have its own design details that will be managed in-house. References to WSDOT and County details will still be required on a case by case basis.
• Updates on access requirements. Middle housing rules passed by the Washington State Legislature have dramatically increased the density allowed on parcels zoned as residential-low. The road standards update proposes access and parking requirements aimed at softening the impact of these developments on SeaTac roadways.
• Planting and trees within Right-of-way. The new road standards will formally adopt a right-of-way landscape and tree planting palette.
  
  

Timeline

SeaTac Public Works is pushing to have this new standard adopted and ready for enforcement on January 1^st, 2027. The documents and its associated code amendments will be heading to committee in May 2026, with formal adoption by council tentatively anticipated in October/November of this year.

Feedback

We are interested in your thoughts.

The draft document and its appendices are available to download and view. Please check the links at the top-right of this page. Any comments or questions you may have on the documents - broad or specific - may be submitted below.

While the draft is considered 95% complete, it is still a draft. Some items may be subject to change or incomplete.