The Edmonds City Council on Monday approved a code amendment that prohibits multifamily-only housing in the Building District 2 area downtown.

It requires buildings in that area to have commercial business on the ground floor instead of apartments.

During discussions about providing additional design standards for residential-only buildings in the BD2 zone in March, some councilmembers and public expressed concerns about having residential-only buildings within a mixed commercial zone and wished to pursue extending the designated street front "blue line" in some locations.

This led to council's adoption of Interim Ordinance 4262, including the revised Designated Street Front map for the BD2 zone and the clarified BD-use table.