Lewis County, WA Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

225 sets the loading zone standard for the Packwood and Onalaska Small Town Urban Growth Areas. Any commercial, industrial or mixed-use development that requires 20 or more parking spaces under the chapter's parking table must provide an off-street loading area for delivering or loading goods. Each loading space must measure at least 14 feet wide by 60 feet long, excluding driveways, aisles and other circulation areas, with a clearance of at least 15 feet, big enough for a standard delivery truck. Standalone commercial or residential development that does not rely on semi-trucks or similarly sized delivery vehicles can instead use ordinary parking stalls to load and unload.

The number of required spaces scales with size: one loading space per 10,000 square feet of nonresidential use, plus one more space for every additional 10,000 square feet for retail and restaurant buildings, or one more for every additional 30,000 square feet for manufacturing, warehouse and service uses. Mixed-use projects with staggered delivery schedules can share a single loading area if they show deliveries happen at different times to the extent practicable. Lots under half an acre are excused from providing a loading zone if they can demonstrate deliveries will not spill into the public right-of-way, though that exemption disappears for a shared parking lot whose combined development exceeds half an acre.

Lewis County Community Development reviews loading zone compliance at site plan and building permit review; the section was adopted by Ord. 1367 (Exh. C) in 2025.