HomeMy WebLinkAboutchat17:38:41 From Mark McCauley to Jefferson County DCD(direct message) : Can you please change to presentation mode which will get rid of the thumbnails on the left?
17:31:24 And then you passed on to Terry Nice to the chair.
17:31:43 Horrible. I'm looking at baby pictures. I'm going to call them.
17:31:52 Very joint special meeting with the Board of County Commissioners. I'm going to call the Board of County Commissioner portion of the meeting to orders.
17:31:58 We're now going to be orderly. And I'm going to hand it over to Chair Hall.
17:32:04 I'm going to call the order, January 27th meeting joint meeting with the vocc And I'm going to start the meeting by a roll call with planning commissioners.
17:32:16 Christopher Wellen. Cynthia Cohen. Mike Schultz. Richard Ho. Lee Richard.
17:32:21 Kevin Copeland, Andrew Schwartz. Aren't strong. Thank you.
17:32:27 And was that done, we can begin the meeting. And the agenda starts with public comment.
17:32:36 There's no public in attendance online. There are some in the room.
17:32:46 Hello? Comments, I'll close the public comment period.
17:32:53 When we get to begin the next agenda item discussion and potential action
17:33:00 I'll jump in with an introduction. Perhaps ask others to join in with me. I'm joel peterson a planner Jefferson County Community Development.
17:33:12 We'll be talking tonight about our annual work plan, what has happened in 2024 in our planning commission and then have an opportunity for discussion and just kind of open dialogue
We started doing these joint workshops, I don't know, about four years ago
17:33:35 It gave us the opportunity to give us the opportunity kind of complete the circle in our planning to involve the planning commission and ECD and the board together when looking
at work planning And then also served a great purpose of just having face-to-face time
17:33:54 As we know from the Planning Enabling act we have a Board of County Commissioners that establishes a planning department and a planning commission to represent the public works
with the planning department we call ourselves the planning agency So this kind of outlines the relationship between board and planning commission
17:34:16 It's not always a one-way relationship of board tasking the planning commission sometimes uh DCD and the Planning Commission have projects that they want to bring to the board.
17:34:28 So this kind of meeting gives us a chance to discuss things that are on our minds and on our minds And maybe I'll pass the table to Joshua momentarily here if you want to have
any opening remarks before I get into the power
17:34:44 Thanks, Drill. I think now you've summarized it well i think we have So for the meeting where Bill has prepared a a summary of last year's just like he did last year for the
year prior And so he'll run through that and see if there's any questions and then we'll get into the heart of the agenda, which is the back and forth between the county commissioners
and
17:35:04 So the planning commissioners and BCP staff has meetings. Thank you. Yeah, and so this is tonight's a little bit different than what we could normally have been doing had opportunity
and resources in the past to set up a saturday
17:35:19 For this kind of meeting in the morning, we meet with the planning commission. We do some training and And we're planning the afternoon with me at the Warrick county commissioners
That model is a little different than what we could accomplish
17:35:33 This year with our busy schedules. So we focus on just this uh summary and update and face time with our board. So I'll kick it off from here And you do full stranger if not,
that's okay. Well, we're trying to keep an eye on the attendee list. I'm sorry. No problem, everyone.
17:35:54 I'll ask someone to be my slide indexer to it. Yeah, I'll move slides for you, Sonny.
17:36:04 So I'm just going to summarize tonight's agenda that you have in front of you.
17:36:09 These are the highlights. So we're going to look at 2024.
17:36:11 Planning commission work. We'll look at what's coming up for this year And then talk about coordination between BOCC and Planning Commission.
17:36:21 In a discussion. Next slide, please. So I do have passed out also a summary of our meetings, financial meetings of 2024 and uh this was just to give us a review at a glance
of the work that we've accomplished
17:36:39 This slide summarizes that handout that last year we did the 2024 annual amendment cycle um concurrently with our 2025 periodic updates so we've had two processes going concurrently
we spent the significant time on short-term rental ordinance and flood damage prevention ordinance. Some of it is ongoing
17:37:04 The Planning Commission started out This spring, I believe it was spring reviewing the vision statement of the comprehensive plan to kind of check in and bring the community
vision forward for our plan update.
17:37:19 And then also we started with this comprehensive plan update outreach in 2024 with some community meetings in Britain and in wilstein centered around how can we best communicate
with your community How do we engage you in this process?
17:37:38 The next slide. Just a quick report on the Planning Commission meetings. We meet the first and third Wednesdays of each month.
17:37:49 So we have a potential of 24 possible regular planning commission meetings We held 17 regular meetings.
17:37:58 Canceled seven meetings along through this last year and we held a special meeting So that is a quick overview of um and i think canceling seven meetings during the course of
the year is about on par with what we've done in years past.
17:38:13 There are times when the work just is not just ready and we wanted to have productive planning commission meetings and not just me to me And then other times a lot is raining
and so we have a special meeting when we had a lot of work
17:38:27 Coming through at one point. Next slide.
17:38:33 Looking for our planning for 2025 we're in the throes of our comprehensive plan periodic update leading work entering into extensive public outreach process. We're developing
draft materials with our consultants And we'll have some draft products for the public to comment on.
17:38:57 And um be at our planning commission.
17:39:01 I have a slide talking about in more detail our outreach schedule Also, with our Periodic update. We're doing a critical area ordinance update And this will be a process that
we run concurrently. Can you speak up? There was a message in the chat. We can't read it, but I'm thinking they can't hear you. Yeah, maybe I'll stand closer too, though.
17:39:23 And so we're running concurrently our Quinton Larry's ordinance update with the comp plan periodic review.
17:39:28 A little bit more about that later. We're going to be having a hearing coming up at our next planning commission meeting, February 5th.
17:39:37 For our short-term rentals ordinance And then the boards will be seeing planning commission recommendations on that coming.
17:39:45 End of February. There are some PC maintenance items that We have every year, March 17th.
17:39:55 Is the date when is the revolving date when seats become available on the planning commission.
17:40:04 We have one seat for each district that will come up available on March 17th.
17:40:11 And the process says We've run it in the county. Is that an incumbent can decide that they'd like to continue or not.
17:40:22 And we also are required to advertise. So sometimes we end up doing interviews with incumbents and people who are new and people who are new wanted to be on the planning commission.
So we'll have that coming up.
17:40:34 Next month, we'll begin advertising and leader or planning commission seats for anyone interested in the planning commission And we'll see what that yields for us.
17:40:46 Next slide. The next series of slides are more detailed about our comprehensive plan periodic update project this is the mainstay of what's coming up this year.
17:41:00 So just to give you an idea of our timeframe for the project.
17:41:05 There are three stages we've broken this into. The first one, January through March, we're developing information we're setting up our outreach venues that will, in March through
May, we'll be meeting with the public, having public meetings, open houses Andâ¦
17:41:26 Getting comments about our comprehensive plan updates. And then May and June.
17:41:33 Anticipate this would begin going to the Board of County Commissioners for their review so far what we're so far experiencing is that we'll probably
17:41:46 It may be June, July, or something close to these dates. Our schedule may extend a little bit. We'll talk about that more in a moment.
17:41:55 Next slide, please. This is not going to be available at this scale.
17:42:03 What I've outlined is we've been doing planning for these meetings. So top room was this meeting tonight meetings one, two, three, and four are or meetings on the road for the
planning commission to meet in the communities.
17:42:19 So meeting number one, we're going to have a kickoff in Port Hadlock at WSU Extension Center, which is our new regular venue.
17:42:28 Planning nation. We hope to have a focus on the urban growth area at our first public open house.
17:42:38 Our second open house scheduled for March 5th at the Brennan community center our third outreach of March 19 at the Gardner Community Center.
17:42:52 And our fourth meeting, March 26th. Quilcine School is what we are attempting. It's still pending. We're still working on the venue.
17:43:00 And the time. The one you said you were going to talk about the urban growth area, you're talking about the Port Hadlac Fort Hadlock for Negro period.
17:43:10 We currently only have one. And how do you pronounce that?
17:43:16 Is there a preference whether or fuga? What is the flying commission believe?
17:43:20 I was frugal at first, but now I'm finally end up Yeah, we've had some discussions with our Prosecuting attorney's office of how do we land on a on a consistent name And so
we're so we're working that out. It's Irondale and port headlock uga
17:43:47 Which has been kind of a long-term name which called it Lindredale and Port Hadlock GA.
17:43:52 But the acronym is PHUGA. Leaves the eye out. So we're working on this and see what happens yeah Yeah. So you had a comment. There's only one mga There has only been one. So
you just mentioned UGA and i was thinking
17:44:11 We have to be careful now, don't i i do because there is a port townsend urban growth area yeah whose boundaries extend into the county yeah which the county ministers yeah
new new work that you've all done Next slide.
17:44:30 So we're working with the consultants to develop some posters and outreach materials for these open houses and The next couple of slides are just examples of the artwork and
the And⦠update. They're fabulous. Thank you, Carolyn.
17:44:56 Next slide.
17:45:02 Okay. Well, this is an example of an element where we're looking at goals and policies and asking for the public's input.
17:45:10 Goals and policies. Next slide.
17:45:16 Okay, this is a diagram that appears in our public participation plan that you may have all seen.
17:45:25 Apologize for the lack of density with this projector. I wanted to point out two things.
17:45:32 This is our 2025 update web page our public engagement hub this is our community development web page. We've got a lot of information about the update project We've got a dedicated
email for people to submit their comments.
17:45:49 And we have instructions on how to submit or what makes a good comment we've got a good goals and policies from our old plan that people thank you can review and start to review
and start generate ideas of updates.
17:46:07 The second thing I want to point out is our community-based organizations.
17:46:11 And those, we've been calling them cdos that comes that term comes from the department of commerce they've provided grant funds for community-based organizations to assist counties
with the development of their comprehensive plan updates.
17:46:27 And so we've engaged a number of them. Next slide, please.
17:46:36 The bolded text, the entities on the top are actually funded by commerce grants, Bayside Housing and Services.
17:46:44 We're working with FutureWise to do outreach in connection with the Quileute and home tribes Puget Sound Partnership is assisting us as well um in any way that they can.
17:46:57 Are going to ask them to review it against their checklists and perhaps provide input on our environment element, engage Jefferson County.
17:47:06 Been helping us with the a new climate element that we're required to put in the comprehensive plan And along with those requirements are investigations into um diversity, equity
and inclusion and areas there's also the term for areas that may have disparate impacts.
17:47:29 As far as climate change, there is where We made you think about particular disadvantaged populations.
17:47:40 So Engage Jefferson County is helping us with that along with the Climate Action Committee.
17:47:47 Other outreach that we do that are not grant funded community-based organizations include housing solutions network at Jefferson Trails Connection.
17:47:57 Jefferson Land Trust, those are examples of community organizations that are really invested into certain topics that we have in our comp plan and can assist us All right, next
slide.
17:48:09 This is just a screen capture of our Jefferson County web page with our 2025 comp plan Age.
17:48:19 And where to give comments, how to give comments. Et cetera. Next slide.
17:48:29 Now, along with our agenda in our discussion about our discussion about participation and planning.
17:48:39 These are some ideas that we can use as prompting, facilitating ideas for your discussion to come tonight.
17:48:49 Whether it's about the comprehensive plan public outreach methods and our neighborhoods, the kind of messaging that we bring forward or strategies for outreach.
17:49:02 If you look in the public participation land. There are a lot of messaging helps within that plan for that plan climate resiliency, the kinds of questions you might ask for
the community.
17:49:18 Also, the middle housing portion of our public participation plan things you may talk to different stakeholders in your community.
17:49:28 So I encourage you to take a look at the public participation plan. It's posted on our website.
17:49:33 And the board endorsed it on October 9th we had the a resolution that accepted that as our strategy.
17:49:42 Next slide. Okay. So other pieces of information that we wanted to be sure we shared with you is when we're working on the 2025 comp plan update and the technical areas ordinance
we're going to let them be on their own
17:49:59 Time frames or their own schedules but run it concurrently. We feel that with some of the changes we are thinking about or the state wants us to address in our critical areas
ordinance Specifically.
17:50:14 Cite potential tree height measurement as a buffer measurement We might need more time to work on critical areas ordinance rather than waiting till the comp plan is done and
then start looking at adopting regulations for the comp plan we're going to start that, or it has been started along with our comp plan update
17:50:35 Any questions about that? Okay, and the other item is that our project grant funding ends June 30th.
17:50:44 Of this year. So we want to get as much done as we can while we have those grant funds The project will likely stretch past June 30th. Our third point is estimating it to be
August, September.
17:51:00 Before we're completed um and so the legislature has extended county's comprehensive plan updates till the end in this group that we're in till the end of december So otherwise,
it started out to be we have to get this done by June 30th, but they've
17:51:23 Allowed that that deadline to go out to December.
17:51:28 So what that means for us is we want to make hay while we've got some grant funds It'll likely continue further. And so that'll be another decision point as we get to July.
17:51:42 Extending a contract for consultants or seeing what we have left in the shop.
17:51:48 Any questions about that? You just started with a possibility of extending contracts not increasing well maybe also increasing Extending the animated.
17:52:00 Yeah, that's a possibility. We've done that in the past through a contract amendment.
17:52:07 We're being pretty conservative in our budget, so we might have some money left over at the end of the year or in June.
17:52:12 When we anticipate running out, but we'll see how that stands out.
17:52:16 Okay, so let's see, next slide is my prompting slide that we're now shifting into our discussion point of the evening.
17:52:25 But I do want to ask you because i've covered What we've been doing this last year and what we're anticipating doing this 2025.
17:52:35 Does anyone have questions for me of anything that I've covered?
17:52:38 Or left out that you want me to cover. One question I had was what's the next step on critical areas for us.
17:52:47 Let me think. The next step is for us to work with the consultant that's developing some proposals.
17:52:57 And we're working with the Washington Fish and Wildlife also in writing some proposals past them. So right now it's kind of incubating I believe we'll have something that will
be public along same time as we have our goals and policies updates so that um
17:53:17 Would be early February, I think is what we can anticipate having something that's tangible to look at.
17:53:25 In fact, not early February. Did you mean February? It's a little bit early. So I guess, okay, cool.
17:53:32 So Joel laid out the general schedule for the comp plan period update as being like the May, June timeframe where we're fully engaging with you on materials that you're reviewing
along with the public.
17:53:44 And we were hoping to be able to push the critical areas component a little bit ahead of that. So picture like after the short-term rental discussion.
17:53:52 We'll be jumping into the critical areas discussion again because that could, and I think Commissioner Brotherton remembers this from last time and others probably do It could
take a little bit longer to work through that process. So we wanted to make sure that we're getting a jump start on that and not waiting just because we're waiting for other materials
related to the comp plan to be developed.
17:54:08 Plus, it's all related essentially to the code and not the comp plan.
17:54:12 But ultimately, the critical areas requirement is part of the 2025 periodic update. That's one of the things we need to go back and take a look at.
17:54:20 That's what we're anticipating now. So essentially starting the process, see where we get, and either it's going to just connect right into the end game on the 2025 periodic
update.
17:54:29 Or if magically we can work through the critical areas process first, it's okay to adopt code amendments outside of your one time a year shot at doing your comp plan. So that's
how we're looking at it.
17:54:42 Probably more like probably march april time frame
17:54:50 What do you recommend for the work that we've been doing on housing?
17:54:55 On extending the prior work of you know many years several different types of proposals and What do you suggest for ways of overcoming the bottlenecks that we ran up against
and just a good proactive thing for us to do
17:55:13 Concurrently, you know, in a subcommittee or whatever Are there any suggestions thoughts about that?
17:55:22 That could be. We do have We have a grant to work on middle and where middle housing by definition would occur is probably in the urban drove area, the Port Hadlock's urban
drove area.
17:55:37 So we don't have specific scope with the consulting and grant money regarding the rural cluster housing concept that's going to come from our own time in a sense.
17:55:52 And so I think one of the bottlenecks that that you experience with this last time or last two years actually is actually finding a way to codify or put into a development regulation
how this would work in a way that
17:56:15 That can be regulated or administered, I should say And that's kind of in a way that's cheap for them.
17:56:25 They're cheaper for the person who doesn't have to do a lot of special reports and things like that. My question is, do we do that first that's really Seems like what we should
do first.
17:56:33 And before I would need to chime in just because another follow-up conversation um that George and I had also I was asking for just 10 minutes or so of everyone's time today
just to let you know that as uh
17:56:47 Chair of the subcommittee on Housing. We're approaching several things kind of at once Where we've got some ideas that we think can creatively start to be utilized conforming
with GMA requirements and RCMWA loan rural character and all the other elements that
17:57:06 You know from septic and waters and environment and You know, everything.
17:57:13 A couple of ways within the current code and using definitions and even clarifying definitions that aren't to suggest that kitchen is a room you prepare food in you know so
we've got three kitchens and just about every house you know
17:57:26 My office has got a microwave and I cook up stuff and then there's the pantry and the kitchen and the dining room where they close out too many so I think there are ways to
tighten up.
17:57:35 And we've been exploring some of that in the subcommittee. I prepared a document that george and i are going to review like a planner's ideas about hey kevin this is high fruits,
don't bother for this reason or hey that that might be a way of actually getting to where we're trying to get
17:57:53 It's also in time with the new to the Senate bill or the House bill is dealing with GMA and rural housing and how to improve it.
17:58:03 I'm not convinced that what they're suggesting based on what I'm reading about that bill is the right methodology but the fact that we're talking about it and you know it's
a good time for us.
17:58:15 Because what they're proposing in the build is that a committee could be anybody decides what those other jurisdictions like Jefferson County could do in a way of increasing
housing in rural areas.
17:58:30 And still conforming with little character. One of the approaches we're taking with that rural character, which is such a hard and fast rule to how it's developed in the county
If you imagine, and we'll have examples of this but there's the typical farmstead where it's got the
17:58:48 The house, the barn, the tool shed, the chicken coop, the pig pen.
17:58:54 Hay barn and maybe a silo Well, now it's a house and accessory dwelling unit, an additional accessory housing unit and maybe a dupe you know If we know that the site itself
can provide the water and that the stormwater and the soiled water can all be treated on site, then it's not going to harm
17:59:15 The local site, parcel land environment And we might be able to utilize the conservation district in ways that allows us to get free access to plans and help with creating something
that is then once a year annually certified that yes as per plans and permit and the
17:59:34 Homestead plan, home plan similar to a farm plan. All of these interactions with the site have happened and things are alive and thriving and everything's great.
17:59:45 And maybe it goes for a certain period of time and then it's, you know, once every two years or three years there's a review or whatever, but it then allows us to put more heads
in beds in the rural community
17:59:57 Where the jobs that are out there on the farms or near the farms and the orchards in the rural community and they can be services fixing tractors or whatever it is.
18:00:09 It just seems like there is a way to get there.
18:00:12 We're working on it now that we'll pull in some plan and some of my citations are planning and other types of development in the planning community their studies have shown
the improvement in health mental health physical health of individuals i mean there's just
18:00:28 A lot of things. It's similar to cluster, but you're taking the urban out of it and you're just saying it's rural now. Well, gee, how do we do it and how do we do it in rural
character?
18:00:37 So that's been our recent approach, just to let everybody know, love to hear from everybody you know if you've got more interest, we can talk more about it one-on-one.
18:00:47 And meantime kind of getting the next layer of planners perspective and and whatnot in how we're approaching it in the subcommittee and then we decided for you know uncut bait
or fish.
18:01:00 Can I ask a question? Sure. Yes. I know that i know i know that from planners I've heard from the planners a little pushback in years past about like the eco-ED idea and some
of these problems or suggestions because of the luxury we have of an affirmative right to an ADU on every single family house. We don't want to lose that right as San Juan County did
as when they pushed too far, right?
18:01:27 And now I believe it's sort of the state precedent that the affirmative right has been passed around the state and also with the new on-site septic code ADU requirements have
gone from you know the traditional 240 gallons per day, like a single family house to 120
18:01:46 And environmental public health is hit to that as well. So those places that had one ad could they have two ADUs with the same septic system? I guess I'm just wondering, is
the fruit getting lower on that tree? I'm curious.
18:02:01 Dcd's thoughts and how that nests with your guys' thoughts. It's been a big help from my perspective and another um interesting element was when we were putting the septic system
here just outside of town on the middle road The fact was that they got it down to 75 gallons.
18:02:20 For him as opposed to you know greater numbers and it was because based on soil and there was a trigger involved single family residents.
18:02:30 As soon as that was part of the mix, sorry, it's got to be a different memo. So you're right with the accessory drilling unit it comes down And I think also if we get into creating
our own, let's say it's a bunkhouse.
18:02:42 Doesn't have a kitchen. It's not a dwelling. All right, my soils can allow for 50 gallons And I can put 12 people in there and Six of them working on my farm and three of them
are working locally at a mechanic shop. It just becomes
18:02:58 Another different way of different leading the demand. And I think in a science sensible environmentally as well as human conscious way so And just like for the planners, my
question is really is the risk lower to try to push that threshold because of the kind of the state law catching up with our
18:03:22 Interpretation of that. My review of the review legislation last couple of years, there's been a lot of housing legislation requiring adus to higher density release relieving
people from parking requirements, things like that.
18:03:44 This legislation has all been in reference to urban areas and um the GMA seems to or the legislature seems to really protects that rural category and So in my phone conversations
with like mrscr trying to find some example or traction
18:04:08 Through the avenue of farm worker housing or what are they doing out in in Yakima county or the county migrant farm worker population and how are they handling housing It's
all been from the perspective of an urban area, an urban growth area.
18:04:26 With infrastructure not on septic. So it is still unique. I think just by the legislature having these discussions trying to address the great gives us more foundation to push
the envelope a little bit But I haven't found⦠specific answer myself.
18:04:48 How do you not violate GMA? Or how do you develop it's probably what we've been approaching it is how do we develop such an irrefutable argument that everyone be ashamed to
not allow us to do this. Which is what the hearings were asked for i mean that's why
18:05:07 For interjecting then. When we started this process, looking at clown county and the ruling on their ADU expansion.
18:05:17 And how they said you didn't do enough homework.
18:05:22 To make sure you're going to do this right. This is too much of a blanket expansion.
18:05:28 There's no rural specifics in here. There's nothing you know it was like a non-proposal proposal ecologically.
18:05:37 And with regard to other services so there's So we started working on the concept is that people in the cities are waiting for us to come up with a solution.
18:05:50 We can't go to the city. So we looked at the green building program In Seattle, the pilot project program and adapted those ideas for kind of what kevin's talking about in a
similar way what he is developing is a new approach to describing how the ideas fit role character which is
18:06:08 One of the elements. Sorry. Something I was just going to point out that there are a number of four as of last Thursday when I was in Olympia.
18:06:20 Pieces of legislation right now. Supporting flexibility for housing and landmers.
18:06:27 We have specifically been asking for longer than I've been a commissioner the legislature is starting to get used to that being part of the conversation and two of these bills
the Washington Association of Counties, which is not a bastion of progressive policy.
18:06:47 Is actively supporting. And so I think the tenor at the state level is changing in terms of the urban rural conversation and um it'll be interesting to see which of these proposals
makes it through.
18:07:10 We do now allow family development in our landlords in our rural building centers I guess there's another part of the question is why hasn't this happened? What does it take?
18:07:23 As far as infrastructure and economic development or population to allow some of these things to go forward also.
18:07:33 So back to what you were saying, Greg. So my understanding is back when we did the udc around the turn of the century.
18:07:44 We decided that we would have an ADU for every rural parcel in addition to the main dwelling.
18:07:50 And that the size of that 80 would be equivalent to the standard manufactured home size.
18:07:55 Which is, I think it's almost maybe 450 square feet more than Fort Townsend for example in their ADU policy. At least that's what it was.
18:08:03 Until, as Joel mentioned, the cities are now forced to to try to come up with ways to allow two ADUs or they have to allow two ADUs per parcel, just like we're going to be doing
If we haven't already, I think we might have taken care of this last year with our own port engineering but that's again with urban services.
18:08:18 Anyway, back to the ADU question. And then as you brought up San Juan County was challenged on their policy And didn't fare so well at the hearing sport. And that put the rest
of the counties on notice because the hearings board basically said.
18:08:30 Well, we're not going to go and make every other county change their policy to conform to what we've just decided here.
18:08:36 But then if you start changing your own policies, that does open you up to a challenge, which is one of the reasons why I think over the last few years, there's been some reticence
to be on the leading edge of that particular issue because we already are we already have a fairly liberal policy.
18:08:50 And in just speaking with other planning directors around the state.
18:08:52 Seems like every county has a different policy about this. Some people were amazed to hear like, really, you've allowed ADUs on every single parcel for 25 years? I said, yeah.
18:09:01 No one's really said boo about it. We're lucky, I guess. And others, you know, others maybe have other policies that are similar to ours. Anyway, my understanding though is
that the ADU bills, and there were several of them last session
18:09:13 Did not pass. And then there was maybe maybe you know something I don't about what's happening in this session But I thought that there was still some talk about an ADU, but
the last ADU bill that I saw, not a Lamard housing bill, but an ABU bill.
18:09:27 Was actually, in a sense, worse than our current policy because it actually the square footage was lower than what we currently allow and so The good news would be sort of a
blanket policy across the state that would essentially enable what we've been doing for 25 years. The bad news is that it's actually worse than what we currently have. So again, I think
that the climate around that is
18:09:46 Changing. So maybe we'll maybe with increased understanding that there'll be some more I guess courage on the part of the legislators legislators, if you will to go for something
that to codify something in the law that a lot of counties are already doing
18:10:02 But there is another side of the story. Apparently you know legislators that are that are on the other side of that thinking that and perhaps in conjunction with other groups
that that's too much of a change from what GMA wanted in the first place, which again, I don't think GMA was
18:10:19 Was direct about it i think it was just more rural character, but I don't think it said yes or no to adhu specifically in the act right so So I think these things are being
worked out. But the last thing I heard was that no bill had passed. So I don't know if you have something. I think I was thinking about the urban ability to have two. Okay, yeah, that's
more like you have to do it.
18:10:36 And isn't that why we are the authority on this? Because we wrote our rural parents.
18:10:42 Fortunately, the hearings board is the only character. We're the authority on what that means.
18:10:49 And I'll go back to what you said, Matt, earlier. So your original question was, what is this year's work plan? How does that particular question fit in so I guess I would say
that, as you know, you've been in the planning commission and you in particular have been working on this issue for a few years now
18:11:02 We were able to get some of the elements passed in the last couple of years, some of the elements changing the definition of family to take away a constraint I know that you've
had conversations. We've been working with our building official with respect to the building code issues between residential and commercial and
18:11:20 Definition of the kitchen, for example, and what's a sleeping quarters. And by the way, we do allow for example like satellite bedrooms on a parcel. Already you've got stuff.
Again, this is us, I think, pushing the envelope a little bit.
18:11:33 It's all about the building code and the health code in that regard. And I think you had a a visitor from environmental health. I wasn't here at that meeting last year and talked
about some of the constraints from that direction.
18:11:42 I know that our own environmental public health is working on their own health code right now. So I'd say there's an opportunity to have conversation in that direction because
we have a conversation around planning up until the point where we hit up against the health codes. And I know that our commissioners are part of the
18:11:58 Of the Board of Public Health. What about the deputy prosecuting attorney's office is it worth discussing what's legitimately possible before we dig in too far.
18:12:07 She'll meet earlier rather than later. I guess I would say, okay, so back to your original question. What's going on this year? We are working on the comp plan has elements
that cover a variety of things.
18:12:17 We're focusing on compliance with the periodic update meaning that within the housing element, for example, as you know, we have to do some things that we've never done before,
which is to try to plan for different income bands. That's a whole new thing. That's what we'll focus on with our consultants.
18:12:33 That said, though, anything that's related to that is on the table. So if the planning commission were to dive further into the regulations that you see in the Unified Development
Code that aren't doing what you want them to do. And I think that's been our message pretty consistently all along like
18:12:49 We've talked about some policy and things. We've made some code changes.
18:12:53 If there's something policy wise we should touch in the housing element, it's on the table this year. If you want to work with the housing subcommittee of the Planning Commission.
18:13:01 And come up with a package of regulations with some staff assistance, whether it's George or Joel.
18:13:08 And then you want to run that through, you want to run that through a legal risk analysis. Yes, we can do that. The question is, can we do it all in one year? But I think paying
attention to the legislative session to see what they're doing is one thing we shouldn't doing. And some of our neighbors or other jurisdictions. But yeah, some of the things we might
just have to be making up ourselves.
18:13:26 I want to encourage everybody to feel good about that because I think that people are waiting on us or whatcom or Island County or somebody another, you know, like you mentioned
san juan so there's some counties We can learn from all those failures.
18:13:41 And I do believe that we're a great county of Florida.
18:13:45 An idea that can make a statewide compromise. I will say this. I know Heidi just says she goes down to Olympia almost every week or every week now. So a new role for Heidi.
18:13:54 And I meet with my planning director colleagues from especially in the county level across the state. We have a our own sort of usually when the when the city and the county
planning directors meet in the fall it's like dominated, I would say, by the cities because there's more cities, right? Like only 39 counties.
18:14:14 But we've got our own Washington State Association county and regional planning directors organization that I've been roped into essentially on the board of that group. So we're
planning a two-day conference in Ellensburg for the spring And housing is absolutely something we've already started talking about and will be talking about. So I guess I would say
as an offer.
18:14:34 You've got a set of questions or theories or ideas that you want me to run by colleagues around the state, other counties that are wrestling with the rural housing issues, then
happy to carry that. And I attended that one time um on brent's behalf
18:14:50 And I had to talk. It was really popular the ideas and We haven't gotten very far since, but I think that to ask a question of the ecology rep.
18:15:00 And I said, is the state ready for a comparable to organic standard for housing?
18:15:06 And I just asked a question and he looked at me. He said, I don't know.
18:15:11 Which was the most fascinating answer from you know the person giving the speeches.
18:15:18 Encouraging to me. Everybody was nice. Mason County, you know. Directors from neighboring counties love what we're doing. They want us to succeed.
18:15:29 So that's all that helps. Thank you so much for all that much outlining how we can help and while all this all these priorities are going on as well.
18:15:38 Can I follow up with one other question and that's So what are the opportunities in developing the housing elements for the comp plan which is the main body of war. And we put
this stuff in the last comp plan to lay out the groundwork for us to create this. So we're just still trying to implement the last comp plan but it's
18:15:55 You know, to include stuff is and i think there's also there are other definitions that we can clarify that i think will go a long way towards helping us um it becomes a dance
at some point.
18:16:09 You have a discussion with them well what makes it a you know what makes it a accessory dwelling it's a kitchen what makes it a kitchen uh of and why does the oven make it a
kitchen? Because it needs a vent
18:16:20 Okay, so I think that, yes, there are opportunities in this cycle to get some of these things changed that are going to help us and my example of kind of mimicking that farmstead
development but with more housing within it as long as the site conditions allow it
18:16:37 And we're able to improve on it, then we're able to That's one of those seems like a win-win. And we are trying to look at it in the eye of GMA very specifically looking at
their definitions and whatnot. And so, yeah, I think so.
18:16:55 I think so too. I like it. It's a good idea.
18:16:59 Thanks, everybody.
18:17:05 I had a question about poor headlock. Uga. That seems like it. Yeah, I do. And I'm going to ask a question. I expect a very broad answer it seems like an outstanding opportunity
to address affordable housing.
18:17:21 And where are we in that process? And this is for the commissioners, I guess, or for Joel.
18:17:26 Is that this seems like a now's the right time. Be thinking about it. Yeah, we're not going to single family home our way out of the housing crisis, right? No.
18:17:35 And so, yeah, density is really important. I mean, we had a presentation from Brent today talking about kind of figuring out the topology that would be appealing to people in
that. I think figuring out that landscape is critical, but we're kind of
18:17:54 Can't totally do it until you have the sewer in is my understanding kind of plan wise, right? I mean, just because, again, that conservative If you are changing the landscape
as you're building the infrastructure, you open yourself up to
18:18:11 But in terms of process. Brent, the chief strategy officer did run a series of design charrettes toward the end of 24, I guess it was kind of late third quarter George, I got
to participate in that from the housing perspective and
18:18:32 And it was basically taking some middle housing concepts through study of other housing solutions in other communities and and really kind of asking the community a series of
questions Where do you want to see housing? What kind of housing do you want to see do you
18:18:54 Do you appreciate this concept of middle housing? What do you like about it? What do you you know and why it was it was a very detailed conversation where he captured a lot
of concepts in community participation. So I'm looking forward to seeing sort of a distillation
18:19:12 Of what was learned there, which will then be fed into the comp plan process as well. So I know there's been a lot of of focused work. I'm trying to really understand how middle
housing could play a role and specifically in that
18:19:31 Just to add on to that, Heather's describing work that Brent and others did starting last year, maybe in late the year before And there was a memo that Brent came up with at
the end that had a lot of information about
18:19:43 What he learned from talking to developers I know there's when you did that outreach some of that information we've already done and planning commission was involved in that.
We made some changes to our Part of our title 18 unified development code that relates to the Port Haddock Urban Growth Area. We made some changes to those urban standards
18:20:06 To try to prepare for the availability of sewer in the year 2025. And here we are sewer As far as I understand, there's been no change to the schedule that it should be available
May, June, July, somewhere in that time frame.
18:20:18 This year, we expect sewer to meet available. We also have regulations that enable applications to come in for land use review prior to that sewer becoming available.
18:20:29 And we anticipate an application from Habitat for Humanity in the month of February to to prepare for their 134 or whatever 136, thank you. 136 unit development near the county
library So we already did. And one of the things we did to help enable that to happen is we changed, we made sure that we had something called unit lot subdivision provisions within
our urban code, something that we mimicked actually from
18:20:54 Fort Townsend and Port Angeles. Essentially, we're becoming city planners. We've been county planners all along and we're in a sense trying to learn a lot more about urban planning
now that we really have a sewer coming When those urban standards were adopted almost 25 years ago, 20 years ago, we knew what we knew then and a lot of things have changed in the world,
in the state and in our own community. So we're trying to catch up. So I think the second half of that
18:21:16 Would be to take some of the other concepts that Brent laid out. I mean, we even talked about things like moving away from traditional urban densities as reflected in minimum
and maximum dwelling units per acre to more of a
18:21:29 This is the townhome area and this is this area and it's based more on imagery and things around mental housing. The other thing we're doing, as Joel mentioned.
18:21:37 Is a fairly small grant, but it's part of our update for 25.
18:21:41 Is that we took a look at the state's offering of a model middle housing ordinance And we've been in conversations with other communities. I think George has been paying attention
and participating in some virtual meetings planners around the state and others
18:21:55 And we basically want to make sure that we want to make sure we're not artificially or inadvertently limiting mental housing opportunities where we're investing all this time
and effort into building a sewer headlock. So we're also doing that.
18:22:10 Did that answer your question? Anything else? Raises questions for me, like where are these developers coming from? I don't know, maybe this is a question for LD or Kevin, but
I mean, we're We're a community of single family home builders, right? And the
18:22:27 The profit, the model, the investment model for building these is different and it hasn't panned out so far and you know we're not going to get the multifamily, I think Joel
asked, why aren't we getting multifamily development in our landlords that we allow it in now and and
18:22:42 Is it because we don't have homegrown multifamily developers or is there something we can do to create that kind of skill set and investment pattern.
18:22:51 I see you, John. I know we're we're building some in Brennan in PR too, but we're talking, you know, really small scale too, right? I mean, that.
18:23:01 How do we grow it from the ground up so brand how many landwards do we actually have? No, Wilson's a Lambord, Chimicum, Wawa Point, there's two in Brennan.
18:23:11 Not to Lamorous, but it's where rural village centers are like the main ones, right? Discovery Bay.
18:23:18 But there's like neighborhood crossroads. There's all different categories. Well, it's really different from a developer standpoint because, you know, it has to pencil out.
And I think what what we've been seeing here is that the only way it pencils out is because there's other assistance money that's coming in to be able to
18:23:38 I mean, before I lived here, I built multifamily housing in california And we used to do it all over the place. But a big part of it was the infrastructure was already there
and the ground was reasonable. And even, I mean, I keep looking at the
18:23:57 Port Hadlock UGA and say okay how many other large parcels are there that can be either rezoned or whatever for multifamily housing Does Port Hadlock have? I mean, not that
many. I mean, the where where Habitat is going to do development in the old runway
18:24:17 And that was that was a prime one but there's prime one There's a few. There's a few, but not very many.
18:24:24 Not enough to look at it from a development standpoint. Wow, this is a great spot 300 or some of the commercial zoning class areas that are open Yeah, but there's a real, there's
always been a real hesitate to see on the accounting side from rezoning that away from the commercial side to be able to do it.
18:24:46 I mentioned that there's, you know. There can be flexibility, I know.
18:24:51 Well, a lot of the commercial area has large greenfield areas that Some of the landowners are interested in developing housing on the drainfield portions.
18:25:01 Behind the ghibli Center, for example. But that economy of scale that you're talking about is really critical. It's actually really similar to what Brent was telling us today
the experience that you had when you were going out for designers to get the stock plans.
18:25:19 You know submitted and realized nobody's applying. Why isn't anybody applying? And he realized You know, in Seattle, if somebody applied, they would then be able to say, okay,
if I'm going to do this for free. I'm going to make my money because a bunch of people are going to then buy these plants from me, right? He was describing this to us today.
18:25:42 And this is whereas here he had to then go and get some grant dollars to support that because we realized these designers weren't actually going to make a better money doing
that because of this economy issue. And I think we run up against that in other ways.
18:25:59 In the county as well, there are those kind of tipping points for making money on these kinds of deals and if you can't hit that same with hotel development. Can't get a number
of keys it's not worth building.
18:26:12 And that's similar, you know, same with multi-family. Is it the third owner of a hotel can actually make a profit exactly I think you were mentioning drain fields.
18:26:25 I didn't finish that. How are rainfuels impacted?
18:26:29 Because when a consumer goes in, you won't need that reserved drain field area. You can use that land. So that's land that'll be buildable with the sewer.
18:26:39 So there's a number of commercial parcels of land and residential and RV parks like the areas around Farino's Pizza and the dental office i mean all those big grass areas are
all there's cool. And all the lots throughout padlock where
18:26:57 How sits on one and drained almost on the second lot. Theoretically it should be Peninsula Housing Authority has a lot of drain field area around their apartments and have block
that they're talking about building Yeah, that number of apartments again adjacent to their existing apartment so there's
18:27:16 It's not like we've been sitting out and headluck not thinking about these opportunities.
18:27:21 That's why Habitat's doing what they're doing. And it was because of a conversation we had at Community Foundation board meeting that I was like.
18:27:28 We need to start looking at the zoning within the UGA, the future uga and figure out where we can figure out where we can do dense housing.
18:27:38 And then now we have habitat building 136 units of housing on that airstrip.
18:27:43 Because it was for sale, you know, and I was like, someone needs to buy that now.
18:27:49 So it's just this Just going to take somebody with the vision.
18:27:56 I think also it takes the sewer. Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, we're all excited to see what's going into you no wonder why the Lamins aren't being drilled. There's no
infrastructure, right? The amount of infrastructure going in. Guess what's going in down to Black Point. Let's get Black Point rolling. It's in at Brennan.
18:28:13 We go by it all the time. It goes right by the post office and the fire department and the school. We aren't hooked up to that, but we still pour very good sorghum down.
18:28:22 There's not enough capacity. They're full in the summer. It's one of those things where it's interesting I worked with the developer on Rainier Street that developed you know
36 apartments. The reason it went in, infrastructure was there. $800,000 compared to a similar project I just did in Pierce County. If we can utilize the ones that we have and that
we've got and that we're getting.
18:28:45 You know, that's how we're going to be kickstarting those areas um The Lammers are just not everyone's got water. There's no fireflows. There are so many other things going
on there that it's a large mountain to climb And toâ¦
18:29:07 For us to hope that the project sector is going to come in and do something about it. Well, again, let's let private sector come in and do it where they can and doing it in
a great way. So let's go.
18:29:17 Let's get that going and let's get that You know, we've got headlock rolling. We can get Black Point rolling. Maybe we can get something figured out. I mean, the last time I
talked to state officials about, I thought we already solved that, Kevin.
18:29:29 No, we're still going right by there with it. And we've got flood you know and fema we got all kinds of issues in different areas that um I think are challenging.
18:29:45 I can say from a developer's point of view, if they immediately looked at regulations that were stopping them and talked to the city we were able to, for instance, put residential
on the bottom level and we didn't have to build it 12 feet tall
18:29:56 Those are two regulations that were killing the project that during that sub area plan, we were able to negotiate Because of some buying in during the process, the developer
got his ideas through And they all work out. And then when it came to storm water and they said connect here and here with your pipe and you're good
18:30:16 He was like, all right, this is a done deal. And we got more apartments. Originally, density only allowed 27 apartments and we got 36.
18:30:25 After that plan revision or regulations and notice not another one has gone in in any of that area and i can tell you why They have to be 12 foot and have commercial on first
level right we're planning ourselves out of housing literally
18:30:39 And we can change that conversation to plant ourselves into it.
18:30:47 Can I say something? As as a farmer.
18:30:51 And I'm looking at How much housing do we want to accept in this county?
18:30:58 Do we want my farm to be 60 houses or producing food for the people who are here.
18:31:06 You know we this is a rural county so and how do we preserve the rural nature of the county.
18:31:16 And my farm was one of the original homesteads in closing the 650 acres, a section of land.
18:31:24 My 50 acres are all that's left and it's under continuous pressure you know people i get developers once a week wanting to buy my land and other farmers do too.
18:31:35 So You know, I have a lifestyle I want to preserve I mean, we need housing.
18:31:44 How do we feed the people? I grew up in Kitsap County. I watched all the farms go away.
18:31:49 And we can see we have food security in this county right now so how What do we do to protect the farms?
18:31:59 And I can put an ADU on my farm. There's three families who live on my farm.
18:32:06 Oh, I don't think one of them is legal, probably, because it was there before I bought it but um You know, so where's the balance here?
18:32:16 Do we want to just keep growing and growing until we're like Kitsap County and Seattle or do we want to keep our farms and keep our rural places. And I know that only 20% of
the land in this county or less, 17%, I think, is developable land because of the park.
18:32:34 But I feel like we also have a responsibility to preserve the clean water that comes out of the park and the farms are a filter that takes the the water that goes into the bay
So where do we get the balance here?
18:32:53 I think that rural housing thing we've been working on is such a good balance. I mean, that's what we've been working on and also you know all the pro foreign language in the
plan and And also, uh.
18:33:08 A reasonable drill environment pro farmer critical areas I think we're all with you. I know when we talk about housing in rural areas, don't think that we're We're not talking
against it. I understand that but there is there's My point isâ¦
18:33:28 Do we want to keep growing and growing and growing? Or do we want to say, okay, there's a finite number of amount of land we can growth is inevitable. I mean, the state has
been growing since its inception and it's not going to stop. We can't say well then who's going to feed the people if growth is inevitable and there's houses everywhere. I mean, that's
what we're really talking about. We don't want to sacrifice farms we want to
18:33:53 That's why UGAs are actually really supportive of of what you're talking about because they actually concentrate where we can and agree we will develop keeping it less developed
in other areas and so those are really good tools to keep that going
18:34:14 I also have seen some communication going around Both because the city's comp plan is happening at the same time as the cost of the county's swap plan happening and there are
a couple of groups that I've asked to kind of jump into that are trying
18:34:30 To make sure that both urban farming and urban adjacent farming so urban farming within the city's co-plan and urban adjacent within the counties is maintained as a high priority.
So there are some groups that are kind of pulling together to make sure to add that voice to the comp planning process will truly supports your balance on set.
18:34:52 So I know there are people really trying to make sure that that that balance of voice is always there.
18:34:59 For us reminding us that that's nuclear.
18:35:06 I appreciate you speaking on it too. It's important. It is really important. Well, we also have a county that is big on recreation with the parks and the waterways.
18:35:19 And⦠farmland is the filter that keeps the bait. And I think it's incredibly important to to keep large hunks of land.
18:35:32 And, you know, my farm that used to be a section of land is on 50 acres now So how much you know how much How much more will it get diluted?
18:35:46 You won't open my dead body, but I'm old, too. But⦠I just think the food supply and the rural lifestyle as well protected.
18:36:00 I mean, we have we bore horses on our farm and we keep it affordable for middle class people to ride and very very it's it's I think our board is half what it is in Port Townsend.
18:36:15 So that my goal is to make to provide not just farming but recreation for middle class people.
18:36:23 And that's a really, you know, we can't just to make things so expensive.
18:36:31 That we eliminate the middle class. Housing is kind of doing that right now though unfortunately you know the the market driven housing. Yeah, I understand that.
18:36:46 You need someone to work on your farm right oh yeah and we have we have housing on our farm but it's not legal housing it's been there for years.
18:36:55 But every you know if you every single farm in the county.
18:37:00 How skilled housing. What we're proposing is trying to legalize it in the fashion and that also protects the environment. That's honestly what we're talking about. We can codify
it.
18:37:11 Regulated in a way that is now you know all the septic systems are working as they should all the water comes in all the stormwater is being handled But there's also ways to
take that, say storm water. Why don't we throw that into a cistern that feeds our toilet tanks instead of the drinking water that we have to pump from
18:37:28 50 miles away in the lake yeah you know using smart systems like that to put less of an impact but all of it is infiltrated back on site filtered and discharged into the sand
you know just we keep it you know doing the right thing but
18:37:44 Do it in a way that's smart well and and you know like i have a will that draws 150 gallons and then i can But we irrigate out of that.
18:37:57 But it's I just⦠I think that.
18:38:05 We have to consider the feeding of this. Community also
18:38:16 And that resilience is also a part of this. Think of that plan.
18:38:21 Talking about ways to not just in supervised but regularly.
18:38:32 I'll say by February 5th, the draft after George and I get a chance to work on to a bit and I got another round of⦠And it's really mad. We'll clear that up.
18:38:44 To get everybody on board with where we're at and get everything back in. Well, the other thing that several of the farms that I know of have is we have salmon bear in the streams
that go.
18:38:55 And we are continually working to keep those open I crap and count the fry every year to make sure they're still getting up the stream.
18:39:08 That's something that we rarely talk about. Here is the what is it the natives say so goes the salmon is the health of the the land and the community around it and the community
around it So, you know, that's
18:39:24 We need to make sure that this whole ecosystem in this county, because we have a really rich ecosystem is protected from the fish to the land, to the housing And⦠That's just
my soapbox because I happen to Yeah, and the culprits that we now have replacing all of those throughout the Jefferson County so the salmon have a much i mean just looking at
18:39:51 The edges of the road where those converts come in so much further.
18:39:55 You know more natural than they used to but you know I don't know if you've noticed it yet but it seems like differences almost within weeks or months and i would be curious
what the fries lighter one so we're kind of drifting off housing
18:40:13 His father and his father Maybe we should go back to that. I'm sorry. They are an issue. Not for housing. Can I just make one comment that kind of brings them the two together
it's actually something you and I were talking about.
18:40:29 Before the BOCC meeting this morning i brought in I'm still kind of getting set up in my office and I'm setting up bringing in some new things.
18:40:37 And I have a⦠framed woodcut picture of a kingfisher i think it is.
18:40:47 That I got in 2007 from the Cascade Land Conservancy when I was asked to come and speak about the kind of the nexus between the built environment.
18:40:56 And land conservancy. And this was quite a while ago, right? 2007 when I was kind of coming from the historic preservation built environment side and we were really talking
about then and now need to continue talking about how these two conversations
18:41:14 Do need to live in the same room right and it's not it doesn't you know we can talk about conservancy and about food security and all of the ecosystem health and sustainability
and all the things that you're talking about, there are ways to have that conversation live in the same room
18:41:34 That we're talking about developments. And they don't have to be mutually exclusive.
18:41:40 Difficult, but there are ways to put those conversations together and have them support one another. And I think we need to find those nexus points more in rooms like this so
that we don't spin off into unsustainable development, that we are balancing it with the concepts that you're bringing to the table, but that it doesn't just stop.
18:41:59 The conversation about development because we need that too Well, and one of the things that i would like to see happen in dance Is it that it be on a big enough piece of land
where people we couldn't get all those houses on a one single house development but we could have
18:42:21 A multi-unit development and still preserve orchards and pastures and places for kids to have horses and pigs and And⦠all of that kind of stuff. So I think that's a concept.
18:42:36 We have to look at. I mean, I haven't had⦠grandkids in grandkids in Future Farmers of America.
18:42:48 They come all the way from Port Orchard to do projects on the farm because there aren't farms left in Port Orchard.
18:42:55 And I don't want to see that happen here. But I see those kids are going to be the people who are feeding us and um So if we decide together where to develop And we agree that's
where we're going to do it. I mean, that's what you did when you created
18:43:15 The UGA and it may not be the only place that you develop, but then you can decide, okay, in these other places, we're going to develop differently than we develop in PGA. Uga
is where we're really going to focus and we're going to go for it. We're going to get maximum housing there. We're going to build community there. We're going to use tools like middle
passing there.
18:43:36 That we might not use elsewhere. Yeah, well, I understand that. But then I'm saying that in the same boat.
18:43:44 New Ga brings in a large population of people, you have to have enough land. Green Ball is always bringing to the table. I think we've pretty much covered this.
18:43:54 Pretty well as you can see, housing is a very hot item for the planning commission And we've spent actually several years we have and i'd like to make one other point because
what both Heidi and christen said they're both accurate and part of what is already in what we're proposing. In the RCW rural character
18:44:16 Emphatically states over and over again the natural environment and the built environment and the two have to coexist. So that's absolutely part of what we're proposing And
when we're talking density, even the density of talking about is three to five not
18:44:30 Dirty or anything like that. It's still and the clustering like you were starting to drive towards that is part of the proposal. It has to be clustered because we do want to
preserve and that again maintains that rule character definition within moderation.
18:44:43 So all of what we're saying here is following along with what we're proposing And by February 5th, everyone will have a copy of it.
18:44:53 Solid. County adopted a middle class i believe versus office projections.
18:45:01 And then growth management steering committee was going to need and kind of assess how much of that goes in the city how much of that county And then I missed a bunch of meetings
this summer.
18:45:11 For other reasons. Where did that land? Apologies.
18:45:16 But how how many how much of that percentage are we looking to fit in there requesters are 401.
18:45:26 80% urban, 20% to rural allocation urban rural And the urban's 40%, Port Townsend, 40%.
18:45:39 We're working on our land capacity analysis now. With the consultant with the consultant still working with some preliminary data But as you've heard us talk about, we have
to this time around, the legislature has required us to look at housing by income band
18:45:58 And quantify housing mean by income band, and then also where geographically is this going to occur?
18:46:05 And so uh our preliminary information for the urban growth area for Port Havlon is that⦠we've got a high mean and we need more dense it's like this is just a recent conversation
with consultants with how can we we really need to amp up the density.
18:46:39 Or higher. Dwelling number of dwelling units per acre or something entirely new and entirely new project based density or something like that. So there's a lot of different
options.
18:46:52 But we don't have a high growth rate in the county.
18:46:57 Statewide, probably not. Jefferson County isn't fast growing county and so our numbers 5,900 people in 20 years by 2045.
18:47:08 And so that 80% to 80% to urban, I can't do it in my head tonight, but 2900 was the total.
18:47:19 So we're talking about 1400.
18:47:25 Same amount of portals in the bed. The residual or the 20 rural yeah but We're also struggling with how do we achieve certain, I guess, income bands have then been related to
housing typologies and how do we achieve these housing typologies
18:47:46 In the different parts of the county, you need infrastructure. So we might say, well, POSI now has a water tower. They've got fire flood maybe there's some allocation to that's
when the Rural Village Center.
18:48:00 But really, the Port Hadlop urban growth area is our opportunity with the sewer to provide these urban services and those urban densities that have been having to hold dogs.
18:48:12 So concurrent to all of this talk about planning that we're doing right now, the county's also been undertaking a community wildfire protection planning process And as part
of that, we're submitting a large about a million dollar community wildfire defense grant in the next
18:48:29 Month that I've been working on with a number of folks in the county. And I saw an article interestingly this morning from the sightline Institute um saying I forget what the
headline was, but it was like, we need to look at what Bend, Oregon is doing so i looked
18:48:45 And what they're doing is emphasizing infill development. And I think that that's something as a fire prevention strategy.
18:48:54 So I think it's important when we consider other external factors that we're thinking about in the community as we have these conversations.
18:49:01 How are we going to be prepared for the fires that we'll see here in the future?
18:49:06 And what's our best mechanism of defense and planning for how to allow for our communities to be able to respond to those and i think that it's it's a good time to look at interesting
articles like are coming out this morning from the Sightline Institute.
18:49:21 To see what Bend, Oregon is doing where they were planning to expand their UGA, but instead they emphasized the housing development within their existing UGA boundary.
18:49:35 To um to have a more compact urban growth area that was more defensible so Things like that need to be factored into this conversation and all the conversations we're going
to have over the course of the next few months as we do this planning work because it's
18:49:50 It's an external factor that we all are going to live with for the rest of our lives.
18:49:56 And I would suggest for the real character elements like any rural proposals should include a really high bar for engagement in that way.
18:50:04 I got to visit. Funny dune outside Santa Cruz this year.
18:50:12 And my friend was you know defending the greek i mean the whole community had to rally.
18:50:20 And after the fire, and I walked through tons of redwoods re-sprouting and everything. It's amazing with the fire.
18:50:27 Just⦠really scary of course And the community decided to get a giant water tank for the fire defense and things like that happened after but They could also happen as part
of moral character planning process to be like well you're living rally you have some responsibility
18:50:47 And this is how you can help. Also, we need to keep in mind the wildland and urban interface that nearly took effect this year It's still coming down as soon as they work out
all their inks and crossovers with energy code and building code and the rest of it so
18:51:04 It'll get here before long and anticipating and trying to think about how or why I moved that you know in my life like the whole you know, depends more even on the house scale,
it becomes what's defensible and whatever.
18:51:20 This is the interesting things for me about community planning because RN asked a question. I was thinking of an answer and then Joel started in and then And then Heidi brought
up something else. And then you brought that up and Matt brought up. So all of these things seem like there's these isolated exercises, whether it's the WUI or the coordinated wild
card
18:51:37 Community wildfire protection plan for the coordinated water system plan that we're also doing And there are isolated sort of individual projects and they represent milestones,
like I need to finish this 25 update. We need to update our CWSB, the coordinating web system plan
18:51:52 And of course, it's Itero, so we'll be touching these things again next year and the year after but It's an opportunity for us to try to meet that challenge of tying these things
together. When you start talking about making neighborhoods that are well defended against wildfire and
18:52:10 Then we're also talking about what about our water resources from here forward into the future do we have enough fire flow for those areas as well and where do we not have those
and we shouldn't perhaps be developing as we are now anyway without that assurance
18:52:23 Then we've got the wooey. Dnr was tasked with improving some of the products some of the mapping products that they started out with.
18:52:33 In order for them to be usable as planning products Our own building official, Phil Cesarean fire marshal.
18:52:40 Is on a committee to help DNR to give them advice who are participating in those statewide conversations.
18:52:46 Back to your question, Erin, in the sense of like where are we at with that stuff? So in the past, it's been a relatively simple exercise that preceded the city and the county
going about their planning you know the
18:52:59 Jointly, they would figure out which population projection we're going to choose and how we're going to allocate that and then just go from there.
18:53:06 And we did that. It's a little bit more complicated because now we have this model that we're we're required to use from commerce And we decided essentially at the end of that,
and you can look at the resolution that our board adopted at the end of that process, but we decided to go so far with it
18:53:20 And figure out some of the basics so that the city can march off and do their work and then we can march off and do our work. So actually it's up to This body commission to
advise the board on how we want to sort of fill out that model ultimately together with land capacity analysis and housing element and everything else we have to do in 2012 update so
18:53:38 Still on the table in a sense to do some of those details. I'd also just remind ourselves is These are planning numbers. Are we going to get exactly that number of people in
that number of years? But what we're doing is planning for that outcome because that's what the Office of Financial Management
18:53:55 Have told us that they think it's going to happen. That was a free california wildfire endless wildfires And then we got a lot of people saying, like.
18:54:09 Senator's very uh And she⦠In recent years.
18:54:15 It's something to be prepared for, Nance. I bought a guitar from one wind.
18:54:21 Great electric guitar, you know. Fritz has been standing up at the Board of County Commissioners meetings for decades saying The fires are coming. Yeah, that's right.
18:54:37 We might lose population and people get scared. I think that's a⦠you know we've talked about evacuation plans for our farm because we're right at the base of the National
forest and i think a county-wide evacuation you know what the fire down in Brendan was here evacuated
18:54:59 Lots of animals and people And it's something I think about a lot because having a pasture that gets dry in the summer, a fire could just roll right across it and keep right
on going down the And so I think it's a worthwhile thing to talk about is that
18:55:18 And then, like, I have a big well and a lot of people there's between the big quilstine River and the little quilstein River, there's like five streams that go between them.
18:55:29 There's a lot of water available for firefighting besides just in the bay.
18:55:33 So we need to have a little bit better plan for that kind of stuff.
18:55:40 Stress evacuation planning is part of the community welfare defense grant yeah it's one of the three legs of the stool we're building that grant on. That's great. That'll be
a big part of that grant.
18:55:50 Okay. Well, I was amazed at how many people evacuated animals from that Brennan fire. It was wonderful.
18:56:00 There's a lot of four-legged refugees on our phone A moment circling back to our own Iredale and Port Hadlock urban growth area was mentioned before and acknowledged that even
though our use table might say multifamily residential development is fine in our rural village centers, really the constraint is infrastructure of one type or another, depending on
which RVC you're talking about.
18:56:25 And then we're focusing on, well, we need the density for a pencil in padlock, how are we going to get there?
18:56:31 Is there enough vacant land? Is redevelopment going to be the answer to the question?
18:56:36 And then we've shown images you know red showed images in those stakeholder groups and we see like what we traditionally think of as middle housing in some of our bigger cities
and so forth.
18:56:46 There's another infrastructure constraint that I feel like I should bring up.
18:56:51 Which we just need to at least think about which is just the stormwater infrastructure Yes, we're building a sewer and we're starting in one section and it's been a long haul
and a lot of effort to get there and a lot of money to get that one sewer and of course it's
18:57:05 A system that can be expanded over time we can fill up more of the original UGA boundary or maybe even expand it But one thing that cities, and I think LD would probably acknowledge
this, like when he developed in other areas that were
18:57:18 Was ready for development. It's not just the sewer service. We've got a stormwater system set up. Most cities are stormwater cities That's a small city, but certainly bigger
cities like they collect and convey to a treatment facility. We don't have any of that in Hamlock really so
18:57:36 That's something that dr put we started a conversation with public works about, but it's like it's almost like one project at the time right but um i guess the habitat project,
just as an example fortunate enough to be able with that old airstrip property being big enough to be able to infiltrate the infiltrate on site with a
18:57:55 Pawn, right? But not every redevelopment project in downtown is going to have that luxury, even if you're using some of the space that was previously held for for the drain
field or reserve drain fields. And we got to think about a little bit
18:58:09 As a community, are we going to make that next step or can we seek funds and is that another project to try to get stormwater infrastructure such that you would actually have
those herbal style middle housing densities that you're envisioning.
18:58:22 What about a smaller infrastructure like a shared pond.
18:58:29 Smaller versions of it. It's just not here. Yeah, there's a lot of ideas in the stormwater management manual for western washington it's on the Department of Ecology's website
That's the guidance we've adopted in our code.
18:58:45 And⦠it has a lot of more urban things that we hadn't thought yet it's it's quite a Yeah, that's a lot. I think there are a lot of options to consider, Matt. I think, and
Joel probably has read it more than I have, but there is a storm runner analysis for the urban growth area of the padlock
18:59:07 And it basically said, we got great soils there, so we're lucky.
18:59:10 But I don't think it went as far as to say, you know, we're going to design a system or I think it basically planted on that question.
18:59:18 We do now have in our comprehensive plan goal or maybe it's in the policies to consider some kind of fee structure or implementing with stormwater some sort of classical payment
system.
18:59:37 As we develop. It's in there. It's been in there for a long, long time.
18:59:42 But maybe now is getting more attention. And I know one of the tools and toolbox is the impervious surfaces kind of thing so you've got a large structure and it's got a roof
and you've got a lot of storm water but it takes to be discharged into
18:59:58 The parking lot and all disperses on site I mean, it's almost Whenever I'm preaching how many parking stalls i've got and how many units it's a 50 50 kind of thing it's almost
like They drew from having its parking left in the site
19:00:15 So it seems like that with good soils obviously and all the rest but it can be you know, pervious surfaces could probably handle most of that I know there's additional cost
you know some of that But I certainly think that would be a very
19:00:35 There's the rain garden then you know you got area, human areas sometimes just to disperse There's peak flow, but The great thing about prairie service is they can take enormous
amounts of water.
19:00:47 More than it would ever come off of that platinum. A couple of pieces of our brain.
19:00:55 That would be good.
19:01:00 I think also the sequencing. That might work out well for us because my understanding is there's half a billion dollars almost budget for stormwater.
19:01:10 Almost none of that's been spent yet. I kind of back a little bit.
19:01:15 I don't know how much of that would be available to use that afternoon.
19:01:22 Can all be fair.s themselves. So⦠hopefully in a couple of years.
19:01:32 And also that Western Washington will impact development I mean, they got all the calculation and numbers and even the guidelines so they're initially We're talking about the
pervious concrete that realize static rotation of tires and creating solid surface impervious at certain locations and parking is all the rest of it
19:01:58 So a lot of good stuff is technical.
19:02:12 That's about housing. And as a preview of the coming attractions our latest thing about housing with short-term rentals.
19:02:22 And that⦠They spawn some many good interesting ideas in public on all sides of that topic, it was much more complicated than I would have imagined.
19:02:32 So we're going to be working on that. In the next few weeks and coming up with something to submit to you.
19:02:37 How many do you think we have in unincorporated Jefferson County?
19:02:41 Got a number in your head? Josh? Or the number that some consultants who specialize this have told us it's something on the order 400 or so that haven't been admitted.
19:02:57 Plus the 76 that are permitted I think that doesn't include 76. I think it was like 500 and something, but some of them repeats. So I think individual accounts but you know
We're going to dive into it and find out and we're gearing up
19:03:13 For a rush. For permits and things once we adopted hackers.
19:03:20 So what do you have? To make people who are not who are renting under the table, so to speak.
19:03:30 I mean, I could name a whole lot of people in quilts in doing that.
19:03:35 What? How are you going to get them to permit I mean, I know a lot of them, what's the rental organization go through hip camp?
19:03:47 Can you put pressure on an organization like that to like give a number that is in accounting.
19:03:56 Before you mention that, I think this is a question that's better addressed by the planning commission In the next several weeks we're still developing the ideas. So we'll let
that go for for now look forward to the conversation but i think we heard today that hip camp maybe and the camping ones aren't being addressed only the brick and mortar short-term
rentals, right?
19:04:20 So it's perfectly legal to have as many hippocampers as you want or not We're just not looking at it right now.
19:04:28 An environmental public health is going to look at i mean they're going to prioritize complaints about uh say sanitation issues right I mean, we have campgrounds in our code
and we just haven't contemplated the modern updated our regulations just like we're trying to update the short-term rental regulations so
19:04:49 That'll be our next stage. I will just add that, as I said to the planning commission in the email this week, late last week.
19:04:56 That we'll be adding the staff report together with the agenda for the February 5th meeting, including a public hearing so we'll let you know as soon as that's ready or just
send it to you.
19:05:08 And everything else, you know, the actual proposal as it is right now is up on the web and of course your recommendation will be what it is. So whatever recommendation you reach
that's what We'll go to the board along with the staff recommendation
19:05:21 And we're trying to get all that done before April 7th which is when the moratorium of suppliers.
19:05:30 For the conversation. Any other topics and the conditions, my commissioners would like to bring up this time I would add to help maybe answer the question, yes, the companies
who rent short term will be the focal point of enforcement they're going to be there.
19:05:47 That's part of what's reflected in the draft that court we've prepared based on conversations that you've had that at the very least the umbrella providers, the Airbnbs of the
world and so forth they'll have to they'll be involved and whoever wants to do
19:06:09 How does that kind of commercial business on their property? Have to show have to tell Airbnb that they have from the county.
19:06:19 We can address this at the Planning Commission meeting, I think.
19:06:23 And also at the last planning commissioner appointment will be getting an update on the black point that's going on down there and things are proceeding So is there any kind
of discussion that you can have on that?
19:06:37 Well, at the last meeting, I mentioned, for example, that it's been a while. We did all the work on that. We know that we went through a lot of the builder design, voter calculation
to all the work and it's just been going on for a while now and it's been something that's come up a couple of times in public
19:06:55 What's going on down there you know how is it developing is it developing? And wanted to get PCD's perspective of how things are happening and told that there were going to
be some discussions between the last meeting, I mentioned it today, so I don't know if there's any updates
19:07:13 On how things are proceeding down there and I have a short update, just in the sense of, as you know, there's a permanent application in place and then we'll be a public hearing
before a hearing examiner for preliminary approval so
19:07:28 So it is an administrative process, quasi-judicial network in that frame So I won't be saying much about it, really.
19:07:37 Except for that we're gearing up towards that. We're waiting for a response from the developer some specific review components from the initial submittal and and We met with
the developer last week in fact a couple of them are here and you want to ask them yourself but for a different perspective perhaps but we're just waiting for those materials so that
we can schedule that public hearing
19:07:58 No, no, because we receive those materials in order to then prepare staff for our scheduled public hearing but I'm hoping that happens as soon as possible. I wish I'd already
had.
19:08:12 Okay. Emails that they'd like to bring up. We've had a good discussion i think especially about housing There's nothing else.
19:08:24 I don't think so. Could I make a comment? I don't have any topic. I just wanted to thank the the board for coming to speak with us. It's a highlight of our year and we deeply
appreciate you making time to spend time with us.
19:08:42 I'm going to make it tomorrow. And congratulations. Oh, thank you.
17:38:42 From Mark McCauley to Jefferson County DCD (direct message):
Can you please change to presentation mode which will get rid of the thumbnails on the left?