Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, planning commissioners, members of the public, and staff members. I would like to call this hybrid public meeting to order for Thursday, 05/21/2026. My name is Carl Johnson. 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 related issues.

We follow a public process including holding hearings during the which the public has an opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information and legislative matters. The role of the Planning Commission is advisory. The County Council will hold separate hearings, consider our recommendations, and then they will make a final determination. The Planning Commission tonight will conduct a public hearing and take testimony. All public comments received before tonight's hearing have been sent to the Planning Commission members and entered into the public record.

County staff will present first and then Planning Commission can ask questions. Next, we will 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 some more specific information on how to participate both virtually and in person. However, if you are in person tonight and wish to provide a comment on the agenda item, please sign up via the sheets in the back of the room. During public testimony, staff and the applicant may respond to comments and the public portion of the hearing will then be closed.

The planning commission will then deliberate and make a recommendation to the county council for both virtual and in person members of the planning commission and staff. Please ensure that your microphones are muted unless you are speaking. Planning commissioners when you make a motion or a second of a motion please state your name for the court reporter. Conflicts of interest. Do any members of the planning commission have any conflicts related to tonight's hearing items?

Hearing none, we will now get a roll call and any introduction of guests. Jeff, can we get a roll call?

Brian Halbert?

Here.

Mark Bergvold?

Here.

Kyle Fadness? Here. Ron Barca?

Here.

Jack Haroun? Here. Oishi with Duke Montgomery? Carl Johnson.

Here. Next we'll get approval for the agenda for 05/21/2006. Can I get a motion please?

Commissioner Brian Halbert, so moved.

So I have a motion may I get a second?

Commissioner Haroun, second.

So we have a motion for approval of agenda for 05/21/2006. Jeff, can we please get a roll call?

Brian Halbert? Aye. Mark Bergvold? Aye. Kyle Fadness? Aye. Ron Barka? Aye. Jack Haroun? Aye. Carl Johnson? Aye. Six zero.

Motion passes next we'll be looking for approval for the minutes for 03/19/2026 may have a motion please

this is Ron Barka motion to approve the minutes as written

May I have a second? Commissioner Fadness, second. We have a motion and a second for approval of minutes for 03/19/2026. Can we get a roll call, Jeff?

Brian Halbert? Aye. Mark Bergfeld? Aye. Kyle Fadness? Aye. Ron Barka? Aye. Jack Haroun? Aye. Carl Johnson? Aye. Six zero.

Motion passes. With that said, we'll now go in communication from the public for items that are not listed. I repeat, not listed on the agenda. It's ready. Any online? Public comment on things that aren't on the agenda. On tonight. Your yours is not on the agenda? Come yeah. Come on up. Yeah. Just make sure you state your name for the court reporter.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Christian I'm a ten year Vancouver resident.

I can't hear him. One second, Cindy. We'll get it on just Sorry. Hit the button. Can you push the button? Yeah. Sorry about that. Thank you.

How's this? Okay. Sorry. Go. Let me start over. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Christian Volk. I'm a ten year Vancouver resident. Three years ago, my partner and I successfully launched a preschool in Kitsap County. And we want to bring that same investment home to Clark County.

The Washington Department of, Children, Youth, and Families designates Clark County a child care desert with a documented shortage of licensed slots relative to the number of children who need care. This isn't just a social issue. It's a critical infrastructure and work force constraint for our county. I'm here tonight to urge the commission to address a specific regulatory gap in the current comprehensive plan update. The city of Vancouver is actively updating its zoning code to comply with RCW three five two one nine nine six, which took effect 07/27/2025, establishing a clear state expectation for conditional use permits in light industrial zoning and employment zones.

But when I brought a potential property to county planning staff, I was told the current code explicitly prohibits dedicated child care centers in that zone and that there are no plans to update it. The result is a regulatory void. Families and providers face completely different rules on opposite sides of an invisible line within the same Vancouver urban growth area. Under the Growth Management Act, the county's comprehensive plan must be coordinated with the city of Vancouver for lands within the shared UGA, a standard the current gap fails to meet. Other GMA planning counties, including Kitsap and Pierce, are actively integrating these industrial zone provisions to support their local workforces.

My request is technical and specific. I ask that this commission formally recommend a text amendment to title 40 during this update cycle to allow child care centers as a conditional use within light industrial and employment zones inside urban growth areas, bringing Clark County into alignment with the city of Vancouver and the clear legislative intent of state land use policy. Thank you.

Thank you for your, comments. Any, questions regarding that? Did he spell his last name?

Would you v like Victor, o l k.

You just say that. Mark Mark, did you have a comment first?

Yeah. It is commissioner Roon. If you wouldn't mind emailing that or even that whole whole Sure. Spiel to us because that would be worthwhile, then maybe we can get some staff or something to look at look at that and what that process would

be. Happy to do that.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

There is

still online, so Yeah.

Go ahead. You might wanna give the instructions if

Alright. 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 star free 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 acknowledge oh, we already have had the per people in the in the hearing 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. For those who are on the line, please raise your hand, and we will call on you to make your comment. Okay. Nobody is raising their hand online?

So Alright. No one's online. No one else in the audience has to say anything that's not on there. Okay. With that said, we'll close that part of the communication for the public for items not listed on the agenda. We'll now move into the public hearing items. Some reminders, if you are providing public testimony in person, of course, please sign up on the sheet in the back. If you're joining remotely, once again, we'll probably give those instructions again. Tonight, we're gonna be talking about recommendation to the Clark County Council on the 2026 Clark County stormwater code and manual adoption. Staff presentation is Devin Restorfer, if I pronounce that right, the clean water division manager.

Kevin? Make sure you state your name and spell it, if you may.

Great. Thank you. Good evening, planning commissioners. My name is Devin Rostefer. It is spelled d e v a n r o s t o r f e r, and I'm the clean water division manager for Clark County Public Works. And today, we are here for a final work session on the '20 well, sorry. It's not a work session. My apologies. I'll start over. Today, we are here as a follow-up to our work session later earlier this month to provide, to request counsel or I am so sorry.

To request the Planning Commission to recommend adoption to Clark County Council for the 2026 Clark County Stormwater Code and Manual. And I am joined here today by Trista Kobluski from Ottach, who I will now have introduce herself.

Good evening. My name is Trista Kobluski from Ottach. Should I spell my name as well? Okay. Trista is t r I s t a, Kobluski, k o b l u s k I e. And I'm a senior stormwater planner and project manager for the code and manual update.

Great. Thank you. And our agenda for today is we're going to provide some background on the stormwater code and manual. And we're also going to provide an overview of the public involvement process. And from our work session on May 7, we received some questions from the Planning Commission that we would like to follow-up on. And then our proposed action for today is that the planning sorry, I am struggling. The Planning Commission recommend county council to adopt the revised stormwater code and manual, and that is done through adoption of an ordinance that amends four chapters of Clark County Code, which we will spell out later in this presentation. So with that, I will now hand it over to Trista to go into the background.

Okay. Next slide, please. And next slide. The update we are talking about today, which you heard about in the work session a couple of weeks ago, is pertinent to the county's municipal storm water permit, which is issued by the Department of Ecology, Washington Department of Ecology, under the Federal Clean Water Act. The act prohibits discharge of the county's storm sewer discharges into waters of the state without a permit.

So this permit gives the conditions under which the county can discharge, storm water to waters of the state. And to clarify, this is a phase one municipal storm water permit. There's a phase two as well, but this is phase one. And next slide, please. The permit requires the county to have storm engineering standards, storm water standards that apply in the development scenario and a redevelopment scenario.

The standards need to be updated approximately every five years after the permit is renewed. Recent updates were in 2015 when the county first published a standalone manual and in 2021 when the first update of that standalone manual occurred. We would expect the county would need to update its storm water standards again in about five years when the next permit is issued in 2029. The permit requires these, standards to be in effect on 07/01/2026, so we are headed, quickly toward that permit due date. And the main concept for these stormwater standards is that they need to be equivalent to the 2024 stormwater management manual for Western Washington, which is published by the Department of Ecology and contains the majority of the the thresholds, the selection criteria, and the engineering design criteria for these, as well as source control and maintenance standards.

Next slide, please. So the materials in front of you today for the hearing are voluminous. So just to, underscore what they are for the moment, you've got four books of the Clark County stormwater manual. The first book, has the thresholds, applicability, and BMP selection criteria. The second book is more technical in nature and contains the engineering design standards for drainage, water quality, and flow control facilities.

The third book is source control, which prevents, pollutants from coming into contact with stormwater runoff. And then the fourth book is operations and maintenance. So between us between these, you have a lot to look over. We did provide them in both strikeout and underline, highlighting the changes for your review, as well as a clean version of the drafts. Next slide, please.

So the manual becomes county code because it is adopted in, title 40. It's adopted in chapter forty three eighty six, which is dedicated to stormwater and erosion control. This chapter requires these measures at certain thresholds of development or redevelopment, and it talks about the particular standards for construction, development, and redevelopment. The manual is also adopted in, chapter thirteen twenty six a, water quality. This is an environmental regulation that limits the discharge of pollutants on existing properties or really anywhere in the county.

And we are also amending title 40, chapter 100, general provisions, and 4,500 overview of procedures. There's language, in those chapters about expiration dates and vesting and definitions. Pardon me. Next slide. And I will turn it over to Devin to recap the proposed action.

Thank you. And I'll try to get it right this time. I apologize. So our proposed action today is to request the Planning Commission to make a recommendation to Clark County Council to adopt an ordinance that revises the following codes. Chapter 40.386, storm water and erosion control, Chapter 1326A, water quality, Chapter 40.1, general provisions, and Chapter 40.5, Overview of Procedures.

And the ordinance adoption would make the 2026 Clark County Storm Water Code and Manual effective on 07/01/2026. And on the next slide, Trista did a great job at going over this, but I wanted to just add a bit more on the hearing materials that are in front of you. Part of the reason that the entirety wasn't printed is because Books one, two, three, and four are 1,000 plus pages. So we hope that you had a chance to take a look at them online. And the county code revisions are pretty extensive as well.

And we've included those four chapters. And in addition to these materials, you also have a memo that we wrote to Clark County Council and transmitted on May 13. And that was in response to some of the questions they had at a prior work session. And if there are questions on that memo, we can go into them later. But I do want to thank Katie Doma, who's here, our prosecuting attorney, who has went through everything with us and made sure everything was legally sound.

And in addition, you have a staff report. We've also included a Department of Ecology preliminary approval letter. And they've also issued a letter of equivalency that confirms that our twenty twenty six Clark County stormwater code and manual is equivalent to Washington State's Western Washington stormwater manual. We also have submitted the code revisions to Department of Commerce for review. And additionally, the SEPA determination of non significant comment process, I believe, concluded today.

We only received one comment. And it was actually from a tribe in the Puget Sound that declined to comment, but appreciated that they were notified and given the opportunity. We've also included a table of the comments and responses that we the comments we've received and how we've responded to them. And I mentioned the memo already. But if you have any questions about the materials, we're happy to take those at the end.

All right. Next slide, please. I will run through our engagement process and the schedule we kept, through this, process that we undertook to get us where we are today. So our schedule was really driven by two ecology deadlines. The primary one is the one upcoming that I mentioned before.

These standards have to be in in effect by 07/01/2026. We also had a deadline in June 2025 when we needed to submit our, early proposals to Department of Ecology for their review so that they could issue those that determination of equivalency that Devin mentioned before. So we began in sort of the fall or winter of twenty twenty four gathering the requests for updates to the manual, reviewing the required changes that Department of Ecology gave us that are applicable to all phase one permittees and engaging the community. So we really started by collating all these things, but then talking to the Development and Engineering Advisory Board, or DEEB, starting in October. We also engaged a wide community from inside the county staff, including the clean water division, of course, other public work staff from engineering and operations, those who inspect stormwater facilities.

We also engage staff from community development as they are the ones who review the planning and engineering applications that are developed to meet the standards of the Clark County stormwater manual. So we spoke to quite quite an array of staff during this time period. We continue to engage DEEP and staff until that, June 2025 deadline when we submitted our proposals to ecology. And then we continued to work on some other updates until December of last year. And at that time, we had a limited public involvement, period where we invited DEEB and the Clean Water Commission to comment on on our, earliest public draft.

And then, we went through excuse me. Sorry about that. We went through, a general public involvement period this spring, which is concluding now essentially with the, Planning Commission hearing, and we're moving toward adoption, by the due date that the permit gives us. Next slide, please. I did want to speak just a little bit more about how much DEEP was involved.

We thank them for their continuous involvement through this process. They, saw our early language proposals, gave us a lot of input and feedback. They had certain requests themselves. And then, we met with them, I think, seven times throughout the this eighteen month period. And again, they had that invited public comment period in December.

We received several comments from DEEB this spring when we released the most recent draft, and, we have been able to incorporate many of those comments. So they've really helped shape the proposals that you see in front of you today, as well as the Clean Water Commission. Next slide, please. Through the eighteen months, I would say we've received so many good comments, very little disagreement with what we've been proposing. We've been able to incorporate so many of the requests, and we thank the community.

Will next slide, please. So just a little bit more detail about what we heard. The Clean Water Commission gave us about 200 very technical comments from our December public comment period, and we've incorporated many of those. And the more extensive comments, we are saving until the next update in service of the county's desire for continuous improvement of this manual. And then in our general public comment period, we have received 13 comments from DEEB and the development community.

And we've been able to incorporate eight of those requests back into the manual. And I can talk about those in more detail in the next slide. So due to the public comment that we got this spring, we reversed two of our early proposals, one of which was a restriction putting stormwater treatment facilities on individual residential lots in the urban area. This was to protect those property owners from being responsible for shared storm water facilities that serve multiple properties. That was the purpose of that, but the community asked for more flexibility.

So we reversed that proposal, and the language is now just as it is in the 2021 storm water manual where this is allowed. With, the caveat is we've put a preference that those types of facilities that are shared would be located on a tract rather than an individual lot, but it's a preference, not a requirement. And then another proposal that we reversed things to the community's input was a proposed restriction on using a particular type of stormwater facility on driveways because of problems that we had observed over the past years. Again, the community asked for that to be restored because it's an important BMP. So that language the allowance for that to be used on driveways is restored in the draft that's in front of you.

And, instead, the county will be focusing on training to make sure those are installed properly. We clarified some things that through comments, we realized were being misconstrued, so we clarified that basic treatment is not required for on-site downspout control UICs, and we clarified some modeling requirements. And also thanks to the Clean Water Commission, we added a provision that had been missing for quite a while in the manual, is setbacks to property from certain stormwater facilities, and then we added some other minor clarifications and exemptions. All right. Next slide, please.

So as Devin mentioned, we've reached some important milestones in this process. We have received a preliminary approval letter from, Ecology in December, and the county received the preliminary equivalency determination in March. The DNS has, SEPA has closed and with a determination of nonsignificant. So this is these standards are intended to be protective of the environment, so we hope they do not have a negative impact. And then the Department of Commerce review, because this is a change to development regulation, is ongoing, and that was submitted in April.

Next slide, please. All right. So since we had a work session two weeks ago, we had a couple of comments from the commissioners during that work session. And one, we didn't answer in the moment. So this is the outstanding question, which was from you, commissioner Haroun.

You question whether for submittals that exceed 5,000 square feet of impervious surface or hard surfaces if you needed two professionals, both a geotechnical engineer and a civil engineer, to submit your stormwater site plan. The answer, it is it is required in the Western Washington manual. So if your site plan requires engineering and once you reach that 5,000 square foot threshold, you would be triggering minimum requirement six for runoff treatment and minimum requirement seven for flow control. The creating facilities for those or designing facilities for to meet those minimum requirements requires the practice of engineering. So your stormwater site plan does need to be prepared by a civil engineer.

As far as the infiltration and site investigations, those need to be prepared by a civil engineer or a geotechnical engineer. It could actually be the same professional. The trick might be finding a professional who comfortable both doing the site investigation, the geotechnical investigation, and stamping, excuse me, and stamping your stormwater site design. So it's not technically required, but I think in effect, it ends up being

So clarification on that. I was trying to find the definition of the qualified professional and there was I was trying to jump back between a lot of So the qualified professional is a civil engineer. Is that as far as the storm water the Washington State storm water may know? Because it didn't it doesn't say civil engineers as qualified professional. And so I was just trying to really ferret out who a qualified professional is and how that's bracketed.

The the Clark County manual does it address it slightly differently than the Western Washington manual. So in the Clark County manual, qualified professional and I I don't have the exact definition in front of me, but it does depend on context. So there's a list of qualified professionals, but it depends on context. So if you're doing geotechnical work, it has to be someone who is qualified to do geotechnical work. And if it is civil engineering, it has to be someone who is qualified.

So there is such a thing as a civil engineer who has a geotechnical expertise. And if that person were comfortable doing so, they could both supervise the site investigation and prepare the stormwater site plan where they're sizing your stormwater facilities.

But it does come down to stamps. They have to be the ability like the geotech has to be able stamp it versus like hiring a geologist versus?

I mean, a geologist, geotechnical engineer, hydrogeologist would all be considered qualified professionals for the site investigation or a civil engineer who has expertise in geology.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. And I'm gonna turn it back over to Devin to close out our portion of the hearing.

Great. Thank you, Trista. At this point, the next step after today's hearing is a public hearing with Clark County Council. And this is just a reiteration of the materials that will be brought before council and that are being brought forth to you today. And on the next slide, I'm just going to reiterate again the proposed action before we get into any additional questions.

But today, we are, on the next slide, requesting, again, your recommendation to Clark County Council to adopt the stormwater code manual through adoption of an ordinance that revises those four chapters of Clark County Code. I will offer that we had our final work session with counsel yesterday, and it went really well. We went through the manual, which was essentially us answering the questions that they had, and there weren't any further questions that I thought were substantial. They were really appreciative of our engagement of Deeb at at least seven times throughout the process. And I really believe that's why we received only 13 comments.

And of that, Deep wasn't the full 13 comments. And so I really want to thank Deep as well for working with us throughout the process. And I'm glad that we were able to take their feedback and incorporate those final changes and reverse some of the things we were proposing as a result of their comments. And I'm happy to share anything more if you have questions about the work session yesterday or the manual. But I just want to thank you for your time and look forward to your comments.

Outstanding. Thank you very much. It was a very good presentation. With that said, is there any questions from, commission? I'll bring it back here for staff. Mister Barka?

Commissioner Barka, I don't actually have a question. I just wanted to comment on the fact that I heard from a couple of individual professionals in the field talking about the work that you did with engaging with Deeb and the idea of the turnaround on the cabs issue specifically about how extremely long rural driveways were going to have a very significant impact. And you took a second look at that and made that better for everybody. So I wanted to just say a really good job in the context of outreach and listening.

Thank you. Thank you, Ron. Any others?

Yeah. I I was gonna say just reiterate that as as far as thank you for working with the with the advisory committee because it they really are people that are just dealing with us daily. And I know at Otech, you guys are always as well. And so those things make they sometimes they seem so innocuous on paper. And in the field, it's completely different. So very much appreciate that. Thank you.

Any other comments? Okay. Seeing no more question. Excuse me. Do we have any people wishing to testify either in the building or online? Jeff?

Alright.

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 oral testimony at the public hearing or request in writing to be a party of record. If written comments were received prior to 05/21/2026, they were submitted to the Planning Commission members and posted on 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 now begin with those participants that have joined remotely via computer or telephone.

Please raise your virtual hand or press 3 on your phone to let us know you would like to provide comment. For those using the telephone options, press 6 on your phone to unmute unmute yourself when it is your turn to speak. Okay. Nobody has raised their hand online. We will now begin with participants in the hearing room. Would you like to speak on hearing items?

No.

Alright. That concludes public comment.

Okay. Hearing that, or lack of, we will bring it back to the planning commissions for deliberations and or a motion?

Chair, I have a point of order on this trying to understand. Are we going ahead to approve this specifically by chapter?

I didn't think that that was gonna be the way we were doing. I thought we were going to do it by in a whole whole manner.

All chapters at one time?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Unless you have a different take on that.

I I just wanted to clearly understand that it wasn't a separate vote between chapters and the books as presented to us.

Oh, very good. Yeah. Yeah. Just just on what's on what is presented here, what the recommendation here is.

Okay. That being said, I'm willing to make a motion to approve the four chapters of code revision as proposed by staff.

May I get a second for that motion, please?

This is commissioner Haroun, I will second the motion.

So we have a motion and a second on the table to approve recommendations for Clark County Council's twenty twenty six stormwater code and manual adoption revisions. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please?

Brian Halpert? Aye. Mark Bergfald?

Aye.

Kyle Fadness? Aye. Ron Barca? Aye. Jack Haroun? Aye. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery? Aye. Carl Johnson? Aye. Seven zero.

It is motion passes. And with that said, we will now conclude the public hearing on this matter. Bringing it back here, next is, is there any unfinished business? Hearing none, is there any new business oh, excuse me. Sorry.

Well, I don't know if it's unfinished or new.

We'll go to new.

Okay. Several weeks ago, the council heard and adopted an alternate plan. And I saw that they had a matrix of how we had voted on that plan, but I didn't get a matrix back to see how the council voted against on every one of those line items. I'm just wondering, you know, did they did they modify the plan? Or did they adopt it as we had recommended it? I

know we're probably putting you on the spot, Jeff. If you could get us that information, if that's plausible.

I can give you that information. It is on the website. But I'll go ahead and send you the link to the table. Great. To my understanding, it's mostly what you had recommended with a slight modification.

Great. Thank you. Good question. Okay. Any more new business?

This is Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. Just for the record, I was a few minutes late and missed the roll call. So for the minutes, I am here.

Any comments from planning commissioners? Good to see everybody. Thank you for a great presentation. Good to hear you come up and talk to us about the daycare. That said, we are now adjourned.