Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to call this meeting to order for Thursday, January 2, the joint hearing with the Clark County Council and the Planning Commission. My name is Carl Johnson, and I'm the chairman of the Clark County Planning Commission. The role of the Planning Commission is to review and analyze comprehensive plan amendments, zoning changes, and other land use related issues. We follow a public process including holding hearings during which the public has an opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information.

In legislative matters, the role of the Planning Commission is advisory. The county council will hold separate hearings, consider our recommendations, and then make a final determination. The Planning Commission tonight's rules of procedure, the Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing and take testimony. All public comment received before tonight's hearing have been sent to the planning commission members and entered into the public record. County staff will first present, then planning commission can ask questions.

Next we'll invite the applicant to speak if there is one and then members of the public who wish to provide testimony. When we get to the public comment portion of our agenda, we will provide more information on how to participate both virtually and in person. However, if you're in person tonight and wish to provide comment on the hearing agenda item, please sign up via the sign up sheets in the back of the room. During public testimony, you'll have three minutes to speak and the remarks should be directed to the Planning Commission only. Please do not repeat testimony that has already been provided.

At the conclusion of public testimony, staff and applicant may respond to comments and the public portion of the hearing will then be closed. The planning commission will deliberate and make recommendations to the county council for both the virtual and in person members of the planning commission and staff. Please ensure that your microphones are muted unless you're speaking. Planning commission members, when you make a motion and or a second to a motion, please state your name to the court reporter. Do any members of the planning commission have any conflicts of interest tonight?

Yes. I have two that I'd like to raise as potential conflicts. Alicia Leduc Montgomery. The first is I'm self employed as an attorney and currently have a client with a pending case against Clark County. It is a civil rights matter.

It is not related in any way to growth management, but wanted to flag it. The second is that I previously represented the Friends of Clark County, in a prior lawsuit against the Washington Department of Natural Resources regarding the Dabbler Timber Sale. That also did not involve growth management act. And that case has been over for several months now. And so neither of these matters involve growth management act or comprehensive plan, and I believe I can fairly hear the testimony tonight.

Counselor, is do you have anything to add to that or we Sorry to put you on the spot, Chris.

Chris Cook, chief civil deputy prosecuting attorney, and I I believe that the commissioner's evaluation that her legal services had nothing to do with GMA. I think that's correct, and I think that that indicates that there is not a conflict of interest here.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you for being upfront with that. So Jeff, can we get a roll call please?

Brian

Halbert? Mark Burkfold?

Here.

Kyle Fadness? Here. Ron Barka?

Here.

Jack Haroun? Here. Alicia with Duke Montgomery?

Here.

Carl Johnson? Here.

I'd like to get an approval for the agenda for 01/08/2006. Can I get a motion and a second, please?

I'll make a motion to accept the agenda.

Commissioner Haroun, I accept it or second it.

We have a motion and a second. Can we, Jeff, can we please get a roll call?

Mark Burkfold.

Aye. Kyle Fadmus. Aye. Ron Barka.

Aye.

Jack Haroon?

Aye.

Alicia Wood Duke Montgomery?

Aye.

Carl Johnson?

Aye. Six zero.

Motion passes. I'll take a motion and a second for approval of minutes for 08/21/2025.

It's Ron Barka. I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes for 08/21/2025.

Kyle Fadness, second.

We have a motion and a second. Can I get a roll call please, Jeff?

Mark Burfold.

Aye. Kyle Fadness. Aye. Ron Barca.

Not being present, I abstain.

Jack Harone. Aye. Alicia with Duke Montgomery.

Abstain due to not attending.

Carl Johnson. Aye. Four to zero with two abstentions.

Motion passes. With that said we're going to move to really quickly, election of the commission chair and vice chair. So can I start with a motion for a chair for the 2026 year? Is that correct?

This is Kyle Fadness. I make a motion to elect Carl Johnson as the chair of the planning commission for 2026.

Ron Barton, I second.

We have

a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All those all those opposed?

Haroun as Vice Chair. We

have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Hearing none, we have a vice chair. Moving on, oh before I do that, is there any communication I I hate having my back to the public because I'm looking at you from there. So I do know you're there behind me. Is there any communications from the public of anything that is not, I repeat not on the agenda tonight? If there is, you may approach the microphone that is not on the agenda.

We do have one raised hand on the line. Caller, you have been sent a request to unmute. Please state your name for the record and go forward with your comments.

Thank you. I just got unmuted. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can.

Thank you. My name is Kimberly Goheen Elvin, and I'm a live citizen of Clark County, Washington, USA. Mostly, what I have to say is not on the agenda, at least that I could read. It was a little bit not very clear as to what the agenda was. But anyway, I wanna mention a book called Sustainable by Tom Dewese, capital d e w e e s e.

That will tell you everything that's going on. This is to the public to inform yourselves also about what's going on in our local government here. Also, I like people to read the online newspaper for Clark County today. First of all, I'd like to mention that quite a few a few days ago, quite a few people mentioned that they want no building at the Philbrook Farm area. It's a hazard, actually.

And I also wanna say that Clark County opted into the growth management act quite a few years ago. They're only one of handful that are in Washington state that are doing this. I don't understand that that you would find that the the public is interested in any more growth. In fact, that I've been for about the past year asking for a five year no growth overlay over all of Clark County so we can at least see how we can get melded into breaking our heritage of our family lives here and the the huge impact and mental instabilities of other people coming here, I call overgrowth population pollution. Our deep our our natural resources are depleting, you guys know this, and we must stop it now.

We've gotta, you know, gather up and see what we're doing here with us homeboys. Okay? So when you guys are, I don't know how long have you lived here, but, we, the people here in Clark County, want no more growth for a while. Also, I'm gonna mention that I live in Leth Center. Timmins Landing, I believe, was passed through our city council.

It was pretty extraordinary. They knew that people weren't gonna show up, so I went out early in the mornings, put up some signs, gathered 60 people that were concerned about putting a roundabout there on our road coming into town, which is a very steep slope, going in and out of town, and developing there Timmins Landing where the people have voted it down many times for many decades. The eagles soar over there. They have loans there. Our deer, our rabbit, everybody.

We we don't want anything up there. And we said so at a meeting back in last year, I believe it was in October or June maybe. Anyway, we wanna contest this. And so I'm asking you folks to somehow look into this and get back to me especially as to what we can do about this because they had a five day deadline past that, and nobody knew it. The public did not know that there was a deadline, and that's why the city passed it without when the people were all fixed. 60 people. We want you to at least hold off on this and put it aside. So could you folks find a way so that we don't do that?

Ma'am, you. Your time has expired.

Town there in Left Center Washington USA. Thank you.

Gov

Thank you. Okay. Once again, just a reminder, we're limited to a lot of people wanting to speak tonight, and we'll have a three minute timer on public testimony. With that said, Jeff, I did I ran over the top of you before giving instructions. Would you like to do that now? Thank you.

For attendees using their computer or WebEx application, if you would like to speak, please use the raise hand icon. For attendees using the telephone audio only option, press 3 on your phone's number panel to raise your hand. For those in person that would like to provide comment, please raise your hand. Once acknowledged, you may come to the microphone towards the front of the room. Public comments are limited to three minutes per person in order to accommodate all speakers. Again, this portion of tonight's hearing is only for items not listed on tonight's agenda. We will begin with those in the hearing room who would like to make a general comment. Please raise your hand and

the chair will call on

you to come up front to the microphone. So

this is going to be difficult. Jeff, will you just flag them to come up because I can't see them. I can barely, I can only see you.

Where's the microphone?

Yeah. You guys will will come up here to the the up here looking at us so you can comment to the counselors and the

Yeah. Thank you. So the deal

was posted

online. Can we please provide your first and last name for the court reporter.

Sorry. My

name is Steve McCulloch. I'm a citizen of Richfield. There was information posted online. Steve,

excuse me. Steve, can you look at me over here? I'm over here. Steve, look at me here. This is kinda who you're speaking to here. So thank you. I'm sorry.

Hold this down?

You just gotta turn it on. It'll turn green.

I got a pretty loud voice.

You can

hear me.

We have a court recorder, though.

Yeah. All I was asking is there was information posted online, which is informative, but the maps that were online were so small. It was difficult to read anything. If they could be put in a different format, they could be manipulated, perhaps enlarged

Sure.

Legible.

Okay. Would be

very helpful so we could all ascertain exactly where the lines are being drawn.

Absolutely.

Okay? Yeah. I'm seeing heads nodding. At least some other people agree

with me.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Thanks Steve. Thanks for your comment. Okay. That said, I just want to make sure I make some introductions and we have our counselors here. For those of you that have not ever done this, it's usually the counselors or us up there independently.

We rarely if ever see each other. It's about once every six years when we're appointed. And by the way I'll get to that in a minute, but Glenn Young, Michelle Belcott, Sue Marshall, Wolf Wintas, and I can't see yours, but it is Matt Little, see pretty good. So, but I want to thank you for coming, it's always good for you to hear, sometimes we don't know if we always hear what we hear. And so to the public one thing you must know is we deliver information to the counselors, they are the deciding vote.

A lot of times people think it's us but bringing this information in and getting to them this is the best way to do it. That said also tonight we have two new counselors Ron Barker and help me out here Alicia Montgomery our brand new commissioners tonight as we finally get a full vote we have one of them missing. So I just want to make sure we do that before doing that so you're speaking to more than just the Planning Commission tonight. Ma'am? Go ahead. It's Cora speaking to something that is not on the

agenda. Not on the agenda. Okay so that's my time. Okay my name is Carmen De Leon, I go by Melo And I did read this and they want economic growth and things like that. Just so you know that countries like Denmark and Norway have eliminated clear cutting. So you can't clear cut the land anymore. But we have plenty of land that we can use that I know in Canvas they want to grow stuff and do logging. And I've said it a million times to do hemp because when you sell hemp bricks, they can withstand 200 degree weather and not burn. And the the old houses used to give you seventeen seconds if the house caught on fire to leave the house for safety. Now the average house catches fire in three seconds.

So when I say safety, I mean it because you can actually sell. No place else in the world can they sell to you something that they guarantee you will never burn down because a hemp brick can withstand 200 2,000 degrees and still not burn. So where else can you say, hey, we've got fireproof houses and buildings, and it regrows like bamboo, you get three times the yield in the same amount of growth time in a year. So you can get, you know, four times the yield in six months with hemp and with bamboo. So I'm just saying that. And things that are disposable, like toilet paper, couldn't be used with bamboo, which is cheaper than clear cutting a bunch of beautiful pine trees. How much time do I have? Okay. You guys wanted money? Well, that's one thing in a way of of keeping logging alive.

Another one is tourism. We don't have that. And I've said it before that we have the most beautiful land in the country. I've lived in four other states, three other countries, and this land is particularly blessed and beautiful, and we should preserve it and make money off it instead of destroying the natural resources and digging things up and blowing things up. No. No. No. Like I said, the space needle has no competition. Portland is dying out. Everybody knows Portland is the meth capital of the West Coast, and Vancouver, take it down with you because we've got so many junkies, and they want tourism.

Okay. Who wants to come and see the junky capital of, Southwestern Washington? Nobody. But who can say that they have a bird's eye view if they build a tram from the Expo Center to, what is it, Ridgefield, and make money off the beauty of the land instead of destroying it? So, I've said it before, instead of building light rail, which is a billion dollar waste, and I've seen it for myself that with the a Vine, it it's enough it's appropriate for everybody.

Everybody loves a Vine. We do not need light rail, period. We have the Amtrak two miles that way. There's a train station over there underused, and what I see, miles and miles of unused train tracks. So we don't really need a light rail when we don't even use what we have. I'm saying build tourism by building something, a tram that goes from Expo Center to Los Center, and you will have money coming in instead of just letting money waste out. Like they said, I was supposed to finish, I just want to finish money leaking to Portland. Keep it here in Vancouver.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. Are there any more comments for something that is not on the agenda? Go ahead, sir.

Hi. I'm Harshita Sharapa. Currently live in the Camas Urban growth area. And one thing that my myself and my neighbors would like to learn more about, and it's last time on the agenda, is with the potential rezoning of my property and our neighbors to commercial from residential, what does that mean for the folks who currently live there and bought their land as like a forever home? Will they still be allowed to remodel, renovate their house, add ADUs? When will it when will the transact the transition to commercial take place? Just more details around that.

Thank you. One of the things I can add to many of you tonight is that Go Yes.

I need people to spell their last name.

I don't

know who that was who just testified.

Come back up and please spell your last name.

Last name e s w a r

a p p a. Thank you, sorry about that. Really quickly a lot of these questions like that, I would really encourage you to take advantage of our staff. The staff here could really address some of those questions and help you understand the minutiae of things like that.

Thank you.

Jose. No, there are many. They could get you in the right direction. Thank you. Yes, go ahead ma'am.

Hi. My name is Kathy Hall, H A L L. And I just wanted to bring up the subject of the ADUs on properties. Currently, they are allowed in the city or in the rural areas if there's an exception for like an elderly parent. I would like to see the county allow ADUs in situations where families nowadays, because the housing costs are having their younger adult children living with them.

And it would be really nice to be able to put an ADU on acreage that you own with your home so that any family members can live in those. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am. Are there any more people that are would like to come up that are speaking on something that's not on the agenda?

I don't see any other raised hands, but we do have someone online.

Okay.

Caller, we have sent you a request to unmute. Please unmute and, speak your name for the court reporter, and go ahead with your testimony.

Sure. Thank you. My name is Reed Tenclay. I'm just looking at the agenda. Is this the time for public comments, or is it later in the agenda? It's

later in the agenda.

Okay. I'll wait for that. Thank you.

Thank you. Anymore, Jeff? That's it for online. Okay. With that said

Hello.

Should I spell my last name, Kimberly Gohee Melvin.

Yes. Go ahead.

She already talked.

Kimberly is k k I m b e r l e e. Goheen is g o h e e n, and Elvin is e l b o n. No one's spelled backwards. Thank you. God bless.

Thank you. Thank you for clarification. Okay. With that said, we can now move into Jose, the preferred land use alternative for 2025 to 2045 crop rents plan update. Jose.

Yes.

Good evening, Planning Commission Chair and members of the Planning Commission. I would also like to say good evening to chair Marshall and counselors. I know that the county manager is online, Kathleen Otto. So, good evening, Kathleen and good evening Ms. Chris Cook, our Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney.

Chris represents community planning on issues related to GMA. This will be a joint presentation of I and Jose Alvarez. Jose is the program manager in community planning. And like I said, my name is Oliver Ojiako, O R J I A K O, community planning director. Before I proceed, I would like to just make a few remarks.

I see some of my staff who are here in person and some that are online. I would like to sincerely thank them for the work they have done to date on the periodic update. This is a great team to work with. I also want to extend sincere thanks to both our internal and our external partners. I'm not going to name departments or individuals throughout this periodic plan update.

Please go to the next slide. So this is our presentation overview. I will start initially with some background, talk briefly about the connection between CPAS, State Environmental Policy Act and the Growth Management Act. And then I will briefly talk about the selection of the preferred alternative. This is a joint hearing process, so I'll speak a little bit about that and then talk about the next steps.

Next slide please. Before I go to this slide, let me Jeff go back to the previous slide on. The background for those that are new to the Planning Commission and Council, this is just where we are in the overall comprehensive planning process and then I will get into more specifics regarding the UGA expansion or identification or selection process and then speak briefly about the Ag study. Let me focus on as part of the background on the connection between SIPA and Growth Management Act. Before or because of the integration of SIPA and GMA land use actions such as comprehensive plan update requires that before certain actions are taken, the lead agency must ensure that planning or decisions reflect environmental values assessment of impacts prior to making informed decisions.

Clark County completed a scoping notice before we even contemplate doing the DEIS. The draft environmental impact statement on three land use alternative that had been selected by the county council and the council will also complete or the county will also complete the final environmental impact statement on the preferred land use alternative before the council makes the final decision. That is really the connection that as we are going through this process, the lead agents in this case the county is identifying and in coordination with the public when we did the scoping, what are the issues and things that we should be concerned or study. So the preferred alternative which will also be selected by County Council would lead to the development of capital facilities plan in terms of process. We will also prepare capital facilities financial plan and also related transportation analysis.

This will all require again with the selection of the preferred, it will require review and update of the comprehensive plan policies and related development regulations. You can go to the next slide. You have seen this before but we try to repeat it often. The planning commission and council and as well as the public have seen this chart and it is on our website. This is a high level overview of the components of the periodic update process and we started this process with the project initiation, time flies.

We started this process in 2023. And to organize the complex process of updating the plan, we started by dividing the essential element into four phases and each phase has distinctive tags and activities that are planned to engage community members and key stakeholders in identifying issues, developing policy concepts and shaping the final recommendation plan that will be considered by the council in June. And you know throughout this public process, policymakers have been making decisions and providing direction to staff. Our local jurisdiction in this case the cities within the county are also engaged in a similar process in parallel. I'm not going to go into details on each phase because you've seen this several times, but I'm just going to highlight the key things we have completed all the check marked areas or tax has been completed.

We are now in the review and refinement of the plan. When we started checking or trying to shape the plan, the first thing we did was to prepare a checklist and that checklist is provided by the State Department of Commerce, our management division. The county and the cities are required to complete that checklist to ensure that any recent changes in the state legislation or legislation have or will be addressed in the update policy and code changes. Similarly, the population and employment forecast, the population allocation daily to the question of how the twenty year growth is going to be allocated and whether there is sufficient land to accommodate that growth within existing urban growth boundaries. And if not, should those current urban growth boundaries be modified?

That is where you get into the shaping of the plan. Now, and refinement, you're looking at if we're expanding boundaries, we need to look at different options and come up with a preferred alternative to do the environmental analysis while also considering infrastructure as I mentioned capital facilities needed to accommodate that growth and how much that will cost. When you get into the adoption process, you're really taking the preferred plan and updating your policies and code amendment through the legislative process where refinement can also be made for final adoption. As you can see on our final adoption, we have modified this schedule or progress report or progress chart often. You can see that the legislature by statue required Clark County and among other counties what we call twenty twenty five adopters to adopt our plan by December, but we have modified this a couple of times.

This is the latest schedule that we are on and I will repeat I would like us to stay on this schedule. Any deviation, I think we're already out of compliance if anybody were to challenge us. The county as you begin to look at the adoption process, the first thing on that column is Washington Department of Commerce sixty day review submittal which means if we are going to meet this schedule, the county needs to submit for commerce sixty day review submittal by the March this year. Let's go to the next slide. So, this slide provides an overall decision that have been made to date.

As I said earlier, when we started this process as required in growth management, have to prepare a public participation plan, how to engage with the community to provide you input, see what you're doing and participate through that process. That was the first thing that the county staff prepared and the council approved that public participation plan and the preliminary scope of work in a resolution number twenty twenty three dash o three dash o five that was adopted 03/31/2023. The county also had a series of sessions that the public participated in and local jurisdiction planning partners also participated before the council chose a 2,045 population projection of 718,154 forecasted and that was adopted by resolution twenty twenty three dash zero five dash zero three adopted '5 to 2023. That population that the council adopted represent a population growth rate of 1.4% annually over the twenty year planning horizon. The council also adopted by resolution number twenty twenty three dash o eight dash o one that was adopted on 08/08/2023, the 2045 employment projection of two sixty nine job forecasted at the end of 2045.

Similarly, with the population, choosing the population unemployment, we engage the council and the community in the 2,045 housing unemployment allocation by urban growth area. Several work sessions, several meetings, several hearings. The council finally adopted by resolution number twenty twenty four-five-five that was adopted 05/2024. The selection of alternative to be studied in the DEIS, again several meetings. There were actually two resolution that related to this item.

The first one was adopted 01/23/2025 and that is resolution number twenty twenty five-two-eleven and the second one was modified or amended that number is twenty twenty five-four-two that was adopted fourtwenty fivetwenty twenty five. All these directions provided us the guideline of the work that we have done to date. On the ag study, I'm not going to dwell on that. All I can say is that the conversation and cumulation of issue that were raised leads the council to direct that we commence AG land study. The county went through a procurement process, issued an RFP and council approved a contract for Eco Northwest to conduct the study.

The study was completed and presented to the council at the 11/12/2025 work sessions. We have shared that report with the planning commission at least the highlight of the report. It has been reviewed by the Agricultural Advisory Council or Commission that the council appointed. What I will add without going into detail about the ag studies that you can read it. We provided opportunity for the public to read that and provide comments, some of the comments that you have seen, some related to the outcome of the ag study and some related just to individual site specific requests depending on the property owner's interest.

There is a staff report that provides you criteria for choosing a preferred alternative. I'm not going to go through that staff report. I know I believe you have read that so for the interest of time I won't go through that. There are a number of factors addressing the staff report that needs to be considered in developing a preferred alternative. In addition, you have all the issue papers and resolutions adopted by council that I mentioned as part of the periodic plan update.

Before I turn this over to Jose, I want to also mention that or identify that you can go to our website when I talk about public participation. Our website list all the outreach that we have done so far from going to NAC, various neighborhood association, the business community, Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, Clark County Relatives, BIA, various neighborhood and some that I was not able to go to but my staff was able to attend. Our website is complete on the list of outreach that we have conducted to date. Finally, before Jose takes over in going into detail on the preferred alternative, staff mailed out postcard notices to approximately 10,000 property owners on potential changes in land use zoning. So, 10,000 received postcard identifying that there's likelihood that they are properly may change depending on where they are.

So, next slide. So, with here I will, Jose will take it from here. Thank you. If you have questions, I'm here to answer before Jose continues, if you have questions for me.

Okay. Can you zoom in on that, Jeff, on the capacity issues? Can you go to the residential one? Okay. That's great.

So my name is Jose Alvarez. I am the land use program manager, community planning. I wanted to just give, some background framework for, as Oliver mentioned, the work we've been doing is based on some of the decisions the council's made choosing population. And we need to plan for that twenty year population growth. What we begin with is what our existing capacity is.

And what this, chart shows is the target for growth in terms of housing that we need to accommodate in the next twenty years. So the, you can see that housing target. The number at the bottom of the first column, 103,695 housing units is how many housing units we're, needing to plan for over the twenty years of growth. The alternative one housing capacity is, sort of our no action. If we didn't make any changes other than what the state's requiring for three jurisdictions to do.

We have a capacity of about 99,000, housing units. So really looking to add capacity for about 4,000, housing units. The other element that the state has required that we plan for housing at, various income bands. And, we have a very large deficit of that type of housing below 80% of the median income. And so a lot of the proposed changes are looking at up zoning property throughout the unincorporated area and jurisdictions to try to reconcile and balance and have housing that can meet that income band targets.

So a lot of the decisions on, we received a lot of site specific requests for either expanding urban growth or changing zoning. So when we reviewed those requests, they were sort of framed along those kind of two criteria. Do we need the existing capacity and or do we need that type of development? So if we received requests for up zoning or higher density, then we're more likely to support that. And you can see here in the total for alternative two, that's showing about a 142,000.

That's 39,000 housing units over what, what we're required to have. We are limited, by population maximum growth. Well, population target of about 791,000. We're planning for 718,000. That 142,000 would put us well over, that limit that state set by

the

state. We have to plan for within the range of population that the office of financial management provides us. So just for some context on that on the housing. Go to the next, the employment. So similarly, know, we're overall planning for about 88,000 jobs.

The other thing that I would point out is that the jobs and housing we're trying to get a balance of new employment with same number of households. The household figure is higher because the state has a formula that they've put out that requires us to plan for a 6% vacancy rate. And they've also made a calculation for a deficiency of housing that we currently have. Folks not not being housed or the, expensive housing where people, are doubling up. So we're planning for more housing than just the the growth.

So there's people already here that are lacking sufficient housing. So that's the need for that excess beyond that 88,000. Again, the job target that requires land overall is about 66,000. The job capacity in the baseline is about 61,000. In alternative two, that's about 69,000. So again, to provide some context of the decisions that were made in in some of the alternatives and getting into the preferred.

Alright.

Let me, okay. The preferred alternative table. So what I'm going to go through is this preferred alternative table. But I'm going to show you that through the maps. So, for each one of these, we'll show you the corresponding mapping if it's appropriate.

Pardon me, Oliver. May I make a question here? What you showed with the different alternatives in that direction, is that going to reflect what you're proposing?

You turn

your mic on, Mark?

Mean Sorry. Maybe I'm not close enough. Is what we saw going to be reflective of your proposal, or was that the full alternative from the jurisdictions without any alterations?

This is what was studied in the DEIS. So this is what we received from the jurisdictions. We have not altered it. And yes, that's correct.

All right, thank you.

May I ask a follow-up question about the prior slides? Because I was just seeing alternative one has shortfalls in both. But then alternative two, at least on housing, had an excess that was significantly larger than the shortfall numbers. So my question is, if alternative one was selected, does the county have the authority under the GMA with the periodic monitoring to go make changes later to address, like actual shortfall issues? Or is it locked in with no changes?

So, the alternative one essentially, since there aren't any changes, it wouldn't meet the second criteria of providing sufficient housing that meets the income bands. So that's really, even though it's very close to the capacity, the ratio of housing that's affordable is out of whack with what's required. Did I answer your question?

Okay. Yes, thank you.

I'll share.

Okay.

So essentially, this is, alternative one, the existing UGA with no boundary changes. So this, the first item, I won't dwell on this. For alternative two, we'll start, this is, and I'm gonna give a sort of high level overview since all of the jurisdictions will be coming up to testify and providing more detail. But I'll just give you a sort of high level. The proposal here for from Battleground is expand to the West.

Remove this areas to the Southwest from their urban growth area and add a little area to the North. So overall, that's a net expansion 157 acres. For the Camas UGA, they're looking at expanding to include the Grove Field Airport. And that's approximately 82 acres that would be added to their urban growth area. In the center, there's an expansion here at the junction, the C 1.

And then to the south, and then across I 5 for light industrial. And combined, that's a 121 acres.

Are you going to

recommendation? So in for both Battleground CAMIS. We're supportive of their, the jurisdiction's actions. La Center, these areas are also designated agriculture, based on the agricultural land study and the capacity, we don't see that that's something that could be supported at this point. And Richfield, again, this is a 240 acre expansion just, West of I 5 for employment mixed use.

Again, because of the ag land study and the capacity issues, we are not supportive of this expansion.

It's not just the ag land study, is it Jose? Are currently for agriculture. Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

And with Schugel there's no expansion request. They will talk about some changes in zoning from some of the sub area plans that they've done. Again, there's no change in Woodland. And again, we are supportive of the Washoeville. Again, no change for Woodland.

In Yakult, the There are two requests. The areas for residential we're not supportive of. The areas for light industrial to the South, we are supportive. The the property just to the east is currently designated for employment. The city is looking to purchase that for parkland.

So given that, we are supportive of the expansion for employment to replace that. And that's, let's see. The expansion for employment is about 14 acres, and the residential is about 76 acres. So 90 acres overall. The Vancouver UGA in alternative two, we looked at expanding roughly 350 acres just South Of Duluth 219th along I 5 And 10th for employment lands.

And then East Of 50th on the backside of WSU, again for Business Park. This would be a total of 350 acres. Given the excess capacity that the city of Vancouver has in employment and the public comments that we received, it made more sense to not expand in these areas. And just, since the employment is still within the Vancouver UGA with that excess capacity, we're proposing not to expand in those two areas.

Sorry Jose, that was I. I'm trying to follow these, It's too I. Too I, okay, Sorry. Thank

So two j let's see. Okay. So the areas highlighted in black are the existing, multi family zones in the unincorporated Vancouver UGA. These are currently designated from R12 to R43, OR15 to OR43. What we're proposing is a bulk sort of up zoning of that multifamily to now be from in the DEIS it was staying with five different zones, r 24 to r 50.

We are working with consultant that's suggesting that we consolidate those five zones into three. So that would be r 24 through r 50. R 24, r 36, and r 50. And in the handout here, it references those three zones. But in the maps, it still has the zoning that was used in the TEIS. Go ahead, Kyle.

Can I just ask I know we discussed this during the work session? Does the proposed zoning here, does that explicitly exclude single family housing as we had discussed during that work session?

That's that's the proposal. Okay. Yes. Okay. And so the areas in red is two k, which we're proposing for an increase sort of up zoning of areas adjacent to the existing multifamily for the most part that are currently primarily single family zoned.

And in some cases, was, yes, they're all single family zoned. There was one area that I'm going to show that was commercial that went to OR 22. But there's some special considerations for that. So that's what the red is showing. Two l are properties in yellow that we're proposing to up zone from r one twenty or r 10 to R 175, R 15, and then on the East Side, these three areas to R 16, R 175, and R 175.

These are all R 110 currently. Let's see. Two ms is referring to changes that we will make in how we treat mixed use properties in our vacant buildable lands model. Currently we assume that 50% of these properties will develop as residential. 50% as employment.

Our code allows for eighty twenty. What we've primarily seen is 80% residential. We require 20% commercial. What we're seeing is that the development of the commercial has not happened. So a lot of the times the residential is built.

The commercial's waiting to be developed. And as part of this process, there are I think three properties that are proposing to change the zoning from mixed use to multi family because the the multi family's been built out, but the commercial hasn't materialized. So we're, supporting those, changes from the remainder of the mixed use that was supposed to be non residential to multi family. And so in our model, this will decrease our capacity for employment because we're going from 50% to 20%. And then as part of our code updates, we're looking at actually making it ninetyten in our code because of the difficulty that development community is having with the commercial.

And these are the areas of the mixed use zones. So again 2N is related to our Highway 99. This is an area that, there's a sub area plan that allows for residential development on what is currently has an underlying zoning of commercial. Our vacant buildable lands model, it was never updated to account for residential development that's allowed. We're starting to see that.

So we're proposing to have that reflected in the model. I think we're looking at a split of, we're still assuming the majority of the land will develop for commercial, but 20% would develop for residential. And so that's just reflecting that. So two o, these are the site specific requests that we're recommending approval. This is a Salmon Creek fire station.

This has three different zones. And so wanting to just make that all public facility. This is two p. Property owner wanted to change the zoning from r one ten, I believe, to r 12. But with the new zoning, that would be r 24.

And we're proposing to recommend approval of that as well as proximity to WSU and the park nearby. 2Q is also proposal to up zone. I believe the original proposal was either R12 or R18. And the zoning here showing is R32. Think we're seeing the R36.

Two are are the Baptist churches. The proposal the proposal originally for, was for general commercial. We thought that since the existing commercial around this intersection was community commercial and the proximity of Prairie High School. Some of the general commercial uses might not be compatible. So we're supportive of making that community commercial.

2s is the properties here that are currently zoned community commercial. There are issues with access off of 503. I think this came before council a number of years ago. Staff supported it. Council did not at the time.

The recommendation would be to go to, R36. So 2T, again is this, the mixed use currently where you see the development has already occurred. But the commercial pad hasn't developed. And the request was to go from mixed use to multi family. And we're supportive of doing that to R 36.

Again, the two parcels to the south and 2 T, 2 U. Also the same situation where the development has already occurred and the pads just hasn't developed as commercial. 2 V is currently mixed use area just south of the Fairgrounds. There was a request for a lower density. There was multiple requests on this site.

There were some issues with, with the site in terms of being able to support commercial on the site due to some of the constraints on the site. So we wanted to at least keep the multi family and we're supportive of having that be R 36. Or, I'm sorry, R 24. Consistent with what's being proposed around it. 2W is a site where there was an annual review request in 2022 that council approved to change the site from commercial to OR 22.

We contacted the property owner to see if they wanted to take advantage of the new zoning for a higher density. They declined and preferred to stay with whatever's closest to the R 22 that was approved, the OR 22 that was approved. So we're supporting that being OR 24.

Who is supporting that to remain r 22?

No. R r 24. 20 4.

Yep. So

the Right. So we're not recommending any of the changes in alternative three. I have that information, but if you, so we're not going to just in the interest of time, we'll skip that and think Albert.

Jose, can I ask a question Yes? We were looking at all the numbers with the deficits and the surplus, it showed for the housing that a majority of that was in the Vancouver City, not within the Vancouver UGA, but we didn't touch on any of that for alternative two here. Could you maybe speak on where that extra, I think it was 20,000 housing units comes from surplus?

So a couple of things. We are the city can speak to it. They are have done their own EIS. They're not expanding the boundary. And the increase in capacity that is shown in the vacant buildable lands model is based on just a complete change in their zoning structure. So I'd prefer to let the city speak to that. And then we can follow-up if you have questions on that.

And I would add this is Chris Cook that the changes in zoning that are internal to the city will not be reflected in the county's preferred alternative because the city is doing its own EIS. The capacity numbers are the capacity, but they're not part of the preferred alternative, which I think is what we are looking at tonight is trying to get a recommendation for a preferred alternative for the county, if that makes sense.

Commissioner Carl, this is Oliver. We are still going to be having additional discussion with the city because as I have stated earlier, we have decisions that the council have made in terms of population and employment and our plans are supposed to be internally consistent. So, we are going to regardless of the fact that the city is doing their own EIS, the plans have to be internally consistent. I know they're recommending alternative too with some additional changes so we are going to continue that dialogue. Whatever the planning commission recommends to cancel, I think there's going to be additional dialogue just to make sure that we are not exceeding the overall county target because it is going to be one comprehensive plan for the entire county regardless of which city.

So that's where we're going to be having additional conversation with the cities to understand some of the assumptions they made in coming up with the capacity that they did. I agree with Jose that they're looking at a different potentially firm based approach to development in the future. I will commend them, but we are going to continue to have a dialogue on how to reconcile to make sure that our numbers is on target. Go to the next slide, please. So, I thank the Planning Commission for inviting our counselors to have this joint hearing.

We have been doing it in the past. You know, this is I will say if you count the 2024 plan update that continued into 2027, this will be my fifth plan update with the county. And when we have this joint hearing, the purpose is to have one hearing and take public testimony so that the council are hearing the same testimony. And often in the past, it's not a criticism, it's just an observation, some will escape the planning commission and go directly to the council. That deprive the planning commission the same information before you make your recommendation.

So, this is an excellent way to have our council sit and listen to the same testimony. The planning commission will deliberate separately. If there is time tonight, you can continue your deliberation. If there are no time tonight, we have reserved the date for you to begin your deliberation and then making a recommendation to cancel. We will allocate time to our local jurisdictions and I will ask the Planning Commission as well as the chair of the council to give some deference to the cities.

I see some of their mayors and elected official give them ten minutes to give their presentation or present their materials to you. They may not take the entire ten minutes. We have our staff there monitoring the clock and then also give because the county appointed the Ag Commission Advisory Commission to advise them on Ag related issues. So, give the representative of the Ag Commission ten minutes, he or she may not use the entire ten minutes that is my ask, that is how this will work. So let's go to the next slide.

Go to the next one. So, when you make your recommendation, we are going to have a work session with the planning committee with the council to review the PC recommendation. And then as I stated, the council will have their own separate hearing. That's when they will be sitting at the dais. They will make a different decision whether to take additional testimony or those that didn't have opportunity to be here tonight.

The comment on the whole process remains open until the final gavel comes down. So, there is still opportunity for public comment to be coming in. I'm sorry, there is still opportunity for folks to comment. Those that couldn't be here can still submit written comment unless tonight you closed public comment that will is yet to be seen. But we are required to leave the record open and continue to receive public participation through comment and both written preferably.

So, and you will go into the record. You won't believe it, my department and Chris can attest to this. We compile every comments that come in and it's indexed. The reason for that is that it's no secret. Every time we do this we are challenged and we have to provide that record for those that have because it lists the folks who are testifying to have standards outstanding, excuse me.

So, I have excellent staff that are keeping great record. We have been recognized at the growth board as the best department when it comes to record of process. So, I thank my staff and I thank Chris for the advice in helping us prepare our record adequately and I believe the land use attorneys that participate in the process will agree that we have the best index of record. Often you hear that my record is not, they don't see it but you go to where we have public record you will find that your record is in there unless it didn't come to our shop. I know that I'll give kudos to the council office every time Rebecca gets comment, he send it down to us and we input that.

But let me stop there. This is how the next step will work. You can begin taking testimony. Thank you sir. Unless the Planning Commission have question for me and Jose.

Is there any questions from the Planning Commission? Okay, hearing none, we will now go to the presentation by the city jurisdictions and the Ag Commission. So I'll just start and go down the list. Is there a representative from battleground here? Do you want to take a break before we get this done. Make sure you

Good evening, planning commissioners and county council. My name is Eric Overholzer, newly appointed mayor of the city of Battle Ground as of Monday. So this is exciting for me. To spell my name, e r I c, last name o, v as in Victor, e r h o l s e r. Just thank you for the opportunity to comment and be heard here.

On behalf of the city of Battle Ground, please accept the following testimony regarding the comprehensive plan update. Battle Ground is supportive of growth alternative two as represented in the draft environmental impact statement. For Battle Ground, this growth alternative provides reasonable measures to add capacity within our city limits and the existing planning area. One of Battleground's primary goals in this process is to expand its urban growth area to Dollar's Corner, the area just to the west of us, for the purpose of accommodating employment growth. In 2021, Battleground completed a land use master plan to better understand its growth needs, and the study found that Battleground is deficient in employment lands.

Data studied on home locations for Battleground workers and where they work supports the perception that Battleground is a bedroom community. In 2021, the top three places where Battleground residents travel to work are Vancouver, Portland, and Battleground in that order. To reverse this trend, Battleground's plan will create more jobs close to home. The expansion to Dollar's Corner would add approximately 450 gross acres for job growth. The existing Dollar's Corner Commercial center would be added to the Battleground UGA.

This area has already received significant state transportation, infrastructure investment, and its location minimizes traffic impacts related to shipping and freight in Battleground City Center. Our request also removes approximately 330 acres from the Meadowglade area in the Southwest of the current UGA. Existing development patterns and lack of infrastructure make this area unlikely to develop within the twenty year planning horizon. Removing this residential area will help focus residential growth more compactly into the rest of Battleground's planning area. The letter submitted in the record provides a visual of our proposed UGA.

While Battleground is supportive of alternative two, it is asking for two minor modifications to the requested UGA expansion, resulting from community visioning and as recommended by our planning commission and city council. The requested modifications are related to city infrastructure and utility needs. One involves bringing in three parcels into the UGA to help complete a city street and intersection. The other parcel houses our city water reservoirs. Our letter provides further details and technical reasons for these modifications.

Battleground understands the gravity and complexity of a twenty year countywide growth plan. Since the county and partner cities are currently outside of g the GMA time frame for compliance, we encourage you to move through this process as quickly and efficiently as possible. Thank you for your collaborative leadership you and your staff have provided. We look forward to our continued partnership and assisting in bringing this effort across the finish line. I am available for any questions that you have, but I've also brought with me our city planner, Sam Crummett, to answer the actual real questions that you might have. Thank you.

Any questions, gentlemen, ladies?

I have a question. This is Ron Barka. Can you tell me again how many acres that you described there is coming into your urban growth area? Yeah. We have

me find it here. I know that we're removing three thirty from the area of Meadowglade, and we're adding approximately four fifty gross acres for jobs. Okay.

So Jose then, does that describe the 157 acres that you gave earlier in the testimony? You've got to turn your mic on.

The additional two properties to the north, I think that's what was in the So

we're in sync? Yes. Alright. That was my question. Thank you.

Thank you, brother.

Any Any other questions? Go ahead.

This is Commissioner Arun. What's the impact to the area that you're proposing removing from UGA? Is that currently explain it to me. Is that currently in the city? Or is it part of the UGA?

I think Sam will better

answer this.

The area is described as Meadowglade generally or a portion of Meadowglade. The area is within our existing UGA. This is characterized by low density residential development. So we don't see that area as developing or urbanizing. We've done extensive public outreach. We haven't had any protest on removing that from the UGA, so we just see that as an area that we'd like to retract and grow where it makes more sense.

Is it is it currently developable in its in its current state? And it's like, if a developer weren't in there right now, could could they develop something? And then you're gonna be removing that ability, or is it just it's just not gonna be

Not likely because it's mostly parcelized into kinda large lot residential development. A lot of one acre, five acre parcels where many of the residents want to just have that stay as is.

Okay. Thank you.

Who was talking, please?

Sam Crummett, c r u m m e t t, city planner for City of Battleground.

Thank you. Any more questions? Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.

Appreciate

it. Thank you.

Let's go with do we have a representative from Camus? Greg, he's online. What? On is he is he online? Yes. Oh, okay. Go ahead and make sure you say your name and spell it.

This is Alan Peters, a l a n p e t e r s. And good evening, chair Marshall, chair Johnson, members of the county council, and planning commission. Again, my name is Alan Peters. I am the community development director for the city of Cannes, and bringing greetings to you tonight from our our mayor and city council and here to convey their request to you all as you determine the preferred alternative. First off, thank you for for holding this hearing.

This is a critical step in moving the periodic update forward and brings us much closer to adoption of our twenty year growth management plans, which, as we understand, are already past our deadline but are moving forward. First off, I I do wanna recognize that you have a letter submitted to you by the other cities in Clark County. I've reviewed that letter. We'll not while Canvas was not a signatory of this letter, we do support the request of each of the cities and and many of the arguments made by me by by the other cities in that letter. As we, in Canvas, review the three alternatives, we agree that alternative one cannot meet the housing and jobs needs of the next twenty years.

Countywide alternative three also creates surpluses of jobs and and housing that exceeds our needs for the next twenty years. And so from our perspective, the right path forward lies somewhere between alternative one and three, one that balances targeted upselling with reasonable and strategic UGA expansion. So I wanna talk a little bit about the the two expansions that are included in alternative two and three. So on the screen here on alternative two, we do propose to increase job capacity by adding about 84 acres of not private, but publicly owned land owned by the Port Of Camas, Washoeville, and Grovefield out in Fern Prairie. Additionally, alternative two includes targeted residential upzoning that includes new high density multifamily and mixed use zoning throughout the city of Camas.

That zoning would occur both on vacant buildable lands as well as sites with redevelopment potential. So that upzoning, plus the now in effect changes related to middle housing and ADUs will provide capacity for all needs and incomes in Canvas. Additionally, we're proposing to increase job capacity through mixed employment and mixed use zones and new commercial hubs throughout Canvas, again, as well as this 84 acre expansion in Grovefield. I do wanna talk about alternative three a little bit, which mirrors alternative two. There's one change, and that is an additional UGA expansion of approximately a 160 acres along Canvas' eastern boundary.

So you can see it there on the map. So this property known as the Nevin property, it's located about two miles from Downtown Camas, about a half mile east of Camas High School. And you can see there, it's contiguous with our urban growth boundary and very near Walsh Ugall's urban growth boundary. Under alternative three, which was submitted to Clark County over a year ago, the property will be designated for multifamily use. Earlier this week, the Kansas City Council held a workshop to discuss these alternatives.

We went through alternatives one, two, and three. A majority of our council does support inclusion of both Grove Field and the Nevin property in the county's preferred alternative. Grove Field presents a unique opportunity to bring in public port property that will be committed fully to job creation. This is, again, a public property. Ports exist specifically to develop and manage public facilities that support commerce and economic vitality.

So, including Growfield and EUGA would help do that. It would provide the zoning and infrastructure needed to advance their goals while helping us and Canvas meet our employment targets. The site's contiguous with our North Shore sub area where it can complement other planned employment lands and would be the first port owned property within the city of Camden. So the Port Of Camden is Washoeville currently. All its land ownership is either within the city of Washoeville or unincorporated Clark County.

So this is an important first for for them and for us, And so we would definitely ask the county to select an alternative that brings growth field into our UGA, and we commit to collaborating with the port on the future of that site. Nevan, again, which is shown here on the screen, As you can see, it's located in proximity to urban development and infrastructure in both Canvas and Wellsugo. There's been a lot of homes developed over the past decade, definitely over 800, perhaps close to a thousand homes within a couple miles of that site. While this property is largely zoned agricultural and undeveloped, it's a 160 acres, includes 17 lots that are five acres or less in size. So half of that 160 acres is parcelized into five acre lots that are currently undeveloped.

You can see that on the map here. And that's what makes this particular site unique, and I think why our council does support inclusion of it into the UGGA. Under the current county zoning, each of these parcels could be developed with single family homes despite the agricultural designation. And in fact, there's been several large homes already constructed on nearby, parcels, very nice homes. And so our council is concerned that continued low density fragmented development would occur in the near term if this property is not added to our UGA with this periodic update cycle.

And that would make our future urban development much more difficult and less efficient if it were to be considered, you know, in in the next plan update in ten or twenty years or so. While alternative three does identify Nevin as being for multifamily use, Canvas would today support a regional commercial designation on this property that would reduce the housing surplus and but add capacity for about 1,400 jobs on this site. And so there's a real opportunity to be a major employment center for for East County here. And finally, I wanna briefly address our our housing capacity surpluses. We've been allocated in Canvas of about 4,200 units.

Both of our alternatives do have housing surpluses. There's a couple reasons for that. First, I wanna point out if you look at alternative one, which is the no change alternative, you'll notice that we already have a a capacity with a surplus of about 1,500 units to begin with. So we're starting at a surplus already, and that's due to some sub areas zoning in North Shore that added residential capacity, which wasn't captured in the original BPLM. So either way, there's gonna be a surplus, but a lot of the additional surplus in alts two and three, is a result of new state housing requirements that require upzoning in order to meet the housing needs of of all of our communities, so all income levels.

And then there's also new middle housing and AD mandates, which, again, are already affecting Canvas. And so, again, starting with the surplus and then the necessity to upzone results in greater surplus, and I think it'd be very difficult, if not impossible, to entirely avoid a residential capacity surplus countywide. So I did wanna point that out, but also just wrap things up to state that we're committed to working with your staff with the other cities to further refine some of the assumptions and perhaps adjust growth allocations where appropriate. I also wanna make a request that we'd be given, you know, some reasonable allowance to make reasonable adjustments within the boundaries of the accounts selected alternative. Again, given it's been over a year since these alternatives were first submitted, we ask for some flexibility to continue refining the preferred alternative with minor mapping adjustments as the process moves forward.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I'm also happy to be able to answer any questions.

Questions from the commission? No, there's no questions. Thank you very much for

your I great have a question.

Oh, go, Sue.

Thank you.

Alan, this is Sue Marshall. And I had a question about the Nevin property, and I was wondering if it had been subject to cluster development. Is that if if that is why there's all those five acre parcels?

I I do not know the answer to that that question. What I can say is that of those 16 parcels, only one of them currently has a single family home on it. I I don't know the mechanism by which they were divided previously.

Are there individual owners for each of those properties?

I believe there are a couple owners within the boundaries of this request, but they are mostly one owner.

Oh, thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. Thank you again, Camus. Up next, the center. Do we have a representative from the center?

I'm turning everywhere. Here we go.

Okay. Don't forget to state your name and all that good stuff.

Thank you. Good evening, Planning Commission and Council. My name is Brian Cast, B R Y A N K A S T, representing the City of La Center this evening. I also have with me planner Angie Merrill. In 2023, when the city staff of La Center began the work on comprehensive plan update, we were looking forward to a smooth and collaborative process with the county.

As we started the work to update the VBLM to determine the city's current capacity for jobs as well as for housing, as well as the allocations for job and population growth that was going to be directed to the city, city and county staff initially worked closely together. Unfortunately, as the process continued, the coordination diminished. In February 2024, when county staff released the final job and housing allocation numbers for all cities, LaSenner was surprised to see that the city's allocations that had been developed in coordination with the county for months had dropped by four seventy jobs and three zero one housing units without any discussion or coordination with the city. At the same time, the city's capacity from the BVLM jumped up by two forty seven jobs and seven seventy five housing units. I testified about these discrepancies at that time.

However, no revisions to these numbers have since taken place. The projected capacity numbers that have been provided to you this evening do not reflect the topography and critical area encumbrances that much of La Center's undeveloped areas have, and they also do not reflect the sub area plans that have been adopted by the city, or the land within the city that has been taken into trust by the Cowlitz tribe and is essentially now outside of the city's control. When the VBLM model was updated at the city's request earlier this week to reflect these changes, the city's job capacity was further reduced by nearly 400 jobs. As the center has been developing the comprehensive plan update, city leaders staff have repeatedly engaged the public and stakeholders to hear their vision for what La Center should look like. Through this outreach, we have heard several consistent messages.

One, residents want to maintain the small town charm and feel of La Center. Two, growth should be focused near the I-five Junction where there is adequate transportation network and other infrastructure available to support that growth. And three, that family wage jobs should be provided in the city so that the city does not become a bedroom community. With these goals in mind, the city council unanimously adopted a preferred alternative that includes targeted rezones within the existing UGA to provide a variety of housing types, as well as moderate targeted urban growth area expansions primarily focused on job providing land around the junction with I-five. The preferred alternative includes our Downtown and Timmins Landing sub area plans that bring some additional density, a variety of housing types and jobs to these areas, as well as well, excuse me.

So the city, the preferred alternative closely aligns with the county's alternative, too. However, there are those changes to include the minor job producing lands to bring those into the La Center UGA. La Center understands and supports the need to preserve productive agricultural lands, but shares the concerns that have been raised regarding the agricultural land study and the many criteria of WAC three sixty, 190, zero fifty that have been disregarded by the study. Much of the area proposed by the city for the urban growth area expansion has an urban reserve overlay that has identified it for future growth and is also adjacent to the urbanized areas of the city and the Cowlitz Tribe Reservation. The soils underlying these parcels are silt loams that are generally not suitable for crop production, and none of the properties have water rights for irrigation.

Additionally, none of these parcels that are proposed for expansion are currently being used for crop cultivation, and most are currently being used for non agricultural use. The city is eager to partner with the county and other cities to develop innovative methods such as transfer of development rights program to allow productive agricultural land to be preserved while still allowing for needed growth and expansion of the smaller cities in Clark County. We believe that such a program would be a win win, providing farmers funds to support agricultural production and providing cities with needed area to meet growth demands without overdensification. The small term charm of La Center is what drawn many residents to this area, and forcing the city to densify to meet growth allocations without expanding the urban growth area will permanently alter the feel of our community. We have a couple of slides here and exhibits to share this morning.

If we can pull those up, please. So this area is focused on the Center Junction area. It shows our existing urban growth area in black and the proposed urban growth area expansions in red. Also shown here are the Cowlitz tribal areas that are in trust currently. I want to note that the critical areas shown on this, they come from the county GIS environmental constraints layer, which is fairly conservative.

So the constraints may not be as extreme as shown here, but they at least give a good indication. Next slide, please. This area these two pictures show the urbanization that has occurred in the Junction area in the recent history. You can see on the left there, in 2015, it was fairly rural still. And in 2023, with the development of the Cowlitz tribal lands and the Elenay Casino, it is now significantly urbanized.

Next slide. This exhibit shows La Center's adopted preferred alternative. You can see within the existing urban growth area, those areas in gray sort of in the north and central parts of the town are those targeted up zoning from low density to medium density residential, as well as the areas out near the junction that are targeted towards job lands. And we'll go through each of those areas out in the junction based on the numbers here. So next slide.

So on the north area of the city for the proposed urban growth area expansion, this would be an area proposed for mixed use. It's a total area of 53.6 acres. 18 of that is unconstrained, again, the fairly conservative layer on GIS. Based on the 53 acres, there could be 150 potential jobs. But based on the constraints, that may be closer to 68.

Next slide, please. The Childs and Caldwell UGA expansion is in the very south area of the city. This will be an area proposed for light industrial. It's 26.3 acres that potentially could create two thirty seven jobs based on the VBLM. However, there's only 4.4 areas that, again, according to GIS are unconstrained, which would make it closer to 45 jobs. Next slide. Next is the TRC and TRO UGA expansion. Again, this would be proposed for light industrial, 17.7 acres that could potentially create 180 jobs. However, there's a lot of constraints on this, so the job numbers would be significantly less. Next slide.

And finally, the McLean UGA expansion, again, light industrial would be the proposed zoning here for the 16.1 acres. Could potentially create 150 jobs. However, with the constraints, again, that job number would be significantly lower. I'm happy to answer any questions. I appreciate the opportunity to testify them for you this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions from the council or the commission? Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Glenn?

No, go ahead.

This is going to be a question maybe I'm not sure who's going to answer, whether you guys are or our staff. Okay. I'm wanting to know, so I I'm understanding. So I'm looking at this image here and you see the parcel. Oops. Excuse me. Sorry, Cindy. This is councilor Young. So I'm looking at this and this is what this is showing me is the parcel and what the little the gray little sliver there is the actual area that is developable Correct. Because of environmental constraints. Right. And this is directly from the GIS?

The green area there is from the environmental constraints layer. So again, it's fairly conservative. It's a very high level look. And site specific, if development has occurred here, they would do a site specific study and actually identify what potential areas were critical, wetland habitat, etcetera, and it would likely be less than what is shown in the green. The green is a is a conservative

Okay. And so then my next question would be when we're looking at a 150 potential jobs versus 12 jobs, obviously, that's based on the amount of land that's developable. So my question would be when we are modeling this, what number are we showing coming out of the VPLM for a parcel like this? Is it that 150? I don't know where that 150 comes from.

No, it wouldn't be the 150. Typically, the critical lands originally deducted all critical lands from our model, and there's assumed no development would happen. Over time, we've tracked this and observed that about half of the land that's actually designated critical. And as Brian was saying, it's at a high level. There's no delineation that's done. But the model overestimates what's critical. And so what we're seeing, and I think what's in the model, is about half of it is assumed to develop.

Okay, thank you. So just, it would be nice if you could get us just I mean, is just kind of a case study and it's obviously like the worst case scenario. But if you could get us what VBLM says, you know, that we would get out of this parcel, that would be great.

This is commissioner Haroun. So question, I know in some of a portion of the land that I think was in the area C1 was recently purchased by the tribes.

So if you can go back a few slides to show the I guess it's probably the first slide that would show the areas that have been taken into trust.

So once it's in trust, it'll actually if the city has it, does it still go into trust and becomes tribal land?

Yes.

After that? So then it becomes

The tribe can purchase property and own property. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's in trust and part of the tribal reservation. They have to go through a process with the US government to actually take that land into trust. And then once that process is complete, it actually becomes basically part of their jurisdiction and comes out of the city's jurisdiction. Right.

So is there because the tribe owns it now, is that that land would that land still be being calculated within your jobs numbers?

If the tribe owns it but is not taken into trust, I believe it would be. However, I'm not aware, and maybe Angie can speak to this of any land within the city limits or the boundary that is owned by the tribe that is not yet currently taken into trust. They purchased those areas that are sort of in the top center of the screen. And then they took those into trust about a year or a year and a half ago. And there may be like one other small parcel that was former right of way along I-five that they have not yet taken into trust, but I believe most of the area that they own has been already taken into trust in La Center.

Okay. But I'm aware of a a pretty large, think it was 17 acres within your UGA request that was just purchased and closed, I think, December 23.

Okay. I I wasn't aware of that.

Right. And so my question then is so that that will eventually become an you know, the assumption

would

be to become into trust. Sure. And then those jobs numbers that you're being calculated for would then disappear because and it goes off of your tax rolls and then it all goes to the tribes. Yes. Right?

So once it goes into trust, that's correct.

Right. And even though it's like agricultural, currently, if the tribe owns it, it doesn't matter because they're a sovereign nation.

Correct.

So I guess my my question for staff is, like, I mean, as you know, it's it's been dynamic. Right? I mean, you have, the tribe especially is kind of a, you know, a great community member, but an unknown quantity when we're talking about land development. And they have very, unique abilities be being a sovereign nation. And so I guess my my concern is as La Center starts to get hemmed in, if and that's this is my I'm not I don't wanna speak for La Center.

Sure. But I I see some of that stuff going. I'm like, well, then how is this affecting our the center? And if they get hemmed in, then how do they provide their jobs? Because all of those jobs are off the tax rolls and all rolls are off

the things. So

And that's a concern that we have. You know, we work very closely with the Calis. We have a great relationship with them. But, you know, it does make the the math and the allocation difficult to you know, when you have

In property no way was that a dig on the tribe at all. I mean, I I think they're a great community partner. It's just Yeah. It's just kind of the the reality of

have their own ability to do

Right. Tax basis and all that. So yeah. I guess so I guess it's kind of my like, how are we capturing some of that? How are we capturing for future city growth, especially if you're hemmed in because you have to be contiguous. And yes, so that would be my concern. Just

to answer the questions about the modeling. So the numbers here based on the VBLM run 2023. So it was before the land was taken into trust, which was done last year. So when that happens, then that land's taken out of the model. The other thing that I would mention is that when we're doing the sort of allocation and distribution, it's based on, you know, the the capacity in the vacant built of land model.

So the loss of land would mean the allocation wouldn't have been the same to the city either. So, but the issue about the the the city being hemmed in is definitely a unique situation for the city of La Center. Know part of the land that was taken in trust is within the city limits. That's correct. And so I don't know if that was to preserve the ability to do any movement.

But, yes, it's it's a new issue that the county's aware of. Chris?

I

was just going to mention that the it depends on where the land is, I think, as to how easy it is to take it into trust. And I could be wrong there. They could so they could purchase land in, say, Yakult and take that into trust? Okay. Well, if it's approved by BIA, which the county has no control over in any event.

So we could throw up our hands and say we can't do anything at all about this, or we could plan for the land under GMA.

Just want to follow-up so I'm sure I understand. So land that is within a city's growth boundary can be purchased by the tribe and taken into trust. Is there and it's just the BIA that makes that decision? The city has no say.

It's a federal decision. Yeah, totally.

Okay. And then I had a question about the other I think the previous slide that was constrained, there was just that sliver that

It's probably the last slide. Think we went back to the very first

Oh, wherever it is. There we go. Is that one property owner or multiple property owners?

I believe this is one property owner.

One property owner. So there would be no way to just take in the land that could be developable so as to avoid the constrained land?

The other challenge would be that the urban growth boundary is to the east, so It wouldn't be contiguous contiguous. Piece over there.

Got it. Thanks.

Any more questions, comments?

Yes, chair. I have a question for Brian. Every one of the examples that you showed us, are they all currently designated as agriculture? Yes. Okay. So each one of the examples with the constraints on them, they're all designated as agriculture at the moment?

That's correct.

Thank you.

Any more comments? No. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next up, do we have a representative from Richfield? Carl,

I'm going to need a break here pretty soon.

Okay. Let's try to do Richfield here and then we'll take one at 08:30 if or so, 08:35. Okay? Is that all right, Cindy?

That's fine.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. You're very nice.

Appreciate it. This was

I'm gonna put in the other side.

You good?

Alright.

Good evening. Thank you, chair Johnson, members of the planning commission, and the county council. We appreciate this opportunity to testify before you this evening. I am a special kind of sick. This is my fourth comp plan update, and we get excited for this because, truly, this is our opportunity to talk about our vision for the future together. How are we going to grow? And vision is what it's all about.

Name, please.

Say again? Name. Oh, sorry. My name is Steve Stewart. I'm the city manager in Ridgefield, S T U A R T. Thanks, Cindy. And I have my planning director, Claire Lust, with me as well. Thank you, commissioner Barka. Good to see you. So the city of Richfield has a long standing vision, be a high quality, unique, full service community.

We understand that because of our location and of our quality life, we were and we will continue to grow. The challenge is how, where, how do you do it in a way that best preserves the small town feel and the connection with the natural environment that draws people in the first place and makes them wanna stay. The community has come together with plans for that, comprehensive plans, sub area plans, master plans, to see that vision come to life in three dimensions where they make sense. Mixed use master plans like Pioneer Village, a city led master plan that embraced increased density, supported an urban village of small shops, and tied it together with pedestrian plant paths and a 10 acre park with enhanced wetland complexes. As you see here, neighborhoods like this one, which is actually just north of Pioneer Village.

It blends density in neighborhoods to minimize the negative impacts of density to infrastructure and quality of life while maximizing the compatibility. Also, keeping the connection to the natural environment clear. You can see here the green belts that have been preserved. Every new subdivision in Ridgefield sets aside 25% of their acreage for parks and open space. In planning for jobs, a regional hub for commerce, increasing employment opportunities, and sales tax producing commerce, supporting our residents and the region, businesses like those.

But now we look forward. Envision Ridgefield 2045 is our community's next step. Our current comp plan update has included 19 community conversations, two community wide open houses, five online surveys, which drew 510 total responses, five planning commission meetings, and 10 city council meetings. No offense. From all of the community input, in March, the city council finalized a preferred alternative, which closely mirrors County DEIS alternative two, plus the Jones McPherson expansion area, which was sent to county staff on the April 9, but not included in alternative two.

The preferred alternative builds on the community's vision. Targeted densification to provide affordable housing options as part of mixed use hubs in areas where they make sense. On a waterfront like Clark College, in areas in between where you already have the infrastructure, the services, and amenities to support it. Annexing our UGA with sub area plans sustaining what's special about them. Limited expansion into three areas characterized by urban growth.

These are areas where property owners you'll hear from were asked by the county what they wanted. Property owners asked to be included in our UGA. After studying it, the city council agreed these areas were characterized by urban growth and appropriate to include in the Ridgefield UGA. Claire?

Again, Clara Lust, l u s t, community development director. To build on mister what mister Stewart just shared with you, in order to best implement the vision, Ridgefield supports a slightly modified version of DEIS alternative two. Next slide. Why will alternative two work? Richfield has grown rapidly over the past decade, is continuing to grow, and will continue to grow due to opportunity.

The DEIS allocations shown on the right side of the screen are considerably constrained proportionate to observed growth over the past decade. In fact, DES numbers now show more capacity now than in 2016 for housing in the same boundary despite massive growth in that period. This is one of the discrepancies we identified in our DEIS comment letter contributing to the appearance of an excessive surplus of housing capacity in Richfield. The other discrepancies are shown on the left side table. After poking around in the DEIS, it was only fair to look towards our own assumptions with the critical eye as well.

And through this process, we identified more fixes to bring alternative two into compliance shown in the right side table. Fixing these discrepancies and errors corrects artificially high capacity in the Ridgefield UGA, thereby contributing to reducing the county wide capacity below that OFM high number. It also demonstrates a need for targeted mixed use hubs within the UGA and limited targeted expansion to accommodate both affordable housing and jobs. This is all achieved through a modified version of alternative two. This direction shared is reflected in a joint letter submitted by the city's planning directors, which among other points calls for adoption of alternative two with some local modifications and critically asked for continued collaboration between city and county planning staff to make the numbers work under the solid framework of alternative two.

Alternative one, as planned, would not have sufficient land capacity to accommodate all of the additional housing and job growth projected for the next twenty years. Alternative three, as mapped, could not be legally adopted as it includes just jointed UGA expansion proposed not physically contiguous to any existing or proposed UGA boundary. Therefore, alternative two with appropriate modifications achieved through continued collaboration is the right choice to move this process forward efficiently.

So we know we have a track record. We know we have a need. We also know that we need targeted expansions to meet that need. But with that, we know that the lands that we are talking about are zoned ag. The questions for the three expansion areas, they are all ag zoning.

We are also surrounded in the city of Ridgefield, almost completely by ag zone properties, so it's really hard to avoid the conversation completely. That's why we were grateful that the county council commissioned a countywide ag study last year to analyze what truly is and is not farmland of long term commercial significance throughout the county. The 2025 study contains a lot of essential information that can help guide these decisions in Clark County, looking at all the relevant criteria. 14, not three, starting with a mandatory question under the law. Is the land characterized by urban growth?

If it is, under GMA, it cannot be zoned ag. Land like the mall property. If you go back one sorry. So the mall property is two a on the bottom. It's hard to see because it's completely surrounded by city.

If you go to the next one. So the mall property, under the law, land located in relationship to an area with urban growth on it as to be appropriate for urban growth is under the law characterized by urban growth. The mall property is surrounded on all sides by incorporated city limits. It's adjacent to urban services, including water, sewer, traffic, and schools, and it's not in current use. Zooming back out, the city is also requesting an area on the North Side Of Ridgefield, 11 on this map, if you can see it, that it be brought in as a master planned mixed use hub the way we do with 777 affordable housing units and 1,200 jobs.

Again, if you zoom in, The property itself has been characterized by urban growth by the county with an urban reserve overlay on it for thirty plus years since 1994. It's adjacent to urban services, including water, sewer, and traffic infrastructure, and it's surrounded on three sides by the Ridgefield urban growth area and just south of the Cowlitz Tribal Reservation. All realities that warrant approval of the property owner's request. Finally, the city is requesting Area 12 on this map to be brought into the UGA for missing middle housing opportunities adjacent to the new elementary school that's opening this fall. The land is characterized by urban growth with residential, commercial, and school development on the west and south sides.

The property is adjacent to urban services, including water, sewer, traffic, and schools. So even though the areas that we just detailed are not long term commercially significant ag land, there are places in Clark County that are. They need help. Our city sees an opportunity to partner with the county to do just that. Transfer of development rights.

You've heard a little bit tonight. We heard about it yesterday at the county's, council workshop. Transfer of development rights is an innovative method to preserve high value farmland while focusing density into areas where it makes sense, like those we just detailed. It sends development rights from the farms to the urban areas through voluntary transactions between property owners. Been recognized as a possible tool for preserving farmland by GMA, legislature courts, the ag commission, and our county councilors.

It's been implemented elsewhere, talked about several times in Clark County. But why isn't it here? Because, mainly, there's no market of voluntary buyers of density in Clark County using the existing model. We're proposing a model that will work, and we're proposing it using a method that's allowed under the law and could be integrated into this comp plan process without delaying it. How?

An interlocal agreement between the city and the county. If if areas meet the GMA and lack requirements for de designation and inclusion in the UGA, the county does that. But with an interlocal agreement that guarantees they cannot develop until or unless the property owners preserve high value farmland elsewhere, paying the farmers the full value of their land, which the farmers would still own, that they can reinvest. For the first time, you'll have property owners who will want and need to buy that density because the biggest increase you will ever see in value is between ag and urban. Can We County benefits by adopting an innovative method. The city benefits by creating a place for needed jobs and affordable housing. There's details that need to be ironed

out. Can we try to wrap it up, Steve?

Sorry. I'm almost You're

you're over, Tim.

Alright. The interlocal agreement gives time for that work. You lock up the land until the transaction occurs. You have time to develop the details. If it doesn't work, the next time the comp plan update comes up, the county removes those properties from the UGA, which is also allowed under GMA, but it will work. It'll create an opportunity to implement a shared vision for Clark County's future, and that's what it's about. It's about vision. Thank you. We're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions from council or commission?

This is Commissioner Fadness. I didn't catch during the presentation. I I know that the G Creek area, Area 6 is a is a large, area. Was that was that included in what you guys are recommending, or was that excluded?

Thank you. The GPIC sub area is currently in the urban growth area. So part of alternatives two and three is to assume annexation of that area over the next twenty years. However, it is currently in the UGA.

Okay. Thank you.

Montgomery. And I'm hearing you about, you know, there's a lot of growth. Have there been instances where developments haven't been approved for the maximum capacity that they're zoned for? Or have there been other opportunities for redevelopment or infill that haven't been pursued affecting that capacity issue?

Certainly not in the decade that I've been. What we've seen is actually the We've used mixed use overlays to increase the density allowed for parcels. Pioneer Village is a great example, where it actually had a a 16 per acre zoning on it, but by applying the mixed use overlay, we were able to do 28 units per acre. Thus, creating an opportunity for 300 units of affordable housing as part of a mixed use overlay with the services and the park to serve it. So it was integrated, not isolated. So actually, we've been very successful doing the opposite. And if you look at our plan, over the last planning horizon, the countywide planning policies identified six units per acre as our target. We've achieved 7.8 units per acre since 2016.

Okay. Thanks.

Chair.

This is really interesting because I was talking about TDRs yesterday. And so can you describe a little bit about how the interlocal agreement would work in this context, like say for the mall property and how quickly could that happen?

So second question Matt Little.

Who was that?

Matt Little.

Sorry, Sandy. So second question first. As far as the question of how fast could it be done, there's a draft interlocal agreement in the packet that I handed out that we put together in conjunction with our city attorney to show how it can be done. Interlocal agreements are actually a very expeditious, item that can be done between jurisdiction that are authorized in RCWs. So a draft is already there.

It just takes us talking it through, having public conversation about it, and bringing it to adoption, which could which could occur within one to two months. It does not take much time for an interlocal if we have agreement. With regards to how it work for, say, the mall property. For the mall property, it's about 15 acres, 13 acres that would be if that was determined to be able to be designated and included in their urban growth boundary, then the owner of that property that property would be brought into the urban growth boundary, but it would be locked in urban holding by agreement by both the county and the city. Locked in urban holding until or unless they can purchase development rights from a farmer in an area determined to be significant by the county council, and ultimately, in conjunction with folks like the ag commission and other stakeholders.

That process may take time, but the interlocal locks it up while that process is occurring. And what it does is it locks up your buyer of that density. That buyer of density who needs the density to be able to develop is waiting for the opportunity to pay that bill. The bill itself and the full value of an assessed assessed acre of ag land on average in Clark County is about $30,000 an acre. The difference between ag zone land and urban land is between 30,000 and 200,000 per acre. Not a bad deal for someone coming into the boundary that is still making the has the ability to retire to make the revenue that they're looking for and actually preserve elsewhere. And that would be a voluntary transaction between them and farmers.

Okay. Thank you. I I mean, I was thinking about growth a hundred, two hundred years from now when we're all gone, and the growth boundary is gonna be larger, of course, but there's nothing in the GMA that provides mitigation for the loss from that development. And this is a transaction that would allow equal it will facilitate development as well as, preserve farmland. So I'm super interested in this. Thank you.

That's certainly the idea. And the simpler, the better. And I think an acre for acre transaction simplifies the credit allocations because that's one of the things that gets in the way of getting this done. And that if it's just acre for acre, it's $30,000 for 13 acres minus the structures on it if they had to go somewhere else, and that ends up creating significant revenue for farmers in an area to reinvest in their business.

This is councilor Young, Cindy. You you speak really fast, and so I I may have missed something. I I I wanted to check to see if is there anything in your preferred alternative at this point that wasn't studied in the the draft environmental impact statement?

Everything in this is Claire Lust if you need it. Everything in the city council's preferred alternative was studied amongst the three alternatives in the DBIS. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

This is commissioner Haroun. So Craig Mervonta, so are you proposing that any of the land that you would take in all is subject to a TDR?

Given the fact that the three areas for targeted expansion are currently zoned ag, then yes.

Alright. And is that driven, I guess, from a county council policy of a desire to preserve ag land? Or is it driven more from a a hedging your bets thing as far as getting through getting the land in but providing an alternative, like it it I guess the question is, is this your preferred method? Would you just prefer not to have to do a TDR as an option, if that was an option that that we recommended? Said, we think we think they need the land and, you know, or is it a value of the county of your city council? They're like, no. We actually want the TDR requirement because, what you could actually do internally even if, you know

Does that Makes perfect sense.

Answer my question? Okay.

So from our city council's perspective, there there are two pieces to this. Again, Steve Stewart speaking. The first part is the policy aspect of this. Our city both benefits and is hemmed in by the agricultural lands that surround us. Our city council sees value in the lands, but also understands that a lot of the urban dwellers are simply seeing the lands directly against the boundaries that are not, that are laying fallow and not being used. They just see it as extended open space. But they do see the value of having ag productive ag land elsewhere, and that we that we actually benefit from that. And we have benefited from it for many, many, many years. So there's the policy aspect that they're actually supportive of. Then there's a legal aspect.

The legal aspect is it's not about the area coming into the boundary. It's what are you doing to actually make the case that a, that it should be deseginated, that the lands that are being brought in are not suitable for long term commercially significant ag. That's the first piece of it. But the second piece of that is what are you actually doing to preserve ag elsewhere? After the 2016 comp plan, when there's a lot of considerations by the county council for creating smaller ag zones.

One of the things that the court said that they actually, they hit the county on is you don't have a TDR program in place. You have no innovative methods that help preserve farming activity in your county. These kinds of innovative methods are necessary to be able to prove up that not only are you doing the right thing in including areas that can provide affordable housing and jobs, but what are you also doing to help farmers? Because just locking up their land isn't doing it, and it won't do it.

Okay. I'm gonna try to do this. Any other questions? Alright. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank much, Appreciate your time.

Thank you both.

Thank you. Okay. What I'd like to do right now is give Cindy a break. I'd like to make it five minutes because we're going to be pushed on time. So let's shoot for a five minute break and just get back in here as quick as you can.

Steve, come on. There we go. Okay. Hey, here's our challenge. We have about three or four more cities, and of course, the Ag people, and we want to respect your time. There's 40 people that want to speak, which is great. That's awesome. We want to make sure you get your your three minutes to speak. Usually, in the old days we let these things run, but it wears me out and I teach sixth grade to and so that's a challenge in itself, not to mention when you haven't slept. So, I would like to do this.

I want to leave the the commission and the counselors. I would like to leave testimony open and ask those of you who sacrificed your time tonight that cannot make it next week when we come back again, that you people that can come back just don't testify. Those of you that say, look, I got a babysitter or something tonight, come on up, we'll get you through. I wanna close this thing at 10:00. Just say, okay.

I've not closed the meeting, but just go tonight, we'll we'll we'll shut it down. And then and I've got I haven't talked to all the counselors, but I talked to one of them. And I think kind of generally that's what we're speaking. It was already a notice that we were going to do some type of wait. I was hoping to get through all the public testimony. So what we're gonna do tonight is we're gonna go to about 10:00. I really encourage you not to repeat testimony or go over your three minutes, which certain cities already have. Steve Stewart. Okay. Alright.

So thank you and we'll get going here right now. Thanks. Okay. We have someone from Vancouver here. Come on up.

Good evening. I'm Ann McInerny Ogle, m c e n e r n y hyphen o g l e, mayor for the city of Vancouver. Thank you so very much for the opportunity to speak tonight and for all your efforts for the last three years on this issue. Vancouver, like the other cities, have been very busy during this time engaging our community just as Ridgefield has, developing new plans. We've been overhauling our current system in favor of something simpler and more flexible and making more choices for property owners.

We're going from 22 zoning districts down to 10 with increased but not unlimited options for locating housing in the most of the commercial zones and vice versa. Through this county wide process, we've also weighed in about the Vancouver UGA and recently participated in a productive county council workshop on the potential future annexation. But for tonight's hearing, as our letter was dated January 8 elaborates, we recommend you select alternative two with minor modifications. Alternative two with modifications is the choice of the communities that are ultimately responsible for serving that long term growth in Clark County, and we've been developing that through extensive local processes. The county's own data shows that alternative two has more than enough land to accommodate the aggressive long term growth forecasts adopted by the county three years ago.

The county's own data also shows that alternative two provides for a balanced balanced growth with ample ownership as well as rental opportunities. Two thirds of existing housing units countywide are single family according to the DEIS. In Vancouver, half of our current housing stock is is comprised of single family houses. Most of which will still be here in twenty years. The DEIS also shows that alternative to provides more than three times as much county wide land zone for low density residential then it zones for high density residential and mixed use combined.

In Vancouver, it's twice as much. There are also new state laws allowing for unit lot subdivisions and lot splitting options, which will further facilitate ownership opportunities along with existing tools like the cottage clusters. To ensure these opportunities get built, Vancouver and other communities are taking a flexible approach to allow, but not require more affordable housing options. Vancouver's two primary residential zones are envisioned to have minimum density requirements of eight to 16 units per acre respectively, which are densities being built right now. We do have two small recommendations for alternative two.

First, as recommended in the county staff report, remove the two Vancouver UGA expansion areas proposed for employment that were added very late in the process on sites with extensive parcelization and critical lands. It also had very limited local property owner support for employment development. And secondly, add some employment zoning in the existing UGA at one or more of the 17 possible sites we identified over a year ago. As we look at alternative three or anything close to it, it just doesn't seem practically or legally defensible. As mapped, it couldn't be adopted since it has, as was pointed out earlier, disjointed sites not connected to an urban growth area.

Even a reduced alternative three would still require significantly increasing the previously adopted county wide population forecast, probably beyond the legally allowed OFM range. A significant amount of the county DEIS would probably also need to be redone as well. And because of these questions about land capacity and because they're so important going forward, we have Brian Snodgrass here from our staff to touch on some of the technical points. Thank you.

Thank you and I'll be really quick and available to answer any questions about this. There was a question that came up about Vancouver capacity. It's obviously an important issue so we wanted to respond to that. The capacity estimates that we're discussing tonight are from the County VBLM water. The one of the many assumptions in that model is one that the county appropriately under the law turned to the cities and that was the density housing density per zoning in different zoning districts.

All of the other assumptions in the model about critical lands and so forth are all the county model. We have not had any input or direct input in the same manner into that. We're now in looking at, we are doing our own planning of course for our own area and as part of that we're continually trying to refine our assumptions for that area and we think there are some ways that we can make some adjustments, justified adjustments to the Vancouver capacity number which would bring that down a little bit. I think it was observed earlier the surplus in Vancouver is over 20,000 housing units. So it's about there's a county wide surplus.

It's not just Vancouver. We're the big city. So about two thirds of the surplus is in the city of Vancouver. So among the things we're looking at now are what is the potential dampening of expected growth in single family neighborhoods because of existing covenants and restrictions. We're trying to make an estimate for that.

We're also relooking at some of this information that we provided the county about the density per zone about a year ago. We're relooking to see if some of our site if some of our sub area plans downtown and elsewhere were a little bit optimistic. So we do think that we're looking at those and we're working with county staff on this that that capacity surplus in Vancouver would be less. It's not going to go away. There probably still would be a surplus.

In terms of overall the least the residential side of the county model has gone and has a lot of scrutiny and a lot of review in this the last five years essentially. It's probably in our view reasonably sound. We do appreciate the work of looking at that continually and the recent study, the BIA Johnson study and we do appreciate that some corrections for some Vancouver sites were made on that. The big concern that we have withdrawing any wide conclusions about that, that the entire VBLM is significantly underestimating capacity is that that study just looked at in the Vancouver and VUGA high density zones. It only looked at the Platz.

In the last five years during which this study was conducted Vancouver's probably permitted around or built around 7,500 apartment or multi family units I should say. About a third of that number has been built in the Vancouver UGA. I don't know if any of those are captured in the study because it only looked at land divisions not apartments. So again we applaud the effort but I think it's hard to draw conclusions about the VBLM or even the high density zones in the VBLM given the skewed nature of what was looked at. On the employment side of the model, there's less of a surplus.

The concern here is that it has not undergone the same level of scrutiny that the residential side has. The original advisory committee spent a short time on it relatively. And there wasn't the kind of data that there was on the residential side to look at that. We're somewhat concerned about this because the two sites that were added are now I think appropriately recommended by staff to be removed from the Vancouver UGA run inappropriate sites. And they were just done to make the math work, just based on the model.

So if there is to be future changes in the job forecast or changes to the VBLM, there's some pretty outstanding issues on the job side. And our letter identifies those. I won't go into detail. Top of that list is the work at home assumptions, which are an old assumption that's four times less than what the EIS says the actual number is. So going forward, if there are to be some changes on the job side, I think that's something that we would like to see addressed. So with that, if there's any questions either tonight or if the record's open, then we'd be happy to respond to about both our plans as a city and also the capacity issue.

So this question is primarily for staff in response to the city. It feels like there's a significant discrepancy between what the city's analysis is and what we are proposing here. So I'm going to go back to the idea of on our land use alternative comparisons by capacity for both housing and jobs. We haven't had time to pull the city's letter in and to analyze it. Is that a correct statement?

No, I don't think there's a discrepancy. We recognize that there's both the way they calculate and the way our model is showing excess capacity. There's no Two

different ways. So it's not a discrepancy, it's just two different ways. Right. Okay. Maybe my terminology's bad. We're moving forward with our analysis, and the city has an alternative.

I think the city is looking at making some adjustments that would impact the capacities in our analysis. Identifying additional lands that we currently count as redevelopable and revisiting some of the assumptions that they've provided us in terms of density. And so we're still having discussions about that to potentially bring down that.

Okay. So the dialogue is ongoing, so, perhaps would we expect to see anything different in, what's presented to us by next week, or is that wishful thinking?

Might be wishful

thinking. Wishful thinking? Okay.

Brian, I have a question on the employment capacity that the city's come up with. I've seen like Washington is trying to take some employment capacity or transfer employment capacity, some different things I've read. When we started this process a couple years ago, was was there a baseline number that we started with and then we realized in the city that we had a whole lot more? Or is it just two different modeling types? I was just kind of surprised because, like, because the city is making recommendation of removing the land North of Hundred 99th Street and then West of the WSU campus or East of the WSU campus. What what shifted? What was the where'd those numbers come from?

Well, first of all, the residential side, on the employment side, the model is entirely under the county's numbers and assumptions. And we've had influence on that. But it hasn't been the case as it is with the residential that they have asked, what is your density by zone? That's not been the case on the job side. So I think with the original allocation either I can't remember if it was 2024 or '23, there was always a job surplus in the city of Vancouver as there were in some other places as well.

And so we appreciate the county staff recommendation to remove these sites which as we said are not appropriately located and are only put in there for the math because there is that excess capacity. And that change isn't just for those two sites, it's also the city of Washoe, that's also part of what we discussed tonight had some that we also, they wished us to absorb the excess capacity and we can't.

Okay. And then when we look at excess capacity, are we looking at all at job types versus I look at some of the larger areas like North Of 199th, where you have like larger areas for maybe construction companies or for employers that need larger pieces of land. Is that considered, or is just just pure job numbers of, like, how many office workers versus how many industrial workers or industrial sites type thing. Is that a factor?

Well, two things. One is that the parcel North Of 109th is heavily parcelized. They're not the parcel, the area. The 150 or 200 acres is pretty heavily parcelized in addition to critical land. That was part of our thinking. But it doesn't have a lot of big sites. But to answer your first question, was just the number of jobs. It was just sort of a model change.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Vancouver, do we have a representative by any chance from Woodland?

Didn't think so. Is next.

Washougal.

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yep. Go ahead Washougal. Make sure you state your name please.

Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Mitch Kneippe, m I t c h k n e I p p. Thank you very much, chair Johnson, fellow commissioners, chair Marshall, and fellow councilors. I am the community development director for the city of Washoe.

I've had the pleasure of serving here for over twenty years now. And I'd first like to thank Oliver and Jose and the county staff for the considerable amount of time and effort for Fort, to keep this process moving forward. As, was noted earlier, the city of Oaxhugal has signed a joint letter with Battleground, La Center, Vancouver, and Ridgefield in support of alternative two with some modifications, and I also provided a separate comment letter on behalf of Oaxchuga. Oaxchuga supports DEIS alternative two with the minor adjustments as noted by the other cities. As a community, much like the county and the other cities, Oaxchuga had numerous public gatherings, meetings, advisory, and technical advisory committee meetings, which provided us with multiple opportunities to listen to the community and for the community to be heard in the preparation of our preferred alternative plan.

Ultimately, our planning commission unanimously recommended to our our city council who unanimously adopted, our preferred alternative in April 2025. The plan has sufficient capacity to meet Oaxhugal's housing allocation, and it accommodates 2,125 jobs. However, the city of Oaxhugal adopted adopted sub area plans in our Northwest and Northeast urban growth areas in 2016 that removed business park designations and replaced them with residence residential designations. Unfortunately, not all of those changes were inputted into the VVLM before it was used to generate an established land capacity, which created a job surplus in Ouachougal. So, yes, we do have excess jobs, which we have noted previously.

But early in this process, we approached the city of Vancouver to see if they were willing to accept our job surplus, and they were. And that fact is noted in your hearing materials as the county staff is recommending that the surplus jobs allocated to Oshoval can be absorbed by Vancouver. However, more work is still needed between the jurisdictions to bring the maps and capacity into better alignment. Oaxhugal does have a surplus in housing capacity, but it is largely due to state housing legislation, which requires two middle housing units on any residential lot as well as two accessory dwelling units on any residential lot, and not to mention the requirement to provide housing units across all the different affordability levels. Our development assumptions only assume two to 10 lots out of every 100 will develop with middle housing and NEUs in our residential zones.

And even with these conservative rates, housing capacity exceeds the allocation. We can't further reduce these rate rate assumptions without seriously impacting our our ability to provide the housing needed at the different affordability levels. However, like the other cities, we are committed to finding solutions to address these concerns as we work with the county staff to make the final adjustments. Regarding the agricultural land study, I'd like just to emphasize a point that the city's joint letter made and that it's it's that that study is not used solely as a basis to exclude UGA expansions. Again, as LaCenter and Ridgefield noted, the study does not consider important designation criteria, such as urban adjacency, for example, when identifying the agricultural land base.

As a result, the agricultural land study presents an incomplete or skewed picture of the agricultural land base with the exclusion of many of the designation criteria. Again, Oaxchuga is in support of DEIS alternative two. It is the only alternative with sufficient capacity to accommodate growth and contains only contiguous UGA expansions. It also generally reflects the preferred growth plans for each city. Again, the ones ultimately responsible for managing and servicing urban growth in Clark County, and selecting something else would ignore all the extensive public involvement that has occurred in the communities as the local level over the past year.

Commissioners and counselors, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening, and thank you for your consideration. And I am available for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Questions for Washougal.

I just have one question for our staff. When we talk about the the jobs numbers and just kind of passing them back and forth, does that affect the climate element in the comp plan update? Because you're essentially I mean, the goal is to have people working where they live, but we're kind of exporting those jobs over to a different jurisdiction.

So I think that in the case of Washougal, the changes that they made as part of their sub area planning in 2016. You know it wasn't reflected when we allocated them. We you know that we allocated them employment based on the old zoning that had, they had more land for jobs. And so with that change they you know they should have gotten a reduced amount of allocation that would have been reallocated more than likely to the city of Vancouver because they made up the bigger percentage of where where the jobs are located. So they're trying to match their housing jobs balance within each jurisdiction.

With the City Of Vancouver and the Vancouver unincorporated area, we're still the Vancouver UGA. So it's still within that same geography. We just break it out to show the differences because we are the two biggest essentially entities in the county. So it's still within that jurisdiction.

Councillor Young, I will also add that there are if some of these job numbers and I know its numbers are allocated or reallocated to the city of Vancouver, You touched upon climate. The city also has is required to plan under the GML or the climate bill that passed. I'm sure you are aware that they started that their climate action plan much, much earlier. They will have to make some changes whether it is you heard Brian talk about assumption on work from home and other strategies that they will be employing to reduce vehicle mile travel to provide other options for those folks working within the city. So allocating additional employment to them will not deprive them of making changes that also address climate concerns.

Their options, reduction in vehicle mile travel, commute, reduction in commute trip travel, they're just very options that they could use to still mitigate for climate issues.

Thank you.

Any other comments for Washoe? Okay hearing none, thank you very much for your testimony. Next up, how about someone from Yakult? Is Yakult online? Okay, seeing none. Okay, Yakult's not here. I think that is the last of the cities. The last person that I'd like to get up that is, do we have a representative from the Ag Commission?

Good evening. My name is Vaendersalm, v a n d e r s a l m. I'm here to represent the Clark County Agricultural Advisory Commission's recommendation on the agricultural land study to the council and to the commission. I'm a co owner of Our American Roots, a second generation family farm. I've worked on our family farm since I was a teenager, and I've made it my career in 1999 '95.

Clark County is my home. Farming is my profession. Our American Roots is a continuation of our family farm that has been located in Clark County since 1980. We are located in the Northwest of the county in a quiet corner, away from developments and housing encroachment. We employ 15 or more people full time and ship flower bulbs and bare root perennials throughout The United States and into Canada.

Our largest customer base are the growers from the farmers market. Many of these growers are local, majority of them are in the Northwest. We are part of local agriculture, and we supply local agriculture. As a commission, we come from a wide range of agriculture and agriculture related fields and businesses. At our first meeting of the Clark County Agricultural Advisory Commission, we were told our first task was to provide the council with our recommendation on the agricultural land study.

After four meetings of information gathering, familiarization, discussions, a subcommittee met to write up the framework for the recommendations. In December, our commission went through this document point by point, and apart from one abstention, voted unanimously to accept these recommendations, which I will soon provide. We are very aware of the difficult balance that the council and the commission must strike between development, housing, and conservation. We know that there is no way to create new farmland. Much of our designated agricultural lands lie in the periphery of our towns and cities.

Once farmland has been developed, it cannot be replaced. Washington State's agricultural production value in 2023 was $14,000,000,000. There are around 1,900 farms in Clark County, which is the third most in the state after Yakima and Spokane Counties. Agriculture is a huge industry in all three Western states. Quick addition to my written.

Mister Stewart from Richfield mentioned the transfer of development rights. Our commission would be in favor of such a plan. However, we would want it to be designed at a county level. Onto our recommendations. They are as follows.

One, maintain existing agricultural designations. No de designation of current agricultural land until there is a process for designating agricultural land. The agricultural commission recommends that Clark County maintain all currently designated agricultural resource lands during this comprehensive land update. To ensure consistency with r r c w thirty six seventy a and applicable WAC provisions, the commission recommends that council refrain from de designating agricultural lands based solely or primarily on proximity to urban growth or non agricultural development. Due to past annexations, urban growth boundary expansions, and rural development patterns, most remaining agricultural lands are now located near urban or non agricultural uses.

Reliance on proximity alone is not a reliable indicator of long term commercial agricultural significance and risks undermining the county's obligation to conserve agricultural lands. Avoid conversion of lands designated as agricultural resource lands to non agricultural uses. Unless supported by defensible criteria based analysis consistent with GMA requirements. Clark County has experienced substantial agricultural land loss over the last several decades. The commission urges council to act cautiously and deliberately to ensure that remaining agricultural lands are conserved consistent with statutory intent.

Considered the impacts of d designation on farmland affordability and agricultural viability. Past d designation has contributed to land speculation and rising land values, limiting access for working farmers. Maintaining designation stability supports long term agricultural use and investment. Two, develop a forward looking designation and de designation process aligned with the GMA. The agricultural commission recommends that the council prioritize resolution of agricultural land designation challenges by directing staff in partnership with the commission to develop a transparent, data driven, and GMA compliant designation process.

Recommended actions would include, review and evaluation, review and evaluate agricultural land designation frameworks used by other Washington counties. Incorporating best practices that have withstood legal scrutiny and align with WAC three six five one ninety fifty. Adopt a temporary moratorium on redesignation or up zoning of rural lands that meet legal criteria for agricultural designation, including cluster development provisions for defined periods, thirty six months for example. The purpose of this moratorium would be to allow the agricultural commission and county staff to evaluate these lands and develop a legally sound designation framework. Such a moratorium would be narrowly tailored, time limited, and consistent with RCW thirty six seventy a three ninety.

Develop clear criteria for designation that evaluate that evaluate lands for long term commercial agricultural significance, including but not limited to, soil quality and agricultural productivity, water availability and water rights, parcel size and configuration, current and historic agricultural use, enrollment in agricultural current use tax programs, proximity to other designated agricultural lands and agricultural infrastructure, proximity to markets, and ecological benefits. Conduct a county wide review of rural lands that meet statutory criteria for agricultural designation, but are not currently designated. Prioritize evaluation of lands that are actively farmed. Have willing landowners possess water rights or are located within established agricultural areas. Ensure that designation decisions are supported by documented analysis and findings to promote consistency, transparency, and legal defensibility.

Pursue transfer of development rights, purchase of development rights, or other programs targeted towards agricultural land preservation. Three, support for farmers and agricultural economy in Clark County. The Agricultural Advisory Commission affirms its intent to continue its this work and to provide ongoing recommendations to the council consistent with the original design and purpose of the agricultural land study. The commission emphasizes that the conservation of agricultural lands must be paired with policies and tools that actively support long term agricultural viability and a functioning agricultural economy. This includes this includes continued consideration of mechanisms such as conservation programs that maintain land for agricultural use, support for for support for farm transition and land access.

Strengthening the agricultural workforce. And addressing fragmentation and under utilization of designated agricultural lands and more. The commission offers these comments as part of an ongoing advisory process and anticipates providing additional recommendations as this work progresses. Thank you. Any questions?

Thank you. Any questions?

Chair, I have a question. This is Ron Barka. So you basically went through your recommendations given to county council on December 18. That's what this is, I believe.

Mhmm.

In relationship to the pursuance of TDRs or PDRs then, am I looking at a plan? So this would be on the recommendations. It would be two b and go through item three Mhmm. Four, and then five as the criteria about how to of weight rank the importance of the lands and to where to focus TDRs on. Is that a fair statement?

Yes. Okay. So when we get together in the future for the potential discussion of TDRs, this would be the framework that the Agricultural Commission is asking to bring forward?

I believe so, yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Sure.

This is Commissioner Haroun. When my understanding is you guys direct the Ag Commission directed the consultant who did the ag study, kind of the criteria that you would like

them to consider? We had input on expanding criteria that they looked at.

Why was economic viability not included? Economic viability of farmland not included as a metrics that you guys were looking at as far as what was available?

I don't believe it was allowed to be included. There was a limited list of things that could be used as far as to designate what, you know, is considered ag land from what I remembered during our meetings.

Okay. So you guys are under the belief that you were not allowed to ask for?

Economic viability is not a part of the WAC criteria.

We we tried. But It's it's not a it's not a

part of the WAC well, it's not limited. The WAC criteria isn't a limiting criteria. It's a guidance.

Correct.

Right. So it was available, but we just the city staff decided not to.

Commissioner Haroun, WAC specifies the criteria and you cannot deviate from that because that is passed into law.

My understanding was the WAC criteria wasn't a limited to. It wasn't a only these, it was and these kind of things. But you could look at other criteria. Am I incorrect in that?

Yes and no. Does that help? So, there is language in the WAC that talks about not being limited to. In 2007, Clark County adopted a comprehensive plan that included the largest UGB expansion in Washington state history, and it remains so, including onto a lot of agricultural land. And, the growth board, and then the court of appeals, and then the supreme court overturned a lot of that.

A major part of the reasoning was whether economics was a legitimate factor. And what the various appellate groups ruled was well it can be a factor but it just isn't as important as preserving, maintaining, conserving, enhancing, and protecting agricultural land. So, although the county argued strenuously to support the economic criteria, it was pretty much shot down.

Any other comments?

Sure. One real quick question. I'm wondering, so you have quite a bit of recommendations in there. And I must have missed the meeting when you guys made your recommendation. Was there is all of this hoping to be in this comp plan update or is this more of a long term plan? What was there any discussion on what you were hoping to get in this comp plan update?

Well, I mean, our power is obviously zero. We just could provide our opinion as farmers. Clark County has taken a lot of ag land and continues to do so every time there's an update. So, hence, we ask to pull the handbrake. Let's slow things down. Let's look at what options there are that could help preserve more farmland rather than just jump straight into this and right away go. And we, you know, we've only had five meetings Mhmm. Four of which, well, yeah, are fully dedicated

to You guys have done excellent work. You guys were really throwing the book right off the bat.

So And it's and it is very important. Yes. I mean, I know this is a long list and it it you know, this is not our mandate. But

So more specifically, like the the intent behind looking at the lands that the the ag study identified that could that met the standards, the minimum standards, and you're recommending that we're looking at zoning some of that ag in a process of that. Where is that kind of intent for this comp plan or for later, longer process?

We we've learned from from miss missus Cook that the county cannot designate ag land. The only ag only land that could be designated ag is if the owner requests it. So that's not really you know, we we learned that's not an option for us. Hence, the the TDR or or other similar programs that other counties in in Washington state might be using that that help preserve farmland that way. Because at at this point, you know, if you have if you own farmland and and any city moves in next to you and they offer you, you know, 50,000, 100,000 an acre, you know Yeah. You you can either wait for them

to take

it the next time there's an expansion or cash in. Yeah. You just you can't compete with that kind of money.

It is a definitely a challenge.

Takes ag land and cannot designate more ag land, it's just gone forever. And and currently already, the the designated ag land we have in Clark County is scattered throughout the county. Like water is a huge issue and and some counties have irrigation districts. How could we have an irrigation districts when our designated ag land is scattered throughout the county already? And so we're hoping to slow this train down a little bit so that real planning can be made. Obviously, not to repair what's been done because that's done. But that we don't just go barreling forward

to make it worse. That's been my feeling of the entire comp plan. But I did notice that Chris shook her head so there may be some miscommunication.

Yes. Would guess it was a miscommunication. I absolutely did not say that it was not legally possible to designate ag land. Because it is legally possible. Practical or not, whether it would be appealed and survive an appeal, whether the property owners would support that, those are all different questions. And I have to say, I I did suggest kind of negative answers regarding those.

Yeah. Sorry. You're you're right. You never said it was illegal to or not but not positive. It's just very, very unlikely for that the county is able to force land to be designated agriculture if the owner does not want it to.

Right? Well, the same rules that about de designating ag land are the rules that apply when you want to designate ag land. And we've been arguing about de designation now just for this comp plan since the process began. And, it's been a focus of every comp plan update since 2004. So as well as the first comp plan.

So, whether it's a practical thought or not might depend on the land involved. But I didn't say you can't do it.

I would just like to add that this will be a policy decision and ultimately it'll be a decision that the council makes.

Thank you.

Any other? Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, I believe we've gotten through all the cities and the representatives of the Ag Commission and now it is time that we open our public testimony. With that said, just a simple reminder that I said in the beginning, try not to repeat yourself. Not that we don't like hearing things but sometimes when you hear things 10,000 times. Also, please stick to the three minutes. I know it's brutal, brutal, but we just try to get you out of here.

So that said, you have the lists. Can we do not, can we do this group first? I know we normally do the phone first, but can we flip it and do those people that are here to respect their time?

And I would ask that you remove the map so that we can see, yes, a timer. Thanks.

And again, if you're called up and you can come back next time, just say, hey, I could come back. But if you're a person that says, hey, I really need to do this time, Just come on up and make sure you state your name and spell your name and speak slowly. Please

note to be a party of record you must submit written testimony before, during, or prior to the close of tonight's hearing or provide orals and testimony at the public hearing or request in writing to be a party of record. If written comments were received prior to 01/08/2026, they were submitted to the PC members and posted to the Planning Commission website. Tonight's hearing is being transcribed by a court reporter, so please spell your first and last name and speak slowly. Public comment time is limited to three minutes. We will begin with participants in the hearing room. When we call your name on the sign up sheet, please come up to the front and provide your first and last name to the court reporter. If you do not wish to provide public testimony, please say so. Robert Nevin.

Yeah. Hello. I'm Robert Nevin, n e v I n, and this is in regards to the city of Canada's request for expanding their UGA. And this has to do with the Nevin 160 acre expansion, and we support the alternative three. And I do like egg land, but our family is had five generations who lived and worked in the Camas area, and this property was purchased in the nineteen sixties.

The property has never been used for farming. The property lacks water rights. And in 2024, Johnson Economic Land Analysis found that the land is economically non viable for agriculture. And over the past twelve years, housing development on three sides of the property added 800 to a thousand homes pretty much surrounding it. The size of the property is a 160 acres except as Alan said from Canvas, 75 of these acres are in five acre parcels and they are legal lots of record.

These can and will be sold five acre parcels for McMansions. However, both our families do not feel that this would be the best interest for the future growth of the city Of Camas or their school districts. Jobs will attract and bring new families to Camas. I urge the county, let Camas determine their future expansion for smart growth and the future prosperity for the city of Camas. And growing up there, I can and my father growing up there, and my kids are there now with their families.

Canas has done a really good job balancing from the mill town into a, you know, diverse business area for jobs and families for future growth. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you. Could we remember also to speak into the microphone so we can hear. Next up.

Ike Poweto.

Thank you, Ike. David McDonald.

Give my spot to miss McKenna.

Okay. Miss McKenna.

Yeah. She's unbelievable. How

about Miss McKenna, just line up right there. Just line up next.

I'm sure glad to see you have this this kind of organization. When I came here fifty years ago, there wasn't any any zoning. There was no control. And it was hard for me to find a place. I was used to that. And it was hard for me to find a place where I'd be satisfied to live. I found a place. It's been wonderful. I've had fifty years of really great living, and I appreciate what you're doing. It's nice to have that here.

I only really had one comment, and that was that that my lots, as I looked at them in your system, kinda got lost. My son found a print that kinda showed where we were. I have about five lots. I don't do anything with them. I don't plan to do anything with them, but he'll have to do something with them soon.

And the only problem I had is that you showed me two different ways. One way out, one of my lots right down to the middle of the whole thing was excluded from whatever you're doing and all the rest of them were included. So it's kind of confusing. We worked it out with the planning commission. So anyway, thank you.

Thank you for your Jeff, we're going to run these two right here. She's taking yeah. Just make sure you say your name.

My name is Mo McKenna, m o m c k e n n a. Hello, commissioners. Hello, county council. My husband and I own and operate a small family farm in Ridgefield. I also serve as the co chair for the Agricultural Advisory Commission, but I'm here speaking tonight as an individual and the opinions that I'm about to share are my own.

My comments specifically relate to the loss of ag land in Ridgefield and La Center. I just want to share that we actually chose to farm in Clark County. We looked at the entire metro region, and we decided to site our farm here because of the soils, because of the microclimates, because it is an excellent place to farm. We grow just about over 400 acres of flowers on just a couple acres in Richfield. And agriculture on really small acreage is not only viable, but incredibly productive if you have the right type of operation and a driven farmer.